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Title: Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous

Author: Sarah K. Bolton

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Language: English

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LIVES
OF
POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS.

BY

SARAH K. BOLTON.

"There is properly no History, only Biography." —Emerson.

Human portraits, faithfully drawn, are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls. —Carlyle.

FORTY-FIRST THOUSAND.

NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. PUBLISHERS

Copyright,
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
1885.


Norwood Press:
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

TO
MY ONLY SISTER,

Mrs. Halsey D. Miller,

IN REMEMBRANCE OF
MANY HAPPY HOURS.

[v]

PREFACE.

These characters have been chosen from various countries and from varied professions, that the youth who read this book may see that poverty is no barrier to success. It usually develops ambition, and nerves people to action. Life at best has much of struggle, and we need to be cheered and stimulated by the careers of those who have overcome obstacles.

If Lincoln and Garfield, both farmer-boys, could come to the Presidency, then there is a chance for other farmer-boys. If Ezra Cornell, a mechanic, could become the president of great telegraph companies, and leave millions to a university, then other mechanics can come to fame. If Sir Titus Salt, working and sorting wool in a factory at nineteen, could build one of the model towns of the world for his thousands of workingmen, then there is[vi] encouragement and inspiration for other toilers in factories. These lives show that without WORK and WILL no great things are achieved.

I have selected several characters because they were the centres of important historical epochs. With Garibaldi is necessarily told the story of Italian unity; with Garrison and Greeley, the fall of slavery; and with Lincoln and Sheridan, the battles of our Civil War.

S. K. B.

[vii]

CONTENTS.

[1]

GEORGE PEABODY.

GEORGE PEABODY.

If America had been asked who were to be her most munificent givers in the nineteenth century, she would scarcely have pointed to two grocer's boys, one in a little country store at Danvers, Mass., the other in Baltimore; both poor, both uneducated; the one leaving seven millions to Johns Hopkins University and Hospital, the other nearly nine millions to elevate humanity. George Peabody was born in Danvers, Feb. 18, 1795. His parents were respectable, hard-working people, whose scanty income afforded little education for their children. George grew up an obedient, faithful son, called a "mother-boy" by his companions, from his devotion to her,—a title of which any boy may well be proud.

At eleven years of age he must go out into the world to earn his living. Doubtless his mother wished to keep her child in school; but there was no money. A place was found with a Mr. Proctor in a grocery-store, and here, for four years, he worked day by day, giving his earnings to his mother, and winning esteem for his promptness and[2] honesty. But the boy at fifteen began to grow ambitious. He longed for a larger store and a broader field. Going with his maternal grandfather to Thetford, Vt., he remained a year, when he came back to work for his brother in a dry-goods store in Newburyport. Perhaps now in this larger town his ambition would be satisfied, when, lo! the store burned, and George was thrown out of employment.

His father had died, and he was without a dollar in the world. Ambition seemed of little use now. However, an uncle in Georgetown, D.C., hearing that the boy needed work, sent for him, and thither he went for two years. Here he made many friends, and won trade, by his genial manner and respectful bearing. His tact was unusual. He never wounded the feelings of a buyer of goods, never tried him with unnecessary talk, never seemed impatient, and was punctual to the minute. Perhaps no one trait is more desirable than the latter. A person who breaks his appointments, or keeps others waiting for him, loses friends, and business success as well.

A young man's habits are always observed. If he is worthy, and has energy, the world has a place for him, and sooner or later he will find it. A wholesale dry-goods dealer, Mr. Riggs, had been watching young Peabody. He desired a partner of energy, perseverance, and honesty. Calling on the young clerk, he asked him to put his labor against[3] his, Mr. Riggs's, capital. "But I am only nineteen years of age," was the reply.

This was considered no objection, and the partnership was formed. A year later, the business was moved to Baltimore. The boyish partner travelled on horseback through the western wilds of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, selling goods, and lodging over night with farmers or planters. In seven years the business had so increased, that branch houses were established in Philadelphia and New York. Finally Mr. Riggs retired from the firm; and George Peabody found himself, at the age of thirty-five, at the head of a large and wealthy establishment, which his own energy, industry, and honesty had helped largely to build. He had bent his life to one purpose, that of making his business a success. No one person can do many things well.

Having visited London several times in matters of trade, he determined to make that great city his place of residence. He had studied finance by experience as well as close observation, and believed that he could make money in the great metropolis. Having established himself as a banker at Wanford Court, he took simple lodgings, and lived without display. When Americans visited London, they called upon the genial, true-hearted banker, whose integrity they could always depend upon, and transacted their business with him.

In 1851, the World's Fair was opened at the[4] Crystal Palace, London, Prince Albert having worked earnestly to make it a great success. Congress neglected to make the needed appropriations for America; and her people did not care, apparently, whether Powers' Greek Slave, Hoe's wonderful printing-press, or the McCormick Reaper were seen or not. But George Peabody cared for the honor of his nation, and gave fifteen thousand dollars to the American exhibitors, that they might make their display worthy of the great country which they were to represent. The same year, he gave his first Fourth of July dinner to leading Americans and Englishmen, headed by the Duke of Wellington. While he remembered and honored the day which freed us from England, no one did more than he to bind the two nations together by the great kindness of a great heart.

Mr. Peabody was no longer the poor grocery boy, or the dry-goods clerk. He was fine looking, most intelligent from his wide reading, a total abstainer from liquors and tobacco, honored at home and abroad, and very rich. Should he buy an immense estate, and live like a prince? Should he give parties and grand dinners, and have servants in livery? Oh, no! Mr. Peabody had acquired his wealth for a different purpose. He loved humanity. "How could he elevate the people?" was the one question of his life. He would not wait till his death, and let others spend his money; he would have the satisfaction of spending it himself.[5]

And now began a life of benevolence which is one of the brightest in our history. Unmarried and childless, he made other wives and children happy by his boundless generosity. If the story be true, that he was once engaged to a beautiful American girl, who gave him up for a former poor lover, the world has been the gainer by her choice.

In 1852, Mr. Peabody gave ten thousand dollars to help fit out the second expedition under Dr. Kane, in his search for Sir John Franklin; and for this gift a portion of the newly-discovered country was justly called Peabody Land. This same year, the town of Danvers, his birthplace, decided to celebrate its centennial. Of course the rich London banker was invited as one of the guests. He was too busy to be present, but sent a letter, to be opened on the day of the celebration. The seal was broken at dinner, and this was the toast, or sentiment, it contained: "Education—a debt due from present to future generations." A check was enclosed for twenty thousand dollars for the purpose of building an Institute, with a free library and free course of lectures. Afterward this gift was increased to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The poor boy had not forgotten the home of his childhood.

Four years later, when Peabody Institute was dedicated, the giver, who had been absent from America twenty years, was present. New York and other cities offered public receptions; but he declined all save Danvers. A great procession[6] was formed, the houses along the streets being decorated, all eager to do honor to their noble townsman. The Governor of Massachusetts, Edward Everett, and others made eloquent addresses, and then the kind-faced, great-hearted man responded:—

"Though Providence has granted me an unvaried and unusual success in the pursuit of fortune in other lands, I am still in heart the humble boy who left yonder unpretending dwelling many, very many years ago.... There is not a youth within the sound of my voice whose early opportunities and advantages are not very much greater than were my own; and I have since achieved nothing that is impossible to the most humble boy among you. Bear in mind, that, to be truly great, it is not necessary that you should gain wealth and importance. Steadfast and undeviating truth, fearless and straightforward integrity, and an honor ever unsullied by an unworthy word or action, make their possessor greater than worldly success or prosperity. These qualities constitute greatness."

Soon after this, Mr. Peabody determined to build an Institute, combining a free library and lectures with an Academy of Music and an Art Gallery, in the city of Baltimore. For this purpose he gave over one million dollars—a princely gift indeed! Well might Baltimore be proud of the day when he sought a home in her midst.

But the merchant-prince had not finished his giv[7]ing. He saw the poor of the great city of London, living in wretched, desolate homes. Vice and poverty were joining hands. He, too, had been poor. He could sympathize with those who knew not how to make ends meet. What would so stimulate these people to good citizenship as comfortable and cheerful abiding-places? March 12, 1862, he called together a few of his trusted friends in London, and placed in their hands, for the erection of neat, tasteful dwellings for the poor, the sum of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Ah, what a friend the poor had found! not the gift of a few dollars, which would soon be absorbed in rent, but homes which for a small amount might be enjoyed as long as they lived.

At once some of the worst portions of London were purchased; tumble-down structures were removed; and plain, high brick blocks erected, around open squares, where the children could find a playground. Gas and water were supplied, bathing and laundry rooms furnished. Then the poor came eagerly, with their scanty furniture, and hired one or two rooms for twenty-five or fifty cents a week,—cab-men, shoemakers, tailors, and needle-women. Tenants were required to be temperate and of good moral character. Soon tiny pots of flowers were seen in the windows, and a happier look stole into the faces of hard-working fathers and mothers.

Mr. Peabody soon increased his gift to the London poor to three million dollars, saying, "If judi[8]ciously managed for two hundred years, its accumulation will amount to a sum sufficient to buy the city of London."

No wonder that these gifts of millions began to astonish the world. London gave him the freedom of the city in a gold box,—an honor rarely bestowed,—and erected his bronze statue near the Royal Exchange. Queen Victoria wished to make him a baron; but he declined all titles. What gift, then, would he accept, was eagerly asked. "A letter from the Queen of England, which I may carry across the Atlantic, and deposit as a memorial of one of her most faithful sons," was the response. It is not strange that so pure and noble a man as George Peabody admired the purity and nobility of character of her who governs England so wisely.

A beautiful letter was returned by the Queen, assuring him how deeply she appreciated his noble act of more than princely munificence,—an act, as the Queen believes, "wholly without parallel," and asking him to accept a miniature portrait of herself. The portrait, in a massive gold frame, is fourteen inches long and ten inches wide, representing the Queen in robes of state,—the largest miniature ever attempted in England, and for the making of which a furnace was especially built. The cost is believed to have been over fifty thousand dollars in gold. It is now preserved, with her letter, in the Peabody Institute near Danvers.

Oct. 25, 1866, the beautiful white marble Insti[9]tute in Baltimore was to be dedicated. Mr. Peabody had crossed the ocean to be present. Besides the famous and the learned, twenty thousand children with Peabody badges were gathered to meet him. The great man's heart was touched as he said, "Never have I seen a more beautiful sight than this vast collection of interesting children. The review of the finest army, attended by the most delightful strains of martial music, could never give me half the pleasure." He was now seventy-one years old. He had given nearly five millions; could the world expect any more? He realized that the freed slaves at the South needed an education. They were poor, and so were a large portion of the white race. He would give for their education three million dollars, the same amount he had bestowed upon the poor of London. To the trustees having this gift in charge he said, "With my advancing years, my attachment to my native land has but become more devoted. My hope and faith in its successful and glorious future have grown brighter and stronger. But, to make her prosperity more than superficial, her moral and intellectual development should keep pace with her material growth. I feel most deeply, therefore, that it is the duty and privilege of the more favored and wealthy portions of our nation to assist those who are less fortunate." Noble words! Mr. Peabody's health was beginning to fail. What he did must now be done quickly. Yale College received a hundred and fifty[10] thousand dollars for a Museum of Natural History; Harvard the same, for a Museum of Archæology and Ethnology; to found the Peabody Academy of Science at Salem a hundred and forty thousand dollars; to Newburyport Library, where the fire threw him out of employment, and thus probably broadened his path in life, fifteen thousand dollars; twenty-five thousand dollars each to various institutions of learning throughout the country; ten thousand dollars to the Sanitary Commission during the war, besides four million dollars to his relatives; making in all thirteen million dollars. Just before his return to England, he made one of the most tender gifts of his life. The dear mother whom he idolized was dead, but he would build her a fitting monument; not a granite shaft, but a beautiful Memorial Church at Georgetown, Mass., where for centuries, perhaps, others will worship the God she worshipped. On a marble tablet are the words, "Affectionately consecrated by her children, George and Judith, to the memory of Mrs. Judith Peabody." Whittier wrote the hymn for its dedication:—

Nov. 4, 1869, Mr. Peabody lay dying at the house of a friend in London. The Queen sent a special telegram of inquiry and sympathy, and[11] desired to call upon him in person; but it was too late. "It is a great mystery," said the dying man feebly; "but I shall know all soon." At midnight he passed to his reward.

Westminster Abbey opened her doors for a great funeral, where statesmen and earls bowed their heads in honor of the departed. Then the Queen sent her noblest man-of-war, "Monarch," to bear in state, across the Atlantic, "her friend," the once poor boy of Danvers. Around the coffin, in a room draped in black, stood immense wax candles, lighted. When the great ship reached America, Legislatures adjourned, and went with Governors and famous men to receive the precious freight. The body was taken by train to Peabody, and then placed on a funeral car, eleven feet long and ten feet high, covered with black velvet, trimmed with silver lace and stars. Under the casket were winged cherubs in silver. The car was drawn by six horses covered with black and silver, while corps of artillery preceded the long procession. At sunset the Institute was reached, and there, surrounded by the English and American flags draped with crape, the guard kept silent watch about the dead. At the funeral, at the church, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop pronounced the eloquent eulogy, of the "brave, honest, noble-hearted friend of mankind," and then, amid a great concourse of people, George Peabody was buried at Harmony Grove, by the side of the mother whom he so tenderly loved. Doubtless he looked out upon[12] this greensward from his attic window when a child or when he labored in the village store. Well might two nations unite in doing honor to this man, both good and great, who gave nine million dollars to bless humanity.

[The building fund of £500,000 left by Mr. Peabody for the benefit of the poor of London has now been increased by rents and interest to £857,320. The whole of this great sum of money is in active employment, together with £340,000 which the trustees have borrowed. A total of £1,170,787 has been expended during the time the fund has been in existence, of which £80,903 was laid out during 1884. The results of these operations are seen in blocks of artisans' dwellings built on land purchased by the trustees and let to working men at rents within their means, containing conveniences and comforts not ordinarily attainable by them, thus fulfilling the benevolent intentions of Mr. Peabody. At the present time 4551 separate dwellings have been erected, containing 10,144 rooms, inhabited by 18,453 persons. Thirteen new blocks of buildings are now in course of erection and near completion. Indeed, there is no cessation in the work of fulfilling the intentions of the noble bequest.—Boston Journal, Mar. 7, 1885.]

[13]

BAYARD TAYLOR.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

Since Samuel Johnson toiled in Grub Street, London, literature has scarcely furnished a more pathetic or inspiring illustration of struggle to success than that of Bayard Taylor. Born of Quaker parentage in the little town of Kennett Square, near Philadelphia, Jan. 11, 1825, he grew to boyhood in the midst of fresh air and the hard work of farm-life. His mother, a refined and intelligent woman, who taught him to read at four, and who early discovered her child's love for books, shielded him as far as possible from picking up stones and weeding corn, and set him to rocking the baby to sleep. What was her amazement one day, on hearing loud cries from the infant, to find Bayard absorbed in reading, and rocking his own chair furiously, supposing it to be the cradle! It was evident, that, though such a boy might become a fine literary man, he could not be a successful baby-tender.

He was especially eager to read poetry and travels, and, before he was twelve years old, had devoured the contents of their small circulating library, as[14] well as Cooper's novels, and the histories of Gibbon, Robertson, and Hume. The few books which he owned were bought with money earned by selling nuts which he had gathered. He read Milton, Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth; and his mother would often hear him repeating poetry to his brother after they had gone to bed. He was always planning journeys in Europe, which seemed very far from being realized. At fourteen he began to study Latin and French, and at fifteen, Spanish; and a year later he assisted in teaching at the academy where he was attending school.

He was ambitious; but there seemed no open door. There is never an open door to fame or prosperity, except we open it for ourselves. The world is too busy to help others; and assistance usually weakens rather than strengthens us. About this time he received, through request, an autograph from Charles Dickens, then lecturing in this country. The boy of sixteen wrote in his journal: "It was not without a feeling of ambition that I looked upon it; that as he, a humble clerk, had risen to be the guest of a mighty nation, so I, a humble pedagogue, might, by unremitted and arduous intellectual and moral exertion, become a light, a star, among the names of my country. May it be!... I believe all poets are possessed in a greater or less degree of ambition. I think this is never given without a mind of sufficient power to sustain it, and to achieve its lofty object."[15]

At seventeen, Bayard's schooling was over. He sketched well, and would gladly have gone to Philadelphia to study engraving; but he had no money. One poem had been published in the "Saturday Evening Post." Those only who have seen their first poem in print can experience his joy. But writing poetry would not earn him a living. He had no liking for teaching, but, as that seemed the only thing at hand, he would try to obtain a school. He did not succeed, however, and apprenticed himself for four years to a printer. He worked faithfully, using all his spare hours in reading and writing poetry.

Two years later, he walked to Philadelphia and back—thirty miles each way—to see if fifteen of his poems could not be printed in a book! His ambition evidently had not abated. Of course no publisher would take the book at his own risk. There was no way of securing its publication, therefore, but to visit his friends, and solicit them to buy copies in advance. This was a trying matter for a refined nature; but it was a necessity. He hoped thus to earn a little money for travel, and "to win a name that the person who shall be chosen to share with me the toils of life will not be ashamed to own." This "person" was Mary Agnew, whose love and that of Bayard Taylor form one of the saddest and tenderest pictures in our literature.

At last the penniless printer boy had determined[16] to see Europe. For two years he had read every thing he could find upon travels abroad. His good mother mourned over the matter, and his acquaintances prophesied dire results from such a roving disposition. He would go again to Philadelphia, and see if the newspapers did not wish correspondence from Europe. All the editors politely declined the ardent boy's proposals. Probably he did not know that "unknown writers" are not wanted.

About to return home, "not in despair," he afterwards wrote, "but in a state of wonder as to where my funds would come from, for I felt certain they would come," the editor of the "Saturday Evening Post" offered him four dollars a letter for twelve letters,—fifty dollars,—with the promise of taking more if they were satisfactory. The "United States Gazette" made a similar offer, and, after selling a few manuscript poems which he had with him, he returned home in triumph, with a hundred and forty dollars in his pocket! "This," he says, "seemed sufficient to carry me to the end of the world."

Immediately Bayard and his cousin started on foot for Washington, a hundred miles, to see the member of Congress from their district, and obtain passports from him. Reaching a little village on their way thither, they were refused lodgings at the tavern because of the lateness of the hour,—nine o'clock!—and walked on till near midnight. Then seeing a house brilliantly lighted, as for a wedding, they approached, and asked the proprietor whether[17] a tavern were near by. The man addressed turned fiercely upon the lads, shouting, "Begone! Leave the place instantly. Do you hear? Off!" The amazed boys hastened away, and at three o'clock in the morning, footsore and faint, after a walk of nearly forty miles, slept in a cart standing beside an old farmhouse.

And now at nineteen, he was in New York, ready for Europe. He called upon the author, N. P. Willis, who had once written a kind note to him; and this gentleman, with a ready nature in helping others,—alas! not always found among writers—gave him several letters of introduction to newspaper men. Mr. Greeley said bluntly when applied to, "I am sick of descriptive letters, and will have no more of them. But I should like some sketches of German life and society, after you have been there, and know something about it. If the letters are good, you shall be paid for them; but don't write until you know something."

July 1, 1844, Bayard and two young friends, after paying ten dollars each for steerage passage, started out for this eventful voyage. No wonder that, as land faded from sight, and he thought of gentle Mary Agnew and his devoted mother, his heart failed him, and he quite broke down. After twenty-eight days they landed in Liverpool, strangers, poor, knowing almost nothing of the world, but full of hope and enthusiasm. They spent three weeks in Scotland and the north of England, and the[18]n travelled through Belgium to Heidelberg. Bayard passed the first winter in Frankfort, in the plainest quarters, and then, with his knapsack on his back, visited Leipzig, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, and Munich. After this he walked over the Alps, and through Northern Italy, spending four months in Florence, and then visiting Rome. Often he was so poor that he lived on twenty cents a day. Sometimes he was without food for nearly two days, writing his natural and graphic letters when his ragged clothes were wet through, and his body faint from fasting. But the manly, enthusiastic youth always made friends by his good cheer and unselfishness.

At last he was in London, with but thirty cents to buy food and lodging. But he had a poem of twelve hundred lines in his knapsack, which he supposed any London publisher would be glad to accept. He offered it; but it was "declined with thanks." The youth had not learned that Bayard Taylor unknown, and Bayard Taylor famous in two hemispheres, were two different names upon the title-page of a book. Publishers cannot usually afford to do missionary work in their business; they print what will sell. "Weak from sea-sickness," he says, "hungry, chilled, and without a single acquaintance in the great city, my situation was about as hopeless as it is possible to conceive."

Possibly he could obtain work in a printer's shop. This he tried hour after hour, and failed. Finally[19] he spent his last twopence for bread, and found a place to sleep in a third-rate chop-house, among sailors, and actors from the lower theatres. He rose early, so as not to be asked to pay for his bed, and again sought work. Fortunately he met an American publisher, who loaned him five dollars, and with a thankful heart he returned to pay for his lodging. For six weeks he staid in his humble quarters, wrote letters home to the newspapers, and also sent various poems to the English journals, which were all returned to him. For two years he supported himself on two hundred and fifty dollars a year, earning it all by writing. "I saw," he says, "almost nothing of intelligent European society; but literature and art were, nevertheless, open to me, and a new day had dawned in my life."

On his return to America he found that his published letters had been widely read. He was advised to put them in a book; and "Views Afoot," with a preface by N. P. Willis, were soon given to the world. Six editions were sold the first year; and the boy who had seen Europe in the midst of so much privation, found himself an author, with the prospect of fame. Not alone had poverty made these two years hard to bear. He was allowed to hold no correspondence with Mary Agnew, because her parents steadily refused to countenance the young lovers. He had wisely made his mother his confidante, and she had counselled patience and hope. The rising fame possibly smoothed the[20] course of true love, for at twenty-one, Bayard became engaged to the idol of his heart. She was an intelligent and beautiful girl, with dark eyes and soft brown hair, and to the ardent young traveller seemed more angel than human. He showed her his every poem, and laid before her every purpose. He wrote her, "I have often dim, vague forebodings that an eventful destiny is in store for me"; and then he added in quaint, Quaker dialect, "I have told thee that existence would not be endurable without thee; I feel further that thy aid will be necessary to work out the destinies of the future.... I am really glad that thou art pleased with my poetry. One word from thee is dearer to me than the cold praise of all the critics in the land."

For the year following his return home, he edited a country paper, and thereby became involved in debts which required the labors of the next three years to cancel. He now decided to go to New York if possible, where there would naturally be more literary society, and openings for a writer. He wrote to editors and publishers; but there were no vacancies to be filled. Finally he was offered enough to pay his board by translating, and this he gladly accepted. By teaching literature in a young ladies' school, he increased his income to nine dollars a week. Not a luxurious amount, surely.

For a year he struggled on, saving every cent possible, and then Mr. Greeley gave him a place on the "Tribune," at twelve dollars a week. He[21] worked constantly, often writing poetry at midnight, when his day's duties were over. He made true friends, such as Stedman and Stoddard, published a new book of poems; and in the beginning of 1849 life began to look full of promise. Sent by his paper to write up California, for six months he lived in the open air, his saddle for his pillow, and on his return wrote his charming book "El-dorado." He was now twenty-five, out of debt, and ready to marry Mary Agnew. But a dreadful cloud had meantime gathered and burst over their heads. The beautiful girl had been stricken with consumption. The May day bridal had been postponed. "God help me, if I lose her!" wrote the young author to Mr. Stoddard from her bedside. Oct. 24 came, and the dying girl was wedded to the man she loved. Four days later he wrote: "We have had some heart-breaking hours, talking of what is before us, and are both better and calmer for it." And, later still: "She is radiantly beautiful; but it is not the beauty of earth.... We have loved so long, so intimately, and so wholly, that the footsteps of her life have forever left their traces in mine. If my name should be remembered among men, hers will not be forgotten." Dec. 21, 1850, she went beyond; and Bayard Taylor at twenty-six was alone in the world, benumbed, unfitted for work of any kind. "I am not my true self more than half the time. I cannot work with any spirit: another such winter[22] will kill me, I am certain. I shall leave next fall on a journey somewhere—no matter where," he wrote a friend.

Fortunately he took a trip to the Far East, travelling in Egypt, Asia Minor, India, and Japan for two years, writing letters which made him known the country over. On his return, he published three books of travel, and accepted numerous calls in the lecture-field. His stock in the "Tribune" had become productive, and he was gaining great success.

His next long journey was to Northern Europe, when he took his brother and two sisters with him, as he could enjoy nothing selfishly. This time he saw much of the Brownings and Thackeray, and spent two days as the guest of Tennyson. He was no longer the penniless youth, vainly looking for work in London to pay his lodging, but the well-known traveller, lecturer, and poet. Oct. 27, 1857, seven years after the death of Mary Agnew, he married the daughter of a distinguished German astronomer, Marie Hansen, a lady of great culture, whose companionship has ever proved a blessing.

Tired of travel, Mr. Taylor now longed for a home for his wife and infant daughter, Lilian. He would erect on the old homestead, where he played when a boy, such a house as a poet would love to dwell in, and such as poet friends would delight to visit. So, with minutest care and thought, "Cedarcroft," a beautiful structure, was[23] built in the midst of two hundred acres. Every flower, every tree, was planted with as much love as Scott gave to "Abbotsford." But, when it was completed, the old story had been told again, of expenses going far beyond expectations, and, instead of anticipated rest, toil and struggle to pay debts, and provide for constant outgoes.

But Bayard Taylor was not the man to be disturbed by obstacles. He at once set to work to earn more than ever by his books and lectures. With his characteristic generosity he brought his parents and his sisters to live in his home, and made everybody welcome to his hospitality. The "Poet's Journal," a poem of exquisite tenderness, was written here, and "Hannah Thurston," a novel, of which fifteen thousand were soon sold.

Shortly after the beginning of our civil war, Mr. Taylor was made Secretary of Legation at Russia. He was now forty years of age, loved, well-to-do, and famous. His novels—"John Godfrey's Fortunes" and the "Story of Kennett"—were both successful. The "Picture of St. John," rich and stronger than his other poems, added to his fame. But the gifted and versatile man was breaking in health. Again he travelled abroad, and wrote "Byways in Europe." On his return he translated, with great care and study, "Faust," which will always be a monument to his learning and literary skill. He published "Lars, a Norway pastoral," and gave delightful lectures on German[24] literature at Cornell University, and Lowell and Peabody Institutes, at Boston and Baltimore.

At last he wearied of the care and constant expense of "Cedarcroft." He needed to be near the New York libraries. Mr. Greeley had died, his newspaper stock had declined, and he could not sell his home, as he had hoped. There was no alternative but to go back in 1871 into the daily work of journalism in the "Tribune" office. The rest which he had longed for was never to come. For four years he worked untiringly, delivering the Centennial Ode at our Exposition, and often speaking before learned societies.

In 1878, President Hayes bestowed upon him a well-deserved honor, by appointing him minister to Berlin. Germany rejoiced that a lover of her life and literature had been sent to her borders. The best of New York gathered to say good-by to the noted author. Arriving in Berlin, Emperor William gave him cordial welcome, and Bismark made him a friend. A pleasant residence was secured, and furniture purchased. At last he was to find time to complete a long-desired work, the Lives of Goethe and Schiller. "Prince Deukalion," his last noble poem, had just reached him. All was ready for the best and strongest work of his life, when, lo! the overworked brain and body gave way. He did not murmur. Only once, Dec. 19, he groaned, "I want—I want—oh, you know what I mean, that stuff of life!" It was too late. At fifty-three the great[25] heart, the exquisite brain, the tired body, were still.

Germany as well as America wept over the bier of the once poor Quaker lad, who travelled over Europe with scarce a shilling in his pocket, now, by his own energy, brought to one of the highest positions in the gift of his country. Dec. 22, the great of Germany gathered about his coffin, Bertold Auerbach speaking beautiful words.

March 13, 1879, the dead poet lay in state in the City Hall at New York, in the midst of assembled thousands. The following day the body was borne to "Cedarcroft," and, surrounded by literary associates and tender friends, laid to rest. Public memorial meetings were held in various cities, where Holmes, Longfellow, Whittier, and others gave their loving tributes. A devoted student, a successful diplomat, a true friend, a noble poet, a gifted traveller, a man whose life will never cease to be an inspiration.

[26]

CAPTAIN JAMES B. EADS.

On the steamship "Germanic" I played chess with the great civil engineer, Captain Eads, stimulated by the thought that to beat him was to defeat the man who had twice conquered the Mississippi. But I didn't defeat him.

The building of a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Suez made famous the Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps: so the opening-up of the mouth of the Mississippi River has distinguished Captain Eads. To-day both these men are struggling for the rare honor of joining, at the Isthmus of Panama, the waters of the great Atlantic and Pacific; a magnificent scheme, which, if successful, will save annually thousands of miles of dangerous sea-voyage around Cape Horn, besides millions of money.

The "Great West" seems to delight in producing self-made men like Lincoln, Grant, Eads, and others.

James B. Eads was born in Indiana in 1820. He is slender in form, neat in dress, genial, courteous, and over sixty years of age. In 1833, his father started down the Ohio River with his family, pro[27]posing to settle in Wisconsin. The boat caught fire, and his scanty furniture and clothing were burned. Young Eads barely escaped ashore with his pantaloons, shirt, and cap. Taking passage on another boat, this boy of thirteen landed at St. Louis with his parents; his little bare feet first touching the rocky shore of the city on the very spot where he afterwards located and built the largest steel bridge in the world, over the Mississippi,—one of the most difficult feats of engineering ever performed in America.

At the age of nine, young Eads made a short trip on the Ohio, when the engineer of the steamboat explained to him so clearly the construction of the steam-engine, that, before he was a year older, he built a little working model of it, so perfect in its parts and movements, that his schoolmates would frequently go home with him after school to see it work. A locomotive engine driven by a concealed rat was one of his next juvenile feats in mechanical engineering. From eight to thirteen he attended school; after which, from necessity, he was placed as clerk in a dry-goods store.

How few young people of the many to whom poverty denies an education, either understand the value of the saying, "knowledge is power," or exercise will sufficient to overcome obstacles. Willpower and thirst for knowledge elevated General Garfield from driving canal horses to the Presidency of the United States.[28]

Over the store in St. Louis, where he was engaged, his employer lived. He was an old bachelor, and, having observed the tastes of his clerk, gave him his first book in engineering. The old gentleman's library furnished evening companions for him during the five years he was thus employed. Finally, his health failing, at the age of nineteen he went on a Mississippi River steamer; from which time to the present day that great river has been to him an all-absorbing study.

Soon afterwards he formed a partnership with a friend, and built a small boat to raise cargoes of vessels sunken in the Mississippi. While this boat was building, he made his first venture in submarine engineering, on the lower rapids of the river, by the recovery of several hundred tons of lead. He hired a scow or flat-boat, and anchored it over the wreck. An experienced diver, clad in armor, who had been hired at considerable expense in Buffalo, was lowered into the water; but the rapids were so swift that the diver, though incased in the strong armor, feared to be sunk to the bottom. Young Eads determined to succeed, and, finding it impracticable to use the armor, went ashore, purchased a whiskey-barrel, knocked out the head, attached the air-pump hose to it, fastened several heavy weights to the open end of the barrel; then, swinging it on a derrick, he had a practical diving-bell—the best use I ever heard made of a whiskey-barrel.

Neither the diver, nor any of the crew, would go[29] down in this contrivance: so the dauntless young engineer, having full confidence in what he had read in books, was lowered within the barrel down to the bottom; the lower end of the barrel being open. The water was sixteen feet deep, and very swift. Finding the wreck, he remained by it a full hour, hitching ropes to pig-lead till a ton or more was safely hoisted into his own boat. Then, making a signal by a small line attached to the barrel, he was lifted on deck, and in command again. The sunken cargo was soon successfully raised, and was sold, and netted a handsome profit, which, increased by other successes, enabled energetic Eads to build larger boats, with powerful pumps, and machinery on them for lifting entire vessels. He surprised all his friends in floating even immense sunken steamers—boats which had long been given up as lost.

When the Rebellion came, it was soon evident that a strong fleet must be put upon Western rivers to assist our armies. Word came from the government to Captain Eads to report in Washington. His thorough knowledge of the "Father of Waters" and its tributaries, and his practical suggestions, secured an order to build seven gunboats, and soon after an order for the eighth was given.

In forty-eight hours after receiving this authority, his agents and assistants were at work; and suitable ship-timber was felled in half a dozen Western States for their hulls. Contracts were awarded to large engine and iron works in St. Louis, Pitts[30]burgh, and Cincinnati; and within one hundred days, eight powerful ironclad gunboats, carrying over one hundred large cannon, and costing a million dollars, were achieving victories no less important for the Mississippi valley than those which Ericsson's famous "Cheese-box Monitor" afterwards won on the James River.

These eight gunboats, Commodore Foote ably employed in his brave attacks on Forts McHenry and Donaldson. They were the first ironclads the United States ever owned. Captain Eads covered the boats with iron: Commodore Foote covered them with glory.

Eads built not less than fourteen of these gunboats. During the war, the models were exhibited by request to the German and other governments. His next work was to throw across the mighty Mississippi River, nearly half a mile wide, at St. Louis, a monstrous steel bridge, supported by three arches, the spans of two being five hundred and two feet long, and the central one five hundred and twenty feet. The huge piles were ingeniously sunk in the treacherous sand, one hundred and thirty-six feet below the flood-level to the solid rock, through ninety feet of sand. This bridge and its approaches cost eighty millions of dollars, and is used by ten or twelve railroad companies. Above the tracks is a big street with carriage-roads, street-cars, and walks for foot-passengers.

The honor of building the finest bridge in the[31] world would have satisfied most men, but not ambitious Captain Eads. He actually loved the noble river in which De Soto, its discoverer, was buried, and fully realized the vast, undeveloped resources of its rich valleys. Equally well he understood what a gigantic work in the past the river and its fifteen hundred sizable tributaries had accomplished in times of freshets, by depositing soil and sand north of the original Gulf of Mexico, forming an alluvial plain five hundred miles long, sixty miles wide, and of unknown depth, and having a delta extending out into the Gulf, sixty miles long, and as many miles wide, and probably a mile deep. And yet this heroic man, although jealously opposed for years by West Point engineers, having a sublime confidence in the laws of nature, and actuated by intense desire to benefit mankind, dared to stand on the immense sand-bars at the mouth of this defiant stream, and, making use of the jetty system, bid the river itself dig a wide, deep channel into the seas beyond, for the world's commerce.

Captain Eads, who had studied the improvements on the Danube, Maas, and other European rivers, observed that all rivers flow faster in their narrow channels, and carry along in the swift water, sand, gravel, and even stones. This familiar law he applied at the South Pass of the Mississippi River, where the waters, though deep above, escaped from the banks into the Gulf, and spread sediment far and wide.[32]

The water on the sand-bars of the three principal passes varied from eight to thirteen feet in depth. Many vessels require twice the depth. Two piers, twelve hundred feet apart, were built from land's end, a mile into the sea. They were made from willows, timber, gravel, concrete, and stone. Mattresses, a hundred feet long, from twenty-five to fifty feet wide, and two feet thick, were constructed from small willows placed at right angles, and bound securely together. These were floated into position, and sunk with gravel, one mattress upon another, which the river soon filled with sand that firmly held them in their place. The top was finished with heavy concrete blocks, to resist the waves. These piers are called "jetties," and the swift collected waters have already carried over five million cubic yards of sand into the deep gulf, and made a ship-way over thirty feet deep. The five million dollars paid by the United States was little enough for so priceless a service.

In June, 1884, Captain Eads received the Albert medal of the British Society of Arts, the first American upon whom this honor has been conferred. Before his great enterprise of the Tehuantepec ship railroad had been completed, he died at Nassau, New Providence, Bahama Islands, March 8, 1887, after a brief illness, of pneumonia, at the age of sixty-seven.

[33]

JAMES WATT.

JAMES WATT.

The history of inventors is generally the same old struggle with poverty. Sir Richard Arkwright, the youngest of thirteen children, with no education, a barber, shaving in a cellar for a penny to each customer, dies worth two and one-half million dollars, after being knighted by the King for his inventions in spinning. Elias Howe, Jr., in want and sorrow, lives on beans in a London attic, and dies at forty-five, having received over two million dollars from his sewing-machines in thirteen years. Success comes only through hard work and determined perseverance. The steps to honor, or wealth, or fame, are not easy to climb.

The history of James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine, is no exception to the rule of struggling to win. He was born in the little town of Greenock, Scotland, 1736. Too delicate to attend school, he was taught reading by his mother, and a little writing and arithmetic by his father. When six years of age, he would draw mechanical lines and circles on the hearth, with a colored piece of chalk. His favorite play was to take to pieces his[34] little carpenter tools, and make them into different ones. He was an obedient boy, especially devoted to his mother, a cheerful and very intelligent woman, who always encouraged him. She would say in any childish quarrels, "Let James speak; from him I always hear the truth." Old George Herbert said, "One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters"; and such a one was Mrs. Watt.

When sent to school, James was too sensitive to mix with rough boys, and was very unhappy with them. When nearly fourteen, his parents sent him to a friend in Glasgow, who soon wrote back that they must come for their boy, for he told so many interesting stories that he had read, that he kept the family up till very late at night.

His aunt wrote that he would sit "for an hour taking off the lid of the teakettle, and putting it on, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, and catching and condensing the drops of hot water it falls into."

Before he was fifteen, he had read a natural philosophy twice through, as well as every other book he could lay his hands on. He had made an electrical machine, and startled his young friends by some sudden shocks. He had a bench for his special use, and a forge, where he made small cranes, pulleys, pumps, and repaired instruments used on ships. He was fond of astronomy, and would lie on his back on the ground for hours, looking at the stars.[35]

Frail though he was in health, yet he must prepare himself to earn a living. When he was eighteen, with many tender words from his mother, her only boy started for Glasgow to learn the trade of making mathematical instruments. In his little trunk, besides his "best clothes," which were a ruffled shirt, a velvet waistcoat, and silk stockings, were a leather apron and some carpenter tools. Here he found a position with a man who sold and mended spectacles, repaired fiddles, and made fishing nets and rods.

Finding that he could learn very little in this shop, an old sea-captain, a friend of the family, took him to London. Here, day after day, he walked the streets, asking for a situation; but nobody wanted him. Finally he offered to work for a watchmaker without pay, till he found a place to learn his trade. This he at last obtained with a Mr. Morgan, to whom he agreed to give a hundred dollars for the year's teaching. As his father was poorly able to help him, the conscientious boy lived on two dollars a week, earning most of this pittance by rising early, and doing odd jobs before his employer opened his shop in the morning. He labored every evening until nine o'clock, except Saturday, and was soon broken in health by hunger and overwork. His mother's heart ached for him, but, like other poor boys, he must make his way alone.

At the end of the year he went to Glasgow to[36] open a shop for himself; but other mechanics were jealous of a new-comer, and would not permit him to rent a place. A professor at the Glasgow University knew the deserving young man, and offered him a room in the college, which he gladly accepted. He and the lad who assisted him could earn only ten dollars a week, and there was little sale for the instruments after they were made: so, following the example of his first master, he began to make and mend flutes, fiddles, and guitars, though he did not know one note from another. One of his customers wanted an organ built, and at once Watt set to work to learn the theory of music. When the organ was finished, a remarkable one for those times, the young machinist had added to it several inventions of his own.

This earning a living was a hard matter; but it brought energy, developed thought, and probably helped more than all else to make him famous. The world in general works no harder than circumstances compel.

Poverty is no barrier to falling in love, and, poor though he was, he now married Margaret Miller, his cousin, whom he had long tenderly loved. Their home was plain and small; but she had the sweetest of dispositions, was always happy, and made his life sunny even in its darkest hours of struggling.

Meantime he had made several intellectual friends in the college, one of whom talked much to him about a steam-carriage. Steam was not by any[37] means unknown. Hero, a Greek physician who lived at Alexandria a century before the Christian era, tells how the ancients used it. Some crude engines were made in Watt's time, the best being that of Thomas Newcomen, called an atmospheric engine, and used in raising water from coal-mines. It could do comparatively little, however; and many of the mines were now useless because the water nearly drowned the miners.

Watt first experimented with common vials for steam-reservoirs, and canes hollowed out for steam-pipes. For months he went on working night and day, trying new plans, testing the powers of steam, borrowing a brass syringe a foot long for his cylinder, till finally the essential principles of the steam-engine were born in his mind. He wrote to a friend, "My whole thoughts are bent on this machine. I can think of nothing else." He hired an old cellar, and for two months worked on his model. His tools were poor; his foreman died; and the engine, when completed, leaked in all parts. His old business of mending instruments had fallen off; he was badly in debt, and had no money to push forward the invention. He believed he had found the right principle; but he could not let his family starve. Sick at heart, and worn in body, he wrote: "Of all things in life there is nothing more foolish than inventing." Poor Watt!

His great need was money,—money to buy food, money to buy tools, money to give him leisure for[38] thought. Finally, a friend induced Dr. Roebuck, an iron-dealer, to become Watt's partner, pay his debts of five thousand dollars, take out a patent, and perfect the engine. Watt went to London for his patent, but so long was he delayed by indifferent officials, that he wrote home to his young wife, quite discouraged. With a brave heart in their pinching poverty, Margaret wrote back, "I beg that you will not make yourself uneasy, though things should not succeed to your wish. If the engine will not do, something else will; never despair."

On his return home, for six months he worked in setting up his engine. The cylinder, having been badly cast, was almost worthless; the piston, though wrapped in cork, oiled rags, and old hat, let the air in and the steam out; and the model proved a failure. "To-day," he said, "I enter the thirty-fifth year of my life, and I think I have hardly yet done thirty-five pence worth of good in the world: but I cannot help it." The path to success was not easy.

Dr. Roebuck was getting badly in debt, and could not aid him as he had promised; so Watt went sadly back to surveying, a business he had taken up to keep the wolf from the door. In feeble health, out in the worst weather, his clothes often wet through, life seemed almost unbearable. When absent on one of these surveying excursions, word was brought that Margaret, his beloved wife, was dead. He was completely unnerved. Who would care for his little[39] children, or be to him what he had often called her, "the comfort of his life"? After this he would often pause on the threshold of his humble home to summon courage to enter, since she was no longer there to welcome him. She had shared his poverty, but was never to share his fame and wealth.

And now came a turning-point in his life, though the struggles were by no means over. At Birmingham, lived Matthew Boulton, a rich manufacturer, eight years older than Watt. He employed over a thousand men in his hardware establishment, and in making clocks, and reproducing rare vases. He was a friend of Benjamin Franklin, with whom he had corresponded about the steam-engine, and he had also heard of Watt and his invention through Dr. Roebuck. He was urged to assist. But Watt waited three years longer for aid. Nine years had passed since he made his invention; he was in debt, without business, and in poor health. What could he do? He seemed likely to finish life without any success.

Finally Boulton was induced to engage in the manufacture of engines, giving Watt one-third of the profits, if any were made. One engine was constructed by Boulton's men, and it worked admirably. Soon orders came in for others, as the mines were in bad condition, and the water must be pumped out. Fortunes, like misfortunes, rarely come singly. Just at this time the Russian Government offered Watt five thousand dollars yearly if he[40] would go to that country. Such a sum was an astonishment. How he wished Margaret could have lived to see this proud day!

He could not well be spared from the company now; so he lived on at Birmingham, marrying a second time, Anne Macgregor of Scotland, to care for his children and his home. She was a very different woman from Margaret Miller; a neat housekeeper, but seemingly lacking in the lovable qualities which make sunshine even in the plainest home.

As soon as the Boulton and Watt engines were completed, and success seemed assured, obstacles arose from another quarter. Engines had been put into several Cornwall mines, which bore the singular names of "Ale and Cakes," "Wheat Fanny," "Wheat Abraham," "Cupboard," and "Cook's Kitchen." As soon as the miners found that these engines worked well, they determined to destroy the patent by the cry that Boulton and Watt had a monopoly of a thing which the world needed. Petitions were circulated, giving great uneasiness to both the partners. Several persons also stole the principle of the engine, either by bribing the engine-men, or by getting them drunk so that they would tell the secrets of their employers. The patent was constantly infringed upon. Every hour was a warfare. Watt said, "The rascality of mankind is almost past belief."

Meantime Boulton, with his many branches of business, and the low state of trade, had gotten[41] deeply in debt, and was pressed on every side for the tens of thousands which he owed. Watt was nearly insane with this trouble. He wrote to Boulton: "I cannot rest in my bed until these money matters have assumed some determinate form. I am plagued with the blues. I am quite eaten up with the mulligrubs."

Soon after this, Watt invented the letter-copying press, which at first was greatly opposed, because it was thought that forged names and letters would result. After a time, however, there was great demand for it. Watt was urged by Boulton to invent a rotary engine; but this was finally done by their head workman, William Murdock, the inventor of lighting by gas. He also made the first model of a locomotive, which frightened the village preacher nearly out of his senses, as it came puffing down the street one evening. Though devoted to his employers, sometimes working all night for them, they counselled him to give up all thought about his locomotive, lest by developing it he might in time withdraw from their firm. Alas for the selfishness of human nature! He was never made a partner, and, though he thought out many inventions after his day's work was done, he remained faithful to their service till the end of his life. Mr. Buckle tells this good story of Murdock. Having found that fish-skins could be used instead of isinglass, he came to London to inform the brewers, and took board in a handsome house. Fancying[42] himself in his laboratory, he went on with his experiments. Imagine the horror of the landlady when she entered his room, and found her elegant wall-paper covered with wet fish-skins, hung up to dry! The inventor took an immediate departure with his skins. When the rotary engine was finished, the partners sought to obtain a charter, when lo! The millers and mealmen all opposed it, because, said they, "If flour is ground by steam, the wind and water-mills will stop, and men will be thrown out of work." Boulton and Watt viewed with contempt this new obstacle of ignorance. "Carry out this argument," said the former, "and we must annihilate water-mills themselves, and go back again to the grinding of corn by hand labor." Presently a large mill was burned by incendiaries, with a loss of fifty thousand dollars.

Watt about this time invented his "Parallel Motion," and the Governor, for regulating the speed of the engine. Large orders began to come in, even from America and the West Indies; but not till they had expended two hundred thousand dollars were there any profits. Times were brightening for the hard-working inventor. He lost his despondency, and did not long for death, as he had previously.

After a time, he built a lovely home at Heathfield, in the midst of forty acres of trees, flowers, and tasteful walks. Here gathered some of the greatest minds of the world,—Dr. Priestley who[43] discovered oxygen, Sir William Herschel, Dr. Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood, and scores of others, who talked of science and literature. Mrs. Watt so detested dirt, and so hated the sight of her husband's leather apron and soiled hands, that he built for himself a "garret," where he could work unmolested by his wife, or her broom and dustpan. She never allowed even her two pug-dogs to cross the hall without wiping their feet on the mat. She would seize and carry away her husband's snuff-box, wherever she found it, because she considered snuff as dirt. At night, when she retired from the dining-room, if Mr. Watt did not follow at the time fixed by her, she sent a servant to remove the lights. If friends were present, he would say meekly, "We must go," and walk slowly out of the room. Such conduct must have been about as trying as the failure of his engines. For days together he would stay in his garret, not even coming down to his meals, cooking his food in his frying-pan and Dutch oven, which he kept by him. One cannot help wondering, whether, sometimes, as he worked up there alone, he did not think of Margaret, whose face would have brightened even that dingy room.

A crushing sorrow now came to him. His only daughter, Jessie, died, and then his pet son, Gregory, the dearest friend of Humphry Davy, a young man of brilliant scholarship and oratorical powers. Boulton died before his partner,[44] loved and lamented by all, having followed the precept he once gave to Watt: "Keep your mind and your heart pleasant, if possible; for the way to go through life sweetly is not to regard rubs."

Watt died peacefully Aug. 19, 1819, in his eighty-third year, and was buried in beautiful Handsworth Church. Here stands Chantrey's masterpiece, a sitting statue of the great inventor. Another is in Westminster Abbey. When Lord Brougham was asked to write the inscription for this monument, he said, "I reckon it one of the chief honors of my life." Sir James Mackintosh placed him "at the head of all inventors in all ages and nations"; and Wordsworth regarded him, "Considering both the magnitude and the universality of his genius, as perhaps the most extraordinary man that this country has ever produced."

After all the struggle came wealth and fame. The mine opens up its treasures only to those who are persevering enough to dig into it; and life itself yields little, only to such as have the courage and the will to overcome obstacles.

