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THE AUTOCRAT OF THE
BREAKFAST-TABLE

WITH ILLUSTRATIOXS BY HOWARD PYLE
IX TWO VOLUMES

The Autocrat

Of the Breakfast-Table

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

IVith Illustrations by

Howard Pyle

I

Boston and N'eiv York

Houghton. Mifflin and Company

Cht Rrtjcrsibe Ji^ress, iCambntige

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Copyright, 1858, 1882, 188G, 1891,
By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Copyright, 1893,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

All rights reserved.

The Eiierside Press, Camhridge, Mass., U.S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H.O. Houghton & Co.

Oliver Wendell Holmes at the age of 41. page

(Photogravure) . . . FroutLspiece

Headpiece to Preface ...... vii

Headpiece to Autocrat's AutobiogTaphy . . xiii

Tailpiece ........ xvi

Headpiece to Part I ...... 1

The Mutual Admiration Society. (Photogravure) 6

Album Verses ....... 22

The Man of Family. (Photogravure) ... 30

Latter-Day Warnings ...... 34

Tailpiece 38

Headpiece to Part 11 39

The Trotting Match. (Photogravure) . . 54

Sun and Shadow ....... GO

This Is It 65

Headpiece to Part IH 71

At the Club. (Photogravure) .... 92

The Old Man Dreams 98

Tailpiece 100

Headpiece to Part IV 101

A Reminiscence of the Marigold. (Photogravure) 112

vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Chambered Nautilus 142

Tailpiece ........ 144

Headpiece to Part V 145

The Old Yioliu (Photogravure) .... 152

Mare Rubram ....... 181

Tailpiece ........ 183

Headpiece to Part VI 184

The Closed Door. (Photogravure) ... 190

TVhat We All Thiuk 217

TaUpiece 219

1-3^; i-J

O the Readers of the

oAutocrar

of the

Breakfaii: 'Table^'

WENTY-FIVE years more
have passed since the silence
of the preceding twenty-five
years was broken by the first
words of the self-recording
personage who lends his title
to these pages, in the " Atlantic ^Monthly "
for November, 1857. The cliildren of those
who first read these papers as they appeared
are still reading them as kindly as their
fathers and mothers read them a qnarter of

'I

via TO THE READERS

a century ago. And now, foi' the first time
for many years I have read them myself,
thinking that they might be improved by
various corrections and changes.

But it is dangerous to tamper in cold
blood and in after life with what was writ-
ten in the glow of an earlier period. Its
very defects are a part of its organic indi-
viduality. It would spoil any character
these records may have to attempt to adjust
them to the present age of the world or of
the author. We have all of us, writer and
readers, drifted away from many of our for-
mer habits, tastes, and perhaps beliefs. The
world coidd spare every human being who
was livins: when the first sentence of these
papers was written : its destinies would be
safe in the hands of the men and women of
twenty-five years and under.

This book was written for a generation
which knew nothing or next to nothing of
war, and hardly dreamed of it ; which felt as
if invention must have exhausted itself in
the miracles it had already wrought. To-
day, in a small sea-side village of a few hun-
dred inhabitants, I see the graveyard flutter-
ins; with little flao's that mark the soldiers'
graves ; we read, by the light the rocks of

OF THE AUTOCRAT ix

Pennsylvania have furnished for us, all that
is most important in the morning papers of
the ci^^lized world; the lightning, so swift
to run our errands, stands shining over us,
white and steady as the moonbeams, burning,
but miconsumed ; we talk with people in the
neighboring cities as if they were at our el-
bow, and as our equipages flash along the
highway, the silent bicycle glides by us and
disappears in the distance. All these since
1857, and how much more than these changes
in our every -day conditions I I can say with-
out ofPence to-day that wliich called out the
most angry feelings and the hardest lan-
guage twenty-five years ago. I may doubt
everything to-day if I will only do it ci\Tlly.

I cannot make over again the book and
those which followed it. and I vrill not try to
mend old garments with new cloth. Let the
sensible reader take it for gTanted that the
author would agree with him in changing
whatever he would alter, in lea^^ng• out
whatever he would omit, if it seemed worth
while to tamper with what was finished long
ajjo. The notes which have been added will
not interrupt the current of the conversa-
tional narrative.

I can never be too gi'atefid for the tol^ens

X TO THE READERS

of regard which these papers and those
which followed them have brought me.
The kindness of my far-off friends has some-
times over-taxed my power of replying to
them, but they may be assured that their
pleasant words were always welcome, how-
ever insufficiently acknowledged.

I have experienced the friendship of my
readers so long that I cannot help anticipa-
ting- some measure of its continuance. If I
should feel the burden of correspondence
too heavily in the coming years, I desire to
record in advance my gratitude to those
whom I may not be able to thank so fidly
and so cordiallj^ as I could desire.

Beverly Farms, Mass., August 29, 1882.

Another decade has nearly closed since
the above Preface was written. The Auto-
crat still finds readers, among the yoimg as
well as among the old. The children of my
early readers were writing to me about my
books, especially The Autocrat, as I men-
tioned in that other Preface. Now it is the
grandchildren who are still turning to these
pages, which I might well have thought
would be voted old-fashioned, outworn, an
unvalued bequest to posterity with Oblivion

OF THE AUTOCRAT xi

as residuarv legatee. I have nothing- of im-
portance to add in the way of prefatory
remarks. I can only repeat my grateful
acknowledgments to the reading public at
home and abroad for the hospitable manner
in which my thoughts have been received.
The expressions of personal regard, esteem,
confidence, sympathetic affinity, may I not
add affection, which this book has brought
to me have become an habitual experience
and an untiring source of satisfaction. I
have thanked hundreds, yes, thousands, and
many thousands, of these kind correspond-
ents, until my eyes have grown dim and I
can no longer read many of their letters
except through younger eyes. If my hand
does not refuse to hold the pen or to giiide
it in the form of jsresentable characters, an
occasional cramp of a little muscle which
knows its importance and insists on having
it recognized by striking, after its own fash-
ion, is a hint that I must at length do what
I have long said I ought to do, content my-
self vnXh an encyclical of thanks and write
no more letters except to a few relatives and
intimates.

A single fact strikes me as worth mention-
ing. Ten years ago I said that there had

xii TO THE READERS

been a feeling at the time when this book
was wiitten as if mechanical invention had
exhausted itself. I referred in the Preface
of 1882 to the new miracles of the telephone
and of electric illumination. Since then a
new wonder has been sprung' ui^on us in the
shape of the electric motor, which has al-
ready familiarized itself among us as a com-
mon carrier. It is not safe to speculate on
what the last decade of the century may yet
bring us, but it looks as if the wasted ener-
gies of the winds and the waters were to be
converted into heat, light, and mechanical
movement, in that mysterious form which
we call electricity, so as to change the mate-
rial conditions of life to an extent to which
we can hardly dare to set limits. As to
what social and other changes may accom-
pany the altered conditions of human life
in the coming era, it is safer to leave the
question open to exercise the ingenuity of
some as yet youthful, perhaps unborn Auto-
crat.

O. W. H.

Beverlv Farms, Mass., July 28, 1891.

The oAutocrafs QjJutobiography

I HE interruption referred to in
the first sentence of the first of
I these papers was just a quarter
of a century in duration.
Two articles entitled "• The Autocrat of
the Breakfast Table " will be found in the
" New England Magazine," formerly pub-
lished in Boston by J. T. and E. Bucking-
ham. The date of the first of these articles
is November, 1831, and that of the second,
February, 1832. When "The Atlantic
Monthly " was begun, twenty-five years
afterwards, and the author was asked to
write for it, the recollection of these crude
products of his uncombed literary boyhood
suggested the thought that it would be a

xiv THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

curious experiment to sliake the same bough
again, and see if the ripe fruit were better
or worse than the early windfalls.

So began this series of papers, which nat-
urally brings those earlier attempts to my
own notice and that of some few friends who
were idle enough to read them at the time of
their publication. The man is father to the
boy that was, and I am my ovni son, as it
seems to me, in those papers of the "New
England Magazine. " If I find it hard to
pardon the boy's faults, others woidd find it
harder. They will not, therefore, be reprint-
ed here, nor, as I hoi^e, anywhere.

But a sentence or trwo from them will per-
haps bear reproducing, and with these I trust
the gentle reader, if that kind being still
breathes, will be contented.

— " It is a capital plan to carry a tablet with you,
and, when you find yourself felicitous, take notes of
your own conversation." —

— " When I feel inclined to read poetry I take down
my Dictionary. The poetry of words is quite as
beautiful as that of sentences. The author may ar-
range the gems effectively, but their shape and lustre
have been given by the attrition of ages. Bring me
the finest simile from the whole range of imaginative
writing, and I will show you a single word which con-
veys a more profound, a more accurate, and a more
eloquent analogy. " —

THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY xv

" Once on a time, a notion was started, that if all

the people in the world would shout at once, it
might be heard in the moon. So the projectors
agreed it should be done in just ten years. Some
thousand shiploads of chronometers were distributed
to the selectmen and other great folks of all the
different nations. For a year beforehand, nothing
else was talked about but the awful noise that was
to be made on the great occasion. When the time
came, everybody had their ears so wide open, to
hear the universal ejaculation of Boo, — the word
agreed upon, — that nobody spoke except a deaf man
in one of the Fejee Islands, and a woman in Pekin,
so that the world was never so still since the
creation." —

Tliere was nothing better than these things
and there was not a little that was much
worse. A young fellow of two or three and
twenty has as good a right to spoil a maga-
zine-full of essays in learning how to write,
as an oculist like Wenzel had to spoil his
hat-f idl of eyes in learning how to operate
for cataract, or an elegant like Brummel to
point to an armful of failures in the attempt
to acliieve a perfect neck-tie. This son of
mine, whom I have not seen for these twen-
ty-five years, generously counted, was a self-
willed youth, always too ready to utter his
unchastised fancies. lie, like too many
Ameilcan young people, got the spur when

x\-\ THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

he sliould have had the rein. He therefore
helped to fill the market with that unrijDe
fniit which his father says in one of these
papers abounds in the marts of his native
eomitry. All these by-gone shortcomings he
would hope are forgiven, did he not feel sure
that ver}- few of his readers know anything
about them. In taking the old name for the
new papers, he felt bound to say that he
had uttered unwise things under that title,
and if it shall appear that his imwisdom
has not dmiinished by at least half while
his years have doubled, he promises not to
repeat the exjDeriment if he sliould live to
double them again and become his own grand-
father.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Boston, November 1, 1858.

.y

1 m oAutocrai

ojths

^reakfaiJ: -Table

3 »f-

I

1

WAS just going to say,

when I was interrupted,

that one of the many ways

' of classif^ang minds is mi-

der the heads of arithmetical and

alaebraieal intellects. All econom-

ical and practical wisdom is an extension

or variation of the following arithmetical

foi-mula : 2 + 2 = 4. Every philosophical

proposition has the more general character

of the expression « -]- 6 = c. A\ e are mere

2 THE AUTOCRAT OF

operatives, empirics, and egotists, until we
learn to think in letters instead of figures.

They all stared. There is a divinity
student lately come among us to whom I
commonly address remarks like the above,
allowing him to take a certain share in the
conversation, so far as assent or pertinent
questions are involved. He abused his lib-
erty on this occasion by presmning to say
that Leibnitz had the same observation. —
No, sir, I replied, he has not. But he said
a mighty good thing about mathematics,
that soimds something like it, and you found
it, not in the original, but quoted by Dr.
Thomas Reid. I wiU tell the comjsany what
he did say, one of these days.

— If I belong to a Society of Mutual Ad-
miration ? — I blush to say that I do not at
this present moment. I once did, however.
It was the fixst association to which I ever
heard the term applied; a body of scien-
tific yoimg men in a great foreign city ^ who

^ The " body of scientific young men in a great foreign
city " was the Soci^t4 d' Observation Medicale, of Paris,
of which M. Louis was president, and MM. Barth, Gri-
sotte, and our own Dr. Bowditch were members. They
agreed in admiring their justly-honored president, and
thought higlily of some of their associates, who have
since made good their promise of distinction.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 3

admired their teacher, and to some extent
each other. Many of them deserved it ;
they have become famous since. It amuses
me to hear the talk of one of those beings
described by Thackeray —

" Letters four do form liis name " —

about a social development which belongs to
the very noblest stage of civilization. All
generous companies of artists, authors, phi-
lanthropists, men of science, are, or ought
to be. Societies of Mutual Admiration. A

About the time when these papers were published, the
Saturday Club was founded, or, rather, found itself in
existence, without any organization, almost without par-
entage. It was natural enough that such men as Enier-
son, Longfellow, Agassiz, Peirce, with Hawthorne, Mot-
ley, .Sumner, when within reach, and other's who would
be good company for them, should meet and dine together
once in a while, as they did, in point of fact, every
month, and as some who are still living, with other and
newer members, still meet and dine. If some of them had
not admired each other they would have been exceptions
in the world of letters and science. The club deserves
being remembered for having no constitution or by-laws,
for making no speeches, reading no papers, observing
no ceremonies, coming and going at will without remark,
and acting out, though it did not proclaim the motto,
" Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn ? " There was
and is nothing of the Bohemian element about this club,
but it has had many good times and not a little good
talking.

4 THE AUTOCRAT OF

man of genius, or any kind of superiority,
is not debarred from admiring the same
quality in another, nor the other from re-
turning his admiration. They may even as-
sociate together and continue to think highly
of each other. And so of a dozen such men,
if any one place is fortunate enough to hold
so many. The being referred to above as-
sumes several false premises. First, that
men of talent necessarily hate each other.
Secondly, that intimate knowledge or habit-
ual association destroys our admiration of
persons whom we esteemed higlily at a dis-
tance. Thirdly, that a circle of clever fel-
lows, who meet together to dine and have a
good time, have signed a constitutional com-
pact to glorify themselves and to put down
him and the fraction of the human race not
belonging to their number. Fourthly, that
it is an outrage that he is not asked to join
them.

Here the company laughed a good deal,
and the old gentleman who sits opposite
said : " That 's it ! that 's it ! "

I continued, for I was in the talking vein.
As to clever people's hating each other, I
tliink a little extra talent does sometimes
make people jealous. They become irritated

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 5

by perpetual attempts and failures, and it
hm*ts their tempers and dispositions. Un-
pretending mediocrity is good, and genius is
glorious ; but a weak flavor of genius in an
essentially common person is detestable. It
sjioils the grand neutrality of a common-
place character, as the rinsings of an un-
washed wine-glass spoil a draught of fair
water. Xo wonder the poor fellow we spoke
of, who always belongs to this class of
slightly flavored mediocrities, is puzzled and
vexed by the strange sight of a dozen men
of capacity working and playing together in
harmony. He and his fellows are always
fighting. AYith them familiarity natm^ally
breeds contempt. If they ever praise each,
other's bad dra^dngs, or broken-winded nov-
els, or spa^'ined verses, nobody ever supposed
it was from admiration ; it was simply a
contract between themselves and a publisher
or dealer.

If the Mutuals have really nothing among
them worth admiring, that alters the ques-
tion. But if they are men with noble pow-
ers and qualities, let me tell you that, next
to youtlifid love and famih" affections, there
is no human sentiment better than that which
unites the Societies of ]Mutual Admiration.

6 THE AUTOCRAT OF

And what would literature or art be with-
out such associations ? Who can tell what
we owe to the Mutual Admiration Society
of which Shakespeare, and Ben Jouson, and
Beamnont and Fletcher were members ? Or
to that of which Addison and Steele formed
the centre, and which gave us the Spectator ?
Or to that where Johnson, and Goldsmith,
and Burke, and Reynolds, and Beauclerk,
and Boswell, most admiring- among all ad-
mirers, met together? Was there any great
harm in the fact that the Irvings and Pauld-
ing wrote in company ? or any impardonable
cabal in the literary miion of Verplanck and
Bryant and Sands, and as many more as they
chose to associate with them ?

The poor creatui-e does not know what he
is talking about when he abuses this noblest
of institutions. Let him inspect its mys-
teries through the knot-hole he has secured,
but not use that orifice as a medimn for his
popgun. Such a society is the cro^vll of a
literary metropolis ; if a town has not mate-
rial for it, and spirit and good feeling enough
to organize it, it is a mere caravansary, fit
for a man of genius to lodge in, but not to
live in. Foolish people hate and dread and
envy such an association of men of varied

^ I

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 7

powers and influence, because it is lofty,
serene, impregnable, and, by the necessity of
the case, exclusive. Wise ones are prouder
of the title M. S. M. A. than of aU their
other honors put together.

— All generous minds have a horror of
what are conunonly called " facts."' They
are the bi-ute bea.sts of the intellectual do-
main. TTho does not know fellows that
always have an ill-contlitioned fact or two
which they lead after them into decent com-
pany like so many bidl-dogs, ready to let
them slip at every ingenioiLS suggestion, or
convenient generalization, or jileasant fancy ?
I allow no " facts ■■ at this table. What!
Because bread is good and wholesome, and
necessary and nourishing, shall you thrust a
crumb into my windpipe while I am talking ?
Do not these muscles of mine represent a
himdred loaves of bread ? and is not my
thought the absti'act of ten thousand of these
crmnbs of tnith with which you woidd choke
off my speech?

[The above remark must be conditioned
and qualified for the ^T.dgar mind. The
reader will of course understand the precise
amoimt of seasoning which must be added
to it before he adopts it as one of the axioms

8 THE AUTOCRAT OF

of liis life. The speaker disclaims all re-
sponsibility for its abuse in incompetent
hands.]

This business of conversation is a very
serious matter. There are men whom it
weakens one to talk with an hour more than
a day's fasting would do. Mark this which
I am going to say, for it is as good as a
working professional man's advice, and costs
you nothing : It is better to lose a pint of
blood from your veins than to have a nerve
tapped. Nobody measures your nervous
force as it rmis away, nor bandages your
brain and marrow after the operation.

There are men of esprit who are exces-
sively exhausting to some people. They are
the talkers who have what may be called
jerky minds. Their thoughts do not run in
the natiu'al order of sequence. They say
bright things on all possible subjects, but
their zig-zags rack you to death. After a
jolting half-hour with one of these jerky
companions, talking mth a didl friend af-
fords great relief. It is like taking the cat
in yoiu" lap after holding a squirrel.

What a comfort a dull but kindly person
is, to be sure, at times ! A ground-glass
shade over a gas-lamp does not bring more

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 9

solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to
our minds.

" Do not dull people bore you ? " said one
of tlie lady-boarders, — the same who sent
me her autograph-book last week with a re-
quest for a few original stanzas, not remem-
bering that •• The Pactolian " pays me five
dollars a line for everything I write in its
columns.

" Madam," said I (she and the century
were in their teens together), " all men are
bores, except when we want them. There
never was but one man whom I woidd trust
with my latch-key,"

" Who might that favored person be ? "

" Zinimermann." ^

— The men of genius that I fancy most
have erectile heads like the cobra-di-capello.
You remember what they tell of William
Pinkney, the great pleader ; how in his elo-
quent paroxysms the veins of his neck woidd
swell and his face flush and his eyes glitter,
until he seemed on the verge of apoplexy.
The hydraulic arrangements for supplpng

1 The Treatise on Solitude is not so frequently seen
lying about on library tables as in our younger days. I
remember that I always respected the title and let the
book alone.

lo THE AUTOCRAT OF

tlie brain witli blood are only second in im-
portance to its own organization. The bnl-
bons-lieaded fellows who steam well when
they are at work are the men that draw big
audiences and give us marrowy books and
pictures. It is a good sign to have one's
feet grow cold when he is writing. A great
wi"iter and speaker once told me that he often
wrote with his feet in hot water ; but for
this, all his blood would have run into his
head, as the mercury sometimes withdraws
into the ball of a thermometer.

— You don't suppose that my remarks
made at this table are like so many postage-
stamps, do you, — each to be only once ut-
tered ? If you do, you are mistaken. He
must be a poor creature who does not often
repeat himseK. Imagine the author of the
excellent piece of advice, " Know thyself,"
never alluding to that sentiment again during
the course of a j)rotracted existence ! Why,
the truths a man carries about with him are
his tools ; and do you think a carjaenter is
bound to use the same plane but once to
smooth a knotty board with, or to hang up his
hanuner after it has driven its first nail ? I
shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea
often. I shall use the same tyjies when I

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE - II

like, but not conunonly the same stereotypes.
A thought is often original, though you have
uttered it a hundred times. It has come to
you over a new route, by a new and express
train of associations.

Sometimes, but rarely, one may be caught
making the same speech twice over, and yet
be held blameless. Thus, a certain lecturer,
after performing in an inland city, where
dwells a Litteratrice of note, was invited to
meet her and others over the social teacup.
She pleasantly referred to his many wander-
ings in his new occupation. " Yes," he re-
plied, " I am like the Huma,^ the bird that
never lights, being always in the cars, as he
is always on the wing." — Years elapsed.
The lecturer visited the same place once
more for the same purpose. Another social
cup after the lectiu-e, and a second meet-
ing with the distinguished lady. " You are
constantly going from place to place," she
said. — " Yes ! " he answered, " I am like

^ It was an agreeable incident of two consecutive visits
to Hartford, Conn., that I met there the late Mrs. Sig-
ourney. The second meeting recalled the first, and with
it the allusion to the Huma, which bird is the subject of
a short poem by another New England authoress, which
may be found in Mr. Gris wold's collection.

12 THE AUTOCRAT OF

the Hiuna," — and finished the sentence as
before.

What horrors, when it flashed over him
that he had made this fine speech, word for
word, twice over ! Yet it was not true, as
the lady might perhaps have fairly inferred,
that he had embellished his conversation
with the Hmna daily during that whole in-
terval of years. On the contrary, he had
never once thought of the odious fowl mitil
the recurrence of precisely the same circmn-
stances brought up j^recisely the same idea.
He ought to have been proud of the accuracy
of liis mental adjustments. Given certain
factors, and a sound brain shoidd always
evolve the same fixed product with the cer-
tainty of Babbage's calcidating machine.

— What a satire, by the way, is that ma-
chine on the mere mathematician ! A Frank-
enstein-monster, a thing A\ithout brains and
without heart, too stupid to make a blunder ;
which turns out results like a corn-sheller,
and never grows any wiser or better, though
it grind a thousand bushels of them !

I have an immense respect for a man of
talents plus " the mathematics." But the
calculating power alone should seem to be
the least human of qualities, and to have

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 13

the smallest amount of reason in it ; since a
machine can be made to do the work of three
or four calculators, and better than any one
of them. Sometimes I have been troubled
that I had not a deeper intuitive apprehen-
sion of the relations of numbers. But the
triimiph of the ciphering- hand-organ has
consoled me. I always fancy I can hear the
wheels clicking in a calculator's brain. The
power of dealing with nmnbers is a kind of
" detached lever " arrangement, which may
be put into a mighty poor watch. I suppose
it is about as common as the power of mov-
ing the ears voluntarily, which is a moder-
ately rare endowment.

— Little localized powers, and little nar-
row streaks of specialized knowledge, are
things men are very apt to be conceited
about. Natm-e is very wise ; but for tliis
encouraging principle how many small tal-
ents and little accomplisluuents would be
neglected ! Talk about conceit as much as
you like, it is to human character what salt
is to the ocean ; it keeps it sWeet, and ren-
ders it endurable. Say rather it is like the
natural unguent of the sea-fowl's plumage,
which enables him to shed the rain that falls
on him and the wave in wliich he dips.

14 THE AUTOCRAT OF

When one has had all his conceit taken out
of him, when he has lost all his illusions,
his feathers will soon soak tlu'ough, and he
will fly no more.

" So you admire conceited people, do
you ? " said the young lady who has come to
the city to be finished off for — the duties
of life.

I am afraid you do not study logic at your
school, my dear. It does not follow that I
wish to be pickled in brine because I like a
salt-water plmige at Nahant. I say that con-
ceit is just as natui'al a thing to human minds
as a centre is to a circle. But little-minded
people's thought move in such small circles
that five minutes' conversation gives you an
arc long enough to determine their whole
curve. An arc in the movement of a large
intellect does not sensibly differ from a
straight line. Even if it have the third
vowel as its centre, it does not soon betray
it. The highest thought that is, is the most
seemingly impersonal ; it does not obviously
imply any individual centre.

Audacious self-esteem, with good groimd
for it, is always imposing. AVhat resplen-
dent beauty that must have been which could
have authorized Phryne to " peel " in the way

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 15

she did I What fine speeches are those t«'o :
" Kon omnis moriar,^' and '• I have taken
all knowledge to be ray pro^^nee " ! Even
in common people, conceit has the virtue of
making them cheerfid ; the man who thinks
his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his
dog, and himself severally imequalled, is
almost sm-e to be a good-hmnored person,
though liable to be tedious at times.

— What are the great faults of conversa-
tion ? Want of ideas, want of words, want
of manners, are the principal ones, I sup-
pose you think. I don't doubt it, but I will
tell you what I have found spoil more good
talks than anytliing else ; — long argtunents
on special points between people who differ
on the fundamental principles upon which
these pomts depend. Xo men can have sat-
isfactory relations with each other imtil they
have agreed on certain ultimata of belief
not to be disturbed in ordinaiy conversation,
and unless they have sense enough to ti-ace
the secondary questions depending upon
these idtimate beliefs to their source. In
short, just as a written constitution is essen-
tial to the best social order, so a code of
finalities is a necessary condition of profit-
able talk between two persons. Talidng is

l6 THE AUTOCRAT OF

like playing on the harp ; there is as much
in laying the hand on the strings to stop
their vibrations as in twanging them to bring
out their music.

— Do you mean to say the pun-question
is not clearly settled in your minds? Let
me lay down the law upon the subject. Life
and language are alike sacred. Homicide
and verbicicle — that is, violent treatment o£
a word with fatal results to its legitimate
meaning, which is its life — are alike for-
bidden. Manslaughter, which is the mean-
ing of the one, is the same as man's laughter,
which is the end of the other. A pun is
prima facie an insidt to the person you are
talking with. It implies utter indifference
to or sublime contempt for his remarks, no
matter how sei'ious. I speak of total de-
pravity, and one says all that is written on
the subject is deep raving. I have com-
mitted my self-respect by talking with such
a person. I shoidd like to connnit him, but
cannot, because he is a nuisance. Or I speak
of geological convulsions, and he asks me
what was the cosine of Noah's ark; also,
whether the Deluge was not a deal huger
than any modern inmidation.

A pun does not commonly justify a blow

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 17

in return. But if a blow were given for
such cause, and death ensued, the jury would
be judges -both of the facts and of the pun,
and mio'lit, if the latter were of an ao'ora-
vated character, return a verdict of justifia-
ble homicide. Thus, in a case lately decided
before Miller, J., Doe presented Roe a sub-
scription paper, and urged the claims of suf-
fering humanity. Roe replied by asking.
When charity was like a top? It was in
evidence that Doe preserved a digiiiiied si-
lence. Roe then said, " When it begins to
hum." Doe then — and not till then —
struck Roe, and his head happening to hit
a bound volmue of the Montlily Rag -Bag
and Stolen Miscellany, intense mortification
ensued, with a fatal residt. The chief laid
down his notions of the law to his brother
justices, who unanimously replied, " Jest so."
The chief rejoined, that no man shoidd jest
so -without being punished for it, and charged
for the prisoner, who was acquitted, and the
pmi ordered to be burned by the sheriff.
The bound volmne was forfeited as a deo-
dand, but not clamied.

People that make puns are like wanton
boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks.
They amuse themselves and other children.

l8 THE AUTOCRAT OF

but their little trick may upset a freight
train of conversation for the sake of a bat-
tered witticism.

I w-ill thank you, B. F., to bring clown
frsvo books, of which I will mark the places
on this slip of paper. (Wliile he has gone, I
may say that this boy, oiu- landlady's young-
est, is called Bexjamin Feanklin, after the
celebrated pliilosopher of that name. A
higlily merited compliment.)

I wished to refer to two eminent author-
ities. Now be so good as to listen. The
great moralist says : '' To trifle A^dth the vo-
cabulary which is the vehicle of social inter-
course is to tamper with the currency of
human intelligence. He who woidd violate
the sanctities of his mother tongue would
invade the recesses of the paternal till with-
out remorse, and repeat the banquet of Sat-
lU'n without an indigestion."

And, once more, listen to the historian.
" The Puritans hated pirns. The Bishops
were notoriously addicted to them. The
Lords Temporal carried them to the verge
of license. Majesty itseK must have its
Eoyal quibble. ' Ye be biu'ly, my Lord of
Burleigh,' said Queen Elizabeth, ' but ye
shall make less stir in our reahn than mv

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 19

Lord of Leicester.' Tlie gravest wdsclom
and the highest breeding lent their sanction
to the practice. Lord Bacon play f idly de-
clared himself a descendant of 'Og, the King
of Bashan. Sir Philip Sidney, with his last
breath, reproached the soldier who brought
him water, for wasting a casque full upon
a dying man. A courtier, who saw Othello
performed at the Globe Theatre, remarked,
that the blackamoor was a brute, and not a
man. ' Thou hast reason,' rej)lied a great
Lord, ' according to Plato his saying ; for
this be a two-legged animal vnth feathers.'
The fatal habit became universal. The lan-
guage was corrupted. The infection spread
to the national conscience. Political double-
dealings naturally grew out of verbal double
meanings. The teeth of the new drag-on
were sown by the Cadmus who introduced
the alphabet of equivocation. What was
levity in the time of the Tudors grew to
regicide and revolution in the age of the
Stuarts."

