The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, September, 1866.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, 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 has been generated for the HTML version.

THE SURGEON'S ASSISTANT.

The sickness of the nation not being unto death, we now begin to number its advantages. They will not all be numbered by this generation; and as for story-tellers, essayists, letter-writers, historians, and philosophers, if their "genius" flags in half a century with such material as hearts, homes, and battle-fields beyond counting afford them, they deserve to be drummed out of their respective regiments, and banished into the dominion of silence and darkness, forever to sit on the borders of unfathomable ink-pools, minus pen and paper, with fool's-caps on their heads.

I know of a place which you may call Dalton, if it must have a name. At the beginning of our war,—for which some true spirits thank Almighty God,—a family as wretched as Satan wandering up and down the earth could wish to find lived there, close beside the borders of a lake which the Indians once called—but why should not your fancy build the lowly cottage on whatsoever green and sloping bank it will? Fair as you please the outside world may be,—waters pure as those of Lake St. Sacrament, with islands on their bosom like those of Horicon, and shores beautifully wooded as those of Lake George,—but what delight will you find in all the heavenly mansions, if love be not there?

"I'll enlist," said the master of this mansion of misery in the midst of the garden of delight, one day.

They spoke with equal vigor, but neither believed in the other. The instant the man dropped the book he had been reading, he was like Samson with his hair shorn, for his wife couldn't tell one letter from another; and when she saw him sit down on the stone wall which surrounded their potato-field, overgrown with weeds, she marched out boldly to the corner of the wood-shed, where never any wood was, and attacked him thus:—

"S'pose you show fight awhile in that potato-patch afore you go to fight Ribils. Gov'ment don't need you any more than I do. May be it'll find [Pg 258]out getting ain't gaining!"

She had no answer. The man was thinking, when she interrupted him, as she was always doing, that, if he could secure the State and town bounty, that would be some provision for the woman and child. As for himself, he was indifferent as to where he was sent, or how soon. But if he went away, they might look for him to come again. Gabriel's trumpet, he thought, would be a more welcome sound than his wife's voice.

He enlisted. The bounties paid him were left in the hands of a trusty neighbor, and were to be appropriated to the supply of his family's needs; and he went away along with a boat-load of recruits,—his own man no longer. Even his wife noticed the change in him, from the morning when he put on his uniform and began to obey orders, for she had time to notice. Several days elapsed after enlistment before the company's ranks were complete, and the captain would not report at head-quarters, he said, until his own townsfolk had supplied the number requisite.

Even his wife noticed the change, I said; for, contrary to what is usual and expected, she was not the first to perceive that the slow and heavy step had now a spring in it, and that there was a light in his clouded eyes. She supposed the new clothes made the difference.

Nearly a year had passed away, and this woman was leaning over the rail fence which surrounded a barren field, and listening, while she leaned, to the story of Ezra Cramer, just home from the war. She listened well, even eagerly, to what he had to tell, and seemed moved by the account in ways various as pride and indignation.

"I wish I had him here!" she said, when he had come to the end of his story,—the story of her husband's promotion.

Ezra looked at her, and thought of the pretty girl she used to be, and wondered how it happened that such a one could grow into a woman like this. The vindictiveness of her voice accorded well with her person,—expressed it. Where were her red cheeks? What had become of her brown hair? She was once a free one at joking with, and rallying the young men about; but now how like a virago she looked! and her tongue was sharp as a two-edged sword.

Ezra was sorry that he had taken the trouble to ascertain in the village where Nancy Elkins lived. Poor fellow! While enduring the hardships of the past year, his imagination had transformed all the Dalton women into angels, and the circuit of that small hamlet had become to his loving thought as the circuit of Paradise.

Some degree of comprehension seemed to break upon him while he stood gazing upon her, and he said: "O well, Miss Nancy, he's got his hands full, and besides he didn't know I was coming home so quick. I didn't know it myself till the last minute. He would 'a' sent some message,—course he would!"

"I guess there ain't anything to hender his writing home to his folks," she answered, unappeased and unconvinced. "Other people hear from the war. There's Mynders always a-writing and sending money to the old folks, and that's the difference."

"We've been slow to get our pay down where we was," said Ezra. "It's been a trouble to me all the while, having nothing to show for the time I was taking from father."

The woman looked at the young fellow who had spoken so seriously, and her eyes and her voice softened.

"Nobody would mind about your not sending money hum, Ezra. They'd know you was all right. Such a hard-working set as you belong to! You're looking as if you wondered what I was doing here 'n this lot. I'm living in that shanty! Like as not I'll have its pictur' taken, and sent to my man. Old Uncle Torry said we might have it for the summer; and I expect the town was glad enough to turn me and my girl out anywhere. They won't do a thing towards fixing the old hut up. Say 't ain't worth it. We can't stay there in cold[Pg 259] weather. Roof leaks like a sieve. If he don't send me some money pretty quick, I'll list myself, and serve long enough to find him out, see 'f I don't."

At this threat, the soldier, who knew something about war, straightened himself, and with a cheery laugh limped off towards the road. "I'll see ye ag'in, Miss Nancy, afore you start," said he, looking back and nodding gayly at her. Things weren't so bad as they seemed about her, he guessed. He was going home, and his heart was soft. Happiness is very kind; but let it do its best it cannot come very near to misery.

Nancy stood and watched the young man as he went, commenting thus: "Well, he's made a good deal out of 'listing, any way." His pale face and his hurt did not make him sacred in her sight.

She was speaking to herself, and not to her little daughter, who, when she saw her mother talking to a soldier, ran up to hear the conversation. A change that was wonderful to see had passed over the child's face, when she heard that her father had been promoted from the ranks. The bald fact, unilluminated by a single particular, seemed to satisfy her. She hadn't a question to ask. Her first thought was to run down to the village and tell Miss Ellen Holmes, who told her, not long ago, so proud and wonderful a story about her brother's promotion.

If it were not for this Jenny, my story would be short. Is it not for the future we live? For the children the world goes on.

Does this little girl—she might be styled a beauty by a true catholic taste, but oh! I fear that the Boston Convention "Orthodox," lately convened to settle all great questions concerning the past, present, and future, would never recognize her, on any showing, as a babe of grace!—does she, as she runs down the hill and along the crooked street of Dalton, look anything like a messenger of Heaven to your eyes? Must, the angels show their wings before they shall have recognition?

Going past the blacksmith's shop she was hailed by the blacksmith's self, with the blacksmith's own authority. "See here, Jenny!" At the call, she stood at bay like a fair little fawn in the woods.

"I'm writing a letter to my boy," he continued. "Step in here. Did you know Ezra Cramer had come back?"

"I saw him just now," she answered. "He told us about father." She said it with a pride that made her young face shine.

And that he really did wonder, Jenny could not doubt. She heard more in his words than she liked to hear, and answered with a tremulous voice, in spite of pride, "O, he's been promoted."

"That's 'cute. Well, see here, sis, we'll find that out,—you and me will." The angry voice of the blacksmith became tender. "You sit down there and write him a letter. My son, he'll find out if your pa is alive. As for Ezra, he don't know any more 'n he did when he went away; but, poor fellow, he's been mostually in the hospertal, instead of fighting Ribils, so p'r'aps he ain't to blame. You write to yer pa, and I'll wage you get an answer back, and he'll tell you all about his permotion quick enough."

Jenny stood looking at the blacksmith for a moment, with mouth and eyes wide open, so much astonished by the proposition as not to know what answer should be made to it. She had never written a line in her life, except in her old copy-book. If her hand could be made to express what she was thinking of, it would be the greatest work and wonder in the world. But then, it never could!

That decisive never seemed to settle the point. She turned forthwith to the[Pg 260] blacksmith, smiling very seriously. At the same time she took three decided steps, which led her into his dingy shop, as awed as though she were about to have some wonderful exhibition there. But she must be her own astrologer.

The blacksmith, elated by his own success that morning in the very difficult business of letter-writing, was mightily pleased to have under direction this little disciple in the work of love, and forthwith laid his strong hands on the bench and brought it out into the light, setting it down with a force that said something for the earnestness of his purpose in regard to Miss Jenny.

When he wrote his own letter, he did it in retirement and solitude, having sought out the darkest corner of his shop for the purpose. A mighty man in the shoeing of horses and the handling of hammers, he shrank from exposing his incompetence in the management of a miserable pen, even to the daylight and himself.

His big account-book placed against his forge, with a small sheet of paper spread thereon, his pen in Jenny's hands, and the inkstand near by, there was nothing for him to do but to go away and let her do her work.

"Give him a tall letter!" said he. "And you must be spry about it. He'll be glad to hear from his little girl, I reckon. See, the stage 'll be along by four o'clock, and now it's——"—he stepped to the door and looked out on the tall pine-tree across the road,—that was his sun-dial,—"it's just two o'clock now, Jenny. Work away!" So saying, he went off as tired, after the exertion he had made, as if he had shod all the Dalton horses since daybreak.

She had just two hours for doing the greatest piece of work she had done in her short life. And consciously it was the greatest work. Every stroke of that pen, every straight line and curve and capital, seemed to require as much deliberation as the building of a house; and how her brain worked! Fly to and fro, O swallows, from your homes beneath the eaves of the blacksmith's old stone shop in the shade of the far-spreading walnut,—stretch forth your importunate necks and lift aloft your greedy voices, O young ones in the nests!—the little girl who has so often stood to watch you is sitting in the shadow within there, blind and deaf to you, and unaware of everything in the great world except the promotion of her father "in the war," and the letter he will be sure to get, because the blacksmith is going to send it along with his letter to his son.

She was doing her work well. Any one who had ever seen the girl before must have asked with wonder what had happened to her,—it was so evident that something had happened which stirred heart and soul to the depths.

So, even so, unconsciously, love sometimes works out the work of a lifetime, touches the key-note of an anthem of everlasting praise,—does it with as little ostentation as the son of science draws yellow gold from the quartz rock which tells no tale on the face of it concerning its "hid treasure." So, wisely and without ostentation, work the true agents, the apostles of liberty in this world.

"O dear papa! my dear papa!" she wrote, "Ezra has come home, and he says you are promoted! But he couldn't tell for what it was, or where you were, or anything. And O, it seems as if I couldn't wait a minute, I want to hear so all about it." When she had written thus far the spirit of the mother seemed to stir in the child. She sat and mused for a moment. Her eyes flashed. Her right hand moved nervously. Strange that her father had not sent some word by Ezra; but then he didn't know, of course, that Ezra was coming. Ay! that was a lucky thought. What she had written seemed to imply some blame. So, with many a blot and erasure, her loving belief that all was right must make itself evident.

At the end of the two hours she found herself at the bottom of the page the blacksmith had spread before her. Twice he had come into the shop and assured himself that the work was going[Pg 261] on, and smiled to see the progress she was making. The third time he came he was under considerable excitement.

She did not answer, she was so busy, and so hard at work, signing her name to the sheet that was covered with what looked like hieroglyphics.

When she had made the last emphatic pen-stroke, she turned towards him, flushed and smiling. "There!" she said.

"Good!" said he. "But you haven't writ his name out. Give me the pen here, quick!" Then he took the quill and wrote her father's name up in one blank corner, and dried the ink with a little sand, and put the note into the envelope containing his own, and the great work was done.

Do you know, fair child,—who must fight till the day of your death with alien, opposite forces, because the blood-vessels of Nancy Elkins, as they sail through the grand canals of the city of your life, so often hang out piratical banners, and bear down on better craft as they near the dangerous places, or put out, like wreckers after a storm, seeking for treasure the owners somehow lost the power to hold?

In a few minutes after the letter was inscribed and sealed, the stage came rattling along, and Jenny stood by and saw the blacksmith give it to the driver, and heard him say: "Now be kerful about that ere letter. It's got two inside. One's my boy's, as ye'll see by the facing on it; t' other's this little girl's. She's been writin' to her pa. So be kerful."

They stood together watching the stage till it was out of sight, then the blacksmith nodded at Jenny as if they had done a good day's work, and proceeded to light his pipe. That was not her way of celebrating the event. She remembered now that she had promised a little girl, Miss Ellen Holmes indeed, that she would some time show her where the red-caps and fairy-cups grew, and there was yet time, before sunset, for a long walk in the woods.

The little town-bred lady happened to come along just then, while Jenny stood hesitating whether to go home first and tell her mother of this great thing she had done. The question was therefore settled; and now let them go seeking red-caps. Good luck attend the children! Jenny will be sure to say something about promotions before they separate. She will say that something with a genuine human pride; and the end of the hunt for red-caps may be, conspicuously, success in finding them; but still more to the purpose, it will be the child's establishment on a better basis—a securer basis of equality—than she has occupied before. She forgets about Dalton and poverty. She thinks about camps and honor. She has something to claim of all the world. She is the citizen of a great nation. She bears the name of one who is fighting for the Union, who has fought, and fought so well that those in authority have beckoned him up higher. Why, it is as though a crown were placed on her dear father's head.

II.

Going out of quiet and beautiful green Dalton, and into the hospital of Frere's Landing, 't is a wonderful change we make.

The silence of one place is as remarkable as the silence of the other, perhaps. That of the hospital does not resemble that of the hamlet, however. At times it grows oppressive and appalling, being the silence of anguish or of death. A stranger reaching Dalton in the night might wonder in the morning if there were in reality any passage out of it, for there the lake, on one of whose western slopes is the "neighborhood," seems locked in completely by the hills, and an ascent towards heaven is apparently the only way of egress. Yet[Pg 262] there's another way; for I am not writing this true story among celestial altitudes for you. I returned from Dalton by a mundane road.

Out of Frere's Hospital, however, its silence and seclusion, many a stranger never found his way except by the high mountains of transfiguration, in the chariots of fire, driven by the horsemen of Heaven, covered with whose glory they departed.

Through the wards of this well-ordered hospital a lady passed one night, and, entering a small apartment separated from the others, advanced with noiseless step to a bedside, and there sat down. You may guess if her heart was beating fast, and whether it was with difficulty that she kept her gray eyes clear of tears. There were about her traces of long and hurried journeying.

Under no limitations of caution had she passed so noiselessly through the wards. Involuntary was that noiselessness,—involuntary also the surprise with which one and another of the more wakeful patients turned to follow her, with hopeless, weary eyes, as she passed on. Now and then some feeble effort was made to attract her attention and arrest her progress, but she went, absorbed beyond observation by the errand that constrained her steps and thoughts.

When she reached the door of the apartment to which the surgeon had directed her, she seemed for an instant to hesitate; then she pushed the door open and passed into the room. The next instant she sank into a chair by the bedside of a man who was lying there asleep. It seemed as if the silent room had a profounder stillness added to it since she entered.

It was Colonel Ames whom she saw lying on the cot before her with a bandage round his forehead, so evidently asleep. He was smiling in a dream. He was not going to give up the ghost, it seemed, though he had given up so much—how much!—with that passion of giving which possessed this nation, North and South, during four awful, glorious years. He had given up the splendor and the beauty of this world. All its radiance was blotted out in that moment of fury and of death when the shot struck him, and left him blind upon the field.

Never on earth would it be said to him, "Receive thy sight." The lady knew this who sat down by his bedside to wait for his awaking. The surgeon had told her this, when at last, after having searched for her brother long among the dead, she came to Frere's Hospital and found him alive.

She sat so close beside him it seemed that he could not remain a moment unconscious of her immediate presence after waking. Her hand lay just where his hand, moving when he wakened, must touch it. She had rightly calculated the chances; he did touch it, and started and said: "Who's here? Doctor!" Then with a firmer grasp he seized the unresisting fingers, and exclaimed, "My God, am I dreaming? it ought to be Lizzie's hand."

"The doctor told me I should find you here, and might come," she answered; and, disguised as the voice was by the feeling that tore her heart, the Colonel, poor young fellow, listening as if for life, knew it, and said, "O Lizzie, my child, I don't know about this,—why couldn't you wait?"

"I waited and waited forever," she answered. "You're not sorry that I've found you out after such a hunt? Of course you'll make believe, but then—you needn't; I'm here, any way!"

Just then the surgeon came in. The Colonel knew his step, and said, "Doctor, look here; is this Lizzie?"

"I believe you're right," said the doctor. "She said she had a hero for a brother, and I have no doubt about that myself."

"O Dan, we had given you up! Though I knew all the time we shouldn't. I could not believe—"

"Must come to that Lizzie,—do it over again; for what you have here isn't your old Dan."

"My old Dan!" she exclaimed, and[Pg 263] then there was a little break in the conversation the two heroes were endeavoring to maintain.

Meanwhile the surgeon had seated himself on the edge of the bed waiting the moment when there should be a positive need of him. He saw when it arrived.

"Colonel," said he, in his hearty, cheery voice, which alone had lifted many a poor fellow from the slough of misery, and put new heart and soul in him, since his ministrations began in the hospital,—"Colonel, your aids are in waiting."

"That is a fine thing to say. Here he has been bothering me, madam, not to say browbeating me, and I've been moving heaven and earth for my part, and at last have secured the aids, and now hear him dismiss them!"

The surgeon quietly lifted from the floor a pair of crutches, and placed them in his patient's hands.

A change passed over the young man's face at this. Whatever the emotion so expressed, it had otherwise no demonstration. He turned now abruptly toward his sister, and said: "They can wait. I've got another kind of aid now. Come, Lizzie, say something."

A sudden radiance flashed across his face when he ceased to speak, and waited for that voice.

He could well be spared. The brother and sister had now neither eye nor thought except for each other.

The surgeon's face changed as he closed the door. Every one of their faces changed. As for the gentleman whose duty took him now from ward to ward, from one sick-bed to another, it was only by an effort that he gave his cheerful words and courageous looks to the men who had found day after day a tonic in his presence.

The brother and sister clasped each other's hands. Few were the words they spoke. He was looking forward to the years before him, endeavoring to steady himself, in a moment of weakness, by the remembrance of past months of active service.

She was thinking of the days when she walked with her hero out of delightsomeness and ease into danger and anxiety, all for the nation's succor, in the nation's time of need. Some had deemed it a needless sacrifice. Of old, when sacrifice was to be offered, it was not the worthless and the worst men dared or cared to bring. The spotless, the pure, the beautiful, these were no vain oblations. These two said in solemn conference, "We will make an offering of our all." And their all they offered. See how much had been accepted!

Having offered, having sacrificed, it was not in either of these to repent the doing, or despise the honor that was put upon them. No going back for them! No looking back! No secret repining! The Colonel had done his work. As for the Colonel's sister, there was no place on earth where she would not find work to do.

And here in this hospital, in her brother's room, she found a sphere. Going and coming through the various wards, singing hymns of heavenly love and purest patriotism, scattering comforts with ministering hands, which found brothers on all those beds of languishing, how many learned to look for her appearing, and to bless her when she came! But concerning her work there, and that of other women, some of whom will go crippled to the grave from their service,—soldiers and veterans of the army of the Union,—enough has everywhere been said.

Among all these patients there was one, a sick man, to whom her coming and her going, her speech and her silence, became most notable events. Living within the influence of such[Pg 264] manner and degree of social life as her presence in the hospital established, he was like a returned exile, who, yet under ban, felt all the awkwardness, constraint, and danger of his position. This man, who discovered in himself merely helplessness, was not accounted helpless, but the helper of many. He was, in short, the surgeon of the hospital.

One day the Colonel said to him, "You don't like to have my sister here. Are the hired nurses making a row?"

The surgeon's face betrayed so much interest in this subject, and so much embarrassment, it seemed probable he would come out with an absolute "Yes"; but his speech contradicted him, for he said with indifference, "Where did you get that pretty notion?"

"Out of you, and nowhere else. What puzzles me, though, is, she seems to think she is doing some good here. And didn't you say you'd no objection to her visiting the wards?"

"I should think it a positive loss if she were called or sent away from the hospital," said the surgeon, speaking now seriously enough. "She is of the greatest service, out of this room as well as in it."

"Why do I feel then as if something had happened,—something disagreeable? We don't have such good times as we used to have when you sat here and told stories, and let me run on like a school-boy."

"You have better company, that's all. I'm not such a fool that I can't see it. You have better times, lad,—if I don't."

"Then all you did for me before she came was for pity's sake! Who's in the ditch now, getting all the favor you used to show to me?"

The voice and manner with which these words were spoken produced an effect not readily yielded to, though the surgeon was perfectly aware that his emotion was unperceived and unguessed by the man on the bed there, who was investigating a difficulty which had puzzled him.

So we have come to this point. Away down at Frere's Landing, amid scenes of anguish, tribulation, and death, where elect souls did minister, there was found ministration by these elect souls in their own behalf.

They had gained a "Landing-Place" that was sacred ground, and if Philosophy and Science would also stand there they must put their shoes from off their feet, for the ground was holy. Priests whose right it was to stand within the veil were servants there; and day by day, as they discerned each other's work, it was not required of them always to dwell upon the nature of sacrifice.

Each, in such work as now was occupying the doctor and Miss Ames, had need of the other's strengthening sympathy, day by day, and of all the consolations of friendship, such as royal souls are permitted to bestow on one another.

With the surgeon, not a young man in anything except happiness, it was as if there were broad openings, not rents, in the heavy leaden skies. Pure, bright lights shone along the horizon, warmth overspread the cold.

With her, perpetual and sufficient are the compensations of love. To him who plants of this it is returned out of earth, and out of heaven, in good measure, pressed down, and running over. Nay, let us not argue.

The sick man lying on his cot, the convalescent guided by her to balcony or garden, the crippled and the dying, had all to give her of their hearts' best bloom. And if it proved that there was one among these who, to her apprehension, walked in white, like an angel, of whom she asked no thanks, no praise, only aid and sympathy, what mortal should look surprise? The constant, the pure, the alive through all generations, the Alive Forever, will not. And the rest may apologize for overhearing a story not intended for their ears.[Pg 265]

It happened one evening that the surgeon and Miss Ames met outside the hospital doors, near the old sea-wall. They were walking in no haste, watching, it seemed, the flight of the brave little sea-birds, as they made their way now above and now among the breakers. After the heart-trying labors of the day, an hour like this was full of balm to those who were now entered on its rest. But it was not secure from invasion. Even now a voice was shouting to the surgeon, and he heard it, though he walked on as if he were determined not to hear. He had taken to himself this hour; he had earned it, he needed it; surely the world could go on for one hour without him!

But the importunity of the call was not to be resisted. So, because the irresistible must be met, the surgeon stood still and looked around. A poor little fellow was making toward him with all speed.

"Mail for you, sir," he said, as he came nearer, and he gave a package of newspapers, and one little letter, into the surgeon's hands.

So Miss Ames and he sat down on the stone wall to scan those newspapers, and the surgeon opened his note.

Obviously a scrawl from some poor fellow who had obtained a discharge on account of sickness, and gone home. It was not rare for the surgeon to receive such missives from the men who had been under his charge. Wonderful was the influence he gained over the majority of his patients. Wonderful? No. The man of meanest talents, who gives himself body and spirit to a noble work, can no more fail of his great reward, than the seasons of their glory. Never man on this Landing thought meanly of the hospital surgeon's skill, or questioned his right to rank among the ablest of his tribe,—no man, and certainly not the woman who was making a hero out of him, to her heart's great content.

While Miss Ames looked at the papers, he proceeded, without much interest in the business, to open and read his note.

One glance down the blurred and blotted page served to arrest his attention, in a way that letters could not always do. Here was not a cup of cold water to sip and put aside. He glanced at Miss Ames. She was absorbed in a report of "the situation," getting items of renown out of one column and another, which should ease many an aching body, smooth many a sick man's pillow, ere the night-lamps were lighted in the wards.

If she had chanced to look up at him just then, while he, with scared, astonished eyes, was glancing at her, it is impossible to say what words might have escaped him, or what might have forever been prevented utterance. But she was not looking. What heavenly angel turned her eyes away?

And now, before him whose prerogative was Victory, what vision did arise? An apocalyptic vision: blackness of darkness forever, and side by side with chaos, fair fields of living green, through which a young girl walked towards a womanhood as fair as hers who sat beside him. Unconscious of wrong that child, and yet how deeply, how variously wronged! If he had meditated a great robbery, he could not have quailed in the light of the discovered enormity as he did now before the vision of his Janet.

Years upon years of struggle and of conquest could hardly give to the surgeon of Frere's a more notable victory, one which could fill his soul with a serener sense of triumph, than this hour gave, when he sat on the old stone wall that guarded shore from sea, with the child's letter in his hands, which had not miscarried, but had moved straight, straight—do not Divine providences always?—as an arrow to its mark.

Out of the secret place of strength he came, and he held that letter open towards Miss Ames.

"Here's something to be thought of," said he, endeavoring to speak in a[Pg 266] natural and easy tone of voice. "I don't know that I could ask for better counsel than yours. My little girl has written me a letter. I didn't know that she could write. See what work she has made of it. But what sort of parents can she have, do you think, twelve years old, and writing a thing like that?"

Miss Ames laid aside, or rather, to speak correctly, she dropped the newspapers. There was nothing in all their printed columns to compare with this item of intelligence,—that the surgeon had a living wife and a living daughter. She took the letter he was holding towards her, and said, "Indeed, Doctor," quite as naturally as he had spoken. But she did not look at him. She read the letter,—every misspelled word of it,—then she said: "Perhaps it doesn't say much for the parents. But something—I should think a great deal—for the child. Strange you didn't tell me about her before. But I like to have her introduce herself."

The word, as she pronounced it, was not an interrogation. Miss Ames seemed to be musing, yet with no activity of curiosity, on the one idea which had evidently possessed the child's mind in writing.

"I enlisted as a private," said he, speaking with a difficulty that might not have been manifest to any ordinary hearer. "My daughter did not know that I had a profession; but my diploma satisfied the Department when my promotion was spoken of. When I became a live man in the service, I wished to serve where I could bring the most to pass, and it was not in camp, or on the field,—except as a healer." He looked at his watch as he uttered these last words, and arose as if his hour of rest had expired; but then, instead of taking one step forward, he turned and looked at Miss Ames, and she seemed to hear him saying, "Is this a time for flight?"

He answered that question, for he had asked it of himself, by sitting down again.

"I ought to take a few minutes to myself," he said, with grave deliberation, "I shall have no time like this to speak of my child,—for her, I mean"; and if, while he spoke thus, he lacked perfect composure, the hour was his, and he knew it. "More than a dozen years ago," he continued, "I went to Dalton. I was sick and dying, as I thought. Janet's mother nursed me through a fever, and was the means of saving my life. I married her. I was grateful for the care she had taken of me; and while regaining my strength, during that September and October, I fell into the mistake of thinking that it was she who made the world seem beautiful to me again, and life worth keeping. But you have seen enough since you have been in this hospital to understand that this war has been salvation to a good many men, as it will prove to the nation. I enlisted as much as anything to get away from—where I was. The Devil himself couldn't hold me there any longer. He had managed things long enough. The child is capable of love, you see. Can you help us? I don't know, but I think you were sent from above to do it, somehow. I see—I must live for Janet. When I think that she might live in the same world where you do, that I have no right to surround her with any other conditions—does God take me for a robber? No! for he managed to get this letter to me when—" He stopped speaking,—it seemed as if he were about to look at his watch again; but instead of that, he said "Good evening" to Miss Ames, and bowed, and walked back towards the hospital.

His assistant gathered up the newspapers, and then sat down again and looked out towards the sea. The tide was coming in. She sat awhile and watched the great waves lift aloft the graceful branches of green and purple[Pg 267] sea-weed, and saw the stormy petrels going to and fro, and listened to the ocean's roar. She was sounding deeper depths than those awful caverns which were hidden by the green and shining water from her eyes.

If Janet Saunders, child of Nancy Elkins, at that moment felt a thrill of joy, and broke forth into singing, would you deem the fact inconsequent, not to be classed among the wonders of telegraphic achievement?

I think her little cold, pinched, meagre life—nay, lot—was brightened consciously on that great day of being,—that the sun felt warmer, and the skies looked fairer than they ever had before. The destiny which had seemed to be in the hands or charge of no one on earth was in the hands of two as capable as any in this world for services of love.

But now what was to be done by Dr. Saunders? Every man and woman sees the "situation." For the present, of course, he was sufficiently occupied; he was in the service of his country. But when these urgent demands on his time, patience, and humanity, which were now incessant, should no longer be made, because the country had need of him no longer,—what then? Men mustered out of service generally went home; family and neighborhood claimed them. What family, what neighborhood, claimed him? His very soul abhorred the thought of Dalton, where he had died to life; where he had buried his manhood. The very thought that the neighbors would not be able to recognize him was a thought which made him say to himself they never should recognize him. He would not be identified as the poor creature who went out of Dalton with one hope, and only one,—that the first day's engagement might see him lying among the unnamed and unknown dead. But if the neighbors and his wife exposed to him relations which he swore he would not degrade himself so far as to resume, what was to become of his daughter? That was more easily managed. He could send her away from home to school, if he could find a lady in the land who would compassionate that neglected little girl, and teach her, and train her, and be a mother to her.

Miss Ames knew such a one. Let the little girl be sent to Charlestown to Miss Hall, Miss Ames's dear friend, and no better training than she would have in her school could be found for her throughout the land. Miss Ames gave this advice the day she went away from Frere's, for she had decided, for her brother, that he never would recover his strength until he was removed to a cooler climate. So they were going on a government transport, which would sail for Charlestown direct. This little business in regard to Janet Saunders could be managed by her immediately on arrival home. And so the surgeon wrote a letter, which he sent by his assistant, to Miss Hall, and another to the minister of Dalton, and another still to Janet and her mother. And all these concerned little Jenny; and all this grew out of the letter written in the blacksmith's shop, and the doctor's recovered integrity.

But the question yet remained, What could be done for Nancy? If education in that direction were possible,—to what purpose? That she might become his equal when the strength of his hope that he had done with her was lying merely in this, that they were unequal? But hope,—what had he to do with hope, especially with such a hope as this? What had he to do with hope, who had come forth from Dalton as from a pit of despair? There were no foes like those of his own household; he was hoping that for all time he had rid himself of them. That would have been desertion, in point of fact. Well; but all that a man hath will he give for his life. He was safely distant from that place of disaster and death; but he must recognize his home duties, at least by the maintenance of his family. Yes, that he would do. He began to consider how much was due to him for services rendered to the government,—for the first time to consider.[Pg 268]

So, long before winter came, Nancy Saunders found herself on intimate terms with the minister and his wife,—for the minister had received his letters from the surgeon, and promptly accepted his commission, securing comfortable winter quarters for Nancy, and escorting Janet to Charlestown, after his wife had aided the doctor's wife in preparing the child for boarding-school. All these changes and transactions excited talk in Dalton. Every kind of rumor went abroad that you can imagine; and it was currently believed at last that the doctor had made a fortune by some army contract. So well persuaded of this fact was his wife, that, as time wore on, she began to think, and to say, that, if such was the case, she didn't know why she should be kept on short allowance, and to inquire among the neighbors the easiest and the shortest route from Dalton to Frere's Landing. Nobody seemed able to answer the question so well as Ezra Cramer; and he assured her that she would lose her head before she got half through the army lines which stretched between her and the hospital. But then Ezra was a born know-nothing, said Nancy,—that everybody knew.

Walking up and down the sea-wall, night after night, during the hour of rest he appropriated to himself,—knowing that these things were accomplished, for in due time letters came informing him of the fulfilment of his wishes,—the surgeon had ample leisure for considering and reconsidering this case. It was one that would not stay disposed of. What adjournments were made! what exceptions were taken! and what appeals to higher courts were constantly being made!

As often as a scrawl came from Colonel Ames reporting progress, and the plans he and his sister were making, the deeds they were doing, the grand-jury was sworn and the surgeon arraigned before it; the chief justice came into court, and all the witnesses, and the accusation was read. Then the counsel for the defendant and the counsel for the plaintiff appeared. But, with every new trial of the case, new charges and new specifications were brought forward and made, and it was equal to being in chancery. If the war lasted through a generation, it was likely that the surgeon's suit would last as long.

On the plaintiff's behalf the argument ran thus: Here was a man, a gentleman by birth, education, and profession, legally united to a woman low-born, low-bred, and so ignorant that she could neither read nor write. He had come to the neighborhood where she lived, to the door of the very house she occupied, sick in body and in mind. Disappointments and ill-health had reduced him to the shadow of himself in person, and his mind, of course, shared his body's disaffection.

A sick person, as all experience in practice has proved over and over again, is hardly to be called a responsible being. Invalids love and hate without reason,—which is contrary, he said, as he stood in the presence of the court,—contrary to what is done among persons in sound health.

Under the shelter of her uncle's roof he had lain for weeks, sick of a fever. He was saved alive, but so as by fire. This girl waited on him through that time as a servant. He was thrown chiefly on her hands,—no other person could be spared to wait on the poor stranger. She comforted him. Her ways were not refined and gentle as if she had been taught refinement and tenderness by precept or example. She had strong good-sense. So far as she understood his orders, she obeyed them. When he could not give any, she made use of her own judgment, and sought first of all his comfort. She was kind. In her rough honesty and unwearied attention he found cause for gratitude.

Rising for the first time from his bed of sickness, he would have fallen if she had not lifted him and laid him back upon his bed. When he became strong enough to stand, but not without support, she gave him that support. She[Pg 269] assisted him from the little room, and the little house when the walls became intolerable to him, and it happened to be in the early morning of a day so magnificent that it seemed another could never be made like it. He could not forget how the world looked that morning; how the waters shone; how the islands stood about; how the surrounding hills were arrayed in purple glory; how the birds sang. This land to which he was a stranger, which he had seen before only on that night when he came in the dark to her uncle's door, looked like Paradise to him; he gazed and gazed, and silent tears ran down his pale face through the furrows of his wasted cheeks. She saw them shining in his beard, and said something to soothe him in a comforting way, as any woman would have spoken who saw any creature in weakness and pain. The manner or the word, whatever it was, expressed a superiority of health, if of no other kind, and he was in no condition to investigate either its quality or its degree.

When, with voice feeble and broken as a sick child's, he thanked her for all she had done, and she answered that it was nothing but a pleasure, and he need not thank her, he did not forthwith forget that she had watched day and night over him for nearly two months; that many a time weariness so overpowered her that she sat and slept in the broad daylight, and looked paler than when he lay like a dead weight on her hands.

He remembered in court, and could not deny it, that when, believing that this was destiny as it was also pleasure, he asked the girl to marry him, she answered, "No,"—as if she did not trust what he said, that she was necessary to his happiness. She told him that he did not belong in Dalton, and that he would not be happy there with her and her people. He answered that all he desired to know was whether she loved him. By and by he was able to gather from the answers she gave, as well as failed to give, all he desired to know, and they were married.

And, since he was beginning life anew, it was shown in court, nothing of the old life should enter into this of Dalton. He buried his profession in the past, and undertook other labors,—labors like those of Uncle Elkins; he would abide on that level where he found himself on his recovery, and make no effort to lift his wife to that he had renounced. She was a child of Nature. He would learn life anew of her; but he failed of success in all his undertakings. Shall a man attempt to extenuate his failures? It seemed new to him; he acknowledged it in open court, that from the day of his entrance into Dalton to the day he left it, he was under some enchantment there. And if an insane man is not to be held responsible in law for his offences, he had the amplest title to a quitclaim deed from that which had grown out of the Dalton experience.

So the lower courts disposed of the case. He was free. But after a time the suit was carried up before superior powers, and thus the advocate for the defendant showed cause on the new trial.

She was living among the people of whom she had been born. In person she was attractive as any girl to be found on all the lake or hillside; a rosy-cheeked, fair-faced, fair-haired blue-eyed girl, with a frank voice and easy address. She had a "Hail fellow! well met!" for every man, woman, and child of the vicinity. She had lovers, all the way up from her childhood, rustic admirers, and one who looked at her from a not far distance, who dressed himself in his best and went to her uncle's house on Sundays and other holidays, and who was courting Nancy after his fashion, with all plans for their future marked out fully in his mind,—and these would have fulfilment if his suit were only successful; and in regard to that he had no fears or doubts.

Until this stranger came to Uncle Elkins's house! During his long sickness the young lover was helpful in[Pg 270] many ways to Nancy. But he began to be suspicious by and by of the results of this much waiting. At last, before he was himself ready to do it, he asked Nancy to be his wife; but he was too late. She had "given her word" to the poor fellow whom she had lured back from Death's door.

The court was admonished to take cognizance of this fact, that, if Nancy had married the man in whom her heart had been interested up to the time when the stranger came, she would have married in her own sphere, a man of her own rank, and would have loved him as he did her, with an equal love; they would have lived out their lives, animating them with skirmishes and small warfare, and winning victories over each other, which would have proved disastrous as defeats to neither.

It would have been no high crime to such a man that Nancy was ignorant up and down through the range of knowledge; he would not have turned away in disgust from his endeavors to teach her, if she took it into her head to learn, though she dropped and regained the ambition through every winter of her life. He would have plodded on in his accustomed ways, would have protected his wife and child from starvation and cold, without imagining that a husband and father could retire from his position as such, or abrogate his duties. No vague expectations in regard to herself, no bitter disappointment in regard to him, would have attended her. The very changes in her character, which had made her not to be endured,—how far was he whose name she bore responsible for them? She had been accustomed to thrift and labor, she saw in him idleness and waste of power and life. She had exhausted the resources readiest to her hand in vain, and had only then given up her expectation.

It was not be denied that it was humiliation and wrath to live with her; but her husband had sought her,—she had not sought him! If he could plead for himself the force and constraint of circumstances, should not the same defence be set up for her? And what might not patience, and better management, and gentler and more noble demeanor towards her, have done for her? Was he the same man he was when he went away from Dalton? Was he the same man in Dalton that he had been in his youth? Was it not out of the pit that he himself had been digged? It became evident that the arguments for the defendant were producing a result in court. The judge on his throne, as well as the grand-jury, listened to the argument in favor of the woman. And at last the case was decided; for the judge charged the jury, that, if it could be shown that there was mere incompatibility, it was the business of the superior mind to make straight a highway for the Lord across those lives. Let every valley be exalted, every hill be brought low.

Dr. Saunders acquiesced in this verdict, and wrote a letter to his wife. He knew she could not read it, but he knew also that she could procure it to be read to her. He filled it with accounts of his situation, occupation, expectation; and he sent her money. He said that, if he could get a furlough, he might run up North for a few days, as other men went home who could get leave of absence, to see that those whom he had left behind him were doing well; and they would both perhaps be able to go and see their daughter Jenny, or else they might have her home for a holiday. He wrote a letter saying these things and others, and any wife might have been proud to receive such from her husband, "in the war."

And when he had sent it, he looked for no answer. This was a kind of giving which must look for no return. And yet an answer was sent him. He did not receive it, however, it was sent at so late a date; he was then on his way to Dalton.

When the whistle of the miniature boat which plied the lake sent a warning along the hillside that a passenger was on board who wished to land, or that mail was to be sent ashore, a small boat was rowed from the Point by a[Pg 271] lad who was lingering about, waiting to know if any such signal were to come, and one passenger stood at the head of the ladder, waiting for him to come alongside. This was Dr. Saunders, who, having been rowed ashore, walked three miles down the road, and up along the mountain, to the Dalton neighborhood.

The first man whom he met as he walked on was the blacksmith, who had been instrumental in getting Jenny's letter written. He was sitting in front of his shop, alone. There was nothing about this man who was walking into Dalton to excite a suspicion in the mind of the shrewdest old inhabitant who should meet him that his personality was familiar to Dalton eyes. He might safely ask what questions he would, and pursue his way if he chose to do it. Nobody would recognize him.

The doctor lingered as he went past the shop; but the blacksmith did not speak, and he walked on; and he passed others, his old neighbors, as he went. This was hardly pleasant, though it might be the thing he desired.

He walked on until he came to the red farm-gate of Farmer Elkins, Nancy's uncle. There he stopped. Under the chestnut-trees, before the door, the farmer sat. The doctor walked in, and towards him like a man at home, and said, "Good evening, Uncle."

The wrinkled old farmer looked up from his drowse. He had hardly heard the words spoken; but the voice that spoke had in it a tone that was familiar, were it not for the cheeriness of it; and—but no! one glance at the figure before him assured him of anything rather than Saunders! Yet the old man, either because of his vague expectation or because of the confusion of his half-awake condition, said something audibly, of which the name of Nancy, and her name alone, was intelligible.

"Well, where is Nancy," said the other, laying his hand on the farmer's shoulder in a manner calculated to dissipate his dream.

The old man looked at the doctor with serious, suspicious eyes, scanned him from head to foot, and there was a dash of anger, of unbelief, of awe, and of deference in the spirit with which he said, "If you're Saunders, I'm glad you've come, but you might 'a' come sooner."

"You're right, and you're wrong, Uncle. I'm Saunders, true enough. But I couldn't come before,—this is my first furlough."

The judge and the jury looked down from the awful circle, in the midst of which stood Saunders, and surveyed the little hard-faced, yellow-haired farmer, with eyes which seemed intent on searching him through all his shadowy ambiguity. If only he would make such answer as any other man in all the land might expect,—thought the prisoner,—"Why, your wife, of course." The doctor was prepared to believe in a miracle. Since he went away his wife might have been spurred on by the ambition to rival her daughter, who was being educated. She perhaps had learned to write, and in her pride had written to her husband!

The answer Elkins gave was the only one of which the doctor's mind had taken no thought.

"Nancy died a month ago." There the old man paused. But as the doctor made no answer, merely stood looking at him, he went on. "She got your letter first, though, Nancy did. I think, if anything could a-hindered her dying, that would. She came out here to read your letter," (he did not say to hear it read, and Saunders noticed that,) "and my folks, she found, was busy, and nobody was round to talk it over with her, so nothing could stop her, but she put right in and worked till night, and on top o' that she would go back to the village, and it was raining, and so dark you could scurce see the road; but she'd made up her mind to go South and find you, and so we couldn't persuade her to stop over[Pg 272] night. But the next day, when she come back to tell us when she was going to start for Dixie, she was took down right here, that suddin. There's been a good deal of that sickness round here sense, and fatalish, most always. But I tell 'em it took the smartest of the lot off first, when it took Nancy."

The doctor stood there when the teller of this story had stopped speaking. He was not looking at him,—of that the old man was certain. He seemed to be looking nowhere, and to see nothing that was near or visible.

"Come into the house and take something," said Uncle Elkins, for he began to be alarmed.

"We had to send for her. Nancy was calling for her all the time," said Farmer Elkins, as if he doubted how far this story ought to be continued, for he did not understand the man before him. He only knew that once he had fallen down on his door-step, and lain helpless beneath his roof hard on to two months; and he watched him now as if he anticipated some renewal of that old attack,—and there was no Nancy now to nurse, and watch, and slave herself to death for him; for that was the way folk in the house were talking about Nancy and her husband in these days.

"No, I mean the young woman who come from Charlestown with Jenny. Her name was—" He paused long, endeavoring to recall that name. It trembled on the doctor's lips, but he did not utter it. At last said Farmer Elkins, "There! it was Miss Amey,—Amey? Yes. She took the little girl back hum with her. It was right in there, in the room where you had that spell of fever of yourn. She got you well through that! Ef anything could 'a' brought her through that turn, your letter would. It came across my mind once that, as she'd saved your life, may be you was going to save hern by that are letter! And she was so determined to get to your hospital!"

At that the old man walked into the house to set its best cheer before Nancy's husband, who looked so much like a mourner as he stood there under the trees, with the bitter recollections of the past overwhelming every other thought and feeling of the present.

Because it seemed to him that he could not sleep under old Elkins's roof that night, he remained there and slept there,—in the room where his fever ran its course,—in the room where Nancy died.

Because this story of the last months of her life was as gall and wormwood to him, he refused it not, but went over it with his wife's relations, and helped them spread a decent pall, according to the custom of mourners; over what had been.

Was he endeavoring to deceive himself and others into the belief that he was a mourning man? He was but accepting the varied humiliations of death; for they do not all pertain to the surrendering life. He was not thinking at all of his loss through her, nor of his gain by her. He was thinking, as he stood above the grave of fifteen years, how high Disgrace and Misery had heaped the mound. So bitterly he was thinking of the past, it was without desire that he at last arose and faced the future.

When he went to Charlestown—for a man on furlough had no time to lose—and saw his Janet in the Colonel's house,—Miss Ames took Janet home with her after that death and funeral,—when he saw how fair and beautiful a promise of girlhood was budding on the poor neglected branch, he said to his assistant, "Will you keep this child with you until the war is over? I am afraid to touch her, or interfere with her destiny. It has[Pg 273] been so easy for me to mar, so hard to mend."