Heathfield has passed into other hands; but the quiet garret is just as James Watt left it at death. Here is a large sculpture machine, and many busts partly copied. Here is his handkerchief tied to the beam on which he rested his head. The beam itself is crumbling to dust. Little pots of chemicals on the shelves are hardened by age. A bunch of withered grapes is on a dish, and the[45] ashes are in the grate as when he sat before it. Close by is the hair trunk of his beloved Gregory, full of his schoolbooks, his letters, and his childish toys. This the noble old man kept beside him to the last.

[46]

SIR JOSIAH MASON.

One sunny morning in June, I went out five miles from the great manufacturing city of Birmingham, England, to the pretty town called Erdington, to see the Mason Orphanage. I found an immense brick structure, with high Gothic towers, in the midst of thirteen acres of velvety lawn. Over the portals of the building were the words, "DO DEEDS OF LOVE." Three hundred happy children were scattered over the premises, the girls in brown dresses with long white aprons: some were in the great play-room, some doing the housework, and some serving at dinner. Sly Cupid creeps into an orphan-asylum even; and the matron had to watch carefully lest the biggest pieces of bread and butter be given by the girls to the boys they liked best.

In the large grounds, full of flowers and trees, among the children he so tenderly loved and called by name, the founder, Sir Josiah Mason, and his wife, are buried, in a beautiful mausoleum, a Gothic chapel, with stone carving and stained-glass windows.

SIR JOSIAH MASON.

[47]

And who was this founder?

In a poor, plain home in Kidderminster, Feb. 23 1795, Sir Josiah Mason was born. His father was a weaver, and his mother the daughter of a laborer. At eight years of age, with of course little education, the boy began the struggle of earning a living. His mother fitted up two baskets for him, and these he filled with baker's cakes, and sold them about the streets. Little Joe became so great a favorite, that the buyers often gave him an extra penny. Finally a donkey was obtained; and a bag containing cakes in one end, and fruit and vegetables in the other, was strapped across his back. In this way, for seven years, Joe peddled from door to door. Did anybody ever think then that he would be rich and famous?

The poor mother helped him with her scanty means, and both parents allowed him to keep all he could make. His father's advice used to be, "Joe, thee'st got a few pence; never let anybody know how much thee'st got in thee pockets." And well the boy carried out his father's injunction in afterlife.

When he was fifteen, his brother had become a confirmed invalid, and needed a constant attendant. The father was away at the shop, and the mother busy with her cares: so Joe, who thought of others always before himself, determined to be nurse, and earn some money also. He set about becoming a shoemaker, having learned the trade from watching[48] an old man who lived near their house; but he could make only a bare pittance. Then he taught himself writing, and earned a trifle for composing letters and Valentines for his poor neighbors. This money he spent in books, for he was eager for an education. He read no novels nor poetry, but books of history, science, and theology.

Finally the mother started a small grocery and bakery, and Joe assisted. Many of their customers were tramps and beggars, who could buy only an ounce or half-ounce of tea; but even a farthing was welcome to the Masons. Later, Josiah took up carpet-weaving and blacksmithing; but he could never earn more than five dollars a week, and he became restless and eager for a broader field. He had courage, was active and industrious, and had good habits.

He was now twenty-one. He decided to go to Birmingham on Christmas Day, to visit an uncle whom he had never seen. He went, and this was the turning-point of his life. His uncle gave him work in making gilt toys; and, what was perhaps better still for the poor young man, he fell in love with his cousin Annie Griffiths, and married her the following year. This marriage proved a great blessing, and for fifty-two years, childless, they two were all in all to each other. For six years the young husband worked early and late, with the promise of succeeding to the small business; but at the end of these years the promise was broken, and[49] Mason found himself at thirty, out of work, and owning less than one hundred dollars.

Walking down the street one day in no very happy frame of mind, a stranger stepped up to him, and said, "Mr. Mason?"

"Yes," was the answer.

"You are now, I understand, without employment. I know some one who wants just such a man as you, and I will introduce him to you. Will you meet me to-morrow morning at Mr. Harrison's, the split-ring maker?"

"I will."

The next day the stranger said to Mr. Harrison, "I have brought you the very man you want."

The business man eyed Mason closely, saying, "I've had a good many young men come here; but they are afraid of dirtying their fingers."

Mason opened his somewhat calloused hands, and, looking at them, said, "Are you ashamed of dirtying yourselves to get your own living?"

Mason was at once employed, and a year later Mr. Harrison offered him the business at twenty-five hundred dollars. Several men, observing the young man's good qualities, had offered to loan him money when he should go into trade for himself. He bethought him of these friends, and called upon them; but they all began to make excuse. The world's proffers of help or friendship we can usually discount by half. Seeing that not a dollar could be borrowed, Mr. Harrison generously offered to wait[50] for the principal till it could be earned out of the profits. This was a noble act, and Mr. Mason never ceased to be grateful for it.

He soon invented a machine for bevelling hoop-rings, and made five thousand dollars the first year from its use. Thenceforward his life reads like a fairy-tale. One day, seeing some steel pens on a card, in a shop-window, he went in and purchased one for twelve cents. That evening he made three, and enclosed one in a letter to Perry of London, the maker, paying eighteen cents' postage, which now would be only two cents.

His pen was such an improvement that Mr. Perry at once wrote for all he could make. In a few years, Mason became the greatest pen-maker in the world, employing a thousand persons, and turning out over five million pens per week. Sixty tons of pens, containing one and a half million pens to the ton, were often in his shops. What a change from peddling cakes from door to door in Kidderminster!

Later he became the moneyed partner in the great electro-plating trade of the Elkingtons, whose beautiful work at the Centennial Exposition we all remember.

Mr. Mason never forgot his laborers. When he established copper-smelting works in Wales, he built neat cottages for the workmen, and schools for the three hundred and fifty children. The Welsh refused to allow their children to attend school where they would be taught English. Mr. Mason over[51]came this by distributing hats, bonnets, and other clothing to the pupils, and, once in school, they needed no urging to remain. The manufacturer was as hard a worker as any of his men. For years he was the first person to come to his factory, and the last to leave it. He was quick to decide a matter, and act upon it, and the most rigid economist of time. He allowed nobody to waste his precious hours with idle talk, nor did he waste theirs. He believed, with Shakespeare, that "Talkers are no good doers." His hours were regular. He took much exercise on foot, and lived with great simplicity. He was always cheerful, and had great self-control. Finally he began to ask himself how he could best use his money before he died. He remembered his poor struggling mother in his boyish days. His first gift should be a home for aged women—a noble thought!—his next should be for orphans, as he was a great lover of children. For eight years he watched the beautiful buildings of his Orphanage go up, and then saw the happy children gathered within, bringing many of them from Kidderminster, who were as destitute as himself when a boy. He seemed to know and love each child, for whose benefit he had included even his own lovely home, a million dollars in all. The annual income for the Orphanage is about fifty thousand dollars. What pleasure he must have had as he saw them swinging in the great playgrounds, where he had even thought to make triple columns[52] so that they could the better play hide-and-seek! At eight, he was trudging the streets to earn bread; they should have an easier lot through his generosity.

For this and other noble deeds Queen Victoria made him a knight. What would his poor mother have said to such an honor for her boy, had she been alive!

What would the noble man, now over eighty, do next with his money? He recalled how hard it had been for him to obtain knowledge. The colleges were patronized largely by the rich. He would build a great School of Science, free to all who depended upon themselves for support. They might study mathematics, languages, chemistry, civil engineering, without distinction of sex or race. For five years he watched the elegant brick and stone structure in Birmingham rise from its foundations. And then, Oct. 1, 1880, in the midst of assembled thousands, and in the presence of such men as Fawcett, Bright, and Max Muller, Mason Science College was formally opened. Professor Huxley, R. W. Dale, and others made eloquent addresses. In the evening, a thousand of the best of England gathered at the college, made beautiful by flowers and crimson drapery. On a dais sat the noble giver, in his eighty-sixth year. The silence was impressive as the grand old man arose, handing the key of his college, his million-dollar gift, to the trustees. Surely truth is stranger than fiction![53] To what honor and renown had come the humble peddler!

On the following 25th of June, Sir Josiah Mason was borne to his grave, in the Erdington mausoleum. Three hundred and fifty orphan-children followed his coffin, which was carried by eight servants or workingmen, as he had requested. After the children had sung a hymn, they covered the coffin-lid with flowers, which he so dearly loved. He sleeps in the midst of his gifts, one of England's noble benefactors.

[54]

BERNARD PALISSY.

In the Louvre in Paris, preserved among almost priceless gems, are several pieces of exquisite pottery called Palissy ware. Thousands examine them every year, yet but few know the struggles of the man who made such beautiful works of art.

Born in the south of France in 1509, in a poor, plain home, Bernard Palissy grew to boyhood, sunny-hearted and hopeful, learning the trade of painting on glass from his father. He had an ardent love for nature, and sketched rocks, birds, and flowers with his boyish hands. When he was eighteen, he grew eager to see the world, and, with a tearful good-by from his mother, started out to seek his fortune. For ten years he travelled from town to town, now painting on glass for some rich lord, and now sketching for a peasant family in return for food. Meantime he made notes about vegetation, and the forming of crystals in the mountains of Auvergne, showing that he was an uncommon boy.

BERNARD PALISSY.

Finally, like other young people, he fell in love, and was married at twenty-eight. He could not[55] travel about the country now, so he settled in the little town of Saintes. Then a baby came into their humble home. How could he earn more money, since the poor people about him had no need for painted glass? Every time he tried to plan some new way to grow richer, his daily needs weighed like a millstone around his neck.

About this time he was shown an elegant enamelled cup from Italy. "What if I could be the first and only maker of such ware in France?" thought he. But he had no knowledge of clay, and no money to visit Italy, where alone the secret could be obtained.

The Italians began making such pottery about the year 1300. Two centuries earlier, the Pagan King of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea, was said to keep confined in his dungeons twenty thousand Christians. The Archbishop of Pisa incited his subjects to make war upon such an infidel king, and after a year's struggle, the Pisans took the island, killed the ruler, and brought home his heir, and great booty. Among the spoils were exquisite Moorish plates, which were so greatly admired that they were hung on the walls of Italian churches. At length the people learned to imitate this Majolica ware, which brought very high prices.

The more Palissy thought about this beautiful pottery, the more determined he became to attempt its making. But he was like a man groping in the dark. He had no knowledge of what composed the[56] enamel on the ware; but he purchased some drugs, and ground them to powder. Then he bought earthen pots, broke them in pieces, spread the powder upon the fragments, and put them in a furnace to bake. He could ill afford to build a furnace, or even to buy the earthenware; but he comforted his young wife with the thought that as soon as he had discovered what would produce white enamel they would become rich.

When the pots had been heated sufficiently, as he supposed, he took them out, but, lo! the experiment had availed nothing. Either he had not hit upon the right ingredients, or the baking had been too long or too short in time. He must of course try again. For days and weeks he pounded and ground new materials; but no success came. The weeks grew into months. Finally his supply of wood became exhausted, and the wife was losing her patience with these whims of an inventor. They were poor, and needed present income rather than future prospects. She had ceased to believe Palissy's stories of riches coming from white enamel. Had she known that she was marrying an inventor, she might well have hesitated, lest she starve in the days of experimenting; but now it was too late.

His wood used up, Palissy was obliged to make arrangements with a potter who lived three miles away, to burn the broken pieces in his furnace. His enthusiasm made others hopeful; so that the promise to pay when white enamel was discovered[57] was readily accepted. To make matters sure of success at this trial, he sent between three and four hundred pieces of earthenware to his neighbor's furnace. Some of these would surely come back with the powder upon them melted, and the surface would be white. Both himself and wife waited anxiously for the return of the ware; she much less hopeful than he, however. When it came, he says in his journal, "I received nothing but shame and loss, because it turned out good for nothing."

Two years went by in this almost hopeless work, then a third,—three whole years of borrowing money, wood, and chemicals; three years of consuming hope and desperate poverty. Palissy's family had suffered extremely. One child had died, probably from destitution. The poor wife was discouraged, and at last angered at his foolishness. Finally the pottery fever seemed to abate, and Palissy went back to his drudgery of glass-painting and occasional surveying. Nobody knew the struggle it had cost to give up the great discovery; but it must be done.

Henry II., who was then King of France, had placed a new tax on salt, and Palissy was appointed to make maps of all the salt-marshes of the surrounding country. Some degree of comfort now came back to his family. New clothes were purchased for the children, and the overworked wife repented of her lack of patience. When the surveying was completed, a little money had been saved, but, alas! the pottery fever had returned.[58]

Three dozen new earthen pots were bought, chemicals spread over them as before, and these taken to a glass-furnace, where the heat would be much greater. He again waited anxiously, and when they were returned, some of the powder had actually melted, and run over the earthenware. This added fuel to the flame of his hope and ambition. And now, for two whole years more, he went between his house and the glass-furnace, always hoping, always failing.

His home had now become like a pauper's. For five years he had chased this will-o'-the-wisp of white enamel; and the only result was the sorrow of his relatives and the scorn of his neighbors. Finally he promised his heart-broken wife that he would make but one more trial, and if this failed, he would give up experimenting, and support her and the children. He resolved that this should be an almost superhuman effort. In some unknown way he raised the money for new pots and three hundred mixtures of chemicals. Then, with the feelings of a man who has but one chance for life, he walked beside the person who carried his precious stock to the furnace. He sat down before the mouth of the great hot oven, and waited four long hours. With what a sinking heart he watched the pieces as they were taken out! He hardly dared look, because it would probably be the old story of failure. But, lo! some were melted, and as they hardened, oh, joy unspeakable, they turned white![59] He hastened home with unsteady step, like one intoxicated, to tell his wife the overwhelming truth. Surely he could not stop now in this great work; and all must be done in secret, lest other potters learn the art.

Fears, no doubt, mingled with the new-born hopes of Mrs. Palissy, for there was no regular work before her husband, and no steady income for hungry little mouths. Besides, he must needs build a furnace in the shed adjoining their home. But how could he obtain the money? Going to the brick yard, he pledged some of the funds he hoped to receive in the future, and brought home the bricks upon his back. Then he spent seven long months experimenting in clay vessels, that he might get the best shapes and quality to take the enamel. For another month, from early morning till late at night, he pounded his preparations of tin, lead, iron, and copper, and mixed them, as he hoped, in proper proportions. When his furnace was ready, he put in his clay pots, and seated himself before the mouth.

All day and all night, he fed the fire, his little children bringing him soup, which was all the food the house afforded. A second day and night he watched the results eagerly; but the enamel did not melt. Covered with perspiration, and faint from loss of sleep and food, with the desperation of hope that is akin to despair, for six days and six nights, catching scarcely a moment of sleep, he watched[60] the earthen pots; but still the enamel did not melt. At last, thinking that his proportions in his mixtures might have been wrong, he began once more to pound and grind the materials without letting his furnace cool. His clay vessels which he had spent seven months in making were also useless, so he hastened to the shops, and bought new ones.

The family were now nearly frantic with poverty and the pottery madness of the father. To make matters quite unbearable, the wood had given out, and the furnace-fires must not stop. Almost wild with hope deferred, and the necessities of life pressing upon him, Palissy tore up the fence about his garden, and thrust it into the furnace-mouth. Still the enamel did not melt. He rushed into the house, and began breaking up the table and chairs for fuel. His wife and children were horrified. They ran through the streets, crying out that Palissy was tearing the house down, and had become crazy. The neighbors gathered, and begged him to desist, but all to no purpose. He tore up the floors of the house, and threw them in. The town jeered at him, and said, "It is right that he die of hunger, seeing that he has left off following his trade." He was exhausted and dried up by the heat of the furnace; but still he could not yield. Finally the enamel melted. But now he was more crazy than before. He must go forward, come what might.

With his family nearer than ever to starvation, he hired an assistant potter, promising the old[61] promise,—to pay when the discovery had been perfected. The town of Saintes must have become familiar with that promise. An innkeeper boarded the potter for six months, and charged it to Palissy, to be paid, like all the other bills, in the future. Probably Mrs. Palissy did not wish to board the assistant, even had she possessed the necessary food. At the end of the six months the potter departed, receiving, as pay, nearly all Palissy's wearing-apparel, which probably was scarcely worth carrying away.

He now felt obliged to build an improved furnace, tearing down the old one to recover the bricks, nearly turned to stone by the intense heat. His hands were fearfully bruised and cut in the work. He begged and borrowed more money, and once more started his furnace, with the boast that this time he would draw three or four hundred francs from it. When the ware was drawn out, the creditors came, eager for their share; but, alas! there was no share for them. The mortar had been full of flints, which adhered to the vessels; and Palissy broke the spoiled lot in pieces. The neighbors called him a fool; the wife joined in the maledictions—and who could blame her?

Under all this disappointment his spirit gave way, and he fled to his chamber, and threw himself upon the bed. Six of his children had died from want during the last ten years of struggle. What agony for the fond mother! "I was so wasted in person,"[62] he quaintly wrote afterwards, "that there was no form nor prominence of muscle on my arms or legs; also the said legs were throughout of one size, so that the garters with which I tied my stockings were at once, when I walked, down upon my heels, with the stockings too. I was despised and mocked by all."

But the long lane turned at last. He stopped for a year, and took up his old work to support his dying family, and then perfected his discovery. For five or six years there were many failures,—the furnaces were too hot, or the proportions were wrong; but finally the work became very beautiful. His designs from nature were perfect, and his coloring marvellous. His fame soon spread abroad; and such nobles as Montmorenci, who stood next in rank to the King, and counts and barons, were his patrons. He designed tiles for the finest palaces, ideal heads of the Saviour, and dainty forms from Greek mythology.

Invited by Catherine de Medicis, wife of King Henry II., Palissy removed to Paris, and was thenceforward called "Bernard of the Tuileries." He was now rich and famous. What a change from that day when his half-starved wife and children fled along the streets of Saintes, their furniture broken up for furnace-fires! And yet, but for this blind devotion to a single object, he would have remained a poor, unknown glass-painter all his life. While in Paris, he published two or three books[63] which showed wide knowledge of history, mines, springs, metals, and philosophy. He founded a Museum of Natural History, and for eight years gave courses of lectures, attended by all the learned men of the day. When his great learning was commented upon, he replied, "I have had no other book than the sky and the earth, known to all." A wonderful man indeed!

All his life Palissy was a devoted Huguenot, not fearing to read his Bible, and preach to the people daily from it. Once he was imprisoned at Bordeaux, and but for his genius, and his necessity to the beautifying of palaces and chapels, he would have been put to death. When he was seventy-six, under the brutal Henry III., he was shut up in the Bastille. After nearly four years, the curled and vain monarch visited him, and said, "My good man, you have been forty-five years in the service of the Queen my mother, or in mine, and we have suffered you to live in your own religion, amidst all the executions and the massacres. Now, however, I am so pressed by the Guise party and my people, that I have been compelled, in spite of myself, to imprison these two poor women and you; they are to be burnt to-morrow, and you also, if you will not be converted."

"Sire," answered the old man, "you have said several times that you feel pity for me; but it is I who pity you, who have said, 'I am compelled.' That is not speaking like a King. These girls and[64] I, who have part in the kingdom of heaven, we will teach you to talk royally. The Guisarts, all your people, and yourself, cannot compel a potter to bow down to images of clay."

The two girls were burnt a few months afterward. The next year, 1589, Henry III. was stabbed by a monk who knelt before his throne; and the same year, Palissy died in the Bastille, at the age of eighty.

[65]

THORWALDSEN.

BERTEL THORWALDSEN.

A few months ago we visited a plain old house in Copenhagen, the boyhood home of the great Danish sculptor. Here he worked with his father, a poor wood-carver, who, thinking his boy would be a more skilful workman if he learned to draw, sent him to the Free Royal Academy of Fine Arts when he was twelve years old. At the end of four years he took a prize, and the fact was mentioned in the newspapers. The next day, one of the teachers asked, "Thorwaldsen, is it your brother who has carried off the prize?"

Bertel's cheeks colored with pride as he said, "No, sir; it is I." The teacher changed his tone, and replied, "Mr. Thorwaldsen, you will go up immediately to the first rank."

Years afterward, when he had become famous, he said no praise was ever so sweet as being called "Mr." when he was poor and unknown.

Two years later, he won another prize; but he was now obliged to stay at home half the time to help support the large family. Obtaining a small gold medal from the Academy, although so modest[66] that, after the examination, he escaped from the midst of the candidates by a private staircase, he determined to try for the large gold medal. If he could obtain this, he would receive a hundred and twenty dollars a year for three years, and study art in Italy. He at once began to give drawing-lessons, taught modelling to wealthy boys, and helped illustrate books, working from early morning till late at night. He was rarely seen to smile, so hard was the struggle for daily bread. But he tried for the medal, and won.

What visions of fame must have come before him now, as he said good-by to his poor parents, whom, alas, he was never to see again, and, taking his little dog Hector, started for far-away Italy! When he arrived, he was so ill and homesick that several times he decided to give up art and go back. He copied diligently the works of the old masters, and tried in vain to earn a little money. He sent some small works of his own to Copenhagen; but nobody bought them. He made "Jason with the Golden Fleece," and, when no one ordered it, the discouraged artist broke it in pieces. The next year he modelled another Jason, a lady furnishing the means; and while everybody praised it, and Canova said, "This young Dane has produced a work in a new and grand style," it did not occur to any one to buy the statue in marble.

An artist could not live on praise alone. Anxious days came and went, and he was destitute and[67] wretched. He must leave Rome, and go back to the wood-carving in Copenhagen; for no one wanted beautiful things, unless the maker was famous. He deferred going from week to week, till at last his humble furniture had been sold, and his trunks waited at the door. As he was leaving the house, his travelling companion said to him, "We must wait till to-morrow, from a mistake in our passports."

A few hours later, Mr. Thomas Hope, an English banker, entered his studio, and, struck with the grandeur of his model of Jason, asked the cost in marble. "Six hundred sequins" (over twelve hundred dollars), he answered, not daring to hope for such good fortune. "That is not enough; you should ask eight," said the generous man, who at once ordered it.

And this was the turning-point in Bertel's life. How often a rich man might help a struggling artist, and save a genius to the world, as did this banker! Young Thorwaldsen now made the acquaintance of the Danish ambassador to Naples, who introduced him to the family of Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, where the most famous people in Rome gathered. Soon a leading countess commissioned him to cut four marble statues,—Bacchus, Ganymede, Apollo, and Venus. Two years later, he was made professor in the Royal Academy of Florence.

The Academy of Copenhagen now sent him five[68] hundred dollars as an expression of their pride in him. How much more he needed it when he was near starving, all those nine years in Rome! The bashful student had become the genial companion and interesting talker. Louis of Bavaria, who made Munich one of the art centres of the world, was his admirer and friend. The Danish King urged him to return to Copenhagen; but, as the Quirinal was to be decorated with great magnificence, Rome could not spare him. For this, he made in three months his famous "Entry of Alexander into Babylon," and soon after his exquisite bas-reliefs, "Night" and "Morning,"—the former, a goddess carrying in her arms two children, Sleep and Death; the latter, a goddess flying through the air, scattering flowers with both hands.

In 1816, when he was forty-six, he finished his Venus, after having made thirty models of the figure. He threw away the first attempt, and devoted three years to the completion of the second. Three statues were made, one of which is at Chatsworth, the elegant home of the Duke of Devonshire; and one was lost at sea. A year later, he carved his exquisite Byron, now at Trinity College, Cambridge.

He was now made a member of three other famous academies. Having been absent from Denmark twenty-three years, the King urged his return for a visit, at least. The Royal Palace of Charlottenburg was prepared for his reception[69] The students of the Academy escorted him with bands of music, cannon were fired, poems read, cantatas sung; and the King created him councillor of state.

Was the wood-carver's son proud of all these honors? No. The first person he met at the palace was the old man who had served as a model for the boys when Thorwaldsen was at school. So overcome was he as he recalled those days of toil and poverty, that he fell upon the old man's neck, and embraced him heartily.

After some of the grandest work of his life in the Frue Kirke,—Christ and the Twelve Apostles, and others,—he returned to Rome, visiting, on the way, Alexander of Russia, who, after Thorwaldsen had made his bust, presented the artist with a diamond ring.

Although a Protestant, accounted now the greatest living sculptor, he was made president of the Academy of St. Luke, a position held by Canova when he was alive, and was commissioned to build the monument of Pius VII. in St. Peters. Mendelssohn, the great composer, had become his warm friend, and used to play for him as he worked in his studio. Sir Walter Scott came to visit the artist, and as the latter could speak scarcely a word of English, the two shook hands heartily, and clapped each other on the shoulder as they parted.

When Thorwaldsen was sixty-eight years old,[70] he left Rome to end his days among his own people. The enthusiasm on his arrival was unbounded. The whole city waited nearly three days for his coming. Boats decked with flowers went out to meet him, and so many crowded on board his vessel that it was feared she would sink. The members of the Academy came in a body; and the crowd took the horses from the carriage, and drew it themselves through the streets to the Palace of Charlottenburg. In the evening there was a grand torchlight procession, followed by a constant round of parties.

So beset was he with invitations to dinner, that, to save a little time for himself, he told his servant Wilkins, that he would dine with him and his wife. Wilkins, greatly confused, replied, "What would the world think if it found out that the chancellor dined with his servant?"

"The world—the world! Have I not told you a thousand times that I don't care in the least what the world thinks about these things?" Sometimes he refused even to dine with the King. Finding at last that society would give him no rest, he went to live with some friends at Nyso, seven hours by boat from Copenhagen.

Once more he visited Rome, for a year, receiving royal attentions all through Germany. Two years after, as he was sitting in the theatre, he rose to let a lady pass. She saw him bending toward the floor, and asked, "Have you dropped something?"[71]

The great man made no answer; he was dead. The funeral was a grand expression of love and honor. His body lay in state in the Royal Palace, laurel about his brow, the coffin ornamented with floral crowns—one made by the Queen of Denmark; his chisel laid in the midst of laurel and palm, and his great works of art placed about him. Houses were draped in black, bells tolled in all the churches, women threw flowers from their windows before the forty artists who carried the coffin, and the King and Prince royal received it in person at the Frue Kirke.

Then it was borne to the large museum which Copenhagen had built to receive his work, and buried in the centre of the inner court, which had been prepared under his own hand. A low granite coping surrounds the grave, which is entirely covered with ivy, and on the side is his boyish name, Bertel (Bartholomew) Thorwaldsen.

[72]

MOZART.

The quaint old city of Salzburg, Austria, built into the mountain-side, is a Mecca for all who love music, and admire the immortal Mozart. When he was alive, his native city allowed him nearly to starve; when he was dead, she built him a beautiful monument, and preserved his home, a plain two-story, stuccoed building, for thousands of travellers to look upon sadly and tenderly.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born Jan. 27, 1756, a delicate, sensitive child, who would ask a dozen times a day whether his friends loved him, and, if answered in the negative, would burst into tears. At three, he began to show his passion for music. He would listen intensely as his father taught his little sister, Nannerl, seven years old; would move his playthings from one room to another, to the sound of the violin; and at four, composed pieces which astonished his sire.

W. A. MOZART.

Two years later, the proud father took Wolfgang and his sister on a concert tour to Vienna. So well did the boy play, that the Empress Maria Theresa held him in her arms, and kissed him heartily. One[73] day as he was walking between two of her daughters, he slipped on the polished floor and fell. Marie Antoinette, afterward Empress of France, raised him up, whereupon he said, "You are very kind; I will marry you." The father was alarmed at this seeming audacity; but the lovely Princess playfully kissed him.

The next year he was taken to Paris, and here two sets of sonatas, the works of a boy of seven, were brought out, dedicated to Marie Antoinette. The children sat at the royal table, poems were written about them, and everywhere they excited wonder and admiration; yet so excessively modest was young Mozart, that he cried when praised too much. In London, Bach took the boy between his knees, and alternately they played his own great works and those of Handel at sight. Royalty gave them "gold snuffboxes enough to set up a shop," wrote home the father; "but in money I am poor." Wolfgang was now taken ill of inflammatory fever; but he could not give up his music. A board was laid across the bed, and on this he wrote out his thoughts in the notes. Finally, with ardor dampened at their lack of pecuniary success, Leopold Mozart took his dear ones back to quiet Salzburg.

Here the cold archbishop, discrediting the reports of the boy's genius, shut him up alone for a week to compose an oratorio, the text furnished by himself. Mozart, only ten years old, stood the test brilliantly. The next year a second tour was taken[74] to Vienna, to be present at the marriage of the Archduchess Maria Josepha. The bride died from smallpox shortly after their arrival: and poor Wolfgang took the disease, and was blind for nine days. When he recovered, the musicians, moved by envy and jealousy, would not be outdone by a boy of twelve, who was equally at home in German or Italian opera, and determined to hiss off the stage whatever he might compose. Sad at heart, and disappointed, again the Mozarts went back to the old home.

Two years later, after much self-sacrifice, the father took his boy to Italy for study. The first day in Passion Week they went to the Sistine Chapel to hear the famous "Miserere" of Allegri, which was considered so sacred, that the musicians were forbidden to take home any part of it, or copy it out of the chapel, on pain of excommunication. Wolfgang, as soon as he reached his lodgings, wrote it out from memory; which remarkable feat for a boy of fourteen astonished all Rome. So wonderfully did he play, that the audience at Naples declared there was witchcraft in the ring which he wore on his left hand, and he was obliged to remove it. At Milan, when he was nearly fifteen, he composed the opera "Mithridate," conducting it himself, which was given twenty nights in succession to enthusiastic audiences. After this came requests for operas from Maria Theresa, Munich, and elsewhere. He was busy every moment. Overworked,[75] he was often ill; but the need for money to meet heavy expenses made constant work a necessity. All this time he wrote beautiful letters to his mother and sister. "Kiss mamma's hand for me a thousand billion times," is the language of his loving heart. He could scarcely be said to have had any childhood; but he kept his tenderness and affection to the last of his life.

After their return to Salzburg, finding the new archbishop even less cordial than the old—the former had allowed Wolfgang the munificent salary of five dollars and a fourth yearly!—it was deemed wise to try to find a new field for employment. The father, now sixty years of age, must earn a pittance for the family by giving music-lessons, while the mother accompanied the son to Paris. The separation was a hard one for the devoted father, who could not say good-by to his idolized son, and poor Nannerl wept the whole day long. Mozart, now twenty-one, and famous, well repaid this affection by his pure character. He wrote: "I have God always before me. Whatever is according to his will is also according to mine; therefore I cannot fail to be happy and contented."

Stopping for a time at Mannheim, he attempted to gain the position of tutor to the elector's children, but was disappointed. Here he fell in love with Aloysia Weber, a pretty girl of fifteen, whose father, a prompter at the National Theatre, earned only two hundred dollars yearly for the support of[76] his wife and six children. The girl had a fine voice; and Mozart, blinded by love, asked no higher joy than to write operas in which she might be the star. The good old father, who had spent all his life in helping his son to win fame, was nearly heart-broken when he learned of this foolish affection, and wrote him tenderly but firmly: "Off with you to Paris; get the great folks on your side; aut Cæsar, aut nihil. From Paris, the name and fame of a man of great talent goes through the whole world."

The young man, carrying out his childish motto, "God first, and then papa," reluctantly started for Paris. Here he did not meet with great success, for scores of applicants waited for every position. His loving mother soon died, perhaps from over economy in her cold, dark lodgings; and the young musician took his lonely way back to Salzburg, begging his father's consent to his stopping at Mannheim to see the Webers. Finding that Aloysia had gone upon the stage at Munich, he hastened to see her. She had been offered a good salary. Meantime Mozart had won no new laurels at Paris. He was small in stature, and poor; and the girl who wept at his departure a few months previously professed now scarcely to have seen his face before. The young lover, cut to the heart, yet proud, seated himself at the piano, and played,

[77]

and then hastened away to Salzburg. Aloysia married a comedian, and lived a most unhappy life, gaining some fame from singing the music which Mozart wrote for her.

He remained at home for a year and a half, till called to Munich to write the opera "Idomeneo," and later to Vienna. Here, unfortunately, he met the Webers again, and, their father having died, he boarded in their house, and gave lessons to Constance, a younger sister of Aloysia. She was a plain, good-hearted girl, without much energy, but with a great appreciation of her gifted teacher. The result came naturally; he fell in love with the penniless girl, and, despite the distress of his aged father at his choice, married her when he was twenty-six and she eighteen.

Henceforward there was no hope of any thing save the direst poverty. To marry without love is a grave mistake; to marry simply for love is sometimes a mistake equally grave. He could of course do nothing now for his aged father or sister. Unsteady employment, a rapidly-increasing family, and a wife ill most of the time, made the struggle for existence ten times harder than before his marriage. Once when he had prepared to visit his father for the first time after the wedding, and had waited months for the necessary funds, he was arrested for a debt of fifteen dollars, just as he was stepping into the carriage.

The Emperor Joseph said to him one day, "Why[78] did you not marry a rich wife?" With dignity Mozart at once replied, "Sire, I trust that my genius will always enable me to support the woman I love"; but unfortunately it did not. He wrote after his marriage: "The moment we were made one, my wife as well as myself began to weep, which touched every one, even the priest, and they all cried when they witnessed how our hearts were moved." How little they dreamed that they should weep more seriously when hunger stared their six children in the face!

From the time of his marriage till his death, nine years, says Rev. Mr. Haweis, "his life can be compared to nothing but a torch burning out rapidly in the wind." It was a period of incessant, astonishing labor. He dedicated six quartets to his dear friend Joseph Haydn, who said, "Mozart is the greatest composer who has ever lived"; wrote "Figaro" when he was twenty-nine, which had the greatest popularity, "Don Giovanni" at thirty-one, and the "Flauto Magico" gratis, for the benefit of the theatre director, who was in want. The two latter creations were hailed with delight. Goethe wrote to Schiller later of "Don Giovanni," "That piece stands entirely alone; and Mozart's death has rendered all hope of any thing like it idle."

Whenever he appeared at the theatre, he was called upon the stage from all parts of the house; yet all this time he could not earn enough to live. He received only a hundred dollars from his "Don[79] Giovanni," and less for the others. He gave lessons every hour he could spare, concerts in the open air, borrowed from his friends, scrimped himself, to send money to his sick wife at Baden, pawned his silver plate to make one more unsuccessful journey to win the aid of indifferent princes, and fainted often at his tasks after midnight. Still he wrote to "the best and dearest wife of my heart," "If I only had a letter from you, all would be right," and promised her to work harder than ever to earn money.

When Constance was at home with him, if he left her in the morning before she awakened, he would leave a note for her with the words, "Good-morning, my darling wife. I shall be at home at — o'clock precisely." Once when she had been ill for eight months, and Mozart was composing beside her as she slept, suddenly a noisy messenger entered. Alarmed lest his wife should be disturbed, he rose hastily, when the penknife in his hand fell, and buried itself in his foot. Without a word escaping his lips, he left the room, a surgeon was called, and, though lame for some time, the wife was not told of the accident.

His compositions found few purchasers, for the people generally could not comprehend them. Publishers' shops were closed to him, unless he would write in the popular style. "Then I can make no more by my pen," he said bitterly, "and I had better starve and go to destruction at once." So poor had his family become, that, with no fuel in the[80] house, he and his wife were found by a friend, waltzing to keep warm.

About this time a sepulchral-looking man called to ask that a "Requiem" be written on the death of the wife of an Austrian nobleman, who was to be considered the author, and thus his intense grief be shown, though manifested through a lie. Mozart consulted with his wife, as was his custom, and, as she indorsed it, he accepted the commission for fifty dollars. Overworked, harassed by debts which he could not pay, hurt at the jealousies and intrigues of several musicians, disappointed at the reception of his new opera at Prague, his hopeful nature forsook him, and he told Constance that the "Requiem" would be written for himself.

In the midst of this wretchedness their sixth child was born. The poor wife forgot her own sorrows, and prevailed upon him to give up work for a time; but the active brain could not rest, and he wrote as he lay on his sick-bed. On the day before he died, Dec. 4, 1791, at two o'clock, he persisted in having a portion of the "Requiem" sung by the friends who stood about his bed, and, joining with them in the alto, burst into tears, saying, "Did I not say that I was writing the 'Requiem' for myself?" Soon after he said, "Constance, oh that I could only hear my 'Flauto Magico!'" and a friend playing it, he was cheered.

A messenger now arrived to tell him that he was appointed organist at St. Stephen's Cathedral, a[81] position for which he had longed for years; but it came too late. Death was unwelcome to him. "Now must I go," he said, "just as I should be able to live in peace; I must leave my family, my poor children, at the very instant in which I should have been able to provide for their welfare." Cold applications were ordered by the physicians for his burning head; he became delirious for two hours, and died at midnight, only thirty-five years old. Constance was utterly prostrated, and threw herself upon his bed, hoping to die also.

Mozart's body was laid beside his piano, and then, in a pouring rain, buried in a "common grave," in the plainest manner possible, with nobody present except the keepers of the cemetery. Weeks after, when the wife visited the spot, she found a new grave-digger, who could not tell where her beloved husband was buried, and to this day the author of fourteen Italian operas, seventeen symphonies, and dozens of cantatas and serenades, about eight hundred compositions in all, sleeps in an unknown grave. The Emperor Leopold aided her in a concert to raise fifteen hundred dollars to pay her husband's debts, and provide a little for herself. Eighteen years afterward she married the Danish councillor, Baron von Missen, who educated her two sons, four other children having died. Salzburg waited a half-century before she erected a bronze statue to her world-renowned genius, in the Square of St. Michael; and, seventy years after his death, Vienna[82] built him a monument in the Cemetery of St. Mark. History scarcely furnishes a more pathetic life. He filled the world with music, yet died in want and sorrow.

[83]

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

In a quaint old house in Lichfield, England, now used as a draper's shop, Samuel Johnson, son of a poor bookseller and bookbinder, was born. Here, as in Westminster Abbey, a statue is erected to his memory. Near by is the schoolhouse where Addison and Garrick studied.

When Samuel was two and a half years old, diseased with scrofula, his good mother, with ten dollars sewed in her skirt so that nobody could steal it, took him to London that, with two hundred others, he might be touched by Queen Anne, and thus, as superstitious people believed, be healed. On this journey she bought him a silver cup and spoon. The latter he kept till his dying-day, and parted with the cup only in the dire poverty of later years.

The touch of the Queen did no good, for he became blind in one eye; with the other he could not see a friend half a yard off, and his face was sadly disfigured. Being prevented thus from sharing the sports of other boys, much time was spent in reading. He was first taught at a little school kept by Widow Oliver, who years after, when he[84] was starting for Oxford, brought him a present of gingerbread, telling him he was the best scholar she ever had. After a time he studied Latin under a master who "whipped it into him." The foolish teacher would ask the boy the Latin word for candlestick, or some unexpected thing, and then whip him, saying, "This I do to save you from the gallows!"

Naturally indolent, Samuel had to struggle against this tendency. He had, however, the greatest ambition to excel, and to this he attributed his later success. He was also inquisitive, and had a wonderful memory. When he wore short dresses, his mother gave him the Prayer-Book one day, and, pointing to the Collect, said, "You must get this by heart." She went up stairs, but no sooner had she reached the second floor than she heard him following. He could repeat it perfectly, having looked it over but twice. He left school at sixteen, spending two years at home in helping his parents, and studying earnestly. One day, his father, being ill, asked him to go to a neighboring town and take his place in selling books at a stall on market-day. He was proud, and did not go. Fifty years afterward, in his greatness, then an old man, he went to this stall, and, with uncovered head, remained for an hour in the rain where his father had formerly stood, exposed to the sneers of the bystanders and the inclemency of the weather. It showed the repentance of a noble soul for disobedience to a parent.[85]

At nineteen, he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, where he acted as servant. He used to go daily to his friend Taylor, and get lectures second-hand, till his feet, showing through his worn-out shoes, were perceived by the students, and he ceased going. A rich young man secretly put a pair of new shoes at his door, which he indignantly threw out of the window. He was willing to work and earn, but would not receive charity. At the end of three years he became so poor that he was obliged to leave college, his father dying soon after.

After various experiences, he sought the position of usher at a school, but was refused because it was thought that the boys would make fun of his ugliness. He finally obtained such a place, was treated with great harshness, and left in a few months. Strange to say, the poor, lonely scholar, only twenty-six, now fell in love with a widow forty-eight years old. After obtaining his mother's consent, he married her, and the union proved a most happy one. With the little money his wife possessed, he started a school, and advertised for pupils; but only three came, and the school soon closed. In despair he determined to try London, and see if an author could there earn his bread. In that great city he lived for some time on nine cents a day. One publisher to whom he applied suggested to him that the wisest course would be to become a porter and carry trunks.

A poem written at this time, entitled "London,"[86] for which he received fifty dollars, one line of which was in capital letters,

attracted attention; and Pope, who was then at the height of his fame, asked Dublin University to give to the able scholar the degree of M.A., that he might thus be able to take the principalship of a school, and earn three hundred dollars a year; but this was refused. Out of such struggles come heroic souls.

When he was forty, he published the "Vanity of Human Wishes," receiving seventy-five dollars, asserted by many to be the most impressive thing of its kind in the language. The lines,

show his struggles. A drama soon after, played by the great actor, David Garrick, brought him nearly a thousand dollars; but the play itself was a failure. When asked by his friends how he felt about his ill success, he replied, "Like the monument," meaning that he continued firm and unmoved, like a column of granite. Fame was coming at last, after he had struggled in London for thirteen years—and what bitterness they had brought!

For two years he worked almost constantly on a paper called the "Rambler." When his wife said that, well as she had thought of him before, she had never considered him equal to this, he was[87] more pleased than with any praise he ever received. She died three days after the last copy was published, and Johnson was utterly prostrated. He buried himself in hard work in his garret, a most inconvenient room; but he said, "In that room I never saw Mrs. Johnson." Her wedding-ring was placed in a little box, and tenderly kept till his death.

Three years afterward, his great work, his Dictionary, appeared, for which he received eight thousand dollars; but, as he had been obliged to employ six assistants for seven years, he was still poor, but now famous. The Universities of Oxford and Dublin, when he no longer needed their assistance, hastened to bestow their degrees upon him. Even George III. invited him to the royal palace,—a strange contrast to a few years before, when Samuel Johnson was under arrest for a debt of thirty dollars! When asked by Reynolds how he had obtained his accuracy and flow of language in conversation, he replied, "By trying to do my best on every occasion and in every company." About this time his aged mother died, and in the evenings of one week, to defray her funeral expenses, he wrote "Rasselas," and received five hundred dollars for it. He wrote in his last letter to her, "You have been the best mother, and I believe the best woman, in the world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have done ill, and of all that I have omitted to do[88] well." His last great work was "The Lives of the Poets."

He received now a pension of fifteen hundred dollars a year, for his valuable services to literature, but never used more than four hundred dollars for himself. He took care of a blind woman of whom he said, "She was a friend to my poor wife, and was in the house when she died, she has remained in it ever since," of a mother and daughter dependent upon an old family physician, and of two men whom nobody else would care for. Once when he found a poor woman on the street late at night, he took her home, and kept her till she was restored to health. His pockets were always filled with pennies for street Arabs; and, if he found poor children asleep on a threshold, he would slip money into their hands that, when they awakened, they might buy a breakfast. When a servant was dying who had been in the family for forty-three years, he prayed with her and kissed her, the tears falling down his cheeks. He wrote in his diary, "We kissed and parted—I humbly hope to meet again, and part no more." He held, rightly, that Christianity levels all distinctions of rank.

He was very tender to animals. Once, when in Wales, a gardener brought into the house a hare which had been caught in the potatoes, and was told to give it to the cook. Dr. Johnson asked to have it placed in his arms; then, taking it to the[89] window, he let it go, shouting to it to run as fast as possible. He would buy oysters for his cat, Hodge, that the servants, from seeing his fondness for it, might be led to treat it kindly.

He died at the age of seventy-five, such men as Burke and Reynolds standing by his bedside. Of the latter, he begged that he would "read his Bible, and never paint on Sundays." His last words were to a young lady who had asked his blessing: "God bless you, my dear!" He was buried with appropriate honors in Westminster Abbey, and monuments are erected to him in St. Paul's Cathedral, and at Lichfield. The poor boy, nearly blind, became "the brightest ornament of the eighteenth century."

[90]

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

On a low slab in a quiet spot, just north of the Church of Knight Templars, in London, are the simple words, "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith." The author of the "Vicar of Wakefield" needs no grander monument; for he lives in the hearts of the people.

Oliver Goldsmith was born in Pallas, Ireland, in 1728, the son of a poor minister, who, by means of tilling some fields and assisting in a parish outside his own, earned two hundred dollars a year for his wife and seven children! When about six years old, Oliver nearly died of smallpox, and his pitted face made him an object of jest among the boys. At eight he showed great fondness for books, and began to write verses. His mother pleaded for a college education for him, but there seemed little prospect of it. One day, when a few were dancing at his uncle's house, the little boy sprang upon the floor and began to dance. The fiddler, to make fun of his short figure and homely face, exclaimed, "Æsop!" The boy, stung to the quick, replied:[91]—

when, of course, the fiddler became much chagrined.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

All his school life Oliver was painfully diffident, but a good scholar. His father finally earned a better salary, and the way seemed open for college, when, lo! his sister, who had the opportunity of marrying a rich man, was obliged—so thought the public opinion of the day—to have a marriage portion of $2,000, and poor Oliver's educational hopes were blasted. He must now enter Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar (servant), wear a coarse black gown without sleeves, a red cap,—the badge of servitude,—sweep the courts, carry dishes, and be treated with contempt, which nearly crushed his sensitive nature.

A year and a half later his father died, and his scanty means ceased from that source. To keep from starving he wrote ballads, selling them to street musicians at $1.25 apiece, and stole out at night to hear them sung. Often he shared this pittance with some one more wretched than himself. One cold night he gave his blankets to a person with five children, and crawled into the ticking of his bed for warmth. When a kind friend, who often brought him food, came in the morning, he was obliged to break in the door, as Goldsmith could not extricate himself from his bed.

Obtaining a small scholarship, he gave a little party in his room in honor of the event. A savage[92] tutor appeared in the midst of the festivities, and knocked him down. So incensed was Goldsmith that he ran away from college, and with twenty-five cents in his pocket started for Cork. For three days he lived on eight cents a day, and, by degrees, parted with nearly all his clothes for food.

Though wholly unfitted for the ministry, Goldsmith was urged by his relatives to enter the church, because he would then have a living. Too young to be accepted, he remained at home for two years, assisting his brother Henry in the village school; and then offering himself as a candidate, was refused, it was said, because he appeared before the right reverend in scarlet trousers! After being tutor for a year, his uncle gave him $250, that he might go to Dublin and study law. On arriving, he met an old friend, lost all his money in playing cards with him, and, ashamed and penniless, returned and begged the forgiveness of his relative.

A little more money was given him, and with this he studied medicine in Edinburgh for over a year, earning later some money by teaching. Afterward he travelled in Italy and France, begging his way by singing or playing on his flute at the doors of the peasants, returning to England at twenty-eight years of age without a cent in his pocket. Living among the beggars in Axe Lane, he asked to spread plasters, or pound in the mortars of the apothecaries, till, finally, a chemist hired him out of pity. Through the aid of a fellow-student, he finally opened a doc[93]tor's office, but few came to a stranger, and these usually so poor as to be unable to pay.

Attending one day upon a workman, he held his hat close to his breast, so as to cover a big patch in his second-hand clothes, while he felt the patient's pulse. Half guessing the young doctor's poverty, the sick man told him about his master, the author of the famous old novel, "Clarissa Harlowe," and how he had befriended writers. Goldsmith at once applied for work, and became press corrector in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street.

Later he was employed as a reviewer on a magazine. Being obliged to submit all his reviews to an illiterate bookseller and his wife, the engagement soon came to an end. He lived now in a garret, was dunned even for his milk-bill, wrote a book for a college friend, under whose name it was published, and began a work of his own, "Polite Learning in Europe," writing to a wealthy relative for aid to publish, which letter was never answered, though it was greatly regretted after Goldsmith became famous.

With no hope in London, he was promised a position in the East Indies. Life began to look bright, though his Fleet Street garret, with one chair, was surrounded by swarms of children and dirt. The promise was not kept, and he applied for the position of hospital mate. His clothes being too poor for him to be seen on the streets, he pledged the money to be received for four articles, bought a new suit, went up to the court of examiners, and[94] was rejected! Had any of these positions been obtained, the world, doubtless, would never have known the genius of Oliver Goldsmith.

