The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 14, No. 85, November, 1864 .

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

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article. Table of contents created for the HTML version.

LEAVES FROM AN OFFICER'S JOURNAL.

[I wish to record, as truthfully as I may, the beginnings of a momentous experiment, which, by proving the aptitude of the freed slaves for military drill and discipline, their ardent loyalty, their courage under fire, and their self-control in success, contributed somewhat towards solving the problem of the war, and towards remoulding the destinies of two races on this continent.

During a civil war events succeed each other so rapidly that these earlier incidents are long since overshadowed. The colored soldiery are now numbered no longer by hundreds, but by tens of thousands. Yet there was a period when the whole enterprise seemed the most daring of innovations, and during those months the demeanor of this particular regiment, the First South Carolina, was watched with microscopic scrutiny by friends and foes. Its officers had reason to know this, since the slightest camp-incidents sometimes came back to them, magnified and distorted, in anxious letters of inquiry from remote parts of the Union. It was no pleasant thing to live in this glare of criticism; but it guarantied the honesty of any success, while fearfully multiplying the penalties, had there been a failure. A single mutiny, a single rout, a stampede of desertions,—and there perhaps might not have been, within this century, another systematic effort to arm the negro.

It is possible, therefore, that some extracts from a diary kept during that period may still have an interest; for there is nothing in human history so momentous as the transit of a race from chattel-slavery to armed freedom; nor can this change be photographed save by the actual contemporaneous words of those who saw it in the process. Perhaps there may also appear an element of dramatic interest in the record, when one considers that here, in the delightful regions of Port Royal, the descendants of the Puritan and the Huguenot, after two centuries, came face to face,—and that sons of Massachusetts, reversing the boastful [Pg 522]threat which has become historic, here called the roll, upon South-Carolina soil, of her slaves, now freemen in arms.]

Yesterday afternoon we were steaming over a summer sea, the deck level as a parlor-floor, no land in sight, no sail, until at last appeared one light-house, said to be Cape Romaine, and then a line of trees and two distant vessels and nothing more. The sun set, a great illuminated bubble, submerged in one vast bank of rosy suffusion; it grew dark; after tea all were on deck, the people sang hymns; then the moon set, a moon two days old, a curved pencil of light, reclining backwards on a radiant couch which seemed to rise from the waves to receive it; it sank slowly, and the last tip wavered and went down like the mast of a vessel of the skies. Towards morning the boat stopped, and when I came on deck, before six,—

"The watch-lights glittered on the land,
The ship-lights on the sea."

Hilton Head lay on one side, the gunboats on the other; all that was raw and bare in the low buildings of the new settlement was softened into picturesqueness by the early light. Stars were still overhead, gulls wheeled and shrieked, and the broad river rippled duskily towards Beaufort.

The shores were low and wooded, like any New-England shore; there were a few gunboats, twenty schooners, and some steamers, among them the famous "Planter," which Robert Small, the slave, presented to the nation. The river-banks were soft and graceful, though low, and as we steamed up to Beaufort on the flood-tide this morning, it seemed almost as fair as the smooth and lovely canals which Stedman traversed to meet his negro soldiers in Surinam. The air was cool as at home, yet the foliage seemed green, glimpses of stiff tropical vegetation appeared along the banks, with great clumps of shrubs whose pale seed-vessels looked like tardy blossoms. Then we saw on a picturesque point an old plantation, with stately magnolia avenue, decaying house, and tiny church amid the woods, reminding me of Virginia; behind it stood a neat encampment of white tents, "and there," said my companion, "is your future regiment of negro soldiers."

Three miles farther brought us to the pretty town of Beaufort, with its stately houses amid Southern foliage. Reporting to General Saxton, I had the luck to encounter a company of my destined command, marched in to be mustered into the United States service. They were without arms, and all looked as thoroughly black as the most faithful philanthropist could desire; there did not seem to be so much as a mulatto among them. Their coloring suited me, all but the legs, which were clad in a lively scarlet, as intolerable to my eyes as if I had been a turkey. I saw them mustered; General Saxton talked to them a little, in his direct, manly way; they gave close attention, though their faces looked impenetrable. Then I conversed with some of them. The first to whom I spoke had been wounded in a small expedition after lumber, from which a party had just returned, and in which they had been under fire and had done very well. I said, pointing to his lame arm,—

I thought this did well enough for my very first interchange of dialogue with my recruits.

Thanksgiving-Day; it is the first moment I have had for writing during these three days, which have installed me into a new mode of life so thoroughly that they seem three years. Scarcely pausing in New York or in Beaufort, there seems to have been for me but one step from the camp of a Massachusetts[Pg 523] regiment to this one, and that step over leagues of waves.

It is a holiday wherever General Saxton's proclamation reaches. The chilly sunshine and the pale blue river seem like New England, but those alone. The air is full of noisy drumming and of gunshots; for the prize-shooting is our great celebration of the day, and the drumming is chronic. My young barbarians are all at play. I look out from the broken windows of this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great live-oaks, with their hard, shining leaves, and their branches hung with a universal drapery of soft, long moss, like fringe-trees struck with grayness. Below, the sandy soil, scantly covered with coarse grass, bristles with sharp palmettoes and aloes; all the vegetation is stiff, shining, semi-tropical, with nothing soft or delicate in its texture. Numerous plantation-buildings totter around, all slovenly and unattractive, while the interspaces are filled with all manner of wreck and refuse, pigs, fowls, dogs, and omnipresent Ethiopian infancy. All this is the universal Southern panorama; but five minutes' walk beyond the hovels and the live-oaks bring one to something so un-Southern that the whole Southern coast at this moment trembles at the suggestion of such a thing,—the camp of a regiment of freed slaves.

One adapts one's self so readily to new surroundings that already the full zest of the novelty seems passing away from my perceptions, and I write these lines in an eager effort to retain all I can. Already I am growing used to the experience, at first so novel, of living among five hundred men, and scarce a white face to be seen,—of seeing them go through all their daily processes, eating, frolicking, talking, just as if they were white. Each day at dress-parade I stand with the customary folding of the arms before a regimental line of countenances so black that I can hardly tell whether the men stand steadily or not; black is every hand which moves in ready cadence as I vociferate, "Battalion! Shoulder arms!" nor is it till the line of white officers moves forward, as parade is dismissed, that I am reminded that my own face is not the color of coal.

The first few days on duty with a new regiment must be devoted almost wholly to tightening reins; in this process one deals chiefly with the officers, and I have as yet had but little personal intercourse with the men. They concern me chiefly in bulk, as so many consumers of rations, wearers of uniforms, bearers of muskets. But as the machine comes into shape, I am beginning to decipher the individual parts. At first, of course, they all looked just alike; the variety comes afterwards, and they are just as distinguishable, the officers say, as so many whites. Most of them are wholly raw, but there are many who have already been for months in camp in the abortive "Hunter Regiment," yet in that loose kind of way which, like average militia-training, is a doubtful advantage. I notice that some companies, too, look darker than others, though all are purer African than I expected. This is said to be partly a geographical difference between the South-Carolina and Florida men. When the Rebels evacuated this region, they probably took with them the house-servants, including most of the mixed blood, so that the residuum seems very black. But the men brought from Fernandina the other day average lighter in complexion, and look more intelligent, and they certainly take wonderfully to the drill.

It needs but a few days to show up the absurdity of distrusting the military availability of these people. They have quite as much average comprehension as whites of the need of the thing, as much courage, (I doubt not,) as much previous knowledge of the gun, and, above all, a readiness of ear and of imitation, which, for purposes of drill, counterbalances any defect of mental training. To learn the drill, one does not want a set of college professors; one wants a squad of eager, active, pliant school-boys; and the more childlike these pupils are, the better.[Pg 524] There is no trouble about the drill; they will surpass whites in that. As to camp-life, they have little to sacrifice, they are better fed, housed, and clothed than ever in their lives before, and they appear to have fewer inconvenient vices. They are simple, docile, and affectionate almost to the point of absurdity. The same men who stood fire in open field with perfect coolness, on the late expedition, have come to me blubbering in the most irresistibly ludicrous manner on being transferred from one company in the regiment to another.

In noticing the squad-drills, I perceive that the men learn less laboriously than whites that "double, double, toil and trouble," which is the elementary vexation of the drill-master,—that they more rarely mistake their left for their right,—and are more grave and sedate while under instruction. The extremes of jollity and sobriety, being greater with them, are less liable to be intermingled; these companies can be driven with a looser rein than my former one, for they restrain themselves; but the moment they are dismissed from drill, every tongue is relaxed and every ivory tooth visible. This morning I wandered about where the different companies were target-shooting, and their glee was contagious. Such exulting shouts of, "Ki! ole man," when some steady old turkey-shooter brought his gun down for an instant's aim, and then unerringly hit the mark; and then, when some unwary youth fired his piece into the ground at half-cock, such infinite guffawing and delight, such rolling over and over on the grass, such dances of ecstasy, as made the "Ethiopian minstrelsy" of the stage appear a feeble imitation.

Evening.—Better still was a scene on which I stumbled to-night. Strolling in the cool moonlight, I was attracted by a brilliant light beneath the trees, and cautiously approached it. A circle of thirty or forty soldiers sat around a roaring fire, while one old uncle, Cato by name, was narrating an interminable tale, to the insatiable delight of his audience. I came up into the dusky background, perceived only by a few, and he still continued. It was a narrative, dramatized to the last degree, of his adventures in escaping from his master to the Union vessels; and even I, who have heard the stories of Harriet Tubman, and such wonderful slave-comedians, never witnessed such a piece of acting. When I came upon the scene, he had just come unexpectedly upon a plantation-house, and, putting a bold face upon it, had walked up to the door.

"Den I go up to de white man, very humble, and say, would he please gib ole man a mouthful for eat?

"Den I say," (this in a tragic vein,) "dat I must hab dat hatchet for defend myself from de dogs!"

[Immense applause, and one appreciating auditor says, chuckling, "Dat was your arms, ole man," which brings down the house again.]

Words cannot express the complete dissimulation with which these accents of terror were uttered,—this being precisely the piece of information he wished to obtain.

Then he narrated his devices to get into the house at night and obtain some food,—how a dog flew at him,—how the whole household, black and white, rose in pursuit,—how he scrambled under a hedge and over a high fence, etc.,—all in a style of which Gough alone among orators can give the faintest impression, so thoroughly dramatized was every syllable.

Then he described his reaching the river-side at last, and trying to decide whether certain vessels held friends or foes.[Pg 525]

"Den I see guns on board, and sure sartin he Union boat, and I pop my head up. Den I been-a-tink [think] Seceshkey hab guns too, and my head go down again. Den I bide in de bush till morning. Den I open my bundle, and take ole white shirt and tie him on ole pole and wave him, and ebry time de wind blow, I been-a-tremble, and drap down in de bushes,"—because, being between two fires, he doubted whether friend or foe would see his signal first. And so on, with a succession of tricks beyond Molière, of acts of caution, foresight, patient cunning, which were listened to with infinite gusto and perfect comprehension by every listener.

And all this to a bivouac of negro soldiers, with the brilliant fire lighting up their red trousers and gleaming from their shining black faces,—eyes and teeth all white with tumultuous glee. Overhead, the mighty limbs of a great live-oak, with the weird moss swaying in the smoke, and the high moon gleaming faintly through.

Yet to-morrow strangers will remark on the hopeless, impenetrable stupidity in the daylight faces of many of these very men, the solid mask under which Nature has concealed all this wealth of mother-wit. This very comedian is one to whom one might point, as he hoed lazily in a cotton-field, as a being the light of whose brain had utterly gone out; and this scene seems like coming by night upon some conclave of black beetles, and finding them engaged, with green-room and foot-lights, in enacting "Poor Pillicoddy." This is their university; every young Sambo before me, as he turned over the sweet-potatoes and pea-nuts which were roasting in the ashes, listened with reverence to the wiles of the ancient Ulysses, and meditated the same. It is Nature's compensation; oppression simply crushes the upper faculties of the head, and crowds everything into the perceptive organs. Cato, thou reasonest well! When I get into any serious scrape, in an enemy's country, may I be lucky enough to have you at my elbow, to pull me out of it!

The men seem to have enjoyed the novel event of Thanksgiving-Day; they have had company and regimental prize-shootings, a minimum of speeches and a maximum of dinner. Bill of fare: two beef-cattle and a thousand oranges. The oranges cost a cent apiece, and the cattle were Secesh, bestowed by General Saxby, as they all call him.

How absurd is the impression bequeathed by Slavery in regard to these Southern blacks, that they are sluggish and inefficient in labor! Last night, after a hard day's work, (our guns and the remainder of our tents being just issued,) an order came from Beaufort that we should be ready in the evening to unload a steamboat's cargo of boards, being some of those captured by them a few weeks since, and now assigned for their use. I wondered if the men would grumble at the night-work; but the steamboat arrived by seven, and it was bright moonlight when they went at it. Never have I beheld such a jolly scene of labor. Tugging these wet and heavy boards over a bridge of boats ashore, then across the slimy beach at low tide, then up a steep bank, and all in one great uproar of merriment for two hours. Running most of the time, chattering all the time, snatching the boards from each other's backs as if they were some coveted treasure, getting up eager rivalries between different companies, pouring great choruses of ridicule on the heads of all shirkers, they made the whole scene so enlivening that I gladly stayed out in the moonlight for the whole time to watch it. And all this without any urging or any promised reward, but simply as the most natural way of doing the thing. The steamboat-captain declared that they unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the night, I reproached one whom I[Pg 526] found sitting by a camp-fire, cooking a surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin,—

"Oh, no, Cunnel, da's no work at all, Cunnel; dat only jess enough for stretch we."

I believe I have not yet enumerated the probable drawbacks to the success of this regiment, if any. We are exposed to no direct annoyance from the white regiments, being out of their way; and we have as yet no discomforts or privations which we do not share with them. I do not as yet see the slightest obstacle, in the nature of the blacks, to making them good soldiers,—but rather the contrary. They take readily to drill, and do not object to discipline; they are not especially dull or inattentive; they seem fully to understand the importance of the contest, and of their share in it. They show no jealousy or suspicion towards their officers.

They do show these feelings, however, towards the Government itself; and no one can wonder. Here lies the drawback to rapid recruiting. Were this a wholly new regiment, it would have been full to overflowing, I am satisfied, ere now. The trouble is in the legacy of bitter distrust bequeathed by the abortive regiment of General Hunter,—into which they were driven like cattle, kept for several months in camp, and then turned off without a shilling, by order of the War Department. The formation of that regiment was on the whole a great injury to this one; and the men who came from it, though the best soldiers we have in other respects, are the least sanguine and cheerful; while those who now refuse to enlist have a great influence in deterring others. Our soldiers are constantly twitted by their families and friends with their prospect of risking their lives in the service, and being paid nothing; and it is in vain that we read them the instructions of the Secretary of War to General Saxton, promising them the full pay of soldiers. They only half believe it.[A]

Another drawback is that some of the white soldiers delight in frightening the women on the plantations with doleful tales of plans for putting us in the front rank in all battles, and such silly talk,—the object being, perhaps, to prevent our being employed on active service at all. All these considerations they feel precisely as white men would,—no less, no more; and it is the comparative freedom from such unfavorable influences which makes the Florida men seem more bold and manly, as they undoubtedly do. To-day General Saxton has returned from Fernandina with seventy-six recruits, and the eagerness of the captains to secure them was a sight to see. Yet they cannot deny that some of the very best men in the regiment are South Carolinians.

What a life is this I lead! It is a dark, mild, drizzling evening, and as the foggy air breeds sand-flies, so it calls out melodies and strange antics from this mysterious race of grown-up children with whom my lot is cast. All over the camp the lights glimmer in the tents, and as I sit at my desk in the open doorway, there come mingled sounds of stir and glee. Boys laugh and shout,—a feeble flute stirs somewhere in some tent, not an officer's,—a drum throbs far away in another,—wild kildeer-plover flit and wail above us, like the haunting souls of dead slavemasters,—and from a neighboring cook-fire comes the monotonous sound of that strange festival, half powwow, half prayer-meeting, which they know only as a "shout." These fires are usually inclosed in a little booth, made neatly of palm-leaves and covered in at top, a regular native African hut,[Pg 527] in short, such as is pictured in books, and such as I once got up from dried palm-leaves, for a fair, at home. This hut is now crammed with men, singing at the top of their voices, in one of their quaint, monotonous, endless, negro-Methodist chants, with obscure syllables recurring constantly, and slight variations interwoven, all accompanied with a regular drumming of the feet and clapping of the hands, like castanets. Then the excitement spreads: inside and outside the inclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others join, a circle forms, winding monotonously round some one in the centre; some "heel and toe" tumultuously, others merely tremble and stagger on, others stoop and rise, others whirl, others caper sideways, all keep steadily circling like dervishes; spectators applaud special strokes of skill; my approach only enlivens the scene; the circle enlarges, louder grows the singing, rousing shouts of encouragement come in, half bacchanalian, half devout, "Wake 'em, brudder!" "Stan' up to 'em, brudder!"—and still the ceaseless drumming and clapping, in perfect cadence, goes steadily on. Suddenly there comes a sort of snap, and the spell breaks, amid general sighing and laughter. And this not rarely and occasionally, but night after night,—while in other parts of the camp the soberest prayers and exhortations are proceeding sedately.

A simple and lovable people, whose graces seem to come by nature, and whose vices by training. Some of the best superintendents confirm the early tales of innocence, and Dr. Zachos told me last night that on his plantation, a sequestered one, "they had absolutely no vices." Nor have these men of mine yet shown any worth mentioning; since I took command I have heard of no man intoxicated, and there has been but one small quarrel. I suppose that scarcely a white regiment in the army shows so little swearing. Take the "Progressive Friends" and put them in red trousers, and I verily believe they would fill a guard-house sooner than these men. If camp-regulations are violated, it seems to be usually through heedlessness. They love passionately three things, besides their spiritual incantations,—namely, sugar, home, and tobacco. This last affection brings tears to their eyes, almost, when they speak of their urgent need of pay: they speak of their last-remembered quid as if it were some deceased relative, too early lost, and to be mourned forever. As for sugar, no white man can drink coffee after they have sweetened it to their liking.

I see that the pride which military life creates may cause the plantation-trickeries to diminish. For instance, these men make the most admirable sentinels. It is far harder to pass the camp-lines at night than in the camp from which I came; and I have seen none of that disposition to connive at the offences of members of one's own company which is so troublesome among white soldiers. Nor are they lazy, either about work or drill; in all respects they seem better material for soldiers than I had dared to hope.

There is one company in particular, all Florida men, which I certainly think the finest-looking company I ever saw, white or black; they range admirably in size, have remarkable erectness and ease of carriage, and really march splendidly. Not a visitor but notices them; yet they have been under drill only a fortnight, and a part only two days. They have all been slaves, and very few are even mulattoes.

"Dwelling in tents, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." This condition is certainly mine,—and with a multitude of patriarchs beside, not to mention Cæsar and Pompey, Hercules and Bacchus.

A moving life, tented at night, this experience has been mine in civil society, if society be civil before the luxurious forest-fires of Maine and the Adirondack, or upon the lonely prairies of Kansas. But a stationary tent-life, deliberately[Pg 528] going to housekeeping under canvas, I have never had before, though in our barrack-life at "Camp Wool" I often wished for it.

The accommodations here are about as liberal as my quarters there, two wall-tents being placed end to end, for office and bed-room, and separated at will by a "fly" of canvas. There is a good board floor and mop-board, effectually excluding dampness and draughts, and everything but sand, which on windy days penetrates everywhere. The office-furniture consists of a good desk or secretary, a very clumsy and disastrous settee, and a remarkable chair. The desk is a bequest of the slaveholders, and the settee of the slaves, being ecclesiastical in its origin, and appertaining to the little old church or "praise-house," now used for commissary purposes. The chair is a composite structure: I found a cane seat on a dust-heap, which a black sergeant combined with two legs from a broken bedstead and two more from an oak-bough. I sit on it with a pride of conscious invention, mitigated by profound insecurity. Bedroom-furniture, a couch made of gun-boxes covered with condemned blankets, another settee, two pails, a tin cup, tin basin, (we prize any tin or wooden ware as savages prize iron,) and a valise, regulation-size. Seriously considered, nothing more appears needful, unless ambition might crave another chair for company, and, perhaps, something for a wash-stand higher than a settee.

To-day it rains hard, and the wind quivers through the closed canvas, and makes one feel at sea. All the talk of the camp outside is fused into a cheerful and indistinguishable murmur, pierced through at every moment by the wail of the hovering plover. Sometimes a face, black or white, peers through the entrance with some message. Since the light readily penetrates, though the rain cannot, the tent conveys a feeling of charmed security, as if an invisible boundary checked the pattering drops and held the moaning wind. The front tent I share, as yet, with my adjutant; in the inner apartment I reign supreme, bounded in a nutshell, with no bad dreams.

In all pleasant weather the outer "fly" is open, and men pass and repass, a chattering throng. I think of Emerson's Saadi, "As thou sittest at thy door, on the desert's yellow floor,"—for these bare sand-plains, gray above, are always yellow when upturned, and there seems a tinge of Orientalism in all our life.

Thrice a day we go to the plantation-houses for our meals, camp-arrangements being yet very imperfect. The officers board in different messes, the adjutant and I still clinging to the household of William Washington,—William the quiet and the courteous, the pattern of house-servants, William the noiseless, the observing, the discriminating, who knows everything that can be got and how to cook it. William and his tidy, lady-like little spouse Hetty—a pair of wedded lovers, if ever I saw one—set our table in their one room, half-way between an unglazed window and a large wood-fire, such as is often welcome. Thanks to the adjutant, we are provided with the social magnificence of napkins; while (lest pride take too high a flight) our table-cloth consists of two "New York Tribunes" and a "Leslie's Pictorial." Every steamer brings us a clean table-cloth. Here are we forever supplied with pork and oysters and sweet-potatoes and rice and hominy and corn-bread and milk; also mysterious griddle-cakes of corn and pumpkin; also preserves made of pumpkin-chips, and other fanciful productions of Ethiop art. Mr. E. promised the plantation-superintendents who should come down here "all the luxuries of home," and we certainly have much apparent, if little real variety. Once William produced with some palpitation something fricasseed, which he boldly termed chicken; it was very small, and seemed in some undeveloped condition of ante-natal toughness. After the meal, he frankly avowed it for squirrel.[Pg 529]

Give these people their tongues, their feet, and their leisure, and they are happy. At every twilight the air is full of singing, talking, and clapping of hands in unison. One of their favorite songs is full of plaintive cadences; it is not, I think, a Methodist tune, and I wonder where they obtained a chant of such beauty.

"I can't stay behind, my Lord, I can't stay behind!
Oh, my father is gone, my father is gone,
My father is gone into heaven, my Lord!
I can't stay behind!
Dere's room enough, room enough,
Room enough in de heaven for de sojer:
Can't stay behind!"

It always excites them to have us looking on, yet they sing these songs at all times and seasons. I have heard this very song dimly droning on near midnight, and, tracing it into the recesses of a cook-house, have found an old fellow coiled away among the pots and provisions, chanting away with his "Can't stay behind, sinner," till I made him leave his song behind.

This evening, after working themselves up to the highest pitch, a party suddenly rushed off, got a barrel, and mounted some man upon it, who said, "Gib anoder song, boys, and I'se gib you a speech." After some hesitation and sundry shouts of "Rise de sing, somebody," and "Stan' up for Jesus, brudder," irreverently put in by the juveniles, they got upon the John Brown song, always a favorite, adding a jubilant verse which I had never before heard,—"We'll beat Beauregard on de clare battle-field." Then came the promised speech, and then no less than seven other speeches by as many men, on a variety of barrels, each orator being affectionately tugged to the pedestal and set on end by his special constituency. Every speech was good, without exception; with the queerest oddities of phrase and pronunciation, there was an invariable enthusiasm, a pungency of statement, and an understanding of the points at issue, which made them all rather thrilling. Those long-winded slaves in "Among the Pines" seemed rather fictitious and literary in comparison. The most eloquent, perhaps, was Corporal Prince Lambkin, just arrived from Fernandina, who evidently had a previous reputation among them. His historical references were very interesting: he reminded them that he had predicted this war ever since Fremont's time, to which some of the crowd assented; he gave a very intelligent account of that Presidential campaign, and then described most impressively the secret anxiety of the slaves in Florida to know all about President Lincoln's election, and told how they all refused to work on the fourth of March, expecting their freedom to date from that day. He finally brought out one of the few really impressive appeals for the American flag that I have ever heard. "Our mas'rs dey hab lib under de flag, dey got dere wealth under it, and ebryting beautiful for dere chilen. Under it dey hab grind us up, and put us in dere pocket for money. But de fus' minute dey tink dat ole nag mean freedom for we colored people, dey pull it right down, and run up de rag ob dere own." (Immense applause.) "But we'll neber desert de ole flag, boys, neber; we hab lib under it for eighteen hundred sixty-two years, and we'll die for it now." With which overpowering discharge of chronology-at-long-range, this most effective of stump-speeches closed. I see already with relief that there will be small demand in this regiment for harangues from the officers; give the men an empty barrel for a stump, and they will do their own exhortation.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] With what utter humiliation were we, their officers, obliged to confess to them, eighteen months afterwards, that it was their distrust which was wise, and our faith in the pledges of the United States Government which was foolishness!

RICHES.

Pluck color from the morning sky,
And wear it as thy diadem;
Nor pass the wayside flowers by,
But star thy robes with them.

Far in the temple of the sun
The vestal fires of being burn;
Thence beauty's finest fibres run,
And weave where'er we turn.

Thy plumes are in the yellow corn,—
But chief the gold of priceless days
In bosom of thy friend is borne,
Coined in his kindly rays.

Here lies thy wealth, go gather it,—
The mine is near, its deeps explore,
And freely give love, metal, wit,—
Thine is the exhaustless ore:

Thine are the precious stones whereon
The weary pass grief's flooded ford,
And thine the jewelled pavement won
By those who love the Lord.

THE VENGEANCE OF DOMINIC DE GOURGUES.

There was a gentleman of Mont-de-Marsan, Dominic de Gourgues, a soldier of ancient birth and high renown. That he was a Huguenot is not certain. The Spanish annalist calls him a "terrible heretic"; but the French Jesuit, Charlevoix, anxious that the faithful should share the glory of his exploits, affirms, that, like his ancestors before him, he was a good Catholic. If so, his faith sat lightly upon him; and Catholic or heretic, he hated the Spaniards with a mortal hate. Fighting in the Italian wars,—for, from boyhood, he was wedded to the sword,—they had taken him prisoner near Siena, where he had signalized himself by a fiery and determined bravery. With brutal insult, they chained him to the oar as a galley-slave. After long endurance of this ignominy, the Turks had captured the vessel and carried her to Constantinople. It was but a change of tyrants; but, soon after, putting out on a cruise, Gourgues still at the oar, a galley of the Maltese knights hove in sight, bore down on the prize, recaptured her, and set the prisoner free. For several years after, his restless spirit found escape in voyages to Africa, Brazil, and regions yet more remote. His naval repute rose high, but his grudge against the Spaniards still rankled within him; and when, returned from his rovings, he learned the tidings from Florida,[Pg 531] his hot Gascon blood boiled with fury.

The honor of France had been foully stained, and there was none to wipe away the shame. The faction-ridden King was dumb. The nobles who surrounded him were in the Spanish interest. Then, since they proved recreant, he, Dominic de Gourgues, a simple gentleman, would take upon him to avenge the wrong, and restore the dimmed lustre of the French name. He sold his inheritance, borrowed money from his brother, who held a high post in Guienne, and equipped three small vessels, navigable by sail or oar. On board he placed a hundred arquebusiers and eighty sailors, prepared to fight on land, if need were. The noted Blaise de Montluc, then lieutenant for the King in Guienne, gave him a commission to make war on the negroes of Benin, that is, to kidnap them as slaves, an adventure then held honorable.

His true design was locked within his own breast. He mustered his followers, feasted them,—not a few were of rank equal to his own,—and, on the twenty-second of August, 1567, sailed from the mouth of the Charente. Off Cape Finisterre, so violent a storm buffeted his ships that his men clamored to return; but Gourgues's spirit prevailed. He bore away for Barbary, and, landing at the Rio del Oro, refreshed and cheered them as he best might. Thence he sailed to Cape Blanco, where the jealous Portuguese, who had a fort in the neighborhood, set upon him three negro chiefs. Gourgues beat them off, and remained master of the harbor; whence, however, he soon voyaged onward to Cape Verd, and, steering westward, made for the West Indies. Here, advancing from island to island, he came to Hispaniola, where, between the fury of a hurricane at sea and the jealousy of the Spaniards on shore, he was in no small jeopardy,—"the Spaniards," exclaims the indignant journalist, "who think that this New World was made for nobody but them, and that no other man living has a right to move or breathe here!" Gourgues landed, however, obtained the water of which he was in need, and steered for Cape San Antonio, in Cuba. There he gathered his followers about him, and addressed them with his fiery Gascon eloquence. For the first time, he told them his true purpose. He inveighed against Spanish cruelty. He painted, with angry rhetoric, the butcheries of Fort Caroline and St. Augustine.

"What disgrace," he cried, "if such an insult should pass unpunished! What glory to us, if we revenge it! To this I have devoted my fortune. I relied on you. I thought you jealous enough of your country's glory to sacrifice life itself in a cause like this. Was I deceived? I will show you the way; I will be always at your head; I will bear the brunt of danger. Will you refuse to follow me?"

At first his startled hearers listened in silence; but soon the passions of that adventurous age rose responsive to his words. The sparks fell among gunpowder. The combustible French nature burst into flame. The enthusiasm of the soldiers rose to such a pitch that Gourgues had much ado to make them wait till the moon was full before tempting the perils of the Bahama Channel. His time came at length. The moon rode high above the lonely sea, and, silvered in its light, the ships of the avenger held their course.

But how, meanwhile, had it fared with the Spaniards in Florida? The good-will of the Indians had vanished. The French had been obtrusive and vexatious guests; but their worst trespasses had been mercy and tenderness, to the daily outrage of the new-comers. Friendship had changed to aversion, aversion to hatred, hatred to open war. The forest-paths were beset; stragglers were cut off; and woe to the Spaniard who should venture after nightfall beyond call of the outposts! Menendez, however, had strengthened himself in his new conquest. St. Augustine was well fortified; Fort Caroline, now Fort San[Pg 532] Mateo, was repaired; and two redoubts were thrown up to guard the mouth of the River of May. Thence, on an afternoon in April, the Spaniards saw three sail steering northward. Unsuspicious of an enemy, their batteries boomed a salute. Gourgues's ships replied, then stood out to sea, and were lost in the shades of evening.

They kept their course all night, and, as day broke, anchored at the mouth of a river, the St. Mary's or the Santilla, by their reckoning fifteen leagues north of the River of May. Here, as it grew light, Gourgues saw the borders of the sea thronged with savages, armed and plumed for war. They, too, had mistaken the strangers for Spaniards, and mustered to meet their tyrants at the landing. But in the French ships there was a trumpeter who had been long in Florida, and knew the Indians well. He went towards them in a boat, with many gestures of friendship; and no sooner was he recognized than the naked crowd, with yelps of delight, danced for joy about the sands. Why had he ever left them? they asked; and why had he not returned before? The intercourse thus auspiciously begun was actively kept up. Gourgues told the principal chief—who was no other than Satouriona, of old the ally of the French—that he had come to visit them, make friendship with them, and bring them presents. At this last announcement, so grateful to Indian ears, the dancing was renewed with double zeal. The next morning was named for a grand council. Satouriona sent runners to summon all Indians within call; while Gourgues, for safety, brought his vessels within the mouth of the river.

Morning came, and the woods were thronged with congregated warriors. Gourgues and his soldiers landed with martial pomp. In token of mutual confidence, the French laid aside their arquebuses, the Indians their bows and arrows. Satouriona came to meet the strangers, and seated their commander at his side, on a wooden stool, draped and cushioned with the gray Spanish moss. Two old Indians cleared the spot of brambles, weeds, and grass; and, their task finished, the tribesmen took their places in a ring, row within row, standing, sitting, and crouching on the ground, a dusky concourse, plumed in festal array, waiting with grave visages and eyes intent. Gourgues was about to speak, when the chief, who, says the narrator, had not learned French manners, rose and anticipated him. He broke into a vehement harangue; and the cruelty of the Spaniards was the burden of his words.

Since the French fort was taken, he said, the Indians had not had one happy day. The Spaniards drove them from their cabins, stole their corn, ravished their wives and daughters, and killed their children; and all this they had endured because they loved the French. There was a French boy who had escaped from the massacre at the fort. They had found him in the woods, and though the Spaniards, who wished to kill him, demanded that they should give him up, they had kept him for his friends.

"Look!" pursued the chief, "here he is!"—and he brought forward a youth of sixteen, named Pierre Debré, who became at once of the greatest service to the French, his knowledge of the Indian language making him an excellent interpreter.

Delighted as he was at this outburst against the Spaniards, Gourgues by no means saw fit to display the full extent of his satisfaction. He thanked the Indians for their good-will, exhorted them to continue in it, and pronounced an ill-merited eulogy on the greatness and goodness of his King. As for the Spaniards, he said, their day of reckoning was at hand; and if the Indians had been abused for their love of the French, the French would be their avengers. Here Satouriona forgot his dignity, and leaped up for joy.

"I came here," replied Gourgues, "only[Pg 533] to reconnoitre the country and make friends with you, then to go back and bring more soldiers; but when I hear what you are suffering from them, I wish to fall upon them this very day, and rescue you from their tyranny." And, all around the ring, a clamor of applauding voices greeted his words.

"But you will do your part," pursued the Frenchman; "you will not leave us all the honor."

"Then, if we fight, we ought to fight at once. How soon can you have your warriors ready to march?"

The chief asked three days for preparation. Gourgues cautioned him to secrecy, lest the Spaniards should take alarm.

Then came a distribution of gifts,—knives, hatchets, mirrors, bells, and beads,—while the warrior-rabble crowded to receive them, with eager faces, and tawny arms outstretched. The distribution over, Gourgues asked the chiefs if there was any other matter in which he could serve them. On this, pointing at his shirt, they expressed a peculiar admiration for that garment, and begged each to have one, to be worn at feasts and councils during life, and in their graves after death. Gourgues complied; and his grateful confederates were soon stalking about him, fluttering in the spoils of his ravished wardrobe.

To learn the strength and position of the Spaniards, Gourgues now sent out three scouts; and with them went Olotoraca, Satouriona's nephew, a young brave of great renown.

The chief, eager to prove his good faith, gave as hostages his only son and his favorite wife. They were sent on board the ships, while the savage concourse dispersed to their encampments, with leaping, stamping, dancing, and whoops of jubilation.

The day appointed came, and with it the savage army, hideous in war-paint and plumed for battle. Their ceremonies began. The woods rang back their songs and yells, as with frantic gesticulations they brandished their war-clubs and vaunted their deeds of prowess. Then they drank the black drink, endowed with mystic virtues to steel them against hardship and danger; and Gourgues himself pretended to swallow the nauseous decoction.

These ceremonies consumed the day. It was evening before the allies filed off into their forests, and took the path for the Spanish forts. The French, on their part, were to repair by sea to the rendezvous. Gourgues mustered and addressed his men. It was needless: their ardor was at fever-height. They broke in upon his words, and demanded to be led at once against the enemy. Francis Bourdelois, with twenty sailors, was left with the ships. Gourgues affectionately bade him farewell.

"If I am slain in this most just enterprise," he said, "I leave all in your charge, and pray you to carry back my soldiers to France."

There were many embracings among the excited Frenchmen,—many sympathetic tears from those who were to stay behind,—many messages left with them for wives, children, friends, and mistresses; and then this valiant handful pushed their boats from shore. It was a hare-brained venture, for, as young Debré had assured them, the Spaniards on the River of May were four hundred in number, secure behind their ramparts.

Hour after hour the sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly past the sombre shores by the shimmering moonlight, the sound of the murmuring surf and the moaning pine-trees. In the gray of the morning, they came to the mouth of a river, probably the Nassau; and here a northeast wind set in with a violence that almost wrecked their boats. Their Indian allies were waiting on the bank, but for a while the gale delayed their crossing. The bolder French would lose no time, rowed through the tossing waves, and, landing safely, left[Pg 534] their boats, and pushed into the forest. Gourgues took the lead, in breastplate and back-piece. At his side marched the young chief Olotoraca, a French pike in his hand; and the files of arquebuse-men and armed sailors followed close behind. They plunged through swamps, hewed their way through brambly thickets and the matted intricacies of the forests, and, at five in the afternoon, wellnigh spent with fatigue and hunger, came to a river or inlet of the sea, not far from the first Spanish fort. Here they found three hundred Indians waiting for them.

Tired as he was, Gourgues would not rest. He would fain attack at daybreak, and with ten arquebusiers and his Indian guide he set forth to reconnoitre. Night closed upon him. It was a vain task to struggle on, in pitchy darkness, among trunks of trees, fallen logs, tangled vines, and swollen streams. Gourgues returned, anxious and gloomy. An Indian chief approached him, read through the darkness his perturbed look, and offered to lead him by a better path along the margin of the sea. Gourgues joyfully assented, and ordered all his men to march. The Indians, better skilled in woodcraft, chose the shorter course through the forest.

The French forgot their weariness, and pressed on at speed. At dawn they and their allies met on the bank of a stream, beyond which, and very near, was the fort. But the tide was in. They essayed to cross in vain. Greatly vexed,—for he had hoped to take the enemy asleep,—Gourgues withdrew his soldiers into the forest, where they were no sooner ensconced than a drenching rain fell, and they had much ado to keep their gun-matches burning. The light grew apace. Gourgues plainly saw the fort, whose defences seemed slight and unfinished. He even saw the Spaniards at work within. A feverish interval elapsed. At length the tide was out,—so far, at least, that the stream was fordable. A little higher up, a clump of woods lay between it and the fort. Behind this friendly screen the passage was begun. Each man tied his powder-flask to his steel cap, held his arquebuse above his head with one hand and grasped his sword with the other. The channel was a bed of oysters. The sharp shells cut their feet as they waded through. But the farther bank was gained. They emerged from the water, drenched, lacerated, bleeding, but with unabated mettle. Under cover of the trees Gourgues set them in array. They stood with kindling eyes, and hearts throbbing, but not with fear. Gourgues pointed to the Spanish fort, seen by glimpses between the bushes and brown trunks. "Look!" he said, "there are the robbers who have stolen this land from our King; there are the murderers who have butchered our countrymen!" With voices eager, fierce, but half suppressed, they demanded to be led on.

Gourgues gave the word. Cazenove, his lieutenant, with thirty men, pushed for the fort-gate; himself, with the main body, for the glacis. It was near noon; the Spaniards had just risen from table, and, says the narrative, "were still picking their teeth," when a startled cry rang in their ears,—

It was the voice of a cannoneer who had that moment mounted the rampart and seen the assailants advancing in unbroken ranks, with heads lowered and weapons at the charge. He fired his cannon among them. He even had time to load and fire again, when the light-limbed Olotoraca bounded forward, ran up the glacis, leaped the unfinished ditch, and drove his pike through the Spaniard from breast to back. Gourgues was now on the glacis, when he heard Cazenove shouting from the gate that the Spaniards were escaping on that side. He turned and led his men thither at a run. In a moment, the fugitives, sixty in all, were inclosed between his party and that of his lieutenant. The Indians, too, came leaping to the spot. Not a Spaniard escaped. All were cut down but a few, reserved by Gourgues for a more inglorious end.[Pg 535]

Meanwhile the Spaniards in the other fort, on the opposite shore, cannonaded the victors without ceasing. The latter turned four captured guns against them. One of Gourgues's boats, a very large one, had been brought along-shore. He entered it, with eighty soldiers, and pushed for the farther bank. With loud yells, the Indians leaped into the water. From shore to shore, the St. John's was alive with them. Each held his bow and arrows aloft in one hand, while he swam with the other. A panic seized the garrison as they saw the savage multitude. They broke out of the fort and fled into the forest. But the French had already landed; and throwing themselves in the path of the fugitives, they greeted them with a storm of lead. The terrified wretches recoiled; but flight was vain. The Indian whoop rang behind them; war-clubs and arrows finished the work. Gourgues's utmost efforts saved but fifteen,—saved them, not out of mercy, but from a refinement of vengeance.

The next day was Quasimodo Sunday, or the Sunday after Easter. Gourgues and his men remained quiet, making ladders for the assault on Fort San Mateo. Meanwhile the whole forest was in arms, and, far and near, the Indians were wild with excitement. They beset the Spanish fort till not a soldier could venture out. The garrison, conscious of their danger, though ignorant of its extent, devised an expedient to gain information, and one of them, painted and feathered like an Indian, ventured within Gourgues's outposts. He himself chanced to be at hand, and by his side walked his constant attendant, Olotoraca. The keen-eyed young savage pierced the cheat at a glance. The spy was seized, and, being examined, declared that there were two hundred and sixty Spaniards in San Mateo, that they believed the French to be two thousand, and were so frightened that they did not know what they did.

Gourgues, well pleased, pushed on to attack them. On Monday evening he sent forward the Indians to ambush themselves on both sides of the fort. In the morning he followed with his Frenchmen; and as the glittering ranks came into view, defiling between the forest and the river, the Spaniards opened on them with culverins from a projecting bastion. The French took cover in the forest with which the hills below and behind the fort were densely overgrown. Here, ensconced in the edge of the woods, where, himself unseen, he could survey the whole extent of the defences, Gourgues presently descried a strong party of Spaniards issuing from their works, crossing the ditch, and advancing to reconnoitre. On this, returning to his men, he sent Cazenove, with a detachment, to station himself at a point well hidden by trees on the flank of the Spaniards. The latter, with strange infatuation, continued their advance. Gourgues and his followers pushed on through the thickets to meet them. As the Spaniards reached the edge of the clearing, a deadly fire blazed in their faces, and before the smoke cleared, the French were among them, sword in hand. The survivors would have fled; but Cazenove's detachment fell upon their rear, and all were killed or taken.

When their comrades in the fort beheld their fate, a panic seized them. Conscious of their own deeds, perpetrated on this very spot, they could hope no mercy. Their terror multiplied immeasurably the numbers of their enemy. They deserted the fort in a body, and fled into the woods most remote from the French. But here a deadlier foe awaited them; for a host of Indians leaped up from ambush. Then rose those hideous war-cries which have curdled the boldest blood and blanched the manliest cheek. Then the forest-warriors, with savage ecstasy, wreaked their long arrears of vengeance. The French, too, hastened to the spot, and lent their swords to the slaughter. A few prisoners were saved alive; the rest were slain; and thus did the Spaniards make bloody atonement for the butchery of Fort Caroline.[Pg 536]

But Gourgues's vengeance was not yet appeased. Hard by the fort, the trees were pointed out to him on which Menendez had hanged his captives, and placed over them the inscription,—"Not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans."

"Did you think," he sternly said, as the pallid wretches stood ranged before him, "that so vile a treachery, so detestable a cruelty, against a King so potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished? I, one of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would still have been unpardonable. Now that they are friends and close allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your deeds, no punishment sharp enough to requite them. But though you cannot suffer as you deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can honorably inflict, that your example may teach others to observe the peace and alliance which you have so perfidiously violated."

They were hanged where the French had hung before them; and over them was nailed the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a tablet of pine,—"Not as Spaniards, but as Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers."

Gourgues's mission was fulfilled. To occupy the country had never been his intention; nor was it possible, for the Spaniards were still in force at St. Augustine. His was a whirlwind-visitation,—to ravage, ruin, and vanish. He harangued the Indians, and exhorted them to demolish the fort. They fell to the work with a keen alacrity, and in less than a day not one stone was left on another.

Gourgues returned to the forts at the mouth of the river, destroyed them also, and took up his march for his ships. It was a triumphal procession. The Indians thronged around the victors with gifts of fish and game; and an old woman declared that she was now ready to die, since she had seen the French once more.

The ships were ready for sea. Gourgues bade his disconsolate allies farewell, and nothing would content them but a promise to return soon. Before embarking, he addressed his own men:—

"My friends, let us give thanks to God for the success He has granted us. It is He who saved us from tempests; it is He who inclined the hearts of the Indians towards us; it is He who blinded the understanding of the Spaniards. They were four to one in forts well armed and provisioned. We had nothing but our right; and yet we have conquered. Not to our own strength, but to God only, we owe our victory. Then let us thank Him, my friends; let us never forget His favors; and let us pray that He may continue them, saving us from dangers, and guiding us safely home. Let us pray, too, that He may so dispose the hearts of men that our perils and toils may find favor in the eyes of our King and of all France, since all we have done was done for the King's service and for the honor of our country."

Gourgues sailed on the third of May, and, gazing back along their foaming wake, the adventurers looked their last on the scene of their exploits. Their success had had its price. A few of their number had fallen, and hardships still awaited the survivors. Gourgues, however, reached Rochelle on the day of Pentecost, and the Huguenot citizens greeted him with all honor. At court it fared worse with him. The King, still obsequious to Spain, looked on him coldly and askance. The Spanish minister demanded his head. It was hinted to him that he was not safe, and he withdrew to Rouen, where he found asylum among his friends. His fortune was gone; debts contracted for his expedition weighed heavily on him; and for years he lived in obscurity, almost in misery. At length a dawn brightened for him. Elizabeth[Pg 537] of England learned his merits and his misfortunes, and invited him to enter her service. The King, who, says the Jesuit historian, had always at heart been delighted with his achievement, openly restored him to favor; while, some years later, Don Antonio tendered him command of his fleet to defend his right to the crown of Portugal against Philip II. Gourgues, happy once more to cross swords with the Spaniards, gladly embraced this offer; but, on his way to join the Portuguese prince, he died at Tours of a sudden illness. The French mourned the loss of the man who had wiped a blot from the national scutcheon, and respected his memory as that of one of the best captains of his time. And, in truth, if a zealous patriotism, a fiery valor, and skilful leadership are worthy of honor, then is such tribute due to Dominic de Gourgues, despite the shadowing vices which even the spirit of that wild age can only palliate, the personal hate that aided the impulse of his patriotism, and the implacable cruelty that sullied his courage.

Romantic as his exploit was, it lacked the fulness of poetic justice, since the chief offender escaped him. While Gourgues was sailing towards Florida, Menendez was in Spain, high in favor at court, where he told to approving ears how he had butchered the heretics. Borgia, the sainted General of the Jesuits, was his fast friend; and two years later, when he returned to America, the Pope, Paul V., regarding him as an instrument for the conversion of the Indians, wrote him a letter with his benediction. He reëstablished his power in Florida, rebuilt Fort San Mateo, and taught the Indians that death or flight was the only refuge from Spanish tyranny. They murdered his missionaries and spurned their doctrine. "The Devil is the best thing in the world," they cried; "we adore him; he makes men brave." Even the Jesuits despaired, and abandoned Florida in disgust.