Miss Ames kept the child; the war ended. The surgeon then, like other men, returned home; his regiments were disbanded, and now, one duty, to mankind and the ages, well discharged, another, less conspicuous, but as urgent, claimed him. There was Janet, and Janet's mother,—she who had risen, not from the grave indeed, but from the midst of dangers, sacredly to guard and guide the child.

On his way to them he asked himself this question, "How many times must a man be born before he is fit to live?"

He informed his assistant of the court's decision in reference to the plea of "incompatibility," and she said that the justice of the sentence was not to be controverted with success by any counsellor on earth; but the reader may smile, and say that it was not difficult to come to this decision under the circumstances.

ON TRANSLATING THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.

THIRD SONNET.

WOMAN'S WORK IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

Sir Bedivere's heart misgave him twice ere he could obey the dying commands of King Arthur, and fling away so precious a relic. The lonely maiden's industry has been equalled by many of her mortal sisters, sitting, not indeed "upon the hidden bases of the hills," but in all the varied human habitations built above them since the days of King Arthur.

The richness, beauty, and skill displayed in the needle-work of the Middle Ages demonstrate the perfection that art had attained; while church inventories, wills, and costumes represented in the miniatures of illuminated manuscripts and elsewhere, amaze us by the quantity as well as the quality of this department of woman's work. Though regal robes and heavy church vestments were sometimes wrought by monks, yet to woman's taste and skill the greater share of the result must be attributed, the professional hands being those of nuns and their pupils in convents. The life of woman in those days was extremely monotonous. For the mass of the people, there hardly existed any means of locomotion, the swampy state of the land in England and on the Continent allowing few roads to be made, except such as were traversed by pack-horses. Ladies of rank who wished to journey were borne on litters carried upon men's shoulders, and, until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, few representations of carriages appear. Such a conveyance is depicted in an illustration of the Romance of the Rose, where Venus, attired in the fashionable costume of the fifteenth century, is seated in a chare, by courtesy a chariot, but in fact a clumsy covered wagon without springs. Six doves are perched upon the shafts, and fastened by mediæval harness. The goddess of course possessed superhuman powers for guiding this extraordinary equipage, but to mere mortals it must have been a slow coach, and a horribly uncomfortable conveyance even when horses were substituted for doves. An ordinance of Philip le Bel, in 1294, forbids any wheel carriages to be used by the wives of citizens, as too great a luxury. As the date of the coach which Venus guides is two hundred years later, it is difficult to imagine what style of equipage belonged to those ladies over whom Philip le Bel tyrannized.

With so little means of going about, our sisters of the Middle Ages were perforce domestic; no wonder they excelled in needle-work. To women of any culture it was almost the only tangible form of creative art they could command, and the love of the beautiful implanted in their souls must find some expression. The great pattern-book of nature, filled with graceful forms, in ever-varied arrangement, and illuminated by delicate tints or gorgeous hues, suggested the beauty they endeavored to represent. Whether religious devotion, human affection, or a taste for dress prompted them, the needle was the instrument to effect their purpose. The monogram of the blessed Mary's name, intertwined with pure white lilies on the deep blue ground, was designed and embroidered with holy reverence, and laid on the altar of the Lady-chapel by the trembling hand of one whose sorrows had there found solace, or by another in token of gratitude for joys which were heightened by a conviction of celestial sympathy. The pennon of the knight—a silken streamer affixed to the top of the lance—bore his crest, or an emblematic allusion[Pg 275] to some event in his career, embroidered, it was supposed, by the hand of his lady-love. A yet more sacred gift was the scarf worn across the shoulder, an indispensable appendage to a knight fully equipped. The emotions of the human soul send an electric current through the ages, and women who during four years of war toiled to aid our soldiers in the great struggle of the nineteenth century felt their hearts beat in unison with hers who gave, with tears and prayers, pennon and scarf to the knightly and beloved hero seven hundred years ago.

Not only were the appointments of the warriors adorned by needle-work, but the ladies must have found ample scope for industry and taste in their own toilets. The Anglo-Saxon women as far back as the eighth century excelled in needle-work, although, judging from the representations which have come down to us, their dress was much less ornamented than that of the gentlemen. During the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries there were few changes in fashion. A purple gown or robe, with long yellow sleeves, and coverchief wrapt round the head and neck, frequently appears, the edges of the long gown and sleeves being slightly ornamented by the needle. How the ladies dressed their hair in those days is more difficult to decide, as the coverchief conceals it. Crisping-needles to curl and plat the hair, and golden hair-cauls, are mentioned in Saxon writings, and give us reason to suppose that the locks of the fair damsels were not neglected. In the eleventh century the embroidery upon the long gowns becomes more elaborate, and other changes of the mode appear.

From the report of an ancient Spanish ballad, the art of needle-work and taste in dress must have attained great perfection in that country while our Anglo-Saxon sisters were wearing their plain long gowns. The fair Sybilla is described as changing her dress seven times in one evening, on the arrival of that successful and victorious knight, Prince Baldwin. First, she dazzles him in blue and silver, with a rich turban; then appears in purple satin, fringed and looped with gold, with white feathers in her hair; next, in green silk and emeralds; anon, in pale straw-color, with a tuft of flowers; next, in pink and silver, with varied plumes, white, carnation, and blue; then, in brown, with a splendid crescent. As the fortunate Prince beholds each transformation, he is bewildered (as well he may be) to choose which array becomes her best; but when

Simplicity and natural grace carried the day after all, as they generally do with men of true taste. "Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone," says that nice observer of human nature, Jane Austen. "Man only knows man's insensibility to a new gown." We hope, however, that the dressmakers and tirewomen of the fair Sybilla, who had expended so much time and invention, were handsomely rewarded by the Prince, since they must have been most accomplished needle-women and handmaids to have got up their young lady in so many costumes and in such rapid succession.

A very odd fashion appears in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, of embroidering heraldic devices on the long gowns of the ladies of rank. In one of the illuminations of a famous psalter, executed for Sir Geoffery Loutterell, who died in 1345, that nobleman is represented armed at all points, receiving from the ladies of his family his tilting helmet, shield, and pavon. His coat of arms is repeated on every part of his own dress, and is embroidered on that of his wife, who wears also the crest of her own family.

Marie de Hainault, wife of the first Duke of Bourbon, 1354, appears in a corsage and train of ermine, with a very fierce-looking lion rampant embroidered twice on her long gown. Her jewels are magnificent. Anne,[Pg 276] Dauphine d'Auvergne, wife of Louis, second Duke of Bourbon, married in 1371, displays an heraldic dolphin of very sinister aspect upon one side of her corsage, and on the skirt of her long gown,—which, divided in the centre, seems to be composed of two different stuffs, that opposite to the dolphin being powdered with fleurs de lis. Her circlet of jewels is very elegant, and is worn just above her brow, while the hair is braided close to the face. An attendant lady wears neither train nor jewels, but her dress is likewise formed of different material, divided like that of the Dauphine. Six little parrots are emblazoned on the right side, one on her sleeve, two on her corsage, and three on her skirt. The fashion of embroidering armorial bearings on ladies' dresses must have given needle-women a vast deal of work. It died out in the fifteenth century.

It was the custom in feudal times for knightly families to send their daughters to the castles of their suzerain lords, to be trained to weave and embroider. The young ladies on their return home instructed the more intelligent of their female servants in these arts. Ladies of rank in all countries prided themselves upon the number of these attendants, and were in the habit of passing the morning surrounded by their workwomen, singing the chansons à toile, as ballads composed for these hours were called.

Estienne Jodelle, a French poet, 1573, addressed a fair lady whose cunning fingers plied the needle in words thus translated:—

If needle-work had its poetry, it had also its reckonings. Old account-books bear many entries of heavy payments for working materials used by industrious queens and indefatigable ladies of rank. Good authorities state that, before the sixth century, all silk materials were brought to Europe by the Seres, ancestors of the ancient Bokharians, whence it derived its name of Serica. In 551, silk-worms were introduced by two monks into Constantinople, but the Greeks monopolized the manufacture until 1130, when Roger, king of Sicily, returning from a crusade, collected some Greek manufacturers, and established them at Palermo, whence the trade was disseminated over Italy.

In the thirteenth century, Bruges was the great mart for silk. The stuffs then known were velvet, satin (called samite), and taffeta,—all of which were stitched with gold or silver thread. The expense of working materials was therefore very great, and royal ladies condescended to superintend sewing-schools.

Editha, consort of Edward the Confessor, was a highly accomplished lady, who sometimes intercepted the master of Westminster School and his scholars in their walks, questioning them in Latin. She was also skilled in all feminine works, embroidering the robes of her royal husband with her own hands.

Of all the fair ones, however, who have wrought for the service of a king, since the manufacture of Excalibur, let the name of Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror, stand at the head of the record, in spite of historians' doubts. Matilda, born about the year 1031, was carefully educated. She had beauty, learning, industry; and the Bayeux tapestry connected with her name still exists, a monument of her achievements in the art of needle-work. It is, as everybody knows, a pictured chronicle of the conquest of England,—a wife's tribute to the glory of her husband.

As a specimen of ancient stitchery and feminine industry, this work is extremely curious. The tapestry is two hundred and twenty-two feet in length and twenty in width. It is worked in different-colored worsteds on white[Pg 277] cloth, now brown with age. The attempts to represent the human figure are very rude, and it is merely given in outline. Matilda evidently had very few colors at her disposal, as the horses are depicted of any hue,—blue, green, or yellow; the arabesque patterns introduced are rich and varied.

During the French Revolution, this tapestry was demanded by the insurgents to cover their guns; but a priest succeeded in concealing it until the storm had passed. Bonaparte knew its value. He caused it to be brought to Paris and displayed, after which he restored the precious relic to Bayeux.

We have many records of royal ladies who practised and patronized needle-work. Anne of Brittany, first wife of Louis XII. of France, caused three hundred girls, daughters of the nobility, to be instructed in that art under her personal supervision. Her daughter Claude pursued the same laudable plan. Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, and mother of Henry IV. of France, a woman of vigorous mind, was skilled also in the handicraft of the needle, and wrought a set of hangings called "The Prison Opened," meaning that she had broken the bonds of the Pope.

The practice of teaching needle-work continued long at the French court, and it was there that Mary of Scotland learned the art in which she so much excelled. When cast into prison, she beguiled the time, and soothed the repentant anxieties of her mind, with the companionship of her needle. The specimens of her work yet existing are principally bed-trimmings, hangings, and coverlets, composed of dark satin, upon which flowers, separately embroidered, are transferred.

The romances and lays of chivalry contain many descriptions of the ornamental needle-work of those early days. In one of the ancient ballads, a knight, after describing a fair damsel whom he had rescued and carried to his castle, adds that she "knewe how to sewe and marke all manner of silken worke," and no doubt he made her repair many of his mantles and scarfs frayed and torn by time and tourney.

The beautiful Elaine covered the shield of Sir Launcelot with a case of silk, upon which devices were braided by her fair hands, and added, from her own design,

When he went to the tourney she gave him a red sleeve "broidered with great pearls," which he bound upon his helmet. It is recorded that, in a tournament at the court of Burgundy in 1445, one of the knights received from his lady a sleeve of delicate dove-color, which he fastened on his left arm. These sleeves were made of a different material from the dress, and generally of a richer fabric elaborately ornamented; so they were considered valuable enough to form a separate legacy in wills of those centuries. Maddalena Doni, in her portrait, painted by Raphael, which hangs in the Pitti Palace at Florence, wears a pair of these rich, heavy sleeves, fastened slightly at the shoulder, and worn over a shorter sleeve belonging to her dress. Thus we see how it was that a lady could disengage her sleeve at the right moment, and give it to the fortunate knight.

The art of adorning linen was practised from the earliest times. Threads were drawn and fashioned with the needle, or the ends of the cloth unravelled and plaited into geometrical patterns. St. Cuthbert's curious grave-clothes, as described by an eyewitness to his disinterment in the twelfth century, were ornamented with cut-work, which was used principally for ecclesiastical purposes, and was looked upon in England till the dissolution of the monasteries as a church secret. The open-work embroidery, which went under the general name of cut-work, is the origin of lace.

The history of lace by Mrs. Bury Palliser, recently published in London, is worthy of the exquisite fabric of which it treats. The author has woven valuable facts, historical associations, and curious anecdotes into the[Pg 278] web of her narrative, with an industry and skill rivalling the work of her mediæval sisters. The illustrations of this beautiful volume are taken from rare specimens of ancient and modern lace, so perfectly executed as quite to deceive the eye, and almost the touch.

Italy and Flanders dispute the invention of point or needle-made lace. The Italians probably derived the art of needle-work from the Greeks who took refuge in Italy during the troubles of the Lower Empire. Its origin was undoubtedly Byzantine, as the places which were in constant intercourse with the Greek Empire were the cities where point-lace was earliest made. The traditions of the Low Countries also ascribe it to an Eastern origin, assigning the introduction of lace-making to the Crusaders on their return from the Holy Land. A modern writer, Francis North, asserts that the Italians learned embroidery from the Saracens, as Spaniards learned the same art from the Moors, and, in proof of his theory, states that the word embroider is derived from the Arabic, and does not belong to any European language. In the opinion of some authorities, the English word lace comes from the Latin word licina, signifying the hem or fringe of a garment; others suppose it derived from the word laces, which appears in Anglo-Norman statutes, meaning braids which were used to unite different parts of the dress. In England the earliest lace was called passament, from the fact that the threads were passed over each other in its formation; and it is not until the reign of Richard III. that the word lace appears in royal accounts. The French term dentelle is also of modern date, and was not used until fashion caused passament to be made with a toothed edge, when the designation passament dentelé appears.

But whatever the origin of the name, lace-making and embroidery have employed many fingers, and worn out many eyes, and even created revolutions. In England, until the time of Henry VIII., shirts, handkerchiefs, sheets, and pillow-cases were embroidered in silks of different colors, until the fashion gave way to cut-work and lace. Italy produced lace fabrics early in the fifteenth century; and the Florentine poet, Firenzuola, who flourished about 1520, composed an elegy upon a collar of raised point lace made by the hand of his mistress. Portraits of Venetian ladies dated as early as 1500 reveal white lace trimmings; but at that period lace was, professedly, only made by nuns for the service of the Church, and the term nuns' work has been the designation of lace in many places to a very modern date. Venice was famed for point, Genoa for pillow laces. English Parliamentary records have statutes on the subject of Venice laces; at the coronation of Richard III., fringes of Venice and mantle laces of gold and white silk appear.

depends much upon the ancient pattern-books yet in existence. Parchment patterns, drawn and pricked for pillow lace, bearing the date of 1577, were lately found covering old law-books, in Albisola, a town near Savona, which was a place celebrated for its laces, as we infer from the fact that it was long the custom of the daughters of the nobles to select these laces for their wedding shawls and veils. There is a pretty tradition at Venice, handed down among the inhabitants of the Lagoons, which says that a sailor brought home to his betrothed a branch of the delicate coralline known as "mermaids' lace." The girl, a worker in points, attracted by the grace of the coral, imitated it with her needle, and after much toil produced the exquisite fabric which, as Venice point, soon became the mode in all Europe. Lace-making in Italy formed the occupation of many women of the higher classes, who wished to add to their incomes. Each lady had a number of workers, to whom she supplied patterns, pricked by herself, paying her workwomen at the end of every week, each day being notched on a tally.

In the convent of Gesù Bambino, at[Pg 279] Rome, curious specimens of old Spanish conventual work—parchment patterns with lace in progress—have been found. They belonged to Spanish nuns, who long ago taught the art of lace-making to novices. Like all point lace, this appears to be executed in separate pieces, given out by the nuns, and then joined together by a skilful hand. We see the pattern traced, the work partly finished, and the very thread left, as when "Sister Felice Vittoria" laid down her work, centuries ago. Mrs. Palliser received from Rome photographs of these valuable relics, engravings from which she has inserted in her history of lace. Aloe-thread was then used for lace-making, as it is now in Florence for sewing straw-plait. Spanish point has been as celebrated as that of Flanders or Italy. Some traditions aver that Spain taught the art to Flanders. Spain had no cause to import laces: they were extensively made at home, and were less known than the manufacture of other countries, because very little was exported. The numberless images of the Madonna and patron saints dressed and undressed daily, together with the albs of the priests and decorations of the altars, caused an immense consumption for ecclesiastical uses. Thread lace was manufactured in Spain in 1492, and in the Cathedral of Granada is a lace alb presented to the church by Ferdinand and Isabella,—one of the few relics of ecclesiastical grandeur preserved in the country. Cardinal Wiseman, in a letter to Mrs. Palliser, states that he had himself officiated in this vestment, which was valued at ten thousand crowns. The fine church lace of Spain was little known in Europe until the revolution of 1830, when splendid specimens were suddenly thrown into the market,—not merely the heavy lace known as Spanish point, but pieces of the most exquisite description, which could only have been made, says Mrs. Palliser, by those whose time was not money.

Among the Saxon Hartz Mountains is the old town of Annaburg, and beneath a lime-tree in its ancient burial-ground stands a simple monument with this inscription:—

"Here lies Barbara Uttman, died on the 14th of January, 1576, whose invention of lace in the year 1561 made her the benefactress of the Hartz Mountains.

Barbara was born in 1514. Her parents, burghers of Nuremberg, removed to the Hartz Mountains for the purpose of working a mine in that neighborhood. It is said that Barbara learned the art of lace-making from a native of Brabant, a Protestant, whom the cruelties of the Duke of Alva had driven from her country. Barbara, observing the mountain girls making nets for the miners to wear over their hair, took great interest in the improvement of their work, and succeeded in teaching them a fine knitted tricot, and afterwards a lace ground. In 1561, having procured aid from Flanders, she set up a work-shop in Annaburg for lace-making. This branch of industry spread beyond Bavaria, giving employment to thirty thousand persons, and producing a revenue of one million thalers.

Italy and Flanders dispute the invention of lace, but it was probably introduced into both countries about the same time. The Emperor Charles V. commanded lace-making to be taught in schools and convents. A specimen of the manufacture of his day may be seen in his cap, now preserved in the museum at Hôtel Cluny, Paris. It is of fine linen, with the Emperor's arms embroidered in relief, with designs in lace, of exquisite workmanship. The old Flemish laces are of great beauty and world-wide fame.

Many passages in the history of lace show how severely the manufacture of this beautiful fabric has strained the nerves of eye and brain. The fishermen's wives on the Scottish coast apostrophize the fish they sell, after their husbands' perilous voyages, and sing,

Not more fatal to life are the blasts[Pg 280] from ocean winds than the tasks of laborious lace-makers; and this thought cannot but mingle with our admiration for the skill displayed in this branch of woman's endless toil and endeavor to supply her own wants and aid those who are dear to her, in the present as well as in the past centuries.

In the British Museum there is a curious manuscript of the fourteenth century, afterwards translated "into our maternall englisshe by me William Caxton, and emprynted at Westminstre the last day of Januer, the first yere of the regne of King Richard the thyrd," called "the booke which the Knight of the Towere made for the enseygnement and teching of his doughtres."

The Knight of the Tower was Geoffory Landry, surnamed De la Tour, of a noble family of Anjou. In the month of April, 1371, he was one day reflecting beneath the shade of some trees on various passages in his life, and upon the memory of his wife, whose early death had caused him sorrow, when his three daughters walked into the garden. The sight of these motherless girls naturally turned his thoughts to the condition of woman in society, and he resolved to write a treatise, enforced by examples of both good and evil, for their instruction. The state of society which the "evil" examples portray might well cause a father's heart to tremble.

The education of young ladies, as we have before stated, was in that age usually assigned to convents or to families of higher rank. It consisted of instruction in needle-work, confectionery, surgery, and the rudiments of church music. Men were strongly opposed to any high degree of mental culture for women; and although the Knight of the Tower thinks it good for women to be taught to read their Bibles, yet the pen is too dangerous an instrument to trust to their hands. The art of writing he disapproves,—"Better women can naught of it." Religious observances he strictly recommends; but we shudder at some of the stories which even this well-meaning father relates as illustrations of the efficacy of religious austerities. Extravagance in dress prevailed at that time among men and women to such a degree that Parliament was appealed to on the subject in 1363. From the Knight's exhortations on the subject, this mania seems to have affected the women alarmingly, and the examples given of the passion for dress appear to surpass what is acknowledged in our day. Yet the vast increase of materials, as well as the extended interests and objects opened to woman now, renders the extravagance of dress in the Middle Ages far less reprehensible.

The record of woman's work in the Middle Ages includes far more than the account of what her needle accomplished. The position of the mistress of a family in those centuries was no sinecure. When we look up at castles perched on rocks, or walk through the echoing apartments of baronial halls, we know that woman must have worked there with brain and fingers. The household and its dependencies, in such mansions, consisted of more than a score of persons, and provisions must be laid in during the autumn for many months. As we glance at the enormous fireplaces and ovens in the kitchens of those castles and halls, and remember the weight of the armor men wore, we can readily imagine that no trifling supply of brawn and beef was needed for their meals; and the sight of a husband frowning out of one of those old helmets because the dinner was scanty, must have been a fearful trial to feminine nerves. The title of "Lady" means the "Giver of bread" in Saxon, and the lady of the castle dispensed food to many beyond her own household.

The task of preparing the raiment of the family devolved upon the women; for there were no travelling dealers except for the richest and most expensive articles. Wool, the produce of the flock, was carded and spun; flax was grown, and woven into coarse linen; and both materials were prepared and fashioned into garments at home. Glimpses[Pg 281] of domestic life come down to us through early legends and records, some of which modern genius has melodized. Authentic history and romantic story often show us that women of all ranks were little better, in fact, than household drudges to these splendid knights and courtly old barons. The fair Enid sang a charming song as she turned her wheel; but when Geraint arrived, she not only assisted her mother to receive him, but, by her father's order, led the knight's charger to the stall, and gave him corn. If she also relieved the noble animal of his heavy saddle and horse-furniture, gave him water as well as corn, and shook down the dry furze for his bed, she must have had the courage and skill of a feminine Rarey; and we fear her dress of faded silk came out of the stable in a very dilapidated condition. After the horse was cared for, Enid put her wits and hands to work to prepare the evening meal, and spread it before her father and his guest. The knight, indeed, condescended to think her "sweet and serviceable"!

The women of those days are often described only as they appeared at festivals and tournaments,—Ladies of Beauty, to whom knights lowered their lances, and of whom troubadours sang. They had their amusements and their triumphs, doubtless; but they also had their work, domestic, industrial, and sanitary. They knew how to bind up wounds and care for the sick, and we read many records of their knowledge in this department. Elaine, when she found Sir Launcelot terribly wounded in the cave, so skilfully aided him that, when the old hermit came who was learned in all the simples and science of the times, he told the knight that "her fine care had saved his life,"—a pleasing assurance that there were medical men in those days, as well as in our own, who expressed no unwillingness to allow a woman credit for success in their own profession.

Illuminated books sometimes show us pictures of women of the humbler ranks of life at their work. On the border of a fine manuscript of the time of Edward IV. there is the figure of a woman employed with her distaff, her head and neck enveloped in a coverchief. The figure rises out of a flower. In a manuscript of 1316, a country-woman is engaged in churning, dressed in a comfortable gown and apron, the gown tidily pinned up, and her head and neck in a coverchief. The churn is of considerable height, and of very clumsy construction. A blind beggar approaches her, led by his dog, who holds apparently a cup in his mouth to receive donations. In another part of the same volume is a beautiful damsel with her hair spread over her shoulders, while her maid arranges her tresses with a comb of ivory set in gold. The young lady holds a small mirror, probably of polished steel, in her hand. Specimens of these curious combs and mirrors yet exist in collections. A century later we see a pretty laundress, holding in her hands a number of delicately woven napkins, which look as if they might have come out of the elaborately carved napkin press of the same period in the collection of Sir Samuel Myrick at Goodrich Court.

Although the Knight of the Tower disapproved of young ladies being taught to write, there were women whose employment writing seems to have been; but these were nuns safely shut up from the risk of billets-doux. In Dr. Maitland's Essays on the Dark Ages, he quotes from the biography of Diemudis, a devout nun of the eleventh century, a list of the volumes which she prepared with her own hand, written in beautiful and legible characters, to the praise of God, and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, the patrons of the monastery, which was that of Wessobrunn in Bavaria. The list comprises thirty-one works, many of them in three or four volumes; and although Diemudis is not supposed to have been an authoress, she is certainly worthy of having her name handed down through eight centuries in witness of woman's indefatigable work in the scriptorium. One missal prepared by Diemudis was given[Pg 282] to the Bishop of Treves, another to the Bishop of Augsburg, and one Bible in two volumes is mentioned, which was exchanged by the monastery for an estate.

We can picture to ourselves Diemudis in her conventual dress, seated in the scriptorium, with her materials for chirography. The sun, as it streams through the window, throws a golden light over the vellum page, suggesting the rich hue of the gilded nimbus, while in the convent garden she sees the white lily or the modest violet, which, typical of the Madonna, she transfers to her illuminated borders. Thus has God ever interwoven truth and love with their correspondences of beauty and development in the natural world, which were open to the eyes of Diemudis eight hundred years ago, perhaps as clearly as to our own in these latter days. That women of even an earlier century than that of Diemudis were permitted to read, if not to write, is proved by the description of a private library, given in the letters of C. S. Sidonius Apollinaris, and quoted in Edwards's "History of Libraries." This book-collection was the property of a gentleman of the fifth century, residing at his castle of Prusiana. It was divided into three departments, the first of which was expressly intended for the ladies of the family, and contained books of piety and devotion. The second department was for men, and is rather ungallantly stated to have been of a higher order; yet, as the third department was intended for the whole family, and contained such works as Augustine, Origen, Varro, Prudentius, and Horace, the literary tastes of the ladies should have been satisfied. We are also told that it was the custom at the castle of Prusiana to discuss at dinner the books read in the morning,—which would tend to a belief that conversation at the dinner-tables of the fifth century might be quite as edifying as at those of the nineteenth.

A few feminine names connected with the literature of the Middle Ages have come down to us. The lays of Marie de France are among the manuscripts in the British Museum. Marie's personal history, as well as the period when she flourished, is uncertain. Her style is extremely obscure; but in her Preface she seems aware of this defect, yet defends it by the example of the ancients. She considers it the duty of all persons to employ their talents; and as her gifts were intellectual, she cast her thoughts in various directions ere she determined upon her peculiar mission. She had intended translating from the Latin a good history, but some one else unluckily anticipated her; and she finally settled herself down to poetry, and to the translation of numerous lays she had treasured in her memory, as these would be new to many of her readers. Like other literary ladies, she complains of envy and persecution, but she perseveres through all difficulties, and dedicates her book "to the King."

Marie was born in France. Some authorities suppose she wrote in England during the reign of Henry III., and that the patron she names was William Langue-espée, who died in 1226; others, that this plus vaillant patron was William, Count of Flanders, who accompanied St. Louis on his first crusade in 1248, and was killed at a tournament in 1251. A later surmise is that the book was dedicated to Stephen, French being his native language. Among the manuscripts of the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, is Marie's translation of the fables which Henry Beauclerc translated from Latin into English, and which Marie renders into French. A proof that Marie's poems are extremely ancient is deduced from the names in one of these fables applied to the wolf and the fox. She uses other names than those of Ysengrin and Renard, which were introduced as early as the reign of Cœur de Lion, and it would seem that she could not have failed to notice these remarkable names, had they existed in her time. A complete collection of the works of Marie de France was published in[Pg 283] Paris in 1820, by M. de Roquefort, who speaks of her in the following terms: "She possessed that penetration which distinguishes at first sight the different passions of mankind, which seizes upon the different forms they assume, and, remarking the objects of their notice, discovers at the same time the means by which they are attained." If this be a true statement, the acuteness of feminine observation has gained but little in the progress of the centuries, and her literary sisters of the present era can hardly hope to eclipse the penetration of Marie de France.

The Countesses de Die, supposed to be mother and daughter, were both poetesses. The elder lady was beloved by Rabaud d'Orange, who died in 1173, and the younger is celebrated by William Adhémar, a distinguished troubadour. He was visited on his death-bed by both these ladies, who afterwards erected a monument to his memory. The younger countess retired to a convent, and died soon after Adhémar.

In the Harleian Collection is a fine manuscript containing the writings of Christine de Pisan, a distinguished woman of the fourteenth century. Her father, Thomas de Pisan, a celebrated savant of Bologna, had married a daughter of a member of the Grand Council of Venice. So renowned was Thomas de Pisan that the kings of Hungary and France determined to win him away from Bologna. Charles V. of France, surnamed the Wise, was successful, and Thomas de Pisan went to Paris in 1368; his transfer to the French court making a great sensation among learned and scientific circles of that day. Charles loaded him with wealth and honors, and chose him Astrologer Royal. According to the history, as told by Louisa Stuart Costello, in her "Specimens of the Early Poetry of France," Christine was but five years old when she accompanied her parents to Paris, where she received every advantage of education, and, inheriting her father's literary tastes, early became learned in languages and science. Her personal charms, together with her father's high favor at court, attracted many admirers. She married Stephen Castel, a young gentleman of Picardy, to whom she was tenderly attached, and whose character she has drawn in most favorable colors. A few years passed happily, but, alas! changes came. The king died, the pension and offices bestowed upon Thomas de Pisan were suspended, and the Astrologer Royal soon followed his patron beyond the stars. Castel was also deprived of his preferments; and though he maintained his wife and family for a time, he was cut off by death at thirty-four years of age.

Christine had need of all her energies to meet such a succession of calamities, following close on so brilliant a career. Devoting herself anew to study, she determined to improve her talents for composition, and to make her literary attainments a means of support for her children. The illustrations in the manuscript volume of her works picture to us several scenes in Christine's life. In one, the artist has sliced off the side of a house to allow us to see Christine in her study, giving us also the exterior, roof, and dormer-windows, with points finished by gilt balls. The room is very small, with a crimson and white tapestry hanging. Christine wears what may be called the regulation color for literary ladies,—blue, with the extraordinary two-peaked head-dress of the period, put on in a decidedly strong-minded manner. At her feet sits a white dog, small, but wise-looking, with a collar of gold bells round his neck. Before Christine stands a plain table, covered with green cloth; her book, bound in crimson and gold, in which she is writing, lies before her.

Christine's style of holding the implements,—one in each hand,—and the case of materials for her work which lies beside her, are according to representations of the miniatori caligrafi at their labors; and, as the art of caligraphy was well known at Bologna,[Pg 284] so learned a man as Thomas de Pisan must have been acquainted with it, and would have caused his talented daughter to be instructed in so rare an accomplishment. It is not therefore unreasonable to believe that, in the beautiful volume now in the British Museum, the work of Christine's hand, as well as the result of her genius, is preserved. The next picture shows us Christine presenting her book to Charles VII. of France, who is dressed in a black robe edged with ermine; he wears a golden belt, order, and crown. The king is seated beneath a canopy, blue, powdered with fleurs de lis. Four courtiers stand beside him, dressed in robes of different colors,—one in pink, and wearing a large white hat of Quaker-like fashion. Christine has put on a white robe over her blue dress, perhaps as a sign of mourning,—she being then a widow. A white veil depends from the peaks of her head-dress. She kneels before the king, and presents her book.

Another and more elaborate picture represents the repetition of the same ceremony before Isabelle of Bavaria, queen of Charles VI. We are here admitted into the private royal apartments of the fourteenth century. The hangings of the apartment consist of strips, upon which are alternately emblazoned the armorial devices of France and Bavaria. A couch or bed, with a square canopy covered with red and blue, having the royal arms embroidered in the centre, stands on one side of the room. The queen is seated upon a lounge of modern shape, covered to correspond with the couch. She is dressed in a splendid robe of purple and gold, with long sleeves sweeping the ground, lined with ermine; upon her head arises a structure of stuffed rolls, heavy in material and covered with jewels, which shoots up into two high peaks above her forehead. Six ladies are in waiting, two in black and gold, with the same enormous head-gears. They sit on the edge of her Majesty's sofa, while four ladies of inferior rank and plainer garments are contented with low benches. Christine reappears in her blue dress, and white-veiled, peaked cap. She kneels before the queen, on a square carpet with a geometrical-patterned border, and presents her book. A white Italian hound lies at the foot of the couch, while beside Isabelle sits a small white dog, resembling the one we saw in Christine's study. As we can hardly suppose Christine would bring her pet on so solemn an occasion,—far less allow him to jump up beside the queen,—and as this little animal wears no gold bells, we are led to suppose that little white dogs were in fashion in the fourteenth century.

We cannot say that the portrait of Isabelle gives us any idea of her splendid beauty; but "handsome is that handsome does," and as Isabelle's work was a very bad one in the Middle Ages, we will say no more about her.

Christine was but twenty-five years of age when she became a widow, and her personal charms captivated the heart of no less a personage than the Earl of Salisbury, who came ambassador from England to demand the hand of the very youthful princess, Isabelle, for his master.

They exchanged verses; and although Salisbury spoke by no means mysteriously, the sage Christine affected to view his declarations only in the light of complimentary speeches from a gallant knight. The Earl considered himself as rejected, bade adieu to love, and renounced marriage. To Christine he made a very singular proposal for a rejected lover,—that of taking with him to England her eldest son, promising to devote himself to his education and preferment. The offer was too valuable to be declined by a poor widow, whose pen was her only means of supporting her family. That such a proof of devotion argued a tenderer feeling than that of knightly gallantry must have been apparent to Christine; but for reasons best understood by herself,—and shall we not believe with a heart yet true to her husband's memory?—she merely acknowledged the[Pg 285] kindness shown to her son; and the Earl and his adopted boy left France together. When Richard II. was deposed, Henry Bolingbroke struck off the head of the Earl of Salisbury. Among the papers of the murdered man the lays of Christine were found by King Henry, who was so much struck with their purity and beauty, that he wrote to the fair authoress of her son's safety, under his protection, and invited her to his court.

This invitation was at once a compliment and an insult, for the hand that sent it was stained with the blood of her friend. Christine, however, had worldly wisdom enough to send a respectful, though firm refusal, to a crowned head, a successful soldier, and one, moreover, who held her son in his power. Feminine tact must have guided her pen, for Henry was not offended, and twice despatched a herald to renew the invitation to his court. She steadily declined to leave France, but managed the affair so admirably that she at last obtained the return of her son from England.

Like her father, Thomas de Pisan, Christine seems to have been sought as an ornament of their courts by several rulers. Henry Bolingbroke could not gain her for England, and the Duke of Milan in vain urged her to reside in that city. Seldom has a literary lady in any age received such tempting invitations; yet Christine refused to leave France, although her own fortunes were anything but certain. The Duke of Burgundy took her son under his protection, and urged Christine to write the history of her patron, Charles V. of France. This was a work grateful to her feelings, and she had commenced the memoir when the death of the Duke deprived her of his patronage, and threw her son again upon her care, involving her in many anxieties. But Christine bore herself through all her trials with firmness and prudence, and her latter days were more tranquil. She took a deep interest in the affairs of her adopted country, and welcomed in her writings the appearance of the Maid of Orleans. We believe, however, that she was spared the pain of witnessing the last act in that drama of history, where an innocent victim was given up by French perfidy to English cruelty.

The deeds of Joan of Arc need no recital here. A daughter of France in the nineteenth century had a soul pure enough to reflect the image of the Maid of Orleans, and with a skilful hand she embodied the vision in marble. The statue of Joan of Arc, modelled by the Princess Marie, adorns—or rather sanctifies—the halls of Versailles.

Of woman's work as an artist in the early centuries we have a curious illustration in a manuscript belonging to the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, which exhibits a female figure painting the statue of the Madonna. The artist holds in her left hand a palette, which is the earliest notice of the use of that implement with which antiquarians are acquainted. The fashion of painting figures cut in wood was once much practised, and we see here the representation of a female artist of very ancient date. Painting, music, and dancing come under the designation of accomplishments; yet to obtain distinction in any of these branches implies a vast amount of work. An illustration of Lygate's Pilgrim shows us a young lady playing upon a species of organ with one hand; in the other she holds to her lips a mellow horn, through which she pours her breath, if not her soul; lying beside her is a stringed instrument called a sawtry. Such varied musical acquirements certainly argue both industry and devotion to art. Charlemagne's daughters were distinguished for their skill in dancing; and we read of many instances in the Middle Ages of women excelling in these fine arts.

The period of time generally denominated the Middle Ages commences with the fifth century, and ends with the fifteenth. We have in several instances ventured to extend the limits as far as a part of the sixteenth century, and therefore include among female artists the name of Sofonisba Anguisciola,[Pg 286] who was born about 1540. She was a noble lady of Cremona, whose fame spread early throughout Italy. In 1559, Philip II. of Spain invited her to his court at Madrid, where on her arrival she was treated with great distinction. Her chief study was portraiture, and her pictures became objects of great value to kings and popes.

Her royal patrons of Spain married their artist to a noble Sicilian, giving her a dowry of twelve thousand ducats and a pension of one thousand ducats, beside rich presents in tapestries and jewels. She went with her husband to Palermo, where they resided several years. On the death of her husband the king and queen of Spain urged her to return to their court; but she excused herself on account of her wish to visit Cremona. Embarking on board a galley for this purpose, bound to Genoa, she was entertained with such gallantry by the captain, Orazio Lomellini, one of the merchant princes of that city, that the heart of the distinguished artist was won, and she gave him her hand on their arrival at Genoa.

History does not tell us whether she ever revisited Cremona, but she dwelt in Genoa during the remainder of her long life, pursuing her art with great success. On her second marriage, her faithful friends in the royal family of Spain added four hundred crowns to her pension. The Empress of Germany visited Sofonisba on the way to Spain, and accepted from her hand a little picture. Sofonisba became blind in her old age, but lost no other faculty. Vandyck was her guest when at Genoa, and said that he had learned more of his art from one blind old woman than from any other teacher. A medal was struck in her honor at Bologna. The Academy of Fine Arts at Edinburgh contains a noble picture by Vandyck, painted in his Italian manner. It represents individuals of the Lomellini family, and was probably in progress when he visited this illustrious woman, who had become a member of that house.

Stirling in his "Artists of Spain" states that few of Sofonisba's pictures are now known to exist, and that the beautiful portrait of herself, probably the one mentioned by Vasari in the wardrobe of the Cardinal di Monte at Rome, or that noticed by Soprani in the palace of Giovanni Lomellini at Genoa, is now in the possession of Earl Spencer at Althorp. The engraving from this picture, in Dibdin's Ædes Althorpianæ, lies before us. We think the better of kings and queens who prized a woman with eyes so clear, and an expression of such honesty and truth. The original is said to be masterly in its drawing and execution. Sofonisba is represented in a simple black dress, and wears no jewels. She touches the keys of a harpsichord with her beautiful hands; a duenna-like figure of an old woman stands behind the instrument, apparently listening to the melody.

Whatever of skill or fame women have acquired through the ages in other departments, the nursery has ever been an undisputed sphere for woman's work. Nor have we reason to think that, in the centuries we have been considering, she was not faithful to this her especial province. The cradle of Henry V., yet in existence, is one of the best specimens of nursery furniture in the fourteenth century which have come down to us. Beautifully carved foliage fills the space between the uprights and stays and stand of the cradle, which is not upon rockers, but apparently swings like the modern crib. On each of these uprights is perched a dove, carefully carved, whose quiet influences had not much effect on the infant dreams of Prince Hal.

Henry was born at Monmouth, 1388, and sent to Courtfield, about seven miles distant, where the air was considered more salubrious. There he was nursed under the superintendence of Lady Montacute, and in that place this cradle was preserved for many years. It was sold by a steward of the Montacute property, and, after passing through[Pg 287] several hands, was in the possession of a gentleman near Bristol when engraved for Shaw's "Ancient Furniture," in 1836.

In the Douce Collection of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, there is figured in a manuscript of the fifteenth century a cradle, with the baby very nicely tucked up in it. The cradle resembles those of modern date, and is upon rockers. Another illustration of the same period shows us a cradle of similar form, the "cradle, baby, and all" carried on the head of the nursery-maid,—a caryatid style of baby-tending which we cannot suppose to have been universal. The inventories of household furniture belonging to Reginald de la Pole, after enumerating some bed-hangings of costly stuff, describe: "Item, a pane" (piece of cloth which we now call counterpane) "and head-shete for y^e cradell, of same sute, bothe furred with mynever,"—giving us a comfortable idea of the nursery establishment in the De la Pole family. The recent discovery in England of that which tradition avers to be the tomb of Canute's little daughter, speaks of another phase in nursery experience. The relics, both of the cradle and the grave, bear their own record of the joys, cares, and sorrows of the nursery in vanished years, and bring near to every mother's heart the baby that was rocked in the one, and the grief which came when that little form was given to the solemn keeping of the other.

A miniature in an early manuscript, called "The Birth of St. Edmund," gives us a picture of a bedroom and baby in the fifteenth century. St. Edmund himself was born five hundred years previous to that date; but as saints and sinners look very much alike when they are an hour old, we can imagine that, as far as the baby is concerned, it may be considered a portrait. A pretty young woman, in a long white gown, whose cap looks like magnified butterflies' wings turned upside down, sits on a low seat before the blazing wood-fire burning on great andirons in a wide fireplace, which, instead of a mantelpiece, has three niches for ornamental vases. She holds the baby very nicely, and, having warmed his feet, has wrapt him in a long white garment, so that we see only his little head in a plain night-cap, surrounded indeed by the gilded nimbus of his saintship, which we hope was not of tangible substance, as it would have been an appendage very inconvenient to all parties concerned. The mother reposes in a bed with high posts and long curtains. She must have been a woman of strong nerves to have borne the sight of such stupendous head-gears as those in which her attendants are nid-nodding over herself and baby, or to have supported the weight of that which she wears by way of night-cap. One nurse raises the lady, while another, who, from her showy dress, appears to be the head of the department, offers a tall, elegant, but very inconveniently-shaped goblet, which contains, we presume, mediæval gruel. The room has a very comfortable aspect, from which we judge that some babies in those times were carefully attended.

Many centuries ago, a young woman sat one day among the boys to whom she had come, as their father's bride, from a foreign land, to take the name and place of their mother. She showed to them a beautiful volume of Saxon poems, one of her wedding-gifts,—perhaps offered by the artists of the court of Charles le Chauve, of whose skill such magnificent specimens yet exist. As the attention of the boys was arrested by the brilliant external decorations, Judith, with that quick instinct for the extension of knowledge which showed her a true descendant of Charlemagne, promised that the book should be given to him who first learned to read it. Young Alfred won the prize, and became Alfred the Great.

We are brought near to the presence of a woman of the Middle Ages when we stand beside the monument of Eleanor of Castile, queen of Edward I., in Westminster Abbey. The figure is lifelike and beautiful, with flowing drapery folded simply around it. The[Pg 288] countenance, with its delicate features, wears a look of sweetness and dignity as fresh to-day as when sculptured seven hundred years ago. The hair, confined by a coronet, falls on each side of her face in ringlets; one hand lies by her side, and once held a sceptre; the other is brought gracefully upward; the slender fingers, with trusting touch, are laid upon a cross suspended from her neck.

Historians have done their best, or their worst, to throw doubt upon the story of Eleanor's sucking the poison with her lips from the arm of her husband when a dastardly assassin of those days struck at the life of Edward. But such a tradition, whether actually a fact or not, is a tribute to the affection and strength of Eleanor's character; and all historians agree that she instilled no poison into the life of king or country. As a wife, a mother, and a queen, Eleanor of Castile stands high on the record of the women of the Middle Ages.

Coming from Westminster Abbey, in the spring of 1856, we stood one day at a window in the Strand, and watched a multitude which no man could number, pulsing through that great artery of the mighty heart of London. It was the day of the great Peace celebration, and a holiday. Hour after hour the mighty host swept on, in undiminished numbers. The place where we stood was Charing Cross, and our thoughts went back seven hundred years, when Edward, following the mortal remains of his beloved Eleanor, erected on this spot, then a country suburb of London, the last of that line of crosses which marked those places where the mournful procession paused on its way from Hereby to Westminster. It was the cross of the dear queen, la chère reine, which time and changes of language have since corrupted into Charing Cross. Through this pathway crowds have trodden for many centuries, and few remember that its name is linked with the queenly dead or with a kingly sorrow. Thus it is, as we hasten on through the busy thoroughfares of life from age to age, even as one of our own poets hath said,—

In these pages we have made some record of woman's work in past centuries, and also caught glimpses of duties, loves, hopes, fears, and sorrows not unlike our own. A wider sphere is now accorded, and a deeper responsibility devolves upon woman to fill it wisely and well. We should never forget that, as far as they were faithful to the duties appointed to them, they elevated their sex to a higher and nobler position, and therein performed the best work of the women of the Middle Ages.

PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

IX.

Concord, Thursday, Sept. 1, 1842.—Mr. Thoreau dined with us yesterday.... He is a keen and delicate observer of nature,—a genuine observer,—which, I suspect, is almost as rare a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for his love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and shows him secrets which few others are allowed to witness. He is familiar with beast, fish, fowl, and reptile, and has strange stories to tell of adventures and friendly passages with these lower brethren of mortality. Herb and flower, likewise, wherever they grow, whether in garden or wild[Pg 289] wood, are his familiar friends. He is also on intimate terms with the clouds, and can tell the portents of storms. It is a characteristic trait, that he has a great regard for the memory of the Indian tribes, whose wild life would have suited him so well; and, strange to say, he seldom walks over a ploughed field without picking up an arrow-point, spear-head, or other relic of the red man, as if their spirits willed him to be the inheritor of their simple wealth.

With all this he has more than a tincture of literature,—a deep and true taste for poetry, especially for the elder poets, and he is a good writer,—at least he has written a good article, a rambling disquisition on Natural History, in the last Dial, which, he says, was chiefly made up from journals of his own observations. Methinks this article gives a very fair image of his mind and character,—so true, innate, and literal in observation, yet giving the spirit as well as letter of what he sees, even as a lake reflects its wooded banks, showing every leaf, yet giving the wild beauty of the whole scene. Then there are in the article passages of cloudy and dreamy metaphysics, and also passages where his thoughts seem to measure and attune themselves into spontaneous verse, as they rightfully may, since there is real poetry in them. There is a basis of good sense and of moral truth, too, throughout the article, which also is a reflection of his character; for he is not unwise to think and feel, and I find him a healthy and wholesome man to know.

After dinner, (at which we cut the first watermelon and muskmelon that our garden has grown,) Mr. Thoreau and I walked up the bank of the river, and at a certain point he shouted for his boat. Forthwith a young man paddled it across, and Mr. Thoreau and I voyaged farther up the stream, which soon became more beautiful than any picture, with its dark and quiet sheet of water, half shaded, half sunny, between high and wooded banks. The late rains have swollen the stream so much that many trees are standing up to their knees, as it were, in the water, and boughs, which lately swung high in air, now dip and drink deep of the passing wave. As to the poor cardinals which glowed upon the bank a few days since, I could see only a few of their scarlet hats, peeping above the tide. Mr. Thoreau managed the boat so perfectly, either with two paddles or with one, that it seemed instinct with his own will, and to require no physical effort to guide it. He said that, when some Indians visited Concord a few years ago, he found that he had acquired, without a teacher, their precise method of propelling and steering a canoe. Nevertheless he was desirous of selling the boat of which he was so fit a pilot, and which was built by his own hands; so I agreed to take it, and accordingly became possessor of the Musketaquid. I wish I could acquire the aquatic skill of the original owner.

Sept. 2.—Yesterday afternoon Mr. Thoreau arrived with the boat. The adjacent meadow being overflowed by the rise of the stream, he had rowed directly to the foot of the orchard, and landed at the bars, after floating over forty or fifty yards of water where people were lately making hay. I entered the boat with him, in order to have the benefit of a lesson in rowing and paddling.... I managed, indeed, to propel the boat by rowing with two oars, but the use of the single paddle is quite beyond my present skill. Mr. Thoreau had assured me that it was only necessary to will the boat to go in any particular direction, and she would immediately take that course, as if imbued with the spirit of the steersman. It may be so with him, but it is certainly not so with me. The boat seemed to be bewitched, and turned its head to every point of the compass except the right one. He then took the paddle himself, and though I could observe nothing peculiar in his management of it, the Musketaquid immediately became as docile as a trained steed. I suspect that she has not yet transferred her affections from her old master to her[Pg 290] new one. By and by, when we are better acquainted, she will grow more tractable.... We propose to change her name from Musketaquid (the Indian name of the Concord River, meaning the river of meadows) to the Pond-Lily, which will be very beautiful and appropriate, as, during the summer season, she will bring home many a cargo of pond-lilies from along the river's weedy shore. It is not very likely that I shall make such long voyages in her as Mr. Thoreau has made. He once followed our river down to the Merrimack, and thence, I believe, to Newburyport, in this little craft.

In the evening, —— —— called to see us, wishing to talk with me about a Boston periodical, of which he had heard that I was to be editor, and to which he desired to contribute. He is an odd and clever young man, with nothing very peculiar about him,—some originality and self-inspiration in his character, but none, or very little, in his intellect. Nevertheless, the lad himself seems to feel as if he were a genius. I like him well enough, however; but, after all, these originals in a small way, after one has seen a few of them, become more dull and commonplace than even those who keep the ordinary pathway of life. They have a rule and a routine, which they follow with as little variety as other people do their rule and routine, and when once we have fathomed their mystery, nothing can be more wearisome. An innate perception and reflection of truth give the only sort of originality that does not finally grow intolerable.

Sept. 4.—I made a voyage in the Pond-Lily all by myself yesterday morning, and was much encouraged by my success in causing the boat to go whither I would. I have always liked to be afloat, but I think I have never adequately conceived of the enjoyment till now, when I begin to feel a power over that which supports me. I suppose I must have felt something like this sense of triumph when I first learned to swim; but I have forgotten it. O that I could run wild!—that is, that I could put myself into a true relation with Nature, and be on friendly terms with all congenial elements.

We had a thunder-storm last evening; and to-day has been a cool, breezy autumnal day, such as my soul and body love.

Sept. 18.—How the summer-time flits away, even while it seems to be loitering onward, arm in arm with autumn! Of late I have walked but little over the hills and through the woods, my leisure being chiefly occupied with my boat, which I have now learned to manage with tolerable skill. Yesterday afternoon I made a voyage alone up the North Branch of Concord River. There was a strong west wind blowing dead against me, which, together with the current, increased by the height of the water, made the first part of the passage pretty toilsome. The black river was all dimpled over with little eddies and whirlpools; and the breeze, moreover, caused the billows to beat against the bow of the boat, with a sound like the flapping of a bird's wing. The water-weeds, where they were discernible through the tawny water, were straight outstretched by the force of the current, looking as if they were forced to hold on to their roots with all their might. If for a moment I desisted from paddling, the head of the boat was swept round by the combined might of wind and tide. However, I toiled onward stoutly, and, entering the North Branch, soon found myself floating quietly along a tranquil stream, sheltered from the breeze by the woods and a lofty hill. The current, likewise, lingered along so gently that it was merely a pleasure to propel the boat against it. I never could have conceived that there was so beautiful a river-scene in Concord as this of the North Branch. The stream flows through the midmost privacy and deepest heart of a wood, which, as if but half satisfied with its presence, calm, gentle, and unobtrusive as it is, seems to crowd upon it, and barely to[Pg 291] allow it passage; for the trees are rooted on the very verge of the water, and dip their pendent branches into it. On one side there is a high bank, forming the side of a hill, the Indian name of which I have forgotten, though Mr. Thoreau told it to me; and here, in some instances, the trees stand leaning over the river, stretching out their arms as if about to plunge in headlong. On the other side, the bank is almost on a level with the water; and there the quiet congregation of trees stood with feet in the flood, and fringed with foliage down to its very surface. Vines here and there twine themselves about bushes or aspens or alder-trees, and hang their clusters (though scanty and infrequent this season) so that I can reach them from my boat. I scarcely remember a scene of more complete and lovely seclusion than the passage of the river through this wood. Even an Indian canoe, in olden times, could not have floated onward in deeper solitude than my boat. I have never elsewhere had such an opportunity to observe how much more beautiful reflection is than what we call reality. The sky, and the clustering foliage on either hand, and the effect of sunlight as it found its way through the shade, giving lightsome hues in contrast with the quiet depth of the prevailing tints,—all these seemed unsurpassably beautiful when beheld in upper air. But on gazing downward, there they were, the same even to the minutest particular, yet arrayed in ideal beauty, which satisfied the spirit incomparably more than the actual scene. I am half convinced that the reflection is indeed the reality, the real thing which Nature imperfectly images to our grosser sense. At any rate, the disembodied shadow is nearest to the soul.

There were many tokens of autumn in this beautiful picture. Two or three of the trees were actually dressed in their coats of many colors,—the real scarlet and gold which they wear before they put on mourning. These stood on low, marshy spots, where a frost has probably touched them already. Others were of a light, fresh green, resembling the hues of spring, though this, likewise, is a token of decay. The great mass of the foliage, however, appears unchanged; but ever and anon down came a yellow leaf, half flitting upon the air, half falling through it, and finally settling upon the water. A multitude of these were floating here and there along the river, many of them curling upward, so as to form little boats, fit for fairies to voyage in. They looked strangely pretty, with yet a melancholy prettiness, as they floated along. The general aspect of the river, however, differed but little from that of summer,—at least the difference defies expression. It is more in the character of the rich yellow sunlight than in aught else. The water of the stream has now a thrill of autumnal coolness; yet whenever a broad gleam fell across it, through an interstice of the foliage, multitudes of insects were darting to and fro upon its surface. The sunshine, thus falling across the dark river, has a most beautiful effect. It burnishes it, as it were, and yet leaves it as dark as ever.

On my return, I suffered the boat to float almost of its own will down the stream, and caught fish enough for this morning's breakfast. But, partly from a qualm of conscience, I finally put them all into the water again, and saw them swim away as if nothing had happened.

Monday, October 10, 1842.—A long while, indeed, since my last date. But the weather has been generally sunny and pleasant, though often very cold; and I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air. My chief amusement has been boating up and down the river. A week or two ago (September 27 and 28) I went on a pedestrian excursion with Mr. Emerson, and was gone two days and one night, it being the first and only night that I have spent away[Pg 292] from home. We were that night at the village of Harvard, and the next morning walked three miles farther, to the Shaker village, where we breakfasted. Mr. Emerson had a theological discussion with two of the Shaker brethren; but the particulars of it have faded from my memory; and all the other adventures of the tour have now so lost their freshness that I cannot adequately recall them. Wherefore let them rest untold. I recollect nothing so well as the aspect of some fringed gentians, which we saw growing by the roadside, and which were so beautiful that I longed to turn back and pluck them. After an arduous journey, we arrived safe home in the afternoon of the second day,—the first time that I ever came home in my life; for I never had a home before. On Saturday of the same week, my friend D. R—— came to see us, and stayed till Tuesday morning. On Wednesday there was a cattle-show in the village, of which I would give a description, if it had possessed any picturesque points. The foregoing are the chief outward events of our life.

In the mean time autumn has been advancing, and is said to be a month earlier than usual. We had frosts, sufficient to kill the bean and squash vines, more than a fortnight ago; but there has since been some of the most delicious Indian-summer weather that I ever experienced,—mild, sweet, perfect days, in which the warm sunshine seemed to embrace the earth and all earth's children with love and tenderness. Generally, however, the bright days have been vexed with winds from the northwest, somewhat too keen and high for comfort. These winds have strewn our avenue with withered leaves, although the trees still retain some density of foliage, which is now embrowned or otherwise variegated by autumn. Our apples, too, have been falling, falling, falling; and we have picked the fairest of them from the dewy grass, and put them in our store-room and elsewhere. On Thursday, John Flint began to gather those which remained on the trees; and I suppose they will amount to nearly twenty barrels, or perhaps more. As usual when I have anything to sell, apples are very low indeed in price, and will not fetch me more than a dollar a barrel. I have sold my share of the potato-field for twenty dollars and ten bushels of potatoes for my own use. This may suffice for the economical history of our recent life.

12 o'clock, a. m.—Just now I heard a sharp tapping at the window of my study, and, looking up from my book (a volume of Rabelais), behold! the head of a little bird, who seemed to demand admittance! He was probably attempting to get a fly, which was on the pane of glass against which he rapped; and on my first motion the feathered visitor took wing. This incident had a curious effect on me. It impressed me as if the bird had been a spiritual visitant, so strange was it that this little wild thing should seem to ask our hospitality.

November 8.—I am sorry that our journal has fallen so into neglect; but I see no chance of amendment. All my scribbling propensities will be far more than gratified in writing nonsense for the press; so that any gratuitous labor of the pen becomes peculiarly distasteful. Since the last date, we have paid a visit of nine days to Boston and Salem, whence we returned a week ago yesterday. Thus we lost above a week of delicious autumnal weather, which should have been spent in the woods or upon the river. Ever since our return, however, until to-day, there has been a succession of genuine Indian-summer days, with gentle winds or none at all, and a misty atmosphere, which idealizes all nature, and a mild, beneficent sunshine, inviting one to lie down in a nook and forget all earthly care. To-day the sky is dark and lowering, and occasionally lets fall a few sullen tears. I suppose we must bid farewell to Indian summer now, and expect no more love and tenderness from Mother Nature till next spring be[Pg 293] well advanced. She has already made herself as unlovely in outward aspect as can well be. We took a walk to Sleepy Hollow yesterday, and beheld scarcely a green thing, except the everlasting verdure of the family of pines, which, indeed, are trees to thank God for at this season. A range of young birches had retained a pretty liberal coloring of yellow or tawny leaves, which became very cheerful in the sunshine. There were one or two oak-trees whose foliage still retained a deep, dusky red, which looked rich and warm; but most of the oaks had reached the last stage of autumnal decay,—the dusky brown hue. Millions of their leaves strew the woods, and rustle underneath the foot; but enough remain upon the boughs to make a melancholy harping when the wind sweeps over them. We found some fringed gentians in the meadow, most of them blighted and withered; but a few were quite perfect. The other day, since our return from Salem, I found a violet; yet it was so cold that day, that a large pool of water, under the shadow of some trees, had remained frozen from morning till afternoon. The ice was so thick as not to be broken by some sticks and small stones which I threw upon it. But ice and snow too will soon be no extraordinary matters with us.

During the last week we have had three stoves put up, and henceforth no light of a cheerful fire will gladden us at eventide. Stoves are detestable in every respect, except that they keep us perfectly comfortable.

Thursday, November 24.—This is Thanksgiving Day, a good old festival, and we have kept it with our hearts, and, besides, have made good cheer upon our turkey and pudding, and pies and custards, although none sat at our board but our two selves. There was a new and livelier sense, I think, that we have at last found a home, and that a new family has been gathered since the last Thanksgiving Day. There have been many bright, cold days latterly, so cold that it has required a pretty rapid pace to keep one's self warm a-walking. Day before yesterday I saw a party of boys skating on a pond of water that has overflowed a neighboring meadow. Running water has not yet frozen. Vegetation has quite come to a stand, except in a few sheltered spots. In a deep ditch we found a tall plant of the freshest and healthiest green, which looked as if it must have grown within the last few weeks. We wander among the wood-paths, which are very pleasant in the sunshine of the afternoons, the trees looking rich and warm,—such of them, I mean, as have retained their russet leaves; and where the leaves are strewn along the paths, or heaped plentifully in some hollow of the hills, the effect is not without a charm. To-day the morning rose with rain, which has since changed to snow and sleet; and now the landscape is as dreary as can well be imagined,—white, with the brownness of the soil and withered grass everywhere peeping out. The swollen river, of a leaden hue, drags itself sullenly along; and this may be termed the first winter's day.

Friday, March 31, 1843.—The first month of spring is already gone; and still the snow lies deep on hill and valley, and the river is still frozen from bank to bank, although a late rain has caused pools of water to stand on the surface of the ice, and the meadows are overflowed into broad lakes. Such a protracted winter has not been known for twenty years, at least. I have almost forgotten the wood-paths and shady places which I used to know so well last summer; and my views are so much confined to the interior of our mansion, that sometimes, looking out of the window, I am surprised to catch a glimpse of houses at no great distance which had quite passed out of my recollection. From present appearances, another month may scarcely suffice to wash away all the snow from the open country; and in the woods and hollows it may linger yet longer. The winter[Pg 294] will not have been a day less than five months long; and it would not be unfair to call it seven. A great space, indeed, to miss the smile of Nature, in a single year of human life. Even out of the midst of happiness I have sometimes sighed and groaned; for I love the sunshine and the green woods, and the sparkling blue water; and it seems as if the picture of our inward bliss should be set in a beautiful frame of outward nature.... As to the daily course of our life, I have written with pretty commendable diligence, averaging from two to four hours a day; and the result is seen in various magazines. I might have written more, if it had seemed worth while; but I was content to earn only so much gold as might suffice for our immediate wants, having prospect of official station and emolument which would do away with the necessity of writing for bread. Those prospects have not yet had their fulfilment; and we are well content to wait, because an office would inevitably remove us from our present happy home,—at least from an outward home; for there is an inner one that will accompany us wherever we go. Meantime, the magazine people do not pay their debts; so that we taste some of the inconveniences of poverty. It is an annoyance, not a trouble.

Every day, I trudge through snow and slosh to the village, look into the post-office, and spend an hour at the reading-room; and then return home, generally without having spoken a word to a human being.... In the way of exercise I saw and split wood, and, physically, I never was in a better condition than now. This is chiefly owing, doubtless, to a satisfied heart, in aid of which comes the exercise above mentioned, and about a fair proportion of intellectual labor.

On the 9th of this month, we left home again on a visit to Boston and Salem. I alone went to Salem, where I resumed all my bachelor habits for nearly a fortnight, leading the same life in which ten years of my youth flitted away like a dream. But how much changed was I! At last I had caught hold of a reality which never could be taken from me. It was good thus to get apart from my happiness, for the sake of contemplating it. On the 21st, I returned to Boston, and went out to Cambridge to dine with Longfellow, whom I had not seen since his return from Europe. The next day we came back to our old house, which had been deserted all this time; for our servant had gone with us to Boston.

Friday, April 7.—My wife has gone to Boston to see her sister M——, who is to be married in two or three weeks, and then immediately to visit Europe for six months.... I betook myself to sawing and splitting wood; there being an inward unquietness which demanded active exercise, and I sawed, I think, more briskly than ever before. When I re-entered the house, it was with somewhat of a desolate feeling; yet not without an intermingled pleasure, as being the more conscious that all separation was temporary, and scarcely real, even for the little time that it may last. After my solitary dinner, I lay down, with the Dial in my hand, and attempted to sleep; but sleep would not come.... So I arose, and began this record in the journal, almost at the commencement of which I was interrupted by a visit from Mr. Thoreau, who came to return a book, and to announce his purpose of going to reside at Staten Island, as private tutor in the family of Mr. Emerson's brother. We had some conversation upon this subject, and upon the spiritual advantages of change of place, and upon the Dial, and upon Mr. Alcott, and other kindred or concatenated subjects. I am glad, on Mr. Thoreau's own account, that he is going away, as he is out of health and may be benefited by his removal; but, on my account, I should like to have him remain here, he being one of the few persons, I think, with whom to hold intercourse is like hearing the wind among the boughs of a forest-tree; and with all this wild freedom,[Pg 295] there is high and classic cultivation in him too....

I had a purpose, if circumstances would permit, of passing the whole term of my wife's absence without speaking a word to any human being; but now my Pythagorean vow has been broken, within three or four hours after her departure.

Saturday, April 8.—After journalizing yesterday afternoon, I went out and sawed and split wood till tea-time, then studied German, (translating Lenore,) with an occasional glance at a beautiful sunset, which I could not enjoy sufficiently by myself to induce me to lay aside the book. After lamp-light, finished Lenore, and drowsed over Voltaire's Candide, occasionally refreshing myself with a tune from Mr. Thoreau's musical box, which he had left in my keeping. The evening was but a dull one.

I retired soon after nine, and felt some apprehension that the old Doctor's ghost would take this opportunity to visit me; but I rather think his former visitations have not been intended for me, and that I am not sufficiently spiritual for ghostly communication. At all events, I met with no disturbance of the kind, and slept soundly enough till six o'clock or thereabouts. The forenoon was spent with the pen in my hand, and sometimes I had the glimmering of an idea, and endeavored to materialize it in words; but on the whole my mind was idly vagrant, and refused to work to any systematic purpose. Between eleven and twelve I went to the post-office, but found no letter; then spent above an hour reading at the Athenæum. On my way home, I encountered Mr. Flint, for the first time these many weeks, although he is our next neighbor in one direction. I inquired if he could sell us some potatoes, and he promised to send half a bushel for trial. Also, he encouraged me to hope that he might buy a barrel of our apples. After my encounter with Mr. Flint, I returned to our lonely old abbey, opened the door without the usual heart-spring, ascended to my study, and began to read a tale of Tieck. Slow work, and dull work too! Anon, Molly, the cook, rang the bell for dinner,—a sumptuous banquet of stewed veal and macaroni, to which I sat down in solitary state. My appetite served me sufficiently to eat with, but not for enjoyment. Nothing has a zest in my present widowed state. [Thus far I had written, when Mr. Emerson called.] After dinner, I lay down on the couch, with the Dial in my hand as a soporific, and had a short nap; then began to journalize.

Mr. Emerson came, with a sunbeam in his face; and we had as good a talk as I ever remember to have had with him. He spoke of Margaret Fuller, who, he says, has risen perceptibly into a higher state since their last meeting. [There rings the tea-bell.] Then we discoursed of Ellery Channing, a volume of whose poems is to be immediately published, with revisions by Mr. Emerson himself and Mr. Sam G. Ward.... He calls them "poetry for poets." Next Mr. Thoreau was discussed, and his approaching departure; in respect to which we agreed pretty well.... We talked of Brook Farm, and the singular moral aspects which it presents, and the great desirability that its progress and developments should be observed and its history written; also of C. N——, who, it appears, is passing through a new moral phasis. He is silent, inexpressive, talks little or none, and listens without response, except a sardonic laugh; and some of his friends think that he is passing into permanent eclipse. Various other matters were considered or glanced at, and finally, between five and six o'clock, Mr. Emerson took his leave. I then went out to chop wood, my allotted space for which had been very much abridged by his visit; but I was not sorry. I went on with the journal for a few minutes before tea, and have finished the present record in the setting sunshine and gathering dusk....[Pg 296]

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

AN ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD, AT THEIR TRIENNIAL FESTIVAL, JULY 19, 1866.

We meet to-day under auspices how different from those which attended our last triennial assembling! We were then in the midst of a civil war, without sight of the end, though not without hope of final success to the cause of national integrity. The three days' agony at Gettysburg had issued in the triumph of the loyal arms, repelling the threatened invasion of the North. The surrender of Vicksburg had just reopened the trade of the Mississippi. The capture of Port Hudson was yet fresh in our ears, when suddenly tidings of armed resistance to conscription in the city of New York gave ominous note of danger lurking at the very heart of the Union. In the shadow of that omen, we celebrated our academic festival of 1863.

The shadow passed. With varying fortunes, but unvarying purpose, the loyal States pursued the contest. And when, in the autumn of 1864, by a solemn act of self-interrogation, they had certified their will and their power to maintain that contest to the end of disunion, and when a popular election expressing that intent had overcome the land like a summer-cloud without a bolt in its bosom, the victory was sown with the ballot which Grant and Sherman reaped with the sword.

Secession collapsed. Its last and most illustrious victim, borne to his rest through territories draped in mourning, through sobbing commonwealths, through populations of uncovered heads, revealed to all time the spirit that was in it and the spirit that subdued it. And to-day, as we meet our Reverend Mother in this scene of old affections, the stupendous struggle has already receded into the shadow-land of History. The war is a thing of the past. If hatred still rankles, open hostilities have ceased. If rumblings of the recent tempest still mutter along the track of its former desolation, the storm is over. The conflict is ended. No more conscription of husbands, sons, and brothers for the weary work of destruction; no more the forced march by day, the bivouac at night, and to-morrow the delirium of carnage. No more anxious waiting in distant homes for tidings from the front, and breathless conning of the death-list to know if the loved ones are among the slain. No more the fresh grief-agony over the unreturning brave. All that is past,—

The sword has returned to its sheath. The symbol-flags that shed their starry pomp on the field of death hang idly drooping in the halls of state. And before new armies in hostile encounter on American soil shall unfurl new banners to the breeze, may every thread and thrum of their texture ravel and rot and resolve itself into dust!

Another and nearer interest distinguishes this occasion and suggests its appropriate theme,—our Alma Mater.

The General Court of Massachusetts, which has hitherto elected the Board of Overseers of Harvard College, after so many years of fitful and experimental legislation, has finally enacted, that "the places of the successive classes in the Board of Overseers of Harvard College, and the vacancies in such classes, shall hereafter be annually supplied by ballot of such persons as have received from the College a degree of Bachelor of Arts, or Master of Arts, or any honorary degree, voting on Commencement-day in the city of[Pg 297] Cambridge; such election to be first held in the year 1866."

This act initiates a radical change in the organization of this University. It establishes for one of its legislative Houses a new electorate. The State hereby discharges itself of all active participation in the conduct of the College, and devolves on the body of the Alumni responsibilities assumed in former enactments extending through a period of more than two hundred years. The wisdom or justice of this measure I am not inclined to discuss. Certainly there is nothing in the history of past relations between the Commonwealth and the University that should make us regret the change. That history has not been one of mere benefactions on one side, and pure indebtedness on the other. Whatever the University may owe to the State, the balance of obligation falls heavily on the other side. In the days of Provincial rule the Colony of Massachusetts Bay appears to have exhausted its zeal for collegiate education in the much-lauded promissory act by which the General Court, in 1636, "agree to give four hundred pounds towards a school or college, whereof two hundred pounds shall be paid next year." The promise was not fulfilled, and the record of those years leaves it doubtful whether legislative action alone would during that or the next generation have accomplished the work, had not a graduate of Emanuel College in English Cambridge, who seems providentially enough to have dropped on these shores, where he lived but a year, for that express purpose, supplied the requisite funds.

The College once started and got under way, the fathers of the Province assumed a vigilant oversight of its orthodoxy, but discharged with a lax and grudging service the responsibility of its maintenance. They ejected the first President, the protomartyr of American learning, the man who sacrificed more to the College than any one individual in the whole course of its history, on account of certain scruples about infant baptism, of which, in the language of the time, "it was not hard to discover that they came from the Evil One," and for which poor Dunster was indicted by the grand-jury, sentenced to a public admonition, and laid under bonds for good behavior.

They starved the second President for eighteen years on a salary payable in Indian corn; and in answer to his earnest prayer for relief, alleging instant necessity, the sacrifice of personal property, and the custom of English universities, a committee of the General Court reported that "they conceive the country to have done honorably toward the petitioner, and that his parity with English colleges is not pertinent."

The third President, by their connivance and co-operation, was sacrificed to the machinations of the students, egged on, it is thought, by members of the Corporation, and died, "as was said, with a broken heart."

Meanwhile, through neglect of the Province to provide for its support, the material fortunes of the College, in the course of thirty years, had fallen into such decay that extinction was inevitable, had not the people of another Colony come to the rescue. The town of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, hearing, says their address, "the loud groans of the sinking College,... and hoping that their example might provoke ... the General Court vigorously to act for the diverting of the omen of calamity which its destruction would be to New England," pledged themselves to an annual contribution of sixty pounds for seven years. This act of chivalrous generosity fairly shamed our lagging Commonwealth into measures for the resuscitation of an institution especially committed to its care.

The most remarkable feature of this business is that the Province all this while was drawing, not only moral support, but pecuniary aid, from the College. "It is manifest," says Quincy,[A] "that[Pg 298] the treasury of the Colony, having been the recipient of many of the early donations to the College, was not a little aided by the convenience which these available funds afforded to its pecuniary necessities. Some of these funds, although received in 1647, were not paid over to the treasury of the College until 1713; then, indeed, the College received an allowance of simple interest for the delay. With regard, therefore, to the annual allowance of £100, whereby," during the first seventy years, "they enabled the President of the College simply to exist, it is proper to observe, that there was not probably one year in the whole seventy in which, by moneys collected from friends of the institution in foreign countries, by donations of its friends in this country, by moneys brought by students from other Colonies, and above all by furnishing the means of education at home, and thus preventing the outgoing of domestic wealth for education abroad, the College did not remunerate the Colony for that poor annual stipend five hundred fold."

The patronage extended to the College after the Revolution was not more cordial and not more adequate than the meagre succors of Colonial legislation. The first Governor of independent Massachusetts, from the height of his impregnable popularity, for more than twelve years defied the repeated attempts of the Corporation, backed by the Overseers, to obtain the balance of his account as former Treasurer of the College, and died its debtor in a sum exceeding a thousand pounds. The debt was finally paid by his heirs, but not without a loss of some hundreds of dollars to the College.

At the commencement of hostilities between the Colonies and the mother country, the Revolutionary authorities had taken possession of these grounds. Reversing the old order, "Cedant arma togæ," they drove out the togæ and brought in the arms. The books went one way, the boys another,—the books to Andover, the boys to Concord. The dawn of American liberty was not an "Aurora musis amica." The Muse of History alone remained with Brigadier Putnam and General Ward. The College was turned into a camp,—a measure abundantly justified by public necessity, but causing much damage to the buildings occupied as barracks by the Continentals. This damage was nominally allowed by the General Court, but was reckoned in the currency of that day, whereby the College received but a quarter of the cost.

In 1786, the State saw fit to discontinue the small pittance which till then had been annually granted toward the support of the President; and from that time to this, with the exception of the proceeds of a bank-tax, granted for ten years in 1814, and the recent large appropriation from the School Fund for the use of the Museum of Natural History, the College has received no substantial aid from the State. The State has, during the last ten years, expended two millions of dollars in a vain attempt to bore a hole through one of her hills: in the whole two hundred and thirty years of our academic history she has not expended a quarter of that sum in filling up this hole in her educational system.

I intend no disrespect to the noble Commonwealth of which no native can be insensible to the glory of his birthright. No State has done more for popular education than the State of Massachusetts. But for reasons satisfactory, no doubt, to themselves, her successive legislators have not seen fit to extend to her colleges the fostering care bestowed on her schools. And certainly, if one or the other must be neglected, we shall all agree in saying, Let the schools be cherished, and let the colleges take care of themselves. Let due provision be made for popular instruction in the rudiments of knowledge, which are also rudiments of good citizenship; let every citizen be taxed for that prime exigency, and let literature and science find patrons where they can. Literature and science will find patrons, and here in Massachusetts have always found them. If the legislators[Pg 299] of the State have been sparing of their benefactions, the wealthy sons of the State have been prodigal of theirs. In no country has the private patronage of science been more liberal and prompt than in Massachusetts. Seldom, in the history of science, has there been a nobler instance of that patronage than this University is now experiencing, in the mission of one of her professors on an enterprise of scientific exploration, started and maintained by a private citizen of Boston. When our Agassiz shall return to us reinforced with the lore of the Andes, and replenished with the spoils of the Amazon,—tot millia squamigeræ gentis,—the discoveries he shall add to science, and the treasures he shall add to his Museum, whilst they splendidly illustrate his own qualifications for such a mission, will forever attest the liberality of a son of Massachusetts.

The rich men of the State have not been wanting to literature and science. They have not been wanting to this University. Let their names be held in everlasting remembrance. When the Memorial Hall, which your committee have in charge, shall stand complete, let its mural records present, together with the names of those who have deserved well of the country by their patriotism, the names of those who have deserved well of the College by their benefactions. Let these fautors of science, the heroes of peace, have their place side by side with the heroes of war.

Individuals have done their part, but slow is the growth of institutions which depend on individual charity for their support. As an illustration of what may be done by public patronage, when States are in earnest with their universities, and as strangely contrasting the sluggish fortunes of our own Alma, look at the State University of Michigan. Here is an institution but twenty-five years old, already numbering thirty-two professors and over twelve hundred students, having public buildings equal in extent to those which two centuries have given to Cambridge, and all the apparatus of a well-constituted, thoroughly furnished university. All this within twenty-five years! The State itself which has generated this wonderful growth had no place in the Union until after Harvard had celebrated her two hundredth birthday. In twenty-five years, in a country five hundred miles from the seaboard,—a country which fifty years ago was known only to the fur trade,—a University has sprung up, to which students flock from all parts of the land, and which offers to thousands, free of expense, the best education this continent affords. Such is the difference between public and private patronage, between individual effort and the action of a State.

A proof of the broad intent and œcumenical consciousness of this infant College appears in the fact that its Medical Department, which alone numbers ten professors and five hundred students, allows the option of one of four languages in the thesis required for the medical degree. It is the only seminary in the country whose liberal scope and cosmopolitan outlook satisfy the idea of a great university. Compared with this, our other colleges are all provincial; and unless the State of Massachusetts shall see fit to adopt us, and to foster our interest with something of the zeal and liberality which the State of Michigan bestows on her academic masterpiece, Harvard cannot hope to compete with this precocious child of the West.

Meanwhile, Alumni, the State has devolved upon us, as electors of the Board of Overseers, an important trust. This trust conveys no right of immediate jurisdiction, but it may become the channel of an influence which shall make itself felt in the conduct of this University. It invites us to take counsel concerning her wants and her weal. I therefore pursue the theme which this crisis in our history suggests.

Of existing universities the greater part are the product of an age whose intellectual fashion differed as widely from the present as it did from that of[Pg 300] Greek and Roman antiquity. Our own must be reckoned with that majority, dating, as it does, from a period antecedent, not only to all other American colleges, but to some of the most eminent of other lands. Half of the better known and most influential of German universities are of later origin than ours. The University of Göttingen, once the most flourishing in Germany, is younger than Harvard by a hundred years. Halle is younger, and Erlangen, and Munich with its vast library, and Bonn, and Berlin, by nearly two hundred years.

When this College was founded, two of the main forces of the intellectual world of our time had scarcely come into play,—modern literature and modern science. Science knew nothing as yet of chemistry, nothing of electricity, of geology, scarce anything of botany. In astronomy, the Copernican system was just struggling into notice, and far from being universally received. Lord Bacon, I think, was the latest author of note in the library bequeathed by John Harvard; and Lord Bacon rejected the Copernican system. English literature had had its great Elizabethan age; but little of the genius of that literature had penetrated the Puritan mind. It is doubtful if a copy of Shakespeare had found its way to these shores in 1636. Milton's star was just climbing its native horizon, invisible as yet to the Western world.

The College was founded for the special and avowed purpose of training young men for the service of the Church. All its studies were arranged with reference to that object: endless expositions of Scripture, catechetical divinity, "commonplacing" of sermons,—already, one fancies, sufficiently commonplace,—Chaldee, Syriac, Hebrew without points, and other Semitic exasperations. Latin, as the language of theology, was indispensable, and within certain limits was practically better understood, perhaps, in Cambridge of the seventeenth century, than in Cambridge of the nineteenth. It was the language of official intercourse. Indeed, the use of the English was forbidden to the students within the College walls. Scholares vernacula lingua intra Collegii limites nullo prætextu utuntor, was the law,—a law which Cotton Mather complains was so neglected in his day "as to render our scholars very unfit for a conversation with strangers." But the purpose for which chiefly the study of Latin is now pursued—acquaintance with the Roman classics—was no recognized object of Puritan learning. Cicero appears to have been for a long time the only classic of whom the students were supposed to have any knowledge. The reading of Virgil was a daring innovation of the eighteenth century. The only Greek required was that of the New Testament and the Greek Catechism. The whole rich domain of ancient Greek literature, from Homer to Theokritos, was as much an unexplored territory as the Baghavad-Gita or the Mababharata. Logic and metaphysic and scholastic disputations occupied a prominent place. As late as 1726, the books most conspicuous in Tutor Flynt's official report of the College exercises, next to Cicero and Virgil, are such as convey to the modern scholar no idea but that of intense obsoleteness,—Ramus's Definitions, Burgersdicius's Logic, Heereboord's Meletemata; and for Seniors, on Saturday, Ames's Medulla. This is such a curriculum as Mephistopheles, in his character of Magister, might have recommended in irony to the student who sought his counsel.

With the multiplication of religious sects, with the progress of secular culture, with the mental emancipation which followed the great convulsions of the eighteenth century, the maintenance of the ecclesiastical type originally impressed on the College ceased to be practicable,—ceased to be desirable. The preparation of young men for the service of the Church is still a recognized part of the general scheme of University education, but is only one in the multiplicity of objects which[Pg 301] that scheme embraces, and can never again have the prominence once assigned to it. This secularization, however it might seem to compromise the design of the founders of the College, was inevitable,—a wise and needful concession to the exigencies of the altered time. Nor is there, in a larger view, any real contravention here of the purpose of the founders. The secularization of the College is no violation of its motto, "Christo et Ecclesiæ." For, as I interpret those sacred ideas, the cause of Christ and the Church is advanced by whatever liberalizes and enriches and enlarges the mind. All study, scientifically pursued, is at bottom a study of theology; for all scientific study is the study of Law; and "of Law nothing less can be acknowledged than that her seat is in the bosom of God."

But something more than secularization of the course of study is required to satisfy the idea of a university. What is a university? Dr. Newman answers this question with the ancient designation of a Studium Generale,—a school of universal learning. "Such a university," he says, "is in its essence a place for the communication and circulation of thought by means of personal intercourse over a wide tract of country."[B] Accepting this definition, can we say that Harvard College, as at present constituted, is a University? Must we not rather describe it as a place where boys are made to recite lessons from text-books, and to write compulsory exercises, and are marked according to their proficiency and fidelity in these performances, with a view to a somewhat protracted exhibition of themselves at the close of their college course, which, according to a pleasant academic fiction, is termed their "Commencement"? This description applies only, it is true, to what is called the Undergraduate Department. But that department stands for the College, constitutes the College, in the public estimation. The professional schools which have gathered about it are scarcely regarded as a part of the College. They are incidental appendages, of which, indeed, one has its seat in another city. The College proper is simply a more advanced school for boys, not differing essentially in principle and theory from the public schools in all our towns. In this, as in those, the principle is coercion. Hold your subject fast with one hand, and pour knowledge into him with the other. The professors are task-masters and police-officers, the President the chief of the College police.

Now, considering the great advance of our higher town schools, which carry their pupils as far as the College carried them fifty years ago, and which might, if necessary, have classes still more advanced of such as are destined for the university, I venture to suggest that the time has come when this whole system of coercion might, with safety and profit, be done away. Abolish, I would say, your whole system of marks, and college rank, and compulsory tasks. I anticipate an objection drawn from the real or supposed danger of abandoning to their own devices and optional employment boys of the average age of college students. In answer, I say, advance that average by fixing a limit of admissible age. Advance the qualifications for admission; make them equal to the studies of the Freshman year, and reduce the college career from four years to three; or else make the Freshman year a year of probation, and its closing examination the condition of full matriculation. Only give the young men, when once a sufficient foundation has been laid, and the rudiments acquired, the freedom of a true University,—freedom to select their own studies and their own teachers from such material, and such personnel, as the place supplies. It is to be expected that a portion will abuse this liberty, and waste their years. They do it at their peril. At the peril, among other disadvantages, of losing their degree, which should be conditioned on satisfactory proof that the student has not wholly misspent his time.[Pg 302]

An indispensable condition of intellectual growth is liberty. That liberty the present system denies. More and more it is straitened by imposed tasks. And this I conceive to be the reason why, with increased requirements, the College turns out a decreasing proportion of first-class men. If the theory of college rank were correct, the highest marks should indicate the men who are to be hereafter most conspicuous, and leaders in the various walks of life. This is not the case,—not so much so now as in former years. Of the present chief lights of American literature and science, how many, if graduates of Harvard, took the first honors of the University here? Or, to put the question in another form, Of those who took the first honors at Harvard, within the last thirty years, how many are now conspicuous among the great lights of American literature and science?

Carlyle, in his recent talk to the students at Edinburgh, remarks that, "since the time of Bentley, you cannot name anybody that has gained a great name for scholarship among the English, or constituted a point of revolution in the pursuits of men, in that way." The reason perhaps is, that the system of the English universities, though allowing greater liberty than ours, is still a struggle for college honors, in which renown, not learning for the sake of learning, is the aim. The seeming proficiency achieved through the influence of such motives—knowledge acquired for the nonce, not assimilated—is often delusive, and is apt to vanish when the stimulus is withdrawn. The students themselves have recorded their judgment of the value of this sort of learning in the word "cramming," a phrase which originated in one of the English universities.

The rudiments of knowledge may be instilled by compulsory tasks; but to form the scholar, to really educate the man, there should intervene between the years of compulsory study and the active duties of life a season of comparative leisure. By leisure I mean, not cessation of activity, but self-determined activity,—command of one's time for voluntary study.

There are two things which unless a university can give, it fails of its legitimate end. One is opportunity, the other inspiration. But opportunity is marred, not made, and inspiration quenched, not kindled, by coercion. Few, I suspect, in recent years, have had the love of knowledge awakened by their college life at Harvard,—more often quenched by the rivalries and penalties with which learning here is associated. Give the student, first of all, opportunity; place before him the best apparatus of instruction; tempt him with the best of teachers and books; lead him to the fountains of intellectual life. His use of those fountains must depend on himself. There is a homely proverb touching the impossibility of compelling a horse to drink, which applies to human animals and intellectual draughts as well. The student has been defined by a German pedagogue as an animal that cannot be forced, but must be persuaded. If, beside opportunity, the college can furnish also the inspiration which shall make opportunity precious and fruitful, its work is accomplished. The college that fulfils these two conditions—opportunity and inspiration—will be a success, will draw to itself the frequency of youth, the patronage of wealth, the consensus of all the good. Such a university, and no other, will be a power in the land.

Nothing so fatal to inspiration as excessive legislation. It creates two parties, the governors and the governed, with efforts and interests mutually opposed; the governors seeking to establish an artificial order, the governed bent on maintaining their natural liberty. I need not ask you, Alumni, if these two parties exist at Cambridge. They have always existed within the memory of "the oldest graduate."

Professors should not be responsible for the manners of students, beyond the legitimate operation of their personal influence. Academic jurisdiction should have no criminal code, should inflict no[Pg 303] penalty but that of expulsion, and that only in the way of self-defence against positively noxious and dangerous members. Let the civil law take care of civil offences. The American citizen should early learn to govern himself, and to re-enact the civil law by free consent. Let easy and familiar relations be established between teachers and taught, and personal influence will do more for the maintenance of order than the most elaborate code. Experience has shown that great reliance may be placed on the sense of honor in young men, when properly appealed to and fairly brought into play. Raumer, in his "History of German Universities," testifies that the Burschenschaften abolished there the last vestige of that system of hazing practised on new-comers, which seems to be an indigenous weed of the college soil. It infested the ancient universities of Athens, Berytus, Carthage,[C] as well as the mediæval and the modern. Our ancestors provided a natural outlet for it when they ordained that the Freshmen should be subject to the Seniors, should take off their hats in their presence, and run of their errands. This system, under the name of "Pennalism," had developed, in the German universities, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a degree of oppression and tyrannous abuse of the new-comer unknown to American colleges, and altogether incredible were it not sufficiently vouched by contemporary writers, and by the acts of the various governments which labored to suppress it. A certain German worthy writes to his son, who is about to enter the university: "You think, perhaps, that in the universities they sup pure wisdom by spoonfuls,... but when you are arrived there, you will find that you must be made a fool of for the first year.... Consent to be a fool for this one year; let yourself be plagued and abused; and when an old veteran steps up to you and tweaks your nose, let it not appear singular; endure it, harden yourself to it. Olim meminisse juvabit."[D] The universities legislated against this barbarism; all the governments of Germany conspired to crush it; but in spite of all their efforts, which were only partially successful, traces of it still lingered in the early years of this century. It was not completely abolished until, in 1818, there was formed at Jena by delegates from fourteen universities a voluntary association of students on a moral basis, known as "The General German Burschenschaft," the first principle in whose constitution was, "Unity, freedom, and equality of all students among themselves,—equality of all rights and duties,"—and whose second principle was "Christian German education of every mental and bodily faculty for the service of the Fatherland." This, according to Raumer, was the end of Pennalism in Germany. What the governments, with their stringent enactments and formidable penalties, failed to accomplish, was accomplished at last by a voluntary association of students, organizing that sense of honor which, in youth and societies of youth, if rightly touched, is never appealed to in vain.

The question has been newly agitated in these days, whether knowledge of Greek and Latin is a necessary part of polite education, and whether it should constitute one of the requirements of the academic course. It has seemed to me that those who take the affirmative in this discussion give undue weight to the literary argument, and not enough to the glossological. The literary argument fails to establish the supreme importance of a knowledge of these languages as a part of polite education. The place which the Greek and Latin authors have come to occupy in the estimation of European scholars is due, not entirely to their intrinsic merits, great as those merits unquestionably are, but in part to traditional prepossessions. When after a millennial[Pg 304] occultation the classics, and especially, with the fall of the Palæologi, the Greek classics burst upon Western Europe, there was no literature with which to compare them. The Jewish Scriptures were not regarded as literature by readers of the Vulgate. Dante, it is true, had given to the world his immortal vision, and Boccaccio, its first expounder, had shown the capabilities of Italian prose. But the light of Florentine culture was even for Italy a partial illumination. On the whole, we may say that modern literature did not exist, and the Oriental had not yet come to light. What wonder that the classics were received with boundless enthusiasm! It was through the influence of that enthusiasm that the study of Greek was introduced into schools and universities with the close of the fifteenth century. It was through that influence that Latin, still a living language in the clerical world, was perpetuated, instead of becoming an obsolete ecclesiasticism. The language of Livy and Ovid derived fresh impulse from the reappearing stars of secular Rome.