Who was that boarder that just whis-
pered something about the Macaiday-flowers
of literature ? — There was a dead silence.
— I said calndy, I shall henceforth consider
any interruption by a pun as a hint to .

20 THE AUTOCRAT OF

change my boarding-house. Do not plead
my example. If / have used any such, it
has been only as a Spartan father would
show i\]) a drunken helot. We have done
with them,

— If a logical mind ever found out any-
thing with its logic ? — I shoidd say that its
most frequent work was to build a^^ons asi-
norum over chasms wliich shrewd jDeople can
bestride without such a structure. You can
hire logic, in the shape of a la\vyer, to prove
anything that you want to prove. You can
buy treatises to show that Napoleon never
lived, and that no battle of Bunker-hill was
ever fought. The great minds are those
with a wide span,^ wliich couple truths re-
lated to, but far removed from, each other.
Logicians carry the surveyor's chain over
the track of which these are the true ex-
plorers. I value a man mainly for his pri-
mary relations with truth, as I understand
truth, — not for any secondary artifice in
handling his ideas. Some of the sharjiest
men in argmnent are notoriously unsound in
judgment. I shoidd not trust the counsel
of a clever debater, any more than tliat of

^ There is sometliinp^ like this in .J. H. Ne\niian's
' Grammar of Assent. See Characteristics, arranged by
W. S. Lilly, p. 81.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 21

a good cliess-i)layer. Either may of coiu'se
advise wisely, but not necessarily because he
wrangles or plays well.

The old gentleman who sits opposite got
his hand up, as a pointer lifts liis forefoot,
at the expression, " his relations with truth,
as I understand truth," and when I had
done, sniffed audibly, and said I talked like
a transcendentalist. For liis part, coimnon
sense was good enough for him.

Precisely so, my dear sir, I replied ; com-
mon sense, as you understand it. We all
have to assume a standard of judgment in
our own minds, either of things or persons.
A man who is ^\alling to take another's
opinion has to exercise his judgment in the
choice of whom to follow, wliich is often as
nice a matter as to judge of things for one's
self. On the whole, I had rather judge
men's minds by comparing their thoughts
ANath my own, than judge of thoughts by
knowing who utter them. I must do one
or the other. It does not follow, of course,
that I may not recognize another man's
thoughts as broader and deeper than my
own ; but that does not necessarily change
my opinion, otherwise tliis woidd be at the
mercy of every sui^erior mind that held a
different one. How many of our most cher-

22 THE AUTOCRAT OF

ished beliefs are like those drinking-giasses
of the ancient pattern, that serve us well so
long- as we keep them in our hand, but spill
all if we attempt to set them down ! I have
sometimes compared conversation to the Ital-
ian game of 7nora, in which one player lifts
his hand with so many fingers extended, and
the other gives the umnber if he can. I
show my thought, another his ; if they agree,
well ; if they differ, we find the largest com-
mon factor, if we can, but at any rate avoid
disputing about remainders and fractions,
which is to real talk what tuning an instru-
ment is to playing on it.

— What if, instead of talking this morn-
ing, I should read you a copy of verses, with
critical remarks by the author ? Any of the
company can retire that like.

HEN Eve had led her loi d away,
And Cain had killed his brother,
The stars and flowers, the poets say,
Agreed with one another

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 23

To cheat the cunning tempter's art,

And teach the race its duty,
By keeping on its wicked heart

Their eyes of light and beauty.

A million sleepless lids, they say,

Will be at least a warning ;
And so the flowers would watch by day

The stars from eve to morning.

On hill and prairie, field and lawn,

Their dewy eyes upturning,
The flowers still watch from reddening dawn

Till western skies are burning.

Alas ! each hoiu* of daylight tells

A tale of shame so crushing.
That some turn white as sea-bleached shells,

And some are always blushing.

But when the patient stars look down

On all their light discovers,
The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown,

The lips of lying lovers.

They try to shut their saddening eyes,

And in the vain endeavor
We see them twinkling in the skies.

And so they wink forever.

What do you tliink o£ these vei'.ses, my
friends ? — Is that piece an impromptu ?
said my landlady's daughter. (^Et. ID-f-.
Tender-eyed blonde. Long ringlets. Cameo
pin. Gold pencil-case on a chain. Locket.
Bracelet. Album. Autograph book. Ac-

24 THE AUTOCRAT OF

cordeon. Reads Byron, Tupper, and Syl-
vanus Cobb, Junior, wliile lier mother makes
tlie pnddingSo Says " Yes ? " when you tell
her anj^hing.) — Oui et non, ma 2)etite, —
Yes and no, my child. Five of the seven
verses were written off-hand ; the other two
took a week, — that is, were hanging roimd
the desk in a ragged, forlorn, unrhymed
condition as long as that. All poets will tell
you just such stories. Ccst le deenieb,
pas qui coute. Don't you know how hard
it is for some people to get out of a room
after their visit is really over ? They want
to be off, and you want to have them off,
but they don't know how to manage it. One
would think they had been built in your
parlor or study, and were waiting to be
lamiched. I have contrived a sort of cere-
monial inclined ])lane for such visitors, which
being lubricated with certain smooth phrases,
I back them down, metaphorically speaking,
stern-foremost, into their " native element,"
the great ocean of out-doors. Well, now,
there are poems as hard to get rid of as
these rural visitors. They come in glibly,
use up all the serviceable rhymes, clai/, ray,
heauty, duty, skies, eyes, other, brother,
mountain, fountain, and the like ; and so

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 25

tliey go on until you think it is time for the
wind-up, and the wind-up won't come on any
terms. So they lie about until you get sick
of the sight of them, and end by thrusting
some cold scrap of a final couplet upon them,
and turning them out of doors. I suspect a
good many "" impromptus " could tell just
such a story as the above. — Here turning
to our landlady, I used an illustration which
pleased the company much at the time, and
has sin3e been highly commended. " Ma-
dam," I said, " you can pour three gills and
three quarters of honey from that pint jug,
if it is fidl, in less than one minute ; but,
Madam, you coidd not empty that last quar-
ter of a gill, though you were turned into a
marble Hebe, and held the vessel upside
down for a thousand years."

One gets tired to death of the old, old
rhymes, such as you see in that copy of
verses, — which I don't mean to abuse, or to
praise either. I always feel as if I were a
cobbler, putting new top-leathers to an old
pair of boot-soles and bodies, when I am fit-
ting sentiments to these venerable jingles.

youth

. morning

....... truth

....... ■warninsf.

26 THE AUTOCRAT OF

Nine tenths of tlie " Juvenile Poems "
written spring out of the above musical and
suggestive coincidences.

" Yes ? " said our landlady's daughter.

I did not address the following remark to
her, and I trust, from her limited range of
reading, she will never see it ; I said it softly
to my next neighbor.

When a young female wears a flat circidar
side-curl, gunmied on each temple, — when
she walks with a male, not arm in arm, but
his arm against the back of hers, — and
when she says " Yes ? " with the note of in-
terrogation, you are generally safe in asking
her what wages she gets, and who the " fel-
ler " was you saw her with.

" What were you whispering ? " said the
daughter of the house, moistening her lips,
as she spoke, in a very engaging manner.

" I was only laying down a principle of
social diagnosis."

"Yes?"

— It is curious to see how the same wants
and tastes find the same miplements and
modes of expression in all times and places.
The young ladies of Otaheite, as you may
see in Cook's Voyages, had a sort of crino-
line arrangement fully equal in radius to the

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 27

largest spread of our own lady-baskets.
When I fling- a Bay-State shawl over my
shoulders, I am only taking a lesson from
the climate whieh the Indian had learned
before me. A hlanket-shawl we call it, and
not a plaid ; and we wear it like the abori-
gines, and not like the Highlanders.

— We are the Romans of the modern
world, — the great assimilating people. Con-
flicts and conquests are of com'se necessary
accidents with ns, as with oiu* prototypes.
And so we come to their stjde of weapon.
Our army sword is the short, stiff, pointed
gladius of the Romans ; and the Ameri-
can bowie-knife is the same tool, modified
to meet the daily wants of civil society. I
announce at this table an axiom not to be
foimd in Montesquieu or the journals of
Congress : —

The race that shortens its weapons length-
ens its bomidaries.

Corollary. It was the Polish lance that
left Poland at last with nothing of her own
to bound.

" Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear ! "

What business had Sarmatia to be fight-
ing for liberty with a fifteen-foot pole be-

28 THE AUTOCRAT OF

tween her and tlie breasts of her enemies ?
If slie liad but chitcbed tlie old Roman and
young American weapon, and come to close
quarters, there might have been a chance for
her ; but it woidd have spoiled the best pas-
sage in " The Pleasures of Hope."

— Self - made men ? — Well, yes. Of
course everybody likes and respects self-
made men. It is a great deal better to be
made in that way than not to be made at all.
Are any of you younger people old enough
to remember that Irisliman's house on the
marsh at Cambridgeport, wliich house he
built from drain to chimney-top with his own
hands ? It took him a good many years to
build it, and one could see that it was a little
out of plumb, and a little wavy in outline,
and a little queer and xmcertain in general
aspect. A regidar hand could certainly
have built a better house ; but it was a very
good house for a " self-made " carpenter's
house, and people praised it, and said how
remarkably well the Irishman had succeeded.
They never thought of praising the fine
blocks of houses a little farther on.

Your self-made man, whittled into shape
with his own jack-knife, deserves more credit,
if that is all, than the regular engine-turned

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 29

article, shaped by the most approved pat-
tern, and French-polished by society and
travel. But as to saying that one is every
way the equal of the other, that is another
matter. The right of strict social discrimi-
nation of all things and persons, according
to their merits, native or acquired, is one of
the most precious republican pri^'ileges. I
take the liberty to exercise it when I say
that, otJior tJiinrjs heinrj equals in most rela-
tions of life I prefer a man of family.

AVhat do I mean by a man of family ? —
Oh, I '11 give you a general idea of what
I mean. Let us give him a first-rate fit out ;
it costs us nothing.

Four or five generations of gentlemen and
gentlewomen ; among them a member of his
Majestj^'s Council for the Province, a Gov-
ernor or so, one or two Doctors of Di^'inity,
a member of Congress, not later than the
time of long boots with tassels.

Family portraits.^ The member of the

^ The full-length pictures by Copley I was thinking of
are such as may be seen in the Memorial Hall of Harvard
University, but many are to be met with in different parts
of Xew England, sometimes in the possession of the poor
descendants of the rich gentlefolks in lace ruffles and
glistening stains, grandees and grand dames of the ante-
Revolutionary period. I remember one j)oor old gentle-

30 THE AUTOCRAT OF

Council, by Smibert. The great merchant-
uncle, by Copley, full length, sitting in his
arm-chair, in a velvet cap and flowered i-obe,

man who had nothing left of his family possessions but
the full-length portraits of his ancestors, the Counsellor
and his lady, saying, vriih a gleam of the pleasantry
which had come down from the days of Mather Byles,
and '■ Baleh the Hatter," and Sigourney, that he fared
not so badly after all, for he had a pair of canvas-backs
every day through the whole year.

The mention of these names, all of which are mere
traditions to myself and my contemporaries, reminds me
of the long succession of wits and humorists whose com-
panionship has been the delight of their generation, and
who leave nothing on record by which they will be re-
membered ; Yoricks who set the table on a roar, story-
tellers who gave us scenes of life in monologue better
than the stilted presentments of the stage, and those
always welcome friends with social interior furnishings,
whose smile provoked the wit of others and whose rich,
musical laughter was its abundant reward. Who among
us in my earlier days ever told a story or carolled a rip-
pling chanson so gayly, so easily, so charmingly as John
Sullivan, whose memory is like the breath of a long by-
gone summer ? Mr. Arthur Gilnian has left his monu-
ment in the stately structures he planned ; Mr. James T.
Fields, in the pleasant volumes full of precious recollec-
tions ; but twenty or thii-ty years from now old men will
tell their boys that the Yankee story-teller died Avith th^j
first, and that the chief of our literary reminiseents,
whose ideal portrait gallery reached from Wordsworth to
Swinburne, left us when the second bowed his head and
"fell on sleep," no longer to delight the guests whom
his hospitality gathered around him with the pictures to
which his lips gave life and action.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 31

with a globe by him, to show the range of
his commercial transactions, and letters with
large red seals l3^ng round, one directed
conspicuously to The Honorable, etc., etc.
Great - grandmother, by the same artist ;
brown satin, lace very fine, hands superla-
tive; grand old lad}', stiffish, but imposing.
Her mother, artist miknown ; flat, angidar,
hanging sleeves ; parrot on fist. A pair of
Stuarts, viz., 1. A superb, fidl-blown, medi-
aeval gentleman, with a fiery dash of Toiy
blood in his veins, tempered dowTi ^\dth that
of a fine old rebel grandmother, and warmed
up with the best of old India Madeira ; his
face is one flame of ruddy simshine ; his
ruffled shirt rushes out of his bosom with an
impetuous generosity, as if it would drag
his heart after it ; and his smile is good for
twenty thousand dollars to the Hospital, be-
sides ample bequests to all relatives and de-
pendents. 2. Lady of the same ; remark-
able cap ; high waist, as in time of Empire ;
bust a la Joseph ine ; wisps of ciu'ls, like
celery-tips, at sides of forehead ; comj)lexion
clear and warm, like rose-cordial. As for
the miniatm-es l^y Malbone, we don't coimt
them in the gallery.

Books, too, with the names of old college-

32 THE AUTOCRAT OF

students in tliem, — family names ; — you
will find them at the head of their respec-
tive classes in the da^'s when students took
rank on the catalogue from their parents'
condition. Elze\ars with the Latinized ap-
pellations of youtlif ul progenitors, and Hie
liber est mens on the title-page. A set of
Hogarth's original plates. Pope, original
edition, 15 volmnes, London, 1717. Barrow
on the lower shelves, in folio. Tillotson on
the upper, in a little dark platoon of octo-
decimos.

Some family silver ; a string of wedding
and funeral rings ; the arms of the family
curiously blazoned ; the same in worsted, by
a maiden aiuit.

If the man of family has an old place to
keep these things in, furnished with claw-
footed chairs and black mahoganj'^ tables,
and tall bevel-edged mirrors, and stately uji-
right cabinets, his outfit is complete.

No, my friends, I go (always, other things
being equal) for the man who inherits family
traditions and the cumulative humanities of
at least four or five generations. Above all
things, as a child, he shovdd have tmnbled
about in a library. All men are afraid of
books, who have not handled them from in-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 33

fancy. Do you suppose our dear didascalos ^
over there ever read Poli Synopsis, or con-
sulted Castelli Lexicon, wliile lie was gTow-
ing up to their statui-e ? Xot he ; but virtue
passed through the hem of their parchment
and leather garments whenever he touched
them, as the precious di'ugs sweated thi'ough
the bats handle in the Arabian story. I tell
you he is at home wherever he smeUs the in-
viooratinq; fi-aorance of Russia leather. Xo
self-made man feels so. One may, it is trae,
have all the antecedents I have sjDoken of,
and yet be a boor or a shabby fellow. One
may have none of them, and yet be fit for
councils and courts. Then let them change
places. Our social arrangement has this
gTeat beauty, that its strata shift up and
. do"SNTi as they change specific gTa^'ity, with-
out being clogged by layers of prescription.
But I still insist on my democratic liberty of

^ ' ' Onr dear didascalos "' was meant for Professor
James Rassell Lowell, now Minister to England. It re-
quires the union of exceptional native gfifts and genera-
tions of training to bring the " natural man " of Xew
England to the completeness of scholarly manhood, such
as that which adds new distinction to the name he bears,
already remarkable for its successive generations of emi-
nient citizens.

■' Self-made "" is imperfectly made, or education is a
superfluity and a failure.

VOL. I.

34 THE AUTOCRAT OF

choice, and I go for the man with the gallery
of family portraits against the one wath the
twenty-five-cent daguerreotype, unless I fuid
out that the last is the better of the tw^o.

— I should have felt more nervous about
the late comet, if I had thought the world
was ripe. But it is very green yet, if I am
not mistaken ; and besides, there is a great
deal of coal to use uj), which I cannot bring
myself to tliink was made for nothing. If
certain tilings, wliich seem to me essential
to a millennimn, had come to pass, 1 shoidd
have been frightened ; but they have n't.
Perhaps you would like to hear my

latter-day

'warnings

w

jHEN legislators keep the law,

When hanks dispense with holts and locks,
When herries, whortle — rasp — and straw —

Grow higger downwards through the box, -

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 35

When he that selleth house or land
Shows leak in roof or flaw in right, —

When haberdashers choose the stand

Whose window hath the broadest light, —

When preachers tell ns all they think,
And party leaders all they mean, —

When what we pay for, that we drink,
From real gTape and coffee-bean, —

When lawyers take what they would g'ive.
And doctors give what they would take, —

When city fathers eat to live.

Save when they fast for conscience' sake, —

When one that hath a horse on sale

Shall bring his merit to the proof,
Without a lie for every nail

That holds the iron on the hoof, —

When in the usual place for rips

Our gloves are stitched with special care,

And guarded well the whalebone tips
Where first umbrellas need repair, —

When Cuba's weeds have qiiite forgot

The power of suction to resist.
And claret-bottles harbor not

Such dimples as would hold your fist, —

When publishers no longer steal,
• And pay for what they stole before, —

When the first locomotive's wheel

Rolls through the Hoosac tunnel's bore ; ^ —

^ This hoped-for but almost despaired-of event oc-
curred on the itth of February, 1ST5. The writer of the
above lines was as much pleased as his fellow-eitizsns at
the termination of an enterprise which gave constant oc-

36 THE AUTOCRAT OF

Till then let Gumming blaze away,
And Miller's saints blow up the globe ;

But when you see that blessed day,
Then order your ascension robe !

The company seemed to like the verses,
and I promised them to read others occa-
sionally, if they had a mind to hear them.
Of course they would not expect it every
morning. Neither must the reader suppose
that all these things I have reported were
said at any one breakfast-time. 1 have not
taken the trouble to date them, as Raspail,
pere, used to date every proof he sent to the
printer ; but they were scattered over several
breakfasts ; and I have said a good many
more things since, wliich I shall very possi-
bly print some time or other, if I am urged
to do it by judicious friends.

I finished off with reading some verses of
my friend the Professor, of whom you may
perhaps hear more by and by. The Professor
read them, he told me, at a farewell meeting,
where the youngest of our great liistorian^^
met a few of his many friends at their invi-
tation.

casion for the most inveterate pun on record. When the
other conditions referred to are as happily fulfilled as
this has been, he will still say as before, that it is time
for the ascension garment to be ordered.

^ "The youngest of our great historians," referred to

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 37

Yes, we knew we must lose him, — though friendship

may claim
To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame ;
Thoug-h fondly, at parting, we eaU hun our own,
'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown.

As the rider who rests with the spur on his heel, —
As the guardsman who sleeps in his corselet of steel, —
As the archer who stands with his shaft on the string,
He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.

What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom

Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall

bloom,
While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes
That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies !

In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time.
Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime,
There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung,
There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue !

Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed
From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed I
Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom,
Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with
his broom !

The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake
On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake,
To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine,
With incense they stole from the rose and the pine.

in the poem, was John Lothrop Motley. His career of
authorship was as successful as it was noble, and his
works are among the chief ornaments of our national
literature. Are Republics still ungrateful, as of old ?

38 THE AUTOCRAT

So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed

When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and

crushed ;
The True Knight of Learnikg, — the world holds

him dear, —
Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career !

>^^

i>VOi- OR.ATONIS.

II

EEALLY believe some peo-
ple save their bright thoughts
as being too precious for con-
versation. T\"hat do you tliink
an aclmiriug friend said the other
day to one that was talking good
things. — good enough to print ?

" Why," said he, '• you are wasting
merchantable literature, a cash ai-ticle,
at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty
dollars an hour." The talker took him to
the window and asked him to look out and
tell him what he saw.

" Nothing but a very dust^- street." he
said, " and a man driving a sprinkling- ma-
chine throush it."

40 THE AUTOCRAT OF

" Why don"t yoii tell the man he is wast-
ing that water ? AVhat would be the state of
the highways of life, if we did not drive oiir
thoufjht-sjyrinJcIers through them with the
valves open, sometimes ?

" Besides, there is another thing about
this talking, which you forget. It shapes
our thoughts for us ; — the waves of conver-
sation roll them as the surf rolls the pebbles
on the shore. Let me modify the image a
little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as
an artist models in clay. Spoken language
is so plastic, — you can pat and coax, and
spread and shave, and rub out, and fill up,
and stick on so easily, when you work that
soft material, that there is nothing like it for
modelling. Out of it come the shapes which
you turn into marble or bronze in your im-
mortal books, if you happen to write such.
Or, to use another illustration, writing or
printing is like shooting with a rifle ; you
may hit your reader's mind, or miss it ; —
but talking is like playing at a mark with
the pipe of an engine ; if it is within reach,
and you have time enough, you can't helj)
hitting it."

The company agreed that this last illus-
tration was of superior excellence, or, in

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 41

the phrase used by them, " Fust-rate.''
I acknowledged the compliment, but gen-
tly rebuked the expression. "Fust-rate,"
"prime," "a prime article," "a superior
piece of goods," " a handsome garment," " a
gent in a flowered vest," — all such expres-
sions are final. They blast the lineage of
him or her who utters them, for generations
up and down. There is one other phrase
which will soon come to be decisive of a
man's social status, if it is not already :
" That tells the whole story." It is an ex-
pression which vidgar and conceited people
particularly affect, and which well-meaning
ones, who know better, catch from them.
It is intended to stop ail debate, like the
preHous question in the General Coiu-t.
Only it does n't ; simply because " that ''
does not usually tell the whole, nor one half
of the whole story.

— It is an odd idea, that almost all our
people have had a professional education.
To become a doctor a man must study some
three years and hear a thousand lectures,
more or less. Just how much study it takes
to make a lawyer I cannot say, but probably
not more than this. Now, most decent people
hear one hundi-ed lectures or sermons (dis-

42 THE AUTOCRAT OF

courses) on theology every year, — and this,
twenty, tliirty, fifty years together. They
read a great many religious books besides.
The clergy, however, rarely hear any sermons
except what they preach themselves. A dull
preacher might be conceived, therefore, to
lapse into a state of quasi heathenism, sim-
ply for want of religious instruction. And,
on the other hand, an attentive and intelli-
gent hearer, listening to a succession of vnse
teachers, might become actually better edu-
cated in theology than any one of them.
We are all theological students, and more
of us qualified as doctors of divinity than
have received degrees at any of the univer-
sities.

It is not strange, therefore, that very good
people shoidd often find it difficidt, if not
impossible, to keep their attention fixed upon
a sermon ti-eating feebly a subject which they
have thought vigorously about for years, and
heard able men discuss scores of times. I
have often noticed, however, that a hopelessly
dull discourse acts inductively, as electri-
cians woidd say, in developing strong mental
cm'rents. I am ashamed to tliink with what
accompaniments and variations and flour-
ishes I have sometimes followed the droning

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 43

of a heavy speaker, — not willingly, — for
my habit is reverential, — but as a necessary
result of a slight continuous impression on
the senses and the mind, which kept both
in action without furnishing the food they
required to work upon. If you ever saw a
crow with a king-bird after him, you will
get an image of a dull speaker and a lively
listener. The bird in sable plimiage flaps
heavily along his straightforward course,
wliile the other sails round him, over him,
under him, leaves him, comes back again,
tweaks out a black feather, shoots away
once more, never losing sight of him, and
finally reaches the crow's perch at the same
time the crow does, having cut a perfect laby-
rinth of loops and knots and spirals while
the slow fowl was painfidly working from
one end of his straight line to the other.

[I think these remarks were received
rather coolly. A temporary boarder from
the country, consisting of a somewhat more
than middle-aged female, with a parchment
forehead and a dry little " frisette " shin-
gling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of
gold beads, a black dress too rusty for recent
ffrief, and contours in basso-rilievo, left the
' table prematurely, and was reported to have

44 THE AUTOCRAT OF

been very virulent about what I said. So I
went to my good old minister, and repeated
the remarks, as nearly as I could remember
them, to him. He laughed good-naturedly,
and said there was considerable truth in
them. He thought he could tell when peo-
ple's minds were wandering, by their looks.
In the earlier years of his ministry he had
sometimes noticed this, when he was preach-
ing ; — very little of late years. Sometimes,
when his colleague was preacliing, he ob-
served tliis kind of inattention ; but after
all, it was not so very imnatural. I \\nll say,
by the way, that it is a rule I have long fol-
lowed, to tell my worst thoughts to my min-
ister, and my best thoughts to the yoimg
people I talk with.]

— I want to make a literary confession
now, which I believe nobody has made be-
fore me. You know very well that I write
verses sometimes, because I have read some
of them at this table. (The company as-
sented, — two or three of them in a re-
signed sort of way, as I thought, as if they
supposed I had an epic in my pocket, and
were going to read half a dozen books or so
for their benefit.) — I continued. Of course
I write some lines or passages which are bet-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 45

ter than others : some which, compared with
the others, might be called relatively excel-
lent. It is in the natm-e of things that I
slioidd consider these relatively excellent
lines or passages as absolutely good. So
much must be pardoned to humanity. Xow
I never wrote a '* good " line in my life, but
the moment after it was written it seemed a
hundred years old. Very commonly I had
a sudden conWction that I had seen it some-
where. Possibly I may have sometimes un-
consciously stolen it, but I do not remember
that I ever once detected any historical
truth in these sudden con^^ctions of the an-
tiquity of my new thought or phrase. I have
learned utterly to distrust them, and never
allow them to bully me out of a thought or
line.

This is the philosophy of it. (Here the
number of the company was diminished by
a small secession.) Any new formula which
suddenly emerges in our consciousness has
its roots in long trains of thought ; it is
%ni'tually old when it fii'st makes its appear-
ance amono- the reeoonized oTo\\"ths of our
intellect. Any crystalline group of musical
words has had a long and still period to form
in. Here is one theory.

46 THE AUTOCRAT OF

But there is a larger law which perhaps
comprehends these facts. It is this. The
rapidity with which ideas grow old in our
memories is in a direct ratio to the squares
of their importance. Their apparent age
runs up miraculously, like the value of dia-
monds, as they increase in magnitude. A
great calamity, for instance, is as old as the
trilobites an hour after it has happened. It
stains backward tlu-ough all the leaves we
have turned over in the book of life, before
its blot of tears or of blood is dry on the
page we are turning. For this we seem to
have lived ; it was foreshadowed in dreams
that we leaped out of in the cold sweat of
terror ; in the " dissolving views " of dark
day-visions ; all omens pointed to it : all
paths led to it. After the tossing half-f or-
getfidness of the first sleep that follows such
an event, it comes upon us afresh, as a sm'-
prise, at waking ; in a few moments it is old
again, — old as eternity.

[I wish I had not said all this then and
there. I might have known better. The
pale schoolmistress, in her mourning dress,
was looking at me, as I noticed, with a wild
sort of expression. All at once the blood
dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 47

drops from a broken barometer-tube, and
she melted away from her seat like an image
of snow ; a slung-shot could not have brought
her down better. God forgive me !

After this little episode, I continued, to
some few who remained balancing teaspoons
on the edges of cups, twirling knives, or tilt-
ing upon the hind legs of their chairs until
their heads reached the wall, where they left
gratuitous advertisements of various popular
cosmetics.]

When a person is suddenly thrust into
any strange, new jjosition of trial, he finds
the place fits him as if he had been meas-
ured for it. He has committed a great
^crime, for instance, and is sent to the State
Prison. The traditions, prescriptions, limi-
tations, privileges, all the sharp conditions
of his new life, stamp themselves upon his
consciousness as the signet on soft wax ;
— a single pressure is enough. Let me
strengthen the image a little. Did you ever
happen to see that most soft-spoken and vel-
vet-handed steam-engine at the Mint ? The
smooth piston slides backward and forward
as a lady might slip her delicate finger in
and out of a ring. The engine lays one of
its fhigers calmly, but firndy, upon a bit of

48 THE AUTOCRAT OF

metal ; it is a coin now, and will remember
that touch, and tell a new race about it, when
the date ujDon it is crusted over with twenty
centuries. So it is that a great silent-moving
misery puts a new stamp on us in an hour
or a moment, — as sharp an imj^ression as if
it had taken half a lifetime to engrave it.