He went back to his garret to write, pawned his clothes to pay the landlady, who was herself to be turned out of the wretched lodgings, sold his "Life of Voltaire" for twenty dollars, and published his "Polite Learning in Europe," anonymously. The critics attacked it, and Goldsmith's day of fame had dawned at last. "The Citizen of the World," a good-natured satire on society, next appeared, and was a success. Dr. Johnson became his friend, and made him a member of his club with Reynolds, Burke, and other noted men. The "Traveller" was next published, with an immense sale. Goldsmith now moved into the buildings which bear his name, near Temple Church, and, for once, had flowers and green grass to look out upon.

He was still poor, doubtless spending what money he received with little wisdom. His landlady arrested him for room-rent, upon hearing which, Dr. Johnson came at once to see him, gave him money, took from his desk the manuscript of the "Vicar of Wakefield," and sold it to a publisher for three hundred dollars. This was the fruit of much labor, and the world received it cordially. Some of his essays were now reprinted sixteen times. What a change from the Fleet Street garret!

The "Deserted Village" was published five years later, Goldsmith having spent two whole years in[95] reviewing it after it was written, so careful was he that every word should be the best that could be chosen. This was translated at once into German by Goethe, who was also a great admirer of the "Vicar of Wakefield." He also wrote an English History, a Roman, a Grecian, several dramas, of which "She Stoops to Conquer" was the most popular, and eight volumes of the "History of the Earth and Animated Nature," for which he received five hundred dollars a volume, leaving this unfinished.

Still in debt, overworked, laboring sometimes far into the morning hours, not leaving his desk for weeks together, even for exercise, Goldsmith died at forty-five, broken with the struggle of life, but with undying fame. When he was buried, one April day, 1774, Brick Court and the stairs of the building were filled with the poor and the forsaken whom he had befriended. His monument is in the Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey, the greatest honor England could offer. True, she let him nearly starve, but she crowned him at the last. He conquered the world by hard work, kindness, and a gentleness as beautiful as his genius was great.

[96]

MICHAEL FARADAY.

In the heart of busy London, over a stable, lived James and Margaret Faraday, with their four little children. The father was a blacksmith, in feeble health, unable to work for a whole day at a time, a kind, good man to his household; the mother, like himself, was uneducated, but neat and industrious, and devoted to her family. The children learned the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic at school, and then, of course, were obliged to earn their living.

Michael, the third child, born 1791, became, at thirteen years of age, an errand-boy in a bookseller's shop. His first duty was to carry newspapers in the morning to customers, who read them for an hour or two for a trifle, a penny probably, and then gave them to the newsboy to be re-loaned. Often on Sunday morning the patrons would say, "You must call again," forgetting that the next place might be a mile away, and that the young boy was quite as desirous as they, to go to church with his parents. Years after this, when he had become famous the world over, he said, "I always[97] feel a tenderness for those boys, because I once carried newspapers myself."

MICHAEL FARADAY.

The following year, 1805, he was apprenticed to a bookseller for seven years, to learn the trade of binding and selling books. Here was hard work before him till he was twenty-one; not a cheerful prospect for one who loved play as well as other boys. Whenever he had a spare moment, he was looking inside the books he was binding. Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations in Chemistry" delighted him; and when he was given the "Encyclopedia Britannica" to bind, the article on Electricity seemed a treasure-house of wonders. He soon made an electrical machine,—not an expensive one,—simply a glass vial, and other apparatus of a similar kind; and afterwards with a real cylinder. These cost only a few pence a week, but they gave a vast amount of pleasure to the blacksmith's son.

One day he saw in a shop-window a notice that a Mr. Tatum was to give at his own house some lectures on Natural Philosophy. The charge for each was twenty-five cents. No bookseller's apprentice would have such an amount of money to spend weekly as that. However, his brother Robert, three years older, himself a blacksmith, with some pride, perhaps, that Michael was interested in such weighty matters, furnished the money, and a lodger at the home of the bookseller taught him drawing, so that he might be able, in taking notes, to illustrate the experiments. He attended the lectures,[98] wrote them out carefully in a clear hand, bound them in four volumes, and dedicated them to his employer.

A customer at the shop had become interested in a boy who cared so much for science, and took him to hear four lectures given by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution. This was an unexpected pleasure. He was beginning to sigh for something beyond book-binding. "Oh, if I could only help in some scientific work, no matter how humble!" he thought to himself. He says in his journal, "In my ignorance of the world, and simplicity of my mind, I wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society." No answer was ever returned to the request for a situation. Could the president have realized that some day ten thousand people would know the name of Michael Faraday where one knew the name of Sir Joseph Banks, probably he would have answered the boy's letter. Blessings on the great man or woman who takes time, however briefly, to answer every letter received! Such a man was Garfield, and such is Whittier. A civil question demands a civil answer, whether the person addressed be king or peasant.

About the time his apprenticeship ended, in 1812, he summoned courage to write directly to the great Sir Humphry Davy, sending the full notes he had made at that gentleman's lectures. Sir Humphry, possibly remembering that he, too, had been a poor boy, the son of a widowed milliner, wrote a polite[99] note, saying, that "Science was a harsh mistress, and, in a pecuniary point of view, but poorly rewarding those who devoted themselves to her service;" that he was going out of town, but would see if he could some time aid him.

Meantime Michael was making crude galvanic experiments. He bought some malleable zinc, cut out seven plates, each the size of a half-penny, covered these with the copper half-pennies, placing between them six pieces of paper soaked in a solution of muriate of soda, and with this simple battery, decomposed sulphate of magnesia. So pleased was he that he wrote a letter to one of his boy friends, telling of the experiment, and adding, "Time is all I require. Oh, that I could purchase at a cheap rate some of our modern gent's spare hours, nay, days! I think it would be a good bargain, both for them and for me." The youth had learned the first secret of success,—not to waste time; not to throw it away on useless persons or useless subjects.

He had learned another secret, that of choosing right companions. To this same young friend, Abbott, he wrote, "A companion cannot be a good one, unless he is morally so. I have met a good companion in the lowest path of life, and I have found such as I despised in a rank far superior to mine.... I keep regular hours, and enter not intentionally into pleasures productive of evil." London's highest circles possessed no purer spirit than this young mechanic.[100]

Faraday now began work at his trade of book-binding for a Frenchman in London, who, having no children, promised him the business, if he would remain with him always; but the employer's temper was so hasty that the position became almost unbearable. The young man was growing depressed in spirits, when one night, just as he was preparing for bed, a loud knock on the door startled him. On looking out of the window, he espied a grand carriage, with a footman in livery, who left a note. This was a request from Sir Humphry Davy to see him in the morning. Was there, then, the possibility of a place in the Royal Institution? Between conflicting hopes and fears, he went to sleep, and in the morning hastened to see the great chemist. The result was an engagement at six dollars a week, with two rooms at the top of the house! He was to clean the instruments, move them to and from the lecture-room, and in all ways to make himself useful. Now he could say good-by to book-binding; and, though six dollars a week was not a munificent sum, yet he could actually handle beautiful instruments,—not copper half-pence and bits of zinc,—and could listen to stimulating lectures.

And now work began in earnest. He joined the City Philosophical Society, an association of thirty or forty persons in moderate circumstances, who met each Wednesday evening, one of their number giving a lecture. Then a half dozen friends came[101] together once a week to read, criticise, and correct each other in pronunciation and conversation. How eagerly would such a young man have attended college! There was no opportunity to hear polished talk in elegant drawing-rooms, no chance to improve manners in so-called "best society." He did what is in the power of everybody,—he educated himself. Did he not need recreation after the hard day's work? Every person has to make his choice. Amusements do not make scholars: pleasure and knowledge do not go hand in hand. Faraday chose the topmost story of the Royal Institution, and books for companions, and immortal fame was the result.

The experiments with Davy soon became absorbing, and often dangerous. Now they extracted sugar from beet-root; now they treated chloride of nitrogen, wearing masks of glass upon their faces, which, notwithstanding, were sometimes badly cut by the explosions. Seven months after this, Sir Humphry decided to travel upon the Continent, and asked Faraday to be his amanuensis. This was a rare opportunity for the young assistant. For a year and a half they visited France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, climbing Vesuvius, enjoying art-galleries, and meeting the learned and famous of the age. The journey had its disagreeable side; for Faraday was made more or less a servant by Davy and his sometimes inconsiderate wife; but it had great and lasting advantages for one who had never been but twelve miles from London.[102]

His heart turned longingly back to the poor ones he had left behind. He wrote to his mother, "The first and last thing in my mind is England, home, and friends. When sick, when cold, when tired, the thoughts of those at home are a warm and refreshing balm to my heart.... These are the first and greatest sweetness in the life of man.... I am almost contented except with my ignorance, which becomes more visible to me every day." And again, "I have several times been more than half decided to return hastily home: I am only restrained by the wish of improvement." To his sister he wrote, "Give my love with a kiss to mother, the first thing you do on reading this letter, and tell her how much I think of her." To Abbott he wrote something intended for his eyes only, but headed, "I do not wish that my mother should remain ignorant of it. I have no secrets from her." His heart bounded with joy at the prospect of meeting them again, and "enjoying the pleasure of their conversation, from which he had been excluded." No absorption in science could make him outgrow his parents and his humble home.

On his return to England his salary was increased to $500 yearly, and he was promoted to Laboratory Assistant. He was now twenty-four. He had noted carefully Davy's researches in iodine and chlorine, had seen him develop his safety-lamp, which has proved an untold blessing to miners, had made many experiments from his own thinking;[103] and now he too was to give his first course of six lectures before his friends in the City Philosophical Society, on Chemical Affinity, and kindred topics. He wrote them out with great care; for whatever he did was well done. This year he published his first paper in the "Quarterly Journal of Science" on caustic lime. Encouraged by the approving words of Sir Humphry, the following year he wrote six papers for the "Quarterly," giving his experiments with gases and minerals, and gave another course of lectures before the Philosophical Society. To improve himself in delivering these, he attended lectures on oratory, taking copious notes.

Seven years had now gone by in his apprenticeship to Science. He had published thirty-seven papers in the "Quarterly," had a book ready for the press, on the alloys of steel, and had read a paper before the Royal Society itself, on two new compounds of chlorine and carbon, and a new compound of iodine, carbon, and hydrogen. But the young and now brilliant student had other weighty matters in hand. Five years before this, he had written in his diary:

But now, whether he tried to shun it or no, he became thoroughly in love with Sarah Barnard, an[104] intelligent and sweet-tempered girl, the daughter of a silversmith. Distracted by fears lest he might not win her, he wrote her. "In whatever way I can best minister to your happiness, either by assiduity or by absence, it shall be done. Do not injure me by withdrawing your friendship, or punish me for aiming to be more than a friend by making me less."

The girl showed this to her father, who replied that love made philosophers say very foolish things. She hesitated about accepting him, and went away to the seaside to consider it; but the ardent lover followed, determined to learn the worst if need be. They walked on the cliffs overhanging the ocean, and Faraday wrote in his journal as the day drew near its close, "My thoughts saddened and fell, from the fear I should never enjoy such happiness again. I could not master my feelings, or prevent them from sinking, and I actually at last shamed myself by moist eyes." He blamed himself because he did not know "the best means to secure the heart he wished to gain." He knew how to fathom the depths of chemical combinations, but he could not fathom the depths of Sarah Barnard's heart.

At last the hour of her decision came; and both were made supremely happy by it. A week later he wrote her, "Every moment offers me fresh proof of the power you have over me. I could not at one time have thought it possible that I, that any man, could have been under the dominion of feelings so[105] undivided and so intense: now I think that no other man can have felt or feel as I do." A year later they were married very quietly, he desiring their wedding day to be "just like any other day." Twenty-eight years later he wrote among the important dates and discoveries of his life, "June 12, 1821, he married,—an event which, more than any other, contributed to his earthly happiness and healthful state of mind. The union has nowise changed, except in the depth and strength of its character."

For forty-seven years "his dear Sarah" made life a joy to him. He rarely left home; but if so, as at the great gathering of British Scientists at Birmingham, he wrote back, "After all, there is no pleasure like the tranquil pleasure of home; and here, even here, the moment I leave the table, I wish I were with you IN QUIET. Oh, what happiness is ours! My runs into the world in this way only serve to make me esteem that happiness the more."

And now came twenty years in science that made Faraday the wonder and ornament of his age. Elected an F.R.S., he began at once twelve lectures in Chemical Manipulation before the London Institution, six on Chemical Philosophy before the Royal Society, published six papers on electromagnetism, and began a course of juvenile lectures which continued for nineteen years. This was one of the beautiful things of Faraday's life,—a great man living in a whirl of work, yet taking time to[106] make science plain to the young. When asked at what age he would teach science, he replied that he had never found a child too young to understand him. For twenty years he lectured at the Royal Academy at Woolwich, became scientific adviser to the government with regard to lighthouses and buoys, not for gain, but for the public good, drew all London to his eloquent lectures with his brilliant experiments, Prince Albert attending with his sons; and published one hundred and fifty-eight scientific essays and thirty series of "Experimental Researches in Electricity," which latter, says Dr. Gladstone, "form one of the most marvellous monuments of intellectual work; one of the rarest treasure-houses of newly-discovered knowledge, with which the world has ever been enriched."

He not only gathered into his vast brain what other men had learned of science, but he tested every step to prove the facts, and became, says Professor Tyndall, "the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen." He loved science as he loved his family and his God, and played with Nature as with a petted child. When he lectured, "there was a gleaming in his eyes which no painter could copy, and which no poet could describe. His audience took fire with him, and every face was flushed."

In his earlier discoveries in compressing gases into liquids, he obtained from one thousand cubic feet of coal gas one gallon of fluid from which he[107] distilled benzine. In 1845 the chemist Hofman found this same substance in coal-tar, from which come our beautiful aniline dyes.

After eighteen years of studying the wonderful results of Galvani's discovery at the University of Bologna, that the legs of a dead frog contract under the electric current; and of Volta, in 1799, with his voltaic pile of copper, zinc, and leather, in salt-water; and of Christian Oersted at the University of Copenhagen; and Ampère and Arago, that electricity will produce magnets, Faraday made the great discovery of magneto-electricity,—that magnets will produce electricity. At once magneto-electric machines were made for generating electricity for the electric light, electro-plating, etc. This discovery, says Professor Tyndall, "is the greatest experimental result ever attained by an investigator, the Mont Blanc of Faraday's achievements."

Soon after he made another great discovery, that of electric induction, or that one electric current will induce another current in an adjoining wire. Others had suspected this, but had sought in vain to prove it. The Bell telephone, which Sir William Thompson calls "the wonder of wonders," depends upon this principle. Here no battery is required; for the vibration of a thin iron plate is made to generate the currents. After this, Faraday proved that the various kinds of electricity are identical; and that the electricity of the Voltaic pile is produced by chemical action, and not by contact of[108] metals, as Volta had supposed. The world meantime had showered honors upon the great scientist. Great Britain had made him her idol. The Cambridge Philosophical Society, the Institution of Civil Engineers, of British Architects, of Philosophy and of Medicine, and the leading associations of Scotland had made him an honorary member. Paris had elected him corresponding member of all her great societies. St. Petersburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, Palermo, Modena, Lisbon, Heidelberg, Frankfort, and our own Boston and Philadelphia had sent tokens of admiration. Eminent men from all the world came to see him.

How proud his mother must have felt at this wonderful success! She was not able to enter into her son's pursuits from lack of early education; but she talked much about him, calling him ever, "my Michael"; and would do nothing whatever without his advice. He supported her in her declining years; and she seemed perfectly happy. His father had died in his boyhood; but Faraday ever honored his occupation. He used to say, "I love a smith-shop, and anything relating to smithing. My father was a blacksmith."

He was now forty-nine. The overtaxed brain refused to work longer. Memory was losing her grasp, and but for the sweet and careful presence of Sarah Faraday, the life-work would doubtless have been finished at this time. She took him to Switzerland, where he walked beside the lakes and[109] over the mountains with "my companion, dear wife, and partner in all things." For four years he made scarcely any experiments in original research, and then the tired brain seemed to regain its wonted power, and go on to other discoveries.

An Italian philosopher, Morichini, was the first to announce the magnetizing power of the solar rays. Mrs. Somerville covered one-half of a sewing-needle with paper, and exposed the other half to the violet rays. In two hours the exposed end had acquired magnetism. Faraday, by long and difficult experiments, showed the converse of this: he magnetized a ray of light,—an experiment "high, beautiful, and alone," says Mr. Tyndall. He also showed the magnetic condition of all matter.

He was always at work. He entered the laboratory in the morning, and often worked till eleven at night, hardly stopping for his meals. He seldom went into society, for time was too precious. If he needed a change, he read aloud Shakspeare, Byron, or Macaulay to his wife in the evening, or corresponded with Herschel, Humboldt, and other great men. In the midst of exhausting labors he often preached on the Sabbath, believing more earnestly in the word of God the more he studied science.

When he was sixty-four the great brain began to show signs of decline. Belgium, Munich, Vienna, Madrid, Rome, Naples, Turin, Rotterdam, Upsala, Lombardy, and Moscow had sent him medals, or made him a member of their famous societies.[110] Napoleon III. made him commander of the Legion of Honor, a rare title; and the French exhibition awarded him the grand medal of honor. The Queen asked him to dine with her at Windsor Castle, and, at the request of Prince Albert her husband, she presented him with a lovely home at Hampton Court.

At seventy-one he wrote to Mrs. Faraday from Glasgow, "My head is full, and my heart also; but my recollection rapidly fails. You will have to resume your old function of being a pillow to my mind, and a rest,—a happy-making wife." Still he continued to make able reports to the government on lighthouses, electric machines, steam-engines, and the like.

And then for two years the memory grew weaker, the body feebler, and he was, as he told a friend, "just waiting." He died in his chair in his study, August 25th, 1867, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. Westminster Abbey would have opened her doors to him, but he requested to be buried "in the simplest earthly place, with a gravestone of the most ordinary kind." On a plain marble slab in the midst of clustering ivy are his name and the dates of his birth and death. One feels a strange tenderness of heart as he stands beside this sacred spot where rests one, who, though elected to seventy societies, and offered nearly one hundred titles and tokens of honor, said he "would remain plain Michael Faraday to the last."[111]

Wonderful man! great in mind, noble in heart, and gentle in manner, having brought a strong nature under the most complete discipline. His energy, his devotion to a single object, his untiring work, and his beautiful character carried the blacksmith's son to the highest success.

[112]

SIR HENRY BESSEMER.

A little way from London, England, at Denmark Hill, looking toward the Crystal Palace, is a mansion which is fit for royalty. The grounds, covering from thirty to forty acres, are beautifully terraced, dotted here and there with lakelets, fountains, and artificial caverns, while the great clumps of red rhododendron, yellow laburnum, pink hawthorne, and white laurel make an exquisitely colored picture. The home itself is spacious and inviting, with its elegant conservatory and rare works of art. The owner of this house, Sir Henry Bessemer, is cordial and gracious; and from his genial face and manner, no one would imagine that his life had been one long struggle with obstacles.

Born in Charlton, a little county town in Hertfordshire, Jan. 19, 1813, he received the rudiments of an education like other boys in the neighborhood. His father, Anthony Bessemer, an inventor, seeing that his son was inclined to mechanics, bought him, in London, a five-inch foot-lathe, and a book which described the art of turning. Day after day, in the quiet of his country home, he studied and practised turning, and modelling in clay.

SIR HENRY BESSEMER.

[113]

At eighteen years of age he went to London, "knowing no one," he says, "and myself unknown,—a mere cipher in a vast sea of human enterprise." He soon found a place to work as modeller and designer, engraving a large number of original designs on steel, with a diamond point, for patent-medicine labels. A year later he exhibited one of his models at the Royal Academy. His inventive brain and observing eye were always alert in some new direction. Having ascertained that the Government lost thousands of pounds annually by the transfer of adhesive stamps from old deeds to new ones, he determined to devise a stamp which could not be used twice.

For several months he worked earnestly, at night after his daily tasks were over, and in secret, thinking how richly the Government would reward him if he succeeded. At last he produced a die of unique design, which perforated a parchment deed with four hundred little holes. He hastened to the Stamp officials to show his work. They were greatly pleased, and asked him which he preferred for his reward, a sum of money, or the position of Superintendent of Stamps, with a salary of three or four thousand dollars a year. He delightedly chose the latter, as that would make him comfortable for life. There was another reason for his delight; for being engaged to be married, he would have no solicitude now about daily needs: life would flow on as smoothly as a river.[114]

At once he visited the young lady, and told her of his great success. She listened eagerly, and then said, "Yes, I understand this; but surely, if all stamps had a date put upon them, they could not at a future time be used without detection." His spirits fell. He confessed afterward that, "while he felt pleased and proud of the clever and simple suggestion of the young lady, he saw also that all his more elaborate system, the result of months of toil, was shattered to pieces by it." What need for four hundred holes in a die, when a single date was more effective? He soon worked out a die with movable dates, and with frankness and honor presented it before the Government officials. They saw its preferableness: the new plan was adopted by Act of Parliament; the old stamps were called in and new ones issued; and then the young inventor was informed that his services as Superintendent of Stamps, at three thousand dollars a year, were not needed.

But surely the Government, which was to save a half million dollars a year, would repay him for his months of labor and thought! Associations, like individuals, are very apt to forget favors, when once the desired end is attained. The Premier had resigned; and, after various promises and excuses, a lawyer in the Stamp Office informed him that he made the new stamp of his own free will, and there was no money to be given him. "Sad and dispirited, and with a burning sense of injustice over[115]powering all other feelings," says young Bessemer, "I went my way from the Stamp Office, too proud to ask as a favor that which was indubitably my right."

Alas! that he must learn thus early the selfishness of the world! But he took courage; for, had he not made one real invention? and it must be in his power to make others. When he was twenty-five he produced a type-casting machine; but so opposed was it by the compositors, that it was finally abandoned. He also invented a machine for making figured Utrecht velvet; and some of his productions were used in the state apartments of Windsor Castle.

A little later his attention was accidentally called to bronze powder, he having bought a small portion to ornament his sister's album. The powder, made in Germany, cost only twenty-two cents a pound in the raw material, and sold for twenty-two dollars. Here was a wonderful profit. Why could he not discover the process of making it? He worked for eighteen months, trying all sorts of experiments, and failed. But failure to a great mind never really means failure; so, after six months, he tried again, and—succeeded. He knew little about patents, had been recently defrauded by the Government; and he determined that this discovery should be kept a secret. He made a small apparatus, and worked it himself, sending out a travelling-man with the product. That which cost him less than one[116] dollar was sold for eighteen. A fortune seemed now really within his grasp.

A friend, assured of his success, put fifty thousand dollars into the business. Immediately Bessemer made plans of all the machinery required, sent various parts to as many different establishments, lest his secret be found out, and then put the pieces of his self-acting machines together. Five assistants were engaged at high wages, under pledge of secrecy. At first he made one thousand per cent profit; and now, in these later years, the profit is three hundred per cent. Three of the assistants have died; and Mr. Bessemer has turned over the business and the factory to the other two. The secret of making the bronze powder has never been told. Even Mr. Bessemer's oldest son had reached manhood before he ever entered the locked room where it was made.

For ten years the inventor now turned his attention to the construction of railway carriages, centrifugal pumps, etc. His busy brain could not rest. When frequent explosions in coal-mines occasioned discussion throughout the country, he made, at large expense, a working model for ventilating mines, and offered to explain it to a committee of the House of Commons. His offer was declined with thanks. A little investigation on the part of great statesmen would have been scarcely out of place.

At the great exhibition in London in 1851, he exhibited several machines,—one for grinding and[117] polishing plate glass, and another for draining, in an hour, an acre of land covered with water a foot deep. The crowd looked at them, called the inventor "the ingenious Mr. Bessemer," and passed on. Two years later he made some improvements in war implements, and submitted his plans to the Woolwich Arsenal; but they were declined, without thanks even. Some other men might have become discouraged; but Mr. Bessemer knew that obstacles only strengthen and develop men.

The improved ordnance having been brought to the knowledge of Napoleon III., he encouraged the inventor, and furnished the money to carry forward the experiments. While the guns were being tested at Vincennes, an officer remarked, "If you cannot get stronger metal for your guns, such heavy projectiles will be of little use." And then Mr. Bessemer began to ask himself if he could not improve iron. But he had never studied metallurgy. This, however, did not deter him; for he immediately obtained the best books on the subject, and visited the iron-making districts. Then he bought an old factory at Baxter House, where Richard Baxter used to live, and began to experiment for himself. After a whole year of labor he succeeded in greatly improving cast-iron, making it almost as white as steel.

Could he not improve steel also? For eighteen months he built and pulled down one furnace after another, at great expense. At last "the idea struck[118] him," he says, of making cast-iron malleable by forcing air into the metal when in a fluid state, cast-iron being a combination of iron and carbon. When oxygen is forced in, it unites with the carbon, and thus the iron is left nearly pure. The experiment was tried at the factory, in the midst of much trepidation, as the union of the compressed air and the melted iron produced an eruption like a volcano; but when the combustion was over, the result was steel.

Astonished and delighted, after two years and a half of labor, Bessemer at once took out a patent; and the following week, by request, Aug. 11, 1856, read a paper before the British Association, on "The manufacture of malleable iron and steel without fuel." There was great ridicule made beforehand. Said one leading steel-maker to another. "I want you to go with me this morning. There is a fellow who has come down from London to read a paper on making steel from cast-iron without fuel! Ha! ha! ha!"

The paper was published in the "Times," and created a great sensation. Crowds hastened to Baxter House to see the wonderful process. In three weeks Mr. Bessemer had sold one hundred thousand dollars worth of licenses to make steel by the new and rapid method. Fame, as well as great wealth, seemed now assured, when lo! in two months, it being found that only certain kinds of iron could be worked, the newspapers began to ridi[119]cule the new invention, and scientists and business men declared the method visionary, and worse than useless.

Mr. Bessemer collected a full portfolio of these scathing criticisms; but he was not the man to be disconcerted or cast down. Again he began the labor of experimenting, and found that phosphorus in the iron was the real cause of the failure. For three long years he pursued his investigations. His best friends tried to make him desist from what the world had proved to be an impracticable thing. Sometimes he almost distrusted himself, and thought he would give up trying, and then the old desire came back more strongly than ever. At last, success was really assured, but nobody would believe it. Every one said, "Oh, this is the thing which made such a blaze two or three years ago, and which was a failure."

Mr. Bessemer took several hundredweight of the new steel to some Manchester friends, that their workmen might try it, without knowing from whence it came. They detected no difference between this which cost thirty dollars a ton, and what they were then using at three hundred dollars a ton.

But nobody wanted to buy the new steel. Two years went by in this fruitless urging for somebody to take up the manufacture of the new metal. Finally, Bessemer induced a friend to unite with him, and they erected works, and began to make steel. At first the dealers would buy only twenty[120] or thirty pounds; then the demand steadily increased. At last the large manufacturers awoke to the fact that Bessemer was underselling them by one hundred dollars a ton, and they hastened to pay a royalty for making steel by the new process.

But all obstacles were not yet overcome. The Government refused to make steel guns; the shipbuilders were afraid to touch it; and when the engineer of the London and North-western Railway was asked to use steel rails, he exclaimed, excitedly, "Mr. Bessemer, do you wish to see me tried for manslaughter?" Now, steel rails are used the world over, at the same cost as iron formerly, and are said to last twenty times as long as iron rails.

Prejudice at last wore away, and in 1866, the "Bessemer process," the conversion of crude iron into steel by forcing cold air through it for fifteen or twenty minutes, was bringing to its inventor an income of five hundred thousand dollars a year! Fame had now come, as well as wealth. In 1874, he was made President of the Iron and Steel Institute, to succeed the Duke of Devonshire. The Institute of Civil Engineers gave him the Telford Gold Medal; the Society of Arts, the Albert Gold Medal. Sweden made him honorary member of her Iron Board; Hamburg gave him the freedom of the city; and the Emperor of Austria conferred upon him the honor of Knight Commander of the Order of Francis Joseph, sending a complimentary letter in connection with the jewelled cross and cir[121]cular collar of the order. Napoleon III. wished to give him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, but the English Government would not permit him to wear it; the Emperor therefore presented him in person with a gold medal weighing twelve ounces. Berlin and the King of Wurtemburg sent him gold medals. In 1879 he was made Fellow of the Royal Society, and the same year was knighted by Queen Victoria. In 1880 the freedom of the city of London was presented to him in a gold casket; the only other great discoverers who have received this distinction being Dr. Jenner, who introduced vaccination, and Sir Rowland Hill, the author of penny postage. In the United States, which gives no ribbons or decorations, Indiana has appropriately named a flourishing town after him.

It is estimated that Sir Henry Bessemer's one discovery of making steel has saved the world, in the last twenty-one years, above five thousand million dollars.

When his patent expired in 1870, he had received in royalties over five million dollars. In his steel works at Sheffield, after buying in all the licenses sold in 1856, when the new process seemed a failure, the profits every two months equalled the original capital, or in fourteen years the company increased the original capital eighty-one times by the profits.

How wise it proved that the country lad did not obtain the permanent position of superintendent of stamps, at three thousand dollars a year![122]

Rich beyond his highest hopes, the friend of such eminent and progressive men as the King of the Belgians, who visits Denmark Hill, Sir Henry has not ceased his inventions. Knowing the terrors of sea-sickness, he designed a great swinging saloon, seventy feet by thirty, in the midst of a sea-going vessel named the "Bessemer." The experiment cost one hundred thousand dollars, but has not yet proved successful. In 1877, when sixty-four years old, he began to devote himself to the study of Herschel's works on optics, and has since constructed an immense and novel telescope, which magnifies five thousand times. The instrument is placed in a comfortable observatory, so that the investigator can either sit or stand while making his observations. "The observing room, with its floor, windows, and dome, revolve and keep pace automatically with every motion of the telescope." This is accomplished by hydraulic power.

No wonder that Bessemer has been called the "great captain of modern civilization." He has revolutionized one of the most important of the world's industries; he has fought obstacles at every step,—poverty, the ridicule of the press, the indifference of his countrymen, and the cupidity of men who would steal his inventions or appropriate the results. He has earned leisure, but he rarely takes it. His has been a life of labor, prosecuted with indomitable will and energy. He has taken out one hundred and twenty patents, for[123] which the specifications and drawings fill seven large volumes, all made by himself. The world had at last come to know and honor the boy who came to London at the age of eighteen, "a mere cipher in a vast sea of human enterprise." He made his way to greatness unaided, save by his helpful wife.

Sir Henry died on the fifteenth of March, 1898, leaving an immense fortune, which, nevertheless, was not inordinate when compared with the services rendered by him to mankind; and a stainless name. The unfair treatment which had embittered his earlier days had been atoned for by the Queen granting him a title in recognition of his invention accepted by the Post-Office, and he had come to be regarded as one of the greatest benefactors of modern times. Such a life, crowned with such a success, is calculated to be a mighty inspiration to every ambitious youth.

[124]

SIR TITUS SALT.

I spent a day, with great interest, in visiting the worsted mills and warehouses at Saltaire, just out from Bradford, England, which cover about ten acres. The history of the proprietor, Sir Titus Salt, reads like a romance. A poor boy, the son of a plain Yorkshire man, at nineteen in a loose blouse he was sorting and washing wool; a little later, a good salesman, a faithful Christian worker and the superintendent of a Sunday school.

At thirty-three, happening to be in Liverpool, he observed on the docks some huge pieces of dirty-looking alpaca wool. They had long lain in the warehouses, and becoming a nuisance to the owners, were soon to be reshipped to Peru. Young Salt took away a handful of the wool in his handkerchief, scoured and combed it, and was amazed at its attractive appearance. His father and friends advised him strongly to have nothing to do with the dirty stuff, as he could sell it to no one; and if he attempted to make cloth from it himself, he ran a great risk of failure. Finally he said, "I am going into this alpaca affair right and left, and I'll either make myself a man or a mouse."

SIR TITUS SALT.

[125]

Returning to Liverpool, he bought the whole three hundred bales for a small sum, and toiled diligently till proper machinery was made for the new material. The result was a great success. In three years over two million pounds of alpaca wool were imported, and now four million pounds are brought to Bradford alone. Employment was soon furnished to thousands, laborers coming from all over Great Britain and Germany. Ten years later Mr. Salt was made mayor of Bradford; ten years after this a member of Parliament, and ten years later still a baronet by Queen Victoria,—a great change from the boy in his soiled coarse blouse, but he deserved it all. He was a remarkable man in many ways. Even when worth his millions, and giving lavishly on every hand, he would save blank leaves and scraps of paper for writing, and lay them aside for future use. He was an early riser, always at the works before the engines were started. It used to be said of him, "Titus Salt makes a thousand pounds before others are out of bed." He was punctual to the minute, most exact, and unostentatious. After he was knighted, it was no uncommon thing for him to take a poor woman and her baby in the carriage beside him, or a tired workman, or scatter hundreds of tracts in a village where he happened to be. Once a gypsy, not knowing who he was, asked him to buy a broom. To her astonishment, he bought all she was carrying!

The best of his acts, one which he had thought[126] out carefully, as he said, "to do good to his fellow-men," was the building of Saltaire for his four thousand workmen. When asked once what he had been reading of late, he replied. "Alpaca. If you had four or five thousand people to provide for every day, you would not have much time left for reading." Saltaire is a beautiful place on the banks of the river Aire, clean and restful. In the centre of the town stands the great six-story mill, well-ventilated, lighted, and warmed, five hundred and forty-five feet long, of light-colored stone, costing over a half million dollars. The four engines of eighteen hundred horse-power consume fifteen thousand tons of coal per year. The weaving shed, covering two acres, holds twelve hundred looms, which make eighteen miles of fabric per day.

The homes of the work-people are an honor to the capitalist. They are of light stone, like the mill, two stories high, each containing parlor, kitchen, pantry, and three bedrooms or more, well ventilated and tasteful. Flower beds are in every front yard, with a vegetable garden in the rear. No broken carts or rubbish are to be seen. Not satisfied to make Saltaire simply healthful, by proper sanitary measures, and beautiful, for which Napoleon III. made him one of the Legion of Honor, Mr. Salt provided school buildings at a cost of $200,000, a Congregational church, costing $80,000, Italian in style,—as are the other buildings,—a hospital for sick or injured, and forty-five pretty almshouses,[127] like Italian villas, where the aged and infirm have a comfortable home. Each married man and his wife receive $2.50 weekly, and each single man or woman $1.87 for expenses. Once a year Mr. Salt and his family used to take tea with the inmates, which was a source of great delight.

Believing that "indoor washing is most pernicious, and a fruitful source of disease, especially to the young," he built twenty-four baths, at a cost of $35,000, and public wash-houses. These are supplied with three steam engines and six washing machines. Each person bringing clothes is provided with a rubbing and boiling tub, into which steam and hot and cold water are conveyed by pipes. The clothes are dried by hot air, and can be washed, dried, mangled, and folded in an hour. In Sweden, I found the same dislike to having washing done in the homes, and clothes are usually carried to the public wash-houses.

Perhaps the most interesting of all Mr. Salt's gifts to his workmen is the Saltaire Club and Institute, costing $125,000; a handsome building, with large reading-room supplied with daily papers and current literature, a library, lecture-hall for eight hundred persons, a "School of Art," with models, drawings, and good teachers, a billiard-room with four tables, a room for scientific study, each student having proper appliances for laboratory work, a gymnasium and drill-room nearly sixty feet square, an armory for rifle-practice, and a smoking-room,[128] though Mr. Salt did not smoke. The membership fee for all this study and recreation is only thirty seven cents for each three months. Opposite the great mill is a dining-hall, where a plate of meat can be purchased for four cents, a bowl of soup for two cents, and a cup of tea or coffee for one cent. If the men prefer to bring their own food, it is cooked free of charge. The manager has a fixed salary, so that there is no temptation to scrimp the buyers.

Still another gift was made to the work-people; a park of fourteen acres, with croquet and archery grounds, music pavilion, places for boating and swimming, and walks with beautiful flowers. No saloon has ever been allowed in Saltaire. Without the temptation of the beer-shops, the boys have grown to intelligent manhood, and the girls to virtuous womanhood. Sir Titus Salt's last gift to his workmen was a Sunday-school building costing $50,000, where are held the "model Sunday schools of the country," say those who have attended the meetings. No wonder, at the death of this man, 40,000 people came to his burial,—members of Parliament, clergymen, workingmen's unions, and ragged schools. No wonder that statues have been erected to his memory, and that thousands go every year to Saltaire, to see what one capitalist has done for his laborers. No fear of strikes in his workshops; no socialism talked in the clean and pretty homes of the men; no squalid poverty, no depraving ignorance.[129]

That capital is feeling its responsibility in this matter of homes for laborers is one of the hopeful signs of the times. We shall come, sometime, to believe with the late President Chadbourne, "The rule now commonly acted upon is that business must be cared for, and men must care for themselves. The principle of action, in the end, must be that men must be cared for, and business must be subservient to this great work."

If, as Spurgeon has well said, "Home is the grandest of all institutions," capital can do no better work than look to the homes of the laborer. It is not the mansion which the employer builds for himself, but the home which he builds for his employé, which will insure a safe country for his children to dwell in. If discontent and poverty surround his palace, its foundations are weak; if intelligence has been disseminated, and comfort promoted by his unselfish thought for others, then he leaves a goodly heritage for his children.

[130]

JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD.

The small world which lives in elegant houses knows little of the great world in dingy apartments with bare walls and empty cupboards. Those who walk or ride in the sunshine often forget the darkness of the mines, or the tiresome treadmill of the factories.

Over a century ago, in Lyons, France, lived a man who desired to make the lives of the toilers brighter and happier. Joseph Jacquard, the son of a silk-weaver who died early, began his young manhood, the owner of two looms and a comfortable little home. He had married Claudine Boichon, the daughter of a goldsmith who expected to give his daughter a marriage portion, but was unable from loss of property. Jacquard loved her just as devotedly, however, as though she had brought him money. A pretty boy was born into their home, and no family was happier in all France. But the young loom-owner saw the poor weavers working from four in the morning till nine at night, in crowded rooms, whole families often bending over a loom, their chests shrunken and their cheeks sallow[131] from want of air and sunlight; and their faces dull and vacant from the monotony of unvaried toil. There were no holidays, no walks in the fields among the flowers, no reading of books, nothing but the constant routine which wore out body and mind together. There was no home-life; little children grew pinched and old; and mothers went too early to their graves. If work stopped, they ate the bread of charity, and went to the almshouse. The rich people of Lyons were not hard-hearted, but they did not think; they were too busy with their parties and their marriages; too busy buying and selling that they might grow richer. But Jacquard was always thinking how he could lighten the labor of the silk-weavers by some invention.

The manufacture of silk had become a most important industry. Seventeen hundred years before Christ the Chinese had discovered the making of silk from silk-worms, and had cultivated mulberry-trees. They forbade anybody to export the eggs or to disclose the process of making the fabric, under penalty of death. The Roman Emperor Justinian determined to wrest this secret from China, and thus revive the resources of his empire. He sent two monks, who ostensibly preached Christianity, but in reality studied silk-worms, and, secreting some eggs in two hollow reeds, returned to Justinian, and breaking these canes, laid the eggs on the lap of the beautiful Empress Theodora. From this the art spread into Italy, and thence into France.[132]

The more Jacquard thought how he could help the silk-weavers of France the more he became absorbed, and forgot that money was needed to support his family. Soon the looms had to be sold at auction, with his small home. The world ridiculed, and his relatives blamed him; but Claudine his wife encouraged him, and prophesied great fame for him in the future. She sold her little treasures, and even her bed, to pay his debts. Finally, when there was no food in the house, with tears in his eyes, Jacquard left his wife and child, to become a laborer for a lime-burner in a neighboring town. Claudine went to work in a straw-bonnet factory; and for sixteen years they battled with poverty.

Then the French Revolution burst upon Lyons in 1793. Her crime before such murderers as Robespierre and Marat was that she was the friend of Louis XVI. Sixty thousand men were sent against her by the so-called Republicans, who were commanded to utterly destroy her, and write over the ruins, "Lyons made war upon liberty; Lyons is no more." Six thousand persons were put to death, their houses burned, and twelve thousand exiled; among them Jacquard.

His only child, a brave boy of sixteen, had joined the Republican ranks, that he might fight against the foreign armies of England, Austria, and Naples, who had determined, under Pitt, to crush out the new government. At the boy's earnest request his father enlisted with him, and together they marched[133] toward the Rhine. In one of the first battles a cannon-ball struck the idolized son, who fell expiring in Jacquard's arms. Covered with the blood of his only child, he dug a grave for him on the battle-field; and exhausted and heart-broken went to the hospital till his discharge was obtained.

He returned to Lyons and sought his poor wife. At last he found her in the outskirts of the city, living in a hay-loft, and earning the barest pittance by spreading out linen for the laundresses to dry. She divided her crusts with her husband, while they wept together over their irreparable loss. She soon died of grief, but, with her last words, bade Jacquard go forward in developing his genius, and have trust in God, who would yet show him the way of success. Blessed Claudine! A sweet, beautiful soul, shining like a star in the darkness of the French Revolution.

Jacquard with all earthly ties severed went back to the seclusion of inventing. After his day's work was done as a laborer, he studied on his machine for silk-weaving. Finally, after seven years,—a long time to patiently develop an idea,—he had produced a loom which would decrease the number of workmen at each machine, by one person. The model was placed at the Paris Industrial Exposition in 1801; and the maker was awarded a bronze medal. In gratitude for this discovery he went to the image of the Virgin which stood on a high hill, and for nine days ascended daily the steps of the[134] sacred place. Then he returned to his work, and seating himself before a Vaucanson loom, which contained the germ of his own, he consecrated himself anew to the perfecting of his invention.

Jacques de Vaucanson, who died when Jacquard was thirty years old, was one of the most celebrated mechanicians of France. His automatons were the wonder of the age. He exhibited a duck which, when moved, ate and drank like a live one. The figure would stretch out its neck for food, and swallow it: walk, swim, dabble in the water, and quack most naturally. His musician, playing the flageolet with the left hand, and beating the tambourine with the right, executing many pieces of difficult music with great accuracy, was an astonishment to every body. He had been appointed inspector of silk-factories at Lyons, and, because he made some improvements in machines, he was pelted with stones by the workmen, who feared that they would thereby lose their labor. He revenged himself by making a machine which wove, brocaded, and colored at the same time, and was worked by a donkey!

It remained for Jacquard to make the Vaucanson loom of the utmost practical use to Lyons and to the world. After a time he was not only able to dispense with one workman at each loom, but he made machinery do the work of three men and two women at each frame. The city authorities sent a model of this machine to Paris, that the Emperor Napoleon[135] might examine it. So pleased was he that he at once sent for Jacquard to come to Paris. The latter had previously invented a machine for making fishing-nets, now used in producing Nottingham lace. When brought before Bonaparte, and Carnot the Minister of the Interior, the latter asked, "Is it you then, who pretend to do a thing which is impossible for man,—to make a knot upon a tight thread?"

Jacquard answered the brusque inquiry by setting up a machine, and letting the incredulous minister see for himself.

The Emperor made Jacquard welcome to the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, where he could study books and machines to his heart's content, and gave him a pension of about twelve hundred dollars for his discovery. When he had, with his own hands, woven a magnificent brocaded silk dress for the Empress Josephine, he returned to Lyons to set up the Jacquard looms. His name began to be lauded everywhere. Claudine's prophecies had at last come true. She had given her life to help him; but she could not live to share his honors.

Soon, however, the tide of praise turned. Whole families found themselves forced into the street for lack of work, as the looms were doing what their hands had done. Bands of unemployed men were shouting, "Behold the traitor! Let him provide for our wives and children now driven as mendicants from door to door; or let him, the destroyer of the[136] peoples' labor, share in the death which he has prepared for us!" The authorities seemed unable to quell the storm, and by their orders the new loom was broken in pieces on the public square. "The iron," says Jacquard, "was sold as old iron; the wood, for fuel." One day he was seized by a crowd of starving workmen, who knocked him down, and dragged him to the banks of the Rhone, where he would have been drowned at once, had not the police rescued him, bleeding and nearly dead. He left the city overwhelmed with astonishment and sorrow. Soon Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and America were using the Jacquard looms, largely increasing the manufacture and sale of silk, and therefore the number of laborers. The poor men of Lyons awoke to the sad fact, that by breaking up Jacquard's machines, they had put the work of silk-weaving into other hands all over the world; and idleness was proving their ruin. They might have doubled and trebled the number of their factories, and benefited labor a thousand-fold.

The inventor refused to take out a patent for himself, nor would he accept any offers made him by foreigners, because he thought all his services belonged to France. He loved the working people, who, for twenty years, were too blind to see it.

He removed to a little home and garden at Oullins, near Lyons, the use of which had been given him for life, where he could hear the sound of his precious looms on which he had worked for sixty[137] years, and which his city had at last adopted. Here he attended his garden, and went every morning to early church, distributing each day some small pieces of money to poor children. As old age came on, Lyons realized the gratitude due her great inventor. A silver medal was awarded him, and then the grand distinction of the cross of the Legion of Honor.

People from the neighboring towns visited Oullins, and pointed out with pride the noble old man at eighty-four, sitting by his garden-wall, dressed like a workman in his long black tunic, but wearing his broad red ribbon with his cross of honor. Illustrious travellers and statesmen visited him whose fame was now spread through Europe and America.

Toinette, a faithful servant who had known and loved Claudine, watched over the pure-hearted Jacquard till death came, Aug. 7, 1834. Six years after, Lyons, which once broke his machine and nearly killed him, raised a beautiful statue of him in the public square. The more than seventy thousand looms in the city, employing two hundred thousand workmen, are grander monuments even than the statue. The silk-weavers are better housed and fed than formerly. The struggling, self-sacrificing man, who might have been immensely rich as well as famous, was an untold blessing to labor and to the world.

[138]

HORACE GREELEY.

Among the hills of New Hampshire, in a lonely, unpainted house, Horace Greeley was born, Feb. 3, 1811, the third of seven children. His father was a plain farmer, hard-working, yet not very successful, but aided by a wife of uncommon energy and good spirits, notwithstanding her many cares. Besides her housework, and spinning, and making the children's clothes, she hoed in the garden, raked and loaded hay to help her husband, laughing and singing all day long, and telling her feeble little son, Horace, stories and legends all the evening. Her first two children having died, this boy was especially dear. Mrs. Greeley was a great reader of such books as she could obtain, and remembered all she read. It requires no great discernment to see from whence Horace Greeley derived his intense love for reading, and his boundless energy.

HORACE GREELEY.

He learned to read, one can scarcely tell how. When two years old, he would pore over the Bible, as he lay on the floor, and ask questions about the letters; at three, he went to the "district school,"[139] often carried through the deep snow on the shoulders of one of his aunts, or on the back of an older boy. He soon stood at the head of his little class in spelling and reading, "and took it so much to heart when he did happen to lose his place, that he would cry bitterly; so that some boys, when they had gained the right to get above him, declined the honor, because it hurt Horace's feelings so."

Before he was six years old he had read the Bible through, and "Pilgrim's Progress." Their home contained only about twenty books, and these he read and re-read. As he grew older, every book within seven miles was borrowed, and perused after the hard day's work of farming was over. He gathered a stock of pine knots, and, lighting one each night, lay down by the hearth, and read, oblivious to all around him. The neighbors came and made their friendly visits, and ate apples and drank cider, as was the fashion, but the lad never noticed their coming or their going. When really forced to leave his precious books for bed, he would repeat the information he had learned, or the lessons for the next day, to his brother, who usually, most ungraciously, fell asleep before the conversation was half completed.

When Horace was nearly ten years old, his father, who had speculated in a small way in lumber, became a bankrupt; his house and furniture were sold by the sheriff, and he was obliged to flee from the State to avoid arrest. Some of these[140] debts were paid, thirty years afterward, by his noble son. Going to Westhaven, Vt., Mr. Greeley obtained work on a farm, and moved his family thither. They were very poor, the children sitting on the floor and eating their porridge together out of a tin pan; but they were happy in the midst of their hard work and plain food. The father and the boys chopped logs, and the little sisters, with the mother, gathered them in heaps, the voice of the latter, says Mr. James Parton, in his biography, "ringing out in laughter from the tangled brushwood in which she was often buried." Would there were thousands more of such women, who can laugh at disaster, and keep their children and themselves from getting soured with life. Everybody has troubles; and very wise are they who do not tell them, either in their faces or by their words.