It is in vain to deny that those literatures have lost something of the relative value they once possessed, and which made it a literary necessity to study Greek and Latin for their sakes. The literary necessity is in a measure superseded by translations, which, though they may fail to communicate the aroma and the verbal felicities of the original, reproduce its form and substance. It is furthermore superseded by the rise of new literatures, and by introduction to those of other and elder lands. The Greeks were masters of literary form, but other nations have surpassed them in some particulars. There is but one Iliad, and but one Odyssee; but also there is but one Job, but one Sakoontalà, but one Hafiz-Nameh, but one Gulistan, but one Divina Commedia, but one Don Quixote, but one Faust. If the argument for the study of Greek and Latin is grounded on the value of the literary treasures contained in those tongues, the same argument applies to the Hebrew, to the Sanscrit, to the Persian, to say nothing of the modern languages, to which the College assigns a subordinate place.

But, above all, the literary importance of Greek and Latin for the British and American scholar is greatly qualified by the richness and superiority of the English literature which has come into being since the Græcomania of the time of the Tudors, when court ladies of a morning, by way of amusement, read Plato's Dialogues in the original. If literary edification is the object intended in the study of those languages, that end is more easily and more effectually accomplished by a thorough acquaintance with English literature, than by the very imperfect knowledge which college exercises give of the classics. Tugging at the Chained Prometheus, with the aid of grammar and lexicon, may be good intellectual discipline, but how many of the subjects of that discipline ever divine the secret of Æschylus's wonderful creation, or receive any other impression from it than the feeling perhaps that the worthy Titan's sense of constraint could hardly have been more galling than their own.

Give them Shakespeare's Tempest to read, and with no other pony than their own good will, though they may not penetrate the deeper meaning of that composition, they will gain more ideas, more nourishment from it, than they will from compulsory study of the whole trio of Greek tragedians. And if this be their first introduction to the great magician, they will say, with Miranda,

The literary argument for enforced study of Greek and Latin in our day has not much weight. What I call the glossological argument has more. Every well-educated person should have a thorough understanding of his own language, and no one can thoroughly understand the English without[Pg 305] some knowledge of languages which touch it so nearly as the Latin and the Greek. Some knowledge of those languages should constitute, I think, a condition of matriculation. But the further prosecution of them should not be obligatory on the student once matriculated, though every encouragement be given and every facility afforded to those whose genius leans in that direction. The College should make ample provision for the study of ancient languages, and also for the study of the mathematics, but should not enforce those studies on minds that have no vocation for such pursuits. There is now and then a born philologer, one who studies language for its own sake,—studies it perhaps in the spirit of "the scholar who regretted that he had not concentrated his life on the dative case." There are also exceptional natures that delight in mathematics, minds whose young affections run to angles and logarithms, and with whom the computation of values is itself the chief value in life. The College should accommodate either bias, to the top of its bent, but should not enforce either with compulsory twist. It should not insist on making every alumnus a linguist or a mathematician. If mastery of dead languages is not an indispensable part of polite education, mathematical learning is still less so. Excessive requirements in that department have not even the excuse of intellectual discipline. More important than mathematics to the general scholar is the knowledge of history, in which American scholars are so commonly deficient. More important is the knowledge of modern languages and of English literature. More important the knowledge of Nature and Art. May the science of sciences never want representatives as able as the learned gentlemen who now preside over that department in the mathematical and presidential chairs. Happy will it be for the University if they can inspire a love for the science in the pupils committed to their charge. But where inspiration fails, coercion can never supply its place. If the mathematics shall continue to reign at Harvard, may their empire become a law of liberty.

I have ventured, fellow-graduates, to throw out these hints of University Reform, well aware of the opposition such views must encounter in deep-rooted prejudice and fixed routine; aware also of the rashness of attempting, within the limits of such an occasion, to grapple with such a theme; but strong in my conviction of the pressing need of a more emancipated scheme of instruction and discipline, based on the facts of the present and the real wants of American life. It is time that the oldest college in the land should lay off the prætexta of its long minority, and take its place among the universities, properly so called, of modern time.

One thing more I have to say while standing in this presence. The College has a duty beyond its literary and scientific functions,—a duty to the nation,—a patriotic, I do not scruple to say a political duty.

Time was when universities were joint estates of the realms they enlightened. The University of Paris was, in its best days, an association possessing authority second only to that of the Church. The faithful ally of the sovereigns of France against the ambition of the nobles and against the usurpations of Papal Rome, she bore the proud title of "The eldest Daughter of the King,"—La Fille aînée du Roi. She upheld the Oriflamme against the feudal gonfalons, and was largely instrumental in establishing the central power of the crown.[E] In the terrible struggle of Philip the Fair with Boniface VIII., she furnished the legal weapons of the contest. She furnished, in her Chancellor Gerson, the leading spirit of the Council of Constance. In the Council of Bâle she[Pg 306] obtained for France the "Pragmatic Sanction." Her voice was consulted on the question of the Salic Law; unhappily, also in the trial of Jeanne d'Arc; and when Louis XI. concluded a treaty of peace with Maximilian of Austria, the University of Paris was the guaranty on the part of France.

Universities are no longer political bodies, but they may be still political powers,—centres and sources of political influence. Our own College in the time of the Revolution was a manifest power on the side of liberty, the political as well as academic mother of Otis and the Adamses. In 1768, "when the patronage of American manufactures was the test of patriotism," the Senior Class voted unanimously to take their degrees apparelled in the coarse cloths of American manufacture. In 1776, the Overseers required of the professors a satisfactory account of their political faith. So much was then thought of the influence on young minds of the right or wrong views of political questions entertained by their instructors. The fathers were right. When the life of the nation is concerned,—in the struggle with foreign or domestic foes,—there is a right and a wrong in politics which casuistry may seek to confuse, but which sound moral sentiment cannot mistake, and which those who have schools of learning in charge should be held to respect. Better the College should be disbanded than be a nursery of treason. Better these halls even now should be levelled with the ground, than that any influence should prevail in them unfriendly to American nationality. No amount of intellectual acquirements can atone for defective patriotism. Intellectual supremacy alone will not avert the downfall of states. The subtlest intellect of Greece, the sage who could plan an ideal republic of austere virtue and perfect proportions, could not preserve his own; but the love of country inspired by Lycurgus kept the descendants of the Dorians free two thousand years after the disgrace of Chæronea had sealed the fate of the rest of Greece.

In my college days it was the fashion with some to think lightly of our American birthright, to talk disparagingly of republics, and to sigh for the dispositions and pomps of royalty.

All such nonsense, if it had not already yielded to riper reason, would ere this have been washed out of us by the blood of a hundred thousand martyrs. The events of recent years have enkindled, let us hope, quite other sentiments in the youth of this generation. May those sentiments find ample nutriment within these precincts evermore.

Soon after the conquest of American independence, Governor Hancock, in his speech at the inauguration of President Willard, eulogized the College as having "been in some sense the parent and nurse of the late happy Revolution in this Commonwealth." Parent and nurse of American nationality,—such was the praise accorded to Harvard by one of the foremost patriots of the Revolution! Never may she cease to deserve that praise! Never may the Mother refuse to acknowledge the seed herself has propagated! Never may her seed be repelled by the Mother's altered mind!

When Protagoras came to Athens to teach in the university as self-appointed professor, or sophist, according to the fashion of that time, it was not to instruct Athenian youth in music or geometry or astronomy, but to teach them the art of being good citizens,—Την πολιταϛ τεχνην, και ποιειν ανδραϛ αγαθουϛ πολιταϛ. That was his profession. With which, as we read, Hippocrates was so well pleased, that he called up Socrates in the middle of the night to inform him of the happy arrival. We have no professorship at Cambridge founded for the express purpose of making good citizens. In the absence of such, may all the professorships work together for that end. The youth intrusted to their tutelage[Pg 307] are soon to take part, if not as legislators, at least as freemen, in the government of our common land. May the dignity and duty and exceeding privilege of an American citizen be impressed upon their minds by all the influences that rule this place! Trust me, Alumni, the country will thank the University more for the loyalty her influences shall foster, than for all the knowledge her schools may impart. Learning is the costly ornament of states, but patriotism is the life of a nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The History of Harvard University, by Josiah Quincy, LL. D., Vol. I. pp. 42, 43. All the facts relating to the history of the College are taken from this work.

[B] The Office and Work of Universities, by John Henry Newman.

[C] St. Augustine records his connection, when a student at Carthage, with the "Eversores" (Destructives), an association which flourished at that university.

[D] Raumer's "History of German Universities." Translated by Frederic B. Perkins.

[E] "C'est ainsi que peu à peu ils [that is, "les lettres"] parvinrent à sapper les fondements du pouvoir féodal et à élever l'étendard royal là où flottait la bannière du baron."—Histoire de l'Université, par M. Eugene Dubarle, Vol. I. p. 135.

THE VOICE.

LIFE ASSURANCE.

One of the subjects which for some time has commanded the public attention is that of Life Assurance: the means by which a man may, through a moderate annual expenditure, make provision for his family when death shall have deprived them of his protection.

The number of companies organized for this purpose, their annual increase, the assiduity with which their agents press their respective claims, the books, pamphlets, and circulars which are disseminated, and the large space occupied by their announcements in the issues of the press, all unite in creating a spirit of inquiry on this interesting subject. We propose in this article to submit a few statements, the collection of which has been greatly furthered by recourse to the treatises of Babbage, Park, Duer, Ellis, Angell, Bunyon, Blayney, and other writers on insurance.

In the early history of insurance, objection was continually made that it was of the nature of a wager, and consequently not only unlawful, but contra bonos mores; yet the courts of law in England from the first drew a distinction between a wager and a contract founded on the principle of indemnity, which principle runs through and underlies the whole subject of insurance. Lord Mansfield denominated insurance "a contract upon speculation," and it has universally been considered as a contract of indemnity against loss or damage arising from some uncertain and future events.[Pg 309]

Insurance may be defined generally as "a contract by which one of the parties binds himself to the other to pay him a sum of money, or otherwise indemnify him, in the case of the happening of a fortuitous event provided for in a general or special manner in the contract, in consideration of the sum of money which the latter party pays or binds himself to pay"; or, in the words of an eminent English judge, "It is a contract to protect men against uncertain events which in any wise may be a disadvantage to them."

The contract securing this indemnity is called a policy, from the Italian polizza d' assicurazione, or di sicurtà, which signifies a memorandum in writing, or bill of security. The sum paid for the indemnity is called a premium, or price; the party taking upon himself the risk being termed the underwriter, because his name is written at the bottom of the policy, while the person protected by the instrument is called the assured. Says one, "The premium paid by the latter and the peril assumed by the former are two correlatives inseparable from each other, and the union constitutes the essence of the contract."

Some writers, Mr. Babbage among others, use the words "assurance" and "insurance" as having distinct meanings; but with all underwriters at this day they are considered synonymous.

Insurance in the first instance was exclusively maritime, and great efforts have been made to prove its antiquity. Some have endeavored, by appeals to Livy, Suetonius, Ulpian, and Cicero, to show that insurance was in use in ancient Rome, and that it was invented at Rhodes a thousand years before the Christian era; while others claim that it existed at Tyre, Carthage, Corinth, Athens, and Alexandria.

There is little doubt, however, that it was first practised by the Lombards, and was introduced into England by a Lombard colony, which in the thirteenth century settled in London, and controlled entirely the foreign trade of the kingdom. After the great fire in London, in 1666, the protection hitherto afforded by insurance to ships only was extended to goods and houses; and insurance as a contract of indemnity was subsequently extended to human life.

It is a singular fact that the subject of effecting insurance on lives was largely and excitingly discussed on the continent of Europe before it had attracted the slightest attention in England; yet at this day it prevails throughout Great Britain, while upon the Continent it is comparatively unknown; its operations there being chiefly confined to France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.

In Holland, as early as 1681, Van Hadden and De Witt produced elaborate works upon the subject, while no publication appeared in England until twenty years after. These writers were followed by Struyck, in 1740, and by Kirseboon, in 1743; while Parcieux, father and son, St. Cyran, and Duvillard, in France, with Euler, Suchmilch, and Wargentin, in Germany, were with great ability pressing the subject upon the notice of their countrymen. But these efforts led to no practical results, and it was reserved for England at a later day to illustrate the principles of life assurance, and enable the public to enjoy extensively its privileges.

Policies of life assurance were issued in England before any companies were organized to prosecute the business. Like marine policies, they were subscribed by one or more individuals; and the first case we find is that of a ship captain, in 1641, whose life had been insured by two persons who had become his bail. The policy was subscribed by individual underwriters, and an able author observes that the case singularly illustrates the connection which probably once existed between life and maritime insurance, and shows how naturally the latter may have sprung from the former.

No business, with the exception, perhaps, of the express system and of photography, has grown in the United States so rapidly as that of life assurance. There is scarcely a State that has not one or more companies organized[Pg 310] for the prosecution of this business. There are six chartered under the laws of Massachusetts, and twenty-six of those organized in other States are doing business in this Commonwealth, These companies had in force, November 1, 1865, 211,537 policies, assuring the sum of $563,396,862.30. In 1830 the New York Life and Trust Company was the only life assurance company in New York. At the close of the year 1865 there were eighteen companies chartered under the laws of that State. They had 101,780 policies in force, assuring the sum of $289,846,316.50, while their gross combined assets reach the sum of $32,296,832.03.

An insurance upon life is defined as "a contract by which the underwriter, for a certain sum proportioned to the age, health, profession, and other circumstances of the person whose life is the object of insurance, engages that that person shall not die within the time limited in the policy; or if he do, that he will pay a sum of money to him in whose favor the policy was granted."

A person desiring to effect an insurance on his life usually procures from the office in which he proposes to insure a blank form, containing a series of interrogatories, all of which must be answered in writing by the applicant. To these answers must be appended the certificate of his usual medical attendant as to his present and general state of health, with a like certificate from an intimate personal friend. The party is then subjected to an examination by the medical examiner of the company, and, if the application is in all respects satisfactory, a policy is issued.

On the death of the party assured, and due proof being made thereof, the company must pay the full sum insured. The time fixed for this payment varies with different companies. Some agree to pay at thirty, some at sixty, and some at ninety days after the proofs of death have been received and duly approved.

The peculiarity of life assurance companies is, that they are required to pay the entire sum assured on the happening of a single event, making the loss a total one; but in fire and marine policies there is a distinction made between total and partial loss.

A clause is usually inserted declaring the policy void in case the assured should fall in a duel, die by the hands of justice, or by his own hand, or while engaged in the violation of any public law. An interesting case in point is reported in the English books. On the 25th of November, 1824, Henry Fauntleroy, a celebrated banker in London, was executed for forgery. The Amicable Society of London, the first company established in England, had written a policy on his life, upon which all the premiums had been paid. The rules of the company declared that in such cases the policy was vitiated, but the clause was not inserted in the instrument. The company resisted payment, but a decision was given sustaining the validity of the contract, which was, however, reversed, on an appeal being made to the House of Lords.

This clause, declaring a policy void in case the assured commits suicide, has given rise to much litigation. Some companies use the word "suicide," while others insert the words "shall die by his own hand"; but the courts of law in various adjudications have considered the expressions as amounting to the same thing. The word "suicide" is not to be found in any English author anterior to the reign of Charles II. Lexicographers trace it to the Latin word suicidum, though that word does not appear in the older Latin dictionaries. It is really derived from two Latin words, se and cædere,—to slay one's self. The great commentator on English law, Sir William Blackstone, defines suicide to be "the act of designedly destroying one's own life. To constitute suicide, the person must be of years of discretion and of sound mind."

In a case submitted to the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Chief-Justice Nelson settled the whole question.[Pg 311] A life company resisted payment of the amount specified in their policy, on the ground that the assured had committed suicide by drowning himself in the Hudson River. To this it was replied, that, when he so drowned himself, he was of unsound mind, and wholly unconscious of the act.

Judge Nelson, after stating the question to be whether the act of self-destruction by a man in a fit of insanity can be deemed a death by his own hand within the meaning of the policy, decided that it could not be so considered. That the terms "commit suicide," and "die by his own hand," as used indiscriminately by different companies, express the same idea, and are so understood by writers in this branch of law. That self-destruction by a man bereft of reason can with no more propriety be ascribed to the act of his own hand, than to the deadly instrument that may have been used for the purpose. That the drowning was no more the act of the assured, in the sense of the law, than if he had been impelled by irresistible physical power; and that the company could be no more exempt from payment, than if his death had been occasioned by any uncontrollable means. That suicide involved the deliberate termination of one's existence while in the full possession of the mental faculties. That self-slaughter by an insane man or a lunatic was not suicide within the meaning of the law.

The whole current of legal decisions, the suggestions thrown out by learned judges, and the growing opinion that no sane man would be guilty of self-slaughter, have induced several new companies to exclude this proviso from their policies, while many older ones have revised their policies and eliminated the obnoxious clause. It is not that any man contemplates the commission of suicide; but every one feels that, if there should be laid upon him that most fearful of all afflictions, insanity, or if, when suffering from disease, he should, in the frenzy of delirium, put an end to his existence, every principle of equity demands that the faithful payments of years should not be lost to his family.

Another important principle, which has involved much discussion, is, that "the party insuring upon a life must have an interest in the life insured." Great latitude has been given in the construction of the law as to this point; the declaration of a real, subsisting interest being all that is required by the underwriters. In fact, the offices are constantly taking insurances where the interest is upon a contingency which may very shortly be determined, and if the parties choose to continue the policy, bona fide, after the interest ceases, they never meet with any difficulty in recovering. So also offices frequently grant policies upon interests so slender that, although it may be difficult to deny some kind of interest, it is such as a court of law would scarcely recognize. This practice of paying upon policies without raising the question of interest is so general, that it has even been allowed in courts of law.

The great advantages derived from life assurance are proved by its rapid progress, both in Great Britain and the United States, after its principles had once been fully explained. As already stated, the first society for the general assurance of life was the Amicable, founded in 1706; but, most unreasonably, its rates of premium were made uniform for all ages assured; nor was any fixed amount guaranteed in case of death. Hence very little was done; and it was not until 1780 that the business of life assurance may be said to have fairly begun. Since then, companies have been formed from time to time, so that at present there are in Great Britain some two hundred in active operation, and the amount assured upon life is estimated at more than £200,000,000.

In America, the first life-assurance company open to all was the Pennsylvania, established in 1812. And though many others, devoted in whole or in part to this object, were formed in the[Pg 312] interim, so little pains was taken to inform the public upon the system, that in 1842 the amount assured probably did not exceed $5,000,000. But, in a Christian country, all material enterprises go swiftly forward, and of late years the progress of life assurance has equalled that of railroads and telegraphs; so that there are in the United States at least fifty companies, which are disbursing in claims, chiefly to widows and orphans, about five millions of dollars annually.

With this large extension of business, the fundamental principles of life assurance are now universally agreed on; but, in carrying them out, there are differences deserving attention.

Life-assurance companies may be divided into three classes,—the stock, the mutual, and the mixed. In the stock company, the management is in the hands of the stockholders, or their agents, with whom the applicant for insurance contracts to pay so much while living, in consideration of a certain sum to be paid to his representatives at his death; and here his connection with it ceases; the profits of the business being divided among the stockholders. In the mutual company the assured themselves receive all the surplus premium or profit. The law of the State of New York passed in 1849 requires that all life-insurance companies organized in the State shall have a capital of at least one hundred thousand dollars. Mutual life-insurance companies organized in that State since 1849 pay only seven per cent on their capital, which their stock by investment may produce. In the mixed companies there are various combinations of the principles peculiar to the other two. They differ from the mutual companies only in the fact that, besides paying the stockholders legal interest, they receive a portion of the profits of the business, which in some cases in this country has caused the capital stock to appreciate in value over three hundred per cent, and in England over five hundred per cent.

To decide which of these is most advantageous to the assured, we must consider the subject of premiums, and understand whence companies derive their surplus, or, as it is sometimes called, the profits. This is easily explained. As the liability to death increases with age, the proper annual premium for assurance would increase with each year of life. But as it is important not to burden age too heavily, and as it is simpler to pay a uniform sum every year, a mean rate is taken,—one too little for old age, but greater than is absolutely necessary to cover the risk in the first years of the assurance. Hence the company receives at first more than it has to pay, and thus accumulates funds to provide for the time when its payments will naturally be in excess of its receipts. Now these funds may be invested so as of themselves to produce an income, and the increase thence derived may, by the magical power of compound interest, reaching through a long series of years, become very large. In forming rates of premium, regard is had to this; but, to gain security in a contract which may extend far into the future, it is prudent to base the calculations on so low a rate of interest that there can be a certainty of obtaining it. The rate adopted is usually three per cent in England, and four or five per cent in this country. But, in point of fact, the American companies now obtain on secure investments six or seven per cent.

Again, in order to cover expenses and provide against possible contingencies, it is common to add to the rates obtained by calculation from correct tables of mortality a certain percentage, called loading, which is usually found more than is necessary, and forms a second source of profit.

Again, most tables of mortality are derived from the experience of whole communities, while all companies now subject applicants to a medical examination, and reject those found diseased; it being possible to discover, through the progress of medical science, even incipient signs of disease. Hence one would expect that among these selected[Pg 313] lives the rates of mortality would be less than by ordinary statistics; and this is confirmed by the published experience of many companies. Here we find a third source of profit.

In these three ways, and others incidental to the business, it happens that all corporations managed with ordinary prudence accumulate a much larger capital than is needed for future losses. The advocates of the stock plan contend that, by a low rate of premium, they furnish their assured with a full equivalent for that division of profits which is the special boast of other companies. In a corporation purely mutual, the whole surplus is periodically applied to the benefit of the assured, either by a dividend in cash, or by equitable additions to the amount assured without increase of premium, or by deducting from future premiums, while the amount assured remains the same. The advantages of the latter system must be evident to every one.

It is of course important in all companies, whether mutual or not, that the officers should be men of integrity, sagacity, and financial experience, as well as that due precautions should be taken in the care and investment of the company's fund; and it is now proved by experience in this country, that, when a company is thus managed, so regular are the rates of mortality, so efficient the safeguards derived from the selection of lives, the assumption of low rates of interest, and the loading of premiums, that no company, when once well established, has ever met with disaster. On the other hand, there has been a rapid accretion of funds, in some instances to the amount of many millions of dollars. The characteristics of a good company are security and assurance at cost. It should sell, not policies merely, but assurance; and it should not make a profit for the capitalist out of the widow and orphan.

The policies issued by life companies vary in their form and nature. The ordinary one is called the life policy, by which the company contracts to pay, on the death of the assured, the sum named in the policy, to the person in whose behalf the assurance is made.

In mutual (cash) companies, when the premium has been paid in full for about sixteen years, judging from past experience, the policy-holder may expect that his annual dividend on policy and additions will exceed the annual premium, thus obviating the necessity of further payments to the company, while his policy annually increases in amount for the remainder of life. But, on the contrary, when the dividends have been anticipated, as in the note system, by giving a note for part of the premium, the policy-holder insuring in this way, although he may at first receive a larger policy than he has the ability to pay for in cash, may lose the chief benefit of life insurance. For should he become unable, either by age, disease, or loss of property, to continue the payment of his premiums, his policy must lapse, because there is no accumulation of profits to his credit on which it can be continued.

In other forms of life policies, called "Non-forfeitable," premiums are made payable in "one," "five," or "ten" annual payments. In all cash companies, and in some of the note companies, after the specified number of premiums have been paid, the policy-holder draws an annual dividend in cash.

A further advantage arising from this plan is, that the policy-holder, at any time after two annual payments have been made, is always entitled to a "paid-up" policy for as many "fifths" or "tenths" of the sum assured as he shall have paid annual premiums. For example: a "five-annual-payment policy" for $10,000, on which three premiums had been paid, would entitle the holder to a "paid-up policy" for $6,000; a "ten-annual-payment policy" for $10,000, on which three payments had been made, would entitle the holder to $3,000; and so on for any number of payments and for any amount, in accordance with the face of the policy.

Another form is denominated the Endowment[Pg 314] Policy, in which the amount assured is payable when the party attains a certain age, or at death, should he die before reaching that age. This policy is rapidly gaining favor, as it provides for the man himself in old age, or for his family in case of his death. It is also fast becoming a favorite form of investment. We can show instances where the policy-holders have received a surplus above all they have paid to the company, with compound interest at six per cent, and no charge whatever for expenses or cost of insurance meanwhile.

The Term Policy, as its name implies, is issued for a term of one or more years.

Policies are also issued on joint lives, payable at the death of the first of two or more parties named in the policy; and on survivorship, payable to a party named in case he survives another.

Some companies require all premiums to be paid in cash, while others take the note of the assured in part payment. These are denominated cash and note companies, and much difference of opinion exists as to their comparative merits.

The latter is at first sight an attractive system, and its advocates present many specious arguments in its favor. The friends of cash payments, however, contend that the note system is detrimental and delusive, from the fact that these notes are liable to assessment, and, in case of death, to be deducted from the amount assured; also that the notes accumulate as the years roll on, the interest growing annually larger, and the total cash payment consequently heavier, while the actual amount of assurance, that is, the difference between its nominal amount and the sum of the notes, steadily lessens; and thus a provision for one's family gradually changes into a burden upon one's self.

But whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the comparative value of various systems, few will deny the advantages which life assurance has conferred upon the public, especially in America, whose middle classes, ambitiously living up to their income, are rich mostly in their labor and their homesteads,—in their earnings rather than their savings; and whose wealthy classes are rich chiefly through the giddy uncertainties of speculation,—magnificent to-day, in ruins to-morrow. In a country like this, no one can estimate the amount of comfort secured by investment in life assurance. It is the one measure of thrift which remains to atone for our extravagance in living and recklessness in trade.

Henry Ward Beecher spoke wisely when he advised all men to seek life assurance. He says:—

"It is every man's duty to provide for his family. That provision must include its future contingent condition. That provision, in so far as it is material, men ordinarily seek to secure by their own accumulations and investments. But all these are uncertain. The man that is rich to-day, by causes beyond his reach is poor to-morrow. A war in China, a revolution in Europe, a rebellion in America, overrule ten thousand fortunes in every commercial community.

"But in life assurance there are no risks or contingencies. Other investments may fail. A house may burn down. Banks may break; and their stock be worthless. Bonds and mortgages may be seized for debt, and all property or evidences of property may fall into the bottomless gulf of bankruptcy. But money secured to your family by life assurance will go to them without fail or interruption, provided you have used due discretion in the selection of a sound and honorable assurance company. Of two courses, one of which may leave your family destitute, and the other of which assures them a comfortable support at your decease, can there be a doubt which is to be chosen? Can there be a doubt about duty?"

A DISTINGUISHED CHARACTER.

In order to prevent conjectures which might not be entirely pleasant to one or two persons whom I have in my mind, I prefer to state, at once and frankly, that I, Dionysius Green, am the author of this article. It requires some courage to make this avowal, I am well aware; and I am prepared to experience a rapid diminution of my present rather extensive popularity. One result I certainly foresee, namely, a great falling-off in the number of applications for autographs ("accompanied with a sentiment"), which I daily receive; possibly, also, fewer invitations to lecture before literary societies next winter. Fortunately, my recent marriage enables me to dispense with a large portion of my popularity, without great inconvenience; or, rather, I am relieved from the very laborious necessity of maintaining it in the face of so many aggressive rivalries.

The day may arrive, therefore, when I shall cease to be a Distinguished Character. Since I have admitted this much, I may as well confess that my reputation—enviable as it may be considered by the public—is of that kind which seems to be meant to run for a certain length of time, at the expiration whereof it must be wound up again. I was fortunate enough to discover this secret betimes, and I have since then known several amiable and worthy persons to slip out of sight, from the lack of it. There was Mr. ——, for example, whose comic articles shook the fat sides of the nation for one summer, and whose pseudonyme was in everybody's mouth. Alas! what he took for perpetual motion was but an eight-day clock, and I need not call your attention to the present dead and leaden stillness of its pendulum.

Although my earliest notoriety was achieved in very much the same way,—that is, by a series of comic sketches, as many of my admirers no doubt remember,—I soon perceived the unstable character of my reputation. I was at the mercy of the next man who should succeed in inventing a new slang, or a funnier way of spelling. These things, in literature, are like "fancy drinks" among the profane. They tickle the palates of the multitude for a while, but they don't wear like the plain old beverages. I saw very plainly, that much more was to be gained, in the long run, by planting myself—not with a sudden and startling jump, but by a graceful, cautious pirouette—upon a basis of the Moral and the Didactic. I should thus reach a class of slow, but very tough stomachs, which would require ample time to assimilate the food I intended to offer. If this were somewhat crude, that would be no objection whatever: they always mistake their mental gripings for the process of digestion. Why, bless your souls! I have known Tupper's "Proverbial Philosophy" to fill one of them to repletion, for the space of ten years!

I owe this resolution to my natural acuteness of perception, but my success in carrying it into execution was partly the result of luck. The field, now occupied by such a crowd, (I name no names,) was at that time nearly clear; and I managed to shift my costume before the public fairly knew what I was about. I found, indeed, that a combination of the two styles enabled me to retain much of my old audience while acquiring the new. It was like singing a hymn of serious admonition to a lively, rattling tune. One is diverted: there is a present sense of fun, while a gentle feeling of the grave truths inculcated lingers in one's mind afterwards. The pious can find no fault with the matter, nor the profane with the manner. Instead of approaching the moral consciousness[Pg 316] of one's readers with stern, lugubrious countenance, and ponderous or lamentable voice, you make your appearance with a smile and a joke, punch the reader playfully in the ribs, and say, as it were, "Ha! ha! I've a good thing to tell you!" Although I have many imitators, some of whom have attained an excellence in the art which may be considered classic, yet I may fairly claim to have originated this branch of literature, and, while it retains its present unbounded popularity, my name cannot wholly perish.

Nevertheless, greatness has its drawbacks. I appeal to all distinguished authors, from Tupper to Weenie Willows, to confirm the truth of this assertion. I have sometimes, especially of late, doubted seriously whether it is a good thing to be distinguished. Alas! my dear young gentleman and lady, whose albums would be so dismally incomplete without my autograph ("accompanied with a sentiment"), would that you could taste the bitter with the sweet,—the honey and aloes of an American author's life! At first, it is exceedingly pleasant. You are like a newly-hatched chicken, or a pup at the end of his nine-days' blindness. You are petted, and stroked, and called sweet names, and fed with dainties, and carried in the arms of the gentlemen, and cuddled in the laps of the ladies. But when you get to be a big dog or a full-grown game-cock, take care! If people would but fancy that you still wore your down or silken skin, they might continue to be delighted with every gambol of your fancy. But they suspect pin-feathers and bristles, whether the latter grow or not; and, after doing their best to spoil you, they suddenly demand the utmost propriety of behavior. However, let me not anticipate. I can still call myself, without the charge of self-flattery, a Distinguished Character; at least I am told so, every day, each person who makes the remark supposing that it is an entirely original and most acceptable compliment. While this distinction lasts, (for I find that I lose it in proportion as I gain in sound knowledge and independent common-sense,) I should like to describe, for the contemplation of future ages, some of the penalties attached to popularity at present.

I was weak enough, I admit, to be immensely delighted with the first which I experienced,—not foreseeing whitherward they led. The timid, enthusiastic notes of girls of fifteen, with the words "sweet" and "exquisite," duly underscored, the letters of aspiring boys, enclosing specimens of their composition, and the touching pleas of individuals of both sexes, in reduced circumstances, were so many evidences of success, which I hugged to my bosom. Reducing the matter to statistics, I have since ascertained that about one in ten of these letters is dictated either by honest sympathy, the warm, uncritical recognition of youth (which I don't suppose any author would diminish, if he could), or the craving for encouragement, under unpropitious circumstances of growth. But how was I, in the beginning, to guess at the motives of the writers? They offered sugar-plums, which I swallowed without a suspicion of the drastic ingredients so many of them contained. Good Mrs. Sigourney kept a journal of her experiences in this line. I wish I had done the same.

The young lady correspondent, I find, in most cases replies to your reply, proposing a permanent correspondence. The young gentleman, who desires, above all things, your "candid opinion of the poems enclosed,—be sure and point out the faults, and how they can be improved"—is highly indignant when you take him at his word, and do so. You receive a letter of defence and explanation, showing that what you consider to be faults are not such. Moreover, his friends have assured him that the poem which you advise him to omit is one of his finest things! The distressed aspirant for literary fame, who only requests that you shall read and correct his or her manuscript, procure a publisher, and prefix a commendatory notice, signed[Pg 317] with your name, to the work, writes that he or she is at last undeceived in regard to the character of authors. "I thank you, Mr. Green, for the lesson! The remembrance of your former struggles is happily effaced in your present success. It is hard for a heart throbbing with warmth to be chilled, and a guileless confidence in human brotherhood to be crushed forever! I will strive to bury my disappointed hopes in my own darkened bosom; and that you may be saved from the experience which you have prepared for another, is the wish of, Sir, yours, ——."

For a day or two I went about with a horrible feeling of dread and remorse. I opened the morning paper with trembling hands, and only breathed freely when I found no item headed "Suicide" in the columns. A year afterwards, chance threw me in the way of my broken-hearted victim. I declare to you I never saw a better specimen of gross animal health. She—no, he (on second thoughts, I won't say which)—was at an evening party, laughing boisterously, with a plate of chicken-salad in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other.

One of my first admirers was a gentleman of sixty, who called upon me with a large roll of manuscript. He had retired from business two years before, so he informed me, and, having always been a great lover of poetry, he determined to fill up the tedium of his life of ease by writing some for himself. Now everybody knows that I am not a poet,—the few patriotic verses which I wrote during the war having simply been the result of excitement,—and why should he apply to me? O, there was a great deal of poetry in my prose, he said. My didactic paper called "Wait for the Wagon!" showed such a knowledge of metaphor! I looked over the innumerable leaves, here and there venturing the remark that "rain" and "shame" were not good rhymes, and that my friend's blank verse had now and then lines of four and six feet. "Poetic license, sir!" was the reply. "I thought you were aware that poets are bound to no rules!"

What could I do with such a man? What, indeed, but to return him the manuscript with that combined gentleness and grace which I have endeavored to cultivate in my demeanor, and to suggest, in the tenderest way, that he should be content to write, and not publish? He got up, stiffened his backbone, placed his conventional hat hard upon his head, gave a look of mingled mortification and wrath, and hurried away without saying a word. That man, I assure you, will be my secret enemy to the day of his death. He is no doubt a literary authority in a small circle of equal calibre. When my name is mentioned, he will sneer down my rising fame, and his sneer will control the sale of half a dozen copies of my last volume.

This is a business view of the subject, I grant; but then I have always followed literature with an eye to business. The position of a popular writer is much more independent than that of a teacher or a clergyman, for which reason I prefer it. The same amount of intellect, made available in a different way, will produce material results just as satisfactory. Compensation, however, is the law of the world; hence I must pay for my independence; and this adventure with the old gentleman is one of the many forms in which the payment is made.

When the applications for autographs first began to pour in upon me, I gladly took a sheet of Delarue's creamiest note-paper and wrote thereon an oracular sentence from one of my most popular papers. After a while my replies degenerated to "Sincerely, Your Friend, Dionysius Green," and finally, (daily blessings come at last to be disregarded,) no application was favored, which did not enclose a postage-stamp. When some school-boy requested an autograph, "accompanied with a sentiment," and forwarded slips of paper on behalf of "two other boys," I sometimes lost my patience, and left the letters unanswered for a month at[Pg 318] a time. There was a man in Tennessee, just before the war, who had a printed circular, with a blank for the author's name; and I know of one author who replied to him with a printed note, and a printed address on the envelope, not a word of manuscript about it!

Next in frequency are the applications for private literary contributions,—such as epithalamia, obituaries, addresses for lovers, and the like. One mourning father wished me to write an article about the death of his little girl, aged four months, assuring me that "her intellect was the astonishment of all who knew her." A young lady wished for something that would "overwhelm with remorse the heart of a gentleman who had broken off an engagement without any cause." A young gentleman, about to graduate, offered five dollars for an oration on "The Past and Probable Future History of the Human Race," long enough to occupy twenty minutes in speaking, and "to be made very fine and flowery." (I had a mind to punish this youth by complying with his request, to the very letter!) It is difficult to say what people won't write about, when they write to a Distinguished Character.

There is a third class of correspondents, whose requests used to astonish me profoundly, until I surmised that their object was to procure an autograph in a roundabout way. One wants to know who is the publisher of your book; one, whether you can give the post-office address of Gordon Cumming or Thomas Carlyle; one, which is the best Latin Grammar; one, whether you know the author of that exquisite poem, "The Isle of Tears"; and one, perhaps, whether Fanny Forrester was the grandmother of Fanny Fern. And when you consider that what letters I get are not a tithe of what older and more widely known authors receive, you may form some idea of the immense number of persons engaged in this sort of correspondence.

But I have not yet come to the worst. So long as you live at home, whether it's in the city or country, (the city would be preferable, if you could keep your name out of the Directory,) the number of applicants in person is limited; and as for the letters, we know that the post-office department is very badly managed, and a great many epistles never reach their destination. Besides, it's astonishing how soon and how easily an author acquires the reputation of being unapproachable. If he don't pour out his heart, in unlimited torrents and cascades of feeling, to a curious stranger, the latter goes away with the report that the author, personally, is "icy, reserved, uncommunicative; in the man, one sees nothing of his works; it is difficult to believe that that cold, forbidding brow conceived, those rigid, unsmiling lips uttered, and that dry, bloodless hand wrote, the fervid passion of"—such or such a book. When I read a description of myself, written in that style, I was furious; but I afterwards noticed that the number of my visitors fell off very rapidly.

Most of us American authors, however, now go to the people, instead of waiting for them to come to us. And this is what I mean by coming to the worst. Four or five years ago, I determined to talk as well as write. Everybody was doing it, and well paid; nothing seemed to be requisite except a little distinction, which I had already acquired by my comic and didactic writings. There was Mr. E—— declaiming philosophy; Drs. B—— and C—— occupying secular pulpits; Mr. C—— inculcating loftier politics; Mr. T—— talking about all sorts of countries and people; Mr. W—— reading his essays in public; and a great many more, whom you all know. Why should I not also "pursue the triumph and partake the gale"? I found that the lecture was in most cases an essay, written in short, pointed sentences, and pleasantly delivered. The audience must laugh occasionally, and yet receive an impression strong enough to last until next morning. The style which, as I said before, I claim to have invented, was the very thing! I noticed,[Pg 319] further, that there was a great deal in the title of the lecture. It must be alliterative, antithetical, or, still better, paradoxical. There was profound skill in Artemus Ward's "Babes in the Wood." Such titles as "Doubts and Duties," "Mystery and Muffins," "Here, There, and Nowhere," "The Elegance of Evil," "Sunshine and Shrapnel," "The Coming Cloud," "The Averted Agony," and "Peeps at Peccadillos," will explain my meaning. The latter, in fact, was the actual title of my first lecture, which I gave with such signal success,—eighty-five times in one winter.

The crowds that everywhere thronged to hear me gave me a new and delicious experience of popularity. How grand it was to be escorted by the president of the society down the central aisle, amid the rustling sound of turning heads, and audible whispers of "There he is! there he is!" And always, when the name of Dionysius Green was announced, the applause which followed! Then the hush of expectation, the faint smile and murmur coming with my first unexpected flash of humor (unexpectedness is one of my strong points), the broad laugh breaking out just where I intended it, and finally the solemn peroration, which showed that I possessed depth and earnestness as well as brilliancy! Well, I must say that the applauses and the fees were honestly earned. I did my best, and the audiences must have been satisfied, or the societies wouldn't have invited me over and over again to the same place.

If my literary style was so admirably adapted to this new vocation, it was, on the other hand, a source of great annoyance. Only a small class was sufficiently enlightened to comprehend my true aim in inculcating moral lessons under a partly humorous guise. All the rest, unfortunately, took me to be either one thing or the other. While some invited me to family prayer-meetings, as the most cheering and welcome relief after the fatigue of speaking, the rougher characters of the place would claim me (on the strength of my earlier writings) as one of themselves, would slap me on the back, call me familiarly "Dionysius," and insist on my drinking with them. Others, again, occupied a middle or doubtful ground; they did not consider that my personal views were strictly defined, and wanted to be enlightened on this or that point of faith. They gave me a deal of trouble. Singularly enough, all these classes began their attacks with the same phrase, "O, we have a right to ask it of you: you're a Distinguished Character, you know!"

It is hardly necessary to say that I am of rather a frail constitution: so many persons have seen me, that the public is generally aware of the fact. A lecture of an hour and a quarter quite exhausts my nervous energy. Moreover, it gives me a vigorous appetite, and my two overpowering desires, after speaking, are, first to eat, and then to sleep. But it frequently happens that I am carried, perforce, to the house of some good but ascetic gentleman, who gives me a glass of cold water, talks until midnight, and then delivers me, more dead than alive, to my bed. I am so sensitive in regard to the relation of guest and host that I can do naught but submit. Astræa, I am told, always asks for what she wants, and does what she feels inclined to do,—indeed, why shouldn't she?—but I am cast in a more timid mould.

There are some small country places which I visit where I have other sufferings to undergo. Being a Distinguished Character, it would be a neglect and a slight if I were left alone for two minutes. And the people seem to think that the most delightful topic of conversation which they can select is—myself. How weary of myself I become! I have wished, a thousand times, that my popular work, "The Tin Trumpet," had never been written. I cannot blame the people, because there are —— and ——, who like nothing better than to be talked about to their faces, and to take the principal part in the conversation. Of course the people think, in regard to lecturers, ex uno disce omnes.[Pg 320]

In travelling by rail, the same thing happens over and over. When I leave a town in the morning, some one is sure to enter the car and greet me in a loud voice: "How are you, Mr. Green? What a fine lecture you gave us last night!" Then the other travellers turn and look at me, listen to catch my words, and tell the new-comers at every station, until I'm afraid to take a nap for fear of snoring, afraid to read lest somebody should be scandalized at my novel, or to lunch lest I should be reported as a drunkard for taking a sip of sherry (the physician prescribes it) from a pocket-flask. At such times I envy the fellow in homespun on the seat in front of me, who loafs, yawns, eats, and drinks as he pleases, and nobody gives him a second glance.

When I am not recognized, I sometimes meet with another experience, which was a little annoying until I became accustomed to it. I am the subject of very unembarrassed conversation, and hear things said of me that sometimes flatter and sometimes sting. It is true that I have learned many curious and unsuspected facts concerning my birth, parentage, history, and opinions; but, on the other hand, I am humiliated by the knowledge of what texture a great deal of my reputation is made. Sometimes I am even confounded with Graves, whom, as an author, I detest; my "Tin Trumpet" being ascribed to him, and his "Drippings from the Living Rock" being admired as mine! At such times, it is very difficult to preserve my incognito. I have wondered that nobody ever reads the truth in my indignant face.

As a consequence of all these trials, I sometimes become impatient, inaccessible to compliment, and—since the truth must be told—a little ill-tempered. My temperament, as my family and friends know, is of an unusually genial and amiable quality, and I never snub an innocent but indiscreet admirer without afterwards repenting of my rudeness. I have often, indeed, a double motive for repentance; for those snubs carry their operation far beyond their recipients, and come back to me sometimes, after months or even years, in "Book Notices," or other newspaper articles. Thus the serene path of literature, which the aspiring youth imagines to be so fair and sunny, overspread with the mellowest ideal tints, becomes rough and cloudy. No doubt I am to blame: possibly I am rightly treated: I "belong to the public," I am told with endless congratulatory iteration, and therefore I ought not to feel the difference between the public's original humoring of my moods, and my present enforced humoring of its moods. But I do feel it, somehow. I have of late entertained the suspicion, that I am not wholly the creation of popular favor. "The public," I am sure, never furnished me with my comic or my lively-serious vein of writing. If either of those veins had not been found good, they would not have encouraged me to work them. I declare, boldly, that I give an ample return for what I get, and when I satisfy curiosity or yield to unreasonable demands upon my patience and good-humor, it is "to boot."

