The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Continental Monthly, Volume VI. Issue IV. by Various.

War is a great evil. We may confess that, at the start. The Peace Society has the argument its own way. The bloody field, the mangled dying, hoof-trampled into the reeking sod, the groans, and cries, and curses, the wrath, and hate, and madness, the horror and the hell of a great battle, are things no rhetoric can ever make lovely.

The poet may weave his wreath of victory for the conqueror; the historian, with all the pomp of splendid imagery, may describe the heroism of the day of slaughter; but, after all, and none know this better than the men most familiar with it, a great battle is the most hateful and hellish sight that the sun looks on in all his courses.

And the actual battle is only a part. The curse goes far beyond the field of combat. The trampled dead and dying are but a tithe of the actual sufferers. There are desolate homes, far away, where want changes sorrow into madness. Wives wail by hearthstones where the household fires have died into cold ashes forever more. Like Rachel, mothers weep for the proud boys that lie stark beneath the pitiless stars. Under a thousand roofs—cottage roofs and palace roofs—little children ask for 'father.' The pattering feet shall never run to meet, upon the threshold, his feet, who lies stiffening in the bloody trench far away!

There are added horrors in civil war. These forms, crushed and torn out of all human semblance, are our brothers. These wailing widows, these small fatherless ones speak our mother language, utter their pain in the tongue of our own wives and children. Victory seems barely better than defeat, when it is victory over our own blood. The scars we carve with steel or burn with powder across the shuddering land, are scars on the dear face of the Motherland we love. These blackened roof-trees, they are the homes of our kindred. These cities, where shells are bursting through crumbling wall and flaming spire, they are cities of our own fair land, perhaps the brightest jewels in her crown.

Ay! men do well to pray for peace! With suppliant palms outstretched to the pitying God, they do well to cry, as in the ancient litany, 'Give peace in our time, O Lord!' Let the husbandman go forth in the furrow. [Pg 362]Let the cattle come lowing to the stalls at evening. Let bleating flocks whiten all the uplands. Let harvest hymns be sung, while groaning wagons drag to bursting barns their mighty weight of sheaves. Let mill wheels turn their dripping rounds by every stream. Let sails whiten along every river. Let the smoke of a million peaceful hearths rise like incense in the morning. Let the shouts of happy children, at their play, ring down ten thousand valleys in the summer day's decline. Over all the blessed land, asleep beneath the shadow of the Almighty hand, let the peace of God rest in benediction! 'Give peace in our time, O Lord!'

And yet the final clause to, every human prayer must be 'Thy will be done!' There are things better far than peace. There are things more loathely and more terrible than, the horror of battle and 'garments rolled in blood.' Peace is blessed, but if you have peace with hell, how about the blessedness? A covenant with evil is not the sort of agreement that will bring comfort. A truce with Satan is not the thing that it will do to trust. There are things in this world, without which the prayer for peace is 'a witch's prayer,' read backward to a curse.

That is to say, whether peace is good depends entirely on the further question, With whom are you at peace? Whether war is evil depends on the other question, With whom are you at war? In one most serious and substantial point of view, human life is a battle, which, for the individual, ends only with death, and, for the race, only with the Final Consummation. The tenure of our place and right, as children of God, is that we fight evil to the bitter end. 'The Prince of Peace' Himself came 'not to send peace,' in this war, 'but a sword.'

We may venture, then, to say that there are some wars which are not all evil. They are terrible, but terrible like the hurricane, which sweeps away the pestilence; terrible like the earthquake, on whose night of terror God builds a thousand years of blooming plenty; terrible like the volcano, whose ashes are clothed by the purple vintages and yellow harvests of a hundred generations. The strong powers of nature are as beneficent as strong. The destroying powers are also creating powers. Life sits upon the sepulchre, and sings over buried Death through all nature and all time. War, too, has its compensations.

For years, amid the world's rages, we had peace. The only war we had, at all events, was one of our own seeking, and a mere playing at war. Many of us thought it would be so always. We believed we had discovered a method of settling all the world's difficulties without blows. The peace people had their jubilee. They talked about the advance of intelligence, and the softening power of civilization. They placed war among the forgotten horrors of a dead barbarism. They proved that commerce had rendered war impossible, because it had made it against self-interest. They talked about reason and persuasion, and moral influences. They asked, 'Why not settle all troubles in a grand world's congress, some huge palaver and paradise of speechmakers, where it will be all talk and voting and no blows?' Why not, indeed? How easy to 'resolve' this poor, blind, struggling world of ours into a bit of heaven, you see, and so end our troubles! How easy to vote these poor, stupid, blundering brothers of ours into angels, in some great parliament of eloquent philosophers, and govern them thereafter on that basis!

Now, resolutions and speeches and grand palavers are nice things, in their way, to play with, but, on the whole, it is best to get down to the hard fact if one really wants to work and prosper. And the hard fact is, that Adam's sons are not yet cherubs, nor their homestead, among the stars, just yet an outlying field of paradise. It is a planet[Pg 363] whose private affairs are badly muddled. Its tenants for life are a quarrelsome, ill-tempered, unruly set of creatures altogether. As things go, they will break each others' heads sometimes. It is very unreasonable. I can see that. But men are not always reasonable. It is not for their own interest. I can see that too. But how often does interest, the best and highest, raise an impregnable barrier against passion or even caprice?

We must take men as they are, and the world as we find it, to get a secure ground for attempting the reformation of either. And as men are, and as I find the world, at present, I meet Wrong, and find it armed to resist Right. The Wrong will not yield to persuasion, it will not surrender to reason. It comes straight on, coarse, brutal, devilish, caring not a straw for peace rhetoric or Quaker gravity, for persuasion or interest. It strikes straight down at right or justice. It tries to hammer them to atoms, and trample them with swinish hoofs into the mire. Now what am I to do? To stand peaceably by and see this thing done, while I study new tropes and invent new metaphors to persuade? Is that my business, to waste the godlike gift of human speech on this mad brute or devil?

With wise pains and thoughtful labor, I clear my little spot of this stubborn soil. I hedge and plant my small vineyard. It begins, after much care, to yield me some fruit. I get a little corn and a little wine, to comfort me and mine. I have good hope that, as the years go by, I shall gather more. I trust, at last, my purple vintages may gladden many hearts of men, my rich olives make many faces shine. But some day, from the yet untamed forest, bursts the wild boar, and rushes on my hedge, and will break through to trample down my vineyard before mine eyes. And I am only to argue with him! I am to cast the pearls of human reason and persuasion at his feet to stop him! Nay, rather, am I not to seize the first sufficient weapon that comes to hand, unloose the dogs upon him, and drive him to his lair again, or, better, bring his head in triumph home?

It is true, there are wars where this parable will not apply. There are capricious wars, wars undertaken for no fit cause, wars with scarce a principle on either side. Such have often been king's wars, begun in folly, conducted in vanity, ended in shame, wars for the ambition of some crowned scoundrel, who rides a patient people till he drives them mad. And even such wars have their uses. They are not wholly evil. Alexander's, the maddest wars of all, and those of his successors, the most stupid and brutal ever fought, even they had their uses. Our war with poor Mexico, even Louis Bonaparte's, was not wholly evil.

But there are wars, again, that are not capricious, that are simply necessary, unavoidable, as life, death, or judgment, wars where the choice is to see right trampled out of sight or to fight for it, where truth and justice are crushed unless the sword be grasped and used, where law and civilization and Christianity are assailed by savagery, brutality, and devilishness, and only the true bullet and the cold steel are received in the discussion. These are the Peoples' wars. In them nations arm. Generations swarm to their battle fields. They are landmarks in the world's advancement. For victories in them men sing Te Deums throughout the ages. The heroes, who fell in them, loom through the haze of time like demigods.

On the plains of Tours, when the Moslem tide, that swept on to overwhelm in ruin Christian Europe, was met, and stemmed, and turned by Charles Martel, and, breaking into foam against the iron breasts of his stalwart Franks, was whirled away into the darkness like spray before the tempest, the Hammer-man did a work[Pg 364] that day that, till the end of time, a world will thank Heaven for, as he thanked it in the hour of victory.

And when his greater grandson, creator, guide, and guardian of modern civilization, paced with restless, ever-present steps, around the borders of that small world of light which he had built up, half blindly, in the overwhelming dark, and with two-handed blows beat back, with the iron mace of Germany, the savage assaults of Saracen and Sclave, of black Dane and brutal Wendt, and smote on till he died smiting, for order, and law, and faith, and so saved Europe, and, let us humbly hope, his own rude but true soul alive! are not the thanks of all the world well due, that Karl der Grosse was no non-resistant, but a great, broad-shouldered, royal soldier, who wore the imperial purple by right of a moat imperial sword?

There are wars like these, that, as the world goes, are inevitable. Some wrong undertakes to rule. Some lie challenges sovereignty. Some mere brutality or heathenism faces order, civilization, and law. There is no choice in the matter then. The wrong, the lie, the brutality, the barbarism must go down. If they listen to reason, well. If they can be only preached or lectured into dying peaceably, and getting quietly buried, it is an excellent consummation. If they do not, if they try conclusions, as they are far more apt to do, if they come on with brute force, there is no alternative. They must be met by force. They must get the only persuasion that can influence them—hard knocks, and plenty of them, well delivered, straight at the heart.

Wars so undertaken, under a divine necessity, and with a divine sadness, too, by a patient people, whose business is not brutal fighting, but peaceful working, wars of this sort, in the world's long history, are scarce evils at all, and, even in the day of their wrath, bring compensative blessings. They may be fierce and terrible, they may bring wretchedness and ruin, they may 'demoralize' armies and people, they may be dreadful evils, and leave long trails of desolation, but they are none the less wars for victories in which men will return thanks while the world shall stand. The men who fall in such wars, receive the benedictions of their kind. The people that, with patient pain, stands and fights in them, bleeding drop by drop, and conquering or dying, inch by inch, but never yielding, because it feels the deathless value of the cause, the brave, calm people, who so fight is crowned forever on the earth.

From our paradise of a lamb-like world this nation was awakened, three years ago, by a cannon shot across Charleston harbor. The fools who fired it knew not what they did, perhaps. They thought to open fire on a poor old fort and its handful of a garrison. They did open fire on civilization, on order, on law, on the world's progress, on the hopes of man. There, at last, we were brought face to face with hard facts. Talk, in Congress, or out, was at an end. Voting and balloting, and speech-making were ruled out of order. We had administered the country, so far, by that machinery. It was puffed away at one discharge of glazed powder. The cannon alone could get a hearing. The bullet and the bayonet were the only arguments. No matter how it might end, we were forced to accept the challenge. No matter how utterly we might hate war, we were forced to try the last old persuasive—the naked sword.

I cannot see how any honest and sensible man can now look back and see any other course possible. Could we stand by and see our house beaten into blackened ruin over our heads? Were we to talk 'peace,' and use 'moral suasion' in the mouth of shotted cannon? Were we prepared to see the Constitution and the law, bought by long years of toil and blood, torn[Pg 365] to tatters by the caprice of ambitious madmen? Fighting became a simple duty in an hour! There was no escape. What a pity that so many beautiful peace speeches (Charles Sumner's very eloquent ones among the rest!) should have been proved mere froth and wasted paper rags by one short telegram!

So the great evil came to us, as it has come to all nations, as we believe it must come, from what we now see, to every nation that will be great and strong. The land, for a time, staggered under the blow. Men's souls for an hour were struck dumb, so sudden was it, so unlocked for. As duty became clearer, we awaked at last to the fact that was at our doors. We turned to deal with it, as the best nations always do, cheerfully and hopefully. We have made mistakes and great ones. We have blundered fearfully. That was to have been expected. But we have gone on, nevertheless, steadfastly, patiently. That was also to have been expected. For three years and over, this has been our business. We have indeed carried on some commerce, and some manufactures, and some agriculture, but our main work has been fighting. The rest have been subsidiary to that. And the land groans and pants with this bloody toil. It clothes itself in mourning and darkens its streets, and desolates its homes, and bleeds its life drops slowly in its patient agony. But it never falters. It has accepted the appointed work. It sees no outlook yet, no chance for the bells to ring out peace over the roar of cannon, and it stands at its post bleeding, but wrestling still.

Has there been nothing gained, however? For the terrible outlay is there yet no return? Has the war been evil and only evil so far, even granting that we do not finally succeed, according to our wish? The present writer does not think so. He believes there have been gains already, and great gains, not merely the gains that may be summed in the advance of forces, in territory recovered, in cities taken, in enemies defeated, but gains which, though not visible like these, are no less real and vastly more valuable, gains which add to the nation's moral power, and educate it for the future. He leaves to others the consideration of the material gain, and desires to hint, at least, at this other, which is much more likely to be slighted or perhaps forgotten.

He has said enough to show that he does not like this slaughtering business in any shape. He is sure that the sooner it is ended the better. He has had its bloody consequences brought, in their most fearful form, to his own heart and home, but he has a fixed faith, nevertheless, that any duty, conscientiously undertaken, any duty from which there is no honorable or honest escape, must, if faithfully performed, obtain its meet reward. And believing that this business of war has been undertaken by the mass of the people of these United States in all simplicity of heart and honesty of purpose, as an unavoidable and hard necessity, he also believes they will get their honest wages for the doing it. He believes, too, that the day of recompense is not entirely delayed; that benefits, large and excellent, have already resulted to the nation. He sees already visible uses, which, to some extent at least, should comfort and sustain a people, even under the awful curse and agony of a civil war. He writes to show these uses to others, that they too may take heart and hope, when the days are darkest.

In the first place, this war is, at last, our national independence. To be sure, we read of a war carried on by our fathers to secure that boon. They paid a large price for it, and they got it, and got all nations to acknowledge they deserved it, including the great nation they fought with. It was their political independence only. It secured nothing beyond that. Morally we were not independent. Socially, we were not independent. There was a time, we can[Pg 366] all remember it, when we literally trembled before every cockney that strangled innocent aspirates at their birth. We had not secured our moral independence of Europe, and particularly not of our own kindred and people. We literally crouched at the feet of England, and begged for recognition like a poor, disowned relation. We scarcely knew what was right till England told us. We dare not accept a thing as wise, proper, or becoming till we had heard her verdict. What will England say? How will they think of this across the water? In all emergencies these were the questions thought, at least, if not spoken. We lived in perpetual terror of transatlantic opinion. Some cockney came to visit us. He might be a fool, a puppy, an intolerably bore, an infinite ass. It made no difference. He rode our consciousness like a nightmare. He and his note book dominated free America. 'What does he think of us? What will he say of us?' We actually grovelled before the creature, more than once begging for his good word, his kindly forbearance, his pity for our faults and failures. 'We know we are wicked, for we are republicans, O serene John! We are sinful, for we have no parish beadle. We are no better than the publicans, for we have no workhouse. We are altogether sinners, for we have no lord. It is also a sad truth that there are people among us who have been seen to eat with a knife, and but very few that could say, 'Hold Hingland,' with the true London aspiration. But be merciful notwithstanding. We beg pardon for all our faults. We recognize thy great kindness in coming among such barbarians. We will treat thee kindly as we can, and copy thy manners as closely as we can, and so try to improve ourselves. Do not, therefore, for the present, annihilate us with the indignation of thy outraged virtue. Have a touch of pity for us unfortunate and degenerate Americans!'

That supplication is hardly an exaggeration. It was utterly shameful, the position we took in this matter of deference to English opinion. No people ever more grossly imposed upon themselves. We had an ideal England, which we almost worshipped, whose good opinion we coveted like the praise of a good conscience. We bowed before her word, as the child bows to the rebuke of a mother he reverences. She was Shakspeare's England, Raleigh's England, Sidney's England, the England of heroes and bards and sages, our grand old Mother, who had sat crowned among the nations for a thousand years. We were proud to claim even remote relationship with the Island Queen. We were proud to speak her tongue, to reënact her laws, to read her sages, to sing her songs, to claim her ancient glory as partly our own. England, the stormy cradle of our nation, the sullen mistress of the angry western seas, our hearts went out to her, across the ocean, across the years, across war, across injustice, and went out still in love and reverence. We never dreamed that our ideal England was dead and buried, that the actual England was not the marble goddess of our idolatry, but a poor Brummagem image, coarse lacquer-ware and tawdry paint! We never dreamed that the queenly mother of heroes was nursing 'shopkeepers' now, with only shopkeepers' ethics, 'pawnbrokers' morality'!

At last our eyes are opened. To-day we stand a self-centred nation. We have seen so much of English consistency, of English nobleness, we have so learned to prize English honor and English generosity, that there is not a living American, North or South, who values English opinion, on any point of national right, duty, or manliness, above the idle whistling of the wind. Who considers it of the slightest consequence now what England may think on any matter American? Who has the curiosity to ask after an English opinion?[Pg 367]

This much the war has done for us. We are at last a nation. We have found a conscience of our own. We have been forced to stand on our own national sense of right and wrong. We are independent morally as well as politically, in opinion as well as in government. We shall never turn our eyes again across the sea to ask what any there may say or think of us. We have found that perhaps we do not understand them. We have certainly found that they do not understand us. We have taken the stand which every great people is obliged to take soon or late. We are sufficient for ourselves. Our own national conscience, our own sense of right and duty, our own public sentiment is our guide henceforth. By that we stand or fall. By that, and that only, will we consent that men should judge us. We are a grown-up nation from this time forth. We answer for ourselves to humanity and the future. We decide all causes at our own judgment seat.

And there is another good, perhaps larger than this, which we have won, a good which contains and justifies this moral, national independence: We have been baptized at last into the family of great nations, by that red baptism which, from the first, has been the required initiation into that august brotherhood.

It seems to be the invariable law, of earthly life at least, that humanity can advance only by the road of suffering. It is so with individuals. There is no spiritual growth without pain. Prosperity alone never makes a grand character. Purple and fine linen never clothe the hero. There are powers and gifts in the soul of man that only come to life and action in some day of bitterness. There are wells in the heart, whose crystal waters lie in darkness till some earthquake shakes the man's nature to its centre, bursts the fountain open, and lets the cooling waters out to refresh a parched land. There are seeds of noblest fruits that lie latent in the soul, till some storm of sorrow shakes down tears to moisten, and some burning sun of scorching pain sends heat to warm them into a harvest of blessings.

By trouble met and patiently mastered, by suffering endured and conquered, by trials tested and overcome, so only does a man's soul grow to manliness.

Now a nation is made up of single men. The law holds for the mass as for the individuals. It took a thousand years of toil, and war, and suffering, to make the Europe that we have. It took a thousand years of wrestle for the very life itself, to build Rome before. To be sure, we inherited all that this past of agony had bought the world. For us Rome had lived, fought, toiled, and fallen. For us Celt, Saxon, Norman had wrought and striven. We started with the accumulated capital of a hundred generations. It was perhaps natural to suppose we might escape the hard necessity of our fathers. We might surely profit by their dear-bought experience. The wrecks, strewn along the shores, would be effectual warnings to our gallant vessel on the dangerous seas where they had sailed. In peace, plenty, and prosperity, we might be carried to the highest reach of national greatness.

Nay! never, unless we give the lie to all the world's experience! There never was a great nation yet nursed on pap, and swathed in silk. Storms broke around its rude cradle instead. The tempests rocked the stalwart child. The dragons came to strangle the baby Hercules in his swaddling clothes. The magnificent commerce, the increasing manufactures, the teeming soil, the wealth fast accumulating, they would never have made us, after all, a great people. They would have eaten the manhood out of us at last. We were becoming selfish, self-indulgent, sybaritic rapidly. The nation's muscle was softening, its heart was hardening. If we were to become a great nation, we[Pg 368] needed more than commerce, more than plenty, more than rapid riches, more than a comfortable, indulgent life. If we were to be one of the world's great peoples, a people to dig deep and build strong, a people whose name and fame the world was to accept as a part of itself, we must look to pay the price inflexibly demanded at every people's hand, and count it out in sweat drops, tear drops, blood drops, to the last unit.

We have been patiently counting out this costly currency for three slow years. I pity the moral outlook of the man who does not see that we have received largely of our purchase.

From a nation whom the world believed, and whom itself believed, to be sunk in hopeless mammon worship, we have risen to be a nation that pours out its wealth like water for a noble purpose. Never again will 'the almighty dollar' be called America's divinity. We were sinking fast to low aims and selfish purposes, and wise men groaned at national degeneracy. The summons came, and millions leaped to offer all they had, to fling fortune, limb, and life on the altar of an unselfish cause. The dead manhood of the nation sprang to life at the call. We proved the redness of the old faithful, manly blood, to be as bright as ever.

I know we hear men talk of the demoralization produced by war. There is a great deal they can say eloquently on that side. Drunkenness, licentiousness, lawlessness, they say are produced by it, already to an extent fearful to consider. And scoundrels are using the land's necessities for their own selfish purposes, and fattening on its blood. These things are all true, and a great deal more of the same sort beside. And it may be well at times, with good purpose, to consider them. But it is not well to consider them alone, and speak of them as the only moral results of the war. No! by the ten thousands who have died for the grand idea of National Unity, by the unselfish heroes who have thrown themselves, a living wall, before the parricidal hands of traitors, who have perished that the land they loved beyond life might not perish, by the example and the memory they have left in ten thousand homes, which their death has consecrated for the nation's reverence by their lives and deaths, we protest against the one-sided view that looks only on the moral evil of the struggle!

The truth is, there are war vices and war virtues. There are peace vices and there are peace virtues. Decorous quiet, orderly habits, sober conduct, attention to business, these are the good things demanded by society in peace. And they may consist with meanness, selfishness, cowardice, and utter unmanliness. The round-stomached, prosperous man, with his ships, shops, and factories, is very anxious for the cultivation of these virtues. He does not like to be disturbed o' nights. He wants his street to be quiet and orderly. He wants to be left undisturbed to prosecute his prosperous business. He measures virtue by the aid it offers for that end. Peace vices, the cankers that gnaw a nation's heart, greed, self-seeking luxury, epicurean self-indulgence, hardness to growing ignorance, want, and suffering, indifference to all high purposes, spiritual coma and deadness, these do not disturb him. They are rotting the nation to its marrow, but they do not stand in the way of his money-getting. He never thinks of them as evils at all. To be sure, sometimes, across his torpid brain and heart may echo some harsh expressions, from those stern old Hebrew prophets, about these things. But he has a very comfortable pew, in a very soporific church, and he is only half awake, and the echo dies away and leaves no sign. He is just the man to tell us all about the demoralization of war.

Now quietness and good order, sober, discreet, self-seeking, decorous epicureanism and the rest, are not precise[Pg 369]ly the virtues that will save a people. There are certain old foundation virtues of another kind, which are the only safe substratum for national or personal salvation. These are courage—hard, muscular, manly courage—fortitude, patience, obedience to discipline, self-denial, self-sacrifice, veracity of purpose, and such like. These rough old virtues must lie at the base of all right character. You may add, as ornaments to your edifice, as frieze, cornices, and capitals to the pillars, refinements, and courtesies, and gentleness, and so on. But the foundation must rest on the rude granite blocks we have mentioned, or your gingerbread erection will go down in the first storm.

And the simple fact is that peace has a tendency to eat out just these foundation virtues. They are war virtues; just the things called out by a life-and-death battle for some good cause. In these virtues we claim the land has grown. The national character has deepened and intensified in these. We have strengthened anew these rocky foundations of a nation's greatness. Men lapped in luxury have patiently bowed to toil and weariness. Men living in self-indulgence have shaken off their sloth, and roused the old slumbering fearlessness of their race. Men, living for selfish ends, have been penetrated by the light of a great purpose, and have risen to the loftiness of human duty. Men, who shrank from pain as the sorest evil, have voluntarily accepted pain, and borne it with a fortitude we once believed lost from among mankind; and, over all, the flaming light of a worthy cause that men might worthily live for and worthily die for, has led the thousands of the land out of their narrow lives, and low endeavors, to the clear mountain heights of sacrifice! We stand now, a courageous, patient, steadfast, unselfish people before all the world. We stand, a people that has taken its life in its hand for a purely unselfish cause. We have won our place in the foremost rank of nations, not on our wealth, our numbers, or our prosperity, but on the truer test of our manhood, truth, and steadfastness. We stand justified at the bar of our own conscience, for national pride and self-reliance, as we shall infallibly be justified at the bar of the world.

Is this lifting up of a great people nothing? Is this placing of twenty millions on the clear ground of unselfish duty, as life's motive, nothing? Is there one of us, to-day, who is not prouder of his nation and its character, in the midst of its desperate tug for life, than he ever was in the day of its envied prosperity? And when he considers how the nation has answered to its hard necessity, how it has borne itself in its sore trial, is he not clear of all doubt about its vitality and continuance? And is that, also, nothing?

But besides this education in the stern, rude, heroic virtues that prop a people's life, there has been an education in some others, which, though apparently opposed, are really kindred. Unselfish courage is noble, but always with the highest courage there lives a great pity and tenderness. The brave man is always soft hearted. The most courageous people are the tenderest people. The highest manhood dwells with the highest womanhood.

So the heart of the nation has been touched and softened, while its muscles have been steeled. While it has grasped the sword, it has grasped it weeping in infinite pity. It has recognized the truth of human brotherhood as it never did before. All ranks have been drawn together in mutual sympathy. All barriers, that hedge brethren apart, have been broken down in the common suffering.

News comes, to-day, that a great battle has been fought, and wounded thousands of our brothers need aid and care. You tell the news in any city or hamlet in the land, and hands are opened, purses emptied, stores ransacked for comforts for the suffering,[Pg 370] and gentle women, in hundreds, are ready to tend them as they would their own. Is this no gain? Is it nothing that the selfishness of us all has been broken up as by an earthquake, and that kindness, charity, and pity to the sick and needy have become the law of our lives? Count the millions that have streamed forth from a people whose heart has been touched by a common suffering, in kindness to wounded and sick soldiers and to their needy families! Benevolence has become the atmosphere of the land.

Four years ago we could not have believed it. That the voluntary charity of Americans would count by millions yearly, would flow out in a steady, deep, increasing tide, that giving would be the rule, free, glad giving, and refusing the marked exception, the world would not have believed it, we would not have believed it ourselves. Is this nothing?

We will think more of each other also for all this. We will love and honor each other better. Under the awful pressure of the Hand that lies upon us so heavily, we are brought into closer knowledge and closer sympathy. The blows of battle are welding us into one. Fragments of all people, and all races, cast here by the waves, and strangers to each other, with a hundred repulsions and separations, even to language, religions, and morals, the furnace heat of our trial is fusing all parts into one strong, united whole. We are driven and drawn together by the sore need that is upon us, and as Americans are forgetting all else. The civil war is making us a people—the American People. We are no longer 'the loose sweepings of all lands,' as they called us. We are one, now, brethren all in the sacrament of a great sorrow.

And these goods and gains are permanent. They do not belong to this generation only, or to this time exclusively. After all, the nation is mainly an educator. These things remain, as parts of its moral influence in moulding and training. And here is their infinite value. Independence, courage, patience, fortitude, nobleness, self-sacrifice, and tenderness become the national ethics. These things are pressed home on all growing minds. Coming generations are to be educated in these, by the example of the present. We are stamping these things, as the essentials of the national character, on the ages to come.

A thousand years of prosperity will have no power of this kind. What is there in Chinese history to elevate a Chinaman? What high, heroic experience to educate him, in her long centuries of ignoble peace? The training power of a nation is acquired always in the crises of its history. In the day when it rises to fight for its life, the typal men, who give it the lasting models of its excellence, spring forth too for recognition. The examples of these days of our own crisis will remain forever to influence the children of our people. We may be thankful, in our deepest sorrow, that we are leaving them no example of cowardice or meanness, that we give them a record to read of the courage, endurance, and manliness of the men that begat them, that the stamp of national character we leave to teach them is one of which a brave, free people need never be ashamed, that, in the troubles they may be called to face, we leave them, as the national and tried cure for all troubles, the bold, true heart, the willing hand, the strong arm, and faith in the Lord of Hosts. Shiloh, Stone River, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness, and a hundred others, are the heroic names that will educate our grandchildren, as Bunker Hill, Yorktown, and Saratoga have educated ourselves. Who will say that a heritage of heroism and truth and loyalty like this, to leave to the land we love, is nothing? Who can count the price that will sum its value?[Pg 371]

Here, at least, are some of the gains of our civil war. We seek not to penetrate the councils of the Omniscient, or guess His purposes, though we may humbly hope there are vaster things than these in store for humanity and the world as the results of the struggle. Believing that He governs still, that He reigns on the James, as He reigned on the Jordan, that He decides the end, and not President Lincoln or Jefferson Davis, and not General Grant or General Lee, we have firm faith that this awful struggle is no brute fight of beasts or ruffians, but a grand world's war of heroes. We believe He will justify His government in the end, and make this struggle praise Him, in the blessed days that are to come. But we leave all those dim results unguessed at, as we leave the purposes of the war itself unmentioned, and the ends which justify us in fighting on. Men, by this time, have made up their minds, once for all, on these last points. The nation has chosen, and in its own conscience, let others think as they may, accepts the responsibility cheerfully.

It is enough to indicate, as we have done, some real, though immaterial, results already attained, results which, to the philosopher or thoughtful statesman, are worth a very large outlay. They do not, indeed, remove the horror of war, they do not ask us not to seek peace, they do not dry the tears, or hide the blood of the contest, but they do show us that war is no unmixed evil, that even honest, faithful war-work is acceptable work, and will be paid for.

They declare that, after all, war is a means of moral training, that 'Carnage' may be, as the gentlest of poets wrote, 'God's daughter,' that battles may be blessings to be thankful for in the long march of time. They bring to our consciousness, once more, the fact that a Great Battle, amid all its horror, wrath, and blood, is something sacred still, an earthly shadow of that Unseen Battle which has stormed through time, between the hosts of Light and Darkness. They declare again, to the nation, that old truth, without which the nation perishes and man rots, that to die in some good cause is the noblest thing a man can do on earth. They bid us bend in hope beneath the awful hand of the God of Battles, and do our appointed work patiently, bravely, loyally, till He brings the end. They tell us that not work only, but heroic fighting, also, is a worship accepted at His seat. They bid us be thankful, as for the most sacred of all gifts, that thousands, in this loyal land of ours, have had the high grace, given from above,

PROVERBS.

THE UNDIVINE COMEDY—A POLISH DRAMA.

Dedicated to Mary.

PART II.

Why, O child! art thou not, like other children, riding gayly about on sticks for horses, playing with toys, torturing flies, or impaling butterflies on pins, that the brilliant circles of their dying pangs may amuse thy young soul? Why dost thou never romp and sport upon the grassy turf, pilfer sugarplums and sweetmeats, and wet the letters of thy picture book from A to Z with sudden tears?

Infant king of flies, moths, and grasshoppers; of cowslips, daisies, and of kingcups; of tops, hoops, and kites; little friend of Punch and puppets; robber of birds' nests, and outlaw of petty mischiefs—son of the poet, tell me, why art thou so unlike a child—so like an angel?

What strange meaning lies in the blue depths of thy dreamy eyes? Why do they seek the ground as if weighed down by the shadows of their drooping lashes; and why is their latent fire so gloomed by mournful memories, although they have only watched the early violets of a few springs? Why sinks thy broad head heavily down upon thy tiny hands, while thy pallid temples bend under the weight of thine infant thoughts, like snowdrops burdened with the dew of night?

And when thy pale cheek floods with sudden crimson, and, tossing back thy golden curls, thou gazest sadly into the depths of the sky—tell me, infant, what seest thou there, and with whom holdest thou communion? For then the light and subtile wrinkles weave their living mesh across thy spotless brow, like silken threads untwining by an unseen power from viewless coils, and thine eyes sparkle, freighted with mystic meanings, which none are able to interpret! Then thy grandam calls in vain, 'George, George!' and weeps, for thou heedest her not, and she fears thou dost not love her! Friends and relations then appeal to thee in vain, for thou seemest not to hear or know them! Thy father is silent and looks sad; tears fill his anxious eyes, falling coldly back into his troubled heart.

The physician comes, puts his finger on thy pulse, counts its changeful beats, and says thy nerves are out of order.

Thy old godfather brings thee sugarplums, strokes thy pale cheeks, and tells thee thou must be a statesman in thy native land.

The professor passes his hand over thy broad brow, and declares thou will have talent for the abstract sciences.

The beggar, whom thou never passest without casting a coin in his tattered hat, promises thee a beautiful wife, and a heavenly crown.

The soldier, raising thee high in the air, declares thou wilt yet be a great general.

The wandering gypsy looks into thy tender face, traces the lines upon thy little hand, but will not tell their hidden meaning; she gazes sadly on thee, and then sighing turns away; she says nothing, and refuses to take the proffered coin.

The magnetizer makes his passes over thee, presses his fingers on thine eyes, and circles thy face, but mutters suddenly an oath, for he is himself growing sleepy; he feels like kneeling down before thee, as before a holy image. Then thou growest angry, and stampest with thy tiny feet; and when thy father comes, thou seemest to him[Pg 373] a little Lucifer; and in his picture of the Day of Judgment, he paints thee thus among the infant demons, the young spirits of evil.

Meanwhile thou growest apace, becoming ever more and more beautiful, not in the childish beauty of rose bloom and snow, but in the loveliness of wondrous and mysterious thoughts, which flow to thee from other worlds; and though thy languid eyes droop wearily their fringes, though thy cheek is pale, and thy breast bent and contracted, yet all who meet thee stop to gaze, exclaiming: 'What a little angel!'

If the dying flowers had a living soul inspired from heaven; if, in place of dewdrops, each drooping leaf were bent to earth with the thought of an angel, such flowers would resemble thee, fair child!

George. Hail, Mary, full of grace! Mary, Queen of Heaven, Lady of all that blooms on earth, that scents the fields, that paints the fringes of the streams ...

The Man. Why changest thou the words of the prayer? Pray for thy mother as thou hast been taught to do; for thy dear mother, George, who perished in her youth, just ten years ago this very day and hour.

George. Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee! I know that thou art blessed among the angels, and as thou glidest softly through them, each one plucks a rainbow from his wings to cast under thy feet, and thou floatest softly on upon them as if borne by waves....

George. Be not angry with me, father! these words force themselves into my mind; they pain me so dreadfully in my head, that I must say them....

George. In dreams—yet not exactly in dreams, but just as I am going to sleep. I saw her yesterday.

George. She goes wandering up and down—through an immense Dark—she roams about entirely alone, so white and so pale! She sang to me yesterday. I will tell thee the words of her song:

Thou seest, dear father, that my mother does speak to me, and that I remember, word for word, what she[Pg 374] says to me; indeed I am telling you no lie.

The Man (leaning against one of the pillars of the tomb). Mary! wilt thou destroy thine own son, and burden my Soul with the ruin of both?...

But what folly! She is calm and tranquil now in heaven, as she was pure and sweet on earth. My poor boy only dreams ...

The Man. Can a blessed spirit be mad? Do the last thoughts of the dying pursue them into their eternal homes?

George. Mamma's voice is growing weaker and weaker; it is dying away now close by the wall of the charnel house. Hark! hark! she is still repeating:

The Man. O God! have mercy upon our unfortunate child, whom in Thine anger Thou hast doomed to madness and to an early death! Have pity on the innocent creature Thou hast Thyself called into being! Rob him not of reason! Ruin not the living temple Thou hast built—the shrine of the soul! Oh look down upon my agony, and deliver not this young angel up to hell! Me Thou hast at least armed with strength to endure the dizzying throng of thoughts, passions, longings, yearnings—but him! Thou hast given him a frame fragile as the frailest web of the spider, and every great thought rends and frays it. O Lord! my God! have mercy!

I have not had one tranquil hour for the last ten years. Thou hast placed me among men who may have envied my position, who may have wished me well, or who would have conferred benefits upon me—but I have been alone! alone!

Thou hast sent storms of agony upon me, mingled with wrongs, dreams, hopes, thoughts, aspirations, and yearnings for the infinite! Thy grace shines upon my intellect, but reaches not my heart!

Have mercy, God! Suffer me to love my son in peace, that thus reconciliation may be planted between the created and the Creator!...

Philosophe. I repeat to you, that it is my irresistible conviction that the hour has come for the emancipation of negroes and women.

Philosophe. And as a change so great in the constitution of society, both in general and particular, stands so immediately before us, I deduce from[Pg 375] such a revolution the complete destruction of old forms and formulas, and the regeneration of the whole human family.

Philosophe. Just as our earth, by a sudden change in the inclination of its axis, might rotate more obliquely ...

The Man. Its roots are rapidly rotting out, and yet it still puts forth a few green leaves.

The Man. Nothing—only that it is rotting out in spite of its few green leaves; falling daily into dust and ashes; and that it will not bear the tool of the moulder!

And yet it is your type, the type of your followers, of your theories, of the times in which we live....

The Man. I have labored many years to discover the final results of knowledge, pleasure, thought, passion, and have only succeeded in finding a deep and empty grave in my own heart!

I have indeed learned to know most things by their names—the feelings, for example; but I feel nothing, neither desires, faith, nor love. Two dim forebodings alone stir in the desert of my soul—the one, that my son is hopelessly blind; the other, that the society in which I have grown up is in the pangs of dissolution; I suffer as God enjoys, in myself only, and for myself alone....

Voice of the Guardian Angel. Love the sick, the hungry, the wretched! Love thy neighbor, thy poor neighbor, as thyself, and thou shalt be redeemed!

Mephistophiles. Your humble servant. I often astonish travellers by my marvellous natural gifts: I am a ventriloquist.

Mephistophiles. Forever and ever, amen!—(Muttering as he disappears behind a rock:) Curses on thee, and thy stupidity!

The Man. My poor son! through the sins of thy father and the madness of thy mother, thou art doomed to perpetual darkness—blind! Living only in dreams and visions, thou art never destined to attain maturity! Thou art but the shadow of a passing angel, flitting rapidly over the earth, and melting into the infinite of ...

Ha! what an immense eagle that is fluttering just there where the stranger disappeared behind the rocks!

The Man. He is as black as night; he flies nearer; the whirring of his vast wings stirs me like the whistling hail of bullets in the fight.

The Eagle. Draw the sword of thy fathers, and combat for their power, their fame!

The Man. His wide wings spread above me; he gazes into my eyes with the charm of the rattlesnake—Ha! I understand thee!

The Eagle. Despair not! Yield not now, nor ever! Thy enemies, thy miserable enemies, will fall to dust before thee![Pg 376]

The Man. Going?... Farewell, then, among the rocks, behind which thou vanishest!... Whatever thou mayst be, delusion or truth, victory or ruin, I trust in thee, herald of fame, harbinger of glory!

Spirit of the mighty Past, come to my aid! and even if thou hast already returned to the bosom of God, quit it—and come to me! Inspire me with the ancient heroism! Become in me, force, thought, action!

Curses upon thee, loathsome reptile! Even as thou diest, crushed and writhing, and nature breathes no sigh for thy fate, so will the destroyers of the Past perish in the abyss of nothingness, leaving no trace, and awakening no regret.

None of the countless clouds of heaven will pause one moment in their flight to look upon the thronging hosts of men now gathering to kill and slaughter!

Boundless vault of blue, so softly pouring round the earth! the earth is a sick child, gnashing her teeth, weeping, struggling, sobbing; but thou hearest her not, nor tremblest, flowing in silence ever gently on, calm in thine own infinity!

Farewell forever, O mother nature! Henceforth I must wander among men! I must combat with my brethren!

The Man. No one has as yet been of the least service to him; my last hopes are placed in you.

George. I can neither see you, my father, nor the gentleman to whom you speak. Dark or black webs float before my eyes, and again something like a snake seems to crawl across them. Sometimes a golden cloud stands before them, flies up, and then falls down upon them, and a rainbow springs out of it; but there is no pain—they never hurt me—I do not suffer, father.

Physician. The eyelids are beautifully formed, the white perfectly pure, the blue deep, the veins in good order, the muscles strong.

There is no hope. Look at the pupils yourself, count; there is not the least susceptibility to the light; there is a paralysis of the optic nerve.

Physician. His mind is precocious; it is rapidly consuming his body. We must guard him against an attack of catalepsy.

The Man (leading the doctor aside). Save him, doctor, and the half of my estate is yours!

Pardon me, count, but I can remain[Pg 377] here no longer; I am forced now to visit a patient whom I am to couch for cataract.

The Man (pressing his son to his heart). But you can still see a little, George?

The Man. Try if you can see. Look out of the window; the sun is shining brightly, the sky is clear.

George. I see crowds of forms circling between the pupils of my eyes and my eyelids—faces I have often seen before, the leaves of books I have read before....

George. Yes, with the eyes of my spirit—but the eyes of my body have gone out forever.

The Man (falls on his knees as if to pray; pauses, and exclaims bitterly:) Before whom shall I kneel—to whom pray—to whom complain of the unjust doom crushing my innocent child?

It is best to bear all in silence—God laughs at our prayers—Satan mocks at our curses—

Godfather. His frame was always very fragile, and his mother died somewhat—so—so ...

The Man (entering). I pray you, pardon my intrusion at so late an hour, but for the last night or two my son has wakened up at twelve o'clock, left his bed, and talked in his sleep.

Physician. I will go to him immediately; I am very much interested in the observation of such phenomena.

Third Relation. His eyelids are motionless; he does not move his lips, but what a sharp and thrilling shriek!

George. Depart from me, Darkness! I am a child of light and song, and what hast thou to do with me? What dost thou desire from me?

I do not yield myself to thee, although my sight has flown away upon the wings of the wind, and is flitting restlessly about through infinite space:[Pg 378] it will return to me—my eyes will open with a flash of flame—and I will see the universe!

Godfather. He talks exactly as his mother did; he does not know what he is saying, I think his condition very critical.

George. My mother, I entreat thee! O mother, send me thoughts and images, that I may create within myself a world like the one I have lost forever!

First Relation. Do you think, brother, it will be necessary to call a family consultation?

Physician. Your son is suffering from incipient insanity, connected with an extraordinary excitability of the nervous system, which sometimes occasions, if I may so express myself, the strange phenomenon of sleeping and waking at the same time, as in the case now before us.

They should rather speak of a long, unbroken, eternal night, but of no good one, of no happy dawn for me....

The Man. Cover yourself up, and go quietly to sleep. The doctor says you will regain your sight.

George. I feel so very unwell, father; strange voices roused me from my sleep, and I saw mamma standing in a field of lilies....

I can give thee nothing but a blessing; neither happiness, nor light, nor fame are in my gift. The stormy hour of struggle approaches, when I must combat with the few against the many.

Tortured infant! what is then to become of thee, alone, helpless, blind, surrounded by a thousand dangers? Child, yet Poet, poor Singer without a hearer, with thy soul in heaven, and thy frail, suffering body still fettered to the earth—what is to be thy doom? Alas, miserable infant! thou most unfortunate of all the angels! my son! my son!

Nurse (knocking at the door). The doctor desires to see his excellency as soon as convenient.

THE NORTH CAROLINA CONSCRIPT.

Ballads of the War.

DOES THE MOON REVOLVE ON ITS AXIS?

As this question has elicited considerable discussion, at various times, the following may be considered in elucidation.

A revolution on an axis is simply that of a body turning entirely round upon its own centre. The only centre around which the moon performs a revolution is very far from its own proper axis, being situated at the centre of the earth, the focus of its orbit, and as it has no other rotating motion around the earth, it cannot revolve on its own central axis.

A body fixed in position, or pierced and held by a rod, cannot revolve upon its centre, and when swung round by this rod or handle, performs only a revolution in orbit, as does the moon. The moon, during the process of forming a solid crust, by the constant attraction of the earth upon one side, only, became elongated, by calculation, about thirty miles (from its centre as a round body) toward the earth; consequently, by its form, like the body pierced with a rod, is transfixed by its gravitation, and, therefore, cannot revolve upon its own central axis.

The difference of axial revolution of a wheel or globe, is simply that the former turns upon an actual and the latter upon an imaginary axle, placed at its centre, Now, by way of analogy, fasten, immovably, a ball upon the rim of a revolving wheel, and then judge whether the ball can perform one simultaneous revolution on its own axis, in the same time that it performs a revolution in orbit, made by one complete turn of the wheel; and if not (which is assuredly the case, for it is fixed immovably), then neither can the moon perform such revolution on its axis, in the same time that it makes one revolution in orbit; because, like the ball immovably fixed upon the rim of the wheel, it, too, is transfixed by gravitation, from its very form, as if pierced with a rod, whose other extremity is attached to the centre of the earth, its only proper focus of motion, and, therefore, cannot revolve upon its own central axis.

A balloon elongated on one side, and carrying ballast on that side, would be like the moon in form, and when suspended in air, like the moon, too, in having its heaviest matter always toward the centre of the earth. Now let this balloon go entirely round the earth: it will, like the moon, continue to present the weightiest, elongated side always toward the centre of the earth; it, consequently, like the moon, cannot revolve upon its own central axis, as gravitation alone would prevent this anomaly, in both cases.

As well might it be said that a horse, harnessed to a beam, and going round a ring, or an imprisoned stone swung round in a sling, make each one simultaneous revolution on their axes, when their very positions are a sufficient refutation! or that the balls in an orrery, attached immovably to the ends of their respective rods, and turning with them (merely to show revolutions in orbits), perform each a simultaneous revolution on their axis, when such claim would be simply ridiculous, since the only revolution, in each case, has its focus outside of the ball, therefore orbital only; and so, too, with the moon, whose motion is precisely analogous, and prejudice alone can retain such an unphilosophical hypothesis as its axial revolution.[Pg 381]

LUNAR CHARACTERISTICS.

The moon, in consequence of its orbital revolution, having no connecting axial motion, has always presented but one side to the earth, so that in process of forming a crust, from its incipient molten state, it became, by the constant attraction of the earth upon one side, elongated toward our globe, now generally admitted to be by calculation about thirty miles, and proved by photographs, which also show an elongation. The necessary consequence of this constant attraction upon one side, has been not only to intensify volcanic action there, by the continued effect of gravitation, so long as its interior remained in a molten state, but from the same reasoning, to confine all such volcanic action exclusively to this side of the moon. Thus we have the reason for the violently disrupted state which that luminary presents to the telescopic observer, exceeding any analogy to be found upon our globe, as the earth's axial motion has prevented any similar concentrated action upon any particular part of its surface, either from solar or lunar attraction. Another marked effect of the elongation of the moon toward the earth has been to elevate its visible side high above its atmosphere (which would have enveloped it as a round body), and in consequence into an intensely cold region, producing congelation, in the form of frost and snow, which necessarily envelop its entire visible surface. These effects took place while yet the crust was thin and frequently disrupted by volcanic action, and wherever such action took place, the fiery matter ejected necessarily dissolved the contiguous masses of frost and snow, and these floods of water, as soon as they receded from the fiery element, were immediately converted into lengthened ridges of ice, diverging from the mountain summits like streams of lava. Hence many of the apparent lava streams are but ridges of ice, and in consequence, depending upon the angle of reflection (determined by the age of the moon, which is but its relative position between the sun and earth), all observers are struck with the brilliancy of the reflected light from many of those long lines of ridges.

The general surface of the moon presents to the telescopic observer just that drear, cold, and chalk-like aspect, which our snow-clad mountains exhibit when the angle of reflection is similar to that in which we behold the lunar surface. In consequence, its mild light is due to the myriads of sparkling crystals, which diffusively reflect the rays of the sun.

As an attentive observer of the moon, I have been much puzzled to know why none of the hosts of observers, or scientific treatises, have taken this rational view of such necessary condition of the moon, deduced from the main facts of its original formation, here named and generally conceded. In the place of which, we still have stereotyped, in many late editions on astronomy, the names and localities of numerous seas and lakes, which advancing knowledge should long since have discarded.

Besides the above conclusions, which necessitate a snowy covering to the moon, none of the planets exhibit that drear white, except the poles of Mars, which are admitted to be snow by all astronomers, as we see them come and go with the appropriate seasons of that planet; whereas the continents of Mars appear dark, as analogously they do upon our earth, under the same solar effulgence. The analogy of sunlight, when reflected from our lofty mountains (at say thirty or forty miles distant) not covered with snow, viewed[Pg 382] under the most favorable circumstances of brilliant light and the best angle of reflection, with no more of intervening atmosphere, always present sombre tints; whether viewed with the unaided eye or through a telescope. Such analogy clearly proves that no objects short of an absolute white could present such an appearance as light does upon lunar objects, viewed with high powers, in which the same drear white remains, without any greater concentration of light (as we can see objects in the moon whose diameter is five hundred feet) than is presented to our unaided eye from our own mountain masses. In viewing the moon with high powers, there is, in fact, a much greater amount of visible atmosphere intervening than can possibly apply in beholding objects on our earth, at even a few miles' distance, since if we look at lunar objects with a power of one thousand times, our atmosphere is thus magnified a thousand times also.

The main physical features of the visible half of the moon, with a good telescopic power, present an enormously elevated table land, traversed, here and there, with slightly elevated long ridges, and the general surface largely pitted with almost innumerable deep cusps or valleys, of every size, from a quarter of a mile to full thirty miles in diameter; generally circular and surrounded with elevated ridges, some rising to lofty jagged summits above the surrounding plain. These ridges, on their inner sides, show separate terraces and mural precipices, while their outer slopes display deeply scarred ravines and long spurs at their bases. These cusps, or deep valleys, are the craters of extinct volcanoes, and in their centres have generally one or two isolated sub-mountain peaks, occasionally with divided summits, which were the centres of expiring volcanic action, similar to those that exist in our own volcanic regions. Besides which the Lunar Apennines, so called, present to the eye a long range of mountains with serrated summits, on one side gradually sloped, with terraces, spurs, and ravines, and the other side mostly precipitous, casting long shadows, which clearly define the forms of their summits—all these objects presenting the same dead white everywhere.

Doubtless the farther side of the moon, which has not been subject to the same elongating or elevating process, nor the above-named causes for volcanic disruption, presents a climate and vegetation fitted for the abode of sentient beings. This side alone presenting an aspect of extreme desolation, far surpassing our polar regions.

It is generally stated in astronomical works, that shadows projected from lunar objects are intensely black, owing, it is stated, to there being no reflecting atmosphere; whereas in my long-continued habit of observation, those shadows appear no more black than those on our earth, when they fall on contrasting snowy surfaces. The reason for which, in the absence of a lunar atmosphere, to render light diffusive, is the brilliant reflection from snow crystals, upon all contiguous objects, which lie in an angle to receive the same, and in consequence I have often observed the forms of objects not directly illuminated by the sun.

The occasional apparent retention of a star on the limb of the moon, just before or after an occultation, seen by some observers, and thus evidencing the existence of some atmosphere, is doubtless due to the slight oscillations of the moon, by which we see a trifle more than half of that body, during which the atmosphere of its opposite side slightly impinges upon this.[Pg 383]

A GLANCE AT PRUSSIAN POLITICS.

PART II.

We come now to the beginning of the present stage in the development of constitutional government in Prussia. It will have been noticed that the promises of Frederick William III. were not that he would grant a strictly popular constitution. His intention was that the different estates of the realm should be represented in the proposed national diet, the constitution recognizing a difference in the dignity of the different classes of inhabitants, and giving to each a share in the national government proportionate to its dignity. His son, at his coronation, promised to maintain the efficiency of the ordinances of June 5, 1823, and to secure a further development of the principles of this (so-called) constitution. Encouraged by this assurance, the Liberals labored to secure from him the full realization of their hopes. Frederick William IV. was just the man with whom such exertions could be used with good hope of success. He was intelligent enough to be fully conscious of the fact and the significance of the popular request for a constitution, and, though of course personally disinclined to reduce his power to a nullity, he had yet not a strong will, and had no wish to involve himself in a conflict with his subjects. Accordingly, in 1841, he convoked a diet in each province, and proposed the appointment of committees from the estates, who should act as counsel to the king when the provincial diets were not in session. These diets in subsequent sessions discussed the subject of a national diet, and proposed to the king the execution of the order issued in 1815. At length, February 8, 1847, he issued a royal charter, introducing, in fact, what had so often and so long before been promised, a constitution. The substance of the charter was that, as often as the Government should need to contract a loan, or introduce new taxes, or increase existing taxes, the diets of the provinces should be convoked to a national diet; that the committees of the provincial diets (as appointed in 1842) should be henceforth periodically, as one body, convoked; that to the diet, and, when it was not in session, to the committee, should be conveyed the right to have a deciding voice in the above-mentioned cases. April 11, 1847, the diet assembled for the first time; January 17, 1848, the united committee of the estates.

How long the nation would have remained contented with this concession to the request for a national representation under ordinary circumstances, is quite uncertain. In point of fact, this constitution hardly lived long enough to be christened with the name. Early in 1848 the French Revolution startled all Europe—most of all, the monarchs. They knew how inflammable the masses were; they soon saw that the masses were inflamed, and that nothing but the most vigorous measures would secure their thrones from overthrow. Frederick William Was not slow to see the danger, and take steps to guard Prussia against an imitation of the Parisian insurrection. On the 14th of March he issued an order summoning the diet to meet at Berlin on the 27th of April. Four days later he issued another edict ordering the diet to convene still earlier, on the 2d of April. This proclamation is a characteristic document. It was issued on the day of the Berlin revolution. It was an hour of the most critical moment. There was no time for long deliberation, and little hope for[Pg 384] the preservation of royalty, unless something decided was done at once. He might have tried the experiment of violently resisting the insurgents; but this was not in accordance with his character. He preferred rather to resign something than to run the risk of losing all. Accordingly he yielded. In this proclamation, after alluding to the occasion of it, he publishes his earnest desire for the union of Germany against the common danger. 'First of all,' he says, 'we desire that Germany be transformed from a confederation of states (Staatenbund) to one federal state (Bundesstaat).' He proposes a reorganization of the articles of union in which other representatives besides the princes should take part; a common army; freedom of trade; freedom of emigration from one state to another; common weights, measures, and coins; freedom of the press—in short, all that the most enthusiastic advocate of German unity could have asked. At the same time was published a law repealing the censorship of the press. On the 21st of the same month he put forth an address, entitled 'To my people and to the German nation.' In this, after saying that there was no security against the threatening dangers except in the closest union of the German princes and peoples, under one head, he adds: 'I assume to-day this leadership for this time of danger. My people, undismayed by the danger, will not abandon me, and Germany will confidingly attach itself to me. I have to-day adopted the old German colors, and put myself and my people under the venerable banner of the German Empire. Henceforth Prussia passes over into Germany.' But all this was more easily said than done. Whatever the German people may have wished, the other German rulers could not so easily overcome their jealousies. The extreme of the danger passed by, and with it this urgent demand for a united Germany.

But the diet came together. The king laid before it the outline of a constitution, the most important provisions of which were that there should be guaranteed to all the right to hold meetings without first securing consent from the police; civil rights to all, irrespective of religious belief; a national parliament, whose assent should be essential to the making of all laws. These propositions were approved by the diet, which now advised the king to call together a national assembly of delegates, elected by the people, to agree with him upon a constitution. This was done; the assembly met on the 22d of May, and was opened by the king in person. He laid before the delegates the draught of a constitution, which they referred to a committee, by whom it was elaborated, and on the 26th of July reported to the assembly. The deliberation which followed had, by the 9th of November, resulted only in fixing the preamble and the first four articles. At this time an order came to the assembly from the king, requiring the members to adjourn to the 27th, and then come together, not at Berlin, but Brandenburg. The reason of this was that the assembly manifested too much of an inclination to infringe on the royal prerogatives, and that its place of meeting was surrounded by people who sought by threats, and, in some cases, by violence, to intimidate the members. The king was now the less inclined to be, or seem to be, controlled by such terrorism, as the fury of the revolutionary storm was now spent; the militia had been summoned to arms; and had not hesitated to obey the call. The troops, under the lead of Field-Marshal Wrangel, were collected about Berlin. The majority of the National Assembly, which had refused to obey the royal order to adjourn to Brandenburg, and was proceeding independently in the prosecution of its deliberations respecting the constitution, was compelled, by military force, to dissolve. Part of them then went to Brandenburg, and,[Pg 385] not succeeding in carrying a motion to adjourn till December 4, went out in a body, leaving the assembly without a quorum. The king now thought himself justified in concluding that nothing was to be hoped from the labors of this body, and therefore, on the 5th of December, dissolved it.

Some kings, under these circumstances, might have been inclined to have nothing more to do with constitution making. If we mistake not, the present king, with his present spirit, would have thought it right to make the turbulent character of the convention and of the masses a pretext for withholding from them the power to stamp their character on the national institutions. Such a course might probably have been pursued. The king had control of the army. The excesses of the Liberals began to produce a reaction. The National Assembly, during its session in Berlin, after it had been adjourned by the king, had resolved that the royal ministry had no right to impose taxes so long as the assembly was unable peaceably to pursue its deliberations, and designed, by giving this resolution the form of a law, to lead the people in this manner to break loose from the Government. This attempt to usurp authority was doomed to be disappointed. The assembly, having overstepped its prerogatives, lost its influence. The king found himself again in possession of the reins of power. It rested with him to punish the temerity of the people by tightening the reins, or on his own authority, without the coöperation of any assembly, to give the nation a constitution. To take the former course he had not the courage, even if he had wished to do so; besides, he doubtless saw clearly enough that, though such a policy might succeed for a time, it would ultimately lead to another outbreak. He had, too, no great confidence in his power to win toward his person the popular favor. With all his talents and amiable traits, he had not the princely faculty of knowing how to inspire the people with a sense of his excellences, and was conscious of this defect. He chose not unnecessarily to increase an estrangement which had already been to him a source of such deep mortification. He therefore issued, on the 5th of December, immediately after dissolving the National Assembly, a constitution substantially the same as that which still exists, with the statement prefixed that it should not go into operation until after being revised. This revision was to be made at the first session of the two chambers, to be elected in accordance with an election law issued on the next day.

The two chambers met February 26, 1849. After a session of two months, during which the lower chamber showed a disposition to modify the constitution more than was agreeable to the king, the upper chamber was ordered to adjourn, the lower was dissolved, and a new election ordered. The new Parliament met August 7. The revision was completed on the last of January, 1850. On the 6th of February, the king, in the presence of his ministers and of both chambers, swore to observe the constitution. Before doing so, he made an address, in which he explained his position, alluding in a regretful strain to the scenes of violence in the midst of which the constitution had been drawn up, expressing his gratitude to the chambers for their assistance in perfecting the hastily executed work, calling upon them to stand by him in opposition to all who might be disposed to make the liberty granted by the king a screen for hiding their wicked designs against the king, and declaring: 'In Prussia, the king must rule; and I do not rule because it is a pleasure, God knows, but because it is God's ordinance; therefore, I will reign. A free people under a free king—that was my watchword ten years ago; it is the same to-day, and shall be the same as long as I live.' The ministers and the members of the two[Pg 386] chambers, after the king had sworn to support the constitution, took the same oath, and in addition one of loyalty to the king. The new government was inaugurated. Prussia had become a limited monarchy.

It is at this point appropriate to take a general view of the Prussian constitution itself. It has been variously amended since 1850, but not changed in any essential features; without dwelling on these amendments, therefore, we consider it as it now stands.

As to the king: he is, as such, wholly irresponsible. He cannot be called to account for any act which he does in his capacity as monarch. But his ministers may be impeached. They have to assume and bear the responsibility of all royal acts. None of these acts are valid unless signed by one or more of the ministers. To the king is intrusted all executive power; the command of the army; the unconditioned right of appointing and dismissing his ministers, of declaring war and concluding peace, of conferring honors and titles, of convoking the national diet, closing its sessions, proroguing and dissolving it. He must, however, annually call the Houses together between November 1 and the middle of January, and cannot adjourn them for a longer period than thirty days, nor more than once during a session, except with their own consent. Without the assent of the diet he cannot make treaties with foreign countries nor rule over foreign territory. He has no independent legislative power, except so far as this is implied in his right to provide for the execution of the laws, and, when the diet is not in session, in case the preservation of the public safety or any uncommon exigency urgently demands immediate action. All such acts, however, must, at the next session of the Houses, be laid before them for approval.

The ministry consists of nine members, under the presidency of the minister of foreign affairs; besides him are the ministers of finance, of war, of justice, of worship (religious, educational, and medicinal affairs), of the interior (police and statistical affairs), of trade and public works (post office, railroad affairs, etc.), of agricultural affairs, and of the royal house (matters relating to the private property of the royal family). The supervision exercised by the ministry over the various interests of the land is much more immediate and general than that of the President's cabinet in the United States. Now, however, their authority in these matters is of course conditioned by the constitution and the laws. The ministers are allowed to enter either House at pleasure, and must always be heard when they wish to speak. On the other hand, either House can demand the presence of the ministers.

The legislative power is vested in the king and the two Houses of Parliament. The consent of all is necessary to the passing of every law. These Houses (at first called First and Second Chambers, now House of Lords and House of Delegates—Herrenhaus and Abgeordnetenhaus) must both be convoked or prorogued at the same time. In general a law may be first proposed by the king or by either of the Houses. But financial laws must first be discussed by the House of Delegates; and the budget, as it comes from the lower to the upper House, cannot be amended by the latter, but must be adopted or rejected as a whole.

The House of Lords is made up of various classes of persons, all originally designated by the king, though in the case of some the office is hereditary. They represent the nobility, the cities, the wealth, and the learning of the land. Each of the five universities furnishes a member. The king has the right to honor any one at pleasure, as a reward for distinguished services, with a seat in this body. Of course, as the members hold office for life, and hold their[Pg 387] office by the royal favor, it may generally be expected to be a tolerably conservative body, and to vote in accordance with the wishes of the king.

The House of Delegates consists of three hundred and fifty-two members, elected by the people, but not directly. They are chosen, like our Presidents, by electors, who are directly chosen by the people. Two hundred and fifty inhabitants are entitled to one elector. Every man from the age of twenty-five is allowed to vote unless prohibited for specific reasons. But strict equality in the right of suffrage is not granted. The voters of each district are divided into three classes, the first of which is made up of so many of the largest taxpayers as together pay a third of the taxes; the second, of so many of the next richest as pay another third; the last class, of the remainder. Each of these divisions votes separately, and each elects a third part of the electors. The House of Delegates is chosen once in three years, unless in the mean time the king dissolves it, in which case a new election must take place at once.

As to the rights of Prussians in general, the constitution provides that all in the eye of the law are equal. The old distinctions of classes still exists: there are still nobles, with the titles prince, count, and baron; but the special privileges which they formerly enjoyed are not secured to them by the constitution. The king can honor any one with the rank of nobility; but the name is the most that can be conferred. In most cases the right of primogeniture does not prevail, so that the aristocracy of Prussia is of much less consequence than that of England. The poverty which so often results from the division of the estates of nobles has led to the establishment of numerous so-called Fräuleinstifter—charitable foundations for such a support of poor female members of noble families as becomes their rank. Many of these institutions were formerly nunneries. It is further provided by the constitution that public offices shall be open to all; that personal freedom and the inviolability of private property and dwellings shall be secured; that all shall enjoy the right of petition, perfect freedom of speech, the liberty of forming organizations for the accomplishment of any legal object; that a censorship of the press can in no case be exercised, and that no limitation of the freedom of the press can be introduced except by due process of law; that civil and political rights shall not be affected by religious belief, and that the right of filling ecclesiastical offices shall not belong to the state. Only 'in case of war or insurrection, and of consequent imminent danger,' has the Government a right to infringe on the above specified immunities of the citizens and the press.

The foregoing is all that need be given in order to convey a general idea of what the Prussian constitution is. It is in its provisions so specific and clear, that one would hardly expect that disputes respecting its meaning could have reached the height of bitterness which has characterized discussions of its most fundamental principles. The explanation of this fact is to be sought in the mode of the introduction of the constitution itself. The English constitution has been the growth of centuries; the Prussian, of a day. The latter, moreover, was not, like ours, the fundamental law of a new nation, but a constitution designed to introduce a radical change in the form of a government which, during many centuries, had been acquiring a fixed character. It undertook to remodel at one stroke the whole political system. Not indeed as though there had been no sort of preparation for this change. The general advance in national culture, the general anticipation of the change, as well as the actual approaches toward it in the administrative measures of Frederick the Great and Frederick William III., paved the way for the introduction of a popular element[Pg 388] in the Government. Nevertheless, the actual, formal introduction itself was sudden. The constitution was not, in the specific form which it took, the result of experience and experiment. And, as all history shows, attempts to fix or reconstruct social systems on merely theoretical principles are liable to fail, because they cannot foresee and provide for all the contingencies which may interfere with the application of the theories. Moreover, in the case of Prussia, as not in that of the United States, the constitution was not made by the people for themselves, but given to them by a power standing over against them. There was, therefore, not only a possibility, as in any case there might be, that the instrument could be variously interpreted on account of the different modes of thinking and difference of personal interests, which always affect men's opinions; but there was here almost a certainty that this would be the case on account of the gulf of separation which, in spite of all the bridges which often are built over it, divides a monarch, especially an absolute, hereditary monarch, from his subjects. In the case before us, it is certain that the king conceded more than he wished to concede, and that the people received less than they wished to receive. That they should agree in their understanding of the constitution is therefore not at all to be expected. The most that the well wishers of the land could have hoped was that the misunderstandings would not be radical, and that in the way of practical experience the defects of the constitution might be detected and remedied, and the mutual relations of the rulers and the ruled become mutually understood and peacefully acquiesced in.

What the Prussian Conservatives so often insist on, viz., that a constitutional government should have been gradually developed, not suddenly substituted for a form of government radically different, is therefore by no means without truth. Whether we are to conclude that the fault has been in the process not beginning sooner, or merely in its being too rapid, is perhaps a question in which we and they might disagree. On the supposition that the present state of intelligence furnishes a sufficient basis for a constitutional government, it would seem as though the last fifty years has been a period long enough in which to put it into successful operation. All that the present generation know of politics has certainly been learned within that time: if the mere practical exercise of political rights is all that is needed in order to develop the new system, there might at least an excellent beginning have been made long before 1850. When we consider, therefore, that the Government, after taking the initiatory steps in promoting this development, stopped short, and rather showed a disposition to discourage it entirely, these clamors of the Conservatives must seem somewhat out of taste. To Americans especially, who can accommodate themselves to changes, even though they may be somewhat sudden, such pleas for more time and a more gradual process may appear affected, if not puerile. It must be remembered, however, that to a genuine German nothing is more precious than a process of development. Whatever is not the result of a due course of Entwickelung, is a suspicious object. Anything which seems to break abruptly in upon the prescribed course is abnormal. Whatever is produced before the embryonic process is complete is necessarily a monster, from which nothing good can be hoped. The same idea is often advanced by the Conservatives in another form. The Liberals, they say, are trying to break loose from history. A prominent professor, in an address before an assembly of clergymen in Berlin, defined the principle of democracy to be this: 'The majority is subject to no law but its own will; it is therefore limited by no historically acquired rights; his[Pg 389]tory has no rights over against the sovereign will of the present generation.' By historically acquired rights is meant in particular the right of William I. to rule independently because his predecessors did so. By what right the great elector robbed the nobles of their prerogatives, and how, in case he did wrong in thus disregarding their 'historically acquired rights,' this wrong itself, by being continued two hundred years, becomes, in its turn, an acquired right, is not explained in the address to which we allude. The principal fault to be found with such reasoning as this of the Prussian Conservatives, is that it is altogether too vague and abstract. There can be no development without something new; there can be, in social affairs, nothing new without some sort of innovation. Innovation, as such, can therefore not be condemned without condemning development. Moreover, development, as the organic growth of a political body, is something which takes care of itself, or rather is cared for by a higher wisdom than man's. To object to a proposed measure nothing more weighty than that it will not tend to develop the national history, has little meaning, and should have no force. The only question in such a case which men have to consider is whether the change is justified by the fundamental principles of right, be it that those principles have hitherto been observed or not.

What makes the arguments of the Conservatives all the more impertinent, however, is the fact that the question is no longer whether the constitution ought to be introduced, but whether, being introduced, it shall be observed. This is for the stiff royalists not so pleasant a question. Prussia is a constitutional monarchy; the king has taken an oath to rule in accordance with the constitution. It may be, undoubtedly is, true that none of the kings have wished the existence of just such a limit to their power; but shall they therefore try to evade the obligation which they have assumed? The Conservatives dare not say that the constitution ought to be violated, for that would look too much like the abandonment of their fundamental principle; they also hardly venture to say that they would prefer to have the king again strictly absolute, for that would look like favoring regression more than conservatism. Yet many have the conviction that an absolute monarchy would be preferable to the present, while the arguments of all have little force except as they tend to the same conclusion. The point of controversy between them and their opponents is often represented as being essentially this: Shall the king of Prussia be made as powerless as the queen of England? Against such a degradation of the dignity of the house of Hohenzollern all the convictions and prejudices of the royalists revolt. Such a surrender of all personal power, they say, and say truly, was not designed by Frederick William IV. when he gave the constitution; to ask the king, therefore, in all his measures to be determined by the House of Delegates, is an unconstitutional demand. It is specially provided that the king shall appoint and dismiss his own ministers; to ask him, therefore, to remove them simply because they are unacceptable to the House of Delegates, is to interfere with the royal prerogatives. The command of the army and the declaration of war belong only to the king; to binder him, therefore, in his efforts to maintain the efficiency of the army, or in his purposes to wage war or abstain from it, is an overstepping of the limits prescribed to the people's representatives.

We have here hinted at the principal elements in the controversy between the opposing political parties of Prussia. It is not our object to enter into the details of the various strifes which have agitated the land during the last sis years, but only to sketch their general character. The query naturally[Pg 390] arises, when one takes a view of the whole period, which has elapsed since the constitution was introduced, why the contest did not begin sooner. The explanation is to be found in the fact that until the present king began to rule, the Liberals in general did not vote at the elections. It will be remembered that the previous king absolutely refused to deal with the assembly which met early in 1849 to consider the constitution, and ordered a new election. At this election the Liberals saw that, if they reflected the old members, another dissolution would follow, and they therefore mostly staid away from the polls. Afterward, when the constitution had been formally adopted, the Government showed a determination to put down all liberal movements; consequently the Liberals made no special attempts to move. The Parliament was conservative, and so there was no occasion for strife between it and the king. Not till William I. became regent in place of his incapacitated brother, in 1859, did the struggle begin. The policy of the previous prime minister Manteuffel had produced general discontent. The people were ready to move, if an occasion was offered. It is therefore not to be wondered at that, when the new sovereign announced his purpose to pursue a more liberal course than his brother, the Liberal party raised its head, and sought to make itself felt. The new ministry was liberal, and for a while it seemed as though a new order of things had begun. But this was of short duration. The House of Delegates, consisting in great part of Liberals (or, to speak more strictly, of Fortschrittsmänner—Progress men—Liberal being the designation of a third party holding a middle course between the two extremes, a party, however, naturally tending to resolve itself into the others, and now nearly extinct) urged the Government to adopt its radical measures. The king began to fear that, if he yielded to all the wishes of the House, he would lose his proper dignity and authority. He therefore began to pursue a different policy: the more urgently the delegates insisted on liberal measures, the less inclined was the king to regard their wishes. He had wished himself to take the lead in inaugurating the new era; as soon as others, more ambitious, went ahead of him, he took the lead again, by turning around and pulling in the opposite direction. The principal topics on which the difference was most decided were the ecclesiastical and the financial relations of the Government. Although the constitution provides for the perfect freedom of the church from the state, the union still existed, and indeed still exists. The House of Delegates attempted to induce the Government to carry out this provision of the constitution. There is no doubt that the motive of many of these attempts to divide church and state is a positive hostility to Christianity. The partial success which has followed them, viz., the securing of charter rights for other religious denominations than the Evangelical Church (i.e., the Union Church, consisting of what were formerly Lutheran and Reformed churches, but in 1817 united, and forming now together the established church), has given some prominence to the so-called Freiegemeinden, organizations of freethinkers, who, though so destitute of positive religious belief that in one case, when an attempt was made to adopt a creed, an insuperable obstacle was met in discussing the first article, viz., on the existence of God, yet meet periodically and call themselves religious congregations. There are, moreover, many others, regular members of the established church, who have no interest in religious matters, and would for that reason like to be freed from the fetters which now hold them. There are, however, many among the best and most discreet Christians who, for the good of the church, wish to see it weaned from the breast of the state. But the great[Pg 391] majority of the clergy, especially of the consistories (the members of which are appointed by the Government, mediately, however, now, through the Oberkirchenrath), are decidedly opposed to the separation; and, as they speak for the churches, the provision of the constitution allowing the separation is a dead letter. There is no denying that, if it were now to be fully carried out, the consequences to the church might be, for a time at least, disastrous. The people have always been used to the present system; they would hardly know how to act on any other. Moreover, a large majority of the church members are destitute of active piety; to put the interests of religion into the hands of such men would seem to be a dangerous experiment. Especially is it true of the mercantile classes, of those who are pecuniarily best able to maintain religious institutions, that they are in general indifferent to religious things. This being the case, one cannot be surprised at the reluctance of those in ecclesiastical authority to desire the support of the state to be withdrawn. Neverheless it cannot but widen the chasm between the established church and the freethinkers, that the former urges upon the Government to continue a policy which is plainly inconsistent with the constitution, and that the Government yields to the urging.

A more vital point in the controversy between the king and the Liberals was the disposition of the finances. The House of Delegates, in the session lasting from January 14 to March 11, 1862, insisted on a more minute specification than the ministry had given of the use to be made of the moneys to be appropriated. The king at length, wearied with their importunity, dissolved the House, upon which a new election followed in the next month. The excitement was great. The Government seems to have hoped for a favorable result, at least for a diminution of the Liberal majority. The Minister of the Interior issued a communication to all officials, announcing that they would be expected to vote in favor of the Government. A similar notification was made to the universities, but was protested against. Most of the consistories summoned the clergymen to labor to secure a vote in favor of the king. But in spite of all these exertions, the new House, like the other, contained an overwhelming majority of Progress men. At the beginning of the new session in May, however, both parties seemed more yielding than before. Attention was given less to questions of general character, more to matters of practical concern. But at last the schism developed itself again. The king had determined to reorganize and enlarge the army, to which end larger appropriations were needed than usual. The military budget put the requisite sum at 37,779,043 thalers (about twenty-five million dollars); the House voted 31,932,940, rejecting the proposition of the minister by a vote of three hundred and eight to eleven. A change in the ministry followed, but not a change such as would be expected in England—just the opposite. At the dissolution of the previous House the Liberal ministry had given place to a more conservative one; now this conservative one gave place to one still more conservative, Herr von Bismarck became Minister of State. The House then voted that the appropriations must be determined by the House, else every use made by the Government of the national funds would be unconstitutional. The king's answer to this was an order closing the session. A new session began early in 1863. The same controversy was renewed. The king had introduced his new military scheme; he had used, under the plea of stern necessity, money not voted by Parliament. He declared that the good of the country required it, and demanded anew that the House make the requisite appropriation. But the House was not to be moved. So[Pg 392] far from wishing an increase of the military expenses, the Liberal party favored a reduction of the term of service from three to two years. The king affirmed that he knew better what the interests of the nation required, and, as the head of the army, he must do what his best judgment dictated respecting its condition. Thus the session passed without anything of consequence being accomplished. The House of Lords rejected the budget as it came from the other chamber, and the delegates would not retreat. Consequently another dead lock was the result. The mutual bitterness increased. Minister von Bismarck, a man of considerable talent, but not of spotless character, and exceedingly offensive in his bearing toward his opponents, became so odious that the delegates seemed ready to reject any proposition coming from him, whether good or bad. They tried to induce the king to remove him. But this was like the wind trying to blow off the traveller's coat. Instead of being moved by such demonstrations to dismiss the premier, the king manifested in the most express manner his dissatisfaction with such attempts of the House to interfere with his prerogatives. One might think that he had resolved to retain Bismarck out of pure spite, though he might personally be ever so much inclined to drop him. The controversy became more and more one of opposing wills. May 22, the House voted an address to the king, stating its views of the state of the country, the rights of the House, etc., and expressing the conviction that this majesty had been misinformed by his counsellors of the true state of public feeling. The king replied to the address a few days later, stating that he knew what he was doing and what was for the good of the people; that the House was to blame for the fruitlessness of the session; that the House had unconstitutionally attempted to control him in respect to the ministry and foreign affairs; that he did not need to be informed by the House what public sentiment was, since Prussia's kings were accustomed to live among and for the people; and that, a further continuance of the session being manifestly useless, it should close on the next day. Accordingly it was closed without the passage of any sort of appropriation bill, and the Government, as before, ruled practically without a diet.

We do not propose to arbitrate between the affirmations of the Conservatives, on the one hand, that the animus of the opposition was a spirit of disloyalty toward the Government, an unprincipled and unconstitutional striving to subvert the foundations of royalty, and introduce a substantially democratic form of government, and the complaints of the opposition, on the other hand, that the ministry was trying to domineer over the House of Delegates, and reduce its practical power to a nullity. We may safely assume that there is some truth in both statements. Where the dispute is chiefly respecting motives, it must always be difficult to find the exact truth. In behalf of the Conservatives, however, it may be said that the Liberals have undoubtedly been aiming at a greater limitation of the royal power than the constitution was designed by its author to establish. Frederick William IV. proposed to rule in connection with the representatives of the people. The idea of becoming a mere instrument for the execution of their wishes, was odious to him, and is odious to his successor. That such a reduction of the kingly office, however, is desired and designed by many of the Progress party, is hardly to be questioned. But, on the other hand, it is hard to see, in case the present policy of the Government is carried through, what other function the diet will eventually have than simply that of advising the king and acting as his mere instrument, whenever he lays his plans and asks for[Pg 393] the money necessary for their execution. This certainly cannot accord with the article of the constitution which declares that the legislative power shall be 'jointly' (gemeinschaftlich) exercised by the king and the two Houses.

It is all the less necessary to consider particularly the character of the measures proposed and opposed, and the personal motives of the prominent actors in the present strife, inasmuch as the parties themselves are fighting no longer respecting special, subordinate questions, but respecting the fundamental principle of the Government, the mutual relation which, under the constitution, king and people are to sustain to each other. From this point of view it is not difficult to pass judgment on the general merits of the case. If we inquire where, if at all, the constitution has been formally violated, there can be no doubt that the breach has been on the side of the Government. That the consent of the diet is necessary to the validity act fixing the use of the public moneys, is expressly stated in the constitution. That the Government, for a series of years, has appropriated the funds according to its own will, without obtaining that consent, is an undeniable matter of fact. It is true that the king and his ministers do not acknowledge that this is a violation of the constitution, claiming that the duty of the king to provide in cases of exigency for the maintenance of the public weal, authorizes him, in the exigency which the obstinacy of the delegates has brought about, to act on his own responsibility. The Government must exist, they say, and to this end money must be had; if the House will not grant it, we must take it. That this is a mere quibble, especially as the exigency can be as easily ascribed to the obstinacy of the king as to that of the delegates, may be affirmed by Liberals with perfect confidence, when, as is actually the case, all candid Conservatives, even those of the strictest kind, confess that formally, at least, the king has acted unconstitutionally. And, though in respect to the financial question, they may justify this course while confessing its illegality, it is not so easy to do so in reference to the press law made by the king four days after closing the session of the diet. This law established a censorship of the press, which was aimed especially against all attacks in the newspapers on the policy of the Government, the plea being that the Liberal papers were disturbing the public peace and exciting a democratic spirit. The unconstitutionality of this act was as palpable as its folly. Only in case of war or insurrection is any such restriction allowed at all; the wildest imagination could hardly have declared either war or insurrection to be then existing. Moreover, even in case of such an exigency, the king has a right to limit the freedom of the press only when the diet is not in session and the urgency is too great to make it safe to wait for it to assemble. But in this call it is manifest not only that the king was not anxious to have the coöperation of the Houses, but that he positively wished not to have it. No one imagines that he conceived the whole idea of enacting the law after he had prorogued the diet; certainly nothing new in the line of public danger had arisen in those four days to justify the measure. Besides, he knew that the House of Delegates would not have approved it. It was, in fact, directly aimed at their supporters. A plainer attack on their constitutional rights could hardly have been made.

But the delegates were sent home, so that they were now not able to disturb the country by their debates. The Conservatives rejoiced in this, seeming to think that the only real evil under which the country was suffering was the 'gabbling' of the members of the diet. Moreover, the press law, unwise and unconstitutional as many of[Pg 394] the Conservatives themselves considered and pronounced it, was in force, so that the editorial demagogues also were under bit and bridle. It was hoped that now quiet would be restored. The German diet at Frankfort-on-the-Maine turned public attention for a time from the more purely internal Prussian politics. But this was a very insufficient diversion. In fact, the course of William I., in utterly refusing to have anything to do with the proposed remodelling of the articles of confederation, the object of which was to effect a firmer union of the German States, although no Prussian had the utmost confidence in the sincerity of the Austrian emperor, yet ran counter to the wishes of the Liberals, and even of many Conservatives. The same feeling which fifty years ago gave rise to the Burschenschaft displayed itself unmistakably in the enthusiasm with which Francis Joseph's invitation was welcomed by the Germans in general. The king of Prussia did not dare to declare against the proposed measure itself. Acknowledging the need of a revision of the articles, he yet declined to take part in the diet, simply because, as he said, before the princes themselves came together for so important a deliberation, some preliminary negotiations should have taken place. There is little reason to doubt, however, that his real motive was a fear lest, if he should commit himself to the cause of German union, he would seem to be working in the interests of the Liberals. For, as of old, so now, the most enthusiastic advocates of a consolidation of the German States are the most inclined to anti-monarchical principles; naturally enough, since a firm union of states, utterly distinct from each other, save as their rulers choose to unite themselves, while yet each ruler in his own land is independent of the others, and each has always reason to be jealous of the other, is an impossibility. This jealousy was conspicuous in the case of Prussia and Austria during the session of this special diet, in the summer of 1863. It was shared in Prussia not only by the king and his special political friends, but by many of the Liberals. It was perhaps in the hope that the national feeling had received a healthful impulse by the developments of Austria's ambition to obtain once more the hegemony of Germany, that the king soon after dissolved the House of Delegates, which in June he had prorogued. A new election was appointed for October 20. Most strenuous efforts were made by the Government to secure as favorable a result as possible. Clergymen were enjoined by the Minister of Instruction to use their influence in behalf of the Government. Officials were notified that they would be expected to vote for Conservative candidates, a hint which in Prussia cannot be so lightly regarded as here, since voting there is done viva voce. But, in spite of all these exertions, the Progress men in the new House were as overwhelmingly in the majority as before. On assembling, they reelected the former president, Grabow, by a vote of two hundred and twenty-four to forty. And the same old strife began anew.

So little, then, had been accomplished by attempts forcibly to put down the opposition party. Many newspapers had received the third and last warning for publishing articles of an incendiary character, though none, so far as we know, were actually suspended; a professor in Königsberg had been deposed for presiding at a meeting of Liberals; a professor in Berlin had been imprisoned for publishing a pamphlet against the policy of the Government. There were even intimations that, unless the opposition yielded, the king would suspend the constitution, and dispense entirely with the coöperation of the Parliament. But whether or not this was ever thought of, he showed none of this disposition at the opening of the session. His speech, though containing[Pg 395] no concessions, was mild and conciliatory in tone. Perhaps he saw that a threatening course could not succeed, and was intending to pursue another. He declared his purpose to suggest an amendment to the constitution providing for such cases of disagreement between the two Houses as had hitherto obstructed the legislation. This was afterward done. It was proposed that, whenever no agreement could be secured respecting the appropriations, the amount should be the same as that of the foregoing year. This, however, was not approved by the House of Delegates. The same disagreement occurred as at the previous sessions, intensified now by the increased demands of the Government on account of the threatened war in Schleswig-Holstein. A loan of twelve million thalers was proposed; but the House refused utterly to authorize it unless it could be known what was the use to be made of it. This information Minister Bismarck would not give. The dispute grew more and more sharp. The old causes of discussion were increased by the fact that Prussia, in reference to the disputed succession in Schleswig-Holstein, set itself against the popular wish to have the duchy absolutely separated from Denmark and put under the rule of the prince of Augustenburg. In fact, in this particular, whatever may be thought elsewhere respecting the merits of the war which soon after broke out, the policy of the Government was nearly as odious to most Conservatives as to the Liberals. They said, the king should have put himself at the head of the national, the German demand for the permanent relief of their fellow Germans in Schleswig-Holstein; he should have taken the cause out of the sphere of party politics; thus he might have regained his popularity and united his people. This is quite possible; but it is certain that he did not take this course. He seemed to regard the movement in favor of Prince Frederick's claims to the duchy as a democratic movement. It was so called by the more violent Conservatives. The king, after failing to take the lead, could not now, consistently with his determination to be independent, fall in with the crowd; this would seem like yielding to pressure. Besides, he felt probably more than the Prussian people in general the binding force of the London treaty. Yet, as a German, he could not be content to ignore the claims of the German inhabitants of the duchy; there was, therefore, no course left but to make hostile demonstrations against Denmark. The pretext was not an unfair one. The November constitution, by which Denmark, immediately after the accession of the protocol prince, the present king, Christian IX., proposed to incorporate Schleswig, was a violation of treaty obligations. The Danish Government was required to retract its course. It refused, and war followed. What will be the result of it, what even the Prussian Government wishes to be the result of it, is a matter of uncertainty. Suspicions of a secret treaty between it and Austria find easy credence, according to which, as is supposed, nothing but their mutual aggrandizement is aimed at. Certain it is that none even of the best informed pretend to know definitely what is designed, nor be confident that the design, whatever it is, will be executed. Yet for the time a certain degree of enthusiasm has been of course awakened in all by the successful advance of Prussian troops through Schleswig, and the indefinite hope is cherished that somehow, even in spite of the apparent policy of the Government, the war will result in rescuing the duchy entirely from the Danish grasp. Thus, temporarily at least, the popular mind is again diverted from internal politics; and perhaps the Government was moved as much by a desire to effect this diversion as by any other motive. The decided schism between Prussia[Pg 396] and Austria on the one hand, and the smaller German States on the other, a schism in which the majority of the people even in Prussia and Austria side with the smaller states, favors the notion that these two powers dislike heartily to enter into a movement whose motive and end is mainly the promotion of German unity at the expense of monarchical principles. For, however much of subtlety may be exhibited in proving that the prince of Augustenburg is the rightful heir to the duchy, the real source of the German interest in the matter is sympathy with their fellow Germans, who, as is not to be doubted, have been in various ways, especially in respect to the use of the German language in schools and churches, abused and irritated by the Danish Government. The death of the late king of Denmark was only made the occasion for seeking the desired relief. Fifteen years ago the same thing was done without any such occasion. But it would be the extreme of inconsistency for the Prussian Government to help directly and ostensibly a movement which, whatever name it may bear, is essentially a rebellion: if there are Germans in Schleswig-Holstein, so are there Poles in Poland.

But, although, for the time being, the excitement of actual war silences the murmurs of the Progress party, the substantial occasion for them is not removed. On the contrary, there is reason to expect that the contest will become still more earnest. Only one turn of events can avert this: the separation of Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark in consequence of the present war. If this is not the result, if nothing more is accomplished than the restoration of the duchy to its former condition, the king will lose the support of many Conservatives, and be still more bitterly opposed by the Liberals. In addition to this is to be considered that the war is carried on in spite of the refusal of the diet to authorize the requisite loan; that, moreover, after vainly seeking to secure this vote from the delegates, Minister Bismarck, in the name of the king, prorogued the diet on the 25th of January, 1864, telling the Delegates plainly that the money must be had, and accordingly that, if its use were not regularly authorized, it must be taken by the Government without such authority. His spirit may be gathered from a single remark among the many bitter things which he had to say in the closing days of the session: 'In order to gain your confidence, one must give one's self up to you; what then would the ministers in future be but Parliamentary ministers? To this condition, please God, we shall not be reduced.' The spirit of the delegates is expressed in the question of one of their number: 'Why does the Minister of State ask us to authorize the loan, if he has no need of our consent—if we have not the right to say No?' Brilliant successes of the Prussian arms, accomplishing substantially the result for which the German people are all earnestly longing, may restore the Government to temporary favor, and weaken the Progress party; otherwise, as many Conservatives themselves confess, the king will have paralyzed the arms of his own friends.

What is to be the end of this conflict between the Prussian Government and the Prussian people? Without attempting to play the prophet's part, we close by mentioning some considerations which must be taken into account in forming a judgment. Although we have little doubt that the present policy of the Government will not be permanently adhered to, we do not anticipate any speedy or violent rupture. The case is in many respects parallel to that of the quarrel between Charles I. and his Parliaments; but the points of difference are sufficient to warrant the expectation of a somewhat different result. Especially these: Charles had no army of such size and[Pg 397] efficiency that he could bid defiance to the demands of his Parliament; on the contrary, the Prussian army is, in times of peace, two hundred thousand strong, and can, in case of need, be at once trebled; moreover, soldiers must take an oath of allegiance to the king, not, however, to the constitution. Of this army the king is the head, and with it under his control he can feel tolerably secure against the danger of a popular outbreak. Again, the English revolutionists had little to fear from Continental interference; Prussia, on the contrary, is so situated that a revolution there could hardly fail to provoke neighboring monarchies to assist in putting it down. There is no such oppression weighing the people down that they would be willing to run this risk in an attempt to remove it. Again, the Liberals hope, and not without reason, that they will eventually secure what they wish by peaceable means. There is little doubt that, if they pursue a moderate course, neither resorting to violence nor threatening to do so, themselves avoiding all violations of the constitution, while compelling the Government, in case it will not yield, to commit such violations openly, their cause will gradually grow so strong that the king will ultimately see the hopelessness of longer resisting it. Or, once more, even if the present king, whose self-will is such that he may possibly persevere in his present course through his reign, does not yield, it is understood that the heir apparent is inclined to adopt a more liberal policy whenever he ascends the throne, an event which cannot be very long distant. Were he supposed fully to sympathize with his father, the danger of a violent solution of the difficulty would be greater. But, as the case stands, it may not be considered strange if the conflict lasts several years longer without undergoing any essential modification.

There is no prospect that the dissension will be ended by mutual concessions. This might be done, if mutual confidence existed between the contending parties; but of such confidence there is a total lack. So great is the estrangement that the original occasion of it is lost sight of. Neither party cares so much about securing the success of its favorite measures as about defeating the measures of its opponent. Either the possibility of such a relation of the king to the Parliament was not entertained when the constitution was drawn up, or it is a great deficiency that no provision was made for it; or (as we should prefer to say) the difficulty may have been foreseen and yet no provision have been made for it, simply because none could have been made consistently with Frederick William IV.'s maxim, 'A free people under a free king'—a maxim which sounds well, but which, when the people are bent on going in one way and the king in another, is difficult to reconcile with the requirement of the constitution that both must go in the same way. In a republic, where the legislature and chief magistrate are both chosen representatives of one people, no protracted disagreement between them is possible. In a monarchy where a ministry, which has lost the confidence of the legislature, resigns its place to another, the danger is hardly greater. But in a monarchy whose constitution provides that king and people shall rule jointly, yet both act freely and independently, nothing but the most paradisiacal state of humanity could secure mutual satisfaction and continued harmony. Prussia is now demonstrating to the world that, if the people of a nation are to have in the national legislation anything more than an advisory power, they must have a determining power. To say that the king shall have the unrestricted right of declaring and making war, and at the same time that no money can be used without the free consent of Parliament, is almost fit to be called an Irish bull. Such mutual freedom is impossible except when[Pg 398] king and Parliament perfectly agree in reference to the war itself. But, if this agreement exists, there is either no need of a Parliament or no need of a king. It makes little difference how the constitution is worded in this particular, nor even what was intended by the author of this provision. What is in itself an intrinsic contradiction cannot be carried out in practice. Whether any formal change is made in the constitution or not, a different mode of interpreting it, a different conception of the relation of monarch to subject, must become current, if the constitution is to be a working instrument. Prussia must become again practically an absolute monarchy or a constitutional monarchy like England. Nor is there much doubt which of these possibilities will be realized. And not the least among the causes which will hasten the final triumph of Liberalism there, is the exhibition of the strength of republicanism here, while undergoing its present trial. When one observes how many of the more violent Prussian Conservatives openly sympathize with the rebels, and most of the others fail to do so only because they dislike slavery; when one sees, on the other hand, how anxiously the Prussian Liberals are waiting and hoping for the complete demonstration of the ability of our Government to outride the storm which has threatened its destruction, the cause in which we are engaged becomes invested with a new sacredness. Our success will not only secure the blessings of a free Government to the succeeding generations of this land, but will give a stimulus to free principles in every part of the globe. If 'Freedom shrieked when Kosciuszko fell' at the hands of despotism, a longer and sadder wail would mark the fall of American republicanism, wounded and slain in the house of its friends.

'YE KNOW NOT WHAT YE ASK.'

COMING UP AT SHILOH.

The rain, which had been falling steadily since shortly after midnight, ceased at daybreak. The morning dawned slowly and moodily, above the wooded hilltops that rose steeply from the farther bank of the creek close by, right over against the cornfield, in which, on the preceding evening, we had comfortably pitched our camp. The bugle wound an early reveille; then came the call to strike tents, though one half of the brigade was yet busy in hurried preparations for breakfast, and presently the assembly sounded. We were on the march again by the time the sun would have liked to greet us with his broad, level-thrown smile for 'good morning,' if the sky had been clear and open enough, instead of covered, as it was on this damp, chilly April morning, with dull, sullen masses of cloud that seemed still nursing their ill humor and bent on having another outbreak. The road was heavy; an old, worn stage-coach road, of a slippery, treacherous clay, which the trampings of our advanced regiments speedily kneaded into a tough, stiff dough, forming a track that was enough to try the wind and bottom of the best. For some miles, too, the route was otherwise a difficult one—hilly, and leading by two or three tedious crossings in single file over fords, where now were rushing turbid, swollen streams, gorging and overflowing their banks everywhere in the channels, which nine months out of the twelve give passage to innocent brooklets only, that the natives of these parts may cross barefoot without wetting an ankle. Spite of these drawbacks, the men were in fine spirits; for this was the end of our weary march from Nashville, and we were sure now of a few days' rest and quiet.

A few minutes after midday we reached Savannah, and were ordered at once into camp. By this time the sky had cleared, the sun was shining brightly, though, as it seemed, with an effort; the wind, which had been freshening ever since morning, was blowing strong and settled from out the blue west, and the earth was drying rapidly. The Sixth Ohio and a comrade regiment of the Tenth Brigade pitched their tents in an old and well-cleared camping ground, on a gently sloping rise looking toward the town from the southeastward; a little too far from the river to quite take in, in its prospect, the landing with its flotilla of transports and the gunboats which they told us were lying there, yet not so far but we could easily discern the smoke floating up black and dense from the boats' chimney stacks, and hear the long-drawn, labored puffs of the escape pipes, and the shrill signals of the steam whistles. Altogether our camping ground was eligible, dry, and pleasant.

It was on Saturday, the fifth day of April, 1862, that the Fourth division, being the advance corps of the Army of the Ohio, came thus to Savannah, and so was brought within actual supporting distance of the forces under General Grant at Pittsburg Landing, twelve miles up the farther bank of the Tennessee. General Crittenden's division encamped that evening three hours' march behind us. Still farther in the rear were coming in succession the divisions of McCook, Wood, and Thomas. It was well that such reënforcements were at hand; otherwise, unless we disregarded the best-established laws of probabilities in deciding the question, the Army of the Tennessee was even then a doomed one, and the story of Shiloh must have gone to the world a sad, tragic tale of the most[Pg 400] crushing defeat which had ever fallen upon an army since the days of Waterloo. No mean service, then, was rendered the national cause, and all which that cause will stand out as the embodiment of, in all the ages to come, when Shiloh was saved, and Treason was forced to turn, faint, and stagger away from the field to which it had rushed with a fiend's exultant eagerness, having there met only its own discomture. The meed due for that service is a coronal of glory, that may never, probably, be claimed as the desert of any one individual exclusively; nor is it likely that the epitaph, enchiselled upon whose tombstone soever it might be, 'Here lies the saviour of Shiloh,' would pass one hour unchallenged. Yet impartial history can scarcely be at fault in recognizing as preëminent the part taken by one officer, in the events, whose results, at least, permit so much of eulogy to be written, with other significance than merely that of a wretched burlesque. That officer was General Nelson, the commander of our own division. Iron-nerved, indomitable, willfull, disdainful of pleasing with studied phrase of unmeant compliment, but with a great, manly heart beating strong in his bosom, and a nature grandly earnest, brave, and true—with the very foremost of Kentucky's loyal sons will ever stand the name of General William Nelson.

Our column had marched from Nashville out on the Franklin turnpike, nearly three weeks previous. General McCook, as the senior divisional commander, had claimed the advance, and had held it in our march through that beautiful, cultivated garden spot of Middle Tennessee, as far as Columbia, a distance of nearly fifty miles. Here the turnpike and the railroad bridges over Duck river had both been destroyed by the rebels in their forlorn retreat from the northward. To replace the former even with a tottering wooden structure, was a work of time and labor. Meanwhile the army waited wearily, General Nelson chafed at the delay, and the rebel leaders Beauregard and Sidney Johnston were concentrating their forces at Corinth with ominous celerity. It was their purpose to crush, at one blow, so suddenly and so surely dealt that succor should be impossible, the National army, which had established itself on the borders of one of the southernmost States of the Confederacy, and was menacing lines of communication of prime necessity to their maintenance of the defensive line within which those commanders had withdrawn their discomfited armies. At length, one evening, on dress parade, there were read 'General orders, headquarters Fourth division,' for a march at daylight the next morning. Some days would yet be required to complete the bridge, but permission had been wrung from the 'commanding general' to cross the river by fording, and comically minute the detailed instructions of that order were for accomplishing the feat.

So on Saturday, the twenty-ninth of March, we passed over Duck river. Other divisions immediately followed. By his importunity and characteristic energy, General Nelson had thus secured for us the advance for the seventy-five miles that remained of the march, and, incalculably more than this, had gained days of precious time for the entire army. How many hours later the Army of the Ohio might have appeared at Shiloh in season to stay the tide of disaster and rescue the field at last, let those tell who can recall the scenes of that awful Sabbath day there on the banks of the Tennessee.

General Grant had established his headquarters at Savannah, and there immediately upon our arrival our commander reported his division. Long before night, camp rumors had complacently decided our disposition for the present. Three days at Savannah to allow the other corps of our army to come up with us, and then, by one more easy stage, we could all move together up to[Pg 401] Pittsburg Landing, and take position beside the Army of the Tennessee. It was a very comfortable programme, and not the least of its recommendations was the earnest of its faithful carrying out, which appeared in the unusual regard to mathematical precision that our officers had shown in 'laying off camp,' and the painstaking care they had required on our part in establishing it.

There was but an inconsiderable force here, composed for the most part of new troops from two or three States of the Northwest. I remember, especially, one regiment from Wisconsin, made up of great, brawny, awkward fellows—backwoodsmen and lumbermen chiefly—who followed us to Shiloh on the next evening, and through the whole of Monday fought and suffered like heroes, as they were. Our first inquiries, quite naturally, were concerning our comrade army, and the enemy confronting it at Corinth. Varied and incongruous enough was the information that we gleaned, and in some details requiring a simple credulity that nine months of active campaigning had quite jostled and worried out of us. It seemed settled, however, that our comrades up the river were a host formidable in numbers and of magnificent armament and material; altogether very well able to take care of themselves, at least until we could join them at our leisure.

There were some things which, if we had more carefully considered them, might, perhaps, have abated somewhat this pleasant conviction of security. The enemy had lately grown wonderfully bold and venturesome—skirmishing with picket outposts, bullying reconnoitring parties, and picking quarrels upon unconscionably slight provocation almost daily. He had even challenged our gunboats, disputing the passage up the river in an artillery duello at the Bluffs, not far above the Landing, whose hoarse, sullen rumbling had reached us where we were resting on that Thursday afternoon, at the distance of thirty miles back toward Nashville. But, then, on how few fields had Southern chivalry ever yet ventured to attack; how seldom, but when fairly cornered, had its champions deemed discretion not the better part of valor! What other possibility was there which was not more likely to become an actuality than that the enemy would here dare to assume the aggressive? Who that had the least regard for the dramatic proprieties, could ever assign to him any other part in the tragedy than one whose featliest display of skill and dexterity should be exhibited in executing the movements of guard and parry, and whose noblest performance should be to stand at bay, resolutely contending upon a hopeless field to meet a Spartan death? So we cast aside all serious thought of immediate danger at Pittsburg Landing, the sanguine temperaments pronouncing these demonstrations of a foe who had shown our army only his heels all the way from Bowling Green and Fort Donelson, really diverting from their very audacity.

At sunset, the Sixth held dress parade—the first since our march from Columbia; but I, on duty that day as one of the 'reserve guard,' was merely a looker-on. I was never prouder of the old regiment; it went through with the manual of arms so well—and then there were so many spectators present from other regiments. Orders were given to prepare for a thorough inspection of arms and equipments at ten o'clock on the next morning, then parade was dismissed, and so the day ended. The wind died away, and the night deepened, cool, tranquil, starlit, on a camp of weary soldiery, where contentment and good will ruled for the hour over all.

Beautifully clear and calm the Sabbath morning dawned, April 6th, 1862; rather chilly, indeed, for it was yet in the budding time of spring. But the sky was so blue and cloudless, the air so still, and all nature lay smiling so[Pg 402] serene and fair in the glad sunshine—it was a day such as that whereon the Creator may have looked upon the new-born earth, and 'saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good;' a day as if chosen from all its fellows and consecrated to a hallowed quiet, the blessedness of prayer and thanksgiving, praise and worship.

Hardly a man in our division, I believe, but awoke that morning with a happy consciousness of long hours that this day were to be his own, and a clear idea of just how he should improve them. My programme was the general one, and simple enough it was. First, of course, to make ready for inspection, and, that ceremony well gotten through with, to enact the familiar performance of every man his own washerwoman and seamstress: the remainder of the day should be devoted to the soldier's sacred delight of correspondence—to completing a letter to Wynne, begun back at Columbia, and writing home. Out by the smouldering fire, where the cooks of our mess had prepared breakfast nearly two hours before, I was busily at work furbishing with the new dust-fine ashes the brasses of my accoutrements, when the boom of cannon burst on the air, rolling heavily from away to the southward up from what we knew must be the neighborhood of the camps at Pittsburg Landing. It was after seven o'clock. The sun was mounting over the scrubby oak copse behind our camp, and the day grew warm apace. Another and still another explosion followed in quick succession.

What could it mean? Only the gunboats, some suggested, shelling guerillas out of the woods somewhere along the river bank. Impossible; too near, too far to the right, for that. It could hardly be artillery practice merely; for to-day was the Sabbath. And the youngest soldier among us knew better than to give those rapid, furious volleys the interpretation of a formal military salute. Could it really be—battle?

Every man almost was out and listening intently. Louder and fiercer the reports came, though still irregular. Now and then, in the intervals, a low, quick crepitation reached us, an undertone that no soldier could fail to recognize as distant musketry. Ominous sounds they were, portending—what? What, indeed, if not actual battle? If a battle, then certainly an attack by the enemy. Were our comrades up at the Landing prepared for it?

The first cannon had been fired scarcely ten minutes, when General Nelson rode by toward headquarters, down in the busiest part of the town, aides and orderlies following upon the gallop. Presently came orders:

'Three days' rations in haversacks, strike tents, and pack up. Be ready to move at a moment's notice. They are fighting up at the Landing.'

There was no need for further urging. By ten o'clock every disposition for the march had been completed. Nearly three long hours more we waited with feverish anxiety for the final command to start, while the roar of that deathly strife fell distantly upon our ears almost without intermission, and a hundred wild rumors swept through the camp. General Grant had gone up the river on a gunboat soon after the cannonading began. It was not long after midday when we struck tents, were furnished with a new supply of cartridges and caps for our Enfields, and waited several minutes longer. At length, however, the column formed, and, though still without orders, except those which its immediate commander had assumed the responsibility to give, the Fourth division was on the march for Shiloh. The Tenth brigade had, as usual, the advance, and, in our regular turn, the Sixth came the third regiment in the column. We had just cleared the camping grounds, I well remember, when General Nelson rode leisurely down the line, his eye taking[Pg 403] note with the quiet glance of the real soldier of every minutia of equipments and appearance generally. Some natures seem to find in antagonism and conflict their native element, their chief good—yet more, almost as much a necessity of their moral organism as to their animal being is the air they breathe. Such a nature was Nelson's. His face to-day wore that characteristic expression by which every man of his command learned to graduate his expectation of an action; it was the very picture of satisfaction and good humor. He wheeled his horse half around as the rear of our brigade passed him, and a blander tone of command I never heard than when, in his rapid, authoritative manner, he rang out:

'Now, gentlemen, keep the column well closed up!' and passed on toward the next brigade.

From Savannah to the Tennessee, directly opposite Pittsburg Landing, is, by the course we took, perhaps ten miles. The route was only a narrow wagon-path through the woods and bottoms bordering the river, and the wisdom was soon apparent which had beforehand secured the services of a native as guide. Most of the latter half of the distance was through a low, slimy swamp land, giving rank growth to an almost continuous forest of sycamore, cottonwood, and other trees which love a damp, alluvial soil, whose massive trunks were yet foul and unsightly with filth and scum deposited by the receding waters at the subsidence of the river's great spring freshet a month before. Stagnant ponds and mimic lagoons lay all about us and in our very pathway, some of the deeper ones, however, rudely bridged. Very rapid progress was impossible. It had already been found necessary to send our artillery back to Savannah, whence it would have to be brought up on the transports. The afternoon wore on, warm and sultry, and the atmosphere in those dank woods felt close, aguish, and unwholesome. Not a breath of air stirred to refresh the heated forms winding in long, continuous line along the dark boles of the trees, through whose branches and leafless twigs the sunlight streamed in little broken gleams of yellow brightness, and made a curious checkerwork of sheen and shadow on all beneath. Burdened as we were with knapsacks and twenty extra rounds of ammunition, the march grew more and more laborious. But the noise of battle was sharpening more significantly every few minutes now, and the men pushed forward. It was no child's game going on ahead of us. We might be needed.

We were needed. A loud, tumultuous cheer from the Thirty-sixth Indiana came surging down through the ranks of the Twenty-fourth Ohio to our own regiment, and away back beyond to the Twenty-second and Nineteenth brigades in the rear. 'Forward!' and we were off on the double quick. General Nelson was at the head of the column; there a courier had met him—so at least runs the tradition—with urgent orders to hasten up the reënforcements: the enemy were pressing hard for the Landing. Unmindful of all impediments—trees and fallen logs, shallow ponds and slippery mire shoetop deep; now again moderating our pace to the route step to recover breath and strength; even halting impatiently for a few minutes now and then, while the advance cleared itself from some entanglement of the way—so the remainder of our march continued. It seemed a long way to the Landing, the battle dinning on our ears at every step. At length it sounded directly ahead of us, close at hand; and looking forward out through the treetops, a good eye could easily discover a dark cloud of smoke hanging low in mid air, as though it sought to hide from the light of heaven the deeds that were being[Pg 404] done beneath it. Suddenly we debouched into a level cornfield, extending quite to the river's verge. The clearing was not a wide one, and the farther bank of the Tennessee was in plain sight—the landings, the bluff, and the woods above stretching away out and back beyond.

What a panorama! The river directly before us was hidden by a narrow belt of chaparral and the drift that had lodged along the banks, but the smoke stacks of three or four transports were visible above the weed stalks and bushes, and the course of one or two more could be traced by a distant, trailing line of smoke as they steamed down toward Savannah. The opposite bank rises from the river a steep acclivity, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet in perpendicular height, down whose sides of brownish yellow clay narrow roadways showed out to the landings below. Cresting the bluff, woods overlooked the whole, and shut in the scene far as the eye could follow the windings of the Tennessee. In their depths, the battle was raging with unabated fury. A short distance up the river, though completely hidden from view by an intervening bend, the gunboats were at work, and even our unpractised ears could easily distinguish the heavy boom of their great thirty-two pounders in the midst of all that blaze of battle and the storm of artillery explosions. Glorious old Tyler and Lexington! primitive, ungainly, weather-beaten, wooden craft, but the salvation, in this crisis hour of the fight, of our out-numbered and wellnigh borne-down left. A signal party, stationed a little above the upper landing and halfway up the bluff, was communicating in the mystic language of the code with another upon our side the river. What messages were those little party-colored flags exchanging, with their curious devices of stripes and squares and triangles, their combinations and figures in numberless variety, as they were waved up and down and to and fro in rapid, ever-shifting pantomime? The steep bank was covered with a swaying, restless mass of blue-uniformed men, too distant to be distinctly discriminated, yet certainly numbering thousands. 'Reserves!' a dozen voices cried at once, and the next moment came the wonder that our march had been so hurried, when whole brigades, as it seemed, could thus be held in idle waiting. We were soon undeceived.

Out into the cornfield filed the column, up the river, and nearly parallel to it, halting a little below the upper one of the two principal landings. Here there was a further delaying for ferriage.

Not to the Tennessee for water—there was no time to go so far—but close at hand, at a pond, or little bayou of the river; and, returning to the line of stacks, a few more long, unquiet minutes in waiting, speculation, and eager gazing toward the battle. And then we saw what was that dark, turbulent multitude over the river: oh, shame! a confused rabble, composed chiefly of men whose places were rightly on the field, but who had turned and fled away from the fight to seek safety under the coverture of that bluff.

Forward again, and the regiment moved, with frequent little aggravating halts, up to the point on the river where the Thirty-sixth Indiana had already embarked, and were now being ferried over. The Twenty-fourth Ohio crossed at the lower landing. There were a number of country folk here, clad in the coarse, rusty homespun common in the South, whose intense anxiety to see every movement visible on the farther side of the river kept them unquietly shifting their positions continually. One of these worthies was hailed from our company:

He was an old and somewhat diminutive specimen, grizzle haired, and stoop shouldered, but yellow and withered from the effects of sun and tobacco rather than the burden of years. For a moment he hesitated, as though guarding his reply, and then, with a sidelong glance of the eyes, answered slowly:

'Well, it aren't hardly decided yet, I reckon; but they're a drivin' your folks—some.'

Evidently he believed that our army had been badly beaten. The emphatic rejoinder, 'D—d old secesh!' was the sole thanks his information brought him: the characterization, aside from the accented epithet, was doubtless a just one, but for all that his words were in no wise encouraging.

A minute later we passed a sergeant, whose uniform and bright-red chevrons showed that he was attached to some volunteer battery. He was mounted upon a large, powerful horse, and seemed a man of considerable ability.

'Do the rebels fight well over there?' demanded a voice from the column a half dozen files ahead of me.

'Guess they do! Anyway, fit well enough to take our battery from us—every gun, and some of the caissons.'

Another soldier met us, unencumbered with blouse or coat of any kind, his accoutrements well adjusted over his gray flannel shirt, and his rifle sloped carelessly back over his shoulder. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face, all begrimed with smoke and gunpowder, wore an expression haggard, gaunt, and very weary. He was a sharpshooter, he told us, belonging to some Missouri regiment, and had been out skirmishing almost ever since daylight, with not a mouthful to eat since the evening before. His cartridges—and he showed us his empty cartridge-box—had given out the second time, and he was 'used up.' In his hat and clothes were several bullet holes; but he had been hit but once, he said, and then by only a spent buckshot.

'Boys, I'm glad you're come,' he said. 'It's a fact, they have whipped us so far; but I guess we've got 'em all right now. How many of Buell's army can come up to-night?'

A hurried, many-voiced reply, and hastening on past a heterogeneous collection of soldiery—couriers, cavalry-men, malingerers, stragglers, a few of the slightly wounded, and camp followers of all sorts—we quickly reached the river's brink. The boat was lying close below. Twenty feet down the crumbling bank, slipping, or swinging down by the roots and twigs of friendly bushes, the regiment lost but little time in embarking. The horses of our field officers were somehow got on board, and, with crowded decks, the little steamer headed for the landing right over against us. Two or three boats were there hugging the shore, quiet and motionless, and there were still more at the lower landing. One or two of these the deck hands pointed out to us as magazine boats, freighted with precious stores of ammunition, and the remainder were now, of necessity, being used as hospital boats. The wounded had quite filled these latter, and several hundred more of the day's victims had already been sent down the river to Savannah. One of the gunboats, fresh from its glorious work up beyond the bend, shortly came in sight, moving slowly down stream, as though reconnoitring the bank for some inlet up which its crashing broadsides could be poured with deadliest effect, if the enemy should again appear in sight.

An informal command to land was given us presently, but many had already anticipated it. How terribly significant becomes the simple mechanism of loading a rifle when one knows that it is at once the earnest of deadly battle and the preparation for it! The few details which we could gather from the deck hands concerning the fight were meagre and unsatisfactory. They told us of disaster that befell our[Pg 406] army in the morning, and which it seemed very doubtful if the afternoon had yet seen remedied; and their testimony was borne out by evidences to which our own unwilling senses were the sufficient witnesses. The roar of battle sounded appallingly near, and two or three of our guns were in vigorous play upon the enemy so close on the crest of the bluff that every flash could be seen distinctly. Several shells from the enemy's artillery swept by, cleaving the air many feet above us with that peculiar, fierce, rushing noise, which no one, I believe, can hear for the first time without a quickened beating of the heart and an instinctive impulse of dismay and awe.

At the landing—but how shall I attempt, in words only, to set that picture forth? The next day's fight was my first experience in actual battle, except so much of bushwacking as five months in Western Virginia had brought us, but those hours have no such place in my memory as have the scenes and sounds of this evening at the landing. I have never yet seen told in print the half of that sad, sickening story. Wagons, teams, and led horses, quartermaster's stores of every description, bales of forage, caissons—all the paraphernalia of a magnificently appointed army—were scattered in promiscuous disorder along the bluff-side. Over and all about the fragmentary heaps thousands of panic-stricken wretches swarmed from the river's edge far up toward the top of the steep; a mob in uniform, wherein all arms of the service and wellnigh every grade—for even gilt shoulder-straps and scarlet sashes did not lack a shameful representation there—were commingled in utter, distracted confusion; a heaving, surging herd of humanity, smitten with a very frenzy of fright and despair, every sense of manly pride, of honor, and duty, completely paralyzed, and dead to every feeling save the most abject, pitiful terror. A number of officers could be distinguished amid the tumult, performing, with violent gesticulations, the pantomimic accompaniments of shouting incoherent commands, mingled with threats and entreaties. There was a little drummer boy, I remember, too, standing in his shirt sleeves and pounding his drum furiously, though to what purpose we could none of us divine. Men were there in every stage of partial uniform and equipment; many were hatless and coatless, and few still retained their muskets and their accoutrements complete. Some stood wringing their hands, and rending the air with their cries and lamentations, while others, in the dumb agony of fear, cowered behind the object that was nearest them in the direction of the enemy, though but the crouching form of a comrade. Terror had concentrated every faculty upon two ideas, and all else seemed forgotten: danger and death were behind and pressing close upon them; on the other side of the river, whither their eyes were turned imploringly, there was the hope of escape and an opportunity for further flight.

Meanwhile, louder than all the din and clamor else, swelled the roar of cannon and the sharp, continuous rattle of musketry up in the woods above. There, other thousands of our comrades—many thousands more they were, thank God!—were maintaining an unequal struggle, in which to further yield, they knew, would be their inevitable destruction. Brave, gallant fellows! more illustrious record than they made who here stood and fought through all these terrible Sabbath hours need no soldier crave. There has been a noble redemption, too, of the disgrace which Shiloh fastened on those poor, trembling fugitives by the riverside. That disgrace was not an enduring one. On many a red and stubborn battle field those same men have proudly vindicated their real manhood, and in maturer military experience have fought their way to a renown abundantly enough, and more[Pg 407] than enough, to cover the derelictions of raw, untrained, and not too skilfully directed soldiery.

There was a rush for the boat when we neared the landing, and some, wading out breast deep into the stream, were kept off only at the point of the bayonet. Close by the water's edge grew a clump of sycamores. Up into one of these and far out on a projecting limb, one scared wretch had climbed, and, as the boat rounded to, poised himself for a leap upon the hurricane deck; but the venture seemed too perilous, and he was forced to give it up in despair. The plank was quickly thrown out, guards were stationed to keep the passage clear, and we ran ashore. Until now there had been few demonstrations of enthusiasm, but here an eager outburst of shouts and cheers broke forth that wellnigh drowned the thunderings of battle. The regiment did not wait to form on the beach, the men, as they debarked, rushing up the bank by one of the winding roadways. The gaping crowd parted right and left, and poured upon us at every step a torrent of queries and ejaculations. 'It's no use;' 'gone up;' 'cut all to pieces;' 'the last man left in my company;'—so, on all sides, smote upon our ears the tidings of ill. Fewer, but cheery and reassuring, were the welcomes: 'Glad you've come;' 'good for you;' 'go in, boys;' 'give it to 'em, Buckeyes'—which came to us in manly tones, now and then from the lines as we passed.

We gained the summit of the bluff. A few hundred yards ahead they were fighting; we could hear the cheering plainly, and the woods echoed our own in response. The Thirty-sixth Indiana had already been pushed forward toward the extreme left of our line, and were even now in action. General Nelson had crossed half an hour earlier. The junior member of his staff had had a saddle shot from under him by a chance shell from the enemy, to the serious detriment of a fine dress coat, but he himself marvellously escaping untouched. Two field pieces were at work close upon our left, firing directly over the heads of our men in front; only a random firing at best, and I was glad when an aide-de-camp galloped down and put a stop to the infernal din. Amid this scene of indescribable excitement and confusion, the regiment rapidly formed. Our knapsacks—were we going into action with their encumbrance? The order was shouted to unsling and pile them in the rear, one man from each company being detailed to guard them. It was scarcely more than a minute's work, and we formed again. A great Valkyrian chorus of shouts swelled out suddenly along the line, and, looking up, I saw General Nelson sitting on his big bay in front of the colors, his hat lifted from his brow, and his features all aglow with an expression of satisfaction and indomitable purpose. He was speaking, but Company B was on the left of the regiment, and, in the midst of the storms of huzzas pealing on every side, I could not catch a single word. Then I heard the commands, 'Fix bayonets! trail arms! forward!' and at the double-quick we swept on, up through the stumps and underbrush which abounded in this part of the wood, to the support of the Thirty-sixth Indiana. A few score rods were gained, and we halted to recover breath and perfect another allignment. The firing in our front materially slackened, and presently we learned that the last infuriate charge of the enemy upon our left had been beaten back. We could rest where we lay, 'until further orders.' The sun sank behind the rise off to our right, a broad, murky red disk, in a dense, leaden-hued haze; such a sunset as in springtime is a certain betokening of rain. By this time cannonading had entirely ceased, and likewise all musketry, save only a feeble, dropping fire upon our right. Those sounds shortly died away, and the battle for this day was over. Night fell and[Pg 408] spread its funereal pall over a field on which, almost without cessation since the dawn of daylight, had raged a conflict which, for its desperation and carnage, had yet had no parallel in American history.

On that field, freely and generously had been poured of the nation's best blood, and many a nameless hero had sealed with his life a sublime devotion far surpassing the noblest essay of eulogy and all the extolments which rhetoric may recount. Thank God, those sacrifices had not been wholly fruitless! The Army of the Tennessee, although at most precious cost, had succeeded in staying those living waves of Southern treason until the Army of the Ohio could come up, and Shiloh was saved. The next day saw those waves rolled back in a broken, crimson current, whose ebb ceased only when the humiliated enemy rested safe within his fortifications at Corinth.

ÆNONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER XIII.

With Sergius there was seldom any interval between impulse and action. Now, without giving time for explanation, he made one bound to where Cleotos stood; and, before the startled Greek had time to drop the slender fingers which he had raised to his lips, the stroke of the infuriated master's hand descended upon his head, and he fell senseless at Ænone's feet, with one arm resting upon the lounge behind her.

'Is my honor of so little worth that a common slave should be allowed to rob me of it?' Sergius exclaimed, turning to Ænone in such a storm of passion that, for the moment, it seemed as though the next blow would descend upon her.

Strangely enough, though she had ever been used to tremble at his slightest frown, and though now, in his anger, there might even be actual danger to her life, she felt, for the moment, no fear. Her sympathy for the bleeding victim at her feet, of whose sad plight she had been the innocent cause, and whose perils had probably as yet only commenced—her consciousness that a crisis in her life had come, demanding all her fortitude—her indignation that upon such slight foundation she should thus be accused of falsity and shame—all combined to create in her an unlooked-for calmness. Added to this was the delusive impression that, as nothing had occurred which could not be explained, her lord's anger would not be likely to prolong itself at the expense of his returning sense of justice. What, indeed, could he have witnessed which she could not account for with a single word? It was true that within the past hour she had innocently and dreamily bestowed upon the Greek caresses which might easily have been misunderstood; and that all the while, the door having been partly open, a person standing outside and concealed by the obscure gloom of the antechamber, could have covertly witnessed[Pg 409] whatever had transpired within. But Ænone knew that whatever might be her husband's other faults, he was not capable of countenancing the self-imposed degradation of espionage. Nor, even had it been otherwise, could he have been able, if his jealousy was once aroused by any passing incident, to control his impatient anger sufficiently to await other developments. At the most, therefore, he must merely, while passing, have chanced to witness the gesture of mingled emotion and affection with which Cleotos had bidden her farewell. Surely that was a matter which would require but little explanation.

'Do you not hear me?' cried Sergius, glaring with wild passion from her to Cleotos and back again to her. 'Was it necessary that my honor should be placed in a slave's keeping? Was there no one of noble birth with whom you could be false, but that you must bring this deeper degradation upon my name?'

Ænone drew herself up with mingled scorn and indignation. His anger, which at another time would have crushed her, now passed almost unheeded; for the sense of injury resulting from his cruel taunt and from his readiness, upon such slight foundation, to believe her guilty, gave her strength to combat him. The words of self-justification and of reproach toward him were at her lips, ready to break forth in unaccustomed force. In another moment the torrent of her indignant protestations would have burst upon him. Already his angry look began to quail before the steadfast earnestness of her responsive gaze. But all at once her tongue refused its utterance, her face turned ghastly pale, and her knees seemed to sink beneath her.

For, upon glancing one side, she beheld the gaze of Leta fixedly fastened upon her over Sergius's shoulder. In the sparkle of those burning eyes and in the curve of those half-parted lips, there appeared no longer any vestige of the former pretended sympathy or affection. There was now malice, scorn, and hatred—all those expressions which, from time to time, had separately excited doubt and dread, now combining themselves into one exulting glance of open triumph, disdainful of further concealment, since at last the long-sought purpose seemed attained. Ænone turned away with a sickening, heart-breaking feeling that she was now lost, indeed. It was no mystery, any longer, that the slave girl must have listened at the open door, and have cunningly contrived that her master should appear at such time as seemed most opportune for her purposes. And how must every unconscious action, every innocent saying have been noted down in the tablets of that crafty mind! What explanation, indeed, could be given of those trivial caresses now so surely magnified and distorted into evidences of degrading criminality?

Faint at heart, Ænone turned away—unable longer to look upon that face so exultant with the consciousness of a long-sought purpose achieved. Rather would she prefer to encounter the angry gaze of her lord. Terrible as his look was to her, she felt that, at the last, pity might be found in him, if she could only succeed in making him listen to and understand the whole story. But what mercy or release from jealous and vindictive persecution could she hope to gain from the plotting Greek girl, who had no pity in her heart, and who, even if she were so disposed, could not, now that matters had progressed so far, dare to surrender the life-and-death struggle? Alas! neither in the face of her lord could she now see anything but settled, unforgiving pitilessness; for though, for an instant, he had quailed before her gaze, yet when she had, in turn, faltered at the sight of Leta, he deemed it a new proof of guilt, and his suspended reproaches broke forth with renewed violence.[Pg 410]

'Am I to have no answer?' he cried, seizing her by the arm. 'Having lost all, are you now too poor-spirited to confess?'

'There is nothing for me to confess. Nor, if there had been, would I deign to speak before that woman,' she answered with desperation, and pointing toward Leta. 'What does she here? How, in her presence, can you dare talk of sin—you who have so cruelly wronged me? And has all manliness left you, that you should ask me to open my heart to you in the presence of a slave; one, too, who has pursued me for weeks with her treacherous hate, and now stands gloating over the misery which she has brought upon me? I tell you that I have said or done nothing which I cannot justify; but that neither will I deign to explain aught to any but yourself alone.'

'The same old excuse!' retorted Sergius. 'No harm done—nothing which cannot be accounted for in all innocence; and yet, upon some poor pretence of wounded pride, that easy explanation will not be vouchsafed! And all the while the damning proof and author of the guilt lies before me!'

With that he extended his foot, and touched the senseless body of Cleotos—striking it carelessly, and not too gently. The effect of the speech and action was to arouse still more actively the energetic impulses of Ænone—but not, alas! to that bold display of conscious innocence with which, a moment before, she had threatened to sweep aside his insinuations, and make good her justification. She was now rather driven into a passion of reckless daring—believing that her fate was prejudged and forestalled—caring but little what might happen to her—wishing only to give way to her most open impulses, let the consequences be what they might. Therefore, in yielding to that spirit of defiance, she did the thing which of all others harmed her most, since its immediate and natural result was to give greater cogency to the suspicions against her. Stooping down and resting herself upon the lounge, she raised the head of the still senseless Cleotos upon her lap, and began tenderly to wipe his lips, from a wound in which a slight stream of blood had begun to ooze.

'He and I are innocent,' she said. 'I have treated him as a brother, that is all. It is years ago that I met him first, and then he was still more to me than now. He is now poor and in misery, and I cannot abandon him. Had he been in your place, and you in his, he would not have thus, without proof, condemned you, and then have insulted your lifeless body.'

For a moment Sergius stood aghast. Excuse and pleading he was prepared to hear. Recriminations would not have surprised him, for he knew that his own course would not bear investigation, and nothing, therefore, could be more natural than that she should attempt to defend herself by becoming the assailant in turn. But that she should thus defy him—before his eyes should bestow endearments upon a slave, the partner of her apparent guilt, and with whom she acknowledged having had an intimacy years before, was too astounding for him at first to understand. Then recovering himself, he cried aloud:

'Is this to be borne? Ho, there, Drumo! Meros! all of you! Take this wretch and cast him into the prison! See that he does not escape, on your lives! He shall feed the lions to-morrow! By the gods, he shall feed the lions! Bear him away! Let me not see him again till I see his blood lapped up in the arena. Away with him, I say!'

As the first cry of Sergius rang through the halls, the armor bearer appeared at the door; and before many more seconds had elapsed, other slaves, armed and unarmed, swarmed forth from different courts and passages, until the antechamber was filled with them. None of them knew what had[Pg 411] happened, but they saw that, in some way, Cleotos had incurred the anger of his master, and lay stunned and bleeding before them. To obey was the work of a moment. The giant Drumo, stooping down, wound his arm around the body of Cleotos, hoisted him upon his broad shoulder, and stalked out of the room. The other slaves followed. Ænone, who, in the delirium of her defiance, might have tried to resist, was overpowered by her own attendants, who also had flocked in at Sergius's call, and now gently forced her from the room. And in a moment more, Sergius was left alone with Leta.

She, crouching in a dark corner of the room, awaited her opportunity to say the words which she dared not say while he was in this storm of wild passion; he, thinking himself entirely alone, stalked up and down like a caged tiger, muttering curses upon himself, upon Ænone, upon the slave, upon all who directly or indirectly had been concerned in his supposed disgrace. Let it not be forgotten that, though at first he had acted hastily and upon slight foundation of proof, and had cruelly wounded her spirit by abhorrent insinuations, without giving time or opportunity for her to explain herself, she had afterward given way to an insane impulse, and had so conducted herself as to fix the suspicion of guilt upon herself almost ineffaceably. What further proof could he need? While, with false lips, she had denied all, had she not, at the same time, lavished tender caresses upon the vile slave?

Then, too, what had he not himself done to add to the sting of his disgrace? Convinced of her guilt, he should have quietly put her away, and the truth would have leaked out only little by little, so as to be stripped of half of its mortification. But he had called up his slaves. They had entered upon the scene, and would guess at everything, if they did not know it already! The mouths of menials could not be stopped. To-morrow all Rome would know that the imperator Sergius, whose wife had been the wonder of the whole city for her virtue and constancy, had been deceived by her, and for a low-born slave! Herein, for the moment, seemed to lie half the disgrace. Had it been a man of rank and celebrity like himself—but a slave! And how would he dare to look the world in the face—he who had been proud of his wife's unsullied reputation, even when he had most neglected her, and who had so often boasted over his happy lot to those who, having the reputation of being less fortunate, had complacently submitted themselves to bear with indifference a disgrace which, at that age, seemed to be almost the universal doom!

Frantically revolving these matters, he raged up and down the apartment for some moments, while Leta watched him from her obscure corner. When would it be time for her to advance and try her art of soothing? Not yet; for while that paroxysm of rage lasted, he would be as likely to strike her as to listen. Once he approached within a few feet of her, and, as she believed herself observed, she trembled and crouched behind a vase. He had not seen her, but his eye fell upon the vase, and with one blow he rolled it off its pedestal, and let it fall shattered upon, the marble floor. Was it simply because the costly toy stood in his way? Or was it that he remembered it had been a favorite of Ænone? One fragment of the vase, leaping up, struck Leta upon the foot and wounded her, but she dared not cry out. She rather crouched closer behind the empty pedestal, and drew a long breath of relief as, after a moment, he turned away.

At last the violence of his passion seemed to have expended itself, and he sank upon the lounge, and, burying his face in his hands, abandoned himself to more composed reflection. Now was the time for her to approach. And yet she would not address herself di[Pg 412]rectly to him, but would rather let him, in some accidental manner, detect her presence. Upon a small table stood a bronze lamp with a little pitcher of olive oil beside it. The wicks were already in the sockets, and she had only to pour in the oil. This she did noiselessly, as one who has no thought of anything beyond the discharge of an accustomed duty. Then she lighted the wicks and stealthily looked up to see whether he had yet observed her.

The lamp somewhat brightened the obscurity of the room, sending even a faint glimmer into the farther corners, but he took no notice of it. Perhaps he may have moved his head a little toward the light, but that was all. Otherwise there was no apparent change or interruption in his deep, troubled thought. Then Leta moved the table with the lamp upon it a few paces toward him, so that the soft light could fall more directly upon his face. Still no change. Then she softly approached and bent over him.

What could he be thinking of? Could he be feeling aught but regret that he had thrown away years of his life upon one who had betrayed him so grossly at the end? Was he not telling himself how, upon the morrow, he would put her away, with all ceremony, forever? And might he not be reflecting that, Ænone once gone, there would be a vacant place to be filled at his table? Would he not wish that it should be occupied without delay, if only to show the world how little his misfortune had affected him? And who more worthy to fill it than the one whose fascinations over him had made it empty? Was not this, then, the time for her to attract his notice, before other thoughts and interests could come between her and him?

Softly she touched him upon the arm; and, like an unchained lion, he sprang up and stared her in the face. There was a terrible look upon his features, making her recoil in dismay. Was that the affectionate gaze with which she had expected to be greeted? Was that the outward indication of the pleasing resolves with which her eager fancy had invested his mind?

Never had she been more mistaken than in her conceptions of his thoughts. In them there was for herself not one kindly impulse; but for the wife whom he had deemed so erring, there was much that was akin to regret, if not to returning affection. The violence of his passion had been so exhausting, that something like a reaction had come. A new contradiction seemed developing itself in his nature. This man, who a few minutes before had prejudged her guilty, because he had seen the lips of a grateful slave pressed against her hand, now, after having seen her so aroused and indifferent to reputation as to defend that slave in her arms, and claim him for at least a friend and brother, began to wonder whether she might not really be innocent. She had confessed to nothing—she had asserted her blamelessness—she had never been known to waver from the truth; might she not have been able to explain her actions? With his regret for having, in such hasty passion, so compromised her before the world that no explanation could henceforth shield her from invidious slander, he now began to feel sorrow for having so roughly used her. Whether she was false or not—whether or not he now loved her—was it any the less true that she had once been constant and loved by him, and did the memories of that time, not so very long ago, bring no answering emotion to his heart? Who, after all, had ever so worshipped him? And must he now really lose her? Might it not be that he had been made the victim of some conspiracy, aided by fortuitous elements?

It was just at this point, when, in his thoughts, he was stumbling near the truth, that the touch of Leta's hand aroused him; and in that instant her possible agency in the matter flashed[Pg 413] upon him like a new revelation. She saw the tiger-like look which he fastened upon her, and she recoiled, perceiving at once that she had chosen an inopportune moment to speak to him. But it was now too late to recede.

'I have lighted the lamp,' she faltered forth. 'I knew not that I should disturb you. Have you further commands for me?'

Still his fierce gaze fixed upon her; but now with a little more of the composure of searching inquiry.

'It is you who have brought all this destruction and misery upon me,' he said at length. 'From one step unto another, even to this end, I recognize your work. I was a weak fool not to have seen it before.'

'Is it about my mistress that you speak?' she responded. 'Is it my fault that she has been untrue?'

'If she is false, what need to have told me of it? Was it that the knowledge of it would make me more happy? And did I give it into the hands of my own slaves to watch over my honor? Is it a part of your duty that for weeks you should have played the spy upon herself and me, so as to bring her secret faults to light?'

She stood silent before him, not less amazed at his lingering fondness for his wife than at his reproaches against herself.

'How know I that she is guilty at all?' he said, continuing the train of thought into which his doubts and his better nature had led him. 'I must feel all this for certain. How do I know but what you have brought it about by some cunning intrigue for your own purposes? Speak!'

For Leta to stop now was destruction. Though to go on might bring no profit to her, yet her safety depended upon closing forever the path of reconciliation toward which his mind seemed to stray. And step by step, shrouding as far as possible her own agency, she spread out before him that basis of fact upon which she so well knew how to erect a false superstructure. She told him how the intimacy of Ænone and Cleotos had led her to keep watch—how Ænone had once confessed having had a lover in the days of her obscurity and poverty—how that this Greek was that same lover—and how improbable it was that he could have been domiciled in that house by chance, or for any other purpose than that of being in a situation to renew former intimacies. She told how, after long suspicion, she had settled this identity of the former lover with the slave—and how she had seen them, in the twilight of that very day, standing near the window and addressing each other endearingly by their own familiar names. As Sergius listened, the evident truthfulness of the facts gradually impressed themselves upon him; and no longer doubting his disgrace, he closed his heart against all further hope and charity and affection. The pleasant past no longer whispered its memories to his heart—those were now stifled and dead.

'And what reward for all this do you demand?' he hissed forth, seizing Leta by the arm, 'For of course you have not thus dogged her steps day after day, without expectation of recompense from me.'

Did he mean this—that she was capable of asking reward? Or was he cunningly trying her nature, to see whether she might prove worthy of the great recompense which she had promised herself? It was almost too much now to expect; but her heart beat fast as she saw or fancied she saw some strange significance in the gaze which he fastened upon her. Babbling incoherently, she told how she did not wish reward—how she had done it all for love of him—how she would be content to serve him for life, with no other recompense than his smile—and the like. Still that gaze was fastened upon her with penetrating power, more[Pg 414] and more confusing her, and again she babbled forth the same old expressions of disinterested attachment. How it was that at last he understood her secret thoughts and aspirations, she knew not. Certainly she had not spoken, or even seemed to hint about them. But whether she betrayed herself by some glance of the eye or tremor of the voice, or whether some instinct had enabled him to read her, of a sudden he burst into a wild, hollow laugh of disdain, threw her from him, and cried, with unutterable contempt:

'This, then, was the purpose of all! This is what you dreamed of! That you, a slave—an hour's plaything—could so mistake a word or two of transient love-making as to fancy that you could ever be anything beyond what you are now! Poor fool that thou art!—Oho, Drumo!'

The giant entered the room, and Leta again drew back into the closest obscurity she could find, not knowing what punishment her audacity was about to draw upon her. But worse, perhaps, than any other punishment, was the discovery that Sergius had already forgotten her; or rather, that he thought so little about her as to be able to dismiss her and her pretensions with a single contemptuous rebuke. He had called his armor bearer for another purpose than to speak of her. A new phase had passed over his burdened and excited mind. He could not endure that solitude, with ever-present disagreeable reflection. And since his disgrace must, sooner or later, be known, he would brave it out by being himself the first to publish it.

'And does it not—it seems to me that I promised to my friends a banquet upon the previous night. If I did not, I meant to have done so. Go, therefore, and bid them at once come hither! Tell the poet Emilius—and Bassus—and the rest. You know all whom I would have. Let them know that I hold revel here, and that not one must dare to stay away! Tell my cooks to prepare a feast for the gods! Go! Despatch!'

The giant grinned his knowledge of all that his master's tastes would require, and left the room to prepare for his errand. And in a moment more Sergius also departed, without another thought of the Greek girl, who stood shrinking from his notice in the shadow of the farthest corner.

APHORISMS.—NO. XII.

Knowledge and Action.—It is a common fault of our humanity, when not sunk too low in the scale of intellect, to seek knowledge rather than attempt any laborious application of it. We love to add to our stock of ideas, facts, or even notions of things, provided moderate pains will suffice; but to put our knowledge in practice is too often esteemed servile, or eschewed as mere drudgery. Useful activities flatter pride, and gratify the imagination, too little. But of what avail, ordinarily, is the possession of truth, unless as light to direct us in the ways of beneficent labor, for ourselves and for our fellow men? There are, indeed, objects of knowledge which elevate the soul in the mere act of contemplation; but, in most cases, if what we learn is brought into no definite relation to the practice of life, the acquisition is barren, and the labor of making it apparently a loss of time and strength.

This is no censure upon the course of learning as a process of mental discipline; for this in itself is one of the most productive forms of human activity.[Pg 415]

EXCUSE.

Song, they say, should be a king,
Crowned and throned by lightning-legions
Only they may dare to sing
Who can hear their voices ring
Through the echoing thunder-regions.

Yet, below the mountain's crest,
Chime the valley-bells to heaven;
If we may not grasp the best,
Deeper, closer, be our quest
For the good that Fate has given.

Parching in its fever pain,
Many a tortured life is thirsting
For a cooling draught to drain,
Though it flash no purple vein
From the mellow grape-heart bursting.

Must our sun-struck gaze despise
Starry isles in light embosomed?
Must we close our scornful eyes
Where the valley lily lies,
Just because the rose has blossomed?

Though the lark, God's perfect strain,
Steep his song in sunlit splendor;
Though the nightingale's sweet pain
With divine despair, enchain
Dew-soft darks in silence tender;

Not the less, from Song's excess,
Sings the blackbird late and early:
Nor the bobolink's trill the less
Laughs for very happiness,
Gurgling through its gateways pearly.

Though we reach not heavenly heights,
Where the sun-crowned souls sit peerless,
Let us wing our farthest flights
Underneath the lower lights;—
Soar and sing, unfettered, fearless—

Sings as bubbling water flows—
Sing as smiles the summer sunny.
Royal is the perfect rose,
Yet, from many a bud that blows,
Bees may drain a drop of honey.
[Pg 416]

AMERICAN WOMEN.

A great deal has been said and written in this age and country on the subject of what is technically called woman's rights; and, in the course of such agitation, many good and true things have been thought out and made available to the bettering of her condition, besides many foolish and impracticable, arising from a too grasping desire for a wider and more exciting sphere of effort, as well as from a palpable misapprehension of their own nature and their legitimate sphere, which prevails quite extensively among women. The pioneers of the rights of woman have done a good work, however, and may well be pardoned wherein they have gone beyond what might be fairly and profitably demanded for our sex. They have called the public attention to the subject, and have enlisted the thoughts and the services of many earnest men as well as women in their cause; thus provoking that inquiry which will eventually lead to the finding of the whole truth concerning woman, her rights, privileges, duties. And for this, in common with the pioneers in every cause that has for its object the amelioration and advantage of any class of human beings, they deserve the thanks of all. That there should be some ultraists, who would not know where to stop in the extravagant and unsuitable claims they urge, was to be expected. This should not blind our eyes to the lawful claims of woman upon society, nor is it sufficient to throw ridicule upon a movement which has, in this day, indeed, borne its full share of obloquy from the careless, the thoughtless, the too conservative, all of whom are alike clogs upon the wheel of human progress.

This is not the age nor ours the people to shun the fair discussion of any question, much less one which commends itself as of practical importance. This American people has proved, by the calm and patient consideration it has accorded to the advocates of woman's rights, that it has reached that lofty point in the progress of society at which woman is regarded as a positive quantity in the problem which society is working out, and it marks an era in the history of the sex, prophetic of the full enjoyment of all the rights which are hers by nature, or may be hers by favor. I think that in this country, at least, woman has been put upon a very clear and unobstructed path, with many encouragements to go on in the highest course of improvement of which she is capable. There seems to be a general disposition to investigate, and to allow her the rights she claims—rights of education, of labor, of property, of a fair competition in any suitable field of enterprise; so that she bids fair to become as self-supporting, independent, and intelligent as she desires. It is true that much is still said of the jealousy and selfishness of men, leading them to monopolize most of the sources of profitable effort to their own use, thus cramping the sphere of woman, and making her dependent and isolated.

Now, it is very much a question with me whether, after all, the failure, so far, to secure these fancied rights, is not quite as much the result of woman's backwardness and inefficiency as of man's jealous and greedy monopoly; whether the greatest obstacle does not lie in the adverse opinions prevailing among women themselves. According to my observation, as fast as women have proved themselves adapted to compete with men in any particular field, their brothers have forthwith striven to make the path easy and pleasant for them.[Pg 417]

But there is a natural and necessary jealousy excited when women attempt to go out of the beaten track, and establish new conditions and resources for themselves—a jealousy which has its source in the instinctive feeling of civilized society, that the standard of womanhood must not be lowered; that its safety and progressive well-being depend upon the immaculate preservation of that pure and graceful ideal of womanhood which every true man wishes to see guarded with a vestal precision. And society will pause, thoughtfully to consider, before the stamp of its approbation is affixed to any mode of development by which that lofty ideal would suffer. Anything which tends in the least to unsex, to unsphere woman, by so much works with a reflex influence on man and on society, and produces in both a gradual and dangerous deterioration. And self-preservation is the first instinct of society as well as of the individual being. Man, and the eternal and infinite order of the world, require that woman keep her proper place, and that she demand nothing which, granted, would introduce confusion and disorder among the social forces.

But it is not so much of woman's rights that I would speak. I am not afraid but that she will possess these in due time, as fast as her nature and true place and mission in the world come to be more fully understood. I am far more anxious that she should come into such more perfect understanding.

Woman has always been a puzzle, an enigma, to man. When, in the pride of his anatomical skill, he has essayed to make her his study, thinking to master the secret of her curious physical being, he has been forced to stop short of his purpose, dumb and blind in the presence of that wondrous complexity that no science of his own can master; and no casuist has yet solved the why of her equally wonderful and complex mental and spiritual being. They have made Reason, cold, critical, judge, the test; but the fine, delicate essence of her real being has always eluded it. When Love seeks the solution—the large, generous Love, that is one day to sit as the judge of all things, supreme over purblind human Reason—then she will be understood, for she will yield to the asking of that all-seeing One. This will be when the world is ripe for the advent of woman, who shall rule through love, the highest rule of all. Slowly, slowly, though surely, is the world ascending, through the wondrous secret chain of influences binding her to the moral order of the universe, to the height of this supernal law of love; and there, in that new and holy kingdom, woman's crown and sceptre await her.

But who shall say that a glimmer of this future royal beauty and glory has yet dawned upon her?

If man has misunderstood woman, she has none the less misunderstood herself. Indeed, her feet have for ages been treading debatable ground, that has shaken beneath her through the clashings of man's ignorance and her own vague, restless clamors and aimlessness. She has felt the stirrings within of that real being she was created, but has never dared to assert herself, or, to speak more truly, has only known to assert herself in the wrong direction. False voices there have been without number, but not even yet has true womanhood been able, in spite of its irrepressible longings, to utter that clear, free, elevated speech that shall yet stir the keenest pulses of the world.

As it is, the world has nearly outgrown the petty jealousy, the cool assumption of inferiority, the flippant criticism of her weaknesses, the insulting catering to her foibles, with which woman has been accustomed to be treated, and which have made her either the slave, the toy, or the ridicule of man; and it is getting to see that she is at least of as much relative importance as man; that without her he[Pg 418] will in vain aspire to rise; that, by a law as infallible as that which moves and regulates the spheres, his condition is determined by hers; that wherever she has been a slave, he has been a tyrant, and that all oppression and injustice practised upon her has been sure in the end to rebound upon himself. If there is one thing more than another which, at any given period and in any particular nation, has pointed to the true state of society along the scale of advancement, it has been the degree of woman's elevation; the undercurrents of history have all set steadily and significantly in the direction of the truth, which the world has been slow to accept and make use of, indeed, that society nears perfection only in the proportion in which woman has been honored and enfranchised; in which she has had opportunity and encouragement to work and act in her own proper and lawful sphere.

Those who have gone the farthest in claiming special rights for woman have generally based their demands upon a virtual abandonment of the idea of sex, except in a physical sense. Here is a primary, fundamental error. There is unquestionably a sex of mind, of soul, and he who ignores or denies this is, it seems to me, studying his subject without the key which alone will unlock it.

Another error which many of the advocates of woman's rights have fallen into, is that of assuming that those conditions are weaknesses, disabilities, which God and nature have attested to be her crowning glory and power. Or, rather, this second error results naturally and most logically from the still more vital one of assuming that her sphere is intended to be no way different from man's.

And still another, equally false and mischievous, would place her in antagonism to man upon the question of comparative excellence and of precedence in the scale of being.

A brief analysis of some of the points of difference between the mind masculine and the mind feminine will show the futility of confounding the two, or of drawing any useless or invidious comparisons. They are as distinct in their normal action as any two things can well be. I begin, then, by dividing our whole conscious human life into two comprehensive departments, expressed by the generic terms, thought—feeling; reflection—spontaneity; knowledge—emotion; perception—reception; reason or intellect—affection or heart. The intelligent being unites these conditions—he is supreme in but one. Man reasons—woman feels; man analyzes—woman generalizes; man reaches his conclusions by induction—woman seizes hers by intuition. There is just the difference, in kind, between a man's mind and a woman's that there is between that of a man of genius and a man of talent. Genius grasps the idea, and works from it outward; talent moulds the form in which the already created idea may be embodied. Genius is creative, comprehensive, intuitive, all-seeing; talent is acute, one-sided, cumulative, inductive. The men of genius will ever be found to be gifted with this womanly quality of mind—the power of seizing truth, ideas, with the heart and soul, through love, rather than with the understanding, through reason.

Woman understands faith, or the taking things on trust; she has no love for that logical process of thought whereby, step by step, man delights to prove a fact in nature or law with mathematical precision and certainty. With the hard details and closely connected steps which make up the body of any science, mathematical, physical, or metaphysical, she has no patience. Her mind is not receptive of formulas or syllogisms. She comprehends results, but is incurious as to causes. She knows what love or benevolence means, under its triple form of charity, mercy,[Pg 419] magnanimity, which, like a sea, surrounds the universe; she has no idea of law and justice, which are the eternal pillars thereof. If man feels or loves, it is because his reason is convinced; woman's affections go beyond reason, and without its aid, into the clear realm of ultimate belief. This is why there are so few skeptics in religious things among our sex. Woman's mental and spiritual constitution render belief or faith easy and natural. She is receptive in all the parts of her being.

I conclude, therefore, that in the outer world of fact, of demonstration, of volitions and knowledges, of tangible proofs and causalities, of positive and logical effects of reason, of all outward and material processes, man is supreme; while in that finer, higher, more subtile sphere of intuitions, loves, faiths, spiritual convictions, which overtop our actual life, and lead it up from grossness to glory, woman is the oracle and priestess. In the basic qualities of our nature man is stronger—woman, in those which, in grace, beauty, and sweetness, taper nicely toward its apex.

But are the two spheres therefore at war? By no means. Are they at all independent of each other? Are they not rather conjoined indissolubly? It is a fatal mistake which places an antagonism between the two. There should be between them harmony as sweet as that which moves the concentric rings of Saturn. Untaught by the presence and inspiration of woman, man becomes a cold, dry petrifaction, constantly obeying the centripetal force of his being, and adoring self. Without his basal firmness and strength, woman, in whom the centrifugal force is stronger, remains a weak, vacillating, impulsive creature, feebly swayed by the tides of emotion, lacking self-poise, and aimless and vagrant.

But teach her to reason—man to feel; open up to her the sources of knowledge, and cause him to learn the times of the tides of affection; cultivate her intellect and his heart, and in the healthy action and reaction consequent upon such a balance of forces, you have the true relationship established between the sexes, the relationship which the Creator pronounced perfect in the beginning.

It will be seen that while I attribute to woman a certain superiority both of nature and function, as to the highest part of the nature common to both, I at the same time assert her inferiority in what may be called its fundamental attributes, those which lie nearest to the constant and successful prosecution of mundane affairs, and, consequently, I also establish the fact of her absolute and inevitable dependence in such sense on man. But do I thus degrade her, or in effect annul this asserted superiority? Because man, and the strength, amplitude, and stability of his more practical nature, form a sure basis upon which she may rest, do I any the less make her the very crown and perfection of God's human handiwork? Assuredly not. The truth is, if, instead of making comparison where, from the nature of the case, comparison is almost precluded, so great is the difference between them, I were to say that each is the complement or counterpart of the other, and that, alone, each is but a half sphere, and imperfectly rounded at that, I should more nearly approach to accuracy. To make the perfect whole which the Creator had in His idea, the two halves must be united. And so I dignify the oldest of human institutions—marriage. I accord to it the very perfection of wisdom, beauty, utility, adaptation. I am aware that in so speaking I hold to an old-fashioned belief, and tread incontinently, not only on a notion afloat among some of the strong-minded of my sex at the present day, that this institution is nothing more nor less than an engine of selfish and despotic power on the one hand, and of slavish subjection on the[Pg 420] other; but on the more moderate idea that it is not desirable for all women, nor even for a majority. But I still think that this state of union is the most natural, beneficent, satisfying condition possible for all of both sexes—the condition most conducive to the highest, widest, happiest development of the individual man or woman, especially the latter, for it is through marriage only, through the beautiful and sacred wifehood and motherhood which that institution guarantees in purity and holiness, that woman's highest nature finds scope and opportunity. And I make no exceptions. On the contrary, I should say that the exceptions which might occur should invariably be counted as misfortunes. Not that many good, true, noble women do not live and die unmarried. Circumstances, that inflexible arbiter of human life, as it often seems, may strangely turn into wide and unaccustomed channels the love, the devotion, the energy, the self-sacrifice, that, in their pure, strong action, make woman's best development, and so the world, the needy people of the world, humanity at large, may receive the immediate benediction of it. Let no woman who, alone it may be, goes steadfastly on her way of duty and self-abnegation, think she has lived in vain because the special lot of woman has been denied her. If not happiness, which comes from content and satisfaction, yet there is something higher, diviner still, arising from duty done and trials endured—blessedness. But such exceptions do not, I conceive, invalidate the general fact that marriage was intended to be the channel for the vast aggregate of human happiness and improvement. I speak of marriage as it should be, as it might be, as it will one day be, when men and women have acquainted themselves with the laws, physical and spiritual, which were intended to adjust these unions between the sexes in a harmonious manner, according to natural sympathies and affinities; laws, infallible, inherent in the individual constitution, and which, if understood and enforced, would obviate much of the sin, misfortune, and misery in the earth. It is a great and curious question, how much of the pain, suffering, and evil so rife among men, is due to the one-sided, blindfold, inconsiderate, and unsuitable marriages every day taking place; filling the homes of the land with discontent, bickerings, disorder, and continual strife, from the jostling together of antipathetic elements; cursing society with the influences derived from character formed and nurtured in such pestilent domestic atmospheres; and sending out thousands of unhealthy, misorganized, wrongly educated beings, the fruit of these disunions, to work ill both to themselves and their race. The world has much yet to learn with regard to the conditions necessary to a true and legitimate marriage of the sexes. There are thousands of illegal unions that have been blessed by church and magistrate, which yet carry only ban in their train. Whether read literally or not, the old, old story of the temptation and the fall has a significance not often dreamed of in respect to this question of marriage. It was a disturbance of the pure and perfect allegiance of each to the other, no less than a fall from the intimate communion of both with the Father of spirits. And a thicker darkness rests over the means whereby the institution of marriage may be rescued from its degradation, and man and woman be reinstated in the loyalty they owe to each other, than over the means by which the creature may make himself acceptable to the offended Creator; inasmuch as the former is left, without any special revelation, to the slow process of thought among men, to the workings of experience and the results of observation. And these laws are age-long in their evolutions. But when men and women have learned to look within themselves, have turned an intelligent eye upon the necessities of[Pg 421] their threefold being, and when they recognize the God-made laws regulating these necessities, and have begun to mate themselves accordingly, the world will have received a powerful impulse toward its promised millennial epoch.

Such, then, being, in brief, the relation of woman to man, it is necessary to inquire, as pertinent to my subject, not so much whether man gives her all the rights within his own sphere which she may beneficially claim, but whether she has yet understood the weight and significance of her own position in the scale of being, and has exercised all the rights consequent therefrom. To know is far easier than to live according to knowledge. It is to be feared that women themselves have but a poor appreciation of the ideal of true womanhood. Oh, is it not time this ideal should be worthily understood? Has not poor suffering humanity borne the burden of its woes long enough, and will not woman help to lift it from the tired, stooping shoulders? For she may. How? Simply by working out her own divinely appointed mission. And is this not broad and absorbing enough? See what are some of its objects of influence and endeavors. First, here are the very faintest beginnings of intelligent existence to impress and mould—the embryos of character to stamp. And who knows how important this moulding and stamping may be? To go farther back still: Who knows what indelible constitution may be, is, fixed upon the individual organism, for better, for worse, by the authors of its life, that, if evil, no training, no education, no work of grace, not even omnipotence, can expunge or alter? This motherhood of woman, in its awful sanctity and mystery, in its bearings upon the immortality of personal identity, is a fearful dignity. Therein consists the first and chief claim of Woman to honor and reverence. She who has been a mother has measured the profoundest as well as the most exalted experience of which humanity is susceptible. Let her see to it that she honor herself.

Here is the white and plastic tablet of the new-born soul. Let woman fear and tremble to write on that, for the writing shall confront her forever. Like the Roman Pilate, what she has written, she has written. Here are the purblind human instincts to direct and culture; the vagrant, unbridled hosts of the spontaneous emotions to be tutored and restrained; the affections and the tastes to be trained toward the true, the beautiful, and the good; the warring passions to be curbed and disciplined; in short, the whole glorious domain of the heart and soul, the moral and spiritual nature, is to be surveyed, studied, swayed by that potential agency which woman possesses in a very eminent degree—personal influence. By this agency, informed and vitalized by love, she becomes the great educator in the great school of life, in the family, in society, in the world. Women do not sufficiently appreciate the importance of their work as the architects of character. Character! That, after all, is the man, the enduring individual, the real I, to whom the Creator has said, Live forever! Character is simply what education and habit make of a person, starting from the foundation of his inherited organic idiosyncrasies. It is a result—the work of time and countless shapings and impressings. It is not what a man thinks of himself, nor what others think of him, but what he really is in the sight of God, his Maker. This is what shall come out, at last, from the obscurations and uncertainties of this lower atmosphere into the clear, truthful light of eternity; shall cast off the devices, the flimsy pretences, the temporary shows, the convenient disguises, of this mortal life of mixed substance and shadow, and stand a bare, naked, unclothed fact of being before itself, the universe, and God. Alas! what multitudes of real dwarfs go out every[Pg 422] day, 'unhouseled,' into that searching light of eternity.

To be the builder of a fair and comely character; to chisel out a work that shall please the eye of God Himself, in whose estimation Beauty, being His own attribute, is a most holy thing; to see that work of beauty take its place in the well-filled gallery of eternity, and to know that it is your own immortal monument—is this not scope enough, honor enough, praise and glory enough? If women would but rise to the height of their real mission, and faithfully and earnestly assume the rights and fulfil the duties which God has specially devolved upon them, they would so lead man and society up to a higher point that the claims they put forth need not be discussed for an hour; because, then, having proved their adaptability to make good use of every lawful right, society, which in the end always adjusts its forces properly and instinctively, will have tacitly fallen into the necessity or the feasibility of granting them.

Let man erect his scientific formulas, his schools of philosophy, his structures of reason and thought; let him bid the giant forces of nature go in harness for his schemes of improvement or aggrandizement; and by all means let the intellect of woman be cultivated to comprehend intelligently the marvels of man's work; let her, if she will, measure the stellar distances, study the mechanical principles or the learned professions, make a picture or write a book; and there have been women, true and noble women, who have done all these, women who have proved themselves capable of as high attainments, as keen and subtile thought as man; but let her never for such as these abdicate her own nobler work, neglecting the greater for the less. If a woman has a special gift, let her exercise it; if she has a particular mission, let her work it out. Few women, though, are of this elect class. I do not despise, but rather encourage, natural gifts. But I would have women never forget that it is not for what they may possibly add to the sum of human knowledge that the world values them, primarily. That some man is as likely to do as not; but what women fail to do in their own peculiar sphere, no man can possibly do.

When I aver that woman was intended to be a predominant influence in the world through her moral and spiritual being, principally, I must not be understood as depreciating the value to her of mere subjective knowledge. So far from this, I believe that her means of acquiring knowledge of all kinds should be limited only by her capacity. The more her intellect is enlightened and disciplined, the better will she be qualified to exert that refining, elevating influence which is expected of her. There can be no beauty without the element of strength; there can be no love worth the name without knowledge. Were her sense of justice, her logical powers, her reflective faculties carefully trained and exercised, her peculiar womanly graces of soul would shine with tenfold lustre. I mean, simply, that knowledge is specially valuable to her objectively—as a means, and the best means, to the highest end of her being, which is concrete rather than abstract.

Briefly, I say, then, it is in the great departments of ethics, of æsthetics, of religious and spiritual things, that woman is a vital power in human life.

I have thrown out these general preliminary thoughts concerning the nature of woman, and her relations to man and to society, chiefly with reference to a phase of the subject which has not seemed to engage the attention either of women themselves or of those who assume to advocate their cause. It is the important consideration whether, in a free and republican land, woman holds any certain and special relation toward the Government. In other words, have American women[Pg 423] any vital share or interest in this grand, free Government of ours? With all the emphasis of a profound conviction, I, answer, Yes. Such a touching and intimate interest as no women ever had before in any Government under the sun. And why?

Because the principles embodied in and represented by it have made her what she is, and they alone can make her what she hopes to be.

If it be true that the position of woman in society is a sure test of its civilization, then is our American society already in the van of progress. Nowhere else in the world is woman so free, so respected, so obeyed, so beloved; nowhere else is the ideal of womanhood so chivalrously worshipped and protected. In the spirit of our political theory, that no class of society is to be regarded as permanently and necessarily disabled from progress and elevation—to which, in our practice, we have hitherto made but one wicked and shameful exception—and under the influence of the powerful tendency of our system to individualism, woman has been allowed a freedom heretofore unparalleled, and onward and upward is still the word.

I do not claim perfection for our system. But I say we have the germs of the healthiest national development. All that remains is to carry forward those germs to maturity, and let them show their legitimate results unhampered. That is what we want, what we claim. Society here is unformed, in the rough. We lack the outward grace and polish belonging only to old societies. We shall yet attain these, as well as some other desirable things; but I believe that in no other country in the world is there so much genuine, delicate, universal devotion manifested for woman as among the Americans. Have you seen a boy of fourteen, shy, awkward, uncouth in manner, rough in speech, but with a great, tender heart thumping in his bosom? And did you know of the idolatrous worship he could not wholly conceal for some fair, sweet, good girl older than himself, a woman, even—a worship, which was not love, if love be other than a high and tender sentiment, but which was capable of filling his being to overflow with its glory and richness? I liken our American chivalry to this. And it is this instinctive natural politeness of our men toward women that, as much as anything else, keeps us from being rude and unrefined while yet in our first adolescence.

I am aware that, hitherto, the South has laid claim to the lion's share of this gallant spirit, as it has of many other polite and social qualities. But we do not so readily now, as a few years ago, yield to these Southern assumptions. We know now for just how much they stand. And we know, too, in the better light of this hour, that it is not possible for a very high and pure ideal of womanhood to be conceived in the atmosphere of a system which, as slavery does, persistently, on principle, and on a large scale, degrades a portion of the sex, no matter how weak, poor, defenceless. Rather, the more defenceless the greater is the wrong, the shame. I am not lauding that gallantry which stands in polite posture in the presence of a lady, hat in hand, and with its selectest bow and smile, and in the same breath turns to commit the direst offences against the peace and purity of womanhood; but that true and hearty, though simple and unostentatious, reverence for the sex, that teaches men to regard all women as worthy of freedom, respect, and protection, simply by virtue of their womanhood. I say not that this chivalry is a Southern, but that it is an American trait. As such I am proud of it.

But does this high and honored place they hold in the hearts of their countrymen devolve no corresponding responsibility upon American women? Is it not a momentous inquiry how far they fall short of the high and com[Pg 424]manding standard of thought and action demanded of them in order to meet this heavy obligation? It seems to me that the time is fully ripe for the clearer perception of the fact, that because women are not men, it does not follow that they are not in an important sense citizens. And this, without any reference to the question whether they should be permitted to vote and to legislate; though, as to the former, I do not know of a single valid objection to the exercise of the privilege, while there are several weighing in its favor; and as to the latter, it seems to me that one single consideration would forever, under the present constitution of things, debar her from a share in direct and positive legislation. It is as follows: The central idea of all properly constituted society, without which society would be an incoherent chaos, and governments themselves but the impotent lords of anarchy and misrule, is the home. Of the home, woman, from the very nature of the case, is the inspiriting genius, the ever-present and ever-watchful guardian. And the home, with its purities, its sanctities, its retiracies, its reticences, is far removed from the noise and wranglings of popular assemblies, the loud ambitions and selfish chicaneries of political arenas. The very foundation, pivotal ideas of human nature would be undermined by such publicity. The value of the home, as the nursery of whatever is pure, lovely, holy in the human soul, rests absolutely on the preservation of the modest purity and grace of woman.

How, then, is woman's influence as a citizen in a republican land to be exercised, if she be excluded from positive legislation? I answer, by the moral effect of her personal influence in the formation of mind and character; by her work as the great educator in the home and in society. If hers be not a moral and spiritual influence, it is none at all for good. And of all the powers for good in a republic, this is the strongest, most beneficent, did woman rightly comprehend the issue.

The purity, safety, and perpetuity of a free government rest, ultimately, not so much on forms of law, on precedents, on the ascendency of this or that party or administration, but on the intelligence, morality, and devotion to freedom of the people. What should woman care to legislate, when she may wield such an engine of power as education puts into her hands; when she may mould the minds and inspire the souls of those who are to be the future legislators; when she may, even now, put forth a direct and immediate influence upon those who are the legislators of the present time? For her influence on society is twofold, direct and reflex, present and prospective; it is the most powerful known, the most subtile and secret and determining, viz., personal influence.

To this end, therefore, that she may influence in the right direction, women need to inform themselves, to acquire a knowledge of the principles on which our system rests, and to become thoroughly imbued with their spirit. This will necessitate an acquaintance with the nature and details of our political creed, of which our women, especially, are lamentably ignorant. How many out of every hundred, do you suppose, have even read the Constitution, for instance? You may say that the majority of men have never studied it either, even of the voters. I admit the fact. There is a terrible lack of information among even men on public subjects. But I think this: if women were to educate themselves and their children, all whom they influence, indeed, to make these subjects a matter of personal interest, instead of regarding them as foreign matters, well enough for lawyers and politicians, perhaps, to understand, or for those who expect to fill office, but of no manner of importance to a person in strictly private life, this ignorance would come to an end. This shifting of personal respon[Pg 425]sibility by the great majority is the bane of our system. The truth is, no one, in a republican government, can lead an absolutely private career. As one who exercises the elective franchise, or one who influences the same, be it man or woman, there is no dodging the responsibility of citizenship. A better State of information on public affairs, also, will induce a correct conception of a certain class of ideas which, more than any others, perhaps, tend to strengthen, deepen, broaden, solidify the mental powers—ideas of absolute law and justice. As I have before said, the female mind is deficient in this particular.

To understand their government and institutions, then, is the first step in the attainment of the standard demanded of American women; or, in other words, an increase of political knowledge—a more thorough political education.

Another step is, the enlargement and strengthening of their patriotism. The former step, too, will conduce to this, and be its natural consequence. I do not mean alone that loose and vagrant sentiment which commonly passes for patriotism, which is aroused at some particular occasion and slumbers the rest of the time; which is spasmodic, temporary, impulsive, and devoid of principle; but that love of country founded on knowledge and conviction; a living faith of the heart based upon duty and principle; and which is, therefore, all-pervading, abiding, intelligent, governing thought and action, and conforming the life to the inner spirit. That sort of patriotism that lives as well in peace time as in war time; that makes the heart throb as sympathetically in behalf of country every day in the year as on the Fourth of July; that leads us to conform our habits of life and thought to the spirit of our institution and policy; that makes us as jealous of the honor, the consistent greatness of our country when all men speak well of her, as when her foes are bent upon her destruction. This habit of mind is what I mean, rather than any transient emotion of heart; an enlightened and habitual spirit of patriotism.

I give American women all credit due them for the patriotic temper they have evinced since this war began. I say that never have women showed more loyalty and zeal for country than the women of the North. Let sanitary fairs and commissions, let soldiers' aid societies from one end of the land to the other, and in every nook and corner of it, let our hospitals everywhere attest this heartfelt love and devotion on the part of our women. It is a noble spectacle, and my heart thrills at the thought of it. We have many noble ones who will stand in history along with England's Florence Nightingale and the 'Mother of the Gracchi,' those eternally fair and tender women, fit for the love and worship of the race. The want is not in the feeling of patriotism, but in the habitual principle and duty of the same. Since the war began, the fire has not slackened. But how was it before the war, and how will it be after it?

To prove what I say, let me dwell a moment on two or three of the most prominent faults of our women, pronounced such by all the world. Of these, the most mischievous and glaring, the most ruinous in thousands of cases, is extravagance. Wastefulness is almost become a trait of our society. American women, especially, are profuse and lavish of money in dress, in equipage, in furniture, in houses, in entertainments, in every particular of life. Everywhere this foolish and wasteful use of money challenges the surprise and sarcasm of the observant foreign tourist through our country. Perhaps the largeness and immensity of our land, its resources and material, as well as the wonderful national advance we have already made, tends to cultivate in our people a feeling of profusion and a habit of extravagant dis[Pg 426]play; but it is not in sympathy either with our creed or our profession.

Were the money thus heedlessly expended made for them by slaves whom they had from infancy been taught to regard as created solely to make money for them to use and enjoy, this extravagant waste of money, while none the less selfish and inexcusable, would appear to grow spontaneously out of the arbitrary rule of slavery; or, if it had descended to them by legal or ancestral inheritance, there might be some show of reason for using it carelessly, though very small sense in so doing. But in a land where labor is the universal law; where, if a man makes money, he must work and sweat for its possession; when fortunes do not arise by magic, but must be built up slowly, painfully, at the expense of the nerve and sinew, the brain and heart of the builders, and these builders, not slaves, but our fathers, husbands, brothers; when a close attention to money-making is rapidly becoming a national badge, and is in danger of eating out entirely what is of infinitely more value than wealth—a high national integrity and conscience—and of sinking the immaterial and intellectual in the material and sensual; in such circumstances as these, I say, and under such temptations and dangers, it is a sin, an unnatural crime, to squander what costs so dear.

Volumes might be written upon the frightful consequences of this extravagance in money matters, this living too fast and beyond their means, of which American women, especially, are guilty. Great financial crises, in which colossal schemes burst like bubbles, and vast estates are swallowed up like pebbles in the sea; commercial bankruptcies, in which honorable names are bandied on the lips of common rumor, and white reputations blackened by public suspicion; minds, that started in life with pure and honest principles, determined to win fortune by the straight path of rectitude, gradually growing distorted, gradually letting go of truth, honor, uprightness, and ending by enthroning gold in the place made vacant by the departed virtues; hearts, that were once responsive to the fair and beautiful in life and in the universe, that throbbed in unison with love, pity, kindness, and were wont to thrill through and through at a noble deed or a fine thought, now pulseless and hard as the nether millstone; souls, that once believed in God, heaven, good, and had faith and hope in immortality, now worshipping commercial success and its exponent, money, and living and dying with their eager but fading eyes fixed earthward, dustward!

Oh, it is a fearful thought that woman's extravagant desires and demands may thus kill all that is best and highest in those who should be her nearest and dearest. Yet, if this wide-spread evil of wastefulness is to be checked, it must be begun in the home, and by its guardian, woman. There is a movement lately inaugurated, looking to retrenchment in the matter of unnecessary expenditure, which, if it is to be regarded other than as a temporary expedient, is worthy of the patriotic enthusiasm which called it forth. I allude to the dress-reform movement made by the loyal women of the great Northern cities. The spirit of this movement I could wish to see illustrated both during the continuance of and after the war. It is this economical habit of mind for the sake of patriotic principle, that I regard as a great step in the attainment of the desired standard for American women.

Another plain fault of our women, and one which in a measure is the cause of the fault above noticed, is the wild chase after and copying of European fashions. We are accused of being a nation of copyists. This is more than half true. And why we should be, I cannot understand. Are we never to have anything original, American? Are we always to be con[Pg 427]tent to be servile imitators of Europe in our art, literature, social life, everything, except mere mechanical invention? I am thankful that we are beginning to have an art, a literature, of our very own. Let us also have a fashion, that shall be, distinctively, if not entirely, American. There is surely enough of us, of our splendid country, our institutions, our theories, our brave, free people, to build for ourselves, from our own foundation, and with our own material. But American Women have yet to inspire society with this patriotic ambition.

Not what is becoming or suitable to her, but what is the fashion, does the American woman buy; not what she can afford to purchase, but what her neighbors have, is too commonly the criterion. This constant pursuit of Fashion, with her incessant changes, this emulation of their neighbors in the manifold ways in which money and time can be alike wasted, and not the necessary and sacred duties of home, the personal attention and effort which the majority of American women have to give to their household affairs, produce that lack of time that is offered as an excuse for the neglect of the duty of self-culture. This it is which fritters away thought and the taste for higher things, leaving the mind blank and nerveless except when thus superficially excited.

This duty of self-culture I would notice as one of the demands of the times upon American women in the attainment of the proposed standard. A wide, liberal, generous self-culture, of intellect, of taste, of conscience, for the sake of the better fulfilment of the mission to which, as an American citizen, every woman in the land is called. We do not begin to realize this. It is a great defect in our social system, that, when a woman has left school and settled down in life, she considers it the signal for her to quit all mental acquisition except what she may gather from her desultory reading, and, henceforth, her family and her immediate neighborhood absorb her whole soul under ordinary circumstances. The great majority of our countrywomen thus grow careworn, narrow-minded, self-absorbed. Now this is not right—it is not necessary. A woman's first, most important duty is in her home; but this need not clip the wings of her spirit, so that thought and affection cannot go out into the great world, and feel themselves a part of its restless, throbbing, many-sided life; brain and heart need not stagnate, even if busy, work-a-day life does claim her first endeavors. Indeed, the great danger to our women is not so much that they will become trifling and frivolous, as that they will become narrow-minded and selfish.

But these vices of extravagance and excessive devotion to fashion, of which I have spoken, are due, largely, to a still more radical defect in our social education. I mean its anti-republican spirit. This is our crowning absurdity. We are good democrats—in theory. It is a pity that our practice does not bear out our theory, for the sake of the homely virtue of consistency. To a great many otherwise sensible people our simple republican ways are distasteful, and they are apt to look with, admiring, envious eyes on the conventional life of foreign lords, not considering how burdened with forms it is, and full of the selfishness, the pride and arrogance of the privileged and titled few, at the bitter expense of the suffering, untitled many. The aping of aristocratic pretensions has been a much-ridiculed foible of American women. It is certain that American society needs republicanizing in all its grades. We have widely departed from the simplicity of the early days and of the founders of the republic, in social life, just as in our political course we had suffered the vital essence of our organic law to become a dead thing, and the whole machinery of the Government to work reversely to its intention. And[Pg 428] the cause has been the same in each case. The spirit of a government and the theories embodying it are the reflection of the social condition of a given age and people, so that the one will never be of a higher order than the other; while it is, also, equally true, that the best and most advanced political theories may be suffered to languish in operation, or become wholly dormant, from the influence of social causes. Thus it was that the demoralising effect of human slavery did, up to the time of the great shock which the nation received in the spring of 1861—a shock which galvanized it into life, and sent the before vitiated blood coursing hotly, and, at last, healthfully through all the veins and arteries of the national body—persistently encroach alike upon Government and society. The slime of that serpent was over everything in the North as well as the South, and if it did not kill out the popular virtue and patriotism as completely here as there, where it is intimately interwoven with the life of the people, the difference is due to that very cause, as well as to the inextinguishable vitality that God has conferred on the genius of human liberty, so that when betrayed, hunted, starved, outlawed, she yet seeks some impregnable fastness, and subsists on manna from the Divine Hand. This, then, is the fourth step in the attainment of the true ideal of character for American women—the effort to renew society in the actual simplicity of our republican institutions. Women, American women, should hold dear as anything in life the preservation and purity of those blessed institutions, guaranteeing to them as they do all their eminent privileges, and founded as they are on that emancipating genius of Christianity, which, through every age, has pointed a finger of hope, love, encouragement to woman as a chief instrument in the world's promised elevation and enfranchisement.

While dwelling upon the faults of American women, I would at the same time do full credit to their virtues. I believe that they occupy as high a place as any women in the world, even a higher. But I trust that they will rise to the height of the demands which the changed times and the exigencies of the situation are pressing upon them, and will continue to press. This war has clearly and forcibly eliminated truths and principles which the long rule of the slave power had wellnigh eclipsed; it has been a very spear of Ithuriel, at whose keen touch men and principles start up in their real, not their simulated character. During its three years of progress, the national education has been advanced beyond computation. When it is over, things, ideas, will not go back to the old standpoint. Then will arise the new conditions, demands, possibilities. If there is one truth that has been unmistakably developed by the war, it is the controlling moral power and sanction which a free government derives from woman. And this has been shown not only in the influence for good which the loyal women of the North have contributed for the aid of the Government, but with equal power in the influence for evil which the Southern women have exerted for its destruction. I suppose it is true that this war for slavery has received its strongest, fiercest continuing impulses from the women of the South. Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm, the persistency, the heroic endurance, the self-sacrifice they have manifested. Only had it been in a good cause!

Just here let me say a word in behalf of these Southern women. There is a disposition on the part of the Northern public, forming their opinion from the instances of fierce spite and vindictiveness, of furious scorn and hatred, which have been chronicled in the reports of army correspondents and in the sensation items of the newspapers, to regard them as little short of demons in female shape. All this is naturally work[Pg 429]ing a corresponding dislike and ill-feeling among the masses North. To such I would say: These Southern sisters are not demons, but made of the same flesh and blood, and passions and affections as yourselves. The difference between you is purely one of circumstances and training, of locality—above all, of education and institutions. It is as true that institutions are second nature as that habit is.

The peculiar faults of Southern women they share with their Northern sisters, only in a vastly enhanced degree; and besides these, they have others, born of and nurtured by that terrible slavery system under whose black shadow they live and die. Their idleness, their lack of neatness and order, their dependence, their quick and sometimes cruel passions, their unreason, their contempt of inferiors, their vanity and arrogance, their ignorance, their lightness and superficiality, are all the outgrowth of its diabolical influences. They are, in fact, no more idle, thriftless, passionate, or supercilious, than Northern women would be in similar circumstances. It is too much the habit among the unreflecting, in judging of the Southern masses in their hostile attitude toward their lawful Government, to give less weight than it deserves to the necessary and inevitable tendency upon the mind and character of such an institution as African slavery; and to let the blame be of a personal and revengeful nature, which should fall most heavily on the sin itself, the dire crime against God and society, against himself and his fellow man, which the individual is all his life taught is no crime but a positive good. This slavery is woman's peculiar curse, bearing almost equally with its deadly, hideous weight on the white woman of the dominant class as upon the black slave woman. And yet how deluded they are! If that curse does come to an utter end in the South, as it surely will, I shall hail, as one of the grandest results of its extinction, next to the justice due the oppressed people of color, the emancipation of the white women of that fair land, all of them, slaveholders and non-slaveholders, from an influence too withering and deadly for language to depict. Oh, when shall that scapegoat, slavery, with its failures and losses and shortcomings, its frauds and sins and woes, be sent off into the wilderness of non-existence, to be heard from nevermore? God speed the hour!

But with all their faults, they have many and shining virtues. Though the ideal of a Southern woman commonly received at the North and abroad, is not true to the life, being neither so perfect nor so imperfect as their eulogists, on the one hand, and their detractors, on the other, would fain make it to be, there is yet much, very much, to elicit both love and admiration in her character.

The Southern female mind is precocious, brilliant, impressible, ardent, impulsive, fanciful. The quickness of parts of many girls of fifteen is astonishing. I used often to think, what splendid women they would make, with the training and facilities of our Northern home and school education. But, as it was, they went under a cloud at seventeen, marrying early, and either sinking into the inanition of plantation life, or having their minds dissipated in a vain and frivolous round of idle and selfish gayeties. I compare their intellects to a rich tropical plant, which blossoms gorgeously and early, but rarely fruitens. The Southern women are, for the most part, a capable but undeveloped race of beings. With their precocity, like the exuberance of their vegetation, and with their quick, impassioned feelings, like their storm-freighted air, always bearing latent lightning in its bosom, they might become a something rich, rare, and admirable; but, never bringing thought up to the point of reflection; never learning self-control, nor the necessity of holding passion in abeyance; never[Pg 430] getting beyond the degrading influence of intercourse with a race whose stolidity and servility, the inevitable result of their condition, on the one hand, are both the cause and effect of the habit of irresponsible power and selfish disregard of right fostered in the ruling class, on the other—what could be expected of them but to become splendid abortions?

There is another consideration in connection with the excessive war spirit they have evinced, which may help to account for it. I have often had occasion to notice the habit the educated class of Southern women have of conversing familiarly with their male friends and relatives on political subjects, and to contrast it with the almost total reticence of Northern women on subjects of public interest. This, of course, induces a more immediate and personal interest in them, and the more intimate one's interest in a subject, the more easily enthusiasm is aroused toward it.

Now, the very head and front, the bone and marrow of Southern politics for more than three decades, has been—slavery, and plans for its aggrandizement and perpetuation. That has been the ulterior object of all the past vociferations about State rights and Southern rights. Slavery is country, practically, with them, and as it lay at the root of their society, and its check or its extinction would, in their false view, overturn society itself, it was easy for the scheming, cunning leaders of the slave faction to adroitly transfer this enthusiasm, and to raise the watchword, which never yet among any people has been raised in vain, Your homes and firesides! When ever did women hear that cry unmoved?

When country, that grand idea and object of human hope, pride, and affection, had degenerated into a section; and when a false and miserable institution, from its very nature terribly intimate with the life of society, became the most substantial feature of that section; what wonder if the war has at last, whatever it might have been at first, come to the complexion of a contest for home and fireside with the masses of the people, with the majority of the Southern women?

The magnificent dreams and projects, too, of a great slave empire, that should swallow up territory after territory, and astonish the world with its wealth, power, and splendor, which were fused into life in the brains of the great apostles of slavery and secession, had their influence on minds which, like the minds of the Southern women, have a natural, innate love for the gorgeous, the splendid, the profuse, and showy; minds ambitious of, and accustomed to, rule, and impatient of control; minds already glazed over with the influence of the lying assertion, proved to their uncritical, passionate judgment by all the sophistical arguments of which their religious and political guides were capable, that slavery is the very best possible condition for the black man, and the relation of master the only true and natural one for the white. I say, I do not wonder at the Southern women so much. I pity them infinitely. Just think what they have been educated to believe, and then say if there is not something sadly splendid in the very spirit of endurance, of defiance, of sacrifice, however wrong and mistaken, they have shown. I pity them profoundly, for they are drinking to the lees the cup of suffering, of deprivation, of humiliation, of bitter loss, and stern retribution. And the end is not yet. Deeper chagrin and humiliation must be theirs; more loss, more devastation, more death, and ruin, before their proud hopes and visions are utterly crushed out of life. Oh, are they not being educated, too, as well as we of the North?

When I think of all the grace, loveliness, and generosity of the many Southern women I have known and loved; when I recall the admirable qualities which distinguished them, the[Pg 431] grace of manner, the social tact and address, the intellectual sprightliness, the openness and hospitality of soul, the kindliness and sympathy of heart, the Christian gentleness and charity; I can but say to my Northern sisters, These deluded women of the South would, in themselves, be worthy of your esteem and love, could the demon of secession and slavery once be exorcised. And I believe that when it is, and the poor, rent South sits clothed and in her right mind, subdued through sheer exhaustion of strength, and so made fit for the healthy recuperation that is one day to begin, the cause of our beloved country, and of humanity through this country, will have no more generous or loving supporters, ay, none so enthusiastic and devoted as they. I glory in the anticipation of the time when the ardent, impulsive, demonstrative South shall even lead the colder North in the manifestation of a genuine patriotism, worthy of the land and nation that calls it forth. We shall then have gained a country, indeed, instead of being, as heretofore, several sections of a country.

The consistent moulding of society in the spirit of our political ideas is essential to securing us the respect of the world, and to vindicating the principles, themselves, on which having built, they are our sole claim to such honor and respect. As long as we fail so to do, we may be the wonder, and we are likely to be the jest of the onlooking world, but we never can be what we ought to be, its admired and beloved model. It seems to me there is less danger now than formerly of our failure in this important respect. The dangers, the expenses, the burdens, and losses of this fearful civil war will surely create in the hearts of the people everywhere, North and South, a revivified if not a new-born love for, and appreciation of, republican principles, and will teach them where the most insidious danger to them lies; not from open foes, foreign or domestic; not from anything inherent in those free principles; but from a cause exceedingly paradoxical: a democratic people leaving to a party, to a section, the Government which should be their very own; the virtue and intelligence of the nation absenting themselves from the national councils, thus making way for corruption and fraud to enter in an overwhelming flood; one half of the nation rocking its conscience to sleep with the false lullaby of commercial greatness and material prosperity, and the other, left to do the governing, with seemingly no conscience at all, going to work with satanic directness and acuteness, to undermine the principles thus left without a guardian, and to inject the black blood of slavery into the veins of the body politic, till the name democracy became a misnomer the most wretched, a sarcasm the most touching. I do not imagine we shall ever again go back to that. It must be that, in future, the American people will grow into the habit of demanding that an enlightened, patriotic statesmanship shall rule, instead of an unprincipled demagoguism. Also, that they will attend to it that better men are sent to Washington; men chosen because they represent most nearly the great national ideas and interests, which the people will require shall absorb legislation rather than any sectional institution whatever; and not because, primarily, they are the subservient idols of this or that party. It must be that, hereafter, party will be less and the nation more. Of course, parties will exist, necessarily; but if this great American people, having carried on to perfect success this war against a stupendous rebellion, and having gone through the school of knowledge and experience it has been to them, can again settle down into the mere political jobbery into which governmental affairs had deteriorated before the earthquake of war stirred up the dregs of things, it would be an instance of fruitless ex[Pg 432]penditure of means and life, and of self-stultification, too pitiful for words—such an instance as the world has not yet seen, thanks to the ordained progression of the world.

When peace returns to the land once more; when the fierce fever of blood and strife is quelled; when the vague fears and uncertainties of this period of transition are over, and the keen pangs and bloody sweat of the nation's new birth are all past—what will be the position of this American people? I tremble to contemplate it. It will be much like what I imagine the condition of a freed, redeemed soul to be, just escaped the thraldom, perplexity, and sin of this lower life, and entered on a purer, higher, freer plane of existence. Then comes reconstruction, reorganization, a getting acquainted with the new order of things, and the new duties and experiences to which it will give rise; then will be discoveries of new truths, and new applications of old; old errors and superstitions have been renounced, and facts and principles which have long lain in abeyance, smothered under a weight of neglect and unappreciation, will start into fresh magnitude. And, withal, will come a sense of the reality and security there is in this great change, and of infinite relief and blessedness therein, such as I suppose attends every change from a lower to a higher condition, from darkness to light, from cloud, mystery, and trouble, to the white air of peace and the clear shining of the sun of knowledge.

Then, think of the career that lies ahead of this regenerated nation. This war, fearful and costly as it is, was needed, to rouse men and women to the conviction that there is something more in a people's life than can be counted in dollars and cents; and that their strength consists not alone in commercial superiority or material development, but, principally, in virtue, justice, righteousness. It was needed, to give the lie to that impious and infidel assumption of the South that Cotton is king, and to prove that the God of this heaven-protected land is a true and jealous God, who will not give his glory to Baal. It was needed, to arrest the nation in the fearful mechanical tendency it was assuming, whereby it was near denying the most holy and vital principles of its being; and it was needed, to warm and quicken the almost dead patriotism of the masses, and to educate them anew in the high and pure sentiments they had suffered to be forgotten, and, in forgetting which, many another ration has gone to irretrievable decay and ruin.

I trust in God that this people have not suffered many things in vain, and that the time is dawning when we shall be a nation indeed, a Christian nation, built upon those eternal ideas of truth, justice, right, charity, holiness, which would make us the ideal nation of the earth, dwelling securely under the very smile and benediction of Jehovah.

In this time of which I speak, the people will see that to be a nation we must not be merely servile imitators of Old World ideas, but must develop our own American ideas in every department of government and society; thus, eventually, building up a national structure which shall, which need, yield to none, but may take precedence of all.

We are too young, as yet, to have become such a nation, with its distinctive and separate features, each clearly marked and self-illustrating; but not too young to understand the necessity of working out our own special plan of civilization. As the American nation did not follow the course of all others, by mounting from almost impalpable beginnings up through successive stages to an assured position of national influence and greatness; so need we not imitate them in waiting for gray hairs to see ourselves possessed of a distinct national character. As we did not have to go through the slow, age-long process of originating, of de[Pg 433]veloping ideas, principles, but took them ready made, a legacy from the experience of all the foregoing ages; and as our business is to apply these ideas to the problem we are set to solve, not for ourselves alone, but for the world's peoples, for aggregate humanity, so should we be neither laggard nor lukewarm in fulfilling this high trust, this 'manifest destiny.' In the developing of our special American ideas we have a great work before us—a work but begun, as yet. There is an American art—an American literature—an American society, as well as an American Government, to be shaped out of the abundant material we possess, and compacted into the enduring edifice of national renown. For what is national character, but ideas crystallized in institutions? Until we have done this—given permanency to our special ideas in our institutions—we are a nation in embryo; our manhood exists only in prophecy.

To assist in this mighty work is the duty and privilege of American women. What higher ambition could actuate their endeavors—what nobler meed of glory win their aspirations?

O ye women, dear American sisters, whoever you are, who have offered up your husbands, sons, brothers, lovers, on the red altar of your country, that so that country may be rescued from the foes that seek her honor and life; who have labored and toiled and spent your efforts in supplying the needs of her brave defenders; whose hearts and prayers are all for the success of our holy cause; who are glad with an infinite joy at her successes, and who are sorry with profoundest grief at her defeats; complete, I implore you, the sacrifice already begun, and give to your regenerated country, in the very dawn of the new day which is to see her start afresh upon the shining track of national glory, yourselves, your best energies, and affections. Love liberty—love justice—love simplicity—love truth and consistency. See to it that the cause of republican freedom suffer not its greatest drawback from your failure to lead society up to the point to which you have the power to educate it. By your office as the natural leaders and educators of society; by your mission as the friends and helpers of all who suffer; by your high privilege as the ordained helpmate of man in the work, under God and His truth, of evangelizing the world, and lifting it out of its sin and sorrow; by your obligations to the glorious principles of Christian republicanism; and by your hopes of complete ultimate enfranchisement, I adjure you. The world has need of you, the erring, sin-struck world. Your country, even now struggling in the throes of its later birth, has desperate need of you. Man has need of you; already are being woven between the long-estranged sexes new and indissoluble bonds of union,—sympathies, beautiful, infinite, deathless; and, with a pleased and tender smile of recognition across the continent, he hails you helper! Your era dawns in sad and sombre seeming, indeed, in a land deluged with fraternal blood; but yours are all who need, all who sin, all who suffer. Shall the progress of humanity wait upon your supineness, or neglect, or refusal? Or shall the era now beginning, through you speedily culminate into the bright, perfect day of your country's redemption, and thus lead progress and salvation throughout the nations of the earth? Never were women so near the attainment of woman's possibilities as we American women; never so near the realization of that beautiful ideal which has ever shaped the dreams and colored the visions of mankind, making Woman the brightest star of man's love and worship.

Will she realize the dream—will she justify the worship? That is the question that concerns her now.[Pg 434]

A WREN'S SONG.

It is not often in these dark days that I can sleep as I used to do before the flood came and swept away all that my soul held dear; but last night, I was so weary in body with a long journey, that I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow, and slept on until the early morning sun came in through the open window, and woke me with its gentle touch. The air was sweet with spring fragrance, and the first sound that came to my awakened ears was the song of a little wren, a little wren who sang even as to-day in the days of my youth and joy, whose nest is built over the window that was so often a frame for that dearest-loved face. The song brought with it the recollection of all the little songster had outlived—the love, hope, and fear that had sprung up and grown and died, since I had first heard his warbling. And I broke into those quiet tears that are now my only expression of a grief too familiar to be passionate.

Three years ago, this very day, was to have been my wedding day. June and its roses were made for lovers, as surely as May, with its May flowers and little lilies, is the month of Mary the Blessèd. I had always wished to be married in June, and circumstances combined to render that time more convenient than any other. My love affair had been a long one, and had met with no obstacles. Our families had always been intimate, and I remember him a boy of fourteen, when he first came to live in the house opposite. At sixteen he went to West Point, and when he came home in his furlough year, I was fifteen. We were both in Washington until August; it was a long session; his father was in Congress, and so was mine. Edward Mayne had nothing to do that summer, and I never had much to occupy me; we saw each other every day, and so we fell in love. The heads of both families saw all, smiled a little, and teased a good deal; but no one interfered. My mother said it gave me occupation and amusement, and helped me to pass the long summer evenings, which I thought charming, and every one else thought a bore. It was called a childish flirtation, and when he went back to the Academy, and I to school, the thing dropped out of notice, and was soon forgotten.

But not by us. We remembered each other, and, each in our different lives, we were constant to our early love. And so it came to pass that, when he came back again, after graduating, we were very glad to see each other; the old intercourse was renewed, and the old feeling showed itself stronger for the lapse of years. No one interfered with us; the intimacy between our families had continued, and when we went to the seaside for the hot months, the Maynes went to the same place; and in August Edward had a leave, and came down to join them. I think he would have come if they had not been there, but that makes no difference now. One moonlit night, at the end of August, with the waves at our feet sounding their infinite secret, I promised to marry him; and as we parted that night at the door of our cottage, I looked at the silver-streaked waters, and said to him that neither the broad sea of death nor the stormy sea of life should ever part my soul from his. I have kept my word.

So we were engaged to be married, and were as happy as two young lovers ought to be. Both families were delighted, my father only stipulating that the marriage should not take place immediately. But that we felt no hard[Pg 435]ship, as Edward was stationed in Washington; and everything in the future looked as bright as everything in the past had ever been. We were sure of a happy winter, and hoped for a gay one, and we had both, though the cloud that had first appeared when the little wren began his summer song, had grown larger and darker day by day, until the signs of storm were no longer to be overlooked, and the fearful prophesied that the day of peace was over. Still I never dreamed of the difference it would make to me.

New Tear's Eve it was decided that we should be married on the first of June. As the clock struck twelve, and the last footfall of the old year died away, Edward put out his hand to take mine, and said:

'A happy New Tear it will surely be to us, my Laura, for we shall spend more than half of it together;' and I echoed his 'happy New Year' without a dread. I knew the storm was coming; I feared its fury; but I thought myself too secure, too near a haven to be lost; how could I know that the brave ship was destined to go down in sight of land?

And yet I might have known it. For I came from the North, which was, and is my home; and he was a Southern man. His family owned property and slaves in Georgia; and, though Mr. Mayne's political career had prevented their living there much, they considered it their home. One of the sons, who was married, lived on the plantation, and managed it well; the slaves were comparatively happy, and there were strong ties between them, their master and his family. My sister, who was delicate, had spent a winter in Florida, and I had accompanied her there. On our way home we paid a visit to the Mayne plantation; my sister enjoyed herself very much there, and was pro-slavery from that time; I was then sixteen, and had always hated it, and what with my fears of snakes, and my dislike of the black servants, whom I thought either inefficient or impertinent, and my unconquerable liking for freedom, I was not so fascinated. Edward Mayne himself did not like a planter's life, and he thought slavery an evil, but an evil inherited and past curing. He argued that the disease was not mortal and endurable, and that it would kill the country to use the knife. His youngest sister and I were the only two who ever discussed the subject; she talked a great deal of nonsense, and probably I did, too; and as she always lost her temper, I thought it wiser to let the subject drop, especially as I did not think about it a great deal, and it annoyed Edward to have any coolness between Georgy and me, and he himself never discussed the topic. We were both very young and very happy, too young and thoughtless to care much for any great question, so we sang our little song of happiness, and its music filled our ears until it was no longer possible not to hear the tumult of the world without.

The first day of January was our last day of perfect peace. Those who had not thought of the question before had now to answer what part they meant to take. People discussed less what States would secede, and more what they would themselves do, and many who are now most firm on one side or the other were then agitated by doubt and indecision. Events did not tarry for individual minds. We all know the story now; I need not repeat it. Still my future seemed unchanged, and I went to New York the third of January to order my wedding clothes, but I stayed only three or four days; I was restless for the continued excitement of Washington. The day I came back Mississippi seceded, and with it went Mr. Davis. I heard him make that farewell speech which so few listened to unmoved, and at which I cried bitterly. I went to say good by to him, though I could not say God speed, for already I was beginning to know that I had principles, and which side they[Pg 436] were on. As we parted, he said, in that courteous way that has made so many bow at his shrine:

'We shall have you in the South very soon, Miss Laura,' and I did not say no; but the mist lifted suddenly before my eyes, and I saw the rock on which my life was to split, and that no striving against the stream would avail me aught. Still I said nothing, and the days flew swiftly by on restless wings; days so full of excitement that they seemed to take years with them in their flight.

It was a lovely morning in February; the air had already a May softness in it, and the crocuses were bright in the grounds of the Capitol, when Edward and I went to take our favorite walk, and there, in sight of the broad river which is now a world-known name of division, he told me he had made up his mind to leave the army; that there might be fighting, and he could not fight against his own people, whom he believed to be in the right; that he thought it more honorable to resign at that moment than to wait until the hour of need. I could not oppose him, for I knew he thought he was doing his duty. I remembered how different his opinions were from mine, and that his whole system of education had trained him in dissimilar ideas of right from those held in the North. Georgia was his country, for which he lived, and for which he thought he ought to die, if need were. The shackles of inherited prejudices trammelled his spirit, as they might have trammelled the spirit of a wiser man, who could have shaken them off in the end; but my lover was not wide-minded, and had not the clear sight that sees over and beyond these petty lives of ours that are as nothing in the way of a great principle and a God-bidden struggle; his eyes saw only what they had been taught to see—his home, in its greenness and beauty, not the dank soul-malaria, to which, alas! so many of us are acclimated.

He resigned, and his resignation was accepted without delay or difficulty, as were all resignations in those days. The spring began to break in all its glory, and the grass grew green in Virginia, on fields that were trampled and bloody before that battle summer was over. The little wren sang again its song. This year a song of promise—of promise never to be fulfilled!

For the news of Sumter came, and the North rose with a cry, and my heart leaped up within me with a thrill stronger and deeper and more masterful than any mere personal feeling can ever give; a feeling that rules my soul to-day even as it ruled in that first excited hour.

Edward went South, and I let him go alone. I could not, I would not go with him. I had no sympathy, no tenderness, scarcely forgiveness for the men who had brought the evil upon us. We parted lovers, hoping for days of peace, and sure of reunion when those days should come; and every night and every morning I prayed for him; but first I prayed for the safety of my country, and the victory of our cause.

Time crept on. The battle of Bull Run was fought; he was engaged in it, and for many, many days I never knew whether he was living or dead. In the autumn I heard he had been ordered West, and that winter was a time of anxious days and restless nights. I never heard from him, and I did not think it fair to write; occasionally I heard of him through an aunt of his, who lived in Maryland, but she was gall and bitterness itself on the political question, and never let me know anything she could possibly keep from me. So my life passed in fruitless wondering and bitter suspense; I never saw a soldier without thinking of Edward, and my dreams showed him to me wounded, ill, or dying. No; the dead may make their voices heard across the gulf that parts us from them, but not the absent, or his soul would[Pg 437] have heard my 'exceeding loud and bitter cry,' and hearing, must have come.

I must not dwell on this. The days rolled on, and spring brightened the air, the grass was green again, the dying hope in my heart revived, and I listened again to the wren's song, and thought it yet promised a summer for my life. But that was the year of the Peninsular campaign, and the dying leaves fell on the graves of our bravest and brightest, and the autumn wind sighed a lamentation in our ears, and our hearts were mourning bitterly for the defeats of the summer, and no less bitterly for the dear-bought glory of Antietam. And winter came again: hope fled with the swallows, and my youth began to leave me.

In the late autumn I went to New York, to pay a visit to a friend. One night I went with my brother to the theatre. The play was stupid, and the entr'actes were long. In the middle of the second act, while some horrible nonsense was being talked upon the stage, I looked around the theatre, and saw no face I had ever seen before, when a lady near me moved her fan, and, a little distance beyond her, I saw—with a start I saw—the face that was never long absent from my thoughts. Changed and older, and brown and bearded; but I knew him; and he knew me, and smiled; and there was no doubt in my mind. I was not even surprised. But to the sickness of sudden joy soon succeeded the sickness of apprehension. What brought him there? And what would be done to him if he were discovered? How could I see him and speak to him? Oh! could it be possible that we might not meet more nearly! I wonder I did not die during that quarter of an hour. I turned and looked at my brother; his eyes were fixed upon the stage, and he was as curiously unmoved as if the world were still steady and firm beneath my feet.

I did not look at Edward again; I feared to betray him; and the green curtain fell, and my brother said, if I did not mind being left alone for a few minutes, he would go. He left me, and Edward came to me, and once more I saw him, and once more I heard his voice. He stayed only one moment, only long enough to make an appointment with me for the next morning, and then he left the theatre. The people around us thought probably that he was a casual acquaintance, if indeed they thought about it at all; and when my brother came back, he found me looking listless and bored, and apologized for having been detained.

I had—and still have, thank God!—a friend in whom I trusted; to her I had recourse, and it was by her help that I was enabled to keep my appointment. Only those who have known the pain of such a parting can ever hope to know the joy of such a meeting. I would like to make the rest of this as short as possible. Edward had run the blockade to see me; he had been to Washington, had stayed there three days, had heard of my absence, obtained my address, and followed me to New York; he had waited until twilight, when he had come to look at the house where I was staying; as he was walking slowly on the opposite side of the street, he had seen me come out with my brother, and had followed us to the theatre. He had trusted to his long beard and the cropping of his curly head as the most effectual disguise, and so far no one had recognized him. The only people who had known of his being in Washington were the friends with whom he stayed, the tailor who had sold him his clothes, who had a son with Stuart's cavalry, and the girl, my old school friend, who had given him my address, whom he went to see in the dusk hours of the afternoon, and who had hospitably received him in the coal cellar—which struck me, at the moment, as an infallible method of arousing suspicion. He[Pg 438] wanted me to return with him, or to marry him and follow him by flag of truce; he was sure Providence had made his way smooth on purpose to effect our union. His arguments were perhaps not very logical, but they almost convinced me of what I wished to believe. I was willing to bear the anger of my family, but could not think of again undergoing the wear and tear of separation. I promised to let him know my decision early the next morning; I think I should have gone with him, but that evening we were telegraphed to return to Washington—my father had been stricken down by apoplexy; and my brother and I went home in the night train. Edward knew the reason, for he read my father's death in the morning's newspaper.

Three weeks afterward I had a letter from Edward Mayne by flag of truce; that was the week before Fredericksburg; and then the agony again began. It did not last very long. In the early spring came Chancellorsville, and there Edward was slightly wounded and taken prisoner; he was removed to the hospital at Point Lookout; his aunt went to nurse him, but I did not go; he was doing very well, and I thought it was wiser not. And one day in May—ah! that day!—I was looking out of my window, and I see now the blue sky, the little white clouds, the roses, and the ivied wall that I saw when my mother came in and said Mrs. Daingerfield had come to take me to Edward, who was very ill and anxious to see me. I remember how the blood seemed to sink away from my heart, and for a moment I thought I was going to die; but in another moment I knew that I should live. I was eager and excited, and not unhappy, from that time until the end was at hand.

I had never been in a hospital before, and there was a long ward full of men, who all looked to me as if they were dying, through which I passed to reach the room in which Edward Mayne lay alone. He heard me coming, and, as I opened the door, he raised himself in bed and put out his hand to me....

That night the dreadful pain left him, and his aunt said he seemed brighter and more hopeful; but when the surgeon saw him in the morning, he shook his head. When the sun set, Edward knew that he should never again see its evening glories. Into that dark, still room came a greater than Solomon, and as the dread shadow of his wings fell on my life, I hushed my prayers and tears. We sat and watched and waited; and there came back a feeble strength into the worn frame, and he told us what he wished. He said that perhaps he had been wrong, but he had thought himself right; at least, he had given his life for his faith, and soon, soon he would know all. Then he asked them to leave him alone with me for a little while, and when they came back into the room, nothing remained of him but the cast-off mortality. The sun was rising in the east, but his soul was far beyond it; and the sunlight came in and kissed the quiet pale face, that looked so peaceful and so happy there could be no lamentation over it.

That day came his parole; the parole which we had so exerted ourselves to obtain that he might go home to get well; and now it had found him far beyond the captivity of bar or flesh—a freed spirit, 'gone up on high.'

The kindness of the Government induced us to ask one more favor, which was granted us. They let us take him home to Washington and bury him in the place he had always wished to be buried in; and some Confederate prisoners were given permission to attend his funeral. So he was buried as a soldier should be buried, borne to the grave by his comrades, and mourned by the woman dearest to him. He lies now on the sunniest slope in that green graveyard, where the waters rush near his resting place, and the trees make a[Pg 439] shade for the daisies that brighten above him.

He died as the sun rose on the first of June; we buried him early on the morning of the fifth. That night I left Washington, glad that it was to be no longer my place of residence, glad that my family would soon follow me to make another home where I could be stung by no associations. The old house passed into the hands of my elder sister, who is married to a Congressman from the West. But during this winter I have been so often homesick, and this early spring has been so chill and bleak compared with the May days of Washington, that I was fain to come back for a brief hour; and I have chosen to come in these last May days, that the first of June might find me here, true to the memory of the past.

There is nothing left of the old days; the place is changed from what it once was; the streets swarm with soldiers and strange faces; the houses are used by Government, or are dwelt in by strangers; there is scarcely a trace in this Sodom of the Sodom before the flood. No, there is nothing left for me now, of the things I used to know, except the little wren, whose song broke my heart this morning; and there is nothing here for me to care for, except that young grave in Georgetown, whose white cross bears but the initials and the date. I must now try to make myself a new life elsewhere, and to-morrow I go forth, shaking off the dust that soils my garments; hoping for the promise of the rainbow in this storm—and sure of the strength that will not fail me. O world! be better than thy wont to thy poor, weary child! O earth! be kindly to a bruised reed! O hope! thou wilt not leave me till the end—the end for which I wait.

WORD-STILTS

If the reader is so favored as to possess a copy of the 'Comparative Physiognomy' of Dr. James W. Redfield (a work long out of market, and which never had much of a sale), he may find in a chapter concerning the likeness between certain men and parrots some wise remarks on ridiculous eccentricities in literature. 'In inferior minds,' says the Doctor,'the love of originality shows itself in oddity.' 'There is many a sober innovator,' he continues, farther on,' whose delight it is to ponder

that he may not be supposed to make use of the humdrum literature of the day; who introduces obsolete words and coins new ones, and makes a patchwork of all languages; makes use of execrable phrases, and invents a style that may be called his own.' The Doctor compares these writers to parrots.

Now it is a well-known peculiarity of parrots that they have a passion for perching themselves in places where they will be on a level with the heads of the superior race whose utterances they imitate. The perch a parrot affects is almost always an altitude of about six feet, or the height of the tallest men. They feel their inferiority keenly if you leave them to hop about on the floor. It occurs to us that nothing could please a parrot more, if it could be, than a pair of stilts on which it could hop comfortably.

The literary parrot, more fortunate than his feathered fellow, finds stilts in words—obsolete words, such as men do not use in common intercourse with their fellows. Modern rhymesters more[Pg 440] and more affect this thing. Every day sees some outre old word resurrected from its burial of rubbish, and set in the trochaics and spondees of love songs and sonnets. Dabblers in literature, who would walk unseen, pigmies among a race of giants, get on their word-stilts, and straightway the ear-tickled critics and the unconsciously nose-led public join in pæans of applause. Sage men, who do not exactly see through the thing, nod their heads approvingly, and remark: 'Something in that fellow!' And the delighted ladies, prone as the dear creatures often are to be pleased with jingle that they don't understand, exclaim: 'A'n't he delightful!'

The lamented Professor Alexander once produced a very excellent poem, which contained only words of a single syllable, forcibly illustrating the power of simple language. We should be glad to reproduce it here, by way of contrapose to our own accompanying poem, but cannot now recall it to memory in its completeness. Any child, who could talk as we all talk in our families, could read and understand fully the poem to which I refer. But ask any child to read the lines we have hammered out below, and tell you what they mean! Nay, ask any man to do it, and see if he can do it. Probably not one in a hundred usual readers, could 'read and translate' the word-stilts with which we have trammelled our poetic feet, except with the aid of patient and repeated communion with his English dictionary. There are, however, no words employed here which may not be found in the standard dictionaries of our tongue.

THE POET INVOKETH HIS MUSE.

THE POET SEEKETH THE READER'S FORBEARANCE.

THE POET COMMENCETH TO SING.

If we should turn our attention studiously to this line of literary effort, we feel encouraged to believe that our success in a field of late so popular would be marked, and that we should obtain a degree of fame herein, beside which that of the moat shining light in the stilted firmament would pale its ray. But so long as God gives us the glorious privilege of emulating the stars, we shall not seek to win a place among the 'tallow dips' of parrot-poetry.[Pg 441]

A GREAT SOCIAL PROBLEM.

When the meteorological question was despatched, ladies have long had a habit of calling upon their servants to furnish them with small talk; high wages, huge appetites, daintiness, laziness, breakage, impertinence, are fruitful topics which they daily treat exhaustively; always arriving at the hopeless conclusion: 'Did you ever hear of anything like it?' and 'I wonder what we are coming to!'

Is it not possible that we may be coming to—no servants at all? To me the signs seem to point that way. Cobbett said that in America public servant means master: he might add, if he were writing now, and so does private servant. Each house is divided against itself into two camps; hostile, though perhaps not in open war with each other: and Camp Kitchen has the advantage of position. Above stairs uneasy sits the employer, timid, conciliating, temporizing; seeing as little as he can, and overlooking half he sees; ready to change his habits and to subdue his tastes to suit the whims of the enemigos pagados, as the Spaniards call them, he has under his roof. Below stairs lounge the lordly employés (a charming newspaper neologism for hotel waiters, street sweepers, and railway porters), defiant, aggressive, and perfectly aware that they are masters of the situation. Daily they become more like the two Ganymedes of Griffith's boarding house: he called them Tide and Tide—because they waited on no man. They have long ceased to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, and yet they accomplish less than before the era of modern improvements. It appears to be a law of domestic economy that work is inversely as the increase of wages. Nowadays, if a housekeeper visits a prison, he envies the whiteness of the floors and the brightness of the coppers he sees there, and thinks, with a sigh, how well it might be for his subscalaneans, if they could be made to take a course of neatness for a few months in some such an institution.

Vain wish! The future is theirs, and they know it. Their services will become gradually more worthless, until we shall find them only in grand establishments: mere appendages kept for fashion and for show; as useless as the rudimental legs of a snake, which he has apparently only to indicate the distinguished class in animated nature he may claim to belong to. We shall live to say, as Perrault sang:

Alas! I fear that even these shadows of servants will one day vanish and disappear from us altogether.

Time was when classes in society were as well defined as races still are. The currents ran side by side, and never intermingled. Some were born to furnish the blessings of life, and others to enjoy them. Some to wait, and others to be waited upon. The producing class accepted their destiny cheerfully, believed in their 'betters,' and were proud to serve them. The last eighty years have pretty much broken down these comfortable boundary lines between men. The feudal retainer, who was ready to give his life for his lord, the clever valet, who took kicks and caning as a matter of course when his master was in liquor or had lost at cards, even the old family servants, are species as extinct as the Siberian elephant, or the cave bear, or the dodo. And now the advance of the Union armies southward has destroyed the[Pg 442] last lingering type of the servant post: the faithful black.

In this country there never was much distinction of classes. The unwillingness of New England help to admit of any superiority on the part of their masters has furnished many amusing stories. Later, when the Irish element penetrated into every kitchen, farmyard, and stable, floating off the native born into higher stations, service became limited to immigrants and to negroes. But the immigrant soon learned the popular motto, 'I'm as good as you are,' and only remained a serving man until he could save enough money to set up for himself: not a difficult matter in the United States; and never so easy as at this moment. The demands of the Government for soldiers and for supplies threaten us with a labor famine in spite of the large immigration. In Europe labor is scarce and in demand. Commerce, manufactures, colonization have outrun the supply. Wages have doubled in England and in France within the last twenty years, and are rising. With increase of wages comes always decrease of subordination. The knowledge of reading, now becoming general, and exercised almost exclusively in cheap and worthless newspapers, and the progress of the democratic movement, which for good or for evil is destined to extend itself over the whole earth, make the working classes restless and discontented. They chafe under restraints as unavoidable as illness or death. What floods of nonsense have we not seen poured out about the conflict between labor and capital? It is the old fable over again: the strife of the members against the belly.

Gradually has sprung up the feeling that it is degrading to be a servant; a terrible lion in the path of the quiet housekeeper in search of assistants. There may arise some day a purer and a wiser state of society, wherein the relation of master and man will be satisfactory to both. A merchant exercises a much sharper control over his clerk than over any servant in his house, and it is cheerfully submitted to. The soldier, who is worse paid and worse fed than a servant, is a mere puppet in the hands of his officers, obliged to obey the nod of twenty masters, and to do any work he may be ordered to, without the noble privilege of 'giving notice;' and yet there is never any difficulty in obtaining a reasonable supply of soldiers—because clerks and soldiers do not think themselves degraded by their positions, and servants do. It may be a prejudice, but it is one which drives hundreds of women, who might be fat and comfortable, to starve themselves over needlework in hovels; and often to prefer downright vice, if they can hope to conceal it, to virtue and a home in a respectable family. Any logic, you perceive, is quite powerless against a prejudice of this size and strength.

But is it altogether a prejudice? Is it not a sound view of that condition of life?

I confess that it has long been a matter of surprise to me that men should be found willing to hire themselves out for domestic service in a country where bread and meat may so easily be obtained in other ways, and where even independent manual labor is so often considered derogatory to the dignity of the native born. To do our dirty work that it disgusts us to do for ourselves, to stand behind our chairs at table, to obey our whims and caprices, to have never a moment they can call their own, to keep down their temper when we lose ours, to be compelled to ask for permission to go out for a walk, seems to me a sad existence even with good food and wages.

The fact is, my dear Continental, that the relation between master and servant has to be readjusted to suit the times. Indeed it is readjusting itself. We see the signs, although we may not perceive their significance. Our life is a dream. I use this venerable[Pg 443] saying in another sense than the one generally intended by it: I mean that we live half our lives, if not more, in the imagination; and that the imagination of every-day people is a dream made up of feelings brought together from the habits, theories, and prejudices of the past of all lands and all nations of men. The reality that was once in them has long since been out of them; yet these vague and shadowy fancies are all-powerful and govern our actions. So that morally we go about like maskers in the carnival, dressed in the old clothes of our ancestors. With this difference, that most of us do not see how shabby and threadbare they are, and how unsuited to our present wants. And the few who do see this have an inbred fondness for the old romantic rags, and wear some of them in spite of their better judgment. Our moneyed class cling in particular to the dream of an aristocracy, and love to look down upon somebody. The man who made his fortune yesterday calls to-day's lucky fellow a nouveau riche and a parvenu. The counter jumper who has snatched his thousands from a sudden rise in stocks, is sure to invest some of his winnings in the tatters of feudalism, sports a coat of arms on his carriage, has liveries, talks of his honor as a gentleman, and expects from his servants the same respect that a baron of the Middle Ages received from his hinds. It is a dream of most baseless fabric. John and Thomas, with their dislike of the word servant, their surliness and their impudence, swing too far, perhaps, in the other direction, but they are more in unison with the spirit of the age than their masters. I have seen an ardent democrat, who had roared equal rights from many a stump, furious with the impertinence of a waiter, whose answer, if it had come from an equal, he would scarcely have noticed. And was not the waiter a man and a fellow voter? What distinction of class have we in this country? It is true that the property qualification we have discarded in our political system we have retained as our test of social position. Indeed, no abstract rights of man can make up the difference between rich and poor. But Fortune is nowhere so blind nor so busy in twirling her wheel; and our two classes are so apt to change places, that frequently the only difference between the master and the footman who stands behind him, is the difference of capital. And Europe is treading the same democratic path as ourselves, limping along after us as fast as her old legs will carry her. The time will come when the class from which we have so long enlisted recruits for our batteries de cuisine will find some other career better suited to their expanded views.

What then? Do you suggest that we may lay a hand upon the colored element, after the example of our honored President? But

can you expect either of these distinguished officers to leave the service of the United States for ours? What with intelligent contrabandism, emancipation, the right of suffrage, and the right to ride in omnibuses, we fear that their domestic usefulness will be sadly impaired.

Oh for machinery! automaton flunkies, requiring only to be wound up and kept oiled! What a housekeeping Utopia! Thomson foreshadowed a home paradise of this kind when he wrote the 'Castle of Indolence:'

But as yet invention has furnished no reapers and mowers for within doors. We have only dumb waiters; poor, creaking things, that break and split, like their flesh-and-blood namesakes, and distribute the smell of the kitchen throughout the house. Heine once pro[Pg 444]posed a society to ameliorate the condition of the rich. He must have meant a model intelligence office. I wish it had been established, for we may all need its aid.

What are we to do when we come to the last of the servants? Darwin says that the Formica rufescens would perish without its slaves; we are almost as dependent as these confederate ants. Our social civilization is based upon servants. Certainly, the refinements of life, as we understand it, could not exist Without them, and it is difficult to see how any business of magnitude could be carried on. Briareus himself could not take care of a large country place, with its stables, barns, horses, cattle, and crops, even if Mrs. B. had the same physical advantages, and was willing to help him. Must we tempt them back by still larger salaries, or increase their social consideration, telling them, as a certain clergyman once said of his order, that 'they are supported, and not hired'?—changing the word help, as we have servant, into household officer or assistant manager, or adopt a Chinese euphemism, such as steward of the table or governor of the kitchen? Fourier does something of this kind; in his system the class names of young scullions are cherubs and seraphs! Or shall we adopt the coöperative plan of Mill and others, and offer John an interest in the family—say, possibly, the position of resident son-in-law after ten years of honesty, sobriety, and industry—with a seat at table in the mean while? Or must all the work be done by women, and a proprietor have to seal his Biddies more sanctorum in Utah? Or might not poor relations, now confessedly nuisances, be made useful in this way? Some marquis asked Sophie Arnould why she did not discharge her stupid porter? 'I have often thought of it,' she answered, 'mais que voulez vous, c'est mon père.'

These resources failing, we must drop to the simplest form of existence: hut, hovel, or shanty; where my lord digs and is dirty, and her ladyship, guiltless of Italian, French, and the grand piano, cooks, scrubs, darns, and keeps the peace between the pigs and the children. Or else we must come to socialism, in the shape of Brook Farm communities, or phalanstères à la Fourier, or, worse than either, to mammoth hotels. American tastes incline that way. There we may live in huge gilded pens, as characterless as sheep in the flock, attended upon by waiters, chambermaids, and cooks, who will have a share in the profits, and consequently will be happy to do anything to increase the income of their house.

I see no other remedy, and I offer this great social problem to the serious thoughts of your readers.

APHORISMS.—NO. XIII.

It was a frequent exclamation of Herder the Great: 'Oh, my life, that has failed of its ends!' and many of us, no doubt, find ourselves disposed to indulge in the same lament. But it deserves careful attention; no man's life fails of its true end unless through some grievous moral fault of his own.

The true end of life is that we may 'glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.' How this may be attained, as far as outward circumstances or activities are concerned, we can hardly judge for ourselves: but there is one sure test; and that is in the duties of our station. If we honestly perform them, and especially as under the teachings of the gospel of Christ, there can be no real and permanent failure. We shall have done what we were set to do upon the earth; and with this we may well be content.[Pg 445]

OUR GREAT AMERICA.

The republican government of the United States, when first originated by the fathers of the commonwealth, was regarded by the old fossil despotisms with secret dread and a strange foreboding; and neither the ridicule which they heaped upon it, nor the professed contempt wherewith its name was bandied from throne to throne, could wholly mask their trepidation. They looked upon it, in the privacy of their chambers, as the challenge of a mighty rebellion of the people against all kingly rule and administration; they saw in it the embodiment of those popular ideas of freedom, equality, and self-government, which for so many centuries had been struggling for adequate utterance in England and France, and they knew that the success of this sublime experiment must eventually break asunder the colossal bones of the European monarchies, and establish the new-born democracy upon their ruins.

That they saw truly and judged wisely in these respects, the history of modern Europe, and the current revolutions of our time, bear ample testimony. There is no luck nor chance in human events, but all things follow each other in the legitimate sequences of law. The American republic is no bastard, but a true son and heir of the ages; and sprang forth in all its bravery and promise from the mammoth loins of the very despotism which disowns and denounces it.

We have a full and perfect faith in the mission of this republic, which breaks open a new seal in the apocalypse of government, and unfolds a new phase in the destiny of mankind. Feudalism has had a sufficient trial, and, on the whole, has done its work well. After the dismemberment of the Roman Empire, we do not see how it was possible for society to have assumed any other form than that of kings and princes for rulers, and the people for passive and more or less obedient subjects. It was a great problem to be resolved how society should exist at all, and history gives us the solution of it. Despotism in politics and authority in religion was the grand, primal, leading, and executive idea of it. What learning and culture existed was confined to the guild of the ecclesiastics, and they, for the most part, ruled the rulers as well as the people, by virtue of their intelligence. It required many centuries to usher in the dawn of unfettered thought, and generate the idea of liberty. And when at last the epoch of Protestantism arrived, and Luther, who was the exponent and historical embodiment of it, gathered to its armories the spiritual forces then extant in Europe, and overthrew therewith the immemorial supremacy of kings and priests over the bodies and souls of men, he made all subsequent history possible, and was the planter of nations, and the founder of yet undeveloped civilizations.[B]

It would, however, be by no means difficult, were it in accordance with our present design and purpose, to show that the first germ of republican liberty sprang into life amid the sedges and savage marshes of uncultivated ages, far remote even from the discovery of America, and trace it through successive rebellions, both of a political and religious character, from and before the times of Wycliffe, down to Oliver Cromwell and George Washington; for all through English history it has left a broad red mark behind it, like the auroral pathway of a conqueror. The first man who prayed without book, and denied the authority of the church over the human soul, as the brave Loilards did, was the pioneer of Protestantism and the father of all the births which ushered this mighty epoch upon the stage of the world; Protestantism, which means so much and includes so many vast emprises—establishing for freedom so grand a battle ground, and for philosophy and learning so wide and magnificent a dominion.

The same spirit which made nonconformists of the first seekers and worshippers of God apart from the churches and cathedrals of Rome, in the sublimer cathedrals of nature, when the Roman hierarchy was master of Europe—made republicans also of the first rebels who resisted the tyranny of kings. Political and religious liberty are the two sides of the democrat idea, and have always marched hand in hand[Pg 447] together. They culminated in England during the Commonwealth, and became thenceforth the base and dome of popular government.

The republic of America was born of this idea, and is the last great birth of Protestantism, big already with the destinies of mankind. Here, upon this mighty platform, these destinies, as we believe, have to be wrought out by their final issues, and close the drama of human development. All things are possible for America under the beneficent institutions and laws of the republic, now that the hideous skeleton of black slavery is to pollute the soil no more nor make brother war against brother any more on account of it; and at no distant period the awful conflict which at present shakes the earth with the thunder of its clashing and embattled hosts, shall give lasting place to the interchanges of commerce and the peaceful enterprises of civil life.

It was impossible that American society could hold together with this accursed African vulture eating at its heart. Nor could the aristocratic idea of the South, which slavery had interwoven through every fibre of the people, through all the forms of its social condition, and into all its State laws and institutions, exist side by side with the democratic idea of the North, without an inevitable conflict sooner or later. The present war is but a renewal of the old battles which make up the sum of history, between liberty and despotism, civilization and barbarism. No one can doubt in whose hands will be the victory; and happy will the result be for future generations.

Hitherto we have exhibited to the world the amazing spectacle of a republic which, proclaiming the freedom and equality of every one of its subjects, holds four millions of men in a terrible and appalling bondage. So frightful a mockery of freedom, perpetrated in her great name, and sanctioned by tradition and the authority of law, could not, ought not, be suffered to grin its ghastly laughter in the face of the world. And when the hour was ripe, and the doomsday of the monstrous iniquity was proclaimed aloud by the dreadful Nemesis of God, the people of the free North clothed themselves in the majesty of the nation, and rose as one man to sweep it from the soil in whirlwinds of fire and wrath.

Slavery has been an unmitigated curse to America in every one of its aspects and especially to the South, out of which it has eaten, with its revengeful and retributive teeth, all the vitalities and grandeurs of character which belong to the uncorrupted Anglo-Saxon race. It has destroyed all the incentives to industry, all self-reliance, and enterprise, and the sterner virtues and moralities of life. It has put a ban upon trade and manufactures, and a premium upon indolence. The white population—the poor white trash, as the very negroes call them—are ignorant, brutal, and live in the squalor of savages. It has driven literature and poetry, art and science, from its soil, and robbed religion of all its humanity and beauty. Worse than this, if worse be possible, it has darkened with the shadow of its apparition the minds of the Southerners themselves, and defaced their highest attributes—confounding within them the great cardinal distinctions between right and wrong, until, abandoned by Heaven, they were given over to their own lusts, and to a belief in the lie which they had created under the very ribs of the republic.

We do not speak this as partisans, nor in any spirit of enmity against the South as a political faction. It is the fact which concerns us, and which we deal with as history, and not here and now in any other sense. Nor do we blame the Southern aristocracy for riding so long on the black horse, which has at last thrown and killed them. For proud and insolent as they have ever shown themselves in their bearing toward the North, they were[Pg 448] in reality mere pawns on the chessboard of Fate, necessary tools in working out the game of civilization on this continent. Who can calculate the sum of the divine forces which the institution of slavery, and its blasphemous reversion of the commands of the Decalogue, and all its cruel outrages and inhuman crimes, have awakened in the souls of the freemen of the North? The loathsomeness of its example and the infernal malice of its designs against liberty and truth, righteousness and justice, and whatsoever holy principles in life and government the saints, martyrs, and apostles of the ages have won for us, by their agony and bloody sweat upon scaffolds and funeral pyres—regarding them as a cheap purchase, though paid for by such high and costly sacrifices—these appalling instances, we say, have at last produced so powerful a reaction in the national mind that millions of men have marshalled themselves into avenging armies to rid the earth of their presence.

That, too, was fated and necessary, and a part of the predestined programme. The nation could not progress with this corrupting monster in its pathway; and the battle between them has not come an hour too soon. The monster must be exterminated, and that, too, without mercy and without compassion, as the sworn and implacable enemy both of God and man. Otherwise this glorious country, which has so long worn the garland and surging robe of liberty, will become a dungeon of desolation from the Atlantic to the Pacific, resounding only with the shrieks of mandrakes and the clank of chains.

This obstruction removed, there is, as we said above, no height of greatness which the American people may not reach. Then, and then only, shall we begin to consolidate ourselves into a nation, with a distinct organon of principles, feelings, and loyalties, to which the mighty heart and brain of the people shall throb and vibrate in pulsations of sublime unity. At present we are only a people in the making, and very few there are calling themselves Americans who have any idea of what America is and means in relation to history. By and by we shall all apprehend the riddle more wisely, and be more worthy of the great name we bear.

In the meanwhile it is no marvel that we are not a homogeneous people. Our time has not come for that, and may yet lie afar off in the shadowy centuries. Consider how and through what alien sources we have multiplied the original population of the associated colonies as they existed when our fathers raised them to a nationality. There is not a nation in all Europe, to say nothing of Asia and the islands, which is not represented in our blood and does not form a part of our lineage. It is true that the old type predominates, and that we have the virtues and the vices of the Anglo-Saxons in us; but we are far too individual at present, Celt and Dane and Spaniard and Teuton, and all the rest of our motley humanities, will have to be fused into one great Anglo-American race, before we can call ourselves a distinct nation. It took England many centuries to accomplish this work, and fashion herself into the plastic form and comeliness of her present unity and proportion. We, who work at high pressure and make haste in our begettings and growth, can scarcely hope to make a national sculpture at all commensurate with the genius of the people and the continent, in one or two or even half a dozen generations; for we cannot coerce the laws of nature, although it is quite certain, from what we have done, that we can perform anything within the range of possible achievement.

We have all the elements within and around us necessary to constitute a great people. We started on our career with a long background of experience to guide and to warn us. We saw what Europe had done for civiliza[Pg 449]tion with her long roll of kings and priests, her despotic governments, and her unequal laws—the people in most cases ciphers, and in all cases ignorant and enslaved—with no room for expansion, and little or no hope of political or social betterment; every inch of liberty, in every direction, which they had gained, wrung from their oppressors piecemeal, in bloody throes of agony.

Our fathers had not the best materials out of which to build up a republic; neither, in all cases, were they themselves sufficiently ripe for the experiment. They had the old leaven of European prejudice largely intermingled in their minds and character. They could not help, it is true, their original make, nor the fashioning which their age, time, and circumstances had put upon them. All this has to be taken into the estimate of any philosophical judgment respecting their performances. But they had learned from the past to trust the present, and to span the future with rainbows of hope. They stood face to face with the people, and each looked into the others' eyes and read there the grounds and sureties of an immortal triumph. Instead, therefore, of resting the supreme power of government in the hands of a person, or a class, making the former a monarch, and creating the other an aristocracy, those grand magistrates and senators of human liberty who framed the Constitution of the new American Nation, made the nation its own sovereign, and clothed it with the authority and majesty of self-government.

A venture so daring, and of an audacity so Titanic and sublime, seemed at that time and long afterward to require the wisdom and omnipotence of gods to guide it over the breakers, and steer it into the calm waters of intelligent government. All the world, except the handful of thinkers and enthusiasts scattered here and there over Europe, was against it, mocked at its bravery and aspirations, and sincerely hoped and believed that some great and sudden calamity would dissolve it like a baleful enchantment. But the hope of the republic was in the people, and they justified the fathers and the institution.

Here, therefore, was opened in all the directions of human inquiry and action a new world of hope and promise. The people were no longer bound by old traditions, nor clogged by any formulas of state religions, nor hampered by the dicta of philosophical authority. Their minds were free to choose or to reject whatever propositions were presented to them from the wide region of speculation and belief. The Constitution was the only instrument which prescribed laws and principles for their unconditional acceptance and guidance; and this was a thing of their own choice, the charter and seal of their liberties, to which they rendered a cheerful and grateful obedience.

With this mighty security for a platform, they pursued their daily avocations in peace, trusting their own souls, and working out the problem of republican society, with a most healthy unconsciousness. Sincere and earnest, they troubled themselves with no social theories, no visions of Utopia, nor dreams of Paradise and El Dorados, leaving the spirit which animated them to build up the architecture of its own cultus, with an unexpressed but perfect faith in the final justice and satisfaction of results.

Religion, therefore, and politics—literature, learning, and art—trade, commerce, manufactures, agriculture—and the amenities of society and manners, were allowed to develop themselves in their own way, without reference to rule and preconcerted dogmas. Hence the peculiarities which mark the institutions of America—their utter freedom from cant and the shows and pageantry of state. Bank, titles, and caste were abolished; and the enormous gulfs which separate the European man from the European lordling were bridged over by Equality with the solid virtues of humanity.[Pg 450]

What a stride was here taken over time and space, and the historic records of man, in the fossil formations of the Old World during the ante-American periods! It had come at last, this long-prophesied reign of Apollo and the Muses, of freedom and the rights of man. Afar off, on the summits of imaginative mountains, were beheld, through twilight vistas of night and chaos, the proud ruins of dead monarchies, and the cruel forms of extinct tyrannies and oppressions, crowned and mitred no more; whose mandates had once made the nations tremble, and before whose judgment seats Mercy pleaded in vain, and Justice muffled up her face and sat dumb and weeping in the dust. Over the wolds of their desolation hyenas prowled, snuffing the noisome air as for a living prey; ghouls and vampyres shrieked in hellish chorus, as they tore up forgotten graves; and all manner of hateful and obscure things crawled familiarly in and out of palaces and holy places, as if they were the ghosts of the former inhabitants; and, high above them all, in the bloody light of the setting sun, wheeled kites and choughs and solitary vultures; owls and dismal bats flitting, ever and anon, athwart the shadows of their grim processions.

No matter that this vision was in reality but the symbolism of imagination and poetry, that Europe was not dead, but alive with the struggling vitalities of good and evil, and all those contending forces out of which American freedom was born—the vision itself was not the less true, either as feeling or insight; for Europe was now literally cut adrift from America, and the hopes and aspirations of the young republic were entirely different from hers, and removed altogether from the plane of her orbit and action.

The liberalists and thinkers of the age expected great things from a people thus fortunately conditioned and circumstanced. For the first time in modern history a genuine democratic government was inaugurated and fairly put upon its trial. The horizon of thought was now to be pushed back far beyond the old frontiers into the very regions of the infinite; and a universal liberty was to prevail throughout the length and breadth of the land. No more dead formalities, nor slavish submissions, but new and fuller life, self-reliance, self-development, and the freest individuality. Gladly the people accepted the propositions and principles of their national existence. Not a doubt anywhere of the result; no faltering, no looking back; but brave hearts, everywhere, and bold fronts, and conquering souls. Before them, through the mists of the starry twilight, loomed the mountain peaks and shadowy seas of the unventured and unknown future; and thitherward they pressed with undaunted steps, and with a haughty and sublime defiance of obstructions and dangers; fearing God, doing their best, and leaving the issue in His hands.

We know now, after nearly a hundred years of trial, what that issue in the main is, and whitherward it still tends. During that little breathing time, which, compared with the life of other nations, is but a gasp in the record, what unspeakable triumphs have been accomplished! Nearly a whole continent has been reclaimed from the savage and the wild beasts, and the all-conquering American has paved the wilderness, east, west, north, and south, with high roads—dug canals into its hidden recesses, connected the great Gulf with the far-off West by a vast network of railways and telegraphs—planted cities and villages everywhere, and fashioned the routes of civilization; bound Cape Race to the Crescent City and the Atlantic to the Pacific, sending human thoughts, winged with lightning, across thousands of miles of plains and mountains and rivers, and making neighborly the most distant peoples and the most widely sundered States of the mighty Union. Let any[Pg 451] man try to estimate the value of this immense contribution to human history and happiness; let him try to measure the vast extent of empire which it covers, and sum up the mighty expenditure of physical and intellectual labor which has conquered those savage wilds, and converted them into blooming cornfields and orchards; which has built these miraculous cities by the sea, and made their harbors populous with native ships and the marine of every nation under heaven; those busy inland cities, the hives of manufacturing industry and the marts of a commerce which extends over all the regions of civilization, from the rising to the setting sun; those innumerable towns of the great corn-growing districts; those pleasant hamlets and pastoral homes which fringe the forest, and girdle the mountains as with the arms of human affection and the passion of love; those mills on the far-off rivers, whose creaking machinery and revolving wheels are the prelude of a yet unborn, but rapidly approaching civility, and whose music, heard by the right ears, is of the divinest depth and diapason, and in full concord with the immeasurable orchestra of triumph and rejoicing which the nation celebrates in the perpetual marches of her starry progress.

No man can compass this vast dominion, and no intellect can plumb its soundings or prophesy of its upshot. Who could have foretold what has already happened on this continent, had he stood with the Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock, that memorable day of the landing? Looking back to that great epoch in American history, we have no dim regions of antiquity to traverse, no mythic periods as of Memnon and the Nile, but a mere modern landscape, so to speak, shut in by less than two centuries. And yet what unspeakable things are included in that brief period! If we have made such vast strides and so rapid a development in those few years of our national life, with the heterogeneous and unmalleable materials with which we had to deal, converting the filth of Europe into grass and flowers for the decoration of the republic, what may we not achieve hereafter, when this dreadful war is over, and the negro question is adjusted, and the sundered States are reunited, and the Western wilderness is clothed with the glory of a perfect cultivation, and the genius of the people, no longer trammelled by Southern despotism, shall have free room to wing its flight over the immeasurable future?

There will be no likeness, in any mirror of the past, to the American civilization that is to be. New manners, customs, thinkings, literature, art, and life, will mark our progress and attest the mission of the nation. We are fast outgrowing the ideas and influences of that brave company of Puritans out of whose loins our beginning proceeded; and already each man goes alone, insular, self-reliant, and self-sustained. We owe the Puritans a large debt, but it is altogether a pretty fiction to call them the founders of American civilization. They helped to lay in the foundation stones of that early society, and kept them together by cementing them with their love of religious truth and liberty, so far as they understood these primal elements of a state; and we are likewise their debtors for the integrity which they put into their laws and government. But it is too high a demand to claim for them that they were the founders of the republic, and the originators of those great ideas which are embodied in our institutions and literature.

They came to this country with no very enlarged notions, either of religion or freedom, although they were perfectly sincere in their professions of regard for both; and it was this very sincerity which gave solidity and permanence to their colonies. We suppose we may repeat what history has made notorious respecting them, that they were, both in belief and civil practice, very narrow[Pg 452] and limited in their outlooks—by no means given to intellectual speculations—and with but little faith in the intellect itself—which, indeed, was proscribed as a sort of outlaw when it stood upon its own authority, outside the pale of their church. The religion which they established had its origin in the reign of Elizabeth, and was a sort of revived Lollardism, which last dated as far back as Wycliffe, long before the Reformation. They thought they could worship God in conventicles, and in the great open-air cathedrals of nature, with quite as much purity of motive and heavenly acceptance as in regularly consecrated churches, and that the right of praying and preaching was inalienable, and secured to all godly men by the charter and seal of Calvary.

They had no idea, however, of non-conformity which was not based upon an orthodox creed, upon their creed, as they subscribed it on Plymouth Rock. They fled from persecution themselves, and sought freedom for themselves in the barren regions of our dear and now hospitable New England; and they, in their simplicity and good faith before God, sought to organize a system of civil and religious polity which should incrust all future generations, and harden them into a fossil state of perpetual orthodoxy.

They were a stern, implacable race, these early fathers, in all that related to belief, and the discipline of moral conduct; and we owe many of the granite securities which lie at the bottom of our social life and government to this harsh and unyielding sternness. It held the framework of the colonies together until they were consolidated into the United States, and until the modern culture of the people relaxed it into a universal liberty of thought and worship.

The Puritans, however, had no notion of such a result to their teachings and labors; and would have looked with pious horror upon them if they could have beheld them in some Agrippa's mirror of the future.

The truth—unpalatable as it may be—is simply this about the Puritans: they were narrow-minded, bigoted, and furious at times with the spirit of persecution; sincerely so, it is true, and believing they did God service; but that does not alter the fact. They had no conception of the meaning of liberty—and especially of religious liberty as a development of Protestantism. Their idea of it was liberty for themselves—persecution to all who differed from them; and this, too, for Christ's sake, in order that the lost sheep might be brought back, if possible, to their bleak and comfortless folds. They could not help it; they meant no wrong by it, and the evil which they thus did was good in the making, and sprang from the bleeding heart of an infinite love.

We like them, nevertheless; and cannot choose but like them, thinking it generous and loving to invest them with as much poetry as we can command from the wardrobes of the imagination. But we can never forgive them—in critical moods—for their inhuman, although strictly logical persecution of Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, who represented in his person all the liberal-thoughts-men, both in religion and speculation, then existing on this continent.

This man of capacious intellect and most humane heart was hunted by them out of the associated colonies, as if he had been some ferocious beast of prey, because he differed from them in his religious opinions; and this drove him to found a state in accordance with the most liberal interpretation of Christianity. He had more than once, by his influence with the Indians, saved them from a general massacre; but their theological hate of him was so intense that they would not allow him to pass through their territories on a necessary journey; and once, on his return from England, where he had been[Pg 453] negotiating with ministers for their benefit, they capped the climax of their bigoted ingratitude by refusing him permission even to land on their soil, lest his holy feet should pollute it.

It is a little too much, therefore, to say that all our ideas of liberty and religion have sprung from this stout race of persecutors. They were pioneers for us, bu nothing more. Our progress has been the untying of their old cords of mental oppression, and the undoing of many things which they had set up. This was so much rubbish to be moved out of the path of the nation, and by no means aids to its advancement, except as provocatives. What we now are, we have become by our own culture and development, and by the inflowing of those great modern ideas which have affected all the world, and helped to build up its civilization into such stately proportions.

Puritanism, as it then existed in its exclusive power, is, to all intents and purposes, dead upon this continent. The form of it still lingers in our midst, it is true, and in the Protestant parts of Europe its ritual survives, and pious hearts, which would be pious in spite of it, still cling to its dead corpse as if it were alive, and kindle their sacred fires upon the altar of its wellnigh forsaken sanctuaries. We should count it no gain to us, however—the extinction of this old and venerable faith—if we had no high and certain assurance that a nobler and sublimer religion was reserved for our consolation and guidance. We cannot afford, in one sense, to give up even the semblances and shows of religion, and these will survive until the new dayspring from on high shall supersede the necessity of their existence. 'Take care,' said Goethe, in some such words as these, 'lest, in letting the dead forms of religion go, you sacrifice all reverence and worship, and thus lose religion itself!' There is great danger of this in the transition state of human thought and speculation which marks the present crisis of American history. We are not a religious people, and shall not present any development of that sort until the intellectual reaction which has set in among us against the old modes and organons of belief has exhausted the tests of its crucibles, and reduced the dross to a residuum of gold which shall form the basis of a new and sacred currency, acceptable to all men for the highest interchanges.

In the mean while we must work out the problem of this religion of the future in any and all ways which lie open to us—doubting nothing of the final issues. The wildest theories of Millerites, Spiritists, Naturalists, and Supernaturalists, are all genuine products of the time, and of the spirit of man struggling upward to this solution—blindly struggling, it is true, but gradually approaching the light of the far-off truth, as the twilight monsters of geology gradually approached the far-off birth of man, who came at last, and redeemed the savage progressive, the apparent wild unreason of the terrestrial creation.

It is more than probable that this great fratricidal war with which we are now struggling, will prove, in its results, of the very highest service to the nation, and make us all both better and wiser men than we were before. We have already gained by it many notable experiences, and it has put our wisdom, and our foolishness also, to the test. It has both humbled and exalted our pride. It has cut away from the national character all those inane excrescences of vanity and brag which judicious people everywhere, who were friendly to us, could not choose but lament to see us exercise at such large discretion. It has brought us face to face with realities the most terrible the world has ever beheld. It has measured our strength and our weakness, and has developed within us the mightiest intellectual and physical resources. All the wit and virtue which[Pg 454] go to make up a great people have been proven in a hundred times and ways during the war, to exist in us. Courage, forethought, endurance, self-sacrifice, magnaminity, and a noble sense of honor, are a few of the virtues which we have cropped from the bloody harvest of the battle field.

It is true that wicked men are among us—for when did a company, godly or otherwise, engage in any work, and Satan did not also fling his wallet over his shoulder and set out with them for evil purposes of his own?—but after all, these are but a small minority, and their efforts to ruin the republic and bring defeat and dishonor upon the Federal arms, have not yet proved to be of a very formidable nature. These, the enemies of America, though her native-born sons, the people can afford to treat with the contempt which they merit. For the rest, this war will make us a nation, and bind us together with bonds as strong as those of the old European nationalities. It will make us great, and loving patriots also; and root out from among us a vast amount of sham and political fraud, to the great bettering of society.

We shall have reason in many ways to bless its coming and its consequences. It was indeed just as necessary to our future national life and happiness as the bursting out of a volcano is to the general safety of the earth. It will destroy slavery for ever, and thus relieve us from the great contention which has so long and so bitterly occupied the lives of our public men and the thoughts of the world. In reality, we have never yet given republicanism a fair trial upon this continent. With that dreadful curse and crime of slavery tearing at its heart and brain, how was it possible for equality and self-government to be anything else but a delusion and a mockery? This cleared out of our pathway, and we have enough virtue, intelligence, and wealth of physical resources in the land to realize the prophecy and the hope of all noble thinkers and believes on the planet, and place America first and foremost among the nations—the richest, the wisest, the best, and the bravest.

LONGING

The corruption of a noble disposition is invariably from some false charm of fancy or imagination which has over-mastered the mind with its powerful magic and carried away the will captive. It is some perverted apprehension or illusory power of the infinite which causes a man who has once fallen a prey to any strong passion to devote all his energies, thoughts, and feelings to one object, or to surrender himself, heart and soul, to the despotic tyranny of some favorite pursuit. For man's natural longing after the infinite, even when showing itself in his passions and feelings, cannot, where genuine, be satisfied with any earthly object or sensual gratification or external possession. When, however, this pursuit, keeping itself free from all delusions of sense, really directs its endeavor toward the infinite, and only to what is truly such, it can never rest or be stationary. Ever advancing, step by step, it ever rises higher and higher. This pure feeling of endless longing, with the dim memories of eternal love ever surging through the soul, are the heavenward—bearing wings which bear it ever on toward God. Longing is man's intuition of enternity!—Schlegel.[Pg 455]

THE LESSON OF THE HOUR.

Strong in faith for the future,
Drawing our hope from the past,
Manfully standing to battle,
However may blow the blast:
Onward still pressing undaunted,
Let the foe be strong as he may,
Though the sky be dark as midnight,
Remembering the dawn of day.

II.

Strong in the cause of freedom,
Bold for the sake of right,
Watchful and ready always,
Alert by day and night:
With a sword for the foe of freedom,
From whatever side he come,
The same for the open foeman
And the traitorous friend at home.

III.

Strong with the arm uplifted,
And nerved with God's own might,
In an age of glory living
In a holy cause to fight:
And whilom catching music
Of the future's minstrelsy,
As those who strike for freedom
Blows that can never die.

IV.

Strong, though the world may threaten,
Though thrones may totter down,
And in many an Old World palace,
Uneasy sits the crown:
Not for the present only
Is the war we wage to-day,
But the sound shall echo ever
When we shall have passed away.

Strong—'tis an age of glory,
And worth a thousand years
Of petty, weak disputings,
Of ambitious hopes and fears:[Pg 456]
And we, if we learn the lesson
All-glorious and sublime,
Shall go down to future ages
As heroes for all time.

VI.

Strong—not in human boasting,
But with high and holy will,
The means of a mighty Worker
His purpose to fulfil:
O patient warriors, watchers—
A thousandfold your power
If ye read with prayerful purpose
The Lesson of the Hour.

THE SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE:
ITS CHARACTER AND RELATION TO OTHER LANGUAGES.

ARTICLE ONE.

THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH.

The Continental for May contained an article, written by Stephen Pearl Andrews, entitled: A Universal Language: its Possibility, Scientific Necessity, and Appropriate Characteristics. Although then treated hypothetically, or as something not impossible of achievement in the future, a Language constructed upon the method therein briefly and generally explained, is, in fact, substantially completed at the present time. It is one of the developments of a new and vast scientific discovery—comprising the Fundamental Principles of all Thought and Being, and the Law of Analogy—on which Mr. Andrews has bestowed the name of Universology. The public announcement of this discovery, together with a general statement of its character, has been recently made in the columns of a leading literary paper—The Home Journal.

Although the principle involved in the Language discussed in the article referred to is wholly different from that upon which all former attempts at the construction of a common method of lingual communication have been based; and although such merely mechanical inventions were therein distinguished from a Language discovered as existing in the nature of things; several criticisms, emanating from high literary quarters, indicate that there is still much misunderstanding as to the real nature of a Universal Language framed upon the principles of Analogy between Sense and Sound. This misunderstanding seems most prevalent in respect to the two points relating directly to the practical utility of such a Lingual Organ. It is assumed that a Language so constituted must be wholly different in its material and structure from any now existing, and that the latter would have to be abandoned as soon as the former was adopted. It[Pg 457] is supposed, therefore, that in order to introduce the Scientific Universal Language, the people must be induced to learn something entirely new, and to forsake for it their old and cherished Mother-tongues. The accomplishment of such an undertaking is naturally regarded as highly improbable, if not impossible.

It is also supposed that every word of the Language is to be determined in accordance with exact scientific formulas;—a process which, if employed, would, as is conceived, give a stiff, inflexible, monotonous, and cramped character to the Language itself; and would be wanting in that profusion of synonymes which gives an artistic and life-like character to the lingual growths of the past.

Both of these objections arise, as we shall hereafter see, from an erroneous impression of the nature of Language based on Analogy, coupled with a misconception of the real character and constituents of existing Languages. It is the purpose of the present papers to correct these false notions. In order to do so—and, what is essential to this, to present a clear exposition of the true character of the Language under consideration, and of its relations to the Lingual Structures of the past and present—it is necessary to give a preliminary examination to the fundamental question of the Origin of Speech. By means of this examination we shall come to understand that the existence and general use of a Universal Language with the elements of which Nature has herself furnished us, would not involve the abrupt or total abandonment of the Tongues now commonly employed; but, on the contrary, while preserving all that is substantially valuable in each, would enable us to acquire a knowledge of them with a facility which Comparative Philology, as now developed, lays no claim to impart.

How, then, did Language originate? In setting out to answer this question, Professor Max Müller says, in his Lectures on the Science of Language:[C]

'If we were asked the riddle how images of the eye and all the sensations of our senses could be represented by sounds, nay, could be so embodied in sounds as to express thought and to excite thought, we should probably give it up as the question of a madman, who, mixing up the most heterogeneous subjects, attempted to change color and sound into thought. Yet this is the riddle we have now to solve.

'It is quite clear that we have no means of solving the problem of the origin of language historically, or of explaining it as a matter of fact which happened once in a certain locality and at a certain time. History does not begin till long after mankind had acquired the power of language, and even the most ancient traditions are silent as to the manner in which man came in possession of his earliest thoughts and words. Nothing, no doubt, would be more interesting than to know from historical documents the exact process by which the first man began to lisp his first words, and thus to be rid forever of all the theories on the origin of speech. But this knowledge is denied us; and, if it had been otherwise, we should probably be quite unable to understand those primitive events in the history of the human mind. We are told that the first man was the son of God, that God created him in His own image, formed him of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. These are simple facts, and to be accepted as such; if we begin to reason on them, the edge of the human understanding glances off. Our mind is so constituted that it cannot apprehend the absolute beginning or the absolute end of anything. If we tried to conceive the first man created as a child, and gradually unfolding his physical and mental powers, we could not understand his living for one day without supernatural aid. If, on the contrary, we tried to conceive the first man created full-grown in body and mind; the conception of an effect without a cause, of a full-grown mind without a previous[Pg 458] growth, would equally transcend our reasoning powers. It is the same with the first beginnings of language. Theologians who claim for language a divine origin, ... when they enter into any details as to the manner in which they suppose Deity to have compiled a dictionary and grammar in order to teach them to the first man, as a schoolmaster teaches the deaf and dumb, ... have explained no more than how the first man might have learnt a language, if there was a language ready made for him. How that language was made would remain as great a mystery as ever. Philosophers, on the contrary, who imagine that the first man, though left to himself, would gradually have emerged from a state of mutism and have invented words for every new conception that arose in his mind, forget that man could not, by his own power, have acquired the faculty of speech, which is the distinctive character of mankind, unattained and unattainable by the mute creation. It shows a want of appreciation as to the real bearings of our problem, if philosophers appeal to the fact that children are born without language, and gradually emerge from mutism to the full command of articulate speech.... Children, in learning to speak, do not invent language. Language is there ready made for them. It has been there for thousands of years. They acquire the use of a language, and, as they grow up, they may acquire the use of a second and a third. It is useless to inquire whether infants, left to themselves, would invent a language.... All we know for certain is, that an English child, if left to itself, would never begin to speak English, and that history supplies no instance of any language having thus been invented....

'Speech is a specific faculty of man. It distinguishes man from all other creatures; and if we wish to acquire more definite ideas as to the real nature of human speech, all we can do is to compare man with those animals that seem to come nearest to him, and thus to try to discover what he shares in common with these animals, and what is peculiar to him, and to him alone. After we have discovered this we may proceed to inquire into the conditions under which speech becomes possible, and we shall then have done all that we can do, considering that the instruments of our knowledge, wonderful as they are, are yet too weak to carry us into all the regions to which we may soar on the wings of our imagination.'

As the result of a comparison of the human with the animal kingdom, Professor Müller remarks that, 'no one can doubt that certain animals possess all the physical acquirements for articulate speech. There is no letter of the alphabet which a parrot will not learn to pronounce. The fact, therefore, that the parrot is without a language of his own, must be explained by a difference between the mental, not between the physical faculties of the animal and man; and it is by a comparison of the mental faculties alone, such as we find them in man and brutes, that we may hope to discover what constitutes the indispensable qualification for language, a qualification to be found in man alone, and in no other creature on earth.'

Of mental faculties, the author whose ideas we are stating, claims a large share for the higher animals. 'These animals have sensation, perception, memory, will, and intellect, only we must restrict intellect to the comparing or interlacing of single perceptions.' But man transcends in his mental powers the barriers of the brute intellect at a point which coincides with the starting-point of language. And in this coincidence Professor Müller endeavors to find a sufficiently fundamental explanation of the problem of the origin of language.

In reference to this point of coincidence, he quotes Locke as saying that, 'the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to,' and then adds:

Two theories have been started to solve this problem: the Onomatopoetic, according to which roots are imitations of sounds; and the Interjectional, which regards them as involuntary ejaculations. Having discussed these theories, and taken the position that, although there are roots in every language which are respectively imitations of sounds and involuntary exclamations, it is, nevertheless, impossible to regard any considerable number of roots, and much less, all roots, as originating from these sources, the distinguished Philologist announces as the true theory, that every root 'expresses a general, not an individual, idea;' just the opposite of what he deems would be the case if the Onomatopoetic and Interjectional theories explained the origin of speech.

Some paragraphs are then devoted to the examination of the merits of a controversy which has existed among philosophers as to

'whether language originated in general appellations, or in proper names. It is the question of the primum cognitum, and its consideration will help us perhaps in discovering the true nature of the root, or the primum appellatum. Some philosophers, among whom I may mention Locke, Condillac, Adam Smith, Dr. Brown, and, with some qualification, Dugald Stewart, maintain that all terms, as at first employed, are expressive of individual objects. I quote from Adam Smith. 'The assignation,' he says, 'of particular names to denote particular objects, that is, the institution of nouns substantive, would probably be one of the first steps toward the formation of language.... The particular cave whose covering sheltered them from the weather, the particular tree whose fruit relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose water allayed their thirst, would first be denominated by the words cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever other appellations they might think proper, in that primitive jargon, to mark them. Afterward, when the more enlarged experience of these savages had led them to observe, and their necessary occasions obliged them to make mention of, other caves, and other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally bestow upon each of those new objects the same name by which they had been accustomed to express the similar object they were first acquainted with.''

This view of the primitive formation of thought and language, is diametrically opposed to the theory held by Leibnitz, who maintained that 'general terms are necessary for the essential constitution of languages.' 'Children,' he says, 'and those who know but little of the language which they attempt to speak, or little of the subject on which they would employ it, make use of general terms, as thing, plant, animal, instead of using proper names, of which they are destitute. And it is certain that all proper or individual names have been originally appellative or general.'

Notwithstanding the contradictory and seemingly antagonistic nature of these positions, Professor Müller shows that they are not irreconcilable.

'Adam Smith is no doubt right, when he says that the first individual cave which is called cave, gave the name to all other caves; ... and the history of almost every substantive might be cited in support of his view. But Leibnitz is equally right when, in looking beyond the first emergence of such names as cave, town, or palace, he asks how such names could have arisen. Let us take the Latin names of cave. A cave in Latin is called antrum, cavea, spelunca. Now antrum means really the same as internum. Antar, in Sanskrit means between or within. Antrum, therefore, meant originally what is within or inside the earth or anything else.[Pg 460] It is clear, therefore, that such a name could not have been given to any individual cave, unless the general idea of being within, or inwardness, had been present in the mind. This general idea once formed, and once expressed by the pronominal root an or antar, the process of naming is clear and intelligible. The place where the savage could live safe from rain and from the sudden attacks of wild beasts, a natural hollow in the rock, he would call his within, his antrum; and afterward similar places, whether dug in the earth or cut in a tree, would be designated by the same name ... Let us take another word for cave, which is cavea or caverna. Here again Adam Smith would be perfectly right in maintaining that this name, when first given, was applied to one particular cave, and was afterward extended to other caves. But Leibnitz would be equally right in maintaining that in order to call even the first hollow cavea, it was necessary that the general idea of hollow should have been formed in the mind, and should have received its vocal expression cav ...

'The first thing really known is the general. It is through it that we know and name afterward individual objects of which any general idea can be predicated, and it is only in the third stage that these individual objects, thus known and named, become again the representatives of whole classes, and their names or proper names are raised into appellatives.'

But the name of a thing, runs the argument, meant originally that by which we know a thing. And how do we know things? Knowing is more than perceiving by our senses, which convey to us information about single things only. 'To know is more than to feel, than to perceive, more than to remember, more than to compare. We know a thing if we are able to bring it, and [or?] any part of it, under more general ideas.' The facts of nature are perceived by our senses; the thoughts of nature, to borrow an expression of Oersted's, can be conceived by our reason only. The first step toward this real knowledge is the 'naming of a thing, or the making a thing knowable;' and it is this step which separates man forever from all other animals. For all naming is classification, bringing the individual under the general; and whatever we know, whether empirically or scientifically, we know it only by means of our general ideas. Other animals have sensation, perception, memory, and, in a certain sense, intellect; but all these, in the animal, are conversant with single objects only. Man has, in addition to these, reason, and it is his reason only that is conversant with general ideas.

'At the very point where man parts company with the brute world, at the first flash of reason as the manifestation of the light within us, there we see the true genius of language. Analyze any word you like, and you will find that it expressed a general idea peculiar to the individual to which the name belongs. What is the meaning of moon?—the measurer. What is the meaning of sun?—the begetter ...

'If the serpent is called in Sanskrit sarpa, it is because it was conceived under the general idea of creeping, an idea expressed by the word srip. But the serpent was also called ahi in Sanskrit, in Greek echis or echidna, in Latin anguis. This name is derived from quite a different root and idea. The root is ah in Sanskrit, or anh, which means to press together, to choke, to throttle. Here the distinguishing mark from which the serpent was named was his throttling, and ahi meant serpent, as expressing the general idea of throttler. It is a curious root this anh, and it still lives in several modern words. In Latin it appears as ango, anxi, anctum, to strangle, in angina, quinsy, in angor, suffocation. But angor meant not only quinsy or compression of the neck; it assumed a moral import, and signifies anguish or anxiety. The two adjectives angustus, narrow, and anxius, uneasy, both come from the same source. In Greek the root retained its natural and material meaning; in eggys, near, and echis, serpent, throttler. But in Sanskrit it was chosen with great truth as the proper name for sin. Evil no doubt presented itself under various aspects to the human mind, and its names are many; but none so expressive as those derived from our root anh, to throttle. Anhas[Pg 461] in Sanskrit means sin, but it does so only because it meant originally throttling—the consciousness of sin being like the grasp of the assassin on the throat of his victim ... This anhas is the same word as the Greek agos, sin ... The English anguish is from the French angoisse, the Italian angoscia, a corruption of the Latin angustiæ, a strait ... Mâ in Sanskrit means to measure, from which we had the name of the moon. Man, a derivative root, means to think. From this we have the Sanskrit manu, originally thinker, then man. In the later Sanskrit we find derivatives, such as mânava, mânusha, manushya, all expressing man. In Gothic we find both man and mannisks, the modern German mann and mensch.'

And now we are brought by the author of The Science of Language to the great question to which the foregoing is merely preparatory, to the fundamental consideration of Philological research: 'How can sound express thought? How did roots become the signs of general ideas? How was the abstract idea of measuring expressed by mâ, the idea of thinking by man? How did gâ come to mean going, sthâ standing, sad sitting, dâ giving, mar dying, char walking, kar doing?' Here is his answer:

'The four or five hundred roots which remain as the constituent elements in different families of languages are not interjections, nor are they imitations. They are phonetic types, produced by a power inherent in nature. They exist, as Plato would say, by nature; though with Plato we should add that, when we say by nature, we mean by the hand of God. There is a law which runs through nearly the whole of nature, that everything which is struck rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. We can tell the more or less perfect structure of metals by their vibrations, by the answer which they give. Gold rings differently from tin, wood rings differently from stone; and different sounds are produced according to the nature of each percussion. It was the same with man, the most highly organized of nature's works. Man, in his primitive and perfect state, was not only endowed, like the brute, with the power of expressing his sensations by interjections, and his perceptions by onomatopoieia. He possessed likewise the faculty of giving more articulate expression to the rational conceptions of his mind. That faculty was not of his own making. It was an instinct, an instinct of the mind as irresistible as any other instinct. So far as language is the production of that instinct, it belongs to the realm of nature. Man loses his instincts as he ceases to want them. His senses become fainter when, as in the case of scent, they become useless. Thus the creative faculty which gave to each conception, as it thrilled for the first time through the brain, a phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled. The number of these phonetic types must have been almost infinite in the beginning, and it was only through the same process of natural elimination which we observed in the early history of words, that clusters of roots, more or less synonymous, were gradually reduced to one definite type.'

Professor Max Müller occupies a commanding position in the foremost rank of the students of Philology. His work on The Science of Language, from which the preceding discussion of the Origin of Speech is taken, is, so far as I am aware, the latest volume treating of the problem in question which has issued from what is commonly regarded as high authority in the department of Language. It is to that volume, therefore, that we are to look for the last word of elucidation which the Comparative Philologist can furnish respecting it. And it is for this reason—in order that we might have before us the results of the latest research of the schools—that the exposition of the Origin of Language given in the work referred to has been so fully stated.

Where, then, does this explanation of the problem leave us? Does it go to the bottom of the matter? Is it sufficiently distinct and satisfactory? In brief, does it give us any clear understanding of the Origin of Speech? Does it not rather leave us at the crucial point of the whole inquiry, with[Pg 462] the essence and core of the subject untouched and shrouded in mystery? Some indefinite hundreds of roots, obtained, it is assumed, by means of some indescribable and unknown mental instinct! This is the sober and contented answer of Philology to the investigator who would know of the Sources of Language, and its constituent elements. But of the component parts of these roots—the true and fundamental constituent elements of Speech, without a knowledge of which there can be no basic and conclusive comprehension of the meaning of roots—and of the nature of the method by which these elements become expressive of thoughts or ideas, there is no word. Language, as it now rests in the hands of the Comparative Philologists, is in the same state that Chemistry was when Earth, Air, Fire, and Water were supposed to be the ultimate constituent elements of Matter, ere a single real ultimate element was known as such. But Chemistry, as a science, had no existence prior to the discovery of the simple constituents of Physical creation. In like manner, a Science of Language must be founded on a knowledge of the nature and meaning of the simple elements of Speech. Until this knowledge is in our possession it is only on the outskirts of the subject that we are able to tread. Roots are, it is true, the actual bases of Language, so far as its concrete, working, or synthetical structure is concerned; in the same sense that compound substances are the main constituents found in the Universe as it really and naturally exists. But, although the proportion of simple chemical elements, in the real constitution of things, is small, as compared with that of compound substances; yet it is only by our ability to separate compound substances into these elements that we arrive at an understanding of their true character and place in the realm of Matter. So it is only by our ability to analyze roots—the compound constituents of Language—into the prime elements which have, except rarely, no distinctive and individual embodiment in it, that we can hope to gain a clear comprehension of the nature of Language itself, or of its most primitive concrete or composite foundations.

Comparative Philology furnishes us with admirable guidance—so far as it goes. But we do not wish to stop at the terminus which it seems to consider a satisfactory one. The final answer it offers us, we do not regard as final. We gladly accept the analysis of Language down to its Roots. But we wish to analyze Roots also. That the Moon derives its name from being regarded as the Measurer of time; and Man, from the notion of thinking; that an (anh) is a widely-diffused root, signifying pressure; and that gâ denotes going; with similar expositions, is valuable information, and takes us a great way toward the goal of our seeking. But the question of questions relating to Language is not answered by it. Why should the abstract idea of measuring be expressed by mâ; and that of thinking by man? How did an come to signify pressure; and gâ, going? Is there any special relationship between these roots and the ideas which they respectively indicate? Or was it by chance merely that they were adopted in connection with each other? Might dâ just as meet have been taken to denote doing, and kar, giving, as vice versa? Has the root an any distinguishing characteristics peculiarly fitting it to suggest choking or pressure? Or might that notion have been equally well expressed by sthâ?

It is at this fundamental stage of the investigation, whence a true Science of Language must take its departure, that the labors and disclosures of Comparative Philology cease; leaving the problem of the Origin of Language involved in the same state of unintelligibility with which it has always been surrounded. It is just at this point, however, that the Scientific Universal Language[Pg 463] previously noticed begins its developments. By means of its assistance we may hope, therefore, to arrive at a satisfactory solution of the problem in question, and, through this solution, at a clear understanding of the more specific objects of our present inquiry. Before approaching this main object—the exposition of the general character of the New Scientific Universal Language and its relations to existing Tongues—and still in aid of that purpose, I must offer some further comments upon the excerpts already made from 'The Science of Language;' and upon a few other points which remain to be extracted from that work.

Of the four or five hundred roots which remain, the insoluble residuum (so thought by Professor Müller) of Language, after eliminating the immense mass of variable and soluble material, he says: 1. That 'they are phonetic types produced by a power inherent in human nature;' 2. 'Man, in his primitive and perfect state, was not only endowed like the brute with the power of expressing his sensations by interjections, and his perceptions by onomatopoieia [mere imitation of sound]. He possessed likewise the power of giving more articulate expression to the rational conceptions of his mind.' The italics here are, again, my own, introduced for more emphasis and more ready reference to the central thought of the writer. 3. 'That faculty was not of his own making. It was an instinct, an instinct of the mind, as irresistible as any other instinct. So far as language is the production of that instinct, it belongs to the realm of nature. Man loses his instincts as he ceases to want them. His senses become fainter when, as in the case of scent, they become useless. Thus the creative faculty which gave to each conception, as it thrilled for the first time through the brain, a phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled.' 4. 'The number of these phonetic types [root-syllables] must have been almost infinite in the beginning, and it was only through the same process of natural elimination which we observed in the early history of words, that clusters of roots more or less synonymous, were gradually reduced to one definite type.'

Professor Müller, in stopping with root-syllables (to the number of four or five hundred), as the least or ultimate elements to which Language can be reduced, has, naturally enough, and along with all Comparative Philologists hitherto, committed the error of insufficient analysis; an error of precisely the same kind which the founders of Syllabic Alphabets have committed, as compared with the work of Cadmus, or any founder of a veritable alphabet. The true and radical analysis carries us back in both cases to the Primitive Individual Sounds, the Vowels and Consonants of which Language is composed.

It is clear enough that the analysis must be carried to the very ultimate in order to reach the true foundation for an effective and sufficient alphabetic Representation of Language. Precisely the same necessity is upon us in order that we may lay a secure and adequate foundation for a True Science of Language. This will explain more fully what was meant in a preceding paragraph, when it was stated that the labors of Mr. Andrews begin, in this department of Language, just where the labors of the whole school of Comparative Philologists have ended. He first completes the analysis of Language, by going down and back to the Phonetic Elements, the ulterior roots, the Vowels and Consonants of Language. Then by putting Nature to the crucial test, so to speak, to compel her to disclose the hidden meaning with which each of these absolute (ultimate) Elements of Speech is inherently laden, he discovers—what might readily be an à priori conception—that these Elements, and not any compound root-syllables whatsoever, are the true 'Phonetic Types,'[Pg 464] representative in Nature of 'the Rational Conceptions of the human mind.'

The ultimate Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind are confessedly, among all Philosophers of the Mind, not four or five hundred, but like the Alphabetic Sounds of Language, a mere handful in number. Precisely how many they are and how they are best distributed has not been agreed upon. Aristotle classed them as Ten. Kant tells us there are Twelve only of the Categories of the Understanding. Spencer, while finding the Ultimate of Ultimates in the idea of Force alone, admits its immediate expansion into this handful of Primitive Conceptions, but without attempting their inventory or classification. The discoverer of Universology, first settling and establishing the fact that the Elements of Sound in Speech are the natural Phonetic Types, equal in number to the inventory of the Primitive Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind, is then enabled to work the new discovery backward, and, by the aid of the classifications which Nature herself has clearly introduced among these Sounds (into Vowels, Consonants, Liquids, etc.), to arrive at a classification of all the Primitive Rational Conceptions, which cannot fail to be completely satisfactory and final. The same discovery leads, therefore, to the reconstruction of the Science of Language, on the one hand, and of Ontology, the Science of the highest Metaphysical domain, on the other.

But, again, it is one of the demonstrations of Universology that all careers, that of the development of the Human Mind among others, pass through three Successive Stages correspondential with each other in the different domains of Being. As respects the Mind, these are: 1. Intuitional (or Instinctive); 2. Intellectual (or Reflective); and 3. Composite (or Integral). It is another of these demonstrations that the Intuitional (Unismal) development of Mind, and the Intellectual (Duismal), proceed in opposite courses or directions; so that the highest Intellectual development reaches and investigates in its own way just those questions with which the Intuitional development ('Instinct,' as Professor Müller denominates it) began; and which, in the very earliest times, it disposed of in its appropriate way as if finally.

By this means, the road having been passed over completely in both directions, the way is prepared for the inauguration of the third or Integral Stage, which consists in putting the road intelligently to all its possible uses.

To apply these statements to the instance before us, for the elucidation both of the statements themselves and of the matter to be expounded; it is the test labor of the highest Intellectual development to come back upon precisely those recondite points of knowledge which the nascent Intuition of the race felt or 'smelt' out blindly; and, by the sight of the Mind's eye, to arrive more lucidly at the understanding of the same subject. Not that the nature of the Understanding by any two senses or faculties is ever the same; but that each has its own method of cognizing the same general field of investigation. It is the re-investigation, intellectually, of the Relationship of the (true, not the pseudo) Phonetic Types with the Fundamental Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind, which is the first step taken by Mr. Andrews, in laying the basis for the new and coming stage of the development of the Science of Language.

It is the completion of this Intellectually Analytical process which offers the point of incipency for the new and immense Lingual Structure of the future, and the ultimate virtual unification of Human Speech. It may be quite true, as Professor Müller affirms, that the Instinctual Development of Language—by which we mean the whole Lingual History of the Past, with the exception of our present very imperfect[Pg 465] Scientific nomenclatures—has never proved adequate to the introduction of a single new root, since the 'Instinct' exhausted itself, as he says, in the nascent effort. But it is a pure assumption, when he supposes, for that reason, that the informed Human Intellect of the Future will not be competent to constitute thousands of them. It is just as legitimate as would have been the assumption in the infancy of Chemistry, that because Nature never synthetized in her laboratory more than a few simple salts, the modern chemist would never be able to produce any one of the two thousand salts now known to him. This kind of assumption is the common error of the expounders of existing science, as contrasted with the bolder originality of discoverers.

But, again, though it is true that the Intuitional (or Instinctual) faculty of man has, in a manner, declined, as in the case of the sense of Smell, while the Intellect (the Analogue of the Eye) has been developed, still it is assuming too much to say that it utterly fails us even yet. It remains, like the sense of Smell, an important helper even in our present investigations. Professor Müller should not, because he may happen to have a cold, affirm that nobody smells anything any more. To explain what I mean in this respect, the following extract may serve as a text:

'It is curious to observe how apt we are to deceive ourselves when we once adopt this system of Onomatopoieia. Who does not imagine that he hears in the word 'thunder' an imitation of the rolling and rumbling noise which the old Germans ascribed to their god Thor playing at nine-pins? Yet thunder is clearly the same word as the Latin tonitru. The root is tan, to stretch. From this root tan we have in Greek tonos, our tone, tone being produced by the stretching and vibrating of cords. In Sanskrit the sound thunder is expressed by the same root tan; but in the derivatives tanyu, tanyatu, and tanayitnu, thundering, we perceive no trace of the rumbling noise which we imagined we perceived in the Latin tonitru and the English thunder. The very same root tan, to stretch, yields some derivatives which are anything but rough and noisy. The English tender, the French tendre, the Latin tener are derived from it. Like tenuis, the Sanskrit tanu, the English thin, tener meant originally what was extended over a larger surface, then thin, then delicate. The relationship betwixt tender, thin, and thunder would be hard to establish if the original conception of thunder had really been its rumbling noise.

'Who does not imagine that he hears something sweet in the French sucre, sucré? Yet sugar came from India, and it is there called 'sarkhara, which is anything but sweet sounding. This 'sarkhara is the same word as sugar; it was called in Latin saccharum, and we still speak of saccharine juice, which is sugar juice.'

It may appear, on a closer inspection at this point, that it is Professor Müller who is deceived, and not the common verdict, both in respect to the question whether such words as thunder, sucré, etc., really do or do not have some inherent and organic relation in the Human Mind to the ideas of rumbling noise and sweetness respectively; and in respect to the value and significance of the fact. He has, it would seem, confounded two separate and distinct questions. 1st. Is there such a relation between the sound and the sense? and 2d. Were these words introduced into speech because of that resemblance?

In respect to the latter of these questions, Professor Müller's answer, so far as the word thunder is concerned, is rather in favor of an affirmative answer than against it. So far from its being 'hard to establish the relationship betwixt tender, thin, and thunder,' on the hypothesis that 'the original conception of thunder had really been its rumbling noise; 'it is just as easy to establish this relationship as it is to show the connection between the root tan, to stretch, and its derivatives tonos, tone, tendre, tener, thin, and delicate;—an undertaking which Professor[Pg 466] Müller finds no difficulty whatever in accomplishing.

The idea of stretching signified by the original root tan has no direct or immediate connection with any of the conceptions expressed by the derivative words. But by stretching an object it is diminished in breadth and depth, while it increases in length; hence it becomes thinner; so that the Mind readily makes the transition from the primitive conception of stretch to that of thinness, indicated by the English word, and by the Sanskrit tanu, and the Latin tener, tenuis. Thinness, again, is allied to slimness, slenderness, fineness, etc.; ideas which are involved in the conception of delicate, and furnish an easy transition to it.

But it is also from the notion of stretching, though in a still less direct manner, that we gain an idea of sound as conveyed by musical tones; 'tone,' as Professor Müller remarks, 'being produced by the stretching and vibrating of cords.' Still further: if we cause a heavy piece of cord to vibrate, or, what is better, the bass string of a violin or guitar, or strike a very low key on the piano, and pronounce the word tone in a full voice at the same time, the remarkable similarity of the two sounds thus produced will be clearly apparent. Thus the root tan, to stretch, becomes also expressive of the idea of sound as seen in the words tonos, tone, tonitru, thunder, etc. But what is especially to be noticed is this: that in those derivatives of tan, to stretch, which are not indicative of ideas of sound (as tenuis, thin, etc.), the sounds of the words do not cause us to imagine that we hear the imitation of noise; while in those derivatives which are expressive of it, we not only imagine that we do hear it, but, in the case of tonos and tone at least, have an instance in which we know that the word employed to convey the idea is a proximately perfect representation of the sound out of which the idea arose. Even in tanyu, tanyatu, tanayitnu, thundering, in which Professor Müller affirms that 'we perceive no trace of the rumbling noise which we imagined we perceived in the Latin tonitru and the English thunder'—although he seems to admit that it is perceptible in the Sanskrit word for thunder expressed by the same root tan—the reason why we cannot trace it may be because of the terminations, which, as it were, absorb the sound that is there, although less obviously, in the tan, or shade it off so that it becomes diluted and hardly traceable.

Vowel Sounds are so fluctuating and evanescent that they go for comparatively little in questions of Etymology. Tan is equivalent to T—n; the place of the dash being filled by any vowel. T is readily replaced by th or d, and n by ng; as is known to every Philological student. The object, which in English we call tin, and its name, are peculiar and important in this connection, as combining the two ideas in question: 1st, that of outstretched surface or thinness; and, 2d, that of a persistent tendency to give forth just that species of sound which we call, by a slight shade of difference in the form of the word, a din. The Latin tintinnabulum, a little bell, and the English tinkle, the sound made by a little bell, are among the words which are readily recognized as having a natural relation to a certain trivial variety of sound. The English ding-dong and ding-dong-bell are well-known imitations of sound; and are, at the same time, etymologically, mere modifications of the root under consideration. As tone and strain or stretch are related in idea, as seen in the case of musical notes or tones, is it not as probable that the original root-word of which tan, ton, thun, tin, din, ding, dong, etc., are mere variations, took its rise from the imitation of sound, as it is that the fact of strain or stretch was the first to be observed and to obtain the name from which, afterward and accidentally, so to speak, were derived words which confessedly[Pg 467] have a relation in their own sound to other and external sounds, as in the case of thunder, musical tone, the sheet of tin, and the bell? Is it not, in fact, more probable?

In respect to the question whether sucre and sucré were introduced into Language because of their resemblance to the idea of sweetness, Professor Müller gives a valid negative answer. He shows that the word is derived from the Sanskrit 'sarkhara, 'which,' as he says, 'is anything but sweet sounding.'

The question whether the words under consideration (sucre, sucré) are really sweet-sounding words, Professor Müller decides by implication in the affirmative, and, perhaps, quite unconsciously, by the very act of contrasting them with another word which, as he affirms, is not at all sweet sounding.

But this is by far the more important point than that of the mere historical genesis of the word; and a point which really touches vitally the whole question of the nature and Origin of Language.

How should any word be either sweet-sounding or not sweet-sounding? Sound is a something which has no taste, and sweetness is a something which makes no noise. Now the very gist and crux of this whole question of Language consists in confounding or not confounding a case like this with mere Onomatopoieia, or the direct and simple imitation of one sound by another. All that Professor Müller says against the Origin of Language in this 'bow-wow' way is exceedingly well said; and it is important that it should be said. But unconsciously he is now confounding with the Bow-wow, something else and totally different; and something which is just as vital and profound in regard to the whole question of the origin and true basis of the reconstruction of Language, as the thing with which he confounds it is trivial and superficial.

The point is so important that I beg the reader's best attention to it, in order that he may become fully seized of the idea.

I can imitate very closely the buzz of a bee, by forcing the breath through my nearly-touching teeth. A mimic can imitate the natural sounds of many animals, and other sounds heard in Nature. This mere imitation is what Lingual Scholars have dignified by the high-sounding and rather repulsive technicality, Onomatopoieia. In the early and simple period of Lingual Science much has been made, in striving to account for the Origin of Language, of this faculty of imitation, and of the fact that there are undoubtedly certain words in every language consisting of such imitations. It is against this simple and superficial theory that Professor Müller has argued so well. But in these words sucre, sucré, incautiously included by him as instances of the same thing, we are in the presence of a very different problem. To imitate one sound by another sound is a mere simple, external, and trivial imitation; onomatopoieia, and nothing more than that. But to imitate a sound, by a taste, or to recognize that such an imitation has occurred, is a testimony to the existence of that recondite and all-important echo of likeness through domains of Being themselves the most unlike, which we call Analogy.

That we do recognize such analogy or correspondence of meaning, that Professor Müller himself does so, is admitted when he tells us that another form of the words in question is 'not at all sweet-sounding.' It is not in this perception, therefore, that we deceive ourselves, but only in supposing that these particular words came to mean sugar, because they were sweet-sounding. That there is this perception of the analogy in question is again confessed by the fact that we have the same feeling in respect to the German süsse, sweet; while the English words sugar and sweet, notwithstanding any greater familiarity of association, do not con[Pg 468]vey the same ideas in the same marked degree. The words mellifluous (honey-flowing) and melody (honey-sound) are themselves standing witnesses in behalf of the existence of the same perception. The fact that we instinctually speak of a sweet voice, is another witness.

If, then, there is an echo of likeness (real analogy) between these two unlike spheres of Thought and Being, Sound and Taste, may there not be precisely a similar echo through other and all spheres; so that there shall be a Something in Number, in Form, in Chemical Constitution, in the Properties of Mind, in Ultimate Rational Conceptions, in fine, that echoes to this idea, which, by a stretch of the powers of Language, we call sweet, both in respect to Sound and Taste? May it not have been precisely this Something and the other handful of primitive Somethings, each with its multitudinous echoes, that the Nascent Intuition of the race laid hold of and availed itself of irreflectively for laying the foundations of Speech? Again, may it not happen that the Reflective Intellect should in turn discover intelligently (or reflectively) just that underlying system of Analogy which the primitive Instinct was competent to appreciate unintelligently; and, by the greater clearness of this intelligent perception, be able to elevate the Science of Language, and found it upon a new and constructive, instead of upon this merely instinctual plane? To all these questions the Universologists return an affirmative answer. They go farther, and aver that this great intellectual undertaking is now fully achieved, and is only awaiting the opportunity for elaborate demonstration and promulgation.

A word further on this subject. To pronounce the words sucre, sucré, süsse, the lips are necessarily pinched or perked up, in a certain exquisite way, as if we were sucking something very gratifying to the taste. This consideration carries us over to the further analogy with shapes or forms, and, hence, with the Organic or Mechanical production of sounds; another grand element, the main one, in fact, of the whole investigation.

Among the infinite contingencies of the origin and successive modifications of words, it is very possible that the word 'sarkhara, although meaning sugar in a particular tongue, may not have primarily related to its property of sweetness; and that, therefore, its phonetic form should not be accordant with that property. It may have meant the cane-plant, for instance, before its sweetness was known. Then it is possible that a derivative and modified form of the same word should happen to drift into that precise phonetic; form which is accordant with that property. But the marvel, and the point of importance is, that so soon as this happens, the 'instinct' of the race, even that of Professor Müller himself, remains good enough to recognize the fact. 'Who does not imagine,' he says, 'that he hears something sweet in the French sucre, sucré?' But why do we all imagine that we hear what does not exist? The uniformity of the imagination proves it to be a real perception. If the universal consciousness of mankind be not valid evidence, where shall we hope to find it?

The consideration of Analogy as existing between the Ultimate Elements of Sound and Ultimate Rational Conceptions will be the subject of the next paper.[Pg 469]

FLOWER ODORS.

There is a sheltered nook in a certain garden, where, on a sunny spring morning, the passer-by inhales with startled pleasure the very soul of the 'sweet south,' and, stooping down, far in among brown and crackling leaves, lo the blue hoods of English violets! The fragrance of the violet! What flower scent is like it? Does not the subtle sweetness—half caught, half lost upon the wind—at times sweep over one a vague and thrilling tenderness, an exquisite emotion, partly grief and partly mild delight?

The violet is the poet's darling, perhaps because its frail breath seems to waft from out the delicate blue petals the rare imaginings native to a poet's soul.

May it not be that thus, in the eloquence of perfume, it is but rendering to him who can best respond thereto, a revelation of its inner essences?—showing, to him who can comprehend the sign, a reason why it grows.

Is this too fanciful? Certainly the violet was not made in vain—and in the Eternal Correspondence known to higher intelligences than our own, there surely must exist a grand and beautiful Flower lore, wherein each blossom has an individual word to speak, a lesson to unfold, by form and coloring, and, more than all, by exhaled fragrance.

Doubtless there is a mystery here too deep for us in this gross world to wholly understand; but can we not search after knowledge? Would we not like to grasp an enjoyment less merely of the senses from the geranium's balm and the mayflower's spice?

And notice here how strongly association binds us by the sense of smell—the sense so closely connected with the brain that, through its instrumentality, the mind, it is said, is quickest reached, is soonest moved. So that when perfumes quiver through us, are we oftenest constrained to blush and smile, or shrink and shiver. Perhaps through perfumes also memory knocks the loudest on our heart-doors; until it has come to pass that unto scented handkerchief or withering leaf has been given full power to fire the eye or blanch the cheek; while from secret drawers one starts appalled at flower breaths, stifling, shut up long ago. The sprays themselves might drop unheeded down—dead with the young hopes that laid them there—but the old-time emotion wraps one yet in that undying—ah, how sickening! fragrance.

So in the very nature of the task proposed is couched assistance, since thus to the breath of the flowers does association lend its own interpretation, driving deep the sharpest stings or dropping down the richest consolation through the most humble plants. But is this the end of the matter? Is there not, apart from all that our personal interest may discover, in each flower an unchanging address all its own—an unvaried salutation proffered ever to the world at large? Why is a passion wafted through a nosegay? What purifies the air around a lily? And why are bridal robes rich with orange blooms?

Surely poetry and tradition have but here divined certain truths, omnipotent behind a veil, and recognized their symbols in these chosen blossoms?

There are hints laid in their very structure and outer semblance, hints afforded also by art and romance from time immemorial; and all these, suggestions of the hidden wisdom, must be gathered patiently and wrought out to a fuller clearness, through careful attention to the intuitions of one's own awakened imagination.[Pg 470]

But what expression can be found for the soul of a flower—for the evanescent odor that floats upon us only with the dimmest mists of meaning?

In a novel of a few years since, a people dwelling in Mid Africa are described as skilled in the acts of a singular civilization, and especial mention is made of an instrument analogous to an organ, but which evoked perfumes instead of musical sounds. A curious idea, but possibly giving the nearest representation to be made of the effect of odor: by its help, then, by regarding flowers as instruments whose fragrant utterances might be as well conveyed in music, we may be able to translate aright the effluence that stirs beyond the reach of speech.

Let us now try to distinguish, if only for a pleasant pastime, some few favorite strains in those wonderful, unheard melodies with which our gardens ring.

Hear first the roses. The beautiful blush rose, opening fresh and rosy on a dewy June morning, echoes gleefully the birds' 'secret jargoning.'

The saffron tea-rose is an exotic of exotics, and the daintiest of fine ladies bears it in her jewelled fingers to the opera, and there imbues it with the languid ecstasy of an Italian melody. The aroma, floating round those creamy buds, vibrates to the impassioned agony of artistic luxury—to the pleasurable pain that dies away in rippling undulations of the tones.

But the red rose is dyed deep with simpler passion. War notes are hers, but not trumpet tongued, as they pour from out the fiery cactus. No; it is as if a woman's heart thrilled through the red rose to sadden the reveille for country and for God!—an irrepressible undertone of mourning surging over the anguish that must surely come.

Love songs belong, too, to the damask rose, but love still set to martial chords, wrung, as it were, from heroes' wives, in a rapture of patriotic sacrifice.

The white roses are St. Cecilia's, and swell to organ strains; all but that whitest rose, so wan and fragile, which haunts old shady gardens, and never seems to have been there when all things were in their prime, but to have blossomed out of the surrounding decay and fading loveliness. From its bowed head falls drearily upon the ear a low lament over the departed life it would commemorate.

With roses comes the honeysuckle—the real New England one—brimful of nutmeg; and the sweetbriar, piquant with a L'Allegro strain left by Milton. Then the laburnum, which, dripping gold, drips honey likewise, and the locust clusters, and the wistaria, dropping lusciousness.

These are all joy-bells evidently, outbursts of the bliss of nature, but the garb of the wistaria is more sober than her brilliant sisters, whose attire is bright and shining.

There are flowers that seem set to sacred music. Lilies, white and sweet, which, from the Lily of the Annunciation to the lily of the valley, are hallowed by every reverent fancy; for

And the little white verbena, which recalls, in some mystic way, the old Puritan tune, 'Naomi,' whose words of calm submission are so closely interwoven with one's earliest religious faith.

But in contrast to this meek northern saint of a flower, there is a southern flush of oleander bloom, that pours out hymns of mystical devotion, overflowing with the exuberant vitality, glowing with the intense fervor, of the Tropics.

There are flowers, also, the burden of whose odorous airs is sensibly of this world only, earthy, sensuous. Such are the cape jessamine and the narcissus, alike glistening in satin raiment, and alike distilling aromatic essence. Something akin to the waltzes of[Pg 471] Strauss, one might fancy, is the music suited to their mood.

And the night-blooming cercus—that uncanny white witch of a creature, with its petals moulded in wax or ivory, its golden-brown leaf-sheathings, and its unequalled emerald (is it a tint, or is it but a shadow?) far down within the lovely cup, with that overpowering voluptuous odor, burdening the atmosphere, permeating the innermost fibres of sensation, steeping the soul in lethargy! What more fit exponent can there be for this weird plant's expression than the song of the serpent-charmer, the singing which can root the feet unto the ground and stay the flowing of the impetuous blood?

But carnations have a wide-awake aspect, which brings one back to every-day life again. Their pleasant pungency is like a bugle note. They seem glad to start the nerves of human beings.

The tulips have taken the sun home to them. Deep down in their hearts you smell it, while you listen to a cheery carol welling up from the comfort warm within.

The pond lilies likewise breathe forth the inspiration of the sun. And they chant in their pure home thanksgivings therefore, happy songs of chaste praise.

These are flowers which look their fragrance; but there are those that startle by the contrast between their outer being and their inner spirit.

What an intoxicating draught the obscure heliotrope offers! One thinks of Heloise in the garments of a nun. The arbutus, also, and the dear daphne-cups, plain, unnoticeable little things, remind one of the nightingales, so insignificant in their appearance, so peerless in their gushes of delicious breath.

The demure Quaker is like the peculiar fragrance of the mignonette. It is hard to believe so many people really like mignonette as profess to do so, it has such a caviare-to-the-general odor. The popular taste here would seem really guided by a fashion of fastidiousness. But the lemon verbena—which, if not a flower, is so high-bred an herb that it deserves to be considered one—one can easily see why that is valued. What a refined, spirituelle smell it has? Hypatia might have worn it, or Lady Jane Grey—or better still, Mrs. Browning's Lady Geraldine might have plucked it in the pauses of the 'woodland singing' the poet tells of.

Nature is very liberal in all things; and we have coarse and disagreeable flower odors, supplied by peonies, marigolds, the gay bouvardia, and a still more odious greenhouse flower—a yellowish, toadlike thing, which those who have once known will never forget, and for which perhaps they can supply a name. If odor be the flower's expression of its soul, what rude and evil tenants must dwell within those luckless mansions!

But if a flower's soul speaks through odor, what of scentless blossoms? Are they dumb or dead? Some may be too young to speak—as the infantile anemones, daisies, and innocents.

Perhaps some are thus most meet for symbols of the dead; the stately, frozen calla, which seems a fit trophy, bound with laurel leaves, to lay upon a soldier's bier; and the snow-cold camelia, whose stony sculpturing is the very emblem for those white features whence God has drained away the life.

But, camelias warmed with color, fuchsias, abutilons, the cultivated azalia (the wild one has a scent), asters, and a host of other loved and lovely flowers—why are they deprived of language?

Perhaps they have a fragrance, felt by subtler senses than we mortals own. But, at least, if they must now appear as mute, we may yet hope that in a more spiritual existence we shall behold their very doubles, gifted with a novel charm, a captivating perfume, we cannot conceive of here. For in the vast harmony of the universe one cannot believe there can be any floral[Pg 472] instruments whose strings are never to be awakened.

It has been but the pastime of a half hour that we have given to the flower odors, when an ever-widening field for speculation lies before us. But imagination droops exhausted, baffled by the innumerable enchanting riddles still to solve. And this must now suffice.

If it serve to excite any dormant thought in the more ingenious mind of another—if it be able to call out the learned conceits of some scholar, or the delicate symbolisms of some dreamer, it has done its work.

The hand that has thus far guided the pen, to dally with a subject all the dearer because so generally disregarded, will now gladly yield it to the control of a fresher fancy, a truer observation.

LOCOMOTION.

The utilitarian spirit of the age is strikingly exhibited in the intense desire to diminish the quantity of time necessary to pass from one spot of the earth's surface to another, and to communicate almost instantaneously with a remote distance. The great triumphs of genius, within the last half century, have been accomplished within the domain of commerce. And in contemplating the progress which has ensued, it is a cause of humiliation that, as in the case of other great discoveries, so many centuries have elapsed, during which the powers of steam, an element almost constantly within the observation of man, were, although perceived, unemployed. But reflection upon the nature of man, and his slow advancement in the great path of fact and science, will at once hush the expression of our wondering regret over the past, while a nobler occupation for the mind offers itself in speculation upon the future. The plank road, the canal, the steamboat, and the railway, are all the productions of the last few years. At the close of the last century, with the exception of a few military roads inherited from the Romans, and the roads of the same description constructed by Napoleon, the means of communication between distant parts was almost entirely confined to inland seas and the larger rivers. It is for this reason that the maritime cities and provinces attained such disproportionate wealth.

The invention of chariots, and the manner of harnessing horses to draw them, is ascribed to Ericthonius of Athens, B.C. 1486. The chariots of the ancients were like our phaetons, and drawn by one horse. The invention of the chaise, or calash, is ascribed to Augustus Cæsar, about A.D. 7. Postchaises were introduced by Trajan about A.D. 100. Carriages were known in France in the reign of Henry II., A.D. 1547; there were but three in Paris in 1550; they were of rude construction. Henry IV. had one, but it was without straps or springs. A strong cob-horse (haquenée) was let for short journeys; latterly these were harnessed to a plain vehicle, called coche-a-haquenée: hence the name, hackney coach. They were first let for hire in Paris, in 1650, at the Hotel Fiacre. They were known in England in 1555, but not the art of making them. When first manufactured in England, during the reign of Elizabeth, they were called whirlicotes. The duke of Buckingham, in 1619, drove six horses, and the duke of Northumberland, in rivalry, drove eight. Cabs are also of Parisian origin, where the driver sat in the inside; but the aristocratic tastes of the English suggested the propriety of compelling the driver to be seated outside. Omnibuses also originated in Paris, and were[Pg 473] introduced into London in 1827, by an enterprising coach proprietor named Shillaber. They were introduced into New York, in 1828, by Kipp & Brown. Horse railroads were introduced into New York, in 1851, upon the Sixth Avenue.

In 1660 there were but six stage coaches in England; two days were occupied in passing from London to Oxford, fifty-four miles. In 1669, it was announced that a vehicle, described as the flying coach, would perform the whole journey between sunrise and sunset. It excited as much interest as the opening of a new railway in our time. The Newcastle Courant, of October 11th, 1812, advertises 'that all that desire to pass from Edinborough to London, or from London to Edinborough, or any place on that road, let them repair to Mr. John Baillie's, at the Coach and Horses, at the head of Cannongate, Edinborough, every other Saturday; or to the Black Swan, in Holborn, every other Monday; at both of which places they may be received in a stage coach, which performs the whole journey in thirteen days, without any stoppage (if God permit), having eighty able horses to perform the whole stage—each passenger paying £4 10s. for the whole journey. The coach sets out at six in the morning.' And it was not until 1825 that a daily line of stage coaches was established between the two cities, accomplishing the distance in forty-six hours. And even so late as 1835 there were only seven coaches which ran daily.

In 1743, Benjamin Franklin, postmaster of Philadelphia, in an advertisement, dated April 14th, announces 'that the northern post will set out for New York on Thursdays, at three o'clock in the afternoon, till Christmas. The southern post sets out next Monday for Annapolis, and continues going every fortnight during the summer season.' In 1773, Josiah Quincy, father and grandfather of the mayors of that name, of Boston, spent thirty-three days upon a journey from Georgetown, South Carolina, to Philadelphia. In 1775, General Washington was eleven days going from Philadelphia to Boston; upon his arrival at Watertown the citizens turned out and congratulated him upon the speed of his journey! Fifty years ago the regular mail time, between New York and Albany, was eight days. Even as late as 1824, the United States mail was thirty-two days in passing from Portland to New Orleans. The news of the death of Napoleon Bonaparte, at St. Helena, May 5th, 1821, reached New York on the fifteenth day of August.

Canals were known to the ancients, and have been used, in a small way, by all nations, particularly the Dutch. But the world did not awake to their importance until 1817, when the State of New York entered upon the Erie Canal project, which was completed in 1825. The introduction of steamboats for river navigation, and of locomotives upon railways, have superseded canals, and invested them with an air of antiquity. It was not until 1807 that Robert Fulton put his first vessel in operation on the Hudson River.

To the American steamship Savannah, built by Croker & Fickett, at Corlear's Hook, New York, is universally conceded the honor of being the first steam-propelled vessel that ever crossed the Atlantic ocean. She was three hundred and eighty tons burden, ship-rigged, and was equipped with a horizontal engine, placed between decks, with boilers in the hold. She was built through the agency of Captain Moses Rogers, by a company of gentlemen, with a view of selling her to the emperor of Russia. She sailed from New York in 1819, and went first to Savannah; thence she proceeded direct to Liverpool, where she arrived after a passage of eighteen days, during seven of which she was under steam. As it was nearly or quite impossible to carry sufficient fuel for the voyage, during pleasant weather[Pg 474] the wheels were removed, and canvas substituted. At Liverpool she was visited by many persons of distinction, and afterward departed for Elsinore, on her way to St. Petersburg. She was not, however, sold as expected, and next touched at Copenhagen, where Captain Rogers was offered one hundred thousand dollars for her by the king of Sweden; but the offer was declined. She then sailed for home, putting into Elsington, on the coast of Norway. From the latter place she was twenty-two days in reaching Savannah. On account of the high price of fuel, she carried no steam on the return passage, and the wheels were taken off. Upon the completion of the voyage, she was purchased by Captain Nathaniel Holdredge, divested of her steam apparatus, and run as a packet between Savannah and New York. She subsequently went ashore on Long Island, and broke up. Sixty thousand dollars were sunk in the transaction. Captain Rogers died a few years ago on the Pee Dee river, North Carolina. He is believed to be the first man that ran a steamboat to Philadelphia or Baltimore. The mate was named Stephen Rogers, and was living a few years ago at New London, Connecticut.

The first railway in England was between Stockton and Darlington; and the first locomotive built in the world was used upon that road, and is still in existence, being preserved at Darlington depot, upon a platform erected for the purpose; the date 1825 is engraved upon its plate. The first railway charter in the United States was granted March 4th, 1826, to Thomas H. Perkins and others, 'to convey granite from the ledges in Quincy to tidewater in that town.' The first railway in the United States upon which passengers were conveyed, was the Baltimore and Ohio, which was opened December 28, 1829, to Ellicott's Mills, thirteen miles from Baltimore. A single horse was attached to two of Winan's carriages, containing forty-one persons, which were drawn, with ease, eleven miles per hour. The South Carolina Railway, from Charleston to Hamburg, was the first constructed in the United States with a view to use steam instead of animal power. The first locomotive constructed in the United States was built for this road. It was named the Best Friend, and afterward changed to Phœnix. It was built at the West Point foundery by the Messrs. Kemble, under the direction of E.L. Miller, Esq. Its performance was tested on the 9th December, 1830, and exceeded expectations. To Mr. Miller, therefore, belongs the honor of planning and constructing the first locomotive operated in the United States. This road was the first to carry the United States mail, and, when completed, October 2d, 1833, one hundred and thirty-seven miles in length, was the longest railway in the world. The number of miles of railway in operation in the United States, at the present time, is thirty-two thousand; and the number of passengers conveyed upon them in 1863 was one hundred millions. Railways did not cross the Mississippi river until 1851. The number of miles of railway in the world is seventy-two thousand; and the amount of steamboat tonnage is five millions of tons.

Yet more astonishing than the railway is the magnetic telegraph, whose exploits are literally miraculous, annihilating space and time. The extremities of the globe are brought into immediate contact; the merchant, the friend, or the lover converses with whom he wishes, though thousands of miles apart, as if they occupied the same parlor; and the speech uttered in Washington to-day may be read in San Francisco three hours before it is delivered. Could the wires be extended around the globe, we should be able to hear the news one day before it occurred.[Pg 475]

LITERARY NOTICES.

Who could look on the fair high face, facing our title page, and have the heart to criticize the revelations of its soul? Naomi is a book of feeling, passion, and considerable, if not yet mature, power. It is dedicated to Sr. Dn. Juan Clemente Zenea, editor of La Charanga, Havana. Our authoress says in her dedication: 'It is to you, therefore; and those who like you have deeply felt, that the history of a woman's soul-life will prove more interesting than the mere narrative of the chances and occurrences that make up the every-day natural existence.' Naomi is a woman of artistic genius and passionate character, becalmed in the stagnation of conventional life, who, throwing off the fetters of an uncongenial and inconsiderate marriage, attempts to find happiness and independence in the cultivation of her own powers. She is eminently successful as prima donna, is brilliant and self-sustained—but fails to attain the imagined happiness, the Love-Eden so fervently sought.

A novel of domestic life, in which the plot, apparently simple, is yet artistic and skilfully managed. The thread of life of the bridesmaids is held with that of the bride, the development of character, distinctly marked in each, progresses through a series of natural events, until the young people reach the point of life when impulse settles into principle, amiability into virtue, generosity into self-abnegation, and we feel that each may now be safely left to life as it is, that circumstance can no longer mould character, and are willing to leave them, certain they will henceforth remain true to themselves, and to those whose happiness may depend upon them, whatever else may betide. The bride is a pure, sweet, generous woman, but the character of the book is decidedly Lotty. Childish, petite, and indulged, she is yet magnanimous, brave, and self-sacrificing; fiery, fearless, and frank, she is still patient, forbearing, and reticent; we love her as child, while we soon learn to venerate her as woman. She and her docile bloodhound, Bear, form pictures full of magic contrast, groups of which we never tire. The cordiality and heartiness of her admiring relatives, the Beauvilliers, are contagious; we live for the time in their life, and grow stronger as we read. The book is charming. Its moral is unexceptionable, its characters well drawn, its plot and incidents simple and natural, and its interest sustained from beginning to end.

Tennyson has so many devoted admirers, that this volume cannot fail to receive due attention. The principal poem therein, Enoch Arden, is one of touching pathos and simplicity. Three children, Enoch Arden, Philip Ray, and Annie Lee, grew up together on the British coast a hundred years ago. Both youths loved Annie: she loved and married Enoch. They live happily together until three children are born to the house: then poverty threatens, and Arden leaves home to provide for the loved ones. He is cast away on an island, is not heard, from for ten years, and Annie reluctantly consents to marry Philip, who has been a father to her children during their long orphanage. Arden returns at last to his native village, so old, gray, and[Pg 476] broken, that no one recognizes him. He hears how true his wife had been to him until all hope had died away, and how Philip cared for her peace, and cherished his children. The wretched man resolves to bear his grief in silence, and never to bring agony and shame to a peaceful home by disclosing his return. He does this in a spirit of Christian self-abnegation, lives near the unconscious darlings of his heart, earns his frugal living, watching round, but never entering the lost Paradise of his youth. He dies, and only at the hour of death, reveals to Annie how he had lived and loved. The theme of this tale has often been taken before. It has been elaborated with passion and power in the 'Homeward Bound' of Adelaide Procter, a poetess too little known among us.

There is great purity of delineation and conception in Enoch Arden. The characters stand out real and palpable in their statuesque simplicity. There is agony enough, but neither impatience nor sin. The epithets are well chosen; but the usual wildering sensuousness of Tennyson's glowing imagery is subdued and tender throughout the progress of this melancholy tale.

'Aylmer's Field,' about the same length, is a poem of more stormy mould. It hurls fierce rebukes at family pride, and just censures at tyrannical parents.

The volume contains many shorter poems, some of which are already familiar to our readers.

We like 'Azarian' better than any work we have yet seen from Miss Prescott. Ruth Yetton, the heroine, is so truly feminine, she might serve as a type of half our innocent maidens from sixteen to twenty. Azarian is real and drawn to the life, a hero who has his counterpart in every civilized city; a man of savoir-vivre, glittering and attractive, but selfish, inconsequent, frivolous, and deadly to the peace of those who love him. Miss Prescott's style is elaborate and florid, frequently of rare beauty, always giving evidence of culture and scholarship. Do we find fault with the hundred-leaved rose? Her fancy is luxuriant, of more power than her imagination. Her descriptions of flowers in the volume before us are accurate and tenderly beautiful. She knows them all, and evidently loves them well. Nor are the fragile blossoms of the trees less dear to her. She reads their secrets, and treasures them in her heart. She paints them with her glowing words, and placing our old darlings before us again, exultingly points out their hidden charms.

The author of this pleasant, unpretending little book visited the 'great wilderness of Northern New York, which lies in St. Lawrence county, on the western slope of the Adirondack Mountains. It forms part of an extensive plateau, embracing an area of many thousand square miles, and is elevated from fifteen to eighteen hundred feet above the sea. The mineral resources of the plateau are of great value, immense ranges of magnetic iron traverse the country, and there are indications of more valuable minerals in a few localities. Of its agricultural importance too much cannot be said. The soil is rich and strong, peculiarly adapted to the grazing of cattle. The climate is that of the hill country of New England.'

The reader will see from this extract of what the book treats. The volume is pleasantly and simply written, imparts considerable information with respect to the region which it describes, is redolent of spicy forest breath, and brings before us Indian, deer, and beaver.

'These Letters were written amid camp scenes and on the march,' says our author, 'under circumstances unfavorable to literary composition, and were intended for private perusal alone. Portions of them appeared in the Providence Journal, and were received with a favor alike unexpected and gratifying. Numerous requests having been made that they should be gathered up as a Rhode Island contribution to the history of the War of the Rebellion, the author, with unaffected distrust of himself, has yielded to the judgment of others. While the aim has been to show the honorable position of the State in an un[Pg 477]happy war, it has also been the design to present a comprehensive view of the consecutive campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, with the fortunes of which several of the Rhode Island regiments and most of the batteries have, for longer or shorter periods, been identified.'

It is a noble record for Rhode Island, and a valuable contribution to the history of the war. It deals with facts, not polities or prejudices. We think every loyal State should prepare such a volume. A simple and reliable statement of what she has herself done, a sketch of her heroes of all ranks and parties, of her batteries, regiments, and companies, of her commandants and the battles in which her troops bore part, should be therein contained. This would lead to noble emulation among the States struggling for a common cause, and would be of great value both to State and general history. We look upon this book as a beginning in the right way. Such national records of nobly borne suffering and deeds of glory would be truly Books of Honor.

This book was issued to meet the demand in advanced schools for a larger number of carefully prepared and practical examples for review and drill exercises than are furnished from ordinary text books, and may be used in connection with any other books on this subject. 'The examples are designed to test the pupil's judgment; to bring into use his knowledge of the theory and applications of numbers; to cultivate habits of patient investigation and self-reliance; to test the truth and accuracy of his own processes by proof—the only test he will have to depend on in the real business transactions of afterlife; in a word, to make him independent of all text books, of written rules and analyses.'

Prof. Harkness's Grammar will be welcomed both by teacher and student. Our author is a man of great experience in the subjects of which he treats, and we doubt not he has supplied a general want in the work before us, and furnished a true grammar of the Latin tongue, worthy of adoption in all our educational institutions.

This novel is the autobiography of a young English girl, thrown by her father, a man of high birth, but worthless character, into the vicious influences of corrupt English and French society. The story is one of a constant struggle between these base examples on the one hand, and a strong sense of right and justice on the other. The plot is original and quite elaborate, and the interest well sustained. The character of the unprincipled, heartless, gambling father is well drawn, as well as that of the weak but self-sacrificing mother. Some of the scenes evince considerable power.[Pg 478]

EDITOR'S TABLE

Readers of The Continental, your servant and faithful caterer has been a sad idler and vagrant for the last month, thinking more of his own pleasures than of your needs and requirements. Forgive him, he is again a working bee and seeking honey for your hives. Have patience, irate correspondents; we have absconded with no manuscripts, and are again at our desk to give bland answers to curt missives.

We have been among the Adirondacks; congratulate us right heartily thereon! We have traversed pathless primeval forests of larches, balsams, white pines, and sugar maples; we have floated upon lakes lovely enough to have mirrored Paradise; we have clambered down waterfalls whose broken drops turned into diamonds as they fell; have scaled mountains and seen earth in its glory, and looked clear up into the infinite blue of the eye of God.

We have seen the gleaming trout, changeful as a prisoned rainbow, lured from his cool stream; and the poor deer chased from his forest home by savage dogs and cruel men, driven into crystal lakes, lassoed there with ropes, throats cut with dull knives, and backs broken with flying balls. Immortal Shakspeare! had thy lines no power to awaken pity for frightened fawn and flying doe? Did they not see

We have sat by the side of fair fragile country girls, and heard the experiences of the stout pioneers of civilization. We have tried to keep step with city maidens, shorn of ridiculous hoops and trailing trains. We nave known them trip up the great sides of Tahawus, press through the trunked and bouldered horrors of Indian Pass, float over Lake Placid, and scale the long steep slide up the crest of White Face. Lovely as dreams and light as clouds, no toil stayed them, no danger appalled; panther, wolf, and bear stories were told in vain by lazy brothers and reluctant lovers; on they went in their restless search for beauty, their Turkish dress and scarlet tunics gleaming through the trees, to the delight of the old mountain guides, who chuckled over their Camilla-like exploits, and laughed, as they plucked the fragrant boughs for their spicy couch, over the ignorance and awkwardness of their lazy city beaux. These fair Dians shoot no deer, nor lure the springing trout. We blessed them as they went their thymy way.

We have sat in the hut of the farmer, the skiff of the oarsman, the parlor of the host of the inn; tried wagons, stages, and buck-board conveyances; we have disputed no bill, been subjected to no extortion, and, save the death of the 'hairy fools,' known no sorrow. We have sat by the grave of old John Brown, seen the glorious view from his simple home, heard his strange generosity extolled by his political enemies, and think we understand better than of old the sublime madness of his fanaticism. We have returned to our labor with a new love of country, a deeper sense of responsibility, of the worth of our institutions, and of the glory yet to be in 'Our Great America.' What a land to live and die for! Every drop of martyr blood poured upon it but makes it dearer to the heart.

PEERLESS COLUMBIA.

The following thoughts on some of the uses subserved by Art, are from the pen of the Rev. J. Byington Smith. There is so much truth in their suggestions, that we heartily commend them to our readers.

ART AS A MEANS OF HOME-CULTURE.

Art is closely allied to nature in giving impress to character. The scenery by which a people is surrounded, will modify and almost control its mode of being. The soft, rich landscapes of Italy enervate, while the rough mountainous country of the North imparts force and vigor. Mountains and seas are nature's healthful stimulants. Man grows in their vastness and is energized in their strength. Whatever may be the scenery of a people, it will mirror itself in the mind, and stamp its impress upon character.

Art reproduces nature, arranging its illimitable stores in closer unity, idealizing its charms, and bringing into nearer view its symmetry and beauty. Bearing its lessons from afar, it colors the glowing canvas and chisels the stone to awaken the impressions it designs to make on the human soul. Thus art, like nature, becomes a means of culture. When the Lombards wished to give hardihood and system to the enervated body and enfeebled mind of the people, they covered their churches with the sculptured representation of vigorous bodily exercises, such as war and hunting. In the great church of St. Mark, at Venice, people were taught the history of the Scriptures by means of imagery; a picture on the walls being more easily read than a chapter. Such walls were styled the poor man's Bible.

A picture reveals at a single glance that which we would be otherwise forced to glean by a slow process from the scattered material furnished by the printed page; hence the delight taken in illustrations, the importance of pictorial instruction for the young, and the almost universal demand for the illustrated publications of the day.

The teaching of art through painting, sculpture, and engraving, finds its way into our homes, and while lessons may be duly read from books and then laid aside, the lessons in the niche or on the wall repeat themselves hour by hour, and day by day, looking even into the pure eyes of infancy, and aiding in the formation of the character of every child subjected to their ceaseless influence. Their power is none the less because they never break the home-silence; they mould the young life and stamp their impress upon it. How important then that all such objects should be chosen, not only as treasures of artistic beauty, but for their power to elevate and ennoble character.

How often will you find in the room of the scholar, the studio of the artist, the picture or bust of some old master in art or letters, as if the occupant were conscious of the incentive such presence offered to his own efforts—the guardian genius of the spot.

In the study of one of the old divines might have been seen a painted eye, gazing forever down upon him, to render him sensible of the presence of the All-Seeing—to stamp the 'Thou God seest me' upon the very tablets of his heart.

A child is not so readily tempted into sin when surrounded by pure and beautiful imagery, or when gentle loving eyes are looking down upon him. On the other hand, the walls of the degraded are lined with amorous and obscene images, that vicious habits and debased tastes may find their suitable incentives.

A window shade bearing the design of a little girl issuing, basket in hand, from the[Pg 480] door of a humble cottage, to relieve the wants of a poor blind beggar, will certainly take its place among the early developments of the children growing up under its influence, and in their simple charity they may be found, basket in hand, looking out for real or fancied beggars. Such lessons are never lost. In a parlor which I often frequent is a picture of a Sabbath scene: an aged grand-sire is seated by a table on which lies an open Bible, a bright-eyed boy is opposite, his father and mother on either side, a little shy girl is on the knee of the old man, all are listening reverently to the holy Word of God, books and a vase of gay flowers are on the table, green boughs fill the great old-fashioned fireplace. The whole picture wears an air of serenity and calm happiness, and is an impressive plea that we 'remember and keep holy the Sabbath day'—and we verily believe that such a picture will do more to influence our children to love the Sabbath, than any amount of parental restraint or lectures on moral obligation.

There is another picture in the same quiet room: 'The Mother's Dream.' She is worn with watching, and lies dreaming beside the couch of the child. Rays of light open a bright pathway into the skies, while an angel is bearing the spirit child along it up to heaven. We think such a picture is worth more to familiarize childhood with death and resurrection, and will leave a sweeter and more lasting impression upon the young soul, than the most learned dissertation or simplest explanation.

Landscape painting exerts a mellowing influence, and leads to the observation and love of nature, while historical pictures stimulate research, and nerve the mind to deeds of heroism and virtue.

The influence of pictures in forming character and shaping the course of life is illustrated with peculiar power in the history of the sons of a quiet family in the interior, who all insisted upon going to sea. The parents were grieved that none of their boys would remain at home to care for the homestead, and be the comfort of their declining years. They expressed their disappointment to a friend then on a visit to them, and wondered what could have induced the boys, one after the other, to embrace a life so full of storm and danger. Directly over the open fireplace hung a picture of a vessel with fluttering, snowy sails, tossing and rocking amid the bright, green, yeasty waves. The friend saw it, read the mystery, and quietly inquired how long it had been there. 'Since we commenced housekeeping,' was the unconscious reply. Not wishing to wound them, he was silent, and concealed his thoughts in his own breast, but the solution of the choice of life in the absent ones was clear enough to him: that picture had sent them off, one after another, to sea.

How careful we should then be in surrounding youth and childhood with pure, elevating objects of art, as means of constant home-culture! We know we shall be told, 'This is all very good, but we cannot afford it.' Let us reason together. Can you not deduct something from your elaborate furniture, your expensive dress, and devote it to models, lithographs, or paintings? Subtract but the half from these luxuries and devote the sum to designs of art, and you will contribute doubly to the attractiveness and pleasantness of your home. Where we cannot hope to possess the original masterpiece, we may have photographic or lithographic copies, which are within the compass of very humble means. You will freely toss away five dollars in useless embroidery or surplus furniture, and it would buy you a lithograph of Raphael's immortal picture, giving the results of a whole age of artistic culture, or a photograph of Cheney's Madonna and Child, bearing the very spirit of the original, or a plaster cast of noble statuary, the original of which could not be obtained for any namable sum—and yet you say you cannot afford works of art!

There is surely nothing you can afford better than to make your home attractive, and to introduce therein every available means of mental and moral culture. If you cannot afford to make home lovely, others will succeed in making dangerous places attractive to your children. There are spots enough kept light and picturesque, perilously fascinating to those whose homes boast no attractions. It will likely cost you far more in money, more surely in heart-anguish and sorrow, to have your children entertained in these places full of snares, where corrupt art lavishes her designs with unsparing hand, to vitiate the young imagination and debase the mind, than to exalt her in her chaste and ennobling power in the sanctuary of your homes, as one of the means of home-culture, stimulating to virtue and stamping the character with genuine worth.

FOOTNOTES

[A] From an incident narrated in the newspaper account of the battle of Antietam. The reader will be reminded by it of Mrs. Browning's 'Forced Recruit at Solferino.'

[B] A doubtful assertion. We, the children of the Puritans, and educated in their views and prejudices, have still many lessons to learn in the school of charily. It was not 'Luther who rendered subsequent history possible,' but the ever onward growth of humanity itself. Luther had no broader views of liberty of conscience than the church with which he struggled. Mr. Hallam says: 'It has been often said that the essential principle of Protestantism and that for which the struggle was made, was something different from all we have mentioned: a perpetual freedom from all authority in religious belief, or what goes by the name of private judgment. But to look more nearly at what occurred, this permanent independence was not much asserted, and still less acted upon. The Reformation was a change of masters, a voluntary one, no doubt, in those who had any choice, and in this sense an exercise, for the time, of their personal judgment. But no one having gone over to the Confession of Augsburg or that of Zurich, was deemed at liberty to modify these creeds at his pleasure. He might, of course, become an Anabaptist or Arian, but he was not the less a heretic in doing so than if he had continued in the Church of Rome. By what light a Protestant was to steer, might be a problem which at that time, as ever since, it would perplex a theologian to decide: but in practice, the law of the land which established one exclusive mode of faith, was the only safe, as, in ordinary circumstances, it was, upon the whole, the most eligible guide.' Speaking, in another place, of the causes which brought about the decline of Protestantism, etc., Mr. Hallam says: 'We ought to reckon also among the principal causes of this change, those perpetual disputes, those irreconcilable animosities, that bigotry, above all, and persecuting spirit, which were exhibited in the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches. Each began with a common principle—the necessity of an orthodox faith. But this orthodoxy meant nothing more than their own belief as opposed to that of their adversaries; a belief acknowledged to be fallible, yet maintained as certain; rejecting authority with one breath and appealing to it in the next, and claiming to rest on sure proofs of reason and Scripture, which their opponents were ready with just as much confidence to invalidate.'

Luther was one of the many reformers who, feeling the necessity of freedom for themselves, never dream of according it to others. His self-hold, his 'me,' was masterful, and led him far astray from the inevitable logic of his perilous position. His 'I-ness' was so supreme that he mistook his own convictions for the truths of the Most High—a common mistake among reformers! He did not feel the sovereignty of man with regard to his fellow man, his positive inalienable right to deal with his God alone in matters of faith and religious conviction. The golden rule of our Master, 'Do as you would be done by,' seems simple and self-evident, and yet it is a late fruit in the garden of human culture. Mr. Roscoe says: 'When Luther was engaged in his opposition to the Church of Rome, he asserted the right of private judgment with the confidence and courage of a martyr. But no sooner had he freed his followers from the chains of papal domination, than he forget other in many respects equally intolerable: and it was the employment of his latter years to counteract the beneficial effects produced by his former labors.'

Any system which saps the foundation of religious liberty, which forces itself between man and his Maker, cannot guarantee to us one of the main objects of all free governments—security in the pursuit of happiness. The Reformation did not give us religious freedom, therefore it did not give or suggest to us our democratic institutions. All that is true and pure in them springs from the very heart of Christianity itself. 'Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.' Much of the manifestation of the philosophy of freedom depends on individual character. Pope Alexander III., A.D. 1167, writes: 'Nature having made no slaves, all men have an equal right to liberty.' Luther, in 1524, says to the German peasants; 'You wish to emancipate yourselves from slavery, but slavery is as old as the world. Abraham had slaves, and St. Paul established rules for those whom the laws of nations reduced to that state.' Many of our modern priests reëcho these sentiments! Guizot says: 'The emancipation of the human mind and absolute monarchy triumphed simultaneously.' The truth is we want a philosophical history of the Reformation, written neither from a Catholic, Protestant, nor infidel point of view, that we may rightly estimate what we lost, what gained in its wild storms. In judging this, we should not quite forget that it was the Catholic Lord Baltimore and Catholic colonists of Maryland who in 1648 first proclaimed on these shores the glorious principle of universal toleration, while the Puritans were persecuting in New England and the Episcopalians in Virginia. 'Nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice,' should be the rule of our souls. Humanity means eternal Progress, and its path is onward.—Ed. Con.

[C] Lectures on the Science of Language, delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in April, May, and June, 1861, by Max Müller, M. A. From the second London edition, revised. New York: Charles Scribner, 124 Grand street. 1862.

The

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy

VOL. VI.—October, 1864—No. IV.

CONTENTS

SOME USES OF A CIVIL WAR.

PROVERBS.

THE UNDIVINE COMEDY—A POLISH DRAMA.

Dedicated to Mary.

PART II.

THE NORTH CAROLINA CONSCRIPT.

Ballads of the War.

DOES THE MOON REVOLVE ON ITS AXIS?

LUNAR CHARACTERISTICS.

A GLANCE AT PRUSSIAN POLITICS.

PART II.

'YE KNOW NOT WHAT YE ASK.'

COMING UP AT SHILOH.

ÆNONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER XIII.

APHORISMS.—NO. XII.

EXCUSE.

AMERICAN WOMEN.

A WREN'S SONG.

WORD-STILTS

THE POET INVOKETH HIS MUSE.

THE POET SEEKETH THE READER'S FORBEARANCE.

THE POET COMMENCETH TO SING.

A GREAT SOCIAL PROBLEM.

APHORISMS.—NO. XIII.

OUR GREAT AMERICA.

LONGING

THE LESSON OF THE HOUR.

THE SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE:ITS CHARACTER AND RELATION TO OTHER LANGUAGES.

ARTICLE ONE.

THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH.

FLOWER ODORS.

LOCOMOTION.

LITERARY NOTICES.

EDITOR'S TABLE

PEERLESS COLUMBIA.

ART AS A MEANS OF HOME-CULTURE.

FOOTNOTES

THE SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE:
ITS CHARACTER AND RELATION TO OTHER LANGUAGES.