Menendez was summoned home, where fresh honors awaited him from the crown, though, according to the somewhat doubtful assertion of the heretical Grotius, his deeds had left a stain upon his name among the people. He was given command of the armada of three hundred sail and twenty thousand men, which, in 1574, was gathered at Santander against England and Flanders. But now, at the climax of his fortunes, his career was abruptly closed. He died suddenly, at the age of fifty-five. What caused his death? Grotius affirms that he killed himself; but, in his eagerness to point the moral of his story, he seems to have overstepped the bounds of historic truth. The Spanish bigot was rarely a suicide, for the rights of Christian burial and repose in consecrated ground were denied to the remains of the self-murderer. There is positive evidence, too, in a codicil to the will of Menendez, dated at Santander on the fifteenth of September, 1574, that he was on that day seriously ill, though, as the instrument declares, "sound of mind." There is reason, then, to believe that this pious cut-throat died a natural death, crowned with honors, and compassed by the consolations of his religion.

It was he who crushed French Protestantism in America. To plant religious freedom on this Western soil was not the mission of France. It was for her to rear in Northern forests the banner of Absolutism and of Rome; while, among the rocks of Massachusetts, England and Calvin fronted her in dogged and deadly opposition.

Civilization in North America found its pioneer, its forlorn hope, less in England than in France. For, long before the ice-crusted pines of Plymouth had listened to the rugged psalmody of the Puritan, the solitudes of Western New York and the shadowy wilderness of Lake Huron were trodden by the iron heel of the soldier and the sandalled foot of the Franciscan friar. They who bore the fleur-de-lis were always in the van, patient, daring, indomitable. And foremost on this bright roll of forest-chivalry stands the half-forgotten name of Samuel de Champlain.

LINA.

The evenings were always dull and long to those of us who were too far from home to make it worth while to leave the school for the eight weeks of holiday. It was dreary indeed sitting in the great school-room, with its long rows of empty desks, with nothing before one to break the monotony of the four walls but the great map of France and the big dusty cross with its dingy wreath of immortelles. It is true, we did not bewail the absence of our companions. In fact, it was with a tranquil sense of security that I began my work every morning in vacation, knowing that I should find all my books in my desk, and my pens and pencils undisturbed; for among the pensionnaires there existed a strong tendency to communistic principles. Still, when all the noisy crew had departed, the house seemed lonely, the dining-room with its three bare tables looked desolate, and an unnatural stillness reigned in the shady pathways of the garden. You might wander from room to room, and up and down the stairs, and to and fro in the long passages, and meet no one. Fräulein Christine was with her "Liebes Mütterchen" in Strasburg, and Mademoiselle had left her weary post in the middle of the school-room for her quiet village-home in Normandy. Madame herself remained almost entirely invisible, shut up in the sanctity of her own rooms; and so the whole house had a sense of stillness that seemed only heightened by the glory of the autumn sunshine, and the hum of bees and rustle of leaves that filled the air outside.

The house was old; it had been a grand mansion once, before the days of the Revolution, and had probably been the residence of some of the stiff old worthies whose portraits hung in dreary dignity in the disused dusty galleries of the château, which now, turned into a citadelle, stood upon a high point of the cliffs commanding the town. The term rambling might well be applied to this house, for in its eccentric construction it seemed to have wandered at will half-way up the hill-side on which it was built. It had wings and abutments, and flights of stone steps leading from one part to another. There was "la grande maison de Madame," "la maison du jardin," and "la maison de Monsieur." This last, half hidden in trees, was terra incognita to the girls; but often in an evening, after we had seen him wending his way across the garden with his lantern from la grande maison, where he had been spending the evening with Madame, did we hear Monsieur playing on his organ glorious "bits" of Cherubini and Bach.

We were conscious that this odd little man carried on a system of espionage through the half-closed slats of his shutters, the effects of which we were continually made to feel; this, and the mystery that enveloped his small abode, where he worked all day among his bottles and retorts, made Monsieur appear somewhat of an ogre in our eyes. There was always a sense of freedom in the upper garden, which was out of the range of his windows, and where he never came. That pleasant upper garden, what a paradise it was, with its long sunny walks within the shelter of high walls! The trim stateliness of the ancient splendor had run to luxuriant disorder, and thick tangles of rare roses swung abroad their boughs above great beds of lilies-of-the-valley and periwinkle which had overrun their borders and crept into the walks.

During the vacation, we who stayed had the privilege of going into the upper garden. Obtaining the key from Justine, we would wander first along the shady pathways of the lower garden, past the flower-beds where the girls during recess-times worked and gossiped and quarrelled,—their quick French tongues reminding one of a colony of sparrows,—then, turning the stubborn lock of the[Pg 539] heavy door that opened on the flight of mossy steps, we came into that region of stillness and delight, the upper garden.

Oh, the pleasant autumn afternoons spent sitting together on the mossy walk between the box-hedges, the hum of bees and the scent of roses filling the air, and the sweet monotonous murmur of the sea on the shingly beach in our ears! For, mounting still higher by terraces and another flight of steps through a tumble-down gateway, you came upon the open cliffs; and the long blue line of the sea and the fresh sea-breeze greeted you with a thousand thoughts of home. For England lay beyond the trembling blue line.

I remember it was one of these autumn afternoons, that, coming down from practising, with my music-books under my arm, I met Justine, the genius of the ménage, cook and housekeeper in one, a shrewd woman, who had three objects in life,—to manage les bêtes, as she condescendingly termed the other servants, to please Madame, whom she adored, and to go to church every Sunday and grande fête. Justine was coming in from the garden, with a basket on her arm, in which lay two pigeons that she had just killed. On her fingers she twirled the gory scissors with which she had performed the deed.

"Madame is well, thank you, Mademoiselle,—a little headache, that is all,—that comes of so much learning and writing at night. Mais voilà une femme superbe! I go to make her a little dinner of these," pointing to the pigeons.

Justine stops suddenly and clasps her fat hands emphatically over the lid of her basket.

"I had almost forgotten, Mademoiselle. Madame desired me to tell the demoiselles that she comes down this evening to sit in the cabinet de musique."

I was delighted with this piece of intelligence, and ran to tell the others. It was not often that Madame deigned to come down-stairs of an evening, and were always glad when she did. In the first place, it was a pleasant break in the monotony of the general routine to sit and work and draw, instead of studying in the empty school-room; and secondly, it was delightful to be with Madame, when she threw off the character of preceptress,—for at such times she was infinitely agreeable, entertaining us in her bright French manner as if we had been her guests.

Madame had a way of charming all who approached her, from Adelaide Sloper's rich, vulgar father, who, when he came to see his daughter, was entertained by Madame au salon, and who was overheard to declare, as he got into his grand carriage, that "that Frenchwoman was the finest woman, by Jove, he'd ever seen!" to the tiny witch Élise, whom nobody could manage, but who, at the first rustle of Madame's gown, would cease from her mischief, fold her small hands, and, sinking her bead-like black eyes, look as demure as such a sprite could. We all adored Madame,—not that she herself was very good, though she was pious in her way, too. She fasted and went regularly to confession and to all the offices, and sometimes at the passing of the Host I have seen her kneeling in the dusty street in a new dress, and I don't know what more you could expect from a Frenchwoman.

Then she was so pretty, and there was a nameless grace in her attitude. She seemed to me so beautiful, as she stood at her desk, with one hand resting on her open book, tall, with something almost imperious in her figure, her head bent, but her deep, lovely gray eyes looking quietly before her and seeming to take in at once the whole school-room with an expression of keen intelligence. She was highly cultivated, and had read widely in many languages; but she wore her learning as gracefully as a bird does its lovely plumage.

There was a latent desire for sway in her character. She delighted in the[Pg 540] homage of those about her, and seldom failed to win it from any one with whom she came in contact. Mademoiselle, who did all the hard work of the teaching, and was only half paid for it, wore out her strength and energy and youth day by day at her desk in the middle of the school-room, and thought Madame the perfection of women; and her sallow, thin face would flush with pleasure, if Madame gave her a look or one of her soft smiles in passing.

At half-past seven that evening we were seated round the table with our work, awaiting the entrance of Madame. Presently she glided in, holding in her arms a bureau-drawer filled with piles of letters.

"I propose to tell you a story, mes chères," she said, as she seated herself and folded her white hands over one of the thick bundles that she had taken from the drawer.

"You have all heard me speak of Lina Dale, my English governess before I had Mary Gibson. Mary Gibson is an excellent girl, but she has not the talent that Lina had. Lina's father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking old lady, who spoke with a hesitating, apologetic manner and a nervous movement of the head,—a habit I thought she must have contracted from a constant fear of being pounced upon, as you say, by her husband. I always pitied her de tout mon cœur, but she possessed neither tact nor intellect, and was très ennuyeuse.

"It was one cold day in winter that Justine told me there was a demoiselle au salon who wished to see me. I found standing by the table a young lady,—a figure that would strike you at once. She turned as I entered the room, and her manner was dignified and self-possessed. She was not pretty, but her face was a remarkable one: thick dark hair above a low forehead, the eyelids somewhat too drooping over the singular dark eyes, that looked out beneath them with an expression of concentrated thought. 'That girl is like Charlotte Corday,' I said to Monsieur afterwards: 'it is a character of great energy and enthusiasm, frozen by the hardness and uncongeniality of her fate.' For in this interview she told me that she sought a situation in my school, and that she felt confidence in offering herself,—that the state of her father's affairs did not render this step necessary, but that circumstances of which she would not speak made her home unhappy and most unattractive to her. All this she said in a calm and perfectly unexcited manner, as if relating the details of a matter of business. For a moment I trembled lest she had come to make me her confidante in a family-quarrel; but I was soon relieved from this apprehension, for, after she had stated the fact, she referred to it no more, but went on to speak upon general subjects, which she did with great intelligence. Her good sense impressed me so much that before she left the house I had engaged her.

"A few days afterwards she was established here, and had adapted herself to all our modes of life in a way that astonished me. She went about all her duties quietly, and with the greatest order and precision. Her classes were the most orderly in the school, and in a short time her authority was acknowledged by all the girls. There were few who did not admire her, and not one who dared to set her at defiance. By degrees her quiet, unobtrusive industry won upon my confidence; I felt glad to show by charges of responsibility my regard for a person of so sound a judgment and so reserved a temper, and very soon I had given over to her care the supervision of English books for the girls' reading, the posting and receiving from the post-office of all the English letters, both my own and those of the English girls in the pension. During the two years and a half of her stay here, these duties were fulfilled by Lina with unremitting care and punctuality.[Pg 541]

"About this time I had commenced a correspondence, through Lina, with a Mrs. E. Baxter, of Bristol, in England, who had, it seemed, known Lina for many years, and who, understanding, as she mysteriously hinted, how unhappy her home must be, begged her to come and live with her and undertake for a time the education of her little girl, a child of ten. Here are her letters; this is one of the first: you see how warmly, how affectionately, she speaks of Lina, and how delicately she made this proposal, 'so that dear Lina's sensitive, proud nature might not be able to imagine itself wounded.'

"As Mrs. Baxter offered her a much larger salary than I gave her, I told Lina that I thought she ought to accept the offer of her friend. She quietly and firmly declined.

"'Miss Dale,' I said, 'you must not stand in the way of your own good out of any sense of obligation to me. I cannot allow you to do so.'

"'I do not do so, Madame La P——re,' she answered. 'I prefer to stay with you to going even to Mrs. Baxter's, whom I love sincerely. She is an excellent and most faithful friend, but I am better and safer here with you.'

"She looked steadily at me as she began the sentence, but dropped her eyes suddenly as she said the last words.

"'Lina,' I said, (it was in the evening, as I was leaving the class-room, and all the élèves had already gone,) 'carry me up some of these books to my room,—I have more than usual to-night'; for I saw there was something hidden behind this reserved manner, and felt interested.

"She took the books, and followed me. As she laid them down and arranged them in order on the table, I closed the door and said,—

"'Miss Dale, you have not looked very well lately, I think; I have several times intended to tell you, that, if you would like to go home some Saturday and spend the Sunday with your parents, you can do so.' (Her family was then living at Kenneville, a village about twelve miles from here.) 'I have noticed that you have never asked permission to do this, and thought you might be waiting till I mentioned it myself.'

"'No, no,' she said, almost vehemently, 'I cannot go home, I do not wish to'; and then she continued, in her usually cold, quiet manner,—'You remember, perhaps, Madame, that I am not happily circumstanced at home.'

"She pondered a moment, and then said, as if she had made up her mind about something,—

"'After all, I may as well tell you, Madame, all about it, as by doing so some things in my conduct that may have seemed strange to you will be cleared up,—that is, if you choose to hear?'

"'Certainly, ma chère,' I replied. 'I should be glad to hear all you have to tell me. Sit down here.'

"She still remained standing, however, before me, her eyelids drooping,—not shyly, for her eyes had a steady, abstracted expression, as if she were arranging her facts in systematic order so as to tell me her story in her usual clear, business-like manner.

"'You know, Madame, my father is guardian to two brothers, the sons of an old army-friend of his, who died in India when his two sons were quite boys, leaving his cousin, Colonel Lucas, together with my father, joint guardians of his children. The boys, during school or college vacations, spent the time partly at our house and partly at the house of Colonel Lucas. They both seemed like brothers to me. As time went on, Frank, the elder, began to spend all his vacations with us; and when he left Oxford, and ought to have commenced his studies for the bar, he continually put off the time of going up to London, where he was to enter the office of a lawyer, and stayed on from week to week at home, to teach me German, as he said. I knew he was rich, and that in three years he would come into the possession of a large fortune; but I knew also how bad it was for a young man to have no profession; and when I saw my father seemed indifferent on the[Pg 542] subject, I used to urge Frank the more not to waste his time. But he generally only laughed, though at times he would seem vexed at my earnestness, and would ask me why I should wish him to do what he did not want to do; and then,—and then,—this was one evening after we had been on the boat together all the afternoon, and were walking up home,—then, Madame, he told me he loved me, that he would go to London, study law, or do anything I said, if I would marry him. Oh, Madame, this was dreadful to me! I was stunned and bewildered. I had never fancied such a thing possible; the very idea was unnatural. I had thought of Frank as a boy always; now, in a moment, he was converted into a man, full of the determination of a selfish purpose. I could not answer him composedly, and entreated him to leave me. He misinterpreted my dismay, and went at once to my father. When I came in, that evening, having somewhat regained my composure, though with a sick feeling of dread and bewilderment in my heart, my father met me with unusual kindness, kissed me as he had not done for years, and led me towards Frank, who was standing near my mother. She had been crying, I saw, and her face wore a strange expression of anxiety and nervous joy as she looked at me. I turned away from Frank, and threw myself down on the floor by my mother.

"'"Thank Heaven, Lina!" I heard her whisper; "God bless you, my child! you have saved me years of bitterness."

"'I exclaimed,—"I cannot marry Frank,—I don't love him, mother,—don't try to make me!"

"'Ah, Madame, it was dreadful! I don't know how I bore it. My father stormed, and my mother cried, and poured forth such entreaties and persuasions,—telling me I mistook my heart, and that I should learn to love Frank, and about duty as a daughter to my father, and, oh, I don't know what beside!—and Frank stood by, silent and pale, and with a look I had never seen before of unrelenting, passionate, pitiless love.

"'Oh,' sighed Lina, 'it was hard, with no one to take my part! but the hardest was yet to come.

"'Days and weeks passed on, and I was miserable beyond what I can tell you. Nothing more was said on the subject, however, except by Frank, who tortured me by alternate entreaties and reproaches, and sometimes by occasional fits of thoughtfulness and kindness, in which he would leave me to myself, only appealing to me by unobtrusive acts of courtesy and devotion, which gave me more pain than either reproach or entreaty. But if it had not been for these days of comparative calm and quiet, I should hardly have been able to bear what followed. As it was, I had time to collect my strength and plan my line of conduct.

"'One night my father called me into his room. I saw by his manner that he was much excited. My mother was there also; she looked alarmed, and glanced from my father to me anxiously and inquiringly. You know mamma has very little strength of character, Madame. I could not hope for help from her; so I called up all my resolution, knowing that some trial was before me. I can hardly tell you what I heard then, Madame, it was such disgrace,' said Lina, raising her eyes slowly and fixing them a moment on mine, while a sudden, curious, embarrassed expression passed over her face, such as is accompanied in other persons by a painful flush, but which left her face pale and cold, causing no change in color.

"'My father told me, Madame, that some unfortunate speculations which he had undertaken, and in which he had used the fortune of Frank intrusted to his care, had failed, and that, when Frank became four-and-twenty, at which time, according to his father's will, he was to enter upon his property, his own wrong-doing would be discovered, and thence-forward he would be at the mercy of his ward. Frank had, indeed, already learned how great a wrong had been done him. My mother clung to me, weakly pouring forth laudations on the generosity of Frank, who, through his affection[Pg 543] for me, was willing to forgive all this injury. Was I not grateful? Why did I not go to him and tell him that the devotion of my life would be a poor recompense for such generosity? Oh, Madame, it was dreadful! I was not grateful at all; I hated him; and the misery of having to decide thus the fate of my father was intolerable.'

"'But what did the young man himself say to all this, Lina?' I inquired; 'did he never speak to you on the subject?'

"'Yes,' she replied; and after he had spoken quite bitterly against my father, (they never liked each other,) he said, that, however he might feel towards him as his guardian, there was nothing that he could not forget and forgive in the father of his wife,—which did not make me respect him any more, you may be sure, and showed me that it was useless to appeal to his generosity. My life now was miserable indeed.

"'About this time, my aunt in Scotland sent for me to pay her a visit. She was in failing health, and wanted cheerful companionship, and I had always been a favorite with her as a child. She lived alone with a couple of old servants in a small village far in the wilds of ——shire. My father, of course, opposed my going, alleging, as his reason, the long journey (we were then living in W——, in Shropshire) that I should have to take alone. To my astonishment, Frank took my part, insisting on my being allowed to go. Whether it was that he thought that when far away from home, in the seclusion of the Scotch village where my aunt lived, I should think more kindly of him, or whether he wished to touch me by a show of magnanimity, I cannot tell; but so it was, and I went.'

"'But, Lina,' I said, 'if the young man was well educated, rich, and seemed only to have the one fault of loving you so well, why would you not marry him? Ma chère,' I said, 'you throw away your good fate. You see what a service it would be to your family. (I speak as your friend, you comprehend.) You save your father; you make the young man happy; all could be arranged so charmingly! I should like to see you married, ma chère; and then, your duty as a daughter!'

"'Oh, yes, yes! she cried; 'I would do, oh, anything almost, to shield my poor father and mother! Perhaps once, once, I might; but it is too late now. I cannot marry Frank. Oh, Madame, it is as impossible as if I were dead!'

"'This is a strange story, Lina,' I said. 'What do you mean? Tell me, my child, or I shall think you crazy.'

"She laid her head on her hands, which were clasped on the top of the escritoire, and half whispered,—

"'You married, Lina? you? the quiet girl who has been teaching the children so well all these months?'

"'Yes, Madame,' she said, with all her usual composure, 'and to a man I love with my whole soul, with my whole life. The future may seem dim, but I have little fear when I remember I am Arthur's wife, and that his love will be strong to help me whenever I relieve him of the promise I have obliged him to make not to reveal our marriage. Frank will be three-and-twenty in one year and a half from now; till then, he cannot, without great difficulty, harm my father, and by that time I trust his fancy for me will have passed away, and he will be willing to treat with my father about his property without personal feeling to aggravate his sense of the wrong that has been done him. He is in the East now with Colonel Lucas, his other guardian, who has not been without his suspicions of Frank's liking for me, and is not at all unwilling, I think, to keep him out of the way for a while.'

"'Only two persons,' she replied,—'indeed, I may as well tell you at once, Madame,—beside[Pg 544] Mrs. Baxter and her husband, at whose house the ceremony took place. They were then staying in the neighborhood of H——, a few miles from my aunt's house. It was at Mrs. Baxter's I first met Arthur: he was a distant connection of hers. He and his Cousin Marmaduke had come up for the shooting and fishing for a few weeks in the autumn. My aunt was a genial, bright old lady, fond of the society of young people, spite of her ill health, and invited the young men frequently to her house. In that way I saw a great deal of them both.'

"'Who was the gentleman, Lina? Had you seen him before this visit? But,' seeing she hesitated, 'if you do not wish to disclose more, say so frankly; what you have already told me I will guard as a secret,—you need not fear.'

"'Oh, Madame,' interrupted Lina, suddenly throwing herself on the floor at my feet, 'it's not that,—do not say that, dear Madame! It is a great comfort to me to tell you all this; sometimes I feel so lonely when by any chance I do not get a letter from him the day I expect one.'

"Her voice faltered, and she leaned forward, burying her face in her hands; I saw her breast shaken with weeping.

"'So you get letters from him, do you? I have never known this. You know, ma chérie, that that is against the rules of my pension; but when people are married,—c'est une autre chose! But how is it that I have never found this out? Ah, because you have charge of all the letters to and from the post!'

"'Yes, Madame,' she said, looking up with a smile. 'I have sometimes felt so unhappy, because I seemed to be doing a dishonest thing; but it would have been so hard to go without them, and I knew how kind and good you were. If you would like to see one of his letters,' she continued, half shyly, but with dignified gravity, 'I have one here'; and she drew a large letter from her pocket and handed it to me.

The handwriting was firm and regular; the letter was long, but, though the whole breathed but one feeling of the deepest and tenderest affection, it was hardly what would be called a "love-letter." There were criticisms of new works, and further references to books of a kind that showed the writer to be a man of scholarly tastes. After we had looked at this one, Madame handed us others from the packet, all marked by the same characteristics as the first. Here and there were little pictures of the writer's every-day life. He told of his being out on the moors at sunrise shooting with his Cousin Marmaduke, or riding round the estate giving orders about the transplanting of certain trees, "which are set as you have suggested, and are growing as fast as they can till you come to walk under their shade," or in the library at evening, when the place beside him seems so void where she should be. Then there were other letters, speaking of —— ——, the poet, who was coming down to spend a few weeks with him, and write verses under his elms at Aylesford Grange; but in one and all Lina was the central idea round which all other interests merely turned, and the source from which all else drew its charm.

"As soon," said Madame, continuing her narration, "as I had finished reading the letter, I entreated Lina to go on with her curious history.

"'I met Arthur,' she said, 'first at Mrs. Baxter's, as I said before. He is the noblest man I have ever known,—so good, so clever, so pure in heart! His Cousin Marmaduke, who was there at the same time, paid me great attention, but I never liked him; there was always something repulsive to me in his black eyes; I never trusted him; and beside Arthur,—oh, it seemed like the contrast between night and day! I don't know why it was, Madame, but I never felt that he loved Arthur really, though Arthur[Pg 545] had done a great deal for him, got him his commission in the army, and paid off some of his debts; but he never seemed as if he quite forgave Arthur for standing in the way of his being the lord of the manor himself and possessor of Aylesford. There are some mean-spirited people who are proud too. They can receive favors, while they resent the obligation. He was of that kind, I think, and hated Arthur for his very generosity.

"'One evening, as I was walking up the shrubbery, I met Marmaduke. He had ridden over with Arthur, as they often did, to spend the evening. He had caught sight of me, he said, as they came up the avenue, and, under pretext of something being wrong with his horse's bridle, had stopped, and let Arthur go on to the house alone. He had long waited for this opportunity of speaking to me alone, he said, as I must have known. Then, amid the basest of vague insinuations against Arthur, he dared to proffer me his odious love. Oh, Madame, I was angry! A woman cannot bear feigned love,—it stings like hatred; still less can she bear to hear one she loves spoken of as I had heard him speak of Arthur. I hardly know what I said, but it must have expressed my feeling; for he tried to taunt me in return with being in love with Arthur and Aylesford. I only smiled, and walked on. Then he sprang after me, and vowed I should not leave him so,—that he loved me madly, spite of my scorn, spite of my foolish words. He knew well I did not love Arthur, that I was ambitious only. So was he,—and so determined in his purpose, that he was sure to succeed in it, spite of everything. "For there are few things," he added, "that can stand against my settled will. Beware, then, how you cross it, sweet Lina!" I shook my cloak loose from his hand, for his words sent a thrill of horror through me, and rushed on, speechless with indignation, to the house. Two days after this I became engaged to Arthur. How happy we were!' said Lina, a dreamy expression passing over her face at the retrospect.

"'I told Arthur everything about my home; but I did not tell him of my conversation with Marmaduke in the shrubbery, because I could not bear to give him the pain which a discovery of his cousin's baseness would have caused him. Marmaduke, I perceived, knew that I had not betrayed him; for one night, as I was sitting at the piano, he thanked me hastily, as he turned over the leaf of my music-book, for a generous proof of confidence. I took no notice of these words, but was conscious of a flush of indignation at the word confidence.

"'Arthur and I were always together; we read together, and talked over our past and future lives. Nothing now troubled me. He took all the burden and anxiety of my life to himself, and with his love added a sense of peace and security most exquisite to me.

"'I told him all the miserable story of Frank, and he listened gravely; but though it certainly troubled him, it never seemed to daunt him for an instant. So gentle as he is, nothing ever could shake him. I was so happy then, that I could not feel angry even with Marmaduke; and as he seemed to be willing to forget the past, we became somewhat more friendly towards each other. But if I ever happened to be alone with him, even for a moment, the recollection of our talk in the shrubbery would come to my mind, and the old feeling of anger would spring up again, the effort to suppress which was so painful that I always avoided being with him, unless Arthur were by also.

"'One day there came a letter from my father,—and what its character was you may suppose, when I tell you that it made me utterly forget my present happiness. At the end of the letter he commanded me to return home immediately. It came one evening: I read and re-read its cruel words till I could bear no more. I saw Arthur standing in the twilight below my window, and went down and laid the letter silently in his hands. When he had finished reading it, he came slowly towards me. I shall never forget his look as he took my hands in his and drew[Pg 546] me to him, looking into my face so earnestly. Then he said, in a low, grave voice, "Lina, do you love me? Then we must be married at once,—do not be afraid,—perhaps to-night. I fear your father may follow that letter very soon. You have suffered too much already. You have no one but me to look to. Heaven knows I do not think alone of my own happiness."'

"Lina paused a moment. 'I yielded,' she said. 'I could have followed him blindly then anywhere! So that evening, in the drawing-room, with Mr. and Mrs. Baxter and Marmaduke as witnesses, we were married by a Scotch clergyman (there was no clergyman of our own Church within twenty miles). The ceremony was very simple. As the last words were being pronounced, some one entered the room hastily, and there was whispering and confusion for a moment or two, and when I rose from my knees the first words that greeted me were the intelligence that my aunt was dangerously ill, and had sent a special messenger for me. Late as it was, I prepared instantly to accompany the man back to H——. I was stung with self-reproaches at the thought of my aunt lying, as I fancied, dying without me near her, and peremptorily refused to allow Arthur to accompany me on my long drive.

"'That was the last time I saw him. The next day he was called away on important business, which admitted of no delay. I remained with my poor aunt till her death, which took place at the end of that week, three days after my marriage. Then my parents came for me. My father's manner was unusually kind; my poor mother's expressions of love went to my heart. Frank was not at home, they said, but had gone up to London to prepare for his journey to the East. They had determined to reside for a while in France, and they promised that he should not be informed of my being with them, if I would consent to accompany them. I yielded to their solicitations, parted with my true friend Mrs. Baxter, and crossed the Channel with them. At the end of three weeks I discovered that my father had broken his word and informed Frank by letter of my being with them. Then I fled to you, having heard of the position vacant in your pension. I have tried to do my duty here, and to merit in some degree your kindness. With you I am happier than I could be with any one but Arthur. Arthur has learned to love you too: will you read this letter speaking of you?' drawing a letter from her pocket.

"This is it," said Madame, taking one from the pile, and pointing out the passage.

"I am weary of my life, sometimes, without you,—here, where you ought to be,—your home, Lina! I wander through the rooms that I have prepared with such delight for you, and think of the time when you will be here,—mistress of all!... When will you come, my wife? I think and dream in this way till I am haunted by the ghost of the future. I get morbid, and fancy all kinds of dangers that may happen to my darling, so far away from me; and then I am ready to go at once to you and break down all barriers and bear you away.... I thank Heaven you have so good a friend in 'Madame.' I long for the time to come when I may greet her as one of my best friends for your sake. In the mean time, I have selected an Indian cabinet, the grotesque delicate work of which would please your quaint fancy, which I trust she will accept, if you will join me in the gift. I shall have an opportunity of sending it in a few weeks.... Mrs. Eldridge, my dear old housekeeper, has just been in. She wishes to know whether the new curtains of the little library are to be crimson or gray. She little knows what confusion she causes me! She knows not that I am no longer master here! I tell her I will deliberate on the point, and she retires mystified by my unusual indecision. So write quickly and make known your desires, if you wish to save me from an imputation of becoming, as the good old-lady says, 'a little set and bachelor-like in my ways.'[Pg 547] Marmaduke and —— come down next week to shoot.... You say, wait till spring, when things will be more propitious for disclosing our marriage. I have also another scheme which will be ripened by spring. I shall disclose our marriage, and propose to your father to make him independent of his ward. No one, certainly, has a better right to do this than his son-in-law; and then——But I hardly dare to think of the happiness that will be mine when nothing but death can part us any more!"

"One evening about this time," continued Madame, "about a week after Lina had shown me this letter, I came down into the cabinet de musique on my way to the garden to take my usual evening walk on the terrace, and saw Lina standing by the piano with her bonnet on and her shawl laid beside her. In her hand she held letters, one of which she had that moment unsealed. She had, I knew, just returned from the post-office.

"'I have a letter here from Mrs. Baxter, Madame,' she said. 'She writes to me in great distress; the two children, Minnie and Louisa, whom she was so anxious to send here, are both ill with scarlet-fever. But here is your letter; she will no doubt tell you everything herself.'

"I took the letter and seated myself, and was soon absorbed in the poor mother's hurried and almost incoherent relation, when suddenly I was startled by a gesture or sound from Lina that made me look up hastily. She stood with the letter she had been reading crushed in her hand, her face wearing an expression of agony. For a moment she swayed to and fro with her hand outstretched to catch a chair for support, but before I could reach her she had fallen heavily to the floor. I called Justine, and we raised her to a chair. I stood by her supporting her head on my breast, while Justine ran for camphor and eau-de-vie. It was some time before she recovered her consciousness; she then slowly opened her eyes and fixed them wonderingly on me, but with no look of recognition in them. A long shiver passed over her, and she sighed heavily once or twice as she looked vacantly at the letter on the floor. I was terrified, and seized the letter, to gain, if possible, some explanation of the miserable state of the poor girl.

"I found that the envelope contained three letters: one from Marmaduke Kirkdale; one from the housekeeper, Mrs. Eldridge; and this scrap from Arthur.

"LETTER OF MARMADUKE.

"'My Dear Madam,—I have heavy tidings to send you. While out shooting yesterday morning in the Low Copse, Mr. ——, Arthur, and myself became separated: Mr. ——, who had been my companion, keeping on an open path; I going down towards the pool to beat up a thicket and start the game. Arthur I supposed was with the gamekeeper, a little distance in advance of us. Would that it had been so! As I came up to join the others I heard the report of a gun, and hastening towards the spot whence the sound seemed to come, I found my poor cousin lying upon the ground, and at first supposed, that, in leaping the fence, he had received a sudden blow from a branch, which had stunned him; but on kneeling down to raise him, I perceived he was bleeding profusely from a wound in the throat, and was perfectly unconscious. Mr. —— came up almost at the moment, and while the gamekeeper and I bore Arthur to a farm-house hard by, he went off to call the nearest doctor. Everything has been done that skill and care could devise. The physician from B—— is here, besides Mr. Gordon, the village-surgeon. They pronounce the wound very serious, but still hold out hopes that with great care he may yet recover. There is no doubt that in leaping the hedge, and holding his gun carelessly, my cousin had inflicted this terrible injury on himself. He is, however, too weak to make it safe to ask him any explanation of the accident. The doctors insist on perfect quiet and rest, and say, that, owing to the unremitting[Pg 548] care we have been able to give him, he has done much better than they could have hoped for. If fever can be prevented, all may yet go well; for myself, I believe strongly in Arthur's robust constitution.

"'Friday night.—Arthur was doing very well till about two o'clock this morning. The housekeeper and I were with him. Mr. —— had gone to take some rest. Suddenly Arthur raised himself, and asked for paper and pencil. I remonstrated with him, fearing the effects of exertion. When, however, I found Mr. ——(who had been called in by Mrs. Eldridge) declared his judgment in favor of compliance, I yielded, and, supported by the housekeeper, my cousin wrote a few almost illegible words. He had scarcely signed his name when he fell back,—the exertion, as I had feared, had been too much for him. After this he sank rapidly. He died at six o'clock this morning.

"LETTER OF THE HOUSEKEEPER.

"'Respected Madam—I do not know that I have any right presuming to meddle with affairs that don't belong to my walk in life, far be it from me to do so, especially to one that whatever they may say seems always like my mistress to me—owing to the last words my poor dear Mr. Arthur ever spoke was, She is my wife, my own wife, let no one gainsay it, which at the time I did not take in fairly, being almost broken down with sorrow, for I had nursed him as a baby, Madam, and loved him humbly as my own son, no lady could have loved him better, which having lost him and all this trouble (my heart seeming fairly broke) makes me write, respected Madam, worse than usual, never having been a scholar, he always wrote them for me, God bless him. You won't think me presuming, Madam, when I say these things never having had the honour of seeing you, but you are the only person who can feel for me under these circumstances of trial more than any others. For to see them going through the house looking into precious drawers and burning papers in the library fire and turning on a person like a Tiger, though he may be a gentleman (though how of that family that always was remarkable gentle spoken I cannot tell.) There never were two cousins differenter. I never can regard him as my master, never. I would sooner leave the old place and beg my bread than feel him master after my blessed Mr. Arthur, not that I'd speak evil of the family. But God Almighty reads the hearts of men, and I only hope some may come out clear in appearing at the Judgment, and mayn't disgrace the Family then—for to say that my Mr. Arthur never made a will when twice he's spoke to me upon the subject, always trusting me, Madam, telling me where he kept it in the library, and though it's not to be found the house through, still I know it must be somewhere, for I'd trust his word against a thousand. I shall ask Mr. ---- to forward this present not knowing your address, he is a kind gentleman and a true friend. I send you the little scrap of paper with the last words he ever wrote. Some may say it's no good and unreadable, but I took care that them that didn't value it didn't get it, though they did search everywhere, and looked so black when it couldn't be found being in my pocket at the time. I present my services, honoured Madam, and my dutiful affection for the sake of him that's gone.

"'Only a moment or so left to me. Goodbye, my Lina! I am dying—and without you near me. We have waited so long! It is hard to leave you alone in the world, darling. Come and live here—your own home. If you had been here but one day, things might have been otherwise. Take care of the poor—keep[Pg 549] Mrs. Eldridge with you, she is faithful and true—true—she knows—God keep you, darling. I am so weak—there is no hope.

"For three days Lina lay on her bed almost without giving a sign of life,—her face rigid and colorless. She refused to eat, and only when I myself used my authority with her did any nourishment pass her lips. On the evening of the third day I became alarmed, and determined to send for a physician. I told Justine to despatch one of the servants for Dr. B——, but to request him to come after five o'clock, when I should have returned from vespers, as I wished to see him myself. I gave my directions to Justine as we stood together at the foot of Lina's bed, in so low a whisper as to prevent, as I thought, the possibility of her hearing me. Great, then, was my astonishment, when, on leaving my room, ready for church, I met Lina on the staircase. Her face was very pale, and she clung to the banisters for support as she descended. Before I could express my surprise, she said,—

"'I feel very much better, Madame, and if you please will call the class for English lesson at six.'

"I told her she must go back to her room,—that she should not have risen without my knowledge.

"I felt she was right, and let her go down,—and that evening she held her class as usual. So she continued, day after day, her accustomed round of duties, with all her usual precision and care. Her self-control annoyed me. She passed to and fro in the house, her face pale and wan, though with a composed expression, and all my earnest entreaties that she should seek rest or relaxation were met by the same calm refusal. Saturday came, and I was glad to see she showed something like interest in the prospect of the letters from England that would arrive that day, and begged me to allow her to go as usual to get them at the post-office. I willingly acceded to her request, thinking the fresh air and sea-breeze would do her good. She returned with several letters, and brought them to me, seeming to desire my company while she read them. One was from Marmaduke, one from Mr. R——, her husband's lawyer in Lincoln. The former puzzled me; it was vague and threatening, and yet there were expressions in it almost befitting a love-letter. Lina read it to me with hardly any change of expression, but dropped it from her fingers as she finished it, with a look of mingled indifference and disgust. The grave, business-like letter of the lawyer had still less effect upon her. I read it to her,—for, although in English, I had no difficulty in making out every syllable, so distinctly was it written, and with such legal precision. It informed Lina that Mr. R——felt some apprehension of her having trouble in substantiating her marriage, that his conversation with Mr. Marmaduke Kirkdale had been (although somewhat vague on the part of the latter) wholly unsatisfactory. This, and the fact that no will had as yet been found among her husband's papers, made him fear that she might be involved in lengthy and perhaps annoying legal proceedings. At the close, he desired her to write out a careful account of all the circumstances of her marriage, as it was most important that he should know all the details of the case.

"'These things weary me so!' said Lina; 'but it does not matter,' she added, sighing; 'for his sake I must do this.'

"The few contemptuous words in answer to Marmaduke's letter were soon written, and she then began her reply to the letter of her lawyer. This seemed to cost her a great effort; she sighed frequently as she wrote, and at the end of two hours, as she finished the last words, her head fell on the sheet of paper before her, and she burst into tears. I could not try to check this outburst of grief, knowing that it must be a great[Pg 550] relief to her overtaxed system after the strain of the last few days. She was soon again calm, and resumed her writing. A letter to her parents, informing them of her secret marriage and sudden widowhood, was next written, and Lina, in her plain bonnet and shawl and closely veiled, set off with the three letters to the post-office."

"I find that I have become again unconsciously, interested in Lina, as I have told her story, and I hesitate to approach the dénoûment; but"—and she sighed delicately, not sufficiently to disperse the smile—"I must go through with this, as Lina herself used to say. One night about this time I had been writing late, and it was past midnight when I descended with my lamp in my hand to go the round of the class-rooms, as is my wont before retiring to rest. I paused, as I passed down the school-room, opposite the Sainte Croix, and repeated my salut before the Holy Emblem. As I finished the last words, my eyes fell on a small slip of paper lying on Lina's desk, on which my own name was written three times, in what appeared my own handwriting,—Jeanne Cliniè La P——re. A cold shudder ran through me, as if I had heard my name in the accents of my double. Obeying a sudden impulse, I opened Lina's desk, and seized the papers within. Uppermost lay a thick cahier, in which, in Lina's writing, were what at first seemed copies of all the letters she had received from England within the last few months. There were also facsimiles of letters to me from Mrs. Baxter, Mr. A. Kirkdale, and others. Then there were draughts of the same letters, written in the various handwritings with which I had become familiar, as those of Lina's and my own English correspondents. Here and there were improvements and corrections in Lina's own writing. Below these lay piles of letters,—a bundle of ten letters of my own, forming part of my correspondence with Mrs. Baxter, and which I had intrusted to Lina at various times to post. These were without envelopes, and simply tied together. I sat there for more than an hour, stupefied by this strange revelation; and then, taking the bundle of my own letters addressed to Mrs. Baxter, I went to my room.

"Next morning, when I descended to the school-room, I glanced, in passing, at Lina, and thought I perceived a slightly fluttered, disturbed expression in her face; but I continued the usual routine of the morning's work without speaking to her. After class was over, I sent for her to come to my room. I myself was much disturbed; she was perfectly calm and collected; but as I laid the bundle of my own letters to Mrs. Baxter on the table, and demanded an explanation of their being found in her desk, she turned pale, and snatched up the packet and held it tightly. To my question, she answered that I evidently did her great wrong, but she was used to being misunderstood; that the kindness I had shown her entitled me to an explanation, which she would not otherwise have given.

"'It is a weakness that I am ashamed of that has caused this trouble,' she said. 'I have sat up in the lonely nights and read and re-read my letters, and then I began to copy them, copied even the handwriting, till I grew very perfect in it, and then I could not bear to destroy any of those precious words, but kept them, as I thought, in secret,—but now some one has basely taken them from my desk, and brought them to you. As for your letters to Mrs. Baxter, there are, I see, only one or two here. Give me only time and you shall have that cleared up also. I will write to Mrs. Baxter, beg her to explain how she let these letters get out of her possession, and ask her to inclose all the rest of your letters to her. I will take care that her answer shall come through the post-office, and not, as heretofore, inclosed in a letter to me; so that you may feel quite sure that there is no mistake, Madame La P——re.'

"I felt baffled and guilty before her;[Pg 551] and the next three days were most uncomfortable. I could not but feel gênée with Lina, while she maintained the character of wounded innocence. The evening of the third day, Justine handed to me a large packet which the postman had just brought, and upon which there were ten francs to pay. It was directed to me in Mrs. Baxter's well-known handwriting. I tore open the cover, and a shower of letters fell on the table. All my letters to Mrs. Baxter, and one from herself, entreating to know the reason of this 'singular request of dear Lina's.' I was disconcerted and relieved at once, when, turning the wrapper listlessly in my fingers, my eye suddenly caught, on the reverse side, and printed in large letters, these words,—'This packet was sent to the Postmaster in Bristol to be reposted to ——.' That was the end of it. I had paid ten francs for learning the agreeable fact that I had been duped,—for the satisfaction of knowing that for two years and a half I had been wasting my sympathy and even tears on a set of purely imaginary characters and the little intrigante who had befooled me.

"When I showed Lina the printed words on the wrapper, she turned very pale, but maintained a stubborn silence to all my reproaches.

"This was all I could get from her; but as she left the room, she turned and said, looking at me half reproachfully, half maliciously,—

"'I suppose we had better part now. At any rate, you will at least own that I have interested you, Madame!'

"She left me two days afterwards, and the last I heard of her was in the situation of companion to a Russian Countess, with whom she was an immense favorite. She made some effort to gain possession of these letters; but I reminded her, that, as they had been written exclusively for my benefit, I considered I had a right to keep them. To this she simply answered, 'Very well, Madame.'"

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to add that the story of Lina Dale is told here precisely as related to us by Madame La P——re, of course excepting the necessary changes in the names of places and persons. The three letters are not copies of the original ones in the possession of Madame La P——re, but a close transcript of them from memory,—the substance of them is identical, and in many instances the words also. The extraordinary power shown by Lina Dale in maintaining the character she had assumed and sustained during two years and a half was fully carried out by the skill and cleverness of her pretended correspondence; and in reading over these piles of letters, so full of originality, one could not but feel regret at the perversion of powers so remarkable,—powers which might have been developed by healthy action into means of usefulness and good.

CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.

FOURTH PAPER.

Lamb's time, after his manumission from India-House, seems to have hung rather heavily upon his hands. Though the "birds of the air" were not so free as he was then, I fear they were a great deal happier and vastly more contented than our liberated and idle old clerk. Though in the first flush and excitement of his freedom from his six-and-thirty years' confinement in a counting-house,—(he entered the office a dark-haired, bright-eyed, light-hearted boy; he left it a decrepit, silver-haired, rather melancholy, somewhat disappointed man, whose spirits, as he himself confesseth, had grown gray before his hair,)—though, when in the dizzy and happy early hours of his freedom, Elia exultingly wrote (and felt) that "a man can never have too much time to himself," the honeymoon (if I may so express it) of his emancipation from the

"Dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood"

was not fairly over before he felt that man's true element is labor,—that occupation, which in his younger days he had called a "fiend," was in very truth an angel,—the angel of contentment and joy. Doctor Johnson stoutly maintained by both tongue and pen, that, in general, no one could be virtuous or happy who was not completely employed. Not only the bread we eat, but the true pleasures and real enjoyments of life, must be earned by the sweat of the brow. The poor old mill-horse, turned loose in the pasture on Sundays, seems sadly to miss his accustomed daily round of weary labor; the retired tallow-chandler, whose story has pointed so many morals and adorned so many tales, would have died of inertia and ennui in less than six months after his retirement from business, had not his successor kindly allowed him to help on melting-days; and methinks the very ghosts of certain busy and energetic men must fret and fume at the idle and inactive state of their shadowy and incorporal selves; nor, unless—as some hope and believe—we are to have our familiar and customary tasks and duties to perform in heaven, could their souls be happy and contented in Paradise.

But—after this rather foolish and wholly unnecessary digression—to return to Lamb. Elia, who had while a toil-worn clerk so carefully and frugally husbanded every odd moment and spare hour of time,—who, after his day's labor at India-House was over, had read so many massive old folios, and written so many pleasant pages for the pleasure and solacement of himself, and a choice and select number of men and women,—now that he had the whole long day to himself, read but little, and wrote but seldom.

And as for those long walks in the country, which he talked of so fondly in some of his letters to his friends,—those walks to Hoddesdon, to Amwell, to Windsor, and other towns and villages in the near vicinity of London, which he had enjoyed in anticipation a few years before he had the leisure actually to take them,—those long walks on "fine Isaac-Walton mornings," were found to be, it must be confessed, rather tiresome and unsatisfactory. They were most melancholy failures, when compared—as Elia could not help comparing them—with the pleasant walks he and Mary had taken years before to Enfield, and Potter's-Bar, and Waltham. Nay, even the "saunterings in Bond Street," the "digressions into Soho," to explore book-stalls, the visits to print-shops and picture-galleries, soon ceased to afford Lamb much real pleasure or enjoyment. Yea, London itself, with all its wonders and marvels, with all its (to him) memories[Pg 553] and associations, he found to be, to one who had nothing to do but wander idly and purposeless through her thronged and busy streets and thoroughfares,—a mere looker-on in Vienna,—a somewhat dreary and melancholy place. Indeed, the London of 1825-30 was a far different place to Elia from the London of twenty years before, when he resided at No. 4, Inner-Temple Lane, (near the place of his "kindly engendure,") and gave his famous Wednesday-evening parties, ("Oh!" exclaims Hazlitt, "for the pen of John Buncle to consecrate a petit souvenir to their memory!") and when Jem White, and Ned P——, and Holcroft, and Captain Burney, and other of his old friends and jovial companions were alive and merry.