Nevertheless, it is a generous public, on the whole, and gives trouble only through thoughtlessness, not malice. It delights in its favorites, because imagining that they so intensely enjoy its favor. And don't we, after all? (I say we purposely, and my publisher will tell you why.) Now that I have written away my vexation, I recognize very clearly that my object in writing this article is apology rather than complaint. All whom I have ever rudely treated will now comprehend the unfortunate circumstances under which the act occurred. If some one should visit me to-morrow, I have no doubt he will write: "Mr. Dionysius Green is all, and more than all, one would anticipate from reading his charming works. Benevolence beams from his brow, fancy sparkles from his eyes, and genial sympathy with all mankind sits enthroned upon his lips. It was a rare pleasure to me to listen to his conversation, and I could but wish that the many thousands of his admirers might enjoy the privilege of an interview with so Distinguished a Character!"

THE BOBOLINKS.

When Nature had made all her birds,
And had no cares to think on,
She gave a rippling laugh—and out
There flew a Bobolinkon.

She laughed again,—out flew a mate.
A breeze of Eden bore them
Across the fields of Paradise,
The sunrise reddening o'er them.

Incarnate sport and holiday,
They flew and sang forever;
Their souls through June were all in tune,
Their wings were weary never.

The blithest song of breezy farms,
Quaintest of field-note flavors,
Exhaustless fount of trembling trills
And demisemiquavers.

Their tribe, still drunk with air and light
And perfume of the meadow,
Go reeling up and down the sky,
In sunshine and in shadow.

One springs from out the dew-wet grass,
Another follows after;
The morn is thrilling with their songs
And peals of fairy laughter.

From out the marshes and the brook,
They set the tall reeds swinging,
And meet and frolic in the air,
Half prattling and half singing.

When morning winds sweep meadow lands
In green and russet billows,
And toss the lonely elm-tree's boughs,
And silver all the willows,

I see you buffeting the breeze,
Or with its motion swaying,
Your notes half drowned against the wind,
Or down the current playing.

When far away o'er grassy flats,
Where the thick wood commences,
The white-sleeved mowers look like specks
Beyond the zigzag fences,
[Pg 322]

And noon is hot, and barn-roofs gleam
White in the pale-blue distance,
I hear the saucy minstrels still
In chattering persistence.

When Eve her domes of opal fire
Piles round the blue horizon,
Or thunder rolls from hill to hill
A Kyrie Eleison,—

Still, merriest of the merry birds,
Your sparkle is unfading,—
Pied harlequins of June, no end
Of song and masquerading.

What cadences of bubbling mirth
Too quick for bar or rhythm!
What ecstasies, too full to keep
Coherent measure with them!

O could I share, without champagne
Or muscadel, your frolic,
The glad delirium of your joy,
Your fun un-apostolic,

Your drunken jargon through the fields,
Your bobolinkish gabble,
Your fine anacreontic glee,
Your tipsy reveller's babble!

Nay,—let me not profane such joy
With similes of folly,—
No wine of earth could waken songs
So delicately jolly!

O boundless self-contentment, voiced
In flying air-born bubbles!
O joy that mocks our sad unrest,
And drowns our earth-born troubles!

Hope springs with you: I dread no more
Despondency and dullness;
For Good Supreme can never fail
That gives such perfect fullness.

The Life that floods the happy fields
With song and light and color
Will shape our lives to richer states,
And heap our measures fuller.

GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

She recoiled with a violent shudder at first; and hid her face with one hand. Then she gradually stole a horror-stricken side-glance.

She had not looked at it a moment, when she uttered a loud cry, and pointed at its feet with quivering hand.

With this she fell into violent hysterics, and was carried out of the room at Houseman's earnest entreaty.

As soon as she was gone, Mr. Houseman, being freed from his fear that his client would commit herself irretrievably, recovered a show of composure, and his wits went keenly to work.

"On behalf of the accused," said he, "I admit the suicide of some person unknown, wearing heavy hobnailed shoes; probably one of the lower order of people."

This adroit remark produced some little effect, notwithstanding the strong feeling against the accused.

The coroner inquired if there were any bodily marks by which the remains could be identified.

And now they all gathered in great excitement round the corpus delicti; and there, sure enough, was a long black mole.

Then was there a buzz of pity for Griffith Gaunt, followed by a stern murmur of execration.

"Gentlemen," said the coroner solemnly, "behold in this the finger of Heaven. The poor gentleman may well have put off his boots, since, it seems, he left his horse; but he could not take from his forehead his natal sign; and that, by God's will, hath strangely escaped mutilation, and revealed a most foul deed. We must now do our duty, gentlemen, without respect of persons."

A warrant was then issued for the apprehension of Thomas Leicester. And, that same night, Mrs. Gaunt left Hernshaw in her own chariot between two constables, and escorted by armed yeomen.

Her proud head was bowed almost to her knees, and her streaming eyes hidden in her lovely hands. For why? A mob accompanied her for miles, shouting, "Murderess!—Bloody Papist!—Hast done to death the kindliest gentleman in Cumberland. We'll all come to see thee hanged.—Fair face but foul heart!"—and groaning, hissing, and cursing, and indeed only kept from violence by the escort.

She was enceinte into the bargain. By the man she was to be hanged for murdering.

CHAPTER XL.

The county was against her, with some few exceptions. Sir George Neville and Mr. Houseman stood stoutly by her.

Sir George's influence and money obtained her certain comforts in jail; and, in that day, the law of England was so far respected in a jail that untried prisoners were not thrown into cells, nor impeded, as they now are, in preparing their defence.

But they could not do it. She was in a state of dejection bordering upon lethargy.

"If he is dead," said she, "what matters it? If, by God's mercy, he is alive still, he will not let me die for want of a word from him. Impatience hath been my bane. Now, I say,[Pg 324] God's will be done. I am weary of the world."

Houseman tried every argument to rouse her out of this desperate frame of mind; but in vain.

It ran its course, and then, behold, it passed away like a cloud, and there came a keen desire to live and defeat her accusers.

She made Houseman write out all the evidence against her; and she studied it by day, and thought of it by night, and often surprised both her friends by the acuteness of her remarks.

Mr. Atkins discontinued his advertisements. It was Houseman, who now filled every paper with notices informing Griffith Gaunt of his accession to fortune, and entreating him for that, and other weighty reasons, to communicate in confidence with his old friend, John Houseman, attorney at law.

Houseman was too wary to invite him to appear and save his wife; for, in that case, he feared the Crown would use his advertisements as evidence at the trial, should Griffith not appear.

The fact is, Houseman relied more upon certain lacunæ in the evidence, and the absence of all marks of violence, than upon any hope that Griffith might be alive.

Now the female understanding has sometimes remarkable power under such circumstances. By degrees Truth flashes across it, like lightning in the dark.

After many such nightly meditations, Mrs. Gaunt sent one day for Sir George Neville and Mr. Houseman, and addressed them as follows:—"I believe he is alive, and that I can guess where he is at this moment."

"Yes, sirs; so sure as we sit here, he is now at a little inn in Lancashire, called the 'Packhorse,' with a woman he calls his wife." And, with this, her face was scarlet, and her eyes flashed their old fire.

She exacted a solemn promise of secrecy from them, and then she told them all she had learned from Thomas Leicester.

"And so now," said she, "I believe you can save my life, if you think it is worth saving." And with this, she began to cry bitterly.

But Houseman, the practical, had no patience with the pangs of love betrayed, and jealousy, and such small deer, in a client whose life was at stake. "Great Heaven! madam," said he, roughly: "why did you not tell me this before?"

"Because I am not a man—to go and tell everything, all at once," sobbed Mrs. Gaunt. "Besides, I wanted to shield his good name, whose dear life they pretend I have taken."

As soon as she recovered her composure, she begged Sir George Neville to ride to the "Packhorse" for her. Sir George assented eagerly, but asked how he was to find it. "I have thought of that, too," said she. "His black horse has been to and fro. Ride that horse into Lancashire, and give him his head: ten to one but he takes you to the place, or where you may hear of it. If not, go to Lancaster, and ask about the 'Packhorse.' He wrote to me from Lancaster: see." And she showed him the letter.

Sir George embraced with ardor this opportunity of serving her. "I'll be at Hernshaw in one hour," said he, "and ride the black horse south at once."

"Excuse me," said Houseman; "but would it not be better for me to go? As a lawyer, I may be more able to cope with her."

"Nay," said Mrs. Gaunt, "Sir George is young and handsome. If he manages well, she will tell him more than she will you. All I beg of him is to drop the chevalier for this once, and see women with a woman's eyes and not a man's,—see them as they are. Do not go telling[Pg 325] a creature of this kind that she has had my money, as well as my husband, and ought to pity me lying here in prison. Keep me out of her sight as much as you can. Whether Griffith hath deceived her or not, you will never raise in her any feeling but love for him, and hatred for his lawful wife. Dress like a yeoman; go quietly, and lodge in the house a day or two; begin by flattering her; and then get from her when she saw him last, or heard from him. But indeed I fear you will surprise him with her."

"Well, hope, then," said the lady; and a tear trickled down her face in a moment. "But if you do, promise me, on your honor as a gentleman, not to affront him. For I know you think him a villain."

"Well, sir, you have said it to me. Now promise me to say naught to him, but just this: 'Rose Gaunt's mother, she lies in Carlisle jail, to be tried for her life for murdering you. She begs of you not to let her die publicly upon the scaffold; but quietly at home, of her broken heart.'"

"Write it," said Sir George, with the tears in his eyes, "that I may just put it in his hand; for I can never utter your sweet words to such a monster as he is."

Armed with this appeal, and several minute instructions, which it is needless to particularize here, that stanch friend rode into Lancashire.

He seemed all along to know where he was going, and late in the afternoon he turned off the road on to a piece of green: and Sir George, with beating heart, saw right before him the sign of the "Packhorse," and, on coming nearer, the words

He sat down by the fire. But the moment she retired, he got up and made a circuit of the house, looking quietly into every window, to see if he could catch a glance of Griffith Gaunt.

There were no signs of him; and Sir George returned to his parlor heavy-hearted. One hope, the greatest of all, had been defeated directly. Still, it was just possible that Griffith might be away on temporary business.

When he had eaten his supper, he rang the bell, and, taking advantage of a common custom, insisted on the landlord, Thomas Leicester, taking a glass with him.

"Thomas Leicester!" said the girl. "He is not at home. But I'll send Master Vint."

Old Vint came in, and readily accepted an invitation to drink his guest's health.

Sir George found him loquacious, and soon extracted from him that his daughter Mercy was Leicester's wife, that Leicester was gone on a journey, and that Mercy was in care for him. "Leastways," said he, "she is very dull, and cries at times when her mother speaks of him; but she is too close to say much."

The next morning, after breakfast, the servant came and told him Dame Leicester desired to see him.

He was ushered into another parlor, and there he found a grave, comely young woman, seated working, with a child on the floor beside her. She rose quietly; he bowed low and respectfully; she blushed faintly; but, with every appearance of self-possession,[Pg 326] courtesied to him; then eyed him point-blank a single moment, and requested him to be seated.

"I hear, sir," said she, "you did ask my father many questions last night. May I ask you one?"

Now, if Sir George had not been a veracious man, he would have been caught directly. But, although he saw at once the oversight he had committed, he replied, "I had him of a lady in Cumberland, one Mistress Gaunt."

Mercy Vint trembled. "No doubt," said she, softly. "Excuse my question: you shall understand that the horse is well known here."

"Madam," said Sir George, "if you admire the horse, he is at your service for twenty pounds, though indeed he is worth more."

"I thank you, sir," said Mercy; "I have no desire for the horse whatever. And be pleased to excuse my curiosity: you must think me impertinent."

"Nay, madam," said Sir George, "I consider nothing impertinent that hath procured me the pleasure of an interview with you."

He then, as directed by Mrs. Gaunt, proceeded to flatter the mother and the child, and exerted those powers of pleasing which had made him irresistible in society.

Here, however, he found they went a very little way. Mercy did not even smile. She cast out of her dove-like eyes a gentle, humble, reproachful glance, as much as to say, "What! do I seem so vain a creature as to believe all this?"

Sir George himself had tact and sensibility; and by and by became discontented with the part he was playing, under those meek, honest eyes.

There was a pause; and, as her sex have a wonderful art of reading the face, Mercy looked at him steadily, and said, "Yes, sir, 'tis best to be straightforward, especially with women-folk."

Before he could recover this little facer, she said, quietly, "What is your name?"

"Well, George Neville," said Mercy, very slowly and softly, "when you have a mind to tell me what you came here for, and who sent you, you will find me in this little room. I seldom leave it now. I beg you to speak your errand to none but me." And she sighed deeply.

Sir George bowed low, and retired to collect his wits. He had come here strongly prepossessed against Mercy. But, instead of a vulgar, shallow woman, whom he was to surprise into confession, he encountered a soft-eyed Puritan, all unpretending dignity, grace, propriety, and sagacity.

"Flatter her!" said he, to himself. "I might as well flatter an iceberg. Outwit her! I feel like a child beside her."

She had given him a fair opening. She had invited him to tell the truth. But he was afraid to take her at her word; and yet what was the use to persist in what his own eyes told him was the wrong course?

Whilst he hesitated, and debated within himself, a trifling incident turned the scale.

A poor woman came begging, with her child, and was received rather roughly by Harry Vint. "Pass on, good woman," said he, "we want no tramps here."

Then a window was opened on the ground floor, and Mercy beckoned the woman. Sir George flattened himself against the wall, and listened to the two talking.

Mercy examined the woman gently, but shrewdly, and elicited a tale of genuine distress. Sir George then saw her hand out to the woman some warm flannel for herself, a piece of stuff for the child, a large piece of bread, and a sixpence.

He also caught sight of Mercy's dove-like eyes as she bestowed her alms, and they were lit with an inward lustre.[Pg 327]

"She cannot be an ill woman," said Sir George. "I'll e'en go by my own eyes and judgment. After all, Mrs. Gaunt has never seen her, and I have."

Neville entered, and said, abruptly, and with great emotion, "Madam, I see you can feel for the unhappy; so I take my own way now, and appeal to your pity. I have come to speak to you on the saddest business."

"You come from him," said Mercy, closing her lips tight; but her bosom heaved. Her heart and her judgment grappled like wrestlers that moment.

The movement did not escape Sir George: it alarmed him. He remembered what Mrs. Gaunt had said,—that this woman would be sure to hate Gaunt's lawful wife. But it was too late to go back. He did the next best thing, he rushed on.

"O madam," he cried, piteously, "do not set your heart against the most unhappy lady in England. If you did but know her, her nobleness, her misery! Before you steel yourself against me, her friend, let me ask you one question. Do you know where Mrs. Gaunt is at this moment?"

Mercy uttered a scream, and, catching her child up off the floor, began to rock herself and moan over it.

"What is that to me?" cried Mercy, wildly. "He is murdered, he is dead, and my child an orphan." And so she went on moaning and rocking herself.

"But I tell you he is not dead at all," cried Sir George. "'Tis all a mistake. When did you see him last?"

And Mercy, who heard him groan, was heart-broken. She accused herself of Griffith's death. "'T was I who drove him from me," she said. "'T was I who bade him go back to his lawful wife; and the wretch hated him. I sent him to his death." Her grief was wild, and deep. She could not hear Sir George's arguments.

"Madam," said Sir George, dejectedly, "Heaven knows you are in no condition to fathom a mystery that hath puzzled wiser heads than yours or mine; and I am little able to lay the tale before you fairly; for your grief, it moves me deeply, and I could curse myself for putting the matter to you so bluntly and so uncouthly. Permit me to retire a while and compose my own spirits for the task I have undertaken too rashly."

"Nay, George Neville," said Mercy, "stay you there. Only give me a moment to draw my breath."

She struggled hard for a little composure, and, after a shower of tears, she hung her head over the chair like a crushed thing, but made him a sign of attention.

Sir George told the story as fairly as he could; only of course his bias was in favor of Mrs. Gaunt; but as Mercy's bias was against her, this brought the thing nearly square.

When he came to the finding of the body, Mercy was seized with a deadly faintness; and though she did not become insensible, yet she was in no condition to judge, or even to comprehend.[Pg 328]

Sir George was moved with pity, and would have called for help; but she shook her head. So then he sprinkled water on her face, and slapped her hand; and a beautifully moulded hand it was.

When she got a little better she sobbed faintly, and sobbing thanked him, and begged him to go on.

"My mind is stronger than my heart," she said. "I'll hear it all, though it kill me where I sit."

Sir George went on, and, to avoid repetition, I must ask the reader to understand that he left out nothing whatever which has been hitherto related in these pages; and, in fact, told her one or two little things that I have omitted.

Then she turned to Neville, and said, solemnly, "You wish to know the truth in this dark matter: for dark it is in very sooth."

Neville was much impressed by her manner, and answered, respectfully, Yes, he desired to know,—by all means.

Sir George looked surprised, but obeyed, and kneeled down beside her, with his hand in hers.

The dove-like eyes were lifted to heaven and gleamed like opals with an inward and celestial light; the comely face shone with a higher beauty, and the rich voice rose in ardent supplication.

"Thou God, to whom all hearts be known, and no secrets hid from thine eye, look down now on thy servant in sore trouble, that putteth her trust in thee. Give wisdom to the simple this day, and understanding to the lowly. Thou that didst reveal to babes and sucklings the great things that were hidden from the wise, O show us the truth in this dark matter: enlighten us by thy spirit, for His dear sake who suffered more sorrows than I suffer now. Amen. Amen."

Then she looked at Neville; and he said "Amen," with all his heart, and the tears in his eyes.

He had never heard real live prayer before. Here the little hand gripped his hard, as she wrestled; and the heart seemed to rise out of the bosom and fly to Heaven on the sublime and thrilling voice.

They rose, and she sat down; but it seemed as if her eyes once raised to Heaven in prayer could not come down again: they remained fixed and angelic, and her lips still moved in supplication.

Sir George Neville, though a loose liver, was no scoffer. He was smitten with reverence for this inspired countenance, and retired, bowing low and obsequiously.

He took a long walk, and thought it all over. One thing was clear, and consoling. He felt sure he had done wisely to disobey Mrs. Gaunt's instructions, and make a friend of Mercy, instead of trying to set his wits against hers. Ere he returned to the "Packhorse" he had determined to take another step in the right direction. He did not like to agitate her with another interview, so soon. But he wrote her a little letter.

"Madam,—When I came here, I did not know you; and therefore I feared to trust you too far. But, now I do know you for the best woman in England, I take the open way with you.

"Know that Mrs. Gaunt said the man would be here with you; and she charged me with a few written lines to him. She would be angry if she knew that I had shown them to any other. Yet I take on me to show them to you; for I believe you are wiser than any of us, if the truth were known. I do therefore entreat you to read these lines, and tell me whether you think the hand that wrote them can have shed the blood of him to whom they are writ.

[Pg 329]He very soon received a line in reply, written in a clear and beautiful handwriting.

"Mercy Vint sends you her duty; and she will speak to you at nine of the clock to-morrow morning. Pray for light."

At the appointed time, Sir George found her working with her needle. His letter lay on a table before her.

She rose and courtesied to him, and called the servant to take away the child for a while. She went with her to the door and kissed the bairn several times at parting, as if he was going away for good. "I'm loath to let him go," said she to Neville; "but it weakens a mother's mind to have her babe in the room,—takes her attention off each moment. Pray you be seated. Well, sir, I have read these lines of Mistress Gaunt, and wept over them. Methinks I had not done so, were they cunningly devised. Also I lay all night, and thought."

"No doubt, sir; and the upshot is, I don't feel as if he was dead. Thank God."

"That is something," said Neville. But he could not help thinking it was very little; especially to produce in a court of justice.

"And now," said she, thoughtfully, "you say that the real Thomas Leicester was seen thereabouts as well as my Thomas Leicester. Then answer me one little question. What had the real Thomas Leicester on his feet that night?"

"That is very strange. What, so many wise heads have bent over this riddle, and not one to ask how was yon pedler shod!"

"Madam," said Sir George, "our minds were fixed upon the fate of Gaunt. Many did ask how was the pedler armed, but none how was he shod."

"Not he; and that hath an ugly look; for the constables are out after him with hue and cry; but he is not to be found."

"Then," said Mercy, "I must e'en answer my own question. I do know how that pedler was shod. With hobnailed shoes."

"Ay," said Mercy, "she was right. Women do see clearer in some things than men. The pair went from my house to hers. He you call Griffith Gaunt had on a new pair of boots; and by the same token 't was I did pay for them, and there is the receipt in that cupboard: he you call Thomas Leicester went hence in hobnailed shoes. I think the body they found was the body of Thomas Leicester, the pedler. May God have mercy on his poor unprepared soul."

Sir George uttered a joyful exclamation. But the next moment he had a doubt. "Ay, but," said he, "you forget the mole! 'T was on that they built."

"I forget naught," said Mercy, calmly. "The pedler had a black mole over his left temple. He showed it me in this very room. You have found the body of Thomas Leicester, and Griffith Gaunt is hiding from the law that he hath broken. He is afeared of her and her friends, if he shows his face in Cumberland; he is afeared of my folk, if he be seen in Lancashire. Ah, Thomas, as if I would let them harm thee."

Sir George Neville walked to and fro in grand excitement. "O blessed day that I came hither! Madam, you are an angel. You will save an innocent, broken-hearted lady from death and dishonor. Your good heart and rare wit have read in a moment the dark riddle that hath puzzled a county."

"George," said Mercy, gravely, "you have gotten the wrong end of the stick.[Pg 330] The wise in their own conceit are blinded. In Cumberland, where all this befell, they went not to God for light, as you and I did, George."

He kissed it devoutly, and owned afterward that it was the proudest moment of his life, when that sweet Puritan gave him her neat hand so cordially, with a pressure so gentle yet frank.

And now came the question how they were to make a Cumberland jury see this matter as they saw it.

"Say rather an injured saint. You have nothing to be ashamed of. All good men would feel for you."

Mercy shook her head. "Ay, but the women. Shame is shame with us. Right or wrong goes for little. Nay, I hope to do better for you than that. I must find him, and send him to deliver her. 'Tis his only chance of happiness."

She then asked him if he would draw up an advertisement of quite a different kind from those he had described to her.

"If Thomas Leicester, who went from the 'Packhorse' two months ago, will come thither at once, Mercy will be much beholden to him, and tell him strange things that have befallen."

Sir George then, at her request, rode over to Lancaster, and inserted the above in the county paper, and also in a small sheet that was issued in the city three times a week. He had also handbills to the same effect printed, and sent into Cumberland and Westmoreland. Finally, he sent a copy to his man of business in London, with orders to insert it in all the journals.

The next day he bade her farewell, and away for Carlisle. It was a two days' journey. He reached Carlisle in the evening, and went all glowing to Mrs. Gaunt. "Madam," said he, "be of good cheer. I bless the day I went to see her; she is an angel of wit and goodness."

He then related to her, in glowing terms, most that had passed between Mercy and him. But, to his surprise, Mrs. Gaunt wore a cold, forbidding air.

"This is all very well," said she. "But 't will avail me little unless he comes before the judge and clears me; and she will never let him do that."

"Nay, madam, not so simple but I can tell a good woman from a bad one, and a true from a false."

"Ay," said the lady. "Think you I cannot tell? Don't deceive yourself. You have gone and fallen in love with her. At your years! Not that 'tis any business of mine."

"Well, madam," said Sir George, stiffly, "say what you please on that score; but at least welcome my good news."

Mrs. Gaunt begged him to excuse her petulance, and thanked him kindly for all he had just done. But the next moment she rose from her chair in great agitation, and burst out, "I'd as lief die as owe anything to that woman."

"Her acts! She has done nothing, but make fair promises; and that has blinded you. Women of this sort are[Pg 331] very cunning, and never show their real characters to a man. No more; prithee mention not her name to me. It makes me ill. I know he is with her at this moment Ah, let me die, and be forgotten, since I am no more beloved."

Poor Sir George was moved and melted, and set himself to flatter and console this impracticable lady, who hated her best friend in this sore strait, for being what she was herself, a woman; and was much less annoyed at being hanged than at not being loved.

When she was a little calmer, he left her, and rode off to Houseman. That worthy was delighted.

"Get her to swear to those hobnailed shoes," said he, "and we shall shake them." He then let Sir George know that he had obtained private information which he would use in cross-examining a principal witness for the crown. "However," he added, "do not deceive yourself, nothing can make the prisoner really safe but the appearance of Griffith Gaunt. He has such strong motives for coming to light. He is heir to a fortune, and his wife is accused of murdering him. The jury will never believe he is alive till they see him. That man's prolonged disappearance is hideous. It turns my blood cold when I think of it."

"Do not despair on that score," said Neville. "I believe our good angel will produce him."

Three days only before the assizes, came the long-expected letter from Mercy Vint. Sir George tore it open, but bitter was his disappointment. The letter merely said that Griffith had not appeared in answer to her advertisements, and she was sore grieved and perplexed.

Houseman shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "Drain the water? Let the crown do that. We should but fish up more trouble. And prayers quo' she! 'Tis not prayers we want, but evidence."

He sent his clerk off to travel post night and day, and subpœna Mercy, and bring her back with him to the trial. She was to have every comfort on the road, and be treated like a duchess.

The evening before the assizes, Mrs. Gaunt's apartments were Mr. Houseman's head-quarters, and messages were coming and going all day, on matters connected with the defence.

Just at sunset, up rattled a post-chaise, and the clerk got out and came haggard and bloodshot before his employer. "The witness has disappeared, sir. Left home last Tuesday, with her child, and has never been seen nor heard of since."

Here was a terrible blow. They all paled under it: it seriously diminished the chances of an acquittal.

She turned to Sir George Neville, with a sweet smile. "The noble heart sees base things noble. No wonder then an artful woman deluded you. He has left England with her, and condemned me to the gallows, in cold blood. So be it. I shall defend myself."

She then sat down with Mr. Houseman, and went through the written case he had prepared for her, and showed him notes she had taken of full a hundred criminal trials great and small.

While they were putting their heads together, Sir George sat in a brown study, and uttered not a word. Presently he got up a little brusquely, and said, "I'm going to Hernshaw."

Sir George uttered this in a very[Pg 332] curious way, half ashamed, half resolute, and retired before Mrs. Gaunt could vent in speech the surprise and indignation that fired her eye.

Houseman implored her not to heed Sir George and his vagaries, but to bend her whole mind on those approved modes of defence with which he had supplied her.

"We have lost an invaluable witness in that woman," said he. "I was mad to think she would come."

Mrs. Gaunt shivered with repugnance. "I would not have her come, for all the world," said she. "For Heaven's sake never mention her name to me. I want help from none but friends. Send Mrs. Houseman to me in the morning; and do not distress yourself so. I shall defend myself far better than you think. I have not studied a hundred trials for naught."

Thus the prisoner cheered up her attorney, and soon after insisted on his going home to bed; for she saw he was worn out by his exertions.

A few short hours, and she was to be tried for her life: tried, not by the All-wise Judge, but by fallible men, and under a system most unfavorable to the accused.

Worse than all this, she was a Papist; and, as ill-luck would have it, since her imprisonment an alarm had been raised that the Pretender meditated another invasion. This report had set jurists very much against all the Romanists in the country, and had already perverted justice in one or two cases, especially in the North.

She spent the early part of the night in studying her defence. Then she laid it quite aside, and prayed long and fervently. Towards morning she fell asleep from exhaustion.

When she awoke, Mrs. Houseman was sitting by her bedside, looking at her, and crying.

Mrs. Gaunt was prevailed on to eat a little toast and drink a glass of wine, and then she sat waiting her dreadful summons.

At last, about noon, came a message to say that the grand jury had found a true bill against her.

She made her toilet carefully, and passed with her attendant into a small room under the court.

Presently she heard a voice above her cry out, "The King versus Catharine Gaunt."

She mounted some steps, badly lighted, and found herself in the glare of day, and greedy eyes, in the felon's dock.

In a matter entirely strange, we seldom know beforehand what we can do, and how we shall carry ourselves. Mrs. Gaunt no sooner set her foot in that dock, and saw the awful front of Justice face to face, than her tremors abated, and all her powers awoke, and she thrilled with love of life, and bristled with all those fine arts of defence that Nature lends to superior women.

She entered on that defence before she spoke a word; for she attacked the prejudices of the court, by deportment.

She courtesied reverently to the Judge, and contrived to make her reverence seem a willing homage, unmixed with fear.

She cast her eyes round and saw the court thronged with ladies and gentlemen she knew. In a moment she read in their eyes that only two or three were on her side. She bowed to those only; and they returned her[Pg 333] courtesy. This gave an impression (a false one) that the gentry sympathized with her.

After a little murmur of functionaries, the Clerk of Arraigns turned to the prisoner, and said, in a loud voice, "Catharine Gaunt, hold up thy hand."

She held up her hand, and he recited the indictment, which charged that, not having the fear of God before her eyes, but being moved by the instigation of the Devil, she had on the fifteenth of October, in the tenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, aided and abetted one Thomas Leicester in an assault upon one Griffith Gaunt, Esq., and him, the said Griffith Gaunt, did with force and arms assassinate and do to death, against the peace of our said Lord the King, his crown and dignity.

After reading the indictment, the Clerk of Arraigns turned to the prisoner: "How sayest thou, Catharine Gaunt; art thou guilty of the felony and murder whereof thou standest indicted,—or not guilty?"

Mr. Whitworth, the junior counsel for the crown, then rose to open the case; but the prisoner, with a pale face, but most courteous demeanor, begged his leave to make a previous motion to the court. Mr. Whitworth bowed, and sat down. "My Lord," said she, "I have first a favor to ask; and that favor, methinks, you will grant, since it is but justice, impartial justice. My accuser, I hear, has two counsel; both learned and able. I am but a woman, and no match for their skill Therefore I beg your Lordship to allow me counsel on my defence, to matter of fact as well as of law. I know this is not usual; but it is just, and I am informed it has sometimes been granted in trials of life and death, and that your Lordship hath the power, if you have the will, to do me so much justice."

The Judge looked towards Mr. Serjeant Wiltshire, who was the leader on the other side. He rose instantly and replied to this purpose: "The prisoner is misinformed. The truth is, that from time immemorial, and down to the other day, a person indicted for a capital offence was never allowed counsel at all, except to matters of law, and these must be started by himself. By recent practice the rule hath been so far relaxed that counsel have sometimes been permitted to examine and cross-examine witnesses for a prisoner; but never to make observations on the evidence, nor to draw inferences from it to the point in issue."

Mrs. Gaunt. So, then, if I be sued for a small sum of money, I may have skilled orators to defend me against their like. But if I be sued for my life and honor, I may not oppose skill to skill, but must stand here a child against you that are masters. 'Tis a monstrous iniquity, and you yourself, sir, will not deny it.

Serjeant Wiltshire. Madam, permit me. Whether it be a hardship to deny full counsel to prisoners in criminal cases, I shall not pretend to say; but if it be, 'tis a hardship of the law's making, and not of mine nor of my lord's; and none have suffered by it (at least in our day) but those who had broken the law.

The Serjeant then stopped a minute, and whispered with his junior. After which he turned to the Judge. "My Lord, we that are of counsel for the crown desire to do nothing that is hard where a person's life is at stake. We yield to the prisoner any indulgence for which your Lordship can find a precedent in your reading; but no more: and so we leave the matter to you."

The Crier. Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! His Majesty's Justices do strictly charge all manner of persons to keep silence, on pain of imprisonment.

The Judge. Prisoner, what my Brother Wiltshire says, the law is[Pg 334] clear in. There is no precedent for what you ask, and the contrary practice stares us in the face for centuries. What seems to you a partial practice, and, to be frank, some learned persons are of your mind, must be set against this,—that in capital cases the burden of proof lies on the crown, and not on the accused. Also it is my duty to give you all the assistance I can, and that I shall do. Thus then it is: you can be allowed counsel to examine your own witnesses, and cross-examine the witnesses for the crown, and speak to points of law, to be started by yourself,—but no further.

He then asked her what gentleman there present he should assign to her for counsel.

Her reply to this inquiry took the whole court by surprise, and made her solicitor, Houseman, very miserable. "None, my Lord," said she. "Half-justice is injustice; and I will lend it no color. I will not set able men to fight for me with their hands tied, against men as able whose hands be free. Counsel, on terms so partial, I will have none. My counsel shall be three, and no more,—Yourself, my Lord, my Innocence, and the Lord God Omniscient."

These words, grandly uttered, caused a dead silence in the court, but only for a few moments. It was broken by the loud mechanical voice of the crier, who proclaimed silence, and then called the names of the jury that were to try this cause.

Mrs. Gaunt listened keenly to the names,—familiar and bourgeois names, that now seemed regal; for they who owned them held her life in their hands.

"Joseph King, look upon the prisoner.—You shall well and truly try, and true deliverance make, between our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, whom you shall have in charge, and a true verdict give, according to the evidence. So help you God."

Mr. Whitworth, for the crown, then opened the case, but did little more than translate the indictment into more rational language.

He sat down, and Serjeant Wiltshire addressed the court somewhat after this fashion:—

"May it please your Lordship, and you, gentlemen of the jury, this is a case of great expectation and importance. The prisoner at the bar, a gentlewoman by birth and education, and, as you must have already perceived, by breeding also, stands indicted for no less a crime than murder.

"I need not paint to you the heinousness of this crime: you have but to consult your own breasts. Who ever saw the ghastly corpse of the victim weltering in its blood, and did not feel his own blood run cold through his veins? Has the murderer fled? With what eagerness do we pursue! with what zeal apprehend! with what joy do we bring him to justice! Even the dreadful sentence of death does not shock us, when pronounced upon him. We hear it with solemn satisfaction; and acknowledge the justice of the Divine sentence, 'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.'

"But if this be the case in every common murder, what shall be thought of her who has murdered her husband,—the man in whose arms she has lain, and whom she has sworn at God's altar to love and cherish? Such a murderer is a robber as well as an assassin; for she robs her own children of their father, that tender parent, who can never be replaced in this world.

"Gentlemen, it will, I fear, be proved that the prisoner at the bar hath been guilty of murder in this high degree; and, though I will endeavor rather to extenuate than to aggravate, yet I trust [sic] I have such a history to open as will shock the ears of all who hear me.

"Mr. Griffith Gaunt, the unfortunate deceased, was a man of descent and worship. As to his character, it was inoffensive. He was known as a worthy, kindly gentleman, deeply attached[Pg 335] to her who now stands accused of his murder. They lived happily together for some years; but, unfortunately, there was a thorn in the rose of their wedded life: he was of the Church of England; she was, and is, a Roman Catholic. This led to disputes; and no wonder, since this same unhappy difference hath more than once embroiled a nation, let alone a single family.

"Well, gentlemen, about a year ago there was a more violent quarrel than usual between the deceased and the prisoner at the bar; and the deceased left his home for several months.

"He returned upon a certain day in this year, and a reconciliation, real or apparent, took place. He left home again soon afterwards, but only for a short period. On the 15th of last October he suddenly returned for good, as he intended; and here begins the tragedy, to which what I have hitherto related was but the prologue.

"Scarce an hour before he came, one Thomas Leicester entered the house. Now this Thomas Leicester was a creature of the prisoner's. He had been her gamekeeper, and was now a pedler. It was the prisoner who set him up as a pedler, and purchased the wares to start him in his trade.

"Gentlemen, this pedler, as I shall prove, was concealed in the house when the deceased arrived. One Caroline Ryder, who is the prisoner's gentlewoman, was the person who first informed her of Leicester's arrival, and it seems she was much moved: Mrs. Ryder will tell you she fell into hysterics. But, soon after, her husband's arrival was announced, and then the passion was of a very different kind. So violent was her rage against this unhappy man that, for once, she forgot all prudence, and threatened his life before a witness. Yes, gentlemen, we shall prove that this gentlewoman, who in appearance and manners might grace a court, was so transported out of her usual self that she held up a knife,—a knife, gentlemen,—and vowed to put it into her husband's heart. And this was no mere temporary ebullition of wrath. We shall see presently that, long after she had had time to cool, she repeated this menace to the unfortunate man's face. The first threat, however, was uttered in her own bedroom, before her confidential servant, Caroline Ryder aforesaid. But now the scene shifts. She has, to all appearance, recovered herself, and sits smiling at the head of her table; for, you must know, she entertained company that night,—persons of the highest standing in the county.

"Presently her husband, all unconscious of the terrible sentiments she entertained towards him, and the fearful purpose she had announced, enters the room, makes obeisance to his guests, and goes to take his wife's hand.

"What does she? She draws back with so strange a look, and such forbidding words, that the company were disconcerted. Consternation fell on all present; and erelong they made their excuses, and left the house. Thus the prisoner was left alone with her husband; but, meantime, curiosity had been excited by her strange conduct, and some of the servants, with foreboding hearts, listened at the door of the dining-room. What did they hear, gentlemen? A furious quarrel, in which, however, the deceased was comparatively passive, and the prisoner again threatened his life, with vehemence. Her passion, it is clear, had not cooled.

"Now it may fairly be alleged, on behalf of the prisoner, that the witnesses for the crown were on one side of the door, the prisoner and the deceased on the other, and that such evidence should be received with caution. I grant this—where it is not sustained by other circumstances, or by direct proofs. Let us then give the prisoner the benefit of this doubt, and let us inquire how the deceased himself understood her,—he, who not only heard the words, and the accents, but saw the looks, whatever they were, that accompanied them.

"Gentlemen, he was a man of known courage and resolution; yet he was found, after this terrible interview, much cowed and dejected. He spoke to Mrs. Ryder of his death as an event not far[Pg 336] distant, and so went to his bedroom in a melancholy and foreboding state. And where was that bedroom? He was thrust, by his wife's orders, into a small chamber, and not allowed to enter hers,—he, the master of the house, her husband, and her lord.

"But his interpretation of the prisoner's words did not end there. He left us a further comment by his actions next ensuing. He dared not—(I beg pardon, this is my inference: receive it as such)—he did not, remain in that house a single night. He at all events bolted his chamber door inside; and in the very dead of night, notwithstanding the fatigues of the day's journey, (for he had ridden some distance,) he let himself out by the window, and reached the ground safely, though it was a height of fourteen feet,—a leap, gentlemen, that few of us would venture to take. But what will not men risk when destruction is at their heels? He did not wait even to saddle his horse, but fled on foot. Unhappy man, he fled from danger, and met his death.

"From the hour when he went up to bed, none of the inmates of the house ever saw Griffith Gaunt alive; but one Thomas Hayes, a laborer, saw him walking in a certain direction at one o'clock that morning; and behind him, gentlemen, there walked another man.

"Who was that other man?

"When I have told you (and this is an essential feature of the case) how the prisoner was employed during the time that her husband lay quaking in his little room, waiting an opportunity to escape,—when I have told you this, I fear you will divine who it was that followed the deceased, and for what purpose.

"Gentlemen, when the prisoner had threatened her husband in person, as I have described, she retired to her own room, but not to sleep. She ordered her maid, Mrs. Ryder, to bring Thomas Leicester to her chamber. Yes, gentlemen, she received this pedler, at midnight, in her bedchamber.

"Now, an act so strange as this admits, I think, but of two interpretations. Either she had a guilty amour with this fellow, or she had some extraordinary need of his services. Her whole character, by consent of the witnesses, renders it very improbable that she would descend to a low amour. Moreover, she acted too publicly in the matter. The man, as we know, was her tool, her creature: she had bought his wares for him, and set him up as a pedler. She openly summoned him to her presence, and kept him there about half an hour.

"He went from her, and very soon after is seen, by Thomas Hayes, following Griffith Gaunt, at one o'clock in the morning,—that Griffith Gaunt who after that hour was never seen alive.

"Gentlemen, up to this point, the evidence is clear, connected, and cogent; but it rarely happens in cases of murder that any human eye sees the very blow struck. The penalty is too severe for such an act to be done in the presence of an eyewitness; and not one murderer in ten could be convicted without the help of circumstantial evidence.

"The next link, however, is taken up by an ear-witness; and, in some cases, the ear is even better evidence than the eye,—for instance, as to the discharge of firearms,—for, by the eye alone, we could not positively tell whether a pistol had gone off or had but flashed in the pan. Well, then, gentlemen, a few minutes after Mr. Gaunt was last seen alive,—which was by Thomas Hayes,—Mrs. Ryder, who had retired to her bedroom, heard the said Gaunt distinctly cry for help; she also heard a pistol-shot discharged. This took place by the side of a lake or large pond near the house, called the mere. Mrs. Ryder alarmed the house, and she and the other servants proceeded to her master's room. They found it bolted from the inside. They broke it open. Mr. Gaunt had escaped by the window, as I have already told you.

"Presently in comes the prisoner from out of doors. This was at one o'clock in the morning. Now she appears[Pg 337] to have seen at once that she must explain her being abroad at that time, so she told Mrs. Ryder she had been out—praying."

"Is that credible? Do people go out of doors at one o'clock in the morning, to pray? Nay, but I fear it was to do an act that years of prayer and penitence cannot efface.

"From that moment Mr. Gaunt was seen no more among living men. And what made his disappearance the more mysterious was that he had actually at this time just inherited largely from his namesake, Mr. Gaunt of Biggleswade; and his own interest, and that of the other legatees, required his immediate presence. Mr. Atkins, the testator's solicitor, advertised for this unfortunate gentleman; but he did not appear to claim his fortune. Then plain men began to put this and that together, and cried out, 'Foul play!'

"Justice was set in motion at last, but was embarrassed by the circumstance that the body of the deceased could not be found.

"At last, Mr. Atkins, the solicitor, being unable to get the estate I have mentioned administered, for want of proof of Griffith Gaunt's decease, entered heartily in this affair, on mere civil grounds. He asked the prisoner, before several witnesses, if she would permit him to drag that piece of water by the side of which Mr. Gaunt was heard to cry for help and, after that seen no more.

"The prisoner did not reply, but Mr. Houseman, her solicitor, a very worthy man, who has, I believe, or had, up to that moment, a sincere conviction of her innocence, answered for her, and told Mr. Atkins he was welcome to drag it or drain it. Then the prisoner said nothing. She fainted away.

"After this, you may imagine with what expectation the water was dragged. Gentlemen, after hours of fruitless labor, a body was found.

"But here an unforeseen circumstance befriended the prisoner. It seems that piece of water swarms with enormous pike and other ravenous fish. These had so horribly mutilated the deceased, that neither form nor feature remained to swear by; and, as the law wisely and humanely demands that in these cases a body shall be identified beyond doubt, justice bade fair to be baffled again. But lo! as often happens in cases of murder, Providence interposed and pointed with unerring finger to a slight, but infallible mark. The deceased gentleman was known to have a large mole over his left temple. It had been noticed by his servants and his neighbors. Well, gentlemen, the greedy fish had spared this mole,—spared it, perhaps, by His command, who bade the whale swallow Jonah, yet not destroy him. There it was, clear and infallible. It was examined by several witnesses, it was recognized. It completed that chain of evidence, some of it direct, some of it circumstantial, which I have laid before you very briefly, and every part of which I shall now support by credible witnesses."

He called thirteen witnesses, including Mr. Atkins, Thomas Hayes, Jane Banister, Caroline Ryder, and others; and their evidence in chief bore out every positive statement the counsel had made.

In cross-examining these witnesses, Mrs. Gaunt took a line that agreeably surprised the court. It was not for nothing she had studied a hundred trials, with a woman's observation and patient docility. She had found out how badly people plead their own causes, and had noticed the reasons: one of which is that they say too much, and stray from the point. The line she took, with one exception, was keen brevity.

THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866.

IX.

HOW SHALL WE BE AMUSED?

"One, two, three, four,—this makes the fifth accident on the Fourth of July, in the two papers I have just read," said Jenny.

"A very moderate allowance," said Theophilus Thoro, "if you consider the Fourth as a great national saturnalia, in which every boy in the land has the privilege of doing whatever is right in his own eyes."

"The poor boys!" said Mrs. Crowfield. "All the troubles of the world are laid at their door."

"Well," said Jenny, "they did burn the city of Portland, it appears. The fire arose from fire-crackers, thrown by boys among the shavings of a carpenter's shop,—so says the paper."

"And," said Rudolph, "we surgeons expect a harvest of business from the Fourth, as surely as from a battle. Certain to be woundings, fractures, possibly amputations, following the proceedings of our glorious festival."