Horace earned a few pennies all his own; sometimes by selling nuts, or bundles of the roots of pitch-pine for kindling, which he carried on his back to the store. This money he spent in books, buying Mrs. Hemans's poetry and "Shakspeare." No wonder that the minister of the town said, "Mark my words; that boy was not made for nothing."

He could go to school no longer, and must now support himself. From earliest childhood he had determined to be a printer; so, when eleven years of age, he walked nine miles to see the publisher of a newspaper, and obtain a situation. The editor[141] looked at the small, tow-haired boy, shook his head, and said, "You are too young." With a heavy heart the child walked the long nine miles back again. But he must do something; and, a little later, with seventy-five cents in his pocket, and some food tied in a bundle, which he hung on the end of a stick, slung over his shoulder, he walked one hundred and twenty miles back to New Hampshire, to see his relatives. After some weeks he returned, with a few more cents in his purse than when he started!

The father Greeley ought to have foreseen that such energy and will would produce results; but because Horace, in a fit of abstraction, tried to yoke the "off" ox on the "near" side, he said, "Ah! that boy will never get along in the world. He'll never know more than enough to come in when it rains." Alas! for the blindness of Zaccheus Greeley, whose name even would not be remembered but for his illustrious son.

When Horace was fourteen, he read in a newspaper that an apprentice was wanted in a printing-office eleven miles distant. He hastened thither, and, though unprepossessing, from his thin voice, short pantaloons, lack of stockings, and worn hat, he was hired on trial. The first day he worked at the types in silence. Finally the boys began to tease him with saucy remarks, and threw type at him; but he paid no attention. On the third day, one of the apprentices took a large black ball, used[142] to put ink on the type, and remarking that Horace's hair was too light, daubed his head four times. The pressman and editor both stopped their labors to witness a fight; but they were disappointed, for the boy never turned from his work. He soon left his desk, spent an hour in washing the ink from his hair, and returned to his duties. Seeing that he could not be irritated, and that he was determined to work, he became a great favorite.

When at his type, he would often compose paragraphs for the paper, setting up the words without writing them out. He soon joined a debating society, composed of the best-informed persons of the little town of East Poultney,—the minister, the doctor, the lawyer, the schoolteachers, and the like. What was their surprise to find that the young printer knew almost every thing, and was always ready to speak, or read an essay.

He was often laughed at because of his poor clothes, and pitied because, slender and pale as he was, he never wore an overcoat; but he used to say, "I guess I'd better wear my old clothes than run in debt for new ones." Ah! they did not know that every penny was saved and sent to the father, struggling to clear a farm in the wilderness in Pennsylvania. During his four years' apprenticeship he visited his parents twice, though six hundred miles distant, and walked most of the way.

Soon after he had learned his trade, the newspaper suspended, and he was thrown out of work.[143] The people with whom he boarded gave him a brown overcoat, not new, and with moistened eyes said good-by to the poor youth whom they had learned to love as their own. He remained a few weeks with his family, then walked fifty miles east to a town in New York State, where he found plenty of work, but no money, and in six weeks returned to the log-cabin. After trying various towns, he found a situation in Erie, taking the place of a workman who was ill, and for seven months he did not lose a day. Out of his wages—eighty-four dollars—he had used only six, less than one dollar a mouth! Putting fifteen dollars in his pocket, he took the balance of sixty-three in a note, and gave it to his father. A noble son indeed, who would not buy a single garment for himself, but carried the money home, so as to make the poor ones a trifle more comfortable!

He had become tired of working in the small towns; he determined to go to the great city of New York, and "be somebody." He walked a part of the way by the tow-path along the canal, and sometimes rode in a scow. Finally, at sunrise, Friday, Aug. 18, 1831, he landed close to the Battery, with ten dollars in his pocket, knowing, he says, "no human being within two hundred miles." His first need was a boarding-place. Over a saloon, kept by an Irishman, he found room and board for two dollars and a half a week. Fortunately, though it was the almost universal custom to use[144] liquors, Horace was a teetotaler, and despised chewing or smoking tobacco, which he regarded "as the vilest, most detestable abuse of his corrupted sensual appetites whereof depraved man is capable;" therefore he had no fear of temptation from these sources.

All day Friday and Saturday he walked the streets of New York, looking for work. The editor of the "Journal of Commerce" told him plainly that he was a runaway apprentice from the country, and he did not want him. "I returned to my lodging on Saturday evening, thoroughly weary, disheartened, disgusted with New York, and resolved to shake its dust from my feet next Monday morning, while I could still leave with money in my pocket, and before its almshouse could foreclose upon me." On Sunday he went to church, both morning and afternoon. Late in the day, a friend who called upon the owner of the house, learning that the printer wanted work, said he had heard of a vacancy at Mr. West's, 85 Chatham Street.

The next morning Horace was at the shop at half-past five! New York was scarcely awake; even the newsboys were asleep in front of the paper offices. He waited for an hour and a half,—a day, it seemed to him,—when one of the journey-men arrived, and, finding the door locked, sat down beside the stranger. He, too, was a Vermonter, and he determined to help young Greeley, if possi[145]ble. He took him to the foreman, who decided to try him on a Polyglot Testament, with marginal references, such close work that most of the men refused to do it. Mr. West came an hour or two later, and said, in anger, "Did you hire that fool?"

"Yes; we need help, and he was the best I could get," said the foreman.

"Well, pay him off to-night, and let him go about his business."

When night came, however, the country youth had done more and better work, than anybody who had tried the Testament. By beginning his labors before six in the morning, and not leaving his desk till nine in the evening, working by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, he could earn six dollars a week. At first his fellow-workmen called him "the ghost," from his white hair and complexion; but they soon found him friendly, and willing to lend money, which, as a rule, was never returned to him; they therefore voted him to be a great addition to the shop. As usual, though always scrupulously clean, he wore his poor clothes, no stockings, and his wristbands tied together with twine. Once he bought a second-hand black suit of a Jew, for five dollars, but it proved a bad bargain. His earnings were sent, as before, to his parents.

After a year, business grew dull, and he was without a place. For some months he worked on various papers, when a printer friend, Mr. Story, suggested that they start in business, their com[146]bined capital being one hundred and fifty dollars. They did so, and their first work was the printing of a penny "Morning Post," which suspended in three weeks, they losing sixty dollars. The partner was drowned shortly after, and his brother-in-law took his place.

Young Greeley, now twenty-three, and deeply interested in politics, determined to start a weekly paper. Fifteen of his friends promised to subscribe for it. The "New Yorker" was begun, and so well conducted was it that three hundred papers throughout the country gave it complimentary notices. It grew to a subscription list of nine thousand persons; but much of the business was done on trust, times were hard, and, after seven years, the enterprise had to be abandoned. This was a severe trial to the hard-working printer, who had known nothing but struggles all his life. Years after this he wrote, "Through most of this time I was very poor, and for four years really bankrupt, though always paying my notes, and keeping my word, but living as poorly as possible. My embarrassments were sometimes dreadful; not that I feared destitution, but the fear of involving my friends in my misfortunes was very bitter.... I would rather be a convict in a State prison, a slave in a rice-swamp, than to pass through life under the harrow of debt. Hunger, cold, rags, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable, but debt is infinitely worse than[147] them all. Avoid pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or famine. If you have but fifty cents, and can get no more for a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and live on it, rather than owe any man a dollar."

Meantime the young editor had married Miss Mary Y. Cheney, a schoolteacher of unusual mind and strength of character. It was, of course, a comfort to have some one to share his sorrows; but it pained his tender heart to make another help bear his burdens. Beside editing the "New Yorker," he had also taken charge of the "Jeffersonian," a weekly campaign paper published at Albany, and the "Log-Cabin," established to aid in the election of General Harrison to the Presidency. The latter paper was a great success, the circulation running up to ninety thousand, though very little money was made; but it gave Mr. Greeley a reputation in all parts of the country for journalistic ability.

President Harrison died after having been a month in office; and seven days after his death, Mr. Greeley started, April 10, 1841, a new paper, the "New York Tribune," with the dying words of Harrison as its motto: "I desire you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." The paper had scarcely any money for its foundation,—only a thousand dollars loaned by a friend,—but it had a true man at its head, strong in his hatred of slavery, and the oppression of the laboring man,[148] and fearless in the advocacy of what he believed to be right.

Success did not come at first. Of the five thousand copies published and to be sold at a cent each, Mr. Greeley says, "We found some difficulty in giving them away." The expenses for the first week were five hundred and twenty-five dollars; receipts, ninety-two. But the boy who could walk nearly six hundred miles to see his parents, and be laughed at for poor clothes, while he saved his money for their use, was not to be overcome at thirty years of age, by the failure of one or of a dozen papers. Some of the New York journals fought the new sheet; but it lived and grew till, on the seventh week, it had eleven thousand subscribers. A good business-manager was obtained as partner. Mr. Greeley worked sixteen hours a day. He wrote four columns of editorial matter (his copy, wittily says Junius Henri Browne, "strangers mistook for diagrams of Boston"), dozens of letters, often forgot whether he had been to his meals, and was ready to see and advise with everybody. When told that he was losing time by thus seeing people, he said, "I know it; but I'd rather be beset by loafers, and stopped in my work, than be cooped up where I couldn't be got at by men who really wanted to and had a right to see me." So warm as this were his sympathies with all humanity!

In 1842, when he was thirty-one, he visited[149] Washington, Niagara, and his parents in Pennsylvania, and wrote delightful letters back to his paper. How proud the mother must have felt of the growing fame of her son! What did Zaccheus think now of his boy of whom he prophesied "would never know more than enough to come in when it rains"?

The years passed on. Margaret Fuller came upon the editorial staff; for Mr. Greeley was ever the advocate of the fullest liberty for woman in any profession, and as much pay for her work as for that of men. And now came a great sorrow, harder to bear than poverty. His little son Pickie, called "the glorious boy with radiant beauty never equalled," died suddenly. "When at length," he said, "the struggle ended with his last breath, and even his mother was convinced that his eyes would never again open upon the scenes of this world, I knew that the summer of my life was over; that the chill breath of its autumn was at hand; and that my future course must be along the down-hill of life." He wrote to Margaret Fuller in Italy, "Ah, Margaret, the world grows dark with us! You grieve, for Rome is fallen; I mourn, for Pickie is dead." His hopes were centered in this child; and his great heart never regained its full cheerfulness.

In 1848 he was elected to Congress for three months to fill out the unexpired term of a deceased member, and did most effective work with regard to the mileage system and the use of the public lands.[150] To a high position had come the printer-boy. At this time he was also prominently in the lecture-field, speaking twice a week to large audiences all over the country. In 1850 his first book was published by the Harpers, "Hints toward Reform," composed of ten lectures and twenty essays. The following year he visited England as one of the "jury" in the awarding of prizes; and while there made a close study of philanthropic and social questions. He always said, "He, who by voice or pen strikes his best blow at the impostures or vices whereby our race is debased and paralyzed, may close his eyes in death, consoled and cheered by the reflection that he has done what he could for the emancipation and elevation of his kind."

In 1855 he again visited Europe; and four years later, California, where he was received with great demonstrations of honor and respect. In 1860 he was at the Chicago Convention, and helped to nominate Abraham Lincoln in preference to William H. Seward. Mr. Greeley had now become one of the leading men of the nation. His paper molded the opinions of hundreds of thousands. He had fought against slavery with all the strength of his able pen; but he advocated buying the slaves for four hundred million dollars rather than going to war,—a cheaper method than our subsequent conflict, with enormous loss of life and money. When he found the war inevitable, after General McClellan's defeat at the Chickahominy, he urged upon Mr. Lincoln immedi[151]ate emancipation, which was soon adopted. The "New York World" said after his death, "Mr. Greeley will hold the first place with posterity on the roll of emancipation."

In the draft riots in New York, in 1863, the mob burst into the Tribune Building, smashing the furniture, and shouting, "Down with the old white coat!" Mr. Greeley always wore a coat and hat of this hue. Had he been present, doubtless he would have been killed at once. When urged to arm the office, he said, "No; all my life I have worked for the workingmen; if they would now burn my office and hang me, why, let them do it."

The same year he began his "History of the Civil War" for a Hartford publisher. Because so constantly interrupted, he went to the Bible House, and worked with an amanuensis from nine in the morning till four in the afternoon, and then to the "Tribune" office, and wrote on his paper till eleven at night. These volumes, dedicated to John Bright, have had a sale of several hundred thousand copies.

After the war Mr. Greeley, while advocating "impartial suffrage" for black as well as white, advocated also "universal amnesty." He believed nothing was to be gained by punishing a defeated portion of our nation, and wanted the past buried as quickly as possible. He was opposed to the hanging of Jefferson Davis; and with Gerritt Smith, a well-known abolitionist, and about twenty others, he signed Mr. Davis's bail-bond for one hundred[152] thousand dollars, which released him from prison at Fortress Monroe, where he had been for two years. At once the North was aflame with indignation. No criticism was too scathing; but Mr. Greeley took the denunciations like a hero, because he had done what his conscience approved. He said, "Seeing how passion cools and wrath abates, I confidently look forward to the time when thousands who have cursed will thank me for what I have done and dared in resistance to their own sanguinary impulses.... Out of a life earnestly devoted to the good of human kind, your children will select my going to Richmond and signing that bail-bond as the wisest act."

In 1872 considerable disaffection having arisen in the Republican party at the course pursued by President Grant at the South, the "Liberal Republicans," headed by Sumner, Schurz, and Trumbull, held a convention at Cincinnati, and nominated Horace Greeley for President. The Democratic party saw the hopelessness of nominating a man in opposition to Grant and Greeley, and accepted the latter as their own candidate. The contest was bitter and partisan in the extreme. Mr. Greeley received nearly three million votes, while General Grant received a half million majority.

No doubt the defeat was a great disappointment to one who had served his country and the Republican party for so many years with very little political reward. But just a month before the election came[153] the crushing blow of his life, in the death of his noble wife. He left his speech-making, and for weeks attended her with the deepest devotion. A few days before she died, he said, "I am a broken down old man. I have not slept one hour in twenty-four for a month. If she lasts, poor soul, another week, I shall go before her."

After her death he could not sleep at all, and brain-fever soon set in. Friday, Nov. 29, the end came. At noon he said distinctly, his only remaining children, Ida and Gabriella, standing by his bedside, "I know that my Redeemer liveth;" and at half-past three, "It is done." He was ready for the great change. He had written only a short time before, "With an awe that is not fear, and a consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, I await the opening, before my steps, of the gates of the eternal world." Dead at sixty-one! Overworked, not having had "a good night's sleep in fifteen years!"

When his death became known, the whole nation mourned for him. Newspapers from Maine to Louisiana gave touching tributes to his greatness, his purity, and his far-sightedness as a leader of the people. The Union League Club, the Lotos, the Typographical Society, the Associated Press, German and colored clubs, and temperance organizations passed resolutions of sorrow. Cornell University, of whose Board he was a member, did him honor. St. Louis, Albany, Indianapolis, Nash[154]ville, and other cities held memorial meetings. John Bright sent regrets over "our friend, Horace Greeley." Congress passed resolutions of respect for his "eminent services and personal purity and worth."

And then came the sad and impressive burial. In the governor's room in the City Hall, draped in black, surrounded by a guard of honor composed of the leading men of New York, the body of the great journalist lay in state. Over fifty thousand persons, rich and poor, maimed soldiers and working people, passed in one by one to look upon the familiar face. Said one workman, "It is little enough to lose a day for Horace Greeley, who spent many a day working for us." Just as the doors of the room were being closed for the night, a farmer made his way, saying, "I've come a hundred miles to be at the funeral of Horace Greeley. Can't you possibly let me in to have one last look?" The man stood a moment by the open coffin, and then, pulling his hat low down to hide the tears, was lost in the crowd.

From there the body was taken to Dr. Chapin's church, where it rested under a solid arch of flowers, with the words, "I know that my Redeemer liveth"; and in front of the pulpit, "It is done." The coffin was nearly hidden by floral gifts; one of the most touching being a plow made of white camelias on a ground of violets, from the "Tribune" workmen,—a gift to honor the man who honored labor, and[155] ennobled farm-life at his country home at Chappaqua, a few miles from New York.

And then through an enormous concourse of people, Fifth Avenue being blocked for a mile, the body was borne to Greenwood Cemetery. Stores were closed, and houses along the route were draped in black. Flags on the shipping, in the harbor, were at half-mast; and bells tolled from one to three o'clock. Two hundred and fifty carriages, containing the President of the United States, governors, senators, and other friends, were in the procession. By the side of his wife and their three little children the great man was laid to rest, the two daughters stepping into the vault, and laying flowers tenderly upon the coffin.

The following Sabbath clergymen all over the country preached about this wonderful life: its struggles succeeded by world-wide honor. Mr. Greeley's one great wish was gratified, "I cherish the hope that the journal I projected and established will live and flourish long after I shall have mouldered into forgotten dust; and that the stone which covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelligible inscription, 'Founder of the New York Tribune.'"

[156]

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

For a great work God raises up a great man. Usually he is trained in the hard school of poverty, to give him courage and perseverance. Usually he stands alone among a great multitude, that he may have firmness and endurance.

William Lloyd Garrison was born to be preëminently the deliverer of the slave. For two hundred years the curse of African slavery had rested upon one of the fairest portions of our land. Everybody thought it an evil to keep four million human beings from even the knowledge of how to read and write, and a cruelty to sell children away from parents, to toil forever without home or kindred. Everybody knew that slavery was as ruinous almost to master as to slave; that labor was thereby despised, and that luxury was sapping the vigor of a race. But every slave meant money, and money is very dear to mankind.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

Before the Declaration of Independence, three hundred thousand slaves had been brought to this country. Some of the colonists remonstrated, but the traffic was not stopped till 1808. The Quakers[157] were opposed to human bondage from the first, and decided, in 1780, to free all their slaves. Vermont had freed hers three years previously, and other Northern States soon followed. Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and others were outspoken against the sin; but it continued to increase till, in 1810, we had over a million slaves.

Five years before this time, in a plain, wooden house in Newburyport, Mass., a boy was born who was to electrify America, and the world even, on this great subject. William Lloyd Garrison's father was a sea-captain, a man who loved books and had some literary ambition; the mother was a noble woman, deeply religious, willing to bear all and brave all for conscience' sake, and fearless in the path of duty. She early taught her boy to hate oppression of every kind, and to stand everywhere for the right. Very poor, there was no chance for William, either in school or college. When he was seven, his mother, having found work for herself as a nurse for the sick, placed the child with a deacon of the town, where he learned to split wood and other useful things. At nine, the careful mother put him to the shoemaking trade, though he was scarcely large enough to hold the lap-stone. He was not happy here, longing for something that made him think.

Perhaps he would like to build tables and chairs better, so he was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker; but here he was no more satisfied than with the[158] monotony of sewing leather. At his own request, the dealer cancelled the agreement, and the boy found a place to set type on the Newburyport "Herald." At last he had obtained the work he loved. He would some day own a paper, he thought, and write articles for it. Ah! how often poor boys and rich build air-castles which tumble to the ground. It is well that we build them, for life soon becomes prosaic enough to the happiest of us.

At sixteen he wrote an article for the "Herald," signing it "An Old Bachelor." Imagine his surprise and delight when he saw it really in print! Meantime his mother, who was six hundred miles away, wrote him devoted letters, ever encouraging and stimulating him to be upright and temperate. A year later she died, and William was left to fight his battles alone. He missed the letters,—missed having some one to whom he could tell a boy's hopes and fears and temptations. That boy is especially blest who has a mother to whom he can confide everything; such a boy usually has a splendid future, because by her wisdom and advice he becomes well fitted for life, making no foolish experiments.

Reading as much as possible, at nineteen William wrote some political articles for a Salem paper, and, strange to say, they were attributed to Hon. Timothy Pickering! Surely, he could do something in the world now; so when his apprenticeship was over and he had worked long and faithfully, he[159] started a paper for himself. He called it the "Free Press." It was a good title, and a good paper; but, like most first literary adventures, it proved a failure. Perhaps he ought to have foreseen that one can do little without capital; but youth is about as blind as love, and rarely stops to reason.

Did one failure discourage him? Oh, no! He went to Boston, and found a place in a printing office. He soon became the editor of the "National Philanthropist," the first paper established to advocate total abstinence from intoxicants. His motto was a true one, not very popular, however, in those days, "Moderate drinking is the down-hill road to drunkenness." He was now twenty-two, poor, but God-fearing and self-reliant. About this time there came to Boston a man whose influence changed young Garrison's whole life,—Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, thirty-nine years of age. Leaving his father's home at nineteen, he had spent four years at Wheeling, Va., where he learned the saddler's trade, and learned also the cruelties of slave-holding. After this he moved to Ohio, and in four years earned three thousand dollars above his living expenses. When he was twenty-six he organized an Anti-slavery Society at his own house, and, promising to become assistant editor of an abolition paper, he went to St. Louis to dispose of his stock of saddlery. Business was greatly depressed, the whole region being agitated over the admission of Missouri as a slave State; and, after spending two years,[160] Lundy returned to Ohio, on foot, in winter, his property entirely gone.

None of his ardor for freedom having abated, he determined to start a monthly paper, though poor and entirely ignorant about printing. This sheet he called the "Genius of Universal Emancipation," printed twenty miles from his home, the edition being carried on his back, each month, as he walked the long distance. He moved shortly after to East Tennessee, walking half of the eight hundred miles, and gradually increased his subscription list. Several times his life was in danger; but the slight, gentle Quaker kept quietly on his course. In 1824 he set out on foot for Baltimore, paying his way by saddlery or harness-mending, living on the poorest fare; and he subsequently established the "Genius" there. While he was absent from home, his wife died, leaving twins, and his five children were divided among friends. Deeply sorrowing, he renewed his resolve to devote his life to worse than motherless children,—those sold into bondage,—and made his way as best he could to Boston. Of such material were the foundation stones of the anti-slavery cause.

At his boarding-place Lundy met Garrison, and told him his burning desire to rid the country of slavery. The heart of the young printer was deeply moved. He, too, was poor and unknown, but he had not forgotten his mother's teachings and prayers. After some time he agreed to go to Baltimore, and help edit the "Genius of Universal Emancipation."[161] Lundy was in favor of sending the slaves to the West Indies or Africa as fast as their masters would consent to free them, which was not very fast. Garrison said, "The slaves are here by no fault of their own, and do not deserve to be sent back to barbarous Africa." He was in favor of immediate freedom for every human being.

Baltimore had slave-pens on the principal streets. Vessel-loads of slaves, torn from their homes, were sent hundreds of miles away to southern ports, and the auction-block often witnessed heart-rending scenes. The tender heart of Garrison was stirred to its very depths. In the first issue of his paper he declared for Immediate Emancipation, and soon denounced the slave-trade between Baltimore and New Orleans as "domestic piracy," giving the names of several citizens engaged in the traffic, among them a vessel-owner from his own town, Newburyport. The Northern man immediately arrested Garrison for "gross and malicious libel," and he was found guilty by a slave-holding court, and fined fifty dollars and costs. No one was ready to give bail, and he was thrown into prison. The young man was not in the least cast down, but, calm and heroic, wrote two sonnets on the walls of his cell.

Meantime, a noble young Quaker at the North, John G. Whittier, was deeply anxious for Garrison. He had no money to pay his fine, but, greatly admiring Henry Clay, whom he hoped to see President,[162] wrote him urging that he aid the "guiltless prisoner." Clay would doubtless have done so, but Arthur Tappan, one of New York's noble men, sent the money, releasing Garrison from his forty-nine days' imprisonment. Wendell Phillips says of him, "He was in jail for his opinions when he was just twenty-four. He had confronted a nation in the very bloom of his youth."

Garrison had not been idle while in prison. He had prepared several lectures on slavery, and these he now gave when he could find a hearing. Large churches were not opened to him, and nobody offered him two hundred dollars a night! The free colored people welcomed him gladly, but the whites were usually indifferent or opposed to such "fanatical" ideas. At last he came to Boston to start a paper,—that city where brains and not wealth open the doors to the best society. Here, with no money nor influential friends, he started the "Liberator," with this for his motto, "I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to speak or write with moderation. I am in earnest. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard!"

The North was bound hand and foot by the slave-trade almost as effectually as the South. The great plea was the fear lest the Union would be dissolved. Cotton factories had sprung up on every hand, and it was believed that slave-labor was essential to the[163] producing of cotton. Some thought it would not be safe to free the slaves; that assassinations would be the result. The real secret, however, was that each slave meant several hundred dollars, and freedom meant poverty to the masters. Meantime, the "Liberator" was making itself felt, despite Garrison's poverty. The Vigilance Association of South Carolina offered a reward of $1,500 for the apprehension and prosecution of any white person who might be detected in distributing or circulating it. In Raleigh, N.C., the grand jury found a bill against the young editor, hoping to bring him to that State for trial. Hon. Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, having received a paper by mail, wrote to Harrison Gray Otis, Mayor of Boston, to ascertain the sender. Mr. Otis caused an agent to visit the office of the "Liberator," and returned answer to Mr. Hayne, that he found it "an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy; and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors."

And where was this "obscure hole"? In the third story of a business block, "the walls dingy," says Mr. Oliver Johnson in "Garrison and his Times"; "the small windows bespattered with printers' ink; the press standing in one corner; the long editorial and mailing table covered with newspapers; the bed of the editor and publisher on the floor—all these make a picture never to be forgotten." Their food, what little they had, was procured at a neighboring bakery.[164]

Soon Georgia passed a law offering $5,000 to any person arresting and bringing to trial, under the laws of the State, and punishing to conviction, the editor or publisher of the "Liberator." What a wonder that some ruffian at midnight did not break into the "obscure hole," and drag the young man off to a slave-vessel lying close by in the harbor! The leaven of anti-slavery was beginning to work. Twelve "fanatics" gathered one stormy night in the basement of an African church in Boston, and organized the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832.

The following year, as the managers of the American Colonization Society had sent an agent to England, it was deemed best to send Garrison abroad to tell Wilberforce and others who were working for the suppression of slavery in the West Indies, that it was not a wise plan to send the slaves to Africa. It was difficult to raise the money needed; but self-sacrifice usually leaves a good bank-account. The "fanatic," only twenty-eight, was received with open arms by such men as Lord Brougham, Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Daniel O'Connell. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton gave a breakfast in his honor. When the guests had arrived, among them Mr. Garrison, Mr. Buxton held up both hands, exclaiming, "Why, my dear sir, I thought you were a black man!" This, Mr. Garrison used to say, was the greatest compliment of his life, because it showed how truly and heartily he had labored for the slave. A great meeting was arranged for him at Exeter[165] Hall, London. How inspiring all this for the young reformer! Here he met the eloquent George Thompson, and asked him to visit our country, which invitation he accepted.

On his return the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed, Dec. 4, 1833, at Philadelphia, delegates coming from eleven States. John G. Whittier was chosen Secretary. The noble poet has often said that he was more proud that his name should appear signed to the Declaration of Principles adopted at that meeting than on the title-page of any of his volumes. Thus has he ever loved liberty.

The contest over the slavery question was growing extremely bitter. Prudence Crandall of Canterbury, Conn., a young Quaker lady, admitted several colored girls to her school, who came from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The people were indignant at such a commingling of races. Shopkeepers refused to sell her anything; her well was filled with refuse, and at last her house was nearly torn down by a midnight mob. Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, Western Reserve College, Hudson, O., with some others, were nearly broken up by the conflict of opinion. Some anti-slavery lecturers were tarred and feathered or thrown into prison. In New York, a pro-slavery mob broke in the doors and windows of a Presbyterian church, and laid waste schoolhouses and dwellings of colored people. In Philadelphia, the riots lasted three days, forty-four houses of colored people being nearly or quite destroyed.[166]

In Boston, a "most respectable" mob, composed, says Horace Greeley, "in good part of merchants," dispersed a company of women belonging to the Female Anti-Slavery Society, while its President was engaged in prayer. Learning that Garrison was in the adjoining office, they shouted, "We must have Garrison! Out with him! Lynch him!"

Attempting to escape by the advice of the Mayor, who was present, he sought refuge in a carpenter's shop, but the crowd drew him out, and coiling a rope around his body, dragged him bareheaded along the street. One man called out, "He shan't be hurt; he is an American!" and this probably saved his life, though many blows were aimed at his head, and his clothes were nearly torn from his body. The Mayor declaring that he could only be saved by being lodged in jail, Garrison pressed into a hack, and was driven as rapidly as possible to the prison, the maddened crowd clinging to the wheels, dashing against the doors and seizing hold of the horses. At last he was behind the bars and out of their reach. On the walls of his cell he wrote:—

"William Lloyd Garrison was put into this cell on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 21, 1835, to save him from the violence of a respectable and influential mob, who sought to destroy him for preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine that 'all men are created equal,' and that all oppression is odious in the sight of God. Confine me as a[167] prisoner, but bind me not as a slave. Punish me as a criminal, but hold me not as a chattel. Torture me as a man, but drive me not like a beast. Doubt my sanity, but acknowledge my immortality."

The "respectable" mob had wrought wiser than they knew. Garrison and his "Liberator" became more widely known than ever. Famous men and women now joined the despised Abolitionists. The conflict was growing deeper. Elijah P. Lovejoy, the ardent young preacher of Alton, Illinois, was murdered by four balls at the hands of a pro-slavery mob, who broke up his printing-press, and threw it into the river. A public meeting was held in Faneuil Hall to condemn such an outrage. A prominent man in the gallery having risen to declare that Lovejoy "died as the fool dieth," a young man, unknown to most, stepped to the rostrum, and spoke as though inspired. From that day Wendell Phillips was the orator of America. From that day the anti-slavery cause had a new consecration.

From this time till 1860 the struggle between freedom and slavery was continuous. The South needed the Territories for her rapid increase of slaves. The North was opposed; but in the year 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act, devised by Stephen A. Douglas, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery north of latitude 36° 30', the southern boundary of Kansas. Kansas at once became a battle-ground. Armed men came over from Missouri to establish slavery. Men came from New England determined that the soil should be free,[168] if they spilled their blood to gain it. The Fugitive Slave Law, whereby slaves were returned without trial by jury, and slave-owners allowed to search the North for their slaves, made great bitterness. The brutal attack of Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, on Charles Sumner, for his speech on Kansas, and the hanging of John Brown by the State of Virginia for his invasion of Harper's Ferry with seventeen white men and five negroes, calling upon the slaves to rise and demand their liberty, brought matters to a crisis.

Garrison was opposed to war; but after the firing on Sumter, April 12, 1861, it was inevitable. For two years after Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency, Garrison waited impatiently for that pen-stroke which set four million human beings free. When the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Jan. 1. 1863, Garrison's life-work was accomplished. Thirty-five years of untiring, heroic struggle had not been in vain. When two years later the stars and stripes were raised again over Fort Sumter, he was invited by President Lincoln, as a guest of the government, to witness the imposing scene. When Mr. Garrison arrived in Charleston, the colored people were nearly wild with joy. Children sang and men shouted. A slave made an address of welcome, his two daughters bearing a wreath of flowers to their great benefactor. Garrison's heart was full to overflowing as he replied, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto God be all[169] the glory for what has been done in regard to your emancipation.... Thank God, this day, that you are free. And be resolved that, once free, you will be free forever. Liberty or death, but never slavery! While God gives me reason and strength, I shall demand for you everything I claim for the whitest of the white in this country."

The same year he discontinued the publication of the "Liberator," putting in type with his own hands the official ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, forever prohibiting slavery in the United States, and adding, "Hail, redeemed, regenerated America! Hail, all nations, tribes, kindred, and peoples, made of one blood, interested in a common redemption, heirs of the same immortal destiny! Hail, angels in glory; tune your harps anew, singing, 'Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty!'"

Two years after the war Mr. Garrison crossed the ocean for the fourth time. He was no longer the poor lad setting type at thirteen, or sleeping on the hard floor of a printing-room, or lying in a Baltimore jail, or the victim of a Boston mob. He was the centre of a grand and famous circle. The Duke and Duchess of Argyle and the Duchess of Sutherland paid him special honors. John Bright presided at a public breakfast given him at St. James' Hall, London. Such men as John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Prof. Huxley, graced the feast. Mr. Bright said in his opening address, concerning Mr[170]. Garrison: "His is the creation of that opinion which has made slavery hateful, and which has made freedom possible in America. His name is venerated in his own country; venerated in this country and in Europe, wheresoever Christianity softens the hearts and lessens the sorrows of men." Edinburgh conferred upon him the freedom of the city, an honor accorded to one other American only,—George Peabody. Birmingham, Manchester, and other cities held great public meetings to do him reverence.

On his return, such friends as Sumner, Wilson, Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Greeley, and others presented him with $30,000. The remainder of his life he devoted to temperance, woman-suffrage, and every other reform calculated to make the world better. His true character was shown when, years before, appointed to the London Anti-Slavery Convention as a delegate, he refused to take his seat after his long journey across the ocean, because such noble co-workers as Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Wendell Phillips, and others, were denied their place as delegates. Thus strenuous was he for right and justice to all. Always modest, hopeful, and cheerful, he was as gentle in his private life with his wife and five children, as he was strong and fearless in his public career. He died at the home of his daughter in New York, May 24, 1879, his children singing about his bed, at his request:

and,

[171]

At sunset, in Forest Hills, they laid the brave man to rest, a quartette of colored singers around his open grave, singing, "I cannot always trace the way."

[172]

GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI.

Few men come to greatness. Most drift on with the current, having no special plan nor aim. They live where their fathers lived, taking no thought beyond their neighborhood or city, and die in their little round of social life.

Not so a boy born in Southern France, in 1807. Giuseppe Garibaldi was the son of humble parents. His father was a sailor, with a numerous family to support, seemingly unskilled in keeping what little property he had once acquired. His mother was a woman of ambition, energy, and nobility of character. If one looks for the cause of greatness in a man, he seldom has to go further than the mother. Hence the need of a highly educated, noble womanhood all over the world. Such as Giuseppe Garibaldi are not born of frivolous, fashionable women.

Of his mother, the great soldier wrote in later years, "She was a model for mothers. Her tender affection for me has, perhaps, been excessive; but do I not owe to her love, to her angel-like character, the little good that belongs to mine? Often, amidst the most arduous scenes of my tumultuous life, when[173] I have passed unharmed through the breakers of the ocean or the hail-storms of battle, she has seemed present with me. I have, in fancy, seen her on her knees before the Most High—my dear mother!—imploring for the life of her son; and I have believed in the efficacy of her prayers." No wonder that, "Give me the mothers of the nation to educate, and you may do what you like with the boys," was one of his favorite maxims.

GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI.

Giuseppe was an ardent boy, fond of books, loving to climb the lonely mountains around his home, and eager for some part of the world's bustle. Sometimes he earned his living among the fishermen on the Riviera; sometimes he took sea-voyages with his father. He had unusual tenderness of heart, combined with fearlessness. One day he caught a grasshopper, took it to his house, and, in handling it, broke its leg. He was so grieved for the poor little creature, that he went to his room and wept bitterly for hours. Another time, standing by a deep ditch, he discovered that a woman had fallen from the bank as she was washing clothes. With no thought for his own life, he sprang in and rescued her.

His parents, seeing that he was quick in mathematics and the languages, desired him to study for the ministry; but he loved the sea and adventure too well for a sedentary life. Becoming tired of study, at twelve years of age, he and some companions procured a boat, put some provisions and[174] fishing-tackle on board, and started to make their fortune in the East. These visions of greatness soon came to an inglorious end; for the paternal Garibaldi put to sea at once, and soon overtook and brought home the mortified and disappointed infantile crew.

At twenty-one, we find Garibaldi second in command on the brig "Cortese," bound for the Black Sea. Three times during the voyage they were plundered by Greek pirates, their sails, charts, and every article of clothing taken from them, the sailors being obliged to cover their bodies with some matting, left by chance in the hold of the ship. As a result of this destitution, the young commander became ill at Constantinople, and was cared for by some Italian exiles. Poor, as are most who are born to be leaders, he must work now to pay the expenses incurred by this illness. Through the kindness of his physician, he found a place to teach, and when once more even with the world pecuniarily, went back to sea, and was made captain.

He was now twenty-seven years old. Since his father had taken him when a mere boy to Rome, he had longed for and prayed over his distracted Italy. He saw what the Eternal City must have been in her ancient splendor; he pictured her in the future, again the pride and glory of a united nation. He remembered how Italy had been the battle-ground of France, Spain, and Austria, when kings, as they have ever done, quarrelled for power. He saw[175] the conqueror of Europe himself conquered by the dreadful Russian campaign: then the Congress of Vienna parcelling out a prostrate people among the nations. Austria took Lombardy and Venice; Parma and Lucca were given to Marie Louise, the second wife of Napoleon; and the Two Sicilies to Ferdinand II., who ruled them with a rod of iron. Citizens for small offences were lashed to death in the public square. Filthy dungeons, excavated under the sea, without light or air, were filled with patriots, whose only crime was a desire for a free country. The people revolted in Naples and Sardinia, and asked for a constitution; but Austria soon helped to restore despotism. Kings had divine rights; the people had none. No man lessens his power willingly. The only national safety is the least possible power in the hands of any one person. The rule of the many is liberty; of the few, despotism.

Garibaldi was writing all these things on his heart. His blood boiled at the slavery of his race. Mazzini, a young lawyer of Genoa, had just started a society called "Young Italy," and was looking hopefully, in a hopeless age, toward a republic for his native country. Garibaldi was ready to help in any manner possible. The plan proposed was to seize the village of St. Julien, and begin the revolt; but, as usual, there was a traitor in the camp: they were detected; and Garibaldi, like the rest, was sentenced to death. This was an unexpected turn[176] of events for the young sea-captain. Donning the garb of a peasant, he escaped by mountain routes to Nice, his only food being chestnuts, bade a hasty farewell to his precious mother, and started for South America. He had learned, alas, so soon, the result of working for freedom in Italy!

He arrived at Rio Janeiro, an exile and poor; but, finding several of his banished countrymen, they assisted him in buying a trading-vessel; and he engaged in commerce. But his mind constantly dwelt on freedom. The Republic of Rio Grande had just organized and set up its authority against Brazil. Here was a chance to fight for liberty. A small cruiser was obtained, which he called "The Mazzini," and, with twenty companions, he set out to combat an empire. After capturing a boat loaded with copper, the second vessel they met gave battle, wounded Garibaldi in the neck, and made them all prisoners.

A little later, attempting to escape, he was brutally beaten with a club, and then his wrists tied together by a rope, which was flung over a beam. He was suspended in the air for two hours. His sufferings were indescribable. Fever parched his body, and the rope cut his flesh. He was rescued by a fearless lady, Senora Alemon, but for whom he would have died. After two months, finding that he would divulge nothing of the plans of his adopted republic, he was released without trial, and entered the war again at once.[177]

After several successful battles, his vessel was shipwrecked, nearly all his friends were drowned, and he escaped as by a miracle. His heart now became desolate. He says in his diary, "I felt the want of some one to love me, and a desire that such a one might be very soon supplied, as my present state of mind seemed insupportable." After all, the brave young captain was human, and cried out for a human affection. He had "always regarded woman as the most perfect of creatures"; but he had never thought it possible to marry with his adventurous life.

About this time he met a dark-haired, dark-eyed, young woman, tall and commanding, and as brave and fearless as himself. Anita belonged to a wealthy family, and her father was incensed at the union, though years after, when Garibaldi became famous, he wrote them a letter of forgiveness. They idolized each other; and the soldier's heart knew desolation no longer, come now what would. She stood beside him in every battle, waving her sword over her head to encourage the men to their utmost. When a soldier fell dead at her feet, she seized his carbine, and kept up a constant fire. When urged by her husband to go below, because almost frantic with fear for her safety, she replied, "If I do, it will be but to drive out those cowards who have sought concealment there," and then return to the fight. In one of the land-battles she was surrounded by twenty or more of the enemy; but she[178] put spurs to her horse, and dashed through their midst. At first they seemed dazed, as though she were something unearthly; then they fired, killing her animal, which fell heavily to the ground; and she was made a prisoner. Obtaining permission to search among the dead for her husband, and, not finding him, she determined to make her escape. That night, while they slept, she seized a horse, plunged into the forests, and for four days lived without food. On the last night,—a stormy one,—closely pursued by several of the enemy, she urged her horse into a swollen river, five hundred yards broad, and seizing fast hold of his tail, the noble creature swam across, dragging her with him. After eight days she reached her agonized husband, and their joy was complete.

After a year or more of battles and hardships, their first child, Menotti, was born, named for the great Italian Liberal. Garibaldi, fighting for a poor republic, destitute of everything for his wife and child, started across the marshes to purchase a few articles of clothing. In his absence, their little company was attacked by the Imperialists, and Anita mounted her saddle in a pitiless storm, and fled to the woods with her twelve-days-old infant. Three months later the child came near dying, the mother carrying him in a handkerchief tied round her neck, and keeping him warm with her breath, as they forded swamps and rivers.

After six years of faithful service for the South[179] American Republic, Garibaldi determined to settle down to a more quiet life, with his little family, and sought a home at Montevideo, where he took up his former occupation of teaching. But he was soon drawn into war again, and his famous "Italian Legion," of about four hundred men, made for themselves a record throughout Europe and America for bravery and success against fearful odds. The grateful people made Garibaldi "General," and placed a large tract of land at the disposal of the Legion; but the leader said, "In obedience to the cause of liberty alone did the Italians of Montevideo take up arms, and not with any views of gain or advancement," and the gift was declined. Yet so poor was the family of Garibaldi, that they used to go to bed at sunset because they had no candles; and his only shirt he had given to a companion in arms. When his destitution became known, the minister of war sent him one hundred dollars. He accepted half for Anita and her little ones, and begged that the other half might be given to a poor widow.

Fourteen years had gone by since he left Italy under sentence of death. He was now forty-one, in the prime of his life and vigor. Italy had become ripe for a revolution. Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, had declared himself ready to give constitutional liberty to his people, and to help throw off the Austrian yoke. Garibaldi believed that his hour had come, and saying good-bye to the Monte[180]videans, who were loathe to part with him, he took fifty-six of his brave Italian Legion, and sailed for Nice, in the ship Esperanza. His beloved Anita improvised a Sardinian flag, made from a counterpane, a red shirt, and a bit of old green uniform; and the little company gave themselves to earnest plans and hopes. They met a hearty reception on their arrival; Garibaldi's mother taking Anita and her three children, Menotti, Meresita, and Ricciotti, to her home. General Garibaldi at once presented himself before Charles Albert, and offered his services. He wore a striking costume, consisting of a cap of scarlet cloth, a red blouse, and a white cloak lined with red, with a dagger at his belt, besides his sword. The King, perhaps remembering that the brave soldier was once a Republican in sentiment, made the great mistake of declining his aid. Nothing daunted, he hurried to Milan, only to find that the weak King had yielded it to Austria. Charles Albert soon abdicated in favor of his son Victor Emmanuel, and died from sorrow and defeat.

Meantime Rome had declared herself a Republic, and Pius IX. had fled the city. Garibaldi was asked to defend her, and entered with his troops, April 28, in 1849. England and France were urged to remain neutral, while Rome fought for freedom. But alas! Louis Napoleon, then President of the French Republic, desired to please the Papal party, and sent troops to reinstate the Pope! When Rome found that this man at the head of a republic was[181] willing to put a knife to her throat, her people fought like tigers. They swarmed out of the workshops armed with weapons of every kind, while women urged them on with applause. For nearly three months Rome held out against France and Austria, Garibaldi showing himself an almost superhuman leader, and then the end came. Pius IX. re-entered the city, and the Republic was crushed by monarchies.

When all was lost, Garibaldi called his soldiers together, and, leaping on horseback, shouted, "Venice and Garibaldi do not surrender. Whoever will, let him follow me! Italy is not yet dead!" and he dashed off at full speed. By lonely mountain-paths, he, with Anita and about two hundred of his troops, arrived on the shore of the Adriatic, where thirteen boats were waiting to carry them to Venice. Nine were soon taken by the Austrians, the rest escaping, though nearly all were finally captured and shot at once. The General and his wife escaped to a cornfield, where she lay very ill, her head resting on his knee. Some peasants, though fearful that they would be detected by the Austrians, brought a cart, and carried the dying wife to the nearest cottage, where, as soon as she was laid upon the bed, she breathed her last, leaning on Garibaldi's arm. Overwhelmed with the loss of his idol, he seemed benumbed, with no care whether he was made a prisoner or not. At last, urged for the sake of Italy to flee, he made the peasants promise to bury Anita under the shade of[182] the pine grove near by, and, hunted like a robber from mountain to mountain, he found a hiding-place among the rocks of the Island of Caprera. There was nothing left now but to seek a refuge in the great American Republic.

Landing in New York, the noble General asked aid from no one, but believing, as all true-minded persons believe, that any labor is honorable, began to earn his living by making candles. What a contrast between an able general working in a tallow factory, and some proud young men and women who consent to be supported by friends, and thus live on charity! Woe to America if her citizens shall ever feel themselves too good to work!

For a year and a half he labored patiently, his children three thousand miles away with his mother. Then he became captain of a merchant vessel between China and Peru. When told that he could bring some Chinese slaves to South America in his cargo, he refused, saying, "Never will I become a trafficker in human flesh." America might buy and sell four millions of human beings, but not so Garibaldi. After four years he decided to return to Italy. With the little money he had saved, he bought half the rocky island of Caprera, five miles long, off the coast of Sardinia, whose boulders had once sheltered him, built him a one-story plain house, and took his three children there to live, his mother having died.

Meantime Cavour, the great Italian statesman,[183] had not been idle in diplomacy. The Crimean War had been fought, and Italy had helped England and France against Russia. When Napoleon III. went to war with Austria in 1859, Cavour was glad to make Italy his ally. He called Garibaldi from Caprera, and made him Major-General of the Alps. At once the red blouse and white cloak seemed to inspire the people with confidence. Lombardy sprang to arms. Every house was open, and every table spread for the Liberators. And then began a series of battles, which, for bravery and dash and skill, made the name of Garibaldi the terror of Austria, and the hope and pride of Italy. Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Lucca declared for King Victor Emmanuel. The battles of Magenta and Solferino made Austria bite the dust, and gladly give up Lombardy.

At last it seemed as if Italy were to be redeemed and reunited. Garibaldi started with his famous "Mille," or thousand men, to release the two Sicilies from the hated rule of Francis, the son of Ferdinand II. The first battle was fought at Palermo, the Neapolitans who outnumbered the troops of Garibaldi four to one being defeated after four hours' hard fighting. Then the people dared to show their true feelings. Peasants flocked in from the mountains, and ladies wore red dresses and red feathers. When the cars carried the soldiers from one town to another, the people crowded the engine, and shouted themselves hoarse. Drums were beaten, and trum[184]pets blown, and women pressed forward to kiss the hand or touch the cloak of the Lion of Italy. He was everywhere the bravest of the brave. Once when surrounded by four dragoons, who called upon him to surrender, he drew his sword, and said, "I am Garibaldi; you must surrender to me."

And yet amid all this honor and success in war, and supremacy in power, as he was the Dictator, he was so poor that he would wash his red shirt in a brook, and wait for it to dry while he ate his lunch of bread and water, with a little fruit. No wonder the Sicilians believed him to be a second Messiah, and the French that he could shake the bullets from his body into his loose red shirt, and empty them out at his leisure! The sailor boy had become the hero of all who loved liberty the world over. When the war was ended, he resigned his Dictatorship, handed the two Sicilies over to his sovereign, distributed medals to his devoted soldiers, and returned to his island home at Caprera, with barely three dollars in his pocket, having borrowed one hundred to pay his debts. How rarely does any age produce such a man as Garibaldi!

But Rome was not yet the capital of Italy. The hero could not rest while the city was governed by a Pope. At last, tired of waiting for the king to take action, he started with three thousand men for Rome. Victor Emmanuel, fearing to offend France, if the Pope were molested, sent the royal troops against Garibaldi at Aspromonte, who badly wounded him,[185] and carried him to a prison on the Gulf of Spezzia. The people, indignant at the Government, crowded around him, bearing gifts, and kissing the hem of his raiment. They even bored a hole in the door of the prison, that they might catch a glimpse of their idol, as he lay on his iron bedstead, a gift from an English friend.

After his release and return to Caprera, he visited England in 1864, the whole country doing him honor. Stations were gaily decorated, streets arched with flowers, ladies dressed in red; the Duke of Sutherland entertained him; London gave him the freedom of the city; Tennyson made him his guest at the Isle of Wight; and crowds made it scarcely possible for him to appear on the public thoroughfares. He refused to receive a purse of money from his friends, and went back to Caprera, majestic in his unselfishness.