It is awful to be in the hands of the
wholesale professional dealers in misfortune ;
undertakers and jailers magnetize you in a
moment, and you pass out of the individual
life you were living into the rhythmical
movements of their horrible machinery. Do
the worst thing j^ou can, or suffer the worst
that can be thought of, you find yourself in
a category of humanity that stretches back
as far as Cain, and with an expert at yoiu*
elbow who has studied your case all out be-
forehand, and is waiting for you with his
implements of hemp or mahogany. I be-
lieve, if a man were to be burned in any of
our cities to-morrow for heresy, there would
be found a master of ceremonies who knew
just how many fagots were necessary, and
the best way of arranging the whole matter.^

^ Accidents are liable to happen if no thoroughly
trained expert happens to be present. ^Vllen Catharine
Hays was burnt at Tyburn, in 172G, the officiating- artist

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 49

— So we liave not won the Goodwood
cup; au contraire, we were a "bad fifth,"
if not worse than that ; and trying it again,
and the third time, has not yet bettered the
matter. Now I am as patriotic as any of my
fellow-citizens, — too patriotic in fact, for I
have got into hot water by loving too much
of my eomitry ; in short, if any man, whose
fighting weight is not more than eight stone
four jjoiinds, disputes it, I am ready to dis-
cuss the point ^ith him. I shoidd have
gloried to see the stars and stripes in front
at the finish. I love my coimtry and I love
horses. Stubbs's old mezzotint of Eclipse

scorched his own hands, and the whole business was awk-
wardly managed for want of practical familiarity with
the process. We have still remaining a giude to direct
US in one important part of the arrangements. Bishop
Hooper was burned at Gloucester, England, in the year
1.5.5.5. A few years ago in making certain excavations,
the charred stump of the stake to which he was bound
was discovered. An account of the interesting ceremony,
so important in ecclesiastical history — the argumentum ad
ignem, with a photograph of the half-burned stick of
timber was sent me by my friend. Mr. John Bellows, of
Gloucester, a zealous antiquarian, widely known by his
wonderful miniature French dictionary, one of the schol-
arly printei-s and publishers who honor the calling of
Aldus and the Elzevirs. The stake was big enough to
chain the whole Bench of Bishops to as fast as the Atha-
nasian creed still holds them.

VOL. I.

so THE AUTOCRAT OF

hangs over my desk, and Herring's portrait
of Plenipotentiary — whom I saw rmi at
Epsom — over my fireplace. Did I not
elope from school to see Revenge, and Pros-
pect, and Little John, and Peacemaker run
over the race-course where now yon sub-
urban Aallage flourishes, in the year eighteen
himdred and ever-so-few ? Though I never
owned a horse, have I not been the projH-i-
etor of six equine females, of wliich one
was the prettiest little " Morgin " that ever
stepped? Listen, then, to an opinion I
have often expressed long before this ven-
ture of ours in England. Hovse-rctcmg is
not a republican institution : hovse-trotting
is. Onl}^ very rich persons can keep race-
horses, and everybody knows they are kept
mainly as gambling implements. All that
matter about blood and speed we won't dis-
cuss ; we understand all that ; useful, very,
— of course, — gTeat obligations to the Go-
dolphin " Arabian,'" and the rest. I say
racing-horses are essentially gambling imjile-
ments, as much as roulette tables. Now, I
am not preaching at this moment ; I may
read you one of my sermons some other
morning ; but I maintain that gambling, on
the great scale, is not republican. It be-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 51

longs to two phases of society, — a cankered
over-civilization, such as exists in rich aris-
tocracies, and the reckless life of border-
ers and adventurers, or the semi-barbarism
of a civilization resolved into its primitive
elements. Real Republicanism is stern and
severe ; its essence is not in forms of gov-
ernment, but in the omnipotence of public
opinion which grows out of it. This public
opinion cannot prevent gambling with dice
or stocks, but it can and does compel it to
keep comparatively quiet. But horse-racing
is the most public way of gambling, and
with all its immense attractions to the sense
and the feelings, — to which I plead very sus-
ceptible, — the disgtuse is too thin that cov-
ers it, and everybody' knows what it means.
Its supporters are the Southern gentry. —
fine fellows, no doubt, but not republicans
exactly, as we miderstand the term, — a few
Xorthern millionnaires more or less thor-
oughly millioned, who do not represent the
real people, and the mob of sporting men,
the best of whom are commonly idlers, and
the worst very bad neighbors to have near
one in a crowd, or to meet in a dark alley.
In England, on the other hand, with its
aristocratic institutions, racing is a natural

52 THE AUTOCRAT OF

growth enougli ; the passion for it spreads
downwards through all classes, from the
Queen to the eosterinonger. I^ondon is like
a shelled corn-cob on the Derby day, and
there is not a clerk who could raise the
mone}^ to liire a saddle with an old hack
under it that can sit down on his office-stool
the next day wdthout wincing.

Now just compare the racer with the trot-
ter for a moment. The racer is inciden-
tally usefid, but essentially sometlung to bet
upon, as much as the thimble-rigger's " little
joker." The trotter is essentially and daily
useful, and only incidentally a tool for sport-
ing men.

What better reason do jon want for the
fact that the racer is most cultivated and
reaches his greatest perfection in England,
and that the trotting horses of America beat
the world? And why shoidd we have ex-
pected that the pick — if it was the pick —
of our few and far-bet^^een racing stables
should beat the pick of England and France ?
Throw over the fallacious time-test, and
there was nothing to show for it but a nat-
ui'al kind of patriotic feeling, which we all
have, with a thoroughly provincial conceit,
wliich some of us must plead guilty to.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 53

We may beat yet.^ As an American, I
hope we shall. As a moralist and occa-
sional sermonizer, I am not so anxious about
it. Wherever the trotting horse goes, he
carries in his train brisk omnibuses, lively
bakers' carts, and therefore hot rolls, the
jolly butcher's wagon, the cheerful gig, the
wholesome afternoon drive with wife and
child, — all the forms of moral excellence,
except truth, which does not agree with any
kind of horse-flesh. The racer brings with
him gambling, cursing, swearing, drinking,
and a distaste for mob-caps and the middle-
aged virtues.

^ We have beaten in many races in England since this
was written, and at last carried o£E the blue ribbon of the
turf at Epsom. But up to the present time trotting
matches and base-ball are distinctively American, as con-
trasted with running races and cricket, which belong, as
of right, to England. The wonderful effects of breeding
and training in a particular direction are shown in the
records of the trotting horse. In 1S44 Lady Suffolk
trotted a mile in 2 : 26^, which was, I think, the fastest
time to that date. In 1859 Flora Temple's time at Kal-
amazoo — I remember Mr. Emerson surprised me once
by correcting my error of a quarter of a second in men-
tioning it — was 2:19|. Dexter in 1807 brought the
figure down to 2:17|. There is now a whole class of
horses that can trot under 2:20, and in 1881 Maud S.
distanced all previous records with 2 : lOj. Many of our
best runuins: horses go to England. Racing in distinc-

54 THE AUTOCRAT OF

And by the way, let me beg 5^011 not to
call a trotting match a race, and not to
speak of a " tliorouglibred " as a '' blooded "
horse, unless he has been recently phlebot-
omized. I consent to your saying " blood
horse," if you like. Also, if, next year, we
send out Posterior and Posterioress, the win-
ners of the gTcat national four-mile race in
7:18|-, and they happen to get beaten, pay
your bets, and behave like men and gentle-
men abovit it, if you know how.

[I felt a great deal better after blowing
off the ill-temper condensed in the above
paragraph. To brag little, — to show well,
— to crow gently, if in luck, — to pay up, to
own up, and to shut up, if beaten, are the
virtues of a sporting man, and I can't say
that I think we have sho^^al them in any
gi'eat perfection of late.]

— Apropos of horses. Do you know how
important good jockeying is to authors ?
Judicious management; letting the public
see your animal just enough, and not too
much ; holding him up hard when the mar-
ket is tod full of him ; letting him out at

tion from trotting, I tliink, attracts less attention in this
conntry now than in the days of American Eclipse and
Henry.

^^'k

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE S5

just the right buying intervals ; always gently
feeling his mouth; never slacking and never
jerking the rein ; — this is what I mean by
jockeying.

— When an author has a nmnber of books
out, a cunning hand will keep them all spin-
ning, as SigTior Blitz does his dinner-plates ;
fetching each one up, as it begins to "wab-
ble," by an advertisement, a puff, or a quo-
tation.

— Whenever the extracts from a living-
writer begin to multiply fast in the papers,
without ob^aous reason, there is a new book
or a new edition coming. The extracts are
ground-hait.

— Literary life is full of ciu'ious phenom-
ena. I don't know that there is anything
more noticeable than what we may call con-
ventional reputations. There is a tacit im-
derstanding in every communits' of men of
letters that they will not distiu'b the popular
fallacy respecting this or that electro-gilded
celebrity. There are various reasons for this
forbearance : one is old ; one is rich ; one is
good-natured ; one is such a favorite with
the pit that it woidd not be safe to hiss hun
from the manager's box. The venerable au-
gurs of the literary or scientific temple may

$6 THE AUTOCRAT OF

smile faintly wlien one of the tribe is men-
tioned ; but tlie farce is in general kept up
as well as the Chinese comic scene of en-
treating- and imploring a man to stay with
yon, with the imjilied compact between you
that he shall by no means think of doing it.
A poor wretch he must be who would wan-
tonly sit down on one of these bandbox rep-
utations. A Prince-Rupert' s-drop, which is
a tear of unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely,
if you keep it from meddling hands ; but
break its tail off, and it explodes and re-
solves itself into powder. These celebrities
I speak of are the Prince-Rupert's-drops of
the learned and polite world. See how the
papers treat them ! What an array of pleas-
ant kaleidoscopic phrases, which can be ar-
ranged in ever so many charming patterns,
is at their service ! How kind the " Critical
Notices " — where small authorship comes
to pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary,
and sappy — always are to them ! Well,
life would be nothing without paper-credit
and other fictions ; so let them pass current.
Don't steal their chips ; don't puncture their
swimming-bladders ; don't come down on
their pasteboard boxes ; don't break the ends
of their brittle and unstable reputations,

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE ^J

you fellows who all feel sure that your
names will be household words a thousaud
years from now.

" A thousand years is a good while," said
the old gentleman who sits opposite, thought-
fidly.

— ^^"here have I been for the last three
or foiu- days? Down at the Island,^ deer
shooting. — How many did I bag ? I brought
home one buck shot. — The Island is where ?
No matter. It is the most splendid domain
that any man looks uj)on in these latitudes.
Blue sea around it. and running up into its
heart, so that the little boat slumbers like a
baby in lap, while the tall ships are sti-ip-
jjing naked to fight the hurricane outside,
and storm-stay-sails banging and flying in
ribbons. Trees, in stretches of miles ;
beeches, oaks, most numerous ; — many of
them hung with moss, looking like bearded
Druids ; some coiled in the clasp of huge,
dark-stemmed grape-vines. Open patches
where the sim gets in and goes to sleep, and

^ The beautiful island referred to is Xaushon, the
largest of a group lying between Buzzard's Bay and the
Vineyard Sound, south of the main land of Massachu-
setts. It is the noblest domain in New England, and the
present Lord of the Manor is worthy of succeeding ''the
Governor ' ' of blessed memory.

58 THE AUTOCRAT OF

the winds come so finely sifted that they are
as soft as swan's-down. Rocks scattered
about, — Stonehenge-like monoliths. Fresh-
water lakes ; one of them, Mary's lake, crys-
tal-clear, full of flasliing pickerel lying un-
der the lily-pads like tigers in the jungle.
Six pounds of ditto killed one morning for
breakfast. ^GO J'ecit.

The divinity-student looked as if he woidd
like to question my Latin. No sir, I said,
— you need not trouble yourself. There is a
higher law in grammar not to be put down
by Andrews and Stoddard. Then I went on.

Such hosjjitality as that island has seen
there has not been the like of in these our
New England sovereignties. There is no-
thing in the shape of kindness and courtesy
that can make life beautiful, which has not
found its home in that ocean-principality. It
has welcomed all who were worthy of wel-
come, from the pale clergyman who came to
breathe the sea-air with its medicinal salt
and iodine, to the great statesman who
turned his back on the affairs of emjiire,
and smoothed his Olympian forehead, and
flashed his white teeth in merriment over
the long table, where his wit was the keenest
and his story the best.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 59

[I don't believe any man ever talked like
that in this world. I don't believe / talked
jnst so ; but the fact is, in reporting one's
conversation, one cannot help Bhdr-mg it
up more or less, ironing out crmnpled para-
graphs, starching limp ones, and crimping
and plaiting a little sometimes ; it is as nat-
ural as prinking at the looking-glass.]

— How can a man help writing poetry in
such a place ? Everybody does write poetry
that goes there. In the state archives, kept
in the library of the Lord of the Isle, ai:e
whole volmnes of unpublished verse, — some
by well-knowni hands, and others quite as
good, by the last people you would think of
as versifiers, — men who could pension off all
the genuine jjoets in the country, and buy
ten acres of Boston Conunon, if it was for
sale, with what they had left. Of course I
had to write my little copy of verses with
the rest ; here it is, if you will hear me read
it. When the sun is in the west, vessels
sailing in an easterly direction look bright
or dark to one who observes them from the
north or south, according to the tack they
are sailing upon. Watching them from one
of the windows of the great mansion, I saw
these perpetual changes, and moralized thus :

6o THE AUTOCRAT OF

SUNANDSFI-^Db

A Is I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green,
To the billows of foam-crested blue,

Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen,

Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue :
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray

As the chaff in the stroke of the flail ;
Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way,
The sun gleaming bright on her sail.

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun, —

Of breakers that whiten and roar ;
How little he cares, if in shadow or sun

They see him that gaze from the shore !
He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef.

To the rock that is under his lee,
As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf.

O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea.

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves

Where life and its ventures are laid,
The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves

May see us in sunshine or shade ;
Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark.

We '11 trim our broad sail as before ;
And stand by the rudder that governs the bark,

Nor ask how we look from the shore !

— Insanity is often the logic of an accu-
rate mind overtasked. Good mental machin-
ery ought to break its own wheels and levers,

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 6l

if anything is thrust among them suddenly
which tends to stop them or reverse their
motion. A weak mmd does not accumulate
force enough to hurt itseK ; stupidity^ often
saves a man from going mad. We fre-
quently see persons in insane hospitals, sent
there in consequence of what are called reU-
gious mental disturbances. I confess that
I think better of them than of many who
hold the same notions, and keep their wits
and appear to enjoy life very well, outside
of the asylums. Any decent person ought
to go mad, if he really holds such or such
opinions. It is very much to his discredit
in every point of view, if he does not. What
is the use of my saying what some of these
opinions are ? Perhaps more than one of
you hold such as I shoidd think ought to
send you straight over to Somerville, if you
have any logic in your heads or any hmnan
feeling in yoiu- hearts. Anything that is
brutal, cruel, heathenish, that makes life
hopeless for the most of mankind and per-
haps for entire races, — anything that as-
sumes the necessity of the extermination of
instincts which were given to be reg-ulated,
— no matter by what name you call it, —
no matter whether a fakir, or a monk, or

62 THE AUTOCRAT OF

a deacon believes it, — if received, ought to
produce insanity in every well-regulated
mind. That condition becomes a normal
one, luider the circumstances. I am very
much ashamed of some people for retaining
their reason, when they know j^ei-fectly well
that if they were not the most stupid or the
most selfish of hmnan beings, they would
become non-compotes at once.

[Nobody imderstood this but the theolo-
gical student and the schoolmistress. They
looked intelligently at each other; but
whether they were thinking about my para-
dox or not, I am not clear. — It would be
natural enough. Stranger things have hap-
pened. Love and Death enter boarding-
houses without askmg the price of board,
or whether there is room for them. Alas !
these yoiuig peoj^le are poor and pallid !
Love should be both rich and rosy, but must
be either rich or rosy. Talk about military
duty ! What is that to the warfare of a
married maid-of-all-work, ^^^th the title of
mistress, and an American female constitu-
tion, which collapses just in the middle third
of life, and comes out \ideanized India-rub-
ber, if it happen to live through the jjeriod
when health and strength are most wanted ?j

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 63

— Have I ever acted in private theatri-
cals? Often. I have played the part of
the "■ Poor Gentleman," before a great many
audiences, — more, I trust, than I shall ever
face again. I did not wear a stage-costume,
nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork,
but I was placarded and announced as a
public performer, and at the proper hour I
came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile
upon my countenance, and made my bow
and acted my part. I have seen my name
stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed
to show myself in the place by daylight. I
have gone to a to^^■ll with a sober literary
essay in my pocket, and seen myself every-
where announced as the most desperate of
huff OS, — one who was obliged to restrain
himseK in the full exercise of his powers,
from prudential considerations. I have been
through as many hardships as Ulysses, in
the pursuit of my histrionic vocation. I
have travelled in cars mitil the conductors
all knew me like a brother. I have run off
the rails, and stuck all night in snow-drifts,
and sat behind females that would have the
window open when one could not wink with-
out his eyelids freezing together. Perhaps I
shall give you some of my experiences one

64 THE AUTOCRAT OF

of these clays ; — I will not now, for I have
something* else for you.

Private theatricals, as I have figured in
them in country lyceum-halls, are one thing,
— and private theatricals, as they may be
seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons
of our metropolis, are another. Yes, it is
pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies,
who do not think it necessary to mouth, and
rant, and stride, like most of our stage
heroes and heroines, in the characters which
show off their graces and talents ; most of
all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, high-
bred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and
a pleasant voice, acting in those love-dramas
which make ns young again to look upon,
when real youth aud beauty will play them
for us.

— Of course I wrote the prologue I was
asked to write. I did not see the play,
though. I knew there was a young lady in
it, and that somebody was in love with her,
and she was in love with him, and somebody
(an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere,
and, very naturally, the young lady was too
sharp for him. The play of course ends
charmingly ; there is a general reconciliation,
and all concerned form a line and take each

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 65

Other's hands, as people always do after they
have made up their quarrels, — and then the
curtain falls, — if it does not stick, as it
commonly does at private theatrical exhibi-
tions, in which case a boy is detailed to pull
it down, which he does, blushing violently.

Now, then, for my prologue. I am not
going to change my ctesuras and cadences
for anybody ; so if you do not like the he-
roic, or iambic trimeter brachycatalectic, you
had better not wait to hear it.

ry''' ^' THIS IS IT ^^

A

PROLOGUE? WeU, of course the ladies
know ; —
I have my doubts. No matter, — here we go !
What is a prologue ? Let our Tutor teach :
Tro means beforehand ; logus stands for speech.
'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings,
The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings.

" The world 's a stage," — as Shakespeare said, one day ;

The stage a world • — was what he meant to say.

The outside world 's a blunder, that is clear ;

The real world that Nature meant is here.

Here every foundling finds its lost mamma :

Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa ;

Misers relent, the spendthrif t"s debts are paid,

VOL. I.

66 THE AUTOCRAT OP'

The cheats are taken in the traps they laid ;
One after one the trovibles all are past
Till the fifth act comes right side up at last,
When the young coujjle, old folks, rogues, and all,
Join hands,j^o happy at the curtain's fall.

— Here suffering virtvie ever finds relief,

And black-browed ruffians always come to grief,

— When the lorn damsel, with a frantic speech,
And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach.

Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven!" and drops upon her

knees
On the green — baize, — beneath the (canvas) trees, —
See to her side avenging Valor fly : —
''Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die ! "

— When the poor hero flounders in despair,
Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire, —
Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy,

Sobs on his neck, " My hoy ! Mv boy ! ! MY BOY ! ! ! "

Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night
Of love that conquers in disaster's spite.
Ladies, attend ! While woful cares and doubt
Wrong the soft passion in the world without.
Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere,
One thing is certain : Love will triumph here !

Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule, —

The world's great masters, when you 're out of school, — •

Learn the brief moral of our evening's play :

Man has his will, — but woman has her way !

While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire,

Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire, —

The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves

Beats the black giant with his score of slaves.

All earthly powers confess your sovereign art

But that one rebel, — woman's wilful heart,

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE dy

All foes you master ; but a woman's wit

Lets daylight through you ere you know you 're hit.

So, just to pietura what her art can do,

Hear an old story made as good as new.

Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade,

Alike was famous for his arm and blade.

One day a prisoner Justice had to kill

Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill.

Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed,

Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd.

His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam.

As the pike's armor flashes in the stream.

He sheathed his blade ; he turned as if to go ;

The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow.

" Why strikest not ? Perform thy murderous act,"

The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.)

" Friend I have, struck," the artist straight replied ;

" Wait but one moment, and yourself decide."

He held his snuff-box, — " Now then, if you please ! "
The prisoner sniffed, and with a crashing sneeze.
Off his head tumbled, — bowled along the floor, —
Boimeed down the steps ; — the prisoner said no more !

Woman I thy falchion is a glittering eye ;
If death lurks in it, oh, how sweet to die !
Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head ;
We die with love, and never dream we 're dead !

The prologue went off very well, as I hear.
No alterations were suggested by the lady
to whom it was sent, so far as I know.
Sometimes people criticise the poems one
sends them, and suggest all sorts of im-

68 THE AUTOCRAT OF

jirovements.^ Who was that sill}^ body that
wanted Burns to alter " Scots wha hae," so
as to lengthen the last line, thus ? —

" Edward ! " Chains and slavery.

Here is a little poem I sent a shoi*t time
since to a conunittee for a certain celebra-
tion. I understood that it was to be a festive
and convivial occasion, and ordered myself
accordingly. It seems the president of the
day was what is called a "teetotaller." I
received a note from him in the following
words, containing the copy subjoined, with
the emendations annexed to it.

"Dear Sir, — Your poem gives good sat-
isfaction to the committee. The sentiments
expressed with reference to liquor are not,
however, those generally entertained by this
community. I have therefore consulted the
clergyman of this place, who has made some
slight changes, which he thinks will remove

^ I remember being asked by a celebrated man of let-
ters to let him look over an early, but somewhat elaborate
poem of mine. He read the manuscript and suggested
the change of one word, which I adopted in deference to
his opinion. The emendation was anything but an im-
provement, and in later editions the passage reads as
when first written.

THE BREAKF"AST- TABLE 69

all objections, and keep tlie valuable por-
tions of the poem. Please to infonn me of
your charge for said poem. Our means are
limited, etc., etc., etc.

"Yours with respect."

Here it is, — vrith. the slight alterations.^

Come ! £111 a fresh bumper, — for whT should we go

While the nootar still reddens our cups as they flow!

decoction

Pour out the rioh jniooO' still bright with the sun,

dvc->tiiff

Till o"er the brimmed crystal the rubioa shall run.

half-ripened apples
The pnrplo globed olajtoro their life-dews have bled ;

_tastf- etigar of lead

How sweet is the breath of the frgnrraaoo thoT obod !

rank poi.-ons irinej ' '. '.

For sunmier's lact roooo lie hid in the winoo

stahlfr-boy- =moking long-nines.

That were garnered by maidcno who laughed tIirou;;b the

scowl howl scoff sneer

Then a cmilo and a glass and a toaat and a <ihoo»

strychnine and whifkev, and rat-bane and beer

For all the good wino. and wo' to oomo of it hero
In cellar, in pantrj-, in attic, in ball.

Down, down, with tr.e tvrnrt tb-it mi-tfg n^ r" :

Long Utc the gay acrrant that laiigb3 for u3 all J-

1 I recollect a British criticism of the poem '" with the
slight alterations," in which the writer was quite indig-
nant at the treatment my convivial song had received.
Xo committee, he thought, would dare to treat a Scotch

70 THE AUTOCRAT

The company said I had been shabbily
treated, and advised nie to charge the com-
mittee double, — which I did. But as I
never got my pay, I don't know that it made
much difference. I am a very particular
person about having all I write printed as I
write it. I require to see a proof, a revise,
a re-revise, and a double re-revise, or fourth-
proof rectified impression of all my produc-
tions, especially verse. A misprint kills a
sensitive author. An intentional change of
his text murders him. No wonder so many
poets die young !

I have nothing more to report at this
time, except two pieces of advice I gave to
the young women at table. One relates to
a vulgarism of language, which I grieve to
say is sometimes heard even from female
lips. The other is of more serious purport,
and applies to such as contemplate a change
of condition, — matrimony, in fact.

— The woman who " calc'lates " is lost.

— Put not your trust in money, but put
your money in trust.

author in that way. I couhl not help being reminded of
Sydney Smith, and the surgical operation he proposed,
in order to get a pleasantry into the head of a North
Briton.

Ill

,HE "Atlantic" obeys the
moon, and its Luniversary
has come round asfain. I
have gathered up some hasty
notes of my remarks made since
the last high tides, which I re-
spectfully submit. Please to re-
member this is talh ; just as easy
and just as formal as I choose to make
it]

— I never saw an author in my life —
saving, perhaps, one — that did not purr as
audibly as a full-grown domestic cat (^Felis
Catus, Linn.) on having his fur smoothed
in the right way by a skilful hand.

But let me give you a caution. Be very
careful how you tell an author he is droll.
Ten to one he will hate you ; and if he does,

72 THE AUTOCRAT OF

be sure lie can do you a mischief, and very
jjrobably will. Say you cried over his ro-
mance or his verses, and he will love you
and send you a copy. You can laugh over
that as much as you like, — in private.

— Wonder why authors and actors are
ashamed of being funny ? — Wh3% there
are obvious reasons, and deep philosophical
ones. The clown knows very well that the
women are not in love with him, but with
Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and
plumed hat. Passion never laughs. The
wit knows that his place is at the tail of a
procession.

If you want the deep imderlying reason,
I must take more time to tell it. There is a
perfect consciousness in every form of wit,

— using that term in its general sense, —
that its essence consists in a partial and
incomplete A^ew of whatever it touches. It
throws a single ray, separated from the rest,

— red, yellow, blue, or any intermediate
shade, — upon an object ; never white light,
that is the province of wisdom. We get
beautiful effects from wit, — all the pris-
matic colors, — but never the object as it is
in fair daylight. A pun, which is a kind of
wit, is a different and much shallower trick

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 11

in mental optics ; thi'owing the shadoics of
two objects so that one overlies the other.
Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special
efifects, but always keeps its essential object
in the purest white light of truth. — Will
you allow me to pursue this subject a little
farther ?

[They did n't allow me at that time, for
somebody happened to scrape the floor with
his chair just then ; which accidental sound,
as all must have noticed, has the instanta-
neous effect that the cutting of the yellow
hair by Iris had upon infelix Dido. It broke
the charm, and that breakfast was over.]

— Don't flatter yourselves that friendship
authorizes you to say disagreeable things to
your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer
you come into relation with a person, the
more necessary do tact and courtesy become.
Except in cases of necessity", which are rare,
leave your friend to learn unpleasant tiaiths
from his enemies ; they are ready enough to
tell them. Good-breeding never forgets that
amour-propre is miiversal. AVhen you read
the story of the Archbishop and Gil Bias,
you may laugh, if you will, at the poor old
man's delusion ; but don't forget that the
youth was the greater fool of the two, and

74 THE AUTOCRAT OF

that liis master served such a booby rightly
in turning him out of doors.

— You need not get up a rebellion against
what I say, if you find everything in my
sayings is not exactly new. You can't pos-
sibly mistake a man who means to be honest
for a literary pickpocket. I once read an
introductory lecture that looked to me too
learned for its latitude. On examination, I
found all its erudition w^as taken ready-made
from Disraeli. If I had been ill-natured, I
should have shown up the little great man,
who had once belabored me in his feeble
way. But one can generally tell these
wholesale thieves easily enough, and they are
not worth the trouble of putting them in the
pillory. I doubt the entire novelty of my
remarks just made on telling unpleasant
truths, yet I am not conscious of any lar-
ceny.

Neither make too much of flaws and occa-
sional overstatements. Some persons seem
to think that absolute truth, in the form of
rigidly stated propositions, is all that con-
versation admits. This is precisely as if a
musician should insist on having nothing but
perfect chords and simple melodies, — no
diminished fifths, no flat sevenths, no flour-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 75

ishes, on any account. Now it is fair to say,
that, just as music must have all these, so
conversation must have its partial truths, its
embellished truths, its exaggerated truths.
It is in its higher forms an artistic product,
and admits the ideal element as much as
pictures or statues. One man who is a little
too literal can spoil the talk of a whole
tableful of men of esprit. — " Yes," you
say, "but who wants to hear fancifid peo-
ple's nonsense ? Put the facts to it, and then
see where it is I " — Certainly, if a man is
too fond of paradox, — if he is flighty and
empty, — if, instead of striking those fifths
and sevenths, those harmonious discords,
often so much better than the twinned oc-
taves, in the music of thought, — if, instead
of striking these, he jangles the chords, stick
a fact into him like a stiletto. But remem-
ber that talking is one of the fine arts, —
the noblest, the most important, and the
most difficult, — and that its fluent harmo-
nies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a
single harsh note. Therefore conversation
which is suggestive rather tlian argmnenta-
tive, which lets out the most of each talker's
results of thought, is commonly the pleasant-
est and the most profitable. It is not easy,

^(> THE AUTOCRAT OF

at the best, for two persons talking together
to make the most of each other's thoughts,
there are so many of them.