"Why cannot we Americans learn to amuse ourselves peaceably, like other nations?" said Bob Stephens. "In France and Italy, the greatest national festivals pass off without fatal accident, or danger to any one. The fact is, in our country we have not learned how to be amused. Amusement has been made of so small account in our philosophy of life, that we are raw and unpractised in being amused. Our diversions, compared with those of the politer nations of Europe, are coarse and savage,—and consist mainly in making disagreeable noises and disturbing the peace of the community by rude uproar. The only idea an American boy associates with the Fourth of July is that of gunpowder in some form, and a wild liberty to fire off pistols in all miscellaneous directions, and to throw fire-crackers under the heels of horses, and into crowds of women and children, for the fun of seeing the stir and commotion thus produced. Now take a young Parisian boy and give him a fête, and he conducts himself with greater gentleness and good breeding, because he is part of a community in which the art of amusement has been refined and perfected, so that he has a thousand resources beyond the very obvious one of making a great banging and disturbance.

"Yes," continued Bob Stephens, "the fact is, that our grim old Puritan fathers set their feet down resolutely on all forms of amusement; they would have stopped the lambs from wagging their tails, and shot the birds for singing, if they could have had their way; and in consequence of it, what a barren, cold, flowerless life is our New England existence! Life is all, as Mantalini said, one 'demd horrid grind.' 'Nothing here but working and going to church,' said the German emigrants,—and they were about right. A French traveller, in the year 1837, says that attending the Thursday-evening lectures and church prayer-meetings was the only recreation of the young people of Boston; and we can remember the time when this really was no exaggeration. Think of that, with all the seriousness of our Boston east winds to give it force, and fancy the provision for amusement in our society! The consequence is, that boys who have the longing for amusement strongest within them, and plenty of combativeness to back it, are the standing terror of good society, and our Fourth of July is a day of fear to all invalids and persons of delicate nervous organization, and of real, appreciable danger of life and limb to every one."[Pg 339]

"Well, Robert," said my wife, "though I agree with you as to the actual state of society in this respect, I must enter my protest against your slur on the memory of our Pilgrim fathers."

"Yes," said Theophilus Thoro, "the New-Englanders are the only people, I believe, who take delight in vilifying their ancestry. Every young hopeful in our day makes a target of his grandfather's gravestone, and fires away, with great self-applause. People in general seem to like to show that they are well-born, and come of good stock; but the young New-Englanders, many of them, appear to take pleasure in insisting that they came of a race of narrow-minded, persecuting bigots.

"It is true, that our Puritan fathers saw not everything. They made a state where there were no amusements, but where people could go to bed and leave their house doors wide open all night, without a shadow of fear or danger, as was for years the custom in all our country villages. The fact is, that the simple early New England life, before we began to import foreigners, realized a state of society in whose possibility Europe would scarcely believe. If our fathers had few amusements, they needed few. Life was too really and solidly comfortable and happy to need much amusement.

"Look over the countries where people are most sedulously amused by their rulers and governors. Are they not the countries where the people are most oppressed, most unhappy in their circumstances, and therefore in greatest need of amusement? It is the slave who dances and sings, and why? Because he owns nothing, and can own nothing, and may as well dance and forget the fact. But give the slave a farm of his own, a wife of his own, and children of his own, with a school-house and a vote, and ten to one he dances no more. He needs no amusement, because he is happy.

"The legislators of Europe wished nothing more than to bring up a people who would be content with amusements, and not ask after their rights or think too closely how they were governed. 'Gild the dome of the Invalides,' was Napoleon's scornful prescription, when he heard the Parisian population were discontented. They gilded it, and the people forgot to talk about anything else. They were a childish race, educated from the cradle on spectacle and show, and by the sight of their eyes could they be governed. The people of Boston, in 1776, could not have been managed in this way, chiefly because they were brought up in the strict schools of the fathers."

"But don't you think," said Jenny, "that something might be added and amended in the state of society our fathers established here in New England? Without becoming frivolous, there might be more attention paid to rational amusement."

"Certainly," said my wife, "the State and the Church both might take a lesson from the providence of foreign governments, and make liberty, to say the least, as attractive as despotism. It is a very unwise mother that does not provide her children with play-things."

"And yet," said Bob, "the only thing that the Church has yet done is to forbid and to frown. We have abundance of tracts against dancing, whist-playing, ninepins, billiards, operas, theatres,—in short, anything that young people would be apt to like. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church refused to testify against slavery, because of political diffidence, but made up for it by ordering a more stringent crusade against dancing. The theatre and opera grow up and exist among us like plants on the windy side of a hill, blown all awry by a constant blast of conscientious rebuke. There is really no amusement young people are fond of, which they do not pursue, in a sort of defiance of the frown of the peculiarly religious world. With all the telling of what the young shall not do, there has been very little telling what they shall do.[Pg 340]

"The whole department of amusements—certainly one of the most important in education—has been by the Church made a sort of outlaws' ground, to be taken possession of and held by all sorts of spiritual ragamuffins; and then the faults and short-comings resulting from this arrangement have been held up and insisted on as reasons why no Christian should ever venture into it.

"If the Church would set herself to amuse her young folks, instead of discussing doctrines and metaphysical hair-splitting, she would prove herself a true mother, and not a hard-visaged step-dame. Let her keep this department, so powerful and so difficult to manage, in what are morally the strongest hands, instead of giving it up to the weakest.

"I think, if the different churches of a city, for example, would rent a building where there should be a billiard-table, one or two ninepin-alleys, a reading-room, a garden and grounds for ball-playing or innocent lounging, that they would do more to keep their young people from the ways of sin than a Sunday school could. Nay, more: I would go further. I would have a portion of the building fitted up with scenery and a stage, for the getting up of tableaux or dramatic performances, and thus give scope for the exercise of that histrionic talent of which there is so much lying unemployed in society.

"Young people do not like amusements any better for the wickedness connected with them. The spectacle of a sweet little child singing hymns, and repeating prayers, of a pious old Uncle Tom dying for his religion, has filled theatres night after night, and proved that there really is no need of indecent or improper plays to draw full houses.

"The things that draw young people to places of amusement are not at first gross things. Take the most notorious public place in Paris,—the Jardin Mabille, for instance,—and the things which give it its first charm are all innocent and artistic. Exquisite beds of lilies, roses, gillyflowers, lighted with jets of gas so artfully as to make every flower translucent as a gem; fountains where the gas-light streams out from behind misty wreaths of falling water and calla-blossoms; sofas of velvet turf, canopied with fragrant honeysuckle; dim bowers overarched with lilacs and roses; a dancing ground under trees whose branches bend with a fruitage of many-colored lamps; enchanting music and graceful motion; in all these there is not only no sin, but they are really beautiful and desirable; and if they were only used on the side and in the service of virtue and religion, if they were contrived and kept up by the guardians and instructors of youth, instead of by those whose interest it is to demoralize and destroy, young people would have no temptation to stray into the haunts of vice.

"In Prussia, under the reign of Frederick William II., when one good, hard-handed man governed the whole country like a strict schoolmaster, the public amusements for the people were made such as to present a model for all states. The theatres were strictly supervised, and actors obliged to conform to the rules of decorum and morality. The plays and performances were under the immediate supervision of men of grave morals, who allowed nothing corrupting to appear; and the effect of this administration and restraint is to be seen in Berlin even to this day. The public gardens are full of charming little resorts, where, every afternoon, for a very moderate sum, one can have either a concert of good music, or a very fair dramatic or operatic performance. Here whole families may be seen enjoying together a wholesome and refreshing entertainment,—the mother and aunts with their knitting, the baby, the children of all ages, and the father,—their faces radiant with that mild German light of contentment and good-will which one feels to be characteristic of the nation. When I saw these things, and thought of our own outcast, unprovided boys and young[Pg 341] men, haunting the streets and alleys of cities, in places far from the companionship of mothers and sisters, I felt as if it would be better for a nation to be brought up by a good strict schoolmaster king than to try to be a republic."

"Yes," said I, "but the difficulty is to get the good schoolmaster king. For one good shepherd, there are twenty who use the sheep only for their flesh and their wool. Republics can do all that kings can,—witness our late army and Sanitary Commission. Once fix the idea thoroughly in the public mind that there ought to be as regular and careful provision for public amusement as there is for going to church and Sunday school, and it will be done. Central Park in New York is a beginning in the right direction, and Brooklyn is following the example of her sister city. There is, moreover, an indication of the proper spirit in the increased efforts that are made to beautify Sunday-school rooms, and make them interesting, and to have Sunday-school fêtes and picnics,—the most harmless and commendable way of celebrating the Fourth of July. Why should saloons and bar-rooms be made attractive by fine paintings, choice music, flowers, and fountains, and Sunday-school rooms be four bare walls? There are churches whose broad aisles represent ten and twenty millions of dollars, and whose sons and daughters are daily drawn to circuses, operas, theatres, because they have tastes and feelings, in themselves perfectly laudable and innocent, for the gratification of which no provision is made in any other place."

"I know one church," said Rudolph, "whose Sunday-school room is as beautifully adorned as any haunt of sin. There is a fountain in the centre, which plays into a basin surrounded with shells and flowers; it has a small organ to lead the children's voices, and the walls are hung with oil-paintings and engravings from the best masters. The festivals of the Sabbath school, which are from time to time held in this place, educate the taste of the children, as well as amuse them; and, above all, they have through life the advantage of associating with their early religious education all those ideas of taste, elegance, and artistic culture which too often come through polluted channels.

"When the amusement of the young shall become the care of the experienced and the wise, and the floods of wealth that are now rolling over and over, in silent investments, shall be put into the form of innocent and refined pleasures for the children and youth of the state, our national festivals may become days to be desired, and not dreaded.

"On the Fourth of July, our city fathers do in a certain dim wise perceive that the public owes some attempt at amusement to its children, and they vote large sums, principally expended in bell-ringing, cannons, and fireworks. The sidewalks are witness to the number who fall victims to the temptations held out by grog-shops and saloons; and the papers, for weeks after, are crowded with accounts of accidents. Now, a yearly sum expended to keep up, and keep pure, places of amusement which hold out no temptation to vice, but which excel all vicious places in real beauty and attractiveness, would greatly lessen the sum needed to be expended on any one particular day, and would refine and prepare our people to keep holidays and festivals appropriately."

"For my part," said Mrs. Crowfield, "I am grieved at the opprobrium which falls on the race of boys. Why should the most critical era in the life of those who are to be men, and to govern society, be passed in a sort of outlawry,—a rude warfare with all existing institutions? The years between ten and twenty are full of the nervous excitability which marks the growth and maturing of the manly nature. The boy feels wild impulses, which ought to be vented in legitimate and healthful exercise. He wants to run, shout, wrestle, ride, row, skate; and all these together are often not sufficient to relieve the[Pg 342] need he feels of throwing off the excitability that burns within.

"For the wants of this period what safe provision is made by the Church, or by the State, or any of the boy's lawful educators? In all the Prussian schools amusements are as much a part of the regular school-system as grammar or geography. The teacher is with the boys on the play-ground, and plays as heartily as any of them. The boy has his physical wants anticipated. He is not left to fight his way, blindly stumbling, against society, but goes forward in a safe path, which his elders and betters have marked out for him.

"In our country, the boy's career is often a series of skirmishes with society. He wants to skate, and contrives ingeniously to dam the course of a brook, and flood a meadow which makes a splendid skating-ground. Great is the joy for a season, and great the skating. But the water floods the neighboring cellars. The boys are cursed through all the moods and tenses,—boys are such a plague! The dam is torn down with emphasis and execration. The boys, however, lie in wait some cold night, between twelve and one, and build it up again; and thus goes on the battle. The boys care not whose cellar they flood, because nobody cares for their amusement. They understand themselves to be outlaws, and take an outlaw's advantage.

"Again, the boys have their sleds; and sliding down hill is splendid fun. But they trip up some grave citizen, who sprains his shoulder. What is the result? Not the provision of a safe, good place, where boys may slide down hill without danger to any one, but an edict forbidding all sliding, under penalty of fine.

"Boys want to swim: it is best they should swim; and if city fathers, foreseeing and caring for this want, should think it worth while to mark off some good place, and have it under such police surveillance as to enforce decency of language and demeanor, they would prevent a great deal that now is disagreeable in the unguided efforts of boys to enjoy this luxury.

"It would be cheaper in the end, even if one had to build sliding-piles, as they do in Russia, or to build skating-rinks, as they do in Montreal,—it would be cheaper for every city, town, and village to provide legitimate amusement for boys, under proper superintendence, than to leave them, as they are now left, to fight their way against society.

"In the boys' academies of our country, what provision is made for amusement? There are stringent rules, and any number of them, to prevent boys making any noise that may disturb the neighbors; and generally the teacher thinks that, if he keeps the boys still, and sees that they get their lessons, his duty is done. But a hundred boys ought not to be kept still. There ought to be noise and motion among them, in order that they may healthily survive the great changes which Nature is working within them. If they become silent, averse to movement, fond of indoor lounging and warm rooms, they are going in far worse ways than any amount of outward lawlessness could bring them to.

"Smoking and yellow-covered novels are worse than any amount of hullabaloo; and the quietest boy is often a poor, ignorant victim, whose life is being drained out of him before it is well begun. If mothers could only see the series of books that are sold behind counters to boarding-school boys, whom nobody warns and nobody cares for,—if they could see the poison, going from pillow to pillow, in books pretending to make clear the great, sacred mysteries of our nature, but trailing them over with the filth of utter corruption! These horrible works are the inward and secret channel of hell, into which a boy is thrust by the pressure of strict outward rules, forbidding that physical and out-of-door exercise and motion to which he ought rather to be encouraged, and even driven.

"It is melancholy to see that, while parents, teachers, and churches make no provision for boys in the way of[Pg 343] amusement, the world, the flesh, and the Devil are incessantly busy and active in giving it to them. There are ninepin-alleys, with cigars and a bar. There are billiard-saloons, with a bar, and, alas! with the occasional company of girls who are still beautiful, but who have lost the innocence of womanhood, while yet retaining many of its charms. There are theatres, with a bar, and with the society of lost women. The boy comes to one and all of these places, seeking only what is natural and proper he should have,—what should be given him under the eye and by the care of the Church, the school. He comes for exercise and amusement,—he gets these, and a ticket to destruction besides,—and whose fault is it?"

"These are the aspects of public life," said I, "which make me feel that we never shall have a perfect state till women vote and bear rule equally with men. State housekeeping has been, hitherto, like what any housekeeping would be, conducted by the voice and knowledge of man alone.

"If women had an equal voice in the management of our public money, I have faith to believe that thousands which are now wasted in mere political charlatanism would go to provide for the rearing of the children of the state, male and female. My wife has spoken for the boys; I speak for the girls also. What is provided for their physical development and amusement? Hot, gas-lighted theatric and operatic performances, beginning at eight, and ending at midnight; hot, crowded parties and balls; dancing with dresses tightly laced over the laboring lungs,—these are almost the whole story. I bless the advent of croquet and skating. And yet the latter exercise, pursued as it generally is, is a most terrible exposure. There is no kindly parental provision for the poor, thoughtless, delicate young creature,—not even the shelter of a dressing-room with a fire, at which she may warm her numb fingers and put on her skates when she arrives on the ground, and to which she may retreat in intervals of fatigue; so she catches cold, and perhaps sows the seed which with air-tight stoves and other appliances of hot-house culture may ripen into consumption.

"What provision is there for the amusement of all the shop girls, seamstresses, factory girls, that crowd our cities? What for the thousands of young clerks and operatives? Not long since, in a respectable old town in New England, the body of a beautiful girl was drawn from the river in which she had drowned herself,—a young girl only fifteen, who came to the city, far from home and parents, and fell a victim to the temptation which brought her to shame and desperation. Many thus fall every year who are never counted. They fall into the ranks of those whom the world abandons as irreclaimable.

"Let those who have homes and every appliance to make life pass agreeably, and who yet yawn over an unoccupied evening, fancy a lively young girl all day cooped up at sewing in a close, ill-ventilated room. Evening comes, and she has three times the desire for amusement and three times the need of it that her fashionable sister has. And where can she go? To the theatre, perhaps, with some young man as thoughtless as herself, and more depraved; then to the bar for a glass of wine, and another; and then, with a head swimming and turning, who shall say where else she may be led? Past midnight and no one to look after her,—and one night ruins her utterly and for life, and she as yet only a child!

"John Newton had a very wise saying: 'Here is a man trying to fill a bushel with chaff. Now if I fill it with wheat first, it is better than to fight him.' This apothegm contains in it the whole of what I would say on the subject of amusements."

AN ITALIAN RAIN-STORM.

The coast-road between Nice and Genoa,—known throughout the world for its unrivalled beauty of scenery, the altitudes to which it climbs, and the depths to which it dives,—now on the olive-clad heights, now close down upon the shore shaded by palm or carob-trees, now stretching inland amid orange-grounds and vineyards, now rounding some precipitous point that hangs hundreds of feet over the Mediterranean,—is generally seen with all the advantage of an unclouded sky above, and a sea as blue beneath.

It was the fortune of a certain party of four to behold it under the unusual aspect of bad weather. They set out in the diligence one winter evening, expecting to arrive at Genoa by the same time next day, according to ordinary course. But no one unaccustomed to the effect of rain, continuous rain, in mountainous districts, can conceive the wonders worked by a long succession of wet days. The arrival was retarded six hours, and the four found themselves in Genova la superba somewhere about midnight. However, this was only the commencement of the pouring visitation; and the roads had been rendered merely so "heavy" as to make the horses contumacious when dragging the ponderous vehicle up hill, which contumacy had occasioned the delay in question. Despite the hopes entertained that the weather would clear, the rain set in; and during no interval did it hold up, with the exception of a short period, which permitted one gentleman of the party of four to visit on business two bachelor brothers, manufacturers in Genoa. The residence of these brothers being in rather an out-of-the-way quarter of the city, and being very peculiar in itself, the gentleman advised the rest of his party to accompany him on this visit.

The four, only too glad to find themselves able to get out of doors, set forth on foot through the steep and narrow streets of Genoa, which make driving in a carriage a fatigue, and walking a feat of great excitement, especially when mud prevails. Trucks, ponderously laden with bales of goods, and pushed along at a reckless rate of speed by mahogany-complexioned men; dashing coaches, impelled by drivers hallooing when close upon you with distracting loudness and abruptness; mules coming onward with the blundering obtuseness peculiar to their tribe, or with their heads fastened to doorways, and their flanks extending across the street, affording just space enough for the passenger to slide behind their heels; a busy, jostling crowd of people hurrying to and fro, with no definite current, but streaming over any portion of the undistinguishable carriage-way and foot-way,—all combine to make Genoese pedestrianism a work only less onerous than driving.

Choosing the minor trouble, our party trusted to their own legs; and, after picking their way through sludge and mire, along murky alleys that branched off into wharves and quays, and up slippery by-ways that looked like paved staircases without regular steps, the four emerged upon an open space in front of a noble church. Leaving this on their left hand, they turned short into a place that wore something the appearance of a stable-yard,—with this difference, that there were neither steeds nor stabling to be seen; but instead there were blank walls, enclosing a kind of court adjoining a huge old mansion, and beyond there was a steep descent leading down to the sea-side.

On ringing a bell that hung beside a gate in the wall enclosure, the door opened apparently of itself, and a dismal scream ensued. The scream proceeded[Pg 345] from a sea-gull, peering out of a kind of pen formed by a wooden paling in one corner of a grass-grown patch, half cabbage-garden, half excavated earth and rock; and the mysterious opening of the door was explained by a connecting cord pulled by some unseen hand within a smaller house that stood near to the huge old mansion. From the house appeared, advancing towards us, the two bachelor brothers, who welcomed our friend and his three companions with grave Italian courtesy. Understanding the curiosity the four felt to see their premises, they did the honors of their place, with a minuteness as politely considerate towards the strangers as it was gratifying to the interest felt by them.

First the visitors were led by the bachelor brothers to see the huge old mansion, which they called the Palazzo. Let no one who has seen an ordinary Genoese palace, magnificent with gilding, enriched by priceless pictures, supplied with choice books, and adorned with gorgeous furniture, figure to himself any such combination in the palazzo in question. This was a vast pile of building, that would make five moderate-sized dwelling-houses, one in the roof, and the other four in the habitable portion of the edifice. A general air of ramshackledness pervaded the exterior, while the interior presented an effect of interminable ranges of white-washed walls, divided off into numberless apartments of various sizes, from a saloon on the piano nobile, or principal floor, measuring more than forty feet long, to small square attic rooms that were little more than cupboards. But this attic story was not all composed of chambers thus dimensioned. Among its apartments were rooms that might have accommodated a banqueting assemblage, had diners been so inclined; while among the accommodations comprised in this garret range was a kitchen, with spacious dressers, stoves, closets, and a well of water some hundred and odd feet deep. It was impossible for the imagination to refrain from picturing the troops of ghosts which doubtless occupied these upper chambers of the old palazzo, and held nightly vigil, undisturbed, amid the silence and solitude of their neglected spaces. Through one of the dwarf windows that pierced at intervals all sides of the mansion, just beneath the lofty roof, and which gave light to the attic story, we were directed to look by the emphatic words of the elder bachelor brother,—"Ma, veda che vista c' è!"

The view thence was indeed well worthy his praise; and he himself formed an appropriate companion-picture to the scene. Bluish-gray eyes, a fairer complexion than usually belongs to men of his clime and country, a look of penetration, combined with an expression of quiet content, were surmounted by a steeple-crowned hat that might have become a Dutch burgomaster, or one of Teniers's land-proprietors, rather than a denizen of a southern city. Yet the association which his face, figure, and costume had with some of George Cruikshank's illustrations of German tales afforded pictorial harmony with the range of ghostly rooms we were viewing. He "marshalled us the way that we should go," by leading us down a steep flight of steps, which landed us on the piano nobile. This, for the present, was tenanted by a set of weavers, to whom the principal floor of the palazzo had been let for a short term. They had proved but turbulent occupants, being in a constant state of refractoriness against their landlords, the bachelor brothers, who seemed to be somewhat in awe of them. On the present occasion, for instance, the brothers apologized for being unable to show us the grand saloon, as the weavers (whom we could hear, while he spoke, singing in a loud, uproarious, insurgent kind of way, that might well have drawn three souls out of one of their own craft, and evidently made the souls of their two landlords quail) did not like to be disturbed.

Their contumacious voices, mingled with the clamor of their looms, died off in the distance, while we proceeded down[Pg 346] the back staircase to the ground-floor. We at first fancied that this apparently surreptitious proceeding was perhaps traceable to the awe entertained by the bachelor brothers for their unruly tenants; but we were relieved from the sense of acting in a style bordering on poltroonery, by finding that the principal staircase had been boarded up to preserve its marble steps and sides from injury. On arriving at the foot we found ourselves in a spacious hall, opposite the approach to the grand staircase, which looked like an archway built for giants, toweringly defined above the scaffold-planks by which it was barricaded. Many doors opened from this hall, to each of which, in turn, one of the bachelor brothers applied successive keys from a ponderous bunch that he held in his hand. These doors led to vast suites of apartments, all unfurnished, like the upper rooms, with the exception of one suite, which the brothers had lent to a friend of theirs, and which was sparely supplied with some old Italian furniture, of so antique a fashion that each article might have been a family heirloom ever since the times of that famous Genoese gentleman, Christopher Columbus. One peculiarity the four remarked, which spoke volumes for the geniality of the climate: in all this huge rambling edifice they saw only one room which could boast of a fireplace. The sun's warmth evidently supplied all the heat necessary, and—as might be conjectured from its other peculiarities as well as this—anything like what the English call "the joys and comforts of the domestic hearth" seemed an impossible attainment in this dreary old palazzo. The social amenities must wither in its desolate atmosphere, and dwindle to chill shadows, like the ghosts that haunt the attic story.

To complete the air of saddening vacancy that clung like a damp to the really arid white walls, when the brothers led us down a wide staircase to the vaulted space beneath the basement, we came upon some hundreds of small bird-cages, containing each a miserable linnet, titmouse, or finch, condemned to chirp out its wretched existence in this airless underground region. In reply to our pitying exclamation, we were told that the bachelors' friend who occupied the corner apartment on the ground-floor was a great sportsman, and devotedly fond of la caccia; that these unhappy little prisoners were employed by him in the season as decoy-birds; that they were kept in these dungeons during the other months of the year; and that they were blinded to make them sing better and be more serviceable at the period when he needed them. As we looked shudderingly at these forlorn little creatures, and expressed our commiseration at their fate, the younger brother stepped forward, and, examining one of the cages, in which sat hunched up in one corner a stiff lump of feathers, coolly announced that "this goldfinch" was dead.

It was with a feeling of relief that we left the death-released bird, and the vaults beneath the old palazzo, to return once more to the fresh air and the breathing-space of the broad earth and sky. Our next visit was to the bachelor brothers' factory, which was for the fabrication of wax candles. Adjoining this was a terrace-plot of ground, dotted over with what looked like Liliputian tombstones. We were beginning to wonder whether this were a cemetery for the dead birds,—speculating on the probability that these might be the monumental tributes placed over their graves by the sportsman friend of the two brothers,—when the elder informed us that this was the place they used for bleaching the wax, and that the square stones we saw were the supports on which rested the large flat stands whereon it was laid to whiten in the sun. From this terrace-plot of ground,—which projected in a narrowish green ledge, skirted by a low ivy-grown wall, over the sea,—we beheld a prospect of almost matchless beauty. Before us stretched a wide expanse of Mediterranean waters; to the extreme left was just visible the bold rocky point[Pg 347] of Porto Fino; to the right extended westward a grand line of picturesque coast, including the headlands of Capo di Noli and Capo delle Mele; and near at hand lay the harbor of Genoa, with its shipping, its amphitheatre of palaces, surmounted by the high ground above, and crowned by the fortressed summits beyond.

We were roused from the absorbing admiration which this majestic sea and land view had excited, by one of the four asking whether there were any access to the palazzo from this terrace. Whereupon the brothers showed us a winding turret staircase, which led by a subterranean passage into one of the lower vaulted rooms. Nothing more like a place in a wonderful story-book ever met us in real life; and while we were lost in a dream of romantic imaginings, one of the brothers was engaged in giving a prosaic relation of how the old palazzo had come into their family by a lawsuit, which terminated in their favor, and left them possessors of this unexpected property. During the narrative a brood of adolescent chickens had come near to where we stood listening on the green plot, and eyed us with expectant looks, as if accustomed to be fed or noticed. The elder brother indulged the foremost among the poultry group—a white bantam cock of courageous character—by giving him his foot to assault. Valiantly the little fellow flew at, and spurred, and pecked the boot and trousers; again and again he returned to the charge, while the blue-gray eyes beamed smilingly down from beneath the steeple-crowned hat, as the old man humored the bird's pugnacious spirit.

Presently a shy little girl of some ten or twelve years came peering out at the strangers from beneath a row of evergreen oaks that ornamented the back of the dwelling-house overlooking the terrace. There she stood at the foot of the ilexes, shading her eyes with one hand, (for the sun coyly gleamed through the rain-clouds at that moment,) while the other was employed in restraining the lumbering fondness of two large bull-dogs, that gambolled heavily round her. She was introduced to us as the daughter of the younger of the two brothers; who proved after all to be no bachelor, but a widower. One ponderous brindled brute poked his black muzzle against the child with such a weight of affection that we expected to see her overturned on the sward; but she seemed to have complete control over her canine favorites, and to live with them and a large macaw she had up stairs in her own room (we afterwards found it perched there, when taken to see the upper floor of the bachelor residence), as her familiars and sole associates,—like some enchanted princess in a fairy-tale.

On entering the house from the terrace, we found ourselves in its kitchen, which strongly resembled a cavern made habitable. It was hewn out of the rock on which the dwelling stood; and it only required the presence of the black man and the old woman who figure in Gil Blas's story to give, to the life, the cooking-department of the robbers' cave there. As we ascended a rude stone staircase that led from it, we heard the lowing of cows; and, turning, we saw two of these animals comfortably stalled in a side recess, not far from the rocky ledge on which the culinary apparatus for dressing the food of the establishment was deposited. Mounting into the parlor, we discovered a good-sized apartment, its windows looking out through the foliage of the ilexes over the sea, skirted by the extensive coast view. Behind was the dining-room; on each side were the brothers' bedrooms; and leading from a small entrance-hall at the back was a large billiard-room. This opened on a small garden nook, in which were orange-trees and camellias, full of bud and blossom,—from which some of the flowers were gathered for us by the Italian brethren, on our taking leave and thanking them for the unusual treat we had had in going over their curious abode.

The transient gleam of sunshine that[Pg 348] had shone forth while we were there was the only intermission vouchsafed by the rain, which afterwards poured down with a steady vehemence and pertinacity seldom seen on the Ligurian Riviera. The effects of this rare continuance of wet weather were soon made impressively perceptible to the four as they emerged upon the open road, after passing the Lighthouse of Genoa and the long straggling suburbs of San Pier d'Arena, Pegli, and Voltri. The horses splashed through channels of water which filled the spongy ruts, smoking, and toiling, and plunging on; while the whoops and yells of the postilion urging them forward, together with the loud smacks of his whip, made a savage din. This was farther increased as we crashed along a ledge road, cut in a cliff overhanging the sea;—the waves tearing up from beneath with a whelming roar; the rocks jutting forth in points, every one of which was a streaming water-spout; the rain pelting, the wind rushing, the side-currents pouring and dashing. These latter, ordinarily but small rills, carrying off the drainage of the land by gentle course, were now swollen to rough cataracts, leaping with furious rapidity from crag to crag in deluges of turbid water, discolored to a dingy yellow-brown by the heaps of earth and stone which they dislodged and brought down with them, and hurled hither and thither over the precipitous projections, and occasionally flung athwart the highway. At one spot, where a heap of such stones—large, flat slabs—had been tossed upon the road, and a few of their companions were in the very act of plunging down after them, our postilion drew up to guide his cattle among those already fallen; and, raising his voice above the thunder of the sea-waves, rain, wind, and waters, shouted out in broad Genoese to the falling ones, "Halloo, you there, up above! Stop a bit, will you? Wait a moment, you up there!" Then, driving on carefully till he had steered by the largest of the fragments that lay prostrate, he turned back his head, shook his whip at it, and apostrophised it with, "Ah, you big pig! I've passed you, for this time!"

The first change of horses took place at a village close down on the sea-shore, where some fishermen were busily employed hauling up the last of a row of boats that lay upon the beach. Every available hand, not occupied in aiding the conductor and postilion to unharness the diligence horses and put to the fresh team, was enlisted in the service of the boat-hauling. Young gentlemen out for an evening's amusement, attired in sacks or tarpaulins thrown over their shoulders, while their nether garments were rolled up tightly into a neat twist that encircled the top of each thigh, were frisking about a line of men with weather-beaten countenances and blown hair, who tugged bare-legged at the sides of the fishing-boat, half in the water and half out. Occasionally one of these young gentry, feeling perhaps that he had aided sufficiently in the general work, betook himself to a doorway near, dripping and shaking himself, and looking out through the sheeted rain at his companions, who were still in the excitement of whisking round the heaving and tugging fishermen, while the waves rose high, the spray dashed up in mist over their grizzled heads and beards, and the wind whistled sharply amid the deeper tumult of the sea and torrent waters. To heighten the grim wildness of the scene, the shades of evening were closing round, and by the time the four travellers were off again and proceeding on their way, darkness was fast setting in.

Nightfall found them toiling up a steep ascent that diverges inland for a few miles, winding round the estate of some inflexible proprietor, upon whom nothing can prevail to permit the high-road to take its passage through his land, there bordering the sea-side. Up the ascent we labored, and down the descent we lunged, the wheels lodging in deep mire at every moment, and threatening to abide in the deeper holes and furrows[Pg 349] which the water-courses (forced from their due channels by overflowing and by obstructive fallen masses) had cut and dug into the road as they strayed swiftly over it.

By the time the next stage was reached, the conductor consulted the four on the advisability of stopping to sleep, instead of proceeding on such a tempestuous night, the like of which, for perilous effects, he said he had but once before encountered during the whole of the sixteen years he had been in office on this road. The three coupé passengers, consisting of two ladies—sisters—and a ruddy-faced, cheerful gentleman in a velvet travelling-cap, who made it a principle, like Falstaff, to take things easily, and "not to sweat extraordinarily," warmly approved the conductor's proposal as a sensible one; and even the alert gentleman in the banquette agreed that it would be more prudent to remain at the first good inn the diligence came to. This, the conductor replied, was at Savona, one stage farther, as the place they now were at was a mere boat-building hamlet, that scarcely boasted an inn at all,—certainly not "good beds." A group of eager, bronzed faces were visible by lamp-light, assembled round the conductor, listening to him as he held this conference with his coach-passengers; and at its close the bronze-faced crowd broke into a rapid outburst of Genoese dialect, which was interrupted by our conductor's making his way through them all, and disappearing round the corner of the small piazza wherein the diligence stood to have its horses changed. After some moments' pause,—not in the rain, or wind, or sea-waves, for they kept pouring and rushing and roaring on,—but in the hurly-burly of rapid talk, which ceased, owing to the talkers' hurrying off in pursuit of the vanished conductor, he returned, saying, "Andiamo a Savona." It soon proved that he had been to ascertain the feasibility of what the group of bronze-faced men had proposed, namely, that they would undertake to convey the diligence (without its horses, its "outsides," and its "insides") bodily over a high, steep, slippery mule-bridge, which crossed a torrent near at hand, now swollen to an unfordable depth and swiftness. The four beheld this impassable stream, boiling and surging and sweeping on to mingle itself with the madly leaping sea-waves out there in the dim night-gloom to the left, as they descended from the diligence and prepared to go on foot across something that looked like a rudely-constructed imitation of the Rialto Bridge at Venice, seen through a haze of darkness, slanting rain, faintly-beaming coach-lamps, pushing and heaving men, panting led horses, passengers muffled up and umbrellaed, conductor leading and directing. Then came the reharnessing of the horses, the reassembling of the passengers, the remounting of the "insides," the reclambering to his seat of the alert banquette "outside" (after a hearty interchange of those few brief, smiling words with his coupé companions which, between English friends, say so much in so little utterance at periods of mutual anxiety and interest), the payment of the agreed-for sum by the conductor to the bronze-faced pushers and heavers, amid a violent renewal of the storm of Genoese jargon, terminated by an authoritative word from the payer as he swung himself up into his place by a leathern strap dangling from the coach-side, a smart crack of the postilion's whip, a forward plunge of the struggling horses, an onward jerk of the diligence, and the final procedure into the wet and dark and roar of the wild night.

The gas and stir of Savona came as welcome tokens of repose to the toilsome journey; and the four alighted at one of the hotels there with an inexpressible sense of relief. His fellow-travellers were warned, however, by the alert gentleman, that they must hold themselves in readiness to start before dawn next morning, as the conductor wished to avail himself of the first peep of daylight in passing several[Pg 350] torrents on the road which lay beyond Savona. Velvet-cap assented with a grunt; one of the sisters—all briskness at night, but fit for nothing of a morning—proposed not to go to bed at all; while the other—quite used up at night, but "up to everything" of a morning—undertook to call the whole party in time for departure.

This she did,—ordering coffee, seeing that some was swallowed by the sister who had been unwillingly roused from the sleep she had willingly offered to forego overnight, collecting cloaks, baskets, and travelling-rugs, and altogether looking so wakeful and ready that she wellnigh drove her drowsy sister to desperation.

The preannounced torrents proved as swollen as were expected; so that the passengers had to unpack themselves from the heaps of wrappings stowed snugly round their feet and knees, and issue forth into the keen morning air, armed with difficultly-put-up umbrellas, to traverse certain wooden foot-bridges, in the midst of which they could not help halting to watch the lightened diligence dragged splashingly through the deep and rapid streams, expecting, at every lunge it made into the water-dug gullies, to see it turn helplessly over on its side in the very midst of them. Nevertheless, no such accident occurred; and the four jogged on, along soaking, soppy, drenched roads, that seemed never to have known dust or drought. At one saturated village, they saw a dripping procession of people under crimson umbrellas, shouldering two rude coffins of deal boards, which were borne to the door of a church that stood by the wayside,—where the train waited in a kind of moist dejection to be admitted, and to look dispiritedly after the passing diligence. The alert gentleman heard from what the conductor gathered from an old woman wrapped in a many-colored gaudy-patterned scarf of chintz, which, wet through, covered her head and shoulders clingingly, that this was the funeral of a poor peasant-man and his wife, who had both died suddenly and both on the same day. The old woman held up her brown, shrivelled hands, and gesticulated pityingly with them in the pouring rain, as she mumbled her hurried tale of sorrow; while the postilion involuntarily slackened pace, that her words might be heard where he and the conductor sat.

The horses were suffered to creep on at their own snail pace, while the influence of the funeral scene lasted; but soon the long lash was plied vivaciously again, and we came to another torrent, more deep, more rapid, more swollen than any previous one. Fortunately for us, a day or two before there had been a postilion nearly drowned in attempting to drive through this impassable ford; and still more fortunately for us, this postilion chanced to have a relation who was a servant in the household of Count Cavour, then prime-minister to King Victor Emanuel. "Papa Camillo's" servant's kinsman's life being endangered, an order had come from Turin only a few hours before our diligence arrived at the bank of the dangerous stream,—now swollen into a swift, broad river,—decreeing that the new road and bridge, lately in course of construction on this spot, should be opened immediately for passage to and fro. The road was more like a stone-quarry than a carriageable public highway, so encumbered was it with granite fragments, heaped ready for top-dressing and finishing; and the bridge led on to a raised embankment, coming to a sudden fissure, where the old coach-road crossed it. Still, our conductor, finding that some few carts and one diligence had actually passed over the ground, set himself to the work of getting ours also across. First, the insides and outsides were abstracted from the coach,—which they had by this time come to regard as quite an extraneous part of their travelling, not so much a "conveyance" as something to be conveyed,—and the four took their way over the stones, amused at this new and most unexpected obstacle to their progress. Hastening across the[Pg 351] fissure, they went and placed themselves (always under umbrellas) beside a troop of little vagabond boys,—who had come to see the fun, and had secured good front places on the opposite bank,—to view the diligence brought down the sharp declivity of the embankment to the old road below. The spectators beheld the jolting vehicle come slowly and gratingly along, like a sturdy recusant, holding back, until the straining horses had tugged it by main force to the brink of the fissure. Here the animals stopped, snorted, eyed the sheer descent with twitching ears and quivering skins, as though they said in equine language, "We're surely not required to drag it down this!" They were soon relieved from their doubt, by being taken out of the traces, patted, and gently led down the embankment, leaving their burdensome charge behind. There it stuck, helplessly alone,—even more thoroughly belying its own name than diligences usually do,—perched on the edge of a declivity of the height of a tall house, stock still, top-heavy with piled luggage, deserted by its passengers, abandoned of its friend in the velvet cap, a motionless and apparently objectless coach. How it was to be dislodged and conveyed down the "vast abrupt" became matter of conjecture to the four, when presently some men came to the spot with a large coil of cable-cord, which they proceeded to pass through the two hindmost side-windows of the diligence, threading it like a bead on a string; and then they gradually lowered the lumbering coach down the side of the descent, amid the evvivas of the vagabond boys, led by an enthusiastic "Bravissimo!" from Velvet-cap.

This incident occupied much time; and though the travellers made some progress during the afternoon, the gray shades of twilight were gathering over and deepening the gloom of the already gray sky and gray landscape,—deadened to that color from their naturally brilliant hues by the prevailing wet,—as the travellers stopped to change horses again at the entrance of the town of Oneglia. Here, while the conductor ran into a house to make purchase of a loaf about half a yard in length and a corpulent bottle of wine, the four saw another funeral train approaching. This time it was still more dreary, being attended by a show of processional pomp, inexpressibly forlorn and squalid. The coffin was palled with a square of rusty black velvet, whence all the pile had long been worn, and which the soaking rain now helped age to embrown and make flabby; a standard cross was borne by an ecclesiastical official, who had on a quadrangular cap surmounted by a centre tuft; two priests followed, sheltered by umbrellas, their sacerdotal garments dabbled and draggled with mud, and showing thick-shod feet beneath the dingy serge and lawn that flapped above them, as they came along at a smart pace, suggestive of anything but solemnity. As little of that effect was there in the burial-hymn which they bawled, rather than chanted, in a careless, off-hand style, until they reached the end of the street and of the town, when the bawlers suddenly ceased, took an abrupt leave of the coffin and its bearers, fairly turned on their heels, accompanied by the official holy standard-bearer, and went back at a brisk trot, having, it seems, fulfilled the functions required of them. Obsequies more heartless in their manner of performance, it was never the fate of the four to behold. The impression left by this sight assorted well with the deep and settled murkiness that dwelt like a thick veil on all around. Even the cheery tones of Velvet-cap's voice lost their elasticity, and the sprightliness of the sister's spirits, that invariably rose with the coming on of night, failed under the depressing influence of that rain-hastened funeral and that "set-in" rainy evening. As for the sister whose spirits fell with the fall of day, she was fast lapsing into a melancholy condition of silence and utter "giving-up."

Rattling over the pavement of the long, straggling town,—plashing along[Pg 352] a few miles of level road,—struggling up hill,—rattling through another pavemented town,—striking into the country again,—we came to another long ascent. As we toiled to the top, a postilion, having the care of five return horses, joined company with ours, the two men walking up hill together, while their beasts paced slowly on, with drooping heads and smoking sides. Now and then, when the road was less steep, and levelled into trotting-ground, the postilions climbed to their seats,—ours on his rightful box-seat, the other on an impromptu one, which he made for himself upon a sack of corn slung beneath the front windows of the coupé,—and while our horses fell into an easy jog, we could see the return ones go on before at a swagging run, with their loosened harness tossing and hanging from them as they took their own course, now on one side of the way, now on the other, according to the promptings of their unreined fancy.

Suddenly, at a turn of the road, we came upon an undistinguishable something, which, when our eyes could pierce through and beyond the immediate light afforded by our diligence-lamp, we discovered to be another diligence leaning heavily over a ditch, while its conductor and postilion were at their horses' heads, endeavoring to make them extricate it from its awkward position. This, however, was a feat beyond the poor beasts' strength; and our conductor, after a few "Sacramentos" at this new delay, got down and ran to see what could be done to help them out of the scrape. It had been occasioned partly by the carelessness of the conductor, who, unlike ours, (for the latter was a man of good sense and judgment, self-possessed, and perfectly attentive to the duties of his office,) had neglected to light the diligence-lamp, and partly by the obstinacy of a drunken postilion, who insisted on keeping too close to the ditch side of the road, while he instinctively avoided the precipice side. Nearly two mortal hours was our diligence detained, during which time our cattle were taken from their traces and harnessed to those of the half-overturned coach, in various attempts to dislodge it. The first resulted in a further locking of the wheel against a projecting point of rock, and an additional bundling sideways of the leaning diligence; the second was made by attaching the horses to the back of it, while the men set their strength to the wheels, endeavoring to push them round by main force in aid of the straining team. The weight of the heavily-loaded coach resisted their efforts to move it; and then the passengers were requested to descend. Out into the rain and mud and darkness they came, warned by our conductor, in his prompt, thoughtful way, to beware of stumbling over the precipitous cliff, which dropped straight from the roadside there, hundreds of feet down, into the sea. We could hear the dash of the waves far below, as our conductor's voice sounded out clear and peremptory, uttering the timely reminder; we could hear the words of two French commis-voyageurs, coming from the ditch-sunk diligence, making some facetious remark, one to the other, about their present adventure being very much like some of Alexandre Dumas's Impressions de Voyage; we could hear the cries and calls of the men refastening the horses, and preparing to push anew at the wheels; we could distinguish a domestic party dismounting from the back portion of the other diligence, consisting of a father and mother with their baby and the bonne; we could see the little white cap covered up carefully with a handkerchief by the young mother, while the father held an umbrella over their heads, and conducted them to the counterpart portion of our diligence, where the family took refuge during the fresh attempts to drag theirs forth.

Then there came a tap against our coupé window, and an unmistakably British accent was heard to say: "Anglais? Anglais?" Tap—tap—tap. "Any English here?"

Velvet-cap let the window down, and answered in his cheerfullest tone, "Yes."[Pg 353]

This reply seemed to rejoice the heart of the inquirer, who immediately rejoined, "Oh!—Well, I really wished to know if there were any one here who could understand me. These fellows don't comprehend one word that I say; and I can't speak one word of their jabber. Just listen to them! What a confounded row they keep up! Parcel of stupid brutes! If I could only have made myself understood, I could have told them how to get it out in a minute. Confounded thing this, ain't it? Kept last night, too, by something of the same kind of accident; and I couldn't get those stupid fellows to make out what I meant, and give me my carpet-bag."