Again Italy called him to help her in her alliance with Prussia against Austria in 1866, and again he fought nobly. The year following he attempted to take Rome, but was a second time arrested and imprisoned for fear of Napoleon III. When that monarch fell at Sedan, and the French troops were withdrawn from the Eternal City, Victor Emmanuel entered without a struggle, and Rome was free.

In 1874, after helping the French Republic, the brave Spartan was elected to Parliament. He was now sixty-seven. As he entered Rome, the streets were blocked with people, who several times attempted to remove the horses, and draw the car[186]riage themselves. Ah! if Anita had only been there to have seen this homage of a grateful nation. He entered the Senate House on the arm of his son Menotti, and when he rose in his red shirt and gray cloak to take the oath, so infirm that he was obliged to be supported by two friends, men wept as they recalled his struggles, and shouted frantically as he took his seat.

Seven years longer the grand old man lived at Caprera, now beautified with gifts from all the world, the recipient of a thank-offering of $10,000 yearly from Italy. Around him were Francesca, whom he married late in life, and their two children whom he idolized,—Manlio and Clelia. He spent his time in writing several books, in tilling the soil, and in telling visitors the wonderful events of his life and of Anita.

On June 2, 1882, all day long he lay by the window, looking out upon the sea. As the sun was setting, a bird alighted on the sill, singing. The great man stammered, "Quanti o allegro!" How joyful it is! and closed his eyes in death. He directed in his will that his body should be burned; but, at the request of the Government and many friends, it was buried at Caprera, to be transferred at some future time to Rome, now the capital of united Italy. Not alone does Italy honor her great Liberator, whom she calls the "most blameless and most beloved of men." Wherever a heart loves liberty, there will Garibaldi's name be cherished and honored.

[187]

JEAN PAUL RICHTER.

Vasari, who wrote the lives of the Italian painters, truly said, "It is not by sleeping, but by working, waking, and laboring continually, that proficiency is attained and reputation acquired." This was emphatically true of Richter, as it is of every man or woman who wins a place in the memory of men. The majority die after a commonplace life, and are never heard of; they were probably satisfied to drift along the current, with no especial purpose, save to eat, drink, and be merry.

Not so with the German boy, born in the cold Pine Mountains of Bavaria. His home was a low, thatched building, made of beams of wood, filled in with mortar, one part for the family, and the other for corn and goats. This is still the custom in Switzerland, the poor caring as tenderly for their dumb beasts as for their children. Jean Paul was born on the 21st of March, 1763: "My life and the life of the spring began the same month," he used to say in after years, and the thought of robin red-breasts and spring flowers made the poor lad happy amid the deepest trials.[188]

His father was an under-pastor and organist in the little village of Wunsiedel, and lived on a pitiful salary; but, generous to a fault, he stripped off his own garments to clothe the poor, and sent the schoolmaster a meal every day, because, if possible, he was poorer than the preacher. In school, Jean Paul was a studious boy, almost envying every one who said his lessons well, and fond of his teachers and mates; but one of the boys having cut Paul's hand, the father at once took him home and became his instructor. A painstaking and conscientious man, he showed little aptness for his work, when he gave his boy, at nine years of age, a Latin dictionary to commit to memory! For four solid hours in the morning, and three in the afternoon, Paul and his brother learned grammatical lessons and Latin verses of which they did not understand a word. Still the boy grew more and more fond of books, and of Nature,—made clocks with pendulums and wheels; a sun-dial, drawing his figures on a wooden plate with ink; invented a new language from the calendar signs of the almanac; and composed music on an old harpsichord whose only tuning-hammer and tuning-master were the winds and the weather.

When Paul was thirteen, the family moved to Schwarzenbach, where he made the acquaintance of a young pastor, Vogel, who owned quite a valuable library, and encouraged him to educate himself. Given free access to the books, he began to read[189] eagerly. Thinking that he should never own volumes for himself, he made blank-books, of three hundred pages each, from his father's sermon-paper, and began the almost interminable labor of copying whatever he thought he should need in law, medicine, philosophy, theology, natural history, and poetry. For nearly four years he worked thus, till he had quite a library of his own, and a wealth of information in his brain, which proved invaluable in the writing of after years. Such a boy could not fail of success.

Paul's father, meantime, had become despondent over his debts, small though they were, and died when his son was sixteen. The grandfather on the mother's side dying soon after, Frau Richter became entitled by will to his property. The remaining brothers and sisters at once went to law about the matter, preferring to spend the estate in the courts rather than have a favorite child enjoy it. Two years later, at eighteen, Paul started for college at Leipzig, hoping that in this cultured city he might teach while pursuing his own studies. Alas! scores had come with the same hope, and there was no work to be obtained. He found himself alone in a great city, poorly dressed, timid, sensitive, and without a hand to help. Many boys had brought letters of introduction to the professors, and thus of course received attention. He wrote to his mother, "The most renowned, whose esteem would be useful to me, are oppressed with business, sur[190]rounded by a multitude of respectable people, and by a swarm of envious flatterers. If one would speak to a professor without a special invitation, he incurs the suspicion of vanity. But do not give up your hopes. I will overcome all these difficulties. I shall receive some little help, and at length I shall not need it." All honor to the brave boy who could write so encouragingly in the midst of want and loneliness!

He longed to make the acquaintance of some learned people, but there was no opportunity. Finally, getting deeper and deeper into debt, he wrote to his mother, "As I have no longer any funds, I must continue to be trusted. But what can I at last expect? I must eat, and I cannot continue to be trusted. I cannot freeze, but where shall I get wood without money? I can no longer take care of my health, for I have warm food neither morning nor evening. It is now a long time since I asked you for twenty-six dollars; when they come, I shall scarcely be able to pay what I already owe. Perhaps the project I have in my head will enable me to earn for you and myself." Poor lad! how many hearts have ached from poverty just as did his. The mother was also in debt, but in some way she managed to obtain the money; for what will a mother not do for her child?

Paul worked on, but was soon in debt again. He could tell nobody but his devoted mother: "I will not ask you for money to pay my victualler,"[191] he wrote, "to whom I owe twenty-four dollars; nor my landlady to whom I am indebted ten; or even for other debts, that amount to six dollars. For these great sums I will ask no help, but for the following you must not deny me your assistance. I must every week pay the washerwoman, who does not trust. I must drink some milk every morning. I must have my boots soled by the cobbler, who does not trust; my torn cap must be repaired by the tailor, who does not trust; and I must give something to the maid-servant, who of course does not trust. Eight dollars of Saxon money will satisfy all, and then I shall need your help no longer."

He was keeping up courage, because he was writing a book! He told his mother, with his high dreams of young authorship, that he should bring home all his old shirts and stockings at vacation, for he should buy new ones then! It is well that all the mountains seem easy to climb in youth; when we are older, we come to know their actual height. The mother discouraged authorship, and hoped her boy would become a preacher; but his project was too dear to be given up. When his book of satirical essays, called "Eulogy of Stupidity," was finished, it was sent, with beating heart, to a publisher. In vain Paul awaited its return. He hoped it would be ready at Michaelmas fair, but the publisher "so long and so kindly patronized the book by letting it lie on his desk, that the fair was half[192] over before the manuscript was returned." The boyish heart must have ached when the parcel came. He had not learned, what most authors are familiar with, the heart sickness from first rejected manuscripts. He had not learned, too, that fame is a hard ladder to climb, and that a "friend at court" is often worth as much, or more, than merit. Publishers are human, and cannot always see merit till fame is won.

For a whole year Paul tried in vain to find a publisher. Then he said to the manuscript, "Lie there in the corner together with school exercises, for thou art no better. I will forget, for the world would certainly have forgotten thee." Faint from lack of food, he says, "I undertook again a wearisome work, and created in six months a brand-new satire." This book was called the "Greenland Lawsuits," a queer title for a collection of essays on theology, family pride, women, fops, and the like.

Paul had now gained courage by failure. Instead of writing a letter, he went personally to every publisher in Leipzig, and offered his manuscript, and every publisher refused it. Finally he sent it to Voss of Berlin. On the last day of December, as he sat in his room, hungry, and shivering because there was no fire in the stove, there was a knock at the door, and a letter from Voss was handed in. He opened it hastily, and found an offer of seventy dollars for the "Greenland Lawsuits." Through his whole life he looked[193] back to this as one of its supreme moments. It was not a great sum, only three dollars a week for the six months, but it was the first fruit of his brain given to the public. He was now nineteen. What little property the mother had possessed had wasted away in the lawsuits; one brother in his despair had drowned himself, and another had entered the army; but Paul still had hope in the future.

After a short vacation with his mother, he went back to Leipzig. The second volume of the "Greenland Lawsuits" was now published, and for this he received one hundred and twenty-six dollars,—nearly twice that given for the first volume. This did not take with the public, and the third volume was refused by every publisher. His money was gone. What could he do? He would try, as some other authors had done, the plan of writing letters to distinguished people, telling them his needs. He did so, but received no answers. Then, spurred on by necessity, he took the manuscript in his hand, and presented it himself at the doors of the learned; but he was either not listened to, or repulsed on every occasion. How one pities this lad of nineteen! How many wealthy men might have aided him, but they did not! He wrote a few essays for various periodicals, but these brought little money, and were seldom wanted. His high hopes for a literary career began to vanish.[194]

It was evident that he must give up college life, for he could not get enough to eat. He had long discontinued his evening meal, making his supper of a few dried prunes. His boarding-mistress was asking daily for her dues. He could bear the privation and the disgrace no longer, and, packing his satchel, and borrowing a coat from a college boy, that he might not freeze, he stole away from Leipzig in the darkness of the twilight, and went home to his disconsolate mother. Is it any wonder that the poor are disconsolate? Is it any wonder that they regard the wealthy as usually cold and indifferent to their welfare? Alas! that so many of us have no wish to be our "brother's keeper."

Perhaps some of the professors and students wondered where the bright lad had gone; but the world forgets easily. Frau Richter received her college boy with a warm heart, but an empty purse. She was living with her two children in one room, supporting them as best she could by spinning, working far into the night. In this room, where cooking, washing, cleaning, and spinning were all carried on, Paul placed his little desk and began to write. Was the confusion trying to his thoughts? Ah! necessity knows no law. He says, "I was like a prisoner, without the prisoner's fare of bread and water, for I had only the latter; and if a gulden found its way into the house, the jubilee was such that the windows were nearly broken with joy." But with the strength of a noble and heroic[195] nature, he adds, "What is poverty that a man should whine under it? It is but like the pain of piercing the ears of a maiden, and you hang precious jewels in the wound."

The family were so needy, however, that they must look somewhere for aid, and hesitatingly Paul applied to Vogel, the young pastor, who loaned them twenty-five gulden. Very soon the boarding-mistress from Leipzig appeared, having walked the whole way to Hof, and demanded her pay. In his distress Paul sent her to another friend, Otto, who became surety for the debt.

Richter now began to work harder than ever. His books of extracts were invaluable, as were his hand-books of comical matters, touching incidents, synonyms, etc. He made it a rule to write half a day, and take long walks in the afternoon in the open air, thinking out the plans for his books. Poor as he was, he was always cheerful, sustaining by his letters any who were downhearted. One of his best friends, Herman, who had become a physician through much struggle, died about this time, broken on the wheel of poverty. Despite his own starving condition, Paul sent him five dollars. Having an opportunity to teach French to the brother of a Leipzig friend, he accepted; but at the end of three years, through the disappointing character of the pupil, and the miserliness of the father, Paul returned to his mother, broken in health and dispirited. His heart ached for those who like himself[196] were suffering, and now he made a resolution that changed for life the course of his writing. He would write satire no more. He said, "I will not pour into the cup of humanity a single drop of gall." Henceforward love, and hope, and tenderness, breathe upon his every page.

He now wrote ten essays on "What is Death?" asking the noble-hearted Herder to send them to Weiland for his magazine, lest they be overlooked in his mass of papers, if Richter, unaided, should venture to ask the favor. They were overlooked for months; but finally Herder procured the insertion of one essay in a different magazine, but Richter never received any pay for it. Three years had passed, and all this time the third volume of the "Greenland Lawsuits" had been journeying from one publishing house to another. At last it was accepted, but little money came from it.

Again he taught,—this time at Schwarzenbach, where he used to go to school. Here his tenderness, his tact, and good cheer won the hearts of the pupils. There was no memorizing of Latin dictionaries, but the exact work of all was kept in a "red book" for parents to see. He instructed them orally five hours a day, till they were eager for astronomy, history, and biography. For four years he taught, "his schoolroom being his Paradise," every Sunday walking to Hof to see his mother. Well might he say, "To the man who has had a mother all women are sacred for her sake."[197]

Paul now determined to write a novel, and though he had little knowledge of any sphere of life save that in which poverty held sway, he would put his own heart into the work. The "Invisible Lodge" was written and sent to the Counsellor of the town, asking, if the work pleased him, that he would assist in its publication. At first Counsellor Moritz was annoyed at the request; but as he read he became deeply interested, and said, this is surely from Goethe, Herder, or Weiland. The book was soon published, and two hundred and twenty-six dollars paid for it! The moment Richter received the first instalment of seventy dollars, he hastened to Hof, and there, late at night, found his mother spinning by the light of the fire, and poured the whole of the gold into her lap. The surprise, joy, and thanksgiving of the poor woman can well be imagined. Her son immediately moved her into a small but more comfortable home.

The new novel began to be talked about and widely read. Fame was really coming. He began at once to work on "Hesperus," one of his most famous productions, though when published he received only two hundred dollars for the four volumes. Letters now came from scholars and famous people. One admirer sent fifty Prussian dollars. What joy must have swelled the heart of the poor schoolteacher! "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces" followed shortly after, and Richter was indeed famous. Learned ladies of Weimar wrote most[198] enthusiastic thanks. With his reverence for woman, and delight in her intellectual equality with man, these letters were most inspiring. Request after request came for him to visit Weimar. Dare he go and meet such people as Goethe, and Schiller, and Herder, and Weiland, whom for twelve long years he had hoped sometime to look upon? At last he started, and upon reaching Weimar, was made the lion of the day. His warm heart, generous and unaffected nature, and brilliant and well-stored mind made him admired by all. Herder said: "Heaven has sent me a treasure in Richter. That I neither deserved nor expected. He is all heart, all soul; an harmonious tone in the great golden harp of humanity." Caroline Herder, his wife, a very gifted woman, was equally his friend and helper. Noble and intellectual women gathered about him to do him honor. Some fell in love with him; but he studied them closely as models for future characters in his books, giving only an ardent friendship in return. He was even invited to court, and gathered here the scenes for his greatest work, "Titan." How grand all this seemed to the poor man who had been hungering all his life for refined and intellectual companionship! So rejoiced was he that he wrote home, "I have lived twenty years in Weimar in a few days. I am happy, wholly happy, not merely beyond all expectation, but beyond all description."

He was now thirty-four. The poor, patient[199] mother had just died, but not till she had heard the fame of her son spoken on every hand. After her death, Paul found a faded manuscript in which she had kept the record of those small gains in spinning into the midnight hours. He carried it next his heart, saying, "If all other manuscripts are destroyed, yet will I keep this, good mother." For weeks he was not able to write a letter, or mention the loss of his parent.

His youngest brother, Samuel, a talented boy, was now ready for college; so Jean Paul determined to make Leipzig his home while his brother pursued his course. What changes the last few years had wrought! Then he was stealing away from Leipzig in debt for his board, cold, hungry, and desolate; now he was coming, the brilliant author whom everybody delighted to honor. When we are in want, few are ready to help; when above want, the world stands ready to lavish all upon us. After spending some time in Leipzig, he visited Dresden to enjoy the culture of that artistic city. During this visit, Samuel, who had become dissipated, broke into his brother's desk, stole all his hard-earned money, and left the city. He led a wandering life thereafter, dying in a hospital in Silesia. Paul never saw him again, but sent him a yearly allowance, as soon as he learned his abiding-place. What a noble character!

He now returned to Weimar, dedicating his "Titan" to the four daughters of the Duke of Mecklenburg, one of whom became the mother of Emperor Wil[200]liam, the famous and beautiful Louise of Prussia. He visited her later in Berlin, where he writes, "I have never been received in any city with such idolatry. I have a watch-chain of the hair of three sisters; and so much hair has been begged of me, that if I were to make it a traffic, I could live as well from the outside of my head as from what is inside of it."

In this city he met the woman who was to be hereafter the very centre of his life. He had had a passing fancy for several, but never for one that seemed fitted, all in all, to make his life complete. Caroline Myer, the daughter of one of the most distinguished Prussian officers, was a refined, intellectual, noble girl, with almost unlimited resources within herself, devoted to her family and to every good. Paul had met women who dressed more elegantly, who were more sparkling in conversation, who were more beautiful, but they did not satisfy his heart. In his thirty-eighth year he had found a character that seemed perfection. He wrote, "Caroline has exactly that inexpressible love for all beings that I have till now failed to find even in those who in everything else possess the splendor and purity of the diamond. She preserves in the full harmony of her love to me the middle and lower tones of sympathy for every joy and sorrow in others."

Her love for Richter was nearly adoration. Several months after their marriage she wrote her father,[201] "Richter is the purest, the holiest, the most godlike man that lives. Could others be admitted, as I am, to his inmost emotions, how much more would they esteem him!" Richter also wrote to his best friend, Otto, "Marriage has made me love her more romantically, deeper, infinitely more than before." At the birth of their first child, he wrote again to Otto, "You will be as transported as I was when the nurse brought me, as out of a cloud, my second love, with the blue eyes wide open, a beautiful, high brow, kiss-lipped, heart-touching. God is near at the birth of every child."

On Caroline's first birthday after their marriage, he wrote, "I will be to thee father and mother! Thou shalt be the happiest of human beings, that I also may be happy."

"Titan," now ten years in progress, was published, and made a great sensation. The literary world was indignant at the fate of "Linda," his heroine, but all pronounced it a great book,—his masterpiece.

Soon after he removed to Bayreuth, and settled down to earnest work. Almost every day he might be seen walking out into the country, where he rented a room in a peasant's house for quiet and country air. Whenever the day was pleasant he worked out of doors. A son had now been born to him, and life seemed complete. Now he played with his home-treasures, and now talked at table about some matter of art or science that all might be instructed. He was especially fond of animals, having usually a[202] mouse, a tame spider, a tree-frog, and dogs. So good was he to his canary birds that he never left the house without opening the door of their cage that they might fly about and not be lonely. Often when he wrote, they walked over his manuscript, scattering water from the vase and mingling it with his ink.

His son Max, a boy of sixteen, had entered school at Munich. He was a beautiful youth, conscientious, sensitive, devoted to study, and the idol of the household. At first he wept whole nights from homesickness, denying himself sufficient fire, food, and clothing, from a desire to save expense to his parents. He was a fine scholar, but distrusted his intellectual gifts. At the end of a year he came home, pale and worn, and died at the age of nineteen.

To Richter this was a death-blow. He went on writing, while the tears dropped upon his page. He could never bear the sight of a book his boy had touched, and the word "philology," his son's favorite study, cut him to the heart. At the end of three months he wrote to a friend, "My being has suffered not merely a wound, but a complete cutting off of all joy. My longing after him grows always more painful." Broken in health he visited Dresden; but the end was near. The sight of the left eye at first failed him, then the right, till he was left in complete darkness. He still hoped to finish his autobiography, and the "Immortality of the Soul,"[203] begun on the very day Max was buried; but this was denied him. Once only did his sorrows overpower him, when pitifully looking toward the window, he cried out as Ajax in the "Iliad":—

The devoted wife and two daughters grew unspeakably dear to him. When tired with thinking, he would seat himself at the piano, and play till he, as well as those who heard him, would burst into tears. On the 14th of November, 1825, he sat in his chamber, his youngest child climbing on the back of his chair, and laying her face against her father's. It was only noon, but thinking it was night, Richter said, "It is time to go to rest." He was wheeled into his sleeping apartment, and some flowers laid on the bed beside him. "My beautiful flowers! My lovely flowers!" he said, as he folded his arms, and soon fell asleep. His wife sat beside him, her eyes fixed on the face of the man she loved. About six the doctor arrived. The breath came shorter, the face took on a heavenly expression, and grew cold as marble. The end had come. He was buried by torchlight, the unfinished manuscript of the "Immortality of the Soul" being borne upon his coffin, while the students sung Klopstock's hymn, "Thou shalt arise, my Soul." His more than one hundred volumes and his noble, generous life are his monuments. He said, "I shall die without having seen Switzerland or the ocean, but the ocean of eternity I shall not fail to see."

[204]

LEON GAMBETTA.

On January 6, 1883, Paris presented a sad and imposing spectacle. Her shops were closed; her public buildings and her homes were draped in black. Her streets were solid with hundreds of thousands, all dispirited, and many in tears. A large catafalque covered with black velvet upheld a coffin shrouded with the tricolor. From a vase at each corner rose burning perfume, whose vapor was like sweet incense. Six black horses drew the funeral car, and two hundred thousand persons followed in the procession, many bearing aloft wreaths of flowers, and shouting, "Vive la Republique! Vive la Gambetta!"

The maker of the Republic, the brilliant, eloquent leader of the French people, was dead; dead in the prime of his life at forty-five. The "Figaro" but voiced the feeling of the world when it said, "The Republic has lost its greatest man." America might well mourn him as a friend, for he made her his pattern for his beloved France. The "Pall-Mall Gazette" said, "He will live in French history among the most courageous"; and even Germany[205] courted him as the bravest of the brave, while she breathed freer, saying in the "Berlin Press," "The death of Gambetta delivers the peace of Europe from great danger." The hand that would sometime doubtless have reached out to take back sobbing Alsace and Lorraine was palsied; the voice that swayed the multitude, now with its sweet persuasiveness, and now with its thunder like the rush of a swollen torrent, was hushed; the supreme will that held France like a willing child in its power, had yielded to the inevitable,—death.

LEON GAMBETTA.

Leon Gambetta was born at Cahors, April 2, 1838. His father was an Italian from Genoa, poor, and of good character; his mother, a French woman, singularly hopeful, energetic, and noble. They owned a little bazaar and grocery, and here, Onasie, the wife, day after day helped her husband to earn a comfortable living. When their only son was seven years old, he was sent to a Jesuits' preparatory school at Monfaucon, his parents hoping that he would become a priest. His mother had great pride in him, and faith in his future. She taught him how to read from the "National," a newspaper founded by Thiers, republican in its tendencies. She saw with delight that when very young he would learn the speeches of Thiers and Guizot, which he found in its columns, and declaim them as he roamed alone the narrow streets, and by the quaint old bridges and towers of Cahors. At Monfaucon, he gave his orations before the other children, the mother send[206]ing him the much-prized "National" whenever he obtained good marks, and the Jesuits, whether pleased or not, did not interfere with their boyish republican.

At eight years of age an unfortunate accident happened which bade fair to ruin his hopes. While watching a cutter drill the handle of a knife, the foil broke, and a piece entered the right eye, spoiling the sight. Twenty years afterward, when the left, through sympathy, seemed to be nearly destroyed, a glass eye was inserted, and the remaining one was saved.

When Leon was ten years old, the Revolution of 1848 deposed Louis Philippe, the Orleanist, and Louis Napoleon was made President of the Republic. Perhaps the people ought to have known that no presidency would long satisfy the ambition of a Bonaparte. He at once began to increase his power by winning the Catholic Church to his side. The Jesuits no longer allowed the boy Leon to talk republicanism; they saw that it was doomed. They scolded him, whipped him, took away the "National," and finally expelled him, writing to his parents, "You will never make a priest of him; he has an utterly undisciplinable character."

The father frowned when he returned home, and the neighbors prophesied that he would end his life in the Bastile for holding such radical opinions. The poor mother blamed herself for putting the "National" into his hands, and thus bringing all[207] this trouble upon him. Ah, she wrought better than she knew! But for the "National," and Gambetta's unconquerable love for a republic, France might to-day be the plaything of an emperor.

Meantime Louis Napoleon was putting his friends into office, making tours about the country to win adherents, and securing the army and the police to his side. At seven o'clock, on the morning of December 2, 1851, the famous Coup d'état came, and the unscrupulous President had made himself Emperor. Nearly two hundred and fifty deputies were arrested and imprisoned, and the Republicans who opposed the usurpation were quickly subdued by the army. Then the French were graciously permitted to say, by ballot, whether they were willing to accept the empire. There was, of course, but one judicious way to vote, and that was in the affirmative, and they thus voted.

Joseph Gambetta, the father, saw the political storm which was coming, and fearing for his outspoken son, locked him up in a lyceum at Cahors, till he was seventeen. Here he attracted the notice of his teachers by his fondness for reading, his great memory, and his love of history and politics. At sixteen he had read the Latin authors, and the economical works of Proudhon. When he came home, his father told him that he must now become a grocer, and succeed to the business. He obeyed, but his studious mind had no interest in the work. He recoiled from spending his powers in persuad[208]ing the mayor's wife that a yard of Genoa velvet at twenty francs was cheaper than the same measure of the Lyon's article at thirteen. So tired and sick of the business did he become, that he begged his father to be allowed to keep the accounts, which he did in a neat, delicate hand.

His watchful mother saw that her boy's health was failing. He was restless and miserable. He longed to go to Paris to study law, and then teach in some provincial town. He planned ways of escape from the hated tasks, but he had no money, and no friends in the great city.

But his mother planned to some purpose. She said to M. Menier, the chocolate-maker, "I have a son of great promise, whom I want to send to Paris against his father's will to study law. He is a good lad, and no fool. But my husband, who wants him to continue his business here, will, I know, try to starve him into submission. What I am about to propose is that if I buy your chocolate at the rate you offer it, and buy it outright instead of taking it to sell on commission, will you say nothing if I enter it on the book at a higher price, and you pay the difference to my son?" Menier, interested to have the boy prosper, quickly agreed.

After a time, she called her son aside and, placing a bag of money in his hand, said, "This, my boy, is to pay your way for a year. A trunk full of clothes is ready for you. Try and come home somebody. Start soon, and take care to let nobody[209] suspect you are going away. Do not say good-bye to a single soul. I want to avoid a scene between you and your father."

Ambition welled up again in his heart, and the bright expression came back into his face. The next morning he slipped away, and was soon at Paris. He drove to the Sorbonne, because he had heard that lectures were given there. The cab-driver recommended a cheap hotel close by, and, obtaining a room in the garret, the youth, not yet eighteen, began his studies. He rose early and worked hard, attending lectures at the medical school as well as at the law, buying his books at second-hand shops along the streets. Though poverty often pinched him as to food, and his clothes were poor, he did not mind it, but bent all his energies to his work. His mother wrote how angered the father was at his leaving, and would not allow his name to be mentioned in his presence. Poor Joseph! how limited was his horizon.

Leon's intelligence and originality won the esteem of the professors, and one of them said, "Your father acts stupidly. You have a true vocation. Follow it. But go to the bar, where your voice, which is one in a thousand, will carry you on, study and intelligence aiding. The lecture-room is a narrow theatre. If you like, I will write to your father to tell him what my opinion of you is."

Professor Valette wrote to Joseph Gambetta, "The best investment you ever made would be to[210] spend what money you can afford to divert from your business in helping your son to become an advocate."

The letter caused a sensation in the Gambetta family. The mother took courage and urged the case of her darling child, while her sister, Jenny Massabie, talked ardently for her bright nephew. An allowance was finally made. In two years Leon had mastered the civil, criminal, military, forest, and maritime codes. Too young to be admitted to the bar to plead, for nearly a year he studied Paris, its treasures of art, and its varied life. It opened a new and grand world to him. Accidentally he made the acquaintance of the head usher at the Corps Legislatif, who said to the young student, "You are an excellent fellow, and I shall like to oblige you; so if the debates of the Corps Legislatif interest you, come there and ask for me, and I will find you a corner in the galleries where you can hear and see everything." Here Leon studied parliamentary usage, and saw the repression of thought under an empire. At the Café Procope, once the resort of Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, and other literary celebrities, the young man talked over the speeches he had heard, with his acquaintances, and told what he would do if he were in the House. An improbable thing it seemed that a poor and unknown lad would ever sit in the Corps Legislatif, as one of its members! He organized a club for reading and debating, and was of course made its head. It could not be other than republican in sentiment.[211]

In 1860, at the age of twenty-two, Gambetta was admitted to the bar. The father was greatly opposed to his living in Paris, where he thought there was no chance for a lawyer who had neither money nor influential friends, and urged his returning to Cahors. Again his aunt Jenny, whom he always affectionately called "Tata," took his part. Having an income of five hundred dollars a year, she said to the father, "You do not see how you can help your son in Paris, it may be for long years; but next week I will go with him, and we shall stay together;" and then, turning to her nephew, she added, "And now, my boy, I will give you food and shelter, and you will do the rest by your work."

They took a small house in the Latin Quartier, very plain and comfortless. His first brief came after waiting eighteen months! Grepps, a deputy, being accused of conspiracy against the Government, Gambetta defended him so well that Crémieux, a prominent lawyer, asked him to become his secretary. The case was not reported in the papers, and was therefore known only by a limited circle. For six years the brilliant young scholar was virtually chained to his desk. The only recreation was an occasional gathering of a few newspaper men at his rooms, for whom his aunt cooked the supper, willing and glad to do the work, because she believed he would some day come to renown from his genius.

Finally his hour came. At the Coup d'état, Dr. Baudin, a deputy, for defending the rights of the[212] National Assembly, was shot on a barricade. On All-Soul's Day, 1868, the Republicans, to the number of a thousand, gathered at the grave in the cemetery of Montmartre, to lay flowers upon it and listen to addresses. The Emperor could not but see that such demonstrations would do harm to his throne. Dellschuzes, the leader, was therefore arrested, and chose the unknown lawyer, Gambetta, to defend him. He was a strong radical, and he asked only one favor of his lawyer, that he would "hit hard the Man of December," as those who hated the Coup d'état of December 2, loved to call Louis Napoleon.

Gambetta was equal to the occasion. He likened the Emperor to Catiline, declaring that as a highwayman, he had taken France and felled her senseless. "For seventeen years," he said, "you have been masters of France, and you have never dared to celebrate the Second of December. It is we who take up the anniversary, which you no more dare face than a fear-haunted murderer can his victim's corpse." When finally, overcome with emotion, Gambetta sank into his seat at the close of his speech, the die was cast. He had become famous from one end of France to the other, and the Empire had received a blow from which it never recovered. That night at the clubs, and in the press offices, the name of Leon Gambetta was on every lip.

It is not strange that in the elections of the fol[213]lowing year, he was asked to represent Belleville and Marseilles, and chose the latter, saying to his constituents that he was in "irreconcilable opposition to the Empire." He at once became the leader of a new party, the "Irreconcilables," and Napoleon's downfall became from that hour only a question of time. Gambetta spoke everywhere, and was soon conceded to be the finest orator in France. Worn in body, by the confinement of the secretaryship, and the political campaign, he repaired to Ems for a short time, where he met Bismarck. "He will go far," said the Man of Iron. "I pity the Emperor for having such an irreconcilable enemy." The "National," under Madam Gambetta's teaching in childhood, was bearing fruit.

Napoleon saw that something must be done to make his throne more stable in the hearts of his people. He attempted a more liberal policy, with Émile Ollivier at the head of affairs. But Gambetta was still irreconcilable, saying in one of his great speeches, "We accept you and your Constitutionalism as a bridge to the Republic, but nothing more." At last war was declared against Prussia, as much with the hope of promoting peace at home as to win honors in Germany. Everybody knows the rapid and crushing defeat of the French, and the fall of Napoleon at Sedan, September 2, when he wrote to King William of Prussia, "Not having been able to die at the head of my troops, I can only resign my sword into the hands of your Majesty."[214]

When the news reached Paris on the following day, the people were frantic. Had the Emperor returned, a defeated man, he could never have reached the Tuileries alive. Crowds gathered in the streets, and forced their way into the hall of the Corps Legislatif. Then the eloquent leader of the Republican ranks, scarcely heard of two years before, ascended the Tribune, and declared that, "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and his dynasty have forever ceased to reign over France." With Jules Favre, Ferry, Simon, and others, he hastened to the Hotel de Ville, writing on slips of paper, and throwing out to the multitude, the names of those who were to be the heads of the provisional government. Cool, fearless, heroic, Gambetta stood at the summit of power, and controlled the people. They believed in him because he believed in the Republic.

Meantime the German armies were marching on Paris. The people fortified their city, and prepared to die if need be, in their homes. Before Paris was cut off from the outside world by the siege, part of the governing force retired to Tours. It became necessary for Gambetta, in October, to visit this city for conference, and to accomplish this he started in a balloon, which was just grazed by the Prussian guns as he passed over the lines. It was a hazardous step; but the balloon landed in a forest near Amiens, and he was safe. When he arrived in Tours there was not a soldier in the place; in a month, by superhuman energy, and the most consummate skill and[215] wisdom, he had raised three armies of eight hundred thousand men, provided by loan for their maintenance, and directed their military operations. One of the prominent officers on the German side says, "This colossal energy is the most remarkable event of modern history, and will carry down Gambetta's name to remote posterity."

He was now in reality the Dictator of France, at thirty-two years of age. He gave the fullest liberty to the press, had a pleasant "Bon jour, mon ami" for a workman, no matter how overwhelmed with cares he might be, and a self-possession, a quickness of decision, and an indomitable will that made him a master in every company and on every occasion. He electrified France by his speeches; he renewed her courage, and revived her patriotism. Even after the bloody defeat of Bazaine at Gravelotte, and his strange surrender of one hundred and seventy thousand men at Metz, Gambetta did not despair of France being able, at least, to demand an honorable peace.

But France had grown tired of battles. Paris had endured a siege of four months, and the people were nearly in a starving condition. The Communists, too, were demanding impossible things. Therefore, after seven months of war, the articles of peace were agreed upon, by which France gave to Germany fourteen hundred million dollars, to be paid in three years, and ceded to her the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.[216]

Gambetta could never bring himself to consent to these humiliating conditions, and on the day on which the terms were ratified, he and his colleagues from these two sections of the country, left the assembly together. Just as they were passing out, the venerable Jean Kuss, mayor of Strasburg, staggered up to Gambetta, saying, "Let me grasp your patriot's hand. It is the last time I shall shake it. My heart is broken. Promise to redeem brave Strasburg." He fell to the floor, and died almost immediately. Gambetta retired to Spain, till recalled by the elections of the following July.

He now began again his heroic labors, speaking all through France, teaching the people the true principles of a republic; not communism, not lawlessness, but order, prudence, and self-government. He urged free, obligatory education, and the scattering of books, libraries, and institutes everywhere. When Thiers was made the first President, Gambetta was his most important and truest ally, though the former had called him "a furious fool"; so ready was the Great Republican to forgive harshness.

In 1877 he again saved his beloved Republic. The Monarchists had become restless, and finally displaced Thiers by Marshal MacMahon, a strong Romanist, and a man devoted to the Empire. It seemed evident that another coup d'état was meditated. Gambetta stirred the country to action. He declared that the President must "submit or[217] resign," and for those words he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and a fine of four hundred dollars, which sentence was never executed. MacMahon seeing that the Republic was stronger than he had supposed, soon after resigned his position, and was succeeded by M. Grevy. Gambetta was made President of the Assembly, and doubtless, if he had lived, would have been made President of the Republic.

There were not wanting those who claimed that he was ambitious for the supreme rule; but when death came from the accidental discharge of a pistol, producing a wound in the hand, all calumny was hushed, and France beheld her idol in his true light,—the incarnation of republicanism. Two hours before his death, at his plain home just out of Paris at Ville d'Avray, he said, "I am dying; there is no use in denying it; but I have suffered so much it will be a great deliverance." He longed to last till the New Year, but died five minutes before midnight, Dec. 31, 1882. The following day, fifteen thousand persons called to see the great statesman as he lay upon his single iron bedstead.

Afterward the body lay in state at the Palais Bourbon, the guard standing nearly to their knees in flowers. Over two thousand wreaths were given by friends. Alsace sent a magnificent crown of roses. No grander nor sadder funeral was ever seen in France. Paris was urgent that he be buried in Père la Chaise, but his father would not consent;[218] so the body was carried to Nice to lie beside his mother, who died a year before him, and his devoted aunt, who died five years previously. Every day Joseph Gambetta lays flowers upon the graves of his dear ones.

Circumstances helped to make the great orator, but he also made circumstances. True, his opportunity came at the trial, after the Baudin demonstration, but he was ready for the opportunity. He had studied the history of an empire under the Cæsars, and he knew how republics are made and lost. When in the Corps Legislatif a leader was needed, he was ready, for he had carefully studied men. When at Tours he directed the military, he knew what he was doing, for he was conversant with the details of our civil war. When others were sauntering for pleasure along the Champs Élysees, he had been poring over books in an attic opposite the Sorbonne. He died early, but he accomplished more than most men who live to be twice forty-five. When, in the years to come, imperialists shall strive again to wrest the government from the hands of the people, the name of Leon Gambetta will be an inspiration, a talisman of victory for the Republic.

[219]

(From his Life, published by D. Appleton & Co.)

DAVID GLASGOW FARRAGUT.

The possibilities of American life are strikingly illustrated by the fact that the two names at the head of the army and navy, Grant and Farragut, represent self-made men. The latter was born on a farm near Knoxville, Tennessee, July 5, 1801. His mother, of Scotch descent, was a brave and energetic woman. Once when the father was absent in the Indian wars, the savages came to their plain home and demanded admittance. She barred the door as best she could, and sending her trembling children into the loft, guarded the entrance with an axe. The Indians thought discretion the better part of valor, and stole quietly away.

When David was seven years old, the family having moved to New Orleans, as the father had been appointed sailing master in the navy, the noble mother died of yellow fever, leaving five children, the youngest an infant. This was a most severe blow. Fortunately, soon after, an act of kindness brought its reward. The father of Commodore Porter having died at the Farragut house, the son determined to adopt one of the motherless[220] children, if one was willing to leave his home. Little David was pleased with the uniform, and said promptly that he would go.

Saying good-bye forever to his father, he was taken to Washington, and after a few months spent in school, at the age of nine years and a half, was made a midshipman. And now began a life full of hardship, of adventure, and of brave deeds, which have added lustre to the American navy, and have made the name of Farragut immortal.

His first cruise was along the coast, in the Essex, after the war of 1812 with Great Britain had begun. They had captured the Alert and other prizes, and their ship was crowded with prisoners. One night when the boy lay apparently asleep, the coxswain of the Alert came to his hammock, pistol in hand. David lay motionless till he passed on, and then crept noiselessly to the cabin, and informed Captain Porter. Springing from his cot, he shouted, "Fire! fire!" The seamen rushed on deck, and the mutineers were in irons before they had recovered from their amazement. Evidently the boy had inherited some of his mother's fearlessness.

His second cruise was in the Pacific Ocean, where they encountered a fearful storm going round Cape Horn. An incident occurred at this time which showed the mettle of the lad. Though only twelve, he was ordered by Captain Porter to take a prize vessel to Valparaiso, the captured captain being required to navigate it. When David requested[221] that the "maintopsail be filled away," the captain replied that he would shoot any man who dared to touch a rope without his orders, and then went below for his pistols. David called one of the crew, told him what had happened, and what he wanted done. "Aye, aye, sir!" responded the faithful sailor, as he began to execute the orders. The young midshipman at once sent word to the captain not to come on deck with his pistols unless he wished to go overboard. From that moment the boy was master of the vessel, and admired for his bravery.

The following year,—1814,—while the Essex was off the coast of Chili, she was attacked by the British ships Phœbe and Cherub. The battle lasted for two hours and a half, the Phœbe throwing seven hundred eighteen-pound shots at the Essex.

"I shall never forget," Farragut said years after, "the horrid impression made upon me at the sight of the first man I had ever seen killed. It staggered and sickened me at first; but they soon began to fall so fast that it all appeared like a dream, and produced no effect upon my nerves.... Soon after this some gun-primers were wanted, and I was sent after them. In going below, while I was on the ward-room ladder, the captain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway was struck full in the face by an eighteen-pound shot, and fell back on me. We tumbled down the hatch together. I lay for some moments stunned by the blow, but soon recovered consciousness enough to rush up on deck. The[222] captain seeing me covered with blood, asked if I was wounded; to which I replied, 'I believe not, sir.' 'Then,' said he, 'where are the primers?' This brought me completely to my senses, and I ran below again and carried the primers on deck."

When Porter had been forced to surrender, David went below to help the surgeon in dressing wounds. One brave young man, Lieutenant Cowell, said, "O, Davy, I fear it is all up with me!" He could have been saved, had his leg been amputated an hour sooner; but when it was proposed to drop another patient and attend to him, he said, "No, Doctor, none of that; fair play is a jewel. One man's life is as dear as another's; I would not cheat any poor fellow out of his turn."

Many brave men died, saying, "Don't give her up! Hurrah for liberty!" One young Scotchman, whose leg had been shot off, said to his comrades, "I left my own country and adopted the United States to fight for her. I hope I have this day proved myself worthy of the country of my adoption. I am no longer of any use to you or to her; so good-bye!" saying which he threw himself overboard.

When David was taken a prisoner on board the Phœbe, he could not refrain from tears at his mortification.

"Never mind, my little fellow," said the captain; "it will be your turn next, perhaps."

"I hope so," was the reply.[223]

Soon David's pet pig "Murphy" was brought on board, and he immediately claimed it.

"But," said the English sailor, "you are a prisoner and your pig also."

"We always respect private property," the boy replied, seizing hold of "Murphy"; and after a vigorous fight, the pet was given to its owner.

On returning to Captain Porter's house at Chester, Pa., David was put at school for the summer, under a quaint instructor, one of Napoleon's celebrated Guard, who used no book, but taught the boys about plants and minerals, and how to climb and swim. In the fall he was placed on a receiving-ship, but gladly left the wild set of lads for a cruise in the Mediterranean. Here he had the opportunity of visiting Naples, Pompeii, and other places of interest, but he encountered much that was harsh and trying. Commodore C—— sometimes knocked down his own son, and his son's friend as well,—not a pleasant person to be governed by.

In 1817, Chaplain Folsom of their ship was appointed consul at Tunis. He loved David as a brother, and begged the privilege of keeping him for a time, "because," said he to the commodore, "he is entirely destitute of the aids of fortune and the influence of friends, other than those whom his character may attach to him." For nearly nine months he remained with the chaplain, studying French, Italian, English literature, and mathematics, and developing in manliness and refinement. The[224] Danish consul showed great fondness for the frank, ardent boy, now sixteen, and invited him to his house at Carthage. Failing in his health, a horseback trip toward the interior of the country was recommended, and during the journey he received a sunstroke, and his eyes were permanently weakened. All his life, however, he had some one read to him, and thus mitigate his misfortune.

The time came to go back to duty on the ship, and Chaplain Folsom clasped the big boy to his bosom, fervently kissing him on each cheek, and giving him his parting blessing mingled with his tears. Forty years after, when the young midshipman had become the famous Admiral, he sent a token of respect and affection to his old friend.

For some years, having been appointed acting lieutenant, he cruised in the Gulf of Mexico, gaining knowledge which he was glad to use later, and in the West Indies, where for two years and a half, he says, "I never owned a bed, but lay down to rest wherever I found the most comfortable berth." Sometimes he and his seamen pursued pirates who infested the coast, cutting their way through thornbushes and cactus plants, with their cutlasses; then burning the houses of these robbers, and taking their plunder out of their caves. It was an exciting but wearing life.

After a visit to his old home at New Orleans,—his father had died, and his sister did not recognize him,—he contracted yellow fever, and lay ill for[225] some time in a Washington hospital. Perhaps the sailor was tired of his roving and somewhat lonely life, and now married, at twenty-two, Miss Susan Marchant of Norfolk, Virginia.

For sixteen years she was an invalid, so that he carried her often in his arms like a child. Now he took her to New Haven for treatment, and improved what time he could spare by attending Professor Silliman's lectures at Yale College. Now he conducted a school on a receiving-ship, so as to have her with him. "She bore the sickness with unparalleled resignation and patience," says Farragut in his journal, "affording a beautiful example of calmness and fortitude." One of her friends in Norfolk said, "When Captain Farragut dies, he should have a monument reaching to the skies, made by every wife in the city contributing a stone to it." How the world admires a brave man with a tender heart!

Farragut was now nearly forty years of age; never pushing himself forward, honors had come slowly. Three years later, having been made commandant, he married Miss Virginia Royall, also of Norfolk, Va. At the beginning of the Mexican War, he offered his services to the Government, but from indifference, or the jealousy of officials, he was not called upon. The next twelve years were spent, partly in the Norfolk Navy Yard, giving weekly lectures on gunnery, preparing a book on ordnance regulations, and establishing a navy yard on the Pacific Coast. Whatever he did was done thoroughly[226] and faithfully. When asked by the Navy Department to express a preference about a position, he said, "I have no volition in the matter; your duty is to give me orders, mine to obey.... I have made it the rule of my life to ask no official favors, but to await orders and then obey them."

And now came the turning-point of his life. April 17, 1860, Virginia, by a vote of eighty-eight to fifty-five, seceded from the United States. The next morning, Farragut, then at Norfolk, expressed disapproval of the acts of the convention, and said President Lincoln would be justified in calling for troops after the Southerners had taken forts and arsenals. He was soon informed "that a person with those sentiments could not live in Norfolk."

"Well then, I can live somewhere else," was the calm reply.

Returning home, he announced to his wife that he had determined to "stick to the flag."

"This act of mine may cause years of separation from your family; so you must decide quickly whether you will go North or remain here."

She decided at once to go with him, and, hastily collecting a few articles, departed that evening for Baltimore. That city was in commotion, the Massachusetts troops having had a conflict with the mob. He finally secured passage for New York on a canal-boat, and with limited means rented a cottage at Hastings-on-the-Hudson, for one hundred and fifty dollars a year. He loved the South, and said, "God[227] forbid that I should have to raise my hand against her"; but he was anxious to take part in the war for the Union, and offered his services to that end.

The Government had an important project in hand. The Mississippi River was largely in the control of the Confederacy, and was the great highway for transporting her supplies. New Orleans was the richest city of the South, receiving for shipment at this time ninety-two million dollars worth of cotton, and more than twenty-five million dollars worth of sugar yearly. If this city could be captured, and the river controlled by the North, the South would be seriously crippled. But the lower Mississippi was guarded by the strongest forts, Jackson and St. Philip, which mounted one hundred and fifteen guns, and were garrisoned by fifteen hundred men. Above the forts were fifteen vessels of the Confederate fleet, including the ironclad ram, Manassas, and just below, a heavy iron chain across the river bound together scores of cypress logs thirty feet long, and four or five feet in diameter, thus forming an immense obstruction. Sharpshooters were stationed all along the banks.

Who could be entrusted with such a formidable undertaking as the capture of this stronghold? Who sufficiently daring, skilful, and loyal? Several naval officers were considered, but Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, said, "Farragut is the man." The steam sloop-of-war, Hartford, of nineteen hundred tons burden, and two hundred twenty-five feet[228] long, was made ready as his flag-ship. His instructions were, "The certain capture of the city of New Orleans. The Department and the country require of you success.... If successful, you open the way to the sea for the Great West, never again to be closed. The rebellion will be riven in the centre, and the flag, to which you have been so faithful, will recover its supremacy in every State."

With a grateful heart that he had been thought fitting for this high place, and believing in his ability to win success, at sixty-one years of age he started on his mission, saying, "If I die in the attempt, it will only be what every officer has to expect. He who dies in doing his duty to his country, and at peace with his God, has played the drama of life to the best advantage." He took with him six sloops-of-war, sixteen gunboats, twenty-one schooners, and five other vessels, forty-eight in all, the fleet carrying over two hundred guns.

April 18, 1862, they had all reached their positions and were ready for the struggle. For six days and nights the mortars kept up a constant fire on Fort Jackson, throwing nearly six thousand shells. Many persons were killed, but the fort did not yield. The Confederates sent down the river five fire-rafts, flat-boats filled with dry wood, smeared with tar and turpentine, hoping that these would make havoc among Farragut's ships; but his crews towed them away to shore, or let them drift out to sea.

Farragut now made up his mind to pass the forts[229] at all hazards. It was a dangerous and heroic step. If he won, New Orleans must fall; if he failed—but he must not fail. Two gunboats were sent to cut the chain across the river. All night long the commander watched with intense anxiety the return of the boats, which under a galling fire had succeeded in breaking the chain, and thus making a passage for the fleet.

At half past three o'clock on the morning of April 24, the fleet was ready to start. The Cayuga led off the first division of eight vessels. Both forts opened fire. In ten minutes she had passed beyond St. Philip only to be surrounded by eleven Confederate gunboats. The Varuna came to her relief, but was rammed by two Southern boats, and sunk in fifteen minutes. The Mississippi encountered the enemy's ram, Manassas, riddled her with shot, and set her on fire, so that she drifted below the forts and blew up.

Then the centre division, led by the Hartford, passed into the terrific fire. First she grounded in avoiding a fire-raft; then a Confederate ram pushed a raft against her, setting her on fire; but Farragut gave his orders as calmly as though not in the utmost peril. The flames were extinguished, and she steamed on, doing terrible execution with her shells. Then came the last division, led by the Sciota, and Commander Porter's gunboats. In the darkness, lighted only by the flashes of over two hundred guns, the fleet had cut its way to victory, losing one hundred and eighty-four in killed and wounded.[230]

"Thus," says the son of Farragut, in his admirable biography, "was accomplished a feat in naval warfare which had no precedent, and which is still without a parallel except the one furnished by Farragut himself, two years later, at Mobile. Starting with seventeen wooden vessels, he had passed with all but three of them, against the swift current of a river but half a mile wide, between two powerful earthworks which had long been prepared for him, his course impeded by blazing rafts, and immediately thereafter had met the enemy's fleet of fifteen vessels, two of them ironclads, and either captured or destroyed every one of them. And all this with a loss of but one ship from his squadron."

The following day, he wrote:—

"My dearest wife and boy,—I am so agitated that I can scarcely write, and shall only tell you that it has pleased Almighty God to preserve my life through a fire such as the world has scarcely known. He has permitted me to make a name for my dear boy's inheritance, as well as for my comfort and that of my family."[232]

The next day, at eleven o'clock in the morning, by order of Farragut, "the officers and crews of the fleet return thanks to Almighty God for His great goodness and mercy in permitting us to pass through the events of the last two days with so little loss of life and blood."

April 29, a battalion of two hundred and fifty marines and two howitzers, manned by sailors from the Hartford, marched through the streets of New Orleans, hoisted the Union flag in place of the Confederate on the city hall, and held possession till General Butler arrived with his troops on May 1. After the fall of the city, the forts surrendered to Porter.

From here Farragut went to Vicksburg with sixteen vessels, "the Hartford," he says "like an old hen taking care of her chickens," and passed the batteries with fifteen killed and thirty wounded. Three months later he received the thanks of Congress on parchment for the gallant services of himself and his men, and was made Rear-Admiral. He remained on the river and gulf for some months, doing effective work in sustaining the blockade, and destroying the salt-works along the coast. When the memorable passage of the batteries at Port Hudson was made, where one hundred and thirteen were killed or wounded, the Hartford taking the lead, his idolized boy, Loyall, stood beside him. When urged by the surgeon to let his son go below to help about the wounded, because it was safer, he[233] replied, "No; that will not do. It is true our only child is on board by chance, and he is not in the service; but, being here, he will act as one of my aids, to assist in conveying my orders during the battle, and we will trust in Providence." Neither would the lad listen to the suggestion; for he "wanted to be stationed on deck and see the fight." Farragut soon sent him back to his mother; for he said, "I am too devoted a father to have my son with me in troubles of this kind. The anxieties of a father should not be added to those of a commander."

Every day was full of exciting incident. The admiral needing some despatches taken down the river, his secretary, Mr. Gabaudan, volunteered to bear the message. A small dug-out was covered with twigs, so as to resemble floating trees. At night he lay down in his little craft, with paddle and pistol by his side, and drifted with the current. Once a Confederate boat pulled out into the stream to investigate the somewhat large tree, but returned to report that, "It was only a log." He succeeded in reaching General Banks, who had taken the place of General Butler, and when the fleet returned to New Orleans, he was warmly welcomed on board by his admiring companions.

Farragut now returned to New York for a short time, where all were anxious to meet the Hero of New Orleans, and to see the historic Hartford, which had been struck two hundred and forty times[234] by shot and shell in nineteen months' service. The Union League Club presented him a beautiful sword, the scabbard of gold and silver, and the hilt set in brilliants.

His next point of attack was Mobile Bay. Under cover of the forts, Morgan, Gaines, and Powell, the blockade was constantly broken. A good story is told of the capture of one of these vessels, whose merchant captain was brought before Farragut. He proved to be an old acquaintance, who said he was bound for Matamoras on the Rio Grande! The admiral expressed amazement that he should be three hundred miles out of his course, and said good-naturedly, "I am sorry for you; but we shall have to hold you for your thundering bad navigation!"

And now occurred the most brilliant battle of his career. Aug. 4, 1864, he wrote to his wife,—

"I am going into Mobile Bay in the morning, if God is my leader, as I hope He is, and in Him I place my trust. God bless and preserve you, my darling, and my dear boy, if anything should happen to me.

"Your devoted and affectionate husband, who never for one moment forgot his love, duty, or fidelity to you, his devoted and best of wives."

At half past five on the morning of Aug. 5, fourteen ships and four monitors, headed by the Brooklyn, because she had apparatus for picking up torpedoes, moved into action. Very soon the[235] Tecumseh, the monitor abreast of the Brooklyn, went down with nearly every soul on board, sunk by a torpedo. When the Brooklyn saw this disaster, she began to back.

"What's the trouble?" was shouted through the trumpet.

"Torpedoes."

The supreme moment had come for decision. The grand old admiral offered up this prayer in his heart, "O God, direct me what to do. Shall I go on?" And a voice seemed to answer, "Go on!"

"Go ahead!" he shouted to his captain on the Hartford; "give her all the steam you've got!" And like a thing of life she swept on over the torpedoes to the head of the fleet, where she became the special target of the enemy. Her timbers crashed, and her "wounded came pouring down,—cries never to be forgotten." Twice the brave admiral was lashed to the rigging by his devoted men, lest in his exposed position he fall overboard if struck by a ball. The fleet lost three hundred and thirty-five men, but Farragut gained the day. When all was over, and he looked upon the dead laid out on the port side of his ship, he wept like a child. The prisoners captured in the defences of Mobile were one thousand four hundred and sixty-four, with one hundred and four guns.

On his return to New York he was welcomed with the grandest demonstrations. Crowds gathered at the Battery, a public reception was given him at the[236] Custom House, and fifty thousand dollars with which to buy a house in New York. Congress made him Vice-Admiral. Prominent politicians asked him to become a candidate for the Presidency; but he refused, saying, "I have no ambition for anything but what I am,—an admiral. I have worked hard for three years, have been in eleven fights, and am willing to fight eleven more if necessary, but when I go home I desire peace and comfort."

At Hastings-on-the-Hudson, the streets were arched with the words "New Orleans," "Mobile," "Jackson," "St. Philip," etc. Boston gave him a welcome reception at Faneuil Hall, Oliver Wendell Holmes reading a poem on the occasion. At Cambridge, two hundred Harvard students took his horses from the carriage, and attaching ropes to it, drew him through the streets. On July 25, 1866, the rank of admiral was created by Congress, and Farragut was appointed to the place. Honors, and well-deserved ones, had come at last to the brave midshipman.

The next year, in command of the European squadron, accompanied by Mrs. Farragut, who went by special permission of the President, he visited France, Russia, and other countries.

Napoleon III. welcomed him to the Tuileries; the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, Duke of Edinburgh, and Victor Emmanuel each made him their guest; he dined with the King of Denmark and the King of Greece, and Queen Victoria received him[237] at the Osborne House. Two years later he visited the navy yard on the Pacific Coast, which he had established years before.

He died Aug. 14, 1870, at the age of sixty-nine, universally honored and regretted. Congress appropriated twenty thousand dollars for his statue on Farragut Square, Washington, and the work has been executed by Vinnie Ream Hoxie.

Success was not an accident with the Christian admiral. It was the result of devotion to duty, real bravery, and a life distinguished by purity of character and the highest sense of honor.

[238]

EZRA CORNELL.

In the winter of 1819 might have been seen travelling from New Jersey to De Ruyter in New York, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, some covered emigrant wagons, containing a wife and six children in the first, and household goods and farming utensils in the others. Sometimes the occupants slept in a farmhouse, but usually in their vehicles by a camp-fire in the woods.

For two weeks they journeyed, sometimes through an almost uninhabited wilderness and over wellnigh impassable roads. The mother, with a baby in her arms,—her oldest child, Ezra, a boy of twelve,—must have been worn with this toilsome journey; but patient and cheerful, no word of repining escaped her lips. Elijah Cornell, a frank, noble-hearted Quaker, was going West to make his living as a potter and farmer combined.

Like other pioneers, they made ready their little home among the sterile hills; and there, for twenty years, they struggled to rear a family that grew to eleven children, instead of six. The boys of the family were taught the simple mysteries of pottery-making early in life, and thus formed habits of in[239]dustry, while their limited income necessarily made them economical.

EZRA CORNELL.
(From his Biography, by Gov. A. B. Cornell.)

The eldest boy, Ezra,—now sixteen,—was growing anxious to be something more than a potter. He was nearly six feet tall, thin, muscular, and full of energy. He was studious, reading every book within his reach, and desirous of an education, which there was no money to procure. Determined, if possible, to go to the common school one more winter, he and his brother, fifteen years of age, chopped and cleared four acres of heavy beech and maple woodland, plowed, and planted it to corn, and thus made themselves able to finish their education.

Soon after the father engaged a carpenter to build a large pottery. Ezra assisted, and began to think he should like the trade of a carpenter. When the structure was completed, taking his younger brother to the forest, they cut timber, and erected for their father's family a two-story dwelling, the best in the town. Without any supervision, Ezra had made the frame so that every part fitted in its exact place. This, for a boy of seventeen, became the wonder of the neighborhood. Master-builders prophesied a rare carpenter for posterity.

It was evident that the quiet town of De Ruyter could not satisfy such a lad, and at eighteen he started away from his affectionate mother to try the world. She could trust him because he used neither liquor nor tobacco; was truthful, honest, and willing to work hard. If a young man desires to get his[240] living easily, or is very particular as to the kind of work he undertakes, his future success may well be doubted. Ezra found no carpentering, as he had hoped; but in the vicinity of Syracuse, then a small village, he engaged himself for two years, to get out timber for shipment to New York by canal. The following year he worked in a shop making wool-carding machinery, and being now only twenty miles from De Ruyter, he walked home every Saturday evening and back Monday morning. Twenty miles before a day's work would have been too long for most boys. There was no danger that Ezra would grow tender, either of foot or hand, through luxury.

Hearing that there was a good outlook for business at Ithaca, he walked forty miles thither, with a spare suit of clothes, and a few dollars in his pocket. Who would have said then that this unknown lad, with no capital save courage and ambition, would make the name of Ithaca, joined with that of Cornell, known round the world?

He obtained work as a carpenter, and was soon offered the position of keeping a cotton-mill in repair. This he gladly accepted, using what knowledge he had gained in the machine-shop. A year later, Colonel Beebe, proprietor of a flouring and plaster mill, asked young Cornell to repair his works; and so pleased was he with the mechanic that he kept him for twelve years, making him his confidential agent and general manager. When a tunnel was needed to bring water from Fall Creek,[241] Cornell was made engineer-in-chief of the enterprise; when labor-saving machinery was required, the head of the enterprising young man invented it.

Meantime he had married, at the age of twenty-four, an intelligent girl, Mary Ann Wood, four years his junior, the second in a family of eleven children. As the young lady was not a Quaker, Cornell was formally excommunicated from his church for taking a person outside the fold. He was offered forgiveness and re-instatement if he would apologize and show proper regret, which he refused to do, feeling that the church had no right to decide upon the religious convictions of the person he loved.

He soon purchased a few acres of land near the mill, and erected a simple home for his bride. Here they lived for twenty years, and here their nine children were born, four of whom died early. It was happiness to go daily to his work, receive his comfortable salary, and see his children grow up around him with their needed wants supplied. But the comfortable salary came to an end. Colonel Beebe withdrew from active business, the mill was turned into a woollen factory, and Cornell was thrown out of work. Business depression was great all over the country. In vain for months he sought for employment. The helpless family must be supported; at the age of thirty-six matters began to look serious.

Finally, he went to Maine in the endeavor to sell[242] the patent right of a new plow, recently invented. He visited the "Maine Farmer," and met the editor, Hon. F. O. J. Smith, a member of Congress, who became much interested. He tried also to sell the patent in the State of Georgia, walking usually forty miles a day, but with little success. Again he started for Maine, walking from Ithaca to Albany, one hundred and sixty miles in four days, then, going by rail to Boston, and once more on foot to Portland. He was fond of walking, and used to say, "Nature can in no way be so rationally enjoyed, as through the opportunities afforded the pedestrian."

Entering the office of the "Maine Farmer" again, he found "Mr. Smith on his knees in the middle of his office floor, with a piece of chalk in his hand, the mould-board of a plow lying by his side, and with various chalk-marks on the floor before him."

Mr. Smith arose and grasped him cordially by the hand, saying, "Cornell, you are the very man I want to see. I have been trying to explain to neighbor Robertson a machine that I want made, but I cannot make him understand it. I want a kind of scraper, or machine for digging a ditch for laying our telegraph pipe under ground. Congress has appropriated thirty thousand dollars to enable Professor Morse to test the practicability of his telegraph on a line between Washington and Baltimore. I have taken the contract to lay the pipe at one hundred dollars a mile."[243]

Mr. Cornell's ready brain soon saw what kind of a machine was needed, and he sketched a rough diagram of it.

Without much hope of success, Smith said, "You make a machine, and I will pay the expense whether successful or not; if successful, I will pay you fifty dollars, or one hundred, or any price you may name."

Mr. Cornell at once went to a machine shop, made the patterns for the necessary castings, and then the wood-work for the frame. The trial of the new machine was made at Mr. Smith's homestead, four yoke of oxen being attached to the strange-looking plow, which cut a furrow two and one-half feet deep, and one and one-fourth inches wide, and laid the pipe in the bottom at the same time. It worked successfully, and Mr. Cornell was asked to take charge of the laying of the pipe between Baltimore and Washington. He accepted, for he believed the telegraph would become a vast instrument in civilization. The loss of a position at the Beebe mill proved the opening to a broader world; his energy had found a field as wide as the universe.

It was decided to put the first pipe between the double tracks of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. With an eight-mule team, horses being afraid of the engines, nearly a mile of pipe was laid each day. Soon Professor Morse came hurriedly, and calling Mr. Cornell aside, said, "Can you not contrive to stop this work for a few days in some manner, so[244] the papers will not know that it has been purposely interrupted? I want to make some experiments before any more pipe is laid."

Cornell had been expecting this, for he knew that the pipes were defective, though other officials would not permit Morse to be told of it. Replying that he would do as requested, he stepped back to his plow, and said, "Hurrah, boys, whip up your mules; we must lay another length of pipe before we quit to-night." Then he purposely let the machine catch against a point of rock, making it a perfect wreck.

Mr. Cornell began now, at Professor Morse's request, to experiment in the basement of the Patent Office at Washington, studying what books he could obtain on electrical science. It was soon found to be wise to put the wires upon poles, as Cooke and Wheatstone had done in England. The line between Baltimore and Washington proved successful despite its crudities; but what should be done with it? Government did not wish to buy it, and private capital was afraid to touch it.

How could the world be made interested? Mr. Cornell, who had now put his heart into the telegraph, built a line from Milk Street, Boston, to School Street, that the people might see for themselves this new agent which was to enable nations to talk with each other; but nobody cared to waste a moment in looking at it. They were more interested in selling a piece of cloth, or discovering the[245] merits of a dead philosopher. Not delighted with the indifference of Boston, he moved his apparatus to New York in 1844, and constructed a line from opposite Trinity Church on Broadway, to near the site of the present Metropolitan Hotel; but New York was even more indifferent than Boston.

The "Tribune," "Express," and some other newspapers gave cordial notices of the new enterprise, but the "Herald" said plainly that it was opposed to the telegraph, because now it could beat its rivals by special couriers; but if the telegraph came into use, then all would have an equal opportunity to obtain news! During the whole winter Mr. Cornell labored seemingly to no purpose, to introduce what Morse had so grandly discovered. A man of less will and less self-reliance would have become discouraged. He met the fate of all reformers or inventors. Nobody wants a thing till it is a great success, and then everybody wants it at the same moment.

Finally, by the hardest struggle, the Magnetic Telegraph Company was formed for erecting a line between New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and Mr. Cornell for superintending it was to receive one thousand dollars per annum. So earnest was he for the matter that he subscribed five hundred dollars to the stock of the company, paying for it out of his meagre salary! Such men,—willing to live on the merest pittance that a measure of great practical good may succeed,—such men deserve to win.[246]

The next line was between New York and Albany, and Mr. Cornell, being the contractor, received his first return for these years of labor six thousand dollars in profits. The tide had turned; and though afterward various obstacles had to be met and overcome, the poor mechanic had started on the high-road to fame and fortune. He next organized the Erie and Michigan Telegraph Company, supposing that the Western cities thus benefited would subscribe to the stock; but even in Chicago, which now pays three thousand dollars daily for telegraphic service, it was impossible to raise a dollar.

A year later, the New York and Erie telegraph line was constructed through the southern part of New York State. Mr. Cornell, believing most heartily in the project, obligated himself heavily, and the result proved his far-sightedness. But now ruinous competition set in. Those who had been unwilling to help at first were anxious to share profits. To save all from bankruptcy in the cutting of rates, Mr. Cornell and a few others consolidated the various interests in the Western Union Telegraph Company, now grown so large that it has nearly five hundred thousand miles of wire, employs twenty thousand persons, sends over forty-one million messages yearly, and makes over seven and one-half million dollars profits.

For more than fifteen years he was the largest stockholder in the company; it was not strange therefore, that middle life found Ezra Cornell a mil[247]lionnaire. This was better than making pottery in the little town of De Ruyter. It had taken work, however, to make this fortune. While others sauntered and enjoyed life at leisure, he was working early and late, away from his family most of the time for twelve years.

In 1857, when fifty years of age, he purchased three hundred acres near Ithaca, planted orchards, bought fine cattle and horses, and moved his family thither. He was made president of the County Agricultural Society, and in 1862 was chosen to represent the State Agricultural Society at the International Exposition in London. Taking his wife with him, they travelled in Great Britain and on the Continent, enjoying a few months of recreation, for the first time since, when a youth, thirty years before, he had walked into Ithaca.

During the war he gave money and sympathy freely, being often at the front, in hospitals, and on battle-fields, caring for the wounded and their families, and aiding those whom the war had left maimed or impoverished. For six years he served acceptably in the State Legislature. Self-reliant, calm, unselfish, simple in dress and manner, he was, alike the companion of distinguished scholars, and the advocate of the people.

The great question now before his mind was how to spend his fortune most wisely. He recalled the days when he cleared four acres of timber land, that he might have three months of schooling. He[248] had regretted all his life his lack of a college education. He determined therefore to build "an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." Preparatory to this he built Cornell Library, costing sixty-one thousand dollars. A workman, losing one of his horses by accident in the construction of the edifice, was called upon by the philanthropist, who, after inquiring the value of the animal, drew a check and handed it to the man, remarking, with a kind smile, "I presume I can better than you afford to lose the horse." A man with money enough to build libraries does not always remember a laborer!

Mr. Cornell's first gift toward his university was two hundred acres of his cherished farm, and five hundred thousand dollars in money. The institution was formally opened in 1868, Hon. Andrew D. White, a distinguished graduate of Yale and of the University of Berlin, being chosen president. Soon over four hundred students gathered from over twenty-seven States. Mr. Cornell's gifts afterward, including his saving the Land Grant Fund from depreciation, amounted to over three million dollars. A wonderful present from a self-made mechanic! Other men have followed his illustrious example. Henry W. Sage has given three hundred thousand dollars for the building of Sage College for women, and the extensive conservatories of the Botanical Department. Hiram Sibley, of Rochester, has given fifty thousand dollars for the College of Mechanic[249] Arts, and John McGraw, one hundred thousand for the library and museum. Cornell University is now one of the most liberally endowed institutions in the country, and has already sent out over one thousand graduates.

Mr. Cornell did everything to enrich and develop his own town. He brought manufactories of glass and iron into her midst, held the presidency of the First National Bank for a dozen years, made her as far as possible a railroad centre, and gave generously to her churches of whatever denomination. The first question asked in any project was, "Have you seen Ezra Cornell? He will take hold of the work; and if he is for you, no one will be against you, and success is assured, if success be possible."

Dec. 9, 1874, at the age of sixty-seven, scarcely able to stand, he arose from his bed and was dressed that he might attend to some unfinished business. Shortly after noon, it was finished by an unseen hand. His body was carried to Library Hall, and there, the Cornell Cadets standing as guard of honor, thousands looked upon the renowned giver. The day of the funeral, public and private buildings were draped, shops were closed, and the streets filled by a saddened throng. The casket was borne into the cemetery between lines of students, who owed to his generosity their royal opportunities for scholarship. Various societies in various cities passed resolutions of respect and honor for the dead.[250]

Froude, the English historian, well said of him, "There is something I admire even more than the university, and that is the quiet, unpretending man by whom the university was founded. We have had such men in old times, and there are men in England who make great fortunes and who make claim to great munificence, but who manifest their greatness in buying great estates and building castles for the founding of peerages to be handed down from father to son. Mr. Cornell has sought for immortality, and the perpetuity of his name among the people of a free nation. There stands his great university, built upon a rock, built of stone, as solid as a rock, to endure while the American nation endures. When the herald's parchment shall have crumbled into dust, and the antiquarians are searching among the tombstones for the records of these departed families, Mr. Cornell's name will be still fresh and green through generation after generation."

Overlooking Ithaca and Cayuga Lake stands his home, a beautiful Gothic villa in stone, finished a year after his death. His motto, the motto of his life, is carved over the principal entrance, "True and Firm."

[251]

(From Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia).

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SHERIDAN.

It is sometimes said that circumstances make the man; but there must be something in the man, or circumstances, however favorable, cannot develop it. A poor lad, born of Irish parents in the little western town of Somerset, Ohio, working at twenty-four dollars a year, would never have come to the lieutenant-generalship of the United States, unless there was something noteworthy in the lad himself.

Philip Henry Sheridan, a generous, active boy, after having studied arithmetic, geography, and spelling at the village school, began to work in a country store in 1843, at the early age of twelve, earning fifty cents a week, fortunately, still keeping his home with his mother. He was fond of books, especially of military history and biography; and when he read of battles, he had dreams of one day being a great soldier. Probably the keeper of the store where Philip worked, and his boyish companions, thought these dreams useless air-castles.

After some months, quickness and attention to business won a better position for him, where he obtained one dollar and a half a week. So useful[252] had he become, that at seventeen he acted as bookkeeper and manager of quite a business for the munificent wages of three dollars a week.

He had not forgotten his soldier ambition, and applied to the member of Congress from his county, Perry, for appointment to West Point. Hon. Thomas Ritchey was pleased with the boy's determination and energy, and though most of these places were given to those whose fathers had served in the Mexican War, Philip was not forgotten. He took a preliminary examination in the common branches, and much to his surprise, received the appointment. Feeling greatly his need of more knowledge, his room-mate, Henry W. Slocum, afterward a major-general, assisted him in algebra and geometry. The two boys would hang blankets at the windows of their room, and study after the usual limit for the putting out of lights and retiring.

Graduating in 1853, he was made second lieutenant in the United States Infantry, and assigned to Fort Duncan on the western boundary of Texas, which at that time seemed wellnigh out of the world. Here he came much in contact with the Apache and Comanche Indians, warlike and independent tribes.

One day, as Sheridan was outside the fort with two other men, a band of Indians swooped down upon them. The chief jumped from his horse to seize his prisoners, when Sheridan instantly sprang upon the animal's back, and galloped to Fort Dun[253]can. Hastily summoning his troops, he rushed back to save his two friends. The enraged chief sprang toward him, when a ball from Sheridan's rifle laid him dead upon the ground. His ready thought had saved his own life and that of his friends.

Two years later he was made first lieutenant, and sent to Oregon as escort to an expedition surveying for a branch of the Pacific Railway. The region was wild and almost unknown, yet beautiful and full of interest. This life must have seemed inspiring compared with the quiet of the Somerset store.

Chosen very soon to take charge of an Indian campaign, his fearlessness, his quick decision and cautiousness as well, made him a valuable leader. The Indians could endure hardships; so could Sheridan. Sometimes he carried his food for two weeks in his blanket, slung over his shoulder, and made the ground his bed at night. The Indians could scale rocks and mountains; so could the young officer.

A severe encounter took place at the Cascades, on the Columbia River, April 28, 1856, where, by getting in the rear of the Indians, he completely vanquished them. For this strategy, he was especially commended by Lieutenant-General Scott. However, he won the confidence of the Indian tribes for probity and honesty in his dealings with them.

When the Civil War began, he was eager to help the cause of the Union, and in 1861 was made cap[254]tain and chief quartermaster in south-western Missouri, on the staff of Major-General Curtis. He was quiet and unassuming, accurate in business matters, and thoroughly courteous. Perhaps now that he had learned more of army life by nine and a half years of service, he was less sanguine of high renown than in his boyish days; for he told a friend that "he was the sixty-fourth captain on the list, and with the chances of war, thought he might soon be major."

It required executive ability to provide for the subsistence of a great army, but Sheridan organized his depots of supplies and transportation trains with economy and wisdom, for the brave men who fought under Sigel. With a high sense of honor, Sheridan objected to the taking of any private property from the enemy, for self-aggrandizement, as was the case with some officers, and asked to be relieved from his present position.

Fortunately he was appointed on the staff of General Halleck in Tennessee, a man who soon learned the faithfulness and ability of his captain; and when the Governor of Michigan asked for a good colonel for the Second Michigan Cavalry, Sheridan was chosen. After sharing in several engagements around Corinth, he was attacked July 1, 1862, at Booneville, by a force of nine regiments, numbering nearly five thousand men. He had but two regiments! What could he do? Selecting ninety of his best men, armed with guns and sabres,[255] he sent them four miles around a curve to attack the enemy's rear, and promised to attack at the same time in front. When the moment came, he rushed upon the foe as though he had an immense army at his back, while the handful of men in the rear charged with drawn sabres. The Confederates were thrown into confusion, and, panic-stricken, rushed from the field, leaving guns, knapsacks, and coats behind them. Sheridan chased them for twenty miles.

This deed of valor won the admiration of General Grant, who commended him to the War Department for promotion. He was at once made brigadier-general. Perhaps the boyish dreams of being a great soldier would not turn out to be air-castles after all. Men love to fight under a man who knows what to do in an emergency, and Sheridan's men, who called him "Little Phil," had the greatest faith in him.

In the fall, he was needed to defend Louisville against General Bragg. This Confederate officer had been told that he would find recruits and supplies in abundance if he would come to Kentucky. He came therefore, bringing arms for twenty thousand men, but was greatly disappointed to find that not half that number were willing to cast in their lot with the Secessionists. General Buell, of the Union army, received, on the contrary, over twenty thousand new soldiers here. Bragg prepared to leave the State, sending his provision train ahead, and[256] made a stand at Perryville, Kentucky. Here Sheridan played "a distinguished part, holding the key of the Union position, and resisting the onsets of the enemy again and again, with great bravery and skill, driving them at last from the open ground in front by a bayonet charge. The loss in Sheridan's division in killed and wounded was over four hundred, but his generalship had saved the army from defeat."

Bragg determined now to make one great effort to hold Tennessee, and Dec. 31, 1862, gave battle at Stone River, near Murfreesboro'. General Rosecrans had succeeded Buell as commander of the Army of the Cumberland. Being a Romanist, high mass was celebrated in his tent just before the battle, the officers, booted and spurred, standing outside with heads uncovered. The conflict began on the right wing, the enemy advancing six lines deep. Our troops were mowed down as by a scythe. Sheridan sustained four attacks of the enemy, and four times repulsed them, swinging his hat or his sword, as he rode among his men, and changing his front under fire, till, his ammunition exhausted, he brought out his shattered forces in close column, with colors flying. Pointing sadly to them, he said to Rosecrans, "Here is all that are left, General. My loss is seventeen hundred and ninety-six,—my three brigade commanders killed, and sixty-nine other officers; in all seventy-two officers killed and wounded." The men said proudly, "We came out[257] of the battle with compact ranks and empty cartridge-boxes!"

Even after this Sheridan recaptured two pieces of artillery, and routed the same men who had driven him. For noble conduct on the field he was made major-general of volunteers.

General Rosecrans says of him in his official report, "At Stone River he won universal admiration. Upon being flanked and compelled to retire, he withdrew his command more than a mile, under a terrible fire, in remarkable order, at the same time inflicting the severest punishment upon the foe. The constancy and steadfastness of his troops on the 31st of December enabled the reserve to reach the right of our army in time to turn the tide of battle, and changed a threatened rout into a victory."

General Rosecrans showed himself dauntless in courage. When a shell took off the head of his faithful staff-officer, Garesché, riding by his side, to whom he was most tenderly attached, he only said, "I am very sorry; we cannot help it. This battle must be won." Dashing up to a regiment lying on the ground waiting to be called into action, he said, while shot and shell were whizzing furiously around him, "Men, do you wish to know how to be safe? Shoot low. But do you wish to know how to be safest of all? Give them a blizzard and then charge with cold steel! Forward, men, and show what you are made of!"[258]

After the day's bloody battle, the troops lay all night on the cold ground where they had fought. "When," says the heroic General Rousseau, "I saw them parch corn over a few little coals into which they were permitted to blow a spark of life; when they carved steak from the loins of a horse which had been killed in battle, and ate, not simply without murmuring, but made merry over their distress, tears involuntarily rolled from my eyes."

At midnight it rained upon the soldiers, and the fields became masses of mud; yet before daylight they stood at their guns. "On the third day," says Rosecrans, "the firing was terrific and the havoc terrible. The enemy retreated more rapidly than they had advanced. In forty minutes they lost two thousand men." All that night the Federals worked to entrench the front of the army. Saturday hundreds of wounded lay in the mud and rain, as the enemy had destroyed so many of our hospital tents. On Sunday morning it was found that the Confederates had departed, leaving twenty-five hundred of their wounded in Murfreesboro' for us to take care of. Burial parties were now sent out to inter the dead. The Union loss in killed and wounded was eight thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight; the enemy's loss ten thousand one hundred and twenty-five.

Sheridan's next heavy fighting was at Chickamauga. The battle was begun by Bragg on Sept. 19, 1863. The right of our army had been broken to[259] pieces, but General Thomas, the idol of his men, stood on the left like a rock, Sheridan assisting, and refused to be driven from the field. General Henry M. Cist, in his "Army of the Cumberland" says, "There is nothing finer in history than Thomas at Chickamauga." Sheridan lost over one-third of his four thousand men and ninety-six officers. The Federal loss was over sixteen thousand; the Confederate, over twenty thousand.

There were heroic deeds on this as on every battle-field. When a division of the Reserve Corps—brave men they were, too—wavered under the storm of lead, General James B. Steedman rode up, and taking the flag from the color-bearer, cried out, "Go back, boys, go back, but the Flag can't go with you!" and dashed into the fight. The men rallied, closed their column, and fought bravely to the death. Even the drummer-boy, Johnny Clem, from Newark, Ohio, ten years old, near the close of the battle, when one of Longstreet's colonels rode up, and with an oath commanded him to surrender, sent a bullet through the officer's heart. Rosecrans, made him a sergeant, and the daughter of Secretary Chase gave him a silver medal.

Two months later, the battle of Chattanooga redeemed the defeat of Chickamauga. Near the town rises Lookout Mountain, abrupt, rocky cliffs twenty-four hundred feet above the level of the sea, and Missionary Ridge, both of which were held by the enemy. On Nov. 24, Lookout was stormed and[260] carried by General Hooker in the "Battle above the Clouds." On the following day Missionary Ridge was to be assaulted. Sheridan held the extreme left for General Thomas. Before him was a wood, then an open plain, several hundred yards to the enemy's rifle-pits; and then beyond, five hundred yards covered with rocks and fallen timber to the crest, where were Bragg's heaviest breastworks. At three o'clock in the afternoon the signal to advance—six guns fired at intervals of two seconds—was given. As Sheridan shouted, "Remember Chickamauga!" the men dashed over the plain at double-quick, their glittering bayonets ready for deadly work. Says Benjamin F. Taylor, who was an eye-witness, "Never halting, never faltering, they charged up to the first rifle-pits with a cheer, forked out the rebels with their bayonets, and lay there panting for breath. If the thunder of guns had been terrible, it was now growing sublime. It was rifles and musketry; it was grape and canister; it was shell and shrapnel. Mission Ridge was volcanic; a thousand torrents of red poured over its brink and rushed together to its base.

"They dash out a little way, and then slacken; they creep up, hand over hand, loading and firing, and wavering and halting, from the first line of works to the second; they burst into a charge with a cheer, and go over it. Sheets of flame baptize them; plunging shot tear away comrades on left and right; it is no longer shoulder to shoulder; it is God[261] for us all! Under tree-trunks, among rocks, stumbling over the dead, struggling with the living, facing the steady fire of eight thousand infantry, they wrestle with the Ridge.... Things are growing desperate up aloft; the rebels tumble rocks upon the rising line; they light the fusees and roll shells down the steep; they load the guns with handfuls of cartridges in their haste; and as if there were powder in the word, they shout 'Chickamauga' down upon the mounters. But it would not all do, and just as the sun, weary of the scene, was sinking out of sight, with magnificent bursts all along the line, the advance surged over the crest, and in a minute those flags fluttered along the fringe where fifty rebel guns were, kennelled.... Men flung themselves exhausted upon the ground. They laughed and wept, shook hands, embraced; turned round, and did all four over again. It was as wild as a carnival."

Grant had given the order for taking the first line of rifle-pits only, but the men, first one regiment and then another, swept up the hill, determined to be the first to plant the colors there. "When I saw those flags go up," said Sheridan afterward, "I knew we should carry the ridge, and I took the responsibility." Sheridan's horse was shot under him, after which he led the assault on foot. Over twelve hundred men made Missionary Ridge sacred to liberty by their blood.

All seemed heroes on that day. One poor fellow,[262] with his shoulder shattered, lay beside a rock. Two comrades halted to bear him to the rear, when he said, "Don't stop for me; I'm of no account; for GOD'S sake, push right up with the boys!" and on they went, to help scale the mountain.

When the men were seen going up the hill, Grant asked by whose orders that was done? "It is all right if it turns out all right," he said; "but if not, some one will suffer." But it turned out all right, and Grant knew thereafter how fully he could trust Sheridan.

The following spring Sheridan was placed by Grant in command of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, numbering nearly twelve thousand men. Here he was to add to his fame in the great battles of the Shenandoah Valley. From May to August Sheridan lost over five thousand men in killed and wounded, in smaller battles as he protected Grant's flank while he moved his forces to the James River, or in cutting off Lee's supplies. Meantime General Early had been spreading terror by his attempt to take Washington, thus hoping also to withdraw Grant's attention from Lee at Richmond.

The time had come for decisive action. Grant's orders were, "Put yourself south of the enemy and follow him to the death. I feel every confidence that you will do the best, and will leave you as far as possible to act on your own judgment, and not embarrass you with orders and instructions." About the middle of September Grant visited Sheri[263]dan with a plan of battle for him in his pocket, but he said afterward, "I saw that there were but two words of instruction necessary, 'Go in.' The result was such that I have never since deemed it necessary to visit General Sheridan before giving him orders."

The battle of Opequan was fought Sept. 19, 1864, Early being completely routed and losing about four thousand men, five pieces of artillery, and nine army flags, with an equal loss of men by the Federals. The fight was a bitter one from morning till evening, a regiment like the One Hundred and Fourteenth New York going into the battle with one hundred and eighty men, and coming out with forty, their dead piled one above another! Sheridan at first stood a little to the rear, so that he might calmly direct the battle; but at last, swinging his sword, and exclaiming, "I can't stand this!" he rode into the conflict. The next day he telegraphed to Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, "We have just sent them whirling through Winchester, and we are after them to-morrow. This army behaved splendidly."

This battle quickened the hope and courage of the North, who begun to see the end of the devastating war. "Whirling through Winchester" was reported all over the land. Abraham Lincoln telegraphed, "Have just heard of your great victory. God bless you all, officers and men! Strongly inclined to come up and see you." Grant ordered[264] each of his two Richmond armies to fire a salute of one hundred guns.

The next day Sheridan passed on after Early, and gave battle at Fisher's Hill, the Confederates losing sixteen guns and eleven hundred prisoners, besides killed and wounded. Many of these belonged to Stonewall Jackson's corps, and were the flower of the Southern army. "Keep on," said Grant, "and your good work will cause the fall of Richmond." Secretary Stanton ordered one hundred guns to be fired by various generals, fifteen hundred guns in all, for Fisher's Hill. Early was now so thoroughly beaten, that the Richmond mob wrote on the guns forwarded to him by the South the satirical sentence, "General Sheridan, care of General Early!" Grant's orders were now to lay waste the valley, so that Lee might have no base of supplies. Over two thousand barns filled with grain, over seventy mills, besides bridges and railroads were burned, and seven thousand cattle and sheep appropriated by the Union army. Such destruction seemed pitiful, but if the war was thereby shortened, as it doubtless was, then the saving of bloodshed was a blessing.

Oct. 15 Sheridan was summoned to Washington for consultation. Early, learning his absence, and having been reinforced by twelve thousand troops, decided at once to give battle at Cedar Creek. His army marched at midnight, canteens being left in camp, lest they make a noise. At daybreak, Oct. 19, with the well-known "rebel[265] yell" the enemy rushed upon the sleeping camps of the Union army. Nearly a thousand of our men were taken prisoners, and eighteen guns. A panic ensued, and in utter confusion, though there was some brave fighting, our troops fell back to the rear. Sheridan, on his way from Washington, had slept at Winchester that night, twenty miles away. At nine o'clock he rode out of the town on his splendid black horse, unconscious of danger to his army. Soon the sound of battle was heard, and not a mile away he met the fugitives. He at once ordered some troops to stop the stragglers, and rushed on to the front as swiftly as his foaming steed could carry him, swinging his hat, and shouting, "Face the other way, boys! face the other way! If I had been here, boys, this never should have happened." Meeting a colonel who said, "The army is whipped," he replied, "You are, but the army isn't!"

Rude breastworks of stones, rocks, and trees were thrown up. Then came desperate fighting, and then the triumphant charge. The first line was carried, and then the second, Sheridan leading a brigade in person. Early's army was thoroughly routed. The captured guns were all retaken, besides twenty-four pieces of artillery and sixteen hundred prisoners. Early reported eighteen hundred killed and wounded.

Again the whole North rejoiced over this victory. Sheridan was made a major-general in the regular[266] army "for the personal gallantry, military skill and just confidence in the courage and gallantry of your troops displayed by you on the 19th day of October at Cedar Run," said Lincoln, "whereby, under the blessing of Providence, your routed army was reorganized, a great national disaster averted, and a brilliant victory achieved over the rebels for the third time in pitched battle within thirty days." General Grant wrote from City Point, "Turning what bid fair to be a disaster into a glorious victory stamps Sheridan what I always thought him, one of the ablest of generals."

Well wrote Thomas Buchanan Read in that immortal poem, "Sheridan's Ride":—

The noble animal died in Chicago, October, 1878.

"In eleven weeks," says General Adam Badeau, "Sheridan had taken thirteen thousand prisoners, forty-nine battle flags, and sixty guns, besides recapturing eighteen cannon at Cedar Creek. He must besides have killed and wounded at least nine[267] thousand men, so that he destroyed for the enemy twenty-two thousand soldiers."

And now the only work remaining was to join Grant at Richmond in his capture of Lee. He had passed the winter near Winchester, and now having crossed the James River, April 1, 1865, was attacked by General Pickett at Five Forks. After a severe engagement about five thousand prisoners were taken by Sheridan, with thirteen colors and six guns. His magnetic influence over his men is shown by an incident narrated by General Badeau. "At the battle of Five Forks, a soldier, wounded under his eyes, stumbled and was falling to the rear, but Sheridan cried, 'Never mind, my man; there's no harm done!' and the soldier went on with a bullet in his brain, till he dropped dead on the field."

From here he pushed on to Appomattox Court House, where he headed Lee's army, and waited for Grant to come up. Richmond had surrendered to Grant on the morning of April 3. On the 7th of April Grant wrote to Lee, "The result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking you to surrender that portion of the Confederate States Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia." Lee replied, "Though not entertaining[268] the opinion you express on the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender." The reply was the only one that could be given. "The terms upon which peace can be had are well understood. By the South laying down their arms they will hasten that most desirable event, save thousands of human lives, and hundreds of millions of property not yet destroyed."

At one o'clock, April 9, 1865, the two able generals met, and at four it was announced that the Army of Northern Virginia, with over twenty-eight thousand men, had surrendered to the Army of the Potomac. Memorable day! that brought peace to a nation tired of the horrors of war. In July, Sheridan assumed command of the Military Division of the Gulf. Ten years later, June 3, 1875, when he was forty-four years old, he married Miss Irene Rucker, the daughter of General D. H. Rucker, for years his friend. She is a fine linguist, and a charming woman. Their home in Chicago has many souvenirs of war times, and tokens of appreciation from those who realize General Sheridan's great services to his country.

He was made Lieutenant-General, March 4, 1869, and when General Sherman retired from the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Nov. 1,[269] 1883, Sheridan moved to Washington, to take his place. The office of "Lieutenant-General" expires with General Sheridan, he being the last of our three great and famous generals,—Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. In this latter city he has a home purchased by thirty-one of his leading friends from Chicago. He is devoted to his wife and children, honest, upright, and manly, and deserves the honors he has won.

General Sheridan was taken ill of heart disease about the middle of May, 1888. After three months, he died at Nonquitt, Mass., near the ocean, at twenty minutes past ten on the evening of August 5, 1888. He left a wife and four children, a girl of eight, a boy of six, and twin daughters of four. After lying in state at Washington, he was buried with military honors at Arlington Heights, on Saturday, August 11, in the midst of universal sorrow.

[270]

THOMAS COLE.

Four of my favorite pictures from childhood have been Cole's "Voyage of Life." I have studied the tiny infant in the boat surrounded by roses, life's stream full of luxuriant vegetation; the happy, ambitious youth, looking eagerly forward to the Temple of Fame, steering the boat himself, with no need of aid from his guardian angel; then the worried and troubled man, his boat tossing and whirling among the broken trees and frightful storms that come to all; and lastly, perhaps most beautiful, the old man sailing peacefully into the ocean of eternity, the angel having returned to guide him, and the way to heaven being filled with celestial spirits. I have always hung these pictures near my writing-table, and their lesson has been a helpful and inspiring one.

No wonder that Thorwaldsen, the great sculptor, said when he looked upon them in Rome, "O great artist! what beauty of conception! what an admirable arrangement of parts! what an accurate study of nature! what truth of detail!" He told Cole that his work was entirely new and original, execut[271]ed in a masterly manner, and he commended the harmony of color.

These pictures are hung in thousands of homes; but how few persons know the history of the artist! Born in England, Feb. 1, 1801, the only son in a family of eight children, and the youngest but one, we find him when a mere child, in some print-works, learning to engrave simple designs for calico. His father, a woolen manufacturer, had failed in business, and the family were thrown upon themselves for support. He was a kind and honest man, always hoping to succeed, but never succeeding; always trying new scenes to build up his fortune and never building it. Like other fathers, especially those who have been disappointed in life, he had hopes that his boy would accomplish more than himself.

He wished to apprentice him to an attorney or to an iron manufacturer, but Thomas saw no pleasure in Blackstone, or in handling ponderous iron. A boy of tender feelings, he found little companionship with his fellow-operatives, most of whom were rough; and he enjoyed most an old Scotchman who could repeat ballads, and tell of the beautiful hills and lakes of his native land. When he had leisure, he wandered with his sister Sarah into the surrounding country; and while she sang, he accompanied her with his flute.

With little opportunity for school, he was a great reader; and when through with designs for calico[272] for the day, he buried himself in books, especially about foreign countries, and in imagination clambered over high mountains, and sailed upon broad rivers. He talked much to the family of the wonders of the New World; and when he was eighteen, they all sailed for America. The father rented a little house and shop in Philadelphia, and began to sell the small stock of dry-goods which he had brought with him, while Thomas found work with a person who supplied woodcuts for printers.

The father soon became dissatisfied with his prospects, and moved his family to Steubenville, Ohio, where he hoped to find a land flowing with milk and honey. Thomas remained behind, working on some illustrations for Bunyan's "Holy War," keeping up his spirits with his beloved flute; going to Steubenville the next year, walking almost the entire way from Philadelphia.

Here he worked in his father's small manufactory of paper-hangings; yet he had longings to do some great work in the world, as he wandered alone in the wild and charming scenery. He loved music, architecture, and pictures, but he hardly dared breathe his aspirations save in a few verses of poetry. How in that quiet home a boy should be born who had desires to win renown was a mystery. Nobody knows whence the perilous but blessed gift of ambition comes.

About this time a portrait-painter by the name of Stein came to the village. He took an interest in[273] the poetic boy, and loaned him an English illustrated work on painting. Thomas had already acquired some skill in drawing. Now his heart was on fire as he read about Raphael, Claude Lorraine, and Titian, and he resolved to make painting his life-work. How little he knew of the obstacles before a poor artist!

He set to work to make his own brushes, obtaining his colors from a chair-maker. His easel and palette were of his own crude manufacture. The father had serious misgivings for his son; but his mother encouraged him to persevere in whatever his genius seemed to lie. As a rule, women discover genius sooner than men, and good Mary Cole had seen that there was something uncommon in her boy. His brushes ready, putting his scanty wearing apparel and his flute in a green baize bag, hung over his shoulder, the youth of twenty-one started for St. Clairsville, thirty miles distant, to begin life as a painter. He broke through the ice in crossing a stream, and, wet to his breast, arrived at the town, only to find that a German had just been there, and had painted all the portraits which were desired.

However, a saddler was found who was willing to be painted, and after five days of work from morning till night, the young artist received a new saddle as pay. A military officer gave him an old silver watch for a portrait, and a dapper tradesman a chain and key, which proved to be copper instead of gold.[274] For some other work he received a pair of shoes and a dollar. All these, except the dollar, he was obliged to give to his landlord for board, the man being dissatisfied even with this bargain.

From here Thomas walked one hundred miles to Zanesville, and to his great sorrow, found that the German had preceded him here also, and painted the tavern-keeper and his family. The landlord intimated that a historical picture would be taken in payment for the young stranger's board. Accordingly an impromptu studio was arranged. A few patrons came at long intervals; but it was soon evident that another field must be chosen. What, however, was young Cole's astonishment to find that the historical painting would not be received for board, and that if thirty-five dollars were not at once paid, he would be thrust into jail! Two or three acquaintances became surety for the debt to the unprincipled landlord, and the pale, slender artist hastened toward Chillicothe with but a sixpence in his pocket.

After walking for three days, seventy-five miles, he sat down under a tree by the roadside, wellnigh discouraged, in the hot August day; but when the tears gathered in his eyes, he took out his flute, and playing a lively air, his courage returned. He had two letters of introduction in his pocket, given him at Zanesville, and these he would present, whispering to himself that he must "hold up his head like Michael Angelo" as he offered them. The men who[275] received them had little time or wish to aid the young man. A few persons sat for their portraits, and a few took lessons in drawing; but after a time he had no money to pay for washing his linen, and at last no linen even to be washed. Still enthusiastic over art, and with visions of Italy floating in his mind, yet penniless and footsore, he returned to Steubenville to tell his sorrows to his sympathetic mother. How her heart must have been moved as she looked upon her boy's pale face, and great blue eyes, and felt his eager desire for a place of honor in the world, but knew, alas! that she was powerless to aid him.

He took a plain room for a studio, painted some scenes for a society of amateur actors, and commenced two pictures,—Ruth gleaning in the field of Boaz, and the feast of Belshazzar. One Sunday, some vicious boys broke into the studio, mixed the paints, broke the brushes, and cut the paintings in pieces. Learning that the boys were poor, Cole could not bear to prosecute them; and the matter was dropped. He soon departed to Pittsburgh, whither his parents had moved, and began to assist his father in making floor-cloths. Every moment of leisure he was down by the banks of the Monongahela, carefully drawing tree, or cloud, or hill-top.

Finally the old longing became irresistible. He packed his little trunk, his mother threw over his shoulders the table cover, with her blessing and her tears; and with six dollars in his purse, he said[276] good-bye to the family and started for Philadelphia. Then followed, as he used to say in after years, the "winter of his discontent." In a poor quarter of the city, in an upper room, without a bed or fire or furniture, struggled poor Thomas Cole. Timid, friendless, his only food a baker's roll and a pitcher of water, his only bedding at night the table cover, he worked day by day, now copying in the Academy, and now ornamenting bellows, brushes, or Japan ware, with figures of birds or with flowers. Sometimes he ran down a neighboring alley, whipping his hands about him to keep his blood in circulation, lest he be benumbed. He soon became the victim of inflammatory rheumatism, and was a great sufferer. He still saw before him, someway, somehow, renown. Meantime his pure, noble soul found solace in writing poetry and an occasional story for the "Saturday Evening Post." After a year and a half he put his goods on a wheelbarrow, had them carried to the station, and started for New York, whither his family had moved.

He was now twenty-four. Life had been one continuous struggle. Still he loved each beauty in nature, and hoped for the good time to come. In his father's garret in Greenwich Street, in a room so narrow that he could scarcely work, and so poorly lighted that he was "perpetually fighting a kind of twilight," he labored for two years. Obstacles seemed but to increase his determination to persevere. Of such grand material are heroes made![277]

His first five pictures were placed for exhibition in the shop of an acquaintance, and were sold at eight dollars apiece. Through the courtesy of a gentleman who purchased three of these, he was enabled to go up the Hudson and sketch from nature among the Catskills. This was indeed a great blessing. On his return, he painted "A View of Fort Putnam," "Lake with dead trees," and "The Falls of the Caterskills." These were purchased at twenty-five dollars apiece by three artists,—Trumbull, Dunlap, and Durand.

Trumbull first discovered the merits of the pictures, buying the "Falls" for his studio, and invited Cole to meet Durand at his rooms. At the hour appointed the sensitive artist made his appearance, so timid that at first he could only reply to their cordial questioning by monosyllables. Colonel Trumbull said, "You surprise me, at your age, to paint like this. You have already done what I, with all my years and experience, am yet unable to do." Through the new friends, attention was called to his work, and he soon had abundant commissions. How his hungry heart must have fed on this appreciation! "From that time," said his friend, William Cullen Bryant, "he had a fixed reputation, and was numbered among the men of whom our country had reason to be proud. I well remember what an enthusiasm was awakened by these early works of his,—the delight which was expressed at the opportunity of contemplating pic[278]tures which carried the eye over scenes of wild grandeur peculiar to our country, over our arid mountain-tops with their mighty growth of forest never touched by the axe, along the banks of streams never deformed by culture, and into the depth of skies bright with the hues of our own climate; such skies as few but Cole could ever paint, and through the transparent abysses of which it seemed that you might send an arrow out of sight."

The struggles were not all over, but the "renown" of which the calico-designer had dreamed had actually come. Down in the heart of Mary Cole there must have been deep thanksgiving that she had urged him on.

He with a few others now founded the National Academy of Design. He took lodgings in the Catskills in the summer of 1826, and worked diligently. He studied nature like a lover; now he sketched a peculiar sunset, now a wild storm, now an exquisite waterfall. "Why do not the younger landscape painters walk—walk alone, and endlessly?" he used to say. "How I have walked, day after day, and all alone, to see if there was not something among the old things which was new!" He knew every chasm, every velvety bank, every dainty flower growing in some tanglewood for miles around. American scenery, with its untamed wilderness, lake, and mountain, was his chief passion. He found no pleasure, however, in hunting or fishing; for his kind heart could not bear to inflict the slightest injury.[279]

The following spring he exhibited at the National Academy the "Garden of Eden and the Expulsion," rich in poetic conception; and in the fall sketched in the White Mountains, especially near North Conway, which the lamented Starr King loved so well. In the winter he was very happy, finishing his "Chocorua Peak." A visitor said, "Your clouds, sir, appear to move."

"That," replied the artist, "is precisely the effect I desire."

He was now eager to visit Europe to study art; but first he must see Niagara, of which he made several sketches. He had learned the secret, that all poets and artists finally learn,—that they must identify themselves with some great event in history, something grand in nature, or some immortal name. Milton chose a sublime subject, Homer a great war, just as some one will make our civil war a famous epic two centuries hence.

In June, 1829, he sailed for Europe, and there, for two years, studied faithfully. In London, he saw much of Turner, of whom he said, "I consider him as one of the greatest landscape painters that ever lived, and his 'Temple of Jupiter' as fine as anything the world has produced. In landscapes, my favorites are Claude Lorraine, and Gaspar Poussin."

Some of Cole's work was exhibited at the British Gallery, but the autumn coloring was generally condemned as false to nature! How little we know about that which we have not seen![280]

Paris he enjoyed greatly for its clear skies and sunny weather,—essentials usually to those of poetic temperament, though he was not over pleased with the Venuses and Psyches of modern French art. For nine months he found the "galleries of Florence a paradise to a painter." He thought our skies more gorgeous than the Italian, though theirs have "a peculiar softness and beauty." At Rome, some of his friends said, "Cole works like a crazy man." He usually rose at five o'clock, worked till noon, taking an hour for eating and rest, and then sketched again till night.

There was a reason for this. The support of the family came upon him, besides the payment of debts incurred by his father.

He felt that every hour was precious. In Rome, he found the Pantheon "simple and grand"; the Apollo Belvidere "the most perfect of human productions," while the Venus de Medici has "the excellence of feminine form, destitute in a great measure of intellectual expression"; the "Transfiguration," "beautiful in color and chiaroscuro," and Michael Angelo's "Moses," "one of the things never to be forgotten."

On his return to New York he took rooms at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway. Here he won the friendship of Luman Reed, for whom he promised to paint pictures for one room, to cost five thousand dollars. The chief pictures for Mr. Reed, who died before their completion, were five, called[281] "The Course of Empire," representing man in the different phases of savage life, high civilization, and ruin through sin, the idea coming to him while in Rome. Of this group, Cooper, the novelist, said, "I consider the 'Course of Empire' the work of the highest genius this country has ever produced, and one of the noblest works of art that has ever been wrought."

In November, 1836, Mr. Cole was married to Maria Bartow, a young lady of refinement and loveliness of character. Soon after, both of his parents died. The "Departure and Return" were now painted, "among his noblest works," says Bryant, followed by the "Voyage of Life," for Mr. Samuel Ward, who, like Mr. Reed, died before the set was finished. This series was sold in 1876 for three thousand one hundred dollars. These pictures he had worked upon with great care and intensity. He used to say, "Genius has but one wing, and, unless sustained on the other side by the well-regulated wing of assiduity, will quickly fall to the ground. The artist must work always; his eye and mind can work even when his pen is idle. He must, like a magician, draw a circle round him, and exclude all intrusive spirits. And above all, if he would attain that serene atmosphere of mind in which float the highest conceptions of the soul in which the sublimest works have been produced, he must be possessed of a holy and reasonable faith."

The "Voyage of Life" was well received. The[282] engraver, Mr. Smilie, found one morning before the second of the series, "Youth," a person in middle life looking as though in deep thought. "Sir," he said at length, "I am a stranger in the city, and in great trouble of mind. But the sight of these pictures has done me great good. I go away from this place quieted, and much strengthened to do my duty."

In 1841, worn in health, Cole determined to visit Europe again. He wrote from Kenilworth Castle to his wife, "Every flower and mass of ivy, every picturesque effect, waked my regret that you were not by my side.... How can I paint without you to praise, or to criticize, and little Theddy to come for papa to go to dinner, and little Mary with her black eyes to come and kiss the figures in the pictures?... My life will be burdened with sadness until I return to my wife and family." In Rome he received much attention, as befitted one in his position.

On his return, he painted several European scenes, the "Roman Campagna," "Angels Ministering to Christ in the Wilderness," "Mountain Ford" (sold in 1876 for nine hundred dollars), "The Good Shepherd," "Hunter's Return," "Mill at Sunset," and many others. For his "Mount Etna," painted in five days, he received five hundred dollars. How different these days from that pitiful winter in Philadelphia!

He dreaded interruptions in his work. His "St.[283] John the Baptist in the Wilderness" was destroyed by an unexpected visit from some ladies and gentlemen, who quenched the fire of heart in which he was working. He sorrowfully turned the canvas to the wall, and never finished it. He had now come to the zenith of his power, yet he modestly said, "I have only learned how to paint." He built a new studio in the Catskills, in the Italian villa style, and hoped to erect a gallery for several paintings he had in contemplation, illustrating the cross and the world, and the immortality of the soul.

But the overworked body at forty-seven years of age could no longer bear the strain. On Saturday, Feb. 5, 1848, he laid his colors under water, and cleansed his palette as he left his studio. The next day he was seized with inflammation of the lungs. The following Friday, after the communion service at his bedside, he said, "I want to be quiet." These were his last words. The tired artist had finished his work. The voyage of life was over. He had won enduring fame.

[284]

OLE BULL.

In the quaint old town of Bergen, Norway, so strange with its narrow streets, peculiar costumes, and open-hearted people, that no traveller can ever forget it, was born, Feb. 5, 1810, Ole Bull, the oldest in a family of ten children. His father was an able chemist, and his mother a woman of fine manners and much intelligence. All the relatives were musical, and at the little gatherings for the purpose of cultivating this talent, the child Ole would creep under table or sofa, and listen enraptured for hours, often receiving a whipping when discovered.

He loved music intensely, fancying when he played alone in the meadows, that he heard nature sing, as the bluebells were moved among the grasses by the wind. When he was four years old, his uncle gave him a yellow violin, which he kissed with great delight, learning the notes at the same time as his primer. Although forbidden to play till study-hours were over, he sometimes disobeyed, and was punished both at home and at school.

(From his Memoirs, by Sara C. Bull.)

Finally, at eight, through the good sense of his[285] mother, a music-teacher was provided, and his father bought him a new red violin. The child could not sleep for thinking of it; so the first night after its purchase he stole into the room where it lay, in his night-clothes, to take one peep at the precious thing. He said years after, with tears in his eyes at the painful remembrance, "The violin was so red, and the pretty pearl screws did smile at me so! I pinched the strings just a little with my fingers. It smiled at me ever more and more. I took up the bow and looked at it. It said to me it would be pleasant to try it across the strings. So I did try it, just a very, very little, and it did sing to me so sweetly. At first, I did play very soft. But presently I did begin a capriccio, which I like very much, and it do go ever louder and louder; and I forgot that it was midnight and that everybody was asleep. Presently I hear something crack! and the next minute I feel my father's whip across my shoulders. My little red violin dropped on the floor, and was broken. I weep much for it, but it did no good. They did have a doctor to it next day, but it never recovered its health."

Pitiful it is that sometimes parents are so lacking in judgment as to stifle the best things in a child's nature! Guiding is wise; forcing usually ends in disaster. In two years, Ole could play pieces which his teacher found it impossible to perform. He began to compose melodies, imitating nature in the song of birds, brooks, and the roar of waterfalls;[286] and would hide in caves or in clumps of bushes, where he could play his own weird improvisations. When he could not make his violin do as he wished, he would fling it away impetuously, and not touch it again for a long time. Then he would perhaps get up in the middle of the night, and play at his open window, forgetting that anybody might be awakened by it. Sometimes he played incessantly for days, scarcely eating or sleeping. He had no pleasure in fishing or shooting, on account of the pain inflicted,—a feeling seemingly common to noble and refined natures,—though he greatly enjoyed anything athletic.

At fourteen, having heard of Paganini, he went to his grandparent, of whom he was very fond, and said, "Dear grandmother, can't I have some of Paganini's music?"

"Don't tell any one," was the reply; "but I will try to buy a piece of his for you if you are a good child."

Shortly after this an old miser, of whom the Bergen boys were afraid, called Ole into his house one day as he was passing, and said, "Are you the boy that plays the fiddle?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then come with me. I have a fiddle I bought in England, that I want to show you."

The fiddle needed a bridge and sounding-post, and these the boy gladly whittled out, and then played for the old man his favorite air, "God save the[287] King." He was treated to cakes and milk, and promised to come again. The next afternoon, what was his surprise to receive four pairs of doves, with a blue ribbon around the neck of one, and a card attached bearing the name of "Ole Bull." This present was more precious than the diamonds he received in later years from the hands of royalty.

Ole's father, with a practical turn of mind, urged his being a clergyman, as he honored that profession, and well knew that music and art usually furnish a small bank account. A private tutor, Musæus by name, was therefore engaged. This man had the unique habit of kneeling down to pray before he whipped a boy, and asking that the punishment might redound to the good of the lad. He soon made up his mind that Ole's violin and theology were incompatible, and forbade his playing it. Ole and his brothers bore his harsh methods as long as possible, when one morning at half past four, as the teacher was dragging the youngest boy out of bed, Ole sprang upon him and gave him a vigorous beating. The smaller boys put their heads out from under the bed-clothes and cried out, "Don't give up, Ole! Don't give up! Give it to him with all your might!" The whole household soon appeared upon the scene, and though little was said, the private feeling seemed to be that a salutary lesson had been imparted.

At eighteen, Ole was sent to the University of Christiana, his father beseeching him that he would[288] not yield to his passion for music. On his arrival, some Bergen students asked him to play for a charitable association.

"But," said Ole, "my father has forbidden me to play."

"Would your father prevent your doing an act of charity?"

"Well, this alters the case a little, and I can write to him, and claim his pardon."

After this he played nearly all night at the home of one of the professors, saying to himself that his father would be pleased if the Faculty liked him, and the next morning failed in his Latin examinations! In despair, he stated the case to the professor, who replied, "My good fellow, this is the very best thing that could have happened to you! Do you believe yourself fitted for a curacy in Finmark or a mission among the Laps? Certainly not! It is the opinion of your friends that you should travel abroad. Meanwhile, old Thrane having been taken ill, you are appointed ad interim Musical Director of the Philharmonic and Dramatic Societies." A month later, by the death of Thrane, he came into this position, having gained the pardon of his disappointed father.

But he was restless at Christiana. He desired to know whether he really had genius or not, and determined to go to Cassell, to see Louis Spohr, who was considered a master. The great man was not sufficiently great to be interested in an unknown[289] lad, and coolly said, when Ole remarked politely, "I have come more than five hundred miles to hear you," "Very well, you can now go to Nordhausen; I am to attend a musical festival there."

Ole went to the festival, and was so disappointed because the methods and interpretation were different from his own, that he resolved to go back to classic studies, feeling that he had no genius for music. Still he was not satisfied. He would go to Paris, and hear Berlioz and other great men. Giving three concerts at Trondhjeim and Bergen, by which he made five hundred dollars, he found himself in possession of the needed funds. When he arrived in this great city, everybody was eagerly looking out for himself. Some were in pursuit of pleasure; but most, as is the case everywhere, were in pursuit of bread and shelter. Nobody cared to hear his violin. Nobody cared about his recommendations from far-off Norway. In vain he tried to make engagements. He had no one to speak for him, and the applicants were numberless.

Madam Malibran was singing nightly to crowded houses, and the poor violinist would now and then purchase one of the topmost seats, and listen to that marvellous voice. His money was gradually melting away. Finally, an elderly gentleman who boarded at the same house, having begged him to take what little money he possessed out of the bank, as it was not a safe place, stole every cent, together with Ole's clothes, and left him entirely destitute[290].

An acquaintance now told him of a boarding-place where there were several music-teachers, and gave security for his board for one month,—twelve dollars. Soon the friend and the boarding-mistress grew cold and suspicious. Nothing tries friendship like asking the loan of money. At last his condition becoming known to a person, whom he afterward learned was Vidocq, the noted Chief of Police, he was shown by him to a gaming-table, where he made one hundred and sixty dollars. "What a hideous joy I felt," he said afterward; "what a horrid pleasure to hold in the hand one's own soul saved by the spoil of others!" He could not gamble again, though starvation actually stared him in the face.

Cholera was sweeping through the city, and had taken two persons from the house where he lodged. He was again penniless and wellnigh despairing. But he would not go back to Christiana. The river Seine looked inviting, and he thought death would be a relief. He was nervous and his brain throbbed. Finally he saw a placard in a window, "Furnished rooms to let." He was exhausted, but would make one more effort.

An elderly lady answered his query by saying that they had no vacant rooms, when her pretty granddaughter, Alexandrine Félicie, called out, "Look at him, grandmamma!" Putting on her glasses, the tears filled her eyes, as she saw a striking resemblance to her son who had died. The[291] next day found him at Madam Villeminot's house, very ill of brain fever. When he regained consciousness, she assured him that he need not worry about the means for payment. When, however, the Musical Lyceum of Christiana learned of his struggles, they sent him eight hundred dollars.

Becoming acquainted about this time with Monsieur Lacour, a dealer in violins, who thought he had discovered that a certain kind of varnish would increase sweetness of tone, Ole Bull was requested to play on one of his instruments at a soirée, given by a Duke of the Italian Legation. An elegant company were present. The intense heat soon brought out the odor of assafœtida in the varnish. The young man became embarrassed and then excited, and played as though beside himself. The player was advertised, whether Monsieur Lacour's instruments were or not; for Marshal Ney's son, the Duke of Montebello, at once invited him to breakfast, and presided over a concert for him, whereby the violinist made three hundred dollars. The tide had turned at last, and little Félicie Villeminot had done it with her "Look at him, grandmamma!"

As the Grand Opera was still closed to him, he made a concert tour through Switzerland and Italy. In Milan, one of the musical journals said, "He is not master of himself; he has no style; he is an untrained musician. If he be a diamond, he is certainly in the rough and unpolished."[292]

Ole Bull went at once to the publisher and asked who had written the article. "If you want the responsible person," said the editor, "I am he."

"No," said the artist, "I have not come to call the writer to account, but to thank him. The man who wrote that article understands music; but it is not enough to tell me my faults; he must tell me how to rid myself of them."

"You have the spirit of the true artist," replied the journalist.

The same evening he took Ole Bull to the critic, a man over seventy, from whom he learned much that was valuable. He at once gave six months to study under able masters, before again appearing in public. He was, however, an earnest student all through life, never being satisfied with his attainments.

At Venice he was highly praised, but at Bologna he won the celebrity which continued through life. Malibran was to sing in two concerts, but feigned illness when she learned that the man she loved, De Beriot, was to receive a smaller sum than herself, and would not appear. The manager of the theatre was in despair. Meantime, in a poor hotel, in an upper room, Ole Bull was composing his concerto in the daytime, and playing on his violin at night by his open window. Rossini's first wife heard the music, and said, "It must be a violin, but a divine one. That will be a substitute for De Beriot and Malibran. I must go and tell Zampieri" (the manager).

On the night of the concert, after Ole Bull had[293] been two hours in bed from weariness, Zampieri appeared, and asked him to improvise. He was delighted, and exclaiming, "Malibran may now have her headaches," hurried the young artist off to the theatre. The audience was of course cold and disappointed till Ole Bull began to play. Then the people seemed to hold their breath. When the curtain fell, he almost swooned with exhaustion, but the house shook with applause. Flowers were showered upon him. He was immediately engaged for the next concert; a large theatre was offered him free of expense, one man buying one hundred tickets, and the admiring throng drew his carriage to the hotel, while a procession with torchlights acted as guard of honor.

Ole Bull had stepped into the glory of fame in a single night. Henceforth, while there was to be much of trial and disappointment, as come to all, he was to be forever the idol of two continents, drawing crowded houses, honored by the great, and universally mourned at his death. He had come to fame as by accident, but he had made himself worthy of fame.

Malibran at first seemed hurt at his wonderful success in her stead, but she soon became one of his warmest friends, saying, "It is your own fault that I did not treat you as you deserved. A man like you should step forth with head erect in the full light of day, that we may recognize his noble blood."[294]

From here he played with great success at Florence and Rome, at the latter city composing his celebrated "Polacca Guerriera" in a single night, writing till four o'clock in the morning. It was first conceived while he stood alone at Naples, at midnight, watching Mount Vesuvius aflame.

Returning to Paris, he found the Grand Opera open to him. Here, at his first performance, his a-string snapped; he turned deathly pale, but he transposed the remainder of the piece, and finished it on three strings. Meyerbeer, who was present, could not believe it possible that the string had really broken.

He was now twenty-six, famous and above want. What more fitting than that he should marry pretty Félicie Villeminot, and share with her the precious life she had saved? They were married in the summer of 1836, and their love was a beautiful and enduring one until her death twenty-six years afterward. Though absent from her much of the time necessarily, his letters breathe a pure and ardent affection. Going to England soon after, and being at the house of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, he writes, "How long does the time seem that deprives me of seeing you! I embrace you very tenderly. The word home has above all others the greatest charm for me."

In London, from three to seven thousand persons crowded to hear him. The "Times" said, "His command of the instrument, from the top to the bot[295]tom of the scale—and he has a scale of his own of three complete octaves on each string—is absolutely perfect." At Liverpool he received four thousand dollars for a single night, taking the place of Malibran, who had brought on a hemorrhage resulting in death, by forcing a tone, and holding it so long that the audience were astonished. Ole Bull came near sharing her fate. In playing "Polacca," the hall being large and the orchestra too strong, he ruptured a blood vessel, and his coat had to be cut from him.

In sixteen months he gave two hundred and seventy-four concerts in the United Kingdom. Afterwards, at St. Petersburg, he played to five thousand persons, the Emperor sending him an autograph letter of affection, and the Empress an emerald ring set with one hundred and forty diamonds. Shortly after this his father died, speaking with pride of Ole, and thinking he heard divine music.

On his return to Norway, at the request of the King, he gave five concerts at Stockholm, the last netting him five thousand dollars. So moved was the King when Ole Bull played before him at the palace, that he rose and stood till the "Polacca" was finished. He presented the artist with the Order of Vasa, set in brilliants.

In Christiana, the students gave him a public dinner, and crowned him with laurel. He often played for the peasants here and in Bergen, and was beloved by the poor as by the rich. At Copen[296]hagen he was presented at Court, the King giving him a snuff-box set in diamonds. Hans Andersen became his devoted friend, as did Thorwaldsen while he was in Rome. He now went to Cassell, and Spohr hastened to show him every attention, as though to make amends for the coldness when Ole Bull was poor and unknown. At Salzburg he invited the wife of Mozart to his concerts. For her husband he had surpassing admiration. He used to say that no mortal could write Mozart's "Requiem" and live.

While in Hungary, his first child, Ole, died. He wrote his wife, "God knows how much I have suffered! I still hope and work, not for myself,—for you, my family, my country, my Norway, of which I am proud."

All this time he was working very hard. He said, "I must correspond with the directors of the theatres; must obtain information regarding the people with whom I am to deal; I must make my appointments for concerts and rehearsals; have my music copied, correct the scores, compose, play, travel nights. I am always cheated, and in everlasting trouble. I reproach myself when everything does not turn out for the best, and am consumed with grief. I really believe I should succumb to all these demands and fatigues if it were not for my drinking cold water, and bathing in it every morning and evening."

In November, 1843, urged by Fanny Elssler, he[297] visited America. At first, in New York, some of the prominent violinists opposed him; but he steadily made his way. When Mr. James Gordon Bennett offered him the columns of the "Herald," that he might reply to those who were assailing him, he said in his broken English, "I tink, Mr. Bennett, it is best tey writes against me, and I plays against tem." Of his playing in New York, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child wrote, "His bow touched the strings as if in sport, and brought forth light leaps of sound, with electric rapidity, yet clear in their distinctness. He played on four strings at once, and produced the rich harmony of four instruments. While he was playing, the rustling of a leaf might have been heard; and when he closed, the tremendous bursts of applause told how the hearts of thousands leaped like one. His first audience were beside themselves with delight, and the orchestra threw down their instruments in ecstatic wonder."

From New York he took a successful trip South. That he was not effeminate while deeply poetic, a single incident will show. After a concert, a man came to him and said he wished the diamond in his violin bow, given him by the Duke of Devonshire. Ole Bull replied that as it was a gift, he could neither sell it nor give it away.

"But I am going to have that stone!" said the man as he drew a bowie knife from his coat. In an instant Ole Bull had felled the man to the floor with the edge of his hand across his throat. "The[298] next time I would kill you," said the musician, with his foot on the man's chest; "but you may go now." So much did the ruffian admire the muscle and skill of the artist, that he begged him to accept the knife which he had intended to use upon him.

During this visit to America he gave two hundred concerts, netting him, said the "New York Herald," fully eighty thousand dollars, besides twenty thousand given to charitable associations, and fifteen thousand paid to assistant artists. "No artist has ever visited our country and received so many honors. Poems by the hundreds have been written to him; gold vases, pencils, medals, have been presented to him by various corporations. His whole remarkable appearance in this country is really unexampled in glory and fame," said the same newspaper. Ole Bull was kindness itself to the sick or afflicted. Now he played for Alice and Phœbe Carey, when unable to leave their home, and now for insane and blind asylums and at hospitals. He loved America, and called himself "her adopted son."

On his return to Norway, after great success in Spain, the Queen bestowing upon him the order of Charles III. and the Portuguese order of Christus, he determined to build a National Theatre in Bergen, his birthplace, for the advancement of his nation in the drama and in music. By great energy, and the bestowal of a large sum of money, the place was opened in 1850, Ole Bull leading the[299] orchestra. But the Storthing, or Parliament, declined to give it a yearly appropriation,—perhaps the development of home talent tended too strongly toward republicanism. The burden was too great for one man to carry, and the project did not prove a success.

The next plan of the philanthropist-musician was to buy one hundred and twenty-five thousand acres of land on the Susquehanna River, in Pennsylvania, and "found a New Norway, consecrated to liberty, baptized with independence, and protected by the Union's mighty flag." Soon three hundred houses were built, a country inn, store, and church, erected by the founder. To pay the thousands needed for this enterprise he worked constantly at concert-giving, taking scarcely time to eat his meals. He laid out five new villages, made arrangements with the government to cast cannon for her fortresses, and took out patents for a new smelting-furnace.

While in California, where he was ill with yellow fever, a crushing blow fell upon him. He learned that he had purchased the land through a swindling company, his title was invalid, and his fortune was lost. He could only buy enough land to protect those who had already come from Norway, and had settled there, and soon became deeply involved in lawsuits. Hon. E. W. Stoughton of New York, who had never met Ole Bull personally, volunteered to assist him, and a few thousands were wrested from the defrauding agent.[300]

On his return to Norway he was accused of speculating with the funds of his countrymen, which cut him to the heart. A little later, in 1862, his wife died, worn with ill health, and with her husband's misfortunes, and his son Thorvald fell from the mast of a sailing-vessel in the Mediterranean, and was killed.

In the autumn of 1868 he returned to America, and nearly lost his life in a steamboat collision on the Ohio. He swam to land, saving also his precious violin. Two years afterward he was married to Miss Thorp of Madison, Wis., an accomplished lady much his junior in years, who has lived to write an admirable life of her illustrious husband. A daughter, Olea, came to gladden his home two years later. When he was sixty-six years old, he celebrated his birthday by playing his violin on the top of the great pyramid, Cheops, at the suggestion of King Oscar of Norway and Sweden.

In the Centennial year he returned to America, and made his home at Cambridge, in the house of James Russell Lowell, while he was Minister to England. Here he enjoyed the friendship of such as Longfellow, who says of him in his "Tales of a Wayside Inn":—

The friend of the highest, he never forgot the lowest. When a colored barber in Hartford, a lad who was himself a good fiddler, heard Ole Bull play, the latter having sent him a ticket to his concert, he said, "Mister, can't you come down to the shop to-morrow to get shaved, and show me those tricks? I feel powerful bad."

And Ole Bull went to the shop, and showed him how the wonderful playing was accomplished.

In 1880 Ole Bull sailed, for the last time, to Europe, to his lovely home at Lysö, an island in the sea, eighteen miles from Bergen. Ill on the voyage, he was thankful to reach the cherished place. Here, planned by his own hand, was his elegant home overlooking the ocean; here his choice music-room upheld by delicate columns and curiously wrought arches; here the shell-roads he had built; and here the flower-beds he had planted. The end came soon, on a beautiful day full of sunshine.

The body lay in state in the great music-room till a larger steamer came to bear it to Bergen. This was met by a convoy of sixteen steamers ranged on either side; and as the fleet approached the city, all[302] flags were at half-mast, and guns were fired, which re-echoed through the mountains. The quay was covered with juniper, and the whole front festooned with green. As the boat touched the shore, one of Ole Bull's inimitable melodies was played. Young girls dressed in black bore the trophies of his success, and distinguished men carried his gold crown and order, in the procession. The streets were strewn with flowers, and showered upon the coffin. When the service had been read at the grave by the pastor, Björnson, the famous author, gave an address. After the coffin had been lowered and the mourners had departed, hundreds of peasants came, bringing a green bough, a sprig of fern, or a flower, and quite filled the grave. Beautiful tribute to a beautiful life!

[303]

MEISSONIER.

MEISSONIER.

The old maxim, that "the gods reward all things to labor," has had fit illustration in Meissonier. His has been a life of constant, unvaried toil. He came to Paris a poor, unknown boy, and has worked over fifty years, till he stands a master in French art.

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier was born at Lyons, in 1811. His early life was passed in poverty so grinding that the great artist never speaks of it, and in such obscurity that scarcely anything is known of his boyhood. At nineteen he came to Paris to try his fate in one of the great centres of the world. He, of course, found no open doors, nobody standing ready to assist genius. Genius must ever open doors for itself.

The lad was a close observer, and had learned to draw accurately. He could give every variety of costume, and express almost any emotion in the face of his subject. But he was unknown. He might do good work, but nobody wanted it. He used to paint by the side of Daubigny in the Louvre, it is said, for one dollar a yard. Now his "Amateurs[304] in Painting," a chef-d'œuvre of six inches in size, is bought by Leon Say for six thousand dollars. Such is fame.

Time was so necessary in this struggle for bread, that he could sleep only every other night; and for six months his finances were so low, it is stated, that he existed on ten cents a week! No wonder that the sorrows of those days are never mentioned.

His earliest work was painting the tops of bon-bon boxes, and fans. Once he grew brave enough to take four little sepia drawings to an editor to illustrate a fairy tale in a magazine for children. The editor said the drawings were charming, but he could not afford to have them engraved, and so "returned them with thanks."

His first illustrations in some unknown journal were scenes from the life of "The Old Bachelor." In the first picture he is represented making his toilet before the mirror, his wig spread out on the table; in the second, dining with two friends; in the third, being abused by his housekeeper; in the fourth, on his death-bed, surrounded by greedy relations; and in the fifth, the servants ransacking the death-chamber for the property.

For a universal history he drew figures of Isaiah, St. Paul, and Charlemagne, besides almost numberless ornamental letters and headings of chapters. Of course he longed for more remunerative work, for fame; but he must plod on for months yet. He worked conscientiously, taking the greatest pains with every detail.[305]

His first picture, exhibited in 1833, when he was twenty-two, called "The Visitors," an interior view of a house, with an old gentleman receiving two visitors, all dressed in the costume of James I., admirable for its light and shade, was bought by the Society of the Friends of Art, for twenty dollars. Two years later he made illustrations for the Bible of the Sieur Raymond, of Holofernes invading Judea, and Judith appearing before Holofernes. For "Paul and Virginia" he made forty-three beautiful landscapes. "They contain evidence of long and careful work in the hot-houses of the 'Jardin des Plantes,' and in front of the old bric-a-brac dealer's stalls, which used to stand about the entrance to the Louvre. And how admirably, with the help of these slowly and scrupulously finished studies, he could reproduce, in an ornamental letter or floral ornament, a lily broken by the storm, or a sheaf of Indian arms and musical instruments."

In 1836, his "Chess Players," two men watching intently the moves of chess, and "The Little Messenger," attracted a crowd of admirers. Each sold for twenty dollars. He had now struggled for six years in Paris. It was high time that his unremitting and patient work should find approval. The people were amazed at so vast an amount of labor in so small a space. They looked with their magnifying glasses, and found the work exquisite in detail. They had been accustomed to great canvases, glowing colors, and heroic or romantic sen[306]timents; but here there was wonderful workmanship.

When the people began to admire, critics began to criticize. They said "Meissonier can depict homelike or ordinary scenes, but not historic." He said nothing, but soon brought out "Diderot" among the philosophers, Grimm, D'Alembert, Baron Holbach, and others in the seventeenth century. Then they said he can draw interiors only, and "on a canvas not much larger than his thumb-nail." He soon produced the "Portrait of the Sergeant," "one of the most daring experiments in the painting of light, in modern art. The man stands out there in the open by himself, literally bathed in light, and he makes a perfect picture." Then they were sure that he could not paint movement. He replied by painting "Rixe," two ruffians who are striving to fight, but are withheld by friends. This was given by Louis Napoleon to the Prince Consort.

Meissonier also showed that he could depict grand scenes, by "Moreau and Dessoles on the eve of the battle of Hohenlinden," the "Retreat from Russia," and the "Emperor at Solferino." Into these he put his admiration for Napoleon the Great, and his adoration for his defeated country. In the former picture, the two generals are standing on a precipice, surveying the snow-covered battle-field with a glass; the trees are bending under a strong wind, and the cloaks of the generals are fluttering behind them. One feels the power of this picture.[307]

In painting the "Retreat from Russia," the artist borrowed the identical coat worn by Napoleon, and had it copied, crease for crease, and button for button. "When I painted that picture," he said, "I executed a great portion of it out of doors. It was midwinter, and the ground was covered with snow. Sometimes I sat at my easel for five or six hours together, endeavoring to seize the exact aspect of the winter atmosphere. My servant placed a hot foot-stove under my feet, which he renewed from time to time, but I used to get half-frozen and terribly tired."

He had a wooden horse made in imitation of the white charger of the Emperor; and seating himself on this, he studied his own figure in a mirror. His studies for this picture were almost numberless,—a horse's head, an uplifted leg, cuirasses, helmets, models of horses in red wax, etc. He also prepared a miniature landscape, strewn with white powder resembling snow, with models of heavy wheels running through it, that he might study the furrow made in that terrible march home from burning Moscow. All this was work,—hard, patient, exacting work.

It had now become evident to the world, and to the critics as well, that Meissonier was a master; that he was not confined to small canvases nor home scenes.

In 1855 he received the grand medal; in 1856 he was made an officer of the Legion of Honor; in[308] 1861, a member of the Institute; and in 1867, at the International Exhibition, he received the grand medal again. When the prizes were given by the Emperor, the "Battle of Solferino" was placed in the centre of the space cleared for the ceremony, with the works of Reimers, the Russian painter, Knaus of Prussia, Rousseau, the French landscape-painter, and others. This painting represents Napoleon III. in front of his staff, looking upon the battle "as a cool player studies a chess-board. On the right, in the foreground, some artillery-men are manœuvring their guns. The corpses of a French soldier and two white Austrians, torn to rags by some explosion, show where the battle had passed by."

Meissonier's paintings now brought enormous prices. His "Marshal Saxe and his Staff" brought eight thousand six hundred dollars in New York; the "Soldiers at Cards," in 1876, in the same city, eleven thousand five hundred dollars; in 1867, his "Cavalry Charge" was sold to Mr. Probasco of Cincinnati, for thirty thousand dollars; and the "Battle of Friedland," upon which he is said to have worked fifteen years, to A. T. Stewart, of New York, for sixty thousand dollars. Every figure in this was drawn from life, and the horses moulded in wax. It represents Napoleon on horseback, on a slight elevation, his marshals grouped around him, holding aloft his cocked hat in salutation, as the soldiers pass hurriedly before him.[309]

Edmund About once wrote, "To cover M. Meissonier's pictures with gold pieces simply would be to buy them for nothing; and the practice has now been established of covering them with bank notes."

"The Blacksmith," shoeing a patient old cart-horse, perfect in anatomy; "La Halte," some soldiers at an inn, now in Hertford House gallery; and "La Barricade," a souvenir of the civil war, are among the favorite pictures of this famous man. And yet as one looks at some of the exquisite work about a convivial scene, the words of the great Boston painter, William Hunt, come to mind. Being shown a picture, very fine in technique, by a Munich artist, of a drunken man, holding a half-filled glass of wine, he said, "It's skilfully done, but what is the use of doing it! The subject isn't worthy of the painter."

Rarely does a woman appear in Meissonier's pictures. He has done nothing to deprave morals, which is more than can be said of some French art. His portrait of Madame Henri Thénard was greatly admired, while that of Mrs. Mackay was not satisfactory, and was said to have been destroyed by her. Few persons, however, can afford to destroy a Meissonier. When told once that "he was a fortunate man, as he could possess as many Meissoniers as he pleased," he replied, "No, no, I cannot; that would ruin me. They are a great deal too dear."

He lives in the Boulevard Malesherbes, near the[310] lovely Parc Monceau, in the heart of the artists' quarter in Paris. His handsome home, designed by himself in every detail, is in the Italian Renaissance style. He has two studies,—one a quiet nook, where he can escape interruptions; and one very large, where are gathered masterpieces from every part of the world. Here is "a courtyard of the time of Louis XIII., brilliantly crowded with figures in gala dress; a bride of the same period, stepping into an elegant carriage of a crimson color, for which Meissonier had a miniature model built by a coach-maker, to study from; a superb work of Titian,—a figure of an Italian woman in a robe of green velvet, the classic outline of her head shown against a crimson velvet curtain in the background; a sketch of Bonaparte on horseback, at the head of his picturesquely dressed staff, reviewing the young conscripts of the army of Italy, who are cheering as he passes;" and many more valuable pictures. Here, too, are bridles of black leather, with silver ornaments, once the property of Murat.

One picture here, of especial interest, was painted at his summer home at Poissy, when his house was crowded with German soldiers in the war of 1871. "To escape their company," says M. Claretie, "in the rage that he experienced at the national defeat, he shut himself up in his studio, and threw upon the canvas the most striking, the most vivid, the most avenging of allegories: he painted Paris, enveloped in a veil of mourning, defending herself against the[311] enemy, with her soldiers and her dying grouped round a tattered flag; sailors, officers, and fusiliers, soldiers, national guards, suffering women, and dying children; and, hovering in the air above them, with the Prussian eagle by her side, was Famine, wan and haggard Famine, accomplishing the work that the bombardment had failed to achieve."

His summer home, like the one in Paris, is fitted up luxuriously. He designed most of the furniture and the silver service for his table. Flowers, especially geraniums and tea roses, blossom in profusion about the grounds, while great trees and fountains make it a restful and inviting place. The walls of the dining-room are hung with crimson and gold satin damask, against which are several of his own pictures. An engraver at work, clad in a red dressing-gown, and seated in a room hung with ancient tapestry, has the face of his son Charles, also an artist, looking out from the frame. One of Madame Meissonier also adorns this room.

Near by are his well-filled stables, his favorite horse, Rivoli, being often used for his model. He is equally fond of dogs, and has several expensive hounds. How strange all this, compared with those early days of pinching poverty! He is rarely seen in public, because he has learned—what, alas! some people learn too late in life—that there is no success without one commands his or her time. It must be frittered away neither by calls nor parties; neither by idle talk nor useless visits. Painting or[312] writing for an hour a day never made greatness. Art and literature will give no masterships except to devotees. The young lady, sauntering down town to look at ribbons, never makes a George Eliot. The young man, sauntering down town to look at the buyers of ribbons, never makes a Meissonier. Nature is rigid in her laws. Her gifts only grow to fruitage in the hands of workers.

Meissonier is now seventy-four, with long gray beard and hair, round, full face, and bright hazel eyes. His friend, Claretie, says of him, "This man, who lives in a palace, is as moderate as a soldier on the march. This artist, whose canvases are valued by the half-million, is as generous as a nabob. He will give to a charity sale a picture worth the price of a house. Praised as he is by all, he has less conceit in his nature than a wholesale painter."

January 31, 1891, at his home in Paris, the great artist passed away. His illness was very brief. The funeral services took place at the Church of the Madeleine, which was thronged with the leaders of art and letters. An imposing military cortege accompanied the body to its last resting-place at Poissy, the summer home of the artist, on the Seine, ten miles from Versailles.

[313]

GEORGE WILLIAM CHILDS.

GEORGE W. CHILDS.

The "Public Ledger" of Philadelphia, and its owner, are known the world over. Would we see the large-hearted, hospitable millionaire, who has come to honor through his own industry, let us enter the elegant building occupied by his newspaper.

Every portion is interesting. The rooms where editors and assistants work are large, light, and airy, and as tasteful as parlors. Alas! how unhomelike and barren are some of the newspaper offices, where gifted men toil from morning till night, with little time for sleep, and still less for recreation. Mr. Childs has thought of the comfort and health of his workmen, for he, too, was a poor boy, and knows what it is to labor.

He has also been generous with his men in the matter of wages. "He refused to reduce the rate of payment of his compositors, notwithstanding that the Typographical Union had formerly sanctioned a reduction, and notwithstanding that the reduced scale was operative in every printing-office in Philadelphia except his own. He said, 'My[314] business is prosperous; why should not my men share in my prosperity?' This act of graciousness, while it endeared him to the hearts of his beneficiaries, was commented on most favorably at home and abroad. That his employés, in a formal interview with him, expressed their willingness to accept the reduced rates, simply augments the generosity of his act." Strikes among laborers would be few and far between if employers were like George W. Childs.

Each person in his employ has a summer vacation of two or more weeks, his wages being continued meantime, and paid in advance, with a liberal sum besides. On Christmas every man, woman, and boy receives a present, amounting, of course, to many thousands of dollars annually. Mr. Childs has taken care of many who have become old or disabled in his service. The foreman of his composing-room had worked for him less than twelve months before he failed in health. For years this man has drawn his weekly pay, though never going to the establishment. This is indeed practical Christianity.

Besides caring for the living, in 1868 this wise employer of labor purchased two thousand feet in Woodlands for a printers' cemetery, and gave it to the Philadelphia Typographical Society, with a sum of money to keep the grounds in good order yearly. The first person buried beyond the handsome marble gothic gateway was a destitute and aged printer[315] who had died at the almshouse and whose dying message to Mr. Childs was that he could not bear to fill a pauper's grave. His wish was cordially granted.

But after seeing the admirable provision made for his workmen, we must enter the private office of Mr. Childs. He is most accessible to all, with no airs of superior position, welcoming persons from every clime daily, between the hours of eleven and one. He listens courteously to any requests, and then bids you make yourself at home in this elegant office, that certainly has no superior in the world, perhaps no rival.

The room itself in the Queen Anne style, with exquisite wood-carving, marble tiles, brass ornaments, and painted glass, is a gem. Here is his motto, a noble one, and thoroughly American, "Nihil sine labore," and well his life has illustrated it. All honor to every man or woman who helps to make labor honored in this country. The design of the ceiling was suggested by a room in Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire, the seat of the Earls Craven, fitted up by one of its lords for the reception of Queen Elizabeth. Over a dozen valuable clocks are seen, one made in Amsterdam over two hundred years ago, which, besides the time of day, gives the phases of the moon, the days of the week, and the month; another, a clock constructed by David Rittenhouse, the astronomer of the Revolution, in the old colonial days, which plays a great variety of[316] music, has a little planetarium attached, and nearly six thousand teeth in wheels. It was made for Joseph Potts, who paid six hundred and forty dollars for it. The Spanish Minister in 1778 offered eight hundred for it, that he might present it to his sovereign. Mr. Childs has about fifty rare clocks in his various homes, one of these costing six thousand dollars.

Here is a marble statuette of Savonarola, the Florentine preacher of the fifteenth century; the little green harp which belonged to Tom Moore, and on which he used to play in the homes of the great; a colossal suit of antique French armor, one hundred and fifty years old; a miniature likeness of George Washington, handsomely encased in gold, bequeathed by him to a relative, a lock of his hair in the back of the picture; a miniature ship, made from the wood of the Alliance Frigate, the only one of our first navy, of the class of frigates, which escaped capture or destruction during the Revolutionary war. This boat, and a silver waiter, presented after the famous battle of New Orleans, were both the property of President Jackson, and were taken by him to the Hermitage. Here, also, is a photograph of "Old Ironsides" Stewart, in a frame made from the frigate Constitution, in which great victories were achieved, besides many portraits given by famous people, with their autographs.

After a delightful hour spent in looking at these[317] choice things, Mr. Childs bids us take our choice of some rare china cups and saucers. We choose one dainty with red birds, and carry it away as a pleasant remembrance of a princely giver, in a princely apartment.

Mr. Childs has had a most interesting history. Born in Baltimore, he entered the United States navy at thirteen, where he remained for fifteen months. At fourteen he came to Philadelphia, poor, but with courage and a quick mind, and found a place to work in a bookstore. Here he remained for four years, doing his work faithfully, and to the best of his ability. At the end of these years he had saved a few hundred dollars, and opened a little store for himself in the Ledger Building, where the well-known newspaper, the "Public Ledger," was published.

He was ambitious, as who is not, that comes to prominence; and one day he made the resolution that he would sometime be the owner of this great paper and its building! Probably had this resolution been known, his acquaintances would have regarded the youth as little less than crazy. But the boy who willed this had a definite aim. Besides, he was never idle, he was economical, his habits were the best, and why should not such a boy succeed?

In three years, when he was twenty-one, he had become the head of a publishing house,—Childs & Peterson. He had a keen sense of what the[318] public needed. He brought out Kane's "Arctic Expedition," from which the author, Dr. Kane, realized seventy thousand dollars. Two hundred thousand copies of Peterson's "Familiar Science" were sold. Allibone dedicated his great work, "Dictionary of English and American Authors," to the energetic and appreciative young publisher.

He had now acquired wealth, sooner almost than he could have hoped. Before him were bright prospects as a publisher; but the prize that he had set out to win was to own the "Public Ledger."

The opportunity came in December, 1864. But his paper was losing money. His friends advised against taking such a burden; he would surely fail. But Mr. Childs had faith in himself. He expected to win where others lost. He bought the property, doubled the subscription rates, lowered the advertising, excluded everything questionable from the columns of his paper, made his editorials brief, yet comprehensive, until under his judicious management the journal reached the large circulation of ninety thousand daily. For ten years he has given the "Ledger Almanac" to every subscriber, costing five thousand dollars annually. The yearly profits, it is stated, have been four hundred thousand dollars. All this has not been accomplished without thought and labor.

Fortune, of course, had come, and fame. He built homes, elegant ones, in Philadelphia and at Newport, but these are not simply places in which to spend money, but centres of hospitality and culture.[319]

His library is one of the most charming places in this country. The wood-work is carved ebony with gold, the bookshelves six feet high on every side, and the ceiling built in sunken panels, blue and gold. In the centre is a table made from ebony, brought from Africa by Paul du Chaillu. One looks with interest upon the handsome volumes of the standard authors, but other things are of deeper interest.

Here is an original sermon of Rev. Cotton Mather; the poems of Leigh Hunt, which he presented to Charles Dickens; the original manuscript of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Consular Experiences"; the first edition of the "Scarlet Letter," with a note to Mr. Childs from the great novelist; Bryant's manuscript of the "First Book of the Iliad"; James Russell Lowell's "June Idyl," begun in 1850 and finished eighteen years afterward; the manuscript of James Fenimore Cooper's "Life of Captain Richard Somers"; and Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue," seventeen pages of large paper written small and close.

Here is an autograph letter from Poe, in which he offers to his publishers thirty-three short stories, enough to fill two large volumes, "On the terms which you allowed me before; that is, you receive all profits and allow me twenty copies for distribution to friends." From this it seems that Poe had the usual struggles of literary people.

One of the most unique things of the library is[320] the manuscript of "Our Mutual Friend," bound in fine brown morocco. The skeleton of the novel is written through several pages, showing how carefully Dickens thought out his plan and his characters; the paper is light blue, written over with dark blue ink, with many erasures and changes. Here are also fifty-six volumes of Dickens' works, with an autograph letter in each, from the author to Mr. Childs. Here is Lord Byron's desk on which he wrote "Don Juan." Now we look upon the smallest book ever printed, Dante's "Divina Commedia," bound in Turkey gilt, less than two and one-fourth inches long by one and one-half inches wide.

The collection of Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, now the property of Mr. Childs, letters and manuscripts from Lamb, Hawthorne, Mary Somerville, Harriet Martineau, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Browning, and hundreds of others, is of almost priceless value. In 1879 Mrs. Hall gave the Bible of Tom Moore to Mr. Childs, "an honored and much loved citizen of the United States, as the best and most valuable offering she could make to him, as a grateful tribute of respect, regard, and esteem."

Another valuable book is made up of the portraits of the presidents, with an autograph letter from each. Dom Pedro of Brazil sent, in 1876, a work on his empire, with his picture and his autograph. George Peabody sat for a full-length portrait for Mr. Childs. The album of Mrs. Childs contains the[321] autographs of a great number of the leading men and women of the world.

