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May, 1864, by Various

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Title: The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864
       Devoted To Literature And National Policy

Author: Various

Release Date: September 26, 2007 [EBook #22770]

Language: English

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THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.

VOL. V.—MAY, 1864.—No. V.

CONTENTS

[Pg 489]

AMERICAN FINANCES AND RESOURCES.

LETTER NO. V. OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER.

London, 10 Half Moon Street, Piccadilly,
February 8th, 1864.

In my third and fourth letters on American finances and resources, the following comparisons were instituted: Massachusetts and New Jersey, Free States, with Maryland and South Carolina, Slave States; New York and Pennsylvania, Free States, with Virginia, Slave State; Rhode Island, Free State, with Delaware, Slave State; Illinois, Free State, with Missouri, Slave State; the Free States of 1790, with the Slave States of that day; the Free States of 1860, with the Slave States of that date. These comparisons were based on the official returns of the Census of the United States, and exhibited in each case and in the aggregate the same invariable result, the vastly superior progress of the Free States in wealth, population, and education.

I will now institute one other comparison, Kentucky, slaveholding, with Ohio, a Free State.

Kentucky—population in 1790, 73,077; Ohio, none. 1800: Kentucky, 220,955; Ohio, 45,365. 1860: Kentucky, 1,155,684; Ohio, 2,339,502. We must institute the comparison from 1800, as Ohio was a wilderness in 1790, when Kentucky had a population of 73,077. In Kentucky, the ratio of increase of population from 1800 to 1860 was 527.98 per cent., and in the same period in Ohio 5,057.08. (Table 1, Census 1860.) Thus from 1800 to 1860 Ohio increased in nearly tenfold the ratio of Kentucky.

Wealth.—By Tables 33 and 36, Census of 1860, the value of the product of 1859 was as follows:

Thus is it, that, while in 1790 and 1800 Kentucky was so very far in advance of Ohio, yet, in 1860, so vast was the advance of Ohio as compared with Kentucky, that the value of the product of Ohio was nearly triple that of Kentucky, and, per capita, much more than one third greater. No reason can be assigned for these remarkable results, except that Kentucky was slaveholding, and Ohio a Free State.

Their area is nearly the same, and they are adjacent States; the soil of Kentucky is quite equal to that of Ohio, the climate better for crops [Pg 490]and stock, and the products more various.

We have seen the actual results in 1860, but if Kentucky had increased in population from 1800 to 1860 in the same ratio as Ohio, Kentucky then would have numbered 11,175,970, or nearly ten times her present population; and if the product had been the same as in Ohio, per capita, the value would have been $1,612,804,230, or more than fourteen times greater than the result. Thus it is demonstrated by the official Tables of the Census of the United States, that if Kentucky had increased in wealth and population from 1800 to 1860 in the same ratio as Ohio, the results would have been as follows:

Kentucky: population in 1860, 11,175,970; actual population in 1860, 1,155,684; value of products in 1860, $1,612,804,230; actual value in 1860, $115,408,000.

Some attempt has been made to account for these marvellous results, by stating that Ohio has a border on one of the lakes, and Kentucky has not. But to this it may be replied, that Kentucky borders for twice the distance on the Ohio River, has a large front on the Mississippi River, and embraces within her limits those noble streams, the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, making, together with the Big Sandy, Licking, Kentucky, Green, and Barren Rivers, the natural advantages of Kentucky for navigation, superior to those of Ohio. But a conclusive answer to this argument is found in the fact that, omitting all the counties of Ohio within the lake region, the remainder, within the valley of the Ohio River, contain a population more than one half greater than that of the whole State of Kentucky.

Lands.-The farm lands, improved and unimproved, of Ohio, in 1860, were worth $666,564,171. The number of acres 20,741,138, value per acre $32.13. (Census of 1860, p. 197, Table 36.) The farm lands of Kentucky, improved and unimproved, were worth $291,496,953, the number of acres 19,163,276, worth per acre, $15.21. (Ib.) Difference in favor of Ohio, $375,067,165. But if to this we add the difference between the value of the town and city lots and unoccupied lands of Ohio and Kentucky, the sum is $125,009,000, which added to the former sum ($375,067,165) makes the difference in favor of Ohio $500,076,165, when comparing the value of all her lands with those of Kentucky. We have seen that the value of the products in 1860 was, Ohio $337,619,000, Kentucky $115,408,000. But these products embrace only agriculture, manufactures, the mines, and fisheries.

We have no complete tables for commerce in either State, but the canals and railroads are as follows (Census of 1860, No. 38, pp. 225, 226, 233): Ohio: Miles of railroad, 3,016.83; cost of construction, $113,299,514. Kentucky: Miles of railroad, 569.93; cost of construction, $19,068,477. Estimated value of freight transported on these railroads in 1860: Ohio, $502,105,000; Kentucky, $48,708,000. On the 1st of January, 1864, the number of miles of railroad in operation in Ohio was 3,356.74, costing $130,454,383, showing a large increase since 1860, while in Kentucky there was none. (Amer. R. R. Journal, p. 61, vol. 37.) Canals in 1860 (Census Table 39): Ohio, 906 miles; Kentucky, two and a half miles. These Tables all prove how vast has been the increase of the wealth of Ohio as compared with Kentucky.

Let us now examine some of the educational statistics.

By Census Table 37, giving the newspapers and periodicals in the United States in 1860, the whole number of that year was 4,051, of which only 879 were in the Slave States; total number of copies circulated that year in the United States, 927,951,548, of which number there were circulated in the Slave States only 167,917,188. This Table shows the total number of newspapers and periodicals published in Ohio in 1859 was 340, and the number[Pg 491] of copies circulated that year in that State was 71,767,742. In Kentucky, the number of newspapers and periodicals published in 1859 was 77, and the number of copies circulated that year was 13,504,044, while South Carolina, professing to instruct and control the nation, had a circulation of 3,654,840, although South Carolina, in 1790, had a population of 249,073, when Ohio was a wilderness, and Kentucky numbered only 73,077.

As regards education, we must take the Tables for the Census of 1850, those for 1860 not having been yet published.

By Table 144, Census of 1850, the total number of pupils in public and private schools, colleges, and academies, was for that year as follows: Ohio, 502,826. Kentucky, 85,914. Percentage of native free population who cannot read or write (Table 155), Ohio 3.24; Kentucky, 9.12; Slave States, native white adults who cannot read or write, ratio 17.23; Free States, 4.12. (Table 157.) If we include slaves, more than one half the adults of the Slave States cannot read or write. Indeed, it is made by law in the Slave States a crime (severely punished) to teach any slave to read or write. These Tables also show that in South Carolina, the great leader of secession, (including slaves) more than three fourths of the people can neither read nor write. Such is the State, rejoicing in the barbarism of ignorance and slavery, exulting in the hope of reviving the African slave trade, whose chief city witnesses each week the auction of slaves as chattels, and whose newspapers, for more than a century, are filled with daily advertisements by their masters of runaway slaves, describing the brands and mutilations to which they have been subjected; that passed the first secession ordinance, and commenced the war upon the Union by firing upon the Federal flag and garrison of Sumter. Yet it is the pretended advocates of peace that justify this war upon the Union, and insist that it shall submit to dismemberment without a struggle, and permit slavery to be extended over nearly one half the national territory, purchased by the blood and treasure of the nation. Such a submission to disintegration and ruin—such a capitulation to slavery, would have been base and cowardly. It would have justly merited for us the scorn of the present, the contempt of the future, the denunciation of history, and the execration of mankind. Despots would have exultingly announced that 'man is incapable of self-government;' while the heroes and patriots in other countries, who, cheered and guided by the light of our example, had struggled in the cause of popular liberty, would have sunk despairingly from the conflict. This is our real offence to European oligarchy, that we will crush this foul rebellion, extinguish the slavery by which it was caused, make the Union stronger and more harmonious, and thus give a new impulse and an irresistible moral influence and power to free institutions.

Let me recapitulate some of the facts referred to in these letters, and established by the Census of the United States.

Area of the United States, 3,250,000 square miles, exceeding that of all Europe—all compact and contiguous, with richer lands, more mineral resources, a climate more salubrious, more numerous and better harbors, more various products, and increasing in wealth and population more rapidly than any other country.

[Pg 492]

Our country, then, is better watered than any other, and has more navigable streams, and greater hydraulic power.

We have completed since 1790, 5,782 miles of canal, costing $148,000,000; and 33,860 miles of railroad (more than all the rest of the world), costing $1,625,952,215. (Amer. R. R. Journal, 1864, No. 1,448, vol. 37, p. 61.)

Our land lines of telegraph exceed those of all the rest of the world, the single line from New York to San Francisco being 3,500 miles. Our mines of coal, according to Sir William Armstrong, the highest British authority, are thirty-two times as great as those of the United Kingdom.

Annual product of our mines of gold and silver, $100,000,000, estimated at $150,000,000 per annum by our Commissioner of the General Land Office, when the Pacific railroad shall be completed.

Public lands unsold, belonging to the Federal Government, 1,055,911,288 acres, being 1,649,861 square miles, and more than thirty-two times the extent of England.

Immigration to the United States from 1850 to 1860, 2,598,216, adding to our national wealth during that decade $1,430,000,000.

Education—granted by Congress since 1790 for the purposes of public schools—two sections (1,280 acres) in every township (23,040 acres), in all 1,450,000,000 acres of public lands; one eighteenth part given, being 80,555,555 acres, worth at the minimum price of $1.25 per acre, $100,694,443—the real value, however, was much greater.

Granted by Congress for colleges and universities, 12,080,000 acres, including 3,553,824 given by the Federal Government to the State of Tennessee, worth, at the minimum price of $1.25 per acre, $15,100,000, which is much below their true value.

Total in public lands granted by Federal Government for education, 92,635,555 acres; minimum value, $115,794,443.

In 1836, after full payment of the entire principal and interest of the public debt, there remained in the Federal Treasury a surplus of $38,000,000, of which about one half, $19,000,000, was devoted to educational purposes.

Total Federal appropriations since 1790 for education, $134,794,443.

This is exclusive of the many millions of dollars expended by the Federal Government for military and naval schools, etc., at West Point, Washington, Annapolis, and Newport. Besides these Federal donations, there has been granted by States, Territories, counties, towns, and cities of the Union for education, since 1790 (partly estimated) $148,000,000. Grand total by States and Federal Government appropriated in the United States since 1790, for education, $282,794,443. This is independent of numerous private donations for the same purpose, that by Mr. Girard exceeding $1,500,000, and that by Mr. Smithson exceeding $500,000. It is then a fact that the Governments of the United States, State and Federal, since 1790, have appropriated for education more money than all the other Governments of the world combined during the same period. This is a stupendous fact, and one of the main causes of our wonderful progress and prosperity. We believe that 'knowledge is power,' and have appropriated nearly $300,000,000, during the last seventy-four years, in aid of the grand experiment. We believe that 'man is capable of self-government,' but only when educated and enlightened. We believe that the power and wealth and progress of nations increase in proportion to the education and enlightenment of the masses. We believe in intellectual as well as machine and muscular power, and that when the millions are educated, and work with their heads as well as their hands, the progress of the nation will be most rapid. Our patent office is a wonderful illustration of this principle, showing on the part of our industrial classes more valuable inventions and[Pg 493] discoveries, annually, than are produced by the workingmen of all the rest of the world.

Population.

Ratio of Increase.—From 1790 to 1800, 35.02; from 1800 to 1810, 36.45; from 1810 to 1820, 33.13; from 1820 to 1830, 33.49; from 1830 to 1840, 32.67; from 1840 to 1850, 35.87; from 1850 to 1860, 35.59. Thus it appears (omitting territorial acquisitions) that our ratio of increase was much greater from 1850 to 1860 than during any preceding decade. This was the result of augmented immigration, which is still to go on with increased power for many years. Making allowance for all probable contingencies, and reducing the decennial increase from 35.59 to three per cent. per annum, our able and experienced Superintendent of the Census, in his last official report, of 20th May, 1862, gives his own estimate of the future population of the United States:

That, in view of our new Homestead law—our high wages—the extinction of slavery—increased confidence in our institutions—and augmented immigration, these results will be achieved, can scarcely be doubted. As population becomes more dense in Europe, there will be an increased immigration to our Union, and each new settler writes to his friends abroad, and often remits money to induce them to join him in his Western home. The electric ocean telegraph will soon unite Europe with America, and improved communications are constantly shortening the duration of the voyage and diminishing the expense. Besides, this war has made us much better known to the European masses, who, everywhere, with great unanimity and enthusiasm sustain our cause, and, with slavery extinguished, will still more prefer our institutions.

From all these causes there will be an augmented exodus from Europe to America, when our rebellion is suppressed, and slavery overthrown. Besides, the President of the United States now proposes appropriations of money by Congress in aid of immigration, and such will become the policy of our Government. We have seen the official estimate made by our Superintendent of the Census, but if we take the ratio of increase of the last decade, the result would be as follows:

The estimate of the Superintendent is, therefore, six millions less than according to the ratio from 1850 to 1860, and much less than from 1790 to 1860.

When we reflect that if, as densely settled as Massachusetts, our population would exceed 513,000,000, or if numbering as many to the square mile as England, our inhabitants would then be more than twelve hundred millions, the estimate of 100,000,000 for the year 1900 cannot be regarded as improbable.

Our national wealth was

Increase from 1850 to 1860, 126.45 per cent.

At the same rate of increase for the four succeeding decades, the result would be:

[Pg 494]

Tonnage.

At the same rate of increase as from 1851 to 1861, the result would be:

Total number of copies of our newspapers and periodicals circulated in the United States in 1860, 927,951,548, exceeding that of all the rest of the world.

Let us now recapitulate the results from our Census, founded on a comparison of the Slave and Free States.

Compare the column as regards Virginia with the returns for Pennsylvania, and the result is nearly as remarkable as that of New York.

Pennsylvania, area 46,000, population in 1790, 434,373; in 1860, 2,900,115. Products of 1859, $399,600,000, per capita, $138, profit on capital, 22 per cent. Value of farm lands per acre, $38.91. Railroads, 2,690 miles, costing $147,483,410. Canals, 1,259 miles, costing $42,015,000. Tonnage built in 1860, 21,615 tons. Bank capital, $25,565,582. Exports and imports, $20,262,608, Copies of press circulated in 1860,116,094,480. Pupils at public schools, 413,706. Volumes in public libraries, 363,400. Value of churches, $11,853,291.

It is thus demonstrated by the official statistics of the Census of the United States, from 1790 to 1860, that the total annual product of the Free States per capita exceeds that of the Slave States, largely more than two to one, and, including commerce, very nearly three to one. As regards education, also, we see that the ratio in favor of the Free States is more than four to one in 1850 (4.12 to 17.23), and, in 1860, more than five to one (3.21 to 17.03). And even as regards agricultural products, we have seen that those of the Free States were $2,527,676,000 per annum, and of the Slave States only $862,324,000. The value of the lands of the Free States was $25.19 per acre, of the Slave States only $10.46 per acre; the product of the improved lands of the Free States was $26.68 per acre and of the Slave States $11.55, while, per capita, the result was $131.48 to $70.56.

These facts prove how much greater the crops of the Slave States would be, if their farms (including cotton) were cultivated by free labor. It is also thus demonstrated how completely the fertile lands of the South are exhausted and reduced in value by slave culture. Having thus proved, deductively, the ruinous effects of slavery, I will proceed, in my next letter, inductively, to exhibit the causes which have produced these remarkable results.

R. J. Walker.
[Pg 500]

ÆNONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER V.

The day wore quietly on, like any other day; for the confusion and turmoil of the ovation were already a half-forgotten thing of the past, and Rome had again subsided into its usual course: in the earlier hours, a city of well-filled streets, astir and vocal with active and vigorous trade and labor; then—as the noontide sun shed from the brazen sky a molten glow, that fell like fire upon the lava pavement, and glanced from polished walls until the whole atmosphere seemed like a furnace—a city seemingly deserted, except by a few slaves, engaged in removing the triumphal arches hung with faded and lifeless flowers, and by a soldier here and there in glistening armor, keeping a lonely watch; and again—as the sun sank toward the west, and, with the lengthening shadows, the intensity of the heat diminished—a city flooded with wealth and fashion, pouring in confused streams hither and thither, through its broadest avenues and forums—groups of idlers sauntering along to watch the inoccupation of others, and with the prospective bath as the pretence for the stroll—matrons and maidens of high degree, with attendants following them—a rattle of gayly caparisoned chariots, with footmen trotting beside the wheels—guards on horseback—detachments of prætorian soldiers passing up and down—here the car of a senator of the broad purple—there the mounted escort of a Syrian governor—all that could speak of magnificence, wealth, and authority, at that hour thronged the pavement.

Leaving the Vanno palace, Ænone joined herself to this moving concourse. At her side walked one of her bondwomen, and, at a pace or two behind, properly attired, and armed only with a short sword, strode the armor bearer. Thus attended, she pressed forward along the Appian Way toward the outskirts of the city—past broad palaces and villas, with encircling gardens and open paved courts—past shrubberies, fish ponds, and statue-crowned terraces—past public baths, through whose broad doorways the people swarmed by hundreds, and whose steps were thronged with waiting slaves; now stopping until the armor bearer, running to the front, could make a passage for her through some crowd denser than ordinary—then gliding onward with more rapid pace, as the way became clearer—and again arresting herself for a moment as the stream of people also tarried to watch the approach of the gorgeous chariot and richly uniformed guards of the emperor Titus Vespasian. At length, turning the corner of a pillar-porticoed temple, which stood back from the street, and up the gentle ascent of whose steps a concourse of priests and attendants were forcing a garland-decked bullock, unconscious of the sacrificial rites which awaited him within, she stood beyond the surging of the crowd and in a quiet little street.

It was a narrow avenue, in whose humble architecture brick took the place of stone; but by no means mean or filthy, like so many of the streets of similar width in the central portion of the city. Stretching out toward the open country, and not given up to merchandise or slave quarters, its little houses had their gardens and clustering vines about them, supplying with the picturesque whatever was wanting in magnificence, and evidencing a pleasant medium between wealth and pov[Pg 501]erty. The paved roadway was clean and unbroken; and far down as the eye could reach no life could be seen, except a single slave with a fruit basket balanced upon his head, and near him a group of children at play.

Passing down this street, Ænone came to a spot where one of the great aqueducts which supplied the city, crossed the roadway diagonally with a single span. At the right hand stood a small brick house, built into the nearest arch so snugly that it seemed as though its occupants could almost hear the gurgling of the water flowing overhead from the hills of Albanus. Like the other houses in its neighborhood, it had a small courtyard in front, planted with a shrub or two. This was the home of her father, the centurion Porthenus. Stopping here, she was about to enter without warning, according to her usual custom, but as she advanced, a dwarf, whom she recognized as the same which that morning had so eagerly presented himself for notice in the front of her husband's captives, sprang forward, grinned his recognition of the armor bearer, made another grimace expressive of mingled respect and admiration for herself, threw open the door, and ushered her in with an outburst of ceremonious pride befitting an imperial reception.

At a back window of the house, from whence the line of aqueduct could be seen for some distance leaping houses and streets in its undeviating course to the centre of the city, sat the centurion. He was a man of medium height, short necked, and thick set, with blunted features and grizzled hair and beard. Two of the fingers of his left hand were wanting, and a broad scar, the trophy of a severe skirmish among the Alemanni, crossed his right cheek and one side of his nose, giving him an expression more curious than pleasing. His general appearance was after the common type of an old, war-worn soldier, rough and unscrupulous by nature, hardened by camp life and dissipation, grown cruel by excess of petty authority, overbearing with his inferiors, jovial and complaisant with his equals, cringing to his superiors, and with an air of discontent overlaying every other expression, as though he was continually tortured with the belief that his success in life had not equalled his merits. As Ænone entered, he was bending over a shield, and earnestly engaged in burnishing its brazen mouldings. At his side leaned a short sword, awaiting similar attention, and in a rack beside him were a number of weapons of different varieties and sizes, which had already submitted to his restorative skill, and now shone like glass.

Hearing her light step, he looked up, arose, flung the shield into a corner, and, with a roar, as though ordering a battalion, called out to the grinning dwarf, who had followed her in:

"Ho there, ape! A seat for my daughter, the wife of the imperator Sergius Vanno!"

The dwarf sprang forward and dragged out a seat for her; having done which, he seemed about to yield to his curiosity and remain. But the centurion, disapproving of such freedom, made a lunge at him with the small sword, before which the dwarf retired with a precipitate leap, and joined the bondwoman and armor bearer outside. Then the father, being left alone with his daughter, embraced her, and uttered such words of welcome as his rough nature suggested.

As regarded his intercourse with her, perhaps the most noticeable traits were the mingled reverence and familiarity with which he treated her. It seemed as though he was actuated by an ever-pervading consciousness that her exalted position demanded the observance of the deepest respect toward her; but that this feeling was connected in his mind with an unceasing struggle to remember that, after all, she was his own child, and as such was not entitled to[Pg 502] any undue consideration from him. Upon the present occasion, he first timidly touched her cheek with his lips and uttered a gentle and almost courtly salutation; but immediately recollecting himself, and appearing to become impressed with the belief that his unwitting deference was unworthy of the character of a father, he proceeded to atone for the mistake by a rough and discomposing embrace, and such a familiar and frolicksome greeting as none but a camp follower would have felt flattered with. Then, seating himself before her, he commenced his conversation in a rude and uncouth tone, and with rather a forced affectation of military bluntness; from which, however, as his eye dwelt upon the richness of her apparel and his mind began to succumb to the charm of her native refinement, he gradually and unconsciously subsided, in turn, into his former soft and deferential manner.

'And so the imperator Sergius Vanno has returned,' he said, rolling upon his tongue, with evident satisfaction, that high-sounding title—once the acknowledged appellation of a conqueror, but now claimed as a right by the imperial line alone, and no longer elsewhere bestowed except as an informal and transitory compliment. 'It was a splendid ovation, and well earned by a glorious campaign. There is no one in all the Roman armies who could have managed it better.'

Nevertheless, with unconscious inconsistency, he immediately began to show wherein the campaign could have been improved, and how many gross mistakes were visible in every portion of it—how the force of Mutius should have been diverged more in advancing inland—how, in the battle along the shore, the three-oared galleys of Agricola should have been drawn up to support the attack—the consequence of this omission, if the leading cohort had met with a repulse—and the like. All this he marked out upon the floor with a piece of coal, taking but little heed that Ænone could not follow him; and step by step, in the ardor of criticism, he advanced so far that he was soon ready to prove that the campaign had been most wofully misconducted, and was only indebted to accident for success.

'But it is of little use for me to talk, if I cannot act as well,' he at length concluded, rising from the floor. 'And how could I act any part, placed as I am? The father of the wife of the imperator Sergius Vanno should be the leader of a cohort rather than of a mere century; and be otherwise lodged than in this poor place. Then would they listen to him.'

He spoke bitterly and enviously, exhibiting in his whole tone as well as in his words his besetting weakness. For a while Ænone did not answer. It was as far from her duty as from her taste and pleasure to remind him, even if she could have done so to his comprehension, that her husband had already advanced him as far as was possible or fitting, and had otherwise provided for him in various ways as well as could reasonably be expected. The views of the centurion were of a far different nature. In giving his daughter to the patrician he had meanly intended thereby to rise high in life—had anticipated ready promotion beyond what his ignorance would have justified—had supposed that he would be admitted upon an equal social footing among the friends of Sergius, not realizing that his own native roughness and brutishness must have forbidden such a connection—had dazzled his eyes too wilfully with pictures of the wealth and influence and glory that would fall to his lot. As long, therefore, as so many of those gilded imaginings had failed in their promise, it seemed as nothing to him that Sergius, in the first flush of admiration for the daughter, had removed the father from rough provincial to more pleasing and relaxing urban duties, had purchased him a house befitting his station, and[Pg 503] had lightened his condition in various ways.

'But we are gradually doing better,' Ænone said at length, striving to cheer him by identifying her fortunes more nearly with his own, 'This is a finer place than we had to live in at Ostia. Think how narrow and crowded we were then. And now I see that we have a new slave to open for us, while at Ostia we had only old Mitus. Indeed, we are very comfortable.'

'Ay, ay,' growled the centurion; 'a new slave—a dwarf or idiot, or what not—just such a creature as would not bring five sestertia in the market; and, therefore, the imperator has cast him to me, like a bare bone to a dog. Tell him I thank him for the gift. And in this matter it has been with me as always heretofore—either no luck at all, or too much. How often have I not passed a campaign without taking a prisoner, while they fell in crowds to all around me? And when at last I gained my share, when was it ever of any value to me, being hundreds of miles from a market? And here it is the same again. For months, no slave at all; and then all at once there are two, and I shall be,eaten out of my house.'

'Two, father?'

'Listen to me. No sooner did your honored lord send me this dwarf, than arrives Tisiphon of the twelfth cohort. He had long owed me a slave; and now that a captive, poor and feeble, and likely to die, had fallen into his hands, he thought it a fair opportunity to acquit himself toward me. But for once Tisiphon has cheated himself. The slave he brought was weak and sick, but it was only from want of food and rest. The fellow will recover, and I will yet make much of him. Would you see him? Look out of the back window there. He will turn out a fine slave yet, and, if this dwarf had not come, would be right pleasing to me. But two of them! How shall I find bread for both?'

Ænone walked to the window, and leaned out. The courtyard behind was but limited in size, containing a few squares of burnt brick arranged for pavement around a small plot of grass at the foot of a single plane tree. The slave of whom the centurion spoke was seated upon this plot, with his back against the tree, and his head bent over, while, with vacant mind, he watched the play of a small green lizard. As she appeared at the window, he raised his eyes toward her, then dropped them again upon the ground. It was hardly, in fact, as much as could be called a look—a mere glance, rather, a single tremor of the drooping lid, a mute appeal for sympathy, as though there had been an inner instinct which, at that instant, had directed him to her, as one who could feel pity for his trouble and desolation. But at that glance, joined to something strangely peculiar in the captive's figure and attitude, a nervous thrill shot through Ænone's heart, causing her to hold her breath in unreasoning apprehension; a fear of something which she could not explain, a dim consciousness of some forgotten association of the past arising to confront her, but which she could not for the moment identify. And still she looked out, resisting the impulse of dread which bade her move away, fixing a strained gaze upon the captive, in a vain struggle to allay, by one moment of calm scrutiny, that phantom of her memory which, act as she might, would not be repressed, but which each instant seemed to expand into clearer certainty before her.

'Do you see him? Does he appear to you a worthy slave?' cried the centurion.

'A worthy slave, indeed,' she answered, in a low tone, feeling compelled to make some response.

At her voice, the captive again raised his head, and looked into her face; not now with a hasty, timid glance, but with the full gaze of one who believes he has been spoken to, and waits for a[Pg 504] renewal of the question. And as she met the inquiring look, Ænone turned away and sank back in terror and dismay. She knew it all, now, nor could she longer deceive herself by vain pretences or assurances. The instinct which, at the first had filled her soul with that unexplained dread, had not been false to her. For that glance, as it now rested upon her with, longer duration and deeper intensity, too surely completed the suggestion which, at the first it had faintly whispered to her, flashing into her heart the long-stifled memories of the past, recalling the time when, a few years before, she had sat upon the rock at Ostia, and had gazed down upon eyes lifted to meet her own with just so beseeching an appeal, and telling her too truly that she stood again in the presence of him to whom she had then promised her girlish faith, and whom she had so long since looked upon as dead to her.

'I will call him in,' said the centurion, 'and you can see him closer.'

'Nay, nay, father; let him remain where he is,' she exclaimed, in uncontrollable dread of recognition.

'Ha! art not afraid, girl?' demanded the old man. 'He can do no hurt, even were he stronger; and now that he is weak, a child could lead him with a string. Come hither, sirrah!'

The captive arose, smoothed down his tunic, and, obediently entering the house, awaited commands; while Ænone, with as quiet movement as possible, shrunk, into the most distant corner of the room. What if he should recognize her, and should call upon her by name, not knowing her changed position, or recollecting his own debasement into slavery? What explanation other than the true one could she give to account for his audacity, and save him from the chastisement which the offended centurion would prepare to bestow upon him? This was but a momentary fear, however, since she felt that the increasing glow of evening, added to her own alteration by dress, and the certainty that he would not expect to meet her thus, found a sure protection against recognition, as long as she took care not to risk betrayal by her voice or manner. And, perhaps, after all—and her heart lightened somewhat at the thought—it might be that her reason had too freely yielded to an insane fancy, and allowed her to be deceived by a chance resemblance.

'How is he called?' she inquired, disguising her voice as thoroughly as she could. The instant she had spoken she would have retracted her words, if possible, from the mere fear lest her father, in his response, might mention her name. But it luckily chanced that the centurion did not do so.

'How is he called? Nay, that thing I had not thought to ask as yet. Your name, slave?'

'Cleotos.'

At the word, the blood again flew back to her heart. There could now no longer be a doubt. How often had she repeated that name endearingly, in those early days of her first romance in life!

'Cleotos,' said the centurion. 'It is a brave name. There was once a leader of a full phalanx with that name, and he did well to the empire. It is, therefore, scarcely a name for a slave to bear. But we will talk some other time about that. It is of thine appearance now, that we will speak. Is he not, after all, a pleasing youth? Did Tisiphon so surely deceive me as he intended, when he gave the man to me? See! there is but little brawn and muscle to him, I grant; and therefore he will not make a good gladiator or even spearman; but he has a comely shape, which will fit him well for a page or palace usher. And, therefore, I will sell him for such. He should bring a good price, indeed, when the marks of his toil and sickness have gone off from him, and he has been fattened into better condition. But two of them!' continued the centurion, suddenly recurring to his former[Pg 505] source of grief. 'How can I fatten him when there are two of them? How find bread for both? And yet he is not so very thin, now. I will light a lamp, daughter, for it has grown quite dark, and you shall come nearer and examine him.'

'Nay! nay!' exclaimed Ænone, in hurried resistance of this new danger. 'Not now. I am no judge of the merits of captives, and it is getting late. I know that my lord will be expecting me, and perchance will be vexed if I delay.'

'Be it so, then,' responded the other. 'And as it is dark, it is not befitting that you should go without escort. Take, therefore—'

'I have the armor bearer for my escort, father.'

'It is something, but not enough,' said the centurion. 'Enough for safety, but not for dignity. Remember that, while on the one hand you are the wife of the imperator Sergius Vanno, you are also a daughter of the house of Porthenus—a family which was powerful in the far-off days of the republic, long before the house of Vanno had begun to take root,' he continued, in a tone of pride. For then, as now, poverty consoled itself for its privations by dreams—whether well or ill founded, it mattered but little—of grandeurs which had once existed; and it was one of the weaknesses of the centurion to affect superiority of blood, and try to believe that therein he enjoyed compensations beyond anything that wealth could bestow.

'Of the house of Porthenus,' he repeated, 'and should therefore be suitably attended. So let this new slave follow behind. And take, also, the dwarf. He is not of soldierly appearance, but for all that he will count as one more.'

Fearful of offending her father by a refusal, or of encountering additional risks of recognition by a more prolonged conversation at the doorway, now brightened by the light of the newly risen moon, Ænone hastily assented, and started upon her homeward route. Clinging closely to the side of her bondwoman, not daring to look back for a parting adieu to her father, who stood at the door leaning upon his sword, and grimly smiling with delight at fancying his child at last attended as became a scion of the house of Porthenus—not regarding the half-smothered oaths and exclamations of contempt with which the armor bearer behind her surveyed his two new companions upon guard—she pressed rapidly on, with the sole desire of reaching her house and secluding herself from further danger of recognition.

The moon rose higher, silvering the city with charms of new beauty, gleaming upon the surface of the swift-rolling Tiber, giving fresh radiance to the marble palaces and temples, adding effect to whatever was already beautiful, diminishing the deformity of whatever was unlovely, even imparting a pleasant aspect of cheerfulness to the lower quarters of the city, where lay congregated poverty and dishonor and crime. The Appian Way no longer swarmed with the crowd that had trodden it an hour ago. The priests had completed the sacrifice and left the temple, the bathers had departed, the slaves no longer lingered upon the porticos, and the riders in gay chariots no more were to be seen. A calmer and more quiet occupancy of the street had ensued. Here and there a soldier paced to and fro, looking up at the moon and down again, at the glistening river, and thought, perhaps, upon other night watches in Gallia, when just such a moon had gleamed upon the silver Rhone. Here and there two lovers, loth to abandon such a pleasant light and warmth, strolled slowly along, and, as lovers have ever done, bade the moon witness their vows. But not the river or the moonlight did Ænone now linger to look upon, nor lovers' vows did she think about, as she glided hastily toward her own home. The peace[Pg 506]fulness and quiet of nature found no response in her heart. Her only emotion was one of dread lest each ray of light might shine too brightly upon her—lest even her walk might betray her—lest every sound might be an unguarded recognition from the poor, unconscious captive behind her.

At length she reached her home, passed up the broad flight of steps in front, and stood panting within the doorway. A momentary pause ere she entered, and then, unable to continue the control which she had so far maintained over herself, she turned and cast one hasty, curious glance below. The two new slaves of the centurion stood side by side in the street, gazing up at the palace walls, the dwarf with a grin of almost idiotic glee, the other with a grave air of quiet contemplation. But what was that sudden look of startled recognition that suddenly flashed across the features of the latter? Why did his face turn so ghastly pale in the moonlight, and his limbs seem to fail him, so that he grasped his companion's arm for support? Ænone shrank terrified into the obscurity of the doorway.

But in an instant she recovered her self-possession. It must be that he had been faint or giddy, nothing more. It could not have been recognition that had startled him from his earnest contemplation, for he had not been looking toward her, but, with his body half turned away, had been gazing up at the highest story of the palace.

CHAPTER VI.

And now, having avoided the immediate peril of recognition, Ænone turned into the palace. Even there, however, her disordered fancy pictured dangers still encompassing her. How, after all, could she feel sure that she had not been known? During that clear moonlight passage along the Appian Way, what revelations might not have been made by a chance look or gesture! At the very first she had almost stumbled upon the truth merely through the magic of one upward glance of the eye of the wearied slave; why, then, might she not have unconsciously revealed herself to him by even a wave of the hand or a turn of the instep, or by some other apparently trivial and unimportant motion? And if so, at what instant might he not forget his fallen condition, and disregard not only his safety but her reputation, by pressing into the palace and claiming the right of speech with her? Rasher deeds were not seldom done under the promptings of desperation. Trembling beneath the sway of such imaginings, each footfall that resounded in the hall seemed like the light and buoyant step of him who had trodden with her the sands of Ostia—each figure that passed by bore, for the instant, the outline of his form—even at the open window the well-known face seemed to peer in at every corner and watch her.