"I say, are these your Italian skies? Is Nice no better than this? By George, I didn't come here for this, though!"

A simultaneous "Ee-ye-ho! ee-yuch-yuch!" came from the striving men at this moment, and our British acquaintance, with a hasty "Good night!" hurried off to see the result. It was this time a successful one; the leaning diligence was plucked out, restored to an upright position, and its passengers were reassembled. Once more on its way, our conductor returned to his own coach; and, with the help of our postilion, reharnessed our horses. But the difficulty now was to start them. Tired with their unexpected task of having to tug at another and a stuck-fast diligence,—made startlish with having to stand in the rain and chill night air, in the open road, while the debates were going on as to the best method of attaching them to the sunken vehicle,—when once put back into their own traces, they took to rearing and kicking instead of proceeding. It is by no means amusing to sit in a diligence behind five plunging horses, on a cliff-road,—one edge of which overhangs the sea, and the other consists of a deep ditch or water-way, beneath a sheer upright rock,—"when rain and wind beat dark December"; and even after whip and whoop had succeeded in prevailing on the rearers and kickers to "take the road" again, that road proved so unprecedentedly bad as almost to render futile the struggles of the poor beasts. They did their best; they strained their haunches, they bent their heads forward, they actually made leaps of motion, in trying to lug the clogged wheels on through the sludge and clammy soil; but this was a mauvais pas, where the cantonniers' good offices in road-mending had been lately neglected, and it seemed almost an impossibility to get through with our tired cattle. However, the thing was achieved, and the town of San Remo at length reached.

Here, with a change of horses, it was now our turn to have a drunken postilion; whom our conductor, after seizing him by the collar with both hands, permitted to mount to his high seat and gather up the reins, there being no other driver to be had. Smacking his long whip with an energy that made the night-echoes resound far and wide, galloping his horses up hill at a rate that swayed the coach to and fro and threatened speedy upsetting, screaming and raving like a wild Indian uttering his battle-cry, our charioteer pursued his headlong course, until brought to a stop by something that suddenly obstructed his career.

A silence ensued; and then our conductor got down, running forward to see what was the matter. The three in the coupé saw their alert friend of the banquette descend; which caused Velvet-cap to bestir himself, and let down the window. Not obtaining any satisfactory information by looking out into the darkness and confusion, he opened the door also, and called to some one to help him forth. Whereupon he found himself in the arms of[Pg 354] the maudlin postilion; who, taking him doubtless for some foreign lady passenger in great alarm, hugged him affectionately, stuttering out, "N'ayez pas peur! Point de danger! point de danger!"

"Get off with you, will you?" was the ejaculation from Velvet-cap, as he pushed away the man, and went in search of his alert friend.

The latter soon came running back to the coach-side, bidding the sisters get out quickly and come and look at what was well worth seeing.

It was indeed! There lay a gigantic mass of earth, stones, and trees, among which were several large blocks of solid rock, hurled across the road, showing a jagged outline against the night-sky, like an interposing mountain-barrier but just recently dropped in their path. The whole had fallen not an hour ago; and it was matter of congratulation to the four, that it had not done so at the very moment their diligence passed beneath.

There was nothing to be done but what the voice (which proved to be that of the conductor belonging to the other diligence) had proposed, namely, to go back to San Remo.

Here the travellers of both diligences soon arrived; the four, as they passed to their rooms, hearing the British accent on the landing, in disconsolate appeal to a waiter: "Oh!—look here,—sack, you know, sack, sack!"

"Oui, monsieur; votre sac de nuit. Il est en bas,—en bas, sur la diligence. On le montera bientôt."

The lady whose spirits rose at night was flitting about, brisk as a bee, getting morsels of bread and dipping them into wine to revive her sister; who, worn out with fatigue and exhaustion, sat in a collapsed and speechless state on a sofa.

Next morning, however, she was herself again, and able to note the owner of the British accent, who had certainly obtained his desired carpet-bag, since there he was, at the coupé window, brushed and beaming, addressing Velvet-cap with, "Excuse me, as an Englishman; but, could you oblige me with change for a napoleon? I want it to pay my bill with. They could get some from the next shop, if these jabbering fellows would but understand, and go and try."

The morning-animated sister was now also able to observe upon the more promising aspect of the weather, which was evidently clearing up; for it not only did not rain, but showed streaks of brightness over the sea, in lines between the hitherto unbroken gray clouds. She adverted to the pleasant look of the cap-lifting cantonniers, as they stood drawn up and nodding encouragement at the diligence, near the mass of earth which had fallen overnight; and which they, by dint of several hours' hard work from long before dawn, had sufficiently dug away to admit of present passage. She said how comforting the sight of their honest weather-lined faces was, bright with the touch of morning and early good-humor.

This brought a muttered rejoinder from the other sister; who, huddled up in one corner, still half asleep, remarked that the faces of the cantonniers were surely far more comforting when visible by the light of the diligence-lamp, coming to bring succor amid darkness and danger.

"But it is precisely because they are never to be seen during the darkness, when danger is increased by there rarely being help at hand, that I dread and dislike night," returned Morning-lover.

"How oppressive the scent of those truffles is, the first thing after breakfast!" exclaimed Night-favorer.

"I had not yet perceived it," replied Morning-lover. "Last evening, indeed, after a whole day's haunting with it, the smell of that hamper of truffles which the conductor took up at Finale was almost insupportable; but now, in the fresh morning air, it is anything but disagreeable. I shall never hereafter encounter the scent of truffles without being forcibly reminded of all the incidents of this journey. That[Pg 355] smell seems absolutely interwoven with images of torrent-crossing, cliff-falling, pouring rain, and roaring waves."

The talk fell upon associations of sense with events and places; sounds, sights, and scents, intimately connected with and vividly recalling certain occurrences of our lives. We had missed the glimpse of the baby face and little white cap from the back of the diligence that preceded us during the first portion of the day, owing to our coach having been delayed at Ventimiglia by some peculiar arrangement which required the team that had dragged us up a steep ascent to stop and bait,—merely resting instead of changing, before we went on again.

The Pont St. Louis, with the picturesque ravine it crosses, had been passed, and the pretty town of Mentone was full in view, when we caught sight of the other diligence, some way on the road before us, brought once more to a stand-still, while a crowd of persons surrounded it, and its passengers were to be seen, in the distance, descending, with the baby cap among them. At this instant, an excited French official darted out from a doorway by the side of the road near us, raising his arms distractedly, and throwing his sentences up at the conductor, who understood him to say that there was no going on; that a whole garden had come tumbling down across the road just at the entrance to Mentone, and prevented passing.

We drove on to the spot, and found it was indeed so; the grounds of a villa, skirting the highway on a terrace-ledge, had been loosened by the many days' rain, and had fallen during the forenoon, a heap of ruins,—shrubs, plants, garden-walls, flowers, borders, railings,—one mass of obstruction.

With a glance at the coupé passengers, another French official (the newly-appointed frontier custom-house being close at hand) stepped forward to suggest that the "insides" could be accommodated, during the interim required for the cantonniers to do their work, at a lately-built hotel he pointed to; but the four agreed to spend the time in walking round by the path above the obstruction, so as to see its whole extent.

The wet, percolating and penetrating through the softer soil, gradually accumulates a weight of water behind and beneath the harder and rockier portions, which dislodges them from their places, pushes them forward, and finally topples them over headlong. This is generally prevented where terrace-walls are built up, by leaving holes here and there in the structure, which allow the wet to drain through innocuously; but if, as in the present instance, this caution be neglected, many days' successive rain is almost sure to produce the disaster in question. It had a woful look,—all those garden elegances cast there, flung out upon the high-road, like discarded rubbish; pots of selected flowers, favorite seats, well-worn paths, carefully-tended beds, trailing climbers, torn and snapped branches, all lying to be shovelled away as fast as the road-menders could ply their pickaxes and spades.

At length this task was accomplished; the diligences were hauled over the broken ground (their contents being also "hauled over" at the custom-house); the passengers (after the important ceremonial of handing their passports for inspection, and having them handed back by personages who kept their countenances wonderfully) were in again and off again.

But one more torrent to cross,—where the foremost coach had nearly been overset, and where the occupants of the hindmost one, profiting by example, got out and walked over the footbridge, in time to behold the owner of the British accent wave his hat triumphantly from the coupé with a hearty (English) "Huzza!" as the vehicle recovered, by a violent lurch to the left, from an equally violent one to the right, issuing scathless from the last flood that lay in the way,—and then both diligences began at a leisurely pace to crawl up a long ascent of road, bordered on each side by olive-grounds;—until the[Pg 356] view opened to a fine stretch of prospect, now colored and vivified by a glance of the afternoon sun,—the diminutive peninsular kingdom of Monaco, lying down in the very sea, bright, and green, and fairy-like; the bold barren crag of the Turbia rock frowning sternly in front, with its antique Roman tower and modern Italian church; the rocky heights above to the right, with their foreground of olive-trees, vine-trellises, and orange-groves, interspersed with country-houses; while through all wound the ever-climbing road, a white thread in the distance, with the telegraphic poles, dwindled to pin-like dimensions, indicating its numberless turns and bends.

As the sun sank over the far western lines of the Estrelle Mountains, and the sky faded into grayish purple, succeeded by an ever-deepening suffusion of black, unpierced by a single star, the high reach of road above Villafranca Bay was passed; and, on our turning the corner of the last intervening upland, full in view came the many lights of Nice, with its castled rock, its minarets and cupolas, its stretch of sea, its look of sheltered repose;—all most welcome to sight, after our sensational journey on the Cornice Road in a great rain.

INCIDENTS OF THE PORTLAND FIRE.

Never had Portland looked more beautiful than when the sunrise-gun boomed across the waters, announcing the ninetieth anniversary of our independence. The sun, which on another day should look down on the city's desolation, rose unclouded over the houses, that stood forth from the foliage of the embowering elms, or nestled in their shadow; over the quaintness of the old-fashioned churches and the beauty of the more modern temples; over the stately public edifices, and the streets everywhere decked with flags and thronged with crowds of happy, well-dressed people. Of course, the popular satisfaction expressed itself in the report of pistols, guns, and fire-crackers; and all through the day the usual amusements went on, and in the afternoon almost everybody was on the street.

A few minutes before five o'clock, when the festivity was at its wildest, the alarm of fire rang out. Every circumstance was favorable for a conflagration,—the people scattered, the city dry and heated by a July sun, and a high southwesterly wind blowing. It needed only the exciting cause in the shape of a fire-cracker, and lo! half the city was doomed.

My youngest brother, at the first sound of the bell, came and begged me to take him to the fire; so I went, to please him. Poor child! I little thought that by twelve o'clock at night there would be no place at home to lay the little head.

We found the fire near Brown's sugar-house, where there was a large crowd already assembled. But, though the smoke and masses of flame were rising only from one house, the wind was blowing a perfect gale; and a foreboding of the calamity impending seemed to possess the spectators. There was none of the usual noise, and men appeared to look at the burning house with a feeling of awe. We did not stop there at all; and some idea of the rapid progress of the fire may be gathered from the fact, that about four squares distant, where, on the way up, we could see one fire, on our return we saw three,—two lighted by sparks from the first. We slowly retraced our way, and met people on every side quickening their steps in the direction of the fire.[Pg 357]

About seven o'clock, mother and I thought it would be wise to pack up our silver and valuables; for it seemed as if we were directly in the path of the conflagration. Down Fore Street, and from Fore to Free, it was rushing on. The southwestern heavens were entirely shut from our view by the flames and smoke; cinders, ashes, and blazing embers were falling like rain down Middle Street, and across to Congress, as far as the eye could see. The scene was terrible; but it was soon surpassed in fearfulness, for the work of desolation was not half completed. The Irish population were the chief sufferers up to this hour. It was heart-rending to see the women rushing hither and thither, trying to save their few possessions. Here, a poor creature was dragging a mattress, followed by several little crying children, her face the picture of despair; there, another, with her family, stood over the remnants of her scanty stock. A poor woman, who was in the habit of working for us, lived near the corner of Cross and Fore Streets. She had five children and a sick husband to care for. Almost all her energies were bent in getting them to a place of safety; and the few little things which she succeeded in rescuing from the flames were afterwards stolen from her by some one of the many wretches who gathered the spoils that awful night.

It soon became evident that we must decide upon some plan of action, in case it should come to the worst. We had two married sisters,—one living in India Street, the other at the west end of the city. As the former had no family, and was alone, even her husband being away, and as the latter had three children, and a house full of company, we decided that, if we must move, it should be to India Street. We sent off one team, and my youngest brother with it, before the fire was anywhere near us; and then, while my two little sisters assisted mother in getting things together, I worked with my brother and cousin, hanging wet blankets against the walls, pouring water on the roof, and taking other precautionary measures. But all was useless. On came the fire with a steady sweep. We saw that it was idle to combat it longer, and turned all our energies to saving what we could. Our home was to be ours no longer. The dear old roof-tree, under which had assembled so many loved ones, now gone forever,—where the eyes of all our home circle first saw the light of life,—where three of that number closed theirs in death,—the centre of the hopes and joys of a lifetime,—was to be abandoned to the flames. It was like tearing our heart-strings to leave it so; but there was no time for lingering. With streaming eyes and aching hearts we started out, taking what we could in our hands. There was by this time no vehicle to be obtained in which we could ride; and, supporting my mother, my sisters clinging to us in silent terror, we were borne along with the crowd down Middle Street to India. I cannot remember any incidents of that walk. The hurrying throng around me, the flying sparks, and the roar of the engines, seem like the confusion of a dream.

Our sister, who met us at the door, felt perfectly secure, and had done nothing towards packing. I gave her an account of our proceedings, thinking each moment of some precious thing I might have brought away. We went to the front door, and looked out on the scene before us. The fire seemed to come on the wings of the wind. Middle Street was ablaze; Wood's marble hotel was in flames, together with the beautiful dwelling opposite. The fire leaped from house to house, and, if for a moment checked, it was but to rush on in wilder fury. Churches, one by one, were seized by the flame, and crumbled into ruin before it. No human power could arrest its fierce progress. In vain the firemen put forth a strength almost superhuman: their exertions seemed but to add to its fury. Explosion after explosion gave greater terror to the scene: buildings were successively blown up in the useless effort to bar its pathway; the fire leaped the chasm and sped on. Fugitives of every[Pg 358] age and condition were hurrying through the streets, laden with everything imaginable,—especially looking-glasses, which seem the one important thing to be saved during a fire. My brother and cousin had not yet made their appearance, nor had we seen anything of my brother-in-law, from the other end of the city. But we knew they must be at their places of business, which were now in the heart of the burning district. Swiftly the destruction hurried towards us; and people were now seen bringing in their goods and seeking shelter on our premises. O what heart-broken faces surrounded us that fearful night! Friends, and people we had never seen, alike threw themselves on our kindness; and I must say that a spirit of humanity and good-will seemed everywhere prevalent among the citizens. We were now ourselves tortured by suspense. Could we escape, or should we again have to seek refuge from the flames? Surely the work of destruction would stop before it reached India Street? The hot breath of the maddening fire, and its lurid glare, were the only response. O, if the wind would only change! But a vane, glistening like gold in the firelight, steadfastly pointed to the southeast. For one moment it veered, and our hearts almost stood still with hope; but it swung back, and a feeling of despair settled upon us.

Our house was full. One poor lady, with a little baby only a week old, lay on a sofa in one of the rooms; near her, bent over in a rocking-chair, sat an old woman who had not been out of her house for five years, with a look of hopeless bewilderment on her wrinkled face. But people were now beginning to move from our house. India Street was almost blocked up. Every kind of vehicle that went upon wheels, from a barouche to a wheelbarrow, passed by laden with furniture.

At this moment my brother and brother-in-law approached, blackened almost beyond recognition. It was not until C—— spoke that I really knew him.

"We must be calm and collected, and save what we can. John is trying to get a team to carry mother up to L——'s; the rest of us will have to go to the graveyard. But John may not be successful, so you stay here, and see if you can get any one to take mother: they may do it for you, when they wouldn't for a man."

I stood on the edge of the sidewalk, clinging to the horse-post, and appealed in vain to wagons going by.

"I can't, ma'am, not if you was to give me twenty-five dollars,—not if you was to give me five hundred. I'm taking a load for a gentleman now."

So it was in every case. Very many were worse off than we were,—had not even a man to help. One well-known citizen was appealed to for help, in the early part of the evening, by a poor woman,—a sort of dependant of his family. He took her and her daughter, with their effects, outside the city, and returned to find India Street on fire and no means of getting through the crowd to his house, which was burned, with all that was not saved by the exertions of his wife. They had visiting them a lady whose child lay dead in the house, awaiting burial. The mother took the little corpse in her arms and carried it herself up to the other end of the city!

While I was making these vain attempts, John drove up in a light, open-topped buggy. We hurriedly got mother and E—— into it, and gave into their charge the jewelry and silver, and they drove away. I could not but tremble for their safety. The road seemed impassable, so dense was the struggling crowd. On every side the fire was raging. Looking up India Street it was one sheet of flame, and equally so before us. It looked like a world on fire, for we could see no smoke,—it was too near for that,—and the heat was terribly intense.

There was no time to be lost. Both our servants and M——'s were away spending the Fourth, so we had to depend[Pg 359] entirely on ourselves. Our back fence was soon torn down, and we all worked as we never had before. We saved a good deal, but not one half of what we brought from our house in the first place. We had thrown things out of the window, and C—— and J—— worked hard dragging them out of the yard, until, scorched and almost suffocated, they were compelled to desist. The flames were upon us so quickly, it seemed incredible that they could have seized the house so soon after we thought we were in danger.

"Thank God, we are all safe!" cried M——, sinking upon the ground in the graveyard, where we took refuge. She tried to look cheerful; but the sight before her—her house in flames—and the thought of her husband's absence overcame her, and she burst into tears. I laid the two little girls upon the grass; and, wearied out, they soon fell asleep. It was a strange scene in that quiet old cemetery, where the dead of more than a century had lain undisturbed in their graves. Where only the reverent tread of the mourner, or of some visitor carefully threading his way among the grassy mounds, was wont to be known, crowds of frantic people were hurrying across; while here and there were family groups clustered together, watching the destruction of their property.

How long the remaining hours seemed! Would the daylight never come? The children slept on, and we four talked in low tones of the morrow.

At length, faint, rosy lights began to streak the eastern horizon, and slowly the day dawned. The sun rose unclouded above the hills, sending down his beams upon the desolation which the night had wrought, lighting up the islands and the blue waters, flecked with sail-boats.

Not less welcome to us, J—— now also appeared,—with a hay-cart, whose driver he had engaged to come and remove us. Our goods were put into it; we took our places among them, and, as soon as the tardy oxen could carry us, were safe in my sister's house, living over again in words that fearful night, and relating to each other some of those incidents of the fire which can never all be told. A little friend of ours, when leaving her home, took in her arms her doll, nearly as large as herself; obliged to flee a second time, her mother told her it was useless to try and save the doll, and she must leave it there. With many tears she laid it on the sofa, feeling, no doubt, as if she were leaving a human being to be burnt. The next day, a friend brought to her the identical dolly, which had been found in the graveyard! The little one's joy may be imagined.

One of the women in the Irish quarter picked up her big pig in her arms and carried it to a place of safety, then returned to take care of her children and furniture. A woman went by our house in the early part of the evening bent nearly double beneath the weight of a trunk strapped upon her back. We saw women that night with loads under which almost any man would have staggered in ordinary circumstances.

Before we were supposed to be in danger, I walked out with a young friend to see what progress the fire was making. At a corner we observed a woman with a child about eight years old, talking, in great agitation, to a lady, and evidently urging her to accede to some request. My companion suggested that we should see if we could aid her in any way. As we approached, the lady had taken the child by the hand, with the words, "What is your address?" which was given. We inquired if we could be of any service. "No, thank you," was the reply. "I asked that lady to take care of my daughter. I keep store on that street over there. My husband is out of town, and I don't know what I shall do!"—and, wringing her hands, she hurried away. I have wondered since what was the fate of the little girl thus intrusted to the care of strangers; for the lady went in the direction, afterwards swept by the fire.

One family, whose house the flames did not reach until near two o'clock in[Pg 360] the morning, behaved with great coolness. The head of the household lay ill. It was their first care to provide for him. Then they went deliberately about, gathering up their valuables, taking just what they wanted. They secured a wagon to carry away their things. Their house, meanwhile, had been full of refugees from the flames. One of the young ladies, going for the last time through the deserted rooms, found, on a sofa in the parlor, a sick woman, utterly unable to move. At first, she felt almost in despair at sight of this poor creature, so near meeting a fearful fate. But quickly recovering her presence of mind, she called in men from the street, and, by their united efforts, they carried her out, and forced a passing wagon to take her to a safe place. A young lady, who lived at a little distance from this family, was spending the night at the other end of the city. They sat up till half past twelve, and she was then in the act of retiring, never dreaming that her home was in danger, when a loaded wagon stopped at the door, and out stepped her sister and child. She went back in the same vehicle, and worked till twelve the next day, getting things out of the house, collecting and guarding them till they could be removed.

There was, of course, the usual difference shown amongst people in such circumstances,—energy and coolness contrasted with imbecility and frantic excitement. A friend who moved three times, with her husband so ill that he had to be carried from place to place, never once forgot to administer his medicine at regular intervals,—with a steady hand pouring out the drops by the light of the fire.

A gentleman was carrying some of his books, preceded by an assistant, who also had his arms full. The latter walked so rapidly that his employer could not keep up with him. He called upon him to slacken his pace; but, as no attention was paid to this, the gentleman dropped his books upon the ground, and, running forward, knocked him down, determined to be obeyed, fire or no fire.

But all were not so cool. One man, seeing the flames advancing in the direction of his house, rushed thither to save his property. He worked with might and main, but, when the house was nearly emptied, became aware of the fact that it was his neighbor's. By this time his own dwelling was on fire, from which he saved scarcely anything. I know one person who passed through his hall perfectly empty-handed, while all around him were bundles and boxes, which were consumed in the fire; another walked out of his house with a package of envelopes in his hand, leaving, close by, an article worth thirty dollars.

I must mention one of many instances of unselfishness that came under my observation. A gentleman was comfortably established in a house which he had recently bought and furnished, expecting there to enjoy the pleasures of a home. One half of the house he had rented; but the husband of the woman to whom it was let was not in town. Their dwelling shared the fate of those around them, being burnt. He first set to work to save his own things; but, struck by the forlorn condition of his tenant, he did his best to save her effects, even to the detriment of his own; for when they were examined, the greater portion of them was found to be hers. Time has not exhausted the truth and beauty of the saying, that "in the night the stars shine forth," and the stars did not pale even in the terrible light of the fire that consumed half a city.

MY LITTLE BOY.

There were nine of us, all told, when mother died; myself, the eldest, aged twenty, a plain and serious woman, well fitted by nature and circumstance to fill the place made vacant by death.

I cannot remember when I was young. Indeed, when I hear other women recount the story of their early days, I think I had no childhood, for mine was like no other.

Mother was married so young, that at the age when most women begin to think seriously of marriage she had around her a numerous brood, of which I was less the elder sister than the younger mother. She was delicate by nature, and peevish by reason of her burdens, and I think could never have been a self-reliant character; so she fretted and sighed through life, and when death came, unawares, she seemed not sorry for the refuge.

She called me to her bed one day in a tone so cheerful that I wondered, and when I saw the calm and brightness in her face, hope made me glad, "Margaret," she said, "you have been a good daughter. I never did you justice until this illness opened my eyes. You have shamed me by your patience and your sacrifices so gently borne. You are more fit to be a mother than I ever was; and I leave the children to your care without a fear. It is not likely you will ever marry, and I die content, knowing that you will do your duty."

After this came many sad days,—the parting, the silent form which death had made majestic, the funeral hymns, the tolling bell, the clods upon the coffin-lid; and when the sun shone out and the birds sang again, it seemed to me I had dreamed it all, and that the sun could not shine nor the birds sing above a grave on which the grass had not yet had time to grow. But I had not dreamed, nor had I time for dreaming. Mother was dead, and eight children claimed from me a mother's care,—the youngest a wailing babe but seven days old, whom I came to cherish and love as my little boy.

When I had settled down, and grown accustomed to the vacuum which never could be filled for me, I thought a great deal upon mother's last words. I was proud of the trust she reposed in me, and I meant to be faithful to it. I wondered much why she had thought it likely I should never marry; for I was a woman with strong instincts, and, amid all the toil and care of my barren life, I had seen afar, through gleaming mists, the mountains of hope arise, and beyond the heat and dust and labor of duty caught glimpses of green ways made pleasant by quiet waters.

I do not think my burden seemed heavier now that mother no longer helped me to bear it; for my sense of responsibility had been increased by her complaining spirit. Her discouraging views of life held in check the reins of my eager fancy: it seemed wrong to enjoy a happiness I could not share with her. Now I no longer felt this restraint; but, knowing that somehow she had missed this happiness for which I waited, the knowledge invested her memory with a tender pity, and tempered my pleasure with a feeling akin to pain.

I was never idle. Behind the real work of life, my fancy wrought on, unknown and unsuspected by the world; my lamp of joy, fed by the sweet oil of hope, was ready for the lighting, and I was content to wait.

My little boy throve bravely. Every morning I awoke him with a kiss; and, perhaps because each day seemed but a continuation of the other, time stood still for him. He was for me the incarnation of all loveliness. The fair face, and blond hair, and brown, brooding eyes, were beautiful as an angel's, and goodness set its seal on his perfections.[Pg 362] He gave me no trouble: grief brings age, joy confirms youth, and I and my little boy grew young together. He was with me everywhere, lightening my labor with his prattling tongue, helping me with his sweet, hindering ways; and when the kisses had been many that had waked him many morns, he stood beside me, my little boy, hardly a hand's breadth lower than myself.

The world had changed for all but him and me. My father had wandered off to foreign parts; sisters and brothers, one by one, had gone forth to conquer kingdoms and reign in their own right, and one young sister, just on the border-land of maiden fancies, (O friends, I write this line with tears!) turned from earth and crossed the border-land of heaven.

But he and I remained alone in the old homestead, and walked together sweetly down the years.

If I came upon disappointment, I had not sought it, neither did I fall by it; but that which was my future slid by me and became the past, so gently that I scarce remember where one ended or the other began; and though all other lovers failed me, one true remained, to whom I ever would be true. The future did not look less fair; nay, I deemed it more full of promise than ever. It was as though I had passed from my old stand-point of observation to a more easterly window; and the prospect was not the less enchanting that I looked upon it over the shoulder of my little boy. We talked much of it together; and though he had the nearer view, it was my practised vision that saw pathways of beauty not yet suspected by him.

But we were still happy in the present, and did not speculate much upon the future. The rolling years brought him completeness, and to the graces of person were added the gifts of wisdom and knowledge. The down that shaded his cheek, like the down upon a ripe peach, had darkened and strengthened to the symbol of manhood, and his words had the clear ring of purpose. For there was a cloud upon the horizon which at first was no bigger than a man's hand, but it grew until it filled the land with darkness, and the fair prospect on which I had so loved to gaze was hidden behind the storm. My little boy and I looked into each other's faces, and he cried, "Margaret, I must go!"

I did not say nay,—for the tears which were not in my eyes were in my voice, and to speak was to betray them,—but I turned about to make him ready.

In these days my little boy's vision was finer than my own; and when we stood together, looking from our orient window, he saw keener and farther than I had ever done; for my eyes now looked through a veil of tears, while his, like the eagle's, penetrated the cloud to the sunshine behind it. He was full of the dream of glory; and his words, fraught with purpose and power, stirred me like a trumpet. I caught the inspiration that thrilled his soul; for we had walked so long together that all paths pursued by him must find me ever at his side.

One day I was summoned to meet a visitor; and going, a tall figure in military dress gave me a military salute. It was my little boy, who, half abashed at his presumption, drew himself up, and sought refuge from shyness in valor. It was not a sight to make me smile, though I smiled to please my warrior, who, well pleased, displayed his art, to show how fields were won. Won! He had no thought of loss; for youth and hope dream not of defeat, and he talked of how the war was to be fought and ended, and all should be well.

I kissed my little boy good night; and he slept peacefully, dreaming of fields of glory, as Jacob dreamed and saw a heavenly vision.

He went; and then it seemed as if there had been with him one fair long summer day, and this was the evening thereof; and my heart was heavy within me.

But many letters reached me from the distant field,—long and loving letters, full of hope, portraying all the[Pg 363] poetry and beauty of camp-life, casting the grosser part aside; and to me at home, musing amid peaceful scenes, it seemed a great, triumphant march, which must crush, with its mere display of power, all wicked foes. But the sacrifice of blood was needed for the remission of sin, and these holiday troops—heroes in all save the art of war—lost the day, and, returning, brought back with their thinned ranks my little boy unharmed. Unharmed, thank God! but bronzed and bearded like the pard, and tarnished with the wear and burnished with the use of war.

How he talked and laughed, making light of danger, and, growing serious, said the fight had but begun,—the business of the nation must, for years, be war,—and that his strength and manhood, nay, his life if need be, should be given to his country. Then his words made me brave, and his looks made me proud. I blessed him with unfaltering lips; and above the hills of promise, which my little boy and I saw looking from our orient window, rose higher yet the mountains of truth, with the straight path of duty leading to the skies. But when he was gone again,—gone,—there fell a shadow of the coming night, and the evening and the morning were the second day.

His frequent letters dissipated the sense of danger, and brought me great comfort. War is not a literary art, and letters from the "imminent deadly breach," made it seem less deadly. His self-abnegation filled me with wonder. "It is well that few should be lost, that many may be saved," he wrote. In what school had this tender youth learned heroism, I asked myself, as I read his noble words and trembled at his courage.

My dreams and my gaze turned southward. No eastern beams lured me to that lookout so long endeared; for the eyes through which I once gazed looked through the smoke of battle, and hope and faith had fled with him, and left me but suspense.

Now came hot work. The enemy pressed sorely, and men's—ay, and women's—souls were tried. Long days of silence passed, days of sickening doubt, and then came the news of victory,—victory bought with precious blood and heavy loss. Over the ghastly hospital lists I hung, fearing and dreading to meet the name of my little boy, taking hope, as the list shortened, from the despair of others, and no mention. Thank God, who giveth us the victory!

And later, when details come in, I see in "official report" my little boy's name mentioned for meritorious and gallant conduct, and recommended for promotion. Ah! the groans of the dying are lost in the shouts of the victor; and, forgetting the evil because of this good, a woman's heart cried, Laus Deo!

After the battle, hardly fought and dearly purchased, my hero came home on furlough. War had developed him faster than the daily kisses of love had done; for my little boy—crowned with immortal youth for me—for all the world came from this rude embrace a man in stature and wisdom, a hero in valor and endurance, a leader beloved and revered.

But for all this I tucked him in o' nights, and shut off harmful draughts from him who oft had lain upon the sod, and for covering had but the cloudy sky.

These were blissful days,—marked in the past by white memories,—in which we talked of future plans, the future so near, yet to our vision so remote, and purposed this and that, not considering that Heaven disposes all things.

And when he must be off, I kissed him lightly; for success brings security, and I was growing accustomed to these partings; but he drew me to his breast, struck by some pang of coming evil, and called me mother. Ah! then my heart yearned over my little boy, and I would fain have stayed his going; but, dashing the tears from his eyes, he hurried away, nor looked behind him once.

All through the winter, which for him was summer, my heart lay lightly in its place, and I waited calmly the coming[Pg 364] of the end. The struggle was almost over; the storm-cloud had rolled back, after deluging the land in blood; in this consecrated soil slavery was forever buried; the temple of freedom was reared in the name of all men, and the dove of peace sat brooding in its eaves.

All this my little boy had said must come to pass before he sheathed his sword; and this had come to pass.

He had marched "to the sea," my conquering hero, and was "coming up," crowned with new laurels. I was waiting the fulness of time, lulled with the fulness of content. Sherman had gathered his hosts for another combat,—the last,—and then the work would be done, and well done. Thus wrote my little boy; and my heart echoed his words, "well done."

This battle-day I worked out of doors from morning until night, seeking to bring order and beauty out of confusion and decay, striving to have all things ready when he came. My sleep was sweet that night, and I awoke with these words in my mind:—

The sun streamed in through the eastern window, and all the hills beyond were bathed in glory; the earth was fair to look upon, and happiness, descending from the skies, nestled in my heart.

I planted all this day, covering precious seed, thinking on their summer beauty; and, as the evening fell, I stood at the garden gate watching the way he must come for whose coming I longed with a longing that could not be uttered.

As I looked, idly speculating on his speed, a horseman dashed up in mad haste, his steed spent and flecked with foam. Men do not ride so hot with good tidings,—what need to make such haste with evil?

Still, no sense of loss, no shadow of the coming night. Peace covered my heart, and would not be scared away. Blind infatuation! that could not see.

"Was it not then a victory?" I cried; for sadness and defeat were written in his face.

Too kind to speak the words, at sight of which I fell, struck by a bolt that, riving his heart, through leagues of space had travelled straight to mine.

Months later, when the long night had passed away, and the dawn brought patience and resignation, one who saw him fall, gloriously, told me the story. I could bear it then; for in my soul's eclipse I had beheld him walking on the heavenly hills, and knew that there he was waiting for me.

O pilgrim to those sacred shrines, if in your wandering ye come upon a nameless grave, marked by a sunken sword, tread lightly above the slumbers of my little boy!

LAKE CHAMPLAIN.

Not thoughtless let us enter thy domain;
Well did the tribes of yore,
Who sought the ocean from the distant plain,
Call thee their country's door.[F]

And as the portals of a saintly pile
The wanderer's steps delay,
And, while he musing roams the lofty aisle,
Care's phantoms melt away

In the vast realm where tender memories brood
O'er sacred haunts of time,
That woo his spirit to a nobler mood
And more benignant clime,—

So in the fane of thy majestic hills
We meekly stand elate;
The baffled heart a tranquil rapture fills
Beside thy crystal gate:

For here the incense of the cloistered pines,
Stained windows of the sky,
The frescoed clouds and mountains' purple shrines,
Proclaim God's temple nigh.

Through wild ravines thy wayward currents glide,
Round bosky islands play;
Here tufted headlands meet the lucent tide,
There gleams the spacious bay;

Untracked for ages, save when crouching flew,
Through forest-hung defiles,
The dusky savage in his frail canoe,
To seek the thousand isles,

Or rally to the fragrant cedar's shade
The settler's crafty foe,
With toilsome march and midnight ambuscade
To lay his dwelling low.

Along the far horizon's opal wall
The dark blue summits rise,
And o'er them rifts of misty sunshine fall,
Or golden vapor lies.

And over all tradition's gracious spell
A fond allurement weaves;
[Pg 366] Her low refrain the moaning tempest swells,
And thrills the whispering leaves.

To win this virgin land,—a kingly quest,—
Chivalric deeds were wrought;
Long by thy marge and on thy placid breast
The Gaul and Saxon fought.

What cheers of triumph in thy echoes sleep!
What brave blood dyed thy wave!
A grass-grown rampart crowns each rugged steep,
Each isle a hero's grave.

And gallant squadrons manned for border fray,
That rival standards bore,
Sprung from thy woods and on thy bosom lay,—
Stern warders of the shore.

How changed since he whose name thy waters bear,
The silent hills between,
Led by his swarthy guides to conflict there,
Entranced beheld the scene!

Fleets swiftly ply where lagged the lone batteau,
And quarries trench the gorge;
Where waned the council-fire, now steadfast glow
The pharos and the forge.

On Adirondack's lake-encircled crest
Old war-paths mark the soil,
Where idly bivouacks the summer guest,
And peaceful miners toil.

Where lurked the wigwam, cultured households throng;
Where rung the panther's yell
Is heard the low of kine, a blithesome song,
Or chime of village bell.

And when, to subjugate the peopled land,
Invaders crossed the sea,
Rushed from thy meadow-slopes a stalwart band,
To battle for the free.

Nor failed the pristine valor of the race
To guard the nation's life;
Thy hardy sons met treason face to face,
The foremost in the strife.

When locusts bloom and wild-rose scents the air,
When moonbeams fleck the stream,
And June's long twilights crimson shadows wear,
Here linger, gaze, and dream!

FOOTNOTES:

[F] One of the aboriginal names of Lake Champlain signifies the open door of the country.

YESTERDAY.

There is a gleam of ultramarine,—which, most of all tints, say the painters, possesses the quality of light in itself,—banished to the farthest horizon of the ocean, where it lies all day, a line of infinite richness, not to be drawn by Apelles, and in its compression of expanse—leagues of sloping sea and summer calm being written in that single line—suggestive of more depth than plummet or diver can ever reach. Such an enchantment of color deepens the farther and interior horizon with most men,—whether it is the atmosphere of one's own identity still warming and enriching it, or whether the orbed course of time has dropped the earthy part away, and left only the sunbeams falling there. But Leonardo da Vinci supposed that the sky owed its blue to the darkness of vast space behind the white lens of sunlit air; and perhaps where the sea presents through the extent of its depth, as it slips over into other hemispheres, tangents with the illumined atmosphere beyond, it affords a finer filter for these blue rays, and thenceforth hoards in its heart the wealth and beauty of tint found in that line of ultramarine. Thus too, perhaps, in the eyes of these fortunate men, every year of their deepening past presents only a purer strain for such sunshine as is theirs, until it becomes indeed

The child's conjecture of the future is one of some great, bright, busy thing beyond the hills or over the river. But the thought is not definite: having nothing to remember, he has nothing by which to model his idea.

The man looks back at the past in much the same manner, to be sure,—always with something between,—if not the river or the hills, at least a breath of mist out of which rises the vision he invokes; but the vision has a shape, precise and clear.

If it is sadness that he seeks, sadness comes, dark as the nun of the Penseroso, without a glimmer of the countless and daily trifles of fairer aspect that made her actual presence possible to suffer,—comes to flatter his memory with assurance of strength in having endured so much and yet survived, or to stab him with her phantom poniards freshly and fiercely as ever,—no diffused affair, but a positive shape of melancholy.

But if the phase to be recalled is of a cheerful sort, how completely likewise does it assert its essence,—a sunbeam falling through that past from beginning to end. All the vexatious annoyances of the period that then seemed to counterbalance pleasure are lost to view, and only the rosy face of an experience that was happiness itself smiles upon him. What matter the myriad frets that then beset him in the flesh? They were superficial substance,—burrs that fell; he was happy in spite of them; he does not remember them; he sees nothing but the complete content; he in fact possesses his experience only in the ideal.

It is the dropping out of detail that accomplishes this in one case and the other. In either, the point of view alone is fixed. The rest is variable, and depends, it may be, on the nature of that subtile and volatile ether through which each man gazes.

That the latter, the brighter vision, predominates, is as true as that sunny days outnumber rainy ones. Though Argemone, rather than remember, may have blotted out her memory; or though Viviani, after fifty years of renowned practice in his profession, may be unable to look back at it without a shudder,—then endowed with youth, health, energy, ambition,—now lacking these, the recollection of the suffering he has seen overwhelming his sensitive nature blackly and heavily as clods of burial might do;—yet they are but[Pg 368] those points of shadow that throw the fact into prominence. It has been said that pain, remembered, is delight. This is true only of physical pain. Mental agony ever remains agony; for it is the body that perishes and the affections of the body. Still, with most men the past is an illuminated region, forever throwing the present into the shade. In the Zend Avesta, a farsang is defined to be the space within which a long-sighted man can see a camel and distinguish whether it be white or black; but the milestones of the memory are even less arbitrary than this: no matter how far the glance flies, in those distances every man's camel is white. Thus the backward view is ever of

The maidens of to-day are not so beautiful as the maidens were when our young senses could drink in their beauty; the St. Michael pears have died out; the blight has got possession of the roses. When we married, a white one climbed up the house-side and thrust its snowy sprays in at the casement of the wedding-chamber. Find us such climbers now! A young girl once on the beach, watching her father's ship slip away on the wind, had her glance caught by a sparkle in the sand; and there lay a treasure at her feet, a heap of crimson crystals, a mine of jewels. What wealth! What possibilities! No more going to sea! No more watching ships out of sight! She gathered a double-handful of the splendid cubes as earnest, and ran back to the house with them. Such assurance having been displayed, there was no hesitation. The man-servant followed her swift guidance to the shore again, with shovel and sack and a train of the whole household,—but the tide had come in, and the place was not there. Day after day was search made for that mass of garnets, but always in vain. It was one of those deposits that Hugh Miller somewhere speaks of, as disclosed by one tide and hidden by another. But all her life long, though she wore jewels and scattered gold, no gem rivalled the blood-red lustre of that sudden sparkle in the sands; and no wealth equalled the fabulous dreams that were born of it. It was to her as precious and irreparable as to the poet the Lost Bower.

This light of other days is unfailingly, by its owners, carried over to every child they meet. As if the caterpillar were in better estate than the butterfly, each boy is seeing his best days. Yet there is not a child in the world but is pursued by cares. His desk-mate's marbles oppress him more than will forcemeat-balls and turtle-soup when he becomes an alderman; there are lessons to learn, terrible threats of telling the teacher to brave, and many a smart to suffer. Childhood is beautiful in truth, but not therefore blest,—that is, for the little bodiless cherubs of the canvas. It was one of Origen's fancies that the coats of skins given to Adam and Eve on their expulsion from Paradise were their corporeal textures, and that in Eden they had neither flesh nor blood, bones nor nerves. The opening soul, that puts back petal after petal till the fructifying heart of it is bare to all the sweet influences of the universe, is something lovely for older eyes to see,—perhaps no lovelier than the lawful development of later lives to larger eyes than ours,—perhaps no lovelier than that we are to undergo. The first moment when the force of beauty strikes a child's perceptions would be an ineffable one, if he had anything to compare it with or measure it by; but as it is, even though it pierce him through and through with rapture, he is not aware of that rapture till after-years reproduce it for him and sweeten the sensation with full knowledge. The child is so dear to the parents, because it is their own beings bound together[Pg 369] in one; the baby is so beautiful to all, because so sacred and mysterious. Where was this life a moment since? Whither will it fleet a moment hence? He may be a fiend or an archangel by and by, as he and Fate together please; but now his little skin is like a blush rose-leaf, and his little kisses are so tender and so dear! yet it is as an object of nature that he charms, not in his identity as a sufferer of either pain or pleasure. Childhood, by these blind worshippers of yesterday, is simply so vaunted and so valued because it is seen again in the ideal: the detail is lost in distance; the fair fact alone remains.

But yesterday has its uses, of more value than its idolatries. Though too often with its aerial distances and borrowed hues it is a mere pleasure region, instead of that great reservoir from which we might draw fountains of inexhaustible treasure, yet, if we cultivated our present from our past, homage to it might be as much to the purpose at least as the Gheber's worship of the sun. The past is an atmosphere weighing over each man's life. The skilful farmer with his subsoil-plough lets down the wealthy air of the actual atmosphere into his furrows, deeper than it ever went before; the greedy loam sucks in the nitrogen there, and one day he finds his mould stored with ammonia, the great fertilizer, worth many a harvest. Are they numerous who thus enrich the present with the disengaged agents of the past, the chemic powers obtained from that superincumbent atmosphere ever elastically stretching over them? Let our farmer scatter pulverized marble upon his soil forever,—crude carbonate of lime,—and it remains unassimilated; but let him powder burnt bones there, and his crop uses it to golden advantage,—now merely the phosphate of lime, but material that has passed through the operations of animal life, of organism. With whatever manure he work his land, be it wood-ashes or guano or compost, he knows that that which has received the action of organic tissues fattens it the best; and so a wise man may fertilize to-day better with the facts of an experience that he has once lived through, than with any vague and unorganized dreams. But the fool has never lived;—life, said Bichat, is the totality of the functions;—his past has endured no more organization than his future has; he never understood it; he can make no use of it; so he deifies it, and burns the flying moment like a joss-stick before the wooden image in which he has caricatured all its sweet and beneficent capabilities;—as if it were likely that one moment of his existence could be of any more weight than another.