[The company looked as if they wanted
an explanation.]

When John and Thomas, for instance,
ai*e talking together, it is natural enough
that among the six there should be more or
less confusion and misapj)rehension.

[Our landlady turned pale ; — no doubt
she thought there was a screw loose in my
intellects, — and that involved the probable
loss of a boarder. A severe-looking person,
who wears a Siianish cloak and a sad cheek,
fluted by the passions of the melodrama,
whom I understand to be the professional
ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded,
with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing
down of the corners of the mouth, and some-
what rasping voce di petto^ to Falstaff "s nine
men in buckram. Everybody looked up;
I believe the old gentleman oj)posite was
afraid I should seize the carving-knife; at
any rate, he slid it to one side, as it were
carelessly.]

I think, I said, I can make it plain to
Benjamin Franklin here, that there are at
least six personalities distinctly to be rec-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE n

ognized as taking- part in that dialogue be-
tween Jolm and Thomas.

f 1. The real John ; known only to his
Maker.

2. John's ideal John ; never the real one,
Three Johns. \ and often very unlike him.

3. Thomas's ideal John; never the real
John, nor John's John, but often

I very unlike either.

r 1. The real Thomas.
Three Thomases. \ '1. Thomas's ideal Thomas.
[ 3. John's ideal Thomas.

Only one of the three Johns is taxed;
only one can be weighed on a platform-bal-
ance ; but the other two are just as mipor-
tant in the conversation. Let us suppose
the real John to be old, dull, and ill-looking.
But as the Higher Powers have not con-
ferred on men the gift of seeing themselves
in the true light, John very possibly con-
ceives himseK to be youthful, witty, and fas-
cinating, and talks from the point of view
of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him
to be an artful rogue, we will say ; therefore
he ?s, so far as Thomas's attitude in the
conversation is concerned, an artful rogue
though really simple and stu]jid. The same
conditions apply to the three Thomases. It

78 THE AUTOCRAT OP^

follows, that, until a man can be found who
knows himself as his Maker knows him, or
who sees himself as others see him, there
must be at least six persons engaged in every
dialogue between two. Of these, the least
important, philosophically speaking, is the
one that we have called the real i^erson. Ko
wonder two disputants often get angry, when
there are six of them talking and listening
all at the same time.

[A very miphilosophical application of
the above remarks was made by a young fel-
low answering to the name of John, who
sits near me at table. A certain basket of
peaches, a rare vegetable, little known to
boarding-houses, was on its way to me via
this imlettered Johannes. He appropriated
the three that remained in the basket, re-
marking that there was just one apiece for
him. I convinced him that his practical
inference was hasty and illogical, but in the
mean time he had eaten the peaches.]

— The opinions of relatives as to a man's
powers are very commonly of little value;
not merely because they sometimes overrate
their o\vn flesh and blood, as some may sup-
pose ; on the contrar}', they are quite as
likely to underrate those whom they have

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 79

grown into the haljit of considering like
themselves. The advent of genius is like
what florists style the hrealinr/ of a seed-
ling tidip into what we may call high-caste
colors, — ten thousand dingy flowers, then
one with the divine streak ; or, if you prefer
it, like the coming up in old Jacob's garden
of that most gentlemanly little fruit, the
seckel pear, which I have sometimes seen in
shop-windows. It is a surprise, — there is
nothing to account for it. All at once we
find that twice two make Jive. Nature is
fond of what are called " gift- enterprises."
This little book of life which she has given
into the hands of its joint possessors is com-
monly one of the old story-books bound over
again. Only once in a great while there is
a stately poem in it, or its leaves are illu-
minated with the glories of art, or they en-
fold a draft for untold values signed by the
million-fold millionnaire old mother herself.
But strangers are commonly the first to find
the " gift " that came with the little book.

It may be questioned whether anything
can be conscious of its own flavor. Whether
the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a
still more eloquently silent animal that might
be mentioned, is aware of any personal pe-

So THE AUTOCRAT OF

culiarity, may well be doubted. No man
knows his ovm voice ; many men do not
know tlieir own profiles. Eveiy one remem-
bers Carlyle's famous "Characteristics" ar-
ticle ; allow for exaggerations, and there is a
great deal in his doctrine of the self-vmcon-
sciousness of genius. It comes under the
great law just stated. This incapacity of
knowing its own traits is often found in the
family as well as in the individual. So never
mind what your cousins, brothers, sisters,
uncles, aunts, and the rest, say about that
fine poem you have written, but send it
(postage-paid) to the editors, if there are
any, of the " Atlantic," — which, by the
way, is not so called because it is a notion,
as some dull wits wisli they had said, but
are too late.

— Scientific knowledge, even in the most
modest persons, has mingled ^\^th it a some-
thing wliich partakes of insolence. Abso-
lute, peremptory facts are bullies, and those
who keep company with them are apt to get
a bullying habit of mind ; — not of man-
ners, perhaps ; they may be soft and smooth,
but the smile they carry has a quiet asser-
tion in it, such as the Champion of the
Heavy Weights, commonly the best-natured,

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 8l

but not the most diffident of men, wears
upon what he very inelegantly calls his
" mug." Take the man, for instance, who
deals in the mathematical sciences. There
is no elasticity' in a mathematical fact ; if
you bring up against it, it never yields a
hair's breadth ; everything must go to pieces
that comes in collision with it. What the
mathematician knows being absolute, imcon-
ditional, incapable of suffering question, it
should tend, in the nature of things, to breed
a despotic way of thinking. So of those
who deal with the palpable and often immis-
takable facts of external nature ; only in a
less degi'ee.- Every probability — and most
of our common, working beliefs are proba-
bilities — is provided with buffers at both
ends, which break the force of opposite
opinions clashing against it; but scientific
certainty has no spring in it, no courtesy, no
possibility of yielding. All this must react
on the minds which handle these forms of
truth.

— Oh, you need not tell me that Messrs.
A. and B, are the most gTacious, miassuming
people in the world, and yet preeminent in
the ranges of science I am referring to. I
know that as well as you. But mark this

VOL. I.

82 THE AUTOCRAT OF

which I am going to say once for all : If I
had not force enough to project a principle
full in the face of the half dozen most ob-
vious facts which seem to contradict it, I
would think only in single file from this day
forward. A rash man, once visiting a cer-
tain noted institution at South Boston, ven-
tured to express the sentiment, that man is
a rational being. An old woman who was
an attendant in the Idiot School contradicted
the statement, and ait[)ealed to the facts be-
fore the speaker to disprove it. The rash
man stuck to his hasty generalization, not-
withstanding.

[ — It is my desire to be useful to those
with whom I am associated in my daily re-
lations. I not unfrequently practise the di-
vine art of music in company with our land-
lady's daughter, who, as I mentioned before,
is the owner of an accordion. Having my-
self a well-marked barytone voice of more
than half an octave in compass, I sometimes
add my vocal powers to her execution of

" Thou, thou reign'st in this bosom,"

not, however, unless her mother or some
other discreet female is present, to prevent
misinterpretation or remark. I have also

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 83

taken a good deal of interest in Benjamin
Franklin, before referred to, sometimes
called B. F.. or more frequently Frank, in
imitation of that felicitous abbreviation,
combining digiiitv^ and convenience, adopted
by some of his betters. My acquaintance
with the French language is very imperfect,
I having never studied it am"T\here but in
Paris, which is awkward, as B. F. devotes
himself to it with the peculiar advantage of
an Alsacian teacher. The boy, I think, is
doing well, between us, notwithstanding.
The following is an uncorrected French ex-
ercise, written by this young gentleman.
His mother thinks it very creditable to his
abilities ; though, being miacquainted with
the French langaiage, her judgment cannot
be considered final.

Le Rat des Saloxs a Lecture.

Ce rat §i est uii animal fort singulier. II a deux pattes
de derri^re sur lesquelles il marche, et deux pattes de
devant dont il fait usage pour tenir les journaux. Get
animal a la peau noire pour le plupai-t, et porte un cercle
blanchatre autour de son cou. On le trouve tons les
jours aux dits salons, ou il demeure, digere, s'il y a de
quoi dans son interieur, respire, tousse, eternue, dort, et
ronfle quelquefois, ayant toujours le semblant de lire.
On ne sait pas s'il a nne autre gite que gelk. II a I'air
d'une bete tvhs stupide, mais il est d"une sagacity et
d'une vitesse extraordinaire quand il s'agit de saisir un

84 THE AUTOCRAT OF

journal nouveau. On ne sait pas pourquoi il lit, parcequ'il
lie parait pas avoir des icl^es. II vocalise rarement, iiiais
en revanche, il fait des bruits nasaux divers. II porte un
crayon dans une de ses poclies pectorales, avec lequel il
fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des livres,
semblable aux suivans : ! ! ! — Bah ! Pooh ! II ne f aut
pas eependaut les prendre pour des signes d'intelligence.
II ne vole pas, ordinairenient ; il fait rarement meme des
echanges de parapluie, et jamais de chapeau, pareeque
son chapeau a toujours un caraet^re specifique. On ne
sait pas au juste ce dont il se iiourrit. Feu Cuvier ^tait
d'avis que c'etait de I'odeur du cuir des reliures ; ce
qu'on dit d'etre une nourriture aniniale fort saine, et peu
eh^re. II vit bien longtenis. Enfin il meure, en laissant
k ses h^ritiers une carte du Salon k Lecture ou il avait
exists pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient toutes
les nuits, apr^s la mort, visiter le Salon. On pent le voir,
dit on, k minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant le jour-
nal du soir, et ayant k sa main un crayon de charbon. Le
lendemain on trouve des earact^res inconnus sur les bords
du journal. Ce qui prouve que le spiritualisme est vrai,
et que Messieurs les Professeurs de Cambridge sont des
imbegiles qui ne savent rien du tout, du tout.

I tliink this exercise, whicli I have not
corrected, or allowed to be touched in any
way, is not discreditable to B. F. You ob-
serve that he is acquiring a knowledge of
zoology at the same time that he is learning-
French. Fathers of families in moderate
circumstances will find it profitable to their
children, and an economical mode of instruc-
tion, to set them to revising and amending

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 85

this boy's exercise. The passage was orig-
inally taken from the " Histoire Naturelle
cles Betes Rmninans et Rongeurs, Bipedes
et Autres," lately published in Paris. This
was translated into English and published
in London. It was republished at Great
Pedlington, with notes and additions by the
American editor. The notes consist of an
interrogation-mark on page 53d, and a ref-
erence (p. 127th) to another book " edited "
by the same hand. The additions consist of
the editor's name on the title-page and back,
with a complete and authentic list of said
editor's honorary titles in the first of these
localities. Our boy translated the transla-'
tion back into French. This may be com-
pared with the original, to be found on Shelf
13, Division X, of the Public Library of
this metropolis.]

— Some of you boarders ask me from
time to time why I don't write a story, or a
novel, or something of that kind. Instead
of answering each one of you separately, I
will thank you to stejD up into the wholesale
department for a few moments, where I deal
in answers by the piece and by the bale.

That every articulately-speaking human
being has in him stuff for one novel in three

86 THE AUTOCRAT OF

volumes duodecimo has long been with me
a cherished belief. It has been maintained,
on the other hand, that many persons cannot
wi'ite more than one novel, — that all after
that are likely to be failures. — Life is so
much more tremendous a thing in its heights
and depths than any transcript of it can be,
that all records of human experience are as
so many bound herbaria to the innumerable
glowing, glistening, rustling, breathing, fra-
grance - laden, poison - sucking, life - giving,
death-distilling leaves and flowers of the for-
est and the prairies. All we can do with
books of hmnan experience is to make them
alive again with something borrowed from
our own lives. We can make a book alive
for us just in pi'oportion to its resemblance
in essence or in form to our own experience.
Now an author's first novel is naturally
drawn, to a great extent, from his personal
experiences ; that is, is a literal copy of na-
ture under various slight disguises. But
the moment the author gets out of his per-
sonality, he must have the creative power, as
well as the narrative art and the sentiment,
in order to tell a living story ; and this is
rare.

Besides, there is great danger that a man's

THE BREAKFAST-TAD LE 87

first life - story shall clean him out, so to
speak, of his best thoughts. Most lives,
though their stream is loaded with sand and
turbid with allu\aal waste, drop a few golden
grains of wisdom as they flow along. Often-
times a single cradling gets them all, and
after that the poor man's labor is only re-
warded by mud and worn pebbles. All
which proves that I, as an individual of the
human family, coidd write one novel or story
at any rate, if I would.

— Why don't I, then ? — Well, there are
several reasons against it. In the first place,
I should tell all my secrets, and I maintain
that verse is the j)roper mediimi for such
revelations. Rhythm and rhyme and the
harmonies of musical langiiage, the play of
fancy, the fire of imagination, the flashes of
passion, so hide the nakedness of a heart
laid open, that hardly any confession, trans-
figured in the luminous halo of poetry, is
reproached as self - exposiu'e. A beauty
shows herself under the chandeliers, pro-
tected by the glitter of her diamonds, with
such a broad snovz-drift of white arms and
shoidders laid bare, that, were she unadorned
and in plain calico, she would be unendura-
ble — in the opinion of the ladies.

88 THE AUTOCRAT OF

Again, I am terribly afraid I should show
up all my friends. I shovdd like to know if
all story-tellers do not do this ? Now I am
afraid all my friends would not bear show-
ing up very well ; for they have an average
share of the common weakness of humanity,
which I am pretty certain would come out.
Of all that have told stories among us there
is hardly one I can recall who has not drawn
too faithfidly some living portrait which
might better have been spared.

Once more, I have sometimes thought it
possible I might be too dull to write such a
story as I shovdd "wish to write.

And fuially, I think it very likely I shall
write a story one of these days. Don't be
surprised at any time, if you see me coming-
out with " The Schoolmistress," or " The
Old Gentleman Opposite." \^Our school-
mistress and our old gentleman that sits
opposite had left the table before I said
this.] I want my glory for writing the same
discounted now, on the spot, if you please.
I will write when I get ready. How many
people live on the reputation of the reputa-
tion they might have made !

— I saw you smiled when I spoke about
the possibility of my being- too dull to write

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 89

a good story. I don't pretend to know what
you meant by it, but I take occasion to make
a remark wliicli may hereafter prove of value
to some among you. — When one of us who
has been led by native vanity or senseless
flattery to think himseK or herself possessed
of talent arrives at the full and final conclu-
sion that he or she is really dull, it is one of
the most tranquillizing and blessed convic-
tions that can enter a mortal's mind. AR
our failures, our short-comings, our strange
disappointments in the effect of our efforts
are lifted from our bruised shoulders, and
fall, like Christian's pack, at the feet of that
Omnipotence which has seen fit to deny us
the pleasant gift of high intelligence, —
with which one look may overflow us in some
wider sphere of being.

— How sweetly and honestly one said to
me the other day, " I hate books ! " A gen-
tleman, — singidarly free from affectations,

— not learned, of course, but of perfect
breeding, which is often so much better than
learning, — by no means dull, in the sense of
knowledge of the world and society, but cer-
tainly not clever either in the arts or sciences,

— his company is pleasing to all who know
him. I did not recognize in him inferiority

90 THE AUTOCRAT OF

of literary taste half so distinctly as I did
simplicity of character and fearless acknow-
ledgment of his inaptitude for scholarship.
In fact, I think there are a great many gen-
tlemen and others, who read with a mark to
keep their place, that really " hate books, "
but never had the wit to find it out, or the
manliness to own it. [^Entre nous, I always
read with a mark.]

We get into a way of thinking as if what
we call an " intellectual man " was, . as a
matter of course, made up of nine tenths, or
thereabouts, of book-learning, and one tenth
himself. But even if he is actually so com-
pounded, he need not read much. Society
is a strong solution of books. It draws the
virtue out of what is best worth reading, as
hot water draws the strength of tea-leaves.
If I were a prince, I would hire or buy a
private literary tea-pot, in which I would
steep all the leaves of new books that prom-
ised well. The infusion would do for me
without the vegetable fibi'e. You under-
stand me ; I would have a person whose sole
business should be to read day and night,
and talk to me whenever I wanted him to.
I know the man I would have : a quick-
witted, out-spoken, incisive fellow ; knows his-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 91

toiy, or at any rate lias a shelf full of books
about it, which he can use handily, and the
same of all useful arts and sciences ; knows
all the common plots of plays and novels, and
the stock company of characters that are con-
tinually coming on in new costume ; can give
you a criticism of an octavo in an epithet
and a wink, and you can depend on it ; cares
for nobody except for the virtue there is in
what he says ; delights in taking off big
wigs and j3rof essional gowns, and in the dis-
embalming and unbandaging of all literary
mummies. Yet he is as tender and rever-
ential to all that bears the mark of genius,

— that is, of a new influx of truth or beauty,

— as a nun over her missal. In short, he is
one of those men that know evervthing- ex-
cept how to make a living. Him w'ould I
keep on the square next my own royal com-
partment on life's chessboard. To liim I
would push up another pawn, in the shape
of a comely and wise young woman, whom
he would of course take, — to wife. For all
contingencies I would liberallj^ provide. In
a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expres-
sive phrase, '' put him through " all the ma-
terial part of life ; see him sheltered, warmed,
fed, button-mended, and all that, just to be

92 THE AUTOCRAT OF

able to lay on liis talk when I liked, — with
the privilege of shutting it off at will.

A Club is the next best thing to this,
strung like a harp, with about a dozen ring-
ing intelligences,^ each answering- to some
chord of the macrocosm. They do well to
dine together once in a while. A dinner-
party made up of such elements is the last
triumph of civilization over barbarism. Na-
ture and art combine to charm the senses ;
the equatorial zone of the system is soothed
by well-studied artifices ; the faculties are off
duty, and fall into their natural attitudes ;
you see wisdom in slippers and science in a
short jacket.

The whole force of conversation depends
on how much you can take for granted.
Vulgar chess-players have to play their game
out ; nothing short of the brutality of an
actual checkmate satisfies their dull appre-
hensions. But look at two masters of that
noble game ! White stands well enough, so
far as you can see ; but Red says. Mate in

^ The "Saturday Club," before referred to, answered
as well to this description as some others better known to
history. Mathematics, music, art, the physical and bio-
logical sciences, history, philosophy, poetry, and other
branches of imaginative literature were all represented by
masters in their several realms.

H

^^BiR *' ^^^^^^^^^^1

■^^H 'ILii

H^^K

^^^^^Fv^

9

^^^^BSkji ifli

jP^i

l^v^i

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 93

six moves ; — Wliite looks, — nods ; — the
game is over. Just so in talking vrith fii'st-
rate men ; especially when they are good-
natiired and exjiansive, as they are apt to be
at table. That blessed clairvoyance which
sees into things without opening them, —
that glorious license, which, having shut the
door and driven the reporter from its key-
hole, calls upon Truth, majestic virgin I to
get down from her pedestal and drop her
academic poses, and take a festive garland
and the vacant place on the medius lectus,
— that carnival-shower of questions and re-
plies and comments, large axioms bowled
over the mahogany like bomb-shells from
professional mortars, and explosive wit drop-
jjing its trains of many-colored fire, and the
mischief-making rain of hon-hons pelting
everybody that shows himself, — the picture
of a tridy intellectual banquet is one which
the old Divinities might well have attempted
to reproduce in their —

— '* Oh, oh, oh ! " cried the young fellow
whom they call Jolm, — " that is from one
of your lectures I "

I know it, I replied, — I concede it, I
confess it, proclaim it.

" The trail of the serpent is over them all ! "

94 THE AUTOCRAT OF,

All lecturers, all professors, all schoolmas-
ters, have ruts and grooves in their minds
into which their conversation is perpetually
sliding-. Did you never, in riding through
the woods of a still June evening, suddenly
feel that you had passed into a warm stra-
tum of air, and in a minute or two strike
the chill layer of atmosphere bej^ond? Did
you never, in cleaving the green waters of
the Back Bay, — where the Provincial blue-
noses are in the habit of beating the " Met-
ropolitan " boat-clubs, find yourself in a
tepid streak, a narrow, local guK-stream, a
gratuitous warm -bath a little imderdone,
through which your glistening shoulders
soon flashed, to bring you back to the cold
realities of fidl-sea temperature ? Just so,
in talking Avith any of the characters above
referred to, one not unfrequently finds a
sudden change in the style of the conversa-
tion. The lack-lustre eye, rayless as a Bea-
con-Street door-plate in August, all at once
fills with light ; the face flings itseK wide
open like the church-portals when the bride
and bridegroom enter ; the little man grows
in stature before your eyes, like the small
prisoner with hair on end, beloved yet
dreaded of early childhood ; you were talk-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 95

iug with a dwarf and an iniLeeile, — you
have a giant and a trimipet-tongiied angel
before you ! — Xothing but a streak out of
a fifty-dollar lecture. — As when, at some
milooked-for moment, the mights^ fountain-
column springs into the air before the as-
tonished passer-by. — silver-footed, diamond-
crowned, rainbow-scarfed, — from the bosom
of that fair sheet, sacred to the hymns of
quiet batrachians at home, and the epigTams
of a less amiable and less elevated order of
reptilia in other latitudes.

— Who was that person that was so
abused some tmie since for saying that in
the conflict of two races our sympathies
naturally go with the higher ? No matter
who he was. Now look at what is ofoins: on
in India, — a white, superior '• Caucasian "
race, against a dark-skinned, inferior, but
still " Caucasian " race, — and where are
English and American spnpathies? We
can't stop to settle all the doul)tfid ques-
tions ; aU we know is, that the brute nature
is sure to come out most strongly in the
lower race, and it is the general law that
the human side of hiunanity should treat the
briital side as it does the same nature in
the inferior animals. — tame it or crush it.

96 THE AUTOCRAT OF

The India mail brings stories of women and
children outraged and murdered ; tlie royal
stronghold is in the hands of the babe-kill-
ers. England takes down the Map of the
World, which she has girdled with emj^ire,
and makes a correction thus : Delhi. Dele.
The civilized world says, Amen.

— Do not think, because I talk to you of
many subjects briefly, that I shoidd not find
it much lazier work to take each one of
them and dilute it do^ii to an essay. Bor-
row some of my old college themes and wa-
ter my remarks to suit yourselves, as the
Homeric heroes did with their melas oinos,
— that black, sweet, syrupy wine which
they used to alloy with three parts or more
of the flowing stream. [Could it have been
melasses, as Webster and his provincials
spell it, — or Jfolossa's, as dear old smat-
teriiig, chattering, would - be - College - Presi-
dent, Cotton jVIather, has it in the " Magiia-
lia " ? Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries
who make barn-door-fowl flights of learning
in " Notes and Queries " ! — ye Historical
Societies, in one of whose venerable triremes
I, too, ascend the stream of time, while other
hands tug at the oars ! — ye Amines of par-
asitical literature, who pick up your grains

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 97

of native-grown food with a bodkin, having
gorged npon less honest fare, until, like the
great minds Goethe speaks of, you have
" made a Golgotha " of your pages ! — pon-
der thereon !]

— Before you go, this morning, I want to
read you a copy of verses. You will under-
stand by the title that they are written in
an imaginary character. I don't doul)t
they will fit some family-man well enough.
I send it forth as " Oak Hall " projects a
coat, on a priori gromids of conviction that
it will suit somebody. There is no loftier
illustration of faith than this. It believes
that a soul has been clad in flesh ; that ten-
der parents have fed and nurtured it ; that
its mysterious romj)ages or frame-work has
survived its myriad exposures and reached
the stature of maturity ; that the Man, now
self-determining, has given in his adhesion
to the traditions and habits of the race in
favor of artificial clothing; that he will,
having all the world to chose from, select
the very locality where this audacious gen-
eralization has been acted upon. It builds
a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and
trusts that Nature will model a material
shape to fit it. There is a prophecy in

98 THE AUTOCRAT OF

every seam, and its pockets are fiill of in-
spiration. — Now hear tlie verses.

^ w (bu) Man^ dreams

^" ^' W m

FOR one hour of youthful joy !

Give back my twentieth spring !
I 'cl rather laugh a bright-haired boy

Tlian reign a gray-beard king !

Off with the wrinkled sj)oils of age !

Away with learning's crown !
Tear out life's wisdom-written page,

And dash its trophies down !

One moment let my life-blood stream
From bovhood's fount of flame !

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 99

Give me one giddy, reeling dream
Of life all love and fame !

— My listening angel heard the prayer.,
And calmly smiling, said,

" If I but touch thy silvered hair,
Thy hasty wish hath sped.

" But is there nothing in thy track
To bid thee fondly stay.
While the swift seasons hurry back
To find the wished-for day ? "

— Ah, truest soul of womankind !
Without thee, what were life ?

One bliss I cannot leave behind :
I '11 take — my — precious — wife !

— The angel took a sapphire pen
And wrote in rainbow dew,

'' The man would be a boy again,
And be a husband too! "

— " And is there nothing yet unsaid
Before the change appears ?

Remember, all their gifts have fled
With those dissolving yeai-s ! "

Why, yes ; for memory would recall

My fond paternal joys ;
I could not bear to leave them all ;

I '11 take — my — girl — and — boys !

The smiling angel dropped his pen, —
" Why this will never do ;

THE AUTOCRAT

The man would be a boy again,
And be a father too ! ' '

And so I laughed, — my laughter woke
The household with its noise, —

And wrote my dream, when morning broke.
To please the gray-haired boys.

v>^-1

nEAORIA

AM so well pleased with my
boarding-house that I intend
to remain there, perhaps for
years. Of course I shall have a
great many conversations to report,
and they will necessarily be of different
tone and on different subjects. The talks
are like the breakfasts, — sometimes dipped
toast, and sometimes dry. You must take
them as they come. How can I do what
all these letters ask me to?^ No. 1. wants

^ The letters received by authors from unknown corre-
spondents form a curious and, I believe, almost unre-
corded branch of literature. The most interesting fact
connected with these letters is this. If a writer has a

I02 THE AUTOCRAT OF

serious and earnest thought. Xo. 2. (letter
smells of bad cigars) must have more jokes ;

distinct personality of character, an intellectual flavor
peculiarly his own, and his writings are somewhat widely
spread ahroad, he Avill meet with some, and it may he
many, readers who are specially attracted to him hy a
certain singularly strong affinity. A writer need not he
surprised when some simple-hearted creature, evidently
perfectly sincere, with no poem or story in the hack-
ground for which he or she wants your ciitical offices,
meaning too f i-equently your praise, and nothing else, —
when this kind soul assures him or her that he or she, the
correspondent, loves to read the productions of him or
her, the writer, better than those of any other author
living or dead. There is no need of accounting for their
individual preferences. What if a reader prefer you to
the classics, whose words are resounding through " the
corridors of time " ! You probably come much nearer
to his intellectual level. The rose is the sweetest growth
of the garden, but shall not your harmless, necessary cat
prefer the aroma of that antiquely odorous valerian, not
unfamiliar to hysteric womanliood ? " How can we stand
the fine things that are said of us ? " asked one of a
bright New Englander, whom New York has borrowed
from us. "Because we feel that they are true,'' he an-
swered. At any rate if they are true for those who saj^
them, we need not quarrel with their superlatives.

But what revelations are to be read in these letters !
From the lisp of vanity, commending itself to the atten-
tion of the object of its admiration, to the cry of despair,
which means insanity or death, if a wise word of counsel
or a helping hand does not stay it, what a gamut of hu-
man utterances ! Each individual writer feels as if he
or she were the only one to be listened to and succored,
little remembering that merely to acknowledge the re-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 1 03

wants me to tell a " good storey " wliicli
he has copied out for me. (I suppose two
letters before the word " good " refer to
some Doctor of Divinity who told the story.)
No. 3. (in female hand) — more poetry.
Xo. 4. wants something that would be of
use to a practical man. QPrahctlcal malm
he probably pronounces it.) No. 5. (gilt-
edged, sweet-scented) — " more sentiment,"
— " heart's outpourings." —

iVfy dear friends, one and all, I can do
nothing but report such remarks as I hap-
pen to have made at our breakfast-table.
Their character will depend on many acci-
dents, — a good deal on the particular per-
sons in the company to whom they were
addressed. It so happens that those which
follow were mainly intended for the divinity-
student and the schoohnistress ; though oth-
ers whom I need not mention saw fit to in-
terfere, with more or less propriety, in the
conversation. This is one of my privileges
as a talker ; and of course, when I was not
talking for our whole company I don't expect
all the readers of this periodical to be inter-

ceipt of the letters that come by every post is no small
part of every days occupation to a good-uatured and
moderately popiJar writer.