One could linger here for days, but we must see the lovely country-seat called "Wootton," some distance out from the city. The house is in Queen Anne style, surrounded by velvety lawns, a wealth of evergreen and exquisite plants, brought over from South America and Africa. The farm adjoining is a delight to see. Here is the dairy built of white flintstone, while the milkroom has stained glass windows, as though it were a chapel. The beautiful grounds are open every Thursday to visitors.

Here have been entertained the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, the Duke of Sutherland, Lord Rosse, Lord Dufferin, Sir Stafford Northcote, Herbert Spencer, John Waller, M.P., of the "London Times," Dean Stanley, Thomas Hughes, Dickens, Grant, Evarts; indeed, the famous of two hemispheres.

With all this elegance, befitting royalty, Mr. Childs has been a constant and generous giver. For his own city he was one of the foremost to secure Fairmount Park, and helped originate the Zoölogical Gardens, the Pennsylvania Museum, and the School of Industrial Arts. He gave ten thousand dollars for a Centennial Exposition. He has been one of General Grant's most generous helpers; yet while doing for the great, he does not forget the unknown. He gives free excursions to poor chil[322]dren, a dinner annually to the newsboys, and aids hundreds who are in need of an education.

He has placed a stained glass window in Westminster Abbey, in commemoration of George Herbert and William Cowper; given largely to a memorial window for Thomas Moore at Bronham, England; for a stone to mark Leigh Hunt's resting-place in Kensal Green; and toward a monument for Poe.

Mr. Childs has come to eminence by energy, integrity, and true faith in himself. He has had a noble ambition, and has worked towards it. He has proved to all other American boys that worth and honest dealing will win success, in a greater or less degree. That well-known scientist, Prof. Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, said, "Mr. Childs is a wonderful man. His ability to apply the power of money in advancing the well-being of his fellow-men is unrivalled. He is naturally kind and sympathetic, and these generous feelings are exalted, not depressed, by his success in accumulating a fortune.... Like man in the classification of animals, he forms a genus in himself. He stands alone; there is not another in the wide world like him."

Mr. Childs died at 3.01 A.M. February 3, 1894 from the effects of a stroke of paralysis sustained at the Ledger office on January 18. He was nearly sixty-five years of age. He was buried on February 6, in the Drexel Mausoleum in Woodland Cemetery beside his life long friend.

[323]

DWIGHT L. MOODY

DWIGHT L. MOODY.

"There's no chance to get in there. There's six thousand persons inside, and two thousand outside."

This was said to Dr. Magoun, President of Iowa College, and myself, after we had waited for nearly an hour, outside of Spurgeon's Tabernacle, in London, in the hope of hearing Mr. Moody preach. Finally, probably through courtesy to Americans, we obtained seats. The six thousand in this great church were sitting as though spellbound. The speaker was a man in middle life, rugged, strong, and plain in dress and manner. His words were so simple that a child could understand them. Now tears came into the eyes of most of the audience, as he told some touching incident, and now faces grew sober as the people examined their own hearts under the searching words. There was no consciousness about the preacher; no wild gesture nor loud tone. Only one expression seemed applicable, "a man dead in earnest."

And who was this man whom thousands came to[324] hear? Not a learned man, not a rich man, but one of the greatest evangelists the world has ever seen. Circumstances were all against him, but he conquered circumstances.

Dwight Lyman Moody was born at Northfield, Mass., Feb. 5, 1837. His father, a stone-mason and farmer, died when the boy was four years old, broken down with reverses in business. His mother was left with seven sons and two daughters, the eldest a boy only fifteen. What happened to this lad was well told by Mr. Moody, a few years since. "Soon after my father's death the creditors came in and took everything. One calamity after another swept over the entire household. Twins were added to the family, and my mother was taken sick. To the eldest boy my mother looked as a stay in her calamity; but all at once that boy became a wanderer. He had been reading some of the trashy novels, and the belief had seized him that he had only to go away, to make a fortune. Away he went. I can remember how eagerly she used to look for tidings of that boy; how she used to send us to the post-office to see if there was a letter from him, and recollect how we used to come back with the sad news, 'No letter!' I remember how in the evenings we used to sit beside her in that New England home, and we would talk about our father; but the moment the name of that boy was mentioned she would hush us into silence. Some nights, when the wind was very high, and the house, which[325] was upon a hill, would tremble at every gust, the voice of my mother was raised in prayer for that wanderer, who had treated her so unkindly. I used to think she loved him better than all of us put together, and I believe she did.

"On a Thanksgiving day she used to set a chair for him, thinking he would return home. Her family grew up, and her boys left home. When I got so that I could write, I sent letters all over the country, but could find no trace of him. One day, while in Boston, the news reached me that he had returned. While in that city, I remember how I used to look for him in every store—he had a mark on his face—but I never got any trace. One day, while my mother was sitting at the door, a stranger was seen coming toward the house, and when he came to the door he stopped. My mother didn't know her boy. He stood there with folded arms and great beard flowing down his breast, his tears trickling down his face. When my mother saw those tears, she cried, 'Oh, it's my lost son!' and entreated him to come in. But he stood still, 'No, mother,' he said, 'I will not come in until I hear that you have forgiven me.' She rushed to the threshold, threw her arms around him, and breathed forgiveness."

Dwight grew to be a strong, self-willed lad, working on the farm, fond of fun rather than of study, held in check only by his devotion to his mother. She was urged to put the children into[326] different homes, on account of their extreme poverty, but by tilling their garden, and doing some work for their neighbors, she managed to keep her little flock together. A woman who could do this had remarkable energy and courage.

What little schooling Dwight received was not greatly enjoyed, because the teacher was a quick-tempered man, who used a rattan on the boys' backs. Years after, he told how a happy change was effected in that school. "After a while there was somebody who began to get up a movement in favor of controlling the school by love. I remember how we thought of the good time we should have that winter, when the rattan would be out of school. We thought we would then have all the fun we wanted. I remember who the teacher was—a lady—and she opened the school with prayer. We hadn't seen it done before, and we were impressed, especially when she prayed that she might have grace and strength to rule the school with love. The school went on several weeks, and we saw no rattan; but at last the rules were broken, and I think I was the first boy to break them. She told me to wait till after school, and then she would see me. I thought the rattan was coming out sure, and stretched myself up in warlike attitude. After school, however, she sat down by me and told me how she loved me, and how she had prayed to be able to rule that school by love, and concluded by saying, 'I want to ask you one favor, that is, if you[327] love me, try and be a good boy;' and I never gave her trouble again."

He was very susceptible to kindness. When an old man, who had the habit of giving every new boy who came into the town a cent, put his hand on Dwight's head, and told him he had a Father in heaven, he never forgot the pressure of that old man's hand.

Farming among Northfield rocks was not exciting work enough for the energetic boy; so with his mother's consent, he started for Boston, when he was seventeen, to look for work. He had the same bitter experience that other homeless boys have. He says, "I went to the post-office two or three times a day to see if there was a letter for me. I knew there was not, as there was but one mail a day. I had not any employment and was very homesick, and so went constantly to the post-office, thinking perhaps when the mail did come in, my letter had been mislaid. At last, however, I got a letter. It was from my youngest sister,—the first letter she ever wrote me. I opened it with a light heart thinking there was some good news from home, but the burden of the whole letter was that she had heard there were pickpockets in Boston, and warned me to take care of them. I thought I had better get some money in hand first, and then I might take care of pickpockets."

The homesick boy finally applied to an uncle, a shoe-dealer, who hesitated much about taking the[328] country lad into his employ. He agreed to do so on the conditions that the boy would heed his advice, and attend regularly the Mount Vernon Church and Sunday-school. The preaching of Dr. Kirk, the pastor, was scholarly and eloquent, but quite above the lad's comprehension. His Sunday-school teacher, Mr. Edward Kimball, was a devoted man, and withal had the tact to win a boy's confidence. One day he came into the store where young Moody worked, and going behind the counter, placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and talked about his becoming a Christian. Such interest touched Dwight's heart, and he soon took a stand on the right side. Years afterward, Moody was the means of the conversion of the son of Mr. Kimball, at seventeen, just his own age at this time.

His earnest nature made him eager to do Christian work; but so poor was his command of language, and his sentences were so awkward, that he was not accepted to the membership of the church for a year after he had made his application. They thought him very "unlikely ever to become a Christian of clear and decided views of gospel truth; still less to fill any extended sphere of public usefulness." Alas! how the best of us sometimes have our eyes shut to the treasures lying at our feet.

He longed for a wider field of usefulness, and in the fall of 1856, when he was nineteen, started for Chicago, taking with him testimonials which secured him a place as salesman in a shoe store. He joined[329] Plymouth Church, and at once rented four pews for the young men whom he intended to bring in. Here, it is said, some of the more cultured assured him that his silence would be more effective for good than his speech! Certainly not encouraging to a young convert.

He offered his services to a mission school as a teacher. "He was welcome, if he would bring his own scholars," they said. The next Sunday, to their astonishment, young Moody walked in at the head of eighteen ragged urchins whom he had gathered from the streets. He distributed tracts among the seamen at the wharfs, and did not fear to go into saloons and talk with the inmates.

Finally he wanted a larger field still, and opened an old saloon, which had been vacated, as a Sunday-school room. It was in the neighborhood of two hundred saloons and gambling-dens! His heart was full of love for the poor and the outcasts, and they did not mind about his grammar. A friend came to see him in these dingy quarters, and found him holding a colored child, while he read, by the dim light of some tallow candles, the story of the Prodigal Son to his little congregation. "I have got only one talent," said the unassuming Moody. "I have no education, but I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to do something for him. I want you to pray for me."

Thirteen years later, when all Great Britain was aflame with the sermons of this same man, he wrote[330] his friend, "Pray for me every day; pray now that the Lord will keep me humble."

Soon the Sunday-school outgrew the shabby saloon, and was moved to a hall, where a thousand scholars gathered. Still attending to business as a travelling salesman, for six years he swept and made ready his Sunday-school room. He had great tact with his pupils, and won them by kindness. One day a boy came, who was very unruly, sticking pins into the backs of the other boys. Mr. Moody patted him kindly on the head, and asked him to come again. After a short time he became a Christian, and then was anxious about his mother, whom Mr. Moody had been unable to influence. One night the lad threw his arms about her neck, and weeping told her how he had stopped swearing, and how he wanted her to love the Saviour. When she passed his room, she heard him praying, "Oh, God, convert my dear mother." The next Sunday he led her into the Sabbath-school, and she became an earnest worker.

He also has great tact with his young converts. "Every man can do something," he says. "I had a Swede converted in Chicago. I don't know how. I don't suppose he was converted by my sermons, because he couldn't understand much. The Lord converted him into one of the happiest men you ever saw. His face shone all over. He came to me, and he had to speak through an interpreter. This interpreter said this Swede wanted to have me give him[331] something to do. I said to myself, 'What in the world will I set this man to doing? He can't talk English!' So I gave him a bundle of little handbills, and put him out on the corner of the greatest thoroughfare of Chicago, and let him give them out, inviting people to come up and hear me preach. A man would come along and take it, and see 'Gospel meeting,' and would turn around and curse the fellow; but the Swede would laugh, because he didn't know but he was blessing him. He couldn't tell the difference. A great many men were impressed by that man's being so polite and kind. There he stood, and when winter came and the nights got so dark they could not read those little handbills, he went and got a little transparency and put it up on the corner, and there he took his stand, hot or cold, rain or shine. Many a man was won to Christ by his efforts."

In 1860, when Moody was twenty-three, he made up his mind to give all his time to Christian work. He was led to this by the following incident. He says, "In the Sunday-school I had a pale, delicate young man as one of the teachers. I knew his burning piety, and assigned him to the worst class in the school. They were all girls, and it was an awful class. They kept gadding around in the schoolroom, and were laughing and carrying on all the while. One Sunday he was absent, and I tried myself to teach the class, but couldn't do anything with them; they seemed farther off than ever from any[332] concern about their souls. Well, the day after his absence, early Monday morning, the young man came into the store where I worked, and, tottering and bloodless, threw himself down on some boxes.

"'What's the matter?' I asked.

"'I have been bleeding at the lungs, and they have given me up to die,' he said.

"'But you are not afraid to die?' I questioned.

"'No,' said he, 'I am not afraid to die; but I have got to stand before God and give an account of my stewardship, and not one of my Sabbath-school scholars has been brought to Jesus. I have failed to bring one, and haven't any strength to do it now.'

"He was so weighed down that I got a carriage and took that dying man in it, and we called at the homes of every one of his scholars, and to each one he said, as best his faint voice would let him, 'I have come to just ask you to come to the Saviour,' and then he prayed as I never heard before. And for ten days he labored in that way, sometimes walking to the nearest houses. And at the end of that ten days, every one of that large class had yielded to the Saviour.

"Full well I remember the night before he went away (for the doctors said he must hurry to the South); how we held a true love-feast. It was the very gate of heaven, that meeting. He prayed, and they prayed; he didn't ask them, he didn't think they could pray; and then we sung, 'Blest be the tie that binds.' It was a beautiful night in June[333] that he left on the Michigan Southern, and I was down to the train to help him off. And those girls every one gathered there again, all unknown to each other; and the depot seemed a second gate to heaven, in the joyful, yet tearful, communion and farewells between these newly-redeemed souls and him whose crown of rejoicing it will be that he led them to Jesus. At last the gong sounded, and, supported on the platform, the dying man shook hands with each one, and whispered, 'I will meet you yonder.'

"From this," says Mr. Moody, "I got the first impulse to work solely for the conversion of men."

When he told his employer that he was going to give up business, he was asked, "Where will you get your support?"

"God will provide for me if he wishes me to keep on, and I shall keep on till I am obliged to stop," was the reply.

To keep his expenses as low as possible, he slept at night on a hard bench in the rooms of the Young Men's Christian Association, and ate the plainest food. Thus was the devoted work of this Christian hero begun. He was soon made city missionary for a time. Then the civil war began, and a camp was established near Chicago. He saw his wonderful opportunity now to reach men who were soon to be face to face with death. The first tent erected was used as a place of prayer. Ministers and friends came to his aid. He labored day and night, some[334]times eight or ten prayer-meetings being held at the same time in the various tents.

He did not desert these men on the field of battle. He was with the army at Pittsburgh Landing, Shiloh, Murfreesboro', and Chattanooga. Nine times, in the interests of the Christian Commission, he visited our men at the front, on his errands of mercy. He tells this incident in a hospital at Murfreesboro'.

"One night after midnight, I was woke up and told that there was a man in one of the wards who wanted to see me. I went to him, and he called me 'chaplain,'—I wasn't a chaplain,—and he said he wanted me to help him die. And I said, 'I'd take you right up in my arms and carry you into the kingdom of God, if I could; but I can't do it; I can't help you to die.'

"And he said, 'Who can?'

"I said, 'The Lord Jesus Christ can. He came for that purpose.' He shook his head and said, 'He can't save me; I have sinned all my life.'

"And I said, 'But he came to save sinners.' I thought of his mother in the north, and I knew that she was anxious that he should die right, and I thought I'd stay with him. I prayed two or three times, and repeated all the promises I could, and I knew that in a few hours he would be gone. I said I wanted to read him a conversation that Christ had with a man who was anxious about his soul. I turned to the third chapter of John. His eyes were riveted on me, and when I came to the fourteenth[335] and fifteenth verses, he caught up the words, 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.'

"He stopped me, and said, 'Is that there?' I said, 'Yes;' and he asked me to read it again, and I did so. He leaned his elbows on the cot and clasped his hands together, and said, 'That's good; won't you read it again?' I read it the third time, and then went on with the rest of the chapter. When I finished his eyes were closed, his hands were folded, and there was a smile on his face. Oh, how it was lit up! What a change had come over it. I saw his lips quiver, and I leaned over him, and heard in a faint whisper, 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.'

"He opened his eyes and said, 'That's enough; don't read any more.' He lingered a few hours, and then pillowed his head on those two verses, and went up in one of Christ's chariots and took his seat in the kingdom of God."

On the 28th of August, 1862, Mr. Moody married Miss Emma C. Revell, a most helpful assistant in his meetings, and a young lady of noble character. A daughter and a son came to gladden their simple cottage, and there was no happier home in all Chicago. One morning he said to his wife, "I have[336] no money, and the house is without supplies. It looks as if the Lord had had enough of me in this mission work, and is going to send me back again to sell boots and shoes." But very soon two checks came, one of fifty dollars for himself, and another for his school. Six years after his marriage, his friends gave him the lease of a pleasant furnished house.

This home had a welcome for all who sought the true way to live. One day a gentleman called at the office, bringing a young man who had recently come out of the penitentiary. The latter shrunk from going into the office, but Mr. Moody said, "Bring him in." Mr. Moody took him by the hand, told him he was glad to see him, and invited him to his house. When the young man called, Mr. Moody introduced him as his friend. When his little daughter came into the room, he said, "Emma, this is papa's friend." She went up and kissed him, and the man sobbed aloud.

When she left the room, Mr. Moody said, "What is the matter?"

"Oh sir," was the reply, "I have not had a kiss for years. The last kiss I had was from my mother, and she was dying. I thought I would never have another kiss again."

No wonder people are saved from sin by visiting a home like this!

In 1863, those who had been converted under this beloved leader wanted a church of their own[337] where they could worship together. A building was erected, costing twenty thousand dollars. Four years later, Mr. Moody was made President of the Young Men's Christian Association, and Farwell Hall was speedily built.

He was loved and honored everywhere. Once he was invited to the opening of a great billiard hall. He saw the owners, and asked if he might bring a friend. They said yes, but asked who he was. Mr. Moody said it wasn't necessary to tell, but he never went without him. They understood his meaning, and said, "Come, we don't want any praying."

"You've given me an invitation, and I am going to come," he replied.

"But if you come, you needn't pray."

"Well, I'll tell you what we'll do," was the answer; "we'll compromise the matter, and if you don't want me to come and pray for you when you open, let me pray for you both now," to which they agreed.

Mr. Moody prayed that their business might go to pieces, which it did in a very few months. After the failure, one of the partners determined to kill himself; but when he was about to plunge the knife into his breast, he seemed to hear again the words of his dying mother, "Johnny, if you get into trouble, pray." That voice changed his purpose and his life. He prayed for forgiveness and obtained it.

In 1871, the terrible fire in Chicago swept away[338] Moody's home and church. Two years later, having been invited to Great Britain by two prominent Christian men, he decided to take his friend, Mr. Ira D. Sankey, who had already won a place in the hearts of the people by his singing, and together they would attempt some work for their Lord. They landed in Liverpool, June 17. The two friends who had invited them were dead. The clergy did not know them, and the world was wholly indifferent. At their first meeting in York, England, only four persons were present, but Mr. Moody said it was one of the best meetings they ever held. They labored here for some weeks, and about two hundred were converted.

From here they went to Sunderland and Newcastle, the numbers and interest constantly increasing. Union prayer meetings had been held in Edinburgh for two months in anticipation of their coming. When they arrived, two thousand persons crowded Music Hall, and hundreds were necessarily turned away. As a result of these efforts, over three thousand persons united with the various churches. In Dundee over ten thousand persons gathered in the open air, and at Glasgow nearly thirty thousand, Mr. Moody preaching from his carriage. The press reported all these sermons, and his congregations were thus increased a hundred-fold all over the country. The farmer boy of Northfield, the awkward young convert of Mount Vernon Church, Boston, had become famous. Scholarly[339] ministers came to him to learn how to influence men toward religion. Infidels were reclaimed, and rich and poor alike found the Bible precious, from his simple and beautiful teaching.

In Ireland the crowds sometimes covered six acres, and inquiry meetings lasted for eight hours. Four months were spent in London, where it is believed over two and a half million persons attended the meetings.

Mr. Moody had been fearless in his work. When a church member who was a distiller became troubled in conscience over his business, he came and asked if the evangelist thought a man could not be an honest distiller.

Mr. Moody replied, "You should do whatever you do for the glory of God. If you can get down and pray about a barrel of whiskey, and say when you sell it, 'O Lord God, let this whiskey be blessed to the world,' it is probably honest!"

On his return to America, Mr. Moody was eagerly welcomed. Philadelphia utilized an immense freight depot for the meetings, putting in it ten thousand chairs, and providing a choir of six hundred singers. Over four thousand conversions resulted. In New York the Hippodrome was prepared by an expenditure of ten thousand dollars, and as many conversions were reported here. Boston received him with open arms. Ninety churches co-operated in the house-to-house visitation in connection with the meetings, and a choir of two thousand singers was[340] provided. Mr. Moody, with his wonderful executive ability and genius in organizing, was like a general at the head of his army.

Chicago received him home thankfully and proudly, as was her right. A church had been built for him during his absence, costing one hundred thousand dollars.

For the past ten years his work has been a marvel to the world and, doubtless, to himself. Great Britain has been a second time stirred to its centre by his presence. His sermons have been scattered broadcast by the hundreds of thousands. He receives no salary, never allowing a contribution to be taken for himself, but his wants have been supplied. A pleasant home at his birthplace, Northfield, has been given him by his friends, made doubly dear by the presence of his mother, now over eighty years old. He has established two schools here, one for boys and another for girls, with three hundred pupils, trained in all that ennobles life.

The results from Mr. Moody's work are beyond computing. In his first visit to London a noted man of wealth was converted. He at once sold his hunting dogs and made his country house a centre of missionary effort. During Mr. Moody's second visit the two sons at Cambridge University professed Christianity. One goes to China, having induced some other students to accompany him as missionaries; the other, just married to a lord's daughter, has begun mission work among the slums in the East End of London.[341]

The work of such a life as Mr. Moody's goes on forever. His influence will be felt in almost countless homes after he has passed away from earth. He has wrought without means, and with no fortuitous circumstances. He is a devoted student of the Bible, rising at five o'clock for study in some of his most laborious seasons. He is a man consecrated to a single purpose,—that of winning souls.

Mr. Moody died at his home at East Northfield, Mass., at noon, Friday, December 22, 1899. He was taken ill during a series of meetings at Kansas City, a few weeks previously, and heart disease resulted from overwork. He was conscious to the last. He said to his two sons who were standing by his bedside: "I have always been an ambitious man, not ambitious to lay up wealth, but to leave you work to do, and you're going to continue the work of the schools in East Northfield and Mount Hermon and of the Chicago Bible Institute." Just as death came he awoke as if from sleep and said joyfully, "I have been within the gate; earth is receding; heaven is opening; God is calling me; do not call me back," and a moment later expired. He was buried Tuesday, December 26, at Round Top, on the seminary grounds, where thousands have gathered yearly at the summer meetings conducted by the great evangelist.

[342]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

In Gentryville, Indiana, in the year 1816, might have been seen a log cabin without doors or window-glass, a dirt floor, a bed made of dried leaves, and a stool or two and table formed of logs. The inmates were Thomas Lincoln, a good-hearted man who could neither read nor write; Nancy Hanks, his wife, a pale-faced, sensitive, gentle woman, strangely out of place in her miserable surroundings; a girl of ten, Sarah; and a tall, awkward boy of eight, Abraham.

The family had but recently moved from a similar cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky, cutting their way through the wilderness with an ax, and living off the game they could obtain with a gun.

Mrs. Lincoln possessed but one book in the world, the Bible; and from this she taught her children daily. Abraham had been to school for two or three months, at such a school as the rude country afforded, and had learned to read. Of quick mind and retentive memory, he soon came to know the Bible wellnigh by heart, and to look upon his gentle teacher as the embodiment of all the good pre[343]cepts in the book. Afterward, when he governed thirty million people, he said, "All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. Blessings on her memory!"

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

When he was ten years old, the saintly mother faded like a flower amid these hardships of pioneer life, died of consumption, and was buried in a plain box under the trees near the cabin. The blow for the girl, who also died at fifteen, was hard; but for the boy the loss was irreparable. Day after day he sat on the grave and wept. A sad, far-away look crept into his eyes, which those who saw him in the perils of his later life well remember.

Nine months after this, Abraham wrote a letter to Parson Elkins, a good minister whom they used to know in Kentucky, asking him to come and preach a funeral sermon on his mother. He came, riding on horseback over one hundred miles; and one bright Sabbath morning, when the neighbors from the whole country around had gathered, some in carts and some on horseback, he spoke, over the open grave, of the precious, Christian life of her who slept beneath. She died early, but not till she had laid well the foundation-stones in one of the grandest characters in history.

The boy, communing with himself, longed to read and know something beyond the stumps between which he planted his corn. He borrowed a copy of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and read and re-read it till he could repeat much of it. Then some one[344] loaned him "Æsop's Fables" and "Robinson Crusoe," and these he pored over with eager delight. There surely was a great world beyond Kentucky and Indiana, and perhaps he would some day see it.

After a time Thomas Lincoln married a widow, an old friend of Nancy Hanks, and she came to the cabin, bringing her three children; besides, she brought what to Abraham and Sarah seemed unheard-of elegance,—a bureau, some chairs, a table, and bedding. Abraham had heretofore climbed to the loft of the cabin on pegs, and had slept on a sack filled with corn-husks: now a real bed would seem indeed luxurious.

The children were glad to welcome the new mother to the desolate home; and a good, true mother she became to the orphans. She put new energy into her somewhat easy-going husband, and made the cabin comfortable, even attractive. What was better still, she encouraged Abraham to read more and more, to be thorough, and to be somebody. Besides, she gave his great heart something to love, and well she repaid the affection.

He now obtained a much-worn copy of Weem's "Life of Washington," and the little cabin grew to be a paradise, as he read how one great man had accomplished so much. The barefoot boy, in buckskin breeches so shrunken that they reached only half way between the knee and ankle, actually asked himself whether there were not some great place in[345] the world for him to fill. No wonder, when, a few days after, making a noise with some of his fun-loving companions, a good woman said to him, "Now, Abe, what on earth do you s'pose'll ever become of ye? What'll ye be good for if ye keep a-goin' on in this way?" He replied slowly, "Well, I reckon I'm goin' to be President of the United States one of these days."

The treasured "Life of Washington" came to grief. One stormy night the rain beat between the logs of the cabin, and flooded the volume as it lay on a board upheld by two pegs. Abraham sadly carried it back to its owner, and worked three days, at twenty-five cents a day, to pay damages, and thus made the book his own.

The few months of schooling had already come to an end, and he was "living out," hoeing, planting, and chopping wood for the farmers, and giving the wages to his parents. In this way, in the daytime he studied human nature, and in the evenings he read "Plutarch's Lives" and the "Life of Benjamin Franklin." He was liked in these humble homes, for he could tend baby, tell stories, make a good impromptu speech, recite poetry, even making rhymes himself, and could wrestle and jump as well as the best.

While drinking intoxicants was the fashion all about him, taught by his first mother not to touch them, he had solemnly carried out her wishes. But his tender heart made him kind to the many who, in[346] this pioneer life, had been ruined through drink. One night, as he was returning from a house-raising, he and two or three friends found a man in the ditch benumbed with the cold, and his patient horse waiting beside him. They lifted the man upon the animal, and held him on till they reached the nearest house, where Abraham cared for him through the night, and thus saved his life.

At eighteen he had found a situation in a small store, but he was not satisfied to stand behind a counter; he had read too much about Washington and Franklin. Fifteen miles from Gentryville, courts were held at certain seasons of the year; and when Abraham could find a spare day he walked over in the morning and back at night, listening to the cases. Meantime he had borrowed a strange book for a poor country-lad,—"The Revised Statutes of Indiana."

One day a man on trial for murder had secured the able lawyer, John A. Breckenridge, to defend him. Abraham listened as he made his appeal to the jury. He had never heard anything so eloquent. When the court adjourned the tall, homely boy, his face beaming with admiration for the great man, pressed forward to grasp his hand; but, with a contemptuous air, the lawyer passed on without speaking. Thirty years later the two met in Washington, when Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States; and then he thanked Mr. Breckenridge for his great speech in Indiana.[347]

In March, 1828, the long-hoped-for opportunity to see the world outside of Gentryville had come. Abraham was asked by a man who knew his honesty and willingness to work, to take a flat-boat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. He was paid only two dollars a week and his rations; and as a flat-boat could not come up the river, but must be sold for lumber at the journey's end, he was obliged to walk the whole distance back. The big-hearted, broad-shouldered youth, six feet and four inches tall, had seen in this trip what he would never forget; had seen black men in chains, and men and women sold like sheep in the slave-marts of New Orleans. Here began his horror of human slavery, which years after culminated in the Emancipation Proclamation.

Two years later, when he had become of age, Abraham helped move his father's family to Illinois, driving the four yoke of oxen which drew the household goods over the muddy roads and through the creeks. Then he joined his adopted brothers in building a log house, plowed fifteen acres of prairie land for corn, split rails to fence it in, and then went out into the world to earn for himself, his scanty wages heretofore belonging legally to his father. He did not always receive money for his work, for once, for a Mrs. Miller, he split four hundred rails for every yard of brown jeans, dyed with white walnut bark, necessary to make a pair of trowsers.[348]

He had no trade, and no money, and must do whatever came to hand. For a year he worked for one farmer and another, and then he and his half-brother were hired by a Mr. Offutt to build and take a flat-boat to New Orleans. So pleased was the owner, that on Abraham's return, he was at once engaged to manage a mill and store at New Salem. Here he went by the name of "Honest Abe," because he was so fair in his dealings. On one occasion, having sold a woman a bill of goods amounting to two dollars and six and a quarter cents, he found that in adding the items, he had taken six and a quarter cents too much. It was night, and locking the store, he walked two or three miles to return the money to his astonished customer. Another time a woman bought a half pound of tea. He discovered afterward that he had used a four-ounce weight on the scales, and at once walked a long way to deliver the four ounces which were her due. No wonder the world, like Diogenes, is always looking for an honest man.

He insisted on politeness before women. One day as he was showing goods, a boorish man came in and began to use profanity. Young Lincoln leaned over the desk, and begged him to desist before ladies. When they had gone, the man became furious. Finding that he really desired to fight, Lincoln said, "Well, if you must be whipped, I suppose I may as well whip you as any other man," and suiting the action to the word, gave him[349] a severe punishing. The man became a better citizen from that day, and Lincoln's life-long friend.

Years afterward, when in the Presidential chair, a man used profanity in his presence, he said, "I thought Senator C. had sent me a gentleman. I was mistaken. There is the door, and I wish you good-night."

Hearing that a grammar could be purchased six miles away, the young store-keeper walked thither and obtained it. When evening came, as candles were too expensive for his limited wages, he burnt one shaving after another to give light, and thus studied the book which was to be so valuable in after years, when he should stand before the great and cultured of the land. He took the "Louisville Journal," because he must be abreast of the politics of the day, and made careful notes from every book he read.

Mr. Offutt soon failed, and Abraham Lincoln was again adrift. War had begun with Blackhawk, the chief of the Sacs, and the Governor of Illinois was calling for volunteers. A company was formed in New Salem, and "Honest Abe" was chosen captain. He won the love of his men for his thoughtfulness of them rather than himself, and learned valuable lessons in military matters for the future. A strange thing now happened,—he was asked to be a candidate for the State Legislature! At first he thought his friends were ridiculing him, and said he should be defeated as he was not widely known.[350]

"Never mind!" said James Rutledge, the president of their little debating club. "They'll know you better after you've stumped the county. Any how, it'll do you good to try."

Lincoln made some bright, earnest stump speeches, and though he was defeated, the young man of twenty-three received two hundred and seventy-seven votes out of the two hundred and eighty cast in New Salem. This surely was a pleasant indication of his popularity. It was a common saying, that "Lincoln had nothing, only plenty of friends."

The County-surveyor needed an assistant. He called upon Lincoln, bringing a book for him to study, if he would fit himself to take hold of the matter. This he did gladly, and for six weeks studied and recited to a teacher, thus making himself skilled and accurate for a new country. Whenever he had an hour's leisure from his work, however, he was poring over his law-books, for he had fully made up his mind to be a lawyer.

He was modest, but ambitious, and was learning the power within him. But as though the developing brain and warm heart needed an extra stimulus, there came into his life, at this time, a beautiful affection, that left a deeper look in the far-away eyes, when it was over. Ann Rutledge, the daughter of his friend, was one of the most intelligent and lovely girls in New Salem. When Lincoln came to her father's house to board, she was already engaged to a bright young man in the neighborhood,[351] who, shortly before their intended marriage, was obliged to visit New York on business. He wrote back of his father's illness and death, and then his letters ceased.

Mouths passed away. Meantime the young lawyer had given her the homage of his strong nature. At first she could not bring herself to forget her recreant lover, but the following year, won by Lincoln's devotion, she accepted him. He seemed now supremely happy. He studied day and night, eager to fill such a place that Ann Rutledge would be proud of him. He had been elected to the Legislature, and, borrowing some money to purchase a suit of clothes, he walked one hundred miles to the State capitol. He did not talk much in the Assembly, but he worked faithfully upon committees, and studied the needs of his State.

The following summer days seemed to pass all too swiftly in his happiness. Then the shadows gathered. The girl he idolized was sinking under the dreadful strain upon her young heart. The latter part of August she sent for Lincoln to come to her bedside. What was said in that last farewell has never been known. It is stated by some that her former lover had returned, as fond of her as ever, his silence having been caused by a long illness. But on the twenty-fifth of August, death took her from them both.

Lincoln was overwhelmed with anguish; insane, feared and believed his friends. He said, "I can[352] never be reconciled to have the snow, rains, and storms beat upon her grave." Years after he was heard to say, "My heart lies buried in the grave of that girl." A poem by William Knox, found and read at this time, became a favorite and a comfort through life,—

Mr. Herndon, his law partner, said, "The love and death of that girl shattered Lincoln's purposes and tendencies. He threw off his infinite sorrow only by leaping wildly into the political arena." The memory of that love never faded from his heart, nor the sadness from his face.

The following year, 1837, when he was twenty-eight, he was admitted to the bar, and moved from New Salem to the larger town of Springfield, forming a partnership with Mr. J. P. Stuart of whom he had borrowed his law-books. Too poor even yet to pay much for board, he slept on a narrow lounge in the law-office. He was again elected to the legislature, and in the Harrison Presidential campaign, was chosen one of the electors, speaking through the State for the Whig party. To so prominent a position, already, had come the backwoods boy.

Four years after Ann Rutledge's death, he married, Nov. 4, 1839, Mary Todd, a bright, witty, somewhat handsome girl, of good family, from Kentucky. She admired his ability, and believed in his success; he needed comfort in his utter loneliness.[353] Till his death he was a true husband, and an idolizing father to his children,—Robert, Willie, and Tad (Thomas).

In 1846, seven years after his marriage, having steadily gained in the reputation of an honest, able lawyer, who would never take a case unless sure he was on the right side, Mr. Lincoln was elected to Congress by an uncommonly large majority. Opposed to the war with Mexico, and to the extension of slavery, he spoke his mind fearlessly. The "Compromise measures of 1850," by which, while California was admitted as a free State, and the slave-trade was abolished in the District of Columbia, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, giving the owners of slaves the right to recapture them in any free State, had disheartened all lovers of freedom. Lincoln said gloomily to his law partner, Mr. Herndon, "How hard, oh, how hard it is to die and leave one's country no better than if one had never lived for it!"

His father died about this time, his noble son sending him this message, "to remember to call upon and confide in our great and good and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of the sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads; and He will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him."

In 1854, through the influence of Stephen A. Douglas, a brilliant senator from Illinois, the[354] Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, whereby those States were left to judge for themselves whether they would have slaves or not. But by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, it was expressly stated that slavery should be forever prohibited in this locality. The whole North grew to white heat. When Douglas returned to his Chicago home the people refused to hear him speak. Illinois said, "His arguments must be answered, and Abraham Lincoln is the man to answer them!"

At the State Fair at Springfield, in October, a great company were gathered. Douglas spoke with marked ability and eloquence, and then on the following day, Abraham Lincoln spoke for three hours. His heart was in his words. He quivered with emotion. The audience were still as death, but when the address was finished, men shouted and women waved their handkerchiefs. Lincoln and the right had triumphed. After this, the two men spoke in all the large towns of the State, to immense crowds. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill worked out its expected results. Blood flowed in the streets, as pro-slavery and anti-slavery men contested the ground, newspaper offices were torn down by mobs, and Douglas lost the great prize he had in view,—the Presidency of the United States.

When the new party, the Republican, held its second convention in Philadelphia, June 17, 1856, Abraham Lincoln received one hundred and ten votes for Vice President. What would Nancy[355] Hanks Lincoln have said if she could have looked now upon the boy to whom she taught the Bible in the log cabin!

An incident occurred about this time which increased his fame. A man was murdered at a camp-meeting, and two young men were arrested. One was a very poor youth, whose mother, Hannah Armstrong, had been kind to Lincoln in the early years. She wrote to the prominent lawyer about her troubles, because she believed her son to be innocent. The trial came on. The people were clamorous for Armstrong to be hanged. The principal witness testified that "by the aid of the brightly shining moon, he saw the prisoner inflict the death-blow with a slung shot."

After careful questioning, Mr. Lincoln showed the perjury of the witness, by the almanac, no moon being visible on the night in question. The jury were melted to tears by the touching address, and their sympathy went out to the wronged youth and his poor old mother, who fainted in his arms. Tears, too, poured down the face of Mr. Lincoln, as the young man was acquitted. "Why, Hannah," he said, when the grateful woman asked what she should try to pay him, "I shan't charge you a cent; never." She had been well repaid for her friendliness to a penniless boy.

The next year he was invited to deliver a lecture at Cooper Institute, New York. He was not very well known at the East. He had lived unostentatiously in[356] the two-story frame-house in Springfield, and when seen at all by the people, except in his addresses, was usually drawing one of his babies in a wagon before his door, with hat and coat off, deeply buried in thought. When the crowd gathered at Cooper Institute, they expected to hear a fund of stories and a "Western stump speech." But they did not hear what they expected. They heard a masterly review of the history of slavery in this country, and a prophecy concerning the future of the slavery question. They were amazed at its breadth and its eloquence. The "New York Tribune" said, "No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."

After this Mr. Lincoln spoke in various cities to crowded houses. A Yale professor took notes and gave a lecture to his students on the address. Surprised at his success among learned men, Mr. Lincoln once asked a prominent professor "what made the speeches interest?"

The reply was, "The clearness of your statements, the unanswerable style of your reasoning and your illustrations, which were romance, and pathos, and fun, and logic, all welded together."

Mr. Lincoln said, "I am very much obliged to you for this. It throws light on a subject which has been dark to me. Certainly I have had a wonderful success for a man of my limited education."

The sabbath he spent in New York, he found his way to the Sunday-school at Five Points. He was[357] alone. The superintendent noticing his interest, asked him to say a few words. The children were so pleased that when he attempted to stop, they cried, "Go on, oh! do go on!" No one knew his name, and on being asked who he was, he replied, "Abraham Lincoln of Illinois." After visiting his son Robert at Harvard College, he returned home.

When the Republican State Convention met, May 9, 1860, at Springfield, Ill., Mr. Lincoln was invited to a seat on the platform, and as no way could be made through the dense throng, he was carried over the people's heads. Ten days later, at the National Convention at Chicago, though William H. Seward of New York was a leading candidate, the West gained the nomination, with their idolized Lincoln. Springfield was wild with joy. When the news of his success was carried to him, he said quietly, "Well, gentlemen, there's a little woman at our house who is probably more interested in this dispatch than I am; and if you will excuse me, I will take it up and let her see it."

The resulting canvass was one of the most remarkable in our history. The South said, "War will result if he is elected." The North said, "The time has come for decisive action." The popular vote for Abraham Lincoln was nearly two millions (1,857,610), while Stephen A. Douglas received something over a million (1,291,574). The country was in a fever of excitement. The South made itself ready for war by seizing the forts. Before[358] the inauguration most of the Southern States had seceded.

Sad farewells were uttered as Mr. Lincoln left Springfield for Washington. To his law partner he said, "You and I have been together more than twenty years, and have never passed a word. Will you let my name stay on the old sign till I come back from Washington?"

The tears came into Mr. Herndon's eyes, as he said, "I will never have any other partner while you live," and he kept his word. Old Hannah Armstrong told him that she should never see him again; that something told her so; his enemies would assassinate him. He smiled and said, "Hannah, if they do kill me, I shall never die another death."

He went away without fear, but feeling the awful responsibility of his position. He found an empty treasury and the country drifting into the blackness of war. He spoke few words, but the lines grew deeper on his face, and his eyes grew sadder.

In his inaugural address he said, "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.... Physically speaking we cannot separate."

The conflict began April 12, 1861, by the enemy firing on Fort Sumter. That sound reverberated throughout the North. The President called for seventy-five thousand men. The choicest from[359] thousands of homes quickly responded. Young men left their college-halls and men their places of business. "The Union must and shall be preserved," was the eager cry. Then came the call for forty-two thousand men for three years.

The President began to study war in earnest. He gathered military books, sought out on maps every creek and hill and valley in the enemy's country, and took scarcely time to eat or sleep. May 24, the brilliant young Colonel Ellsworth had been shot at Alexandria by a hotel-keeper, because he pulled down the secession flag. He was buried from the east room in the White House, and the North was more aroused than ever. The press and people were eager for battle, and July 21, 1861, the Union army, under General McDowell, attacked the Confederates at Bull Run and were defeated. The South was jubilant, and the North learned, once for all, that the war was to be long and bloody. Congress, at the request of the President, at once voted five hundred thousand men, and five hundred million dollars to carry on the war.

Vast work was to be done. The Southern ports must be blockaded, and the traffic on the Mississippi River discontinued. A great and brave army of Southerners, fighting on their own soil, every foot of which they knew so well, must be conquered if the nation remained intact. The burdens of the President grew more and more heavy. Men at the North, who sympathized with the South,—for we[360] were bound together as one family in a thousand ways,—said the President was going too far in his authority; others said he moved too slowly, and was too lenient to the slave power. The South gained strength from the sympathy of England, and only by careful leadership was war avoided with that country.

General McClellan had fought some hard battles in Virginia—Fair Oaks, Mechanicsville, Malvern Hill, and others—with varying success, losing thousands of men in the Chickahominy swamps, and after the battle of Antietam, Sept. 17, 1862, one of the severest of the war, when each side lost over ten thousand men, he was relieved of his command, and succeeded by General Burnside. There had been some successes at the West under Grant, at Fort Donelson and Shiloh, and at the South under Farragut, but the outlook for the country was not hopeful. Mr. Lincoln had met with a severe affliction in his own household. His beautiful son Willie had died in February. He used to walk the room in those dying hours, saying sadly, "This is the hardest trial of my life; why is it? why is it?"

This made him, perhaps, even more tender of the lives of others' sons. A young sentinel had been sentenced to be shot for sleeping at his post; but the President pardoned him, saying, "I could not think of going into eternity with the blood of the poor young man on my skirts. It is not to be wondered at that a boy raised on a farm, probably in[361] the habit of going to bed at dark, should, when required to watch, fall asleep, and I cannot consent to shoot him for such an act." This youth was found among the slain on the field of Fredericksburg, wearing next his heart a photograph of his preserver, with the words, "God bless President Lincoln."

An army officer once went to Washington to see about the execution of twenty-four deserters, who had been sentenced by court-martial to be shot. "Mr. President," said he, "unless these men are made an example of, the army itself is in danger. Mercy to the few is cruelty to the many."

"Mr. General," was the reply, "there are already too many weeping widows in the United States. For God's sake, don't ask me to add to the number, for I won't do it." At another time he said, "Well, I think the boy can do us more good above ground than under ground."

A woman in a faded shawl and hood came to see the President, begging that, as her husband and all her sons—three—had enlisted, and her husband had been killed, he would release the oldest, that he might care for his mother. Mr. Lincoln quickly consented. When the poor woman reached the hospital where her boy was to be found, he was dead. Returning sadly to Mr. Lincoln, he said, "I know what you wish me to do now, and I shall do it without your asking; I shall release your second son.... Now you have one, and I one of the[362] other two left: that is no more than right." Tears filled the eyes of both as she reverently laid her hand on his head, saying, "The Lord bless you, Mr. President. May you live a thousand years, and always be at the head of this great nation!"

Through all these months it had become evident that slavery must be destroyed, or we should live over again these dreadful war-scenes in years to come. Mr. Lincoln had been waiting for the right time to free the slaves. General McClellan had said, "A declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present armies"; but Sept. 22, 1862, Mr. Lincoln told his Cabinet, "I have promised my God that I will do it"; and he issued the immortal Emancipation Proclamation, by which four million human beings stepped out from bondage into freedom. He knew what he was doing. Two years afterward he said, "It is the central act of my administration, and the great event of the nineteenth century."

The following year, 1863, brought even deeper sorrows. The "Draft Act," by which men were obliged to enter the army when their names were drawn, occasioned in July a riot in New York city, with the loss of many lives. Grant had taken Vicksburg on July 4, and General Meade had won at the dreadful three days' fight at Gettysburg, July 1-4, with a loss of more than twenty thousand on either side; but the nation was being held together at a fearful cost. When Mr. Lincoln[363] announced to the people the victory at Gettysburg, he expressed the desire that, in the customary observance of the Fourth of July, "He whose will, not ours, should everywhere be done, be everywhere reverenced with profoundest gratitude." He reverenced God, himself, most devoutly. "I have been driven many times upon my knees," he said, "by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day."

On Nov. 19, of this year, this battle-field was dedicated, with solemn ceremonies, as one of the national cemeteries. Mr. Lincoln made a very brief address, in words that will last while America lasts, "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is, rather, for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining for us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Emerson says of these words, "This, and one other American speech, that of John Brown to the[364] court that tried him, and a part of Kossuth's speech at Birmingham, can only be compared with each other, and no fourth."

The next year, Feb. 29, 1864, the Hero of Vicksburg was called to the Lieutenant-Generalship of the army, and for the first time Mr. Lincoln felt somewhat a sense of relief from burdens. He said, "Wherever Grant is, things move." He now called for five hundred thousand more men, and the beginning of the end was seen. Sherman swept through to the sea. Grant went below Richmond, where he said, "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

Mr. Lincoln had been re-elected to the Presidency for a second term, giving that beautiful inaugural address to the people, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widows and orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." On April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, and the long war was ended. The people gathered in their churches to praise God amid their tears. Abraham Lincoln's name was on every lip. The colored people said of their deliverer, "He is eberywhere. He is like de bressed Lord; he walks de waters and de land."[365]

An old colored woman came to the door of the White House and met the President as he was coming out, and said she wanted to see "Abraham the Second."

"And who was Abraham the First?" asked the good man.

"Why, Lor' bless you, we read about Abraham de First in de Bible, and Abraham de Second is de President."

"Here he is!" said the President, turning away to hide his tears.

Well did the noble-hearted man say, "I have never willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom."

Five days after the surrender of General Lee, Mr. Lincoln went to Ford's Theatre, because it would rest him and please the people to see him. He used to say, "The tired part of me is inside and out of reach.... I feel a presentiment that I shall not outlast the rebellion. When it is over, my work will be done."

While Mr. Lincoln was enjoying the play, John Wilkes Booth, an actor, came into the box behind him and fired a bullet into his brain; then sprang upon the stage, shouting, "Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!" The President scarcely moved in his chair, and, unconscious, was taken to a house near by, where he died at twenty-two minutes past seven, April 15, 1865. Booth was caught twelve days later, and shot in a burning barn.

The nation seemed as though struck dumb; and[366] then, from the Old World as well as the New, came an agonizing wail of sorrow. Death only showed to their view how sublime was the character of him who had carried them through the war. While the body, embalmed, lay in state in the east room of the White House tens of thousands crowded about it. And then, accompanied by the casket of little Willie, the body of Abraham Lincoln took its long journey of fifteen hundred miles, to the home of his early life, for burial. Nothing in this country like that funeral pageant has ever been witnessed. In New York, in Philadelphia, and in every other city along the way, houses were trimmed with mourning, bells tolled, funeral marches were played, and the rooms where the body rested were filled with flowers. Hundreds of thousands looked upon the tired, noble face of the martyred President.

In Oak Ridge Cemetery, at Springfield, Illinois, in the midst of a dense multitude, a choir of two hundred and fifty singing by the open grave of him who dearly loved music,

Abraham Lincoln was buried, Bishop Simpson, now dead, spoke eloquently, quoting Mr. Lincoln's words, "Before high Heaven and in the face of the world I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love."

Charles Sumner said, "There are no accidents[367] in the Providence of God." Such lives as that of Abraham Lincoln are not accidents in American history. They are rather the great books from whose pages we catch inspiration, and in which we read God's purposes for the progress of the human race.

BOOKS BY SARAH K. BOLTON.

"Mrs. Bolton never fails to interest and instruct her readers."—Chicago Inter-ocean.

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