This paroxysm of terror gradually passed away, but was succeeded by other fancies equally productive of inquietude. What if the captive, having recognized her, had whispered his story to the companions with whom he had walked! He would surely not do so if he still loved her; but what if his love had ceased, and he should be meanly desirous of increasing his own importance by telling how he, a slave, had been the chosen lover of the proudly allied lady before him? Nay, he would never act thus, for it would be a baseness foreign to his nature; and yet have not men of the most lofty sense of honor often fallen from their original nobility, and revelled in self-degradation? And it somehow seemed as though, at the last, the dwarf had looked up at her with a strangely knowing leer. And was it merely her imagination that made her think there was a certain sly approach to undue familiarity in the usually deferential deportment of the armor bearer?

With the next morning, however, came more composed reflections. Though the forebodings of the evening[Pg 507] had naturally tinged her dreams with similar vague imaginings of coming trouble, yet, upon the whole, her sleep had brought rest, and the bright sunlight streaming in at the window drove away the phantoms which, during the previous gloom, had so confusedly disported themselves in her bewildered brain. She could now indulge in a more cheering view of her situation; and she felt that there was nothing in what had transpired of sufficient importance, when coolly weighed and passed upon, to make her anxious or afraid.

In a sick and travel-worn slave she had recognized one to whom, in her younger days, she had plighted her faith, and who had, in turn, given his faith to her. He was now a captive, and she had become one of the nobles of the empire. But his evil lot had not been of her procuring, being merely one of those ill fortunes which are cast broadly over the earth, and whose descent upon any one person more than upon another can be attributed to destiny alone. Nor, in accepting her high position, had she been guilty of breach of faith, for she had long awaited the return of her lover, and he had not come. And through all those years, as she had grown into more mature womanhood, she had vaguely felt that those stolen interviews had been but the unreasoning suggestions of girlish romance, too carelessly indifferent to the exigencies of poverty and diverse nationality; and that, if he had ever returned to claim her, mutual explanation and forgetfulness could have been their only proper course. There was, therefore, nothing for which she could reproach herself, or for which he could justly blame her, were he to recognize her as the wife of another man.

But there was little chance, indeed, that such a recognition could take place. Certainly, now that, apart from her troubled and excited fears of the previous day, she more deliberately weighed the chances, she felt assured that in her rapid passage through the evening gloom, nothing could have betrayed her. And it was not probable that even in open daylight and in face-to-face encounter with him he would be likely to know her. She had recognized him almost at a glance, for not only was his dress composed of the same poor and scant material which had served him years before, but even in form and feature he seemed unchanged, his slight frame having gained no expansion as his manhood had progressed, while his face retained in every line the same soft and almost girlish expression. But with herself all things had altered. It was not merely that the poorly clad maiden who, with naked feet, well-tanned hands, and tangled and loosely hanging curls, had been wont to wander carelessly by the shore of a distant bay, had become a richly adorned matron of the imperial centre. Beyond all that, there was a greater change, which, though in its gradual progress almost inappreciable to one who had watched her day by day, could not but be remarked after a lapse of many years. The darker hair, the softer complexion, the suave smile into which the merry laugh of girlhood had little by little subsided, the more composed mien, replete with matronly dignity, the refinement of air and attitude insensibly resulting from long continued instinctive imitation, the superior development of figure—all these, as they were improvements in her former self, were also just so many effective disguises upon which she could safely rely, unless she were to provoke inordinate scrutiny by some unguarded action or expression. But all this she would earnestly guard against. She would even put no trust in the natural immunity of which her reason assured her, but would make everything doubly safe by totally refraining from any encounter with one whose recognition of her would be so painful.

This she could do, and yet not fail in any friendly duty which the remem[Pg 508]brance of their former love might enjoin upon her. Unseen in her retirement, she could watch over and protect him, now that in his sorrow and degradation he so greatly needed a friend. She could ameliorate his lot by numberless kindnesses, which he would enjoy none the less for being unable to detect their source. She would cunningly influence her father to treat him with tenderness and consideration. And when the proper time arrived, and she could take her measures without suspicion, she would herself purchase his freedom, and send him back rejoicing to his native land. And when all this was done, and he should again have reached his home, perhaps she might then write to him one line to tell him who it was that had befriended him, and that she had done so in memory of olden times, and that now, when she was so far removed from him, he should give her one kind thought, utter a prayer to the gods in her behalf, and then forget her forever.

So much for her security and her friendly duty. As for the feelings of her heart, she was at rest. Strong in self-confidence, she had no fear that her mind could be influenced to stray from its proper path. It is true that during the previous evening, in the first tumult of troubled thought, she had felt a vague presentiment that a day of temptation might be before her, not as the result of any deliberate choice upon her part, but rather as a cruel destiny to be forced upon her. But now the current of her mind moved more clearly and unobstructedly; and she felt that however chance might control the worldly prosperity of each one, the will and strength to shape his own destiny, for good or evil, are still left to him unimpaired. Away, then, with all thoughts of the past. In her heart there could be but one affection, and to her life there could be but the one course of duty, and in that she would steadfastly walk.

Strengthened, therefore, with the well-assured belief that the impulsive affection of her youth had become gradually tempered by lapse of years into a chaste and sisterly friendship, and that the pleasant memories which clustered about her heart and made her look back half regretfully upon those former days would be cherished only as the mere innocent relics of a girlish romance, she felt no fear that her faith could be led to depart from its lawful allegiance. But aside from all this, there lurked within her breast an uneasy sense of being the holder of a great secret which, in the end, would surely crush her, unless she could share its burden with another. In this desire for confidence, at least, there could be no harm; and her mind rapidly ran over the array of her few friends. For the first time in her life, perhaps, her isolation from close and unfettered companionship with others was forced upon her attention, and her soul grew faint as she thought upon her dependence upon herself alone for comfort or advice. To whom, indeed, could she venture to pour out her heart? Not to her father, who, with unreasoning ignorance and little charity, would coarsely form base conclusions about her, and would most likely endeavor to solve the problem by cruelty to the unfortunate slave who had so unwittingly originated it. Not to any of those matrons of whom her rank made her the associate; and who, after gaining her confidence, would either betray it to others, or else, wrongly misconstruing her, and fancying her to be influenced by scruples which they might not have felt, would scarcely fail to ridicule and cast disdain upon all the most tender emotions of her heart. And above all others, not to her husband, to whom, if she dared, she would have wished to reveal everything, but who had, she feared, at the bottom of his soul, a jealous and suspicious nature, which would be sure to take alarm, and cause him to look upon her story, not as a generous confidence be[Pg 509]stowed in the hope of comfort and assistance, but rather as a cunningly devised cover for some unconfessed scheme of wrong against him.

Burdened by these reflections, Ænone slowly passed from her room into the antechamber. Lifting her eyes, she there saw her husband standing at the window, and, at the distance of a pace or two from him, a female figure. It was that of a girl of about eighteen years, small, light, and graceful. Her costume, though not in form such as belonged to the freeborn women of Rome, was yet far superior in richness of material to that usually worn by persons of low degree, and was fashioned with a taste which could not fail to assist the display of her graceful perfection of form, indicated in part by the rounded lines of the uncovered neck and arms. As Ænone entered the room, Sergius advanced, and, taking her by the hand, said:

'Yonder is a new slave for you—the present about which I yesterday spoke. I trust it will prove that during my absence I was not unmindful of you. It was at Samos that I obtained her. There, you may remember, we tarried, after taking the town and burning part of the fleet.'

Samos! Where had Ænone heard that place mentioned? Searching into the recesses of her memory, it at last flashed upon her. Was it not from Samos that he—Cleotos—had come? And was it fate that forced the recollection of him ever upon her? She turned pale, but by a violent effort succeeded in maintaining her self-possession and looking up with a smile of apparent interest upon her husband as he spoke.

'She had nearly fallen the prey of one of the common soldiers,' he continued; 'but I, with a few pieces of gold, rescued her from him, picturing to myself the gratification you would feel at being so fitly attended. And that you might the better appreciate the gift, I have retained her till to-day before showing her to you, in order that you might first see her recovered from the toil of travel and in all her recovered beauty. A rare beauty, indeed, but of a kind so different from thine that your own will be heightened by the contrast rather than diminished. How many sestertia I have been offered for her, how many high officers of my forces have desired to obtain her for service upon their own wives, I cannot now remember. But I have refused and resisted all, for I would that you should be known throughout all Rome by the beauty of those in waiting about you, even as you are now known by your own beauty. Pray, accept of her, therefore, as your attendant and companion, for it would sorely disappoint me were you to reject such a pleasing gift.'

'Let it be as my lord says,' responded Ænone. 'And if I fail in due utterance of my thanks, impute it not to want of appreciation of the gift, but rather to inability of proper expression.'

It was with real gratitude that Ænone spoke; for, at the instant, a thought of cheering import flashed upon her, swelling her heart with joy, and causing her to welcome the captive girl as a gift from the gods. Here, perhaps, as though in direct answer to her prayer for sympathy, might be the one for whom her heart had been longing; coming to her, not laden with any of that haughty pride and ill-befitting knowledge with which the Roman world about her reeked, but rather as she herself had once come—with all her unstained provincial innocence of thought yet nestling in her shrinking soul—one, like herself, an exile from a lowly state, and with a heart filled with those simple memories which must not be too carelessly exposed—so seldom do they gather from without anything but cruel ridicule or cold lack of comprehension—one whom she could educate into an easy intimacy with her own impulses and yearnings, and thus, forgetting all social differences, draw[Pg 510] closer and nearer to her as a friend and confidant.

As she thus reflected, she felt the soft pressure of lips upon her left hand, which hung idly at her side, and, looking down, she saw that the captive girl had knelt before her, and, while lightly grasping her fingers, was gazing up into her face with a pleading glance. Ænone's first impulse was to respond with eager warmth to that humble appeal for protection and friendship; and had it not been for the morbid fear she felt lest her husband, who stood looking on, might chide such familiarity, or at the least might cast ridicule upon the feeling which prompted it, she would have raised the captive girl and folded her in her arms. As it was, the impulse was too spontaneous and sudden to be entirely resisted, and she held forth her other hand to lift the kneeling figure, when a strange, intuitive perception of something which she could scarcely explain, caused her to withhold further action.

Something, she knew not what, in the attitude and expression of the captive before her, which sent her warm blood flowing back with a chilled current—something which told her that her hopes of the moment had been smitten with decay as suddenly as they had been raised, and that, instead of a friend, she had perhaps found an enemy. The full dark eye yet gazed up at her with the same apparent moistened appeal for friendly sympathy; but to Ænone's alarmed instinct it now seemed as though behind that glance there was an inner depth of cold, calculating scrutiny. Still, almost unheeding the gentle gesture of the hand extended to raise her, the Greek knelt upon the floor, and, with an appearance of mingled timorousness and humility, laid her lips upon the gathered fingers; but now there appeared to be no natural warmth or glow in the pressure or real savor of lowliness in the attitude, but rather a forced and studied obsequiousness. For the instant Ænone paused, as though uncertain how to act. Then, fearing to betray her doubts, and hoping that her startled instinct might have deceived her, she bent forward once more and raised the captive to her feet.

It had all been the work of an instant; passing so quickly that the pause between the impulse and its completion could hardly have been noticed. But in that instant a change had swept over the expressions of both; and as they now stood opposite and gazed more intently upon each other, the change still progressed. The face of the young Roman matron, but a moment before so glowing with sympathy and radiant with a new-discovered hope of future happiness, now seemed to shrink behind a veil of despairing dread—the fear chasing away the joy as the shadow flits along the wall and banishes the sunlight; while, though every feature of the Greek still seemed clothed with trembling humility, yet, from some latent depths of her nature, a gleam of something strangely wild and forbidding began to play upon the surface, and invest the moistened eye and quivering lip with an undefinable repulsive harshness.

'Your name?' said Ænone, rousing herself with exertion, as though from a painful dream.

'Leta, my lady,' was the reply, uttered in a tone of despairing sadness, and with eyes again cast upon the floor.

'Leta,' repeated Ænone, touched in spite of her forebodings by that guise of an unhappiness which might, after all, be real. 'It is a fair-sounding name, and I shall call you always by it. Poor girl! you are an exile from your native land, and I—I cannot call myself a Roman. We must be friends—must we not?'

She spoke rather in the tone of one hoping against evil auguries than as one indulging in any confident anticipations of the future. The Greek did not answer, but again slowly raised her[Pg 511] eyes. At first, as before, with the same studied expression of pleading humility; but, as she glanced forward, and saw Sergius standing behind, and gazing at her with an admiration which he did not attempt to dissemble, a strange glow of triumph and ambitious hope seemed to light up her features. And when, after a hasty glance of almost responsive meaning toward Sergius, she again looked into the face of the other, it was no longer with an assumption of humble entreaty, but rather with an expression of wild, searching intensity. Before it the milder gaze of Ænone faltered, until it seemed as though the two had suffered a relative interchange of position: the patrician mistress standing with troubled features, and with vague apprehension and trembling in her heart, and as though timorously asking for the friendship which she had meant to bestow; and the captive, calmly, and with a look of ill-suppressed triumph, reading the other's soul as though to learn how she could most readily wield supremacy over her.

'OUR DOMESTIC RELATIONS; OR, HOW TO TREAT THE REBEL STATES.'

In the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1863, is an article with the above caption, in which the author, we think, develops ideas and theories totally at variance with the spirit of our Government, and which, if acted upon, and followed to their legitimate results, tend to subvert that self-government which is the privilege and pride of the American citizen. The result of his reflection is, that the States which, more conveniently than accurately, are termed the rebel States, have practically become Territories, and as such are to be governed by Congress. Is this proposition true? Let us examine—not hastily, not rashly, not vindictively, or in a party spirit—but wisely, magnanimously, and lovingly, and see if there be not a truer conclusion and one more in accordance with the spirit of our republican Constitution.

When the rebel States (?) passed their respective ordinances of secession, what results flowed from the action? The political doctrine that the union of the States is not a mere confederation of separate States, but a consolidation, within the limits of the Constitution, of the different States, otherwise independent, into one nation, is now too well established to remain a subject of debate. We are not, therefore, members of a confederacy, but are a unit—one. It follows, as a matter of course, that no State can withdraw or hide itself from the control of the National Government. The ordinances of secession passed by the rebel States did not, therefore, affect the Federal authority. The broad and just ground taken by President Lincoln in his Inaugural Address was, that the rebel States were still in the Union; and it is, we apprehend, the only tenable ground of right upon which we can carry on the war in which we are now engaged. The Constitution of the United States requires (art. ii. sec. 3) that the President shall 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' When the present head of the executive came into office, in March, 1861, he found several of the States, having already seceded on paper, seeking to perfect their treason by 'the armed hand.' Lighthouses had been[Pg 512] destroyed, or their beacon fires—the sentinels of the sea—shrouded in darkness, custom houses were given into rebel hands, the revenue cutters were surrendered, and deed followed deed in this dark drama of treason, until it was consummated by firing upon the unarmed Star of the West, while she was performing her errand of mercy, to relieve the hunger and reënforce the exhausted strength of the heroic little garrison of Fort Sumter. The plain and immediate duty of the President was, therefore, to call out the strength of the nation to assist him in 'taking care that the laws be faithfully executed.' And this brings us to the proposition that the Government is not engaged in a war of conquest with another nation, but in enforcing the laws in what is already a part of the Union.

The Constitution (art. ii. sec. 2) makes the President the 'commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States.' In the President, and in him alone, supremely, is vested the authority which is to conduct the course of war. Congress has the war-making power, but war once brought into being (if we may be allowed the expression), the manner in which it shall be conducted rests with the executive. It is, of course, to be conducted in accordance with the laws of nations and of civilized warfare. The first step necessary to enable the President to enforce the laws in the seceded States is to put down the military power by which their execution is resisted. That is now being done. By the 'necessity of war,' then, the executive is authorized to take such measures as may be necessary to put down the rebellion; and though no power is given him to appoint Governors over the States in ordinary times, it is given him, indirectly, but as surely as if expressly granted, to be used in times of actual war, by the clause of the Constitution which we have just quoted, making him commander-in-chief of the national military force. Whenever the States, or any of them, cease to be debatable ground—that is, when the military force of the rebellion is put down, the military necessity ceases, and with it the authority of the President to appoint military governors. Nor is there danger of encroaching upon the liberties of the nation; for, as the power attaches to the President, not in his capacity as the civil head of the nation, but as the military commander-in-chief, it ceases the moment military opposition is overcome. The fear of the Atlantic author would seem to be ill grounded, for we cannot believe that any military force could be raised by a despotic executive who might endeavor to place himself in absolute power, and we think there is little danger that the Government may 'crystallize into a military despotism.' Would supplies be granted by Congress; or, if granted, would not the people of a country which has sprung to arms only to defend a free government, be strong enough to resist any single military despot? Let the history of the present rebellion, in which a population of only eight millions, and that in the least defensible States of the Union, has resisted for nearly three years the combined power of all the other States, with a population of more than twenty millions, answer the question. The Atlantic writer admits the propriety of appointing military governors in the cases of Mexico and California before the latter was admitted as a State, but denies it in the cases of the rebel States, because they are States, and therefore (as he says) within the civil jurisdiction. But at the period to which we refer, Congress had jurisdiction over both California and Mexico by the express provision of the Constitution (art. iv. sec. 3), 'the Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations concerning the territory or other property belonging to the United States.'[Pg 513] If, then, the power of the President be admitted in the two cases referred to, it is even stronger in the cases of the rebel States, where no such power is given to Congress. And further it would seem that the act of admission to the Union would operate rather to take the Territory from under the jurisdiction of Congress, and give the right of government into the hands of the PEOPLE of the new State, even if their State officers did seek to betray them into treason. Our author asserts that 'there is no argument for military governors that is not equally strong for Congressional governments; but we suspect his mistake here, as, in fact, his whole theory comes from his neglect to note that this appointing power attaches to the President, not as the civil head of the nation, but as military commander-in-chief under the necessity of war.

To sum up the argument on this point, it stands thus: Neither Congress nor the President has power under the civil head to institute governments of their own in the rebel States: that power must arise, if at all, under the head of military necessity, and must attach to the commander-in-chief, viz., the President, and ceases the moment that necessity ceases. In the authority quoted from Chancellor Kent by the author of the Atlantic, we find nothing to shake our argument; for, though the power be, as the learned Chancellor says, 'to be exercised subordinate to the legislative powers of Congress,' still it is an executive power, and must be exercised by—must emanate from—the President. The same learned authority, from whose lucid and fascinating pages we enjoyed the first glimmerings of the 'gladsome light of jurisprudence,' says (vol. i. p. 264): 'The command and application of the public force, to execute the law, maintain peace, and resist foreign invasion, are powers so exclusively of an executive nature, and require the exercise of powers so characteristical of this department, that they have always been exclusively appropriated to it in every well-organized government upon earth.' Taking this provision of the Constitution, so interpreted by Chancellor Kent, as vesting the power exclusively in the executive, it only remains to be considered how far it is a necessity of war.

In all the rebel States there is a population, more or less dense, to be protected and governed; but what can a civil authority accomplish when the States are overrun by a military force which has so long defied the power of the army? Advancing as our armies conquer, and fleeing as they are overcome by the rebel hordes, it could accomplish nothing but its own ludicrous history and the fettering of the military power, which so eminently requires one secret and independent will. How little a military force so fettered by civil authorities could accomplish can hardly be fully realized but by those who, like the author, have summered and wintered upon the 'dark and bloody ground' of the rebellion. But, it will be asked, how are the rebel States to be governed when the military power of the rebellion is crushed, and the authority of the executive ceases with the necessity of war? No express power is given by the Constitution to Congress to govern any other territory than the District of Columbia, the dockyards, lighthouses, and lands ceded to the United States for similar purposes, and the territory not included in the several States, but belonging to the United States. Under these three heads is included all the territory over which Congress can claim jurisdiction by direct grant; and, by the Constitution (Amendments, art. x.), 'the powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to THE PEOPLE.' Unless, therefore, the rebel States have lapsed into Territories, Congress can have no authority over them, except the general powers which it may exer[Pg 514]cise over all the States of the Union. The question then arises, and it seems to be purely a legal one—have the rebel States lapsed into Territories?

We have already seen that the doctrine maintained by our Government is, that the rebel States have not, by their ordinances of secession, separated themselves from the Union, but that they are still in the Union. The ordinances of secession are, like any other unconstitutional law, even supposing them to have been the will of the people (of which we will speak hereafter), to be set aside by a competent tribunal, if brought to the test at all. Their paper treason, then (to commit a solecism), amounting only to so much waste of paper and ink, did the overt act of firing upon the flag of the United States operate more effectually to destroy the State identity? If they are incapable of separating themselves from the nation, and if, as is clearly the case, there is no power vested in the General Government to expel them from the Union, from what source does the power or act arise which destroys their identity? The rebel States are either in the Union or out of it. We cannot claim that they are in the Union for the purpose of enforcing submission, and then, when that object is accomplished, turn round and say they are out of it, and must be governed as Territories.

But it is a fixed fact, and history will so record it, that the voice of the people in the rebel States never concurred in the ordinances of secession. In the few cases where they were submitted to the popular vote, force was used to awe that vote into acquiescence; while in most cases they never were submitted to the form of such a vote; and why? Because the leaders in treason dared not trust the voice of the people: they knew too well that it would thunder a rebuke in their ears. They were merely the act of the individuals who were chosen as members of the several Legislatures, and who, in betrayal of their trust, sought to commit the States which they misrepresented to treason. In any one of the States which we have solecistically termed rebel States, we venture to assert that, if fairly and fully taken, the vote of the people at any time during the last five years, and now, would be, by a large majority, in favor of the Union. Wherever our armies have obtained a permanent footing, the people have, almost unanimously, given their expression of attachment to the old flag. Shall, then, the treason of those individuals who, for the time being, held the places of power in the rebel States, be construed to the prejudice of a whole people, who had no part nor lot in the crime, in face of the often declared law that a State cannot commit treason? If we turn to the fact that many, if not most of the citizens of the rebel States, have done treasonable acts under compulsion of those who were the leaders in the rebellion, we are met, at the very threshold, by no less an authority than Sir William Blackstone, who says (Bl. Commentaries, book iv. p. 21): 'Another species of compulsion or necessity is what our law calls duress per minias, or threats and menaces which induce fear of death or other bodily harm, and which take away, for that reason, the guilt of many crimes and misdemeanors, at least before the human tribunal. Therefore, in time of war or rebellion, a man may be justified in doing many treasonable acts by compulsion of the enemy or REBELS, which would admit of no excuse in the time of peace.' The fact that such violent compulsion was and still is used to overawe the Union sentiment of the South is patent. It has been and still is the cry, coming up on every breeze from that bloodstained land, that the leaders of the rebellion seek to crush, by whatever means, those who are

'Faithful among the faithless found.'

But, supposing for the moment that the majority of the citizens of the rebel[Pg 515] States are, of their own free will, participators in the rebellion; where is the grant of power to Congress to establish a government in any of the rebel States? No clause of the Constitution gives it; and by the express terms of that instrument, 'all powers not granted by it to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to THE PEOPLE.' But, while no such power is granted by the Constitution to the Federal Government, it is, we think, strictly forbidden by that clause of the instrument which declares that 'the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.' Would this injunction be complied with if Congress were to establish, directly, a government of its own over the rebel States? Would it not rather be a transgression of the provision? The essential nature of a republican government is that it is elective; but a Congressional government would be directly the reverse; for it takes the power from the hands of the people and places it in the hands of the national council. Mark the form of the expression, too, that the republican form of government is to be guaranteed, not merely by Congress or the executive, but by the United States; as if to pledge the whole power of the nation, of whatever kind, to protect this priceless blessing, through all coming time, to the use and benediction of all ages. Notice, too, to whom the guarantee runs—not to the territory now composing the State, but to the State its very self—ei ipsi; as if the Constitution could not contemplate such a thing as a State being struck out of existence, under whatever phrase, whether of 'State forfeiture,' 'State suicide,' or 'State abdication,' even if treason were attempted by those in power. The Constitution still terms it a State. Is not the present precisely the event, or rather one of the events, which it contemplates and provides for? The doctrine of 'State Rights,' whether as contemplated and maintained by Calhoun in the days of Nullification, or as declared by Jefferson Davis and his compeers in treason, we abhor utterly, whenever and wherever it may lift its serpent head, and whether supported by Southern men with Southern principles, or by Northern men with no principles. But a true and indisputable doctrine of State Rights there is, which ought to be as jealously maintained and guarded as the doctrine of National Sovereignty. The Atlantic author asserts that, because the State offices in the rebel States have been vacated, therefore Congress has the authority to govern them, and intimates that all powers not reserved to the respective States belong to Congress, because there is no other to wield them. This is not true. Every power possessed of the Federal Government must be actually granted. It must attach to that Government, not because it belongs to no other, but because it is granted by the Constitution.

Our author quotes Mr. Phillimore as saying 'a state, like an individual, may die, by its submission and the donation of itself to another country.' Very true; but the word state must, in that sense, be equivalent to nation; and our author admits that a State cannot perform the first act necessary to be done in so giving itself away, viz., withdrawing itself from the Union. If, therefore, it cannot withdraw itself from the authority of the Federal Government, very clearly it cannot donate itself to the self-styled Confederate Government. If a thief sell or give his ill-gotten possession to another, it in no way affects the right of the owner. He cannot give away that which he does not own; and so of a State. Another error into which the Atlantic author has fallen, is that, in assigning the three sources of Congressional power, 'ample and hospitable,' he enumerates as one of them 'the necessity of the case;' but, as we have already seen, Congress possesses no powers but those expressly[Pg 516] granted by the Constitution. If Congress may assert its authority in this instance, from the necessity of the case, and be itself the judge of that necessity, when no authority is given by the instrument, which expressly declares that all powers not granted by it are reserved, where are we to find a limit, and why may not that body assert itself in any number of instances, until, at length, the rights of the States are wholly absorbed by the overmastering power of the Federal Government? There is but one rightful source of authority to Congress, and that is the Constitution, which itself so declares, and which is the supreme law of the land.

But the true course to be pursued is, we think, to allow the rebel States (as indeed we cannot help doing) to be governed by the military power until such time as a civil government can be maintained, and then for the whole Government of the United States, legislative, judicial, and executive, to stand by, as the constitutionally appointed guardian, and permit THE PEOPLE to elect their own State officers. Whether the conventions of the people are called by law of Congress or by proclamation of the President, would seem to be immaterial, though the latter seems the least cumbersome method. Thus the rebel States would pass from rebel forms to constitutional ones, in a legal and formal manner. Sooner or later this must be done, even if, for a time, provisional governments are instituted; for no Congressional government can be an elective government, and hence not a constitutional one, because the elective principle is necessary to a republican form of government. But if, under the clause of the Constitution which enjoins upon the United States to guarantee a republican form of government to each State, conventions of the people be called to elect their own officers, they are at once put in possession of their constitutional rights. And how can a State be readmitted to a Union which it has never left?

The writer has no pet theory to maintain, but is, like the writer in the Atlantic, 'in search of truth;' and the views here expressed are the result, not merely of closet reflection, but of observation and experience in the seceded States, while 'marching under the flag and keeping step to the music of the Union.' If only, through this baptism of blood, the nation, freed at last from the blighting curse of slavery, and purified into a better life, shall lift her radiant forehead from the dust, and, crowned with the diadem of freedom, go on her glorious way rejoicing, the writer will count his past sufferings and shattered health only as the small dust in the balance compared with the priceless blessings of peace, freedom, and national unity, which they may have contributed, however slightly, to purchase. Only to have contributed, however little, something for the peace—something for the glory—something for the permanence, beautiful and bright—of those institutions which are for America the pride of the past and the hope of the future, will be a joy through life and a consolation in death.[Pg 517]

THE MOUND BUILDER.

INTRODUCTION.

All over Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and other Western States—but chiefly over these—are the monumental remains of an ancient race, long anterior to the present race of Indians, concerning whom we have no other record than that which is afforded by their mounds, earthworks, fortifications, temples, and dwelling places. Even these cannot at first be distinguished and identified the one from the other; and it takes a person skilled in such lore to determine the character and uses of the various mounds and groups of mounds, which he meets with at all points, and in all directions, as he traverses the wilderness.

I have lived a long time in the woods and prairies, following the occupation of a hunter, but with ulterior antiquarian and natural-history objects and purposes. From the time when I first heard of the mounds, which was in the year 1836, when I entertained, in my chambers in New York, an old frontiersman from Chicago—a fine, brave fellow, whose whole life was a romance of the highest and noblest kind—I resolved that as soon as fortune should favor me with leisure and opportunity, I would make a first-hand investigation of these curious antiquities, and try if I could render an intelligent exposition of their meaning. Twenty years passed away, and I was no nearer to the accomplishment of my purpose than I was in that notable year 1836, when the apocalypse of the West and its mystic mound seals were first revealed to me. At last, about four years ago, all things being favorable, I struck my tents in the big city—the wonderful Arabian Nights city of New York!-and, taking a sorrowful leave of my friends and literary associates, I set off for the region round about the Black River in Wisconsin. Here, among the bluffs and forests, within hailing distance of a prairie of some hundred thousand acres, I bought a well-cultivated farm of two hundred and eighty acres, bounded on the south by a deep, romantic ravine, at the bottom of which ran a delightful stream of water, full of trout, always cool and delicious to drink, and never known to be dry even in the fiercest summer droughts. A large log cabin, with a chimney opening in the kitchen, capable of conveying the smoke and flames of half a cord of wood burning at once on the hearthstones, and having other commodious conveniences, was my headquarters, and I intended it to be my permanent home. But thereby hangs a tale—which, though interesting enough, and full of romantic and startling episodes, I will not here and now relate, as being somewhat extraneous to the subject matter before us.

I had no sooner made all the dispositions necessary to the good husbanding of the farm, than I hired a half breed, well known in those parts, and subsequently a Winnebago Indian, to whose wigwam the half breed introduced me at my request. And with these two, the one a veritable savage, and the other very nearly related to him, I set off with a wagon, a yoke of oxen, a large tent, and abundance of provisions, on a journey of mound discoveries.

I have only space here to say that we traversed the whole of the north and west of the State of Wisconsin, and through the chief parts of Minnesota and Iowa; and that subsequently, about, eighteen months afterward, we visited the region of the Four Lakes, of which Madison is the centre, where there are hundreds of mounds, arranged in nearly every form and of nearly every animal device, which we had found in our previous travels.[Pg 518]

I made drawings of all the remarkable groups which I met with; and, without going into particulars, I may give you some idea of their likelihood in the following summary: Mounds arranged in circles of three circles, with a large earthwork in the inner one; the outer circle containing sixty mounds, the second thirty, the first fifteen. I examined the earthwork, and found in it, about four feet below the surface, remains of charcoal and charred bones, burnt earth, and considerable quantities of mica. It had evidently been an altar or sacrificial mound—and I afterward, upon examination, found many such—but they were always enclosed by other mounds; and these (the outer mounds) contained nothing but earth, although there was this remarkable peculiarity about them, that the earth of which they were composed was altogether of a different nature from the surrounding earth, and must have been brought to that spot, as the old Druids brought the enormous blocks of stone which composed their temples and altars at Stonehenge, from an unknown distance.

Other mounds were arranged in squares, triangles, and parallelograms. Others, in a series of successive squares, about three feet apart, having an opening to the east and west, and terminating in a square of about fourteen feet in the centre, where a truncated mound is sure to be erected.

Others, formed a good deal like a Minié rifle ball, but with a more pointed apex, running on both sides of the earth effigy of a monstrous bear for upward of forty rods.

Others, shaped like an eagle with outstretched wings, having walls of earthwork two feet high, of oblong shape, and enclosed on all sides except at the east and west, where there are entrances of about four feet in width.

Others, composed of hundreds of tons of earth, shaped like a tortoise, with truncated mounds all around it.

Others, fashioned like men, and Titans at that, some lying prone upon the prairie, others in the act of walking. The limbs clearly defined, the body vast and well moulded, like a huge colossus. One near Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin, discovered by Mr. William H. Canfield, and reported to the Philosophical Society by Mr. Lapham, of Milwaukee, was visited also by us. It is two hundred and fourteen feet in length; the head thirty feet long, the body one hundred feet, and the legs eighty-four. The head lies toward the south, and the motion (for he is represented in the act of walking) is westward. All the lines of this most singular effigy are curved gracefully, much care having very clearly been bestowed upon its construction. The head is ornamented with two projections or horns, giving a comical expression to the whole figure.

Near the old military road, about seven miles east of the Blue Mounds, in Dare County, Wisconsin, we found another man effigy. It lies in an east and west direction, the head toward the west, and the arms and legs extended. It is one hundred and twenty-five feet long, one hundred and forty feet from the extremity of one arm to that of the other. The body is thirty feet in breadth, and is most carefully moulded and rounded; the head twenty-five feet; the elevation above the surface of the prairie nearly six feet.

On the north side of the Wisconsin River, about four miles west of the village of Muscoda, we heard of and found another human effigy. Its peculiarity was that it had two heads, and they reclined with a certain grace over the shoulders. The arms were not in proportion, nor fully represented. Length of body fifty feet, legs forty feet, arms one hundred and thirty feet; lying north and south, the head southward.

Others, a kind of hybrids, half man half beast or bird.

Others, representing birds with outstretched wings, like the forked-tail hawk or swallow.[Pg 519]

Others, eagles without heads.

Others, coiled snakes, or outstretched snakes.

Others, elk or deer.

Clusters of mounds star shaped, seven in number, with the sun-shaped mound in the centre.

Others, representing mathematical symbols.

On the banks of the Black River, near the Ox Bow, are the remains of an elevated road, about three feet high and seven feet wide, extending for miles, intersected near the river by the great Indian war path. The settlers call it the Railroad, and it has all the appearance of a work of this nature, and is strongly and carefully built—a fine remain of the old mound builders' time.

Long lines of mounds, extending for scores and probably hundreds of miles, nearly all of the same shape, varying in their distance from each other from one to four miles.

Circular mounds of a base of two hundred feet, and a height of twenty feet.

Others, two hundred yards long, from ten to twenty feet wide, and from two to three feet high—these last, also, having an open space through them, as if intended for an entrance gate.

Others, in the form of rabbits, badgers, bears, and birds; others, of unknown monstrous animals.

We examined in all thirty-nine mounds; and in one, at the very base, on the floor of the natural earth upon which the mound was built (the soil of the mound being, as I said, always of a different character to the surrounding soil) we discovered and carried away with us the perfect skeleton of a man, with a few arrow heads made of flint, and a tobacco pipe, made also of stone, with a very small and narrow bowl, having a device on it like some of the hieroglyphic monsters of Egypt or old India.

In twelve we found skeletons, male and female, of the present race of Indians, with their bows and arrows, or, as was the case in four instances, their rifles and knives and tobacco pipes; some of these last elaborately carved in red stone. In Iowa we dug into a large mound, and discovered fragments of an ancient pottery, with the colors burned into the material, and various bones and skulls, arrow heads, and a flint knife, and saw.

We saw the painted rocks, also, on the Mississippi shores, near Prairie du Chien—said to be of an immemorial age—and the questions, Who was this old mound builder—whence did he come—when did he vanish from this continent? have haunted me ever since. That he was the primitive man of this planet, I think there is good reason to believe. Go where we will, to what portion soever of the earth, we shall find these mound evidences of his existence. In Asia, Europe, Africa, and all along the backbone of the American continent, he has established his record. Yet no one knows anything about him: all tradition even of him and of his works is lost. When Watkinson started from the middle of Asia to visit the newly acquired country of Russia—the beautiful, fruitful, invaluable country of the Amoor—he was confronted at the very outset by a cluster of seven of these very mounds, and his book, from that time forth, extending over thousands of miles, is full of descriptions of these unknown earthworks. I have no doubt they mark the progressive geographical movements of a race of men who came from Asia. From Behring's Strait to the Gulf they can easily be traced.

But I have said enough, and will stop here.[Pg 520]

THE MOUND BUILDER.

[Pg 532]

A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE:

ITS POSSIBILITY, SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY, AND APPROPRIATE CHARACTERISTICS

The idea of the possibility and desirableness of a universal language, scientifically constituted; a common form of speech for all the nations of mankind; for the remedy of the confusion and the great evil of Babel, is not wholly new. The celebrated Leibnitz entertained it. It was, we believe, glanced at among the schemes of Lord Monboddo. Bishop Wilkins devoted years of labor to the accomplishment of the task, and thought he had accomplished it. He published the results of his labors in heavy volumes, which have remained, as useless lumber, on the shelves of the antiquarian, or of those who are curious in rare books. A young gentleman of this city, of a rare genius, by the name of Fairbank, who died by a tragical fate a few years since, labored assiduously to the same end. A society of learned men has recently been organized in Spain, with their headquarters at Barcelona, devoted to the same work. Numerous other attempts have probably been made. In all these attempts, projects, and labors, the design has never transcended the purpose of Invention. The effort has been simply to contrive a new form of speech, and to persuade mankind to accept it;—a task herculean and hopeless in its magnitude and impracticability; but looking still in the direction of the supply of one of the greatest needs of human improvement. The existence of no less than two or three thousand different languages and idioms on the surface of the planet, in this age of railroad and steamship communication, presents, obviously, one of the most serious obstacles to that unification of humanity which so many concurrent indications tend, on the other hand, to prognosticate.

Another and different outlook toward a unity of speech for the race comes up from a growing popular impression that all existing languages must be ultimately and somewhat rapidly smelted into one by the mere heat and attrition of our intense modern international intercourse. Each nationality is beginning to put forth its pretensions as the proper and probable matrix of the new agglomerate, or philological pudding-stone, which is vaguely expected to result. The English urge the commercial supremacy of their tongue; the French the colloquial and courtly character of theirs; the Germans the inherent energy and philosophical adaptation of the German; the Spanish the wide territorial distribution and the pompous euphony of that idiom; and so of the other nationalities.

Both invention, which is the genius of adaptation, and the blending influence of mere intercourse, may have their appropriate place as auxiliaries, in the reconstruction of human speech, in accordance with the exigencies of the new era which is dawning on the world; but there is another and far more basic and important element, which may, and perhaps we may say must, appear upon the stage, and enter into the solution. This is the element of positive Scientific Discovery in the lingual domain. It may be found that every elementary sound of the human voice is inherently laden by nature herself with a primitive significance; that the small aggregate of these meanings is precisely that handful of the Primitive Categories of all Thought and all Being which the Philosophers, from Aristotle up to Kant, have so industriously and painfully sought for. The germ of this idea was incipiently and crudely[Pg 539] struggling in the mind of the late distinguished philologist, Dr. Charles Kreitser, formerly professor of languages in the University of Virginia, and author of numerous valuable articles in Appletons' 'Cyclopædia;' the most learned man, doubtless, that unfortunate Hungary has contributed to our American body of savans. This element of discovery may, in the end, take the lead, and immensely preponderate in importance over the other two factors already mentioned as participating in the solution of a question of a planetary language. The idea certainly has no intrinsic improbability, that the normal language of mankind should be matter of discovery as the normal music of the race has been already. There was an instinctual and spontaneous development of music in advance of the time when science acted reflectively upon the elements and reconstituted it in accordance with the musical laws so discovered. Why may we not, why ought we not even to expect, analogically, that the same thing will occur for speech?

Setting aside, however, for the present occasion, the profounder inquiry into the inherent significance of sounds, and into all that flows logically from that novel and recondite investigation, we propose at present to treat in a more superficial way the subject indicated in the title of this article—A Universal Language; its Possibility, Scientific Necessity, and Appropriate Characteristics.

The expansion of the scope of science is at this day such that the demand for discriminating technicalities exceeds absolutely the capacity of all existing language for condensed and appropriate combinations and derivations. Hence speech must soon fail to serve the new developments of thought, unless the process of word-building can be itself proportionately improved; unless, in other words, a new and scientifically constructed Language can be devised adequate to all the wants of science. It would seem that there should occur, in the range of possibilities, the existence of the Plan in Nature of a New and Universal Language, copious, flexible, and expressive beyond measure; competent to meet the highest demands of definition and classification; and containing within itself a natural, compact, infinitely varied, and inexhaustible terminology for each of the Sciences, as ordained by fixed laws preëxistent in the nature of things.

This language should not then be an arbitrary contrivance, but should be elaborated from the fundamental laws of speech, existing in the constitution of the universe and of man, and logically traced to this special application. This knowledge of the underlying laws of speech should determine the mode of the combination of Elementary Sounds into Syllables and Words, and of Words into Sentences naturally expressive of given conceptions or ideas. Such a language would rest on discovery, in that precise sense in which discovery differs from invention, and would have in itself infinite capacities and powers of expression, and again of suggesting thought; and might perhaps come to be recognized as the most stupendous discovery to which the human intellect is capable of attaining. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' The Word, or the Logos, is the underlying or hidden Wisdom of which speech is the external utterance or expression. Who can say how profoundly and intimately the underlying and hitherto undiscovered Laws of Speech may be consociated with the basic Principles of all truth embedded in the Wisdom-Nature of God himself? The old Massonites had a faith, derived from certain mystical utterances of the Greek Philosophers, that whosoever should discover the right name for anything, would have absolute power over that thing. The Wisdom of Plato and the deeper Wisdom of Christ meet and are married to[Pg 540] each other in the conception of John when he makes the startling assertion that the Logos, the Logic, the Law, the Word, is synonymous with God himself.

The possibilities of the existence of such a language, divinely and providentially prepared in the constitution of things, and awaiting discovery, begins to be perceived, if the conception of the existence of an absolutely universal analogy be permitted fairly to take possession of the mind. Such an infinite scheme of analogy, rendering the same principles alike applicable in all spheres, must itself, in turn, rest upon a Divine Unity of Plan reigning throughout the Universe, the execution of which Plan is the act or the continuity of the acts of Creation. The Religious Intuition of the Race has persistently insisted upon the existence of this Unity, to the conception of which the scientific world is only now approximatingly and laboriously ascending.

If there be such Analogy in Nature furnishing an echo and an image in every department of Being of all that exists in every other department of Being, certainly that Analogy must be most distinct and clearly discoverable as between the Elements, or the lowest and simplest Constituents of Being in each Sphere. The lowest and simplest elements of Language are Oral Sounds, which in written Languages are represented by Letters, and constitute the Alphabets of those Languages. The Alphabets of Sound must be clearly distinguished from the mere Letter-Alphabets by which the Sounds are variously represented. The Sound-Alphabets (the Scales of Phonetic Elements) of any two Languages differ only in the fact that one of the Languages may include a few Sounds which are not heard in the other, or may omit a few which are.

The Mouth, the Larynx (a cartilaginous box at the top of the windpipe), and the Nose—the compound organ of speech—constitute an instrument, capable, like the accordeon, for instance, of a certain number of distinct touches and consequent vocal effects, which produce the sounds heard in all existing Languages. The total of the possible sounds so produced or capable of production may be called the Crude or Unwinnowed Alphabet of Nature, or the Natural Alphabet of Human Language generically or universally considered. Thus, for instance, the sound represented in English and the Southern European Languages generally, by the letter m, is made by the contact of the two lips, while at the same time the sounding breath so interrupted is projected upon the sounding board of the head through the nose, whence resounding, it is discharged outwardly, this process giving to the sound produced that peculiar effect called nasal or nose-sound; and precisely this sound can be produced by the voice in no other way. This sound is, nevertheless, heard in nearly all Languages, although there are a few imperfect savage dialects which are destitute of it. The production of this sound, as above described, will be obvious to the reader if he will pronounce the word my, and will attend to the position of the lips when he begins to utter the word. Let him attempt to say my, without closing the lips, and the impossibility of doing so will be apparent. The production of the sound is therefore mechanical and local; and the number of sounds to be produced by the organ fixed and limited, therefore, by Nature herself. The very limited number of possible sounds may be guessed by the fact that of sounds produced by completely closing the two lips, there are only three, namely, p, b, m, in all the Languages of the earth (as in p-ie, b-y, m-y).

It is the same with all the other vocal sounds. They are necessarily produced at certain fixed localities or Seats of Sound, in the mouth, and by a certain fixed modulation or mechanical use of the Organs of Speech. At least they are produced in and are confined to certain circumscribed regions of the[Pg 541] mouth, and so differ in the method of their production as to be appropriately distributed into certain Natural Classes: as Vowels and Consonants; Labials (Lip Sounds); Linguo-dentals (Tongue-Teeth Sounds); Gutturals (Back-Mouth or Throat Sounds), etc., etc.

From the whole number of sounds which it is possible to produce—the whole Crude Natural Alphabet—one Language of our existing Languages selects a certain number less than the whole, and another Language doing the same, it happens that while they mainly coincide, they, so to speak, shingle over each other at random, and it follows: 1. That the Number of Sounds in different Languages is not uniform; 2. That of any two Languages compared, one will chance to have several sounds not heard in the other; and, 3. The erroneous impression is made upon the casual and superficial observer that in the aggregate of all Languages there must be an immense number of sounds; whereas, in fact, the total Alphabet of Vocal Sounds in nature, like the Gamut of Colors or Musical Tones, is quite limited, if we attend only to those which distinctly differ, or stand at appropriate and appreciable distances from each other.

Further to illustrate: Assume that there are, capable of being clearly discriminated by the human ear, say sixty-four or seventy-two distinct Elementary Sounds of the human voice, in all—as many, for example, as there are Chemical Elements; some existing Languages select and make use of twenty, some of twenty-four, some of thirty, and some of forty of these sounds, omitting the rest.

But—and here is a very important point and a real discovery in this investigation—it will be found, if closely attended to, that a certain selection of one half of this number, say thirty-two or thirty-six of these sounds, embraces the whole body of vocal elements usually occurring in all the forms of speech on the planet; the remaining half consisting of rare, exceptional, and, we may nearly say, useless sounds. This statement will again be better understood by analogy with what regards the Elements of Chemistry. Just about one half of the known elements of matter occur with frequency, and enter into useful and ordinary combinations to produce the great mass of known substances. The remaining half are unfrequent, obscure, and relatively unimportant; some of them never having been seen even by many of our most eminent chemists. Even should a few new elements be discovered, it cannot be anticipated that any one of them should prove to be of leading importance, like oxygen, carbon, or sulphur.

On the other hand, should some future great chemical discovery realize the dream of the alchemists, and enable us to transmute iron into gold, and indeed every chemical Element into every other chemical Element (convertible identity), still the sixty-four (nearly) Chemical Elements now known would remain the real Elements of Organic and Inorganic Compounds, in a sense just as important as that in which they are now so regarded. The now known Elements would still continue to constitute The Crude Natural Alphabet of Matter, and be correspondential with The Crude Natural Alphabet of Sounds in Language. The transmutability of one element into another indefinitely, would not, in any but a certain absolute or transcendental sense, cause the Elements to be regarded as one, or as any less number than now. It would be, on the contrary, a fact precisely corresponding with the actual and well-known transmutability of speech-sounds into each other as occurs in the phenomena of Etymology and Comparative Philology. This is so extensive, as now understood by Comparative Philologists, that it would be hardly difficult to prove that every sound is capable of being transmuted into every other sound, either directly or through intermediates; and yet we do not in the[Pg 542] least tend to cease to regard the several sounds as they stand as the real Elements of Speech.

It is this transmutability of Correspondential Elements in another sphere of Being, which bases the presumption, or gives to it at least countenance from a new quarter, that the metals and other chemical Elements may be actually convertible substances by means of processes not yet suspected or sufficiently understood. The more careful study of the Analogy with the Elements of other spheres, and perhaps specifically with the Elements of Language, under the presiding influence of larger scientific generalizations and views than those which now prevail in the scientific world, may be, and, it would even seem, ought to be the means of revealing the law of Elementary Transmutations in the Chemical Domain. The expectation of a future discovery of the resolution of the existing Elements of Matter, and their convertibility even, is reviving in the chemical field, and even so distinguished a chemist and thinker as Professor Draper does not hesitate to sustain its probability by the weight of his authority and belief. The process by which the transmutation of Elements is actually effected in Language, is by Slow and Continued Attrition. These very words suggest a process but little resorted to in chemical experiment, but which probably intervenes in the Laboratory of Nature, when she makes the diamond out of a substance, simple carbon, the most familiarly known to chemistry, but out of which the human chemist is entirely unable by any process known to him to produce that precious gem.

Whether this particular hint is of any value or not, one thing is certain, that it is in the direction of Universal and Comparative Science—the analogical echo of the parts of one Domain of Being with the parts of another Domain and of all other Domains of Being; of the phenomena of one Science with the phenomena of other Sciences; and especially as among the Elements of each—that we must look for the next grand advances in Scientific Discovery. The world urgently requires the existence of a new class of scientific students who shall concern themselves precisely with these questions of the relations and the indications of unity between the different Sciences; not to displace, but to transcend and to coördinate the labors of that noble Army of Scientific Specialists, with which Humanity is now so extensively and so happily provided.

The Select Lingual Alphabet of Nature, as distinguished from the Crude Natural Alphabet above described, is then the expurgated scale of sounds, say thirty-two; the sounds of usual occurrence in polished languages; one half of the whole number; the residuum after rejecting an equal number of obscure, unimportant, or barbarous sounds, of possible production and of real occurrence in some of the cruder Languages, and as crude elements even in the more refined Languages now extant. The two sounds of th in English, as in thigh and thy (the theta of the Greek), and the two shades of the ch-sound in German, as in nach and ich, are instances of crude sounds in refined Languages, for which other Languages, more fastidious for Euphony, as French and Italian for example, naturally substitute t, d, and k (c). The obscure and crude sounds would always retain, however (in respect to the idea of a Universal Alphabet), a subordinate place and value, and should be gathered and represented in a Supplementary Alphabet for special and particular uses.

It has been the mistake of Phoneticians and Philologians, heretofore, to recognize no difference in the relative importance of sounds. They have sought, through every barbarous dialect, as well as every refined tongue, and gathered by the drag-net of observation, every barbarous and obscure as well as every polite sound which by any accident ever enters into the con[Pg 543]stitution of speech. The clucks of Hottentot Tribes and the whistle heard in some of the North American Languages have been reckoned in, upon easy terms, with the more serviceable and euphonious members of the Phonetic family, and mere trivial shades of sounds were put upon the same footing as the pivotal sounds themselves. This is as if certain obdurate compounds were introduced in the first instance among Chemical Elements—which subsequent analysis may even prove to be the case in respect to some substances that we now recognize as Elements—and then, by assigning to the least important of Elements the same rank, and giving to them the same attention as to the most important, the number were augmented beyond the practical or working body of Elements, and our treatises upon Chemistry encumbered by a mass of useless matter. Or again, it is as if among the Elements of Music were included all conceivable sounds, as the squeal, the shriek, the sob, etc.; and as if, in addition to this, the least intervals, the quarter tones for instance, were ranked as the musical equals of the whole tones.

If it should prove a matter of fact, as capable of exact scientific demonstration as any other, that the Consonant and Vowel Elements of Oral Language are, in a radical and important sense, repetitory of, or correspondential with, Musical Tones or the Elements of Music, as well as with Chemical Elements, and these again with the Elements of Numerical Calculation, of Form, or the Science of Morphology, and, in fine, with the Prime Metaphysical Elements of Being, or the first Categories of Thought, perhaps we may by such speculations catch a glimpse of the possibilities of a great lingual discovery, having the attributes here indicated. Why should not the Elements of Speech have been brought by Nature herself into some sort of parallelism with the Elements of Thought which it is the special province of Speech to represent? Why, again, should not the Prime Elements of every new domain of Being be merely a Repetition in new form of the Prime Elements of the Universe, as a whole, and of those especially of Language, its representative domain?—Language being the literal word, as Universal Law is the Logos or the Word par excellence, and Divine. In that event, every speech-element would be of necessity inherently charged with the precise kind and degree of meaning specifically relating it, first to one of the Prime Elements of Being, metaphysically considered, and then, by an echo of resemblance, to one of the Prime Elements of every subordinate domain of Being throughout the Universe. The Combinations of the Letter-Sounds would then constitute words exactly, simply, and naturally expressive of any combination of the Elements of Being, either, first, in the Universal domain, or, secondly, in any subordinate domain, physical or psychical. In this way a grand and wonderful system of technicals would be wrought out for all the sciences—provided by Nature herself, and discovered, only, by man. It is at least certain that if a grand Science of Analogy is ever to be discovered, capable of Unifying all our knowledges, an anticipation vaguely entertained by our most advanced scientific minds, it must be sought for primarily among the simplest elements of every domain of science, or, what is the same thing, every domain of Thought and Being. It is alike certain that heretofore the first step even has never been rightly taken among the men of science to investigate in that direction. The failure of all those who have entertained the idea of a Universal Analogy as a basis of Scientific Unity, has resulted from the fact that, drawn rapidly along by the beauty of their conceptions, they have attempted to rush forward into the details of their subject, and have lost themselves in the infinity of these, without the wisdom and patience to establish a basis for their immense fab[Pg 544]ric in the exact discovery and knowledge of Elements. They have hastened forward to the limbs and twigs and leaves and flowers and fruitage, without having securely planted the roots of their scientific tree in the solid earth. Such was the case with Oken, the great German Physio-Philosopher and Transcendental Anatomist, the pupil of Hegel, who exerted a profound influence over the scientific mind of Germany for thirty years, but has now sunk into disrepute for want of just that elementary and demonstrative discovery of first Elements, and the rigorous adhesion to such perceptions of that kind as were partially entertained by him and his school of powerful thinkers and scientists.

To repeat the leading idea above, which is so immensely pregnant with importance, and, perhaps we may add, so essentially new: The combinations of Speech-Elements—in a perfect and normal Language for the Human Race, which we are here assuming that Nature should have provided, and which may be only awaiting discovery—when they should be rightly or scientifically arranged into words and sentences, would be exactly concurrent and parallel with the combinations of the Prime Elements of Thought and Being in the Real Universe; so that each word, so formed, would become exactly charged with the kind and amount of meaning contained in the thing named or the conception intended. An idea will thus be obtained by the reader, somewhat vague, no doubt, at first, but which would become perfectly distinct, as the subject should be gradually unfolded, of the way in which a universal language naturally expressive of Thoughts and Feelings, and capable of unlimited expansion, might perhaps be evolved from a profound understanding of the Analogies of the Universe. It is important, however, in order that this theory, now when it is first presented, should not unnecessarily prejudice cautious and conservative minds, and seem to them wholly Utopian, to guard it by the additional statement that, while such a language might be appropriately denominated Universal, there is a sense in which it would still not be so; or, in other words, that it could only become Universal by causing to coalesce with its own scientifically organized structure, the best material already wrought out, and existing as natural growth in the dead and living languages now extant; by absorbing them, so to speak, in itself. It would have no pretension, therefore, directly to supersede any of the existing languages, nor even ultimately to dispense with the great mass of the material found in any of them.

It is a common prejudice among the learned that Language is a growth, and cannot in any sense be a structure; in other words, that it is purely the subject of the instinctive or unthoughted development of man, and not capable of being derived from reflection, or the deliberate application of the scheming faculty of the intellect. A little reflection will show that this opinion is only a half truth. It is certain that language has received its primitive form and first development by the instinctive method. It is equally true, however, that even as respects our existing languages, they have been overlaid by a subsequent formation, originating with the development of the Sciences, due wholly to reflection on the scheming faculty of man, and already equal in extension to the primitive growth. The Nomenclature of each of the Sciences has been devised by the reflective genius of individuals, and arbitrarily imposed, so to speak, upon the Spoken and Written Languages of the World, as they previously existed. From the cabinets and books of the learned, they gradually pass into the speech of the laity, and become incorporated with the primitive growth. If, instead of the Carbonate of Soda, the Protoxide of Nitrogen, and other Chemical Technicalities arbitrarily formed in[Pg 545] modern times from the ancient Greek Language, terms which the ancient Greeks themselves never heard nor conceived of, we had words derived from similar combinations of Anglo-Saxon or German Roots; if, for instance, for Protoxide of Nitrogen, we had the First-sour-stuffness, or the First-sharp-thingness of Salt-petreness, and so throughout the immense vocabulary of chemistry, what an essentially different aspect would the whole English Language now wear! Had Lavoisier, therefore, chosen the Anglo-Saxon or the German as the basis of the chemical nomenclature now in use, we can readily perceive how the intellectual device of a single savant, would, ere this time, have sent a broad current of new development through the heart of all the advanced Languages of the earth; of a different kind wholly, but no more extensive, no more novel, and truly foreign to the primitive instinctual growth of those Languages, no more purely the result of intellectual contrivance, than the current of development to which he actually did give origin.

Lavoisier chose the dead Greek as a fountain from which to draw the elements of his new verbal compounds, assigning to those elements arbitrarily new volumes of meaning, and constructing from them, with no other governing principle than his own judgment of what seemed best, a totally new Language, as it were, adequate to the wants of the new Science. Still, despite these imperfections in the method, the demand, with the growth of the new ideas, for a new expansion of the powers of Language, in a given direction, made the contrivance of the great chemist a successful interpolation upon the speech-usages of the world. It is certainly not therefore inconceivable—because of any governing necessity that Language should be a purely natural growth—that other and greater modifications of the speech of mankind may occur; when—not an arbitrary contrivance upon an imperfect basis and of a limited application is in question, but—when a real discovery, the revelation of the true scientific bases of Language, and limitless applications in all directions, should be concerned.

On the other hand, the extent of the practical applications of strictly scientific principles to the Structure of Language is subject to limitation. Even mathematics, theoretically the most unlimited of the existing Sciences, is practically limited very soon by the complexity of the questions involved in the higher degrees of equations. In the same manner, while it may be possible to construct a Scientific Language adequate to all the wants of Language, in which exactness is involved; that is to say, capable of classifying and naming every object and idea in the Universe which is itself capable of exact classification and definition, still there remains an immense sphere, an equal half, it may be said, of the Universe of objects and conceptions, which have not that susceptibility; which are, in other words, so complex, so idiosyncratic, or so vague in their nature, that the best guide for the formation of an appropriate word for their expression is not Intellect or Reflection, but that very Instinct which has presided over the formation of such Languages as we now have. We may accurately define a triangle or a cube, and might readily bring them within the range of a Universal Language scientifically constructed; but who would venture to attempt by any verbal contrivance to denote the exact elements of thought and feeling which enter into the meaning of the verbs to screech or to twinge?

There is, therefore, ample scope and a peremptory demand for both methods of lingual development. The New Scientific Language herein suggested would be universal within the limit within which Science itself is universal. But there is another sphere within which Science, born of the Intellect, has only a subordinate sway, and in[Pg 546] which instinct, or that faculty which, in the higher aspect of it, we denominate Intuition, is supreme. This faculty has operated as instinct in the first stage of the growth of Language, the Natural or Instinctual; it should now give place to the Intellect, in the second stage, the Scientific; after which it should regain its ascendency as Intuition, in the final finish and perfectionment of the Integral Speech of Mankind, the Artistic.

Such a Language would be, to all other Languages, precisely what a unitary Science would be to all the special Sciences; and we have seen how it might happen that the same discovery should furnish both the Language and the Science. Without rudely displacing any existing Language, it would, besides filling its own central sphere of uses, furnish a rallying point of unity between them all. It would ally them to itself, not by the destruction of their several individualities, but by developing the genius of each to the utmost. It would enrich them all, by serving as the common interpreter between them, until each would attain something of the powers of all, or at least the full capacity for availing itself of the aid of all others, and chiefly of the central tongue, in all those respects in which in consequence of its own special character it should remain individually defective. The new Scientific and Central Language might thus plant itself in the midst of the Languages; gradually assimilate them to itself; drawing at the same time an augmentation of its own materials from them, until they would become mere idioms of it, and finally, perhaps, in a more remote future, disappear altogether as distinct forms of speech, and be blended into harmony in the bosom of the central tongue.

The resources of Language for the formation of new words, by the possible euphonic combination of elementary sounds, is as nearly infinite as any particular series of combinations usually called infinite; all such series having their limitations, as in the case of the different orders of the Infinite in the calculus which are limited by the fact that there are different orders. Yet, notwithstanding that this inexhaustible fountain of Phonetic wealth exists directly at hand, none of these resources have ever been utilized by any scientific arrangement and advice. Only so many verbal forms as happen to have occurred in any given language, developed by the chance method, in the Greek, for instance, are chosen as a basis, and employed as elements for the new verbal formatives now coming into use with such astonishing rapidity in all the sciences. For instance, let us take the consonant combination kr (or cr), and add the following series of vowels: i (pronounced ee), e (pronounced a), a (pronounced ah), o (pronounced aw), u (pronounced uh), o (pronounced o), and u (pronounced oo); and we construct the following series of euphonic triliteral roots:

• Kri (Kree)
• Kre (Kra or Kray)
• Kra (Krah)
• Kro (Kraw)
• Kru (Kruh)
• Kro (Kro)
• Kru (Kroo).

Let us now add the termination o, and we have the following list of formatives:

• Kri-o (Kreè-o)
• Kre-o (Kra-o)
• Kra-o (Krah-o)
• Kro-o (Kraw-o)
• Kru-o (Kruh-o)
• Kro-o (Kro-o)
• Kru-o (Kroo-o).

Of these verbal forms only two occur in any of the well-known Southwestern Languages of Europe, namely, Creo, I CREATE, of the Latin, Italian, etc., and Crio, I REAR, of the Spanish. The other forms are entirely unused. Of any other simple series of Euphonic[Pg 547] combinations, such as Phonetic art can readily construct, there is the same wasteful neglect, and, in consequence of this total failure of the scientific world to extract these treasures of Phonic wealth lying directly beneath their feet, they are driven to such desperate devices as that of naming the two best-known and most familiar order of fishes, those usually found on our breakfast tables, Acanthopterygii Abdominales, and Malacopterygii Subbrachiati; and the common and beautiful bird called bobolink is Dolichonyx Orixyvora. For the same reason—the entire absence of any economical and systematized use of our phonetic materials by the scientific world—the writer found himself, recently, in attempting certain generalizations of the domain of science, stranded almost at the commencement, upon such verbal shoals as Anthropomorphus Inorganismoidismus; and the subsequent steps in the mere naming of discriminations simple enough in themselves, became wholly impossible. The urgent necessity existing, therefore, for the radical intervention of Science in the discovery of true principles applicable to the construction of its own tools and instruments, can hardly be denied or questioned.

The immense condensation of meaning, and the consequent compactness and copiousness of which a Language based on a meaning inherently contained by analogy in the simplest elements of sound would be susceptible, would give to such a Language advantages as the instrument of thought and communication, which are but very partially illustrated in the superiority of printing by movable types over manuscript, for the rapid multiplication of books.

In the compound words of existing Languages each root-word of the combination has a distinct meaning, and the joint meaning of the parts so united is the description or definition of the new idea; thus in German, Finger is FINGER, and Hut is HAT, and Finger-hut (FINGER-HAT) is a thimble; Hand is HAND, Schue is SHOE, and Hand-schue is a glove, etc. So in English, Wheel-barrow, Thunder-storm, etc. The admirable expressiveness of such terms, and the great superiority in this respect of Languages like the Sanscrit, Greek, German, etc., in which such self-defining combinations are readily formed, over Spanish, Italian, French, and other derivative languages, the genius of which resists combination, is immediately perceived and acknowledged. But if we analyze any one of these compound words, Finger-hut, for instance, we shall perceive that while each of the so-called elements of combination, Finger and Hut, has a distinct meaning, which enters into the more specific meaning of the compound, yet they are not, in any true sense, elements, or, in other words, that they are not the ultimate elements of the compound words. Finger is itself constituted, in the first instance, of two syllables, Fing and er, which, in accordance with the same principle upon which the compound word Finger-hut is organized, should describe the thing signified, as would be the case if Fing meant HAND, and er meant CONTINUATION. Finger would then mean Hand-continuation, and Finger-hut (thimble) would then be a Hand-continuation-hat. But, again, Fing consists of three elementary sounds, f-i-ng, er of two, e-r, and hut of three, h-u-t. Suppose now that the primary sound f had been scientifically discovered to be correspondential throughout all the realms of Nature and of Thought with Superiority, High-position, or Upperness; i with centrality, or main body, and ng with member or branch; the syllable Fing would then signify Upper-body-branch, a very proper description of the arm. Suppose that e signified, in the same way, flat, palm-like ideas and things generally and that r alone signified continuation; then er would signify Palm-continuation, and Finger would signify an Upper-body[Pg 548]branch-palm-continuation, or, in other words, a Palm-continuation of an upper-body-branch, and would so be completely descriptive of, at the same time that it would denote, a Finger. Suppose, again, that h signified inherently rotundity or roundness; u, closeness; and t, roof or covering; then hut would signify round-closed-cover, a proper description of a hat; and Finger-hut would then mean An-upper-body-branch-palm-continuation-round-closed-cover, or the round-closed-cover of a palm-continuation of a superior limb or branch of the body. It will be at once perceived how, with such resources of signification at command, compounds like Acanthopterygii to signify thornfins, Malacopterygii Subbrachiati, to signify Under-arm soft fins, or Anthropomorphus Inorganismoidismus, to signify things in unorganized form, having a resemblance to man, would soon come to be regarded as the lingual monsters which they really are.

The difference between commencing the composition of words by the real elements of speech, represented by single letters, each charged with its own appropriate meaning, and conveying that meaning into every compound into which it should enter, from commencing the composition by assuming long words already formed in some existing language, as Anthropos (Greek word for man), Acanthos (Greek word for spine), Keron (Greek word for fin or wing), etc., as the first element of the new compounds, is infinite in its results upon the facility, copiousness, and expressiveness of the terminology evolved. It is like the difference of man working by the aid of the unlimited resources of tools and machinery and the knowledge of chemistry, on the one hand, and man working with his unaided bare hands, and in ignorance of the nature of the substances he employs, on the other hand. The scientific world has not hitherto known how to construct the lingual tools and instruments which are indispensable to its own rapidly augmenting and complicated operations; to analyze and apply the lingual materials at its command; and to simplify and unify the nomenclatures of all the sciences, in order to quicken a thousandfold the operation of all the mental faculties, in the perception and exact vocal indication of all the infinitely numerous close discriminations and broad generalizing analogies with which nature abounds.

It is hardly necessary to say that the particular meanings assigned above to the single sounds in the analysis of the German word Finger-hut, are not assumed in any sense to be the real meanings of the vocal elements involved. The whole case is supposititious, and assumed merely to illustrate the unused possibilities of Language in the construction of significant words, and especially in the construction of scientific technicalities. To found a real Language of this kind, it would be necessary, first, to work up patiently to the true meanings of the Elementary Sounds of Human Speech, and then to the analogy of those meanings with the elements of universal being (the categories of the understanding, etc.), and finally of these again with the elements of each of the special Sciences.

Could such a discovery be actually accomplished; should it prove to be the simple fact of nature that every sound of the human voice is Nature's chosen vehicle for the communication of an equally elementary idea; and that the Combinations of the Elementary Sounds into Words do inherently and necessarily, so soon as these primitive meanings and the law of their combination are known, produce words infinite in number and perfect in structure, naturally expressive of every precise idea of which the human mind is capable, it becomes perfectly conceivable how a Natural Universal Language would be evolved by discovery alone. The creation of the Language would belong to Nature as truly and absolutely—in a sense, more truly and absolutely—than[Pg 549] our existing instinctual Languages. It would be in fact the normal Language of Humanity, from which, for the want of such a discovery, mankind has been unnaturally debarred. The fact would prove to be that we have ever been banished from our true vernacular, and have been, all our lives, speaking foreign or strange tongues, from which we have only to recur or come home. May we not, therefore, found in Science the rational expectation, that in due time, from a Lingual Paradise Lost in the remote Past, we may recur to a Lingual Paradise Regained, in literal fulfilment of the promise of prophecy, that all the nations of the earth shall be of one speech?

A SUMMER'S NIGHT.

[Translated literally from the original Polish of Count S. Krasinski, by Prof. Podbielski; prepared for The Continental by Martha Walker Cook.]

CHAPTER I.

I behold her as they lead her forth, with myrtle wreath upon her brow, and floating drapery of snow. She moves slowly, as if in fear, and the church rises like a vast cemetery before her eyes. Charmed with her modest loveliness, men smile on her as she glides forward, while children, changed into little angels, strew fresh flowers before her. The bishop and attendant priests look bright in gay dalmatics; and throngs of people crowd round, praising, envying, and wishing bliss. She alone is silent, with long lashes shading her downcast eyes, as she leans on the arms of her maidens.

Weariness is in every movement of her slight form, her nerves seem unstrung, and the rays of soul gleam vague and troubled through the expanded pupils of her blue eyes; it were indeed hard to divine whether plaint or prayer would breathe through the half-open lips. As she passes on before the shrines and chapels she lifts her hand, as if intending to make the sign of the cross, but she seems without energy to complete the symbols, and they fall broken and half formed in the air. Inclining her head before the Mother of God, she bends as if about to kneel, but, her strength evidently failing her, she moves tremblingly on toward the sanctuary, and the Great Altar in its gloomy depths looms before her like a sepulchre.

There, encircled by relations and friends, with pride and pleasure beaming from his aged eyes, her father awaits her; and well may he be proud, for never had God given to declining years a lovelier child. She shines upon the sunset of his life with the growing lustre of the evening star, and never has its light beamed dim upon him until this very hour. He will not, however, think of this momentary eclipse now, for this same hour will see the fulfilment of his brightest dreams. In his joy and pride he exclaims to the friends around him: 'Look on my child; how young, pure, and innocent she is—trembling in the ignorance of her approaching happiness!' Then he gazes wistfully, far as his eye can reach, down the long aisles of the church, to ascertain if the bridegroom yet appears, and, seeing him not, his gray eyebrows fall, and settle into a frown.

But peace soon again smoothes his broad forehead. Alas! the illusions of the old stand round their petrifying souls like statues of granite; no earthly power avails to strike them down, and death alone can break them. The young see their dreams floating in the air, while shifting rainbows play above them as they rise and melt upon the view. But the hopes of the old grow hard and stony as they near the grave; their desires assume the form of realities. The harsh rock of bygone experience stands between them and the truths of the present. Seating themselves immovably upon it, the surging life-stream hurtles on far below, bearing them not forward on its hurrying flow. Withered garlands and the ashes of once fiery hearts drift on; shattered wrecks, with torn sails and broken masts, driven and tossed by eternal whirlwinds, appear and vanish in the river's rush; but the old remain motionless above. The hot rain of stars forever falling there dies out with dull moan, while the glad waves and white foam laugh as the ruined wrecks toss helplessly in the strong winds; but the aged heed it not: they have grown into one with the rock of the past, they build air castles over the roaring depths, they look upon the waves, as they surge into each other, as stable altars of peace and happiness. They command their sons and daughters to vow faith in the light of the past, but ere the oath is fully spoken, the altar is under other skies, encircled by other horizons!

Surrounded by friends in gay attire, the bridegroom, full of life and vigor, rushes into the church. He wears a national dress, but his nation is not that of the old man. The crowd disperse from right to left as he passes on, greeting him with lowly bows: scarcely deigning to return the courtesy, he clatters up the aisle with rapid stride, and stands by the side of the kneeling bride. He places his lips to the ear of the old man, and whispers to him; they converse in low tones, the old man with an air of regal authority, the young one gesturing rapidly with his hands.

The bishops now slowly approach, the tapers are lighted upon the altar, a solemn silence falls upon the holy temple, two hands, two souls are to be united forever! A shiver of awe thrills through the assembly.

The beams of the setting sun pour in through the stained panes of the windows their lines of crimson light, as if streams of blood were flowing through the church. Deepening in the approaching twilight, they fall in their dying splendor on the brow of a man who stands alone in one of the side chapels. The figure of a dead hero extended upon a monument lies near him, as, immovable as the statue itself, he stands with his gaze riveted upon the altar whence the bishop addresses the bride. The crimson light falling full upon him betrays the secrets of his soul, his noble brow tells of fierce struggle within, but neither prayer, sigh, nor groan escapes him. His lips are closely pressed together, while suppressed anguish writhes them into a stern smile—but the streams of ruby light which had shone on his face for the moment, fade in the twilight, and he is lost in the gloom of the deepening shadows.

But when the vows were all spoken, the ceremonies over, when the bridegroom raised up the bride, and she fell into the arms of her father, when he bore her onward to the gates of the church, with thousands of tapers following after, when the crowd dispersed, and the sounds of the footsteps were dying away in the distance, and the cathedral grew still as the grave, holding only the dead and the few half-living monks moving darkly in its depths—the man on whom had shone the crimson light leaves the chapel, comes up the aisle, strikes his breast, and falls forward on the steps of the altar, rises suddenly, and again falls, then seats himself, while the lights from behind the great crucifix of silver shine down solemnly upon him. His face is turned away from the holy things of the sanctuary; his eyes gaze afar, past the gates through which the bride had vanished. He sees the blue night-sky, and a single star sparkling upon it, and as he looks upon the star, he takes a sword from under his cloak, draws the steel from the scabbard, and, still gazing upon the star, sharpens it on his whetstone. Thus, with widely opened eye, yet seeing, hearing nothing, the somnambulist, wrapped in deep, magnetic sleep, strides on in the moonlight, possessed by a power of which he is not conscious, which may stain his hands with blood, or hold him back from the verge of an abyss. Passion drinks its glow from the rays of the sun; it may lead us safely, or drive us far astray!

A monk approaches the man kneeling before the high altar, and says:

'Brother, whosoever thou mayst be, go to rest, and do not disturb the peace of the Lord.'

The man answers nothing. Another draws near him, saying:

'Away from the church; be not guilty of sacrilege!'

The man makes no reply. A third monk stands beside him and says:

'I excommunicate thee, and the steel which thou darest to draw at the very foot of the cross.'

The culprit then rises, and replies:

'I waited for these words, that the stroke might be certain, and the blow mortal.'

He leaves the church slowly—slowly, as if counting his own footfalls, knowing them to be his last on earth!

Meanwhile the night falls so softly, the skies hang so transparently above, the air is so tranquil, that the soul trembles with delight, and the heart unconsciously forebodes happiness. The stars peer up above the mountains, like the eyes of angels flashing through the blue spaces of the heavens. Swathed in her bands of darkness, and breathing up to them the perfume of her flowers and the sighs of her lovers, the earth seems grateful to them for their golden glances. A fitting night, surely, for a bridal so illustrious as the one we have just seen; a long spring will bloom from it upon the aged father. What more could he ask for his children? His new son in high favor with the emperor, lord of lands and serfs; his daughter, good and beautiful as an angel, goes not portionless into the house of her husband, but is the sole heiress of immense estates. What maiden would not envy her; what youth not wish to take his place? And the thoughts of the old man run pleasantly on: he thinks how happily his days will flow, blessed with the smiles of his daughter, and surrounded by the splendor of his son. He already sees the little grandchildren springing up before him; flowers blooming along the pathway leading to his grave.

A splendid festival is to take place in his castle; few princes would be able to give such an entertainment. The grounds are illumined as if it were day, barrels of pitch are everywhere burning, torches are blazing high upon his walls, windows and doors are thrown open, harps sound and trumpets thunder, mazourkas swell upon the ear, and the gay groups twine, twist, reel, half mad with joyous excitement. The old man strays through the lighted halls, and converses with his guests. Tears tremble in his eyes. Ah, many tears had gathered there in the troubled days of his life, through its hours of sweat and blood, but they are all passing now into these drops of gratitude to God who has brought him to this happy time in which past sorrows are all to be forgotten. Moving out upon his wide porticos, he pours coins from dishes of silver to the people below. Returning, he places clusters of diamonds on the young bosoms of the bridesmaids. Servants follow his footsteps, bending under the wealth they bear, handing to him glittering swords and golden chains, ostrich plumes, and Turkish scymitars, which, in memory of the day, he distributes among his guests. Sometimes he stops to take a chalice from the hands of a page, and wets his lips with Tokay, greeting his guests as he moves courteously on, wishing to warm all with the sunshine of his own happiness.

He enters now the central dome of the castle, lined with exotic trees and perfumed plants; the vaulted roof is corniced with wrought marble, emblazoned with escutcheons of his ancestors, unsullied, glorious, holy! Stopping at the entrance, he looks for his child: she is not among the dancers, nor in the throngs of the spectators. The bridegroom is indeed there, amusing himself with the various beauties present; and, for the second time in this happy day, the forehead of the old man lowers in grief or anger. He makes his way through the crowd, passes on through the orange trees, in the niches between which stand the now deserted seats rich in broidered tapestry. He lingers among them seeking his child, when he suddenly stops as if stricken with fierce pain. He has found her now; she is sitting quite alone, gazing sadly on a bunch of roses lying on her knee: dreamily she picks off the perfumed leaves, until the bare stems and thorns alone remain in her fragile hands. The old man silently approaches her. Suppressing his emotion, he says, with gentle voice:

'How happy thy poor mother would have been to-day, my daughter! Ah, why was it not the will of God she should have blessed this bridal hour!'

She raises her head, crushing the remains of the roses in her trembling hands, and in her confusion tries to fasten them on the hem of her dress: the sharp little stems plant themselves there, but stain its snow with the blood they had torn from the unconscious fingers.

'Why weepest thou, my child? It cannot surely be the memory of thy mother which so moves thee: thou hast never seen her—she went to the fathers in the very hour in which thou camest to me. Look, daughter, thou woundest thyself!'

He takes her hand in his, and softly draws from it the sharp thorns.

'O father, it is not that which pains me! Forgive me—it is that—only that, my father.'

She stands silently before him—great tears were falling slowly down her cheeks. He leans heavily upon her arm:

'Thou must support me now, child, for I grow old and frail, my knees tremble under me; be thou my stay!'

He walks on thoughtfully with her, trying to speak, but saying nothing, while around them float the perfumes of the flowers, and triumphal music swells upon the air.

As they move on, the great clock of the castle strikes the hour. It is fastened to the moulding high on the wall; over it sits an ancient monarch in bronze, a ruler of many kingdoms, and at each stroke the statue of a palatine sallies forth, bows to the king of bronze, and again disappears within the opening wall—twelve strokes toll as they pass, and twelve palatines appear, make obeisance, and vanish. Hark! from the distant chambers sound the choir of female voices; vague and dreamy the notes begin, but at each return they grow clearer and more defined. They are gliding on from hall to hall, ever drawing nearer and ever calling more loudly upon the bride. The old man trembles; the pale girl falls into his arms. But soon recovering, she flies on from passage to passage, from room to room, from gallery to gallery, from vault to vault, everywhere pursued by the choir of bridesmaids, dragging the old man with her, not able to utter a single word—while around them breathe the perfumes of the flowers, and triumphal music swells upon the air.

At last they stop in the chapel of the castle, where the ancestors rest in their coffins of stone. A few tapers burn around, and black draperies broidered with silver flow closely round the tombs. She, the youngest and last of the proud House, falls upon the grave of her mother, shudders, but speaks not. The old man says to the trembling girl:

'Daughter, God did not vouchsafe to give me a male descendant to prolong the power of our race; He blessed me only with a maiden; but thy husband has sworn to take thy name, and thy children will bear the name of our fathers. Honor, then, the favor with which God has crowned thee. No lady in the land is thy equal, heiress as thou art of glory, treasures, and estates—it is thy duty to be obedient and faithful to thy husband until death.'

He speaks to her in soft, low tones; slowly, as if he sought with each word to touch the heart of the silent child. She answers not, but lower and lower droops the fair young head, until her pale face is buried in her white hands, and the bridal wreath and veil fall from her brow upon the grave of her mother. A low groan bursts from the heart of the old man as he cries:

'Daughter, dost thou hear? they approach to bear thee from the breast on which thou hast rested from thy very birth; to take thee from the arms of the old man who has so loved thee! Look up, look into my face; thou art another's now—take leave of me—say, 'Father, I am happy!''

More and more closely she presses her hands to her face—and remains gloomily silent.

'Child, dost thou really wish to lay me here among the dead? Dost thou desire me to rise no more on earth forever? Ah, the love in thy blue eyes has been my solace through my many life-storms. Thou art my single pearl, and I have given thee to the hands of the stranger, that thy brilliancy may remain unclouded, that it may ever glitter in its full splendor. What is the matter with thee? Speak, child, even if it be to complain, to tell me thou art wretched.'

Grasping the white marble of the grave with both hands for support, with gasping breath he awaits her answer. The vengeful sword of remorse is already in his soul; one groan, one spasm of anguish from the innocent victim would break his heart. Raising her heavy eyelids, his child seems to trace an expression of pity on his face, and for a moment dreams that hope is not yet past. Kneeling on the marble of the grave, and turning her young face, so sweet in its appealing anguish, full upon him, a name forces itself through her quivering lips—a sudden shivering shakes the frame of the old man, throwing him off from the grave of his young wife.

'What name hast thou uttered? It must never be repeated—never! No; it were impossible. Tell me I have not heard thee aright; let it rest in eternal oblivion! Thou canst not dream of that ungrateful exile, conspiring against me because I prepared for him a brilliant future—the son of my brother joining with my enemies to compass my ruin! If them regrettest him, if thou hast a single lurking hope that I will ever permit thee to see that banished rebel, to clasp his hand in even common friendship, may the eternal curses of God rest upon you both!'

A voiceless victim offered up upon the altar of the vengeful gods, the maiden has as yet suffered in silence, but rising now in solemn dignity, in a cold, firm, resolute tone, she says:

'I love him, father.'

The old man cannot bear these chill and fatal words. His brain reels, his hopes die, he falls at the foot of the grave, his soul rests for the moment with the ghosts of his ancestors. When he awakes to consciousness, the pale face of his child is bending tenderly over him, her caresses call him back to life. Hark! again he hears the sounding strophes of the wedding song; the chanting maidens cross the threshold; slowly singing, they surround the bride with snowy circle; nearer and nearer they cluster round her—she throws herself for refuge in the old man's arms!

The maidens now clasp, embrace the trembling bride, take her from her father's arms, and bear her on with them. They strew flowers in her path, burn incense around her, as they chant in ever-renewed chorals the dawning of a new and happy life, full of honor and blessing. The old man solemnly follows the choir until they reach the great stairway leading to the bridal chamber: there he bids them stop, and, making the sign of the cross, for the last time blesses the half-swooning girl.

He stands for a moment wrapt in thought, then wends his way to the hall of feasting. Recovering his presence of mind, he flings aside the truth just forced upon him, as if it were all a dream; he commands it not to be; he almost persuades himself to believe it has never been! Greeting his guests anew, his air is calm and regal.

The bridegroom, turning to his friends, exclaims:

'Companions in arms, with whom I have spent so many joyous hours in camp and hall, I dedicate to you the hours of this my wedding night; nor will I seek my bride until the flush of dawn is in the sky. What hour do the heavens tell?'

One of the revellers rises, draws back the curtain from the window, and says:

'It is just past midnight; the moon rides high in the sky.'

'Then am I still yours,' exclaims the youth, 'and again I pledge you in the rosy wine.' As he speaks he fills the cup of gold studded with diamonds, swallows the contents, and passes it to the nearest guest. But the heavy palm of the castle's lord rests upon his shoulder. Seizing another brimming cup, he says: 'I drain this to thy health, father, and our guests will surely pledge it with me.'

The lord of the castle thanks him not; he points to the open door, through which may be seen, as they wind along the distant galleries and archways, the retreating forms of the now silent bridesmaids. Shaking his blonde curls, the youth answers:

'These brave men have always served me faithfully; I have sworn to consecrate this night to them; we drink and feast together until Aurora leads the dawn.' Seizing the hands of those nearest to him, he resumes: 'Companions, for this sacrifice swear to pursue, to hunt to death, as I shall command, the vile mob of rebels and traitors who infest these mountains.'

They give the pledge, while vivats fill the hall. 'Long live our prince!' The face of the proud old man glimmers with a bluish rage, but the loud plaudits, the outstretched arms, the dazzling, naked swords, the wild, warlike enthusiasm bewilder his brain, while pride and hate, splendor and power, tempting and blinding his soul, veil in fleeting glitter the broken form of the lonely, weeping, wretched child. He is carried away in the excitement of the hour, and the loud voice which had once thundered in the battles of his own unhappy land, joins in the cry: 'Death to the rebels!' Deigning not, however, to remain longer with the guests, he sternly beckons to his attendants. They file in order before him with lighted torches. The youth rises, leaves his friends for an instant, and accompanies to the door of the saloon the old man, who takes leave of him with an air of aversion, while the youth returns to his friends:

'By my good sword!' he exclaims, 'I will brook no control. I wedded a fair girl, not chains nor fetters. Let the dim moon light the solving of love's riddle for older maidens; my bride is young and lovely enough to bear the growing light of dawn.'

Then taking aim with his Greek knife at the golden boss on the opposite wall, he strikes it in the centre; the guests follow, aim, and knives fly through the air, but none strike the centre of the target except himself. Full cups are poured to pledge their glorious chief. The flush of gratified vanity blooms in his young cheek, he caresses his mustache and plays with his blonde hair, he jokes with his guests; his jests are keen, light, witty, piercing like the sting of a wasp, and loud applauses greet his eager ear. Gliding over the surface of life, knowing nothing of its depths, he floats gracefully through its shallows. His blood, quickened by praise, flushes his face, his eye sparkles, his features play, but his heart is empty, his soul void, his intellect without expansion; he is as vain, weak, and selfish as an old coquette.

CHAPTER II.

In their naive songs, our people long remembered the valley in which the chieftain parted from his comrades. Our fathers called it the Valley of Farewells; our children so will call it should our songs endure through another generation—should not our language, with ourselves, be extinguished forever!

In a valley circled by three hills of gentle slope, whose feet bathe in the same stream, but whose tops are widely severed, stands the man who but an hour before had borne the ban of excommunication from the altar of God. Male figures, clad in black from head to foot, with pallid faces, and the flash of steel glittering in the moonlight, seem to have been awaiting his appearance, for when they perceive him, the reclining rise to their feet, the standing descend to the borders of the stream, banners are unfurled in the summer's night, but no huzzas break the silence. Seating himself upon a rock on the banks of the stream, he is himself the first to speak, his voice chiming time with the murmur of the waters, as the tones of the singer with the sounding harpstrings. His words, though low, reach the hearts of his companions:

'Soldiers! for some time past I have been your leader, and I am sure you will not forget me. Treasure in your memories the last words I shall ever address to you, for in them is the old truth, firm as these rocks, holy as these stars. Our fathers owned this country for thousands of years; during all that time, exile, injustice, oppression were utterly unknown. Its children were numberless as the grains of wheat upon its plains, as the trees in its interminable forests, and the neighboring nations gathered for shelter under the shadow of their clustering sabres. What the ear now never hears, what the eye never sees, but what the soul of the brave never ceases to love, was their proud inheritance—FREEDOM! Then came, with his throngs of slaves, the[Pg 550] King of the South.[A] At first he spake with guileful gentleness, pouring out treacherous treasures of gold before us. Differing from us in faith and language, he strove to unite what God had severed, and when affairs moved not in accordance with his wishes, he tried to force himself upon us with fire and sword. Shame to the dwellers in cities and the lords of the valleys! fearing to face the dangers and hardships of life in the caves of the mountains, the wilds of the forests, they submitted to the usurper. But you have buried yourself in them as in graves, therefore the day of resurrection will dawn upon you. Already I see the signs of a brighter future. Has not the king's own residence been fired and consumed? Have we not heard the screams of joy of the vultures over the dead bodies of his minions, while the wolves howled in chorus the long night through? If you would regain the inheritance of our fathers, your labor must be long, your best blood flow. Especially now, when from wandering exiles you have grown into threatening heroes, will the king strive to deceive you by glittering baits: but beware of the tempters; their promises are mountains of gold, their performances handfuls of mud. Look up! There is room enough in these blue skies for brave souls! Regret not the earth, even should you fall in battle. Even on the other side of the grave may the face of God be forever dark to him who consents to lay down his arms while his country is in bondage!

'Go not down into the plains to secure the golden grain; your guardian angel dwells in the mountains—the time is coming when you shall reap a full harvest of spoils. Hearken always to the voices of the Seven who appointed me your leader. Their arms are weary with age and heavy work, but wisdom reigns supreme over the ruins of their wornout bodies. Obey them. When they call upon you, defend them to the last; whom they shall appoint chief, follow in dauntless courage; conquer with him, as you have always conquered with me! Soldiers, another fate demands me now. No morrow dawns for me upon this earth. Brothers, I bid you farewell forever!'

The summer moon shines brightly down upon the little band of heroes. They start to their feet, and, gliding silently from every direction, they assemble round their chief, twining about him in a gloomy circle.

'Where art thou going, our brave chieftain?'

Stretching out his arm, he points toward the flame which still throws a pale light over the plain.

'Stay! It is the flame of the wedding festival glaring from the halls of thy ancestors. We will not suffer thee to go to those who would take thy life; to the maiden who has betrayed thee!'

He starts suddenly from the rock; his shrill cry pierces the hearts of the warriors:

'Malign her not with falsehood! She has not betrayed me. This very night she will be mine. We will rest together in the long sleep of eternity. Comrades, I have consecrated to you the house and riches of my fathers; life and bliss with the woman I love I have sacrificed on the altar of my country; but death with her I cannot relinquish—the moment is near—no time is to be lost—I go. Farewell!'

He passes hurriedly through them; the long folds of his cloak, the locks of his hair, the plumes of his cap, stream wildly on the breeze. Cries rise on the midnight air; they kneel before him, they circle round him, they stand a living wall before him, they entreat him to stop, they threaten to storm the castle, to take it before the dawn of day, to seize the bride, and bear her safely to his arms.

He stays his hurrying footsteps, and the eager men fall into respectful silence. His voice is heard, sounding sweet indeed, but firm and deep as they[Pg 551] have often heard it in the midst of battle-smoke and thunder:

'I thank you from my heart; my brothers. But it cannot be! The clashing of our sabres must not wake the old man sleeping in the chambers of my forefathers. I grew up under the shadow of his hand. He first taught my lips to utter the holy word which names the land of our fathers; he planted in my soul the thirst for glory. Before our holy banners float again from the walls of his castle, I must sleep in death! Fate has inexorably decreed it. Once more, farewell!'

He moves rapidly on, muttering to himself: 'What the priest of God has bound, man may not untie—it must be cut asunder!' Unconsciously drawing his sword, he raises it in the air, the glittering blade flashing like a meteor in the rays of the summer moon.

In silence and with drooping heads the soldiers follow—they know that what he says will surely come to pass. Predictions of his approaching doom had long been current among them; he had himself warned them the hour of separation was near. Not by the sword of the near enemy, nor by the arrow of the distant one, was he fore-doomed to fall. Not slowly was he to fade away upon a bed of mortal sickness: his own dreams and foreign magic had announced to him another doom! The conspirators move silently and solemnly on behind him, as if following a corpse. He already seems to them a spirit. But when he commenced the ascent of the hill, the long plumes of his cap streaming through rocks and trees, appearing and disappearing as he clambers up, they rush into pursuit. Separated only by mossy banks and rocky terraces, they seek the same hilltop. He reaches it the first. Before him flashes upon his eyes a full view of the illuminated castle with its towers and battlemented turrets; at his feet lies the abyss, thundering with the roar of falling waters. An enormous pine has fallen over and bridges the chasm. His men are close upon him; again they try to surround him; pushing off the nearest, he leaps upon the trunk of the gigantic pine, crawls forward upon it, hangs for a moment over the abyss, reaches the other side, descends with marvellous agility, plants himself firmly on the ground, with feverish strength tears out the trunk from the rocks which had held it fast; it trembles for a moment as if swung in a balance; he urges, hurls it on, and at last it falls, crushing and shivering as it strikes heavily against the steep sides of the rocky chasm. The soldiers feel as if dazzled by a sudden flash of lightning, and when the glare passes, it is too late! In the light of the moon they see for the last time his broad brow in the full beauty of life—then the abyss separates them forever. Holding his hands out, suspended above the chasm, as if with his last breath he would bless his people, he cries:

'In the name of God, heroes, eternal struggle between you and the King of the South!'

The rocks echo the full tones of the manly voice, and the depths of the valley repeat it. His tall form disappears among the shadows of the pines. The conspirators listen as if hoping to catch one word more. No sound greets them save the sighing of the trees, the dash of the waters—the manly tones of their young hero they will hear no more forever!

Unfortunate! the glare of madness gleams in thine eyes. While thou wert exposed to the gaze of thy brothers thou struggledst to control thyself, because thou wouldst not their last memory of thee should be clouded; but now thou art alone, thou throwest off restraint, and, driven on by vengeance, hurriest forward. Thou startlest the owl as thou scalest the rocks; she flaps her wing, and gazes on thee with round eyes of wonder; the fox, baying in the moonlight, steals into the gloom; the[Pg 552] wolves howl in the ravine as thou rushest through—thou hearest not their cries, they fly before the wild splendor of thine eyes! Thou readiest the plain. Corpse-lights from the swamps flit on with thee; wildly laughing, thou criest: 'Race on with me, friends!' They dance round thy cap, and bathe thy breast with streams of pale, blue light; then, joined in brotherly embrace, for a moment ye speed together on; but the grave-lights are the first to die; then, a solitary shadow, thou flittest darkly over the meadows, and approachest the castle of thine ancestors.

It shines with innumerable lights. The terraced gardens with their walks and perfumed shrubs lie so silently in the bright moonlight, they seem dreaming of the bridal bliss, the echo of the wedding music cradling them to sweeter sleep. The flying footsteps of the chieftain are suddenly arrested—he thinks he hears the opening chant of the bridesmaids' song, though so distant it seems rather dream than reality. He listens. He knows the ancient custom; he certainly hears the chorused strophes, the fresh, clear female voices, He rushes forward now, he buries his nails in the fissures of the walls, he clambers up, suspending himself in the air, his feet cling to the moss-grown stones, he seizes a vine, swings himself forward, gains the top of the wall, and the crushed grasses groan as he leaps down upon them. Having touched the earth within the enclosure, he rises up with triple power, and bounds into the leafy labyrinth. Oaks, ashes, pines, and firs, the remains of the great forest, are around him. Thickets, vineyards, and meadows lie in the moonlight, brooks and fountains murmur, nightingales sing; he reaches the trailing willows where the long branches droop into the blue waters of the lake, from whose depths the stars of heaven smile upon him. He had played under these trees as a happy boy, swum in these clear waves—but the memories of the past must not detain him now. He reaches the bower where the jessamines bloom at the foot of the lower terrace. This was the spot in which the maiden had revealed her soul to her exiled brother; here had her holy promise kindled her blue eyes, and the high resolve of its keeping rested on her pure brow;—he groans aloud, but stops not, keeping his face steadily turned to the gray wall of the castle. Certain of his course, whether in light or shadow, he still hurries on. Winding among orange trees and fountains, he enters the vaulted archway which leads to the castle. Ascending with every step, he stands at last upon a level with its pillared portico. Taking the long plume from his cap, he glides from beneath the vault of the archway. No one is near. Songs and shouts are on his left; there then must be the hall of festival. Silence reigns on his right, and the long ranges of windows glitter only with the light of the moon. At the end of the long gallery and near the angle of the western tower, lamps are still burning; a wide glass door stands partly open—it seems to him he hears a low moan, but so light, so inaudible, it is caught through the divining of the soul rather than by the hearing of the ear. But he has heard it. Leaving the shadow of the vaulted passage, he emerges into the light, like one rising from the dead; imploring his steps not to betray him, and supporting himself on balustrades and pillars, he glides on. As he approaches the half-open door, he sees the long veils of the windows floating like snow-wreaths in the air; behind these thin curtains he feels that Life and Death, hand clasped in hand, await him. He falters, stops, presses his hand on his heart, but his fingers encounter the cold steel of his sword; he grasps it firmly, approaches, leans his forehead on the panes of the wide gothic door—strange that the throbbing brain burst not its narrow bounds!

He sees nothing at first but fiery[Pg 553] sparks and black spots from the seething of his heated brain. The long muslin draperies are sometimes lifted by the wind, and again close their veils of mist; the silver lamp flashes on his eyes for a moment, and again vanishes from his view; but, as his sight grows clearer, the great mirror with its frame of gold stands before him—necklaces, bracelets, and chains flash from the toilet before it. He trembles no longer, he ceases to make the sign of the cross, he sees distinctly now—under the floating flow of purple drapery the bride is sitting on the bed alone. The flowers thrown over her by the choir of singing bridesmaids still cluster on her hair and breast; her little feet are almost buried in the fallen rose leaves. She sighs as if utterly unconscious of herself, thoughtless of the pain she suffers—as if her life were only anguish! The flowers droop from her bosom and glide to the ground; and, as the violets, myrtles, and lilies fall over her dress of snow, the great tears roll slowly down her pallid cheeks with every deep-drawn sigh.

The door creaks on its hinges, her arms are thrown up involuntarily, her neck is outstretched, like that of a frightened deer startled by the baying of the hounds. She listens, waits, hears something move, starts up, and flies into the depths of the chamber, seizes the floating curtains, wraps herself in the folds, unwinds them from about her, flies on, turns, starts, stops, then suddenly falling on her knees, cries aloud: 'Thou!' Her last hope is in that word, but all strength fails her now, and she stands fixed to the spot with rigid face and form of marble. Steps and voices, which had been heard a moment before, die away in the distance. He whom she had so passionately invoked stands before her; he presses her not to his heart, but she hears the whisper: 'I am here!'

She blooms into new life, and with a melancholy smile of wondrous sweetness, murmurs:

'I knew, I knew thou wouldst be with me in this solemn hour. Dost thou curse me in thy heart? But hear me: no one approaches, we are alone, I may yet have time to tell thee all. When they led me to the church, I sought thee everywhere; when I kneeled before the altar, I could only seek thee with my soul, my eyes were too dim with tears for sight; and when, on my return to the castle—they felicitated me, I listened for thy voice to thunder o'er them all! And even here, where each moment was freighted with coming shame and anguish, my faith never left me. I sat in utter torpor, but my soul saw thee in thy flight across the distant hills, my heart felt thee as thou camest through the gardens and up the terraced way. What I divined is true, Give me thy hand—I am saved! saved!'

Gracefully as the light sprays of the willow, she sways toward him, and trustfully leans on his strong arm.

Who has ever felt in dreams his soul torn from hell, and borne by angels into heaven? Who has ever known what it was to be God's own child for a fleeting moment—felt the lightning flash of heaven-bliss gleam through his heart? He had expected to meet one faithless to her vows; but as the voice of simple truth and love thrills through his innermost being, he grows omnipotent, immortal. His youth only begins from this hour! it soars aloft—one wing is love, the other glory; his ashes shall be worthy to mingle with those of his fathers! He will return to his deserted comrades, and she, the beloved, will follow him, for does not she, now clinging in holy trust to his arm, seem willing to give into his hands the whole web of her future destiny? Its threads shall be of gold, and the sun of love shall shine ever upon it. Weave the brilliant mist in glittering woof, O glowing imagination of youth I Beautiful cloud-dreams, which the setting sun of life paints and flushes with his dying rays![Pg 554]

But suddenly awaking from his fevered visions, he cries: 'Why hast thou set this ring on thy finger? Would it not have been far better to have sought refuge in the mountains, than to have bound thyself to another by the holy sacrament of marriage? Yet will I save thee, for my comrades are brave and obedient, and I am their leader!'

'O God! thou questionest me about the Past, when not a single hour of the Present is our own! Dost thou still doubt me? Dost thou not comprehend me? I have plighted my troth to thee in truth, have sworn that thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. I will keep my vow. Thou doubtest me, and must hear all. Interrupt me not. Unsheathe thy sword; if they approach, I will throw myself into thy arms. When the time came to tell my father all, to bid him the last good by, he begged me sore, entreated me with many tears. Thou knowest with what a stern voice he is wont to command, how instantaneously he is accustomed to be obeyed; but he veiled the thunders of his wrath with tears, he sighed and wailed, saying that his only child was armed to strike him to the heart, to thrust him into the grave. The prince, the son-in-law of his choice, promised to take our name; he brought his serfs and retainers in crowds to the castle, and said to the old man: 'Lo, they shall all be thine!' Kneeling before me, my father placed my hand upon his silver hair; I felt the blood bounding and throbbing in his bare temples, and on his grand old forehead lay the dream of his whole life gasping in its death agonies. The cruel phantom of dominion and power, hateful to me, clutched me through the heart of the only parent I have ever known. His life or death was in my hands. A divine power swayed my soul; I resolved upon self-sacrifice. Consent quivered from my shrinking lips—I gave my trembling hand to the unknown, unloved, insupportable. Alas! all are alike abhorrent to me who speak not with thy voice, look not with thy eyes, breathe not with thy breath, love not with thy soul! The lord of the castle has now a son in place of his slight girl, and thousands of warriors stand ready to defend the old Home of our haughty race. Thus am I free, now may I take leave of all. Again I pledge to thee my faith; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. But this people, this God, this plighted faith—knowest thou by what name it is called to-day?'

The chieftain throws his arm round her slight form, and looking anxiously toward the gallery, says: 'Speak and tell me while it is yet time.'

With low, reproachful tone, she answers: 'Can it be possible that thou dost not know? And yet there is no room for doubt—it is Death! So long as I remain on earth, I am the wife of the foreigner. Thou canst regain me only in the land of spirits; but the way is short—look! it is only the length of thy sword!'

The word 'wife' falls from the soft lips like a stone on the heart of the chief, awakening him from the last dream he will ever dream on this earth. Yes. His sword would protect her from the pursuit of father and husband, but he cannot save her from the condemnation of the church, its excommunication; for what the priest of God has bound, that man may not unloose! It grows cold and dark in his sinking heart. A single moment of happiness, alas, now forever past! has robbed him of strength, of hope; he shivers with awe; he sees the long skeleton finger of the pale Phantom of Terror touch the young heart of the faithful maiden. But that will be impossible—he cannot take her life—he will fly, and fall on the morrow with his braves in battle—she shall live—the loveliest of human forms shall still remain on earth. He groans, and breaks away from her—the walls seem crumbling before him, breaking into tears of blood—he flies—but[Pg 555] his sister overtakes him at the threshold.

'Where dost thou fly, unfaithful? Didst thou not come to release me? Wouldst thou brand me with dishonor—with infamy and shame? Betray me not. O God! canst thou think of deserting me now! Listen! The foreigner is already on his way to sully with his hot and pestilential breath the purity of thy beloved. And what would be my future fate shouldst thou deliver me into the hands of mine enemy, to his hated embraces? He will force me to the court of the King of the South. I must there bear my part amid strange faces, surrounded by falsehood and pride, and learn to smile on those I loathe. He will lead me to the court that he may boast of my beauty, that he may show his king he has gathered the pale flower of the ancient House. And what will be the course of the king, what that of the prince, my husband? Look at the old, and learn! They curse in old age what they worshipped in youth; they love what they once scorned. What has thus transformed them? Time. Time, the murderer, who in his reckless culture plants fresh roses on the ruined wall, will draw and thicken the veil of delusion over my face until my true features shall be stifled behind it. I shall be utterly alone—alone forever! Thou wilt be afar, on the mountains, rocks, or in the deserts; temptation will surround me, and disgust possess my soul. Thou mayst be brought in chains to the land of the King of the South, thine enemies may name me there over their beaded cups of ruby wine, jeers and scandals may reach thine ears, and thou wilt curse thyself that thou didst not kill me! Thrust thy sword into my heart! Tear me from the grasp of the monster!'

As if in sudden madness, she wildly stretches out her hands as if to push away the thronging phantoms which appal her.

'Look! his forehead sparkles—a word is written there in blazing diamonds—read it—it is INFAMY! Hell glitters in his eyes; his writhing arms are hissing vipers; they crawl to me, they touch me, wind around me, bury their heads in my bosom, and poison as they drink my pure blood from the virginal cup of my heart!'

She falls exhausted on the floor, washing his feet with her tears as her long tresses stream around them.

He lifts her like a feather from the ground.

'By the Holy Mother of our Lord, such fate shall not be thine! Like the flame of incense burning on the sacred altar, purest among the pure, thou shalt ascend to God!'

His heart breaks, his manly features flicker and quiver like the mist; strange spasms distort them; he bows his head in anguish, and with every tear from her eyes mingle the bitter drops only shed by man.

But this is over now. It was the last sign of weakness, hesitation, regret, wrung from him in his mortal agony. A solemn calm rests on his broad brow as he presses the maiden to his heart.

'With this kiss of peace I consecrate thee to a holy death! He who first breathed upon thy young cheek, first touched thy rosy lip, who may not give thee his name in the sanctity of marriage, who cannot save thee from condemnation—will give thee DEATH! In this thought I sought thee, my sister; but when I found thee faithful, loving, a sudden dream of bliss deceived me. Lulled by lovely visions, the weak one yielded to unmanly hopes, unmanly fears! Forgive him, virgin hero! Temptation and fear have fled forever—we will die together—let us pray!'

'Let us pray! but thou must remain to lead thy people. Longing, but patient, I will await thee in Hades. Thou wilt often come to the spot in which they will bury me, to throw a plume from thy helmet, a ring from thy[Pg 556] coat of mail upon the grassy mound. And the old grave-digger will say: 'He was here to-night; she is still remembered by the chieftain.'

With pure, confiding glance she reads his soul; her eyes sparkle through the mist of tears, and a faint smile writhes her pale young lips. With iron grasp he holds her to his heart.

'With my soul I wed thy soul before the Great White Throne of God, our Judge!'

In softer, sadder tone, he adds: 'While in my power, I served our people with my whole might. I have raised our white eagle on the castles of our enemies. To morrow my comrades will pass these walls—ah! thou dost not know, had I lived another day, whose gray hairs might have been scattered in the coming whirlwind, or in whose courts I might have been forced to take my seat as avenger! We will go hence together, my sister. And where we go, the old men will not desert their country, the young men will not be forced to dishonor the gray hairs of those who first taught them the meaning of patriotism and honor; there treason and oppression are unknown—there will be no necessary vengeance in the Land of the Hereafter! Let us go, sister!'

Transfigured by a sublime exultation, she throws herself into the arms of the chieftain; words and tears are no longer sufficient to thank him; but love has taught her how it may be done. Suddenly drawing from her finger the glittering ring of the enemy, she moves rapidly to the head of the bridal bed, and places it upon the rich embroidery of the laced pillows. Then returning to the chief, she presses his hand to her heart:

'Earth is past, and Heaven begun. Thou art henceforth my lord and master forever!'

She kneels at his side, and begins to recite the prayers for the dying. He kneels beside her, sometimes reciting with her, sometimes wrapt in solemn silence. After a few moments, he breaks upon her prayers:

'The morning twilight is upon us.'

As he speaks, the little birds awake; their matin song sounds from the well-known grove.

'Lean on my arm, beloved; let us look once more upon the earth we leave so soon together!'

She leans heavily upon his arm, and they stand on the threshold of the door opening upon the gallery.

The fading moon dies out beyond the mountains; her last rays fall upon the turf of the terraced gardens; long wreaths of mist and vapor rise in the air like bridal veils, floating and reddening in the early dawn. In this fatal moment the luring promises and lovely images of life stand before her. The murmurs of the lulling fountains fall upon her ear, then flash upon her eye; the shafts and groups of pillars of her ancestral home cluster around her, and the summer flowers greet her with their perfume. But death, not life, is in her heart. The pathway through the old forest whitens in the coming light, the grain waves in the open fields; beyond them, faintly flushing in the twilight, stand the mountain tops above which his star of glory might have risen that very morn—and yet the whole horizon to him now is but the grave of eternal forgetfulness! He gazes far into the mountains, boldly sending his last greetings to the faithful there; while she, with drooping head, presses ever closer to him, asking from him now the look of love, now the thrust of death! In vain the gradual awaking of the world admonishes them more and more loudly that they have nothing more to do with time, that eternity is upon them—they linger still! Who may say what thoughts are thronging through their souls! More and more heavily she sinks upon the true heart of her brother, while the morning breeze plays with the long tresses of her golden hair.[Pg 557]

Hark! loud voices pledge a noisy health in one of the distant rooms—he shudders, but perhaps she hears no longer; heavy footsteps tramp along the gallery—the light of torches flickers in the morning breeze.

'O God, thou wilt surely give the victory to my country!' cries the chieftain, as he carries the benumbed and half-lifeless form of the bride within the wedding chamber.

The drunken companions of the long revel reel and totter along the galleries of the castle; the bridegroom hastens to his bride with the dawn of day.

'Look!' she exclaims, stretching out her hands to the great mirror before which they stand, but in her bewilderment no longer recognizing her own figure there: 'Look! how beautiful my angel is!'

'Ah, too beautiful!' the youth repeats, with a bitter groan; then, pressing her to his breast with one arm, from the other flashes the deadly gleam of glittering steel—and in that very moment the heavy footsteps of the light-minded, reckless bridegroom reach the threshold of the bridal chamber.

CHAPTER III.

The old man sits upon the ancient bed of state, in the room which had been occupied by his father before him, in which his grandfathers and great-grandfathers had lived and died. Careless of repose for his tired and aged body, he has not undressed, but motioning off his attendants with impatient gesture, ungirding his sabre, and throwing off the chain of gold to which the royal medal was attached, his head sinks weariedly and sadly upon the oaken table before him. Beyond the bedstead, a gothic archway vaults through the wall into his private chapel, the antique lamp of gold still burns upon its altar. He turns not there, as is his custom, to say his prayers before he goes to rest—he knows no sleep to-night will close his heavy eyelids. Raising his head, he looks slowly round at the pictures of his ancestors hung about him; with their fixed, immovable pupils they return his gaze; but when he would again run round the circle of the faces of the dead, his eyelids fall, his sight is veiled by swimming tears.

Have you ever thought, young men, sons of the growing light and lovers of the storm, how it must be in the souls of the old when all their plans of life fail, when their last loves on earth are blighted? Ah, you cannot imagine this, you have not yet tasted the bitter gall of age! Willing slaves, Time bears you forward on his mighty wings, cleaving space with arrowy, unceasing motion, and though the stars die out behind you as he bears you on, yet new ones ever burst upon you as you advance.

'On! on! the infinite is before us!' you cry as you fly. But the old have no to-morrows! the coffin lies across their threshold, and but one single star shines down upon them. They kneel to it, and pray: 'Thou art pure and steadfast. Thou fallest not like the meteor bursting in the warm summer sky, nor settest like the moon in the far-off lakes of youth. After our long and restless journey, we bask in thy serene light. Be faithful to us, shine benignly upon us, that our House may live, that our descendants may enjoy the earth!'

But even while they pray, the truth creeps into their courtyards, glides like a serpent on their castle walls, writhes over the threshold, and, seating herself upon a coffin, chants the death song of delusion, and as she sings, the last star falls from the sky, and eternal night becomes the name of the world.

Behold! No glittering haze or golden woof remains in the hands of the old man from the dying glow of his long Indian summer. Hearken! his daughter's tears are falling fast on the burning embers of his soul. The laughter of the careless husband blasts his ear. He starts from the bed, stalking up and down the room with rapid[Pg 558] strides. The snows of seventy winters have in vain blanched his head; he has been proud of his accumulated wisdom, but has not divined the secret of life! The whirlpool of terror, vengeance, vacillation, resolution, engulfs him in its giddy flow; his soul is on the wheel of torture, his old heart throbs on the rack of passion. He curses the King of the South—the prince, his son-in-law—himself; but his heart will not break until a new day dawns upon the earth!

Completely worn out at last with his restless striding to and fro, he falls into the old state chair with its broidered blazonry and gilt escutcheons. His arms hang loosely at his side, his legs fall listlessly down, his wide open eye is fixed unconsciously on the opposite wall; his lips are motionless, and yet the tones of his own voice are ringing through his ears; he lies in immovable and rigid torpor, and yet it seems to himself that he is rapidly traversing the long galleries of the castle. He enters the hall of feasting, sees the prince seated among the throng of revellers, to whom he hears himself cry: 'Away! away, prince, from an alien soil! My ancestors have risen from the grave to drive thee hence! Black hetman man, long since buried, strike the foaming cup from his reckless hands! Roman cardinal, dying in sanctity, pronounce upon him the thunders of excommunication, and let the church divorce him from the daughter of our line!'

The great doors are thrown open, the muffled steps of the dead are heard as they advance from their graves in the Chapel of the Castle, and the spirits evoked glide solemnly in. The bridegroom, seizing his sword with one hand, and lifting the cup to his lips with the other, drinks gayly to the health of the illustrious dead! The old man looks round for a sword, strives to reach the bright blade hanging on the distant wall, prays to God to help him to grasp it more speedily, falls to the floor, drags himself forward on his knees until he meets the Roman cardinal, whose scarlet robes are bleached and dim with the damp, mould, and stains of the grave. The church dignitary, laying his icy hand upon his forehead, says:

'What the holy priest of God has joined together, that may man not put asunder!'

The dead vanish, the hall of festival is riven in twain, the walls crumble, he sees himself again in his own chamber, sleeping in the escutcheoned chair of his ancestors. Silence, horror, and remorse are around him—and at this moment the great clock of the palatines strikes two!

Horrible and still more horrible grows the vision. The lamp is still burning in bluish flame, sending a mystic light through the vaulted archway of the chapel beyond the state bed. 0 God! a white figure kneels and groans upon the steps of the altar, then, drawing back, approaches his chair; her bands are meekly crossed upon her breast; like the marble drapery of a statue, her robe falls in countless snowy folds, none of which are broken in the onward-gliding motion of the shrouded form. O God! he knows that lovely face, he has loved it well; it is the sweet countenance of his young wife: the lips open, but the voice is not as of old, tender and confiding; it is reproachful—commanding. He tries to answer, but cannot force a word through his eager lips; he cannot stretch forth his hand to greet her, but feels himself forced to follow her wheresoever she may choose to lead him. Down, down through the dark and narrow vaults of the castle, through the sepulchre where she was buried, passing by her own coffin without stopping, up through the old armory, through coats of mail, helmets, and swords, on—on—she reaches the western tower—passes through the treasury—ascends the staircase—bolts draw, and locked doors, like silent[Pg 559] lips, open noiselessly before. She beckons the old man on—on, to the arched door, up to the loophole in the wall looking into the bridal chamber of the ladies of the castle—there the dead form stops, and beckons him to draw near and look within.

O God! close by the wedding bed and before the great mirror, he sees his daughter in the arms of an armed man; he knows the flashing eye and broad brow of the exile; he hears her familiar voice, sweet, sonorous, and penetrating as the tones of the harmonica. A glittering blade is in the hand of the man; his daughter speaks in clear, full tones:

'Strike! strike boldly! it is not thou who dealest the blow—my father has already killed me!' She rises to meet the stroke of the keen steel of the chieftain, as if she welcomed a deliverer. The old man tries to tear asunder the loophole with his hands, but the cold granite does not move—then it seems to him he falls upon his knees, and shouts to his kinsman:

'Stop thy rash hand! I will give her to thee as wife. I will fight with thee the King of the South; do not kill her, my good daughter, my only child!'

They hear him not; a darkish light is creeping along the walls, the lamps are dying out, loud talking is heard on the gallery, the half-drunken bridegroom comes leaping and reeling on, rushes into the chamber, suddenly seems transfixed to the floor, puts his hand to his sword, but not finding it at his side, looks back, calls aloud, but no one follows him. Horror, like living death, paralyzes the old man. The bridegroom throws himself upon the exile, who exclaims solemnly, as he thrusts him aside:

'Why do you profane the peace of the dead?'

Something glitters—flashes through the air—once—twice—thrice—a faint cry—the lamps die out one after the other—a single one still burns over the great mirror, and by its flickering light the old man sees the figures of the armed man and the snowy maiden, drenched in gore, reel, totter, heave, whirl in strange confusion—grow to enormous height, mount, sink, fall. At this very moment the great clock of the palatines strikes three—and awakes the old man in the sleeping chamber of his ancestors, stretched at the foot of the escutcheoned chair.

His attendants, hearing a noise, throng into his room with hurrying steps and flaming torches; they find their lord lying prostrate on the floor with bleeding hands and agitated air. He starts to his feet, crying:

'Save my child! Kill my brother's son!' They crowd around him. 'Is it still night, or does the day really dawn?'

He staggers to the oaken table, seizes his sword, draws it from the sheath; the handle turns in his trembling hands, the blade falls to the ground; again he grasps it, while great tears rain down from his haggard eyes. The attendants cluster round him, kneel before him, and entreat him to tell them clearly what he would have them do.

'Follow me! follow me!' he pants in broken voice. He hurries to the door, half borne on by his people; passes along the corridor, wrestling with faintness and giddiness as a strong swimmer battles with the waves. The attendants gaze from one to the other, making the sign of the cross.

The swooning and delirium of the old man over, the retainers follow him as he totters on to the wedding chamber. Profound repose seems to rest upon the castle; through the wide range of open double doors the grand saloon of festival is clearly seen; the tables are deserted, and the lights dying in their sockets. The morning twilight is already stealing in through the open windows. Strange! the pages bearing the torches before the old lord come to a sudden halt; a man runs to[Pg 560]ward them round the sharp angle of the gallery; his hair is in confusion, his robe soiled and torn; no dagger in his belt nor sword at his side; his lips are blue and shivering, his brow pallid; he looks as if Death were breathing on him as he passed, and he fled in terror from the fleshless phantom.

'The father must not advance another step;' and stretching his arms toward the old man, he seizes one of his hands.

'Where is thy wife? Speak, and tell me!'

The bridegroom kneels before him: 'Stop, father; go back to thine own chamber; waken not thy sleeping daughter so early.'

'Thou sayest: 'Awake her not.' Will she ever again waken? Speak quickly. Tell me the naked truth, for evil spirits filled my sleep with dreams of terror. I saw her pleading for death, but thou wast unarmed as now; and another stood near, who murdered the child I gave thee. Speak! Was this all a horrid dream, a fearful jest of the summer's night to appal my soul?'

The bridegroom bows his head under the unendurable weight of this question. He shudders, and with lifted hand tries to turn the old man back.

'Ha! thou darest not speak—thou art silent, I know it all now. God punishes me because I have bowed to thy king, and sought alliance with thy craven blood, alien as thou art!'

The window panes rattle as the wild cry echoes from the old man's quivering lips; all present tremble at the voice of his despair. He seizes his sword with both his hands, and while it trembles in his grasp, continues:

'Art thou still silent? My fathers were the enemies of thine; had I a son, he would have been thy deadly foe. I had an only daughter—I gave her to thee—she too is gone—take all—there is no one to care for now—the inheritance is also thine.'

The sword rattles in his hands, the blade falls from his grasp, as he strikes it against the pillar near him. The bridegroom starts forward and endeavors to stay the old man. The old man pushes him off, they wrestle in their bewilderment, and struggle like wild beasts. Despair nerves the aged arms with iron strength. Young and agile as he is, the bridegroom feels the hands of his adversary pressing heavily upon his shoulders, he bends under the weight, the old man hurls him to the ground, and, no longer requiring aid from others, strides over the prostrate body. He stalks on with flashing, burning eyes, his gigantic shadow striding with him on the wall, his wide robes floating on the wind, his white hair streaming, his form winged with the courage of despair. The retainers follow, the vaulted ceilings echoing back the sharp gride of their footsteps. Only one lighted saloon now lies between them and the chamber of the ladies of the castle. The double door at the other end is thrown wide open, the walls and windows of the wedding chamber are crimsoning with the early hues of day, silence and solitude pervade them, nothing falls upon the air save the twitter of the birds and the murmur of the fountains. The old man rushes on directly to the open door and toward the reddening east.

He reaches the threshold, and the immense red face of the just risen sun dazzles his eyes. Is it the bloody Heart of God he sees pulsating through the universe? Blinded for a moment, he staggers on at random, when suddenly he sees the floor is red with blood. The dreadful phantoms of the night are again around him, no longer floating in misty visions, but glaring fixed before him in the stern light of dread reality. In the fierce blaze of its pitiless rays, he sees the dead body of his brother's son; the bloody form of his only child, his good daughter, lies pale at his feet. Like a drowning man he gasps for breath, beats the air wildly around him, as if trying to rescue himself from this hell of spectres. Then[Pg 561] he stands motionless, as if transfixed to the spot. Awakened by the noise and rumor, guests, feudal retainers, servants, and attendants rush to the spot, each in turn to be terror-stricken at the threshold, to move within awed and silent. All eyes wander from the old lord of the castle to the stiffening corpses at his feet. They lie together now! The left arm of the exile is round the neck of his sister; her head rests on his armed bosom just above the spot where the sword still remains plunged in his breast; his right hand has fallen beside it. There was no one near to close their dying eyelids, the pupils glitter glassily in the whitening light of the ascending sun, and the blood which is everywhere around, on the bridal bed, on the coat of mail of the young chieftain, on the white robes and snowy bosom of the bride, already congeals into dark pools or crimson corals. Above this cooling stream their features rest in marble peace—a faint smile is on the lips of the young bride—while a passing thought of warlike glory still beams from the broad, pallid brow of the young hero. So tranquil their repose, the agonies of death must have seemed light to them, lost in the ecstasies of faithful spirits.

The old man continues to stand as he first stood—no groan escapes his lips, no shuddering shakes his frame. The new comers press those already present forward, but all breaths are hushed, hands are fixed steadily on sword hilts that they may not rattle, all sound is stilled—they stand in awe of that dreadful moment when their lord shall awake from his torpor, and turn to them his face of woe. How will they bear the anguish written there? despair without a ray of hope!

O God! what a miracle! He turns toward them, greets them imperiously but courteously, as was his wont, as if, absorbed in thought and doubtful of the dire reality before him, he was trying to ascertain its truth. Fever burns in his eye and flames upon his wrinkled cheek.

'Hungarian wine!' he cries.' I will drink to the health of my fellow citizens.'

No one moves, the bystanders seem turning to stone.

'Haste! This blood must be washed away before my daughter returns to her chamber. Haste, I say!'

None move, all eyes are cast down; they cannot bear the strange light in his wandering glances.

'Ah! do you not know we are all dreaming? My sleep is torpid, stubborn, accursed, but the dawn is here, and I must soon awake!'

So saying he moves out upon the gallery, where suddenly a new thought appears to strike him; he leans over the marble balustrade, looks to the right and left, then exclaims:

'Guests, we will go out to seek the young betrothed; it is strange they should have gone out to walk so early!'

He descends the vaulted stairway by which his nephew had ascended but a short time before. He stoops at the foot of the hill, picks some roses, murmuring:

'For my good child. Move silently, friends, she loved this bower of jessamines; we will surprise her here, and be the first to say good morning to the bride.'

With drooping heads his guests follow his steps as he glides along under the sad firs and stately pines. Pathways stretch before them, leading into forest depths and over mossy banks, or climbing hillsides laden with vines. The old man often calls his daughter loudly by her name; the laughing echoes answer mockingly; the followers burst into tears. Striking his forehead suddenly and violently with his hands, he cries:

'The dream! the nightmare! Why should it look to me so like truth? When will the true sun rise upon me?' Then he rushes to a sturdy pine, embraces its rough trunk with both his[Pg 562] arms, strikes his head against it: 'Awake me, thou hard bark—awake me from this dreadful dream!' Turning back, he seizes one of the nearest of his followers by the throat, crying: 'Wrestle with thy lord, thou phantom of a servant, and wake him from his dream accursed!'

The frightened servant slips away and flees. The old man sighs, raises his eyes to heaven, an expression of submission to a divinely appointed torment shines for a moment upon his quivering features, as if he humbly offered to God the tortures of this cruel dream in penance for his sins. He walks on calmly for a while, then says:

'The bride is certainly on the lake; we will find her there.'

The sun is fully up now, drinking the dews from the leaves, and lighting up the waves of the lake with splendor. Large beaked boats with heraldic banners are rocking in the coves. Fastening the roses he had gathered for his child in his bosom, he walks to the shore, with fever burning more and more vividly in his face. No one ventures to suggest a return to the castle. Accustomed to obey the unbending will of their lord, they still pay homage to it, though it is no longer a thing of this world. Dark as midnight seems the day dawn to them; their own brains seem seething into madness.

'Perhaps she sails in one of her own light boats round the lake with her husband; she may be behind the fringe of willows, or among the little islands. Hallo! six of you take the oars; we will soon find her.'

They obey, he seats himself within, they push from shore.

'Why do you breathe so hard and look so weary to-day; is the water heavier than of old?'

They answer not, but row more rapidly. The larger boats are filled with guests and retainers; many follow the old lord, many remain on shore from lack of room. One after another the islets fly behind and hide themselves from view, with their circling wreaths of reeds and sedges. Rocks and bowlders are scattered over many of them, once sacrificial altars of old and cruel gods, now draped with hanging weeds and trailing mosses. Flocks of wild birds are startled up as the boats draw near them, frightened by the noise and plashing of the oars. Black clouds of them hang over the boat of the old man at every turn among the labyrinth of islands. He claps his hands:

'Here! we will surely find her here!' And when nothing is there to be seen, he asks the winds: 'Where is my child—my good and beautiful child?'

Having sailed round and round the whole group of islands, he orders them to row out into the middle of the lake, and then make for the other shore. He sinks into silence now; he leaves the helm, throwing himself suddenly down into the boat, while a ghastly pallor settles on his venerable face. He stretches his hand into the water, dives into it with his arm, listens to the rippling of the waves, then bursts into a loud scream of wild laughter. The oarsmen stop, in hopes he will order the boat to return to shore. He does not speak, but rises up and looks, first back at the boats following after, then at the mountains, the plains, the forests, the gardens, the ancestral castle. Constantly striking his palms together or rubbing his head with his hand, he exclaims:

'Who will waken me? I dream! I dream! I must, I will awake!'

The oarsmen shudder. Then, collecting his whole remaining force, he flings himself violently into the depths. Three of the men instantly plunge in after him; those in the boats hasten to the rescue. Having seen what had happened, they gaze upon the spot where the whirling, whistling waves were closing over the old lord and his faithful servants. The bold divers reappear, bearing in their arms the castle's lord. Under the heraldic banner they lay the last heir of the haughty House. In vain they try to resuscitate the ven[Pg 563]erable form; the dream is over now, but the mortal life remains under the blue waves of the ancestral lake.

The foreign prince inherits the ancient castle with all its treasures, the glories of the honored name, the entire Past of a noble race. He buries the bodies of his virgin wife and haughty father-in-law with funereal pomp and honor; but orders the corpse of the exile to be roughly thrown into unhallowed ground. In the very hall in which he had spent the first night of his bridal, surrounded by gay revellers, pledging full cups of ruby wine, with light jests flying from reckless lip to lip—he spreads, with the same comrades, the solemn Feast of the Dead. When the next dawn breaks upon them, mounting their vigorous steeds, they all ride back to the court of the King of the South. The king rejoices in his heart, giving thanks to the Fates that his leal subject has inherited vast wealth, and that the alien family, powerful through so many centuries, is extinct forever.

In the clefts of the mountains they remember and honor the young chieftain, whose body had been thrown into unhallowed ground. They know that his dishonored grave lies on that side of the castle through which will pass their path to victory; and they will plant the cross of glorious memories upon it as they march to the assault to drive the foreigner from the Home of his loyal ancestors. Eagles and vultures, led by some mystic instinct, are often seen to fly from the mountains to the towers and turrets of the castle. It is certain that in some not distant day the comrades of the chieftain will pour with resistless strength into its doomed walls.... Let another chant to you the Hymn of victory; I have sung the Dirge of agony!

Unhappy maiden! thou vanishest like a thought which cannot shape itself in any language known on earth, a dream of early love! Thou wouldst not lose thy snowy wings, and they bear thee on the whirlwind's track, where the mists fly, the clouds sail, the sound of harps dies, the leaves of autumn drift, the breath of sighs vanishes! Martyr to thine own dream of plighted faith, they bury thy fair form in ancestral earth; perchance the sculptured marble presses on thy faultless brow, for on its snow they grave the hated foreign name borne by thy alien husband! But the grass and wild flowers will soon grow unheeded around it, and in the green and flourishing world of the ever vanishing, thy name is never spoken.

On the very morning of thy death, the seven old men to whom obedience was commanded by the chieftain, curse thee because thou borest away with thee the soul of their hero. In their addresses to the people, with scorn and scoff upon their lips, they sneer and call thee 'WOMAN;' but the people weep, and pray: Lord Christ, Son of the Virgin, give to the maiden ETERNAL PEACE![Pg 564]

THE ENGLISH PRESS.

III.

We have seen that the tone of the newspapers had of late years greatly improved. Men of eminence and great intellectual attainments were to be found among the contributors to the various journals, and what is much more important—for this was pre-eminently the age of bribery and corruption—men of honesty and integrity. Still there was a large class of venal hirelings in the pay of the Government. These were described by Mr. Pulteney as 'a herd of wretches whom neither information can enlighten nor affluence elevate.' He further expresses his conviction that 'if their patrons would read their writings, their salaries would be quickly withdrawn, for a few pages would convince them that they can neither attack nor defend, neither raise any man's reputation by their panegyrics, nor destroy it by their defamation.' Sir Robert Walpole, who, as has been already stated, expended enormous sums in bribes to public writers, however expedient he may have thought it to retain their services, does not appear to have attached much importance personally to the writers either for or against him, at least if we may put faith in his own words. On one occasion he said: 'I have never discovered any reason to exalt the authors who write against the Administration to a higher degree of reputation than their opponents;' and on another, 'Nor do I often read the papers of either party, except when I am informed by some, who have more inclination to such studies than myself, that they have risen by some accident above their common level.'

Among the first rank of newspaper writers at this period must be placed the undying name of Henry Fielding, whose connection with journalism originated in his becoming, in 1739, editor and part owner of the Champion, a tri-weekly periodical of the Spectator stamp, with a compendium of the chief news of the day in addition. The rebellion of 1745, like every other topic of absorbing interest, became the parent of a great many news sheets, the chief of which was probably the National Journal, or County Gazette, inasmuch as it called forth a Government prosecution, and procured six months' imprisonment for its printer. In opposition to the Jacobite journals, several newspapers were started in the interest of the Government. Fielding brought out the True Patriot, in 1745, and proved no mean antagonist for the sympathizers with the banished Stuarts. In the prospectus issued with his first number, he has some rather unpleasant things to say of his literary brethren:

'The first little imperfection in these writings is that there is scarce a syllable of truth in any of them. If this be admitted to be a fault, it requires no other evidence than themselves and the perpetual contradictions which occur, not only on comparing one with the other, but the same author with himself on different days. Secondly, there is no sense in them. To prove this likewise, I appeal to their works. Thirdly, there is in reality nothing in them at all. And this also must be allowed by their readers, if paragraphs, which contain neither wit, nor humor, nor sense, nor the least importance, may be properly said to contain nothing.... Nor will this appear strange if we consider who are the authors of such tracts—namely, the journeymen of booksellers, of whom, I believe, much the same may be truly predicated as of these[Pg 565] their productions. But the encouragement with which these lucubrations are read may seem most strange and more difficult to be accounted for. And here I cannot agree with my bookseller that their eminent badness recommends them. The true reason is, I believe, the same which I once heard an economist assign for the content and satisfaction with which his family drank water-cider—viz., because they could procure no better liquor. Indeed, I make no doubt but that the understanding as well as the palate, though it may out of necessity swallow the worse, will, in general, prefer the better.'

These sarcasms are probably not much overcolored, for, with one or two exceptions, newspapers had sunk to a very low state indeed, and this may be looked upon as one of the most degraded periods in the history of journalism with which we have had to deal, or shall hereafter have to encounter. The Champion, of course, was intended to be 'the better.' It did not, however, meet with any very great success, but still with enough to encourage Fielding in his attacks. In 1747 he dealt another heavy blow at the Jacobites, by commencing the Jacobite Journal, in which they were most mercilessly ridiculed and satirized. His opponents replied as best they could, but they were not masters of the keen and polished weapons which the great novelist wielded, and they were therefore obliged to content themselves with venomous spite and abuse. The ablest of these antagonists was a newspaper entitled Old England, or the Constitutional Journal, an infamous and scurrilous publication, to which, however, the elegant Lord Chesterfield did not think it derogatory to contribute. Among other celebrities who were associated with the press at this time, we find Lord Lyttelton, Bonnell Thornton—the author of the Connoisseur, an essay paper, which, though inferior to the Spectator and Tatler, may be read with great pleasure and profit, even at the present time—the famous Beckford, Edward Moore, and Arthur Murphy. This last started the Test, a journal devoted to the demolition of Pitt, but which called forth an opponent of no mean pretensions, under the name of the Con-Test, for then, as now, as it always has been, and always will be, a good and taking title produced a host of imitations and piracies. In spite, however, of Murphy's great talents and its first blush of success, the Test soon began to languish, and died of atrophy, after a brief existence of some eight or nine months. One of the most formidable anti-ministerialist papers which, had hitherto appeared, was the Monitor. It came out upon the accession of George III., and was especially occupied in attacking Lord Bute, the young monarch's chief minister and favorite. Its editor was John Entick, who is best known as the author of a dictionary, which was largely used in the schooldays of the last generation, and is still occasionally to be met with in old-fashioned families and out-of-the-way corners of the world. This Monitor was as terrible to the marquis as another more modern Monitor was to the Merrimac, and the Scotch minion was compelled to bestir himself. He called in to his aid Bubb Doddington, who, during the lifetime of the preceding king, had done good service for the party of the Prince of Wales, in a journal styled the Remembrancer, and they, in conjunction with Smollett as editor, brought out the Briton in 1762. It was but a weakly specimen of a Briton from the very first. There were many causes which contributed to its downfall. Scotchmen were regarded throughout the nation with feelings of thorough detestation, and Smollett had made for himself many bitter enemies, of men who had formerly been his friends, by his acceptance of this employment. It was the hand of a quondam friend that dealt his paper the coup-de-grace, none other in fact than John Wilkes, who had started the North Briton in opposition to Smollett.[Pg 566] The Briton expired on the 12th of February, 1763, and upon the 23d of April, in the same year, appeared the never-to-be-forgotten No. 45 of the North Briton. The circumstances connected with this famous brochure, and the consequences which followed upon its appearance, are so well known, that it will not be necessary to proceed to any great length in describing its incidents. This said No. 45 initiated a great fight, in which both sides committed several mistakes, won several victories, and sustained several defeats. Wilkes undoubtedly got the worst of it at first, but his discomfiture was set off by many compensations in different ways, which his long struggle procured for him. The obnoxious article, boldly assuming the responsibility of ministers for the king's speech—for Wilkes always asserted that he had the highest respect for the king himself—practically charged them with falsehood. Upon this they issued a general warrant for the apprehension of all the authors, printers, and publishers of the North Briton. Wilkes was seized and thrown into the Tower, where he was kept for four days, all access of friends and legal advisers being denied to him. At the end of that period he was brought before the Court of Common Pleas upon a writ of habeas corpus. Three points were raised in his favor, namely, whether the warrant was legal, whether the particular passage in the libel complained of ought not to have been specified, and whether his privileges as a member of Parliament did not protect him from arrest. The celebrated Lord Camden, then Chief Justice Pratt, presided, and ruled against Wilkes on the first two points, but discharged him from custody on the third. Wilkes hereupon reprinted the article. Both Houses of Parliament now took up the cudgels in behalf of the Government, and resolved that privilege of Parliament did not extend to arrest for libel. The House of Commons also resolved 'that the North Briton, No. 45, is a false, scandalous, and seditious libel, containing expressions of the most unexampled insolence and contumely toward his Majesty, the grossest expressions against both Houses of Parliament, and the most audacious defiance of the authority of the whole legislature, and most manifestly tending to alienate the affections of the people from his Majesty, to withdraw them from their obedience to the laws of the realm, and to excite them to traitorous insurrection against his Majesty's Government.' They also ordered the libel to be publicly burned by the common hangman, in front of the Royal Exchange. The authorities attempted to carry out this order, but an enormous mob assembled, drove off the officers, rescued the journal from the flames, and, in revenge, built a huge bonfire at Temple Bar, into which they threw the jackboot, the favorite emblem for expressing the public dislike of Lord Bute. It was now Wilkes's turn, and he brought an action in the following year against the under secretary of state, for the illegal seizure of his papers. Judge Pratt summed up in his favor, directing the jury that general warrants were 'unconstitutional, illegal, and altogether void.' As being the instrument in eliciting this memorable exposition of the laws, Wilkes deserves the gratitude of every Englishman who cares one jot for his constitutional rights, and of every lover of freedom throughout the world. He was not without immediate and substantial rewards, for the jury found a verdict for him, with £1,000 damages. The corporation of the city of London, who had taken his part throughout, eventually chose him sheriff, lord mayor, and chamberlain, and presented the lord chief justice with the freedom of the city, in token of their admiration for his conduct. On the other hand, Wilkes was expelled the House of Commons, on account of the libel, and on the very same day which witnessed his triumph in the Court of Common Pleas, he was tried in the Court of the King's[Pg 567] Bench, for its republication, and found guilty. He refused to surrender to judgment, and was accordingly outlawed. He then proceeded to the Continent, from whence, some three or four years later, he addressed a petition to the king for a pardon. As no notice was taken of this, he returned to England, and paid a fine of £500, his outlawry being reversed. He next petitioned the House of Commons for readmission; but his petition was rejected, and a new writ issued, when he was returned by an overwhelming majority. The House expelled him again, and this farce of expulsion and reëlection was enacted four distinct times, until at last his election was declared null and void. He subsequently brought an action against Lord Halifax for illegal imprisonment and the seizure of his papers, and obtained £4,000 damages. He lived several years after this, but took no prominent part in political affairs, confining his energies to the sphere of the city. While he was in exile at Paris he published an account of his trial, etc., but, as he was unfortunate in his defenders, so was he in his adversaries. The writings of his friend and coadjutor, Charles Churchill, the clever writer, but disreputable divine, are wellnigh, if not entirely, forgotten, but the undying pencil of the immortal Hogarth will forever hold him up to the gaze of remote posterity. Whatever may be the feeling as to his political opinions, and however great may be our gratitude to him in one particular instance, his authorship of the abominable and filthy 'Essay upon Women'—which, by the way, formed one count in the indictment against him at his trial in the King's Bench—will always earn for him the execration of mankind. The success of Wilkes in his action against the secretary of state, was the signal for a host of other authors, printers, and publishers, who had been similarly attacked, to bring similar actions. They generally obtained heavy damages, and ministers learned a lesson of caution which they did not soon forget.

But while they persecuted the opposition scribes, ministers did not forget to reward those writers who advocated the cause of the Government. Men who had failed in all kinds of professions and employments, turned their attention to political literature, and, as far as emolument was concerned, met with great success, for although the talent was all on one side, the profit was all on the other. Among the chief of these fortunate scribblers was Dr. Francis, the father of the celebrated Sir Philip, Dr. Shebbrart, Hugh Kelly, and Arthur Murphy.

We now arrive at another most memorable period in newspaper history—the appearance of the Letters of Junius. The interest in the discovery of the source of these withering diatribes has been almost as great as in that of the Nile, but, unlike that 'frightened and fugitive' river, their origin will probably never be discovered with any certainty. A neat little library might be formed of the books and pamphlets that have been written upon this 'vexed question,' and the name of every man that was at all eminent at the time of their publication—and of a great many too that were by no means eminent—has been at some time or other suggested as the author. This controversy may be looked upon as a sort of literary volcano, which every now and then becoming suddenly active, after a period of quiescence of longer or shorter duration, sends forth great clouds of smoke—but nothing else; and then all things remain once more in statu quo. Our space will not permit us to make any remark upon the matter, further than to express an opinion that the preponderance of evidence appears to be in favor of Sir Philip Francis—the untiring, unscrupulous bloodhound who hunted down Warren Hastings—having been the author. The first of these famous letters appeared in the Public Advertiser, of April 28, 1767; the last[Pg 568] of a stalwart family of sixty-nine, on January 21, 1772. Let Burke testify to their tremendous power. To the House of Commons he said: 'He made you his quarry, and you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. You crouched, and still crouch beneath his rage.' To the speaker he said: 'Nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, sir; he has attacked even you—he has—and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter.' And again: 'Kings, lords, and commons are but the sport of his fury.' Speaking of the 'Letter to the king,' Burke said: 'It was the rancor and venom with which I was struck. In these respects the North Briton is as much inferior to him as in strength, wit, and judgment.' The Government tried every means in their power to discover the author, but in vain. Woodfall, the proprietor of the Public Advertiser, knew or professed to know nothing about it, asserting that the letters were found in his box from time to time, but how they came there he could not tell. Let it suffice us to know that they admirably served the purpose for which they were written, viz., to defeat tyranny, and to defend freedom; that they are still allowed to rank as the greatest political essays that were ever written; and that Junius, whoever he was, will always be gratefully remembered among us, so long as we continue to display that watchful jealousy in the preservation of our liberties which has hitherto ever characterized us as a nation.

The Government prosecuted several newspaper proprietors and printers for publishing these letters, and more especially that addressed to the king. Among others who were brought to trial were Woodfall himself; John Almon, of the London Museum; Miller, of the London Evening Post; Baldwin, of the St. James's Chronicle; Say, of the Gazetteer, and Robinson, of the Independent Chronicle. Almon was, however, the only one who was punished. The jury consisted of Government employés, carefully selected, and of course brought in a verdict adverse to him. Almon was fined and ordered to find substantial bail for his future good behavior.

The Public Advertiser was a joint-stock concern, chiefly in the hands of the booksellers, among whom we find names which are still famous in Paternoster Row, such as Longman, Cadell, Rivington, and Strahan. Woodfall's ledger supplies us with the following information as to the expenses of getting it up, some of the items being sufficiently curious:

The sale was about three thousand a day, and the shareholders received £80[Pg 569] per share clear profit. The newspapers of those days paid the managers of theatres for accounts of their plays, as witness the following entries:

Theatrical advertising had not reached the pitch of development which it has since attained; the competition was not so severe, and managers did not find it necessary to have recourse to ingenious methods of propitiating dramatic critics, such as producing their plays at the commencement of a new season, or paying £300 a year for the supervision of the playbills—expedients which have been now and then employed in our own times.

Among the writers in the Public Advertiser were Caleb Whitefoord, dilettante and wine merchant, Charles d'Este, who, like the popular London preacher of the present day, Bellew, first tried the stage, but not succeeding in that line, entered the pulpit; John Taylor, afterward editor of the Morning Post; Tom Syers, author of the 'Dialogues of the Dead,' and Woodfall's brother William. This last started the Morning Chronicle, in 1769, a paper whose fate it was, after lasting nearly a century, to pass into the venal hands of Sergeant Glover (who sold it to Louis Napoleon, in order that it might become sub rosâ a French organ in London), and to die in consequence in well-merited dishonor.

The Public Ledger was brought out by Newberry, the bookseller, in 1760, and is chiefly remarkable as being the vehicle through which Goldsmith's 'Citizen of the World' was first given to the public.

received two guineas for his first article, and afterward became a regular contributor at a guinea an article. William Radcliffe, the husband of the authoress of 'The Mysteries of Udolfo,' edited the Englishman, a paper to which Edmund Burke contributed, and subsequently the English Chronicle and the Morning Herald. Of all these he was proprietor, either altogether or in part, and it seems to have been customary for the editor to be the proprietor, or, more strictly speaking, for the proprietor to be the editor.

The prosecutions in connection with the letters of Junius were not the only attacks made upon the press at this time. Parliament again entered the lists against it. There was a certain Lord Marchmont, whose especial mission appears to have been to persecute the newspapers. Shakspeare says,

and whether or no my Lord Marchmont ever did any good cannot now be ascertained. All that is known of him is that he was very pertinacious and very successful in his onslaughts upon his victims, for, whenever he saw the name of any member of the House of Peers in a journal, he used to make a motion against the printer for breach of privilege, summon him before the bar of the House, and have him heavily fined. The House of Commons followed suit. The old bone of contention, the reporting of the debates, was raked up again. There were then two giants of reporting, William Woodfall, who, from his wonderful retentive powers, was called by the sobriquet of Memory Woodfall, and William Radcliffe. It was in 1771 that the House proceeded to active measures by a majority of ninety votes to fifty-five. Orders were given to arrest the printers, publishers, and authors of the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser and the Middlesex Journal, or Chronicle of Liberty. The printers went into hiding, and a reward of £50 was offered for their apprehension. Shortly afterward, this raid was extended to the printers of the Morning Chronicle,[Pg 570] St. James's Chronicle, General Post, London Evening Post, Whitehall Evening Post, and London Packet. Some of these appeared at the bar of the House, and actually made their submission on their knees. Miller, of the London Evening Post, declined to surrender, and was, after some difficulty, arrested under a warrant from the speaker. He was taken before the lord mayor, who was a member of the House of Commons. The city's chief magistrate—let his name, Brass Crosby, be remembered with honor—declared the warrant illegal, discharged Miller, and committed the speaker's messenger for assault. The same thing was done in the case of Wheble, of the Middlesex Journal, who was taken before John Wilkes, then sitting as alderman at Guildhall; and in that of Thompson, of the Gazetteer, who was taken before Alderman Oliver. The ground for their discharge was that the speaker's warrant had no force within the boundaries of the city, without being countersigned by a magistrate of the corporation. The House of Commons became furious, and ordered the attendance of Crosby and Oliver, but, taught by old experience, did not in the first instance think it desirable to meddle with Wilkes. The civic magistrates stood their ground manfully, and produced their charters. The House retorted by looking up the resolutions passed on various occasions against the publication of the debates. Meanwhile a mob assembled outside, and abused and hustled the members on their way to the House. After a fierce debate, Oliver was committed to the Tower. The attendance of Wilkes was then ordered for the 8th of April, but, in the mean time, the House, like Fear as represented by Collins in his Ode to the Passions,

and accordingly got out of the difficulty by adjourning over the day for which the redoubtable Wilkes had been summoned. On the 27th of April, however, the lord mayor was sent to the Tower. The whole country rang with indignation; but, nevertheless, the city magistrates remained incarcerated until the 23d of July, when the Parliament was prorogued, and, its power of imprisonment being at an end, they were set free. Such was the issue of the last battle between the Parliament and the press, on the question of publishing the debates. It was fought in 1771, and had been a tougher conflict than any of its predecessors, but it was decisive. There is no danger of the subject being reopened; the reporting of the debates is now one of the most important of the functions of our newspapers; and the members themselves are too sensible of the services rendered them by the reporters' gallery to be suicidal enough to inaugurate a new crusade against it. What those services are, any one who has been patriotic or curious enough to sit out a debate in the strangers' gallery over night, and then to read the speeches, to which he has listened, in the newspapers next morning, can readily appreciate. Hazy ideas have become clear, mutilated and unintelligible sentences have been neatly and properly arranged, needless repetitions and tautological verbiage have disappeared; there is no sign of hesitation; hums and haws, and other inexpressible ejaculations, grunts, and interpolations find no place; the thread of an argument is shown where none was visible before, and all is fluent, concise, and more or less to the point.

Meanwhile the tone of the press had again greatly improved, partly owing to purification through the trials which it had undergone, and partly owing to the better taste of the public. Its circulation had rapidly increased. In 1753 the number of stamps on newspapers in the United Kingdom was 7,411,757; in 1760, 9,464,790; in 1774, 12,300,608; in 1775, 12,680,906; and in 1776, 12,836,000, a halt in its progress being caused by Lord North's new stamp act,[Pg 571] raising the stamp from one to one and a half pence. The ordinary price of a news sheet was two or two and a half pence, but this was more than doubled by its cost of transmission through the post office, which, for a daily paper, was £5 a year. The Morning Post, the full title of which was originally the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, first came out in 1772. In 1775 it appeared regularly every morning, under the editorship of the Rev. Henry Bate, afterward the Rev. Sir Henry Bate Dudley, Bart. The Gentleman's Magazine—that prolific mine to whose stores of wealth the present series of articles is beholden times out of number—gives a curious account of a duel into which this clerical editor was forced in his clerical capacity. Editorial duels were not unknown in those days. Wilkes had fought one or two, as well as other editors; but these were the circumstances of Mr. Bate's encounter:

'The cause of quarrel arose from some offensive paragraphs that had appeared in the Morning Post, highly reflecting on the character of a lady, for whom Captain Stoney had a particular regard. Mr. Bate had taken every possible method, consistent with honor, to convince Captain Stoney that the insertion of the paragraphs was wholly without his knowledge, to which Mr. Stoney gave no credit, and insisted on the satisfaction of a gentleman, or the discovery of the author. This happened some days before, but meeting, as it were by accident, on the day before mentioned (January 13, 1777), they adjourned to the Adelphi, called for a room, shut the door, and, being furnished with pistols, discharged them at each other without effect. They then drew swords, and Mr. Stoney received a wound in the breast and arm, and Mr. Bate one in the thigh. Mr. Bate's sword bent and slanted against the captain's breastbone, which Mr. Bate apprising him of, Captain Stoney called to him to straighten it, and in the interim, while the sword was under his foot for that purpose, the door was broken open, or the death of one of the parties would most certainly have been the issue.'

Another eminent writer in the Public Advertiser was John Horne, afterward John Horne Tooke, the author of the 'Diversions of Purley,' a man to be always remembered with gratitude in America, for the part which he took in the struggle between the colonies and the mother country. His connection with the press was one long series of trials for libel, in which he always got the worst of the fray. In fact, he rather appeared to like being in hot water, for he more than once wrote an article with the full intention of standing the trial which he knew would be sure to follow its publication. One of his reasons may have been that this was the only way in which he could indulge his penchant for forensic disputation. He had been bred a clergyman, but, disliking the retirement of a quiet country parsonage, he threw up his preferment, abandoned his clerical functions altogether, and came to London to keep his terms at the Temple. The benchers, however, holding the force of the maxim, 'Once in orders always in orders,' refused to admit him to the degree of barrister at law. In 1771 he founded the Society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights, one of the objects of which was to uphold the newspapers in their conflicts with their great foe, the law of libel, and to defray the expenses which were thus incurred. But, owing to some quarrel with Wilkes, he withdrew from his connection with this society, and started a new one—the Constitutional Society—which was founded in the interests of the American colonies. His publication of the doings of this society procured for him the distinction of another trial, the upshot of which was that he was fined £200, imprisoned for a year, and ordered to find bail for his good behavior for three years more. After two unsuccessful attempts he got into Parliament, and proved a very troublesome[Pg 572] and formidable antagonist to ministers, as might be expected from a prominent member of the London Corresponding Society, which, consisting chiefly of working men, had for its main objects the establishment of universal suffrage and annual Parliaments. This society owed its origin to the French Revolution, and it kept up a regular correspondence with the National Convention and the French Jacobins. It numbered about fifty thousand members, in different parts of the kingdom, and disseminated its opinions by means of newspapers, pamphlets, and handbills, which were published at a low price, or given away in the streets. One of the most influential of these pamphlets was Tom Paine's 'Rights of Man,' for writing which he was tried and convicted. Erskine was his counsel, and in the course of his speech said:

'Other liberties are held under Governments, but the liberty of opinion keeps Governments themselves in due subjection to their duties. This has produced the martyrdom of truth in every age, and the world has been only purged from ignorance with the innocent blood of those who have enlightened it.'

The effect of these writings was that Government became alarmed, and a proclamation was issued against seditious speaking and writing. The habeas corpus act was suspended, and political trials became the order of the day. Horne Tooke's was one of the latest of these trials, in 1794. Erskine was his counsel, and was more successful than when defending Paine. The public excitement had by this time very much toned down, and Tooke was acquitted. One result of this trial was to secure the fortunes of Erskine; but another and much more important one was to establish on a firmer basis the right of free discussion and liberty of speech, and to check the ministry in the career of terrorism and oppression upon which they had entered. Looking back upon these trials, at this distance of time, one cannot but feel a conviction that the fears of the Government and the nation were absurdly exaggerated. The foundations of English society and British institutions were too firmly fixed to be easily shaken, even when the whole continent of Europe was convulsed from one end to the other. But the London Corresponding Society still continued its efforts, till its secretary was tried and convicted, and the society itself was suppressed, along with many other similar associations, by an act of Parliament, called the Corresponding Societies Bill, in 1799. Tooke's connection with it had ceased some time before; in fact, it is more than doubtful if he had ever been a thorough-going supporter of it in heart, or had any other object than that of making political capital out of it, and of indulging his belligerent proclivities. He died in 1812, at the age of seventy-six.

In 1777 there were seventeen regular newspapers published in London, of which seven were daily, eight tri-weekly, one bi-weekly, and one weekly. In 1778 appeared the first Sunday newspaper, under the title of Johnson's Sunday Monitor.

We have now arrived at the threshold of a very important event—too important, in fact, to be introduced at the end of an article, and which we therefore reserve for our next number. That event is the birth of the Times.[Pg 573]

THE HOUSE IN THE LANE.

MUSIC A SCIENCE.

Much has been written concerning music. Volume after volume, shallow or erudite, sentimental or critical, prejudiced or impartial, has been issued from the press, but the want (in most instances) of a certain scientific foundation, and of rational canons of criticism, has greatly obscured the general treatment of the subject. Truth has usually been sought everywhere except in the only place where she was likely to be found, namely, in the realm of natural law, and consequently, of science. Old tomes of Greek and Latin lore, school traditions, the usage of the best masters, and the verdict of the human ear (a good judge, but not always unperverted), have been appealed to for decisions upon questions readily answered by a knowledge and consideration of first principles resting upon the immutable laws of sound, upon numerical relations of vibrations. These principles are strictly scientific, and capable of demonstration.

So long ago as 1828, the American public was told by Philip Trajetta,[B][Pg 576] that 'if counterpoint be not a science, neither is astronomy.' For want of proper expounders, this truth has made but little impression, and, while the Art of Music has advanced considerably among us, the Science has remained nearly stationary. In Europe, erudition, research, and collections of rules have not been wanting. Much has been accomplished, but an exhaustive work, based upon the simple laws of nature, has (so far as the writer can learn) never yet appeared. The profoundly learned and truly great Bohemian musician, W. J. Tomaschek, who died in 1849, taught a system of musical science founded upon a series of beautiful and easily comprehended natural laws. His logical training and wide general cultivation gave him advantages enjoyed by few of his profession. The result of his researches has unfortunately never been published, and his system of harmony is thoroughly known only by his more earnest and studious pupils.

Trajetta was the son of a well-known Italian composer of the same name. He was a pupil of the celebrated Conservatorio of Naples, and, as I have been informed, was about to obtain a professorship in the Conservatorio of Paris, when political circumstances diverted his course to America. He was the friend of General Moreau and President Madison. Of noble appearance, fine manners, and sensitive temperament, he for some time received the consideration due to his talents and acquirements, but, in after years, was sadly neglected, and finally died in Philadelphia, almost literally of want. His musical knowledge perished with him; his manuscripts (operas, oratorios, etc.) were, I believe, all burned by him before his death. A sad history, and, in a land where there has been so little opportunity for the beet musical instruction, a strange one!

To define the provinces of science and art, we may briefly say, that science is concerned with the discovery of demonstrable principles, and the deduction of undeniable corollaries; while art is occupied with expression, performance, and the creative faculty with which man has been endowed. Music and astronomy are both sciences, that is, founded upon certain fixed and ascertainable laws; but astronomy is no art, because man has not the power to create, or even remodel worlds, and send them rolling through space; while he can produce sounds, and arrange them in such a way as to result in significant meaning and in beauty, two of the chief ends of art.

The music of different periods in the world's history has rested upon the various scales recognized during those periods as fundamental, which scales have been more or less complete as they have approached or receded from the absolutely fundamental scale as given by nature. The scales now in use are not identical with the natural scale, but are, in different degrees, derived from it.

The natural scale is, in its commencement, harmonic, and is found by the consideration of the natural progression of sound consequent upon the division and subdivision of a single string. It ought to be familiar to every student of acoustics. The sound produced by the striking or twanging of a single string (on a monochord) is called the tonic, and also, from its position as the lowest note, the bass. If we divide this string in half, we will obtain a series of vibrations producing a sound the same in character, but, so to speak, doubly high in pitch. This sound is named the octave, because it is the eighth note in our common diatonic scale. If we divide the string into three parts, the result will be a sound called the large fifth; a division into four parts gives the next higher octave of the bass; into five, gives the sound known as the large third, commonly called major third; into six, the octave, or next higher repetition, of the large fifth; into seven, the small seventh; into eight, the third repetition of the octave of the bass. The progression thus far is hence: Bass—1st octave of bass—large fifth—2d octave of bass—large third—1st octave of large fifth—small seventh—3d octave of bass. Employing the alphabetical names of the notes (always ascending): C—C—G—C—E—G—B flat—C.

This progression may truly be called natural, as it is that into which the string naturally divides itself when stricken. An attentive ear can readily distinguish the succession of sounds as far as the small seventh. The longer bass strings of any piano of full tone and resonant sounding board will suf[Pg 577]fice for the experiment. These are also the natural notes as found, with differences in compass, in the simple horn and trumpet, and the phenomenon is visibly shown in the well-known experiment of grains of sand placed on a brass or glass plate, and made to assume various forms and degrees of division under the influence of certain musical sounds.

This is not the place to elaborate the subject, or to show the progression of the natural scale as produced by further subdivisions of the string. Suffice it to say that the remaining notes of the common diatonic scale are selected (with some slight modifications) from sounds thus produced. This scale cannot then be considered, in all its parts, as the fundamental, natural one. Nature permits to man a great variety of thought and action, provided always he does not too far infringe her organic laws. She may allow opposing forces to result in small perturbations, but fundamental principles and their legitimate consequences must remain intact.

No one can ponder upon the above-mentioned harmonic foundation of the musical scale without conceiving a new idea of the beauty and significance of that glorious art and science which may be proved to be based upon laws decreed by the Almighty himself. The one consideration that, in all probability, no single musical sound comes to us alone, but each one is accompanied by its choir of ascending harmonic sequences, is sufficient to afford matter for many a wholesome and delightful meditation.

Instead, then, of regarding our earthly music as a purely human invention, we may look upon it as a genuine gift from heaven, a legitimate forerunner of the exalted strains one day to be heard in the heavenly Jerusalem.

The laws of vibrations producing sound, of undulations giving rise to light and color, of oscillations resulting in heat, the movements of the heavenly bodies, the flow of electric and magnetic currents, the rhythmical beat of the pulse, the unceasing march of mind and human events, all lead us to the consideration of motion as one of the greatest of secondary causes in the guidance of the universe. Do we not, indeed, find the same element in the Divine Trinity of the Godhead, in the eternal generation of the Son, and the procession of the Holy Spirit?

THOUGHT.

THE WAR A CONTEST FOR IDEAS.

One of those curious pamphlets, or brochures, as they call them, which the French political writers make the frequent medium of their discussions, was lately published at Paris, under the title of 'France, Mexico, and the Confederate States.' It is less a discussion of the Mexican question than an adroit appeal, under cover of it, in behalf of the Southern confederacy. It addresses itself to the enthusiastic temperament of Frenchmen, with the specious sophism, underlying its argument, that the South is fighting for ideas, the North for power. This is a sophism largely current abroad, and not without its dupes even at home. The purpose of this paper is to expose the nakedness of it.

Fighting for ideas may be a very sublime thing, and it may likewise be a very ridiculous thing. The valorous knight of La Mancha set forth to fight for ideas, and he began to wage war with windmills. He fought for ideas, indeed, but his distempered imagination quite overlooked the fact that they were ideas long since dead, beyond hope of resurrection. And it is but the statement of palpable truth to declare that whatever ideas the South is fighting for now, are of a like obsolete character. The glory of feudalism, as a system of society, is departed; and its attendant glories of knight-errantry and human slavery are departed with it. Don Quixote thought to reestablish the one, and the South deludes itself with the hope of reestablishing the other. Times and ideas have changed since the days of feudalism, and the South only repeats in behalf of slavery the tragic farce of Don Quixote in behalf of knight-errantry. Both alike would roll back the centuries of modern civilization, and, reversing the dreams of Plato and Sir Thomas More, would hope to find a Utopia in the dark ages of the past.

We do not ridicule, much less deny the power of ideas. On the contrary, we believe heartily in ideas, and in men of ideas. We accept ideas as forces of civilization, and we would magnify their office as teachers and helpers of man, in his poor strivings after good. Man is ever repeating the despondent cry of the Psalmist, 'Who will show us any good?' It is the mission of ideas, the ministering angels of civilization, to lift him into a realm of glorious communion with good and spiritual things, and so inspire him to heroic effort in his work.

Nevertheless, while thus willing to glorify the office of ideas, we hold them to be of less worth than institutions. That is, ideas, of themselves, are of little practical value. An idea, disjoined from an institution, is spirit without body; just as an institution that does not embody a noble idea, is body without spirit. An idea, to be effective, must be organized; an institution, to be effective, must have breathed into it the breath of life, must be vivified with an idea. It is only thus, in and through institutions, that ideas can exert their proper influence upon society.

This is, indeed, the American principle of reform. The thorough conviction of it in the hearts of the American people has thus far saved us from the anarchy of radicalism, which is ever agitating new ideas; and is now destined to save us from the bolder-faced anarchy of revolution, seeking to overthrow our institutions.

But fighting for ideas, what does it mean? The French Revolution (that great abortion of the eighteenth century and of history) was fought for ideas, and ended in despotism. Does fighting for ideas mean despotism?[Pg 579] The French Revolution went directly to the root of the question. It struck, as radicalism can never help but strike, at the very foundations of society. Hence, in France, the abolition of institutions (the safeguards of ideas), and the consequent check of the great principles which the Revolution set out to establish. Thus it is that the French Revolution has made itself the great example of history, warning nations against the crude radicalisms of theorists. It is not enough to fight for ideas—we must fight also for institutions. Yet society seems never to learn the lesson which Nature never tires of repeating, that all true growth is gradual. Political science must start with the first axiom of natural science, that 'Nature acts by insensible gradations.' Radicalism is not reform. Radicalism and conservatism must combine together to make reform. An eminent divine and scholar lately illustrated the point thus: 'The arm of progressive power rests always on the fulcrum of stability.' This statement is exhaustive, and sums up the case.

But let us examine the question of ideas a little more closely, and see whether, indeed, it is the South or the North that is fighting for ideas in this contest. And let us interpret ideas, according to the etymology of the word, to mean those things which the mind sees, and the conscience accepts and recognizes and knows, to be just elements, or principles, of civilization. For it is only such ideas that call forth a response from the mighty instincts of the masses. The common conscience of mankind tests the ideas always, as the apostle teaches us to try the spirits, 'whether they are of God.'

I. THE IDEA OF POLITICAL EQUALITY.

It will hardly be disputed that the great idea of the age is the democratic idea, or the idea of political equality. It is the idea that all men are kings, because equals: just as the highest idea of theology is, at last, that all men are ordained to be priests unto God, The problem of political philosophy is to make this idea a reality and fact. Our institutions have this for their sublime mission. We are seeking to demonstrate, in the American way, the essential truth of those ideas which failed of their perfect fruit in France, because not rightly organized and applied. America is the youngest and last-born of the nations; and to her it has been intrusted to develop the democratic idea in the system of representative government. Politics is thus made to harmonize and be at one with progress. The last-born of nations is set for the teaching and developing of the last-born of governmental principles. If, moreover, we regard America, according to the teachings of physical geography, as the first-born of the continents, we may discover another beautiful harmony. For our democratic system, in basing itself on the idea of political equality does, in effect, start from the very first principle of all true government; and this first principle of government thus finds its temple and home in the first of the continents.

But let us not be misled by specious names. Let us not mistake for political equality the crude fancies of idealists, who would reverse the order of creation, and declare an equality that does not exist. Political equality neither assumes nor infers social equality; and therefore is not subversive of social order. It does not presuppose natural equality; and, therefore, is not contrary to palpable evidence, and hence unphilosophical and false. Political equality is but the corollary and logical result of that maxim of our system, set forth in our Declaration of Independence, that 'government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.'

Political equality is, therefore, the essential condition of our republic. It is the alpha and omega of our political philosophy. It is the first factor in the problem of our government. It is the[Pg 580] organized idea of our nation, and is embodied in that nation. It is the lifespring of our institutions. It is the basis of our government. It is what makes the United States of America the hope of humanity.

While, therefore, political equality may not be the fact of our government, the nation stands for that idea. The founders of the government were content with affirming the great idea; and they left to the benignant influences of time and conscience and Christianity, under our institutions, the work of reducing the idea to fact. For more than half a century the work has gone on, and still 'goes bravely on.' In peace and war the same magnificent Constitution is over us, and that Constitution, avoiding designedly the odious word slave, is a chart and covenant of freedom.

Directly opposed to this idea is the organization of the Southern confederacy—the essential and substantial antipodes of our system. The United States stands at the political zenith; the confederate States at the political nadir. The Southern confederacy denies the truth of our system, and asserts that political equality is a fiction and foolishness. To it, indeed, political equality is a stumbling block; for the confederate constitution bases itself openly and unblushingly on the principle of property in man. It has been blasphemously announced that this is the stone which the builders of our government refused, and that it is now become the headstone of the corner of a divinely instituted nation. The blasphemy that hesitated not to declare John Brown equal with Jesus Christ, is hardly worse than this; for John Brown was, at least, an honest fanatic. The traitorous chiefs of the Southern rebellion are neither fanatics nor honest men. They have stifled the voice of conscience, and are bad men.

If their scheme of society is true, then our faith in God, and our faith in man as the child of God, are false faiths; 'and we are found false witnesses of God.' For it has been common hitherto to believe in the loftiest capacities of man, as the child of God, and made in the divine image; and this belief has had the sanction of all ages. Cheered and strengthened by such a belief, men have struggled bravely and steadily against priestcraft and kingcraft, against the absolutism of power in every form. The magnificent ideal of a government which the masses of mankind should themselves establish and uphold, has been the quickening life of all republics since time began. It is the noblest of optimisms; and, like religion, has never been without a witness in the human soul, ever inspiring the genius of prophecy and song, ever moving the great instincts of humanity. Science, fathoming all things, gave expression to this instinct and hope and belief of the ages in the principle of political equality as a basis of government. It is, in other words, the science of political self-government. It was reserved for the nineteenth century to develop the idea, for the American nation to illustrate its practical power and its splendid possibilities. The question of man's capacity for self-government in at issue now in the contest between the North and South, and its champion is the North.

II. THE IDEA OF NATIONALITY.

There is another idea involved in this war; and, unlike the idea of political equality, it is sanctioned by the precedents of all ages and all nations, so as to preclude any possibility that it should now be disputed. It bases itself on that principle of order which is heaven's first law, and so commends itself to men as the fitting first law of society. It is the idea of nationality; in a word, of government. Like the idea of political equality, it also finds its champion in the North.

The Southern confederacy is the organized protest of anarchy against law. It represents in politics that doctrine[Pg 581] in religious thought which declares every man a law unto himself. It kicks against the restraints of constitutions and laws, declaring virtually that when a law, or a constitution ordaining laws, ceases to be agreeable, its binding force is gone. For a similar and equally valid reason, some men (and, alas! some women), disregarding the solemn sanctions of the marriage tie, have been willing to set aside this first law of the family and of home. The Southern confederacy also makes light of national agreements, disposing of them according to the facile doctrine of repudiation, which its perjured chief once adopted as the basis of a system of state finance. It is eminently in accordance with the fitness of things, that the man who could counsel his State to repudiate its bonds, should stand at the head of a confederacy which began its existence by repudiating the sacred agreement to which the faith and fortune of all its members were solemnly pledged, and under the broad shield of whose protection they had grown prosperous and powerful. If one may be permitted to express an opinion different from Mr. Stephens's, it might be said that the corner stone of the Southern confederacy is properly repudiation. On the other hand, the cause of the United States is the cause of order. It is also the cause of freedom.

It is important to note the union of these two forces of civilization; for hitherto, in the great wars of history, liberty has generally opposed itself to order, and has too often seemed to be synonymous with anarchy. The passions of the masses have too often burst forth, in great revolutions, like volcanic eruptions, carrying devastation and destruction in their path; The French Revolution stands for the type and instance of all these terrible catastrophes. This war of ours presents a different spectacle; for in the maintenance of it the two principles of freedom and order go hand in hand. It is this union of them which demands for the United States, in this contest, the support of both the great parties of civilization—the conservatives and the radicals. It is, therefore, preëminently a just war, because waged in the combined interests of liberty and order.

But, it is objected, you, in effect, deny the right of revolution. No; on the contrary, we establish it. For the right of revolution is no right for any people unless they have wrongs. The right of revolution is not an absolute, it is a relative right. Like all such rights, it has its limitations—the limitation of the public law and the public conscience. For neither the public law nor the public conscience sanctions revolution for the sole sake of revolution. That brave old revolutionist of early Rome, Brutus, understood this well, and though his country was groaning under the oppression of Tarquin, he sighed for 'a cause.' There must be a cause for revolution, and such a cause as will commend itself to men's consciences, as well as to the just principles of law and equity.

Some men seem to think that revolution is, of itself, a blessed thing. They love change in government for the sake of change. When Julius Cæsar invaded Gaul he found just such men, and he characterized them, in his terse military way, as those who 'studied new things,' that is, desired constantly a renewal of public affairs, or renovation of government. He found these men, moreover, his most ready tools, even in his designs against their country's liberties; and it would seem as though this revolutionary characteristic of the early inhabitants of Gaul had remained impressed upon their descendants ever since.

We repeat that the right of revolution is a limited right. An absolute and unlimited right of revolution would only be the other extreme of an absolute and unlimited government; and this is not the age of absolutism in matters of government. Just as absolute liberty is an impracticable thing,[Pg 582] in the present constitution of human beings, so the absolute right of revolution, which derives its highest title from the sacred right of liberty, is equally impracticable. We must be careful how we use these words liberty and revolution. Words are things in a time of earnest work like the present. The war is settling the old scholastic dispute for us, and is making us all realists. Liberty and loyalty and law are no longer brave words merely: they are things, and things of tremendous power; and some men slink away from them. But we need to remember that liberty does not mean license. The political liberty of our time, testing the truth of our representative democracy, is constitutional liberty. It presupposes an organic law, giving force and effect to it: and without this organic law, liberty is a delusion and a dream—a vague unsubstantiality. Liberty is like the lightning. To be made an agent of man's political salvation, it must be brought down from its home in the clouds, and put under the restraints and checks of institutions. The institutions protect it; it sanctifies the institutions. In its unchecked power, like the lightning, it annihilates and overwhelms man. Unchecked, it becomes a reckless license, disgracing history and its own fair name with such scenes as the French Revolution, and causing the martyred defenders of its sacred majesty to cry out, in bitter agony of disappointment: 'O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!'

In fact, the liberty that is valuable is the liberty that is regulated by law; just as the law that is valuable is the law that has the spirit of liberty. This is the American doctrine of constitutional liberty, as it has ever been expounded by our great statesmen and orators; and it commends itself to the sound sense of all reflecting men.

In seeking, therefore, to subvert our Constitution, the South attack the principle of liberty, which is the basis of it, and which it guarantees. More than this, they attack the principle of constitutional liberty; for their secession is in virtue of that unchecked liberty which is license, that absolute liberty which is anarchy. They are not contending for the sacred right of revolution. It is treason against that majestic principle to apply it to the cause of the South. They were not oppressed; they were not even controlled by a dominant party opposed to them; their will was almost law, for it made our laws. According to the theory of our Constitution, they possessed equal rights with all other sections of the Union; under the practice of it, and in fact, they had gradually come to possess and were actually wielding greater power than all other sections. It is thus seen how vain and absurd is the plea that they were driven into revolution to redress wrongs, or that they revolted and seceded for the purpose of preserving rights. Their rights were neither actually assailed, nor were likely to be assailed. The protest of that eminent statesman of the South who afterward ('oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!') became the second officer of its traitorous government, is conclusive evidence on this point. The Southern rebellion is simply and entirely the effort to secure exclusive control where formerly the South had a joint control. Robert Toombs said, in a conversation, in Georgia, in the winter of 1860-'61: 'We intend, sir, to have a government of our own and we won't have any compromises.' To the same import is the letter of Mason to Davis, in 1856, which has lately seen the light. To one not blinded by prejudice, indeed, the evidences are overwhelming of a long-plotted conspiracy on the part of certain leading politicians, without the knowledge and contrary to the known intentions of the Southern people. The Southern rebellion is simply the attempt to break up a constitutional government, by politicians who had[Pg 583] become dissatisfied with the natural and inevitable workings and tendencies of it, even though administered by themselves. It is simply, therefore, the question of anarchy that we have to deal with. Therefore, we say that the North is fighting for the idea of government.

We are not seeking to perpetuate oppressive power. On the other hand, the rebellion is a flagrant attempt to organize oppression. We are seeking to perpetuate power, it is true, but a power which has stood for nearly a hundred years, and must continue to stand, if it stand at all, as a bulwark against oppression. We are vindicating our right to be, as a nation. We are proving our title to rank among the powers of the earth. We are vindicating the majesty of our supreme organic law. That supreme organic law is the Constitution. It ordains for itself a method of amendment, so as to leave no right of revolution against it. It admits no right of revolution, because in ordaining and establishing it the parties to it expressly merged that right in another principle, adopted to avoid the necessity of a resort to revolution. In other words, the right of revolution is in our Constitution exalted into the peaceful principle of amendment. Instead, therefore, of really being denied, the right of revolution is, indeed, enlarged and consecrated in our system of government, which rests upon that right. In vindicating and maintaining, therefore, that system, we vindicate and maintain with it the right of revolution. But we deny any such thing as a right of revolution for the sole sake of revolution; because it leads to anarchy. We deny the right of revolution for the sake of oppression; because it leads to absolutism. Revolution in the interests of order, justice, and freedom, we hold to be the only right worthy of the name, and God help our nation never to oppose such a revolution!

Since the foregoing was written, an article in Frazer's Magazine, for last October, has fallen under the writer's notice, which discusses the point under consideration, and expresses similar views with those here stated. An extract from it is given to show how the question is viewed from a British stand-point:

It is refreshing to read in a British periodical so clear a statement of this just distinction. We cannot forbear to cite another extract from the same article, because it confirms so clearly the argument of this paper:

What is this idea to which we have thus bravely sacrificed ourselves, even a phlegmatic Englishman being the judge? It is the idea of the nation—the idea that the nation is the gift of God, to be cherished and defended as a sacred trust; and that we can no more rid ourselves of its obligations than we can rid ourselves of the obligations of[Pg 584] home or the church. To the reckless assertion of those who say that the United States is, in this war, actuated by the lust for power, and is not moved by the inspiration of great ideas, we oppose the foregoing candid statement of a third party, and one not very likely to be prejudiced in our favor. It is the testimony of an unwilling witness, and therefore of great weight.

Summing up the points that have been considered in this paper, it seems clear that so far as the war is a contest for ideas, the North, standing for the United States, has the right of it. For, first, we contend for political equality, the grand idea of the age and the ages; comprehending within itself, and presupposing, as a logical premise, the grander idea of liberty. Thus also we vindicate the rights of man, as a fact of government and as a principle of political philosophy. And, secondly, we contend for the sacred right of order, as opposed to the destructive radicalism of revolution for the sake of oppression and not in the name of liberty.

We believe that our nation has been born, in the providence of God, to the magnificent mission of developing the democratic idea, of the rule of the people—the idea that every man is a king, and that humanity itself is royal because made in the image of God. The nation is now vindicating that mission before the world. In the success of it all the great ideas that cheer on our poor humanity in its toiling march—liberty, justice, political order—confirmed and made sure by a government organized for the purpose of securing and maintaining them, are bound up; and—with that mission those ideas, as organized powers, must live or die.

HINTS TO THE AMERICAN FARMER.

It does not so much signify what a man does for a livelihood, provided he does it well. The people must sooner or later learn this catholic doctrine, or one element of republicanism will never be knit into our character. The doing it well is the essential point, whether one builds a ship or writes a poem. Does the American farmer do his work well? And, if not, wherewith shall he be advised, persuaded, encouraged, and taught to do better or the best?

It is estimated that three fourths of the people of the United States are agriculturists, and nearly all the rest laborers of some sort dependent upon them. Every economist knows that the interests of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce are one and indivisible. He who by word or deed helps one, helps all, and thereby moves civilization onward one step at least. Before our Government takes hold of the condition of agriculture in the United States as a state measure, and even after it comes up to the hour when we shall have a Secretary of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce in the cabinet, after the manner of France, Italy, and Prussia, the farmer himself, individually, must work some important and radical changes in his social and industrial polity, and prepare himself for the generous assistance of a wise and beneficent Government.

The farmer supports every other material interest. Standing upon the primary strata of civilization, he bears on his broad hands and stout shoulders the 'weight of mightiest monarchies.' Daniel Webster calls him 'the founder of civilization.'[Pg 585]

Is it at all necessary that the spring in the hills should be cool, clear, and pure, and wind its way over a granitic soil, through green meadows, beneath the shading forest, into a sandy basin, to form a beautiful lake in a retired, rural retreat? If so, is it at all necessary that the moral virtues of the founders of society should be duly educated, cultured into the soul, leaving the impress on generation after generation, of honor, of order, of manliness, of thrift? The condition of the farmers is the postulate by which the sagacious economist will foretell the future prosperity of the nation they represent. This is what the American farmer should have presented to him from every stand-point. It is lamentable that this vocation should be so sadly represented by the most of those who are engaged in it.

This occupation of farming is the noblest work which can engage the attention of man. Off of his farm, whether it be large or small, the farmer, by diligent and intelligent cultivation, can gather whatever he or the world needs; what the world needs for its manufactures and commerce; what he needs for his personal comfort, pleasure, or the gratification of his natural tastes;—the two crops which furnish the daily bread to the material and spiritual nature of man;—the green fields, than which nothing is more beautiful; the sweet song of birds, their gay plumage, their happy conferences, their winged life, making melodious the woods and fields; the sky, ever above us, ever changing, grand at morning, magnificent at evening, hanging like a gracious benediction over us; the flowers, ever opening their petals to the sun, turning their beauty on the air, to delight, instruct, and bless mankind;—indulging his taste for art, in the plan of his farm and buildings, their claims to architectural skill; in the planting of his fruit and ornamental trees, 'in groves, in lines, in copses;' in the form and make of his fishponds, shady walks, grottos, or rural seats for quiet resort for study, comfort, pleasure, or rest.

The ancients paid great attention to the cultivation of the earth. Many of the best men of Greece were agriculturists. Mind was given to it, and great progress was made in the improvement of implements; in the method of cultivation, and in the additional yield of their farms. The Romans continued for a long period to improve on the state of agriculture as they received it from the Grecians, until the political condition of their country destroyed all freedom and independence of action and thought. The best and greatest men of all ages and countries, statesmen, scholars, kings, and presidents, have loved it, followed it, and labored for its advancement. Do noble minds stoop to ignoble vocations, and become identified with them? This nation, not yet a century old, can boast, as among the statesmen-farmers, of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Franklin, Jackson, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, and many others, the least of whose greatness of character was not that they loved nature, or knew the charm of agricultural pursuits. The occupation has become sanctified by their devotion to it.

We all know the sympathy and love of the late lamented Prince Albert for the vocation of farming, and the liberality with which, on his model farm, experiments were verified which in any manner might contribute to the interests of the farmer. He even entered the lists for the prize for the best stock at the yearly exhibitions of the Royal Agricultural Society. There is something very suggestive of nobility in this vocation of farming, when the brightest intellects of the nation bow in homage to the strength of mother earth, and seek by severe thought, study, and experiment, to assist a further yield of her kindly fruits, or persuade her to bestow a portion of her bounties, so long withheld, upon the[Pg 586] wooing husbandman. It marks agriculture as the first and highest calling for the development in the highest degree of the nation and of mankind.

Every man may have his plot of ground, in the cultivation and adornment of which he may realize the pleasure which accompanies the calling of amateur farmer, horticulturist, or florist, in which he is in constant communication with nature and her beauty. 'In it there is no corruption, but rather goodness.'

How kindly nature seems to have dealt with some of the old farmers who even now tread the broad earth, beloved and reverenced by all who know them! What simplicity and purity of speech; what honesty of manner; what kind dispositions; what charity of judgment; what tenderness of heart; what nobility of soul seem to have concentrated in each one of them! They are the gifts of nature, gathered, developed, interpreted, personified in man. They are our aristocracy. From them through generation after generation shall flow the pure blood of the best men in republican America. Ages hence, the children who enjoy the privileges of this republic, and endeavor to trace their lineage through history to find the fountain of their present American stock, will as surely meet with no unpleasant encounter, nor be compelled to forego the search from fear of mortification, as they trace their family line through long generations of intelligent American farmers. Superficial 'Young America' and 'our best society' may smirk, snicker, sneer, and live on, slaves to fashion and the whims of Mrs. Grundy, in their fancied secure social position for all time. But ere long the balance of man's better judgment, the best society of great men, and representatives for history of a great people, will weigh in opposite scales the artificialities, the formalities, the selfishness of popular social circles, against the honesty, the naturalness, the simplicity, the worth of the practical lovers of nature; and the result shall be the inscription upon the wall which made their prototypes of old tremble, reflecting upon them also its ghostly and terrific glare. Were it not for the infusion almost constantly going on, from the country, of fresh blood into the veins of the diseased body politic in our largest cities, destruction, disgrace, and financial ruin would early mark the spot where once flourished a proud and sinful people.

In farming, man has to do with nature. Out of doors he spends the greater portion of his life. His intelligent eye takes in the beautiful objects of land and sky, sea and mountain; his refined ear, by practice and cultivation, delights in the exquisite harmony of the birds, the music of the wind, the murmuring of the sea, the sighing amid the forests;—the beauty of the flowers, springing in the utmost profusion at his feet—peeping at early spring from beneath the lately fallen snow, an earnest that life yet remains under the clods of apparently exhausted nature—their continued offerings through the long and sultry days of summer; the trees putting on their rich and glowing robes at autumn, ripening for their restoration to the bosom which gave them life and which yielded them to us for a season, clothing all the hills, valleys, and mountains with the gorgeous colors from 'nature's royal laboratory.' Who can say this beauty and this pleasure are for nought? The intelligence which observes and loves these sights hesitates not, nor can it be deterred from reflecting upon their Source. The farmer, turning the sod with the plough, and dropping the grain into the newly turned furrow, expects life amid the decay of the clod. The favorable sunshine and shower, the gentle dews and heat of summer bring forth, after a partial decay of the seed, the blade, the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear. The perfume of the newly turned earth exhilarates and refreshes the spirits of the laborer and[Pg 587] what appears the hardest work becomes a welcome task. Toil here has its immediate recompense. Always peaceful, always contented and cheerful, always kind, there is no want of companions whose presence is delightful and never burdensome. The oriole, the swallow, the sparrow, the cawing crow, the chipmuck, or the squirrel will not desert him. He can always rely upon their presence while engaged in the necessary preparation for the harvest. The flowers are with him, and the perfume from the blossoms in the fields and orchard will fall like incense upon his receptive spirit. His thoughts will turn involuntarily to the Origin of all Good, from which have come to him, in so great abundance, the favorable conditions for happiness and peace.

Contemplating in silence and alone, away from the distractions of busy life in cities, the disappointments of politics, and the petty disturbances and quarrels of a more crowded existence, his thoughts become pure, holy, and sacred.

The tree grows slowly but surely beside his door, under whose shadows he has rested at the close of the summer's day, and, with his family about him, reflected upon his finished labors, and planned the work for to-morrow. The wonderful power of the Creator, and the matchless argument for His existence, as displayed in the beauty of the heavens, are spread before him. Its presence is a blessing to him. This tree, a century ago the tiny seed of the beautiful elm, which floated perhaps on some zephyr, or, tossed by some summer gale, dropped noiselessly into its cradle at this door—fortune favored its growth, and protected it from the injuries of chance or intent. It patiently grew and spread its hospitable arms, as if to embrace the surrounding neighborhood, and is now a protection and safeguard, a blessing and a continued promise of the watchfulness and care of the Father. This honest, grateful, simple soul has learned from it the beauty of a patient spirit. It has been always to him the generous companion of his weary moments, never failing to return at spring the beauty so ruthlessly torn at autumn; rendering to his just soul the contentment of the well-doer in this world's works, yet still progressing, growing, and enlarging in its sphere of usefulness and trust.

The regularity in the procession of the seasons, the dependence and faith inculcated by their never-failing return of the bounties asked of them for his proper observance of their demands, have rendered order a controlling power with him, and punctuality has become a virtue.

The large independence of the concerns of men has not made him autocratic in manner, nor indifferent to progress in the condition of mankind. Faithful to the duties of the good citizen, and to himself, he has not forgotten his moral duties toward the social polity, and neither state, nor church, nor school, nor family, but feels the influence of his tender care. Health has been always with him and on his side. Cleanliness is throughout his household, and scrupulous care of the manners, neatness, and thrift which make a good farmer's home so cheerful, is his.

Such is the intelligent, patient, thorough cultivator of the soil. Is there not a nobility of nature in it, far surpassing that which the false standard of society gives to man? What profession, business, or vocation of any sort engaged in by man, carries in its legitimate course these joys, this peacefulness, this hope? Here are not the anxieties, nor perplexities, nor fears, nor losses attendant upon the occupations in the more crowded haunts of business. Plenty fills his garners; happiness attends his footsteps; peace crowns his life.

We would that this good soul might truly represent every farmer on our soil. We are compelled to acknowledge the shortcomings of this class of[Pg 588] persons, upon whom so much depends, and, by showing in which direction their prominent faults lie, endeavor to persuade them to accept a better standing in the social state, where they are so much needed.

A man shows in his daily acts the early education of his home. The impressions there made upon him in his young and growing life are proverbially deep and abiding. The circumstances which develop the character of the good farmer in one town, are the circumstances which develop the good farmer wheresoever he may be; but the circumstances which make so many of our farmers at this day, coarse in speech, vulgar in manners, untidy in dress and in the arrangement of their farms and their habitations, ignorant, thoughtless, thriftless, indifferent, wasteful, lazy, are not arbitrary circumstances, but pliant and yielding, willing instruments, in the hands of good workmen, to raise, elevate, and instruct all who can be brought within their influence.

The agriculturist who combines with his knowledge and skill in farming a refined taste for the simple elegancies which may form a part and parcel of every well-ordered homestead, will often grieve at the neglect, indolence, and ignorance, shown by the too sad condition of many of our so-called American farms.

The farmhouse of this waste place we call a farm, is located as near as possible to the dusty highway which passes through the country. Unpainted, or unwhitewashed, without a front fence, without shade trees or flowers near it, or by it, it stands like a grim and sombre sentinel, guarding a harsh and lonely existence, at once a prophecy and a warning. There is no home feeling in it. Everything connected with the internal movements or the external management of the place is in full view: the woodpile with its chips scattered about over a radius of fifty yards; a number of old, castaway, and condemned vehicles lie where they were left after their last use; mounds of rubbish and old brushwood, weeds, soiled clothing, farming tools, and implements of husbandry, are here and there, uncared for, unnoticed, and neglected. The poultry, pigs, and cattle he possesses, wander about the door, at once front and rear, or, unobstructed by any serviceable fence, trespass upon the newly planted field or unmown meadows, getting such living as fortune places in their way. The barn may be without doors, the barnyard without a gate or bars, and in full view from every passer by. The sty and the house drain—in fact, every necessary out-building—is in plain sight to the public, on the sunny side of the house, or as near the front of it as is possible for circumstances to permit. The airs of summer and of autumn come to the delighted senses of the residents 'impregnated with the incense' of these sweet surroundings, which, like Gray's unseen flower, are not destined

And who are the delighted occupants of this charming spot? The external appearance and condition of things too sadly betray their character. The man is coarse and vulgar in speech and in manners; untidy, careless, and uncleanly in person and dress; ignorant, lazy, and perhaps intemperate, with no thought beyond the gratification of his bodily wants and desires. Slang words and obscene are his daily vocabulary; selfishness his best-developed trait, and want the only incentive for his labor. His partner is like unto him, or worse, either by nature or association. Without taste, modesty, good sense, or natural refinement, she accompanies her dear Silas in his round of life, sympathizing in his lowness, his common feeling, and his common complaints—slatternly in her dress, rude in speech, coarse in manner, slovenly in her household duties. These two creatures, with their children, too often call themselves farmers, agriculturists, or tillers of the[Pg 589] soil. The poet Cowper well describes them in his poem representing 'the country boors' gathered together at tithing time at the residence of their country parson.

These thriftless people complain that they can make no money on their farms, and but barely a living; and for the very good reason that the man or woman who attempts to carry on a farm in this way through the year deserves no money or profit, nor barely a living from such a method of work.

He was born here. The new soil, at the time his father purchased it, gave him a living, and a good one, too; but this heir to the ancestral acres unfortunately married the slatternly daughter of a loafing neighbor, and their conservatism will not allow them to vary from the track of cultivation so well worn by his father, and forbids his learning any other methods, or accepting any new ideas from any source, though they may be sustained in the practical advantage gained thereby by the most successful farmers in his town, and may be learned any time from the Weekly agricultural gazette published at the capital of his State.

Book farming he scouts. The books upon agriculture, which every good farmer should read and study, and prove, will cost him perhaps ten dollars. By them his farm shall become his pride, his support, his wealth. But this dull man cannot, or will not, learn that in the dreaminess of his humdrum life, passed for thirty years or more upon his farm, capital, industry, science, thought, and study have been at work, and everything has been done, thus far, which can be done to make the earth more gladsome, and the hearts of the children of men more thankful to the Giver and Bestower of all our blessings. Away, then, with this cant, prejudice, and sneering about 'book farming.' As well cry out against book geography, or book philosophy, or book history, or book law. Chemistry, botany, entomology, and pomology unite the results of their researches in their various directions, and, while seeking apparently different ends, yet converge toward the grand centre of a systematic and scientific agriculture.

This laggard has not yet learned that it is his business and duty to cultivate the earth, and not exhaust it; to get two blades of grass this year where but one blade grew before; to gather thirty bushels of corn from the acre which produced but twenty bushels last year; to shear three pounds of wool off the sheep which five years ago gave but two pounds, and so on. He thinks to see how near the agricultural wind he can move and his sails not shake, or with how little labor he can carry his farm through the year and not starve. The poverty of the whole establishment, man and wife, and children, and stock, their uncleanliness and unhealthfulness, are but the just results of such a mode of living. They have their deserts. 'Ye cannot gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles.'

This illustration may seem exaggerated, the example too extreme. We would that its semblance could not be seen in all wide America.

What power, what influences, or what teachings will work the change in the habits of life of those who thus pretend to cultivate the earth? What shall bring them to a clearer realization of their position, their duties, their opportunities, their prospects? This lethargy of ignorance, indifference, and laziness must be shaken off and laid aside in the immediate future, by study and education, by active interest and participation in every discovery or invention which benefits agriculture; by the exercise of sound judgment in the choice of stock or crops for the farm; by economy in the disposition of everything available upon the estate which may be brought into profitable employ; by thrift in every operation which concerns the success of the vocation as tillers of the soil, and by temperance and frugality in the habits and character[Pg 590] of the family living. 'Concentrate your labor, not scatter it; estimate duly the superior profit of a little farm well tilled, over a great farm half cultivated and half manured, overrun with weeds, and scourged with exhausting crops: so we shall fill our barns, double the winter fodder for our cattle and sheep, by the products of these waste meadows. Thus shall our cultivation become like that of England, more systematic, scientific, and exact.'

An Englishman belies one of the best traits of his national character if he denies himself all participation in rural life. It is a part of greatness to seek a gratification of this innate longing for 'the pursuit which is most conducive to virtue and happiness.' Edmund Burke, the patriotic and most philosophical statesman of England, writing to a friend in 1798, says:

Great skill, ingenuity, and success in cattle breeding, and in drainage, have resulted, in England, from a long series of experiments, extending through many years; and great and wonderful progress in the discovery and analysis of soils and manures. The scientific men of France and Germany have also added much to this invaluable information of how to get more bread and meat from the earth, and do much, in their researches in the direction of pomology and entomology, to increase the agricultural knowledge of the world. America gladly tenders her most gracious homage to these devoted men, and hastens to add her leaf to the chaplet which binds their brow. It is to their persistent efforts, to their unshaken faith, that 'agriculture has become elevated to the dignity of a science.'

This vocation of farming in good earnest, with success and profit, is not fun, but downright work. It is work, but no more persistent, constant, studious, or thoughtful than that which is demanded by any of the other callings in life, none of which has or can have such delightful compensations as this. Careful experiments should be made in chemistry, analyzing thereby each germ, plant, flower, and fruit into its component parts; analyzing the soil of our farms, and learning thereby its various wants, its value, and what crop it will best support, and of which it will give the largest yield; teaching us what manures are the most valuable, how prepared, and how to be used for the greatest profit. Botany and entomology can unite their labors and discover the germs and development of our grasses, and the insects which feed upon and destroy them; ornithology will teach us the habits of birds, and their value to us as protectors of our gardens and fields; and pomology will instruct us in the culture of fruit. Thus shall science and philosophy enlarge their duties and help the farmer in his devotion to his noble work. The public press shall herald far and wide each new discovery, each new suggestion, and the results of each new experiment, not in the technical language of the schools, but clothed in the simplest vernacular, which alone can make such study valuable to practical men.

Heretofore too much attention has been paid to the 'bread-producing capacity' of our country, to the neglect of its as necessary 'meat-producing capacity.' Hence much of our best bread-producing soil is becoming exhausted. The old tenants are leaving their once fertile fields, now poor in soil yielding comparatively nothing, and are emigrating to the West, beyond the banks of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, trusting that the natural richness of the 'new hunting grounds' they seek and find is inexhaustible. This policy has[Pg 591] made barren most of the State of Virginia, and has begun to tell sadly, in the diminished crops, upon the farming districts of Ohio, Indiana, and the other near Western States.

To be the successful introducer in a new country of a new and improved breed of cattle, requires capital, sound judgment, study, and patient toil. Much must be considered with reference to the peculiarities of the soil and climate, and of the animals, with regard to the object for which they are needed, whether the dairy, the plough, or the shambles. Happily, America is not without men whose wealth, intelligence, tastes, and sagacity have enabled them to perceive our present wants in this respect, and who have assisted in preparing for them. The great wealth of these gentlemen has been well expended in the outlay and risk attending the extensive and valuable importations of the best breeding cattle and sheep which they have made into this country from time to time from England and the continent of Europe. We are already reaping the advantages of the presence of the valuable animals embraced in these numerous importations. Scattered as they are throughout the country, infusing the best blood of Europe's choicest stock into our 'natives,' they so improve our cattle and sheep as to raise them to the highest degree of excellence and value. It is a circumstance of which every American may be proud, that Mr. Thorne has been so successful in breeding, from his imported stock, cattle which he has sent to England, and which have there borne off the prize as the best breeders in the world.

There are no indigenous breeds of either cattle or sheep in this country. The only animals of the bovine race found here when this continent was discovered were the buffalo and the musk ox. The 'natives' are a heterogenous mixture of various breeds, introduced from time to time for different purposes, and allowed to cross and recross, breed in-and-in, and mingle as chance or convenience dictated. The cattle and sheep were procured at different times from the continent of Europe, from England, and the Spanish West Indies, to supply the present wants of labor and food. The first cattle brought here are said to have been introduced by Columbus. The Spaniards afterward brought over others, from whence no doubt sprang the wild cattle of Texas and California. About the year 1553, the Portuguese took cattle to Newfoundland, of which, however, no traces now remain; and in the year 1600, Norman cattle were brought into Canada. In the year 1611, Sir Thomas Gates brought from Devonshire and Hertfordshire one hundred head of cattle into Jamestown; and thirteen years later, Thomas Winslow imported a bull and three heifers into Massachusetts. Thus was begun the importation of cattle for service and food into this country, which has continued to this day, not always, however, with the just discrimination as to the geographical and climatic peculiarities of the different animals which was and is necessary for the highest success of the movement. Happily, the various agricultural societies and publications, contributed to and supported by our most intelligent farmers, are diffusing wider and wider, each year, more scientific and thorough notions upon this subject of breeding, among our agricultural citizens. An admirable and carefully written article upon 'Select Breeds of Cattle and their Adaptation to the United States,' appeared in the United States Patent Office Report for 1861, to which we would call our readers' attention. It should be studied by every person interested in the economical prosperity of our country. It conveys, in a simple and perspicuous style, the results of the various experiments in breeding, in both England and America, which latterly have become so judicious and accurate as to be now almost based upon principle. Hereafter there[Pg 592] will be no apology, but that of stupidity and ignorance, for the farmers who neglect the most obvious rules of success in their occupation. The idea, now become well known, must become a fact with them, and they must raise no more poor horses or cattle or sheep, because it costs no more to raise good ones, which are much more profitable either for the dairy, for service, or for meat.

'Animals are to be looked upon as machines for converting herbage into money,' says Daniel Webster. 'The great fact to be considered is, how can we manage our farms so as to produce the largest crops, and still keep up the condition of our land, and, if possible, place it in course of gradual improvement? The success must depend in a great degree upon the animals raised and supported on the farm.'

It is auspicious for our country that the interest in sheep raising is becoming wider and deeper. 'The value of wool imported into the United States, in 1861 was nearly five millions of dollars. The value of imported manufactured woollen goods was more than twenty-eight millions of dollars, less by nearly ten millions of dollars than the importations of 1860. Taking the last three years as a basis of calculation, we have had an annual importation of from thirty-five to forty-five millions of pounds of manufactured and unmanufactured wool, being the product of thirteen millions of sheep.' The annual increase of population in the United States requires the wool from more than three million sheep. There is an annual deficiency of wool of from forty to fifty millions of pounds, so there need be no fear of glutting the market by our own production. The investigation might be extended much further. It remains for the farmers and legislators to see to it that we receive no detriment by the long continuance of this home demand without the home supply. The instrument is in their own hands.

Our farmers must teach their children the potential influence of kindness to dumb animals and to birds. By it they will conquer what of viciousness, ugliness, or wildness is often the character of their beasts of burden; and they will find, by the almost total eradication of the destructive flies and insects which are the scourge of their crops, the value of the lives of birds and toads to their farms. Setting aside for the present the consideration of the moral virtues which are thus inculcated, and which are so consistent with a proper devotion to this 'benign art of peace,' we mention a few facts which carry the argument for their worth in themselves.

The birds and toads devour insects, worms, and grubs, and wherever they are absent, grubs, worms, and insects are greatly multiplied, and the crops suffer. The harvests of France, in 1861, suffered so by the ravages of the insects which it is the function of certain birds to destroy, that the subject attracted the notice of the Government, and a commission was appointed to inquire into the matter and report what legislation was expedient. The commission had the aid of the experience of the best naturalists of France, M. St. Hilaire, M. Prevost, and others. Their preliminary report gives three classifications of birds: First, those which live exclusively upon insects and grubs; second, those which live partly upon grubs and partly upon grain, doing some damage, but providing an abundant compensation; third, the birds of prey, which are excepted from the category of benefactors, and are pronounced to be noxious, inasmuch as they live mostly upon the smaller birds. If the arrangements of nature were left wholly undisturbed, the result would be a wholesome equilibrium of destruction. The birds would kill so many insects that the insects could not kill too many plants. One class is a match for the other. A certain insect was found to lay two thousand eggs, but a single tomtit was found to eat two[Pg 593] hundred thousand eggs a year. A swallow devours about five hundred insects a day, eggs and all. A sparrow's nest in the city of Paris was found to contain seven hundred pairs of the upper wings of cockchafers. It is easy to see what an excess of insect life is produced when a counterpoise like this is withdrawn; and the statistics collected show clearly to what an extent the balance of nature has been disturbed. Thus the value of wheat destroyed in a single season, in one department of the east of France, by the cicidomigie, has been estimated at eight hundred thousand dollars.

The cause of this is very soon told. The French eat the birds. The commissioners, in their report, present some curious statistics respecting the extent to which the destruction of birds in France has of late been carried. They state 'that there are great numbers of professional huntsmen, who are accustomed to kill from one hundred to two hundred birds daily; a single child has been known to come home at night with one hundred birds' eggs; and it is also calculated and reported that the number of birds' eggs destroyed annually in France is between eighty millions and one hundred millions. The result is that the small birds in that country are actually dying out; some species have already disappeared, while others are rapidly diminishing.' These facts contain valuable suggestions to our own countrymen. In this instance, as in many such like, observation is a better and more profitable master than experience.

Our farmers can increase the value of their estates, and bring pleasure and peace to their homes, by more special attention to the outward adornment of their dwellings; by cultivating a garden, planting orchards of the best selected fruit, and trees for shade, shelter, and ornament, about their farms and along the adjoining highway. He who plants a tree, thereby gives hostages to life, but he who cuts one down needlessly, is a Vandal, and deserves the execration of every honest man for all time. Learn not to value the bearded elm, 'the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,' the stalwart oak, or the beautiful maple, by cubic measure, but by the 'height of the great argument' they force upon us by their presence, their beauty, and their power. Plant for to-day, and for your children; plant 'for another age,' and thereby do 'a good office' to the coming generations of men. No man but is better for living in the presence of great trees. In one of those most delightful volumes of the Spectator, we find a paper, written by the pure and noble Joseph Addison, in which are well told the pleasures and profits of planting: 'It must,' he says, 'be confessed that this is none of those turbulent pleasures which are apt to gratify a man in the heats of youth; but if it be not so tumultuous, it is more lasting. Nothing can be more delightful than to entertain ourselves with prospects of our own making, and to walk under those shades which our own industry has raised. Amusements of this nature compose the mind, and lay at rest all those passions which are uneasy to the soul of man, besides that they naturally engender good thoughts, and dispose us to laudable contemplations.'

What charming associations linger about the homes of the great men of our history, whose tastes led them into the country! The grand old trees at 'Monticello,' at 'Ashland,' at 'Fort Hill,' at the 'Hermitage,' at 'Sunnyside,' at Cooperstown, at Marshfield, at Mount Vernon, seem to take upon themselves somewhat of 'the voice of the old hospitality' which graced their presence in the days that are passed; and the visitor now wanders with emotions of awe and sadness, in paths by copses and groves and streams, in those quiet retreats of nature, planted and preserved by the noble souls which loved them so wisely and so well.[Pg 594]

Place the dwelling at a distance from the road, and in the position, if possible, from whence the best view of the whole farm can be obtained, mindful also of the charms which nature has spread before you, of mountain, or hill, or plain, or river, or sea. Plant the orchard on a slope toward the south, and not too far away. The barn and yard and outbuildings should be behind the house, or far enough away to protect the inmates from any annoyance therefrom. Let the approach to the house be by a long avenue, bordered by majestic trees, planted by your own hands. The lawn or garden should be well cared for in front. The buildings should be painted or whitewashed, and over the house may clamber and beautify it the woodbine, the jessamine, the honeysuckle, or the rose. What attachments to the homestead shall thus inweave themselves about the hearts of those whose interests and life are cast with it—and still more, of those who go forth from it, by taste, inclination, or bias, into the more bustling centres of competition and trade!

The garden should receive a careful and generous attention from the female portion of the household. Says Lord Bacon: 'God Almighty first planted a garden; and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man; without which buildings and palaces are but gross handyworks; and a man shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegance, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection. I do hold it in the royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year; in which severally things of beauty may be there in season.'

Following Lord Bacon's advice, let there be such a plan and arrangement of it, that it shall always be attractive, and yield a continual round of beauty through the year. Thus planted, the garden 'will inspire the purest and most refined pleasures, and cannot fail to promote every good affection.'

With all the advantages which the discoveries of natural science offer to the farmer of this century, it will little avail his successors unless he strives to educate his children. It is a very mistaken and lamentable notion—now, alas! too prevalent—that a liberal education is necessary alone to those who intend to enter upon a professional life. May the time be not far distant when farming may become a profession which takes its rank with the rest, if it does not lead them, in the public opinion. It was first supposed, very singularly, that the clergy ought only to be favored with an education in science and the classics; afterward the legal profession arose to sufficient dignity for it; and finally the physician, the guardian of our health, the student and philosopher of our bodies, arose to his noble position in the affairs of this life; while the agriculturist, the supporter of all we have or wish for here, the basis of our very civilization, is pushed aside or forgotten, and the demand upon him for the best culture of the earth altogether neglected. We have to congratulate ourselves that our Government has left it with each State by itself, whether, by the non-acceptance of its gift of public land as foundations for agricultural colleges, they will longer forego the opportunity of giving our young farmers a thorough scientific agricultural education. Until such a system of study can be arranged, let the farmers themselves commence the work of self-education. Agricultural societies and farmers' clubs, in which are gathered together the best farmers of the States, offer the best opportunity for intercommunication, thorough discussion and observation, and dissemination of all new discoveries, facts, or theories which may be made beneficial to all. These are the only means by which farmers can compare opinions and found sound judgments for their future labors. What would be the financial[Pg 595] condition of the other great economical interests, if merchants and owners never consulted together, nor marked the course and policy for their mutual guidance? The best agricultural papers and magazines which favor each farmer's peculiar interest, whether of stock, or fruit, or dairy, or grain, should be subscribed for and read, and preserved for future reference. Our best farmers can do a great deal, by contributing facts of their own knowledge, to raise the standard and worth of such periodicals. It only needs the feeling of personal interest in this matter to procure for each farmer whatever books are necessary to a perfect understanding of his special work. They must soon learn that the education of their children is the best investment they can make of the value of their services.

They should be taught, by example, by reading, and observation, the general success in life of those who plant and water and reap; and the general failure of those who attempt to gain an early or a late fortune in money by entering the marts of more active and more crowded competition. Most men fail to make the fortunes which the dreams of youth placed before them in such brilliant colors. In the present condition of the various professions, except farming, they only succeed whom fortune favors by special mental gifts or special personal friendships.

The peace, quiet, and contentment of a cheerful home; the charms of nature, free, unobstructed, lovely; the generous bestowal of an 'unostentatious hospitality;' the patient spirit of him who waits upon the accustomed return of the seasons; the attachment, the joy and pleasure of looking upon the broad acres, the shaded walks, the beautiful landscape, planted, improved, and protected by his own hand; the herds of favorite cattle and sheep which love his coming, the kindly tones of his voice, the gentle stroke of his hand; the respect paid by friends and neighbors to the venerable man who waits only the termination of a virtuous life; the faith in 'the sacred covenant, that while the earth remaineth, sunshine and shower, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest shall not fail,' are his who lives through long years devoted to this, rightly followed, noblest of all occupations—farming.

'He that goeth forth in humility, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.'

APHORISMS.

NO. IV.

Innovations in religion are very commonly deprecated; but there is one in practice which might very safely be attempted, i.e., to obey the gospel. This has been seldom done, even among those that bear the Christian name. How few, even among the members of churches, do really mould their lives from day to day by the teachings of our Lord and his disciples!

This same thought may be presented in another form. Let us remark, then, that while the true teachings of religion are found in the Bible, yet a new edition of them seems wanted, viz., the actual obedience of those that adopt them as their creed and rule of life. To make these doctrines manifest in the lives of any considerable number among men, would give them a power such as they have rarely had.

We have had a great many translations of the Holy Scriptures; the best of all would be their translation into the daily practice of Christian people.[Pg 596]

THE WILD AZALEA.

A MEMORY OF THE HIGHLANDS.

A PAIR OF STOCKINGS.

FROM THE ARMY.

Kate was sitting by the window. I was sitting beside her. It may be well to state here that Kate was a young lady, and that I am a young gentleman. Kate had large, lustrous dark eyes, which just then were covered with fringed, drooping eyelashes. She had braids of dark hair wreathed around her head, a soft pink color in her cheeks, and a rosebud mouth, womanly, fresh, and lovely. Kate was clad in a pink muslin dress, with a tiny white ruffle around her white throat. She was armed with four steely needles, which were so many bright arrows that pierced my heart through and through. Over her fingers glided a small blue thread, which proceeded from the ball of yarn I held in my hand.

Kate was knitting a stocking, and surely, irrevocably she was taking me captive; already I felt myself entangled by those small threads.

We were the inmates of a boarding house. Kate was a new boarder. I had known her but a few weeks.

The evening was warm, and I took up a palm-leaf fan, and fanned her. She thanked me. I looked at her white hands, gliding in and out under the blue yarn; there were no rings on those fingers. I thought how nicely one would look upon that ring finger—a tiny gold circlet, with two hearts joined upon it, and on the inside two names written—hers and mine. Then I thought of Kate as my wife, always clad in a pink muslin dress, always with her hair in just such glossy braids, and knitting stockings to the end of time.

'Kate shall be my wife,' I said to myself, in rash pride, as I fanned her more energetically. I did not know that the way to a woman's heart was more intricate than a labyrinth; but I had the clue in the blue yarn which I held in my hand. I little knew what I undertook. Kate was shy as a wild deer, timid as a fawn, with an atmosphere of reserve about her which one could not well break through.

'For whom are you knitting those stockings, Miss Kate?' I asked.

'For a soldier, Mr. Armstrong,' she replied, her eye kindling with patriotism.[Pg 598]

'If I will be one of the Home Guards, and stay and take care of you, will you knit me a pair?'

'Never. I feel abundantly able to take care of myself. I wish you would enlist, Mr. Armstrong. When you do, I will knit you a pair.'

'It would be almost worth the sacrifice,' I replied.

'Sacrifice! Would you sacrifice yourself for a pair of stockings? Have you not patriotism enough to offer yourself upon the altar of your country? If I were a man, I would enlist in a moment, though I had ten thousand a year, and a wife and seven children.'

I will confess to you, gentle reader, that I was not such a craven as I appeared. The fires of patriotism were smouldering in my bosom, and I needed only a spark from Kate's hand to light them into life and action. Kate rose and left the room, her cheek glowing with spirit, and I sat and fanned the chair where she had sat, for a few moments. It was too bad to break up the delicious tête-à-tête so soon.

I lingered in the parlor after the gas was lighted, but she did not come. I put on my hat, and went out. I would enlist. I had meant to do so all along. I had managed my business in reference to it—the only drawback was the thought of Kate. How pleasant it would be to remind her of her promise, and ask her for the stockings and herself with them! Visions of tender partings and interesting letters floated around me at the thought.

There was a meeting in Tremont Temple in aid of recruiting. Flags hung drooping from the ceiling, bands of music were in attendance in the galleries, and distinguished and eloquent speakers occupied the platform. I do not think their eloquence had much to do with my action, for I had resolved beforehand. I went forward at the close of the meeting, and signed my name to the roll as a Massachusetts volunteer. A pair of hands in the gallery began the thunder of applause that greeted the act. I looked up; Kate was there, clapping enthusiastically. But who was that tall fellow in uniform by her side, with a tremendous mustache, and eyes which flashed brighter than her own? He, then, was the soldier for whom she was knitting the stockings. The rest of the meeting was a blank to me.

I watched, and followed them to the door of the boarding house. I hid myself behind a lamp post, as they paused on the steps. She turned toward him, her face all aglow with feeling.

'Good by, Frank. Take good care of yourself. I'm glad to have you enlist, but so sorry to lose you,' and tears trembled in her eyes.

'Good by, Kate, darling; and after the war is over, I will come home and take care of my bird,' and he turned away.

'Stop Frank!'

'Well, birdie?'

'Those are not fit words to dismiss a soldier with. Here, I'll give you a watchword. Think of it, Frank:

'Brave words, Kate. You deserve a kiss for them.' It was given. I turned away in desperation, and walked onward, not caring where I went. Policemen watched me, but the lateness of the hour made no difference to me. I could have walked all night. At length I came to a bridge. The moon was shining upon the rippling water. It looked cold and dark, except where the ripples were. There would be a plunge, and then the water would flow on over my head. Why not? I did not know I had loved her with such devotion. It was all over now. She belonged to another. My foot was on the rail. I thought then of the name I had signed to the roll. 'No, Jacob Armstrong, you[Pg 599] have no right to take the life which you have given to your country.' I turned away toward my boarding place, full of bitterness and despair. A tiny glove was on the stairs. I picked it up and pressed it passionately to my lips, and cursed myself for the act as I threw it down again.

The days that followed were weary enough. I made arrangements for my departure with all possible speed. I avoided Kate, and was cold and haughty in my salutations. I am very dignified naturally. I can be an iceberg in human shape when I wish. One evening I went into the parlor before tea, and took up a newspaper. Kate came in. I put on my dignity, and tried to be interested in politics, though I could think of nothing but the dainty figure opposite, and the gleaming needles in her hands. I struggled with the passionate, bitter feelings that rose at the sight of her, and was calm and cold.

'I am glad you have enlisted, Mr. Armstrong, she said.

'Thank you,' I replied stiffly.

'I suppose you are very busy making preparations?'

'Very.'

'And you are going soon?'

'I hope so.'

Kate left the room. I wished she was back again a thousand times. How kind and shy she looked. If there was a gleam of hope—that tall fellow in uniform—no, she might stay away forever. And yet my heart gave a great leap as she appeared again.

'I want to show you a photograph, Mr. Armstrong,' she said, blushing and smiling. I took it. It was the officer in uniform, with the tremendous mustache and flashing eyes.

'It is my brother Frank. Does he look like me?'

I started as if I had been shot.

'Miss Kate, I want to take a walk now, and I should like some company. Will you go with me?'

'Hadn't we better have tea first?' she said, smiling. 'The bell has just rung.'

I do not know how that tea passed off, whether we had jumbles or muffins, whether I drank tea or cold water; but I knew that opposite me sat Kate, radiant in pink muslin, and when the interminable tea was over, we were going to take a walk together. I was thinking what I should say. I am generally a sociable and genial man, and it seems to me that on this particular evening I was assaulted with a storm of questions and remarks.

'Don't you think so, Mr. Armstrong?' asked the lady on my right, the lady on my left, and the gentleman in black at the end of the table. I aimed monosyllables at them promiscuously, and have at present no means of knowing whether they fitted the questions and remarks or not.

In the midst of a mental speech, I was vigorously assaulted by Mary, the table girl, and, looking about me in surprise, I caught a glimpse of the boardinghouse cat just disappearing through the door:

'And sure, Mr. Armstrong, yer must be blind. The blow was intended for the cat, and she had her paw in yer plate.'

Perhaps you do not know how pleasant it is to take a walk with a little gloved hand resting upon your arm, little feet keeping step with yours, and a soft voice chiming in with everything you say. I was happy on that particular night. We walked on the Common. The stars shone, and the long branches of the old elms swayed to and fro in the moonlight, as we passed under them. It was just the time and place that I liked.

'Miss Kate,' I began, 'in a few days I shall be far away from home and friends, amid danger and death, fighting the battles of my country. I have known you but a short time; but that time has been long enough to show me that I love you with my whole soul. I offer my hand and heart to you. May I not hope that you will sometimes[Pg 600] think of the soldier—that I may carry your heart with me?'

'I think you may hope,' she replied, gently; 'but this is very sudden. I will give you a final answer to-morrow morning.'

When we got home, we went into the dining room, and I helped her to a glass of ice water, and hoped she would linger there a moment; but she was shy, and bade me a kind good night. I didn't know till the next morning what she was about the rest of the evening; when she met me on the stairs, placed a small parcel in my hands, saying:

'My answer, Mr. Armstrong,' and was off like a fawn.

I opened it, and saw the stockings, blue, and warm and soft. A note was stitched in the toe of one of them:

I reverently folded the tiny note, after having committed it to memory, and repeated its contents to myself all the way to my office, beginning with 'Mr. Armstrong,' and ending with 'Yours, Kate.' I was in a state of extreme beatification. Kate was mine, noble girl! She loved me, and yet was willing to give me up for her country's cause. And I began to repeat the note to myself again, when, on a crossing, I was accosted by a biped, commonly known as a small boy:

'Mister, yer stocking is sticking out of yer pocket.'

I turned calmly around, and addressed him:

'Boy, I glory in those stockings. I am willing that the universe should behold them. My destiny is interwoven with them. Every stitch is instinct with life and love.'

'Don't see it, mister! Glory, hallelujah!' and he ended his speech by making an exclamation point of himself, by standing on his head—a very bad practice for small boys. I advise all precocious youngsters, who may read this article, to avoid such positions.

We broke camp, and started off in high spirits. I paraded through the streets with a bouquet of rosebuds on my bayonet. I found a note among them afterward, more fragrant than they.

When our regiment left Boston, it went from Battery Wharf. I went on board the Merrimac. Kate could not pass the lines, and stationed herself in a vessel opposite, where we could look at each other. I aimed a rosebud at her; it fell into the green water, and floated away. The second and third were more successful. She pressed one to her lips and threw it back again; the other she kept. Afterward, with the practical forethought which forms a part of her character, she bought out an apple woman, and stormed me with apples. The vessel left the wharf, and I looked back with eyes fast growing dim, and watched the figure on the dock, bravely waving her white handkerchief as long as I could see.

Well, it is hard for a man to leave home and friends, and all that he holds dear; but I do not regret it, though I have to rough it now. I am writing now beside a bivouac made of poles and cornstalks. My desk is a rude bench. I have just finished my dinner of salt junk and potatoes. On my feet is that pair of stockings. Profanity and almost every vice abounds; there are temptations all around me, but pure lips have promised to pray for me, and I feel that I shall be shielded and guarded, and kept uncontaminated, true to my 'north star,' which shines so brightly to me—true to my country and my God.[Pg 601]

LITERARY NOTICES.

The contents of this volume, though now first presented to the American public, are not the latest of the author's writings. It completes, however, Messrs. Ticknor & Fields' reprint of his poetical works. His growing popularity calls for the present publication. We would fain number ourselves among the admirers of the husband of Elizabeth Barrett; the man loved by this truly great poetess, to whom she addressed the refined and imaginative tenderness of the 'Portuguese Sonnets?' of whom she writes:

'Or from Browning some 'Pomegranate,' which, if cut deep down the middle, shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.'

Before the man so loved and honored, we repeat, we would fain bow in reverence. But it may not be; we cannot receive him as a true poet—as in any poetic quality the peer of his matchless wife. We hear much of his subtile psychology—we deem it psychological unintelligibility. His rhythm is rough and unmusical, his style harsh and inverted, his imagery cold, his invective bitter, and his verbiage immense. His illustrations are sometimes coarse, his comparisons diminish rather than increase the importance of the ideas to which they are applied. His pages are frequently as chaotic as those of Wagner's music; leaf after leaf may be turned over in the despairing search for a single crystallized idea. Fiery sparks, flying meteors, inchoate masses of nebulous matter are around us, but no glass in our possession can resolve them into ordered orbs of thought and beauty. If a man have anything to say, why not say it in clear, terse, vigorous English, or why use worlds of vigorous words to say nothing. Some years ago, one of Browning's books was sent for review to Douglas Jerrold, who was then just recovering from an attack of brain fever: after reading it for some time, and finding that he failed to arrive at any clear idea of the meaning of its lines, he began to fear that his brain was again becoming confused, and, handing it to his wife with a request that she would look over it in his absence, went out to drive. Returning in the evening, his first question was: 'Well, my dear, what do you think of Browning's poem?' 'Bother the gibberish,' was her indignant reply, 'I can't understand a word of it.' 'Thank God,' exclaimed Jerrold, clapping his hands to his head triumphantly, 'then I am not actually insane.'

A book produced without regard to expense, and of great beauty. Paper and print are excellent. Its illustrations are nearly one hundred in number. It has both woodcuts and chromo-lithographs exquisitely rendered, reproducing the modern scenery and antiquities of Egypt from photographs or authentic sources. Mr. Clark writes well, has travelled through the land of the Nile, and tries to bring before the minds of his readers vivid pictures of primeval times, for which Egypt presents such peculiar and valuable materials. Our writer is a scholar as well as a traveller, and has added to his personal experience considerable research into the authorities from whom many of his facts are derived. He is also an enthusiast, and somewhat of an artist, and gives us glowing pictures of the strange old land of the Pharaohs. He says: 'Daleth, the ancient Hebrew letter ([Hebrew: **-j]), signifies a door. From whatever country we look back along the pathway of the arts and sciences, in the dim distance tower the mighty gateways of Egypt—the homestead of the nations—beneath which the rites of religion and the[Pg 602] blessings of civilization have passed out into the world; and with grateful respect we confess that on the banks of the Nile stands the true Daleth of the Nations.' This idea forms the clew to the whole book, and from hence is derived its title, Daleth. We heartily recommend it to our readers. It merits attention. We quote the last sentence of the short preface: 'That these fragments of the past may reflect for the reader the sunshine they have gathered in three thousand years, is the earnest wish of the author.'

This book had established its reputation before it was issued in book form; and will be widely circulated. Our soldiers and sailors, our politicians of all parties will read it. It is evidently from the pen of one familiar with the varied phases of American life and the public service. Many of its songs are full of genuine humor. 'Sambo's Right to be Kilt' is excellent. 'The Review: A Picture of our Veterans,' is full of pathos. 'Miles' is familiar with Admiral DuPont and the monitors in front of Charleston, and is equally at home in Tammany Hall and Democratic Conventions. The publisher describes himself as unable to supply the rapid demand for the book. It is witty, satirical, and humorous; though we occasionally wish for somewhat more refinement.

We cannot tell our readers, with any degree of certainty, whether the tale before us is truth or fiction. It seems to be the simple history of an uneventful life, a record rather of the growth of character than an attempt to create the fictitious or tragical. If true it has the interest of fiction; if fictitious, it has the merit of concealing art and closely imitating nature. It contains the inner-life history of a deserted and much-abused little girl, from childhood to maturity. It is detailed, moral, conscientious, and interesting.

A volume of original songs and poems. That it comes from the University Press is sufficient guarantee of its superb typography. Of these lyrics we prefer 'Without the Children.'

A close and detailed picture of New England life and character. The poor young orphans have a dismal time of it among their hard and coarse relatives. The sterner forms of Puritanism are well depicted. The scene at the funeral of poor Demis, with its harrowing and denunciatory sermon over the corpse of the innocent girl, is powerful and true. The character of the 'help,' Debby, is drawn from life, and is admirably conceived and sustained. The book is, however, melancholy and monotonous. So many young and generous hearts beating themselves forever against the sharp stones of the baldest utilitarianism; so many bright minds drifting into despair in the surrounding chaos of obstinate, stolid, and perverse ignorance! It is a sadder book than 'The Mill on the Floss,' of which it reminds us. How the aspiring and imaginative must suffer in an atmosphere so cold and blighting!

A book truly of good counsel and cheerful comfort. The strong personality of the writer sometimes interferes with the expansiveness of his views, as for instance in the discussion on pulpits; but it may perhaps be to that very strength of personality that we owe the force and directness of the lessons he so encouragingly inculcates.

This work is published from advance sheets purchased from the English publisher. It is an excellent novel, full of incident and interest. The plot is artistic, and fascinates[Pg 603] the reader to the end. The element of mystery is skilfully managed, increasing until the final dénoûment, which is original and unexpected. We commend it to the attention of the lovers of fascinating fiction.

This book may be considered as a continuation of the Series of Memoirs of Industrial Men introduced in Mr. Smiles's 'Lives of Engineers.' The author says that 'while commemorating the names of those who have striven—to elevate man above the material and mechanical, the labors of the important industrial class, to whom society owes so much of its comfort and well-being, are also entitled to consideration. Without derogating from the biographic claims of those who minister to intellect and taste, those who minister to utility need not be overlooked.'

Surely the object of this book is a good one. The mechanic should receive his meed of appreciation. Our constructive heroes should not be forgotten, for the heroism of inventive labor has its own romance, and its results aid greatly the cause of human advancement. Most of the information embodied in this volume has heretofore existed only in the memories of the eminent mechanical engineers from whom it has been collected. Facts are here placed on record which would, in the ordinary course of things, have passed into oblivion. All honor to the brave, patient, ingenious, and inventive mechanic!

Mrs. Stephens has considerable ability in the construction of her plots and their gradual development. Her stories are always interesting. The wife's secret is well kept, and the dénoûment admirably managed. The fatal want of moral courage, the suffering caused by mental weakness, the strength of love, the sustaining power of intellect, are portrayed with ability in the book before us. The moral is unexceptionable throughout.

Investigations into the life and character of Christ Jesus are everywhere multiplying around us. Attempts to account for the marvels of His glorious Being on a simply natural plane are made in apparent good faith, and with considerable ability. Mr. Furness approaches his subject with reverence: he has studied the man, Jesus, with his heart. The human phases of His marvellous character are elaborated with skill and patience. He regards Christianity as a 'natural product, a product realized, not against, or aside from, but in the established order of things; that were we competent to pronounce upon the purposes of the Infinite Mind, which we are not, we might say that, so far from His being out of the course of nature, nature culminated in Christ, and that, of all that exists, He is the one being profoundly human, preëminently natural.' In the dove which descended at His baptism, Mr. Furness 'discovers the presence of a common dove divested of its ordinary appearance, and transfigured by a rapt imagination into a sign and messenger from heaven.' He says 'there is no intrinsic impossibility in supposing that Jesus was naturally possessed of an unprecedented power of will, by which the extraordinary effects attributed to him were produced.' 'The bloody sweat is an evident fiction—how could blood have been distinguished in the dark?' He pronounces the story of 'the wise men from the east an evident fable.' Mr. Furness puts no faith in the miraculous conception, but believes in the resurrection. He says: 'Bound by irresistible evidence to believe that Jesus was again alive on that memorable morning, I believe it will hereafter appear that He came to life through the extraordinary force of will with which He was endowed, and by which He healed the sick and raised the dead; or, in other words, that consciousness returned to Him by an action of the mind, in[Pg 604] itself no more inscrutable in this case than it is in our daily waking from sleep.'

We deem that there is more difficulty in admitting that Christ rose from the dead by extraordinary force of will, than in admitting the truth of the record that He was the only Son of the Father, with full power over life and death. We thank Mr. Furness for the skilful manner in which he has brought to light the infinite tenderness and divine self-forgetfulness of the Redeemer, but we cannot think he has succeeded in lifting the veil of mystery which surrounds the birth, miracles, crucifixion, resurrection, and atonement of the Redeemer. Meantime let Christians who accept revelation in its integrity, throw no stumbling blocks in the way of earnest and candid inquirers, such as Mr. Furness. Is it not true that, dazzled by the Divine, we have been too little touched by the exquisite, compassionate, faithful, and child-like human character of our Master? Truth seeks the light, and it cannot fall too fully on the perfect; every ray serving but to reveal some new perfection. Let those of fuller faith rejoice in the beauties forever developing in the character of the Holy Victim. Let them patiently pray that those who love Him as an elder brother, may gaze upon His majesty until they see in Him the risen God.

We have found this book interesting and suggestive. It is disgraced by none of the flippant and irreverent sentimentalism which characterizes M. Renan.

Contents: 'Wherein the Teaching of Jesus was New;' 'How the Truth of the History is made to appear;' 'His Knowledge of Human Nature;' 'His Wonder-working Power;' 'His Child-likeness;' 'The Naturalness of His Teaching;' 'The Naturalness of certain Fables found in His History;' 'The Genesis of the Gospels.'

The "other writings" in the work before us are: Life of Quintus Fixlein, Schmelzle's Journey to Flätz, Analects from Richter, and Miscellaneous Pieces. The Life of Quintus Fixlein and Schmelzle's Journey to Flätz are both translated by that ardent admirer of Richter's genius, Thomas Carlyle; a sufficient guarantee that the spirit and beauty of the original are fully rendered. The Analects are translated by the brilliant writer, Thomas de Quincey.

Richter died while engaged, under recent and almost total blindness, in enlarging and remodelling the Campaner Thal, or Discourses on the Immortality of the Soul. 'The unfinished manuscript was borne upon his coffin to the burial vault; and Klopstock's hymn, Auferstehen wirst du! 'Thou shalt arise, my soul!' can seldom have been sung with more appropriate application than over the grave of Jean Paul.'

The works of Jean Paul require no praise from the hands of the reviewer; his name is a true 'open sesame' to all hearts. Not to know him argues one's self unknown. Some of his finest passages are to be found in the Campaner Thal. It was written from his heart, and embodies his conviction of immortality. How tender its imagery, how rich its consoling suggestions, how all-embracing its arabesques, how original its structure! That its author should grow in favor with our people, would be a convincing proof of their own progress. So many different powers unite in him, that he has been well styled by his own people 'The only.' The vigor and rough strength of the man, with the delicacy and tenderness of the woman; glowing imagination with wondrous stores of erudition; fancy with exactness; the most loving heart with the keenest insight into the foibles of his fellows; the wit of a Swift with the romance of a Rousseau—but why attempt to describe the indescribable, to give portraits of the Proteus who changes as we gaze upon him?

Meanwhile, we heartily commend Jean Paul to the notice of our readers, and thank the publishers who are placing his great works within the reach of those who cannot read him in the original.

If we have been correctly informed, the author of this book is an Irish woman living in Trenton, N. Y., whose husband is a laboring man, and, like herself, in humble circumstances. She has quite a large family, lives in a small tenement, and is obliged to labor daily for a subsistence for herself and family.[Pg 605] When she came to this country from Ireland, she could scarcely write a grammatical sentence; and all the information of history and the classics which she has, she has derived from such books as have accidentally fallen in her hands. She is extremely modest and retiring, and does not seem to be at all conscious of the genius with which she is endowed. Mrs. Howarth possesses the poetical talent of the Irish race. Her rhythm is musical, flowing, and pure; her thoughts gentle and womanly; her diction refined; her form good; her powers of imitation great. What she wants now is more self-reliance, that she may write from the inner life of her own experience. Her poems lack originality. Let her not fear to dip her pen in her own heart, and sing to us the joys and sorrows of the poor. Burns were a better study for her than Moore; the Corn Law rhymer than Poe. With her talents and the cultivation she has acquired, her familiarity with the hopes, fears, and realities of a life of labor will give her great advantages as the poetess of the faithful, suffering poor.

BOOKS RECEIVED TOO LATE FOR REVIEW.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

ADELAIDE A. PROCTER AND JEAN INGELOW.

Extremes ever meet, and our age, which is preëminently occupied with physical science and material comfort and aggrandizement, is also eminently productive in good poetry. There should be no antithesis between the words physical science and poetry. The secrets of the Universe, the ways of God's working, are surely the highest poetry; but the greater number of scientists have willed a divorce between the material and the spiritual, and decry that very imaginative faculty which, in the case of Kepler, bore such wonderful fruits for science. Facts are very well, and induction is also well, but science requires the aid of the creative and divining imagination to order the details and draw thence the broader and higher generalizations. Let us hope that the good common sense of the in-coming half-century will annul the divorce, and again unite on a solid basis spheres that should never have been so far sundered.

Meantime, we cannot but remark the number of good poems meeting us on every hand, not only from writers known to fame, but also from the living tombs of obscure country newspapers. We know it is the fashion to deride such productions, and sneer at the 'would-be poets.' Let critics speak the truth fearlessly, but let them never prefer the glitter of a self-glorifying search for faults to the more amiable but less piquant occupation of discovering solid thought, earnest feeling, and poetic fancy. It is well to discourage insipidity, impudent pretension, and every species of affectation; but critics are, like authors, fallible, and not unfrequently present glaring examples of the very faults they condemn. In any case where the knife is needed, let it be used firmly but gently, that, while the patient bleeds, he may feel the wound has been inflicted by no unloving, cynical hand, but was really intended for his ultimate good. Let the instrument be finely tempered, and neither coarse nor rough. We can all recall a few[Pg 606] cases where a rude treatment has effected a cure, but only by draining the life blood of the victim, or by turning every better human feeling into bitterness and corroding gall. Words of blame intended to fall upon the hearts of the young, or of the old, should always be spoken kindly, for we can never know how deeply they may penetrate, what tender schemes for widowed mother, aspiring brother, portionless sister, or starving wife and children they may shatter. The public is a pretty keen judge, and will in most cases drop works devoid of the immortal elements of genius. The critic may point the way, but he need add no unnecessary stab to a downfall sure and bitter.

This digression, however, has no bearing upon the honored names heading this table, as both now have become 'household words' in our midst. Both are acknowledged as real poets, but how different are they in style, and mode of thought! Jean Ingelow, as the more brilliant, is the more general favorite, Adelaide Procter having as yet scarcely received her due meed of praise. Miss Ingelow exhibits an exuberant fancy, a luxurious wealth of diction, and a generally fine poetic sense of form; her thoughts are sound, and their dress new and glittering; but the volume we have read is one to please the fancy and gratify the intellect rather than touch the heart. The style is occasionally obscure and the thought difficult to follow. Of course one can always find a meaning, but one is not always sure of interpreting according to the author's intentions. This quality, found largely in the school of Robert Browning, is one to be guarded against. Mrs. Browning sometimes deals in such involutions, but her style is so evidently an essential part of herself, that we rarely think of affectation in connection with it. It is pleasanter to dream our own dreams, than to follow any author into a tangled maze, whence we, and not he, must furnish the clew for egress.

The 'Songs of Seven' and 'The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire' are truly fine poems, to us the most complete and sustained in the entire collection. In 'Requiescat in Pace,' we are carried so far away from the actualities of life that we scarcely care whether the lover be dead or living. As in a fairy tale, we read for the sake of curiosity, admiring sundry touches here and there, but feeling nothing. Miss Ingelow's rhythm is good, and her language musical.

The style of Adelaide Procter is singularly lucid and direct; she has but little command of poetic ornament, and we rarely think of her choice of words. Pathos, and a close, keen representation of human experience, are her distinguishing characteristics. She is a poet to read when the soul is wrung, and longs for the solace of communion with a noble, tender, sympathetic human heart. The very absence of ornament brings the thoughts and feelings nearer to our needs. Her poems are evidently pictures of real human souls, and not poetic imaginings of what human beings might feel under such and such circumstances. There are many of Miss Procter's tales and shorter poems which bring tears to the eyes of all who have really lived and sorrowed, and the more we read them, the more do they come home to us. We feel as if we could take their author into our heart of hearts, and make all the world love her as do we. With her, brilliancy of imagery and description are replaced by a sententiousness and concentration of expression that suddenly strike home some truth perhaps well known, but little dwelt on. For instance, in 'A Legend of Provence,' we find:

Again, in 'The Present:'

'Links with Heaven' is a continued series of tender, original thoughts, expressed in the same terse and striking, but simple manner. 'Homeless,' 'Treasures,' 'Incompleteness,' 'Light and Shade,' are, among the smaller poems, fine specimens of her distinguishing[Pg 607] merits; while of the longer, 'Three Evenings in a Life,' 'Philip and Mildred,' and 'Homeward Bound' cannot fall to charm all who love to read a real page from the experience of humanity.

Both Jean Ingelow and Adelaide Procter are thoroughly penetrated by profound religious convictions, the faith and charity of the latter being especially vivid and pervading. The one has a preponderance of the beautiful gift of a rich fancy, while to the other was given in greater degree the power of the penetrative and sympathetic imagination. The one, as we read, recalls to us a glittering heap of precious, shining jewels; the other, the first cluster of spring violets, wreaths of virginal lilies and midsummer roses, growths of cypress sound to the core, rosemary, sage, and all healing herbs, branches of scarlet maple leaves, and lovely wayside gentians, adorned by the hand of the Great Artist, and blue as heaven itself.

But a little while ago, the Angel, Death, 'who comes in love and pity, and, to save our treasures, claims them all,' bore away her pure soul along the 'misty pathway' to everlasting peace and joy.

L.D.P.

Loyal Women of America, this will greet you in the midst of the great Metropolitan Fair, and we congratulate you upon the success of the heavy work you have undertaken and accomplished! When God was manifest to men, he came to work for others, and you are treading in the highest path when you follow in the footsteps of the Master. Claim and perform your natural duties, show yourselves capable of self-abnegation, evince your determination to support the cause of justice, to be loyal to the humane principles of our Constitution—and all the rights which you may postulate, will be conceded you. This war in which you have suffered so much, made so many sacrifices, has developed your energies, shown your capabilities, revealed your noble hearts, and convinced the world that woman is the strong and vigorous helpmate, and not the weak, if beautiful, toy of man. The Government looks to you as its best aid, for moral sanction is its living soul; it looks to you for higher life, for, unless the heart of love is the throbbing life-pulse of Government, it sinks into a dull, lethargic mechanism. Far above the din of faction, the red tape of cabinets, the rivalry of generals, the strife of politicians, shines the resolve, and pulses the determination of woman, that mankind shall be free. For this, the dusky nation bless her as she moves; the frighted mother torn from her child, the maiden sold to shame, call upon her to deliver them from infamy and the devouring hunger of a robbed mother's heart. The wronged children of Ham arise and call her 'Blessed.'

But it is with the men of her own race, that woman is weaving the golden web of priceless sympathies. Woven of her tenderness, it sparkles with man's deathless gratitude. The soldier feels her gracious being in every throb of his true heart. Her love and care are forever around him. In his lonely night watches, his long marches, his wearisome details of duty, his absence from home, his countless deprivations, he thinks of the women of his country, and is proud that he may be their defender. This thought stimulates him on the field of battle, and nerves his arm to deeds of glory. And when he falls, he falls into the arms which spread everywhere around him. The Sanitary Commission is her representative. She sends it to him to breathe of her in his hour of pain. Through it she watches o'er him as he lies low and bleeding on the dreadful field, surrounded by the dead and dying; she sends her ambulances there to bear him to shelter and comfort; her surgeons stanch the noble blood, remove the shattered limbs, quench the stifling thirst, working with a tenderness sucked in with the mother's milk. In the hospital, in her own gentle person, she soothes his restless hours, watches o'er his sleepless couch, dresses his mangled limbs, bears him up with her own faith, giving her strength to aid his weakness, she leads him back to life, or, if death must come, up to God. American Women, live up to the holy duties now demanded of you, and your rights will all be conceded, higher, holier, deeper, broader, more vital than any for which you have yet asked or hoped. The esteem and veneration of the very men who have scorned you for your love of luxury, laughed at you for your ridiculous aping of foreign aristocracy, jeered at you for your love of glitter, your thirst for wealth, your[Pg 608] frivolity and folly, and despised you for your arrogance and heartlessness—are already yours. Contempt for you has passed away forever. Let the dead past bury its dead. American women solve the riddle of woman's destiny. Vast is her field and heritage: all who suffer belong to her. Her heart is the strength of love and charity; her mind, justice and the rights of all who bear the human form; her soul, God's temple among men, in which dwell the angels of Purity, Sacrifice, and Devotion. Love to God and man is her creed, self-abnegation her crown, faith her oriflamme, strength her gift, life her guerdon, and immortality her portion.

American Women, we place a soldier's song before you:

A SOLDIER'S PSALM OF WOMAN.

By Lieut. Richard Realf.

We have been requested by the author of 'Hannah Thurston,' an article in our April number, to correct a typographical error (the omission of the word all) in said article. The mutilated sentence originally read: "I cannot think that marriage is essential to, or even best for, the happiness of all women."

Ed. Con

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