And now, in these later years and altered times, when even the old memories and the old associations seemed to have lost their power over him, and gone were most of "the old familiar faces," and when he felt as if the game of life were scarcely worth the candle, our melancholy and forlorn old humorist thus sadly and pathetically writes to the Quaker poet:—"But town, with all my native hankering after it, is not what it was. The streets, the shops, are left, but all old friends are gone. And in London I was frightfully convinced of this, as I passed houses and places, empty caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about anybody. The bodies I cared for are in graves or dispersed. My old chums, that lived so long and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took leave of our adopted young friend at Charing Cross, 'twas a heavy unfeeling rain, and I had nowhere to go. Home have I none, and not a sympathizing house to turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of heaven pour down on a forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a sort of friend's house, but it was large and straggling,—one of the individuals of my old long knot of friends, card-players, pleasant companions, that have tumbled to pieces, into dust and other things; and I got home on Thursday, convinced that it was better to get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in my corner." And at Enfield Elia was far from being happy or contented. Winter, however,—"confining, room-keeping winter," with its short days and long evenings, and cozy, comfortable fireside and cheerful candle-light,—he succeeded in passing tolerably pleasantly there; but the "deadly long days" of summer—"all-day days," he called them, "with but a half-hour's candle-light, and no fire-light"—were fearfully dull, wearisome, and unprofitable to him, "a scorner of the fields," an exile from London. And he thought, as he strolled through the green lanes and along the pleasant country-roads in the vicinity of Enfield, of the days when he was

"A clerk in London gay,"

and sighed for the drudgery and confinement of the counting-house, and longed to take his seat again at his old desk at India-House. In brief, Lamb felt that he should be happier and better, if he had something to do. And partly to amuse himself, and partly to assist a friend, he employed himself for a few months in a pleasant and congenial task. "I am going through a course of reading at the Museum," he writes to Bernard Barton,—"the Garrick plays, out of part of which I formed my Specimens. I have two thousand to go through; and in a few weeks have despatched the tithe of 'em. It is a sort of office-work to me; hours, ten to four, the same. It does me good. Men must have regular occupation that have been used to it." And in another (later) letter to Barton he says, "I am giving the fruit of my old play-reading to Hone, who sets forth a portion weekly in the 'Table-Book.'" And he not only furnished the "Table-Book" with specimens of the Garrick plays, but he wrote for that work, and the "Every-Day Book," a number of pleasant, characteristic little sketches and essays. We herewith present the reader with one of the best and most remarkable of these articles. Of course all will observe, and[Pg 554] admire, the humorous, yet very gentle, loving, almost pathetic manner in which Elia describes the person and character of Mary's old usher,—

CAPTAIN STARKEY.

Dear Sir,—I read your account of this unfortunate being, and his forlorn piece of self-history, with that smile of half-interest which the annals of insignificance excite, till I came to where he says, "I was bound apprentice to Mr. William Bird, an eminent writer, and teacher of languages and mathematics," etc.; when I started as one does on the recognition of an old acquaintance in a supposed stranger. This, then, was that Starkey of whom I have heard my sister relate so many pleasant anecdotes, and whom, never having seen, I yet seem almost to remember. For nearly fifty years she had lost all sight of him; and, behold! the gentle usher of her youth, grown into an aged beggar, dubbed with an opprobrious title to which he had no pretensions, an object and a May-game! To what base purposes may we not return! What may not have been the meek creature's sufferings, what his wanderings, before he finally settled down in the comparative comfort of an old hospitaller of the almonry of Newcastle? And is poor Starkey dead?

I was a scholar of that "eminent writer" that he speaks of; but Starkey had quitted the school about a year before I came to it. Still the odor of his merits had left a fragrancy upon the recollection of the elder pupils. The school-room stands where it did, looking into a discolored, dingy garden, in the passage leading from Fetter Lane into Bartlett's Buildings. It is still a school,—though the main prop, alas! has fallen so ingloriously,—and bears a Latin inscription over the entrance in the lane, which was unknown in our humbler times. Heaven knows what "languages" were taught in it then! I am sure that neither my sister nor myself brought any out of it but a little of our native English. By "mathematics," reader, must be understood "cyphering." It was, in fact, a humble day-school, at which reading and writing were taught to us boys in the morning, and the same slender erudition was communicated to the girls, our sisters, etc., in the evening. Now Starkey presided, under Bird, over both establishments. In my time, Mr. Cook, now or lately a respectable singer and performer at Drury-Lane Theatre, and nephew to Mr. Bird, had succeeded to him. I well remember Bird. He was a squat, corpulent, middle-sized man, with something of the gentleman about him, and that peculiar mild tone—especially while he was inflicting punishment—which is so much more terrible to children than the angriest looks and gestures. Whippings were not frequent; but when they took place, the correction was performed in a private room adjoining, where we could only hear the plaints, but saw nothing. This heightened the decorum and the solemnity. But the ordinary public chastisement was the bastinado, a stroke or two on the palm with that almost obsolete weapon now, the ferule. A ferule was a sort of flat ruler, widened at the inflicting end into a shape resembling a pear,—but nothing like so sweet,—with a delectable hole in the middle to raise blisters, like a cupping-glass. I have an intense recollection of that disused instrument of torture, and the malignancy, in proportion to the apparent mildness, with which its strokes were applied. The idea of a rod is accompanied with something ludicrous; but by no process can I look back upon this blister-raiser with anything but unmingled horror. To make him look more formidable,—if a pedagogue had need of these heightenings,—Bird wore one of those flowered Indian gowns formerly in use with schoolmasters, the strange figures upon which we used to interpret into hieroglyphics of pain and suffering. But, boyish fears apart, Bird, I believe, was, in the main, a humane and judicious master.[Pg 555]

Oh, how I remember our legs wedged into those uncomfortable sloping desks, where we sat elbowing each other; and the injunctions to attain a free hand, unattainable in that position; the first copy I wrote after, with its moral lesson, "Art improves Nature"; the still earlier pot-hooks and the hangers, some traces of which I fear may yet be apparent in this manuscript; the truant looks sidelong to the garden, which seemed a mockery of our imprisonment; the prize for best spelling, which had almost turned my head, and which to this day I cannot reflect upon without a vanity which I ought to be ashamed of; our little leaden inkstands, not separately subsisting, but sunk into the desks; the bright, punctually washed morning fingers, darkening gradually with another and another ink-spot! What a world of little associated circumstances, pains, and pleasures, mingling their quotas of pleasure, arise at the reading of those few simple words,—"Mr. William Bird, an eminent writer, and teacher of languages and mathematics, in Fetter Lane, Holborn"!

Poor Starkey, when young, had that peculiar stamp of old-fashionedness in his face which makes it impossible for a beholder to predicate any particular age in the object. You can scarce make a guess between seventeen and seven-and-thirty. This antique cast always seems to promise ill-luck and penury. Yet it seems he was not always the abject thing he came to. My sister, who well remembers him, can hardly forgive Mr. Thomas Ranson for making an etching so unlike her idea of him when he was a youthful teacher at Mr. Bird's school. Old age and poverty—a life-long poverty, she thinks—could at no time have so effaced the marks of native gentility which were once so visible in a face otherwise strikingly ugly, thin, and care-worn. From her recollections of him, she thinks that he would have wanted bread before he would have begged or borrowed a half-penny. "If any of the girls," she says, "who were my school-fellows, should be reading, through their aged spectacles, tidings from the dead of their youthful friend Starkey, they will feel a pang, as I do, at ever having teased his gentle spirit." They were big girls, it seems, too old to attend his instructions with the silence necessary; and however old age and a long state of beggary seem to have reduced his writing faculties to a state of imbecility, in those days his language occasionally rose to the bold and figurative: for, when he was in despair to stop their chattering, his ordinary phrase was, "Ladies, if you will not hold your peace, not all the powers in heaven can make you!" Once he was missing for a day or two: he had run away. A little, old, unhappy-looking man brought him back,—it was his father,—and he did no business in the school that day, but sat moping in a corner, with his hands before his face; and the girls, his tormentors, in pity for his case, for the rest of that day forbore to annoy him. "I had been there but a few months," adds she, "when Starkey, who was the chief instructor of us girls, communicated to us, as a profound secret, that the tragedy of 'Cato' was shortly to be acted by the elder boys, and that we were to be invited to the representation." That Starkey lent a helping hand in fashioning the actors, she remembers; and but for his unfortunate person, he might have had some distinguished part in the scene to enact. As it was, he had the arduous task of prompter assigned to him; and his feeble voice was heard clear and distinct, repeating the text during the whole performance. She describes her recollection of the cast of characters, even now, with a relish. Martia, by the handsome Edgar Hickman, who afterwards went to Africa, and of whom she never afterwards heard tidings; Lucia, by Master Walker, whose sister was her particular friend; Cato, by John Hunter, a masterly declaimer, but a plain boy, and shorter by the head than his two sons in the scene, etc. In conclusion, Starkey appears to have been one of those mild spirits, which, not originally deficient in[Pg 556] understanding, are crushed by penury into dejection and feebleness. He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society, if Fortune had taken him into a very little fostering; but wanting that, he became a Captain,—a by-word,—and lived and died a broken bulrush.

Perhaps the reader would be pleased to see another of Elia's contributions to Hone's "Every-Day Book." For, though Lamb's articles in that amusing and very entertaining miscellany are not very highly finished or very carefully elaborated, they contain many touches of his delicious humor and exquisite pathos, and are, indeed, replete with the quaint beauties and beautiful oddities of his very original and very delightful genius.

Sterne's sentimental description of the Dead Ass is immortal; but few of the readers and admirers of Charles Lamb know that he, who wrote so eloquently and pathetically in defence of Beggars and of Chimney-Sweepers, and who so ably and successfully vindicated the little innocent hare from the charge—made "by Linnæus perchance, or Buffon"—of being a timid animal, indited an essay on the same long-eared and loud-voiced quadruped.

THE ASS.

Mr. Collier, in his "Poetical Decameron," (Third Conversation,) notices a tract printed in 1595, with the author's initials only, A. B., entitled, "The Nobleness of the Asse: a work rare, learned, and excellent." He has selected the following pretty passage from it:—"He [the ass] refuseth no burthen; he goes whither he is sent, without any contradiction. He lifts not his foote against any one; he bytes not; he is no fugitive, nor malicious affected. He doth all things in good sort, and to his liking that hath cause to employ him. If strokes be given him, he cares not for them; and, as out modern poet singeth,—

'Thou wouldst (perhaps) he should become thy foe,
And to that end dost beat him many times:
He cares not for himselfe, much lesse thy blow.'"[B]

Certainly Nature, foreseeing the cruel usage which this useful servant to man should receive at man's hand, did prudently in furnishing him with a tegument impervious to ordinary stripes. The malice of a child or a weak hand can make feeble impressions on him. His back offers no mark to a puny foeman. To a common whip or switch his hide presents an absolute insensibility. You might as well pretend to scourge a school-boy with a tough pair of leather breeches on. His jerkin is well fortified; and therefore the costermongers "between the years 1790 and 1800" did more politicly than piously in lifting up a part of his upper garment. I well remember that beastly and bloody custom. I have often longed to see one of those refiners in discipline himself at the cart's tail, with just such a convenient spot laid bare to the tender mercies of the whipster. But, since Nature has resumed her rights, it is to be hoped that this patient creature does not suffer to extremities,—and that to the savages who still belabor his poor carcass with their blows (considering the sort of anvil they are laid upon,) he might in some sort, if he could speak, exclaim, with the philosopher, "Lay on! you beat but upon the case of Anaxarchus."

Contemplating this natural safeguard, this fortified exterior, it is with pain I view the sleek, foppish, combed, and curried person of this animal as he is transmuted and disnaturalized at watering-places, etc., where they affect to make a palfrey of him. Fie on all such sophistications! It will never do, Master Groom! Something of his honest shaggy exterior will still peep up in spite of you,—his good, rough, native, pine-apple coating. You cannot "refine a scorpion into a fish,[Pg 557] though you rinse it and scour it with ever so cleanly cookery."[C]

The modern poet quoted by A. B. proceeds to celebrate a virtue for which no one to this day had been aware that the ass was remarkable:—

"One other gift this beast hath as his owne,
Wherewith the rest could not be furnishèd;
On man himselfe the same was not bestowne:
To wit, on him is ne'er engenderèd
The hatefull vermine that doth teare the skin,
And to the bode [body] doth make his passage in."

And truly, when one thinks on the suit of impenetrable armor with which Nature (like Vulcan to another Achilles) has provided him, these subtle enemies to our repose would have shown some dexterity in getting into his quarters. As the bogs of Ireland by tradition expel toads and reptiles, he may well defy these small deer in his fastnesses. It seems the latter had not arrived at the exquisite policy adopted by the human vermin "between 1790 and 1800."

But the most singular and delightful gift of the ass, according to the writer of this pamphlet, is his voice, the "goodly, sweet, and continual brayings" of which, "whereof they forme a melodious and proportionable kinde of musicke," seem to have affected him with no ordinary pleasure. "Nor thinke I," he adds, "that any of our immoderate musitians can deny but that their song is full of exceeding pleasure to be heard; because therein is to be discerned both concord, discord, singing in the meane, the beginning to sing in large compasse, then following on to rise and fall, the halfe note, whole note, musicke of five voices, firme singing by four voices, three together, or one voice and a halfe. Then their variable contrarieties amongst them, when one delivers forth a long tenor or a short, the pausing for time, breathing in measure, breaking the minim or very least moment of time. Last of all, to heare the musicke of five or six voices chaunged to so many of asses is amongst them to heare a song of world without end."

There is no accounting for ears, or for that laudable enthusiasm with which an author is tempted to invest a favorite subject with the most incompatible perfections. I should otherwise, for my own taste, have been inclined rather to have given a place to these extraordinary musicians at that banquet of nothing-less-than-sweet sounds, imagined by old Jeremy Collier, (Essays, 1698, part ii., On Music,) where, after describing the inspiriting effects of martial music in a battle, he hazards an ingenious conjecture, whether a sort of anti-music might not be invented, which should have quite the contrary effect of "sinking the spirits, shaking the nerves, curdling the blood, and inspiring despair and cowardice and consternation." "'T is probable," he says, "the roaring of lions, the warbling of cats and screech-owls, together with a mixture of the howling of dogs, judiciously imitated and compounded, might go a great way in this invention." The dose, we confess, is pretty potent, and skilfully enough prepared. But what shall we say to the ass of Silenus, who, if we may trust to classic lore, by his own proper sounds, without thanks to cat or screech-owl, dismayed and put to rout a whole army of giants? Here was anti-music with a vengeance,—a whole Pan-Dis-Harmonicon in a single lungs of leather!

But I keep you trifling too long on this asinine subject. I have already passed the Pons Asinorum, and will desist, remembering the old pedantic pun of Jem Boyer, my schoolmaster:—

Lamb not only had a passionate fondness for old books and old friends, but he loved the old associations. He was no admirer of your modern improvements. Unlike Dr. Johnson, he did not go into the "most stately shops," but purchased his books and engravings at the stalls and from second-hand dealers. In his eyes, the old Inner-Temple Church was a handsomer and statelier structure[Pg 558] than the finest Cathedral in England; and to his ear, as well as to the ear of Will Honeycomb, the old familiar cries of the peripatetic London merchants were more musical than the songs of larks and nightingales. It grieved him sorely to see an old building demolished which he had passed and repassed for years, in his daily walks to and from his business,—or an old custom abolished, whose observance he had witnessed when a child. "The disappearance of the old clock from St. Dunstan's Church," says Mr. Moxon, in his pleasant tribute to Lamb's memory in Leigh Hunt's Journal, "drew tears from his eyes; nor could he ever pass without emotion the place where Exeter Change once stood. The removal had spoiled a reality in Gay. 'The passer-by,' he said, 'no longer saw the combs dangle in his face.' This almost broke his heart." And he begins the following little "essaykin" with a lamentation over the disappearance from the streets of London of the tinman's old original sign, and a sigh for "the good old modes of our ancestors."

What he says of maiden aunts and their pets is delightful, and pleasantly reminds the reader of Addison's account of Sam Trusty's visit to the Widow Feeble.

IN RE SQUIRRELS.

What is gone with the cages, with the climbing squirrel and bells to them, which were formerly the indispensable appendage to the outside of a tinman's shop, and were, in fact, the only live signs? One, we believe, still hangs out on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with the good old modes of our ancestors. They seem to have been superseded by that still more ingenious refinement of modern humanity, the tread-mill, in which human squirrels still perform a similar round of ceaseless, improgressive clambering, which must be nuts to them.

We almost doubt the fact of the teeth of this creature being so purely orange-colored as Mr. Urban's correspondent gives out. One of our old poets—and they were pretty sharp observers of Nature—describes them as brown. But perhaps the naturalist referred to meant "of the color of a Maltese orange,"[D] which is rather more obfuscated than your fruit of Seville or St. Michael's, and may help to reconcile the difference. We cannot speak from observation; but we remember at school getting our fingers into the orangery of one of these little gentry, (not having a due caution of the traps set there,) and the result proved sourer than lemons. The author of the "Task" somewhere speaks of their anger as being "insignificantly fierce"; but we found the demonstration of it on this occasion quite as significant as we desired, and have not been disposed since to look any of these "gift horses" in the mouth. Maiden aunts keep these "small deer," as they do parrots, to bite people's fingers, on purpose to give them good advice "not to venture so near the cage another time." As for their "six quavers divided into three quavers and a dotted crotchet," I suppose they may go into Jeremy Bentham's next budget of Fallacies, along with the "melodious and proportionable kinde of musicke," recorded in your last number, of another highly gifted animal.

Although Lamb took little, if any, interest in public affairs, and, indeed, knew about as much of the events and occurrences of the day as the sublime, abstracted dancing-master immortalized in one of the letters to Manning, he appears to have been profoundly and painfully impressed by the fate of Fauntleroy, the forger. He thought and talked of Fauntleroy by day, and dreamed of Fauntleroy at night. And on the day after the execution of that unfortunate man, Lamb, thus solemnly, yet humorously[Pg 559] withal, writes to his good friend Bernard Barton, poet and bank-officer:—

"And now, my dear Sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become more impressive than usual with the charge of them. Who that standeth knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most willing to believe, have never deviated into others' property. You think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence; but so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at last have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are a banker, or, at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great amount. If, in an unguarded hour——But I will hope better. Consider the scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go to see a Quaker hanged that would be indifferent to the fate of a Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged as I, in my own presumption, am ready, too ready, to do myself. What are we better than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? Think on these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers,—not for their resemblance to the ape tribe, (which is something,) but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking, fingering, etc."

And a few months after writing the above letter, Lamb contributed to "The London Magazine,"—then in its decadence, but among whose "creaking rafters" Elia fondly lingered, "like the last rat,"—to this (his favorite periodical) he contributed a brief, but beautiful paper, suggested by Fauntleroy's sad story. The article is entitled "The Last Peach," and purports to be written by a bank-officer (possibly the author had Barton in his mind while writing it) who fears he may become a second Fauntleroy. The piece contains one or two delightful passages, and is, in fact, full of happy touches and felicitous bits of description. Very charming (to me, at least) is the account of the plucking of the last peach, and very touching is the allusion to the babe Fauntleroy. But good wine (or a good peach) needs no bush; and therefore, without further comment or commendation, I present "The Last Peach" to the appreciative reader. He will find it to be, unless I am a very poor judge of the article, a peach of excellent quality and of a peculiarly fine flavor.

The garden in which grew the tree on which "lingered the one last peach" belonged to "Blakesmoor," the fine old family-mansion of the Plummers of Hertfordshire, in whose family Lamb's maternal grandmother—"the grandame" of his poem of that name, and the "great-grandmother Field" of Elia's "Dream-Children"—was housekeeper for many years.

THE LAST PEACH.

I am the miserablest man living. Give me counsel, dear Editor. I was bred up in the strictest principles of honesty, and have passed my life in punctual adherence to them. Integrity might be said to be ingrained in our family. Yet I live in constant fear of one day coming to the gallows.

Till the latter end of last autumn, I never experienced these feelings of self-mistrust, which ever since have embittered my existence. From the apprehension of that unfortunate man [E] whose story began to make so great an impression[Pg 560] upon the public about that time, I date my horrors. I never can get it out of my head that I shall some time or other commit a forgery, or do some equally vile thing. To make matters worse, I am in a banking-house. I sit surrounded with a cluster of bank-notes. These were formerly no more to me than meat to a butcher's dog. They are now as toads and aspics. I feel all day like one situated amidst gins and pitfalls. Sovereigns, which I once took such pleasure in counting out, and scraping up with my little tin shovel, (at which I was the most expert in the banking-house,) now scald my hands. When I go to sign my name, I set down that of another person, or write my own in a counterfeit character. I am beset with temptations without motive. I want no more wealth than I possess. A more contented being than myself, as to money-matters, exists not. What should I fear?

When a child, I was once let loose, by favor of a nobleman's gardener, into his Lordship's magnificent fruit-garden, with full leave to pull the currants and the gooseberries; only I was interdicted from touching the wall-fruit. Indeed, at that season (it was the end of autumn) there was little left. Only on the south wall (can I forget the hot feel of the brick-work?) lingered the one last peach. Now peaches are a fruit which I always had, and still have, an almost utter aversion to. There is something to my palate singularly harsh and repulsive in the flavor of them. I know not by what demon of contradiction inspired, but I was haunted with an irresistible desire to pluck it. Tear myself as often as I would from the spot, I found myself still recurring to it, till, maddening with desire, (desire I cannot call it,) with wilfulness rather,—without appetite, (against appetite, I may call it,) in an evil hour I reached out my hand, and plucked it. Some few rain-drops just then fell; the sky, from a bright day, became overcast; and I was a type of our first parents, after eating of that fatal fruit. I felt myself naked and ashamed, stripped of my virtue, spiritless. The downy fruit, whose sight rather than savor had tempted me, dropped from my hand, never to be tasted. All the commentators in the world cannot persuade me but that the Hebrew word, in the second chapter of Genesis, translated apple, should be rendered peach. Only this way can I reconcile that mysterious story.

Just such a child at thirty am I among the cash and valuables, longing to pluck, without an idea of enjoyment further. I cannot reason myself out of these fears: I dare not laugh at them. I was tenderly and lovingly brought up. What then? Who that in life's entrance had seen the babe F——, from the lap stretching out his little fond mouth to catch the maternal kiss, could have predicted, or as much as imagined, that life's very different exit? The sight of my own fingers torments me, they seem so admirably constructed for—pilfering. Then that jugular vein, which I have in common——; in an emphatic sense may I say with David, I am "fearfully made." All my mirth is poisoned by these unhappy suggestions. If, to dissipate reflection, I hum a tune, it changes to the "Lamentations of a Sinner." My very dreams are tainted. I awake with a shocking feeling of my hand in some pocket.

Advise me, dear Editor, on this painful heart-malady. Tell me, do you feel anything allied to it in yourself? Do you never feel an itching, as it were,—a dactylomania,—or am I alone? You have my honest confession. My next may appear from Bow Street.

Delightful as the essays of Elia are, Lamb did not spend all the "riches of his wit" in their production. His letters—so full are they of "the salt and fineness of wit,"—so richly humorous and so deliciously droll,—so rammed and crammed with the oddest conceits and the wildest fancies, and the quaintest, queerest thoughts, ideas, and speculations—are scarcely inferior to his essays. Indeed, some of the best and most admired[Pg 561] of the essays are but extended letters. The germ of the immortal dissertation on "Roast Pig" is contained in a letter to Coleridge; the essay entitled "Distant Correspondents" is hardly more than a transcript of a private letter to Barron Field; and the original sketch of "The Gentle Giantess" was given in a letter to Miss Wordsworth.

In the following letter—which is not included in Talfourd's "Life and Letters of Charles Lamb," and will therefore be new to most readers—Lamb writes very much in the manner in which Shakspeare's fools and jesters—in some respects the wisest and thoughtfullest characters in his works—talk. If his words be "light as air," they vent "truths deep as the centre." If the Fool in "Lear" had written letters to his friends and acquaintances, I think they would have marvellously resembled this epistle to Patmore; and if, in saying this, I compliment the Fool, I hope I do not derogate from the genius of Elia. Jaques, it will be remembered, after hearing the "motley fool" moral on the time, declared that "motley's the only wear"; and I opine that Lamb would consider it no small praise to be likened, in wit, wisdom, and eloquence, to Touchstone, or to the Clown in "Twelfth Night."

TO P. G. PATMORE.

Dear P.,—I am poorly. I have been to a funeral, where I made a pun, to the consternation of the rest of the mourners; and we had wine. I can't describe to you the howl which the widow set up at proper intervals. Dash could; for it was not unlike what he makes.

The letter I sent you was directed to the care of E. White, India House, for Mrs. Hazlitt: which Mrs. Hazlitt I don't yet know; but A. has taken it to France on speculation. Really it is embarrassing. There is Mrs. present H., Mrs. late H., and Mrs. John H.; and to which of the three Mrs. Wigginses it appertains I don't know. I wanted to open it; but it's transportation.

I am sorry you are plagued about your book. I would strongly recommend you to take for one story Massinger's "Old Law." It is exquisite. I can think of no other.

Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and stands up on his hind-legs. He misses Beckey, who is gone to town. I took him to Barnet the other day; and he couldn't eat his victuals after it. Pray God his intellects be not slipping.

Mary is gone out for some soles. I suppose it's no use to ask you to come and partake of 'em, else there's a steam-vessel.

I am doing a tragi-comedy in two acts, and have got on tolerably; but it will be refused, or worse. I never had luck with anything my name was put to.

Oh, I am so poorly! I waked it at my cousin's the bookbinder's, who is now with God; or, if he is not, it's no fault of mine.

We hope the frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I like her.

Did you ever taste frogs? Get them, if you can. They are little Liliput rabbits, only a thought nicer.

Christ, how sick I am!—not of the world, but of the widow's shrub. She's sworn under six thousand pounds; but I think she perjured herself. She howls in E la; and I comfort her in B flat. You understand music?

If you haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first bibliothèque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's edition); and if they haven't got it, you can have "Athalie," par Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it; but that "Old Law" 's delicious!

"No shrimps!" (That's in answer to Mary's question about how the soles are to be done.)

I am uncertain where this wandering letter may reach you. What you mean by "poste restante," God knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage? So I do, to Dover.

We had a merry passage with the[Pg 562] widow at the Commons. She was howling,—part howling, and part giving directions to the proctor,—when, crash! down went my sister through a crazy chair, and made the clerks grin; and I grinned, and the widow tittered; and then I knew that she was not inconsolable. Mary was more frightened than hurt.

"If he bring but a relict away,
He is happy, nor heard to complain."

Shenstone.

Procter has got a wen growing out at the nape of his neck, which his wife wants him to have cut off: but I think it rather an agreeable excrescence; like his poetry, redundant. Hone has hanged himself for debt. Godwin was taken up for picking pockets. Beckey takes to bad courses. Her father was blown up in a steam-machine. The coroner found it insanity. I should not like him to sit on my letter.[F]

Do try and get some frogs. You must ask for "grenouilles" (green-eels). They don't understand "frogs"; though it's a common phrase with us.

If you go through Bulloign [Boulogne], inquire if old Godfrey is living, and how he got home from the Crusades. He must be a very old man now.

If there is anything new in politics or literature in France, keep it till I see you again; for I'm in no hurry. Chatty-Briant [Châteaubriand] is well, I hope.

I think I have no more news; only give both our loves ("all three," says Dash) to Mrs. Patmore, and bid her get quite well, as I am at present, bating qualms, and the grief incident to losing a valuable relation.

Of all the essays of Elia, the paper on "Roast Pig" is perhaps the most read, the most quoted, the most admired. 'T is even better, says an epicurean friend of mine, than the "crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted crackling" it descants upon so eloquently. Certainly Lamb never writes so richly and so delightfully as when he discourses of the dainties and delicacies of the table.

Though all our readers are doubtlessly familiar with Elia's beautiful little article entitled "Thoughts on Presents of Game," very few of them have read the letter he wrote in acknowledgment of a present of a pig from a farmer and his wife. 'T is a rare bit, a choice morsel of Lamb's best and most delicious humor, and will be perused with great pleasure and satisfaction by all admirers of its witty and eccentric author. Here it is.

TO A FARMER AND HIS WIFE.

The pig was above my feeble praise. It was a dear pigmy. There was some contention as to who should have the ears; but, in spite of his obstinacy, (deaf as these little creatures are to advice,) I contrived to get at one of them.

It came in boots, too, which I took as a favor. Generally these pretty toes—pretty toes!—are missing; but I suppose he wore them to look taller.

He must have been the least of his race. His little foots would have gone into the silver slipper. I take him to have been a Chinese and a female.

If Evelyn could have seen him, he would never have farrowed two such prodigious volumes; seeing how much good can be contained in—how small a compass!

I left a blank at the top of my letter, not being determined which to address it to: so farmer and farmer's wife will please to divide our thanks. May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your laborers busy, and you as idle and as happy as the day is long![Pg 563]

Vive l'Agriculture!

How do you make your pigs so little?
They are vastly engaging at the age:
I was so myself.
Now I am a disagreeable old hog,
A middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half.
My faculties, thank God, are not much impaired!

I have my sight, hearing, taste, pretty perfect; and can read the Lord's Prayer in common type, by the help of a candle, without making many mistakes.

Believe me, that, while my faculties last, I shall ever cherish a proper appreciation of your many kindnesses in this way, and that the last lingering relish of past favors upon my dying memory will be the smack of that little ear. It was the left ear, which is lucky. Many happy returns,—not of the pig, but of the New Year, to both!

FOOTNOTES:

[B] "Who this modern poet was," says Mr. Collier, "is a secret worth discovering." The wood-cut on the title of the pamphlet is an ass with a wreath of laurel round his neck.

[C] Milton, from memory.

[D] Fletcher, in the "Faithful Shepherdess." The Satyr offers to Clorin

"grapes whose lusty blood
Is the learned poet's good;
Sweeter yet did never crown
The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown
Than the squirrels' teeth that crack them."

[E] Fauntleroy.

[F] The reader, says Mr. Patmore, need not be told that all the above items of home-news are pure fiction.

TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.

November 3, 1864.

Calm priest of Nature, her maternal hand
Led thee, a reverent child,
To mountain-altars, by the lonely strand,
And through the forest wild.

Haunting her temple, filled with love and awe,
To thy responsive youth
The harmonies of her benignant law
Revealed consoling truth.

Thenceforth, when toiling in the grasp of Care
Amid the eager throng,
A votive seer, her greetings thou didst bear,
Her oracles prolong.

The vagrant winds and the far heaving main
Breathed in thy chastened rhyme,
Their latent music to the soul again,
Above the din of time.

The seasons, at thy call, renewed the spell
That thrilled our better years,
The primal wonder o'er our spirits fell,
And woke the fount of tears.

And Faith's monition, like an organ's strain,
Followed the sea-bird's flight,
The river's bounteous flow, the ripening grain,
And stars' unfathomed light.
[Pg 564]

In the dank woods and where the meadows gleam,
The lowliest flower that smiled
To wisdom's vigil or to fancy's dream
Thy gentle thought beguiled.

They win fond glances in the prairie's sweep,
And where the moss-clumps lie,
A welcome find when through the mould they creep,
A requiem when they die.

Unstained thy song with passion's fitful hues
Or pleasure's reckless breath,
For Nature's beauty to thy virgin muse
Was solemnized by death.

O'er life's majestic realm and dread repose,
Entranced with holy calm,
From the rapt soul of boyhood then uprose
The memorable psalm.

And roaming lone beneath the woodland shades,
Thy meditative prayer
In the umbrageous aisles and choral glades
We murmur unaware;

Or track the ages with prophetic cheer,
Lured by thy chant sublime,
Till bigotry and kingcraft disappear
In Freedom's chosen clime,—

While on her ramparts with intrepid mien,
O'er faction's angry sea,
Thy voice proclaims, undaunted and serene,
The watchwords of the free.

Not in vague tones or tricks of verbal art
The plaint and pæan rung:
Thine the clear utterance of an earnest heart,
The limpid Saxon tongue.

Our country's minstrel! in whose crystal verse
With tranquil joy we trace
Her native glories, and the tale rehearse
Of her primeval race,—

Blest are thy laurels, that unchallenged crown
Worn brow and silver hair,
For truth and manhood consecrate renown,
And her pure triumph share!

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

Our gallant Bob Stephens, into whose life-boat our Marianne has been received, has lately taken the mania of house-building into his head. Bob is somewhat fastidious, difficult to please, fond of domesticities and individualities; and such a man never can fit himself into a house built by another, and accordingly house-building has always been his favorite mental recreation. During all his courtship as much time was taken up in planning a future house as if he had money to build one, and all Marianne's patterns, and the backs of half their letters, were scrawled with ground-plans and elevations. But latterly this chronic disposition has been quickened into an acute form by the falling-in of some few thousands to their domestic treasury,—left as the sole residuum of a painstaking old aunt, who took it into her head to make a will in Bob's favor, leaving, among other good things, a nice little bit of land in a rural district half an hour's railroad-ride from Boston.

So now ground-plans thicken, and my wife is being consulted morning, noon, and night, and I never come into the room without finding their heads close together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on his favorite idea of a library. He appears to have got so far as this, that the ceiling is to be of carved oak, with ribs running to a boss overhead, and finished mediævally with ultramarine blue and gilding,—and then away he goes sketching Gothic patterns of book-shelves which require only experienced carvers, and the wherewithal to pay them, to be the divinest things in the world.

Marianne is exercised about china-closets and pantries, and about a bed-room on the ground-door,—for, like all other women of our days, she expects not to have strength enough to run up-stairs oftener than once or twice a week; and my wife, who is a native genius in this line, and has planned in her time dozens of houses for acquaintances, wherein they are at this moment living happily, goes over every day with her pencil and ruler the work of rearranging the plans, according as the ideas of the young couple veer and vary.

One day Bob is importuned to give two feet off from his library for a closet in the bed-room,—but resists like a Trojan. The next morning, being mollified by private domestic supplications, Bob yields, and my wife rubs out the lines of yesterday, two feet come off the library, and a closet is constructed. But now the parlor proves too narrow,—the parlor-wall must be moved two feet into the hall. Bob declares this will spoil the symmetry of the latter, and if there is anything he wants, it is a wide, generous, ample hall to step into when you open the front-door.

"Well, then," says Marianne, "let's put two feet more into the width of the house."

"Can't, on account of the expense, you see," says Bob. "You see, every additional foot of outside wall necessitates so many more bricks, so much more flooring, so much more roofing, etc."

And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the plans, and considers how two feet more are to be got into the parlor without moving any of the walls.

"I say," says Bob, bending over her shoulder, "here, take your two feet in the parlor, and put two more feet on to the other side of the hall-stairs"; and he dashes heavily with his pencil.

"Oh, Bob!" exclaims Marianne, "there[Pg 566] are the kitchen-pantries! you ruin them,—and no place for the cellar-stairs!"

"Hang the pantries and cellar-stairs!" says Bob, "Mother must find a place for them somewhere else. I say the house must be roomy and cheerful, and pantries and those things may take care of themselves; they can be put somewhere well enough. No fear but you will find a place for them somewhere. What do you women always want such a great enormous kitchen for?"

"It is not any larger than is necessary," said my wife, thoughtfully; "nothing is gained by taking off from it."

"What if you should put it all down into a basement," suggests Bob, "and so get it all out of sight together?"

"Never, if it can be helped," said my wife. "Basement-kitchens are necessary evils, only to be tolerated in cities where land is too dear to afford any other."

So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep over it. The next morning an inspiration visits my wife's pillow. She is up and seizes plans and paper, and before six o'clock has enlarged the parlor very cleverly, by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes and wanes the prospective house, innocently battered down and rebuilt with India-rubber and black-lead. Doors are cut out to-night, and walled up to-morrow,—windows knocked out here and put in there, as some observer suggests possibilities of too much or too little draught. Now all seems finished, when, lo, a discovery! There is no fireplace nor stove-flue in my lady's bed-room, and can be none without moving the bathing-room. Pencil and India-rubber are busy again, and for a while the whole house seems to threaten to fall to pieces with the confusion of the moving; the bath-room wanders like a ghost, now invading a closet, now threatening the tranquillity of the parlor, till at last it is laid by some unheard-of calculations of my wife's, and sinks to rest in a place so much better that everybody wonders it never was thought of before.

"Papa," said Jennie, "it appears to me people don't exactly know what they want when they build; why don't you write a paper on house-building?"

"I have thought of it," said I, with the air of a man called to settle some great reform. "It must be entirely because Christopher has not written that our young people and mamma are tangling themselves daily in webs which are untangled the next day."

"You see," said Jennie, "they have only just so much money, and they want everything they can think of under the sun. There's Bob been studying architectural antiquities, and nobody knows what, and sketching all sorts of curly-whorlies; and Marianne has her notions about a parlor and boudoir and china-closets and bedroom-closets; and Bob wants a baronial hall; and mamma stands out for linen-closets and bathing-rooms and all that; and so among them all it will just end in getting them head over ears in debt."

"I don't know, Jennie, whether my writing an article is going to prevent all this; but as my time in the 'Atlantic' is coming round, I may as well write on what I am obliged to think of, and so I will give a paper on the subject to enliven our next evening's session."

So that evening, when Bob and Marianne had dropped in as usual, and while the customary work of drawing and rubbing-out was going on at Mrs. Crowfield's sofa, I produced my paper and read as follows:—

OUR HOUSE.

There is a place called "Our House," which everybody knows of. The sailor talks of it in his dreams at sea. The wounded soldier, turning in his uneasy hospital-bed, brightens at the word,—it is like the dropping of cool water in the desert, like the touch of cool fingers on a burning brow. "Our house," he says feebly, and the light comes back into his dim eyes,—for all homely charities, all fond thoughts, all purities, all that man loves on earth or hopes for in heaven, rise with the word.[Pg 567]

"Our house" may be in any style of architecture, low or high. It may be the brown old farm-house, with its tall well-sweep, or the one-story gambrel-roofed cottage, or the large, square, white house, with green blinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century, or it may be the log-cabin of the wilderness, with its one room,—still there is a spell in the memory of it beyond all conjurations. Its stone and brick and mortar are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles are dear to us, powerful to bring back the memories of early days, and all that is sacred in home-love.

"Papa is getting quite sentimental," whispered Jennie, loud enough for me to hear. I shook my head at her impressively, and went on undaunted.

There is no one fact of our human existence that has a stronger influence upon us than the house we dwell in,—especially that in which our earlier and more impressible years are spent. The building and arrangement of a house influence the health, the comfort, the morals, the religion. There have been houses built so devoid of all consideration for the occupants, so rambling and hap-hazard in the disposal of rooms, so sunless and cheerless and wholly without snugness or privacy, as to make it seem impossible to live a joyous, generous, rational, religious family-life in them.

There are, we shame to say, in our cities things called houses, built and rented by people who walk erect and have the general air and manner of civilized and Christianized men, which are so inhuman in their building that they can only be called snares and traps for souls,—places where children cannot well escape growing up filthy and impure,—places where to form a home is impossible, and to live a decent, Christian life would require miraculous strength.

A celebrated British philanthropist, who had devoted much study to the dwellings of the poor, gave it as his opinion that temperance-societies were a hopeless undertaking in London, unless these dwellings underwent a transformation. They were so squalid, so dark, so comfortless, so constantly pressing upon the senses foulness, pain, and inconvenience, that it was only by being drugged with gin and opium that their miserable inhabitants could find heart to drag on life from day to day. He had himself tried the experiment of reforming a drunkard by taking him from one of these loathsome dens and enabling him to rent a tenement in a block of model lodging-houses which had been built under his supervision. The young man had been a designer of figures for prints; he was of a delicate frame, and a nervous, susceptible temperament. Shut in one miserable room with his wife and little children, without the possibility of pure air, with only filthy, fetid water to drink, with the noise of other miserable families resounding through the thin partitions, what possibility was there of doing anything except by the help of stimulants, which for a brief hour lifted him above the perception of these miseries? Changed at once to a neat flat, where, for the same rent as his former den, he had three good rooms, with water for drinking, house-service, and bathing freely supplied, and the blessed sunshine and air coming in through windows well arranged for ventilation, he became in a few weeks a new man. In the charms of the little spot which he could call home, its quiet, its order, his former talent came back to him, and he found strength, in pure air and pure water and those purer thoughts of which they are the emblems, to abandon burning and stupefying stimulants.

The influence of dwelling-houses for good or for evil—their influence on the brain, the nerves, and, through these, on the heart and life—is one of those things that cannot be enough pondered by those who build houses to sell or rent.

Something more generous ought to inspire a man than merely the percentage which he can get for his money. He who would build houses should think[Pg 568] a little on the subject. He should reflect what houses are for,—what they may be made to do for human beings. The great majority of houses in cities are not built by the indwellers themselves,—they are built for them, by those who invest their money in this way, with little other thought than the percentage which the investment will return.

For persons of ample fortune there are, indeed, palatial residences, with all that wealth can do to render life delightful. But in that class of houses which must be the lot of the large majority, those which must be chosen by young men in the beginning of life, when means are comparatively restricted, there is yet wide room for thought and the judicious application of money.

In looking over houses to be rented by persons of moderate means, one cannot help longing to build,—one sees so many ways in which the same sum which built an inconvenient and unpleasant house might have been made to build a delightful one.

"That's so!" said Bob, with emphasis. "Don't you remember, Marianne, how many dismal, commonplace, shabby houses we trailed through?"

"Yes," said Marianne. "You remember those houses with such little squeezed rooms and that flourishing staircase, with the colored-glass china-closet window and no butler's sink?"

"Yes," said Bob; "and those astonishing, abominable stone abortions that adorned the door-steps. People do lay out a deal of money to make houses look ugly, it must be confessed."

"One would willingly," said Marianne, "dispense with frightful stone ornaments in front, and with heavy mouldings inside, which are of no possible use or beauty, and with showy plaster cornices and centre-pieces in the parlor-ceilings, and even with marble mantels, for the luxury of hot and cold water in each chamber, and a couple of comfortable bath-rooms. Then, the disposition of windows and doors is so wholly without regard to convenience! How often we find rooms, meant for bed-rooms, where really there is no good place for either bed or dressing-table!"

Here my wife looked up, having just finished re-drawing the plans to the latest alteration.

"One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these reforming days," she observed, "would be to have women architects. The mischief with houses built to rent is that they are all mere male contrivances. No woman would ever plan chambers where there is no earthly place to set a bed except against a window or door, or waste the room in entries that might be made into closets. I don't see, for my part, apropos to the modern movement for opening new professions to the female sex, why there should not be well-educated female architects. The planning and arrangement of houses, and the laying-out of grounds, are a fair subject of womanly knowledge and taste. It is the teaching of Nature. What would anybody think of a bluebird's nest that had been built entirely by Mr. Blue without the help of his wife?"

"My dear," said I, "you must positively send a paper on this subject to the next Woman's-Rights Convention."

"I am of Sojourner Truth's opinion," said my wife,—"that the best way to prove the propriety of one's doing anything is to go and do it. A woman who should have energy to go through the preparatory studies and set to work in this field would, I am sure, soon find employment."

"If she did as well as you would do, my dear," said I. "There are plenty of young women in our Boston high-schools who are going through higher fields of mathematics than are required by the architect, and the schools for design show the flexibility and fertility of the female pencil. The thing appears to me altogether more feasible than many other openings which have been suggested to woman."

What ought "our house" to be? Could any other question be asked admitting in its details of such varied answers,—answers various as the means, the character, and situation of different individuals? But there are great wants pertaining to every human being, into which all lesser ones run. There are things in a house that every one, high or low, rich or poor, ought, according to his means, to seek. I think I shall class them according to the elemental division of the old philosophers,—Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. These form the groundwork of this need-be,—the sine-qua-nons of a house.

"Wait a little till you do, then," said I. "I will try to make my meaning plain."

The first object of a house is shelter from the elements. This object is effected by a tent or wigwam which keeps off rain and wind. The first disadvantage of this shelter is, that the vital air which you take into your lungs, and on the purity of which depends the purity of blood and brain and nerve, is vitiated. In the wigwam or tent you are constantly taking in poison, more or less active, with every inspiration. Napoleon had his army sleep without tents. He stated, that, from experience, he found it more healthy; and wonderful have been the instances of delicate persons gaining constantly in vigor from being obliged, in the midst of hardships, to sleep constantly in the open air. Now the first problem in house-building is to combine the advantage of shelter with the fresh elasticity of out-door air. I am not going to give here a treatise on ventilation, but merely to say, in general terms, that the first object of a house-builder or contriver should be to make a healthy house, and the first requisite of a healthy house is a pure, sweet, elastic air.

I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of house-building which have wide central spaces, whether halls or courts, into which all the rooms open, and which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the use of them all. In hot climates this is the object of the central court which cuts into the body of the house, with its fountain and flowers, and its galleries, into which the various apartments open. When people are restricted for space, and cannot afford to give up wide central portions of the house for the mere purposes of passage, this central hall can be made a pleasant sitting-room. With tables, chairs, bookcases, and sofas comfortably disposed, this ample central room above and below is, in many respects, the most agreeable lounging-room of the house; while the parlors below and the chambers above, opening upon it, form agreeable withdrawing-rooms for purposes of greater privacy.

It is customary with many persons to sleep with bed-room windows open,—a very imperfect, and often dangerous mode of procuring that supply of fresh air which a sleeping-room requires. In a house constructed in the manner indicated, windows might be freely left open in these central halls, producing there a constant movement of air, and the doors of the bed-rooms placed ajar, when a very slight opening in the windows would create a free circulation through the apartments.

In the planning of a house, thought should be had as to the general disposition of the windows, and the quarters from which favoring breezes may be expected should be carefully considered. Windows should be so arranged that draughts of air can be thrown quite through and across the house. How often have we seen pale mothers and drooping babes fanning and panting during some of our hot days on the sunny side of a house, while the breeze that should have cooled them beat in vain against a dead wall! One longs sometimes to knock holes through partitions and let in the air of heaven.

No other gift of God, so precious, so inspiring,[Pg 570] is treated with such utter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals as this same air of heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if one had a preacher who understood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the most orthodox discourse to show when and how and why sin came. A minister gets up in a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost makes the candles burn blue, and bewails the deadness of the church,—the church the while, drugged by the poisoned air, growing sleepier and sleepier, though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so.

Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon's rambles in the fields, last evening said his prayers dutifully, and lay down to sleep in a most Christian frame, this morning sits up in bed with his hair bristling with crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won't say his prayers,—that he don't want to be good. The simple difference is, that the child, having slept in a close box of a room, his brain all night fed by poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Delicate women remark that it takes them till eleven or twelve o'clock to get up their strength in the morning. Query,—Do they sleep with closed windows and doors, and with heavy bed-curtains?

The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated in certain respects than modern ones, with all their improvements. The great central chimney, with its open fireplaces in the different rooms, created a constant current which carried off foul and vitiated air. In these days, how common is it to provide rooms with only a flue for a stove! This flue is kept shut in summer, and in winter opened only to admit a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of the air quite as fast as the occupants breathe it away. The sealing-up of fireplaces and introduction of air-tight stoves may, doubtless, be a saving of fuel: it saves, too, more than that; in thousands and thousands of cases it has saved people from all further human wants, and put an end forever to any needs short of the six feet of narrow earth which are man's only inalienable property. In other words, since the invention of air-tight stoves, thousands have died of slow poison. It is a terrible thing to reflect upon, that our Northern winters last from November to May, six long months, in which many families confine themselves to one room, of which every window-crack has been carefully calked to make it air-tight, where an air-tight stove keeps the atmosphere at a temperature between eighty and ninety, and the inmates sitting there with all their winter clothes on become enervated both by the heat and by the poisoned air, for which there is no escape but the occasional opening of a door.