104 THE AUTOCRAT OF

estecl in my notes of what was said. Still,
I think there may be a few that will rather
like this vein, — possibly prefer it to a live-
lier one, — serious young men, and young
women generally, in life's roseate parenthe-
sis from years of age to inclusive.

Another privilege of talking is to mis-
quote. — Of course it was n't Proserpina
that actually cut the yellow hair, — but Iris.
(As I have since told you) it was the
former lady's regular business, but Dido had
used herself ungenteelly, and Madame d'En-
fer stood firm on the point of etiquette. So
the bathycolpian Here, — Juno, in Latin, —
sent down Iris instead. But I was mightily
pleased to see that one of the gentlemen
that do the heavy articles for the celebrated
" Oceanic Miscellany " misquoted CamiD-
bell's line without any excuse. " Waft us
home the message " of course it ought to be.
Will he be duly grateful for the correction?]

— The more we study the body and the
mind, the more we find both to be governed,
not 6?/, but according to laws, such as we
observe in the larger universe. — You think
you know all about loalking, — don't you,
now ? Well, how do you suppose your lower
limbs are held to your body ? They are

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 105

sucked up by two cupping vessels (" coty-
loid " — cup-like — cavities), and held there
as long- as you live, and longer. At any
rate, you think you move them backward
and forward at such a rate as your will de-
termines, don't you ? On the contrary, they
swing just as any other pendulums swing,
at a fixed rate, determined by their length.
You can alter this by muscular power, as
you can take hold of the pendulum of a
clock and make it move faster or slower;
but your ordinary gait is timed by the same
mechanism as the movements of the solar
system.

[My friend, the Professor, told me all
this, referring me to certain German physi-
ologists by the name of Weber for proof of
the facts, which, however, he said he had
often verified. I appropriated it to my own
use ; what can one do better than this, when
one has a friend, that tells him anything
worth remembering ?

The Professor seems to think that man
and the general powers of the universe are
in partnership. Some one was saying that
it had cost nearly half a million to move the
Leviathan 1 only so far as they had got it

^ " The Leviathan " was the name first applied to the

lo6 THE AUTOCRAT OF

alreacl}'. — "^^lij, — said the Professor, —
they might have hired an earthquake for
less money !]

Just as we find a mathematical rule at the
bottom of many of the bodily movements,
just so thought may be supposed to have its
regular cycles. Such or s^ich a thought
comes round periodically, in its turn. Acci-
dental suggestions, however, so far interfere
with the regular cycles, that we may find
them practically beyond our power of recog-
nition. Take all this for what it is worth,
but at any rate you will agi'ee that there are
certain particidar thoughts which do not
come up once a day, nor once a week, but
that a year would hardly go round without
your having them pass thi'ough your mind.
Here is one which comes up at intervals in
this way. Some one speaks of it, and there
is an instant and eager smile of assent in the
listener or listeners. Yes, indeed ; they have
often been struck by it.

All at once a conviction flashes through

huge vessel afterwards known as the " Great Eastern."
The trouble which rose from its being built out of its
" native element," as the newspapers call it, was like the
puzzle of the Primrose household after the great family
picture, with " as many sheep as the painter could put in
for nothing," was finished.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE I07

US that rce have been in the same precise
circumstances as at the present instant^ once
or many times before.

O, dear, yes ! — said one of the company,
— everybody has had that f eelmsf.

The landlady did n't know anythinsf about

t. I/O

such notions ; it was an idee in folks' heads,
she expected.

The schoolmistress said, in a hesitating'
sort of way. that she knew the feelins: well,
and did n't like to experience it ; it made
her think she was a ghost, sometimes.

The yoimg fellow whom they call John
said he knew all about it ; he had just
lighted a cheroot the other day, when a tre-
mendous conviction all at once came over
him that he had done just that same thing
ever so many times before. I looked se-
verely at him. and his countenance immedi-
ately fell — on the side toirard me ; lean-
not answer for the other, for he can wink
and laugh wdth either half of his face with-
out the other half's kno^dng it.

— I have noticed — I went on to say —
the following circimistances connected with
these sudden impressions. First, that the
condition which seems to be the duplicate
of a former one is often very trivial, — one

I08 THE AUTOCRAT OF

that might have presented itself a hundred
times. Secondly, that the impression is very
evanescent, and that it is rarely, if ever, re-
called by any voluntary effort, at least after
any time has elapsed. Thirdly, that there is
a disinclination to record the circumstances,
and a sense of incapacity to reproduce the
state of mind in words. Fourthly, I have
often felt that the duplicate condition had
not only occurred once before, but that it
was familiar and, as it seemed, habitual.
Lastly, I have had the same convictions in
my dreams.

How do I account for it ? — Why, there
are several ways that I can mention, and
you may take your choice. The first is that
which the young lady hinted at ; — that
these flashes are sudden recollections of a
previous existence. I don't believe that ;
for I remember a poor student I used to
know told me he had such a conviction one
day when he was blacking his boots, and I
can't think he had ever lived in another
world where they use Day and Martin.

Some think that Dr. Wigan's doctrine of
the brain's being a double organ, its hemi-
spheres working together like the two eyes,
accounts for it. One of the hemispheres

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 109

hang's fire, they suppose, and the small in-
terval between the i)erceptions of the nimble
and the sluggish half seems an indefinitely
long period, and therefore the second per-
ception appears to be the copy of another,
ever so old. But even allowing the centi-e
of pereejitiou to be double, I can see no
good reason for supposing this indefinite
lengthening of the time, nor any analogy
that bears it out. It seems to me most
likely that the coincidence of circumstances
is very partial, but that we take this partial
resemblance for identity, as we occasionally
do resemblances of persons, A momentary
j)osture of circumstances is so far like some
preceding one that we accept it as exactly
the same, just as we accost a stranger occa-
sionally, mistaking him for a friend. The
apparent similarity may be owing, perhaps,
quite as much to the mental state at the
time as to the outward circumstances.

— Here is another of these ciu-iously re-
curring remarks. T have said it, and heard
it many times, and occasionally met with
somethmg like it in books, — somewhere in
Bulwer's novels, I think, and in one of the
works of ^li". Ohnsted, I know.

3£emory, imagination^ old sentiments and

no THE AUTOCRAT OF

associations, are more readily reached
through the sense of smell than hy almost
any other channel.

Of course the particular odors wliich act
upon eacli person's susceptibilities differ. —
0, yes ! I will tell you some of mine. The
s,me\\. oi phosphorus is one of them. Dur-
ing a year or two of adolescence I used to
be dabbling in chemistry a good deal, and
as about that time I had my little aspira-
tions and passions like another, some of
these things got mixed up with each other :
orans:e-colored fmnes of nitrous acid, and
visions as bright and transient ; reddening
litmus-paper, and blushing cheeks ; — eheu !

"Soles occidere et redire possunt,"

but there is no reagent that will redden the

faded roses of eighteen hundred and

spare them! But, as I was saying, phos-
phorus fires this train of associations in an
instant ; its luminous vapors with their pen-
etrating odor throw me into a trance ; it
comes to me in a double sense " trailing
clouds of glory." Only the confounded
Vienna matches, ohne pliosphorgeruch, have
worn my sensibilities a little.

Then there is the inarigold. When 1

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE III

was of smallest dimensions, and wont to
ride impacted between the knees of fond
parental pair, we woidd sometimes cross tlie
bridge to the next village-town and stop op-
posite a low, brown, " gambrel-roof ed " cot-
tage. Out of it woidd come one Sally,
sister of its swarthy tenant, swarthy herself,
shady-lipped, sad-yoieed, and, bending oyer
her flower-bed, would gather a " posy, " as
she called it, for the Kttle boy. Sally lies
in the churchyard with a slab of blue slate
at her head, lichen-crusted, and leaning a
little within the last few years. Cottage,
garden-beds, posies, gi'enadier-like rows of
seedling onions, — stateliest of vegetables,
— all are gone, but the breath of a mari-
o'old brino-s them all back to me.

Perhaps the herb everlasting^ the fragTant
immortelle of our autumn fields, has the
most suggestive odor to me of all those that
set me dreaming. I can hardly describe
the sti'ange thou2,hts and emotions which
come to me as I inhale the aroma of its
pale, dry, rustling flowers. A something it
has of sepidchi-al spicery, as if it had been
brought from the core of some great pyra-
mid, where it had lain on the breast of a
mummied Pharaoh. Something, too, of im-

112 THE AUTOCRAT OF

mortality in the sad, faint sweetness lingering
so long in its lifeless petals. Yet tliis does
not tell why it fills ray eyes with tears and
carries me in blissful thought to the banks
of asphodel that border the River of Life.

— I should not have talked so much about
these personal susceptibilities, if I had not a
remark to make about them which I believe
is a new one. It is this. There may be a
physical reason for the strange connection
between the sense of smell and the mind.
The olfactory nerve — so my friend, the
Professor, tells me — is the only one directly
connected wdth the hemispheres of the brain,
the parts in which, as we have every reason
to believe, the intellectual processes are per-
formed. To speak more truly, the olfactory
" nerve " is not a nerve at all, he says, but a
part of the brain, in intimate connection with
its anterior lobes. Whether this anatomical
arrangement is at the bottom of the facts I
have mentioned, I mil not decide, but it is
curious enough to be worth remembering.
Contrast the sense of taste, as a source of
suggestive impressions, with that of smell.
Now the Professor assures me that you will
find the nerve of taste has no immediate con-
nection with the brain proper, but only with
the ^prolongation of the spinal cord.

THE BREAKFAST-TADLE 113

[The old gentleman opposite did not pay
mneh attention, I tliink, to tliis hj^otliesis
of mine. But while I was speaking about
the sense of smell he nestled about in his
seat, and presently succeeded in getting out
a lai'o'e red bandanna handkercliief. Then
he lurched a little to the other side, and after
much tribidation at last extricated an ample
round snuff-box. I looked as he opened it
and felt for the wonted pugil. Moist rap-
l^ee, and a Tonka-bean lying therein. I
made the manual sign imderstood of all
mankind that use the precious dust, and
presently my brain, too, responded to the
long unused stimulus. — O boys, — that
were, — actual papas and possible grand-
papas, — some of you with crowns like bil-
liard-balls, — some in locks of sable silvered,
and some of silver sabled, — do you remem-
ber, as you doze over this, those after-dinners
at the Trois Freres, when the Scotch-plaided
snuff-box went round, and the dry Lund}'-
Foot tickled its way along into our happy
sensoria ? Then it was that the Chambertin
or the Clos Vougeot came in, slmnbering in
its straw cradle. And one among you, —
do you remember how he woidd sit dream-
ing over his Burgundy, and tinkle his fork

VOL. I.

114 THE AUTOCRAT OF

against the sides of tlie bubble-like glass,
saying that he was hearing the cow-bells as
he used to hear them, when the deep-breath-
ing kine came home at twilight from the
huckleberry pasture, in the old home a thou-
sand leagues towards the sunset ?]

Ah me ! what strains and strophes of mi-
written verse pidsate through my soid when
I open a certain closet in the ancient house
where I was born ! On its shelves used to
lie bundles of sweet-marjoram and penny-
royal and lavender and mint and catnip ;
there apples were stored until their seeds
shoidd grow black, which happy jjeriod there
were sharp little milk-teeth always ready to
anticipate ; there peaches lay in the dark,
thinking of the smishine they had lost, until,
like the hearts of saints who dream of heaven
in their sorrow, they grew fragTant as the
breath of angels. The odorous echo of a
score of dead summers lingers yet in those
dim recesses.

— Do I remember Byron's line about
" striking the electric chain " ? — To be sm*e
I do. I sometimes think the less the hint
that stirs the automatic machinery of asso-
ciation, the more easily tliis moves us. What
can be more trivial than that old story of

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 1 15

opening the folio Shakespeare that used to lie
in some ancient English hall and finding the
flakes of Christmas pastry between its leaves,
shut up in them perhaps a hundred years
ago ? And, lo ! as one looks on these poor
relics of a bygone generation, the univei'se
changes in the twinkling of an eye ; old
George the Second is back again, and the
elder Pitt is coming into power, and General
AVolfe is a fine, promising young man, and
over the Channel they are pulling the Siem*
Damiens to pieces with wild horses, and
across the Atlantic the Indians are toma-
hawking Hirams and Jonathans and Jonases
at Fort William Henry ; all the dead people
wdio have been in the dust so lono- — even to
the stout-armed cook that made the pastry
— are alive again ; the planet unwinds a
hundred of its luminous coils, and the pre-
cession of the equinoxes is retraced on the
dial of heaven ! And all this for a bit of
pie-crust I

— I will thank you for that pie, — said
the provoking young fellow whom I have
named repeatedly. He looked at it for a
moment, and put his hands to his eyes as if
moved. — I was thinking, — he said indis-
tinctly —

Ii6 THE AUTOCRAT OF

— How ? What is 't ? — said our land-
lady.

— I was thinking — said he — who was
king of England when this old pie was
baked, — and it made me feel bad to think
how long he must have been dead.

[Our landlady is a decent body, poor, and
a widow of course ; cela va sans dire. She
told me her story once ; it was as if a grain
of corn that had been gromid and bolted
had tried to individualize itself by a special
narrative. There was the wooing and the
wedding, — the start in life, — the disap-
pointment, — the children she had buried,
— the struggle against fate, — the disman-
tling of life, first of its small luxuries, and
then of its comforts — the broken spirits, —
the altered character of the one on whom
she leaned, — and at last the death that
came and drew the black ciu'tain between
her and all her earthly hopes.

I never laughed at my landlady after she
had told me her story, but I often cried, —
not those pattering tears that run off the
eaves upon our neighbors' grounds, the stil-
licidium of self-conscious sentiment, but
those which steal noiselessly through their
conduits imtil they reach the cisterns lying

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE ri7

round about the heart ; those tears that we
weep inwardly with unchanging features ; —
such I did shed for her often when the imps
of the hoarding-house Inferno tugged at her
soul with their red-hot pincers.]

Young man, — I said, — the pasty you
speak lightly of is not old, but courtesy to
those who labor to serve us, especiall}' if they
are of the weaker sex, is veiy old, and yet
well worth retaining. May I recommend to
you the following caution, as a giiide, when-
ever you are dealing with a woman, or an
artist, or a poet, — if you are handling an
editor or politician, it is superfluous advice.
I take it from the back of one of those little
French toys which contain pasteboard figures
moved by a small running stream of fine
sand; Benjamin Franklin wiU translate it
for you : " Quoiqu' elle soit tres solidement
monfee, il faut ne jyas brutaliser la ma-
cJiiney — I will thank you for the pie, if
you please.

[I took more of it than was good for me,
— as much as 85°, I should think, — and
had an indigestion in consequence. Wliile
I was suffering from it, I wrote some sadly
desponding poems, and a theological essay
which took a very melancholy view of crea-

it8 the autocrat OF

tion. When I got better I labelled them all
" Pie-crust," and laid them by as scarecrows
and solemn warnings. I have a nmnber of
books on my shelves which I shoidd like to
label with some such title ; but, as they
have great names on their title - pages, —
Doctors of Divinity, some of them, — it
woidd n't do.]

— My friend, the Professor, whom I have
mentioned to you once or twice, told me yes-
terday that somebody had been abusing him
in some of the journals of his calling. I told
liim that I did n't doubt he deserved it ;
that I hoped he did deserve a little abuse
occasionally, and woidd for a number of
years to come ; that nobody could do any-
thing to make his neighbors wiser or better
without being liable to abuse for it; espe-
cially that people hated to have their little
mistakes made fun of, and perhaps he had
been doing something of the kind. — The
Professor smiled. — Now, said I, hear what
I am going to say. It will not take many
years to bring you to the period of life when
men, at least the majority of writing and
talking men, do nothing but praise. Men,
like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little
while before they begin to decay. I don't

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 119

know what it is, — whether a spontaneous
ehanofe, mental or bodily, or whether it is
thorough experience of the thanklessness of
critical honest}-. — but it is a fact, that most
writers, except soiu' and imsuccessful ones,
get tired of finding faidt at about the time
when they are beginning to gTow old. As a
general thing. I would not give a gi-eat deal
for the fair words of a critic, if he is him-
self an author, oyer fifty years of age. At
thirty we are all trying to cut our names in
big letters upon the walls of this tenement
of life ; twenty years later we have carved
it. or shut u}) oiu" jack-kniyes. Then we are
ready to help others, and more anxioiLS not
to hinder any, because nobody's elbows are
in oiu- way. So I am glad you haye a little
life left ; you will be saccharine enough in a
few years.

— Some of the softening effects of ad-
vancing age have sti'uck me very much in
what I have heard or seen here and else-
where. I just now spoke of the sweetening
process that authors undergo. Do you know
that in the gradual passage from maturity
to helplessness the harshest characters some-
times have a period in wliich they are gentle
and placid as yoimg children ? I have heard

I20 THE AUTOCRAT OF

it said, but I cannot be sponsor for its truth,
that the famous chieftain, Lochiel, was
rocked in a cradle like a baby, in his old
age. An old man, whose studies had been
of the severest scholastic kind, used to love
to hear little nursery-stories read over and
over to him. One who saw the Duke of
Wellington in his last years describes him
as very gentle in his aspect and demeanor.
I remember a person of singidarly stern and
lofty bearing who became remarkably gra-
cious and easy in all his ways in the later
period of his life.

And that leads me to say that men often
remind me of pears in their way of coming
to matm'ity. Some are ripe at ts\-enty, like
human Jargonelles, and must be made the
most of, for their day is soon over. Some
come into their perfect condition late, like
the autumn kinds, and they last better than
the simuner fruit. And some, that, like the
Winter-Nelis, have been hard and uninvit-
ing until all the rest have had their season,
get their glow and perfume long after the
frost and snow have done their worst with
the orchards. Beware of rash criticisms;
the rough and astringent fruit you condemn
Tnay be an autumn or a winter pear, and

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 1 21

that which you picked up beneath the same
bough in August may have been only its
worm-eaten windfalls. ^Milton was a Saint-
Germain with a graft of the roseate Early-
Catherine. Rich, juicy, lively, fragTant.
russet skinned old Chaucer was an Easter-
Beurre ; the buds of a new summer were
swelling when he ripened.

— There is no power I envy so much, —
said the divinity-student, — as that of seeing
analogies and making comparisons. I don't
understand how it is that some minds are
continually coupling thoughts or objects that
seem not in the least related to each other,
until all at once they are put in a certain
light and you wonder that you did not al-
ways see that they were as like as a j^air of
twins. It appears to me a sort of miracu-
lous gift.

[He is a rather nice young man, and I
think has an appreciation of the higher
mental qualities remarkable for one of his
years and training. I try his head occa-
sionally as house^^"ives try eggs, — give it
an intellectual shake and hold it up to the
light, so to speak, to see if it has life in it,
actual or potential, or only contains lifeless
albumen.]

122 THE AUTOCRAT OF

You call it miraculous^ — I replied, —
tossing the expression with my facial emi-
nence, a little smartly, I fear. — Two men
are walking by the polyiDhloesboean ocean,
one of them having a small tin cup with
which he can scoop up a gill of sea-water
when he will, and the other nothing but his
hands, which will hardly hold water at all,

— and you call the tin cup a miraculous
possession ! It is the ocean that is the mir-
acle, my infant apostle ! Nothing is clearer
than that all things are in all things, and
that just according to the intensity and ex-
tension of oiu' mental being we shall see the
many in the one and the one in the many.
Did Sir Isaac think what he was saying
when he made his speech about the ocean,

— the child and the pebbles, you know?
Did he mean to speak slightingly of a peb-
ble ? Of a spherical solid which stood senti-
nel over its compartment of space before the
stone that became the pyramids had grown
solid, and has watched it until now ! A
body which knows all the currents of force
that traverse the globe ; which holds by in-
visible threads to the ring of Saturn and the
belt of Orion ! A body from the contem-
plation of which an archangel could infer

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 123

the entire inorganic universe as tlie simplest
of corollaries ! A throne of the all-pervad-
ing Deity, who has guided its every atom
since the rosary of heaven was strung with
beaded stars !

So, — to return to our walk by the ocean,
— if all that poetry has dreamed, all that
insanity has raved, all that maddening nar-
cotics have driven through the brains of
men, or smothered passion nursed in the
fancies of women, — if the dreams of col-
leges and convents and boarding-schools, —
if every hiuuan feeling that sighs, or smiles,
or curses, or shrieks, or groans, should bring
all their innumerable images, such as come
with every hurried heart-beat, — the epic
which held them all, though its letters filled
the zodiac, woidd be but a cupful from the
infinite ocean of similitudes and analosies
that rolls through the luiiverse.

[The divinity-student honored himself by
the way in which he received this. He did
not swallow it at once, neither did he reject
it ; but he took it as a pickerel takes the
bait, and carried it off with him to his hole
(in the fourth story) to deal with at his
leisure.]

— Here is another remark made for his

124 THE AUTOCRAT OF

especial benefit. — There is a natural ten-
dency in many persons to run their adjec-
tives together in triads^ as I have heard
the in called, — thus : He was honorable,
courteous, and brave ; she was graceful,
pleasing, and virtuous. Dr. Johnson is
famous for this ; I think it was Bulwer
who said you could sejjarate a jjaper in
the " Rambler " into three distinct essays.
Many of our writers show the same ten-
dency, — my friend, the Professor, espe-
ciall3^ Some think it is in humble imita-
tion of Johnson, — some that it is for the
sake of the stately sound only. I don't
think they get to the bottom of it. It is, I
suspect, an instinctive and involmitary effort
of the mind to present a thought or image
with the three dimensions which belong to
every solid, — an unconscious handling of
an idea as if it had length, breadth, and
thickness. It is a great deal easier to say
this than to prove it, and a great deal easier
to dispute it than to disprove it. But mincl
this : the more we observe and study, the
wider we find the ranae of the automatic
and instinctive principles in body, mind,
and morals, and the narrower the limits of
the self-determining conscious movement.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 125

— I have often seen piano-forte players
and singers make such strange motions over
their instrmnents or song -books that I
wanted to laugh at them. " Where did our
friends pick up all these fine ecstatic airs ? "
I would say to myself. Then I would
remember My Lady in " Marriage a la
Mode," and amuse myself with thinking-
how affectation was the same thing in Ho-
garth's time and in our own. But one day
I bought me a Canary-bird and hung him
up in a cage at my window. By and by he
found himself at home, and began to pipe
his little tunes ; and there he was, sure
enough, swimming and waving about, with
all the droopings and liftings and languish-
ing side-turnings of the head that I had
laughed at. And now I should like to ask.
Who taught him all this ? — and me,
through him, that the foolish head was not
the one swinoing- itself from side to side
and bowing and nodding over the music,
but that other which was passing its shallow
and self-satisfied judgment on a creature
made of fuier clay than the frame which
carried that same head upon its shoidders ?

— Do you want an image of the hmnan
"will or the self-determining principle, as

126 THE AUTOCRAT OF

compared with its pre-arranged and impas-
sable restrictions? A drop of water, im-
prisoned in a crystal ; you may see sucli a
one in any mineralogical collection. One
little fluid particle in the crystalline prism
of the solid miiverse !

— Weaken moral obligations ? — No, not
weaken but define them. When I preach
that sermon I spoke of the other day, I
shall have to lay down some principles not
fidly recognized in some of your text-books.

I should have to begin with one most
formidable preliminary. You saw an arti-
cle the other day in one of the journals,
perhaps, in which some old Doctor or other
said quietly that patients were very apt to
be fools and cowards. But a great many of
the clergyman's patients are not only fools
and cowards, but also liars.

[Immense sensation at the table. — Sud-
den retirement of the angular female in
oxydated bombazine. Movement of adhe-
sion — as they say in the Chamber of Dep-
uties — on the part of the young feUow they
call John. Falling of the old-gentleman-
oj^posite's lower jaw — (gravitation is be-
ginning to get the better of him). Our
landlady to Benjamin Franklin, briskly, —

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 127

Go to school right off, there 's a good boy I
SchooLnistress curious, — takes a quick
glance at di^^nity-stucleut. Divinity-student
slightly flushed ; draws his shoidders back
a little, as if a big falsehood — or truth —
had hit him in the forehead, MyseK
calm.]

— I should not make such a speech as
that, you know without having pretty sub-
stantial indorsers to fall back upon, in case
my credit shoidd be disputed. Will you
run up-stairs, Benjamin Franklin (for B.
F. had not gone right off, of course), and
bring down a small volume from the left
upjjer corner of the right-hand shelves ?

[Look at the precious little black, ribbed
backed, clean-typed, vellum-papered 32mo.
" Desiderii Erasmi Colloquia. Amste-
lodami. Typis Ludo^aci Elzevirii. 1650."
Various names written on title-page. Most
conspicuous this : Gtd. Cookeson, E. Coll.
Omn. Anim. 1725. Oxon.

— O William Cookeson, of All-Soids Col-
lege, Oxford, — then writing as I now WTite,
— now in the dust, where I shall lie, — is
tliis line all that remains to thee of earthly
remembrance ? Thy name is at least once
more spoken by living men ; — is it a pleas-

128 THE AUTOCRAT OF

lire to tliee ? Tliou slialt share witli me my
little draught of immortality, — its week, its
month, its year, — whatever it may be, —
and then we will go together into the sol-
emn archives of Oblivion's Uncatalogued
Library I]

— If you think I have used rather strong
language, I shall have to read something to
you out of the book of tliis keen and witty
scholar, — the great Erasmus. — who " laid
the esrg of the Reformation which Lutlier
hatched." Oh, you never read his 2^aufra-
giiun, or " Ship%^Teck," did you ? Of course
not ; for, if you had, I don't think you
would have given me credit, — or discredit,
— for entire originality in that speech of
mine. That men are cowards in the con-
templation of futurity he illustrates by the
extraordinary antics of many on board the
sinking vessel ; that they are fools, by their
praying to the sea, and making promises to
bits of wood from the true cross, and all
manner of similar nonsense ; that they are
fools, cowards, and liars all at once, by tliis
story : I "s^'ill put it into rough English for
you. — '"I could n't help laughing to hear
one fellow bawling out, so that he might be
sure to be heard, a promise to Saint Chris-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 129

topher of Paris, — the monstrous statue in
the great church there, — that he would
give him a wax taper as big as himself.
' Mind what you promise I ' said an acquaint-
ance who stood near him, poking him with
his elbow ; ' you could n't pay for it, if you
sold all your things at auction,' - Hold your
tongue, you donkey ! ' said the fellow, — but
softly, so that Saint Christopher should not
hear him, — 'do you think I 'm in earnest?
If I once get my foot on dry ground, catch
me oqvino^ him so much as a tallow can-
die ! ' "

Now, therefore, remembering that those
who have been loudest in their talk about
the great subject of which we were speak-
ing have not necessarily been \nse, brave,
and true men, but, on the contrar}^, have
very often been wanting in one or two or all
of the qualities these words imply, I should
expect to find a good many doctrines cur-
rent in the schools which I should be obliged
to call foolish, cowardly, and false.

— So you would abuse other people's be-
liefs. Sir, and yet not tell us your own
creed I — said the divinity-student, coloring
up with a spirit for which I liked him all
the better.

VOL. I.

I30 THE AUTOCRAT OF

— I have a creed, — I replied ; — none
better, and none shorter. It is told in two
words, — the two first of the Paternoster.
And when I say these words I mean them.
And when I compared the human will to a
drop in a crystal, and said I meant to clejine
moral obligations, and not weaken them, this
was what I intended to express : that the
fluent, self-determining power of human be-
ings is a very strictly limited agency in the
universe. The chief planes of its enclosing
solid are, of course, organization, education,
condition. Organization may reduce the
power of the will to nothing, as in some
idiots ; and from this zero the scale mounts
upwards by slight gradations. Education is
only second to nature. Imagine all the in-
fants born this year in Boston and Timbuc-
too to change places! Condition does less,
but " Give me neither poverty nor riches "
was the prayer of Agur, and with good rea-
son. If there is any improvement in mod-
ern theology, it is in getting out of the re-
gion of pure abstractions and taking these
every-day working forces into account. The
great theological question now heaving and
throbbing in the minds of Christian men is
this : —

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 131

No, I won't talk about these tilings now.
My remarks might be repeated, and it would
give my friends pain to see with what per-
sonal incivilities I should be visited. Be-
sides, what business has a mere boarder to
be talking about such things at a breakfast-
table? Let him make puns. To be sure,
he was brought up among the Christian fa-
thers, and learned his alphabet out of a
quarto "Concilium Tridentinum. " He has
also heard many thousand theological lec-
tures by men of various denominations ; and
it is not at all to the credit of these teach-
ers, if he is not fit by this time to express
an opinion on theological matters.

I know well enough that there are some
of you who had a great deal rather see me
stand on my head than use it for any pur-
pose of thought. Does not my friend, the
Professor, receive at least two letters a week,

requesting him to

. . ., — on the strength of some youthful
antic of his, which, no doubt, authorizes the
intelligent constituency of autograph-hunters
to address him as a harlequin ?

— Well, I can't be savage with you for
wanting to laugh, and I like to make you
laugh well enough, when I can. But then

132 THE AUTOCRAT OF

observe this : if the sense of the ridiculous is
one side of an impressible nature, it is very
well ; but if that is all there is in a man, he
had better have been an ape at once, and so
have stood at the head of his profession.
Laughter and tears are. meant to turn the
wheels of the same machinery of sensibil-
ity ; one is wind-power, and the other water-
power ; that is all. I have often heard the
Professor talk about hysterics as being Na-
ture's cleverest illustration of the reciprocal
convertibility of the t«^o states of which these
acts are the manifestations. But you may see
it every day in children; and if you want
to choke with stifled tears at sight of the
transition, as it shows itself in older years,
go and see Mr. Blake play Jesse Rural.

It is a very dangerous thing for a literary
man to indulge his love for the ridiculous.
People laugh ivith him just so long as he
amuses them; but if he attempts to be se-
rious, they must still have their laugh, and
so they laugh at him. There is in addition,
however, a deeper reason for this than would
at first appear. Do you know that you feel
a little superior to every man who makes
you laugh, whether by making faces or
verses ? Are you aware that you have a

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 133

pleasaut sense of patronizing him, when you
condescend so far as to let him turn somer-
sets, literal or literary, for your royal de-
light ? Now if a man can only be allowed
to stand on a dais, or raised platform, and
look down on his neighbor who is exerting
his talent for him, oh, it is all right I — fii-st-
rate performance I — and all the rest of the
fine phrases. But if all at once the per-
former asks the gentleman to come upon the
floor, and, stepping upon the platform, be-
gins to talk down at him, — ah, that was n*t
in the programme !

I have never forgotten what happened
when Sydney Smith — who, as everybody
knows, was an exceedingly sensible man, and
a gentleman, every inch of him — ventured
to preach a sermon on the Duties of Ro3'alty.
The " Quarterly," " so savage and tartarly,"
came down upon him in the most contempt-
uous style, as " a joker of jokes," a " diner-
out of the fii"st water," in one of his own
phrases ; sneering at him, insulting him, as
nothing but a toady of a court, sneaking be-
hind the anonymous, would ever have been
mean enough to do to a man of his position
and genius, or to any decent person even. —
If I were giving advice to a young fellow

134 THE AUTOCRAT OF

of talent, with two or tlu-ee facets to his
mind, I would tell him by all means to keep
his wit in the background until after he had
made a reputation by his more solid qual-
ities. And so to an actor : Hamlet first,
and Boh Logic afterwards, if you like ; but
don't think, as they say poor Liston used to,
that people will be ready to allow that you
can do an^'thing gTeat with J/acbeth's dag-
ger after flourisliing about with Paul Pry\
umbrella. Do you know, too, that the ma-
jority of men look upon all who challenge
their attention, — for a while, at least, — as
beggars, and nuisances? They always try
to get off as cheaply as they can ; and the
cheapest of all things they can give a liter-
ary man — pardon the forlorn pleasantry !
— is they?/?in?/-bone. That is all very well
so far as it goes, but satisfies no man, and
makes a good many angTy, as I told you on
a former occasion.

— Oh. indeed, no ! — I am not ashamed
to make you laugh, occasionally. I think I
could read you something I have in my desk
which would probably make you smile. Per-
haps I will read it one of these days, if you
are patient with me when I am sentimental
and reflective ; not just now. The ludicrous

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 135

has its place in tlie universe ; it is not a hu-
man invention, but one of the Divine ideas,
illustrated in the jiractical jokes of kittens
and monkeys long before ^VristoiDhanes or
Shakespeare. How curious it is that we al-
ways consider solemnity and the absence of
all gay siu'prises and encounter of wits as
essential to the idea of the future life of
those whom we thus deprive of half their
facidties and then call blessed ! There are
not a few who, even in this life, seem to be
preparing themselves for that smileless eter-
nity to which they look forward, by banish-
ing all gayety from their hearts and all
joyousness from their countenances. I meet
one such in the street not unfrequently, a
person of intelligence and education, but
who gives me (and all that he passes) such
a rayless and chilling look of recognition, —
something as if he were one of Heaven's
assessors, come down to " doom " every ac-
quaintance he met, — that I have sometimes
begim to sneeze on the spot, and gone home
with a violent cold, dating from that instant.
I don't doubt he woidd cut his kitten's tail
off, if he caught her playing with it. Please
tell me, who taught her to })lay with it ?
No, no I — give me a chance to talk to

136 THE AUTOCRAT OF

you, my fellow-boarders, and you need not
be afraid that I sliall have any scruples
about entertaining you, if I can do it, as weU
as giving- you some of my serious thoughts,
and perhaps my sadder fancies. I know
nothing in English or any other literature
more admirable than that sentiment of Sir
Thomas Browne " Every man truly lives,

so LONG AS HE ACTS HIS NATURE, OR SOME
WAY MAKES GOOD THE FACULTIES OF HIM-
SELF."

I find the great thing in this world is not
so much where we stand, as in what direc-
tion we are moving : To reach the port of
heaven, we must sail sometimes with the
wind and sometimes against it, — but we
must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
There is one very sad thing in old friend-
ships, to every mind which is really moving-
onward. It is this : that one cannot help
using his early friends as the seaman uses
the log, to mark his progress. Every now
and then we throw an old schoolmate over
the stern with a string of thought tied to
him, and look, — I am afraid with a kind of
luxurious and sanctimonious compassion, —
to see the rate at which the string reels off,
while he lies there bobbing up and down,

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 137

poor fellow ! and we are dashing along with
the white foam and bright sparkle at our
bows ; — the ruffled bosom of prosperity and
progress, with a sprig of diamonds stuck in
it ! But this is only the sentimental side of
the matter ; for grow we must, if we out-
grow all that we love.

Don't misunderstand that metaphor of
heaving the log, I beg you. It is merely a
smart way of saying that we cannot avoid
measuring our rate of movement by those
with whom we have long been in the habit
of comparing om'selves ; and when they once
become stationary, we can get oui' reckon-
ing from them with painful accuracy. We
see just what we were when they were our
peers, and can strike the balance between
that and whatever we may feel ourselves to
be now. No doubt we may sometimes be
mistaken. If we change our last simile to
that very old and familiar one of a fleet
leaving the harbor and sailing in company
for some distant region, we can get what we
want out of it. There is one of our com-
panions ; — her streamers were torn into rags
before she had got into the open sea, then
by and by her sails blew out of the ropes
one after another, the waves swept her deck.

138 THE AUTOCRAT OF

and as night came on we left her a seeming
wreck, as we flew under our pyramid of can-
vas. But lo ! at dawn she is still in sight,
— it may be in advance of us. Some deep
ocean-current has been moving her on,
strong, but silent, — yes, stronger than these
noisy winds that puff our sails until they
are swollen as the cheeks of jubilant cheru-
bim. And when at last the black steam-tug
with the skeleton arms, which comes out
of the mist sooner or later and takes us all
in tow, grapples her and goes off panting
and groaning with her, it is to that harbor
where all wrecks are refitted and where,
alas ! we, towering in our pride, may never
come.

So you will not think I mean to speak
lightly of old friendships, because we cannot
help instituting comparisons between our
present and former selves by the aid of those
who were what we were, but are not what we
are. Nothing strikes one more, in the race
of life, than to see how many give out in
the first half of the course. " Commence-
ment day " always reminds me of the start
for the " Derby," when the beautiful high-
bred three-year-olds of the season are brought
up for trial. That day is the start, and life

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 139

is the race. Here we are at Cambridge, and
a class is just " graduating." Poor Harry !
he was to have been there too, but he has
paid forfeit; step out here into the grass
behind the church ; ah ! there it is : —

" Hdnc lapidem posuerunt

Socn MCERENTES."

But this is the start, and here they are, —
coats bright as silk, and manes as smooth as
eau lustrale can make them. Some of the
best of the colts are pranced round, a few
minutes each, to show their paces. What is
that old gentleman crying about? and the
old lady by him, and the three girls, what
are they all covering their eyes for? Oh,
that is their colt which has just been trotted
up on the stage. Do they really think those
little thin legs can do anything in such a
slashing sweepstakes as is coming off in these
next forty years ? Oh, this terrible gift of
second-sight that comes to some of us when
we begin to look tlii'ough the silvered rings
of the aixus senilis I

Ten years gone. First turn in the race.
A few broken down ; two or three bolted.
Several show in advance of the ruck. (7«s-
sock., a black colt, seems to be ahead of the

I40 THE AUTOCRAT OF

rest ; those black colts commonly get the
start, I have noticed, o£ the others, in the
first quarter. Meteor has i^uUed up.

Tioenty years. Second corner turned.
Cassock has dropped from the front, and
Judex, an iron-gray, has the lead. But
look ! how they have thinned out ! Down
flat, — five, — six, — how many ? They lie
still enough ! they will not get up again in
this race, be very sure ! And the rest of
them, what a " tailing off " ! Anybody can
see who is going to win, — perhaps.

Thirty years. Third corner turned.
Dives, bright sorrel, ridden by the fellow
in a yellow jacket, begins to make play
fast ; is getting to be the favorite with many.
But who is that other one that has been
lengthening his stride from the first, and
now shows close up to the front? Don't
you remember the quiet brown colt Aste-
roid, with the star in his forehead? That
is he ; he is one of the sort that lasts ; look
out for him ! The black " colt," as we used
to call him, is in the background, taking it
easily in a gentle trot. There is one they
used to call tJie Filly, on account of a cer-
tain feminine air he had ; well up, you see ;
the Filly is not to be despised, my boy !

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 141

Forty years. More dropping off, — but
places mucli as before.

Fifty years. Race over. All tbat are
on the course are coming in at a walk ; no
more running. Who is ahead? Ahead?
What ! and the ^vinuing-post a slab of white
or gray stone standing out from that tiu"f
where there is no more jockeying or strain-
ing for victory! Well, the world marks
their places in its betting-book ; but be sure
that these matter very little, if they have rim
as well as they knew how !

— Did I not say to you a little while ago
that the universe swam in an ocean of si-
militudes and analogies? I will not quote
Cowley, or Bm-ns, or Wordsworth, just now,
to show you what thoughts were suggested to
them by the simplest natural objects, such
as a flower or a leaf ; but I will read you a
few lines, if you do not object, suggested by
lookins: at a section of one of those cham-
bered shells to which is given the name of
Pearly Nautilus. We need not trouble our-
selves about the distinction between this and
the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of the
ancients. The name applied to both shows
that each has long been compared to a ship,
as you may see more fully in Webster's

142 THE AUTOCRAT OF

Dictionary, or the " Encyclopaedia," to which
he refers. If you will look into Roget's
Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure
of one of these shells and a section of it.
The last will show you the series of enlarg-
ing compartments successively dwelt in by
the animal that inhabits the shell, which is
built in a widening spiral. Can you find no
lesson in this ?

HE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS^

T

HIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
SaiLs the unshaclowed main, —
The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings.

And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

^ I have now and then found a naturalist who still wor-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 143

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl !

And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his gTowing shell,

Before thee lies revealed, —
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed !

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil ;

Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through.

Built up its idle door.
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no
mora.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea.

Cast from her lap forlorn !
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn !

While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that
siugs : —

Build thee more stately mansions, 0 my soul,
As the swift seasons roll !

ried over the distinction between the Pearly Nautilus and
the Paper Nautilus, or Argonauta. As the stories about
both are mere fables, attaching to the Physalia, or Portu-
guese man-of-war, as well as to these two molluscs, it
seems over-nice to quarrel with the poetical handling of
a fiction sufficiently justified by the name commonly ap-
plied to the ship of pearl as well as the ship of paper.

144

THE AUTOCRAT

Leave tliy low-vaulted past !
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea !

m^

&j^^-i

'kf

V

LYRIC conception

— my friend, the Poet,

said — hits me like a bul-

y ' let in the forehead. I have

often had the blood drop from
my cheeks when it struck, and
felt that I turned as white as death. Then
comes a creeping as of centipedes running
down the spine, — then a gasp and a great
jump of the heart, — then a sudden flush and
a beating in the vessels of the head, — then
a long sigh, — and the poem is written.

It is an impromptu, I suppose, then, if
you write it so suddenly, — I replied.

No, — said he, — far from it. I said
written, but I did not say copied. Every
such poem has a soul and a body, and it is
the body of it, or the copy, that men read

VOL. I.

146 THE AUTOCRAT OF

and publishers pay for. The soul of it is
born in an instant in the poet's soul. It
comes to him a thought, tangled in the
meshes of a few sweet words, — words that
have loved each other from the cradle of the
language, but have never been wedded until
now. Whether it will ever fully embody
itself in a bridal train of a dozen stanzas or
not is uncertain ; but it exists potentially
from the instant that the poet turns pale
with it. It is enough to stun and scare any-
body, to have a hot thought come crashing
into his brain, and ploughing up those par-
allel ruts where the wagon trains of common
ideas were jogging along in their regular
sequences of association. No wonder the
ancients made the poetical impulse wholly
external. M^vtv aetSe 0ea • Goddess, — Muse,
— divine afflatus, — something outside al-
ways. / never wrote any verses worth read-
ing. I can't. I am too stupid. If I ever
copied any that were worth readmg, I was
only a mediimi.

[I was talking all this time to our board-
ers, you understand, — telling them what
this poet told me. The comi^any listened
rather attentively, I thought, considering
the literary character of the remarks.]

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 147

The old gentleman opposite all at once
asked me if I ever read anything better than
Pope's " Essay on Man " ? Had I ever pe-
rused McFingal? He was fond of poetry
when he was a boy, — his mother taught him
to say many little pieces, — he remembered
one beautif id hymn ; — and the old gentle-
man began, in a clear, loud voice, for his
years, • —

" The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens," —

He stopped, as if startled by our silence,
and a faint flush ran up beneath the thin
white hairs that fell upon his cheek. As I
looked roimd, I was reminded of a show I
once saw at the Museum, — the Sleeping-
Beauty, I think they called it. The old
man's sudden breaking out in this way
turned every face towards him, and each
kept his posture as if changed to stone. Oiu*
Celtic Bridget, or Biddy, is not a foolish fat
scullion to burst out crying for a sentiment.
She is of the serviceable, red-handed, broad-
and-liigh-shouldered type ; one of those im-
ported female servants who are known in
public by their amorphous style of person,
their stoop forwards, and a headlong and as

148 THE AUTOCRAT OF

it were precipitous walk, — the waist plung-
ing downwards into the rocking pelvis at
every heavy footfall. Bridget, constituted
for action, not for emotion, was about to
deposit a plate heaped with something
upon the table, when I saw the coarse arm
stretched by my shoulder arrested, — mo-
tionless as the arm of a terra-cotta carya-
tid ; she could n't set the plate down while
the old gentleman was sijeaking !

He was quite silent after this, still wear-
ing the slight flush on his cheek. Don't
ever think the poetry is dead in an old man
because his forehead is wi-inkled, or that his
manhood has left him when his hand trem-
bles ! If they ever were there, they are
there still !

By and by we got talking agam. — Does
a poet love the verses written through him,
do you think, Sir ? — said the divinity-stu-
dent.

So long as they are warm from his mind,
— carry any of his animal heat about
them, I knoio he loves them, — I answered.
When they have had time to cool, he is
more indifferent.

A o-ood deal as it is with buckwheat
cakes, — said the young fellow whom they
call Jolm.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 149

The last words, only, reached the ear of
the ecouomieally organized female in black
bombazine. — Buckwheat is skerce and high,

— she remarked. [Must be a poor relation
sponging- on oiu' landlady — pays nothing,

— so she must stand by the gims and be
ready to repel boarders.]

1 liked the turn the conversation had
taken, for I had some things I wanted to
say, and so, after waiting a minute, I began
again. — I don't think the poems I read you
sometimes can be fairly appreciated, given
to you as they are in the gTeen state.

— You don't know what I mean by the
green state ? AVell, then, I will tell you.
Certain things are good for nothing until
they have been kept a long while ; and some
are good for nothing until they have been
long kept and used. Of the first, wine is
the illustrious and immortal example. Of
those which must be kept and used I will
name three, — meerschaum pipes, violins,
and poems. The meerschaum is but a poor
affair until it has burned a thousand offer-
ings to the cloud-compelling deities. It
comes to us without complexion or flavor,

— born of the sea-foam, like Aphrodite, but
colorless as pallida Mors herself. The fire

I50 THE AUTOCRAT OF

is lighted in its central slirine, and grad-
ually the juices which the broad leaves of
the Great Vegetable had sucked up from an
acre and curdled into a drachm are diffused
thi'ough its thirsting pores. First a dis-
coloration, then a stain, and at last a rich,
glowing, umber tint spreading over the
whole surface. Nature true to her old
brown autumnal hue, you see, — as true in
the fire of the meerschaum as in the sun-
shine of October! And then the cumula-
tive wealth of its fragi-ant reminiscences !
he who inhales its vapors takes a thousand
whiffs in a single breath ; and one cannot
touch it without awakening the old joys that
hang aroimd it as the smell of flowers clings
to the di-esses of the daughters of the house
of Farina I

[Don't think I use a meerschaum myself,
for I do not^ though I have owned a calu-
met since my childhood, which from a
naked Pict (of the !Mohawk species) my
gTandsire won, together with a tomahawk
and beaded knife-sheath ; paying for the lot
with a bullet-mark on his right cheek. On
the maternal side I inherit the loveliest sil-
ver-moimted tobacco-stopper you ever saw.
It is a little box-wood Triton, carved with

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 151

charming liveliness and truth. I have often
compared it to a fignre in Raphael's " Tri-
umph of Galatea." It came to me in an
ancient shagreen case, — how old it is I do
not know, — but it must have been made
since Sir Walter Raleigh's time. If you
are cui'ious, you shall see it any day.
Neither will I pretend that I am so unused
to the more perishable smoking contrivance
that a few whiffs would make me feel as if
1 lay in a gromid- swell on the Bay of Bis-
cay. I am not unacquainted with that fusi-
form, spiral-wound bundle of chopped stems
and miscellaneous incombustibles, the cigar ^
so called, of the shops, — which to " draw "
asks the suction-power of a nursling infant
Hercules, and to relish, the leathery palate
of an old Silenus. I do not advise you,
young man, even if my illustration strike
your fancy, to consecrate the flower of yoiu'
life to painting the bowl of a pipe, for, let
me assure you, the stain of a reverie-breed-
ing narcotic may strike deeper than you
think for. I have seen the green leaf of
early promise grow brown before its time
under such Nicotian regimen, and thought
the umbered meerschaum was dearly bought
at the cost of a brain enfeebled and a will
enslaved.]

152 THE AUTOCRAT OF

Violins, too, — tlie sweet old Amati ! —
the divine Stradivarius ! Played on by an-
cient maestros until tlie bow-hand lost its
power and the flying fingers stiffened. Be-
queathed to the passionate young enthusiast,
who made it whisper his hidden love, and
cry his inarticulate longings, and scream his
untold agonies, and wail his monotonous de-
spair. Passed from his dying hand to the
cold virtuoso, who let it slumber in its case
for a generation, till, when his hoard was
broken up, it came forth once more and
rode the stormy symphonies of royal orches-
tras, beneath the rushing bow of their lord
and leader. Into lonely prisons with im-
provident artists ; into convents from wliich
arose, day and night, the holy hymns with
which its tones were blended ; and back
again to orgies in which it learned to howl
and laugh as if a legion of devils were shut
up in it ; then again to the gentle dilettante
who calmed it down with easy melodies until
it answered him softly as in the days of
the old maestros. And so given into our
hands, its pores all full of music ; stained,
like the meerschaum, through and through,
with the concentrated hue and sweetness of
all the harmonies which have kindled and
faded on its strings.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 1 53

Now I tell you a poem must be kept and
used, like a meersckaimi, or a violin. A
poem is just as porous as the meerschaum ;
— tke more porous it is, the better. I mean
to say that a genuine poem is capable of ab-
sorbino; an indefinite amount of the essence
of our own himianitj^, — its tenderness, its
heroism, its regrets, its aspirations, so as to
be gradually stained through with a divine
secondary color derived from ourselves. So
you see it must take time to bring the senti-
ment of a poem into harmony with oiu* na-
ture, by staining ourselves thi'ough every
thought and image our being can penetrate.

Then again as to the mere music of a
new poem, why, who can expect anything
more from that than from the music of a
violin fresh from the maker's hands ? Now
you know very well that there are no less
than fifty-eight different pieces in a violin.
These pieces are strangers to each other,
and it takes a century, more or less, to
make them thoroughly acquainted. At last
they learn to vibrate in harmony and the
instrument becomes an organic whole, as
if it were a great seed-capsule wliich had
grown from a garden-bed in Cremona, or
elsewhere. Besides, the wood is juicy and

154 THE AUTOCRAT OF

full of sap for fifty years or so, but at the
end of fifty or a hundred more gets tolera-
bly dry and comparatively resonant.

Don't you see that all this is just as true
of a poem ? Counting each word as a piece,
there are more pieces in an average copy
of verses than in a violin. The poet has
forced all these words together, and fas-
tened them, and they don't miderstand it at
first. But let the poem be repeated aloud
and murmured over in the mind's muffled
whisper often enough, and at length the
parts become knit together in such absolute
solidarity that you could not change a syl-
lable without the whole world's crying out
against you for meddling with the harmo-
nious fabric. Observe, too, how the drying
process takes place in the stuff of a poem just
as in that of a violin. Here is a Tyrolese
fiddle that is just coming to its hmidredth
birthday, — (Pedro Klauss, Tyroli, fecit,
1760), — the sap is pretty well out of it.
And here is the song of an old poet whom
Neaera cheated : —

"Nox erat, et ccelo fulgebat Luna sereno
luter minora sidera,
Cum tu magnorum uumen Isesura deorum
In verba jurabas mea."

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 155

Dout you perceive the sonorousness of these
old dead Latin phrases ? Now I tell you that
every word fresh from the dictionary brings
with it a certain succulence ; and though
I cannot expect the sheets of the "Pacto-
lian," in which, as I told you, I sometimes
print my verses, to get so dry as the crisp
papyrus that held those words of Horatius
Flaccus, yet you may be sure, that, while the
sheets are damp, and wliile the lines hold
their sap, you can't fairly judge of my per-
formances, and that, if made of the true
stuff, they will ring better after a while.

[There was silence for a brief space, after
my somewhat elaborate exposition of these
seK-evident analogies. Presently a person
tiuTied towards me — I do not choose to des-
ignate the individual — and said that he
rather expected my pieces had given pretty
good " sahtisfahction." — I had, up to
this moment, considered this complimentary
phrase as sacred to the use of secretaries of
lyceums, and, as it has been usually accom-
panied by a small pecuniary- testimonial,
have acquired a certain relish for this mod-
erately tepid and unstimidating expression
of enthusiasm. But as a reward for gi'atui-
tous services I confess I thought it a little

156 THE AUTOCRAT OF

below that blood -heat standard wbieli a
man's breath ought to have, whether silent,
or vocal and articulate. I waited for a fa-
vorable opportimity, however, before making
the remarks which follow.]

— There are single expressions, as I have
told you already, that fix a man's position
for you before you have done shaking hands
with him. Allow me to exj^and a little.
There are several things, very slight in
themselves, yet implying other things not
so ununportant. Thus, your French servant
has devalise your premises and got caught.
Excusez, says the sergent-de-ville, as he
politely relieves him of his uj^per garments
and displays his bust in the fidl daylight.
Good shoidders enough, — a little marked,
— traces of smallpox, perhaps, — but white.
. . . Crac ! from the sergeyit-de-ville s broad
palm on the white shoidder! Now look!
Vogue la gcdere ! Out comes the big red
V — mark of the hot iron ; — he had blis-
tered it out pretty nearly, — hadn't he? —
the old rascal VOLEUR, branded in the
galleys at Marseilles ! [Don't ! What if
he has got something like this ? — nobody
supposes I invented such a story.]

My man John, who used to drive two of

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE I57

those six equine females wliich I told you I
had owned, — for, look you, my friends, sim-
ple though I stand here, I am one that has
been driven in his " kerridge," — not using
that term, as liberal shepherds do, for any
battered old shabby-genteel go-cart which
has more than one wheel, but meaning
thereby a four-wheeled vehicle unth a pole^
— my man John, I say, was a retired soldier.
He retired unostentatiously, as many of Her
Majesty's modest servants have done before
and since. John told me, that when an offi-
cer thinks he recognizes one of these retir-
ing heroes, and woidd know if he has really
been in the service, that he may restore him,
if possible, to a grateful country, he comes
suddenly upon him, and says, sharply,
" Strap I " If he has ever worn the shoul-
der-strap, he has learned the reprimand for
its ill adjustment. The old word of com-
mand flashes through his muscles, and his
hand goes up m. an instant to the place
where the strap used to be.

[I was all the time preparing for my
grand coup^ you understand; but I saw they
were not quite ready for it, and so contin-
ued, — always in illustration of the general
principle I had laid down.]

158 THE AUTOCRAT OF

Yes, odd things come out in ways that no-
body thinks of. There was a legend, that,
when the Danish pirates made descents upon
the English coast, they caught a few Tartars
occasionally, in the shape of Saxons, who
would not let them go, — on the contrary, in-
sisted on their staying, and, to make sure of
it, treated them as Apollo treated Marsyas,
or as Bartholinus has treated a fellow-crea-
ture in his title-page, and, having divested
them of the one essential and perfectly fit-
ting garment, indispensable in the mildest
climates, nailed the same on the church-door
as we do the banns of marriage, iii terro-
rem.

[There was a laugh at this among some
of the young folks ; but as I looked at our
landlady, I saw that " the water stood in her
eyes," as it did in Clu-istiana's when the in-
terpreter asked her about the spider, ai^d
I fancied, but wasn't quite sure that the
schoolmistress blushed, as Mercy did in the
same conversation, as you remember.]

That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story, —
said the yomig fellow whom they call Jolui.
I abstained from making Hamlet's remark
to Horatio, and continued.

Not long since, the church-wardens were

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 159

repairing and beautifying an old Saxon
church in a certain English village, and
among other things thought the doors should
be attended to. One of them particularly,
the front-door, looked very badly, crusted,
as it were, and as if it woidd be all the bet-
ter for scraping. There happened to be a
microscopist in the village who had heard
the old pirate story, and he took it into his
head to examine the crust on this door.
There was no mistake about it; it was a
genuine historical document, of the Ziska
drum-head pattern, — a real cutis humana^
stripped from some old Scandina\dan fili-
buster, and the legend was true.

My friend, the Professor, settled an im-
portant historical and financial question
once by the aid of an exceedingly minute
fragment of a similar document. Beliind
the i^ane of plate-glass which bore his name
and title burned a modest lamp, signifj'ing
to the passers-by that at all hours of the
night the slightest favors (or fevers) were
welcome. A youth who had freely partaken
of the cup wliich cheers and likewise inebri-
ates, following a moth-like impulse very nat-
ural under the circmnstances, dashed his fist
at the light and quenched the meek lumi-

l6o THE AUTOCRAT OF

nary, — breaking tlirougli tlie plate-glass, of
course, to reacli it. Now I don't want to
go into minutke at table, you know, but a
naked band can no more go tbrougb a pane
of tbick glass without leaving some of its
cuticle, to say tlie least, bebind it, than a
butterfly can go through a sausage-machine
without looking the worse for it. The Pro-
fessor gathered up the fragments of glass,
and with them certain very minute but en-
tirely satisfactory documents which would
have identified and hanged any rogue in
Christendom who had parted with them. —
The historical question, Who did itf and
the financial question, TT'^o ^^at'c? for it f
were both settled before the new lamp was
lighted the next evening.

You see, my friends, what immense con-
clusions, touching our lives, our fortunes,
and our sacred honor, may be reached by
means of very insignificant premises. This
is eminently true of manners and forms of
speech ; a movement or a phrase often tells
you all you want to know about a person.
Thus, " How 's your health ? " (commonly
pronomiced ha'dWi) instead of. How do you
do ? or, How are you ? Or calling your lit-
tle dark entry a " hall," and your old rickety

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE i6l

one-horse wagon a " kerridge." Or telling
a person who has been trying to please you
that he has given you pretty good " sahtis-
fahction." Or saying that you " remem-
ber of " such a thing, or that you have been
" stoppin' " at Deacon Somebody's, — and
other such expressions. One of my friends
had a little marble statuette of Cupid in the
parlor of his country-house, — bow, arrows,
wings, and all complete. A visitor, indig-
enous to the region, looking pensively at
the figure, asked the lady of the house " if
that was a statoo of her deceased infant?"
What a delicious, though somewhat volu-
minous biography, social, educational, and
aesthetic, in that brief question !

[Please observe with what Machiavellian
astuteness I smuggled in the particular of-
fence which it was my object to hold up to
my fellow-boarders, without too personal an
attack on the individual at whose door it
lay.]

That was an exceedingly dull person who
made the remark, Ex pede Herculem. He
might as well have said, " from a peck of
apples you may judge of the barrel." Ex
PEDE, to be sure ! Read, instead. Ex ungue
minimi digiti pedis^ Hercidem^ ej usque pa-

VOL. I.

l62 THE AUTOCRAT OF

trem^ matrem, avos et ^jroavos^Jilios, nepotes
et jii'onepotes f Talk to me about yoiir
80s TTov (TTw ! Tell me about Cuvier's getting
up a megatlierium from a tooth, or Agassiz's
drawing a portrait of an undiscovered fisli
from a single scale I As the " O " revealed
Giotto, — as the one word " moi " betrayed
the Stratford-atte-Bowe-taught Anglais, — so
all a man's antecedents and possibilities are
summed up in a single utterance which gives
at once the gauge of his education and his
mental organization.

Possibilities, Sir ? — said the divinity-stu-
dent ; can't a man who says Hdow ? arrive
at distinction?

Sir, — I replied, — in a republic all things
are possible. But the man with a future
has almost of necessity sense enough to see
that any odious trick of speech or manners
must be got rid of. Does n't Sydney Smith
say that a public man in England never gets
over a false quantity uttered in early life?
Our public men are in little danger of this
fatal mis-step, as few of them are in the habit
of introducing Latin into their sijeeches, —
for good and sufficient reasons. But they
are bound to speak decent English, — vm-
less, indeed, they are rough old campaign-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 163

ers, like General Jackson or General Taylor ;
in which case, a few scars on Priscian's head
are pardoned to old fellows who have quite
as many on their own, and a constituency of
thirty empires is not at all particular, pro-
vided they do not swear in their Presiden-
tial ^Messages.

However, it is not for me to talk. I have
made mistakes enough in conversation and
print. I never find them out until they are
stereotyi^ed, and then I think they rarely
escape me. I have no doubt I shall make
half a dozen slips before this breakfast is
over, and remember them all before another.
How one does tremble with rage at his own
intense momentary stupidity about things he
knows perfectly well, and to think how he
lays himself open to the impertinences of
the captatores verhorum. those usefid but
himible scavengers of the lanoniao^e, whose
business it is to pick up what might offend
or injure, and remove it, hugging and feed-
ing on it as they go ! I don't want to speak
too slig-htinolv of these verbal critics : —
how can I. who am so fond of talking about
errors and vulgarisms of speech ? Only
there is a difference between those clerical
blunders which almost every man commits,

l64 THE AUTOCRAT OF

knowing better, and that liabitual grossness
or meanness of speech which is unendurable
to educated persons, from anybody that
wears silk or broadcloth.

[I write down the above remarks this
morning, January 26th, making this record
of the date that nobody may think it was
written in wrath, on account of any particu-
lar grievance suffered from the invasion of
any individual scarahcmis grammaticus.'\

— I wonder if anybody ever finds fault
with anything I say at this table when it
is repeated? I hope they do, I am sure. I
should be very certain that I had said
nothing of much significance, if they did
not.

Did you never, in walking in the fields,
come across a large flat stone, which had
lain, nobody knows how long, just where
you found it, with the grass forming a little
hedge, as it were, all roimd it, close to its
edges, — and have you not, in obedience to
a kind of feeling that told you it had been
lying there long enough, insinuated your
stick or 3^our foot or your fingers under its
edge and turned it over as a housewife
turns a cake, when she says to herself,
" It 's done brown enough by this time " ?

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 165

What an odd revelation, and what an un-
foreseen and unpleasant surprise to a small
community, the very existence of which you
had not suspected, until the sudden dismay
and scattering among its members produced
by your turning the old stone over ! Blades
of grass flattened down, colorless, matted
together, as if they had been bleached and
ironed ; hideous crawling creatures, some of
them coleopterous or horny-shelled, — turtle-
bugs one wants to call them ; some of them
softer, but cunningly spread out and com-
pressed like Lepine watches ; (Natui'e never
loses a crack or a cre^ace, mind you, or a
joint in a tavern bedstead, but she always
has one of her flat-pattern live timekeepers
to slide into it ;) black, glossy crickets, with
their long^ filaments stickin<j out like the
whips of four-horse stage-coaches ; motion-
less, slug-like creatures, yoimg larvte, per-
haps more horrible in their pulpy stiUness
than even in the infernal wriggle of matu-
rity ! But no sooner is the stone turned and
the wholesome light of day let upon this
compressed and blinded community of creep-
ing tilings, than all of them which enjoy the
luxury of legs — and some of them have a
good many — rush roimd wildly, butting

i66 THE AUTOCRAT OF

eacli other and everything in their way, and
end in a general stampede for underground
retreats from the region poisoned by sun-
shine. Next year you Arvdll find the gTass
growing tall and green where the stone lay ;
the groimd-bird builds her nest where the
beetle had his hole : the dandelion and the
buttercup are growing there, and the broad
fans of inseet-angels open and shut over
their golden disks, as the rhytlunic waves of
blissful consciousness pulsate through their
glorified being.

— The young fellow whom they call John
saw fit to say, in his very familiar way, —
at which I do not choose to take offence,
but which I sometimes tliink it necessary to
repress, that I was coming it rather strong
on the butterflies.

No, I replied ; there is meaning in each
of those images, — the butterfly as well as
the others. The stone is ancient error.
The oTi'ass is human nature borne dowTi and
bleached of all its color by it. The shaj)es
which are found beneath are the crafty be-
ings that thrive in darkness, and the weaker
organisms kept helpless by it. He who
turns the stone over is whosoever puts the
staff of truth to the old lying incubus, no

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 167

matter whether he do it with a serious face
or a laughing- one. The next year stands
for the coming time. Then shall the nature
which had lain blanched and broken rise in
its full statui-e and native hues in the sun-
shine. Then shall God's minstrels build
their nests in the hearts of a newborn hu-
manity. Then shall beautj' — Divinity tak-
ing outlines and color — light upon the
souls of men as the butterfly, image of the
beatified spirit rising from the dust, soars
from the shell that held a poor gTub, which
would never have found wings had not the
stone been lifted.

You never need think you can turn over
any old falsehood without a terrible squirm-
ing and scattering of the horrid little popu-
lation that dwells under it.

— Every real thought on every real sub-
ject knocks the ^\dnd out of somebody or
other. As soon as his breath comes back,
he very probably begins to exjiend it in
hard words. These are the best evidence
a man can have that he has said something
it was time to say. Dr. Johnson was disap-
pointed in the effect of one of his pamplilets.
" I think I have not been attacked enough
for it," he said ; — " attack is the reaction ;

I68 THE AUTOCRAT OF

I never think I have hit hard unless it re-
bounds."

— If a fellow attacked my opinions in
print woidd I reply ? Not I. Do you think
I don't understand what my friend, the
Professor, long ago called the hydrostatic
2)aradox of controversy ?

Don't know what that means? — Well, I
will tell you. You know, that, if you had a
bent tube, one arm of which was of the size
of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough to
hold the ocean, water woidd stand at the
same heio-ht in one as in the other. Con-
troversy equalizes fools and wise men in the
same way, — and the fools know it.

— No, but I often read what they say
about other people. There are about a
dozen phrases which all come timibling
along together, like the tongs, and the
shovel, and the poker, and the brush, and
the bellows, in one of those domestic ava-
lanches that everybody knows. If you get
one, you get the whole lot.

What are they? — Oh, that depends a
good deal on latitude and longitude. Epi-
thets foUow the isothermal lines pretty ac-
curately. Grouping them in two families,
one finds himself a clever, genial, witty,

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 169

wise, brilliant, sparkling, thoughtful, distin-
guished, celebrated, illustrious scholar and
perfect gentleman, and first writer of the
age ; or a dull, foolish, ^Nncked, pert, shal-
low, ignorant, insolent, ti-aitorous, black-
hearted outcast, and disgrace to ci^aliza-
tion.

What do I think determines the set of
phrases a man gets ? — WeU, I should say
a set of influences sometliing like these : —
1st. Relationships, political, religious, social,
domestic. 2d. Oysters, in the form of sup-
pers given to gentlemen connected ^^'ith
criticism. I believe in the school, the col-
lege, and the clergy ; but my sovereign
logic, for regulating public opinion — which
means commonly the opinion of half a dozen
of the critical gentry — is the following.
Major proposition. Oysters au naturel.
Minor pj'ojjosition. The same " scalloped."
Conclusion. That — (here insert enter-
tainer's name) is clever, witty, wise, bril-
liant, — and the rest.

— No, it is n't exactly bribery. One man
has oysters, and another epithets. It is
an exchange of hospitalities ; one gives a
'• spread " on linen, and the other on paper,
■ — that is all. Don't you think you and I

I70 THE AUTOCRAT OF

should be apt to do just so, if we were in
the critical line ? I am sure I could n't re-
sist the softening influences of hospitality.
I don't like to dine out, you know, — I dine
so well at our own table [oiu- landlady
looked radiant], and the company is so
pleasant [a rustling movement of satisfac-
tion among the boarders] ; but if I did par-
take of a man's salt, with such additions as
that article of food requires to make it pala-
table, I could never abuse him, and if I had
to siDcak of him, I suppose I should hang
my set of jingling epithets rovmd him like
a string of sleigh-bells. Good feeling helps
society to make liars of most of us, — not
absolute liars, but such careless handlers of
truth that its sharp corners get terribly
roimded. I love truth as cliiefest among
the virtues ; I trust it runs in my blood ;
but I would never be a critic, because I
know I could not always tell it. I might
write a criticism of a book that happened to
please me ; that is another matter.

— Listen, Benjamin Franklin ! This is
for you, and such others of tender age as
you may tell it to.

When we are as yet small children, long
before the time when those two grown la-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 171

dies offer us tlie choice of Hercules, there
comes up to us a youtliful angel, holding in
liis right hand cubes like dice, and in his
left s^jheres like marbles. The cubes are of
stainless ivory, and on each is \M:-itten in
letters of gold — Truth. The spheres are
veined and streaked and spotted beneath,
with a dark crimson flush above, where the
light falls on them, and in a certain aspect
you can make out upon every one of them
the three letters L, I, E. The child to whom
they are offered very probably clutches at
both. The spheres are the most convenient
things in the world ; they roll with the least
possible impidse just where the child woidd
have them. The cubes will not roll at all ;
they have a great talent for standing stiU,
and always keep right side up. But very
soon the young philosopher finds that things
which roll so easily are very apt to roll into
the wTong corner, and to get out of his way
when he most wants them, while he alwaj's
knows where to fuid the others, which stay
where they are left. Thus he learns — thus
we learn — to drop the streaked and spec-
kled globes of falsehood and to hold fast the
white angidar blocks of truth. But then
comes Timidity, and after her Good-nature,

172 THE AUTOCRAT OF

and last of all Polite-behavior, all insisting
that truth must roll, or nobody can do any-
thing with it ; and so the first with her
coarse rasp, and the second with her broad
file, and the third with her silken sleeve, do
so round off and smooth and polish the
snow-white cubes of truth, that, when they
have got a little dingy by use, it becomes
hard to tell them from the rolling spheres
of falsehood.

The schoolmistress was polite enough to
say that she was pleased with this, and that
she would read it to her little flock the next
day. But she should tell the children, she
said, that there were better reasons for truth
than could be found in mere experience of
its convenience and the inconvenience of
lying.

Yes, — I said, — but education always be-
gins through the senses, and works up to
the idea of absolute right and wi'ong. The
first thing the child has to learn about this
matter is, that Ipng is unprofitable, — after-
wards that it is against the peace and dig-
nity of the universe.

— Do I think that the particular form of
lying often seen in newspapers, under the
title, "From oui" Foreign Correspondent,''

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 173

does any harm ? — ^Vhy, no, — I don't know
that it does. I suppose it does n't really de-
ceive people any more than the " Arabian
Niohts " or " Gulliver's Travels " do. Some-
times the writers compile too carelessly,
though, and mix up facts out of geog'ra-
phies, and stories out of the penny papers,
so as to mislead those who are desirous of
information. I cut a piece out of one of
the papers the other day, which contains a
number of improbabilities, and, I suspect,
misstatements. I will send up and get it
for you, if you woidd like to hear it. — Ah,
this is it ; it is headed

" Our Sumatra Correspondence.

" This island is now the property of the
Stamford family, — having been won, it is
said, in a raffle, by Sir Stamford, dur-
ing the stock-gambling mania of the South-
Sea Scheme. The history of this gentleman
may be found in an interesting series of
questions (unfortunately not yet answered)
contained in the ' Xotes and Queries.' This
island is entirely surrounded by the ocean,
which here contains a large amount of saline
substance, crystallizing in cubes remarkable
for their symmetry, and frequently displays

174 THE AUTOCRAT OF

on its surface, during- calm weather, the
rainbow tints of the celehrated South- Sea
bubbles. The smnmers are oppressively hot,
and the winters very probably cold ; but
this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, as,
for some peculiar reason, the mercury in
these latitudes never shrinks, as in more
northern regions, and thus the thermometer
is rendered useless in winter.

"The principal vegetable productions of
the island are the pepper tree and the bread-
fruit tree. Pepper being very abundantly
produced, a benevolent society was organ-
ized in London during the last century for
supplying the natives with vinegar and oys-
ters, as an addition to that delightful con-
diment. [Note received from Dr. D. P.]
It is said, however, that, as the oysters were
of the kind called natives in England, the
natives of Sumatra, in obedience to a nat-
ural instinct, refused " to touch them, and
confuied themselves entirely to the crew of
the vessel in which they were brought over.
This information was received from one of
the oldest inhabitants, a native himself, and
exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is
said also to be very skilful in the cuisine
peculiar to the island.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 175

" During tlie season of gathering the pep-
per, the persons emploj^ed are subject to
various incoinmodities, the chief of which is
violent and long-continued sternutation, or
sneezing. Such is the vehemence of these
attacks, that the unfortunate subjects of
them are often driven backwards for great
distances at immense speed, on the well-
kno^\Ti principle of the aeolipile. Not being-
able to see where they are going, these poor
creatures dash themselves to pieces against
the rocks or are precipitated over the cliffs,
and thus many valuable lives are lost annu-
ally. As, during the whole pepper-harvest,
they feed exclusively on this stimulant, they
become exceedingly irritable. The smallest
injury is resented with ungovernable rage.
A young man suffering from the pepper-
fever^ as it is called, cudgelled another most
severely for appropriating a superannuated
relative of trifling value, and was only paci-
fied by ha\'ing a present made hmi of a pig
of that peculiar species of swine called the
Peccavi by the Catholic Jews, who, it is
well known, abstain from swine's flesh in
imitation of the Mahometan Buddhists.

" The bread-tree grows abundantly. Its
branches are well kno^^^l to Eurttpe and

176 THE AUTOCRAT OF

America under the familiar name of macca-
roni. The smaller twigs are called vermi-
celli. They have a decided animal flavor,
as may be observed in the soups containing-
them. Maccaroni, being tubular, is the fa-
vorite habitat of a very dangerous insect,
which is rendered pecidiarly ferocious by
being boiled. The government of the island,
therefore, never allows a stick of it to be
exported without being accompanied by a
piston with which its cavity may at any time
be thorouglily swept out. These are com-
monly lost or stolen before the maccaroni
arrives among us. It therefore always con-
tains many of these insects, which, however,
generally die of old age in the shops, so that
accidents from this source are comparatively
rare.

" The fruit of the bread-tree consists prin-
cipally of hot rolls. The buttered - muffin
variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the
cocoa-nut palm, the cream found on the milk
of the cocoa-nut exuding from the hybrid
in the" shape of butter, just as the ripe fruit
is splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-ta^
ble, where it is commonly served up with
cold " —

— There, — I don't want to read any

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 1 77

more of it. You see that many of these
statements are highly improbable. — Xo, I
shall not mention the paper. — No, neither
of them wrote it, though it reminds me of
the style of these popular writers. I think
the fellow who wrote it must have been
reading some of their stories, and got them
mixed up with his history and geography.
I don't suppose he lies — he sells it to the
editor, who knows how many squares off
" Sumatra " is. The editor, who sells it to
the public — By the way, the papers have
been very civil — have n't they ? — to the —
the — what d' ye call it ? — " Northern Mag-
azine,"— isn't it? — got up by some of
those Come-outers, down East, as an organ
for their local peculiarities.

— The Professor has been to see me.
Came in, glorious, at about twelve o'clock,
last night. Said he had been with " the
boys." On inquiry, found that " the boys "
were certain baldish and grayish old gentle-
men that one sees or hears of in various im-
portant stations of society. The Professor
is one of the same set, but he always talks
as if he had been out of college about ten

years, whereas [Each of

these dots was a little nod, which the com-

VOL. I.

178 THE AUTOCRAT

j)any understood, as the reader will, no
doubt.] He calls tliem sometimes " the
boys," and sometimes "the old fellows."
Call him by the latter title, and see how he
likes it. — Well, he came in last night glo-
rious, as I was saying. Of coiu'se I don't
mean vinously exalted ; he drinks little wine
on such occasions, and is well known to all
the Peters and Patricks as the gentleman
who always has indefinite quantities of black
tea to kill any extra glass of red claret he
may have swallowed. But the Professor
says he always gets tipsy on old memories
at these gatherings. He was, I forget how
many years old when he went to the meet-
ing ; just turned of twenty now, — he said.
He made various youthfid proposals to me,
including a duet under the landlady's daugh-
ter's window. He had just learned a trick,
he said, of one of " the boys," of getting a
splendid bass out of a door-panel by rub-
bing it with the pahn of his hand. Offered
to sing " The sky is bright," accompanying
himself on the front-door, if I would go
down and helj) in the chorus. Said there
never was such a set of fellows as the old
boys of the set he has been with. Judges,
mayors. Congress-men, Mr. Speakers, lead-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 179

ers in science, clergymen better than famous,
and famous too, poets by the half-dozen,
singers with voices like angels, financiers,
wits, three of the best laughers in the Com-
monwealth, engineers, agriculturists, — all
forms of talent and knowledge he pretended
were represented in that meeting. Then he
began to quote Byron about Santa Croce,
and maintained that he could " furnish out
creation" in all its details from that set of
his. He would like to have the whole boo-
dle of them (I remonstrated against this
word, but the Professor said it was a diabol-
ish good word, and he would have no other),
with their wives and children shipwrecked
on a remote island, just to see how splen-
didly they would reorganize society. They
could build a city, — they have done it ; make
constitutions and laws ; establish churches
and lyceums ; teach and practise the healing
art; instruct in every department; found
observatories ; create commerce and manu-
factures ; write songs and hymns, and sing
'em, and make instniments to accompany
the songs with ; lastly, publish a journal al-
most as good as the " Northern Magazine,"
edited by the Come-outers. There was no-
thing they were not up to, from a christening

l8o THE AUTOCRAT OF

to a hanging ; the last, to be sure, could
never be called for, unless some stranger got
in among them.

— I let the Professor talk as long as lie
liked ; it did n't make much difference to
me whether it was all truth, or partly made
up of pale Sherry and similar elements.
All at once he jumped up and said, —

Don't you want to hear what I just read
to the boys ?

I have had questions of a similar charac-
ter asked me before, occasionally. A man
of iron mould might perhaps say. No ! I
am not a man of iron mould, and said that
I should be delighted.

The Professor then read — with that
slightly sing-song cadence which is observed
to be common in poets reading their own
verses — the following stanzas ; holding
them at a focal distance of about two feet
and a half, with an occasional movement
back or forward for better adjustment, the
appearance of which has been likened by
some impertinent young folks to that of the
act of playing on the trombone. His eye-
sight was never better ; I have his word
for it.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE iSl

MARE.RUBRUM

\

/

LASH out a stream of blood-red wine ! —

For I would driuk to other days ;
And brighter shall their memory shine,
Seen flaming through its crimson blaze.
The roses die, the summers fade ;

But every ghost of boyhood's dream
By Nature's magic power is laid

To sleep beneath this blood-red stream.

It filled the purple grapes that lay

And drank the splendors of the sun
Where the long summer's cloudless day

Is mirrored in the broad Garonne ;
It pictures still the bacchant shapes

That saw their hoarded sunlight shed, —
The maidens dancing on the grapes, —

Their milk-white ankles splashed with red.

Beneath these waves of crimson lie,
In rosy fetters prisoned fast,

l82 THE AUTOCRAT OF

Those flitting shapes that never die,
The swift-winged visions of the past.

Kiss hut the crystal's mystic rim,
Each shadow rends its flowery chain,

Springs in a bubble from its brim

And walks the chambers of the brain.

Poor Beauty ! time and fortune's wrong

No form nor feature may withstand, —
Thy wrecks are scattered all along,

Like emptied sea-shells on the sand ; —
Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain,

The dust restores each blooming girl.
As if the sea-shells moved again

Their glistening lips of pink and pearl.

Here lies the home of school-boy life,

With creaking stair and wind-swept hall,
And, scarred by many a truant knife,

Our old initials on the wall ;
Here rest — their keen vibrations mute —

The shout of voices known so well,
The ringing laugh, the wailing flute,

The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell.

Here, clad in burning robes, are laid

Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed ;
And here those cherished forms have strayed

"We miss awhile, and call them dead.
W^hat wizard fills the maddening glass ?

What soil the enchanted clusters grew,
That buried passions wake and pass

In beaded drops of fiery dew ?

Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine, —
Our hearts can boast a warmer glow.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE

Filled from a vintage more divine,

Calmed, but not chilled by winter's snow!

To-night the palest wave we sip

Rich as the priceless draught shall be

That wet the bride of Cana's lip, —
The wedding wine of Galilee !

1^3

«s^

s

IN has many tools, but a lie is the
handle which fits them aU.

— I think, Sir, — said the di-
vinity-student,— you must in-
tend that for one of the sayings
of the Seven Wise Men of Boston you were
speaking of the other day.

I thank you, my yoimg friend, — was my
repl}^ — but I must say something better
than that, before I could pretend to fill out
the niunber.

— The schoolmistress wanted to know how
many of these sayings there were on record,
and what, and by whom said.

— Why, let us see, — there is that one of

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 185

Beujamiu Frankliu, " tlie great Bostonian,"
after whom this lad was named. To be
sure, he said a great many wise things, —
and 1 don't feel sure he did n't borrow this,
— he speaks as if it were old. But then he
applied it so neatly ! —

" He that has once done you a kindness
will be more ready to do you another than
he whom you yom-self have obliged."

Then there is that glorious Epicurean
paradox, uttered by my friend, the Histo-
rian, in one of his flashing moments : —

" Give us the luxuries of life, and we will
dispense with its necessaries."

To these must certainly be added that
other saying of one of the wittiest of men : —

" Good Americans, when they die, go to
Paris."

— The divinity-student looked grave at
this, but said nothing.

The schoolmistress spoke out, and said she
did n't think the wit meant any irreverence.
It was only another way of saying, Paris is
a heavenly place after New York or Boston.

A jaunty-looking person, who had come
in with the young fellow they call John, —
evidently a stranger, — said there was one
more wise man's saying that he had heard ;

1 86 THE AUTOCRAT OF

it was about our place, but he did u't know
who said it. — A civil curiosity was mani-
fested by the company to hear the fourth
wise saying. I heard him distinctly whis-
pering to the young fellow who brought him
to dinner, Shall I tell it f To which the
answer was, Go ahead ! — Well, — he said,
— this was what I heard : —

" Boston State-House is the hub of the
solar system. You could n't pry that out
of a Boston man if you had the tire of all
creation straightened out for a crowbar."

Sir, — said I, — I am gratified with your
remark. It expresses with j)leasing vivacity
that which I have sometimes heard uttered
with malignant dulness. The satire of the
remark is essentially true of Boston, — and
of all other considerable — and inconsider-
able — places with which I have had the
privilege of being acquainted. Cockneys
think London is the only place in the world.
Frenclnnen — you remember the line about
Paris, the Court, the World, etc. — I recol-
lect well, by the way, a sign in that city
wliich ran thus : " Hotel de I'Univers et des
Etats Unis ; " and as Paris is the universe
to a Frenclmian, of course the United States
are outside of it. — " See Naples and then

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 187

die." It is quite as bad witli smaller places.
I have been about, lectui'ing, you know, and
have found the following propositions to
hold true of all of them.

1. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly
through the centre of each and every to^Ti
or city.

2. If more than fifty years have passed
since its foundation, it is affectionately
styled by the inhabitants the " good old
town of" — (whatever its name may hap-
pen to be).

3. Every collection of its inhabitants that
comes together to listen to a stranger is
invariabl}" declared to be a " remarkably in-
telligent audience."

4. The climate of the place is particularly
favorable to longevity.

5. It contains several persons of vast tal-
ent little known to the world. (One or two
of them, you may perhaps chance to remem-
ber, sent short pieces to the " Pactolian "
some time since, which were " respectfully
declined.")

Boston is just like other places of its size ;
— only, perhaps, considering its excellent
fish-market, paid fire-department, superior
monthly publications, and correct habit of

i88 THE AUTOCrAt OF

spelling tlie Englisli language, it has some
right to look down on the mob of cities. I '11
tell you, though, if you want to know it,
what is the real offence of Boston. It drains
a large water-shed of its intellect, and will
not itself be drained. If it would onl}^ send
away its fii'st-rate men, instead of its second-
rate ones (no offence to the well-known ex-
ceptions, of which we are always proud),
we should be spared such epigrammatic re-
marks as that which the gentleman has
quoted. There can never be a real metrop-
olis in this country, until the biggest centre
can drain the lesser ones of their talent and
wealth. — I have observed, by the way, that
the people who really live in two gTcat cities
are by no means so jealous of each other as
are those of smaller cities situated within the
intellectual basin, or suction-range^ of one
large one, of the pretensions of any other.
Don't you see why ? Because their prom-
ising young author and rising lawyer and
large capitalist have been drained off to the
neighboring big city, — their prettiest girl
has been exported to the same market ; all
their ambition points there, and all their thin
gilding of glory comes from there. I hate
little toad-eating cities.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 189

— Would I be so good as to specify any
particular example ? — Oli, — an example ?
Did you ever see a bear -trap? Never?
Well, should n't you like to see me put my
foot into one? With sentiments of the
highest consideration I must beg leave to be
excused.

Besides, some of the smaller cities are
charming. If they have an old church or
two, a few stately mansions of former gran-
dees, here and there an old dwelling with
the second story projecting (for the conven-
ience of shooting the Indians knocking at
the front-door with their tomaliawks), — if
they have, scattered about, those mighty
square houses built something more than
half a centur}^ ago, and standing like archi-
tectural boulders dropped by the former
diluvium of wealth, whose refluent wave has
left them as its monument, — if they have
gardens with elbowed apple-trees that push
their branches over the high board- fence
and drop their fruit on the side-walk, — if
they have a little grass in the side-streets,
enough to betoken quiet without proclaim-
ing decay, — I think I could go to pieces,
after my life's work were done, in one of
those tranquil places, as sweetly as in any

19© THE AUTOCRAT OF

cradle that an old man may be rocked to
sleep in. I visit such spots always with
infinite delight. My friend, the Poet, says,
that rapidly growing towns are most unfa-
vorable to the imaginative and reflective
faculties. Let a man live in one of these
old quiet places, he says, and the wine of
his soul, which is kept thick and turbid by
the rattle of busy streets, settles, and, as you
hold it up, you may see the sun through it
by day and the stars by night.

— Do I think that the little villages have
the conceit of the great towns ? — I don't
believe there is much difference. You know
how they read Pope's line in the smallest
town in our State of Massachusetts? —
Well, they read it

" All are but parts of one stnpendons Hull ! "

— Every person's feelings have a front-
door and a side-door by which they may be
entered. The front-door is on the street.
Some keep it always open ; some keep it
latched ; some, locked ; some, bolted, — with
a chain that ^^^ll let you peep in, but not
get in ; and some nail it up, so that nothing
can pass its threshold. This front-door leads
into a passage which opens into an ante-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 191

room, and this into the interior apartments.
The side-door opens at once into the sacred
chambers.

There is ahnost always at least one key to
this side-door. This is carried for years hid-
den in a mother's bosom. Fathers, brothers,
sisters, and friends, often, but by no means
so universally, have duplicates of it. The
wedding-ring conveys a right to one ; alas,
if none is given with it !

If nature or accident has put one of these
keys into the hands of a person who has the
torturing instinct, I can only solemnly pro-
nounce the words that Justice utters over
its doomed victim, — Ytie Lord have mercy
on your soul ! You will probably go mad
within a reasonable time, — or, if you are a
man, rim off and die with your head on a
curb-stone, in Melbourne or San Francisco,
— or, if you are a woman, quarrel and break
your heart, or turn into a pale, jointed pet-
rification that moves about as if it were
alive, or play some real life-tragedy or
other.

Be very carefid to whom you trust one
of these keys of the side-door. The fact of
possessing one renders those even who are
dear to you very terrible at times. You can

192 THE AUTOCRAT OF

keep the world out from youi' front-door, or
receive visitors only when you are ready for
them ; but those of your own flesh and
blood, or of certain grades of intimacy, can
come in at the side-door, if they will, at any
hoiu' and in any mood. Some of them have
a scale of your whole nervous system, and
can play all the gamut of your sensibilities
in semi-tones, — touching the naked nerve-
pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his in-
strument. I am satisfied that there are as
great masters of this nerve-playing as Vieux-
temjjs or Thalberg in their lines of perform-
ance. Married life is the school in which
the most accomijlished artists in this depart-
ment are found. A delicate woman is the
best instrument ; she has such a magnificent
compass of sensibilities ! From the deep
inward moan which follows pressure on the
great nerves of right, to the sharp cry as
the filaments of taste are struck with a
crashing sweep, is a range which no other
instrument possesses. A few exercises on it
daily at home fit a man wonderfully for his
habitual labors, and refresh him immensely
as he returns from them. No stranger can
get a great many notes of torture out of a
human soul ; it takes one that knows it well.

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 193

— parent, cliilcl, brother, sister, intimate.
Be very careful to whom you give a side-
door key ; too many have them ali'eady.

— You remember the old story of the
tender-hearted man, who placed a frozen
viper in his bosom, and was stung by it
when it became thawed ? If we take a cold-
blooded creature into our bosom, better that
it should sting us and we shoidd die than
that its chill shoidd slowly steal into our
hearts ; warm it we never can ! I have seen
faces of women that were fair to look upon,
yet one could see that the icicles were form-
ing round these women's hearts. I knew
what freezing image lay on the white breasts
beneath the laces !

A very simple intellectual mechanism an-
swers the necessities of friendship, and even
of the most intimate relations of life. If a
watch tells us the hour and the minute, we
can be content to carry it about with us for
a life-time, though it has no second-hand and
is not a repeater, nor a musical watch, —
though it is not enamelled nor jewelled, —
in short, though it has little beyond the
wheels required for a trustworthy instru-
ment, added to a good face and a pair of
usefid hands. The more wheels there are

194 THE AUTOCRAT OF

in a watch or a bi*aiu, the more trouble they
are to take care of. The movements of ex-
altation which belong to genius are egotistic
by their very nature. A calm, clear mind,
not subject to the spasms and crises which
are so often met with in creative or intensely
perceptive natures, is the best basis for love
or friendship. — Observe, I am talking about
minds. I won't say, the more intellect, the
less capacity for loving ; for that would do
wrong to the understanding and reason ; —
but, on the other hand, that the brain often
runs away with the heart's best blood, which
gives the world a few pages of wisdom or
sentiment or poetry, instead of making one
other heart happy, I have no question.

If one's intimate in love or friendship
cannot or does not share all one's intellec-
tual tastes or pursuits, that is a small matter.
Intellectual companions can be found easily
in men and books. After all, if we think
of it, most of the world's loves and friend-
ships have been between people that could
not read nor spell.

But to radiate the heat of the affections
into a clod, which absorbs all that is poured
into it, but never warms beneath the sun-
shine of smiles or the pressure of hand or

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 195

lip, — this is the great iiiartyrdom of sensi-
tive beings, — most of all in that perpetual
auto da fe where young womanhood is the
sacrifice.

— You noticed, perhaps, what I just said
about the loves and friendships of illiterate
persons, — that is, of the hiunan race, with
a few exceptions here and there. I like
books, — I was born and bred among them,
and have the easy feeling, when I get into
their presence, that a stable-boy has among
horses. I don't think I undervalue them
either as companions or instructors. But
I can't help remembering that the worlds
great men have not commonly been great
scholars, nor its great scholars great men.
The Hebrew patriarchs had small libraries,
I think, if any ; yet they represent to our
imaginations a very complete idea of man-
hood, and. I think, if we could ask in Abra-
ham to dine with us men of letters next
Saturday, we should feel honored by his
company.

What I wanted to say about books is
this : that there are times in which every
active mind feels itself above any and all
human books.

— I think a man must have a good opin-

196 THE AUTOCRAT OF

ion of himself, Sir, — said the divinity-stu-
dent, — who should feel himself above
Shakespeai-e at an}^ time.

My young- friend, — I replied, — the man
who is never conscious of a state of feel-
ing or of intellectual effort entirely beyond
expression by any form of words whatso-
ever is a mere creature of langiiage. I
can hardly believe there are any such men.
AVhy, think for a moment of the power of
music. The nerves that make us alive to it
spread out (so the Professor tells me) in
the most sensitive region of the marrow,
just where it is widening to run upwards
into the hemispheres. It has its seat in the
region of sense rather than of thought. Yet
it produces a continuous and, as it were,
logical sequence of emotional and intellec-
tual changes ; but how different from trains
of thought proper ! how entirely beyond the
reach of symbols ! — Think of human pas-
sions as compared with all phrases ? Did
you ever hear of a man's growing lean by
the reading of " Romeo and Juliet, " or blow-
ing his brains out because Desdemona was
maligned ? There are a good many symbols,
even, that are more expressive than words.
I remember a young wife who had to part

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 197

with her husband for a time. She did not
write a mournful poem ; indeed, she was a
silent person, and jjerhaps hardly said a
word about it ; but she quietly turned of a
deep orange color with jaundice. A great
many people in this world have but one
form of rhetoric for their profoundest expe-
riences, — namely, to waste away and die.
When a man can read^ his paroxysm of feel-
ing is passing. When he can read, his
thought has slackened its hold. — You talk
about reading Shakespeare, using him as an
expression for the highest intellect, and you
wonder that any common person should be
so presumptuous as to suppose his thought
can rise abov^e the text which lies before
him. But think a moment. A child's read-
ing of Shakespeare is one thing, and Cole-
ridge's or SchlegeFs reading of him is an-
other. The saturation-point of each mind
differs from that of every other. But I
think it is as true for the small mind which
can only take up a little as for the great one
which takes up much, that the suggestive
trains of thought and feeling ought always
to rise above — not the author, but the read-
er's mental version of the author, whoever
he may be.

198 THE AUTOCRAT OF

I think most readers of Shakespeare some-
times find themselves thrown into exalted
mental conditions like those produced by
music. Then they may drop the book, to
pass at once into the region of thought with-
out words. We may happen to be very dull
folks, you and I, and probably are, unless
there is some particular reason to suppose
the contrary. But we get glimpses now and
then of a sphere of spiritual possibilities,
where we, dull as we are now, may sail in
vast circles round the largest compass of
earthly intelligences.

— I confess there are times when I feel
like the friend I mentioned to you some
time ago, — I hate the very sight of a book.
Sometimes it becomes almost a physical ne-
cessity to talk out what is in the mind, be-
fore putting anything else into it. It is
very bad to have thoughts and feelings,
which were meant to come out in talk, strike
in, as they say of some complaints that
ought to show outwardly.

I always believed in life rather than in
books. I suppose every day of earth, with
its hundred thousand deaths and something
more of births, — with its loves and hates,
its triumphs and defeats, its pangs and

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 199

blisses, has more of humanity in it than all
the books that were ever written, put to-
gether. I believe the flowers growing at
this moment send up more fragrance to
heaven than was ever exhaled from all the
essences ever distilled.

— Don't I read up various matters to talk
about at this table or elsewhere ? — No, that
is the last thing I would do. I will tell you
my ride. Talk about those subjects you have
had long in yoiu* mind, and listen to what
others say about subjects you have studied
but recently. Knowledge and timber should
n't be much used till they are seasoned.

— Physiologists and metaphysicians have
had their attention turned a good deal of
late to the automatic and involuntary ac-
tions of the mind. Put an idea into your
intelligence and leave it there an hour, a
day, a year, without ever having occasion to
refer to it. When, at last, you return to it,
you do not find it as it was when acquired.
It has domiciliated itseK, so to speak, — be-
come at home, — entered into relations with
your other thoughts, and integrated itself
with the whole fabric of the mind. — Or
take a simple and familiar example ; Dr.
Carpenter has adduced It. You forget a

200 THE AUTOCRAT OF

name, in conversation, — go on talking, with-
out making any effort to recall it, — and
presently the mind evolves it by its own in-
voluntary and unconscious action, while you
were pursuing another train of thought, and
the name rises of itself to your lips.

There are some curious observations I
should like to make about the mental ma-
chinery, but I think we are getting rather
didactic.

— I should be gratified, if Benjamin
Franklin would let me know something of
his progress in the French language. I
rather liked that exercise he read us the
other day, though I must confess I should
hardly dare to translate it. for fear some
people in a remote city where I once lived
might think I was drawing their porti'aits.

— Yes, Paris is a famous place for soci-
eties. I don't know whether the piece I
mentioned from the French author was
intended simply as Natural History, or
whether there was not a little malice in his
description. At any rate, when I gave my
translation to B. F. to turn back again into
French, one reason was that I thought it
would sound a little bald in English, and
some people might think it was meant to

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 20i

have some local bearing or other, — which
the author, of course, didn't mean, inas-
much as he could not be acquainted with
an}i;hing on this side of the water.

[The above remarks were addressed to
the schoolmistress, to whom I handed the
paper after looking it over. The divinity-
student came and read over her shoulder, —
very curious, apparently, but his eyes wan-
dered, I thought. Fancying that her breath-
ing was somewhat hurried and high, or
thoracic^ as my friend, the Professor, calls
it. I. watched her a little more closely. — It
is none of my business. — After all, it is the
imponderables that move the world, — heat,
electricit}\ love. — Hahet ?~\

This is the piece that Benjamin Franklin
made into boarding-school French, such as
you see here ; don't expect too much ; — the
mistakes give a relish to it, I think.

LES SOCIETES POLYPHYSIOPHILOSOPHIQUES.

Ces Soci^t^s \k sont tine Institution pour supplier atix
besoins d'esprit et de cceur de ces individus qui ont sur-
v^cu k leurs Amotions h I'^gard du beau sese, et qui
n'ont pas la distraction de I'habitude de boire.

Pour devenir membre d'une de ces Soci^tfe, on doit
avoir le moins de cheveux possible. S'il y en reste plu-
sieurs qui resistent aux d^pilatoires naturelles et autres,

202 THE AUTOCRAT OF

on doit avoir qnelques connaissances, n'importe dans
quel genre. D^s le moment qu'on ouvre la porte de la
Soci^t^, on a iin grand int^ret dans toutes les choses dont
on ne sait rien. Ainsi, un microscopiste d^montre un
nouveau fiexor du tarse d'un melolontha vulgaris. Doiize
savans improvises, portans des besides, et qui ne con-
naissent rien des insectes, si ce n'est les niorsures du
culex, se pr^cipitent sur I'instrument, et voient, — une
grande buUe d'air, dont ils s'^merveillent avec effusion.
Ce qui est un spectacle plein d'instruction, — pour ceux
qui ne sent pas de ladite Soci^t^. Tons les membres
regardent les chimistes en partieulier avec un air d'in-
telligence parfaite pendant qu'ils prouvent dans un dis-
cours d'tine demiheure que 0'^ N^ H* C' etc. font quelque
chose qui n'est bonne h rien, mais qui probablement a
une odeur tr^s d^sagr^able, selon I'habitude des produits
chimiques. Apr^s eelh vient un matli^maticien qui vous
bourre avec des a + 6 et vous rapporte enfin un x -\- y,
dont vous n'avez pas besoin et qui ne change nullement
vos relations avec la vie. Un naturaliste vous parle des
formations sp^ciales des animaux excessivement incon-
nus, dont vous n'avez jamais soupgonn^ rexistence.
Ainsi il vous d^crit les follicules de Vappendix vermifor-
mis d'un dzigguetai. Vous ne savez pas ce que c'est qu'un
follicule. Vous ne savez pas ce que c'est qu'un appetidix
vermiformis. Vous n'avez jamais entendu parler du dzig-
guetai. Ainsi vous gagnez toutes ces connaissances k la
fois, qui s'attachent k votre esprit comme I'eau adhere
aux plumes d'un canard. On connait toutes les langues
ex officio en devenant membre d'une de ces Soei^t^s.
Ainsi quand on entend lire un Essai sur les dialectes
Tchutchiens, on comprend tout celk de suite, et s'in-
struit ^norm^raent.

II y a deux espfeees d'individus qu'on trouve toujours
{\ ces Societies : 1' Le membre k questions; 2' Le mem-
bre k "Bylaws."

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 203

La question est une sp^cialitd. Celui qui en fait metier
ne fait jamais des rdponses. La question est une mani^re
trfes commode de dire les choses suivantes : ' ' Me voilk !
Je ne suis pas fossil, moi, — je respire encore ! J'ai des
id^es, — voyez mon intelligence ! Vous ne croyiez pas,
vous autres, que je savais quelque chose de celk ! Ah,
nous avons un peu de sagacity, voyez vous ! Nous ne
sommes nuUemeut la bete qu'on pense ! " — Le faiseur
de questions donne peu d'' attention aux reponses qu'on fait ;
ce n'est }]as la dans sa specialite.

Lie membre k " Bylaws " est le bouchon de toutes les
Amotions mousseuses et g^n^reuses qui se montrent dans
la Soei^t^. C'est un empereur manqu^, — un tyran k la
troisi^me trituration. C'est un esprit dur, born^, exact,
grand dans les petitesses, petit dans les grandeurs, selon
le mot du grand Jefferson. On ne I'aiine pas dans la
Soci^t^, mais on le respecte et on le craint. II u'y a qu'un
mot pour ce membre audessus de " Bylaws." Ce mot est
pour lui ce que lOm est aux Hindous. C'est sa religion ;
il n'y a rien audelk. Ce mot Ik c'est la Constitution !

Lesdites Soci^t^s publieut des feuilletous de tems en
tems. On les trouve abandoun^s h sa porte, nus comme
des enfans nouveaun^s, faute de membrane cutan^e, ou
mgme papyrac^e. Si on aime la botanique, on y trouve
une m^moire sur les coquilles ; si on fait des Etudes zo-
ologiques, on trouve un grand tas de q'^/ — 1, ce qui doit
gtre infiniment plus commode que les encyclop^dies.
Ainsi il est clair comme la m^taphysique qu'on doit de-
venir membre d'une Soci^t^ telle que nous d^crivons.

Becettepour le Dc'pilatoire Physiophilosophique.

Chaux vive lb. ss. Eau bouillante Oj.

D^pilez avec. Polissez ensxiite.

— I told tlie boy that his translation into
French was creditable to him ; and some of

204 THE AUTOCRAT OF

the company wishing to hear what there was
in the piece that made me smile, I turned it
into English for them, as well as I could, on
the sjjot.

The landlady's daughter seemed to be
much amused by the idea that a depilatory
could take the place of literary and scientific
accomplislunents ; she wanted me to print
the piece, so that she might send a copy of
it to her cousin in Mizzourah ; she did n't
think he 'd have to do anything to the out-
side of his head to get into any of the socie-
ties ; he had to wear a wig once, when he
played a part in a tabuUo.

No, — said I, — I should n't think of
printing that in English. I '11 tell you why.
As soon as you get a few thousand people
together in a town, there is somebody that
every sharp thing you say is sure to hit.
What if a thing was written in Paris or in
Pekin ? — that makes no difference. Every-
body in those cities, or ahnost everybody,
has his counterpart here, and in all large
places. — You never studied averages, as I
have had occasion to.

I '11 tell you how I came to know so
much about averages. There was one sea-
son when I was lecturing, commonly, five

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 205

eveninos in the week, throuo-h most of the
lecturing period. I soon found, as most
sj)eakers do, that it was pleasanter to work
one lecture than to keep several in hand.

— Don't you get sick to death of one lec-
ture ? — said the landlady's daughter, — who
had a new dress on that day, and was in
spirits for conversation.

I was going to talk about averages, — I
said, — but I have no objection to telling
you about lectures, to begin with.

A new lecture always has a certain ex-
citement connected with its delivery. One
thinks well of it, as of most things fresh from
his mind. After a few deliveries of it, one
gets tired and then disgusted with its repe-
tition. Go on delivering it, and the disgust
passes off, until, after one has repeated it a
hundred or a hundred and fifty times, he
rather enjoys the hundred and first or hun-
dred and fifty-first time, before a new audi-
ence. But this is on one condition, — that
he never lays the lecture down and lets it
cool. If he does, tliere comes on a loathing
for it which is intense, so that the sight of
the old battered manuscript is as bad as sea-
sickness.

A new lecture is just like any other new

2o6 THE AUTOCRAT OF

tool. We use it for a while with pleasure.
Then it blisters our hands, and we hate to
touch it. By and by our hands get callous,
and then we have no longer any sensitiveness
about it. But if we give it up, the calluses
disappear ; and if we meddle with it again,
we miss the novelty and get the blisters. —
The story is often quoted of Whitefield, that
he said a sermon was good for nothing until
it had been preached forty times. A lectiu*e
does n't begin to be old until it has passed
its hundredth delivery; and some, I think,
have doubled, if not quadrupled, that num-
ber. These old lectm'cs are a man's best,
commonly ; they improve by age, also, —
like the pipes, fiddles, and poems I told you
of the other day. One learns to make the
most of their strong points and to carry off
their weak ones, — to take out the really
good things which don't tell on the audi-
ence, and put in cheaper things that do.
All this degrades him, of course, but it im-
proves the lecture for general delivery. A
thorouglily popular lecture ought to have
nothing in it which five hundred people
cannot all take in a flash, just as it is ut-
tered.

— No, indeed, — I should be very sorry to

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 207

say anything disrespectful of audiences. I
have been kindly treated by a great many,
and may occasionally face one hereafter.
But I tell you the average intellect of five
hundred persons, taken as they come, is not
very high. It may be sound and safe, so far
as it goes, but it is not very rapid or pro-
found. A lecture ought to be something
which all can understand, about something
which interests everybody. I think, that, if
any experienced lecturer gives you a differ-
ent account from this, it will probably be one
of those eloquent or forcible speakers who
hold an audience by the charm of their man-
ner, whatever they talk about, — even when
they don't talk very well.

But an average which was what I meant
to speak about, is one of the most extraor-
dinary subjects of observation and study. It
is awful in its miiformity, in its automatic
necessity of action. Two communities of
ants or bees are exactly alike in all their ac-
tions, so far as we can see. Two lyceum as-
semblies, of five hundred each, are so nearly
alike, that they are absolutely undistinguish-
able in many cases by any definite mark, and
there is nothing but the place and time by
which one can tell the " remarkably intelli-

2o8 THE AUTOCRAT OF

g'ent audience " of a town in New York or
Ohio from one in any New England town of
similar size. Of course, if any principle of
selection has come in, as in those special as-
sociations of young men which are common
in cities, it deranges the uniformity of the
assemblage. But let there be no such inter-
fering circumstaiKjes, and one knows pretty
well even the look the audience will have,
before he goes in. Front seats : a few old
folks, — shiny-headed, — slant up best ear
towards the speaker, — drop off asleep after
a while, when the air begins to get a little
narcotic with carbonic acid. Bright women's
faces, young and middle-aged, a little be-
hind these, but toward the front, — (pick
out the best, and lecture mainly to that.)
Here and there a countenance, sharp and
scholarlike, and a dozen pretty female ones
sprinkled about. An indefinite number of
pairs of young people, — happy, but not al-
ways very attentive. Boys, in the back-
ground, more or less quiet. Dull faces, here,
there, — in how many places !. I don't say
dull jpeojile^ but faces without a ray of sym-
pathy or a movement of expression. They
are what kill the lecturer. These negative
faces with their vacuous eyes and stony lin-

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 209

eaments j^ump and suck the warm soul out
of him ; — that is the chief reason why lec-
turers grow so pale before the season is over.
They render latent any amount of vital ca-
lorie ; they act on our minds as those cold-
blooded creatures I was talking about act
on our hearts.

Out of all these inevitable elements the
audience is generated, — a great comjoound
vertebrate, as much like fifty others you
have seen as any two mammals of the same
species are like each other. Each audience
laughs, and each cries, in just the same
places of your lecture ; that is, if you make
one laugh or cry, you make all. Even those
little indescribable movements which a lec-
turer takes cognizance of, just as a driver
notices his horse's cocking his ears, are sure
to come in exactly the same place of your
lecture always. I declare to you, that as
the monk said about the picture in the con-
vent, — that he sometimes thought the liv-
ing tenants were the shadows, and the
painted figiires the realities, — I have some-
times felt as if I were a wandering spirit,
and this great unchanging multi vertebrate
which I faced night after night was one
ever-listening animal, which writhed along

VOL. 1.

210 THE AUTOCRAT OF

after me wherever I fled, and coiled at my
feet every evening, turning up to me the
same sleepless eyes which I thought I had
closed with my last drowsy incantation I

— Oh yes ! A thousand kindly and cour-
teous acts, — a thousand faces that melted
individually out of my recollection as the
April snow melts, but only to steal away
and find the beds of flowers w^hose roots are
memory, but which blossom in poetry and
dreams. I am not ungrateful, nor uncon-
scious of all the good feeling and intelli-
gence everywhere to be met with through
the vast parish to which the lecturer minis-
ters. But when I set forth, leading a string
of my mind's daughters to market, as the
country-folk fetch in their strings of horses
— Pardon me, that was a coarse fellow who
sneered at the sympathy wasted on an un-
happy lecturer, as if, because he was de-
cently paid for his services, he had therefore
sold his sensibilities. — Family men get
dreadfully homesick. In the remote and
bleak village the heart returns to the red
blaze of the logs in one's fireplace at home.

" There are his young barbarians all at play," —

if he owns any youtliful savages. — No, the

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 211

world has a million roosts for a man. but
only one nest.

— It is a fine thing to be an oracle to
which an appeal is always made in all dis-
cussions. The men of facts wait their turn
in grim silence, with that slight tension
about the nostrils which the consciousness
of carrying a " settler " in the form of a
fact or a revolver gives the individual thus
armed. When a person is really full of in-
fonnation, and does not abuse it to crush
conversation, his part is to that of the real
talkers what the instrumental accompani-
ment is in a trio or quartette of vocalists.

— What do I mean by the real talkers ?
— Why. the people with fresh ideas, of
course, and plenty of good warm words to
dress them in. Facts al\\'ays yield the place
of honor in conversation, to thoughts aboiit
facts ; but if a false note is uttered, down
comes the finger on the key and the man of
facts asserts his true dignity. I have known
three of these men of facts, at least, who
were always formidable, — and one of them
was tyrannical.

— Yes, a man sometimes makes a grand
appearance on a particular occasion ; but
these men knew somethinsf about almost

212 THE AUTOCRAT OF

everything, and never made mistakes. — He ?
Veneers in first-rate style. The mahogany
scales off now and then in S230ts, and then

you see the cheap light stuff. — I found •

very fine in conversational information, the
other day when we were in company. The
talk ran upon mountains. He was wonder-
fully well acquainted with the leading facts
about the Andes, the Apennines, and the
Appalachians ; he had nothing in particular
to say about Ararat, Ben Nevis, and various
other mountains that were mentioned. By
and by some Revolutionary anecdote came
up, and he showed singular familiarity with
the lives of the Adamses, and gave many
details relating to Major Andre. A point
of Natural History being suggested, he gave
an excellent account of the air-bladder of
fishes. He was very full upon the subject
of agriculture, but retired from the conver-
sation when horticulture was introduced in
the discussion. So he seemed well acquainted
with the geology of anthracite, but did not
pretend to know anything of other kinds of
coal. There was something so odd about
the extent and limitations of his knowledge,
that I suspected all at once what might be
the meaning of it, and waited till I got an

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE ' 213

opportunity. — Have you seen the " New
American Cyclopaedia ? " said I. — I have,
he replied ; I received an early copy. —
How far does it go ? — He turned red, and
answered, — To Araguay. — Oh, said I to
myself, — not quite so far as Ararat ; — that
is the reason he knew nothing about it ; but
he must have read all the rest straight
through, and, if he can remember what is in
this volume, imtil he has read all those which
are to come, he will know more than I ever
thought he would.

Since I had this experience, I hear that
somebody else has related a similar story. I
did n't borrow it for all that. — I made a
comparison at table some time since, which
has often been quoted and received many
compliments. It was that of the mind of a
bigot to the pupil of the eye ; the more light
you pour on it, the more it contracts. The
simile is a very obvious, and, I suppose I
may now say, a happy one ; for it has just
been shown me that it occurs in a Preface to
certain Political Poems of Thomas Moore's,
published long before my remark was re-
peated. When a person of fair character
for literary honesty uses an image such as
another has employed before him, the pre-

214 THE AUTOCRAT OF

sumption is, that he has struck upon it inde-
pendently, or unconsciously recalled it, sup-
posing it his own.

It is imi^ossible to tell, in a gTeat many
cases, whether a comparison which suddenly
suggests itself is a new conception or a rec-
ollection. I told you the other day that I
never wrote a line of verse that seemed to
me comi3aratively good, but it appeared old
at once, and often as if it had been bor-
rowed. But I confess I never suspected the
above comparison of being old, except from
the fact of its ob^dousness. It is proper,
however, that I proceed by a formal instru-
ment to relinquish all claim to any property
in an idea given to the world at about the
time when I had just joined the class in
which Master Thomas Moore was then a
somewhat advanced scholar.

I, therefore, in full possession of my na-
tive honesty, but knowing the liability of
all men to be elected to public office, and
for that reason feeling uncertain how soon I
may be in danger of losing it, do hereb}^ re-
nounce all claim to being considered the
first person who gave utterance to a certain
simile or comparison referred to in the ac-
comjianying documents, and relating to the

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 215

pupil of the eye on the one part and the
mind of the bigot on the other. I hereby
relinquish all glory and profit, and espe-
cially all claims to letters from autograph
collectors, founded upon my supposed prop-
art}' in the above comparison, — knowing
well, that, according to the laws of litera-
tiu"e, they who speak first hold the fee of
the thing said. I do also agree that all
Editors of Cyclopaedias and Biogi*aphical
Dictionaries, all Publishers of Reviews and
Papers, and all Critics writing therein, shall
be at liberty to retract or qualify any opin-
ion predicated on the supposition that I was
the sole and undisputed author of the above
comparison. But, inasmuch as I do affirm
that the comparison aforesaid was uttered
by me in the firm belief that it was new
and wholly my own, and as I have good
reason to think that I had never seen or
heard it when first exj^ressed by me, and as
it is well kno^vn that different persons may
independently utter the same idea, — as is
evinced by that familiar line from Donatus,

"Pereant illi qui ante nos nostra dixemnt," —

now, therefore, I do request by this instru-
ment that all well-disposed persons vriR ab-

2l6 THE AUTOCRAT OF

stain from asserting or implying that I am
open to any accusation whatsoever toueliing
the said comparison, and, if they have so
asserted or implied, that they will have the
manhness forthwith to retract the same as-
sertion or insinuation.

I think few persons have a greater dis-
gust for plagiarism than myself. If I had
even suspected that the idea in question was
borrowed, I should have disclaimed origi-
nality, or mentioned the coincidence, as I
once did in a case where I had happened to
hit on an idea of Swift's. — But what shall
I do about these verses I was going to read
you ? I am afraid that half mankind would
accuse me of stealing their thoughts, if I
printed them. I am convinced that several
of you, especially if you are getting a little
on in life, will recognize some of these sen-
timents as having passed through your con-
sciousness at some time. I can't help it, —
it is too late now. The verses are written,
and you must have them. Listen, then,
and you shall hear

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE

217

VITA

W^AT WE .\LL THINK

m

HAT age was older once than now
In spite of locks untimely shed,
Or silvered on the youthful brow ;
That babes make love and childien wed.

That sunshine had a heavenly glow,

Which faded with those '"good old days,"

Wlien winters came with deeper snow,
And autumns with a softer haze.

That — mother, sister, wife, or child —
The '■ best of women " each has known.

Were school-boys ever half so wild '?

How young the grandpapas have grown !

2l8 THE AUTOCRAT OF

That hut for this our souls were free,
And but for that our lives were blest ;

That in some season yet to be

Our cares wUl leave us time to rest.

Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,
Some common ailment of the race, —

Though doctors think the matter plain, —
That ours is " a peculiar case."

That when like babes with fingers burned
We count one bitter maxim more,

Our lesson all the world has learned,
And men are wiser than before.

That when we sob o'er fancied woes.
The angels hovering overhead

Count every pitying drop that flows
And love iis for the tears we shed.

That when we stand with tearless eye
And turn the beggar from our door,

They still approve us when we sigh
" Ah, had I but one thousand more ! "

That weakness smoothed the path of sin,
In half the slips our youth has known ;

And whatsoe'er its blame has been,

That Mercy flowers on faults outgrown.

Though temples crowd the crumbled brink
O'erhanging truth's eternal flow.

Their tablets bold with what we think,
Their echoes dumb to what ive know ;

THE BREAKFAST-TABLE

That one unquestioned text we read,
All doubt beyond, all fear above.

Nor crackling- pUe nor cursing- creed
Can burn or blot it : God is Love!

219

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