The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 68, June, 1863.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by Tichnor and Fields, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

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

WEAK LUNGS, AND HOW TO MAKE THEM STRONG.

The highest medical authorities of this century have expressed the opinion that tubercular disease of the various tissues is justly chargeable with one-third of the deaths among the youth and adults of the civilized world. The seat of this tubercular disease is, in great part, in the lungs.

Before the taint is localized, it is comparatively easy to remove it. If in regard to most other maladies it may be said that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," in reference to tubercular consumption it may be truly declared that an ounce of prevention is worth tons of cure.

Had the talent and time which have been given to the treatment of consumption been bestowed upon its causes and prevention, the percentage of mortality from this dreaded disease would have been greatly reduced.

NATURE OF CONSUMPTION.

Genuine consumption does not originate in a cold, an inflammation, or a hemorrhage, but in tubercles. And these tubercles are only secondary causes. The primary cause is a certain morbid condition of the organism, known as the tubercular or scrofulous diathesis. This morbid condition of the general system is sometimes hereditary, but much more frequently the result of unphysiological habits. Those cases to which our own errors give rise may be prevented, and a large proportion of those who have inherited consumptive taint may by wise hygiene be saved.

Consumption is not a Local Disease.—It is thought to be a malady of the lungs. This notion has led to most of the mistakes in its treatment.

Salt rheum appears on the hand. Some ignorant physician says, "It is a disease of the skin." An ointment is applied; the eruption disappears. Soon, perchance, the same scrofulous taint appears in the lungs in the form of tubercles. The doctor cannot get at it there with his ointment, and resorts to inhalation. He is still determined to apply his drug to the local manifestation.

Salt rheum is not a disease of the skin. It is a disease of the system, [Pg 658]showing itself at the skin. Consumption is not a disease of the lungs. It is a disease of the system, showing itself in the lungs.

A ship's crew is seized with some fearful malady. They hang out a flag of distress. Another ship passes near the infected vessel. Its captain discovers the flag of distress. A boat's crew is sent to cut it down. The captain turns to his passengers with the triumphant exclamation, "We have saved them! All signs of distress have disappeared!"

A human body is diseased in every part. A flag of distress is hung out in the form of some malady at the surface. Some physician whose thinking is on the surface of things applies an ointment, which compels the malady to go back within the body again. Then he cries, "I have cured him; see, it is all gone!"

It may be said, that, when the disease attacks the lungs, it must be driven from that vital organ at any sacrifice. I reply, if the drug vapors which are inhaled could disperse the tuberculous deposit,—which is impossible,—the tubercle could not be transferred to any other internal organ where it would do less harm. No other internal organ can bear tuberculous deposit or ulceration with less danger to life.

In 1847, two brothers, bank-officers, afflicted with chronic inflammation of the eyes, came under my care. I repeatedly prescribed for them, but their eyes got no better. Indeed, they had little hope of relief; for, during their years of suffering, many physicians had treated them without avail. At length I told them there was no hope but in absence from their business, and such recreation as would elevate the general tone. A few months of hunting, fishing, and enjoyment in the country sufficed to remove the redness and weakness from their eyes. As I have argued, the disease was not one of the eyes, but of the entire system, which had assumed a local expression.

This dependence of particular upon general disease is a common idea with the people. A young man begins business with a large capital. He falls into dissipation. In ten years it exhausts his fortune. When at last we see him begging for bread, we do not say this exhibition of his poverty is his financial disease. His financial constitution has been ruined. The begging is only an unpleasant exhibition of that ruin. During this course of dissipation, the young man, in addition to the exhaustion of his fortune, ruins his health. His lungs fall into consumption. Some doctor may tell you it is disease of the lungs. But it is no more disease of the lungs than was begging the man's financial malady. In either case, the apparent disease is only an exhibition of the constitutional malady.

In brief, a local disease is an impossibility. Every disease must be systemic before it can assume any local expression. Or, in other words, every local pathological manifestation is an expression of systemic pathological conditions.

Now what is the practical value of this argument? I reply: So long as people believe bronchitis to be a disease of the throat, or consumption a disease of the lungs, so long will they labor under the hallucination that a cure is to be found in applications to these parts. But when they are convinced that these diseases are local expressions of morbid conditions pervading the whole organism, then whatever will invigorate their general health, as Nature's hygienic agents, will receive their constant and earnest attention.

CAUSES OF CONSUMPTION.

Sir James Clarke says,—"It may be fairly questioned whether the proportion of cures of confirmed consumption is greater at the present day than in the time of Hippocrates: and although the public may continue to be the dupes of boasting charlatans, I am persuaded that no essential progress has been made or can be made in the cure of consumption, until the disease has been treated upon different principles from what it hitherto has been. If the labor and ingenuity which have been misapplied in fruitless[Pg 659] efforts to cure an irremediable condition of the lungs had been rightly directed to the investigation of the causes and nature of tuberculous disease, the subject of our inquiry would have been regarded in a very different light from that in which it is at the present period."

While I shall not attempt a discussion of all the causes of phthisis pulmonalis, I shall, in a brief and familiar way, consider the more obvious sources of this terrible malady, and particularly those which all classes may remove or avoid.

Impure Air a Cause of Consumption.—In discussing the causes of a disease whose principal expression is in the lungs, nothing can be more legitimate than a consideration of the air we breathe. In full respiration, it penetrates every one of the many millions of air-cells.

Dust.—Every species of dust must prove injurious. Workers in those factories where tools are ground and polished soon die of pulmonary disease. The dust of cotton and woollen factories, that of the street, and that which is constantly rising from our carpets, are all mischievous. M. Benoiston found among cotton-spinners the annual mortality from consumption to be 18 in a thousand; among coal-men, 41; among those breathing an atmosphere charged with mineral dust, 30, and with dust from animal matter, as hair, wool, bristles, feathers, 54 per thousand: of these last the greatest mortality was among workers in feathers; least among workers in wool. The average liability to consumption among persons breathing the kinds of dust named was 24 per thousand, or 2.40 per cent. In a community where many flints were made, there was great mortality from consumption, the average length of life being only 19 years.

Gases.—Among the poisonous gases which infest our atmosphere, carbonic acid deserves special consideration. The principal result of all respiration and combustion, it exists in minute quantities everywhere, but when it accumulates to the extent of one or two per cent, it seriously compromises health. I have seen the last half of an eloquent sermon entirely lost upon the congregation; carbonic acid had so accumulated that it operated like a moderate dose of opium. No peroration would arouse them. Nothing but open windows could start life's currents. In lectures before lyceums, I often have a quarrel with the managers about ventilation. There is, even among the more intelligent, a strange indifference to the subject.

The following fact graphically illustrates the influence of carbonic acid on human life.

A young Frenchman, M. Deal, finding his hopes of cutting a figure in the world rather dubious, resolved to commit suicide; but that he might not leave the world without producing a sensation and flourishing in the newspapers, he resolved to kill himself with carbonic acid. So, shutting himself up in a close room, he succeeded in his purpose, leaving to the world the following account, which was found near his dead body, the next morning.

"I have thought it useful, in the interest of science, to make known the effects of charcoal upon man. I place a lamp, a candle, and a watch on my table, and commence the ceremony.

"It is a quarter past ten. I have just lighted the stove; the charcoal burns feebly.

"Thirty minutes past ten. A thick vapor gradually fills the room; the candle is nearly extinguished; I begin to feel a violent headache; my eyes fill with tears; I feel a general sense of discomfort; the pulse is agitated.

"Forty minutes past ten. My candle has gone out; the lamp still burns; the veins at my temple throb as if they would burst; I feel very sleepy; I suffer horribly in the stomach; my pulse is at eighty.

"Fifty minutes past ten. I am almost stifled; strange ideas assail me.... I can scarcely breathe.... I shall not go far.... There are symptoms of madness....[Pg 660]

"Eleven o'clock. I can scarcely write.... My sight is troubled.... My lamp is going out.... I did not think it would be such agony to die.... Ten...."

Here followed some quite illegible characters. Life had ebbed. The following morning he was found on the floor.

The steamer Londonderry left Liverpool for Sligo, on Friday, December 2d, 1848, with two hundred passengers, mostly emigrants. A storm soon came on. The captain ordered the passengers into the steerage cabin, which was eighteen feet long, eleven wide, and seven high. The hatches were closed, and a tarpaulin fastened over this only entrance to the cabin.

The poor creatures were now condemned to breathe the same air over and over again. Then followed a dreadful scene. The groans of the dying, the curses and shrieks of those not yet in the agonies of death, must have been inconceivably horrible. The struggling mass at length burst open the hatches, and the mate was called to gaze at the fearful spectacle. Seventy-two were already dead, many were dying, their bodies convulsed, the blood starting from their nostrils, eyes, and ears.

It does not appear that the captain designed to suffocate his passengers, but that he was simply ignorant of the fact that air which has passed to and fro in the lungs becomes a deadly poison.

The victims of the Black Hole in Calcutta and of the Steamer Londonderry, with the thousand other instances in which immediate death has resulted from carbonic acid, are terrible examples in the history of human suffering; but these cases are all as nothing, compared with those of the millions who nightly sleep in unventilated rooms, from which they escape with life, but not without serious injury. As a medical man, I have visited thousands of sick persons, and have not found one hundred of them in a pure atmosphere. I have often returned from church seriously doubting whether I had not committed a sin in exposing myself to its poisonous air. There are in our great cities churches costing fifty thousand dollars, in the construction of which not fifty dollars were expended in providing means for ventilation. Ten thousand dollars for ornament, but not ten dollars for pure air! Parlors with furnace-heat and a number of gas-burners (each of which consumes as much oxygen as several men) are made as close as possible, and a party of ladies and gentlemen spend half the night in them. In 1861 I visited a legislative hall. The legislature was in session. I remained half an hour in the most impure air I ever attempted to breathe. If the laws which emanated from such an atmosphere were good, it is a remarkable instance of the mental and moral rising above a depraved physical. Our school-houses are, some of them, so vile in this respect that I would prefer to have my son remain in utter ignorance of books, rather than breathe, during six hours of every day, so poisonous an atmosphere. Theatres and concert-rooms are so foul that only reckless people can continue to visit them. Twelve hours in a railway-car exhausts one, not because of the sitting, but because of the devitalized air. While crossing the ocean in the Cunard steamer Africa, and again in the Collins steamer Baltic, I was constantly amazed that men who knew enough to construct such noble ships did not know enough to furnish air to the passengers. The distresses of sea-sickness are greatly intensified by the sickening atmosphere which pervades the ship. Were carbonic acid black, what a contrast would be presented between the air of our hotels and their elaborate ornamentation!

It is hardly necessary to say that every place I have mentioned might be cheaply and completely ventilated.

Consumption originates in the tubercular diathesis. This diathesis is produced by those agencies which deprave the blood and waste vitality. Of these agencies none is so universal and potent as impure air. When we consider, that, besides mingling momentarily with the[Pg 661] blood of the entire system, it is in direct and constant contact with every part of the lungs, we cannot fail to infer that foul air must play a most important part in that local expression of the tubercular taint known as pulmonary consumption.

"Wholesome air is equally essential with wholesome food; hence it is that crowding individuals together in close, ill-ventilated apartments, as is often the case in boarding-schools, manufactories, and work-houses, is extremely prejudicial, both as a predisposing and exciting cause of tubercular disease."

The great Baudeloque considers impure air the only real cause of scrofula, other causes assisting. He thinks that no scrofula could be developed without this cause, whatever others might be in operation.

An English writer who was physician to the Princess Victoria says,—"There can be no doubt that the confined air of gloomy alleys, manufactories, work-houses, and schools, and of our nurseries and very sitting-rooms, is a powerful means of augmenting the hereditary predisposition to scrofula, and of inducing such a disposition de novo."

To drink from the same tumbler, to eat from the same plate, to wear the same under-clothes, to wash in the same water, even with the cleanest of friends, would offend most people. But these are as alabaster whiteness and absolute purity, compared with the common practice of crowding into unventilated rooms, and thus sucking into the innermost parts of our vital organs the foulest secretions from each other's skins and lungs. I wish it were possible for these vile exhalations to be imbued with some dark color, if but temporarily. Then decency would join with reason in demanding a pure atmosphere.

NIGHT AIR.

Consumptives, and all invalids, and indeed persons in health, are cautioned to avoid the night air. Do those who offer this advice forget that there is no other air at night but "night air"? Certainly we cannot breathe day air during the night. Do they mean that we should shut ourselves up in air-tight rooms, and breathe over and over again, through half the twenty-four hours, the atmosphere we have already poisoned? We have only the choice between night air pure and night air poisoned with the exhalations from our skins and lungs, perhaps from lungs already diseased. A writer pertinently speaks on this point after the following fashion:—

"Man acts strangely. Although a current of fresh air is the very life of his lungs, he seems indefatigable in the exercise of his inventive powers to deprive himself of this heavenly blessing. Thus, he carefully closes his bed-chamber against its entrance, and prefers that his lungs should receive the mixed effluvia from his cellar and larder, and from a patent little modern aquarius, in lieu of it. Why should man be so terrified at the admission of night air into any of his apartments? It is Nature's ever-flowing current, and never carries the destroying angel with it. See how soundly the delicate little wren and tender robin sleep under its full and immediate influence, and how fresh and vigorous and joyous they rise amid the surrounding dew-drops of the morning. Although exposed all night long to the heaven, their lungs are never out of order; and this we know by daily repetition of the song. Look at the new-born hare, without any nest to go to. It lives and thrives and becomes strong and playful under the unmitigated inclemency of the falling dews of night. I have a turkey full eight years old that has not passed a single night in shelter. He roosts in a cherry-tree, and is in primest health the year through. Three fowls, preferring this to the warm perches in the hen-house, took up their quarters with him early in October, and have never gone to any other roosting-place. The cow and the horse sleep safely on the ground, and the roebuck lies down[Pg 662] to rest on the dewy mountain-top. I myself can sleep all night long, bareheaded, under the full moon's watery beams, without any fear of danger, and pass the day in wet shoes without catching cold. Coughs and colds are generally caught in the transition from an over-heated room to a cold apartment; but there would be no danger in this movement, if ventilation were properly attended to,—a precaution little thought of nowadays."

Dr. James Blake advises the consumptive to join with several friends, procure horses and wagons, and set off upon a long journey, sleeping in the open air, no matter what the weather. He seems to think this the only way in which it is possible to induce the consumptive to sleep in the fresh air. Doctor Jackson gives the case of a consumptive young man (he does not state the condition of his lungs) who was cured by sleeping in the open air on a hay-stack. This advice and experience do not quite harmonize with the common terror of night air.

But while I believe that breathing the pure out-door air all night is an important curative means in this disease, I do not believe that sleeping in the open fields of a stormy night is the best means for securing pure night air, in the case of a feeble woman; on the contrary, I think it might be more pleasantly, and quite as effectually, secured in a comfortable house, with open windows and an open fire.

No doubt the lives of thousands would be saved by destroying their houses, and compelling them to sleep in the open air;—not because houses are inevitable evils, but because they are so badly used. Windows are barred and closed, as if to keep out assassins; draughts defended against, as if they were bomb-shells; and the furnace heat still more corrupts the air, which has done duty already—to how many lungs, for how many hours?

Let the consumptive thank God for the blessing of a house, but let him use it wisely. How my heart has ached, to see the consumptive patient put away in a bed, behind curtains, in an unventilated room, the doors and windows carefully closed, to shut out the very food for which his lungs and system were famishing!

I do not wonder that Blake, Jackson, and many others have advised an out-door life of the wildest and most exposed sort, to invalids of this class,—but I do wonder that they have not equally insisted upon abundance of air for them, as pure as that of the fields and mountains, in their own homes, and in the midst of friends and comforts.

MOISTURE IN THE ATMOSPHERE.

It is the common belief that a dry atmosphere is most favorable to the consumptive. Many medical authors have advanced this assumption. It is, nevertheless, an error. In the British Isles and in France, outside the cities and manufactories, the mortality from pulmonary diseases is much less than among the agricultural classes of this country. And on the western shores of this continent consumption is comparatively unknown.

Our disadvantage in this comparison is attributable, in considerable part, to the lack of humidity in our atmosphere. Without the evidence of facts, we might, a priori, argue, that excessive dryness of the air would produce dryness and irritability of the air-passages. From time immemorial, watery vapor has been used as a remedy in irritation and inflammation of the respiratory organs.

A hundred times have my consumptive patients expressed surprise that the wet weather, in which I have insisted they should go out as usual, has not injured them,—that they even breathe more freely than on pleasant days. Of course, I tell them, if the body is well protected, the more moist the air, the more grateful to your lungs.

There is no possible weather which can excuse the consumptive for keeping in-doors. Give him sufficient clothing, protect his feet carefully, and he may go out freely in rain, sleet, snow, and wind.[Pg 663] Ignorance of this fact has killed thousands.

That point of temperature at which the moisture of the air first becomes visible is known as the dew-point. According to one authority, the mean dew-point of England, from the first of November to the last of March, is about 35°; that of our Northern States about 16°. Now suppose a house in England is kept at a temperature of 70°, the drying power would there be represented by 35. A house with the same temperature in Albany, for example, would possess a drying power of 54. This great contrast in the atmosphere of the two countries is strikingly illustrated by the difference between the plump body and smooth skin of the Englishman, and the lean, juiceless body, and dry, cracked skin of the Yankee. It is also shown by the well-known difference in the influence of house-heat upon furniture. Our chairs and sofas and wood-work warp and shrink, while nothing of the sort occurs in England.

As we cannot increase the amount of moisture in the atmosphere of our continent, we must limit our practical efforts to the air of our houses. If we use a stove, its entire-upper surface may be made a reservoir for water; ornamental work, of but little cost, may be used to conceal it. The furnace may be made to send up, with its heat, many gallons of water daily, in the form of vapor. In justice to stoves and furnaces, I must say here, that, in the opportunity to do this, they possess one advantage over open fire-places.

By adding artificial moisture in this way to the air of our houses, we not only save our furniture from drying and shrinking, but protect our skin, eyes, nose, throat, and lungs from undue dryness, and from the affections to which it would give rise. It is found necessary, in our cloth-manufactories, to maintain a moist atmosphere in order to successful spinning. Intelligent managers have assured me that coughs and throat difficulties are comparatively rare in the spinning department.

We must all have observed, that, while the air of a hot kitchen is comfortable, that of a parlor at the same heat, from an air-tight stove, is almost suffocating. The kitchen has a hot stove, but the steam of its boiling kettles moistens the air.

Your country aunt, who has lived over her cooking-stove for years without serious inconvenience, after spending an afternoon in your parlor, heated by a stove or furnace, returns home "glad to get out of that hot, stifling air." And yet the thermometer may have indicated that the kitchen was ten degrees warmer than the parlor. The dry heat of the parlor produced headache, irritability, and perhaps a sense of stricture in the chest. If we would avoid these, a dry chapped skin, an irritable nervous system, and a dry hacking cough, we must add the needed humidity by artificial means.

CLIMATE

The influence of climate in the production of tuberculosis was formerly much exaggerated. Removal to a warm latitude, so generally prescribed some years ago, is now rarely advised. Although the bland atmosphere and out-of-door life of the tropics may often check the progress of the malady, yet the constitution is generally so enervated that the return to home and friends involves often not only a return of the malady, but its more rapid progress. At present, a winter at Lake Superior, or other region where the cold is intense and uniform, is the popular prescription. I do not doubt the value of the expedient in many cases. But the consumptive who can afford a winter neither in the Mediterranean nor at the frigid North may comfort himself that the value of such trips has been greatly overrated. Advice to the phthisical to spend a season a thousand miles from home is, to a large majority of them, not unlike that of the whimsical London doctor to the rag-picker he found coughing in the streets:—"That's a bad cough, a bad[Pg 664] cough, you have. I advise you to make a journey on the Continent; and, in order to secure all the advantages, you had better travel in your own carriage." Happily for those with short purses, health in this, as in most other cases, is more easily found at home.

I do not believe that the prejudice against our New-England climate, entertained by consumptives, is well-founded. The slight percentage of difference against us, as compared with the people of other parts of the country, in the number of deaths from consumption, is to be traced, I believe, not so much to our climate as to our manufactories. New England contains nearly all the great factories, labor in which is so prejudicial to health,—as well as a greater number of furnaces, air-tight stoves, and close houses.

I do not believe that the sudden changes of the New-England climate are disastrous to the consumptive who is well protected. While it is true that our climate provokes a greater number of colds than that of Florida, it is not less true that our atmosphere is more invigorating.

"The Climate of the United States," by Dr. Samuel Forry, of the United States Army, one of the best works of the kind ever published, gives a great number of facts, interesting in this connection. His statistics are gathered exclusively from the army. The men of the army are, in great part, of the same age, from the same rank in life, of the same habits, and have the same clothing, food, and labor, and when sick the same treatment. The influence of climate upon human health may, therefore, be ascertained with more accuracy from careful observations among this class of men than from any other source. In comparing the populations of New York and New Orleans, for instance, it is almost impossible to make accurate allowance for the manifold differences in habits, diet, occupation, etc.

Dr. Forry shows conclusively, that, while colds and influenzas are more common in the northern branches of the regular army, as 552 to 271, consumption is more common in the southern, in the proportion of 10-1/2 to 7-2/3. In the southern divisions there are 708 cases of fever of various sorts to 192 in the northern. "We may safely infer," he says, "that whatever tends to impair the constitution, as fevers, tends to develop consumption in every class which is predisposed, and in all climates and countries." Dr. Forry's tables present some curious facts. One which will most impress the general reader is, that rheumatism is more common at Key West than on the coast of New England. But it will not surprise the reflecting, that a change of 5° at Key West is felt as much as one of 20° at Boston. The slight changes, however, do not equally purify the atmosphere and invigorate the body.

DRESS

No subject is so intimately connected with the health of the respiratory apparatus as dress. And, as bearing upon pulmonary consumption, there are certain errors in the dress of children which must be noticed. I believe I echo the voice of my profession, when I declare that the seeds of consumption are planted in thousands by these mistakes in dress during infancy and childhood. To correct these, permit me a few practical suggestions.

The skirt-bands must be left very loose. If you would give the baby's lungs and heart the best chance for development, the dress about the chest and waist should be so loose, that, if the child be held up by the shoulders, its entire dress, except as sustained by the shoulders, will fall to the floor. With such a dress the blood is so much sooner oxygenated, that, other things being equal, the characteristic dark red color of the skin will disappear much sooner than with a close dress.

The bones surrounding the small, feeble lungs, now for the first time beginning to move, are so soft and pliable, that, under the slightest pressure, they will yield, and the capacity of the lungs be reduced. Yet I have seen the nurse[Pg 665] use the entire strength of her fingers in the first application of the skirt-bands. No thoughtful person, acquainted with the anatomy of the thorax in a new-born babe, can escape the conclusion that its vitality is seriously compromised by this pressure upon the principal organs of that vitality. In many instances I have seen the character of the little one's respiration and pulse decidedly affected by enlarging the skirt-bands.

Mothers, if you think all this pressure necessary to give your babes a form, as I have heard some of you say, you forget that the Creator of your child has all wisdom and skill, and that any changes in the baby's form and proportions must prove only mischievous. And perhaps you may not feel your pride hurt by the suggestion, that His taste is quite equal to yours. That a corset or other machine is needed to give a human being a form, as is so often suggested, is an imputation on the Creator which no thoughtful and conscientious person can indulge.

Dress of Children's Arms.—Prominent among the errors in the dress of children is the custom of leaving their arms nude.

I speak of the dress for the damp and cold seasons. It should be added, that during the cool summer evenings too much care cannot be exercised in protecting the baby's arms and shoulders. If the mother desires to exhibit her darling's beautiful skin, let her cut out a bit of the dress near its heart, and when the neighbors come in, let her show the skin thus exposed to the company. This is so near the central furnace of the body that it has no chance to get cold; but in the case of the arms and legs, we have parts far removed from the furnace, and such parts require special protection.

Take the glass tube of the thermometer out of the frame, and put the bulb in your baby's mouth. The mercury-rises to 98°. Now, on a cool evening, place the same bulb in its little hand; (I am supposing it has naked arms;) the mercury will sink to 60° or less. Need I say that all the blood which has to make its way through the diminutive and tortuous vessels of those cold arms must become nearly as cold as the arms and hands themselves? And need I add, that, as the cold currents of blood come from both arms back into the vital organs, they play the mischief there?

If you would preserve your child from croup, pneumonia, and a score of other grave affections, you should keep its arms warm. Thick woollen sleeves, fitting the little dimpled arms down to the hands, at least, constitute the true covering.

A distinguished physician of Paris declared just before his death,—"I believe that during the twenty-six years that I have practised my profession in this city, twenty thousand children have been borne to the cemeteries, a sacrifice to the absurd custom of naked arms."

When in Harvard College, many years ago, I heard the eminent Dr. Warren say,—"Boston sacrifices hundreds of babes every year by not clothing their arms."

What has been said of the dress of children is none the less applicable to the dress of adults. One of the gravest mistakes in the dress of women is the very thin covering of their arms and legs. A young lady once asked me what she could do for her very thin arms. She said she was ashamed of them. I felt of them through the thin lace covering, and found them freezing cold. I asked her what she supposed would make muscles grow? Exercise, she replied. Certainly,—but exercise makes them grow only by giving them more blood. Six months of vigorous exercise will do less to give those cold, naked arms circulation than would a single month, were they warmly clad.

The value of exercise depends upon the temperature of the muscles. A cold gymnasium is unprofitable. Its temperature should be between sixty and seventy, or the limbs should be warmly clothed. I know our servant-girls and blacksmiths, by constant and vigorous exercise, acquire large, fine arms, in spite[Pg 666] of their nakedness; and if our young ladies will labor as hard from morning till night as do these useful classes, they may have as fine arms; but even then it is doubtful if they would get rid of their congestions in the head, lungs, and stomach, without more dress upon the arms and legs.

Perfect health depends upon perfect circulation. Every living thing that has the latter has the former. Put your hand under your dress upon your body. Now place it upon your arm. If you find the temperature of the body over 90° and that of your arm under 60°, you have lost the equilibrium of circulation. The head has too much blood, producing headache; or the chest too much, producing cough, rapid breathing, pain in the side, or palpitation of the heart; or the stomach too much, producing indigestion. Any or all these difficulties are temporarily relieved by immersion of the hands or feet in hot water, and permanently relieved by such dress and exercise of the extremities as will make the derivation permanent.

The most earnest efforts looking towards dress-reform have had reference to the length of the skirt. I think it is one of woman's first duties to make herself beautiful. The long skirt, the trail even, is in fine taste. Among the dress features of the stage none is so beautiful. The artist is ever delighted to introduce it in his pictures of woman. For the drawing-room, it is superb. When we meet on dress occasions, I cannot see why we may not introduce this exquisite feature. If it is said that expense and inconvenience are involved, I reply, so they are in paintings and statuary.

For church and afternoon-sittings, skirts that nearly touch the floor seem to me in good taste; but for the street, when snowy or muddy, for the active duties of house-keeping, for the gymnasium, and for mountain-trips, it need not be argued, with those whose brains are not befogged by fashion, that the skirts should fall to about the knee.

Dr. Clarke says,—"Since the free expansion of the chest, or, in other words, the unimpeded action of the respiratory organs, is essential to health, the employment of tight stays and those forms of dress which interfere with these natural actions must be injurious, and cannot therefore be too strongly censured."

The celebrated Dr. James Johnson declares,—"The growth of the whole body and the freedom of all its functions so much depend upon perfect digestion, that every impediment to that digestion, such as compression of the middle of the body, must inevitably derange the whole constitution. Although the evils of tight lacing are as patent as the sun at noonday, I have never known its commission to be acknowledged by any fair dame. It is considered essential to a fine figure, yet I never could discover any marks of stays in the statues of the Medicean Venus, or the Apollo. And I venture to aver that the Cyprian goddess was not in the habit of drawing her zone as tight as the modern fair ones, else the sculptor would have recorded the cincture in marble. The comfort and motions of the foot are not more abridged and cramped by the Chinese shoe than are respiration and digestion by the stay." Thus wrote the physician to the father of the present queen of England.

A former professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the university of Vermont says,—"Undue confinement of the chest must at all periods of life be prejudicial; hence the practice of tight lacing we almost always find classed among the causes of phthisis, as well as of numerous other ills." And he adds,—"It is surely an erroneous notion that women need the support of stays."

BEST MATERIAL FOR DRESS.

In all seasons of the year, and in all climates, the best material for dress, for old and young, for strong and weak, is woollen. It is the poorest conductor of heat, and therefore secures the most equable temperature. This is the principal object of dress. The superiority of woollen[Pg 667] clothing for babes is even greater in July than in January. In the warmest days a single thickness of soft flannel will suffice. But if linen or cotton be worn, the garment is soon moistened by perspiration, and two or three additional thicknesses are needed to protect the child against the ill-effects of a draught.

In warm weather we find it necessary to wear woollen garments in the gymnasium, as a protection against a chill from draughts while perspiring. Our soldiers in the South find flannel their best friend, securing them against the extremes and exposures of their camp and field life. Blacksmiths, glass-blowers, furnace-men, and others exposed to the highest temperatures, find woollen indispensable.

Few practices will do so much to secure the comfort and protect the health of young children as dressing them in flannel night and day, the year round. It may be objected that flannel irritates a delicate skin. This is often so, as the skin is now treated. But there is no baby's skin so thin and delicate that daily bathing and faithful friction may not remove this extreme susceptibility. And as the skin is the organ upon which the outer world makes its impressions, nothing is more important than that all morbid susceptibility should be removed.

An additional advantage in the use of flannel is, that it serves by its mechanical effect to keep up a healthy surface circulation, which is one of the vital conditions of health. The skin and the lungs act and react upon each other more directly, if possible, than any other two organs of the body. Children born with a predisposition to consumption especially need a vigorous treatment of the skin.

Professor Dunglison says,—"The best clothing to protect us from external heat or cold is one that is a bad conductor of calorie, or one that does not permit heat to pass readily through it." This is the case with woollen. The Spaniard and the Oriental throw woollen mantles over them when they expose themselves to the sun.

Londe asserts that "the use of woollen next the skin is one of the most precious means possessed by therapeutics. Its use on children does much to prevent bowel-affections, and with it we can bear with impunity the vicissitudes of weather."

Brocchi ascribes the immunity of sheep which feed night and day in the Campagna di Roma "to the protection afforded them by their wool."

Patissier affirms that woollen clothing has been found effectual in preserving the health of laborers working in marshy grounds, canals, and drains.

Captain Murray, of the English service, after two years spent among the icebergs on the coast of Labrador, sailed, immediately upon his return to England, for the West Indies, where he remained some months, and while other officers lost many men, he returned to England without the loss of a man, which he ascribed in considerable part to the use of flannel. So important did he regard this hygienic measure that he had every man examined daily to ascertain that he had not thrown off his flannels.

A distinguished author writes that the aged, infirm, rheumatic, and those liable to pulmonary disease, are greatly benefited by the use of flannel.

Dr. Willich says,—"Wool recommends itself to us, because it is the covering of those animals most resembling man in structure."

Count Rumford says he is convinced of the utility of flannel in all seasons, that he was relieved by its use from a pain in the breast, to which he was much subject, and had never since known an hour's illness.

The celebrated Hufeland says it is a desirable dress for the nervous, those subject to colds, catarrhs, influenzas, and, in fact, for all invalids.

Another writer says that desperate diseases would be prevented, and many valuable lives saved, by its more universal use.

A distinguished American physician says that flannel next the skin is of service to the consumptive by the irritation[Pg 668] it produces, as well as the defence it affords against the cold.

An English authority says,—"Experience has so fully evinced the utility of covering the skin with flannel, that no person habituated to its use, in our damp climate, can be persuaded to dispense with it at any season of the year."

EXERCISE

Motion is the great law of the universe. It is the first instinct of animal life. When it ceases, life ceases. The degree of life may be measured by the amount of normal motion. When the life-forces run low, the natural and most effectual method of invigorating those forces is found in motion.

The popular education of our children is a lamentable violation of this law. The young child, left in freedom, keeps its nurse on the qui vive during every waking hour by its uncontrollable activity. The effort which our school-system makes to crush out this instinct, by compelling children to sit on hard chairs, bent over desks, motionless six hours a day, is, considered in its influence upon the vitality of the nation, the saddest of all possible mistakes.

A radical change in this respect is imperatively demanded by the growing intelligence of the people. The Germans,—God bless them!—having given more faithful study to the various problems of human development, have devised better modes. The Kindergarten, one of the many beautiful blossoms of the genius of that noble people, is being transplanted to this country. Wise parents, thank Heaven, and take heart. Miss Peabody's Kindergarten, in Boston, should be visited by the friends of education.

Nothing at this hour is so much needed in the development of the young as some system of physical training, which, under competent masters, may be introduced as a part of the daily drill into all our schools, public and private. The routine should be so arranged that study and physical exercise should alternate in periods not longer than half an hour throughout the day. For example: the school opens at 9 o'clock. The first half-hour is devoted to study and recitation. Let the second be given to vigorous training in the gymnasium under a drill-master, and to music. The third to study and recitation. The fourth to drill, in which those with weak stomachs form a class by themselves, with special exercises; those with weak chests another; those with weak spines still another: all classified and treated according to their several needs. The fifth half-hour to study and recitation. The sixth to declamation, singing, or culture of the vocal organs, in general and special ways. The seventh and eighth half-hours to study, conversation, etc. And again in the afternoon an alternation of intellectual and physical exercises, the latter so ordered as to bring into play every muscle, and thus secure the symmetrical development of the body. Who can doubt that under this system greater progress would be made in intellectual culture than at present? The mind would find more effective tools for its work. But, with an incredulous shake of the head, the people say, "Yes, this is all very fine, but quite impracticable," If by this they mean that it is not practicable until the public conscience is better enlightened, I grant the force of the objection. But if they mean to say, that, with a due appreciation of physical culture, such a school is an impracticability, I am confident they are mistaken. The order I suggest could be introduced in a week in any existing school, did the parents and teachers so will. I am happy to be able to say that such a school as I have described, possessing all the best facilities for classical and scientific instruction, and under the management of eminent educators, will be opened in an American city within the present year. The school has been determined upon from the conviction that only in beginning with the rising generation can the results of physical culture, or the system combining both physical and intellectual culture, in their natural[Pg 669] relations, be thorough and satisfactory, and that the results of this experiment would do more than all that can be said or written to arouse public attention.

Sweetser says,—"Were I required to name the remedy which promises most aid in the onset of consumption, I should say, daily gentle and protracted exercise in a mild and equable atmosphere.... Exercise, moreover, determines the blood to the surface of the body, rendering the cutaneous functions more active and healthful, and may in this way also contribute to the advantage of the lungs."

Dr. Parrish says that "vigorous and free exposure to the air is by far the most efficient remedy in pulmonary consumption."

Dr. Pitcher states that "the consumptive Indians of the Osage tribe have their symptoms suspended during their semi-annual buffalo-hunts, but that these soon return on becoming again inactive in their towns."

Dr. Rush informs us that he saw three persons who had been cured of consumption by the hardships of military life in the Revolutionary War. The same distinguished authority affirms that "the remedy for consumption must be sought in those exercises and employments which give the greatest vigor to the constitution."

Dr. Chambers, physician to St. Mary's Hospital, says,—"If we examine the history of those who have lived longest with consumption, we shall not find them to have been those who have lived in-doors, hanging their lives on their thermometers." He gives the case of a friend of his "who from his youth has had tubercular disease, but has kept hounds, contested elections, sat in Parliament, but never allows any one to doctor his chest."

Lord Bacon asserted that "there was no disease among pupils that gymnastics and calisthenics could not cure." And Galen declared "him to be the best physician who was the best teacher of gymnastics." While Dryden, long ago, sang,—

Consumptives are advised to ride on horseback, to make long journeys in the saddle. This is doubtless one of the most valuable exercises. There are numerous well-authenticated instances of cures by its means, even in the advanced stages of the disease. But many persons cannot avail themselves of its advantages. In our cities, not one phthisical invalid in ten, especially among women, can command facilities for daily horseback-riding, still less can they take long journeys.

Hunting, fishing, and mountain-air are advised. But how can many who reside in towns and cities, and who most need muscular training, secure such recreations?

Walking is very generally prescribed, and is doubtless the most available of the exercises named. But in the case of women, the present mode of dress seriously interferes with the ease and physiological benefits of this exercise; and few would exchange the long skirt for the short one with pantalets or Turkish trousers. And yet this change is indispensable to the best results.

While I would encourage all out-door exercises and amusements, it is evident that exercises which can be introduced into every house, which may be practised by persons of both sexes, all ages and degrees of strength, and which possess such fascination as shall make them permanently attractive, are greatly to be desired, to meet wants not otherwise supplied.

Many exercises have been advised with reference to general health and strength. I submit a series possessing peculiar virtues for the consumptive. To him all exercises are not equally profitable. Ten movements of a sort adapted to his special needs are worth a hundred not so adapted. He has a narrow chest and drooping shoulders. This distortion results in displacement of the lungs. And yet he may have legs and hips comparatively vigorous. Ten movements concentrated upon those muscles whose deficiency permits the drooping of the shoulders[Pg 670] will be more valuable than a hundred for the legs. There are several hundred muscles in the human body. In every case of consumption certain groups of these muscles are defective. Restoration of the lost symmetry calls for those exercises which will develop the defective groups. Prescribing a walk for a patient whose legs are already vigorous, but whose arms and shoulders are contracted and weak, is like prescribing a medicine because it is a medicine, without regard to the nature of the malady.

A blister applied to the chest relieves pain within. It accomplishes this by drawing the blood to the surface, and thus subtracting from the congestion at the point of disease. If the blister were applied to the foot or leg, it would not sensibly relieve the congestion in the chest.

If, instead of applying a blister, we use exercise as the remedial measure, and by drawing blood into the muscles we would relieve the congestion within, the importance of subtracting from the vessels which bear the blood to the diseased part is not less than in the case of the blister. For the relief or cure of disease in any of the chest organs a few well-directed movements of those muscles about the chest which lack circulation will accomplish more than hours of walking.

The intelligent physician, in prescribing muscular training, will not say, simply and generally, "I advise you to exercise," but he will indicate the particular exercises applicable to the case. He will first thoughtfully ask, "What group of muscles is defective?" When he has answered this question accurately, he is prepared for a second,—"What exercises will bring into direct training the defective group?" When these points are settled, he can direct the training wisely. To recommend horseback-riding—good as it is—for all consumptives, is not a whit more discriminating than to prescribe a particular variety of food for all invalids. The medical man who has a general formula for a certain class of patients is hardly more thoughtful than the vender of the "all-healing ointment."

Little or no attention has been given to the vital subject of exercise as a curative means. In many cases treated by Ling's methods, when skilfully applied, the results have been so marvellous that medical men who had not studied the philosophy of the Movement Cure have attributed the rapid improvement to Animal Magnetism. They could not conceive that muscular exercise alone could produce such wonderful results.

Symmetry of body and mind is vital to health. Its loss in the mind leads not unfrequently to insanity,—its loss in the body to numberless maladies. The great defect in our system of education lies just here. There is no discrimination between the members of a class, part of which needs one kind of culture to produce symmetry and health, while another part needs quite another. The gymnasium, where all perform the same exercises, may be charged with the same radical defect. In a school for thorough mental or physical training, pupils must be classified and trained with reference to their individual needs. This principle underlies the successful treatment of consumption. He who would contribute to its cure by exercise—the most efficient of all possible remedies—must not say to his patients simply, "Exercise, exercise, exercise," but he must distinctly mark out those exercises which are precisely adapted to the case of each.

As an additional reason for discrimination in prescribing physical exercises for consumptives, it may be mentioned that in almost every patient belonging to this class there are complications with other diseases each of which requires consideration.

EXERCISES POSSESSING PECULIAR VALUE FOR CONSUMPTIVES.

Most consumptive invalids are indisposed to exercise, and particularly indisposed[Pg 671] to employ their arms. Many attempt training of the shoulders and chest, and abandon it in disgust. But if in the systematic performance of the exercises other persons are interested, the patient cannot withdraw. Besides, those exercises in which others participate have social attractions, to which consumptives, as a class, are peculiarly susceptible.

For example, a consumptive young lady has brothers who assist her in certain prescribed exercises. These are to be executed twice a day, at hours when the brothers are at home. There is an affectionate interest in the group with reference to the pleasant duty. It is not forgotten. Suppose the brother is the patient, the sisters or mother will act as assistants. In every family such exercises are sure of the proper attention. I need scarcely say, that, if the patient undertake to exercise alone, with dumb-bells or some similar means, it will soon grow tiresome, and be abandoned.

Moreover, it is a matter of no small moment that other members of the family—who are not unlikely to be predisposed to the same malady—will thus secure a series of profitable exercises. I must add my conviction, that by no other variety of training can the efforts be so accurately directed to the muscles whose weakness permits the distortion of chest which is often the exciting cause of the malady.

With a good-sized room, and open windows, the air may be pure, while the exercise will prove the occasion of a thorough ventilation of the house.

I am indebted to Friedrich Robert Nitzsche of Dresden for the drawings of the accompanying cuts. His works are invaluable.

Fig. 1. Assistant, standing behind the patient, grasps his hands. Patient draws up the hands, as shown in the dotted lines, assistant resisting. Patient forces his hands back again to the first position, assistant resisting. Repeat five times.

In this, as in the other exercises advised, the resistance should be adapted to the patient's strength.

Fig. 2. Assistant, standing behind the patient, who is seated, grasps his uplifted hands. Patient draws down the hands, as shown by the dotted lines, assistant resisting. Patient forces the hands back to the first position, assistant resisting. Repeat three times.[Pg 672]

Fig. 3 shows an improvement on Fig. 2 for those cases in which, either from the strength of the patient or the weakness of the assistant, it might prove more agreeable to employ two assistants.

Figs. 4 and 5 represent an exercise which hardly needs description. The patient should exert the positive force in both directions, the assistants resisting.[Pg 673]

Fig. 8 shows an exercise valuable in the treatment of drooping shoulders. When the patient has raised his arms, as in the dotted lines, he may bring them back to the horizontal in front, without the interference of the assistant.

Fig. 9 illustrates an exercise which may be used twenty or thirty times, if managed with gentleness.

I cannot here undertake to say how often these exercises should be employed, nor in what cases; they are given merely as suggestive. A complete series of "Mutual Help Exercises," adapted to the treatment of the consumptive, includes a large number, many of which are not only valuable, but cannot fail to deeply interest all concerned.

If to the Mutual Help Exercises it is desired to add those in which the health-seeker can work alone, I would suggest the new exercises with the wooden dumbbell, wand, and club, and the one hundred and seven exercises with Schreber's Pangymnastikon.

Consumption—genuine tuberculous consumption—can be cured, even in the stage of softening or abscess. Dr. J. Hughes Bennett, Professor Calkins, Dr. Parrish, Dr. Carswell, Laennec, Professor Lee, Dr. Abernethy, Sir James Clarke, and fifty other distinguished authors, declare their faith in its curability.

In not less than a thousand post-mortem examinations, the lungs have exhibited scars, concretions, or other indubitable evidences of recovery from genuine consumption. I have cured many cases with exercise and other hygienic agents.

VIOLET-PLANTING.

The heavy apple-trees
Are shaking off their snow in breezy play;
The frail anemones
Have fallen, fading, from the lap of May;
Lanterned with white the chestnut-branches wave,
And all the woods are gay.
Come, children, come away,
And we will make a flower-bed to-day
About our dear one's grave!
Oh, if we could but tell the wild-flowers where
Lies his dear head, gloried with sunny hair,
So noble and so fair,
How would they haste to bloom and weep above
The heart that loved them with so fond a love!

Come, children, come!
From the sweet, ferny meads,
Wherein he used to walk in days of yore,—
From the green path that leads,
Where the long dusty road seems wearisome,
Up to his father's door,—
Gather the tender shoots
Of budding promise, fragrance, and delight,
Fresh-sprouting violet-roots,
That, when the first June night
Shall draw about his bed its fragrant gloom,
This grave-mound may be bathed in balmy bloom,
With loving memories eloquently dumb.
Come, children, come!

No more, alas, alas!
O fairest blossoms which the wild bee sips,
Along your pleasant places shall he pass,
Ere from your freshened leaves the night-dew drips,
Culling your blooms in handfuls from the grass,
Pressing your tender faces to his lips,—
Ah, never any more!
Yet I recall, a little while before
He passed behind this mystery of death,
How, bringing home great handfuls, won away
From the dark wood-haunts where he loved to stray
Until his dewy garments were replete
With wafts of odorous breath,
With sods all mossy-sweet
And all awake and purple with new bloom
He filled and crowded every window-seat,
Until each pleasant room
[Pg 676] Was fragrant with your mystical perfume:
Now vainly do I watch beside the door,—
Ah, never any more!

Alas, how could I know
That I so soon should strew
Your blossoms, warm with tears, above his head?
That your wet roots would cling
About the hand that wears his bridal ring,
When he who placed it there lay cold and dead?

O violets, live and grow,
That, ere the bright days go,
This turf may be with rarest beauty crowned!—
Nay, shrink not from my touch,
For these are careful and most loving hands,
Fearing and hoping much,
Which thus disturb your fair and wondering bands,
But to transfer them to more holy ground.

Dear violets, bloom and live!
To this beloved tomb
Your beauty and your bloom
Are the most precious tribute we can give.
And, oh, if your sweet soul of odor goes,
Blended with the clear trills of singing-birds,
Farther than my poor speech
Or wailing cry can reach
Into that realm of shadowy repose
Toward which I blindly yearn,
Praying in silence, "Oh, my love, return!"
Yet dare not try to touch with groping words,
So far it seems, and sweet,—
That realm wherein I may not hope to be
Until my wayworn feet
Put off the shoes of this mortality,—
Oh, let your incense-breath,
Laden with all this weight of love and woe
For him who went away so long ago,
Bridge for me Time and Death!

Blow, violets, blow!
And tell him in your blooming, o'er and o'er,
How in the places which he used to know
His name is still breathed fondly as of yore;
Tell him how often, in the dear old ways
Where bloomed our yesterdays,
The radiant days which I shall find no more,
My lingering footsteps shake
The dew-drops from your leaves, for his dear sake.
Wake, blue eyes, wake!
[Pg 677]

The earliest breath of June
Blows the white tassels from the cherry-boughs,
And in the deepest shadow of the noon
The mild-eyed oxen browse.
How tranquilly he sleeps,
He, whom so bitterly we mourn as dead!—
Although the new month sweeps
The over-blossomed spring-flower from his bed,
Giving fresh buds therefor,—
Although beside him still Love waits and weeps,
And yonder goes the war.

Wake, violets, wake!
Open your blue eyes wide!
Watch faithfully his lonely pillow here;
Let no rude foot-fall break
Your slender stems, nor crush your leaves aside;
See that no harm comes near
The dust to me so dear;—
O violets, hear!
The clouds hang low and heavy with warm rain,—
And when I come again,
Lo, with your blossoms his loved grave shall be
Blue as the marvellous sea
Laving the borders of his Italy!

PAUL BLECKER.

PART II.

You do not like this Lizzy Gurney? I know. There are a dozen healthy girls in that country-town whose histories would have been pleasanter to write and to read. I chose hers purposely. I chose a bilious, morbid woman to talk to you of, because American women are bilious and morbid. Men all cling desperately to the old book-type of women, delicate, sunny, helpless. I confess to even a man's hungry partiality for them,—these roses of humanity, their genus and species emphasized by but the faintest differing pungency of temper and common sense,—mere crumpling of the rose-leaves. But how many of them do you meet on the street?

McKinstry (with most men) kept this ideal in his brain, and bestowed it on every woman in a street-car possessed of soft eyes, gaiter-boots, and a blush. Dr. Blecker (with all women) saw through that mask, and knew them as they are. He knew there was no more prurient sign of the age of groping and essay in which we live than the unrest and diseased brains of its women.

Lizzy Gurney was but like nine-tenths of the unmarried young girls of the Northern States; there was some inactive, dumb power within,—she called it genius; there was a consciousness that with a man's body she would have been more of a man than her brother; there was, stronger than all, the unconquerable[Pg 678] craving of Nature for a husband's and child's love,—she, powerless. So it found vent in this girl, as in the others, in perpetual self-analyzing, in an hysteric clinging to one creed after another,—in embracing the chimera of the Woman's-Rights prophets with her brain, and thrusting it aside with her heart: after a while, to lapse all into a marriage, made in heaven or hell, as the case might be.

Dr. Blecker used no delicate euphuism in talking of women, which, maybe, was as well. He knew, that, more than men, though quietly, they are facing the problem of their lives, their unused powers, their sham marriages, and speak of these things to their own souls with strong, plebeian words. So much his Northern education opened his eyes to see, but he stopped there; if he had been a clear-sighted truth-seeker, he would have known that some day the problem would be solved, and by no foul Free Love-ism. But Paul was enough Southerner by birth to shrink from all inquiry or disquiet in women. If there were any problem of life for them, Grey Gurney held it solved in her nature: that was all he cared to know. Did she?

After the regiment was gone, she went into the old work,—cooking, sewing, nursing Pen. Very little of her brain or heart was needed for that; the heavy surplus lay dormant. No matter; God knew. Jesus waited thirty years in a carpenter's shop before He began His work,—to teach us to wait: hardest lesson of all. Grey understood that well. Not only at night or morning, but through the day, at the machine, or singing songs to Pen, she used to tell her story over and over to this Jesus, her Elder Brother, as she loved to call Him: He would not be tired of hearing it, how happy she was,—she knew. She did not often speak of the war to Him,—knowing how stupid she was, near-sighted, apt to be prejudiced,—afraid to pray for one side or the other, there was such bitter wrong on both; she knew it all lay in His hand, though; so she was dumb, only saying, "He knows." But for herself, out of the need of her woman's nature, she used to say, "I can do more than I do here. Give me room, Lord. Let me be Paul Blecker's wife, for I love him." She blushed, when even praying that silently in her heart. Then she used to sing gayer songs, and have a good romp with the children and Pen in the evenings, being so sure it would all come right. How, nobody could see: who could keep this house up, with the ten hungry mouths, if she were gone? But she only changed the song to an earnest hearty hymn, with the thought of that. It would come at last: He knew.

It being so sure a thing to her that this was one day to be, she began in a shy way to prepare for it,—after the day's work was done to the last stitch, taking from the bottom of her work-basket certain pieces of muslin that fitted herself, and sewing on them in the quiet of her own room. She did not sing when she worked at these; her cheeks burned, though, and there was a happy shining in her eyes bright enough for tears.

Sitting, sewing there, when that July night came, she had no prescience that her trial day was at hand: for to stoop-shouldered women over machines, as well as to Job, a trial day does come, when Satan obtains leave in heaven to work his will on them, straining the fibre they are made of, that God may see what work they are fit for in the lives to come. This was the way it came to the girl. That morning, when she was stretching out some muslin to bleach in a light summer shower, there was a skirmish down yonder in among some of the low coal-hills along the Shenandoah, and half a dozen men were brought wounded in to Harper's Ferry. There was no hospital there then; one of the half-burnt Government offices was used for the purpose; and as the surgeon at that post, Dr. Blecker, was one of the wounded, young Dr. Nott came over from the next camp to see to them. His first cases: he had opened an office only for six months, out in Portage, Ohio, before he got into the army; in those six months he played chess principally, and[Pg 679] did the poetry for the weekly paper,—his tastes being innocent: the war has been a grand outlet into a career for doctors and chaplains of that calibre. Dr. Nott, coming into the low arsenal-room that night, stopped to brush the clay off his trousers before going his rounds, and to whisk the attar of rose from his handkerchief. "No fever? All wounds?" of the orderly who carried the flaring tallow candle.

All wounds: few of them, but those desperate. Even the vapid eyes of Nott grew grave before he was through, and he ceased tipping on his toes, and tittering: he was a good-hearted fellow, at bottom, growing silent altogether when he came to operate on the surgeon, who had waited until the last. "The ball is out, Dr. Blecker,"—looking up at length, but not meeting the wounded man's eye.

"I know. Cross the bandage now. You'll send a despatch for me, Nott? There is some one I want to see, before——I'll hold out two or three days?"

"Pooh, pooh! Not so bad as that. We'll hope at least, Dr. Blecker, not so bad as that. I've paper and pencil here." So Dr. Blecker sent the despatch.

It was a hot July night, soon after the seven days' slaughter at Richmond. You remember how the air for weeks after that lay torpid with a suppressed heat,—as though the very earth held her breath to hear the sharp tidings of death. It never was fully told aloud,—whispered only,—and even that hoarse whisper soon died out. We were growing used to the taste of blood by that time, in North and South, like bulls in a Spanish arena. This night, and in one or two following it, the ashy sultriness overhead was hint of some latent storm. It is one of the vats of the world where storms are brewed,—Harper's Ferry: stagnant mountain-air shut in by circling peaks whose edges cut into the sky; the sun looking straight down with a torrid compelling eye into the water all the day long, until at evening it goes wearily up to him in a pale sigh of mist, lingering to rest and say good-bye among the wooded sides of the hills. Our hill-storms are generally bred there: it was not without a certain meaning that the political cloud took its rise in this town, whose thunder has shaken the continent with its bruit.

Paul Blecker lay by a window: he could see the tempest gathering for days: it was a stimulus that pleased him well. Death, or that nearness to it which his wound had brought, fired his brain with a rare life, like some wine of the old gods. The earth-life cleared to him, so tired he grew then of paltry words and thoughts, standing closer to the inner real truth of things. So, when he had said to the only creature who cared for him, "They say I will not live, come and stay with me," he never had doubted, as a more vulgar man might have done, that she would come,—never doubted either, that, if it were true that he should die, she would come again after him some day, to work and love yonder with him,—his wife. Nature sends this calmness, quiet reliance on the real verities of life, down there into that border-ground of death,—kind, as is her wont to be. When the third day was near its close, he knew she would come that night; half smiling to himself, as he thought of what an ignorant, scared traveller she would be; wishing he could have seen her bear down all difficulties in that turbulent house with her child-like "He wants me,—I must go." How kind people would be to her on the road, hearing her uncertain timid voice! Why, that woman might pass through the whole army, even Blenker's division, unscathed: no roughness could touch her, remembering the loving trust in her little freckled face, and how innocently her soul looked out of her hazel eyes. He used to call her Una sometimes: it was the only pet name he gave her. She was in the Virginia mountains now. If he could but have been with her when she first saw them! She would understand there why God took his prophets up into the heights when He would talk to them.[Pg 680]

So thinking vaguely, but always of her, not of the fate that waited him, if he should die. Literally, the woman was dearer to him than his own soul.

The room was low-ceiled, but broad, with windows opening on each side. Overhead the light broke in through broken chinks in the rafters,—the house being, in fact, but a ruin.

A dozen low cots were scattered about the bare floor: on one a man lay dead, ready for burial in the morning; on the others the men who were wounded with him, bearing trouble cheerfully enough, trying, some of them, to hum a chorus to "We're marching along," which the sentry sang below.

The room was dark: he was glad of that; when she came, she could not see his altered face: only a dull sconce spattered at one end, under which an orderly nodded over a dirty game of solitaire.

Outside, he could see the reddish shadow of the sky on the mountains: a dark shadow, making the unending forests look like dusky battalions of giants scaling the heights. Below, the great tide of water swelled and frothed angrily, trying to bury and hide the traces of the battles fought on its shore: ruined bridges, masses of masonry, blackened beams of cars and engines. One might fancy that Nature, in her grand temperance, was ashamed of man's petty rage, and was striving to hide it even from himself. Laurel and sumach bushes were thrusting green foliage and maroon velvet flowers over the sand ledges on the rock where the Confederate cannon had been placed; and even over the great masses of burnt brick and granite that choked the valley, the delicate moss, undaunted and indefatigable, was beginning to work its veiling way. Near him he saw a small square building, uninjured,—the one in which John Brown had been held prisoner: the Federal troops used it as a guard-house now for captured Confederates.

One of these men, a guerrilla, being sick, had been brought in to the hospital, and lay in the bed next to Blecker's,—a raw-boned, wooden-faced man, with oiled yellow whiskers, and cold, gray, sensual eye: complaining incessantly in a whining voice,—a treacherous humbug of a voice, Blecker fancied: it irritated him.

"Move that man's bed away from mine to-morrow," he said to the nurse that evening. "If I must die, let me hear something at the last that has grit in it."

The storm was gathering slowly. Low, sharp gusts of wind crept along the ground at intervals, curdling the surface of the water, shivering the grass: far-off moans in the mountain-passes, beyond the Maryland Heights, heard in the dead silence: abrupt frightened tremors in the near bushes and tree-tops, then the endless forests swaying with a sullen roar. The valley darkened quickly into night; a pale greenish light, faint and fierce, began to flash in the north.

"Thunder-storm coming," said the sleepy orderly, Sam, coming closer to fasten the window.

"Let it be open," said Blecker, trying nervously to rise on one arm. "It is ten o'clock. I must hear the train come in."

The man turned away, stopping by the bed of the prisoner to gossip awhile before going down to camp. He thought, as they talked in a desultory way, as men do, thrown together in the army, of who and what they had been, that the Yankee doctor listened attentively, starting forward, and throwing off the bed-clothes.

"But he was an uneasy chap always, always," thought Sam, "as my old woman would say,—in a kippage about somethin' or other. But darned ef this a'n't somethin' more 'n usual,"—catching a glimpse of Blecker's face turned toward the prisoner, a curious tigerish look in his half-closed eyes.

The whistle of the train was heard that moment far-off in the gorge. Blecker did not heed it, beckoning silently to the orderly.

"Go for the Colonel, for Sheppard," in a breathless way; "bring some men,[Pg 681] stout fellows that can lift. Quick, Sam, for God's sake!"

The man obeyed, glancing at the prisoner, who lay with his eyes closed as though asleep.

"Blecker glowers at him as though he were the Devil,"—stopping outside to light a cigar at the oil-lamp. "That little doctor has murder writ in his face plain as print this minute."

Sam may not have been wrong. Paul Blecker was virulent in hates, loves, or opinions: in this sudden madness of a moment that possessed him, if his feet would have dragged him to that bed yonder, and his wrists been strong enough, he would have wrung the soul out of the man's body, and flung him from his way. Looking at the limbs stretched out under the sheet, the face, an obscene face, even with the eyes closed, as at a deadly something that had suddenly reared itself between him and his chance of heaven. The man was Grey Gurney's husband. She was coming: in a moment, it might be, would be here. She thought that man dead. She always should think him dead. He held back his breath in his clinched teeth: that was all the sign of passion; his brain was never cooler, more alert.

Sheppard, the colonel of the regiment, a thick-set, burly little fellow, with stubbly black whiskers and honest eyes, came stumping down the room.

"More, to me," with a smile. "Make your men remove that man Gurney into the lower ward. Don't stop to question, Colonel: I'll explain afterwards. I'm surgeon of this post."

"What d' ye mean to do, old fellow, with this wound of yours? Go under for it, as you said at first?"

"This morning I would have told you yes. I don't know now. I can't afford to leave the world just yet. I'll fight death to the last breath." Watching the removal of the prisoner as he spoke; when the door closed on him, letting his head fall on the pillow with a sigh of relief. "Sheppard, there was another matter I wished to see you about. Your mother came to see me yesterday."

"Yes; was the soup good she sent this morning? We're famous for our broths on the farm, but old Nance isn't here, and"——

"Well?"—staring into the white-washed wall to avoid seeing how red poor crotchety Blecker's face grew.

"By the way, Paul, my mother desired me to bring that young lady you told her of home with me. She means to adopt her for the present, I believe."

"Yes, I knew. Bah, man, don't wring my fingers off. If the girl's good and pure enough to do this thing, my mother's the woman to appreciate it. She knows true blood in horses or men, mother. Not a better eye for mules in Kentucky than that little woman's. A Shelby, you know? Stock-raisers. By George, here she comes, with her charge in tow already!"

Blecker bit his parched lips: among the footsteps coming up the long hall, he heard only one, quick and light; it seemed to strike on his very brain, glancing to the yellow-panelled door, behind which the prisoner lay. She thought that man dead. She always should think him dead. She should be his wife before God; if He had any punishment for that crime, he took it on his own soul,—now. And so turned with a smile to meet her.

"Don't mind Paul's face, if it is skin and bone," said the Colonel, hastily interposing his squat figure between it and the light. "Needs shaving, that's all. He'll be round in no time at all, with a bit of nursing; 's got no notion of dying."

"I knew he wouldn't die," she said, half to herself, not speaking to Paul,—only[Pg 682] he held both her hands in his, and looked in her eyes.

Sheppard, after the first glance over the little brown figure and the face under the Shaker hood, had stood, hat in hand, with something of the same home-trusty smile he gave his wife on his mouth. The little square-built body in black seeded silk and widow's cap, that had convoyed the girl in, touched the Colonel's elbow, and they turned their backs to the bed,—talking of hot coffee and sandwiches. Paul drew her down.

"My wife, Grey? Mine?" his breath thin and cold,—because no oath now could make that sure.

He shut his eyes. She wondered that he did not smile when she put her timorous fingers in his tangled hair. He thought he would die, maybe. He could not die. Her feet seemed to take firmer root into the ground. A clammy damp broke out over her body. He did not know how she had wrestled in prayer; he did not believe in prayer. He could not die. That which a believer asked of God, believing He would grant, was granted. She held him in life by her hand on Christ's arm.

Grey looked up. The little figure facing her had a body that somehow put you in mind of unraised dough: and there was nothing spongy or porous or delusive in the solid little soul either, inside of the body,—that was plain. She looked as if Kentucky had sent her out, a tight, right, compact drill-sergeant, an embodiment of Western reason, to try by herself at drum-head court-martial the whole rank and file of Northernisms, airy and intangible illusions. Nothing about her that did not summon you to stand and deliver common sense; the faint down on her upper-lip, the clog-soled shoes, the stiff dress, the rope of a gold watch-chain, the single pure diamond blazing on one chubby white hand, the general effect of a lager-bier keg, unmovable, self-poised, the round black eyes, the two black puffs of hair on each temple, said with one voice, "No fooling now; no chance for humbug here." Why should there be? One of the Shelbys; well-built in bone and blood, honest, educated,—mule-raisers; courted by General Sheppard according to form, a modest, industrious girl, a dignified, eminently sensible wife, a blindly loving mother, a shrewd business-woman as a widow. Her son was a Christian, her slaves were fat and contented, her mules the best stock imported. She hated the Abolitionists, lank, uncombed, ill-bred fanatics; despised the Secessionists as disappointed Democrats; clung desperately to the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the laws, not knowing she was holding to the most airy and illusive nothings of all. So she was here with Pratt, her son, at Harper's Ferry, nursing the sick, keeping a sharp eye on the stock her overseer sold to Government, looking into the face of every Rebel prisoner brought in, with a very woman's sick heart, but colder growing eyes. For Buckner, you know, had induced Harry to go into the Southern army. Harry Clay, (they lived near Ashland,)—Harry was his mother's pet, before this, the youngest. If he was wounded, like to die, not all their guerrillas or pickets should keep her back; though, when he was well, she would leave him without a word. He had gone, like the prodigal son, to fill his belly with the husks the swine did eat,—and not until he came back, like the prodigal son, would she forgive him. But if he was wounded—If Grey had stopped one hour before coming to this man she loved, she would have despised her.

But Pen shied from the outstretched hand, and had recourse to a vial of spirituous-looking liquorice-water.

It was raining now, heavily. By some occult influence, Mrs. Sheppard had caused a table to spring up beside the bed,[Pg 683] whereon a cozy round-stomached oil-lamp burned and flared in the wind, in a jolly, drunken fashion, and a coffee-pot sent out mellow whiffs of brown steam.

"It's Mocha, my dear,—not rye. I mean to support my Government, and I'll not shirk the duty when it comes to taxes on coffee. So you were afraid? It's the great glory of our country that a woman can travel unprotected from one end to——Well. But you are young and silly yet."

And she handed Grey a cup with a relaxing mouth, which showed, that, though she were a woman herself, capable of swallowing pills without jelly, she did not hope for as much from weaker human nature.

Paul Blecker had not heard the thunder the first hour Grey was there, nor seen the livid flashes lighting up those savagest heights in the mountains: his eye was fixed on that yellow door yonder in the flickering darkness of the room, and on the possibility that lay beyond it.

Now, while Grey, growing used to her new home, talked to Pen and her hostess, Paul's thoughts came in cheerier and warmer: noting how the rain plashed like a wide sweep of loneliness outside, forcing all brightness and comfort in,—how the red lamp-light glowed, how even the pale faces of the men, in the cold beds yonder, grew less dour and rigid, looking at them; hearing the low chirp of Grey's voice now and then,—her eyes turned always on him, watchful, still. It was like home, that broad, half-burnt arsenal-room. Even the comfortable little black figure, sturdily clicking steel needles through an uncompromising pair of gray socks, fitted well and with meaning into the picture, and burly Pratt Sheppard holding little Pen on his knee, his grizzly black brows knitted. Because Mary, down at home there, was nursing his baby boy now, most likely, just as he held this one. His baby was only a few months old: he had never seen it: perhaps he might never see it.

"She looks like Mary, a bit, mother, eh?"—nodding to Grey, and steadying one foot on the rung of his chair.

Grey, hearing the whisper, colored, and laughed, and presently took off the Shaker hood.

"'Pon my soul, mother, it's a remarkable likeness.—You're not related to the Furnesses, Miss Gurney,—Furnesses of Tennessee?"

"Pratt sees his wife in every woman he meets," said his mother, toeing off her sock.

She had not much patience with Pratt's wife-worship: some of these days he'd be sold to those Furnesses, soul and body. They were a mawkish, "genteel" set: from genteel people might the Lord deliver her!

"Does the boy look like this one at all, mother?—I never saw my boy, Miss Gurney,"—explaining. "Fellows are shirking so now, I won't ask for a furlough."

"The child's a Shelby, out and out,"—angrily enough. "Look here, Dr. Blecker,"—pulling up her skirt, to come at an enormous pocket in her petticoat. "Here's the daguerreotype, taken when he was just four weeks old, and there's Pratt's eyes and chin to a T. D'ye see? Pratt was a fine child,—weighed fourteen pounds. But he was colicky to the last degree. And as for croup——Does your Pen have croup, Miss Grey? Sit here. These men won't care to hear our talk."

They did care to hear it. It was not altogether because Blecker was weakened by sickness that he lay there listening and talking so earnestly about their home and Grey's, the boy and Mary,—telling trifles, too, which he remembered, of his own childhood. It was such a new, cordial, heartsome life which this bit of innocent gossip opened to him. What a happy fellow old Pratt was, with his wife and child! Good fighter, too. Well, some day, maybe, he, too—[Pg 684]—

They were all quiet that night, coming closer together, maybe because they heard the rain rushing down the gorges, and knew what ruin and grief and slaughter waited without. Looking back at that night often through the vacancy of coming days, Paul used to say, "I was at home then," and after that try to whistle its thought off in a tune. He never had been at home before.

So, after that night, the summer days crept on, and out of sight: the sea of air in which the earth lay coloring and massing the sunlight down into its thin ether, until it ebbed slowly away again in yellow glows, tinctured with smells of harvest-fields and forests, clear and pungent, more rare than that of flowers. Here and there a harvest-field in the States was made foul with powder, mud,—the grain flat under broken artillery-wheels, canteens, out of which oozed the few drops of whiskey, torn rags of flesh, and beyond, heaped in some unploughed furrow, a dozen, a hundred, thousands, it may be, of useless bodies, dead to no end. Up yonder in New England, or down in some sugar-plantation, or along the Lakes, some woman's heart let the fresh life slip out of it, to go down into the grave with that dead flesh, to grovel there, while she dragged her tired feet the rest of the way through the world. Her pain was blind; but that was all that was blind. The wind, touching the crimson moccasin-flower in the ditch, and the shining red drops beside it, said only, "It is the same color; God wills they shall be there," and went unsaddened on its appointed way. The white flesh, the curly hair, (every ring of that hair the woman yonder knew by heart,) gave back their color cheerily in the sunlight, and sank into the earth to begin their new work of roots and blossoming, and the soul passed as quietly into the next wider range of labor and of rest. And God's eternal laws of sequence and order worked calmly, and remained under all.

This world without the valley grew widely vague to Blecker, as he lay there for weeks. These battles he read of every morning subserved no end: the cause stood motionless; only so many blue-coated machines rendered useless: but behind the machines—what? That was what touched him now: every hour some touch of Grey's, some word of the home-loving Kentuckians, even Pen's giant-stories, told as he sat perched on Blecker's bolster, made him think of this, when he read of a battle. So many thousand somethings dead, who pulled a trigger well or ill, for money or otherwise; so much brute force lost; behind that, a home somewhere, clinging little hands, a man's aspirations, millions of fears and hopes, religion, chances of a better foothold in the next life. It was that background, after all, the home-life, the notions of purity, honor, bravery absorbed there, that made the man a man in the battle-field.

So, lying on the straw mattress there, this man, who had been making himself from the first, got into the core of the matter at last, into his own soul-life, brought himself up face to face with God and the Devil, letting the outside world, the great war, drift out of sight for the time. His battle-field was here in this ruined plat of houses, prisoned by peaks that touched the sky. The issues of the great struggles without were not in his hands; this was. What should he do with this woman, with himself?

He gained strength day by day. They did not know it, he was so grave and still, not joining in the hearty, cheery life of the arsenal-room; for Mrs. Sheppard had swept the half-drunken Dutch nurses out of the hospital, and she and Grey took charge of the dozen wounded men (many dainty modiste-made ladies find that they are God-made women in this war). So the room had whitened and brightened every day; the red, unshaved faces slept sounder on their clean pillows; the men ate with a relish; and Grey, being the best of listeners, had carried from every bed a story of some home in Iowa or Georgia or the North. Only behind the yellow door yonder she never went. Blecker had ordered that,[Pg 685] and she obeyed like a child in everything.

So like a child, that Mrs. Sheppard, very tender of her, yet treated her with as much deference as she might a mild kitten. That girl was just as anxious that Bill Sanders's broth should be properly salted, and Pen's pinafore white, as she was to know Banks's position. Pish! Yet Mrs. Sheppard told Pen pages of "Mother Goose" in the evenings, that the girl might have time to read to Doctor Blecker. She loved him as well as if he were her husband; and a good wife she would be to him! Paul, looking at the two, as they sat by his bedside, knew better than she; saw clearly in which woman lay the spring of steel, that he never could bend, if her sense of right touched it. He used to hold her freckled little hands, growing yellow and rough with the hard work, in his, wondering what God meant him to do. If they both could lie dead together in that great grave-pit behind the Virginia Heights, it would have been relief to him. If he should let her go blindfold into whatever hell lay beyond death, it would be more merciful to her than to give her to her husband yonder. For himself—No, he would think only of her, how she could be pure and happy. Yet bigamy? No theory, no creed could put that word out of his brain, when he looked into her eyes. Never were eyes so genial or so pure. The man Gurney, he learned from Sheppard and Nott, recovered but slowly; yet there was no time to lose; a trivial accident might reveal all to her. Whatever struggle was in Blecker's mind came to an end at last; he would go through with what he purposed; if there were crime in it, he took it to his own soul's reckoning, as he said before.

It was a cool morning in early August, when the Doctor first crept out of bed; a nipping north-wind, with a breath of far-off frost in it, just enough to redden the protruding cheek of the round gum-trees on the mountain-ledges and make them burn and flame in among the swelling green of the forests. He dragged himself slowly to the wooden steps and waited in the sunshine. The day would be short, but the great work of his life should be done in it.

"Sheppard!" he called, seeing the two square, black figures of the Colonel and his mother trotting across the sunny street.

"What interest can you have in that dirty log, Blecker? I've noticed the man since you asked of him. He's only a Northern rogue weakened into a Southern bully."

"I know. But his family are known to me. I have an order for his exchange: it came yesterday. He holds rank as captain in the other service, I believe?"

"You are anxious to restore him to his chances of promotion down yonder; yet I fancied I saw no especial love for him in your eyes, heh? Maybe you'd promote him to the front rank, as was done with Uriah,—what d' ye say, Paul?"

"As was done with Uriah?" Pah, what folly was this? He took out his handkerchief, wiping his face and neck; he felt cold and damp,—from weakness, it might be.

"You will tell that man Gurney, Sam," beckoning to the orderly who was loitering near, "that an order for his exchange is made out, when he is able to avail himself of it."

"Won't you see him yerself, Doctor?" insinuated Sam. "He's a weak critter, an' 'll be monstrous thankful, I'm thinkin'."

Blecker shook his head and turned off,[Pg 686] waiting for Mrs. Sheppard. She was on the sidewalk, laying down the law to the chaplain, who, with his gilt-banded cap, looked amazingly like a footman. The lady's tones had the Kentucky, loud, mellow ring; her foot tapped, and her nervous fingers emphasized the words against her palm.

"Ill-bred," thought the young man; but he bowed, smiling suavely. "If I have been derelict in duty, Madam, I will be judged by a Higher Power."

"But it's my way, young Sir, to go to the root of the matter, when I see things rotting,—be it a potato-field or a church. We're plain-tongued in my State. And I think the Higher Power needs a mouth-piece just now."

And something nobler of mien than good-breeding gave to Sarah Sheppard's earnest, pursy little figure meaning just then, before which the flimsy student of the Thirty-Nine Articles stood silent.

"I'm an old woman, young man; you're a boy, and the white cravat about your neck gives me no more respect for you than the bit of down on your chin, so long as you are unworthy to wear either. We Virginians and Kentuckians may be shelled up yet in our old-fogy notions; it's likely, as you say. We don't understand the rights of man, maybe, or know just where Humanity has got to in its progress. But we've a grip on the old-fashioned Christianity, and we mean to make it new again. And when I see hundreds of young, penniless preachers, and old, placeless preachers, shoving into the army for the fat salaries, drinking, card-playing with the men, preaching murder instead of Christ's gospel of peace, I'll speak, though I am a woman. I'll call them the Devil's servants instead of the Lord's, and his best and helpfullest servants, too, nowadays. If there's a time when a man's soul cries out to get a clear sight of God, it's when he's standing up for what he thinks right, with his face to the foe, and his country behind him. And it's not the droning, slovenly prayers nor hashed-up political speeches of such men as you, that will show Him to them. Oh, my son!" putting her hand on the young man's arm, her voice unsteady, choking a minute, "I wish you'd be earnest, a peace-teacher like your Master. It's no wonder the men complain of the Federal chaplains as shams and humbugs. I don't know how it is on the other side. I've a son there,—Harry. I'd like to think he'd hear some live words of great truth before he goes into battle. Not vapid gabbling over the stale, worn-out cant, nor abuse of the enemy. When he's lying there, the blood coming from his heart on the sod, life won't be stale to him, nor death, nor the helping blood of the cross. And for his enemy, when he lies dead there, my Harry, would God love his soul better because it came to Him filled with hate of his brother?"

She was half talking to herself now, and the young man drew his coat-sleeve out of her hold and slipped away. Afterwards he said that old lady was half-Secesh, because she had a son in the Rebel army; but I think her words left some meaning in his brain other than that.

"You up and out, Doctor Blecker? Very well! You'll pay for it in fever to-morrow. But every young man is wiser in his own conceit, to-day, than seven men that can render a reason. It was not so in my day. Young people knew their age. I never sat down before my mother without permission granted, nor had an opinion of my own."

"Pha, pha! I'm a foolish old body. Fretting and fuming to no purpose, likely. There's Pratt, now, laughing, down the street. 'Mother, if you're going to have one of your brigazoos with that young parson, I'm off,' he says. He says,—'You're not in your own country, where the Shelbys rule the roast.' What if I'm not, Doctor Blecker? Truth's truth. I'm tired of cant, whether it belongs to the New-England new age of reason, their Humanity and Fourierism[Pg 687] and Broad-Church and Free-Love, or what not, or our own Southern hard-bit, tight-reined men's creeds. Not God's,—driving men headlong into one pit, all but a penned-up dozen. I'm going back of all churches to the words of Jesus. There's my platform. But you said you wanted to speak with me. What's your trouble?"

Blecker hesitated,—not knowing how this sturdy interpreter of the words of Jesus would look on his marriage with another man's wife, if she understood the matter clearly. He fumbled his cravat a minute, feeling alone, as if the earth and heaven were vacant,—no background for him to lean against. Men usually do stand thus solitary, when they are left to choose by God.

"You're hard on the young fellow, Mrs. Sheppard. I wish for my own sake he was a better specimen of his cloth. There's no one else here to marry me."

"Tut! no difference what he is,"—growing graver, as she spoke. "God's blessing comes pure, if the lips are not the cleanest that speak it. You are resolved, then, on your course, as you spoke to me last night?"

"Yes, I am, if Grey will listen to reason. You and the Colonel leave to-morrow?"

"Yes, and she cannot stay here behind me, to a certainty. Pratt is ordered off, and I must go see to my three-year-olds. Morgan will have them before I know what I'm about. I'll take the girl back to Wheeling, so far on her way home. As to this marriage"——

She stopped, with her fingers on her chin. The Doctor laughed to himself. She was deciding on Grey's fate and his, as if they were a pair of her three-year-olds that Government wanted to buy.

"It's unseemly, when the child's father is not here. That's how it seems to me, Dr. Blecker. As for love, and that, it will keep. Pha, pha! There's one suggestion of weight in favor of it. If you were killed in battle, the girl would have some provision as your widow that she could not have now. D'ye see?"

"I see; you come at the bone of the matter, certainly. I have concluded, Mrs. Sheppard, Grey must go with you; but she shall leave here as my wife. If there is any evil consequence, it shall come to me."

There was a moment's silence. He avoided the searching black eyes fixed on his face.

"It is not for me to judge in this matter," she said, with some reserve. "The girl is a good girl, however, and I will try and take the place of a mother to her. You have reasons for this haste unknown to me, probably. When do you wish the ceremony, and where, Doctor? The church up yonder," sliding into her easy, dogmatic tone again; "it's one of the few whole roofs in the place. That is best,—yes. And for time, say sunset. That will suit me. I must go write to that do nothing M'Key about the trousers for Pratt's men. They're boxed up in New York yet: and then I've to see to getting a supply of blue pills. If you'll only give one to each man two nights before going into battle, just enough to stir their livers up, you'll find it work like a charm in helping them to fight. Sundown,—yes. I cannot attend to it possibly before."

"Pah! she's a bit of linen rag, that child. You can turn her round your finger, and you know it. You will find her down on the shore, I think. I must go and tell my young parson he had better read over the ceremony once or twice to be posted up in it."

"To be sure, Pratt," she said, a few moments after, as she detailed the intended programme to the Colonel, farther down the street,—"to be sure, it's too hasty. I have not had time to give it consideration as I ought. These wartimes, my brain is so thronged night and day. But I think it's a good match. There's an honest, downright vein in[Pg 688] young Blecker that'll make a healthy life. Wants birth, to be sure. Girl's got that. You needn't sneer, Pratt. It is only men and women that come of the old rooted families, bad or good, that are self-poised. Made men always have an unsteady flicker, a hitch in their brains somewhere,—like your Doctor, eh? Grey's out of one of the solid old Pennsylvania stocks. Better blooded the mule, the easier goer, fast or not."

She shut her porte-monnaie with a click, and repinned her little veil that struck out behind her, stiff, pennant-wise, as she walked.

"Well, I've no time now. I'm going to drop in and see that Gurney, and tell him he's exchanged. And the sooner he's up and out, the better for him. Dyspepsia's what ails him. I'll get him out for a walk to-day. 'S cool and bracing."

It was a bracing day, the current of wind coming in between the Maryland Heights fresh and vigorous, driving rifts of gray cloud across the transparent blue overhead. A healthy, growing day, the farmers called it; one did fancy, too, that the late crops, sowed after the last skirmish about the town, did thrust out their green blades more hopefully to-day than before; the Indian corn fattened and yellowed under its tresses of soft sun-burnt silk. Grey, going with Pen that afternoon through a great field of it, caught the clean, damp perfume of its husk; it put her in mind of long ago, somehow, when she was no older than Pen. So she stopped to gather the scarlet poppies along the fence, to make "court-ladies" out of them for him, as she used to do for herself in those old times.

"Make me some shawls for them," said Pen, presenting her some lilac-leaves, which she proceeded to ornament by biting patterns with her teeth.

"Oth said, if I eat poppy-seeds, I'd sleep, an' never waken again. Is that true, Sis?"

Death and eternal sleeps were dim, far-off matters to Grey always,—very trivial to-day. She was a healthy, strong-nerved woman, loving God and her kin with every breath of her body, not likely to trouble herself about death, or ever to take her life as a mean, stingy makeshift and cheat, a mere rotten bridge to carry her over to something better, as more spiritually-minded women do. It was altogether good and great; every minute she wanted a firmer hold on it, to wring more work and pleasure out of it. She was so glad to live. God was in this world. Sure. She knew that, every moment she prayed. In the other? Yes; but then that was shadowy, and there were no shadows nor affinity for them in Grey. This was a certainty,—here. And to-day——So content to be alive to-day, that a something dumb in her brown eyes made Pen, looking up, laugh out loud.

"Kiss me, Sis. You're a mighty good old Sis to-day. Let's go down to the river."

They went down by the upper road, leaving the town behind them. The road was only a wide, rutted cow-path on the side of the hill. Here and there a broken artillery-wheel, or bomb-shell, or a ragged soldier's jacket lay among the purple iron-weed. She would not see them—to-day. Instead, she saw how dark the maple-leaves were growing,—it was nearly time for them to turn now; the air was clear and strong this morning, as if it brought a new lease of life into the world; on the hill-banks, brown and ash-colored lichen, and every shade of green, from pale apple-tint to the blackish shadows like moss in October, caught the sunshine, in the cheeriest fashion. Yellow butterflies chased each other about the grass, tipsily; the underbrush was full of birds, chattering, chirping calls, stopping now and then to thrill the air up to heaven with a sudden shiver of delight,—so glad even they were to be alive. Mere flecks of birds, some of them, bits of shining blue and scarlet and brown, trembling in and out of the bushes: chippeys, for instance,—you know?—so contemptibly little; it was[Pg 689] ridiculous, in these sad times, to see how much joy they made their small bodies hold. But it isn't their fault that they only have instinct, and not reason. I'm afraid Grey, with most women, was very near their predicament. That day was so healthy, though, that the very bees got out of their drowsiness, and made a sort of song of their everlasting hum; and that old coffin-maker of a woodpecker in the hollow beech down by the bridge set to work at his funereal "thud, thud," with such sudden vigor, it sounded like a heartsome drum, actually, beating the reveille. Not much need of that: Grey thought the whole world was quite awake: looking up to the mountains, she did not feel their awful significance of rest, as Paul Blecker might have done. They only looked to her like the arms this world had to lift up to heaven its forests and flowers,—to say, "See how glad and beautiful I am!" Why, up there in those barest peaks above the clouds she had seen delicate little lakes nestling, brimming with light and lilies.

They came to the river, she and Pen, where it bends through the gorge, and sat down there under a ledge of sandstone, one groping finger of the sunshine coming in to hold her freckled cheek and soft reddish hair. They say the sun does shine the same on just and unjust; but he likes best to linger, I know, on things wholesome and pure like this girl. When Pen began to play "jacks" with the smooth stones on the shore, she spread out her skirt for him to sit on,—to keep him close, hugging him now and then, with the tears coming to her eyes: because she had seen Paul an hour before, and promised all he asked. And Pen was the only thing there of home, you know. And on this her wedding-day she loved them all with a hungry pain, somehow, as never before. She was going back to-morrow; she could work and help them just as before; and yet a gulf seemed opening between them forever. She had been selfish and petulant,—she saw that now; sometimes impatient with her old father's trumpery rocks, or Lizzy's discontent; in a rage, often, at Joseph. Now she saw how hardly life had dealt with them, how poor and bare their lives were. She might have made them warmer and softer, if she had chosen. Please God, she would try, when she went home again,—wiping the hot tears off, and kissing Pen's dismal face, until he rebelled. The shadows were lengthening, the rock above her threw a jagged, black boundary about her feet. When the sun was behind yon farthest hill she was going back, up to the little church, with Pen; then she would give herself to her master, forever.

Whatever feeling this brought into her soul, she kept it there silent, not coming to her face as the other had done in blushes or tears. She waited, her hands clutched together, watching the slow sinking of the sun. Not even to Paul had she said what this hour was to her. She had come a long journey; this was the end.

"I would like to be alone until the time comes," she had said, and had left him. He did not know what he was to the girl; she loved him, moderately, he thought, with a temperate appreciation that taunted his hot passion. She did not choose that even he should know with what desperate abandonment of self she had absorbed his life into hers. She chose to be alone, shrinking, with a sort of hatred, from the vulgar or strange eyes that would follow her into the church. In this beginning of her new life she wanted to be alone with God and this soul, only kinsman of her own. If they could but go, Paul and she, up into one of these mountain-peaks, with Him that made them very near, and there give themselves to each other, before God, forever!

She sat, her hands clasped about her knees, looking into the gurgling water. The cool, ashen hue that precedes sunset in the mountains began to creep through the air. The child had crouched down at her feet, and fallen into a half doze. It was so still that she heard far down the path a man's footsteps crushing the sand, coming close. She did not turn[Pg 690] her head,—only the sudden blood dyed her face and neck.

She knew he was coming for her. No answer. She stood up then, and looked around. It was the prisoner Gurney, leaning against the rock, motionless, only that he twisted a silk handkerchief nervously in his hand, looking down at it, and crunching tobacco vehemently in his teeth.

The girl said nothing. Sudden death, or a mortal thrust of Fate, like this, brings only dumb astonishment at first: no pain. She put her fingers to her throat: there was a lump in it, choking her. He laughed, uneasily.

Pen woke and began to cry. She patted his shoulder in a dazed way, her eyes never leaving the man's face; then she went close, and caught him by the arm.

"It is flesh and blood,"—shaking her off. "I'm not dead. You thought I was dead, did you? I got that letter written from Cuba,"—toying with his whiskers, with a complacent smirk. "That was the sharpest dodge of my life, Grey. Fact is, I was damnably in debt, and tied up with your people, and I cut loose. So, eh? What d' ye think of it, Puss?" putting his hand on her arm. "Wife, eh?"

She drew back against the sandstone with a hoarse whisper of a cry such as can leave a woman's lips but once or twice in a lifetime: an animal tortured near its death utters something like it, trying to speak.

"Well, well, I don't want to incommode you,"—shifting his feet uncertainly. "I—it's not my will I came across you. Single life suits me. And you too, heh? I've been rollicking round these four years,—Tom Crane and I: you don't know Tom, though. Plains,—Valparaiso,—New Orleans. Well, I'm going to see this shindy out in the States now. Tom's in it, head-devil of a guerrilla-band. I keep safe. Let Jack Gurney alone for keeping a whole skin! But, eh, Grey?"—mounting a pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses over his thick nose. "You've grown. Different woman, by George! Nothing but a puling, gawky girl, when I went away. Your eyes and skin have got color,—luscious-looking: why, your eyes flash like a young bison's we trapped out in Nevada. Come, kiss me, Grey. Eh?"—looking in the brown eyes that met his, and stopping short in his approach.

Of the man and woman standing there face to face the woman's soul was the more guilty, it may be, in God's eyes, that minute. She loathed him with such intensity of hatred. The leer in his eyes was that of a fiend, to her. In which she was wrong. There are no thorough-bred villains, out of novels: even Judas had a redeeming trait (out of which he hanged himself). This man Gurney had a weak, incomplete brain, strong sensual instincts, and thick blood thirsty for excitement,—all, probably, you could justly say of Nero. He did not care especially to torment the woman,—would rather she were happy than not,—unless, indeed, he needed her pain. So he stopped, regarding her. Enough of a true voluptuary, too, to shun turmoil.

"There! hush! For God's sake don't begin to cry out. I'm weak yet; can't bear noise."

"I'm not going to cry," her voice so low he had to stoop to hear. Something, too, in her heart that made her push Pen from her, when he fumbled to unclasp her clinched hands,—some feeling she knew to be so foul she dared not touch him.

He did not reply immediately; leisurely inspecting her from head to foot, as she stood bent, her eyes lying like a dead weight on his, patting and curling his yellow whiskers meanwhile.

"Wife, heh? I don't know. Your face is getting gray. Where's that pretty[Pg 691] color gone you had a bit ago, Puss? By George!"—laughing,—"I don't think it would need much more temptation to make a murderer out of you. I did not expect you to remember the old days so well. I was hard on you then,"—stopping, with a look of half admiration, half fear, to criticize her again. "Well, well, I'll be serious. Will I claim you again? N—o. On the whole, I believe not. I'll be candid, Grey,—I always was a candid man, you know. I'd like well enough to have the taming of you. It would keep a man alive to play Petruchio to such a Kate, 'pon honor! But I do hate the trammels,—I've cut loose so long, you see. You're not enough to tempt a fellow to hang out as family man again. It's the cursedest slavery! So I think," poising his ringed finders on his chin, thoughtfully, "we'd best settle it this way. I'll take my exchange and go South, and we'll keep our own counsel. Nobody's wiser. If it suits you to say I'm dead, why, I'm dead at your service. I won't trouble you again. Or if you would rather, you can sue out a divorce in some of the States,—wilful desertion, etc. I'm willing."

"I am never free again! never again!"—sobs coming now, shaking her body. She crouched down on the ground, burying her head out of sight.

"If you were dead, John Gurney! That is all. I was going to be a pure, good, happy woman, and now"——

Her eyes closed, her head fell slowly on her breast, her hands and face gray with the mottled blood blued under the eyes.

"Oh, damn it! Poor thing! She won't know anything for a bit," said Gurney, laying her head back against the sandstone. "I'll be off. What a devil she is, to be sure! Boy, you'd best put some water on your sister's face in a minute or two,"—to the whimpering Pen. "If I was safe out of this scrape, and off from the Ferry"——

And thrusting his eye-glass into his pocket, he went up the hill, still chafing his whiskers. Near the town he met Paul Blecker. The sun was nearly down. The Doctor stopped short, looking at the man's face fixedly. He found nothing there, but a vapid self-complacency.

"It's not the first time that fellow has looked as if he would like to see my throat cut," he muttered. "I begin to understand, eh? If he has a mind to the girl, I'm not safe. Jack Gurney, you'd best vamose this ranch to-night. Sheppard will parole me to headquarters, and then for an exchange."

THE HANCOCK HOUSE AND ITS FOUNDER.

In the year of grace 1722, Captain John Bonner, Ætatis suæ 60, took it upon himself to publish a plan of "The Town of Boston in New-England. Engraven and printed by Fra: Dewing and Sold by Capt. Bonner and Will^m. Price, against y^e Town House." From the explanation given on the margin, it appears that the town then contained "Streets 42, Lanes 36, Alleys 22, Houses near 3000, 1000 Brick rest Timber, near 12,000 people." The area of the Common shows the Powder-House, the Watch-House, and the Great Elm, venerable even then in its solitary grandeur,—the Rope-Walks line the distant road to Cambridge Ferry, and far to the west of houses and settlements rises the conical peak of Beacon Hill,—a lonely pasture for the cattle of the thrifty and growing settlement.

Fifteen years later, a great improvement began to be visible in this hitherto neglected suburb. The whole southerly slope of the hill had been purchased in 1735 by a citizen of renown, and soon a fair stone mansion began to show its elegant proportions on the most eligible spot near its centre. By this time, as we have it, on the authority of no less reputable a chronicler than Mr. John Oldmixon, "the Conversation of the Town of Boston is as polite as in most of the Cities and Towns of England; many of their merchants having traded into Europe, and those that stayed at home having the Advantage of Society with travellers" (including, of course, Mr. Oldmixon himself). "So that a gentleman from London would almost think himself at home at Boston," (this is in Mr. Anthony Trollope's own vein,) "when he observes the numbers of people, their houses, their furniture, their tables, their dress and conversation, which perhaps is as splendid and showy as that of the most considerable tradesman in London." Primus inter pares, however, stood the builder of the house on Beacon Hill, and there seems to be little doubt that Mr. Hancock's doings on his fine estate created a great stir of admiration, and that the new stone house was thought to be a very grand and famous affair in the infant metropolis of New England, in the year 1737.

The precise period which brought Mr. Hancock to undertake the building of the house in Beacon Street was one in which it might not have been altogether uninteresting to have lived. The affairs of the mother country had been carried on for nearly twenty years of comparative peace, under the dexterous guidance of Sir Robert Walpole,—that cleverest, if not most scrupulous, minister of the British crown,—while my Lord Bolingbroke—permitted to return from France, but living under a qualified attainder, and closely watched by the keen-sighted minister—was occupying himself in writing his bitter and uncompromising pamphlets against the government of the House of Hanover. The minister's son Horace, an elegant, indolent youth, fresh from Cambridge, was travelling on the Continent in company with a shy and sensitive man of letters, not much known at the time,—by the name of Gray. This gentleman gained no small credit, however, some ten or twelve years afterwards, by the publication of "An Elegy written in a Country Churchyard,"—a piece which, notwithstanding the remote date of its appearance, it is possible that some of our readers may have chanced to come across in the course of their literary[Pg 693] researches. Giddiness, loss of memory, and other alarming symptoms of mental disorder had begun to attack the great intellect of Dr. Swift, and forced him to lay aside the pen which for nearly half a century had been alternately the scourge and the support of the perplexed cabinets of the time. His friend Mr. Pope, however, was living quite snug and comfortable, on the profits of his translations, at his pretty villa at Twickenham, and adding to his fame and means by the publication of his "Correspondence" and his "Universal Prayer." The learned Rector of Broughton, Dr. Warburton, encouraged by the advice of friends, had just brought out his first volume of "The Divine Legation of Moses"; the Bishop of Bristol had carried his great "Analogy of Religion" through the press the year before; Dr. Watts was getting old and infirm, but still engaged in his thirty years' visit to his friend Sir Thomas Abney, Knight and Alderman, of Abney Park, Stoke Newington. That remarkable young Scotchman, David Hume, was paying his respects to the sensational philosophy of Locke in a series of essays which "spread consternation through every region of existing speculation"; Adam Smith was a promising pupil under Hutcheson,—the father of Scotch metaphysics,—at the University of Glasgow. General Fielding's son Henry—but just married—was spending his charming young wife's portion of fifteen hundred pounds in the careless hospitality of his Derbyshire house-keeping,—three years' experience of which, however, reduced him to the necessity of undertaking his first novel for the booksellers, in the story of "Joseph Andrews." Captain Cook, at the age of thirteen, was a restless apprentice to a haberdasher near Whitby. And although "the age of steam" had certainly not then arrived, it must yet be allowed—in the words of the Highland vagrant to Cameron of Lochiel, not long after—that already

since we find that there lay in his nursery, in the family of Town Councillor Watt, the Bailie of Greenock, in the spring of the year 1736, a quiet, delicate, little Scotch baby, complacently sucking the tiny fist destined in after years to grasp and imprison that fearful vapory demon whose struggle for escape from his life-long captivity now furnishes the motive-power for the most mighty undertakings of man throughout the civilized world. It would surely have been something, we think,—the opportunity to have seen all these, from Bolingbroke in his library to James Watt in his cradle.

Turning to affairs somewhat nearer home, perhaps a slight glance at "y^e conversation and way of living" of the good people of Boston, during the years that Mr. Hancock was carrying on his building and getting himself gradually settled in its comforts, may help us to conceive a better idea of the form and pressure of the age. Well,—Mr. Peter Faneuil was just then laboring to persuade the town that it might not be the worst thing they could do to accept the gift of a handsome new Town-Hall which he was very desirous to build for them,—an opinion so furiously combated and opposed by the conservatives and practical men of that day, that Mr. Faneuil succeeded in carrying his revolutionary measure, at last, in the open town-meeting, by a majority of only seven votes (a much larger majority, however, it is but fair to observe, than that which adopted a decent City-Hall for the same municipality only last year). Whitefield was preaching on the Common, in front of Mr. Hancock's premises, to audiences of twenty thousand people, "as some compute," "poor deluded souls," says the unemotional Dr. Douglass, writing at the period, "whose time is their only Estate; called off to these exhortations, to the private detriment of their families, and great Damage to the Public: thus perhaps every such exhortation of his was about £1000 damage to Boston." Governor Belcher, who came home from England with the same instructions as Governor which he was sent out to oppose as envoy, had been[Pg 694] superseded in his high office by "William Shirley, Esquire,—esteemed for his gentlemanly deportment." Watchmen were required "in a moderate tone to cry the time o' night, and give an Account of the Weather as they walk't their rounds after twelve o'clock." The men that had been raised in town for the ill-starred expedition to Carthagena were being drilled on the Common,—and Hancock, writing to a friend, tells him, "We have the pleasure of Seeing 'em Disciplin'd every Day from 5 in morning to 8, & from 5 afternoon 'till night, before our house,—many Gentleⁿ & others Daily fill y^e Common,—& wee have not y^e Less Company for it, but a quicker draft for Wine & Cider." Annually, on the Fifth of November, Guy Fawkes, the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender were burned on the Common, amidst much noise and rioting, often degenerating into the tapping of claret and solid cracking of crowns between the North End and South End champions,—who made this always their field-day, par excellence,—to the great worriment of the Town Constables, and the infinite wrath and disgust of the Select Men. And, finally, we remark, "the goodness of the pavement in Boston might compare with most in London, for to gallop a Horse on it is three Shillings and fourpence Forfeit!"

Such were the curious and simple, but, withal, rather cozy and jolly old years in which the Hancock House was planned and built and first occupied. Always a really fine residence, it is now the sole relic of the family mansions of the old Town of Boston, as in many respects it has long been the most noted and interesting of them all. One hundred and twenty-seven years have passed away since its erection, and old Captain Bonner's map now requires a pretty close study to enable our modern eyes to recognize any clue to its present locality. It stands, in fact, a solitary monumental pillar in the stream of time,—a link to connect the present with the eventful past; and the prospect of its expected removal—though not, we trust, of its demolition—may render the present a fitting opportunity to call up some few of the quaint old reminiscences with which it is connected.

We have now before us, as we write, the original Contract or Indenture for the freestone work of the venerable structure. It is a document certainly not without a curious interest to those of us who have passed and repassed so often in our daily walks the gray old relic of New England's antiquity, to the very inception of which this faded paper reverts. It is an agreement made between Mr. Thomas Hancock and one "Thomas Johnson of Middleton in the County of Hartford and Colony of Connecticut In New-England, Stone-Cutter." By this instrument the Connecticut brown-stone man of that day binds himself to "Supply and Furnish the said Thomas Hancock with as much Connecticut Stone as Shall be Sufficient to Beatify and build Four Corners, One Large Front Door, Nine Front Windows and a Facie for the Front and back Part Over the Lower Story Windows of a certain Stone House which the Said Thomas Hancock is about to Erect on a Certain Piece of Land Situate near Beacon Hill in Boston aforesaid; as also So much of said Connecticut Stone as shall be Sufficient to make a water Table round the Said House, which Said Stone the Said Johnson Covenants and Agrees shall be well Cut, fitted and polished, workmanlike and According to the Rules of Art every way Agreeable, & to the Liking and Satisfaction of Mr. Hancock." The stone is to be delivered to Mr. Hancock's order at Boston, all "In Good Order and Condition, not Touched with the Salt Water, and at the proper Cost, Charge and Risque of the s^d Johnson." The consideration paid to Johnson is fixed at "the Sum of three hundred Pounds in Goods as the Said Stone Cutter's work is Carryed on." The latter stipulation as to the payment would be curious enough at the present day, though it appears to have been not[Pg 695] uncommon at the time this contract was executed. The perusal of Mr. Thomas Hancock's letter-book, however, now also lying before us, will not leave one in any need of this additional proof of the old Boston merchant's keen eye always to a business profit.

The Indenture is written in a clear, round, mercantile hand,—evidently Mr. Hancock's own, but his best, by comparison with the letter-book,—the leading words of the principal paragraphs being garnished with masterly flourishes, and the top of the paper "indented" by cutting with a knife so as to fit or "tally," after the fashion of those days, with the corresponding copy delivered to Johnson. It has been indorsed and filed away with evident care, and is consequently now in a state of absolute and perfect preservation. With the exception, however, of that little matter of the store-pay, and of the wording of the date of its execution, which is given as the "Tenth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Second, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c.," the document differs but little in its phraseology—so conservative is the letter of the law of real estate—from those in use for precisely such contracts in the year 1863.

"Thomas Hancock, of Boston in the County of Suffolk and Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Merchant," as he is named and described in the paper before us, was the founder of the fortunes of the family, and a man of the most considerable note and importance in his day. He was the son of the Reverend Mr. John Hancock, of Lexington, in which town he was born on the 13th of July, 1703. He was sent to Boston early in life to learn the business of a stationer,—with which calling those of bookseller and bookbinder were then combined,—and served his time accordingly with the leading provincial bibliopole of the day, "the enterprising Bookseller Henchman," who died in 1761. Quick, active, thrifty, young Hancock soon made his way in the world,—his famous bookstore in Ann Street was known as the "Stationers' Arms" as early as 1729; the industrious apprentice in due course married his master's fair daughter Lydia; and so our Thomas Hancock went on his way to credit and fortune, and last and best of all to house-building after his own mind, "the comfortablest part of his own life," with strides quite as easy and certain as did his contemporary, the Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esq., of London,—whose career was, at that very time, so impressing itself upon the notice of that eminent hand, Mr. William Hogarth, of Leicester Fields in the Parish of St. Martin's, as to lead him to depict its events in the remarkable series of prints, "Industry and Idleness," in which they are now handed down for the admiration of posterity. And what the great painter tells us of his hero is equally true of ours,—that, "by taking good courses, and pursuing those points for which he was put apprentice, he became a valuable man, and an ornament to his country."

The pursuits connected with book-making were not, however, without their trials and troubles, even at that early day. From some of Hancock's letters for the year 1736, we find that one Cox was a sad thorn in his side, a grievous lion in his daily path. His chief correspondent among the booksellers in London at this period was Mr. Thomas Longman,—the founder of the renowned house of Longmans of our own time,—and to him Hancock often pours out his trials and grievances in the quaint and pointed style of the business letters of "The Spectator's" own day. Under date of April 10, 1736, for instance, he writes,—"I cannot Think of Doing much more in the Book way at present, unless Cox Recalls his Agent, which I am Certain He never will if you give up this point," (i. e. of making larger consignments to Hancock on his own account,) "as I can Improve my Money In other Goods from Great Brittan to so much better Advantage." Yet, he continues, "I am unwilling Quite to Quit[Pg 696] The Book branch of Trade, and you Can't but be Senceable that it was my Regard to you has Occasioned it's being forced from me in this way."

About the month of May, 1738, Cox appears to have become wellnigh intolerable. On the 24th of that month our bookseller writes to Longman,—"Cox has Sent some more Books here this Spring, & I Cannot Learn that he's Called his man home Yet. I am a Great Sufferer by him, as well as you, having above £250 Sterling in Books by me, before what Came from you now." Sometimes, however, Cox makes a slight mistake, and then our bookseller again takes heart of courage. Thus, under date of October 29, 1739, he again writes to Longman,—"Cox's man Caine in Hall's ship about a month Agoe, brought Eight Trunks and a Box or two of Books, has opened his Shop, but makes no Great Figure & is but little taken Notice off, which is a a Good Symtom of a bad Sortment,—his Return here was Surprising to me; truly I did not Expect it. At present I don't know how to Govern myself as to the Book Trade, but am willing to do the Needful to Discountenance him, and will write you again in little Time." But, alas! by the 10th of December following, Cox had rallied bravely, and, accordingly, Hancock again writes in despair,—"I know not how to Conduct my Affairs as to the Book Trade. Cox's Shop is opened, & he has a pretty Good Collection of Books. He brought with him 8 Trunks, & 4 Came in y^e next Ship. His Coming is A Great Damage to me, having many Books by me unsold for Years past, & most all which I had of you this Year. I am Ready Sometimes to Give up that part of my Business, & I think I should have done it ere now, were I not in hopes of Serving you in that Branch of Trade. Could you propose any Scheem to discountenance our Common Enemy I will Gladly Joyn you. I fear he will have more Goods in the Next Ship. I have Nothing to Add at this time only that I am with Great Esteem Your Assur^d Fr^d &c. T. H."

We may remark, that, if Longman were not by this time brought to be fully Senceable of the sacrifices which had been made here for his interest, it was assuredly through no fault of his Boston customer. In a letter dated April 30, 1736, Hancock had felt emboldened to inform him,—

Once only, in the whole correspondence, are we able to find that this interloping caitiff of Cox's was fairly circumvented. With what an inward glow of satisfaction must our Boston bookseller have found himself sufficiently master of the situation to be able to write to Longman (under date of May 10th, 1739),—

Longman's next trunk brings a copy of Chambers's Dictionary, then just published, as a present to Mr. Hancock, and we might almost fancy it an acknowledgment of this letter about the Comition in more ways than one. We ought in justice to observe, however, that in those days, in the absence of any generally recognized and accepted standard of authority, gentlemen of the best condition in life appear to have felt at liberty to spell pretty much as they pleased, in New England. So far, at least, as Mr. Hancock's credit for orthography is concerned, it must be allowed, from his repeatedly spelling the same word in two or three different ways on the same page, that he probably gave the matter very little thought at any time,—taking as small pains as did Mr. Pepys, and really caring as little as Sir Thomas Browne for "the βατραχομυομαχια and hot skirmish betwixt S and T in Lucian, or how grammarians hack and slash for the genitive case of Jupiter."[1] That such spelling would hardly be admissible on India Wharf to-day, we freely admit,—nay, would even rush, were it necessary, to maintain,—but we must still claim for our favorite, that a century and a quarter agone he seems to have spelt about as well, on the whole, as the generality of his neighbors.

There is one most extraordinary escapade of his, however, in this line of performance, which we do not know how we can undertake wholly to defend. To Mr. John Rowe, a little doubtful about New-England Bills of Exchange, he writes,—"As to the £100 Draft of Mr. Faneuil's above mentioned, I doubt not but any merchant in London will take that Gentleman's Bill, when accepted, as Soon as a Bank Note,—he being the Topinest merchant in this Country, & I Gave 20 per Cent Extra^y for it." If there be really a proper superlative of the adjective topping, our letter-writer, it must be confessed, has made a wide miss here of the mark he aimed at. "Priscian's a little scratch'd here,"—rather too much, indeed, even for 1739.

That the reader may not suspect Mr. Hancock of monopolizing all the cacography of his time, we give verbatim the following letter from Christopher Kilby,[2] a letter among many of the same sort found with Mr. Hancock's papers.

There is a letter in another book—Mr. Hancock's letter-book from 1740 to 1744—in which poetical justice to the arch-disturber of his peace is feelingly recorded. Cox [3] comes to grief at last,—surely, though late. Observe with what placid resignation Hancock regards his rival's mishap. The letter is to Longman, and bears date April 21st, 1742.

The correspondence with Longman is kept up with great activity through the whole of the first third of the volume before us. Gradually, however, Hancock had been growing into a larger way of business, and his Bills of Exchange for £500 and £600, drawn generally by Mr. Peter Faneuil,[4] begin to be of more frequent occurrence,—bills which he writes his London correspondents "are Certainly very Good, & will meet with Due Honour." We read here and there of ventures to Medara and to Surranam, and of certain consignments of "Geese and Hogges to y^e New Found Land." "Be so Good," he says, in a letter of May 17th, 1740, [Pg 699]to a friend then staying in London, "as to Interist me in y^e half of 8 or 10 Ticketts when any Lottery's going on, you think may doe, and am oblidged to you for mentioning your Kind intention herein. Please God y^e Young Eagle, Philip Dumerisque Com^r comes well home, and I believe I shall make no bad voyage." It is easy to see that the snug little business of the "Stationers' Arms" is soon to be given up, for what Drake [5] describes as "the more extensive field of mercantile enterprise."[6] By this time, too, the signs of the French War began to loom alarmingly upon the horizon of the little colony, and Hancock rose with the occasion to the character of a man of large and grave affairs. Cox's man, and his Trunks and Sortments of Books, appear, after this, to have but little of his attention. There was need of raising troops, and of fitting out vessels; and when the famous expedition against Louisburg was determined on, Hancock had a large share in the matter of providing its munitions and equipment. His correspondence with Sir William Pepperell in these great affairs still lies preserved in good order in boxes in the attic of the old mansion.

Meanwhile, as he rose in the world, he had been laying out his grounds, and building and furnishing his house; his first letter from which is addressed to his "Dear Friend," Christopher Kilby, then in London, and is dated, rather grandly, "At my house in Beacon Street, Boston y^e 22^d Mar. 1739-40." Let us look back, then, a little over the yellow, time-stained record of the letter-book before us, and see what were the experiences of a gentleman, in building and planting in Beacon Street, so long before our grandfathers were born.

Under date of the 5th of July, 1736, Hancock writes to his friend and constant correspondent in London, "Mr. Francis Wilks Esq^r,"[7] inclosing a letter to one James Glin at Stepney, with orders for some trees, concerning which he tells Wilks, "I am advised to have 'em bought,—but if you Can find any man Will Serve us Better I Leave it to your Pleasure." He must have thought it a great pity, from the sequel of this affair, that Mr. Wilks's Pleasure did not happen to lie in another direction. "I am Recommended by Mr. Tho^s. Hubbard of This Town," runs the letter inclosed to Glin, "to you for A number of Fruit Trees,—be pleased to waite on Mr. Wilks for the Inv^o of them & Let me have y^e best Fruit, & pack^t in y^e best manner, & All numbered, with an Acco^t of y^e Same. I pray you be very Carefull That y^e Trees be Took up in y^e Right Season, and if these Answer my Expectations I shall want more, & 't will Ly in my way to Recommend Some Friends to you. I Intreat the Fruit may be the best of their Kind, the Trees handsome Stock, well Pack't, All N^o'd & Tally'd, & particular Inv^o of 'em. I am S^r. &c. &c. T. H."

This careful order was evidently duly executed by the nurseryman, and at first all appears to have gone smoothly enough, since, on the 20th of December following, (1736,) we find another letter to Glin, as follows:—

But neither Esquire Hancock nor Mr. Glin at Stepney could control the force of Nature, or persuade the delicate fruit-trees of Old England to blossom and flourish here, even on the south side of Beacon Hill. The maxim, "L'homme propose, et le bon Dieu dispose," was found to be as inevitable in 1736 as it is in our later day and generation. It is true that no ancestral Downing was then at hand, with wise counsels of arboriculture, nor had any accidental progenitor of Sir Henry Stuart of Allanton as yet taught the Edinboro' public of the Pretender's time the grand secrets of transplanting and induration. Esquire Hancock, therefore, was left to work out by himself his own woful, but natural disappointment. On the 24th of June, 1737, he writes to the unfortunate nurseryman in a strain of severe, and, as he doubtless thought, of most righteous indignation.

The last paragraph is truly delicious,—a real Parthian arrow, of the keenest,[Pg 701] most penetrating kind. The ill-used gentleman is determined that poor Glin shall find no crumb of credit left,—not in the matter of the purchased wares alone, but even for the very presents that he had had the effrontery to send him.

After learning the opinion entertained by Mr. Hancock of his estate, its situation, prospect, and capacities, and understanding his intentions in regard to its improvement, as expressed in his first letter to Glin,—it may naturally be expected that we shall come upon some further allusions to the works he had thus taken in hand, in the antiquated volume before us. In this respect, as we turn over its remaining pages, we shall find that we are not to be disappointed. His letters on the subject, addressed to persons on the other side of the water, and particularly to the trusty Wilks, are, in fact, for the space of the next three or four years, most refreshingly abundant. Some of these are so minute, characteristic, and interesting, that we shall need no apology for transcribing them, most literally, here. On June 24th, 1737, he had written to Wilks,—

By one of those stupid accidents,—not, as we are sorry to record, altogether unknown to the business of house-building in our own day,—the memorandum previously sent for the glass turned out to be entirely incorrect. In less than a fortnight after, Mr. Hancock accordingly hastens to countermand his order, as follows:—

The window-glass being fairly off his mind, Mr. Hancock next turns his attention to the subject of wall-papers, on which head he comes out in the most strong and even amazing manner. We doubt if the documentary relics of the last century can show anything more truly genre than the following letter "To Mr. John Rowe, Stationer, London," dated

"Boston, N. E. Jan. 23^d. 1737-8.

"Sir,—Inclosed you have the Dimentions of a Room for a Shaded Hanging to be Done after the Same Pattorn I have[Pg 702] Sent per Capt. Tanner, who will Deliver it to you. It's for my own House, & Intreat the favour of you to Get it Done for me, to Come Early in the Spring, or as Soon as the nature of the Thing will admitt. The pattorn is all was Left of a Room Lately Come over here, & it takes much in y^e Town & will be the only paper-hanging for Sale here wh. am of Opinion may Answer well. Therefore desire you by all means to Get mine well Done & as Cheap as Possible, & if they can make it more Beautifull by adding more Birds flying here & there, with Some Landskip at the Bottom should Like it well. Let the Ground be the Same Colour of the Pattorn. At the Top & Bottom was a narrow Border of about 2 Inches wide wh. would have to mine. About 3 or 4 Years ago my friend Francis Wilks Esq^r. had a hanging Done in the Same manner but much handsomeer Sent over here for M^r Sam^l Waldon of this place, made by one Dunbar in Aldermanbury, where no doubt he or Some of his Successors may be found. In the other parts of these Hangings are Great Variety of Different Sorts of Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirril, Monkys, Fruit & Flowers &c., But a Greater Variety in the above mentioned of Mr. Waldon's & Should be fond of having mine done by the Same hand if to be mett with. I design if this pleases me to have two Rooms more done for myself. I Think they are handsomer & Better than Painted hangings Done in Oyle, so I Beg your particular Care in procuring this for me, & that the pattorns may be Taken Care off & Return'd with my Goods. Henry Atkins has Ordered Mr. Tho^s. Pike of Pool [9] to pay you £10 in Liew of the Bill you Returned Protested Drawn by Sam^ll Pike, which hope you'l Receive. Inclosed you have also Crist^o Kilby's Draft on King Gould Esq^r. for £10 wh. will meet with Due Honour. Design to make you Some other Remittence in a Little Time. Interim Remain S^r. Your Assured Fr^d & Hum^e. Servt.

"T. H."

There are certain other adornments about the Hancock House, besides the glass and the wall-papers, which were somewhat beyond the skill of New-England artificers of that time. Another of these exotic features is fully accounted for in the following extract from a letter to "Dear Kilby," dated

One more commission for the trusty Wilks remained. It was said of Mr. Hancock, long afterward, in one of the obituary notices called forth by his sudden demise, that "his house was the seat of hospitality, where all his numerous acquaintances and strangers of distinction met with an elegant reception." With a wise prevision, therefore, of the properties necessary to support the character and carry on the business of so bountiful a cuisine, we find him, under cover of a letter of May 24th, 1738, inclosing an order in these terms:—

"1 Middle Size Jack of 3 Guineas price,—Good works, with Iron Barrell, a wheel-fly & Spitt Chain to it."

Several other passages, scattered here and there in these letters, certainly go far to justify a reputation for the love of good cheer on the part of their writer. Throughout all of them, indeed, we are not without frequent indications of "a careful attention to and a laudable admiration of good, sound, hearty eating and drinking." Thus, in a postscript to one of his favors to Wilks, he adds,—"I Desire you also to send me a Chest of Lisbon Lemons for my own use." And again, in a letter to Captain Partington,[Pg 703] master of one of his vessels, then in Europe, he writes,—"When you come to any Fruit Country, Send or bring me 2 or 4 Chests of Lemmons, for myself & the Officers of this Port, & Take the Pay out of the Cargo." Alas, that the Plantation Rum Punch of those days should now perforce be included among Mr. Phillips's Lost Arts! He sends a consignment with an order "To Messers Walter & Rob^t. Scott," as follows:—"I have the favour to ask of you, when please God the Merch'dse Comes to your hands, that I may have in return the best Sterling Medara Wines for my own use,—I don't Stand for any Price, provided the Quality of the wine Answers to it. My view in Shipping now is only for an Oppertunity to procure the best wine for my own use, in which you will much oblidge me." And about the same time he orders from London "1 Box Double flint Glass ware. 6 Quart Decanters. 6 Pint do. 2 doz. handsome, new fash^d wine Glasses, 6 pair Beakers, Sorted, all plain, 2 pr. pint Cans, 2 pr. 1/2 pint do. 6 Beer Glasses, 12 Water Glasses & 2 Doz. Jelly Glasses." Well might he write to Kilby, not long after, "We live Pretty comfortable here now, on Beacon Hill."

There is a graphic minuteness about all these trivial directions, which takes us more readily behind the curtain of Time than the most elaborate and dignified chronicles could possibly do. The Muse of History is no doubt a most stately and learned lady,—she looks very splendid in her royal attitudes on the ceilings of Blenheim and in the galleries of Windsor; but can her pompous old stylus bring back for us the every-day work and pleasure of these bygone days,—paint for us the things that come home so nearly "to men's business and bosoms,"—or show us the inner life and the real action of these hearty, jolly old times, one-half so well as the simple homeliness of these careless letters? We seem to see in them the countenances of the people of those long buried years, and to catch the very echo of their voices, in the daily walk of their pleasant and hearty lives. "The dialect and costume," said Mr. Hazlitt, "the wars, the religion, and the politics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" (and we may now venture to add for him, of the earlier half of the eighteenth) "give a charming and wholesome relief to the fastidious refinement and over-labored lassitude of modern readers. Antiquity, after a time, has the grace of novelty, as old fashions revived are mistaken for new ones." In the present instance this seems to us to be, more than usually, the effect of Hancock's quaint and downright style. All these letters of his, in fact, are remarkable for one thing, even beyond the general tenor of the epistolary writing of his time, and that is their directness. He is the very antipode to Don Adriano in "Love's Labor's Lost"; never could it be said of him that "he draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument." He does not leave his correspondents to grope their way to his meaning by inferences,—he comes to the point. If he likes more "Macoys, Squirril & Monkys" in his wallpaper than his neighbors,—if he thinks Cox's man ought to be abated, or Glin to do the handsome thing by him, he says so, point-blank, and there's an end.

Perhaps the particular phase of change which the language itself was going through at the time may assist in giving these letters, to us, something of their air of genuine force and originality. But after making due allowance for the freshness of a vocabulary as yet unimpeded by any cumbrous burden of euphemism, we are still convinced that we must recognize the source of much of the quality we have noted only in the naïve and outspoken nature of the writer. For, if ever there was a man who knew just what he wanted and just how he wanted it, it was the T. H. of the amusing correspondence before us.

Thus lived, for some quarter of a century[Pg 704] more, this cheery and prosperous gentleman, growing into a manly opulence, and enjoying to the full the pleasant "seate of self-fruition" which he had so carefully set up for himself on Beacon Hill. Not much addressing himself, indeed, to "looking abroad into universality," as Bacon calls it, but rather honestly and heartily "doing his duty in that state of life unto which it had pleased God to call him." He filled various posts of honor and dignity meanwhile,—always prominent, and even conspicuous, in the public eye,—and was "one of His Majesty's Council" at the commencement of the troubles which led to the War of the Revolution. The full development of this mighty drama, however, Thomas Hancock did not live to see. He died of an apoplexy, on the first day of August, 1764, about three of the clock in the afternoon, having been seized about noon of the same day, just as he was entering the Council Chamber. He was then in the sixty-second year of his age. By his will he gave one thousand pounds sterling for the founding of a professorship of the Oriental languages in Harvard College, one thousand pounds lawful money to the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, six hundred pounds to the town of Boston, towards an Insane Hospital, and two hundred pounds to the Society for carrying on the Linen Manufactory,—an enterprise from which much appears, just then, to have been expected. His property was valued, after his decease, at about eighty thousand pounds sterling,—a very much larger sum for that time than its precise money equivalent would represent at the present day. Having no issue of his own, he left the bulk of his estate to his nephew John,—a gentleman who, without a tithe of the nerve and pith and vigor of this our Thomas, has yet happened, from the circumstances of the time in which he bore up the family-fortunes, to have acquired a much more distinguished name and filled a much larger space in the tablets of History than has ever fallen to the share of his stout old uncle.

The Hancock estate, as we have been accustomed to see it of late years, is greatly reduced from its original dimensions, and shorn of much of its ancient glory.[10] The property, in Mr. Thomas Hancock's time, extended on the east to the bend in Mount Vernon Street, including, of course, the whole of the grounds now occupied by the State House,[11]—on the west to Joy[Pg 705] Street, called Hancock Street on the ancient plan of the estate now before us,—and in the rear about to what is now Derne Street, on the north side of Beacon Hill, and comprising on that side all the land through which Mount Vernon Street now runs, for the whole distance from Joy Street to Beacon-Hill Place. Thus was included a large part, too, of the site of the present reservoir on Derne Street, a portion of which, being the last of the estate sold up to the present year, was purchased by the city from the late John Hancock, Esq., some ten or twelve years ago. The two large wings of the house—the one on the east side containing an elegant ball-room, and that on the west side comprising the kitchen and other domestic offices—have long ago disappeared. The centre of the mansion, however, remains nearly intact, and with its antique furniture, stately old pictures, and the quaint, but comfortable appointments of the past century, still suffices to bring up to the mind of the visitor the most vivid and interesting reminiscences both of our Colonial and Revolutionary history.

The central and principal portion of the house, which remains entire, is a very perfect and interesting specimen of the stateliest kind of our provincial domestic architecture of the last century. There are several other houses of a similar design still standing in the more important sea-port towns of New England. The West House, on Essex Street, in Salem, has but lately disappeared; but another in that neighborhood, the Collins House in Danvers, (now the property of Mr. F. Peabody, of Salem,) the Dalton House, on State Street, Newburyport, the Langdon House, (now the residence of the Reverend Dr. Charles Burroughs,) in Portsmouth, N. H., and the Gilman House, in Exeter, N. H., removed, not long since, to make way for the new Town Hall, were all almost identical with this in the leading features of their design. A broad front-door opening from a handsome flight of stone steps, and garnished with pillars and a highly ornamental door-head, a central window, also somewhat ornamented, over it, and four other windows in each story, two being on either side of the centre, a main roof-cornice enriched with carved modillions, a high and double-pitched or "gambrel" roof with bold projecting dormer-windows rising out of it, and a carved balcony-railing inclosing the upper or flatter portion of the roof, are features common to them all. The details of the Hancock House are all classical and correct; they were doubtless executed by the master-builder of the day with a scrupulous fidelity of adherence to the plates of some such work as "Ware's Compleat Body of Architecture," or "Swan's Architect,"—books of high repute and rare value at the time, and contemporary copies of which are still sometimes to be found in ancient garrets. There is a very perfect specimen of the former in the Athenæum Library, and another at Cambridge, while of the latter an excellent copy is in the possession of the writer,—and it is not difficult to trace, in the soiled and well-thumbed condition of some of the plates, evidences of the bygone popularity of some peculiarly apposite or useful design.

The material of the walls is of squared and well-hammered granite ashlar,—probably obtained by splitting up boulders lying on the surface of the ground only, above the now extensive quarries in the town of Quincy. We incline to this conjecture, because it bears an exact resemblance to the stone of the King's Chapel, built in 1753, and which is known to have been obtained in that way. In fact, the wardens and vestry of the Chapel, in their report on the completion of the[Pg 706] building, congratulated themselves that they had had such good success in getting all the stone they needed for that building, as it was exceedingly doubtful, they remarked, whether the whole country could be made to furnish stone for another structure of equal extent.

The interior of the house is quite in keeping with the promise of its exterior. The dimensions of the plan are fifty-six feet front by thirty-eight feet in depth. A nobly panelled hall, containing a broad staircase with carved and twisted balusters, divides the house in the centre, and extends completely through on both stories from front to rear. On the landing, somewhat more than half-way up the staircase, is a circular headed window looking into the garden, and fitted with deep-panelled shutters, and with a broad and capacious window-seat, on which the active merchant of 1740 doubtless often sat down to cool himself in the draught, after some particularly vexatious morning's work with poor Glin's "Plumb Trees and Hollys." On this landing, too, stood formerly a famous eight-day clock, which has now disappeared, no one knows whither. But the order for its purchase is before us in the old letter-book, and will serve to give a very graphic idea of its unusual attractions. The order is addressed, as usual, to Mr. Wilks, and bears date December 20th, 1738. As the safe reception of the time-piece is acknowledged in a subsequent letter, there can be little doubt as to its identity.

On the right of the hall, as you enter, is the fine old drawing-room, seventeen by twenty-five feet, also elaborately finished in moulded panels from floor to ceiling. In this room the founder of the Hancock name, as a man of note, and a merchant of established consequence, must often have received the Shirleys, the Olivers, the Pownalls, and the Hutchinsons of King George's colonial court; and here, too, some years later, his stately nephew John dispensed his elegant hospitalities to that serene Virginian, Mr. Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Revolution, and to the ardent young French Marquis who accompanied him. The room itself, hung with portraits from the honest, if not flattering hand of Smibert, and the more courtly and elegant pencil of Copley, still seems to bear witness in its very walls to the reality of such bygone scenes. We enter the close front-gate from the sunny and bustling promenade of Beacon Street, pass up the worn and gray terrace of the steps, and in a moment more closes behind us the door that seems to shut us out from the whirl and turmoil and strife of the present, and, almost mysteriously, to transport us to the grave shadows and the dignified silence of the past of American history.

Over the chimney-piece, in this room, hangs the portrait of John Hancock, by Copley,—masterly in drawing, and most characteristic in its expression. It was painted apparently about ten or twelve years earlier than the larger portrait in Faneuil Hall,—an excellent copy of which latter picture, but by another hand, occupies the centre of the wall at the end of the room opposite the windows. But by far the most interesting works of this great artist are the two pictures on the long side of the room opposite[Pg 707] the chimney,—the portraits of Thomas Hancock and his handsome wife Lydia Henchman, done in colored crayons or pastel, and which still retain every whit of their original freshness. These two pictures are believed to be unique specimens of their kind from the hand of Copley,—and equally curious are the miniature copies of them by himself, done in oil-color, and which hang in little oval frames over the mantel. That of the lady, in particular, is exquisitely lifelike and easy. On the same long side of the room with the pastel drawings are the portraits of Thomas Hancock's father and mother,—the minister of Lexington and his dignified-looking wife,—by Smibert. In one of the letters to "Dear Kilby," of which we have already made mention in this article, there is an allusion to this portrait of his father which shows in what high estimation it was always held by Mr. Hancock. "My Wife & I are Drinking your health this morning, 8 o' the Clock, in a Dish of Coffee and under the Shade of your Picture which I Rec'd not long Since of Mr. Smibert, in which am much Delighted, & have Suited it with a Frame of the fashion of my other Pictures, & fix'd it at the Right hand of all, in the Keeping-room. Every body that Sees it thinks it to be Exceedingly Like you, as it really is. I am of Opinion it's as Good a Piece as Mr. Smibert has done, and full as Like you as my Father's is Like him, which all mankind allows to be a Compleat Picture." It is to be regretted that the picture of Kilby has now disappeared from this collection. We have called the pastel portraits of Thomas Hancock and his wife unique specimens; we should add this qualification, however, that there is a copy of the former in this room,—also by Copley, but differing in the costume, and perhaps even more carefully finished than the one already mentioned.

The chamber overhead, too, has echoed, in days long gone by, to the footstep of many an illustrious guest. Washington never slept here, though it is believed that he has several times been a temporary occupant of the room; but Lafayette often lodged in this apartment, while a visitor to John Hancock, during his earlier stay in America. Here Lord Percy—the same

made himself as comfortable as he might, while "cooped up in Boston and panting for an airing," through all the memorable siege of the town. It was from the windows of this chamber, on the morning of the 5th of March, 1776, that the officers [12] on the staff of Sir William Howe first beheld, through Thomas Hancock's old telescope, the intrenchments which had been thrown up the night before on the frozen ground of Dorchester Heights,—works of such a character and location as to satisfy them that thenceforth "neither Hell, Hull, nor Halifax could afford them worse shelter than Boston." And here, too, years after the advent of more peaceful times, the stately old Governor, racked with gout, and "swathed in flannel from head to foot," departed this life on the night of the 8th of October, 1793. As President of the Continental Congress of 1776, he left a name everywhere recognized as a household word among us; while his noble sign-manual to the document of gravest import in all our annals—that wonderful signature, so bold, defiant, and decided in its every line and curve—has become, almost of itself, his passport to the remembrance and his warrant to the admiration of posterity.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Religio Medici, Part II., Sec. 3.

[2] Christopher Kilby was one of the Representatives of the Town in the General Court, (1739,) and was appointed by that body to go to England, as an agent for the Province. He soon after embarked for London, where he resided for several years. He was called the "Standing Agent" of the Province, and was likewise the Special Agent of the Town. Five years after this, we find a record of his election, at which he had 102 votes out of 109. When the General Court passed an act granting the King an excise on spirituous liquors, wines, limes, lemons, and oranges, the Town "voted unanimously to employ him to appear on behalf of the Town, and to use his utmost endeavour to prevent said Act's obtaining the Royal Assent," and likewise to be its agent in other matters. This action of the Town was June 3d, 1755.—See Drake's History of Boston, p. 606.

[3] It would be interesting to know, something more of Cox,—who he was, and what was his standing in the trade. Did he take rank with Tonson, Watts, Lintot, Strahan, Bathurst, and the rest,—publishers of Pope, Gay, Swift, etc.? or was his an Ishmaelite of the Row?—and did all the trade think so badly of him as Hancock did?

[4] The following letter from Mr. Faneuil's own hand, found among Mr. Hancock's papers, is sufficiently curious to warrant its insertion here:—

"Boston, February 3^d. 1738.

"Capt. Peter Buckley,

"S^r,—Herewith you have Invoice of Six hh^s. fish, & 8 Barrells of Alewifes, amounting to £75. 9. 2—which when you arrive at Antiguas be pleased to Sell for my best advantage, & with the net produce of the Same purchase for me, for the use of my house, as likely a Strait limbed Negro lad as possible you can, about the Age of from 12 to fiveteen years, & if to be done, one that has had the Small pox, who being for my Own service, I must request the fav'r. you would let him be one of as tractable a disposition as you can find, w^ch. I leave to your prudent care & management, desireing after you have purchased him you would send him to me by the first good Opportunity, recommending him to a Particular care from the Captain by whom you send him. Your care in this will be an Obligation,—I wish you a good Voyage, & am

"S^r. your humble Servant
"Peter Faneuil.

"P.S. Should there not be En^o to purchase the Boy desir'd be pleased to Add, & if any Overplus, to Lay it out for my Best Advantage in any thing you think proper. P. F."

Truly, in confronting this ghost of departed manners, may we say with the Clown in "Twelfth Night,"—"Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges." The Hall which was the gift to the town of this merchant, who proposes to trade codfish and alewifes for a slave, afterward became everywhere known to the world as the very "Cradle of Liberty."

[5] History of Boston, p. 681.

[6] Mr. Hancock, although a merchant "of the approved Gresham and Whittington pattern," appears, for some reason or other, to have judged no small degree of secrecy expedient in regard to some of his ventures. Thus, under date of October 22d, 1736, he writes to Captain John Checkering, then absent on a voyage on his account:—

"I hope ere this, you Safe arrived at Surranam, & your Cargo to a Good Market. I Press you make the best dispatch possible, & doe all you can to serve the Interist of y^e concerned, & Closely observe when you come on our Coasts not to Speak with any Vessells, nor let any of your men write up to their wives, when you arrive at our light house."

[7] "At length wearied with the altercation and persuaded of the justness of their cause," (in refusing to settle a fixed salary on Gov. Burnet,) "the House resolved to apply to his Majesty for redress, and Mr. Francis-Wilkes, a New-England merchant, then resident in London, was selected as their agent."—Barry's History of the Provincial Period of Massachusetts, p. 126.

[8]

"I'll do what Mead and Cheselden advise,
To keep these limbs and to preserve these eyes."
Pope,—Epistle to Bolingbroke.

[9] Liverpool.

[10] In the "Massachusetts Magazine," Vol. I., No. 7, for July, 1789, there is "A Description of the Seat of His Excellency John Hancock Esq^r. Boston [Illustrated by a Plate, giving a View of it from the Hay-Market]." The print is very well executed for the time, by Samuel Hill, No. 50, Cornhill,—and the account of the estate is very curious and interesting. It describes the house as "situated upon an elevated ground fronting the south, and commanding a most beautiful prospect. The principal building is of hewn stone, finished not altogether in the modern stile, nor yet in the ancient Gothic taste. It is raised about 12 feet above the street, the ascent to which is through a neat flower garden bordered with small trees; but these do not impede the view of an elegant front, terminating in two lofty stories. The east wing forms a noble and spacious Hall. The west wing is appropriated to domestic purposes. On the west of that is the coach-house, and adjoining are the stables with other offices; the whole embracing an extent of 220 feet. Behind the mansion is a delightful garden, ascending gradually to a charming hill in the rear. This spot is handsomely laid out, embellished with glacis, and adorned with a variety of excellent fruit trees. From the Summer House opens a capital prospect," etc.

"The respected character who now enjoys this earthly paradise, inherited it from his worthy uncle, the Hon. Thomas Hancock Esq: who selected the spot and completed the building, evincing a superiority of judgment and taste.... In a word, if purity of air, extensive prospects, elegance and convenience united, are allowed to have charms, this seat is scarcely surpassed by any in the Union. Here the severe blasts of winter are checked," etc.

[11] In this connection, the subjoined document—the original of which we have now at hand—may not be uninteresting, as showing the conditions on which the heirs of Governor John Hancock consented to sell so large a piece of the estate:—

"We the Subscribers, being a Committee of the town of Boston for the purpose of purchasing a piece of Land for the erection of public buildings, certify to all whom it may concern, that the Governor's pasture purchased by us, shall be conveyed to the Commonwealth for that use only, and that no private building shall be erected upon any part of said pasture. Witness our hands this 9th day of April, 1795.

Wm. Tudor,
John C. Jones,
Jos. Russell,
William Eustis,
H. G. Otis,
Thos. Dawes,
William Little,
Perez Morton."

[12] "Inclosed you have the dimensions of two Bed Chambers for each of which I want Wilton Carpets,—do let them be neat. The British Officers who possess'd my house totally defac'd & Ruined all my Carpets, & I must Submit."—Extract from a Letter of John Hancock, dated Nov. 14, 1783, to Captain Scott, at Liverpool,—contained in Gov. Hancock's Letter-Book.

WHY THOMAS WAS DISCHARGED.

Brant Beach is a long promontory of rock and sand, jutting out at an acute angle from a barren portion of the coast. Its farthest extremity is marked by a pile of many-colored, wave-washed boulders; its junction with the main-land is the site of the Brant House, a watering-place of excellent repute.

The attractions of this spot are not numerous. There is surf-bathing all along the outer side of the beach, and good swimming on the inner. The fishing is fair; and in still weather, yachting is rather a favorite amusement. Further than this, there is little to be said, save that the hotel is conducted upon liberal principles, and the society generally select.

But to the lover of Nature—and who has the courage to avow himself aught else?—the sea-shore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep of ever-shifting waters,—the flying mist of foam breaking away into a gray and ghostly distance down the beach,—the eternal drone of ocean, mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in the parlors by night,—all these are active sources of a passive pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark-blue sky wherein great silvery masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance,—tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotos, is not this a diversion well worth your having?

There is an air of easy sociality among the guests at the Brant House, a disposition on the part of all to contribute to the general amusement, that makes a summer sojourn on the beach far more agreeable than in certain larger, more frequented watering-places, where one is always in danger of discovering that the gentlemanly person with whom he has been fraternizing is a faro-dealer, or that the lady who has half fascinated him is Anonyma herself. Still, some consider the Brant rather slow, and many good folk were a trifle surprised when Mr. Edwin Salisbury and Mr. Charles Burnham arrived by the late stage from Wikahasset Station, with trunks enough for two first-class belles, and a most unexceptionable man-servant in gray livery, in charge of two beautiful setter-dogs.

These gentlemen seemed to have imagined that they were about visiting some backwoods wilderness, some savage tract of country, "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow"; for they brought almost everything with them that men of elegant leisure could require, as if the hotel were but four walls and a roof, which they must furnish with their own chattels. I am sure it took Thomas, the man-servant, a whole day to unpack the awnings, the bootjacks, the game-bags, the cigar-boxes, the guns, the camp-stools, the liquor-cases, the bathing-suits, and other paraphernalia that these pleasure-seekers brought. It must be owned, however, that their room, a large one in the Bachelor's Quarter, facing the sea, wore a very comfortable, sportsmanlike look, when all was arranged.

Thus surrounded, the young men betook themselves to the deliberate pursuit of idle pleasures. They arose at nine and went down the shore, invariably returning at ten with one unfortunate snipe, which was preserved on ice, with much ceremony, till wanted. At this rate, it took them a week to shoot a breakfast; but to see them sally forth, splendid in velveteen and corduroy, with top-boots and a complete harness of green cord and patent-leather straps, you would have imagined that all game-birds were about to become extinct in that region.[Pg 709] Their dogs, even, recognized this great-cry-and-little-wool condition of things, and bounded off joyously at the start, but came home crestfallen, with an air of canine humiliation that would have aroused Mr. Mayhew's tenderest sympathies.

After breakfasting, usually in their room, the friends enjoyed a long and contemplative smoke upon the wide piazza in front of their windows, listlessly regarding the ever-varied marine view that lay before them in flashing breadth and beauty. Their next labor was to array themselves in wonderful morning-costumes of very shaggy English cloth, shiny flasks and field-glasses about their shoulders, and loiter down the beach, to the point and back, making much unnecessary effort over the walk,—a brief mile,—which they spoke of with importance, as their "constitutional." This killed time till bathing-hour, and then came another smoke on the piazza, and another toilet, for dinner. After dinner, a siesta: in the room, when the weather was fresh; when otherwise, in hammocks, hung from the rafters of the piazza. When they had been domiciled a few days, they found it expedient to send home for what they were pleased to term their "crabs" and "traps," and excited the envy of less fortunate guests by driving up and down the beach at a racing gait to dissipate the languor of the after-dinner sleep.

This was their regular routine for the day,—varied, occasionally, when the tide served, by a fishing-trip down the narrow bay inside the point. For such emergencies, they provided themselves with a sail-boat and skipper, hired for the whole season, and arrayed themselves in a highly nautical rig. The results were, large quantities of sardines and pale sherry consumed by the young men, and a reasonable number of sea-bass and black-fish caught by their skipper.

There were no regular "hops" at the Brant House, but dancing in a quiet way every evening, to a flute, violin, and violoncello, played by some of the waiters. For a time, Burnham and Salisbury did not mingle much in these festivities, but loitered about the halls and piazzas, very elegantly dressed and barbered, (Thomas was an unrivalled coiffeur,) and apparently somewhat ennuyé.

That two well-made, full-grown, intelligent, and healthy young men should lead such a life as this for an entire summer might surprise one of a more active temperament. The aimlessness and vacancy of an existence devoted to no earthly purpose save one's own comfort must soon weary any man who knows what is the meaning of real, earnest life,—life with a battle to be fought and a victory to be won. But these elegant young gentlemen comprehended nothing of all that: they had been born with golden spoons in their mouths, and educated only to swallow the delicately insipid lotos-honey that flows inexhaustibly from such shining spoons. Clothes, complexions, polish of manner, and the avoidance of any sort of shock, were the simple objects of their solicitude.

I do not know that I have any serious quarrel with such fellows, after all. They have some strong virtues. They are always clean; and your rough diamond, though manly and courageous as Cœur-de-Lion, is not apt to be scrupulously nice in his habits. Affability is another virtue. The Salisbury and Burnham kind of man bears malice toward no one, and is disagreeable only when assailed by some hammer-and-tongs utilitarian. All he asks is to be permitted to idle away his pleasant life unmolested. Lastly, he is extremely ornamental. We all like to see pretty things; and I am sure that Charley Burnham, in his fresh white duck suit, with his fine, thorough-bred face—gentle as a girl's—shaded by a snowy Panama, his blonde moustache carefully pointed, his golden hair clustering in the most picturesque possible waves, his little red neck-ribbon—the only bit of color in his dress—tied in a studiously careless knot, and his pure, untainted gloves of pearl-gray or lavender, was, if I may be allowed the expression, just as pretty as a picture. And[Pg 710] Ned Salisbury was not less "a joy forever," according to the dictum of the late Mr. Keats. He was darker than Burnham, with very black hair, and a moustache worn in the manner the French call triste, which became him, and increased the air of pensive melancholy that distinguished his dark eyes, thoughtful attitudes, and slender figure. Not that he was in the least degree pensive or melancholy, or that he had cause to be; quite the contrary; but it was his style, and he did it well.

These two butterflies sat, one afternoon, upon the piazza, smoking very large cigars, lost, apparently, in profoundest meditation. Burnham, with his graceful head resting upon one delicate hand, his clear blue eyes full of a pleasant light, and his face warmed by a calm unconscious smile, might have been revolving some splendid scheme of universal philanthropy. The only utterance, however, forced from him by the sublime thoughts that permeated his soul, was the emission of a white rolling volume of fragrant smoke, accompanied by two words:

Salisbury did not reply. He sat, leaning back, with his fingers interlaced behind his head, and his shadowy eyes downcast, as in sad remembrance of some long-lost love. So might a poet have looked, while steeped in mournfully rapturous day-dreams of remembered passion and severance. So might Tennyson's hero have mused, when he sang,—

But the poetic lips opened not to such numbers. Salisbury gazed, long and earnestly, and finally gave vent to his emotions, indicating, with the amber tip of his cigar-tube, the setter that slept in the sunshine at his feet.

"Shocking place, this, for dogs!"—I regret to say he pronounced it "dawgs."—"Why, Carlo is as fat—as fat as—as a"——

His mind was unequal to a simile, even, and he terminated the sentence in a murmur.

More silence; more smoke; more profound meditation. Directly, Charley Burnham looked around with some show of vitality.

The driver's bugle rang merrily among the drifted sand-hills that lay warm and glowing in the orange light of the setting sun. The young men leaned forward over the piazza-rail, and scrutinized the occupants of the vehicle, as it appeared.

"Old gentleman and lady, aw, and two children," said Ned Salisbury; "I hoped there would be some nice girls."

This, in a voice of ineffable tenderness and poetry, but with that odd, tired little drawl, so epidemic in some of our universities.

"Look there, by Jove!" cried Charley, with a real interest at last; "now that's what I call the regular thing!"

The "regular thing" was a low, four-wheeled pony-chaise of basket-work, drawn by two jolly little fat ponies, black and shiny as vulcanite, which jogged rapidly in, just far enough behind the stage to avoid its dust.

This vehicle was driven by a young lady of decided beauty, with a spice of Amazonian spirit. She was rather slender and very straight, with a jaunty little hat and feather perched coquettishly above her dark brown hair, which was arranged in one heavy mass and confined in a silken net. Her complexion was clear, without brilliancy; her eyes blue as the ocean horizon, and spanned by sharp, characteristic brows; her mouth small and decisive; and her whole cast of features indicative of quick talent and independence.

Upon the seat beside her sat another damsel, leaning indolently back in the corner of the carriage. This one was a little fairer than the first, having one of those beautiful English complexions of mingled rose and snow, and a dash of gold-dust in her hair, where the sun touched it. Her eyes, however, were dark hazel, and full of fire, shaded and[Pg 711] intensified by their long, sweeping lashes. Her mouth was a rosebud, and her chin and throat faultless in the delicious curve of their lines. In a word, she was somewhat of the Venus-di-Milo type: her companion was more of a Diana. Both were neatly habited in plain travelling-dresses and cloaks of black and white plaid, and both seemed utterly unconscious of the battery of eyes and eye-glasses that enfiladed them from the whole length of the piazza, as they passed.

"Nor I," said Burnham; "but they look like people to know. They must be somebody."

Half an hour later, the hotel-office was besieged by a score of young men, all anxious for a peep at the last names upon the register. It is needless to say that our friends were not in the crowd. Ned Salisbury was no more the man to exhibit curiosity than Charley Burnham was the man to join in a scramble for anything under the sun. They had educated their emotions clear down, out of sight, and piled upon them a mountain of well-bred inertia.

But, somehow or other, these fellows who take no trouble are always the first to gain the end. A special Providence seems to aid the poor, helpless creatures. So, while the crowd still pressed at the office-desk, Jerry Swayne, the head clerk, happened to pass directly by the piazza where the inert ones sat, and, raising a comical eye, saluted them.

"Old Chapman and family. His daughter drove the pony-phaëton, with her friend, a Miss Thurston. Regular nobby ones. Chapman's the steamship-man, you know. Worth thousands of millions! I'd like to be connected with his family—by marriage, say!"—and Jerry went off, rubbing his cropped head, and smiling all over, as was his wont.

"I know who they are now," said Charley. "Met a cousin of theirs, Joe Faulkner, abroad, two years ago. Doocèd fine fellow. Army."

The manly art of wagoning is not pursued very vigorously at Brant Beach. The roads are too heavy back from the water, and the drive is confined to a narrow strip of wet sand along the shore; so carriages are few, and the pony-chaise became a distinguished element at once. Salisbury and Burnham whirled past it in their light trotting-wagons at a furious pace, and looked hard at the two young ladies in passing, but without eliciting even the smallest glance from them in return.

"Confounded distingué-looking girls, and all that," owned Ned; "but, aw, fearfully unconscious of a fellow!"

This condition of matters continued until the young men were actually driven to acknowledge to each other that they should not mind knowing the occupants of the pony-carriage. It was a great concession, and was rewarded duly. A bright, handsome boy of seventeen, Miss Thurston's brother, came to pass a few days at the seaside, and fraternized with everybody, but was especially delighted with Ned Salisbury, who took him out sailing and shooting, and, I am afraid, gave him cigars stealthily, when out of range of Miss Thurston's fine eyes. The result was, that the first time the lad walked on the beach with the two girls, and met the young men, introductions of an enthusiastic nature were instantly sprung upon them. An attempt at conversation followed.

"Well, there isn't a great deal of game. There is some fishing, but we haven't caught much."[Pg 712]

"Aw—it is a first-rate air, you know. The table is good, and you can sleep like a top. And then, you see, I like to smoke around, and do nothing, on the sea-shore. It is real jolly to lie on the sand, aw, with all sorts of little bugs running over you, and listen to the water swashing about!"

"Let's try it!" cried vivacious Miss Chapman; and down she sat on the sand. The others followed her example, and in five minutes they were picking up pretty pebbles and chatting away as sociably as could be. The rumble of the warning gong surprised them.

At dinner, Burnham and Salisbury took seats opposite the ladies, and were honored with an introduction to papa and mamma, a very dignified, heavy, rosy, old-school couple, who ate a good deal, and said very little. That evening, when flute and viol wooed the lotos-eaters to agitate the light fantastic toe, these young gentlemen found themselves in dancing humor, and revolved themselves into a grievous condition of glow and wilt, in various mystic and intoxicating measures with their new-made friends.

On retiring, somewhat after midnight, Miss Thurston paused, while "doing her hair," and addressed Miss Chapman.

"Did you observe, Hattie, how very handsome those gentlemen are? Mr. Burnham looks like a prince of the sang azur, and Mr. Salisbury like his poet-laureate."

"Yes, dear," responded Hattie; "I have been considering those flowers of the field and lilies of the valley."

"Ned," said Charley, at about the same time, "we won't find anything nicer here, this season, I think."

"They're pretty well worth while," replied Ned; "and I'm rather pleased with them."

The next day the young men delayed their "constitutional" until the ladies were ready to walk, and the four strolled off together, mamma and the children following in the pony-chaise. At the rocks on the end of the point, Ned got his feet very wet, fishing up specimens of sea-weed for the damsels; and Charley exerted himself superhumanly in assisting them to a ledge which they considered favorable for sketching-purposes.

In the afternoon a sail was arranged, and they took dinner on board the boat, with any amount of hilarity and a good deal of discomfort. In the evening, more dancing, and vigorous attentions to both the young ladies, but without a shadow of partiality being shown by either of the four.

This was very nearly the history of many days. It does not take long to get acquainted with people who are willing, especially at a watering-place; and in the course of a few weeks, these young folks were, to all intents and purposes, old friends,—calling each other by their given names, and conducting themselves with an easy familiarity quite charming to behold. Their amusements were mostly in common now. The light wagons were made to hold two each, instead of one, and the matinal snipe escaped death, and was happy over his early worm.

One day, however, Laura Thurston had a headache, and Hattie Chapman stayed at home to take care of her; so Burnham and Salisbury had to amuse themselves alone. They took their boat, and idled about the water, inside the point, dozing under an awning, smoking, gaping, and wishing that headaches were out of fashion, while the taciturn and tarry skipper instructed the dignified and urbane Thomas in the science of trolling for blue-fish.

"I say, Charley," said he, "this sort of thing can't go on forever, you know. I've been thinking, lately."

"Yes,—so far. But I think, aw, that we don't quite do them justice. They're grands partis, you see. I hate to see clever girls wasting themselves on society, waiting and waiting,—and we fellows swimming about just like fish round a hook that isn't baited properly."

"Yes,—of course,—some years; but we may begin to look about us a bit. I'm, aw, I'm six-and-twenty, you know."

"And I'm very near that. I suppose a fellow can't put off the yoke too long. After thirty chances aren't so good. I don't know, by Jove! but what we ought to begin thinking of it."

"But it is a sacrifice. Society must lose a fellow, though, one time or another. And I don't believe we will ever do better than we can now."

"Capt'n Hull," he said, gravely, "I had the biggest kind of a fish then, I'm sure; but d'rectly I went to pull him in, Sir, he took and let go."

"Yaäs," muttered the taciturn skipper, "the biggest fish allers falls back inter the warter."

"I've been thinking a little about this matter, too," said Charley, after a pause, "and I had about concluded we ought to pair off. But I'll be confounded, if I know which I like best! They're both nice girls."

"There isn't much choice," Ned replied. "If they were as different, now, as you and me, I'd take the blonde, of course; aw, and you'd take the brunette. But Hattie Chapman's eyes are blue, and her hair isn't black, you know; so you can't call her dark, exactly."

"No more than Laura is exactly light. Her hair is brown, more than golden, and her eyes are hazel. Hasn't she a lovely complexion, though? By Jove!"

"Better than Hattie's. Yet I don't know but Hattie's features are a little the best."

"They are. Now, honest, Ned, which do you prefer? Say either; I'll take the one you don't want. I haven't any choice."

Charley threw, with about the same amount of excitement he might have exhibited in a turkey-raffle.

Both reclined upon the deck once more, with a sigh of relief, and a long silence followed.

"I say," began Charley, after a time, "it is a comfort to have these little matters arranged without any trouble, eh?"

This "little matter" being arranged, a change gradually took place in the relations of the four. Ned Salisbury began to invite Laura Thurston out driving[Pg 714] and in bathing somewhat oftener than before, and Hattie Chapman somewhat less often; while Charley Burnham followed suit with the last-named young lady. As the line of demarcation became fixed, the damsels recognized it, and accepted with gracious readiness the cavaliers that Fate, through the agency of a chance-falling pair of dice, had allotted to them.

The other guests of the house remarked the new position of affairs, and passed whispers about, to the effect that the girls had at last succeeded in getting their fish on hooks instead of in a net. No suitors could have been more devoted than our friends. It seemed as if each now bestowed upon the chosen one all the attentions he had hitherto given to both; and whether they went boating, sketching, or strolling upon the sands, they were the very picture of a partie carrée of lovers.

Naturally enough, as the young men became more in earnest, with the reticence common to my sex, they spoke less freely and frequently on the subject. Once, however, after an unusually pleasant afternoon, Salisbury ventured a few words.

"I say, we're a couple of lucky dogs! Who'd have thought, now, aw, that our summer was going to turn out so well? I'm sure I didn't. How do you get along, Charley, boy?"

"Deliciously. Smooth sailing enough. Wasn't it a good idea, though, to pair off? I'm just as happy as a bee in clover. You seem to prosper, too, heh?"

"Couldn't ask anything different. Nothing but devotion, and all that. I'm delighted. I say, when are you going to pop?"

"Oh, I don't know. It is only a matter of form. Sooner the better, I suppose, and have it over."

"I was thinking of next week. What do you say to a quiet picnic down on the rocks, and a walk afterward? We can separate, you know, and do the thing up systematically."

"That's another bargain. I notice there isn't much doubt about the result, though."

A close observer might have seen that the gentlemen increased their attentions a little from that time. The objects of their devotion perceived it, and smiled more and more graciously upon them.

The day set for the picnic arrived duly, and was radiant. It pains me to confess that my heroes were a trifle nervous. Their apparel was more gorgeous and wonderful than ever, and Thomas, who was anxious to be off, courting Miss Chapman's lady's-maid, found his masters dreadfully exacting in the matter of hair-dressing. At length, however, the toilet was over, and "Solomon in all his glory" would have been vastly astonished at finding himself "arrayed as one of these."

The boat lay at the pier, receiving large quantities of supplies for the trip, stowed by Thomas, under the supervision of the grim and tarry skipper. When all was ready, the young men gingerly escorted their fair companions aboard, the lines were cast off, and the boat glided gently down the bay, leaving Thomas free to fly to the smart presence of Susan Jane, and to draw glowing pictures for her of a neat little porter-house in the city, wherein they should hold supreme sway, be happy with each other, and let rooms up-stairs for single gentlemen.

The brisk land-breeze, the swelling sail, the fluttering of the gay little flag at the gaff, the musical rippling of water under the counter, and the spirited motion of the boat, combined with the bland air and pleasant sunshine to inspire the party with much vivacity. They had not been many minutes afloat before the guitar-case was opened, and the girls' voices—Laura's soprano and Hattie's contralto—rang melodiously over the waves, mingled with feeble attempts at bass accompaniment from their gorgeous guardians.

Before these vocal exercises wearied,[Pg 715] the skipper hauled down his jib, let go his anchor, and brought the craft to, just off the rocks; and bringing the yawl alongside, unceremoniously plumped the girls down into it, without giving their cavaliers a chance for the least display of agile courtliness. Rowing ashore, this same tarry person left them huddled upon the beach with their hopes, their hampers, their emotions, and their baskets, and returned to the vessel to do a little private fishing on his own account till wanted.

The maidens gave vent to their high spirits by chasing each other among the rocks, gathering shells and sea-weed for the construction of those ephemeral little ornaments—fair, but frail—in which the sex delights, singing, laughing, quoting poetry, attitudinizing upon the peaks and ledges of the fine old boulders,—mossy and weedy and green with the wash of a thousand storms, worn into strange shapes, and stained with the multitudinous dyes of mineral oxidization,—and, in brief, behaved themselves with all the charming abandon that so well becomes young girls, set free, by the entourage of a holiday ramble, from the buckram and clear-starch of social etiquette.

Meanwhile Ned and Charley smoked the pensive cigar of preparation in a sheltered corner, and gazed out seaward, dreaming and seeing nothing.

Erelong the breeze and the romp gave the young ladies not only a splendid color and sparkling eyes, but excellent appetites also. The baskets and hampers were speedily unpacked, the table-cloth laid on a broad, flat stone, so used by generations of Brant-House picnickers, and the party fell to. Laura's beautiful hair, a little disordered, swept her blooming cheek, and cast a pearly shadow upon her neck. Her bright eyes glanced archly out from under her half-raised veil, and there was something inexpressibly naïve in the freedom with which she ate, taking a bird's wing in her little fingers, and boldly attacking it with teeth as white and even as can be imagined. Notwithstanding all the mawkish nonsense that has been put forth by sentimentalists concerning feminine eating, I hold that it is one of the nicest things in the world to see a pretty woman enjoying the creature comforts; and Byron himself, had he been one of this picnic party, would have been unable to resist the admiration that filled the souls of Burnham and Salisbury. Hattie Chapman stormed a fortress of boned turkey with a gusto equal to that of Laura, and made highly successful raids upon certain outlying salads and jellies. The young men were not in a very ravenous condition; they were, as I have said, a little nervous, and bent their energies principally to admiring the ladies and coquetting with pickled oysters.

When the repast was over, with much accompanying chat and laughter, Ned glanced significantly at Charley, and proposed to Laura that they should walk up the beach to a place where, he said, there were "some pretty rocks and things, you know." She consented, and they marched off. Hattie also arose, and took her parasol, as if to follow, but Charley remained seated, tracing mysterious diagrams upon the table-cloth with his fork, and looking sublimely unconscious.

"Oh, why, the fact is," said he, hesitantly, "I—I sprained my ankle, getting out of that confounded boat; so I don't feel much like exercise just now."

"That is too bad! Why didn't you tell us of it before? Is it painful? I'm so sorry!"

"N-no,—it doesn't hurt much. I dare say it will be all right in a minute. And then—I'd just as soon stay here—with you—as to walk anywhere."

Hattie sat down again, and began to talk to this factitious cripple, in the pleasant,[Pg 716] purring way some damsels have, about the joys of the sea-shore,—the happy summer that was, alas! drawing to a close,—her own enjoyment of life,—and kindred topics,—till Charley saw an excellent opportunity to interrupt with some aspirations of his own, which, he averred, must be realized before his life could be considered a satisfactory success.

If you have ever been placed in analogous circumstances, you know, of course, just about the sort of thing that was being said by the two gentlemen at nearly the same moment: Ned, loitering slowly along the sands with Laura on his arm,—and Charley, stretched in indolent picturesqueness upon the rocks, with Hattie sitting beside him. If you do not know from experience, ask any candid friend who has been through the form and ceremony of an orthodox proposal.

When the pedestrians returned, the two couples looked very hard at each other. All were smiling and complacent, but devoid of any strange or unusual expression. Indeed, the countenance is subject to such severe education, in good society, that one almost always looks smiling and complacent. Demonstration is not fashionable, and a man must preserve the same demeanor over the loss of a wife or a glove-button, over the gift of a heart's whole devotion or a bundle of cigars. Under all these visitations, the complacent smile is in favor, as the neatest, most serviceable, and convenient form of non-committalism.

The sun was approaching the blue range of misty hills that bounded the main-land swamps, by this time; so the skipper was signalled, the dinner-paraphernalia gathered up, and the party were soon en route for home once more. When the young ladies were safely in, Ned and Charley met in their room, and each caught the other looking at him, stealthily. Both smiled.

The day following this disastrous picnic, the baggage of Mr. Edwin Salisbury and Mr. Charles Burnham was sent to the depot at Wikahasset Station, and they presented themselves at the hotel-office with a request for their bill. As Jerry Swayne deposited their key upon its hook, he drew forth a small tri-cornered billet from the pigeon-hole beneath, and presented it.

It was directed to both, and Charley read it over Ned's shoulder. It ran thus:—

LIGHT AND DARK.

Straggling through the winter sky,
What is this that begs the eye?
More than pauper by its state,
Less than prince its bashful gait.

'Tis the soul in sun's disguise,
Child of Reason's enterprise;
Through earth's weather seeks its kin,
Begs the sun-like take it in.

Thus from purpling heaven bid,
Open flies the double lid;
To the palace-steps repair
Souls awakened, foul or fair;

Heavy with a maudlin sleep,
Blithesome from a vision deep,
Flying westward with the night,
Eastward to renew their plight.

At this menace of the dawn
Dreams the helm of Thought put on;
All my heart its fresco high
Paints against the morning sky.

II.

Is the firmament of brass
'Gainst my thoughts that seek to pass?
Does the granite vault my brain,
That the soul cannot attain?

Planets to my window roll;
From the eye which is their goal
Million miles are built of space,
Web that glittering we trace.

Like a lens the winter sky
Hurls its planets through the eye;
But to thoughts a buckler dense,
Baffling love and reverence.

Shivered lie the darts I throw,
Vassal stars can farther go;
Time and Space are drops of dew,
When 'tis Light would travel through.
[Pg 718]

Shining finds its own expanse,
Rolling suns make room to dance:
Earth unfasten from my brain,
Rid me of my ball and chain.

Through the window, through the world,
My untethered soul is hurled,
Finds an orbit nothing bars,
Sings its note with morning-stars.

III.

Dearth of God, of Love a dearth,
Rolls my thought, a cloudy Earth,
Through the sullen noon that fears,
Yet expects the morning-spears.

Ere they glisten, ere they threat,
All my heart lies cold and wet,
Prisoned fog between the hills,
Cheerless pulse of midnight rills.

'Tis the darkness that has crept
Where the purple life is kept;
All the veins to thought supply
Murk from out the jealous sky.

Blood that makes the face a dawn,
Mother's breast to life, is gone:
Strikes my waste no hoof that's bright
Into sparkles of delight.

Heavy freight of care and pain,
Want of friends, and God's disdain,
Loveless home, and meagre fate
In the midnight well may wait.

Well may such an Earth forlorn
Shudder on the brink of morn;
But the great breath will not stay,
Strands me on the reefs of day.

IV.

Bellying Earth no anchor throws
Stouter than the breath that blows,
Night and Sorrow cling in vain,
It must toss in day again.

Hospital and battle-field,
Myriad spots where fate is sealed,
Brinks that crumble, sins that urge,
Plunge again into that surge.
[Pg 719]

How the purple breakers throw
Round me their insatiate glow,
Sweep my deck of hideous freight,
Pour through fastening and grate!

I awake from night's alarms
In the bliss of living arms;
Melted goes my leaden dream
Down the warmth of this Gulf-Stream.

'Tis the trade-wind of my soul,
Wafting life to make it whole:
All the night it joyward blew,
Though I neither hoped nor knew.

Fresher blow me out to sea,
Morning-tost I fain would be,
Sweep my deck and pile it high
With the ingots of the sky.

Give me freight to carry round
To a place with night that's drowned,
That the Gulf-Stream of the day
Glitter then my Milky-Way.

WET-WEATHER WORK.

BY A FARMER.

II.

Snowing: the checkered fields below are traceable now only by the brown lines of fences and the sparse trees that mark the hedge-rows. The white of the houses and of the spires of the town is seen dimly through the snow, and seems to waver and shift position like the sails and spars of ships seen through fog. And straightway upon this image of ships and swaying spars I go sailing back to the farm-land of the past, and sharpen my pen for another day's work among The Old Farm-Writers.

I suspect Virgil was never a serious farmer. I am confident he never had one of those callosities upon the inner side of his right thumb which come of the lower thole of a scythe-snath, after a week's mowing. But he had that quick poet's eye which sees at a glance what other men see only in a day. Not a shrub or a tree, not a bit of fallow ground or of nodding lentils escaped his observation; not a bird or a bee; not even the mosquitoes, which to this day hover pestiferously about the low-lying sedge-lands of Mantua. His first pastoral, little known now, and rarely printed with his works, is inscribed Culex.[13]

Young Virgil appears to have been of a delicate constitution, and probably left the fever-bearing regions of the Mincio for the higher plain of Milan for sanitary reasons, as much as the other,—of studying, as men of his parts did study,[Pg 720] Greek and philosophy. There is a story, indeed, that he studied and practised farriery, as his father had done before him; and Jethro Tull, in his crude onslaught upon what he calls the Virgilian husbandry, (chap. ix.,) intimates that a farrier could be no way fit to lay down the rules for good farm-practice. But this story of his having been a horse-doctor rests, so far as I can discover, only on this flimsy tradition,—that the young poet, on his way to the South of Italy, after leaving Milan and Mantua, fell in at Rome with the master-of-horse to Octavianus, and gave such shrewd hints to that official in regard to the points and failings of certain favorite horses of the Roman Triumvir (for Octavianus had not as yet assumed the purple) as to gain a presentation to the future Augustus, and rich marks of his favor.

It is certain that the poet journeyed to the South, and that thenceforward the glorious sunshine of Baiæ and of the Neapolitan shores gave a color to his poems and to his life.

Yet his agricultural method was derived almost wholly from his observation in the North of Italy. He never forgot the marshy borders of the Mincio nor the shores of beautiful Benacus (Lago di Garda); who knows but he may some time have driven his flocks afield on the very battle-ground of Solferino?

But the ruralities of Virgil take a special interest from the period in which they were written. He followed upon the heel of long and desolating intestine wars,—a singing-bird in the wake of vultures. No wonder the voice seemed strangely sweet.

The eloquence of the Senate had long ago lost its traditionary power; the sword was every way keener. Who should listen to the best of speakers, when Pompey was in the forum, covered with the spoils of the East? Who should care for Cicero's periods, when the magnificent conqueror of Gaul is skirting the Umbrian Marshes, making straight for the Rubicon and Rome?

Then came Pharsalia, with its bloody trail, from which Cæsar rises only to be slaughtered in the Senate-Chamber. Next comes the long duel between the Triumvirate and the palsied representatives of the Republican party. Philippi closes that interlude; and there is a new duel between Octavianus and Antony (Lepidus counting for nothing). The gallant lover of Cleopatra is pitted against a gallant general who is a nephew to the first Cæsar. The fight comes off at Actium, and the lover is the loser; the pretty Egyptian Jezebel, with her golden-prowed galleys, goes sweeping down, under a full press of wind, to swell the squadron of the conqueror. The winds will always carry the Jezebels to the conquering side.

Such, then, was the condition of Italy,—its families divided, its grain-fields trampled down by the Volscian cavalry, its houses red with fresh blood-stains, its homes beyond the Po parcelled out to lawless returning soldiers, its public security poised on the point of the sword of Augustus,—when Virgil's Bucolics appear: a pastoral thanksgiving for the patrimony that had been spared him, through court-favor.

There is a show of gross adulation that makes one blush for his manhood; but withal he is a most lithesome poet, whose words are like honeyed blossoms, and whose graceful measure is like a hedge of bloom that sways with spring breezes, and spends perfume as it sways.

The Georgics were said to have been written at the suggestion of Mæcenas, a cultivated friend of Augustus, who, like many another friend of the party in power, had made a great fortune out of the wars that desolated Italy. He made good use of it, however, in patronizing Virgil, and in bestowing a snug farm in the Sabine country upon Horace; where I had the pleasure of drinking goats' milk—"dulci digne mero"—in the spring of 184-.

There can be no doubt but Virgil had been an attentive reader of Xenophon, of Hesiod, of Cato, and of Varro; otherwise he certainly would have been unworthy[Pg 721] of the task he had undertaken,—that of laying down the rules of good husbandry in a way that should insure the reading of them, and kindle a love for the pursuit.

I suspect that Virgil was not only a reader of all that had been written on the subject, but that he was also an insistant questioner of every sagacious landholder and every sturdy farmer that he fell in with, whether on the Campanian hills or at the house of Mæcenas. How else does a man accomplish himself for a didactic work relating to matters of fact? I suspect, moreover, that Virgil, during those half-dozen years in which he was engaged upon this task, lost no opportunity of inspecting every bee-hive that fell in his way, of measuring the points and graces of every pretty heifer he saw in the fields, and of noting with the eye of an artist the color of every furrow that glided from the plough. It is inconceivable that a man of his intellectual address should have given so much of literary toil to a work that was not in every essential fully up to the best practice of the day. Five years, it is said, were given to the accomplishment of this short poem. What say our poetasters to this? Fifteen hundred days, we will suppose, to less than twice as many lines; blocking out four or five for his morning's task, and all the evening—for he was a late worker—licking them into shape, as a bear licks her cubs.

But cui bono? what good is in it all? Simply as a work of art, it will be cherished through all time,—an earlier Titian, whose color can never fade. It was, besides, a most beguiling peace-note, following upon the rude blasts of war. It gave a new charm to forsaken homesteads. Under the Virgilian leadership, Monte Gennaro and the heights of Tusculum beckon the Romans to the fields; the meadows by reedy Thrasymenus are made golden with doubled crops. The Tarentine sheep multiply around Benacus, and crop close those dark bits of herbage which have been fed by the blood of Roman citizens.

Thus much for the magic of the verse; but there is also sound farm-talk in Virgil. I am aware that Seneca, living a few years after him, invidiously objects that he was more careful of his language than of his doctrine, and that Columella quotes him charily,—that the collector of the "Geoponics" ignores him, and that Tull gives him clumsy raillery; but I have yet to see in what respect his system falls short of Columella, or how it differs materially, except in fulness, from the teachings of Crescenzi, who wrote a thousand years and more later. There is little in the poem, save its superstitions, from which a modern farmer can dissent.[14]

We are hardly launched upon the first Georgic before we find a pretty suggestion of the theory of rotation,—

Rolling and irrigation both glide into the verse a few lines later. He insists upon the choice of the best seed, advises to keep the drains clear, even upon holy-days, (268,) and urges, in common with a great many shrewd New-England farmers, to cut light meadows while the dew is on, (288-9,) even though it involve night-work. Some, too, he says, whittle their torches by fire-light, of a winter's night; and the good wife, meantime, lifting a song of cheer, plies the shuttle merrily. The shuttle is certainly an archaism, whatever the good wife may be.

His theory of weather-signs, taken principally from Aratus, agrees in many respects with the late Marshal Bugeaud's observations, upon which the Marshal planted his faith so firmly that he is said to have ordered all his campaigns in Africa in accordance with them.

In the opening of the second book, Virgil insists, very wisely, upon proper adaptation of plantations of fruit-trees to different localities and exposures,—a matter which is far too little considered[Pg 722] by farmers of our day. His views in regard to propagation, whether by cuttings, layers, or seed, are in agreement with those of the best Scotch nursery-men; and in the matter of grafting or inoculation, he errs (?) only in declaring certain results possible, which even modern gardening has not accomplished. Dryden shall help us to the pretty falsehood:—

It is curious how generally this belief in something like promiscuous grafting was entertained by the old writers. Palladius repeats it with great unction in his poem "De Insitione," two or three centuries later;[15] and in the tenth book of the "Geoponics," a certain Damogerontis (whoever he may have been) says, (cap. lxv.,) "Some rustic writers allege that nut-trees and resinous trees (τα ῥητινην εχοντα) cannot be successfully grafted; but," he continues, "this is a mistake; I have myself grafted the pistache nut into the terebenthine."

Is it remotely possible that these old gentlemen understood the physiology of plants better than we?

As I return to Virgil, and slip along the dulcet lines, I come upon this cracking laconism, in which is compacted as much wholesome advice as a loose farm-writer would spread over a page:—

The wisdom of the advice for these days of steam-engines, reapers, and high wages, is more than questionable; but it is in perfect agreement with the notions of a great many old-fashioned farmers who live nearer to the heathen past than they imagine.

The cattle of Virgil are certainly no prize-animals. Any good committee would vote them down incontinently:—

The horses are better; there is the dash of high venture in them; they have snuffed battle; their limbs are suppled to a bounding gallop,—as where in the Æneid,

The fourth book of the Georgics is full of the murmur of bees, showing how the poet had listened, and had loved to listen. After describing minutely how and where the homes of the honey-makers are to be placed, he offers them this delicate attention:—

Who cannot see from this how tenderly the man had watched the buzzing yellow-jackets, as they circled and stooped in broad noon about some little pool in the rills that flow into the Lago di Garda? For hereabout, of a surety, the poet once sauntered through the noontides, while his flock cropped the "milk-giving cytisus," upon the hills.

And charming hills they are, as my own eyes can witness: nay, my little note-book of travel shall itself tell the story. (The third shelf, upon the right, my boy.)

No matter how many years ago,—I was going from Milan, (to which place I had come by Piacenza and Lodi,) on my way to Verona by Brescia and Peschiera. At Desenzano, or thereabout, the blue lake of Benaco first appeared. A[Pg 723] few of the higher mountains that bounded the view were still capped with snow, though it was latter May. Through fragrant locusts and mulberry-trees, and between irregular hedges, we dashed down across the isthmus of Sermione, where the ruins of a Roman castle flout the sky.

Hedges and orchards and fragrant locusts still hem the way, as we touch the lake, and, rounding its southern skirt, come in sight of the grim bastions of Peschiera. A Hungarian sentinel, lithe and tall, I see pacing the rampart, against the blue of the sky. Women and girls come trooping into the narrow road,—for it is near sunset,—with their aprons full of mulberry-leaves. A bugle sounds somewhere within the fortress, and the mellow music swims the water, and beats with melodious echo—boom on boom—against Sermione and the farther shores.

The sun just dipping behind the western mountains, with a disk all golden, pours down a flood of yellow light, tinting the mulberry-orchards, the edges of the Roman castle, the edges of the waves where the lake stirs, and spreading out in a bay of gold where the lake lies still.

Virgil never saw a prettier sight there; and I was thinking of him, and of my old master beating off spondees and dactyls with a red ruler on his threadbare knee, when the sun sunk utterly, and the purple shadows dipped us all in twilight.

"È arrivato, Signore!" said the vetturino. True enough, I was at the door of the inn of Peschiera, and snuffed the stew of an Italian supper.

Virgil closes the first book of the Georgics with a poetic forecast of the time when ploughmen should touch upon rusted war-weapons in their work, and turn out helmets empty, and bones of dead soldiers,—as indeed they might, and did. But how unlike a poem it will sound, when the schools are opened on the Rappahannock again, and the boy scans,—choking down his sobs,—

I fear that Virgil was harmed by the Georgican success, and became more than ever an adulator of the ruling powers. I can fancy him at a palace tea-drinking, where pretty court-lips give some witty turn to his "Sic Vos, non Vobis," and pretty court-eyes glance tenderly at Master Marius, who blushes, and asks some Sabina (not Poppæa) after Tibullus and his Delia. But a great deal is to be forgiven to a man who can turn compliments as Virgil turned them. What can be more exquisite than that allusion to the dead boy Marcellus, in the Sixth Book of the Æneid? He is reading it aloud before Augustus, at Rome. Mæcenas is there from his tall house upon the Esquiline; possibly Horace has driven over from the Sabine country,—for, alone of poets, he was jolly enough to listen to the reading of a poem not his own. Above all, the calm-faced Octavia, Cæsar's sister, and the rival of Cleopatra, is present. A sad match she has made of it with Antony; and her boy Marcellus is just now dead,—dying down at Baiæ, notwithstanding the care of that famous doctor, Antonius Musa, first of hydropaths.

Virgil had read of the Sibyl,—of the entrance to Hades,—of the magic metallic bough that made Charon submissive,—of the dog Cerberus, and his sop,—of the Greeks who welcomed Æneas,—then of the father Anchises, who told the son what brave fate should belong to him and his,—warning him, meantime, with alliterative beauty, against the worst of wars,—

Virgil reads on: Anchises is pointing out to Æneas that old Marcellus who fought Hannibal; and beside him, full of beauty, strides a young hero about whom the attendants throng.

"And who is the young hero," demands Æneas, "over whose brow a dark fate is brooding?"[Pg 724]

"Seek not, O son, to fathom the sorrows of thy kindred. The Fates, that lend him, shall claim him; a jealous Heaven cannot spare such gifts to Rome. Then, what outcry of manly grief shall shake the battlements of the city! what a wealth of mourning shall Father Tiber see, as he sweeps past his new-made grave! Never a Trojan who carried hopes so high, nor ever the land of Romulus so gloried in a son."

"Ah, piety! alas for the ancient faith! alas for the right hand so stanch in battle! None, none could meet him, whether afoot or with reeking charger he pressed the foe. Ah, unhappy youth! If by any means thou canst break the harsh decrees of Fate, thou wilt be—Marcellus!"

But Virgil receives a matter of ten thousand sesterces a line,—which, allowing for difference in exchange and value of gold, may (or may not) have been a matter of ten thousand dollars. With this bouncing bag of sesterces, Virgil shall go upon the shelf for to-day.

I must name Horace for the reason of his "Procul beatus," etc., if I had no other; but the truth is, that, though he rarely wrote intentionally of country-matters, yet there was in him that fulness of rural taste which bubbled over—in grape-clusters, in images of rivers, in snowy Soracte, in shade of plane-trees; nay, he could not so much as touch an amphora but the purple juices of the hill-side stained his verse as they stained his lip. See, too, what a garden pungency there is in his garlic ode (III. 5); and the opening to Torquatus (Ode VII. Lib. 4) is the limning of one who has followed the changes of the bursting spring with his whole heart in his eyes:—

every school-boy knows it: but what every school-boy does not know, and but few of the masters, is this charming, jingling rendering of it into the Venetian dialect:—

On my last wet-day, I spoke of the elder Pliny, and now the younger Pliny shall tell us something of one or two of his country-places. Pliny was a government-official, and was rich: whether these facts had any bearing on each other I know no more than I should know if he had lived in our times.

I know that he had a charming place down by the sea, near to Ostium. Two roads led thither; "both of them," he says, "in some parts sandy, which makes it heavy and tedious, if you travel in a coach; but easy enough for those who ride. My villa" (he is writing to his friend Gallus, Epist. XX. Lib. 2) "is large enough for all convenience, and not expensive." He describes the portico as affording a capital retreat in bad weather, not only for the reason that it is protected by windows, but because there is an extraordinary projection of the roof. "From the middle of this portico you pass into a charming inner court, and thence into a large hall which extends towards the sea,—so near, indeed, that under a west wind the waves ripple on the steps. On the left of this hall is a large lounging-room (cubiculum), and a lesser one beyond,[Pg 725] with windows to the east and west. The angle which this lounging-room forms with the hall makes a pleasant lee, and a loitering-place for my family in the winter. Near this again is a crescent-shaped apartment, with windows which receive the sun all day, where I keep my favorite authors. From this, one passes to a bed-chamber by a raised passage, under which is a stove that communicates an agreeable warmth to the whole apartment. The other rooms in this portion of the villa are for the freedmen and slaves; but still are sufficiently well ordered (tam mundis) for my guests."

And he goes on to describe the bath-rooms, the cooling-rooms, the sweating-rooms, the tennis-court, "which lies open to the warmth of the afternoon sun." Adjoining this is a tower, with two apartments below and two above,—besides a supper-room, which commands a wide look-out along the sea, and over the villas that stud the shores. At the opposite end of the tennis-court is another tower, with its apartments opening upon a museum,—and below this the great dining-hall, whose windows look upon gardens, where are box-tree hedges, and rosemary, and bowers of vines. Figs and mulberries grow profusely in the garden; and walking under them, one approaches still another banqueting-hall, remote from the sea, and adjoining the kitchen-garden. Thence a grand portico (crypto-porticus) extends with a range of windows on either side, and before the portico is a terrace perfumed with violets. His favorite apartment, however, is a detached building, which he has himself erected in a retired part of the grounds. It has a warm winter-room, looking one way on the terrace, and another on the ocean; through its folding-doors may be seen an inner chamber, and within this again a sanctum, whose windows command three views totally separate and distinct,—the sea, the woods, or the villas along the shore.

"Tell me," he says, "if all this is not very charming, and if I shall not have the honor of your company, to enjoy it with me?"

If Pliny regarded the seat at Ostium as only a convenient and inexpensive place, we may form some notion of his Tuscan property, which, as he says in his letter to his friend Apollinaris, (Lib. V. Epist. 6,) he prefers to all his others, whether of Tivoli, Tusculum, or Palestrina. There, at a distance of a hundred and fifty miles from Rome, in the midst of the richest corn-bearing and olive-bearing regions of Tuscany, he can enjoy country quietude. There is no need to be slipping on his toga; ceremony is left behind. The air is healthful; the scene is quiet. "Studiis animum, venatu corpus exerceo." I will not follow him through the particularity of the description which he gives to his friend Apollinaris. There are the wide-reaching views of fruitful valleys and of empurpled hill-sides; there are the fresh winds sweeping from the distant Apennines; there is the gestatio with its clipped boxes, the embowered walks, the colonnades, the marble banquet-rooms, the baths, the Carystian columns, the soft, embracing air, and the violet sky. I leave Pliny seated upon a bench in a marble alcove of his Tuscan garden. From this bench, the water, gushing through several little pipes, as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons reposing upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, whence it is received into a polished marble basin, so artfully contrived that it is always full, without ever overflowing. "When I sup here," he writes, "this basin serves for a table,—the larger dishes being placed round the margin, while the smaller ones swim about in the form of little vessels and waterfowl."

Such al fresco suppers the country-gentlemen of Italy ate in the first century of our era!

Palladius wrote somewhere about the middle of the fourth century. His work is arranged in the form of a calendar for the months, and closes with a poem which[Pg 726] is as inferior to the poems of the time of Augustus as the later emperors were inferior to the Cæsars. There is in his treatise no notable advance upon the teachings of Columella, whom he frequently quotes,—as well as certain Greek authorities of the Lower Empire. I find in his treatise a somewhat fuller list of vegetables, fruits, and field-crops than belongs to the earlier writers. I find more variety of treatment. I see a waning faith in the superstitions of the past; Bacchus and the Lares are less jubilant than they were; but the Christian civilization has not yet vivified the art of culture. The magnificent gardens of Nero and the horticultural experiences of the great Adrian at Tivoli have left no traces in the method or inspiration of Palladius.

I will not pass wholly from the classic period, without allusion to the recent book of Professor Daubeny on Roman husbandry. It is charming, and yet disappointing,—not for failure, on his part, to trace the traditions to their sources, not for lack of learning or skill, but for lack of that afflatus which should pour over and fill both subject and talker, where the talker is lover as well as master.

Daubeny's husbandry lacks the odor of fresh-turned ground,—lacks the imprint of loving familiarity. He is clearly no farmer: every man who has put his hand to the plough (aratori crede) sees it. Your blood does not tingle at his story of Boreas, nor a dreamy languor creep over you when he talks of sunny south-winds.

Had he written exclusively of bees, or trees, or flowers, there would have been a charming murmur, like the susurrus of the poets,—and a fragrance as of crushed heaps of lilies and jonquils. But Daubeny approaches fanning as a good surgeon approaches a cadaver. He disarticulates the joints superbly; but there is no tremulous intensity. The bystanders do not feel the thrill with which they see a man bare his arm for a capital operation upon a live and palpitating body.

From the time of Palladius to the time of Pietro Crescenzi is a period of a thousand years, a period as dreary and impenetrable as the snow-cloud through which I see faintly a few spires staggering: so along the pages of Muratori's interminable annals gaunt figures come and go; but they are not the figures of farmers.

Goths, wars, famines, and plague succeed each other in ghastly procession. Boëthius lifts, indeed, a little rural plaint from out of the gloom,—

but the dungeon closes over him; and there are outstanding orders of Charlemagne which look as if he had an eye to the crops of Italy, and to a good vegetable stew with his Transalpine dinners,—but for the most part the land is waste. I see some such monster as Eccelino reaping a harvest of blood. I see Lombards pouring down from the mountain-gates, with falcons on their thumbs, ready to pounce upon the purple columbæ that trace back their lineage to the doves Virgil may have fed in the streets of Mantua. I see torrents of people, the third of them women, driven mad by some fanatical outcry, sweeping over the whole breadth of Italy, and consuming all green things as a fire consumes stubble. Think of what the fine villa of Pliny would have been, with its boxwood bowers and floating dishes, under the press of such crusaders! It was a precarious time for agricultural investments: I know nothing that could match it, unless it may have been last summer's harvests in the valley of the Shenandoah.

Upon a parchment (strumento) of Ferrara, bearing date a. d. 1113, (Annals of Muratori,) I find a memorandum or contract which looks like reviving civilization. "Terram autem illam quam roncabo, frui debeo per annos tres; postea reddam serraticum." The Latin is stiff,[Pg 727] but the sense is sound. "If I grub up wild land, I shall hold it three years for pay."

I shall make no apology for introducing next to the reader the "Geoponica Geoponicorum,"—a somewhat extraordinary collection of agricultural opinions, usually attributed, in a loose way, to the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who held the Byzantine throne about the middle of the tenth century. It was undoubtedly under the order of Constantine that the collection took its present shape; but whether a collection under the same name had not previously existed, and, if so, to whom is to be credited the authorship, are questions which have been discussed through a wilderness of Greek and Roman type, by the various editors.

The edition before me (that of Niclas, Leipsic) gives no less than a hundred pages of prolegomena, prefaces, introductory observations, with notes to each and all, interlacing the pages into a motley of patchwork; the whole preceded by two, and followed by five stately dedications. The weight of authority points to Cassianus Bassus, a Bithynian, as the real compiler,—notwithstanding his name is attached to particular chapters of the book, and notwithstanding he lived as early as the fifth century. Other critics attribute the collection to Dionysius Uticensis, who is cited by both Varro and Columella. The question is unsettled, and is not worth the settling.

My own opinion—in which, however, Niclas and Needham do not share—is, that the Emperor Porphyrogenitus, in addition to his historical and judicial labors,[19] wishing to mass together the best agricultural opinions of the day, expressed that wish to some trusted Byzantine official (we may say his Commissioner of Patents). Whereupon the Byzantine official (commissioner) goes to some hungry agricultural friend, of the Chersonesus, and lays before him the plan, with promise of a round Byzantian stipend. The agricultural friend goes lovingly to the work, and discovers some old compilation of Bassus or of Dionysius, into which he whips a few modern phrases, attributes a few chapters to the virtual compiler of the whole, makes one or two adroit allusions to local scenes, and carries the result to the Byzantine official (commissioner). The official (commissioner) has confidence in the opinions and virtues of his agricultural friend, and indorses the book, paying over the stipend, which it is found necessary to double, by reason of the unexpected cost of execution. The official (commissioner) presents the report to the Emperor, who receives it gratefully,—at the same tune approving the bill of costs, which has grown into a quadruple of the original estimates.

This hypothesis will explain the paragraphs which so puzzle Niclas and Needham; it explains the evident interpolations, and the local allusions. The only extravagance in the hypothesis is its assumption that the officials of Byzantium were as rapacious as our own.

Thus far, I have imagined a certain analogy between the work in view and the "Patent Office Agricultural Reports." The analogy stops here: the "Geoponica" is a good book. It is in no sense to be regarded as a work of the tenth century, or as one strictly Byzantine: nearly half the authors named are of Western origin, and I find none dating later than the fifth century,—while many, as Apuleius, Fiorentinus, Africanus, and the poor brothers Quintilii, who died under the stab of Commodus, belong to a period preceding that of Palladius. Aratus and Democritus (of Abdera) again, who are cited, are veterans of the old Greek school, who might have contributed as well to the agriculture of Thrace or Macedonia in the days of Philip as in the days of the Porphyrogenitus.

The first book, of meteorologic phenomena, is nearly identical in its teachings with those of Aratus, Varro, and Virgil.

The subject of field-culture is opened[Pg 728] with the standard maxim, repeated by all the old writers, that the master's eye is invaluable.[20] The doctrine of rotation, or frequent change of crops, is laid down with unmistakable precision. A steep for seed (hellebore) is recommended, to guard against the depredations of birds or mice.

In the second book, in certain chapters credited to Fiorentinus, I find, among other valuable manures mentioned, sea-weed and tide-drift, (Τα εκ της θαλασσης δε εκβρασσομενα βρυωδη,) which I do not recall in any other of the old writers. He also recommends the refuse of leather-dressers, and a mode of promoting putrefaction in the compost-heap, which would almost seem to be stolen from "Bommer's Method." He further urges the diversion of turbid rills, after rains, over grass lands, and altogether makes a better compend of this branch of the subject than can be found in the Roman writers proper.

Grain should be cut before it is fully ripe, as the meal is the sweeter. What correspondent of our agricultural papers, suggesting this as a novelty, could believe that it stood in Greek type as early as ever Greek types were set?

A farm foreman should be apt to rise early, should win the respect of his men, should fear to tell an untruth, regard religious observances, and not drink too hard.

Three or four books are devoted to a very full discussion of the vine, and of wines,—not differing materially, however, from the Columellan advice. In discussing the moral aspects of the matter, this Geoponic author enumerates other things which will intoxicate as well as wine,—even some waters; also the wine made from barley and wheat, which barbarians drink. Old men, he says, are easily made drunk; women not easily, by reason of temperament; but by drinking enough they may come to it.

Where the discourse turns upon pears, (Lib. X. Cap. xxiii.,) it is urged, that, if you wish specially good fruit, you should bore a hole through the trunk at the ground, and drive in a plug of either oak or beech, and draw the earth over it. If it does not heal well, wash for a fortnight with the lees of old wine: in any event, the wine-lees will help the flavor of the fruit. Almost identical directions are to be found in Palladius, (Tit. XXV.,) but the above is credited to Diophanes, who lived in Asia Minor a full century before Christ.

Book XI. opens with flowers and evergreens, introduced (by a Latin translation) in a mellifluous roll of genitives:—"plantationem rosarum, et liliorum, et violarum, et reliquorum florum odoralorum." Thereafter is given the pretty tradition, that red roses came of nectar spilled from heaven. Love, who bore the celestial vintage, tripped a wing, and overset the vase; and the nectar, spilling on the valleys of the earth, bubbled up in roses. Next we have this kindred story of the lilies. Jupiter wished to make his boy Hercules (born of a mortal) one of the gods; so he snatches him from the bosom of his earthly mother, Alemena, and bears him to the bosom of the godlike Juno. The milk is spilled from the full-mouthed boy, as he traverses the sky, (making the Milky Way,) and what drops below stars and clouds, and touches earth, stains the ground with—lilies.

In the chapter upon pot-herbs are some of those allusions to the climate of Constantinople which may have served to accredit the work in the Byzantine court. I find no extraordinary methods[Pg 729] of kitchen-garden culture,—unless I except the treatment of musk-melon seeds to a steep of milk and honey, in order to improve the flavor of the fruit. (Cap. xx.) The remaining chapters relate to ordinary domestic animals, with diversions to stags, camels, hare, poisons, scorpions, and serpents. I can cheerfully commend the work to those who have a snowy day on their hands, good eyesight, and a love for the subject.

And now, while the snow lasts, let us take one look at Messer Pietro Crescenzi, a Bolognese of the fourteenth century. My copy of him is a little, fat, unctuous, parchment-bound book of 1534, bought upon a street stall under the walls of the University of Bologna.

Through whose hands may it not have passed since its printing! Sometimes I seem to snuff in it the taint of a dirty-handed friar, who loved his pot-herbs better than his breviary, and plotted his yearly garden on some shelf of the hills that look down on Castagnolo: other times I scent only the mould and the damp of some monastery shelf, that guarded it quietly and cleanly, while red-handed war raged around the walls.

Crescenzi was a man of good family in Bologna, being nephew of Crescenzi di Crescenzo, who died in 1268, an ambassador in Venice. Pietro was educated to the law, and, wearying of the civil commotions in his native town, accepted judicial positions in the independent cities of Italy,—Pisa and Asti among others; and after thirty years of absence, in which, as he says, he had read many authors,[21] and seen many sorts of farming, he gives his book to the world.

Its arrangement is very similar to that of Palladius, to which he makes frequent reference. There is long and quaint talk of situations, breezes, cellar-digging, and wells; but in the matter of irrigation and pipe-laying he is clearly in advance of the Roman writers. He discourses upon tiles, and gives a cement for making water-tight their junction,—"Calcina viva intrisa con olio." (Lib. I. Cap. ix.) He adds good rules for mortar-making, and advises that the timber for house-building be cut in November or December in the old of the moon.

In matters of physiology he shows a near approach to modern views: he insists that food for plants must be in a liquid form.[22]

He quotes Columella's rule for twenty-four loads (carrette) of manure to hill-lands per acre, and eighteen to level land; and adds,—"Our people put the double of this,"—"I nostri mettano più chel doppio."

But the book of our friend Crescenzi is interesting, not so much for its maxims of agronomic wisdom as for its association with one of the most eventful periods o£ Italian history. The new language of the Peninsula [23] was just now crystallizing into shape, and was presently to receive the stamp of currency from the hands of Dante and Boccaccio. A thriving commerce through the ports of Venice and Amalfi demanded all the products of the hill-sides. Milan, then having a population of two hundred thousand, had turned a great river into the fields,—which to this day irrigates thousands of acres of rice-lands. Wheat was grown in profusion, at that time, on fields which are now desolated by the malaria, or by indolence. In the days of Crescenzi, gunpowder was burned for the first time in battle; and for the first time crops of grain were paid for in bills of exchange. All the Peninsula was vibrating with the throbs of a new and more splendid life. The art that had cropped out of the fashionable schools of Byzantium was fast putting them in eclipse; and before Crescenzi died, if he loved art on canvas as he loved art in gardens, he must have[Pg 730] heard admiringly of Cimabue, and Giotto, and Orcagna.

In 1360 a certain Paganino Bonafede composed a poem called "Il Tesoro de' Rustici"; but I believe it was never published; and Tiraboschi calls it "poco felice." If we could only bar publicity to all the poco felice verses!

In the middle of the fifteenth century the Florentine Poggio says some good things in a rural way; and still later, that whimsical, disagreeable Politiano, who was a pet cub of Lorenzo de' Medici, published his "Rusticus." Roscoe says, with his usual strained hyperbole, that it is inferior in kind only to the Georgics. The fact is, it compares with the Georgics as the vilest of the Medici compare with the grandest of the Cæsars.

The young Michele Verini, of the same period, has given, in one of his few remaining letters, an eloquent description of the Cajano farm of Lorenzo de' Medici. It lay between Florence and Pistoia. The river Ombrone skirted its fields. It was so successfully irrigated, that three crops of grain grew in a year. Its barns had stone floors, walls with moat, and towers like a castle. The cows he kept there (for ewes were now superseded) were equal to the supply of the entire city of Florence. Hogs were fed upon the whey; and peacocks and pheasant innumerable roamed through the woods.

Politiano also touches upon the same theme; but the prose of young Verini is better, because more explicit, than the verse of Politiano.

While I write, wandering in fancy to that fair plain where Florence sits a queen, with her girdle of shining rivers, and her garland of olive-bearing hills,——the snow is passing. The spires have staggered plainly and stiffly into sight. Again I can count them, one by one. I have brought as many authors to the front as there are spires staring at me from the snow.

Let me marshal them once more:—Verini, the young Florentine; Politiano,[24] who cannot live in peace with the wife of his patron; Poggio, the Tuscan; Crescenzi, the magistrate and farmer joined; the half-score of dead men who lie between the covers of the "Geoponica"; the martyr Boëthius, who, under the consolations of a serene, perhaps Christian philosophy, cannot forget the charm of the fields; Palladius, who is more full than original; Pliny the Consul, and the friend of Tacitus; Horace, whose very laugh is brimming with the buxom cheer of the country; and last,—Virgil.

Even so: Claudite jam libros, parvuli!—Shut up the books, my little ones! Enough of this.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] "Lusimus: hæc propter Culicis sint carmina dicta."

[14] Of course, I reckon the

"Exceptantque leves auras; et sæpe sine ullis," etc.,

(Lib. III. 274,) as among the superstitions.

[15] The same writer, under Februarius, Tit. XVII., gives a very curious method of grafting the willow, so that it may bear peaches.

[16] Praise big farms; stick by little ones.

[17] This, with other odes, is prettily turned by Sig. Pietro Bussolino, and given as an appendix to the Serie degli Scritti in Dialetto Venez., by Bart. Gamba.

[18] De Consol. Phil. Lib. II.

[19] See Gibbon,—opening of Chapter LIII.

[20] As a curious illustration of the rhetoric of the different agronomes, I give the various wordings of this universal maxim.

The "Geoponica" has,—"Πολλο τον αγρον αμεινο ποιει δεσποτου συνεχης παρουσια." Lib. II. Cap. i.

Columella says,—"Ne ista quidem præsidia tantum pollent, quantum vel una præsentia domini." I. i. 18.

Cato says,—"Frons occipitio prior est." Cap. iv.

Palladius puts it,—"Præsentia domini provectus est agri." I. vi.

And the elder Pliny writes,—"Majores ferthissimum in agro oculum domini esse dixerunt."

[21] "E molti libri d'antichi e de' novelli savi lessi e studiai, e diverse e varie operazioni de' coltivalori delle terre vidi e conobbi."

[22] "Il proprio cibo delle piante sara aleuno humido ben mischiato." Cap. xiii.

[23] Crescenzi'a book was written in Latin, but was very shortly after (perhaps by himself) rendered into the street-tongue of Italy.

[24] See Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, Chap. VIII.

THE MEMBER FROM FOXDEN.

The circumstances were a little peculiar,—it is in vain to deny it. No wonder that several friends of mine, who were struggling and stumbling up to position at the city bar, could never understand why I was selected, by a nearly unanimous vote, to represent Foxden at the General Court. Though I had occupied an old farm-house of Colonel Prowley's during part of the summer, and had happened to be in it about the first of May to pay taxes, yet it was well known that my city office occupied by far the greater part of my time and[Pg 731] attention. And really, when you think of the "remarkable men" long identified with this ancient river-town, an outside selection seems quite unaccountable.

Chosen a member of the "Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society" during my first visit to Foxden, of course I tried to be tolerably lively at the meetings. But my innocence of thereby attempting the acquisition of political capital I beg explicitly to declare. The joke of the thing was——But stop!—to tell just what it was, I must begin, after the Richardsonian style, with extracts from correspondence. For, as the reader may suspect, my friend Colonel Prowley was not inclined to slacken his epistolary attentions after the success of his little scheme, of which the particulars were given last April. And as my wife turned out to possess the feminine facility of letter-writing, and was good enough to assume the burden of replying to his voluminous productions, they became the delight of many Saturday evenings devoted to their perusal.

It was about the middle of September when an unusually bulky envelope from the Colonel inclosed a sealed note containing the following communication:—

As illustrating this extraordinary missive, there is subjoined an extract from the accompanying epistle of my regular Foxden correspondent.

"I inclose what I am given to understand is a nomination to the Honorable Legislature, a distinction which, I need not say, gives the highest gratification to my sister and myself. You will be opposed in this noble emulation by one Howke, a physician of North Foxden, with whom our venerable and influential Dr. Dastick has much osseous sympathy. Dr. Howke (long leaning to the Root-and-Herb School of Medicine, and having wrought many notable cures with such simples as sage, savory, wormwood, sweet-marjoram, sassafras, liverwort, pine-cones, rosemary, poppy-leaves, not to speak of plasters of thyme, cowslips, rose-buds, fit to refresh the tired wings of Ariel) has latterly declared his conversion to the Indian system of physic. The celebrated Wigwam Family Pills, to the manufacture of which he at present devotes himself, are not unknown to city journals. As I am informed that Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden Regulator," has a large interest in the sale of these alterative spherules, you will necessarily encounter the hostility of our county journal. I advise you of the full might of these adversaries, that you may come to fuller justification of your supporters in the lecture to be read before us on election-eve. Dr. Dastick, with some of the elder of this town, has little liking for this laic preaching of the lyceum, by reason of the slight and foolish matter too often dispensed, when in the mean time there be precious gems of[Pg 732] knowledge, the very onyx or sapphire to bedeck the mind, which the muck-rake of the lecturer never collects. I add for your consideration a few wholesome subjects:—Caleb Cheeschateaumuck, the Indian Bachelor of Arts; A Monody on the Apostle Eliot; A Suggestion of Some New Claimant for the Honors of Junius; Mather's Four Johannes in Eremo, being Notable Facts in the Lives of John Cotton, John Norton, John Wilson, and John Davenport; The Great Obligations of Homer to the Illustrious Mr. Pope; "New England's Jonas cast up in London," Some Account of this Remarkable Work; Natootomakteackesuk, or the Day of Asking Questions, whether this Ancient Festival might be profitably Revived?—I should feel competent to give assistance in the treatment of any of these subjects you might select. If the Muse inspire you, why not try a descriptive poem, modelled, let us say, upon William Morrill's 'New England'? The silver ring of verse would be joyfully heard among us, and work strong persuasions in your behalf.... I must not forget to mention, that, on the day of your lecture, you will meet at dinner at my house my esteemed Western correspondent, Professor Owlsdarck, (his grandmother was a Sodkin,) whose great work upon Mummies is the admiration of the literary world. He has been invited to deliver an address upon some speciality of erudition before the trustees, parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy, and that upon the same evening you are to speak in Foxden. As the distance is only ten miles, I shall send him over in the carryall after an early tea. And now to share with you a little secret. The office of Principal of the Academy is vacant, and the well-known learning of Professor Owlsdarck gives his friends great hope in recommending him for the place. He formerly lived in Wrexford, where his early 'Essays on Cenotaphs,' published in the local paper of that town, were very popular. Indeed, I think the trustees have only to hear the weighty homily he will provide for them to decide by acclamation in his favor. Thus you see my double interest in your visits next November; for, as I think, both my guests will come upon brave opportunities for fame and usefulness."

"And what shall you do about it?" asked my wife, after we had thoroughly read the documents which have been quoted.

"Stand," I replied, with emphasis. "I don't think there's any chance of an election; but Heaven knows I want the rough-hewing of a political campaign. If I could get a little of the stump-orator's brass into my composition, it would be worth five years of office-practice for putting me on in the profession."

"But you have always had such unwillingness to address an audience," faltered Kate.

"The more reason why an effort should now be made to get over it," I replied. "In short, I consider this nomination quite providential, for I could never have descended to the vulgar wire-pulling by which such distinctions are commonly gained; and I confess, it promises to be just the discipline I want. Of course I have no expectation of being chosen."

"But why should you not be chosen?" urged my wife. "You are tolerably well-known in Foxden; Colonel Prowley, an influential citizen, is your warm friend; and Mr. Waspy tells you how you may get the support of the active generation."

"Yes,—by playing literary Grimaldi an hour or so for their diversion! A very good recipe, were it not probable that the elder portion of the town would fail to see the humor of it."

"Everybody but a clique of pseudo-wiseacres in Foxden perhaps may," I replied. "But our good friend, the Colonel, has so established his antiquarian dictatorship over his contemporaries, that I[Pg 733] believe nothing adapted to the present century could possibly please them."

"You may depend upon it," argued Kate, consolingly, "that all the lieges of Foxden will be so taken up with this Professor Owlsdarck, who is fortunately to be there at the same time, that they will give little thought to your deficiencies. At all events, there is nothing to be done but to try to please the Young Men who give you the nomination."

Of course I agreed in this view of the case, and began to cast about for some grotesque subject for my lecture. But regret at disappointing the expectations of my old friend caused me to dismiss such light topics as presented themselves, and after searching for half an hour, I declared myself as much at a loss as ever.

"I think I have it!" cried Kate, at length. "Both your correspondents say that a poem would be particularly acceptable,—and a poem it must be."

"Not at all; but a comic; poem, such as the secretary asks for. The dear Colonel will be pleased at the pretension of verse, and your humorous passages may be passed off as poetic license."

"There is much in what you say," I replied; "and if I put something about New England into the title, it will go far to reconcile all difficulties."

"'The Whims of New England,'" I repeated. "Let me think how it would look in print:—'We understand that the brilliant, sparkling, and highly humorous poem, entitled "The Whims of New England," which convulsed the élite of Foxden on Friday evening last,' etc., etc. Yes, it sounds well! 'The Whims of New England,' it shall be!"

It was a great satisfaction to have decided upon the style and title; and I sat down at once and began to jot off lines of ten syllables. "What do you think of this for a beginning?" I presently asked:—

"It is the custom, my dear," I replied, decisively. "It is the conventional 'Here we are' of the poetical clown."

"Well, you must remember to be funny enough," said my wife, with something like a sigh. "It is not the humorous side of her hero's character that a woman likes to contemplate; so give me credit for disinterestedness in the advice."

"'Motley's the only wear'!" I exclaimed,—"at least before the Young Men of the Gelasmiphilous Society. I have a stock of Yankee anecdotes that can be worked off in rhyme to the greatest advantage. In short, I mean to attempt one of those immensely popular productions that no library—that is, no circulating library—should be without."

Easier said than done. The evenings of several weeks were pretty diligently devoted to my poem. I determined to begin with a few moral reflections, and in these I think I succeeded in reaching the highest standard of edification and dulness. Not that I didn't succeed in the revel of comicalities I afterward permitted myself; but the selection and polishing of these oddities cost me much more labor than I had expected. I was really touched at the way in which my wife sacrificed her feminine preference for the emotional and sentimental, and heard me read over my piquant periods in order that all the graces of declamation might give them full effect. And when my poem was at length finished, when my stories had been carefully arranged with their points bristling out in all directions, when every shade of emphasis had been studied, I think it might have been called a popular[Pg 734] performance,—perhaps too popular;—but that is a matter of opinion.

I felt decidedly nervous, as the time approached when I should make my first appearance before an audience. And the receipt of long letters from Colonel Prowley, overflowing with hopes, expectations, and offers about my contemplated harangue, did not decrease my embarrassment.

"How shall I tell the old gentleman," I exclaimed, one day, after reading one of his Pre-Adamite epistles,—"how shall I tell him, that, instead of the solid discourse he expects, I have nothing but a collection of trumpery rhymes?"

"Why tell him anything about it?" said Kate. "The committee have not asked you to announce a subject, or even to declare whether you intend to address them in prose or verse. Then say nothing; when you begin to speak, it will be time enough for people to find out what you are to speak about, and whether they like it or not."

"A capital plan!" I cried; "for I know, that, if Prowley, Dastick, and the rest of them, can once hear the thing, and find out how popular it is with the audience, they will come round and talk about sugared verses, or something of the sort."

So it was decided that no notice of what I was to say, or how I was to say it, should be given to any inhabitant of Foxden. The town, unprepared by the approaches of a regular literary siege, must be carried by a grand assault. At times I felt doubtful; but then I knew it was the distrust of modesty and inexperience.

II.

A fine, clear day, unusually warm for the season, was the important fifth of November. Devoting the early hours to tedious travelling by the railroad, we drove up to the Prowley homestead soon after eleven o'clock. The Colonel and his sister received us with the old enthusiasm of hospitality,—Miss Prowley carrying Kate up-stairs for some fresh mystery of toilet, while her brother walked me up and down the piazza in a maze of inquiries and information.

I was glad to find that he cordially approved my resolution not to announce in advance the subject or manner of my evening performance. Professor Owlsdarck had said nothing of the particular theme of discourse selected for the trustees; and, indeed, it had often been the custom for the Foxden Lyceum to make no other announcement than the name of the lecturer. I was greatly relieved by this assurance, and was about to express as much, when my companion left me to greet a tall, ungainly-looking gentleman who came round the east corner of the house. This stranger was about forty years old, wore light-blue spectacles, and had a near-sighted, study-worn look about him that speedily suggested the essayist of cenotaphs. There was a gloomy rustiness in his countenance, a stiff protrusion of the head, and an apparent dryness about the joints, that made me feel, that, if he could be taken to pieces and thoroughly oiled, he would be much better for it.

"Let me have the pleasure of making two valued and dear friends of mine acquainted with each other!" exclaimed Colonel Prowley. "Professor Owlsdarck, permit me to"——and with flourishes of extravagant compliment the introduction was accomplished.

"Brother, brother, Captain Strype wants to see you a moment; he has gone into the back-parlor," called the voice of Miss Prowley from a window above.

Our host seemed a little annoyed; muttered something about the necessity of conciliating opposition editors; excused himself with elaborate apologies; and hurried into the house, leaving his two guests to ripen in acquaintance as they best might.

"Fine day, Sir," I remarked, after a deferential pause, to allow my companion to open the conversation, had he been so disposed.

"On the contrary," said I, "it seems to me one of those days when we are least able to realize our mortality."

"Then you think superficially," rejoined the Professor. "A warm day at this time of year induces people to leave off their flannels; and that, in our climate, is as good as a death-warrant."

"No, because you look at picturesqueness, while I look at statistics. Are you interested in mummies?"

"So I supposed," said Professor Owlsdarck. "And yet how can a man be said to know anything, who has not mastered this alphabet of our race? The naturalist or botanist studies the remains of extinct life in the rock or the gravel-pit. But how can the crumbling remnants of bygone brutes and plants compare in interest with the characteristic physical organization of ancient men? Remember, too, those natural and original peculiarities which distinguish every human body from myriads of its fellows. No, Sir, depend upon it, if Pope was right in declaring the proper study of mankind to be man, we must begin with mummies."

"But in these days," I pleaded, "education has become so varied, that, if we began at the beginning to study down, no man's lifetime would suffice to bring him within speaking distance of ordinary affairs."

"Education, as you call it, has become varied, but only because it has become shallow. Education is everywhere, and learning is wellnigh gone. Men sharpen their vulgar wits with a smattering of trifles; but fields of sober intellectual labor are neglected. What is the gain of surface to the fatal loss of depth in our acquirements!"

"For my own part," I said, "I have generally striven to inform myself upon topics connected with our own country."

"And such subjects are most interesting," replied the Professor, "if only the selection be proper and the study exhaustive. The bones," he continued, laying a pungent emphasis on the word,—"the bones of the Paugussetts, the Potatucks, and the Quinnipiacs are beneath our feet. The language of these extinct tribes clings to river, lake, and mountain. Coming from the contemplation of a people historically older, I have been refreshed in the proximity of these native objects of research. Consider the mysterious mounds on either side of the Ohio. What better reward for a life of scrutiny than to catch the slightest glimpse of the secret they have so long guarded!"

After this manner talked Professor Owlsdarck. Our conversation continued long enough to show me his complete adaptation to the admiring friendship of Colonel Prowley. He had the desperate, antiquarian dilettanteism of our host, with a really accurate knowledge in unpopular, and most people would think unprofitable, branches of learning. His love of what may be called the faded upholstery and tattered millinery of history was, indeed, remarkable. His imagination was decidedly less than that of Prowley, but his capacity for genuine rummaging in the dust of ages was vastly superior. Colonel Prowley (to borrow a happy illustration from Mr. Grant White) would much rather have had the pen with which Shakspeare wrote "Hamlet" than the wit to understand just what he meant by it. Owlsdarck, on the contrary, would have preferred to understand the anatomy and habits of life of the particular goose which furnished the quill, and the exact dimensions of the onions with which it was finally served. Yet, notwithstanding a quivering sensation produced by the mouldy nature of his contemplations, I found the Professor's conversation, within the narrow limits of his specialities, intelligent and profitable. He had none of the morbid horror of giving exact information sometimes encountered in more pretentious society; and I confess it is never disagreeable to me to meet a man whose objects of pursuit are not precisely those[Pg 736] of that commonplace, highly respectable citizen we all hope to become.

It must have been an hour before Colonel Prowley rejoined us, and when he returned it was easy to see that something annoying had happened.

"Ah, my dear friend," he began, "here has been a sad mistake! Your wife has shown your address to the chief leader of the party which opposes your election. Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden Weekly Regulator," did not come here for nothing. He sent me out of the room to get some beans to illustrate the Athenian manner of voting, and then he managed to get a sight of your manuscript."

"I hope it is no very serious blunder," said Kate, who had followed the Colonel to the piazza. "It was thoughtless, I admit; but the gentleman told me that he was an editor, and that it was always the custom to give the press information withheld from the general public. And then, he promised secrecy; and, after all, he had the manuscript only about five minutes,—just long enough to get an idea of the subject and its style of treatment; so I hope there's no great harm done."

"I should have thought you would have remembered Strype's connection with Howke and his Indian quackery," said I, a little irritated. "But it can be no great matter, since it will only give him an hour or two more to prepare the adverse criticism with which he will honor my performance."

"It is of much more matter than you think," said Colonel Prowley, sadly. "For the 'Regulator,' which appears to-morrow, goes to press this afternoon. Strype don't like to have it known, as it lessens the interest of the 'Latest Intelligence' column; but I happened to find it out some time ago."

"Then we are worsted indeed," I cried. "His eagerness is well explained; for, of course, any strictures he might make, on hearing the exercises this evening, would be useless for his purpose."

"A critique of the performance, purporting to come from an impartial auditor, will be printed in a thousand 'Regulators' before you open your lips in our Town Hall," said the Colonel, bitterly.

I knew for the first time that stinging indignation felt by all decent aspirants for public favor upon encountering the underhand knavery which dims the lustre of democratic politics. It is not the blunt, open abuse, my young republican, which you will find galling,—but the contemptible meanness of dastards who have not mettle enough to be charlatans. For an instant my blood ran fiery hot; I grasped my cane, and for a moment had an impulse to fly after Strype and favor him with an assault-and-battery case for his despicable journal. But the passion was speedily over; for, upon reflection, I saw that no real injury could be done me with those who witnessed the success I confidently expected. And—it is awkward to acknowledge it—I nearly regained my former complacency when my wife whispered that Strype had declared to her that Professor Owlsdarck had come upon a bootless errand; for the Wrexford Trustees would never provide their Academy with so dark and gloomy a Principal, though he carried the Astor Library in his head. Do not mistake the encouragement I derived from this announcement: there was in it not the slightest ill-will to the distinguished antiquary, but only a comfortable appreciation of my own sagacity in putting it out of the power of any mischievous person to oppose my election on similar grounds.

Soon after this I proposed to Kate to go to the arbor at the end of the garden, and hear, once more, the sensation-passages of my poem, to the end that I might be certain that all the proprieties of pause and emphasis we had agreed upon were fresh in my memory. It turned out that there was just time to do this satisfactorily before the bell rang for dinner. And I felt greatly relieved, when, upon reëntering the house, I closed the bothering production for the last time, and left it—where I could not fail to remember[Pg 737] it—with my hat and gloves upon the entry-table.

You are apt to catch people in their freshness at a one o'clock dinner. Full of the half-finished schemes of the morning, they have much more individuality than at six. For, the work of the day fairly over, the clergyman, the merchant, the lawyer, and the doctor subside to a level of decent humanity, and leave out the salient contrasts of breeding which are worth noting.

Again those massive chairs, strong enough to bear a century of future guests, as they had borne a century of past ones, were ranged about the table. The great brass andirons, sparkling with recent rubbing, nearly made up for the spiritual life of the wood-fire that the day was too warm to admit. Mr. Clifton, the clergyman, a gentleman whose liberal and generous disposition could at times catch in the antiquarian ruts of his chief parishioners, was, as usual, the representative guest from the town. Kate and I, being expected to talk only just enough to pay for our admission, listened with much profit while the political question pending the next day, and many matters relevant and irrelevant thereto, underwent discussion.

"They say Howke's pills are growing in esteem of late; the names of many reverend brothers of yours are to be read in his advertisements as certifying the cure of some New-England ailment," observed our host.

"So I see," said Mr. Clifton; "and I regret to think that a class of men, unjustly accused of dogmatizing in those spiritual things they assuredly know, should lay themselves open to the suspicion, by testifying in those material matters whereof they are mostly ignorant. Not that I disallow that hackneyed tenth of Juvenal, "Orandum est ut sit mens sana," and the rest of it. But rather would I follow the Apostle, who, to the end that every man might possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, was content to prescribe temperance and chastity,—leaving the recommendation of plasters and sirups to those who had made them their special study.

"Yet in ancient times," remarked Professor Owlsdarck, "the offices of priest and physician were most happily combined. Among those lost children of Asia whom our fathers met in New England, the Powwows were the doctors of the body as well as the soul."

"For all that, I cannot believe that Shakspeare meant to indorse Indian medicine, as Strype says he did," said the Colonel.

"You can't have read the last 'Regulator,' then," said Prowley, in explanation. "You know that Howke and Strype have long been endeavoring to find some motto from the great dramatist to print upon the boxes containing the Wigwam Pills; but, somehow, they never could discover one which seemed quite appropriate."

"Well, that might have done, to be sure; but they happened to miss it. So for the last month Strype has been studying the works of numerous ingenious commentators to see whether some of their happy emendations to the text might not meet the difficulty."

"But it must require the insertion of some entire speech or paragraph to make Shakspeare give his testimony in favor of savage pharmacy," said I, innocently.

"Not in the least necessary; it merely requires the slightest possible change in a single letter,—aided, of course, by a little intelligent commentary."

As we all looked rather doubtful, Colonel Prowley sent for the last number of Strype's valuable publication, and read as follows:—

"Important Literary Discovery. We learn by the last steamer from England that a certain distinguished Shakspearian Editor and Critic, who has already proved that the Mighty Bard was perfectly acquainted with the circulation of the blood, and distinctly prophesied[Pg 738] iron-plated steamers and the potato-rot, has now discovered that the Swan of Avon fully comprehended the Indian System of Medicine, and urged its universal adoption. Our readers have doubtless puzzled over that exclamation in Macbeth which reads, in common editions of the poet, 'Throw physic to the dogs!' The slightest consideration of the circumstances shows the absurdity of this vulgar interpretation. Macbeth was deservedly disgusted with the practice of the regular family physician who confessed himself unable to relieve the case in hand. He would therefore request him to abandon his pretensions, not to the dogs, which is simply ridiculous, but in favor of some class of men more skilled in the potencies of medicine. The line, as it came from the pen of Shakspeare, undoubtedly read, 'Throw Physicke to the Powwows'; in other words, resign the healing art to the Indians, who alone are able to practise it with success. And now mark the perfectly simple method of accounting for the blunder. We have only to suppose that a careless copyist or tipsy type-setter managed to get one loop too many upon the 'P,'—thus transforming the passage into, 'Throw Physicke to the Bowwows.' The proof-reader, naturally taking this for an infantile expression for the canine race, changed the last word to 'dogs,' as it has ever since stood."

Mr. Clifton smiled, and said, "Even if the emendation and inference could be accepted, the testimony of any man off the speciality he studied would only imply, not that the new school was perfect, but that he realized some imperfection in the old one. And this conviction I have had occasion to act upon, when my church has been shaken by spiritualism, abolitionism, and the like; for I knew that what was truly effective in a rival ministry must show what was defective in my own."

"If you speak of modern spiritualism," said Professor Owlsdarck, "you must allow it to be lamentably inferior to the same mystery of old. For how compare the best ghostly doings of these days, those at Stratford in Connecticut, for example, I will not say to the famous doings at Delphi and Dodona, but even to the Moodus Noises once heard at East Haddam in that State? The ancestors of some of these nervous media testify to roarings in the air, rumblings in the bowels of the mountain, explosions like volleys of musketry, the moving of heavy stones, and the violent shaking of houses. Ah, Sir, you should use effort to have put to type your reverend brother Bradley's memoir on this subject, whereof the sole copy is held by the Historical Society at Hartford."

"Every recent quackery is so overlaid with a veneering of science," said the clergyman, "that those who have not had sufficient training to know that they lack scientific methods of thought are often unable to draw the distinction between a fact and an inference. There is much practical shrewdness and intelligence here in Foxden; yet I am constantly surprised to see how few, in relation to any circumstance out of the daily routine of business-life, recognize the difference between possibility, probability, and demonstration. And, indeed, it is no easy matter to impart a sense of their deficiency to those who have only been accustomed to deal with the loose forms of ordinary language."

"If we may believe the Padre Clavigero," observed the Professor, "it will not be easy to find a language so fit for metaphysical subjects, and so abounding in abstract terms, as the ancient Mexican."

This remark seemed hardly to the purpose; for whatever the excellences of that tongue might have been, there were insuperable objections to its adoption as a vehicle of communication between Mr. Clifton and his parishioners. But the last-named gentleman, with generous tact, allowed the conversation to wander back to those primitive solidities whither it naturally tended. It did not take long to get to the Pharaohs, of whose domestic arrangements the Professor talked with the familiar air of a man who dined with[Pg 739] them once a week. From these venerable potentates we soon came upon their irrepressible mummies, and here Owlsdarck was as thoroughly at home as if he had been brought up in a catacomb. Indeed, this singular person appeared fairly alive only when he surrounded himself with the deadest antiquities of the dimmest past. His remarks, as I have before admitted, had that interest which must belong to the careful investigation of anything; but I could not help thinking into how much worthier channels his powers of accurate investigation and indefatigable research might have been directed.

Colonel Prowley was of course delighted, and declared that every syllable his friend delivered was worthy to be recorded in that golden ink known to the Greeks and Romans; for, as he assured us, there were extant ancient manuscripts, written with a pigment of the precious metals, of which the matter was of far less importance than that conveyed by the learned utterances we had been privileged to hear.

Mr. Clifton showed no disposition to dispute this assertion, but kindly assisted by asking many intelligent questions, none having reference to anything later than b. c. 500. After dinner we adjourned to the library, and passed the afternoon in looking over collections of autographs and relics. We were also shown some volumes possessing an interest quite apart from their rarity, and some very choice engravings. In short, the hours went so pleasantly that we were all astonished when our host, looking at his watch, declared that it was time to order Tom to bring the carryall for Wrexford. Accordingly, Miss Prowley having rung the bell, whispered in the gentlest manner to the maid who answered the summons. A shrill feminine shouting was presently heard from the rear of the house, followed by the voice of Tom gruffly responsive from the distant barn. At this juncture Mr. Clifton took his leave, and Professor Owlsdarck retired to his chamber to bedeck himself for the trustees, parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy.

III.

Tom and the carryall at length appeared, and Professor Owlsdarck, in a new suit of black clothes, in which the lately folded creases were very perceptible, came forth a sort of musty bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiced as a strong statistician to run his appointed race. Kate and I thought it best to diminish the final bustle of departure by lingering on the piazza just before the open door, where we could easily add our parting good-wishes, when he succeeded in getting out of the house. For there seemed to be some trouble in putting the Professor, with as little "tumbling" as possible, into his narrow overcoat, and then in finding his lecture, which had dropped under the table during the operation, and then in recovering his spectacles from the depths of some obscure pocket. Although Colonel Prowley had wellnigh exhausted the language of jubilant enthusiasm, I managed, while helping Professor Owlsdarck into the carryall, to express a respectful interest in his success. Yet, while the words were on my lips, I could not but remember what Strype had said in the morning, and admit the great likelihood of its truth. And although beginning to feel pretty nervous as the time drew near for my own sacrifice, I congratulated myself upon a preparation in accordance with the modern demands of a lyceum audience. With a pleasant sense of superior sagacity to this far more learned candidate for popular favor, I proposed, instead of returning to the house, to take an hour's stroll by the river, and go thence to the Town Hall at the appointed time.

"The very thing I was going to suggest," said Kate, "for I don't feel like talking. My mind is so full of excitement about your poem that ordinary conversational proprieties are almost impossible."

Our host, with true courtesy, permitted us to do as we pleased, merely saying that he would reserve the seat next[Pg 740] him for my wife, so that we need not arrive till it was time to commence the performance.

"But you are going to forget your manuscript!" he pleasantly added. "See, it lies on the entry-table with your gloves and overcoat."

Of course there was no danger of doing anything of the sort, for a memorandum to take good care of that had printed itself in the largest capitals upon the tablets of memory. I did feel disagreeably, however, when my old friend, in handing it to me, looked wistfully at the neat case of polished leather in which it was securely tied. It was, indeed, painful to disappoint both in subject and style of composition the kind interest with which he waited my appearance before an audience of his townsmen. The only antidote to such regrets was the reflection that I had prepared what would be most likely to cause the ultimate satisfaction of all parties; for his mortification at my general unpopularity and consequent defeat would of course have been greater than any personal satisfaction he might have experienced in the dry and antique matter accordant with his peculiar taste. I essayed some cheerful remark, as the shining packet slipped into my breast-pocket, and I buttoned my coat securely across the chest, that I might be continually conscious that the important contents had not dropped out.

"Remember, I shall be on the second settee from the platform; for I would not willingly lose the slightest word," was the farewell exclamation of Colonel Prowley.

"You are too good, Sir," I answered, as we turned from the house; "I may always count upon your kind indulgence, and perhaps more of it will be claimed this evening than your partiality leads you to suspect."

"And now," said I to Kate, when we were fairly out of hearing, "let us dismiss for the last hour this provoking poem, and forget that there are lyceum-lectures, Indian doctors, and General Courts in this beautiful world."

Of course I never suspected that we could do anything of the kind, but I thought an innocent hypocrisy to that effect might beguile the time yet before us. Kate acquiesced; and we walked along a wooded path where every stone and shrub was rich in associations with that first summer in Foxden when our acquaintance began. And soon our petty anxiety was merged in deeper feelings that flowed upon us, as the great event in our mortal existence was seen in the retrospect from the same pleasant places where it once loomed grandly before us. The sweet, fantastic anticipations that pronounced the "All Hail, Hereafter," to the great romance of life again started from familiar objects to breathe a freer atmosphere. The coming fact, which all natural things once called upon us to accept as the final resting-place of the soul, had passed by us, and we could look onward still. We saw that marriage was not the satisfaction of life, but a noble means whereby our selfish infirmities might be purified by divine light. Well for us that this Masque and Triumph of Nature should not always be seen as from the twentieth year! It is too cheap a way to idealize and ennoble self in the noontide sun of one marriage-day. Yet let the gauze and tinsel be removed when they may; for all earnest souls there are realities behind them that shall make the heavens and earth seem accidents. It once seems as if marriage would discolor the world with roseate tint; but it does better: it enlightens it. Thus, in imagination, did we sally backward and forward as the twilight thickened about us. In delicious sympathy of silence we watched quivering shadows in the water, and marked how the patient elms gathered in their strength to endure the storms of winter.

"No," responded Kate; "it was so christened of old, because our shrewd New-Englanders had not made possible a better simile. It is like one of the[Pg 741] great Gift Enterprises of these latter years, where everybody is sure of his money's worth in book or trinket, and is surprised by a present into the bargain. The majority, to be sure, get but their bit of soap or their penny-whistle, while a fortunate few are provided with gold watches and diamond breast-pins."

I thought this a good comparison; but I did not say so, for I was in the mood to rise for my analogy or allegory, instead of swooping to pick it out of Mr. Perham's advertisements.

"Nay, nay, my dear," I rejoined, at length; "let us, who have won genuine jewelry, exalt our gains by some nobler image. A stagnant puddle of water may reflect the blessed sun even better than this river that eddies by our feet, yet it is not there that one likes to look for it."

"Perhaps it is the farthest bound of reaction from transcendentalism, that causes us, when we do think a free thought, to look about for something grimly practical to fasten it upon," argued Kate, smilingly. "Yet I do not quite agree with the reason of my Aunt Patience for devoting herself to the roughest part of gardening. A taste for flowers, she contends, is legitimate only when it has perfected itself out of a taste for earth-worms. There are truly thoughts only to be symbolized by sunset colors and the song of birds, that are better than if mortared with logic and based as firmly as the Pyramids."

The fatal word "Pyramids" sent us flying through the ages till we reached the tombs of the Pharaohs, whence we came bounding back again through Grecian civilization, mediæval darkness, and modern enlightenment, till we naturally stopped at Professor Owlsdarck and the carryall, by this time nearing Wrexford. My own literary performance, so associated with that of the Professor, next occupied our attention, and we realized the fact that it was time to be moving slowly in the direction of the Town Hall.

"Don't let us get there till just the hour for commencing," said I, endeavoring to restrain the quickened step of my companion.

And I quoted the ghastly merriment of the gentleman going to be hung, to the effect that there was sure to be no fun till he arrived.

We said nothing else, but indulged in a very definite sort of wandering by the river's bank,—I nervously looking at my watch, occasionally devouring a troche, and patting my manuscript pocket, or, to make assurance doubly sure, touching the polished surface of the case within.

We timed it to a minute. At exactly half-past seven o'clock, I proceeded up the broad aisle of the Town Hall, put my wife into the place reserved with the Prowley party upon settee number two from the platform, and mounted the steps of that awful elevation amid general applause.

The President of the Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society, who occupied a chair at the right of the desk, came forward to receive me, and we shook hands with an affectation of the most perfect ease and naturalness. Here, a noisy satisfaction, as of boys in the gallery, accompanied by a much fainter enthusiasm among their elders below.

"You are just in time," whispered the President. "I was afraid you would be too late; we always like to begin punctually."

I subsided into the orator's chair, and glanced, for the first time, at my audience. The Young Men, somehow or other, did not appear so numerous as I had hoped. On the other hand, Dr. Dastick, and a good many friends of eminently scientific character, loomed up with fearful distinctness. Even the malleable element of youth seemed to harden by the side of that implacable fibre of scholastic maturity which was bound to resist my most delicate manipulation. I withstood, with some effort, the stage-fright that was trying to creep over me, and hastily[Pg 742] snatched the manuscript from my pocket. Yes, I must have been confused, indeed; for here is the string round the case tied in a hard knot, and I could have taken my oath that I fastened it in a very loose bow! I picked at it, and pulled at it, and humored it in every possible way, but the plaguy thing was as fast as ever. At last—just as the President was approaching the conclusion of his remarks, and had got as far as, "I shall now have the pleasure of introducing a gentleman who," etc., etc.—I bethought myself of a relief quite as near at hand as that key which Faithful held in his bosom during his confinement in Doubting Castle. My penknife was drawn to the rescue, and the string severed, while the President, retiring to his chair, politely waved me to the place he had occupied. Again great applause from the gallery, with tempered applause from below. With as much unconcern as I could conveniently assume, I advanced to the front, took a final survey of the audience, laid my manuscript on the desk, turned back the cover, and fixed my eyes upon the page before me.

How describe the nightmare horror that then broke upon my senses? Upon the first page, in large, writing-master's hand, I had inscribed my title:—"The Whims of New England: A Poem." In its place, in still larger hand, in lank and grisly characters, stared this hideous substitute:—

With that vivid rapidity with which varied and minute scenery is crowded into a moment of despair, I perceived the fatal blunder. Owlsdarck and I had changed manuscripts. Upon that entry-table where lay my poem, the hurry and bustle of departure had for a moment thrown his lecture. The cases being identical in appearance, he had taken up my unfortunate production, which, doubtless, at that very moment, he was opening before parents, trustees, and pupils connected with the Wrexford Academy. I will not deny, that, in the midst of my own perplexity, a ghastly sense of the ridiculous came over me, as I thought of the bewilderment of the Professor. For an instant of time I actually knew a grim enjoyment in the fact that circumstances had perpetrated a much better joke than any in my poem. But my heart stopped beating as an impatient rumble of applause testified that the desires of the audience were awaiting gratification.

I glared upon the expectant faces before me; but they seemed to melt and fuse into one another, or to dance about quite independently of the bodies with which they should have been connected. I strove to murmur an apology; but the words stuck in my throat.

More applause, in which a slight whistling flavor was apparent. A kicking, as of cow-hide boots of juvenile proportions, audible from the gallery. A suspicion of cat-calling in a monad state of development about the door. Of course my prospects were ruined. My knees seemed disposed to deposit their burden upon the floor. Hope was utterly extinguished in my breast. There I stood, weak and contemptible, before the wretched populace whose votes I had come to solicit. Then it was, the resolution, or rather the rage, of despair inspired me. I determined to take a terrible vengeance upon my abandoned constituents. Quick as lightning the thought leaped to execution. I seized the insufferable composition before me, and began to fulminate its sentences at the democracy of Foxden.

"Fulminate" is expressive; but words like "roar" and "bellow" must be borrowed to give the reader an idea of the vocal power put into that performance. For it is a habit of our infirm natures to counteract embarrassment by some physical exaggeration, which, by absorbing our chief attention, leaves little to be occupied with the cause of distress. Persons of extreme diffidence are sometimes able to face society by behaving as if they were vulgarly at their ease, and men troubled with a morbid modesty often[Pg 743] find relief in acting a character of overweening pride. Thus it was only by absorbing attention in the effort to produce a very sensational order of declamation that I could perform the task undertaken. Owlsdarck's handwriting was luckily large and legible; and I was able to storm and gesticulate without hinderance.

I ploughed through the tough old homily, tossing up the biggest size of words as if they were not worth thinking of. I went at the lamented Cheops with a fearful enthusiasm. The air seemed heavy with a miasma of information. It was not my fault, if every individual in the audience did not feel personally sticky with the glutinous drugs I lavished upon the embalmment. I was as profuse with my myrrh, cassia, and aloes, as if those costly vegetable productions were as cheap as cabbages. I split up a sycamore-tree to make an external shell, as if it were as familiar a wood as birch or hemlock. At last, having got his case painted all over with appropriate emblems, and Cheops himself done up in his final wrapping, I struck a mighty blow upon the desk, which set the lamps ringing and flaring in majestic emphasis.

It was at this point that the presence of an audience was once more recalled to me. Enthusiastic applause, peal after peal, responded to my efforts. I ventured to look out into the hall before me. Dr. Dastick was thumping with energy upon the neighboring settee. The elders of Foxden were leading the approbation, and a wild tattoo was resonant from the gallery. The face of Colonel Prowley was aglow with satisfaction, and the dear old gentleman actually waved his handkerchief as he caught my eye. But my frightened, pale-faced Kate,—my first shudder returned again as I met her gaze. Again I felt the sinking, prickling sensation of being in for it. There was no resource but to charge at the Professor's manuscript as vigorously as ever.

I now went to pyramid-making with the same zeal with which I had acted as undertaker. Locks, parsley, and garlic, to the amount of one thousand and sixty talents, were lavished upon the workmen. Stuffed cats and sacred crocodiles were carried in procession to encourage them. Stones, thirty feet long, were heaved out of quarries, and hieroglyphics chopped into them with wonderful despatch. At last, after an hour and a half of laborious vociferation, I managed to get the pyramid done and Cheops put into it. A sort of dress-parade of authorities was finally called: Herodotus, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny, Solinus, and many others, were fired in concluding volleys among the audience. I was conscious of a salvo of clapping, pounding, and stamping that thundered in reply. The last sentence had been uttered. Again the audience blurred and danced before my eyes; I staggered back, and sank confused and breathless into the orator's chair.

"Good, good," whispered the President. "It was a capital idea; ha, ha, very funny! To hear you hammering away at Egyptian antiquities as if you'd never thought of anything else! The elocution and gestures, too, were perfectly tall;—the Young Men of our Society were delighted;—I could see they were."

"Permit me to congratulate you, Sir," said Dr. Dastick, who had elbowed his way to the platform. "I confess myself most agreeably disappointed in your performance. There was in it a solidity of information and a curiosity of important research for which I was totally unprepared. Let me hope that such powers of oratory as we have heard this evening may soon plead the cause of good learning in the legislature of our State."

"A good subject, my dear young friend, and admirably developed," exclaimed Colonel Prowley. "You have already won the palm of victory, if I rightly read the faces of some who were too quick to endow you with the common levity and indiscretion of youth."

"You have had success with young and old," said the Reverend Mr. Clifton, kindly holding out his hand. "We have[Pg 744] rarely lecturers who seem to give such universal satisfaction."

After these congratulations, and others to the same purpose, the real state of the case could no longer be hidden. Instead of the mortification and defeat confidently expected, I had unwittingly made a ten-strike upon that erratic set of pins, the Foxden public. The Young Men, who knew me only as the γελωτοποιος, or laughter-maker, of their merry association, considered the sombre getting up and energetic delivery of the Cheops lecture the very best joke I had ever perpetrated. Some of the most influential citizens, as has been already seen, were personally gratified in the general dustiness of the subject; while others, perchance, were able to doze in the consciousness that the opinions of Cheops upon such disturbing topics as Temperance, Anti-Slavery, and Woman's Rights must necessarily be of a patriarchal and comforting character. But the glory of the unlooked-for triumph seemed strangely lessened by the reflection that I had no just claim to the funereal plumage with which I had so happily decked myself.

"Gentlemen," said I, "I ought to tell you that the address I have delivered this evening is—in fact—is not original."

"That's just why we like it," rejoined Dr. Dastick. "No young man should be original; it is a great impertinence, if he tries to be."

"I do not mean simply to acknowledge an indebtedness to the ancient authorities quoted in the lecture; but—but, the truth is, that the arrangement and composition cannot properly be called my own."

"Not the least consequence," said Colonel Prowler. "You showed a commendable modesty in seeking the aid of any discreet and learned person. You know I offered to give you what assistance was in my power; but you found—unexpectedly, at the last moment, perhaps—some wiser friend."

"As for originality," said the clergyman, pleasantly, "when you have come to my age, you will cease to trouble yourself much about it. No man can accomplish anything important without a large indebtedness to those who have lived, as well as to those who live. We know that the old fathers not only dared to lack originality, but even to consider times and peoples in their selection and treatment of topics. Non quod sentiunt, sed quod necesse est dicunt, may be said of them in no disparagement. For, not to mention others, I might quote Cyprian, Minutius, Lactantius, and Hilarius,"——

"Anything hilarious is as much out of place in a lecture as it would be in a sermon," interrupted Dr. Dastick, who had evidently missed the drift of his pastor's remarks. "And I rejoice that the success of our friend who has spoken this evening rebukes those vain and shallow witlings who have sometimes degraded the lyceum. I could send such fellows to make sport in the courts of luxurious princes, for they may well follow after jousts, tourneys, stage-plays, and like sugar-plums of Satan; as, indeed, we need them not in this Puritan commonwealth. But come, all of you, for an hour, to my house; for I am mistaken, if there be not in my cabinet many rare illustrations of the discourse we have just heard. I have several bones by me, which, if they belonged not to Cheops himself, may well be relics of his near relations. And as an offset to their dry and wasted estate, I have some luscious pears which are just now at full maturity."

Colonel Prowley and his party had small inclination to resist the Doctor's invitation, and it was speedily agreed that the lecturer (having, as we have seen, escaped consignment to European monarchs) should have the privilege of mingling in the social life of Foxden for the next hour or so.

"But you forget Professor Owlsdarck," I ventured to whisper to the Colonel. "I must see him the instant he returns. That is—I am very impatient to hear of his success. I cannot let him arrive[Pg 745] at your house, if I am not there to meet him."

My host stared a little at this impetuosity of interest, and then informed me that the carryall from Wrexford must necessarily pass Dastick's house, and that he himself would run out and stop it and bring in the Professor.

"No," I exclaimed, with energy; "promise that I may go out and receive Owlsdarck alone, or I cannot go to Dr. Dastick's."

"I doubt if there would be any precedent for this," argued the Colonel, gravely.

"Then we must make one," I asserted. "For surely nothing is more appropriate than that a lecturer, returning from his exercise, whether in triumph or defeat, should be first encountered by some brother of the craft who can have adequate sympathy with his feelings."

After some demur, Colonel Prowley consented to adopt this view of the case; and we passed out of the hot lecture-room into the still, fresh night. Here Kate took my arm and we managed for an instant to lag behind the crowd.

"I am not mad yet," I said, "though when I began that extraordinary lecture you must have thought me so."

"For a few moments," replied my wife, "I was utterly bewildered; but soon, of course, I guessed the explanation. You appeared before the Foxden audience with Professor Owlsdarck's lecture."

"Yet that is the part of it of which it behooves us to think just at present," I replied. "To my utter amazement, there has been something, either in the Professor's wisdom or in my rendering of it, that has taken with the audience. Not knowing what Owlsdarck has done, or may wish to do, I have not explained the humiliating and ridiculous blunder,—though I have stoutly denied myself any credit for the information or composition of the lecture."

"Two hours ago I should have thought it so impossible, that only one thing in the world would have seemed to me more so, and that was that I should have read his lecture in Foxden. But, luckily, I have permission to stop the carryall on its way back, and so meet Owlsdarck before he comes into the house. Let us keep the secret for the present, and wait further developments."

As others of the party had begun to look back, and to linger for us to come up, there was no opportunity for further conference. And so we made an effort, and talked of everything but what we were thinking of, till we reached Dr. Dastick's house.

I was conscious of a sweet memory, while passing along the broad, low-roofed piazza where I first met my wife. And I marvelled that fate had so arranged matters, that, again in the moonlight, near that very spot, I was to have an important interview with another person with whom my destiny had become strangely entangled.

One sense was painfully acute while the relics and pears were being passed about during the remainder of the evening. At any period I could have heard the creak of the venerable carryall above the swarm of information which buzzed about the Doctor's parlor. I responded to the waggish raillery of the young men, talked bones with their seniors, disclaimed all originality in my lecture, thanked people for what they said about my spirited declamation, and—through it all—listened intently for the solemn rumble upon the Wrexford road. Time really seemed to stop and go backward, as if in compliment to the ancient fragments of gums, wrappages, and scarabæi that were produced for our inspection. The carryall, I thought, must have broken down; Wrexford had, perchance, been suddenly destroyed, like the Cities of the Plain; the Professor had been tarred and[Pg 746] feathered by the enraged inhabitants, or, perhaps, had been murdered upon the road;—there was no limit to the doleful hypotheses which suggested themselves.

And, in fact, it was now getting late to everybody. The last pear had vanished, and people began to look at the clock. Colonel Frowley was audibly wondering what could have detained the Professor, and Dr. Dastick was expressing his regret at not having the pleasure of seeing him, when,—no,—yes, a jerking trundle was heard in the distance,—it was not the wind this time! I seized my hat, rushed from the house, and paused not till I had stopped the carryall with the emphasis of a highwayman.

"I have come to ask you to get out, Professor Owlsdarck," I exclaimed. "Tom can drive the horse home; we're all at Dr. Dastick's, and they've sent me to beg you to come in."

The occupant of the vehicle, upon hearing my voice, made haste to alight. Tom gave an expressive "Hud up," and rolled away into the moonlight.

"My dear Sir," said I, "no apology,—no allusion to how it happened; we have both suffered quite enough. Only tell me what you managed to do with my poem, and what the people of Wrexford have done to you."

"What did I do with your poem?" echoed the Professor,—there was an undertone of humorous satisfaction in his words that I had never before remarked,—"why, what could I do with it but read it to my audience? They thought it was capital, and——Well, I thought so, too. And if you want to know what the trustees did to me, you will find it in print in a day or two. The fact is, they called a meeting, after I finished, and unanimously elected me Principal of their Academy."

I managed to get a few more particulars before entering the house, and these, with other circumstances afterwards ascertained, made the Professor's adventure to unravel itself thus: Owlsdarck had discovered the change of manuscript about five minutes before he was expected to speak. The audience had assembled, and (in view of the respect which should appertain to the office for which he was an aspirant) he saw the humiliation of disappointing the academic flock by a confession of his absurd position. He glanced at the first page of my verses, and, seeing that they commenced in a grave and solemn strain, determined to run for luck, and make the best of them. Accordingly he began by saying, that, instead of the usual literary address, he should read a new American poem, which he trusted would prove popular and to the purpose. It turned out to be very much to the purpose. The dismal Professor Owlsdarck. giving utterance to the Yankee quips and waggery which I had provided, took his audience by storm with amazement and delight. For the truth was, as Strype had intimated in the morning, a formidable opposition had arrayed itself against the Professor, which (while acknowledging the claims of his profound learning) contended that he lacked sympathy with the merry hearts of youth, a fatal defect in the character of a teacher. Of course the entertainment of the evening filled all such cavillers with shame and confusion. There was nothing to do but to own their mistake, and to support the many-sided Owlsdarck with all enthusiasm. Hence his unanimous election, and hence my infinite relief upon reëntering the Doctor's house.

We determined to keep our own counsel, and thereupon ratified our unintentional exchange of productions. I presented my poem to Professor Owlsdarck, and he resigned in my favor all right, title, and interest in Cheops and his Obsequies. We both felt easier after this had been done, and walked arm-in-arm into Dr. Dastick's parlor, conscious of a plethoric satisfaction strange to experience.

I need hardly allude to the indignation of the Foxden electors, when the "Regulator" appeared the next morning with a bitter critique of my performance in the Town Hall. There is notoriously a good deal of license allowed to opposition editors[Pg 747] upon election-day. But to ridicule a serious and erudite lecture as "a flimsy and buffooning poem,"—there was, really, in this, a blindness of passion, a display of impotent malice, an utter contempt for the common sense of subscribers, to which the history of editorial vagaries seemed to furnish no parallel. Of course, a libel so gross and atrocious not only failed of its object, but drove off in disgust all decent remnants of the opposing party which the lecture of the previous evening had failed to conciliate.

And now I think it has been explained why I was chosen to represent Foxden, and how my vote came to be so nearly unanimous. Whether I made a good use of the lesson of that fifth of November it does not become me to say. But of the success of the Principal of the Wrexford Academy in the useful sphere of labor upon which he then entered I possess undoubted evidence.

"Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff man. in school," exclaimed a chubby little fellow in whom I have some interest, when he lately returned from Wrexford to pass the summer vacation,—"Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff man in school; but when he comes into the play-ground, you ought to hear him laugh and carry on with the boys!"

A few seasons ago the Professor consented to repeat his famous poem upon "The Whims of New England," and made the tour of the river-towns, and several hundred dollars. He wrote me that he had received tempting overtures for a Western excursion, which his numerous lyceum-engagements at home compelled him to decline.

I have since faced many audiences, and long conquered the maiden bashfulness of a first appearance. It is necessary to confess that my topics of discourse have generally been of too radical a character to maintain the unprecedented popularity of my first attempt. I don't mind mentioning, however, that the manuscript wherewith I delighted the people of Foxden is yet in my possession. And should there be among my readers members of the Inviting Committee of any neighboring Association, League, or Lyceum, they will please notice that I am open to offers for the repetition of a highly instructive Lecture: Subject, The Obsequies of Cheops.

MOUNTAINS AND THEIR ORIGIN.

A chapter on mountains will not be an inappropriate introduction to that part of the world's history on which we are now entering, when the great inequalities of the earth's surface began to make their appearance; and before giving any special account of the geological succession in Europe, I will say something of the formation of mountains in general, and of the men whose investigations first gave us the clue to the intricacies of their structure. It has been the work of the nineteenth century to decipher the history of the mountains, to smooth out these wrinkles in the crust of the earth, to show that there was a time when they did not exist, to decide at least comparatively upon their age, and to detect the forces which have produced them.

But while I speak of the reconstructive labors of the geologist with so much confidence, because to my mind they reveal an intelligible coherence in the whole physical history of the world, yet I am well aware that there are many and wide gaps in our knowledge to be filled up. All the attempts to represent the appearance of the earth in past periods by means of geological maps are, of course, but approximations of the truth, and will compare[Pg 748] with those of future times, when the phenomena are better understood, much as our present geographical maps, the result of repeated surveys and of the most accurate measurements, compare with those of the ancients.

Homer's world was a flat expanse, surrounded by ocean, of which Greece was the centre. Asia Minor, the Ægean Islands, Egypt, part of Italy and Sicily, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea filled out and completed his map.

Hecatæus, the Greek historian and geographer, who lived more than five hundred years before Christ, had not enlarged it much. He was, to be sure, a voyager on the Mediterranean, and had an idea of the extent of Italy. Acquaintance with Phœnician merchants also had enlarged his knowledge of the world; Sardinia, Corsica, and Spain were known to him; he was familiar with the Black and Red Seas; and though an indentation on his map in the neighborhood of the Caspian would seem to indicate that he was aware of the existence of this sea also, it is not otherwise marked.

Herodotus makes a considerable advance beyond his predecessors: the Caspian Sea has a place on his map; Asia is sketched out, including the Persian Gulf with the large rivers pouring into it; and the course of the Ganges is traced, though he makes it flow east and empty into the Pacific, instead of turning southward and emptying into the Indian Ocean.

Eratosthenes, two centuries before Christ, is the first geographer who makes some attempt to determine the trend of the land and water, presenting a suggestion that the earth is broader in one direction than in the other. In his map, he adds also the geographical results derived from the expeditions of Alexander the Great.

Ptolemy, who flourished in Alexandria in the reign of Hadrian, is the next geographer of eminence, and he shows us something of Africa; for, in his time, the Phœnicians, in their commercial expeditions, had sailed far to the south, had reached the termination of Africa, with ocean lying all around it, and had seen the sun to the north of them. This last assertion, however, Ptolemy does not credit, and he is as skeptical of the open ocean surrounding the extremity of Africa as modern geographers and explorers have been of the existence of Kane's open Arctic Sea. He believes that what the Phœnician traders took to be the broad ocean must be part of an inland sea, corresponding to the Mediterranean, with which he was so familiar. His map includes also England, Ireland, and Scotland; and his Ultima Thule is, no doubt, the Hebrides of our days.

Our present notions of the past periods of the world's history probably bear about the same relation to the truth that these ancient geographical maps bear to the modern ones. But this should not discourage us, for, after all, those maps were in the main true as far as they went; and as the ancient geographers were laying the foundation for all our modern knowledge of the present conformation of the globe, so are the geologists of the nineteenth century preparing the ground for future investigators, whose work will be as far in advance of theirs as are the delineations of Carl Ritter, the great master of physical geography in our age, in advance of the map drawn by the old Alexandrian geographer. We shall have our geological explorers and discoverers in the lands and seas of past times, as we have had in the present,—our Columbuses, our Captain Cooks, our Livingstones in geology, as we have had in geography. There are undiscovered continents and rivers and inland seas in the past world to exercise the ingenuity, courage, and perseverance of men, after they shall have solved all the problems, sounded all the depths, and scaled all the heights of the present surface of the earth.

What has been done thus far is chiefly to classify the inequalities of the earth's surface, and to detect the different causes which have produced them. Foldings[Pg 749] of the earth's crust, low hills, extensive plains, mountain-chains and narrow valleys, broad table-lands and wide valleys, local chimneys or volcanoes, river-beds, lake-basins, inland seas,—such are some of the phenomena which, disconnected as they seem at first glance, have nevertheless been brought under certain principles, and explained according to definite physical laws.

Formerly, men looked upon the earth as a unit in time, as the result of one creative act, with all its outlines established from the beginning. It has been the work of modern science to show that its inequalities are not contemporaneous or simultaneous, but successive, including a law of growth,—that heat and cold, and the consequent expansion and contraction of its crust, have produced wrinkles and folds upon the surface, while constant oscillations, changes of level which are even now going on, have modified its conformation, and moulded its general outline through successive ages.

In thinking of the formation of the globe, we must at once free ourselves from the erroneous impression that the crust of the earth is a solid, steadfast foundation. So far from being immovable, it has been constantly heaving and falling; and if we are not impressed by its oscillations, it is because they are not so regular or so evident to our senses as the rise and fall of the sea. The disturbances of the ocean, and the periodical advance and retreat of its tides, are known to our daily experience; we have seen it tossed into great billows by storms, or placid as a lake when undisturbed. But the crust of the earth also has had its storms, to which the tempests of the sea are as nothing,—which have thrown up mountain waves twenty thousand feet high, and fixed them where they stand, perpetual memorials of the convulsions that upheaved them. Conceive an ocean wave that should roll up for twenty thousand feet, and be petrified at its greatest height: the mountains are but the gigantic waves raised on the surface of the land by the geological tempests of past times. Besides these sudden storms of the earth's surface, there have been its gradual upheavals and depressions, going on now as steadily as ever, and which may be compared to the regular action of the tides. These, also, have had their share in determining the outlines of the continents, the height of the lands, and the depth of the seas.

Leaving aside the more general phenomena, let us look now at the formation of mountains especially. I have stated in a previous article that the relative position of the stratified and unstratified rocks gives us the key to their comparative age. To explain this I must enter into some details respecting the arrangement of stratified deposits on mountain-slopes and in mountain-chains, taking merely theoretical cases, however, to illustrate phenomena which we shall meet with repeatedly in actual facts, when studying special geological formations.

We have, for instance, in Figure 1, a central granite mountain, with a succession of stratified beds sloping against its sides, while at its base are deposited a number of horizontal beds which have evidently never been disturbed from the position in which they were originally accumulated. The reader will at once perceive the method by which the geologist decides upon the age of such a mountain. He finds the strata upon its slopes in regular superposition, the uppermost belonging, we will suppose, to the Triassic period; at its base he finds undisturbed horizontal deposits, also in regular superposition, belonging to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Therefore, he argues, this mountain must have been uplifted after the Triassic and all preceding deposits were formed, since it has broken its way through them, and forced them out of their natural position; and it[Pg 750] must have been previous to the Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits, since they have been accumulated peacefully at its base, and have undergone no such perturbations.

The task of the geologist would be an easy one, if all the problems he has to deal with were as simple as the case I have presented here; but the most cursory glance at the intricacies of mountain-structure will show us how difficult it is to trace the connection between the phenomena. We must not form an idea of ancient mountain-upheavals from existing active volcanoes, although the causes which produced them were, in a modified and limited sense, the same. Our present volcanic mountains are only chimneys, or narrow tunnels, as it were, pierced in the thickness of the earth's surface, through which the molten lava pours out, flowing over the edges and down the sides and hardening upon the slopes, so as to form conical elevations. The mountain-ranges upheaved by ancient eruptions, on the contrary, are folds of the earth's surface, produced by the cooling of a comparatively thin crust upon a hot mass. The first effect of this cooling process would be to cause contractions; the next, to produce corresponding protrusions,—for, wherever such a shrinking and subsidence of the crust occurred, the consequent pressure upon the melted materials beneath must displace them and force them upward. While the crust continued so thin that these results could go on without very violent dislocations,—the materials within easily finding an outlet, if displaced, or merely lifting the surface without breaking through it,—the effect would be moderate elevations divided by corresponding depressions. We have seen this kind of action, during the earlier geological epochs, in the upheaval of the low hills in the United States, leading to the formation of the coal-basins.

On our return to the study of the American continent, we shall find in the Alleghany chain, occurring at a later period, between the Carboniferous and Triassic epochs, a good illustration of the same kind of phenomena, though the action of the Plutonic agents was then much more powerful, owing to the greater thickness of the crust and the consequent increase of resistance. The folds forced upward in this chain by the subsidence of the surface are higher than any preceding elevations; but they are nevertheless a succession of parallel folds divided by corresponding depressions, nor does it seem that the displacement of the materials within the crust was so violent as to fracture it extensively.

Even so late as the formation of the Jura mountains, between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, the character of the upheaval is the same, though there are more cracks at right angles with the general trend of the chain, and here and there the masses below have broken through. But the chain, as a whole consists of a succession of parallel folds, forming long domes or arches, divided by longitudinal valleys. The valleys represent the subsidences of the crust; the domes are the corresponding protrusions resulting from these subsidences. The lines of gentle undulation in this chain, so striking in contrast to the rugged and abrupt character of the Alps immediately opposite, are the result of this mode of formation.

After the crust of the earth had grown so thick, as it was, for instance, in the later Tertiary periods, when the Alps were uplifted, such an eruption could take place only by means of an immense force, and the extent of the fracture would be in proportion to the resistance opposed. It is hardly to be doubted, from the geological evidence already collected, that the whole mountain-range from Western Europe through the continent of Asia, including the Alps, the Caucasus, and the Himalayas, was raised at the same time. A convulsion that thus made a gigantic rent across two continents, giving egress to three such mountain-ranges, must have been accompanied by a thousand fractures and breaks in contrary directions. Such a[Pg 751] pressure along so extensive a tract could not be equal everywhere; the various thicknesses of the crust, the greater or less flexibility of the deposits, the direction of the pressure, would give rise to an infinite variety in the results; accordingly, instead of the long, even arches, such as characterize the earlier upheavals of the Alleghanies and the Jura, there are violent dislocations of the surface, cracks, rents, and fissures in all directions, transverse to the general trend of the upheaval, as well as parallel with it.

Leaving aside for the moment the more baffling and intricate problems of the later mountain-formations, I will first endeavor to explain the simpler phenomena of the earlier upheavals.

Suppose that the melted materials within the earth are forced up against a mass of stratified deposits, the direction of the pressure being perfectly vertical, as represented in Figure 2. Such a pressure, if not too violent, would simply lift the strata out of their horizontal position into an arch or dome, (as in Figure 3,) and if continued or repeated in immediate sequence, it would produce a number of such domes, like long billows following each other, such as we have in the Jura. But though this is the prevailing character of the range, there are many instances even here where an unequal pressure has caused a rent at right angles with the general direction of the upheaval; and one may trace the action of this unequal pressure, from the unbroken arch, where it has simply lifted the surface into a dome, to the granite crest, where the melted rock has forced its way out and crystallized between the broken beds that rest against its slopes.

In other instances, the upper beds alone may have been cracked, while the continuity of the lower ones remains unbroken. In this case we have a longitudinal valley on the top of a mountain-range, lying between the two sides of the broken arch (as in Figure 4). Suppose, now, that there are also transverse cracks across such a longitudinal split, we have then a longitudinal valley with transverse valleys opening into it. There are many instances of this in the Alleghanies and in the Jura. Sometimes such transverse valleys are cut straight across, so that their openings face each other; but often the cracks have taken place at different points on the opposite sides, so that, in travelling through such a transverse valley, you turn to the right or left, as the case may be, where it enters the longitudinal valley, and follow that till you come to another transverse valley opening into it from the opposite side, through which you make your way out, thus crossing the chain in a zigzag course (as in Figure 5). Such valleys are often much narrower at some points than at others. There are even places in the Jura where[Pg 752] a rent in the chain begins with a mere crack,—a slit but just wide enough to admit the blade of a knife; follow it for a while, and you may find it spreading gradually into a wider chasm, and finally expanding into a valley perhaps half a mile wide, or even wider.

By means of such cracks, rivers often pass through lofty mountain-chains, and when we come to the investigation of the glacial phenomena connected with the course of the Rhone, we shall find that river following the longitudinal valley which separates the northern and southern parts of the chain of the Alps till it comes to Martigny, where it takes a sharp turn to the right through a transverse crack, flowing northward between walls fourteen thousand feet high, till it enters the Lake of Geneva, through which it passes, issuing at the other end, where it takes a southern direction. For a long time mountains were supposed to be the limitations of rivers, and old maps represent them always as flowing along the valleys without ever passing through the mountain-chains that divide them; but geology is fast correcting the errors of geography, and a map which represents merely the external features of a country, without reference to their structural relations, is no longer of any scientific value.

It is not, however, by rents in mountain-chains alone, or by depressions between them, that valleys are produced; they are often due to the unequal hardness of the beds raised, and to their greater or less liability to be worn away and disintegrated by the action of the rains. This inequality in the hardness of the rocks forming a mountain-range not only adds very much to the picturesqueness of outline, but also renders the landscape more varied through the greater or less fertility of the soil. On the hard rocks, where little soil can gather, there are only pines, or a low, dwarfed growth; but on the rocks of softer materials, more easily acted upon by the rain, a richer soil gathers, and there, in the midst of mountain-scenery, may be found the most fertile growth, the richest pasturage, the brightest flowers. Where such a patch of arable soil has a southern exposure on a mountain-side, we may have a most fertile vegetation at a great height and surrounded by the dark pine-forests. Many of the pastures on the Alps, to which from height to height the shepherds ascend with their flocks in the summer,—seeking the higher ones as the lower become dry and exhausted,—are due to such alternations in the character of the rocks.

In consequence of the influence of time, weather, atmospheric action of all kinds, the apparent relation of beds has often become so completely reversed that it is exceedingly difficult to trace their original relation. Take, for instance, the following case. An eruption has upheaved the strata over a given surface in such a manner as to lift them into a mountain, cracking open the upper beds, but leaving the lower ones unbroken. We have then a valley on a mountain-summit between two crests resembling the one already shown in Figure 4. Such a narrow passage between two crests may be changed in the course of time to a wide expansive valley by the action of the rains, frosts, and other disintegrating agents, and the relative position of the strata forming its walls may seem to be entirely changed.

Suppose, for example, that the two upper layers of the strata rent apart by the upheaval of the mountain are limestone and sandstone, while the third is clay and the fourth again limestone (as in Figure 6). Clay is soft, and yields very readily to the action of rain. In such a valley the edges of the strata forming its walls are of course exposed, and the clay formation will be the first to give way under the action of external influences.[Pg 753] Gradually the rains wear away its substance till it is completely hollowed out. By the disintegration of the bed beneath them, the lime and sandstone layers above lose their support and crumble down, and this process goes on, the clay constantly wearing away, and the lime and sand above consequently falling in, till the upper beds have receded to a great distance, the valley has opened to a wide expanse instead of being inclosed between two walls, and the lowest limestone bed now occupies the highest position on the mountain. Figure 7 represents one of the crests shown in Figure 6, after such a levelling process has changed its outline.

But the phenomena of eruptions in mountain-chains are far more difficult to trace than the effects thus gradually produced. Plutonic action has, indeed, played the most fantastic tricks with the crust of the earth, which seems as plastic in the grasp of the fiery power hidden within it as does clay in the hands of the sculptor.

We have seen that an equal vertical pressure from below produces a regular dome,—or that, if the dome be broken through, a granite crest is formed, with stratified materials resting against its slopes. But the pressure has often been oblique instead of vertical, and then the slope of the mountain is uneven, with a gradual ascent on one side and an abrupt wall on the other; or in some instances the pressure has been so lateral that the mountain is overturned and lies upon its side, and there are still other cases where one mountain has been tilted over and has fallen upon an adjoining one.

Sometimes, when beds have been torn asunder, one side of them has been forced up above the other; and there are even instances where one side of a mountain has been forced under the surface of the earth, while the other has remained above. Stratified beds of rock are even found which have been so completely capsized, that the layers, which were of course deposited horizontally, now stand on end, side by side, in vertical rows. I remember, after a lecture on some of these extravagances in mountain-formations, a friend said to me, not inaptly,—"One can hardly help thinking of these extraordinary contortions as a succession of frantic frolics: the mountains seem like a troop of rollicking boys, hunting one another in and out and up and down in a gigantic game of hide-and-seek."

The width of the arch of a mountain depends in a great degree on the thickness and flexibility of the beds of which it is composed. There is not only a great difference in the consistency of stratified material, but every variety in the thickness of the layers, from an inch, and even less, to those measuring from ten or twenty to one hundred feet and more in depth, without marked separation of the successive beds. This is accounted for by the frequent alternations of subsidence and upheaval; the continents having tilted sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, so that in certain localities there has been much water and large deposits, while elsewhere the water was shallow and the deposits consequently less. Thin and flexible strata have been readily lifted into a sharp, abrupt arch with narrow base, while the thick and rigid beds have been forced up more slowly in a wider arch with broader base.

Table-lands are only long unbroken folds of the earth's surface, raised uniformly and in one direction. It is the same pressure from below, which, when acting with more intense force in one direction, makes a narrow and more abrupt fold, forming a mountain-ridge, but, when acting over a wider surface with equal force, produces an extensive uniform elevation. If the pressure be strong enough, it will cause cracks and dislocations at the edges of such a gigantic fold, and then we have table-lands between two mountain-chains, like the[Pg 754] Gobi in Asia between the Altai Mountains and the Himalayas, or the table-land inclosed between the Rocky Mountains and the coast-range on the Pacific shore.

We do not think of table-lands as mountainous elevations, because their broad, flat surfaces remind us of the level tracts of the earth; but some of the table-lands are nevertheless higher than many mountain-chains, as, for instance, the Gobi, which is higher than the Alleghanies, or the Jura, or the Scandinavian Alps. One of Humboldt's masterly generalizations was his estimate of the average thickness of the different continents, supposing their heights to be levelled and their depressions filled up, and he found that upon such an estimate Asia would be much higher than America, notwithstanding the great mountain-chains of the latter. The extensive table-land of Asia, with the mountains adjoining it, outweighed the Alleghanies, the Rocky Mountains, the Coast-Chain, and the Andes.

When we compare the present state of our knowledge of geological phenomena with that which prevailed fifty years ago, it seems difficult to believe that so great and important a change can have been brought about in so short a time. It was on German soil and by German students that the foundation was laid for the modern science of systematic geology.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, extensive mining operations in Saxony gave rise to an elaborate investigation of the soil for practical purposes. It was found that the rocks consisted of a succession of materials following each other in regular sequence, some of which were utterly worthless for industrial purposes, while others were exceedingly valuable. The Muschel-Kalk formation, so called from its innumerable remains of shells, and a number of strata underlying it, must be penetrated before the miners reached the rich veins of Kupferschiefer (copper slate), and below this came what was termed the Todtliegende (dead weight), so called because it contained no serviceable materials for the useful arts, and had to be removed before the valuable beds of coal lying beneath it, and making the base of the series, could be reached. But while the workmen wrought at these successive layers of rock to see what they would yield for practical purposes, a man was watching their operations who considered the crust of the earth from quite another point of view.

Abraham Gottlob Werner was born more than a century ago in Upper Lusatia. His very infancy seemed to shadow forth his future studies, for his playthings were the minerals he found in his father's forge. At a suitable age he was placed at the mining school of Freiberg in Saxony, and having, when only twenty-four years of age, attracted attention in the scientific world by the publication of an "Essay on the Characters of Minerals," he was soon after appointed to the professorship of mineralogy in Freiberg. His lot in life could not have fallen in a spot more advantageous for his special studies, and the enthusiasm with which he taught communicated itself to his pupils, many of whom became his devoted disciples, disseminating his views in their turn with a zeal which rivalled the master's ardor.

Werner took advantage of the mining operations going on in his neighborhood, the blasting, sinking of shafts, etc., to examine critically the composition of the rocks thus laid open, and the result of his analysis was the establishment of the Neptunic school of geology alluded to in a previous article, and so influential in science at the close of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth century. From the general character of these rocks, as well as the number of marine shells contained in them, he convinced himself that the whole series, including the Coal, the Todtliegende, the Kupferschiefer, the Zechstein, the Red Sandstone, and the Muschel-Kalk, had been deposited under the agency of water, and were the work of the ocean.[Pg 755]

Thus far he was right, with the exception that he did not include the local action of fresh water in depositing materials, afterwards traced by Cuvier and Brogniart in the Tertiary deposits about Paris. But from these data he went a step too far, and assumed that all rocks, except the modern lavas, must have been accumulated by the sea,—believing even the granites, porphyries, and basalts to have been deposited in the ocean and crystallized from the substances it contained in solution.

But, in the mean time, James Hutton, a Scotch geologist, was looking at phenomena of a like character from a very different point of view. In the neighborhood of Edinburgh, where he lived, was an extensive region of trap-rock,—that is, of igneous rock, which had forced itself through the stratified deposits, sometimes spreading in a continuous sheet over large tracts, or splitting them open and tilling all the interstices and cracks so formed. Thus he saw igneous rocks not only covering or underlying stratified deposits, but penetrating deep into their structure, forming dikes at right angles with them, and presenting, in short, all the phenomena belonging to volcanic rocks in contact with stratified materials. He again pushed his theory too far, and, inferring from the phenomena immediately about him that heat had been the chief agent in the formation of the earth's crust, he was inclined to believe that the stratified materials also were in part at least due to this cause. I have alluded in a former number to the hot disputes and long-contested battles of geologists upon this point. It was a pupil of Werner's who at last set at rest this much vexed question.

At the age of sixteen, in the year 1790, Leopold von Buch was placed under Werner's care at the mining school of Freiberg. Werner found him a pupil after his own heart. Warmly adopting his teacher's theory, he pursued his geological studies with the greatest ardor, and continued for some time under the immediate influence and guidance of the Freiberg professor. His university-studies over, however, he began to pursue his investigations independently, and his geological excursions led him into Italy, where his confidence in the truth of Werner's theory began to be shaken. A subsequent visit to the region of extinct volcanoes in Auvergne, in the South of France, convinced him that the aqueous theory was at least partially wrong, and that fire had been an active agent in the rock-formations of past times. This result did not change the convictions of his master, Werner, who was too old or too prejudiced to accept the later views, which were nevertheless the result of the stimulus he himself had given to geological investigations.

But Von Buch was indefatigable. For years he lived the life of an itinerant geologist. With a shirt and a pair of stockings in his pocket and a geological hammer in his hand he travelled all over Europe on foot. The results of his foot-journey to Scandinavia were among his most important contributions to geology. He went also to the Canary Islands; and it is in his extensive work on the geological formations of these islands that he showed conclusively not only the Plutonic character of all unstratified rocks, but also that to their action upon the stratified deposits the inequalities of the earth's surface are chiefly due. He first demonstrated that the melted masses within the earth had upheaved the materials deposited in layers upon its surface, and had thus formed the mountains.

No geologist has ever collected a larger amount of facts than Von Buch, and to him we owe a great reform not only in geological principles, but in methods of study also. An amusing anecdote is told of him, as illustrating his untiring devotion to his scientific pursuits. In studying the rocks, he had become engaged also in the investigation of the fossils contained in them. He was at one time especially interested in the Terebratulæ (fossil shells), and one evening in Berlin, where he was engaged in the study of these remains, he came across a notice[Pg 756] in a Swedish work of a particular species of that family which he could not readily identify without seeing the original specimens. The next morning Von Buch was missing, and as he had invited guests to dine with him, some anxiety was felt on account of his non-appearance. On inquiry, it was found that he was already far on his way to Sweden: he had started by daylight on a pilgrimage after the new, or rather the old, Terebratula. I tell the story as I heard it from one of the disappointed guests.

All great natural phenomena impressed him deeply. On one occasion it was my good fortune to make one of a party from the "Helvetic Association for the Advancement of Science" on an excursion to the eastern extremity of the Lake of Geneva. I well remember the expressive gesture of Von Buch, as he faced the deep gorge through which the Rhone issues from the interior of the Alps. While others were chatting and laughing about him, he stood for a moment absorbed in silent contemplation of the grandeur of the scene, then lifted his hat and bowed reverently before the mountains.

Next to Von Buch, no man has done more for modern geology than Elie de Beaumont, the great French geologist. Perhaps the most important of his generalizations is that by which he has given us the clue to the limitation of the different epochs in past times by connecting them with the great revolutions in the world's history. He has shown us that the great changes in the aspect of the globe, as well as in its successive sets of animals, coincide with the mountain-upheavals.

I might add a long list of names, American as well as European, which will be forever honored in the history of science for their contributions to geology in the last half-century. But I have intended only to close this chapter on mountains with a few words respecting the men who first investigated their intimate structural organization, and established methods of study in reference to them now generally adopted throughout the scientific world. In my next article I shall proceed to give some account of special geological formations in Europe, and the gradual growth of that continent.

CAMILLA'S CONCERT.

I, who labor under the suspicion of not knowing the difference between "Old Hundred" and "Old Dan Tucker,"—I, whose every attempt at music, though only the humming of a simple household melody, has, from my earliest childhood, been regarded as a premonitory symptom of epilepsy, or, at the very least, hysterics, to be treated with cold water, the bellows, and an unmerciful beating between my shoulders,—I, who can but with much difficulty and many a retrogression make my way among the olden mazes of tenor, alto, treble, bass, and who stand "clean daft" in the resounding confusion of andante, soprano, falsetto, palmetto, pianissimo, akimbo, l'allegro, and il penseroso,—I was bidden to Camilla's concert, and, like a sheep to the slaughter, I went.

He bears a great loss and sorrow who has "no ear for music." Into one great garden of delights he may not go. There needs no flaming sword to bar the way, since for him there is no gate called Beautiful which he should seek to enter. Blunted and stolid he stumps through life for whom its harp-strings vainly quiver. Yet, on the other hand, what does he not gain? He loses the concord of sweet sounds, but he is spared the discord of harsh noises. For the[Pg 757] surges of bewildering harmony and the depths of dissonant disgust, he stands on the levels of perpetual peace. You are distressed, because in yonder well-trained orchestra a single voice is pitched one-sixteenth of a note too high. For me, I lean out of my window on summer nights enraptured over the organ-man who turns poor lost Lilian Dale round and round with his inexorable crank. It does not disturb me that his organ wheezes and sputters and grunts. Indeed, there is for me absolutely no wheeze, no sputter, no grunt. I only see dark eyes of Italy, her olive face, and her gemmed and lustrous hair. You mutter maledictions on the infernal noise and caterwauling. I hear no caterwauling, but the river-god of Arno ripples sort songs in the summer-tide to the lilies that bend above him. It is the guitar of the cantatrice that murmurs through the scented, dewy air,—the cantatrice with the laurel yet green on her brow, gliding over the molten moonlit water-ways of Venice, and dreamily chiming her well-pleased lute with the plash of the oars of the gondolier. It is the chant of the flower-girl with large eyes shining under the palm-branches in the market-place of Milan; and with the distant echoing notes come the sweet breath of her violets and the unquenchable odors of her crushed geraniums borne on many a white sail from the glorified Adriatic. Bronzed cheek and swart brow under my window, I shall by-and-by-throw you a paltry nickel cent for your tropical dreams; meanwhile tell me, did the sun of Dante's Florence give your blood its fierce flow and the tawny hue to your bared and brawny breast? Is it the rage of Tasso's madness that burns in your uplifted eyes? Do you take shelter from the fervid noon under the cypresses of Monte Mario? Will you meet queenly Marguerite with myrtle wreath and myrtle fragrance, as she wanders through the chestnut vales? Will you sleep to-night between the colonnades under the golden moon of Napoli? Go back, O child of the Midland Sea! Go out from this cold shore, that yields but crabbed harvests for your threefold vintages of Italy. Go, suck the sunshine from Seville oranges under the elms of Posilippo. Go, watch the shadows of the vines swaying in the mulberry-trees from Epomeo's gales. Bind the ivy in a triple crown above Bianca's comely hair, and pipe not so wailingly to the Vikings of this frigid Norseland.

But Italy, remember, my frigid Norseland has a heart of fire in her bosom beneath its overlying snows, before which yours dies like the white sick hearth-flame before the noonday sun. Passion, but not compassion, is here "cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth." We lure our choristers with honeyed words and gentle ways: you lay your sweetest songsters on the gridiron. Our orchards ring with the full-throated happiness of a thousand birds: your pomegranate groves are silent, and your miserable cannibal kitchens would tell the reason why, if outraged spits could speak. Go away, therefore, from my window, Giuseppe; the air is growing damp and chilly, and I do not sleep in the shadows of broken temples.

Yet I love music: not as you love it, my friend, with intelligence, discrimination, and delicacy, but in a dull, woodeny way, as the "gouty oaks" loved it, when they felt in their fibrous frames the stir of Amphion's lyre, and "floundered into hornpipes"; as the gray, stupid rocks loved it, when they came rolling heavily to his feet to listen; in a great, coarse, clumsy, ichthyosaurian way, as the rivers loved sad Orpheus's wailing tones, stopping in their mighty courses, and the thick-hided hippopotamus dragged himself up from the unheeded pause of the waves, dimly thrilled with a vague ecstasy. The confession is sad, yet only in such beastly fashion come sweetest voices to me,—not in the fulness of all their vibrations, but sounding dimly through many an earthy layer. Music I do not so much hear as feel. All the exquisite nerves that bear[Pg 758] to your soul these tidings of heaven in me lie torpid or dead. No beatitude travels to my heart over that road. But as sometimes an invalid, unable through mortal sickness to swallow his needed nutriment, is yet kept alive many days by being immersed in a bath of wine and milk, which somehow, through unwonted courses, penetrates to the sources of vitality,—so I, though the natural avenues of sweet sounds have been hermetically sealed, do yet receive the fine flow of the musical ether. I feel the flood of harmony pouring around me. An inward, palpable, measured tremulousness of the subtile, secret essence of life attests the presence of some sweet disturbing cause, and, borne on unseen wings, I mount to loftier heights and diviner airs.

There is one other advantage in being possessed with a deaf-and-dumb devil, which, now that I am on the subject of compensation, I may as well mention. You are left out of the arena of fierce discussion and debate. You do not enter upon the lists wherefrom you would be sure to come off discomfited. Of all reputations, a musical reputation seems to me the most shifting and uncertain; and of all rivalries, musical rivalries are the most prolific of heart-burnings and discomfort. Now, if I should sing or play, I should wish to sing and play well. But what is well? Nancie in the village "singing-seats" stands head and shoulders above the rest, and wears her honors tranquilly, an authority at all rehearsals and serenades. But Anabella comes up from the town to spend Thanksgiving, and, without the least mitigation or remorse of voice, absolutely drowns out poor Nancie, who goes under, giving many signs. Yet she dies not unavenged, for Harriette sweeps down from the city, and immediately suspends the victorious Anabella from her aduncate nose, and carries all before her. Mysterious is the arrangement of the world. The last round of the ladder is not yet reached. To Madame Morlot, Harriette is a savage, une bête, without cultivation. "Oh, the dismal little fright! a thousand years of study would be useless; go, scour the floors; she has positively no voice." No voice, Madame Morlot? Harriette, no voice,—who burst every ear-drum in the room last night with her howling and hooting, and made the stoutest heart tremble with fearful forebodings of what might come next? But Madame Morlot is not infallible, for Herr Driesbach sits shivering at the dreadful noises which Madame Morlot extorts from his sensitive and suffering piano, and at the necessity which lies upon him to go and congratulate her upon her performance. Ah! if his tortured conscience might but congratulate her and himself upon its close! And so the scale ascends. Hills on hills and Alps on Alps arise, and who shall mount the ultimate peak till all the world shall say, "Here reigns the Excellence"? I listen with pleasure to untutored Nancie till Anabella takes all the wind from her sails. I think the force of music can no farther go than Madame Morlot, and, behold, Herr Driesbach has knocked out her underpinning. I am bewildered, and I say, helplessly, "What shall I admire and be à la mode?" But if it is so disheartening to me, who am only a passive listener, what must be the agonies of the dramatis personæ? "Hang it!" says Charles Lamb, "how I like to be liked, and what I do to be liked!" And do Nancie, Harriette, and Herr Driesbach like it any less? What shall avenge them for their spretæ injuria formæ? What can repay the hapless performer, who has performed her very best, for learning by terrible, indisputable indirections that her cherished and boasted Cremona is but a very second fiddle?

So, standing on the high ground of certain immunity from criticism and hostile judgment, I do not so much console myself as I do not stand in need of consolation. I rather give thanks for my mute and necessarily unoffending lips, and I shall go in great good-humor to Camilla's concert.

There are many different ways of going[Pg 759] to a concert. You can be one of a party of fashionable people to whom music is a diversion, a pastime, an agreeable change from the assembly or the theatre. They applaud, they condemn, they criticise with perfect au-faitism. (No one need say there is no such word. I know there was not yesterday, and perhaps will not be to-morrow; but that there is such a one to-day, you have but to open your eyes and see.) Into such company as this, even I, whose poor old head is always fretting itself wedged in where it has no business to be, have chanced to be thrown. This is torture. My cue is to turn into the Irishman's echo, which always returned for his "How d' ye do?" a "Pretty well, thank you." I cling to the skirts of that member of the party who is agreed to have the best taste and echo his responses an octave higher. If he sighs at the end of a song, I bring out my pocket-handkerchief. If he says "charming," I murmur "delicious." If he thinks it "exquisite," I pronounce it "enchanting." Where he is rapt in admiration, I go into a trance, and so shamble through the performances, miserable impostor that I am, and ten to one nobody finds out that I am a dunce, fit for treason, stratagem, and spoils. It is a great strain upon the mental powers, but it is wonderful to see how much may be accomplished and what skill may be attained by long practice.

It is not ingenuous? I am afraid not quite. The guilt rest with those who make me incur it! You cannot even read a book with any degree of pleasure, if you know an opinion is expected of you at the finis. You leave the popular novel till people have forgotten to ask, "How do you like it?" How can you enjoy anything, if you are not at liberty to give yourself wholly to it, but must be all the while making up a speech to deliver when it is over? Nothing is better than to be a passive listener, but nothing is worse than to be obliged to turn yourself into a sounding-board: and must I have both the suffering and the guilt?

Also one may go to a concert as a conductor with a single musical friend. By conductor I do not mean escort, but a magnetic conductor, rapture conductor, a fit medium through which to convey away his delight, so that he shall not become surcharged and explode. He does not take you for your pleasure, nor for his own, but for use. He desires some one to whom he can from time to time express his opinions and his enthusiasms, sure of an attentive listener,—since nothing is so pleasant as to see one's views welcomed. Now you cannot pretend that in such a case your listening is thoroughly honest. You are receptive of theories, criticisms, and reminiscences; but you would not like to be obliged to pass an examination on them afterwards. You do, it must be confessed, sometimes, in the midst of eloquent dissertations, strike out into little flowery by-paths of your own, quite foreign to the grand paved-ways along which your friend supposes he is so kind as to be leading you. But however digressive your mind may be, do not suffer your eyes to digress. Whatever may be the intensity of your ennui, endeavor to preserve an animated expression, and your success is complete. This is all that is necessary. You will never be called upon for notes or comments. Your little escapades will never be detected. It is not your opinions that were sought, nor your education that was to be furthered. You were only an escape-pipe, and your mission ceased when the soul of song fled and the gas was turned off. This, too, is all that can justly be demanded. Minister, lecturer, singer, no one has any right to ask of his audience anything more than opportunity,—the externals of attention. All the rest is his own look-out. If you prepossess your mind with a theme, you do not give him an even chance. You must offer him in the beginning a tabula rasa,—a fair field,—and then it is his business to go in and win your attention; and if he cannot, let him pay the costs, for the fault is his own.

There is yet another way. You may[Pg 760] go with one or many who believe and practise the doctrine of laissez-faireity. Do not now proceed to dash your brains out against that word. I have just done it myself, and one such head as mine is ample sacrifice for any verbal crime. They go to the concert for love of music,—negatively for its rest and refreshment, positively for its embodied delights. They take you for your enjoyment, which they permit you to compass after your own fashion. They force from you no comment. They demand no criticism. They do not require censure as your certificate of taste. They do not trouble themselves with your demeanor. If you choose to talk in the pauses, they are receptive and cordial. If you choose to be silent, it is just as well. If you go to sleep, they will not mind,—unless, under the spell of the genius of the place, your sleep becomes vocal, and you involuntarily join the concert in the undesirable rôle of De Trop. If you go into raptures, it is all the same; you are not watched and made a note of. They leave you at the top of your bent. Whether you shall be amused, delighted, or disgusted, they respect your decisions and allow you to remain free.

How did I go to my concert? Can I tell for the eyes that made "a sunshine in the shady place"? Was I not veiled with the beautiful hair, and blinded with the lily's white splendor? So went I with the Fairy Queen in her golden coach drawn by six white mice, and, behold, I was in Camilla's concert-room.

It is to be a fiddle affair. Now I am free to say, if there is anything I hate, it is a fiddle. Hide it away under as many Italian coatings as you choose,—viol, violin, viola, violone, violoncello, violoncellettissimo, at bottom it is all one, a fiddle; in its best estate, a diddle, diddle, frivolous, rattling, Yankee-Doodle, country-tavern-ball whirligig, without dignity, sentiment, or power; and at worst a rubbing, rasping, squeaking, woolleny, noisy nuisance, that it sets my teeth on edge to think of. I shudder at the mere memory of the reluctant bow dragging its slow length across the whining strings. And here I am, in my sober senses, come to hear a fiddle!

But it is Camilla's. Do you remember—I don't, but I should, if I had known it—a little girl who, a few years ago, became famous for her wonderful performance on the violin? At six years of age she went to a great concert, and of all the fine instruments there, the unseen spirit within her made choice, "Papa, I should like to learn the violin." So she learned it and loved it, and when ten years old delighted foreign and American audiences with her marvellous genius. It was the little Camilla who now, after ten years of silence, tuned her beloved instrument once more.

As she walks softly and quietly in, I am conscious of a disappointment. I had unwittingly framed for her an aesthetic violin, with the essential strings and bridge and bow indeed, but submerged and forgot in such Orient splendors as befit her glorious genius. Barbaric pearl and gold, finest carved work, flashing gems from Indian water-courses, the delicatest pink sea-shell, a bubble-prism caught and crystallized,—of all rare and curious substances wrought with dainty device, fantastic as a dream, and resplendent as the light, should her instrument be fashioned. Only in "something rich and strange" should the mystic soul lie sleeping for whom her lips shall break the spell of slumber, and her young fingers unbar the sacred gates. And, oh, me! it is, after all, the very same old red fiddle! Dee, dee!

But she neither glides nor trips nor treads, as heroines invariably do, but walks in like a good Christian woman. She steps upon the stage and faces the audience that gives her hearty greeting and waits the prelude. There is time for cool survey. I am angry still about the red fiddle, and I look scrutinizingly at her dress and think how ugly are hoops. The skirt is white silk,—a brocade, I believe,—at any rate, stiff, and, though probably full to overflowing in the hands of the seamstress, who must compress it[Pg 761] within prescribed limits about the waist, looks scanty and straight, because, like all other skirts in the world at this present writing, it is stretched over a barrel. Why could she not, she who comes before us to-night, not as a fashion, but an inspiration,—why could she not discard the mode, and assume that immortal classic drapery whose graceful falls and folds the sculptor vainly tries to imitate, the painter vainly seeks to limn? When Corinne tuned her lyre at the Capitol, when she knelt to be crowned with her laurel crown at the hands of a Roman senator, is it possible to conceive her swollen out with crinoline? And yet I remember, that, though sa robe était blanche, et son costume était très pittoresque, it was sans s'écarter cependant assez des usages reçus pour que l'on pût y trouver de l'affectation; and I suppose, if one should now suddenly collapse from conventional rotundity to antique statuesqueness, the great "on" would very readily "y trouver de l'affectation." Nevertheless, though one must dress in Rome as Romans do, and though the Roman way of dressing is, taking all things into the account, as good as any, and, if not more graceful, a thousand times more convenient, wholesome, comfortable, and manageable than Helen's, still it does seem, that, when one steps out of the ordinary area of Roman life and assumes an abnormal position, one might, without violence, assume temporarily an abnormal dress, and refresh our dilated eyes once more with flowing, wavy outlines. Music is one of the eternities: why should not its accessories be? Why should a discord disturb the eye, when only concords delight the ear?

But I lift my eyes from Camilla's unpliant drapery to the red red rose in her hair, and thence, naturally, to her silent face, and in that instant ugly dress and red red rose fade out of my sight. What is it that I see, with tearful tenderness and a nameless pain at the heart? A young face deepened and drawn with suffering; dark, large eyes, whose natural laughing light has been quenched in tears, yet shining still with a distant gleam caught from the eternal fires. O still, pathetic face! A sterner form than Time has passed and left his vestige there. Happy little girl, playing among the flickering shadows of the Rhine-land, who could not foresee the darker shadows that should settle and never lift nor flicker from her heavy heart! Large, lambent eyes, that might have been sweet, but now are only steadfast,—that may yet be sweet, when they look to-night into a baby's cradle, but gazing now upon a waiting audience, are only steadfast. Ah! so it is. Life has such hard conditions, that every dear and precious gift, every rare virtue, every pleasant facility, every genial endowment, love, hope, joy, wit, sprightliness, benevolence, must sometimes be cast into the crucible to distil the one elixir, patience. Large, lambent eyes, in which days and nights of tears are petrified, steadfast eyes that are neither mournful nor hopeful nor anxious, but with such unvoiced sadness in their depths that the hot tears well up in my heart, what do you see in the waiting audience? Not censure, nor pity, nor forgiveness, for you do not need them,—but surely a warm human sympathy, since heart can speak to heart, though the thin, fixed lips have sealed their secret well. Sad mother, whose rose of life was crushed before it had budded, tender young lips that had drunk the cup of sorrow to the dregs, while their cup of bliss should hardly yet be brimmed for life's sweet spring-time, your crumbling fanes and broken arches and prostrate columns lie not among the ruins of Time. Be comforted of that. They bear witness of a more pitiless Destroyer, and by this token I know there shall dawn a brighter day. The God of the fatherless and the widow, of the worse than widowed and fatherless, the Avenger of the Slaughter of the Innocents, be with you, and shield and shelter and bless!

But the overture wavers to its close, and her soul hears far off the voice of the coming Spirit. A deeper light shines[Pg 762] in the strangely introverted eyes,—the look as of one listening intently to a distant melody which no one else can hear,—the look of one to whom the room and the people and the presence are but a dream, and past and future centre on the far-off song. Slowly she raises her instrument. I almost shudder to see the tawny wood touching her white shoulder; yet that cannot be common or unclean which she so loves and carries with almost a caress. Still intent, she raises the bow with a slow sweep, as if it were a wand of divination. Nearer and nearer comes the heavenly voice, pouring around her a flood of mystic melody. And now at last it breaks upon our ears,—softly at first, only a sweet faint echo from that other sphere, but deepening, strengthening, conquering,—now rising on the swells of a controlling passion, now sinking into the depths with its low wail of pain; exultant, scornful, furious, in the glad outburst of opening joy and the fierce onslaught of strength; crowned, sceptred, glorious in garland and singing-robes, throned in the high realms of its inheritance, a kingdom of boundless scope and ever new delights: then sweeping down through the lower world with diminishing rapture, rapture lessening into astonishment, astonishment dying into despair, it gathers up the passion and the pain, the blight and woe and agony; all garnered joys are scattered. Evil supplants the good. Hope dies, love pales, and faith is faint and wan. But every death has its moaning ghost, pale spectre of vanished loves. Oh, fearful revenge of the outraged soul! The mysterious, uncomprehended, incomprehensible soul! The irrepressible, unquenchable, immortal soul, whose every mark is everlasting! Every secret sin committed against it cries out from the housetops. Cunning may strive to conceal, will may determine to smother, love may fondly whisper, "It does not hurt"; but the soul will not be outraged. Somewhere, somehow, when and where you least expect, unconscious, perhaps, to its owner, unrecognized by the many, visible only to the clear vision, somewhere, somehow, the soul bursts asunder its bonds. It is but a little song, a tripping of the fingers over the keys, a drawing of the bow across the strings,—only that? Only that! It is the protest of the wronged and ignored soul. It is the outburst of the pent and prisoned soul. All the ache and agony, all the secret wrong and silent endurance, all the rejected love and wounded trust and slighted truth, all the riches wasted, all the youth poisoned, all the hope trampled, all the light darkened,—all meet and mingle in a mad whirl of waters. They surge and lash and rage, a wild storm of harmony. Barriers are broken. Circumstance is not. The soul! the soul! the soul! the wronged and fettered soul! the freed and royal soul! It alone is king. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in! Tremble, O Tyrant, in your mountain-fastness! Tremble, Deceiver, in your cavern under the sea! Your victim is your accuser. Your sin has found you out. Your crime cries to Heaven. You have condemned and killed the just. You have murdered the innocent in secret places, and in the noonday sun the voice of their blood crieth unto God from the ground. There is no speech nor language. There is no will nor design. The seal of silence is unbroken. But unconscious, entranced, inspired, the god has lashed his Sibyl on. The vital instinct of the soul, its heaven-born, up-springing life, flings back the silver veil, and reveals the hidden things to him who hath eyes to see.

The storm sobs and soothes itself to silence. There is a hush, and then an enthusiasm of delight. The small head slightly bows, the still face scarcely smiles, the slight form disappears,—and after all, it was only a fiddle.

"When Music, heavenly maid, was young," begins the ode; but Music, heavenly maid, seems to me still so young, so very young, as scarcely to have made her power felt. Her language is as yet unlearned. When a baby of a month is[Pg 763] hungry or in pain, he contrives to make the fact understood. If he is at peace with himself and his surroundings, he leaves no doubt on the subject. To precisely this degree of intelligibility has the Heavenly Maid attained among us. When Beethoven sat down to the composition of one of his grand harmonies, there was undoubtedly in his mind as distinct a conception of that which he wished to express, of that within him which clamored for expression, as ever rises before a painter's eye or sings in a poet's brain. Thought, emotion, passion, hope, fear, joy, sorrow, each had its life and law. The painter paints you this. This the poet sings you. You stand before a picture, and to your loving, searching gaze its truths unfold. You read the poem with the understanding, and catch its concealed meanings. But what do you know of what was in Beethoven's soul? Who grasps his conception? Who faithfully renders, who even thoroughly knows his idea? Here and there to some patient night-watcher the lofty gates are unbarred, "on golden hinges turning." But, for the greater part, the musician who would tell so much speaks to unheeding ears. We comprehend him but infinitesimally. It is the Battle of Prague. Adrianus sits down to the piano, and Dion stands by his side, music-sheet in hand, acting as showman. "The Cannon," says Dion, at the proper place, and you imagine you recognize reverberation. "Charge," continues Dion, and with a violent effort you fancy the ground trembles. "Groans of the wounded," and you are partly horror-struck and partly incredulous. But what lame representation is this! As if one should tie a paper around the ankle of the Belvedere Apollo, with the inscription, "This is the ankle." A collar declares, "This is the neck." A bandeau locates his "forehead." A bracelet indicates the "arm." Is the sculpture thus significant? Hardly more does our music yet signify to us. You hear an unfamiliar air. You like it or dislike it, or are indifferent. You can tell that it is slow and plaintive, or brisk and lively, or perhaps even that it is defiant or stirring; but how insensible you are to the delicate shades of its meaning! How hidden is the song in the heart of the composer till he gives you the key! You hear as though you heard not. You hear the thunder, and the cataract, and the crash of the avalanche; but the song of the nightingale, the chirp of the katydid, the murmur of the waterfall never reach you. This cannot be the ultimatum. Music must hold in its own bosom its own interpretation, and man must have in his its corresponding susceptibilities. Music is language, and language implies a people who employ and understand it. But music, even by its professor, is as yet faintly understood. Its meanings go on crutches. They must be helped out by words. What does this piece say to you? Interpret it. You cannot. You must be taught much before you can know all. It must be translated from music into speech before you can entirely assimilate it. Musicians do not trust alone to notes for moods. Their light shines only through a glass darkly. But in some other sphere, in some happier time, in a world where gross wants shall have disappeared, and therefore the grossness of words shall be no longer necessary, where hunger and thirst and cold and care and passion have no more admittance, and only love and faith and hope and admiration and aspiration shall crave utterance, in that blessed unseen world, shall not music be the every-day speech, conveying meaning not only with a sweetness, but with an accuracy, delicacy, and distinctness, of which we have now but a faint conception? Here words are not only rough, but ambiguous. There harmonies shall be minutely intelligible. Speak with what directness we can, be as explanatory, repetitious, illustrative as we may, there are mistakes, misunderstandings, many and grievous, and consequent missteps, calamities, and catastrophes. But in that other world language shall be exactly coexistent with life; music shall be precisely adequate[Pg 764] to meaning. There shall be no hidden corners, no bungling incompatibilities, but the searching sound penetrates into the secret sources of the soul, all-pervading. Not a nook, not a crevice, no maze so intricate, but the sound floats in to gather up the fragrant aroma, to bear it yonder to another waiting soul, and deposit it as deftly by unerring magnetisms in the corresponding clefts.

Toot away, then, fifer-fellow! Turn your slow crank, inexorable Italian! Thrum your thrums, Miss Laura, for Signor Bernadotti! You are a long way off, but your foot-prints point the right way. With many a yawn and sigh subjective, with, I greatly fear me, many a malediction objective, you are "learning the language of another world." To us, huddled together in our little ant-hill, one is "une bête," and one is "mon ange"; but from that fixed star we are all so far as to have no parallax.

But I come down from the golden stars, for the white-robed one has raised her wand again, and we float away through the glowing gates of the sunrise, over the purple waves, over the vine-lands of sunny France, in among the shadows of the storied Pyrenees. Sorrow and sighing have fled away. Tragedy no longer "in sceptred pall comes sweeping by"; but young lambs leap in wild frolic, silken-fleeced sheep lie on the slopes of the hills, and shepherd calls to shepherd from his mountain-peak. Peaceful hamlets lie far down the valley, and every gentle height blooms with a happy home. Dark-eyed Basque girls dance through the fruitful orchards. I see the gleam of their scarlet scarfs wound in with their bold black hair. I hear their rich voices trilling the lays of their land, and ringing with happy laughter. But I mount higher and yet higher, till gleam and voice are lost. Here the freshening air sweeps down, and the low gurgle of living water purling out from cool, dark chasms mingles with the shepherd's flute. Here the young shepherd himself climbs, leaping from rock to rock, lithe, supple, strong, brave, and free as the soul of his race,—the same iron in his sinews, and the same fire in his blood that dealt the "dolorous rout" to Charlemagne a thousand years ago. Sweetly across the path of Roncesvalles blow the evening gales, wafting tender messages to the listening girls below. Green grows the grass and gay the flowers that spring from the blood of princely paladins, the flower of chivalry. No bugle-blast can bring old Roland back, though it wind long and loud through the echoing woods. Lads and lasses, worthy scions of valiant stems, may sit on happy evenings in the shadow of the vines, or group themselves on the greensward in the pauses of the dance, and sing their songs of battle and victory,—the olden legends of their heroic sires; but the strain that floats down from the darkening slopes into their heart of hearts, the song that reddens in their glowing cheeks, and throbs in their throbbing breasts, and shines in their dewy eyes, is not the shock of deadly onset, glorious though it be. It is the sweet old song,—old, yet ever new,—whose burden is,

old, yet always new,—sweet and tender, and not to be gainsaid, whether it be piped to a shepherdess in Arcadia, or whether a princess hears it from princely lips in her palace on the sea.

But the mountain shadows stretch down the valleys and wrap the meadows in twilight. Farther and farther the notes recede as the flutesman gathers his quiet flock along the winding paths. Smooth and far in the tranquil evening-air fall the receding notes, a clear, silvery sweetness; farther and farther in the hushed evening-air, lessening and lowering, as you bend to listen, till the vanishing strain just cleaves, a single thread of pearl-pure melody, finer, finer, finer, through the dewy twilight, and—you hear only your own heart-beats. It is not dead, but risen. It never ceased. It knew no pause. It has gone up the heights to mingle with the songs of the angels. You rouse yourself with a start, and gaze at[Pg 765] your neighbor half bewildered. What is it? Where are we? Oh, my remorseful heart! There is no shepherd, no mountain, no girl with scarlet ribbon and black braids bound on her beautiful temples. It was only a fiddle on a platform!

Now you need not tell me that. I know better. I have lived among fiddles all my life,—embryotic, Silurian fiddles, splintered from cornstalks, that blessed me in the golden afternoons of green summers waving in the sunshine of long ago,—sympathetic fiddles that did me yeomen's service once, when I fell off a bag of corn up garret and broke my head, and the frightened fiddles, not knowing what else to do, came and fiddled to me lying on the settee, with such boundless, extravagant flourish that nobody heard the doctor's gig rolling by, and so sinciput and occiput were left overnight to compose their own quarrels, whereby I was naturally all right before the doctor had a chance at me, suffering only the slight disadvantage of going broken-headed through life. What I might have been with a whole skull, I don't know; but I will say, that, even in fragments, my head is the best part of me.

Yes, I think I may dare affirm that whatever there is to know about a fiddle I know, and I can give my affidavit that it is no fiddle that takes you up on its broad wings, outstripping the "wondrous horse of brass," which required

since it bears you, "withouten" even so much as your "herte's" will, in a moment's time, over the seas and above the stars.

A fiddle, is it? Do not for one moment believe it.—A poet walked through Southern woods, and the Dryads opened their hearts to him. They unfolded the secrets that dwell in the depths of forests. They sang to him under the starlight the songs of their green, rustling land. They whispered the loves of the trees sentient to poets:—

They sang to him with their lutes. They danced before him with sunny, subtile grace, wreathing him with strange loveliness. They brought him honey and wine in the white cups of lilies, till his brain was drunk with delight; and they kept watch by his moss pillow, while he slept.

In the dew of the morning, he arose and felled the kindly tree that had sheltered him, not knowing it was the home of Arborine, fairest of the wood-nymphs. But he did it not for cruelty, but tenderness, to carve a memorial of his most memorable night, and so pulled down no thunders on his head. For Arborine loved him, and, like her sister Undine in the North, found her soul in loving him. Unseen, the beautiful nymph guided his hand as he fashioned the sounding viol, not knowing he was fashioning a palace for a soul new-born. He wrought skilfully, strung the intense chords, and smote them with the sympathetic bow. What burst of music flooded the still air! What new song trembled among the mermaiden tresses of the oaks! What new presence quivered in every listening harebell and every fearful wind-flower? The forest felt a change, for tricksy nymph had proved a mortal love, and put off her[Pg 766] fairy phantasms for the deep consciousness of humanity. The wood heard, bewildered. A shudder as of sorrow thrilled through it. A breeze that was almost sad swept down the shady aisles as the Poet passed out into the sunshine and the world.

But Nature knows no pain, though Arborines appear never more. A balm springs up in every wound. Over the hills, and far away beyond their utmost purple rim, and deep into the dying day the happy love-born one followed her love, happy to exchange her sylvan immortality for the spasm of mortal life,—happy, in her human self-abnegation, to lie close on his heart and whisper close in his ear, though he knew only the loving voice and never the loving lips. Through the world they passed, the Poet and his mystic viol. It gathered to itself the melodies that fluttered over sea and land,—songs of the mountains, and songs of the valleys,—murmurs of love, and the trumpet-tones of war,—bugle-blast of huntsman on the track of the chamois, and mother's lullaby to the baby at her breast. All that earth had of sweetness the nymph drew into her viol-home, and poured it forth anew in strains of more than mortal harmony. The fire and fervor of human hearts, the quiet ripple of inland waters, the anthem of the stormy sea, the voices of the flowers and the birds lent their melody to the song of her who knew them all.

The Poet died. Died, too, sweet Arborine, swooning away in the fierce grasp of this stranger Sorrow, to enter by the black gate of death into the full presence and recognition of him by loving whom she had learned to be.

The viol passed into strange hands and wandered down the centuries, but its olden echoes linger still. Fragrance of Southern woods, coolness of shaded waters, inspiration of mountain-breezes, all the secret forces of Nature that the wood-nymph knew, and the joy, the passion, and the pain that throb only in a woman's heart, lie still, silent under the silent strings, but wakening into life at the touch of a royal hand.

SPRING AT THE CAPITAL.

The poplar drops beside the way
Its tasselled plumes of silver-gray;
The chestnut pouts its great brown buds, impatient for the laggard May.

The honeysuckles lace the wall;
The hyacinths grow fair and tall;
And mellow sun and pleasant wind and odorous bees are over all.

Down-looking in this snow-white bud,
How distant seems the war's red flood!
How far remote the streaming wounds, the sickening scent of human blood!

For Nature does not recognize
This strife that rends the earth and skies;
No war-dreams vex the winter sleep of clover-heads and daisy-eyes.[Pg 767]

She holds her even way the same,
Though navies sink or cities flame;
A snow-drop is a snow-drop still, despite the nation's joy or shame.

When blood her grassy altar wets,
She sends the pitying violets
To heal the outrage with their bloom, and cover it with soft regrets.

O crocuses with rain-wet eyes,
O tender-lipped anemones,
What do ye know of agony and death and blood-won victories?

No shudder breaks your sunshine-trance,
Though near you rolls, with slow advance,
Clouding your shining leaves with dust, the anguish-laden ambulance.

Yonder a white encampment hums;
The clash of martial music comes;
And now your startled stems are all a-tremble with the jar of drums.

Whether it lessen or increase,
Or whether trumpets shout or cease,
Still deep within your tranquil hearts the happy bees are murmuring, "Peace!"

O flowers! the soul that faints or grieves
New comfort from your lips receives;
Sweet confidence and patient faith are hidden in your healing leaves.

Help us to trust, still on and on,
That this dark night will soon be gone,
And that these battle-stains are but the blood-red trouble of the dawn,—

Dawn of a broader, whiter day
Than ever blessed us with its ray,—
A dawn beneath whose purer light all guilt and wrong shall fade away.

Then shall our nation break its bands,
And, silencing the envious lands,
Stand in the searching light unshamed, with spotless robe, and clean, white hands.

THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO.[25]

[Concluding Chapter.]

The subject which I hoped to present intelligibly in three or four articles has continually threatened to step out of the columns of a magazine and the patience of its readers. The material which is at hand for the service of the great points of the story, such as the Commercial Difficulty, the Mulatto Question, the State of Colonial Parties, the Effect of the French Revolution, the Imbroglio of Races, the Character of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the Present Condition of Hayti, and a Bibliography of the whole subject, is now detached for perhaps a more deliberate publication; and two or three points of immediate interest, such as the French Cruelties, Emancipation and the Slave Insurrection, and the Negroes as Soldiers, are grouped together for the purpose of this closing article.

PLANTATION CRUELTIES.

The social condition of the slaves cannot be fully understood without some reference to the revolting facts connected with plantation management. It is well to know what base and ingenious cruelties could be tolerated by public opinion, and endured by the slaves without exciting continual insurrections. Wonder at this sustained patience of the blacks passes into rage and indignation long before the student of this epoch reaches the eventual outbreaks of 1791: it seems as if a just instinct of manhood should have more promptly doomed these houses of iniquity, and handed them over to a midnight vengeance. And there results a kind of disappointment from the discovery, that, when the blacks finally began to burn and slaughter, they were not impelled by the desire of liberty or the recollection of great crimes, but were blind agents of a complicated situation. It is only in the remote historical sense that Slavery provoked Insurrection. The first great night of horror in San Domingo rose from circumstances that were not explicitly chargeable to the absence of freedom or to the outrages of the slaveholder. But if these things had not fuelled the lighted torches and whetted the blades when grasped, it would have been strange and monstrous indeed. Stranger still would it have been, if the flames of that first night had not kindled in the nobler breasts among that unchained multitude a determination never to endure plantation ferocity again. The legitimate cause for rebelling then took the helm and guided the rest of the story into dignity.

The frequency of enfranchisement might mislead us into expecting that the colonial system of slavery was tempered with humanity. It was rather like that monarchy which the wit described as being "tempered by assassination." The mulatto was by no means a proof that mercy and justice regulated the plantation life. His enfranchisement reacted cruelly upon the negro. It seemed as if the recognition of one domestic sentiment hurt the master's feelings; the damage to his organization broke out against the lower race in anger. The connections between black and white offered no protection to the former, nor amelioration of her lot. Indeed, the overseer, who desired always to be on good terms with the agent or the proprietor of a plantation, was more severe towards the unhappy object of his passion than to the other women, for fear of incurring reproach or suspicion. When he became the owner of slaves, his emancipating humor was no guaranty that they would receive a salutary and benignant treatment.

When a Frenchman undertakes to be cruel, he acts with great esprit. There[Pg 769] is spectacular ingenuity in the atrocities which he invents, and even his ungovernable bursts of rage instinctively aim a coup de théâtre at his victim. The negro is sometimes bloodthirsty, and when he is excited he will quaff at the opened vein; but he never saves up a man for deliberate enjoyment of his sufferings. When the wild orgy becomes sated, and the cause of it has been once liquidated, there is no further danger from this disposition. But a French colonist, whether smiling or sombre, was always disposed to be tormenting. The ownership of slaves unmasked this tendency of a race which at home, in the streets of Paris and the court-yard of the Abbaye and La Force, proved its ferocity and simple thirst for blood. The story of the Princess Lamballe's death and disfiguration shows the broad Gallic fancy which the sight of blood can pique into action. But the every-day life of many plantations surpassed, in minuteness and striking refinement of tormenting, all that the sans-culotte ever dared or the savage ever dreamed.

Let a few cases be found sufficient to enlighten the reader upon this point. They are specimens from a list of horrors which eye-witnesses, inhabitants of the island, have preserved; and many of them, being found in more than one authority, French as well as colored, are to be regarded as current and unquestionable facts.

The ordinary brutalities of slaveholding were rendered more acute by this Creole temper. Whippings were carried to the point of death, for the slave-vessel was always at the wharf to furnish short lives upon long credit; starving was a common cure for obstinacy, brine and red-pepper were liberally sprinkled upon quivering backs. Economy was never a virtue of this profuse island. Lives were sauce piquante to luxury.

The incarceration of slaves who had marooned, stolen vegetables, or refused to work, had some features novel to the Bastille and the Inquisition. A man would be let down into a stone case or cylinder just large enough to receive his body: potted in this way, he remained till the overseer considered that he had improved. Sometimes he was left too long, and was found spoiled; for this mode of punishment soon ended a man, because he could not move a limb or change his attitude. Dungeons were constructed with iron rings so disposed along the wall that a man was held in a sitting posture with nothing to sit upon but sharpened stick: he was soon obliged to try it, and so oscillated between the two tortures. Other cells were furnished with cases, of the size of a man, that could be hermetically sealed: these were for suffocation. The floors of some were kept submerged with a foot or two of water: the negroes who came out of them were frequently crippled for life by the dampness and cold. Iron cages, collars, and iron masks, clogs, fetters, and thumb-screws were found upon numerous plantations, among the ruins of the dungeons.

The quatre piquet was a favorite style of flogging. Each limb of the victim was stretched to the stake of a frame which was capable of more or less distention; around the middle went an iron circle which prevented every motion. In this position he received his modicum of lashes, every muscle swollen and distended, till the blood dripped from the machine. After he was untied, the overseer dressed the wounds, according to fancy, with pickled pimento, pepper, hot coals, boiling oil or lard, sealing-wax, or gunpowder. Sometimes hot irons stanched the flow of blood.

M. Frossard [26] is authority for the story of a planter who administered a hundred lashes to a negro who had broken a hoe-handle, then strewing gunpowder in the furrows of the flesh, amused himself with setting the trains on fire.

M. de Crévecœur put a negro who had killed an inhuman overseer into an iron[Pg 770] cage, so confined that the birds could have free access to him. They fed daily upon the unfortunate man; his eyes were carried off, his jaws laid bare, his arms torn to pieces, clouds of insects covered the lacerated body and regaled upon his blood.

Another planter, attests M. Frossard, after having lived several years with a negress, deserted her for another, and wished to force her to become the slave of her rival. Not being able to endure this humiliation, she besought him to sell her. But the irritated Frenchman, after inflicting various preparatory punishments, buried her alive, with her head above ground, which he kept wet with eau sucrée till the insects had destroyed her.

How piteous is the reflection that the slaves made a point of honor of preserving their backs free from scars,—so that the lash inflicted a double wound at every stroke!

There was a planter who kept an iron box pierced with holes, into which the slaves were put for trivial offences, and moved towards a hot fire, till the torment threatened to destroy life. He considered this punishment preferable to whipping, because it did not suspend the slave's labors for so long a time.

"What rascally sugar!" said Caradeux to his foreman; "the next time you turn out the like, I will have you buried alive;—you know me." The occasion came soon after, and the black was thrown into a dungeon. Caradeux, says Malenfant, did not really wish to lose his black, yet wished to preserve his character for severity. He invited a dozen ladies to dinner, and during the repast informed them that he meant to execute his foreman, and they should see the thing done. This was not an unusual sight for ladies to witness: the Roman women never were more eager for the agonies of the Coliseum. But on this occasion they demurred, and asked pardon for the black. "Very well," said Caradeux; "remain at table, and when you see me take out my handkerchief; run and solicit his life." After the dessert, Caradeux repaired to the court, where the negro had been obliged to dig his own grave and to get into it, which he did with singing. The earth was thrown around him till the head only appeared. Caradeux pulls out his handkerchief; the ladies run, throw themselves at his feet; after much feigned reluctance, he exclaims,—

At this, Caradeux seized a huge stone, and hurled it at his head, and the other blacks hastened to put an end to his suffering.

Burning the negro alive was an occasional occurrence. Burying him alive was more frequent. A favorite pastime was to bury him up to his neck, and let the boys bowl at his head. Sometimes the head was covered with molasses, and left to the insects. Pitying comrades were found to stone the sufferer to death. One or two instances were known of planters who rolled the bodies of slaves, raw and bloody from a whipping, among the ant-hills. If a cattle-tender let a mule or ox come to harm, the animal was sometimes killed and the man sewed up in the carcass. This was done a few times in cases where the mule died of some epizoötic malady.

Hamstringing negroes had always been practised against marooning, theft, and other petty offences: an overseer seldom failed to bring down his negro with a well-aimed hatchet. Coupe-jarret was a phrase applied during the revolutionary intrigues to those who were hampering a movement which appeared to advance.

Cutting off the ears was a very common punishment. But M. Jouanneau, who lived at Grande-Riviére, nailed one of his slaves to the wall by the ears,[Pg 771] then released him by cutting them off with a razor, and closed the entertainment with compelling him to grill and eat them. There was one overseer who never went out without a hammer and nails in his pocket, for nailing negroes by the ear to a tree or post when the humor struck him.

Half a dozen cases of flaying women alive, inspired by jealousy, are upon record; also some cases of throwing negroes into the furnaces with the bagasse or waste of the sugar-cane. Pistol-practice at negroes' heads was very common; singeing them upon cassava plates, grinding them slowly through the sugar-mill, pitching them into the boiler, was an occasional pastime.

If a woman was fortunate enough to lose her babe, she was often thrown into a cell till she chose to have another. Madame Bailly had a wooden child made, which she fastened around the necks of her negresses, if their children died, until they chose to replace them. These punishments were devised to check infanticide, which was the natural relief of the slave-mother.

Venault de Charmilly, a planter of distinction, afterwards the accomplished agent of the emigrant-interest at the court of St. James, used to carry pincers in his pocket, to tear the ears or tongues of his unfortunate slaves, if they did not hear him call, or if their replies were unsatisfactory. He pulled teeth with the same instrument. This man threw his postilion to the horses, literally tying him in their stall till he was beaten by their hoofs to shreds. He was an able advocate of slavery, and did much to poison the English mind, and to create a party with the object of annexing San Domingo and restoring the colonial system.

Cocherel, a planter of Gonaïves, had a slave who played upon the violin. After terrible floggings, he would compel this man to play, as a punishment for having danced without music. He found it piquant to watch the contest of pain and sorrow with the native love of melody. The cases where French planters watched curiously the characteristics of their various expedients for torture are so common that they furnish us with a trait of French Creolism. A poor cook, for instance, was one day thrown into an oven with a crackling heap of bagasse, because some article of food reached the table underdone. As the lips curled and shrivelled away from the teeth, his master, who was observing the effects of heat, exclaimed,—"The rascal laughs!"

But the most symbolical action, expressive of the colony's whole life, was performed by one Corbierre, who punished his slaves by blood-letting, and gave a humorous refinement to the sugar which he manufactured by using this blood to assist in clarifying it.

Let these instances suffice. The pen will not penetrate into the sorrows which befell the slave concubine and mother. The form of woman was never so mutilated and dishonored, the decencies of fetichism and savageism were never so outraged, as by these slaveholding idolaters of the Virgin and the Mother of God.

The special cruelties, together with the names of the perpetrators, which have been remembered and recorded, would form an appalling catalogue for the largest slaveholding community in the world. But this recorded cruelty, justly representative of similar acts which never came to the ears of men, was committed by only forty thousand whites of both sexes and all ages upon an area little larger than the State of Maine. There was agony enough racking the bosoms of that half-million of slaves to sate a hemisphere of slaveholding tyrants. But the public opinion of the little coterie of villains was never startled. It is literally true that not a single person was ever condemned to the penalties of the Code Noir for the commission of one of the crimes above mentioned. One would think that the close recurrence, in time and space, of these acts of crime would have beaten through even this Creole temperament into some soft spot that belonged to the mother-country of God,[Pg 772] if not of France. Occasionally a tender heart went back to Paris to record its sense of the necessity of some amelioration of these colonial ferocities; but the words of humanity were still spoken in the interest of slavery. It was for the sake of economy, and to secure a natural local increase of the slave population, that these vague reports of cruelty were suggested to the government. The planting interest procured the suppression of one of the mildest and most judicious of the books thus written, and had the author cast into prison. When the crack of the planter's lash sounded in the purlieus of the Tuileries itself, humanity had to wait till the Revolution had cleared out the Palace, the Church, and the Courts, before its clear protest could reverberate against the system of the colony. Then Grégoire, Lameth, Condorcet, Brissot, Lafayette, and others, assailed the planting interest, and uttered the bold generalization that either the colonies or the crimes must be abandoned; for the restraining provisions of the Code Noir were too feeble for the sugar exigency, and had long ago become obsolete. There was no police except for slaves, no inspectors of cultivation above the agents and the overseers. He was considered a bon blanc, and a person of benignity, whose slaves were seldom whipped to death. There could be neither opinion nor economy to check these things, when "La côte d'Afrique est une bonne mère" was the planter's daily consolation at the loss of an expensive negro.

Such slavery could not be improved; it might be abolished by law or drowned in blood. There is a crowd of pamphlets that have come down to us shrieking with the ineptitude of this period. It was popular to accuse the society of the Amis des Noirs of having ruined the colony by inspiring among the slaves a vague restlessness which blossomed into a desire for vengeance and liberty. But it is a sad fact that neither of those great impulses was stirring in those black forms, monoliths of scars and slave-brands. Not till their eyes had grown red at the sight of blood shed at other suggestions, and their ears had devoured the crackling of the canes and country-seats of their masters, did the guiding spirit of Liberty emerge from the havoc, and respond with Toussaint to the call of French humanity, by fighting for the Republic and the Rights of Man. Suicide was the only insurrection that ever seemed to the slave to promise liberty; for during the space of a hundred years nothing more formidable than the two risings of Padre Jean and Makandal had thrilled the consciences of the planters. If the latter had preserved the unity of sentiment that belonged to the atrocious unity of their interest, and had waived their pride for their safety, they might have proclaimed decrees of emancipation with every morning's peal of the plantation-bell, and the negroes would have replied every morning, "Vous maître."

There is but one other folly to match the accusation that the sentiment of French Abolitionism excited the slaves to rise: that is, the sentiment that a slave ought not to be excited to rise against such "Horrors of San Domingo" as we have just recorded. The men who are guilty of that sentimentality, while they smugly enjoy personal immunity and the dear delights of home, deserve to be sold to a Caradeux or a Legree. Let them be stretched upon the quatre-piquet of a great people in a war-humor, whose fathers once rose against the enemies that would have bled only their purses, and hamstrung only their material growth.

In the two decades between 1840 and 1860 the American Union was seldom saved by a Northern statesman without the help of San Domingo. People in cities, with a balance at the bank, stocks floating in the market, little children going to primary schools, a well-filled wood-shed, and a house that is not fire-proof, shudder when they hear that a great moral principle has devastated properties and sent peaceful homes up in the smoke of arson. Certainly the Union shall be preserved; at all events, the wood-shed must be. Nothing shall be[Pg 773] the midnight assassin of the country until slavery itself is ready for the job. So the Northern merchant kept his gold at par through dread of anti-slavery, and saved the Union just long enough to pay seventy-five per cent, for the luxury of the "Horrors." Did it ever once occur to him that his eminent Northern statesman was pretending something that the South itself knew to be false and never hypocritically urged against the anti-slavery men? Southern men of intelligence had the best of reasons for understanding the phenomena of San Domingo, and while the "Friends of the Black" were dripping with innocent French blood in Northern speeches, the embryo Secessionists at Nashville and Savannah strengthened their convictions with the proper rendering of the same history. Take, as a specimen of their tranquil frame of mind, the following view, which was intended to correct a vague popular dread that in all probability was inspired by Northern statesmen. It is from a wonderfully calm and judicious speech delivered before the Nashville Convention, a dozen years ago, by General Felix Huston of Mississippi.

"This insurrection [of San Domingo] having occurred so near to us, and being within the recollection of many persons living, who heard the exaggerated accounts of the day, has fastened itself on the public imagination, until it has become a subject of frequent reference, and even Southern twaddlers declaim about the Southern States being reduced to the condition of St. Domingo, and Abolitionists triumphantly point to it as a case where the negro race have asserted and maintained their freedom.

"Properly speaking, this was not a slave insurrection, although it assumed that form after the island was thrown into a revolutionary state.

"The island of St. Domingo, in 1791, contained about seven hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, about fifty thousand of whom were whites, more than double that number of mulattoes and of mixed blood, and the balance were negroes.

"The French and Spanish planters had introduced a general system of concubinage, and the consequence was a numerous progeny of mulattoes, many of whom associated with the whites nearly on terms of equality, were educated at home or sent to Europe to be educated, and many of them were wealthy, having been freed by their parents and their property left to them. These things had lowered, the character of the white proprietors, gradually bringing them down to the level of the mulattoes, and lessening the distance between them and the blacks; and in addition to this, there were a number of the white population who were poor and enervated, and rendered vicious by the low state of social morals and influence of the climate.

"In this state of affairs, when the French Revolution broke out, the wild spirit of liberty caught to the island and infected the mulattoes and the lower class of white population, and they sought to equalize themselves with the large proprietors. The foundations of society were broken up by this intermediate class, and in the course of the struggle they called in the blacks, and the two united, exceeding the whites in the proportion of twelve to one, expelled them from the island. Since that time a continual struggle has been going on between the mulattoes and the negroes, the latter having numbers and brute force, and the former sustaining themselves by superior intelligence.

"There never has been a formidable slave insurrection, considered purely as such; and a comparison of our situation with slavery as it has existed elsewhere ought to relieve the minds of the most timid from any apprehension of danger from our negroes, under any circumstances, in peace or war."

This generally truthful statement, which needs but little modification, shows that San Domingo was helping to destroy the Union at the South while it was trying to save it at the North. The words of the Secessionist were prophetic, and Slavery will continue to be the great unimpaired[Pg 774] war power of Southern institutions, till some color-bearer, white or black, in the name of law and order, shakes the stars of America over her inland fields.

AUGUST 22, 1791.

When the French vessels, bringing news of the developing Revolution, touched the wharves of Cap Français, a spark seemed to leap forth into the colony, to run through all ranks and classes of men, setting the Creole hearts afire, till it fell dead against the gros peau and the peau fin[27] of the black man. Three colonial parties vibrated with expectations that were radically discordant when the cannon of the people thundered against the Bastille. First in rank and assumption were the old planters and proprietors, two-thirds of whom were at the time absentees in France. They were, excepting a small minority, devoted royalists, but desired colonial independence in order to enjoy a perfect slaveholding authority. They were embittered by commercial restrictions, and longed to be set free from the mother-country, that San Domingo might be erected into a feudal kingdom with a court and gradation of nobility, whose parchments, indeed, would have been black and engrossed all over with despotism. They wanted the freedom of the seas and all the ports of the world, not from a generous motive, nor from a policy that looked beyond the single object of nourishing slavery at the cheapest rates, to carry its products to the best markets in exchange for flour, cloths, salted provisions, and all the necessaries of a plantation. The revolutionary spirit of Prance was hailed by them, because it seemed to give an opportunity to establish a government without a custom of Paris, to check enfranchisements and crush out the dangerous familiarity of the mulatto, to block with sugar-hogsheads the formidable movements in France and England against the slave-trade. These men sometimes spoke as republicans from their desire to act as despots; they succeeded in getting their delegates admitted to seats in the National Assembly to mix their intrigues with the current of events. Their "Club Massiac" in Paris, so named from the proprietor at whose residence its meetings were held, was composed of wealthy, adroit, and unscrupulous men, who often showed what a subtle style of diplomacy a single interest will create. It must be hard for bugs of a cosmopolitan mind to circumvent the formica leo, whose sole object in lying still at the bottom of its slippery tunnel is to catch its daily meal.

If this great party of slave-owners had preserved unity upon all the questions which the Revolution excited, their descendants might to-day be the most troublesome enemies of our blockade. But history will not admit an If. The unity which is natural to the slaveholding American was impossible in San Domingo, owing to the existence of the mulattoes and the little whites.

A few intelligent proprietors had foreseen, many years previous to the Revolution, that the continuance of their privileges depended upon the good-will of the mulattoes and the restriction of enfranchisement. The class of mixed blood was becoming large and formidable: of mulattoes and free negroes there were nearly forty thousand. They were nominally free, and had all the rights of property. A number of them were wealthy owners of slaves. But they still bore upon their brows the shadow cast by servitude, from which many of the mixed blood had not yet emerged. The whites of all classes despised these men who reminded them of the color and condition of their mothers. If a mulatto struck or insulted a white man, he was subjected to severe penalties; no offices were open to him, no doors of society, no career except that of trade or agriculture. This was not well endured by a class which had inherited the fire and vanity of their French fathers, with intellectual qualities that caught passion[Pg 775] and mobility from the drops of negro blood. Great numbers of them had been carefully educated in France, whither they sent their own children, if they could afford it, to catch the port and habits of free citizens. They were very proud, high-strung, and restless, sombre in the presence of contempt, lowering with some expectation. Frequent attempts had been made by them to extend the area of their rights, but they met with nothing but arrogant repulse. The guilty problem of the island was not destined to be relieved or modified by common sense. The planters should have lifted this social and political ostracism from the mulatto, who loved to make money and to own slaves, and whose passion for livid mistresses was as great as any Frenchman's. They were the natural allies of the proprietors, and should have been erected into an intermediate class, bound to the whites by intelligence and selfish interest, and drawn upon the mother's side to soften the condition of the slave. This policy was often pressed by French writers, and discussed with every essential detail; but the descendants of the buccaneers were bent upon playing out the island's tragedy.

The mulattoes were generally selfish, and did not care to have slavery disturbed. When their deputies went to Paris, to offer the Republic a splendid money-tribute of six million livres, and to plead their cause, one of their number, Vincent Ogé, dined with Clarkson at Lafayette's, and succeeded in convincing the great Abolitionist that he believed in emancipation. "The slave-trade," they said, "was the parent of all the miseries in St. Domingo, not only on account of the cruel treatment it occasioned to the slaves, but on account of the discord which it constantly kept up between the whites and people of color, in consequence of the hateful distinctions it introduced. These distinctions could never be obliterated while it lasted. They had it in their instructions, in case they should obtain a seat in the Assembly, to propose an immediate abolition of the slave-trade, and an immediate amelioration of the state of slavery also, with a view to its abolition in fifteen years."[28]

There is reason to doubt the entire sincerity of these representations, but they were sufficient to convert every proprietor into a bitter foe of mulatto recognition. The deputies were soon after admitted to the bar of the National Assembly, whose president told them that their claims were worthy of consideration. They said to Clarkson that this speech of the president "had roused all the white colonists in Paris. Some of these had openly insulted them. They had held also a meeting on the subject of this speech; at which they had worked themselves up so as to become quite furious. Nothing but intrigue was now going forward among them to put off the consideration of the claims of the free people of color." The deputies at length left Paris in despair. Ogé exclaimed, "If we are once forced to desperate measures, it will be in vain that thousands will be sent across the Atlantic to bring us back to our former state." Clarkson counselled patience; but he found "that there was a spirit of dissatisfaction in them, which nothing but a redress of their grievances could subdue,—and that, if the planters should persevere in their intrigues, and the National Assembly in delay, a fire would be lighted up in St. Domingo which could not easily be extinguished."—This was the position of the Mulatto party.

The third class, of Little Whites, comprised the mechanics and artisans of every description, but also included all whites whose number of slaves did not exceed twenty-four. This party likewise hailed the Revolution, because it hated the pride and privileges of the great proprietors. But it also hated the mulattoes so much that the obvious policy of making common cause with them never seemed to be suggested to it. Among the Little Whites were a goodly number of debtors, who hoped by separation from the mother-country to cancel the burdens incurred for slaves and plantation-necessaries;[Pg 776] but the majority did not favor colonial independence. Thus the name of Liberty was invoked by hostile cliques for selfish objects, and the whole colony trembled with the passion of its own elements. Beneath it all lay stretched the huge Enceladus, unconscious of the power which by a single movement might have forestalled eruption by ruin. But he gave no sign.

Several mulattoes had been already hung for various acts of sympathy with their class, when Ogé appeared upon the scene at the head of a handful of armed slaves and mulattoes, and attacked the National Guard of Cap Français. He was routed, after bravely fighting with partial success, fled into the Spanish quarter, whence he was reclaimed in the name of the king, and surrendered by the governor. Thirteen of his followers were condemned to the galleys, twenty-two were hung, and Ogé with his friend Chavannes was broken upon the wheel. A distinction of color was made at the moment of their death: the scaffold upon which they suffered was not allowed to be erected upon the same spot devoted to the execution of whites.

Now the National Guard in all the chief towns was divided into adherents of the mother-country and sympathizers with colonial independence. In a bloody street-fight which took place at Port-au-Prince, the latter were defeated. Then both factions sought to gain a momentary preponderance by allying themselves with the mulattoes: the latter joined the metropolitan party, which in this moment of extremity still thought of color, and served out to the volunteers yellow pom-pons, instead of the white ones which distinguished themselves. The mulattoes instantly broke up their ranks, and preserved neutrality.

It would be tedious to relate the disturbances, popular executions, and ferocious acts which took place in every quarter of the island. Murder was inaugurated by the colonists themselves: the provincial faction avenged their previous defeat, and were temporarily masters of the colony. On the 15th of May, 1791, the National Assembly had passed a decree, admitting, by a precise designation, all enfranchised of all colors who were born of free parents to the right of suffrage. When this reached the island, the whites were violently agitated, and many outrages were committed against the people of color. The decree was formally rejected, the mulattoes again flew to arms, and began to put themselves into a condition to demand the rights which had been solemnly conceded to them. In that decree not a word is said of the slaves: the Amis des Noirs, and the debates of the National Assembly, stretched out no hand towards that inarticulate and suffering mass. The colonists themselves had been for months shaking a scarlet rag, as if they deliberately meant to excite the first blind plunge of the brute from its harness.

The mulattoes now brought their slaves into headquarters at Croix-des-Bouquets, and armed them. The whites followed this example, and began to drill a body of slaves in Port-au-Prince. Amid this passionate preoccupation of all minds, the ordinary discipline of the plantations was relaxed, the labor languished, the negroes were ill-fed and began to escape to the mornes, the subtle earth-currents carried vague disquiet into the most solitary quarters. Then the negroes began to assemble at midnight to subject themselves to the frenzy of their priestesses, and to conduct the serpent-orgies. But it is not likely that the extensive revolt in the Plaine du Cap would have taken place, if an English negro, called Buckman, had not appeared upon the scene, to give a direction to all these restless hearts, and to pour his own clear indignation into them. No one can satisfactorily explain where he came from. One writer will prove to you that he was an emissary of the planting interest in Jamaica, which was willing to set the fatal example of insurrection for the sake of destroying a rival colony. Another pen is equally fertile with assurances that he was bought with the gold of Pitt to be a political instrument[Pg 777] of perfidious Albion. It is shown to be more probable that he was the agent of the Spanish governor, whose object was to effect a diversion in the interest of royalism. According to another statement, he belonged to the Cudjoe band of Jamaica maroons, which had forced a declaration of its independence from the governor of that island. Buckman was acquainted with Creole French, and was in full sympathy with the superstitious rites of his countrymen in San Domingo. Putting aside the conjectures of the times, one thing is certain beyond a doubt, that he was born of the moment, and sprang from the festering history which white neglect and criminality had spread, as naturally as the poisoned sting flutters from the swamps of summer. And he filled the night of vengeance, which was accorded to him by laws that cannot be repealed without making the whole life of the planet one sustained expression of the wrath of God.

A furious storm raged during the night of August 22: the blackness was rent by the lightning that is known only to the hurricane-regions of the earth. The negroes gathered upon the Morne Rouge, sacrificed a black heifer with frantic dances which the elements seemed to electrify, thunder emphasized the declaration of the priestess that the entrails were satisfactory, and the quarters were thrown into a huge brazier to be burned. At that moment a bird fell from the overhanging branch of a tree directly into the cooking spell, and terrible shouts of encouragement hailed the omen. Is it an old Pelasgic or a Thracian forest grown mænadic over some forgotten vengeance of the early days? It is the unalterable human nature, masked in the deeper colors of more fervid skies, gathering a mighty breath into its lacerated bosom for a rending of outrage and a lion's leap in the dark against its foe.

"Listen!" cried Buckman. "The good God conceals himself in a cloud, He mutters in the tempest. By the whites He commands crime, by us He commands benefits. But God, who is good, ordains for us vengeance. Tear down the figure of the white man's God which brings the tears to your eyes. Hear! It is Liberty! It speaks to the hearts of us all."

The morning broke clear, but the tempest had dropped from the skies to earth. The costly habitations, whose cornerstones were dungeons, in whose courts the gay guests of the planter used to season their dessert with the punishments he had saved up for them, were carried off by exulting flames. The great fields of cane, which pumped the earth's sap and the negro's blood up for the slaveholder's caldron, went crackling away with the houses which they furnished. Rich garments, dainty upholstery, and the last fashions of Paris went parading on the negroes' backs, and hid the marks of the floggings which earned them. The dead women and children lay in the thickets where they had vainly implored mercy. There are long careers of guiltiness whose devilish nature becomes apparent only when innocence suffers with it. Then the cry of a babe upon a negro's pike is the voice of God's judgment against a century.

Will it be credited that the whites who witnessed the smoking plain from the roofs of Cap Français broke into the houses of the mulattoes, and murdered all they could find,—the paralytic old man in his bed, the daughters in the same room, the men in the street,—murdered and ravished during one long day? In this crisis of the colony, suspicion and prejudice of color were stronger than personal alarm. Every action of the whites was piqued by pride of color and the intoxication of caste. These vulgar mulatto-making pale-faces would hazard their safety sooner than grasp the hand of their own half-breeds and arm it with the weapon of unity. Color-blindness was at length the weakness through which violated laws revenged themselves: the French could not perceive which heart was black and which was white.

If Northern statesmen and glib editors of Tory sheets would derive a lesson from San Domingo for the guidance of the people,[Pg 778] let them find it in the horrors wrought by the white man's prejudice. It is the key to the history of the island. And it is by means of the black man that God perceives whether the Christianity of Church and State is skin-deep or not. Beneath those oxidated surfaces He has hidden metal for the tools and swords of a republic, and into our hands He puts the needle of the text, "God has made of one blood all nations," to agitate and attract us to our true safety and glory. The black man is the test of the white man's ability to be the citizen of a long-lived republic. It is as if God lighted His lamp and decked His altar behind those bronze doors, and waited for the incense and chant of Liberty to open them and enter His choir, instead of passing by. So long as America hates and degrades the black man, so long will she be deprived of four millions' worth of God. In so much of God a great deal of retribution must be slumbering, if the story of San Domingo was a fact, and not a hideous dream.

NEGRO SOLDIERS.[29]

The native tribes of Africa differ as much in combative propensity and ability for warlike enterprises as in their other traits. The people of Wadai are distinguished for bravery above all their neighbors. The men of Ashantee are great fighters, and have such a contempt for death that they will continue their attacks upon a European intrenchment in spite of appalling losses. A band that is overpowered will fight to the last man; for it is the custom of the kingdom to punish cowardice with death. They are almost the only negroes who will deliver battle in the open field, in regular bodies with closed ranks. In Dahomey war is a passion of the ruler and the people, and the year is divided between fighting and feasting. The king's body-guard of five thousand unmarried women preserves the tradition of bravery, as European regiments preserve their flags. The mild Mandingos become obstinate in fight; they have minstrels who accompany armies to war, and recite the deeds of former heroes; but they are not capable of discipline. On the contrary, the negroes of Fernando Po march and exercise with a great regard to order. In Ashantee and upon the Gold Coast the negroes make use of horn signals in war to transmit orders to a distance; and on the White Nile and in Kaffa drummers are stationed in trees to telegraph commands.[Pg 779] Great circumspection is not universal; but the Veis maintain posts, and when they are threatened, a watch is kept night and day. The negroes of Akkra know the value of a ditched intrenchment.

The English praise the negro soldiers whom they have in Sierra Leone for good behavior, temperance, and discipline; and their Jolofs at the Gambia execute complicated manœuvres in a striking way. West-Indian troops have performed many distinguished services, and English officers say that they are as brave as Europeans; but in the heat of a fight they are apt to grow intractable and to behave wildly. The troops which Napoleon used in Calabria, drawn from the French Colonies, emulated the French soldiers, and arrived at great distinction.

D'Escayrac says that the native negro has eminent qualities for the making of a good soldier,—dependence upon a superior, unquestioning confidence in his sagacity, an enthusiastic courage which mounts to great audacity, passiveness, and capacity for waiting.

From this the Congos must be excepted. Large numbers of them deserted General Dessalines in San Domingo, and fled to the mountains, frightened at the daring of the French. Here, if brave, they might have been armed and officered by Spaniards to effect dangerous movements in his rear. But he knew their timidity, and gave himself no trouble about them. There is a genealogy which derives Toussaint from a Congo grandfather, a native prince of renown; but it was probably manufactured for him at the suggestion of his own achievements. The sullen-looking Congo is really gay, rollicking, disposed to idleness, careless and sensual, fatigued by the smallest act of reflection; Toussaint was grave, reticent, forecasting, tenacious, secretive, full of endurance and concentration, rapid and brave in war.[30] What a confident and noble aspect he had, when he left his guard and walked alone to the head of a column of old troops of his who had deserted to Desfourneaux, and were about to deliver their fire! "My children, will you fire upon your father?"—and down went four regiments upon their knees. The white officers tried to bring them under the fire of cannon, but it was too late. Here was a greater risk than Napoleon ran, after landing at Fréjus, on his march upon Paris.

Contempt for death is a universal trait of the native African.[31] The slaveholder says it is in consequence of his affinity to the brute, which does not know how to estimate a danger, and whose nervous organization is too dull to be thrilled and daunted in its presence. It is really in consequence of his single-mindedness: the big necks lift the blood, which is two degrees warmer than a white man's, and drench the brain with an ecstasy of daring. If he can clearly see the probable manner of his death, the blood is up and not down at the sight.[32] The negro's nerves are very susceptible; in cool blood he is easily alarmed at anything unexpected or threatening. His fancy is peopled with odd fears; he shrinks at the prospect of a punishment more grotesque or refined than usual. And when he becomes a Creole negro, his fancy is always shooting timid glances beneath the yoke of Slavery.[Pg 780] The negroes and mulattoes at San Domingo looked impassively at hanging, breaking upon the wheel, and quartering; but when the first guillotine was imported and set in action, they and the Creole whites shrank appalled to see the head disappear in the basket. It was too deft and sudden for their taste, and this mode of execution was abandoned for the more hearty and lacerating methods.

When a negro has a motive, his nerves grow firm, his imagination escapes before the rising passion, his contempt for death is not stolidity, but inspiration. In the smouldering surface lies an ember capable of white heat. That makes the negro soldier difficult to hold in hand or to call off. He has no fancy for grim sitting, like the Indian, to die by inches, though he can endure torture with tranquillity. He is too tropical for that; and after the exultation of a fight, in which he has been as savage as he can be, the process of torturing his foes seems tame, and he seldom does it, except by way of close reprisals to prevent the practice in his enemy. The French were invariably more cruel than the negroes.

Southern gentlemen think that the negro is incurably afraid of fire-arms, and too clumsy to use them with effect. It is a great mistake. White men who never touched a gun are equally clumsy and nervous. When the slavers began to furnish the native tribes with condemned muskets in exchange for slaves, many ludicrous scenes occurred. The Senegambians considered that the object was to get as much noise as possible out of the weapon. The people of Akkra planted the stock against their hips, shut both eyes and fired; they would not take aim, because it was their opinion that it brought certain death to see a falling enemy. Other tribes thought a musket was possessed, and at the moment of firing threw it violently away from them. When we consider the quality of the weapons furnished, this action will appear laudable. But as these superstitions disappeared, especially upon the Gold Coast and in Ashantee, negroes have learned to use the musket properly. Among the Gold-Coast negroes are good smiths, who have sometimes even made guns. In the West Indies, the Creole negro has become a sharp-shooter, very formidable on the skirts of woods and in the defiles of the mornes. He learned to deliver volleys with precision, and to use the bayonet with great valor. The old soldiers of Le Clerc and Rochambeau, veterans of the Rhine and Italy, were never known to presume upon negro incapacity to use a musket. The number of their dead and wounded taught them what men who are determined to be free can do with the white man's weapons.

Rainsford, who was an English captain of a West-Indian regiment, describes a review of fifty thousand soldiers of Toussaint on the Plaine du Cap. "Of the grandeur of the scene I had not the smallest conception. Each general officer had a demi-brigade, which went through the manual exercise with a degree of expertness seldom witnessed, and performed equally well several manœuvres applicable to their method of fighting. At a whistle a whole brigade ran three or four hundred yards, then, separating, threw themselves flat on the ground, changing to their backs or sides, keeping up a strong fire the whole of the time, till they were recalled; they then formed again, in an instant, into their wonted regularity. This single manœuvre was executed with such facility and precision as totally to prevent cavalry from charging them in bushy and hilly countries. Such complete subordination, such promptitude and dexterity, prevailed the whole time, as would have astonished any European soldier."

These were the men whose previous lives had been spent at the hoe-handle, and in feeding canes to the cylinders of the sugar-mill.

Rainsford gives this general view of the operations of Toussaint's forces:—"Though formed into regular divisions, the soldiers of the one were trained to the duties of the other, and all understood the management of artillery with[Pg 781] the greatest accuracy. Their chief dexterity, however, was in the use of the bayonet. With that dreadful weapon fixed on muskets of extraordinary length in their hands, neither cavalry nor artillery could subdue infantry, although of unequal proportion; but when they were attacked in their defiles, no power could overcome them. Infinitely more skillful than the Maroons of Jamaica in their cock-pits, though not more favored by Nature, they found means to place whole lines in ambush, continuing sometimes from one post to another, and sometimes stretching from their camps in the form of a horse-shoe. With these lines artillery was not used, to prevent their being burdened or the chance of loss; but the surrounding heights of every camp were well fortified, according to the experience and judgment of different European engineers, with ordnance of the best kind, in proper directions. The protection afforded by these outworks encouraged the blacks to every exertion of skill or courage; while the alertness constantly displayed embarrassed the enemy; who, frequently irritated, or worn out with fatigue, flew in disorder to the attack, or retreated with difficulty. Sometimes a regular battle or skirmish ensued, to seduce the enemy to a confidence in their own superiority, when in a moment reinforcements arose from an ambush in the vicinity, and turned the fortune of the day. If black troops in the pay of the enemy were despatched to reconnoitre when an ambush was probable, and were discovered, not a man returned, from the hatred which their perfidy had inspired; nor could an officer venture beyond the lines with impunity."

The temporary successes enjoyed by the French General Le Clerc, which led to the surrender of Toussaint and his subsequent deportation to France, were owing to the defection of several black officers in command of important posts, who delivered up all their troops and munitions to the enemy. The whole of Toussaint's first line, protecting the Artibonite and the mountains, was thus unexpectedly forced by the French, who plied the blacks with suave proclamations, depreciating the idea of a return to slavery. Money and promises of personal promotion were also freely used. The negro is vain and very fond of pomp. This is his weakest point. The Creole negro loved to make great expenditures, and to imitate the lavish style of the slaveholders. So did many of the mulattoes. Toussaint's officers were not all black, and the men of color proved accessible to French cajolery.

Take a single case to show how this change of sentiment was produced without bribery. When the French expedition under Le Clere arrived, the mulatto General Maurepas commanded at Port-de-Paix. He had not yet learned whether Toussaint intended to rely upon the proclamation of Bonaparte and to deliver up the military posts. General Humbert was sent against him with a strong column, and demanded the surrender of the fort. Said Maurapas,—"I am under the orders of Toussaint, who is my chief; I cannot deliver the forts to you without his orders. Wait till I receive his instructions; it will be only a matter of four-and-twenty hours." Humbert, who knew that Toussaint was in full revolt, replied,—"I have orders to attack."

"Very well. I cannot surrender without an order from General Toussaint. If you attack me, I shall be obliged to defend myself."

Maurepas retired, and took his station alone upon a rampart of the works. Humbert's troops, numbering four thousand, opened fire. Maurepas remains awhile in the storm of bullets to reconnoitre, then coolly descends and opens his own fire. He had but seven hundred blacks and sixty whites. The French attacked four times and were four times repulsed, with the loss of fifteen hundred men. Humbert was obliged to retreat, before the reinforcement which had been despatched under General Debelle could reach him. Maurepas's orders were not[Pg 782] to attack, but to defend. So he instantly hastened to another post, which intercepted the route by which General Debelle was coming, met him, and fought him there, repulsed him, and took seven cannon.

This was not an encouraging commencement for these children of the French Revolution, who had beaten Suwarrow in Switzerland and blasted the Mameluke cavalry with rolling fire, who had debouched from the St. Bernard upon the plains of Piedmont in time to gather Austrian flags at Marengo, and who added the name of Hohenlinden to the glory of Moreau. Humbert himself, at the head of four thousand grenadiers, had restored the day which preceded the surrender of the Russians at Zürich.

Le Clerc was obliged to say that the First Consul never had the intention of restoring slavery. Humbert himself carried this proclamation to Maurepas, and with it gained admittance to the intrenchments which he could not storm. This single defection placed four thousand admirable troops, and the harbor of Port-de-Paix, in the hands of the French, and exposed Toussaint's flank at Gonaïves; and its moral effect was so great upon the blacks as to encourage Le Clerc to persist in his enterprise.

In the brief period of pacification which preceded this attempt of Bonaparte to reconquer the island, Toussaint was mainly occupied with the organization of agriculture. His army then consisted of only fifteen demi-brigades, numbering in all 22,500, a guard of honor of one thousand infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and an artillery corps. But the military department was in perfect order. There was an État-Major, consisting of a general of division with two aides-de-camp, a company of guides, one of dragoons, and two secretaries,—ten brigadier-generals with ten secretaries, ten aides-de-camp, and an escort,—and a board of health, composed of one chief inspector, six physicians, and six surgeons-general. The commissary and engineering departments were also thoroughly organized. The pay of the 22,500 men amounted to 7,838,400 francs; rations, 6,366,195; musicians, 239,112; uniforming, 1,887,682; officers' uniforms, 208,837. The pay of a non-commissioned officer and private was 55 centimes per day.

In this army there were one thousand mulattoes, and five or six hundred whites, recruited from the various artillery regiments which had been in the colony during the last ten years. Every cultivator was a member of the great reserve of this army, its spy and outpost and partisan.

The chief interest of the campaign against Le Clerc turns upon the obstinate defence of Crête-à-Pierrot. Here the best qualities of black troops were manifested. This was a simple oblong redoubt, thrown up by the English during their brief occupation of the western coast, and strengthened by the negroes. The Artibonite, which is the most important river of the colony, threading its way from the mountains of the interior through the mornes, which are not many miles from the sea, passed under this redoubt, which was placed to command the principal defile into the inaccessible region beyond. The rich central plains, the river, and the mountains belonged to whoever held this post. The Mirbalais quarter could raise potatoes enough to nourish sixty thousand men accustomed to that kind of food.

When Toussaint's plan was spoiled by defection and defeat, he transferred immense munitions to the mountains, and decided to concentrate, for the double purpose of holding the place, if possible, and of getting the French away from their supplies. It was a simple breastwork of Campeachy-wood faced with earth, and had a ditch fifteen feet deep. At a little distance was a small redoubt upon an eminence which overlooked the larger work. To the east the great scarped rocks forbade an approach, and dense spinous undergrowth filled the surrounding forest. The defence of this place was given to Dessalines, a most audacious and able fighter. Toussaint intended to[Pg 783] harass the investing columns from the north, and Charles Belair was posted to the south, beyond and near the Artibonite. Toussaint would then be between the fortress and the French corps of observation which was left in the north,—a position which he turned to brilliant advantage. Four French columns, of more than twelve thousand men, commenced, from as many different directions, a slow and difficult movement upon this work. The first column which came within sight of it found a body of negroes drawn up, as if ready to give battle on the outside. It was the surplus of one or two thousand troops which the intrenchment would not hold. The French, expecting to rout them and enter the redoubt with them, charged with the bayonet; the blacks fled, and the French reached the glacis. Suddenly the blacks threw themselves into the ditch, thus exposing the French troops to a terrible fire, which was opened from the redoubt. General Debelle was severely wounded, and three or four hundred men were stretched upon the field.

The advance in another quarter was checked by a small redoubt that opened an unexpected fire. It was necessary to take it, and cannon had to be employed. When the balls began to reach them, the blacks danced and sang, and soon, issuing suddenly, with, cries, "En avant! Canons à nous," attempted to take the pieces with the bayonet. But the supporting fire was too strong, they were thrown into disorder, and the redoubt was entered by the French.

Early one morning the camp of the blacks was surprised by one of the columns, which had surmounted all the difficulties in its way. Notwithstanding the previous experience, the French thought this time to enter, and advanced precipitately. Many blacks entered the redoubt, the rest jumped into the ditch, and the same terrible fire vomited forth. Another column advanced to support the attack; but the first one was already crushed and in full retreat. The blacks swarmed to the parapets, threw planks across the ditch, and attacked both columns with drums beating the charge. The French turned, and met just resistance enough to bring them again within range, the same fire broke forth, and the columns gave way, with a loss to the first of four hundred and eighty men, and two or three hundred to the latter.

Upon this retreat, the cultivators of the neighborhood exchanged shots with the flanking parties, and displayed great boldness.

It was plain to the French that this open redoubt would have to be invested; but before this was done, Dessalines had left the place with all the troops which could not be fed there, and cut his way across a column with the loss of a hundred men. The defence was committed to a quarteroon named Lamartinière.

While the French were completing the investment, the morning music of the black band floated the old strains of the Marseillaise within their lines. La Croix declares that it produced a painful sensation. The soldiers looked at each other, and recalled the great marches which carried victory to that music against the tyrants of Europe. "What!" they said, "are our barbarous enemies in the right? Are we no longer the soldiers of the Republic? Have we become the servile instruments of la politique?" No doubt of that; these children of the Marseillaise and adorers of Moreau had become de trop in the Old World, and had been sent to leave their bones in the defiles of Pensez-y-bien.[33]

The investment of Crête-à-Pierrot was regularly made, by Bacheiu, an engineer who had distinguished himself in Egypt. Batteries were established before the head of each division, a single mortar was got into position, and a battery of seven pieces played upon the little redoubt above. This is getting to be vastly more troublesome than the fort of Bard, which held in check these very[Pg 784] officers and men upon their road to Marengo.

Rochambeau thought he had extinguished the fire of the little redoubt, and would fain storm it. The blacks had protected it by an abatis ten feet deep and three in height, in which our gallant ally of the Revolution entangled himself, and was held there till he had lost three hundred men, and gained nothing.

"Thus the Crête-à-Pierrot, in which (and in the small redoubt) there were hardly twelve hundred men,[34] had already cost us more than fifteen hundred in sheer loss. So we fell back upon the method which we should have tried in the beginning, a vigorous blockade and a sustained cannonade."

The fire was kept up night and day for three days without cessation. Descourtilz, a French naturalist, who had been forced to act as surgeon, was in the redoubt, and he describes the scenes of the interior. The enfilading fire shattered the timber-work, and the bombs set fire to the tents made of macaw-tree foliage, which the negroes threw flaming into the ditch. A cannoneer sees a bomb falls close to a sick friend of his who is asleep; considering that sleep is very needful for him, he seizes the bomb, and cuts off the fuse with a knife. In a corner nods a grenadier overcome with fatigue; a bomb falls at his side; he wakes simultaneously with the explosion, to be blown to sleep again. The soldiers stand and watch the bright parabola, in dead silence; then comes the cry, "Gare à la bombe!" Hungry and thirsty men chew leaden balls for relief. Five hundred men have fallen. Some of the officers come for the surgeon's opium. They will not be taken alive. But the excitement of the scene is so great that opium fails of its wonted effect, and they complain of the tardiness of the dose. Other officers make their wills with sang froid, as if expecting a tranquil administration of their estates.

During the last night the little garrison evacuates the upper redoubt, and is seen coming towards the work. Down goes the drawbridge, the blacks issue to meet them, taking them for a storming party of the French. There is a mutual mistake, both parties of blacks deliver their fire, the sortie party retreats, and the garrison enters the redoubt with them. Here they discover the mistake, but their rage is so great that they exhaust their cartridges upon each other at four paces. Descourtilz takes advantage of the confusion to throw himself into the ditch, and escapes under a volley.

The place is no longer tenable, and must be evacuated. A scout apprises Toussaint of the necessity, and it is arranged that he shall attack from the north, while Lamartinière issues from the redoubt. During Toussaint's feint, the black garrison cut their way through the left of Rochambeau's division.

General Le Clerc cannot withhold his admiration. "The retreat which the commandant of Crête-à-Pierrot dared to conceive and execute is a remarkable feat of arms. We surrounded his post to the number of more than twelve thousand men; he saved himself, did not lose half his garrison, and left us only his dead and wounded. We found the baggage of Dessalines, a few white cannoneers, the music of the guard of honor, a magazine of powder, a number of muskets, and fifteen cannon of great calibre."

Toussaint turned immediately towards the north, raised the cultivators, attacked the corps of observation, drove it into Cap Français, ravaged the plain, turned and defeated Hardy's division, which attempted to keep open the communications with Le Clerc, and would have taken the city, if fresh reinforcements from France had not at the same time arrived in the harbor.

After the arrest of Toussaint, Dessalines reorganized the resistance of the blacks, and attacked Rochambeau in the open field, driving him into the city, where Le Clerc had just died: in that infected atmosphere he kept the best troops of France besieged. "Ah! ce[Pg 785] gaillard," the French called the epidemic which came to complete the work of the blacks. Twenty thousand men reinforced Rochambeau, but he capitulated, after a terrible assault which Dessalines made with twenty-seven thousand men, on the 28th November, 1803.

One more touch of negro soldiery must suffice. There was an intrenchment, called Verdière, occupied by the French, upon a hill overlooking the city. Dessalines sent a negro general, Capoix, with three demi-brigades to take it. "They recoiled," says Schoelcher, "horribly mutilated by the fire from the intrenchment. He rallied them: the grape tore them in pieces, and hurled them again to the bottom of the hill. Boiling with rage, Capoix goes to seek fresh troops, mounts a fiery horse, and rushes forward for the third time; but the thousand deaths which the fort delivers repulse his soldiers. He foams with anger, exhorts them, pricks them on, and leads them up a fourth time. A ball kills his horse, and he rolls over, but, soon extricating himself, he runs to the head of the troops. 'En avant! En avant!' he repeats, with enthusiasm; at the same instant his plumed chapeau is swept from his head by a grape-shot, but he still throws himself forward to the assault. 'En avant! En avant!'

"Then great shouts went up along the ramparts of the city: 'Bravo! bravo! vivat! vivat!' cried Rochambeau and his staff, who were watching the assault. A drum-roll is heard, the fire of Verdière pauses, an officer issues from the city, gallops to the very front of the surprised blacks, and saluting, says,—'The Captain-General Rochambeau and the French army send their admiration to the general officer who has just covered himself with glory.' This magnificent message delivered, he turned his horse, reëntered the city, and the assault is renewed. Imagine if Capoix and his soldiers did new prodigies of valor. But the besieged were also electrified, would not be overcome, and Dessalines sent the order to retire. The next day a groom led a richly caparisoned horse to the quarter-general of the blacks, which Rochambeau offered as a mark of his admiration, and to replace that which he regretted had been killed."

The valor and fighting qualities of the blacks in San Domingo were nourished by the wars which sprang from their own necessities. They were the native growths of the soil which had been long enriched by their innocent blood; more blood must be invested in it, if they would own it. Learning to fight was equivalent to learning to live. Their cause was neither represented nor championed by a single power on earth, and nothing but the hope of making enormous profits out of their despair led Anglo-American schooners to run English and French blockades, to land arms and powder in the little coves of the island. Will the negro fight as well, if the motive and the exigency are inferior?

We make a present to the Southern negro of an excellent chance for fighting, with our compliments. Some of us do it with our curses. The war does not spring for them out of enthusiasm and despair which seize their hearts at once, as they view a degradation from which they flee and a liberty to which they are all hurrying. They are asked to fight for us as well as for themselves, and this asking is, like emancipation, a military necessity. The motive lacks the perfect form and incandescence, like that of a star leaping from a molten sun, which lighted battle-ardors in the poor slaves of San Domingo. And we even hedge about this invitation to bleed for us with conditions which are evidently dictated by a suspicion that the motive is not great enough to make the negro depend upon himself. If the war does not entirely sweep away these poor beginnings and thrust white and black together into the arms of thrilling danger, we need not expect great fighting from him. He may not disgrace himself, but he will not ennoble the republic till his heart's core is the war's core, and the colors of two races run into one.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] See Numbers LVI., LVIII., LIX., and LXV. of this magazine.

[26] La Cause des Esclaves Nègres et des Habitans de la Guinée, portée au Tribunal de la Justice, de la Religion, de la Politique: I. 335; II. 66.

[27] Gros peau, thick skin, was the French equivalent to Bozal: peau fin was the Creole negro.

[28] Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, Vol. II. p. 134.

[29] Anthropologie der Naturvölker, von Dr. Theodor Waitz. Zweiter Theil: die Negervölker und ihre Verwandten. Leipzig, 1860. Very full, minute, and humane in tone, though telling all the facts about the manners and habits of native Africans.

Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Révolution de Saint Dominique. Par le Lieutenant-Général Baron Pamphile de La Croix. 2 Tom. Generally very fair to the negro soldier: himself a distinguished soldier.

Le Système Colonial dévoilé. Par le Baron de Vastey, mulatto. Terrible account of the plantation cruelties.

Mémoires pour servir a l'Histoire d'Hayti. Par l'Adjutant-Général Boisrond-Tonnerre. Written to explain the defection of Dessalines from Toussaint, and the military movements of the former. The author was a mulatto.

Des Colonies, et particulièrement de celle de Saint-Domingue; Mémoire Historique et Politique. Par le Colonel Malenfant, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, etc. A pretty impartial book, by a pro-slavery man.

L. F. Sonthonax à Bourdon de l'Oise. Pamphlet. The vindication of Sonthonax for declaring emancipation.

Colonies Étrangères et Haïti. Par Victor Schoelcher. 2 Tom. Valuable, but leaning too much towards the negro against the mulatto.

Histoire des Désastres de Saint-Domingue. Paris, 1795. Journalistic, with the coloring of the day.

Campagnes des Français à Saint-Domingue, et Réfutation des Reproches faits au Capitaine-Général Rochambeau. Par Ph. Albert de Lattre, Propriétaire, etc., 1805. Shows that Rochambeau could not help himself.

Voyages d'un Naturaliste. 3 Tom. Par Descourtilz. Pro-slavery, but filled with curious information.

Expédition à St. Domingue. Par A. Metral. Useful.

The Empire of Hayti. By Marcus Rainsford, Captain in West-Indian Regiment. Occasionally valuable.

[30] The independent Congos in the interior are more active and courageous, expert and quarrelsome than those upon the coast, who have been subjected by the Portuguese.

[31] When the insurgents evacuated a fort near Port-au-Prince, upon the advance of the English, a negro was left in the powder-magazine with a lighted match, to wait till the place was occupied. Here he remained all night; but when the English came later than was expected, his match had burned out. Was that insensibility to all ideas, or devotion to one?

[32] Praloto was a distinguished Italian in the French artillery service. His battery of twenty field-pieces at Port-au-Prince held the whole neighborhood in check, till at length a young negro named Hyacinthe roused the slaves to attack it. In the next fight, they rushed upon this battery, insensible to its fire, embraced the guns and were bayoneted, still returned to them, stuffed the arms of their dead comrades into the muzzles, swarmed over them, and extinguished the fire. This was done against a supporting fire of French infantry. The blacks lost a thousand men, but captured the cannon, and drove the whole force into the city.

[33] Think twice before you try me: the name of a morne of extraordinary difficulty, which had to be surmounted by one of the French columns.

[34] Negro authorities say 750.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

We do not exactly know how to characterize this jubilant volume. The author, not content to denounce generally the poets of sentimentality and the prophets of despair, has evidently a science of Joy latent in his mind, of which his rich, discursive, and somewhat rollicking sentences give but an imperfect exposition. He is in search of an ideal law of Cheerfulness, which neither history nor literature fully illustrates, but which he still seeks with an undoubting faith. Every transient glimpse of his law he eagerly seizes, whether indicated in events or in persons. And it must be admitted that he is not ignorant either of the great annalists or the great writers of the world. He knows Herodotus as well as he knows Hume, Thucydides as intimately as Gibbon. Xenophon and Plutarch are as familiar to him as Michelet, Thiers, and Guizot. He has studied Aristænetus and Lucian as closely as Horace Walpole and Thackeray,—is as ready to quote from Plato as from Rabelais,—and throws the results of his wide study, with an occasional riotous disregard of prim literary proprieties, into a fierce defiance of everything which makes against his favorite theory, that there is nothing in pure theology, sound ethics, and healthy literature, nothing in the historic records of human life, which can justify the discontent of the sentimentalist or the scorn of the misanthrope.

Engaged thus in an almost Quixotic assault on the palpable miseries of human existence,—miseries which are as much acknowledged by Homer as by Euripides, by Ariosto as by Dante, by Shakspeare as by Milton, by Goethe as by Lamartine,—he has a difficult work to perform. Still he does not bate a jot of heart and hope. He discriminates, with the art of a true critic, between objective representations of human life and subjective protests against human limitations, errors, miseries, and sins. As far as either representation embodies the human principle of Joy,—whether Greek or Roman, ancient or modern, Christian or Pagan,—he is content with the evidence. The moment a writer of either school insinuates a principle or sentiment of Despair, whether he be a dramatist or a sentimentalist, the author enters his earnest protest. Classical and Romantic poets, romancers and historians, when they slip into misery-mongers, are equally the objects of his denunciations. Keats and Tennyson fare nearly as ill as Byron and Heine. Mr. Leland feels assured that the human race is entitled to joy, and there is something almost comical in his passionate assault on the morbid genius of the world. He seems to say, "Why do you not accept the conditions of happiness? The conditions are simple, and nothing but your pestilent wilfulness prevents your compliance with them."

This "pestilent wilfulness" is really the key to the whole position. All objective as well as subjective writers have been impotent to provide the way by which the seeker after perfect and permanent content can attain and embody it. It has been sought through wit, humor, fancy, imagination, reason; but it has been sought in vain. Our author, who, after nearly exhausting all the concrete representatives of the philosophy of Joy, admits that nobody embodies his ideal of happiness, surrenders his ideal, as far as it has been practically expressed in life or thought. Rabelais dissatisfies him; Scarron dissatisfies him; Molière, Swift, Sterne, not to mention others, dissatisfy him. Every ally he brings forward to sustain his position is reduced by analysis into a partial enemy of his creed. But while we cannot concur in Mr. Leland's theory in his exclusive statement of it, and confess to a strong liking for many writers whom he considers effeminate, we cordially agree with him in his plea for "Sunshine in Thought," and sympathize in his vigorous and valorous assault on the morbid elements of our modern literature. We think that poets should be as cheerful as possible; whereas[Pg 787] some of them seem to think it is their duty to be as fretful as possible, and to make misery an invariable accompaniment of genius. The primary object of all good literature is to invigorate and to cheer, not to weaken and depress; it should communicate mental and moral life, as well as convey sentiments and ideas,—should brace and strengthen the mind, as well as fill it; and when it whimpers and wails, when it teaches despair as philosophy, especially when it uses the enchantments of imagination to weaken the active powers, its effect is mischievous. Woe, considered as a luxury, is the most expensive of all luxuries; and there is danger to the mental and moral health even in the pensive sadness which, to some readers, sheds such a charm over the meditations of that kind of genius which is rather thoughtful than full of thought. For the melodious miseries which mediocrity mimics, for the wretchedness which some fifth-rate rhymers assume in order to make themselves interesting, there can, of course, be no toleration. Mr. Leland pounds them as with the hammer of Thor, and would certainly beat out their brains, had not Nature fortunately neglected to put such perilous matter into craniums exposed to such ponderous blows.

Apart from the general theory and purpose of the book, there is a great deal of talent and learning exhibited in the illustrations of the subject. The remarks on Aristophanes, Rabelais, Swift, Sterne, and Heine,—half analysis, half picture,—are very striking; and there are, throughout the volume, continual flashes of suggestive thought and vivid portraiture, which both delight and detain the reader. The style is that of animated conversation,—the conversation of a man whose veins are as full of blood as his mind is of ideas, who is hilarious from abounding health, and whose occasional boisterousness of manner proceeds from the robustness of his make and the cheer of his soul. The whole volume tends to create in thought that "sunshine" which it so joyously recommends and celebrates. The reader is warmed by the ardor and earnestness with which propositions he may distrust are urged upon his attention, and closes the volume with that feeling of pleased excitement which always comes from contact with a fresh and original mind.

Paradoxical as it may appear, we believe there never was a time when the true and pure standard of gentlemanhood could be more impressively raised and upheld in this republic than now. The vast and keen civil conflict which so deeply agitates our political life has laid bare the groundwork and brought to the surface the latent elements of our social life, so that a new, an obvious, and a searching test is instinctively applied to character; as in all times of profound moral excitement, shams grow fantastic and contemptible, and principles of action and being rise to superlative worth. The question, What constitutes the Gentleman? suggested at first by the preposterous and exclusive claims thereto arrogantly put forth by a little community, in justification of profane and destructive violence to a nation's welfare, has come to be regarded as embracing all the obligations, responsibilities, and humanities that make up and certify Christian manhood and genuine patriotism; the wide and deep significance of a word too often confounded with mere manners is thus practically found to indicate the most vital elements of personal worth and social well-being. Accordingly, a comprehensive, philosophical definition and illustration of the Gentleman, in the ideal grace and greatness and in the real authority and use of that so much misunderstood and seldom achieved character, is doubly welcome at this hour, the strife and discussion whereof bring out in such strong relief the true animus and equipment of statesmen, soldiers, citizens, men and women, and force us to realize the poverty of soul, the inherent baseness, or the magnanimity and rectitude of our fellow-creatures, with a vividness never before experienced. How indispensable to the welfare of the State is a society based on higher motives than those of material ambition, and how impossible is the existence of such a society, except through individual probity and disinterestedness, is a lesson written in blood and tears before our eyes to-day; and thrice welcome, we repeat, is the clear and emphatic exposition of the Gentleman, as an incarnation of the justice, love, and honor, whereon, in the last analysis, rest the[Pg 788] hopes and welfare of the nation. No ethical or æsthetical treatise could be more seasonable than this of Mr. Calvert's. We regard it as the best lay-sermon thus far evoked by the moral exigencies of the hour; however appropriate it may also be and is to any and all times and readers of taste and thought, a superficial, merely dilettante essay on such a subject and at such a time would repel instead of alluring.

The charming little volume before us, while made genially attractive by occasional playfulness and anecdote, is yet pervaded by an earnestness born of strong conviction and deep sympathies. It analyzes the springs of character, traces conduct to its elemental source, and follows it to its ultimate influence. To a concise style it unites an expansive spirit; with a tone of rich and high culture it blends the vivacity and grace of the most genial colloquy. From the etymology of the word to the humanity of the character, a full, forcible, frank, and fervent discussion of the Gentleman is given, as he figures in history, in society, in domestic life, and in literature,—and as he lives, a grand and gracious ideal, in the consciousness of the author. Beginning with the meaning, origin, and use of the word Gentleman, Mr. Calvert gives a critical analysis of its historical personation. As a chevalier type, in such men as Sidney and Bayard. Its ethical and æsthetical meaning is finely exemplified in the contrast between Charles Lamb and George IV., Leicester and Hampden, Washington and Napoleon. The Gentleman in St. Paul is well illustrated. The relation of this character to antiquity is defined with a scholar's zest: whatever of its force and flavor is discernible in Socrates and Brutus is gracefully indicated; the deficiency of Homer's heroes, excepting Hector, therein, is ably demonstrated. These and like illustrations of so prolific a theme inevitably suggest episodes of argument, incidental, yet essential to the main question; and the just and benign remarks on the Duel, the Position of Women in Ancient and Modern Society, and the Influence of Christianity upon Manners, are striking in their scope and style, and breathe the lofty and tender spirit of that Faith which inculcates disinterestedness as the latent and lasting inspiration of the Gentleman. Perhaps the most delectable illustrations, which give both form and beauty to this essay, are those drawn from modern literature: they are choice specimens of criticism, and full of subtile discrimination in tracing the relation of literature to life. We would instance especially the chapters on Shakspeare's Gentleman; the recognition of the Gentleman in Sir Roger de Coverley, Uncle Toby, and Don Quixote; and the admirable distinction pointed out between the characters of Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. There is no part of the volume more worthy attention than the remarks of a "high-bred tone in writing." The hollowness of Chesterfield's code is keenly exposed; Honor and Vulgarity are freshly and ably defined; Fashion, Pride, and Vanity, the conventional elements of the Gentleman, are treated with philosophical justice; the favorite characters of fiction, and the most renowned poets and heroes, beaux and braves, pass before us, and are subjected to the test of that Christian ideal of the Gentleman so clearly defined and firmly applied by the intrepid author; and many a disguised coxcomb is stripped of his borrowed plumes, imperial parvenus exposed as charlatans in manners as well as morals, and heroic, but modest souls, of whom the world's court-calendar gives no hint, stand forth exemplars of the highest, because the most soulful breeding.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 11, NO. 68, JUNE, 1863 ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.