It is no wonder that the first result of all this is such a delicacy of skin and lungs that about half the inmates are obliged to give up going into the open air during the six cold months, because they invariably catch cold, if they do so. It is no wonder that the cold caught about the first of December has by the first of March become a fixed consumption, and that the opening of the spring, which ought to bring life and health, in so many cases brings death.

We hear of the lean condition in which the poor bears emerge from their six-months' wintering, during which they subsist on the fat which they have acquired the previous summer. Even so in our long winters, multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily waning strength which they acquired in the season when windows and doors were open, and fresh air was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring fever and spring biliousness, and have thousands of nostrums for clearing the blood in the spring. All these things are the pantings and palpitations of a system run down under slow poison, unable to get a step farther. Better, far better, the old houses of the olden time, with their great roaring fires, and their bed-rooms where the snow came in and the wintry winds whistled. Then, to be sure, you froze your back while you burned your face, your water froze nightly in your pitcher, your[Pg 571] breath congealed in ice-wreaths on the blankets, and you could write your name on the pretty snow-wreath that had sifted in through the window-cracks. But you woke full of life and vigor,—you looked out into whirling snow-storms without a shiver, and thought nothing of plunging through drifts as high as your head on your daily way to school. You jingled in sleighs, you snowballed, you lived in snow like a snow-bird, and your blood coursed and tingled, in full tide of good, merry, real life, through your veins,—none of the slow-creeping, black blood which clogs the brain and lies like a weight on the vital wheels!

"Mercy upon us, papa!" said Jennie, "I hope we need not go back to such houses!"

"No, my dear," I replied. "I only said that such houses were better than those which are all winter closed by double windows and burnt-out air-tight stoves."

The perfect house is one in which there is a constant escape of every foul and vitiated particle of air through one opening, while a constant supply of fresh out-door air is admitted by another. In winter, this out-door air must pass through some process by which it is brought up to a temperate warmth.

Take a single room, and suppose on one side a current of out-door air which has been warmed by passing through the air-chamber of a modern furnace. Its temperature need not be above sixty-five,—it answers breathing purposes better at that. On the other side of the room let there be an open wood- or coal-fire. One cannot conceive the purposes of warmth and ventilation more perfectly combined.

Suppose a house with a great central hall, into which a current of fresh, temperately warmed air is continually pouring. Each chamber opening upon this hall has a chimney up whose flue the rarefied air is constantly passing, drawing up with it all the foul and poisonous gases. That house is well ventilated, and in a way that need bring no dangerous draughts upon the most delicate invalid. For the better securing of privacy in sleeping-rooms, we have seen two doors employed, one of which is made with slats, like a window-blind, so that air is freely transmitted without exposing the interior.

When we speak of fresh air, we insist on the full rigor of the term. It must not be the air of a cellar, heavily laden with the poisonous nitrogen of turnips and cabbages, but good, fresh, out-door air from a cold-air pipe so placed as not to get the lower stratum near the ground, where heavy damps and exhalations collect, but high up in just the clearest and most elastic region.

The conclusion of the whole matter is, that, as all of man's and woman's peace and comfort, all their love, all their amiability, all their religion, have got to come to them, while they live in this world, through the medium of the brain,—and as black, uncleansed blood acts on the brain as a poison, and as no other than black, uncleansed blood can be got by the lungs out of impure air,—the first object of the man who builds a house is to secure a pure and healthy atmosphere therein.

Therefore, in allotting expenses, set this down as a must-be: "Our house must have fresh air,—everywhere, at all times, winter and summer." Whether we have stone facings or no,—whether our parlor has cornices or marble mantels or no,—whether our doors are machine-made or hand-made. All our fixtures shall be of the plainest and simplest, but we will have fresh air. We will open our door with a latch and string, if we cannot afford lock and knob and fresh air too,—but in our house we will live cleanly and Christianly. We will no more breathe the foul air rejected from a neighbor's lungs than we will use a neighbor's tooth-brush and hair-brush. Such is the first essential of "our[Pg 572] house,"—the first great element of human health and happiness,—Air.

"You may be quite sure," said I, "if your mother has had a hand in planning your house, that the ventilation is cared for."

It must be confessed that Bob's principal idea in a house had been a Gothic library, and his mind had labored more on the possibility of adapting some favorite bits from the baronial antiquities to modern needs than on anything so terrestrial as air. Therefore he awoke as from a dream, and taking two or three monstrous inhalations, he seized the plans and began looking over them with new energy. Meanwhile I went on with my prelection.

The second great vital element for which provision must be made in "our house" is Fire. By which I do not mean merely artificial fire, but fire in all its extent and branches,—the heavenly fire which God sends us daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as well as the mimic fires by which we warm our dwellings, cook our food, and light our nightly darkness.

To begin, then, with heavenly fire or sunshine. If God's gift of vital air is neglected and undervalued, His gift of sunshine appears to be hated. There are many houses where not a cent has been expended on ventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been freely lavished to keep out the sunshine. The chamber, truly, is tight as a box,—it has no fireplace, not even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue; but, oh, joy and gladness! it has outside blinds and inside folding-shutters, so that in the brightest of days we may create there a darkness that may be felt. To observe the generality of New-England houses, a spectator might imagine that they were planned for the torrid zone, where the great object is to keep out a furnace-draught of burning air.

But let us look over the months of our calendar. In which of them do we not need fires on our hearths? We will venture to say that from October to June all families, whether they actually have it or not, would be the more comfortable for a morning and evening fire. For eight months in the year the weather varies on the scale of cool, cold, colder, and freezing; and for all the four other months what is the number of days that really require the torrid-zone system of shutting up houses? We all know that extreme heat is the exception, and not the rule.

Yet let anybody travel, as I did last year, through the valley of the Connecticut, and observe the houses. All clean and white and neat and well-to-do, with their turfy yards and their breezy great elms,—but all shut up from basement to attic, as if the inmates had all sold out and gone to China. Not a window-blind open above or below. Is the house inhabited? No,—yes,—there is a faint stream of blue smoke from the kitchen-chimney, and half a window-blind open in some distant back-part of the house. They are living there in the dim shadows, bleaching like potato-sprouts in the cellar.

"I can tell you why they do it, papa," said Jennie,—"it's the flies, and flies are certainly worthy to be one of the plagues of Egypt. I can't myself blame people that shut up their rooms and darken their houses in fly-time,—do you, mamma?"

"Not in extreme cases; though I think there is but a short season when this is necessary; yet the habit of shutting up lasts the year round, and gives to New-England villages that dead, silent, cold, uninhabited look which is so peculiar."

"The one fact that a traveller would gather in passing through our villages would be this," said I, "that the people live in their houses and in the dark. Rarely do you see doors and windows open, people sitting at them, chairs in the yard, and signs that the inhabitants are living out-of-doors."

"Well," said Jennie, "I have told you why, for I have been at Uncle Peter's[Pg 573] in summer, and aunt does her spring-cleaning in May, and then she shuts all the blinds and drops all the curtains, and the house stays clean till October. That's the whole of it. If she had all her windows open, there would be paint and windows to be cleaned every week,—and who is to do it? For my part, I can't much blame her."

"Well," said I, "I have my doubts about the sovereign efficacy of living in the dark, even if the great object of existence were to be rid of flies. I remember, during this same journey, stopping for a day or two at a country boarding-house which was dark as Egypt from cellar to garret. The long, dim, gloomy dining-room was first closed by outside blinds, and then by impenetrable paper curtains, notwithstanding which it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. You found where the cake-plate was by the buzz which your hand made, if you chanced to reach in that direction. It was disagreeable, because in the darkness flies could not always be distinguished from huckleberries; and I couldn't help wishing, that, since we must have the flies, we might at least have the light and air to console us under them. People darken their rooms and shut up every avenue of out-door enjoyment, and sit and think of nothing but flies; in fact, flies are all they have left. No wonder they become morbid on the subject."

"Well, now, papa talks just like a man,—doesn't he?" said Jennie. "He hasn't the responsibility of keeping things clean. I wonder what he would do, if he were a housekeeper."

"Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I could. I would shut my eyes on fly-specks, and open them on the beauties of Nature. I would let the cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few summer days when coolness is the one thing needful: those days may be soon numbered every year. I would make a calculation in the spring how much it would cost to hire a woman to keep my windows and paint clean, and I would do with one less gown and have her; and when I had spent all I could afford on cleaning windows and paint, I would harden my heart and turn off my eyes, and enjoy my sunshine and my fresh air, my breezes, and all that can be seen through the picture-windows of an open, airy house, and snap my fingers at the flies. There you have it."

"Why shouldn't it be? Was God mistaken, when He made the sun? Did He make him for us to hold a life's battle with? Is that vital power which reddens the cheek of the peach and pours sweetness through the fruits and flowers of no use to us? Look at plants that grow without sun,—wan, pale, long-visaged, holding feeble, imploring hands of supplication towards the light. Can human beings afford to throw away a vitalizing force so pungent, so exhilarating? You remember the experiment of a prison, where one row of cells had daily sunshine, and the others none. With the same regimen, the same cleanliness, the same care, the inmates of the sunless cells were visited with sickness and death in double measure. Our whole population in New England are groaning and suffering under afflictions, the result of a depressed vitality,—neuralgia, with a new ache for every day of the year, rheumatism, consumption, general debility; for all these a thousand nostrums are daily advertised, and money enough is spent on them to equip an army, while we are fighting against, wasting, and throwing away with both hands that blessed influence which comes nearest to pure vitality of anything God has given.

"Who is it that the Bible describes as a sun, arising with healing in his wings? Surely, that sunshine which is the chosen type and image of His love must be healing through all the recesses of our daily life, drying damp and mould, defending from moth and rust, sweetening ill smells, clearing from the nerves the vapors of melancholy, making life cheery. If I did not know Him, I should certainly adore[Pg 574] and worship the sun, the most blessed and beautiful image of Him among things visible. In the land of Egypt, in the day of God's wrath, there was darkness, but in the land of Goshen there was light. I am a Goshenite, and mean to walk in the light, and forswear the works of darkness.—But to proceed with our reading."

"Our house" shall be set on a southeast line, so that there shall not be a sunless room in it, and windows shall be so arranged that it can be traversed and transpierced through and through with those bright shafts of life which come straight from God.

"Our house" shall not be blockaded with a dank, dripping mass of shrubbery set plumb against the windows, keeping out light and air. There shall be room all round it for breezes to sweep, and sunshine to sweeten and dry and vivify; and I would warn all good souls who begin life by setting out two little evergreen-trees within a foot of each of their front-windows, that these trees will grow and increase till their front-rooms will be brooded over by a sombre, stifling shadow fit only for ravens to croak in.

One would think, by the way some people hasten to convert a very narrow front-yard into a dismal jungle, that the only danger of our New-England climate was sunstroke. Ah, in those drizzling months which form at least one-half of our life here, what sullen, censorious, uncomfortable, unhealthy thoughts are bred of living in dark, chilly rooms, behind such dripping thickets! Our neighbors' faults assume a deeper hue,—life seems a dismal thing,—our very religion grows mouldy.

My idea of a house is, that, as far as is consistent with shelter and reasonable privacy, it should give you on first entering an open, breezy, out-door freshness of sensation. Every window should be a picture; sun and trees and clouds and green grass should seem never to be far from us. "Our house" may shade, but not darken us. "Our house" shall have bow-windows, many, sunny, and airy,—not for the purpose of being cleaned and shut up, but to be open and enjoyed. There shall be long verandas above and below, where invalids may walk dry-shod, and enjoy open-air recreation in wettest weather. In short, I will try to have "our house" combine as far as possible the sunny, joyous, fresh life of a gypsy in the fields and woods with the quiet and neatness and comfort and shelter of a roof, rooms, floors, and carpets.

After heavenly fire, I have a word to say of earthly, artificial fires. Furnaces, whether of hot water, steam, or hot air, are all healthy and admirable provisions for warming our houses during the eight or nine months of our year that we must have artificial heat, if only, as I have said, fireplaces keep up a current of ventilation.

The kitchen-range with its water-back I humbly salute. It is a great throbbing heart, and sends its warm tides of cleansing, comforting fluid all through the house. One could wish that this friendly dragon could be in some way moderated in his appetite for coal,—he does consume without mercy, it must be confessed,—but then, great is the work he has to do. At any hour of day or night in the most distant part of your house, you have but to turn a stop-cock and your red dragon sends you hot water for your needs; your washing-day becomes a mere play-day; your pantry has its ever-ready supply; and then, by a little judicious care in arranging apartments and economizing heat, a range may make two or three chambers comfortable in winter weather. A range with a water-back is among the must-bes in "our house."

Then, as to the evening light,—I know nothing as yet better than gas, where it can be had. I would certainly not have a house without it. The great objection to it is the danger of its escape through imperfect fixtures. But it must not do this: a fluid that kills a tree or a plant with one breath must certainly be a dangerous ingredient in the atmosphere, and if admitted into houses, must be introduced with every safeguard.[Pg 575]

There are families living in the country who make their own gas by a very simple process. This is worth an inquiry from those who build. There are also contrivances now advertised, with good testimonials, of domestic machines for generating gas, said to be perfectly safe, simple to be managed, and producing a light superior to that of the city gas-works. This also is worth an inquiry, when "our house" is to be in the country.

And now I come to the next great vital element for which "our house" must provide,—water. "Water, water everywhere,"—it must be plentiful, it must be easy to get at, it must be pure. Our ancestors had some excellent ideas in home-living and house-building. Their houses were, generally speaking, very sensibly contrived,—roomy, airy, and comfortable; but in their water-arrangements they had little mercy on womankind. The well was out in the yard; and in winter one must flounder through snow and bring up the ice-bound bucket, before one could fill the tea-kettle for breakfast. For a sovereign princess of the republic this was hardly respectful or respectable. Wells have come somewhat nearer in modern times; but the idea of a constant supply of fresh water by the simple turning of a stop-cock has not yet visited the great body of our houses. Were we free to build "our house" just as we wish it, there should be a bath-room to every two or three inmates, and the hot and cold water should circulate to every chamber.

Among our must-bes, we would lay by a generous sum for plumbing. Let us have our bath-rooms, and our arrangements for cleanliness and health in kitchen and pantry; and afterwards let the quality of our lumber and the style of our finishings be according to the sum we have left. The power to command a warm bath in a house at any hour of day or night is better in bringing up a family of children than any amount of ready medicine. In three-quarters of childish ailments the warm bath is an almost immediate remedy. Bad colds, incipient fevers, rheumatisms, convulsions, neuralgias innumerable, are washed off in their first beginnings, and run down the lead pipes into oblivion. Have, then, O friend, all the water in your house that you can afford, and enlarge your ideas of the worth of it, that you may afford a great deal. A bathing-room is nothing to you that requires an hour of lifting and fire-making to prepare it for use. The apparatus is too cumbrous,—you do not turn to it. But when your chamber opens upon a neat, quiet little nook, and you have only to turn your stop-cocks and all is ready, your remedy is at hand,—you use it constantly. You are waked in the night by a scream, and find little Tom sitting up, wild with burning fever. In three minutes he is in the bath, quieted and comfortable; you get him back, cooled and tranquil, to his little crib, and in the morning he wakes as if nothing had happened.

Why should not so invaluable and simple a remedy for disease, such a preservative of health, such a comfort, such a stimulus, be considered as much a matter-of-course in a house as a kitchen-chimney? At least there should be one bath-room always in order, so arranged that all the family can have access to it, if one cannot afford the luxury of many.

A house in which water is universally and skilfully distributed is so much easier to take care of as almost to verify the saying of a friend, that his house was so contrived that it did its own work: one had better do without carpets on the floors, without stuffed sofas and rocking-chairs, and secure this.

"Well, papa," said Marianne, "you have made out all your four elements in your house except one. I can't imagine what you want of earth."

"I thought," said Jennie, "that the less of our common mother we had in our houses, the better housekeepers we were."

"My dears," said I, "we philosophers must give an occasional dip into the mystical, and say something apparently absurd[Pg 576] for the purpose of explaining that we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives common people an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear we come out of our apparent contradictions and absurdities. Listen."

For the fourth requisite of "our house," Earth, let me point you to your mother's plant-window, and beg you to remember the fact that through our long, dreary winters we are never a month without flowers, and the vivid interest which always attaches to growing things. The perfect house, as I conceive it, is to combine as many of the advantages of living out of doors as may be consistent with warmth and shelter, and one of these is the sympathy with green and growing things. Plants are nearer in their relations to human health and vigor than is often imagined. The cheerfulness that well-kept plants impart to a room comes not merely from gratification of the eye,—there is a healthful exhalation from them, they are a corrective of the impurities of the atmosphere. Plants, too, are valuable as tests of the vitality of the atmosphere; their drooping and failure convey to us information that something is amiss with it. A lady once told me that she could never raise plants in her parlors on account of the gas and anthracite coal. I answered, "Are you not afraid to live and bring up your children in an atmosphere which blights your plants?" If the gas escapes from the pipes, and the red-hot anthracite coal or the red-hot air-tight stove burns out all the vital part of the air, so that healthy plants in a few days wither and begin to drop their leaves, it is a sign that the air must be looked to and reformed. It is a fatal augury for a room that plants cannot be made to thrive in it. Plants should not turn pale, be long-jointed, long-leaved, and spindling; and where they grow in this way, we may be certain that there is a want of vitality for human beings. But where plants appear as they do in the open air, with vigorous, stocky growth, and short-stemmed, deep-green leaves, we may believe the conditions of that atmosphere are healthy for human lungs.

It is pleasant to see how the custom of plant-growing has spread through our country. In how many farm-house windows do we see petunias and nasturtiums vivid with bloom while snows are whirling without, and how much brightness have those cheap enjoyments shed on the lives of those who cared for them! We do not believe there is a human being who would not become a passionate lover of plants, if circumstances once made it imperative to tend upon, and watch the growth of one. The history of Picciola for substance has been lived over and over by many a man and woman who once did not know that there was a particle of plant-love in their souls. But to the proper care of plants in pots there are many hindrances and drawbacks. The dust chokes the little pores of their green lungs, and they require constant showering; and to carry all one's plants to a sink or porch for this purpose is a labor which many will not endure. Consequently plants often do not get a showering once a month. We should try to imitate more closely the action of Mother Nature, who washes every green child of hers nightly with dews, which lie glittering on its leaves till morning.

"Yes, there it is!" said Jennie. "I think I could manage with plants, if it were not for this eternal showering and washing they seem to require to keep them fresh. They are always tempting one to spatter the carpet and surrounding furniture, which are not equally benefited by the libation."

"It is partly for that very reason," I replied, "that the plan of 'our house' provides for the introduction of Mother Earth, as you will see."

A perfect house, according to my idea, should always include in it a little compartment where plants can be kept, can be watered, can be defended from the dust, and have the sunshine and all the conditions of growth.[Pg 577]

People have generally supposed a conservatory to be one of the last trappings of wealth,—something not to be thought of for those in modest circumstances. But is this so? You have a bow-window in your parlor. Leave out the flooring, fill the space with rich earth, close it from the parlor by glass doors, and you have room for enough plants and flowers to keep you gay and happy all winter. If on the south side, where the sunbeams have power, it requires no heat but that which warms the parlor, and the comfort of it is incalculable, and the expense a mere trifle greater than that of the bow-window alone.

In larger houses a larger space might be appropriated in this way. We will not call it a conservatory, because that name suggests ideas of gardeners and mysteries of culture and rare plants which bring all sorts of care and expense in their train. We would rather call it a greenery, a room floored with earth, with glass sides to admit the sun,—and let it open on as many other rooms of the house as possible.

Why should not the dining-room and parlor be all winter connected by a spot of green and flowers, with plants, mosses, and ferns for the shadowy portions, and such simple blooms as petunias and nasturtiums garlanding the sunny portion near the windows? If near the waterworks, this greenery might be enlivened by the play of a fountain, whose constant spray would give that softness to the air which is so often burned away by the dry heat of the furnace.

"And do you really think, papa, that houses built in this way are a practical result to be aimed at?" said Jennie. "To me it seems like a dream of the Alhambra."

"Yet I happen to have seen real people in our day living in just such a house," said I. "I could point you, this very hour, to a cottage, which in style of building is the plainest possible, which unites many of the best ideas of a true house. My dear, can you sketch the ground-plan of that house we saw in Brighton?"

"Here it is," said my wife, after a few dashes with her pencil,—"an inexpensive house, yet one of the pleasantest I ever saw."

"This cottage, which might, at the rate of prices before the war, have been built for five thousand dollars, has many of the requirements which I seek for a house. It has two stories, and a tier of very pleasant attic-rooms, two bathing-rooms, and the water carried into each story. The parlor and dining-room both look into a little bower, where a fountain is ever playing into a little marble basin, and which all the year through has its green and bloom. It is heated simply from the furnace by a register, like any other room of the house, and requires no more care than a delicate woman could easily give. The brightness and[Pg 578] cheerfulness it brings during our long, dreary winters is incredible."

But one caution is necessary in all such appendages. The earth must be thoroughly underdrained to prevent the vapors of stagnant water, and have a large admixture of broken charcoal to obviate the consequences of vegetable decomposition. Great care must be taken that there be no leaves left to fall and decay on the ground, since vegetable exhalations poison the air. With these precautions such a plot will soften and purify the air of a house.

Where the means do not allow even so small a conservatory, a recessed window might be fitted with a deep box, which should have a drain-pipe at the bottom, and a thick layer of broken charcoal and gravel, with a mixture of fine wood-soil and sand for the top stratum. Here ivies may be planted, which will run and twine and strike their little tendrils here and there, and give the room in time the aspect of a bower; the various greenhouse nasturtiums will make winter gorgeous with blossoms. In windows unblest by sunshine—and, alas, such are many!—one can cultivate ferns and mosses; the winter-growing ferns, of which there are many varieties, can be mixed with mosses and woodland flowers.

Early in February, when the cheerless frosts of winter seem most wearisome, the common blue violet, wood-anemone, hepatica, or rock-columbine, if planted in this way, will begin to bloom. The common partridge-berry, with its brilliant scarlet fruit and dark green leaves, will also grow finely in such situations, and have a beautiful effect. These things require daily showering to keep them fresh, and the moisture arising from them will soften and freshen the too dry air of heated winter rooms.

Thus I have been through my four essential elements in house-building,—air, fire, water, and earth. I would provide for these before anything else. After they are secured, I would gratify my taste and fancy as far as possible in other ways. I quite agree with Bob in hating commonplace houses, and longing for some little bit of architectural effect, and I grieve profoundly that every step in that direction must cost so much. I have also a taste for niceness of finish. I have no objection to silver-plated door-locks and hinges, none to windows which are an entire plate of clear glass; I congratulate neighbors who are so fortunate as to be able to get them, and after I had put all the essentials into a house, I would have these too, if I had the means.

But if all my wood-work were to be without groove or moulding, if my mantels were to be of simple wood, if my doors were all to be machine-made, and my lumber of the second quality, I would have my bath-rooms, my conservatory, my sunny bow-windows, and my perfect ventilation,—and my house would then be so pleasant, and every one in it in such a cheerful mood, that it would verily seem to be ceiled with cedar.

Speaking of ceiling with cedar, I have one thing more to say. We Americans have a country abounding in beautiful timber, of whose beauties we know nothing, on account of the pernicious and stupid habit of covering it with white paint.

The celebrated zebra-wood with its golden stripes cannot exceed in quaint beauty the grain of unpainted chestnut, prepared simply with a coat or two of oil. The butternut has a rich golden brown, the very darling color of painters,—a shade so rich, and grain so beautiful, that it is of itself as charming to look at as a rich picture. The black-walnut, with its heavy depth of tone, works in well as an adjunct; and as to oak, what can we say enough of its quaint and many shadings? Even common pine, which has been considered not decent to look upon till hastily shrouded in a friendly blanket of white paint, has, when oiled and varnished, the beauty of satin-wood. The second quality of pine, which[Pg 579] has what are called shakes in it, under this mode of treatment often shows clouds and veins equal in beauty to the choicest woods. The cost of such a finish is greatly less than that of the old method, and it saves those days and weeks of cleaning which are demanded by white paint, while its general tone is softer and more harmonious. Experiments in color may be tried in the combination of these woods, which at small expense produce the most charming effects.

As to paper-hangings, we are proud to say that our American manufacturers now furnish all that can be desired. There are some branches of design where artistic, ingenious France must still excel us,—but whoso has a house to fit up, let him first look at what his own country has to show, and he will be astonished.

There is one topic in house-building on which I would add a few words. The difficulty of procuring and keeping good servants, which must long be one of our chief domestic troubles, warns us so to arrange our houses that we shall need as few as possible. There is the greatest conceivable difference in the planning and building of houses as to the amount of work which will be necessary to keep them in respectable condition. Some houses require a perfect staff of house-maids;—there are plated hinges to be rubbed, paint to be cleaned, with intricacies of moulding and carving which daily consume hours of dusting to preserve them from a slovenly look. Simple finish, unpainted wood, a general distribution of water through the dwelling, will enable a very large house to be cared for by one pair of hands, and yet maintain a creditable appearance.

In kitchens one servant may perform the work of two by a close packing of all the conveniences for cooking and such arrangements as shall save time and steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors by suitable provisions for water, hot and cold, by wringers, which save at once the strength of the linen and of the laundress, and by drying-closets connected with ranges, where articles can in a few moments be perfectly dried. These, with the use of a small mangle, such as is now common in America, reduce the labors of the laundry one-half.

There are many more things which might be said of "our house," and Christopher may, perhaps, find some other opportunity to say them. For the present his pen is tired and ceaseth.

THE NEW SCHOOL OF BIOGRAPHY.

Poor Rachel, passing slowly away from the world that had so applauded her hollow, but brilliant career, tasted the bitterness of death in reflecting that she should so soon be given over to the worms and the biographers. Fortunate Rachel, resting in serene confidence that the two would be fellow-laborers! It is the unhappy fate of her survivors to have reached a day in which biographers have grown impatient of the decorous delay which their lowly coadjutors demand. They can no longer wait for the lingering soul to yield up its title-deeds before they enter in and take possession; but, fired with an evil energy, they outstrip the worms and torment us before the time.

Curiosity is undoubtedly one of the heaven-appointed passions of the human animal. Dear to the heart of man has ever been his neighbor's business. Precious in the eyes of woman is the linen-closet of that neighbor's wife. During its tender teething infancy, the world's sobs could always be soothed into smiles[Pg 580] by an open bureau with large liberty to upheave its contents from turret to foundation-stone. As the infant world ascended from cambric and dimity to broadcloth and crinoline, its propensity for investigation grew stronger. It loved not bureaus less, but a great many other things more. What sad consequences might have ensued, had this passion been left to forage for itself, no one can tell. But, by the wonderful principle of adaptation which obtains throughout the universe, the love of receiving information is met and mastered by the love of imparting information. As much pleasure as it gives Angelina to learn how many towels and table-cloths go into Seraphina's wedding-outfit, so much, yea, more, swells in Cherubella's bosom at being able to present to her friend this apple from the tree of knowledge. The worthy Muggins finds no small consolation for the loss of his overcoat and umbrella from the front entry in the exhilaration he experiences while relating to each member of his ever-revolving circle of friends the details of his loss,—the suspicion, the search, the certainty,—the conjectures, suggestions, and emotions of himself and his family.

Hence these tears which we are about to shed. For, betwixt the love of hearing on the one side, and the love of telling, on the other, small space remains on which one may adventure to set the sole of his foot and feel safe from the spoiler. There is of course a legitimate gratification for every legitimate desire,—the desire to know our neighbors' affairs among others. But there is a limit to this gratification, and it is hinted at by legal enactments. The law justly enough bounds a man's power over his possessions. For twenty-one years after his generation has passed away, his dead hand may rule the wealth which its living skill amassed. Then it dies another death, draws back into a deeper grave, and has henceforth no more power than any sister-clod. But, except as a penalty for crime, the law awards to a man right to his own possessions through life; and the personal facts and circumstances of his life have usually been considered among his closest, most inalienable possessions.

Alas, that the times are changed, and we be all dead men so far as concerns immunity from publication! There is no manner of advantage in being alive. The sole safety is to lie flat on the earth along with one's generation. The moment an audacious head is lifted one inch above the general level, pop! goes the unerring rifle of some biographical sharp-shooter, and it is all over with the unhappy owner. A perfectly respectable and well-meaning man, suffering under the accumulated pains of Presidentship, has the additional and entirely undeserved ignominy of being hawked about the country as the "Pioneer Boy." A statesman whose reputation for integrity has been worth millions to the land, and whose patriotism should have won him a better fate, is stigmatized in duodecimo as the "Ferry Boy." An innocent and popular Governor is fastened in the pillory under the thin disguise of the "Bobbin Boy." Every victorious advance of our grand army is followed by a long procession of biographical statistics. A brave man leading his troops to victory may escape the bullets and bayonets of the foe, but he is sure to be transfixed to the sides of a newspaper with the pen of some cannibal entomologist. We are thrilled to-day with the telegram announcing the brilliant and successful charge made by General Smith's command; and according to that inevitable law of succession by which the sun his daily round of duty runs, we shall be thrilled to-morrow with the startling announcement that "General Smith was born in ——," etc., etc., etc.

Unquestionably, there is somewhere in the land a regularly organized biographical bureau, by which every man, President or private, has his lot apportioned him,—one mulcted in a folio, the other in a paragraph. If we examine somewhat closely the features of this peculiar institution, we shall learn that a distinguishing characteristic of the new school[Pg 581] of biography is the astonishing familiarity shown by the narrator with the circumstances, the conversations, and the very thoughts of remarkable boys in their early life. The incidents of childhood are usually forgotten before the man's renown has given them any importance; the few anecdotes which tradition has preserved are seized upon with the utmost avidity and placed in the most conspicuous position; but in these later books we have illustrious children portrayed with a Pre-Raphaelitic and most prodigal pencil.

Take the opening scene in a garden where "Nat"—we must protest against this irreverent abbreviation of the name of that honored Governor whose life in little we are about to behold—and his father are at work.

"'There, Nat, if you plant and hoe your squashes with care, you will raise a nice parcel of them on this piece of ground. It is good soil for squashes.'

"'Seven or eight. It is well to put in enough, as some of them may not come up, and when they get to growing well, pull up all but four in a hill. You must not have your hills too near together,—they should be five feet apart, and then the vines will cover the ground all over. I should think there would be room for fifty hills on this patch of ground.'

"'Well,' said his father, smiling, 'that is hard telling. We won't count the chickens before they are hatched. But if you are industrious, and take very good care indeed of your vines, stir the ground often and keep out all the weeds and kill the bugs, I have little doubt that you will get well paid for your labor.'

"'If I have fifty hills,' said Nat, 'and four vines in each hill, I shall have two hundred vines in all; and if there is one squash on each vine, there will be two hundred squashes.'

"'Yes; but there are so many ifs about it, that you may be disappointed after all. Perhaps the bugs will destroy half your vines.'

"'That is certainly having good courage, Nat,' added his father; 'but if you conquer the bugs, and get around the dry weather, it may be too wet and blast your vines,—or there may be such a hail-storm as I have known several times in my life, and cut them to pieces.'

"'I don't think there will be such a hail-storm this year; there never was one like it since I can remember.'

"'I hope there won't be,' replied his father. 'It is well to look on the bright side, and hope for the best, for it keeps the courage up. It is also well to look out for disappointment. I know a gentleman who thought he would raise some ducks,'" etc., etc., etc.

We are told that this scene was enacted about thirty-five years ago, and, as if we should not be sufficiently lost in admiration of that wonderful memory which enabled somebody to retain so long, and restore so unimpaired, the words and deeds of that distant May morning, we are further informed that the author is "obliged to pass over much that belongs to the patch of squashes"! "Is it possible?" one is led to exclaim. We should certainly have supposed that this report was exhaustive. We can hardly conceive that any further interest should inhere in that patch of squashes; whereas it seems that the half was not told us. Nor is this the sole instance. Records equally minute of conversations equally brilliant are lavished on page after page with a recklessness of expenditure that argues unlimited wealth,—conversations between the Boy and his father, between the Boy and his mother, between the Boy's father and mother, between the Boy's neighbors about the Boy, in which his numerous excellences are set in the strongest light, exhortations of the Boy's teacher to his school, play-ground talk of[Pg 582] the Boy and his fellow-boys,—among whom the Boy invariably stands head and shoulders higher than they. We fear the world of boys has hitherto been much demoralized by being informed that many distinguished men were but dull fellows in the school-house, or unnoticed on the play-ground. But we have changed all that. The Bobbin Boy was the most industrious, the most persevering, the most self-reliant, the most virtuous, the most exemplary of all the boys of his time. So was the Ferry Boy, and the Pioneer Boy so. "Nat"—we blame and protest, but we join in the plan of using this undignified sobriquet—Nat was the one that swam three rods under water; Nat astonished the school with the eloquence of his declamation; it was Nat that got all the glory of the games; it was of no use for any one to try for any prize where Nat was a competitor. And as Nat's neighbors thought of Nat, so thought Abe's—we shudder at the sound—Abe's neighbors of Abe, the Pioneer Boy. Of what Salmon's neighbors said about Salmon we are not so well informed; but we have no doubt they often exclaimed one to another,—

"Was never Salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee!"

Nor are the Boys backward in having a tolerably good opinion of their own goodness.

"Boys are likely to want their own way, and spend their time in idleness," says the mother of a President, upon another occasion.

"When a boy gets to going to the tavern to smoke and swear," says Nat's mother, "he is almost sure to drink, and become a ruined man."

"I never do smoke, mother," replies Nat, pouring cataracts of innocence. "I never go to the stable nor tavern. I don't associate with Sam and Ben Drake, nor with James Cole, nor with Oliver Fowle, more than I can help. For I know they are bad boys. I see that the worst scholars at school are those who are said to disobey their parents, and every one of them are poor scholars, and they use profane language."

Virtue so immaculate at so tender an age seems to us, we are forced to admit, unnatural. The boys that have fallen in our way have never been in the habit of making profound moral reflections, and we cannot resist the unpleasant suspicion that Nat had just been playing at marbles for "havings" with Cole, Fowle, and both the Drakes at the village-inn, and, having found this vegetable repast too strong for his digestion, went home to his mother and wreaked his discomfort on edifying moral maxims. Or else he was a prig.

The unusual and highly exciting nature of the incidents recorded in these biographies must be their excuse for a seeming violation of privacy. When a rare and precious gem is in question, one must not be over-scrupulous about breaking open the casket. What puerile prejudice in favor of privacy can rear its head in face of the statement which tells us that at the age of seven years our honored President—may he still continue such!—"devoted himself to learning to read with an energy and enthusiasm that insured success"?—such success that we learn "he could read some when he left school."

Soon after,—for here we are involved in a chronological haze,—he began to "take lessons in penmanship with the most enthusiastic ardor."

Subsequently, "there, on the soil of Indiana, Abraham Lincoln wrote his name, with a stick, in large characters,—a sort of prophetic act, that students of history may love to ponder. For, since that day, he has 'gone up higher,' and written his name, by public acts, on the annals of every State in the Union."[Pg 583]

He rescued a toad from cruel boys,—for, though "he could kill game for food as a necessity, and dangerous wild animals, his soul shrunk from torturing even a fly." Dear heart, we can easily believe that!

He bought a Ramsay's "Life of Washington," and paid for it with the labor of his own hands.

He helped to save a drunkard's life. "He thought more of the drunkard's safety than he did of his own ease. And there are many of his personal acquaintances in our land who will bear witness, that, from that day to this, this amiable quality of heart has won him admiring friends."

He took a flat-boat to New Orleans, and defended her against the negroes, who, poor fellows, were not prophetic enough to see that they were plotting against their Deliverer.

We have given a bird's-eye view of the main incidents of his boyhood, for we cannot quite agree with our author in thinking that his "old grammar laid the foundation, in part, of Abraham's future character," seeing we have previously been told that he had "become the most important man in the place," and we have the same writer's authority for believing that "the habits of life are usually fixed by the time a lad is fifteen years of age." Nor can we admit that his grammar even "taught him the rudiments of his native language," when we have been having proof upon proof, for two hundred and eighty-six pages, that he was already familiar with its rudiments. We are equally skeptical as to whether it really "opened the golden gate of knowledge" for him: we should certainty say that this gate had stood ajar, at least, for years. Indeed, that portion of his history which relates to grammar seems to us by far the most unsatisfactory of all. In his honesty, in his penmanship, in his kindness of heart, in his wit, dry or damp, we feel a confidence which not even the shock of political campaigns has been able to move. But in respect of grammar we find ourselves in a state of the most painful uncertainty. We have never regarded it as our beloved President's strong point, but we have considered any linguistic defect more than atoned for by the hearty, timely, sturdy, plain sense which appeals so directly and forcibly to the good sense of others. This book calls up a distressing doubt, and a doubt that strikes at vital interests. "Grammar," our President is reported to have said before he had cast the integuments of a grocer's clerk, "Grammar is the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety"! Is this a definition, we sorrowfully ask, becoming an American citizen? It has, indeed, in many respects the qualities of a perfect definition. It is deep; it is accurate; it is exhaustive; but it is not loyal. Coming from the lips of a subject of Great Britain, it would not surprise us. An Englishman undoubtedly believes that grammar is the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety. All the grammatical research that preceded the establishment of his mother-tongue was but the collection of fuel to feed the flame of its glory; all that follows will be to diffuse the light of that flame to the ends of the earth. Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, were but stepping-stones to the English language. Philology per se is a myth. The English language in its completeness is the completion of grammatical science. To that all knowledge tends; from that all honor radiates. So claims proud Britain's prouder son. But can an American tamely submit to such a monopoly? Is not grammar rather, or at least quite as much, the art of speaking and writing the American language correctly, and shall he sit calmly by and witness this gross outrage upon his dearest rights? But, as our author would say, we "must not dwell," and most gladly do we leave this unpleasant branch of a very pleasant subject, inwardly supplicating, that, whatever disaster is yet to befall us, we may be spared the pang of suspecting that our revered President, so stanch against the Rebels,[Pg 584] so unflinching for the Slave, is in danger of lowering his lofty crest before the rampant British lion! In view of such a calamity, one can only say in the words of that distinguished British citizen who, living in England in the full light of the nineteenth century, must be supposed to have reached the summit of grammatical excellence,—

"Gin I mun doy I mun doy, an' loife they says is sweet,
But gin I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn' abear to see it."

The life of the Ferry Boy was scarcely less adventurous than that of the Pioneer Boy, and was, indeed, in some respects its counterpart. As the latter learned to write on the tops of stools, so the former learned to read on bits of birch-bark. At an early period of his existence he broke a capful of eggs. He owned a calf. He caught an eel. He put salt on a bird's tail and learned his first lesson of the deceitfulness of the human heart. He walked to Niagara Falls from Buffalo. He got lost in the woods. He went to live with his uncle in Ohio, where he displayed spirit and killed a pig. Here also occurred a "prophecy" almost as striking as the Pioneer Boy's writing his name with a stick. "Salmon" wished to go swimming. "The Bishop said, 'No!' adding, 'Why, Salmon, the country might lose its future President, if you should get drowned!' This was the first time his name had ever been mentioned in connection with that high office; and the remark, coming from the grave Bishop's lips, must have made a strong impression on him. Was it prophetic?" Let us assume that it was, although it must for the present be ranked with what is theologically called "unfulfilled prophecy." We cannot, at any rate, be too thankful that the only occasion on which it was ever hinted to an American boy that he might one day become President has not been suffered to pass into oblivion, but has found in this little volume a monument more durable than brass. To go on with our inventory. A whole flock of thirteen pigeons shot by the Ferry Boy answered through their misty shroud to the Pioneer Boy's turkey which called to them aloud. He taught school two weeks, and then had leave to resign. He went to Washington and said his prayers like a good boy: we trust he has kept up the practice ever since.

From such a record there is but one inference: if the man is not President, he ought to be!

One great element in the success which these little books have met, the one fact which, we are persuaded, accounts for the quiet, but significant "twenty-sixth thousand" that we find on the title-page of one of them, is the pains which their authors take to make their meaning clear. They do not, like too many of our modern authors, leave a book half written, forcing the reader to finish their work as he goes along. They are instant, in season and out of season, with explanation, illustration, reflection, until the idea is, so to speak, reduced to pulp, and the reader has nothing to perform save the act of deglutition.

"When he ['Nat'] was only four years old, and was learning to read little words of two letters, he came across one about which he had quite a dispute with his teacher. It was inn.

"'I told you that it did not spell tavern, it spells inn. Now pronounce it correctly.'

"The teacher was finally obliged to give it up, and let him enjoy his own opinion. She probably called him obstinate, although there was nothing of the kind about him, as we shall see. His mother took up the matter at home, but failed to convince him that i-double n did not spell tavern. It was not until some time after that he changed his opinion on this important subject.[Pg 585]

"That this instance was no evidence of obstinacy in Nat, but only of a disposition to think 'on his own hook,' is evident from the following circumstances. There was a picture of a public-house in his book against the word inn, with the old-fashioned sign-post in front, on which a sign was swinging. Near his father's, also, stood a public-house, which everybody called a tavern, with a tall post and sign in front of it, exactly like that in his book; and Nat said within himself, 'If Mr. Morse's house [the landlord [G]] is a tavern, then this is a tavern in my book.' He cared little how it was spelled; if it did not spell tavern, 'it ought to,' he thought. Children believe what they see, more than what they hear. What they lack in reason and judgment they make up in eyes. So Nat had seen the tavern near his father's house again and again, and he had stopped to look at the sign in front of it a great many times, and his eyes told him it was just like that in the book; therefore it was his deliberate opinion that i-double n spelt tavern, and he was not to be beaten out of an opinion that was based on such clear evidence. It was a good sign in Nat. It was true of the three men to whom we have just referred,—Bowditch, Davy, and Buxton. From their childhood they thought for themselves, so that, when they became men, they defended their opinions against imposing opposition. True, a youth must not be too forward in advancing his ideas, especially if they do not harmonize with those of older persons. Self-esteem and self-confidence should be guarded against. Still, in avoiding these evils, he is not obliged to believe anything just because he is told so. It is better for him to understand the reason of things, and believe them on that account."

Would our Parks, our Palfreys, our Prescotts, our Emersons, have expounded this matter so clearly? Most assuredly not. They would have left us in the Cimmerian darkness of dreary conjecture regarding the causes of Nat's strange opinion, and the lessons to be drawn from it. Or if they had condescended to explanation, it would have been comprised in a curt phrase or two. No boundary-line between a virtue and its vice would have been drawn so that a wayfaring man, though a fool, should not err in following it. This author has struck the golden mean. There is just enough, and not too much.

"Allusion is here made to an important fact. David could not understand how Abraham could possess such a love of knowledge as to lead him to forego all social pleasures, be willing to wear a threadbare coat, live on the coarsest fare, and labor hard all day, and sit up half the night, for the sake of learning. But there is just that power in the love of knowledge, and it was this that caused Lincoln to derive happiness from doing what would have been a source of misery to David. Some of the most marked instances of self-forgetfulness recorded are connected with the pursuit of knowledge. Archimedes was so much in love with the studies of his profession, that, etc., etc. Professor Heyne, of Göttingen," etc., etc., etc.—A clearer explanation than this we have rarely met with outside the realm of mathematical demonstration.

A shorter example of the same judicious oversight we have when "in rushed Nat, under great excitement, with his eyes 'as large as saucers,' to use a hyperbole, which means only that his eyes looked very large indeed." The impression which would have been made upon the rising generation, had the testimony[Pg 586] been allowed to go forth without its corrective, that upon a certain occasion any Governor's eyes were really as large as saucers, even very small tea-saucers, is such as the imagination refuses to dwell on.

This exuberance of illustration increases the value of these books in another respect. To use a homely phrase, we get more than we bargained for. Ostensibly engaged with the life of the Bobbin Boy, we are covertly introduced to the majority of all the boys that ever were born and came to anything. The advertised story is a kind of mother-hen who gathers under her wings a numerous brood of biographical chicks. Quantities of recondite erudition are poured out on the slightest provocation. Nat's unquestioned superiority to his schoolmates evokes a disquisition for the encouragement of dull boys, in which we are told that "the great philosopher, Newton, was one of the dullest scholars in school when he was twelve years old. Doctor Isaac Barrow was such a dull, pugnacious, stupid fellow, etc., etc. The father of Doctor Adam Clarke, the commentator, called his boy, etc. Cortina," (vernacular for Cortona, probably,) "a renowned painter, was nicknamed, etc., etc. When the mother of Sheridan once, etc., etc. One teacher sent Chatterton home, etc. Napoleon and Wellington, etc., etc. And Sir Walter Scott was named," etc., etc., etc. All of which makes very pleasantly diversified reading. Nat's kindness of heart paves the way to our learning, that, "at the age of ten or twelve years, John Howard, the philanthropist, was not distinguished above the mass of boys around him, except for the kindness of his heart, and boyish deeds of benevolence. It was so with Wilberforce, whose efforts, etc., etc., etc. And Buxton, whose self-sacrificing heart," etc., etc. While Nat is swimming four rods under water, we on shore are acquiring useful knowledge of the Rothschilds, of Samuel Budget, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Buxton again, Sir Walter Scott again, and the Duke of Wellington again. Nat walks to Prospect Hill, and is attended by a suite consisting of Sir Francis Chantrey, "the gifted poet Burns," "the late Hugh Miller," etc., who also loved to look at prospects. Nat organized a debating-society, (which by the way was, "in respect of unanimity of feeling and action, a lesson to most legislative bodies, and to the Congress of the United States in particular." Congress of the United States, are you listening?) and "such an organization has proved a valuable means of improvement to many persons." Witness "the Irish orator, Curran," with biography; "a living American statesman," with biography; the "highly distinguished statesman, Canning," more biography; "Henry Clay, the American orator," with autobiography; and a meteoric shower of lesser biographies emanating from Tremont Temple. Nat carried a book in his pocket, and "Pockets have been of great service to self-made men. A more useful invention was never known, and hundreds are now living who will have occasion to speak well of pockets till they die, because they were so handy to carry a book. Roger Sherman had one when he was a hard-working shoemaker, etc., etc., etc. Napoleon had one in which he carried the Iliad when, etc. etc., etc. Hugh Miller had one, etc., etc., etc. Elihu Burritt had one," etc., etc., for three pages, to which we might add, from the best authority, the striking fact which our author, notwithstanding the wide range of his reading, seems unaccountably to have missed,—

"Lyddy Locket lost her pocket,
Lyddy Fisher found it,
Lyddy Fisher gave it to Mr. Gaines,
And Mr. Gaines ground it."