The sentiment which a generation feels for another long antecedent to itself, is not utterly dissimilar from this. Its individuals being regarded with the veneration due to parents and due to the dead, it is forgotten that they were men, and men whose lessons were necessarily no wiser than those of the men among us; men, too, of no surpassing humility, since they presumed to prescribe inviolable laws to ages far wiser than themselves. Yet though the philosophy of the Greek and Roman were lost, would it need more than the years of a generation to replace what scarcely can exceed the introspection of a single experience? If their art were lost, does not the ideal of humanity remain the same so long as the nature of humanity endures? But of the seven sciences of antiquity, two alone deserve the name,—their arithmetic and their geometry. Their music was a cumbrous and complicated machinery, and the others were exercises of wit and pleasure and superstition. It is true that the Egyptian excelled, that the Arabian delved somewhat into the secrets of nature; but who venerates those people, and who spends all that season in study of their language that he should spend in putting oxygen into his blood and lime into his bones? The sensuous Greek loved beauty; he did not care to puzzle his brain when he could please it instead. Euclid and[Pg 370] Apollonius, indeed, carried the positive science of mathematics to great height, but physical science is the growth of comparative to-day; with habits of thought hampered by priesthoods and systems, the efforts of antiquity were like abortive shoots,—it is within the last four centuries that the strong stem has sprung up, and the plant has flowered. Neither do our youth study the classics for their science; and yet is not the pursuit of science nobler than all other pursuits, since it leads its followers into the mysteries of the creation and into the purposes of God? Small is the profit to be found in recital of the fancies of heathen ages or the warfares of savage tribes. But so far is the mere breath of the ancients exalted above this sacred search, that a university will turn out proficients who write Greek verses by the ream, but cannot spell their own speech; who can name you the winning athletes of the first Olympiad, but are unable to state the constituents of the gas that lights their page, and never dream, as the chemist does, that these "sunbeams absorbed by vegetation in the primordial ages of the earth, and buried in its depths as vegetable fossils through immeasurable eras of time, until system upon system of slowly formed rocks has been piled above, come forth at last, at the disenchanting touch of science, and turn the night of civilized man into day." They can paint to you the blush of Rhodope or Phryne, till you see the delicious color blend and mingle on the ivory of their tablets; but until, like Agassiz, we can all of us deduce the fish from the scale, and from that blush alone deduce the human race, we are no nearer the Divine intentions in the creation of man, for all such lore as that. An author has somewhere asked, What signify our telegraphs, our anæsthetics, our railways? What signifies our knowledge of the earth's structure, of the stars' courses? Are we any the more or less men? But certainly he is the more a man, he comes nearer to God's meaning in a man, who conquers matter, circumstance, time, and space. That one who sees the universe move round him understandingly, and fathoms in some degree the wonder and the beauty of the eternal laws, must be a pleasanter object to his Creator than any other who, merely employing pleasure, makes a fetich of his luxuries, his Aldines and Elzevirs, and, dying, goes into the unknown world no wiser concerning the ends and aims of this one than when he entered it. Rather than periods that decay and sin might bring again, should one remember the wonderful history of the natural world when the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Rather should one read the record of the rain, it seems,—the story of the weather some morning, cycles since, with the way the wind was blowing written in the slanting drip of the rain-drops caught and petrified on the old red sandstone,—marks of the Maker as he passed, one day, a million years ago,—than decipher on the scroll of any palimpsest, under the light-headed visions of an anchorite, some half-erased ode of Anacreon.

But, after all, this veneration for the ancients—who personally might be forgiven for their misfortune in having lived when the world was young, were not one so slavish before them—is only because again one looks at the ideal,—looks through that magical Claude Lorraine glass which makes even the commonest landscape picturesque. We forget the dirty days of straw-strewn floors, and see the leather hangings stamped with gold; we forget the fearful feet of sandal shoon, but see the dust of a Triumph rising in clouds of glory. We look at that past, feeling something like gods, too.

We cannot consider those things happening remotely from us on the earth's surface, even now, without suffering them to partake somewhat of the property of by-gone days. It makes little difference[Pg 371] whether the distance be that of meridians or of eras. When at sunrise we fancy some foreign friend beholding dawn upon the silver summits of the Alps, we are forced directly to remember that with him day is at the noon, and his sunrise has vanished with those of all the yesterdays,—so that even our friend becomes a being of the past; or when, bathed in the mellow air of an autumn afternoon, the sunshine falling on us like the light of a happy smile, and all the vaporous vistas melting in clouded sapphire, it occurs to us that possibly it is snowing on the Mackenzie River, and night has already darkened down over the wide and awful ice-fields,—then distance seems a paradox, and time and occasion mere phantasmagoria; there are no beings but ourselves, there is no moment but the present; all circumstance of the world becomes apparent to us only like pictures thrown into the perspective of the past. It requires the comprehensive vision of the poet to catch the light of existing scenes as they shift along the globe, and harmonize them with the instant;—whether he view

the gods and the poets. But, except to these blest beholders, the inhabitants of the dead centuries are mere spectral shades; for it takes a poet's fancy to vitalize with warmth and breath again those things that, having apparently left no impress on their own generation, seem to have no more signification for this than the persons of the drama or the heroes of romance.

Yet, in a far inferior way, every man is a poet to himself. In the microcosm of his own small round, every one has the power to vivify old incident, every one raises bawbles of the desk and drawer, not only into life, but into life they never had. With the flower whose leaves are shed about the box, we can bring back the brilliant morning of its blossoming, desire and hope and joyous youth once more; with the letter laid away beside it rises the dear hand that rested on the sheet, and moved along the leaf with every line it penned: each trinket has its pretty past, pleasant or painful to recall as it may be. There is no trifle, however vulgar, but, looking at its previous page, it has a side in the ideal. When one at the theatre saw so many ringlets arranged as "waterfalls," he laughed and said, they undoubtedly belonged to the "dead-heads." But Belinda, who wears a waterfall, and at night puts it into a box, considers the remark a profanity, and confesses that she never adorns herself with this addition but she thinks of that girl in France who cherished her long locks, and combed them out with care until her marriage-day, when she put on a fair white cap, and sold them for her dowry. There are more poetic locks of hair, it must be said;—the keepsake of two lovers; the lock of Keats's hair, too sacred to touch, lying in its precious salvatory. But that is the ideal of the past belonging to Belinda's waterfall, a trivial, common thing enough, yet one that has a right to its ideal, nevertheless, if we accept the ecstasies of a noted writer upon its[Pg 372] magic material. "In spinning and weaving," says he, "the ideal that we pursue is the hair of a woman. How far are the softest wools, the finest cottons, from reaching it! At what an enormous distance from this hair all our progress leaves us, and will forever leave us! We drag behind and watch with envy this supreme perfection that every day Nature realizes in her play. This hair, fine, strong, resistant, vibrant in light sonority, and, with all that, soft, warm, luminous, and electric,—it is the flower of the human flower. There are idle disputes concerning the merit of its color. What matter? The lustrous black contains and promises the flame. The blond displays it with the splendors of the Fleece of Gold. The brown, chatoyant in the sun, appropriates the sun itself, mingles it with its mirages, floats, undulates, varies ceaselessly in its brook-like reflections, by moments smiles in the light or glooms in the shade, deceives always, and, whatever you say of it, gives you the lie charmingly.—The chief effort of human industry has combined all methods in order to exalt cotton. Rare accord of capital, machinery, arts of design, and finally chemical science, has produced those beautiful results to which England herself renders homage in buying them. Alas! all that cannot disguise the original poverty of the ungrateful tissue which has been so much adorned. If woman, who clothes herself with it in vanity, and believes herself more beautiful because of it, would but let her hair fall and unroll its waves over the indigent richness of our most brilliant cloths, what must become of them! how humiliated would the vestment be!—It is necessary to confess that one thing alone sustains itself beside a woman's hair. A single fabricator can strive there. This fabricator is an insect,—the modest silkworm."

"A particular charm surrounds the works in silk," our author then goes on to say. "It ennobles all about it. In traversing our rudest districts, the valleys of the Ardèche, where all is rock, where the mulberry, the chestnut, seem to dispense with earth, to live on air and flint, where low houses of unmortared stone sadden the eyes with their gray tint, everywhere I saw at the door, under a kind of arcade, two or three charming girls, with brown skin, with white teeth, who smiled at the passer-by and spun gold. The passer-by, whirled on by the coach, said to them under his breath: 'What a pity, innocent fays, that this gold may not be for you! Instead of disguising it with a useless color, instead of disfiguring it by art, what would it not gain by remaining itself and upon these beautiful spinners! How much better than any grand dames would this royal tissue become yourselves!'"

Perhaps it was the dowry of one of these very maidens that Belinda wears; and all this would only go to show that to every meanest thing the past can lend a halo. When one person showed another the "entire costume of a Nubian woman, purchased as she wore it,"—a necklace of red beads, and two brass ear-rings simply, hanging on a nail,—how it brought up the whole scene, the wondrous ruins, the Nile, the lotos, and the palm-branch, the splendid sky soaring over all, the bronze-skinned creature shining in the sun! What a past the little glass bits had at their command, and what a more magnificent past hung yet behind them! Who would value a diamond, the product of any laboratory, were such a possibility, so much as that one which, by its own unknown and inscrutable process, defying philosopher and jeweller, has imprisoned the sunshine that moss or leaf or flower sucked in, ages since, and set its crystals in the darkness of the earth,—a drop of dew eternalized? What tree of swift and sudden springing, that grows like a gourd in the night to never so stately a height, could equal in our eyes the gnarled and may be stunted trunk that has thrown the flickering shadows of its leaves over the dying pillows alike of[Pg 373] father, child, and grandchild? The ring upon the finger is crusted thick with memories, and, looking at it, far more than in the present do you live in the past. Perhaps it is for this that we are so jealous of events: we fear to have our memories impinged upon by pain. The woman whose lover has deserted her mourns not the man she must despise, but the love that has dropped out of her past, proving hollow and worthless. But she to whom he remains faithful borrows perpetually store of old love to enrich the daily feast; she gilds and glorifies the blest to-day with the light of that love transfigured in the past. And so, in other shapes and experiences, it is with all of us indeed; since into this fairy-land all can fly for refuge, can pick again their roses and ignore their thorns, can

Nor is this living in the past entirely the voluntary affair of pleasure and of memory. In another and more spiritual way it masters us. Never quite losing the vitality that once it had, with an elastic springiness it constantly rebounds, and the deed of yesterday reacts upon the deed of to-day. There is something solemn in the thought that thus the blemish or the grace of a day that long ago disappeared passes on with awfully increasing undulations into the demesne of the everlasting. And though the Judge of all may not cast each deed of other days and weigh them in the balance for us or against, yet what those deeds have made us, that we shall stand before him when,

Yesterday, in truth,—looking though it may like a shadow and the phantom of itself,—is the only substance that we possess, the one immutable fact. To-day is but the asymptote of to-morrow, that curve perpetually drawing near, but never reaching the straight line flying into infinity. To-morrow, the great future, belongs to the heaven where it tends. Were it otherwise, seeing the indestructible elements, and the two great central forces forever at their work, we might fancy ourselves, in one form or another, continual here on the round world. For when Laplace, through the acceleration of the moon, dropping her ten seconds a hundred years towards us, discovered the change in the earth's orbit,—swinging as it does from ellipse to circle and back again to ellipse, vibrating like a mighty pendulum, the "horologe of eternity" itself, with tremendous oscillations, through the depths of space,—he taught us that the earth endures; and so that the clay with which we are clothed still makes a part of the great revolution. Yet, since the future is no possession of our own, but a dole and pittance, we know that the earth does not endure for us, but that when we shall have submitted to the conditions of eternal spirit, yesterday, to-morrow, and to-day must alike have ceased to exist, must have vanished like illusions; for eternity can be no mere duration of time, but rather some state of being past all our power of cognition.

And though we are to inherit eternity, yet have authority now only over the period that we have passed, with what wealth then are the aged furnished! Sweet must it be to sit with folded hands and dream life over once again. How rich we are, how happy! How dear is the old hand in ours! Years have added up the sum of all the felicity that we have known together, and carried it over to to-day. Those that have left our arms and gone out into other homes are still our own; but little sunny heads besides cluster round the knees as once before they did. Not only have we age and wisdom, but youth and gayety as well. On what light and jocund scenes we look! on what deep and dearer bliss![Pg 374] We see the meaning of our sorrows now, and bless them that they came. With such firm feet we have walked in the lighted way that we gaze back upon, how can we fear the Valley of the Shadow? Ah! none but they, indeed, who have threescore years and ten hived away in the past, can see the high design of Heaven in their lives, and from the wrong side of the pattern picture out the right.

THE JOHNSON PARTY.

The President of the United States has so singular a combination of defects for the office of a constitutional magistrate, that he could have obtained the opportunity to misrule the nation only by a visitation of Providence. Insincere as well as stubborn, cunning as well as unreasonable, vain as well as ill-tempered, greedy of popularity as well as arbitrary in disposition, veering in his mind as well as fixed in his will, he unites in his character the seemingly opposite qualities of demagogue and autocrat, and converts the Presidential chair into a stump or a throne, according as the impulse seizes him to cajole or to command. Doubtless much of the evil developed in him is due to his misfortune in having been lifted by events to a position which he lacked the elevation and breadth of intelligence adequately to fill. He was cursed with the possession of a power and authority which no man of narrow mind, bitter prejudices, and inordinate self-estimation can exercise without depraving himself as well as injuring the nation. Egotistic to the point of mental disease, he resented the direct and manly opposition of statesmen to his opinions and moods as a personal affront, and descended to the last degree of littleness in a political leader,—that of betraying his party, in order to gratify his spite. He of course became the prey of intriguers and sycophants,—of persons who understand the art of managing minds which are at once arbitrary and weak, by allowing them to retain unity of will amid the most palpable inconsistencies of opinion, so that inconstancy to principle shall not weaken force of purpose, nor the emphasis be at all abated with which they may bless to-day what yesterday they cursed. Thus the abhorrer of traitors has now become their tool. Thus the denouncer of Copperheads has now sunk into dependence on their support. Thus the imposer of conditions of reconstruction has now become the foremost friend of the unconditioned return of the Rebel States. Thus the furious Union Republican, whose harangues against his political opponents almost scared his political friends by their violence, has now become the shameless betrayer of the people who trusted him. And in all these changes of base he has appeared supremely conscious, in his own mind, of playing an independent, a consistent, and especially a conscientious part.

Indeed, Mr. Johnson's character would be imperfectly described if some attention were not paid to his conscience, the purity of which is a favorite subject of his own discourse,[Pg 375] and the perversity of which is the wonder of the rest of mankind. As a public man, his real position is similar to that of a commander of an army, who should pass over to the ranks of the enemy he was commissioned to fight, and then plead his individual convictions of duty as a justification of his treachery. In truth, Mr. Johnson's conscience is, like his understanding, a mere form or expression of his will. The will of ordinary men is addressed through their understanding and conscience. Mr. Johnson's understanding and conscience can be addressed only through his will. He puts intellectual principles and the moral law in the possessive case, thinks he pays them a compliment and adds to their authority when he makes them the adjuncts of his petted pronoun "my"; and things to him are reasonable and right, not from any quality inherent in themselves, but because they are made so by his determinations. Indeed, he sees hardly anything as it is, but almost everything as colored by his own dominant egotism. Thus he is never weary of asserting that the people are on his side; yet his method of learning the wishes of the people is to scrutinize his own, and, when acting out his own passionate impulses, he ever insists that he is obeying public sentiment. Of all the wilful men who, by strange chance, have found themselves at the head of a constitutional government, he most resembles the last Stuart king of England, James II.; and the likeness is increased from the circumstance that the American James has, in his supple and plausible Secretary of State, one fully competent to play the part of Sunderland.

The party which, under the ironical designation of the National Union Party, now proposes to take the policy and character of Mr. Johnson under its charge, is composed chiefly of Democrats defeated at the polls, and Democrats defeated on the field of battle. The few apostate Republicans, who have joined its ranks while seeming to lead its organization, are of small account. Its great strength is in its Southern supporters, and, if it comes into power, it must obey a Rebel direction. By the treachery of the President, it will have the executive patronage on its side,—for Mr. Johnson's "conscience" is of that peculiar kind which finds satisfaction in arraying the interest of others against their convictions; and having thus the power to purchase support, it will not fail of those means of dividing the North which come from corrupting it. The party under which the war for the Union was conducted is to be denounced and proscribed as the party of disunion, and we are to be edified by addresses on the indissoluble unity of the nation by Secessionists, who have hardly yet had time to wash from their hands the stains of Union blood. The leading proposition on which this conspiracy against the country is to be conducted is the monstrous absurdity, that the Rebel States have an inherent, "continuous," unconditioned, constitutional right to form a part of the Federal government, when they have once acknowledged the fact of the defeat of their inhabitants in an armed attempt to overthrow and subvert it,—a proposition which implies that victory paralyzes the powers of the victors, that ruin begins when success is assured, that the only effect of beating a Southern Rebel in the field is to exalt him into a maker of laws for his antagonist.

In the minority Report of the Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which is designed to supply the new party with constitutional law, this theory of State Rights is most elaborately presented. The ground is taken, that during the Rebellion the States in which it prevailed were as "completely competent States of the United States as they were before the Rebellion, and were bound by all the obligations which the Constitution imposed, and entitled to all its privileges"; and that the Rebellion consisted merely in a series of "illegal acts of the citizens of such States." On this theory it is difficult to find where the guilt of rebellion lies. The States are innocent because the[Pg 376] Rebellion was a rising of individuals; the individuals cannot be very criminal, for it is on their votes that the committee chiefly rely to build up the National Union Party. Again, we are informed that, in respect to the admission of representatives from "such States," Congress has no right or power to ask more than two questions. These are: "Have these States organized governments? Are these governments republican in form?" The committee proceed to say: "How they were formed, under what auspices they were formed, are inquiries with which Congress has no concern. The right of the people to form a government for themselves has never been questioned." On this principle, President Johnson's labors in organizing State governments were works of supererogation. At the close of active hostilities the Rebel States had organized, though disloyal, governments, as republican in form as they were before the war broke out. The only thing, therefore, they were required to do was to send their Senators and Representatives to Washington. Congress could not have rightfully refused to receive them, because all questions as to their being loyal or disloyal, and as to the changes which the war had wrought in the relations of the States they represented to the Union, were inquiries with which Congress had no concern! And here again we have the ever-recurring difficulty respecting the "individuals" who were alone guilty of the acts of rebellion. "The right of the people," we are assured, "to form a government for themselves, has never been questioned." But it happens that "the people" here indicated are the very individuals who were before pointed out as alone responsible for the Rebellion. In the exercise of their right "to form a government for themselves," they rebelled; and now, it seems, by the exercise of the same right, they can unconditionally return. There is no wrong anywhere: it is all "right." The people are first made criminals, in order to exculpate the States, and then the innocence of the States is used to exculpate the people. When we see such outrages on common sense gravely perpetrated by so eminent a lawyer as the one who drew up the committee's Report, one is almost inclined to define minds as of two kinds, the legal mind and the human mind, and to doubt if there is any possible connection in reason between the two. To the human mind it appears that the Federal government has spent thirty-five hundred millions of dollars, and sacrificed three hundred thousand lives, in a contest which the legal mind dissolves into a mere mist of unsubstantial phrases; and by skill in the trick of substituting words for things, and definitions for events, the legal mind proceeds to show that these words and definitions, though scrupulously shielded from any contact with realities, are sufficient to prevent the nation from taking ordinary precautions against the recurrence of calamities fresh in its bitter experience. The phrase "State Rights," translated from legal into human language, is found to mean, the power to commit wrongs on individuals whom States may desire to oppress, or the power to protect the inhabitants of States from the consequences of their own crimes. The minority of the committee, indeed, seem to have forgotten that there has been any real war, and bring to mind the converted Australian savage, whom the missionary could not make penitent for a murder committed the day before, because the trifling occurrence had altogether passed from his recollection.

In fact, all attempts to discriminate between Rebels and Rebel States, to the advantage of the latter, are done in defiance of notorious facts. If the Rebellion had been merely a rising of individual citizens of States, it would have been an insurrection against the States, as well as against the Federal government, and might have been easily put down. In that case, there would have been no withdrawal of Southern Senators and Representatives from Congress, and therefore no question as to their inherent right to return. In Missouri[Pg 377] and Kentucky, for example, there was civil war, waged by inhabitants of those States against their local governments, as well as against the United States; and nobody contends that the rights and privileges of those States were forfeited by the criminal acts of their citizens. But the real strength of the Rebellion consisted in this, that it was not a rebellion against States, but a rebellion by States. No loose assemblage of individuals, though numbering hundreds of thousands, could long have resisted the pressure of the Federal power and the power of the State governments. They would have had no means of subsistence except those derived from plunder and voluntary contributions, and they would have lacked the military organization by which mobs are transformed into formidable armies. But the Rebellion being one of States, being virtually decreed by the people of States assembled in convention, was sustained by the two tremendous governmental powers of taxation and conscription. The willing and the unwilling were thus equally placed at the disposition of a strong government. The population and wealth of the whole immense region of country in which the Rebellion prevailed were at the service of this government. So completely was it a rebellion of States, that the universal excuse of the minority of original Union men for entering heartily into the contest after it had once begun was, that they thought it their duty to abide by the decision, and share the fortunes, of their respective States. Nobody at the South believed at the time the war commenced, or during its progress, that his State possessed any "continuous" right to a participation in the privileges of the Federal Constitution, the obligations of which it had repudiated. When confident of success, the Southerner scornfully scouted the mere suspicion of entertaining such a degrading notion; when assured of defeat, his only thought was to "get his State back into the Union on the best terms that could be made." The idea of "conditions of readmission" was as firmly fixed in the Southern as in the Northern mind. If the politicians of the South now adopt the principle that the Rebel States have not, as States, ever altered their relations to the Union, they do it from policy, finding that its adoption will give them "better terms" than they ever dreamed of getting before the President of the United States taught them that it would be more politic to bully than to plead.

In the last analysis, indeed, the theory of the minority of the Reconstruction Committee reduces the Rebel States to mere abstractions. It is plain that a State, in the concrete, is constituted by that portion of the inhabitants who form its legal people; and that, in passing back of its government and constitution, we reach a convention of the legal people as its ultimate expression. By such conventions the acts of secession were passed; and, as far as the people of the Rebel States could do it, they destroyed their States considered as organized communities forming a part of the United States. The claim of the United States to authority over the territory and inhabitants was of course not affected by these acts; but in what condition did they place the people? Plainly in the condition of rebels, engaged in an attempt to overturn the Constitution and government of the United States. As the whole force of the people in each of the Rebel communities was engaged in this work, the whole of the people were rebels and public enemies. Nothing was left, in each case, but an abstract State, without any external body, and as destitute of people having a right to enjoy the privileges of the Constitution as if the territory had been swept clean of population by a pestilence. It is, then, only this abstract State which has a right to representation in Congress. But how can there be a right to representation when there is nobody to be represented? All this may appear puerile, but the puerility is in the premises as well as in the logical deductions; and the premises are laid down as indisputable[Pg 378] constitutional principles by the eminent jurists who supply ideas for the National Union Party.

The doctrine of the unconditional right of the Rebel States to representation being thus a demonstrated absurdity, the only question relates to the conditions which Congress proposes to impose. Certainly these conditions, as embodied in the constitutional amendment which has passed both houses by such overwhelming majorities, are the mildest ever exacted of defeated enemies by a victorious nation. There is not a distinctly "radical" idea in the whole amendment,—nothing that President Johnson has not himself, within a comparatively recent period, stamped with his high approbation. Does it ordain universal suffrage? No. Does it ordain impartial suffrage? No. Does it proscribe, disfranchise, or expatriate the recent armed enemies of the country, or confiscate their property? No. It simply ordains that the national debt shall be paid and the Rebel debt repudiated; that the civil rights of all persons shall be maintained; that Rebels who have added perjury to treason shall be disqualified for office; and that the Rebel States shall not have their political power in the Union increased by the presence on their soil of persons to whom they deny political rights, but that representation shall be based throughout the Republic on voters, and not on population. The pith of the whole amendment is in the last clause; and is there anything in that to which reasonable objection can be made? Would it not be a curious result of the war against Rebellion, that it should end in conferring on a Rebel voter in South Carolina a power equal, in national affairs, to that of two loyal voters in New York? Can any Democrat have the face to assert that the South should have, through its disfranchised negro freemen alone, a power in the Electoral College and in the national House of Representatives equal to that of the States of Ohio and Indiana combined?

Yet these conditions, so conciliatory, moderate, lenient, almost timid, and which, by the omission of impartial suffrage, fall very far below the requirements of the average sentiment of the loyal nation, are still denounced by the new party of "Union" as the work of furious radicals, bent on destroying the rights of the States. Thus Governor James L. Orr of South Carolina, a leading Rebel, pardoned into a Johnsonian Union man, implores the people of that region to send delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, on the ground that its purpose is to organize "conservative" men of all sections and parties, "to drive from power that radical party who are daily trampling under foot the Constitution, and fast converting a constitutional Republic into a consolidated despotism." The terms to which South Carolina is asked to submit, before she can be made the equal of Ohio or New York in the Union, are stated to be "too degrading and humiliating to be entertained by a freeman for a single instant." When we consider that this "radical party" constitutes nearly four fifths of the legal legislature of the nation, that it was the party which saved the country from dismemberment while Mr. Orr and his friends were notoriously engaged in "trampling the Constitution under foot," and that the man who denounces it owes his forfeited life to its clemency, the astounding insolence of the impeachment touches the sublime. Here is confessed treason inveighing against tried loyalty, in the name of the Constitution it has violated and the law it has broken! But why does Mr. Orr think the terms of South Carolina's restored relations to the Union "too degrading and humiliating to be entertained by a freeman for a single instant"? Is it because he wishes to have the Rebel debt paid? Is it because he desires to have the Federal debt repudiated? Is it because he thinks it intolerable that a negro should have civil rights? Is it because he resents the idea that breakers of oaths, like himself, should be disqualified from having another opportunity of forswearing[Pg 379] themselves? Is it because he considers that a white Rebel freeman of South Carolina has a natural right to exercise double the political power of a white loyal freeman of Massachusetts? He must return an affirmative answer to all these questions in order to make it out that his State will be degraded and humiliated by ratifying the amendment; and the necessity of the measure is therefore proved by the motives known to prompt the attacks of its vilifiers.

The insolence of Mr. Orr is not merely individual, but representative. It is the result of Mr. Johnson's attempt "to produce harmony between the two sections," by betraying the section to which he owed his election. Had it not been for his treachery, there would have been little difficulty in settling the terms of peace, so as to avoid all causes for future war; but, from the time he quarrelled with Congress, he has been the great stirrer-up of disaffection at the South, and the virtual leader of the Southern reactionary party. Every man at the South who was prominent in the Rebellion, every man at the North who was prominent in aiding the Rebellion, is now openly or covertly his partisan, and by fawning on him earns the right to defame the representatives of the people by whom the Rebellion was put down. Among traitors and Copperheads the fear of punishment has been succeeded by the hope of revenge; elation is on faces which the downfall of Richmond overcast; and a return to the old times, when a united South ruled the country by means of a divided North, is confidently expected by the whole crew of political bullies and political sycophants whose profit is in the abasement of the nation. It is even said that, if the majority of the "Rump" Congress cannot be overcome by fair means, it will be by foul; and there are noisy partisans of the President who assert that he has in him a Cromwellian capacity for dealing with legislative assemblies whose notions of the public good clash with his own. In short, we are promised, on the assembling of the next Congress, a coup d'état.

Garret Davis, of Kentucky, was, we believe, the first to announce this executive remedy for the "radical" disease of the state, and it has since been often prescribed by Democratic politicians as a sovereign panacea. General McClernand, indeed, proposed a scheme, simpler even than that of executive recognition, by which the Southern Senators and Representatives might effect a lodgment in Congress. They should, according to him, have gone to Washington, entered the halls of legislation, and proceeded to occupy their seats, "peaceably if they could, forcibly if they must"; but the record of General McClernand, as a military man, was not such as to give to his advice on a question of carrying positions by assault a high degree of authority, and, there being some natural hesitation in following his counsel, the golden opportunity was lost. Mr. Montgomery Blair, who professes his willingness to act with any men, "Rebels or any one else," to put down the radicals, is never weary of talking to conservative conventions of "two Presidents and two Congresses." There can be no doubt that the project of a coup d'état has become dangerously familiar to the "conservative" mind, and that the eminent legal gentlemen of the North who are publishing opinions affirming the right of the excluded Southern representatives to their seats are playing into the hands of the desperate gang of unscrupulous politicians who are determined to have the right established by force. It is computed that the gain, in the approaching elections, of twenty-five districts now represented by Union Republicans, will give the Johnson party, in the next Congress, a majority of the House of Representatives, should the Southern delegations be counted; and it is proposed that the Johnson members legally entitled to seats should combine with the Southern pretenders to seats, organize as the House of Representatives[Pg 380] of the United States, and apply to the President for recognition. Should the President comply, he would be impeached by an unrecognized House before an "incomplete" Senate, and, if convicted, would deny the validity of the proceeding. The result would be civil war, in which the name of the Federal government would be on the side of the revolutionists. Such is the programme which is freely discussed by partisans of the President, considered to be high in his favor; and the scheme, it is contended, is the logical result of the position he has assumed as to the rights of the excluded States to representation. It is certain that the present Congress is as much the Congress of the United States as he is the President of the United States; but it is well known that he considers himself to represent the whole country, while he thinks that Congress only represents a portion of it; and he has in his character just that combination of qualities, and is placed in just those anomalous circumstances, which lead men to the commission of great political crimes. The mere hint of the possibility of his attempting a coup d'état is received by some Republicans with a look of incredulous surprise; yet what has his administration been to such persons but a succession of surprises?

But whatever view may be taken of the President's designs, there can be no doubt that the safety, peace, interest, and honor of the country depend on the success of the Union Republicans in the approaching elections. The loyal nation must see to it that the Fortieth Congress shall be as competent to override executive vetoes as the Thirty-Ninth, and be equally removed from the peril of being expelled for one more in harmony with Executive ideas. The same earnestness, energy, patriotism, and intelligence which gave success to the war, must now be exerted to reap its fruits and prevent its recurrence. The only danger is, that, in some representative districts, the people may be swindled by plausibilities and respectabilities; for when, in political contests, any great villany is contemplated, there are always found some eminently respectable men, with a fixed capital of certain eminently conservative phrases, innocently ready to furnish the wolves of politics with abundant supplies of sheep's clothing. These dignified dupes are more than usually active at the present time; and the gravity of their speech is as edifying as its emptiness. Immersed in words, and with no clear perception of things, they mistake conspiracy for conservatism. Their pet horror is the term "radical"; their ideal of heroic patriotism, the spectacle of a great nation which allows itself to be ruined with decorum, and dies rather than commit the slightest breach of constitutional etiquette. This insensibility to facts and blindness to the tendency of events, they call wisdom and moderation. Behind these political dummies are the real forces of the Johnson party, men of insolent spirit, resolute will, embittered temper, and unscrupulous purpose, who clearly know what they are after, and will hesitate at no "informality" in the attempt to obtain it. To give these persons political power will be to surrender the results of the war, by placing the government practically in the hands of those against whom the war was waged. No smooth words about "the equality of the States," "the necessity of conciliation," "the wickedness of sectional conflicts," will alter the fact, that, in refusing to support Congress, the people would set a reward on treachery and place a bounty on treason. "The South," says a Mr. Hill of Georgia, in a letter favoring the Philadelphia Convention, "sought to save the Constitution out of the Union. She failed. Let her now bring her diminished and shattered, but united and earnest counsels and energies to save the Constitution in the Union." The sort of Constitution the South sought to save by warring against the government is the Constitution which she now proposes to save by administering it! Is[Pg 381] this the tone of pardoned and penitent treason? Is this the spirit to build up a "National Union Party"? No; but it is the tone and spirit now fashionable in the defeated Rebel States, and will not be changed until the autumn elections shall have proved that they have as little to expect from the next Congress as from the present, and that they must give securities for their future conduct before they can be relieved from the penalties incurred by their past.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Except for the fact that there is nothing at all automatic in his inventions, there seems to be no good reason why Mr. Collins should not make a perpetual motion. He has a surprising mechanical faculty, and great patience and skill in passing the figures he contrives through the programme arranged for them. Having read one of his novels, you feel as if you had been amused with a puppet-show of rare merit, and you would like to have the ingenious mechanician before the curtain. So much cleverness, however, seems to be thrown away on the entertainment of a single evening, and you sigh for its application to some work of more lasting usefulness; and the perpetual motion occurs to you as the thing worthiest such powers. Let it be a perpetual literary motion, if the public please. Given a remarkable dream and a beautiful bad woman to fulfil it; you have but to amplify the vision sufficiently, and your beautiful bad woman goes on fulfilling it forever in tens of thousands of volumes. As the brother of De Quincey said, when proposing to stand on the ceiling, head downwards, and be spun there like a whip-top, thus overcoming the attraction of gravitation by the mere rapidity of revolution, "If you can keep it up for an instant, you can keep it up all day." Alas! it is just at this point that the fatal defect of Mr. Collins's mechanism appears. But for the artisan's hand, the complicated work would not start at all, and we perceive that, if he lifted it for a moment from the crank, the painfully contrived dream would drop to pieces, and the beautiful bad woman would come to a jerky stand-still in the midst of her most atrocious development. A perpetual literary motion is therefore out of the question, so far as Mr. Collins is concerned; and we can merely examine his defective machinery, with many a regret that a plan so ingenious, and devices so labored and costly, should be of no better effect.

We think, indeed, that all his stories are constructed upon a principle as false to art as it is false to life. In this world, we have first men and women, with certain well-known good and evil passions, and these passions are the causes of all the events that happen in the world. We doubt if it has occurred to any of our readers to see a set of circumstances, even of the most relentless and malignant description, grouping themselves about any human being without the agency of his own love or hate. Yet this is what happens very frequently in Mr. Collins's novels, impoverishing and enfeebling his characters in a surprising degree, and reducing them to the condition of juiceless puppets without proper will or motion. It is not that they are all wanting in verisimilitude. Even the entirely wicked Miss Gwilt is a conceivable character; but, being destined merely to fulfil Armadale's dream, she loses all freedom of action, and, we must say, takes most clumsy and hopeless and long-roundabout methods of accomplishing crimes, to which one would have thought a lady of her imputed sagacity would have found much shorter cuts. It is amazing and inartistic, however, that after all her awkwardness she should fail. Given a blockhead like Armadale, and a dreamer like Midwinter, there is no reason in nature, and no reason in art, why a lady of Miss Gwilt's advantages should not marry both of them; and the author's overruling on this point is more creditable to his heart than to his head. These three people are the chief persons of the story, and their[Pg 382] hands are tied from first to last They are not to act out their characters: they are to act out the plot; and the author's designs are accomplished in defiance of their several natures. Some of the minor persons are not so ruthlessly treated. The Pedgifts, father and son, are free agents, and they are admirably true to their instincts of upright, astute lawyers, who love best to employ their legal shrewdness in a good cause. Their joint triumph over Miss Gwilt is probable and natural, and would be a successful point in the book, if it were conceivable that she should expose herself to such a defeat by so much needless plotting with Mrs. Oldershaw. But to fill so large a stage, an immense deal of by-play was necessary, and great numbers of people are visibly dragged upon the scene. Some of these accomplish nothing in the drama. To what end have we so much of Mr. Brock? Others elaborately presented only contribute to the result in the most intricate and tedious way; and in Major Milroy's family there is no means of discovering that Miss Gwilt is an adventuress, but for Mrs. Milroy to become jealous of her and to open her letters.

It cannot, of course, be denied that Mr. Collins's stories are interesting; for an infinite number of persons read them through. But it is the bare plot that interests, and the disposition of mankind to listen to story-telling is such that the idlest conteur can entertain. We must demand of literary art, however, that it shall interest in people's fortunes by first interesting in people. Can any one of all Mr. Collins's readers declare that he sympathizes with the loves of Armadale and Neelie Milroy, or actually cares a straw what becomes of either of those insipid young persons? Neither is Midwinter one to take hold on like or dislike; and Miss Gwilt is interesting only as the capable but helpless spider out of which the plot of the story is spun. Pathos there is not in the book, and the humor is altogether too serious to laugh at.

Four Years in the Saddle. By Colonel Harry Gilmore. New York: Harper and Brothers.

It is sometimes difficult to believe, in reading this book, that it is not the production of Major Gahagan of the Ahmednuggar Irregulars, or Mr. Barry Lyndon of Castle Lyndon. Being merely a record of personal adventure, it does not suggest itself as part of the history of our late war, and, but for the recurrence of the familiar names of American persons and places, it might pass for the narrative of either of the distinguished characters mentioned.

In dealing with events creditable to his own courage and gallantry, Colonel Gilmore has the unsparing frankness of Major Gahagan, and it must be allowed that there is a remarkable likeness in all the adventures of these remarkable men. It is true that Colonel Gilmore does not fire upon a file of twenty elephants so as to cut away all their trunks by a single shot; but he does kill eleven Yankees by the discharge of a cannon which he touches off with a live coal held between his thumb and finger. Being made prisoner, he is quite as defiant and outrageous as the Guj-puti under similar circumstances: at one time he can scarcely restrain himself from throwing into the sea the insolent captain of a Federal gunboat; at another time, when handcuffed by order of General Sheridan, he spends an hour in cursing his captors. The red-hair of the Lord of the White Elephants waved his followers to victory; Colonel Gilmore's "hat, with the long black plume upon it," is the signal of triumph to his marauders. Both, finally, are loved by the ladies, and are alike extravagant in their devotion to the sex. Colonel Gilmore, indeed, withholds no touch that can go to make him the hero of a dime novel; and there is not a more picturesque and dashing character in literature outside of the adventures of Claude Duval. Everywhere we behold him waving his steel (as he calls his sword); he wheels before our dazzled eyes like a meteor; he charges, and the foe fly like sheep before him. And no sooner is he come into town from killing a score or two of Yankees, than the ladies—who are all good Union women and have just taken the oath of allegiance—crowd to kiss and caress him; or, as he puts it in his own vivid language, he receives "a kiss from more than one pair of ruby lips, and gives many a hearty hug and kiss in return." In his wild way, he takes a pleasure in evoking the tender solicitude of the ladies for his safety,—eats a dish of strawberries in a house upon which the Yankees are charging to capture him, and remains for some minutes after the strawberries are eaten, while the ladies, proffering him his arms, are "dancing about, and positively screaming with excitement." At another time, when the bullets of the[Pg 383] enemy are hissing about his ears, he puts on a pretty girl's slipper for her. "Such," he remarks, with a pensive air, "are some of the few happy scenes that brighten a soldier's life."

Colonel Gilmore, who has the diffidence of Major Gahagan, has also the engaging artlessness which lends so great a charm to the personal narrative of Mr. Barry Lyndon. He does not reserve from the reader's knowledge such of his exploits as stealing the chaplain's whiskey, and drinking the peach-brandy of the simple old woman who supposed she was offering it to General Lee. "Place him where you may," says Colonel Gilmore, "and under no matter what adverse circumstances, you can always distinguish a gentleman." He has a great deal of fine feeling, and can scarcely restrain his tears at the burning of Chambersburg, after setting it on fire. Desiring a memento of a brother officer, he takes a small piece of the dead man's skull. It has been supposed that civilized soldiers, however brave and resolute, scarcely exulted in the remembrance of the lives they had taken; and it is thought to be one of the merciful features of modern warfare, that in the vast majority of cases the slayer and the slain are unknown to each other. Colonel Gilmore has none of the false tenderness which shrinks from a knowledge of homicide. On the contrary, he is careful to know when he has killed a man; and he recounts, with an exactness revolting to feebler nerves, the circumstances and the methods by which he put this or that enemy to death.

We think we could hardly admire Colonel Gilmore if he had been of our side during the war, and had done to the Rebels the things he professes to have done to us. As it is, we trust he will forgive us, if we confess that we have not read his narrative with a tranquil stomach, and that we think it will impress his Northern readers as the history of a brigand who had the good luck to be also a traitor.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

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History of the Life and Times of James Madison. By William C. Rives. Vol. II. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co. 8vo. pp. xxii., 657. $3.50.

The Physiology of Man; designed to represent the Existing State of Physiological Science, as applied to the Functions of the Human Body. By Austin Flint, Jr., M. D., Professor of Physiology and Microscopy in the Bellevue Medical College, N. Y., and in the Long Island College Hospital; Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, etc. Introduction; the Blood; Circulation; Respiration. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 502, $4.50.

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Stories told to a Child. By Jean Ingelow. Boston. Roberts Brothers. 18mo. pp. vi., 424, $1.75.

Canary Birds. A Manual of Useful and Practical Information for Bird-Keepers. New York. William Wood & Co. 16mo. paper, pp. 110. 50 cents.

The Origin of the Late War, traced from the Beginning of the Constitution to the Revolt of the Southern States. By George Lunt. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo, pp. xiv., 491. $3.00.

False Pride; or, Two Ways to Matrimony. A Companion to "Family Pride." Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 12mo. pp. 265. $2.00.[Pg 384]

The Genius of Edmund Burke. By J. L. Batchelder. Chicago. J. L. Batchelder. 12mo. pp. 50. $1.00

Letters of Life. By Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 414. $2.50.

The Church of England a Portion of Christ's one Holy Catholic Church, and a Means of restoring Visible Unity. An Eirenicon, in a Letter to the Author of "The Christian Year." By E. B. Pusey, D. D., Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 395. $2.00.

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Stonewall Jackson: a Biography. With a Portrait and Map. By John Esten Cooke, formerly of General Stuart's Staff. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 470. $3.50.

The Phenomena of Plant Life. By Leo H. Grindon, Lecturer on Botany at the Royal School of Medicine, Manchester, etc. Boston. Nichols & Noyes. 12mo. pp. 93. $1.00

A History of New England, from the Discovery by Europeans to the Revolution of the Seventeenth Century, being an Abridgment of his "History of New England during the Stuart Dynasty." By John Gorham Palfrey. In Two Volumes. New York. Hurd & Houghton. 12mo. pp. xx., 408; xii., 426. $5.00.

The Story of Kennett. By Bayard Taylor. New York. Hurd & Houghton. 12mo. pp. x., 418. $2.25.

A New Translation of the Hebrew Prophets, with an Introduction and Notes. By George R. Noyes, D. D., Hancock Professor of Hebrew, etc., and Dexter Lecturer in Harvard University. Third Edition, with a New Introduction and additional Notes. In Two Volumes. Boston. American Unitarian Association. 12mo. pp. xcii., 271; iv., 413. $4.50.

St. Martin's Eve. By Mrs. Henry Wood. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 8vo. pp. 327. $2.00.

The Man of the World. By William North, Author of "The Usurer's Gift," etc. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 12mo. pp. 437. $2.00.

Life of Emanuel Swedenborg. Together with a brief Synopsis of his Writings, both Philosophical and Theological. By William White. With an Introduction by B. F. Barrett. First American Edition. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 272. $1.50.

The Reunion of Christendom. A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy, etc. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. paper. pp. 66. 50 cts.

The Principles of Biology. By Herbert Spencer. Vol. I. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. x., 475. $2.50.

Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts. By George H. Moore, Librarian of the New York Historical Society, and Corresponding Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. iv., 256. $2.50.

The Miniature Fruit-Garden; or, The Culture of Pyramidal and Bush Fruit-Trees. By Thomas Rivers. First American, from the Thirteenth English Edition. New York. Orange Judd & Co. 12mo. pp. x., 133. $1.00.

New Book of Flowers. By Joseph Breck. New York. Orange Judd & Co. 12mo. pp. 480. $1.75.

The History of Usury, from the earliest Period to the present Time. Together with a brief Statement of General Principles concerning the Conflict of the Laws of different States and Countries, and an Examination into the Policy of Laws on Usury and their Effect upon Commerce. By J. B. C. Murray. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 158. $1.50.

A Historical Inquiry concerning Henry Hudson; his Friends, Relatives, and Early Life, his Connection with the Muscovy Company, and Discovery of Delaware Bay. By John Meredith Read, Jr. Albany. Joel Munsell. 8vo. pp. vi., 209. $5.00.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.

VOL. XVIII.—SEPTEMBER, 1866.—NO. CVII.

Contents

THE SURGEON'S ASSISTANT.

I.

II.

ON TRANSLATING THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.

THIRD SONNET.

WOMAN'S WORK IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

IX.

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

AN ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD, AT THEIR TRIENNIAL FESTIVAL, JULY 19, 1866.

FOOTNOTES:

THE VOICE.

LIFE ASSURANCE.

A DISTINGUISHED CHARACTER.

THE BOBOLINKS.

GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CHAPTER XL.

THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866.

IX.

HOW SHALL WE BE AMUSED?

AN ITALIAN RAIN-STORM.

INCIDENTS OF THE PORTLAND FIRE.

MY LITTLE BOY.

LAKE CHAMPLAIN.

FOOTNOTES:

YESTERDAY.

THE JOHNSON PARTY.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE