The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by Ticknor and Fields, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

GENIUS.

When Paul Morphy plays seven games of chess at once and blindfold, when young Colburn gives impromptu solution to a mathematical problem involving fifty-six figures, we are struck with hopeless wonder: such power is separated by the very extent of it from our mental operations. But when we further observe that these feats are attended by little or no fatigue,—that this is the play, not the tension of faculty, we recognize a new kind, not merely a new degree, of intelligence. These men seem to leap, not labor step by step, to their results. Colburn sees the complication of values, Morphy that of moves, as we see the relation of two and two. What is multiform and puzzling to us is simple to them, as the universe lies rounded and is one thought in the Original Mind. We seek in vain for the secret of this mastery. It is private,—as deeply hidden from those who have as from those who have it not. They cannot think otherwise than so, and to this exercise have been provoked by every influence in life. The boy who is an organized arithmetic and geometry will count all the hills of potatoes and reckon the kernels of corn in a bushel, and his triangles soon begin to cover the barn-door. He sees nothing but number and dimension; he feeds on these, another fellow on apples and nuts. But his brother loves application of force, builds wheels and mills; his head is full of cogs and levers and eccentrics; and after he has gone out to his engineering in the great machine-shop of a modern world, the old corn-chamber at home is lumbered with his mysterious contrivances, studies for a self-impelling or gravitating machine and perpetual motion. Another boy is fired with the mystery of form. He will draw the cat and dog; his chalk and charcoal are on all our elbows; he carves a ram's head on his bat, an eagle on a walking-stick, perches a cock on top of the barn, puts an eye and a nose to every triangle of the geometer, and paints faces on the wheels of his mechanical brother. In all these boys there is something more than ability; there is propensity, an attraction irresistible. Their minds run, we say, in that direction, and they creep or lie still, if turned in another. The young shepherd will toss eggs, spin platters, and balance knives, year after year, in solitude, with a patient energy and endurance able to command any fortune.

What philter is in these faculties? The boy who will be great is always discontented with his work, ready to rub out and begin again. He follows a bee, and never quite touches that which drew him on. Plainly, the mere ability to do is a dry straw, but through it our seeker tastes an intoxicating, seductive liquor, from which he cannot take away his lips.

It is the liquor of our life. In measure, or form, or tone, he applies himself to the very breasts of Nature, and draws through these exteriors a motherly milk which was her blood and hastens to be his own. If the young cub holds fast to the teat, be sure the stream flows and his veins swell. Matter is the dry rind of this succulent, nutritious universe: prick it on any side, and you draw the same juice. Varieties of endowment are only so many pitchers dipped in one stream. Poet, painter, musician, mathematician, the gift is an accident of organization, the result is admission to that by which all things are, and by partaking which we become what we must be.

Of this experience there can be no adequate report. It is as though one should attempt to go up in a balloon above the atmosphere and bring down the ether in his hands. There is a spring on every door in Nature to close it behind the returning footsteps of her lover, so that he can lead no man freely into the chamber where she gave him love; it is only by the confidence, fervency, and reverence of the initiate that we learn in what presence he has been. Genius is great, but no product of genius is more than a shadow which points to this sun behind the sun as its substance, and the power of our inspired men has been merely manifested, not rightly employed. Genius has availed only to authenticate itself as the normal activity of man, not yet to do the work of the world.

Sense is a tangle of contradiction. The boy throws wood on water and it floats; then he throws in his new knife and it sinks. How was he to know that the same force will lift a stick and swallow a knife? He throws a feather after his knife, and away it swims on the wind. That is another brook, then, in which the feather is a stick and the stick a stone. Not only are results of a single law opposed, but the laws pull one this way, one that, as gravitation contends with currents of water and air. If we could be shut in sense and surface, Nature would seem a game of cross-purposes, every creature devouring another. The beast eats plant and beast; he dies, and the plant eats him again; fire, water, and frost, in their old quarrel, destroy whatever they build; the night eats the day, summer the snow, and winter the green. Change is a revolving wheel, in which so many spokes rise, so many fall, a motion returning into itself. Nature is a circle, but man a spiral. No wonder he is dissatisfied, with his longing to get on. Eating and hunger, labor and rest, gathering and spending, there is no gain. Life is consumed in getting a living. After laborious years our money is ready in bank, but the man who was to enjoy it is gone from enjoyment, shrivelled with care, every appetite dried up. So learning devastates the scholar, is another plague of wealth, and our goodness turns out to be a hasty mistake. Is order disorder, then? Are we fools of fate? Is there only power enough to prop up this rickety old system, to keep it running and hold our noses to the grindstone? No man believes it: the madness of Time has method only half concealed.

See what eagerness is in the eyes of men, curious, hopeful, dimly aware of beneficence under all these knocks and denials. There are whispers of a great destiny for man,—that he is dear to the Cause. We suspect integrity in Nature. Can this canebrake, in which we are tangled with care, fear, and sin, be after all single and sincere, a piece of intelligent kindness? Genius is the opening of this suspicion to certainty. We are like children who recognize the love which gives them sugar-plums, but not that which shuts the bag and forbids. Insight goes deep enough to prize all severity and detect the good of evil.

Trade seems contemptible to Wilhelm Meister, but, in its larger aspect, sublime to Werner, who sees it as an exploration and possession of Nature with friendly interchange between man and man. Trade is democracy. Authority is hateful to democrats; but Carlyle can justify loyalty, and show how obedience to the hero may be fidelity to myself. Every experience needs its interpreter, one who can show its derivation from an absolute centre. The mob of the French Revolution is a crowd of devils till their poet arrives and restores these maniacs to manhood. They are misguided brothers, doing what we should do in their place. Genius in every situation takes hold on reality, a tap-root going down to the source. Equilibrium appears in a staggering as well as a standing figure, and is perfectly restored in every fall. The landscape seen in detail is broken and ragged,—here a raw sand-bank, there a crooked butternut-tree, yonder a stiff black cedar: but look with a larger eye; the straight is complement to the crooked tree, color balances color, form corrects form, and the entire effect of every scene is completeness. The artist restores this harmony broken by our microscopic view. Music is a shattering and suspension of chords till we ache for their resolution; and the music of life is desire, a diminished seventh that melts the past and ruins the present to prepare a future in another key.

Genius sees that many an exception is fruit of some larger law, is not imperfection, but uncomprehended perfection. Is there, then, no imperfection? We are haunted by such a thought. We see first a mixed beauty in faces, partly life and partly organization; the body is never symmetrical, deformity is the rule. But beauty will not be measured by form; the body cannot long occupy good eyes; we begin to look through that, and encounter some courage, generosity, or tenderness, a dawning or dominant light in every countenance. This is our morning, and the physical form only a low shore over which it breaks. Beauty is the rule, exceptions melt away. There is no face in which Raphael cannot see more than I see in any face; the dullest landscape is to Turner a fairer vision than I can find in the world; Byron in his blackguards shows a kind of magnanimity which refreshes the victims of respectability and routine. The individuality of men is deformity, a departure from the human type; yet this fault makes each necessary to each, founds society, love, and friendship. So wherever a break appears in the plan, we anticipate a larger purpose, and sound down through the water, certain to find under that also a continuation of land. Genius first named our system a universe to mark its consistency, and goes on reconciling, showing how creatures and men are made of one stuff and that not so bad. Let the thing be what it may, press on it a little with the mind, and order begins to ooze. There is nothing on which we cannot feed with good enough teeth and digestion, for the elements of meat are given also in brick and bark. Natural objects are explored to their roots in man, and through him in the Cause: each is what it is in kindness to him, has its soul in his breast, grows out of him as truly as his hair, and the out-world is only a larger body shaped by his needs. Each thing is a passive man, and personification does no more than justice to the joint-stool and the fence or whatever creature talks and suffers in verse.

What is the meaning of my day and relations? I suspect an advantage designed for me, but not yet extracted, in marriage and the family-life, in books, in politics, in business, in the garden, in music. How much of each, as I know them, is chaff? how much is life coming in from the deep by these low doors? What is society? An eating and drinking together? a bit of gossip? a volley of jokes? Do men meet in these exercises, or in hope and humanity? We are all superior to amusement. The cowardly host will entertain with fiddlers and cream; then every guest leaves his high desire with his hat, leaves himself behind, and descends to fiddlers and cream. But men rise to associate; in sinking they separate; and the good host must call us up, not drag us down to his feast. Goethe knows how to spread the table with portfolios, architecture, music, drawing, tableaux; but a great love, with its inevitable thought, makes even these solvents superfluous. Goethe studies the cemetery, the chapel, the school, the gallery, the burial-service, the estate,—whatever is nearest. He finds astonishing values in labor, trade, production, art, science, war. In his boyhood he built an altar with his playthings and burned incense to Deity on a pile of shells and stones. That act of worship foreshadowed his whole career; he took every creature and thing from God's hand with reverent expectation, and never rested till he had opened to some intent of the Maker therein. Things, therefore, in his view are no longer empty and hollow like old cast-off shoes, but pieces of sublime design. A beetle is sustained by earth, air, fire, and water, needs the sun and the sea, winter and summer, earth's orbit and parallax, needs whatever has been made, to set him on his legs. He carries the world in little, and is a creeping black body of the best.

Much more man is microcosmic and macrocosmic. Natural and supernatural meet concealedly in the out-world, but openly in him, and his early desires grow into a future surpassing all desire. The poet sees his destiny in our wishes,—sees right and wrong, kindness and greediness, deepening into incalculable grandeurs of heaven and hell. He sees the man never yet arrived, but now arriving, to inhabit each breast. "Far off his coming" shines. We have many little gleams of generosity; we have conviction, and can strike for the right. Nature is a fixed quantity, a solid; but life is reinforced by life. Truth begets truth, love kindles love, every end is a new beginning.

Therefore the perception of genius is prophetic,—an anticipation of manhood for this boy, who is the King's son, child of Eternity, and only changeling of Time. Wherever any magnanimity is revealed, I lay claim to it. The courage of heroes, the purity of angels, the generosity of God, is no more than I need. Only show virtue unmixed at the heart of this system, and you open my destiny in that. If there be but the least spark of pure benignity, it is a fire will spread through all and fill the breast; for Good makes good, and what it is I must become. Man is heir not to any possession or commodity, though it were a homestead in all heavens, but to the moral power which we ache to exercise. To-day I am a poor starveling of Nature, sucking many a dry straw, but so sure as God I shall stream like the sun. The meanest creature is a promise of such power, for in each is some radiation as well as suction. Man grows, indeed, faster than he can be filled, and so is forever empty; but if power is never a plenum, it is never drawn dry, and at least the mantling foam of it fills the cup. Our expectation is that bead on the draught of being, and boils over the brim.

Imagination is the spiritual sight, working upward from the fact, downward from the law. In low experience it divines the tendency of order, and descends on the other arc of this rainbow to construct the world, and the man that must be. Imagination is the projection of each beyond himself. A man shall not lift his meat to his lips without prophecy and a consulting of this oracle: he shall first extend him to think the savor and satisfaction of the meat. Shut into the horizon and the moment, we have this only organ of communication with all that is beyond; yet having here in rudiments and beginnings all that is beyond, we laugh at the old limits, and explore the universe through every dimension, through spaces beyond Space and times beyond Time.

If this old ball on which we are carried be no apple of Sodom, but sound and sweet to the core, insight must be confidence and satisfaction. In the beginning of thought we enjoy mere glimpses and guesses, our hopes are rather wishes than hopes; we mount into flame when they come, we sink into ashes when they burn out and desert us. The first glimmerings only beget a noble discontent. Children are tired of matter before they know where to seek their own power; they seem to be cheated of themselves, their worthiness is unrecognized and unfed. Companions, tasks, prospects are insufficient, they are bored and isolated, they sigh and mope; yet they are proud of this lukewarm longing, which does not quite avail, and keep diaries to record with protest the dulness of every day. Sentimentality is initial genius. Its complaint seems to contradict the cheerfulness of wisdom, yet it enjoys complaining; though life be not worth having on these conditions, it bottles every tear. A weak sadness fills great space in literature, stocks the circulating library, and counts its Werthers by the thousand in every age. Now we expect this malady, as we look for mumps and measles in the growing child. It is feminine,—unwilling to be weak, yet not able to stand and go. The strong quickly leave it behind.

In his first novel Goethe burned out for himself this girlish green-sickness, and by a more vigorous demand began to take what he wanted from the world. To the young, life seems splendid but inaccessible. Its remoteness is the theme of every complaint; but when these windy wishes grow stern, inexorable, when a man will no longer beg, but gets on his feet to try a tussle with the world, he throws resolute arms around the Greatest, and finds in his bosom all that was so vast and so far.

Then we open paths, renew our society, enlarge our work, make elbow-room and head-room enough in the world. Criticism is the shadow of the mind. Insight is not sadness, but invigoration,—is no sob or spasm, but clearness in the eye and calmness in the breast. We misjudge it from partial examples: the light of day is confidence, yet sudden bursts of light distress and blind. The poet is rapt, and follows thought; he leaves his meat, and by some transubstantiation feeds on the wind; he no longer sees the pillars of Hercules on a sixpence; he is mad for the hour, if a majority shall say what is madness. Meanwhile his field is unploughed; and if he falls from this ecstasy, look to see an harassed, embittered man. The birds sing as they pick up the corn, but wisdom is not so quickly convertible into meal, and if he cannot feed always on it, let him never seek the Muse. Our poor half-genius vibrates miserably between truth and the dinner-pot, comes back from his apocalypse, and cries for admiration, gold-lace, hair-powder, and wine. That is no apocalypse from which a man returns to whine and beg. Burns complains of Scotland and poverty, Byron of England and respectability, and they are both so far paupers unfed at home. Wordsworth finds London a wilderness, and goes more than content to good company in lonely Cumberland, to eat a crust and drink water with the gods. Socrates is barefooted. He has one want so pressing that he can have no other want, and has set his lips to a cup which hides his bare feet from his eyes: with a single garment for winter and summer, he draws the universe around him a garment for the mind.

If the first flashes of perception dazzle, they are rays of daylight to one emerging from the cave of sense. The eye becomes wonted to truth, and that is now the least of his convictions which yesterday struck Paul from his horse, and rebuked him as fire from the sky. Truth is breath, and only for the first uncertain moment of life we use it to cry and complain. Inspiration is morning, not a flash to deepen the dark.

Popular literature is some description of a state which men think they might enjoy: it is no record of joy. But the fool's paradise would be dreary even for the fool; he is his own paradise, and will be. Our early fancy is no transcript of the divine method, and is sternly rejected by all who suspect a perfection hidden in the day. A few works are great which celebrate the charm of actual effort, and the furtherance of Nature for the brave. Homer, Shakspeare, Goethe, need never exaggerate or leave the earth behind: in their experience it carries well the sky. Every vital thought is some pleasure in running, waking, loving, contending, helping,—is valor dealing gayly with the homely old forces and needs. The marrow is sweet for him who can crack it, in the roughest or the smoothest bone. One is born with a key to the gladness of Nature, and glows with the day's work, the touch of hands, the prospect of to-morrow,—love's production and husbandry, the old worn grass and sunshine, the winter wind, the games and squabbles of children and of men. Why is life for John weariness, for James every moment fresh fire out of the sky? He who finds what he wants, or makes what he wants, is a god. I know well the hope of saints and sages, how they connect this life with endless stages beyond, how they look for the same dignity in all action, the same motive in every companion; I see what they have signified by heaven, a state wherein the best loved is the best: but we must not be scornful, or miss to-day the common delight of living, the moderate hopes of the healthy multitude. For no exceptional joy is so wonderful as the universality of joy, the love of life under every burden and stroke. The beginning of all beatitude and ground of all is good digestion, good sleep, good-nature, and the cheer undeniable of an average human day.

But genius hurries on to expand our hope and dread to incalculable dimensions. Hell is its first sudden down-look from uncertain flight, is earth and animalty seen from the sky. The bad neither so see nor fear. Few men ever reach a height from which they can sound such depth, and the popular talk is repetition without corresponding experience. Hope and fear rise alike to sublimity before the boundless scope of our future. Give the hour to folly, and you set back the dial-hand of destiny, you are so much behind your privilege in every following hour. Eternity is displaced by the stumbling present as the earth by a falling pebble, and the act of this low morning is a stone cast in the sea of universal Being, which shakes and shoulders every drop of the deep. The immensity of the universe does not dwarf, but magnifies our activity: man is multiplied into the sum of all. This deed, this breath dilates to the proportions of Spirit, and upheaves the low roof of Time, which is no sky for the soul. Life becomes awful by its reaches: its span from zenith to nadir, by moral parallax. From gods we sound down to beasts and devils, from sky and fire to ice and mud. Here are the true and final spaces: in their startling contrast appears the grandeur of the moral law, like Chimborazo carrying all zones. It offers hell and heaven, advancing inevitable, and leaves us never a dodge from choice. Our dodge is a choice. Man overtaken by inexorable need must do or go under in the tread-mill of Fate. Not a fault, not a lack, but is so far damnation, with consequences not to be set forth in any prospect of fire. When you begin to look down, the fear of centuries seems not exaggerated. The remedy is in looking so vigorously and far as to see, beyond depth, again the sky and stars. Look through; for toward that centre which is everywhere, we look. Hell was situated under the earth; our first voyage teaches that there is no under-the-earth. The widening of every path gives boundless dimension to sin, till we learn that the evil impulse alone does not extend. It is soon exhausted both in attraction and effect,—is no power, but some suspense of life.

The first moral perception is always a shudder. Carlyle sees the lifted judgment of a lie; his eye is filled, and he sees nothing beyond; but Nemesis is surgeon with probe and knife. Our poisons are medicines and homoeopathic, the fumes of fear a remedy of sulphur for cutaneous sin. The thought in which our terrors arrive is always at last a gospel, is glad tidings. Dante, Paul, Swedenborg, Edwards have seen the pit. It opens only in the holiness of such men,—is a thunder out of clear sky, before which generations of the impure, like brute beasts, tremble and cower. An equal moral genius will see that the ascension of an immortal Love has left behind this vacuum, mitigated, not deepened, by the furniture of devils and their flame. Men strive in vain to be afflicted by a revelation of the best and worst. The mind is naturally a form of gladness, and every window in us takes the sun. Our genuine trouble is not extreme dread, but a perpetual restlessness and discontent.

The delight of contemplation has been in history a height without sustaining breadth, a needle, not a cube. Genius has been tremulous, recluse,—has been cherished in solitude with Nature,—has been a feminine partiality among men, holding for gods its favorites, for dogs the refuse of mankind. It still counts the practical life an interruption. It is therefore only melancholy cheer, a forlorn ark with nine souls on the brine, a refuge from the world, not a delight of the world. It lives not from God who is, but from a God who should be. The true creative power is a calm of battle, a trust not for the closet, but the chariot, a torch that can be carried through the gusty market, a Ramadhan in the street. It is no miracle to be calm in calm, to be quiet in bed,—but to rule and lead without anxiety, to tame the beasts and elements, to build and unbuild cities with a song. The great thought returns on society, floods out the heaped rubbish of custom, pours the old grandeurs of Nature through dry channels of Trade, Religion, Courtesy, and Art. He is great who plays the game of life with decision, yet is always retired, and holds the life of life in reserve. Such a man is demiurgic, for he puts down a hand on action through the sky.

From a happy or sufficient genius came the golden maxim, "Think of living." Strong men love life. The system, so cheery and severe, seems to them worthy to be continued yonder and without end. This day leading a better, itself good not leading alone,—this presentiment,—this solid increment of hard-won power,—of what other stuff should our eternity be woven? In wisdom first appears the present tense, an hour which is not mere transition, but something for itself. There are men who live—to live. He who finds our destiny given beforehand in the nature of things has the leisure of God: he has not only all the time that is, but spaces beyond, so that he will not be hurried by the falling-off of Time. Leisure is a regard fixed not on the nearest trees and fences as we whirl through this changing scene, but on remoter and larger objects, on the slow-revolving circle of the far hills, on the quiet stars. Why should I hasten with my foolish plan? Prosperity is over all, not in my foolish plan. What is a fortune, a reputation,—what even genuine influence, if you consider the future of one or of the race? Only little aims bring care. Why run after success? That is success which follows: success should be cosmic, a new creation, not any trick or feat. To be man is the only success. For this we lie back grandly with total application to the cause. Why run after knowledge? A large mind circles all the primal facts from its own stand-point, and needs never tread the curious round of science, history, and art. Where it is, is Nature: therefore it is calm and free. The wise men of my knowledge were farmers, drovers, traders, learned beyond the book. You cannot feed but you put me in communication with all forests, fields, streams, seas. Give me one companion, and between us two is quickly repeated the history of the race. In a plant, an animal, a day or year, in elements, their feuds and fruitful marriages, in a private or public history, the thinker is admitted to the end of thought. A scholar can add nothing to my perfect wonder, though he bring Egypt, Assyria, and Greece. I find myself where I was, in Egypt, Assyria, and Greece: I find the old earth, the old sky, the old astonishment of man. Cæsar and the grasshopper, both are alike within my knowledge and beyond. There is some vague report of a remote divine, at which he will smile who finds no least escape from the divine. Two points are given in every regard, man and the world, subject, we say, and object, a creature seen and a creature seeing, marvelling, knowing, ignorant. Either of these openings will lead quickly to light too pure for our organs, and launch us on the sea beyond every shore. The artist studies a fair face; there is no supplement to his delight. In temples, statues, pictures, poems, symphonies, and actions, only the same eternal splendor shines. It is the sun which lights all lands,—"that planet," as Dante sings,

Genius is royal knowledge. In the nearest need it studies all ages and all worlds. Let me understand my neighbors and my meat; you may have the libraries and schools. I read here living languages,—the eye, the attitude and temperament, the wish and will: Hebrew and Greek must wait. He who knows how to value "Hamlet" will never subscribe for your picture of "Shakspeare's Study." Great intelligence runs quickly through our primers, our cities, constitutions, galleries, traditions, cathedrals, creeds. The long invention of the race is a tortuous, obscure way. Must I creep all my fresh years in that labyrinth, and postpone youth to the end of age? What need of so much experience and contrivance, if without contrivance, if by simplicity, the children surely and beautifully live?

Healthy thought is organic, grows by assimilation, vitalizes all it takes, and so like a plant puts forth knowledge from the old and from within. The apple of to-morrow is earth, not apple, till it hangs on the tree. Our knowing seems rather rejection than acceptance, so much is husk in bulk. From eight thousand miles of geology the tree takes a few drops of water and distils from these its own again. Vigor of mind is judgment, which divides the meat from the shell, that which cumbers from that which thrills. The act is simple, inevitable; let it be energetic and final. We say, "This is valuable, it quickens me; the rest is nonsense." A feeble mind needs now chiefly to be rid of rubbish, of cheap admirations, an awe before the hair-pins and shoe-ties of society, before the true church, the scholastic learning, dead languages, the Fathers and the fashion. To set the savage of civilization free from his superstition, these idols must be insulted before his face.

A little energy of demand displaces them from regard. The scholars are busy with punctuation, chronology, and the lives of the little great, so that their visit is a vastation, and I must turn them out of doors. Genius will continue unable to spell, to read the German, to count the Egyptian kings. There is royal ignorance, the preoccupation of gods. For the wise, if no object is trifling, yet part of every object is foreign to its best intent. Every nut is inwardly a man and a miracle, but outwardly a shell. If it be a book, the thought is a shell, though God be in the thought. The book is another thing, another world of power and form, and the power will consume the form as a sword eats its sheath, the soul the body, or fire the pan. The letter drops, for the spirit must expand and be set free. The positive and negative poles of Nature reappear in every creature, and the positive element must prevail. When we have learned to live, we shall—or shall not—learn to spell.

The last refreshment is intercourse with a kingly mind, which has no need to shift its centre, but lies abroad hemispheric, and sleeps like sunshine, bathing silently the earth and sky. Such a mind is at home, not in position, but in a vital relation to Nature, which leaves no spaces dark and cold for wandering, and knows no change that is worth the name of change. It is rest to be with one who is at rest, who cannot go to or go from his happiness, for whom the meaning of Deity is here and now. What stillness and depth of manner are communicated to all who sound the deeps of life! what a refuge is their society from wit, zeal, and gossip, from petty estimates and demands! To these, now first encountered, we have been always known; in them we meet no private motive, no accomplishment, reputation, ability, immediate haunting purpose, but a Sabbath from personal fortunes. We meet the great above all that can be mine or thine, above gifts and accidents in common manhood and prosperity. Swedenborg reports no encounter on higher ground. The seven heavens open to me in a mind which gives rank to its own facts, and wherever it is housed still finds the universe only a larger body around the soul.

Genius declares the total or representative value of its own facts against the neglect or contempt of mankind. Intelligence is centre of centres, and all things diminish as they recede from the eye. Every natural law is some hint to us of our commanding position. The good thought is never a toilsome going abroad, but some settling at home to new intimacy with the fortune which waits on all. It is no putting out legs, but a putting down roots to take possession of the earth and the nether heavens, while we fill the upper sky with climbing shoots. Intelligence is at one with the system, able to entertain it as a unit, to refer every particle, dark as a particle, to its shining place in the transparent whole. How can I afford to drop my errand, to go wonder after the fore-world, after Plato, Washington, or Paul? These are men who never dropped their errands to go wonder after the Maker himself. They found God in the thing lying nearest to be done. As right action in the remotest corner is a world-victory, so right thought applied to the lowest circumstance is cosmic thought. In the fortune of the hour we have a home beyond the fortune of the hour. The least circle of order now organized and established in our lives is not a poor house frozen to the ground, but a ship able to outride the currents of time, a charmed circle of security which will serve us still in every following world. Our future is to be found, not in multiplication of examples, but in deeper sympathy with all we have superficially known.

We shall never rightly celebrate the stillness and sweetness of truth in an open mind. Clear perception is refreshing as sleep. It is a sleep from blunder, care, and sin. In every thought we are lifted to sit with the serene rulers, and see how lightly, yet firmly, in their orbits the worlds are borne. With insight we work freely, for every result is secure; we rest, for every stream will bear us to the sea. Peace is joy beyond the perturbation of joy, is entertainment of Omnipotence in the breast.

A filial relation to the universe is well expressed, not in speech, but in the attitudes of her children, in their balance, tranquillity, directness, their firm and quiet grasp, look, step, tone. Confidence and joy are the only moral agents. Worship is immortal cheer. The Greeks rebuke us with their sacred festivals and games: why should we not hunt every evil as we follow gayly the buffalo and bear? Virtue cannot be wrinkled and sad; Virtue is a joy of the Right added to our earliest joy,—is refreshment and health, not fever. The Etruscan are right religious sculptures: the body will be more, not less, when the soul is most; for the body is created and perfected, not devoured by the soul. In another Eden the curves of grace and power will reappear; every wrinkle will be counted sin; goodness will be sap and blood, a growth of grapes and roses, a sacrament of energy and content.

If there be great wrongs, we cannot distrust the Maker, and postpone the security of the soul. Impatience is a wrong as great as any. Love and trust are remedies for wrong. Music is our cure for insanity, and I remember that incantation of fair reasons which Plato prescribed. What gain is in scolding and knitting the brows? The blue sky, the bright cloud, the star of night, the star of day, every creature is in its smiling place a protest of the universe against our hasty method of counter-working wrong with wrong. Let loose the Right. Go forward with martial music; never await or seek, but carry victory and win every battle in the organization of your band. Hear Beethoven:—"Nor do I fear for my works. No evil can befall them, and whosoever shall understand them shall be free from all such misery as burdens mankind."

From this security in the lap of Nature, this nest in the grass, we rise easily to every height. Gladness becomes uncontainable, a pain of fulness, for which, after all effort, there is no complete relief; for language breaks under it in delivery, and Art falls to the ground. The psalm of David, the statue of Angelo, the chorus of Handel, are inarticulate cries. These men have not justified to us their confidence. It will be shared, not justified. They have divined what they cannot orderly publish, and their meaning will be by the same greatness divined again. The work of such men remains a haunting, commanding enigma to following ages. They do but repeat the promise and obscurity of Nature, for she herself has the same largeness, is such another raptus, proceeding to no end, but to a circle or complexity of ends. Men are again and again divided over the images of Paul, of Plato, of Dante, unable to escape from their authority, more unable to give them final interpretation. They leave Nature, to puzzle over the inexhaustible book. What does it mean? What does it not mean? The poet will never wait till he can demonstrate and explain. He must hasten to convey a blessing greater than explanation, to publish, if it were only by broken hints, by signs and dumb pointing, his sense of a presence not to be comprehended or named.

For, if the seer is sustained, he is also commanded by what he sees. Genius is not religious, but religion, an opening to the conscience of the universe no less than to the joy. From this original the moral, intellectual, and æsthetic sense will each derive a conscience, and rule with equal sovereignty the man. Through an ant or an angel the first influx of reality is entertained in an attitude of worship, and the poet, in his vision, cries with Virgil to Dante:—

"Down, down, bend low
Thy knees! behold God's angel! fold thy hands!
Henceforward shalt thou see true ministers!"

Revelation is not more a new light than a new heart and will; revelation to me is the conquest and renewal of me. What is lovely will not be encountered without love, the Creator holds the key to the creature, Order and Right may freely enter to be man. He who can open any object to its source is touched therein by the finger of God, and insight is inevitable consecration. Give the coward a suspicion of our human destiny, and he is no longer coward; he would gladly be cut in pieces and burned in any flame to shed abroad that light. Life has such an irresistible tendency to extend, that it makes of the man a mere vehicle, takes him for hands and feet, wheels and wings: he is glad only when the truth runs and prevails. Enthusiasm, devotion, earnestness are names for this possession of the deep thinker by his thought. He lives in that, and has in it his prosperity, no longer in the flesh. The inspired man becomes great by absorption in a great design; he is preoccupied, and trifles, for which other men are bought and sold, shine before him as beads of glass with which savages are wheedled. We drop our playthings, our banks and coaches, crowns, swords, colleges, and sugar-plums in a heap together, when any moment opens to us the scope of our activity, and carries far forward the curve through which we have already run.

The divine authority of Genius is given in this descent and superiority to will. That which in me I must obey, that also above me all men must obey. Will is the centre of the practical man, of all force, not moral, but brute or natural, and is identified in the common thought with myself, as I am a natural cause. Will is the sum of physical forces necessary for self-preservation, is reagency against the formidable rivalry of every other organization. In this animal centre the laws are carried up, as reins are gathered to be put into the hands of a driver, and being tied in a knot just where the physical touches the celestial sphere, they seem to be moral, and Will much more than the body is in popular thought inseparable from man. It is an organ into which he has thrown himself in reckless neglect of his privilege, a grasping hand which rules the world as we see it ruled, masters and takes to itself for extension all laws below its own level, wields Nature as an instrument, breaks down a weaker will, and carries away the material mind until some God from above shall deliver it. Will is that living Fate of which exterior necessity is but the form. From it we are instantly delivered in conviction, and find it ever after the servant, not the synonyme of man.

The boy does not choose, neither does the belly choose for him, what object shall be supremely beautiful in his eyes. He has not resolved to see only this splendor of color, and neglect sound,—or to give himself to sound alone, and shut his eyes to sight. If the divine order reaches any mind, those creatures in which it appears will haunt that mind, will take lordly their own place, and hang as constellations high overhead in thought. So long as he can turn the eye hither and thither, or lightly determine what he will see, the man is conversant with form alone, and bigots who are on that plane of experience identify him with choice, hold thought to be altogether voluntary, and burn the thinker, as though his view were a fruit, not a root, of him. But truth is that which does not wait for our making, but makes us,—does not lie like water at the bottom of our wells, but comes like sunshine flooding the air, and compelling recognition. "To believe your own thought," says a master, "that is genius"; but is not genius primarily the arrival of a thought able to authenticate itself, to compel trust, and make its own value known against the sneers or anger of the world? From my own thought once reached there is but one appeal,—to my own thought: from Philip sober to Philip more sober.

The good spirit appears as a spark in our embers, and draws out these careful hands to ward itself from every gust,—sets our tasks and crowns them. We know that from first desire to last performance wisdom is altogether a grace. Wisdom is this wish for wisdom, already given in the readiness to receive. We have not cared for it, but it has cared for us.

Grown stronger, it is a guide, and needs none. Turner sees what he must love; there is no rule for such seeing: what he does not love is hid from him; there is no rule for such omission. It is in the eye, not more a happy opening than a happy closing. A private ordinance, dividing man into men, makes the same creature a wall to one, an open door to his neighbor. The value of man appears to Scott in feudalism, to Wordsworth in contemplation, to Byron in impatience, to Kant in certainty, to Calvin in authority, to Calame in landscape, to Newton in measure, to Carlyle in retribution, to Shakspeare in society, to Dante in the contrast of right and wrong.

One man by grandeur sees mountains in the coals of his grate; another by gentleness only sunshine and grasses on Monadnock. You will not say that he chooses, but that he is chosen so to see. Light opens the eye without our intention, and we are at no trouble to paint on the retina what must there appear. Success is fidelity to that which must appear. Weak men discuss forever the laws of Art, and contrive how to paint, questioning whether this or that element should have emphasis or be shown. If there is any question, there will be no Art. The man must feel to do, and what he does from overmastering feeling will convince and be forever right. The work is organic which grows so above composition or plan. After you are engaged by the symphony, there is no escape, no pause; each note springs out of each as branch from branch of a tree. It could be no otherwise; it cannot be otherwise conceived. Why could not I have found this sequence inevitable, as well as another? Plainly, the symphony was discovered, not made,—was written before man, like astronomy in the sky.

Only the mastery of one who is mastered by Nature will control and renovate mankind. It is easy to recognize the habit of conviction, freedom from within, and personal motive, the man bending himself as for life or death to show exactly what he sees. The inspired man we know who appeals to a divine necessity, and says, "I can do no otherwise; God be my help! amen!"—for whom praise and property and comfortable continuance on this planet are trifles, so great an object has opened to him in the inviolable moral law.

Every perception takes hold at last on duty as well as desire, claims and carries away the man entire, though it were to danger or death. The system, grown friendly, has grown sacred also; departure from it is shame and guilt, as well as loss. An artist, therefore, like the Greek, is busy with portraits of the gods, and every celebration of Beauty is another Missa Solemnis, Te Deum, and Gloria.

Whatever object becomes transparent to a man will be his medium of communication with the Maker and with mankind. He hurries to show therein what he has seen, as children run for their companions and point their discoveries. These are his unsolicited angels, higher above his reach than above that of the crowd; for every good thought is more a surprise to the thinker than to any other. The seer points always from himself as a telescope to the sky; he is no creator, but a bit of broken glass in the sun. What is any man in the presence of haunting Perfection, never to be shown without mutilation and dishonor? Is it ours? In Him we live and move.

While the Ego is pronounced and fills consciousness, man seems to be and do somewhat of himself; but when the universal Soul is manifest above will, his eyes turn away from that old battery; he is absorbed in what he sees,—forgets himself, his deeds, wants, gains. He is rapt; stands like Socrates a day and a night in contemplation; sits like Newton for twelve hours half dressed on the edge of his bed, arrested in rising. He is that madman to the world who neglects his meat, postpones his private enterprise, regards honor and comfort as so much interruption to this commerce with reality. We are all tired of property which is exclusion, of goods which must be taken from another to serve me. Good should grow with sharing,—more for me when all is given. In the spirit there are no fences, boxes, or bags.

Presenting truth, I declare it as freely yours as mine. Every act of genius proclaims that the highest gift is no monopoly or singularity, no privilege of one, but the birthright of the race. Shakspeare knows well that we shall easily see what he sees; he considers it no secret. We are always feeling beforehand for every right word now about to be spoken in the world; many men give tokens of the general habit of thought before he is born who clearly knows what all were dreaming. Wisdom has only gone before us on our own path, and we overtake our guide in every perception. Yet we are lifted quite off our feet by any new possibility revealed in life: every circle drawn round our own astonishes, though it be drawn from our centre. The poet in his certainty appears a child of the heavens, and we strike another foolish line through the crowd, as though every man were not his own poet as truly as he is his own priest and governor, as though each were not entitled to see whatever is to be seen. The masters of thought may teach us better. They address their loftiest power in us, and never sing to oxen or dogs. The painting, poem, statue, oratorio, calls to me by name; the morning is an eye that solicits mine. Shall I take only the husks, and leave to another, contented, always, the life of life?

He is supreme poet who can make me a poet, able to reach the same supplies after he is gone. We are bits of iron charged by this magnet, and lose our quality when it is removed; we are not quite made magnets as we should be by this magnetic planet and the revolutions of the sun; yet the great polarity of our globe is a sum of little polarities, and every scrap of metal has its own. We are made musical by the passing band; we go on humming and marching to the air; but he who wrote it was made musical by silence and sunshine. Soon our own vibrations will be more easily induced, as old instruments sound with a touch or breath. We shall throb with inarticulate rhythms, and understand the bard who sings,—

The poet is one who has detected this latency of power in every breast. His delight is a feeling that all doors are open to all, that he is no favorite, but the rest are late sleepers, and he only earlier awake. Depth of genius is measured by depth of this conviction. Egotism is incurable greenness. An artist is one who has more, not less, respect for the common eye. The seer points always from his own to a public privilege,—says never, "I, Jesus, have so received," but, "The Son of Man must so receive"; and Shakspeare cuts himself into fragments till there is no Shakspeare left behind, as if expressly to testify that this wonderful wisdom is not his, but ours, is not that of the thinker and penman in his study, but of priests and kings, ladies and courtiers, lovers and warriors, knaves and fools. Paul sees that Moses read his law from tables of the heart. Every wise word is an echo of the wisdom inarticulate in our neighbors which sends them confident about their work and play. The faith of healthy men and women is amazing when we learn how incapable they are of showing grounds for it. In speculation they hold horrible theories, blackening the day; yet they trust the good which their lips unwittingly deny.

In discourse we are moved, not by what a man says, but by what he takes for granted. The undertow of power is something unstated to which all his facts and laws refer. But our resource seems to be rather a reversion, is not quite available; we have blood and a beat at the heart, yet it does not circulate freely, and Nature to every man is a double of himself, so that the universe seems also cold in extremities, as though there were too little original life to fill her veins. The poet is not fire on the hearth to thaw this numbness by foreign heat. He rubs and rouses us to activity, drags us to the open air, puts us on a glowing chase, provokes us to race and climb with him till we also are thoroughly alive. No other gift of his is worth much beside this hope of reaching his side. The great know well that all men are approaching their view even in departing from it, as travellers going from one port turn their backs on each other here and their faces together toward the antipodal point: they can leave their discoveries and fame to the race. There is one object of sight. Every piece of wisdom is no less my thought because another has found it in my mind. It is more mine than any perception I called my own, for really with that I have unconsciously been living in deeps below thought. The rest I have known, that in all these years I am.

No man seriously doubts that he is born to entertain the meaning of the world. Already we are inclined to reckon genius a mere faculty of saying, not of knowing, since it opens a common experience in every example. Minority and obligation to other eyes will cease. We have outgrown many a Magnus Apollo of childhood; his beauty is no longer beautiful, his gold is tinsel, we can dig better for ourselves. Therefore we can draw no line that will stand between poets and pretenders. That is fire which fires me to-day; to-morrow the same influence is frost. The standard is my temperature, a sliding scale. My neighbors are raised to ecstasy by what seems a rattle of pots and pans; but I remember when heaven opened to me also in Scheffer, Byron, Bellini. The judge places himself in his judgment,—declares only what is now above him, what below. If I find Milton prosaic beside Swedenborg, perhaps I do Milton no wrong; perhaps no man in the company so admires his impetuous grandeur; but now the impersonality of the Swede may meet my need more nearly, with his mysteries of correspondence, spiritual law, enduring Nature, and supremacy of Love. Discrimination is worth so much, because there are no great gaps between man and man, between mind and mind: there is no virtuous, no vicious, no poet, no unpoet, and only dulness lumps one with angels, another with dogs. There are infinite kinds and infinite degrees of intelligence; there is genius in every sort and every stage of adulteration, overlaid by this, by that, by the other grave mistake; and we cannot afford to be inhospitable to the feeblest protest against our condition and ourselves.

We pass all but the few great masters, and they are only before us on the road. Culture is the opening of spontaneous or liberal activity, and hangs all on the pivotal perception that everything, experience, effort, element, history, tradition, art, science, is another opening to the same centre, and that our life. When the pupil is roused, enchanted, fired, his redemption from sense is begun; he is delivered to the great God, if it were only in a crystal or a caterpillar; he will never again be the clod he was. The years are cruel and cold, want and appetite devour many a day, but the man can never forget what was promised to the boy. He believes in thought; believes against thought in the mad world, in foolish man; believes in himself, and wonders what he could do, if he had yet only half a chance. All that is streams toward the mind, will stream through it and be known.

God would not be God, if He could fill less than the universe, could leave cold and empty corners, could remain beyond thought, could be order around and not also within the brain. Deity is Revelation. Deity means for each the germ of knowledge and the sum of knowledge. Man is the guest of wisdom; he will drop for shame his arrogance, and seek never again to entertain or patronize this architect and master of the house. The triumph of inspiration is an unsealing of my own and of every mind, a delivery of the pupil to private inspiration. When the work of a master is masterly done, he abdicates therein, retires, and becomes unregarded as a flight of stairs behind. The statue is a failure, unless it makes me forget the statue,—the book, unless it makes me forget the book. All the rhyming, painting, singing of sentimental boys and girls springs from an intuition hardly yet more than instinct: that Nature has special scripts for each, to be by him, by her, alone, divined and published. They reach nothing sincere or unique, yet they feel the individuality and remoteness of experience. They cannot put forth their conscious power; but who among the gods of fame can put forth his power? Emerson says Jove cannot get his own thunder; much less can any mortal get his own thunder, however he may apply to Minerva for the key.

By the cheer of awakening intuition, a dawn which stirs before daylight, all men are secretly sustained. The common life is a borrowing, not a creation and giving: imitation is going on all-fours, and man is uneasy in that animal attitude. The horse comes only as horse: I am here not merely as man, but as John; I blush and ache till John is something pronounced and maintained against the mob of centuries, till men must feel his singularity and solidity, as the ocean is displaced and readjusted by every drop of rain. More or less, I must at least purely avail. Erectness is delivery to the private law, and something in each remains erect, and lifts him above the brute and the crowd. He is, and feels himself to be: he will advance and give the law of his life.

The brain is itself a nut from the tree Ygdrasil; it carries the world, and in the first glances we anticipate all knowledge. The joy of life does not wait for any theory of life, for we have only slept since the thought in us was embodied in this system; we took part in the making; we are drowsily at home with ourselves therein; we forget, yet do not forget, the roundness of design. As in a common experience we are often close upon some name which we seek to recall,—we feel, but cannot touch it,—so the secret of Nature lies close to the mind, and sustains us as if by magnetic communication, while we have yet no faculty to explore our own being or this apparition of it, the whirl of worlds.

We have rightly held genius to be miracle; but our great hope is postponed for lack of perception that all life is miracle, that man in every endowment is a form of the same plastic, incalculable power. Yet as we are brought to seek goodness, being sinners, so we shall be brought to seek the last perception, being dolts. The masters have not been quite masters, and their theory has never respected the natural as opening to a supernatural mind. We eat and drink and wait to be arrested, not by sunshine, but lightning. It comes at last, revealing from heaven the height and depth of our human prospect. The vision is appalling; the seer is stricken to the ground; he has no organ able to bear this light; he is blinded; he runs trembling for counsel to Paul, who was beaten from his horse, to Samuel, who was called in sleep, to Jesus, who taught the new birth, to John, who saw the white throne. But after a little we learn that the new experience is native to us as breath. No degeneracy of any period, no immersion in war, trade, production, tradition, can quite hide the cardinal fact that this strength of antiquity, of eternity, waits to descend, and does from time to time descend, into the private breast. He who prays has made the discovery, and is put by his own act in lonely communication with all heavens.

We find the sacred history legible only in the same light by which it was written: we are referred by it, therefore, to sources of interpretation above itself. God was hidden in the sky; the book in another sky; who shall reveal God hidden in the book? After so many ages, it has become a riddle as difficult of solution as any for which it offers solution: the last and best puzzle of the exulting old Sphinx, who will never be cheated of her jest. Our Christianity misses the highest value of the book, as it indicates the resource of universal man. We use the cover as some charm against danger, but the secret of devotion is not reached. At last it is plain that secular, nigh impenetrable Nature is a door as easily opened as this of the book. We must read upon our knees, we wait for grace to open the text, God must descend to light the page. The Quaker names our interpreter an inner light, the Church a Holy Ghost to purge the heart and eye. A deity who comes directly, and is no longer to seek when we are ready to read, must abolish the book. Of all gods offered in our Pantheon, of all persons in our Trinity, this must be the first.

I cannot fasten on the revelation which needs another to make it revelation to me; but when the divine aid is given, we seek no farther, for in this communion we have already all that was sought. The private illumination converts to gospel every creature on which its ray may fall; it makes a Bible of the world, a Bible of the heart. The doctors with dandling have now kept the child from his feet till there is doubt whether he have any feet. In this cradle of the record he shall spend his snug and comfortable life. "Here is safety!" Of course, he is bed-ridden.

But the weakness of man is no impediment to God. Remember who creates, who renews, who goes abroad in perpetual miracle of building, inhabiting, becoming. It is not a question of human power, but of divine.

Spiritual presence, apocalypse of every apocalypse, becomes our primal fact. It is the root of Protestantism, Democracy, Individualism. The sanctity of conscience is a rest of man upon undeniable Deity. There is no room for intervention of Peter or Paul.

The mind is immanence of Being, an original relation to all we have named reality and worshipped as divine. There are truths which we must reckon with Swedenborg among the Fundamentals of Humanity. To hold them is to be Man,—to be admitted to the hopeful council of our kind. Freedom is such a fundamental of the moral sense. From the thought of property in man we erect ourselves in God's name with indignant protestation, wiping it and its apologists together as dirt from our feet. By an equal necessity we count out from every discourse of reason those who find in them no organ of ultimate communication, who refer from common consciousness to saint and sage, as though God could be shut from presence and supremacy in thought. They are intellectual non-combatants who so refer. We take them at their own valuation; their certainty of uncertainty, their confession of remoteness from the centre we accept; but we must turn from the very angels, if they be not permitted for themselves to know. There is no outside to the universe except this embryotic condition, wherein a man may think that there is no result of thought.

I suppose no individual thinker will ever again have the importance which attaches to a few names in history. No man will found a religion with Mahomet, or overlie philosophers like Calvin, or shoulder out the poets like Shakspeare; still less will any man again be worshipped as a personal god. Let the newcomer be never so great, there is now a greatness in public thought to dwarf his proportions. He antedated all discoveries who first uttered the sacred name. That ray on darkness tells. Now we have nations of philosophers, thought flies like thistle-down, and the sublime speculations of the fore-world are cradle-songs and first spelling-lessons to excite the guesses of every barefooted boy. In early ages men met face to face with Nature, and spent their strength directly in questioning her. Now the work of God is overlaid. Every blunder is a rock in our field, and at last the field is a stone-heap of blunders, and our giants have work enough to reach any ground in the unsophisticated facts of life. We set no limit to the revolutionary power of truth; in happy hour it may sweep away doctrine and usage, supplant systems by songs, and governments by Love. Yet the first men were able to cleave the world to its centre, and predict the last results. We only enlarge their openings. Schools follow schools, Eclecticism comes with its band into the field to gather every ear; but Plato stands smiling behind, and holds in his hands that simple divided line, the image of all we know.

Who can wonder at the authority of the ancients, unbowed by an antiquity behind? Freedom from authority gave their directness, their simplicity, their superiority to misgiving and second thought, their confident "Thus saith the Lord."

We boast our enlightenment, but now the best minds are in question whether we have not lost as much by the ancients as we have gained. Plainly, they have not yet done their own work, have not given us to ourselves and to God. They should have been less or greater; they did not quite liberate, but became oppressors of the mind. To this misfortune we begin to find a single exception. Jesus, with his primal doctrine of a divine humanity, will now at last avail to be understood, will deliver us from every teacher to a Father in the heavens, and put us in direct communication with Him through the moral sense. After so many blind centuries, his truth breaks out, draws us to him from the misunderstanding of his followers, and refers from himself to the sources of his incomparable life.

Two men of our time are the primitive Christians,—not known for such, because their springs open, with those of the Master, not in any character, but in the Cause. They share his reliance, and accept in simplicity those brotherly words in which he extends his privilege to every child.

He will open to us Nature, for his habit is the only natural. He has no anxiety for immediate results, is never guarded in expression, does never explain; he makes no record of thought, calls no scholar to be scribe; he knows no labors, no studies; he walks on the hills, and frankly interprets the waving grain, the seed in the furrow, the lily, and the weed. Here is power which takes no thought for the morrow, an attitude which works endless revolutions without means or care or cost.

We must not dwell on this supreme example, lest we leave the hope of every reader far behind. Let us rather keep the level of common experience, and disclose the incursions of spirit which light a humble life. Love and Providence will appear in every breast; nothing more than Love and Providence appears to us above.

A supreme genius will fail, rather by under- than over-statement, to balance the popular exaggeration and repetition of fine phrases for which we have no corresponding fact. Why should any man be zealous or impatient? Why press a moral, dissecting it skeleton-like from throbbing textures of Freedom and Beauty? Why preach, threaten, and drive us with these bones, when a lover may draw us with kisses on living lips? Nature offers Duty as a manlier pleasure, leads the will so softly as to set us free in following, and her last thrill of delight is the steady heart-beat of heroism, facing danger with level eyes and fatal determination. Fear may arrest, but never restore. It is an arrest of fever by freezing, of disease by disease. Let it be understood, once for all, that this universe is moral, and say no more about that. Every man loves goodness, and the saint never exhorts to this love, but reinforces by addressing himself to it as matter of course. All power is a like repose on the basis of common desires and perceptions in the race. The didactic method is an insult alike to the pupil and the universe. Socrates is master and gentleman with his questions, suggestions, seeking in me and acting as midwife to my thought; but all illuminati and professors, all who talk down or cut our meat into morsels, will quickly be counted aunties by the vigorous boys at school. Chairs and pulpits totter to-day with a scholastic dry rot, which is inability to recognize the equality of unsophisticated man to man. There will soon be no more chair or desk; the only eminence will be that of one who can stand with feet on the common level, and still utter over our heads a regenerating word. We shall learn to address ourselves in an audience, to utter before millions, as if in joyful soliloquy, the sincerest, tenderest thought. Speak as if to angels, and you shall speak to angels; take unhesitating inmost counsel with mankind. The response to every pure desire is instant and wonderful. Thousands listen to-day for a word which waits in the air and has never been spoken, a word of courage to carry forward the purpose of their lives.

Thought points to unity, and the thinker is impatient of squinting and side-glances while all eyes should be turned together to the same. Thought is growing agreement, and that in which the race cannot meet me is some whim or notion, a personal crotchet, not a cosmic and eternal truth. Genius is freedom from all oddity, is Catholicity,—and departure from it so much departure in me from Nature and myself. We say a man is original, if he lives at first, and not at second hand,—if he requires a new tombstone,—if he takes law, not from the many or the few, but from the sky,—if he is no subordinate, but an authority,—if he does not borrow judgment, but is judgment. Such a man is singular in his attitude only because we have so fallen from purity. He, not the fashion, is comme il faut. By every word and act he declares that as he is so all men must shortly be.

Plato and Swedenborg are trying to speak the same word, but each can avail only to turn some syllable. They regret this partiality as a provincial burr, as greenness and narrowness. Genius sees the white light and regrets its own impurity, though that be piquancy to the multitude, and marketable as a splendid blue or gold. Manner, in thought, speech, behavior, is popularity and falsehood; is the limping of a king deformity, though it set the fashion of limping. The grandest thoughts are colorless as water; they savor not of Milton, Socrates, or Menu; seem not drawn from any private cistern, but rain-drops out of the pure sky. Whim and conceit are tare and tret. It matters little whether a man whine with Coleridge, or boast with Ben Jonson, or sneer with Byron, or grumble with Carlyle, if every thought is one-sided and warped. The oddity relieves our commonplace, and pricks the dull palate; but we soon tire of exaggeration, and detest the trick. It is egotism, self-sickness, jaundice, adulteration of the light. We name it the subjective habit, personality; while the right illumination is a transparency, a putting-off of shoes, garments, body, and constitution, lest these should intercept or stain the ray. Genius is an eye single and serene. Good speech carries the sound of no man's, of no angel's voice. Good writing betrays no man's hand, but is as if traced by the finger of God.

Original will signify, therefore, not peculiar, but universal. The original is one who lives from the Maker, not from man. He has found and asserts himself as a piece of primal design: he is somewhat, and his life therefore significant. He first represents man in purity, man in God, and is a revelation. No matter what he repeats as approved, he will not be a repetition, but will give new value to each thing by his approval. The wisest man in separate propositions repeats only what has many times been spoken. In my reading of this past week I find anticipated every item of modern thought. Hooker says of the Bible,—"By looking in it for that which it is impossible that any book can have, we lose the benefits which we might reap from its being the best of books." Milton says,—

"He who reads and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
(And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains."

Coleridge gives perfect confidence to paradox as sure of solution above the term of it; in his "Table-Talk" he antedates Carlyle's doctrine of dynamics,—puts Faith above belief, as in another region of the mind,—declares that the conceivable is not to be revered, and says, before Emerson, that existence is the Fall of Man. But the failure of Coleridge teaches that no single perceptions, however subtile or deep, will solve the broad problem of Nature. These separate thoughts the great hold in new emphasis and relation. Of such sparks they make a flame, of such timbers a house or ship. The parts may be old, the whole is not; and Goethe falls into a modest fallacy, when, in acknowledging his obligation to others, he disclaims originality for himself. All is new in his use of it: you may say he has taken nothing, for what was iron or silver where he found it is gold in his transmuting grasp.

When a man authentic speaks, our interest goes through every statement to himself. The root of that word is not in the market or the street, but in humanity, and through that in the deep. We study Goethe, not any opinion of Goethe: he represents for us in his measure the nature, need, and resource of the race, because what he publishes he knows, lives, and is. We open the mind largely to take the sense of such a gospel: it will not appear in details of perception. Plato and Goethe see the same sun, and seem to the vulgar to follow each other; they have more in common than any man can have in privacy; yet if you enter to the entire habit of each, you will justify the making of these two. They are like and unlike, as apples on one and another tree. The great in any time hold in common the growing truth of their time, and refer to it in intercourse as understood, an atmosphere which he must breathe who now lives and thinks; yet no two will be identically related to the same. We are radiated as spokes from a centre; we enter to it and work for it from every side.

There is no danger of repetition, if the thought be deep. Superior insight will always sufficiently astonish, will always be novel in its place. The more simple the method, the more wonderful every result. Men are shut, as if by a wall of adamant, from all that is yet beyond their sympathy. My neighbor is immersed in planting, building, and the new road. Beside him, companion only in air and sunshine, walks one who has no ocular adjustment for these atoms; his thought overleaps them in starting, and is wholly beyond. The end of vision for a practical eye is beginning of clairvoyance. To the road-maker, man is a maker of roads; he cracks his nuts and his jokes unconscious, while the ground opens and the world heaves with revolutions of thought. Ask him in vain what Webster means by "Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill"; what Channing sees in the Dignity of Man, or Edwards in the Sweetness of Divine Love; ask him in vain what is the "Fate" of Aeschylus, the "Compensation" of Emerson, Carlyle's "Conflux of Eternities," the "Conjunction" of Swedenborg, the "Newness" of Fox, the "Morning Red" of Behmen, the "Renunciation" of Goethe, the "Comforter" of Jesus, the "Justification" of Paul.

For the dull, this mystery of existence is not even a mystery; they are shut below the firmament of wonder. When the vulgar come with their definite gain and good, their circle of immediate ends, we feel the house contract, the sky descend,—we shrivel, our pores close, the skull hardens on the brain. The positive, who exactly knows, is a skeleton at the feast; that exactness is numbness, and chills every expansive guest. Dogma is a stoppage quite short of the nearest beginning; the liberal habit a beginning of all that has no end. Sense is a wall very near the eye, and when that is penetrated all lies open beyond; we see only paths, seas, and vistas. Wisdom explores and never concludes. The explanations of centuries are idle tales: my explanations are not so to be forestalled. We forget the shallow answers to shallow questions, when now we have deeper genuine questions to ask. The great are happy babes of Beauty and Good. Truth returns in a fresh suspicion, and all are welcome who wear on the brows that soft commingled light and shadow of an advancing, sweet, inexplicable Fate. Our hope is no house, but a wing; no roof can be endured but the blue one. What method have we yet to serve the spontaneous or spiritual being? what culture, art, society, worship, in which his need and power are so much as recognized? There is indefinable certainty of Nature beyond Nature, man beyond man. Genius opens all doors, the earth-doors, the sky-doors,—throws down the horizon and the heaven, to come into open air. All paths lead out to the sea, where a day's voyage may teach that the receding circle bounds our sight alone, and not the deep. We look out not on chaos and darkness, but on order too large for the brain, and light, for which as owls we have yet no capacious eye. We leave every perception neglected to wait on the future; but every future has its future devouring the past. What is left but bending of the knee and boundless confidence?

MY BROTHER AND I.

From the door where I stand I can see his fair land
Sloping up to a broad sunny height,
The meadows new-shorn, and the green wavy corn,
The buckwheat all blossoming white:
There a gay garden blooms, there are cedars like plumes,
And a rill from the mountain leaps up in a fountain,
And shakes its glad locks in the light.

He dwells in the hall where the long shadows fall
On the checkered and cool esplanade;
I live in a cottage secluded and small,
By a gnarly old apple-tree's shade:
Side by side in the glen, I and my brother Ben,—
Just the river between us, with borders as green as
The banks where in childhood we played.

But now nevermore upon river or shore
He runs or he rows by my side;
For I am still poor, like our father before,
And he, full of riches and pride,
Leads a life of such show, there is no room, you know,
In the very fine carriage he gained by his marriage
For an old-fashioned brother to ride.

His wife, with her gold, gives him friends, I am told,
With whom she is rather too gay,—
The senator's son, who is ready to run
For her gloves and her fan, night or day,
And to gallop beside, when she wishes to ride:
Oh, no doubt 'tis an honor to see smile upon her
Such world-famous fellows as they!

Ah, brother of mine, while you sport, while you dine,
While you drink of your wine like a lord,
You might curse, one would say, and grow jaundiced and gray,
With such guests every day at your board!
But you sleek down your rage like a pard in its cage,
And blink in meek fashion through the bars of your passion,
As husbands like you can afford.

For still you must think, as you eat, as you drink,
As you hunt with your dogs and your guns,
How your pleasures are bought with the wealth that she brought,
And you were once hunted by duns.
Oh, I envy you not your more fortunate lot:
I've a wife all my own in my own little cot,
And with happiness, which is the only true riches,
The cup of our love overruns.

We have bright, rosy girls, fair as ever an earl's,
And the wealth of their curls is our gold;
Oh, their lisp and their laugh, they are sweeter by half
Than the wine that you quaff red and old!
We have love-lighted looks, we have work, we have books,
Our boys have grown manly and bold,
And they never shall blush, when their proud cousins brush
From the walls of their college such cobwebs of knowledge
As careless young fingers may hold.

Keep your pride and your cheer, for we need them not here,
And for me far too dear they would prove,
For gold is but gloss, and possessions are dross,
And gain is all loss, without love.
Yon severing tide is not fordless or wide,—
The soul's blue abysses our homesteads divide:
Down through the still river they deepen forever,
Like the skies it reflects from above.

Still my brother thou art, though our lives lie apart,
Path from path, heart from heart, more and more.
Oh, I have not forgot,—oh, remember you not
Our room in the cot by the shore?
And a night soon will come, when the murmur and hum
Of our days shall be dumb evermore,
And again we shall lie side by side, you and I,
Beneath the green cover you helped to lay over
Our honest old father of yore.

A HALF-LIFE AND HALF A LIFE.

"On garde longtemps son premier amant, quand on n'en prend point de
second."

Maximes Morales du Duc de la Rochefoucauld..

It is not suffering alone that wears out our lives. We sometimes are in a state when a sharp pang would be hailed almost as a blessing,—when, rather than bear any longer this living death of calm stagnation, we would gladly rush into action, into suffering, to feel again the warmth of life restored to our blood, to feel it at least coursing through our veins with something like a living swiftness.

This death-in-life comes sometimes to the most earnest men, to those whose life is fullest of energy and excitement It is the reaction, the weariness which they name Ennui,—foul fiend that eats fastest into the heart's core, that shakes with surest hand the sands of life, that makes the deepest wrinkles on the cheeks and deadens most surely the lustre of the eyes.

But what are the occasional visits of this life-consumer, this vampire that sucks out the blood, to his constant, never-failing presence? There are those who feel within themselves the power of living fullest lives, of sounding every chord of the full diapason of passion and feeling, yet who have been so hemmed around, so shut in by adverse and narrowing circumstances, that never, no, not once in their half-century of years which stretch from childhood to old age, have they been free to breathe out, to speak aloud the heart that was in them. Ever the same wasting indifference to the things that are, the same ill-repressed longing for the things that might be. Long days of wearisome repetition of duties in which there is no life, followed by restless nights, when Imagination seizes the reins in her own hands, and paints the out-blossoming of those germs of happiness and fulness of being of whose existence within us we carry about always the aching consciousness.

And such things I have known from the moment when I first stepped from babyhood into childhood, from the time when life ceased to be a play and came to have its duties and its sufferings. Always the haunting sense of a happiness which I was capable of feeling, faint glimpses of a paradise of which I was a born denizen,—and always, too, the stern knowledge of the restraints which held me prisoner, the idle longings of an exile. But would no strong effort of will, no energy of heart or mind, break the bonds that held me down,—no steady perseverance of purpose win me a way out of darkness into light? No, for I was a woman, an ugly woman, whose girlhood had gone by without affection, and whose womanhood was passing without love,—a woman, poor and dependent on others for daily bread, and yet so bound by conventional duties to those around her that to break from them into independence would be to outrage all the prejudices of those who made her world.

I could plan such escape from my daily and yearly narrowing life, could dream of myself walking steadfast and unshaken through labor to independence, could picture a life where, if the heart were not fed, at least the tastes might be satisfied, could strengthen myself through all the imaginary details of my going-forth from the narrow surroundings which made my prison-walls; but when the time came to take the first step, my courage failed. I could not go out into that world which looked to me so wide and lonely; the necessity for love was too strong for me, I must dwell among mine own people. There, at least, was the bond of custom, there was the affection which grows out of habit; but in the world what hope had I to win love from strangers, with my repellent looks, awkward movements, and want of personal attractions?

Few persons know that within one hundred and fifty miles of the Queen City of the West, bounded on both sides by highly cultivated tracts of country, looking out westwardly on the very garden of Kentucky, almost in the range of railroad and telegraph, in the very geographical centre of our most populous regions, there lie some thousand square miles of superb woodland, rolling, hill above hill, in the beautiful undulations which characterize the country bordering on the Ohio, watered by fair streams which need only the clearing away of the few obstructions incident to a new country to make them navigable, and yet a country where the mail passes only once a week, where all communication is by horse-paths or by the slow course of the flat-boat, where schools are not known and churches are never seen, where the Methodist itinerant preacher gives all the religious instruction, and a stray newspaper furnishes all the political information. Does any one doubt my statement? Then let him ask a passage up-stream in one of the flat-boats that supply the primitive necessities of the small farmers who dwell on the banks of the Big Sandy, in that debatable border-land which lies between Kentucky and Virginia; or let him, if he have a taste for adventure, hire his horse at Catlettsburg, at the mouth of the river, and lose his way among the blind bridle-paths that lead to Louisa and to Prestonburg. If he stops to ask a night's lodging at one of the farm-houses that are to be found at the junction of the creeks with the rivers, log-houses with their primitive out-buildings, their half-constructed rafts of lumber ready to float down-stream with the next rise, their 'dug-outs' for the necessities of river-intercourse, and their rough oxcarts for hauling to and from the mill, he will see before him such a home as that in which I passed the first twenty years of my life.

I had little claim on the farmer with whom I lived. I was the child by a former marriage of his wife, who had brought me with her into this wilderness, a puny, ailing creature of four years, and into the three years that followed was compressed all the happiness I could remember. The free life in the open air, the nourishing influence of the rich natural scenery by which I was surrounded, the grand, silent trees with their luxuriant foliage, the fresh, strong growth of the vegetation, all seemed to breathe health into my frame, and with health came the capacity for enjoyment. I was happy in the mere gift of existence, happy in the fulness of content, with no playmate but the kindly and lovely mother Earth from whose bosom I drew fulness of life.

But in my seventh year my mother died, worn out by the endless, unvarying round of labors which break down the constitutions of our small farmers' wives. She grew sallow and thin under repeated attacks of chills and fever, brought into the world, one after another, three puny infants, only to lay them away from her breast, side by side, under the sycamore that overshadowed our cornfield, and visibly wasted away, growing more and more feeble, until, one winter morning, we laid her, too, at rest by her babies. Before the year was out, my father (so I called him) was married again.

My step-mother was a good woman, and meant to do her duty by me. Nay, she was more than that: she was, as far as her poor light went, a Christian. She had experienced religion in the great revival of 18—, which was felt all through Western Kentucky, under the preaching of the Reverend Peleg Dawson, and when she married my father and went to bury herself in the wilds of "Up Sandy" was a shining light in the Methodist church, a class-leader who had had and had told experiences.

But all that glory was over now; it had flashed its little day: for there is a glow in the excitement of our religious revivals as potent in its effect on the imaginations of women and young men as ever were the fastings and penances which brought the dreams and reveries, the holy visions and the glorious revealings, of the Catholic votaries. In this short, triumphant time of spiritual pride lay the whole romance of my step-mother's life. Perhaps it was well for her soul that she was taken from the scene of her triumphs and brought again to the hard realities of life. The self-exaltation, the ungodly pride passed away; but there was left the earnest, prayerful desire to do her duty in her way and calling, and the first path of duty which opened to her zeal was that which led to the care of a motherless child, the saving of an immortal soul. And in all sincerity and uprightness did she strive to walk in it. But what woman of five-and-thirty, who has outlived her youth and womanly tenderness in the loneliness and hardening influences of a single life, and who marries at last for a shelter in old age, knows the wants of a little child? Indeed, what but a mother's love has the long-enduring patience to support the never ceasing calls for forbearance and perseverance which a child makes upon a grown person? Those little ones need the nourishment of love and praise, but such milk for babes can come only from a mother's breast. I got none of it. On the contrary, my dearly loved independence, my wild-wood life, where Nature had become to me my nursing-mother, was exchanged for one of never ceasing supervision. "Little girls must learn to be useful," was the phrase that greeted my unwilling ears fifty times a day, which pursued me through my daily round of dish-washings, floor-sweepings, bed-making and potato-peeling, to overtake me at last in the very moment when I hoped to reap the reward of my diligence in a free afternoon by the river-side in the crotch of the water-maple that hung over the stream, clutching me and fastening me down to the hated square of patchwork, which bore, in the spots of red that defaced its white purity in following the line of my stitches, the marks of the wounds that my awkward hands inflicted on themselves with their tiny weapon.

And so the years went on. It was a pity that no babies came to soften our hearts, my step-mother's and mine, and to draw us nearer together as only the presence of children can. A household without children is always hard and angular, even when surrounded by all the softening influences of refinement and education. What was ours with its poverty and roughness, its every-day cares and its endless discomforts? One day was like all the rest, and in their wearying succession they rise up in my memory like ghosts of the past coming to lay their cold, death-like hands on the feebly kindling hopes of the present. I see myself now, as I look back, a tall, awkward girl of fifteen, with my long, straggling, sunburnt hair, my sallow, yet pimply complexion, my small, weak-looking blue eyes, that every exposure to the sun and wind would redden, and my long, lean hands and arms, that offended my sense of beauty constantly, as I dwelt on their hopelessly angular turns. I had one beauty; so my little paper-framed glass, that rested on the rough rafter that edged the sloping roof of my garret, told me, whenever I took it down to gaze in it, which, but for that beauty, would have been but seldom. It was a finely cut and firmly set mouth and chin. There was, and I felt it, beauty and character in the curves of the lips, in the rounding of the chin; there was even a healthy ruddiness in the lips, and something of delicacy in the even, well-set teeth that showed themselves when they parted.

The gazing at these beauties gave me great pleasure, not for any effect they might ever produce in others,—what did I know of that?—but because I had in myself a strong love of the beautiful, a passion for grace of form and brilliancy of color which made doubly distasteful to me our bare, uncouth walls, with their ugly, straight-backed chairs, and their frightfully painted yellow or red tables and chests-of-drawers.

My step-mother's appearance, too, was a constant offence to my beauty-loving eye,—with her lank, tall figure, round which clung those narrow skirts of "bit" calico, dingy red or dreary brown,—her feet shod in the heavy store-shoes which were brought us from Catlettsburg by the returning flat-boat men,—her sharp-featured face, the forehead and cheeks covered with brown, mouldy-looking spots, the eyes deep-set, with a livid, dyspeptic ring around them, and the lips thin and pinched,—the whole face shaded by the eternal sun-bonnet, which never left her head from early sunrise till late bedtime (no Sandy woman is ever seen without her sun-bonnet). All these were perpetual annoyances to me; they made me discontented without knowing why; they filled me with disgust, a disgust which my respect for her good qualities could not overcome.

And then our life, how dreary! The rising in the cold, gray dawn to prepare the breakfast of corn-dodgers and bacon for my father and his men,—the spreading the table-cloth, stained with the soil-spots of yesterday's meal,—the putting upon it the ugly, unmatched crockery,—the straggling-in of the unwashed, uncombed men in their coarse working-clothes, redolent of the week's unwholesome toil,—their washings, combings, and low talk close by my side,—the varied uses to which our household utensils were put,—the dipping of dirty knives into the salt and of dirty fingers into the meat-dish,—all filled me then, and fill me now, with loathing.

There was a relief when the men left the house; but then came the dreary "slicking-up," almost more disgusting, in its false, superficial show of cleanliness, than had been the open carelessness of the workmen.

But there was no time for rest; my step-mother's sharp, high-pitched voice was heard calling, "Janet!" and I followed her to the garden to dig the potatoes from the hills or to the cornfield to pull and husk the three dozen ears of corn which made our chief dish at dinner. Then came the week's washing, the apple-peeling, the pork-salting, work varied only with the varying season, until the blowing of the horn at twelve brought back the men to dinner, after which came again the clearing up, again the day's task, and again the supper.

I often thought that the men around us were always more cheerful and merry than the women. They worked as hard, they endured as many hardships, but they had, certainly, more pleasures. There was the evening lounge by the fire in winter, the sitting on the fence or at the door-step in summer, when, pipe or cigar in mouth, knife and whittling-stick in hand, jest and gibe would pass round among them, and the boisterous laugh would go up, reaching me, as I lay, tired out, on my little cot, or leaned disconsolate at my garret-window, looking with longing eyes far out into the darkness of the woods. No such gatherings-together of the women did I ever see. If one of our neighbors dragged her weary steps to our kitchen, and sat herself down, baby, in lap, on the upturned tub or flag-bottomed chair that I dusted off with my apron, it was to commence the querulous complaint of the last week's chill or the heavy washing of the day before, the ailing baby or the troublesome child, all told in the same whining voice. Even the choice bit of gossip which roused us at rare intervals always had its dark side, on which these poor women dwelt with a perverse pleasure.

In short, life was too hard for them; it brought its constant cares without any alleviating pleasures. Their homes were only places of monotonous labor,—their husbands so many hard taskmasters, who exacted from them more than their strength could give,—their children, who should have been the delight of their mothers' hearts, so many additional burdens, the bearing and nursing of which broke down their poor remaining health; the glorious and lavish Nature in which they lived only brought to them added labor, and shut them out from the few social enjoyments that they knew of.

I was old enough to feel all this,—not to reason on it as I can now, but to rebel against it with all the violence of a vehement nature which feels its strength only in the injuries it inflicts upon itself in its useless struggles for freedom. Bitter tears did I shed sometimes, as I lay with my head on my arms, leaning on that narrow window-sill,—tears of passionate regret that I was not a boy, a man, that I might, by the very force of my right arm, hew my way out of that encircling forest into the world of which I dreamed,—tears, too, that, being as I was, only an ugly, ignorant girl, I could not be allowed to care only for myself, and dream away my life in this same forest, which charmed me while it hemmed me in. My rude, chaotic nature had something of force in it, strength which I knew would stand me in good stead, could I ever find an outlet for it; it had also a power of enjoyment, keen, vivid, could I ever get leave to enjoy.

At length came the opening, the glimpse of sunlight. I remember, as if it were but yesterday, that afternoon which first showed to my physical sight something of that full life of which my imagination had framed a rude, faint sketch. I was standing at the end of the meadow, just where the rails had been thrown down for the cows, when, looking up the path that led through the wood by the river, I saw, almost at my side, a man on horseback. He stopped, and, half raising his hat, a motion I had never seen before, said,—

I pushed back my sun-bonnet, and looked up at him. I see him now as I saw him then; for my quick, startled glance took in the whole face and figure, which daguerreotyped themselves upon my memory. A frank, open face, with well-cut and well-defined features and large hazel eyes, set off by curling brown hair, was smiling down upon me, and, throwing himself from his horse, a young man of about five-and-twenty stood beside me. He had to repeat his question before I gained presence of mind enough to answer him.

"Is this Squire Boarders's house, and do you think I could get a night's lodging here?"

It was no unusual thing for us to give a night's lodging to the boatmen from the river, or to the farmers from the back-country, as they passed to or from Catlettsburg; but what accommodation had we for such a guest as here presented? I walked before him up the path to the house, and, shyly pointing to my step-mother, who stood on the porch, said,—

And then, before he had time to answer, I fled in an agony of bashfulness to my refuge under the water-maple behind the house. I lingered there as long as I dared,—longer, indeed, than I had any right to linger, for I heard my mother's voice crying, "Janet!" and I well knew that there was nobody but myself to mix the corn-cake, spread the table, or run the dozen errands that would be needed. I slipped in by the back-door, and, escaping my step-mother's peevish complaints, passed into the little closet which served us for pantry, and, scooping up the meal, began diligently to mix it.

The window by which I stood opened on the porch. My father and his men had come in, and, tipping their chairs against the wall, or mounted on the porch-railing, were smoking their cigars, laughing, joking, talking,—and there in the midst of them sat the stranger, smoking too, and joining in their talk with an easy earnestness that seemed to win them at once. Our country-people do not spare their questions. My father took the lead, the men throwing in a remark now and then.

"The country's well enough, if we could clear off some of them trees that stop a man every way he turns. Did you come up from Lowiza to-day?"

"No; I have only ridden from the mouth of Blackberry, I believe you call it. I have left a boat and crew there, who will be up in the morning."

"Damn me if I don't believe you're the man who is coming up here to open the coal mines on Burgess's land!" And the whole crowd gathered round him.

"We don't like no new-fangled notions, noways, up here, and I'll not say that I'm glad you're bringing them in; but, at any rate, you're welcome here to-night."

"We are to be close neighbors, Squire Boarders, and I hope we shall be good friends; but I ought to tell you all about myself. Mr. Burgess's land has been bought by a company, who intend to open the coal mines, as you know, and I am sent up here as their agent, to make ready for the miners and the workmen. We shall clear away a little, and put up some rough shanties, to make our men comfortable before we go to work. We shall bring a new set of people among you, those Scotch and Welsh miners; but I believe they are a peaceable set, and we'll try to be friendly with each other."

"Well, as I was telling you, you're welcome here to-night, and I don't know as I've anything against your settling over the river on Burgess's land. The people round here have been telling me your coming will be a good thing for us farmers, because you'll bring us a market for our corn and potatoes; but I don't see no use of raising more corn than we want for ourselves. We have enough selling to do with our lumber, and you'll be thinning out the trees.—But there's my old woman's got her supper ready."

I listened as I waited on the table. The talk varied from farming to mining and the state of the river, merging at last into the politics of the country, and through the whole of it I watched the stranger: noticed how different was his language from anything I had ever heard before; marked the clear tones of his voice and the distinctness of his utterance, contrasting with the heavy, thick gutturals, the running of words into each other, the slovenly drawl of my father and his men; watched his manner of eating, his neat disposition of his food on his plate; saw him move his chair back with a slight expression of annoyance, unmarked by any one else, as Will Foushee spit on the floor beside him. All this I observed, in a mood half envious, half sullen,—a mood which pursued me that night into my little attic, as I peevishly questioned with myself wherein lay the difference between us.

"Why is this man any better than Will Foushee or Ned Burgess? He is no stronger nor better able to do a day's work. Why am I afraid of him, when I don't care an acorn for the others? Why do my father and the men listen to him and crowd round him? What makes him stand among them as if he did not belong to them, even when he talks of what they know better than he? There is not a man round Sandy that could make me feel as ashamed as that gentleman did when he spoke to me this afternoon. Is it because he is a gentleman?" And sullenly I resolved that I would be put down by no airs. I was as good as he, and would show him to-morrow morning that I felt so. Then came the bitter acknowledgment, "I am not as good as he is. I am a stupid, ugly girl, who knows nothing but hateful housework and a little of the fields and trees; and he,—I suppose he has been to school, and read plenty of books, and lived among quality." And I cried myself to sleep before I had made up my mind fully to acknowledge his superiority.

It was one of my greatest pleasures to get up early. Our people were not early risers, except when work pressed upon them, and I often secured my only leisure hour for the day by stealing down the staircase, out into the woods, by early sunrise, when, wrapped in an old shawl, and sheltered from the dew by climbing into the lower branches of my pet maple, I would watch the fog reaching up the opposite hills, putting forth as it were an arm, by which, stretched far out over the trees, it seemed to lift itself from the valley,—or perhaps carrying with me one of the few books which made my library, I would spell out the sentences and attempt to extract their meaning.

They were a strange medley, my books: some belonging to my step-mother, and others borrowed or begged from the neighbors, or brought to me by the men, with whom I was a favorite, and who knew my passion for reading. My mother's books were mostly religious: a life of Brainerd, the missionary, whose adventures roused within me a gleam of religious enthusiasm; some sermons of the leading Methodist clergy, which, to her horror, I pronounced stupid; and a torn copy of the "Imitation of Christ," a book which she threatened to take from me, because she believed it had something to do with the Papists, but to which, for that very reason, I clung with a tenacity and read with an earnestness which brought at last its own beautiful fruits. Then, there was the "Scottish Chiefs," a treasure-house of delight to me,—two or three trashy novels, given me by Tom Salyers, of which my mother knew nothing,—and (the only poetry I had ever seen) a song-book, which had, scattered among its vulgarisms and puerilities, some gems of Burns and Moore. These my natural, unvitiated taste had singled out, and I would croon them over to myself, set them to a tune of my own composing, and half sing, half chant them, when at work out-of-doors, till my mother declared I was going crazy.

This morning I did not read. I sat looking down into the water from my perch, carrying on the inward discussion of the night before, and wishing that breakfast-time were come, that I might try my strength and show that I was not to be put down by any assumption of superiority, when suddenly a voice near me made me start so that I almost lost my balance. Mr. Hammond was standing beneath. He laughed, and held out his hand to help me down; but I sprang past him and was on my way to the house, when suddenly my brave resolutions came back to my mind, and I stood still with a feeling of defiance. I wondered what he would dare to say. Would he tell me how stupid he thought us all, how like the very pigs we lived? or would he describe his own grand house and the great places he had seen? I scowled up sullenly.

"Will you tell me where to find a towel, that I may wash my face here by the river-side?"

I laughed aloud, and with that laugh fled my sullenness. He looked a little puzzled, but went on,—

"I went to bed so early that I cannot sleep any longer; and if I could only find some way of getting across the river, I could get things under way a little before my men come up."

There were ways, then, in which I could help him,—he was not so immeasurably above me,—and down went my defiant spirit. The towel, a crash roller, luckily clean, was brought at once, and, gathering courage as I stood by and saw him finish his washing, I said,—

"You? can you manage that shell of a thing? will your father let you take it, Miss Boarders?"

"My name is Janet Rainsford, and Squire Boarders is not my father," said I, some of my sullenness returning.

"If you will take me, Janet," said he, with the frank, open-hearted tone which had won my step-father the night before,—a tone before which my sullenness melted.

I jumped in, and, letting him pass me before I threw off the rope, sculled the little dug-out into the middle of the river. No boatman on the Sandy was more skilful than I in the management of the little vessel, for in it most of my leisure time had been passed for the last year or two. My step-mother had scolded, my father grumbled, and the farmers' wives and daughters had shaken their heads and "allowed that Janet Rainsford would come to no good, if she was let fool about here and there, like a boy." But on that point I was incorrigible; the boat was my one escape from my daily drudgery, and late at night and early in the morning I went up and down among the shoals and bars, under the trees and over the ripples, till every turn of the current was familiar to me. I knew all the boatmen, too, up and down the river, would pull along-side their rafts or pushing-boats, and get from them a slice of their corn-bread or a cup of coffee, or at least a pleasant word or jest. And none but pleasant words did I ever receive from the rough, but honorable men whom I met. They respected, as the roughest men will always do, my lonely girlhood, and felt a sort of pride in the daring, adventurous spirit that I showed.

My knowledge of the river stood Mr. Hammond in good stead that morning, as soon as I understood that he was looking for a place where his men could land easily. It was only to sweep round a small bluff that jutted into the river, and carry the skiff into the mouth of Nat's Creek, where the bank sloped gradually down to the water from a level bit of meadow-land that extended back some rods before the hills began to rise. Mr. Hammond leaped out.

"The very place,—and here, on this point, shall be my saw-mill. I'll run the road through here and up the creek to the mining-ground, and build my store under the ledge there, and my shanties on each side the road."

I caught his enthusiasm, and, my shyness all gone, I found myself listening and suggesting; more than that, I found my suggestions attended to. I knew the river well; I knew what points of land would be overflowed in the June rise; I knew how far the backwater would reach up the creek; I knew the least obstructed paths through the woods; I could even tell where the most available timber was to be found. I felt, too, that my knowledge was appreciated. George Hammond had that one best gift that belongs to all successful leaders, whether of armies, colonies, or bands of miners: he recognized merit when he saw it. From that morning a feeling of self-respect dawned upon me, I was not so altogether ignorant as I had thought myself, I had some available knowledge; and with that feeling came the determination to raise myself out of that slough of despond into which I had fallen the night before.

From that time a sort of friendship sprang up between George Hammond and myself. Every morning I rowed him across the river, and, in the early morning light, before the workmen were out of bed, he talked over, partly to himself and partly to me, his plans for the day and his vexations of the day before, until I began to offer advice and make suggestions, which made him laughingly call me his little counsellor.

Then in the evenings (he slept at my father's) he would pick up my books and amuse himself with talking to me about them, laugh at my crude enthusiasms, clear up some difficult passage, prune away remorselessly the trash that had crept into my little collection, until, one day, returning from Cincinnati, where business had called him, he brought with him a store of books inexhaustible to my inexperienced eyes, and declared himself my teacher for the winter.

"Never mind Janet's knitting and mending, Mrs. Boarders," said he, in reply to my mother's complaints; "she is a smart girl, and may be a school-mistress yet, and earn more money than any woman on Sandy."

"But I am afraid," my step-mother answered, "that the books she reads are not godly, and have no grace in them. They look to me like players' trash. I've tried to do my duty to Janet," she continued, plaintively; "but I hope the Lord won't hold me accountable for her headstrong ways."

Meantime, as I read in one of my books, and repeated to myself over and over again in my fulness of content,—

How rapidly fled that winter, and how soon came the spring, that would bring me, I thought, new hopes, new interests, new companions!

How changed a scene did I look upon, that bright April morning, when I went over the river to see that all was in readiness for the boats from below which were to bring Esther Hammond to her new home! She was to keep her brother's house; and furniture, books, and pictures, such as I had never dreamed of, had been sent up by the last-returning boatmen, all of which I had helped Mr. Hammond to arrange in the little two-story cottage which stood on the first rise of the hill behind the store.

A little plat of ground was hedged in with young Osage-orange shrubs, and within it one of the miners, who had formerly been an under-gardener in a great house in Scotland, had already prepared some flower-beds and sodded carefully the little lawn, laying down the walks with bright-colored tan, which contrasted pleasantly with the lively green of the grass. From the gate one might look up and down the road, bordered on one side by the trees that hung over the river, and on the other by the miners' houses, one-story cottages, each with its small inclosure, and showing every degree of cultivation, from the neat vegetable-patch and whitewashed porch of the Scotch families to the neglected waste ground and slovenly potato-patch of the Irishmen. There were some Sandians among the hands, but they never could be made to take one of the houses prepared for the miners. They lived back on the creeks, generally on their own lands, raised their corn and tobacco, cut their lumber, and hunted or rode the country, taking jobs only when they felt so inclined, but showing themselves fully able to compete with the best hands both in skill and in endurance, when they were willing to work.

On the side of the hill across the creek could be seen the entrance to the mines, and down that hill were passing constantly the cars, loaded with earth and stone taken from the tunnel, which fell with a thundering sound into the valley beneath. Below me was the store, gay with its multifarious goods, which supplied all the needs of the miners and their wives, from the garden-tools and seeds for the afternoon-work to the gay-colored dresses for the Sunday leisure,—where, too, on Saturday night, whiskey was to be had in exchange for the scrip in which their wages were paid, and where, sometimes, the noise waxed fast and furious, till Mr. Hammond would cut off the supply of liquor, as the readiest means of stilling the tumult.

On this side the river all was changed. But as I looked that morning across the stream towards my step-father's farm, my own home, everything there lay as wild and unimproved as I had known it since the first day my mother brought me there, comfortless and disorderly as it was when, child as I was, I could remember the tears of fatigue and discouragement which she dropped upon my face as she put me for the first time into my little crib; but there, too, were still (and my heart exulted as I saw them) the glorious water-maples, the giant sycamores, and the bright-colored chestnut-trees, which I had known and loved so long. Would Miss Hammond see how beautiful they were? would she praise them as her brother had done? would she listen as kindly to my rhapsodies about them? and would she say, as he had said, that I was a poet by nature, with a poet's quick appreciation of beauty and the poet's gift of enthusiastic expression? I could not tell whether Esther Hammond would be to me the friend her brother had been, with the added blessing, that, being a woman, I could go freely to her with my deficiencies in sure dependence upon her aid and sympathy,—or if she would come to stand between me and him, to take away from me my friend and teacher. Time alone would show; and meanwhile I must be busy with my preparations, for the boats were expected at noon, and Mr. Hammond, who had ridden down to Louisa to meet them, had said that he depended upon me to have things cheerful and in order when they arrived.

Two hours' hard work saw everything in its place, the furniture arranged to the best of my ability, but wanting, as I sorely felt, the touch of a mistress's hand to give it a home-like look. I had done my best, but what did I know of the arrangement of a lady's house? I hardly knew the use of half the things I touched. But I would not let my old spirit of discontent creep over me now; so, betaking myself to the woods, which were full of the loveliest spring flowers, I brought back such a profusion of violets, spring-beauties, and white bloodroot-blossoms, that the whole room was brightened with their beauty, while their faint, delicate perfume filled the air.

"Surely these must please her," I said to myself, as I put the last saucerful on the table, and stepped back to see the result of my work.

"They certainly will, Janet," said George Hammond, who had entered behind me. "How well you have worked, and how pleasant everything looks! Esther will be so much obliged to you. She is just below, in the boat. Will you not come with me and help her up the bank?"

But I hung back, bashful and frightened, while he called some of the men to his assistance, and, hurrying down to the river, landed the boat, and was presently seen walking toward the house with a lady leaning upon his arm. I saw her from the window. A tall, dignified woman, with a face—yes, beautiful, certainly, for there were the regular features, the dark eyes, with their straight brows, the heavy, dark hair, parted over the fair, smooth forehead, but so quiet, so cold, so almost haughty, that my heart stood still with an undefined alarm.

She came in and sat down in one of the chairs without taking the least notice of me. Mr. Hammond spoke,—

"This is Janet Rainsford, my little friend that I told you of, Esther. I hope you will be as good friends as we have been. She will show you every beautiful place around the country, and make you acquainted with the people, too."

"I shall not trouble the young person much, since I shall only walk when you can go with me; and as for the people, it is not necessary for me to know them, I suppose."

"Janet has taken great pains to put everything in order for us here. I should hardly know the room, it is so improved since I left it this morning."

"She is very kind," said his sister, languidly; "but, George, how horribly this furniture is arranged,—the sofa across the window, the centre-table in the corner!"

"Oh, you will have plenty of time to arrange it, Esther. Come, let me show you your own room; you will want to rest while your Dutch girl—what's her name? Catrine?—gets us something to eat."

Miss Hammond followed her brother to her room, while, mortified and angry with her, with myself, I escaped from the house, jumped into my skiff, and hardly stopped to breathe till I had reached my own little garret. I flung myself on my bed, and burst into bitter tears of resentment and despair. So, after all my pains, after my endeavors to improve myself, after all I had done, I was not worth the notice of a real lady. I supposed I was an uncouth, awkward girl, disagreeable enough to her; she would not want to see me near her. All I had done was miserable; it would have been better to let things alone. I never would go near her again,—that was certain,—she should not be troubled by me;—and my tears fell hot and fast upon my pillow. Then came my old sullenness. Why was she any better than I? Her brother thought me worth talking to; could she not find me worthy of at least a kind look? Perhaps she knew more than I did of books; but what of that? She had not half the useful knowledge wherewith to make her way here in the woods. And what right had she to bring her haughty looks and proud ways here among our people? My sullenness gave way before my bitter disappointment and my offended pride. I was only a child of sixteen, sensitive and distrustful of myself, and her cold looks and colder words had keenly wounded me.

A week passed, in which I gave myself most earnestly to the household tasks, going through them with dogged pertinacity, and accomplishing an amount of work which made my step-mother declare that Janet was coming back to her senses after all. It was only my effort to forget my disappointment.

On the Saturday evening when I sat tired out with my exertions, Mr. Hammond came up the path. How my heart leaped at seeing him! How good he was to come! His sister had not taught him to despise me. But when he asked me to come over, the next day, and see what he had done to his house and garden, the demon of sullen pride took possession of me again. I would not go. I had too much to do; my mother would want me to get the dinner. In short, I could not go. He bore it good-naturedly, though I think he understood it, and, leaving with me a package of books which he had promised me, said he must go, as Esther would be waiting tea for him.

Many another endeavor did George Hammond make to bring his sister and myself together, but the first impression had been too strong for me, and Miss Hammond made no effort to remove it. I do not believe it ever crossed her mind to try to do so. Little was it to her whether or no she made herself pleasant to a stupid, ugly girl. She had her books, her light household cares, her letter-writing, her gardening, her walks and drives with her brother, and she felt and showed little interest in anything else. Very unpopular she was among the people around her, who contrasted her cold reserve with her brother's frank cordiality; but she troubled herself not at all about her unpopularity. For me, I kept shyly out of her way, and fell back into my old habits.

I had not lost my friend, Mr. Hammond. He did not read with me regularly as before, but he kept me supplied with books, and the very infrequency of his lessons stimulated me to redoubled effort, that I might surprise him by my progress when we met again. Then there was scarcely a day that some business did not take him past our house, or that I did not meet him by the river-bank or at the store. Sometimes he would ask me to row him down the stream on some errand, sometimes he would take me with him in his rides. I was a fearless horsewoman, and Miss Hammond did not ride. In all those meetings he was frank and kind as ever; he told me of his plans, his annoyances, his projects. No, I had not lost my friend, as I had feared, and when assured of this, I could do without Miss Hammond.

And so the weeks glided into months, and the months into years, and I was nineteen years old. Four years had passed since the morning when George Hammond first awakened my self-esteem, first gave me the impulse to raise myself out of my awkwardness and ignorance, to make of myself something better than one of the worn, depressed, dispirited women I saw around me. Had I done anything for myself? I asked. I was not educated, I had no acquirements, so-called; but I had read, and read well, some good and famous books, and I knew that I had made their contents my own. I was richer for their beauties and excellences. With my self-respect had come, too, a desire to improve my surroundings, and, as far as they lay under my control, they had been improved. Our household was more orderly; some little attempt at neatness and decoration was to be seen around and in the house, and my own room, where I had full sway, was beautiful in its rustic adornment.

My glass, too, the poor little three-cornered, paper-framed companion of my girlhood, showed me some change. The complexion had cleared, the hair had taken a decided brown, and the angular figure had rounded and filled. It was hardly a week since, standing in Miss Hammond's kitchen counting over with her servant-girl the basketful of fresh eggs which were sent from our house every week, I had overheard Mr. Hammond say to his sister,—

"Really, Janet Rainsford has improved so much that she is almost pretty. Her brown hair tones so well with her quiet eyes; and as to her mouth, it is really lovely, so finely cut, and with so much character in it."

"I think you make a fool of yourself, George, and of that girl too, going on as you do about her. She will be entirely unfitted for her state of life, and for the people she must live with."

Her words had hardly time to chill my heart when it bounded again, as I turned hurriedly away and passed under the window on my way out, at hearing her brother's answer:—

"There is too much in her to be spoiled. I like her. She has talent and character, and I cannot understand, Esther, why you are so prejudiced against her."

There were others besides Mr. Hammond who thought me improved and who liked me. Tom Salyers never let an evening pass without dropping into our house on his way home from the store, where he was a sort of overseer or salesman,—never failed to bring in its season the earliest wild-flower or the freshest fruit,—had thoroughly searched Catlettsburg for books to please me,—nay, had once sent an indefinite order to a Cincinnati bookseller to put up twenty dollars' worth of the best books for a lady, which order was filled by a collection of the Annuals of six years back and a few unsalable modern novels. I read them all most conscientiously and gratefully, and would not listen for a moment to Mr. Hammond's jests about them; but, a few weeks afterwards, I almost repented of my complaisance, when Tom Salyers took me at an advantage while rowing me down to Louisa one afternoon, and, seeing a long stretch of river before him without shoal or sand-bar, leisurely laid up his oars, and, letting the boat float with the stream, asked me, abruptly, to marry him, and go with him up into the country to a new place which he meant to clear and farm.

I laughed at him at first, but he persisted till I was forced to believe him in earnest; and then I told him how foolish he was to fancy an ugly, sallow-looking girl like me, who had no father nor mother, when he might take one of John Mills's rosy daughters, or go down to Catlettsburg and get somebody whose father would give him a farm already cleared.

"You are laughing at me, Janet," he said. "I know I am not smart enough for you, nor hardly fit to keep company with you, now that Hammond has taught you so many things that are proper for a lady to know; but I love you true, and if you can only fancy me, I'll work so hard that you'll be able to keep a hired girl and have all your time for reading and going about the woods as you like to do. And you'll be in your own house, instead of under Squire Boarders and his sharp-spoken wife. Couldn't you fancy me after a while? I'd do anything you said to make myself agreeable and fit company for you."

"You are very fit company for me now, Tom," I said, "and you are of a great deal more use in the world than I am; you know more that is worth knowing than I do. Only let us be good friends, as we have always been, and do not talk about anything else."

"I will not talk any more of it now," said he, "if so be it don't please you, and if you'll promise never to say any more to me about the Mills gals, or any of them critters down in Catlettsburg,—I can't abide the sight of them,—and if you'll let me come and see you all the same, and row you about and take you to the mill when you want flour."

I held out my hand to Tom with the earnest assurance that I always liked to see him and talk to him, and that there was nobody whom I would sooner ask to do me a kindness.

The poor fellow choked a little as he thanked me, and then, recovering himself, rowed a few strokes in silence, when, looking round as if to assure himself that there was nothing near us but the quiet trees, he said suddenly,—

"I'll tell you what, Janet, I've a great mind to tell you something, seeing how you're not a woman that can't hold her tongue, and then you think so much of Hammond."

"You know what a hard winter we've had, with this low water and no January rise, and all that ice in the Ohio. They say they're starving for coal down in Cincinnati, and here we've no end of it stacked up. Well, Hammond, he's had hard work enough to keep the men along through the winter. Many another man would have turned them off, but he wouldn't do it; so he's shinned here and shinned there to get money to pay them their wages, and they've had scrip, and we've fairly brought goods up to the store overland, on horseback and every kind of way, just for their convenience; and now the damned Irish rascals, with some of the Sandy boys for leaders, have made up their minds to strike for higher wages the minute we have a rise, just when we'll need all hands to get the coal off, and all those boats laying at the mouth, too. I heard it day before yesterday, by chance like, when Jim Foushee and the two O'Learys were sitting smoking on the fence behind the store. The O'Learys were tight with the Redeye they had aboard, and let it out in their stupid 'colloguing,' as they call it; but Jim Foushee saw me standing at the window, and right away called in two or three of the Sandy men and threatened my life if I told Hammond. They have watched me like a cat ever since, and never left me and Hammond alone together. They are with Hammond now, launching a coal-boat, or I'd never have got off with you."

I sat breathless. I knew it was ruin to let the expected rise pass without getting the coal-boats down; but what could be done?

"Don't look so pale, Janet. You can tell Hammond, you know, and he'll find a way to circumvent them. And it was to tell you all this that I brought you out here this afternoon, only my unlucky tongue would talk of what I see it's too soon to talk of yet. But here's Louisa, right ahead. Make haste and get your traps, while I settle my business, and we'll be back, perhaps, in time for you to manage some way to see Hammond to-night. Nobody knows you went with me, and you'll never be suspected."

Not Tom Salyers's most rapid and vigorous rowing could make our little skiff keep pace with my impatience; but, thanks to his efforts, the sun was still high when he landed me in the little cove behind our house, where I could run up through the woods to our back-door, while he pulled boldly up to the store-landing and called some of the men to help him carry his purchases up the bank. I did not stop for a word with my step-mother, but, passing rapidly through the house, threw my parcels on the bed in the sitting-room, and, running down the walk to the maple-tree under which my dug-out was always tied, jumped into it and sculled out into the river. The coal-boat had just been launched, and George Hammond was standing on the bank superintending the calking of the seams which the water made visible. I pushed up to the bank, and called to him as I neared,—

"Can you not come, Mr. Hammond, a little way up-stream with me? I have found those young tulip-trees that you want for your garden; they are just round the bend above Nat's Creek. Jim Foushee will see to that work, and I have just time to show them to you before supper."

I was a favorite with Jim Foushee. He laughed a joking welcome to me, as he said,—

"I'll see to this, Sir, if you want to go with Janet Rainsford. She's the gal that knows the woods. A splendid Sandy wife you'll make some young fellow, Janet, if you don't get too book-learned."

In five minutes we were off and had rounded the point out of sight and hearing. In a few hurried words I told my story, but at first Mr. Hammond would not believe it.

At last, convinced, his face set with the determined look that I had seen on it once or twice before.

"I'll not raise the wages of a single man, and, what's more, I'd turn them all off the place, if only I could find others. But those boats at Catlettsburg, they are the most important. The Company would send me up men from Cincinnati, if only I could get word to them; but these rascals will stop any letter I send. Those Sandians are capable of it,—or rather they are capable of putting the Irishmen up to doing their dirty work for them."

"I can take it. Nobody will suspect me. Give me the letter to-night, and I will go to-morrow."

"No, indeed. I often ride to Louisa; what is to hinder me from having errands to Catlettsburg. I could go down there in one day, and take two days back, if my father thinks it is too much for old Bill to take it through in one."

"Oh, you could borrow Swiftfoot. I have often lent him to you, and he would carry you safely and surely. I don't believe any harm would come to you, and so much depends upon it."

"You have only to get your letter ready and give it to me when I come over in the morning to borrow Swiftfoot. I will take care of all the rest."

And, sculling rapidly, we were at the wharf again before he had time to raise objections. I knew that I could persuade my mother into letting me go to Louisa again the next day, for we needed all our spring purchases,—and once there, it was easy to find it necessary to go to the mouth. I had never been alone, but often with my father or some of our hands; besides, I was too well able to take care of myself, too accustomed to have my own way, to anticipate any anxiety about my not returning.

And so it proved. The next morning saw me mounted on Swiftfoot, the letter safe in my bosom, and a long list of articles wanted in my pocket. What a lovely ride that was, with the gentle, spirited horse of which I was so fond for a companion and my own beautiful forests in all their loveliest spring green around me, with just enough of mystery and danger in the expedition to add an exhilarating excitement and with the happy consciousness that I was doing something for Mr. Hammond, who had done so much for me, to urge me on! I cantered merrily past Jim Foushee's cornfield, and, nodding to him, as be stood in the door of his log-house, I enjoyed telling him that I was going to Louisa on a shopping expedition. "Should I get anything for him? He could see that Mr. Hammond had lent me Swiftfoot, so that I should soon be back, if I could buy all I wanted in Louisa; if not, I did believe I should go on to Catlettsburg: the ride would be so glorious!"

And glorious it was. I was happy in myself, happy in my thoughts of my friend, happy in the physical enjoyment of the air, the woods, the sun, the shade. Let me dwell on that ride. I have not had many happy days, but that was one which had its fulness of content. And I succeeded in putting Mr. Hammond's letter into the Catlettsburg post-office, made my little purchases, and turned my horse's head homeward, reaching the end of my journey before my father or step-mother had time to be anxious for me, and having a chance to whisper, "All right," to Tom Salyers, as he took my horse from me at the door of the store.

The long-expected rise came, and the strike came,—Jim Foushee heading it, and standing sullen and determined in the midst of his party. Mr. Hammond was prepared for them. The malcontents came to him in the store, where he was filling Tom's place; for he had sent Tom to Catlettsburg, avowedly to prepare the boats there to meet the rise, really to have him out of the way. Their first word was met coolly enough.

"You will not work another stroke, unless I give you higher wages, I understand, Foushee? And these men say the same thing? You are their spokesman? Very well, I am satisfied; you can quit work to-morrow. I have other hands at the mouth for the boats there, and there is no hurry about the coal that lies here."

But Mr. Hammond would not tell me more of what passed; perhaps he was afraid of frightening me. This only he told me that night, when thanking me with glance, voice, and pressure of the hand for all I had done for him. The blood rushed quick and hot through my veins, I was delirious with an undreamed-of happiness, which took away from me all power of answering, of even raising my eyes to his face, and the same delirium followed me to my pillow. He had called me his friend, his little Janet, who was so quick and ready, so fertile in invention, so brave in execution: what should he have done without me? I repeated his words to myself till they lost all their meaning; they were only replete with blissful content, and filled me with their music till I dropped asleep for very weariness in saying them over.

The next morning, before I waked, George Hammond had gone. He had left for Catlettsburg to direct the new hands. The works lay idle, the men (those who had been dismissed) lounged around gloomy and sullen, and so passed the week. Then came the news that Mr. Hammond and Tom Salyers had gone to Cincinnati, and would not return for the present, and that such men as were satisfied with the former wages were to be put to work again. Readily did the miners come back to their duty, all but a few of the Sandy men, who returned to their own homes, and all fell into the usual train.

And I? There was first the calm sense of happy security, then the impatience to test again its reality, then the longing homesickness of the heart. As weeks passed on and I saw nothing of him, as I heard of his protracted stay, as I saw Miss Hammond make her preparations to join him, as I watched the boat which carried her away, my sense of loneliness became too heavy for me, and the same pillow on which I had known those happy slumbers was wet with tears of bitter despondency.

And yet I understood neither the happiness nor the tears. I did not know (how should I?) what were the new feelings which made my heart beat at George Hammond's name. I did not know why I yearned towards his sister with a warmth of love that would fain show itself in kindly word or deed. I did not know why the news that he was coming again, which greeted me after long weeks of weariness, brightened with joyful radiance everything that I saw, and glorified the aspect of my little garret, as I had seen a brilliant bunch of flowers glorify and refine with a light of beauty the every-day ugliness of our sitting-room.

I sang my merriest songs that night, and my feet kept time to their music in almost dancing measures. The next day, yes, by noon, he would be at home. I could see his boat land from my little window, and then, giving Miss Hammond time to be safely housed, I would row myself over to the store and meet him there. How much I should have to tell him, how much to hear!

The morning came, and with it came a nervous bashfulness. I should never dare to go over to see him. No, I would wait quietly until night, when he would surely come himself to see me. Still I could watch his boat. And nervously did I stand, my face pressed against the window-pane, through the long morning hours, my sewing dropped neglected in my lap at the risk of a scolding from my mother, watching the slow-passing river, and the leaves hanging motionless over it in the stillness of the summer noon. At last there was a stir on the opposite shore. Yes, the boat must be in sight; I could even hear the shouts of the boatmen; and there, rounding the bluff, she was; there, too, was Mr. Hammond in the stern, with the rudder in his hand; there sat Miss Hammond, book in hand, with her usual look of listless disdain. But whose was that girlish face raised towards Mr. Hammond, while he pointed out so eagerly the surrounding objects? whose that slight, girlish figure crowned with the light garden-hat, with its wealth of golden hair escaping from under it?

A sharp pang shot through me. Some one was coming to disturb my happy hours with my teacher and friend; and the chill of disappointment was on me already. I saw the boat land, saw George Hammond assist carefully every step of the strange girl, saw an elderly gentleman step also upon the bank and give his hand to Miss Hammond, and in two minutes the trees of the landing hid them from my sight.

And how slowly went the hours of that afternoon! how nervously I listened to every tread, to every click of the gate! nay, my sharpened hearing took note of every sway of the branches. But the day passed, the night, and no one came. The next morning brought with it an impatience which mastered me. I must go, I must see him, and in five minutes I was pushing my boat from its cove under the water-maple.

But I needed not to have left my room; my visit would be useless; for, lifting my eyes, as my boat came out from under the leaves, there, on the path by the river-side opposite, I saw the strange lady mounted on Swiftfoot, her light figure set off by a cloth riding-habit such as I had never seen before, the graceful folds of which struck me even then with a sense of beauty and fitness. I could even distinguish the golden curls again, which fell close on George Hammond's face, as he stood by her side arranging her stirrup, his own horse's bridle over his arm. A backward motion of the oar sent my boat under the branches again, and I sat motionless, watching them as they rode away.

Two hours afterward they stopped at our gate, and I heard George Hammond's voice calling me. The blood rushed to my forehead. Had I been alone, I would not have heard; but my mother was in the room, and I had no excuse for not going forward. He leaned from his horse and shook hands cordially, while, at the same time, he said,—

"I have brought Miss Worthington to see you, Janet. She has heard so much of your kindness to me, and of your courage last spring, that she was anxious to know you.

The lovely, bright young face was bent towards me, the tiny hand stretched out to mine, and I heard a gentle voice say,—

"Mr. Hammond has told me so much of you, Janet, (I may call you Janet, may I not?) that I was determined to come and see you. I hope we shall know each other."

A great fear seized me then,—a fear which seemed to clutch my heart and stop its beatings, leaving me without any power of reply. I only stammered a few words, and Mr. Hammond, pitying what he thought my bashfulness, rode on with a nod of farewell and some words, I could not take in their sense, which seemed to be requests that I would teach Miss Worthington all that I knew of the woods and the country.

I sat down with a stunned feeling, dizzied with the knowledge that seemed to blaze upon me with that horrid fear. Yes, I knew now what it all meant,—the happiness, the loneliness of the past weeks, the shrinking bashfulness of yesterday morning, and the chill that fell upon me when I first saw the stranger in the boat.

I loved George Hammond,—I, the country-girl, without one beauty, one accomplishment, so ignorant, so beneath him. I had been fool enough to fling away my heart,—and now, now that it was gone from me, there came this terrible fear. What was this young girl to him? Were my intuitions right? Did he love her? Would she take him away from me? take away even that poor friendship which was all I asked?

That night,—I cannot tell of it,—the rapid, wearying walk from side to side of my little garret, the despairing flinging myself on the bed, the restlessness that would bring me to my feet again, the pressing my hot face against the cool window-pane, the convulsive sobs with which the struggle ended, the heavy, unrefreshing sleep that came at last, and the dull wakening in the morning, when nothing seemed left about my heart but a dead weight of insensibility. But with the brightening hours came again the restlessness. I would at least know the worst; let me face all my wretchedness; it could not be but strength would come to me when the worst was over.

And so I went doggedly through my morning tasks, and the early afternoon saw me at the store. I would not go to Miss Hammond's house, but I was sure to hear something of the new-comers among the gossiping miners and workmen,—or, if not there, I had only to drop into some of the cottages, to learn from their wives all that they knew or imagined. How little I learned,—how little compared to what my fierce, craving heart asked!

"Miss Worthington was here with her father; they had come to see the mines, so they said; but who knows the truth? More like it was to be a wedding between the young folks, and the father wanted to see the Sandy country before he let his daughter come into it. She was a sweet-spoken young thing,—not like Miss Hammond, with her proud, quality airs."

But all this was only conjecture, and I must have certainty. The certainty came that evening. Mr. Hammond passed the store as I was standing by the counter, and insisted that I should go home to tea with him. I had often done so before, and had no excuse, even when he said,—

"I want so much to make Miss Worthington like our Sandy people, Janet. I want her father to see that there are people worth knowing even here. You will tell her of all the pleasures we have,—our walks, our rides. You cannot be afraid of her, dear Janet,—she is so gentle, so lovely."

A strange feeling seized me, one mingled of gentleness and bitterness. Yes, for his sake, I would help him. I would do all I could to welcome to his home her who was to be its blessing, and (here my good angel left me and some evil one whispered) I would show her, too, that I was not so altogether to be contemned; she should see that I was not merely the poor country-girl she thought me. And all I had of thought or feeling, all that George Hammond had called my inborn poetry, came out that evening. I talked, I talked well, for I was talking of what I understood,—of my own forests and streams, of the flowers whose haunts I knew so well, of the changing seasons in their varying beauty,—nay, as I gained courage, as I saw that I commanded attention, the books that I had read so well, the thoughts of those great writers that I had made my own, came to my aid, and quotation and allusion pressed readily to my lips.

I saw Esther Hammond's cold look fixed upon my face, but I dared it back again, and my color rose and my eye sparkled from the excitement. I felt my triumph when I saw the surprise on Mr. Hammond's face, when I heard the patronizing tone of Mr. Worthington's voice changed to one of equality, as he said,—

"You are a worthy champion of Sandy life, Miss Janet. I believe Amy will be tempted to try it."

There was a quick blush on Amy's face as I turned to look at it, and a glance of proud affection towards her from George Hammond, which took away my false strength as I stood, leaving me, weak and trembling, to seek my home in the evening twilight.

That evening's short-lived triumph cost me dear. It betrayed my scarcely self-acknowledged secret to another. Miss Hammond's woman's-eye had read the poor fool who laid her heart open before her. I was made to feel my weakness before her the next morning, when, walking into our kitchen, she asked, with her hard, yet dignified calmness, that I should gather for her some of the Summer Sweetings that hung so thick on the tree behind our house.

She followed me to the orchard. I gathered the apples diligently and spoke no word, but not for that did I escape. She stood calmly looking on till I had finished, then began with that terrible opening from which we all shrink.

I quailed before her, for I had somehow a perception of what she was going to say, though I scarcely dreamed of the hardness with which it would by said. The blow came, however.

"My brother has been in the habit of taking notice of you ever since he has been on the Sandy, and he has been of great advantage to you; but you must be aware that such notice as he gave you when you were a mere child cannot be continued now that you are a woman."

"I say this to you because I was surprised to find by your behavior last night that you had allowed yourself to presume upon that notice, and I do not suppose you know how unbecoming this is, from a person in your position, especially before Miss Worthington."

"Nothing to you, certainly, nor can she ever be; but as the future wife of my brother, she is something to me."

It was true, then; but so fully had I felt the truth before that this certainty gave me no added pang. From its very depths of despair I drew strength, and, my courage rising, I had power even to look full at Miss Hammond, and say,—

"You may be sure I shall never intrude myself on Mr. Hammond's wife or sister, nor upon him, unless he desires it, except, indeed, to wish him happiness."

My unexpected calmness roused her worst feelings, her pride, her jealousy, and, with a woman's keen aim, she sent the next dart home. So calmly she spoke, too, with such command of herself,—with a lady-like self-control that I, alas! knew not how to reach.

"I am happy to hear you say so, for there have been times when your singular manner has made me fear that you nourished some very false and idle dreams,—follies that I have sometimes thought it my duty as a woman to warn you against"; and with one keen look at my burning face, she took up the basket and walked away.

I think at that moment I could have killed her, so bitter was the hatred which I felt towards her; but the next brought its crushing shame, taking away from me all but the desire to hide myself from every eye. Where should I go? Somewhere where nobody could find me, where I could be insured perfect solitude. It was not difficult to bury myself in the forest that pressed around me on every side, and a few minutes saw me struggling with the embarrassments of the tangled vines which obstructed the path up our steepest hill. There was in the very difficulties to be overcome something that seemed to bring me relief; they forced my mind from myself. On, on I went, as if my life depended upon my struggles, till, breathless and utterly exhausted, I had reached the top of the hill, the highest point for miles around.

I sank down on the cool grass, the fresh wind blowing on my face, and, too wearied to think, shut my eyes against the beautiful Nature around me, alive only to my own overpowering misery. How long I lay there I never knew. I was safe and alone. I could be wretched as I pleased, away from Miss Hammond's mocking eye, away from the sight of George Hammond's happiness. But, strangely enough, out of the very freedom to be miserable came at last a sense of relief. I looked my wretchedness full in the face. Could I not bear it? And there rose within me a strength I had not known before. I was young, I had a long life before me; it could not be but that this great sorrow would pass away. At least, I would not nourish it. I would do what I could to help myself. Help myself! For the first time in my life I put up an earnest prayer for help out of myself. The words, coming as such words come but few times in life, out from the very depths of the heart, brought with them their softening influence. The tears sprung forth, those tears which I thought I should never shed again, and I burst into a passionate fit of crying, the passionate crying of a child. It shook me from head to foot with its hysterical convulsions, but it left me at last calmer, soothed into stillness, with only now and then those choking after-sobs which I, child like, sent forth there on the bosom of the only mother I had ever known,—our kindly mother Earth.

The sun was going down when I rose up, soothed and comforted, and strengthened, too, for a time. I would do what I could. I would live down this grief: how I knew not, but the way would come to me. And gathering up my hair, which had fallen around me, I stopped, on my way home, by a running stream, and bathed my eyes and forehead until I was fit to appear before my step-mother. She did not question me; she was too used to my unexplained absences since I had grown out of her control. Sufficient for her that my tasks were always performed; sufficient for her, that, that very evening, I threw myself with an apparently untiring energy into the household work,—that I never rested a moment till she herself closed the house and insisted that I should go to bed. I slept that night,—after such fatigue, it was impossible but that I should,—and woke in the morning with a renewed determination to struggle against my sorrow.

Alas! alas! I thought I had only to resolve. I thought the struggle would be but once. How little I knew of the daily, almost hourly, changes of feeling,—of the despondency, the despair, that would come, I knew not why, directly upon my most earnest resolves, my hardest struggles,—of the weakness that would make me at times give up all struggling as useless,—of the mad hope that would sometimes arise that something, some outward change, I did not dare to say what, would bring me some relief!

I had at least the courage to keep away from the sight of all that was so miserable to me. I did not see George Hammond for weeks, and he—ah! there was the bitterness—he did not miss me.

And so the weary days went on. It is wonderful what endurance there is in a young heart,—for how long a time it can beat off suffering all day by unceasing labor, and lie awake all night with that same suffering for a bedfellow, and still make no sign that a careless eye can see I look at that time now with wonder. How did I bear that constant occupation by day, alternated only with those sleepless nights, without breaking down entirely? The crisis came at last,—a sort of stupor, a cessation of suffering indeed, but a cessation, too, of all feeling. I was frightened at myself. Alas! I had no one to be frightened for me. Could it be that I was going to lose my senses? But no, I passed through that too, and then came a more natural state of mind than any I had known since the blow fell.

My suffering self seemed like something apart from me, which I could pity and help, could counsel and act for, and this one thing became clear to me. Some change of scene was necessary to me. I could never go on so; it was idle to attempt it. I could not live any longer face to face with my grief. There was the whole world before me. Was it not possible to go out into it? I had health, strength, ability, I was sure of it. How often before had I dreamed over the seeking my fortune in that world which looked to me then so full of excitement! Nothing had held me back then but the clinging to home-pleasures, to home-enjoyments, to home-comforts, poor as they were,—nothing but the sense of safety, of protection. What were these to me now? I cared nothing for them. I only asked to be away from all that reminded me of my suffering, to be so forced to struggle with external difficulties as to have no thought for myself. I did not want to love anybody; I would rather have nobody care for me. I would go. The only question was how.

A few days and nights of thought solved the problem for me, and, once roused to action, I took my steps rapidly and well. The first thing necessary was money, money enough to take me away, and to support me until I could find employment; and the means of attaining it were within my reach. I owned a watch that had been my mother's, a pretty trinket, though somewhat old-fashioned, and which had often excited the envy of the young wife of one of the head miners. I knew that her husband was flush of money just then, for he had drawn his wages only the week before,—and I knew, too, that he would give me a good price for my watch, were it only to gratify the bride to whom he had as yet denied nothing.

The sale was made at once. I do not know if I got anything like the value of the watch, but the next day saw me with fifty dollars in my pocket, a small bundle, made up from the most available part of my wardrobe, under my arm, prepared to walk to Louisa, avowedly to buy supplies, but with the secret determination to meet there the coal-boats which were bound for the mouth, ask a passage on them as far as Catlettsburg, and there take the first steamer that passed, and let it carry me whither it would.

There was no pause of regret, no delay for parting looks or words; from the moment that I had made up my mind to go, I felt nothing but a desperate eagerness to be away, to be in action. The few words necessary to prepare my step-mother for my ostensible errand were soon said, the good-morning calmly spoken, and I passed into the forest-path leading to the town. A pang smote me as I remembered her conscientious discharge of duty toward me for so many years; but it was duty, not love, that had urged her, and while I said that to myself, I said, too, that time would bring to me the opportunity of repaying her.

Toward the settlement on the opposite shore I turned no look. I would not trust myself; I knew my own weakness too well; this desperate energy which was carrying me on now would fail, if I allowed my heart one moment's indulgence. Steadily I walked on through the woods, my own woods, which, perhaps, I should never see again, till, wearied out by the exertion, which had precluded thought, I saw the houses of Louisa rise before me.

The boats lay at the fork above the town. I had informed myself of their movements, and knew they were to start at noon. A few inquiries for groceries and so forth, where I know they could not be gotten, gave me an excuse for the proposition to the captain of the boats to give me a passage to Catlettsburg. It was readily granted, and the crew, most of them Sandy men, put up a rough awning, and, spreading under it some blankets, did their kind uttermost to make me comfortable.

I remember now, as one looks back into a dream, the afternoon and night that passed before we reached Catlettsburg. I lay perfectly quiet, watching the shadowy trees as we glided past them, noting their varied reflections in the water, marking every peculiarity of shore and stream, hearing the jests and laughter, the words of command and the oaths, that went round among the boatmen; but all passed as something with which I had nothing to do. To me there was the burning desire to put a great distance between myself and my home,—but with it, too, the consciousness, that, as I could do nothing to expedite our slow progress, so neither could I afford to waste upon it in impatient restlessness the strength which would be so much needed afterwards. The men brought me a cup of coffee from their supper, which gave me strength for the night. The biscuit I could not taste.

But how long was that night! how tedious the summer dawn! and how slowly went the hours till we brought up our boats at the landing at Catlettsburg!

I had formed my plans; so, telling the captain that I might perhaps want to go back with him, I hurried into the town. A steamboat lay by the wharf-boat. "The Bostona, for Cincinnati," said the board displayed over her upper railing. She was to leave at eight o'clock. I walked about the town till half-past seven; then, returning to the coal-boats, gave to the man left in charge a letter I had prepared, in which I told my step-mother, in as few words as possible, that I wanted to see something of the world, and had determined to go for a time either to Cincinnati or to Pittsburg,—that I begged her not to be uneasy about me, I had sold my watch, and had money enough for the present; she should hear from me in due time. The man took the letter, with some remark on my not returning with them, and, with a quiet good-day, I left him and walked rapidly toward the steamer. The plank was laid from the wharf-boat, and, without daring to hesitate, I walked over it.

It was done. I was fairly separated from everything I had ever known before; everything now was new to me; I was ignorant of all around me; each step might be a mistake. I felt this, when a porter, stepping forward and taking my bundle, asked me if I would have a state-room. What was a state-room? I did not know, but saying, "Yes," with a desperate feeling that it might as well be "yes" as "no," I was led back to the ladies' cabin, a key was turned in one of an infinite number of little doors, and I was ushered into what looked to me like a closet, with shelves made to take the place of beds. Here at least I was alone, and here I could be alone till dinner-time; till then there was no call for action on my part.

And how precious seemed to me every hour of rest! Singularly enough, my great sorrow did not come back to me in those pauses of action. I seemed then to be entirely absorbed in gathering strength for the next occasion; my grief was put away for the future, when there would come to me the time to indulge it.

So I lay quiet during that morning, looking sometimes through my little window at the passing shore, listening sometimes to the loud talking in the cabin, sometimes to the noises on the boat, wondering if all those strange creakings and shakings could be right, but finding a sense of security in my very ignorance. Dinner came, and in the course of it I found courage to ask the captain, at whose right hand I was placed, what time we should reach Cincinnati. "Not till after breakfast," was his welcome answer; for I had been haunted by a dread of being set adrift in a great city in the middle of the night, when I might perhaps fall into some den of thieves. I had read of such things in my books. This gave me still the afternoon before it would be necessary to think, some hours more in which to rest mind and body.

The night came at last, and I must decide what step to take next, that, my mind made up, I might perhaps get some sleep. I turned restlessly in my narrow bed, got up, and stood at the window, tried first the upper shelf, and then the lower, but no possible plan presented itself. I still saw before me that terrible city where I should be ten times lonelier than in the midst of our forests, where I should make mistakes at every turn, where I should not know one face out of the many thousands that crowded upon my nervous fancy. I seemed to be afraid of nothing but human beings, and, at the thought of encountering them, my woman's heart gave way. In vain I reasoned with myself, "I shall not see all Cincinnati at once,—not more at one time, perhaps, than I saw to-day at dinner." Still came up those endless streets, all filled with strange faces; still I saw myself pushed, jostled, by a succession of men and women who cared nothing for me. Suddenly came the thought, "Tom Salyers is in Cincinnati. There is one person there that I know. If I could only find him, he would take care of me till I knew how to take care of myself."

There came no remembrance of our last conversation to check my eager joy. Indeed, it had never made much impression upon me, followed as it had been by so much of nearer interest. I set myself to reflect on the means of finding him. He had gone down in the employ of the coal company. The captain could tell me where to look for him, and, satisfied with that, I laid my weary head on my pillow.

The next morning at breakfast I gained the needed information. "Did I want to find one of the men in Mr. Hammond's employment? I must go to the coal-yard"; and the direction was written out for me.

And now we neared the city. I stood on the guards and looked wondering at the steamboats that lined the river-bank, at the long rows of houses that stretched before me, the tall chimneys vomiting smoke which obscured the surrounding hills, at the crowd of men and drays on the landing through which I was to make my way; but my courage rose with the occasion, and, stepping resolutely from the plank, I walked up the hill and stood among the warehouses. I had been told to "turn to the right and take the first street, I could not miss my way"; but somehow I did miss my way again and again, and wandered weary and bewildered, not daring at first to ask for directions, till, gathering strength from my very weariness, I at last saw before me the welcome sign. It was something like home to see it; the familiar names cheered me while they moved me. I entered the office trembling with a wild dread lest I should meet Mr. Hammond there, but the sight of a stranger's face at the desk gave me courage to ask for Tom Salyers.

"He is in the yard now. Here, Jim, tell Salyers there's a person"—he hesitated—"a lady wants to see him."

I sat down in a chair which was luckily near me, for my knees trembled so that I could not stand, and as the door opened and Tom's familiar face was before me, my whole composure gave way and I burst into a violent fit of crying.

He opened the door, and I escaped into the open air. We walked side by side through the streets, he silently respecting my agitation with a delicacy for which I had not given him credit, and I struggling to grow calm. At last he opened a little side-gate.

And I entered a sort of garden: the grounds belonging to the city waterworks I have since known them to be. We sat down on a bench that overlooked the Kentucky hills. I love the seat now. I think the sight of the familiar fields and trees calmed me, and I was able at last to answer Tom's anxious questions.

"It is nothing; indeed, it is nothing. I am a foolish coward, and I was frightened walking through the city, and then the sight of a home-face upset me."

"But, Janet, why are you here? Is anything wrong about the works, the men? Did Mr. Hammond send you down?"

"No, indeed, no! it was only a fancy of mine to see the world. I am tired of that lonely life, and you know I am not needed there. My mother can get along without me, and I am only a burden to my father."

"Don't ask me any more questions, dear Tom; only help me for a little while, till I can help myself. I want to earn my living somehow, but I have money enough to live upon till I can find something to do. Only find me a place to stay quietly in while I am looking for work. You are the only person I know in this great city; and who will help me, if you do not?"

"You know I will help you with my whole heart and soul, Janet," he said, his voice faltering.

I looked up, and in one moment rushed back upon me the remembrance of his words that day in the boat, and I stood aghast at the new trouble that seemed to rise before me. My voice must have changed as I said,—

"I only want you to find me a place to live in; I can take care of myself"; for his countenance fell, and he sat silent for some moments.

"I know I cannot do much, Janet, but what I can I will. And, first, I will take you to the house of a widow-woman who has a room to let; one of our men wanted me to take it, but it was too far from my work. I went to see the place, though, and it is quiet and respectable; the woman looks kind, too. Would you walk slowly down the street, while I go to the office and get my coat?"—he was in his working-dress,—"and then I'll join you."

I got up, feeling that I had chilled him in some way, and reproaching myself for it. When he rejoined me, we walked silently on, till, after many a turning, we found ourselves in a narrow, quiet street, before a small house, with a tiny yard in front. I do not know how the matter was arranged; he did it all for me. There was the introducing me to a motherly-looking person, as a friend of his from the country; the going up a narrow staircase to look at a small room of which all that could be said was that it was neat and clean; the bargaining for my board, in which I was obliged to answer "Yes" and "No" as I could best follow his lead; and then Tom left me with a shake of the hand, and the advice that I should lie down and rest after my tedious journey; he would see me again in the evening.

The quiet dinner with my landlady, the afternoon rest, the fresh toilet, the sort of home-feeling that my room already gave me, all did their part towards bringing back my usual composure before Tom came in the evening; and then, sitting by the window in the little parlor, I could talk rationally of my plans for the future.

I had money enough for twelve weeks' board, even if I reserved ten dollars for other expenses. Surely, in that time I could find something to do. And as to what I should do, I had thought that all over before I left home. I might find some sewing, or tend in a store, or, perhaps,—did he think I could?—I might keep school.

Tom would not hear of my sewing. He knew poor girls that worked their lives out at that. I might tend in a store, if I pleased, but still he did not believe I would like to be tied to one place for twelve hours in the day. Why shouldn't I keep school? he was sure I knew enough, I was so smart, and had read so many books.

I shook my head. I did not believe the books I had read were the kind that school-mistresses studied. Still, I could learn, and certainly I might begin by teaching little children. But where was I to begin?

"If only we knew some gentleman, Janet, some city-man, who knew what to do about such things."

"Tom, do you remember those gentlemen who came up to look at the coal mines when they were first opened? One of them stayed at our house two nights, and saw my books, and talked to me about them. Mr. Kendall was his name."

"That's the very man; and a kind-hearted gentleman he seemed, not stuck up or proud. I'll find him out for you, Janet, to-morrow; but there's no need of your hurrying yourself about going to work. You must see the city and the sights."

And Tom grew enthusiastic in describing to me all that was to be seen in this wonderful place.

Tom had altered, had improved in appearance and manners, since he had known something of city-life. I could not tell wherein the change lay, but I felt it. He told me of himself,—of his rising to be head-man, a sort of overseer, in the coal-yard,—of his good wages,—of some investments that he had made which had brought him in good returns.

"So you see, Janet, that, even if you were not so rich yourself, I have plenty of money at your service."

I thanked him most heartily, and roused myself to show some interest in all that concerned him.

So passed the rest of the week,—quiet days with my landlady, or in my room, where I busied myself in putting my wardrobe into better shape under the direction of Mrs. Barnum, and quiet walks and talks in the evening with Tom Salyers. It was evident that he was not satisfied with my alleged motives for leaving home, but I so steadily avoided all conversation on this point that he learned to respect my silence. On Sunday he told me he had found out who Mr. Kendall was.

"One of the stockholders of the Company, and a good man, they say. I'll go to him to-morrow, if you say so, Janet, and ask him anything you want to know."

"No, Tom, I shall go myself. It is my business, and I must not let you do so much for me. If you will go with me, though,"—I added.

And so the next morning saw us at Mr. Kendall's counting-room. It was before business-hours: we had cared for that. We found Mr. Kendall sitting leisurely over his papers, his feet up and his spectacles pushed back. I had been nervous enough during the walk, but a glance at his face reassured me. It was a good, a fatherly face, full of bonhommie, but showing, withal, a spice of business-shrewdness. I left Tom standing at the counting-room door, and, taking my fate in my own hands, walked forward and made myself known.

"Oh, yes! the little girl that Hammond thought so much of, that he talks about so often when he is down here. He thinks a school or two would bring the Sandy people out, and holds you up as an example; but, for my part, I think you are an exception. There are not many of them that one could do much with."

"This is Tom Salyers, Sir, head-workman, overseer, at your coal-yard, and he is a Sandy man."

"I see I must not say anything against the Sandy country; nor need I just now. Walk in, Mr. Salyers. So, Miss Janet, you have come down to seek your fortune, earn your living, you say. I suppose Hammond sent you to me. Did you bring me a letter from him?"

"No, Sir. Mr. Hammond was so much occupied when I came away that I had not seen him for a day or two. He has friends staying with him."

"True enough. Mr. Worthington has gone up there with his pretty daughter to see whether he can allow her to bury herself in the country. You saw Miss Worthington? Will she be popular among your people when she is Mrs. Hammond?"

I caught a glimpse of Tom's face, and felt myself turning pale as I answered, with a composure that did not seem to come from my own strength,—

"Miss Worthington is a very pleasant-spoken young lady. The people will like her, because she seems to care for them, just as Mr. Hammond does. But do you think, Sir, that you could put me in the way of teaching school? Could I learn how to do it?"

"Well, I am just the right person to come to, Miss Janet, for the people have put me on the School Board, and—yes, we shall want some teachers next month in two of the primary departments. Could you wait a month? You might be studying up for your examination; it's not much, but it'll not hurt you to go over their arithmetics and grammars. And I must write to Hammond to-day about some business of the Company. I'll ask him about your qualifications, and what he thinks of it, and we'll see what can be done. I should not wonder if I could get you a place."

Mr. Kendall shook hands with us both; and, bidding him good-morning, with many thanks for his kindness, we went out. We walked a square silently. Suddenly Tom turned to me:—

The blood rushed to my face, till it was crimson to the very hair, while I stammered,—

Tom's voice was as gentle as a mother's in answer, but his words had little to do with the subject, they were almost as incoherent as mine,—something about his hoping I would like living in Cincinnati, that teaching would not be too tiresome for me. But from that moment George Hammond's name was never mentioned between us.

I wrote that day to my step-mother, telling her of my plans and prospects, and that evening Tom brought me the needed school-books. He had found them by asking some of the men at the yard whose children went to the public schools, and to the study of them I sat down with a determination that no slight difficulty could subdue. The next week brought a long, kind letter from Mr. Hammond, scolding me for going as I did, and declaring that he missed me every day.

"But more than all shall I miss you, Janet, when I bring Miss Worthington back as my wife; I had depended so upon you as a companion for her. But still it is a good thing for you to see something of the world, and you are bright enough to do anything you set out to do. I have written to Mr. Kendall to do all he can for you, and with Tom to take care of you I am sure you will get along. I begin to suspect that your going away was a thing contrived between Tom and yourself. Who knows how soon he may bring you back among us to show the Sandy farmers' wives how to live more comfortably than some of them do? Tom has a very pretty place below the mouth of Blackberry, if you would only show him how to take care of it."

There was comfort in this letter, in spite of the tears it caused me. My secret was safe. Miss Hammond had not been so cruel, so traitorous to her sex, as to betray it. If she had not told it now, she never would tell it, and Tom, if he suspected it, was too good, too noble, to whisper it even to himself. So I laid away my letter, and with a lighter heart turned again to my tasks.

And now three months have passed, for two of which I have been teaching. There are difficulties, yes, and there is hard work; but I can manage the children. I have the tact, the character, the gift, that nameless something which gives one person control over others; and for the studies, they are as yet a pleasure to me. I see how they will lead me on to other knowledge, how I may bring into form and make available my desultory reading, and there is a great pleasure in the very study itself. And for the rest, if my great grief is never out of my mind, if it is always present to me, at least I can put it back, behind my daily occupations and interests. I begin, too, to see dimly that there are other things in life for a woman to whom the light of life is denied. My heart will always be lonely; but how much there is to live for in my mind, my tastes, my love for the beautiful! My little room has taken another aspect. I have so few wants that I can readily devote part of my earnings to gratifying myself with books, pictures. Such lovely prints as I find in the print-shops! and the flowers—Tom Salyers, who is as kind as a brother, brings me them from the market. And then everything is so new to me; there is so much in life to see, to know. No, I will not be unhappy; happy I suppose I can never be, but I have strength and courage, and a will to rise above this sorrow which once crushed me to the ground. When I wrote the bitter words with which this record begins, I wronged the kind hearts that are around me, I lacked faith in that world wherein I have found help and comfort.

ON THE RELATION OF ART TO NATURE.

The notion that Painting and Sculpture are concerned only with the "imitation of Nature,"—that is, with copying the forms and colors of existing things,—though so often expelled, as it were, with a pitchfork, persistently recurs, not only in popular talk, but in deliberate criticism, and in the practice of artists. There are periods when this notion gets the upperhand, as at the end of the fifteenth century, and again at the end of the eighteenth, when Rousseau prescribed a return to Nature as the panacea for all defect, in Art as elsewhere. Then Winckelmann and his successors triumphed over it for a while,—showed at least the crudity of that statement. This is the purpose of much of Sir Joshua Reynolds's lectures. Now it seems to be coming up again,—thanks partly to Mr. Ruskin, though he might be quoted on both sides,—and this time with some prospect of demonstrating, by the aid of photography, what it does in fact amount to.

It is a very general opinion that photography has made painting superfluous,—or, at least, that it will do so as soon as further improvements in the process shall enable it to render color as well as light and shade. And our artists seem to give in to this view, in the deference they show to the subject, as if it mattered not so much what it was, or how, as that it is there,—a pious tenderness towards barns and rail-fences and stone walls and the confused monotony of the forest, not as having any special fitness, not as beautiful, but because they exist,—a scrupulous anxiety to give the every-day look of the objects they portray, as any passer-by would see them, free from any distorting personality. To do them justice, however, this submissiveness to the matter-of-fact, with the more gifted at least, is a virtue that is praised and starves. They do it lip-service, and suppose themselves loyal; but when they come to paint, they are under a spell that does not allow them to see in things only material qualities, but, without any violence to Nature, raises it to a higher plane, where other values and other connections prevail. Art, where it exists to any serious purpose, follows Nature, but not the natural,—according to Raphael's maxim, that "the artist's aim is to make things not as Nature makes them, but as she intends them."

But these audacities, though they make their own excuse in the work itself, do not pass in a statement without cavil at the arrogance that would exalt the work of men's hands above the work of God. Shall we strive with our pigments to outshine the sun, or teach the secrets of form to the cunning Artificer by whom the world was made? What room for Art, except as the feeble reflex of the splendors of the actual world?

But if that be all, how to account for the existence of Art as distinct from upholstery? Why pile our mole-hills by the side of the mountains? We can see the landscape itself any day;—whence this extraordinary interest in seeing a bit of it painted,—except, indeed, as furniture for the drawing-room, to be ordered with the frame at so much the yard from the picture-dealer?

The root of the difficulty lies in this slippery phrase, Nature. We talk of the facts of Nature, meaning the existence now and here of the hills, sky, trees, etc., as if these were fixed quantities,—as if a house or a tree must be the same at all times and to everybody. But in a child's drawing we see that these things are not the same to us and to him. He is careful to give the doors and windows, the chimneys with their smoke, the lines of the fence, and the walk in front; he insists on the divisions of the bricks and the window-panes: but for what is characteristic and essential he has no eye. He gives what the house is to him, merely a house in general, any house; it would not help it, but only make the defect more prominent, to straighten and complete the lines. An artist, with fewer and more careless lines, would give more of what we see in it; and if he be a man of high power, he may teach us in turn the limitation of our seeing, by showing that the vague, half-defined sentiment that attaches to it has also a visible expression, if we knew where to look for it.

We hear people say they know nothing of Art, but that they can judge as well as anybody whether a picture is like Nature or not. No doubt Giotto's contemporaries thought so, too, and they were grown men, with senses as good as ours; but we smile when Boccaccio says, "There was nothing in Nature that Giotto could not depict, whether with the pencil, the pen, or the brush, so like that it seemed not merely like, but the thing itself." We smile superior, but Giotto had as keen an eye and as ready a hand as any man since. The lesson is, that we, too, have not come to the end of even the most familiar objects, but that to another age our view of them may seem as queer as his seems to us. For the facts in Nature are not fixed, but transcendental quantities, and their value depends on the use that is made of them. It is in this direction that the artist's genius avails; his skill in execution is secondary and incidental. The measure of his ability is the depth to which he has penetrated the world of matter, not the number or the accuracy of his facts. Every landscape wears many faces, as many as there are men and different moods of the same man. To one the forest is so many cords of wood; to another, an arboretum; to another, a workshop or a museum; to another, a poem. What each sees is there; the forest exists for beauty and for firewood, and lends itself indifferently to either use.

Nature wears this air of impartiality, because her figures are only zeros, deriving all their significance from their position. We do not require a like impartiality in the artist, because what he is to give is not Nature, but what Nature inspires. His endeavor to be impartial would result only in giving us his opinions or the opinions of others, instead of the utterance of the oracle. For Nature hides her secret, not by silence, but in a Babel of sweet voices, heard by each according to the fineness of his sense: by one as mere noise, by another as a jangle of pleasing sounds, by the artist as harmony. They are all of them Nature's voices;—he adds nothing and omits nothing, but hears with a preoccupied attention, the justification being that his hearing is thus most complete, as one who understands a language seizes the sense of words rapidly spoken better than he who from less acquaintance with it strives to follow all the sounds.

The test of "truth," therefore, in the sense of fact, is insufficient. The question is, Truth for whom? Not for a child or a savage. If we were to show a fine landscape to a Hottentot, it would be a mistake to say he saw it, though the image might be demonstrable on the retina of his eye. He would not see what we mean when we speak of it, any more than we should see the footstep on the ground or hear the stirring in the grass that is plain enough to him, and hits our organs, too, though we are not trained to perceive it. If the test of merit be the production of a likeness to something we see, then the artist should know no more of Nature than we do. But then, though it may surprise us into momentary admiration to recognize familiar things in this translation,—just as common talk sounds finer in a foreign tongue,—yet it is but for a time, and then the inevitable limitations of the counterfeit come in,—its narrowness and fixity,—crude paint for sunbeams, cold and colorless stone for the living form. The only test of a work of Art is, how far it will carry us,—not any comparison by the yardstick. We demand to be raised above our habitual point of view, and be made aware of a deeper interest than we knew of. It is in hope of this alone that we pardon the necessary shortcoming of the means.

This deeper interest has its root in nothing arbitrary, or personal to the artist. It is not inventing something finer than Nature, but seeing more truly what Nature shows, that makes the artistic faculty. This is the lesson taught by the history of Art. Take it up where you will, this history is nothing but the successive unfolding of a truer conception of Nature, only speaking here the language of form and color, instead of words. It is this that lies at the bottom of all its revolutions, and appears in its downfall as well as in its prosperity.

Where the human form is the theme, the aim must of course be to give its typical perfection. No naturalist describes the defects of his specimens, though it may happen that all are imperfect. Comparatively few persons ever saw our robin in the plumage in which it is always described. Only in early spring, not very commonly then, is the black of the head and tail seen pure. But no one hesitates to call this the true color. The sculptor does not reproduce the peculiarities of his model, but aims to give ideal form as the most natural form of man.

But in Painting, and especially in Landscape, it seems less easy to fix upon any ideal, not only from the multifariousness of the details, but, above all, from the elusiveness of the standard. We might agree upon an ideal of human beauty, but hardly upon the ideal of anything else. The sophist in the Hippias Major was prepared to define the beauty of a maiden, or of a mare; but he was confounded when it was required that the beauty of a pipkin should be deducible from the same principle, and yet worse when it was shown to involve that a wooden spoon was more beautiful than a gold one.

What you see in the woods and mountains depends on what you go for and what you carry with you. We may go to them as to a quarry or a wood-pile, or for pleasantness,—the cool spring and the plane-tree shade, as the ancients did,—or to see fine trees, waterfalls, mountains. To many persons the beauty of any scene is measured by its abundance in such specimens of streams, mountains, waterfalls, etc. Of course the connection is demonstrable enough: one collocation of features is more readily suggestive of beauty than another. We expect to find the scenery of a hill-country more attractive than a sand-desert. But comparing a landscape with a statue, or even Painting generally with Sculpture, the connection between a happy effect and any definite arrangement of lines is much looser, and depends on the combination rather than the ingredients. It is in every one's experience that an accidental light, or even an accidental susceptibility, will impart to the meagrest landscape—a bare marsh, a scraggy hill-pasture—a charm of which the separate features, or the whole, at another time, give no hint. Often mere bareness, openness, absence of objects, will arouse a deeper feeling than the most famous scenes. We learn from such experiences that the difference between one patch of earth and another is wholly superficial, and indicates not so much anything in it as a greater or less dulness in us. The celebrated panoramas and points of view are not the favorite haunts of great painters. They do not need to travel far for their subjects. Mr. Ruskin tells us that Turner did not paint the high Alps, nor the cumulus, the grandest form of cloud. Calame gives us the nooks and lanes, the rocks and hills, of Switzerland, rather than the high peaks; Lambinet, an apple-orchard, a row of pollard-elms, or a weedy pond,—not cataracts or forests. This is not affectation or timidity, but an instinct that the famous scenes are no breaks in the order of Nature,—that what is seen in them is visible elsewhere as well, only not so obvious, and that the office of Art is not to parrot what is already distinct, but to reveal it where it is obscure. This makes the inspiration of the artist; this is the source of all his power, and alone distinguishes him from the topographer and view-maker.

This transcendentalism is more evident in Painting, as the later and more developed form; but it is common to all Art, and may be read also in the Greek sculptures. The experience of every one who with some practice of eye comes for the first time to see the best antiques is not that he falls at once to admiring the perfection of their anatomy, and wondering at the symmetry and complete development of the men and women of those days, but rather that he is carried away from all comparison and criticism into a solitude from which returning he discovers that his previous acquaintance with Sculpture was with masks only, and that the meaning of plastic art as a capital interest of the human mind is now for the first time made known to him. He sees that it was no whim of the Greeks, but an instinct of the infinity it typifies, that made them take the human form as alone possessing beauty enough to stand by itself. Not the images of their deities alone, but all their statues were gods. The charm of the Lizard-Slayer of Praxiteles, or of those immortal riders that swept along the friezes of the Parthenon, is something quite distinct from the beauty of a naked boy playing with an arrow, or a troop of Athenian citizens on horseback. These are the deathless forms of the happy Olympians, high above the cares and turmoil of the finite, self-centred and independent. It is the Paradise age of the world, before the knowledge of good and evil, before sin and death came; the worship of the Visible, when God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. Hence the air of repose, of eternal duration, that marks these figures. They have nothing to regret or to hope, no past or future, but only a timeless existence.

It is from this essential self-sufficingness, not from fancied rules, that Sculpture is limited with respect to dramatic expression, that is, expression of passing feeling, accidental action, not identified with the form. In the best period the first requisite was that the interest should be thoroughly identified with the shape in which it is manifested, and not imparted, as by history, association, etc. The decline began when this lofty isolation was felt as negative, needing to have interest and expression added to it. But whatever was added only emphasized without curing the defect. Even the "awful diagonal" of the Laocoön and the godlike triumph of the Belvedere Apollo show a lower age. Why triumph, if he was supreme before? These are casual incidents only, examples of what might happen as well to anybody, not the adequate conclusive embodiment of an idea. The more elaborately the meaning is wrought into the form, the more evident that they are not originally identical.

In Modern Sculpture this deification of the human form is either expressly banished from the artist's aim, or at least he is not quite in earnest with it. For instance, in Mr. Palmer's White Captive,—exhibited not long since in Boston,—the sculptor's account of his work is, that it portrays an American girl captured by Indians and bound to a tree. We have to take with us the history and the circumstances: a Christian woman of the nineteenth century, dragged from her civilized home and helpless in the hands of savages. This is not at all incidental to the work, but the work is incidental to it. It is a story which the figure helps to tell. This is no universal type of womanhood, nor even American womanhood. American women do not stand naked in the streets, but go about clothed and active on their errands of duty and pleasure; if we must needs represent one naked, we must invent some such accident, some extraordinary dislocation of all usual relations and circumstances. In place of the antique harmony of character and situation, we have here a painful incongruity that no study or skill can obviate.

Nor has Modern Sculpture any better success, when, instead of the pretence of history, it adopts the pretence of personification. Its highest result in this direction is, perhaps, Thorwaldsen's bas-relief of Night,—a pretty parlor-ornament. There is a fatal sense of unreality about works of this kind that even Thorwaldsen's genius was unable to remove. They are toys, and it seems rather flat to have toys so cumbrous and so costly.

The reason of this insipidity is, that the ideality aimed at is all on the outside. There is no soul in these bodies, but only an abstraction; and so the body remains an abstraction, too. In each case the radical defect is the same, namely, that the interest is external to the form: they do not coalesce, but are only arbitrarily connected. We cannot have these ideal forms, because we do not believe in them. We do not believe in gods and goddesses, but in men and women; that is, we do not at last really identify the character with its manifestation. Such was the fascination of beauty to the Greek mind, that it banished all other considerations. What mattered it to Praxiteles whether his Satyr was a useful member of society or not, or whether the young Apollo stood thus idle and listless for an instant or for a millennium, as long as he was so beautiful? And the charm so penetrated their works that something of it reaches down even to us, and holds us as long as we look upon them. But as soon as we quit the magic circle, the illusion vanishes,—Apollo is a handsome vagabond whom we incline to send about his business. He ought to be slaying Pythons and drying up swamps, instead of loitering here.

We do not believe in gods, nor quite as the ancients did in heroes,—but in representative men, that is, in ideas, and in men as representing them. Washington is not to us what Achilles or Agamemnon was to the Greeks. The form of Achilles would do as well for a god; the antiquaries do not know whether the Ludovisi Mars was not an Achilles,—perhaps nobody ever knew. But in all our veneration of Washington, it is not his person we revere, but his virtues,—precisely the impersonal part of him, or his person only from association. There is nothing incongruous in this association as it exists in the mind, any more than there would have been in his presence, because of the overpowering sense of his character and history, to which all the outward show of the man is constantly subordinate. But if we isolate this by making a statue of him, we have only an apotheosis of cocked-hat and small-clothes, in which we see what it really was to us. This awkward prominence of the costume does not come from the accident of modern dress, but from our unconscious repugnance to petrifying the man in one of his aspects. It is a touch of grave humor in the genius of Art, thus to give us just what we ask for, though not what we want.

The Greeks could have portrait-statues, because all they looked for in the man they saw in his form, and, seeing it, could portray it. If the modern sculptor truly saw in the figure of Washington all that the name means to him, he could make a statue worthy to be placed by the side of the Sophocles and the Phocion. These were true portraits, no doubt; thus it was that these men appeared to their fellow-citizens; but it does not follow that they would have appeared so to us. What they saw is there; it is a reality both for them and for us; but the literal identification of it with the form belongs to them, not to us, and our mimicry of it can result only in these abstraction's. For us it is elsewhere, beyond these finite shapes, on which, by an illusion, it seemed to rest. The Greek statues are tropes, which we gladly allow in their original use, but, repeated, they become flat and pedantic. Hence the air of caricature in modern portrait-statues; for caricature does not necessarily imply falsification, but only that what is given is insisted on at the expense of more important truth.

To the view of the early Christian ages, too, the body is old clothes, ready to be cast off at any moment, good only as means to something higher. It might seem that Christianity should give a higher value to the body, since it was believed to have been inhabited by God himself. But the Passion was a fact of equal importance with the Incarnation. This honor could be allowed to matter only for an instant, and on the condition of immediate resumption. That the Highest should suffer death as a man might well seem to the Greeks foolishness. To the understanding it is the utmost conceivable contradiction. Yet it is only a more complete statement of what is involved in the Greek worship of beauty. The complete incarnation of Spirit, which is the definition of beauty, demands equally that there be no point it does not inhabit, and none in which it abides. The transience of things is no defect in them, but only the affirmation of their reality through the incessant casting-off of its inadequate manifestations. It is not from the excellence, but from the impotence of its nature, that the stone endures and does not pass away as the plant and the animal. The higher the organization, the more rapid and thorough the circulation.

The same truth holds in Art, also, and drives it to forsake these beautiful petrifactions and seek an expression less bound to the material. Ideal form is good so far as it brings together in one compact image what in Nature is scattered and partial; but it is an ideality of the surface only, not of the substance. It shuts out the defect of this or that form, but not of Form itself. The Greek ideal is after all a thing, and its impassive perfection a stony death.

The justification is, that the sculptor did not say quite what he meant. He said flesh, but he meant spirit, and this is what the Greek statues mean to us. The modern sculptor does not mean spirit, and knows that he does not; and so, with all his efforts, he gives us only the outside. Is it asked, Whence this divorce of flesh and spirit? why not give both at once as Nature does? Then we must do as Nature does, and make our forms as fluid as hers. But this the sculptor contravenes at the outset. To follow Nature, he should make his statue of snow. To make it of stone is to pretend that the form is something of itself. This the Greeks never meant, for then it would follow that all parts of it were alike significant. Haydon was delighted to find reproduced in the Elgin marbles certain obscure and seeming insignificant details of the anatomy that later schools had overlooked, such as a fold of skin under the armpit of the Neptune, etc. But any beginner at a life-school could have pointed out in the same statue endless deficiencies in anatomical detail. The fold was put in, not because it was there, but because to the mind of the Greek artist it meant something. Sculptors of the present day comfort themselves with the belief that their works are more complete and more accurate in the anatomy than the antique. Very likely, for the ancients did not dissect. But this accuracy, if it is founded on no interest beyond accuracy, is after all an impertinence.

The Greek ideal is founded on the exclusion of accident. It is a declaration that the casual shape is not the true form; it is only a step farther to the perception that all shape is casual,—the reality seen, not in it, but through it. The ideal is then no longer perfect shape, but transparency to the sentiment; the image is not sought to be placed before the beholder's eyes, but painted as it were in his mind. Henceforth, suggestion only is aimed at, not representation; the coöperation of the spectator is relied upon as the indispensable complement of the design. The Zeus of Phidias seemed to the Greeks, Plotinus says, Zeus himself, as he would be, if he chose to appear to human eyes. But a Crucifixion is of itself not at all what the artist meant. It is not the agony of the flesh, but the triumph of the spirit, that is intended to be portrayed. If the end be attained, the slighter and more unpromising the means the better. Thus a new scale of values is established; nothing is worthy or unworthy of itself; nothing is excluded, but also in nothing is the interest identified with the thing, but imparted.

Christian Art, after mere tradition had died out,—for instance, in the Byzantine and early Italian pictures from the eighth to the middle of the thirteenth century,—presents the strongest contrast to all that had gone before. The morose and lifeless monotony or barbarous rudeness of these figures seems like contempt not only of beauty, but of all natural expression. They are meaningless of themselves, and quite indifferent to the character they represent, which is appended to them by inscriptions,—their relative importance, even, indicated only by size, more or less splendor of costume, etc., but the faces all alike, and no attempt made to adapt the action to the occasion. It is another world they belong to; the present they pointedly renounce and disdain, condescending to communicate with it only indirectly and by signs.

The main peculiarities were common to Painting and Sculpture, though most noticeable in Painting. An interest in the actual world seems never so far lost sight of, and earlier revived, in Sculpture. Even down to the spring-tide of Modern Art in the thirteenth century, the "pleasant days" when Guido of Siena was painting his Madonna, the improvement in Painting was rather a stirring within the cerements of conventional types, a flush on the cheek of the still rigid form,—while in the bas-reliefs of the Pisan sculptors we meet already a realism as much in excess of the antique as the Byzantine fell short of it.

It is commonly said that Nicola Pisano revived Art through study of the antique; his models, even, are pointed out, particularly a sarcophagus, said to have been brought to Pisa in the eleventh century from Greece. But this sarcophagus, wherever it came from, is not Greek, but late Roman work; and we find in Nicola no mark of direct Greek influence, but only of the late Roman and early Christian sarcophagus-sculptures. In the reliefs upon his celebrated pulpit at Pisa we have the same short-legged, large-headed, indigenous Italian or Roman figures, and the same arrangement of hair, draperies, etc., as on those sarcophagi. Taken by themselves, his works would, no doubt, indicate a new direction. But by the side of his son Giovanni, or the sculptors of the Northern cathedrals, he seems to belong to the third century rather than to the thirteenth.

In Giovanni Pisano the new era was distinctly announced. The Inferno, usually ascribed to him, among the reliefs on the front of Orvieto Cathedral,[1] and in his noble pulpit at Pistoia, shows the traces of the antique only in unimportant details, ornamentation, etc. The antique served him, no doubt, as a hint to independent study, but the whole intent is different,—all the beauties and all the defects arrived at by a different road. In place of the impassive Minos of the Shades, we have a fiend, serpent-girt,[2] his judicial impartiality enforced apparently against his will by manacles and anklets of knotted snakes; and throughout, instead of the calm impersonality of the Greek, dealing out the typical forms of things like a law of Nature, we have the restless, intense, partisan, modern man, not wanting in tenderness, but full of a noble scorn at the unworthiness of the world, and grasping at a reality beyond it. He is intent, first of all and at all risks, upon vivid expression, upon telling the story, and speedily outruns the possibilities of his material. He must make his creatures alive to the last superficies; and as he cannot give them motion, he puts an emphasis upon all their bones, sinews, veins, and wrinkles,—every feather is carved, and even the fishes under the water show their scales. That mere literalness is not the aim is shown by the open disregard of it elsewhere; for instance, the size of each figure is determined, not by natural rules, but by their relative importance, so that in the Nativity, Mary is twice as large as Joseph and three times as large as the attendants. And the detail is not everywhere equally minute, but follows the intensity of the theme, reaching its height in the lower compartment, where the damned are in suffering, and especially in the figures of the fiends. This is no aim at literalness, but a struggle for an emphasis beyond the reach of Sculpture,—taking these means in despair of others, and, in its thirst for expression, careless alike of natural probability, typical perfection of form, and pleasing effect. Different as it seems, the same spirit is at work here and in Painting. In both it is the repudiation of the classic ideal,—in Sculpture by a reductio ad absurdum, putting its implicit claims to the test of realization,—in Painting by mere negation, as was natural at the outset of a new career, before the means of any positive expression were discovered.

Ideal form was to the Greeks the highest result, the success of the universe. The end of Art was conceived as Nature's end as well, whether actually attained or not. Nor was this preference of certain forms arbitrary, but it followed the plain indications written on every particle of matter. What we call brute matter is whatever is means only, not showing any individuality, or end within itself. A handful of earth is definable only by its chemical or physical properties, which do not distinguish it, but confound it with other things. By itself it is only so much phosphate or silicate, and can come to be something only in a foreign organism, a plant or an animal. In form is seen the dawning of individuality, and just as the thing rises in the scale the principle of form becomes dominant. The handful of earth is sufficiently described by the chemist's formula,—these ingredients make this substance. But an organic body cannot be so described. The chemist's account of sugar, for instance, is C⁶ H¹⁰ O⁵. But if we ask what starch is, we have, again, C⁶ H¹⁰ O⁵,—and the cellular tissue of plants, also, is the same. These things, then, as far as he knows, are identical. Evidently, he is beyond his depth, and the higher we go in the scale the less he has to say to the purpose,—the separate importance of the material ingredients constantly decreasing, and the importance of their definite connection increasing, as the reference to an individual centre predominates over helpless gravitation. First, aggregation about a centre, as in the crystal,—then, arrangement of the parts, as upper, under, and lateral, as in the plant,—then, organization of these into members. Form is the self-assertion of the thing as no longer means only; this makes its attractiveness to the artist. The root of his delight in ideal form is that it promises some finality amid the endless maze of matter. But this higher completeness, which is beauty, whether it happen to exist or not, is never the immediate aim of Nature. It is everywhere implied, but nowhere expressed; for Nature is unwearied in producing, but negligent of the product. As soon as the end seems anywhere about to be attained, it is straightway made means again to something else, and so on forever. The earth and the air hasten to convert themselves into a plant, the flower into fruit, the fruit into flesh, and the animal at last to die and give back again to the air and the earth what they have transmitted to him. Whatever beauty a thing has is by the way, not as the end for which it exists, and so it is left to be baffled and soiled by accident. This is the "jealousy of the gods," that could not endure that anything should exist without some flaw of imperfection to confess its mortal birth.

The world is full of beauty, but as it were hinted,—as in the tendency to make the most conspicuous things the most beautiful, as flowers, fruits, birds, the insects of the sunshine, the fishes of the surface, the upper side of the leaf; and perhaps more distinctly (in accordance with Lord Bacon's suggestion that "Nature is rather busy not to err, than in labor to produce excellency") in the tendency to hide those that are ugly, as toads, owls, bats, worms, insects that flee the light, the fishes of the bottom, the intestines of animals. But these are hints only, and Nature, as Mr. Ruskin confesses, will sometimes introduce "not ugliness only, but ugliness in the wrong place." Were beauty the aim, it should be most evident in her chief products; whereas it is in things transient, minute, subordinate,—flowers, snow-flakes, the microscopic details of structure,—that it meets us most invariably, rather than in the higher animals or in man. Nor in man does it keep pace with his civilization, but obeys laws that belong to the lower regions of his nature.

This ambiguity of every fact in Nature comes from the difficulty of detecting its true connection. There is reality there, even in blight and corruption; something is forwarded, only perhaps not the thing before us,—as the virtue of the compost-heap appears not in it, but in the rose-bed. The artist cannot forego a jot of reality, but the obvious facts are not this, any more than the canvas and the pigment are the picture. The prose of every-day life is reality in fragments,—the Alps split into paving-stones,—Achilles with a cold in the head. Seen in due connection, they make up the reality; but their prominence as they occur is casual and shifting, and the result dependent on the spectator's power of discerning, amid the endless series in which they are involved, more or less of their vital relations.

Art is not to be blamed for idealizing, for this is only completing what Nature begins. But the completion of the design is also its limitation. It is final to the artist as well as to the theme, and cannot yield to further expansion. In Nature there is no such pretence of finality, and so her work, though never complete, is never convicted of defect. Her circuits are never closed; she does not aim to cure the defect in the thing, but in something else. Each in turn she abandons, and appeals to a future success, which never is, but always about to be. The reason is, that the scope of each is wider than immediately appears. It is not simple completeness that is aimed at, but ascent to higher levels, so that the consummation it demands, if granted, would cut it off from more vital connections elsewhere. The ideal of the crystal seems to be clearness and regularity, but better things are in store for it. It must become opaque and shapeless in order to be fitted for higher transformations. The leaf must be cramped to make the flower. Homer's heroes must hoe potatoes and keep shop before the higher civilization of the race can be reached.

The Greek ideal is an endeavor to ignore the imperfections of natural existence. The ideal life is to be rich, strong, powerful, eloquent, high-born, famous. It was a glorification of the earthly, not by transcending, but by keeping its limitations out of sight. But this is only making the limitation essential and irrevocable, so that it infects the ideal also, which in this very avoidance submits to recognize it. The statue is not less, but more, a thing than the natural body. Life is not mere exclusion of decay, but organization of it, so that the fury of corruption passes into fresh vital power. It is a cycle of changes, the type and show of which are the circulation, constantly removing effete particles and building up new, and therein giving its hue to the flesh. But sculpture supposes the current checked, and one aspect fit to stand for all the rest. The statue is not only a particle, but an isolated particle, and must first of all divert attention from its fragmentariness. Mr. Garbett has remarked that plants should not be copied in sculpture, because the plant is not seen entire, but is partly hidden in the ground. But the point is not the being seen or not, but the suggestion of incompleteness. The same remark applies to animals, and even to man, unless his relations to the world, as an individual among individuals, can be kept out of sight.

But the finite thus isolated is not honored, but degraded. This stagnant perfection is atrophy,—as some poisons are said to kill by arresting the transformation of the tissues, and so to preserve them at the expense of their life. The new era is marked by the perception that these shortcomings are not accidental, but inherent and intended. The chasm is not to be bridged or avoided,—or, as Plato says, the human to become godlike by taking away here and adding there,—but remains a radical incongruity of Nature, never to be escaped from. It brings death and dissolution to the fair shapes of the earlier world,—for the worship of form is justified only so long as the mind thinks forms and not ideas.

The statue may embody an infinite meaning, but to the artist form and meaning are one. It is not a sentiment that he puts into this shape, but it is the shape itself that inspires him. The symbolism of Greek Art was the discovery of a later age. We know what is meant by Circe and Athene, but Homer did not. It was thus only that the Greek mind could grasp ideas,—this is the thoroughly artistic character of that people. Their philosophers were always outlaws. What excited the rage of the Athenians against Socrates was his endeavor to detach religion from the images of the gods. When it comes to comparisons between meaning and expression, as adequate or inadequate, it is evident their unity is gone;—the meaning is first, and the expression only adjunct or illustration. It did not impair the sacredness of the Greek deities that they were the work of the poets and sculptors. But the second Nicene Council forbade as impious any images of Christ as God, and allowed only his human nature to be represented,—a strange decree, if the Church had realized its own doctrine, that the humanity of Christ is as real as his divinity. But the meaning is, that the finite is not there to stand for the infinite, but only to indicate it negatively and indirectly,—that its glory is not to persist in its finiteness, not to hold on to its form, but to be transformed. The figure of Thersites would be very unsuitable for Achilles, but is suitable enough for a saint; it was a pardonable exaggeration to make it even more suitable.

The hero is now the saint; the ideal life a life of poverty, humility, weakness, labor,—to be long-suffering, to despise and forsake the world. The present life, the heaven of Achilles, is now Hades, the forced abode of phantoms having no reality but what is given to them by religion, and the Hades of the Greek the only true and substantial world. The new church fled the light of the sun, and sought impatiently to bury itself in the tomb. The Roman catacombs were not the mere refuge of a persecuted sect,—their use as places of worship continued long after such need had ceased. But "among the graves" they found the point nearest to the happy land beyond, and the silence and the darkness made it easier to ignore for the few miserable moments that yet remained the vain tumult of the surface. In such a mood the beauty of the outward could awaken no delight, but only suspicion and aversion. Not the earth and its glories, but the fading of these before the unseen and eternal, was the only possible inspiration of Art. The extreme of this direction we see in the Iconoclasm of the eighth century, but it has never completely died out. Gibbon tells us of a Greek priest who refused to receive some pictures that Titian had painted for him, because they were too real:—"Your scandalous figures," said he, "stand quite out from the canvas; they are as bad as a group of statues." It is a tenderness towards the idea, lest it should be dishonored by actuality. Matter is gross, obscure, evil, an obstacle to spirit,—and material existence tolerable only as momentary, vanishing, and, as it were, under constant protest, and with the suspicion that the Devil has a hand in it. It belongs especially to the Oriental mind, and its logical result is the Buddhist heaven of annihilation.

The defect of this view is not that it is too ideal, but that it is not ideal enough. It is an incomplete idealism that through weakness of faith does not hold fast its own point of view, and so does not dispose of matter, but leaves it outside, as negation, obstacle. The body is allowed to exist, but remains in disgrace and reduced to the barest indication. But it is honoring matter far too much to allow that it can be an obstacle. It is no obstacle, for it is nothing of itself. Rightly understood, this contempt of the body is directed only against the false emphasis placed upon single aspects or manifestations. It is a feeling that the true ideal is not thus shut up in a forced exception, as if it were the subtilized product of a distillation whereby the earthly is to be purged of its dross; but that it is the all-pervading reality, which the finite can neither hinder nor help, but only obey, which death and corruption praise, which establishes itself through imperfection and transience.

Gibbon, speaking of the Iconoclasts, says,—"The Olympian Jove, created by the muse of Homer and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these Catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius." Such comparisons mistake the point. These are not parallel attempts, but opposed from the outset. The "Catholic image" was a declaration that the problem cannot be solved in that way. An early legend relates, that a painter, undertaking to copy his Christ from a statue of Jove, had his hand suddenly withered. The attempt is accused because of the pretence it makes to coordinate body and spirit, Nature and God,—as if one configuration of matter were more godlike than another. The figure of the god claims to complete what Nature has partly done. But now the world is seen to be not merely the product of Mind working upon Matter, but the Creation of God out of nothing,—thus altogether His, in one part as much as in another. The only conceivable separateness, antagonism, is that of the sinful Will, setting itself up in its vanity; this it must be that arrogates to itself the ability to represent its Creator.

The Christian image is without form or comeliness,—rejects all outward graces, seemingly glories in abasement and deformity, fearing only to attribute to Matter some value of its own.

Henceforth the connection is no longer at arm's-length, as of the workman and the material. Resistance to limitation is changed into joyful acceptance; for it is not in the limitation, but in the resistance, that the misery of earth consists. The quarrel with imperfection is over. The finite shall neither fortify itself in its finiteness, nor seek to abolish it, but only make it the willing instrument of universal ends. Thus the true self first exists, and no longer needs to be extenuated or apologised for.

"Quærens me sedisti lassus,
Redemisti crucem passus;
Tantus labor non sit cassus."

Here we have in its compactest expression the difference between this age and the classic: that I, the vilest of sinners, am the object of God's highest care,—not the failure and mistake I seem, not the slag and refuse of Nature's working, but the object of this most stupendous mystery of the Divine economy. It is no purification or idealizing that is needed,—any such attempt must be abomination,—but a new birth of the self, by devotion of it to the purpose for which it was made.

The astounding discovery is slowly realized, and the statement of it difficult, from the need to distinguish between the true self and the false, and to declare that this importance belongs to the individual in virtue of his spiritual nature alone. The sainthood of the saint is not to be confounded with his personality. What have his virtues to do with his gown and shoes? what, indeed, with his natural disposition, as courageous, irascible, avaricious? The difficulty is pervading, not to be avoided; every aspect of him reveals only what is external, dies from him daily, and, if isolated, has already lost its meaning. It is only in his work, in his connection with the world, that we see him truly. Accordingly, the statue becomes the group, and the group a member of a series, a cycle in which each is incomplete without the rest. The classic ideal is shivered into fragments, all to be taken together to make up the meaning. Of the hundreds of statues and reliefs that surround the great Northern cathedrals, (Didron counts eighteen hundred upon the outside of Chartres,—nine thousand in all, carved or painted, inside and outside,) each has its appointed place in the sacred epos in stone that unfolds about the building from left to right of the beholder the history of the world from the Creation to the Judgment, and subordinated in parallel symbolism the daily life of the community, whatever occupied and interested men,—their virtues and vices, trades and recreations, the seasons and the elements, jokes, even, and sharp hits at the great and at the clergy, scenes from popular romances, and the radicalism of Reynard the Fox,—in short, all that touched the mind of the age, an impartial reflex of the great drama of life, wherein all exists alike to the glory of God.

It is not the glory of earth that is here celebrated. M. Didron says the statues which the mob pulled down from the churches, at the first French Revolution, as the images of their kings, were the kings and heroes of the Old Testament. Had they known this, it might not have saved the statues, but it shows how wide a gulf separated these men from their fathers, that their hands were not held by some instinct that here was the first hint of the fundamental idea of Democracy,—the sovereign importance of man, not as powerful, wise, beautiful, not in virtue of any chance advantage of birth, but in virtue of his religious nature, of the infinite possibilities he infolds.

The need to indicate that the source of value is not the accident of Nature, but Nature redeemed, regenerated by spirit, that all values are moral values, led to a certain abstractness of treatment,—on one side qualities to be embodied, on the other figures to receive them, so that the character seems adventitious, detachable, not thoroughly at one with the form. For instance, the fiends in the Orvieto Inferno are not terror embodied, as the Jove of Phidias embodied dignity and command; but the terrific is accumulated on the outside of them, as tusks, claws, etc. One can easily believe that the ancient sculptors, had it been lawful, could have put more horror into the calm features of a Medusa than is contained in all this apparatus and grimace. The concreteness of the antique, the form and meaning existing only for each other, is gone; the union is occasional only, and needs to be certified and kept up afresh on every new occasion. The form must assert itself, must show itself alive and quick, not the dead sign of a meaning that has fled. It would have been a poor compliment to a Greek sculptor to say that his work was life-like; he might answer with the classically disposed visitor of the Elgin marbles in Haydon's anecdote,—"Like life! Well, what of that?" He meant it for something much better. But during the Middle Ages this is constantly the highest encomium. Amid the utmost rudeness of conception and of execution, we see the first trace of awakening Art in the unmistakable effort to indicate that the figures are alive; and in the cathedral-sculpture of the best time this is still a leading characteristic. Even the single statues have for their outlines curves of contrary flexure, expressing motion; they seem to wave in the air, and their faces to glow with passing emotion. The animals are often uncouth, but the more life-like; a turn of the head or of the eye, a restless, unbalanced attitude, brings us nearer to the actual living creature than the magnificent repose of the antique lions and eagles,—as if they did not trust to our recognizing their character, but were prepared to demonstrate it with beak and claws. Even in the plants, though strictly conventionalized, it is the freedom and spring of their lines that more than anything else characterizes them and defies copying.

The world of matter, being no longer endowed with independent reality, is no longer felt as a contamination incurred by the idea in its descent into existence. The discrepancy is not final, so that the supremacy of the spirit is not shown by resistance, but by taking it to heart, carrying it out, and thereby overcoming it. In a Crucifixion of the twelfth century, Life is figured on one side crowned and victorious, and on the other Death overcome and slain. The finiteness of the finite is not the barrier, but the liberation, of the infinite.

But the statue remains stone; this unmeaning emphasis of weight and bulk, though diminished, is not to be got rid of. The life that sculpture can give is superficial and abstract, does not penetrate and possess the work; it is still the petrifaction of an instant, that does not instantly pass away, but remains as a contradiction to the next. It is the struggle against this fixity that gives to the sculpture of the Renaissance its aspect of unrest, of disdain of the present, of endless unsatisfied search. Hence the air of conflict that we see in Giovanni Pisano, and still more in later times,—the sculptor going to the edge of what the stone will allow, and beyond it, and, still unsatisfied, seeking through all means to indicate a yet unexecuted possibility. It is this that seethes in those strange, intense, unearthly figures of Donatello's, wasted as by internal fire,—the rage for an expression that shall at the same time declare its own insufficiency.

All that is done only makes the failure more evident. The fixity continues, and is only deepened into contortion and grimace. What we see is the effort alone. Hence in modern statues the uneasy, self-distrustful appeal to the spectator, in place of the lofty indifference of the antique. In Michel Angelo the same striving to indicate something in reserve, not expended, led to the exaggerated emphasis of certain parts, (as the length of the neck, depth of the eye-sockets, etc.,) and of general muscularity,—a show of force, that gave to the Moses the build of a Titan, and to the Christ of the Last Judgment the air of a gladiator. Michel Angelo often seems immersed in mere anatomy and academic tours de force, especially in his later works. He seems to see in the subject only a fresh problem in attitude, foreshortening, muscular display,—and this not only where he invents, but also where he borrows,—sometimes most strangely overlooking the sentiment; as in the figure of Christ, which he borrows from Orcagna and the older painters, even to the position of the arms, but with the touching gesture of reproof perverted into a savage menace; or in the Expulsion, taken almost line for line from Masaccio, but with the infinite grief expressed in Adam's figure turned into melodrama by showing his face.

It was not for the delight of the eye, nor from over-reverence of the matter-of-fact. He despised the copying of models, as the makeshift of ignorance. His profound study of anatomy was not for greater accuracy of imitation, but for greater license of invention. Of grace and pleasingness he became more and more careless, until he who at twenty had carved the lovely angel of S. Domenico, came at last to make all his men prize-fighters and his women viragos. It is clear that we nowhere get his final meaning,—that he does not fairly get to his theme at all, but is stopped at the outset, and loses himself in the search for a mode of expression more adequate to that "immense beauty" ever present to his mind,—so that the matter in hand occupies him only in its superficial aspects. What he sought on all hands, in his endless questioning of the human frame, his impatience of drapery, the furious haste to reach the live surface, and the tender modulation of it when it is reached, was to make the flesh itself speak and reveal the soul present at all points alike and at once. Nothing could have satisfied him but to impart to the marble itself that omnipresence of spirit of which animal life furnishes the hint. In this Titanic attempt the means were in open and direct contradiction to the end. It was a violation of the wise moderation of Sculpture, whose rigid and colorless material pointedly declines a rivalry it could not sustain. Else why not color the stone? The hue of flesh is the most direct assertion of life, but at the same time a direct negative to that totality and emphasis of the particular shape on which Sculpture relies. The color of the flesh comes from its transparency to the circulation,—the eternal flux of matter coming to the surface in this its highest form. It is the display in matter itself of what its true nature is,—not to resist, but to embody change,—to reduce itself to mere appearance, and be taken up without residuum in the momentary manifestation, and then at once give place to fresh manifestations.

That the earlier practice of coloring statues was given up just when the need would seem to be the greatest shows its incompatibility with the fundamental conditions of the art. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries statues were still painted and gilded. Afterwards, color is restricted to parts not directly affected by the circulation, the hair and the eyes; and at last, when Sculpture is given over to pictorial effect and is about to yield entirely to Painting, it is wholly relinquished. Evidently it was felt that to color a statue in imitation of flesh would only enforce the fact that it is stone.

What Art was now aiming at was not the mere appearance of life, but a unity like that which life gives, in place of the abstractness and partiality inherent in Sculpture. This makes the interest of the fact of life,—that it is the presence of the soul,—the unity established amid the sundered particularity of matter. In free motion a new centre is declared, whereby the inertia of the body, its gravitation to a centre outside of it, is set aside. In sensibility this new centre declares itself supreme, superseding the passive indifference of extension. The whole pervades each part, each testifies to the whole and may stand for it. But the statue, having no such internal unity, is less able to dispense with outward completeness. All the sides must be given, so that the whole cannot be seen at one view, but only successively, as an aggregate.

In the earlier Greek statues the head remains lifeless, abstract, whilst the limbs are full of expression. In a contrary spirit, more akin to modern ideas, the Norse myth relates that Skadi, having her choice of a husband from among all the gods, but having to choose by the feet alone, meaning to take Baldur, got by mistake Niordr, an inferior deity. This does not seem so strange to us; but a Greek would have wondered that the daughter of a wise Titan should not know the feet of Apollo from those of Nereus. It was said of Taglioni that she put mind into her legs. But to the modern way of thinking this is clearly exceptional. It is in the face, and especially in the eye, that we look to see the soul present and at work, and not merely in its effects as character. As types of character, the lineaments of the face were explored by the later Greek Art as profoundly as the rest of the body. But the statue is sightless,—its eyes do not meet ours, but seem forever brooding over a world into which the present and its interests do not enter. To the Greek this was no defect; but to us the omission seems to affect the most vital point of all, since our conception of the soul involves its eternity, that is, that it lives always in the present, is not too fine to exist, secure that it is bound neither by past nor future, but capable of revolutionizing the character at all moments. Here is the ground of the remarkable difference that meets us already in the reliefs of the later classic times. In the reliefs of the best age the figures are always in profile and in action. Complete personification being out of the question, it is expressly avoided,—each figure waives attention to itself, merges itself in the plot. Later, when the profounder idea of a personality that does not isolate or degrade has begun to make itself felt, this constraint is given up,—the figures face the spectator, and enter as it were into relation with the actual world.

The Church very early expressed this feeling of the higher significance of the head, by allowing it to be sufficient if the head alone were buried in holy ground. In Art it is naïvely indicated by exaggerated size of the head and of the eyes,—a very common trait of the earlier times, and not quite obsolete at the time of the Pisani. This clumsy expedient is relinquished, but the need it indicated continued, without the possibility of finding any complete satisfaction in Sculpture, instead of the intensity and directness that Art now insists upon, Sculpture can give only extension and indirect hints; instead of mind present, only its effects and products, with the working cause expressly removed.

This is the ground of the seeming injustice to Sculpture at the time of the Revival. Its relative excellence was undervalued, because what it could do was not quite to the point. While the painters went on producing their antediluvian forms, the sculptors saw things much more as we do,—yet the paintings seemed the most life-like. It is astonishing, when we remember that Nicola was older than Cimabue, Giovanni than Giotto, Ghiberti than Frà Angelico, that the painters did not learn from the sculptors more of the actual appearance of things. It is still more astonishing that it is the painters that get all the praise for accuracy. Vasari is endless in his praises of Giotto, Spinello, Stefano, (called Scimia, or the Ape of Nature,) and a host of others, for accurate imitation. Giovanni Villani boasts that "it is our fellow-citizen Giotto who has portrayed most naturally every form and action." Ghiberti finishes an admiring account of some paintings of Ambrogio Lorenzotto's with the exclamation that it is truly marvellous to think that all this is only a picture. Few persons, probably, would see in the specimens of Ambrogio's work that still remain anything wonderful for resemblance to Nature,—whilst in Ghiberti's everybody acknowledges the astonishing truth of the detail. He tells us that he sought "to imitate Nature as far as was possible to him,"—but he seems not to be aware how much better he succeeded than the people he praises. Paolo Uccello, who was twenty years younger than Ghiberti, got his nickname from his skill in painting birds. But one would rather undertake to paint birds as well as Paolo than to carve them as well as Ghiberti.

We may learn here how little the demand to "imitate Nature" expresses what is intended. No accuracy, however demonstrable, will satisfy it. To interest me in a picture, it is not enough that something is as visible there as it is elsewhere; it must be something that I was already striving to see. It was not a greater circumstantiality of statement than was demanded, but greater directness,—that it should be relieved of what was unessential to its purpose, tending only to obscure it. A painting, however rude, has at least this negative merit, that, by the express substitution of the appearance for the actual image, needless entanglement in the material is avoided. Weight and bulk are not indeed annihilated, but they are no longer of primary importance, and thus less obstructive. The work gains precisely in what it gives up. By the flat omission of depth infinite depth is acquired,—by the ignoring of size the expression of size becomes possible; a mountain, for instance, which would be an absurdity in Sculpture is representable in Painting. Thus, instead of being more abstract than Sculpture, Painting is in truth less so, since what it omits is only negative to the purpose of Art.

It seems to us easier to paint than to carve, and we might expect to find Painting the older art. But the difficulty lies less in the execution than in the conception. Painting is not a tinting of surfaces, but the power to see a complex subject in unity. We may think we have no difficulty in seeing the landscape, but most persons, if called upon to state what they saw, pictorially, would show that they could not see the wood for the trees. Beginners suppose it is some knack of the hand that they are to acquire, when they learn to draw; but that is a small part of the matter; the great difficulty is in the seeing. Ordinary vision is piecemeal: we see the parts; but not the picture, or only vaguely. Even the degree of facility that is implied in any enjoyment of scenery is not so much a matter of course as it seems. Cæsar occupied himself, while crossing the Alps, with composing a grammatical treatise. There is no evidence that there was anything odd in this. Perhaps Petrarch was the first man that ever climbed a hill to enjoy the view. We are not aware how much of what we see in Nature is due to pictures. Hardly any man is so unsophisticated, but that, if he should try to sketch a landscape, he would betray, in what he did or in what he omitted, that he saw it more or less at second-hand, through the interpretations of Art. A portfolio of Calame's or Harding's or Turner's drawings will give us new eyes for the most familiar scenes.

But we are aided still more by our habit of looking at things theoretically, apart from their immediate practical bearing. A savage can comprehend a carved image, but not so readily a picture. An Indian whom Catlin painted with half his face in shadow became the laughingstock of the tribe, as "the man with half a face." It is not necessary to suspect Mr. Catlin's chiaroscuro; what puzzled them was, doubtless, the bringing together in one view what they had seen only separate. They were accustomed to see the man in light and in shadow; but what they cared for, and therefore what they saw, was only the effect in making it more or less easy to recognize him and to ascertain his state of mind, intentions, etc. His face was either visible or obscured; if they could see enough for their purpose, they regarded only that. For it to be both at once was possible only from a point of view which they had not reached. A child takes the shading of the portrait for dirt,—that being the form in which darkening of the face is familiar to him. A carved image is easier comprehended, because it can be handled, turned about, and looked at on different sides, and a material connection thereby assured between the various aspects. To transfer this connection to the mind—to see varying distances in one vertical plane, so that mere gradations of light and shade shall suggest all these aspects arranged and harmonized in one view—is a farther step, and the difficulty increases with the variety embraced. Cicero was struck with this superiority in the artists of his time. "How much," he says, "do painters see in shadow and relief that we do not see!" Yet their perception seems strangely limited to us. The ancients had little notion of perspective. Their eyes were too sure and too well-practised to overlook the effect of position in foreshortening objects, and they were much experienced in the corrections required, and the effect of converging lines in increasing apparent distance was taken advantage of in their theatre-scenes. But they had not learned that the difference between the actual and the apparent form is thorough-going, so that the picture no longer stands in the attitude of passive indifference towards the beholder, but imposes upon him its own point of view. It was thought remarkable in the Minerva of Fabullus, that it had the appearance of always looking at the spectator, from whatever point it was viewed. This would be miraculous in a statue, and must seem so in the picture so long as it is looked upon only as one side of a statue. The wall-paintings of Pompeii, doubtless copies or reminiscences of Greek originals,—with masterly skill in the parts, and with some success in the landscape as far as it was easily reducible to one plane,—are only collections of fragments, and show utter incapacity to see the whole at once as a picture. For instance, in one of the many pictures of Narcissus beholding himself in the well, the head, which is inclined sideways, instead of being simply inverted in the reflection, is reversed,—so that the chin, which is on the spectator's left in the figure, is on the right in the reflected image: as if the artist, knowing no other way, had placed himself head downwards, and in that position had repeated the face as already painted. Such a blunder could not originate with a copyist, for it would have been much easier to copy correctly. It is clear from the general excellence of the figure that it is not the work of an inferior artist. Nor can it have come from mere carelessness; it is too elaborate for that,—and, moreover, here is the main point of the picture, that which tells the story. Doubtless the painter had noticed the pleasingness of such reflections, as repeating the human form, the supreme object of interest; but the interest stopped there. He saw the face above and the face below, as he would see the different sides of a statue; but so incapable was he of perceiving the connection and interdependence of them, that, even when Nature had made the picture for him, he could not see it. This is no isolated, casual mistake, but only a good chance to see what is really universal, though not often so obvious.

In this and other pictures the water is like a bit of looking-glass stuck up in front,—without perspective, without connection with the ground,—the mere assertion of a reflection. The conception embraced only the main figure; the rest was added like a label, for explanation only. These men did not see the landscape as we see it, because the interest was wanting that combines it into a picture for our eyes. Our "love of Nature" would have been incomprehensible and disgusting to a Greek; he would have called our artists "dirt-painters." And from his point of view he would be right. Dirt it is, if we abide by the mere facts. The interest of Art lies not in the facts, but in the truth,—that is, in the facts organized, shown in their place. It is not that we care more about stocks and stones than they did, but that we hold the key to an arrangement that gives these things a significance they have not of themselves.

SNOW.

Lo, what wonders the day hath brought,
Born of the soft and slumberous snow!
Gradual, silent, slowly wrought,—
Even as an artist, thought by thought,
Writes expression on lip and brow.

Hanging garlands the eaves o'erbrim,—
Deep drifts smother the paths below;
The elms are shrouded, trunk and limb,
And all the air is dizzy and dim
With a whirl of dancing, dazzling snow.

Dimly out of the baffled sight
Houses and church-spires stretch away;
The trees, all spectral and still and white,
Stand up like ghosts in the failing light,
And fade and faint with the blinded day.

Down from the roofs in gusts are hurled
The eddying drifts to the waste below;
And still is the banner of storm unfurled,
Till all the drowned and desolate world
Lies dumb and white in a trance of snow.

Slowly the shadows gather and fall,—
Still the whispering snow-flakes beat;
Night and darkness are over all:
Rest, pale city, beneath their pall!
Sleep, white world, in thy winding-sheet!

Clouds may thicken, and storm-winds breathe;
On my wall is a glimpse of Rome,—
Land of my longing!—and underneath
Swings and trembles my olive-wreath;
Peace and I are at home, at home!

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.

I am a frank, open-hearted man, as, perhaps, you have by this time perceived, and you will not, therefore, be surprised to know that I read my last article on the carpet to my wife and the girls before I sent it to the "Atlantic," and we had a hearty laugh over it together. My wife and the girls, in fact, felt that they could afford to laugh, for they had carried their point, their reproach among women was taken away, they had become like other folks. Like other folks they had a parlor, an undeniable best parlor, shut up and darkened, with all proper carpets, curtains, lounges, and marble-topped tables, too good for human nature's daily food; and being sustained by this consciousness, they cheerfully went on receiving their friends in the study, and having good times in the old free-and-easy way; for did not everybody know that this room was not their best? and if the furniture was old-fashioned and a little the worse for antiquity, was it not certain that they had better, which they could use, if they would?

"And supposing we wanted to give a party," said Jane, "how nicely our parlor would light up! Not that we ever do give parties, but if we should,—and for a wedding-reception, you know."

I felt the force of the necessity; it was evident that the four or five hundred extra which we had expended was no more than such solemn possibilities required.

"Now, papa thinks we have been foolish," said Marianne, "and he has his own way of making a good story of it; but, after all, I desire to know if people are never to get a new carpet. Must we keep the old one till it actually wears to tatters?" This is a specimen of the reductio ad absurdum which our fair antagonists of the other sex are fond of employing. They strip what we say of all delicate shadings and illusory phrases, and reduce it to some bare question of fact, with which they make a home-thrust at us.

"My dears," I replied, "it is a fact that to introduce anything new into an apartment hallowed by many home-associations, where all things have grown old together, requires as much care and adroitness as for an architect to restore an arch or niche in a fine old ruin. The fault of our carpet was that it was in another style from everything in our room, and made everything in it look dilapidated. Its colors, material, and air belonged to another manner of life, and were a constant plea for alterations; and you see it actually drove out and expelled the whole furniture of the room, and I am not sure yet that it may not entail on us the necessity of refurnishing the whole house."

"My dear!" said my wife, in a tone of remonstrance; but Jane and Marianne laughed and colored.

"Confess, now," said I, looking at them, "have you not had secret designs on the hall- and stair-carpet?"

"Now, papa, how could you know it? I only said to Marianne that to have Brussels in the parlor and that old mean-looking ingrain carpet in the hall did not seem exactly the thing; and, in fact, you know, mamma, Messrs. Ketchem & Co. showed us such a lovely pattern, designed to harmonize with our parlor-carpet."

"I know it, girls," said my wife; "but you know I said at once that such an expense was not to be thought of."

"Now, girls," said I, "let me tell you a story I heard once of a very sensible old New-England minister, who lived, as our country-ministers generally do, rather near to the bone, but still quite contentedly. It was in the days when knee-breeches and long stockings were worn, and this good man was offered a present of a very nice pair of black silk hose. He declined, saying, he 'could not afford to wear them.'

"'Exactly; but it will cost me not less than two hundred dollars to take them, and I cannot do it.'

"'Why, in the first place, I shall no sooner put them on than my wife will say, "My dear, you must have a new pair of knee-breeches," and I shall get them. Then my wife will say, "My dear, how shabby your coat is! You must have a new one," and I shall get a new coat. Then she will say, "Now, my dear, that hat will never do," and then I shall have a new hat; and then I shall say, "My dear, it will never do for me to be so fine and you to wear your old gown," and so my wife will get a new gown; and then the new gown will require a new shawl and a new bonnet; all of which we shall not feel the need of, if I don't take this pair of silk stockings, for, as long as we don't see them, our old things seem very well suited to each other.'"

The girls laughed at this story, and I then added, in my most determined manner,—

"But I must warn you, girls, that I have compromised to the utmost extent of my power, and that I intend to plant myself on the old stair-carpet in determined resistance. I have no mind to be forbidden the use of the front-stairs, or condemned to get up into my bedroom by a private ladder, as I should be immediately, if there were a new carpet down."

"Would it not be so? Can the sun shine in the parlor now for fear of fading the carpet? Can we keep a fire there for fear of making dust, or use the lounges and sofas for fear of wearing them out? If you got a new entry- and stair-carpet, as I said, I should have to be at the expense of another staircase to get up to our bedroom."

"Oh, no, papa," said Jane, innocently; "there are very pretty druggets, now, for covering stair-carpets, so that they can be used without hurting them."

"Put one over the old carpet, then," said I, "and our acquaintance will never know but it is a new one."

All the female senate laughed at this proposal, and said it sounded just like a man.

"Well," said I, standing up resolutely for my sex, "a man's ideas on woman's matters may be worth some attention. I flatter myself that an intelligent, educated man doesn't think upon and observe with interest any particular subject for years of his life without gaining some ideas respecting it that are good for something; at all events, I have written another article for the 'Atlantic,' which I will read to you."

"Well, wait one minute, papa, till we get our work," said the girls, who, to say the truth, always exhibit a flattering interest in anything their papa writes, and who have the good taste never to interrupt his readings with any conversations in an undertone on cross-stitch and floss-silks, as the manner of some is. Hence the little feminine bustle of arranging all these matters beforehand. Jane, or Jennie, as I call her in my good-natured moods, put on a fresh clear stick of hickory, of that species denominated shag-bark, which is full of most charming slivers, burning with such a clear flame, and emitting such a delicious perfume in burning, that I would not change it with the millionnaire who kept up his fire with cinnamon.

You must know, my dear Mr. Atlantic, and you, my confidential friends of the reading public, that there is a certain magic or spiritualism which I have the knack of in regard to these mine articles, in virtue of which my wife and daughters never hear or see the little personalities respecting them which form parts of my papers. By a particular arrangement which I have made with the elves of the inkstand and the familiar spirits of the quill, a sort of glamour falls on their eyes and ears when I am reading, or when they read the parts personal to themselves; otherwise their sense of feminine propriety would be shocked at the free way in which they and their most internal affairs are confidentially spoken of between me and you, O loving readers.

Thus, in an undertone, I tell you that my little Jennie, as she is zealously and systematically arranging the fire, and trimly whisking every untidy particle of ashes from the hearth, shows in every movement of her little hands, in the cock of her head, in the knowing, observing glance of her eye, and in all her energetic movements, that her small person is endued and made up of the very expressed essence of housewifeliness,—she is the very attar, not of roses, but of housekeeping. Care-taking and thrift and neatness are a nature to her; she is as dainty and delicate in her person as a white cat, as everlastingly busy as a bee; and all the most needful faculties of time, weight, measure, and proportion out to be fully developed in her skull, if there is any truth in phrenology. Besides all this, she has a sort of hard-grained little vein of common sense, against which my fanciful conceptions and poetical notions are apt to hit with just a little sharp grating, if they are not well put. In fact, this kind of woman needs carefully to be idealized in the process of education, or she will stiffen and dry, as she grows old, into a veritable household Pharisee, a sort of domestic tyrant. She needs to be trained in artistic values and artistic weights and measures, to study all the arts and sciences of the beautiful, and then she is charming. Most useful, most needful, these little women: they have the centripetal force which keeps all the domestic planets from gyrating and frisking in unseemly orbits,—and properly trained, they fill a house with the beauty of order, the harmony and consistency of proportion, the melody of things moving in time and tune, without violating the graceful appearance of ease which Art requires.

So I had an eye to Jennie's education in my article which I unfolded and read, and which was entitled,

There are many women who know how to keep a house, but there are but few that know how to keep a home. To keep a house may seem a complicated affair, but it is a thing that may be learned; it lies in the region of the material, in the region of weight, measure, color, and the positive forces of life. To keep a home lies not merely in the sphere of all these, but it takes in the intellectual, the social, the spiritual, the immortal.

Here the hickory-stick broke in two, and the two brands fell controversially out and apart on the hearth, scattering the ashes and coals, and calling for Jennie and the hearth-brush. Your wood-fire had this foible, that it needs something to be done to it every five minutes; but, after all, these little interruptions of our bright-faced genius are like the piquant sallies of a clever friend,—they do not strike us as unreasonable.

"Everything in creation is metaphysical in its abstract terms," said I, with a look calculated to reduce her to a respectful condition. "Everything has a subjective and an objective mode of presentation."

"There papa goes with subjective and objective!" said Marianne. "For my part, I never can remember which is which."

"I remember," said Jennie; "it's what our old nurse used to call internal and out-ternal,—I always remember by that."

"Come, my dears," said my wife, "let your father read"; so I went on as follows:—

I remember in my bachelor days going with my boon companion, Bill Carberry to look at the house to which he was in a few weeks to introduce his bride. Bill was a gallant, free-hearted, open-handed fellow, the life of our whole set, and we felt that natural aversion to losing him that bachelor friends would. How could we tell under what strange aspects he might look forth upon us, when once he had passed into "that undiscovered country" of matrimony? But Bill laughed to scorn our apprehensions.

"I'll tell you what, Chris," he said, as he sprang cheerily up the steps and unlocked the door of his future dwelling, "do you know what I chose this house for? Because it's a social-looking house. Look there, now," he said, as he ushered me into a pair of parlors,—"look at those long south windows, the sun lies there nearly all day long; see what a capital corner there is for a lounging-chair; fancy us, Chris, with our books or our paper, spread out loose and easy, and Sophie gliding in and out like a sunbeam. I'm getting poetical, you see. Then, did you ever see a better, wider, airier dining-room? What capital suppers and things we'll have there! the nicest times,—everything free and easy, you know,—just what I've always wanted a house for. I tell you, Chris, you and Tom Innis shall have latch-keys just like mine, and there is a capital chamber there at the head of the stairs, so that you can be free to come and go. And here now's the library,—fancy this full of books and engravings from the ceiling to the floor; here you shall come just as you please and ask no questions,—all the same as if it were your own, you know."

"Why, you know Sophie is a prime friend to both of you, and a capital girl to keep things going. Oh, Sophie'll make a house of this, you may depend!"

A day or two after, Bill dragged me stumbling over boxes and through straw and wrappings to show me the glories of the parlor-furniture,—with which he teemed pleased as a child with a new toy.

"Look here," he said; "see these chairs, garnet-colored satin, with a pattern on each; well, the sofa's just like them, and the curtains to match, and the carpets made for the floor with centrepieces and borders. I never saw anything more magnificent in my life. Sophie's governor furnishes the house, and everything is to be A No. 1, and all that, you see. Messrs. Curtain and Collamore are coming to make the rooms up, and her mother is busy as a bee getting us in order."

"Why, Bill," said I, "you are going to be lodged like a prince. I hope you'll be able to keep it up; but law-business comes in rather slowly at first, old fellow."

"Well, you know it isn't the way I should furnish, if my capital was the one to cash the bills; but then, you see, Sophie's people do it, and let them,—a girl doesn't want to come down out of the style she has always lived in."

I said nothing, but had an oppressive presentiment that social freedom would expire in that house, crushed under a weight of upholstery.

But there came in due time the wedding and the wedding-reception, and we all went to see Bill in his new house splendidly lighted up and complete from top to toe, and everybody said what a lucky fellow he was; but that was about the end of it, so far as our visiting was concerned. The running in, and dropping in, and keeping latch-keys, and making informal calls, that had been forespoken, seemed about as likely as if Bill had lodged in the Tuileries.

Sophie, who had always been one of your snapping, sparkling, busy sort of girls, began at once to develop her womanhood, and show her principles, and was as different from her former self as your careworn, mousing old cat is from your rollicking, frisky kitten. Not but that Sophie was a good girl. She had a capital heart, a good, true womanly one, and was loving and obliging; but still she was one of the desperately painstaking, conscientious sort of women whose very blood, as they grow older, is devoured with anxiety, and she came of a race of women in whom house-keeping was more than an art or a science,—it was, so to speak, a religion. Sophie's mother, aunts, and grandmothers for nameless generations back, were known and celebrated housekeepers. They might have been genuine descendants of the inhabitants of that Hollandic town of Broeck, celebrated by Washington Irving, where the cows' tails are kept tied up with unsullied blue ribbons, and the ends of the firewood are painted white. He relates how a celebrated preacher, visiting this town, found it impossible to draw these housewives from their earthly views and employments, until he took to preaching on the neatness of the celestial city, the unsullied crystal of its walls and the polish of its golden pavement, when the faces of all the housewives were set Zionward at once.

Now this solemn and earnest view of housekeeping is onerous enough when a poor girl first enters on the care of a moderately furnished house, where the articles are not too expensive to be reasonably renewed as time and use wear them; but it is infinitely worse when a cataract of splendid furniture is heaped upon her care,—when splendid crystals cut into her conscience, and mirrors reflect her duties, and moth and rust stand ever ready to devour and sully in every room and passage-way.

Sophie was solemnly warned and instructed by all the mothers and aunts,—she was warned of moths, warned of cockroaches, warned of flies, warned of dust; all the articles of furniture had their covers, made of cold Holland linen, in which they looked like bodies laid out,—even the curtain-tassels had each its little shroud—and bundles of receipts and of rites and ceremonies necessary for the preservation and purification and care of all these articles were stuffed into the poor girl's head, before guiltless of cares as the feathers that floated above it.

Poor Bill found very soon that his house and furniture were to be kept at such an ideal point of perfection that he needed another house to live in,—for, poor fellow, he found the difference between having a house and a home. It was only a year or two after that my wife and I started our menage on very different principles, and Bill would often drop in upon us, wistfully lingering in the cozy arm-chair between my writing-table and my wife's sofa, and saying with a sigh how confoundedly pleasant things looked there,—so pleasant to have a bright, open fire, and geraniums and roses and birds, and all that sort of thing, and to dare to stretch out one's legs and move without thinking what one was going to hit. "Sophie is a good girl," he would say, "and wants to have everything right, but you see they won't let her. They've loaded her with so many things that have to be kept in lavender, that the poor girl is actually getting thin and losing her health; and then, you see, there's Aunt Zeruah, she mounts guard at our house, and keeps up such strict police-regulations that a fellow can't do a thing. The parlors are splendid, but so lonesome and dismal!—not a ray of sunshine, in fact not a ray of light, except when a visitor is calling, and then they open a crack. They're afraid of flies, and yet, dear knows, they keep every looking-glass and picture-frame muffled to its throat from March to December. I'd like for curiosity to see what a fly would do in our parlors!"

"Well," said I, "can't you have some little family sitting-room, where you can make yourselves cozy?"

"Not a bit of it. Sophie and Aunt Zeruah have fixed their throne up in our bedroom, and there they sit all day long, except at calling-hours, and then Sophie dresses herself and comes down. Aunt Zeruah insists upon it that the way is to put the whole house in order, and shut all the blinds, and sit in your bedroom, and then, she says, nothing gets out of place; and she tells poor Sophie the most hocus-pocus stories about her grandmothers and aunts, who always kept everything in their houses so that they could go and lay their hands on it in the darkest night. I'll bet they could in our house. From end to end it is kept looking as if we had shut it up and gone to Europe,—not a book, not a paper, not a glove, or any trace of a human being, in sight. The piano shut tight, the bookcases shut and locked, the engravings locked up, all the drawers and closets locked. Why, if I want to take a fellow into the library, in the first place it smells like a vault, and I have to unbarricade windows, and unlock and rummage for half an hour before I can get at anything; and I know Aunt Zeruah is standing tiptoe at the door, ready to whip everything back and lock up again. A fellow can't be social, or take any comfort in showing his books and pictures that way. Then there's our great, light dining-room, with its sunny south windows,—Aunt Zeruah got us out of that early in April, because she said the flies would speck the frescos and get into the china-closet, and we have been eating in a little dingy den, with a window looking out on a back-alley, ever since; and Aunt Zeruah says that now the dining-room is always in perfect order, and that it is such a care off Sophy's mind that I ought to be willing to eat down-cellar to the end of the chapter. Now, you see, Chris, my position is a delicate one, because Sophie's folks all agree, that, if there is anything in creation that is ignorant and dreadful and mustn't be allowed his way anywhere, it's 'a man'. Why, you'd think, to hear Aunt Zeruah talk, that we were all like bulls in a china-shop, ready to toss and tear and rend, if we are not kept down-cellar and chained; and she worries Sophie, and Sophie's mother comes in and worries, and if I try to get anything done differently, Sophie cries, and says she don't know what to do, and so I give it up. Now, if I want to ask a few of our set in sociably to dinner, I can't have them where we eat down-cellar,—oh, that would never do! Aunt Zeruah and Sophie's mother and the whole family would think the family-honor was forever ruined and undone. We mustn't ask them, unless we open the dining-room, and have out all the best china, and get the silver home from the bank; and if we do that, Aunt Zeruah doesn't sleep for a week beforehand, getting ready for it, and for a week after, getting things put away; and then she tells me, that, in Sophie's delicate state, it really is abominable for me to increase her cares, and so I invite fellows to dine with me at Delmonico's, and then Sophie cries, and Sophie's mother says it doesn't look respectable for a family-man to be dining at public places; but, hang it, a fellow wants a home somewhere!"

My wife soothed the chafed spirit, and spake comfortably unto him, and told him that he knew there was the old lounging-chair always ready for him at our fireside. "And you know," she said, "our things are all so plain that we are never tempted to mount any guard over them; our carpets are nothing, and therefore we let the sun fade them, and live on the sunshine and the flowers."

"That's it," said Bill, bitterly, "Carpets fading!—that's Aunt Zeruah's monomania. These women think that the great object of houses is to keep out sunshine. What a fool I was, when I gloated over the prospect of our sunny south windows! Why, man, there are three distinct sets of fortifications against the sunshine in those windows: first, outside blinds; then, solid, folding, inside shutters; and, lastly, heavy, thick, lined damask curtains, which loop quite down to the floor. What's the use of my pictures, I desire to know? They are hung in that room, and it's a regular campaign to get light enough to see what they are."

"In the evening! Why, do you know my wife never wants to sit there in the evening? She says she has so much sewing to do that she and Aunt Zeruah must sit up in the bedroom, because it wouldn't do to bring work into the parlor. Didn't you know that? Don't you know there mustn't be such a thing as a bit of real work ever seen in a parlor? What if some threads should drop on the carpet? Aunt Zeruah would have to open all the fortifications next day, and search Jerusalem with candles to find them. No; in the evening the gas is lighted at half-cock, you know; and if I turn it up, and bring in my newspapers and spread about me, and pull down some books to read, I can feel the nervousness through the chamber-door. Aunt Zeruah looks in at eight, and at a quarter past, and at half-past, and at nine, and at ten, to see if I am done, so that she may fold up the papers and put a book on them, and lock up the books in their cases. Nobody ever comes in to spend an evening. They used to try it when we were first married, but I believe the uninhabited appearance of our parlors discouraged them. Everybody has stopped coming now, and Aunt Zeruah says 'it is such a comfort, for now the rooms are always in order. How poor Mrs. Crowfield lives, with her house such a thoroughfare, she is sure she can't see. Sophie never would have strength for it; but then, to be sure, some folks a'n't as particular as others. Sophie was brought up in a family of very particular housekeepers.'"

My wife smiled, with that calm, easy, amused smile that has brightened up her sofa for so many years.

"Of course, I couldn't say that I wished the whole set and system of housekeeping women at the—what-'s-his-name? because Sophie would have cried for a week, and been utterly forlorn and disconsolate. I know it's not the poor girl's fault; I try sometimes to reason with her, but you can't reason with the whole of your wife's family, to the third and fourth generation backwards; but I'm sure it's hurting her health,—wearing her out. Why, you know Sophie used to be the life of our set; and now she really seems eaten up with care from morning to night, there are so many things in the house that something dreadful is happening to all the while, and the servants we get are so clumsy. Why, when I sit with Sophie and Aunt Zeruah, it's nothing but a constant string of complaints about the girls in the kitchen. We keep changing our servants all the time, and they break and destroy so that now we are turned out of the use of all our things. We not only eat in the basement, but all our pretty table-things are put away, and we have all the cracked plates and cracked tumblers and cracked teacups and old buck-handled knives that can be raised out of chaos. I could use these things and be merry, if I didn't know we had better ones; and I can't help wondering whether there isn't some way that our table could be set to look like a gentleman's table; but Aunt Zeruah says that 'it would cost thousands, and what difference does it make as long as nobody sees it but us?' You see, there's no medium in her mind between china and crystal and cracked earthen-ware. Well, I'm wondering how all these laws of the Medes and Persians are going to work when the children come along. I'm in hopes the children will soften off the old folks, and make the, house more habitable."

Well, children did come, a good many of them, in time. There was Tom, a broad-shouldered, chubby-cheeked, active, hilarious son of mischief, born in the very image of his father; and there was Charlie, and Jim, and Louisa, and Sophie the second, and Frank,—and a better, brighter, more joy-giving household, as far as temperament and nature were concerned, never existed.

But their whole childhood was a long battle, children versus furniture, and furniture always carried the day. The first step of the housekeeping powers was to choose the least agreeable and least available room in the house for the children's nursery, and to fit it up with all the old, cracked, rickety furniture a neighboring auction-shop could afford, and then to keep them in it. Now everybody knows that to bring up children to be upright, true, generous, and religious, needs so much discipline, so much restraint and correction, and so many rules and regulations, that it is all that the parents can carry out, and all the children can bear. There is only a certain amount of the vital force for parents or children to use in this business of education, and one must choose what It shall be used for. The Aunt-Zeruah faction chose to use it for keeping the house and furniture, and the children's education proceeded accordingly. The rules of right and wrong of which they heard most frequently were all of this sort: Naughty children were those who went up the front-stairs, or sat on the best sofa, or fingered any of the books in the library, or got out one of the best teacups, or drank out of the cut-glass goblets.

Why did they ever want to do it? If there ever is a forbidden fruit in an Eden, will not our young Adams and Eves risk soul and body to find out how it tastes? Little Tom, the oldest boy, had the courage and enterprise and perseverance of a Captain Parry or Dr. Kane, and he used them all in voyages of discovery to forbidden grounds. He stole Aunt Zeruah's keys, unlocked her cupboards and closets, saw, handled, and tasted everything for himself, and gloried in his sins.

"Don't you know, Tom," said the nurse to him once, "if you are so noisy and rude, you'll disturb your dear mamma? She's sick, and she may die, if you're not careful."

As soon as ever the little rebel was old enough, he was sent away to boarding-school, and then there was never found a time when it was convenient to have him come home again. He could not come in the spring, for then they were house-cleaning, nor in the autumn, because then they were house-cleaning; and so he spent his vacations at school, unless, by good luck, a companion who was so fortunate as to have a home invited him there. His associations, associates, habits, principles, were as little known to his mother as if she had sent him to China. Aunt Zeruah used to congratulate herself on the rest there was at home, now he was gone, and say she was only living in hopes of the time when Charlie and Jim would be big enough to send away too; and meanwhile Charlie and Jim, turned out of the charmed circle which should hold growing boys to the father's and mother's side, detesting the dingy, lonely play-room, used to run the city-streets, and hang round the railroad-depots or docks. Parents may depend upon it, that, if they do not make an attractive resort for their boys, Satan will. There are places enough, kept warm and light and bright and merry, where boys can go whose mothers' parlors are too fine for them to sit in. There are enough to be found to clap them on the back, and tell them stories that their mothers must not hear, and laugh when they compass with their little piping voices the dreadful litanies of sin and shame. In middle life, our poor Sophie, who as a girl was so gay and frolicsome, so full of spirits, had dried and sharpened into a hard-visaged, angular woman,—careful and troubled about many things, and forgetful that one thing is needful. One of the boys had run away to sea; I believe he has never been heard of. As to Tom, the oldest, he ran a career wild and hard enough for a time, first at school and then in college, and there came a time when he came home, in the full might of six feet two, and almost broke his mother's heart with his assertions of his home rights and privileges. Mothers who throw away the key of their children's hearts in childhood sometimes have a sad retribution. As the children never were considered when they were little and helpless, so they do not consider when they are strong and powerful. Tom spread wide desolation among the household gods, lounging on the sofas, spitting tobacco-juice on the carpets, scattering books and engravings hither and thither, and throwing all the family-traditions into wild disorder, as he would never have done, had not all his childish remembrances of them been embittered by the association of restraint and privation. He actually seemed to hate any appearance of luxury or taste or order,—he was a perfect Philistine.

As for my friend Bill, from being the pleasantest and most genial of fellows, he became a morose, misanthropic man. Dr. Franklin has a significant proverb,—"Silks and satins put out the kitchen-fire." Silks and satins—meaning by them the luxuries of housekeeping—often put out not only the parlor-fire, but that more sacred flame, the fire of domestic love. It is the greatest possible misery to a man and to his children to be homeless; and many a man has a splendid house, but no home.

"Papa," said Jennie, "you ought to write and tell what are your ideas of keeping a home."

Nevertheless, I think, being so fortunate a husband, I might reduce my wife's system to an analysis, and my next paper shall be,—

THE CONVULSIONISTS OF ST. MÉDARD

Of all the mental epidemics that have visited Europe, beyond question the most remarkable, and in some of its features the most inexplicable, is that which prevailed in Paris some hundred and thirty years ago, among what were called the Convulsionists of St. Médard.

The celebrated Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, during his life the opponent and enemy of the Jesuits, whom he caused to be excluded from the theological schools of Louvain, left behind him, at his death, a treatise, posthumously published in 1640, entitled, "Augustinus," in which he professed to set forth the true opinions of St. Augustine on those century-long disputed questions of Grace, Free-Will, and Predestination. Taking ground against the Molinists, he contended for the doctrine of Predestination antecedent and absolute, a gift purely gratuitous, of God's free grace, independent of any virtue or merit in the recipient soul. This doctrine, set forth in five propositions, was condemned, in the middle of the seventeenth century, by Popes Innocent X. and Alexander VII.; and against it, when revived by Father Quesnel in the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was fulminated, in 1713, by Pope Clement XI., the famous Bull Unigenitus.

From this Bull, accepted in France after long opposition, the Jansenist party appealed to a future Papal Council, thence deriving their name of Appellants. Among these, one of the most noted and zealous was the Diacre Pâris, who refused a curacy, to avoid signing his adhesion to what he regarded as heresy, consumed his fortune in works of charity, and his health in austerities of a character so excessive that they abridged his life. Dying, as his partisans have it, in the odor of sanctity, and protesting with his last breath against the doctrines of the obnoxious Bull, his remains were deposited, on the second of May, 1727, in the small church-yard of St. Médard, situated in the twelfth arrondissement of Paris, on the Rue Mouffetard, not far from the Jardin des Plantes.

To the tomb of one whom they regarded as a martyr to their cause the Jansenist Appellants habitually resorted, in all the fervor of religious zeal, heated to enthusiasm by the persecution of the dominant party. And there, after a time, phenomena presented themselves, which caused for years, throughout the French capital and among the theologians of that age, a fever of excitement; and which, though they have been noticed by medical and other writers of our own century, have not yet, in my judgment, attracted, either from the medical profession or from the pneumatological inquirer, the attention they deserve.

Of these phenomena a portion were physical, and a portion were mental or psychological. The former, first appearing in the early part of the year 1731, consisted (as alleged) partly of extraordinary cures, the apparent result of violent convulsive movements which overtook the patients soon after their bodies touched the marble of the tomb, sometimes even without approaching it, by swallowing, in wine or water, a small portion of the earth gathered from around it, the effect being heightened by strict fasting and prayer,—partly of what were called the "Grands Secours," literally "Great Succors," consisting of the most desperate, one might say murderous, remedies, applied, at their urgent request, to relieve the sufferings of the Convulsionists. These measures, called of relief, and carried to an incredible excess, were of such a character, that, during any normal state of the human system, they would have destroyed, not one, but a hundred lives, if the patient, or victim, had been endowed with so many. Those who regarded this marvellous immunity from what seemed certain immolation as a miraculous interposition of God were called Succorists; their opponents, ascribing such effects to the interference of the Devil in protection of his own, or (a somewhat rare opinion in those days) to natural agency, went by the name of Anti-Succorists. (Secouristes and Anti-Secouristes.)

Some of these alleged cures, but more especially some of these so-called succors, were of a nature so far passing belief, that one would be tempted to cast them aside as sheer impostures, were not the main facts vouched for by evidence, not from the Jansenists alone, but from their bitterest opponents, so direct, so overwhelmingly multiplied, so minutely circumstantial, that to reject it would amount to a virtual declaration, that, in proof of the extraordinary and the improbable, we will accept no testimony whatever, let its weight or character be what it may. Accordingly, we find dispassionate modern writers, medical and others, while reminding us, as well they may, that enlightened observers of these strange phenomena were lacking,[3] and while properly suggesting that we ought to make allowance for exaggeration in some of the details, yet admitting as incontestable realities the substantial facts related by the historians of St. Médard.

Among these historians the chief is Carré de Montgéron, a magistrate of rank and high character, Counsellor of the Parliament of Paris. An enthusiast, and a weak logician, as hot enthusiasts generally are, Montgéron's honesty is admitted to be beyond question. Converted to Jansenism on the seventh of September, 1731, in the church-yard of St. Médard, by the strange scenes there passing, he expended his fortune, sacrificed his liberty, and devoted years of his life, in the preparation and publication of one of the most extraordinary works that ever issued from the press.[4] It consists of three quarto volumes, of some nine hundred closely printed pages each. Crowded with repetitions, and teeming with false reasoning, these volumes nevertheless contain, backed by certificates without number, such an elaborate aggregation of concurrent testimony as I think human industry never before brought together to prove any contested class of phenomena.

Not less zealous, if less voluminous, were the writers opposed to what was called "the work of the convulsions." Of these one of the chief was Dom La Taste, Bishop of Bethléem, author of the "Lettres Théologiques," and of the "Mémoire Théologique," in both of which the extravagances of the Convulsionists are severely handled; a second was the Abbé d'Asfeld, who, in 1738, published his "Vains Efforts des Discernans," in the same strain; and another, M. Poncet, who put forth an elaborate reply to the Succorists, entitled "Réponse des Anti-Secouristes à la Réclamation."

The convulsions, commencing in the year 1731, almost immediately assumed an epidemical character, spreading so rapidly that in a few months the affected reached the number of eight hundred. These were to be found not only on the tomb and in the cemetery itself, but in the streets, lanes, and houses adjoining. Many, after returning from the exciting scenes of St. Médard, were seized with convulsions in their own dwellings.

The numbers and the excitement went on increasing, and conversions to Jansenism were counted by thousands; the scenes became daily more extravagant, and the phenomena more extraordinary, until the King, moved either by the representations of physicians or by the remonstrances of Jesuit theologians, caused the cemetery to be closed on the twenty-ninth of January, 1732.[5]

Not for such interdiction, however, did the phenomena, once in progress, intermit. For fifteen years, or longer,[6] the symptoms continued, with more or less violence. Indeed, the number of Convulsionists greatly increased after the cemetery was closed, extending to those who had no ailment or bodily infirmity.[7]

The symptoms, though varying in different individuals, were of one general character, partaking, especially as to the muscular phenomena, of the nature of hysteria, or hystero-catalepsy. The patient, soon after being placed on the revered tomb, or on the ground near it, was commonly attacked by a tumultuous movement of all his members. Contractions exhibited themselves in the neck, shoulders, and principal muscles all over the body. The nervous system became dreadfully excited. The heart beat violently, and the patient, sometimes retaining partial consciousness and suffering extreme pain, could not restrain violent cries. He usually experienced, also, a tingling or pricking sensation in any diseased member. Those who from birth had been afflicted with paralysis, or partial paralysis, of a limb, or one side of the body, felt the convulsions chiefly in that limb or side. The convulsions were often so violent that numerous assistants could scarcely restrain the patient from seriously injuring himself by dashing his body or limbs against the marble.[8]

The Demoiselle Fourcroy, alleged to have been suddenly cured, on the fourteenth of April, 1732, by means of these convulsions, of a confirmed anchylosis, which had deformed her left foot, and which the physicians had pronounced incurable,[9] thus describes, in her deposition, her sensations:—"They caused me to take wine in which was some earth from the tomb of M. de Pâris, and I immediately engaged in prayer, as the commencement of a neuvaine" (that is, a nine-days' act of devotion). "Almost at the same moment I was seized with a great shuddering, and soon after with a violent agitation of the members, which caused my whole body to jerk into the air, and gave me a force I had never before possessed,—so that the united strength of several persons present could scarcely restrain me. After a time, in the course of these violent convulsive movements, I lost all consciousness. As soon as they passed off, I recovered my senses, and felt a sensation of tranquillity and internal peace, such as I had never experienced before."[10]

It was usually at the moment of recovery from these convulsions, as Montgéron alleges and the certificates published by him declare, that the cures deemed by him miraculous were effected. Sometimes, however, these cures were gradual only, extending through several days or weeks.

In Montgéron's work fourteen distinct cures are minutely reported, all of persons declared by the attendant physicians to be incurable. Each of these cures, with the documentary evidence in support of it, occupies from fifty to one hundred pages of his book. The greater number are cases of paralysis, usually of one entire side of the body, in some instances complicated with general dropsy, in others with cancer, in others again with attacks of apoplexy. There are four cases where the eyesight was restored,—one of them of a lachrymal fistula; one of a young Spanish nobleman, who suddenly recovered the use of his right eye, the left, however, remaining uncured; and there is a case in which a young woman, deaf and dumb from birth, is reported to have been suddenly and completely cured on the tomb of M. de Pâris, at the moment the convulsions ceased, immediately repeating, though not understanding, any word that was spoken to her by the bystanders.

My limits do not permit me to follow Montgéron through the details and the documentary proof of these cures. That the patient, in each case, previously examined by some physician of reputation, was pronounced incurable, does not prove that he was so. Yet, unless Montgéron lie, some of the cures are inexplicable, upon any received principles of medical science. One man, (Philippe Sergent,) whose right knee had shrunk to such a degree that the right leg was, and had been for more than a year, three finger-breadths shorter than the left, was, according to the certificates, cured on the spot, threw away his crutches, and walked home, unaided, followed by a wondering crowd. Another patient, (Marguerite Thibault,) affected by general dropsy, and whose feet and legs were swollen to three times their natural size, is reported to have been cured so suddenly that before she left the tomb her servant could put on her feet the same slippers she had worn previously to her malady. This woman had also been afflicted, for three years, with paralysis of the left side, so complete as to deprive it of all power of motion. Yet she is stated to have raised herself, unaided, on the tomb, to have walked from the spot, and even to have ascended the stairs of her house on her return. The symptom immediately preceding her cure is said to have been "a beneficent heat, which diffused itself over the entire left side, so long deadly cold." This was followed by a consciousness of power to move it; and her first effort was to stretch out her paralytic arm.[11]

But these cures, wonderful as they appear, are far less marvellous than another class of phenomena already referred to.

The convulsions were often accompanied by an urgent instinctive desire for certain extreme remedies, sometimes of a frightful character,—as stretching the limbs with a violence similar to that of the rack,—administering on the breast, stomach, or other parts of the body, hundreds of terrible blows with heavy weapons of wood, iron, or stone,—pressing with main force against various parts of the body with sharp-pointed swords,—pressure under enormous weights,—exposure to excessive heat, etc. Montgéron, viewing the whole as miraculous, says,—"God frequently causes the convulsionists the most acute pains, and at the same time intimates to them, by a supernatural instinct, that the formidable succors which He desires that they should demand will cause all their sufferings to cease; and these sufferings usually have a sort of relation to the succors which are to prove a remedy for them. For instance, an oppression on the breast indicates the necessity for blows of extreme violence on that part; an excessive cold, or a devouring heat, when it suddenly seizes a convulsionist, requires that he should be pushed into the midst of flames; a sharp pang, similar to that caused by an iron point piercing the flesh, demands a thrust of a rapier,[12] given in the spot where the pain is felt, be it In the throat, in the mouth, or in the eyes, of which there are numerous examples; and let the rapier be pushed as it may, the point, no matter how sharp, cannot pierce the most tender flesh, not even the eye of the patient: of this, in my third proposition, I shall adduce proof the most incontestable."[13]

To some extent, it would seem, the symptoms themselves, attending the convulsions, appeared, to the observant physician, to warrant the propriety of the remedy desired. Montgéron copies a report of a case made to him, and attested by a gentleman of his acquaintance, a Jansenist, who had persuaded his cousin, Dr. M——, at that time a distinguished physician of Paris, and much prejudiced against the Jansenist movement, to accompany him to a house where there was a young girl subject to the reigning epidemic. They found her in a room with twenty or thirty persons, and at the moment in convulsions. The assistants agreed to place the case in the hands of the physician, and he carefully noted the movements of the patient.

"After a time," proceeds the reporter, "he was greatly astonished to observe a sudden convulsive retraction of all the members. Examining the patient closely, touching her breast and limbs, he became aware of a contraction of the nerves, which gradually reached such a degree of violence that the whole body was disfigured in a frightful manner. His surprise was extreme, and it was soon changed to alarm, which induced him to forget his prejudices, and to resort to the very means he had previously condemned as useless or dangerous. He caused us to place ourselves, one at the head and one at each hand and foot, and bade us pull moderately. We did so.

"It was done, (by the aid of long and very strong pieces of cloth-listing,) but proved insufficient.

"'Three to each!' he cried; 'the child will die; pull with all your force! Stronger still!'"

"'Ah, that relieves,' he said; 'the nerves resume their tone; the symptoms improve. But do not relax the tension.'"

Ultimately five persons were assigned to each band; and the nearest aided themselves by bracing their feet against the bed. They continued their efforts during half an hour, sometimes pulling with all their strength, sometimes less strongly, as the physician observed the contraction of the nerves to increase or relax. Finally he ordered the tension to be gradually diminished, in proportion as the convulsion passed off.

After a time this convulsion was succeeded by another, causing a sudden and alarming swelling of the chest. "The girl stood leaning against a wall, and in that position he caused us, as had been our wont, to press with force on her chest. This we did, interposing a small cushion composed of listing. At first, I alone assisted." Then Dr. M—— ordered three, four, five, ultimately even a greater number of persons, to aid them. "The convulsion ceased gradually, and in the same proportion he caused us to diminish the pressure."

"Afterwards the physician, having retired to another room, said to us, before going away, 'You would be homicides, gentlemen, if you did not render these succors; for the symptoms require them; and the girl would die, if you refused them. There is nothing but what is natural in the relation between her state and these succors.'"[14]

Another example, occurring in 1740, and still more striking, because the case was that of a girl only three years of age, is given by Montgéron on the authority (among other witnesses) of Count de Novion, a near relative of the Duke de Gesvres, Governor of Paris. The Count, having been present throughout this case, testifies from personal observation.

The child's limbs, as in the previous example, were drawn up by violent convulsive movements, and the muscles became as it were knotted, causing extreme pain. The little creature urgently begged that they would draw her legs and arms. Moderate tension caused no diminution of the pain; violent tension, administered with fear and trembling, relieved her immediately. She complained also of acute pain in the breast, which swelled to an alarming extent. To remove this, nothing proved effectual but excessive pressure with the knee on the part affected.

After a time, however, some of the Anti-Succorist theologians persuaded the mother that the succors ought not to be administered,—and even raised doubts in her mind and in that of the Count, as to whether the Devil had not some agency in the affair. "Who knows," said the latter, "if the Arch-Enemy has no part in this?" So they intermitted the succors for some weeks. During this time the infant gradually sank from day to day, would scarcely eat or drink, seldom slept, and death seemed imminent.

The physician, being called in, declared that the only hope was in resuming the succors, terrible as they appeared, and that, too, promptly. To the father he said, "If you delay, it will be too late. While you are trying all your fine experiments with her, your child will die." They resumed the same violent remedies as before; and the child was gradually restored to perfect health.[15]

But these examples, whatever we may think of them, are but some of the most moderate, which Montgéron himself admits to be explicable on natural principles. He says: "During the first months that the succors commenced, the power of resistance offered by the convulsionists did not appear so surprising, and seemed, indeed, to be the effect of an excessive swelling which was observed in the muscles upon which the convulsionists requested the blows to be given, and of the violent agitation of the animal spirits; so that the succors demanded by the sufferers appeared, in a measure, the natural remedy for the state in which God had placed them. But when, every day, the violence of the blows increased, it became evident that the natural force of the muscles could not equal that of the tremendous strokes which the convulsionists demanded, in obedience, as they said, to the will of God. And here was manifested the miracle."[16]

I proceed to give, as an example of one of the more violent succors here spoken of as miraculous, a narrative, not only vouched for by Montgéron himself as a witness present, but put forth, in the first instance, by one of the most violent Anti-Succorists, the Abbé d'Asfeld, in his work already referred to,—and put forth by him in order to be condemned as a wicked tempting of Providence,[17] or, worse, an accepting of aid from the Prince of Darkness himself. It occurred in 1734.

"Here," says the Abbé, "is an example, all the more worthy of attention, inasmuch as persons of every station and condition, ecclesiastics, magistrates, ladies of rank, were among the spectators. Jeanne Moler, a young girl of twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, standing up with her back resting against a stone wall, an extremely robust man took an andiron,[18] weighing, as was said, from twenty-five to thirty pounds, and therewith gave her, with his whole force, numerous blows on the stomach. They counted upwards of a hundred at a time. One day a certain friar, after having given her sixty such blows, tried the same weapon against a wall; and it is said that at the twenty-fifth blow he broke an opening through it."[19]

Dom La Taste, the great opponent of Jansenism, alluding to the same circumstance, says, "I do not dispute the fact, that the andiron sunk so deeply that it appeared to penetrate to the very backbone."[20]

Montgéron, after quoting the above, adds his own testimony, as to this same occurrence, in these words:—

"As I am not ashamed to confess that I am one of those who have followed up most closely the work of the convulsions, I freely admit that I am the person to whom the author alludes, when he speaks of a certain friar who tried against a wall the effect of blows similar to those he had given the convulsionist. As this is an occurrence personal to myself, I trust the reader will perceive the propriety of my presenting to him the narrative in a more exact and detailed form than that in which it is given by the author of the 'Vains Efforts.'

"I had begun, as I usually do, by giving the convulsionist very moderate blows. But after a time, excited by her constant complaints, which left me no room to doubt that the oppression in the pit of the stomach of which she complained could be relieved only by violent blows, I gradually increased the force of mine, employing at last my whole strength; but in vain. The convulsionist continued to complain that the blows I gave her were so feeble that they procured her no relief; and she caused me to put the andiron into the hands of a large and stout man who happened to be one of the spectators. He kept within no bounds. Instructed by the trial he had seen me make that nothing could be too severe, he discharged such terrible blows, always on the pit of the stomach, as to shake the wall against which the convulsionist was leaning.

"She caused him to give her one hundred such blows, not reckoning as anything the sixty I had just administered. She warmly thanked the man who had procured her such relief, and reproached me for my weakness and my lack of faith.

"When the hundred blows were completed, I took the andiron, desirous of trying against the wall itself whether my blows, which she thought so feeble and complained of so bitterly, really did produce no effect. At the twenty-fifth stroke the stone against which I struck, and which had been shaken by the previous blows, was shattered, and the pieces fell out on the opposite side, leaving an opening of more than six inches square.

"Now let us observe what were the portions of the body of the convulsionist on which these fearful blows were dealt. It is true that they first came in contact with the skin, but they sank immediately to the back of the patient; their force was not arrested at the surface.

"I insist unnecessarily, perhaps, upon this fact, since all, even our greatest enemies, admit its truth. But, however incontestable it is, I conceive that I cannot too strongly prove it to those who have not themselves witnessed what happened; inasmuch as the principal objection made by the author of the 'Mémoire Théologique' consists in supposing that the violence of the most tremendous blows given to convulsionists is suspended by the Devil, who thus nullifies the effect they would naturally produce."[21]

Montgéron further says, that "the greatest enemies of these miraculous succors admitted the fact that such terrible blows, far from producing the slightest wound, or causing the convulsionist the least suffering, actually cured the pains of which she complained."[22]

The convulsionist sometimes demanded enormous pressure instead of violent blows. To this also, the Abbé d'Asfeld testifies. I translate from his "Vains Efforts."

"Next came the exercise of the platform. It consisted in placing on the convulsionist, who was stretched on the ground, a board of sufficient size to cover her entirely; and as many men as could stand upon it mounted on the board. The convulsionist sustained them all."[23]

Montgéron adds,—"This relation is tolerably exact, and it only remains for me to observe, that, as they gave each other the hand, for reciprocal support, most of those who were on the board rested the whole weight of the body on a single foot. Thus, twenty men at a time often stood upon the board, and were supported on the body of a young convulsionist. Now, as most men weigh a hundred and fifty pounds, and many weigh more, the body of the girl must have sustained a weight of three thousand pounds, if not sometimes nearly four thousand,—a load sufficient to crush an ox. Yet, not only was the convulsionist not oppressed by it, but she often found the pressure insufficient to correct the swelling which distended her muscles. With what force must not God have endowed the body of this girl! Since the days of Samson, was ever seen such a prodigy?"[24]

If these incidents, attested as they are by friend and foe, seem to us incredible, what shall we say of another, not less strongly attested?

Let us first, as before, take the statement of an adversary. I translate from the "Mémoire Théologique."

"A convulsionist laid herself on the floor, flat on her back; and a man, kneeling beside her, and raising a flint stone, weighing upwards of twenty pounds, as high as he could, after several preliminary trials, dashed it, with all his force, against the breast of the convulsionist, giving her one hundred such blows in succession."[25]

To this Montgéron subjoins,—"But the author ought to have added, that, at each blow, the whole room shook, the floor trembled, and the spectators could not repress a shudder at the frightful noise which was heard, as each blow fell on the convulsionist's breast." We need not be surprised that he adds,—"Not only ought such strokes naturally to rupture the minute vessels, the delicate glands, the veins and the arteries of which the breast is composed,—not only ought they, in the course of Nature, to have crushed and reduced the whole to a bloody mass,—but they ought to have shattered to pieces the bones and cartilages by which the breast is inclosed."[26]

This was the view of the case taken by a celebrated physician of the day. Montgéron tells us:—"This philosopher maintained that the facts alleged could not be true, because they were physically impossible. He raised, among other objections, this,—that the flexible, delicate nature of the skin, of the flesh, and of the viscera, is incompatible with a force and a consistency so extraordinary as the alleged facts presuppose; and, consequently, that it was impossible, without ceasing to be what they are,—without a radical change in their qualities,—that they should acquire a force superior to that of the hardest and most solid bodies. They let him quietly complete his anatomical argument, and set forth all his proofs, and merely answered, 'Come and see; test the truth of the facts for yourself.' He went. At first sight, he is seized with astonishment; he doubts the evidence of his eyes; he asks to be allowed himself to administer the succors. They immediately place in his hands iron bars of a crushing weight. He does not spare his blows; he exerts his utmost strength. The weapon sinks into the flesh, seems to penetrate to the entrails. But the convulsionist only laughs at his idle efforts. His blows but procure her relief, without leaving the least impression, the slightest trace, even on the epidermis."[27]

Space fails me to furnish more than a very few additional specimens of the endless incidents of which the details are scattered by Montgéron over hundreds of pages,—incidents occurring in various parts of Paris, daily, for many years. Three or four more of these may suffice for my present purpose.

A certain Marie Sonnet had made herself so remarkable by the incredible succors she demanded, that a physician of Paris, Dr. A——, published, in regard to her case, a satirical letter addressed to M. de Montgéron, in which, after attacking the girl's moral character, be assumed this strange position: "It is a sentiment universally established, that it is in the power of the Devil, when God permits, to communicate to man forces above those of Nature. Nor must it be said that God never permits this; the case of the girl Sonnet is unanswerable proof to the contrary."[28]

Among the incidents which appear to have led to this opinion one is thus stated by him:—"They let fall upon her stomach, from the height of the ceiling, a stone weighing fifty pounds, while her body, bent back like a bow, was supported on the point of a sharpened stake, placed just under the spine; yet, far from being crushed by the stone, or pierced by the stake, it was a relief to her."[29]

Montgéron supplies further particulars of this case. He says:—"It was not once, it was a hundred times in succession, and that daily repeated, that this flint stone was raised by main force, by the aid of a pulley, to the ceiling of the room, and thence suddenly let fall on the stomach of the patient. This stone weighed, it is true, fifty pounds only; but, descending from a great height, its effect was immensely increased by the momentum it acquired in falling, as soon as the cord was detached by which it was suspended in the air.' And, in truth, the ribs of the convulsionist bent under the terrible shock, sinking under the weight till her stomach and bowels were so completely flattened that the stone seemed wholly to displace them. Yet she received no injury whatever, but was relieved, as Dr. A—— himself admits. He confesses, also, that the body of the convulsionist was bent back so that the head and feet touched the floor, and was supported only on the sharp point of a stake right under her reins, and placed perpendicularly beneath the spot where the stone was to fall. The weight of the stone in falling was, therefore, arrested only by the point of this stake, the body of the convulsionist being between them, so that the entire force of the blow was concentrated opposite that point.... The stake appeared to penetrate to a certain depth into the body, yet neither the skin nor the flesh received the slightest injury, nor did the convulsionist experience any pain whatever."[30]

This same Marie Sonnet exposed herself to terrible tests by fire. A certificate in regard to this matter, signed by eleven persons, of whom one was an English lord, one a Doctor of Theology in the Sorbonne, and another the brother of Voltaire, Armand Arouet, Treasurer of the Chamber of Accounts, is given by Montgéron, and I here translate it:—

"We, the undersigned, certify, that this day, between eight and ten o'clock, P.M., Marie Sonnet, being in convulsion, was placed, her head resting on one stool and her feet on another, these stools being entirely within a large chimney and under the opening of the same, so that her body was suspended in the air above the fire, which was of extreme violence, and that she remained in that position for the space of thirty-six minutes, at four different times; yet the cloth [drap] in which she was wrapped (she having no other dress) was not burned, though the flames sometimes passed above it: all which appears to us entirely supernatural. In testimony whereof, we have signed our names, this twelfth of May, 1736."

To this certificate, which was afterwards legally recorded, a postscript is appended, stating, that, while they were writing out the certificate, Marie placed herself a fifth time over the fire, as before, remaining there nine minutes; that she appeared to sleep, though the fire was excessively hot; fifteen logs of wood, besides fagots, having been consumed in the two hours and a quarter during which the witnesses remained.

Montgéron adds, that this exhibition has been witnessed at least a hundred times, and by a multitude of persons. And he expressly states, that the stools, which consisted of iron frames, with a board upon each, were placed entirely within the fireplace, and one on each side of the fire; so that, as Marie Sonnet rested her head on one stool and her feet on the other, her body remained suspended immediately above the fire; and further, that, "no matter how intense the heat, not only did she suffer no inconvenience, but the cloth in which she was wrapped was never injured, nor even singed, though it was sometimes actually in the flames."[31]

He declares, also, that Marie, on other occasions, remained over the fire much longer than is above certified. The author of the "Vains Efforts" admits that "she remained exposed to the fire long enough to roast a piece of mutton or veal."

Montgéron informs us, in addition, that Marie Sonnet sometimes varied the form of this experiment, with a somewhat varying result. He says,—"I have seen her five or six times, and in the presence of a multitude of persons, thrust both her feet, with shoes and stockings on, into the midst of a burning brazier; but in this case the fire did not respect the shoes, as, in the other, it had respected the cloth that enwrapped her. The shoes caught fire, and the soles were reduced to ashes, but without the convulsionist experiencing pain in her feet, which she continued to keep for a considerable time in the fire. Once I had the curiosity to examine the soles of her stockings, in order to ascertain if they, too, were burnt. As soon as I touched them they crumbled to powder, so that the sole of the foot remained bare."[32]

Dr. A——, in the letter already alluded to, which he published against this girl, admits, that, "while in the midst of flames, or stretched over a burning brazier, she received no injury whatever."[33]

M. Poncet, whom I have elsewhere mentioned as one of the chief writers against the Succorists, admits the following:—

"This convulsionist [Gabrielle Moler] placed herself on her knees before a large fire full of burning coals all in flame. Then, a person being seated behind her, and holding her by a band, she plunged her head into the flames, which closed over it; then, being drawn back, she repeated the same, continuing it with a regular alternate movement. She has been seen thus to throw herself on the fire six hundred times in succession. Usually she wore a bonnet, but sometimes not; and when she did wear one, the top of the bonnet was occasionally burned."[34] Montgéron adds, "but her hair never."[35]

Gabrielle was the first who (in 1736) demanded what was called the succor of the swords. Montgéron says,—"She was prompted by the supernatural instinct which guided her to select the strongest and sharpest sword she could find among those worn by the spectators. Then setting herself with her back against a wall, she placed the point of the sword just above her stomach, and called upon him who seemed the strongest man to push it with all his force; and though the sword bent into the form of a bow from the violence with which it was pushed, so that they had to press against the middle of the blade to keep it straight, still the convulsionist cried out, 'Stronger! stronger!' After a time she applied the point of the sword to her throat, and required it to be pushed with the same violence as before. The point caused the skin to sink into the throat to the depth of four finger-breadths, but it never pierced the flesh, let them push as violently as they would. Nevertheless, the point of the sword seemed to attach itself to the skin; for, when drawn back, it drew the skin with it, and left a trifling redness, such as would be caused by the prick of a pin. For the rest, the convulsionist suffered no pain whatever."[36]

Similar is the testimony of an Advocate of the Parliament of Paris, extracts from whose certificate in regard to the succors rendered to the Sister Madeleine are given by Montgéron. Here is one of these:—

"One day, extended on the ground, she caused a spit to be placed upright, with the point on her bare throat. Then a stout man mounted on a chair, and suspended his whole body from the head of the spit, pressing with all his force, as if to transfix the throat and pierce the floor beneath. But the flesh merely sank in with the point of the spit, without being in the least injured.

"Another day, she placed the point of a very sharp sword against the hollow of the throat, just below the epiglottis, and, standing with her back against the wall, called on them to push the sword. A vigorous man did so, till the blade bent, though not so much as to form a complete arc. The point sank into the flesh about an inch. I was curious to measure the exact depth, and found that the flesh rose so far around the sword-point that I could sink a finger in beyond the first joint. She received this succor twice. The sword was one of the sharpest I have ever seen. We tried it against a portfolio containing the paper intended for the minutes which on such occasions I always make out. It perforated the pasteboard and a considerable part of the papers within."[37]

The Sister Madeleine carried her temerity in this matter still farther. Here is a portion of the certificate of an ecclesiastic, for whose uprightness and truthfulness Montgéron vouches in strong terms, and who relates what he alleges he saw on the thirty-first of May, 1744.

"Madeleine caused them to hold two swords in the air horizontally. She herself placed the point of one in the inner corner of the right eye, and of the other in the inner corner of the left, and then called out to those who held the swords, 'In the name of the Father, push!' They did so with all their force; and I confess that I shuddered from head to foot.... A second time Madeleine caused them to set two swords against the pupils of her eyes, and to press them strongly, as before. This time I took especial notice of the part of the sword that was on a level with the surface of the eye when the pressure was the strongest, and I perceived that the point had penetrated a good inch into the pupil."[38]

The Chaplain in Ordinary of the King, under date of the fourth of October, 1744, testifies to confirmatory facts. He says,—"I have seen them push sword-points against the eyes of Sisters Madeleine and Félicité, sometimes on the pupil, sometimes in the corner of the eye, sometimes on the eyelid,—with such force as to cause the eyeball to project, till the spectators shuddered."[39]

Another officer of the royal household gives a certificate of succors administered to this same Madeleine, of a character scarcely less wonderful, with pointed spits, of which two were broken against her body.

This officer certifies, also, that, on one occasion, when pushing a sharp sword against Madeleine, not being able to push strongly enough to satisfy her, he placed a book bound in parchment on his own breast, placed the hilt of his sword against it, and pressed with so much force that the cover of the book was quite spoiled by the deep indentation made by the sword-hilt. He adds,—"The instinct of her convulsion caused her sometimes to demand as many as twenty-two swords at a time. These were placed, some in front, some against her back, some against her sides, in every direction. I myself never saw quite so many employed; but I was present, and was myself assisting, when eighteen swords were pushed at once against various parts of her body. Although the force with which this prodigious succor was administered caused deep indentations in the flesh, she never received the slightest wound. It often happened that her convulsions caused the flesh to react under the pressure of the sword-points, so as forcibly to push back the assistants."[40]

The Advocate of the Parliament of Paris, already mentioned, certifies to the same phenomenon. His words are,—"One can feel, under the sword-point, a movement of the flesh, which, from time to time, thrusts back the sword. This occurs the most strongly when the succor is nearly at an end. The convulsionist calls out, 'Enough!' as soon as the pains are relieved."[41]

The same Advocate states, that sometimes the convulsionist threw the weight of her body on the swords, the hilts resting on the floor, and being secured from slipping. He speaks of one case in which, "while she was balancing herself on the points of several swords upon which she had thrown herself with all her weight, [où elle se jettoit à corps perdû,] one of them broke."[42]

The officer of the king's household already spoken of testifies to a similar fact. A certain Sister Dina, he says, caused six swords thus to break against her body. He adds, that he himself broke the blade of a sword while thrusting against her; and that he saw two others broken in the same way.[43]

In regard to what Montgéron considers the exacting instinct, the same officer says,—"I had the curiosity to ask Sister Madeleine, in her natural state, what was the sort of suffering which caused her to have recourse to such astonishing succors. She replied, that the pain she suffered was the same as if swords were actually piercing her; that she felt relieved of this pain as soon as the sword-points penetrated to her skin, and quite cured when the assistants put their whole force to it. She laughed when the swords pierced her dress, saying, 'I feel the points on my skin. That relieves. That does me good.'"[44]

Both the Advocate of Parliament and the ecclesiastic from whose certificates I have quoted testify that the convulsionists were repeatedly undressed and examined by a committee of their own sex, consisting in part of incredulous ladies of fashion, to ascertain that they had nothing concealed under their clothes to resist the sword-points. But in every case it was ascertained that they wore but the ordinary articles of under-clothing. The Sister Dina was examined in this way; and it was ascertained that she had nothing under her gown except a chemise and a simple linen stomacher. Her clothing was found pierced in many places, but the flesh wholly uninjured.[45]

Although throughout the writings of the Anti-Succorists there are constant denunciations of these succors as flagrant and wicked temptings of Providence, yet I do not find therein any allegation that serious injury was ever sustained by any of the patients. Montgéron himself, however, admits, that, on one occasion, a wound was received. He tells us that a certain convulsionist long resisted the instinct which bade her demand the succor of a triangular-bladed sword against the left breast, fearing the result. At last, however, the pain became so intense that she was fain to consent. For the first seven or eight minutes the sword-point only indented the flesh, as usual. But then, says Montgéron, "her faith suddenly failing her, she cried out, 'Ah! you will kill me!' No sooner had she pronounced the words than the sword pierced the flesh, making a wound two inches in depth." He alleges, further, that the instinct of the convulsionist informed her that the wound would have no bad consequences, and could be cured by severe blows of a club on the same spot; which, he declares, happened accordingly.[46]

Besides the incidents above related, and a hundred others of similar character, which, if time and the reader's patience permitted, I might cull from Montgéron's pages, the restless enthusiasm of the convulsionists ultimately betrayed them into extravagances, in which it is often hard to decide whether the grotesque or the horrible more predominated. One convulsionist descended the long stairs of an infirmary head-foremost, lying on her back; another caused herself to be attached, by a rope round her neck, to a hook in the wall. A third repeated her prayers while turning somersets. A fourth, suspended by the feet, with the head hanging down, remained in that position three-quarters of an hour. A fifth, lying down on a tomb, caused herself to be covered to the neck with baked earth mixed with sand and saturated with vinegar. A sixth made her bed, in winter, on billets of wood; a seventh on bars of iron. The Sister Félicité was in the habit of causing herself to be nailed to the cross, and of remaining there half an hour at a time, gayly conversing with the pious who surrounded her.[47] Another sister, named Scholastique, after long hesitation between different modes of mortification, having one day remarked the manner in which they constructed the pavement of the streets, had her dress tightly fastened below the knee, and then ordered one of the assistants to take her by the legs, and, with her head downward, to dash it repeatedly against the tiled floor, after the fashion of paviors, when using a rammer.

"If," says Calmeil, "the idea had chanced to suggest itself to one of these theomaniacs, that disembowelling alive would be a sacrifice pleasing to the Supreme Being, she would undoubtedly have insisted upon being subjected to such a martyrdom."[48]

The mental and physiological phenomena connected with this epidemic remain to be noticed, together with the theories and suggestions put forth by medical and other contemporary writers, in explanation of what has here been sketched, the substance of which is usually admitted by these commentators, however incredible, when related at this distance of time, it may appear. Next month the subject will be continued.

PRESENCE.

The wild, sweet water, as it flows,—
The winds, that kiss me as they pass,—
The starry shadow of the rose,
Sitting beside her on the grass,—

The daffodilly, trying to bless
With better light the beauteous air,—
The lily, wearing the white dress
Of sanctuary, to be more fair,—

The lithe-armed, dainty-fingered brier,
That in the woods, so dim and drear,
Lights up betimes her tender fire
To soothe the homesick pioneer,—

The moth, his brown sails balancing
Along the stubble crisp and dry,—
The ground-flower, with a blood-red ring
On either hand,—the pewet's cry,—

The friendly robin's gracious note,—
The hills, with curious weeds o'errun,—
The althea, with her crimson coat
Tricked out to please the wearied sun,—

The dandelion, whose golden share
Is set before the rustic's plough,—
The hum of insects in the air,—
The blooming bush,—the withered bough,—

The coming on of eve,—the springs
Of daybreak, soft and silver-bright,—
The frost, that with rough, rugged wings
Blows down the cankered buds,—the white,

Long drifts of winter snow,—the heat
Of August, falling still and wide,—
Broad cornfields,—one chance stalk of wheat,
Standing with bright head hung aside,—

All things, my darling, all things seem
In some strange way to speak of thee;
Nothing is half so much a dream,
Nothing so much reality.

My soul to thine is dutiful,
In all its pleasure, all its care;
O most beloved! most beautiful!
I miss, and find thee everywhere!

GLACIAL PERIOD.

In the early part of the summer of 1840, I started from Switzerland for England with the express object of finding traces of glaciers in Great Britain. This glacier-hunt was at that time a somewhat perilous undertaking for the reputation of a young naturalist like myself, since some of the greatest names in science were arrayed against the novel glacial theory. And it was not strange that it should be at first discredited by the scientific world, for hitherto all the investigations of geologists had gone to show that a degree of heat far greater than any now prevailing characterized the earlier periods of the world's history. Even Charpentier, my precursor and master in glacial research, who first showed the greater extent of Swiss glaciers in former times, had not thought of any more general application of his result, or connected their former boundaries with any great change in the climatic conditions of the whole continent. His explanation of the phenomena rested upon the assumption that the Alps formerly rose far beyond their present height; their greater altitude, he thought, would account for the existence of immense glaciers extending from the Alps across the plain of Switzerland to the Jura. Inexperienced as I then was, and ignorant of the modes by which new views, if founded on truth, commend themselves gradually to general acceptation, I was often deeply depressed by the skepticism of men whose scientific position gave them a right to condemn the views of younger and less experienced students. I can smile now at the difficulties which then beset my path, but at the time they seemed serious enough. It is but lately, that, in turning over the leaves of a journal, published some twelve or fifteen years ago, to look for a forgotten date, I was amused to find a formal announcement, under the signature of the greatest geologist of Europe, of the demise of the glacial theory. Since then it has risen, phœnix-like, from its own funeral pile.

Even when I arrived in England, many of my friends would fain have dissuaded me from my expedition, urging me to devote myself to special zoölogical studies, and not to meddle with general geological problems of so speculative a character. "Punch" himself did not disdain to give me a gentle hint as to the folly of my undertaking, terming my journey into Scotland in search of moraines a sporting-expedition after "moor-hens." Only one of my older scientific friends in England, a man who in earlier years had weathered a similar storm himself, shared my confidence in the investigations looked upon by others as so visionary, and offered to accompany me in my excursion to the North of England, Scotland, and Wales. I cannot recur to that delightful journey without a few words of grateful and affectionate tribute to the friend who sustained me by his sympathy and guided me by his knowledge and experience.

For many years I had enjoyed the privilege of personal acquaintance with Dr. Buckland, and in 1834, when engaged in the investigation of fossil fishes, I had travelled with him through parts of England and Scotland, and had derived invaluable assistance from his friendly advice and direction. To him I was indebted for an introduction to all the geologists and palæontologists of Great Britain, with none of whom, except Lyell, had I any previous personal acquaintance; and through him I obtained not only leave to examine all the fossil fishes in public and private collections throughout England, but the unprecedented privilege of bringing them together for closer comparison in the rooms of the Geological Society of London. A few years later he visited Switzerland, when I had the pleasure of showing him, in my turn, the glacial phenomena of my native country, to the study of which I was then devoting all my spare time. After a thorough survey of the facts I had collected, he became satisfied that my interpretation of them was likely to prove correct, and even then he recalled phenomena of his own country, which, under the new light thrown upon them by the glacial phenomena of Switzerland, gave a promise of success to my extraordinary venture. We then resolved to pursue the inquiry together on the occasion of my next visit to England; and after the meeting in Glasgow of the British Association for Advancement of Science, we started together for the mountains of Scotland in search of traces of the glaciers, which, if there was any truth in the generalizations to which my study of the Swiss glaciers had led me, must have come down from the Grampian range, and reached the level of the sea, as they do now in Greenland.

On the fourth of November of that year I read a paper before the Geological Society of London, containing a summary of the scientific results of that excursion, which I had extended with the same success to Ireland and parts of England. This paper was followed by one from Dr. Buckland himself, containing an account of his own observations, and another from Lyell on the same subject. From that time, the investigation of glaciers in regions where they no longer occur has been carried to almost every part of the globe. Before giving a more special account of this expedition, I will say a word of the mass of facts which I had brought from my Alpine researches, on which my own convictions were founded, and which seemed to Buckland worthy of careful consideration. To explain these more fully to my readers, I must leave the Scotch hills for a while, and beg them to return with me to Switzerland once more.

Thus far I have spoken chiefly of the advance of glaciers, and very justly, since they are in constant onward motion, being kept within their limits only by a waste at their lower extremity proportionate to their advance. But in considering the past history of glaciers, we must think of their changes as retrograde, not progressive movements; since, if the glacial theory be true, a great mass of ice, of which the present glaciers are but the remnants, formerly spread over the whole Northern hemisphere, and has gradually disappeared, until now no traces of it are to be found, except in the Arctic regions and in lofty mountain-ranges. Every terminal moraine, such as I described in the last article, is the retreating footprint of some glacier, as it slowly yielded its possession of the plain, and betook itself to the mountains; wherever we find one of these ancient semicircular walls of unusual size, there we may be sure the glacier resolutely set its icy foot, disputing the ground inch by inch, while heat and cold strove for the mastery. There may have been a succession of cold summers, or, if now and then a warmer summer intervened, a colder one followed, so that the glacier regained the next year the ground it had lost during the preceding one, thus continuing to oscillate for a number of years along the same line, and adding constantly to the débris collected at its extremity. Wherever such oscillations and pauses in the retreat of the glacier occurred, all the materials annually brought down to its terminus were collected; and when it finally disappeared from that point, it left a wall to mark its temporary resting-place.

By these semicircular concentric walls we can trace the retreat of the ice as it withdrew from the plain of Switzerland to the fastnesses of the Alps. It paused at Berne, and laid the foundation of the present city, which is built on an ancient moraine; it made a stand again at the Lake of Thun, and barred its northern outlet by a wall which holds its waters back to this day. Other moraines, though less distinct, are visible nearer the base of the Bernese Alps, and, above Meyringen, the valley is spanned by one of very large dimensions. Again, on the other side of the first chain of high peaks, the glacier of the Rhone, descending the valley toward the Lake of Geneva, has everywhere left traces of its ancient extension. We find the valley crossed at various distances by concentric moraines, until we reach the lake. There are no less than thirteen concentric moraines immediately below the present termination of the glacier of the Rhone, the one nearest to the ice, and the last formed, marking its present boundary. Others are visible half a mile, a mile, and two or three miles beyond, near the villages of Obergestelen and Münster. One of the largest and finest of these ancient moraines of the glacier of the Rhone stands at Viesch, and extends across the whole valley, while the Rhone, already swollen by many mountain-torrents, has cut its way through it. Lower down, we meet with traces of other ancient glaciers, reaching laterally the main glacier, which occupied the centre of the valley: such was the glacier of Viesch, when it extended as far down as the village;[49] such was the glacier of Aletsch, when it added its burden of ice to that coming from the upper valley; such was the glacier of the Simplon, whose moraines, of less antiquity, may now be seen by the road-side leading over the Alps to Italy; such were the two gigantic twin glaciers that drained the northern slopes of the mountain-colosses around Monte Rosa and Matterhorn, united at Stalden, and thence, losing their independence, became simply lateral tributaries of the great glacier of the Rhone; such were, farther on, the glaciers coming down from all the side-valleys opening into the Rhone basin; such were the glaciers of the St. Bernard, and even those of Chamouni, which in those early days crossed the Tête Noire to unite below Martigny with those that filled the valley of the Rhone. Thus the outlines of this glacier may be followed from its present remnant at the summit of the Valais, where the Rhone now springs forth from the ice, to the very shores of the Lake of Geneva, where, near the mouth of the river, on both banks of the valley, the ancient moraines may be traced to this day, thousands of feet above the level of the water, marking the course the glacier once followed.

It is evident that here the remains of the glacier mark a process of retrogression; for had these successive walls of loose materials been deposited in consequence of the advance of the glacier, they would have been pushed together in one heap at its lower end. That such would have been the case is not mere inference, but has been determined by direct observation in other localities. We know, for instance, by historical record, (see Gruner's "Natural History of the Glaciers of Switzerland,") that in the seventeenth century a number of successive moraines existed at Grindelwald, which have since been driven together by the advance of the glacier, and now form but one. Indeed, we have ample traditional evidence of the oscillations of glacier-boundaries in recent times. When I was engaged in the investigation of this subject, I sought out all the chronicles kept in old convents or libraries which might throw any light upon it. Among other records, I chanced upon the following, which may have some interest for the historian as well as the geologist.

During the religious wars of the sixteenth century, when the Catholics gained the ascendancy in the Canton of Valais, the inhabitants of the upper valleys adhered to the Protestant faith. Shut out from ordinary communication with the Protestant churches by the Bernese Oberland, the account states that these peasants braved every obstacle to the exercise of their religion, and used to carry their children over a certain road by the valley of Viesch, across the Alps, to be baptized at Grindelwald, on the farther side of the glaciers of Aletsch and Viesch. I could not understand this statement, for no such road exists, or could be conceived possible at present; nor was there any knowledge of it among the guides, intimate as they are with every feature of the region. Impressed, however, with the idea that there must be some foundation for the statement, I carefully examined the ground, and, penetrating under the glacier of Aletsch, I actually found, a number of feet below the present level of the ice, the paved road along which these hardy people travelled to church with their children, and some traces of which are still visible. It has been almost completely buried, although here and there it reappears; but at this day it is completely impassable for ordinary travel.

Evidence of a like character is found in a number of facts cited by Venetz in his celebrated paper upon the variations of temperature in the Swiss Alps, drawn from the parish and commune registers of the Canton of Valais. Among these are acts concerning the right to roads which are now either entirely hidden by ice, or rendered nearly useless by the advance of the glacier, a lawsuit respecting the use of a forest which no longer exists, but the site of which is covered by a glacier, and other records of a similar character. The only document, so far as I know, previous to this century, which furnishes the means of delineating with any accuracy the former boundary of a glacier, is a topographical plan of the environs of the Grimsel, including the extremity of the Aar, making a part of Altmann's work upon the Alps.

In 1740, Kapeler, a physician of Lucerne, undertook a journey to the mountains of the Aar, to visit certain crystal grottos, now well known, but then recently discovered. He prepared a map of these grottos and their vicinity, in which they are represented as being situated at some distance from the extremity of the glacier, the lower end of which is now considerably beyond them.[50]

But to return to the glacier of the Rhone. We can detect the sequence and relative age of its ancient moraines, not only by their position with reference to each other and to the present glacier, but also by their vegetation. The older ones have a mature vegetation; indeed, some of the largest trees of the valley stand upon the lower moraines, while those higher up, nearer the glacier, have only comparatively small trees, and the more recent ones are almost bare of vegetation. Moreover, we do not lose the track of the great glacier of the Rhone even when we have followed its ancient boundaries to the shores of the Lake of Geneva; for along its northern and southern shores we can follow the lateral moraines marking the limits of the glacier which once occupied that crescent-shaped depression now filled by the blue waters of the lake.

M. de Charpentier was the first geologist who attempted to draw the outlines of the glacier of the Rhone during its greatest extension, when it not only filled the basin of the Lake of Geneva, but stretched across the hilly plain to the north, reached the foot of the Jura, and even rose to a considerable height along the southern slope of that chain of mountains. At that time the colossal glacier spread at its extremity like a fan, extending westward in the direction of Geneva and eastward towards Soleure.[51] The very minute and extensive investigations of Professor A. Guyot upon the erratic boulders of Switzerland have not only confirmed the statements of M. de Charpentier, but even shown that the northeastern boundary of the ancient glacier of the Rhone was more extensive than was at first supposed. Other researches upon the ancient moraines along the shores of the Lake of Geneva, and in other parts of Switzerland, in which most geologists of the day took an active part, have made us as fully conversant with the successive outlines and varying extent of the principal glaciers ranging from the Alpine summits to the surrounding lowlands as we are with the glaciers in their present circumscription. But no one has done as much as Professor Guyot to add precision to these investigations. The number of localities, the level of which he has determined barometrically, with the view of fixing the ancient levels of all these vanished glaciers, is almost incredible. The result of all these surveys has been a distinct recognition of not less than seven gigantic glaciers descending from the northern and western slopes of the Alps to the adjoining hilly plains of Switzerland and France. It is most interesting to trace their outlines upon a recent map of those countries, but it requires that kind of intellectual effort of the imagination without which the most brilliant results of modern science remain an unmeaning record to us. Let us, nevertheless, try to follow.

The glacier of the Rhone, occupying the whole space between the Bernese and Valesian Alps, filled to overflowing the valley of the Rhone; at Martigny it was met by a large tributary from Mont Blanc, by the side of which it advanced into the plain beyond, filling the whole Lake of Geneva, and covering the beautiful Canton de Vaud and parts of Fribourg, Neuchâtel, Berne, and Soleure, rising to the crest of the Jura, and in many points penetrating even beyond its outer range.

To the east of this, the largest of all the ancient glaciers of Switzerland, we find the ancient glacier of the Aar, descending from the northern slope of the whole range of the Bernese Oberland. The glaciers that once filled the valley of Hasli, from the Grimsel to Meyringen, and those that came down from the Wetterhörner, the Schreckhörner, the Finster-Aarhorn, and the Jungfrau, through the valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, united in a common bed, the bottom of which was the present basin of the Lakes of Brientz and Thun. These were joined by the glaciers emptying their burden through the valley of the Kander. To these combined glaciers the formation of the terminal moraine of Thun must be ascribed. But before this had been formed, the glacier of the Aar, in its amplest extension, had also reached the foot of the Jura, without, however, spreading so widely as the glacier of the Rhone. Farther to the east Professor Guyot has traced the boundaries of three other colossal glaciers, one of which derived its chief supplies from the Alps of Uri, bringing with it all the tributaries which the main glacier coming down from the St. Gothard received right and left, in its course through the valley of the Reuss and the basins of the Lakes of Lucerne and Zug. The second, born in the Canton of Glaris, followed mainly the present course of the Linth and the basin of the Lake of Zurich. Professor Escher von der Linth has shown that the lovely city of Zurich is built upon a moraine, like Berne. The imagination shrinks from the thought that all the beautiful scenery of those countries should once have been hidden under masses of ice, like those now covering Greenland. The easternmost ancient glacier of Switzerland is that of the Rhine, arising from all the valleys from which now descend the many tributaries of that stream, spreading over the northeastern Cantons, filling the Lake of Constance, and terminating at the foot of the Suabian Alp. Next to the glacier of the Rhone, this was once the largest of those descending from the range of the Alps.

West of Mont Blanc Professor Guyot has traced the boundaries of two other distinct ancient glaciers; one of which, the glacier of the Arve, followed chiefly the course of the Arve, and, though discharging the icy accumulations from the western slope of Mont Blanc, was, as it were, only a lateral affluent of the great glacier of the Rhone. The other, the glacier of the Isère, occupied, to the south and west of the preceding, the large triangular space intervening between the Alps and the Jura, in that part of Savoy where the two mountain-chains converge and become united.

It would lead me too far, were I to describe also the course of the great ancient glaciers which descended from the southern slopes of the Alps into the plain of Northern Italy. Moreover, these boundaries are not yet ascertained with the same degree of accuracy as those of the northern and western slopes; though very accurate descriptions of some of them have been published, with illustrations on a large scale, by MM. Martins and Gastaldi, and of others by Professor Ramsey. I have myself examined only the upper part of that of the valley of Aosta.

The evidence concerning the ancient glaciers of the Alps, especially within the limits of Switzerland, is already so full that it affords ample means for a comprehensive general view of the subject. It is frequently the case, that, when a stretch of time or space lies between us and a matter we have once studied more closely, it presents itself to us as a whole more vividly than when our nearness to it forced all its details upon our observation. In my present position, now that the lapse of many years separates me from my personal investigations of the ancient and modern glaciers, and I look back upon them from another continent, it seems to me that I have, as it were, a bird's-eye view of their whole extent; and I confess that this distant retrospect of the subject has been to me almost as fascinating as were the researches of my earlier years in the same direction. I wish that I could present it to the minds of my readers with something of the attraction it possesses for me. I trust, however, that I have made it plain to them that the great mountain-chain of the Alps has been a central axis from which immense glaciers at one time descended in every direction, not only to its base, beyond which the lowlands extend in flat undulations, but to a greater or less distance over the adjoining plains; while at present they are confined to the higher valleys. So far, then, notwithstanding the extraordinary difference in their dimensions, at the time they reached the Jura and the plain of Northern Italy, when compared with what they are now, they seem directly connected with the Alps, and the mountains appear as their birthplace; so much so that the first attempts at a generalization concerning their origin started from the assumption that they must have been formed between the high ridges from which they seem to flow down. These facts, then the only ones known concerning a greater extension of the glaciers, naturally led to the views advocated by M. de Charpentier. My own theory was also at first, that the upheaval of the Alps must, in some way or other, have been connected with these phenomena. But it soon became evident to me that these views were inadequate to account for the former presence of extensive glaciers in other parts of Europe; and even within the range of the Alps there were insuperable objections to their final admission. If the ancient glaciers had been first formed among the highest mountains, and extended downwards into the plains, the largest and highest moraines ought to be the most distant, and to be formed of the most rounded masses; whereas the actual condition of the detrital accumulations is the reverse, the distant materials being widely spread, and true moraines being found only in valleys connected with great chains of lofty mountains.

Again, all these moraines are within one another,—the most distant from the glacier to which they owe their origin encircling all those which are nearer and nearer to it within the same glacial basin. And as no glacier could reach to its farthest moraine without pushing forward all the intervening loose materials, it is self-evident that the outer moraines were first formed, and those nearer the glacier subsequently, in the order in which they follow one another from the lower valleys to the higher levels at which alone glaciers exist at present. Translating these facts into words, we see that the glaciers to which these ancient moraines owe their origin must have been retreating gradually while the moraines were accumulating. But a glacier while uniformly retreating forms no high walls of loose materials around its edges and at its lower extremity; as it melts away, it only drops the burden of angular rocky fragments which it carries upon its back over the loose fragments above which it moves, and which it grinds to powder, or to sand, or to rounded pebbles, in its progress. It is only where the glacier remains stationary for a longer or shorter period that large terminal moraines can accumulate; and they are generally found in such places in the valleys of the Alps as would naturally determine the lower limit of a glacier for the time being. There is no possibility of escaping the conclusion that the ancient glaciers must have begun that series of oscillations to which the accumulation of the moraines is to be ascribed, at a time when ice-fields already occupied the whole area which they have covered during their greatest extension. After we shall have seen how many centres of dispersion of erratic boulders existed in the northern hemisphere, similar to that of the Alps, we may perhaps be able to form some idea of the manner in which these ice-fields originated and gradually vanished.

Some investigators have been inclined to explain the presence of boulders, moraines, drift, and the like phenomena, by the action of water. But even if we could believe that rivers had brought along with them such masses of rock, and deposited them where they are now found, the regularity in the distribution of the materials disproves any such theory. In the lateral moraines of the Lake of Geneva we have a striking illustration of this apparently systematic division of the loose materials; for the northeastern moraines of that glacial basin contain rocks belonging exclusively to the northern side of the valley of the Rhone, while the moraines on the southern shore of the lake consist of rocks belonging to its southern side. Indeed, rivers, so far from building up moraines, have often partially destroyed them. We find various instances of moraines through which a river runs, having worn for itself a passage, on either side of which the form of the moraine remains unbroken. In the valley of the Rhone there are villages built on such moraines, as, for instance, Viesch, with the river running through their centre.

But if we need further confirmation of the fact that these accumulations on either side of this and other Swiss lakes are ancient lateral moraines, we have it in their connection with walls of a like nature at their lower end, where we find again transverse moraines barring their outlet, and also in the continuity of long trains of fragments of similar rocks extending side by side across wide plains for great distances without mixture. From the beginning of my investigations upon the glaciers, I have urged these two points as most directly proving their greater extension in former times, and more recent researches constantly recur to this kind of evidence. All our lakes would be filled with loose materials, had their basins not been sheltered by ice against the encroachments of river-deposits during the transportation of the erratic boulders to the farthest limits of their respective areas; and all the continuous trails of rocks derived from the same locality would have been scattered over wide areas, had they not been carried along, in unyielding tracks, like moraines. On a small scale the waters of the Rhone and of the Arve recall to this day such a picture. There are few travellers in Switzerland who have not seen these two rivers, where they flow side by side, meeting, but not mingling, at the southern extremity of the lake, the different color of their water marking the two parallel currents. In old times, when the glaciers filled all the valleys at the base of Mont Blanc, and to the east of it, uniting in the valley through which now runs the River Rhone, the glacier of the Arve came down to meet the ice from the valley of the Rhone, in the same manner as the River Arve now comes to meet the waters of the Rhone where they rush out from the southern end of the lake.

This would be the proper place to consider the formation of the lakes of Switzerland, as well as their preservation by the agency of glaciers. But this subject is so intricate, and has already given rise to so many controversies which could not be overlooked in this connection, that I prefer to pass it over altogether in silence. Suffice it to say that not only are most of the lakes of Switzerland hemmed in by transverse moraines at their lower extremity, but the lakes of Upper Italy, at the foot of the Alps, are barred in the same way, as are also the lakes of Norway and Sweden, and some of our own ponds and lakes. Strange as it may seem to the traveller who sails under an Italian sky over the lovely waters of Como, Maggiore, and Lugano, it is, nevertheless, true, that these depressions were once filled by solid masses of ice, and that the walls built by the old glaciers still block their southern outlets. Indeed, were it not for these moraines, there would be comparatively few lakes either in Northern Italy or in Switzerland. The greater part of them have such a wall built across one end; and but for this masonry of the glacier, there would have been nothing to prevent their waters from flowing out into the plain at the breaking up of the ice-period. We should then have had open valleys in place of all these sheets of water which give such diversity and beauty to the scenery of Northern Italy and Switzerland, or, at least, the lakes would be much fewer and occupy only the deeper depressions in the hard rocks.

Such being the evidences of the former extent of the glaciers in the plains, what do the mountain-summits tell us of their height and depth? for here, also, they have left their handwriting on the wall. Every mountain-side in the Alps is inscribed with these ancient characters, recording the level of the ice in past times. Here and there a ledge or terrace on the wall of the valley has afforded support for the lateral moraines, and wherever such an accumulation is left, it marks the limit of the ice at some former period. These indications are, however, uncertain and fragmentary, depending upon projections of the rocky walls. But thousands of feet above the present level of the glacier, far up toward their summits, we find the sides of the mountains furrowed, scratched, and polished in exactly the same manner as the surfaces over which the glaciers pass at present. These marks are as legible and clear to one who is familiar with glacial traces as are hieroglyphics to the Egyptian scholar; indeed, more so,—for he not only recognizes their presence, but reads their meaning at a glance. Above the line at which these indications cease, the edges of the rocks are sharp and angular, the surface of the mountain rough, unpolished, and absolutely devoid of all those marks resulting from glacial action. On the Alps these traces are visible to a height of nine thousand feet, and across the whole plain of Switzerland, as I have stated, one may trace the glaciers by their moraines, by the masses of rock they have let fall here and there, by the drift they have deposited, to the very foot of the opposite chain, where they have dropped their boulders along the base of the Jura. Ascending that chain, one finds the grooved, polished, and scratched surfaces to its summit, on the very crest of which boulders entirely foreign to the locality are perched. Follow the range down upon the other side and you find the same indications extending into the plains of Burgundy and France beyond.

With a chain of evidence so complete, it seems to me impossible to deny that the whole space between the opposite chains of the Alps and the Jura was once filled with ice; that this mass of ice completely covered the Jura, with the exception of a few high crests, perhaps, rising island-like above it, and mounted to a height of some nine thousand feet upon the Alps, while it extended on the one side into the northern plain of Italy, filling all its depressions, and on the other down to the plains of Central Europe. The only natural inference from these facts is, that the climatic conditions leading to their existence could not have been local; they must have been cosmic. When Switzerland was bridged across from range to range by a mass of ice stretching southward into Lombardy and Tuscany, northward into France and Burgundy, the rest of Europe could not have remained unaffected by the causes which induced this state of things.

It was this conviction which led me to seek for the traces of glaciers in Great Britain. I had never been in the regions I intended to visit, but I knew the forms of the valleys in the lake-country of England, in the Highlands of Scotland, and in the mountains of Wales and Ireland, and I was as confident that I should find them crossed by terminal moraines and bordered by lateral ones, as if I had already seen them.

The reader must not suppose, when I describe these walls, formed of the débris of the glacier, as consisting of boulders, stones, pebbles, sand, and gravel, a rough accumulation of loose materials indiscriminately thrown together, that we find the ancient moraines presenting any such appearance. Time, which mellows and softens all the wrecks of the past, has clothed them with turf, grassed them over, planted them with trees, sown his seed and gathered in his harvests upon them, until at last they make a part of the undulating surface of the country. Were it not for anticipating my story, I could point out many a green billow, rising out of the fields and meadows immediately about us, that had its origin in the old ice-time. Thus disguised, they are not so evident to the casual observer; but, nevertheless, when once familiar with the peculiar form, character, and position of these rounded ridges scattered over the face of the country, they are easily recognized.

Of course, the ancient glaciers of Great Britain were far more difficult to trace than those of Switzerland, where the present glaciers are guides to the old ones. But, nevertheless, my expectations were more than answered. The first valley I entered in the glacial regions of Scotland was barred by a terminal moraine; and throughout the North of England, as well as in Scotland and Ireland, I found the hill-sides covered with traces of glacial action, as distinct and unmistakable as those I had left in my native land. And not only was the surface of the country polished, grooved, and scratched, as in the region of existing glaciers, and presenting an appearance corresponding exactly to that described elsewhere, but we could track the path of the boulders where they had come down from the hills above and been carried from the mouth of each valley far down into the plains below. In Scotland and Ireland the phenomena were especially interesting. I had intended to give in this article some account of the "parallel roads" of Glenroy, marking the ancient levels of glacier-lakes, so much discussed in this connection. But the reminiscences of old friends, and the many associations revived in my mind by recurring to a subject which I have long looked upon as a closed chapter, so far as my own researches are concerned, have constantly led me beyond the limits I had prescribed to myself in these papers upon glaciers; and as the story of Glenroy and the phenomena connected with it is a long one, I shall reserve it for a subsequent number.

BRYANT.

The literary life of Bryant begins with the publication of "Thanatopsis" in the "North American Review," in 1816; for we need take no account of those earlier blossoms, plucked untimely from the tree, as they had been prematurely expanded by the heat of party politics. The strain of that song was of a higher mood. In those days, when American literature spoke with faint and feeble voice, like the chirp of half-awakened birds in the morning twilight, we need not say what cordial welcome was extended to a poem which embodied in blank verse worthy of anybody since Milton thoughts of the highest reach and noblest power, or what wonder was mingled with the praise when it was announced that this grand and majestic moral teaching and this rich and sustained music were the work of a boy of eighteen. Not that Bryant was no more than eighteen when "Thanatopsis" was printed, for he must pay one of the tributes of eminence in having all the world know that he was born in 1794; but he was no more than eighteen when it was written, and surely never was there riper fruit plucked from so young a tree. And now we have before us, with the imprint of 1864, his latest volume, entitled "Thirty Poems." Between this date and that of the publication of "Thanatopsis" there sweeps an arch of forty-eight years. With Bryant these have been years of manly toil, of resolute sacrifice, of faithful discharge of all the duties of life. The cultivation of the poetical faculty is not always favorable to the growth of the character, but Bryant is no less estimable as a man than admirable as a poet. It has been his lot to earn his bread by the exercise of the prose part of his mind,—by those qualities which he has in common with other men,—and his poetry has been written in the intervals and breathing-spaces of a life of regular industry. This necessity for ungenial toil may have added something to the shyness and gravity of the poet's manners; but it has doubtless given earnestness, concentration, depth, and a strong flavor of life to his verse. Had he been a man of leisure, he might have written more, but he could hardly have written better. And nothing tends more to prolong to old age the freshness of feeling and the sensibility to impressions which are characteristic of the poetical temperament than the dedication of a portion of every day to some kind of task-work. The sweetest flowers are those which grow upon the rocks of renunciation. Byron at thirty-seven was a burnt-out volcano: Bryant at threescore and ten is as sensitive to the touch of beauty as at twenty.

The poetry of Bryant is not great in amount, but it represents a great deal of work, as few men are more finished artists than he, or more patient in shaping and polishing their productions. No piece of verse ever leaves his hands till it has received the last touch demanded by the most correct judgment and the most fastidious taste. Thus the style of his poetry is always admirable. Nowhere can one find in what he has written a careless or slovenly expression, an awkward phrase, or an ill-chosen word. He never puts in an epithet to fill out a line, and never uses one which could be improved by substituting another. The range within which he moves is not wide. He has not written narrative or dramatic poems: he has not painted poetical portraits: he has not aspired to the honors of satire, of wit, or of humor: he has made no contributions to the poetry of passion. His poems may be divided into two great classes,—those which express the moral aspects of humanity, and those which interpret the language of Nature; though it may be added that in not a few of his productions these two elements are combined. Those of the former class are not so remarkable for originality of treatment as for the beauty and truth with which they express the reflections of the general mind and the emotions of the general heart. In these poems we see our own experience returned to us, touched with the lights and colored with the hues of the most exquisite poetry. Their tone is grave and high, but not gloomy or morbid: the edges of the cloud of life are turned to gold by faith and hope. Of the poems of this class, "Thanatopsis," of which we have already spoken, is one of the best known. Others are the "Hymn to Death," "The Old Man's Funeral," "A Forest Hymn," "The Lapse of Time," "An Evening Reverie," "The Old Man's Counsel," and "The Past." This last is one of the noblest of his productions, full of solemn beauty and melancholy music, and we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting a few of its stanzas.

"Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

"Far in thy realm withdrawn,
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

"Childhood, with all its mirth,
Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground,
And last, Man's Life on earth,
Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

* * * * *

"In thy abysses hide
Beauty and excellence unknown,—to thee
Earth's wonder and her pride
Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;

"Labors of good to man,
Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,—
Love, that 'midst grief began,
And grew with years, and faltered not in death.

"Full many a mighty name
Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered;
With thee are silent fame.
Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.

"Thine for a space are they,—
Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last;
Thy gates shall yet give way,
Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!

"All that of good and fair
Has gone into thy womb from earliest time
Shall then come forth to wear
The glory and the beauty of its prime."

Here is nothing new. It is the old, sad strain, of coeval birth with poetry itself. It may be read in the Hebrew of the Book of Job and in the Greek of Homer: but with what dignity of sentiment, what majestic music, what beauty of language, the oft-repeated lesson of humanity is enforced! Every word is chosen with unerring judgment, and no needless dilution of language weakens the force of the conceptions and pictures. Bryant is one of the few poets who will bear the test of the well-nigh obsolete art of verbal criticism: observe the expressions, "silent fame," "forgotten arts," "wisdom disappeared": how exactly these epithets satisfy the ear and the mind! how impossible to change any one of them for the better!

In Bryant's descriptive poems there is the same finished execution and the same beauty of style as in his reflective and didactic poems, with more originality of treatment. It was his fortune to be born and reared in the western part of Massachusetts, and to become familiar with some of the most beautiful inland scenery of New England in youth and early manhood, when the mind takes impressions which the attrition of life never wears out. In his study of Nature he combines the faculty and the vision, the eye of the naturalist and the imagination of the poet. No man observes the outward shows of earth and sky more accurately; no man feels them more vividly; no man describes them more beautifully. He was the first of our poets who, deserting the conventional paths in which imitators move, studied and delineated Nature as it exists in New England, modified by the elements of a comparatively low latitude, a brilliant sky, uncertain springs, short and hot summers, richly colored autumns, and winters of pure and crystal cold. The merit and the popularity of Bryant's descriptive poetry prove how intimate is the relation between imagination and truth, and how the poet who is faithful to the highest requisitions of his art must obey laws as rigid as those of science itself. Here, at the risk of making our readers read again what they may have read before, we transcribe a passage from a memorandum of Mr. Morritt's, containing an account of Scott's proceedings while studying the localities of "Rokeby":—

"I observed him noting down even the peculiar little wild flowers and herbs that accidentally grew round and on the side of a bold crag near his intended Cave of Grey Denzil, and could not help saying, that, as he was not to be upon oath in his work, daisies, violets, and primroses would be as poetical as any of the humble plants he was examining. I laughed, in short, at his scrupulousness; but I understood him when he replied, 'that in Nature no two scenes were exactly alike, and that whoever copied truly what was before his eyes would possess the same variety in his descriptions, and exhibit apparently an imagination as boundless as the range of Nature in the scenes he recorded; whereas, whoever trusted to his imagination would soon find his own mind circumscribed and contracted to a few images, and the repetition of these would sooner or later produce that very monotony and barrenness which had always haunted descriptive poetry in the hands of any but the patient worshippers of truth.'"

This is excellent good sense, and the descriptive poetry of Bryant shows how carefully he has observed the rules which Scott has laid down. He never has a conventional image, and never resorts to the second-hand frippery of a poetical commonplace-book to tag his verses with. Every season of our American year has been delineated by him, and the drawing and coloring of his pictures are always correct. Our American springs, for instance, are not at all the ideal or poetical springs, and Bryant does not pretend that they are; and yet he can find a poetical side to them, as witness his poem entitled "March":—

"The stormy March is come at last,
With wind, and cloud, and changing skies:
I hear the rushing of the blast
That through the snowy valley flies.

"Ah, passing few are they who speak,
Wild, stormy month! in praise of thee;
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.

"For thou to northern lands again
The glad and glorious sun dost bring;
And them hast joined the gentle train,
And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.

"And in thy reign of blast and storm
Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day,
When the changed winds are soft and warm,
And heaven puts on the blue of May."

This is all as strictly true as if it were drawn up for an affidavit. March, as we all know, is the eldest daughter of Winter, and bitterly like her grim sire. The snow which has melted from the uplands lingers in the valleys; the storms, and the cloudy skies, and the rushing blasts mark the sullen retreat of winter; but the days are growing longer, the sun mounts higher, and sometimes a soft and vernal air flows from the blue sky, like Burns's daisy "glinting forth" amid the storm.

March and April come and go, and May succeeds. Hers is not quite the "blue, voluptuous eye" she wears in the portraits which poets paint of her, and those who court her smiles are sometimes chilled by decidedly wintry glances. Bryant gives us her best aspect:—

"The sun of May was bright in middle heaven,
And steeped the sprouting forests, the green hills,
And emerald wheat-fields, in his yellow light.
Upon the apple-tree, where rosy buds
Stood clustered, ready to burst forth in bloom,
The robin warbled forth his full clear note
For hours, and wearied not. Within the woods,
Where young and half-transparent leaves scarce cast
A shade, gay circles of anemones
Danced on their stalks; the shad-bush, white with flowers,
Brightened the glens; the new-leaved butternut
And quivering poplar to the roving breeze
Gave a balsamic fragrance."

How admirable this is! And with what truth, we had almost said courage, the poet makes his report. The emerald wheat-fields, the rosy buds of the apple-tree, the half-transparent leaves of the trees, the anemones on their restless stalks, the shad-bush (Amelanchier Botryapium), the quivering poplars, and the peculiar balsamic odor which one perceives in the woods at that season are so exactly what we find in our New-England May! How much better these distinct statements are than a tissue of generalities about flowery wreaths, and fragrant zephyrs, and genial rays, and fresh verdure, and vernal airs, and ambrosial dews!

But the year goes on. Our fitful and capricious spring passes by, and summer takes its place. But our New-England summer is not like the summer of Thomson and Cowper, and images drawn from English poetry and transplanted here would be out of place; and our faithful interpreter of American Nature takes nothing at second-hand. How correctly he delineates the characteristic features of our glorious month of June!

"There, through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.
The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale close beside my cell;
The idle butterfly
Should rest him here, and there be heard
The housewife-bee and humming-bird."

The housewife-bee is an expressive epithet. Does it involve a double meaning, and insinuate that as a bee carries a sting, so women who are stirring, notable, and good housekeepers have something sharp in their natures?

Next comes midsummer with its fervid and overpowering heats, which find in our poet also an accurate delineator.

"It is a sultry day: the sun has drunk
The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee,
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again
Instantly on the wing. The plants around
Feel the too potent fervors: the tall maize
Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills
With all their growth of woods, silent and stern,
As if the scorching heat and dazzling light
Were but an element they loved."

But our radiant and many-colored autumn is Bryant's favorite season, and some of his most beautiful and characteristic passages are those which paint its hues of crimson and purple, and the vaporous gold of its atmosphere. Such is the number of these passages that it is difficult to make a selection of one or two for quotation. Here is one from "Autumn Woods."

"Let in through all the trees,
Come the strange rays; the forest-depths are bright;
Their sunny-colored foliage, in the breeze,
Twinkles like beams of light.

"The rivulet, late unseen,
Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run,
Shines with the image of its golden screen
And glimmerings of the sun.

"But, 'neath yon crimson tree,
Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,
Her blush of maiden shame."

Here is nothing imitative or borrowed, and here are no unmeaning generalities. Everything is exact and local,—drawn from an American autumn, and no other. And how lovely an image is that in the third stanza, and what an added charm it gives to an object in itself most beautiful!

But our renders must indulge us with one more quotation under this head, although we take it from one of the most popular—perhaps the most popular—of his poems, "The Death of the Flowers."

"The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.
And now, when comes the calm mid-day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home,
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south-wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more."

Of the poetry of these exquisite lines, the melancholy sweetness of the sentiment, the delicate beauty of the versification, we need not say one word, but we claim a moment's attention to their fidelity to truth, and the accuracy of observation which they evince. The golden-rod and the aster are the characteristic autumn flowers in that zone of our continent in which New England is embraced, and the sunflower is a very common flower at that season. That lovely child of the declining year, the fringed gentian, would doubtless have been brought in with her fair sisters, had it not been for her somewhat unmanageable name. Bryant has written some beautiful stanzas to this flower, but in them he only calls it a "blossom." And how fine a landscape is condensed into the two delicious hues which we have Italicized! and yet no one ever walked into a New-England wood on a late day in autumn without hearing the nuts drop upon the withered leaves, and seeing the streams flash through the smoke-like haze which hangs over the landscape.

But winter, especially our clear and sparkling New-England winter, has its scenes of splendor and aspects of beauty; and the poet would not be true to his calling, if he failed to recognize them.

"Come when the rains
Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees with ice,
While the slant sun of February pours
Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach!
The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps,
And the broad arching portals of the grove
Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy
Trunks are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,
Is studded with its trembling water-drops
That glimmer with an amethystine light;
But round the parent stem the long, low boughs
Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbors hide
The glassy floor."

There are many more lines equally good, but we have not space for them. This is a description of winter as we have it here, compounded of the elements of extreme cold, a transparent atmosphere, and brilliant sunshine. No English poet can see such a scene, at least in his own country: Ambrose Phillips did see something like it in Sweden, and described it in a poetical epistle to the Earl of Dorset, which is much the best thing he ever wrote, and has a pulse of truth and life in it, from the simple fact that he saw something new, and told his noble correspondent what he saw.

But Bryant's claims to the honors of a truly national poet do not rest solely upon the fidelity with which he has described the peculiar scenery of his native land, for no poet has expressed with more earnestness of conviction and more beauty of language the great ideas which have moulded our political institutions and our social life. Before the breaking out of the Civil War he was a member of that great political party of which Jefferson was the head, and he is still a Democrat in the primitive sense of the word; that is to say, he believes in man's capacity for self-government, and in his right to govern himself. He has full trust in human progress; age has not lessened the faith with which he looks forward to the future; his sympathies are with the many, and not with the few. Though he has travelled much in Europe, his imagination has been but little affected by the forms of beauty and grandeur which past ages have bequeathed to the present. He has not found inspiration in the palace, the cathedral, the ruined castle, the ivy-covered church, the rose-embowered cottage. Indeed, it is only by incidental and occasional touches that one would learn from his poetry that he had ever been out of his own country at all: his inspiration and his themes are alike drawn from the scenery, the institutions, the history of his native land. His imagination, as was the case with Milton, rests upon a basis of gravity deepening into sternness; and we have little doubt that not a few of the things in Europe, which move to pleasure the lightly stirred fancy of many American travellers, aroused in him a different feeling, as either memorials of an age or expressions of a system in which the many were sacrificed to the few. In his mental frame there is a pulse of indignation which is easily stirred against any form of injustice or oppression. His later poems, as might naturally be expected, are those in which the sentiments and aspirations of a patriotic and hopeful American are most distinctly expressed; among them are "The Battle-Field," "The Winds," "The Antiquity of Freedom," and that which is called, from its first line, "O Mother of a Mighty Race." It would be well to read these poems in connection with the seventeenth chapter of the second volume of De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," which treats of the sources of poetry among democratic nations; and the comparison will furnish fresh cause for admiring the prophetic sagacity of that great philosophical thinker, who, at the time he wrote, predicted all our future, because he comprehended all our past.

And here we pray the indulgence of our readers to a rather liberal citation from one of these later poems, because it enables us to illustrate from his own lips what we have just been saying. It is also one of those passages, not uncommon in modern poetry, in which the poet admits us to his confidence, and lets us see the working of the machinery as well as its product. It is from "The Painted Cup," a poem so called from a scarlet flower of that name found upon the Western prairies,

"Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not
That these bright chalices were tinted thus
To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet
On moonlight evenings in the hazel-bowers,
And dance till they are thirsty. Call not up,
Amid this fresh and virgin solitude,
The faded fancies of an elder world;
But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths
Of June, and glistening flies, and hummingbirds,
To drink from, when on all these boundless lawns
The morning sun looks hot. Or let the wind
O'erturn in sport their ruddy brims, and pour
A sudden shower upon the strawberry-plant,
To swell the reddening fruit that even now
Breathes a slight fragrance from the sunny slope.

"But thou art of a gayer fancy. Well,
Let, then, the gentle Manitou of flowers,
Lingering amid the bloomy waste he loves,
Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone,
Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown
And ruddy with the sunshine,—let him come
On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake,
And part with little hands the spiky grass,
And, touching with his cherry lips the edge
Of these bright beakers, drain the gathered dew."

What a lovely picture is this of the Manitou of flowers, and what a subject for an artist to embody in forms and colors! The whole passage is very beautiful, and its beauty is in part derived from its truth. It meets the requisitions of the philosophical understanding, as well as of the shaping and aggregating fancy. The poetry is manly, masculine, and simple. The ornaments are of pure gold, such as will bear the test of open daylight.

It is the function of the critic to discriminate and divide, and we have attempted to deal thus with the poems of Bryant; but some of the best of his productions cannot be classified and arranged under any particular head. They breathe the spirit of universal humanity, and speak a language intelligible to every human heart. Among these are "The Evening Wind," "The Conqueror's Grave," and "The Future Life." All of these are exquisite alike in conception and execution. We suppose that most persons have in regard to poetry certain fancies, whims, preferences, founded on reasons too delicate to be revealed or too airy to be expressed. As Mrs. Battles in a moment of confidence confessed to "Elia" that hearts was her favorite suit, so we breathe in the ear of the public an acknowledgment, that, of all Bryant's poems, "The Future Life" is that which we read the most frequently, and with the deepest feeling. We say read, but we have known it by heart for years. We will not affirm that it is the best of his poems, but it is that which moves us most, and which we feel most grateful to him for having written. The grace and charm of this poem come from regions beyond the range of literary criticism, and the heart shrinks from making a revelation of the emotions which it awakens.

We have left ourselves but little room to speak of the new volume, called "Thirty Poems," which lies before us. While nothing in it was needed for the poet's well-established and enduring fame, it will be welcomed by all his admirers as an accession to that stock of finished poetry which the world will not let die. Here we find the same dignity of sentiment, the same fine observation, the same grace of expression, as in the productions of his youth and manhood. The tone of thought is grave, earnest, sometimes pensive, but never querulous or desponding. Declining years have not abated in him a jot of heart or hope. His is the Indian-summer of the mind, made genial by soft airs and golden sunshine, by green meadows and lingering flowers; and still far distant is the time,—to borrow a noble image from this very volume,—

"When, upon the hill-side, all hardened into iron,
Howling, like a wolf, flies the famished northern blast."

All honor to the strong-hearted singer who, in the late autumn of life, retains his love of Nature, his hatred of injustice and oppression, his sympathy with humanity, his intellectual activity, his faith in progress, his trust in God!

ANNESLEY HALL AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY.

The picturesque region of Matlock, with its cliffs and streams, its deep woods and romantic walks, is full of attraction. There we not only see the outward graces of Nature, but catch glimpses of her subtler elements. Springs, dripping from hidden sources, transform the fruit, or the bird's-nest with its fragile eggs, into stone with a Medusa touch; while in deep caverns are found beautiful spars, exquisitely tinted, as if prepared by the genii of the rock for the palace of their king.

Varied and wonderful are the workings of earth, air, fire, and water in the Derbyshire valley, where a sensitive nature recognizes more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of many a passing traveller. To this region of beauty and mystery Byron often came in his youth. These cliffs and streams and woods were familiar to the young poet, and his retentive memory must have received here many of Nature's deep and marvellous lessons. Perhaps among these scenes there came to him those

"noble aspirations in his youth
To make his mind the mind of other men,
The enlightener of nations, and to rise
He know not whither, it might be to fall,
But fall, even as the mountain-cataract,
Which, having leapt from its more dazzling height,
Lies low, but mighty still."

In Byron's day, Matlock was a fashionable watering-place; and the drawing-room of the "Old Bath," with cut-glass chandeliers, old engravings, and cushioned window-seats, looks much the same as when it witnessed many a gay assembly. In this room the wayward and sensitive youth, secretly writhing with mortification at being prevented by lameness from leading Mary Chaworth to the dance, watched, her more fortunate partners with moody envy. The young Lady of Annesley little imagined that the lame boy, with his handsome face and troublesome temper, would link her name to deathless song.

On a fair, sunny morning, towards the close of October, we left Matlock for Annesley Hall and Newstead Abbey. The day was in harmony with the poetical associations of our excursion: a gentle mist hung like a veil over hills and groves, giving a dreamy aspect to Nature, and rendering the places we intended to visit creations of fancy rather than actual facts. Very unromantic personages, however, answered our inquiries for Annesley, which reassured us of its reality. Byron's "Dream" had rendered the scenery familiar to our memory.

"The hill
Green and of mild declivity, the last,
As 't were the cape, of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape."

Our approach led us beside those gentle slopes, and we seemed to see the maiden and the youth standing on the mild declivity, with its crowning circlet of trees.

"And both were young, but not alike in youth:
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers.

"... She was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts.
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother, but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him,
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honored race.

"Even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar, if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy and flew."

That lover, soon after, became the husband of Mary Chaworth. It is not for us to speculate wherefore Destiny entangled the threads in that web of existence which originally seemed to have woven the fates of Byron and Mary Chaworth together. We are ignorant of spiritual laws, and know little of the origin whence come those strange attractions, mind to mind, heart to heart, which make or mar the life-experiences of us all.

Had events been ordered otherwise, Byron might have been a better and happier man, but the world would never have received the gift of "Childe Harold." Alas, that the soul must be ploughed and harrowed, and the precious seed trodden in, before it can give forth its fairest-flowers or its immortal fruit!

When we had last heard of Annesley Hall, it was ruinous and desolate, and we knew not in what condition it might now be found. Passing through an avenue of ancient oaks, the road winds down to an old picturesque gate-house, and, leaving the carriage, we walked onward. Looking through the arch of entrance, we saw as in a picture, nay, as in the poet's dream, "the venerable mansion," sitting quietly in autumn sunshine on its old terrace. To gray walls and peaks clung a climbing plant, its leaves red with touch of frost, contrasting deliciously with green ivy, and putting a bit of color into darker hues of stone-work. As we passed beyond the gate, we saw that the mansion had been, restored and repaired by careful hands guided by tasteful eyes and loving hearts. Above the hall-door was a bay-window, which instinct told us belonged to the "antique oratory," but we walked onward to the terrace, with its stone balustrade, inclosing a bright flower-garden. On the other side of the house stretches the lawn and park, with deer feeding quietly in the distance. No human form appeared; all was silent and peaceful. We walked thoughtfully on the old terrace, recalling the images of the poet and the Lady of Annesley; but looking up at the ancient sun-dial on one of the gables, we perceived that its shadow fell deeper and deeper with the declining day, telling us, as it had told many before, how time waited not, and reminding us that we, also were travellers. Passing again round the mansion, and casting a wistful look within, we saw a woman sitting at a low window, sorting fruit. We approached, and asked if strangers were permitted to see the Hall. She replied gently, that it was not "a show-house." We pleaded our cause successfully, however, when we told her how the thought of Mary Chaworth had led us here from a distant land. If the owners of Annesley knew that once an exception was made to a general rule, we trust they also believed that the visitors were not actuated by an idle curiosity.

Our request being granted, our guide laid aside her plums, and with a kind hand admitted us into the entrance-hall. It was low and venerable, with family-portraits on the walls, among them that of the Mr. Chaworth whom the "wicked Lord Byron" of other days shot in a duel. From the hall we entered the modern part of the house, harmoniously blended with the older portion of the building. In the drawing-room, two noble portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds arrested our attention. The lady (as Miss Burney tells us in her journal) was a beauty and a belle of Sir Joshua's time, and the painter has done justice to his subject, who is drawn at full length, feeding an eagle,—a spirited, splendid woman, who looks down from the canvas with bright, triumphant eyes. In the next apartment we were shown a portrait which touched deeper chords in our heart. It was a likeness of Mary Chaworth in miniature, representing a mature and beautiful woman.

"Upon her face there was a tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lids were charged with unshed tears."

The truth of this description startled us, and revealed instantly how deeply impressed upon the mind of her youthful lover must have been that face which was the starlight of his boyhood. Tears had passed since they parted, and chasms of time and gulfs yet deeper and wider than time ever knows had separated Byron from Annesley and England, and yet, when he wrote those lines, her face rose before him so clearly, wearing on its loveliness the impress of care and sorrow which he knew must be there, that no words but his can truly describe the expression of her features. Turning to our conductress, we asked if she had ever seen the Lady of Annesley. "Yes, I knew and loved her well, for I was her maid many years"; and, with a faltering tone, she added, "she died in my arms." Genius has immortalized Mary Chaworth; yet the tender and heartfelt tribute of one who had been the humble, but daily witness of the beauty of her life, was worth a thousand homilies.

We were conducted through the library, which had been in other days the drawing-room, out of which opens a small apartment, known to the readers of the "Dream" as the "antique oratory." Leading from the old entrance-hall is the favorite sitting-room of Mary Chaworth in her happy childhood and youth; and here, in his boyish days, Byron often sat beside her while she played for him his favorite airs on the piano-forte. Beneath the window is a little garden, where she cultivated the flowers she loved best, and which are still cherished for her memory. Our guide gathered a few of these, and gave them to our young companion: they now lie before us, carefully preserved, with some of their gay tints yet unfaded,—memorials, not only of Mary Chaworth, who lived and loved and suffered through all the varied experience of woman's life, but also of her to whom the blossoms were given, the fair, young girl, "who lived long enough on earth to learn its better lessons, but passed from it upwards and onwards without a knowledge of sin except the shadow it casts on the world."

Taking leave of our kind guide, to whom we were indebted for a visit of deep interest, we paused a moment on the terrace ere we "passed the massy gate of that old hall," to receive once more into our memory

"the old mansion and the accustomed hall
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade."

A holy stillness pervaded the venerable house and its surrounding scenery, a peace which breathed of a purer sphere, where what is best on earth finds its correspondence.

We wondered not, that, when the deep waters of the poet's soul, too often ruffled by passion, polluted by vice, or made turbid by selfishness, were calm and pure enough to mirror heaven, they ever reflected the bright and morning star of Annesley.

The transition from Annesley Hall to Newstead Abbey is inevitable in thought and rapid in fact,—the road, over which the young poet so often passed, between the two estates, being only three miles in length. We had lingered so long at Annesley that the day was nearly spent before we reached the Abbey. How did the venerable pile, with its mysterious memories, fateful histories, and poetical associations, flash out into light and darken into shadow as the October sun sank behind the distant hills!

The Abbey church is now only a ruin, but the airy span of its rich Gothic window remains, as evidence of its original beauty. Through the now vacant space, once the wide door of entrance, we saw the floor of green grass, and in the centre the monument to Byron's favorite dog, Bowswain. All was silent about the ruin, except the cawing of a thousand rooks, who were settling themselves for the night with a vast amount of noise and bustle on the high branches of the old trees which sweep down on one side of the Abbey.

The residence which adjoins the church, once a monastery, was inherited by Lord Byron, with the title: to part with it was a dire necessity. Colonel Wildman, the school-fellow of Byron at Harrow, purchased the estate from the unhappy poet in the most liberal and generous manner, and blessed it into a home. On entering the house, we were shown through long corridors and vaulted passages, in which the monastic character of the building was preserved. When Byron came to Newstead from college, the Abbey was in a most dilapidated condition, and he had only means enough to make a few rooms habitable for himself and his mother. A gloomy and desolate abode it must have been. The furniture of Byron's bedroom remains as it stood when removed from Cambridge. On the walls are prints of his school at Harrow, and Trinity College, with various relics and boyish treasures. The window commands a view of the sheet of water which stretches before the Abbey, with its wooded banks,—a scene which he loves and remembers even when "Lake Leman wooes him with her crystal face," for he writes to his sister,—

"It doth remind me of our own dear lake
By the old hall, which shall be mine no more."

Adjoining Byron's room is a suite of apartments, ruinous and roofless in his day, but which Colonel Wildman has restored, and furnished most appropriately with old tapestry and antique tables and chairs. These rooms wear a ghostly aspect, and we were not surprised to learn that one, at least, had the reputation of being haunted. The great drawing-room, once the dormitory of the monks, is now a splendid apartment richly decorated; above the chimney is a fine portrait of Lord Byron, and in an ancient cabinet was shown the cup made from a skull found in one of the stone coffins near the Abbey church. It is mounted in silver, and the well-known lines, written by Byron, are engraved on the rim. "Having it made" was, as he said himself, "one of his foolish freaks, of which he was ashamed." The cup, however, bears little resemblance to a skull. Colonel Wildman preserved the furniture of Byron's dining-room, and other apartments, (very simple it is,) without alteration, in the hope that he might return from Greece and revisit the halls of his fathers. Had Fate so willed, he would have found how kindly and faithfully his early friend had associated him with Newstead, and preserved every memorial of past history connected with the place. Yet thoughts of bitterness would even then have mingled with these familiar scenes, for it was not the heir of the Byrons who had restored Newstead Abbey to beauty and order.

Quitting the Abbey, and passing into the gardens, we followed the gardener through the deepening gloom to the wood, where, in former days, an ancestor of the Byrons set up leaden statues of satyrs, which the country-people called "the old lord's devils"; and very much like demons they looked. The tree was pointed out upon which Byron cut the names of "Augusta" and "Byron," with the date, during a last walk the brother and sister took together at Newstead. It is a double tree, springing from one root, which he chose as emblematical of themselves. The dim light barely enabled us to discern letters deeply carved, but growing less visible with the expanding bark. One of the trees has withered under that spell which seems to have blasted all connected with the name, and is cut off just above the inscription. The oak planted by Byron in his youth in a different part of the grounds was also shown to us. It is yet strong and vigorous. We picked up a yellow leaf, which the wind bore to our feet, as a fitting memorial of the place and the hour.

Passing again through the old Abbey church, the chill of the evening met us, cold and damp,—fit atmosphere for the place. The rooks were all asleep in their high nests; silence, darkness, and mist were fast casting their mantle over old Newstead; and the only cheerful sign came from the distant window of the Colonel's library, whence shot out a generous gleam of household fire,—emblem of that warm heart which had shed light upon the once desolate abode of its early friend.

Since our visit to Newstead, (seven years ago,) the Abbey has passed into other hands, and even a royal owner is now reported to possess the poet's ancestral home. We shall ever deem ourselves fortunate that our destiny led us to make this pilgrimage during the lifetime of Colonel Wildman and while the place was under his enlightened and generous ownership.

A few miles from Newstead Abbey is Hucknall, a poor, desolate-looking village, at the end of whose street stands an old church, beneath which is the burial-place of the Byrons. The building is ancient and gray, but dreary rather than venerable. Standing in its comfortless interior, we remembered that Byron once asked to be buried under the green, grassy floor of the roofless church at Newstead Abbey, with his faithful dog at his feet. The poet, whose rapid glance seized every glory and beauty of Nature, whose memory, wax to receive, and marble to retain, transferred the vision through the medium of his rare command of language, should have had a grave over which winds sweep, birds sing, and stars watch. Not so. A white marble tablet let into the wall above the family-vault was erected to Byron's memory by his sister. Perhaps the simplicity of the monument was suggested by these lines, written at the early age of nineteen years:—

"When to his airy hall my father's voice
Shall call my spirit, happy in the choice,
When poised upon the gale my form shall ride,
Or dark in mist descend the mountain-side,
Oh, may my shade behold no sculptured urns
To mark the spot where dust to dust returns,
No lengthened scroll, no praise-encumbered stone!
My epitaph shall be my name alone.
If that with honor fail to crown my clay,
Oh, may no other fame my deeds repay!
That, only that, shall single out the spot
By that remembered, or by that forgot."

The inscription upon the tablet, after his name and title, designates him as the Author of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," who died while aiding the cause of Liberty in Greece: thus striking the noblest notes in a powerful, eccentric, blotted score, as the fundamental chord of Byron's requiem.

THE LAST CHARGE.

Now, men of the North! will you join in the strife
For country, for freedom, for honor, for life?
The giant grows blind in his fury and spite,—
One blow on his forehead will settle the fight!

Flash full in his eyes the blue lightning of steel,
And stun him with cannon-bolts, peal upon peal!
Mount, troopers, and follow your game to its lair,
As the hound tracks the wolf and the beagle the hare!

Blow, trumpets, your summons, till sluggards awake!
Beat, drums, till the roofs of the faint-hearted shake!
Yet, yet, ere the signet is stamped on the scroll,
Their names may be traced on the blood-sprinkled roll!

Trust not the false herald that painted your shield:
True honor to-day must be sought on the field!
Her scutcheon shows white with a blazon of red,—
The life-drops of crimson for liberty shed!

The hour is at hand, and the moment draws nigh!
The dog-star of treason grows dim in the sky!
Shine forth from the battle-cloud, light of the morn,
Call back the bright hour when the Nation was born!

The rivers of peace through our valleys shall run,
As the glaciers of tyranny melt in the sun;
Smite, smite the proud parricide down from his throne,—
His sceptre once broken, the world is our own!

NORTHERN INVASIONS.

It would not be difficult to present from all history a mass of illustrations of this thesis wellnigh sufficient in themselves to establish it. And there is no doubt that the principles of human nature, which appear in those illustrations, can be set in such order as to prove the thesis beyond a question. The softness of Southern climates produces, in the long run, gentleness, effeminacy, and indolence, or passionate rather than persevering effort. It produces, again, the palliatives or disguises of these traits which are found in formal religions, and in institutions of caste or slavery. The rigor of Northern climates produces, on the other hand, in the long run, hardy physical constitutions among men, with determined individuality of character. It produces, therefore, freedom even to democracy in politics, protestantism even to rationalism in religion, and grim perseverance even to the bitter end in war. A certain stern morality, often amounting to asceticism, is imposed on Northern constitutions. So superficial is it, so much a creature of circumstance, that Norman, Scandinavian, Goth, or Icelander, deserves no sort of credit for it. All history shows that it vanishes before the temptations of any Vinland which the frozen barbarians stumble upon. None the less does it give them vigor of muscle, and power to endure hardship, which, in the end, tells, over the accomplishments of the most warlike Romans, Greeks, Persians, or other Southrons. "Fight us, if you like," said Ariovistus to Cæsar; "but remember that none of us have slept under a roof for fourteen years." That sort of people are apt to succeed in the long run.

When they succeed, as we have said, they advance civilization. To begin with the farthest East, all such strength as the Chinese Empire has to-day is due to the Tartar cross in its blood; that is, it results from the conquest of imbecile China by Northern Tartar tribes. One or two more such invasions, followed by colonization of Northern emigrants, would have made China a much stronger power this day than she is, and a nation of higher grade. The history of Indian civilization, again, is a history of Northern conquests. They tell us, indeed, that the Indian castes may be resolved into so many beach-marks of the waves of successive invasions from the North, the highest caste representing the last innovation. When Abraham crossed from Ur of the Chaldees into Canaan, when Cambyses broke open the secrets of Egyptian civilization, when Alexander first opened to the world Egyptian science, these were illustrations of the same thing,—Canaan, Egypt, and the world were all improved by those processes. Greece died out, and has never yet reëstablished herself, because she never had a complete infusion of Gothic blood in her worn-out system. Italy, on the other hand, had a new birth, and at this moment has a magnificent future, because Goths and Lombards did sweep in upon her with their up-country virtues and wilderness moralities. What the Ostrogoths did for Spain, what the Franks did for Gaul, what the Northmen did for England, are so many more illustrations. What Gustavus Adolphus would have done for Germany, if he had succeeded, would have been another.

What we are to do in the South, when we succeed, will be another. It makes the subject of this paper.

Nobody pretends, of course, that War itself does anything final in the advance of civilization. War itself is, what the poets call it, a terrible piece of ploughing. With us, just now, it is subsoil-ploughing, very deep at that. Stumps and stones have to be heaved out, which had on them the moss and lichens and superficial soil of centuries, and which had fancied, in that heavy semi-consciousness which belongs to stumps and stones, that they were fixed forever. As the teams and the ploughshares pass over the ground which has lain fallow so long, they leave, God knows, and millions of bleeding hearts know, a very desolate prospect in the upheaved furrows behind them. It is very black, very rough, very desert to the eye, and in spots it is very bloody. This is what war does. So desolate the prospect, that we of the Northern States have certainly a right to thank God that it was not we who called out the ploughmen.

War, in itself, does nothing but plough,—but immediately on the end of the war, in any locality, he who succeeds begins on the harrowing and the planting. And because God is, and directs all such affairs, it is wonderful to see how short is the June which in His world covers all such furrows as His ploughmen make with new beauty. It is to the methods of that new harvest that the President has boldly led our attention in his admirable Proclamation of Amnesty. It is to the details of it that each loyal man has to look already. It is but a few weeks since we heard a sentimental grumbler, at a public meeting, lamenting over the discomforts of the freed slaves in the Southwest, as he compared them with their lost paradise. Men of his type, to whom the present is always worse than the past, succeed in persuading themselves that the incidental hardships of transition are to be taken as the type of a whole future. And so this apostle of discontent really believed that the condition of the fifty thousand freed slaves of the Mississippi, in the hands of such men as Grant, and Eliot, and Yeatman, and Wheelock, and Forman, and Fiske, and Howard, was really going to be worse than it was under the lashes of Legree, or at the auction-block of New Orleans. The more manly, as the more philosophical way of looking at the transition, is to discover the shortest path leading to that future, which, without such a transition, cannot come.

The President, with courage which does him infinite honor, leads the way to this future. His Proclamation is really a rallying-cry to all true men and women, whether they are living at the North or at the South, to take hold and work for its accomplishment. With an army posted in each of the revolted States, with more than one of them completely under National control, he considers that the time for planting has come. He is no such idealist or sentimentalist as to leave these new-made furrows, so terribly torn up in three years of war, to renew their own verdure by any mere spontaneous vegetation.

Practical as the President always is, he is sublimely practical in the Proclamation. "Let us make good out of this evil as quickly as we can," he says; "let peace bring in plenty as quickly as she can." To bring this about, he promises the strong arm of the nation to protect anything which shall show itself worth protecting, in the way of social institutions of republican liberty. He does not ask, like a conqueror, for the keys of a capital. He does not ask, like a Girondist, for the vote of a majority. He knows, it is true, as all the world knows, that, if the vote of all the men of the South could ever be obtained, the majority would utterly overshadow the handful of gentry who have been lording it over white trash and black slaves together. But the President has no wish to prolong martial law to that indefinite future when this handful of gentlemen shall let the majority of their own people pronounce upon their claims to rule them. Waiving the requisitions of the theorists, and at the same time relieving himself from the necessity of employing military power a moment longer than is necessary, he announces, in advance, what will be his policy in extending protection to loyal governments formed in Rebel States. If there can be found in any State enough righteous men willing to take the oath of allegiance and to sustain the nation in its determination for emancipation,—if there can be found only enough to be counted up as the tenth part of those who voted in the election of 1860, though their State should have sinned like Gomorrah, even though its name should be South Carolina, they shall be permitted to reconstruct its government, and that government shall be recognized by the government of the nation.

It is true that this gift is vastly more than any of the Rebel States has any right to claim. When the King of Oude rebels against England, he does not find, at the end of the war, that, because he is utterly defeated, things are to go on upon their old agreeable footing. Rebellion is not, in its nature, one of those pretty plays of little children, which can stop when either party is tired, because he asks for it to stop, so gently that both parties shall walk on hand in hand till either has got breath enough to begin the game again. If the nation were contending against real and permanent enemies, in reducing to order the States of the Confederacy, or if the national feeling towards the people of those States were the bitter feeling which their leaders profess towards our people, the nation would, of course, offer no such easy terms. The nation would say, "When you threw off the Constitution, you did it for better for worse. It guarantied to you your State governments. You spurned the guaranty. Let it be so. Let the guaranty be withdrawn. You cannot sustain them. Let them go, then. You have destroyed them. And the nation governs you by proconsuls." But the nation has no such desire to deal harshly with these people. The nation knows that more than half of them were never regarded as people at home,—that they had no more to do with the Rebellion than had the oxen with which they labored. The nation knows that of the rest of the Southern people literally only a handful professed power in the State. The nation knows, therefore, that what pretended to be a union of republics was, really, to take Gouverneur Morris's phrase, a union of republics with oligarchies,—seventeen republics united to fourteen oligarchies, when this thing began. The nation knows that the fourteen will be happier, stronger, more prosperous than ever, when their people have the rights of which they are partly conscious,—when they also become republics. The nation means to carry out the constitutional guaranty, and give them the republican government which under the Constitution belongs to every State in the Union. The nation looks forward to prosperous centuries, in which these States, with these people and the descendants of these people, shall be united in one nation with the republics which have been true to the nation. For all these reasons the nation has no thought of insisting on its rights as against Rebel States. It has no thunders of vengeance except for those who have led in these iniquities. For the people who have been misled it has pardon, protection, encouragement, and hope. It can afford to be generous. And at the President's hands it makes the offer which will be received.

We say this offer will be received. We know very well the difficulty with which an opinion long branded with ignominy makes head in countries where there is no press, where there is no free speech, where there are no large cities. Excepting Louisiana, the Southern States have none of these. And the "peculiar institutions" throw the control of what is called opinion more completely into the hands of a very small class of men, we might almost say a very small knot of men, than in any other oligarchy which we remember in modern history. It is in considering this very difficulty that we recognize the wisdom of the President's Proclamation. He is conscious of the difficulty, and has placed his minimum of loyal inhabitants at a very low point, that, even in the hardest cases, there may be a possibility of meeting his requisition.

It is not true, on the other hand, that he has placed his minimum so low as to involve the government in any difficulty in sustaining the State governments which will be framed at his call. It must be remembered that this "tenth part" of righteous men will have very strong allies in every Southern State. It is confessed, on all hands, that they will be supported by all the negroes in every State. Just in proportion to what was the strength of the planting interest is its weakness in the new order of things. Given such physical force, given the moral and physical strength which comes with national protection, and given the immense power which belongs to the wish for peace, and the "tenth part" will soon find its fraction becoming larger and more respectable by accretions at home and by emigration from other States. We shall soon learn that there is next to nobody who really favored this thing in the beginning. They will tell us that they all stood for their old State flag, and that they will be glad to stand for it in its new hands.

It will be only the first step that will cost. Everybody sees this. The President sees it. Mr. Davis sees it. He hopes nobody will take it. We hope a good many people will. The merit of the President's plan is that this step can be promptly taken. And so many are the openings by which national feeling now addresses the people of the States in revolt, and national men can call on them to express their real opinions and to act in their real interest, that we hope to see it taken in many places at the same time.

When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, he supposed that one-thirteenth part of his people were Christians. He was statesman enough to know that a minority of one-thirteenth, united together because they had one cause, would be omnipotent over a majority of twelve-thirteenths, without a cause and disunited. So, if any one asks for an example in our history,—the Territory of Kansas was thrown open to emigration with every facility given to the Southern emigrant, and every discouragement offered to the Northerner. But forty men, organized together by a cause, settled Lawrence, and it was rumored that there was to be some organization of the other Northern settlers, and at that word the Northern hive emptied itself into Kansas, and the Atchisons and Bufords and Stringfellows abandoned their new territory, badly stung. These are illustrations, one of them on the largest scale, and the other belonging wholly to our own time and country, of the worth even of a very small minority, in such an initiative as is demanded now. What was done in Kansas can be done again in Florida, in Texas, if Texas do not take care for herself, in either Carolina, in any Southern State where the "righteous men" do not themselves appear to take this first step on which the President relies.

Take, for instance, this magnificent Florida, our own Italy,—if one can conceive of an Italy where till now men have been content to live a half-civilized life, only because the oranges grew to their hands, and there was no necessity for toil. The vote of Florida in 1860 was 14,347. So soon as in Florida one-tenth part of this number, or 1,435 men, take the oath of allegiance to the National Government, so soon, if they have the qualifications of electors under Florida law, shall we have a loyal State in Florida. It will be a Free State, offering the privileges of a Free State to the eager eyes of the North and of Europe. That valley of the St. John's, with its wealth of lumber,—the even climate of the western shore,—the navy-yard to be reëstablished at Pensacola,—the commerce to be resumed at Jacksonville,—the Nice which we will build up for our invalids at St. Augustine,—the orange-groves which are wasting their sweetness at this moment, on the plantations and the islands,—will all be so many temptations to the emigrant, as soon as work is honorable in Florida. If the people who gave 5,437 votes for Bell and 367 for Douglas cannot furnish 1,435 men to establish this new State government, we here know who can.

"Armies composed of freemen conquer for themselves, not for their leaders." This is the happy phrase of Robertson, as he describes the reëstablishment of society in Europe after the great Northern invasions, which gave new life to Roman effeminacy, and new strength to Roman corruption. The phrase is perfectly true. It is as true of the armies of freemen who have been called to the South now to keep the peace as it was of the armies of freemen who were called South then by the imbecility of Roman emperors or their mutual contentions. The lumbermen from Maine and New Hampshire who have seen the virgin riches of the St. John's, like the Massachusetts volunteers who have picked out their farms in the valley of the Shenandoah or established in prospect their forges on the falls of the Potomac, or like the Illinois regiments who have been introduced to the valleys of Tennessee or of Arkansas, will furnish men enough, well skilled in political systems, to start the new republics, in regions which have never known what a true republic was till now.

To carry out the President's plan, and to give us once more working State governments in the States which have rebelled,—to give them, indeed, the first true republican governments they have ever known,—would require for Virginia about 12,000 voters. They can be counted, we suppose, at this moment, in the counties under our military control. Indeed, the loyal State government of Virginia is at this moment organized. In North Carolina it would require 9,500 voters. The loyal North Carolina regiments are an evidence that that number of home-grown men will readily appear. In South Carolina, to give a generous estimate, we need 5,000 voters. It is the only State which we never heard my man wish to emigrate to. It is the hardest region, therefore, of any to redeem. At the worst, till the 5,000 appear, the new Georgia will be glad to govern all the country south of the Santee, and the new North Carolina what is north thereof. Georgia will need 10,000 loyal voters. There are more than that number now encamped upon her soil, willing to stay there. Of Florida we have spoken. Alabama requires 9,000. They have been hiding away from conscription; they have been fleeing into Kentucky and Ohio: they will not be unwilling to reappear when the inevitable "first step" is taken. For Mississippi we want 7,000. Mr. Reverdy Johnson has told us where they are. For Louisiana, one tenth is 5,000. More than that number voted in the elections which returned the sitting members to Congress. For Texas, the proportion is 6,200; for Arkansas, 5,400. Those States are already giving account of themselves. In Tennessee the fraction required is 14,500. And as the people of Knoxville said, "They could do that in the mountains alone."

We have no suspicion of a want of latent Southern loyalty. But we have brought together these figures to show how inevitable is a reconstruction on the President's plan, even if Southern loyalty were as abject and timid as some men try to persuade us. These figures show us, that, if, of the million Northern men who have "prospected" the Southern country, in the march of victorious armies, only seventy-three thousand determine to take up their future lot there, and to establish there free institutions, they would be enough, without the help of one native, to establish these republican institutions in all the Rebel States. The deserted plantations, the farms offered for sale, almost for nothing, all the attractions of a softer climate, and all the just pride which makes the American fond of founding empires, are so many incentives to the undertaking of the great initiative proposed. In the cases of Virginia and Tennessee, and, as we suppose, of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, the beginning has already been made at home. In Florida a recent meeting at Fernandina gave promise for a like beginning. If it do not begin there, the Emigrant Aid Company must act at once to give the beginning.[52] There will remain the Carolinas and three of the Gulf States. The ploughing is not over there, and it is not time therefore to speak of the harvest. For the rest, we hope we have said enough to indicate to the ready and active men of the nation where their great present duty lies.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Principles of Political Economy, with Some of their Applications to Social Philosophy. By JOHN STUART MILL. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

If works upon Political Economy, representing the orthodox European doctrine, are to be written, John Stuart Mill is certainly the man to write them. Able, candid, judicial, indefatigable, powerfully poised,—characterized by remarkable mental amplitude, by a rare steadiness of brain, by an admirable sense of logical relation, by a singular ease of command over his intellectual forces, by a clear and discriminating eye that does not wink when a hand is shaken before it,—of a humane and widely related nature, whose heats lie deep, so deep that many may think him cold,—of an understanding as dry as John Locke's, wanting imagination in all its degrees, from rhetorical imagination, which is the lowest, to epic imagination, which is the highest, and therefore destitute of the sovereign insights which go only with this faculty in its higher degrees, while, on the other hand, freed from the enticements and attractions that are inseparable from it,—Mr. Mill has qualifications unsurpassed, perhaps, by those of any man living for considerate and serviceable thinking upon matters of immediate practical interest and of a somewhat tangible nature. His mental structure exhibits combinations which are by no means frequent. Seldom is seen a conjunction of such cold purity of thinking with such generosity of nature; seldom such considerateness, such industry, patience, and carefulness of deliberation, with a boldness so entire; seldom such ducal self-possession and self-sufficingness, with equal openness to social and sympathetic impression; nor less rare, perhaps, is the union of a reflective power so large and dominating with an observation so active.

These mental qualities fit him in a peculiar degree for service in the field of Political Economy as now commonly defined,—a branch of literature which, more, perhaps, than any other, represents at once the genius and the limitation of our time.

Political Economy is a half-science, not total or integral; and if it pretend to spherical completeness, as it often does, it becomes open to grave accusation. The charges against it, considered as a strict and complete science, are two.

Of these the first has been cogently urged by Mr. Ruskin, while virtual admissions to a like effect were made by Mr. Buckle in his spirited account of Adam Smith. It is this: as a science, Political Economy must assume the perfect selfishness of every human being. Every science requires necessary, and therefore invariable, conditions, which, when expounded, are named laws. Such in Astronomy is gravitation, with the law of its diminution by distance; such in Chemistry is chemical attraction, with the law of definite proportions. The natural and perpetual condition assumed by Political Economy is the absolute supremacy in man of pecuniary interest. Absolute: it can admit no modification of this; it can make no room within its province for generosity, or for any action of man's soul, without forfeiting, so far, its claim to the character of a science. Put a dollar, with all honor, liberal justice, and humane attraction, on the one hand; put a dollar and one cent, with mere legal right and consequent safety, on the other hand; and Political Economy must assume that every man will gravitate to the latter by the same necessity which makes the balance incline toward the heavier weight. Or, conceding the contrary, it yields also its claim to the character of a perfect science, and takes rank among those half-sciences which partly expound necessary laws and partly contingent effects.

Now this assumed sovereignty of pecuniary interest seems to us not a final account of human beings. There is honor among thieves; is there none among merchants? Does not every man put some generous consideration for others into his business-transactions? Has an honorable publisher no aim but to print that which will sell best? Has he no regard to the character of his house? Has he no desire to furnish a nourishing pabulum and a healthful inspiration to the mind of his country? In the employment of labor and the giving of wages do men generally quite forget the workman, and think only of the work and its profit? This does not happen to accord with our observation of human nature. We think there is a large element of honorable human feeling incessantly playing into the economies of the world; and we think it might be yet larger without any injurious perturbation of these economies.

Again, as a science, Political Economy considers wealth only as related to wealth, to itself, not to man. It assumes wealth, as absolute, and regards man as an instrument for its production and distribution. But this attitude must be reversed. Wealth cannot be treated of in a wholly healthful way until it is considered simply as instrumental toward the higher riches which are contained in man himself.

In the first place, he accepts the science as such, accepts it cordially and almost with enthusiasm,—in fact, has a degree of faith in its completeness and of confidence in its uses, greater, perhaps, than our own final thought will justify; for the reader will already have perceived that we incline in some measure to the opposition, with Carlyle, Ruskin, and others. Proceeding upon this basis, Mr. Mill expounds the orthodox theories with that definiteness of thought, with that precision of statement, and that calmness and breadth of survey, which never fail to characterize his literary labor. Any one who assumes, and wishes to study the science, will find in this writer a guide through its intricacies, whom it were hardly an exaggeration to name as perfect. Always sound-hearted, always clear, candid, and logical, always maintaining a certain judicial superiority, he is a thinker in whose company one likes to go on his mental travels, and whose thought one will be inclined to trust rather too much than too little. In the second place, Mr. Mill discerns the limitations of the science more clearly, and acknowledges them more frankly, than, to the extent of our somewhat narrow conversance with such writers, has ever been done before by any one who regarded it with equal affection and reposed in its theories a like faith. This, too, is thoroughly characteristic of him. He is one of the sanest and sincerest of men.

Thirdly, his inspiring and generative purpose is to lift the science into serviceable relation to the broad interests of man. Here we come to the real soul of the book. He accepts its customary limits chiefly that he may transcend them. He treats of wealth with a philosophical and cordial perception of its uses; but beyond and above this he is thinking of man, always of man,—and of man not merely as an eater and drinker, but as an intelligence and a candidate for moral or personal upbuilding. A reader would regard the work with a dull eye, who should miss this commanding feature. Sometimes by special discussions, as in his defence of peasant-properties in land,—sometimes only by an aroma pervading his pages, or bypassing expressions,—and always by the general ordering and culminating tendency of his thought,—one reads this perpetual question, the true and final question of all politics and economies:—How shall we secure the greatest number of intelligent and worthy men and women?

But while Mr. Mill's sympathy is with the people, the many, the whole of humanity, and while his desire for men is that they may attain the mental elevation which shall make them really human beings, yet a marked feature of his book is the mild Malthusian element which pervades it. Let no stigma be therefore fixed upon him. Let honor be rendered to the courage which steadily inquires, not what representation of the facts will win applause, but simply what the facts are. And undoubtedly it is true that all considerate men in England have been compelled to contemplate the possibility of over-population, of an insupportable pauperism, of a burden of helpless numbers which shall sink the whole nation into abysses of starvation with all its horrible accompaniments. It is but a few years since Ireland escaped unexampled death by famine only by an unexampled exodus. The New World opened its arms to the misery of the Old, and fed its famine to fatness,—and has got few thanks. But this rescue cannot be repeated without limit. And therefore forelooking men in England find the problem of their future one not too easy to solve. Mr. Carlyle, among others, has grappled with it. His brow has long been beaded with the sweat of this great wrestling; and if he seem to some of us a little abrupt and peculiar in his movements, we must at least do him the justice to remember that he, after the manner of ancient Jacob, is struggling with the angel of England's destiny. Mr. Mill, too, with an earnestness less passionate indeed, but perhaps not less real, is toiling at the same work.

And, by the way, an instructive comparison might be drawn between these two writers. Mr. Mill, not highly vitalized by belief, not nourished by any grand spiritual imaginations, hampered by a hard and poor philosophy, and with limited access to absolute truth, nevertheless, not only belongs fully to the opening modern epoch, but through a certain entireness of moral health and sanity is leading the time steadily forward into its great believing and builded future; though it may follow from his limitations that into this future he cannot accompany it very far. Mr. Carlyle, with a poetic profundity of nature and a force of insight which entitle him not merely to a high place among the men of our time, but to a name among the men of all time, standing face to face with the divine reality and wonder of existence, conversing with the heights and depths of being, and appreciating the significance of personality, as Mr. Mill never can, will accompany our epoch into its future farther than one can foresee, but to its present must render a mixed and imperfect service; for a sickness runs in his veins, and he is trying to force the age into a half-way house, which is built equally by his hope and his despair.

Were this not merely a general characterization, but a review, of Mr. Mill's powerful work, we should venture to take issue on some matters both general and special,—as an example of the latter, on the possible utility of protective duties. The reasoning by which he, in common with his class, proves these to be necessarily futile for good, is indeed faultless so far as it goes, but, in our clear judgment, fails to cover the whole case; so that the question, whether as one of general polity or of industrial economy, is still open to consideration. Especially it may be urged, that the infancy of human industries, like the infancy of human beings, may require protection, even though their adult vigor could be safely left to take care of itself. Suppose it conceded that this protection is at first costly. So are the cradle and the nursery. Yet it may be that they "pay" in the end. Nay, as the cradle may enrich the household through the new incentives to labor and frugality which it supplies, so protections of industry may evoke new industrial powers, and thus at once begin to enrich the nation, though the capital which supports these fresh industries could not at first hold its own, as against other capital, without the motherly cares it receives.

But enough. Here is a book on a matter of large and immediate importance, put forth by one of the amplest and soundest minds of our time,—a man so long-headed and clear-hearted, so able and intrepid to think, to speak, and to hear correction, so intent upon high ends and so calmly patient upon the way, that the public can neglect his thought only by a criminal neglect of its own interests.

A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life. With a Complete Bibliography of the Subject. By WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. Philadelphia: Geo. W. Childs.

Few "signs of the times" are more significant than the disposition shown on all sides to scrutinize and interpret the spiritual history of mankind. Lessing, Schlegel, Herder, Hegel, Guizot, Buckle, and others, endeavor, with various degrees of ambition and success, to estimate history considered as a progress; Carlyle in his "Heroes" and Emerson in the "Representative Men" regard it rather as a permanence, and seek to present its value in typical forms; meanwhile the Bibles and mythologies of the old world are collected, translated, subjected to interpretative study; and the critical scholarship of our time is almost wholly engaged in an endeavor either to arrive at the exact text or at the precise value of all the ancient literatures.

All men have at length discovered that the history of mankind means something, and are naturally intent on learning what it means. No one now regards it as a mere Devil's phantasmagoria, significant of nothing but Adam's sin in the Garden. However differing on other points, we all now perceive that the history of the mind of man is a more interior history of the universe,—that it must be studied, in the most earnest and reverential spirit of science,—that what Astronomy seeks to do in the heavens and Geology on the earth must be done in the realms of the mind itself,—and that, till we have found our Copernicus and our Newton of the human soul, modern science lingers in the porch, and does not find access to the temple. We all see that this history, not indeed as to the succession of its outward events, but as to its interior reality, must be grounded in the eternal truth and necessity of the universe. What wonder, that, having been so fully penetrated by the scientific spirit, modern minds should look with great longing toward these earths and skies of human history, coveting some knowledge of the law by which the thoughts and faiths of man perform their courses?

Nor any longer can "negative criticism" enlist the utmost interest. It is construction that is now desired; and he who studies history only that he may vanquish belief in the interest of knowledge cannot command the attention of those whose attention is best worth having. That fable is fable and mythus mythus no one need now plume himself on informing us, provided he has nothing further to say. Of course, we raise no childish and sentimental objection to what is called "negative criticism." It may not be the best possible policy to build the new house in the form of certain stories superimposed upon the old one, which, perhaps, is even now hardly strong enough to sustain its own weight. Let there be due clearing away; let us find foundations.

But the essence of the new point of view in the contemplation of history consists in this, that we no longer seek these foundations in the mere outward and literal history of man; we look, on the contrary, to his inward history, to perennial hopes and imaginations, to the evidence of his spiritual impulses and attractions, and just here find not only his real history, but also the basis for theoretical construction.

We see, indeed, as clearly as any Niebuhr or Strauss of them all, that the imagination so pours itself into history as to supersede, or to disguise by transfiguration, the literal facts. The incessant domination of man's inward over his outward history is apparent enough. What then? Does that make history worthless? Nay, it infinitely enhances the value of history. Who are more deserving of pity than the distracted critics that discriminate the imaginative element in the story of man's existence only to cast it away? "Facts" do they desire? These are the facts. What is the use of always mousing about for coprolites? Give us in the present form the product of man's spirit, and this to us shall constitute his history. Let us know what pictures he painted on the skies over his head, and he who desires shall be welcome to the relics which he left in the dust under his feet.

In our own country some worthy efforts have been made to set forth certain grand provinces in the spiritual history of the human race. Such was Mrs. Child's most readable book,—does she ever write anything which is not readable?—"The Progress of Religious Ideas." We have seen also some fine lectures on "Eastern Religions,"[53] which ought to go into print. And now Mr. Alger comes forward with his large and laborious work, seeking to contribute his portion to these new and precious constructions.

Mr. Alger's book is a real work. It is the result of no light nor trivial labor, of no timid nor indolent essay of thought. His aim has been to pass in judicial review the thoughts and imaginations of mankind concerning the destiny of the human soul. It is an instruction to the jury from the bench, summing up and passing continuous judgment upon the evidence on this subject contributed by the consciousness of the human race.

Mr. Alger is a brave man. He does not hesitate to grapple with the greatest thinkers, nor to measure the subtlest imaginations of all time. In the opening chapter, for example, which is appropriately devoted to a consideration of theories of the soul's origin, he lays hold of the boldest speculative imaginations to which the world has given birth, with no hesitating nor trembling hand. Occasionally the reader may, perhaps, be more inclined to tremble for him than he for himself. One remembers Goldsmith's line,—

but our author comes forth from the trial in ruddy health, and does not seem at all out of breath. And all through the book he delivers his sentence like a man who has earned the right to speak.

And has he not earned it? For some years Mr. Alger has been known to scholars and others as a most indefatigable and heroic worker. This book justifies that reputation. The amount of reading that has gone to it is almost portentous. To us, who can hardly manage twelve books, big and little, in as many months, this mountainous reading furnishes matter for wonder.

Neither has this reading been chiefly a work of memorizing, nor has it been expended chiefly upon works of history commonly so called. A product of man's spiritual consciousness being under consideration, it is works of thought and imagination, rather than works of narration, which claim our author's critical attention; and his reading has been reflective and deliberative, involving a judgment upon speculative more than upon historical data. And it may fairly be said, though it be much to say, that he has shrunk from nothing which a perfect performance of his task required. Whether we consider the formation or the expression of his judgments, it may still be affirmed that he has met his great theme fairly, and given to its exposition the utmost exercise of his powers and the unstinted devotion of his labor.

We can accordingly pass upon his work this rare commendation, that it is thoroughly honest. This may, indeed, seem to many no very high approval. But it is one of the very highest. For we mean by it not merely that he has refrained from conscious misrepresentation of fact,—that he has not lied, as Kingsley did about Hypatia in the novel wherein he borrowed, only to befoul, the name of that spotless woman, knowing all the while that his representation was contrary to the recorded facts of history. To say so much only of this book would be not to attribute to it a positive merit, but only to acquit it of damning demerit. But what we affirm is that Mr. Alger has fairly looked his facts in the face, and come to some understanding with himself about them. When he speaks, therefore, it is about facts, about realities, not merely about words; and what he offers is the result of genuine processes of production which have gone on in his own mind. If he speak of life, it is not life in the dictionary, but in the universe. If he profess to offer thoughts, he really gives the results of his thinking. He does not cant; he does not merely recite verbal formulas; he does not play the part of attorney, first determining what to advocate, and then seeking plausible reasons: everywhere one perceives that he has really brought his mind to bear upon facts, and so has come to real mental fruit. And it is this verity, this reality and genuineness, to which we give the name of intellectual honesty. It is a rare quality; and always the rarer in proportion to the depth of the matters treated of, on the one hand, and to their expression in customs and institutions, on the other. Institutions are masks. The thinker must have both earnestness and penetration, if he is to get behind them. And just in proportion as any element of man's spiritual consciousness has come to institutional expression, it is the easier to talk about it and the harder to think upon it,—to talk about it without talking of it. But our author has made the distinction, and to the extent of his power looks facts in the face.

Having come to an understanding with himself, he honestly tries, again, to come to an understanding with the reader. He honestly imparts his mind. We find the book in this respect worthy of especial admiration.

Mr. Alger always writes well when he is not overmuch trying to write well. If he forbear to covet striking effect, his style has perspicuity, directness, and vigor,—the essentials of all excellent writing,—and to these adds verbal affluence and occasional felicity. But if he be tempted of the Devil to become eloquent, and the father of all rhetorical evil strives hard to bring the soul of his style to perdition, then he begins to write badly. Let him, since he is capable of heroic things, imitate Luther, and fling his ink-pot. Even though it light upon the page, let him not be inconsolable, but remember that no blots are so bad as those made by ambitious inflation. We have not that horror of "fine writing" which leads The Saturday Review and Company to such obstreperous exclamation, and can endure the worst that Americans are guilty of in this matter quite as well as that affectation of off-hand ease and nonchalance which enhances the native clumsiness of many among the later English writers, and, to our mind, mars extremely the poetry of Browning. But if a writer has some propensity to rhetorical Babel-building, it were well for him to make an effort in the opposite direction, and try to build his sentences underground, like the houses of the Esquimaux.

Mr. Alger's book has minor faults and major excellences. But let him be content. He has faithfully performed a great labor, and we give him cordial approval. To a great theme he has brought great industry, a just appreciation, a fine spirit, and much of intellectual courage and activity.

Add that he is a man whose soul is in sympathy with the best thought, hope, and heart of the time. Brave, just, and humane, he is always on the right side, and always as direct and unflinching in the utterance of his faith as he is intrepid and right-natured in its adoption. Opinions are expressed in his work which do not accord with those of ecclesiastical majorities; nevertheless we think that those will thank him who least agree with him. It were, indeed, a shame that the people which sets the highest price upon political liberty should be the last to welcome the higher freedoms of thought; but it is a shame, we trust, which will not befall our country. We ourselves have, it is true, as little affection as most men for that sort of "free thinking" which consists in pouring out upon the public the mere wash and cerebral excretion of unclean spirits; but when any man has brought to a consideration of the greatest facts a pure and reverent spirit, he is entitled to present the results of his meditations with manly directness and vigor, as Mr. Alger has done in the work before us.

The "Complete Bibliography of the Subject" is an admirable piece of work. We present our respects to Mr. Ezra Abbot, Jr., and wish that many an earnest literary laborer had such a "friend."

Dream Children. By the Author of "Seven Little People and their Friends." Cambridge: Seaver & Francis.

The children seem to have found their Dickens at last. But, of course, it was to be expected that the child's Dickens would be different, in some important respects, from the Dickens of grown-up men and women. And so he is. Children do with the world in their thoughts pretty much as they will; and the genuine artist, working for children, must recognize this, or he will utterly fail. The author of "Dream Children," who made his introduction to the reading public as the author of "Seven Little People and their Friends," has the rare faculty of realizing for himself the exact position and attitude of the child. This position he takes so earnestly that he has nowhere the air of assumption or arbitrary fiction. The child lives so much in pictures! But the pictures must not betray one single feature of unreality, or the whole effect is spoiled; a moral may be pointed or a tale adorned, but the child has lost his natural food. We need such works as that under present notice to keep children from starving,—works that are not mechanically adapted to children, but which come to them as their own fresh, pure thoughts come, bringing them pictures like those which their own untrammelled fancy paints for them.

We have no space to enter into any details here. The children must do that for themselves; but not the children alone. For, as now and then we come upon a piece of Art, a painting or a statue, which from its subject would seem to belong peculiarly to the child's world, but which, because it is genuine Art, as to its manner and execution, rises out of this confinement to a single class, becoming universal, so it is with books of a similar character. This is true of the present work more emphatically than of the former work by the same author. The more external features of the work—its exquisite getting-up, in paper, binding, and especially in illustration—are only fitting to the inherent gracefulness of the writer's thought.

The subject is inviting, but we can only add that these short stories exhibit the rarest freshness and purity of imagination, the richest humor, and the most striking suggestion of an exhaustless fertility of invention which we remember ever to have seen in any child's book before. There is nowhere a careless execution; and the reason of this is probably that the characters have had a leisurely growth in the author's own mind. Generally it is supposed, that, to suit a subject to children, it is only necessary to go through some outward manifestations and to give the thing an air of novelty; but in this treatment there is no freshness, and no very great or very permanent moral expression. The writer of "Dream Children" will have a select audience, but he will have it pretty much to himself, and, as the best of all rewards which he could have, he will educate the thoughts of his juvenile readers imperceptibly into a greater love and reverence for the very heart of truth and beauty.

Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam; with a Preface and Memoir. Boston. Ticknor & Fields.

A permanent, though modest, place in the literature of the English language will be accorded to this little volume. Judged upon their intrinsic merits as compositions, the "Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam" would, nevertheless, hold no abiding position among the many pleasing poems, clever dissertations, and brilliant essays annually given to the press in Great Britain and America. Were they brought to us as the writings of a young man dying at thirty-two, instead of ten years earlier, we might hastily say, that, sacred as they must be to the personal friends of the author, there was in them no excellency sufficiently marked or marketable to warrant republication. But there gather other interests about them when we are told that these compositions came from the son of a very eminent man, and were written at an age at which we congratulate ourselves, if our college-boys are not oppressively foolish. For the rare instances of hereditary transmission of distinguished mental power are well worth attention, and the maturity of thought and the subtile trains of reflection in this youth now afford that large promise of genius which may not be confounded with those specious precocities of talent the world never lacks. Yet it is not probable that even these attractions could give to the literary remains of young Hallam that permanent place in letters which we have made bold to promise them. Only the inspirations of a great poet could wake the noblest sympathies of noblest hearts in perennial tribute to this friend so early called from life.

The student of Shakspeare's sonnets—poems having much in common with those written in memory of Arthur Hallam—is never tired of conjecturing the person to whom they were addressed. Who was the "only begetter" of these passionate offerings of the poet's love? Might he be recognized as he walked, a man among men? or was he the splendid idealization of genius and friendship? There are but faint answers to these questions. After the claims of Mr. Hart, Mr. Hughes, and the Earls of Southampton and Pembroke have been duly examined, there comes the conclusion that we may not know who and what he was towards whom the august soul of Shakspeare yearned with such exceeding love. Future readers of the "In Memoriam" of Tennyson will be more favored in their knowledge of the young man there given to fame. It will be known that he was worthy of the deep sorrow breathed into exquisite verse,—worthy also of those noble half-lights flashing above the sombre atmosphere, to show the instruction, the blessedness, the beauty, which grow from human grief. We are compelled to confess that those keen poetic glimpses into the high regions of philosophy and science, with which the memories of his friend inspired Tennyson, seem just dues to the brilliant auguries of a future which this world was not permitted to see.

An outline of Arthur's life has already been given to the American public. Little can be added to it from his father's touching preface to the unpublished edition of these writings in 1834, which is now reprinted. The childhood of young Hallam exhibits facility in the acquisition of knowledge, sweetness of temper, and scrupulous adherence to a sense of duty. At the age of nine he reads Latin and Greek with tolerable facility, and achieves dramatic compositions which excite the admiration of the father,—a thoroughly competent, unless partial, critic. This luxuriance of fancy is judiciously received; no display is made of it, and Arthur is sent to school at Putney, where he remains for two years. The common routine of English education is more than once broken by tours upon the Continent. When the boy leaves Eton in 1827, his father pronounces him "a good, though not, perhaps, first-rate scholar in the Latin and Greek languages." As certain Latin verses referred to are, for some inscrutable reason, omitted in this American edition, the reader has no means of deciding whether it is the modest reserve of the parent which pronounces them "good, without being excellent," or the fond partiality of the father which discovers them to be "good" at all. In any case, we must consider Arthur's "comparative deficiency in classical learning," for which the eminent historian seems almost to apologize, as one of his especial felicities. The liberalizing effect of travel, and a varied contact with men and things, prevented his powers from contracting themselves to a merely academical reputation. When at Cambridge, he renounces all competition in the niceties of classical learning, and does not attempt Latin or Greek composition during his stay at Trinity. Thus he escapes the fate of many quick minds, which, running easily upon college grooves, that end in the indorsement of a corporation, never make out to accept their own individuality for better and for worse. Arthur enters upon legal studies with acuteness, and not without interest. A few anonymous writings occupy his leisure. He is now just rising upon the world,—a brilliant orb, as yet seen only by a few watchers, who congratulate each other upon the light to be. A fatal tour to Germany, and all ends in darkness and mystery.

Judging from the writings before us, we should say that this young man was destined to a greater eminence in philosophy than in poetry. His father's opinion, in reverse of this, was perhaps based upon average tendencies of character, instead of selected specimens of production. The best prose papers here printed, the "Essay on the Philosophical Writings of Cicero," and the "Review of Professor Rossetti," are far more remarkable for the ease with which accurate information is subjected to original, and even profound thought, than are the poems for brilliancy of imagination or mastery over the capacities of language. Still, it must be confessed, that the sonnets are full of melody and refinement,—indeed, we can recall no poet who has written much better at the same age. In all Arthur's compositions we recognize an exquisite delicacy of feeling, without any of the daintiness of mind commonly found in intellectual youths. He seems to have acquired much of his father's command of reading, and to have inherited those rarer faculties of selection and generalization which give to learning its coherence and significance. In contrast to the precise and somewhat hard literary style of the elder Hallam, the diction of the son glows with the sensitiveness of a highly artistic nature. Arthur's attainments in the modern languages appear to have been considerable. He is said to have spoken French readily, and to have ranged its literature as familiarly as that of England. His Italian sonnets are pronounced by competent authority to be very remarkable for a foreigner. They are certainly marvellous for a boy of seventeen after an eight months' visit to Italy. In fine, upon the testimony presented in this volume, we think that no considerate reader will hesitate to credit Arthur Hallam with a rich and generous character, a wide sweep of thought rising from the groundwork of solid knowledge, and the delicate aërial perceptions of high imaginative genius.

Surely the life whose untimely end called forth "In Memoriam" was not lost to the world. Perhaps it was by dying that the moral and intellectual gifts of this youth could most effectively reach the hearts of men. He was not unworthy his noble monument. As we turn to the familiar lyrics, they swell and deepen with a new harmony. Again, the genius of Tennyson bears us onward through tenderest allegory and subtlest analogy, until, breaking from cares and questionings so melodiously uttered, his soul soars upward through thin philosophies of the schools, and at length, in grandest spiritual repose, rests beside the friend "who lives with God." It is good to know that the "A.H.H." forever encircled by the halo of that matchless verse does not live only as the idealization of the poet.

History of West Point, and its Military Importance during the American Revolution, and the Origin and Progress of the United States Military Academy. By Captain EDWARD C. BOYNTON, A.M., Adjutant of the Military Academy. New York: D. Van Nostrand.

In every country there must be localities the names of which are particularly associated with the national history. But in the United States there are few such places that are not portions of some one of the States; and if they have been the scene of incidents sufficient in number and importance to furnish material for an historical monograph, or so-called local history, it will probably derive its special interest and coloring mainly from events of the Colonial period and the development of the material prosperity of the particular State or section. The associations of West Point, the seat of the United States Military Academy, are in this respect remarkable, that they derive their interest exclusively from circumstances incidental to the birth and progress of the nation. The history of the place is an important part of the nation's history. Compared with more comprehensive annals, wherein minute description of places and persons is impossible from the breadth of view, local histories leave on the reader more vivid impressions by affording a more microscopic and personal inspection. Where the minor history, as we may call it, is thus connected with the greater story of the body politic, it always enables the mind to combine, in the sequence of cause and effect, a certain series of events in the course of the nation's life, leaving a more distinct apprehension of the reality of that life in the past, by giving a rapid glance, under strong light, over a part, than usually remains after the perusal of larger works which attempt the survey of the whole.

From the beginning of the history of the United States, the administrative power of the National Government has been continuously exercised at West Point, to the exclusion of all other authority. It was occupied by the Continental forces at the commencement of the Revolutionary contest, as a place of the greatest strategic importance. It was the objective point in that drama of Arnold's treason, which, by involving the fate of André, is remembered as one of the most romantic incidents in the story of the war. In Captain Boynton's new "History of West Point," the aspect of the place, in connection with the events of that time, is given by that method of description which always leaves the sense of historic verity. The maps, plans, reports, letters, and accounts, with the spelling and types, though by no means with the printing or the paper of past days, are reproduced; and the actors on the scene, not only those of high position, whose names are household words, but those also whose part was humbler and whose memory is obscure, are allowed to present themselves to us as they appeared before the public of their own day. The first part of the volume gives the history of the place as it has been occupied for strategic purposes. The second part is devoted to its history as the seat of the Military Academy, a history which succeeds immediately to the former, and is intimately connected with the history of our internal government from its first organization under the Constitution to the present hour; so that the history of the locality presents itself as a brilliantly colored thread running through the warp of the national history. In the composition of this portion, as of the other, the author has presented his subject, not so much in his own narrative, as by a judicious combination of extracts from documents and papers of original authority; although his own observations, by way of connection and explanation, are given in good taste, and indicate a candid judgment, founded upon a manifestly loving, but still essentially impartial, observation. It should be no wonder, if the graduates of the Academy, who continue their connection with the army in mature years, should always regard the place through a vista of memory and affection, shedding over it a brilliancy to which others might be insensible. To most of them it has been as a home,—to many, probably, the only home of their youth; and, in the unsettled life of the soldier, we can conceive that to no other spot would their recollections recur with like feeling. We believe, that, in the society which gathers more or less permanently around the Academy, the feeling of a home-circle towards its absent members follows the graduates during their military service; and that they, on the other hand, are always conscious of a peculiar observation exercised from the place over their conduct; so that each one, during an honorable career, may look forward to revisiting it, from time to time, as a place associated by family-ties. This influence upon the individual graduate must be a very powerful incentive. It must, in the nature of the case, be unperceived by the public, but its value to the public will be enhanced by the observation which they may extend to the Academy; and it is eminently proper that such observation should be courted by the Government, and by those who represent it on the spot; the opportunity should be given to all, irrespectively of civil or military place, to become acquainted with its general management, the principles on which it is established, and the terms which the cadet makes with the country on entering, and to see, from time to time, a general résumé of its working and success. A book which tells this, in its natural association with the narrative of all that gives the locality its name in our history, promotes a national interest and supplies a public want. Captain Boynton's book should command the interest of those who know most of West Point, and of those who know nothing about it. To some it will be a grateful source of reminiscence, and to others of entertainment combined with information which has acquired an increased interest for the citizen.

Not the least inviting portion of the book is that which relates to the topography and scenery of the Point. It is one of the singularities of our frame of government, that the nation is the lord of so little soil in the inhabited portion of its own dominion: though it is well to remember that territorial sovereignty is not, as many persons imagine, the only kind of sovereignty, nor, indeed, the most important kind; for there is sovereignty over persons, which may be held without eminent domain over the soil. Allegiance is personal. It is not based on the feudal doctrine of tenures. The notion of many persons respecting the right of the people of a State to carry themselves out of the nation is connected with false conceptions on this subject. It is pleasant to think that one of the places in which the nation is the land-owner and exclusive sovereign is celebrated for historic events, and also preëminently distinguished for beauty of situation. This circumstance undoubtedly contributes to the hold which the place has on the minds of those who have passed a portion of their youth on the spot, and it has evidently been a source of inspiration to the author, and, we may say, to the publisher, too, who have combined in making this a book of luxury as well as of useful reference, a parlor-book. The pictorial illustrations they have given add greatly to its value; and in this matter they might safely have gone even farther. This book is intended to make the spot familiar to the minds of many in various parts of the national domain. Most persons of any leisure, in this section of the country, have either themselves visited the banks of the Hudson or are familiar with scenery somewhat similar in some part of the Eastern or Middle States. But there are multitudes in the South and West of our conlinental empire who have hardly ever seen a rock bigger than a man's body, and who can, except by the aid of pictures, have no idea of a river hemmed in by mountains. The view given in this book of the localities in 1780, after a drawing made at the time by a French officer, is more valuable in this respect, we think, than for the historical purpose; and we should have preferred a similar view of the place as it now appears.

In common with all institutions which are the means of power and influence, the Academy has been regarded with jealousy. It has occasionally been assailed by an hostility which must always exist, and which its friends should always be prepared to meet. Captain Boynton has fairly stated and answered the objections commonly advanced. Among those recently put forth is the complaint that no great military genius has been produced from the Academy. The question might be asked, Does ever any school produce the genius? It is contrary to the definition of genius to be produced by such instrumentality. If no such military phenomenon has been seen, the only inference is, that the genius was not in the country, or that the circumstances of the country gave no opportunity for its development; and the question is, Should we, in the absence of genius, have done better without such an academy to educate the available talent of the country to military service? Goethe has said, that, to figure as a great genius in the world's history, one must have some great heritage in the consequences of antecedent events,—that Napoleon inherited the French Revolution. Though Napoleon developed military art beyond his predecessors, there is no reason to suppose that a soldier with natural endowments equal to his could now become the inspirer of a similar degree of progress. The ordinary method of appointment of cadets is described and vindicated by the author. While it does not appear, a priori, to be the best possible, it must be said that it is hard to devise any better one. It is always to be borne in mind that appointment does not by any means involve graduation. Enough have graduated to supply the wants of the army in ordinary times, and these have been selected from about three times the number of appointees. It is often said that equally competent persons would offer themselves from civil life. To maintain this, it must be held, either that the education given by the Academy is not of important benefit, or that the same benefit may be attained without it. But no one pretends to say that the education is not of the utmost importance; and, as Captain Boynton shows conclusively, we think, it is impossible for any one to attain it by unassisted study, either before or after entering the army, while it is utterly out of the power of any private institution to give a similar training.

Among the treasons incident to the Rebellion, none struck loyal minds more painfully than the desertion of the national right by Southern cadets and graduates of West Point. Some supposed that the diligent inculcation of State-Sovereignty doctrine by every organ of Southern opinion could not alone have caused this breach of plighted faith, and it was charged against the education given at the Academy, that it was based on "principles which permitted no discrimination between acts morally wrong in themselves, and acts which, destitute of immorality, are, nevertheless, criminal, because prohibited by the regulations of the institution." The charge indicated a gross misconception of the subject. The conduct-roll, which is to determine the standing of the cadet according to a total of demerit-marks, must include in one list delinquencies against all rules, whatever may be their source. But besides this scale for classification, the military law, to which cadets, as part of the army, are amenable, refers all immoralities and criminalities to a military tribunal. It would be well, if our collegians would try to estimate the effect, moral, intellectual, and physical, of the training of the Academy, as contrasted with that which they are receiving, and, in comparing a collegiate with a West-Point graduation, to remember that the cadet has been on service, and would have been discharged by his paymaster, if he had not done his duty, while in the colleges the professors serve for the pay, and would lose their bread and butter, if there were no degrees given.

We had scarcely finished reading this admirable volume of essays when news of the author's death was transmitted across the sea. And now we are to look no longer at our shelf which holds "Vanity Fair," "Fendennis," "The Newcomes," and "Henry Esmond," and think of the writer's busy brain as still actively engaged over new and delightful books destined some day to claim their places beside the companion-volumes we have so many times taken down for pure enjoyment during the last twenty years. Do you remember, who read this brief notice of the man so recently passed away, a passage in one of these same "Roundabout Papers," where this sentence holds the eye half-way down the page,—"I like Hood's life even better than his books, and I wish with all my heart, Monsieur et cher confrère, the same could be said for both of us when the ink-stream of our life hath ceased to run"? Only they who knew Thackeray out of his books can believe that this desire came earnestly from his heart to his readers. He was a man to be misunderstood continually; but his record will be found a noble one, when the true story of his career is told. His greatness as an author, his striking merit as an artist in the delineation of character, can never fail to be rightly estimated; but few will ever know the thousandth part of the good his generous deeds have accomplished in the world,—deeds done in secret, and forever hidden from the eye of public-charity hunters. His life had struggles, many and crushing; but with a noble fortitude he pursued his calling when sorrow held down his heart and wellnigh had the power to palsy his hand. This is no place for his eulogy; but we could not notice the publication of his latest volume without thus briefly recording our tribute to the author's memory. Since the death of Macaulay, England has sustained no greater loss in the ranks of her literary men.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Mr. Norton's "Travel and Study in Italy," p. 132.

[2]

"Giudica e manda, secondo che avvinghia."

Inf. v. 5

[3] "Les observateurs éclairés manquaient en 1737 pour suivre la transformation des phénomènes morbides."—Calmeil, De la Folie, Tom. II. p. 317.

[4] La Vérité des Miracles opérés par l'Intercession de M. de Pâris et autres Appellans démontrée; avec des Observations sur le Phénomène des Convulsions, par Carré de Montgéron, Conseiller au Parlement de Paris. 3 vols. 4to. 2d ed. Cologne, 1745.

The first edition, consisting, however, of a single volume only, appeared in 1737, and was presented to the King in person at Versailles, by M. de Montgéron, on the twenty-ninth of July of that year. The work was translated into German and Flemish; and besides several editions which appeared in France, one was published in Germany and two in Holland. It is illustrated with costly engraving.

Though the King (Louis XV.) received M. de Montgéron in an apparently gracious manner, yet, the very night after his reception, as he had himself foreseen, he was arrested and cast into the Bastille. Thence he was transferred from one place of confinement to another; and at the time he was preparing the second edition of his work, he was still (in 1744) a prisoner in the citadel of Valence. (See Advertisement to that edition, note to page vii.) He died in exile at Valence, in 1754.

[5] Voltaire, with his usual wit and irreverence, proposed that the notice, proclaiming the royal command, to be affixed to the gate of the church-yard should read as follows:—

"De part le Roi, défense à Dieu
De faire miracle en ce lieu."

[6] Hecker alleges that "the insanity of the Convusionnaires lasted, without interruption, until the year 1790," that is, for fifty-nine years, and was only interrupted by the excitement of the French Revolution; also, that, in the year 1762, the "Grands Secours" were forbidden by act of the Parliament of Paris.—Epidemics of the Middle Ages, from the German of I.F.C. Hecker, M.D., translated by B.G. Babington, M.D., F.R.S., London, 1846, p. 149.

There were published by Renault, parish, priest at Vaux near Ancerre, two pamphlets against the Succorists,—one entitled "Le Secourisme détruit dans ses Fondemens," in 1759, and the other, "Le Mystère d'Iniquité," as late as 1788,—an evidence that the controversy was kept up for at least half a century.

[7] "A peine l'entrée du tombeau eût elle été fermée, qu'on vit le nombre des Convulsionnaires s'accroître extraordinairement. Les convulsions commencèrent à s'étendre jusqu'à, des personnes qui n'avaient ni maladie ni infirmité corporelle."—Œuvres de Colbert, Tom. II. p. 203. (This is Colbert, Bishop of Montpelier, and nephew of Louis XIV.'s minister.)

[8] Montgéron, work cited, Tom. II. p. 36. Calmeil, De la Folie, Tom. II, pp. 315, 317.

[9] For particulars and certificates in this case, see Montgéron, Tom. II. Troisième Démonstration, pp. 1-58.

[10] Montgéron, work cited, Tom. II. Pièces Justificatives de la Troisième Démonstration, p. 4.

[11] Montgéron, Tom. I. Seconde Démonstration, p. 6.

[12] "Un coup d'épée" is the expression employed by Montgéron; but the facts elsewhere reported by himself do not seem to bear out, in most cases, its accuracy. It was not usually a thrust of a sword's point, but only a pressure with the point of a sharp sword, often so strong, however, that the weapon was bent by its force.

[13] Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 10.

[14] See, for the entire relation, from which I have here given extracts only, Montgéron's work, Tom. III. pp. 24-26. Montgéron, though he vouches for the narrator as a gentleman worthy of all credit, does not give his name, nor that, of the physician, except as Dr. M——. The occurrence took place in 1732.

[15] Montgéron, Tom. III. pp. 107-111.

[16] Ibid. p. 688.

[17] "As murderous blows must either wound or kill, but for a miracle, there ought to be a promise or a revelation to warrant their infliction. But God has given no such promise, no such revelation, to justify the demanding or the granting of the succors. It is, therefore, a tempting of God to do so."—Vains Efforts des Discernans, p. 133.

[18] Chenet is the French expression, an andiron, or dog-iron, as it is sometimes called. Montgéron thus describes it: "The andiron in question was a thick, roughly shaped bar of iron, bent at both ends, but the front end divided in two, to serve for feet, and furnished with a thick, short knob. This andiron weighed between twenty-nine and thirty pounds."—Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 693.

[19] Vains Efforts des Discernans, p. 134.

[20] Mémoire Théologique, p. 41. This is admitted also by the Abbé, see Vains Efforts, p. 127, and by M. Poncet, Réponse, etc., p. 15.

[21] Montgéron, Tom. III. pp. 693, 694. The author takes great pains to disprove a theory which few persons, in our day, will think worth refuting. In this connection, he quotes from a memoir drawn up by a gentleman who had spent much time in examining these phenomena, as follows:—"The force of the action and movement of the instruments employed is not broken or arrested or turned aside. Experience conclusively proves this. One sees the bodies of the convulsionists bend and sink beneath the blows. One can perceive that the parts assailed are twisted, and receive all the movements which such weapons as those employed are calculated to communicate. And the violence of the blows is often such that not only are they heard from the lowest story of a house to the highest, but they actually communicate to the floor and to the walls of the apartment a shock, which is sensibly felt, and which causes the spectators to start."—p. 686.

Montgéron adds his own personal experience. He says,—"That has happened frequently to myself. I have often been so much impressed with the strong motion communicated to the floor by the terrible blows dealt with stones or billets of wood with which they were striking convulsionists, that I could not restrain a shudder. For the rest, this is an occurrence to the truth of which there are as many to testify as there have been persons, whether friends or foes, who have seen the 'great succors.' One may say, that it is a fact attested by witnesses innumerable."—Montgéron, Tom. III. p 686.

Independently of the theory of Satanic intervention which the above details are adduced to disprove, they are very interesting in themselves, for the insight they give into the exact character of these terrible probations.

[22] Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 694.

[23] Quoted by Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 697.

[24] Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 697.

[25] Mémoire Théologique, p. 96.

[26] Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 697.

[27] Ibid. p. 698.

[28] Lettre du Dr. A—— à M. de Montgéron, p. 8.

[29] Ibid. p. 7.

[30] Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État des Convulsionnaires, pp. 45, 46. Montgéron does not allege, however, that any other part of the body than that where the warning pains were felt became insensible or invulnerable. He cites (Tom. III. p. 629) the case of a convulsionist who, "at the moment when they were striking her on the breast with all possible force with a stone weighing twenty-five pounds, bade them suspend the succors for a moment, till she adjusted, in another part of her dress, a pin that was pricking her."

[31] Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État des Convulsionnaires, pp. 31, 32.

[32] Montgéron, Tom. II. Idée de l'État des Convulionnaires, p. 33.

[33] Lettre du Dr. A—— à M. de Montgéron, p. 7.

[34] Réponse des Anti-Secouristes à la Réclamation, par M. Poncet, p. 4.

[35] Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 706.

[36] Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 707.

[37] Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 720.

[38] Ibid. pp. 713, 714.

[39] Ibid. p. 719.

[40] Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 716.

[41] Ibid. p. 721.

[42] Ibid. p. 709.

[43] Montgéron, Tom. III. p. 708.

[44] Ibid. p. 718.

[45] Ibid. p. 709.

[46] Montgéron, Tom. III. pp. 722, 723.

[47] The details are given by M. Morand, a surgeon of Paris of high reputation, member of the Academy of Sciences, who had been employed by the Lieutenant of Police to make to him a report on the subject, and who reproduces the result of his observations in his "Opuscules de Chirurgie." He found four girls, the centres of whose hands and feet were indurated by the frequent perforations of the nails. He witnessed the operation of crucifying one of them, the Sister Félicité. A certain M. La Barre was the operator. The nails were of the sort called demi-picaron, very sharp, flat, four-sided, and with a large head. They were driven, at a single blow of a hammer, nearly through the centre of the palm, between the third and fourth fingers; and in like manner through each foot a little above the toes and between the third and fourth; the same stroke causing the nail to enter also the wood of the cross. Félicité gave no signs of sensibility during the operation. When attached to the cross, she was gay, and converged with whoever addressed her, remaining crucified nearly half an hour. Morand remarked, that her wounds were not at all bloody, and that very little blood flowed, even when the nails were withdrawn. See his "Opuscules de Chirurgie," Partie II. chap. 6.

[48] De la Folie, Tom. II.; the page I omitted to note.

[49] It Is desirable that the reader should look up these localities upon a map of Switzerland, that he may be impressed with the growing grandeur of these ancient glaciers, even while they were retreating into the heart of the Alps; for in proportion as they left the plain, the landscape must have gained in imposing effect in consequence of the isolation of these immense masses of ice, which in their united extension may have recalled rather the immensity of the ocean, than the grandeur of Alpine scenery.

[50] This map, with all its details and measurements, is reproduced (Pl. V. fig. 1) in my "Système Glaciaire." It was accompanied by an explanatory paper in the form of a letter to Altmann, then Professor at Berne.

[51] M. de Charpentier has published a map of this ancient glacier in his "Essay upon the Glaciers and Erratics of the Valley of the Rhone."

[52] In the last report of the New-England Emigrant Aid Company we find the following significant passage:—

"There is, undoubtedly, a general desire among the inhabitants of the Northern and Middle States to remove into the States south of them, which will soon welcome the introduction of free labor. This desire manifests itself strongly among soldiers who have seen the beauty and fertility of those States, in their duty of occupation and protection; and it has communicated itself to their friends with whom they have corresponded. Society in those States is, however, still so disturbed, and in such angry temper, that no Northern settler will be welcome or comfortable, as yet, who goes alone. To be saved the animosities and the hardships of lonely settlement, it is desirable that parties of settlers, furnishing to each other their own society, and thus far independent of dissatisfied neighbors, should go out together. The conditions on which only land can be obtained point to the same organization. Lands already under cultivation are not offered for sale in all the Border States, at very low rates. If parties of settlers could buy in the large quantities which are offered, it would prove that they could remove and establish themselves, in some instances, upon these lands, almost as cheaply as they have hitherto been able to make the expensive Western journey and take up the cheap wild lands of the Government.

"But such purchases in the Border States are only possible when large tracts of land are sold. To enable the settler of small means to take a farm of a hundred acres, there needs the intervention of the organizers of emigration. Such a company as ours, for instance, can bring together, upon one old plantation, twenty, thirty, or forty families, if necessary: it can arrange for them terms of payment as favorable as those heretofore granted by the Government or the great railroad companies of the West."

Such suggestions apply more strongly to the case of Florida, which has come within our power since this report was published. Florida is, indeed, more easily protected from an enemy's raids than any of the so-called Border States.

[53] Written—if the author will permit us to tell—by Rev. Samuel Johnson, one of the truest and ablest of our scholars.

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. XIII.—FEBRUARY, 1864.—NO. LXXVI

Contents