Yet, with all this elucidation, we take shame to ourselves for admitting that there are points which, after all, we do not comprehend. They may be trivial; but in making up testimony, it is the little things which have weight. Trifles light as air are confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ, and confutation no less[Pg 587] strong. When, as a proof of Nat's ardor in the pursuit of knowledge, we are told that he walked ten miles after a hard day's work to hear Daniel Webster, and then stood through the oration in front of the platform, because he could see the speaker better,—and when, turning to the next page, we are told that he was so much interested that he "would have sat entranced till morning, if the gifted orator had continued to pour forth his eloquence,"—what are we to believe? When we are bidden to "listen to the gifted orator, as the flowing periods come burning from his soul on fire, riveting the attention," etc., is it a river, or is it a fire, or is it a hammer and anvil, that we have in our mind's eye, Horatio? When Nat "waxed warmer and warmer, as he advanced, and spoke in a flow of eloquence and choice selection of words that was unusual for one of his age," did he come out dry-shod? We are told of his visit to the Boston bookstores,—that he examined the books "outside before he stepped in. He read the title of each volume upon the back, and some he took up and examined," but we have no explanation of this extraordinary behavior. "It was thus with" Abraham. "The manner in which Abraham made progress in penmanship, writing on slabs and trees, on the ground and in the snow, anywhere that he could find a place, reminds us forcibly of Pascal, who demonstrated the first thirty-two propositions of Euclid in his boyhood, without the aid of a teacher." We not only are not forcibly reminded of Pascal, but we are not reminded of Pascal at all. The boy who imitates on slabs mechanical lines which he has been taught, and he who originates mathematical problems and theorems, may be as like as my fingers to my fingers, but—alas, that it is forbidden to say—we do not see it. When Mr. Elkins told Abraham he would make a good pioneer boy, and "'What's a pioneer boy?' asked Abraham," why was Mr. Elkins "quite amused at this inquiry"? and why did he "exercise his risibles for a minute" before replying? When Mr. Stuart offered young Mr. Lincoln the use of his law-books, and young Mr. Lincoln answered,—very properly, we should say,—"You are very generous indeed. I could never repay you for such generosity," why did Mr. Stuart respond, "shaking his sides with laughter"? We do not wish to be too inquisitive, but few things are more trying to a sensitive person than to see others overwhelmed with merriment in which, from ignorance, he cannot share.

Want of space forbids us to do more than touch lightly upon the many excellences of these books. We have given extracts enough to enable our readers to see for themselves the severe elegance of style, the compactness and force of the narrative, the verisimilitude of the characters, the unity of plan, and the cogency of the reasoning. We trust they will also perceive the great moral effect that cannot fail to be produced. Such books are specially adapted to meet a daily increasing want. Our American youth are too apt to value virtue for its own sake. They are in imminent danger of giving themselves over to integrity, to industry, perseverance, and single-mindedness, without looking forward to those posts of usefulness for which these qualities eminently fit them. Fired with the love of learning, they are languid in claiming the honors which learning has to bestow. Eager to become worthy of the highest places, they make no effort to secure the places to which their worth points them. Political supineness is the bane of our society. The one great need is to rouse the ambition of boys, and wake them to political aspiration. To such objects such books tend; and who would hesitate at any sacrifice of his prejudices in favor of privacy, when such is the end to be obtained? Breathes there the man with soul so dead who would not lay upon the altar his father, his mother, his sisters, not to say his uncles and cousins, nay, the inmost sanctities of his home, to enable American boys to fasten their eyes upon the White House? Would he refuse,[Pg 588] at the call of patriotism, to spread before the public the very secrets of his heart, the struggles of his closet, his communion with his God?

As a collateral result of this new school of biography, we can but admire the new form in which Nemesis appears. The day of rich relations is gone by. No longer can stern Uncle Bishops lord it over their obscure nephews, for ever before their eyes will flaunt the possible book which will one day lay open to a gazing world all their weakness and their evil behavior. Let not wicked or disagreeable relatives imagine henceforth that they may safely indulge in small tyrannies, neglects, or other peccadilloes; for no robin-redbreast will piously cover them with leaves, but that which is done in the ear shall be proclaimed upon the house-tops, nor can they tell from what quarter the trumpet shall sound. The unkempt boy, the sullen girl in the chimney-corner, may be the Narcissus or nymph in whose orisons all their sins shall be remembered.

"You that executors be made,
And overseers eke
Of children that be fatherless,
And infants mild and meek,
Take you example by this thing,
And yield to each his right,
Lest God with such like misery
Your wicked minds requite."

In view of which benefits, and others "too numerous to mention," we humbly beg pardon for the petulance which disfigures the commencement of our paper, and desire to use all our influence to induce all persons of distinction meekly and humanely to lay open to the dear, curious world their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor.

But, however beneficial and delightful it is for a friend to impale a friend before the public gaze, we do not think that even Job himself would have desired that his adversary should write a book about him. In the motives that prompted, in the grace of the doing, in the good that will result, we can forgive the deed when friend portrays friend; but we cannot be lenient when a hostile hand exposes the life to which we have no right. We would fain borrow the type and the energy of Reginald Bazalgette to enforce our opinion that it is "abbommannabel," and the innocence of Pet Marjorie to declare it "the most Devilish thing." Yet in a loyal, respectable, religious newspaper we lately saw a biography of Mr. Vallandigham which puts to the blush all previous achievements in the line of contemporary history. It is not so much that we are let into the family-secrets, but the family-secrets are spread out before us, as the fruits of that species of domestic taxation known as "the presents" are spread out on the piano at certain wedding-festivals. We are led back to first principles, to the early married life of the parent Vallandighams. The mother is portrayed with a vigorous feminine pencil, and certainly looks extremely well on canvas. Clement's relations to her are shown to be exemplary. There is excuse for this in the attacks which have been made upon him in the relation of son. But upon what grounds are Clement's sisters' homes invaded? Because a man is disloyal and craven, shall we inform the world that his brother was crossed in love? Still more shall his wife be taken in hand, and receive what even the late Mr. Smallweed would have considered a thorough "shaking-up"? "If they were all starving," declares the energetic narrator, "she could not earn a cent in any way whatever, so utterly helpless is this fine Southern lady. She will not sleep, unless the light is kept burning all night in her room, for fear 'something might happen'; and when a slight matter crosses her feelings, she lies in bed for several days." Tut, tut, dear lady! surely this once thy zeal hath outrun thy discretion. Clement L. Vallandigham's public course is a proper target for all loyal shafts, but prithee let the poor lady, his wife, remain in peace,—such peace as she can command. It is bad enough to be his wife, without being overborne with the additional burden of her own personal foibles. One can[Pg 589] be daughter, sister, friend, without impeachment of one's sagacity or integrity; but it is such a dreadful indorsement of a man to marry him! Her own consciousness must be sufficiently grievous; pray do not irritate it into downright madness. Nay, what, after all, are the so heinous faults upon which you animadvert? She cannot earn a cent: that may be her misfortune, it need not be her fault. Perhaps Clement, like Albano, and all good husbands, "never loved to see the sweet form anywhere else than, like other butterflies, by his side among the flowers." She will keep a light burning in her room, forsooth. Have we not all our pet hobgoblins? We know an excellent woman who once sat curled up in an arm-chair all night for fear of a mouse! And is it not a well-understood thing that nothing so baffles midnight burglars as a burning candle? "When a light matter crosses her feelings, she lies in bed for several days." Infinitely better than to go sulking about the house with that "injured-innocence" air which makes a man feel as if he were an assaulter and batterer with intent to kill. Blessings rest upon those charming sensible women, who, when they feel cross, as we all do at times, will go to bed and sleep it away! No, let us everywhere put down treason and ostracize traitors. It is lawful to suspend "naso adunco" those whom we may not otherwise suspend. But even traitors have rights which white men and white women are bound to respect. We will crush them, if we can, but we will crush them in open field, by fair fight,—not by stealing into their bedchambers to stab them through the heart of a wife.

FOOTNOTES:

[G] The meaning of this is, that Mr. Morse was the landlord, not the house. Of course a house could not be a landlord; still less could it be a landlord to itself.—Note by Reviewer.

THE LAST RALLY.

November, 1864.

Rally! rally! rally!
Arouse the slumbering land!
Rally! rally! from mountain and valley,
And up from the ocean-strand!
Ye sons of the West, America's best!
New Hampshire's men of might!
From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
And rally to the fight!

Armies of untried heroes,
Disguised in craftsman and clerk!
Ye men of the coast, invincible host!
Come, every one, to the work,—
From the fisherman gray as the salt-sea spray
That on Long Island breaks,
To the youth who tills the uttermost hills
By the blue northwestern lakes!

And ye Freedmen! rally, rally
To the banners of the North!
Through the shattered door of bondage pour
Your swarthy legions forth!
[Pg 590] Kentuckians! ye of Tennessee
Who scorned the despot's sway!
To all, to all, the bugle-call
Of Freedom sounds to-day!

Old men shall fight with the ballot,
Weapon the last and best,—
And the bayonet, with blood red-wet,
Shall write the will of the rest;
And the boys shall fill men's places,
And the little maiden rock
Her doll as she sits with her grandam and knits
An unknown hero's sock.

And the hearts of heroic mothers,
And the deeds of noble wives,
With their power to bless shall aid no less
Than the brave who give their lives.
The rich their gold shall bring, and the old
Shall help us with their prayers;
While hovering hosts of pallid ghosts
Attend us unawares.

From the ghastly fields of Shiloh
Muster the phantom bands,
From Virginia's swamps, and Death's white camps
On Carolina sands;
From Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg,
I see them gathering fast;
And up from Manassas, what is it that passes
Like thin clouds in the blast?

From the Wilderness, where blanches
The nameless skeleton;
From Vicksburg's slaughter and red-streaked water,
And the trenches of Donelson;
From the cruel, cruel prisons,
Where their bodies pined away,
From groaning decks, from sunken wrecks,
They gather with us to-day.

And they say to us, "Rally! rally!
The work is almost done!
Ye harvesters, sally from mountain and valley
And reap the fields we won!
We sowed for endless years of peace,
We harrowed and watered well;
Our dying deeds were the scattered seeds:
Shall they perish where they fell?"

And their brothers, left behind them
In the deadly roar and clash
Of cannon and sword, by fort and ford,
And the carbine's quivering flash,—
[Pg 591] Before the Rebel citadel
Just trembling to its fall,
From Georgia's glens, from Florida's fens,
For us they call, they call!

The life-blood of the tyrant
Is ebbing fast away;
Victory waits at her opening gates,
And smiles on our array;
With solemn eyes the Centuries
Before us watching stand,
And Love lets down his starry crown
To bless the future land.

One more sublime endeavor,
And behold the dawn of Peace!
One more endeavor, and war forever
Throughout the land shall cease!
For ever and ever the vanquished power
Of Slavery shall be slain,
And Freedom's stained and trampled flower
Shall blossom white again!

Then rally! rally! rally!
Make tumult in the land!
Ye foresters, rally from mountain and valley!
Ye fishermen, from the strand!
Brave sons of the West, America's best!
New England's men of might!
From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
And rally to the fight!

FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION.

In all historical studies we should still bear in mind the difference between the point of view from which one looks at events and that from which they were seen by the actors themselves. We all act under the influence of ideas. Even those who speak of theories with contempt are none the less the unconscious disciples of some theory, none the less busied in working out some problems of the great theory of life. Much as they fancy themselves to differ from the speculative man, they differ from him only in contenting themselves with seeing the path as it lies at their feet, while he strives to embrace it all, starting-point and end, in one comprehensive view. And thus in looking back upon the past we are irresistibly led to arrange the events of history, as we arrange the facts of a science, in their appropriate classes and under their respective laws. And thus, too, these events give us the true measure of the intellectual and moral culture of the times, the extent to which just ideas prevailed therein upon all the duties and functions[Pg 592] of private and public life. Tried by the standard of absolute truth and right, grievously would they all fall short,—and we, too, with them. Judged by the human standard of progressive development and gradual growth,—the only standard to which the man of the beam can venture, unrebuked, to bring the man with the mote,—we shall find much in them all to sadden us, and much, also, in which we can all sincerely rejoice.

In judging, therefore, the political acts of our ancestors, we have a right to bring them to the standard of the political science of their age, but we have no right to bring them to the higher standard of our own. Montesquieu could give them but an imperfect clue to the labyrinth in which they found themselves involved; and yet no one had seen farther into the mysteries of social and political organization than Montesquieu. Hume had scattered brilliant rays on dark places, and started ideas which, once at work in the mind, would never rest till they had evolved momentous truths and overthrown long-standing errors. But no one had yet seen, with Adam Smith, that labor was the original source of every form of wealth,—that the farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, were all equally the instruments of national prosperity,—or demonstrated as unanswerably as he did that nations grow rich and powerful by giving as they receive, and that the good of one is the good of all. The world had not yet seen that fierce conflict between antagonistic principles which she was soon to see in the French Revolution; nor had political science yet recorded those daring experiments in remoulding society, those constitutions framed in closets, discussed in clubs, accepted and overthrown with equal demonstrations of popular zeal, and which, expressing in their terrible energy the universal dissatisfaction with past and present, the universal grasping at a brighter future, have met and answered so many grave questions,—questions neither propounded nor solved in any of the two hundred constitutions which Aristotle studied in order to prepare himself for the composition of his "Politics." The world had not yet seen a powerful nation tottering on the brink of anarchy, with all the elements of prosperity in her bosom,—nor a bankrupt state sustaining a war that demanded annual millions, and growing daily in wealth and power,—nor the economical phenomena which followed the reopening of Continental commerce in 1814,—nor the still more startling phenomena which a few years later attended England's return to specie-payments and a specie-currency,—nor statesmen setting themselves gravely down with the map before them to the final settlement of Europe, and, while the ink was yet fresh on their protocols, seeing all the results of their combined wisdom set at nought by the inexorable development of the fundamental principle which they had refused to recognize.

But we have seen these things, and, having seen them, unconsciously apply the knowledge derived from them in our judgment of events to which we have no right to apply it. We condemn errors which we should never have detected without the aid of a light which was hidden from our fathers, and will still be dwelling upon shortcomings which nothing could have avoided but a general diffusion of that wisdom which Providence never vouchsafes except as a gift to a few exalted minds. Every school-boy has his text-book of political economy now: but many can remember when these books first made their appearance in schools; and so late as 1820 the Professor of History in English Cambridge publicly lamented that there was no work upon this vital subject which he could put into the hands of his classes.

When, therefore, our fathers found themselves face to face with the complex questions of finance, they naturally fell back upon the experience and devices of their past history: they did as in such emergencies men always do,—they tried to meet the present difficulty without weighing maturely the future difficulties. The present was at the door, palpable, stern, urgent, relentless; and as they looked at it, they could see nothing[Pg 593] beyond half so full of perplexity and danger. They hoped, as in the face of all history and all experience men will ever hope, that out of those depths which their feeble eyes were unable to penetrate something would yet arise in their hour of need to avert the peril and snatch them from the precipice. Their past history had its lessons of encouragement, some thought, and, some thought, of warning. They seized the example, but the admonition passed by unheeded.

Short as the chronological record of American history then was, that exchange of the products of labor which so speedily grows up into commerce had already passed through all its phases, from direct barter to bank-notes and bills of exchange. Men gave what they wanted less to get what they wanted more, the products of industry without doors for the products of industry within doors; and it was only when they felt the necessity of adding to their stock of luxuries or conveniences from a distance that they experienced the want of money. Prices naturally found their own level,—were what, when left to themselves they always are, the natural expression of the relations between demand and supply. Tobacco stood the Virginian in stead of money long after money had become abundant; procuring him corn, meat, raiment. More than once, too, it procured him something better still. In the very same year in which the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, history tells us, ninety maidens of "virtuous education and demeanor" landed in Virginia; the next year brought sixty more; and, provident industry reaping its own reward, he whose busy hands had raised the largest crop of tobacco was enabled to make the first choice of a wife. And it must have been an edifying and pleasant spectacle to see each stalwart Virginian pressing on towards the landing with his bundle of tobacco on his back, and walking deliberately home again with an affectionate wife under his arm.

But already there was a pernicious principle at work,—protested against by experience wherever tried, and still repeatedly tried anew,—the assumption by Government of the power to regulate the prices of goods. The first instance carries us back to 1618, and thinking men still believed it possible in 1777. The right to regulate the prices of labor was its natural corollary, bringing with it the power of creating legal tenders and the various representatives of value, without any correspondent measures for creating the value itself, or, in simpler words, paper-money without capital. And thus, logically as well as historically, we reach the first issue of paper-money in 1690, that year so memorable as the year of the first Congress.

New England, encouraged by a successful expedition against Port Royal, made an attempt upon Quebec. Confident of success, she sent forth her little army without providing the means of paying it. The soldiers came back soured by disaster and fatigue, and, not yet up to the standard of '76, were upon the point of mutinying for their pay. To escape the immediate danger, Massachusetts bethought her of bills of credit. They were issued, accepted, and redeemed, although the first holders suffered great losses, and the last holders or the speculators were the only ones that found them faithful pledges. The flood-gates once opened, the water poured in amain. Every pressing emergency afforded a pretext for a new issue. Other Colonies followed the seductive example. Paper was soon issued to make money plenty. Men's minds became familiar with the idea, as they saw the convenient substitute passing freely from hand to hand. Accepted at market, accepted at the retail store, accepted in the counting-room, accepted for taxes, everywhere a legal tender, it seemed adequate to all the demands of domestic trade. But erelong came undue fluctuations of prices, depreciations, failures,—all the well-known indications of an unsound currency. England interposed to protect her own merchants, to whom American paper-money was utterly worthless; and Parliament[Pg 594] stripped it of its value as a legal tender. Men's minds were divided. They had never before been called upon to discuss such questions upon such a scale or in such a form. They were at a loss for the principle, still enveloped in the multitude and variety of conflicting theories and obstinate facts.

One fact, however, was clearly established,—that a government could, in great needs, make paper fulfil, for a while, the office of money; and if a regular government, why not also a revolutionary government, sustained and accepted by the people? Here, then, begins the history of the Continental money,—the principal chapter in the financial history of the Revolution,—leading us, like all such histories, over ground thick-strown with unheeded admonitions and neglected warnings, through a round of constantly recurring phenomena, varied only here and there by modifications in the circumstances under which they appear.

It is much to be regretted that we have no record of the discussions through which Congress reached the resolves of June 22, 1775: "That a sum not exceeding two millions of Spanish milled dollars be emitted by the Congress in bills of credit for the defence of America. That the twelve confederated Colonies" (Georgia, it will be remembered, had not yet sent delegates) "be pledged for the redemption of the bills of credit now to be emitted." We do not even know positively that there was any discussion. If there was, it is not difficult to conceive how some of the reasoning ran,—how each had arguments and examples from his own Colony: how confidently Pennsylvanians would speak of the security which they had given to their paper; how confidently Virginians would assert that even the greatest straits might be passed without having recourse to so dangerous a medium; how all the facts in the history of paper-money would be brought forward to prove both sides of the question, but how the underlying principle, subtile, impalpable, might still elude them all, as for thirty-five years longer it still continued to elude wise statesmen and thoughtful economists; how, at last, some impatient spirit, breaking through the untimely delay, sternly asked them what else they proposed to do. By what alchemy would they create gold and silver? By what magic would they fill the coffers which their non-exportation resolutions had kept empty, or bring in the supplies which their non-importation resolutions had cut off? What arguments of their devising would induce a people in arms against taxation to submit to tenfold heavier taxes than those which they had indignantly repelled? Necessity, inexorable necessity, was now their lawgiver; they had adopted an army, they must support it; they had voted pay to their officers, they must devise the means of giving their vote effect; arms, ammunition, camp-equipage, everything was to be provided for. The people were full of ardor, glowing with fiery zeal; your promise to pay will be received like payment; your commands will be instantly obeyed. Every hour's delay imperils the sacred cause, chills the holy enthusiasm; action, prompt, energetic, resolute action, is what the crisis calls for. Men must see that we are in earnest; the enemy must see it; nothing else will bring them to terms; nothing else will give us a lasting peace: and in such a peace how easily, how cheerfully, shall we all unite in paying the debt which won for us so inestimable a blessing!

It would have been difficult to deny the force of such an appeal. There were doubtless men there who believed firmly in the virtue of the people,—who thought, that, after the proof which the people had given of their readiness to sacrifice the interests of the present moment to the interests of a day and a posterity that they might not live to see, it would be worse than skepticism to call it in question. But even these men might hesitate about the form of the sacrifice they called for, for they knew how often men are governed by names, and that their minds might revolt at the idea of a formal tax, although they would submit to pay it fifty-fold under the name of depreciation.[Pg 595] Even at this day, with all our additional light,—the combined light of science and of experience,—it is difficult to see what else they could have done without strengthening dangerously the hands of their domestic enemies. Nor let this be taken as a proof that they engaged rashly in an unequal contest, even though it was necessarily in part a war of paper against gold. They have been accused of this by their friends as well as by their enemies: they have been accused of sacrificing a positive good to an uncertain hope,—of suffering their passions to hurry them into a war for which they had made no adequate preparation, and had not the means of making any,—that they wilfully, almost wantonly, incurred the fearful responsibility of staking the lives and fortunes of those who were looking to them for guidance upon the chances of a single cast. But the accusation is unjust. As far as human foresight could reach, they had calculated these chances carefully. They knew the tenure by which they held their authority, and that, if they ran counter to the popular will, the people would fall from them,—that, if they should fail in making their position good, they would be the first, almost the only victims,—that, then as ever, "the thunderbolts on highest mountains light." Charles Carroll added "of Carrollton" to his name, so that, if the Declaration he was setting it to should bring forfeiture and confiscation, there might be no mistake about the victim. Nor was it without a touch of sober earnestness that Harrison, bulky and fat, said to the lean and shadowy Gerry, as he laid down his pen,—"When hanging-time comes, I shall have the advantage of you. I shall be dead in a second, while you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I am gone." But they knew also, that, if there are dangers which we do not perceive till we come full upon them, there are likewise helps which we do not see till we find ourselves face to face with them,—and that in the life of nations, as in the life of individuals, there are moments when all that the wisest and most conscientious can do is to see that everything is in its place, every man at his post, and resolutely bide the shock.

While this subject was pressing upon Congress, it was occupying no less seriously leading minds in the different Colonies. All felt that the success of the experiment must chiefly depend upon the degree of security that could be given to the bills. But how to reach that necessary degree was a perplexing question. Three ways were suggested in the New-York Convention: that Congress should fix upon a sum, assign each Colony its proportion, and the issue be made by the Colony upon its own responsibility; or that the United Colonies should make the issue, each Colony pledging itself to redeem the part that fell to it; or, lastly, that, Congress issuing the sum, and each Colony assuming its proportionate responsibility, the Colonies should still be bound as a whole to make up for the failure of any individual Colony to redeem its share. The latter was proposed by the Convention as offering greater chances of security, and tending at the same time to strengthen the bond of union. It was in nearly this form, also, that it came from Congress.

No time was now lost in carrying the resolution into effect. The next day, Tuesday, June 23, the number, denomination, and form of the bills were decided in a Committee of the Whole. It was resolved to make bills of eight denominations, from one to eight, and issue forty-nine thousand of each, completing the two millions by eleven thousand eight hundred of twenty dollars each. The form of the bill was to be,—

In the same sitting a committee of five was appointed "to get proper plates engraved, to provide paper, and to agree with printers to print the above bills." Both Franklin and John Adams were on this committee.

Had they lived in 1862 instead of 1775, how their doors would have been beset by engravers and paper-dealers and printers! What baskets of letters would have been poured upon their tables! How would they have dreaded the sound of the knocker or the cry of the postman! But, alas! paper was so far from abundant that generals were often reduced to hard straits for enough of it to write their reports and despatches on; and that Congressmen were not much better off will be believed when we find John Adams sending his wife a sheet or two at a time under the same envelope with his own letters. Printers there were, as many, perhaps, as the business of the country required, but not enough for the eager contention which the announcement of Government work to be done excites among us in these days. And of engravers there were but four between Maine and Georgia. Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the midnight ride, the Boston boy of Huguenot blood whose self-taught graver had celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the Boston Massacre,—who, when the first grand jury under the new organization was drawn, had met the judge with, "I refuse to sarve,"—a scientific mechanic,—a leader at the Tea-party,—a soldier of the old war,—prepared to serve in this war, too, with sword, or graver, or science,—fitting carriages, at Washington's command, to the cannon from which the retreating English had knocked off the trunnions, learning how to make powder at the command of the Provincial Congress, and setting up the first powder-mill ever built in Massachusetts.

No mere engraver's task for him, this engraving the first bill-plates of Continental Currency! How he must have warmed over the design! how carefully he must have chosen his copper! how buoyantly he must have plied his graver, harassed by no doubts, disturbed by no misgivings of the double mission which those little plates were to perform,—the good one first, thank God! but then how fatal a one afterward!—but resolved and hopeful as on that April night when he spurred his horse from cottage to hamlet, rousing the sleepers with the cry, long unheard in the sweet valleys of New England, "Up! up! the enemy is coming!"

The paper of these bills was thick, so thick that the enemy called it the paste-board money of the rebels. Plate, paper, and printing, all had little in common with the elaborate finish and delicate texture of a modern bank-note. To sign them was too hard a tax upon Congressmen already taxed to the full measure of their working-time by committees and protracted daily sessions; and so a committee of twenty-eight gentlemen not in Congress was employed to sign and number them, receiving in compensation one dollar and a third for every thousand bills.

Meanwhile loud calls for money were daily reaching the doors of Congress. Everywhere money was wanted,—money to buy guns, money to buy powder, money to buy provisions, money to send officers to their posts, money to march troops to their stations, money to speed messengers to and fro, money for the wants of to-day, money to pay for what had already been done, and still more money to insure the right doing of what was yet to do: Washington wanted it; Lee wanted it; Schuyler wanted it: from north to south, from seaboard to inland, one deep, monotonous, menacing cry,—"Money, or our hands are powerless!"

How long would these two millions stand such a drain? Spent before they were received, hardly touching the Treasury-chest as a starting-place before they flew on the wings of the morning to gladden thousands of expectant hearts with a brief respite from one of their many cares. Relief there certainly was,—neither long, indeed, nor lasting, but still[Pg 597] relief. Good Whigs received the bills, as they did everything else that came from Congress, with unquestioning confidence. Tories turned from them in derision, and refused to give their goods for them. Whereupon Congress took the matter under consideration, and told them that they must. It was soon seen that another million would be wanted, and in July a second issue was resolved on. All-devouring war had soon swallowed these also. Three more millions were ordered in November. But the war was to end soon,—by June, '76, at the latest. All their expenditures were calculated upon this supposition; and wealth flowing in under the auspices of a just and equable accommodation with their reconciled mother, these millions which had served them so well in the hour of need would soon be paid by a happy and grateful people from an abundant treasury.

But early in 1776 reports came of English negotiations for foreign mercenaries to help put down the rebellion,—reports which soon took the shape of positive information. No immediate end of the war now: already, too, independence was looming up on the turbid horizon; already the current was bearing them onward, deep, swift, irresistible: and thus seizing still more eagerly upon the future, they poured out other four millions in February, five millions in May, five millions in July. The Confederacy was not yet formed; the Declaration of Independence had nothing yet to authenticate it but the signatures of John Hancock and Charles Thompson; and the republic that was to be was already solemnly pledged to the payment of twenty millions of dollars.

Thus far men's faith had not faltered. They saw the necessity and accepted it, giving their goods and their labor unhesitatingly for a slip of paper which derived all its value from the resolves of a body of men who might, upon a reverse, be thrown down as rapidly as they had been set up. And then whom were they to look to for indemnification? But now began a sensible depreciation,—slight, indeed, at first, but ominous. Congress took the alarm, and resolved upon a loan,—resolved to borrow directly what they had hitherto borrowed indirectly, the goods and the labor of their constituents. Accordingly, on the third of October, a resolve was passed for raising five millions of dollars at four per cent; and in order to make it convenient to lenders, loan-offices were established in every Colony with a commissioner for each.

Money came in slowly, but ran out so fast that in November Congress ordered weekly returns from the Treasury, not, of sums on hand, but of what parts of the last emission remained unexpended. The campaign of '77 was at hand; how the campaign of '76 would close was yet uncertain. The same impenetrable veil that hid Trenton and Princeton from their eyes concealed the disasters of Fort Washington and the Jerseys. They still looked hopefully to the lower line of the Hudson. They resolved, therefore, to make an immediate effort to supply the Treasury by a lottery to be drawn at Philadelphia.

A lottery,—does not the word carry one back, a great many years back, to other times and other manners? The Articles of War were now on the table of Congress for revision, and in the second and third of those articles officers and soldiers had been earnestly recommended to attend divine service diligently, and to refrain, under grave penalties, from profane cursing or swearing. And here legislators deliberately set themselves to raise money by means which we have deliberately condemned as gambling. But years were yet to pass before statesmen, or the people rather, were brought to feel that the lottery-office and gaming-table stand side by side on the same broad highway.

No such thoughts troubled the minds of our forefathers, well stored as those minds were with human and divine lore; but, going to work without a scruple, they prepared an elaborate scheme and fixed the first of March for the day of drawing,—"or sooner, if sooner full." It was not full, however, nor was it full when the subject next came up. Tickets were[Pg 598] sold; committees sat; Congress returned to the subject from time to time: but what with the incipient depreciation of the bills of credit, the rising prices of goods and provisions, and the incessant calls upon every purse for public and private purposes, the lottery failed to commend itself either to speculators or to the bulk of the people. Some good Whigs bought tickets from principle, and, like many of the good Whigs who took the bills of credit for the same reason, lost their money.

In the same November the Treasury was ordered to make every preparation for a new issue; and to meet the wants of the retail trade, it was resolved at the same time to issue five hundred thousand dollars in bills of two-thirds, one-third, one-sixth, and one-ninth of a dollar. Evident as it ought now to have been that nothing but taxation could relieve them, they still shrank from it. "Do you think, Gentlemen," said a member, "that I will consent to load my constituents with taxes, when we can send to our printer and get a wagon-load of money, one quire of which will pay for the whole?" It was so easy a way of making money that men seemed to be getting into the humor of it.

The campaign of '77, like the campaign of '76, was fought upon paper-money without any material depreciation. The bills could never be signed as fast as they were called for. But this could not last. The public mind was growing anxious. Extensive interests, in some cases whole fortunes, were becoming involved in the question of ultimate payment. The alarm gained upon Congress. Burgoyne, indeed, was conquered; but a more powerful, more insidious enemy, one to whom they themselves had opened the gate, was already within their works and fast making his way to the heart of the citadel. The depreciation had reached four for one, and there was but one way to prevent it from going lower. Congress deliberated anxiously. Thus far the public faith had supported the war. But, they reasoned, the quantity of the money for which this faith stood pledged already exceeded the demands of commerce, and hence its value was proportionably reduced. Add to this the arts of open and secret enemies, the avidity of professed friends, and the scarcity of foreign commodities, and it is easy to account for the depreciation. "The consequences were equally obvious and alarming,"—"depravity of morals, decay of public virtue, a precarious supply for the war, debasement of the public faith, injustice to individuals, and the destruction of the safety, honor, and independence of the United States." But "a reasonable and effectual remedy" was still within their reach, and therefore, "with mature deliberation and the most earnest solicitude," they recommended the raising by taxes on the different States, in proportion to their population, five millions of dollars in quarterly payments, for the service of 1778.

But having explained, justified, and recommended, the power of Congress ceased. Like the Confederation, it had no right of coercion, no machinery of its own for acting upon the States. And, unhappily, the States, pressed by their individual wants, feeling keenly their individual sacrifices and dangers, failed to see that the nearest road to relief lay through the odious portal of taxation. Had the mysterious words that Dante read on the gates of Hell been written on it, they could not have shrunk from it with a more instinctive feeling:—

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"

Some States paid, some did not pay. The sums that came in were wholly insufficient to relieve the actual pressure, and that pressure, unrelieved, grew daily more severe. They had tried the regulating of prices,—they had tried loans,—they had tried a lottery; and now they were forced back again to their earliest and most dangerous expedient, paper-money. New floods poured forth, and the parched earth drank them greedily up. One may almost fancy, as he looks at the tables, that he sees the shadowy form of sickly Credit tottering feebly forth to catch a gleam of sunshine, a[Pg 599] breath of pure air, while myriads of little sprites, each bearing in his hand an emblazoned scroll with "Depreciation" written upon it in big yellow letters, dance merrily around him, thrusting the bitter record in his face, whichever way he turns, with gibes and taunts and demoniac laughter. But his course was almost ended: the grave was nigh, an unhonored grave; and as eager hands heaped the earth upon his faded form, a stern voice bade men remember that they who strayed from the path as he had done must sooner or later find a grave like his.

It was not without a desperate struggle that Congress saw the rapid decline and shameful death of its currency. The ground was fought manfully, foot by foot, inch by inch. The idea that money derived its value from acts of government seemed to have taken deep hold of their minds, and their policy was in perfect harmony with their belief. In January, 1776, they had solemnly resolved that everybody who refused to accept their bills, or did anything to obstruct the circulation of them, should, upon due conviction, "be deemed, published, and treated as an enemy of his country, and be precluded from all trade or intercourse with the inhabitants of these Colonies." And to enforce it there were Committees of Inspection, whose power seldom lay idle in their hands, whose eyes were never sealed in slumber. In this work, which seemed good in their eyes, the State Assemblies and Conventions and Committees of Safety joined heart and hand with Congress. Tender-laws were tried, and the relentless hunt of creditor after debtor became a flight of the recusant creditor from the debtor eager to wipe out his responsibility for gold or silver with a ream or two of paper. Limitation of prices was tried, and produced its natural results,—discontent, insufficient supplies, heavy losses. Threatening resolves were renewed, and fell powerless. It was hoped that some relief might come from the sales of confiscated property; but property changed hands, and the Treasury was none the better off: just as in France, a few years later, the whole landed property of the kingdom changed hands, and left the government assignats what it found them,—bits of waste-paper.

Meanwhile speculation ran riot. Every form of wastefulness and extravagance prevailed in town and country,—nowhere more than at Philadelphia, under the very eyes of Congress,—luxury of dress, luxury of equipage, luxury of the table. We are told of one entertainment at which eight hundred pounds were spent in pastry. As I read the private letters of those days, I sometimes feel as a man would feel who should be permitted to look down upon a foundering ship whose crew were preparing for death by breaking open the steward's room and drinking themselves into madness.

An earnest appeal was made to the States. The sober eloquence and profound statesmanship of John Jay were employed to bring the subject before the country in its true light and manifold bearings,—the state of the Treasury, the results of loans and of taxes, and the nature and amount of the obligations incurred. The natural value and wealth of the country were held to view as the foundations on which Congress had undertaken to build up a system of public finances, beginning with bills of Credit because there was no nation they could have borrowed of, coming next to loans, and thus "unavoidably creating a public debt: a debt of $159,948,880, in emissions,—$7,545,196-67/90, in money borrowed before the first of March, 1778, with the interest payable in France,—$26,188,909, money borrowed since the first of March, 1778, with interest due in America,—about $4,000,000, of money due abroad." The taxes had brought in only $3,027,560; so that all the money supplied to Congress by the people was but $36,701,665-67/90.

"Judge, then, of the necessity of emissions, and learn from whom and whence that necessity arose. We are also to inform you, that, on the first day of September instant, we resolved that we would on no account whatever emit more[Pg 600] bills of credit than to make the whole amount of such bills two hundred million dollars; and as the sum emitted and in circulation amounted to $159,948,880, and the sum of $40,051,120 remained to complete the two hundred million above mentioned, we, on the third day of September instant, further resolved that we would emit such part only of the said sum as should be absolutely necessary for public exigencies before adequate supplies could otherwise be obtained, relying for such ratios on the exertions of the several States."

Coming to the depreciation, they reduce the causes to three kinds,—natural, or artificial, or both. The natural cause was the excess of the supply over the demands of commerce; the artificial cause was a distrust of the ability or inclination of the United States to redeem their bills; and assuming that both causes have combined in producing the depreciation of the Continental money, they proceed to prove that there can be no doubt of the ability of the United States to pay their debt, and none of their inclination. Under the head of inclination the argument is divided into three parts:—

First, Whether, and in what manner, the faith of the United States has been pledged for the redemption of their bills.

Second, Whether they have put themselves in a political capacity to redeem them.

Third, Whether, admitting the two former propositions, there is any reason to apprehend a wanton violation of the public faith. The idea that Congress can destroy the money, because Congress made it, is treated with scorn.

"A bankrupt, faithless Republic would be a novelty in the political world.... The pride of America revolts from the idea; her citizens know for what purposes these emissions were made, and have repeatedly plighted their faith for the redemption of them; they are to be found in every man's possession, and every man is interested in their being redeemed.... Provide for continuing your armies in the field till victory and peace shall lead them home, and avoid the reproach of permitting the currency to depreciate in your hands, when, by yielding a part to taxes and loans, the whole might have been appreciated and preserved. Humanity as well as justice makes this demand upon you; the complaints of ruined widows and the cries of fatherless children, whose whole support has been placed in your hands and melted away, have doubtless reached you: take care that they ascend no higher.... Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent."

But it was not only the Continental money that was blocking up the channels through which a sound currency would have carried vigor and health. The States had their debts and their paper-money too,—wheel within wheel of complicated, desperate insolvency. The two hundred millions had been issued and spent. There was no money to send to Washington for his army, and he was compelled for a while to support them by seizing the articles he needed, and giving certificates in return. The States were called upon for specific supplies, beef, pork, flour, for the use of the army,—a method so expensive, irregular, and partial, that it was soon abandoned. One chance remained: to call in the old money by taxes, and burn it as soon as it was in; then to issue a new paper,—one of the new for every twenty of the old; and the whole of the old was cancelled, to issue only ten millions of the new,—four millions of it subject to the order of Congress, and the remaining six to be divided among the States: the whole redeemable in specie within six years, and bearing till then an interest of five per cent., payable in specie annually or on redemption, at the option of the holder. By this skilful change of base it was hoped that a bold front could still be presented to the enemy, and the field, which had been so long and so obstinately contested, be finally won.[Pg 601]

But the day of expedients was past. The zeal which had blazed forth with such energy at the beginning of the war was fast sinking to a fitful, smouldering flame. Individual interests were again taking the precedence of general interests. The moral sense of the people had contracted a deadly taint from daily contact with corruption. The spirit of gambling, confined in the beginning and lost to the eye, like Le Sage's Devil, had swollen to its full proportions, and, in the garb of speculation, was undermining the foundations of society. Rogues were growing rich; the honest men who were not already poor were daily growing poor. The laws that had been made in the view of propping the currency had served only to countenance unscrupulous men in paying their debts at a discount ruinous to the creditor. The laws against forestallers and engrossers, who, it was currently believed, were leagued against both army and country, were powerless, as such laws always are. Even Washington wished for a gallows like Haman's to hang them on; but the army was kept starving none the less.

The seasons themselves—God's visible agents—seemed to combine against our cause. The years 1779 and 1780 were years of small crops. The winter of 1780 was severe far beyond the common severity even of a Northern winter. Provisions were scarce, suffering universal. Farmers, as if forgetting their dependence on rain and sunshine, had planted less than usual,—some from disaffection, some because they were irritated at having to give up their corn and cattle for worthless bills, and certificates which might prove equally worthless. Some, who were within reach of the enemy, preferred to sell to them, for they paid in silver and gold. There were riots in Philadelphia, put down at the point of the sword. There was mutiny in the army, and this, too, was put down by the strong hand,—though the fearful sufferings which had caused it justified it almost in the eye of sober reason.

It is easy to see why farmers should have been loath to raise more than they needed for their own use,—why merchants should have been unwilling to lay in stores which they might be compelled to sell at prices so truly nominal that the money which they received would often sink to half they had taken it for before they were able to pass it. But it is not so easy to see why this wretched substitute for values should have circulated so freely to the very last. Even at two hundred for one, with the knowledge that the next twenty-four hours might make that two hundred two hundred and fifty, or even more, without the slightest hope that it would ever be redeemed at its nominal value, it would still buy everything that was to be sold,—provisions, goods, houses, lands, even hard money itself. Down to its last gasp there were speculations afoot to take advantage of the differences in the degree of its worthlessness at different places, and buy it up in one place to sell it at another,—to buy it in Philadelphia at two hundred and twenty-five for one, and sell it in Boston at seventy-five for one. It was possible, if the ball passed quickly from hand to hand, that some might gain; it was very manifest that some must lose: and thus outcrops that pernicious doctrine, that true, life-giving, health-diffusing commerce consists in stripping one to clothe another.

And thus we reach the memorable year 1781, the great, decisive year of the war. While Greene was fighting Cornwallis and Rawdon, and Washington watching eagerly for an opportunity to strike at Clinton, Congress was busy making up its accounts. One circumstance told for them. There was no longer the same dearth of gold and silver which had embarrassed them so much at the beginning of the war. A gainful commerce was now opened with the West Indies. The French army and the French fleet were here, and hard money with them. Louis-d'ors and livres and Spanish dollars,—how welcome must their pleasant faces have looked, after this long, long absence! With what a thrill must the hand which[Pg 602] had touched nothing for years but Continental bills have closed upon solid gold and silver! It is easy to conceive that a new spirit must soon have manifested itself in the wide circle of contractors and agents,—that shopkeepers must speedily have discovered that their business was shifting its ground as they obtained a reliable standard for counting their losses and gains,—that every branch of commerce must have felt a new vigor diffusing itself through its veins. But it is equally evident, that, while the gold and silver which flowed in upon them from these sources strengthened the people for the work they were to do and the burdens they were to bear, the comparisons they were daily making between fluctuating paper and steadfast metal were not of a nature to strengthen their faith in money that could be made by a turn of the printing-press and a few strokes of the pen.

Another circumstance told for them, too. The accession of Maryland had fulfilled the conditions for the acceptance of the Confederation so long held in abeyance, and the finances were taken from a board and intrusted to the hands of a skilful and energetic financier. Robert Morris, who had protested energetically against the tender-laws, made specie-payments the condition of his acceptance of office; and on the twenty-second of May, though not without a struggle, Congress resolved "that the whole debts already due by the United States be liquidated as soon as may be to their specie-value, and funded, if agreeable to the creditors, as a loan upon interest; that the States be severally informed that the calculations of the expenses of the present campaign are made in solid coin, and therefore that the requisitions from them respectively, being grounded on those calculations, must be complied with in such manner as effectually to answer the purpose designed; that, experience having evinced the inefficacy of all attempts to support the credit of paper-money by compulsory acts, it is recommended to such States, where laws making paper-bills a tender yet exist, to repeal the same."

Another public body, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, dealt it another blow, fixing the ratio at which it was to be received in public payments at one hundred and seventy-five for one. Circulation ceased. In a short time the money that had been carted to and fro in reams disappeared from the shop, the counting-room, the market. All dealings were in hard money. Gold and silver resumed their legitimate sway, and men began to look hopefully forward to a return of economy, frugality, and an invigorating commerce.

The Superintendent of Finance set himself seriously to his task. One great obstacle had been removed; one great and decisive step had been made towards the restoration of that sense of security without which industry and enterprise are powerless. As a merchant, he was familiar with the resources of the country; as a Member of Congress, he was familiar with the wants of Government. His resources were taxes and loans; his obligations, an old debt and a daily expenditure. Opposed as he was to the irresponsible currency which had brought the country to the brink of ruin, he was a believer in banks and bills resting on a secure basis. One of his earliest measures was to prepare, with the aid of his Assistant-Superintendent, Gouverneur Morris, a plan of a bank, which soon after, with the sanction of Congress, went into operation as the Bank of North America. Small as the capital with which it started was,—only four hundred thousand dollars,—its influence was immediately felt throughout the country. It gave an impulse to legitimate enterprise which had long been wanting, and a confidence to buyer and seller which they had not felt since the first year of the war. In his public operations the Superintendent used it freely, and, using it at the same time wisely, was enabled to call upon it for aid to the full extent of its ability without impairing its strength.

Henceforth the financial history of the[Pg 603] Revolution, although it loses none of its importance, loses much of its narrative-interest. No longer a hand-to-hand conflict between coin and paper,—no longer the melancholy spectacle of wise men doing unwise things, and honorable men doing things which, in any other form, they would have been the first to brand with dishonor,—it still continues a long, a wearisome, and often a mortifying struggle: men knowing their duty and refusing to do it, knowing consequences and yet blindly shutting their eyes to them. I will give but one example.

After a careful estimate of the operations of 1782, Congress had called upon the States for eight millions. Up to January, 1783, only four hundred and twenty thousand had come into the Treasury. Four hundred thousand Treasury-notes were almost due; the funds in Europe were overdrawn to the amount of five hundred thousand by the sale of drafts. But Morris, waiting only to cover himself by a special authorization of Congress, made fresh sales upon the hopes of the Dutch loan and the possibility of a new French loan, and still held on—as cautiously as he could, but ever boldly and skilfully—his anxious way through the rocks and shoals that menaced him on every side. He was rewarded, as such men too often are, by calumny and suspicion. But when men came to look closely at his acts, comparing his means with his wants, and the expenditure of the Treasury Board with the expenditure of the Finance Office, it was seen and acknowledged that he had saved the country thirteen millions a year in hard money.

And now, from our stand-point of the Peace,—from 1783,—let us give a parting glance at the ground over which we have passed. We see thirteen Colonies, united by interest, divided by habits, association, and tradition, engaging in a doubtful contest with one of the most powerful and energetic nations which the world had ever seen; we see them begin, as men always do, with very imperfect conceptions of the time it would last, the lengths to which it would carry them, or the sacrifices it would impose; we see them boldly adopting some measures, timidly shrinking from others,—reasoning justly about some things, reasoning falsely about things equally important,—endowed at times with singular foresight, visited at times by incomprehensible blindness: boatmen on a mighty river, strong themselves and resolute and skilful, plying their oars manfully from first to last, but borne onward by a current which no human science could measure, no human strength could resist.

They knew that the resources of the country were exhaustless; and they threw themselves upon those resources in the only way by which they could reach them. Their bills of credit were the offspring of enthusiasm and faith. The enthusiasm grew chill, the faith failed. With a little more enthusiasm, the people would cheerfully have submitted to taxation; with a little more faith, the Congress would have taxed them. In the end, the people paid for the shortcomings of their enthusiasm by seventy millions of indirect taxation,—taxation through depreciation; the Congress paid for the shortcomings of their faith by the loss of confidence and respect. The war left them with a Federal debt of seventy million dollars, and State debts of nearly twenty-six millions.

Could this have been avoided? Could they have done otherwise? It is easy, when the battle is won, to tell how victory might have been bought cheaper,—when the campaign is ended, to show what might perhaps have brought it to an earlier and more glorious close. It is easy for us, with the whole field before us, to see that from the beginning, from the very first start, although the formula was Taxation, the principle was Independence; but before we venture to pass sentence, ought we not to pause and weigh well our judgment and our words,—we who, in the fiercer contest through which we are passing, have so long failed to see, that, while the formula is Secession, the principle is Slavery?

THROUGH-TICKETS TO SAN FRANCISCO: A PROPHECY.

We write this article in September. Within a few days, and without much heralding, has occurred an event of prime importance to our country's future. This is the opening from New York to St. Louis of a continuous broad-gauge line under the title of the Atlantic and Great Western Railway. This line is twelve hundred miles long, and pursues the following route: By the New York and Erie Road, from New York to the station of Salamanca; thence, by a separate road of the Atlantic and Great Western, to Dayton, Ohio; thence, over the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Road, to Cincinnati; and finally, by the Ohio and Mississippi Road, to St. Louis. The first excursion-train accomplished the whole distance in forty-four hours. We understand that the regular express-trains of the line will be required to make equally good time,—ultimately, perhaps, to reduce the time to forty hours.

This valuable connection has been mainly effected by the energy and talents of two men. Mr. James McHenry, a Pennsylvanian by birth, but of late years resident abroad, has raised twenty million dollars for the project in the money-markets of England, Spain, and Germany, the bonds of the Company obtaining ready sale upon the guaranty of his personal high character for uprightness and financial ability. Mr. Thomas W. Kennard, an engineer and capitalist of large views, discretion, and experience, has managed the interests of the project here at home, securing the hearty cooperation and good-will of all the roads now made continuous, and bringing the enterprise to a successful issue with a skill possible only to first-class commercial genius. The former of these gentlemen is Financial Director and Contractor, the latter, Engineer-in-Chief, Vice-President, and General Manager of the line. At any other period than this their success would have been widely talked of as a great national benefit. Even now let us not forget the public-spirited men whose hopeful hands, in the midst of blood and din, have been sowing seeds of commercial prosperity to glorify with their perfected harvest the day of our National triumph and reunion.

This work is the first instalment of the greatest popular enterprise in the world, the initial fulfilment of a promise which America has made to herself and all the other nations,—one which shall be completely fulfilled only when an iron highway stretches across her entire breadth, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. As a people we have grudged neither time nor money to the accomplishment of this end. We have dared the fiery desert and the frozen mountaintop, the demons of thirst, starvation, and savage warfare. Our foremost scientific men, for the sake of the great national enterprise, have taken their lives in their hands, going out to meet peril and privation with the cheerful constancy of apostles and martyrs. The record of expeditions bearing either directly or indirectly on the subject of the Pacific Railroad is one to which every American citizen must point with a pride none the less hearty for the fact that its route has not yet been absolutely decided. The one curse mingled with a young republic's many blessings is the intrusion of political influences into the dispassionate field of national enterprise. We might have determined the line of our Pacific Road before the breaking out of the Rebellion, and by this time its first or Great-Plains section should have been in running order, but for the partisan jealousies which prevailed in high places between the advocates of the different routes. Slavery, that enfant gâté of our old-school and now happily obsolete statecraft, insisted on the expensive toy of a southern and unpractical line, until our representatives, harassed by the problem how to[Pg 605] gratify her without incurring the contempt of the financial world, gave over to the drift of events the settlement of their country's chief commercial question. We are now in a position to decide coolly; no entangling alliances with a dead-weight social system bias our plain judgment of practical pros and cons; but the opportunity for decision arrives a little too late and a little too early for action. Congress, the legitimate custodian of the Pacific Railroad, may be said to have passed the last four years in climbing to the level of the country's vital exigency. Till Congress reaches that and understands it fully, there is no surplus energy to be thrown away on the else paramount matters of a peaceful age.

But it must not be forgotten that the Pacific Railroad stands next to the maintenance of National Unity on the docket of causes for adjudication by our representative tribunal. The people have filed it away till the grand appeal is settled; but they have not forgotten it.

It is none the pleasanter thought to them because they have no time to talk about it, that the great highway of the continent has been left, pendente lite, in the hands of squabbling speculators, and that personal recriminations bar the progress of our commerce between sea and sea. The indifference of our public trustees to the disgraceful controversies which have embarrassed work on the eastern end of the line is itself not a disgrace only because human power is limited to the care of one great matter at a time. The first Congress that meets under the olive of an honorable peace must at once take the Pacific Railroad into the Nation's hands, and prosecute it as the Nation's matter, with a liberal-mindedness learned from the conduct of a great war. Next to the salvation of the Union, the completion of the Pacific Road most fully justifies prompt action and comparative disregard of expenditure.

It is not our purpose, nor is this the place, to dictate to our legislators either the precise line of their own action or that of the road. It is still proper to say that the arrangements thus far entered into with private contractors have proved inadequate to the accomplishment and unworthy of the character of the enterprise. Whatever may be the details of the improved plan, it must embrace a sterner national surveillance over the execution of the project, and a direct national assumption of its prime responsibility.

It is a mistaken notion to suppose that the Pacific-Railroad question rests on the same principles as that of our minor internal improvements. It calls for no reopening of the long-hushed controversy between Democracy and Whiggism. The best thinkers of the day are universally agreed to deprecate legislation in every case where private enterprise will do its office. No good political economist approves the emasculation of private effort by Government subsidy. The people are averse to statutory crutches and go-carts, wherever it is possible for them to walk alone. We feel distrust of the railroad which asks monopoly-privileges. The sight of a Governmental prop under any ostensibly commercial concern warns an American from its neighborhood. He has learned that true prestige lies with the people,—that there is no vital warmth in official patronage. Even within the memory of young men a great change for the better has taken place in our commercial manliness. Out first-class public enterprises blush to take Government help, as their directors might blush, if at the close of an interview Mr. Lincoln "tipped" them like school-boys with a holiday handful of greenbacks. There is no doubt that the ideal principle of democratic progress demands the absolute non-interference of Government in all enterprises whose benefit accrues to a part of its citizens, or which can be stimulated into life by the spontaneous operation of popular interest.

But facts are not ideal, and absolute principles in their practical application make head only by a curved line of compromise[Pg 606] with the facts. The philosopher cannot go faster than the people. Certain courses are proper for certain stages of development. Few New-York Democrats now denounce the building of "Clinton's Ditch," and the fact that a majority approved of it as a sufficient evidence that it was a measure suited to the period; though even an old Whig at this day could not approve of a State canal under the auspices of Governor Seymour. Here are the two great questions which at any time must regulate the exertion of Governmental power: Is the enterprise vitally important? and, Will it be accomplished by private effort?

Because the Nation in several eminent instances saw the former question answered affirmatively and the latter negatively, it centralized a certain amount of authority for the construction of fortresses and the maintenance of a military force. These matters vitally concerned the entire people, yet the ordinary stimuli to private enterprise were quite inadequate to securing their accomplishment.

The Pacific Railroad stands on precisely the same grounds. It concerns the entire population of the United States, but no ordinary business-organization of citizens will ever accomplish it alone. The mere cost of its construction might stagger the most audacious financier; but that is a minor obstacle. No doubt the city of New York and the State of California contain capital enough for the completion of the entire road,—would subscribe to it, too, upon sufficient guaranties. But who is to give those guaranties? Whose credit is broad enough to secure them? Our Atlantic capitalists have too often been defrauded by stock-companies of moderate liabilities and immediately under their own eyes, to feel quite comfortable about putting millions into the hands of private operators, who shall presently have the Rocky Mountains between them and their bondholders. In the case of almost any other railroad-enterprise this objection might be answered by the proposal to build the line with the subscriptions of people living on its route. But this line must take a route without people, and bring people to the route. Certain other roads are guarantied by the pledge of their way-freight business. This road must be completed before such a business exists; the business must be the product of the road. The ordinary principle of demand and supply is reversed in its application to this case. Supply must precede demand. Furnish the Pacific Railroad to the continent, and the continent in ten years will give it all the business it can do. Wait fifty years for the continent to take the initiative, and there will not yet be enough business to build the road.

This enterprise must be looked at in the light of a cash-advance from California and the Eastern States to the Plains, the Mountains, and the Desert, secured by a pledge of all the mineral and agricultural wealth of the party of the second part, guarantied by the prospective myriads of settlers whom the road shall bring to tracts now lying waste through the mere lack of its existence. In the course of the present article we shall endeavor to show the solidity of this security, the responsibility of these indorsers. While we counsel confidence to the capital which must build the road, we feel it imperative upon the National Government to enforce its position as that capital's trustee. That capital for the most part lies east of the Missouri and west of the Sierra Nevada. Between these two boundaries the road must run for eighteen hundred miles through a region where capital may well be cautious of intrusting its life to any less potent authority than that of the Nation itself.

The claims of the Pacific Railroad have usually been urged upon the ground of its benefit to its termini. This ground is adequate to justify any advance of capital by the cities of New York and San Francisco. With the completion of the road, San Francisco necessarily becomes[Pg 607] a depot for the entire China trade of the United States, and an entrepot for much of that between China and Western Europe. With the development of our Japanese relations, still another stream of wealth, now incalculable, must flow in through the Golden Gate. In the reverse current of Asiatic commerce, New York's position at the eastern terminus of the continental belt gives her a similar share. The gold-transport and the entire fast-freight business of New York and San Francisco, now transacted at an enormous expense by Wells and Fargo's Express, must be transferred en masse to the Pacific Road; while the passenger-carriage, now devolving on Isthmus steamers and overland stages, may be passed, practically entire, to the credit of the new line. Certainly, no traveller who has once purchased bitter experience with his ticket on Mr. Vanderbilt's line will ever again patronize that enterprising capitalist, unless he sells his ships and becomes a stockholder in the Pacific Railroad. The most enthusiastic lover of the sea must abjure his predilections, when brought to the ordeal of the steamer Champion. Crowded like rabbits in a hutch or captives in the Libby into such indecent propinquity with his kind that the third day out makes him a misanthrope,—fed on the putrid remains of the last trip's commissariat, turkeys which drop out of their skins while the cook is larding them in the galley, beef which maybe eaten as spoon-meat, and tea apparently made with bilge-water,—sleeping or vainly trying to sleep in an unventilated dungeon which should be called death instead of berth, where the reek of the aforesaid putridities awakes him to breakfast without aid of gong,—propelled by a second-hand engine, whose every wheeze threatens the terrors of dissolution,—morally certain, that, if his floating sty from any cause ceases to float, there are not boats enough to save an eighth of the passengers,—he must admire the ocean with a true poet's enthusiasm, if he can brave the Champion a second time.

The considerations we have mentioned should be sufficiently operative with the capitalists of New York and California, and, as such, are those most prominently urged by the friends of the road. It would, however, be a great mistake to regard the through-business an all-comprehensive, in enumerating the sources of profit to be relied on by the enterprise. For a better understanding of that immense way-trade which lies between the oceans, waiting only for the whistle of the steam-genie to wake it into vigorous life, let us treat the entire line as already continuous from New York to San Francisco, and make an excursion to the Pacific on its prophetic rails. We will suppose the track a uniform broad gauge, as it ought to be,—the Pacific Road connecting at St. Louis with the Atlantic and Great Western by powerful boats, like those in use at Havre de Grace, capable of ferrying the heaviest cars between the Illinois and Missouri shores. We will take the liberty of constructing for ourselves the remainder of the still undecided route to the Pacific. We run our ideal broad gauge as follows:—

From St. Louis to Jefferson City; thence by the shortest line to the Kansas-River crossing; thence to Leavenworth (where St. Joseph, makes connection by a branch-track); thence to that bend of the Republican Fork which nearest approaches the Little Blue; thence along the bottoms of the Republican to the foot of the high divide out of which it is believed to rise, and which also serves for the water-shed between the Platte and Arkansas; and thence skirting the bluffs a distance of about one hundred miles to Denver. At Denver we find two branches making junctions with our line: one connects us with Central City, the great mining-town of Colorado, by a series of grades which might appall the Pennsylvania Central; the other threads the foot-hills and mesas between Denver and the Fontaine-qui-Bouille Spa at Colorado City, with the possibility of its being extended in time[Pg 608] to Cañon City on the Arkansas. From Denver we strike for the nearest point on the Cache-la-Poudre, follow its bed as far as practicable, and rise from that level to the grand plateau of the Laramie Plains. Running through these Plains, we cross the Big and the Little Laramie Rivers, here shallow streams, crystal clear, and scarcely wider than the Housatonic at Pittsfield. Just after leaving the Plains, we cross Medicine Bow,—a mere brook,—and a few hours later the North Fork of the Platte, which eccentrically turns up in this most unexpected quarter, running nearly due north from a source which cannot be very far off. The rope-ferry by which the writer last crossed this picturesque and rapid stream we have replaced by a strong iron bridge. Leaving the west end of that bridge, we look out of the rear car and send our final message to the Atlantic by the last stream which we shall find going thither. A stupendous, but not impracticable, system of grades next carries us over the axial water-shed of the continent, by the way of Bridger's Pass. One hundred and fifty miles of tortuous descent brings us to Green River,—the stream which farther down becomes the mysterious Colorado, and seeks the Pacific by the Gulf of California. After crossing the Green by another iron bridge substituted for rope-ferriage, our first important station will be Fort Bridger. Leaving there, we almost immediately enter the galleries of the Wahsatch Range, which form a continuous pass across Bear River and into the tremendous cañons conducting down to Salt-Lake City. From Salt Lake we pursue the shortest practicable route through the Desert to the Ruby-Valley Pass of the Humboldt Mountains; we cross that range to enter another desert, descend to the Sink of Carson, and reascend to Carson City, thence going nearly due north till we strike the line of the Truckee Pass, (where a branch connects us with the principal Washoe mines,) and thence to Sacramento by the long-projected California section of the Pacific Railroad. Another proposed, but still ideal, road completes our connection with the Western Ocean by way of Stockton, San José, and San Francisco.

We do not pretend to assert that the route indicated is in all respects the most economical and practicable; a good deal more surveying must be done before that can be said of any entire route, though we think it may fairly be claimed for our ideal section between St. Louis and Denver. We have chosen this route because along its course are more completely represented the natural features to which in any case the Pacific Railroad must look for all its primary obstacles and part of its subsequent profits.

To complete the conception as its reality must in time be completed, let us unite our Trans-Missouri portion with the Atlantic and Great Western Railway, under the all-inclusive title of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. It will not be very far out of the way to regard thirty-eight hundred miles as the entire length of the line. On the Atlantic and Great Western section express-trains will run at a speed of twenty-seven miles an hour, including stops; but to provide against every detention, let us slow our through-express to twenty-five miles. At this rate we shall traverse the continent in six days and eight hours. In other words, the San-Francisco gentleman who left the Jersey depot by the five o'clock Atlantic and Pacific express-train on Monday morning may reasonably expect (allowing for difference of longitude) to be in the bosom of his family just in time to accompany them to morning service on the following Sunday.

We will suppose our packing accomplished the day before we set out. During the evening we send our watches to get the exact Washington time. The schedule of the entire road is based upon that time; and a thousand inconveniences, once endured by the traveller between New York and St. Louis, are thereby avoided. It is not necessary to alter one's watch with every new conductor. We no longer grow dizzy with[Pg 609] a horrible uncertainty on the subject of what-'s-o'clock,—ignorant whether we are running on New-York time, Dayton time, Cincinnati time, or St. Louis time,—whether, indeed, all time be not a pure subjective notion, and any o'clock at all a mere popular delusion. For the introduction of a uniform standard we have originally to thank the Atlantic and Great Western Railway.

In comfort and elegance the second-class cars of the Atlantic and Pacific Road correspond to the omnivorous cars in use on our railroads generally. But we are a family-party, have nearly a week of travel before us, and prefer to sacrifice our money rather than our comfort. It costs a third, perhaps one-half more, to take first-class tickets; but these secure us a compartment entirely to ourselves,—fitted up with all the luxury of a lady's boudoir. We have comfortable arm-chairs to sit in all day, the latest improvement in folding-beds to sleep in at night. Our mirror, water-tank, basin, and all our toilet-arrangements are independent of the rest of the train. We have a table in the centre of our compartment for cards or luncheon. If we are wise, we have also brought along three or four Champagne-baskets stocked with private commissariat-stores, which make us quite independent of that black-art known as Western cookery. These contain sardines (half-boxes are the most practically useful size for a small party); chow-chow; pâtés-de-foie-gras; a selection of various potted meats; a few hundred Zwiebacks from our Berlin baker, and as many sticks of Italian bread from our Milanese; a dozen pounds of hard-tack, and a half-dozen of soda-crackers; an assortment of canned fruits, including, as absolute essentials, peaches and the Shaker apple-butter; a pot of anchovy-paste; a dozen half-pint boxes of concentrated coffee, and as many of condensed milk, both, as the writer has abundantly tested, prepared with unrivalled excellence by an establishment in Boston; a tin box containing ten pounds of lump-sugar; a kettle and gas-stove, to be attached by a flexible tube to one of the burners lighting the compartment; a dozen bottles of lemon-syrup; and whatever stores, in the way of wines, liquors, and cigars, may strike the fancy of the party. This may seem an ambitious outfit, but for the first year of the Pacific Railroad it will be an absolutely necessary one. As civilization spreads westward along the grand iron conductor of the continent, our national gastronomy will develop itself in company with all the other arts; but for the present it is safe to assume that outside of our private stores we shall not find a good cup of coffee after we leave St. Louis, or decent bread of any kind between Denver and Sacramento.

We seat ourselves in our comfortable arm-chairs, without the mortification of removing single gentlemen and the trouble of reversing seats to accommodate our party. The ladies are not compelled to sit in isolation, by the side of passengers who use the car-floor as a spittoon. We may chat together upon family-matters without awakening the vivid interest of any mother-in-Israel mounting guard in front of us over a bandbox. The gentlemen may smoke, if the ladies like it, and, so long as they keep the windows open, nobody shall say them nay. We all enjoy a sense of security and independence, which is like occupying a well-provisioned Gibraltar on wheels. If we have a sick friend with us, he need never leave his mattress till he reaches San Francisco. Should his situation become critical en route, the best medical attendance is at hand,—every through-train being obliged by statute to carry a first-class physician and surgeon, with a well-stocked apothecary-compartment. But our present party are all of them in fine health and spirits; so we may dismiss the doctor's shop from our consideration.

The whistle blows just as the ladies have hung their bonnets in the rack, and the gentlemen exchanged their boots for slippers. We wave adieu to the Atlantic coast and the friends who[Pg 610] have come to see us off. A few minutes more, and we pass through the Bergen Tunnel. The remainder of the day is spent amid that wild mountain and forest scenery which the Erie Railroad has made familiar to the whole travelling-population of our Eastern States. At Salamanca we strike the Atlantic and Great Western's separate line. On the way thence to Dayton we shall pass a number of long trains, made up of platform-cars heavily laden with barrels carrying East the riches of the Pennsylvania oil-region. These have connected with our main road by a couple of branches built especially for the accommodation of the petroleum-trade. From Dayton to Cincinnati we shall traverse one of the finest farming-regions of the world, meeting trains laden with beeves, swine, packed pork, lard, grain, corn, potatoes, and every variety of produce that bears transportation. By this time, also, Ohio vine-culture has attained a development which justifies an occasional train entirely devoted to pipes of still Catawba and baskets of the sparkling brands.

From Cincinnati to St. Louis by way of Vincennes, we run through the southern portions of Indiana and Illinois, threading varied and picturesque scenery all the way, unless we have seen the Egyptian prairies so many times before that they pall on us before we reach the Mississippi bluff opposite St. Louis. Till we strike the prairie, our course is among bold, well-timbered hills, which now and then we are obliged to tunnel, and by the side of charming pastoral streams whose green bottom-land is shaded by noble plane-trees and cotton-woods. Certain passages in the scenery between Cincinnati and Vincennes are beautiful as a dream of fairy-land. Every few miles we continue to meet freight-trains laden with all the well-known products of the Western field and dairy. Twice, before we reach St. Louis, a splendid cortege of passenger-carriages shall whiz by us on the southern track,—and each time we shall have seen the daily through-express from San Francisco.

The St. Louis through-passengers will be ready, on our arrival, in cars of their own. We shall switch them on behind us with little over half-an-hour's detention, and strike for Leavenworth, taking Jefferson City by the way. The country we now traverse is rolling, well watered, and well timbered along the streams. Our road has so stimulated production in the mines of Missouri that we frequently pass on the switch a freight-train taking out bar and pig iron to San Francisco, or on the other track a train laden with copper ore going to the East for reduction. We have hitherto said nothing of the innumerable trains which pass us or switch out of our way, carrying through-freight between New York and San Francisco. We are still surrounded by excellent farming-land, a fine grain, fruit, and general-produce country. Not till we leave Leavenworth can we be said fairly to have entered the central wilds of the continent. We are now west of the Missouri River, and for a distance of two hundred miles farther shall traverse a country possessing certain individual characteristics which entitle it to a name of its own among the divisions of our physical geography. This is the proper place for an indication of those divisions, generalized to the broadest terms.

In passing from sea to sea, the American traveller crosses ten well-defined regions:—

6. The Great Desert, broken by frequent uplifts, and divided by the Humboldt Range.

By attending to these distinctions with map in hand we shall gain some adequate idea of the surface of our continent. The first and second of the regions we have left behind us, and at Leavenworth are well out upon the third. It would not be just to call it prairie,—and it is equally distinct from the true Plains. As a grain and grass land, Illinois nowhere rivals it; but its surface is remarkably different from that of the prairies east of the Mississippi. It may be described as an alternation of lofty bluffs and sinuous ravines,—the former known as "divides," the latter as "draws." The top of these divides preserves one general level,—leading naturally to the hypothesis that all the draws are valleys of erosion in a tract of alluvial deposit originally uniform with the plateaus of the divides. Some of the larger draws still serve as the channels of unfailing streams; most of them carry more or less water during the rainy season; few of them are dry all the year round. The river-bottoms which traverse this region are thickly fringed with cotton-wood and elm timber; but it is a rare thing to encounter trees on the top of a divide. The fertility of the soil is boundless. Every species of grass flourishes or may flourish here, with a luxuriance unrivalled on the continent. Of the tract embraced between the Little Blue and the Republican Fork of the Kaw this is especially true. The climate is so mild and uniform that cattle may be kept at pasture the whole year round. Haymaking and the building of barns are works of supererogation. The wild grass cures spontaneously on the ground. To provide shelter against exceptional cases of climatic rigor,—an unusual "cold snap," or a fall of snow which lies more than a day or two,—the ranchero constructs for his cattle a simple corral, or, at most, a rude shed. The utmost complication which can occur in his business is a stampede; and few of our Eastern farmers' boys would hesitate to exchange their scythes, hay-cutters, corn-shellers, and mash-tubs for the saddle of his spirited Indian pony and his three days' hunt after estrays. Over this entire region the cereals thrive splendidly. The wild plum is so abundant and delicious as to suggest the most favorable adaptation to the other stone-fruits. Every vegetable that has been tried in the loam of the river-bottoms succeeds perfectly. There is just reason to think that vine-culture might reach a development along the southern slope of the Republican Bluffs not surpassed in the most favorable positions east of California. We believe it no exaggeration to say that this region needs only culture (and that of the easiest kind) to become the garden of the continent. Its mineral wealth has received scanty examination; yet we know that it contains numerous beds of tertiary coal, and easily worked iron-deposits, in the form both of hydrated oxide and black scale.

On our way through this region we strike the Republican bottom near Lat. 39° 30' N., and Long. 97° 20' W. We are now in the primest part of the buffalo-pasture. As we wind along the base of the steep Republican Bluffs, and the edges of those green amphitheatres made by their alternate approach and retrocession, our whistle scares a picket-line of giant bulls, guarding a divide across the stream, and with tails in air, heads at the down charge, they scour away at a lumbering cow-gallop, to tell the main herd of a progress more resistless than their own. Or, perhaps, our experience of the buffaloes is a more inconvenient one. We may find the main herd crossing our track in their migration from the Republican to the Platte. In such case, there will be a detention of several hours, as the current of a main herd is not fordable by any known human mechanism. The halt will be taken advantage of by timid spectators looking safely out of car-windows,—by bonâ-fide hunters, who want fresh meat, and take along the tidbits of their game to be cooked for them at the next dinner-station,—and by excited[Pg 612] pseudo-hunters, who will bang away with their rifles at the defenceless herd, until the ground flows with useless blood, and somebody suggests to them that they might as well call it sportsmanship to fire into a farmer's cow-yard, resting over the top-rail.

Now and then we shall whirl through a village of chattering prairie-dogs, send a hen-turkey rattling off her nest in a thicket on the river's edge, or perhaps surprise even an antelope sufficiently close to point out to the ladies from our window the exquisite flight of that swiftest and most beautiful creature in our American fauna. But our road will not be in running order very long before this sight becomes the rarest of the rare. The stolid buffalo will continue to wear his old paths long after the human presence has driven every antelope into invisible fastnesses.

At intervals along the Republican bottom we shall find ranches springing up under the auspices of our road; immense grain-fields yellowing toward harvest; great herds of domestic cattle grazing haunch-deep through the boundless swales of billowing wild grass; with all the other indications of a prosperous farming settlement, which, keeping pace with the progress of the road, shall eventually become one of the richest agricultural communities in the world, and continuous for over two hundred miles. Here and there we pass a lateral excavation in the face of the bluff where some enterprising settler has opened a tertiary coal-vein, a deposit of iron-ore, or a bed of soft limestone suitable for both flux and mortar purposes. The way-freight trains that meet us now are mainly laden with the wealth of the grazier, the farmer, and the gardener, competing with their brethren of the Upper Mississippi for the markets of St. Louis and New Orleans. Iron-ore, coal, and limestone may form a portion of the cargoes,—but in process of time the mutual vicinity of these minerals will become sufficiently suggestive to induce the erection of smelting-furnaces in situ, and then their combined product will travel the road in the form of pigs.

A little to the westward of a line drawn due south from Fort Kearney to the Republican we shall find a comparatively abrupt and unexplained change taking place in the scenery. Our green river-bottoms will give way to tracts of the color and seemingly of the sterility proper to an ash-heap. Our bluffs will recede, grow higher, and exchange their flat mesa-like surfaces for a curved contour, imitating the mountainous formation on a reduced scale. For long distances the vast gray level around us will be dotted with conical sand-dunes, forever piling up and tearing down as the wind shifts, with a tendency to bestow their gritty compliments in the eyes of passengers occupying windward seats on the train. The lovely blossoms of the running-poppy no longer mat the earth with blots of crimson fire; no more does the sweet breath of eglantine and sensitive-brier float in at the window as we whirl by a sheltered recess of the divides; the countless wild varieties of bean and pea no longer charm us with a rainbow prodigality of pink, blue, scarlet, purple, white, and magenta blossoms. The very trees by the river's brink become puny and stunted; the evergreens begin to replace the deciduous growths; in the shade of dwarfed and desiccated cedars we look vainly for the snowy or azure bells of the three-petalled campanula. Gaunt, staring sunflowers, and humbler compositæ of yellow tinge, stay with us a little longer than those darlings of our earlier scenery; but before we have gone many miles the last conspicuous wave of fresh vegetation breaks hopelessly on a thirsty sand-hill, and we are given over to a wilderness of cacti. Here and there occurs a sightly clump of waxen yellow blossoms, where these vegetable hedgehogs are in their holiday attire,—but it must be confessed that the view is a melancholy change from our recent affluence of beauty. With the other succulent plants, the rich herbage of the prairie has entirely disappeared. There is not[Pg 613] a blade of anything which an Eastern grazier would recognize as grass between this boundary and the Rocky Mountains. As we whiz over these wastes at railroad-speed, we shall be apt to pronounce them absolutely sterile. When we stop at the next coaling-station, let us examine the matter more closely. The ground proves to be covered with minute gray spirals of herbage, like a crop of vegetable corkscrews, an inch or two in height, and to all appearance dry as wool. This is the "grama" or "buffalo-grass," and, despite its look of utter desiccation, is highly nutritious. It is almost the entire winter dependence of the buffalo-herds, and domestic cattle soon learn to prefer it to all other feed. Its existence, together with the wide group of changes which we have noticed, denotes that we have passed the threshold of the fourth grand continental division, and are now in the region of the Plains proper.

Ex-Governor Gilpin of Colorado, in his "Central Gold Region," very truly styles the Plains "the pastoral area of the continent." The Plains are set apart for grazing purposes by the method of exclusion. There is nothing else that can be done with them. Rain seldom falls on them. The shallow rivers, like the Platte, which wander through them, are too far apart to be used economically for their general irrigation. Only such herbage may be expected to thrive here as can live on its own condensation of water from a sensibly dry atmosphere. Manifestly, art can do nothing for the improvement of such a tract. It must be left to fulfil its natural function, as the great continental pasture. Along the banks of the rivers run narrow strips of alluvial soil, liable to yearly inundation; and these may be made amenable to the ordinary processes of agriculture. On these the herdsman may raise the grain and vegetables necessary for his own consumption. But the vast area of the region seems inevitably set apart for the one sole business of cattle-raising, and all the way-freight trains which pass us here are laden with beeves for the St. Louis market, or dairy-produce for all the markets of the world. We have never tasted grama-cheese, but have a theory that its individual piquancy must equal that of the delicious Schabzieger.

Far off on the gray level we shall still see the antelope. His tribe is coextensive with three-fourths of the continent. No sterility discourages him. He seems as thrifty on the wiry grama as among the most succulent grasses of the Republican. The sneaking coyote and a number of larger wolves put in an occasional appearance. Birds of the hawk and raven families are common. The waters swarm with numerous varieties of duck. It surprises us at this utmost distance from the maritime border to see flocks of Arctic gulls circling around the low sand-hills, and sickle-bill curlews wheeling high in air above their broods. Before we get far into this region we shall notice that one of its most typical features is the alkali-pool. Every few miles we come to a shallow basin of stagnant water saturated with salts of soda and potash. Still another characteristic of the Plains is their tremendous rainless thunder-storms. If we are fortunate enough to encounter one of these, we shall witness in one hour more atmospheric perturbation than has occurred within our whole previous experience on the Atlantic slope. The lightning for half a night will light the sky with an almost continuous glare, brighter than noonday; all the parks of artillery on earth could not make such a constant deafening roar as those iron clouds in the heaven; and though the wind will not be able to blow the train backward, as we have seen it treat a four-mule stage, it will be likely to do its next best thing, heaping sand on the track till the engine has to slow and send men ahead with shovels.

Entering the Denver depot, we shall find a busy scene. All that immense freight-business between the Missouri and the Colorado mining-towns, which formerly strung the overland road with[Pg 614] wagons drawn by six yoke of oxen each, has now been transferred to the railroad. The switches are crowded with cars getting unloaded, or waiting their turn to be. What is their freight? Rather ask what it is not. For the present, Colorado imports everything except the most perishable commodities,—and that which pays for all. If you would see that, ask the express-messenger on the train going East in five minutes to lift the lid of one of those heavy iron trunks in his car. Your eyes are dazzled by the yellow gleam of a king's ransom. It is a day's harvest of ingots from the stamps of Central City, on its way to square accounts with New York for the contents of one of those freight-trains.

At Denver we reach the edge of the Rocky-Mountain foot-hills; the grand snow-peak of Mount Rosalie, rivalling Mont Blanc in height and majesty, though forty miles away, seems to rise just behind the town; thence southerly toward Pike's and northerly toward Long's Peak, the billowing ridges stretch away brown and bare, save where the climbing lines of sombre green mark their pine-fringed gorges, or the everlasting ice pencils their crests with an edge of opal. Still we do not leave the Plains region. We glide through the thronged streets of the growing city, cross the South Platte by a short bridge, and strike nearly due north along the edge of the mountain-range, over a broad plateau which still bears the characteristic grama. Not until we enter the cañon of the Cache-la-Poudre, a hundred miles from Denver by the road, can we consider ourselves fairly out of the Plains, and in the fifth great region of the continent, the Rocky-Mountain system of ridges and intramontane plateaus.

Before we begin this portion of our journey, let us examine, in the light of that already accomplished, an assertion made early in this article to the effect that the Pacific Railroad must precede and create the business which shall support it. The consideration shall be brief as a mathematical process.

The river-bottoms and divides along the Lower Republican are peculiarly suited to the raising of farm-produce. But so long as they had no avenue to a market, they might have been fertile as Paradise without alluring settlers to cultivate them. The natural advantages of a country are developed not as a matter of taste, but as a matter of profit. The crops which can be raised to best advantage in this region are the crops which without a railroad must rot on the ground. No man can be expected to settle in a new country from pure Quixotism,—and nothing but the railroad would make anything else of his expenditure of energies beyond the needs of self-support. The Plains are the natural pasture of the continent; but they have no natural fascination for the white man which can induce him to take up his residence there for cattle-breeding en amateur. The greatest enthusiast in butter and cheese would scarcely care to accumulate mountains of rancid firkins and boxes for the mere gratification of fancy. Access to a market is his only justification for spending a nomadic lifetime among herds, or a fortune on churns and presses. The settlement of the country must precede the birth of its industries, and the Pacific Road is the absolutely essential stimulus to such settlement.

As we converse, we are beginning our climb toward the snow. A series of steep grades, mainly following the bed of that wildly picturesque and roaring torrent, the Cache-la-Poudre, take us up through the Cheyenne Pass to the Laramie Plains. In reaching the head of the Cache-la-Poudre we have familiarized ourselves with the ridges of the system; we are now to learn what is meant by the intramontane plateaus. The Laramie Plains form the most remarkable plateau of the Rocky Range,—one of the most remarkable anywhere in the known world. Through a series of savage cañons we enter what appears to us a reproduction of the prairies east of the Mississippi,—a level and luxuriantly grassy plain, bright with unknown flowers,[Pg 615] alive with startled antelope, threaded by the clear currents of both the Laramie Rivers, and rejoicing in an atmosphere which exhilarates like the fresh-brewed nectar of Olympus. Bounded on the east by the great ridge we have just passed, northerly by a continuation of the Wind-River Range and Laramie Peak, southerly by a magnificent transverse bar of naked mountains running parallel with the Wind-River Range, and westward by a staircase of sterile divides which we must climb to reach the base of Elk Mountain and find its giant mass towering into the eternal snows three thousand feet farther above our heads,—this plateau is a prairie fifty miles square, lifted bodily eight thousand feet into the air. It is difficult for us to roll over this Elysian mead walled in by these tremendous ranges, and think of the commercial uses to which the level might be put; but from its elevation and its natural crop we may pronounce it a grazing tract of splendid capabilities, unsuited to artificial culture.

Another series of grades takes us past the base of Elk Mountain to a broad and sandy cactus-plain, whence we descend among curious trap and sandstone formations, simulating human architecture, to the crossing of the North Platte. A little farther on, so close to the snow-line that we shiver under the white ridges with a reflected chill, we cross the axial ridge of the continent, and begin our descent toward Salt Lake by the noble gallery of Bridger's Pass. The springs along our way become tinctured with sulphur, alkali, and salt. We know, when we stop at a station to drink, that we are drawing near the primeval basin of a stagnant sea, now shrunk to its final pool in Salt Lake, but once in size a rival of the Mediterranean. We pass over an alternation of mountain-grades and sandy levels, cross the Green or Upper Colorado River, stop for five minutes at the Fort-Bridger station, thread the sinuous galleries of the Wahsatch, and come down from a savage wilderness of sage-brush, granite, and red sandstone, into the luxuriant green pastures of Mormondom, heavy with crops and irrigated from the snow-peaks. Thence, one of the numerous cañons—Emigrant or Parley's most likely—conducts us to the mountain-walled level of Salt-Lake City.

We have now traversed the most difficult part of our road. Its Rocky-Mountain section has cost more capital, labor, and engineering skill than all the rest together. The return for this vast expenditure must be no less vast,—but it will be rendered slowly. It does not lie on the surface or just beneath the surface, as in the pastoral and agricultural regions. It is almost entirely mineral, and must be mined by the hardest work. But it ranges through all the metallic wealth of Nature, from gold to iron, and no conceivable stimulus short of a Pacific Railroad could ever have been adequate to bring it forth.

We shall find the import trade of Salt Lake by the railroad to consist chiefly of emigrants and their chattels. If Brigham Young be still living, his favorite policy of non-intercourse with the Gentiles may also somewhat diminish the export business of the road. But human nature cannot forever resist the currents of commercial interest; and the Mormon settlements possess so many advantages for the economical production of certain staples, that we need not be surprised to find trains leaving Salt-Lake City with sorghum and cotton for San Francisco, and raw silk for all the markets of the East.

From Salt-Lake City to the Humboldt Mountains, we pass between isolated uplifts of trap and granite, over a comparatively level desert of sand and snowy alkali. The terrors of this journey, as performed by horse-carriage, have been fully depicted in our last April number. We may laugh at them now. The question which principally interests us, after we have blunted the first edge of our wonder at the sublime sterility of the Desert, is what conceivable use this waste can be made to subserve. Before the[Pg 616] railroad, that question had but a single answer,—the inculcation of contentment, by contrast with the most disagreeable surroundings in which one might anywhere else be placed. Perhaps it is over-sanguine to conceive of a further answer even now. If there be any, it is this: In its crudest state the alkaline earth of the Desert is sufficiently pure to make violent effervesence with acids. No elaborate process is required to turn it into commercial soda and potash. Coal has been already found in Utah. Silex exists abundantly in all the Desert uplifts. Why should not the greatest glass-works in the world be reared along the Desert section of the Pacific Road? and why should not the entire market of the Pacific Coast be supplied with refined alkalies from the same tract? Given the completed railroad, and neither of these projects exceeds commercial possibility.

We cross the Humboldt Mountains by a series of grades shorter than that which conducts us over the Rocky system, but full as difficult in proportion. We descend into a second instalment of Desert on the other side; but the general sterility is now occasionally broken by oases, moist green cañons, and living springs. A hundred miles west of the Humboldt Pass we come to the mining-settlements of Reese River, gaining a new increment to the business of the road in the transportation of silver to San Francisco, and every conceivable necessary of life to the mines.—Within the last eighteen months eleven hundred dollars in gold have been paid for the carriage by wagon of a single set of amalgamating-apparatus from Virginia City to Reese, a distance of two hundred miles. The price of the commonest necessaries at the Reese-River mines has reached the highest point of the old California markets in '49,—and no attainable means of transport have been adequate to supply the demand.

From Reese River to Carson we traverse a broken, rocky, and sterile tract, with occasional fertile patches and a belt along the Carson River susceptible of cultivation. The foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada gradually shut us round, and at Carson we begin penetrating the main system through a series of magnificent galleries between precipices of porphyritic granite, leading nearly northward to the Truckee Pass. The grades we now encounter are as tremendous as any in the Rocky-Mountain system. Just before entering the main pass we come to the junction of a branch-road from Virginia City. The train which stops at the fork to let us go ahead is carrying down several tons of silver "bricks" from the Washoe mines to Kellogg and Hewston's, the great assay and refining firm of San Francisco. The pass takes us across the summit-line of the range, but not out of the environment of its mountains. We penetrate granite fastnesses and descend blood-chilling inclines, span roaring chasms and glide under solemn roofs of lofty mountain-pine, until in the neighborhood of Centralia we begin for the first time to see the agricultural tract of the Golden State.

Between ranches, placer-diggings, and small settlements, we now thread our comparatively level way to Sacramento. Here we are met by the chief affluent of this end of the Pacific Road,—the long-projected, greatly needed, and now finally accomplished line between Sacramento and Portland. This enterprise has done for the Sacramento and Willamette valleys the same good offices of development performed by our grand line for all the central continent. The noble orchards, pastures, grain-lands, and gardens of Northern California and Oregon are now provided with a market. Their wastes are brought under cultivation, their mines are opened, their entire area is settled by a class of men who work under the stimulus of certain profit. The Northern freight-trains waiting at Sacramento to make a junction with our road are loaded with the produce of one of the richest agricultural regions in the world, now flowing to its first remunerative market. All this must pay toll to[Pg 617] our road, and here is another source of profit.

Crossing a number of tributaries to the Sacramento, and intersecting mines, ranches, and settlements, as before, we follow a nearly straight level to Stockton. Then turning westerly, we cross the San Joaquin, pass almost beneath the shadow of grand old Monte Diablo, glide among the vines and olives of San José Mission, and curve round the southern bend of the lovely bay to the queenly city of San Francisco. One of Leland's carriages awaits us at the terminus. We are driven to the most delightful hotel on the continent, and find our old friend, the Occidental, altered in no respect save size, which the growing demands of the Pacific New York, since the completion of our inter-oceanic line, have compelled Leland to quadruple. We are on time,—six days and eight hours exactly. Or, assuming the San-Francisco standard, we have gained three hours on the sun, and, instead of taking a two-o'clock lunch, as our friends are doing in New York, sit down to an eleven-o'clock breakfast crowned with melons, grapes, and strawberries, in the sweet seclusion of the Ladies' Ordinary.

SEA-HOURS WITH A DYSPEPTIC.

BY HIS SATELLITE.

I.—PRELUSIVE.

There are a good many fictions in the world. I will mention one:—the propeller Markerstown. The bulletins and placards of her owners soar high in the realms of fancy; like Sirens, they sing delightful songs,—and all about "the A 1 fast-sailing, commodious, first-class steam-packet Markerstown." Such is the soaring fiction: now let us look at the sore fact. The "A 1" is, I take it, simply the "Ai!" of the Greek chorus new-vamped for modern wear,—a drear wail well suited to the victims of the Markerstown. As to sailing qualities:—we know, of course, that all speed is relative. For a sea-comet, the Markerstown would be somewhat leisurely, though answering well for an oceanic fixed star, having no perceptible motion. One man on board—the Captain—was accommodated: the kidnapped all suffered. Whether the Markerstown should be reckoned as first-class or last-class is a question depending simply on where the counting begins, and which way it runs. "Steam-packet" she was indeed, though not in the most desirable way. Her steam was "packit" (Scotticè) too close for safety, but lay quite too loose for speed. The kidnapped were all "packit," and "weel packit." How I came to be one of them, and how by this mystic union I halved my joys and doubled my griefs, as the naughty ones say of wedlock, will soon appear.

One brilliant fancy-flight I forgot to mention. The craft in question was boldly proclaimed as "new." New, indeed, she might have been: so were once the Ark, the Argo, the Old Téméraire, the Constitution, and sundry other hulks of celebrity. Yet it is not mere rhetoric to say, that, if the eyes of the second and third Presidents of these United States never, in their declining years, beheld the good ship Markerstown, it was only from lack of wholesome curiosity.

This pleasing list of attractions was wont to make an occasional trip—should I not rather say saunter?—to the New-World Levant, the Yankee Eöthen. The time consumed was theoretically a day[Pg 618] and a half, but practically a day or two longer. Tired as I was of the sluttish land, the clean sea had an inviting look. Dusty car and ringing rail wore no Circean graces, when the long-haired mermaid, decked in robes of comely green, looked out from her bower beneath the waves, and beckoned me to come. What more welcome than her sea-green home? What sight finer than the myriad diamond-sparkles in her eye? What sound sweeter than the murmurs of her soothing, never-ceasing voice? What perfume so rare as the crisp fragrance breathing from her robes? What so thrilling, so magnetically ecstatic, as her tumultuous heaving, and the lithe, undulating buoyancy of her mazy footfalls?

It is proper to state here, as an act of justice to others, and to save myself from the charge of lunacy, that the Markerstown was a mere interloper. Our covetous, good old uncle had set his eye on the regular steamer of the line, and his greedy fingers had taken her away to Dixie, where her decks were now swarming with blue coats and black heels. The peaceful Markerstown, being exempt by reason of physical disqualifications, tarried behind as home-guard substitute for her warlike sister. Ignorant of the change, I secured my passage, paid for my ticket, sent down my trunks, and presented myself at the gangway one sweltering afternoon in the latter part of June, a few minutes before the hour set for sailing. There was nothing in the aspect of things to indicate a speedy departure. On the contrary, the tardy craft had just arrived, and was intensely busy in letting off steam and discharging cargo. The mate was quite sure—and so was I—that she wouldn't weigh anchor before early next morning. The prospect was not enrapturing. Confusion, dirt, pandemoniac noise, long delay, and over all a blistering sun, were ill suited to bring peace to the embezzled seeker after pleasure.

As a relief from the horrid din on deck, I made my way to the cabin. It was a place well named, being cabined, cribbed, confined, in quite an unprecedented degree. It was then and there that I first saw the subject of this sketch,—the Peptic Martyr. Unknowingly, I was face to face with my Man of Destiny. Shipmate, Philosopher, Martyr, Rhapsodist, Mentor, Bon-Vivant, Dūspeptos,—these are but a few of the various disks which I came at last to see in this gem of first water. Even now, in memory, the subject looms vast before me, and the freighted pen halts. Bear with me: let us pause for one moment. Matter like this asks a new strophe.

II.—THE BURDEN OF THE SONG.

Dūspeptos was sitting on a common mohair sofa, surrounded by some half-dozen or more of his fellow-victims. It is stated that Themistocles, before his ocean-raid at Salamis, sacrificed three young men to Bacchus the Devourer. The Markerstown, in sailing out upon the great deep, immolated at least twelve, old and young, as a festive holocaust to Neptune the Nauseator. Here in their sacrificial crate were the luckless scapegoats, sad-eyed prey of the propeller. It was easy to see, at the first glance, that the Martyr was the central sun round which clustered the planets of propitiation. Born king, he asserted his kingship, and all yielded from the beginning to his sway. Ears and mouths opened toward him the liege. Upon the magnet of his voice hung the eager atoms. There was a filmy, distant look in the eyes of the listeners, as of men rapt with the mystic utterances of a seer. My entrance unheralded broke up the monologue, whatever it was. But seeing the true sacrificial look on my brow, all at once, from chief to sutler, confessed a brother. To me then turning, Dūspeptos, king of men, spoke winged words:—

"'Pears t' me, stranger, you look kind o' streaked. Ken I do anythin' for ye? Wal, I s'pose th' old tub's caught you too, so we ken jest count y' in along o' this 'ere crowd. Reg'lar fix,[Pg 619] now, a'n't it? 'T's wut I call pooty kinky. Dern'd 'f I'd 'a' come, 'f I'd 'a' known th' old butter-box was goin' to be s' frisky. Lively's a young colt now, a'n't she? Kicks up her heels, an' scampers off te'ble smart, don't she? 'S never seen an ekul yit for punctooality an' speed. When she doos tech the loocifer, an' cooks up her steam in her high old pepper-box, jest you mind me, boys, there'll be a high old time. Wun't say much, but there'll be fizzin', sure,—mebby suthin' more,—mebby reg'lar snorter, a jo-fired jolly good bust-up. Mebby th' wun't be no weepin' an' gahnishin' o' teeth about these parts along towards mornin'. Who knows? Natur' will work. Th' old scow's got to go accordin' to law,—that's one sahtisfahction, sartin. 'S a cause for all these things. An' ef she doos kind o' rip an' tear, she's got to go b' Gunter. She's bound to foller her constitootion as she understan's it, an' to stan' up for the great principal of ekul freedom for all. Hope they'll be keerful to save some o' the pieces. 'S a good deal o' comfort 'n these loose fragments. 'S nuthin' like the raäl odds an' ends—the Simon-pure, ginooine article—to bind up the broken heart an' make the mourners joyful. No tellin' how much good they do in restorin' gratitood to Providence, an' smoothin' things over,—kind o' make matters easy, you know. Interestin', too, to hev in the house,—pleasin' ornaments on the mantel-piece to show to friends an' vis'ters. They allers like to hear the story 'n connection with the native specimens, an' everybody feels happified an' thankful. Yes, after all, th'r' is a master lot of solid comfort in a raäl substantial accident right in the buzzum of a family,—none o' your three-cent fizzles, but a true-blue afflictin' dispensation. 'S a heap o' pleasin' an' valooable associations a-clusterin' round."

Here the vocal one paused for an instant, to draw breath, and rally for another raid. Feeling his little army now well in hand, he burned for fresh conquests. In glancing triumphantly around, his eye fell on a certain benign smile then flitting over the face of his predestined Satellite. Complacently nodding thereto, straightway the Peptic spoke:—

"I s'pose this 'ere group 's all insured, everythin' right an' tight an' all square up t' the hub. Suthin' hahnsum for the widders an' orphans. These little nest-eggs allers sort o' handy,—grease the ways, an' slick things up ship-shape. Survivors bless the rod, an' fix up everythin' round the house in apple-pie order. I hev known men that was so te'ble pertickler allers to save the Company, that nuthin' ever did, n' ever could happen. An' the despairin' friends kep' waitin' an' waitin', but 't was no sort o' use; they never got a red. 'T's wut I call bein' desput keerful, an' sailin' pooty consid'able close to the wind. 'T's like old Deacon Skillins's hoss, down to Mudville, that was so dreffle conscientious he couldn't eat oats. No accountin' for tastes. Free country, anyhow. Ef anybody likes to be fussy an' ructious 'n little things, why, there's nuthin' to hender him from hevin' his own way. But it don't exackly hev an hon'able look to common-sense folks.

"Ef the clipper's a free-agent, she'll blow up, sure, jest to git out o' sin an' misery. But ef so be she's bonyfihd predestined, she'll hev to travel in the vale o' puhbation a spell longer, 'cause her cup a'n't full yit, not by a long chalk. S'posin' she doos start out mellifloous, what then? Don't imagine, my feller-sinners, that the danger's all over,—no, it's only jest begun. Things ahead 's a good deal wuss. Steam 's pooty bad, but 't a'n't a circumstahnce to the blamed grease. 'T's the grease that doos the mischief, an' plays the dickens with human natur'. Down in th' army, they say, biscuits kills more'n bullets; an' it's gospil truth, every word on 't, perticklerly ef the biscuits is hot, an' pooty wal fried up in grease. Fryin' 's the great mortal sin, the parient of all misery. The hull world's full of it, but the sea 's a master sight fuller 'n the land. Somehow 'nother, grease takes[Pg 620] kind o' easy to salt water,—sailors wun't hev nothin' but a fry. Jest you give 'em plenty o' fat, an' they wun't ask no favors o' nobody. These 'ere puhpellers 's the wust sinners of 'em all, an' somehow hev a good deal more 'n their own share o' fat. They kind o' borrer from mackerellers an' side-wheelers both together, an' mix 't all up 't oncet. My friends, ef you a'n't desput anxious to see glory from this 'ere deck, be virtoous, an' observe the golden rule: Don't tech, don't g' nigh the p'is'n upus-tree of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take keer o' the grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Fact is, my beloved brethren, I've ben a fust-chop dyspeptic for the best part o' my life, an' I'm pooty wal posted in what I'm talkin' about. What I don't know on this 'ere subjick a'n't wuth knowin'."

III.—RECITATIVE

How much farther the Martyr's appeal might have gone can never be known, as the height of his great argument was cut short at this point by the appearance of the Pontifex Maximus in person on the stage of action. The fated victims were to be made ready for the coming sacrifice. The oracle, it seems, had declared that Neptune would not smile, unless two were cribbed together in one pen,—that the arrangement of these pairs should be left with the lot of the bean,—and that as the beans went, so must go the victims. Inexorable Fate would allow no reversal of her decrees. Soon the beans were rattling in the hat of the Pontifex, and, mirabile! pen No. 1 fell to Dūspeptos and his Satellite elect.

The immediate effects of this bean—whether white, black, Pythagorean, Lima, kidney, or what not—were three-fold: 1. A pump-handle hand-shaking; 2. A very thorough diagnosis of the weather, including a rapid sketch by Dūspeptos of the leading principles of caloric, pneumatics, and hygrology; 3. An exchange of cards. That of which I was the recipient consisted of a sheet of paste-board, rather begrimed and wrinkled, of nearly the same dimensions as the Atlantic (Monthly, not Ocean). The name and address occupied the middle of one side of the document, while all the remaining space was filled in with manifold closest scribblings in lead-pencil,—apparently notes, memoranda, and the like. These were not at all private, so the new-found partner of my bosom assured me. In fact, I should do well to look at them, and make myself master of their contents. My friends also might find profit therein. Stray hints might undoubtedly be gathered from them which would lay open to my eyes the secret things of Nature and life. Thrusting it into my pocket for the moment, I feasted myself in imagination with the treasure that was mine, anticipating the happy hour that should make my hope fruition. Then we, first elect of the bean, set ourselves to determine the status quo ante bellum. And here came in once more the fabaceous maker and marker of destiny, saying that blind justice decreed, that, inasmuch as sound is wont to rise, he who was noonday Sayer and midnight Snorer should couch below, while the Hearer should circle above,—plainly a wise provision, that the good things of Providence might not be wasted. Both Damon and Pythias agreed, that, for once at least, the oracle was not ambiguous.

All things being at last arranged, the Rhapsodist took his leave for the present, going, as he informed me, on an errand of mercy for his stomach. The magazine aboard ship being of dubious character, he had prevailed on himself to supply his concern with a limited number of first-class cereals with his own imprimatur,—copyright and profits to be in his own hands. As some consolation for his absence, I was favored with a brief oral treatise on Fats, considered both dietetically and ethically, with an appendix, somewhat à la Liebig, on the nature, use, and effects of tissue-making and heat-making food, nitrogen, carbon,[Pg 621] and the like. By way of improvement, a brilliant peroration was added, supposed to be addressed through me to the mothers of America, urging them to bring up the rising generation fatless. Thus only might war cease, justice prevail, love reign, humanity rise, and a golden age come back again to a world-wide Arcadia. Fat and Anti-Fat! Eros and Anteros, Strophe and Antistrophe. Or, better, the old primeval tale,—Jove and the Titans, Theseus and the Centaurs, Bellerophon and the Chimæra, Thor and the Giants, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Good and Evil, Water and Fire, Light and Darkness. The world has told it over from the beginning.

And do you ask what manner of man was the Fatless one? You shall see him. His most striking feature was a fur cap,—weight some four pounds, I should judge. I think he was born with this cap, and will die with it, for 90° Fahrenheit seemed no temptation to uncover. Boots came second in rank, but twelfth or so in number,—weight probably on a par with the leaded brogans of the little wind-driven poetaster of old. Between these two extremes might be found about five feet ten of humanity, lank, sapless, and stooping. The seedy drapery of the figure hung in lean, reproachful wrinkles. The flabby trousers seemed to say: "Give! give!" The hollow waistcoat murmured: "Pad, oh! pad me with hot biscuits!" The loose coat swung and sighed for forbidden fruit: "Fill me with fat!" A dry, coppery face found pointed expression in the nose, which hung like a rigid sentinel over the thin-lipped mouth,—like Victor Hugo's Javert, loyal, untiring, merciless. No traitorous comfits ever passed that guard; no death-laden bark sailed by that sleepless quarantine. The small ferret-eyes which looked nervously out from under bushy brows, roaming, but never resting, were of the true Minerva tint,—yellow-green. The encircling rings told of unsettled weather. While elf-locks and straggling whiskers marked the man careless of forms, the narrow, knotted brow suggested the thinker persistent in the one idea:—

"deep on his front engraven,
Deliberation sat and peptic care."

Not over beds of roses had he walked to ascend the heights. Those boots in which he shambled along his martyr-course were filled with peas. He had learned in suffering what he taught in sing-song. The wreath of wormwood was his, and the statue of brass. Io triumphe!

His gait was a swift, uncertain shuffle, a compromise between a saunter and a dog-trot. The arms hung straight and stiff from the narrow shoulders, like the radii of a governor, diverging more or less according to the rate of speed. When the scourge of his Dæmon lashed him along furiously, they stood fast at forty-five degrees. His eyes peered suspiciously around, as he lumbered on, watchful for the avenger of fat, who, perhaps, was even now at his heels. A slouch-hat, crowning hollow eyes and haggard beard, filled him with joy: it marked a bran-bread man and a brother. He smiled approvingly at a shrivelled form with hobbling gait; but from the fat and the rubicund he turned with severest frown. They were fleshly sinners, insults to himself, corrupters of youth, gorged drones, law-breakers. He was ready to say, with the statesman of old: "What use can the state turn a man's body to, when all between the throat and the groin is taken up by the belly?" He had vowed eternal hostility to all such, and from the folds of his toga was continually shaking out war. He was of the race sung by the bard, who

"Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge,
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
And blaspheme custard through the nose."

Every chance-comer was instantaneously gauged as dyspeptic or eupeptic, friend or foe. On the march, Javert was on the alert, snuffing up the air, until some savory odor crossed his path, when he would shut himself up, like a snail within his shell. Yet he was not sleeping, for no titbit ever passed the portals[Pg 622] beneath. Perhaps, however, they were themselves trusty now, having made habit a second nature. I cannot imagine them watering at sight of any dainty.

I have heard it said that certain orders of beings are able to improvise or to interchange organs, just as need calls. Thus a polyp, if hard put to it, may shift what little brain and stomach happen to be in his possession. You may say that he carries his heart in his hand. He can take his stomach, and dump it down in brain-case or thorax, just as he fancies,—can organize viscera and victory anywhere, at any moment; and all works merrily. The Fatless was similar, yet different. His stomach changed not its local habitation, was never victorious; yet, from cap to boot, it was ubiquitous and despotic. Brain and heel alike felt themselves to be mere squatters on another's soil, and had a vague idea that the rightful lord might some day come to oust them, and build up a new capital in these far-away districts. Sometimes they went so far as to style themselves his proconsuls and lieutenants, but they were never suffered to do more than simply to register the decrees of the central power. Dūspeptos was king only in name,—roi fainéant. Gaster was the power behind the throne,—the Mayor of the Palace,—the great Grand-Vizier. Nought went merrily, for he ruled with a rod of iron. Every day his strange freaks set the empire topsy-turvy. Every day there was growling and ill-feeling at his whimsical tyranny,—but nothing more. Secession was as impossible as in the day of Menenius Agrippa.

Looking at it another way, Gaster might be called the object-glass through which Dūspeptos looked out upon the world,—a glass always bubbly, distorted, and cracked, generally filmy and smoky, never achromatic, and decidedly the worse for wear. I think that the world thus seen must have had a very odd look to him. His most fitting salutation to each fellow-peptic, as he crossed the field of vision, would have been the Chinese form of greeting: "How is your stomach? Have you eaten your rice?" or, perhaps, the Egyptian style: "How do you perspire?" With him, the peptic bond was the only real one; all others were shams. All sin was peptic in origin: Eve ate an apple which disagreed with her. The only satisfactory atonement, therefore, must be gastric. All reforms hitherto had profited nothing, because they had been either cerebral or cardiac. None had started squarely from Gaster, the true centre. Moral reform was better than intellectual, since the heart lay nearer than the head to the stomach. Phalansteries, Pantisocracies, Unitary Homes, Asylums, Houses of Refuge,—these were all mere makeshifts. The hope of the world lay in Hygeian Institutes. Heroes of heart and brain must bow before the hero of the stomach. Judged by any right test of greatness, Graham was more a man than was Napoleon or John Howard. He that ruled his stomach was greater than he who took a city. Béranger's Roi d'Yvetot, who ate four meals a day,—the Esquimaux, with his daily twenty-pound quantum of train-oil, gravy, and tallow-candles,—the alderman puffing over callipash and callipee,—the backwoodsman hungering after fattest of pork,—such men as these were no common sinners: they were assassins who struck at the very fountain of life, and throttled a human stomach. Pancreatic meant pancreative. Gastric juice was the long-sought elixir. The liver was the lever of the higher life. Along the biliary duct led the road to glory. All the essence of character, life, power, virtue, success, and their opposites,—all the decrees of Fate even,—were daily concocted by curious chemistry within that dark laboratory lying between the œsophagus and the portal vein. There were brewed the reeking ingredients that fertilize the fungus of Crime; there was made to bloom the bright star-flower of Innocence; there was forged the anchor of Hope; there were twisted the threads of the rotten cable of Despair; there Faith built her cross; there Love vivified the[Pg 623] heart, and Hate dyed it; there Remorse sharpened his tooth; there Jealousy tinged his eye with emerald; there was quarried the horse-block from which dark Care leaped into the saddle behind the rider; there were puffed out the smoke-wreaths of Doubt; there were blown the bubbles of Phantasy; there sprouted the seeds of Madness; and there, down in the icy vaults, Death froze his finger for the last, cold touch.

IV.—HARMONICS.

Of course, this is only in miniature, and represents every way but a very small part of the document, the address being but a drop in the superscriptive surge,—a rivulet of text meandering through a meadow of marginalia. Inasmuch as Dūspeptos courted the widest publicity for these stomachic scraps, no scruples of delicacy forbid me to jot down here some few of them. He thought them fitted for the race,—the more readers the better: perhaps it may be, the more the merrier. If called upon to classify them, I should put them all under the genus Gastric Scholia. The different species and varieties it is hardly worth while to enter upon here. There were intuitions, recollections, and glosses, apparently set down in a fragmentary way from time to time, in a most minute and distinct text. Very probably they were hints of thoughts designed to be worked up in a more formal way. Whether the quotations were taken at first or second hand I cannot say; but internal evidence would seem to indicate that many of them might have been clippings from the columns of "The Old Lancaster Day-Book." It is, perhaps, worthy of note that Mr. Rink was, in fact, a man of rather more thought and general information than one might suppose, if judging him merely by his uncouth grammar, and the clipped coin of his jangling speech:—

"His voice was nasal with the twang
That spoiled the hymns when Cromwell's army sang."

Now, then, O reader, returning from this feast of fat things, I lay before you the scraps.

"There's been a good deal of high-fangled nonsense written about genius. One man says it's in the head; another, that it comes from the heart, etc., etc. The fact is, they're all wrong. Genius lies in the stomach. Who ever knew a fat genius? Now there's De Quincey,—he says, in his outlandish way, that genius is the synthesis of the intellect with the moral nature. No such thing; and a man who sinned day and night against his stomach, and swilled opium as he did, couldn't be expected to know. If there's any synthesis at all about it, it's the synthesis of the stomach with the liver."

"What a complete knowledge of human nature Sam Slick shows, when he says, 'A bilious cheek and a sour temper are like the Siamese twins: there's a nateral cord of union atween them. The one is a sign with the name of the firm written on it in long letters.'"

"The French are a mighty cute people. They know a thing or two about as well as the next man. There's a heap of truth and poetry in these maxims of one of their writers: 'Indigestion is the remorse of a guilty stomach'; 'Happiness consists in a hard heart and a good digestion.'"

"The old tempter—the original Jacobs—was called in Hebrew a nachash, so I'm told. But folks don't seem to understand exactly what this nachash was. Some say it was a rattlesnake, some a straddle-bug. Old Dr. Adam Clarke, I've heard, vowed it was a monkey. They're all out of their reckoning. It's[Pg 624] as plain as a pikestaff that it was nothing but Fried Fat cooked up to order, and it's been a-tempting weak sisters ever since. That's what's the matter."

"It makes me master-sick to hear all these fellows who've just made out to scrape together a few postage-stamps laying down their three-cent notions about the way to get on in the world, the rules for success, and all that. Just as if a couple of greenbacks could make a blind man see clean through a millstone! They're like these old nursing grannies: No. 1 thinks catnip is the only thing; No. 2 believes there's nothing like sage-tea and mustard-poultice; No. 3 swears by burdock. The truth is,—and men might as well own up to it first as last,—success depends on bile."

"Shakspeare was a man who was pretty well posted in human nature all round,—knew the kitchen about as well as the parlor. He knocks on the head the sin of stuffing, in 'All's Well that Ends Well,' where he speaks of the man that 'dies with feeding his own stomach.' In 'Timon of Athens' there's a chap who 'greases his pure mind,' probably with fried sausages, gravy, and such like trash. The fellow in 'Macbeth' who has 'eaten of the insane root' was meant, I calculate, as a hard rap on tobacco-chewers (and smokers too); he called it root, instead of leaf, just to cover up his tracks. What a splendid thought that is in 'Love's Labor's Lost': 'Fat paunches have lean pates'! Everybody knows how Julius Cæsar turned up his nose at fat men. The poet never could stand frying; he calls it, in 'Macbeth,' 'the young fry of treachery.' Probably he'd had more taste of the traitor than was good for him. Has a good slap somewhere on the critter that 'devours up all the fry it finds.' I reckon that Shakspeare always set a proper valuation on human digestion; 'cause when he speaks of a man with a good stomach,—an excellent stomach,—he always has a good word for him, and kind of strokes down his fur the right way of the grain; but he comes down dreadful strong on the lout that has no stomach, as he calls it. In 'Henry IV.,' he says, 'the cook helps to make the gluttony.' I estimate that that one sentence alone, if he'd never writ another word, would have made him immortal. If I had my way, I'd have it printed in gold letters a foot long, and sot up before every cook-stove in the land. But just see what a man he was! This very same play that tells the disease prescribes the cure, that is, 'the remainder-biscuit,'—a knock-down proof to any man with a knowledge-box that Graham-bread was known and appreciated in those days, and that Shakspeare himself had cut his own eye-teeth on it."

"History is merely a record of indigestions,—a calendar of the foremost stomachs of the age. The destinies of nations hang on the bowels of princes. Internal wars come from intestine rebellion. The rising within is father to the insurrection without. The fountain of a national crisis is always found under the waistcoat of one man. There's Napoleon I.,—what settled him for good was just that greasy mutton-chop stewed up in onions, which he took for his grub at Leipsic. If he'd only ordered a couple of slices of dry Graham-toast, with a cup of weak black tea, he'd have saved his stomach, and whipped 'em, sure; and matters and things in Europe would have had a different look all round ever since."

"Emerson is a man who once in a while gets a little inkling of the truth. I see he says that the creed lies in the biliary duct. That's good orthodox doctrine, I don't care who says it."

"Buckwheat-cakes are now leading us back to barbarism faster than the printing-press ever carried us forward towards civilization."

"Temperament means nothing more nor less than just quantity and quality of bile. That old sawbones, Hippocrates, came mighty near hitting the nail square[Pg 625] on the head more 'n two thousand year ago, but he felt kind of uncertain, and didn't exactly know what he was driving at. The old heathen made out just four humors, as he called 'em,—the sanguineous, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. If he'd only made one step more on to the other side of the fence, he'd have cracked the nut, and picked the kernel, certain. Those four different humors are only four different ways of modifying bile with fat."

"In sick-headache, a heaping tablespoonful each of salt and common mustard, stirred into a pint of hot water, and drank without breathing, will generally produce an immediate effect. (Mem. But Graham-biscuit is better in the long run.)"

"Society is the meeting of a gang of incurables, who come together to talk over their dyspepsies. And everybody takes his turn in furnishing fodder to keep the thing going hot-foot."

"Professor Bache says sea-sickness comes from the head, 'cause a man gets dizzy in trying to get used to the teetering of the ship. All nonsense. The Professor may be posted in the survey of the coast, but he don't know the lay of the land in the interior. Sea-sickness comes from the stomach: just offer a man a mouthful of fried salt pork."

"It's stated that some old bookworm of a Dutchman, with a jaw-breaking name that I can't recollect, has an idea, that, 'if we could penetrate into the secret foundations of human events, we should frequently find the misfortunes of one man caused by the intestines of another.' There's not the least doubt of it,—true of one man or a million."

V.—NOCTURNE.

Romanza (affettuoso).
The Choral Gamut (con espressione).

Was that seething sun never again to plunge his lurid face beneath the waves of old Ocean? Had some latter-day Joshua arisen, and with stern fiat nailed him in mid-heavens, blazing forever? To me as slowly rolled the westering orb down that final slope as ever turned the wheel of Fortune to Murad the Unlucky. Perchance the sun-god had turned cook, and now, burning with 'prentice zeal, and scoffing at Dūspeptos and all sound hygiene, was aiming to make of this terrestrial ball one illimitable fry turned over and well done,—a fry ever doing and never done, which should simmer and fizzle on eternally down the ages. An abstract fry—let me here record it—suits me passing well; yet I like not the concrete and personal broil. I trip gayly to a feast, prepared to eat, but not, as in the supper of Polonius, to be eaten. I have very little of the martyr-stuff about me. It is well, it is glorious, to read of those fine things; but does any man relish the application of the Hoc age? To beatified Lawrence I gladly pay meet tribute of tears and praise. Let the luckless one ask of me no more; let him call only upon the succulent; let him recruit among the full ranks of the adipose. Be it mine to lay these spare-ribs athwart no gridiron more fervid than the pavement of his own monumental Escurial. Suum cuique.

So, albeit in a melting mood, I gazed listlessly upon the brazen firmament, with no fellow-feeling for those hot culinary bars. The broiling glow was not at all tempting: I think it would have staggered even the gay salamander that is said to accept so thoroughly the gospel of caloric. And what was the Markerstown without the Great Captain? What was the Victory with no Nelson? Hence, like the patriarch, I went out to meditate at the eventide. But, alack! there were no camels, no Rebekah, no comfort. Even in subterranean grots there was nothing drawn but Tropic's XXX. Every water-cock let on a geyser. But by-and-by Apollo Archimagirus, wearying of gastronomy, stayed his hand, moistened the fierce flames, jerked the half-fried earth out into free space, pocketed his[Pg 626] stew-pan, and flung himself supperless to bed. No more, for the nonce at least, should that new Lycidas—the cosmical gridiron—flame in the forehead of the evening sky. Anon came twilight, dusk, darkness, and all the pleasant charities of deep night. Behind the veil of night are sometimes done evil deeds. The snail has been known to start before his time. Laying down these general postulates, I drew therefrom, late in the sultry gloom, this particular inference: Cæsar's shallop might possibly breast the deep before dawn; and if Cæsar was not on hand, she would carry his fortunes, but not him. Forthwith, groping through the obscurity, I found my fears without foundation. The shallop was quiescent in a remarkable degree, and thoroughly tethered.

Deep darkness reigned throughout the little kingdom. Silence brooded over all, save now and then when some vocal nose, informed by murky visions of the night, brayed out its stertorous tale to the unheeding air. At times a shrill, sharp pipe, screaming with gusts of horror, split my unexpectant ear. With this wrangled fitfully the cracked clarionet of some peevish brother. Ever and anon some vast nostril, punctually thundering, hurled forth the relentless growl of the bassoon,—a very mountain of sound, which crushed all before it, and made the shuddering timbers crack and reel. A pensive flute vainly poured, in swift recurring gushes, its rhythmic oil upon the roaring billows. From some melodious swain came a freakish fiddling, which leaped and danced like mad, now here, now there, like an audible will-o'-the-wisp. A dolorous whistle chimed harmonies, and with regular sibilation came to time, quavering out the chromatic moments of this nasal hour. High over all floated a faint whisper,—a song-cloud rising from the dream-mist of a peaceful breast,—a revelation timidly exhaled to the disembodied spirits of the air. Its hazy lullaby breathed down as from distant heights, and murmured of celestial rest. Its soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.

Save this feeling symphony, all was still. No light shone upon the tuneful beaks. Like Theseus, I picked my way along, guided by an Ariadne's thread. My Ariadne was a slumbering orchestra deftly spinning out a thick proboscis-chord of such stuff as dreams are made of. Taking this web in my ear, I safely traversed the labyrinth, and meandered at last into pen No. 1. In placing my foot on the edge of the under-world crib, I unwittingly pressed some secret spring which straight swung wide the portals of a precipitate dawn.

VI.—THE PEPTIC SYMPHONY.

A.—Andante (smorzando).
B.—Adagio (crescendo).
C.—Allegro (sforzando).

The Luminary.—Wal, ef 't a'n't me, 't 's my nose. Mebby y' a'n't aware, young man, that you planted your shoe-leather on my olfactory?

The Satellite.—Indeed, no, Sir. I thought I felt something under my foot, as I was getting up. So it seems it was your nose. Beg your pardon, Sir,—entirely unintentional. Hope I——

The Satellite.—An excellent artist, a long way from Paris. I have on at this moment a very neat thing in English gaiters, of respectable dimensions, toe-corners sharp as Damascus blade, three-fourths of an inch in sole, one and a half inches in heel, with a plenty of half-inch, cast-steel nails all round,—quite a neat thing, I assure you.

The Luminary.—Can't tell jest yit.[Pg 627] Anyhow, you gev me a proper sneezer, a most pertickler hahnsome socdolager, I vum! Landed jest below the peepers. But hold on till mornin', an' see how breakfast sets. I allers estimate the nose by the stomach. Ef I find my stomach's all right, 't 'll be a sure sign that the smellers are pooty rugged.

The Satellite.—That's rather an odd idea. I was aware that the nose is a natural guide to the stomach, but didn't know that the reverse would hold good. What is the——

The Luminary.—Poor rule that wun't work both ways. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Do you s'pose the nose could afford to work free gratis for the stomach, with plenty to do an' nothin' to git? No, Sir, not by a jugful! People that want favors mustn't be stingy in givin' on 'em. It's on the scratch-my-back-an'-I'll-tickle-your-elbow system. The stomach's got to keep up his eend o' the rope, or he'll jest go under, sure. One good turn deserves another, you know.

The Satellite.—Yes, a very pretty theory, and certainly a just one. Quite on the Mutual-Benefit principle. Still, I should be inclined to doubt whether there are facts sufficient to sustain it.

The Luminary.—Wal, my hearty, you jest belay a bit up there; clew down your hatches ship-shape, git everythin' all trig, an' lay to. Why, my Christian friend, I intend to post you up thoroughly. Your edication's been neglected. Facts? Facts? Bless your noddle, there's plenty on 'em, ef a man knows beans. Now I'm jest a-goin' to let daylight into that little knowledge-box o' yourn, an' fill it with good, wholesome idees, clean up to the brim, an' runnin' over,—good, honest, Shaker measure. I'll give ye more new wrinkles afore mornin' than ever you dreamed of in your physiology, valooable hints, an' nuthin' to pay.

Being now securely camped on my mountain-height, I peered out upon the horizon beneath, and signified to the Luminary that the gas might at once be turned on full blaze.

"As when the sun new risen
Looks through the horizontal misty air,"

so gleamed, no longer nebulous, but now full-orbed, the bright star Diætetica,—a central sun, holding within its ample bosom the star-dust of whole galaxies, infinite gastric constellations.

The Luminary.—"Any fool'll allow that there's nerves, an' plenty on 'em, all over the body. All these nerves come from the stomach. Fact is, they're the stomach's errand-boys. They run round an' do his chores jest as he says, an' then trot back ag'in. He's an awful hard master, though,—likes to shirk, an' makes 'em lug round all his baggage an' chicken-fixin's. When he gits grumpy, which is pooty consid'able often, he's death on some on 'em,—jest walks into 'em like chain-lightnin' into a gooseberry-bush. When he's gouty, he kicks up a most etarnal touse with the great-toe nerve, an' slaps it right into him fore an' aft, the wust kind. Folks hev asked me why the gout pitches into the great toe wuss than the rest on 'em. It's jest as nateral as Natur'. I cal'late it's a special Providence for the benefit of the hull human family, to hang out a big sign jest where folks ken see it, to show up the man who's ben an' sinned ag'inst his stomach. When he limps round in flannel, he's a conspicoous hobblin' advertisement, a fust-cut lecterer on temperance, an' the horrible example to boot. Now you know the way the stomach an' nerves fay in.

"Wal, then ag'in, there's another set,—the stomach's own blood-relations. He's head o' the family, an' they all work in together nice an' handy, jest as slick as grease. Lam ary one on 'em, an' you got to lam the whole boodle. Jest like a hornet's nest: shake a stick at ary one o' the group, an' they all come buzzin' round te'ble miffy in less 'n no time. There's the nose,—he wears a coat jest as well 's the stomach: he's the stomach's favorite grandson, the[Pg 628] Benjamin of the flock. Say anythin' to him, an' the stomach takes it up; say anythin' to the stomach, an' he takes it up. All in a family-way, ye see. Love me, love my dorg. There's no disputin' the fact, that you can't kill ary one on 'em without walkin' over the dead body of the others. You can't whip ary one on 'em except over the others' shoulders. Now you know who the nose is, who his connections are, an' what's his geneology. He's descended from the stomach in the second degree, an' will be heir to all the property, ef so be he's true to himself an' the family. Ef he a'n't, th' old man'll cut him off with a shillin', sure.

"Now dyspepsy's of two kinds,—the mucous an' the nervous; an' as I'm a sinner, every mother's son an' daughter has got one on 'em. The nervous, as you will naterally s'pose from my remarks, is a sort o' hired help,—friend o' the family, like a poor relation,—handy to hev in the house, an' all that. The other allers takes pot-luck with the family, runs in an' out jest as he pleases,—chip o' the old block, one o' the same crowd, you know. It's considered ruther more hon'able, in course, to hev this one. None o' the man-waiter or sarvant-gal about him. A chap with the mucous looks kind o' slick an' smooth, an' feels his oats pooty wal; but a codger with the nervous is sort o' thin an' wild-like. Wholesalers ginerally hev the fust, an' retailers the second; though, 'casionally, I hev known exceptions. A bank-president invariably has the second; an' I never seen an apple-woman without the other. All accordin' to Natur', ye see. But either on 'em 'll do. Take jest whichever you can git,—that's my advice,—an' thank Providence. They'll either on 'em be faithful friends, never desert ye, cling closer than a brother, never say die, stick to ye, in p'int o' fact, like a sick kitten to a hot brick. It's jest as I said,—every critter's got one on 'em. But there's no two men alike, so there's no two dyspepsies alike. There never was, an' never will be. 'T 's exackly like the human family, divided into two great classes, black an' white, long-heel an' short-heel. Jes' so ... nervous ... mucous ... Magna Charta ... Palladium of our liberties ... ark of our safety ... manifest destiny ... Constitootion of our forefathers ... fit, bled, an' died ... independence forever ... one an' inseparable ... last drop o' blood...."

How it was I don't quite know; but I think that at this point the Luminary must have sunk below the horizon. Possibly his Satellite may have suffered an eclipse in this quarter of the heavens. I can barely recall a thin doze, in which these last eloquent fragments, transfigured into sprites and kobolds, wearing a most diabolical grin, seemed to be chasing each other in furious and endless succession through my brain, or playing at hide-and-seek among the convolutions of the cerebrum. After a while, they wearied of this rare sport, scampered away, and left me in profound sleep till morning.

VII.—MATINS.

Whank!—tick-a-lick!—ker-thump!—swoosh!—Whank!—tick-a-lick!—ker-thump!—swoosh!—These were the sounds that first greeted my opening ears. So, then, we were fairly under way, advancing, if not rejoicing. Our freighted Icarus was soaring on well-oiled wings: how soon might his waxy pinions droop under the fierce gaze of the sun! At least it was a satisfaction to know that thus far the gloomy forebodings of the Seer had not been fulfilled. On looking out through a six-inch rose-window, I saw joyous daylight dancing over the boundless, placid waters,—not a speck of land in sight. We must have started long since; but my eyes, fast sealed under the opiate rays of the Luminary, had hitherto refused to ope their lids to the garish beams of his rival. Soon I heard beneath a rustling snap, as of a bow, and suddenly there sped forth the twanging shaft of the[Pg 629]

Second Victim.—Utterly glorified. Delicious sleep,—splendid day,—balmy air, with condiments thrown in. I hope you are nicely to-day?

First Victim.—Wal, no, can't say I be. Feel sort o' seedy like,—feel jest 's ef I'd ben creouped up in a sugar-box. Couldn't even git a cat-nap,—didn't sleep a wink.

First Victim.—Air! That 'ere dock-smell nigh finished me. No skim-milk smell about that, but the ginooine jam,—an awful pooty nosegay! 'T was reg'lar rank p'is'n. Never see anythin' like it. Oh, 'twas te'ble! Took hold o' my nose dreffle bad; I'm afeard my stomach'll be a goner. 'T wa'n't none o' yer sober perfumes nuther, but kind o' half-seas-over all the time, an' pooty consid'able in the wind. Judge there's ben a large fatality in cats lately. Ugh! that blamed dock-smell! Never forgit it the longest day I live. Don't b'lieve I breathed oncet all night.

Second Victim.—Yes, it was slightly aromatic, I confess,—'Sabæan odors from the spicy shores of Araby the Blest,'—you know what Milton says. But there's one great comfort: this thick night-air is so very healthy, you know. I think you made a very great mistake, Mr. Rink, in not inhaling it thoroughly. I kept pumping it in all night, from a sense of duty, at forty bellows-power.

First Victim.—(Rising, and dragging up to the mountain-crib the artillery of a ghostly face, and training it point-blank at Second Victim.)—Young man, don't trifle!

Second Victim.—Pardon me, Sir, I am not trifling, I have sound reasons for what I say. Your education, Sir, has apparently been neglected. Wait one moment, and I'll give you a new idea, which will contribute materially to your happiness. You will at once admit, I take it, that oxygen and carbonic acid stand at opposite poles in their relations to the respiratory system; also, that said dock-smell was a mixture of carbonic acid of various kinds, and of different degrees of intensity; and, lastly, that animal and vegetable life are complements of each other,—correlatives, so to speak.

Second Victim.—Now, then, plants naturally absorb carbonic acid and give off oxygen during daylight. At night, the process is reversed: then they absorb oxygen and give off carbonic acid. In a similar, but reverse way, man, who was plainly intended to inhale oxygen and exhale carbonic acid in his waking hours, should, in his sleeping hours, in order to be consistent with himself and with Nature, inhale only dense carbonic acid and exhale oxygen. Men and plants make Nature's see-saw: one goes up as the other goes down. Hence it follows as a logical sequence, that the truly wise man, who seeks to comply with the laws of Nature, and to fulfil the great ends of his existence, will choose for his sleeping-apartment the closest quarters possible, and will welcome the fumes which would be noisome by day. For my part, therefore, I feel profoundly grateful even for one night of this little crib. It has already done much for me. I feel confident that it has contributed greatly to my span of life. I am deeply beholden to the owners, to the captain, yea, to all the crew. And for the blessed dock-smell I shall ever be thankful:—

It will not be amiss to say to you, Mr. Rink, that this theory is sanctioned by one of the leading ornaments of the French Academy. He has advocated it, in an elaborate treatise, with an eloquence and power worthy of its distinguished author. He shows, in passages[Pg 630] of singular purity, that beasts, whose instincts teach them far more of the laws of Nature than our reason teaches us, always retire to sleep in a place where they can obtain the closest, healthiest air. In the last communication sent to me on this subject by the learned Professor, he proves conclusively that——

First Victim. (His artillery now rumbling down the heights on the full gallop.)—I snum, that's awful! Wal, I never see,—'t beats the Dutch! No kind o' use talkin' with sech a chap. Never see so much nonsense in one head 's that critter's got in his.

VIII.—JENTACULAR.

A barrow-tone full of groan and creak, trundling along through the well-known bravura commencing,—

"In Köln, a town of monks and bones," etc.

Yes, the aroma was highly complicate, but not, like the poet, of imagination all compact. It was not Frangipanni, though in part an eternal perfume; nor was it Bergamot, or Attar, or Millefleurs, or Jockey-Club, or New-Mown Hay. No, it was none of these. What was it, then? you ask. I dissected it as well as I could, though not with entire success; but I will tell you the members of this body of death, so far as I found them. I do not for a moment doubt that it was made up of at least the two-and-seventy several parts which bloomed in the bouquet plucked by the bard in Hermann's land; yet my feeble sense could not distinguish all. There was unquestionably a fry,—nay, several; the fumes of coffee soared riotous; I could detect hot biscuits distinctly; the sausage asked a foremost place; pancakes, griddle-cakes, dough-nuts, gravies, and sauces, all struggled for precedence; the land and the sea waged internecine war for place, through their representative fries of steak and mackerel; and as the unctuous pork—no nursling of the flock, but seasoned in ripe old age with salt not Attic—rooted its way into the front rank, I thought of the wisdom of Moses. All these were, so to speak, the mere outlying flakes, the feathery curls, of the balmy cirro-cumulus, whose huge bulk arose out of the bowels of the ship itself. Up and down, in and out, here and there, into every chink and crevice, rolled the blue-white incense-cloud, dense as the cottony puff at the mouths of the guns in Vernet's "Siege of Algiers." Or you might say that these were but the flying-buttresses, the floriated pinnacles, the frets, and the gargoyles of a great frowzy cathedral lying vast and solid far below.

The Captain sat at the head of the table; next him was the fixed star Dūspeptos, with Satellite stationary on the right quarter.

Eupeptos.—Coffee,—that's good. John, fill my cup. Have it strong, mind,—no milk.

Dūspeptos. (Placing hand remonstratingly on arm of Eupeptos.)—My friend, man's life a'n't more'n a span, anyhow; yourn wun't be wuth more'n half a span. Don't ye do it.

Dūspeptos.—No, Sir. Thousan' dollars'd be no objick at all. There'd be a dead Rink layin' round in less 'n half a shake. I'd want a permit from the undertaker fust, an' hev my measure for a patent casket to order. This child a'n't anxious to cut stick yit awhile.

Eupeptos.—I'm very much of Voltaire's way of thinking about coffee. I don't know but I would agree with Mackintosh, that the measure of a man's brains is the amount of coffee he drinks. I like it in the French style, all but the lait; that destroys the flavor, besides making it despicably weak. Have a hot biscuit, Mr. Rink? I'm afraid they're like Gilpin,—carry weight, you know. But try one, won't you?

Dūspeptos.—I'm shot ef I do. Don't hev any more o' yer nonsense, young man, or I'll git ructions.

Eupeptos.—All right. Advance, pancakes! Here's a prime one, steaming[Pg 631] hot, crisp and fizzling. Allow me to put it on your plate, Sir?

Dūspeptos.—Not by a long chalk. Hands off, I tell ye, or there'll be a free fight afore shortly. You'd better make up yer mind to oncet thet this 'ere thing a'n't goin' to ram nohow.

Eupeptos.—Sorry I can't suit you. Better luck next time. Ah! here's the very thing. Waiter, pass the fried steak, salt mackerel, and fried potatoes to Mr. Rink.

Dūspeptos.—Wun't stan' it,—I snore I wun't! I tell ye, I'm gittin' master-riled. Jest you take yer own fodder, an' keep quiet.

Eupeptos.—Pardon me, Sir, but my eye has just fallen on yonder dish of dough-nuts, faced by those incense-breathing griddle-cakes. Look slightly soggy, but not disagreeable. This sea-air, you know, gives a man a tremendous appetite for anything, and the digestion of an ostrich. Risk it, won't you?

Dūspeptos. (With determined air, clenching knife and fork pointing skywards.)—Stranger, le' 's come to a distinct understandin' on this subjick afore we git much older. You know puffickly wal what I am,—a confirmed dyspeptic for twenty-five year. An' I a'n't ashamed on it, nuther; but I'm proud to say I glory in it. You know puffickly wal what my notions is about all this 'ere stuff, an' still you keep stickin' it into my face. Now, ef you want me to lambaste ye, I'm the man to do it, an' do it hahnsome. But ef yer life a'n't insured clean up to the hub, an' ef ye've got any survivin' friends, I advise ye not to tote any more o' that 'ere grub in this direction. I give ye fair warnin',—yer've raised my dander, an' put my Ebenezer up. I'd jest as lieves wallop ye as eat, an' ten times lieveser.

Eupeptos.—Really, Sir, no offence intended. I saw that your taste was delicate, and offered you these various tit-bits in the hope that some one of them might prove acceptable. But pray, Sir, do not starve yourself on my account. What in the world can you eat? Do not, I beseech you, by undue fasting, deprive the world of so distinguished——

Dūspeptos. (Mollifying.)—Fact is, I knew jest how 't was goin' to be. They allers fry everythin' an' cook it up in grease, so no respectable man can git any decent vittles t' eat. So I jest went out an' laid in plenty o' my own provender,—suthin' reliable an' wholesome, ye know. Brought aboard a firkin o' Graham-biscuit,—jest the meal mixed up with water,—no salt, no emptins, no nuthin'. 'T's the healthiest thing out o' jail. It's Natur's own food, an' the best eatin' I know. Raäl good flavor, git 'em good, besides bein' puffickly harmless an' salubrious. I cal'late I've got enough to run the machine, an' keep it all trig up to concert-pitch, till I git ashore, ef so be th' old tub don't send us to Davy Jones's locker. Here, try one,—I've got a plenty,—an' you'll say they're fust-rate. Leave them 'ere pancakes, an' all that p'is'n truck. Arter you take one o' these, you'll never tech nuthin' else.

Eupeptos.—Thank you, Sir, but if it's all the same to you, please excuse me this time. I have other fish to fry. In fact, Sir, I am entirely destitute of equanimity, and have no particle of stability in my disposition. Not a drop of Scotch blood in my veins.

Dūspeptos.—There's no oats about these; an' ef there was, 't wouldn't hurt ye none. It's jest the kernel an' the shell mixed up together.

Eupeptos.—Dangerous combination. I have no military ambition,—wouldn't give a rush for a spread eagle,—don't like the braying by a mortar.

Dūspeptos.—Wal, I mout as wal vamose, 's long as I've hove in my rations. Already gone risin' a good half-ounce above my or'nary 'lowance. 'T wun't do to dissipate, even ef a feller a'n't to hum an' nobody's the wiser. Natur' allers makes ye foot the bill all the same on sea an' shore.

"My bark is by the shore," etc.)—
[Pg 632]

Stay, oh, stay, gentle stranger! See yon sausage fatly floating! Be not dogged to go, but come! Prithee, return once more to the festive board! Lo! this—the fattest of the flock—shall be thy portion, most favored Benjamin!

Dūspeptos. (—Muttering in the distance.)—That feller's a raäl jo-fired numbskull. He don't know any more about the fust principles o' human natur' than the babe unborn. Reg'lar goney. Dunno whether he's jokin' or in sober airnest. Good mind to sail into him anyhow. Guess 't 'll do, though, to leave him to Natur'. He'll stuff himself to death fast enough ... pitchin' into p'is'n ... sexton ... six-board box ... coroner's verdick ... run over by a fry ... engineer did his dooty....

IX.—FINALE (con motivo.)

But time would fail me to tell you of the myriad golden spangles so thickly stitched into the hurrying web of those fustian hours. Oh! that dim crepuscular time, when, with toe set to toe squarely on the scratch, we stood up to one another, with eyes glaring through the gloaming, and gave and took manfully, fighting out anew the old battles of the Bourbon vs. China, of King James vs. Virginia, of Graham vs. Greece! I could tell you of the siesta of the new Prometheus, when, perched on the Mount Caucasus of a bleak chain-cable, he gave himself postprandially, in full livery of seisin, to the vulturous sun. Wasted, yet daily renewed, enduring, yet murmuring not, he hurled defiance at Fat, scoffed at the vain rage of Jupiter Pinguis, and proffered to the world below a new life in his fiery gift of stale bran-bread. Would you could have heard that vesper hymn stealing hirsute through the mellow evening-air! It sung the Peptic Saints and Martyrs, explored the bowels of old Time, and at last died away in dulcet cadence as it chanted the glories of the coming Age of Grits. Again, in the silent night-watches, did sage Mentor become vocal, going over afresh the story of the Nervous and the Mucous, classifying their victims, generalizing laws, discriminating the various dyspepsies of the nations, and summing up at last the inestimable benefits conferred by our modern dyspepsy on the character, the literature, and the life of this nineteenth century.

Once more—for the last time—did the sable robe inwrap us. Once more the night-blooming cereus oped its dank petals; and amid its murky fragrance I sank to rest. When I woke, the whank!—tick-a-lick!—whank!—tick-a-lick!—had ceased, and we were safely moored. I leaped lightly to the shore, and, reverently stooping, saluted with fond gratitude my Mother Earth. Rising, I beheld for the last time the gaunt form of the Martyr standing on the deck,—a bar sinister sable blazoned athwart the golden shield of the climbing sun. And once more he lift up his voice:—

"Hullo! What! up killick an' off a'ready? Ye'r' bound to go it full chisel any way,—don't mean to hev grass grow under your heels, that's sartin. Wal, 't 's the early bird thet ketches the worm; an' it's the early worm thet gits picked, too,—recollember that. I cal'late you reckon the Markerstown's about played out, an' a'n't exackly wut she's cracked up to be. It's pooty plain thet that 'ere blamed grease has ben one too many for ye, arter all yer lingo. Ef a man will dance, he's got to pay the fiddler. You can't go it on tick with Natur'; she's some on a trade, an' her motto is, 'Down with the dosh.' Ef you think you can play 'possum, an' pull the wool over her eyes, jest try it on, that's all; you'll find, my venerable hero, thet you're shinnin' a greased pole for the sake of a bogus fo'pence-ha'penny on top.

"Now, young man, afore you hurry up your cakes much further, I've got jest two words to say to ye. Don't cut it too fat, or you'll flummux by the way, an' leave nuthin' but a grease-spot. Don't dawdle round doin' nuthin' but stuffin' yerself to kill. Don't act like a gonus,—don't[Pg 633] hanker arter the flesh-pots. Wake up, peel your eyes, an' do suthin' for a dyspeptic world, for sufferin' sinners, for yerself. Allers stick close to Natur' an' hyg'ene. Drop yer nonsense, an' come over an' j'in us, an' we'll make a new man of ye,—jest as good as wheat. You're on the road to ruin now; but we'll take ye, an' build ye up, give ye tall feed, an' warrant ye fust-cut health an' happiness. No cure, no pay. An' look here, keep that 'ere card I gev ye continooally on hand, an' peroose it day an' night. I tell ye it'll be the makin' on ye. An' don't forgit the golden rule:—Don't tech, don't g' nigh the p'is'n upus-tree of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take keer o' the grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Ef you're in want o' bran-bread at any time, let me know, an' I'm your man,—Rink by name, an' Rink by natur'. An' ef so be you ever come within ten mile o' where I hang out, jest tie right up on the spot, without the slightest ceremony or delayance, an' take things puffickly free an' easy like. Wal, my hearty, I see ye're on the skedaddle. Take keer o' yerself,—yourn till death, N. Rink."

THE TWENTIETH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

The country is now on the eve of an election the importance of which it would be impossible to overrate. Yet a few days, and it will be decided whether the people of the United States shall condemn their own conduct, by cashiering an Administration which they called upon to make war on the rebellious slaveholders of the South, or support that Administration in the strenuous endeavors which it is making to effect the reconstruction of the Republic, and the destruction of Slavery. It is to insult the intelligence and patriotism of the American people to entertain any serious doubt as to the issue of the contest. It can have but one issue, unless the country has lost its senses,—and never has it given better evidence of its sobriety, firmness, and rectitude of purpose than it now daily affords. Were the contest one relating to the conduct of the war, and had the Democratic party assumed a position of unquestionable loyalty, there would be some room for doubting who is to be our next President. It is impossible that a contest of proportions so vast should not have afforded ground for some complaint, on the score of its management. To suppose that the action of Government has been on all occasions exactly what it should have been is to suppose something so utterly out of the nature of things that it presents itself to no mind. Errors are unavoidable even in the ordinary affairs of common life, and their number and their magnitude increase with the importance of the business, and the greatness of the stage on which it is transacted. We have never claimed perfection for the Federal Administration, though we have ever been ready to do justice to the success which it has achieved on many occasions and to the excellence of its intentions on all. Had the Democrats called upon the country to displace the Administration because it had not done all that it should have done, promising to do more themselves against the Rebels than President Lincoln and his associates had effected, the result of the Presidential election might be involved in some doubt; for the people desire to see the Rebellion brought to an end, and the Democratic party has a great name as a ruling political organization, its history, during most of the present century, being virtually[Pg 634] the history of the American nation. But, with a want of wisdom that shows how much it has lost in losing that Southern lead which had so much to do with its success in politics, it chose to place itself in opposition to the national sentiment, instead of adopting it, guiding it, and profiting from its existence. The errors of the various parties that have been opposed to it have often been matter for mirth to the Democratic party, as well they may have been; but neither Federalists, nor National Republicans, nor Whigs, nor Know-Nothings, nor Republicans were ever guilty of a blunder so enormous as that which this party itself perpetrated at Chicago, when it virtually announced its readiness to surrender the country into the hands of the men who have so pertinaciously sought its destruction for the last four years. So strange has been its action, that we should be ashamed to have dreamed that any party could be guilty of it. Yet it is a living fact that the Democratic party, in spite of its loud claims to strict nationality of purpose, has so conducted itself as to show that it is willing to complete the work which the slaveholders began, and not only to submit to the terms which the Rebels would dictate, but to tear the Union still further to pieces, if indeed it would leave any two States in a united condition. Thus acting, that party has defeated itself, and reduced the action of the people to a mere, though a mighty, formality. Either this is a plain statement of the case, or this nation is about to give a practical answer to Bishop Butler's famous question, "What if a whole community were to go mad?" For the ratification of the Chicago Platform by the people would be an indorsement of violence and disorder, a direct approval of wilful rebellion, and an announcement that every election held in this country is to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak, until our condition shall have become even worse than that of Mexico, and we shall be ready to welcome the arrival, in the train of some European army, of a cadet of some imperial or royal house, whose "mission" it should be to restore order in the once United States, while anarchy should be kept at a distance by a liberal exhibition of French or German bayonets. What has happened to Mexico would assuredly happen here, if we should allow the country to Mexicanize itself at the bidding of Belmont and Co.

But it may be said, it is unjust to attribute to the masses of the Democratic party intentions so bad as those of which we have spoken. That party, in past times, has done great things for the land, has always professed the highest patriotism, and its name and fame are most intimately associated with some of the noblest passages in the history of the Republic. All this is very true. We admit, what is indeed self-evident, that the Democratic party has done great things for the country, and that it can look back with just pride over the country's history, until a comparatively recent period; and we do not attribute to the masses composing it any other than the best intentions. It is not of those masses that we have spoken. The sentiment of patriotism is ever strong with the body of the people. The number of men who would wilfully injure their country has never been large in any age. But it is not the less true that parties are but too often the blind tools of leaders, of men whose only interest in their country is to use it for their own purposes, to make all they can out of it, and at its expense. The Democratic party has always been a disciplined party, and nothing is more notorious in its history than its submissiveness to its leaders. This has been the chief cause of its almost unbroken career of success; and it has been its pride and its boast that it has been well-trained, obedient, and consequently successful, while all other parties have been quarrelsome and impatient of discipline, and consequently have risen only to endure through a few years of sickly existence, and then to pass away. The Federalists,[Pg 635] the National Republicans, the Antimasons, the Whigs, and the Know-Nothings have each appeared, flourished for a short time, and then passed to the limbo of factions lost to earth. This discipline of the Democracy has not been without its uses, and the country occasionally has profited from it; but now it is to be abused, through application to the service of the Great Anarch at Richmond. The Rebel power, which our fleets and armies are steadily reducing day by day, is to be saved from overthrow, and its agents from the severe and just punishment which should be visited upon them for their great and unprovoked crime,—if they are to be saved therefrom,—through the action of the Democratic party, as it calls itself, and which purposes to go to the assistance of the slaveholders in war, as formerly it went to their assistance in peace, the meekest and most faithful and most useful of their slaves. The Democratic party, as a party, instead of being the sword of the Republic, purposes being the shield of the Rebellion. Such is the intention of its leaders, who control the disciplined masses, if their words have any meaning; and, so far as they have been able to act, their actions correspond strictly with their words. The Chicago Convention, which consisted of the crème de la crème of the Democracy, had not a word to say against either the Rebels or the Rebellion, while it had not words enough, or words not strong enough, to employ in denouncing those whose sole offence consists in their efforts to conquer the Rebels and to put down the Rebellion. With a perversion of history that is quite without a parallel even in the hardy falsehood of American politics, the responsibility for the war was placed to the account of the loyal men of the country, and not to the account of the traitors, who brought it upon the nation by a fierce forcing-process. The speech of Mr. Horatio Seymour, who presided over the Belmont band, is, as it were, a bill of indictment preferred against the American Republic; for Governor Seymour, though not famous for his courage, has boldness sufficient to do that which a far greater man said he would not do,—he has indicted a whole people. It follows from this condemnation of the Federal Government for making war on the Rebels, and this failure to condemn the Rebels for making war on the Federal Government, that the Democrats, should they succeed in electing their candidates, would pursue a course exactly the opposite of that which they denounce. They would withdraw the nation from the contest, and acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy; and then they would make such a treaty with its leading and dominant interest as should place the United States in the condition of dependency with reference to the South. That such would be their course is not only fairly inferrible from the views embodied in the Chicago Platform, and from the speeches made in the Chicago Convention, but it is what Mr. Pendleton, the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency, has said it is our duty to do so, so far as relates to acknowledging the Confederacy. He has deliberately said, that, if we cannot "conciliate" the Rebels, and "persuade" them to come back into the Union, we should allow them to depart in peace. Such is the doctrine of the gentleman who was placed on the Democratic ticket with General McClellan for the avowed purpose of rendering that ticket palatable to the Peace men. No man can vote for General McClellan without by the same act voting for Mr. Pendleton; and we know that Mr. Pendleton has declared himself ready to let the Rebels rend the Union to tatters, and that he has opposed the prosecution of the war. General McClellan is mortal, and, if elected, might die long before his Presidential term should be out, like General Taylor, or immediately after it should begin, like General Harrison. Then Mr. Pendleton would become President, like Mr. Tyler, in 1841, who cheated the Whigs, or like Mr. Fillmore, in 1850, who cheated everybody. Nor is it by any means certain[Pg 636] that General McClellan would not, once elected, consider himself the Chicago Platform, as Mr. Buchanan avowed himself to be the Cincinnati Platform. He has written a letter, to be sure, in which he has given it to be understood that he is in favor of continuing the war against the Rebels until they shall be subdued; but so did Mr. Polk, twenty yearn ago, write a letter on the Tariff of 1842 that was even more satisfactory to the Democratic Protectionists of those days than the letter of General McClellan can be to the War Democrats of these days. All of us recollect the famous Democratic blazon of 1844,—"Polk, Dallas, and the Tariff of '42!" It was under that sign that the Democrats conquered in Pennsylvania; and had they not conquered in Pennsylvania, they themselves would have been conquered in the nation. Mr. Polk and Mr. Dallas were the chief instruments used to break down the Tariff of '42, in less than two years after they had been elected to the first and second offices of the nation because they were believed to be its most ardent friends. Mr. Polk, as President, recommended that it should be changed, and employed all the influence of his high station to get the Tariff Bill of 1846 through Congress; and Mr. Dallas, who had been nominated for the Vice-Presidency with the express purpose of "catching" the votes of Protectionists, gave his casting vote in the Senate in favor of the new bill, which meant the repeal of the Tariff of '42. The Democrats are playing the same game now that they played in 1844, with this difference, that the stakes are ten thousand times greater now than they were then, and that their manner of play is far hardier than it was twenty years since. Then, the question, though important, related only to a point of internal policy; now, it relates to the national existence. Then, the Free-Traders did not offensively proclaim their intention to cheat the Protectionists; now, Mr. Fernando Wood and Mr. Vallandigham, and other leaders of the extreme left of the Democratic party, with insulting candor, avow that to cheat the country is the purpose which that party has in view. Mr. Vallandigham, who made the Chicago Platform, explicitly declares that that Platform and General McClellan's letter of acceptance do not agree; at the same time Mr. Wood, who is for peace to the knife, calmly tells us that General McClellan, as President, would do the work of the Democracy,—and we need no Daniel to interpret Mr. Wood's words. We mean no disrespect to General McClellan, on the contrary we treat him with perfect respect, when we say that we do not believe he has a higher sense of honor than Mr. Polk possessed; and as Mr. Polk became a tool in the hands of a faction,—being a Protectionist during the contest of '44, and an Anti-Protectionist after that contest had been decided in his favor,—so is it intended that General McClellan shall become a tool in the hands of another faction. Mr. Polk was employed to effect the destruction of a "black tariff": General McClellan is employed to destroy a nation that is supposed to be given up to "black republicanism." We do not believe that the soldier will be found so successful an instrument as the civilian proved to be.

An ounce of fact is supposed to be worth a ton of theory; and the facts of the last four or five years admit of our believing the worst that can be suspected of the purposes of the Democratic party. It is not uncharitable to say that the leaders and managers of that party contemplate, in the event of their triumph in November, the surrender of the country to the slaveholding oligarchy; in the event of their defeat by a small majority, the extension of the civil war over the North. Four years ago we could not be made to believe that Secession was a possible thing. We admitted that there were Secessionists at the South, but we could not be made to believe in the possibility of Secession. Even "South Carolina couldn't be kicked out of the Union," it was commonly said in the North. There were but few disunionists[Pg 637] at the South, almost everybody said, and almost everybody believed what was said concerning the state of Southern opinion. In a few weeks we saw, not South Carolina kicked out of the Union, but South Carolina kicking the Union away from her. In a few months we saw eleven States take themselves out of the Union, form themselves into a Confederacy, and raise great armies to fight against the Union. Yet it is certain that in the month of November, 1860, there were not twenty thousand resolute disunionists in all the Slaveholding States, leaving South Carolina and Mississippi aside,—and not above fifty thousand in all the South, including Mississippi and South Carolina. How, then, came it to pass that nearly the whole of the population of the South became Rebels in so short a time? Because they were under the dominion of their leading men, who took them from the right road, and conducted them into the slough of rebellion. Because they were encouraged so to act by the Northern Democracy as made rebellion inevitable. The Northern Democratic press and Northern Democratic orators held such language respecting "Southern rights" as induced even loyal Southrons to suppose that Slavery was to be openly recognized by the Constitution, and spread over the nation. The President of the United States, a Northern Democrat, gravely declared that there existed no right in the Government to coerce a seceding State, which was all that the most determined Secessionist could ask. Instead of doing anything to strengthen the position of the federal Government, the President did all that he could to assist the Secessionists, and left the country naked to their attacks; and he parted on the best of terms with those Rebels who left his Cabinet, where they had long been busy in organizing resistance to Federal authority. The leaders of the Northern Democracy, far from exhibiting a loyal spirit, urged the slaveholders to make demands which were at war with the Constitution and the laws, and which could not have been complied with, unless it had been meant to admit that there was no binding force in existing institutions, the validity of which had not once been called in question for seventy-two years. The real Secessionists of the South, Rhett and Yancey and their followers, availed themselves of the existing state of affairs, and precipitated rebellion,—a step which they never would have taken, had they not been assured that no resistance would be made to their action so long as Mr. Buchanan should remain in the Presidency, and that he would be supported by the leaders of the Northern Democracy, who would take their followers with them along the road that led to the Union's dissolution. South Carolina, rabid as she was, did not rebel until the last Democratic President of the United States had publicly assured her that he would do nothing to prevent her from reducing the Calhoun theory to practice; and had she not rebelled, not another State would have left the Union. The opportunity that she could not get under President Jackson she obtained under President Buchanan,—and she did not hesitate to make the most of that opportunity, all indeed that could be made of it, well knowing that it could not be expected again to occur.

With these facts before them, the American people should be prepared for further rebellious action on the part of that faction whose creed it is that rebellion is right when directed against the ascendency of their political opponents. They have done their utmost to assist the Rebels all through the war, and the great riots in New York last year were the legitimate consequences of their doctrine, if not of their labors. We know that organizations hostile to the Union have been formed in the West, and that there was to have been a rising there, had any striking successes been achieved by the Confederate forces during the last six months. Nothing but the vigor and the victories of Grant and Sherman and Farragut saved the North from becoming the scene of civil war in[Pg 638] 1864. Nothing but the vigor and union of the people in their political capacity can keep civil war from the North hereafter. The followers of the Seymours and other ultra Democrats of the North are not more loyal than were nine-tenths of the Southern people in 1860. Few of them now think of becoming rebels, but they would as readily rebel as did the Southern men who have filled the armies of Lee and Beauregard, and who have poured out their blood so lavishly to destroy that nation which owes its existence to the labors of Southern men, to the exertions of Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and others, natives of the very States that have done most in the cause of destruction. The sentiment of nationality is no stronger among Northern Democrats than it was among Southern Democrats; and as the latter were converted into traitors at the bidding of a few leading politicians whose plans were favored by circumstances, so would the former become traitors at the first signal to any move that their leaders should make. As to the two classes of leaders, the Southern men are far superior in every manly quality to those Northern men who are doing their work. It is possible that the men of the South really did believe that their property was in danger, and it is beyond dispute that they were alarmed about their political power; but the men of the North who sympathize with them, and who are prepared to aid them at the first opportunity that shall offer to strike an effective blow, well knew that the victorious Republicans had neither the will nor the power to injure Southern property or to weaken the protection it enjoyed under the Constitution. Their hostility to the Union is purely gratuitous, or springs from motives of the most sordid character.

There is but one way to meet the danger that threatens us,—a danger that really is greater than that with which we were threatened in 1860, and which we have the advantage of seeing, whereas we could see nothing in that year. We must strengthen the Government, make it literally irresistible, by clothing it with the whole of that power which proceeds from an emphatic and unmistakable expression of the popular will. Give Mr. Lincoln, in the approaching election, the strength that comes from a united people, and we shall have peace maintained throughout the North, and peace restored to the South. Reëlect him by a small majority, and there will be civil war in the North, and a revival of warlike spirit in the South. Elect General McClellan, and we shall have to choose between constant warfare, as a consequence of having approved of Secession by approving of the Chicago Platform,—which is Secession formally democratized,—and despotism, the only thing that would save us from anarchy. Anarchy is the one thing that men will not, because they cannot, long endure. Order is indeed now and forever Heaven's first law, and order society must and will have. Order is just as compatible with constitutional government as it is with despotic government; but to have it in connection with freedom, in other words, with the existence of a constitutional polity, the people must do their whole duty. They must rise above the prejudices of party and of faction, and see nothing but their country and liberty. They must show that they are worthy of freedom, or they cannot long have it. Now is the time to prove that the American people know the difference between liberty and license, by their support of the party of order and constitutional government, and by administering a thorough rebuke to those licentious men who are seeking to overwhelm the country and its Constitution in a common ruin.

Of President Lincoln's reëlection no doubt can be entertained, whether we judge of the issue by the condition of the country, or by the sentiments that should animate the great majority of the people, and by which, we are convinced, that majority is animated. The Union candidate, no matter what his name or[Pg 639] antecedents, should be elected by a majority so great as to "coerce" the turbulent portion of the Democracy into submission to the laws of the land, and into respect for the popular will, the last thing for which Democrats have any respect. Had the Union National Convention seen fit to place a new man in nomination, it would have been the duty of the voters to support him with all the means honestly at their command; but we must say that there is a peculiar obligation upon Americans to reëlect Mr. Lincoln, and to reëlect him by a vote that should surprise even the most sanguine and hopeful of his friends. The war from which the nation, and the whole world, have been made to suffer so much, and from the effects of which mankind will be long in recovering, was made because of Mr. Lincoln's election to the Presidency. The North was to be punished for having had the audacity to elect him even when the Democracy were divided, and the success of the Republican candidate was a thing of course. He, a mere man of the people, should never become President of the United States! The most good-natured of men, it is known that his success made him an object of personal aversion to the Southern leaders. They did their worst to prevent his becoming President of the Republic, and in that way they wronged and insulted the people far more than they wronged and insulted the man whom the people had elected to the highest post in the land; and the people are bound, by way of vindicating their dignity and establishing their power, to make Mr. Lincoln President of the United States, to compel the acknowledgment of his legal right to be the chief magistrate of the nation as unreservedly, from South Carolina as from Massachusetts. His authority should be admitted as fully in Virginia as it is in New York, in Georgia and Alabama as in Pennsylvania and Ohio. This can follow only from his reëlection; and it can follow only from his reëlection by a decisive majority. That insolent spirit which led the South to become so easy a prey to the Secession faction, when not a tenth part of its people were Secessionists, should be thoroughly, emphatically rebuked, and its chief representatives severely punished, by extorting from the rebellious section a practical admission of the enormity of the crime of which it was guilty when it resisted the lawful authority of a President who was chosen in strict accordance with the requirements of the Constitution, and who entertained no more intention of interfering with the constitutional rights of the South than he thought of instituting a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. The majesty of the law should be asserted and established, and that can best be done by placing President Lincoln a second time at the head of the Republic, the revolt of the slaveholders being directed against him personally as well as against that principle of which he was the legally elected representative. In him the spirit of order is incarnate; and his reëlection by a great popular vote would be the establishment of the fact that under our system it is possible to maintain order, and to humiliate and subdue the children of anarchy.

President Lincoln should be reëlected, if for no other reason, that there may go forth to the world a pointed approval of his conduct from his constituents. As we have said, we do not claim perfection for the policy and acts of the Administration; but we are of opinion that its mistakes have been no greater than in most instances would have been committed by any body of men that could have been selected from the entire population of the country. Take the policy that has been pursued with reference to Slavery. Many of us thought that the President issued his Emancipation Proclamation at least a year too late; but we must now see that the time selected for its promulgation was as skilfully chosen as its aim was laudable. Had it come out a year earlier, in 1861, the friends of the Rebels could have said, with much plausibility, that its appearance had rendered a restoration[Pg 640] of the Union impossible, and that the slaveholders had no longer any hope of having their property-rights respected under the Federal Constitution. But by allowing seventeen months to elapse before issuing it, the President compelled the Rebels to commit themselves absolutely to the cause of the Union's overthrow without reference to any attack that had been made on Slavery in a time of war. It has not, therefore, been in the power of their allies here to say that the issuing of the Proclamation placed an impassable gulf between the Union and the Confederacy; for the Confederates were as loud in their declarations that they never would return into the Union before the Proclamation appeared as they have been since its appearance. They were caught completely, and deprived of the only pretence that could have been invented for their benefit, by themselves or by their friends. The adoption of an Emancipation policy did not cause us the loss of one friend in the South, while it gained friends for our cause in every country that felt an interest in our struggle. It prevented the acknowledgment of the Southern Confederacy by France, and by other nations, as French example would have found prompt imitation. Its appearance was the turning event of the war, and it was most happily timed for both foreign and domestic effect. It will be the noblest fact in President Lincoln's history, that by the same action he announced freedom to four millions of bondmen, and secured his country against even the possibility of foreign mediation, foreign intervention, and foreign war.

The political state of the country, as indicated by the result of recent elections, is not without interest, in connection with the Presidential contest. Since the nomination of General McClellan, elections have been held in several States for local officers and Members of Congress, and the results are highly favorable to the Union cause. The first election was held in Vermont, and the Union party reëlected their candidate for Governor, and all their candidates for Members of Congress, by a majority of more than twenty thousand. They have also a great majority in the Legislature, the Democrats not choosing so much as one Senator, and but few Members of the House of Representatives. The election in Maine took place but six days after that of Vermont, and with similar results. The Union candidate for Governor was reëlected, by a majority that is stated at sixteen thousand. Every Congressional District was carried by the Union men. In one district a Democrat was elected in 1862, at the time when the Administration was very unpopular because of the military failures that were so common in the summer of that dark and eventful year. His majority was one hundred and twenty-seven. At the late election his constituents refused to reëlect him, and his place was bestowed on a friend of the Administration, whose majority is said to be about two thousand. The majorities of the other candidates were much larger, in two instances exceeding four thousand each. The State Legislature elected on the same day is of Administration politics in the proportion of five to one. These two States may be said to represent both of the old parties that existed in New England during the thirty years that followed the Presidential election of 1824. Vermont was of National-Republican or Whig politics down to 1854, and always voted against Democratic candidates for the Presidency. Maine was almost as strongly Democratic in her opinions and action as Vermont was Anti-Democratic, voting but once, in 1840, against a Democratic candidate for the Presidency, in twenty-four years. Her electoral votes were given for General Jackson in 1832, for Mr. Van Buren in 1836, for Mr. Polk in 1844, for General Cass in 1848, and for General Pierce in 1852. Yet she has acted politically with Vermont for more than ten years, both States supporting Colonel Fremont in 1856, and[Pg 641] Mr. Lincoln in 1860,—a striking proof of the levelling effect of that pro-slavery policy and action which have characterized the Democratic party ever since the inauguration of President Pierce, in 1853. Had the Democratic party not gone over to the support of the slaveholding interest, Maine would have been a Democratic State at this day.

There were important elections held on the 11th of October in the great and influential States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and the verdicts which should be pronounced by these States were expected with an interest which it was impossible to increase, as it was felt that they would go far toward deciding the event of the Presidential contest. Vermont's action might be attributed to her determined and long-continued opposition to the Democratic party, which no change in others could operate to lessen; and the course of Maine could be attributed to her "Yankee" character and position: but Pennsylvania has generally been Democratic in her decisions, and she has nothing of the Yankee about her, while Ohio and Indiana are thoroughly Western in all respects. Down to a few days before the time for voting, the common opinion was, that Pennsylvania would give a respectable majority for the Union candidates, that Ohio would pronounce the same way by a great majority, and that Indiana would be found with the Democrats; but early in October doubts began to prevail with respect to the action of Pennsylvania, though no one could say why they came to exist. What happened showed that the change in feeling did not unfaithfully foreshadow the change that had taken place in the second State of the Union. Ohio's decision was not different from what had been expected, her Union majority being not less than fifty thousand, including the soldiers' vote. Indiana's action astonished every one. Instead of furnishing evidence that General McClellan's nomination had been beneficial to his party, the event in the Hoosier State led to the opposite conclusion. The Democratic majority in that State in 1862 was ten thousand, and that it could be overcome, or materially reduced, was not thought possible. Yet the voting done there on the 11th of October terminated most disastrously for the Democrats, the popular majority against them being not less than twenty thousand, while they lost several Members of Congress, among them Mr. Voorhees, who is to Indiana what Mr. Vallandigham is to Ohio, only that he has a little more prudence than the Ohioan. Indiana was the only one of the States in which a Governor was chosen, which made the returns easy of attainment. Governor Morton, who is reëlected, "stumped" the State; and to his exertions, no doubt, much of the Union success is due. In Pennsylvania, at the time we write, it is not settled which party has the majority on the home vote; but, as the soldiers vote in the proportion of about eleven to two for the Republican candidates, the majority of the latter will be good,—and it will be increased at the November election.

The States that voted on the 11th of October give sixty electoral votes, or two more than half the number necessary for a choice of President. They are all certain to be given for Mr. Lincoln, as also are the votes of the six New England States, and those of New York, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, West Virginia, and California, making 189 in all, the States mentioned being entitled to the following votes:—Massachusetts 12, Maine 7, New Hampshire 5, Vermont 5, Rhode Island 4, Connecticut 6, New York 33, Pennsylvania 26, Ohio 21, Indiana 13, Illinois 16, Michigan 8, Minnesota 4, Wisconsin 8, Iowa 8, Kansas 3, West Virginia 5, and California 5. And so Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson will be President and Vice-President of the United States for the four years that shall begin on the 4th of March, 1865.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Beyond cavil, this portly and handsome volume makes good the claim which is set forth on the title-page. The revision which the old edition has undergone is manifestly a most thorough one, extending to every department of the work, and to its minutest details. The enlargement it has received is very considerable, the size of the page having been increased, and more than eighty pages added to the number contained in the previous or "Pictorial" edition. The improvements are not only really such, but they are so many and so great that they amount to a complete remodelling of the work; and hence the objections heretofore brought against it—many of them very justly—have, for the most part, no longer any validity or pertinency. It may be questioned, however, whether the Dictionary, in view of the manifold and extensive changes which have been made in its matter and plan, should not be said to have been based on that of Dr. Webster rather than to be by him. St. Anthony's shirt cannot be patched and patched forever and still remain St. Anthony's shirt. But there is doubtless much virtue in a name, and, so long as the publishers have given us a truly excellent work, it matters little by what title they choose to call it.

We are amazed at the vastness of the vocabulary, which embraces upwards of one hundred and fourteen thousand words, being some ten thousand more, it is claimed, than any other word-book of the language. Such unexampled fulness would be apt to excite a suspicion that a deliberately adopted system of crimping had been carried on within the tempting domains of the natural sciences, to furnish recruits for this enormous army of vocables. But we do not find, upon a pretty careful examination, that many terms of this sort have been admitted which are not fairly entitled to a place in a popular lexicon.

In the matter of definition, we can unqualifiedly commend the principles by which the editor and his coadjutors appear to have been guided, notwithstanding an occasional failure to carry out these principles with entire consistency. The crying fault of mistaking different applications of a meaning of a word for essentially different significations—the head and front of Dr. Webster's offending as a definer, and not of Dr. Webster only, but of almost all other lexicographers—has generally been avoided in this edition. The philosophical analysis, the orderly arrangement of meanings, the simplicity, comprehensiveness, and precision of statement, the freedom from prejudice, crotchets, and dogmatism, the good taste and good sense, which characterize this portion of the work, are deserving of the fullest recognition and the highest praise.

In the department of etymology, the revision has been thorough indeed, and, as all the world knows, the Dictionary stood sadly enough in need of it. But we were not prepared for so entire and fearless an overhauling of Dr. Webster's "Old Curiosity Shop," or for a contribution to philological science so valuable and original. It is not too much to say that no other English dictionary, and no special treatise on English etymology, that has yet appeared, can compare with it. As a fitting introduction to the subject, a "Brief History of the English Language," by Professor James Hadley, is prefixed to the vocabulary, and will well repay careful study.

No excellences, however, we apprehend, in definition or etymology will reconcile scholars to those peculiarities of spelling which are commonly known as Websterianisms, and which, with a few exceptions, are retained in the edition before us. The pages of this magazine are evidence that we ourselves regard them with no favor. But we are bound, in common honesty, to state, that, in every case in which Dr. Webster's orthography is given, it is accompanied by the common spelling, and[Pg 643] thus the user of the book is left at liberty to take his choice of modes. We are also bound, in common fairness, to admit that many, if not all, of the quite limited number of changes put forward in the later editions of the Dictionary are, in themselves considered, unquestionable improvements, and that, if adopted by the whole English-writing public on both sides of the water, or even in this country alone, would redeem our common language from some of the gross anomalies and grievous confusion which now make it a monster among the graphic systems of the world, and a stumbling-block and stone of offence to all who undertake to learn it. Furthermore, it must be conceded that almost all our lexicographers have been nearly or quite as ready as Dr. Webster to attempt improvements in orthography, though they may have shown more discretion than he. It is not generally known, we suspect, but it is none the less a fact, that Johnson, Todd, Perry, Smart, Worcester, and various other eminent orthographers, have all deviated more or less from actual usage, in order to carry out some "principle" or "analogy" of the language, or to give sanction and authority to some individual fancy of their own. So much may be said in defence of Dr. Webster against the ignorant vituperation with which he has often been assailed. But, on the other hand, he is fairly open to the charge of having violated his own canons in repeated instances. To take a single case, why should he not have spelt until with two ls, instead of one,—as he does "distill," "fulfill," etc.,—when it was so desirable to complete an analogy, and when he had for it the warrant of a very common, if not the most reputable, usage? Again, it seems to us, that, if our orthography is to be reformed at all, it should be reformed not indifferently, but altogether; for it is, beyond controversy, atrociously bad, poorly fulfilling, as Professor Hadley justly remarks, (p. xxviii.,) its original and proper office of indicating pronunciation, while it no better fufils the improper office, which some would assert for it, of a guide to etymology. Emendations on the here-a-little-there-a-little plan, while they do no harm, do little good. They are but topical remedies, which cannot restore the pristine vigor of a ruined constitution. What we need is a reform as thorough-going as that which has been effected in the Spanish language. Shall we ever have it? or will the irrational conservatism of the educated classes, in all time to come, prevent a consummation so desirable, and so desiderated by the philologist? Max Müller thinks that perhaps our posterity, some three hundred years hence, may write as they speak,—in other words, that our orthography will by that time have become a phonetic one. It is not safe to prophesy; but, whether such a result comes soon or late, the credit of having accomplished it will not be due to those "half-learned and parcel-learned" persons who consider the present written form of the language as a thing "taboo," and look with such horror upon all attempts to better its condition.

As regards pronunciation, we think this will be generally considered one of the strong points of the new Dictionary. The introductory treatise on the "Principles of Pronunciation" is a comprehensive, instructive, and eminently practical, though not very philosophically constructed, exposition of the subject of English orthoëpy. It contains an analysis and description of the elementary sounds of the language, a discussion of certain questions about which orthoëpists are at variance, and a useful collection of facts, rules, and directions respecting a variety of other matters falling within its scope. As a sort of pendant to this, we have a "Synopsis of Words differently pronounced by Different Orthoëpists," which those who regulate their pronunciation by written authorities or opinions may find it useful to consult. The pronunciations given in the body of the work appear to be conformed to the usage of the best speakers. We notice with gratification that such vulgarisms as ab´do-men, pus´sl (for pust´ule!), sword (for s[=o]rd), etc., no longer continue to deface the book.

A large number of wood-cuts, mostly selected with good judgment and skilfully engraved, adorn the pages, and throw light upon the definitions. Besides being inserted in the vocabulary in connection with the words they illustrate, they are brought together, in a classified form, at the end of the volume. This is claimed as an "obvious advantage."

We have left ourselves but little space to notice the very rich and attractive Appendix, the first fifty pages of which are[Pg 644] taken up with an "Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Names of Noted Fictitious Persons and Places," etc., by William A. Wheeler. The conception of such a work was singularly happy, as well as original, and, on the whole, the task has been executed with commendable fidelity and discretion. That occasional omissions and mistakes should be discovered will probably surprise no one less than the author. Attention has elsewhere been publicly called, in particular, to the fact that Owen Meredith is given as the pseudonyme of Sir Bulwer Lytton instead of his son, E. R. Bulwer: this would seem to be a bad blunder, but we understand that it was a mere error of oversight, and that it was corrected before the Dictionary was fairly in the market. If other mistakes should be brought to light,—and what work of such multiplicity was ever free from them?—Mr. Wheeler will doubtless call to mind, and his readers must not forget, the eloquent excuse which Dr. Johnson offers, in the preface to his Dictionary, for his own shortcomings:—"That sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow." The "Pronouncing Vocabularies of Modern Geographical and Biographical Names, by J. Thomas, M. D.," are evidently the product of laborious and conscientious research; and, while we differ widely from Dr. Thomas on various points, general and particular, we must allow that his vocabularies are as yet the only ones of the kind which approximate with any nearness to the character of an authoritative standard. The other Vocabularies or "Tables" of the Appendix seem also to have been prepared with sound judgment and much painstaking, but we cannot dwell upon them.

To sum up, in all the essential points of a good dictionary,—in the amplitude and selectness of its vocabulary, in the fulness and perspicacity of its definitions, in its orthoëpy and (cum grano salis) its orthography, in its new and trustworthy etymologies, in the elaborate, but not too learned treatises of its Introduction, in its carefully prepared and valuable appendices,—briefly, in its general accuracy, completeness, and practical utility,—the work is one which none who read or write can henceforward afford to dispense with.

Mindful of the old adage, we have instituted no comparison between Webster and Worcester. If the latter, excellent as it is, should now be found in some respects inferior to the former, it is to be remembered that the present edition of Webster has the great advantage of being four or five years later in point of time, and that it has been enriched by the use of materials which were not accessible to Worcester. We are glad to see a handsome tribute to the learning and industry of Dr. Worcester, and an honest acknowledgment of indebtedness to his labors, in Professor Porter's Preface. This is as it should be; and we hope that the publishers, on both sides, acting in the same spirit, will forego all unfriendly controversy. Let there be no new War of the Dictionaries. The world is wide enough for both, and both are monuments of industry, judgment, and erudition, in the highest degree creditable to American scholarship, and unequalled by anything that has yet been done by English philologists of the present century.

The title of this new volume of poems expresses the peculiarity which we find in everything that Mr. Browning composes. Notwithstanding the remoteness of his moods, and the curious subtilty with which he follows the trace of exceptional feelings, he impersonates dramatically: there may be few such people as these choice acquaintances of his genius, but they are persons, and not mere figures labelled with a thought. Pippa, Guendolen, Luria, the Duchess, Bishop Blougram, Frà Lippo Lippi, are persons, however much they may be given to episodes and reverie. You find a great deal that is irrelevant to the thorough working-out of a character, much that is not simply individual: Mr. Browning gets sometimes in the way, so that you lose sight of his companion, but it is[Pg 645] not as Punch's master overzealously pulls the wires of his puppets. You would not say that a man can find many such companions, but you cannot deny that they are vividly described. Perhaps they appear in only one or two moods, but these have individual life. They are discovered in rare exalted or peculiar moments, but these are in costume and bathed in color. Shutting and opening many doors, balked at one vestibule and traversing another, suddenly you surprise the lord or mistress of the mansion, or from some threshold you silently observe their secret passion, which is unconscious of the daylight, and is caught in all its frankness. You come upon people, and not upon pictures in a house.

But the pictures, too, in all Mr. Browning's interiors, seem to have grown out of the life of the persons. He has not merely come in and hung them up, as poor artist or upholsterer, to make a sumptuous house for fine people to move into. The character in any one of his poems seems to have devised the furnishing: it is distinct, exterior, not always helping or expressing the character's thought, sometimes to be referred to that only with an effort, but still no other character could have so furnished his house. You can find the individuality everywhere, if you care to take the trouble. But if you are in haste, or do not particularly sympathize with the person whose drama you surprise, you and he will be together like vagrants in a gallery, who long for a catalogue, dislocate their necks, and anathematize the whole collection. But do not then say that you have gauged and criticized the life that streams from Mr. Browning's pen.

How vivid and personal is, for instance, "Pictor Ignotus," one of the earlier poems! The painter is no longer unknown, for his mood betrays and describes him. It is not merely his speaking in the first person which saves him from melting into an abstraction, but it is that the "I" takes flesh and lives; the poet dramatizes or shows him.

Of this class of poems is the one entitled "Abt Vogler" in the present volume. The Abbot was a famous musician and organist, the teacher of Meyerbeer. Concerning the new kind of organ which he invented, and which he called an "Orchestricon," we know nothing, save that its effects were merely amplifications of those belonging to an organ. The poem describes the awe and rapture which fill the soul of a great organist when the instrument shudders, soars, rejoices in his inspiration. It is not the description of a musical mood, but the showing of a man who has the mood. It is the exultation and religious feeling of a man in the very act. The noble lines are not fine things attempting to set forth the metaphysics of musical expression and enjoyment, but they represent a man at the very climax of his musical passion. Is the effect any the less dramatic because the man is not committing a murder, or conspiring, or seducing, or overreaching, or infecting an honest ear with jealousy? It is not so theatrical, because the emotion itself is not so broad and popular, but its inmost genius is dramatic.

"A Death in the Desert" is another poem that attempts to restore a fleeting moment, full of profound thought and feeling, by giving it individuals, and showing them living in it, instead of meditating about it with fine after-thoughts. Pamphylax describes the death of St. John in a desert cave. At first the individuals are clearly seen; but the poem soon lapses into philosophizing, and winds up with theology. Still, here is the power of reproducing the tone and sentiments of a long-buried and forgotten epoch, as if the matters involved had immediate interest and were vigorously mauled in all the newspapers. St. John might have died last week, or we might be Syrian converts of the second century, dissolved in tenderness at the thought that the Beloved Disciple at last had gone to lay his head again upon the Master's bosom. The poem talks as if it were trying to satisfy this mixture of memory and curiosity.

Some of the best lines ever written by Mr. Browning are here. Take these, for instance. Pamphylax, reporting John's last words, as the hoary life flickered and clung, gives this:—

"A stick, once fire from end to end;
Now ashes, save the tip that holds a spark!
Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself
A little where the fire was: thus I urge
The soul that served me, till it task once more[Pg 646]
What ashes of my brain have kept their shape,
And these make effort on the last o' the flesh,
Trying to taste again the truth of things."

"But at the last, why, I seemed left alive
Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand,
To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared
When there was mid-sea, and the mighty things.

* * *

Yet now I wake in such decrepitude
As I had slidden down and fallen afar,
Past even the presence of my former self,
Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap,
Till I am found away from my own world,
Feeling for foothold through a blank profound."

The poem entitled "Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the Island," has for a motto, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." Caliban talks to himself about "that other, whom his dam called God." Setebos is the great First Cause as conceived and dreaded in the heart of a Caliban. The poem is by no means a caricature of the natural theology which springs from selfishness and fear. All the phenomena of the world are neither

"right nor wrong in Him,
Nor kind nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.
'Am strong myself, compared to yonder crabs
That march now from the mountain to the sea;
Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
Loving not, hating not, just choosing so."

The materialist who believes in Forces is brother to the Calvinist who preaches Sovereignty and the Divine Decrees. The preacher lets loose upon the imagination of mankind a Setebos, who after death will plague his enemies and feast his friends. The materialist believes, with Caliban, that

"He doth his worst in this our life,
Giving just respite lest we die through pain,
Saving last pain for worst,—with which, an end."

The grave irony of this poem so bespatters the theologian's God with his own mud that we dread the image and recoil. From the unsparing vigor of these lines we turn for relief to "Rabbi Ben Ezra" and "Prospice." In both of these we have glimpses of Mr. Browning's true theology, which is the faith of his whole soul in the excellence of that world whose beauty he interprets, of the human nature whose capacity he does so much to "keep in repute," and of the Infinite Love.

"Praise be Thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw Power, shall see Love perfect too:
Perfect I call thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do!"

We find in this new volume more distinct and tranquil expressions of Mr. Browning's thought upon the relation of the finite to the infinite than he has given us before. And his pen has turned with freedom and satisfaction towards these things, as if the imagination had broken new outlets for itself through the world's beautiful horizon into the great sea. How "like one entire and perfect chrysolite" is the little piece called "Prospice"! But we are all the more surprised to see occasionally a touch of the genuine British denseness, whenever he recollects that there are such people as Strauss, Bishop Colenso, and the men of the "Essays and Reviews" prowling around the preserve where the ill-kept Thirty-Nine Articles still find a little short grass to nibble. When we read the last three verses of "Gold Hair," we set him down for a High-Church bigot: the English discussions upon points of exegesis and theology appear to him threatening to prove the Christian faith false, but for his part he still sees reasons to suppose it true, and this, among others, that it taught Original Sin, the Corruption of Man's Heart! We escape from this to "Rabbi Ben Ezra" for reassurance, not greatly minding the inconsistency that then appears, but confirmed in an old opinion of ours, that John Bull, in this matter of theology, has his mumps and scarlatina very late, and they are likely to go hard with a constitution that is weaned from the pure truth of things.

"Gold Hair," notwithstanding its picturesque lines, is weak and inconclusive. Its moral is conventional, while the incident is too far-fetched for sympathy. The series of little poems called "James Lee" is full of beauties, but it is too vague to make a firm impression. We suppose it tells the story of love that exaggerates a[Pg 647] common nature, clings to it, and shrivels away. What can be finer than the way in which an unsatisfied heart makes the wind the interpreter of its pain and dread? This is the sixth poem, "Under the Cliff."

"Or wouldst thou rather that I understand
Thy will to help me?—like the dog I found
Once, pacing sad this solitary strand,
Who would not take my food, poor hound,
But whined and licked my hand."

But in this very poem the figure of the nun is artificial, and interrupts the pathetic feeling. And we cannot make anything out of the piece, "Beside the Drawing-Board," unless we first detach it from its position in the series, and like it alone. On the whole, many fine lines are here, but no real person and no poetic impression.

Neither the dramatic nor the lyrical quality appears in this volume as it did once in the splendid "Bells and Pomegranates," which gave us such vivid shapes, and emotions so consistent and sustained, even though they were so often flawed by over-reflection. In this volume the purposes are less palpable, and the pen seems to have pursued them with less tenacity than usual. It has the air of having been scraped together. Yet how charming is "Confessions," and "Youth and Art," and "A Likeness"! Besides these, the best pieces are those which touch upon the highest themes.

"Mr. Sludge, the Medium," cannot be called a poem. It would not be possible to write satire, epic, idyl, not even elegy, upon that "rat-hole philosophy," as Mr. Emerson once styled the new fetichism of the mahogany tables. It has not one element that asks the sense of beauty to incorporate it, or challenges the weapon of wit to transfix it. It is humiliating, but not pathetic, not even when yearning hearts are trying to pretend that their first-born vibrates to them through a stranger's and a hireling's mind. It is not even grotesque, but it is gross, and flat, and stale; its messages are fatuous, its machinery the rickety heirlooms of old humbugs of Greece and Alexandria. No thrill, no terror, no true awe, nothing but "goose-flesh" and disgust, creep from the medium's presence. Pegasus need not be saddled; summon, rather, the police.

Yet this composition, which Mr. Browning must have undertaken in a moment of high indignation, with the motive of self-relief, is full of common sense. Mr. Sludge's vindication of his career turns upon the point that people like on the whole to be deceived, especially in matters relating to the invisible world. Sludge must be right in this; otherwise the theologians would not have had such a successful run. The facile and eager "circle" betrays the imaginative medium into reporting what it appears most to desire. The superstition of the people excites and feeds his own. He is only one against a crowd which deluges him with its expectation, and resents a scarcity of the supernatural. Mr. Sludge is not so much to blame: the people at length push the thing so far that he is obliged to cheat in self-defence. And when a man tasks his wits successfully, if it be only to mislead the witless, he has a sense of satisfaction in the effort akin to that of the rhetorician and the quack.

But shrewdness and good sense cannot make a poem by assuming the measure of blank verse. And a few Yankee phrases are pasted into Mr. Sludge's talk, such as "stiffish cock-tail," "V-notes," "sniggering," allusions to "Greeley's newspaper," Beacon Street, etc.: there is no character in them at all. Mr. Sludge is a bad Yankee, as well as impudent pleader. The lines never sparkle, even with the poet's indignation, but they seem to be all the time blown into a forced vivacity and heat. Nemesis attends the poet who plunges his arm for a subject into this burrow of Spiritualism.

Let us pass from this to note the noble lesson that the last poem, entitled "Epilogue," conveys. Three speakers tell in turn their feeling of the Divine Presence. The first intones the old Hebrew notion, loved by the childhood of all races and countries, that the Lord's Face fills His earthly temple at stated periods, culminating with the human glory of psalms and hallelujahs, to absorb and shine in the rejoicing of the worshippers, to sink back again into the invisible upon the dying strain. The second speaker describes the reaction, when the enthusiastic belief of early times is replaced by a dull sense that no Face shines, by a doubt if beyond the darkness and the distance there be yet a[Pg 648] God who will answer to the old rapture, a sun to rise when man's heart rises, a love corresponding to his ecstasy:—

"Where may hide what came and loved our clay?
How shall the sage detect in yon expanse
The star which chose to stoop and stay for us?
Unroll the records!"

But the third speaker bids the records be closed, that man may worship the God who lives, instead of regretting that He lived of old. Take the least man, observe his head and heart, find how he differs from every other man; see how Nature by degrees grows around him, to nourish, infold, and set him off, to enrich him with opportunities, as if he were her only foster-child, and to flatter thus every other man in turn, making him her darling as though in expectation of finding no other, till, having extorted all his worth and beauty, and cherished him to the utmost of his possible life, she rolls away elsewhere, continually keeping up this pageant of humanity:—

"Why, where's the need of Temple, when the walls
O' the world are that? What use of swells and falls
From Levites' choir, Priests' cries, and trumpet-calls?
That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
Or decomposes but to recompose,
Become my universe that feels and knows!"

This is the true religion, hallowing the poet's gifts and inviting them to celebrate and express it. We wish that the lines would let their meaning meet us with a more level gaze. In the poems of this class there is riper thought and a clearer intuition, toward which all the previous poems of Mr. Browning appear to have struggled, faring from the East to contribute myrrh, frankincense, and gems to this simplicity.

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. XIV.—NOVEMBER, 1864.—NO. LXXXV.

CONTENTS

LEAVES FROM AN OFFICER'S JOURNAL.

I.

FOOTNOTES:

RICHES.

THE VENGEANCE OF DOMINIC DE GOURGUES.

LINA.

CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.

FOURTH PAPER.

CAPTAIN STARKEY.

THE ASS.

IN RE SQUIRRELS.

THE LAST PEACH.

TO P. G. PATMORE.

TO A FARMER AND HIS WIFE.

Vive l'Agriculture!

FOOTNOTES:

TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.

November 3, 1864.

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

X.

OUR HOUSE.

THE NEW SCHOOL OF BIOGRAPHY.

FOOTNOTES:

THE LAST RALLY.

November, 1864.

FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION.

THROUGH-TICKETS TO SAN FRANCISCO: A PROPHECY.

SEA-HOURS WITH A DYSPEPTIC.

BY HIS SATELLITE.

I.—PRELUSIVE.

II.—THE BURDEN OF THE SONG.

III.—RECITATIVE

IV.—HARMONICS.

V.—NOCTURNE.

VI.—THE PEPTIC SYMPHONY.

VII.—MATINS.

VIII.—JENTACULAR.

IX.—FINALE (con motivo.)

THE TWENTIETH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

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