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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:36:13 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11196-0.txt b/11196-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abb4466 --- /dev/null +++ b/11196-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9277 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11196 *** + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. IV.--JULY, 1859.--NO. XXI. + + + +THOMAS PAINE'S + +SECOND APPEARANCE IN THE UNITED STATES. + + +"Nay, so far did he carry his obstinacy, that he absolutely invited a +professed Anti-Diluvian from the Gallic Empire, who illuminated the +whole country with his principles and his nose."--Salmagundi. + +We lukewarm moderns can hardly conceive the degree of violence and +bitterness reached by party-feeling in the early years of the United +States Constitution. A Mississippi member of Congress listening to a +Freesoil speech is mild in demeanor and expression, if we compare his +ill-nature with the spiteful fury of his predecessors in legislation +sixty years ago. The same temper was visible throughout the land. Nobody +stood aloof. Two hostile camps were pitched over against each other, and +every man in Israel was to be found in his tent. Our great experiment +was a new one; on its success depended the personal welfare of every +citizen, and naturally every citizen was anxious to train up that +experiment in the way which promised to his reason or to his feelings +the best result. + +The original Federalists of 1787 were in favor of effacing as much +as possible the boundary-lines of the Thirteen Colonies, and of +consolidating them into a new, united, and powerful people, under a +strong central government. The first Anti-Federalists were made up of +several sects: one branch, sincere republicans, were fearful that the +independence of the States was in danger, and that consolidation would +prepare the way for monarchy; another, small, but influential, still +entertained the wish for reunion with England, or, at least, for the +adoption of the English form of government,--and, hoping that the +dissensions of the old Confederation might lead to some such result, +drank the health of the Bishop of Osnaburg in good Madeira, and objected +to any system which might place matters upon a permanent republican +basis; and a third party, more numerous and noisy than either, who knew +by long experience that the secret of home popularity was to inspire +jealousy of the power of Congress, were unwilling to risk the loss of +personal consequence in this new scheme of centralization, and took good +care not to allow the old local prejudices and antipathies to slumber. +The two latter classes of patriots are well described by Franklin in his +"Comparison of the Ancient Jews with the Modern Anti-Federalists,"--a +humorous allegory, which may have suggested to the Senator from Ohio his +excellent conceit of the Israelite with Egyptian principles. "Many," +wrote Franklin, "still retained an affection for Egypt, the land of +their nativity, and whenever they felt any inconvenience or hardship, +though the natural and unavoidable effect of their change of situation, +exclaimed against their leaders as the authors of their trouble, +and were not only for returning into Egypt, but for stoning their +deliverers.... Many of the chiefs thought the new Constitution might be +injurious to their particular interests,--that the profitable places +would be engrossed by the families and friends of Moses and Aaron, and +others, equally well born, excluded." + +Time has decided this first point in favor of the Unionists. None of +the evils prophesied by their opponents have as yet appeared. The +independence of the individual States remains inviolate, and, although +the central executive has grown yearly more powerful, a monarchy +seems as remote as ever. Local distinctions are now little prized in +comparison with federal rank. It is not every man who can recollect the +name of the governor of his own State; very few can tell that of the +chief of the neighboring Commonwealth. The old boundaries have grown +more and more indistinct; and when we look at the present map of the +Union, we see only that broad black line known as Mason and Dixon's, on +one side of which are neatness, thrift, enterprise, and education,--and +on the other, whatever the natives of that region may please to call it. + +After 1789, the old Egypt faction ceased to exist, except as grumblers; +but the States-Rights men, though obliged to acquiesce in the +Constitution, endeavored, by every means of "construction" their +ingenuity could furnish, to weaken and restrict the exercise and the +range of its power. The Federalists, on the other hand, held that want +of strength was the principal defect of the system, and were for adding +new buttresses to the Constitutional edifice. It is curious to remark +that neither party believed in the permanency of the Union. Then +came into use the mighty adjectives "constitutional" and +"unconstitutional,"--words of vast import, doing equally good service +to both parties in furnishing a word to express their opinion of the +measures they urged and of those they objected to. And then began to be +strained and frayed that much-abused piece of parchment which Thomas +Paine called the political Bible of the American people, and foolishly +thought indispensable to liberty in a representative government. "Ask an +American if a certain act be constitutional," says Paine, "he pulls out +his pocket volume, turns to page and verse, and gives you a correct +answer in a moment." Poor Mr. Paine! if you had lived fifty years +longer, you would have seen that paper constitutions, like the paper +money you despised so justly, depend upon honesty and confidence for +their value, and are at a sad discount in hard times of fraud and +corruption. Unprincipled men find means of evading the written agreement +upon their face by ingenious subterfuges or downright repudiation. An +arbitrary majority will construe the partnership articles to suit their +own interests, and _stat pro constitutione voluntas_. It is true that +the _litera scripta_ remains, but the meaning is found to vary with the +interpreter. + +In 1791, when the two parties were fairly formed and openly pitted +against each other, a new element of discord had entered into politics, +which added the bitterness of class-feeling to the usual animosity of +contention. Society in the Middle and Southern States had been composed +of a few wealthy and influential families, and of a much more numerous +lower class who followed the lead of the great men. These lesser +citizens had now determined to set up for themselves, and had enlisted +in the ranks of the Anti-Federalists, who soon assumed the name and +style of Democrats, an epithet first bestowed upon them in derision, but +joyfully adopted,--one of the happiest hits in political nomenclature +ever made. _In hoc verbo vinces:_ In that word lay victory. If any one +be tempted, in this age, to repeat the stupid question, "What's in a +name?" let him be answered,--Everything: place, power, pelf, perhaps we +may add peculation. "The Barons of Virginia," chiefs of State-Rights, +who at home had been in favor of a governor and a senate for life, and +had little to fear from any lower class in their own neighborhood, saw +how much was to be gained by "taking the people into partnership," as +Herodotus phrases it, and commenced that alliance with the proletaries +of the North which has proved so profitable to Southern leaders. In New +England, the land of industry, self-control, and superior cultivation, +(for the American Parnassus was then in Connecticut, either in Hartford, +or on Litchfield Hill,) there was, comparatively speaking, no lower +class. The Eastern men, whose levelling spirit and equality of ranks +had been so much disliked and dreaded by the representatives from other +Colonies in the Ante-Revolutionary Congresses, had undergone little or +no social change by the war, and probably had at that period a more +correct idea of civil liberty and free government than any other people +on the face of the earth. General Charles Lee wrote to an English +friend, that the New-Englanders were the only Americans who really +understood the meaning of republicanism, and many years later De +Tocqueville came to nearly the same opinion:--_"C'est dans la Nouvelle +Angleterre que se sont combinées les deux ou trois idées principales, +qui aujourd'hui forment les bases de la théorie sociale des +États-Unis."_ In this region Federalism reigned supreme. The +New-Englanders desired a strong, honest, and intelligent government; +they thought, with John Adams, that "true equality is to do as you would +be done by," and agreed with Hamilton, that "a government in which every +man may aspire to any office was free enough for all purposes"; and +judging from what they saw at home, they looked upon Anti-Federalism not +only as erroneous in theory, but as disreputable in practice. "The name +of Democrat," writes a fierce old gentleman to his son, "is despised; it +is synonymous with infamy." Out of New England a greater social change +was going forward. Already appeared that impatience of all restraint +which is so alarming a symptom of our times. Every rogue, "who felt the +halter draw," wanted to know if it was for tyranny like this that the +Colonies had rebelled. "Such a monster of a government has seldom or +never been known on earth. A blessed Revolution, a blessed Revolution, +indeed!--_but farmers, mechanics, and laborers had no share in it._ We +are the asses who pay." This was the burden of the Democratic song. + +But the real issue between the two parties, which underlay all their +proposed measures and professed principles, was the old struggle of +classes, modified of course by the time and the place. The Democrats +contended for perfect equality, political and social, and as little +power as possible in the central government so long as their party was +not in command. The Federalists, who held the reins, were for a strong +conservative administration, and a wholesome distinction of classes. +The two parties were not long in waiting for flags to rally around, and +fresh fields on which to fight. The French Revolution furnished both. +In its early stages it had excited a general sympathy in America; and, +indeed, so has every foreign insurrection, rebellion, or riot since, no +matter where or why it occurred, provided good use has been made of the +sacred words Revolution and Liberty. This cry has never been echoed in +this country without exciting a large body of men to mass-meetings, +dinners, and other public demonstrations, who do not stop to consider +what it means, or whether, in the immediate instance, it has any meaning +at all. John Adams said in his "Defence of American Constitutions," "Our +countrymen will never run delirious after a word or a name." Mr. Adams +was much mistaken. If, according to the Latin proverb, a word is +sufficient for a wise man, so, in another sense, it is all that is +needful for fools. But as the Revolution advanced in France towards +republicanism, the Federalists, who thought the English system, less the +king and the hereditary lords, the best scheme of government, began to +grow lukewarm. When it became evident that the New Era was to end in +bloodshed, instead of universal peace and good-will towards men,--that +the Rights of Man included murder, confiscation, and atheism,--that +the Sovereignty of the People meant the rule of King Mob, who seemed +determined to carry out to the letter Diderot's famous couplet,-- + + "Et des boyaux du dernier prêtre + Serrez le cou du dernier des rois,"-- + +then the adjective _French_ became in Federal mouths an epithet of +abhorrence and abuse; up went the flag of dear Old England, the defender +of the faith and of social order. The opposition party, on the contrary, +saw in the success of the French people, in their overthrow of kings +and nobles, a cheerful encouragement to their own struggle against the +aristocratic Federalists, and would allow no sanguinary irregularities +to divert their sympathy from the great Democratic triumph abroad. The +gay folds of the tricolor which floated over them seemed to shed upon +their heads a mild influence of that Gallic madness that led them into +absurdities we could not now believe, were they not on record. The +fashions, sartorial and social, of the French were affected; amiable +Yankees called each other _citizen_, invented the feminine _citess_, +and proposed changing our old calendar for the Ventose and Fructidor +arrangement of the one and indivisible republic. (We wish they had +adopted their admirable system of weights and measures.) Divines are +said to have offered up thanks to the Supreme Being for the success of +the good _Sans-culottes_. At all events, their victories were celebrated +by civic festivals and the discharge of cannon; the English flag was +burned as a sacrifice to the Goddess of Liberty; a French frigate took +a prize off the Capes of the Delaware, and sent her in to Philadelphia; +thousands of the populace crowded the wharves, and, when the British +colors were seen reversed, and the French flying over them, burst into +exulting hurras. When a report came that the Duke of York was a prisoner +and shown in a cage in Paris, all the bells of Philadelphia rang peals +of joy for the downfall of tyrants. Here is the story of a civic _fête_ +given at Reading, in Massachusetts, which we extract from a newspaper of +the time as a specimen of the Gallo-Yankee absurdities perpetrated by +our grandfathers:-- + +"The day was ushered in by the ringing of the bells, and a salute of +fifteen discharges from a field-piece. The American flag waved in the +wind, and the flag of France over the British in inverted order. At noon +a large number of respectable citizens assembled at Citizen Raynor's, +and partook of an elegant entertainment. After dinner, Captain Emerson's +military company in uniform assembled and escorted the citizens to the +meeting-house, where an address pertinent to the occasion was delivered +by the Rev. Citizen Prentiss, and united prayers and praises were +offered to God, and several hymns and anthems were well sung; after +which they returned in procession to Citizen Raynor's, where three +farmers, with their frocks and utensils, and with a tree on their +shoulders, were escorted by the military company formed in a hollow +square to the Common, where the tree was planted in form, as an emblem +of freedom, and the Marseillaise Hymn was sung by a choir within a +circle round the tree. Major Boardman, by request, superintended the +business of the day, and directed the manoeuvres." + +In the Gallic jargon then fashionable, England was "an insular Bastille +of slaves," and New England "the Vendée of America." On the other side, +the Federalists returned cheer for cheer,--looked with true British +contempt on the warlike struggles of the restless Frenchman,--chuckled +over the disasters which befell "his little popgun fleets,"--and damned +the Democrats for a pack of poor, dirty, blasphemous cutthroats. Hate +one another was the order of the day. The religious element, which +always exasperates dissension, was present. French Democrats had set +up the Goddess of Reason (in private life Mme. Momoro) as an object of +worship; American Democrats were accused of making Tom Paine's "Age of +Reason" their Bible; "Atheist" and "Infidel" were added to the epithets +which the Federalists discharged at their foes. So fierce and so general +was the quarrel on this European ground, that a distinguished foreigner, +then travelling in this country, said that he saw many French and +English, but scarcely ever met with an American. Weld, a more humble +tourist, put into his book, that in Norfolk, Virginia, he found half the +town ready to fight the other half on the French question. Meanwhile, +both French and English treated us with ill-disguised contempt, +and inflicted open outrages upon our commerce. But it made little +difference. One faction was willing to be kicked by England; and the +other took a pleasure in being _souffleté_ by France. The rival flags +were kept flying until the close of the war of 1812. + +An outbreak of Democratic fury bordering upon treason took place, when +Senator Mason of Virginia violated the oath of secrecy, and sent a +copy of Jay's treaty with England to the "Aurora." Meetings passed +condemnatory resolutions expressed in no mild language. Jay was "a +slave, a traitor, a coward, who had bartered his country's liberties for +British gold." Mobs burned Jay in effigy, and pelted Alexander Hamilton. +At a public meeting in Philadelphia, Mr. Blair threw the treaty to the +crowd, and advised them to kick it to hell. They carried it on a pole +in procession, and burned it before the English minister's house. A +Democratic society in Richmond, Virginia, full of the true modern South +Carolina "sound and fury," gave public notice, that, if the treaty +entered into by "that damned arch traitor, John Jay, with the British +tyrant should be ratified, a petition will be presented to the next +General Assembly of Virginia praying that the said State may recede +from the Union, and be left under the government and protection of +one hundred thousand free and independent Virginians!" A meeting at +Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, resolved, "that it was weary of the tardiness +of Congress in not going to war with England, and that they were _almost +ready_ to wish for a state of revolution and the guillotine of France +for a short space, in order to punish the miscreants who enervate and +disgrace the government." Mr. Jefferson's opinion of the treaty is well +known from his rhetorical letter to Rutledge, which, in two or three +lines, contains the adjectives, _unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous, +dishonorable, disadvantageous, humiliating, disgraceful, improper, +monarchical, impeachable_. The Mazzei letter, written not long after the +ratification, displays the same bitter feeling. + +The Federalists had a powerful ally in William Cobbett, who signed +himself Peter Porcupine, adopting for his literary _alias_ a nickname +bestowed by his enemies. This remarkable writer, who, like Paine, +figured in the political conflicts of two nations, must have come into +the world bristling with pugnacity. A more thorough game-cock never +crowed in the pit. He had been a private in the English army, came +to the United States about 1790, and taught French to Americans, and +English to Frenchmen, (to Talleyrand among others,) until 1794, when +the dogmatic Dr. Priestley arrived here, fresh from the scene of his +persecutions. The Doctor losing no time in laying his case before the +American public, Cobbett answered his publication, ridiculing it and the +Doctor's political career in a pamphlet which became immediately popular +with the Federalists. From that time until his departure for England, in +1800, Cobbett's pen was never idle. His "Little Plain English in Favor +of Mr. Jay's Treaty" was altogether the best thing published on that +side of the question. Cobbett had more than one point of resemblance to +Paine, the object of his early invective, but later of his unqualified +admiration. These two men were the best English pamphleteers of their +day. In shrewdness, in practical sense, Cobbett was fully Paine's equal. +He was as coarse and as pithy in expression, but with more wit, a better +education, more complete command of language, and a greater variety of +resources. Cobbett was a quicker and a harder hitter than Paine. His +personal courage gave him a great advantage in his warfaring life. In +1796, in the hottest of the French and English fight, the well-known +Porcupine opened a shop in Philadelphia. He filled his show-window with +all the prints of English kings, nobles, and generals he could collect, +and "then," he says, "I took down the shutters, and waited." + +Party-feeling reached the boiling-point when Washington retired to Mount +Vernon. Mr. Adams, his successor, had none of that divinity which +hedged the Father of his Country to protect him. Under the former +administration, he had been, as Senator Grayson humorously called him, +"his superfluous Excellency," and out of the direct line of fire. He +could easily look down upon such melancholy squibs as Freneau's "Daddy +Vice" and "Duke of Braintree." But when raised above every other head by +his high office, he became a mark for the most bitter personal attacks. +Mr. Adams unfortunately thought too much about himself to be the +successful chief of a party. He allowed his warm feelings to divert +him from the main object and end of his followers. He was jealous of +Hamilton,--unwilling, in fact, to seem to be governed by the opinion of +any man, and half inclined to look for a reëlection outside of his own +party. Hamilton, the soul of the Federalists, mistrusted and disliked +Mr. Adams, and made the sad mistake of publishing his mistrust and +dislike. It must be confessed that the gentlemen who directed the +Administration party were no match as tacticians for such file-leaders +as Jefferson and Burr. Many of their pet measures were ill-judged, to +say the least. The provisional army furnished a fertile theme for fierce +declamation. The black cockade became the badge of the supporters of +government, so that in the streets one could tell at a glance whether +friend or foe was approaching. The Alien and Sedition Laws caused much +bitter feeling and did great damage to the Federalists. To read these +acts and the trials under them now excites somewhat of the feeling +with which we look upon some strange and clumsy engine of torture in a +mediaeval museum. How the temper of this people and their endurance of +legal inflictions have changed since then! There was Matthew Lyon, a +noted Democrat of Irish origin, who had published a letter charging the +President with "ridiculous pomp, idle parade, and selfish avarice." He +was found guilty of sedition, and sentenced to four months' imprisonment +and a fine of one thousand dollars. There was Cooper, an Englishman, +who fared equally ill for saying or writing that the President did not +possess sufficient capacity to fulfil the duties of his office. What +should we think of the sanity of James Buchanan, should he prosecute +and obtain a conviction against some Black-Republican Luther Baldwin of +1859, for wishing that the wad of a cannon, fired in his honor, might +strike an unmentionable part of his august person? What should we say, +if Horace Greeley were to be arrested on a warrant issued by the Supreme +Court of New York for a libel on Louis Napoleon, as was William Cobbett +by Judge McKean of Pennsylvania for a libel on the King of Spain? + +Fiercer and more bitter waxed party-discord, and both sides did ample +injustice to one another. Mr. Jefferson wrote, that men who had been +intimate all their lives would cross the street and look the other way, +lest they should be obliged to touch their hats. And Gouverneur Morris +gives us a capital idea of the state of feeling when he says that a +looker-on, who took no part in affairs, felt like a sober man at a +dinner when the rest of the company were drunk. Civil war was often +talked of, and the threat of secession, which has become the rhetorical +staple of the South, produced solely for exportation to the North, to be +used there in manufacturing pro-slavery votes out of the timidity of men +of large means and little courage or perspicacity, was then freely +made by both divisions of the Union. Had we been of French or +Spanish descent, there would have been barricades, _coup-d'états, +pronunciamentos_; but the English race know better how to treat the +body-politic. They never apply the knife except for the most desperate +operations. But where hard words were so plenty, blows could not fail. +Duels were frequent, cudgellings not uncommon,--although as yet the +Senate-Chamber had not been selected as the fittest scene for the use +of the bludgeon. It is true that molasses-and-water was the beverage +allowed by Congress in those simple times, and that charged to +stationery. + +What terrible fellows our ancestors were for calling +names,--particularly the gentlemen of the press! If they had been +natives of the Island of Frozen Sounds, along the shore of which +Pantagruel and Panurge coasted, they would have stood up to their +chins in scurrilous epithets. The comical sketch of their rhetoric in +"Salmagundi" is literally true:--"Every day have these slangwhangers +made furious attacks on each other and upon their respective adherents, +discharging their heavy artillery, consisting of large sheets loaded +with scoundrel, villain, liar, rascal, numskull, nincompoop, dunderhead, +wiseacre, blockhead, jackass." As single words were not always explosive +enough to make a report equal to their feelings, they had recourse to +compounds;--"pert and prating popinjay," "hackneyed gutscraper," "maggot +of corruption," "toad on a dung-heap," "snivelling sophisticating +hound," are a few of the chain-shot which strike our eyes in turning +over the yellow faded files. They are all quiet now, those eager, +snarling editors of fifty years since, and mostly forgotten. Even the +ink which records their spiteful abuse is fading away;-- + + "Dunne no more the halter dreads, + The torrent of his lies to check, + No gallows Cheetham's dreams invades, + Nor lours o'er Holt's devoted neck." + +Emerson's saying, that involuntarily we read history as superior beings, +is never so true as when we read history before it has been worked +up for the public, in the raw material of letters, pamphlets, and +newspapers. Feverish paragraphs, which once excited the enthusiasm of +one party and the fiercest opposition of the other, lie before us as +dead and as unmeaning as an Egyptian mummy. The passion which once +gave them life is gone. The objects which the writers considered +all-important we perceive to have been of no real significance even in +their day. We read on with a good-natured pity, akin to the feeling +which the gods of Epicurus might be supposed to experience when they +looked down upon foolish mortals,--and when we shut the book, go out +into our own world to fret, fume, and wrangle over things equally +transitory and frivolous. + +When it became evident that the Administration party ran the risk of +being beaten in the election of 1800, their trumpeters sounded the +wildest notes of alarm. "People! how long will you remain blind? Awake! +be up and doing! If Mr. Jefferson is elected, the equal representation +of the small States in the Senate will be destroyed, the funding +system swept away, the navy abolished, all commerce and foreign trade +prohibited, and the fruits of the soil left to rot on the hands of the +farmer. The taxes will all fall on the landed interest, all the churches +will be overturned, none but Frenchmen employed by government, and +the monstrous system of liberty and equality, with all its horrid +consequences, as experienced in France and St. Domingo, will inevitably +be introduced." Thus they shouted, and no doubt many of the shouters +sincerely believed it all. Nevertheless, and in spite of these alarums, +the Revolution of '99, as Mr. Jefferson liked to call it, took place +without bloodshed, and in 1801 that gentleman mounted the throne. + +After this struggle was over, the Federalists, some from conviction and +some from disgust at being beaten, gave up the country as lost. Worthy +New-Englanders, like Cabot, Fisher Ames, and Wolcott, had no longer +hope. They sank into the position of mere grumblers, with one leading +principle,--admiration of England, and a willingness to submit to any +insults which England in her haughtiness might please to inflict. "We +are sure," says the "Boston Democrat," "that George III. would find more +desperately devoted subjects in New England than in any part of his +dominions." The Democrats, of course, clung to their motto, "Whatever +is in France is right," and even accepted the arbitrary measures of +Bonaparte at home as a mere change of system, and abroad as forced upon +him by British pirates. It is curious to read the high Federalist papers +in the first days of their sorrow. In their contradictory fault-finding +sulkiness, they give some color of truth to Mr. Jefferson's accusation, +that the Federal leaders were seeking to establish a monarchy,--a charge +well known to be unfounded, as Washington said at the time. "What is the +use of celebrating the Fourth of July?" they asked. "Freedom is a stale, +narcotic topic. The Declaration of Independence a useless, if not an +odious libel upon a friendly nation connected with us by the silken band +of amity." Fenno, in his paper, said the Declaration was "a placard +of rebellion, a feeble production, in which the spirit of rebellion +prevailed over the love of order." Dennie, in the "Portfolio," +anticipating Mr. Choate, called it "an incoherent accumulation of +indigestible and impracticable political dogmas, dangerous to the +peace of the world, and seditious in its local tendency, and, as a +composition, equally at variance with the laws of construction and the +laws of regular government." The Federalist opinion of the principles +of the Administration party was avowed with equal frankness in their +papers. "A democracy is the most absurd constitution, productive of +anarchy and mischief, which must always happen when the government of a +nation depends upon the caprice of the ignorant, harebrained vulgar. All +the miseries of men for a long series of years grew out of that infamous +mode of polity, a democracy; which is to be reckoned to be only the +corruption and degeneracy of a republic, and not to be ranked among the +legitimate forms of government. If it be not a legitimate government, we +owe it no allegiance. He is a blind man who does not see this truth; he +is a base man who will not assert it. Democratic power is tyranny, in +the principle, the beginning, the progress, and the end. It is on its +trial here, and the issue will be civil war, desolation, and anarchy." +These and other foolish excerpts were kept before their readers by the +"Aurora" and "Boston Chronicle," leading Democratic organs, and +served to sweeten their triumph and to seal the fate of the unlucky +Federalists. + +The difference between the tone of these extracts and that of our +present journalists, when they touch upon the abstract principles of +government, may indicate to us the firm hold which the Democratic theory +has taken of our people. As that conquering party marched onward, the +opposition was forced to follow after, and to encamp upon the ground +their powerful enemy left behind him. To-day when we see gentlemen who +consider themselves Conservatives in the ranks of the Democrats, we may +suppose that the tour of the political circle is nearly completed. + +A momentary lull had followed the storm of the election, when Mr. +Jefferson boldly threw down another "bone for the Federalists to gnaw." +He wrote to Thomas Paine, inviting him to America, and offering him a +passage home in a national vessel. "You will, in general, find us," he +added, "returned to sentiments worthy of former times; in these it will +be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any +man living. That you may live long, to continue your useful labors and +reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. +Accept the assurance of my high esteem and affectionate attachment." Mr. +Jefferson went even farther. He openly announced his intention of giving +Paine an office, if there were one in his gift suitable for him. Now, +although Paine had been absent for many years, he had not been forgotten +by the Americans. The echo of the noise he made in England reached our +shores; and English echoes were more attentively listened to then even +than at present. His "Rights of Man" had been much read in this country. +Indeed, it was asserted, and upon pretty good authority, that Jefferson +himself, when Secretary of State, had advised and encouraged the +publication of an American edition as an antidote to the "Davila" of Mr. +Adams. Even the "Age of Reason" had obtained an immense circulation from +the great reputation of the author. It reminded the Rev. Mr. Goodrich, +and other Orthodox New-Englanders, of Milton's description of Death,-- + + "Black it stood as night, + Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell." + +Yet numbers of people, nothing frightened, would buy and read. "No +work," Dr. Francis tells us, "had a demand for readers comparable to +that of Paine. The 'Age of Reason,' on its first appearance in New York, +was printed as an orthodox book by orthodox publishers,--doubtless +deceived," the charitable Doctor adds, "by the vast renown which the +author of 'Common Sense' had obtained, and _by the prospects of sale_." +Paine's position in the French Convention, his long imprisonment, +poverty, slovenly habits, and fondness for drink, were all well +known and well talked over. William Cobbett, for one, never lost an +opportunity of dressing up Paine as a filthy monster. He wrote his +life for the sake of doing it more thoroughly. The following extract, +probably much relished at the time, will give some idea of the tone and +temper of this performance:-- + +"How Tom gets a living now, or what brothel he inhabits, I know not, nor +does it much signify. He has done all the mischief he can do in this +world; and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on +the earth, or to be dried in the air, is of very little consequence. +Whenever or wherever he breathes his last, he will excite neither sorrow +nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes, not a groan will +be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like Judas, he will be remembered +by posterity; men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, +treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous by the single monosyllable of +Paine." + +Cobbett also wrote an _ante-mortem_ epitaph, a fit inscription for the +life he had composed. It ends thus:-- + + "He is crammed in a dungeon and preaches up Reason; + Blasphemes the Almighty, lives in filth like a hog; + Is abandoned in death, and interred like a dog." + +This brutal passage does not exaggerate the opinion of Paine's character +held by the good people of America. He was an object of horror +to them,--a rebel against government and against God,--a type of +Jacobinism, a type of Infidelity, and, with what seemed to them, no +doubt, a beautiful consistency, a type of all that was abandoned and +vile. Thomas Paine, a Massachusetts poet of _ci-devant_ celebrity, +petitioned the General Court for permission to call himself Robert Treat +Paine, on the ground that he had no Christian name. In New England, +Christianity and Federalism were looked upon as intimately connected, +and Democracy as a wicked thing, born of Tom Paine, Tom Jefferson, and +the Father of Lies. In this Trinity of Evil, Thomas Paine stood first. + +During the struggle for the Presidency, Mr. Jefferson had been accused, +from every Federal stump, of the two unpardonable sins to Yankee +minds,--namely, that his notes could be bought for five shillings in the +pound, and that he did not believe in Revolution. Since his election, he +had been daily reminded of his religious short-comings by keen newspaper +attacks. He knew that he strengthened the hands of his enemies by +inviting home the Arch-Infidel. We are and were then a religious people, +in spite of the declaration in Mr. Adams's Tripolitan treaty that the +government of the United States was "not in any sense founded on the +Christian religion," and Paine could find few admirers in any class. Mr. +Jefferson, too, was well aware that the old man was broken, that the +fire had gone out of him, and that his presence in the United States +could be of no use whatever to the party. But he thought that Paine's +services in the Revolution had earned for him an asylum, and their old +acquaintance made him hasten to offer it. We think that the invitation +to Paine was one of the manliest acts of Jefferson's life. + +When the matter became public, there arose a long, loud cry of abuse, +which rang from Massachusetts Bay to Washington City. Anarchy, +confusion, and the downfall of not only church, but state, were +declared to be the unavoidable consequences of Paine's return to our +shores,--that impious apostate! that Benedict Arnold, once useful, and +then a traitor! The "United States Gazette" had ten leaders on the text +of Tom Paine and Jefferson, "whose love of liberty was neither more +rational, generous, or social, than that of the wolf or the tiger." The +"New England Palladium" fairly shrieked:--"What! invite to the United +States that lying, drunken, brutal infidel, who rejoices in the +opportunity of basking and wallowing in the confusion, devastation, +bloodshed, rapine, and murder, in which his soul delights?" Why, even +the French called him the English orang-outang! He was exposed with a +monkey and a bear in a cage in Paris. In 1792, he was forbidden to haunt +the White-Bear Tavern in London. He subsisted for eight years on the +charity of booksellers, who employed him in the morning to correct +proofs; in the afternoon he was too drunk. He lodged in a cellar. He +helped the _poissardes_ to clean fish and open oysters. He lived in +misery, filth, and contempt. Not until Livingston went to France did any +respectable American call upon him. Livingston's attentions to him not +only astonished, but disgusted the First Consul, and gave him a very +mean opinion of Livingston's talents. The critical Mr. Dennie caused his +"Portfolio" to give forth this solemn strain: "If, during the present +season of national abasement, infatuation, folly, and vice, any portent +could surprise, sober men would be utterly confounded by an article +current in all our newspapers, that the loathsome Thomas Paine, a +drunken atheist and the scavenger of faction, is invited to return in +a national ship to America by the first magistrate of a free people. +A measure so enormously preposterous we cannot yet believe has been +adopted, and it would demand firmer nerves than those possessed by Mr. +Jefferson to hazard such an insult to the moral sense of the nation. If +that rebel rascal should come to preach from his Bible to our populace, +it would be time for every honest and insulted man of dignity to flee to +some Zoar as from another Sodom, to shake off the very dust of his feet +and to abandon America." "He is coming," wrote Noah Webster, ("the +mender and murderer of English,") "to publish in America the third part +of the 'Age of Reason.'" And the epigrammatists, such as they were, +tried their goose-quills on the subject:-- + + "He passed his forces in review, + Smith, Cheetham, Jones, Duane: + 'Dull rascals,--these will never do,' + Quoth he,--'I'll send for Paine.' + + "Then from his darling den in France + To tempt the wretch to come, + He made Tom's brain with flattery dance + And took the tax from rum." + +The Administration editors held their tongues;--the religious side of +the question was too strong for them. + +Paine was unable to accept the passage offered him in the frigate, and +returned in a merchant-vessel in the autumn of the next year (1802). +The excitement had not subsided. Early in October, the "Philadelphia +Gazette" announced that "a kind of tumultuous sensation was produced in +the city yesterday evening in consequence of the arrival of the ship +Benjamin Franklin from Havre. It was believed, for a few moments, that +the carcass of Thomas Paine was on board, and several individuals were +seen disgracing themselves by an impious joy. It was finally understood +that Paine had missed his passage by this vessel and was to sail in a +ship to New York. Under the New York news-head we perceive a vessel from +Havre reported. Infidels! hail the arrival of your high-priest!" + +A few days later, the infidel Tom Paine, otherwise Mr. Paine, arrived +safely at Baltimore and proceeded thence to Washington. The journalists +gave tongue at once: "Fire! Age of Reason! Look at his nose! He drank +all the brandy in Baltimore in nine days! What a dirty fellow! Invited +home by a brother Tom! Let Jefferson and his blasphemous crony dangle +from the same gallows." The booksellers, quietly mindful of the +opportunity, got out an edition of his works in two volumes. + +As soon as he was fairly on shore, Paine took sides with his host, and +commenced writing "Letters to the People of the United States." He +announced in them that he was a genuine Federalist,--not one of that +disguised faction which had arisen in America, and which, losing sight +of first principles, had begun to contemplate the people as hereditary +property: No wonder that the author of the "Rights of Man" was attacked +by this faction: His arrival was to them like the sight of water to +canine madness: He served them for a standing dish of abuse: The leaders +during the Reign of Terror in France and during the late despotism +in America were the same men in character; for how else was it to be +accounted for that he was persecuted by both at the same time? In every +part of the Union this faction was in the agonies of death, and, in +proportion as its fate approached, gnashed its teeth and struggled: He +should lose half his greatness when they ceased to lie. Mr. Adams, as +the late chief of this faction, met with harsh and derisive treatment in +these letters, and did not attempt to conceal his irritation in his own +later correspondence. + +Paine's few defenders tried to back him with weak paragraphs in the +daily papers: His great talents, his generous services, "in spite of a +few indiscreet writings about religion," should make him an object of +interest and respect. The "Aurora's" own correspondent sent to his paper +a favorable sketch of Paine's appearance, manner, and conversation: +He was "proud to find a man whom he had admired free from the +contaminations of debauchery and the habits of inebriety which have been +so grossly and falsely sent abroad concerning him." But the enemy had +ten guns to Paine's one, and served them with all the fierceness of +party-hate. A shower of abusive missiles rattled incessantly about his +ears. However thick-skinned a man may be, and protected over all by the +_oes triplex_ of self-sufficiency, he cannot escape being wounded by +furious and incessant attacks. Paine felt keenly the neglect of his +former friends, who avoided him, when they did not openly cut him. Mr. +Jefferson, it is true, asked him to dinners, and invited the British +minister to meet him; at least, the indignant Anglo-Federal editors +said so. Perhaps he offered him an office. If he did, Paine refused it, +preferring "to serve as a disinterested volunteer." Poor old man! his +services were no longer of much use to anybody. The current of American +events had swept past him, leaving him stranded, a broken fragment of a +revolutionary wreck. + +When the nine days of wonder had expired in Washington, and the +inhabitants had grown tired of staring at Paine and of pelting him with +abuse, he betook himself to New York. On his way thither, he met with an +adventure which shows the kind of martyrdom suffered by this political +and religious heretic. He had stopped at Bordentown, in New Jersey, to +look at a small place he owned there, and to visit an old friend and +correspondent, Colonel Kirkbride. When he departed, the Colonel drove +him over to Trenton to take the stage-coach. But in Trenton the Federal +and Religious party had the upperhand, and when Paine applied at the +booking-office for a seat to New York the agent refused to sell him one. +Moreover, a crowd collected about his lodgings, who groaned dismally +when he drove away with his friend, while a band of musicians, provided +for the occasion, played the Rogue's March. + +Among the editorial celebrities of 1803, James Cheetham, in New York, +was almost as famous as Duane of the "Aurora." Cheetham, like many of +his contemporaries, Gray, Carpenter, Callender, and Duane himself, was +a British subject. He was a hatter in his native land; but a turn for +politics ruined his business and made expatriation convenient. In the +United States, he had become the editor of the "American Citizen," and +was at that time busily engaged in attacking the Federalists and Burr's +"Little Band," for their supposed attempt to elect Mr. Burr in the place +of Mr. Jefferson. To Cheetham, accordingly, Paine wrote, requesting him +to engage lodgings at Lovett's, afterwards the City Hotel. He sent for +Cheetham, on the evening of his arrival. The journalist obeyed the +summons immediately. This was the first interview between Paine and the +man who was to hang, draw, and quarter his memory in a biography. This +libellous performance was written shortly after Paine's death. It was +intended as a peace-offering to the English government. The ex-hatter +had made up his mind to return home, and he wished to prove the +sincerity of his conversion from radicalism by trampling on the remains +of its high-priest. So long as Cheetham remained in good standing with +the Democrats, Paine and he were fast friends; but when he became +heretical and schismatic on the Embargo question, some three or four +years later, and was formally read out of the party, Paine laid the rod +across his back with all his remaining strength. He had vigor enough +left, it seems, to make the "Citizen" smart, for Cheetham cuts and stabs +with a spite which shows that the work was as agreeable to his feelings +as useful to his plans. His reminiscences must be read _multis cum +granis_. + +In New York Paine enjoyed the same kind of second-rate ovation as in +Washington. A great number of persons called upon him, but mostly of the +laboring class of emigrants, who had heard of the "Rights of Man," +and, feeling disposed to claim as many rights as possible in their new +country, looked with reverence upon the inventor of the system. +The Democratic leaders, with one or two exceptions, avoided Paine. +Respectabilities shunned him as a contamination. Grant Thorburn was +suspended from church-membership for shaking hands with him. To the boys +he was an object of curious attention; his nose was the burden of their +songs. + +Cheetham carried round a subscription-list for a public dinner. Sixty or +seventy of Paine's admirers attended. It went off brilliantly, and was +duly reported in the "American Citizen." Then the effervescence of New +York curiosity subsided; Paine became an old story. He left Lovett's +Hotel for humble lodgings in the house of a free-thinking farrier. +Thenceforward the tale of his life is soon told. He went rarely to his +farm at New Rochelle; he disliked the country and the trouble of keeping +house; and a bullet which whizzed through his window one Christmas Eve, +narrowly missing his head, did not add agreeable associations to the +place. In the city he moved his quarters from one low boarding-house to +another, and generally managed to quarrel with the blacksmiths, bakers, +and butchers, his landlords. Unable to enjoy society suited to his +abilities and large experience of life, Paine called in low company to +help him bear the burden of existence. To the men who surrounded him, +his opinions on all subjects were conclusive, and his shrewd sayings +revelations. Among these respectful listeners, he had to fear neither +incredulity nor disputation. Like his friend Elihu Palmer, and the +celebrated Dr. Priestley, Paine would not tolerate contradiction. +To differ with him was, in his eyes, simply to be deficient in +understanding. He was like the French lady who naïvely told Dr. +Franklin, "_Je ne trouve que moi qui aie toujours raison_." Professing +to adore Reason, he was angry, if anybody reasoned with him. But herein +he was no exception to the general rule,--that we find no persons so +intolerant and illiberal as men professing liberal principles. + +His occupation and amusement was to write for the papers articles of +a somewhat caustic and personal nature. Whatever subject occupied the +public mind interested Paine and provoked his remarks. He was bitter in +his attacks upon the Federalists and Burrites for attempting to jockey +Jefferson out of the Presidency. Later, when Burr was acquitted of +treason, Paine found fault with Chief-Justice Marshall for his rulings +during the trial, and gave him notice, that he (Marshall) was "a +suspected character." He also requested Dr. Mitchell, then United States +Senator for New York, to propose an amendment to the Constitution, +authorizing the President to remove a judge, on the address of a +majority of both houses of Congress, for reasonable cause, when +sufficient grounds for impeachment might not exist. General Miranda's +filibustering expedition against Caracas, a greater failure even than +the Lopez raid on Cuba, furnished Paine with a theme. He wrote a +sensible paper on the yellow fever, by request of Jefferson, and one or +two on his iron bridge. He was ardent in the defence of Mr. Jefferson's +pet scheme of a gun-boat navy, and ridiculed the idea of fortifying +New York. "The cheapest way," he said, "to fortify New York will be to +banish the scoundrels that infest it." The inhabitants of that city +would do well, if they could find an engineer to fortify their island in +this way. + +When the Pennsylvanians called a Convention in 1805 to amend the +Constitution of the State, Paine addressed them at some length, giving +them a summary of his views on Government, Constitutions, and Charters. +The Creoles of Louisiana sent to Congress a memorial of their "rights," +in which they included the importation of African slaves. Paine was +indignant at this perversion of his favorite specific for all political +ailments, and took the Franco-Americans soundly to task:--"How dare you +put up a petition to Heaven for such a power, without fearing to be +struck from the earth by its justice?" It is manifest that Paine could +not be a Democrat in good standing now. Mingled with these graver +topics were side-blows at the emissary Cullen, _alias_ Carpenter, an +Englishman, who edited a Federal paper,--replies to Cheetham, reprimands +to Cheetham, and threats to prosecute Cheetham for lying, "unless he +makes a public apology,"--and three letters to Governor Morgan Lewis, +who had incensed Paine by bringing an action for political libel against +a Mr. Thomas Farmer, laying his damages at one hundred thousand dollars. + +Among his last productions were two memorials to the House of +Representatives. One can see in these papers that old age had weakened +his mind, and that harsh treatment had soured his feelings towards the +land of his adoption. + + "Ma république à jamais grande et libre, + Cette terre d'amour et d'égalité," + +no longer seemed to him as lovely as when he composed these verses for +a Fourth-of-July dinner in Paris. He claimed compensation for his +services in Colonel Laurens's mission to France in 1781. For his works +he asked no reward. "All the civilized world knows," he writes, "I have +been of great service to the United States, and have generously given +away talents that would have made me a fortune. The country has been +benefited, and I make myself happy in the knowledge of it. It is, +however, proper for me to add, that the mere independence of America, +were it to have been followed by a system of government modelled after +the corrupt system of the English government, would not have interested +me with the unabated ardor it did." "It will be convenient to me to know +what Congress will decide on, because it will determine me, whether, +after so many years of generous services and that in the most perilous +times, and after seventy years of age, I shall continue in this country, +or offer my services to some other country. It will not be to England, +unless there should be a revolution." + +The memorial was referred to the Committee on Claims. When Paine heard +of its fate, he addressed an indignant letter to the Speaker of the +House. "I know not who the Committee on Claims are; but if they were +men of younger standing than 'the times that tried men's souls,' and +consequently too young to know what the condition of the country was +at the time I published 'Common Sense,'--for I do not believe that +independence would have been declared, had it not been for the effect of +that work,--they are not capable of judging of the whole of the services +of Thomas Paine. If my memorial was referred to the Committee on Claims +for the purpose of losing it, it is unmanly policy. After so many years +of service, my heart grows cold towards America." + +His heart was soon to grow cold to all the world. In the spring of 1809, +it became evident to Paine's attendants that his end was approaching. As +death drew near, the memories of early youth arose vividly in his +mind. He wished to be buried in the cemetery of the Quakers, in whose +principles his father had educated him. He sent for a leading member +of the sect to ask a resting-place for his body in their ground. The +request was refused. + +When the news got abroad that the Arch-Infidel was dying, foolish old +women and kindred clergymen, who "knew no way to bring home a wandering +sheep but by worrying him to death," gathered together about his bed. +Even his physician joined in the hue-and-cry. It was a scene of the +Inquisition adapted to North America,--a Protestant _auto da fé_. The +victim lay helpless before his persecutors; the agonies of disease +supplied the place of rack and fagot. But nothing like a recantation +could be wrung from him. And so his tormentors left him alone to die, +and his freethinking smiths and cobblers rejoiced over his fidelity to +the cause. + +He was buried on his farm at New Rochelle, according to his latest +wishes. "Thomas Paine. Author of 'Common Sense,'" the epitaph he had +fixed upon, was carved upon his tomb. A better one exists from an +unknown hand, which tells, in a jesting way, the secret of the sorrows +of his later life:-- + + "Here lies Tom Paine, who wrote in liberty's defence, + And in his 'Age of Reason' lost his 'Common Sense.'" + +Ten years after, William Cobbett, who had left England in a fit of +political disgust and had settled himself on Long Island to raise +hogs and ruta-bagas, resolved to go home again. Cobbett had become an +admirer, almost a disciple of Paine. The "Constitution-grinder" of '96 +was now "a truly great man, a truly philosophical politician, a mind as +far superior to Pitt and Burke as the light of a flambeau is superior to +that of a rush-light." Above all, Paine had been Cobbett's teacher on +financial questions. In 1803, Cobbett read his "Decline and Fall of the +English System," and then "saw the whole matter in its true light; and +neither pamphleteers nor speech-makers were after that able to raise a +momentary puzzle in his mind." Perhaps Cobbett thought he might excite a +sensation in England and rally about him the followers of Paine, or it +may be that he wished to repair the gross injustice he had done him by +some open act of adherence; at all events, he exhumed Paine's body and +took the bones home with him in 1819, with the avowed intention of +erecting a magnificent monument to his memory by subscription. In the +same manner, about two thousand two hundred and fifty years ago, the +bones of Theseus, the mythical hero of Democracy, were brought from +Skyros to Athens by some Attic [Greek: Kobbetaes]. The description +of the arrival in England we quote from a Liverpool journal of the +day:--"When his last trunk was opened at the Custom-House, Cobbett +observed to the surrounding spectators, who had assembled in great +numbers,--'Here are the bones of the late Thomas Paine.' This +declaration excited a visible sensation, and the crowd pressed forward +to see the contents of the package. Cobbett remarked,--'Great, indeed, +must that man have been whose very bones attract such attention!' The +officer took up the coffin-plate inscribed, 'Thomas Paine, Aged 72. Died +January 8, 1809,' and, having lifted up several of the bones, replaced +the whole and passed them. They have since been forwarded from this town +to London." + +At a public dinner given to Cobbett in Liverpool, Paine was toasted as +"the Noble of Nature, the Child of the Lower Orders"; but the monument +was never raised, and no one knows where his bones found their last +resting-place. + +Cobbett himself gained nothing by this resurrectionist performance, +except an additional couplet in the party-songs of the day:-- + + "Let Cobbett of borough-corruption complain, + And go to the De'il with the bones of Tom Paine." + +The two were classed together by English Conservatives, as "pestilent +fellows" and "promoters of sedition." + +It is now fifty years since Paine died; but the _nil de mortuis_ is no +rule in his case. The evil associations of his later days have pursued +him beyond the grave. A small and threadbare sect of "liberals," as they +call themselves,--men in whom want of skill, industry, and thrift has +produced the usual results,--have erected an altar to Thomas Paine, +and, on the anniversary of his birth, go through with a pointless +celebration, which passes unnoticed, unless in an out-of-the-way corner +of some newspaper. In this class of persons, irreligion is a mere form +of discontent. They have no other reason to give for the faith which +is not in them. They like to ascribe their want of success in life to +something out of joint in the thoughts and customs of society, rather +than to their own shortcomings or incapacity. In France, such persons +would be Socialists and _Rouges_; in this country, where the better +classes only have any reason to rebel, they cannot well conspire against +government, but attack religion instead, and pride themselves on their +exemption from prejudice. The "Age of Reason" is their manual. Its bold, +clear, simple statements they can understand; its shallowness they +are too ignorant to perceive; its coarseness is in unison with their +manners. Thus the author has become the Apostle of Free-thinking +tinkers and the Patron Saint of unwashed Infidelity. + +To this generation at large, he is only an indistinct shadow,--a faint +reminiscence of a red nose,--an ill-flavored name, redolent of brandy +and of brimstone, his beverage in life and his well-earned punishment +in eternity, which suggests to the serious mind dirt, drunkenness, and +hopeless damnation. Mere worldlings call him "Tom Paine," in a tone +which combines derision and contempt. A bust of him, by Jarvis, in the +possession of the New York Historical Society, is kept under lock and +key, because it was defaced and defiled by visitors, while a dozen +other plaster worthies that decorate the institution remained intact. +Nevertheless, we suspect that most of our readers, if they cannot date +back to the first decade of the century, will find, when they sift their +information, that they have only a speaking acquaintance with Thomas +Paine, and can give no good reason for their dislike of him. + +And it is not easy for the general reader to become intimate with him. +He will find him, of course, in Biographical Dictionaries, Directories +of the City of the Great Dead, which only tell you where men lived, and +what they did to deserve a place in the volume; but as to a life of him, +strictly speaking, there is none. Oldys and Cobbett tried to flay him +alive in pamphlets; Sherwin and Clio Rickman were prejudiced friends and +published only panegyrics. All are out of print and difficult to find. +Cheetham's work is a political libel; and the attempt of Mr. Vail of +the "Beacon" to canonize him in the "Infidel's Calendar," cannot be +recommended to intelligent persons. We might expect to meet with him in +those books of lives so common with us,--collections in which a certain +number of deceased gentlemen are bound up together, so resembling each +other in feature that one might suppose the narratives ground out by +some obituary-machine and labelled afterward to suit purchasers. Even +this "sign-post biography," as the "Quarterly" calls it, Paine has +escaped. He was not a marketable commodity. There was no demand for him +in polite circles. The implacable hand of outraged orthodoxy was against +him. Hence his memory has lain in the gutter. Even his friend Joel +Barlow left him out of the "Columbiad," to the great disgust of Clio +Rickman, who thought his name should have appeared in the Fifth Book +between Washington and Franklin. Surely Barlow might have found room for +him in the following "Epic List of Heroes":-- + + "Wythe, Mason, Pendleton, with Henry joined, + Rush, Rodney, Langdon, friends of humankind, + Persuasive Dickinson, the farmer's boast, + Recording Thompson, pride of all the host, + Nash, Jay, the Livingstons, in council great, + Rutledge and Laurens, held the rolls of fate." + +But no! Neither author nor authorling liked to have his name seen in +company with Thomas Paine. And when a curious compiler has taken him up, +he has held him at arm's length, and, after eyeing him cautiously, has +dropped him like some unclean and noxious animal. + +Sixty years ago, Paine's friends used to say, that, "in spite of some +indiscreet writings on the subject of religion," he deserved the respect +and thanks of Americans for his services. We think that he deserves +something more at the present day than this absolute neglect. There is +stuff enough in him for one volume at least. His career was wonderful, +even for the age of miraculous events he lived in. In America, he was a +Revolutionary hero of the first rank, who carried letters in his pocket +from George Washington, thanking him for his services. And he managed +besides to write his radical name in large letters in the History of +England and of France. As a mere literary workman, his productions +deserve notice. In mechanics, he invented and put up the first iron +bridge of large span in England; the boldness of the attempt still +excites the admiration of engineers. He may urge, too, another claim +to our attention. In the legion of "most remarkable men" these United +States have produced or imported, only three have achieved infamy: +Arnold, Burr, and Paine. What are Paine's titles to belong to this trio +of disreputables? Only these three: he wrote the "Age of Reason"; was a +Democrat, perhaps an unusually dirty one; and drank more brandy than was +good for him. The "Age of Reason" is a shallow deistical essay, in which +the author's opinions are set forth, it is true, in a most offensive and +irreverent style. As Dr. Hopkins wrote of Ethan Allen,-- + + "One hand was clenched to batter noses, + While t'other scrawled 'gainst Paul and Moses." + +But who reads it now? On the other hand, no one who has studied Paine's +career can deny his honesty and his disinterestedness; and every +unprejudiced reader of his works must admit not merely his great ability +in urging his opinions, but that he sincerely believed all he wrote. Let +us, then, try to forget the carbuncled nose, the snuffy waistcoat, the +unorthodox sneer. We should wipe out his later years, cut his life short +at 1796, and take Paine when he wrote "Common Sense," Paine when he +lounged at the White Bear in Piccadilly, talking over with Horne Tooke +the answer to Mr. Burke's "Reflections," and Paine, when, as "foreign +benefactor of the species," he took his seat in the famous French +Convention. + +It would repay some capable author to dig him up, wash him, and show him +to the world as he was. A biography of him would embrace the history of +the struggle which established the new theory of politics in government. +He is the representative man of Democracy in both hemispheres,--a good +subject in the hands of a competent artist; and the time has arrived, we +think, when justice may be done him. As a general rule, it is yet too +soon to write the History of the United States since 1784. Half a +century has not been sufficient to wear out the bitter feeling excited +by the long struggle of Democrats and Federalists. Respectable +gentlemen, who, more pious than Aeneas, have undertaken to carry their +grandfathers' remains from the ruins of the past into the present era, +seem to be possessed with the same demon of discord that agitated the +deceased ancestors. The quarrels of the first twenty years of the +Constitution have become chronic ink-feuds in certain families. A +literary _vendetta_ is carried on to this day, and a stab with the steel +pen, or a shot from behind the safe cover of a periodical, is certain +to be received by any one of them who offers to his enemy the glorious +opportunity of a book. Where so much temper exists, impartial history is +out of the question. + +Our authors, too, as a general rule, have inherited the political jargon +of the last century, and abound in "destiny of humanity," "inalienable +rights," "virtue of the sovereign people," "base and bloody despots," +and all that sort of phrase, earnest and real enough once, but little +better than cant and twaddle now. They seem to take it for granted that +the question is settled, the rights of man accurately defined, the true +and only theory of government found,--and that he who doubts is blinded +by aristocratic prejudice or is a fool. We must say, nevertheless, that +Father Time has not yet had years enough to answer the great question of +governing which was proposed to him in 1789. Some of the developments +of our day may well make us doubt whether the last and perfect form, +or even theory, is the one we have chosen. "_Les monarchies absolues +avaient deshonoré le despotisme: prenons garde que les républiques +démocratiques ne le réhabilitent_." But Paine's part in the history of +this country after 1783 is of so small importance, that in a life of him +all such considerations may be safely waived. The democratic movement of +the last eighty years, be it a "finality," or only a phase of progress +towards a more perfect state, is the grand historical fact of modern +times, and Paine's name is intimately connected with it. One is always +ready to look with lenity on the partiality of a biographer,--whether he +urge the claims of his hero to a niche in the Valhalla of great men, or +act as the _Advocatus Diaboli_ to degrade his memory. + + + + +OF BOOKS AND THE READING THEREOF. + +BEING A THIRD LETTER FROM PAUL POTTER, OF NEW YORK, IN THE CITY AND +COUNTY OF NEW YORK, ESQ., TO THE DON ROBERTO WAGONERO, OF WASHINGTON, +_olim_, BUT _nunc_ OF NOWHEREINPARTICULAR. + + +If any person, O my Bobus, had foretold that all these months would go +by before I should again address you, he would have exhibited prescient +talent great enough to establish twenty "mediums" in a flourishing +cabalistic business. Alas! they have been to me months of fathomless +distress, immensurate and immeasurable sorrow, and blank, blind, idiotic +indifference, even to books and friends, which, next to the nearest and +dearest, are the world's most priceless possession. But now that I have +a little thrown off the stupor, now that kindly Time has a little balmed +my cruel wounds, I come back to my books and to you,--to the _animi +remissionem_ of Cicero,--to these gentle sympathizers and faithful +solacements,--to old studies and ancient pursuits. There is a Latin +line, I know not whose, but Swift was fond of quoting it,-- + + _"Vertiginosus, inops, surdus, male gratus amicis,"_-- + +which I have whispered to myself, with prophetic lips, in the long, long +watches of my lonesome nights. Do you remember--but who that has read +it does not?--that affecting letter, written upon the death of his +wife, by Sir James Mackintosh to Dr. Parr? "Such was she whom I have +lost; and I have lost her when her excellent natural sense was rapidly +improving, after eight years of struggle and distress had bound us fast +together and moulded our tempers to each other,--when a knowledge of +her worth had refined my youthful love into friendship, before age had +deprived it of much of its original ardor. I lost her, alas! (the choice +of my youth, and the partner of my misfortunes,) at a moment when I had +the prospect of her sharing my better days." + +But if I am getting old, although perhaps prematurely, I must be casting +about for the _subsidia senectuti_. Swift wrote to Gay, that these +were "two or three servants about you and a convenient house"; justly +observing, that, "when a man grows hard to please, few people care +whether he be pleased or no"; and adding, sadly enough, "I should hardly +prevail to find one visitor, if I were not able to hire him with a +bottle of wine"; and so the sorrowful epistle concludes with the +sharpest grief of all: "My female friends, who could bear with me very +well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me." It is odd that Montaigne +should have hit upon the wine also as among the _subsidia senectuti_; +although the sage Michael complains, as you will remember, that old men +do not relish their wine, or at least the first glass, because "the +palate is furred with phlegms." But I care little either for the liquor +or the lackeys, and not much, I fear, at present, for "the female +friends." I have, then, nothing left for it but to take violently to +books; for I doubt not I shall find almost any house convenient, and I +am sure of one at last which I can claim by a title not to be disturbed +by all the precedents of Cruise, and in which no mortal shall have a +contingent remainder. + +To books, then, I betake myself,--to books, "the immortal children" of +"the understanding, courage, and abilities" of the wise and good,--ay! +and to inane, drivelling, doting books, the bastard progeny of vanity +and ignorance,--books over which one dawdles in an amusing dream and +pleasant spasm of amazement, and which teach us wisdom as tipsy Helots +taught the Spartan boys sobriety. Montaigne "never travelled without +books, either in peace or war"; and as I found them pleasant in happier +days, so I find them pleasant now. Of course, much of this omnivorous +reading is from habit, and, _invitâ Minervâ_, cannot be dignified by +the name of study,--that stiff, steady, persistent, uncompromising +application of the mind, by virtue of which alone the _Pons Asinorum_ +can be crossed, and the Forty-Seventh Problem of Euclid--which I +entirely disbelieve--mastered. + +I own to a prodigious respect, entertained since my Sophomore year at +the University, for those collegiate youth whose terribly hard study of +Bourdon and Legendre seems to have such a mollifying effect upon their +heads,--but, as the tradesmen say, that thing is "not in my line." I +would rather have a bundle of bad verses which have been consigned to +the pastry-cook. I suppose--for I have been told so upon good authority +--that, if "equals be taken from equals, the remainders are equal." I do +not see why they should not be, and, as a citizen of the United States +of America, the axiom seems to me to be entitled to respect. When a +youthful person, with a piece of chalk in his hand, before commencing +his artistic and scientific achievements upon the black-board, says: +"Let it be granted that a straight line may be drawn from any one point +to any other point," I invariably answer, "Of course,--by all manner of +means,"--although you know, dear Don, that, if I should put him upon +mathematical proof of the postulate, I might bother him hugely. But +when we come to the Fourteenth Proposition of Euclid's Data,--when I am +required to admit, that, "if a magnitude together with a given magnitude +has a given ratio to another magnitude, the excess of this other +magnitude above a given magnitude has a given ratio to the first +magnitude; and if the excess of a magnitude above a given magnitude has +a given ratio to another magnitude, this other magnitude together with a +given ratio to the first magnitude,"--I own to a slight confusion of +my intellectual faculties, and a perfect contempt for John Buteo and +Ptolemy. Then, there is Butler's "Analogy"; an excellent work it is, I +have been told,--a charming work to master,--quite a bulwark of our +faith; but as, in my growing days, it was explained to me, or rather was +not explained, before breakfast, by a truculent Doctor of Divinity, whom +I knew to be ugly and felt to be great, of course, the good Bishop and I +are not upon the best of terms. + +I suppose that for drilling, training, and pipe-claying the human mind +all these things are necessary. I suppose, that, in our callow days, it +is proper that we should be birched and wear fetters upon our little, +bandy, sausage-like legs. But let me, now that I have come to man's +estate, flout my old pedagogues, and, playing truant at my will, dawdle +or labor, walk, skip, or run, go to my middle in quagmires, or climb to +the hill-tops, take liberties with the venerable, snub the respectable, +and keep the company of the disreputable,--dismiss the Archbishop +without reading his homily,--pass by a folio in twenty grenadier volumes +to greet a little black-coated, yellow-faced duodecimo,--speak to the +forlorn and forsaken, who have been doing dusty penance upon cloistered +shelves in silent alcoves for a century, with none so poor to do them +reverence,--read here one little catch which came from lips long ago +as silent as the clod which they are kissing, and there some forgotten +fragment of history, too insignificant to make its way into the world's +magnificent chronologies,--snapping up unconsidered trifles of +anecdote,--tasting some long-interred _bon-mot_ and relishing some +disentombed scandal,--pausing over the symphonic prose of Milton, only +to run, the next moment, to the Silenian ribaldry of Tom Brown the +younger,--and so keeping up a Saturnalia, in which goat-footed sylvans +mix with the maidens of Diana, and the party-colored jester shakes +his truncheon in the face of Plato. Only in this wild and promiscuous +license can we taste the genuine joys of true perusal. + +I suppose, my dear friend, that, when you were younger and foolisher +than you now are, you were wont, after the reading of some dismal +work upon diet and health, to take long, constitutional walks. You +"toddled"--pardon the vulgar word!--so many miles out and so many miles +in, at just such a pace, in just the prescribed time, during hours fixed +as the Fates; and you wondered, when you came home to your Graham bread +and cold water, that you did not bring an appetite with you. You had +performed incredible pedestrian achievements, and were not hungry, but +simply weary. It is of small use to try to be good with malice prepense. +Nature is nothing, if not natural. If I am to read to any purpose, +I must read with a relish, and browse at will with the bridle off. +Sometimes I go into a library, the slow accretion of a couple of +centuries, or perhaps the mushroom growth from a rich man's grave, a +great collection magically convoked by the talisman of gold. At the +threshold, as I ardently enter, the flaming sword of regulation is +waving. Between me and the inviting shelves are fences of woven iron; +the bibliographic Cerberus is at his sentryship; when I want a full +draught, I must be content with driblets; and the impatient messengers +are sworn to bring me only a single volume at a time. To read in such a +hampered and limited way is not to read at all; and I go back, after +the first fret and worry are over, to the little collection upon my +garret-shelf, to greet again the old familiar pages. I leave the main +army behind,--"the lordly band of mighty folios," "the well-ordered +ranks of the quartos," "the light octavos," and "humbler duodecimos," +for + + "The last new play, and frittered magazine,"-- + +for the sutlers and camp-followers, "pioneers and all," of the +grand army,--for the prizes, dirty, but curious, rescued from the +street-stall, or unearthed in a Nassau-Street cellar,--for the books +which I thumbed and dogs-eared in my youth. + +I have, in my collection, a little Divinity, consisting mostly of quaint +Quaker books bequeathed to me by my grandmother,--a little Philosophy, a +little Physic, a little Law, a little History, a little Fiction, and a +deal of Nondescript stuff. Once, when the _res angusta domi_ had become +_angustissima_, a child of Israel was, in my sore estate, summoned to +inspect the dear, shabby colony, and to make his sordid aureat or argent +bid therefor. Well do I remember how his nose, which he could not, +if his worthless life had depended upon it, render _retroussé_, grew +sublimely curvilinear in its contempt, as his hawk-eyes estimated my +pitiful family. I will not name the sum which he offered, the ghoul, the +vampire, the anthropophagous jackal, the sneaking would-be incendiary +of my little Alexandrian, the circumcised Goth! He left me, like +Churchill's Scotch lassie, "pleased, but hungry"; and I found, as +Valentine did in Congreve's "Love for Love," "a page doubled down in +Epictetus which was a feast for an emperor." + +I own, my excellent Robert, that a bad book is, to my taste, sometimes +vastly more refreshing than a good one. I do not wonder that Crabbe, +after he had so sadly failed in his medical studies, should have +anathematized the medical writers in this fine passage:-- + + "Ye frigid tribe, on whom I waited long + The tedious hours, and ne'er indulged in song! + Ye first seducers of my easy heart, + Who promised knowledge ye could not impart! + Ye dull deluders, Truth's destructive foes! + Ye Sons of Fiction, clad in stupid prose! + Ye treacherous leaders, who, yourselves in doubt, + Light up false fires, and send us far about!-- + Still may yon spider round your pages spin, + Subtle and slow, her emblematic gin! + Buried in dust and lost in silence dwell! + Most potent, grave, and reverend friends,--farewell!" + +I acknowledge the vigor of these lines, which nobody could have written +who had not been compelled, in the sunny summer-days, to bray drugs in a +mortar. Yet who does not like to read a medical book?--to pore over its +jargon, to muddle himself into a hypo, and to imagine himself afflicted +with the dreadful disease with the long Latin name, the meaning of which +he does not by any means comprehend? And did not the poems of our friend +Bavius Blunderbore, Esq., which were of "a low and moderate sort," cause +you to giggle yourself wellnigh into an asphyxy,--calf and coxcomb as +he was? Is not ----'s last novel a better antidote against melancholy, +stupendously absurd as it is, than foalfoot or plantain, featherfew or +savin, agrimony or saxifrage, or any other herb in old Robert Burton's +pharmacopoeia? I am afraid that we are a little wanting in gratitude, +when we shake our sides at the flaying of Marsyas by some Quarterly of +Apollo,--to the dis-cuticlcd, I mean. If he had not piped so stridently, +we should not have had half so much sport; yet small largess does the +miserable minstrel get for tooting tunelessly. Let us honor the brave +who fall in the battle of print. 'Twas a noble ambition, after all, +which caused our asinine friend to cloak himself in that cast leonine +skin. Who would be always reciting from a hornbook to Mistress Minerva? +What, I pray you, would become of the corn, if there were no scarecrows? +All honor to you, then, my looped and windowed sentinel, standing upon +the slope of Parnassus,--standing so patiently there, with your straw +bowels, doing yeoman-service, spite of the flouts and gibes and cocked +thumbs of Zoïlus and his sneering, snarling, verjuicy, captious +crew,--standing there, as stood the saline helpmate of Lot, to fright +our young men and virgins from the primrose-pitfalls of Poesy,--standing +there to warn them against the seductions of Phoebus, and to teach them +that it is better to hoe than to hum! + +The truth is, that the good and clever and _polyphloisboic_ writers have +too long monopolized the attention of the world, so that the little, +well-intentioned, humble, and stupid plebeians of the guild have been +snubbed out of sight. Somebody--the name is not given, but I shrewdly +suspect Canon Smith--wrote to Sir James Mackintosh,--"Why do you not +write three volumes quarto? You only want this to be called the greatest +man of your time. People are all disposed to admit anything we say of +you, but I think it unsafe and indecent to put you so high without +something in quarto." This was, of course, half fun and half truth. +As there is, however, little need of setting the world on fire to +demonstrate some chemical theory, so it is possible that the flame of +culture may be cherished without kindling a conflagration, and truth +transmitted from sire to son without the construction of edificial +monsters too big for the knees, too abstruse for the brains, and too +great for the lifetime of humanity. I am not a very constant reader +of Mr. Robert Browning, but I own to many a pleasant grin over his +Sibrandus Schafnabrugensis dropped into the crevice of the plum-tree, +and afterward pitifully reclaimed, and carried to its snug niche with +the promise,-- + + "A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you, + Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay; + And with E. on each side, and F. right over you, + Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment Day!" + +How often, when one is roving through a library in search of adventures, +is he encountered by some inflated champion of huge proportions, who +turns out to be no better than a barber, after all! Gazing upon + + "That weight of wood, with leathern coat o'erlaid, + Those ample clasps, of solid metal made, + The close-pressed leaves, unloosed for many an age, + The dull red edging of the well-filled page, + On the broad back the stubborn ridges rolled, + Where yet the title stands, in burnished gold,"-- + +what wisdom, what wit, what profundity, what vastness of knowledge, +what a grand gossip concerning all things, and more beside, did we +anticipate, only to find the promise broken, and a big impostor with no +more muscle than the black drone who fills the pipes and sentries the +seraglio of the Sophi or the Sultan! The big, burly beggars! For a +century nobody has read them, and therefore everybody has admitted them +to be great. They are bulky paradoxes, and find a good reputation in +neglect,--as some fools pass for philosophers by preserving a close +mouth and a grave countenance. + +"Safe in themselves, the ponderous works remain." + +It was a keen sense of this disproportion between size and sense which +barbed the sharpest arrows of Dr. Swift. Nobody ever imposed upon him +either by bigness or by bluster. "The Devil take stupidity," once cried +the Dean of St. Patrick's, "that it will not come in to supply the want +of philosophy!" So in the Introduction to "The Tale of a Tub," he, half +in jest and half in earnest, declares that "wisdom is like a cheese, +whereof to a judicious taste the maggots are the best." _Vive la +bagatelle!_ trembled upon his lips at the age of threescore; and he +amused himself with reading the most trifling books he could find, and +writing upon the most trifling subjects. Lord Bolingbroke wrote to him +to beg him "to put on his philosophical spectacles," and wrote with +but small success. Pope wrote to him, "to beg it of him, as a piece of +mercy, that he would not laugh at his gravity, but permit him to wear +the beard of a philosopher until he pulled it off and made a jest of it +himself." Old Weymouth, in the latter part of Anne's reign, said to +him, in his lordly Latin, "_Philosopha verba ignava opera,_" and Swift +frequently repeated the sarcasm. One cannot figure him as the "laughing +old man" of Anacreon, for there was certainly a dreadful dash of vinegar +in his composition; but if he did not hate hard enough, hit hard enough, +and weigh men, motives, and books, nicely enough to satisfy Dr. Johnson, +the Bolt-Courtier must have been a very leech of verjuice. There is a +passage in one of his letters to Pope,--I cannot just now put my hand +upon it,--in which he suggests, in rather coarse language, the subject +of "The Beggar's Opera" as a capital subject for their common friend, +Gay. And yet one can barely suppress a sigh at all this luxury of +levity, when he remembers that dreadful "_Ubi saeva indignatio ulterius +cor lacerare nequit_," and reflects upon the hope deferred which vented +itself in that stinging couplet,-- + +"In every court the parallel will hold; And kings, like private folks, +are bought and sold." + +I remember a hack-writer,--and of such, I am afraid, is too exclusively +my literary kingdom,--who classified the vices which Swift smote so +fearfully in "The Voyage to the Houyhnhnms"; and the curious catalogue +contained "avarice, fraud, cheating, violence, rapine, extortion, +cruelty, oppression, tyranny, rancor, envy, malice, detraction, +hatred, revenge, murder, bribery, corruption, pimping, lying, perjury, +subornation, treachery, ingratitude, gaming, flattery, drunkenness, +gluttony, luxury, vanity, effeminacy, cowardice, pride, impudence, +hypocrisy, infidelity, blasphemy, idolatry, and innumerable other vices, +many of them the notorious characteristics of the bulk of humankind." +Delightful catalogue! How odd, indeed, that a man with such work to do +should not have sported with Amaryllis, or played with the tangles of +Neaera's hair,--should not have worn well-anointed love-locks and snowy +linen,--should, on the other hand, have bared his brawny arm, and sent +the hissing flail down swiftly upon the waled and blistered back of +Sham! How much better would it have been, if he had written a history, +in twelve elephantine volumes, of the rise, culmination, and decay of +the Empire of Barataria, which we would have gone to prison, the rack, +and the drop, with rapture rather than read! + +How low seems Fielding, with his pot-house heroes, Tom Jones, Squire +Western, and Jonathan Wild, when we contrast them with the elegant, +cleanly-polished, and extremely proper Sir Charles Grandison! What a +coarse drab is Molly Seagrim, when juxtaposited with the princess of all +prudes, the indomitably virtuous Pamela! How childish was it of Cowper +to sing of sofas, poultry, rabbits, orchards, meadows, and barnyards! +How much more nobly employed was John Dryden in manufacturing a +brand-new, truculent, loud-voiced, massively-calved, ensiferous +Alexander! Who but an addle-headed sot would have wandered up and down +the lanes, like Morland, chalking out pigs and milkmaids, when he might +have been painting, like Barry, pictures, by the acre, of gods and +goddesses enacting incomprehensible allegories! Let us be respectable, O +my Bobus, and wear good coats and the best hats to be had for money or +upon credit; let us carefully conceal our connection with "The Gotham +Revolver," although the honest people who print it do give us our beer +and mutton; let us write great histories which nobody will read, engage +in tractations to which nobody will listen, build twelve-storied epics +which nobody will publish, and invent Gordian philosophies which nobody +can untie. Surely it is quite time for Minerva to have a general +house-cleaning, to put on a fresh smock, and to live cleanly. Rabelais +shall be washed, and Sterne sad-ironed into gravity; De Foe shall be +made as decorous as a tract; Mandeville shall be reburned, and we will +kindle the fire with half the leaves of this dry and yellow Montaigne. +Nobody shall approach the waters of Castaly save upon stilts; and +whoever may giggle, as he takes his physic, shall be put upon a +dreadfully plentiful allowance of Guieciardini for bread, and of the +poems of ----- ------- for water. + +But, alas! Brother Bobus, where to begin our purification, and where to +end it? We may, like the curate in "Don Quixote," reprieve Amadis de +Gaul, but shall we, therefore, make Esplandian, "his lawful-begotten +son," a foundation for the funeral-pile we are to set a-blazing +presently? To be sure, there is sense in the observation of the good and +holy priest upon that memorable occasion. "This," said the barber, "is +Amadis of Greece; and it is my opinion that all those upon this side are +of the same family." "Then pitch them all into the yard," responded +the priest; "for, rather than miss the satisfaction of roasting Queen +Pintiquiniestra and the pastorals of Darinel the Shepherd and his damned +unintelligible speculations, I would burn my own father along with +them, if I found him playing at knight-errantry." So into the yard went +"Olivante de Laura, the nonsensical old blockhead," "rough and dull +Florismart of Hyrcania," "noble Don Platir," with nothing in him +"deserving a grain of pity," Bernardo del Carpio, and Roncesvalles, and +Palmerin de Oliva. What a delicious scene it is! The fussy barber, tired +of reading titles and proceeding to burn by wholesale, passing down +books in armfuls to the eager housekeeper, more ready to burn them than +ever she had been to weave the finest lace. And how charming is the hit +of the Curate! "Certainly, these cannot be books of knight-errantry, +they are too small; you'll find they are only poets,"--the supplication +of the niece that the singers should not be spared, lest her uncle, when +cured of his knight-errantry, should read them, become a shepherd, +and wander through forests and fields,--"nay, and what is more to be +dreaded, turn poet, which is said to be a disease absolutely incurable." +So down went "the longer poems" of Diana de Montemayor, the whole of +Salmantino, with the Iberian Shepherd and the Nymphs of Henares. The +impatience of the curate, who, completely worn out, orders all the rest +to be burned _á canga cerrada_, fitly rounds the chapter, and sends us +in good-humor from the _auto da fé_, while the poor knight is in his +bedchamber, all unconscious of the purification in progress, which, if +he had known it, mad as he was, would have made his madness starker +still, thrashing about with his sword, back-stroke and fore-stroke, +and, as Motteux translates it, "making a heavy bustle." 'Tis all droll +enough; especially when we find that the housekeeper made such clean +work of it in the evening, in spite of the good curate's reservations, +and burnt all the books, not only those in the yard, but all those that +were in the house; but I should think twice before I let Freston the +necromancer into any library with which I am acquainted. + +Let us be gentle with the denizens of Fame's proud temple, no matter how +they came there. You remember, I suppose, Swift's couplet,-- + + "Fame has but two gates,--a white and a black one; + The worst they can say is I got in at the back one." + +"I have nothing," wrote Pope to his friend Cromwell, "to say to you in +this latter; but I was resolved to write to tell you so. Why should not +I content myself with so many great examples of deep divines, profound +casuists, grave philosophers, who have written, not letters only, but +whole tomes and voluminous treatises about nothing? Why should a fellow +like me, who all his life does nothing, be ashamed to write nothing, and +that, too, to one who has nothing to do but read it?" And so, with "_ex +nihilo nil fit_," he laughingly ends his letter. + +And now, while I am at it, I must quote a passage, somewhat germane, +from the very next letter, which Pope wrote to the same friend:--"You +talk of fame and glory, and of the great men of antiquity. Pray, tell +me, what are all your great dead men, but so many living letters? What a +vast reward is here for all the ink wasted by writers and all the blood +spilt by princes! There was in old time one Severus, a Roman Emperor. I +dare say you never called him by any other name in your life; and yet +in his days he was styled Lucius, Septimius, Severus, Pius, Pertinax, +Augustus, Parthicus, Adiabenicus, Arabicus, Maximus, and what not? What +a prodigious waste of letters has time made! What a number have here +dropped off, and left the poor surviving seven unattended! For my own +part, four are all I have to take care of; and I'll be judged by you, if +any man could live in less compass. Well, for the future, I'll drown +all high thoughts in the Lethe of cowslip-wine; as for fame, renown, +reputation, take 'em, critics! If ever I seek for immortality here, may +I be damn'd, for there's not much danger in a poet's being damn'd,-- + + 'Damnation follows death in other men, + But your damn'd Poet lives and writes agen.'" + +And so they do, even unto the present, otherwise blessed day. But, dear +old friend, is not this sublime sneering? and is there not an honest ray +or two of truth mingled here and there in the colder coruscations of +this wit? Of the sincerity of this repudiation and renunciation so +fashionable in the Pope circle I have nothing to say; but in certain +moods of the mind it is vastly entertaining, and cures one's melancholy +as cautery cures certain physical afflictions. It may be amusing for you +also to notice that Don Quixote's niece and Pope were of the same +mind. She called poetry "a catching and incurable disease," and Pope's +unfortunate Poet "lives and writes agen." + +And, after all, Bobus, why should we not be tender with all the +gentlemen who crowd the catalogues and slumber upon the shelves? It may +be all very well for you or me, whose legend should be + + "Prandeo, poto, cano, ludo, lego, coeno, quiesco," + +to laugh at them; but who shall say that they did not do their best, +and, if they were stupid, pavonian, arrogant, self-sufficient, and +top-heavy, that they were not honestly so? I always liked that boast of +Flaccus about his "monument harder than brass." It is a cheerful sight +to see a poor devil of an author in his garret, snapping his fingers at +the critics. "No beggar," wrote Pope, "is so poor but he can keep a cur, +and no author so beggarly but he can keep a critic." And, after all, +abuse is pleasanter than contemptuous and silent neglect. I do honestly +believe, that, if it were not for a little too much false modesty, every +author, and especially the poets, would boldly and publicly anticipate +posthumous fame. Do you think that Sir Thomas Urquhart, when he wrote +his "[Greek: EKSKUBALAURON], or, The Discovery of a most Precious +Jewel," etc., fancied that the world would willingly let his +reverberating words faint into whispers, and, at last, into utter +silence?--his "metonymical, ironical, metaphorical, and synecdochal +instruments of elocution, in all their several kinds, artificially +affected, according to the nature of the subject, with emphatical +expressions in things of great concernment, with catachrestical in +matters of meaner moment; attended on each side respectively with +an epiplectic and exegetic modification, with hyperbolical, either +epitatically or hypocoristically, as the purpose required to be +elated or extenuated, they qualifying metaphors, and accompanied +with apostrophes; and, lastly, with allegories of all sorts, whether +apologal, affabulatory, parabolary, aenigmatic, or paroemial"? Would you +have thought that so much sesquipedality could die? Certainly the Knight +of Cromartie did not, and fully believing Posterity would feel an +interest in himself unaccorded to any one of his contemporaries, he +kindly and prudently appended the pedigree of the family of Urquharts, +preserving every step from Adam to himself. This may have been a vanity, +but after all it was a good sturdy one, worthy of a gentleman who could +not say "the sun was setting," but who could and did say "our occidental +rays of Phoebus were upon their turning oriental to the other hemisphere +of the terrestrial globe." Alas! poor Sir Thomas, who must needs babble +the foolish hopes which wiser men reticently keep cloistered in their +own bosoms! who confessed what every scribbler thinks, and so gets +laughed at,--as wantons are carried to the round-house for airing their +incontinent phraseology in the street, while Blowsalinda reads romances +in her chamber without blushing. Modesty is very well; but, after all, +do not the least self-sufficient of us hope for something more than the +dirty dollars,--for kindness, affection, loving perusal, and fostering +shelter, long after our brains have mouldered, and the light of our eyes +has been quenched, and our deft fingers have lost their cunning, and the +places that knew us have forgotten our mien and speech and port forever? +Very, very few of us can join in Sir Boyle Roche's blundering sneer at +posterity, and with the hope of immortality mingles a dread of utter +oblivion here. Will it not be consoling, standing close by the graves +which have been prepared for us, to leave the world some little legacy +of wisdom sedulously gleaned from the fields of the fading past,--some +intangible, but honest wealth, the not altogether worthless accumulation +of an humble, but earnest life,--something which may lighten the load of +a sad experience, illuminate the dark hours which as they have come to +all must come to all through all the ages, or at least divert without +debauching the mind of the idler, the trifler, and the macaroni? I +believe this ingenuous feeling to be very far removed from the wheezy +aspirations of windy ignorance, or the spasms for fame which afflict +with colic the bowels, empty and flatulent, of sheer scribblers and +dunces who take a mean advantage of the invention of printing. Let us +be tender of the honest gentlemen who, to quote Cervantes, "aim at +somewhat, but conclude nothing." I cannot smile at the hopes of the boy +Burns,-- + + "That _he,_ for poor auld Scotland's sake, + Some usefu' plan or beuk could make, + Or sing a sang at least." + +And while I am in a humor for quotation, I must give you this muscular +verse from Henry More's "Platonic Song of the Soul":-- + + "Their rotten relics lurk close under ground; + With living weight no sense or sympathy + They have at all; nor hollow thundering sound + Of roaring winds that cold mortality + Can wake, ywrapt in sad Fatality: + To horse's hoof that beats his grassie dore + He answers not: the moon in silency + Doth passe by night, and all bedew him o'er + With her cold, humid rayes; but he feels not Heaven's power." + +How we shiver in the icy, midnight moonbeams of the recluse of Christ's +College! How preciously golden seem the links of our universal +brotherhood, when the Fates are waving their dark wings around us, and +menace us with their sundering! I am not sure, my worthy Wagonero, that, +rather than see my own little cord finally cut, I would not consent to +be laughed at by a dozen generations, in the hope that it might happen +to me that the thirteenth, out of sheer weariness at the prolonged +lampooning, might grow pitiful at my purgatorial experiences, and so +betake itself to nursing and fondling me into repute, furnishing me +with half-a-dozen of those lynx-eyed commentators who would discern +innumerable beauties and veracities through the calfskin walls of +my beatified bantling. They might find, at last, that I had "the +gold-strung harp of Apollo" and played a "most excellent diapason, +celestial music of the spheres,"--hearing the harmony + + "As plainly as ever Pythagoras did," + +when "Venus the treble ran sweet division upon Saturn the bass." + +Write for posterity! Pray, whom should we write for, in this age which +makes its own epic upon sounding anvils, and whose lyric is yelled from +the locomotive running a muck through forest and field and beside the +waters no longer still? Write poetry now, when noise has become normal, +and we are like the Egyptians, who never heard the roaring of the fall +of Nilus, because the racket was so familiar to them! The age "capers +in its own fee simple" and cries with the Host in "The Merry Devil of +Edmonton," "Away with punctilios and orthography!" Write poetry now! +Thank you, my ancient friend! "My fiddlestick cannot play without +rosin." To be sure, I am, like most minstrels, ready for an offer; and +should any lover of melody propose + + "Two hundred crowns, and twenty pounds a year + For three good lives," + +I should not be slow in responding, "Cargo! hai Trincalo!" and in +presently getting into the best possible trim and tune. But the poet may +say now, with the Butler in the old play, "Mine are precious cabinets, +and must have precious jewels put into them; and I know you to be +merchants of stock-fish, dry meat, and not men for my market; then +vanish!" + +Barrow said that "poetry was a kind of ingenious nonsense"; and I think, +that, deceived by the glut, the present time is very much of Barrow's +mind. But, courage, my music-making masters! Your warbling, if it be of +genuine quality, shall echo upon the other side of the hill which hides +the unborn years. Only be sure, the song be pure; and you may "give the +_fico_ to your adversaries." You may live in the hearts and upon the +lips of men and women yet unborn; and should the worst come, you may +figure in "The Bibliographer's Manual," with a star of honor +against your name, to indicate that you are exceedingly scarce and +proportionally valuable; rival collectors, with fury in their faces, +will run you up to a fabulous price at the auction, and you will at last +be put into free quarters for life in some shady alcove upon some lofty +shelf, with unlimited rations of dust, as you glide into a vermiculate +dotage. Why should you be faint-hearted, when the men of the stalls ask +such a breath-stretching price for the productions of William Whitehead, +Esq., who used to celebrate the birthdays of old George the Third after +this fashion:-- + + "And shall the British lyre be mute, + Nor thrill through all its trembling strings, + With oaten reed and pastoral flute + While every vale responsive rings?" + +Ben Jonson called Inigo Jones Sir Lanthorn Leatherhead, but St. Paul's +still stands; and how many flies are there in the sparkling amber of +"The Dunciad"! Have the critics, poor birdling, torn your wings, and +mocked at your recording? I know, as Howell wrote to "Father Ben," that +"the fangs of a bear and the tusks of a wild-boar don't bite worse and +make deeper gashes than a goose-quill sometimes; no, not the badger +himself, who is said to be so tenacious of his bite that he will not +give over his hold until he feels his teeth meet and bone crack." I know +all about it, my minstrel boy! for have I not, in my day, given and +taken, and shouldered back again when I have been shouldered? Pray, do +not finger your eyes any longer! Screw your lyre up to concert pitch, +and go on with your stridulous performances! Neither you nor I know how +bad may be the taste of our grandchildren, or how high you may stand +when they have + + "Made prostitute and profligate the Muse." + +If you cannot be a poet, be a poetaster; and if you cannot be that, be a +poetess, or "she-poet," as Johnson, in his big dictionary, defines the +word. So "gently take all that ungently comes," and hammer away as +sedulously as old Boileau. Somebody will, undoubtedly, in the next age, +relish your rinsings. A poet, you know, is a prophet. Console yourself +by vaticinating in the bower of your bed-chamber, as you count the feet +upon your fingers, your own immortality. If 'tis a delusion, 'tis a +cheap one, to which even a poet can afford to treat himself. Play with +and humor your life, till you fall asleep, and then the care will be +over! Meanwhile, you must be more stupid than I think, if you cannot +find somebody to give you your fodder of flattery. You need not blush, +for I know that you like it, and you need not be ashamed of liking it. +We all do,--we are all women in that regard; although the honestest man +to confess it that I ever heard of was Sir Godfrey Kneller, who said to +Pope, when he was painting his picture, "I can't do so well as I should +do, unless you flatter me a little; pray, flatter me, Mr. Pope! You know +I love to be flattered." + +You see, my excellent Robert, that, by some hocus-pocus which I do not +exactly comprehend, myself, I have introduced a wheel within a wheel, a +letter within a letter, a play within a play, after the manner of +the old dramatists; and I beg you to make a note that the foregoing +admonitions and most sapient counsels are not addressed to you. You are +something of a philosopher; but you are not, like Mr. Stephen Duck, +"something of a philosopher _and_ something of a poet"; for I do not +believe, O fortunate youth, that you ever invoked the ten ladies _minus_ +one in your life; and I shrewdly suspect, that, so far from knowing the +difference between a male and a female rhyme, you are unfamiliar with +the close family connection between "trees" and "breeze," or between +"love" and "dove." My episodical remarks are for the benefit of +young Dolce Pianissimo, who has taken, I am sorry to say, to gin, +shirt-collars prodigious, and the minor magazines, and whose friends are +standing aghast and despairing at his lunacy. But, after all, 'tis my +best irony quite thrown away; for the foolish boy will believe me quite +in earnest, and will still be making love to that jade, Mistress Fame, +although he knows well enough how many she has jilted. But as he grows +in stature, he may grow in sense. If you see him very savagely cut up +in "The Revolver," you will recognize the kindly hands which held the +bistoury, scalpel, and tenaculum, and the gentleman who wept while he +wounded. + +But I have long enough, I fear too long, tormented you with my drivel. +It must be your consolation, that, in spirit, you have been with me +to-night, as I have thought of the old days, pausing for a moment over +these mute but eloquent companions, to dream or to sigh, and then once +more turning the old familiar pages as I try to forget, for just a +little while, that dear familiar face. If something of indifference has +tinctured these hurried lines, if I have been unjust in my estimate of +the world's honors and the rewards of the Muses, you will forgive me, +if you will remember how the great Burke reduced the value of earthly +honors and emoluments to less than that of a peck of wheat. My fire is +gone out. My candle is flickering in the socket. There is light in the +cold, gray East. Good-morning, Don Bob!--good-morning! + + + + +AFTER THE BALL. + + + They sat and combed their beautiful hair, + Their long, bright tresses, one by one, + As they laughed and talked in the chamber there, + After the revel was done. + + Idly they talked of waltz and quadrille, + Idly they laughed, like other girls, + Who over the fire, when all is still, + Comb out their braids and curls. + + Robe of satin and Brussels lace, + Knots of flowers and ribbons, too, + Scattered about in every place, + For the revel is through. + + And Maud and Madge in robes of white, + The prettiest night-gowns under the sun, + Stockingless, slipperless, sit in the night, + For the revel is done,-- + + Sit and comb their beautiful hair, + Those wonderful waves of brown and gold, + Till the fire is out in the chamber there, + And the little bare feet are cold. + + Then out of the gathering winter chill, + All out of the bitter St. Agnes weather, + While the fire is out and the house is still, + Maud and Madge together,-- + + Maud and Madge in robes of white, + The prettiest night-gowns under the sun, + Curtained away from the chilly night, + After the revel is done,-- + + Float along in a splendid dream, + To a golden gittern's tinkling tune, + While a thousand lustres shimmering stream, + In a palace's grand saloon. + + Flashing of jewels, and flutter of laces, + Tropical odors sweeter than musk, + Men and women with beautiful faces + And eyes of tropical dusk,-- + + And one face shining out like a star, + One face haunting the dreams of each, + And one voice, sweeter than others are, + Breaking into silvery speech,-- + + Telling, through lips of bearded bloom, + An old, old story over again, + As down the royal bannered room, + To the golden gittern's strain, + + Two and two, they dreamily walk, + While an unseen spirit walks beside, + And, all unheard in the lovers' talk, + He claimeth one for a bride. + + Oh, Maud and Madge, dream on together, + With never a pang of jealous fear! + For, ere the bitter St. Agnes weather + Shall whiten another year, + + Robed for the bridal, and robed for the tomb, + Braided brown hair, and golden tress, + There'll be only one of you left for the bloom + Of the bearded lips to press,-- + + Only one for the bridal pearls, + The robe of satin and Brussels lace,-- + Only one to blush through her curls + At the sight of a lover's face. + + Oh, beautiful Madge, in your bridal white, + For you the revel has just begun; + But for her who sleeps in your arms to-night + The revel of Life is done! + + But robed and crowned with your saintly bliss, + Queen of heaven and bride of the sun, + Oh, beautiful Maud, you'll never miss + The kisses another hath won! + + + + +ROCK, TREE, AND MAN. + + +It is an interesting thought, that will occur to a contemplative mind, +that the world contained, from the time when it was a nebulous mass, all +the materials of the future individuals of the animate and inanimate +creation,--that the elaborate creatures of the vegetable and animal +kingdoms, as well as every mineral, were floating in amorphous masses +through space. Human beings, like genius that was condensed from vapor +at the rubbing of Aladdin's lamp, were diffused in gases, waiting the +touch of the Great Magician's wand to bring them into form and infuse +them with life. In all the distinct creations of God, from the time +when the waters first subsided and the dry land appeared, in everything +organized and inorganized, earth, air, sea, and their inhabitants, there +is no element which was not in existence when the earth was without form +and void. + +Philosophers tell us that three hundred and fifty millions of years +elapsed after the globe began to solidify, before it was fitted for the +lowest plants. And more than one million years more were necessary, +after the first plants began to grow upon its young surface, to bring it +forward to the condition which the Divine Father deemed suitable for the +reception of man. If the days of Cain and Abel were the infancy of the +world,--as we have sometimes heard,--when will it come to maturity? Its +divisions of life cannot follow the plan of animated beings; for, with +an embryonic condition of an indefinite period, and an infancy of three +hundred and fifty millions of years, more or less, we can hardly expect +that it will really have begun to enjoy the freedom of adult life, +before the human race will have attained to its earthly limit of +perfectibility, or have so overstocked the surface of the globe as to +make it necessary to remove to some larger sphere. + +It is curious, we say, to think that everything now on the earth or +composing its substance was present, though in far different form, at +the beginning,--that the Almighty gathered together in this part of +the universe all the materials out of which to create all the forms of +things which it was his pleasure to evolve here through all time,--that +in that nebulous mass were revolving, not only the gases which were at +last to combine in various manners and proportions to form the rocky +crust and the watery investment of the earth, but that in that dense and +noisome cloud floated also the elements of all the beautiful objects +that furnish the daily enchantments of life. Flowers and trees, birds +and fishes, locusts and mastodons, all things, from the tiniest +animalcule to man, were there, unmodelled, not even in embryo,--their +separate existences then only in the mind of God. There, Christian and +Saracen, Jew and Gentile, Caucasian and Negro, Hindoo and Pariah, all +the now heterogeneous natures which are as oil and water, were blended +in one common vapor. + +Finally the condensation of all the gaseous elements began, and the +aëriform masses became liquid, and the waters,--what mineral waters +they were, when they were saturated with granite and marble, diamonds, +rubies, arsenic, and iron!--thus deposited by the vapor, left a gas +above them light enough to bear some faint resemblance to our air. +Still this atmosphere was surcharged with vapors which no lungs could +tolerate, whether of man or reptile; and other steps must be taken to +clear it of its unwholesome properties. Then did the Almighty will +introduce, one after another, the germs of plants,--first of all, the +lower orders, the ferns, which seek the shade, and the lichens, which +grow in damp and dark recesses, mosses, which cling to bare rocks, +living almost on air and water alone,--everything which needed not +bright sunlight to invigorate it nor soil to cling to. Year by year and +age by age did these humble plants extract their nourishment from the +murky vapors that shrouded the earth, and, after fashioning those gases +into a living tissue of stems and leaves, year after year did they die +and lay their remains upon the rocks, accumulating by slow steps a soil +which would in time be capable of giving holding-ground to mightier +plants. The trees came,--and gigantic they must have been; and every +species of tree, shrub, and herb now upon the earth, and of all animals +that walk, fly, or swim, was introduced before the creation of man. + +It was as if the elements were too gross for the constitution of man, +when they were first collected from the nebulous mass,--as if they +needed to go through the intermediate forms of plants and animals, +passing in succession from one to another, before they could be +permitted to enter into the bodies of those beings who were to be in +God's likeness. But, in very truth, the elements were unaltered by their +many transmigrations. It was the divine act of God which caused every +plant to spring forth and gave birth to every living thing. Every seed +and every egg was at the first formed by Him. No sudden effort of man's +will, such as that by which Pygmalion was believed to have animated the +work of his chisel, nor any industrious current of electricity, passed +for uninterrupted weeks through the purest gum, and stimulated by the +enthusiasm of a Cross, can transform the worm to a breathing being, or +reach the human climax by slow steps, even if the first one be in the +humble form of a louse. When a new plant appeared, it was the hand of +God that formed the seed. When a new species of animal came upon the +earth, it was the same Power that created it. But the materials were not +new; "out of the dust of the earth" was man created. + +Oxygen, Hydrogen, Carbon, and Nitrogen,--do not turn away from us, +gentle reader, we will not be grimly scientific, but a few of the terms +of science must be employed, even here,--these four elements are the +chief ingredients of all vegetable and animal structures. When separated +from their connections, three of them are gases; and the fourth, in +union with one of the others, is also a gas. In various combinations +they form literally the dust of the earth, they make rock and water, +vapor and air. In the hand of the Almighty, they are so many plastic +elements, that form now a plant of the lowliest condition, now a +magnificent oak, now a fish, and now a man. And the germ of each +organized being bequeathes to its offspring the power to reproduce its +likeness,--so that each succeeding generation is a repetition of its +predecessor. There is no change in plants and animals from the first; +the same materials in the same proportions that were selected by the +earliest trees for their composition are chosen now; and in form and +function the last animal is a precise copy of the first of his race. + +If we attempt to trace a particle of matter, we shall find its +wanderings endless. Annihilation is a term which is not applicable to +material things. Matter is never destroyed; it rarely rests. Oxygen, +for instance, the most important constituent of our atmosphere, is the +combining element of all things, the medium of communication between the +kingdoms of Nature, the agent of the interchanges that are continually +taking place among all created things. Oxygen keeps life in man, by +combining with his blood at every inhalation; it is absorbed by flowers, +to be employed in the perfection of the fruit; many minerals are +incapable of the various uses of society, until oxygen has attacked and +united with them. It gives us lime and soda, the oil of vitriol, and +common salt; the mineral pigments in common use are impossible without +it; and the beautiful colors of our autumn leaves are due to the +combination of oxygen with their juices. It enters into all plans and +operations with a helping hand; animals and plants owe their lives to +it; but when the shadow of death begins to fall upon them, it is +as ready to aid in their destruction. Like calumny, which blackens +whatsoever is suspected, oxygen pounces upon the failing and completes +their ruin. The processes of fermentation and putrefaction cannot +commence in any substance, until it has first taken oxygen into +combination. Thus, cans of meat, hermetically sealed, with all the air +first carefully expelled, undergo no change so long as the air does not +get access to them. If the minutest opening remain, the oxygen of the +atmosphere combines with the contents of the can, and fermentation or +putrefaction follows. Rust, which takes the keen edge from the knife, is +only another name for oxydation: keep the knife bright, and no oxygen +dares touch it; but the slightest blemish is made a loophole for the +entrance of the ever-watchful enemy, who never again leaves it until its +destruction is complete. + +All the elements have a great love of society; they cannot live alone; +they have their likes and their dislikes; they contract alliances which +endure for a time, but are dissolved in favor of stronger attractions. + +We have mentioned the names of several natural elements. Let us see what +they are, and what they have to do with man and the kingdoms of Nature. +Beginning with man, let us see what becomes of him in course of time, +what physical metamorphoses he undergoes, to what vile but excellent +uses he is put. + +That which forms the bone and muscle of a man this year may be upon his +own table in the shape of potatoes or peaches one summer later. When +Hamlet talked of turning the clay of Alexander into the bung of a +beer-barrel, he spoke the simple truth. In that great play, Shakspeare +appears to have had the transformations of material things much in his +mind; for we find him alluding, in several passages, to the reciprocity +which subsists between the elements of animate and inanimate things, +and between the different members of the same kingdom;--as when, in +conversation with the king about the dead Polonius, he makes Hamlet say, +"A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat the fish +that hath fed of the worm"; or where, over the grave of Ophelia, he +traces the two ancient heroes back to their mother earth, in words some +of which we have quoted. + +The ancient mythology, which shadowed forth some truth in all its +fables, turned these facts of Nature to its purpose. The gods of +Greece, when they saw fit to remove a human being from life, sometimes +reproduced him in another form of beauty, without any intermediate +stages of decay. Apollo seemed to have a particular fancy for planting +the boys and girls whom he had loved where he might enjoy their fragrant +society. Thus, a boy named Cyparissus, who had the misfortune to kill a +favorite deer, was so unwilling to be consoled, that he besought Apollo +to make his mourning perpetual; and the kind god changed him into a +cypress, which is still a funereal tree. The modest virgin Daphne, who +succeeded in escaping the violence of his passion, was transformed into +a laurel, which is ever green and pure. And the sweet youth Hyacinthus, +beloved of Apollo, being accidentally killed by a quoit which the god +of day was throwing, that divinity, in his grief, caused those sweet +flowers which bear his name to spring from his blood, where it fell upon +the ground. It is only in the annihilation of the intervals of time +between different forms of existence that these old metamorphoses, which +Ovid relates, are fabulous. If our readers will bear us company a +few steps, through ways which shall have diversions enough to forbid +weariness, we will endeavor to satisfy them that these apparent fables +are very near to every-day truths. We must begin with some plain +statements. + +The air which we expel from the lungs at every breath has a large +proportion of carbonic acid. Let a man be shut up in an air-tight room +for a day, and he will have changed nearly all the oxygen in it into +this carbonic acid, and rendered it unfit for animal life. Dogs, cats, +and birds would die in it. But, poisonous as it is to man and other +animals, it is a feast to plants. They want it all day and every day; +not in the night,--at that time they have a taste for oxygen. This +effete air, which men and animals exhale, so charged with carbonic acid, +the plants drink in through every pore. They take it from the mouth of +man, appropriate it to their daily uses, and in time render it back to +him mingled with other ingredients in wholesome fruit. Carbonic acid is +death when it combines with the blood,--as it does when we inhale +it; but not so when it enters the stomach in small quantities. One +inspiration of it is enough to make us dizzy,--as when we enter an old +well or stoop over a charcoal fire; but a draught of water fully +charged with it is exhilarating and refreshing, as we know by repeated +experiences at marble fountains that meet us on so many city-corners. + +If plants had souls, they would be pure ones, since they can bear such +contamination and not be harmed,--nay, since even from such foul food +as we give them they can evolve results so beautiful. We give them our +cast-off and worn-out materials, and they return us the most beautiful +flowers and the most luscious fruits. + +Beside carbonic acid, there are two other principal materials, which +are every day passing off in an effete state, though capable of being +transferred to the uses of plants. But when an animal dies, the whole +substance is then at Nature's disposal. We must set aside a great deal +of it for the ants and flies, who will help themselves in spite of us. +If any one has never seen a carcass rapidly disappearing under the +steady operations of the larvae of the flesh-fly, he has yet to learn +why some flies were made. The ants, too, carry it off in loads larger, +if not heavier, than themselves. But carcasses of animals may go to +decay, undisturbed by the ravages of these useful insects. That is, the +limited partnership of Oxygen, Hydrogen, & Co., under which they agreed +to carry on the operations of sheep, fox, or fish, having terminated +by the death of the animal, the partners make immediate use of their +liberty and go off in inorganic form in search of new engagements, +leaving sulphur, phosphorus, and the other subordinate elements of the +animal, to shift for themselves. They were in the employ of a sheep; +they will now carry on a man or an oak-tree, a colony of insects, +or something else. Under the form of carbonate of ammonia, the four +elements diffuse themselves through the air, or are absorbed by the +earth, and offer themselves at once to the roots and leaves of the +trees, as ready to go on with their vivifying operations as they were in +behalf of the animals. There are some plants which seem not to be left +to the chances of securing their nourishment from the carbonate of +ammonia that the air and the soil contain, but are contrived so as +to entrap living animals and hold them fast while they undergo +decomposition, so that all their gases may be absorbed by them alone. +Thus, "the little Sundew exudes a gluey secretion from the surface of +its leaves, which serves to attract and retain insects, the decay of +whose bodies seems to contribute to its existence." And the Dionaea, +or Venus's Fly-trap of the Southern States, has some leaves which fold +together upon any insect that alights upon their upper surface; and by +means of a row of long spines that fringes the leaves, they prevent his +escape. The more active the struggles of the captive, the closer grows +the hold of the leaf, and speedily destroys him. The plant appears to +derive nutriment from the decomposition of its victims. "Plants of this +kind, which have been kept in hot-houses in England, from which insects +were carefully excluded, have been observed to languish, but were +restored by placing little bits of meat upon their traps,--the decay of +these seeming to answer the same purpose." + +The four elements already referred to are by no means all the material +ingredients of animal bodies. There are, also, phosphorus, lime, +magnesia, soda, sulphur, chlorine, and iron; and if you believe some +chemists, there is hardly a mineral in common use that may not be found +in the human body. We doubt, however, whether lead, arsenic, and silver +are there, without the intervention of the doctor. + +What becomes of the phosphorus and the rest, when an animal dies? Oh, +they take up new business, too. They are as indispensable to the animal +frame as the four most prominent ingredients. We eat a great deal of +bread and meat, and a little salt,--but the little salt is as important +to continued life as the large bread. There is hardly a tissue in the +body from which phosphorus, in combination with lime, is absent; so that +the composition of lucifer-matches is by no means the most important +use of this element. The luminous appearance which some putrefying +substances, particularly fish, present at night, is due to the slow +combustion of phosphorus which takes place as this element escapes into +the air from the decomposing tissues. + +The necessity for the steady supply of phosphorus and lime to the body +is the cause of the popularity of Mapes's superphosphate of lime as a +manure. The farmers who buy it, perhaps, do not know that their bones +and other parts are made of it, and that this is the reason they must +furnish it to their land; for between the land and the farmer's bones +are two or three other factories that require the same material. All +the farmer knows is, that his grass and his corn grow better for the +superphosphate. But what he has not thought of we will tell you,--that +man finds his phosphate of lime in the milk and meat of the cow, and she +finds her supply in the grass and corn, which look to the farmer to see +that their stock of this useful mineral compound does not fall short. +Thus in milk and meat and corn, which constitute so large a part of our +diet, we have always our phosphate of lime. There are many other sources +whence we can derive it, but these will do for the present. And thus, +when an animal dies and has no further use for his phosphate of lime, it +is washed into the soil around, after decomposition of the body has set +it free, and goes to make new grass and corn. Bone-earth (pounded bones) +is a common top-dressing for grass-lands. + +A small proportion of sulphur is found in flesh and blood. We prove its +presence in the egg by common experience. An egg--from which it escapes +more easily than from flesh--discovers its presence by blackening +silver, as every housekeeper knows, whose social position is too high +for bone egg-spoons or too low for gold ones. This passion which sulphur +entertains for silver is very strong, as every one knows who has ever +been under that wholesome discipline which had its weekly recurrence at +the delightful institution of Dotheboy's Hall; and what Anglo-Saxon ever +grew up, innocent of that delectable vernal medicine to which we refer? +Has he not found all the silver change in his pocket grow black, +suggesting very unpleasant suspicions of bogus coin? The sulphur, being +more than is wanted in the economy of the system, has made its escape +through every pore in his skin, and, of course, fraternizes with the +silver on its way. But it was of the sulphur which is natural to the +body and always found there that we were speaking. When the animal +dies, and the vital forces give way to chemical affinities, when the +phosphorus and the rest take their departure, the sulphur, too, finds +itself occupation in new fields of duty. + +Chlorine and sodium, two more of the elements of animal structures, +produce, in combination, common salt,--without which our food would be +so insipid, that we have the best evidence of its being a necessary +article of diet. The body has many uses for salt. It is found in the +tears, as we are informed by poets, who talk of "briny drops" and "saut, +saut tears"; though why there, unless to keep the lachrymal fluid from +spoiling, in those persons who bottle up their tears for a long time, we +cannot divine. + +Perhaps we had better take the rest into consideration together,--the +magnesia and iron, and whatever other elements are found in the body. +Though some of them are there in minute quantities, the structure cannot +exist without them,--and for their constant and sufficient supply our +food must provide. + +To see what becomes of all these materials after we have done with them, +we must extend our inquiries among the articles of ordinary diet and +ascertain from what sources we derive the several elements. + +It has been sometimes believed that none but animal food contains all +the elements required for the support of life. Thanks to Liebig, we have +discovered that vegetable substances also, fruits, grains, and +roots, contain them all, and, in most cases, in very nearly the same +proportions as they are found in animals. We are not lecturing on +dietetics; therefore we will not pause to explain why, although either +bread or meat alone contains the various materials for flesh and bone, +it is better to combine them than to endeavor to subsist on one only. + +Whither, then, go these elements when man has done with them? The answer +is,--All Nature wants them. Every plant is ready to drink them up, as +soon as they have taken forms which bring them within its reach. As +gases, they are inhaled by the leaves, or, dissolved in water, they +are drunk up by the roots. All plants have not the same appetites, and +therefore they can make an amicable division of the supply. Grasses and +grains want a large proportion of phosphate of lime, which they convert +into husks. Peas and beans have little use for nitrogen, and resign it +to others. Cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, and celery appropriate a +large share of the sulphur. + +The food of plants and that of animals have this great difference: +plants take their nourishment in inorganic form only; animals require +to have their food in organic form. That is, all the various +minerals, singly or combined, which compose the tissues of plants and +animals,--carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, and the rest, which we have +already named,--are taken up by plants in mineral form alone. The food +of animals, on the other hand, consists always of organized forms. There +is no artificial process by which oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen can be +brought into a form suitable for the nourishment of animals. As oxygen, +carbon, and hydrogen, they are not food, will not sustain our life, +and human art cannot imitate their nutritious combinations. Artificial +fibrine and gluten (organic principles) transcend our power of +contrivance as far as the philosopher's stone eluded the grasp of the +alchemists. We know exactly how many equivalents of oxygen, hydrogen, +carbon, and nitrogen enter into the composition of each of the animal +elements; but we can no more imitate an organic element than we can form +a leaf. What we cannot do the vegetable world does for us. Thus we see +why it was necessary that the earth should be clothed with vegetation +before animals could be introduced. A field-mouse dies and decays, and +its elements are appropriated by the roots around its grave; and we +can easily imagine the next generations of mice, the children and +grandchildren of the deceased rodent, feasting off the tender bark which +was made out of the remains of their parent. The soil of our gardens and +the atmosphere above it are full of potential tomatoes, beans, corn, +potatoes, and cabbages,--even of peaches of the finest flavor, and +grapes whose aroma is transporting. + +Plants, as well as animals, have their peculiar tastes. Cut off the +supply of phosphate of lime from a field of corn, and it will not grow. +You can easily do this by planting the same land with corn for three +or four successive years, and your crop will dwindle away to nothing, +unless you supply the ground every year with as much of the mineral as +the corn takes away from it. All plants have the power of selecting from +the soil the materials necessary to their growth; and if they do not +find them in the soil, they will not grow. It is now a familiar fact, +that, when an old forest of deciduous trees has been felled, evergreens +will spring up in their places. The old oaks, hickories, and beeches, +as any observer would discover, pass their last years in repose, simply +putting out their leaves and bearing a little fruit every year, but +making hardly any new wood. An oak may attain to nearly its full size, +in spread of branches, in its first two hundred years, and live for five +or six hundred years longer in a state of comparative rest. It seems to +grow no more, simply because it has exhausted too much of the material +for its nourishment from the ground around its roots. At least, we know, +that, when we have cut it down, not oaks, but pines, will germinate +in the same soil,--pines, which, having other necessities and taking +somewhat different food, find a supply in the ground, untouched by +their predecessor. Hence the rotation of crops, so much talked of by +agriculturists. Before the subject was so well understood, the ground +was allowed to lie fallow for a year or two, when the crops began to +grow small, that it might recover from the air the elements it had lost. +We now adopt the principle of rotation, and plant beans this year where +last year we put corn. + +It is not merely that plants deprive themselves of their future support +by exhausting the neighboring earth of the elements they require. Some +of them put into the ground substances which are poisonous to themselves +or other plants. Thus, beans and peas pour out from their roots a very +notable amount of a certain gum which is not at all suited to their +own nourishment,--so that, if we plant beans in the same spot several +successive seasons, they thrive very poorly. But this gum appears to be +exactly the food for corn; if, therefore, we raise crops of beans and +corn alternately, they assist each other. Liebig gives the results of a +series of experiments illustrating the reciprocal actions of different +species of plants. Various seeds were sprouted in water, in order to +observe the nature of the excretions from their roots. It was found +"that the water in which plants of the family of the _Leguminosae_ +(beans and peas) grew acquired a brown color, from the substance which +exuded from their roots. Plants of the same species, placed in water +impregnated with these excrements, were impeded in their growth, and +faded prematurely; whilst, on the contrary, corn-plants grew vigorously +in it, and the color of the water diminished sensibly, so that it +appeared as if a certain quantity of the excrements of the _Leguminosae_ +had really been absorbed by the corn-plants." The oak, which is the +great laboratory of tannin, not only lays up stores of it in its bark +and leaves, but its roots discharge into the ground enough of it to tan +the rootlets of all plants that venture to put down their suction-hose +into the same region, and their spongioles are so effectually closed +by this process, that they can no longer perform their office, and the +plant that bears them dies. Plants whose roots ramify among the roots +of poppies become unwilling opium-eaters, from the exudation of this +narcotic principle into the ground, and are stunted, like the children +of Gin Lane. + +The Aquarium furnishes a very interesting example of the mutual +dependence of the three natural kingdoms. Here, in a box holding a few +gallons of water and a little atmospheric air, is a miniature world, +secluded, and supplying its own wants. Its success depends on the number +and character of the animals and plants being so adapted as to secure +just the requisite amount of active growth to each to sustain the life +of the other: that the plants should be sufficient to support, by the +superfluities of their growth, the vegetarians among the animated tribes +that surround them; and that all the animal tribes of the aquarium, +whether subsisting upon the vegetables or on their smaller and weaker +fellow-creatures, should restore to the water in excrements the mineral +substances which will enable the plants to make good the daily loss +occasioned by the depredations of the sea-rovers that live upon them. +Thus an aquarium, its constituents once correctly adjusted, has all the +requisites for perpetuity; or rather, the only obstacle to its unlimited +continuance is, that it is a mortal, and not a Divine hand, that +controls its light and heat. + +In the examination of the materials appropriated by plants from the +soil, we find that mineral substances are sometimes taken up in solution +in larger amount than the growth of the plant and the maturation of its +fruit require, and the excess is deposited again, in crystalline form +in the substance of the plant. If we cut across a stalk of the +garden rhubarb, we can see, with the aid of a microscope, the fine +needle-shaped crystals of oxalate of potash lying among the fibres of +the plant,--a provision for an extra supply of the oxalic acid which is +the source of the intense sourness of this vegetable. When the sap of +the sugar-maple is boiled down to the consistence of syrup and allowed +to stand, it sometimes deposits a considerable amount of sand; indeed, +this is probably always present in some degree, and justifies, perhaps, +the occasional complaint of the grittiness of maple-sugar. But it is a +native grit, and not chargeable upon the sugar-makers. It is nothing +less than flint, which the roots of the maple absorbed, while it was +dissolved in water in the soil. The sap, still holding the flint in +solution, flows out, clear as water, when the tree is tapped; but when +it is concentrated by boiling, the silicious mineral is deposited in +little crystals, so that the bottom of the pan appears to be covered +with sand. We could not select a more interesting example of the very +wide diffusion of some compound substances than this one of silicic +acid. It is found in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. Being a +mineral, it cannot be appropriated to animal uses, without being +decomposed and transformed into an organic condition; but in the +numerous species of plants whose stalks require stiffening against +the winds,--in the grasses and canes, including all our grains, the +sugar-cane, and the bamboo,--a silicate (an actual flint) is taken up by +the roots and stored away in the stalks as a stiffener. The rough, sharp +edge of a blade of grass sometimes makes an ugly cut on one's finger by +means of the flint it contains. Silex is the chief ingredient in quartz +rock, which is so widely diffused over the earth, and enters into the +composition of most of the precious stones. The ruby, the emerald, the +topaz, the amethyst, chalcedony, carnelian, jasper, agate, and garnet, +and all the beautiful varieties of rock crystal, are mostly or entirely +silex. Glass is a compound of silex and pearlash. One who is curious in +such things may make glass out of a straw, by burning it and heating the +ashes with a blowpipe. A little globule of pure glass will form as the +ashes are consumed. The following curious instance, quoted by that +interesting physiologist, Dr. Carpenter, shows the same effect upon a +large scale. A melted mass of glassy substance was found on a meadow +between Mannheim and Heidelberg, in Germany, after a thunder-storm. It +was, at first, supposed to be a meteor; but, when chemically examined, +it proved to consist of silex, combined with potash,--in the form +in which it exists in grasses; and, upon further inquiry, it was +ascertained that a stack of hay had stood upon the spot, of which +nothing remained but the ashes, the whole having been ignited by the +lightning. + +There is nothing in Nature more striking to the novice than the first +suggestions of the various, and apparently contradictory, at least +unexpected, positions in which the same mineral is found. Now carbon is +one of the minerals whose exchanges are peculiarly interesting. Chemists +say that the diamond is the only instance in Nature of pure carbon: +it burns in oxygen under the influence of intense heat, and leaves no +ashes. Next to this--strange gradation!--is charcoal, which comes within +a very little of being a diamond. But just that little interval is +apparently so great, that none but a chemist would suspect there was +any relationship between them. Then come all those immense beds of coal +which compose one of the geological strata of the earth's crust, a +stratum that was formed before the appearance of the animated creation, +when the earth was clothed with a gigantic forest, whose mighty trunks +buried themselves with their fallen leaves, and became, in time, a +continuous bed of carbonaceous stone. + +If we look at the vegetable and animal kingdoms, we find carbon entering +into the composition of every tissue. But there are certain tissues and +anatomical elements (as physicians say) which are formed largely of +carbon and have no nitrogen whatever. These are oils and fats and +everything related to them. What will be chiefly interesting, however, +to our readers, is the power of transformation of one of these +substances into another. Starch, gum, and sugar can all be changed into +fat. The explanation of it is in the fact, that these substances are all +chemically alike,--that is, they all have nearly the same proportions of +carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, and no nitrogen; but by slight differences +in the combination of these elements, they exist in Nature as so many +distinct substances. Their approach to identity is further confirmed +by the fact, that starch can be made into gum, and either of them into +sugar, in the laboratory. The transformation of starch and gum into +sugar is also constantly going on in the ripening of fruits. When +country-dames make currant-jellies and currant-wine, they know very +well, that, if they allow the berries to get dead-ripe, their jelly will +not be so firm as when they seize an early opportunity and gather them +when first fully red. They may also have observed that jelly made late, +besides being less firm, is much more likely to candy. At first, the +currants contain hardly any sugar, but more gum and vegetable jelly +(glue); when dead-ripe, they have twelve times as much sugar as at +first, and the gum and glue are much diminished. The gummy and gluey +materials have been transformed into sugar. Every ripe fruit gives us +evidence of the same manufacture of sugar that has gone on under the +stimulus of the sun's rays; and in the greatest source of sugar, the +cane, the process is the same. A French physician, M. Bernard, has, +within the last twelve years, discovered that the liver of animals is +constantly making sugar out of all kinds of food, while the lungs are +all the time undoing the work of the liver and turning it back into its +chemical elements. And although, in the laboratory of the liver, it is +discovered that no alimentary substance is quite deficient in sweetness, +yet there, as elsewhere, starch and gum yield a far greater amount of it +than animal substances. + +We have stated that starch and gum can be turned into sugar by art,--but +as no chemist has yet succeeded in imitating an animal substance, the +change of these three into fat takes place only in the body. There +are proofs enough within general observation, that one object of this +portion of our diet is the supply of fat. The Esquimaux fattens on his +diet of blubber and train-oil; the slaves on the sugar-plantations grow +fat in the boiling-season, when they live heartily on sugar; the Chinese +grow fat on an exclusively rice diet,--and rice is chiefly starch. But +one of the most interesting observations of the transformation of sugar +into a fat is that made by Huber upon bees. It was the discovery, that +bees make their wax out of honey, and not of pollen, as was formerly +believed. When Huber shut up some bees in a close hive, and kept them +supplied with pure honey or with sugar alone, they subsisted upon it, +and soon began to build the comb. Wax is a fat, and the honey which is +eaten by the bee is partly transformed into wax in his body. In about +twenty-four hours after his stomach has been filled with honey, thin +plates of wax appear on the scales of his abdomen, having oozed through +eight little openings in the scales and there hardened. Of this they +build their cells. + +We have wandered far from the consideration of the propensity of certain +species of plants to take up special compound substances from the +earth; but the wide-spread silex, with which we set out, displayed so +interesting a field of observation, that it could not be resisted, and +encouraged a disposition to rove, which has been to us instructive and +entertaining. To return to plants,--we find they make use of compounds +for certain special ends; but, as we have seen, the whole vegetable +kingdom uses the eight or ten primitive elements which it has in common +with the animals, and out of these alone forms the infinite variety of +products which we derive from it for food and various economical +and aesthetical purposes. Among the many processes of Nature whose +contemplation fills us with ever new delight, this power of the +adaptation of a few means to an infinite number of ends is one of the +most enchanting. We endeavor to explain by chemical laws the reduction +of the materials which earth and air furnish, to a form in which they +can be appropriated by the tree; by endosmose and exosmose we think we +have overcome the obstacles to a clear comprehension of the circulation +of the sap; and by a cell-theory we believe we have explained the whole +growth of wood and leaves and fruit. But what microscope or what alembic +shall ever tell us why a collection of tubes and cells in one tree +creates the most wholesome and delicious fruit, while in another an +organization precisely similar, so far as we can discern, produces only +harsh and poisonous berries? why the acacia tribe elaborate their gum, +the pine family turpentine, the almond prussic acid, the sorrels oxalic +acid? why the tall calisaya-tree of the Andes deposits in its bark the +valuable medicine cinchona, and the oak, the hemlock, the tea-plant, and +many others, make use of similar repositories to lay up stores of +tannic acid? The numberless combinations of the same materials, and +the wonderful power which rests in a single seed to bring about with +unvarying uniformity its own distinct result, attest to us every day the +admirable wisdom and goodness of the Creator. + +These regular, every-day transformations of material elements from rock +to tree, from tree to man, and back through a continual circuit, would +repay us for spending our leisure hours in studying it, with our own +eyes as well as with the eyes of others. The glance we have given is +sufficiently suggestive to turn the attention of our readers that way. +Before parting with them, however, we wish to make a few excursions +into the natural world, to follow out some of the more peculiar and +unexpected migrations of material atoms. Suppose we take a little +marble,--which, in chemical constitution, is carbonate of lime,--that +very marble, for instance, which forms the palaces of Venice, against +which the waters of the Mediterranean have dashed for so many centuries, +and have not dashed in vain. In their perpetual washing, they have worn +away the stone and carried off its particles,--an insignificant amount, +it is true, but, little as it is, it has not remained unused. For +that very carbonate of lime, which once shared the proud state of the +"glorious city in the sea," now helps to form the coarse shells of +oysters, or is embodied in the vast coral reefs that shoot out from the +islands of the West Indies, or is deposited year after year by dying +shell-fish, which are slowly carpeting the ocean-bed with their remains. +Much of this same Venice marble has doubtless been appropriated by +fishes from the sea-water which dissolved it, been transformed into +their bones, cast upon the soil of Italy, disintegrated, and imbibed by +the thirsty roots of forests in sight of the very walls from which it +parted. And who can say that parts of it do not now adorn the necks of +some Venetian dames, in coral, or more costly pearls? What says Ariel to +the orphaned Ferdinand? + + Full fathom five thy father lies; + Of his bones are coral made; + Those are pearls that were his eyes: + Nothing of him that doth fade + But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange. + +This is but a hint of the mutability of created things. Marble, +sea-shells, the chalk-cliffs of Dover, the limestone fossils which +preserve for us animal forms of species long since extinct, the coral +formations that are stretching out in dangerous reefs in so many seas +of the tropics, are all identical in their chief ingredient, and, as +we see, are by natural processes and various accidents constantly +interchanging their positions. + +It ought to be consoling to those who think a great deal of their +bodies, to reflect, that, if we may tend "to base uses," we may also +tend to very noble ones. In the course of their transmigrations, the +elements of a worthless individual may get into far better company than +they have before enjoyed,--may enter into brains that immortalize their +owner and redeem the errors of the old possessor. Whoever bases his +merit on a long line of ancestors who have nothing but a perpetuated +name to boast of, may be likened to the last of many successive tenants +of a house who have hired it for their temporary uses. The inheritance +of a brave spirit and a noble mind is a sufficient justification for a +reasonable pride; but not so with the heritage of materials which are +continually interchanging with the clod. + +There need be nothing humiliating in such thoughts; the operations +of Nature are always admirable. But when the relics of humanity are +deliberately appropriated to such mechanical or scientific purposes +as we shall relate, before they have entirely lost their original (we +should say latest) form, then most men would look upon the act as +in some sort a desecration. With what holy horror would the ancient +Egyptians regard the economical uses to which their embalmed bodies were +appropriated a few centuries ago! In the words of Ambrose Paré, the +great surgeon of five French kings in the sixteenth century, is a full +account of the preparation and administration of "mummie,"--that is, +Egyptian mummies, powdered and made into pills and potions,--"to such +as have falne from high places or have beene otherwise bruised." The +learned physician enters his protest against the use of it, (which he +says is almost universal with the faculty,) as quite inefficacious and +disgusting. His disgust, however, arises principally from the fact that +the "mummie" prepared by the apothecaries must have been derived "from +the carcases of the basest people of Egypt; for the nobelmen and cheefe +of the province, so religiously addicted to the monuments of their +ancestors, would never suffer the bodyes of their friends and kindred to +be transported hither for filthy gaine and detested use." + +If such traffic be base, what shall we say of some priests of Nicaragua, +who renovate their burial-grounds by exhuming the bones of the dead, +with the earth that surrounds them, and selling the mass to the +manufacturers of nitre? No sentiment of reverence for the sepulchres +of their fathers incites them to resist the inroads of foreign +pirates,--for they manufacture their fathers' bones into gunpowder. + +Let us turn away from the revolting picture. The glimpses of Nature's +revolutions which we have enjoyed are more agreeable. We are no +advocates for any attempts of preserving the human body from +decomposition; that which will restore the beloved forms of friends +most readily to their primitive elements, and avert the possibility +of anything so dear remaining to excite our aversion or disgust, or +becoming a pestilential agent, we would cordially encourage. There can +be no doubt that use would soon render cremation as little disagreeable +to the feelings as consigning the precious remains to slow decay and +food for worms; and few will long be pained at the thought of mingling +at once with the common earth and air, and returning to usefulness in +other forms, after the soul has passed to heavenly spheres to enjoy the +blessings of immortal life. + + * * * * * + + +CHIP DARTMOUTH. + + +It is wonderful how Nature provides for the taking off and keeping down +of her monsters,--creatures that carry things only by force or fraud: +your foxes, wolves, and bears; your anacondas, tigers, and lions; and +your cunning or ferocious men of prey, of whom they are the types. +Storms may and must now and then rage and ravage, volcanoes must have +their destructive fits, and the darkness must do its mean and tyrannical +things while men are asleep; but calmness and sunshine triumph +immeasurably on the whole. Of the cubs of iniquity, only here and there +an individual escapes the crebrous perils of adolescence, develops into +the full beast, and occupies a sublime place in history; whereas the +genial men of sunshine, plenty as the fair days of summer, pass quietly +over from the ruby of life's morning to the sapphire of its evening, too +numerous to be written of or distinctly remembered. There are, it is +quite true, enough biographies of such in existence to read the world to +sleep by for ages. It can hardly keep awake at all, except over lives of +the other sort; hence, one of great and successful villany is a prize +for the scribe. In the dearth of such, let us content ourselves with +briefly noticing one of the multitude of abortive cubs, its villany +nipped--as Nature is wont to nip it--in the promising bud of its +tenderness. Many a flourishing young rogue suddenly disappears, and the +world never knows how or why. But it shall know, if it will heed our +one-story tale, how Chip Dartmouth of these parts was turned down +here,--albeit we cannot at present say whether he has since turned up +elsewhere. + +Our hero was baptized simply Chipworth, in compliment to a rich uncle, +who was expected on that account to remember him more largely in his +will,--as he probably did; for he soon left him a legacy of twenty +thousand dollars, on the express condition that it should accumulate +till he was of age, and then be used as a capital to set the young man +up in business. As the inheritance of kingdoms spoils kings, so this +little fortune, though Chip could not finger a mill of it during his +minority, all the while acted on him like a controlling magnet, inducing +a strong repellency to good advice and a general exaltation of views, so +that, when he came into possession of it, he was already a fast young +man in almost every respect. He had settled it as the maxim of his life +to gain fast and spend fast; and having had considerable opportunity to +spend before he had any to gain, he had on becoming a business man, some +secret deficits to make good before he could really be as rich as people +supposed him. As his deficits had not been made by daylight, so daylight +must have nothing to do in wiping them out; and hence darkness became +more congenial than its reverse to all his plans, and he studied, as he +thought, with singular success, the various tricks of blinding people +to the state of his finances, as well as of bettering it. While he was +supposed to be growing rich very rapidly, he really was doing so about +half as fast as everybody thought. Chip would not steal,--that was +vulgar. But he would take every possible advantage of other people by +keeping close his own counsels and pumping out theirs. He would slander +a piece of property and then buy it. He would monopolize on a short +market, and fill his purse by forestalling. Indeed, he was, altogether, +one of the keen, and greatly admired in business circles. + +It was not easy for Chip to love any being but himself,--not even a +woman. But his smart figure, for which Nature and the tailors had done +their best, set the general female imagination into the most +lively action. Many were the dreams about him,--day-dreams and +night-dreams,--that were dreamed in front of all manner of little +filigree bird nest bonnets and under snowy nightcaps; and at the +slightest encouragement on his part, no doubt, the idea of himself which +had been manufactured in many minds would have been fallen in love with. +The reality certainly would not have been. Miss Millicent Hopkins wore +one of the caps set for Chip, and her he professed vehemently to love. +But she was the daughter of a millionnaire of a very set temper, who had +often said and sworn that his daughter should not have any man who had +not proved by more than mushroom or retail success in business that he +was able and likely to better her fortune. Miss Millicent must plainly +either be run away with, or fairly won on old Hopkins's plan of +wholesale, long-winded business success. Miss Millicent's good looks, +if they did not amount to beauty, did, nevertheless, add something to +the attractiveness of her vast pecuniary prospects. Chip had obtained +the young lady's decided favor without absolutely crossing the Rubicon +himself, for he had no notion of taking her without any of the funds her +father had to bestow. It was arranged between them that his paternal +consent should be asked, and the die or live of matrimony should depend +on that. But, with confidence, or what is sometimes called brass, enough +to put any sort of question, it was impossible for Chip Dartmouth to +state the case to old Mr. Hopkins as it was. Having obtained a private +interview, he grasped the old gentleman by the hand with an air as +familiar as it was apparently cordial. + +"Ah! I am very glad to see you, Mr. Hopkins, for I have been thinking +what a fool I must be not to pay my addresses to Miss Millicent; and I +can take no steps, you know, without your consent." + +"You can take none with it, Sir," was the emphatic reply of the severe +parent, with a sort of annihilating look. "I admire your prudence and +frankness, my young friend; but, till you show yourself a merchant, of +my own sort, I beg you will excuse me and my family from any of the +steps you contemplate. Good-morning, Sir,--good-morning!" + +The showing-out was irresistible, leaving nothing more to be said. + +Chip now resolved that he would double his diligence in making money, +out of spite to the father, if not love for the daughter. The old fogy's +wealth he would have at any rate, and Millicent with it, if possible, as +a sort of bonus. So, obtaining an interview with his fair intended and +intending, at the earliest moment, without revealing a hint of his own +diplomatic blunder, he told her that her father had refused his consent +to their union because his fortune was not sufficient, and she must not +expect to see him again till it was so, which he fancied would be in a +much shorter time than the old gentleman supposed. + +Chip had not long to wait for a chance to strike the first blow in +carrying out his new resolution of fast trading. The day after his +memorable rebuff, he was sitting in the choky little counting-room of a +crammed commission-warehouse in India Street, musing and mousing over +the various schemes that occurred to his fertile brain for increasing +the profits of his business. He had already bought cotton pretty largely +on speculation. Should he monopolize further, make a grand rush in +stocks, or join the church and get large trust-funds into his hands on +the strength of his reputation for piety? All these and a hundred other +questions were getting rapidly and shrewdly discussed in his mind, when +a rather stubbed man, with a square, homely face and vinegar expression, +opened, or partly opened, the little glass door of the counting-room, +and, looking round it more greedily than hopefully, said,-- + +"You don't want the cargo of the 'Orion' at a bargain?" + +"Can't say I do. But walk in, Captain Grant,--walk in!" + +Captain Grant did walk in, though he said it was no use talking, if Chip +didn't want the cotton. Chip saw instinctively, in the sad, acid look of +his visitor, that he was anxious to sell, and could be made to take a +despondent view of the market. Taking him by the button, he said, rather +patronizingly,-- + +"I know, Captain, you ship-owners want to keep your ships at work at +something besides storage. But look there," pointing to the bales of +cotton filling the immense floor; "multiply that pile by four and add +the basements of two churches, and you see a reason why I should not buy +above the level of the market. Now, taking that into consideration, what +do you ask for your two hundred and fifty bales in the 'Orion?'" + +"Seven cents." + +"I know somebody who would feel rich, if he could sell at that," +returned Chip, with a queer grin. "No, no, Captain Grant, that won't do +at all. Prices are sinking. If I should buy at that figure, every sign +of margin would fade out in a fortnight. I haven't five bales that have +been bought at any such price." + +It was true, he had not; for they had been bought at seven-and-a-half +and eight. + +"Well, I will say six-and-a-half at sixty days, to you," said the +humiliated Grant. + +"My dear Sir," replied Chip, "you don't begin to tempt me. I must burn +all my foreign correspondence and forget the facts before I can begin to +look at anything beyond six cents and ninety days." + +"Ninety days won't do," said Mr. Grant, tersely. "If we must sacrifice, +it must be for something a bank will look at, Mr. Dartmouth. But I want +the ship cleared, and if you will say six at two months for the whole, +it's a bargain, bad as it is for me." + +"Not a bargain for me to be in a hurry about; but I'll think of it. Hold +on till to-morrow. But, on the whole, you needn't do that. It wouldn't +be an object." + +"But I will do it, if you say so, till noon to-morrow." + +"Better say five-and-three-fourths and have it done to-day," said Chip, +"for I may not give that to-morrow. But if you hold on, and I buy +anything at six, it shall be your lot." + +Captain Grant, beginning to believe that he should, after all, sell a +little above the bottom of the market, took his leave for his home among +the Waltham hills, a little less grouty than when he entered. + +That same night, Chip, after having dropped in at numerous resorts of +the fast men, in most of which somewhat of his conscience, such as it +was, dropped out, was proceeding homeward through Devonshire Street, +with the brightest of his wits still about him. It was a raw night, one +of the rawest ever got up by a belated equinoctial, with almost nothing +stirring in the streets but the wind, and the loose shutters and old +remnants of summer awnings left to its tender mercies. Aeolus, with +these simple instruments of sound, added to the many sharp corners of +city architecture, managed to get up something of a symphony, enough +almost to make up for the nocturnal cats, now retired to silence and the +snuggest attainable quarters. The hour was one of the short ones +ayont the twal, and sleep reigned everywhere except in the +daily-newspaper-offices and in the most fashionable of the grog-shops. +Besides Chip, the only living thing in Devonshire Street was a +thinly-clad stripling, with a little roll of yellowish tissue-paper in +his hand, knocking and shaking feebly at a door which grimly refused to +open. His powers of endurance were evidently giving way, and his grief +had become both vocal and fluent in the channel of his infant years. + +"What's the matter, my boy?" asked Chip,--"locked out, hey?" + +"No,--bo-hoo. No, Sir, the door's blowed to and froze up, and I can't +git this pos'crip' up to the office." + +"Oh, oh! you're the telegraph-boy, are you?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"Most froz'n, aren't you?" + +"O-oo-oo, that I be, Sir." + +Here a very bright idea struck Chip, and he inquired,-- + +"Is this all that's coming?" + +"Boo-hoo. Yes, Sir. They've sent good-night once before, and this is the +pos'crip'. The wires is shut off now, and some of the papers is shut +off, too; for I've been to three before this, and can't git into nary +one on 'em." + +"Never mind, my poor fellow; I belong up here. I'll take the sheets and +send 'em round to all the other papers that are open. Never mind; you +take that, and go right home to your mother." + +"Thank you, Sir," said the shivering lad, and, giving up the yellow roll +and taking the loose coppers offered him in the quickest possible time, +he scampered off around the corner of Water Street and left Chip in +company with two temptations. + +"Now," thought Chip, "it will be certainly a clean and gentlemanly +thing, if, after having relieved this poor little devil of his trouble +and responsibility, I should oblige the still poorer devil of a concern +up-stairs by giving 'em this postcript of foreign news, which, by +working so late, they will probably have exclusively. That would be most +truly honest, benevolent, and philanthropic. It would make at least one +newspaper my friend, and, on the whole, it is something of a temptation. +But let me see what it will cost." + +Giving the black door a vigorous push, he entered, and by the gas-burner +on the first landing discovered that the postcript in his possession +gave the state of the Liverpool cotton-market a day later than the body +of the dispatch, which had already gone into type, and, what was more to +the purpose, announced a rise of a penny-and-a-half on the pound. Chip +clutched the gauzy sheets in his fist, closed the door as softly as +possible, and yielded himself a doomed captive to temptation number two. +Here was a little fortune on the cotton he had in store at any rate, +and, if he really had in his grasp all the news of the rise, he might +make by it a plump ten thousand dollars out of Captain Grant's "Orion." +But to this end he must be sure that not a lisp of the rise would be +published in the morning papers, and he must see Captain Grant and close +his bargain for the "Orion's" cargo before the wires should begin to +furnish additional news by the "Africa" to the evening papers. They +would not, after obtaining such news, lose a moment in parading it on +their bulletin-boards, and Captain Grant might get hold of it before +reaching the little counting-room in India Street. Chip, of course, +saw what to do, and did it. Waiting in one of the little +"meals-at-all-hours" saloons till he heard the churning of the +press-engines, he sallied out and bought of the overloaded carriers the +earliest copies of the morning papers, and made himself sure that the +foreign news did not disclose any change of the cotton-market. The +next thing was to transfer himself to Captain Grant's residence in +Waltham,--exactly whereabout in Waltham he did not know, but, of course, +he could easily find out,--and, without exciting the grouty old salt's +suspicions of false play, make sure of the cotton at his own price. On +the whole, he thought it safer, as well as cheaper, to use the early +train than to hire a special team. + +Arrived in Waltham, to his great vexation, it appeared, after +much inquiry, that Captain Grant lived full three miles from the +station,--and what was worse, every omnibus, hack, buggy, and dog-cart +was engaged for a muster in one direction or a cattle-show in another. +Nothing on wheels could be hired at any price,--at least, none could be +found in an hour's search from one hotel or livery-stable to another. +Chip, whose sleepless night and meditated fraud had not left much of the +saint in him, swore the whole of Waltham as deep as the grimmest view of +predestination would allow. And he restrained himself from being still +more profane only lest his wrath should awaken inconvenient suspicions. +After all, there was one old tavern a little way out, where possibly a +one-horse affair could be raised. The Birch House was a sort of seedy, +dried-up, quiet, out-of-the-way inn, whose sign-post stood forth like a +window without sash, the rectangular ligneous picture of a man driving +cattle to Brighton having long ago been blown out of its lofty setting +and split to pieces by the fall. What was the use of replacing it? No +one was likely to call, who did not already know that the Widow Birch +still kept tavern there, and just how she kept it. It was doubtful if a +new sign would attract a single new customer. Indeed, since the advent +of railroads, a customer was not a common occurrence any way, though +there still remained a few that could be depended on, like the Canada +geese, in their season, and their custom was handsomely profitable. The +house, a white wooden one, with greenish blinds, had two low stories, +the first of which was nearly level with the ground. There was a broad, +low entry running through the middle, and on either side two rather +spacious square rooms. One of those in front had a well-sanded, +well-worn pine floor, with a very thirsty-looking counter across one +corner, supporting a sort of palisade that appeared to fortify nothing +at all,--a place, however, which had evidently been moist enough in +the olden times. In the other front room was a neat carpet, plain, +old-fashioned furniture, and a delightful little plantation of fresh and +cozy flower-pots, surrounding a vase full of gold-fishes, and overhung +by a bright-eyed, mellow-throated canary, the whole of that paradise +being doubtless under the watch and care of little Laura Birch. This was +the ladies' parlor,--the grand reception-room, also, of any genteel male +guest, should one for a wonder appear. Little Laura, however, was no +longer as little as she had been,--though just as innocent, and ten +times as bewitching to most people who knew her. You could not but +particularly wish her well, the moment her glad, hopeful, playful, +confiding, half-roguish eye met yours. With the most conscientious +resolution to make herself useful, under her mother's thrifty +administration, in the long, clean New England kitchen which stretched +away behind the square dining-room, interposed between it and the dry +bar-room, she had a taste for books and a passion for flowers, which +absorbed most of her thoughts, and gained her more chidings from her +mother for their untimely manifestations than her handiest services +gained thanks or any signs of grateful recognition. She and the flowers, +including the bird and the fishes, seemed to belong to the same +sisterhood. She had copied their fashion of dress and behavior, rather +than the Parisian or any imported style,--and so her art, being all +learned from Nature, was quite natural. On the very morning in question, +she was engaged in giving this little conservatory the benefit of her +thorough skill and affectionate regard, when good Dame Birch broke in +upon her with,-- + +"Why, Laury, what are you thinking about? It's always just so. Here is a +gentleman in the bar-room, and he's a'most sure to order breakfast, and +them eels isn't touched, and not a thing ready but cold victuals and +pie. Them eels would be so nice and genteel! and you know they won't +keep." + +"But you didn't tell me to fry them now, mother," said Laura. + +"But I told you to fix 'em all ready to fry." + +"Well, mother," replied Laura, "I'll come as soon as these things are +set to rights. It won't do to leave them just so." + +"Well, it's always just so," said the maternal Birch. "I must do it +myself, I see. Don't be all day, Laury,--now don't!" + +She disappeared, muttering something about "them plaguy flower-pots." + +In point of fact, Chip Dartmouth was all this while in the aforesaid dry +bar-room, engaged in an earnest colloquy with Frank Birch, a grown-up +son of the landlady, a youth just entered on the independent platform of +twenty-one, Laura being three years younger. Chip had arrived rather out +of breath and excited, having got decidedly ahead of the amenities +that would have been particularly expedient under the circumstances. +Approaching a door of the bar-room, which opened near its corner towards +the barn, and which stood open at the time, he descried Frank within +busily engaged mending harness. + +"Hallo! young man, I say, hurry up that job, for I've no time to lose." + +"Well, I'm glad on't," retorted Frank, hardly looking up from his work, +"for I ha'n't." + +"Look here!" said Chip, entering, "you're the man I've been looking for. +I must have a ride to Captain Grant's, straight off, at your own price." + +"Maybe you must, but I'm goin' to the Concord cattle-show, and Captain +Grant's is four miles out of the way. I can't think of goin' round, for +I shall be too late, any way." + +"Never mind that, my young friend, if you 'r' 'n such a hurry, put on +the string and look to me for the damage." + +"Maybe you can't pay it," replied Frank, looking rather scornful. + +"The Devil!" exclaimed Chip, "are all the Waltham people born idiots?" + +"No! some of 'em are born governors," said Frank, "and Boston people may +find it out one of these days." + +On this, Landlady Birch intervened, taking the bar-room in her way from +the parlor to the kitchen. + +"What is that you say, Frank? The gentleman can have as good a breakfast +here as he can have anywhere out of Boston, I'm sure, though I say it +myself. We don't have so many to cook for, and so, perhaps, we take a +little more pains, Sir,--ha! ha!" + +And with that good Mrs. Birch put on a graciousness of smile worthy of +the most experienced female Boniface in Anglo-Saxondom. + +"The gentleman don't want any breakfast, mother; he only wants a ride +round to Captain Grant's, and he ha'n't got the manners to ask for it, +like a gentleman;--he _must_ have it. I say he mus'n't in my buggy, for +I a'n't goin' that way." + +"Why, son, the gentleman of course expects to pay for it." + +"Yes, Madam," said Chip, "I am willing and expect to bleed freely." + +_Frank_. "Well, I should like to know what you mean by that? _I_ don't +want your blood, or that of any other Boston squirt." + +_Mrs. Birch (to Chip, after a reproving glance at Frank)_. "I think we +can accommodate you, Sir. The buggy is at the blacksmith's, and will be +done in half-an-hour. If you want, you can have breakfast while you are +waiting; and you will find a comfortable fire in the parlor to sit by, +at any rate." + +With this, Mrs. Birch made her exit, to hurry matters on the cook-stove. + +"There! that's her, all over!" grumbled Frank. "If she can sell a meal +of victuals, she don't care what becomes of me. But I'll let her know +the mare's mine, and the buggy's mine, all but the harness; and I tell +_you_, Sir, I'll see the mare drowned in Charles River and the buggy +split into kindling-wood, before you shall have a ride to Captain +Grant's this day." + +"But here's a five-dollar-bill," quoth Chip, displaying a small handful +of banknotes. + +_Frank_. "You may go to thunder with the whole of 'em! I tell you I've +set my foot down, and I won't take it up for my own mother,--and I'm +sure I won't for anything that ever was or will be under your clo'es." + +With this, he jerked up the harness and went off to the barn, with an +air that convinced Chip that the controversy between mother and son was +not likely to be decided in his favor at a sufficiently early hour to +answer his purpose. But where else should he go, or what else should +he do? As he was a little more inclined now to bet on calmness than on +passion, he decided to take a seat in the parlor, and keep it, at +least, till he could dispose of his present doubt. Easily might he have +measured three miles over the Waltham hills, in the bracing morning-air, +with his own locomotive apparatus, while he had been looking in vain for +artificial conveyance. But if that plan had occurred to him at all at +first, it would have been dismissed with contempt as unbusinesslike. He +must not, by any possibility, appear to Captain Grant to be so madly +anxious to close the bargain. He did a little regret neglecting the +service of his own proper pegs, but it was now entirely too late to +walk, and he must ride, and at a good pace, too, or lose the entire +benefit of the news which the lightning had so singularly confided to +his honest hands. The feeling with which he flung himself into that +quiet, little, economical parlor was, probably, even more desperate than +Richard's, when he offered his kingdom for a horse. It was, in fact, +just the feeling, of all others in the world, to prevent a man's getting +a horse. Had he carried it into a pasture full of horses, it would have +prevented him from catching the tamest of them. But the good influences +of the Universe, that encourage and strengthen the noble martyrs of +truth and workers of good in their arduous labors, do sometimes also +help on villains to their bad ends. Never were troubled waters more +quickly smoothed with oil, never were the poles of a magnet more quickly +reversed, than Chip's rage and rancor abated after he entered that door. +Not that he relaxed his purpose at all, or felt any essential change of +his nature, but his temper was instantly turned the right side up +for success. He was, of course, unconscious of the cause,--for it is +certainly nothing wonderful, even in the neighborhood of Boston, to see +a neat Yankee lass, in her second or third best dress, putting things +to rights of a morning, with a snowy handkerchief over her head, its +corners drawn into a half-knot under her sweet chin, and some little +ruddy outposts on her cheeks, ready, on the slightest occasion, to +arouse a whole army of blushes. Laura had just given the finishing touch +to her flower culture, changed the water of her fishes, replenished the +seed-bucket of the canary, and was about leaving the room. Almost any +man would have been glad of an excuse to speak to her. Chip could have +made an excuse, if one had not been ready-made, that was to him very +important, as well as satisfactory. + +"Miss Birch, I presume?" + +"Yes, Sir," said Laura, with a curtsy, not quite so large as those that +grow in dancing schools, but, nevertheless, very pretty. + +"Well, Miss Birch," said Chip, blandly advancing and taking her nice +little hand, half covered with her working-mitts,--whereat the +aforesaid outposts promptly did their duty,--"or shall I call you Miss +Susan Birch?" + +"No, Sir, my name is Laura," said the girl, shrinking a little from a +contact which rather took her by surprise. + +"Oh, Laura!--that is better yet," proceeded Chip. "Now, Miss Laura, I +have got myself into a terrible scrape; can you help me out of it?" + +"I can't tell, indeed, Sir, till I know what it is," said Laura, with a +bright twinkle of reassurance. + +"Well, it is this:--I have mortally offended your brother,--for so I +take him to be by his looks,--and I most sincerely repent it, for he +owns the only team left in Waltham. If I cannot hire that team for an +hour, I lose money enough to buy this house twice over. I want you to +reconcile us. Will you offer my apology and prevail on him to take this +and be my coachman for an hour?" asked Chip,--slipping a gold eagle +into her hand with the most winning expression at his command. + +"Oh, yes, Sir,--I'm sure I'll try without that, Sir. He will be glad to +oblige you, when he knows how you need it," she said, offering to return +the coin. + +"No, no, Miss Laura, I want to pay him well; and if you succeed,--why, +no money can pay _you_, Miss Laura; I don't profess to be rich enough to +do it." + +Here the outposts gave another alarm, and again the hosts of the ruby +uniform were gathering hurriedly in their two muster-fields. + +"Why, I will go and try, Sir," said Laura, so much confused by the +novelty and magnitude of the circumstances that she opened the +closet-door before opening the only one that led out of the room. + +Fairly out of Chip's presence, she saw instantly and instinctively the +worthlessness of that gold eagle, however genuine, compared with her +sisterly love, in her mission to Frank. So she ran directly to her +mother in the long kitchen, and, planking the American eagle upon the +sloppy little table where the eels were rapidly getting dressed, said,-- + +"Why, mother, that gentleman wants to hire Frank to carry him to Captain +Grant's, and I'm sure he ought to go without hiring. I'll go right out +and see him." + +"That's right, Laury; tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself!" + +"Oh, no, mother, I won't tell him any such thing," said Laura, +laughingly, as she hopped and skipped towards the barn. + +"Well, Frank, how's Nell Gwyn, this morning?" cheerily cried Laura to +Frank, who seemed to be getting his harness into a worse snarl, in his +grouty attempts to get it out of one. + +"The mare's well enough, if she hadn't been insulted." + +"Why, that's abominable, Frank! But let me get that snarl out." + +"You get it out! You get out yourself, Laule." + +"Why, that's all I'm good for, Frank; I always pick out the snarls in +the house, you know, and I should like to try it once in the barn." + +"The tarnal old thing's bewitched, I believe," said Frank, allowing his +sister to interfere and quietly untwist and turn right side out the +various parts which he had put wrong by all sorts of torsion. "I'll +teach Boston chaps to know that there are some things they can't have +for money! When Nell and I have agreed to have a good time, we a'n't +goin' to be ordered off nor bought off;--we'll _have_ it." + +"So _I_ say, Frank. But suppose _I_ wanted you to give _me_ a ride, +Frank?" + +"Why, Laule, you know I would go to the North Pole with you. If Mam +would only let _you_ go to Concord with me, I'd wait till noon for you." + +"Well, maybe she will, Frank. She wants you to carry that man to +Captain Grant's bad enough to let me go in the afternoon." + +"But I told him I wouldn't carry him,--and, gol darn it, I won't!" + +"Of course you won't carry him on his own account, or for the sake of +his money,--but for my sake perhaps you will." + +"Well, Sis, perhaps I will. But, mind, before I do, Mam shall promise, +sartin sure, to let you go by half-past twelve o'clock, and not a minit +later." + +"Well, I'll see she does; you harness Nell, and get the buggy. The man +says he's sorry he spoke to you so. If he's carried to Captain Grant's +and back, I'll answer for it's being the best for all of us." + +She was off to the house like a bird, and the rest of her diplomacy was +too simple and straightforward to need special record. + +As the buggy was at the door before the table presented the savory +temptation of fried eels, Chip declined breakfast at present, but +decidedly promised to take it on his return. He dropped in on Captain +Grant, as he was careful to tell that gentleman, having had business in +Waltham that morning, and thinking he might perhaps save him a journey +to town. The ship-owner had just finished the news of the morning +papers, for which he had sent a messenger express to the post-office, +and said, after the cordial salutation which a rough sort of man always +gives in his own house,-- + +"Well, Mr. Dartmouth, I see the market is as close-reefed as ever. +Maybe you think I will sell at five and three-fourths to-day, but I've +concluded to make a floating warehouse of the 'Orion' for the winter, +rather than do that." + +"I don't blame you for that, my friend; but in the present state of +advices, six at two months is the highest mill that will do. If you will +close the 'Orion's' cargo at that, I am your man." + +"What I've said, I'll do, Sir, of course," said the tough old salt; "and +since you've taken the trouble to come out here and save my lame toes, +let's nail the bargain with a bottle of my old Madeira,--some of the +ripest this side of the herring-pond, I'll be bound." + +"Not a drop, I thank you; for, besides being a teetotaller, Captain, I'm +behind time to-day, and must bid you good-morning." + +"Well, Sir, I'm much obliged to you; the bill of sale shall be at your +counting-room directly; the clerk will receive the notes and deliver the +cotton. Good-morning, Sir,--good-morning!" + +In truth, Chip had not the slightest objection to wine, as wine, even +had it not been the ripest on this continent; but, like any other +mitigated villain, he did not quite relish taking wine with the man he +was basely cheating. He would much rather partake of Ma'am Birch's fried +eels and coffee, especially if Laura Birch should, peradventure, be the +Hebe of such an ambrosial entertainment. She was not, however,--and the +disappointment considerably overclouded the commercial victory of the +morning. Madam Birch herself did the honors of whatever sort, while Chip +played a fantasia solo at the _table d'hôte_. The good lady enlarged +volubly on her destitution of help, and how, if she had any such as +we get now-a-days, they were more plague than profit,--how Laura was +getting ready to go with Frank to the cattle-show, and she herself was +likely to be the only living mortal in the house for the rest of the +day. + +"Such a son as you have is a fortune, Madam; and as for the daughter, +she is a gem, a genuine diamond, Madam." + +"Ha! ha! do you really think so, Sir?" said the mother, evidently +gratified with the superlativeness of the compliment. "Well, they do say +children are jewels.--but I've found, Sir, they are pretty +troublesome and pretty costly jewels. Mine, as you say, are very good +children,--though Frank is pretty wilful, and Laury is always gettin' +her head above the clouds. Oh, dear! they want a great deal done for +'em,--and the more you do, the more you may do. Frank is bewitched to +sell out and go to Kansas or Californy, or, if he stays here, he must go +to college or be a merchant. And Laury, even she isn't contented; she +wants to be some sort of artist, make statters or picters,--or be a +milliner, at least. So you see I haven't a minute's peace of my life +with 'em." + +Of course Chip saw it, and the more's the pity. + +"All the better, Madam," said he. "Young America must go ahead. There's +nothing to be had without venturing. If I can ever be of service to +either of your children in forwarding their laudable ambition, I am sure +it will give me the greatest pleasure." + +"You are very kind, Sir, but I only wish you could persuade 'em to let +well alone, and at least not try the world till they know more of it." + +"Not touch the water till they have learned to swim, eh? That's not +quite so easy, Madam. Never fear; I'll be bound, a boy that can say _No_ +like yours is perfectly safe anywhere; and as to Laura, why, Madam, I +never heard of an angel getting into difficulty in the wickedest of +worlds." + +"Our old minister, Parson Usher that was, used to say some of the Bible +angels fell,--and I am sure, Sir, the human angels have a worse chance. +They are about the only ones that run any risk at all." + +"True, true enough, Ma'am, in one point of view. Too much care cannot be +taken to select the society in which young people are to move. In the +right society, such a girl as Laura would win homage on every side, and +make herself happy by making everybody else so." + +"I believe you are right there, Sir," said Mrs. Birch, quite charmed +with such beautiful appreciation of what she felt to be Laura's +excellence; "and I don't wonder sometimes that she should be +discontented with the society she has here, poor girl!" + +"When you see the sun begin to shine in the morning, you may be sure +enough it will keep rising all the forenoon," said Chip, with the air +of a great moral philosopher, conscious of having made a decided +impression. And suddenly recollecting how valuable was his time in town, +and that the train would be due in five minutes, he swallowed the last +of his coffee, paid his bill, told the landlady how happy he was to have +made her acquaintance and that of her interesting family, promised he +would never stop in Waltham without calling, and strode away. + +The lightning flashed from a good many eyes in the telegraph-office when +the morning members of the associated press inquired why they had not +been served with the latest news,--why, in fact, the only item of any +significance was reserved for the evening papers of the day. Not a press +of all the indignant complainants was ready to admit that it had locked +up its forms and gone to bed before the wires had completed their task. +Very bitter paragraphs testified, the next day, that, in the opinion of +many sage and respectable editors, the wires had been tampered with +by speculators. The poor little half-frozen telegraph-boy was closely +catechized, first by the officers of the telegraph-company, and +afterwards by certain shrewd detectives, but no clue could be got to the +fine gentleman who so generously relieved him of his responsibility, and +no result followed, except his dismissal and the employment of another +lad of more ability and probably less innocence. Captain Grant was the +man most likely to have come to a discovery in the matter, and most +heartily did he curse his luck--his "usual luck"--of giving away a +fortune by selling a cargo a day too soon. But being kept at home +by uncomfortable toes, no suspicious mortal, such as abound in the +lounging-rooms of insurance-offices and other resorts of business-men in +town, happened ingeniously to put his suspicions on a scent, and he did +not come within a league of the thought that Chip Dartmouth could have +had anything to do with the strange and blamable conduct of the wires. +As he made no proclamation of his loss, and no other case of sale +during the abeyance of the news came to the knowledge of the parties +interested, the matter, greatly to Chip's comfort, fell into entire +oblivion before a fortnight had passed. The understanding was, that, +though great mischief might have been done, none had been,--and +that somebody had simply made waste-paper of the little yellow +thunderbolt-scrawls. + +For the first fortnight, Chip's nervousness, not to say conscience, very +much abated the pleasure of the many congratulations he received from +his friends, and from hundreds of people whom he had never before known +as his friends. He couldn't get through the streets any day without +meeting the solidest sort of men, with whom he had never exchanged +a word in his life, but whose faces were as familiar as that of the +Old-South clock, who took him by the hand quite warmly, and said,-- + +"Ah, Mr. Dartmouth, permit me to congratulate you on your good-fortune. +You have well deserved it. I like to see a young man like you make such +a ten-strike, especially when it comes in consequence of careful study +of the market." + +The truth was, Chip had been playing a pretty hazardous game in the +cotton-market, chiefly at the risk of other parties; and the slice he +had so feloniously carved out of poor Captain Grant was quite small +compared with the gains he had managed to secure by thus venturing a +little of his own and a great deal of other people's money. The shrewd +minds in the secrets of the business world were not slow to see that +he must have realized at least a hundred thousand units of commercial +omnipotence by the operations of the first week after the rise. +Everybody was glad of an opportunity to speak to such a man. Even Mr. +Hopkins, immensely retired as he was, driving into State Street +about noon one genial day to receive a bank dividend or two, stepped +considerably out of his way, in walking from his low-hung turnout to the +door of one of the banks, in order to catch Mr. Dartmouth's notice, and +say to him, "Good-morning, Mr. Dartmouth! I hope you are very well, +Sir!" Chip recognized the salutation with a superb nod, but without the +accompaniment of any verbal rhetoric which was audible above the buzz of +the pavement; and the retired millionnaire passed on about his business. + +"Ah!" thought Chip, "I am getting to be a merchant of the right sort, I +see,--and by the time he is ready to change that low-hung little chariot +for the hard, angular ebony with raven plumes, I shall be ready to step +into the other plump little vehicle, which is really so nice and cozy." + +But we must leave Chip to the easy task of ballooning upward in public +estimation, with his well-inflated bank-account. He was, in fact, +reformed by his great commercial success to this extent, that his vices +had become of the most distinguished and unvulgar grade. He was now +courted by the highest artists in iniquity, and had the means of +accomplishing results that none but men who are known to be really rich +can command. He, therefore, now quitted all vulgar associations, and +determined not to outrage any of the virtues, except under varnish, +gilding, and polish that would keep everything perfectly respectable. +Let him trust to that as long as he can. + +Don't talk of the solitude of a night in the primeval forests, however +far from the abodes of man;--the squirrels and the partridges may be +asleep then and there, but the katydids are awake, and, with the support +of contralto and barytone tree-toads, manage to keep up a concert which +cannot fail to impress on you a sense of familiar and friendly company. +Don't talk of the loneliness of a deserted and ruinous castle;--the +crickets have not left it, and, if you don't have a merry time with +their shrill jokes, it will be your own fault. But if you would have a +sense of being terribly alone, come from long residence in some quiet +country-home on the border of a quiet country-village, into the +hurry-skurry of a strange city, just after nightfall. Here is an +infinite brick-and-stone forest, stern, angular, almost leafless. Here +is a vast, indistinguishable wilderness of flitting human shapes, not +one of which takes half so much notice of you as a wild bush would. +Speak to one; it answers without the slightest emotion, and passes on. +Your presence is absolutely no more to any soul of them, provided they +have souls, than if you were so much perfectly familiar granite. You +feel, that, with such attention as you receive, such curiosity as you +excite, you must be there hundreds of years to be either recognized or +missed. + +Had you been a stranger in Boston, one moist and rather showery +summer-evening, not a year after the events we have narrated, you might +have been recovered from the sense of loneliness we have described by +observing one pretty female figure hurrying along the crowded sidewalk +with a very large and replete satchel, and without any of the +_sang-froid_ which characterizes city pedestrianism. You might have +noticed that this one human being, like yourself, was evidently not at +home. Every glare of gas-light revealed a deeply-flushed face, eyes that +had been weeping and which were now flashing with a wild earnestness +and an altogether preternatural resolution. A gazelle, started by the +huntsman's pack, could not have thrown more piercing glances at every +avenue of escape than this excited girl did at every cross street, and +indeed at everything but the human faces that passed her. All of them +she shunned, with a look that seemed equally anxious to avoid the known +and the unknown. She should seem to have narrowly escaped some peril, +and was carrying with her a secret not to be confided to friend or +stranger, certainly not to either without due consideration. Had you +watched her, as the crowds of people, returning from the various evening +amusements, died away in the streets, you would have seen the deep +color of her cheeks die away also to deadly paleness; had you been +sufficiently clairvoyant, you might have seen how two charming rows of +pearls bit the blanched lips till the runaway blood came back into the +sad gashes, how the tears welled up again, and with them came relief and +fresh strength just as she was about to faint and drop in the street. +Then returned again the throb of indignant resolution, as her mind +recurred to the attempted ruin of her paradise by a disguised foe; +then succeeded shame and dread lest the friends she had left in her +childhood's rural home should know how differently from her fond +anticipations had turned out the first week of her sojourn in the great +city. She was most thoroughly resolved, that, if possible, they should +not know anything of the wreck of her long-cherished hopes till she had +found some foothold for new ones. She felt that she was a Yankee girl in +the metropolis of New England, with wit, skill, and endurance equal to +any employment that ever falls to the lot of Yankee women; but having +given up the only chance which had ever opened to her, how could she +find another? Were she of the other sex, or only disguised in the outer +integuments of it, with the trifling sum in her purse, she would get +lodgings at the next hotel, and seek suitable employment without +suspicion. In the wide wilderness of a city there was not an +acquaintance she did not dread to meet, in her present circumstances, +even worse than death itself, or, what is next door to it, a +police-station. + +The streets had emptied themselves of their rushing throngs, the patter +of feet and the murmur of voices had given place to measured individual +marches here and there, the dripping of cave-spouts and the flapping of +awnings could be heard tattling of showers past and future, and the last +organ-grinder had left the ungrateful city to its slumbers, when the +poor girl first became conscious that she had been lugging hither +and thither her entire outfit of wardrobe, valuables, and keepsakes. +Aggravated by fatigue, her indecision as to how she should dispose of +herself was gradually sinking into despair, and the official guardians +of the night, who had doubtless noticed her as she passed and repassed +through their beats, were beginning to make up their official minds, +generally and severally, that the case might by-and-by require their +benevolent interference, when she was startled by a female voice from +behind. + +"Arrah, stop there, ye rinaway jade! I know ye by yer big bag, ye big +thafe, that ye are!" + +Glad at any voice addressed to her, and gladder at this than if it had +been more familiar or more friendly, our forlorn maiden turned and said, +in the sweetest voice imaginable,-- + +"Oh, no, my friend, I am not a thief." + +"Och, I beg your pardon, honey! I thought sure it was Bridget, that's +jist rin away wid a bagful of her misthress's clo'es and a hape o' mine, +and it's me that's bin all the way down to Pat Mahoney's in North Street +to git him to hunt her up; and the Blessed Mother forgive me, whin I +seen you in the dark, stalin' along like, wi' that bag, I thought it +was herself it was, sure. Och, ye're a swate lass, I see, now; but what +makes ye out this time o' night, dear?" + +"Well, I'm too late for the train, you see, and I really don't know what +to do or where to go," said the Yankee girl, putting on the air natural +to such circumstances, with the readiness of her race. + +"Och, I see, that's the mailing o' the bag, thin. Poor thing! ye jist +come along wid me. I'll lift the bag for ye, me darlint, an' I'll pit +clane sheets on Bridget's bed, and ye're welcome to slape there as long +as ye like; for the Blessed Mother knows it's powerful tired ye're +lookin', it is. I'm cook for more nor twinty years for the Hopkinses in +Bacon Street, and I can make ye jist as welcome in my quarthers as if it +was nobody but meself that owned it at all at all." + +"Oh, my dear woman, I thank you kindly! That bag _was_ beginning to grow +heavy," replied the overjoyed outcast; and presently, with a ready eye +to business, she added, "And since Bridget is gone, who knows but I can +take her place? I came to the city on purpose to find something to do, +and I can do anything that is not dishonest." + +"Och! the likes o' ye take her place? Niver a bit of it! Why! I see by +the gas-light ye're a leddy as iver was at all at all; and ye could +niver come in the shoes of sich a thafe as Bridget Maloney, as is gone, +and the Divil catch her!" + +"No, no, not in her shoes to steal anything, I hope; but I can do +housework, sweep, make beds, sew, and make myself useful,--as I will +show, if I can have a trial." + +"An' ye may well say that's a hape more nor _she_ iver could. But if +it's a thrial ye want, it's me that'll give't ye as soon as ye plase. +I'll answer for ye's to Misthress Millicent,--and that's what I niver +did for Bridget, and it's right glad I am of that. Now niver fear, me +darlint, it's a powerful good place, it is too, to thim as kapes the +right side o' Misthress Millicent; for she's the only daughter, and the +mother is dead and gone, poor soul!" + +They were now approaching the opulent mansion over the _cuisine_ of +which our special police-woman had so long had the honor of presiding. +Almost delighted enough with her capture to forget, if not forgive, her +fugitive fellow-servant Bridget, the florid and fat Aunt Peggy Muldoony +hurried along as if the bag were a feather, her words flowing like a +spring flood, and introduced her charge at a postern-door into her own +house, as she called it. This was, in fact, a very comfortable and +somewhat spacious dwelling, which stood almost distinct in the rear of +the mansion in which the Hopkins family proper resided, so that there +should be ample accommodations for servants, and the steam of cooking +could not annoy the grand parlors. Here we might leave the beautiful +waif, so strangely picked up in the dark street, to the working of her +own genius. She had fallen into a place which had control of all the +chamber-work of a modern palace, with ample assistance. Aunt Peggy, her +guardian angel, at once instructed her in the routine of the duties, and +she very soon had occasion to wonder how the care of so many beautiful +flowers, vases, statues, pictures, and objects of splendor and taste, +not to speak of beds that the Queen of Sheba might have envied, could +have been committed to a domestic who could be tempted to run away with +a few hundred dollars' worth of silks and laces. The legal owner himself +could hardly enjoy his well-appointed paradise better than she did, in +keeping every leaf up to its highest beauty. It must require a pretty +strong dose of tyranny to drive her away, she thought. + +But tyranny, if it were there, did not show itself. After a number of +serious, but vain attempts, on the part of Miss Millicent, to gratify +her curiosity by unravelling the mystery of her new servant, whose +industry, skill, and taste produced visible and very satisfactory +effects in every part of the mansion, she settled down to the +conclusion, that, finally, a treasure had fallen to her lot which it was +best for her to keep as carefully as possible and make the most of. She +could now smile and assume airs of great condescension when her worthy +female friends complained of careless, incompetent, and unfaithful +domestics, and have the pleasure of being teased in vain to know what +she did to be so well served. + +The satisfaction of Miss Millicent at having found and attached to her +service a young woman of such superlative domestic genius and taste, who +seemed to be so thoroughly contented with her situation, was especially +enhanced by the fact, that her own marriage was approaching, an occasion +which any bride of good sense would wish to have free from the annoyance +of slack and untrustworthy Bridgets. + +A few months after the period of which we have been speaking, the +long-expected event of the last paragraph was evidently on the eve of +accomplishment. There was sitting in the distinguished parlor of Mr. +Hopkins, himself, occupying an easy-chair of the most elaborate design +and costly materials. It had all manner of extensibilities,--conveniences +for reclining the trunk or any given limb at any possible +angle,--conveniences for sleeping, for writing, for reading, +for taking snuff,--and was, withal, a marvel of upholstery-workmanship +and substantial strength. Another still more exquisite combination +of rosewood, velvet, spiral springs, and cunning floral carving, +presenting a striking resemblance to that great ornament of +the English alphabet, the letter S, held Miss Millicent Hopkins, in +one curve, face to face with Mr. Chipworth Dartmouth, already known to +the reader, in the other. Near by the half-recumbent millionnaire, at a +little gem of a lady's writing-desk, sat Mr. Frank Sterling, the junior +partner of the distinguished law-firm of Trevor and Sterling, engaged in +reading to all the parties aforesaid a very ingenious and interesting +document, which he had drawn up, according to the general dictation of +Mr. Hopkins aforesaid. It was, in fact, a marriage-settlement, of which +the three beautifully engrossed copies were to be signed and sealed +by all the parties in interest, and each was to possess a copy. Frank +Sterling read over the paragraphs which settled enormous masses of funds +around the sacred altar where Hymen was so soon to apply his torch, with +great professional coolness, as well as commendable rapidity; but when +he came to the conclusion, and, looking at both father and daughter, +said, that all that remained, if the draught now met their approbation, +was, to have witnesses called in and add the signatures, he betrayed a +little personal feeling, which it behooves the reader to understand. + +Frank Sterling, though one of the best fellows in the world, with a +joyous face, a bright eye, a hearty laugh, and the keenest possible +relish for everything beautiful and good, was a bachelor, because a mate +quite to his judgment and taste had never fallen in his way. With Mr. +Hopkins, he had been, for a year or two, a favorite lawyer. Professional +business had often brought him to the house, and at Miss Millicent's +parties he had often been a specially licensed guest. There had been a +time, he felt quite sure, when, if he had pushed a suit, he could have +put his name where that of Dartmouth stood in the marriage-settlement, +and, as he glanced at Miss Millicent, as she sat in the mellow light of +the purplish plate-glass of that superb parlor, she seemed so beautiful +and queenly that he almost wished he had done it. Was it quite fit that +such a woman should be thrown away upon one of the mere beasts of the +stock-market? The air with which Chip took his victory was so exactly +like that matter-of-course chuckle with which he would have tossed over +the proceeds of a shrewd bargain into his bank-account, that the young +lawyer's soul was shocked at it, and he almost wished he had prevented +such a shame. However, his discretion came to the rescue, and told him +he had done right in not linking his fortunes to a woman who, however +beautiful, was too passive in her character to make any man positively +happy. Had it been his ambition to spend his life in burning incense to +an exquisitely chiselled goddess, here was a chance, to be sure, where +he could have done it on a salary that would have satisfied a _pontifex +maximus_; but, with a fair share of the regard for money which +characterizes his profession, Mr. Sterling never could make up his mind +to become a suitor for the hand of Miss Millicent, nor get rid of the +notion that he was to bless and be blessed by some woman of positive +character and a taste for working out her own salvation in her own +way,--some woman who, not being made by her wealth, could not be unmade +by the loss of it. It was, therefore, only a momentary sense of choking +he experienced, as he laid the manuscripts on the leaf of Mr. Hopkins's +chair, and said,-- + +"Shall I ring the bell, Sir?" + +"If you please, Mr. Sterling. Now, Millicent, dear, whose name shall +have the honor of standing as witness on this document? There is Aunt +Peggy,--is good at using pothooks, but not so good at making them. Her +mark won't exactly do." + +"Why, father! I shall, of course, have my little favorite, Lucy +Green; her signature will be perfectly beautiful. And by the way, Mr. +Dartmouth, here is a thing I haven't thought of before. With this Lucy +of mine for an attendant, I am worth about twice as much as I should +have been without her, and yet no mention has been made of this in the +bargain." + +"Ha! ha!" said Chip. "Thought of in good time. Let Mr. Sterling add the +item at once. I am content." + +"First, however, you shall see the good girl herself, Mr. Dartmouth, +and then we can have a postscript--or should I say a codicil?--on her +account. John, please say to Lucy, I wish her to come to me. After all +the stocks and bonds in the world, Mr. Dartmouth, our lives are what our +servants please to make them." + +"True, indeed, my love; but the comfort is, if we are well stocked with +bonds of the right sort, servants that don't suit can be changed for +those that do." + +"And the more changes, the worse, commonly;--an exception is so rare, +I dread nothing like change. The chance of improving a bad one is even +better, I think." + +"I don't believe there is anything good in the flunkey line that money +won't buy. I have always found I could have anything I wanted, if I saw +fit to pay its price. Money, no matter what simpletons preach, money, my +dear, is"---- + +"Why, Lucy, what is the matter?" exclaimed Miss Millicent, with some +surprise and anxiety, as she saw the girl, who had just entered, instead +of advancing, awkwardly shrink on one side into a chair behind the door, +with a shudder, as if she had trod on a reptile. The next moment she was +at her side, earnestly whispering something in her ear, evidently an +explanation of the circumstances of the case, to which Lucy had hitherto +been an entire stranger. + +"Pray, excuse me, Ma'am," was the girl's scarce audible response to some +request. + +"It is only to write your name, Lucy." + +"Not to _such_ a paper, for the world!" + +"Not to oblige me?" + +"I would do anything, Ma'am, to oblige you, but that would not. Never! +never!" said the excited girl, catching another glimpse of Chip, who was +now looking obliquely at the whispering couple, and drumming with his +fingers on the rosewood of that part of the letter S from which his +intended had just risen, as if he were hurriedly beating a _reveille_ +to rally his faltering impudence. "No, Ma'am;--it is too bad, it is too +bad, it is too"----Here her utterance became choked, her cheeks pallid +as death, and her form wilted and fell like a flower before the mower's +scythe. Millicent prevented the fall, while Sterling rang for water, +and Chip, peering about with more agitation than any one else, finally +remarked,-- + +"The girl must be sick;--better take her out." + +The young lawyer, with the aid of a servant, did bear her to another +apartment, where, after the usual time and restoratives, she recovered +her consciousness, and the maiden blood again revealed tints that the +queen of flowers might envy. Chip and the millionnaire remained in the +parlor, while the others were taking care of the proposed witness, and +great was the anxiety of the former that their absence should not be +prolonged. Suddenly he recollected a forgotten engagement of great +importance, pulled out his watch, fidgeted, suggested that the lawyer +and Miss Millicent should be recalled, that the papers might be signed +before he went. Mr. Hopkins was of that opinion, and sent a servant to +call them. Miss Millicent came, but could not think of completing the +contract without the signature of her favorite domestic. Argument enough +was ready, but she was fortified by a sentiment that was more than a +match for it. Mr. Hopkins was all ready, and would have the matter +closed as soon as the lawyer arrived, affirming that his daughter would +have too much sense, at last, to stand out on such a trifle. + +In the mean time, the supposed Miss Lucy having had time to collect her +scattered senses, there occurred the following dialogue between her and +Frank Sterling, whose curiosity, not to speak of any other interest, had +been thoroughly roused by the strange patient for whom he had just been +acting in a medical, rather than legal capacity. + +_Frank_. "We are all right, now, I think, Miss Lucy,--and they are +waiting for us in the parlor, you know." + +_Lucy_. "That paper must not be signed, Sir. If Miss Millicent knew what +I do about that man, he would be the last man in the world she would +think of for a husband." + +_Frank_. "But he is one of the merchant princes,--respectable, of +course. What harm can you know of him?" + +_Lucy_. "If he is not so great a villain as he might be, let him thank +my escape from Mrs. Farmthroy's the night I came here. If he is to be +at home here, I shall not be; but before I leave, I wish to restore him +what belongs to him. Excuse me a moment, Sir, and I will fetch it." + +"A regular previous love-affair," thought Frank, and expected her +to return, bringing a small lot of erotic jewelry to be returned to +Chipworth, as the false-hearted donor thereof. Great was his surprise, +when, instead of that, she brought a small parcel or wad of yellowish +paper, variegated with certain scrawls of rapid writing, of the manifold +sort. + +"Why, that," said Frank, after unfolding the half-dozen sheets, all of +the same tenor, "is a set of news-dispatches, and of a pretty ancient +date, too." + +_Lucy_. "But it is his property, Sir; and though worthless itself, being +worth as much as he is, it may be valuable to him." + +_Frank_. "Yes, yes. I begin to see. Cotton-Market. This reminds me of +the case of our client Grant. Why, pray, how did you come by these?" + +_Lucy_. "Perhaps I ought not to tell you all. But if I may rely on your +honor as a gentleman, I will." + +_Frank_. "As a gentleman, a man, and a lawyer, you may trust me that +every word shall be sacredly confidential." + +_Lucy_. "Well, Sir, my name is not Lucy Green, but Laura Birch. My +mother keeps the Birch House in Waltham; and this man, whom you call a +merchant prince, came to my mother's the very day after the date on them +papers, and hired my brother to carry him to Captain Grant's. When he +took out his pocketbook to pay, which he did like a prince, perhaps, +he probably let these papers fall. At any rate, no one else could have +dropped them; and I saved them, thinking to give them to him when he +should call again. I have seen him but once since, at a place where, +through his interest, I supposed I had obtained a situation to learn the +milliner's trade. I needn't say why I did not return his property then. +If, now, I had in my possession even an old shoestring that had ever +been his, I would beg you to return it to him, and find out for me where +I can go never to see him." + +_Frank_. "But I shall take care of these dispatches. There's a story +about these papers, I see. Here's a ray of daylight penetrating a dark +spot. Two links in the chain of circumstances, to say the least. Captain +Grant's unfortunate sale of cotton to Dartmouth just before the rise, +and the famous lost dispatch found on Dartmouth's track to Grant. Did +you see him have these papers, Miss Lucy--I beg your pardon--Miss +Laura?" + +_Lucy_. "No, Sir; but I know he left them, just as well as if I had seen +them in his hands." + +_Frank_. "True, true enough in fact, but not so good in law." + +_Lucy_. "Is there anything by which the law can reach him, Sir? Oh, I +should be so glad, if the law could break off this match, even if it +cannot break his neck; and he deserves that, I am afraid, if ever a +villain did." + +_Frank_. "Yes,--there's enough in this roll to banish such a fellow, if +not to hang him. And it shall be done, too." + +_Lucy_. "And Miss Millicent be saved, too? Delightful!" + +Sterling, with the roll of yellow paper in his fist, now returned to the +parlor, where Mr. Hopkins impatiently opened upon him, before he could +close the door. + +"Well, Mr. Counsellor, we are all waiting for you. Mr. Dartmouth has +urgent business, and is in haste to go. We shall be holden in heavy +damages, if we detain him." + +"He will be in more haste to go by-and-by, Sir. I have some papers here, +Sir, which make it necessary that this marriage-contract should stand +aside till some other matters can be settled, or at least explained. I +refer to these manifold dispatches, detailing the latest news of the +Liverpool cotton-market, by the fraudulent possession of which on the +part of somebody, a client of mine, Captain Grant of Waltham, was +cheated out of a small fortune. Perhaps Mr. Dartmouth knows who went to +Waltham one morning to close a bargain before the telegraph-news should +transpire. It is rather remarkable that certain lost dispatches should +have been found in that man's track." + +Whether Chip Dartmouth heard three words of this harangue may be +doubted. The sight of that yellowish paper did the business for him. His +expression vibrated from that of a mad rattlesnake to that of a dog with +the most downcast extremities. At last he rushed to the door, saying he +"would stand no such nonsense." + +"But you will have to stand it!" + +Chip was gone. Mr. Hopkins was in a state of amazement; and Millicent, +if she did not swoon, seemed to herself in a trance. Neither of them +could see in the cause anything to account for the effect. How could a +merchant prince quail before so flimsy a piece of paper? Mr. +Sterling explained. Mr. Hopkins begged the matter might not be made +public,--above all things, that legal proceedings should be avoided. + +"No," said Sterling,--"I shall punish him more effectually. The proof, +though strong as holy writ, would probably fail to convict him in court. +Therefore I shall let him off on these conditions: He shall disgorge to +Captain Grant his profits on that cotton with interest, relinquish Miss +Millicent's hand, if she so pleases, and, at any rate, relieve Boston of +his presence altogether and for good. He may do it as soon as he likes, +and as privately." + +This course at once met the approbation of all parties, and was carried +out. + +What became of Squire Sterling, whether he married the mistress of that +mansion or her maid, this deponent saith not; though he doth say that he +did marry one of them, and had no cause to regret the same. + + * * * * * + + +SEEN AND UNSEEN. + + + The wind ahead, the billows high, + A whited wave, but sable sky, + And many a league of tossing sea + Between the hearts I love and me. + + The wind ahead: day after day + These weary words the sailors say; + To weeks the days are lengthened now,-- + Still mounts the surge to meet our prow. + + Through longing day and lingering night + I still accuse Time's lagging flight, + Or gaze out o'er the envious sea, + That keeps the hearts I love from me. + + Yet, ah, how shallow is all grief! + How instant is the deep relief! + And what a hypocrite am I, + To feign forlorn, to 'plain and sigh! + + The wind ahead? The wind is free! + Forever more it favoreth me,-- + To shores of God still blowing fair, + O'er seas of God my bark doth bear. + + This surging brine _I_ do not sail, + This blast adverse is not my gale; + 'Tis here I only seem to be, + But really sail another sea,-- + + Another sea, pure sky its waves, + Whose beauty hides no heaving graves,-- + A sea all haven, whereupon + No hapless bark to wreck hath gone. + + The winds that o'er my ocean run + Reach through all heavens beyond the sun; + Through life and death, through fate, through time, + Grand breaths of God, they sweep sublime. + + Eternal trades, they cannot veer, + And, blowing, teach us how to steer; + And well for him whose joy, whose care, + Is but to keep before them fair. + + Oh, thou God's mariner, heart of mine, + Spread canvas to the airs divine! + Spread sail! and let thy Fortune be + Forgotten in thy Destiny! + + For Destiny pursues us well, + By sea, by land, through heaven or hell; + It suffers Death alone to die, + Bids Life all change and chance defy. + + Would earth's dark ocean suck thee down? + Earth's ocean thou, O Life, shalt drown, + Shalt flood it with thy finer wave, + And, sepulchred, entomb thy grave! + + Life loveth life and good: then trust + What most the spirit would, it must; + Deep wishes, in the heart that be, + Are blossoms of Necessity. + + A thread of Law runs through thy prayer, + Stronger than iron cables are; + And Love and Longing toward her goal + Are pilots sweet to guide the Soul. + + So Life must live, and Soul must sail, + And Unseen over Seen prevail, + And all God's argosies come to shore, + Let ocean smile, or rage and roar. + + And so, 'mid storm or calm, my bark + With snowy wake still nears her mark; + Cheerly the trades of being blow, + And sweeping down the wind I go. + + + + +PERCIVAL. + + +Among my letters is one from Dr. E.D. North, desiring me to furnish any +facts within my reach, relating to the scientific character and general +opinions of the late James G. Percival. This information Dr. North +proposed to incorporate into a memoir, to be prefixed to a new edition +of Percival's Poems. The biographer, with his task unfinished, has +followed the subject of his studies to the tomb. + +Dr. North's request revived in me many recollections of Percival; and +finally led me to draw out the following sketch of him, as he appeared +to my eyes in those days when I saw him often, and sometimes shared his +pursuits. Vague and shadowy is the delineation, and to myself seems +little better than the reminiscence of a phantom or a dream. Percival's +life had few externalities,--he related himself to society by few points +of contact; and I have been compelled to paint him chiefly by glimpses +of his literary and interior existence. + +My acquaintance with him grew out of some conversations on geological +topics, and commenced in 1828, when he was working on his translation of +Malte-Brun's Geography. The impression made on me by his singular person +and manners was vivid and indelible. Slender in form, rather above than +under the middle height, he had a narrow chest, and a peculiar stoop, +which was not in the back, but high up in the shoulders. His head, +without being large, was fine. His eyes were of a dark hazel, and +possessed uncommon expression. His nose, mouth, and chin were +symmetrically, if not elegantly formed, and came short of beauty +only because of that meagreness which marked his whole person. His +complexion, light without redness, inclined to sallow, and suggested a +temperament somewhat bilious. His dark brown hair had become thin above +the forehead, revealing to advantage that most striking feature of his +countenance. Taken all together, his appearance was that of a weak man, +of delicate constitution,--an appearance hardly justified by the fact; +for he endured fatigue and privation with remarkable stanchness. + +Percival's face, when he was silent, was full of calm, serious +meditation; when speaking, it lighted up with thought, and became +noticeably expressive. He commonly talked in a mild, unimpassioned +undertone, but just above a whisper, letting his voice sink with rather +a pleasing cadence at the completion of each sentence. Even when most +animated, he used no gesture except a movement of the first and second +fingers of his right hand backward and forward across the palm of the +left, meantime following their monotonous unrest with his eyes, and +rarely meeting the gaze of his interlocutor. He would stand for hours, +when talking, his right elbow on a mantel-piece, if there was one near, +his fingers going through their strange palmistry; and in this manner, +never once stirring from his position, he would not unfrequently +protract his discourse till long past midnight. An inexhaustible, +undemonstrative, noiseless, passionless man, scarcely evident to you by +physical qualities, and impressing you, for the most part, as a creature +of pure intellect. + +His wardrobe was remarkably inexpensive, consisting of little more than +a single plain suit, brown or gray, which he wore winter and summer, +until it became threadbare. He never used boots; and his shoes, though +carefully dusted, were never blacked. A most unpretending bow fastened +his cravat of colored cambric. For many years his only outer garment was +a brown camlet cloak, of very scanty proportions, thinly lined, and a +meagre protection against winter. His hat was worn for years before +being laid aside, and put you in mind of the prevailing mode by the law +of contrast only. He was never seen with gloves, and rarely with an +umbrella. The value of his entire wardrobe scarcely exceeded fifty +dollars; yet he was always neat, and appeared unconscious of any +peculiarity in his costume. + +An accurate portrait of him at any period of his life can scarcely be +said to exist. His sensitive modesty seems to have made him unwilling to +let his features be exposed to the flaring notoriety of canvas. Once, +indeed, he allowed himself to be painted by Mr. George A. Flagg; but the +picture having been exhibited in the Trumbull Gallery of Yale +College, Percival's susceptibility took alarm, and he expressed +annoyance,--though whether dissatisfied with the portrait or its public +exposure I cannot say. The artist proposed certain alterations, and the +poet listened to him with seeming assent. The picture was taken back to +the studio; objectionable or questionable parts of it painted out; the +likeness destroyed for the purpose of correction; and Percival was to +give another sitting at his convenience. That was the last time he put +himself within painting reach of Mr. Flagg's easel.[A] + +[Footnote A: I remember to have seen an excellent portrait of him, by +Alexander, in the studio of that artist, in the year 1825; but in whose +possession it now is, I am unable to say.] + +In those days of our early acquaintance, he occupied two small chambers, +one of which fronted on the business part of Chapel Street (New Haven). +His books, already numerous, were piled in double tiers and in heaps +against the walls, covering the floors also, and barely leaving space +for his sleeping-cot, chair, and writing-table. His library was a +_sanctum_ to which the curious visitor hardly ever gained admittance. He +met even his friends at the door, and generally held his interviews +with them in the adjoining passage. Disinclined to borrow books, he +was especially averse to lending. Dr. Guhrauer's assertion respecting +Leibnitz, that "his library was numerous and valuable, and its possessor +had the peculiarity that he liked to worm in it alone, being very +reluctant to let any one see it," applies equally well to Percival. + +He was rarely visible abroad except in his walks to and from the +country, whither he often resorted to pass not hours only, but +frequently entire days, in solitary wanderings,--partly for physical +exercise,--still more, perhaps, to study the botany, the geology, and +the minutest geographical features of the environs; for his restless +mind was perpetually observant, and could not be withheld from external +Nature, even by his poetic and philosophic meditation. In these +excursions, he often passed his fellow-mortals without noticing them. A +friend, if observed, he greeted with a slight nod, and possibly stopped +him for conversation. Once started on a subject, Percival rarely quitted +it until it was exhausted; and consequently these interviews sometimes +outlasted the leisure of his listener. You excused yourself, perhaps; +or you were called away by some one else; but you had only put off the +conclusion of the discourse, not escaped it. The next time Percival +encountered you, his first words were, "As I was saying,"--and taking +up the thread of his observations where it had been broken, he went +straight to the end. + +The excellent bookstore of the late Hezekiah Howe, one of the best in +New England, and particularly rich in those rare and costly works +which form a bookworm's delight, was one of Percival's best-loved +lounging-places. He bought freely, and, when he could not buy, he was +welcome to peruse: He read with marvellous rapidity, skipping as if by +instinct everything that was unimportant; avoiding the rhetoric, the +commonplaces, the falsities; glancing only at what was new, what was +true, what was suggestive, he had a distinct object in view; but it was +not to amuse himself, nor to compare author with author; it was simply +to increase the sum of his own knowledge. Perhaps it was in these rapid +forays through unbought, uncut volumes, that he acquired his singular +habit of reading books, even his own, without subjecting them to the +paper-knife. People who wanted to see Percival and obtain his views on +special topics were accustomed to look for him at Mr. Howe's, and always +found him willing to pour forth his voluminous information. + +His income at this time was derived solely from literary jobs, and was +understood to be very limited. What he earned he spent chiefly for +books, particularly for such as would assist him in perfecting that +striking monument of his varied and profound research, his new +translation and edition of Malte-Brun. For this labor the time had been +estimated, and the publishers had made him an allowance, which, if he +had worked like other men, would have amounted to eight dollars a +day. But Percival would let nothing go out of his hands imperfect; a +typographical error, even, I have heard him say, sometimes depressed +him like actual illness. He translated and revised so carefully, he +corrected so many errors and added so many footnotes, that his industry +actually devoured its own wages; and his eight dollars gradually +diminished to a diurnal fifty cents. + +Percival made no merely ceremonial calls, few friendly visits, and +attended no parties. If he dropped in upon a family of his acquaintance, +he rarely addressed himself to a lady. Otherwise there was nothing +peculiar in his deportment; for, if silent, he was not embarrassed,--and +if he talked, it was without any appearance of self-consciousness. + +Judging from his isolated habits, some persons supposed him +misanthropic. Let me give one instance of his good-nature. One of the +elder professors of Yale had fallen into a temporary misappreciation +with the students, who received his instructions, to say the least, with +an ill-concealed indifference. They whispered during his lectures, +and in other ways rendered themselves strenuously disagreeable to the +sensitive nerves of the professor. Indignant at such behavior toward +a worthy and learned man, who had been his own instructor, Percival +proposed a plan for stopping the annoyance. It was, that a number of old +graduates, professors, and others, himself being one, should attend +the lectures, listen to them with the respect they merited, and so, +if possible, bring the students to a sense of propriety and of the +advantages they were neglecting. + +No, Percival was not a misanthrope. During an acquaintance of +twenty-five years, I never knew him do an act or utter a word which +could countenance this opinion. He indulged in no bitter remarks, +cherished no hatred of individuals, affected no scorn of his race; on +the contrary, he held large views concerning the noble destinies of +mankind, and expressed deep interest in its advancement toward greater +intelligence and virtue. The local affections he certainly had, for he +was gratified at the prosperity of his fellow-townsmen, proud of his +native State, and took a pleasure in defending her name from unjust +aspersions. Patriotic, too,--none more so,--he rejoiced in the welfare +of the whole country, knew its history thoroughly, and bestowed on +its military heroes, in particular, a lively appreciation, which was +singular, perhaps, in a man of such gentle habits and nature. I +cannot forget the excited pleasure with which we visited, when on the +geological survey of Connecticut, Putnam's Stairs at Horseneck, and +Putnam's Wolf-Den in Pomfret. At the latter place, Percival's enthusiasm +for the heroic hunter and warrior led him to carve his initials on a +rock at the entrance of the chasm. It was the only place during the tour +where he left a similar memorial. + +American statesmen he admired scarcely less than American soldiers; nor +did he neglect any information within his reach concerning public +men and measures. It was singular to observe with what freedom from +excitement he discussed the most irritating phases of party,--speaking +of the men and events of his own day with as much philosophic calmness +as if they belonged to a previous century; not at all deceived, I +think, by the temporary notoriety and power which frequently attend the +political bustler,--quite positive, indeed, that many of our "great men" +were far inferior to multitudes in private life. Webster he respected +greatly, and used to regret that his fortune was not commensurate with +his tastes. Like a true poet, he believed devoutly in native genius, +considered it something inimitable and incommunicable, and worshipped it +whereever he found it. + +Percival was indifferent and even disinclined to female society. There +is a common story that he had conceived an aversion to the whole sex +in consequence of a youthful disappointment in love. I know nothing +concerning this alleged chagrin, but I am confident that he cherished no +such antipathy. He never, in my hearing, said a hard thing of any woman, +or of the sex; and I remember distinctly the flattering and even poetic +appreciation with which he spoke of individual ladies. Of one who has +since become a distinguished authoress of the South, he said, that "her +conversation had as great an intellectual charm for him as that of any +scholar among his male acquaintances." Of a lady still resident in +New Haven, he observed, that "there was a mysterious beauty in her +thoughtful face and dark eyes which reminded him of a deep and limpid +forest-fountain." But although he did not hate women, he certainly was +disinclined to their society,--an oddity, I beg leave to say, in any +man, and a most surprising eccentricity in a poet. Constitutional +timidity may have founded this habit during youth; for, as I have +already observed, his modesty was sensitive and almost morbid. Then came +his multitudinous studies, which absorbed him utterly, and in which, +unfortunately for Percival, if not for the ladies, these last took so +little interest that conversation was not mutually desirable. A remark +he made to a scientific friend, who had just been married, will, +perhaps, throw some light on the subject. "How is this?" said he; "I +thought you were wedded to science." This was all the felicitation he +had to offer; and without asking for the bride, he plunged into the +discussion which was the object of the visit. + +In 1835 commenced the geological survey of Connecticut, and I became +Percival's companion in labor. To him was intrusted the geology proper, +and to myself the mineralogy and its economical applications. During the +first season, we prosecuted our investigations together, travelling in +a one-horse wagon, which carried all our necessary implements, and +visiting, before the campaign ended, every parish in the State. Great +was the wonder our strange outfit and occupation excited in some rustic +neighborhoods; and very often were we called upon to enlighten the +popular mind with regard to our object and its uses. This was never a +pleasant task to Percival. He did not relish long confabulations with a +sovereign people somewhat ignorant of geology; and, moreover, his style +of describing our business was so peculiar, that it rarely failed to +transfer the curiosity to himself, and lead to tiresome delays. In New +Milford, an inquisitive farmer requested us, in a somewhat ungracious +manner, to give an account of ourselves. Percival replied, that we were +acting under a commission from the Governor to ascertain the useful +minerals of the State; whereupon our utilitarian friend immediately +demanded to be informed how the citizens at large, including himself, +were to be benefited by the undertaking,--putting question on question +in a fashion which was most pertinacious and almost impertinent. +Percival became impatient, and tried to hurry away. "I demand the +information," exclaimed the New Milfordite; "I demand it as my right. +You are only servants of the people; and you are paid, in part, at +least, out of my pocket." "I'll tell you what we'll do," said Percival; +"we can't stop, but we'll refund. Your portion of the geological +tax,--let me see,--it must be about two cents. We prefer handing you +this to encountering a further delay." Our agricultural friend and +master did not take the money, although he did the hint,--and in sulky +silence withdrew from our company. + +Driving through the town of Warren, we stopped a farmer to inquire +the way to certain places in the vicinity. He gave us the information +sought, staring at us meanwhile with a benevolently inquisitive +expression, and, at last, volunteering the remark, that, if we wanted a +job, we had better stop at the factory in the hollow. We thanked him +for his goodness, and thought, perhaps, of Sedgewick geologizing by the +road-side, and getting a charitable half-crown flung at him by a noble +lady who was on her way to dine in his company at the house of a mutual +acquaintance. + +Let us grant here one brief parenthesis of respect and astonishment to +the scientific knowledge and philological acumen of a distinguished +graduate of Yale College, and member of Congress, whom we encountered +on our travels. Hearing us speak of mosaic granite, a rock occurring +in Woodbridge, to which we had given this name, from the checker-like +arrangement of its felspathic ingredient, he concluded that we +attributed its formation to the era of Moses, and asked Percival what +evidence he had for such an opinion. Small blame to him, perhaps, for +the blunder, but it seemed a very droll one to geologists. + +In Greenwich, the extreme southwestern town of the State, we encountered +an incident to which my companion would sometimes refer with a slight +degree of merriment. In general, he was no joker, no anecdotist, and had +but a feeble appreciation of droll sayings or humorous matters of +any kind. But in Greenwich he heard a memorable phrase. Among the +tavern-loungers was a man who had evidently seen better days, and who, +either for that reason or because of the large amount of rum he had +swallowed, entertained a lofty opinion of himself, and discoursed _de +omnibus rebus_ in a most consequential fashion. He soon made himself a +sort of medium between ourselves and his fellow-loafers. Overhearing us +say that we wished to pass the New York frontier for the sake of tracing +out the strata then under examination, he proceeded with much pomposity +to declare to his deeply curious auditory, that "it was his opinion +that the Governor of the State should confer upon these gentlemen +_discretionary powers_ to pass the limits of Connecticut, whenever and +wherever, in the prosecution of their labors, the interests of science +required them so to do." After this, we rarely crossed the State line +but Percival observed, "We are now taking advantage of our discretionary +powers." + +Of the few stories Percival told me, here is one. In one of our +country-places, a plain, shrewd townsman fell into chance conversation +with him, and entertained him with some account of a neighbor who had +been seized with a mania for high Art, and had let loose his frenzy upon +canvas in a deluge of oil-colors. If I mistake not, Percival was invited +to inspect these productions of untaught and perhaps unteachable genius. +They were vast attempts at historical scenes, in which the heads and +legs of heroes were visible, but played a very secondary part in the +interest, compared with a perfect tempest of drapery, which rolled in +ungovernable masses, like the clouds of a thunder-storm. + +"What do you think of them?" inquired Percival. + +"Well, I don't claim to be a judge of such things," replied his +cicerone; "but the fact is, (and I told the painter so,) that, when I +look at 'em, about the only thing I can think of is a resurrection of +old clothes." + +In the town of Lebanon, an incident occurred which affected us rather +more seriously. Turning a corner suddenly, we came upon an old man +digging up cobble-stones by the road-side and breaking them in pieces +with an axe. "A brother-geologist," was our first impression. At that +moment the old man sprang toward us, the axe in one hand and half a +brick in the other, shouting eagerly,-- + +"I guess Mr. ----" (name indistinguishable) "will be glad to see you, +gentlemen." + +"For what?" + +"Why, he has got several boxes of jewels; and I gave an advertisement in +the paper." + +"Whose are they?" + +"King Jerome's." + +"And who is he?" + +"The king of the world!" shouted the maniac, still advancing with a +menacing air, and so near the wagon by this time that he might almost +have hit Percival with his axe. + +Without pausing to hear more about the jewels, a sudden blow to the +horse barely enabled us to escape the reach of our fellow-laborer before +he had time to use his axe on our own formations. + +In the following year, when Percival was pursuing the survey by himself, +on horseback, some of the elements of this adventure were repeated, +but reversed after a very odd fashion. The late Dr. Carrington, of +Farmington, who told me the tale, being ten miles from home on a +professional excursion, drove up to a tavern and found himself welcomed +with extraordinary emphasis by the innkeeper. The Doctor was just the +person he wanted to see; the Doctor's opinion was very much needed about +that strange man out there; he wished the Doctor to have a talk with +him, and see whether he was crazy or not. The fellow had been there a +day or two, picking up stones about the lots; and some of the boys had +been sent to watch him, but could get nothing out of him. This morning +he wanted to go away, and ordered his horse; but the neighbors wouldn't +let it be brought up, for they said he was surely some mad chap who +had taken another man's horse. Thus talking, the landlord pointed out +Percival, surrounded by a group of villagers, who, quietly, and under +pretence of conversation, were holding him under a sort of arrest. The +Doctor rushed into the circle, addressed his friend Percival by name, +spoke of the survey, and thus satisfied the bystanders, who, guessing +their mistake, dispersed silently. No open remonstrance was needed, +and perhaps Percival never understood the adventure in which he thus +unconsciously formed the principal character. + +While we were in Berlin, the native town of Percival, he related to me +several incidents of his earlier life. His father was discussing some +geographical question with a neighbor; and the future geologist, then +a boy of seven or eight, sat by listening until the ignorance of his +elders tempted him to speak. "Where did you learn that?" they asked, +in astonishment. With timid reluctance, he confessed that he had been +reading clandestinely Morse's large geography, of which there was a copy +in a society-library kept at his father's house. The book, he added, had +an indescribable attraction for him; and even at that almost infantile +age he was familiar with its contents. It was this reading of Morse, +perhaps, which determined his taste for those geographical studies +in which he subsequently became so distinguished. With him, as with +Humboldt and Guyot, geography was a term of wide signification. Far from +confining it to the names and boundaries of countries, seas, and lakes, +to the courses of rivers and the altitudes of mountains, he connected +with it meteorology, natural history, and the leading facts of human +history, ethnology, and archaeology. He knew London as thoroughly as +most Americans know New York or Philadelphia, and yet he had never +crossed the Atlantic. + +An instance of the minuteness of his geographical information was +related to me by the Rev. Mr. Adam, a Scottish clergyman, long resident +at Benares, but subsequently settled over the Congregational Church in +Amherst, Massachusetts. On his way to visit me at New Haven, he met in +the stage-coach a countryman of his, who soon opened a controversy with +him respecting the course of a certain river in Scotland. The discussion +had continued for some time, when another passenger offered a suggestion +which opened the eyes of the debaters to the fact (not unfrequently the +case in such controversies) that they were both wrong. "How long since +you were there, Sir?" they asked; and the reply was, "I never was in +Scotland." "Who are you, Sir?" Mr. Adam wanted to ask, but kept the +question until he could put it to me. I did not feel much hesitation in +telling him that the stranger must have been Percival; and Percival it +was, as I afterwards learned by questioning him of the circumstance. + +But we must return to Berlin, in order to hear one more of Percival's +stories. Passing a field, half a mile from his early home, he told an +incident connected with it, and related to his favorite study of natural +history. The field had belonged to his father, who, besides being the +physician of Berlin, indulged a taste for agriculture. Just before the +harvest season, it became palpable that this field, then waving with +wheat, was depredated upon to a wasteful extent by some unknown subjects +of the animal kingdom. Having watched for the pilferers in vain by +day, the proprietor resolved to mount guard by night, and accordingly +ambushed himself in the invaded territory. Near midnight, he saw his own +flock of geese, hitherto considered so trustworthy, approach silently +in single file, make their entry between the rails, and commence +transferring the wheat-crop into their own crops, after a ravenous +fashion. Having eaten their fill, they re-formed their column of march, +with a venerable gander at the head, and trudged silently homeward, +cautiously followed by their owner, who noticed, that, on regaining his +door-yard, they set up a vociferous cackle, such as he had repeatedly +heard from them before at about the same hour. It was a most evident +attempt to establish an _alibi_; it was as much as to say, "If you miss +any wheat, we didn't take it; we are honest birds, and stay at +home o'nights, Dr. Percival." The next morning, however, a general +decapitation overtook the flock of feathered hypocrites. "It was a +curious instance of the domestic goose reverting to its wild habit of +nocturnal feeding," remarked my narrator, dwelling characteristically +upon the natural-history aspect of the fact. + +Percival was almost incapable of an irrelevancy. The survey was the +business in hand, and he rarely discoursed much of things disconnected +with it, except, perhaps, when we were retracing our routes, or when the +labors of the day were over. Of poets and poetry he was not inclined to +speak. I never heard him quote a line, either his own or another's, nor +indulge in a single poetic observation concerning the objects which +met us in our wanderings. Indeed, he confessed that he no longer felt +disposed to write verses, being satisfied that his productions were +not acceptable to the prevailing taste; although he admitted that he +composed a few stanzas occasionally, in order to make trial of some +unusual measure or new language. He told me that he had versified in +thirteen languages; and I have heard from others that he had imitated +all the Greek and German metres. + +Of politics, foreign and domestic, he talked frequently, but always +philosophically and dispassionately, much as if he were speaking of +geological stratification. His views of humanity were deduced from a +most extensive survey of the race in all its historical and geographical +relations. He distinctly recognized the fact of its steady advance +from one stage to another, in accordance with a plan of intellectually +organic development, as marked as that detected by the geologist in +the gradual preparation of the earth for the abode of our species. The +slowness and seeming vacillation of man's upward movement could not +stagger his faith; for if it had taken thousands of ages to make earth +habitable, why should it not take thousands more to bring man to his +completeness? Equally free was he from misgiving on account of the +remaining presence of so much misery and wretchedness; for these he +considered as the indispensable stimuli to progress. Even war, he used +to say, is sometimes necessary to the welfare of nations, as sickness +and sorrow plainly are to that of individuals; although, to his moral +sense, the human authors of this scourge were no more admirable than the +devisers of any private calamity. Improvements in knowledge he regarded +as the only elements of real progress; and these he looked upon as true +germinal principles, bound up organically in the constitution of the +human soul. Indeed, that philosophical calmness which was characteristic +of him seemed to flow in some measure from his settled persuasion that +the same matchless wisdom and benevolence he recognized throughout +Nature wrought with a still higher providence and a more earnest love +for man and would make all things finally conduce to his welfare. It was +clear that he drew a profound tranquillity from the thought that he was +a part of the vast and harmonious whole. + +Concerning his religious views he was exceedingly taciturn. He had no +taste for metaphysical or theological discussions, although his library +contained a large number of standard works on these subjects. Religion +itself he never alluded to but with the deepest respect. Talking to +me of Christianity, he quoted the observation of Goethe, that "it had +brought into the world a light never to be extinguished." He spoke of +Jesus with poetic, if not with Christian fervor. He contrasted his +teachings and deeds with the prevailing maxims and practice of the +people among whom he appeared, with the dead orthodoxy of its religious +teachers, and with the general ignorance and hypocrisy of the masses. +"Had I lived in such a state of society," he said, "I am certain that it +would have driven me mad." + +He expressed an earnest esteem for the doctrines of the Evangelical +clergy, and even approved, though more moderately, the religious +awakenings which occur under their labors. He described to me, with +some particularity, a revival he had witnessed in his native town, when +young; and repeated some of the quaint exhortations of the lay brethren, +all in a manner perfectly serious, but calculated, perhaps, to leave the +impression, that such views of religion were not necessary to himself, +although they might be quite suited to the minds of others. + +The rational theology he regarded as anti-poetic in influence, and of +very doubtful efficacy in working upon the masses. He appreciated, +however, the honesty and superior culture of the Unitarian scholars and +clergy of Boston, with many of whom he had been on terms as intimate as +his shyness accorded to any one. + +He attended church but once with me while we were engaged in the survey. +We heard a discourse from a Rev. Dr. E----, upon the conduct of the +young ruler who inquired his duty of Christ. The speaker argued from the +sacred narrative a universal obligation to devote our possessions +to religious purposes,--and upheld, as an example to all men, the +self-devotion of a young missionary (then somewhat known) who had +despised a splendid fortune, offered him on condition of his remaining +at home, and had consecrated himself to the Christianization of Africa. + +"How did you like the sermon?" I inquired of Percival. + +"I consider it an animating and probably useful performance," he +replied; "but it does not accord with comprehensive conceptions of +humanity, inasmuch as its main inference was drawn from the exception, +and not from the rule. There always have been, and probably always +will be, men possessed of the self-immolating or martyr spirit. Such +instances are undoubtedly useful, and have my admiration; but they +cannot become general, and never were meant to be." + +During the survey, we were invited to pass an evening in a family +remarkable for its musical talent, and I remember distinctly the evident +pleasure with which Percival listened to the chorus of organ tones and +rich cultivated voices. In general, however, his appreciation of music +was subordinate to his study of syllabic movement in versification; and +it was with reference chiefly to poetic measure, I have been told, that +he acquired what mastery he had over the accordion and guitar. + +Percival's favorite topics, when evening came and we rested from our +stony labors, were the modern languages and the philosophy of universal +grammar. They seemed to have filled the niches in his heart, from which +he had banished, or tried to banish, the Muses. The subtile refinements +of Bopp were a perpetual luxury to him; he derived language from +language as easily as word from word; and, once started in the +intricacies of the Russian or the Basque, there was no predicting the +end of the discourse. Thus were thrown away, upon a solitary listener, +midnight lectures which would have done honor to the class-rooms of +Berlin or the Sorbonne. In looking at such an instance of intellectual +pleasure and acumen, as connected in no small degree with the study of +foreign languages, one cannot avoid associating together the unsolved +mystery of that discrepancy of tongues prevailing in different countries +with the disagreeing _floras_ and _faunas_ of the same regions,--each +diversity bearing alike the unmistakable marks of Omnipotent design for +the happiness and improvement of man. + +The perfection of his memory was amazing. During the year following +the survey, when we had frequent occasion to compare recollections, I +observed that no circumstance of our labors was shadowy or incomplete +in his memory. He could refer to every trifling incident of the tour, +recall every road and path that we had followed, every field and ledge +that we had examined, particularize the day of the week on which we had +dined or supped at such a tavern, and mention the name of the landlord. +I asked him how he was able to remember such minutiae. He replied, that +it was his custom, on going to bed, to call up, in the darkness and +stillness, all the incidents of the day's experience, in their proper +order, and cause them to move before him like a diorama through a +spiritual morning, noon, and evening. "It has often appeared to me," he +said, "that in this purely mental process I see objects more distinctly +than I behold them in the reality." + +But his memory doubtless gained an immense additional advantage from his +habitual seclusion, from his unconcern with the distracting customs of +society, and, most of all, from the imperturbable abstraction under +which he studied and observed. With him there was no blending of +collateral subjects, no permitted intrusion of things irrelevant or +trivial, so that the channels of his thoughts were always single, +deep, and traceable. It was a mental straightforwardness and +conscientiousness, as rare, perhaps, as moral rectitude itself. + +In diet, Percival was the most abstemious person I ever knew. His health +was uniformly good,--the specimens of a geologist, when he collects them +himself, being as favorable to digestion and appetite as the pebbles to +a chicken; yet, I am persuaded, my companion in no case violated the +golden rule of leaving the table unsated. No matter how long had been +his fast, he showed no impatience of hunger, made no remark upon the +excellence of any dish, found fault with nothing, or, at most, only +seemed to miss drinkable coffee and good bread, articles seldom to be +met with in the country. He ate slowly, selecting his food with the +discrimination which ought to belong to a chemist or physiologist, and +then thought no more about it. Alcoholic drinks he never tasted, except +an occasional glass of wine, to which his attention perhaps had been +called on account of its age or superior excellence. Even then it +was not the flavor which interested him, so much as the history, +geographical and other. + +Peculiar as he was in his own habits of diet, he offered no strictures +upon the practice of others, however different, unless it ran into +hurtful excesses. The maxim of Epictetus in the "Enchiridion," "Never +preach how others ought to eat, but eat you as becomes you," seemed to +be his rule. Indeed, Percival was one of those rare men who withhold +alike censure and praise respecting the minor matters of life. Not that +he was without opinions on such subjects; but, to obtain them, one was +forced to question him. On the whole, I do not think it would be going +too far to apply to him the above-named moralist's description of the +wise man:--"He reproves nobody, praises nobody, blames nobody, nor even +speaks of himself; if any one praises him, in his own mind he contemns +the flatterer; if any one reproves him, he looks with care that he be +not unsettled in the state of tranquillity that he has entered into. +All his desires depend on things within his power; he transfers all +his aversions to those things which Nature commands us to avoid. His +appetites are always moderate. He is indifferent whether he be thought +foolish or ignorant. He observes himself with the nicety of an enemy or +a spy, and looks on his own wishes as betrayers." + +Percival's solitary habits, combined with the invariable seriousness +of his manner, led many persons to believe him melancholy, and even +disposed to suicide. He did, indeed, confess to me, that he sometimes +felt giddy on the edge of a precipice. This was his nearest approach, I +am confident, to the idea of self-destruction. While we were examining +the great iron furnaces of Salisbury, he told me that he was afraid of +walking near the throat of a chimney when in blast, and that more than +once he had turned and run from the lurid, murky orifice, lest a sudden +failure of self-control should cause him to reel into the consuming +abyss. No,--Percival neither felt nor expressed disgust with life. +On the contrary, he was strongly attached to it; the acquisition of +knowledge clothed it with inexpressible value; the longest day was ever +too short to fulfil his designs. Like the wise, laborious men of all +ages, he almost repined at the swiftness of the years. "I am amazed at +the flight of time," he said to me, on the arrival of his forty-second +birthday; "it seems only a year since I was thirty-two;--I have lost ten +years of my life." + +Before entering upon the survey of Connecticut, he was not specially +devoted to any one branch of physics, although his tastes inclined him +most toward geology. While he could sympathize perfectly, he said, with +those who threw their whole force into a single study, he felt +himself attracted equally by the entire circle of Nature, and thought +omniscience a nobler object of ambition than any one science. He +admitted that the search after all knowledge is incompatible with +eminence in any particular department; but he believed that it affords +higher pleasure to the mind, and confers ability to do signal service +to mankind in pointing out the grand connections, the general laws, of +Nature. + +It is not, perhaps, widely known, that Percival was a well-informed +botanist. He studied this branch when a medical student under Professor +Ives, and assisted his instructor in laying out a small botanical +garden, the plants of which were arranged after the natural orders of +Jussieu. Soon after finishing his medical education, he gave a course of +lectures on botany in Charleston, South Carolina, before a very select +audience, composed mostly of Ladies. The only drawback to the lecturer's +success was his excessive timidity. As an evidence of the assiduity with +which he botanized, it may be mentioned that he had seen the _Geranium +Robertianum_ (a plant which nestles in the sunny clefts of our trap +mountains) in bloom, during every month of the year. One year he found +its blossoms in December, another in January, and so on, until the round +of the monthly calendar was completed. + +Percival was an earnest advocate of popular education. He manifested +much interest in the first systematic attempt (at the instance of +Mr. James Brewster) to furnish the people of New Haven with popular +instruction in the form of lectures. At a public dinner, given by Mr. +Brewster, on the occasion of opening the building in which rooms had +been fitted up for these lectures, the late Mr. Skinner gave the toast, +"Our mechanics, the right arm of New Haven," and Percival followed with, +"Science, the right eye which directs the right arm of New Haven." He +believed most fully in the superiority of intelligent labor. He pointed +out cases in which a college-training had been connected with signal +eminence in mechanical invention, and said, that, according to his +observations, persons engaged in industrial pursuits usually succeeded +in proportion to the thoroughness of their education. + +Percival himself gave a course of lectures, or rather, lessons, in New +Haven,--not in the building above mentioned, for his natural timidity +was too great to encounter a public audience, but in the theological +lecture-room of Yale College. They were on the German language, and +consisted chiefly of translations of prose and poetry into English, +intermingled with philosophical commentaries on the peculiarities of the +original. It was pure grammar; he did not talk German, and claimed no +acquaintance with the niceties of pronunciation; but all his listeners, +most of whom were graduates, were struck with his perfect mastery of the +subject. + +Percival held one peculiar opinion concerning a branch of college +education. He objected to the modern practice of teaching the natural +sciences by means of a profusion of drawings, models, showy experiments, +and other expedients addressing the mind so strongly through the eye. +While these might be allowable in popular lectures, before audiences +lacking in early intellectual discipline, where amusement was a +consideration, and where without it the public ear could not be secured, +he thought that the collegian should study differently,--that his +understanding should be taxed severely, and that he should be inured, +from the first, to rigid attention, in order to a lasting remembrance +of the truths offered to him. It would be a useful exercise for the +instructor, he thought, to elucidate obscure phenomena and complicated +structures by words only, assisting himself, perhaps, occasionally, by +extemporaneous drawings. Such a course would inspire the scholar with +deference for his teacher, and confidence in his own ability to acquire +a similar grasp of the subject. While there is certainly some truth in +this opinion, it would not be difficult, perhaps, to invalidate its +general force. Why should the ear be the only admitted means of +acquiring knowledge? Nature, the greatest of teachers, does not judge +thus: she conveys half her wisdom to us by sight, instead of by faith; +she gives her first lessons to the infant through the eye. Would +Percival, in looking for his attentive audiences, have preferred a +congregation of blind men? + +Speaking of literary composition, he said that he often took great pains +with his productions, shifting words and phrases in many ways, before +satisfying himself that he had attained the best form of expression; and +he assured me that these slowly elaborated passages were the very ones +in which he afterwards recognized the most ease and nature, and which +others supposed him to have thrown off carelessly. I asked him how it +was that children, in their unpremeditated way, expressed themselves +with so much directness and beauty. They have but a single idea to +present at a time, he said; they seize without hesitation on the first +words that offer for its expression, unperplexed by any such choice of +terms as would surely occur to maturer minds; and most important of +all, perhaps, they are wholly unembarrassed by limiting qualifications +arising from a fuller knowledge of the subject. + +His prose style is a rare exemplification of classic severity and +perspicuousness. In each paragraph the ideas arrange themselves in +faultless connection, like the molecules of a crystal around its centre. +The sentences are not long, the construction is simple, the words are +English in its purity, without admixture of foreign phrase or idiom. But +the most striking peculiarity of his diction is the utter absence +of ornament; for Percival evidently held that the chief merits of +composition are clearness and directness. Poetic imagery, brilliant +climaxes and antitheses, fanciful or grotesque turns of expression, he +rejected as unfavorable to that simple truth for which he studied and +wrote. This dry, almost mathematical style, was no necessity with him; +few men, surely, have had at command a richer vocabulary, English and +foreign, than Percival; few could have adorned thought with more or +choicer garlands from the fields of knowledge and imagination. + +To letter-writing he had a great aversion. I have never seen a letter +or note from him to which his signature was attached. The +autograph-fanciers, therefore, will find a scanty harvest when they come +to forage after the name of Percival. His handwriting corresponded in +some sense with his character. It was fine; the lines straight and +parallel; the letters completely formed, though without fulness of +curve; no flourishes, and no unnecessary prolongations of stroke, above +or below the general run of the line. There were few erasures, the +punctuation was perfect, and the manuscript was fit for the press as it +left his hand. + +Literary criticism he rarely indulged in, being too disinclined to +praise or blame, and too intensely devoted to the acquisition of +positive knowledge. If he commented severely upon anything, it was +usually the slovenly diction of some of our State Surveys, or the +inaccuracies of translations from foreign languages. + +His only published criticism, of which I am aware, was discharged at +a phrenological lecturer, whose extraordinary assumptions and +_ad-captandum_ style had excited his disgust. Percival did not reverence +the science of bumps, and believed, in the words of William Von +Humboldt, that "it is one of those discoveries which, when stripped of +all the _charlatanerie_ that surrounds them, will show but a very meagre +portion of truth." Dr. Barber, an Englishman, and a somewhat noted +teacher of elocution, having been converted to the phrenological faith, +delivered certain magniloquent lectures on the same to the citizens of +New Haven, and took pay therefor, after the manner of his sect. Percival +responded with a sharp newspaper pasquinade, entitled "A Lecture on +Nosology." At the head of the article was a wood-cut of a gigantic nose, +mapped out into faculties. "Gentlemen, the nose is the most prominent +feature in this bill," commenced the parody. "The nose is the true seat +of the mind; and therefore, gentlemen, Nosology, or the science of the +nose, is the true phrenology. He, who knows his nose, foreknows; for he +knows that which is before him. Therefore Nosology is the surest guide +to conduct. Whatever progress an individual may make, his nose is always +in advance. But society is only a congeries of individuals; consequently +its nose is always in advance,--therefore its proper guide. The nose, +rightly understood, will assuredly work wonders in the cause of +improvement; for it is always going ahead, always first in every +undertaking, always soonest at the goal. The ancients did not neglect +the nose. Look at their busts and statues! What magnification and +abduction in Jove! What insinuation and elongation in the Apollo! +Then [Greek: nous] (intellect) was surely the nose,--[Greek: gnosis] +(knowledge) noses,--[Greek: Minos] my nose. What intussusception, what +potation, and, as a necessary consequence, alas! what rubification! But +I have seen such noses. Beware of them!--they are bad noses,--very bad +noses, I assure you.... Do not, I pray you, consider me irreverent, +if I say that Nosology will prove highly favorable to the cause of +religion. This is indeed an awful subject, and I would not touch it on +slight grounds; but I sincerely believe that what I say is true. +Nosology will prove highly favorable to the cause of religion! Does +not the nose stand forth like a watchman on the walls of Zion, on the +look-out for all assailants? and when our faces are directed upwards in +devotion, does not the nose ascend the highest and most especially tend +heavenward?... Nosology is a manly science. It stands out in the open +light. It does not conceal itself behind scratches and periwigs,--nor +does it, like certain false teachers mentioned by St. Paul, go about +from house to house, leading astray silly women......Finally, gentlemen, +you may rest assured that Nosology will not gently submit to insult. +_Noli me tangere!_ Who ever endured a tweak of the nose? It will know +how to take vengeance. As Jupiter metamorphosed the inhospitable Lycians +into frogs, so its contemners will suddenly find themselves [Greek: +Barbarophonoi]!" + +Percival has been thought over-tenacious of his opinions. He was +certainly very circumspect in changing them. I have witnessed, however, +several instances in which he yielded to the force of evidence in +the modification of his views. He seemed to recognize geology, in +particular, as a progressive science, in which new facts are constantly +accruing, and therefore compelling re-adaptations of our views. He felt, +indeed, in respect to all knowledge, the mathematics excepted, that +modifications of belief, in well-regulated minds, are unavoidable, as +the result of new information. Approach to higher truth through the +sciences he seemed to regard under the aspect of that of besiegers to a +beleaguered fortress. Principles and deductions, which were a boon and a +triumph for us yesterday, lose their value to-day, when a new parallel +of approach has been attained. He lost his interest in what was +abandoned, necessary as it had been to the present position, only in the +advantage of which, and its sure promise of what was still higher, he +allowed himself to rejoice. + +But where evidence was wanting, he was never to be moved to a change by +any amount of importunity or temptation. This trait of character made +him somewhat impracticable as a collaborator, in the philological task +he was employed to perform under Dr. Noah Webster. Disagreements were to +have been anticipated from the striking contrasts in their minds. +They agreed in industry; but Webster was decided, practical, strongly +self-reliant, and always satisfied with doing the best that could +be done with the time and means at command. Percival was timid and +cautious, and, from the very breadth of his linguistic attainments, +undecided. He often craved more time for arriving at conclusions. When +he happened to differ from the great lexicographer, he would never yield +an iota of his ground. These differences led to an early rupture in +the engagement, almost before two letters of the alphabet had been +completed. He much preferred to relinquish a profitable undertaking to +going forward with it under circumstances not agreeable to his elevated +standard of literary accuracy and completeness. He felt that he could +live on bread and water, or even give up these, if necessary; but he +could not violate his convictions of what was true and right. He was a +perfect martyr to his literary and scientific conscientiousness. + +He evinced the same spirit in respect to the geological survey. As his +mind was not satisfied, he would not make known his results to the +Legislature. They demanded the report, and he asked for an extension of +time. Thus he continued his labors from year to year, upon a stipend +scarcely adequate to cover his expenses. Instead, however, of nearing +the goal, he only receded from it. New difficulties met him in the work; +fresh questions arose, in the progress of geology itself, that called +for reëxaminations. His notes swelled to volumes, and his specimens +increased to thousands. He was in danger of being crushed under the +weight of his doubts and his materials. At last, the people clamored +for the end of the work. The Legislature became peremptory, and forced +Percival to acquiesce. + +In 1842 (seven years from the commencement of the survey) he rendered an +octavo report of four hundred and ninety-five pages, in the introduction +to which he observes,--"I regret to say, I have not had the means +allowed me for additional investigations, nor even for a proper use of +my materials, either notes or specimens. The number of localities from +which I have collected specimens I have estimated at nearly eight +thousand; the records of dips and bearings are still more numerous. +The report which follows is but a hasty outline, written mainly from +recollection, with only occasional reference to my materials, and under +circumstances little calculated for cool consideration. It was written, +however, with an intention to state nothing of the truth or probability +of which I did not feel satisfied. None can regret more than I do its +imperfection; still I cannot but hope that it will contribute something +towards the solution of the problem of the highest practical as well as +scientific importance, the exact determination of the geological system +of the State." + +Of this remarkable production it may very briefly be said, that it will +ever remain a monument to the scientific and literary powers of its +author. It describes every shade of variation in the different rocks, +and their exact distribution over the surface of the State. This it +accomplishes with a minuteness never before essayed in any similar work. +The closeness and brevity of his descriptions make it one of the dryest +productions ever issued on geological science, scarcely omitting the +work of Humboldt, in which he sought to represent the whole of geology +by algebraic symbols. Percival's work actually demands, and would richly +repay, a translation into the vernacular of descriptive geology,--the +language and mode of illustration employed by Murchison and Hitchcock. +In its present form, it is safe to say, it has never found a single +reader among the persons for whose benefit it was written. + +It is no part of my plan to speak of his poetical reputation. This I +leave to others better able to do him justice. Indeed, he had nearly +abandoned poetical composition before our acquaintance began. But it is +safe, perhaps, to say here, that his writings have placed him among +the first of our national poets; and had he resumed this species of +composition, he could scarcely have failed of maintaining, in the +fullest manner, his poetic fame. He possessed all the qualities reckoned +essential to poetical excellence. We have already spoken of his +astonishing memory, a trait regarded of such importance to the poet by +the ancients as to have led them to call the Muses the daughters of this +mental faculty. His powers of abstraction and imagination were no less +remarkable,--while for extreme sensitiveness he was unsurpassed. His +judgment was clear, and his appreciation of language refined to the last +degree. His musical feeling, too, as well of time as of harmony, was +intense; while he had at command the universal stores of literature and +science. + +In closing these reminiscences, I cannot avoid noticing some of the +useful impressions exerted by Percival upon the literary community +amidst which he passed so large a portion of his life. To some the +influence of such a recluse will doubtless seem insignificant. The +reverse, however, I am persuaded, was the fact. Few students came to New +Haven without bringing with them, imprinted on their youthful memories, +some beautiful line of his poetry. Few had not heard of his universal +scholarship and profound learning. Next to an acquaintance with the +teachers from whom they expected to derive their educational training, +their curiosity led them to inquire for Percival. The sight of this +modest, shrinking individual, as the possessor of such mines of +intellectual wealth, it may well be understood, produced the deepest +interest. In him they recognized a man superior to the clamor of vulgar +gratification; his indifference to gain, to luxury, and every form of +display, his constant preference of the spiritual over the sensual, was +always an impressive example to them. The indigent student took fresh +courage as he saw in him to what a narrow compass exterior wants might +be reduced; the man of fashion and the fop stood abashed before the +simplicity of his dress and daily life. And wherever the spirit of +classic literature had been imbibed, and the capacity acquired of +perceiving the severe worth of the true philosopher, the inspection of +such a character, compared with the mere description of it in history, +was like the difference between a statue and a living, breathing man. As +at early dawn or in the gray twilight his slender form glided by, the +thoughtful and poetic scholar could scarce refrain from uttering to +himself,--"There goes Diogenes or Chrysippus! There goes one, by the +side of whom many a bustler in letters is only a worthless drone, many +an idolized celebrity a weak and pitiful sham!" Such a character as +Percival's, in the presence of a scholastic community, was a perpetual +incentive to industry and manliness; and although he rarely spoke in its +hearing, and has left us fewer published works than many others, still +I believe that thousands yet live to thank him for lessons derived from +the simple survey of his daily life. + +Though there is little likelihood that his example of self-abnegation +and devotion to study will be followed by many of our youth, +nevertheless, the occurrence of such a model now and then in the +republic of letters constitutes a pleasing as well as useful +phenomenon,--if for no other reason, because it breaks in upon the +monotony of literary biography, and communicates a portion of that +picturesqueness to scholastic life which belongs to Nature in everything +else. That his course was fraught with happiness to himself cannot be +doubted; that it was beneficial also to his fellow-men is equally +true; and though he may be judged less leniently by minds incapable of +pronouncing that to be a character honorable in the sight of God or +man, which deviates from their own standard or creed,--to others, who +recognize the highest possible cultivation of the mental faculties and +unsullied purity of life as the noblest ends of our being, he will ever +occupy a position shared by few of mortal race. + + * * * * * + + +ZELMA'S VOW. + +IN TWO PARTS. + + +PART FIRST. HOW IT WAS MADE. + + +Who does not remember his first play?--the proudly concealed impatience +which seemed seething in the very blood,--the provoking coolness of old +play-goers,--the music that rather excited than soothed the fever +of expectation,--the mystery of mimic life that throbbed behind the +curtain,--the welcome tinkle of the prompter's bell,--the capricious +swaying to and fro of that mighty painted scroll,--its slow uplift, +revealing for an instant, perhaps, the twinkle of flying dancers' feet +and the shuffle of belated buskins? And then, the unveiled wonders +of that strange, new world of canvas and pasteboard and +trap-doors,--people, Nature, Art, and architecture, never before beheld, +and but faintly conceived of,--the magic of shifting scenes,--the +suddenness and awfulness of subterranean and aerial descents and +ascents,--the solemn stage-walk of the heroine,--the majestic strut +of the hero,--the princely sweep of velvet,--the illusive sparkle of +paste,--the rattle of Brobdignagian pearls,--the saucy tossing of pages' +plumes,--the smiles, the wiles, the astonishing bounds and bewildering +pirouettes of the dancing Houries,--the great sobs and small shrieks +of persecuted beauty,--the blighting smile of the villain,--the lofty +indifference of supernumeraries! + +It was the first play of our heroine, Zelma Burleigh, and of her Cousin +Bessie. The morning before, a fragrant May morning, scores of summers +ago, Roger Burleigh, a stout Northumbrian Squire, had rolled himself, +in his ponderous way, into the snug family-parlor at the Grange, and +addressed his worthy dame with a bluff-- + +"Well, good wife, wouldn't like to go see the players to-night?" + +Ere the good lady could collect herself to reply with the decorous +deliberateness becoming her years and station, an embroidery-frame at +her side was overturned, and there sprang eagerly forward a comely +young damsel of the pure Saxon stock, with eyes like England's +violets,--clear, dewy, and wide-awake,--cheeks and lips like its +rose-bloom, and hair which held tangled in close, golden folds its +fickle and flying sunshine. + +"Ay, father!" she cried, "that we would! Zelma and I have never seen any +players, save the tumblers over at the Hall, on Sir Harry's birthday, +and we are in sad need of a little pleasuring." + +"Who spoke to you, or of you, Mistress Bessie?" replied the Squire, +playfully. "And what is all your useless, chattering life but +pleasuring? The playhouse is but a perilous place for giddy-brained +lasses like you; but for once, harkee, for _once_, we'll venture on +taking you, if you'll promise to keep your silly head safe under the +mother-hen's wing." + +"Not so close but that I can get a peep at the players now and then," +said Bessie, archly. "They say there are some handsome young men and a +pretty woman or two among them. Eh, Zelma?" + +"Handsome young men!--pretty women!" exclaimed the Squire, with an +explosive snort of contempt. "An arrant set of vagabonds and tramps,--of +ranting, strutting, apish creatures, with neither local habitations nor +names of their own. And what does Zelma know about them? Out with it, +girl!" + +The person thus addressed, without lifting the folds of a heavy +window-curtain which concealed her, replied in a quiet, though somewhat +haughty tone,-- + +"I saw them all, yesterday afternoon, on their way to Arden. I found +them near the entrance to our avenue. One of their carts had broken +down, and somebody was hurt. I dismounted to see if I could be of any +assistance. My pony pulled away from me and ran up the road. One of the +young men caught her for me. I told Cousin Bessie I thought him handsome +and proud enough for a lord. I think so still. That is all I know of the +players." + +"And, gad, that's enough! Take _you_ to the play, indeed! Why, we shall +have you strolling next, like your"--Here the Squire, for some reason +known to himself, suddenly paused and grew very red in the face. Dame +Margery took the word, and, in a tone meant to be severe, but which was +only dry, remarked,-- + +"Zelma is quite too young to go to the play." + +"Just one week younger than my Cousin Bessie. So, please you, aunt, I +will wait a few days," was the quiet reply from the invisible. + +"Right cleverly answered, lass!" said the Squire, with a good-humored +chuckle. "Well, we will try you, too, for once; but mind, if I find you +making eyes at any of the villains, I'll cut you off with a shilling." + +"That is more than I look for from you, Uncle Roger," replied the +hitherto hidden speaker, emerging from the window-seat, holding in her +hand the fashionable and interminable novel of "Sir Charles Grandison." +As she spoke, she laughed lightly, but her voice was somewhat cold and +bitter, and there was in her laugh more of defiance than merriment. + +"Oh, _don't_, Zella!" exclaimed the Squire, with a look of comic +deprecation,--"don't speak in that way to your old uncle! He's +blunt and rough-spoken, but he means kindly, and does kindly, in his +way,--don't he?" + +"Yes, that he does!" said the young girl, frankly; "and I beg his pardon +for my pettishness." + +Zelma Burleigh, as she stood thus, a faint, regretful smile softening +the habitual _hauteur_ of her face, was beautiful, and something more; +yet nobody in the country round about the Grange had ever dreamed of +calling her "a beauty." She was a tall, gracefully-formed girl, with +that strong, untamable character of figure and feature, and that +peculiar, sun-tinted, forest-shadowed hue of the skin, which betray the +slightest admixture of gypsy blood. In fact, Zelma Burleigh was the +fruit of a strange _mésalliance_ between the younger brother of the +Squire, a reckless, dissipated soldier of fortune, and a beautiful +Spanish Zineala, whom he met in a foreign campaign, and whom he could +not bind to himself by any tie less honorable than marriage. She was +said to be of Rommany blood-royal, and was actually disowned by her +tribe for _her mésalliance_. She followed the camp for a few years, the +willing, though sad and fast-fading slave of her Ishmaelitish lord, +himself the slave of lawless passions, yet not wholly depraved, +--fitfully tender and tyrannic,--and when, at last, he fell in some +inglorious skirmish, she buried him with her own hands, and wept and +fasted over his shallow grave till she died. There was a child, but she +had no look of the father to charm that poor, broken heart back to life; +she was left in the camp and became a little "Daughter of the Regiment." +At last, however, she was taken to England by a faithful comrade of the +dead soldier, who sought out her uncle and left her in his care, taking +leave of the frightened, clinging little creature with a grim, unspoken +tenderness, and a strange quiver of his gray moustache. + +Roger Burleigh, after having made himself sure of the legitimacy of +the child, adopted the poor, wild thing, made her the companion of his +daughter, and honestly strove to treat her, at all times, with parental +care and affection. + +Here, in the hospitable circle of an English home, the orphan alien +had grown up with her kinsfolk, but not of them,--proud, reticent, +ambitious, secretly hating the monotonous duties and pursuits, the +decorous forms and prescribed pleasures of the social and domestic life +around her. Nomadic and lawless instincts stirred in her blood; vague +longings for freedom and change, though in wandering, peril, and want, +sometimes filled her soul with the spirit of revolt and unrest. + +In her bluff uncle's house all were kind, and one, at least, was fond. +Her Cousin Bessie, gay and tender heart, had found the southern exposure +of her nature, and had crept up it, and clambered over it, and clasped +it, and bloomed against it, and ripened on it, till nothing cold, hard, +or defiant could be seen on that side. And Zelma seemed well content to +be the sombre background and strong support of so much bloom, sweetness, +and graceful dependence. + +Nothing could be more unlike than the two cousins. Bessie was small, +her form inclining to fulness, her face childlike in dimpled smiles and +innocent blushes,--betraying no lack of intellect, but most expressive +of a quiet, almost indolent amiability. Zelma was large, but lithe, +supple, and vigorous, with a pard-like freedom and elasticity of +movement,--dark, with a subdued and changing color,--the fluttering +signal of sudden emotion, not the stationary sign of robust health. She +had hair of a glistening blackness, which she wore turned back from a +strong, compact forehead, in the somewhat severe style which imperial +beauty has rendered classic in our time. Her eyes were of the Oriental +type,--full, heavy-lidded, ambushed in thick, black lashes,--themselves +dark and unfathomable as the long night of mystery which hangs over the +history of her wild and wandering race, those unsubduable, unseducible +children of Nature,--the voluntary Pariahs of the world. Sad were those +eyes always, but with a vague, uncommunicable sadness; soft they were in +times of quiet; beautiful and terrible they could be, with live gleams +of suddenly awakened passion. + +With but one affection not poisoned by a sense of obligation and +condescension, and that a sentiment in which her intellect had little +share, a gentle, protective, household love, which quickened no daring +fancy, inspired no dream of freedom or power, Zelma's mind was driven +in upon itself, and out of the seclusion and triteness of her life +fashioned a fairy world of romance and beauty. With the high-wrought, +sentimental fictions of the day for her mental aliment, she grew more +and more distinct and apart from the actual, prosaic existences around +her; the smouldering fires of genius and ambition glowed out almost +fiercely at times, through the dark dream of her eyes, startling the +dullest apprehension, as she moved amid a narrow circle of country +gentry, the fox-hunting guests of her uncle, the prim gossips of her +aunt, the gay lovers and companions of her cousin, an unrecognized +heroine, an uncrowned tragedy-queen. + +The small provincial town of Arden possessed no playhouse proper, but, +after a good deal of hesitation and discussion, the venerable Hall +of St. George, the glory of all Ardenites, had been accorded to the +players, "for a few nights only." + +On the night of the first performance, Squire Burleigh and his family +arrived betimes, and took their places with some bustle and ceremony. + +The master of Burleigh Grange appeared in the almost forgotten glory of +his court suit,--a coat of crimson velvet, a flowered waistcoat, satin +knee-breeches, and a sword at his side. The mistress wore an equally +memorable brocade, enormous bouquets thrown upon a silvery ground, so +stiff and shiny that it seemed a texture of ice and frozen flowers. Her +hair was cushioned and powdered; she looked comely and stately, and +wore her lustres well. The pretty Bessie was attired in maidenly +white muslin, an India fabric of marvellous fineness, with a sash and +streamers of blue, and the light fleecy curls of her hair unadorned save +by a slight pendent spray of jasmines. Her cousin's dress, though in +reality less costly, was more striking, being composed of materials and +colors which admirably harmonized with the darkness and richness of her +beauty. Her lustrous black hair was arranged as usual; but a wreath, +formed of some delicate vine hung thick with drooping scarlet blossoms, +ran like flowering flame around her head. Like the sumptuous exotic of +Zenobia, it was an ornament which seemed to bloom out of the character +of the woman. + +Bessie cast about her bright, innocent looks of girlish curiosity, which +yet shrank from any chance encounter with the furtive glance or cool +stare of admiration. Zelma sat motionless and impassive. Her eyes +wandered naturally, but coldly, over the audience, seeming to take no +cognizance of any face, strange or familiar; but when they were lifted +above the crowd, to the old carved ceiling of the hall, or dropped upon +the beautiful hands which lay listlessly folded in her lap, the cold, +blank look she had set against the world went out of them. Then, in +their mystic depths of brooding, introverted thought, new spheres of +life, rarer, brighter, fairer, seemed rounding into form and dawning +like stars. + +Mrs. Margery Burleigh sat with her face turned from the stage, to +dissemble the secret impatience with which she awaited the uprolling of +the curtain, and slowly waved to and fro a huge, flowered fan, which +charged the air with a heavy Indian perfume. + +At length, soft, mournful music arose from the orchestra, and every +heart stirred to the premonitory waver and lift of the curtain. Slowly +it rose, and discovered a mourning apartment, with a lady in mourning, +sitting in a mourning chair, and attended by a mourning maid. The play +was Congreve's tragedy of "The Mourning Bride," one of the best of a +class of sentimental and stiltified dramatic productions which the +public of our great-grandfathers meekly accepted,--quaffing the frothy +small-beer of rant and affectation, in lieu of deep draughts of Nature +and passion, the rich, red wine of human life, poured generously +forth by the dramatists of a better era. The excesses of fashion then +prevailing, hoops, high heels, powder, and patches, were not more +essentially absurd and artificial than such representations of high-life +and high-tragedy. + +"The Mourning Bride" contains a few situations in which real passion can +have play, some fine points and poetic passages, and its moral tone is +at least respectable,--not great things to say of a famous tragedy, +certainly, but they give it an honorable distinction over many plays of +its time. There figure in it one or two characters which can be made +interesting, and even impressive, by uncommon power in the actor; though +they were usually given, at the period of which I write, in a manner +sufficiently tame to suit the dullest of courts,--likely to disturb +neither my lord in his napping nor my lady in her prim flirting. + +Zara, the Captive Queen, is beyond comparison the strong character of +this play. There is a spice and fire even in her wickedness, which +make her terribly attractive, and give her a more powerful hold on the +sympathies than the decorous and dolorous Almeria, for all her virtuous +sorrows and perplexities. Zara's passion is of the true Oriental type, +leaping from the extremes of love and hate with the fierceness and +rapidity of lightning. + +It is a character in which several great actresses have distinguished +themselves,--chief among them Siddons. On the memorable night at Arden, +however, it was but wretchedly rendered by a tall, small-voiced, +flaxen-haired young woman, who stalked about the stage in high-heeled +shoes and prodigious hoops, and declaimed the most fiery passages with +an execrable drawl. The remainder of the company were barely passable as +strolling players, with the exception of the actor who personated Osmyn. +This was a young man named Bury, of respectable parentage and education, +it was said, and considerable reputation, though his aspiring buskin had +never yet trod the London boards. He was a handsome, shapely person, +with an assured, dashing manner, and a great amount of spirit and fire, +which usually passed with his audience, and always with himself, for +genius. + +His voice was powerful and resonant, his elocution effective, if not +faultless, and his physical energy inexhaustible. Understanding and +managing perfectly his own resources, he produced upon most provincial +critics the impression of extraordinary power and promise, few +perceiving that he had already come into full possession of his dramatic +gifts. + +Only finely-trained ears could discover in this sounding, shining metal +the lack of the sharp, musical ring of the genuine coin. Young men grew +frantic in applause of his bold action, his stormy declamation, +his startling _tours de force_; while young women wondered, wept, +languished, and swooned. It was said, that, whenever he died in Romeo, +Pierre, or Zanga, numbers of his fair slain were borne out of the +playhouse, to be revived with difficulty by the application of salts and +the severing of stay-lacings. + +But his effects, though so positive, were superficial and +evanescent,--audible, visible, and, as it were, physical. There was +always wanting that fine shock of genuine passion, striking home to +kindred passions in the breasts of his auditors, and sending through +every nerve a magnetic shiver of delight,--that subtile, mysterious +element of genius, playing like quick flame along the dullest lines of +the poet and charging them with its own life and fire. + +In the virtuous, but negative character of Osmyn there was little room +for effective declamation; our actor was fain to content himself with +being interesting, through the misfortunes of the Prince of Valentia, +his woful lawful love, and the besettings of an unreturned passion. In +this he succeeded so well, that the feminine portion of his audience +grew tender with Almeria, and despairing with Zara. + +In the first scene with Almeria, who was a shade worse than the Zara of +the night, the young actor indulged himself in a cool, comprehensive +glance at the house, over her fair shoulders. As his keen gaze swept +round the small aristocratic circle, it encountered and seemed +to recognize the face of Zelma Burleigh, now kindling with a new +enthusiasm, which was never wholly to die out of her breast. There was +something in the watchful, absorbed gaze of her great dark eyes so +unlike the wondering or languishing looks usually bent by women upon +the rising actor, that on the instant he was struck, pierced, by those +subtile shafts of light, to the heart he had believed till then vowed +alone to the love of his art and the schemes of a sleepless ambition. + +Reluctantly he withdrew his regard from a face which bespoke a character +of singular originality and force, not wanting either in womanly pride +or tenderness,--a face in which beauty itself was so subordinate to +something higher, more ineffable, that one could scarcely define feature +or color through the illuminated and changeful atmosphere of soul which +hung about it,--the shadows of great thoughts, the light mists of dreamy +and evanescent fancy. + +It was toward the close of the second act, when Sir Harry Willerton, of +Willerton Hall, entered his box, accompanied by three or four dashing +companions, who, it was soon whispered about, were titled young bloods +from London. + +Sir Harry Willerton was a fresh, frank-looking young gallant,--fast, +from the fiery impulses of youth and a high spirit,--not pricked on by +vanity, nor goaded by low passions,--not heartless, not _blasé_,--the +only kind of a rake for whom reformation is possible or reclamation +worth the while. + +Sir Harry was not fond of tragedy; and after five minutes' strained +attention to the players, he turned his eyes from the stage, and began +casting easy, good-humored glances of curiosity or recognition over +the audience. He bowed to all his neighbors with a kindly familiarity, +untainted by condescension, but most courteously, perhaps, to the party +from the Grange. He liked the bluff Squire heartily,--as who did not? +Then his eye--a laughing blue eye it was--rested and lingered, not on +the dark, dramatic face of Zelma, but on the pretty, girlish head of her +cousin. + +Bessie sat with her face partly averted from the baronet's gay party, +and her gaze fixed intently upon the stage. Sir Harry could only see +half the rose of one cheek, and the soft sweep of golden hair which +lightly shaded it; and feasting his fancy on that bit of fluctuating +color, entangled in the meshes of a tremulous screen of curls, he +settled himself to await the close of the act. + +It was with a child's eager interest and pliant imagination that Bessie +looked and listened,--susceptible, credulous, unfastidious. To her, +the Osmyn of the night was radiant with all heroic qualities and manly +graces, the weakly simulated sorrow of Almeria brought real tears to her +eyes, and she drew her white shoulders forward with a shudder when +the wooden Zara kindled into cursing and jealous rage. Illusions most +transparent to others hoodwinked her senses; her willing fancy supplied +feeling, and even made up for deficiencies of art in the players, till +the mimic world before her became more real than reality. + +Not so with Zelma. She was satisfied, even charmed, with the personation +of Osmyn; but, from the first, she could not abide either of the +heroines, who, each in her part, strove to outdo the other in mincing, +mouthing, attitudinizing, and all imaginable small sins against Nature +and Art. She saw at once, by the sure intuitions of genius, how +everything they did could be done better, and burned to do it. The part +of Almeria she soon dismissed from her thoughts, as mere milk-and-water; +but she saw that in that of Zara there was a stream of lava, though +dulled and crusted over by the coldness of the actress, which might +be made to sweep all before it. Her critical dissatisfaction with the +personation became, at last, little short of torture; there was an +involuntary lowering of her dark brows, a scornful quiver of her +spirited nostril, she bit her lip with angry impatience, and shrugged +her shoulders with irrepressible contempt. + +In the great scene where Zara surprises Almeria in the cell of Osmyn, +it was astonishing how the flaxen-haired representative of the Captive +Queen managed to turn her fiery rain of curses into a little pattering +shower of womanish reproaches. It was really a masterly performance, in +its way. + +At this point Zelma threw herself back in utter weariness and disgust, +exclaiming, audibly,--"Miserable!--most miserable." When, looking round, +she saw the traces of her cousin's innocent emotion, the flush and +tearfulness which bespoke her uncritical sympathy with passions so +unskilfully represented, she could not suppress a smile at such childish +simplicity. And yet this was also her first play. + +The tragedy was succeeded by a farce, at which Bessie laughed as +heartily as she had wept a little while before, but which was utterly +distasteful to Zelma; and at an alarmingly late hour, for that quiet +community, the green curtain came heavily plunging down on the final +scene of all, and the audience dispersed to their homes. + +On the day following, Sir Harry Willerton's guests returned to town, +but, to their surprise, unaccompanied by their host, who seemed to have +suddenly discovered that his presence was needed on his estate. So he +remained. Soon it was remarked that a singular intimacy had sprung +up between him and Squire Burleigh, with whom, at length, the larger +portion of his time was passed, either in following the hounds or dining +at the Grange. There were rumors and surmises that the attractions which +drew the young baronet to his bluff neighbor's hospitable hall were not +the Squire's hearty cheer, old wine, and older stories, but a pair of +shy, yet tender eyes,--red lips, that smiled a wordless welcome, and +sometimes pouted at a late coming,--cheeks whose blushes daily grew +warmer in love's ripening glow,--a voice whose tones daily grew deeper, +and seemed freighted with more delicious meanings. + +There was little discussion as to which of the young ladies of the +Grange was the enchantress and the elect Lady Willerton. + +"Surely," said the gossips, "it cannot be that gypsy niece of the +Squire, that odd, black-browed girl, who scours over the country in all +weathers, on that elfish black pony, with her hair flying,--for all the +world as though in search of her wild relations. No, the blood of the +Willertons would never run so low as that;--it must be sweet Miss +Bessie, and she is a match for a lord." + +For once the gossips were right. But it is with the poor "Rommany girl," +not with the heiress of Burleigh Grange, that we have to do. + +On the morning succeeding the play, Zelma Burleigh, taking in her hand +an odd volume of Shakspeare, one of the few specimens of dramatic +literature which her uncle's scant library afforded, strolled down a +lonely lane, running back from the house, toward the high pasture-lands, +on which grazed and basked the wealthy Squire's goodly flocks and +herds. This was her favorite walk, as it was the most quiet, shaded, +out-of-the-way by-path on the estate. She now directed her steps to a +little rustic seat, almost hidden from view by the pendent branches +of an old willow-tree, and close under a hawthorn-hedge, now in full, +fragrant bloom. Here she seated herself, or rather flung herself down, +half languidly, half petulantly, an expression of _ennui_ and unrest +darkening her face,--the dusky traces of a sleepless night hanging +heavily about her eyes. She opened her book at the play of "Romeo and +Juliet," and began to read, not silently, nor yet aloud, but in a low, +dreamy tone, in which the sounds of Nature about her, the gurgle of a +brook behind the hedge, the sighing of the winds among the pendulous +branches of the willow, the silver shiver of the lance-like leaves, the +murmurous coming and going of bees, the loving duets of nest-building +birds, all seemed to mingle and merge. As she read, a new light seemed +to illumine the page, caught from her recent experience of dramatic +personation and scenic effects, limited and unsatisfactory though that +experience had been. In fancy, she floated over the stage, as the gay +young Juliet at the masquerade; then she caught sight of young Romeo, +and, lo! his face was that of the sentimental hero of the last night's +tragedy, but ennobled by the glow and dignity of genuine passion. In +fancy, she sat on the balcony, communing with night and the stars,--the +newly-risen star of love silvering all life for her. Then, leaning her +cheek upon her hand, she poured forth Juliet's impassioned apostrophe. +When she came to the passage,-- + + "O Romeo, Romeo!--wherefore art thou Romeo?" + +she was startled by a rustling of the leaves behind her. She paused and +looked round fearfully. A blackbird darted out of the hedge and away +over the fields. Zelma smiled at her own alarm, and read on, till she +reached the tender adjuration,-- + + "Romeo, doff thy name; + And for thy name, which is no part of thee, + Take all myself!" + +when,--suddenly, a fragrant shower of hawthorn-blossoms fell upon the +page before her, and the next instant there lightly vaulted over the +hedge at her side the hero of her secret thoughts, the young player, +Lawrence Bury! He stood before her, flushed and smiling, with his head +uncovered, and in an attitude of respectful homage; yet, with a look and +tone of tender, unmistakable meaning, took up the words of the play,-- + + "I take thee at thy word. + Call me but love, and I'll be new-baptized; + Henceforth I never will be Romeo." + +Poor Zelma did not have the presence of mind to greet this sudden +apparition of a lover in the apt words of her part,-- + + "What man art thou, that, thus bescreened in night, + So stumblest on my counsel?" + +She had no words at all for the intruder, but, frightened and +bewildered, sprang from her seat and turned her face toward home, with a +startled bird's first impulse to flight. As she rose, her book slid from +her lap and fell among the daisies at her feet. The actor caught it up +and presented it to her, with the grace of a courtly knight restoring +the dropped glove of a princess, but, as he did so, exclaimed, in a +half-playful tone, looking at the volume rather than the lady,-- + +"I thank thee, O my master, for affording me so fair an excuse for mine +audacity!" + +Then, assuming a more earnest manner, he proceeded to make excuses and +entreat pardon for the suddenness, informality, and presumption of his +appearance before her:-- + +"You know, Madam," he said,--"if, indeed, you are so unfortunate as +to know anything about us,--that we players are an impulsive, +unconventional class of beings, lawless and irresponsible, the Gypsies +of Art." + +Here Zelma flushed and drew herself up, while a suspicious glance shot +from her eyes;--but the stranger seemed not to understand or perceive +it, for he went on quite innocently, and with increasing earnestness of +tone and manner:-- + +"I know I have been presuming, impertinent, audacious, in thus intruding +myself upon you, and acknowledge that you would be but severely just in +banishing me instantly from your bright presence, and in withdrawing +from me forever the light of your adorable eyes. Oh, those eyes!" he +continued, clasping his hands in an ecstasy of lover-like enthusiasm, +--"those wild, sweet orbs!--bewildering lights of love, dear as life, +but cruel as death!--can they not quicken, even as they slay? Oh, gentle +lady, be like her of Verona!--be gracious, be kind, or, at least, be +merciful, and do not banish me!-- + + 'For exile hath more terror in his look, + Much more, than death; do not say banishment!'" + +He paused, but did not remove his passionate looks from the young girl's +face,--looks which, though cast down, for he was much the taller of the +two, had the effect of most lowly and deprecating entreaty;--and then +there happened an event,--a very slight, common, natural event,--the +result more of girlish embarrassment than of any conscious emotion or +purpose, yet of incalculable importance at that moment, and, perhaps, +decisive of the fate of two human hearts,--Zelma smiled. It was a +quick, involuntary smile, which seemed to _escape_ from the firm lips +and half-averted eyes, flashed over the face, touched the cold features +with strange radiance, and then was gone,--and, in its place, the old +shadow of reserve and distrust, for the moment, darker than ever. + +But to the adventurous lover that brief light had revealed his doubtful +way clear before him. He saw, with a thrill of exultation, that +henceforth he had really nothing to fear from such womanly defences as +he had counted on,--coldness, prejudice, disdain,--that all he had taken +for these were but unsubstantial shadows. Still he showed no premature +triumph in word or look, but remained silent and humble, waiting the +reply to his passionate appeal, as though life or death, in very truth, +were depending upon it. And Zelma spoke at last,--briefly and coldly, +but in a manner neither suspicious nor unfriendly. She herself, she +said, was unconventional, in her instincts, at least,--so could afford +to pardon somewhat of lawlessness in another,--especially, she added, +with a shy smile, in one whom Melpomene, rather than Cupid, had made +mad. Still she was not a Juliet, though he, for all she knew, might be +a Romeo; and only in lands verging on the tropics, or in the soul of a +poet, could a passion like that of the gentle Veronese spring up, bud, +and blossom, in a single night. As for her, the fogs of England, the +heavy chill of its social atmosphere, had obstructed the ripening +sunshine of romance and repressed the flowering of the heart-- + +"And kept your beautiful nature all the more pure and fresh!" exclaimed +Mr. Lawrence Bury, with real or well-assumed enthusiasm; but Zelma, +replying to his interruption only by a slight blush, went on to say, +that she had been taught that poetry, art, and romances were all idle +pastimes and perilous lures, unbecoming and unwholesome to a young +English gentlewoman, whose manifest destiny it was to tread the dull, +beaten track of domestic duty, with spirit chastened and conformed. +She had had, she would acknowledge, some aspirations and rebellious +repinings, some wild day-dreams of life of another sort; but it was best +that she should put these down,--yes, doubtless, best that she should +fall into her place in the ranks of duty and staid respectability, +and be a mere gentlewoman, like the rest.--Here a slight shrug of the +shoulders and curl of the lip contradicted her words,--yet, with a tone +of rigid determination, she added, that it was also best she should +cherish no tastes and form no associations which might distract her +imagination and further turn her heart from this virtuous resolution; +and therefore must she say farewell, firmly and finally, to the, she +doubted not, most worthy gentleman who had done her the honor to +entertain for her sentiments of such high consideration and romantic +devotion. She would not deny that his intrusion on her privacy had, at +first, startled and displeased her,--but she already accepted it as an +eccentricity of dramatic genius, a thoughtless offence, and, being, as +she trusted, at once the first and the last, pardonable. She wished him +happiness, fame, fortune,--and a very good morning! Then, with a wave +of the hand which would have done honor to Oldfield herself, she turned +and walked proudly up the lane. + +Mr. Bury saw her depart silently, standing in a submissive, dejected +attitude, but with a quiet, supercilious smile lightly curling his +finely-cut lips; for did he not know that she would return to her haunt +the next day, and that he would be there to see? + +And Zelma did return the next day,--persuading herself that she was +only acting naturally, and with proper dignity and independence. She +argued with herself that to abandon her favorite walk or avoid her usual +resting-place would be to confess, if not a fear of the stranger's +presuming and persistent suit, at least, a disturbing consciousness of +his proximity, and of the possibility of his braving her displeasure +by a second and unpardonable intrusion. No, she would live as she had +lived, freely, carelessly; she would go and come, ride and walk, just as +though nothing had happened,--for, indeed, nothing _had_ happened that +a woman of sense and pride should take cognizance of. So, after a +half-hour's strange hesitation, she took her book and went to the old +place. Longer than usual she sat there, idly and abstractedly turning +over the leaves of her Shakspeare, starting and flushing with every +chance sound that broke on the still, sweet air; yet no presumptuous +intruder disturbed her maiden meditations, and she rose wearily at last, +and walked slowly homeward, saying to herself, "It is well. I have +conquered," but feeling that nothing was well in life, or her own heart, +and that she was miserably defeated. Ah, little did she suspect that her +clouded, dissatisfied face had been keenly scanned by the very eyes she +dreaded, yet secretly longed to meet,--that her most unconscious sigh +of disappointment had been heard by her Romeo of the previous day, now +lying just behind the hedge, buried in the long brook-side grass, and +laughing to himself a very pleasant laugh of gratulation and triumph. + +That night, the good Squire of Burleigh Grange relented from his +virtuous resolve, and took his wife, daughter, and niece to the play. + +The piece was Howe's tragedy of "Tamerlane." Mr. Bury personated the +imperial Tartar, a noble _rôle_, which so well became him, costumes +and all, and brought him so much applause, that Zelma's heart was +effectually softened, and she even felt a regretful pride in having +received and rejected the homage of a man of such parts. + +The next day, as the hour for her stroll arrived, she said to herself, +"I can surely take my walks in safety now,--_he_ will never come near me +more." So she went,--but, to her unspeakable confusion, she found +him, quietly seated in her little rustic bower, his head bared to +the sunshine, and his "Hyperion curls" tossed and tumbled about by +a frolicsome wind. He rose when the lady appeared, stammered out an +apology, bowed respectfully, and would have retired, but that Zelma, +feeling that she was the intruder this time, begged him to remain. She +thought herself, simple child! merely courteous and duly hospitable, in +giving this invitation; but the quick, eager ear of the actor and lover +heard, quivering through the assumed indifference and cold politeness +of her tones, the genuine impulse and ardent wish of her heart. So +he yielded and lingered, proffering apologies and exchanging polite +commonplaces. + +After a little time, Zelma, to prove her freedom from embarrassment or +suspicion, quietly seated herself on the rustic bench, giving, as she +did so, a regal spread to her ample skirts, that there might be no +vacant place beside her. The actor stood for a while before her, just +going, but never gone, talking gayly, but respectfully, on indifferent +topics,--till, at last, touching on some theme of deeper interest, and +apparently forgetting everything but it and the fair lady, who neither +expressed nor looked a desire to shorten the interview, he flung +himself, with what seemed a boy's natural impulse, upon the soft, +inviting turf, under the shade of the willow. There, reclining in the +attitude of Hamlet at the feet of Ophelia, he rambled on from subject +to subject, in a careless, graceful way, plucking up grass and picking +daisies to pieces, as he talked, giving every now and then, from beneath +the languid sweep of his heavy eyelashes, quick flashes of tender +meaning, as fitful and beautiful as the "heat-lightnings" of summer +twilights, and _apparently_ as harmless. + +There was something so magnetic and contagious in this frank, +confiding manner, that Zelma, ere she was aware, grew unrestrained and +communicative in turn. One by one, the icicles of pride and reserve, +which a strange and ungenial atmosphere had hung around her affluent and +spontaneous nature, melted in the unwanted sunshine, dropped away from +her, and the quick bloom of a Southern heart revealed itself in +smiles and blushes. The divine poet whose volume she now held clasped +caressingly in both hands had prepared the way for this, by sending +through every vein and fibre of her being the sweet, subtile essence of +passionate thought,--the spring-tide of youth and love, which makes the +story of Romeo and Juliet glow and throb with immortal freshness and +vitality. + +So, at length, those two talked freely and pleasantly together. They +discussed the quiet rural scenery around them, the deep green valley of +Arden, shut in by an almost unbroken circle of hills, and Zelma told of +a peculiar silvery mist which sometimes floated over it, like the ghost +of the lake which, it was said, once filled it; they spoke of wood, +stream, moor, and waterfall, sunsets and moonlight and stars, poetry +and--love; floating slowly, and almost unconsciously, down the smooth +current of summer talk and youthful fancies, toward the ocean of all +their thoughts, whose mysterious murmurs already filled one heart at +least with a tender awe and a vague longing, which was yet half fear. + +The next day, and the next, and every day while the players remained at +Arden, the two friends met by tacit agreement in the lane of Burleigh +Grange, and, gradually, Lawrence Bury became less the actor and more +the man, in the presence of a genuine woman, without affectation or +artifice, stage-rant or art-cant,--one from whose face the glare of the +foot-lights had not stricken the natural bloom, whose heart had never +burned with the feverish excitement of the stage, its insatiable +ambition, its animosities and exceeding fierce jealousies. For Zelma, +she grew more humble and simple and less exacting, the more she bestowed +from a "bounty boundless as the sea." + +It was but a brief while, scarcely the lifetime of a rose,--the fragrant +snow of the hawthorn blossoms had not melted from the hedges since they +met,--and yet, in that little season, the deepest, divinest mystery of +human life had grown clear and familiar to their hearts, and was conned +as the simplest lesson of Nature. + +To Zelma the romance and secrecy of this love had an inexpressible +charm. The Zincala in her nature revelled in its wildness and adventure, +in its crime against the respectable conventionalities she despised. She +had a keen pleasure in the very management and concealment to which she +was compelled;--her imagination, even more than her heart, was engaged +in hiding and guarding this charming mystery. + +On the day succeeding her first interview with the young actor in the +lane, she had tried to beguile her _ennui_, while lingering in her +lonely bower, by curiously peering into the nest of a blackbird, deeply +hidden in the long grass at the foot of the hedge, and which she had +before discovered by the prophetic murmurs of the mother-bird. She found +five eggs in the nest. She took the little blue wonders in her hand, +and thought what lives of sinless joy, what raptures and loves, what +exultations of song and soaring slept in those tiny shells! Suddenly, +there was an alarmed cry and an anxious flutter of wings in the hedge +above her! She turned, and saw the mother-bird eyeing her askance. From +that day the lowly nest with its profaned treasures was forsaken, and +the world was the poorer in gladness and melody by five bird-lives of +joy and song that might have been. + +So, had any luckless intruder chanced to discover Zelma's +trysting-place, thrown open to the world the hidden romance in which +she took such shy and secret delight, and handled in idle gossip the +delicate joys and fragile hopes of young love, it is more than likely +that she would have been frightened away from bower and lane, shocked +and disenchanted. But the preoccupation of her cousin and her own +eccentric and solitary habits prevented suspicion and inquiry,--no +unfriendly spy, no rude, untoward event, disturbed the quiet and +seclusion of this charmed scene of her wooing, where Nature, Romance, +and Poetry were in league with Love. + +The players played out their engagement at Arden, with the usual +supplement, "A few nights only by special request," and were off to a +neighboring town. On their last night, after the play, Zelma met her +lover by moonlight, at the trysting-place in the lane, for a parting +interview. + +It was there that the actor, doffing the jaunty hat which usually +crowned his "comely head," and, flinging himself on his knees before +his fair mistress, entreated her to rule his wayward heart, share his +precarious fortunes, and bear his humble name. + +Poor Zelma, when in imagination she had rehearsed her betrothal scene, +had made her part something like this:--"And then will I extend my hand +with stately grace, and say to my kneeling knight, 'Arise!'--and after, +in such brief, gracious words as queens may use, (for is not every woman +beloved a queen?) pronounce his happy doom." + +But when that scene in her life-drama came on, it was the woman, not the +tragedy-queen, that acted. Naturally and tenderly, like any simple girl, +she bent over her lover, laid her hand upon his head, and caressingly +smoothed back from his brow the straggling curls, damp with night-dew. +As she did so, every lock seemed to thrill to her touch, and to wake in +her soft, timorous fingers a thousand exquisite nerves that had never +stirred before. And then, with broken words and tears, and probing +questions and solemn adjurations, she plighted her vows, and sought to +bind to her heart forever a faith to which she trusted herself, alas! +too tremblingly. + +The melodramatic lover was not content with a simple promise, though +wrung from the heart with sobs. "_Swear_ it to me!" he said, in a hoarse +stage-whisper; and Zelma, again laying her hand upon his head, and +looking starward, swore to be his, to command, to call, to hold,--in +life, in death, here, hereafter, evermore. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, + +ATTORNEY AT LAW AND SOLICITOR IN CHANCERY. + + +Somewhat more than three-quarters of a century ago, George Steevens, the +acutest, and, perhaps, the most accomplished, but certainly the most +perverse and unreliable of Shakespeare's commentators and critics, wrote +thus of Shakespeare's life: "All that is known, with any degree +of certainty, concerning Shakespeare, is, that he was born at +Stratford-upon-Avon; married and had children there; went to London, +where he commenced actor,[A] and wrote poems and plays; returned to +Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried." From 1780, when this +was written, to the present day, the search after well-authenticated +particulars of Shakespeare's life has been kept up with a faithfulness +equal to that of Sir Palomides after the beast glatisaunt, and by as +many devotees and with as much hope of glory as in the quest for the +Sangreal. But the fortune of the paynim, rather than the virgin knight, +has fallen to all the members of the self-devoted band, and we +know little more of the man Shakespeare than was known by our +great-grandfathers. For, although there have been issued to us of the +present generation pamphlets professing to give new particulars of the +life of Shakespeare, and tomes with even more pretentious titles, from +all these there has been small satisfaction, save to those who can +persuade themselves, that, by knowing what Shakespeare might have done, +they know what he did, or that the reflex of his daily life is to +be found in documents inscribed on parchment, and beginning, "This +indenture made," etc., or "_Noverint universi per presentes_." It is +with no disrespect for the enthusiasm of Mr. Knight, and as little +disposition to underrate the laborious researches of Mr. Collier and Mr. +Halliwell, that we thus reiterate the assertion of the world's ignorance +of Shakespeare's life: nay, it is with a mingled thankfulness and +sorrowful sympathy that we contemplate them wasting the light of the +blessed sun (when it shines in England) and wearing out good eyes (or +better barnacles) in poring over sentences as musty as the parchments +on which they are written and as dry as the dust that covers them. +But although we gladly concede that these labors have resulted in the +diffusion of a knowledge of the times and the circumstances in +which Shakespeare lived, and in the unearthing of much interesting +illustration of his works from the mould of antiquity, we cannot accept +the documents which have been so plentifully produced and so pitilessly +printed,--the extracts from parish-registers and old account-books,--not +Shakespeare's,--the inventories, the last wills and testaments, the +leases, the deeds, the bonds, the declarations, pleas, replications, +rejoinders, surrejoinders, rebutters, and surrebutters,--as having aught +to do with the life of such a man as William Shakespeare. We hunger, +and we receive these husks; we open our months for bread, and break our +teeth against these stones. As to the law-pleadings, what have their +discords, in linked harshness long drawn out, to do with the life of +him whom his friends delighted to call Sweet Will? We wish that they at +least had been allowed to rest. Those who were parties to them have been +more than two centuries in their graves,-- + + "Secure from worldly chances and mishaps. + _There_ lurks no treason, _there_ no envy swells, + _There_ grow no damned grudges; _there_ no storms, + No noise, but silence and eternal sleep." + +Why awaken the slumbering echoes of their living strife? + +[Footnote A: _Commenced actor, commenced author, commenced tinker, +commenced tailor, commenced candlestick-maker:_--Elegant phraseology, +though we venture to think, hardly idiomatic or logical, which came into +vogue in England in the early part of the last century, and which, +as it is never uttered here by cultivated people, it may be proper to +remark, is there used by the best writers. Akin to it is another mode of +expression as commonly met with in English books and periodicals, e.g., +"immediately he arrived at London he went upon the stage," meaning, as +soon as he arrived, etc., or, when he arrived at London, he immediately +went upon the stage. As far as our observation extends, Lord Macaulay, +alone of all Great-Britons, has neglected to add the latter lucid +construction to the graces of his style.] + +Yet these very law-papers, in the reduplicated folds of which dead +quarrels lie embalmed in hideous and grotesque semblance of their living +shapes, their lifeblood dried that lent them all their little dignity, +their action and their glow, and exhaling only a faint, sickening +odor of the venom that has kept them from crumbling into +forgetfulness,--these law-papers are now held by some to have special +interest Shakespeare-ward, as having to do with a profession for which +he made preparatory studies, even if he did not enter upon its practice. +Yes, in spite of our alleged ignorance of Shakespeare's life, and +especially of the utter darkness which has been thought to rest upon the +years which intervened between his marriage in Stratford and his joining +the Lord Chamberlain's company of players in London, the question is, +now, whether the next historical novel may not begin in this wise:-- + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE FUGITIVE. + +At the close of a lovely summer's day, two horsemen might have been seen +slowly pacing through the main street of Stratford-on-Avon. Attracting +no little attention from the group of loiterers around the market-cross, +they passed the White-Lion Inn, and, turning into Henley Street, soon +drew their bridles before a goodly cottage built of heavy timbers and +standing with one of its peaked gables to the street. On the door was a +shingle upon which was painted, + + Willm. Shakspere, + + Attornei at Lawe and Solicitor + in Chancere. + +One of the travellers--a grave man, whose head was sprinkled with the +snows of fifty winters--dismounted, and, approaching the door, knocked +at it with the steel hilt of his sword. He received no answer; but +presently the lattice opened above his head, and a sharp voice sharply +asked,-- + +"Who knocks?" + +"'Tis I, good wife!" replied the horseman. "Where is thy husband? I +would see him!" + +"Oh, Master John a Combe, is it you? I knew you not. Neither know I +where that unthrift William is these two days. It was but three nights +gone that he went with Will Squele and Dick Burbage, one of the player +folk, to take a deer out of Sir Thomas Lucy's park, and, as Will's +ill-luck would have it, they were taken, as well as the deer, and there +was great ado. But Will--that's my Will--and Dick Burbage, brake from +the keepers in Sir Thomas' very hall, and got off; and that's the last +that has been heard of them; and here be I left a lone woman with these +three children, and----Be quiet, Hamnet! Would ye pour my supper ale +upon the hat of the worshipful Master John a Combe?" + +"What! deer-stealing?" exclaimed John a Combe. "Is it thus that he apes +the follies of his betters? I had more hope of the lad, for he hath a +good heart and a quick engine; and I trusted that ere now he had +drawn the lease of my Wilmecote farm to Master Tilney here. But +deer-stealing!--like a lord's son, or a knight's at the least. Could not +the rifling of a rabbit-warren serve his turn? Deer-stealing! I fear me +he will come to nought!" + +The speaker remounted, and soon the two horsemen might again have been +seen wending their way back through the deepening twilight. + + * * * * * + +There are several points that would be novel in such a passage. Among +others, we would modestly indicate the incident of the two horsemen +as evincing some ingenuity, and as likely to charm the reader by its +freshness and originality. But one point, we must confess, is not +new, and that is the representation of Shakespeare as a lawyer. The +supposition, that the author of "Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "King Lear," +was a bustling young attorney, is of respectable age, and has years +enough upon its beard, if not discretion. It has been brought forward +afresh by two members of the profession for which is claimed the honor +of having Shakespeare's name upon its roll,--William L. Rushton, +Esquire, a London Barrister, and John Campbell, Lord Chief Justice of +the Queen's Bench.[B] Lord Campbell, indeed, addressing himself to +Mr. John Payne Collier, says, (p. 21,) that this is a notion "first +suggested by Chalmers, and since countenanced by Malone, yourself, and +others." An assertion this which savors little of legal accuracy. For +Chalmers, so far from being the first to suggest that Shakespeare passed +his adolescent years in an attorney's office, was the first to sneer at +Malone for bringing forward that conjecture.[C] Malone, in his first +edition of Shakespeare's works, published in 1790, has this passage, in +the course of a discussion of the period when "Hamlet" was produced:-- + +"The comprehensive mind of our poet embraced almost every object of +Nature, every trade, every art, the manners of every description of men, +and the general language of almost every profession: but his knowledge +of legal terms is not such as might be acquired by the casual +observation of even his all-comprehending mind; it has the appearance of +_technical_ skill; and he is so fond of displaying it, on all occasions, +that I suspect he was early initiated in at least the forms of law, and +was employed, while he remained at Stratford, in the office of some +country attorney, who was at the same time a petty conveyancer, and +perhaps, also, the seneschal of some manor court."--Vol. I. Part I. p. +307. + +[Footnote B: _Shakespeare a Lawyer_. By William L. Rushton. 16mo. pp. +50. London: 1858. + +_Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements Considered_. By John Lord Campbell, +LL.D., F.R.S.E. 12mo. pp. 117. London: 1859.] + +[Footnote C: Into the trap so innocently set the London _Athenaeum_ thus +plunges headlong:--"Chalmers, we believe, first put Shakespeare in an +attorney's office. Malone _accepted the hint_."] + +To this, Chalmers, some years after, (1797,) in his "Apology for the +Believers in the Shakespeare Papers which were exhibited in Norfolk +Street," (some contemptible forgeries, by a young scapegrace named +William Ireland, which should not have deceived an English scholar of +six months' standing,) made the following reply:-- + +"Mr. Malone places the aspiring poet 'in the office of some country +attorney, or the seneschal of some manor court'; and for this violation +of probability he produces many passages from his dramas to evince +Shakespeare's _technical skill_ in the _forms of law_. ...But was it not +the practice of the times, for other makers, like the bees tolling from +every flower the virtuous _sweets_, to gather from the thistles of the +law _the sweetest_ honey? Does not Spenser gather many a metaphor from +these weeds, that are most apt to grow in _fattest_ soil? Has not +Spenser his law-terms: his _capias, defeasance_, and _duresse_; his +_emparlance_; his _enure, essoyn_, and _escheat_; his _folkmote, +forestall_ and _gage_; his _livery_ and _seasin, wage_ and _waif_? It +will be said, however, that, whatever the learning of Spenser may have +gleaned, the law-books of that age were impervious to the illiterature +of Shakespeare. No: such an intellect, when employed on the drudgery of +a wool-stapler, who had been high-bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon, might +have derived all that was necessary from a very few books; from Totell's +'Presidents,' 1572; from Pulton's 'Statutes,' 1578; and from the +'Lawier's Logike,' 1588. It is one of the axioms of the 'Flores Regii,' +that, To answer an improbable imagination is to fight against a +vanishing shadow."--p. 553. + +And again, in his "Supplemental Apology," etc., 1799, Chalmers +remarks,-- + +"The biographers, without adequate proofs, have bound Shakespeare an +apprentice to some country attorney; as Mr. Malone has sent him without +sufficient warrant to the desk of some seneschal of a county court: but +these are obscurities that require other lights than conjecture and +assertion, which, by proving nothing, only establish disbelief."--p. +226. + +So much for Chalmers's having "first suggested" the theory, of which +Lord Campbell has undertaken the support. Surely his Lordship must have +been verifying Rosalind's assertion, that lawyers sleep between term and +term, or else he is guilty of having loosely made a direct assertion in +regard to a subject upon which he had not taken the trouble to inform +himself; although he professes (p. 10) to have "read nearly all that has +been written on Shakespeare's _ante-Londinensian_ life, and carefully +examined his writings with a view to obtain internal evidence as to his +education and breeding." + +One exhibition of his Lordship's inaccuracy is surprising. Commenting +upon Falstaff's threat, "Woe to my Lord Chief Justice!" (2d _Henry_ IV., +Act V., Sc. 4,) he remarks, (p. 73,) "Sir W. Gascoigne was _continued_ +as Lord Chief Justice _in the new reign_; but, according to law and +custom, he was removable, and he no doubt expected to be removed, from +his office." Lord Campbell has yet to rival the fifth wife of the +missionary who wrote the lives of "her predecessors"; but surely _he_ +should have known that the expectations which he attributes to Sir +William Gascoigne were not disappointed, and that (although the contrary +is generally believed) the object of Falstaff's menace was superseded +(by Sir William Hankford) March 29th, 1413, just eight days after the +prince whom he committed to prison came to the throne,--a removal the +promptness of which would satisfy the strictest disciplinarian in the +Democratic party. The Records show this; but his Lordship need not have +gone to them; he would have found it mentioned, and the authority cited, +by Tyler in his "Memoirs of Henry the Fifth." + +And while we are considering the disparity between his Lordship's +performances and his pretensions, we may as well examine his fitness to +bring about a "fusion of Law and Literature," which he says, with some +reason, have, like Law and Equity, been too long kept apart in England. +We fear, that, whatever may be the excellence of his Lordship's +intentions, he must set himself seriously to the task of acquiring more +skill in the use of the English tongue, and a nicer discrimination +between processes of thought, before his writings will prove to be the +flux that promotes that fusion. + +For, in the third paragraph of his letter, he says to Mr. Collier, "I +cannot refuse to communicate to you my _sentiments_ upon the subject," +and in the following sentence adds, that this communication of his +"_sentiments_" will drive from his mind "the _recollection_ of the +wranglings of Westminster Hall." His Lordship probably meant to refer to +the communication of his _opinions_, for which word "sentiments" is +not usually substituted, except by gentlemen who remark with emphasis, +"Them's my sentiments"; and he also probably intended to allude to +the _memory_ of the wranglings of which he is professionally a +witness,--having forgotten, for a moment, that recollection is a purely +voluntary act, and not either a condition or a faculty of the mind. + +Again, when his Lordship says, (p. 18,) "That during this interval (A.D. +1579 to 1586) he [Shakespeare] was merely an operative, earning his +bread by manual labor, in stitching gloves, sorting wool, or killing +calves, no sensible man can possibly _imagine_" we applaud the decision; +but can hardly do as much for the language in which it is expressed. +Lord Campbell quite surely meant to say that no man could possibly +_believe_, or _suppose_, or _assent to_ the proposition which he sets +forth; and when (on p. 26) he again says, "I do not _imagine_ that when +he [Shakespeare] went up to London, he carried a tragedy in his pocket," +there can be no doubt that his Lordship meant to say, "I do not _think_ +that when," etc. He should again have gathered from his Shakespearean +studies a lesson in the exact use of language, and have learned from the +lips of "that duke hight Theseus" that imagination has nothing to do +with assent to or dissent from a proposition, but that + + "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet + Are of imagination all compact: + * * * * * + And, as imagination bodies forth + The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen + Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing + A local habitation and a name." + +_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act V. Sc. 1. + +We would not protract this finding of faults, and will only add, that, +when his Lordship says, (p. 116,) that Henry V. "astonished the world +with his universal _wisdom_" he entirely overlooks the fact, that wisdom +is a faculty of the mind, or, rather, a mode of intellectual action, +of which universality can no more be predicated than of folly, or of +honesty, or of muscular strength; and that it is not knowledge, or +at all like knowledge; which, indeed, is often acquired in a very +remarkable degree by persons eminent for unwisdom. Lord Campbell might +as well have said that Henry V. astonished the world with his universal +prowess in the battle-field. + +The censure to which Mr. Rushton's pamphlet is occasionally open in +regard to style may properly be averted by the modesty of its tone and +its unpretending character. + +But to pass from the manner to the matter of the learned gentlemen who +appear on behalf of Malone's theory. Lord Campbell, after stating, in +the introductory part of his letter, that in "The Two Gentlemen of +Verona," "Twelfth Night," "Julius Caesar," "Cymbeline," "Timon of +Athens," "The Tempest," "King Richard II.," "King Henry V.," "King Henry +VI., Part I.," "King Henry VI., Part III.," "King Richard III.," "King +Henry VIII.," "Pericles," and "Titus Andronicus,"--fourteen of the +thirty-seven dramas generally attributed to Shakespeare,--he finds +"nothing that fairly bears upon this controversy," goes on to produce +from the remaining plays, _seriatim_, such passages as in his judgment +do bear upon the question, and to remark upon them, thus isolated and +disconnected from each other. Mr. Rushton is more methodic and logical. +He does not merely quote or cite all the passages which he has noticed +in which legal terms occur, but brings together all such as contain the +same terms or refer to kindred proceedings or instruments; and he thus +presents his case with much more compactness and consequent strength +than results from Lord Campbell's loose and unmethodical mode of +treating the subject. We can arrive at the merits of the case on either +presentation only by an examination of some of the more important of the +passages cited. + +Lord Campbell, as we have just seen, mentions "Henry VIII." as one of +the fourteen plays in which he has found nothing which relates to the +question in hand; but Mr. Rushton opens his batteries with the following +passage from the very play just named; and to most readers it will seem +a bomb of the largest dimensions, sent right into the citadel of his +opponents:-- + + "_Suff_. Lord Cardinal, the king's further pleasure is,-- + Because all those things you have done of late + By your power legatine within this kingdom + Fall into compass of a _premunire_,-- + That therefore such a writ be sued against you, + To forfeit, all your goods, lands, tenements, + Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be + Out of the king's protection:--this is my + charge." + +_King Henry VIII_. Act iii. Sc. 2. + +We shall first remark, that, in spite of his declaration as to "Henry +VIII.," Lord Campbell does cite and quote this very passage (p. 42); +and, indeed, he must have been as unappreciative as he seems to have +been inaccurate, had he failed to do so; for, upon its face, it is, with +one or two exceptions, the most important passage of the kind to be +found in Shakespeare's works. _Premunire_ is thus defined in an old +law-book which was accessible to Shakespeare:-- + +"Premunire is a writ, and it lieth where any man sueth any other in the +spirituall court for anything that is determinable in the King's +Court, and that is ordeined by certaine statutes, and great punishment +therefore ordeined, as it appeareth by the same statutes, viz., that +he shall be out of the King's protection, and that he be put in prison +without baile or mainprise till that he have made fine at the King's +will, and that his landes and goods shal be forfait, if he come not +within ij. moneths."--_Termes de la Ley_, 1595, fol. 144. + +The object of the writ was to prevent the abuse of spiritual power. Now, +here is a law-term quite out of the common, which is used by Shakespeare +with a well-deployed knowledge of the power of the writ of which it is +the name. Must we, therefore, suppose that Shakespeare had obtained his +knowledge of the purpose and the power of this writ in the course +of professional reading or practice? If we looked no farther than +Shakespeare's page, such a supposition might seem to be warranted. +But if we turn to Michael Drayton's "Legend of Great Cromwell," first +published, we believe, in 1607, but certainly some years before "Henry +VIII." was written, and the subject of which figures in that play, we +find these lines,-- + + "This Me to urge the _Premunire_ wonne, + Ordain'd in matters dangerous and hie; + In t' which the heedlesse Prelacie were runne + That back into the Papacie did fie." + +Ed. 1619, p. 382. + +Here is the very phrase in question, used with a knowledge of its +meaning and of the functions of the writ hardly less remarkable than +that evinced in the passage from "Henry VIII.," though expressed in +a different manner, owing chiefly to the fact that Drayton wrote a +didactic poem and Shakespeare a drama. But Drayton is not known to have +been an attorney's clerk, nor has he been suspected, from his writings, +or any other cause, to have had any knowledge of the law. Both he and +Shakespeare, however, read the Chronicles. Reading men perused Hall's +and Holinshed's huge black-letter folios in Queen Elizabeth's time with +as much interest as they do Macaulay's or Prescott's elegant octavos in +the reign of her successor, Victoria. Shakespeare drew again and again +upon the former for the material of his historical plays; and in writing +"Henry VIII.," he adopted often the very language of the Chronicler. The +well-known description of Wolsey, which he puts into the mouth of Queen +Katherine,-- + + "He was a man + Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking + Himself with princes; one that by suggestion + Tith'd all the kingdom: Simony was fair play: + His own opinion was his law: I' the presence + He would say untruths; and be ever double, + Both in his words and meaning; He was never, + But where he meant to ruin, pitiful: + His promises were, as he then was, mighty; + But his performance, as he is now, nothing: + Of his own body he was ill, and gave + The clergy ill example,"-- + +is little more than the following paragraph from Holinshed put into +verse:-- + +"This cardinal! (as you may perceive in this storie) was of a great +stomach, for he compted himselfe equall with princes, and by craftie +suggestion gat into his hands innumerable treasure: he forced little +on simonie, [i.e., regarded it as of little consequence,] and was not +pittifull, and stood affectionate in his owne opinion: in open presence +he would lie and saie untruth, and was double both in speach and +meaning: he would promise much and performe little: he was vicious of +his bodie, and gave the clergie evill example."--Ed. 1587, vol. iii. p. +622. + +Turning back from the page on which the Chronicler comments upon the +life of the dead prime-minister, to that on which he records his fall, +we find these passages:-- + +"In the meane time, the king, being informed that all those things that +the cardinall had doone by his _power legatine within this realme_ were +in the case of the _premunire_ and provision, caused his attornie, +Christopher Hales, to sue out a writ of premunire against him. ...After +this in the king's bench his matter for the premunire being called upon, +two atturneis which he had authorised by his warrant, signed with his +owne hand, confessed the action, and so had judgement to _forfeit all +his lands, tenements, goods, and cattels, and to be out of the king's +protection_."--Ib. p. 909. + +If the reader will look back at the passage touching the premunire, +quoted above, he will see that these few lines from Raphael Holinshed +are somewhat fatal to an argument in favor of Shakespeare's "legal +acquirements," in so far as it rests in any degree upon the use of terms +or the knowledge displayed in that passage. Shakespeare and Drayton are +here in the same boat, though "not with the same sculls." + +Before we shelve Holinshed,--for the good Raphael's folios are like +Falstaff in size, if not in wit, and, when once laid flat-long, require +levers to set them up on end again,--let us see if he cannot help us to +account for more of the "legalisms" that our Lord Chief Justice and +our barrister have "smelt out" in Shakespeare's historical plays. Mr. +Rushton quotes the following passages from "Richard II.":-- + + "_York_. Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not + Hereford live? + + * * * * * + + Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time + His _charters_ and his _customary rights_; + Let not to-morrow, then, ensue to-day: + Be not thyself; for how art thou a king, + But by fair sequence and succession? + Now, afore God, (God forbid I say true!) + If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights, + Call in the _letters patents_ that he hath + By his _attorneys-general_ to sue + _His livery_, and deny his _offer'd homage_, + You pluck a thousand dangers on your head." + Act ii. Sc. I. + + "_Bol_. I am denied to _sue my livery_ here, + And yet my _letters patents_ give me leave: + My father's _goods are all distrain'd_ and sold; + And these, and all, are all amiss employed. + What would you have me do? I am a subject, + And challenge law: _Attorneys are denied_ me; + And therefore personally I lay my claim + To my _inheritance_ of free descent."--_Ib_. Sc. 3. + +And Lord Campbell, although he passes by these passages in "Richard +II.," quotes, as important, from a speech of Hotspur's in the "First +Part of Henry IV.," the following lines, which, it will be seen, refer +to the same act of oppression on the part of Richard II. towards +Bolingbroke:-- + + "He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, + To _sue his livery_ and beg his bread." + Act iv. Sc. 3. + +But, here again, Shakespeare, although he may have known more law than +Holinshed, or even Hall, who was a barrister, only used the law-terms +that he found in the paragraph which furnished him with the incident +that he dramatized. For, after recording the death of Gaunt, the +Chronicle goes on:-- + +"The death of this duke gave occasion of increasing more hatred in the +people of this realme toward the king; for he seized into his hands all +the rents and reuenues of his lands which ought to have descended vnto +the duke of Hereford by lawfull _inheritance_, in reuoking _his letters +patents_ which he had granted to him before, by virtue whereof he might +make his _attorneis generall_ to _sue liverie_ for him of any manner of +_inheritances_ or possessions that might from thencefoorth fall unto +him, and that his homage _might_ be respited with making reasonable +fine," etc.--HOLINSHED, Ed. 1587, p. 496. + +The only legal phrase, however, in these passages of "Richard II," which +seems to imply very extraordinary legal knowledge, is the one repeated +in "Henry IV.,"--"sue his livery,"--which was the term applied to the +process by which, in the old feudal tenures, wards, whether of the king +or other guardian, on arriving at legal age, could compel a delivery +of their estates to them from their guardians. But hence it became a +metaphorical expression to mean merely the attainment of majority, and +in this sense seems to have been very generally understood and not +uncommonly used. See the following from an author who was no attorney or +attorney's clerk:-- + + "If Cupid + Shoot arrows of that weight, I'll swear devoutly + H'as _sued his livery_ and is no more a boy." + FLETCHER'S _Woman's Prize_, Act ii. Sc. 1. + +And this, from the works of a divine:-- + + "Our little Cupid hath _sued livery_ + And is no more in his minority." + DONNE'S Eclogues, 1613. + +Spenser, too, uses the phrase figuratively in another sense, in the +following passage,--which may be one of those which Chalmers had in +his eye, when, according to Lord Campbell, he "first suggested" that +Shakespeare was once an attorney's clerk:-- + + "She gladly did of that same Babe accept, + As of her owne by _liverey and seisin_; + And having over it a litle wept, + She bore it thence, and ever as her owne it kept." + _Faërie Queene_, B. VI. C. iv. st. 37. + +So, for an instance of the phrase "fee," which Lord Campbell notices as +one of those expressions and allusions which "crop out" in "Hamlet," +"showing the substratum of law in the author's mind,"-- + + "We go to gain a little patch of ground, + That hath in it no profit but the name. + To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; + Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole + A ranker rate, should it be sold _in fee_,"-- + Act iv. Sc. 2. + +and of which Mr. Rushton quotes several instances in its fuller form, +"fee simple,"--we have but to turn back a few stanzas in this same +canto of the "Faërie Queene," to find one in which the term is used with +the completest apprehension of its meaning:-- + + "So is my lord now _seiz'd of_ all the land, + As _in his fee_, with peaceable _estate_, + And quietly doth hold it in his hand, + Ne any dares with him for it debate." + _Ib_. st. 30. + +And in the next canto:-- + + "Of which the greatest part is due to me, + And heaven itself, by heritage _in fee_." + _Ib._ C. vii. st. 15. + +And in the first of these two passages from the "Faërie Queene," we have +two words, "seized" and "estate," intelligently and correctly used +in their purely legal sense, as Shakespeare himself uses them in the +following passages, which our Chief Justice and our barrister have both +passed by, as, indeed, they have passed many others equally worthy of +notice:-- + + "Did forfeit with his life all those his lands + Which he stood _seiz'd of_ to the conqueror." + _Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 1. + + "The terms of our _estate_ may not endure + Hazard so near us," etc.--_Ib_. Act iii. Sc. 3. + +Among the most important passages cited by both our authors is one that +every reader of Shakespeare will recollect, when it is mentioned to +him,--Hamlet's speech over the skull in the grave-digging scene. But +although this speech is remarkable for the number of law-terms used in +it, only one of them seems to evince any recondite knowledge of the law. +This is the word "statutes," in the following sentence:-- + + "This fellow might be in's time a buyer of + land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his + fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries." + Act v. Sc. 1. + +The general reader supposes, we believe, and very naturally, that here +"statutes" means laws, Acts of Parliament concerning real estate. But, +as Mr. Rushton remarks, (Malone having explained the term before him,) +"The statutes referred to by Hamlet are, doubtless, statutes merchant +and statutes staple." And "a statute merchant (so called from the 13th +Edward I., _De mercatoribus_) was a _bond_ acknowledged before one of +the clerks of the statutes merchant, and the mayor, etc., etc. A statute +staple, properly so called, was a _bond of record_, acknowledged before +the mayor of the staple," etc., etc. + +Here we again have a law-term apparently so out of the ken of an +unprofessional writer, that it would seem to favor the Attorney and +Solicitor theory. But let us see if the knowledge which its use implies +was confined to Shakespeare among the dramatists of his time. + +In Fletcher's "Noble Gentleman," a comedy, first performed in 1625, we +find a lady, sorely pushed for ready cash, crying out,-- + + "Take up at any use: give bond, or land, + Or mighty _statutes_, able by their strength + To tie up my Samson, were he now alive." + Act i. Sc. 1. + +And in Middleton's "Family of Love," (where, by the way, the Free-Love +folk of our own day may find their peculiar notions set forth and made +the basis of the action, though the play was printed two hundred +and fifty years ago,) we find a female free-loveyer thus teaching a +mercantile brother of the family, that, although she has a sisterly +disregard for some worldly restraints, she yet keeps an eye on the main +chance:-- + +"Tut, you are master Dryfab, the merchant; your skill is greater in +cony-skins and woolpacks than in gentlemen. His lands be _in statutes_: +you merchants were wont to be merchant staplers; but now gentlemen have +gotten up the trade; for there is not one gentleman amongst twenty but +his lands be engaged in twenty statutes staple." + +Act i. Sc. 3. + +And in the very first speech of the first scene of the same play, the +husband of this virtuous and careful dame says of the same "Gerardine," +(who, as he is poor and a gentleman, it need hardly be said, is about +the only honest man in the piece,)--"His lands be _in statutes_." And +that poor debauchee, Robert Greene, who knew no more of law than he +might have derived from such limited, though authentic information as to +its powers over gentlemen who made debts without the intention of paying +them, as he may have received at frequent unsolicited interviews with a +sergeant or a bum-bailiff, has this passage in his "Quip for an Upstart +Courtier," 1592:-- + +"The mercer he followeth the young upstart gentleman that hath no +government of himself and feedeth his humour to go brave; he shall not +want silks, sattins, velvets to pranke abroad in his pompe; but with +this proviso, that he must bind over his land in a _statute merchant or +staple_; and so at last forfeit all unto the merciless mercer, and leave +himself never a foot of land in England." + +Very profound legal studies, therefore, cannot be predicated of +Shakespeare on the ground of the knowledge which he has shown of this +peculiar kind of statute. + +It is not surprising that both our legal Shakespearean commentators cite +the following passage from "As You Like It" in support of their theory; +for in it the word "extent" is used in a sense so purely technical, that +not one in a thousand of Shakespeare's lay readers now-a-days would +understand it without a note:-- + + _Duke F._ Well, push him out of doors, + And let my officers of such a nature + _Make an extent_ upon his house and lands." + Act iii. Sc. 1. + +"Extent," as Mr. Rushton remarks, is directed to the sheriff to seize +and value lands and goods to the utmost extent; "an _extendi facias_" as +Lord Campbell authoritatively says, "applying to the house and lands +as a _fieri facias_ would apply to goods and chattels, or a _capias ad +satisfaciendum_ to the person." But that John Fletcher knew, as well +as my Lord Chief Justice, or Mr. Barrister Rushton, or even, perhaps, +William Shakespeare, all the woes that followed an extent, the elder +Mr. Weller at least would not have doubted, had he in the course of +his literary leisure fallen upon the following passage in "Wit Without +Money" (1630):-- + + "_Val_ Mark me, widows + Are long _extents_ in law upon men's livings, + Upon their bodies' winding-sheets; they that enjoy 'em + Lie but with dead men's monuments, and beget + Only their own ill epitaphs." + Act ii. Sc. 2. + +George Wilkins, too, the obscure author of "The Miseries of Enforced +Marriage," uses the term with as full an understanding, though not with +so feeling an expression or so scandalous an illustration of it, in the +following passage from the fifth act of that play, which was produced +about 1605 or 1606:-- + +"They are usurers; they come yawning for money; and the sheriff with +them is come to serve an _extent_ upon your land, and then seize your +body by force of execution." + +Another seemingly recondite law-phrase used by Shakespeare, which Lord +Campbell passes entirely by, though Mr. Rushton quotes three instances +of it, is "taken with the manner." This has nothing to do with good +manners or ill manners; but, in the words of the old law-book before +cited,-- + +--"is when a theefe hath stollen and is followed with hue and crie and +taken, having that found about him which he stole;--that is called ye +maynour. And so we commonly use to saye, when wee finde one doing of an +unlawful act, that we tooke him with the maynour or manner." + +_Termes de la Ley_, 1595, fol. 126, _b_. + +Shakespeare, therefore, uses the phrase with perfect understanding, when +he makes Prince Hal say to Bardolph,-- + + "O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen + years ago, and wert _taken with the manner_, + and ever since thou hast blush'd extempore." + 1 _Henry IV_.Act ii, Sc. 4. + +But so Fletcher uses the same phrase, and as correctly, when he makes +Perez say to Estefania, in "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife,"-- + + "How like a sheep-biting rogue, _taken i' the manner_, + And ready for the halter, dost thou look + now!"--Act v. Sc. 4. + +But both Fletcher and Shakespeare, in their use of this phrase, unusual +as it now seems to us, have only exemplified the custom referred to by +our contemporary legal authority,--"And so we _commonly use to saye_, +when wee finde one doing of an unlawfull act, that we tooke him with the +maynour"; though this must doubtless be understood to refer to persons +of a certain degree of education and knowledge of the world. + +It seems, then, that the application of legal phraseology to the +ordinary affairs of life was more common two hundred and fifty years ago +than now; though even now-a-days it is much more generally used in the +rural districts than persons who have not lived in them would suppose. +There law shares with agriculture the function of providing those +phrases of common conversation which, used figuratively at first, and +often with poetic feeling, soon pass into mere thought-saving formulas +of speech, and which in large cities are chiefly drawn from trade +and politics. And if in the use of the law-terms upon which we have +remarked, which are the more especially technical and remote from +the language of unprofessional life among all those which occur in +Shakespeare's works, he was not singular, but, as we have seen, +availed himself only of a knowledge which other contemporary poets and +playwrights possessed, how much more easily might we show that those +commoner legal words and phrases, to remarks upon Shakespeare's use of +which both the books before us (and especially Lord Campbell's) are +mainly devoted, "judgment," "fine," "these presents," "testament," +"attorney," "arbitrator," "fees," "bond," "lease," "pleading," "arrest," +"session," "mortgage," "vouchers," "indentures," "assault," "battery," +"dower," "covenant," "distrain," "bail," "non-suit," etc., etc., +etc.,--words which everybody understands,--are scattered through all the +literature of Shakespeare's time, and, indeed, of all time since there +were courts and suits at law! + +Many of the passages which Lord Campbell cites as evidence of +Shakespeare's "legal acquirements" excite only a smile at the +self-delusion of the critic who could regard them for a moment in that +light. For instance, these lines in that most exquisite song in "Measure +for Measure;"--"Take, oh, take those lips away,"-- + + "But my kisses bring again + _Seals_ of love, but _seal'd_ in vain";-- + +and these from "Venus and Adonis,"-- + + "Pure lips, sweet _seals_ in my soft lips imprinted, + What bargains may I make, still to be _sealing_!"-- + +to which Mr. Rushton adds from "Hamlet,"-- + + "A combination and a form, indeed, + Where every god did seem to set his _seal_." + +Act iii. Sc. 4. + + "Now must your conscience my acquittance + _seal_."--Act iv. Sc. 7. + +And because indentures and deeds and covenants are sealed, these +passages must be accepted as part of the evidence that Shakespeare +narrowly escaped being made Lord High Chancellor of England! It requires +all the learning and the logic of a Lord Chief Justice and a London +barrister to establish a connection between such premises and such a +conclusion. And if Shakespeare's lines smell of law, how strong is the +odor of parchment and red tape in these, from Drayton's Fourth Eclogue +(1605): + + "Kindnesse againe with kindnesse was repay'd, + _And with sweet kisses covenants were sealed_." + +We ask pardon of the reader for the production of contemporary evidence, +that, in Shakespeare's day, a knowledge of the significance and binding +nature of a seal was not confined to him among poets; for surely a man +must be both a lawyer and a Shakespearean commentator to forget that the +use of seals is as old as the art of writing, and, perhaps, older, and +that the practice has furnished a figure of speech to poets from the +time when it was written, that out of the whirlwind Job heard, "It is +turned as clay to the _seal_," and probably from a period yet more +remote. + +And is Lord Campbell really in earnest in the following grave and +precisely expressed opinion? + +"In the next scene, [of "Othello,"] Shakespeare gives us a _very +distinct proof_ that he was acquainted with Admiralty law, as well as +with the procedure of Westminster Hall. Describing the feat of the Moor +in carrying off Desdemona against her father's consent, which might +either make or mar his fortune, according as the act might be sanctioned +or nullified, Iago observes,-- + + "'Faith, he to-night hath hoarded a land carack: + If it prove a _lawful prize_, he's made forever'; + +the trope indicating that _there would be a suit in the High Court of +Admiralty to determine the validity of the capture_"!--p. 91. + +"Why did not his Lordship go farther, and decide, that, in the +figurative use of the term, "land carack," Shakespeare gave us very +distinct proof that he was acquainted with maritime life, and especially +with the carrying-trade between Spain and the West Indies? We +respectfully submit to the court the following passage from Middleton +and Rowley's "Changeling,"--first published in 1653, but written many +years before. Jasperino, seeing a lady, calls out,-- + + "Yonder's another vessel: Ile _board_ her: + if she be _lawfall prize, down goes her topsail."_ + Act i. Sig. B. 2. + +And with it we submit the following points, and ask a decision in our +favor. First, That they, the said Middleton and Rowley, have furnished, +in the use of the phrase "lawful prize," in this passage, very distinct +proof that they were acquainted with Admiralty law. Second, That, in +the use of the other phrases, "board," and especially "down goes her +topsail," they have furnished yet stronger evidence that they had been +sailors on board armed vessels, and that the trope indicates, that, had +not the vessel or lady in question lowered her topsail or top-knot, she +would then and there have been put mercilessly to the sword. + +But what shall we think of the acumen and the judgment of a Chief +Justice, a man of letters, and a man of the world, who brings forward +such passages as the following as part of the evidence bearing upon the +question of Shakespeare's legal acquirements?-- + + "Come; fear not you; _good counsellors lack + no clients._" + _Measure for Measure_. Act i. Sc. 2. + + "One that _before the judgement_ carries poor + souls to hell." + _Comedy of Errors_. Act iv. Sc. 2. + + "Well, Time is the old _Justice_ that examines + all such offenders,--and let Time try." + _As You Like It_. Act iv. Sc. 1. + + "And that old common _arbitrator_, Time." + _Troilus and Cressida_. Act iv. Sc. 5. + + "No cock of mine; you crow too like a _craven_." + _Taming of the Shrew_. Act ii. Sc. 1. + + "Bestial oblivion or some _craven_ scruple." + _Hamlet_. Act iv. Sc. 4. + +By which last line, according to Lord Campbell, (p. 55,) "Shakespeare +shows that he was acquainted with _the law for regulating 'trials by +battle_'"! + +But to proceed with the passages quoted in evidence:-- + + "Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the + skin of an innocent lamb should be made + _parchment_? that parchment, being _scribbled + o'er_, should undo a man? Some say, the bee + stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's _wax_; for I did + but _seal_ once to a thing, and I was never mine + own man since."--2 _Henry VI_. Act vi. Sc. 2. + +Upon citing which, his Lordship exclaims,-- + +"Surely Shakespeare must have been employed to write _deeds_ on +_parchment_ in _courthand_, and to apply the _wax_ to them in the form +of _seals_. One does not understand how he should, on any other theory +of his bringing-up, have been acquainted _with these details_"! + +One does not; but we submit to the court, that, if two were to lay their +heads together after the manner of Sydney Smith's vestrymen, they might +bring it about. + +In aid of his Lordship's further studies, we make the following +suggestion. He doubtless knows that one of the earliest among our small +stock of traditions about Shakespeare is that recorded by Aubrey as +being derived from Stratford authority, that his father was a butcher, +and that "when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he +kill'd a calfe, he wold do it in a high style, and make a speech." +When his Lordship considers this old tradition in connection with the +following passage in one of Shakespeare's earliest plays,-- + + "Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh, + And sees fast by a butcher with an axe, + But will suspect 'twas he that made the + slaughter,"-- + +2 _Henry VI._ Act iii. Sc. 2. + +how can he resist the conclusion, that, although the divine Williams may +not have run with "Forty," it is highly probable that he did kill +for Keyser? Let his Lordship also remember that other old tradition, +mentioned by Rowe, that John Shakespeare was "a considerable dealer +in wool," and that William, upon leaving school, "seems to have given +entirely into that way of living which his father proposed to him"; and +remember, also, this passage from another of Shakespeare's earliest +plays:-- + + "He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, + too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may + call it...He draweth out the _thread of + his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument._" + --_Love's Labor's Lost_. Act v. Sc. 1. + +Is there not a goodly part of the wool-stapler's craft, as well as of +the art of rhetoric, compressed into that one sentence by the hydraulic +power of Shakespeare's genius? Does it not show that he was initiated in +the mysteries of long and short staple before he wrote this, perhaps, +his earliest play? But look again at the following passage, also written +when his memory of his boyish days was freshest, and see the evidence +that _both_ these traditions were well founded:-- + + "So, first, the harmless sheep doth yield _his fleece;_ + And, next, _his throat unto the butcher's knife."_ + +Could these lines have been written by a man who had not been both a +considerable dealer in wool, and a butcher who killed a calf in high +style and made a speech? Who can have a doubt about this matter, when he +appreciates rightly the following passage in "Hamlet," (Act v. Sc. 2,) +and is penetrated with the wisdom of two wise commentators upon it?-- + + 'Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, + When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us + There's a divinity that shapes our ends, + Rough-hew them how we will.' + +Dr. Farmer informs me that these words are merely technical. A wool-man, +butcher, and dealer in _skewers_ lately observed to him that his nephew +(an idle lad) could only _assist_ him in making them;--he could _rough +hew_ them, but I was obliged to shape their ends! To shape the ends of +wool-skewers, i.e., to _point_ them, requires a degree of skill; any one +can _rough-hew_ them. Whoever recollects the profession of Shakespeare's +father will admit that his son might be no stranger to such terms. "I have +frequently seen packages of wool pinn'd up with skewers."--STEEVENS. + +Lucky wool-man, butcher, and dealer in skewers! to furnish at once a +comment upon the great philosophical tragedy and a proof that its author +and you were both of a trade! Fortunate Farmer, to have heard the story! +and most sagacious Steevens, to have penetrated its hidden meaning, +recollecting felicitously that you had seen packages of wool pinn'd up +with skewers! But, O wisest, highest-and-deepest-minded Shakespeare, to +have remembered, as you were propounding, Hamlet-wise, one of the great +unsolvable mysteries of life, the skewers that you, being an idle lad, +could but rough-hew, leaving to your careful father the skill-requiring +task to shape their ends!--ends without which they could not have bound +together the packages of wool with which you loaded the carts that +backed up to the door in Henley Street, or have penetrated the veal +of the calves that you killed in such a high style and with so much +eloquence, and which loaded the tray that you daily bore on your +shoulder to the kitchen-door of New Place, yet unsuspecting that you +were to become its master! + +Yet we would not too strongly insist upon this evidence, that +Shakespeare in his boyhood served both as a butcher's and a +wool-stapler's apprentice; for we venture to think that we have +discovered evidence in his works that their author was a tailor. For, in +the first place, the word "tailor" occurs no less than thirty-five times +in his plays. [The reader is to suppose that we are able to record this +fact by an intimate acquaintance with every line that Shakespeare wrote, +and by a prodigious effort of memory, and not by reference to Mrs. +Clark's Concordance.] "Measures" occurs nearly thrice as often; "shears" +is found no less than six times; "thimble," three times; "goose," no +less than twenty-seven times!--and when we find, that, in all his +thirty-seven plays, the word "cabbage" occurs but once, and then with +the deliberate explanation that it means "worts" and is "good cabbage," +may we not regard such reticence upon this tender point as a touching +confirmation of the truth of our theory? See, too, the comparison which +Shakespeare uses, when he desires to express the service to which +his favorite hero, Prince Hal, will put the manners of his wild +companions:-- + + "So, like gross terms, + The Prince will, in the perfectness of time, + Cast off his followers; and their memory + Shall as a _pattern or a measure_ live + By which his Grace must mete the lives of + others." + + 2 _Henry IV._, Act iv. Sc. 4. + +And in writing one of his earliest plays, Shakespeare's mind seems to +have been still so impressed with memories of his former vocation, that +he made the outraged Valentine, as his severest censure of Proteus, +reproach him with being badly dressed:-- + + "Ruffian, let go that rude, uncivil touch! + Thou friend _of an ill fashion!_" + + Act v. Sc. 4. + +Cleopatra, too, who, we may be sure from her conduct, was addicted to +very "low necks," after Antony's death becomes serious, and declares her +intention to have something "after the high Roman fashion." And what but +a reminiscence of the disgust which a tailor of talent has for mending +is it that breaks out in the Barons' defiant message to King John?-- + + "The King hath dispossess'd himself of us; + We will not line his thin bestained cloak." + + _King John_, Act iv. Sc. 3. + +A memory, too, of the profuse adornment with which he had been called +upon to decorate some very tender youth's or miss's fashionable suit +intrudes itself even in his most thoughtful tragedy:-- + + "The canker galls the infants of the Spring + Too oft before their _buttons_ be disclos'd." + + _Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 3. + +In "Macbeth," desiring to pay the highest compliment to Macduff's +judgment and knowledge, he makes Lennox say,-- + + "He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows + _The fits of the season_."--Act iv. Sc. 2. + +Not the last fall or last spring style, be it observed, but that of the +season, which it is most necessary for the fashionable tailor to know. +In writing the first scene of the "Second Part of Henry IV.," his mind +was evidently crossed by the shade of some over-particular dandy, +whose fastidious nicety as to the set of his garments he had failed to +satisfy; for he makes Northumberland compare himself to a man who, + + "_Impatient of his fit_, breaks like a fire + Out of his keeper's arms." + +And yet we must not rely too much even upon evidence so strong and so +cumulative as this. For it would seem as if Shakespeare must have been +a publisher, and have known the anxiety attendant upon the delay of an +author not in high health to complete a work the first part of which has +been put into the printer's hands. Else, how are we to account for his +feeling use of this beautiful metaphor in "Twelfth Night"? + + "Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive, + If you will lead these graces to the grave, + And _leave the world no copy_." + + Act i. Sc. 5. + +But this part of our subject expands before us, and we must stay our +hand. We merely offer these hints as our modest contribution to the +attempts to decide from phrases used in Shakespeare's works what were +his avocations before he became a playwright, and return to Lord +Campbell and Mr. Rushton. + +When Malone, in 1790, broached his theory, that Shakespeare had been an +attorney's clerk, he cited in support of it twenty-four passages. Mr. +Rushton's pamphlet brings forward ninety-five, more or less; Lord +Campbell's book, one hundred and sixty. But, from what he has seen of +it, the reader will not be surprised at learning that a large number of +the passages cited by his Lordship must be thrown aside, as having no +bearing whatever on the question of Shakespeare's legal acquirements. +They evince no more legal knowledge, no greater familiarity with +legal phraseology, than is apparent in the ordinary conversation of +intelligent people generally, even at this day. Mr. Rushton, more +systematic than his Lordship, has been also more careful; and from the +pages of both we suppose that there might be selected a round hundred +of phrases which could be fairly considered as having been used by +Shakespeare with a consciousness of their original technicality and of +their legal purport. This is not quite in the proportion of three to +each of his thirty-seven plays; and if we reckon his sonnets and poems +according to their lines, (and both Mr. Rushton and Lord Campbell cite +from them,) the proportion falls to considerably less than three. But +Malone's twenty-four instances are of nearly as much value in the +consideration of the question as Lord Campbell's and Mr. Rushton's +hundred; for the latter gentlemen have added little to the strength, +though considerably to the number, of the array on the affirmative side +of the point in dispute; and we have seen, that, of the law-phrases +cited by them from Shakespeare's pages, the most recondite, as well +as the most common and simple, are to be found in the works of the +Chroniclers, whose very language Shakespeare used, and in those of the +playwrights his contemporaries. + +Our new advocates of the old cause, however, quote two passages which, +from the freedom with which law-phrases are scattered through them, it +is worth while to reproduce here. The first is the well-known speech in +the grave-digging scene of "Hamlet":-- + +"_Ham_. There's another: Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? +Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his _cases_, his _tenures_, and +his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave, now, to knock him about +the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his _action of +battery_? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, +with his _statutes_, his _recognizances_, his _fines_, his _double +vouchers_, his _recoveries_: Is this the _fine_ of his _fines_, and the +_recovery_ of his _recoveries_, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? +will his _vouchers_ vouch him no more of his _purchases_, and _double +ones_, too, than the length and breadth of a pair of _indentures_? The +very _conveyances_ of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must +the _inheritor_ himself have no more? ha?"--Act v. Sc. 1. + +The second is the following Sonnet, (No. 46,) not only the language, +but the very fundamental conceit of which, it will be seen, is purely +legal:-- + + "Mine Eye and Heart are at a mortal war + How to divide the conquest of thy sight; + Mine Eye my Heart thy picture's sight would _bar_, + My Heart mine Eye the freedom of that right. + My Heart doth _plead_ that thou in him dost lie + (A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes); + But the _defendant_ doth that _plea_ deny, + And says in him thy fair appearance lies. + To 'cide this title is _impanelled_ + A _quest_ of thoughts, all tenants to the Heart, + And by their _verdict_ is determined + The clear Eye's _moiety_, and the dear Heart's part; + As thus: Mine Eye's due is thine outward part, + And my Heart's right, thine inward love of heart." + +It would seem, indeed, as if passages like these must be received as +evidence that Shakespeare had more familiarity with legal phraseology, +if not a greater knowledge of it, than could have been acquired except +by habitual use in the course of professional occupation. But let us see +if he is peculiar even in this crowding of many law-terms into a single +brief passage. We turn to the very play open at our hand, from which +we have quoted before, (and which, by the way, we have not selected as +exceptional in this regard,) "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage," and +find the following passage in Act V.:-- + + "_Doctor_. Now, Sir, from this your _oath and bond,_ + Faith's pledge and _seal_ of conscience, you have run, + Broken all _contracts_, and _forfeiture_ + Justice hath now in _suit_ against your soul: + Angels are made the _jurors_, who are _witnesses_ + Unto the _oath_ you took; and God himself, + Maker of marriage, He that hath _seal'd the deed_, + As a firm _lease_ unto you during life, + _Sits now as Judge_ of your transgression: + The world _informs against you_ with this voice.-- + If such sins reign, what mortals can rejoice? + _Scarborow_. What then ensues to me? + _Doctor_. A heavy _doom_, whose _execution's_ + Now _served upon_ your conscience," etc. + p. 91, D.O.P., Ed. 1825. + +Indeed, the hunting of a metaphor or a conceit into the ground is a +fault characteristic of Elizabethan literature, and one from which +Shakespeare's boldness, no less than his genius, was required to save +him; and we have seen already how common was the figurative use of +law-phrases among the poets and dramatists of his period. Hamlet's +speech and the Forty-sixth Sonnet cannot, therefore, be accepted as +evidence of his attorneyship, except in so far as they and like passages +may be regarded as giving some support to the opinion that Shakespeare +was but one of many in his time who abandoned law for letters. + +For we object not so much to the conclusion at which Lord Campbell +arrives as to his mode of arriving at it. His method of investigation, +which is no method at all, but the mere noting of passages in the order +in which he found them in looking through Shakespeare's works, is the +rudest and least intelligent that could have been adopted; and his +inference, that, because Shakespeare makes Jack Cade lament that the +skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment, and affirm that it is +not the bee, but the bee's wax, that stings, therefore he must have been +employed to write deeds on parchment and append wax to them in the form +of seals, is a fair specimen both of the acuteness and the logic which +his Lordship displays in this his latest effort to unite Law and +Literature. + +There are, however, very considerable grounds for the opinion that +Shakespeare had more than a layman's acquaintance with the technical +language of the law. For it must be admitted, in the first place, that +he exhibits a remarkable acquaintance with it. That other playwrights +and poets of his day manifest a like familiarity (as we have seen +they do) precludes us, indeed, from regarding the mere occurrence of +law-terms in his works as indications of early training proper to him +alone. But they who, on the strength of the not unfrequent occurrence +of legal phrases in many of the plays and much of the poetry of the +Elizabethan period, would maintain that Shakespeare's use of them +furnishes no basis for the opinion that he acquired his knowledge of +them professionally, must also assume and support the position, that, in +the case of contemporary dramatists and poets, this use of the technical +language of conveyancing and pleading also indicates no more than an +ordinary acquaintance with it, and that, in comparing his works with +theirs in this regard, we may assume the latter to have been produced by +men who had no professional acquaintance with the law; because, if +they had such professional acquaintance with legal phraseology, its +appearance in their works as well as in Shakespeare's would manifestly +strengthen rather than invalidate the conclusion, that his familiarity +with it was acquired as they acquired theirs. This position is, to +say the least, a very difficult one to maintain, and one which any +considerate student of Elizabethan literature would be very unwilling +to assume. For our ignorance of the personal life of Shakespeare is +remarkable only because he was Shakespeare; and we know little, if any, +more about the greater number of his literary contemporaries than we do +about him. It cannot even be safely presumed, for instance, that George +Wilkins, the author of the law-besprinkled passage just above quoted +from the "Miseries of Enforced Marriage," was not a practising attorney +or barrister before or even at the time when he wrote that play. On the +contrary, it is extremely probable, nay, quite certain, that he and many +other dramatic authors of the period when he flourished, (1600-1620,) +and of the whole Elizabethan period, (1575-1625,) were nestling +attorneys or barristers before they became full-fledged dramatists. + +We are not without contemporary evidence upon this point. Thomas Nash, +friend to Robert Greene, a playwright, poet, and novelist, whose works +were in vogue just before Shakespeare wrote, in an "Epistle to the +Gentlemen Students of the Two Universities," with which, according to +the fashion of the time, he introduced Greene's "Menaphon" (1587)[D] to +the reader, has the following paragraph:-- + +[Footnote D: Lord Campbell gives the date 1589; but see Mr. Dyce's +indisputable authority. Greene's Works. Vol. I., pp. xxxvii. and ciii.] + +"I will turn my back to my first text of studies of delight, and talk +a little in friendship with a few of our trivial translators. It is a +common practice, now-a-days, amongst a sort of shifting companions +that run through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of +Noverint, whereto they were born, and busy themselves with the endeavors +of art, that could scarcely Latinize their neck-verse, if they should +have need; yet English Seneca, read by candlelight, yields many good +sentences, as, _Blood is a beggar_, and so forth; and if you intreat +him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets,--I +should say, handfuls of tragical speeches. But, oh grief! _Tempus edax +rerum_,--what is that will last always? The sea, exhaled by drops, +will, in continuance, be dry; and Seneca, let blood line by line and +page by page, at length must needs die to our stage." + +It has most unaccountably been assumed that this passage refers to +Shakespeare;[E] and it is even so cited by Lord Campbell himself,--to +our surprise, when we remember his professional training and experience +as a sifter of evidence. But, as far as regards its reference to a +leaving of law for literature, it is clearly of general application. +Nash says, "It is a _common practice_, now-a-days, amongst a sort of +shifting companions, etc., to leave the trade of _Noverint_, whereto +_they_ were born, and busy _themselves,"_ etc. By the trade of +_Noverint_ he meant that of an attorney. The term was not uncommonly +applied to members of that profession, because of the phrase, _Noverint +universi per presentes_, (Know all men by these presents,) with which +deeds, bonds, and many other legal instruments then began. And Nash's +testimony accords with what we know of the social and literary history +of the age. There was no regular army in Elizabeth's time; and the +younger sons of gentlemen and well-to-do yeomen, who received from their +fathers little more than an education and a very small allowance, and +who did not become either military or maritime adventurers, opening +their oyster with a sword, entered the Church or the profession of the +law in its higher or lower grade; and as at that period there was much +more demand for lawyers and much less for clergymen than there is now, +and the Church had ceased to be a stepping-stone to political power and +patronage, while the law had become more than ever before an avenue to +fame, to fortune, and to rank, by far the greater number of these young +gentlemen aspired to the woolsack. But then, as now, the early years of +professional life were seasons of sharp trial and bitter disappointment. +Necessity pressed sorely or pleasure wooed resistlessly, and the slender +purse wasted rapidly away while the young attorney or barrister awaited +the employment that did not come. He knew then, as now he knows, "the +rich man's scorn, the proud man's contumely"; nay, he felt, as now he +sometimes feels, the tooth of hunger gnawing through the principles and +firm resolves that partition a life of honor and self-respect from one +darkened by conscious loss of rectitude, if not by open shame. Happy,-- +yet, perhaps, oh, unhappy,--he who now in such a strait can wield the +pen of a ready writer!--for the press, perchance, may afford him a +support which, though temporary and precarious, will hold him up until +he can stand upon more stable ground. But in the reigns of Good Queen +Bess and Gentle Jamie there was no press. There was, however, an +incessant demand for new plays. Play-going was the chief intellectual +recreation of that day for all classes, high and low. It filled the +place of our newspapers, our books, our lectures, our concerts, our +picture-seeing, and, in a great measure, of our social gatherings and +amusements, of whatever nature. It is hardly extravagant to say, that +there were then more new plays produced in London in a month than +there are now in Great Britain and the United States in a year. To +play-writing, then, the needy young attorney or barrister possessed +of literary talent turned his eyes at that day, as he does now to +journalism; and it is almost beyond a doubt, that, of the multitudinous +plays of that period which have survived and the thousands which have +perished, a large proportion were produced by the younger sons of +country gentlemen, who, after taking their degrees at Oxford or +Cambridge, or breaking away from those classic bounds ungraduated, +entered the Inns of Court, according to the custom of their day and +their condition. They wrote plays in Latin, and even in English, for +themselves to act; and they got the professional players to act popular +plays for them on festal days. What more natural, then, than that those +who had the ability and the need should seek to recruit their slender +means by supplying the constant demand for new plays? and how inevitable +that some of them, having been successful in their dramatic efforts, +should give themselves up to play-writing! As do the great, so will the +small. What the Inns-of-Court man did, the attorney would try to do. The +players, though they loved the patronage of a lord, were very democratic +in the matter of play-making. If a play filled the house, they did not +trouble themselves about the social or professional rank of him who +wrote it; and thus came about that "common practice" for "shifting +companions" to "leave the trade of Noverint" and "busy themselves with +the endeavors of art"; and hence it is that the plays of the period of +which we are writing have, in many passages, so strong a tinge of law. + +[Footnote E: It seems clear, on the contrary, that Nash's object was to +sneer at Jasper Heywood, Alexander Nevil, John Studley, Thomas Nuce, and +Thomas Newton,--one or more of them,--whose _Seneca, his Tenne Tragedies +translated into Englysh_, was published in 1581. It is a very +grievous performance; and Shakespeare, who had read it thoroughly, made +sport of it in _A Midsummer Night's Dream._] + +One reason for the regarding of Nash's sneer as especially directed +against Shakespeare is the occurrence in it of the phrase, "whole +_Hamlets_,--I should say, handfuls of tragical speeches," which has +been looked upon as an allusion to Shakespeare's great tragedy. But the +earliest edition of "Hamlet" known was published in 1603, and even this +is an imperfect and surreptitiously obtained copy of an early sketch of +the play. That Shakespeare had written this tragedy in 1586, when he was +but twenty-two years old, is improbable to the verge of impossibility; +and Nash's allusion, if, indeed, he meant a punning sneer at a play, +(which is not certain.) was, doubtless, to an old lost version of the +Danish tragedy upon which Shakespeare built his "Hamlet." + +We have, then, direct contemporary testimony, that, at the period of +Shakespeare's entrance upon London life, it was a common practice for +those lawyers whom want of success or an unstable disposition impelled +to a change in their avocation to devote themselves to writing or +translating plays; and this statement is not only sustained by all that +we know of the customs of the time to which it refers, but is strongly +confirmed by the notably frequent occurrence of legal phrases in the +dramatic literature of that age. + +But the question, then, arises,--and it is one which, under the +circumstances, must be answered,--To what must we attribute the fact, +that, of all the plays that have come down to us, written between 1580 +and 1620, Shakespeare's are most noteworthy in this respect? For it is +true, that, among all the dramatic writers of that period, whose +works have survived, not one uses the phraseology of the law with the +frequency, the freedom, and the correctness of Shakespeare. Beaumont, +for instance, was a younger son of a Judge of the Common Pleas, and, +following the common routine that we have noticed, after leaving the +University, became an Inns-of-Court man, but soon abandoned law for +literature; his friend and associate, Fletcher, was the son of a bishop, +but had an uncle who was a lawyer and a diplomatist, and is himself +believed to have been of the Inns of Court. Rich gleanings of law-terms +might, therefore, be expected from the plays written by these +dramatists; yet it may safely be asserted, that from Shakespeare's +thirty-seven plays at least twice as many passages marked by legal +phraseology might be produced, as from the fifty-four written by +Beaumont and Fletcher, together or alone! a fact the great significance +of which is heightened by another,--that it is only the vocabulary of +the law to the use of which Shakespeare exhibits this proclivity. He +avails himself, it is true, of the peculiar language of the physician, +the divine, the husbandman, the soldier, and the sailor; but he uses +these only on very rare occasions, by way of description, comparison, +or illustration, when something in the scene or the subject in hand +suggests them. But the technical language of the law runs from his +pen as part of his vocabulary and parcel of his thought. The word +"purchase," for instance, which in ordinary use means to acquire by +giving value, in law applies to all legal modes of obtaining property, +except inheritance of descent. And the word in this peculiar and most +technical sense occurs five times in Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, +but only in a single passage (if our memory and Mr. Dyce's notes serve +us) in the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. Equal, or greater, +is the comparative frequency with which Shakespeare uses other legal +phrases; and much wider is the disparity, in this regard, between him +and the other dramatic writers of his whole period,--Marlowe, Greene, +Peele, Kyd, Lilly, Chapman, Jonson, Middleton, Marston, Ford, Webster, +Massinger, and the undistinguished crowd. + +These facts dispose in great measure of the plausible suggestion, +which has been made,--that, as the courts of law in Shakespeare's time +occupied public attention much more than they do at present, they having +then regulated "the season," as the sittings of Parliament (not then +frequent or stated) do now,[F] they would naturally be frequented by the +restless, inquiring spirits of the time, Shakespeare among them, and +that there he and his fellow-dramatists picked up the law-phrases which +they wove into their plays and poems. But if this view of the case were +the correct one, we should not find that disparity in the use of legal +phrases which we have just remarked. Shakespeare's genius would manifest +itself in the superior effect with which he used knowledge acquired in +this manner; but his _genius_ would not have led him to choose the +dry and affected phraseology of the law as the vehicle of his flowing +thought, and to use it so much oftener than any other of the numerous +dramatists of his time, to all of whom the courts were as open as to +him. And the suggestion which we are now considering fails in two other +most important respects. For we do not find either that Shakespeare's +use of legal phrases increased with his opportunities of frequenting +the courts of law, or that the law-phrases, his use of which is most +noteworthy and of most importance in the consideration of the question +before us, are those which he would have heard oftenest in the course of +the ordinary business of the courts in his day. To look at the latter +point first,--the law-terms used by Shakespeare are generally not those +which he would have heard in ordinary trials at _nisi prius_ or before +the King's Bench, but such as refer to the tenure or transfer of real +property, "fine and recovery," "statutes," "purchase," "indenture," +"tenure," "double voucher," "fee simple," "fee farm," "remainder," +"reversion," "dower," "forfeiture," etc., etc.; and it is important to +remember that suits about the title to real estate are very much rarer +in England than they are with us, and in England were very much rarer in +Shakespeare's time than they are now. Here we buy and sell houses and +lands almost as we trade in corn and cotton; but in England the transfer +of the title of a piece of real estate of any consequence is a serious +and comparatively rare occurrence, that makes great work for attorneys +and conveyancing counsel; and two hundred and fifty years ago the +facilities in this respect were very much less than they are now. +Shakespeare could hardly have picked up his conveyancer's jargon by +hanging round the courts of law; and we find,--to return to the first +objection,--that, in his early plays, written just after he arrived in +London, he uses this peculiar phraseology just as freely and with +as exact a knowledge as he displayed in after years, when (on the +supposition in question) he must have become much more familiar with it. +Shakespeare's earliest work that has reached us is, doubtless, to be +found in "King Henry the Sixth," "The Comedy of Errors," and "Love's +Labor's Lost." In the very earliest form of Part II. of the first-named +play, ("The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two Houses of York +and Lancaster," to which Shakespeare was doubtless a contributor, the +part of Cade being among his contributions,) we find him making Cade +declare, (Act iv. Sc. 7,) "Men shall hold of me _in capite_; and we +charge and command that wives be _as free as heart can wish or tongue +can tell_." Both the phrases that we have Italicized express tenures, +and very uncommon tenures of land. In the "Comedy of Errors," when +Dromio of Syracuse says, "There's no time for a man to recover his hair +that grows bald by nature," [Hear, O Rowland! and give ear, O Phalon!] +his master replies, "May he not do it by _fine and recovery?_" Fine and +recovery was a process by which, through a fictitious suit, a transfer +was made of the title in an entailed estate. In "Love's Labor's Lost," +almost without a doubt the first comedy that Shakespeare wrote, on +Boyet's offering to kiss Maria, (Act ii. Sc. 1,) she declines the +salute, and says, "My lips are no common, though several they be." This +passage--an important one for his purpose--Lord Campbell has passed by, +as he has some others of nearly equal consequence. Maria's allusion is +plainly to tenancy in common by several (i.e., divided, distinct) title. +(See Coke upon Littleton, Lib. iii. Cap. iv. Sec. 292.) She means, that +her lips are several as being two, and (as she says in the next line) +as belonging in common to her fortunes and herself,--yet they were no +common pasture. + +[Footnote F: Falstaff, for instance, speaks of "the wearing out of six +fashions, which is four terms or two actions."] + +Here, then, is Shakespeare using the technical language of conveyancers +in his earliest works, and before he had had much opportunity to +haunt the courts of law in London, even could he have made such legal +acquirements in those schools. We find, too, that he uses law-terms in +general with frequency notably greater--in an excess of three or four +to one--than any of the other playwrights of his day, when so many +playwrights were or had been Noverints or of the Inns of Court; that +this excess is not observable with regard to his use of the vocabulary +peculiar to any other occupation or profession, even that of the actor, +which we know that he practised for many years; but that, on the +contrary, although he uses other technical language correctly, he avails +himself of that of any single art of occupation with great rarity, +and only upon special occasions. Lord Campbell remarks, as to the +correctness with which Shakespeare uses legal phrases,--and this is a +point upon which his Lordship speaks with authority,--that he is amazed +"by the accuracy and propriety with which they are introduced," and in +another place adds, that Shakespeare "uniformly lays down good law"; and +it is not necessary to be a Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench to know +that his Lordship is fully justified in assuring us that "there is +nothing [of the kind (?)] so dangerous as for one not of the craft to +tamper with our free-masonry." Remembering, then, that genius, though +it reveals general and even particular truths, and facilitates all +acquirement, does not impart facts or the knowledge of technical terms, +in what manner can we answer or set aside the question that we have +partly stated before,--How did it happen, that, in an age when it was +a common practice for young attorneys and barristers to leave their +profession and take to writing plays and poems, one playwright left upon +his works a stronger, clearer, sharper legal stamp than we can detect +upon those of any other, and that he used the very peculiar and, to a +layman, incomprehensible language of the law of real property, as it +then existed, in his very earliest plays, written soon after he, a raw, +rustic youth, bred in a retired village, arrived in London? How did +it happen that this playwright fell into the use of that technical +phraseology, the proper employment of which, more than any other, +demands special training, and that he availed himself of it with +apparent unconsciousness, not only so much oftener than any of his +contemporaries, but with such exact knowledge, that one who has passed +a long life in the professional employment of it, speaking as it +were officially from the eminent position which he has won,--Lord +Campbell,--declares, that, + +"While novelists and dramatists are constantly making mistakes as to the +law of marriage, of wills, and of inheritance, to Shakespeare's law, +lavishly as he propounds it, there can neither be demurrer, nor bill of +exceptions, nor writ of error"? + +Must we believe, that the man, who, among all the lawyer-playwrights of +his day, showed,--not, be it noticed, (as we are at present regarding +his works,) the profoundest knowledge of the great principles of law and +equity, although he did that too,--but the most complete mastery of +the technical phrases, the jargon, of the law and of its most abstruse +branch,--that relating to real estate,--and who used it very much the +oftenest of them all, and with an air of as entire unconsciousness as +if it were a part of the language of his daily life, making no mistakes +that can be detected by a learned professional critic,--must we believe +that this man was distinguished among those play-writing lawyers, not +only by his genius, but his _lack_ of particular acquaintance with the +law? Or shall we rather believe that the son of the High Bailiff of +Stratford, whose father was well-to-do in the world, and who was a +somewhat clever lad and ambitious withal, was allowed to commence his +studies for a profession for which his cleverness fitted him and by +which he might reasonably hope to rise at least to moderate wealth and +distinction, and that he continued these studies until his father's +loss of property, aided, perhaps, by some of those acts of youthful +indiscretion which clever lads as well as dull ones sometimes will +commit, threw him upon his own resources,--and that then, having +townsmen, perhaps fellow-students and playfellows, among the actors in +London, and having used his pen, as we may be sure he had, for other +purposes than engrossing and drawing precedents, he, like so many others +of his time, left his trade of Noverint and went up to the metropolis to +busy himself with endeavors of art? One of these conclusions is in the +face of reason, probability, and fact; the other in accordance with them +all. + + * * * * * + +But of how little real importance is it to establish the bare fact, that +Shakespeare was an attorney's clerk before he was an actor! Suppose +it proved, beyond a doubt,--what have we learned? Nothing peculiar to +Shakespeare; but merely what was equally true of thousands of other +young men, his contemporaries, and hundreds of thousands, if not +millions, of those of antecedent and succeeding generations. It has a +naked material relation to the other fact, that he uses legal phrases +oftener than any other dramatist or poet; but with his plastic power +over those grotesque and rugged modes of speech it has nought to do +whatever. That was his inborn mastery. Legal phrases did nothing for +him; but he much for them. Chance cast their uncouth forms around him, +and the golden overflow from the furnace of his glowing thought fell +upon them, glorifying and enshielding them forever. It would have been +the same with the lumber of any other craft; it was the same with that +of many others,--the difference being only of quantity, and not of kind. +How, then, would the certainty that he had been bred to the law help +us to the knowledge of Shakespeare's life, of what he did for himself, +thought for himself, how he joyed, how he suffered, what he was? Would +it help us to know what the Stratford boys thought of him and felt +toward him who was to write "Lear" and "Hamlet," or how the men of +London regarded him who was a-writing them? Not a whit. To prove the +fact would merely satisfy sheer aimless, fruitless curiosity; and it is +a source of some reasonable satisfaction to know that the very +people who would be most interested in the perusal of a biography of +Shakespeare made up of the relation of such facts are they who have +least right to know anything about him. Of the hundreds of thousands +of people who giggled through their senseless hour at the "American +Cousin,"--a play which, in language, in action, in character, presents +no semblance to human life or human creatures, as they are found on any +spot under the canopy, and which seems to have been written on the model +of the Interlude of "Pyramus and Thisbe," "for, in all the play, there +is not one word apt, one player fitted,"--of the people to whom this +play owed its monstrous success, and who, for that very reason, it is +safe to say, think Shakespeare a bore on the stage and off it, a goodly +number would eagerly buy and read a book that told them when he went to +bed and what he had for breakfast, and would pay a ready five-cent +piece for a picture of him as he appeared in the attorney's office, to +preserve as a companion to the equally veritable "portrait of the Hon. +Daniel E. Sickles, as he appeared in prison." Nay, it must be confessed, +that there are some Shakespearean enthusiasts ever dabbling and gabbling +about what they call Shakespeariana, who would give more for the pen +with which he engrossed a deed or wrote "Hamlet," than for the ability +to understand, better than they do or ever can, what he meant by that +mysterious tragedy. Biography has its charms and its uses; but it is not +by what we know of their bare external facts that + + "Lives of great men all remind us + We can make our lives sublime, + And departing leave behind us + Footprints on the sands of time." + +What the readers of Shakespeare, who are worthy to know aught of him, +long to know, would have been the same, had he been bred lawyer, +physician, soldier, or sailor. It is of his real life, not of its mere +accidents, that they crave a knowledge; and of that life, it is to be +feared, they will remain forever ignorant, unless he himself has written +it. + + + + +THE MINISTER'S WOOING. + +[Continued.] + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +We suppose the heroine of a novel, among other privileges and +immunities, has a prescriptive right to her own private boudoir, where, +as a French writer has it, "she appears like a lovely picture in its +frame." + +Well, our little Mary is not without this luxury, and to its sacred +precincts we will give you this morning a ticket of admission. Know, +then, that the garret of this gambrel-roofed cottage had a projecting +window on the seaward side, which opened into an immensely large old +apple-tree, and was a look-out as leafy and secluded as a robin's nest. + +Garrets are delicious places in any case, for people of thoughtful, +imaginative temperament. Who has not loved a garret in the twilight days +of childhood, with its endless stores of quaint, cast-off, suggestive +antiquity,--old worm-eaten chests,--rickety chairs,--boxes and casks +full of odd comminglings, out of which, with tiny, childish hands, +we fished wonderful hoards of fairy treasure? What peep-holes, and +hiding-places, and undiscoverable retreats we made to ourselves,--where +we sat rejoicing in our security, and bidding defiance to the vague, +distant cry which summoned us to school, or to some unsavory every-day +task! How deliciously the rain came pattering on the roof over our head, +or the red twilight streamed in at the window, while we sat snugly +ensconced over the delirious pages of some romance, which careful aunts +had packed away at the bottom of all things, to be sure we should never +read it! If you have anything, beloved friends, which you wish your +Charley or your Susie to be sure and read, pack it mysteriously away at +the bottom of a trunk of stimulating rubbish, in the darkest corner of +your garret;--in that case, if the book be at all readable, one that by +any possible chance can make its way into a young mind, you may be sure +that it will not only be read, but remembered to the longest day they +have to live. + +Mrs. Katy Scudder's garret was not an exception to the general rule. +Those quaint little people who touch with so airy a grace all the lights +and shadows of great beams, bare rafters, and unplastered walls, had not +failed in their work there. Was there not there a grand easy-chair of +stamped-leather, minus two of its hinder legs, which had genealogical +associations through the Wilcoxes with the Vernons and through the +Vernons quite across the water with Old England? and was there not a +dusky picture, in an old tarnished frame, of a woman of whose tragic end +strange stories were whispered,--one of the sufferers in the time when +witches were unceremoniously helped out of the world, instead of being, +as now-a-days, helped to make their fortune in it by table-turning? + +Yes, there were all these things, and many more which we will not stay +to recount, but bring you to the boudoir which Mary has constructed for +herself around the dormer-window which looks into the whispering old +apple-tree. + +The inclosure was formed by blankets and bed-spreads, which, by reason +of their antiquity, had been pensioned off to an undisturbed old age in +the garret,--not _common_ blankets or bed-spreads, either,--bought, +as you buy yours, out of a shop,--spun or woven by machinery, without +individuality or history. Every one of these curtains had its story. The +one on the right, nearest the window, and already falling into holes, +is a Chinese linen, and even now displays unfaded, quaint patterns of +sleepy-looking Chinamen, in conical hats, standing on the leaves of most +singular herbage, and with hands forever raised in act to strike bells, +which never are struck and never will be till the end of time. These, +Mrs. Katy Scudder had often instructed Mary, were brought from the +Indies by her great-great-grandfather, and were her grandmother's +wedding-curtains,--the grandmother who had blue eyes like hers and was +just about her height. + +The next spread was spun and woven by Mrs. Katy's beloved Aunt +Eunice,--a mythical personage, of whom Mary gathered vague accounts that +she was disappointed in love, and that this very article was part of a +bridal outfit, prepared in vain, against the return of one from sea, who +never came back,--and she heard of how she sat wearily and patiently at +her work, this poor Aunt Eunice, month after month, starting every time +she heard the gate shut, every time she heard the tramp of a horse's +hoof, every time she heard the news of a sail in sight,--her color, +meanwhile, fading and fading as life and hope bled away at an inward +wound,--till at last she found comfort and reunion beyond the veil. + +Next to this was a bed-quilt pieced in tiny blocks, none of them bigger +than a sixpence, containing, as Mrs. Katy said, pieces of the gowns of +all her grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and female relatives for years +back,--and mated to it was one of the blankets which had served Mrs. +Scudder's uncle in his bivouac at Valley Forge, when the American +soldiers went on the snows with bleeding feet, and had scarce anything +for daily bread except a morning message of patriotism and hope from +George Washington. + +Such were the memories woven into the tapestry of our little boudoir. +Within, fronting the window, stands the large spinning-wheel, one end +adorned with a snowy pile of fleecy rolls,--and beside it, a reel and a +basket of skeins of yarn,--and open, with its face down on the beam of +the wheel, lay always a book, with which the intervals of work were +beguiled. + +The dusky picture of which we have spoken hung against the rough wall in +one place, and in another appeared an old engraved head of one of the +Madonnas of Leonardo da Vinci, a picture which to Mary had a mysterious +interest, from the fact of its having been cast on shore after a furious +storm, and found like a waif lying in the sea-weed; and Mrs. Marvyn, who +had deciphered the signature, had not ceased exploring till she found +for her, in an Encyclopaedia, a life of that wonderful man, whose +greatness enlarges our ideas of what is possible to humanity,--and +Mary, pondering thereon, felt the Sea-worn picture as a constant vague +inspiration. + +Here our heroine spun for hours and hours,--with intervals, when, +crouched on a low seat in the window, she pored over her book, and then, +returning again to her work, thought of what she had read to the lulling +burr of the sounding wheel. + +By chance a robin had built its nest so that from her retreat she could +see the five little blue eggs, whenever the patient brooding mother +left them for a moment uncovered. And sometimes, as she sat in dreamy +reverie, resting her small, round arms on the window-sill, she fancied +that the little feathered watcher gave her familiar nods and winks of a +confidential nature,--cocking the small head first to one side and then +to the other, to get a better view of her gentle human neighbor. + +I dare say it seems to you, reader, that we have travelled, in our +story, over a long space of time, because we have talked so much and +introduced so many personages and reflections; but, in fact, it is only +Wednesday week since James sailed, and the eggs which were brooded when +he went are still unhatched in the nest, and the apple-tree has changed +only in having now a majority of white blossoms over the pink buds. + +This one week has been a critical one to our Mary;--in it, she has made +the great discovery, that she loves; and she has made her first step +into the gay world; and now she comes back to her retirement to think +the whole over by herself. It seems a dream to her, that she who sits +there now reeling yarn in her stuff petticoat and white short-gown is +the same who took the arm of Colonel Burr amid the blaze of wax-lights +and the sweep of silks and rustle of plumes. She wonders dreamily as +she remembers the dark, lovely face of the foreign Madame, so brilliant +under its powdered hair and flashing gems,--the sweet, foreign accents +of the voice,--the tiny, jewelled fan, with its glancing pictures and +sparkling tassels, whence exhaled vague and floating perfumes; then she +hears again that manly voice, softened to tones so seductive, and sees +those fine eyes with the tears in them, and wonders within herself that +_he_ could have kissed her hand with such veneration, as if she had been +a throned queen. + +But here the sound of busy, pattering footsteps is heard on the old, +creaking staircase, and soon the bows of Miss Prissy's bonnet part the +folds of the boudoir drapery, and her merry, May-day face looks in. + +"Well, really, Mary, how do you do, to be sure? You wonder to see me, +don't you? but I thought I must just run in, a minute, on my way up to +Miss Marvyn's. I promised her at least a half-a-day, though I didn't see +how I was to spare it,--for I tell Miss Wilcox I just run and run till +it does seem as if my feet would drop off; but I thought I must just +step in to say, that I, for my part, _do admire_ the Doctor more than +ever, and I was telling your mother we mus'n't mind too much what people +say. I 'most made Miss Wilcox angry, standing up for him; but I put it +right to her, and says I, 'Miss Wilcox, you know folks _must_ speak +what's on their mind,--in particular, ministers must; and you know, Miss +Wilcox,' I says, 'that the Doctor _is_ a good man, and lives up to his +teaching, if anybody in this world does, and gives away every dollar he +can lay hands on to those poor negroes, and works over 'em and teaches +'em as if they were his brothers'; and says I, 'Miss Wilcox, you know I +don't spare myself, night nor day, trying to please you and do your work +to give satisfaction; but when it comes to my conscience,' says I, 'Miss +Wilcox, you know I always must speak out, and if it was the last word I +had to say on my dying bed, I'd say that I think the Doctor is right.' +Why! what things he told about the slave-ships, and packing those poor +creatures so that they couldn't move nor breathe!--why, I declare, every +time I turned over and stretched in bed, I thought of it;--and says I, +'Miss Wilcox, I do believe that the judgments of God will come down on +us, if something a'n't done, and I shall always stand by the Doctor,' +says I;--and, if you'll believe me, just then I turned round and saw +the General; and the General, he just haw-hawed right out, and says he, +'Good for you, Miss Prissy! that's real grit,' says he, 'and I like you +better for it.'--Laws," added Miss Prissy, reflectively, "I sha'n't lose +by it, for Miss Wilcox knows she never can get anybody to do the work +for her that I will." + +"Do you think," said Mary, "that there are a great many made angry?" + +"Why, bless your heart, child, haven't you heard?--Why, there never was +such a talk in all Newport. Why, you know Mr. Simeon Brown is gone clear +off to Dr. Stiles; and Miss Brown, I was making up her plum-colored +satin o' Monday, and you ought to 'a' heard her talk. But, I tell you, I +fought her. She used to talk to me," said Miss Prissy, sinking her voice +to a mysterious whisper, "'cause I never could come to it to say that I +was willin' to be lost, if it was for the glory of God; and she always +told me folks could just bring their minds right up to anything they +knew they must; and I just got the tables turned on her, for they talked +and abused the Doctor till they fairly wore me out, and says I, 'Well, +Miss Brown, I'll give in, that you and Mr. Brown _do_ act up to +your principles; you certainly _act_ as if you were willing to be +damned';--and so do all those folks who will live on the blood and +groans of the poor Africans, as the Doctor said; and I should think, by +the way Newport people are making their money, that they were all pretty +willing to go that way,--though, whether it's for the glory of God, or +not, I'm doubting.--But you see, Mary," said Miss Prissy, sinking her +voice again to a solemn whisper, "I never was _clear_ on that point; it +always did seem to me a dreadful high place to come to, and it didn't +seem to be given to me; but I thought, perhaps, if it _was_ necessary, +it would be given, you know,--for the Lord always has been so good to +me that I've faith to believe that, and so I just say, 'The Lord is my +shepherd, I shall not want'";--and Miss Prissy hastily whisked a little +drop out of her blue eye with her handkerchief. + +At this moment, Mrs. Scudder came into the boudoir with a face +expressive of some anxiety. + +"I suppose Miss Prissy has told you," she said, "the news about the +Browns. That'll make a great falling off in the Doctor's salary; and I +feel for him, because I know it will come hard to him not to be able to +help and do, especially for these poor negroes, just when he will. But +then we must put everything on the most economical scale we can, and +just try, all of us, to make it up to him. I was speaking to Cousin +Zebedee about it, when he was down here, on Monday, and he is all +clear;--he has made out free papers for Candace and Cato and Dinah, and +they couldn't, one of 'em, be hired to leave him; and he says, from what +he's seen already, he has no doubt but they'll do enough more to pay for +their wages." + +"Well," said Miss Prissy, "I haven't got anybody to care for but myself. +I was telling sister Elizabeth, one time, (she's married and got four +children,) that I could take a storm a good deal easier than she could, +'cause I hadn't near so many sails to pull down; and now, you just look +to me for the Doctor's shirts, 'cause, after this, they shall all come +in ready to put on, if I have to sit up till morning. And I hope, Miss +Scudder, you can trust me to make them; for if I do say it myself, +I a'n't afraid to do fine stitching 'longside of anybody,--and +hemstitching ruffles, too; and I haven't shown you yet that French +stitch I learned of the nuns;--but you just set your heart at rest about +the Doctor's shirts. I always thought," continued Miss Prissy, laughing, +"that I should have made a famous hand about getting up that tabernacle +in the wilderness, with the blue and the purple and fine-twined linen; +it's one of my favorite passages, that is;--different things, you know, +are useful to different people." + +"Well," said Mrs. Scudder, "I see that it's our call to be a remnant +small and despised, but I hope we sha'n't shrink from it. I thought, +when I saw all those fashionable people go out Sunday, tossing their +heads and looking so scornful, that I hoped grace would be given me to +be faithful." + +"And what does the Doctor say?" said Miss Prissy. + +"He hasn't said a word; his mind seems to be very much lifted above all +these things." + +"La, yes," said Miss Prissy, "that's one comfort; he'll never know where +his shirts come from; and besides that, Miss Scudder," she said, sinking +her voice to a whisper, "as you know, I haven't any children to provide +for,--though I was telling Elizabeth t'other day, when I was making up +frocks for her children, that I believed old maids, first and last, did +more providing for children than married women; but still I do contrive +to slip away a pound-note, now and then, in my little old silver teapot +that was given to me when they settled old Mrs. Simpson's property, (I +nursed her all through her last sickness, and laid her out with my own +hands,) and, as I was saying, if ever the Doctor should want money, you +just let me know." + +"Thank you, Miss Prissy," said Mrs. Scudder; "we all know where your +heart is." + +"And now," added Miss Prissy, "what do you suppose they say? Why, they +say Colonel Burr is struck dead in love with our Mary; and you know his +wife's dead, and he's a widower; and they do say that he'll get to be +the next President. Sakes alive! Well, Mary must be careful, if she +don't want to be carried off; for they do say that there can't any woman +resist him, that sees enough of him. Why, there's that poor French +woman, Madame----what do you call her, that's staying with the +Vernons?--they say she's over head and ears in love with him." + +"But she's a married woman," said Mary; "it can't be possible!" + +Mrs. Scudder looked reprovingly at Miss Prissy, and for a few moments +there was great shaking of heads and a whispered conference between +the two ladies, ending in Miss Prissy's going off, saying, as she went +down-stairs,-- + +"Well, if women will do so, I, for my part, can't blame the men." + +In a few moments Miss Prissy rushed back as much discomposed as a +clucking hen who has seen a hawk. + +"Well, Miss Scudder, what do you think? Here's Colonel Burr come to call +on the ladies!" + +Mrs. Scudder's first movement, in common with all middle-aged +gentlewomen, was to put her hand to her head and reflect that she had +not on her best cap; and Mary looked down at her dimpled hands, which +were blue from the contact with mixed yarn she had just been spinning. + +"Now I'll tell you what," said Miss Prissy,--"wasn't it lucky you had me +here? for I first saw him coming in at the gate, and I whipped in quick +as a wink and opened the best-room window-shutters, and then I was back +at the door, and he bowed to me as if I'd been a queen, and says he, +'Miss Prissy, how fresh you're looking this morning!' You see, I was in +working at the Vernons', but I never thought as he'd noticed me. And +then he inquired in the handsomest way for the ladies and the Doctor, +and so I took him into the parlor and settled him down, and then I ran +into the study, and you may depend upon it I flew round lively for a few +minutes. I got the Doctor's study-gown off, and got his best coat on, +and put on his wig for him, and started him up kinder lively,--you know +it takes me to get him down into this world,--and so there he's +in talking with him; and so you can just slip down and dress +yourselves,--easy as not." + +Meanwhile Colonel Burr was entertaining the simple-minded Doctor with +all the grace of a young neophyte come to sit at the feet of superior +truth. There are some people who receive from Nature as a gift a sort of +graceful facility of sympathy, by which they incline to take on, for +the time being, the sentiments and opinions of those with whom they +converse, as the chameleon was fabled to change its hue with every +surrounding. Such are often supposed to be wilfully acting a part, as +exerting themselves to flatter and deceive, when in fact they are only +framed so sensitive to the sphere of mental emanation which surrounds +others that it would require an exertion not in some measure to +harmonize with it. In approaching others in conversation, they are like +a musician who joins a performer on an instrument,--it is impossible for +them to strike a discord; their very nature urges them to bring into +play faculties according in vibration with those which another is +exerting. It was as natural as possible for Burr to commence talking +with the Doctor on scenes and incidents in the family of President +Edwards, and his old tutor, Dr. Bellamy,--and thence to glide on to +the points of difference and agreement in theology, with a suavity and +deference which acted on the good man like a June sun on a budding +elm-tree. The Doctor was soon wide awake, talking with fervent animation +on the topic of disinterested benevolence,--Burr the mean while studying +him with the quiet interest of an observer of natural history, who sees +a new species developing before him. At all the best possible points he +interposed suggestive questions, and set up objections in the quietest +manner for the Doctor to knock down, smiling ever the while as a man may +who truly and genuinely does not care a sou for truth on any subject not +practically connected with his own schemes in life. He therefore gently +guided the Doctor to sail down the stream of his own thoughts till his +bark glided out into the smooth waters of the Millennium, on which, with +great simplicity, he gave his views at length. + +It was just in the midst of this that Mary and her mother entered. +Burr interrupted the conversation to pay them the compliments of the +morning,--to inquire for their health, and hope they suffered no +inconvenience from their night-ride from the party; then, seeing the +Doctor still looking eager to go on, he contrived with gentle dexterity +to tie again the broken thread of conversation. + +"Our excellent friend," he said, "was explaining to me his views of +a future Millennium. I assure you, ladies, that we sometimes find +ourselves in company which enables us to believe in the perfectibility +of the human species. We see family retreats, so unaffected, so charming +in their simplicity, where industry and piety so go hand in hand! One +has only to suppose all families such, to imagine a Millennium." + +There was no disclaiming this compliment, because so delicately worded, +that, while perfectly clear to the internal sense, it was, in a manner, +veiled and unspoken. + +Meanwhile, the Doctor, who sat ready to begin where he left off, turned +to his complaisant listener and resumed an exposition of the Apocalypse. + +"To my mind, it is certain," he said, "as it is now three hundred years +since the fifth vial was poured out, there is good reason to suppose +that the sixth vial began to be poured out at the beginning of the last +century, and has been running for a hundred years or more, so that it is +run nearly out; the seventh and last vial will begin to run early in the +next century." + +"You anticipate, then, no rest for the world for some time to come?" +said Burr. + +"Certainly not," said the Doctor, definitively; "there will be no rest +from overturnings till He whose right it is shall come. + +"The passage," he added, "concerning the drying up of the river +Euphrates, under the sixth vial, has a distinct reference, I think, to +the account in ancient writers of the taking of Babylon, and prefigures, +in like manner, that the resources of that modern Babylon, the Popish +power, shall continue to be drained off, as they have now been drying up +for a century or more, till, at last, there will come a sudden and final +downfall of that power. And after that will come the first triumphs of +truth and righteousness,--the marriage-supper of the Lamb." + +"These investigations must undoubtedly possess a deep interest for you, +Sir," said Burr; "the hope of a future as well as the tradition of +a past age of gold seems to have been one of the most cherished +conceptions of the human breast." + +"In those times," continued the Doctor, "the whole earth will be of one +language." + +"Which language, Sir, do you suppose will be considered worthy of such +preeminence?" inquired his listener. + +"That will probably be decided by an amicable conference of all +nations," said the Doctor; "and the one universally considered most +valuable will be adopted; and the literature of all other nations being +translated into it, they will gradually drop all other tongues. Brother +Stiles thinks it will be the Hebrew. I am not clear on that point. The +Hebrew seems to me too inflexible, and not sufficiently copious. I do +not think," he added, after some consideration, "that it will be the +Hebrew tongue." + +"I am most happy to hear it, Sir," said Burr, gravely; "I never felt +much attracted to that language. But, ladies," he added, starting up +with animation, "I must improve this fine weather to ask you to show +me the view of the sea from this little hill beyond your house, it is +evidently so fine;--I trust I am not intruding too far on your morning?" + +"By no means, Sir," said Mrs. Scudder, rising; "we will go with you in a +moment." + +And soon Colonel Burr, with one on either arm, was to be seen on the top +of the hill beyond the house,--the very one from which Mary, the week +before, had seen the retreating sail we all wot of. Hence, though +her companion contrived, with the adroitness of a practised man of +gallantry, to direct his words and looks as constantly to her as if +they had been in a _tête-a-tête_, and although nothing could be more +graceful, more delicately flattering, more engaging, still the little +heart kept equal poise; for where a true love has once bolted the door, +a false one serenades in vain under the window. + +Some fine, instinctive perceptions of the real character of the man +beside her seemed to have dawned on Mary's mind in the conversation of +the morning;--she had felt the covert and subtile irony that lurked +beneath his polished smile, felt the utter want of faith or sympathy in +what she and her revered friend deemed holiest, and therefore there was +a calm dignity in her manner of receiving his attentions which rather +piqued and stimulated his curiosity. He had been wont to boast that he +could subdue any woman, if he could only see enough of her; in the first +interview in the garden, he had made her color come and go and brought +tears to her eyes in a manner that interested his fancy, and he could +not resist the impulse to experiment again. It was a new sensation +to him, to find himself quietly studied and calmly measured by those +thoughtful blue eyes; he felt, with his fine, instinctive tact, that +the soul within was infolded in some crystalline sphere of protection, +transparent, but adamantine, so that he could not touch it. What was +that secret poise, that calm, immutable centre on which she rested, that +made her, in her rustic simplicity, so unapproachable and so strong? + +Burr remembered once finding in his grandfather's study, among a mass of +old letters, one in which that great man, in early youth, described his +future wife, then known to him only by distant report. With his keen +natural sense of everything fine and poetic, he had been struck with +this passage, as so beautifully expressing an ideal womanhood, that he +had in his earlier days copied it in his private _recueil_. + +"They say," it ran, "that there is a young lady who is beloved of that +Great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain +seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes +to her and fills her mind with such exceeding sweet delight, that she +hardly cares for anything except to meditate on him; that she expects, +after a while, to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the +world and caught up into heaven, being assured that he loves her too +well to let her remain at a distance from him always. Therefore, if you +present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she +disregards it. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular +purity in her affections; and you could not persuade her to do anything +wrong or sinful, if you should give her all the world. She is of a +wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind, +especially after this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She +will sometimes go from place to place singing sweetly, and seems to be +always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to +be alone, walking in fields and groves, and seems to have some invisible +one always conversing with her." + +A shadowy recollection of this description crossed his mind more than +once, as he looked into those calm and candid eyes. Was there, then, a +truth in that inner union of chosen souls with God, of which his mother +and her mother before her had borne meek witness,--their souls shining +out as sacred lamps through the alabaster walls of a temple? + +But then, again, had he not logically met and demonstrated, to his own +satisfaction, the nullity of the religious dogmas on which New England +faith was based? There could be no such inner life, he said to +himself,--he had demonstrated it as an absurdity. What was it, +then,--this charm, so subtile and so strong, by which this fair child, +his inferior in age, cultivation, and knowledge of the world, held him +in a certain awe, and made him feel her spirit so unapproachable? His +curiosity was piqued. He felt stimulated to employ all his powers of +pleasing. He was determined, that, sooner or later, she should feel his +power. + +With Mrs. Scudder his success was immediate, she was completely won over +by the deferential manner with which he constantly referred himself +to her matronly judgments, and, on returning to the house, she warmly +pressed him to stay to dinner. + +Burr accepted the invitation with a frank and almost boyish _abandon_, +declaring that he had not seen anything, for years, that so reminded him +of old times. He praised everything at table,--the smoking brown-bread, +the baked beans steaming from the oven, where they had been quietly +simmering during the morning walk, and the Indian pudding, with its +gelatinous softness, matured by long and patient brooding in the +motherly old oven. He declared that there was no style of living to be +compared with the simple, dignified order of a true New England home, +where servants were excluded, and everything came direct from the +polished and cultured hand of a lady. It realized the dreams of Arcadian +romance. A man, he declared, must be unworthy the name, who did not rise +to lofty sentiments and heroic deeds, when even his animal wants were +provided for by the ministrations of the most delicate and exalted +portion of the creation. + +After dinner he would be taken into all the family interests. Gentle and +pliable as oil, he seemed to penetrate every joint of the _ménage_ by a +subtile and seductive sympathy. He was interested in the spinning, in +the weaving,--and in fact, nobody knows how it was done, but, before the +afternoon shadows had turned, he was sitting in the cracked arm-chair of +Mary's garret-boudoir, gravely giving judgment on several specimens of +her spinning, which Mrs. Scudder had presented to his notice. + +With that ease with which he could at will glide into the character +of the superior and elder brother, he had, without seeming to ask +questions, drawn from Mary an account of her reading, her studies, her +acquaintances. + +"You read French, I presume?" he said to her, with easy negligence. + +Mary colored deeply, and then, as one who recollects one's self, +answered, gravely,-- + +"No, Mr. Burr, I know no language but my own." + +"But you should learn French, my child," said Burr, with that gentle +dictatorship which he could at times so gracefully assume. + +"I should be delighted to learn," said Mary, "but have no opportunity." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Scudder,--"Mary has always had a taste for study, and +would be glad to improve in any way." + +"Pardon me, Madam, if I take the liberty of making a suggestion. There +is a most excellent man, the Abbé Léfon, now in Newport, driven here +by the political disturbances in France; he is anxious to obtain a few +scholars, and I am interested that he should succeed, for he is a most +worthy man." + +"Is he a Roman Catholic?" + +"He is, Madam; but there could be no manner of danger with a person so +admirably instructed as your daughter. If you please to see him, Madam, +I will call with him some time." + +"Mrs. Marvyn will, perhaps, join me," said Mary. "She has been studying +French by herself for some time, in order to read a treatise on +astronomy, which she found in that language. I will go over to-morrow +and see her about it." + +Before Colonel Burr departed, the Doctor requested him to step a moment +with him into his study. Burr, who had had frequent occasions during his +life to experience the sort of paternal freedom which the clergy of his +country took with him in right of his clerical descent, began to summon +together his faculties of address for the avoidance of a kind of +conversation which he was not disposed to meet. He was agreeably +disappointed, however, when, taking a paper from the table, and +presenting it to him, the Doctor said,-- + +"I feel myself, my dear Sir, under a burden of obligation for benefits +received from your family, so that I never see a member of it without +casting about in my own mind how I may in some measure express +my good-will towards him. You are aware that the papers of your +distinguished grandfather have fallen into my hands, and from them I +have taken the liberty to make a copy of those maxims by which he guided +a life which was a blessing to his country and to the world. May I +ask the favor that you will read them with attention? and if you find +anything contrary to right reason or sober sense, I shall be happy to +hear of it on a future occasion." + +"Thank you, Doctor," said Burr, bowing. "I shall always be sensible of +the kindness of the motive which has led you to take this trouble on my +account. Believe me, Sir, I am truly obliged to you for it." + +And thus the interview terminated. + +That night, the Doctor, before retiring, offered fervent prayers for the +grandson of his revered master and friend, praying that his father's and +mother's God might bless him and make him a living stone in the Eternal +Temple. + +Meanwhile, the object of these prayers was sitting by a table in +dressing-gown and slippers, thinking over the events of the day. The +paper which Dr. H. had handed him contained the celebrated "Resolutions" +by which his ancestor led a life nobler than any mere dogmas +can possibly be. By its side lay a perfumed note from Madame de +Frontignac,--one of those womanly notes, so beautiful, so sacred in +themselves, but so mournful to a right-minded person who sees whither +they are tending. Burr opened and perused it,--laid it by,--opened the +document that the Doctor had given, and thoughtfully read the first of +the "Resolutions":-- + +"Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, +and my own good profit and pleasure _in the whole of my duration_, +without any consideration of time, whether now or never so many myriad +ages hence. + +"Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good +and advantage of mankind in general. + +"Resolved, To do this, whatsoever difficulties I meet with, and how many +and how great soever." + +Burr read the whole paper through attentively once or twice, and paused +thoughtfully over many parts of it. He sat for some time after, lost in +reflection; the paper dropped from his hand, and then followed one of +those long, deep seasons of fixed reverie, when the soul thinks by +pictures and goes over endless distances in moments. In him, originally, +every moral fatuity and sensibility was as keenly strung as in any +member of that remarkable family from which he was descended, and which +has, whether in good or ill, borne no common stamp. Two possible lives +flashed before his mind at that moment, rapidly as when a train sweeps +by with flashing lamps in the night. The life of worldly expediency, the +life of eternal rectitude,--the life of seventy years, and that life +eternal in which the event of death is no disturbance. Suddenly he +roused himself, picked up the paper, filed and dated it carefully, and +laid it by; and in that moment was renewed again that governing purpose +which sealed him, with all his beautiful capabilities, as the slave of +the fleeting and the temporary, which sent him at last, a shipwrecked +man, to a nameless, dishonored grave. + +He took his pen and gave to a friend his own views of the events of the +day. + +"Mr. DEAR,----We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb +_s'ennuyer_, which I, for one, have put through all the moods and +tenses. _Pour passer le temps_, however, I have _la belle Française_ and +my sweet little Puritan. I visited there this morning. She lives with +her mother, a little walk out toward the seaside, in a cottage quite +prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees, and the great +hierarch of modern theology, Dr. H., keeps guard over them. No chance +here for any indiscretions, you see. + +"By-the-by, the good Doctor astonished our _monde_ here on Sunday last, +by treating us to a solemn onslaught on slavery and the slave-trade. He +had all the chief captains and counsellors to hear him, and smote them +hip and thigh, and pursued them even unto Shur. + +"He is one of those great, honest fellows, without the smallest notion +of the world we live in, who think, in dealing with men, that you must +go to work and prove the right or the wrong of a matter; just as if +anybody cared for that! Supposing he is right,--which appears very +probable to me,--what is he going to do about it? No moral argument, +since the world began, ever prevailed over twenty-five per cent. profit. + +"However, he is the spiritual director of _la belle Puritaine_, and was +a resident in my grandfather's family, so I did the agreeable with +him as well as such an uncircumcised Ishmaelite could. I discoursed +theology,--sat with the most docile air possible while he explained to +me all the ins and outs in his system of the universe, past, present, +and future,--heard him dilate calmly on the Millennium, and expound +prophetic symbols, marching out before me his whole apocalyptic +menagerie of beasts and dragons with heads and horns innumerable, to all +which I gave edifying attention, taking occasion now and then to turn a +compliment in favor of the ladies,--never lost, you know. + +"Really, he is a worthy old soul, and actually believes all these things +with his whole heart, attaching unheard-of importance to the most +abstract ideas, and embarking his whole being in his ideal view of +a grand Millennial _finale_ to the human race. I look at him and at +myself, and ask, Can human beings be made so unlike? + +"My little Mary to-day was in a mood of 'sweet austere composure' quite +becoming to her style of beauty; her _naive nonchalance_ at times +is rather stimulating. What a contrast between her and _la belle +Française!_--all the difference that there is between a diamond and +a flower. I find the little thing has a cultivated mind, enriched by +reading, and more by a still, quaint habit of thinking, which is new and +charming. But a truce to this. + +"I have seen our friends at last. We have had three or four meetings, +and are waiting to hear from Philadelphia,--matters are getting in +train. If Messrs. T. and S. dare to repeat what they said again, let me +know; they will find in me a man not to be trifled with. I shall be with +you in a week or ten days, at farthest. Meanwhile stand to your guns. + +"Ever yours, + +"BURR." + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +The next morning, before the early dews had yet dried off the grass, +Mary started to go and see her friend Mrs. Marvyn. It was one of those +charming, invigorating days, familiar to those of Newport experience, +when the sea lies shimmering and glittering in deep blue and gold, +and the sky above is firm and cloudless, and every breeze that comes +landward seems to bear health and energy upon its wings. + +As Mary approached the house, she heard loud sounds of discussion from +the open kitchen-door, and, looking in, saw a rather original scene +acting. + +Candace, armed with a long oven-shovel, stood before the open door of +the oven, whence she had just been removing an army of good things which +appeared ranged around on the dresser. Cato, in the undress of a red +flannel shirt and tow-cloth trousers, was cuddled, in a consoled and +protected attitude, in the corner of the wooden settle, with a mug of +flip in his hand, which Candace had prepared, and, calling him in from +his work, authoritatively ordered him to drink, on the showing that he +had kept her awake the night before with his cough, and she was sure he +was going to be sick. Of course, worse things may happen to a man than +to be vigorously taken care of by his wife, and Cato had a salutary +conviction of this fact, so that he resigned himself to his comfortable +corner and his flip with edifying serenity. + +Opposite to Candace stood a well-built, corpulent negro man, dressed +with considerable care, and with the air of a person on excellent +terms with himself. This was no other than Digo, the house-servant and +factotum of Dr. Stiles, who considered himself as the guardian of his +master's estate, his title, his honor, his literary character, his +professional position, and his religious creed. + +Digo was ready to assert before all the world, that one and all of these +were under his special protection, and that whoever had anything to say +to the contrary of any of these must expect to take issue with him. Digo +not only swallowed all his master's opinions whole, but seemed to have +the stomach of an ostrich in their digestion. He believed everything, +no matter what, the moment he understood that the Doctor held it. He +believed that Hebrew was the language of heaven,--that the ten tribes of +the Jews had reappeared in the North American Indians,--that there was +no such thing as disinterested benevolence, and that the doings of the +unregenerate had some value,--that slavery was a divine ordinance, and +that Dr. H. was a radical, who did more harm than good,--and, finally, +that there never was so great a man as Dr. Stiles; and as Dr. Stiles +belonged to him in the capacity of master, why, he, Digo, owned the +greatest man in America. Of course, as Candace held precisely similar +opinions in regard to Dr. H., the two never could meet without a +discharge of the opposite electricities. Digo had, it is true, come +ostensibly on a mere worldly errand from his mistress to Mrs. Marvyn, +who had promised to send her some turkeys' eggs, but he had inly +resolved with himself that he would give Candace his opinion,--that is, +what Dr. Stiles had said at dinner the day before about Doctor H.'s +Sunday's discourse. Dr. Stiles had not heard it, but Digo had. He had +felt it due to the responsibilities of his position to be present on so +very important an occasion. + +Therefore, after receiving his eggs, he opened hostilities by remarking, +in a general way, that he had attended the Doctor's preaching on Sunday, +and that there was quite a crowded house. Candace immediately began +mentally to bristle her feathers like a hen who sees a hawk in the +distance, and responded with decision:-- + +"Den you _heard_ sometin', for once in your life!" + +"I must say," said Digo, with suavity, "dat I can't give my 'proval to +such sentiments." + +"More shame for you," said Candace, grimly. "_You_ a man, and not stan' +by your color, and flunk under to mean white ways! Ef you was _half_ a +man, your heart would 'a' bounded like a cannon-ball at dat ar' sermon." + +"Dr. Stiles and me we talked it over after church," said Digo,--"and de +Doctor was of my 'pinion, dat Providence didn't intend"---- + +"Oh, you go long wid your Providence! Guess, ef white folks had let us +alone, Providence wouldn't trouble us." + +"Well," said Digo, "Dr. Stiles is clear dat dis yer's a-fulfillin' de +prophecies and bringin' in de fulness of de Gentiles." + +"Fulness of de fiddlesticks!" said Candace, irreverently. "Now what a +way dat ar' is of talkin'! Go look at one o' dem ships we come +over in,--sweatin' and groanin',--in de dark and dirt,--cryin' and +dyin',--howlin' for breath till de sweat run off us,--livin' and dead +chained together,--prayin' like de rich man in hell for a drop o' water +to cool our tongues! Call dat ar' a-bringin' de fulness of de Gentiles, +do ye? Ugh!" + +And Candace ended with a guttural howl, and stood frowning and gloomy +over the top of her long kitchen-shovel, like a black Bellona leaning on +her spear of battle. + +Digo recoiled a little, but stood too well in his own esteem to give up; +so he shifted his attack. + +"Well, for my part, I must say I never was 'clined to your Doctor's +'pinions. Why, now, Dr. Stiles says, notin' couldn't be more absurd dan +what he says 'bout disinterested benevolence. _My_ Doctor says, dere +a'n't no such ting!" + +"I should tink it's likely!" said Candace, drawing herself up with +superb disdain. "_Our_ Doctor knows dere _is_,--and why? 'cause he's got +it IN HERE," said she, giving her ample chest a knock which resounded +like the boom from a barrel. + +"Candace," said Cato, gently, "you's gittin' too hot." + +"Cato, you shut up!" said Candace, turning sharp round. "What did I make +you dat ar' flip for, 'cept you was so hoarse you oughtn' for to say a +word? Pootty business, you go to agitatin' _your_self wid dese yer! Ef +you wear out your poor old throat talkin', you may get de 'sumption; and +den what'd become o' me?" + +Cato, thus lovingly pitched _hors-de-combat_, sipped the sweetened cup +in quietness of soul, while Candace returned to the charge. + +"Now, I tell ye what," she said to Digo,--"jest 'cause you wear your +master's old coats and hats, you tink you must go in for all dese yer +old, mean, white 'pinions. A'n't ye 'shamed--you, a black man--to have +no more pluck and make cause wid de Egyptians? Now, 'ta'n't what my +Doctor gives me,--he never giv' me the snip of a finger-nail,--but it's +what he does for _mine;_ and when de poor critturs lands dar, tumbled +out like bales on de wharves, ha'n't dey seen his great cocked hat, like +a lighthouse, and his big eyes lookin' sort o' pitiful at 'em, as ef +he felt o' one blood wid 'em? Why, de very looks of de man is worth +everyting; and who ever thought o' doin' anyting for deir souls, or +cared ef dey had souls, till he begun it?" + +"Well, at any rate," said Digo, brightening up, "I don't believe his +doctrine about de doings of de unregenerate,--it's quite clear he's +wrong dar." + +"Who cares?" said Candace,--"generate or unregenerate, it's all one +to me. I believe a man dat _acts_ as he does. Him as stands up for de +poor,--him as pleads for de weak,--he's my man. I'll believe straight +through anyting he's a mind to put at me." + +At this juncture, Mary's fair face appearing at the door put a stop to +the discussion. + +"Bress _you_, Miss Mary! comin' here like a fresh June rose! it makes +a body's eyes dance in deir head! Come right in! I got Cato up from de +lot, 'cause he's rader poorly dis mornin'; his cough makes me a sight o' +concern; he's allers a-pullin' off his jacket de wrong time, or doin' +sometin' I tell him not to,--and it just keeps him hack, hack, hackin', +all de time." + +During this speech, Cato stood meekly bowing, feeling that he was +being apologized for in the best possible manner; for long years of +instruction had fixed the idea in his mind, that he was an ignorant +sinner, who had not the smallest notion how to conduct himself in this +world, and that, if it were not for his wife's distinguishing grace, he +would long since have been in the shades of oblivion. + +"Missis is spinnin' up in de north chamber," said Candace; "but I'll run +up and fetch her down." + +Candace, who was about the size of a puncheon, was fond of this familiar +manner of representing her mode of ascending the stairs; but Mary, +suppressing a smile, said, "Oh, no, Candace! don't for the world disturb +her. I know just where she is." And before Candace could stop her, +Mary's light foot was on the top step of the staircase that led up from +the kitchen. + +The north room was a large chamber, overlooking a splendid reach of +sea-prospect. A moving panorama of blue water and gliding sails was +unrolled before its three windows, so that stepping into the room gave +one an instant and breezy sense of expansion. Mrs. Marvyn was standing +at the large wheel, spinning wool,--a reel and basket of spools on her +side. Her large brown eyes had an eager joy in them when Mary entered; +but they seemed to calm down again, and she received her only with that +placid, sincere air which was her habit. Everything about this woman +showed an ardent soul, repressed by timidity and by a certain dumbness +in the faculties of outward expression; but her eyes had, at times, +that earnest, appealing language which is so pathetic in the silence of +inferior animals.--One sometimes sees such eyes, and wonders whether +the story they intimate will ever be spoken in mortal language. + +Mary began eagerly detailing to her all that had interested her since +they last met:--the party,--her acquaintance with Burr,--his visit to +the cottage,--his inquiries into her education and reading,--and, +finally, the proposal, that they should study French together. + +"My dear," said Mrs. Marvyn, "let us begin at once;--such an opportunity +is not to be lost. I studied a little with James, when he was last at +home." + +"With James?" said Mary, with an air of timid surprise. + +"Yes,--the dear boy has become, what I never expected, quite a student. +He employs all his spare time now in reading and studying;--the second +mate is a Frenchman, and James has got so that he can both speak and +read. He is studying Spanish, too." + +Ever since the last conversation with her mother on the subject of +James, Mary had felt a sort of guilty constraint when any one spoke +of him;--instead of answering frankly, as she once did, when anything +brought his name up, she fell at once into a grave, embarrassed silence. + +Mrs. Marvyn was so constantly thinking of him, that it was difficult to +begin on any topic that did not in some manner or other knit itself into +the one ever present in her thoughts. None of the peculiar developments +of the female nature have a more exquisite vitality than the sentiment +of a frail, delicate, repressed, timid woman for a strong, manly, +generous son. There is her ideal expressed; there is the out-speaking +and out-acting of all she trembles to think, yet burns to say or do; +here is the hero that shall speak for her, the heart into which she has +poured hers, and that shall give to her tremulous and hidden aspirations +a strong and victorious expression. "I have gotten a _man_ from the +Lord," she says to herself; and each outburst of his manliness, his +vigor, his self-confidence, his superb vitality, fills her with a +strange, wondering pleasure, and she has a secret tenderness and pride +even in his wilfulness and waywardness. "What a creature he is!" she +says, when he flouts at sober argument and pitches all received opinions +hither and thither in the wild capriciousness of youthful paradox. She +looks grave and reproving; but he reads the concealed triumph in her +eyes,--he knows that in her heart she is full of admiration all +the time. First love of womanhood is something wonderful and +mysterious,--but in this second love it rises again, idealized and +refined; she loves the father and herself united and made one in this +young heir of life and hope. + +Such was Mrs. Marvyn's still intense, passionate love for her son. Not +a tone of his manly voice, not a flash of his dark eyes, not one of the +deep, shadowy dimples that came and went as he laughed, not a ring of +his glossy black hair, that was not studied, got by heart, and dwelt on +in the inner shrine of her thoughts; he was the romance of her life. His +strong, daring nature carried her with it beyond those narrow, daily +bounds where her soul was weary of treading; and just as his voyages had +given to the trite prose of her _ménage_ a poetry of strange, foreign +perfumes, of quaint objects of interest, speaking of many a far-off +shore, so his mind and life were a constant channel of outreach through +which her soul held converse with the active and stirring world. Mrs. +Marvyn had known all the story of her son's love, and to no other woman +would she have been willing to resign him; but her love to Mary was so +deep, that she thought of his union with her more as gaining a daughter +than as losing a son. She would not speak of the subject; she knew the +feelings of Mary's mother; and the name of James fell so often from her +lips, simply because it was so ever-present in her heart that it could +not be helped. + +Before Mary left, it was arranged that they should study together, and +that the lessons should be given alternately at each other's houses; and +with this understanding they parted. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + +THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. + + +Our landlady's daughter is a young lady of some pretensions to +gentility. She wears her bonnet well back on her head, which is known by +all to be a mark of high breeding. She wears her trains very long, as +the great ladies do in Europe. To be sure, their dresses are so made +only to sweep the tapestried doors of châteaux and palaces; as those +odious aristocrats of the other side do not go draggling through the mud +in silks and satins, but, forsooth, must ride in coaches when they are +in full dress. It is true, that, considering various habits of the +American people, also the little accidents which the best-kept sidewalks +are liable to, a lady who has swept a mile of them is not exactly in +such a condition that one would care to be her neighbor. But then there +is no need of being so hard on these slight weaknesses of the poor, dear +women as our little deformed gentleman was the other day. + +--There are no such women as the Boston women, Sir,--he said. Forty-two +degrees, north latitude, Rome, Sir, Boston, Sir! They had grand women in +old Rome, Sir,--and the women bore such men-children as never the world +saw before. And so it was here, Sir. I tell you, the revolution the +Boston boys started had to run in woman's milk before it ran in man's +blood, Sir! + +But confound the make-believe women we have turned loose in our +streets!--where do _they_ come from? Not out of Boston parlors, I +trust. Why, there isn't a beast or a bird that would drag its tail +through the dirt in the way these creatures do their dresses. Because +a queen or a duchess wears long robes on great occasions, a +maid-of-all-work or a factory-girl thinks she must make herself a +nuisance by trailing through the street, picking up and carrying about +with her--pah! that's what I call getting vulgarity into your bones and +marrow. Making believe be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. +Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If any man can +walk behind one of these women and see what she rakes up as she goes, +and not feel squeamish, he has got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one +of 'em into my room without serving 'em as David served Saul at the cave +in the wilderness,--cut off his skirts, Sir! cut off his skirts! + +I suggested, that I had seen some pretty stylish ladies who offended in +the way he condemned. + +Stylish _women_, I don't doubt,--said the little gentleman.--Don't tell +me that a true lady ever sacrifices the duty of keeping all about her +sweet and clean to the wish of making a vulgar show. I won't believe it +of a lady. There are some things that no fashion has any right to touch, +and cleanliness is one of those things. If a woman wishes to show that +her husband or her father has got money, which she wants and means to +spend, but doesn't know how, let her buy a yard or two of silk and pin +it to her dress when she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before +she goes into the house;--there may be poor women that will think it +worth disinfecting. It is an insult to a respectable laundress to carry +such things into a house for her to deal with. I don't like the Bloomers +any too well,--in fact, I never saw but one, and she--or he, or +it--had a mob of boys after her, or whatever you call the creature, as +if she had been a---- + +The little gentleman stopped short,--flushed somewhat, and looked round +with that involuntary, suspicious glance which the subjects of any +bodily misfortune are very apt to cast round them. His eye wandered +over the company, none of whom, excepting myself and one other, had, +probably, noticed the movement. They fell at last on Iris,--his next +neighbor, you remember. + +--We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at a person, if that person's +eyes have been fixed on us. Sometimes we are conscious of it _before_ +we turn so as to see the person. Strange secrets of curiosity, of +impertinence, of malice, of love, leak out in this way. There is no need +of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflection in the mirror, to tell us that she +is plotting evil for us behind our backs. We know it, as we know by the +ominous stillness of a child that some mischief or other is going on. A +young girl betrays, in a moment, that her eyes have been feeding on the +face where you find them fixed, and not merely brushing over it with +their pencils of blue or brown light. + +A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, you may also observe, +to that upon which we look. Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to +gather them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow. When we +look at a vast landscape, our chests expand as if we would enlarge to +fill it. When we examine a minute object, we naturally contract, +not only our foreheads, but all our dimensions. If I _see_ two +men wrestling, I wrestle too, with my limbs and features. When a +country-fellow comes upon the stage, you will see twenty faces in the +boxes putting on the bumpkin expression. There is no need of multiplying +instances to reach this generalization; every person and thing we look +upon puts its special mark upon us. If this is repeated often enough, we +get a permanent resemblance to it, or, at least, a fixed aspect which we +took from it. Husband and wife come to look alike at last, as has often +been noticed. It is a common saying of a jockey, that he is "all horse"; +and I have often fancied that milkmen get a stiff, upright carriage, +and an angular movement of the arm, that remind one of a pump and the +working of its handle. + +All this came in by accident, just because I happened to mention that +the little gentleman found that Iris had been looking at him with her +soul in her eyes, when his glance rested on her after wandering round +the company. What he thought, it is hard to say; but the shadow of +suspicion faded off from his face, and he looked calmly into the amber +eyes, resting his cheek upon the hand that wore the red jewel. + +--If it were a possible thing,--women are such strange creatures! Is +there any trick that love and their own fancies do not play them? Just +see how they marry! A woman that gets hold of a bit of manhood is like +one of those Chinese wood-carvers who work on any odd, fantastic root +that comes to hand, and, if it is only bulbous above and bifurcated +below, will always contrive to make a man--such as he is--out of it. I +should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a Gorilla, +that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. + +--A child,--yes, if you choose to call her so,--but such a child! Do you +know how Art brings all ages together? + +There is no age to the angels and ideal human forms among which the +artist lives, and he shares their youth until his hand trembles and his +eye grows dim. The youthful painter talks of white-bearded Leonardo as +if he were a brother, and the veteran forgets that Raphael died at an +age to which his own is of patriarchal antiquity. + +But why this lover of the beautiful should be so drawn to one whom +Nature has wronged so deeply seems hard to explain. Pity, I suppose. +They say that leads to love. + +--I thought this matter over until I became excited and curious, and +determined to set myself more seriously at work to find out what was +going on in these wild hearts and where their passionate lives were +drifting. I say wild hearts and passionate lives, because I think I can +look through this seeming calmness of youth and this apparent feebleness +of organization, and see that Nature, whom it is very hard to cheat, is +only waiting as the sapper waits in his mine, knowing that all is in +readiness and the slow-match burning quietly down to the powder. He will +leave it by-and-by, and then it will take care of itself. + +One need not wait to see the smoke coming through the roof of a house +and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is +on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, +but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. +There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting +shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings +one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on.--Oh,--oh,--oh! do +you know what has got hold of you? It is the great red dragon that is +born of the little red eggs we call _sparks_, with his hundred blowing +red manes, and his thousand lashing red tails, and his multitudinous red +eyes glaring at every crack and key-hole, and his countless red tongues +lapping the beams he is going to crunch presently, and his hot breath +warping the panels and cracking the glass and making old timber sweat +that had forgotten it was ever alive with sap. Run for your life! leap! +or you will be a cinder in five minutes, that nothing but a coroner +would take for the wreck of a human being! + +If any gentleman will have the kindness to stop this run-away +comparison, I shall be much obliged to him. All I intended to say was, +that we need not wait for hearts to break out in flames to know that +they are full of combustibles and that a spark has got among them. I +don't pretend to say or know what it is that brings these two persons +together;--and when I say together, I only mean that there is an +evident affinity of some kind or other which makes their commonest +intercourse strangely significant, so that each seems to understand a +look or a word of the other. When the young girl laid her hand on the +little gentleman's arm,--which so greatly shocked the Model, you may +remember,--I saw that she had learned the lion-tamer's secret. She +masters him, and yet I can see she has a kind of awe of him, as the man +who goes into the cage has of the monster that he makes a baby of. + +One of two things must happen. The first, is love, downright love, on +the part of this young girl, for the poor little misshapen man. You may +laugh, if you like. But women are apt to love the men who they think +have the largest capacity of loving;--and who can love like one that has +thirsted all his life long for the smile of youth and beauty, and seen +it fly his presence as the wave ebbed from the parched lips of him +whose fabled punishment is the perpetual type of human longing and +disappointment? What would become of _him_, if this fresh soul should +stoop upon him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops out of +the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in the marshes of Cagliari, +with a flutter of scarlet feathers and a kindling of strange fires +in the shadowy waters that hold her burning image in their trembling +depths? + +--Marry her, of course?--Why, no, not _of course_. I should think the +chance less, on the whole, that he would be willing to marry her than +she to marry him. + +There is one other thing that might happen. If the interest he awakes in +her gets to be a deep one, and yet has nothing of love in it, she will +glance off from him into some great passion or other. All excitements +run to love in women of a certain--let us not say age, but youth. An +electrical current passing through a coil of wire makes a magnet of a +bar of iron lying within it, but not touching it. So a woman is turned +into a love-magnet by a tingling current of life running round her. I +should like to see one of them balanced on a pivot properly adjusted, +and watch if she did not turn so as to point north and south,--as she +would, if the love-currents are like those of the earth our mother. + +Pray, do you happen to remember Wordsworth's "Boy of Windermere"? This +boy used to put his hands to his mouth, and shout aloud, mimicking the +hooting of the owls, who would answer him + + "with quivering peals, + And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud + Redoubled and redoubled." + +When they failed to answer him, and he hung listening intently for +their voices, he would sometimes catch the faint sound of far distant +waterfalls, or the whole scene around him would imprint itself with new +force upon his perceptions.--Read the sonnet, if you please;--it is +Wordsworth all over,--trivial in subject, solemn in style, vivid in +description, prolix in detail, true metaphysically, but immensely +suggestive of "imagination," to use a mild term, when related as an +actual fact of a sprightly youngster. + +All I want of it is to enforce the principle, that, when the door of the +soul is once opened to a guest, there is no knowing who will come in +next. + +--Our young girl keeps up her childish habit of sketching heads and +characters. Nobody is, I should think, more faithful and exact in the +drawing of the academical figures given her as lessons; but there is +a perpetual arabesque of fancies that run round the margin of her +drawings, and there is one book which I know she keeps to run riot +in, where, if anywhere, a shrewd eye would be most likely to read her +thoughts. This book of hers I mean to see, if I can get at it honorably. + +I have never yet crossed the threshold of the little gentleman's +chamber. How he lives, when he once gets within it, I can only guess. +His hours are late, as I have said; often, on waking late in the night, +I see the light through cracks in his window-shutters on the wall of the +house opposite. If the times of witchcraft were not over, I should be +afraid to be so close a neighbor to a place from which there come such +strange noises. Sometimes it is the dragging of something heavy over the +floor, that makes me shiver to hear it,--it sounds so like what people +that kill other people have to do now and then. Occasionally I hear very +sweet strains of music,--whether of a wind or stringed instrument, or a +human voice, strange as it may seem, I have often tried to find out, but +through the partition I could not be quite sure. If I have not heard +a woman cry and moan, and then again laugh as though she would die +laughing, I have heard sounds so like them that--I am a fool to confess +it--I have covered my head with the bedclothes; for I have had a fancy +in my dreams, that I could hardly shake off when I woke up, about that +so-called witch that was his great-grandmother, or whatever it was,--a +sort of fancy that she visited the little gentleman,--a young woman +in old-fashioned dress, with a red ring round her white neck,--not a +necklace, but a dull stain. + +Of course you don't suppose that I have any foolish superstitions about +the matter,--I, the Professor, who have seen enough to take all that +nonsense out of any man's head! It is not our beliefs that frighten us +half so much as our fancies. A man not only believes, but knows he runs +a risk, whenever he steps into a railroad car; but it doesn't worry him +much. + +On the other hand, carry that man across a pasture a little way from +some dreary country-village, and show him an old house where there were +strange deaths a good many years ago, and rumors of ugly spots on the +walls,--the old man hung himself in the garret, that is certain, and +ever since the country-people have called it "the haunted house,"--the +owners haven't been able to let it since the last tenants left on +account of the noises,--so it has fallen into sad decay, and the moss +grows on the rotten shingles of the roof, and the clapboards have turned +black, and the windows rattle like teeth that chatter with fear, and the +walls of the house begin to lean as if its knees were shaking,--take the +man who didn't mind the real risk of the cars to that old house, on some +dreary November evening, and ask him to sleep there alone,--how do you +think he will like it? He doesn't believe one word of ghosts,--but then +he knows, that, whether waking or sleeping, his imagination will people +the haunted chambers with ghastly images. It is not what we _believe_, +as I said before, that frightens us commonly, but what we _conceive_. A +principle that reaches a good way, if I am not mistaken. I say, then, +that, if these odd sounds coming from the little gentleman's chamber +sometimes make me nervous, so that I cannot get to sleep, it is not +because I suppose he is engaged in any unlawful or mysterious way. The +only wicked suggestion that ever came into my head was one that was +founded on the landlady's story of his having a pile of gold; it was a +ridiculous fancy; besides, I suspect the story of _sweating_ gold was +only one of the many fables got up to make the Jews odious and afford a +pretext for plundering them. As for the sound like a woman laughing and +crying, I never said it _was_ a woman's voice; for, in the first place, +I could only hear indistinctly; and, secondly, he may have an organ, or +some queer instrument or other, with what they call the _voce umana_ +stop. If he moves his bed round to get out of draughts, or for any such +reason, there is nothing very frightful in that simple operation. Most +of our foolish conceits explain themselves in some such simple way. And +yet, for all that, I confess, that, when I woke up the other evening, +and heard, first a sweet complaining cry, and then footsteps, and then +the dragging sound,--nothing but his bed, I am quite sure,--I felt a +stirring in the roots of my hair as the feasters did in Keats's terrible +poem of "Lamia." + +There is nothing very odd in my feeling nervous when I happen to lie +awake and get listening for sounds. Just keep your ears open any time +after midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a dark +night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you will +hear! The _stillness_ of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things +seem to be alive. Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never +hear it crack in the daytime. Creak! There's a door ajar; _you know you +shut them all_. Where can that latch be that rattles so? Is anybody +trying it softly? or, worse than any _body_, is----? (Cold shiver.) Then +a sudden gust that jars all the windows;--very strange!--there does not +seem to be any wind about that it belongs to. When it stops, you hear +the worms boring in the powdery beams overhead. Then steps outside,--a +stray animal, no doubt. All right,--but a gentle moisture breaks out all +over you; and then something like a whistle or a cry,--another gust of +wind, perhaps; that accounts for the rustling that just made your heart +roll over and tumble about, so that it felt more like a live rat under +your ribs than a part of your own body; then a crash of something that +has fallen,--blown over, very like----_Pater noster, qui es in coelis!_ +for you are damp and cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed +trembling so that the death-watch is frightened and has stopped ticking! + +No,--night is an awful time for strange noises and secret doings. Who +ever dreamed, till one of our sleepless neighbors told us of it, of that +Walpurgis gathering of birds and beasts of prey,--foxes, and owls, and +crows, and eagles, that come from all the country round on moonshiny +nights to crunch the clams and muscles, and pick out the eyes of dead +fishes that the storm has thrown on Chelsea Beach? Our old mother Nature +has pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when she comes to us in her +dress of blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops; but when she follows +us up-stairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and diamonds, every +creak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of mystery +and fear. + +You understand, then, distinctly, that I do not believe there is +anything about this singular little neighbor of mine which is as it +should not be. Probably a visit to his room would clear up all that has +puzzled me, and make me laugh at the notions which began, I suppose, in +nightmares, and ended by keeping my imagination at work so as almost to +make me uncomfortable at times. But it is not so easy to visit him as +some of our other boarders, for various reasons which I will not stop to +mention. I think some of them are rather pleased to get "the Professor" +under their ceilings. + +The young man John, for instance, asked me to come up one day and try +some "old Burbon," which he said was A.1. On asking him what was the +number of his room, he answered, that it was forty-'leven, sky-parlor +floor, but that I shouldn't find it, if he didn't go ahead to show me +the way. I followed him to his _habitat_, being very willing to see in +what kind of warren he burrowed, and thinking I might pick up something +about the boarders who had excited my curiosity. + +Mighty close quarters they were where the young man John bestowed +himself and his furniture; this last consisting of a bed, a chair, +a bureau, a trunk, and numerous pegs with coats and "pants" and +"vests,"--as he was in the habit of calling waistcoats and pantaloons or +trousers,--hanging up as if the owner had melted out of them. Several +prints were pinned up unframed,--among them that grand national +portrait-piece, "Barnum presenting Ossian E. Dodge to Jenny Lind," and a +picture of a famous trot, in which I admired anew the cabalistic air of +that imposing array of expressions, and especially the Italicized word, +"Dan Mace _names_ b. h. Major Slocum," and "Hiram Woodruff _names_ g. m. +Lady Smith." "Best three in five. Time: 2.40, 2.46, 2.50." + +That set me thinking how very odd this matter of trotting horses is, as +an index of the mathematical exactness of the laws of living mechanism. +I saw Lady Suffolk trot a mile in 2.26. Flora Temple has done it in +2.24-1/2; and Ethan Allen is said to have done it in the same time. +Many horses have trotted their mile under 2.30; none that I remember in +public as low down in the twenties as 2.24. _Five seconds_, then, in +about a hundred and sixty is the whole range of the maxima of the +present race of trotting-horses. The same thing is seen in the running +of men. Many can run a mile in five minutes; but when one comes to the +fractions below, they taper down until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum +is reached. Averages of masses have been studied more than averages of +maxima and minima. We know from the Registrar-General's Reports, that a +certain number of children--say from one to two dozen--die every year in +England from drinking hot water out of spouts of teakettles. We know, +that, among suicides, women and men past a certain age almost never use +fire-arms. A woman who has made up her mind to die is still afraid of a +pistol or a gun. Or is it that the explosion would derange her costume? +I say, averages of masses we have; but our tables of maxima we owe +to the sporting men more than to the philosophers. The lesson their +experience teaches is, that Nature makes no leaps,--does nothing _per +saltum_. The greatest brain that ever lived, no doubt, was only a +small fraction of an idea ahead of the second best. Just look at the +chess-players. Leaving out the phenomenal exceptions, the nice +shades that separate the skilful ones show how closely their brains +approximate,--almost as closely as chronometers. Such a person is a +"_knight_-player,"--he must have that piece given him. Another must have +two pawns. Another, "pawn and two," or one pawn and two moves. Then +we find one who claims "pawn and move," holding himself, with this +fractional advantage, a match for one who would be pretty sure to beat +him playing even.--So much are minds alike; and you and I think we +are "peculiar,"--that Nature broke her jelly-mould after shaping our +cerebral convolutions! So I reflected, standing and looking at the +picture. + +--I say, Governor,--broke in the young man John,--them hosses'll stay +jest as well, if you'll only set down. I've had 'em this year, and they +haven't stirred.--He spoke, and handed the chair towards me,--seating +himself, at the same time, on the end of the bed. + +You have lived in this house some time?--I said,--with a note of +interrogation at the end of the statement. + +Do I look as if I'd lost much flesh?--said he,--answering my question by +another. + +No,--said I;--for that matter, I think you do credit to "the bountifully +furnished table of the excellent lady who provides so liberally for the +company that meets around her hospitable board." + +[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of those disinterested +editorials in small type, which I suspect to have been furnished by +a friend of the landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This +impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment and +its head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a couple of +new boarders made a brief appearance at the table. One of them was +of the class of people who grumble if they don't get canvasbacks and +woodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week. The other was subject to +somnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have been asleep +in his bed. In this state he walked into several of the boarders' +chambers, his eyes wide open, as is usual with somnambulists, and, from +some odd instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, got +together a number of their watches, for the purpose of comparing them, +as it would seem. Among them was a repeater, belonging to our young +Marylander. He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was in his +chamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught hold of him and gave him +a dreadful shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and then +went to sleep till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman used +to taking care of such cases of somnambulism.] + +If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over this parenthesis, +you will come to our conversation,--which it has interrupted. + +It a'n't the feed,--said the young man John,--it's the old woman's looks +when a fellah lays it in too strong. The feed's well enough. After geese +have got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb's got old, 'n' +veal's pretty nigh beef, 'n' sparragrass's growin' tall 'n' slim 'n' +scattery about the head, 'n' green peas gettin' so big 'n' hard they'd +be dangerous if you fired 'em out of a revolver, we get hold of all them +delicacies of the season. But it's too much like feedin' on live folks +and devourin' widdah's substance, to lay yourself out in the eatin' way, +when a fellah's as hungry as the chap that said a turkey was too much +for one 'n' not enough for two. I can't help lookin' at the old woman. +Corned-beef-days she's tolerable calm. Roastin'-days she worries some, +'n' keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves. But when there's anything +in the poultry line, it seems to hurt her feelin's so to see the knife +goin' into the breast and joints comin' to pieces, that there's no +comfort in eatin'. When I cut up an old fowl and help the boarders, +I always feel as if I ought to say, Won't you have a slice of +widdah?--instead of chicken. + +The young man John fell into a train of reflections which ended in his +producing a Bologna sausage, a plate of "crackers," as we Boston folks +call certain biscuits, and the bottle of whiskey described as being A.1. + +Under the influence of the crackers and sausage, he grew cordial and +communicative. + +It was time, I thought, to sound him as to those of our boarders who had +excited my curiosity. + +What do you think of our young Iris?--I began. + +Fust-rate little filly;--he said.--Pootiest and nicest little chap +I've seen since the schoolma'am left. Schoolma'am was a brown-haired +one,--eyes coffee-color. This one has got wine-colored eyes,--'n' +that's the reason they turn a fellah's head, I suppose. + +This is a splendid blonde,--I said,--the other was a brunette. Which +style do you like best? + +Which do I like best, boiled mutton or roast mutton?--said the young man +John. Like 'em both,--it a'n't the color of 'em makes the goodness. I've +been kind of lonely since schoolma'am went away. Used to like to look at +her. I never said anything particular to her, that I remember, but-- + +I don't know whether it was the cracker and sausage, or that the young +fellow's feet were treading on the hot ashes of some longing that had +not had time to cool, but his eye glistened as he stopped. + +I suppose she wouldn't have looked at a fellah like me,--he said,--but I +come pretty near tryin'. If she had said, Yes, though, I shouldn't have +known what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman now-a-days till +you're so deaf you have to cock your head like a parrot to hear what she +says, and so long-sighted you can't see what she looks like nearer than +arm's-length. + +Here is another chance for you,--I said.--What do you want nicer than +such a young lady as Iris? + +It's no use,--he answered.--I look at them girls and feel as the fellah +did when he missed catchin' the trout.--'To'od 'a' cost more butter to +cook him 'n' he's worth,--says the fellah.--Takes a whole piece o' goods +to cover a girl up now-a-days. I'd as lief undertake to keep a span of +elephants,--and take an ostrich to board, too,--as to marry one of 'em. +What's the use? Clerks and counter-jumpers a'n't anything. Sparragrass +and green peas a'n't for them,--not while they're young and tender. +Hossback-ridin' a'n't for them,--except once a year,--on Fast-day. And +marryin' a'n't for them. Sometimes a fellah feels lonely, and would +like to have a nice young woman, to tell her how lonely he feels. And +sometimes a fellah,--here the young man John looked very confidential, +and, perhaps, as if a little ashamed of his weakness,--sometimes a +fellah would like to have one o' them small young ones to trot on his +knee and push about in a little wagon,--a kind of a little Johnny, you +know;--it's odd enough, but, it seems to me, nobody can afford them +little articles, except the folks that are so rich they can buy +everything, and the folks that are so poor they don't want anything. It +makes nice boys of us young fellahs, no doubt! And it's pleasant to see +fine young girls sittin', like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin', +and waitin', and waitin', 'n' no customers,--and the men lingerin' round +and lookin' at the goods, like folks that want to be customers, but +haven't got the money! + +Do you think the deformed gentleman means to make love to Iris?--I said. + +What! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him! Well, now, that's comin' +of it a little too strong. Yes, I guess she will marry him and carry +him round in a basket, like a lame bantam! Look here!--he said, +mysteriously;--one of the boarders swears there's a woman comes to see +him, and that he has heard her singin' and screechin'. I should like +to know what he's about in that den of his. He lays low 'n' keeps +dark,--and, I tell you, there's a good many of the boarders would like +to get into his chamber, but he don't seem to want 'em. Biddy could +tell somethin' about what she's seen when she's been to put his room +to rights. She's a Paddy 'n' a fool, but she knows enough to keep her +tongue still. All I know is, I saw her crossin' herself one day when she +came out of that room. She looked pale enough, 'n' I heard her mutterin' +somethin' or other about the Blessed Virgin. If it hadn't been for the +double doors to that chamber of his, I'd have had a squint inside before +this; but, somehow or other, it never seems to happen that they're both +open at once. + +What do you think he employs himself about?--said I. + +The young man John winked. + +I waited patiently for the thought, of which this wink was the blossom, +to come to fruit in words. + +I don't believe in witches,--said the young man John. + +Nor I. + +We were both silent for a few minutes. + +--Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books,--I said, presently. + +All but one,--he answered;--she keeps a lock on that, and won't show it. +Ma'am Allen, (the young rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of the +gentleman with the _diamond_,) Ma'am Allen tried to peek into it one day +when she left it on the sideboard. "If you please," says she,--'n' +took it from him, 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like a +caterpillar on a hot shovel. I only wished he hadn't, and had jest given +her a little saas, for I've been takin' boxin'-lessons, 'n' I've got a +new way of counterin' I want to try on to somebody. + +--The end of all this was, that I came away from the young fellow's +room, feeling that there were two principal things that I had to live +for, for the next six weeks or six months, if it should take so long. +These were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing-book, which I +suspected had her heart shut up in it, and to get a look into the little +gentleman's room. + +I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should trouble myself +about these matters. You tell me, with some show of reason, that all I +shall find in the young girl's book will be some outlines of angels with +immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, and caricatures, +among which I shall probably have the pleasure of seeing my own features +figuring. Very likely. But I'll tell you what _I_ think I shall find. If +this child has idealized the strange little bit of humanity over which +she seems to have spread her wings like a brooding dove,--if, in one of +those wild vagaries that passionate natures are so liable to, she has +fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, as the sea-flowers fold +about the first stray shell-fish that brushes their outspread tentacles, +depend upon it, I shall find the marks of it in this drawing-book of +hers,--if I can ever get a look at it,--fairly, of course, for I would +not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity. + +Then, if I can get into this little gentleman's room under any fair +pretext, I shall, no doubt, satisfy myself in five minutes that he is +just like other people, and that there is no particular mystery about +him. + +The night after my visit to the young man John, I made all these and +many more reflections. It was about two o'clock in the morning,--bright +starlight,--so light that I could make out the time on my +alarm-clock,--when I woke up trembling and very moist. It was the heavy, +dragging sound, as I had often heard it before, that waked me. Presently +a window was softly closed. I had just begun to get over the agitation +with which we always awake from nightmare dreams, when I heard the sound +which seemed to me as of a woman's voice,--the clearest, purest soprano +which one could well conceive of. It was not loud, and I could not +distinguish a word, if it was a woman's voice; but there were recurring +phrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached me, which suggested +the idea of complaint, and sometimes, I thought, of passionate grief and +despair. It died away at last,--and then I heard the opening of a door, +followed by a low, monotonous sound, as of one talking,--and then +the closing of a door,--and presently the light on the opposite wall +disappeared and all was still for the night. + +By George! this gets interesting,--I said, as I got out of bed for a +change of night-clothes. + +I had this in my pocket the other day, but thought I wouldn't read it. +So I read it to the boarders instead, and print it to finish off this +record with. + + +ROBINSON OF LEYDEN. + + + He sleeps not here; in hope and prayer + His wandering flock had gone before, + But he, the shepherd, might not share + Their sorrows on the wintry shore. + + Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, + Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, + While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, + The pastor spake, and thus he said:-- + + "Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! + God calls you hence from over sea; + Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, + Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. + + "Ye go to bear the saving word + To tribes unnamed and shores untrod: + Heed well the lessons ye have heard + From those old teachers taught of God. + + "Yet think not unto them was lent + All light for all the coming days, + And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent + In making straight the ancient ways. + + "The living fountain overflows + For every flock, for every lamb, + Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose + With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." + + He spake; with lingering, long embrace, + With tears of love and partings fond, + They floated down the creeping Maas, + Along the isle of Ysselmond. + + They passed the frowning towers of Briel, + The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand, + And grated soon with lifting keel + The sullen shores of Fatherland. + + No home for these!--too well they knew + The mitred king behind the throne;-- + The sails were set, the pennons flew, + And westward ho! for worlds unknown. + + --And these were they who gave us birth, + The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, + Who won for us this virgin earth, + And freedom with the soil they gave. + + The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,-- + In alien earth the exiles lie,-- + Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, + His words our noblest battle-cry! + + Still cry them, and the world shall hear, + Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! + Ye _have_ not built by Haerlem Meer, + Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! + + * * * * * + + +ART. + +THE HEART OF THE ANDES. + + +We Americans, amidst the confusion and stir of material interests, are +not inattentive to the progress of those claims whose growth is as +silent as that of the leaves around us, and whose values find no echo in +Wall Street. + +With the spring there has bloomed in New York a flower of no common +beauty. All the fashion and influence there have been to hail this +growth of our soil at its cloistered home in Tenth Street. There is but +one opinion of the beauty and novelty of the stranger. It is of the +"Heart of the Andes," by Mr. Frederick E. Church, we speak. This artist, +now known for some years as he who has with most daring tracked to its +depths the witchery and wonder of our summer skies, and the results of +whose two visits to South America have ere this shown how sensitive and +sure the photograph of his memory is, gives us from the _trop-plein_ of +his souvenirs this last and crowning page. + +We hold the merit and charm of Mr. Church's works to be, that they are +so American in feeling and treatment. What chiefly distinguishes America +from Europe, as the object of landscape, is, that Europe is the region +of "bits," of picturesque compositions, of sunflecked lanes, of nestling +villages, and castle-crowned steeps,--while with us everything is less +condensed, on a wider scale, and with vaster spaces. + +Mr. Church has the eagle eye to measure this vastness. He loves a +wide expanse, a boundless horizon. He does not, gypsy-like, hide with +Gainsborough beneath a hedge, but his glance sweeps across a continent, +and no detail escapes him. This is what makes the "Andes" a really +marvellous picture. In intellectual grasp, clear and vivid apprehension +of what he wants and where to put it, we think Mr. Church without an +equal. Quite a characteristic of his is a love of detail and finish +without injury to breadth and general effect. You look into his picture +with an opera-glass as you would into the next field from an open +window. His power is not so much one of suggestion, an appeal to the +beauty and grandeur in yourself, as the ability to become a colorless +medium to beauty and grandeur from without; hence the impression is at +first hand, and such as Nature herself produces. + +The world abounds in pictures where loving human faculty has lifted +ordinary motives into our sympathy; but where the subject is the +grandest landscape affluence of the world, effect, in the ordinary +sense, ceases to be of value. We need the thing, and no human ennobling +of it. In this picture we have it; no spectral cloud-pile, but a real +Chimborazo, with the hoar of eternity upon its scalp, looks down upon +the happy New-Yorker in his first May perspiration. And as the wind sets +east, no yellow hint at something warming, but whole dales and plains +still in the real sunshine, take the chill from off his heart. No wonder +he, his wife, and his quietly enthusiastic girls throng and sit there. +They are proud in their hearts of the handsome young painter. And well +they may be! Never has the New World sent so native a flavor to the Old. +Unlike so many others of our good artists, there is no saturation from +the past in Mr. Church. No souvenir of what once was warm and new in the +heart of Claude or Poussin ages the fresh work. It has a relish of our +soil; its almost Yankee knowingness, its placid, clear, intellectual +power, with its delicate sentiment and strong self-reliance, are ours; +we delightfully feel that it belongs to us, and that we are of it. + +Such is the last great work of the New York school of landscape,--a +living school, and destined to long triumphs,--already appreciated and +nobly encouraged. Its members are men as individual and various in their +gifts, as they are harmonious and manly in their mutual recognition and +fellowship. + + * * * * * + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Love Me Little, Love Me Long._ By CHARLES READE, Author of "It is Never +too Late to Mend," "White Lies," etc. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1859. + +This is the last, and in many respects the best, of Mr. Charles Reade's +literary achievements. Its popularity, we are informed, exceeds that of +any of his former works, excepting the first two published by him, "Peg +Woffington," and "Christie Johnstone," which a few years ago startled +the novel-reading world by their eccentricity of style, their +ingenious novelty of construction, and also by their freshness of +sentiment,--comet-books, pursuing one another in erratic orbits of +thought, now close upon the central light of Truth, now distantly remote +from it, but always brilliant, and generally leaving a sparkling train +of recollection behind. The author's subsequent productions, until the +present, have been less successful; some by reason of their positive +inferiority; some because of their extraordinary affectations of +expression, repelling the multitude, who do not choose to risk their +brains through unlimited pages of labyrinthine rhetoric; some, perhaps, +because of their doubtful paternity, evidences of French origin being +in many places discernible. Here, however, there appears a manifest +improvement. This story is exquisitely simple in conception, and the +narration is mostly full of ease and grace, although the unfolding of +the plot is less direct than might have been expected from an author who +professes so deep a regard for the dramatic order of development. There +is, for instance, an episodical chapter of upwards of thirty pages, +describing commercial England in a state of panic, which is very nearly +as appropriate as a disquisition on the Primary Rocks, or an inquiry +into the origin of the Cabala would be, but which is so palpably +introduced for the purpose of displaying the author's financial +erudition, that he feels himself called upon to apologize in a brief +preface for its intrusion. In the concluding chapters, too, the various +threads of interest are gathered together with very little artistic +compactness. The reader is disappointed at the tameness of the +culmination, compared with the vigor of the approach thereto. But +otherwise there is much to be charmed with, and not a little to admire. + +Mr. Reade has renounced a good number of the odd fancies which at one +time pervaded him. We find no traces of the [Greek: stigmatophobia] +with which he was formerly afflicted. Nouns are wedded to obedient +adjectives, adverbs to their willing verbs, by the lawful mediation +of the recognized authorities of punctuation, the illegitimate and +licentious disregard of which, as recklessly manifested in "It is Never +too Late to Mend," indicated a disposition to entirely subvert +the established morals of the language. It is pleasant to see how +unreservedly Mr. Reade has abandoned his functions as apostle of +grammatical free-love. Of tricks of typography there are also fewer, +although these yet remain in an excess which good taste can hardly +sanction. We often find whole platoons of admiration-points stretching +out in line, to give extraordinary emphasis to sentences already +sufficiently forcible. We sometimes encounter extravagant varieties of +type, humorously intended, but the use of which seems a game hardly +worth Mr. Reade's candle, which certainly possesses enough illuminating +power of its own, without seeking additional refulgence by such +commonplace expedients. + +In one of his pet peculiarities, the selection of a name for his work, +the author has surpassed himself. It is a good thing to have an imposing +name. In literature, as in society, a sounding title makes its way with +delicious freedom. But it is also well to see to it, that, in the matter +of title, some connection with the book to which it is applied shall be +maintained. We are accustomed to approach a title somewhat as we do a +finger-post,--not hoping that it will reveal the nature of the road we +are to follow, the character of the scenery we are to gaze upon, or the +general disposition of the impending population, but anticipating that +it will at least enable us to start in the right direction. Now every +reader of "Love me Little, Love me Long" is apt to consider himself or +herself justified in entertaining acrimonious sentiments towards Mr. +Reade for the non-fulfilment of his titular hint. If, in the process of +binding, the leaves of this story had accidentally found their way into +covers bearing other and various appellations, we imagine that very +little injury would have been done to the author's meaning or the +purchaser's understanding. It is, indeed, interesting to look forward +to the progress of Mr. Reade's ideas on the subject of titles. We have +already enjoyed a couple of pleasing nursery platitudes; perhaps it +would not be altogether out of order to expect in future a series +something like the following:-- + + "Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be!!??!?!" + "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe!" + "Sing a Song of Sixpence, a Bag Full of Rye!" + "Hiccory, Diccory, Dock!!!" + etc., etc. + +Let us not forget, in laughing at the author's weaknesses, to +acknowledge his strength. He shows in this work an inventive fancy equal +to that of any writer of light fiction in the English language, and +hardly surpassed by those of the French,--from which latter, it is +fair to suppose, much of his inspiration is drawn, since his style is +undisguisedly that of modern French romancers, though often made the +vehicle of thoughts far nobler than any they are wont to convey. His +portraits of character are capital, especially those of feminine +character, which are peculiarly vivid and _spirituels_. He represents +infantile imagination with Pre-Raphaelitic accuracy. And his +descriptions are frequently of enormous power. A story of a sailor's +perils on a whaling voyage is told in a manner almost as forcible +as that of the "frigate fight," by Walt. Whitman, and in a manner +strikingly similar, too. A night adventure in the English channel--a +pleasure excursion diverted by a storm from its original intention into +a life-and-death struggle--is related with unsurpassed effect. The whole +work is as sprightly and agreeable a love-story as any English writer +has produced,--always amusing, often flashing with genuine wit, +sometimes inspiring in its eloquent energy. And this ought to be +sufficient to secure the abundant success of any book of its class, and +to cause its successor to be awaited with interest. + + +_The Choral Harmony_. By B.F. BAKER and W.O. PERKINS. Boston: Phillips, +Sampson, & Co. pp. 378. + +The great number of music-books published, and the immense editions +annually sold, are the best proof of the demand for variety on the part +of choirs and singing-societies. Nearly all the popular collections will +be found to have about the same proportions of the permanent and the +transient elements,--on the one hand, the old chorals and hymn-tunes +consecrated by centuries of solemn worship,--on the other, the +compositions and "arrangements" of the editors. Here and there a modern +tune strikes the public taste or sinks deeper to the heart, and it takes +its place thenceforward with the "Old Hundredth," with "Martyrs," and +"Mear"; but the greater number of these compositions are as ephemeral as +newspaper stories. Every conductor of a choir knows, however, that, to +maintain an interest among singers, it is necessary to give them new +music for practice, especially new pieces for the opening of public +worship,--that they will not improve while singing familiar tunes, any +more than children will read with proper expression lessons which have +become wearisome by repetition. Masses and oratorios are beyond the +capacity of all but the most cultivated singers; and we suppose that +the very prevalence of these collections which aim to please an average +order of taste may, after all, furnish to large numbers a pleasure which +the rigid classicists would deny them, without in any way filling the +void. + +This collection has a goodly number of the favorite old tunes, and they +are given with the harmonies to which the people are accustomed. The +new tunes are of various degrees of excellence, but most of them are +constructed with a due regard to form, and those which we take to be Mr. +Baker's are exceedingly well harmonized. There is an unusual number of +anthems, motets, etc.,--many of them at once solid and attractive. The +elementary portion contains a full and intelligible exposition of the +science. To those choirs who wish to increase their stock of music, and +to singing-societies who desire the opportunity of practising new and +brilliant anthems and sentences, the "Choral Harmony" may be commended, +as equal, at least, to any work of the kind now before the public. + + +_Seacliff: or the Mystery of the Westervelts_. By J.W. DE FOREST, Author +of "Oriental Acquaintance," "European Acquaintance," etc., etc. Boston: +Phillips, Sampson, & Co. pp. 466. 12mo. + +This is a very readable novel, artful in plot, effective in +characterization, and brilliant in style. "The Mystery of the +Westervelts" is a mystery which excites the reader's curiosity at the +outset, and holds his pleased attention to the end. The incidents are so +contrived that the secret is not anticipated until it is unveiled, and +then the explanation is itself a surprise. The characters are generally +strongly conceived, skilfully discriminated, and happily combined. The +delineation of Mr. Westervelt, the father of the heroine, is especially +excellent. Irresolute in thought, impotent in will, and only +occasionally fretted by circumstances into a feeble activity, he is an +almost painfully accurate representation of a class of men who drift +through life without any power of self-direction. Mrs. Westervelt has +equal moral feebleness with less brain, and her character is a study in +practical psychology. Somerville, the villain of the piece, who unites +the disposition of Domitian to the manners of Chesterfield, is the +pitiless master of this female slave. The coquettish Mrs. Van Leer is +a prominent personage of the story; and her shallow malice and pretty +deviltries are most effectively represented. She is not only a flirt in +outward actions, but a flirt in soul, and her perfection in impertinence +almost rises to genius. All these characters betray patient meditation, +and the author's hold on them is rarely relaxed. A novel evincing so +much intellectual labor, written in a style of such careful elaboration, +and exhibiting so much skill in the development of the story, can +scarcely fail of a success commensurate with its merits. + + +_To Cuba and Back_. A Vacation Voyage. By R.H. DANA, JR., Author of "Two +Years before the Mast." Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. pp. 288. 16mo. + +It was, perhaps, a dangerous experiment for the author of a book of the +worldwide and continued popularity of "Two Years before the Mast" to +dare, with that almost unparalleled success still staring him in the +face, to tempt Fortune by giving to the public another book. But long +before this time, the thousands of copies that have left the shelves of +the publishers have attested a success scarcely second to that of Mr. +Dana's first venture. The elements of success, in both cases, are to be +found in every page of the books themselves. This "Vacation Voyage" has +not a dull page in it. Every reader reads it to the end. Every paragraph +has its own charm; every word is chosen with that quick instinct +that seizes upon the right word to describe the matter in hand which +characterizes Mr. Dana's forensic efforts, and places him so high on the +list of natural-born advocates,--which gives him the power of eloquence +at the bar, and a power scarcely less with the slower medium of the pen. +These Cuban sketches are real _stereographs_, and Cuba stands before you +as distinct and lifelike as words can make it. Single words, from Mr. +Dana's pen, are pregnant with great significance, and their meaning is +brought out by taking a little thought, as the leaves and sticks and +stones and pigmy men and women in the shady corners of the stereograph +are developed into the seeming proportions of real life, when the images +in the focus of the lenses of the stereoscope. We know of no modern book +of travels which gives one so vivid and fresh a picture, in many various +aspects, of the external nature, the people, the customs, the laws and +domestic institutions of a strange country, as does this little volume, +the off-hand product of a few days snatched from the engrossing cares of +the most active professional life. With a quick eye for the beauties of +landscape, a keen and lively perception of what is droll and amusing +in human nature, a warm heart, sympathizing readily where sympathy is +required, the various culture of the scholar, and the training of the +lawyer and politician, all well mixed with manly, straightforward, +Anglo-Saxon pluck, Mr. Dana has, in an eminent degree, all the best +qualities that should mark the traveller who undertakes to tell his +story to the world. + +Some statistics, judiciously introduced, of the present government, and +of the institution of slavery and the slave-trade, with the author's +comments upon them, give a practical value to the book at this time for +all thinking and patriotic citizens, and make it one not only to be read +for an hour's entertainment, but carefully studied for the important +practical suggestions of its pages. + + +_Memoir of Theophilus Parsons_, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial +Court of Massachusetts; with Notices of some of his Contemporaries. By +his Son, THEOPHILUS PARSONS. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. pp. 476. + +The division of the United States into so many wellnigh independent +republics, each with official rewards in its gift great enough to excite +and to satisfy a considerable ambition, makes fame a palpably provincial +thing in America. We say _palpably_, because the larger part of +contemporary fame is truly parochial everywhere; only we are apt to +overlook the fact when we measure by kingdoms or empires instead of +counties, and to fancy a stature for Palmerston or Persigny suitable to +the size of the stage on which they act. It seems a much finer thing to +be a Lord Chancellor in England than a Chief Justice in Massachusetts; +yet the same abilities which carried the chance-transplanted Boston boy, +Lyndhurst, to the woolsack, might, perhaps, had he remained in the land +of his birth, have found no higher goal than the bench of the Supreme +Court. Mr. Dickens laughed very fairly at the "remarkable men" of our +small towns; but England is full of just such little-greatness, with the +difference that one is proclaimed in the "Bungtown Tocsin" and the other +in the "Times." We must get a new phrase, and say that Mr. Brown was +immortal at the latest dates, and Mr. Jones a great man when the steamer +sailed. The small man in Europe is reflected to his contemporaries from +a magnifying mirror, while even the great men in America can be imaged +only in a diminishing one. If powers broaden with the breadth of +opportunity, if Occasion be the mother of greatness and not its tool, +the centralizing system of Europe should produce more eminent persons +than our distributive one. Certain it is that the character grows larger +in proportion to the size of the affairs with which it is habitually +concerned, and that a mind of more than common stature acquires an +habitual _stoop_, if forced to deal lifelong with little men and little +things. + +Even that German-silver kind of fame, Notoriety, can scarcely be had +here at a cheaper rate than a murder done in broad daylight of a Sunday; +and the only sure way of having one's name known to the utmost corners +of our empire is by achieving a continental _dis_repute. With a +metropolis planted in a crevice between Maryland and Virginia, and +stunted because its roots vainly seek healthy nourishment in a soil +impoverished by slavery, a paulopost future capital, the centre of +nothing, without literature, art, or so much as commerce,--we have no +recognized dispenser of national reputations like London or Paris. In a +country richer in humor, and among a people keener in the sense of it +than any other, we cannot produce a national satire or caricature, +because there is no butt visible to all parts of the country at once. +How many men at this moment know the names, much more the history or +personal appearance, of our cabinet ministers? But the joke of London or +Paris tickles all the ribs of England or France, and the intellectual +rushlight of those cities becomes a beacon, set upon such bushels, and +multiplied by the many-faced provincial reflector behind it. Meanwhile +New York and Boston wrangle about literary and social preëminence like +two schoolboys, each claiming to have something (he knows not exactly +what) vastly finer than the other at home. Let us hope that we shall +by-and-by develop a rivalry like that of the Italian cities, and that +the difficulty of fame beyond our own village may make us more content +with doing than desirous of the name of it. For, after all, History +herself is for the most part but the Muse of Little Peddlington, and +Athens raised the heaviest crop of laurels yet recorded on a few acres +of rock, without help from newspaper guano. + +Theophilus Parsons was one of those men of whom surviving contemporaries +always say that he was the most gifted person they had ever known, +while yet they are able to produce but little tangible evidence of his +superiority. It is, no doubt, true that Memory's geese are always swans; +but in the case of a man like Parsons, where the testimony is so various +and concurrent, we cannot help believing that there must have been a +special force of character, a marked alertness and grasp of mind, to +justify the impression he left behind. With the exception of John +Adams, he was probably the most considerable man of his generation in +Massachusetts; and it is not merely the _caruit quia vate sacro_, but +the narrowness of his sphere of action, still further narrowed by the +technical nature of a profession in itself provincial, as compared +with many other fields for the display of intellectual power, that has +hindered him from receiving an amount of fame at all commensurate with +an ability so real and so various. + +But the life of a strong man, lived no matter where, and perhaps all +the more if it have been isolated from the noisier events which make so +large a part of history, contains the best material of biography. Judge +Parsons was fortunate in a son capable of doing that well, which, even +if ill done, would have been interesting. A practised writer, the author +of two volumes of eloquent and thoughtful essays, Professor Parsons has +known how to select and arrange his matter with a due feeling of effect +and perspective. When he fails to do this, it is because here and there +the essayist has got the better of the biographer. We are not concerned +here, for example, to know Mr. Parsons's opinions about Slavery, and +we are sure that the sharp insight and decisive judgment of his father +would never have allowed him to be frightened by the now somewhat +weather-beaten scarecrow of danger to the Union. + +In the earlier part of the Memoir we get some glimpses of +pre-Revolutionary life in New England, which we hope yet to see +illustrated more fully in its household aspects.[A] The father of +Parsons was precisely one of those country-clergymen who were "passing +rich on forty pounds a year." On a salary of two hundred and eighty +dollars, he brought up a family of seven children, three of whom he sent +to college, and kept a hospitable house. + +[Footnote A: Mr. Elliott, in his _New England History_, has wisely +gathered many of those unconsidered trifles which are so important in +forming a just notion of the character of a population. We cannot but +wish that our town-historians, instead of giving so much space to idle +and often untrustworthy genealogies, and to descriptions of the "elegant +mansions" of Messrs. This and That, would do us the real service of +rescuing from inevitable oblivion the fleeting phases of household +scenery that help us to that biography of a people so much more +interesting than their annals. We would much rather know whether a man +wore homespun, a hundred years ago, than whether he was a descendant of +Rameses I.] + +Of Parsons's college experiences we get less than we could desire; +but as he advances in life, we find his mind exercised by the great +political and social problem whose solution was to be the experiment of +Democracy at housekeeping for herself,--we see him influencing State +and even National politics, but always as a man who preferred attaining +the end to being known as the means,--and finally, as Chief Justice, +reforming the loose habits of the bar, intolerant of gabble, and leaving +the permanent impress of his energetic mind and impatient logic on the +Common Law of the country. + +We know nothing more striking than the dying speech recorded in the +concluding chapter. At the end of a life so laborious and so useful, the +Judge, himself withdrawing to be judged, murmurs,--"Gentlemen of the +Jury, the facts of the case are in your hands. You will retire and +consider of your verdict." In this volume, the son has submitted the +facts of the case to a jury of posterity. His case will not be injured +by the modesty with which he has stated it. He has claimed less for his +father than one less near to him might have done. We think the verdict +must be, that this was a great man _marooned_ by Destiny on an +out-of-the-way corner of the world, where, however he might exert great +powers, there was no adequate field for that display of them which is +the necessary condition of fame. + +Mr. Parsons has done a real service to our history and our letters in +this volume. Accompanying and illustrating his main topic, he has given +us excellent sketches of some other persons less eminent than his +father, sometimes from tradition and sometimes from his own impressions. +We hope in the next edition he will give us a supplementary chapter of +personal anecdotes, of which there is a large number that deserve to be +perpetuated in print, and which otherwise will die with the memories +in which they are now preserved. The strictly professional part of the +biography, illustrating the Chief Justice's more important decisions, +might also be advantageously enlarged. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. + + +Songs of the Church; or Psalms and Hymns of the Protestant Episcopal +Church, arranged consecutively to Appropriate Melodies; together with +a Full Set of Chants for each Season of the Christian Year. New York. +Delisser & Proctor. 12mo. pp. 453. $1.00. + +Napoleonic Ideas. Des Idées Napoléoniennes, par Le Prince Napoléon Louis +Bonaparte. Brussels, 1839. 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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 + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 20, 2004 [EBook #11196] +[Date last updated: September 3, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. IV.--JULY, 1859.--NO. XXI. + + + +THOMAS PAINE'S + +SECOND APPEARANCE IN THE UNITED STATES. + + +"Nay, so far did he carry his obstinacy, that he absolutely invited a +professed Anti-Diluvian from the Gallic Empire, who illuminated the +whole country with his principles and his nose."--Salmagundi. + +We lukewarm moderns can hardly conceive the degree of violence and +bitterness reached by party-feeling in the early years of the United +States Constitution. A Mississippi member of Congress listening to a +Freesoil speech is mild in demeanor and expression, if we compare his +ill-nature with the spiteful fury of his predecessors in legislation +sixty years ago. The same temper was visible throughout the land. Nobody +stood aloof. Two hostile camps were pitched over against each other, and +every man in Israel was to be found in his tent. Our great experiment +was a new one; on its success depended the personal welfare of every +citizen, and naturally every citizen was anxious to train up that +experiment in the way which promised to his reason or to his feelings +the best result. + +The original Federalists of 1787 were in favor of effacing as much +as possible the boundary-lines of the Thirteen Colonies, and of +consolidating them into a new, united, and powerful people, under a +strong central government. The first Anti-Federalists were made up of +several sects: one branch, sincere republicans, were fearful that the +independence of the States was in danger, and that consolidation would +prepare the way for monarchy; another, small, but influential, still +entertained the wish for reunion with England, or, at least, for the +adoption of the English form of government,--and, hoping that the +dissensions of the old Confederation might lead to some such result, +drank the health of the Bishop of Osnaburg in good Madeira, and objected +to any system which might place matters upon a permanent republican +basis; and a third party, more numerous and noisy than either, who knew +by long experience that the secret of home popularity was to inspire +jealousy of the power of Congress, were unwilling to risk the loss of +personal consequence in this new scheme of centralization, and took good +care not to allow the old local prejudices and antipathies to slumber. +The two latter classes of patriots are well described by Franklin in his +"Comparison of the Ancient Jews with the Modern Anti-Federalists,"--a +humorous allegory, which may have suggested to the Senator from Ohio his +excellent conceit of the Israelite with Egyptian principles. "Many," +wrote Franklin, "still retained an affection for Egypt, the land of +their nativity, and whenever they felt any inconvenience or hardship, +though the natural and unavoidable effect of their change of situation, +exclaimed against their leaders as the authors of their trouble, +and were not only for returning into Egypt, but for stoning their +deliverers.... Many of the chiefs thought the new Constitution might be +injurious to their particular interests,--that the profitable places +would be engrossed by the families and friends of Moses and Aaron, and +others, equally well born, excluded." + +Time has decided this first point in favor of the Unionists. None of +the evils prophesied by their opponents have as yet appeared. The +independence of the individual States remains inviolate, and, although +the central executive has grown yearly more powerful, a monarchy +seems as remote as ever. Local distinctions are now little prized in +comparison with federal rank. It is not every man who can recollect the +name of the governor of his own State; very few can tell that of the +chief of the neighboring Commonwealth. The old boundaries have grown +more and more indistinct; and when we look at the present map of the +Union, we see only that broad black line known as Mason and Dixon's, on +one side of which are neatness, thrift, enterprise, and education,--and +on the other, whatever the natives of that region may please to call it. + +After 1789, the old Egypt faction ceased to exist, except as grumblers; +but the States-Rights men, though obliged to acquiesce in the +Constitution, endeavored, by every means of "construction" their +ingenuity could furnish, to weaken and restrict the exercise and the +range of its power. The Federalists, on the other hand, held that want +of strength was the principal defect of the system, and were for adding +new buttresses to the Constitutional edifice. It is curious to remark +that neither party believed in the permanency of the Union. Then +came into use the mighty adjectives "constitutional" and +"unconstitutional,"--words of vast import, doing equally good service +to both parties in furnishing a word to express their opinion of the +measures they urged and of those they objected to. And then began to be +strained and frayed that much-abused piece of parchment which Thomas +Paine called the political Bible of the American people, and foolishly +thought indispensable to liberty in a representative government. "Ask an +American if a certain act be constitutional," says Paine, "he pulls out +his pocket volume, turns to page and verse, and gives you a correct +answer in a moment." Poor Mr. Paine! if you had lived fifty years +longer, you would have seen that paper constitutions, like the paper +money you despised so justly, depend upon honesty and confidence for +their value, and are at a sad discount in hard times of fraud and +corruption. Unprincipled men find means of evading the written agreement +upon their face by ingenious subterfuges or downright repudiation. An +arbitrary majority will construe the partnership articles to suit their +own interests, and _stat pro constitutione voluntas_. It is true that +the _litera scripta_ remains, but the meaning is found to vary with the +interpreter. + +In 1791, when the two parties were fairly formed and openly pitted +against each other, a new element of discord had entered into politics, +which added the bitterness of class-feeling to the usual animosity of +contention. Society in the Middle and Southern States had been composed +of a few wealthy and influential families, and of a much more numerous +lower class who followed the lead of the great men. These lesser +citizens had now determined to set up for themselves, and had enlisted +in the ranks of the Anti-Federalists, who soon assumed the name and +style of Democrats, an epithet first bestowed upon them in derision, but +joyfully adopted,--one of the happiest hits in political nomenclature +ever made. _In hoc verbo vinces:_ In that word lay victory. If any one +be tempted, in this age, to repeat the stupid question, "What's in a +name?" let him be answered,--Everything: place, power, pelf, perhaps we +may add peculation. "The Barons of Virginia," chiefs of State-Rights, +who at home had been in favor of a governor and a senate for life, and +had little to fear from any lower class in their own neighborhood, saw +how much was to be gained by "taking the people into partnership," as +Herodotus phrases it, and commenced that alliance with the proletaries +of the North which has proved so profitable to Southern leaders. In New +England, the land of industry, self-control, and superior cultivation, +(for the American Parnassus was then in Connecticut, either in Hartford, +or on Litchfield Hill,) there was, comparatively speaking, no lower +class. The Eastern men, whose levelling spirit and equality of ranks +had been so much disliked and dreaded by the representatives from other +Colonies in the Ante-Revolutionary Congresses, had undergone little or +no social change by the war, and probably had at that period a more +correct idea of civil liberty and free government than any other people +on the face of the earth. General Charles Lee wrote to an English +friend, that the New-Englanders were the only Americans who really +understood the meaning of republicanism, and many years later De +Tocqueville came to nearly the same opinion:--_"C'est dans la Nouvelle +Angleterre que se sont combinées les deux ou trois idées principales, +qui aujourd'hui forment les bases de la théorie sociale des +États-Unis."_ In this region Federalism reigned supreme. The +New-Englanders desired a strong, honest, and intelligent government; +they thought, with John Adams, that "true equality is to do as you would +be done by," and agreed with Hamilton, that "a government in which every +man may aspire to any office was free enough for all purposes"; and +judging from what they saw at home, they looked upon Anti-Federalism not +only as erroneous in theory, but as disreputable in practice. "The name +of Democrat," writes a fierce old gentleman to his son, "is despised; it +is synonymous with infamy." Out of New England a greater social change +was going forward. Already appeared that impatience of all restraint +which is so alarming a symptom of our times. Every rogue, "who felt the +halter draw," wanted to know if it was for tyranny like this that the +Colonies had rebelled. "Such a monster of a government has seldom or +never been known on earth. A blessed Revolution, a blessed Revolution, +indeed!--_but farmers, mechanics, and laborers had no share in it._ We +are the asses who pay." This was the burden of the Democratic song. + +But the real issue between the two parties, which underlay all their +proposed measures and professed principles, was the old struggle of +classes, modified of course by the time and the place. The Democrats +contended for perfect equality, political and social, and as little +power as possible in the central government so long as their party was +not in command. The Federalists, who held the reins, were for a strong +conservative administration, and a wholesome distinction of classes. +The two parties were not long in waiting for flags to rally around, and +fresh fields on which to fight. The French Revolution furnished both. +In its early stages it had excited a general sympathy in America; and, +indeed, so has every foreign insurrection, rebellion, or riot since, no +matter where or why it occurred, provided good use has been made of the +sacred words Revolution and Liberty. This cry has never been echoed in +this country without exciting a large body of men to mass-meetings, +dinners, and other public demonstrations, who do not stop to consider +what it means, or whether, in the immediate instance, it has any meaning +at all. John Adams said in his "Defence of American Constitutions," "Our +countrymen will never run delirious after a word or a name." Mr. Adams +was much mistaken. If, according to the Latin proverb, a word is +sufficient for a wise man, so, in another sense, it is all that is +needful for fools. But as the Revolution advanced in France towards +republicanism, the Federalists, who thought the English system, less the +king and the hereditary lords, the best scheme of government, began to +grow lukewarm. When it became evident that the New Era was to end in +bloodshed, instead of universal peace and good-will towards men,--that +the Rights of Man included murder, confiscation, and atheism,--that +the Sovereignty of the People meant the rule of King Mob, who seemed +determined to carry out to the letter Diderot's famous couplet,-- + + "Et des boyaux du dernier prêtre + Serrez le cou du dernier des rois,"-- + +then the adjective _French_ became in Federal mouths an epithet of +abhorrence and abuse; up went the flag of dear Old England, the defender +of the faith and of social order. The opposition party, on the contrary, +saw in the success of the French people, in their overthrow of kings +and nobles, a cheerful encouragement to their own struggle against the +aristocratic Federalists, and would allow no sanguinary irregularities +to divert their sympathy from the great Democratic triumph abroad. The +gay folds of the tricolor which floated over them seemed to shed upon +their heads a mild influence of that Gallic madness that led them into +absurdities we could not now believe, were they not on record. The +fashions, sartorial and social, of the French were affected; amiable +Yankees called each other _citizen_, invented the feminine _citess_, +and proposed changing our old calendar for the Ventose and Fructidor +arrangement of the one and indivisible republic. (We wish they had +adopted their admirable system of weights and measures.) Divines are +said to have offered up thanks to the Supreme Being for the success of +the good _Sans-culottes_. At all events, their victories were celebrated +by civic festivals and the discharge of cannon; the English flag was +burned as a sacrifice to the Goddess of Liberty; a French frigate took +a prize off the Capes of the Delaware, and sent her in to Philadelphia; +thousands of the populace crowded the wharves, and, when the British +colors were seen reversed, and the French flying over them, burst into +exulting hurras. When a report came that the Duke of York was a prisoner +and shown in a cage in Paris, all the bells of Philadelphia rang peals +of joy for the downfall of tyrants. Here is the story of a civic _fête_ +given at Reading, in Massachusetts, which we extract from a newspaper of +the time as a specimen of the Gallo-Yankee absurdities perpetrated by +our grandfathers:-- + +"The day was ushered in by the ringing of the bells, and a salute of +fifteen discharges from a field-piece. The American flag waved in the +wind, and the flag of France over the British in inverted order. At noon +a large number of respectable citizens assembled at Citizen Raynor's, +and partook of an elegant entertainment. After dinner, Captain Emerson's +military company in uniform assembled and escorted the citizens to the +meeting-house, where an address pertinent to the occasion was delivered +by the Rev. Citizen Prentiss, and united prayers and praises were +offered to God, and several hymns and anthems were well sung; after +which they returned in procession to Citizen Raynor's, where three +farmers, with their frocks and utensils, and with a tree on their +shoulders, were escorted by the military company formed in a hollow +square to the Common, where the tree was planted in form, as an emblem +of freedom, and the Marseillaise Hymn was sung by a choir within a +circle round the tree. Major Boardman, by request, superintended the +business of the day, and directed the manoeuvres." + +In the Gallic jargon then fashionable, England was "an insular Bastille +of slaves," and New England "the Vendée of America." On the other side, +the Federalists returned cheer for cheer,--looked with true British +contempt on the warlike struggles of the restless Frenchman,--chuckled +over the disasters which befell "his little popgun fleets,"--and damned +the Democrats for a pack of poor, dirty, blasphemous cutthroats. Hate +one another was the order of the day. The religious element, which +always exasperates dissension, was present. French Democrats had set +up the Goddess of Reason (in private life Mme. Momoro) as an object of +worship; American Democrats were accused of making Tom Paine's "Age of +Reason" their Bible; "Atheist" and "Infidel" were added to the epithets +which the Federalists discharged at their foes. So fierce and so general +was the quarrel on this European ground, that a distinguished foreigner, +then travelling in this country, said that he saw many French and +English, but scarcely ever met with an American. Weld, a more humble +tourist, put into his book, that in Norfolk, Virginia, he found half the +town ready to fight the other half on the French question. Meanwhile, +both French and English treated us with ill-disguised contempt, +and inflicted open outrages upon our commerce. But it made little +difference. One faction was willing to be kicked by England; and the +other took a pleasure in being _souffleté_ by France. The rival flags +were kept flying until the close of the war of 1812. + +An outbreak of Democratic fury bordering upon treason took place, when +Senator Mason of Virginia violated the oath of secrecy, and sent a +copy of Jay's treaty with England to the "Aurora." Meetings passed +condemnatory resolutions expressed in no mild language. Jay was "a +slave, a traitor, a coward, who had bartered his country's liberties for +British gold." Mobs burned Jay in effigy, and pelted Alexander Hamilton. +At a public meeting in Philadelphia, Mr. Blair threw the treaty to the +crowd, and advised them to kick it to hell. They carried it on a pole +in procession, and burned it before the English minister's house. A +Democratic society in Richmond, Virginia, full of the true modern South +Carolina "sound and fury," gave public notice, that, if the treaty +entered into by "that damned arch traitor, John Jay, with the British +tyrant should be ratified, a petition will be presented to the next +General Assembly of Virginia praying that the said State may recede +from the Union, and be left under the government and protection of +one hundred thousand free and independent Virginians!" A meeting at +Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, resolved, "that it was weary of the tardiness +of Congress in not going to war with England, and that they were _almost +ready_ to wish for a state of revolution and the guillotine of France +for a short space, in order to punish the miscreants who enervate and +disgrace the government." Mr. Jefferson's opinion of the treaty is well +known from his rhetorical letter to Rutledge, which, in two or three +lines, contains the adjectives, _unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous, +dishonorable, disadvantageous, humiliating, disgraceful, improper, +monarchical, impeachable_. The Mazzei letter, written not long after the +ratification, displays the same bitter feeling. + +The Federalists had a powerful ally in William Cobbett, who signed +himself Peter Porcupine, adopting for his literary _alias_ a nickname +bestowed by his enemies. This remarkable writer, who, like Paine, +figured in the political conflicts of two nations, must have come into +the world bristling with pugnacity. A more thorough game-cock never +crowed in the pit. He had been a private in the English army, came +to the United States about 1790, and taught French to Americans, and +English to Frenchmen, (to Talleyrand among others,) until 1794, when +the dogmatic Dr. Priestley arrived here, fresh from the scene of his +persecutions. The Doctor losing no time in laying his case before the +American public, Cobbett answered his publication, ridiculing it and the +Doctor's political career in a pamphlet which became immediately popular +with the Federalists. From that time until his departure for England, in +1800, Cobbett's pen was never idle. His "Little Plain English in Favor +of Mr. Jay's Treaty" was altogether the best thing published on that +side of the question. Cobbett had more than one point of resemblance to +Paine, the object of his early invective, but later of his unqualified +admiration. These two men were the best English pamphleteers of their +day. In shrewdness, in practical sense, Cobbett was fully Paine's equal. +He was as coarse and as pithy in expression, but with more wit, a better +education, more complete command of language, and a greater variety of +resources. Cobbett was a quicker and a harder hitter than Paine. His +personal courage gave him a great advantage in his warfaring life. In +1796, in the hottest of the French and English fight, the well-known +Porcupine opened a shop in Philadelphia. He filled his show-window with +all the prints of English kings, nobles, and generals he could collect, +and "then," he says, "I took down the shutters, and waited." + +Party-feeling reached the boiling-point when Washington retired to Mount +Vernon. Mr. Adams, his successor, had none of that divinity which +hedged the Father of his Country to protect him. Under the former +administration, he had been, as Senator Grayson humorously called him, +"his superfluous Excellency," and out of the direct line of fire. He +could easily look down upon such melancholy squibs as Freneau's "Daddy +Vice" and "Duke of Braintree." But when raised above every other head by +his high office, he became a mark for the most bitter personal attacks. +Mr. Adams unfortunately thought too much about himself to be the +successful chief of a party. He allowed his warm feelings to divert +him from the main object and end of his followers. He was jealous of +Hamilton,--unwilling, in fact, to seem to be governed by the opinion of +any man, and half inclined to look for a reëlection outside of his own +party. Hamilton, the soul of the Federalists, mistrusted and disliked +Mr. Adams, and made the sad mistake of publishing his mistrust and +dislike. It must be confessed that the gentlemen who directed the +Administration party were no match as tacticians for such file-leaders +as Jefferson and Burr. Many of their pet measures were ill-judged, to +say the least. The provisional army furnished a fertile theme for fierce +declamation. The black cockade became the badge of the supporters of +government, so that in the streets one could tell at a glance whether +friend or foe was approaching. The Alien and Sedition Laws caused much +bitter feeling and did great damage to the Federalists. To read these +acts and the trials under them now excites somewhat of the feeling +with which we look upon some strange and clumsy engine of torture in a +mediaeval museum. How the temper of this people and their endurance of +legal inflictions have changed since then! There was Matthew Lyon, a +noted Democrat of Irish origin, who had published a letter charging the +President with "ridiculous pomp, idle parade, and selfish avarice." He +was found guilty of sedition, and sentenced to four months' imprisonment +and a fine of one thousand dollars. There was Cooper, an Englishman, +who fared equally ill for saying or writing that the President did not +possess sufficient capacity to fulfil the duties of his office. What +should we think of the sanity of James Buchanan, should he prosecute +and obtain a conviction against some Black-Republican Luther Baldwin of +1859, for wishing that the wad of a cannon, fired in his honor, might +strike an unmentionable part of his august person? What should we say, +if Horace Greeley were to be arrested on a warrant issued by the Supreme +Court of New York for a libel on Louis Napoleon, as was William Cobbett +by Judge McKean of Pennsylvania for a libel on the King of Spain? + +Fiercer and more bitter waxed party-discord, and both sides did ample +injustice to one another. Mr. Jefferson wrote, that men who had been +intimate all their lives would cross the street and look the other way, +lest they should be obliged to touch their hats. And Gouverneur Morris +gives us a capital idea of the state of feeling when he says that a +looker-on, who took no part in affairs, felt like a sober man at a +dinner when the rest of the company were drunk. Civil war was often +talked of, and the threat of secession, which has become the rhetorical +staple of the South, produced solely for exportation to the North, to be +used there in manufacturing pro-slavery votes out of the timidity of men +of large means and little courage or perspicacity, was then freely +made by both divisions of the Union. Had we been of French or +Spanish descent, there would have been barricades, _coup-d'états, +pronunciamentos_; but the English race know better how to treat the +body-politic. They never apply the knife except for the most desperate +operations. But where hard words were so plenty, blows could not fail. +Duels were frequent, cudgellings not uncommon,--although as yet the +Senate-Chamber had not been selected as the fittest scene for the use +of the bludgeon. It is true that molasses-and-water was the beverage +allowed by Congress in those simple times, and that charged to +stationery. + +What terrible fellows our ancestors were for calling +names,--particularly the gentlemen of the press! If they had been +natives of the Island of Frozen Sounds, along the shore of which +Pantagruel and Panurge coasted, they would have stood up to their +chins in scurrilous epithets. The comical sketch of their rhetoric in +"Salmagundi" is literally true:--"Every day have these slangwhangers +made furious attacks on each other and upon their respective adherents, +discharging their heavy artillery, consisting of large sheets loaded +with scoundrel, villain, liar, rascal, numskull, nincompoop, dunderhead, +wiseacre, blockhead, jackass." As single words were not always explosive +enough to make a report equal to their feelings, they had recourse to +compounds;--"pert and prating popinjay," "hackneyed gutscraper," "maggot +of corruption," "toad on a dung-heap," "snivelling sophisticating +hound," are a few of the chain-shot which strike our eyes in turning +over the yellow faded files. They are all quiet now, those eager, +snarling editors of fifty years since, and mostly forgotten. Even the +ink which records their spiteful abuse is fading away;-- + + "Dunne no more the halter dreads, + The torrent of his lies to check, + No gallows Cheetham's dreams invades, + Nor lours o'er Holt's devoted neck." + +Emerson's saying, that involuntarily we read history as superior beings, +is never so true as when we read history before it has been worked +up for the public, in the raw material of letters, pamphlets, and +newspapers. Feverish paragraphs, which once excited the enthusiasm of +one party and the fiercest opposition of the other, lie before us as +dead and as unmeaning as an Egyptian mummy. The passion which once +gave them life is gone. The objects which the writers considered +all-important we perceive to have been of no real significance even in +their day. We read on with a good-natured pity, akin to the feeling +which the gods of Epicurus might be supposed to experience when they +looked down upon foolish mortals,--and when we shut the book, go out +into our own world to fret, fume, and wrangle over things equally +transitory and frivolous. + +When it became evident that the Administration party ran the risk of +being beaten in the election of 1800, their trumpeters sounded the +wildest notes of alarm. "People! how long will you remain blind? Awake! +be up and doing! If Mr. Jefferson is elected, the equal representation +of the small States in the Senate will be destroyed, the funding +system swept away, the navy abolished, all commerce and foreign trade +prohibited, and the fruits of the soil left to rot on the hands of the +farmer. The taxes will all fall on the landed interest, all the churches +will be overturned, none but Frenchmen employed by government, and +the monstrous system of liberty and equality, with all its horrid +consequences, as experienced in France and St. Domingo, will inevitably +be introduced." Thus they shouted, and no doubt many of the shouters +sincerely believed it all. Nevertheless, and in spite of these alarums, +the Revolution of '99, as Mr. Jefferson liked to call it, took place +without bloodshed, and in 1801 that gentleman mounted the throne. + +After this struggle was over, the Federalists, some from conviction and +some from disgust at being beaten, gave up the country as lost. Worthy +New-Englanders, like Cabot, Fisher Ames, and Wolcott, had no longer +hope. They sank into the position of mere grumblers, with one leading +principle,--admiration of England, and a willingness to submit to any +insults which England in her haughtiness might please to inflict. "We +are sure," says the "Boston Democrat," "that George III. would find more +desperately devoted subjects in New England than in any part of his +dominions." The Democrats, of course, clung to their motto, "Whatever +is in France is right," and even accepted the arbitrary measures of +Bonaparte at home as a mere change of system, and abroad as forced upon +him by British pirates. It is curious to read the high Federalist papers +in the first days of their sorrow. In their contradictory fault-finding +sulkiness, they give some color of truth to Mr. Jefferson's accusation, +that the Federal leaders were seeking to establish a monarchy,--a charge +well known to be unfounded, as Washington said at the time. "What is the +use of celebrating the Fourth of July?" they asked. "Freedom is a stale, +narcotic topic. The Declaration of Independence a useless, if not an +odious libel upon a friendly nation connected with us by the silken band +of amity." Fenno, in his paper, said the Declaration was "a placard +of rebellion, a feeble production, in which the spirit of rebellion +prevailed over the love of order." Dennie, in the "Portfolio," +anticipating Mr. Choate, called it "an incoherent accumulation of +indigestible and impracticable political dogmas, dangerous to the +peace of the world, and seditious in its local tendency, and, as a +composition, equally at variance with the laws of construction and the +laws of regular government." The Federalist opinion of the principles +of the Administration party was avowed with equal frankness in their +papers. "A democracy is the most absurd constitution, productive of +anarchy and mischief, which must always happen when the government of a +nation depends upon the caprice of the ignorant, harebrained vulgar. All +the miseries of men for a long series of years grew out of that infamous +mode of polity, a democracy; which is to be reckoned to be only the +corruption and degeneracy of a republic, and not to be ranked among the +legitimate forms of government. If it be not a legitimate government, we +owe it no allegiance. He is a blind man who does not see this truth; he +is a base man who will not assert it. Democratic power is tyranny, in +the principle, the beginning, the progress, and the end. It is on its +trial here, and the issue will be civil war, desolation, and anarchy." +These and other foolish excerpts were kept before their readers by the +"Aurora" and "Boston Chronicle," leading Democratic organs, and +served to sweeten their triumph and to seal the fate of the unlucky +Federalists. + +The difference between the tone of these extracts and that of our +present journalists, when they touch upon the abstract principles of +government, may indicate to us the firm hold which the Democratic theory +has taken of our people. As that conquering party marched onward, the +opposition was forced to follow after, and to encamp upon the ground +their powerful enemy left behind him. To-day when we see gentlemen who +consider themselves Conservatives in the ranks of the Democrats, we may +suppose that the tour of the political circle is nearly completed. + +A momentary lull had followed the storm of the election, when Mr. +Jefferson boldly threw down another "bone for the Federalists to gnaw." +He wrote to Thomas Paine, inviting him to America, and offering him a +passage home in a national vessel. "You will, in general, find us," he +added, "returned to sentiments worthy of former times; in these it will +be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any +man living. That you may live long, to continue your useful labors and +reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. +Accept the assurance of my high esteem and affectionate attachment." Mr. +Jefferson went even farther. He openly announced his intention of giving +Paine an office, if there were one in his gift suitable for him. Now, +although Paine had been absent for many years, he had not been forgotten +by the Americans. The echo of the noise he made in England reached our +shores; and English echoes were more attentively listened to then even +than at present. His "Rights of Man" had been much read in this country. +Indeed, it was asserted, and upon pretty good authority, that Jefferson +himself, when Secretary of State, had advised and encouraged the +publication of an American edition as an antidote to the "Davila" of Mr. +Adams. Even the "Age of Reason" had obtained an immense circulation from +the great reputation of the author. It reminded the Rev. Mr. Goodrich, +and other Orthodox New-Englanders, of Milton's description of Death,-- + + "Black it stood as night, + Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell." + +Yet numbers of people, nothing frightened, would buy and read. "No +work," Dr. Francis tells us, "had a demand for readers comparable to +that of Paine. The 'Age of Reason,' on its first appearance in New York, +was printed as an orthodox book by orthodox publishers,--doubtless +deceived," the charitable Doctor adds, "by the vast renown which the +author of 'Common Sense' had obtained, and _by the prospects of sale_." +Paine's position in the French Convention, his long imprisonment, +poverty, slovenly habits, and fondness for drink, were all well +known and well talked over. William Cobbett, for one, never lost an +opportunity of dressing up Paine as a filthy monster. He wrote his +life for the sake of doing it more thoroughly. The following extract, +probably much relished at the time, will give some idea of the tone and +temper of this performance:-- + +"How Tom gets a living now, or what brothel he inhabits, I know not, nor +does it much signify. He has done all the mischief he can do in this +world; and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on +the earth, or to be dried in the air, is of very little consequence. +Whenever or wherever he breathes his last, he will excite neither sorrow +nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes, not a groan will +be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like Judas, he will be remembered +by posterity; men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, +treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous by the single monosyllable of +Paine." + +Cobbett also wrote an _ante-mortem_ epitaph, a fit inscription for the +life he had composed. It ends thus:-- + + "He is crammed in a dungeon and preaches up Reason; + Blasphemes the Almighty, lives in filth like a hog; + Is abandoned in death, and interred like a dog." + +This brutal passage does not exaggerate the opinion of Paine's character +held by the good people of America. He was an object of horror +to them,--a rebel against government and against God,--a type of +Jacobinism, a type of Infidelity, and, with what seemed to them, no +doubt, a beautiful consistency, a type of all that was abandoned and +vile. Thomas Paine, a Massachusetts poet of _ci-devant_ celebrity, +petitioned the General Court for permission to call himself Robert Treat +Paine, on the ground that he had no Christian name. In New England, +Christianity and Federalism were looked upon as intimately connected, +and Democracy as a wicked thing, born of Tom Paine, Tom Jefferson, and +the Father of Lies. In this Trinity of Evil, Thomas Paine stood first. + +During the struggle for the Presidency, Mr. Jefferson had been accused, +from every Federal stump, of the two unpardonable sins to Yankee +minds,--namely, that his notes could be bought for five shillings in the +pound, and that he did not believe in Revolution. Since his election, he +had been daily reminded of his religious short-comings by keen newspaper +attacks. He knew that he strengthened the hands of his enemies by +inviting home the Arch-Infidel. We are and were then a religious people, +in spite of the declaration in Mr. Adams's Tripolitan treaty that the +government of the United States was "not in any sense founded on the +Christian religion," and Paine could find few admirers in any class. Mr. +Jefferson, too, was well aware that the old man was broken, that the +fire had gone out of him, and that his presence in the United States +could be of no use whatever to the party. But he thought that Paine's +services in the Revolution had earned for him an asylum, and their old +acquaintance made him hasten to offer it. We think that the invitation +to Paine was one of the manliest acts of Jefferson's life. + +When the matter became public, there arose a long, loud cry of abuse, +which rang from Massachusetts Bay to Washington City. Anarchy, +confusion, and the downfall of not only church, but state, were +declared to be the unavoidable consequences of Paine's return to our +shores,--that impious apostate! that Benedict Arnold, once useful, and +then a traitor! The "United States Gazette" had ten leaders on the text +of Tom Paine and Jefferson, "whose love of liberty was neither more +rational, generous, or social, than that of the wolf or the tiger." The +"New England Palladium" fairly shrieked:--"What! invite to the United +States that lying, drunken, brutal infidel, who rejoices in the +opportunity of basking and wallowing in the confusion, devastation, +bloodshed, rapine, and murder, in which his soul delights?" Why, even +the French called him the English orang-outang! He was exposed with a +monkey and a bear in a cage in Paris. In 1792, he was forbidden to haunt +the White-Bear Tavern in London. He subsisted for eight years on the +charity of booksellers, who employed him in the morning to correct +proofs; in the afternoon he was too drunk. He lodged in a cellar. He +helped the _poissardes_ to clean fish and open oysters. He lived in +misery, filth, and contempt. Not until Livingston went to France did any +respectable American call upon him. Livingston's attentions to him not +only astonished, but disgusted the First Consul, and gave him a very +mean opinion of Livingston's talents. The critical Mr. Dennie caused his +"Portfolio" to give forth this solemn strain: "If, during the present +season of national abasement, infatuation, folly, and vice, any portent +could surprise, sober men would be utterly confounded by an article +current in all our newspapers, that the loathsome Thomas Paine, a +drunken atheist and the scavenger of faction, is invited to return in +a national ship to America by the first magistrate of a free people. +A measure so enormously preposterous we cannot yet believe has been +adopted, and it would demand firmer nerves than those possessed by Mr. +Jefferson to hazard such an insult to the moral sense of the nation. If +that rebel rascal should come to preach from his Bible to our populace, +it would be time for every honest and insulted man of dignity to flee to +some Zoar as from another Sodom, to shake off the very dust of his feet +and to abandon America." "He is coming," wrote Noah Webster, ("the +mender and murderer of English,") "to publish in America the third part +of the 'Age of Reason.'" And the epigrammatists, such as they were, +tried their goose-quills on the subject:-- + + "He passed his forces in review, + Smith, Cheetham, Jones, Duane: + 'Dull rascals,--these will never do,' + Quoth he,--'I'll send for Paine.' + + "Then from his darling den in France + To tempt the wretch to come, + He made Tom's brain with flattery dance + And took the tax from rum." + +The Administration editors held their tongues;--the religious side of +the question was too strong for them. + +Paine was unable to accept the passage offered him in the frigate, and +returned in a merchant-vessel in the autumn of the next year (1802). +The excitement had not subsided. Early in October, the "Philadelphia +Gazette" announced that "a kind of tumultuous sensation was produced in +the city yesterday evening in consequence of the arrival of the ship +Benjamin Franklin from Havre. It was believed, for a few moments, that +the carcass of Thomas Paine was on board, and several individuals were +seen disgracing themselves by an impious joy. It was finally understood +that Paine had missed his passage by this vessel and was to sail in a +ship to New York. Under the New York news-head we perceive a vessel from +Havre reported. Infidels! hail the arrival of your high-priest!" + +A few days later, the infidel Tom Paine, otherwise Mr. Paine, arrived +safely at Baltimore and proceeded thence to Washington. The journalists +gave tongue at once: "Fire! Age of Reason! Look at his nose! He drank +all the brandy in Baltimore in nine days! What a dirty fellow! Invited +home by a brother Tom! Let Jefferson and his blasphemous crony dangle +from the same gallows." The booksellers, quietly mindful of the +opportunity, got out an edition of his works in two volumes. + +As soon as he was fairly on shore, Paine took sides with his host, and +commenced writing "Letters to the People of the United States." He +announced in them that he was a genuine Federalist,--not one of that +disguised faction which had arisen in America, and which, losing sight +of first principles, had begun to contemplate the people as hereditary +property: No wonder that the author of the "Rights of Man" was attacked +by this faction: His arrival was to them like the sight of water to +canine madness: He served them for a standing dish of abuse: The leaders +during the Reign of Terror in France and during the late despotism +in America were the same men in character; for how else was it to be +accounted for that he was persecuted by both at the same time? In every +part of the Union this faction was in the agonies of death, and, in +proportion as its fate approached, gnashed its teeth and struggled: He +should lose half his greatness when they ceased to lie. Mr. Adams, as +the late chief of this faction, met with harsh and derisive treatment in +these letters, and did not attempt to conceal his irritation in his own +later correspondence. + +Paine's few defenders tried to back him with weak paragraphs in the +daily papers: His great talents, his generous services, "in spite of a +few indiscreet writings about religion," should make him an object of +interest and respect. The "Aurora's" own correspondent sent to his paper +a favorable sketch of Paine's appearance, manner, and conversation: +He was "proud to find a man whom he had admired free from the +contaminations of debauchery and the habits of inebriety which have been +so grossly and falsely sent abroad concerning him." But the enemy had +ten guns to Paine's one, and served them with all the fierceness of +party-hate. A shower of abusive missiles rattled incessantly about his +ears. However thick-skinned a man may be, and protected over all by the +_oes triplex_ of self-sufficiency, he cannot escape being wounded by +furious and incessant attacks. Paine felt keenly the neglect of his +former friends, who avoided him, when they did not openly cut him. Mr. +Jefferson, it is true, asked him to dinners, and invited the British +minister to meet him; at least, the indignant Anglo-Federal editors +said so. Perhaps he offered him an office. If he did, Paine refused it, +preferring "to serve as a disinterested volunteer." Poor old man! his +services were no longer of much use to anybody. The current of American +events had swept past him, leaving him stranded, a broken fragment of a +revolutionary wreck. + +When the nine days of wonder had expired in Washington, and the +inhabitants had grown tired of staring at Paine and of pelting him with +abuse, he betook himself to New York. On his way thither, he met with an +adventure which shows the kind of martyrdom suffered by this political +and religious heretic. He had stopped at Bordentown, in New Jersey, to +look at a small place he owned there, and to visit an old friend and +correspondent, Colonel Kirkbride. When he departed, the Colonel drove +him over to Trenton to take the stage-coach. But in Trenton the Federal +and Religious party had the upperhand, and when Paine applied at the +booking-office for a seat to New York the agent refused to sell him one. +Moreover, a crowd collected about his lodgings, who groaned dismally +when he drove away with his friend, while a band of musicians, provided +for the occasion, played the Rogue's March. + +Among the editorial celebrities of 1803, James Cheetham, in New York, +was almost as famous as Duane of the "Aurora." Cheetham, like many of +his contemporaries, Gray, Carpenter, Callender, and Duane himself, was +a British subject. He was a hatter in his native land; but a turn for +politics ruined his business and made expatriation convenient. In the +United States, he had become the editor of the "American Citizen," and +was at that time busily engaged in attacking the Federalists and Burr's +"Little Band," for their supposed attempt to elect Mr. Burr in the place +of Mr. Jefferson. To Cheetham, accordingly, Paine wrote, requesting him +to engage lodgings at Lovett's, afterwards the City Hotel. He sent for +Cheetham, on the evening of his arrival. The journalist obeyed the +summons immediately. This was the first interview between Paine and the +man who was to hang, draw, and quarter his memory in a biography. This +libellous performance was written shortly after Paine's death. It was +intended as a peace-offering to the English government. The ex-hatter +had made up his mind to return home, and he wished to prove the +sincerity of his conversion from radicalism by trampling on the remains +of its high-priest. So long as Cheetham remained in good standing with +the Democrats, Paine and he were fast friends; but when he became +heretical and schismatic on the Embargo question, some three or four +years later, and was formally read out of the party, Paine laid the rod +across his back with all his remaining strength. He had vigor enough +left, it seems, to make the "Citizen" smart, for Cheetham cuts and stabs +with a spite which shows that the work was as agreeable to his feelings +as useful to his plans. His reminiscences must be read _multis cum +granis_. + +In New York Paine enjoyed the same kind of second-rate ovation as in +Washington. A great number of persons called upon him, but mostly of the +laboring class of emigrants, who had heard of the "Rights of Man," +and, feeling disposed to claim as many rights as possible in their new +country, looked with reverence upon the inventor of the system. +The Democratic leaders, with one or two exceptions, avoided Paine. +Respectabilities shunned him as a contamination. Grant Thorburn was +suspended from church-membership for shaking hands with him. To the boys +he was an object of curious attention; his nose was the burden of their +songs. + +Cheetham carried round a subscription-list for a public dinner. Sixty or +seventy of Paine's admirers attended. It went off brilliantly, and was +duly reported in the "American Citizen." Then the effervescence of New +York curiosity subsided; Paine became an old story. He left Lovett's +Hotel for humble lodgings in the house of a free-thinking farrier. +Thenceforward the tale of his life is soon told. He went rarely to his +farm at New Rochelle; he disliked the country and the trouble of keeping +house; and a bullet which whizzed through his window one Christmas Eve, +narrowly missing his head, did not add agreeable associations to the +place. In the city he moved his quarters from one low boarding-house to +another, and generally managed to quarrel with the blacksmiths, bakers, +and butchers, his landlords. Unable to enjoy society suited to his +abilities and large experience of life, Paine called in low company to +help him bear the burden of existence. To the men who surrounded him, +his opinions on all subjects were conclusive, and his shrewd sayings +revelations. Among these respectful listeners, he had to fear neither +incredulity nor disputation. Like his friend Elihu Palmer, and the +celebrated Dr. Priestley, Paine would not tolerate contradiction. +To differ with him was, in his eyes, simply to be deficient in +understanding. He was like the French lady who naïvely told Dr. +Franklin, "_Je ne trouve que moi qui aie toujours raison_." Professing +to adore Reason, he was angry, if anybody reasoned with him. But herein +he was no exception to the general rule,--that we find no persons so +intolerant and illiberal as men professing liberal principles. + +His occupation and amusement was to write for the papers articles of +a somewhat caustic and personal nature. Whatever subject occupied the +public mind interested Paine and provoked his remarks. He was bitter in +his attacks upon the Federalists and Burrites for attempting to jockey +Jefferson out of the Presidency. Later, when Burr was acquitted of +treason, Paine found fault with Chief-Justice Marshall for his rulings +during the trial, and gave him notice, that he (Marshall) was "a +suspected character." He also requested Dr. Mitchell, then United States +Senator for New York, to propose an amendment to the Constitution, +authorizing the President to remove a judge, on the address of a +majority of both houses of Congress, for reasonable cause, when +sufficient grounds for impeachment might not exist. General Miranda's +filibustering expedition against Caracas, a greater failure even than +the Lopez raid on Cuba, furnished Paine with a theme. He wrote a +sensible paper on the yellow fever, by request of Jefferson, and one or +two on his iron bridge. He was ardent in the defence of Mr. Jefferson's +pet scheme of a gun-boat navy, and ridiculed the idea of fortifying +New York. "The cheapest way," he said, "to fortify New York will be to +banish the scoundrels that infest it." The inhabitants of that city +would do well, if they could find an engineer to fortify their island in +this way. + +When the Pennsylvanians called a Convention in 1805 to amend the +Constitution of the State, Paine addressed them at some length, giving +them a summary of his views on Government, Constitutions, and Charters. +The Creoles of Louisiana sent to Congress a memorial of their "rights," +in which they included the importation of African slaves. Paine was +indignant at this perversion of his favorite specific for all political +ailments, and took the Franco-Americans soundly to task:--"How dare you +put up a petition to Heaven for such a power, without fearing to be +struck from the earth by its justice?" It is manifest that Paine could +not be a Democrat in good standing now. Mingled with these graver +topics were side-blows at the emissary Cullen, _alias_ Carpenter, an +Englishman, who edited a Federal paper,--replies to Cheetham, reprimands +to Cheetham, and threats to prosecute Cheetham for lying, "unless he +makes a public apology,"--and three letters to Governor Morgan Lewis, +who had incensed Paine by bringing an action for political libel against +a Mr. Thomas Farmer, laying his damages at one hundred thousand dollars. + +Among his last productions were two memorials to the House of +Representatives. One can see in these papers that old age had weakened +his mind, and that harsh treatment had soured his feelings towards the +land of his adoption. + + "Ma république à jamais grande et libre, + Cette terre d'amour et d'égalité," + +no longer seemed to him as lovely as when he composed these verses for +a Fourth-of-July dinner in Paris. He claimed compensation for his +services in Colonel Laurens's mission to France in 1781. For his works +he asked no reward. "All the civilized world knows," he writes, "I have +been of great service to the United States, and have generously given +away talents that would have made me a fortune. The country has been +benefited, and I make myself happy in the knowledge of it. It is, +however, proper for me to add, that the mere independence of America, +were it to have been followed by a system of government modelled after +the corrupt system of the English government, would not have interested +me with the unabated ardor it did." "It will be convenient to me to know +what Congress will decide on, because it will determine me, whether, +after so many years of generous services and that in the most perilous +times, and after seventy years of age, I shall continue in this country, +or offer my services to some other country. It will not be to England, +unless there should be a revolution." + +The memorial was referred to the Committee on Claims. When Paine heard +of its fate, he addressed an indignant letter to the Speaker of the +House. "I know not who the Committee on Claims are; but if they were +men of younger standing than 'the times that tried men's souls,' and +consequently too young to know what the condition of the country was +at the time I published 'Common Sense,'--for I do not believe that +independence would have been declared, had it not been for the effect of +that work,--they are not capable of judging of the whole of the services +of Thomas Paine. If my memorial was referred to the Committee on Claims +for the purpose of losing it, it is unmanly policy. After so many years +of service, my heart grows cold towards America." + +His heart was soon to grow cold to all the world. In the spring of 1809, +it became evident to Paine's attendants that his end was approaching. As +death drew near, the memories of early youth arose vividly in his +mind. He wished to be buried in the cemetery of the Quakers, in whose +principles his father had educated him. He sent for a leading member +of the sect to ask a resting-place for his body in their ground. The +request was refused. + +When the news got abroad that the Arch-Infidel was dying, foolish old +women and kindred clergymen, who "knew no way to bring home a wandering +sheep but by worrying him to death," gathered together about his bed. +Even his physician joined in the hue-and-cry. It was a scene of the +Inquisition adapted to North America,--a Protestant _auto da fé_. The +victim lay helpless before his persecutors; the agonies of disease +supplied the place of rack and fagot. But nothing like a recantation +could be wrung from him. And so his tormentors left him alone to die, +and his freethinking smiths and cobblers rejoiced over his fidelity to +the cause. + +He was buried on his farm at New Rochelle, according to his latest +wishes. "Thomas Paine. Author of 'Common Sense,'" the epitaph he had +fixed upon, was carved upon his tomb. A better one exists from an +unknown hand, which tells, in a jesting way, the secret of the sorrows +of his later life:-- + + "Here lies Tom Paine, who wrote in liberty's defence, + And in his 'Age of Reason' lost his 'Common Sense.'" + +Ten years after, William Cobbett, who had left England in a fit of +political disgust and had settled himself on Long Island to raise +hogs and ruta-bagas, resolved to go home again. Cobbett had become an +admirer, almost a disciple of Paine. The "Constitution-grinder" of '96 +was now "a truly great man, a truly philosophical politician, a mind as +far superior to Pitt and Burke as the light of a flambeau is superior to +that of a rush-light." Above all, Paine had been Cobbett's teacher on +financial questions. In 1803, Cobbett read his "Decline and Fall of the +English System," and then "saw the whole matter in its true light; and +neither pamphleteers nor speech-makers were after that able to raise a +momentary puzzle in his mind." Perhaps Cobbett thought he might excite a +sensation in England and rally about him the followers of Paine, or it +may be that he wished to repair the gross injustice he had done him by +some open act of adherence; at all events, he exhumed Paine's body and +took the bones home with him in 1819, with the avowed intention of +erecting a magnificent monument to his memory by subscription. In the +same manner, about two thousand two hundred and fifty years ago, the +bones of Theseus, the mythical hero of Democracy, were brought from +Skyros to Athens by some Attic [Greek: Kobbetaes]. The description +of the arrival in England we quote from a Liverpool journal of the +day:--"When his last trunk was opened at the Custom-House, Cobbett +observed to the surrounding spectators, who had assembled in great +numbers,--'Here are the bones of the late Thomas Paine.' This +declaration excited a visible sensation, and the crowd pressed forward +to see the contents of the package. Cobbett remarked,--'Great, indeed, +must that man have been whose very bones attract such attention!' The +officer took up the coffin-plate inscribed, 'Thomas Paine, Aged 72. Died +January 8, 1809,' and, having lifted up several of the bones, replaced +the whole and passed them. They have since been forwarded from this town +to London." + +At a public dinner given to Cobbett in Liverpool, Paine was toasted as +"the Noble of Nature, the Child of the Lower Orders"; but the monument +was never raised, and no one knows where his bones found their last +resting-place. + +Cobbett himself gained nothing by this resurrectionist performance, +except an additional couplet in the party-songs of the day:-- + + "Let Cobbett of borough-corruption complain, + And go to the De'il with the bones of Tom Paine." + +The two were classed together by English Conservatives, as "pestilent +fellows" and "promoters of sedition." + +It is now fifty years since Paine died; but the _nil de mortuis_ is no +rule in his case. The evil associations of his later days have pursued +him beyond the grave. A small and threadbare sect of "liberals," as they +call themselves,--men in whom want of skill, industry, and thrift has +produced the usual results,--have erected an altar to Thomas Paine, +and, on the anniversary of his birth, go through with a pointless +celebration, which passes unnoticed, unless in an out-of-the-way corner +of some newspaper. In this class of persons, irreligion is a mere form +of discontent. They have no other reason to give for the faith which +is not in them. They like to ascribe their want of success in life to +something out of joint in the thoughts and customs of society, rather +than to their own shortcomings or incapacity. In France, such persons +would be Socialists and _Rouges_; in this country, where the better +classes only have any reason to rebel, they cannot well conspire against +government, but attack religion instead, and pride themselves on their +exemption from prejudice. The "Age of Reason" is their manual. Its bold, +clear, simple statements they can understand; its shallowness they +are too ignorant to perceive; its coarseness is in unison with their +manners. Thus the author has become the Apostle of Free-thinking +tinkers and the Patron Saint of unwashed Infidelity. + +To this generation at large, he is only an indistinct shadow,--a faint +reminiscence of a red nose,--an ill-flavored name, redolent of brandy +and of brimstone, his beverage in life and his well-earned punishment +in eternity, which suggests to the serious mind dirt, drunkenness, and +hopeless damnation. Mere worldlings call him "Tom Paine," in a tone +which combines derision and contempt. A bust of him, by Jarvis, in the +possession of the New York Historical Society, is kept under lock and +key, because it was defaced and defiled by visitors, while a dozen +other plaster worthies that decorate the institution remained intact. +Nevertheless, we suspect that most of our readers, if they cannot date +back to the first decade of the century, will find, when they sift their +information, that they have only a speaking acquaintance with Thomas +Paine, and can give no good reason for their dislike of him. + +And it is not easy for the general reader to become intimate with him. +He will find him, of course, in Biographical Dictionaries, Directories +of the City of the Great Dead, which only tell you where men lived, and +what they did to deserve a place in the volume; but as to a life of him, +strictly speaking, there is none. Oldys and Cobbett tried to flay him +alive in pamphlets; Sherwin and Clio Rickman were prejudiced friends and +published only panegyrics. All are out of print and difficult to find. +Cheetham's work is a political libel; and the attempt of Mr. Vail of +the "Beacon" to canonize him in the "Infidel's Calendar," cannot be +recommended to intelligent persons. We might expect to meet with him in +those books of lives so common with us,--collections in which a certain +number of deceased gentlemen are bound up together, so resembling each +other in feature that one might suppose the narratives ground out by +some obituary-machine and labelled afterward to suit purchasers. Even +this "sign-post biography," as the "Quarterly" calls it, Paine has +escaped. He was not a marketable commodity. There was no demand for him +in polite circles. The implacable hand of outraged orthodoxy was against +him. Hence his memory has lain in the gutter. Even his friend Joel +Barlow left him out of the "Columbiad," to the great disgust of Clio +Rickman, who thought his name should have appeared in the Fifth Book +between Washington and Franklin. Surely Barlow might have found room for +him in the following "Epic List of Heroes":-- + + "Wythe, Mason, Pendleton, with Henry joined, + Rush, Rodney, Langdon, friends of humankind, + Persuasive Dickinson, the farmer's boast, + Recording Thompson, pride of all the host, + Nash, Jay, the Livingstons, in council great, + Rutledge and Laurens, held the rolls of fate." + +But no! Neither author nor authorling liked to have his name seen in +company with Thomas Paine. And when a curious compiler has taken him up, +he has held him at arm's length, and, after eyeing him cautiously, has +dropped him like some unclean and noxious animal. + +Sixty years ago, Paine's friends used to say, that, "in spite of some +indiscreet writings on the subject of religion," he deserved the respect +and thanks of Americans for his services. We think that he deserves +something more at the present day than this absolute neglect. There is +stuff enough in him for one volume at least. His career was wonderful, +even for the age of miraculous events he lived in. In America, he was a +Revolutionary hero of the first rank, who carried letters in his pocket +from George Washington, thanking him for his services. And he managed +besides to write his radical name in large letters in the History of +England and of France. As a mere literary workman, his productions +deserve notice. In mechanics, he invented and put up the first iron +bridge of large span in England; the boldness of the attempt still +excites the admiration of engineers. He may urge, too, another claim +to our attention. In the legion of "most remarkable men" these United +States have produced or imported, only three have achieved infamy: +Arnold, Burr, and Paine. What are Paine's titles to belong to this trio +of disreputables? Only these three: he wrote the "Age of Reason"; was a +Democrat, perhaps an unusually dirty one; and drank more brandy than was +good for him. The "Age of Reason" is a shallow deistical essay, in which +the author's opinions are set forth, it is true, in a most offensive and +irreverent style. As Dr. Hopkins wrote of Ethan Allen,-- + + "One hand was clenched to batter noses, + While t'other scrawled 'gainst Paul and Moses." + +But who reads it now? On the other hand, no one who has studied Paine's +career can deny his honesty and his disinterestedness; and every +unprejudiced reader of his works must admit not merely his great ability +in urging his opinions, but that he sincerely believed all he wrote. Let +us, then, try to forget the carbuncled nose, the snuffy waistcoat, the +unorthodox sneer. We should wipe out his later years, cut his life short +at 1796, and take Paine when he wrote "Common Sense," Paine when he +lounged at the White Bear in Piccadilly, talking over with Horne Tooke +the answer to Mr. Burke's "Reflections," and Paine, when, as "foreign +benefactor of the species," he took his seat in the famous French +Convention. + +It would repay some capable author to dig him up, wash him, and show him +to the world as he was. A biography of him would embrace the history of +the struggle which established the new theory of politics in government. +He is the representative man of Democracy in both hemispheres,--a good +subject in the hands of a competent artist; and the time has arrived, we +think, when justice may be done him. As a general rule, it is yet too +soon to write the History of the United States since 1784. Half a +century has not been sufficient to wear out the bitter feeling excited +by the long struggle of Democrats and Federalists. Respectable +gentlemen, who, more pious than Aeneas, have undertaken to carry their +grandfathers' remains from the ruins of the past into the present era, +seem to be possessed with the same demon of discord that agitated the +deceased ancestors. The quarrels of the first twenty years of the +Constitution have become chronic ink-feuds in certain families. A +literary _vendetta_ is carried on to this day, and a stab with the steel +pen, or a shot from behind the safe cover of a periodical, is certain +to be received by any one of them who offers to his enemy the glorious +opportunity of a book. Where so much temper exists, impartial history is +out of the question. + +Our authors, too, as a general rule, have inherited the political jargon +of the last century, and abound in "destiny of humanity," "inalienable +rights," "virtue of the sovereign people," "base and bloody despots," +and all that sort of phrase, earnest and real enough once, but little +better than cant and twaddle now. They seem to take it for granted that +the question is settled, the rights of man accurately defined, the true +and only theory of government found,--and that he who doubts is blinded +by aristocratic prejudice or is a fool. We must say, nevertheless, that +Father Time has not yet had years enough to answer the great question of +governing which was proposed to him in 1789. Some of the developments +of our day may well make us doubt whether the last and perfect form, +or even theory, is the one we have chosen. "_Les monarchies absolues +avaient deshonoré le despotisme: prenons garde que les républiques +démocratiques ne le réhabilitent_." But Paine's part in the history of +this country after 1783 is of so small importance, that in a life of him +all such considerations may be safely waived. The democratic movement of +the last eighty years, be it a "finality," or only a phase of progress +towards a more perfect state, is the grand historical fact of modern +times, and Paine's name is intimately connected with it. One is always +ready to look with lenity on the partiality of a biographer,--whether he +urge the claims of his hero to a niche in the Valhalla of great men, or +act as the _Advocatus Diaboli_ to degrade his memory. + + + + +OF BOOKS AND THE READING THEREOF. + +BEING A THIRD LETTER FROM PAUL POTTER, OF NEW YORK, IN THE CITY AND +COUNTY OF NEW YORK, ESQ., TO THE DON ROBERTO WAGONERO, OF WASHINGTON, +_olim_, BUT _nunc_ OF NOWHEREINPARTICULAR. + + +If any person, O my Bobus, had foretold that all these months would go +by before I should again address you, he would have exhibited prescient +talent great enough to establish twenty "mediums" in a flourishing +cabalistic business. Alas! they have been to me months of fathomless +distress, immensurate and immeasurable sorrow, and blank, blind, idiotic +indifference, even to books and friends, which, next to the nearest and +dearest, are the world's most priceless possession. But now that I have +a little thrown off the stupor, now that kindly Time has a little balmed +my cruel wounds, I come back to my books and to you,--to the _animi +remissionem_ of Cicero,--to these gentle sympathizers and faithful +solacements,--to old studies and ancient pursuits. There is a Latin +line, I know not whose, but Swift was fond of quoting it,-- + + _"Vertiginosus, inops, surdus, male gratus amicis,"_-- + +which I have whispered to myself, with prophetic lips, in the long, long +watches of my lonesome nights. Do you remember--but who that has read +it does not?--that affecting letter, written upon the death of his +wife, by Sir James Mackintosh to Dr. Parr? "Such was she whom I have +lost; and I have lost her when her excellent natural sense was rapidly +improving, after eight years of struggle and distress had bound us fast +together and moulded our tempers to each other,--when a knowledge of +her worth had refined my youthful love into friendship, before age had +deprived it of much of its original ardor. I lost her, alas! (the choice +of my youth, and the partner of my misfortunes,) at a moment when I had +the prospect of her sharing my better days." + +But if I am getting old, although perhaps prematurely, I must be casting +about for the _subsidia senectuti_. Swift wrote to Gay, that these +were "two or three servants about you and a convenient house"; justly +observing, that, "when a man grows hard to please, few people care +whether he be pleased or no"; and adding, sadly enough, "I should hardly +prevail to find one visitor, if I were not able to hire him with a +bottle of wine"; and so the sorrowful epistle concludes with the +sharpest grief of all: "My female friends, who could bear with me very +well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me." It is odd that Montaigne +should have hit upon the wine also as among the _subsidia senectuti_; +although the sage Michael complains, as you will remember, that old men +do not relish their wine, or at least the first glass, because "the +palate is furred with phlegms." But I care little either for the liquor +or the lackeys, and not much, I fear, at present, for "the female +friends." I have, then, nothing left for it but to take violently to +books; for I doubt not I shall find almost any house convenient, and I +am sure of one at last which I can claim by a title not to be disturbed +by all the precedents of Cruise, and in which no mortal shall have a +contingent remainder. + +To books, then, I betake myself,--to books, "the immortal children" of +"the understanding, courage, and abilities" of the wise and good,--ay! +and to inane, drivelling, doting books, the bastard progeny of vanity +and ignorance,--books over which one dawdles in an amusing dream and +pleasant spasm of amazement, and which teach us wisdom as tipsy Helots +taught the Spartan boys sobriety. Montaigne "never travelled without +books, either in peace or war"; and as I found them pleasant in happier +days, so I find them pleasant now. Of course, much of this omnivorous +reading is from habit, and, _invitâ Minervâ_, cannot be dignified by +the name of study,--that stiff, steady, persistent, uncompromising +application of the mind, by virtue of which alone the _Pons Asinorum_ +can be crossed, and the Forty-Seventh Problem of Euclid--which I +entirely disbelieve--mastered. + +I own to a prodigious respect, entertained since my Sophomore year at +the University, for those collegiate youth whose terribly hard study of +Bourdon and Legendre seems to have such a mollifying effect upon their +heads,--but, as the tradesmen say, that thing is "not in my line." I +would rather have a bundle of bad verses which have been consigned to +the pastry-cook. I suppose--for I have been told so upon good authority +--that, if "equals be taken from equals, the remainders are equal." I do +not see why they should not be, and, as a citizen of the United States +of America, the axiom seems to me to be entitled to respect. When a +youthful person, with a piece of chalk in his hand, before commencing +his artistic and scientific achievements upon the black-board, says: +"Let it be granted that a straight line may be drawn from any one point +to any other point," I invariably answer, "Of course,--by all manner of +means,"--although you know, dear Don, that, if I should put him upon +mathematical proof of the postulate, I might bother him hugely. But +when we come to the Fourteenth Proposition of Euclid's Data,--when I am +required to admit, that, "if a magnitude together with a given magnitude +has a given ratio to another magnitude, the excess of this other +magnitude above a given magnitude has a given ratio to the first +magnitude; and if the excess of a magnitude above a given magnitude has +a given ratio to another magnitude, this other magnitude together with a +given ratio to the first magnitude,"--I own to a slight confusion of +my intellectual faculties, and a perfect contempt for John Buteo and +Ptolemy. Then, there is Butler's "Analogy"; an excellent work it is, I +have been told,--a charming work to master,--quite a bulwark of our +faith; but as, in my growing days, it was explained to me, or rather was +not explained, before breakfast, by a truculent Doctor of Divinity, whom +I knew to be ugly and felt to be great, of course, the good Bishop and I +are not upon the best of terms. + +I suppose that for drilling, training, and pipe-claying the human mind +all these things are necessary. I suppose, that, in our callow days, it +is proper that we should be birched and wear fetters upon our little, +bandy, sausage-like legs. But let me, now that I have come to man's +estate, flout my old pedagogues, and, playing truant at my will, dawdle +or labor, walk, skip, or run, go to my middle in quagmires, or climb to +the hill-tops, take liberties with the venerable, snub the respectable, +and keep the company of the disreputable,--dismiss the Archbishop +without reading his homily,--pass by a folio in twenty grenadier volumes +to greet a little black-coated, yellow-faced duodecimo,--speak to the +forlorn and forsaken, who have been doing dusty penance upon cloistered +shelves in silent alcoves for a century, with none so poor to do them +reverence,--read here one little catch which came from lips long ago +as silent as the clod which they are kissing, and there some forgotten +fragment of history, too insignificant to make its way into the world's +magnificent chronologies,--snapping up unconsidered trifles of +anecdote,--tasting some long-interred _bon-mot_ and relishing some +disentombed scandal,--pausing over the symphonic prose of Milton, only +to run, the next moment, to the Silenian ribaldry of Tom Brown the +younger,--and so keeping up a Saturnalia, in which goat-footed sylvans +mix with the maidens of Diana, and the party-colored jester shakes +his truncheon in the face of Plato. Only in this wild and promiscuous +license can we taste the genuine joys of true perusal. + +I suppose, my dear friend, that, when you were younger and foolisher +than you now are, you were wont, after the reading of some dismal +work upon diet and health, to take long, constitutional walks. You +"toddled"--pardon the vulgar word!--so many miles out and so many miles +in, at just such a pace, in just the prescribed time, during hours fixed +as the Fates; and you wondered, when you came home to your Graham bread +and cold water, that you did not bring an appetite with you. You had +performed incredible pedestrian achievements, and were not hungry, but +simply weary. It is of small use to try to be good with malice prepense. +Nature is nothing, if not natural. If I am to read to any purpose, +I must read with a relish, and browse at will with the bridle off. +Sometimes I go into a library, the slow accretion of a couple of +centuries, or perhaps the mushroom growth from a rich man's grave, a +great collection magically convoked by the talisman of gold. At the +threshold, as I ardently enter, the flaming sword of regulation is +waving. Between me and the inviting shelves are fences of woven iron; +the bibliographic Cerberus is at his sentryship; when I want a full +draught, I must be content with driblets; and the impatient messengers +are sworn to bring me only a single volume at a time. To read in such a +hampered and limited way is not to read at all; and I go back, after +the first fret and worry are over, to the little collection upon my +garret-shelf, to greet again the old familiar pages. I leave the main +army behind,--"the lordly band of mighty folios," "the well-ordered +ranks of the quartos," "the light octavos," and "humbler duodecimos," +for + + "The last new play, and frittered magazine,"-- + +for the sutlers and camp-followers, "pioneers and all," of the +grand army,--for the prizes, dirty, but curious, rescued from the +street-stall, or unearthed in a Nassau-Street cellar,--for the books +which I thumbed and dogs-eared in my youth. + +I have, in my collection, a little Divinity, consisting mostly of quaint +Quaker books bequeathed to me by my grandmother,--a little Philosophy, a +little Physic, a little Law, a little History, a little Fiction, and a +deal of Nondescript stuff. Once, when the _res angusta domi_ had become +_angustissima_, a child of Israel was, in my sore estate, summoned to +inspect the dear, shabby colony, and to make his sordid aureat or argent +bid therefor. Well do I remember how his nose, which he could not, +if his worthless life had depended upon it, render _retroussé_, grew +sublimely curvilinear in its contempt, as his hawk-eyes estimated my +pitiful family. I will not name the sum which he offered, the ghoul, the +vampire, the anthropophagous jackal, the sneaking would-be incendiary +of my little Alexandrian, the circumcised Goth! He left me, like +Churchill's Scotch lassie, "pleased, but hungry"; and I found, as +Valentine did in Congreve's "Love for Love," "a page doubled down in +Epictetus which was a feast for an emperor." + +I own, my excellent Robert, that a bad book is, to my taste, sometimes +vastly more refreshing than a good one. I do not wonder that Crabbe, +after he had so sadly failed in his medical studies, should have +anathematized the medical writers in this fine passage:-- + + "Ye frigid tribe, on whom I waited long + The tedious hours, and ne'er indulged in song! + Ye first seducers of my easy heart, + Who promised knowledge ye could not impart! + Ye dull deluders, Truth's destructive foes! + Ye Sons of Fiction, clad in stupid prose! + Ye treacherous leaders, who, yourselves in doubt, + Light up false fires, and send us far about!-- + Still may yon spider round your pages spin, + Subtle and slow, her emblematic gin! + Buried in dust and lost in silence dwell! + Most potent, grave, and reverend friends,--farewell!" + +I acknowledge the vigor of these lines, which nobody could have written +who had not been compelled, in the sunny summer-days, to bray drugs in a +mortar. Yet who does not like to read a medical book?--to pore over its +jargon, to muddle himself into a hypo, and to imagine himself afflicted +with the dreadful disease with the long Latin name, the meaning of which +he does not by any means comprehend? And did not the poems of our friend +Bavius Blunderbore, Esq., which were of "a low and moderate sort," cause +you to giggle yourself wellnigh into an asphyxy,--calf and coxcomb as +he was? Is not ----'s last novel a better antidote against melancholy, +stupendously absurd as it is, than foalfoot or plantain, featherfew or +savin, agrimony or saxifrage, or any other herb in old Robert Burton's +pharmacopoeia? I am afraid that we are a little wanting in gratitude, +when we shake our sides at the flaying of Marsyas by some Quarterly of +Apollo,--to the dis-cuticlcd, I mean. If he had not piped so stridently, +we should not have had half so much sport; yet small largess does the +miserable minstrel get for tooting tunelessly. Let us honor the brave +who fall in the battle of print. 'Twas a noble ambition, after all, +which caused our asinine friend to cloak himself in that cast leonine +skin. Who would be always reciting from a hornbook to Mistress Minerva? +What, I pray you, would become of the corn, if there were no scarecrows? +All honor to you, then, my looped and windowed sentinel, standing upon +the slope of Parnassus,--standing so patiently there, with your straw +bowels, doing yeoman-service, spite of the flouts and gibes and cocked +thumbs of Zoïlus and his sneering, snarling, verjuicy, captious +crew,--standing there, as stood the saline helpmate of Lot, to fright +our young men and virgins from the primrose-pitfalls of Poesy,--standing +there to warn them against the seductions of Phoebus, and to teach them +that it is better to hoe than to hum! + +The truth is, that the good and clever and _polyphloisboic_ writers have +too long monopolized the attention of the world, so that the little, +well-intentioned, humble, and stupid plebeians of the guild have been +snubbed out of sight. Somebody--the name is not given, but I shrewdly +suspect Canon Smith--wrote to Sir James Mackintosh,--"Why do you not +write three volumes quarto? You only want this to be called the greatest +man of your time. People are all disposed to admit anything we say of +you, but I think it unsafe and indecent to put you so high without +something in quarto." This was, of course, half fun and half truth. +As there is, however, little need of setting the world on fire to +demonstrate some chemical theory, so it is possible that the flame of +culture may be cherished without kindling a conflagration, and truth +transmitted from sire to son without the construction of edificial +monsters too big for the knees, too abstruse for the brains, and too +great for the lifetime of humanity. I am not a very constant reader +of Mr. Robert Browning, but I own to many a pleasant grin over his +Sibrandus Schafnabrugensis dropped into the crevice of the plum-tree, +and afterward pitifully reclaimed, and carried to its snug niche with +the promise,-- + + "A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you, + Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay; + And with E. on each side, and F. right over you, + Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment Day!" + +How often, when one is roving through a library in search of adventures, +is he encountered by some inflated champion of huge proportions, who +turns out to be no better than a barber, after all! Gazing upon + + "That weight of wood, with leathern coat o'erlaid, + Those ample clasps, of solid metal made, + The close-pressed leaves, unloosed for many an age, + The dull red edging of the well-filled page, + On the broad back the stubborn ridges rolled, + Where yet the title stands, in burnished gold,"-- + +what wisdom, what wit, what profundity, what vastness of knowledge, +what a grand gossip concerning all things, and more beside, did we +anticipate, only to find the promise broken, and a big impostor with no +more muscle than the black drone who fills the pipes and sentries the +seraglio of the Sophi or the Sultan! The big, burly beggars! For a +century nobody has read them, and therefore everybody has admitted them +to be great. They are bulky paradoxes, and find a good reputation in +neglect,--as some fools pass for philosophers by preserving a close +mouth and a grave countenance. + +"Safe in themselves, the ponderous works remain." + +It was a keen sense of this disproportion between size and sense which +barbed the sharpest arrows of Dr. Swift. Nobody ever imposed upon him +either by bigness or by bluster. "The Devil take stupidity," once cried +the Dean of St. Patrick's, "that it will not come in to supply the want +of philosophy!" So in the Introduction to "The Tale of a Tub," he, half +in jest and half in earnest, declares that "wisdom is like a cheese, +whereof to a judicious taste the maggots are the best." _Vive la +bagatelle!_ trembled upon his lips at the age of threescore; and he +amused himself with reading the most trifling books he could find, and +writing upon the most trifling subjects. Lord Bolingbroke wrote to him +to beg him "to put on his philosophical spectacles," and wrote with +but small success. Pope wrote to him, "to beg it of him, as a piece of +mercy, that he would not laugh at his gravity, but permit him to wear +the beard of a philosopher until he pulled it off and made a jest of it +himself." Old Weymouth, in the latter part of Anne's reign, said to +him, in his lordly Latin, "_Philosopha verba ignava opera,_" and Swift +frequently repeated the sarcasm. One cannot figure him as the "laughing +old man" of Anacreon, for there was certainly a dreadful dash of vinegar +in his composition; but if he did not hate hard enough, hit hard enough, +and weigh men, motives, and books, nicely enough to satisfy Dr. Johnson, +the Bolt-Courtier must have been a very leech of verjuice. There is a +passage in one of his letters to Pope,--I cannot just now put my hand +upon it,--in which he suggests, in rather coarse language, the subject +of "The Beggar's Opera" as a capital subject for their common friend, +Gay. And yet one can barely suppress a sigh at all this luxury of +levity, when he remembers that dreadful "_Ubi saeva indignatio ulterius +cor lacerare nequit_," and reflects upon the hope deferred which vented +itself in that stinging couplet,-- + +"In every court the parallel will hold; And kings, like private folks, +are bought and sold." + +I remember a hack-writer,--and of such, I am afraid, is too exclusively +my literary kingdom,--who classified the vices which Swift smote so +fearfully in "The Voyage to the Houyhnhnms"; and the curious catalogue +contained "avarice, fraud, cheating, violence, rapine, extortion, +cruelty, oppression, tyranny, rancor, envy, malice, detraction, +hatred, revenge, murder, bribery, corruption, pimping, lying, perjury, +subornation, treachery, ingratitude, gaming, flattery, drunkenness, +gluttony, luxury, vanity, effeminacy, cowardice, pride, impudence, +hypocrisy, infidelity, blasphemy, idolatry, and innumerable other vices, +many of them the notorious characteristics of the bulk of humankind." +Delightful catalogue! How odd, indeed, that a man with such work to do +should not have sported with Amaryllis, or played with the tangles of +Neaera's hair,--should not have worn well-anointed love-locks and snowy +linen,--should, on the other hand, have bared his brawny arm, and sent +the hissing flail down swiftly upon the waled and blistered back of +Sham! How much better would it have been, if he had written a history, +in twelve elephantine volumes, of the rise, culmination, and decay of +the Empire of Barataria, which we would have gone to prison, the rack, +and the drop, with rapture rather than read! + +How low seems Fielding, with his pot-house heroes, Tom Jones, Squire +Western, and Jonathan Wild, when we contrast them with the elegant, +cleanly-polished, and extremely proper Sir Charles Grandison! What a +coarse drab is Molly Seagrim, when juxtaposited with the princess of all +prudes, the indomitably virtuous Pamela! How childish was it of Cowper +to sing of sofas, poultry, rabbits, orchards, meadows, and barnyards! +How much more nobly employed was John Dryden in manufacturing a +brand-new, truculent, loud-voiced, massively-calved, ensiferous +Alexander! Who but an addle-headed sot would have wandered up and down +the lanes, like Morland, chalking out pigs and milkmaids, when he might +have been painting, like Barry, pictures, by the acre, of gods and +goddesses enacting incomprehensible allegories! Let us be respectable, O +my Bobus, and wear good coats and the best hats to be had for money or +upon credit; let us carefully conceal our connection with "The Gotham +Revolver," although the honest people who print it do give us our beer +and mutton; let us write great histories which nobody will read, engage +in tractations to which nobody will listen, build twelve-storied epics +which nobody will publish, and invent Gordian philosophies which nobody +can untie. Surely it is quite time for Minerva to have a general +house-cleaning, to put on a fresh smock, and to live cleanly. Rabelais +shall be washed, and Sterne sad-ironed into gravity; De Foe shall be +made as decorous as a tract; Mandeville shall be reburned, and we will +kindle the fire with half the leaves of this dry and yellow Montaigne. +Nobody shall approach the waters of Castaly save upon stilts; and +whoever may giggle, as he takes his physic, shall be put upon a +dreadfully plentiful allowance of Guieciardini for bread, and of the +poems of ----- ------- for water. + +But, alas! Brother Bobus, where to begin our purification, and where to +end it? We may, like the curate in "Don Quixote," reprieve Amadis de +Gaul, but shall we, therefore, make Esplandian, "his lawful-begotten +son," a foundation for the funeral-pile we are to set a-blazing +presently? To be sure, there is sense in the observation of the good and +holy priest upon that memorable occasion. "This," said the barber, "is +Amadis of Greece; and it is my opinion that all those upon this side are +of the same family." "Then pitch them all into the yard," responded +the priest; "for, rather than miss the satisfaction of roasting Queen +Pintiquiniestra and the pastorals of Darinel the Shepherd and his damned +unintelligible speculations, I would burn my own father along with +them, if I found him playing at knight-errantry." So into the yard went +"Olivante de Laura, the nonsensical old blockhead," "rough and dull +Florismart of Hyrcania," "noble Don Platir," with nothing in him +"deserving a grain of pity," Bernardo del Carpio, and Roncesvalles, and +Palmerin de Oliva. What a delicious scene it is! The fussy barber, tired +of reading titles and proceeding to burn by wholesale, passing down +books in armfuls to the eager housekeeper, more ready to burn them than +ever she had been to weave the finest lace. And how charming is the hit +of the Curate! "Certainly, these cannot be books of knight-errantry, +they are too small; you'll find they are only poets,"--the supplication +of the niece that the singers should not be spared, lest her uncle, when +cured of his knight-errantry, should read them, become a shepherd, +and wander through forests and fields,--"nay, and what is more to be +dreaded, turn poet, which is said to be a disease absolutely incurable." +So down went "the longer poems" of Diana de Montemayor, the whole of +Salmantino, with the Iberian Shepherd and the Nymphs of Henares. The +impatience of the curate, who, completely worn out, orders all the rest +to be burned _á canga cerrada_, fitly rounds the chapter, and sends us +in good-humor from the _auto da fé_, while the poor knight is in his +bedchamber, all unconscious of the purification in progress, which, if +he had known it, mad as he was, would have made his madness starker +still, thrashing about with his sword, back-stroke and fore-stroke, +and, as Motteux translates it, "making a heavy bustle." 'Tis all droll +enough; especially when we find that the housekeeper made such clean +work of it in the evening, in spite of the good curate's reservations, +and burnt all the books, not only those in the yard, but all those that +were in the house; but I should think twice before I let Freston the +necromancer into any library with which I am acquainted. + +Let us be gentle with the denizens of Fame's proud temple, no matter how +they came there. You remember, I suppose, Swift's couplet,-- + + "Fame has but two gates,--a white and a black one; + The worst they can say is I got in at the back one." + +"I have nothing," wrote Pope to his friend Cromwell, "to say to you in +this latter; but I was resolved to write to tell you so. Why should not +I content myself with so many great examples of deep divines, profound +casuists, grave philosophers, who have written, not letters only, but +whole tomes and voluminous treatises about nothing? Why should a fellow +like me, who all his life does nothing, be ashamed to write nothing, and +that, too, to one who has nothing to do but read it?" And so, with "_ex +nihilo nil fit_," he laughingly ends his letter. + +And now, while I am at it, I must quote a passage, somewhat germane, +from the very next letter, which Pope wrote to the same friend:--"You +talk of fame and glory, and of the great men of antiquity. Pray, tell +me, what are all your great dead men, but so many living letters? What a +vast reward is here for all the ink wasted by writers and all the blood +spilt by princes! There was in old time one Severus, a Roman Emperor. I +dare say you never called him by any other name in your life; and yet +in his days he was styled Lucius, Septimius, Severus, Pius, Pertinax, +Augustus, Parthicus, Adiabenicus, Arabicus, Maximus, and what not? What +a prodigious waste of letters has time made! What a number have here +dropped off, and left the poor surviving seven unattended! For my own +part, four are all I have to take care of; and I'll be judged by you, if +any man could live in less compass. Well, for the future, I'll drown +all high thoughts in the Lethe of cowslip-wine; as for fame, renown, +reputation, take 'em, critics! If ever I seek for immortality here, may +I be damn'd, for there's not much danger in a poet's being damn'd,-- + + 'Damnation follows death in other men, + But your damn'd Poet lives and writes agen.'" + +And so they do, even unto the present, otherwise blessed day. But, dear +old friend, is not this sublime sneering? and is there not an honest ray +or two of truth mingled here and there in the colder coruscations of +this wit? Of the sincerity of this repudiation and renunciation so +fashionable in the Pope circle I have nothing to say; but in certain +moods of the mind it is vastly entertaining, and cures one's melancholy +as cautery cures certain physical afflictions. It may be amusing for you +also to notice that Don Quixote's niece and Pope were of the same +mind. She called poetry "a catching and incurable disease," and Pope's +unfortunate Poet "lives and writes agen." + +And, after all, Bobus, why should we not be tender with all the +gentlemen who crowd the catalogues and slumber upon the shelves? It may +be all very well for you or me, whose legend should be + + "Prandeo, poto, cano, ludo, lego, coeno, quiesco," + +to laugh at them; but who shall say that they did not do their best, +and, if they were stupid, pavonian, arrogant, self-sufficient, and +top-heavy, that they were not honestly so? I always liked that boast of +Flaccus about his "monument harder than brass." It is a cheerful sight +to see a poor devil of an author in his garret, snapping his fingers at +the critics. "No beggar," wrote Pope, "is so poor but he can keep a cur, +and no author so beggarly but he can keep a critic." And, after all, +abuse is pleasanter than contemptuous and silent neglect. I do honestly +believe, that, if it were not for a little too much false modesty, every +author, and especially the poets, would boldly and publicly anticipate +posthumous fame. Do you think that Sir Thomas Urquhart, when he wrote +his "[Greek: EKSKUBALAURON], or, The Discovery of a most Precious +Jewel," etc., fancied that the world would willingly let his +reverberating words faint into whispers, and, at last, into utter +silence?--his "metonymical, ironical, metaphorical, and synecdochal +instruments of elocution, in all their several kinds, artificially +affected, according to the nature of the subject, with emphatical +expressions in things of great concernment, with catachrestical in +matters of meaner moment; attended on each side respectively with +an epiplectic and exegetic modification, with hyperbolical, either +epitatically or hypocoristically, as the purpose required to be +elated or extenuated, they qualifying metaphors, and accompanied +with apostrophes; and, lastly, with allegories of all sorts, whether +apologal, affabulatory, parabolary, aenigmatic, or paroemial"? Would you +have thought that so much sesquipedality could die? Certainly the Knight +of Cromartie did not, and fully believing Posterity would feel an +interest in himself unaccorded to any one of his contemporaries, he +kindly and prudently appended the pedigree of the family of Urquharts, +preserving every step from Adam to himself. This may have been a vanity, +but after all it was a good sturdy one, worthy of a gentleman who could +not say "the sun was setting," but who could and did say "our occidental +rays of Phoebus were upon their turning oriental to the other hemisphere +of the terrestrial globe." Alas! poor Sir Thomas, who must needs babble +the foolish hopes which wiser men reticently keep cloistered in their +own bosoms! who confessed what every scribbler thinks, and so gets +laughed at,--as wantons are carried to the round-house for airing their +incontinent phraseology in the street, while Blowsalinda reads romances +in her chamber without blushing. Modesty is very well; but, after all, +do not the least self-sufficient of us hope for something more than the +dirty dollars,--for kindness, affection, loving perusal, and fostering +shelter, long after our brains have mouldered, and the light of our eyes +has been quenched, and our deft fingers have lost their cunning, and the +places that knew us have forgotten our mien and speech and port forever? +Very, very few of us can join in Sir Boyle Roche's blundering sneer at +posterity, and with the hope of immortality mingles a dread of utter +oblivion here. Will it not be consoling, standing close by the graves +which have been prepared for us, to leave the world some little legacy +of wisdom sedulously gleaned from the fields of the fading past,--some +intangible, but honest wealth, the not altogether worthless accumulation +of an humble, but earnest life,--something which may lighten the load of +a sad experience, illuminate the dark hours which as they have come to +all must come to all through all the ages, or at least divert without +debauching the mind of the idler, the trifler, and the macaroni? I +believe this ingenuous feeling to be very far removed from the wheezy +aspirations of windy ignorance, or the spasms for fame which afflict +with colic the bowels, empty and flatulent, of sheer scribblers and +dunces who take a mean advantage of the invention of printing. Let us +be tender of the honest gentlemen who, to quote Cervantes, "aim at +somewhat, but conclude nothing." I cannot smile at the hopes of the boy +Burns,-- + + "That _he,_ for poor auld Scotland's sake, + Some usefu' plan or beuk could make, + Or sing a sang at least." + +And while I am in a humor for quotation, I must give you this muscular +verse from Henry More's "Platonic Song of the Soul":-- + + "Their rotten relics lurk close under ground; + With living weight no sense or sympathy + They have at all; nor hollow thundering sound + Of roaring winds that cold mortality + Can wake, ywrapt in sad Fatality: + To horse's hoof that beats his grassie dore + He answers not: the moon in silency + Doth passe by night, and all bedew him o'er + With her cold, humid rayes; but he feels not Heaven's power." + +How we shiver in the icy, midnight moonbeams of the recluse of Christ's +College! How preciously golden seem the links of our universal +brotherhood, when the Fates are waving their dark wings around us, and +menace us with their sundering! I am not sure, my worthy Wagonero, that, +rather than see my own little cord finally cut, I would not consent to +be laughed at by a dozen generations, in the hope that it might happen +to me that the thirteenth, out of sheer weariness at the prolonged +lampooning, might grow pitiful at my purgatorial experiences, and so +betake itself to nursing and fondling me into repute, furnishing me +with half-a-dozen of those lynx-eyed commentators who would discern +innumerable beauties and veracities through the calfskin walls of +my beatified bantling. They might find, at last, that I had "the +gold-strung harp of Apollo" and played a "most excellent diapason, +celestial music of the spheres,"--hearing the harmony + + "As plainly as ever Pythagoras did," + +when "Venus the treble ran sweet division upon Saturn the bass." + +Write for posterity! Pray, whom should we write for, in this age which +makes its own epic upon sounding anvils, and whose lyric is yelled from +the locomotive running a muck through forest and field and beside the +waters no longer still? Write poetry now, when noise has become normal, +and we are like the Egyptians, who never heard the roaring of the fall +of Nilus, because the racket was so familiar to them! The age "capers +in its own fee simple" and cries with the Host in "The Merry Devil of +Edmonton," "Away with punctilios and orthography!" Write poetry now! +Thank you, my ancient friend! "My fiddlestick cannot play without +rosin." To be sure, I am, like most minstrels, ready for an offer; and +should any lover of melody propose + + "Two hundred crowns, and twenty pounds a year + For three good lives," + +I should not be slow in responding, "Cargo! hai Trincalo!" and in +presently getting into the best possible trim and tune. But the poet may +say now, with the Butler in the old play, "Mine are precious cabinets, +and must have precious jewels put into them; and I know you to be +merchants of stock-fish, dry meat, and not men for my market; then +vanish!" + +Barrow said that "poetry was a kind of ingenious nonsense"; and I think, +that, deceived by the glut, the present time is very much of Barrow's +mind. But, courage, my music-making masters! Your warbling, if it be of +genuine quality, shall echo upon the other side of the hill which hides +the unborn years. Only be sure, the song be pure; and you may "give the +_fico_ to your adversaries." You may live in the hearts and upon the +lips of men and women yet unborn; and should the worst come, you may +figure in "The Bibliographer's Manual," with a star of honor +against your name, to indicate that you are exceedingly scarce and +proportionally valuable; rival collectors, with fury in their faces, +will run you up to a fabulous price at the auction, and you will at last +be put into free quarters for life in some shady alcove upon some lofty +shelf, with unlimited rations of dust, as you glide into a vermiculate +dotage. Why should you be faint-hearted, when the men of the stalls ask +such a breath-stretching price for the productions of William Whitehead, +Esq., who used to celebrate the birthdays of old George the Third after +this fashion:-- + + "And shall the British lyre be mute, + Nor thrill through all its trembling strings, + With oaten reed and pastoral flute + While every vale responsive rings?" + +Ben Jonson called Inigo Jones Sir Lanthorn Leatherhead, but St. Paul's +still stands; and how many flies are there in the sparkling amber of +"The Dunciad"! Have the critics, poor birdling, torn your wings, and +mocked at your recording? I know, as Howell wrote to "Father Ben," that +"the fangs of a bear and the tusks of a wild-boar don't bite worse and +make deeper gashes than a goose-quill sometimes; no, not the badger +himself, who is said to be so tenacious of his bite that he will not +give over his hold until he feels his teeth meet and bone crack." I know +all about it, my minstrel boy! for have I not, in my day, given and +taken, and shouldered back again when I have been shouldered? Pray, do +not finger your eyes any longer! Screw your lyre up to concert pitch, +and go on with your stridulous performances! Neither you nor I know how +bad may be the taste of our grandchildren, or how high you may stand +when they have + + "Made prostitute and profligate the Muse." + +If you cannot be a poet, be a poetaster; and if you cannot be that, be a +poetess, or "she-poet," as Johnson, in his big dictionary, defines the +word. So "gently take all that ungently comes," and hammer away as +sedulously as old Boileau. Somebody will, undoubtedly, in the next age, +relish your rinsings. A poet, you know, is a prophet. Console yourself +by vaticinating in the bower of your bed-chamber, as you count the feet +upon your fingers, your own immortality. If 'tis a delusion, 'tis a +cheap one, to which even a poet can afford to treat himself. Play with +and humor your life, till you fall asleep, and then the care will be +over! Meanwhile, you must be more stupid than I think, if you cannot +find somebody to give you your fodder of flattery. You need not blush, +for I know that you like it, and you need not be ashamed of liking it. +We all do,--we are all women in that regard; although the honestest man +to confess it that I ever heard of was Sir Godfrey Kneller, who said to +Pope, when he was painting his picture, "I can't do so well as I should +do, unless you flatter me a little; pray, flatter me, Mr. Pope! You know +I love to be flattered." + +You see, my excellent Robert, that, by some hocus-pocus which I do not +exactly comprehend, myself, I have introduced a wheel within a wheel, a +letter within a letter, a play within a play, after the manner of +the old dramatists; and I beg you to make a note that the foregoing +admonitions and most sapient counsels are not addressed to you. You are +something of a philosopher; but you are not, like Mr. Stephen Duck, +"something of a philosopher _and_ something of a poet"; for I do not +believe, O fortunate youth, that you ever invoked the ten ladies _minus_ +one in your life; and I shrewdly suspect, that, so far from knowing the +difference between a male and a female rhyme, you are unfamiliar with +the close family connection between "trees" and "breeze," or between +"love" and "dove." My episodical remarks are for the benefit of +young Dolce Pianissimo, who has taken, I am sorry to say, to gin, +shirt-collars prodigious, and the minor magazines, and whose friends are +standing aghast and despairing at his lunacy. But, after all, 'tis my +best irony quite thrown away; for the foolish boy will believe me quite +in earnest, and will still be making love to that jade, Mistress Fame, +although he knows well enough how many she has jilted. But as he grows +in stature, he may grow in sense. If you see him very savagely cut up +in "The Revolver," you will recognize the kindly hands which held the +bistoury, scalpel, and tenaculum, and the gentleman who wept while he +wounded. + +But I have long enough, I fear too long, tormented you with my drivel. +It must be your consolation, that, in spirit, you have been with me +to-night, as I have thought of the old days, pausing for a moment over +these mute but eloquent companions, to dream or to sigh, and then once +more turning the old familiar pages as I try to forget, for just a +little while, that dear familiar face. If something of indifference has +tinctured these hurried lines, if I have been unjust in my estimate of +the world's honors and the rewards of the Muses, you will forgive me, +if you will remember how the great Burke reduced the value of earthly +honors and emoluments to less than that of a peck of wheat. My fire is +gone out. My candle is flickering in the socket. There is light in the +cold, gray East. Good-morning, Don Bob!--good-morning! + + + + +AFTER THE BALL. + + + They sat and combed their beautiful hair, + Their long, bright tresses, one by one, + As they laughed and talked in the chamber there, + After the revel was done. + + Idly they talked of waltz and quadrille, + Idly they laughed, like other girls, + Who over the fire, when all is still, + Comb out their braids and curls. + + Robe of satin and Brussels lace, + Knots of flowers and ribbons, too, + Scattered about in every place, + For the revel is through. + + And Maud and Madge in robes of white, + The prettiest night-gowns under the sun, + Stockingless, slipperless, sit in the night, + For the revel is done,-- + + Sit and comb their beautiful hair, + Those wonderful waves of brown and gold, + Till the fire is out in the chamber there, + And the little bare feet are cold. + + Then out of the gathering winter chill, + All out of the bitter St. Agnes weather, + While the fire is out and the house is still, + Maud and Madge together,-- + + Maud and Madge in robes of white, + The prettiest night-gowns under the sun, + Curtained away from the chilly night, + After the revel is done,-- + + Float along in a splendid dream, + To a golden gittern's tinkling tune, + While a thousand lustres shimmering stream, + In a palace's grand saloon. + + Flashing of jewels, and flutter of laces, + Tropical odors sweeter than musk, + Men and women with beautiful faces + And eyes of tropical dusk,-- + + And one face shining out like a star, + One face haunting the dreams of each, + And one voice, sweeter than others are, + Breaking into silvery speech,-- + + Telling, through lips of bearded bloom, + An old, old story over again, + As down the royal bannered room, + To the golden gittern's strain, + + Two and two, they dreamily walk, + While an unseen spirit walks beside, + And, all unheard in the lovers' talk, + He claimeth one for a bride. + + Oh, Maud and Madge, dream on together, + With never a pang of jealous fear! + For, ere the bitter St. Agnes weather + Shall whiten another year, + + Robed for the bridal, and robed for the tomb, + Braided brown hair, and golden tress, + There'll be only one of you left for the bloom + Of the bearded lips to press,-- + + Only one for the bridal pearls, + The robe of satin and Brussels lace,-- + Only one to blush through her curls + At the sight of a lover's face. + + Oh, beautiful Madge, in your bridal white, + For you the revel has just begun; + But for her who sleeps in your arms to-night + The revel of Life is done! + + But robed and crowned with your saintly bliss, + Queen of heaven and bride of the sun, + Oh, beautiful Maud, you'll never miss + The kisses another hath won! + + + + +ROCK, TREE, AND MAN. + + +It is an interesting thought, that will occur to a contemplative mind, +that the world contained, from the time when it was a nebulous mass, all +the materials of the future individuals of the animate and inanimate +creation,--that the elaborate creatures of the vegetable and animal +kingdoms, as well as every mineral, were floating in amorphous masses +through space. Human beings, like genius that was condensed from vapor +at the rubbing of Aladdin's lamp, were diffused in gases, waiting the +touch of the Great Magician's wand to bring them into form and infuse +them with life. In all the distinct creations of God, from the time +when the waters first subsided and the dry land appeared, in everything +organized and inorganized, earth, air, sea, and their inhabitants, there +is no element which was not in existence when the earth was without form +and void. + +Philosophers tell us that three hundred and fifty millions of years +elapsed after the globe began to solidify, before it was fitted for the +lowest plants. And more than one million years more were necessary, +after the first plants began to grow upon its young surface, to bring it +forward to the condition which the Divine Father deemed suitable for the +reception of man. If the days of Cain and Abel were the infancy of the +world,--as we have sometimes heard,--when will it come to maturity? Its +divisions of life cannot follow the plan of animated beings; for, with +an embryonic condition of an indefinite period, and an infancy of three +hundred and fifty millions of years, more or less, we can hardly expect +that it will really have begun to enjoy the freedom of adult life, +before the human race will have attained to its earthly limit of +perfectibility, or have so overstocked the surface of the globe as to +make it necessary to remove to some larger sphere. + +It is curious, we say, to think that everything now on the earth or +composing its substance was present, though in far different form, at +the beginning,--that the Almighty gathered together in this part of +the universe all the materials out of which to create all the forms of +things which it was his pleasure to evolve here through all time,--that +in that nebulous mass were revolving, not only the gases which were at +last to combine in various manners and proportions to form the rocky +crust and the watery investment of the earth, but that in that dense and +noisome cloud floated also the elements of all the beautiful objects +that furnish the daily enchantments of life. Flowers and trees, birds +and fishes, locusts and mastodons, all things, from the tiniest +animalcule to man, were there, unmodelled, not even in embryo,--their +separate existences then only in the mind of God. There, Christian and +Saracen, Jew and Gentile, Caucasian and Negro, Hindoo and Pariah, all +the now heterogeneous natures which are as oil and water, were blended +in one common vapor. + +Finally the condensation of all the gaseous elements began, and the +aëriform masses became liquid, and the waters,--what mineral waters +they were, when they were saturated with granite and marble, diamonds, +rubies, arsenic, and iron!--thus deposited by the vapor, left a gas +above them light enough to bear some faint resemblance to our air. +Still this atmosphere was surcharged with vapors which no lungs could +tolerate, whether of man or reptile; and other steps must be taken to +clear it of its unwholesome properties. Then did the Almighty will +introduce, one after another, the germs of plants,--first of all, the +lower orders, the ferns, which seek the shade, and the lichens, which +grow in damp and dark recesses, mosses, which cling to bare rocks, +living almost on air and water alone,--everything which needed not +bright sunlight to invigorate it nor soil to cling to. Year by year and +age by age did these humble plants extract their nourishment from the +murky vapors that shrouded the earth, and, after fashioning those gases +into a living tissue of stems and leaves, year after year did they die +and lay their remains upon the rocks, accumulating by slow steps a soil +which would in time be capable of giving holding-ground to mightier +plants. The trees came,--and gigantic they must have been; and every +species of tree, shrub, and herb now upon the earth, and of all animals +that walk, fly, or swim, was introduced before the creation of man. + +It was as if the elements were too gross for the constitution of man, +when they were first collected from the nebulous mass,--as if they +needed to go through the intermediate forms of plants and animals, +passing in succession from one to another, before they could be +permitted to enter into the bodies of those beings who were to be in +God's likeness. But, in very truth, the elements were unaltered by their +many transmigrations. It was the divine act of God which caused every +plant to spring forth and gave birth to every living thing. Every seed +and every egg was at the first formed by Him. No sudden effort of man's +will, such as that by which Pygmalion was believed to have animated the +work of his chisel, nor any industrious current of electricity, passed +for uninterrupted weeks through the purest gum, and stimulated by the +enthusiasm of a Cross, can transform the worm to a breathing being, or +reach the human climax by slow steps, even if the first one be in the +humble form of a louse. When a new plant appeared, it was the hand of +God that formed the seed. When a new species of animal came upon the +earth, it was the same Power that created it. But the materials were not +new; "out of the dust of the earth" was man created. + +Oxygen, Hydrogen, Carbon, and Nitrogen,--do not turn away from us, +gentle reader, we will not be grimly scientific, but a few of the terms +of science must be employed, even here,--these four elements are the +chief ingredients of all vegetable and animal structures. When separated +from their connections, three of them are gases; and the fourth, in +union with one of the others, is also a gas. In various combinations +they form literally the dust of the earth, they make rock and water, +vapor and air. In the hand of the Almighty, they are so many plastic +elements, that form now a plant of the lowliest condition, now a +magnificent oak, now a fish, and now a man. And the germ of each +organized being bequeathes to its offspring the power to reproduce its +likeness,--so that each succeeding generation is a repetition of its +predecessor. There is no change in plants and animals from the first; +the same materials in the same proportions that were selected by the +earliest trees for their composition are chosen now; and in form and +function the last animal is a precise copy of the first of his race. + +If we attempt to trace a particle of matter, we shall find its +wanderings endless. Annihilation is a term which is not applicable to +material things. Matter is never destroyed; it rarely rests. Oxygen, +for instance, the most important constituent of our atmosphere, is the +combining element of all things, the medium of communication between the +kingdoms of Nature, the agent of the interchanges that are continually +taking place among all created things. Oxygen keeps life in man, by +combining with his blood at every inhalation; it is absorbed by flowers, +to be employed in the perfection of the fruit; many minerals are +incapable of the various uses of society, until oxygen has attacked and +united with them. It gives us lime and soda, the oil of vitriol, and +common salt; the mineral pigments in common use are impossible without +it; and the beautiful colors of our autumn leaves are due to the +combination of oxygen with their juices. It enters into all plans and +operations with a helping hand; animals and plants owe their lives to +it; but when the shadow of death begins to fall upon them, it is +as ready to aid in their destruction. Like calumny, which blackens +whatsoever is suspected, oxygen pounces upon the failing and completes +their ruin. The processes of fermentation and putrefaction cannot +commence in any substance, until it has first taken oxygen into +combination. Thus, cans of meat, hermetically sealed, with all the air +first carefully expelled, undergo no change so long as the air does not +get access to them. If the minutest opening remain, the oxygen of the +atmosphere combines with the contents of the can, and fermentation or +putrefaction follows. Rust, which takes the keen edge from the knife, is +only another name for oxydation: keep the knife bright, and no oxygen +dares touch it; but the slightest blemish is made a loophole for the +entrance of the ever-watchful enemy, who never again leaves it until its +destruction is complete. + +All the elements have a great love of society; they cannot live alone; +they have their likes and their dislikes; they contract alliances which +endure for a time, but are dissolved in favor of stronger attractions. + +We have mentioned the names of several natural elements. Let us see what +they are, and what they have to do with man and the kingdoms of Nature. +Beginning with man, let us see what becomes of him in course of time, +what physical metamorphoses he undergoes, to what vile but excellent +uses he is put. + +That which forms the bone and muscle of a man this year may be upon his +own table in the shape of potatoes or peaches one summer later. When +Hamlet talked of turning the clay of Alexander into the bung of a +beer-barrel, he spoke the simple truth. In that great play, Shakspeare +appears to have had the transformations of material things much in his +mind; for we find him alluding, in several passages, to the reciprocity +which subsists between the elements of animate and inanimate things, +and between the different members of the same kingdom;--as when, in +conversation with the king about the dead Polonius, he makes Hamlet say, +"A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat the fish +that hath fed of the worm"; or where, over the grave of Ophelia, he +traces the two ancient heroes back to their mother earth, in words some +of which we have quoted. + +The ancient mythology, which shadowed forth some truth in all its +fables, turned these facts of Nature to its purpose. The gods of +Greece, when they saw fit to remove a human being from life, sometimes +reproduced him in another form of beauty, without any intermediate +stages of decay. Apollo seemed to have a particular fancy for planting +the boys and girls whom he had loved where he might enjoy their fragrant +society. Thus, a boy named Cyparissus, who had the misfortune to kill a +favorite deer, was so unwilling to be consoled, that he besought Apollo +to make his mourning perpetual; and the kind god changed him into a +cypress, which is still a funereal tree. The modest virgin Daphne, who +succeeded in escaping the violence of his passion, was transformed into +a laurel, which is ever green and pure. And the sweet youth Hyacinthus, +beloved of Apollo, being accidentally killed by a quoit which the god +of day was throwing, that divinity, in his grief, caused those sweet +flowers which bear his name to spring from his blood, where it fell upon +the ground. It is only in the annihilation of the intervals of time +between different forms of existence that these old metamorphoses, which +Ovid relates, are fabulous. If our readers will bear us company a +few steps, through ways which shall have diversions enough to forbid +weariness, we will endeavor to satisfy them that these apparent fables +are very near to every-day truths. We must begin with some plain +statements. + +The air which we expel from the lungs at every breath has a large +proportion of carbonic acid. Let a man be shut up in an air-tight room +for a day, and he will have changed nearly all the oxygen in it into +this carbonic acid, and rendered it unfit for animal life. Dogs, cats, +and birds would die in it. But, poisonous as it is to man and other +animals, it is a feast to plants. They want it all day and every day; +not in the night,--at that time they have a taste for oxygen. This +effete air, which men and animals exhale, so charged with carbonic acid, +the plants drink in through every pore. They take it from the mouth of +man, appropriate it to their daily uses, and in time render it back to +him mingled with other ingredients in wholesome fruit. Carbonic acid is +death when it combines with the blood,--as it does when we inhale +it; but not so when it enters the stomach in small quantities. One +inspiration of it is enough to make us dizzy,--as when we enter an old +well or stoop over a charcoal fire; but a draught of water fully +charged with it is exhilarating and refreshing, as we know by repeated +experiences at marble fountains that meet us on so many city-corners. + +If plants had souls, they would be pure ones, since they can bear such +contamination and not be harmed,--nay, since even from such foul food +as we give them they can evolve results so beautiful. We give them our +cast-off and worn-out materials, and they return us the most beautiful +flowers and the most luscious fruits. + +Beside carbonic acid, there are two other principal materials, which +are every day passing off in an effete state, though capable of being +transferred to the uses of plants. But when an animal dies, the whole +substance is then at Nature's disposal. We must set aside a great deal +of it for the ants and flies, who will help themselves in spite of us. +If any one has never seen a carcass rapidly disappearing under the +steady operations of the larvae of the flesh-fly, he has yet to learn +why some flies were made. The ants, too, carry it off in loads larger, +if not heavier, than themselves. But carcasses of animals may go to +decay, undisturbed by the ravages of these useful insects. That is, the +limited partnership of Oxygen, Hydrogen, & Co., under which they agreed +to carry on the operations of sheep, fox, or fish, having terminated +by the death of the animal, the partners make immediate use of their +liberty and go off in inorganic form in search of new engagements, +leaving sulphur, phosphorus, and the other subordinate elements of the +animal, to shift for themselves. They were in the employ of a sheep; +they will now carry on a man or an oak-tree, a colony of insects, +or something else. Under the form of carbonate of ammonia, the four +elements diffuse themselves through the air, or are absorbed by the +earth, and offer themselves at once to the roots and leaves of the +trees, as ready to go on with their vivifying operations as they were in +behalf of the animals. There are some plants which seem not to be left +to the chances of securing their nourishment from the carbonate of +ammonia that the air and the soil contain, but are contrived so as +to entrap living animals and hold them fast while they undergo +decomposition, so that all their gases may be absorbed by them alone. +Thus, "the little Sundew exudes a gluey secretion from the surface of +its leaves, which serves to attract and retain insects, the decay of +whose bodies seems to contribute to its existence." And the Dionaea, +or Venus's Fly-trap of the Southern States, has some leaves which fold +together upon any insect that alights upon their upper surface; and by +means of a row of long spines that fringes the leaves, they prevent his +escape. The more active the struggles of the captive, the closer grows +the hold of the leaf, and speedily destroys him. The plant appears to +derive nutriment from the decomposition of its victims. "Plants of this +kind, which have been kept in hot-houses in England, from which insects +were carefully excluded, have been observed to languish, but were +restored by placing little bits of meat upon their traps,--the decay of +these seeming to answer the same purpose." + +The four elements already referred to are by no means all the material +ingredients of animal bodies. There are, also, phosphorus, lime, +magnesia, soda, sulphur, chlorine, and iron; and if you believe some +chemists, there is hardly a mineral in common use that may not be found +in the human body. We doubt, however, whether lead, arsenic, and silver +are there, without the intervention of the doctor. + +What becomes of the phosphorus and the rest, when an animal dies? Oh, +they take up new business, too. They are as indispensable to the animal +frame as the four most prominent ingredients. We eat a great deal of +bread and meat, and a little salt,--but the little salt is as important +to continued life as the large bread. There is hardly a tissue in the +body from which phosphorus, in combination with lime, is absent; so that +the composition of lucifer-matches is by no means the most important +use of this element. The luminous appearance which some putrefying +substances, particularly fish, present at night, is due to the slow +combustion of phosphorus which takes place as this element escapes into +the air from the decomposing tissues. + +The necessity for the steady supply of phosphorus and lime to the body +is the cause of the popularity of Mapes's superphosphate of lime as a +manure. The farmers who buy it, perhaps, do not know that their bones +and other parts are made of it, and that this is the reason they must +furnish it to their land; for between the land and the farmer's bones +are two or three other factories that require the same material. All +the farmer knows is, that his grass and his corn grow better for the +superphosphate. But what he has not thought of we will tell you,--that +man finds his phosphate of lime in the milk and meat of the cow, and she +finds her supply in the grass and corn, which look to the farmer to see +that their stock of this useful mineral compound does not fall short. +Thus in milk and meat and corn, which constitute so large a part of our +diet, we have always our phosphate of lime. There are many other sources +whence we can derive it, but these will do for the present. And thus, +when an animal dies and has no further use for his phosphate of lime, it +is washed into the soil around, after decomposition of the body has set +it free, and goes to make new grass and corn. Bone-earth (pounded bones) +is a common top-dressing for grass-lands. + +A small proportion of sulphur is found in flesh and blood. We prove its +presence in the egg by common experience. An egg--from which it escapes +more easily than from flesh--discovers its presence by blackening +silver, as every housekeeper knows, whose social position is too high +for bone egg-spoons or too low for gold ones. This passion which sulphur +entertains for silver is very strong, as every one knows who has ever +been under that wholesome discipline which had its weekly recurrence at +the delightful institution of Dotheboy's Hall; and what Anglo-Saxon ever +grew up, innocent of that delectable vernal medicine to which we refer? +Has he not found all the silver change in his pocket grow black, +suggesting very unpleasant suspicions of bogus coin? The sulphur, being +more than is wanted in the economy of the system, has made its escape +through every pore in his skin, and, of course, fraternizes with the +silver on its way. But it was of the sulphur which is natural to the +body and always found there that we were speaking. When the animal +dies, and the vital forces give way to chemical affinities, when the +phosphorus and the rest take their departure, the sulphur, too, finds +itself occupation in new fields of duty. + +Chlorine and sodium, two more of the elements of animal structures, +produce, in combination, common salt,--without which our food would be +so insipid, that we have the best evidence of its being a necessary +article of diet. The body has many uses for salt. It is found in the +tears, as we are informed by poets, who talk of "briny drops" and "saut, +saut tears"; though why there, unless to keep the lachrymal fluid from +spoiling, in those persons who bottle up their tears for a long time, we +cannot divine. + +Perhaps we had better take the rest into consideration together,--the +magnesia and iron, and whatever other elements are found in the body. +Though some of them are there in minute quantities, the structure cannot +exist without them,--and for their constant and sufficient supply our +food must provide. + +To see what becomes of all these materials after we have done with them, +we must extend our inquiries among the articles of ordinary diet and +ascertain from what sources we derive the several elements. + +It has been sometimes believed that none but animal food contains all +the elements required for the support of life. Thanks to Liebig, we have +discovered that vegetable substances also, fruits, grains, and +roots, contain them all, and, in most cases, in very nearly the same +proportions as they are found in animals. We are not lecturing on +dietetics; therefore we will not pause to explain why, although either +bread or meat alone contains the various materials for flesh and bone, +it is better to combine them than to endeavor to subsist on one only. + +Whither, then, go these elements when man has done with them? The answer +is,--All Nature wants them. Every plant is ready to drink them up, as +soon as they have taken forms which bring them within its reach. As +gases, they are inhaled by the leaves, or, dissolved in water, they +are drunk up by the roots. All plants have not the same appetites, and +therefore they can make an amicable division of the supply. Grasses and +grains want a large proportion of phosphate of lime, which they convert +into husks. Peas and beans have little use for nitrogen, and resign it +to others. Cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, and celery appropriate a +large share of the sulphur. + +The food of plants and that of animals have this great difference: +plants take their nourishment in inorganic form only; animals require +to have their food in organic form. That is, all the various +minerals, singly or combined, which compose the tissues of plants and +animals,--carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, and the rest, which we have +already named,--are taken up by plants in mineral form alone. The food +of animals, on the other hand, consists always of organized forms. There +is no artificial process by which oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen can be +brought into a form suitable for the nourishment of animals. As oxygen, +carbon, and hydrogen, they are not food, will not sustain our life, +and human art cannot imitate their nutritious combinations. Artificial +fibrine and gluten (organic principles) transcend our power of +contrivance as far as the philosopher's stone eluded the grasp of the +alchemists. We know exactly how many equivalents of oxygen, hydrogen, +carbon, and nitrogen enter into the composition of each of the animal +elements; but we can no more imitate an organic element than we can form +a leaf. What we cannot do the vegetable world does for us. Thus we see +why it was necessary that the earth should be clothed with vegetation +before animals could be introduced. A field-mouse dies and decays, and +its elements are appropriated by the roots around its grave; and we +can easily imagine the next generations of mice, the children and +grandchildren of the deceased rodent, feasting off the tender bark which +was made out of the remains of their parent. The soil of our gardens and +the atmosphere above it are full of potential tomatoes, beans, corn, +potatoes, and cabbages,--even of peaches of the finest flavor, and +grapes whose aroma is transporting. + +Plants, as well as animals, have their peculiar tastes. Cut off the +supply of phosphate of lime from a field of corn, and it will not grow. +You can easily do this by planting the same land with corn for three +or four successive years, and your crop will dwindle away to nothing, +unless you supply the ground every year with as much of the mineral as +the corn takes away from it. All plants have the power of selecting from +the soil the materials necessary to their growth; and if they do not +find them in the soil, they will not grow. It is now a familiar fact, +that, when an old forest of deciduous trees has been felled, evergreens +will spring up in their places. The old oaks, hickories, and beeches, +as any observer would discover, pass their last years in repose, simply +putting out their leaves and bearing a little fruit every year, but +making hardly any new wood. An oak may attain to nearly its full size, +in spread of branches, in its first two hundred years, and live for five +or six hundred years longer in a state of comparative rest. It seems to +grow no more, simply because it has exhausted too much of the material +for its nourishment from the ground around its roots. At least, we know, +that, when we have cut it down, not oaks, but pines, will germinate +in the same soil,--pines, which, having other necessities and taking +somewhat different food, find a supply in the ground, untouched by +their predecessor. Hence the rotation of crops, so much talked of by +agriculturists. Before the subject was so well understood, the ground +was allowed to lie fallow for a year or two, when the crops began to +grow small, that it might recover from the air the elements it had lost. +We now adopt the principle of rotation, and plant beans this year where +last year we put corn. + +It is not merely that plants deprive themselves of their future support +by exhausting the neighboring earth of the elements they require. Some +of them put into the ground substances which are poisonous to themselves +or other plants. Thus, beans and peas pour out from their roots a very +notable amount of a certain gum which is not at all suited to their +own nourishment,--so that, if we plant beans in the same spot several +successive seasons, they thrive very poorly. But this gum appears to be +exactly the food for corn; if, therefore, we raise crops of beans and +corn alternately, they assist each other. Liebig gives the results of a +series of experiments illustrating the reciprocal actions of different +species of plants. Various seeds were sprouted in water, in order to +observe the nature of the excretions from their roots. It was found +"that the water in which plants of the family of the _Leguminosae_ +(beans and peas) grew acquired a brown color, from the substance which +exuded from their roots. Plants of the same species, placed in water +impregnated with these excrements, were impeded in their growth, and +faded prematurely; whilst, on the contrary, corn-plants grew vigorously +in it, and the color of the water diminished sensibly, so that it +appeared as if a certain quantity of the excrements of the _Leguminosae_ +had really been absorbed by the corn-plants." The oak, which is the +great laboratory of tannin, not only lays up stores of it in its bark +and leaves, but its roots discharge into the ground enough of it to tan +the rootlets of all plants that venture to put down their suction-hose +into the same region, and their spongioles are so effectually closed +by this process, that they can no longer perform their office, and the +plant that bears them dies. Plants whose roots ramify among the roots +of poppies become unwilling opium-eaters, from the exudation of this +narcotic principle into the ground, and are stunted, like the children +of Gin Lane. + +The Aquarium furnishes a very interesting example of the mutual +dependence of the three natural kingdoms. Here, in a box holding a few +gallons of water and a little atmospheric air, is a miniature world, +secluded, and supplying its own wants. Its success depends on the number +and character of the animals and plants being so adapted as to secure +just the requisite amount of active growth to each to sustain the life +of the other: that the plants should be sufficient to support, by the +superfluities of their growth, the vegetarians among the animated tribes +that surround them; and that all the animal tribes of the aquarium, +whether subsisting upon the vegetables or on their smaller and weaker +fellow-creatures, should restore to the water in excrements the mineral +substances which will enable the plants to make good the daily loss +occasioned by the depredations of the sea-rovers that live upon them. +Thus an aquarium, its constituents once correctly adjusted, has all the +requisites for perpetuity; or rather, the only obstacle to its unlimited +continuance is, that it is a mortal, and not a Divine hand, that +controls its light and heat. + +In the examination of the materials appropriated by plants from the +soil, we find that mineral substances are sometimes taken up in solution +in larger amount than the growth of the plant and the maturation of its +fruit require, and the excess is deposited again, in crystalline form +in the substance of the plant. If we cut across a stalk of the +garden rhubarb, we can see, with the aid of a microscope, the fine +needle-shaped crystals of oxalate of potash lying among the fibres of +the plant,--a provision for an extra supply of the oxalic acid which is +the source of the intense sourness of this vegetable. When the sap of +the sugar-maple is boiled down to the consistence of syrup and allowed +to stand, it sometimes deposits a considerable amount of sand; indeed, +this is probably always present in some degree, and justifies, perhaps, +the occasional complaint of the grittiness of maple-sugar. But it is a +native grit, and not chargeable upon the sugar-makers. It is nothing +less than flint, which the roots of the maple absorbed, while it was +dissolved in water in the soil. The sap, still holding the flint in +solution, flows out, clear as water, when the tree is tapped; but when +it is concentrated by boiling, the silicious mineral is deposited in +little crystals, so that the bottom of the pan appears to be covered +with sand. We could not select a more interesting example of the very +wide diffusion of some compound substances than this one of silicic +acid. It is found in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. Being a +mineral, it cannot be appropriated to animal uses, without being +decomposed and transformed into an organic condition; but in the +numerous species of plants whose stalks require stiffening against +the winds,--in the grasses and canes, including all our grains, the +sugar-cane, and the bamboo,--a silicate (an actual flint) is taken up by +the roots and stored away in the stalks as a stiffener. The rough, sharp +edge of a blade of grass sometimes makes an ugly cut on one's finger by +means of the flint it contains. Silex is the chief ingredient in quartz +rock, which is so widely diffused over the earth, and enters into the +composition of most of the precious stones. The ruby, the emerald, the +topaz, the amethyst, chalcedony, carnelian, jasper, agate, and garnet, +and all the beautiful varieties of rock crystal, are mostly or entirely +silex. Glass is a compound of silex and pearlash. One who is curious in +such things may make glass out of a straw, by burning it and heating the +ashes with a blowpipe. A little globule of pure glass will form as the +ashes are consumed. The following curious instance, quoted by that +interesting physiologist, Dr. Carpenter, shows the same effect upon a +large scale. A melted mass of glassy substance was found on a meadow +between Mannheim and Heidelberg, in Germany, after a thunder-storm. It +was, at first, supposed to be a meteor; but, when chemically examined, +it proved to consist of silex, combined with potash,--in the form +in which it exists in grasses; and, upon further inquiry, it was +ascertained that a stack of hay had stood upon the spot, of which +nothing remained but the ashes, the whole having been ignited by the +lightning. + +There is nothing in Nature more striking to the novice than the first +suggestions of the various, and apparently contradictory, at least +unexpected, positions in which the same mineral is found. Now carbon is +one of the minerals whose exchanges are peculiarly interesting. Chemists +say that the diamond is the only instance in Nature of pure carbon: +it burns in oxygen under the influence of intense heat, and leaves no +ashes. Next to this--strange gradation!--is charcoal, which comes within +a very little of being a diamond. But just that little interval is +apparently so great, that none but a chemist would suspect there was +any relationship between them. Then come all those immense beds of coal +which compose one of the geological strata of the earth's crust, a +stratum that was formed before the appearance of the animated creation, +when the earth was clothed with a gigantic forest, whose mighty trunks +buried themselves with their fallen leaves, and became, in time, a +continuous bed of carbonaceous stone. + +If we look at the vegetable and animal kingdoms, we find carbon entering +into the composition of every tissue. But there are certain tissues and +anatomical elements (as physicians say) which are formed largely of +carbon and have no nitrogen whatever. These are oils and fats and +everything related to them. What will be chiefly interesting, however, +to our readers, is the power of transformation of one of these +substances into another. Starch, gum, and sugar can all be changed into +fat. The explanation of it is in the fact, that these substances are all +chemically alike,--that is, they all have nearly the same proportions of +carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, and no nitrogen; but by slight differences +in the combination of these elements, they exist in Nature as so many +distinct substances. Their approach to identity is further confirmed +by the fact, that starch can be made into gum, and either of them into +sugar, in the laboratory. The transformation of starch and gum into +sugar is also constantly going on in the ripening of fruits. When +country-dames make currant-jellies and currant-wine, they know very +well, that, if they allow the berries to get dead-ripe, their jelly will +not be so firm as when they seize an early opportunity and gather them +when first fully red. They may also have observed that jelly made late, +besides being less firm, is much more likely to candy. At first, the +currants contain hardly any sugar, but more gum and vegetable jelly +(glue); when dead-ripe, they have twelve times as much sugar as at +first, and the gum and glue are much diminished. The gummy and gluey +materials have been transformed into sugar. Every ripe fruit gives us +evidence of the same manufacture of sugar that has gone on under the +stimulus of the sun's rays; and in the greatest source of sugar, the +cane, the process is the same. A French physician, M. Bernard, has, +within the last twelve years, discovered that the liver of animals is +constantly making sugar out of all kinds of food, while the lungs are +all the time undoing the work of the liver and turning it back into its +chemical elements. And although, in the laboratory of the liver, it is +discovered that no alimentary substance is quite deficient in sweetness, +yet there, as elsewhere, starch and gum yield a far greater amount of it +than animal substances. + +We have stated that starch and gum can be turned into sugar by art,--but +as no chemist has yet succeeded in imitating an animal substance, the +change of these three into fat takes place only in the body. There +are proofs enough within general observation, that one object of this +portion of our diet is the supply of fat. The Esquimaux fattens on his +diet of blubber and train-oil; the slaves on the sugar-plantations grow +fat in the boiling-season, when they live heartily on sugar; the Chinese +grow fat on an exclusively rice diet,--and rice is chiefly starch. But +one of the most interesting observations of the transformation of sugar +into a fat is that made by Huber upon bees. It was the discovery, that +bees make their wax out of honey, and not of pollen, as was formerly +believed. When Huber shut up some bees in a close hive, and kept them +supplied with pure honey or with sugar alone, they subsisted upon it, +and soon began to build the comb. Wax is a fat, and the honey which is +eaten by the bee is partly transformed into wax in his body. In about +twenty-four hours after his stomach has been filled with honey, thin +plates of wax appear on the scales of his abdomen, having oozed through +eight little openings in the scales and there hardened. Of this they +build their cells. + +We have wandered far from the consideration of the propensity of certain +species of plants to take up special compound substances from the +earth; but the wide-spread silex, with which we set out, displayed so +interesting a field of observation, that it could not be resisted, and +encouraged a disposition to rove, which has been to us instructive and +entertaining. To return to plants,--we find they make use of compounds +for certain special ends; but, as we have seen, the whole vegetable +kingdom uses the eight or ten primitive elements which it has in common +with the animals, and out of these alone forms the infinite variety of +products which we derive from it for food and various economical +and aesthetical purposes. Among the many processes of Nature whose +contemplation fills us with ever new delight, this power of the +adaptation of a few means to an infinite number of ends is one of the +most enchanting. We endeavor to explain by chemical laws the reduction +of the materials which earth and air furnish, to a form in which they +can be appropriated by the tree; by endosmose and exosmose we think we +have overcome the obstacles to a clear comprehension of the circulation +of the sap; and by a cell-theory we believe we have explained the whole +growth of wood and leaves and fruit. But what microscope or what alembic +shall ever tell us why a collection of tubes and cells in one tree +creates the most wholesome and delicious fruit, while in another an +organization precisely similar, so far as we can discern, produces only +harsh and poisonous berries? why the acacia tribe elaborate their gum, +the pine family turpentine, the almond prussic acid, the sorrels oxalic +acid? why the tall calisaya-tree of the Andes deposits in its bark the +valuable medicine cinchona, and the oak, the hemlock, the tea-plant, and +many others, make use of similar repositories to lay up stores of +tannic acid? The numberless combinations of the same materials, and +the wonderful power which rests in a single seed to bring about with +unvarying uniformity its own distinct result, attest to us every day the +admirable wisdom and goodness of the Creator. + +These regular, every-day transformations of material elements from rock +to tree, from tree to man, and back through a continual circuit, would +repay us for spending our leisure hours in studying it, with our own +eyes as well as with the eyes of others. The glance we have given is +sufficiently suggestive to turn the attention of our readers that way. +Before parting with them, however, we wish to make a few excursions +into the natural world, to follow out some of the more peculiar and +unexpected migrations of material atoms. Suppose we take a little +marble,--which, in chemical constitution, is carbonate of lime,--that +very marble, for instance, which forms the palaces of Venice, against +which the waters of the Mediterranean have dashed for so many centuries, +and have not dashed in vain. In their perpetual washing, they have worn +away the stone and carried off its particles,--an insignificant amount, +it is true, but, little as it is, it has not remained unused. For +that very carbonate of lime, which once shared the proud state of the +"glorious city in the sea," now helps to form the coarse shells of +oysters, or is embodied in the vast coral reefs that shoot out from the +islands of the West Indies, or is deposited year after year by dying +shell-fish, which are slowly carpeting the ocean-bed with their remains. +Much of this same Venice marble has doubtless been appropriated by +fishes from the sea-water which dissolved it, been transformed into +their bones, cast upon the soil of Italy, disintegrated, and imbibed by +the thirsty roots of forests in sight of the very walls from which it +parted. And who can say that parts of it do not now adorn the necks of +some Venetian dames, in coral, or more costly pearls? What says Ariel to +the orphaned Ferdinand? + + Full fathom five thy father lies; + Of his bones are coral made; + Those are pearls that were his eyes: + Nothing of him that doth fade + But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange. + +This is but a hint of the mutability of created things. Marble, +sea-shells, the chalk-cliffs of Dover, the limestone fossils which +preserve for us animal forms of species long since extinct, the coral +formations that are stretching out in dangerous reefs in so many seas +of the tropics, are all identical in their chief ingredient, and, as +we see, are by natural processes and various accidents constantly +interchanging their positions. + +It ought to be consoling to those who think a great deal of their +bodies, to reflect, that, if we may tend "to base uses," we may also +tend to very noble ones. In the course of their transmigrations, the +elements of a worthless individual may get into far better company than +they have before enjoyed,--may enter into brains that immortalize their +owner and redeem the errors of the old possessor. Whoever bases his +merit on a long line of ancestors who have nothing but a perpetuated +name to boast of, may be likened to the last of many successive tenants +of a house who have hired it for their temporary uses. The inheritance +of a brave spirit and a noble mind is a sufficient justification for a +reasonable pride; but not so with the heritage of materials which are +continually interchanging with the clod. + +There need be nothing humiliating in such thoughts; the operations +of Nature are always admirable. But when the relics of humanity are +deliberately appropriated to such mechanical or scientific purposes +as we shall relate, before they have entirely lost their original (we +should say latest) form, then most men would look upon the act as +in some sort a desecration. With what holy horror would the ancient +Egyptians regard the economical uses to which their embalmed bodies were +appropriated a few centuries ago! In the words of Ambrose Paré, the +great surgeon of five French kings in the sixteenth century, is a full +account of the preparation and administration of "mummie,"--that is, +Egyptian mummies, powdered and made into pills and potions,--"to such +as have falne from high places or have beene otherwise bruised." The +learned physician enters his protest against the use of it, (which he +says is almost universal with the faculty,) as quite inefficacious and +disgusting. His disgust, however, arises principally from the fact that +the "mummie" prepared by the apothecaries must have been derived "from +the carcases of the basest people of Egypt; for the nobelmen and cheefe +of the province, so religiously addicted to the monuments of their +ancestors, would never suffer the bodyes of their friends and kindred to +be transported hither for filthy gaine and detested use." + +If such traffic be base, what shall we say of some priests of Nicaragua, +who renovate their burial-grounds by exhuming the bones of the dead, +with the earth that surrounds them, and selling the mass to the +manufacturers of nitre? No sentiment of reverence for the sepulchres +of their fathers incites them to resist the inroads of foreign +pirates,--for they manufacture their fathers' bones into gunpowder. + +Let us turn away from the revolting picture. The glimpses of Nature's +revolutions which we have enjoyed are more agreeable. We are no +advocates for any attempts of preserving the human body from +decomposition; that which will restore the beloved forms of friends +most readily to their primitive elements, and avert the possibility +of anything so dear remaining to excite our aversion or disgust, or +becoming a pestilential agent, we would cordially encourage. There can +be no doubt that use would soon render cremation as little disagreeable +to the feelings as consigning the precious remains to slow decay and +food for worms; and few will long be pained at the thought of mingling +at once with the common earth and air, and returning to usefulness in +other forms, after the soul has passed to heavenly spheres to enjoy the +blessings of immortal life. + + * * * * * + + +CHIP DARTMOUTH. + + +It is wonderful how Nature provides for the taking off and keeping down +of her monsters,--creatures that carry things only by force or fraud: +your foxes, wolves, and bears; your anacondas, tigers, and lions; and +your cunning or ferocious men of prey, of whom they are the types. +Storms may and must now and then rage and ravage, volcanoes must have +their destructive fits, and the darkness must do its mean and tyrannical +things while men are asleep; but calmness and sunshine triumph +immeasurably on the whole. Of the cubs of iniquity, only here and there +an individual escapes the crebrous perils of adolescence, develops into +the full beast, and occupies a sublime place in history; whereas the +genial men of sunshine, plenty as the fair days of summer, pass quietly +over from the ruby of life's morning to the sapphire of its evening, too +numerous to be written of or distinctly remembered. There are, it is +quite true, enough biographies of such in existence to read the world to +sleep by for ages. It can hardly keep awake at all, except over lives of +the other sort; hence, one of great and successful villany is a prize +for the scribe. In the dearth of such, let us content ourselves with +briefly noticing one of the multitude of abortive cubs, its villany +nipped--as Nature is wont to nip it--in the promising bud of its +tenderness. Many a flourishing young rogue suddenly disappears, and the +world never knows how or why. But it shall know, if it will heed our +one-story tale, how Chip Dartmouth of these parts was turned down +here,--albeit we cannot at present say whether he has since turned up +elsewhere. + +Our hero was baptized simply Chipworth, in compliment to a rich uncle, +who was expected on that account to remember him more largely in his +will,--as he probably did; for he soon left him a legacy of twenty +thousand dollars, on the express condition that it should accumulate +till he was of age, and then be used as a capital to set the young man +up in business. As the inheritance of kingdoms spoils kings, so this +little fortune, though Chip could not finger a mill of it during his +minority, all the while acted on him like a controlling magnet, inducing +a strong repellency to good advice and a general exaltation of views, so +that, when he came into possession of it, he was already a fast young +man in almost every respect. He had settled it as the maxim of his life +to gain fast and spend fast; and having had considerable opportunity to +spend before he had any to gain, he had on becoming a business man, some +secret deficits to make good before he could really be as rich as people +supposed him. As his deficits had not been made by daylight, so daylight +must have nothing to do in wiping them out; and hence darkness became +more congenial than its reverse to all his plans, and he studied, as he +thought, with singular success, the various tricks of blinding people +to the state of his finances, as well as of bettering it. While he was +supposed to be growing rich very rapidly, he really was doing so about +half as fast as everybody thought. Chip would not steal,--that was +vulgar. But he would take every possible advantage of other people by +keeping close his own counsels and pumping out theirs. He would slander +a piece of property and then buy it. He would monopolize on a short +market, and fill his purse by forestalling. Indeed, he was, altogether, +one of the keen, and greatly admired in business circles. + +It was not easy for Chip to love any being but himself,--not even a +woman. But his smart figure, for which Nature and the tailors had done +their best, set the general female imagination into the most +lively action. Many were the dreams about him,--day-dreams and +night-dreams,--that were dreamed in front of all manner of little +filigree bird nest bonnets and under snowy nightcaps; and at the +slightest encouragement on his part, no doubt, the idea of himself which +had been manufactured in many minds would have been fallen in love with. +The reality certainly would not have been. Miss Millicent Hopkins wore +one of the caps set for Chip, and her he professed vehemently to love. +But she was the daughter of a millionnaire of a very set temper, who had +often said and sworn that his daughter should not have any man who had +not proved by more than mushroom or retail success in business that he +was able and likely to better her fortune. Miss Millicent must plainly +either be run away with, or fairly won on old Hopkins's plan of +wholesale, long-winded business success. Miss Millicent's good looks, +if they did not amount to beauty, did, nevertheless, add something to +the attractiveness of her vast pecuniary prospects. Chip had obtained +the young lady's decided favor without absolutely crossing the Rubicon +himself, for he had no notion of taking her without any of the funds her +father had to bestow. It was arranged between them that his paternal +consent should be asked, and the die or live of matrimony should depend +on that. But, with confidence, or what is sometimes called brass, enough +to put any sort of question, it was impossible for Chip Dartmouth to +state the case to old Mr. Hopkins as it was. Having obtained a private +interview, he grasped the old gentleman by the hand with an air as +familiar as it was apparently cordial. + +"Ah! I am very glad to see you, Mr. Hopkins, for I have been thinking +what a fool I must be not to pay my addresses to Miss Millicent; and I +can take no steps, you know, without your consent." + +"You can take none with it, Sir," was the emphatic reply of the severe +parent, with a sort of annihilating look. "I admire your prudence and +frankness, my young friend; but, till you show yourself a merchant, of +my own sort, I beg you will excuse me and my family from any of the +steps you contemplate. Good-morning, Sir,--good-morning!" + +The showing-out was irresistible, leaving nothing more to be said. + +Chip now resolved that he would double his diligence in making money, +out of spite to the father, if not love for the daughter. The old fogy's +wealth he would have at any rate, and Millicent with it, if possible, as +a sort of bonus. So, obtaining an interview with his fair intended and +intending, at the earliest moment, without revealing a hint of his own +diplomatic blunder, he told her that her father had refused his consent +to their union because his fortune was not sufficient, and she must not +expect to see him again till it was so, which he fancied would be in a +much shorter time than the old gentleman supposed. + +Chip had not long to wait for a chance to strike the first blow in +carrying out his new resolution of fast trading. The day after his +memorable rebuff, he was sitting in the choky little counting-room of a +crammed commission-warehouse in India Street, musing and mousing over +the various schemes that occurred to his fertile brain for increasing +the profits of his business. He had already bought cotton pretty largely +on speculation. Should he monopolize further, make a grand rush in +stocks, or join the church and get large trust-funds into his hands on +the strength of his reputation for piety? All these and a hundred other +questions were getting rapidly and shrewdly discussed in his mind, when +a rather stubbed man, with a square, homely face and vinegar expression, +opened, or partly opened, the little glass door of the counting-room, +and, looking round it more greedily than hopefully, said,-- + +"You don't want the cargo of the 'Orion' at a bargain?" + +"Can't say I do. But walk in, Captain Grant,--walk in!" + +Captain Grant did walk in, though he said it was no use talking, if Chip +didn't want the cotton. Chip saw instinctively, in the sad, acid look of +his visitor, that he was anxious to sell, and could be made to take a +despondent view of the market. Taking him by the button, he said, rather +patronizingly,-- + +"I know, Captain, you ship-owners want to keep your ships at work at +something besides storage. But look there," pointing to the bales of +cotton filling the immense floor; "multiply that pile by four and add +the basements of two churches, and you see a reason why I should not buy +above the level of the market. Now, taking that into consideration, what +do you ask for your two hundred and fifty bales in the 'Orion?'" + +"Seven cents." + +"I know somebody who would feel rich, if he could sell at that," +returned Chip, with a queer grin. "No, no, Captain Grant, that won't do +at all. Prices are sinking. If I should buy at that figure, every sign +of margin would fade out in a fortnight. I haven't five bales that have +been bought at any such price." + +It was true, he had not; for they had been bought at seven-and-a-half +and eight. + +"Well, I will say six-and-a-half at sixty days, to you," said the +humiliated Grant. + +"My dear Sir," replied Chip, "you don't begin to tempt me. I must burn +all my foreign correspondence and forget the facts before I can begin to +look at anything beyond six cents and ninety days." + +"Ninety days won't do," said Mr. Grant, tersely. "If we must sacrifice, +it must be for something a bank will look at, Mr. Dartmouth. But I want +the ship cleared, and if you will say six at two months for the whole, +it's a bargain, bad as it is for me." + +"Not a bargain for me to be in a hurry about; but I'll think of it. Hold +on till to-morrow. But, on the whole, you needn't do that. It wouldn't +be an object." + +"But I will do it, if you say so, till noon to-morrow." + +"Better say five-and-three-fourths and have it done to-day," said Chip, +"for I may not give that to-morrow. But if you hold on, and I buy +anything at six, it shall be your lot." + +Captain Grant, beginning to believe that he should, after all, sell a +little above the bottom of the market, took his leave for his home among +the Waltham hills, a little less grouty than when he entered. + +That same night, Chip, after having dropped in at numerous resorts of +the fast men, in most of which somewhat of his conscience, such as it +was, dropped out, was proceeding homeward through Devonshire Street, +with the brightest of his wits still about him. It was a raw night, one +of the rawest ever got up by a belated equinoctial, with almost nothing +stirring in the streets but the wind, and the loose shutters and old +remnants of summer awnings left to its tender mercies. Aeolus, with +these simple instruments of sound, added to the many sharp corners of +city architecture, managed to get up something of a symphony, enough +almost to make up for the nocturnal cats, now retired to silence and the +snuggest attainable quarters. The hour was one of the short ones +ayont the twal, and sleep reigned everywhere except in the +daily-newspaper-offices and in the most fashionable of the grog-shops. +Besides Chip, the only living thing in Devonshire Street was a +thinly-clad stripling, with a little roll of yellowish tissue-paper in +his hand, knocking and shaking feebly at a door which grimly refused to +open. His powers of endurance were evidently giving way, and his grief +had become both vocal and fluent in the channel of his infant years. + +"What's the matter, my boy?" asked Chip,--"locked out, hey?" + +"No,--bo-hoo. No, Sir, the door's blowed to and froze up, and I can't +git this pos'crip' up to the office." + +"Oh, oh! you're the telegraph-boy, are you?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"Most froz'n, aren't you?" + +"O-oo-oo, that I be, Sir." + +Here a very bright idea struck Chip, and he inquired,-- + +"Is this all that's coming?" + +"Boo-hoo. Yes, Sir. They've sent good-night once before, and this is the +pos'crip'. The wires is shut off now, and some of the papers is shut +off, too; for I've been to three before this, and can't git into nary +one on 'em." + +"Never mind, my poor fellow; I belong up here. I'll take the sheets and +send 'em round to all the other papers that are open. Never mind; you +take that, and go right home to your mother." + +"Thank you, Sir," said the shivering lad, and, giving up the yellow roll +and taking the loose coppers offered him in the quickest possible time, +he scampered off around the corner of Water Street and left Chip in +company with two temptations. + +"Now," thought Chip, "it will be certainly a clean and gentlemanly +thing, if, after having relieved this poor little devil of his trouble +and responsibility, I should oblige the still poorer devil of a concern +up-stairs by giving 'em this postcript of foreign news, which, by +working so late, they will probably have exclusively. That would be most +truly honest, benevolent, and philanthropic. It would make at least one +newspaper my friend, and, on the whole, it is something of a temptation. +But let me see what it will cost." + +Giving the black door a vigorous push, he entered, and by the gas-burner +on the first landing discovered that the postcript in his possession +gave the state of the Liverpool cotton-market a day later than the body +of the dispatch, which had already gone into type, and, what was more to +the purpose, announced a rise of a penny-and-a-half on the pound. Chip +clutched the gauzy sheets in his fist, closed the door as softly as +possible, and yielded himself a doomed captive to temptation number two. +Here was a little fortune on the cotton he had in store at any rate, +and, if he really had in his grasp all the news of the rise, he might +make by it a plump ten thousand dollars out of Captain Grant's "Orion." +But to this end he must be sure that not a lisp of the rise would be +published in the morning papers, and he must see Captain Grant and close +his bargain for the "Orion's" cargo before the wires should begin to +furnish additional news by the "Africa" to the evening papers. They +would not, after obtaining such news, lose a moment in parading it on +their bulletin-boards, and Captain Grant might get hold of it before +reaching the little counting-room in India Street. Chip, of course, +saw what to do, and did it. Waiting in one of the little +"meals-at-all-hours" saloons till he heard the churning of the +press-engines, he sallied out and bought of the overloaded carriers the +earliest copies of the morning papers, and made himself sure that the +foreign news did not disclose any change of the cotton-market. The +next thing was to transfer himself to Captain Grant's residence in +Waltham,--exactly whereabout in Waltham he did not know, but, of course, +he could easily find out,--and, without exciting the grouty old salt's +suspicions of false play, make sure of the cotton at his own price. On +the whole, he thought it safer, as well as cheaper, to use the early +train than to hire a special team. + +Arrived in Waltham, to his great vexation, it appeared, after +much inquiry, that Captain Grant lived full three miles from the +station,--and what was worse, every omnibus, hack, buggy, and dog-cart +was engaged for a muster in one direction or a cattle-show in another. +Nothing on wheels could be hired at any price,--at least, none could be +found in an hour's search from one hotel or livery-stable to another. +Chip, whose sleepless night and meditated fraud had not left much of the +saint in him, swore the whole of Waltham as deep as the grimmest view of +predestination would allow. And he restrained himself from being still +more profane only lest his wrath should awaken inconvenient suspicions. +After all, there was one old tavern a little way out, where possibly a +one-horse affair could be raised. The Birch House was a sort of seedy, +dried-up, quiet, out-of-the-way inn, whose sign-post stood forth like a +window without sash, the rectangular ligneous picture of a man driving +cattle to Brighton having long ago been blown out of its lofty setting +and split to pieces by the fall. What was the use of replacing it? No +one was likely to call, who did not already know that the Widow Birch +still kept tavern there, and just how she kept it. It was doubtful if a +new sign would attract a single new customer. Indeed, since the advent +of railroads, a customer was not a common occurrence any way, though +there still remained a few that could be depended on, like the Canada +geese, in their season, and their custom was handsomely profitable. The +house, a white wooden one, with greenish blinds, had two low stories, +the first of which was nearly level with the ground. There was a broad, +low entry running through the middle, and on either side two rather +spacious square rooms. One of those in front had a well-sanded, +well-worn pine floor, with a very thirsty-looking counter across one +corner, supporting a sort of palisade that appeared to fortify nothing +at all,--a place, however, which had evidently been moist enough in +the olden times. In the other front room was a neat carpet, plain, +old-fashioned furniture, and a delightful little plantation of fresh and +cozy flower-pots, surrounding a vase full of gold-fishes, and overhung +by a bright-eyed, mellow-throated canary, the whole of that paradise +being doubtless under the watch and care of little Laura Birch. This was +the ladies' parlor,--the grand reception-room, also, of any genteel male +guest, should one for a wonder appear. Little Laura, however, was no +longer as little as she had been,--though just as innocent, and ten +times as bewitching to most people who knew her. You could not but +particularly wish her well, the moment her glad, hopeful, playful, +confiding, half-roguish eye met yours. With the most conscientious +resolution to make herself useful, under her mother's thrifty +administration, in the long, clean New England kitchen which stretched +away behind the square dining-room, interposed between it and the dry +bar-room, she had a taste for books and a passion for flowers, which +absorbed most of her thoughts, and gained her more chidings from her +mother for their untimely manifestations than her handiest services +gained thanks or any signs of grateful recognition. She and the flowers, +including the bird and the fishes, seemed to belong to the same +sisterhood. She had copied their fashion of dress and behavior, rather +than the Parisian or any imported style,--and so her art, being all +learned from Nature, was quite natural. On the very morning in question, +she was engaged in giving this little conservatory the benefit of her +thorough skill and affectionate regard, when good Dame Birch broke in +upon her with,-- + +"Why, Laury, what are you thinking about? It's always just so. Here is a +gentleman in the bar-room, and he's a'most sure to order breakfast, and +them eels isn't touched, and not a thing ready but cold victuals and +pie. Them eels would be so nice and genteel! and you know they won't +keep." + +"But you didn't tell me to fry them now, mother," said Laura. + +"But I told you to fix 'em all ready to fry." + +"Well, mother," replied Laura, "I'll come as soon as these things are +set to rights. It won't do to leave them just so." + +"Well, it's always just so," said the maternal Birch. "I must do it +myself, I see. Don't be all day, Laury,--now don't!" + +She disappeared, muttering something about "them plaguy flower-pots." + +In point of fact, Chip Dartmouth was all this while in the aforesaid dry +bar-room, engaged in an earnest colloquy with Frank Birch, a grown-up +son of the landlady, a youth just entered on the independent platform of +twenty-one, Laura being three years younger. Chip had arrived rather out +of breath and excited, having got decidedly ahead of the amenities +that would have been particularly expedient under the circumstances. +Approaching a door of the bar-room, which opened near its corner towards +the barn, and which stood open at the time, he descried Frank within +busily engaged mending harness. + +"Hallo! young man, I say, hurry up that job, for I've no time to lose." + +"Well, I'm glad on't," retorted Frank, hardly looking up from his work, +"for I ha'n't." + +"Look here!" said Chip, entering, "you're the man I've been looking for. +I must have a ride to Captain Grant's, straight off, at your own price." + +"Maybe you must, but I'm goin' to the Concord cattle-show, and Captain +Grant's is four miles out of the way. I can't think of goin' round, for +I shall be too late, any way." + +"Never mind that, my young friend, if you 'r' 'n such a hurry, put on +the string and look to me for the damage." + +"Maybe you can't pay it," replied Frank, looking rather scornful. + +"The Devil!" exclaimed Chip, "are all the Waltham people born idiots?" + +"No! some of 'em are born governors," said Frank, "and Boston people may +find it out one of these days." + +On this, Landlady Birch intervened, taking the bar-room in her way from +the parlor to the kitchen. + +"What is that you say, Frank? The gentleman can have as good a breakfast +here as he can have anywhere out of Boston, I'm sure, though I say it +myself. We don't have so many to cook for, and so, perhaps, we take a +little more pains, Sir,--ha! ha!" + +And with that good Mrs. Birch put on a graciousness of smile worthy of +the most experienced female Boniface in Anglo-Saxondom. + +"The gentleman don't want any breakfast, mother; he only wants a ride +round to Captain Grant's, and he ha'n't got the manners to ask for it, +like a gentleman;--he _must_ have it. I say he mus'n't in my buggy, for +I a'n't goin' that way." + +"Why, son, the gentleman of course expects to pay for it." + +"Yes, Madam," said Chip, "I am willing and expect to bleed freely." + +_Frank_. "Well, I should like to know what you mean by that? _I_ don't +want your blood, or that of any other Boston squirt." + +_Mrs. Birch (to Chip, after a reproving glance at Frank)_. "I think we +can accommodate you, Sir. The buggy is at the blacksmith's, and will be +done in half-an-hour. If you want, you can have breakfast while you are +waiting; and you will find a comfortable fire in the parlor to sit by, +at any rate." + +With this, Mrs. Birch made her exit, to hurry matters on the cook-stove. + +"There! that's her, all over!" grumbled Frank. "If she can sell a meal +of victuals, she don't care what becomes of me. But I'll let her know +the mare's mine, and the buggy's mine, all but the harness; and I tell +_you_, Sir, I'll see the mare drowned in Charles River and the buggy +split into kindling-wood, before you shall have a ride to Captain +Grant's this day." + +"But here's a five-dollar-bill," quoth Chip, displaying a small handful +of banknotes. + +_Frank_. "You may go to thunder with the whole of 'em! I tell you I've +set my foot down, and I won't take it up for my own mother,--and I'm +sure I won't for anything that ever was or will be under your clo'es." + +With this, he jerked up the harness and went off to the barn, with an +air that convinced Chip that the controversy between mother and son was +not likely to be decided in his favor at a sufficiently early hour to +answer his purpose. But where else should he go, or what else should +he do? As he was a little more inclined now to bet on calmness than on +passion, he decided to take a seat in the parlor, and keep it, at +least, till he could dispose of his present doubt. Easily might he have +measured three miles over the Waltham hills, in the bracing morning-air, +with his own locomotive apparatus, while he had been looking in vain for +artificial conveyance. But if that plan had occurred to him at all at +first, it would have been dismissed with contempt as unbusinesslike. He +must not, by any possibility, appear to Captain Grant to be so madly +anxious to close the bargain. He did a little regret neglecting the +service of his own proper pegs, but it was now entirely too late to +walk, and he must ride, and at a good pace, too, or lose the entire +benefit of the news which the lightning had so singularly confided to +his honest hands. The feeling with which he flung himself into that +quiet, little, economical parlor was, probably, even more desperate than +Richard's, when he offered his kingdom for a horse. It was, in fact, +just the feeling, of all others in the world, to prevent a man's getting +a horse. Had he carried it into a pasture full of horses, it would have +prevented him from catching the tamest of them. But the good influences +of the Universe, that encourage and strengthen the noble martyrs of +truth and workers of good in their arduous labors, do sometimes also +help on villains to their bad ends. Never were troubled waters more +quickly smoothed with oil, never were the poles of a magnet more quickly +reversed, than Chip's rage and rancor abated after he entered that door. +Not that he relaxed his purpose at all, or felt any essential change of +his nature, but his temper was instantly turned the right side up +for success. He was, of course, unconscious of the cause,--for it is +certainly nothing wonderful, even in the neighborhood of Boston, to see +a neat Yankee lass, in her second or third best dress, putting things +to rights of a morning, with a snowy handkerchief over her head, its +corners drawn into a half-knot under her sweet chin, and some little +ruddy outposts on her cheeks, ready, on the slightest occasion, to +arouse a whole army of blushes. Laura had just given the finishing touch +to her flower culture, changed the water of her fishes, replenished the +seed-bucket of the canary, and was about leaving the room. Almost any +man would have been glad of an excuse to speak to her. Chip could have +made an excuse, if one had not been ready-made, that was to him very +important, as well as satisfactory. + +"Miss Birch, I presume?" + +"Yes, Sir," said Laura, with a curtsy, not quite so large as those that +grow in dancing schools, but, nevertheless, very pretty. + +"Well, Miss Birch," said Chip, blandly advancing and taking her nice +little hand, half covered with her working-mitts,--whereat the +aforesaid outposts promptly did their duty,--"or shall I call you Miss +Susan Birch?" + +"No, Sir, my name is Laura," said the girl, shrinking a little from a +contact which rather took her by surprise. + +"Oh, Laura!--that is better yet," proceeded Chip. "Now, Miss Laura, I +have got myself into a terrible scrape; can you help me out of it?" + +"I can't tell, indeed, Sir, till I know what it is," said Laura, with a +bright twinkle of reassurance. + +"Well, it is this:--I have mortally offended your brother,--for so I +take him to be by his looks,--and I most sincerely repent it, for he +owns the only team left in Waltham. If I cannot hire that team for an +hour, I lose money enough to buy this house twice over. I want you to +reconcile us. Will you offer my apology and prevail on him to take this +and be my coachman for an hour?" asked Chip,--slipping a gold eagle +into her hand with the most winning expression at his command. + +"Oh, yes, Sir,--I'm sure I'll try without that, Sir. He will be glad to +oblige you, when he knows how you need it," she said, offering to return +the coin. + +"No, no, Miss Laura, I want to pay him well; and if you succeed,--why, +no money can pay _you_, Miss Laura; I don't profess to be rich enough to +do it." + +Here the outposts gave another alarm, and again the hosts of the ruby +uniform were gathering hurriedly in their two muster-fields. + +"Why, I will go and try, Sir," said Laura, so much confused by the +novelty and magnitude of the circumstances that she opened the +closet-door before opening the only one that led out of the room. + +Fairly out of Chip's presence, she saw instantly and instinctively the +worthlessness of that gold eagle, however genuine, compared with her +sisterly love, in her mission to Frank. So she ran directly to her +mother in the long kitchen, and, planking the American eagle upon the +sloppy little table where the eels were rapidly getting dressed, said,-- + +"Why, mother, that gentleman wants to hire Frank to carry him to Captain +Grant's, and I'm sure he ought to go without hiring. I'll go right out +and see him." + +"That's right, Laury; tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself!" + +"Oh, no, mother, I won't tell him any such thing," said Laura, +laughingly, as she hopped and skipped towards the barn. + +"Well, Frank, how's Nell Gwyn, this morning?" cheerily cried Laura to +Frank, who seemed to be getting his harness into a worse snarl, in his +grouty attempts to get it out of one. + +"The mare's well enough, if she hadn't been insulted." + +"Why, that's abominable, Frank! But let me get that snarl out." + +"You get it out! You get out yourself, Laule." + +"Why, that's all I'm good for, Frank; I always pick out the snarls in +the house, you know, and I should like to try it once in the barn." + +"The tarnal old thing's bewitched, I believe," said Frank, allowing his +sister to interfere and quietly untwist and turn right side out the +various parts which he had put wrong by all sorts of torsion. "I'll +teach Boston chaps to know that there are some things they can't have +for money! When Nell and I have agreed to have a good time, we a'n't +goin' to be ordered off nor bought off;--we'll _have_ it." + +"So _I_ say, Frank. But suppose _I_ wanted you to give _me_ a ride, +Frank?" + +"Why, Laule, you know I would go to the North Pole with you. If Mam +would only let _you_ go to Concord with me, I'd wait till noon for you." + +"Well, maybe she will, Frank. She wants you to carry that man to +Captain Grant's bad enough to let me go in the afternoon." + +"But I told him I wouldn't carry him,--and, gol darn it, I won't!" + +"Of course you won't carry him on his own account, or for the sake of +his money,--but for my sake perhaps you will." + +"Well, Sis, perhaps I will. But, mind, before I do, Mam shall promise, +sartin sure, to let you go by half-past twelve o'clock, and not a minit +later." + +"Well, I'll see she does; you harness Nell, and get the buggy. The man +says he's sorry he spoke to you so. If he's carried to Captain Grant's +and back, I'll answer for it's being the best for all of us." + +She was off to the house like a bird, and the rest of her diplomacy was +too simple and straightforward to need special record. + +As the buggy was at the door before the table presented the savory +temptation of fried eels, Chip declined breakfast at present, but +decidedly promised to take it on his return. He dropped in on Captain +Grant, as he was careful to tell that gentleman, having had business in +Waltham that morning, and thinking he might perhaps save him a journey +to town. The ship-owner had just finished the news of the morning +papers, for which he had sent a messenger express to the post-office, +and said, after the cordial salutation which a rough sort of man always +gives in his own house,-- + +"Well, Mr. Dartmouth, I see the market is as close-reefed as ever. +Maybe you think I will sell at five and three-fourths to-day, but I've +concluded to make a floating warehouse of the 'Orion' for the winter, +rather than do that." + +"I don't blame you for that, my friend; but in the present state of +advices, six at two months is the highest mill that will do. If you will +close the 'Orion's' cargo at that, I am your man." + +"What I've said, I'll do, Sir, of course," said the tough old salt; "and +since you've taken the trouble to come out here and save my lame toes, +let's nail the bargain with a bottle of my old Madeira,--some of the +ripest this side of the herring-pond, I'll be bound." + +"Not a drop, I thank you; for, besides being a teetotaller, Captain, I'm +behind time to-day, and must bid you good-morning." + +"Well, Sir, I'm much obliged to you; the bill of sale shall be at your +counting-room directly; the clerk will receive the notes and deliver the +cotton. Good-morning, Sir,--good-morning!" + +In truth, Chip had not the slightest objection to wine, as wine, even +had it not been the ripest on this continent; but, like any other +mitigated villain, he did not quite relish taking wine with the man he +was basely cheating. He would much rather partake of Ma'am Birch's fried +eels and coffee, especially if Laura Birch should, peradventure, be the +Hebe of such an ambrosial entertainment. She was not, however,--and the +disappointment considerably overclouded the commercial victory of the +morning. Madam Birch herself did the honors of whatever sort, while Chip +played a fantasia solo at the _table d'hôte_. The good lady enlarged +volubly on her destitution of help, and how, if she had any such as +we get now-a-days, they were more plague than profit,--how Laura was +getting ready to go with Frank to the cattle-show, and she herself was +likely to be the only living mortal in the house for the rest of the +day. + +"Such a son as you have is a fortune, Madam; and as for the daughter, +she is a gem, a genuine diamond, Madam." + +"Ha! ha! do you really think so, Sir?" said the mother, evidently +gratified with the superlativeness of the compliment. "Well, they do say +children are jewels.--but I've found, Sir, they are pretty +troublesome and pretty costly jewels. Mine, as you say, are very good +children,--though Frank is pretty wilful, and Laury is always gettin' +her head above the clouds. Oh, dear! they want a great deal done for +'em,--and the more you do, the more you may do. Frank is bewitched to +sell out and go to Kansas or Californy, or, if he stays here, he must go +to college or be a merchant. And Laury, even she isn't contented; she +wants to be some sort of artist, make statters or picters,--or be a +milliner, at least. So you see I haven't a minute's peace of my life +with 'em." + +Of course Chip saw it, and the more's the pity. + +"All the better, Madam," said he. "Young America must go ahead. There's +nothing to be had without venturing. If I can ever be of service to +either of your children in forwarding their laudable ambition, I am sure +it will give me the greatest pleasure." + +"You are very kind, Sir, but I only wish you could persuade 'em to let +well alone, and at least not try the world till they know more of it." + +"Not touch the water till they have learned to swim, eh? That's not +quite so easy, Madam. Never fear; I'll be bound, a boy that can say _No_ +like yours is perfectly safe anywhere; and as to Laura, why, Madam, I +never heard of an angel getting into difficulty in the wickedest of +worlds." + +"Our old minister, Parson Usher that was, used to say some of the Bible +angels fell,--and I am sure, Sir, the human angels have a worse chance. +They are about the only ones that run any risk at all." + +"True, true enough, Ma'am, in one point of view. Too much care cannot be +taken to select the society in which young people are to move. In the +right society, such a girl as Laura would win homage on every side, and +make herself happy by making everybody else so." + +"I believe you are right there, Sir," said Mrs. Birch, quite charmed +with such beautiful appreciation of what she felt to be Laura's +excellence; "and I don't wonder sometimes that she should be +discontented with the society she has here, poor girl!" + +"When you see the sun begin to shine in the morning, you may be sure +enough it will keep rising all the forenoon," said Chip, with the air +of a great moral philosopher, conscious of having made a decided +impression. And suddenly recollecting how valuable was his time in town, +and that the train would be due in five minutes, he swallowed the last +of his coffee, paid his bill, told the landlady how happy he was to have +made her acquaintance and that of her interesting family, promised he +would never stop in Waltham without calling, and strode away. + +The lightning flashed from a good many eyes in the telegraph-office when +the morning members of the associated press inquired why they had not +been served with the latest news,--why, in fact, the only item of any +significance was reserved for the evening papers of the day. Not a press +of all the indignant complainants was ready to admit that it had locked +up its forms and gone to bed before the wires had completed their task. +Very bitter paragraphs testified, the next day, that, in the opinion of +many sage and respectable editors, the wires had been tampered with +by speculators. The poor little half-frozen telegraph-boy was closely +catechized, first by the officers of the telegraph-company, and +afterwards by certain shrewd detectives, but no clue could be got to the +fine gentleman who so generously relieved him of his responsibility, and +no result followed, except his dismissal and the employment of another +lad of more ability and probably less innocence. Captain Grant was the +man most likely to have come to a discovery in the matter, and most +heartily did he curse his luck--his "usual luck"--of giving away a +fortune by selling a cargo a day too soon. But being kept at home +by uncomfortable toes, no suspicious mortal, such as abound in the +lounging-rooms of insurance-offices and other resorts of business-men in +town, happened ingeniously to put his suspicions on a scent, and he did +not come within a league of the thought that Chip Dartmouth could have +had anything to do with the strange and blamable conduct of the wires. +As he made no proclamation of his loss, and no other case of sale +during the abeyance of the news came to the knowledge of the parties +interested, the matter, greatly to Chip's comfort, fell into entire +oblivion before a fortnight had passed. The understanding was, that, +though great mischief might have been done, none had been,--and +that somebody had simply made waste-paper of the little yellow +thunderbolt-scrawls. + +For the first fortnight, Chip's nervousness, not to say conscience, very +much abated the pleasure of the many congratulations he received from +his friends, and from hundreds of people whom he had never before known +as his friends. He couldn't get through the streets any day without +meeting the solidest sort of men, with whom he had never exchanged +a word in his life, but whose faces were as familiar as that of the +Old-South clock, who took him by the hand quite warmly, and said,-- + +"Ah, Mr. Dartmouth, permit me to congratulate you on your good-fortune. +You have well deserved it. I like to see a young man like you make such +a ten-strike, especially when it comes in consequence of careful study +of the market." + +The truth was, Chip had been playing a pretty hazardous game in the +cotton-market, chiefly at the risk of other parties; and the slice he +had so feloniously carved out of poor Captain Grant was quite small +compared with the gains he had managed to secure by thus venturing a +little of his own and a great deal of other people's money. The shrewd +minds in the secrets of the business world were not slow to see that +he must have realized at least a hundred thousand units of commercial +omnipotence by the operations of the first week after the rise. +Everybody was glad of an opportunity to speak to such a man. Even Mr. +Hopkins, immensely retired as he was, driving into State Street +about noon one genial day to receive a bank dividend or two, stepped +considerably out of his way, in walking from his low-hung turnout to the +door of one of the banks, in order to catch Mr. Dartmouth's notice, and +say to him, "Good-morning, Mr. Dartmouth! I hope you are very well, +Sir!" Chip recognized the salutation with a superb nod, but without the +accompaniment of any verbal rhetoric which was audible above the buzz of +the pavement; and the retired millionnaire passed on about his business. + +"Ah!" thought Chip, "I am getting to be a merchant of the right sort, I +see,--and by the time he is ready to change that low-hung little chariot +for the hard, angular ebony with raven plumes, I shall be ready to step +into the other plump little vehicle, which is really so nice and cozy." + +But we must leave Chip to the easy task of ballooning upward in public +estimation, with his well-inflated bank-account. He was, in fact, +reformed by his great commercial success to this extent, that his vices +had become of the most distinguished and unvulgar grade. He was now +courted by the highest artists in iniquity, and had the means of +accomplishing results that none but men who are known to be really rich +can command. He, therefore, now quitted all vulgar associations, and +determined not to outrage any of the virtues, except under varnish, +gilding, and polish that would keep everything perfectly respectable. +Let him trust to that as long as he can. + +Don't talk of the solitude of a night in the primeval forests, however +far from the abodes of man;--the squirrels and the partridges may be +asleep then and there, but the katydids are awake, and, with the support +of contralto and barytone tree-toads, manage to keep up a concert which +cannot fail to impress on you a sense of familiar and friendly company. +Don't talk of the loneliness of a deserted and ruinous castle;--the +crickets have not left it, and, if you don't have a merry time with +their shrill jokes, it will be your own fault. But if you would have a +sense of being terribly alone, come from long residence in some quiet +country-home on the border of a quiet country-village, into the +hurry-skurry of a strange city, just after nightfall. Here is an +infinite brick-and-stone forest, stern, angular, almost leafless. Here +is a vast, indistinguishable wilderness of flitting human shapes, not +one of which takes half so much notice of you as a wild bush would. +Speak to one; it answers without the slightest emotion, and passes on. +Your presence is absolutely no more to any soul of them, provided they +have souls, than if you were so much perfectly familiar granite. You +feel, that, with such attention as you receive, such curiosity as you +excite, you must be there hundreds of years to be either recognized or +missed. + +Had you been a stranger in Boston, one moist and rather showery +summer-evening, not a year after the events we have narrated, you might +have been recovered from the sense of loneliness we have described by +observing one pretty female figure hurrying along the crowded sidewalk +with a very large and replete satchel, and without any of the +_sang-froid_ which characterizes city pedestrianism. You might have +noticed that this one human being, like yourself, was evidently not at +home. Every glare of gas-light revealed a deeply-flushed face, eyes that +had been weeping and which were now flashing with a wild earnestness +and an altogether preternatural resolution. A gazelle, started by the +huntsman's pack, could not have thrown more piercing glances at every +avenue of escape than this excited girl did at every cross street, and +indeed at everything but the human faces that passed her. All of them +she shunned, with a look that seemed equally anxious to avoid the known +and the unknown. She should seem to have narrowly escaped some peril, +and was carrying with her a secret not to be confided to friend or +stranger, certainly not to either without due consideration. Had you +watched her, as the crowds of people, returning from the various evening +amusements, died away in the streets, you would have seen the deep +color of her cheeks die away also to deadly paleness; had you been +sufficiently clairvoyant, you might have seen how two charming rows of +pearls bit the blanched lips till the runaway blood came back into the +sad gashes, how the tears welled up again, and with them came relief and +fresh strength just as she was about to faint and drop in the street. +Then returned again the throb of indignant resolution, as her mind +recurred to the attempted ruin of her paradise by a disguised foe; +then succeeded shame and dread lest the friends she had left in her +childhood's rural home should know how differently from her fond +anticipations had turned out the first week of her sojourn in the great +city. She was most thoroughly resolved, that, if possible, they should +not know anything of the wreck of her long-cherished hopes till she had +found some foothold for new ones. She felt that she was a Yankee girl in +the metropolis of New England, with wit, skill, and endurance equal to +any employment that ever falls to the lot of Yankee women; but having +given up the only chance which had ever opened to her, how could she +find another? Were she of the other sex, or only disguised in the outer +integuments of it, with the trifling sum in her purse, she would get +lodgings at the next hotel, and seek suitable employment without +suspicion. In the wide wilderness of a city there was not an +acquaintance she did not dread to meet, in her present circumstances, +even worse than death itself, or, what is next door to it, a +police-station. + +The streets had emptied themselves of their rushing throngs, the patter +of feet and the murmur of voices had given place to measured individual +marches here and there, the dripping of cave-spouts and the flapping of +awnings could be heard tattling of showers past and future, and the last +organ-grinder had left the ungrateful city to its slumbers, when the +poor girl first became conscious that she had been lugging hither +and thither her entire outfit of wardrobe, valuables, and keepsakes. +Aggravated by fatigue, her indecision as to how she should dispose of +herself was gradually sinking into despair, and the official guardians +of the night, who had doubtless noticed her as she passed and repassed +through their beats, were beginning to make up their official minds, +generally and severally, that the case might by-and-by require their +benevolent interference, when she was startled by a female voice from +behind. + +"Arrah, stop there, ye rinaway jade! I know ye by yer big bag, ye big +thafe, that ye are!" + +Glad at any voice addressed to her, and gladder at this than if it had +been more familiar or more friendly, our forlorn maiden turned and said, +in the sweetest voice imaginable,-- + +"Oh, no, my friend, I am not a thief." + +"Och, I beg your pardon, honey! I thought sure it was Bridget, that's +jist rin away wid a bagful of her misthress's clo'es and a hape o' mine, +and it's me that's bin all the way down to Pat Mahoney's in North Street +to git him to hunt her up; and the Blessed Mother forgive me, whin I +seen you in the dark, stalin' along like, wi' that bag, I thought it +was herself it was, sure. Och, ye're a swate lass, I see, now; but what +makes ye out this time o' night, dear?" + +"Well, I'm too late for the train, you see, and I really don't know what +to do or where to go," said the Yankee girl, putting on the air natural +to such circumstances, with the readiness of her race. + +"Och, I see, that's the mailing o' the bag, thin. Poor thing! ye jist +come along wid me. I'll lift the bag for ye, me darlint, an' I'll pit +clane sheets on Bridget's bed, and ye're welcome to slape there as long +as ye like; for the Blessed Mother knows it's powerful tired ye're +lookin', it is. I'm cook for more nor twinty years for the Hopkinses in +Bacon Street, and I can make ye jist as welcome in my quarthers as if it +was nobody but meself that owned it at all at all." + +"Oh, my dear woman, I thank you kindly! That bag _was_ beginning to grow +heavy," replied the overjoyed outcast; and presently, with a ready eye +to business, she added, "And since Bridget is gone, who knows but I can +take her place? I came to the city on purpose to find something to do, +and I can do anything that is not dishonest." + +"Och! the likes o' ye take her place? Niver a bit of it! Why! I see by +the gas-light ye're a leddy as iver was at all at all; and ye could +niver come in the shoes of sich a thafe as Bridget Maloney, as is gone, +and the Divil catch her!" + +"No, no, not in her shoes to steal anything, I hope; but I can do +housework, sweep, make beds, sew, and make myself useful,--as I will +show, if I can have a trial." + +"An' ye may well say that's a hape more nor _she_ iver could. But if +it's a thrial ye want, it's me that'll give't ye as soon as ye plase. +I'll answer for ye's to Misthress Millicent,--and that's what I niver +did for Bridget, and it's right glad I am of that. Now niver fear, me +darlint, it's a powerful good place, it is too, to thim as kapes the +right side o' Misthress Millicent; for she's the only daughter, and the +mother is dead and gone, poor soul!" + +They were now approaching the opulent mansion over the _cuisine_ of +which our special police-woman had so long had the honor of presiding. +Almost delighted enough with her capture to forget, if not forgive, her +fugitive fellow-servant Bridget, the florid and fat Aunt Peggy Muldoony +hurried along as if the bag were a feather, her words flowing like a +spring flood, and introduced her charge at a postern-door into her own +house, as she called it. This was, in fact, a very comfortable and +somewhat spacious dwelling, which stood almost distinct in the rear of +the mansion in which the Hopkins family proper resided, so that there +should be ample accommodations for servants, and the steam of cooking +could not annoy the grand parlors. Here we might leave the beautiful +waif, so strangely picked up in the dark street, to the working of her +own genius. She had fallen into a place which had control of all the +chamber-work of a modern palace, with ample assistance. Aunt Peggy, her +guardian angel, at once instructed her in the routine of the duties, and +she very soon had occasion to wonder how the care of so many beautiful +flowers, vases, statues, pictures, and objects of splendor and taste, +not to speak of beds that the Queen of Sheba might have envied, could +have been committed to a domestic who could be tempted to run away with +a few hundred dollars' worth of silks and laces. The legal owner himself +could hardly enjoy his well-appointed paradise better than she did, in +keeping every leaf up to its highest beauty. It must require a pretty +strong dose of tyranny to drive her away, she thought. + +But tyranny, if it were there, did not show itself. After a number of +serious, but vain attempts, on the part of Miss Millicent, to gratify +her curiosity by unravelling the mystery of her new servant, whose +industry, skill, and taste produced visible and very satisfactory +effects in every part of the mansion, she settled down to the +conclusion, that, finally, a treasure had fallen to her lot which it was +best for her to keep as carefully as possible and make the most of. She +could now smile and assume airs of great condescension when her worthy +female friends complained of careless, incompetent, and unfaithful +domestics, and have the pleasure of being teased in vain to know what +she did to be so well served. + +The satisfaction of Miss Millicent at having found and attached to her +service a young woman of such superlative domestic genius and taste, who +seemed to be so thoroughly contented with her situation, was especially +enhanced by the fact, that her own marriage was approaching, an occasion +which any bride of good sense would wish to have free from the annoyance +of slack and untrustworthy Bridgets. + +A few months after the period of which we have been speaking, the +long-expected event of the last paragraph was evidently on the eve of +accomplishment. There was sitting in the distinguished parlor of Mr. +Hopkins, himself, occupying an easy-chair of the most elaborate design +and costly materials. It had all manner of extensibilities,--conveniences +for reclining the trunk or any given limb at any possible +angle,--conveniences for sleeping, for writing, for reading, +for taking snuff,--and was, withal, a marvel of upholstery-workmanship +and substantial strength. Another still more exquisite combination +of rosewood, velvet, spiral springs, and cunning floral carving, +presenting a striking resemblance to that great ornament of +the English alphabet, the letter S, held Miss Millicent Hopkins, in +one curve, face to face with Mr. Chipworth Dartmouth, already known to +the reader, in the other. Near by the half-recumbent millionnaire, at a +little gem of a lady's writing-desk, sat Mr. Frank Sterling, the junior +partner of the distinguished law-firm of Trevor and Sterling, engaged in +reading to all the parties aforesaid a very ingenious and interesting +document, which he had drawn up, according to the general dictation of +Mr. Hopkins aforesaid. It was, in fact, a marriage-settlement, of which +the three beautifully engrossed copies were to be signed and sealed +by all the parties in interest, and each was to possess a copy. Frank +Sterling read over the paragraphs which settled enormous masses of funds +around the sacred altar where Hymen was so soon to apply his torch, with +great professional coolness, as well as commendable rapidity; but when +he came to the conclusion, and, looking at both father and daughter, +said, that all that remained, if the draught now met their approbation, +was, to have witnesses called in and add the signatures, he betrayed a +little personal feeling, which it behooves the reader to understand. + +Frank Sterling, though one of the best fellows in the world, with a +joyous face, a bright eye, a hearty laugh, and the keenest possible +relish for everything beautiful and good, was a bachelor, because a mate +quite to his judgment and taste had never fallen in his way. With Mr. +Hopkins, he had been, for a year or two, a favorite lawyer. Professional +business had often brought him to the house, and at Miss Millicent's +parties he had often been a specially licensed guest. There had been a +time, he felt quite sure, when, if he had pushed a suit, he could have +put his name where that of Dartmouth stood in the marriage-settlement, +and, as he glanced at Miss Millicent, as she sat in the mellow light of +the purplish plate-glass of that superb parlor, she seemed so beautiful +and queenly that he almost wished he had done it. Was it quite fit that +such a woman should be thrown away upon one of the mere beasts of the +stock-market? The air with which Chip took his victory was so exactly +like that matter-of-course chuckle with which he would have tossed over +the proceeds of a shrewd bargain into his bank-account, that the young +lawyer's soul was shocked at it, and he almost wished he had prevented +such a shame. However, his discretion came to the rescue, and told him +he had done right in not linking his fortunes to a woman who, however +beautiful, was too passive in her character to make any man positively +happy. Had it been his ambition to spend his life in burning incense to +an exquisitely chiselled goddess, here was a chance, to be sure, where +he could have done it on a salary that would have satisfied a _pontifex +maximus_; but, with a fair share of the regard for money which +characterizes his profession, Mr. Sterling never could make up his mind +to become a suitor for the hand of Miss Millicent, nor get rid of the +notion that he was to bless and be blessed by some woman of positive +character and a taste for working out her own salvation in her own +way,--some woman who, not being made by her wealth, could not be unmade +by the loss of it. It was, therefore, only a momentary sense of choking +he experienced, as he laid the manuscripts on the leaf of Mr. Hopkins's +chair, and said,-- + +"Shall I ring the bell, Sir?" + +"If you please, Mr. Sterling. Now, Millicent, dear, whose name shall +have the honor of standing as witness on this document? There is Aunt +Peggy,--is good at using pothooks, but not so good at making them. Her +mark won't exactly do." + +"Why, father! I shall, of course, have my little favorite, Lucy +Green; her signature will be perfectly beautiful. And by the way, Mr. +Dartmouth, here is a thing I haven't thought of before. With this Lucy +of mine for an attendant, I am worth about twice as much as I should +have been without her, and yet no mention has been made of this in the +bargain." + +"Ha! ha!" said Chip. "Thought of in good time. Let Mr. Sterling add the +item at once. I am content." + +"First, however, you shall see the good girl herself, Mr. Dartmouth, +and then we can have a postscript--or should I say a codicil?--on her +account. John, please say to Lucy, I wish her to come to me. After all +the stocks and bonds in the world, Mr. Dartmouth, our lives are what our +servants please to make them." + +"True, indeed, my love; but the comfort is, if we are well stocked with +bonds of the right sort, servants that don't suit can be changed for +those that do." + +"And the more changes, the worse, commonly;--an exception is so rare, +I dread nothing like change. The chance of improving a bad one is even +better, I think." + +"I don't believe there is anything good in the flunkey line that money +won't buy. I have always found I could have anything I wanted, if I saw +fit to pay its price. Money, no matter what simpletons preach, money, my +dear, is"---- + +"Why, Lucy, what is the matter?" exclaimed Miss Millicent, with some +surprise and anxiety, as she saw the girl, who had just entered, instead +of advancing, awkwardly shrink on one side into a chair behind the door, +with a shudder, as if she had trod on a reptile. The next moment she was +at her side, earnestly whispering something in her ear, evidently an +explanation of the circumstances of the case, to which Lucy had hitherto +been an entire stranger. + +"Pray, excuse me, Ma'am," was the girl's scarce audible response to some +request. + +"It is only to write your name, Lucy." + +"Not to _such_ a paper, for the world!" + +"Not to oblige me?" + +"I would do anything, Ma'am, to oblige you, but that would not. Never! +never!" said the excited girl, catching another glimpse of Chip, who was +now looking obliquely at the whispering couple, and drumming with his +fingers on the rosewood of that part of the letter S from which his +intended had just risen, as if he were hurriedly beating a _reveille_ +to rally his faltering impudence. "No, Ma'am;--it is too bad, it is too +bad, it is too"----Here her utterance became choked, her cheeks pallid +as death, and her form wilted and fell like a flower before the mower's +scythe. Millicent prevented the fall, while Sterling rang for water, +and Chip, peering about with more agitation than any one else, finally +remarked,-- + +"The girl must be sick;--better take her out." + +The young lawyer, with the aid of a servant, did bear her to another +apartment, where, after the usual time and restoratives, she recovered +her consciousness, and the maiden blood again revealed tints that the +queen of flowers might envy. Chip and the millionnaire remained in the +parlor, while the others were taking care of the proposed witness, and +great was the anxiety of the former that their absence should not be +prolonged. Suddenly he recollected a forgotten engagement of great +importance, pulled out his watch, fidgeted, suggested that the lawyer +and Miss Millicent should be recalled, that the papers might be signed +before he went. Mr. Hopkins was of that opinion, and sent a servant to +call them. Miss Millicent came, but could not think of completing the +contract without the signature of her favorite domestic. Argument enough +was ready, but she was fortified by a sentiment that was more than a +match for it. Mr. Hopkins was all ready, and would have the matter +closed as soon as the lawyer arrived, affirming that his daughter would +have too much sense, at last, to stand out on such a trifle. + +In the mean time, the supposed Miss Lucy having had time to collect her +scattered senses, there occurred the following dialogue between her and +Frank Sterling, whose curiosity, not to speak of any other interest, had +been thoroughly roused by the strange patient for whom he had just been +acting in a medical, rather than legal capacity. + +_Frank_. "We are all right, now, I think, Miss Lucy,--and they are +waiting for us in the parlor, you know." + +_Lucy_. "That paper must not be signed, Sir. If Miss Millicent knew what +I do about that man, he would be the last man in the world she would +think of for a husband." + +_Frank_. "But he is one of the merchant princes,--respectable, of +course. What harm can you know of him?" + +_Lucy_. "If he is not so great a villain as he might be, let him thank +my escape from Mrs. Farmthroy's the night I came here. If he is to be +at home here, I shall not be; but before I leave, I wish to restore him +what belongs to him. Excuse me a moment, Sir, and I will fetch it." + +"A regular previous love-affair," thought Frank, and expected her +to return, bringing a small lot of erotic jewelry to be returned to +Chipworth, as the false-hearted donor thereof. Great was his surprise, +when, instead of that, she brought a small parcel or wad of yellowish +paper, variegated with certain scrawls of rapid writing, of the manifold +sort. + +"Why, that," said Frank, after unfolding the half-dozen sheets, all of +the same tenor, "is a set of news-dispatches, and of a pretty ancient +date, too." + +_Lucy_. "But it is his property, Sir; and though worthless itself, being +worth as much as he is, it may be valuable to him." + +_Frank_. "Yes, yes. I begin to see. Cotton-Market. This reminds me of +the case of our client Grant. Why, pray, how did you come by these?" + +_Lucy_. "Perhaps I ought not to tell you all. But if I may rely on your +honor as a gentleman, I will." + +_Frank_. "As a gentleman, a man, and a lawyer, you may trust me that +every word shall be sacredly confidential." + +_Lucy_. "Well, Sir, my name is not Lucy Green, but Laura Birch. My +mother keeps the Birch House in Waltham; and this man, whom you call a +merchant prince, came to my mother's the very day after the date on them +papers, and hired my brother to carry him to Captain Grant's. When he +took out his pocketbook to pay, which he did like a prince, perhaps, +he probably let these papers fall. At any rate, no one else could have +dropped them; and I saved them, thinking to give them to him when he +should call again. I have seen him but once since, at a place where, +through his interest, I supposed I had obtained a situation to learn the +milliner's trade. I needn't say why I did not return his property then. +If, now, I had in my possession even an old shoestring that had ever +been his, I would beg you to return it to him, and find out for me where +I can go never to see him." + +_Frank_. "But I shall take care of these dispatches. There's a story +about these papers, I see. Here's a ray of daylight penetrating a dark +spot. Two links in the chain of circumstances, to say the least. Captain +Grant's unfortunate sale of cotton to Dartmouth just before the rise, +and the famous lost dispatch found on Dartmouth's track to Grant. Did +you see him have these papers, Miss Lucy--I beg your pardon--Miss +Laura?" + +_Lucy_. "No, Sir; but I know he left them, just as well as if I had seen +them in his hands." + +_Frank_. "True, true enough in fact, but not so good in law." + +_Lucy_. "Is there anything by which the law can reach him, Sir? Oh, I +should be so glad, if the law could break off this match, even if it +cannot break his neck; and he deserves that, I am afraid, if ever a +villain did." + +_Frank_. "Yes,--there's enough in this roll to banish such a fellow, if +not to hang him. And it shall be done, too." + +_Lucy_. "And Miss Millicent be saved, too? Delightful!" + +Sterling, with the roll of yellow paper in his fist, now returned to the +parlor, where Mr. Hopkins impatiently opened upon him, before he could +close the door. + +"Well, Mr. Counsellor, we are all waiting for you. Mr. Dartmouth has +urgent business, and is in haste to go. We shall be holden in heavy +damages, if we detain him." + +"He will be in more haste to go by-and-by, Sir. I have some papers here, +Sir, which make it necessary that this marriage-contract should stand +aside till some other matters can be settled, or at least explained. I +refer to these manifold dispatches, detailing the latest news of the +Liverpool cotton-market, by the fraudulent possession of which on the +part of somebody, a client of mine, Captain Grant of Waltham, was +cheated out of a small fortune. Perhaps Mr. Dartmouth knows who went to +Waltham one morning to close a bargain before the telegraph-news should +transpire. It is rather remarkable that certain lost dispatches should +have been found in that man's track." + +Whether Chip Dartmouth heard three words of this harangue may be +doubted. The sight of that yellowish paper did the business for him. His +expression vibrated from that of a mad rattlesnake to that of a dog with +the most downcast extremities. At last he rushed to the door, saying he +"would stand no such nonsense." + +"But you will have to stand it!" + +Chip was gone. Mr. Hopkins was in a state of amazement; and Millicent, +if she did not swoon, seemed to herself in a trance. Neither of them +could see in the cause anything to account for the effect. How could a +merchant prince quail before so flimsy a piece of paper? Mr. +Sterling explained. Mr. Hopkins begged the matter might not be made +public,--above all things, that legal proceedings should be avoided. + +"No," said Sterling,--"I shall punish him more effectually. The proof, +though strong as holy writ, would probably fail to convict him in court. +Therefore I shall let him off on these conditions: He shall disgorge to +Captain Grant his profits on that cotton with interest, relinquish Miss +Millicent's hand, if she so pleases, and, at any rate, relieve Boston of +his presence altogether and for good. He may do it as soon as he likes, +and as privately." + +This course at once met the approbation of all parties, and was carried +out. + +What became of Squire Sterling, whether he married the mistress of that +mansion or her maid, this deponent saith not; though he doth say that he +did marry one of them, and had no cause to regret the same. + + * * * * * + + +SEEN AND UNSEEN. + + + The wind ahead, the billows high, + A whited wave, but sable sky, + And many a league of tossing sea + Between the hearts I love and me. + + The wind ahead: day after day + These weary words the sailors say; + To weeks the days are lengthened now,-- + Still mounts the surge to meet our prow. + + Through longing day and lingering night + I still accuse Time's lagging flight, + Or gaze out o'er the envious sea, + That keeps the hearts I love from me. + + Yet, ah, how shallow is all grief! + How instant is the deep relief! + And what a hypocrite am I, + To feign forlorn, to 'plain and sigh! + + The wind ahead? The wind is free! + Forever more it favoreth me,-- + To shores of God still blowing fair, + O'er seas of God my bark doth bear. + + This surging brine _I_ do not sail, + This blast adverse is not my gale; + 'Tis here I only seem to be, + But really sail another sea,-- + + Another sea, pure sky its waves, + Whose beauty hides no heaving graves,-- + A sea all haven, whereupon + No hapless bark to wreck hath gone. + + The winds that o'er my ocean run + Reach through all heavens beyond the sun; + Through life and death, through fate, through time, + Grand breaths of God, they sweep sublime. + + Eternal trades, they cannot veer, + And, blowing, teach us how to steer; + And well for him whose joy, whose care, + Is but to keep before them fair. + + Oh, thou God's mariner, heart of mine, + Spread canvas to the airs divine! + Spread sail! and let thy Fortune be + Forgotten in thy Destiny! + + For Destiny pursues us well, + By sea, by land, through heaven or hell; + It suffers Death alone to die, + Bids Life all change and chance defy. + + Would earth's dark ocean suck thee down? + Earth's ocean thou, O Life, shalt drown, + Shalt flood it with thy finer wave, + And, sepulchred, entomb thy grave! + + Life loveth life and good: then trust + What most the spirit would, it must; + Deep wishes, in the heart that be, + Are blossoms of Necessity. + + A thread of Law runs through thy prayer, + Stronger than iron cables are; + And Love and Longing toward her goal + Are pilots sweet to guide the Soul. + + So Life must live, and Soul must sail, + And Unseen over Seen prevail, + And all God's argosies come to shore, + Let ocean smile, or rage and roar. + + And so, 'mid storm or calm, my bark + With snowy wake still nears her mark; + Cheerly the trades of being blow, + And sweeping down the wind I go. + + + + +PERCIVAL. + + +Among my letters is one from Dr. E.D. North, desiring me to furnish any +facts within my reach, relating to the scientific character and general +opinions of the late James G. Percival. This information Dr. North +proposed to incorporate into a memoir, to be prefixed to a new edition +of Percival's Poems. The biographer, with his task unfinished, has +followed the subject of his studies to the tomb. + +Dr. North's request revived in me many recollections of Percival; and +finally led me to draw out the following sketch of him, as he appeared +to my eyes in those days when I saw him often, and sometimes shared his +pursuits. Vague and shadowy is the delineation, and to myself seems +little better than the reminiscence of a phantom or a dream. Percival's +life had few externalities,--he related himself to society by few points +of contact; and I have been compelled to paint him chiefly by glimpses +of his literary and interior existence. + +My acquaintance with him grew out of some conversations on geological +topics, and commenced in 1828, when he was working on his translation of +Malte-Brun's Geography. The impression made on me by his singular person +and manners was vivid and indelible. Slender in form, rather above than +under the middle height, he had a narrow chest, and a peculiar stoop, +which was not in the back, but high up in the shoulders. His head, +without being large, was fine. His eyes were of a dark hazel, and +possessed uncommon expression. His nose, mouth, and chin were +symmetrically, if not elegantly formed, and came short of beauty +only because of that meagreness which marked his whole person. His +complexion, light without redness, inclined to sallow, and suggested a +temperament somewhat bilious. His dark brown hair had become thin above +the forehead, revealing to advantage that most striking feature of his +countenance. Taken all together, his appearance was that of a weak man, +of delicate constitution,--an appearance hardly justified by the fact; +for he endured fatigue and privation with remarkable stanchness. + +Percival's face, when he was silent, was full of calm, serious +meditation; when speaking, it lighted up with thought, and became +noticeably expressive. He commonly talked in a mild, unimpassioned +undertone, but just above a whisper, letting his voice sink with rather +a pleasing cadence at the completion of each sentence. Even when most +animated, he used no gesture except a movement of the first and second +fingers of his right hand backward and forward across the palm of the +left, meantime following their monotonous unrest with his eyes, and +rarely meeting the gaze of his interlocutor. He would stand for hours, +when talking, his right elbow on a mantel-piece, if there was one near, +his fingers going through their strange palmistry; and in this manner, +never once stirring from his position, he would not unfrequently +protract his discourse till long past midnight. An inexhaustible, +undemonstrative, noiseless, passionless man, scarcely evident to you by +physical qualities, and impressing you, for the most part, as a creature +of pure intellect. + +His wardrobe was remarkably inexpensive, consisting of little more than +a single plain suit, brown or gray, which he wore winter and summer, +until it became threadbare. He never used boots; and his shoes, though +carefully dusted, were never blacked. A most unpretending bow fastened +his cravat of colored cambric. For many years his only outer garment was +a brown camlet cloak, of very scanty proportions, thinly lined, and a +meagre protection against winter. His hat was worn for years before +being laid aside, and put you in mind of the prevailing mode by the law +of contrast only. He was never seen with gloves, and rarely with an +umbrella. The value of his entire wardrobe scarcely exceeded fifty +dollars; yet he was always neat, and appeared unconscious of any +peculiarity in his costume. + +An accurate portrait of him at any period of his life can scarcely be +said to exist. His sensitive modesty seems to have made him unwilling to +let his features be exposed to the flaring notoriety of canvas. Once, +indeed, he allowed himself to be painted by Mr. George A. Flagg; but the +picture having been exhibited in the Trumbull Gallery of Yale +College, Percival's susceptibility took alarm, and he expressed +annoyance,--though whether dissatisfied with the portrait or its public +exposure I cannot say. The artist proposed certain alterations, and the +poet listened to him with seeming assent. The picture was taken back to +the studio; objectionable or questionable parts of it painted out; the +likeness destroyed for the purpose of correction; and Percival was to +give another sitting at his convenience. That was the last time he put +himself within painting reach of Mr. Flagg's easel.[A] + +[Footnote A: I remember to have seen an excellent portrait of him, by +Alexander, in the studio of that artist, in the year 1825; but in whose +possession it now is, I am unable to say.] + +In those days of our early acquaintance, he occupied two small chambers, +one of which fronted on the business part of Chapel Street (New Haven). +His books, already numerous, were piled in double tiers and in heaps +against the walls, covering the floors also, and barely leaving space +for his sleeping-cot, chair, and writing-table. His library was a +_sanctum_ to which the curious visitor hardly ever gained admittance. He +met even his friends at the door, and generally held his interviews +with them in the adjoining passage. Disinclined to borrow books, he +was especially averse to lending. Dr. Guhrauer's assertion respecting +Leibnitz, that "his library was numerous and valuable, and its possessor +had the peculiarity that he liked to worm in it alone, being very +reluctant to let any one see it," applies equally well to Percival. + +He was rarely visible abroad except in his walks to and from the +country, whither he often resorted to pass not hours only, but +frequently entire days, in solitary wanderings,--partly for physical +exercise,--still more, perhaps, to study the botany, the geology, and +the minutest geographical features of the environs; for his restless +mind was perpetually observant, and could not be withheld from external +Nature, even by his poetic and philosophic meditation. In these +excursions, he often passed his fellow-mortals without noticing them. A +friend, if observed, he greeted with a slight nod, and possibly stopped +him for conversation. Once started on a subject, Percival rarely quitted +it until it was exhausted; and consequently these interviews sometimes +outlasted the leisure of his listener. You excused yourself, perhaps; +or you were called away by some one else; but you had only put off the +conclusion of the discourse, not escaped it. The next time Percival +encountered you, his first words were, "As I was saying,"--and taking +up the thread of his observations where it had been broken, he went +straight to the end. + +The excellent bookstore of the late Hezekiah Howe, one of the best in +New England, and particularly rich in those rare and costly works +which form a bookworm's delight, was one of Percival's best-loved +lounging-places. He bought freely, and, when he could not buy, he was +welcome to peruse: He read with marvellous rapidity, skipping as if by +instinct everything that was unimportant; avoiding the rhetoric, the +commonplaces, the falsities; glancing only at what was new, what was +true, what was suggestive, he had a distinct object in view; but it was +not to amuse himself, nor to compare author with author; it was simply +to increase the sum of his own knowledge. Perhaps it was in these rapid +forays through unbought, uncut volumes, that he acquired his singular +habit of reading books, even his own, without subjecting them to the +paper-knife. People who wanted to see Percival and obtain his views on +special topics were accustomed to look for him at Mr. Howe's, and always +found him willing to pour forth his voluminous information. + +His income at this time was derived solely from literary jobs, and was +understood to be very limited. What he earned he spent chiefly for +books, particularly for such as would assist him in perfecting that +striking monument of his varied and profound research, his new +translation and edition of Malte-Brun. For this labor the time had been +estimated, and the publishers had made him an allowance, which, if he +had worked like other men, would have amounted to eight dollars a +day. But Percival would let nothing go out of his hands imperfect; a +typographical error, even, I have heard him say, sometimes depressed +him like actual illness. He translated and revised so carefully, he +corrected so many errors and added so many footnotes, that his industry +actually devoured its own wages; and his eight dollars gradually +diminished to a diurnal fifty cents. + +Percival made no merely ceremonial calls, few friendly visits, and +attended no parties. If he dropped in upon a family of his acquaintance, +he rarely addressed himself to a lady. Otherwise there was nothing +peculiar in his deportment; for, if silent, he was not embarrassed,--and +if he talked, it was without any appearance of self-consciousness. + +Judging from his isolated habits, some persons supposed him +misanthropic. Let me give one instance of his good-nature. One of the +elder professors of Yale had fallen into a temporary misappreciation +with the students, who received his instructions, to say the least, with +an ill-concealed indifference. They whispered during his lectures, +and in other ways rendered themselves strenuously disagreeable to the +sensitive nerves of the professor. Indignant at such behavior toward +a worthy and learned man, who had been his own instructor, Percival +proposed a plan for stopping the annoyance. It was, that a number of old +graduates, professors, and others, himself being one, should attend +the lectures, listen to them with the respect they merited, and so, +if possible, bring the students to a sense of propriety and of the +advantages they were neglecting. + +No, Percival was not a misanthrope. During an acquaintance of +twenty-five years, I never knew him do an act or utter a word which +could countenance this opinion. He indulged in no bitter remarks, +cherished no hatred of individuals, affected no scorn of his race; on +the contrary, he held large views concerning the noble destinies of +mankind, and expressed deep interest in its advancement toward greater +intelligence and virtue. The local affections he certainly had, for he +was gratified at the prosperity of his fellow-townsmen, proud of his +native State, and took a pleasure in defending her name from unjust +aspersions. Patriotic, too,--none more so,--he rejoiced in the welfare +of the whole country, knew its history thoroughly, and bestowed on +its military heroes, in particular, a lively appreciation, which was +singular, perhaps, in a man of such gentle habits and nature. I +cannot forget the excited pleasure with which we visited, when on the +geological survey of Connecticut, Putnam's Stairs at Horseneck, and +Putnam's Wolf-Den in Pomfret. At the latter place, Percival's enthusiasm +for the heroic hunter and warrior led him to carve his initials on a +rock at the entrance of the chasm. It was the only place during the tour +where he left a similar memorial. + +American statesmen he admired scarcely less than American soldiers; nor +did he neglect any information within his reach concerning public +men and measures. It was singular to observe with what freedom from +excitement he discussed the most irritating phases of party,--speaking +of the men and events of his own day with as much philosophic calmness +as if they belonged to a previous century; not at all deceived, I +think, by the temporary notoriety and power which frequently attend the +political bustler,--quite positive, indeed, that many of our "great men" +were far inferior to multitudes in private life. Webster he respected +greatly, and used to regret that his fortune was not commensurate with +his tastes. Like a true poet, he believed devoutly in native genius, +considered it something inimitable and incommunicable, and worshipped it +whereever he found it. + +Percival was indifferent and even disinclined to female society. There +is a common story that he had conceived an aversion to the whole sex +in consequence of a youthful disappointment in love. I know nothing +concerning this alleged chagrin, but I am confident that he cherished no +such antipathy. He never, in my hearing, said a hard thing of any woman, +or of the sex; and I remember distinctly the flattering and even poetic +appreciation with which he spoke of individual ladies. Of one who has +since become a distinguished authoress of the South, he said, that "her +conversation had as great an intellectual charm for him as that of any +scholar among his male acquaintances." Of a lady still resident in +New Haven, he observed, that "there was a mysterious beauty in her +thoughtful face and dark eyes which reminded him of a deep and limpid +forest-fountain." But although he did not hate women, he certainly was +disinclined to their society,--an oddity, I beg leave to say, in any +man, and a most surprising eccentricity in a poet. Constitutional +timidity may have founded this habit during youth; for, as I have +already observed, his modesty was sensitive and almost morbid. Then came +his multitudinous studies, which absorbed him utterly, and in which, +unfortunately for Percival, if not for the ladies, these last took so +little interest that conversation was not mutually desirable. A remark +he made to a scientific friend, who had just been married, will, +perhaps, throw some light on the subject. "How is this?" said he; "I +thought you were wedded to science." This was all the felicitation he +had to offer; and without asking for the bride, he plunged into the +discussion which was the object of the visit. + +In 1835 commenced the geological survey of Connecticut, and I became +Percival's companion in labor. To him was intrusted the geology proper, +and to myself the mineralogy and its economical applications. During the +first season, we prosecuted our investigations together, travelling in +a one-horse wagon, which carried all our necessary implements, and +visiting, before the campaign ended, every parish in the State. Great +was the wonder our strange outfit and occupation excited in some rustic +neighborhoods; and very often were we called upon to enlighten the +popular mind with regard to our object and its uses. This was never a +pleasant task to Percival. He did not relish long confabulations with a +sovereign people somewhat ignorant of geology; and, moreover, his style +of describing our business was so peculiar, that it rarely failed to +transfer the curiosity to himself, and lead to tiresome delays. In New +Milford, an inquisitive farmer requested us, in a somewhat ungracious +manner, to give an account of ourselves. Percival replied, that we were +acting under a commission from the Governor to ascertain the useful +minerals of the State; whereupon our utilitarian friend immediately +demanded to be informed how the citizens at large, including himself, +were to be benefited by the undertaking,--putting question on question +in a fashion which was most pertinacious and almost impertinent. +Percival became impatient, and tried to hurry away. "I demand the +information," exclaimed the New Milfordite; "I demand it as my right. +You are only servants of the people; and you are paid, in part, at +least, out of my pocket." "I'll tell you what we'll do," said Percival; +"we can't stop, but we'll refund. Your portion of the geological +tax,--let me see,--it must be about two cents. We prefer handing you +this to encountering a further delay." Our agricultural friend and +master did not take the money, although he did the hint,--and in sulky +silence withdrew from our company. + +Driving through the town of Warren, we stopped a farmer to inquire +the way to certain places in the vicinity. He gave us the information +sought, staring at us meanwhile with a benevolently inquisitive +expression, and, at last, volunteering the remark, that, if we wanted a +job, we had better stop at the factory in the hollow. We thanked him +for his goodness, and thought, perhaps, of Sedgewick geologizing by the +road-side, and getting a charitable half-crown flung at him by a noble +lady who was on her way to dine in his company at the house of a mutual +acquaintance. + +Let us grant here one brief parenthesis of respect and astonishment to +the scientific knowledge and philological acumen of a distinguished +graduate of Yale College, and member of Congress, whom we encountered +on our travels. Hearing us speak of mosaic granite, a rock occurring +in Woodbridge, to which we had given this name, from the checker-like +arrangement of its felspathic ingredient, he concluded that we +attributed its formation to the era of Moses, and asked Percival what +evidence he had for such an opinion. Small blame to him, perhaps, for +the blunder, but it seemed a very droll one to geologists. + +In Greenwich, the extreme southwestern town of the State, we encountered +an incident to which my companion would sometimes refer with a slight +degree of merriment. In general, he was no joker, no anecdotist, and had +but a feeble appreciation of droll sayings or humorous matters of +any kind. But in Greenwich he heard a memorable phrase. Among the +tavern-loungers was a man who had evidently seen better days, and who, +either for that reason or because of the large amount of rum he had +swallowed, entertained a lofty opinion of himself, and discoursed _de +omnibus rebus_ in a most consequential fashion. He soon made himself a +sort of medium between ourselves and his fellow-loafers. Overhearing us +say that we wished to pass the New York frontier for the sake of tracing +out the strata then under examination, he proceeded with much pomposity +to declare to his deeply curious auditory, that "it was his opinion +that the Governor of the State should confer upon these gentlemen +_discretionary powers_ to pass the limits of Connecticut, whenever and +wherever, in the prosecution of their labors, the interests of science +required them so to do." After this, we rarely crossed the State line +but Percival observed, "We are now taking advantage of our discretionary +powers." + +Of the few stories Percival told me, here is one. In one of our +country-places, a plain, shrewd townsman fell into chance conversation +with him, and entertained him with some account of a neighbor who had +been seized with a mania for high Art, and had let loose his frenzy upon +canvas in a deluge of oil-colors. If I mistake not, Percival was invited +to inspect these productions of untaught and perhaps unteachable genius. +They were vast attempts at historical scenes, in which the heads and +legs of heroes were visible, but played a very secondary part in the +interest, compared with a perfect tempest of drapery, which rolled in +ungovernable masses, like the clouds of a thunder-storm. + +"What do you think of them?" inquired Percival. + +"Well, I don't claim to be a judge of such things," replied his +cicerone; "but the fact is, (and I told the painter so,) that, when I +look at 'em, about the only thing I can think of is a resurrection of +old clothes." + +In the town of Lebanon, an incident occurred which affected us rather +more seriously. Turning a corner suddenly, we came upon an old man +digging up cobble-stones by the road-side and breaking them in pieces +with an axe. "A brother-geologist," was our first impression. At that +moment the old man sprang toward us, the axe in one hand and half a +brick in the other, shouting eagerly,-- + +"I guess Mr. ----" (name indistinguishable) "will be glad to see you, +gentlemen." + +"For what?" + +"Why, he has got several boxes of jewels; and I gave an advertisement in +the paper." + +"Whose are they?" + +"King Jerome's." + +"And who is he?" + +"The king of the world!" shouted the maniac, still advancing with a +menacing air, and so near the wagon by this time that he might almost +have hit Percival with his axe. + +Without pausing to hear more about the jewels, a sudden blow to the +horse barely enabled us to escape the reach of our fellow-laborer before +he had time to use his axe on our own formations. + +In the following year, when Percival was pursuing the survey by himself, +on horseback, some of the elements of this adventure were repeated, +but reversed after a very odd fashion. The late Dr. Carrington, of +Farmington, who told me the tale, being ten miles from home on a +professional excursion, drove up to a tavern and found himself welcomed +with extraordinary emphasis by the innkeeper. The Doctor was just the +person he wanted to see; the Doctor's opinion was very much needed about +that strange man out there; he wished the Doctor to have a talk with +him, and see whether he was crazy or not. The fellow had been there a +day or two, picking up stones about the lots; and some of the boys had +been sent to watch him, but could get nothing out of him. This morning +he wanted to go away, and ordered his horse; but the neighbors wouldn't +let it be brought up, for they said he was surely some mad chap who +had taken another man's horse. Thus talking, the landlord pointed out +Percival, surrounded by a group of villagers, who, quietly, and under +pretence of conversation, were holding him under a sort of arrest. The +Doctor rushed into the circle, addressed his friend Percival by name, +spoke of the survey, and thus satisfied the bystanders, who, guessing +their mistake, dispersed silently. No open remonstrance was needed, +and perhaps Percival never understood the adventure in which he thus +unconsciously formed the principal character. + +While we were in Berlin, the native town of Percival, he related to me +several incidents of his earlier life. His father was discussing some +geographical question with a neighbor; and the future geologist, then +a boy of seven or eight, sat by listening until the ignorance of his +elders tempted him to speak. "Where did you learn that?" they asked, +in astonishment. With timid reluctance, he confessed that he had been +reading clandestinely Morse's large geography, of which there was a copy +in a society-library kept at his father's house. The book, he added, had +an indescribable attraction for him; and even at that almost infantile +age he was familiar with its contents. It was this reading of Morse, +perhaps, which determined his taste for those geographical studies +in which he subsequently became so distinguished. With him, as with +Humboldt and Guyot, geography was a term of wide signification. Far from +confining it to the names and boundaries of countries, seas, and lakes, +to the courses of rivers and the altitudes of mountains, he connected +with it meteorology, natural history, and the leading facts of human +history, ethnology, and archaeology. He knew London as thoroughly as +most Americans know New York or Philadelphia, and yet he had never +crossed the Atlantic. + +An instance of the minuteness of his geographical information was +related to me by the Rev. Mr. Adam, a Scottish clergyman, long resident +at Benares, but subsequently settled over the Congregational Church in +Amherst, Massachusetts. On his way to visit me at New Haven, he met in +the stage-coach a countryman of his, who soon opened a controversy with +him respecting the course of a certain river in Scotland. The discussion +had continued for some time, when another passenger offered a suggestion +which opened the eyes of the debaters to the fact (not unfrequently the +case in such controversies) that they were both wrong. "How long since +you were there, Sir?" they asked; and the reply was, "I never was in +Scotland." "Who are you, Sir?" Mr. Adam wanted to ask, but kept the +question until he could put it to me. I did not feel much hesitation in +telling him that the stranger must have been Percival; and Percival it +was, as I afterwards learned by questioning him of the circumstance. + +But we must return to Berlin, in order to hear one more of Percival's +stories. Passing a field, half a mile from his early home, he told an +incident connected with it, and related to his favorite study of natural +history. The field had belonged to his father, who, besides being the +physician of Berlin, indulged a taste for agriculture. Just before the +harvest season, it became palpable that this field, then waving with +wheat, was depredated upon to a wasteful extent by some unknown subjects +of the animal kingdom. Having watched for the pilferers in vain by +day, the proprietor resolved to mount guard by night, and accordingly +ambushed himself in the invaded territory. Near midnight, he saw his own +flock of geese, hitherto considered so trustworthy, approach silently +in single file, make their entry between the rails, and commence +transferring the wheat-crop into their own crops, after a ravenous +fashion. Having eaten their fill, they re-formed their column of march, +with a venerable gander at the head, and trudged silently homeward, +cautiously followed by their owner, who noticed, that, on regaining his +door-yard, they set up a vociferous cackle, such as he had repeatedly +heard from them before at about the same hour. It was a most evident +attempt to establish an _alibi_; it was as much as to say, "If you miss +any wheat, we didn't take it; we are honest birds, and stay at +home o'nights, Dr. Percival." The next morning, however, a general +decapitation overtook the flock of feathered hypocrites. "It was a +curious instance of the domestic goose reverting to its wild habit of +nocturnal feeding," remarked my narrator, dwelling characteristically +upon the natural-history aspect of the fact. + +Percival was almost incapable of an irrelevancy. The survey was the +business in hand, and he rarely discoursed much of things disconnected +with it, except, perhaps, when we were retracing our routes, or when the +labors of the day were over. Of poets and poetry he was not inclined to +speak. I never heard him quote a line, either his own or another's, nor +indulge in a single poetic observation concerning the objects which +met us in our wanderings. Indeed, he confessed that he no longer felt +disposed to write verses, being satisfied that his productions were +not acceptable to the prevailing taste; although he admitted that he +composed a few stanzas occasionally, in order to make trial of some +unusual measure or new language. He told me that he had versified in +thirteen languages; and I have heard from others that he had imitated +all the Greek and German metres. + +Of politics, foreign and domestic, he talked frequently, but always +philosophically and dispassionately, much as if he were speaking of +geological stratification. His views of humanity were deduced from a +most extensive survey of the race in all its historical and geographical +relations. He distinctly recognized the fact of its steady advance +from one stage to another, in accordance with a plan of intellectually +organic development, as marked as that detected by the geologist in +the gradual preparation of the earth for the abode of our species. The +slowness and seeming vacillation of man's upward movement could not +stagger his faith; for if it had taken thousands of ages to make earth +habitable, why should it not take thousands more to bring man to his +completeness? Equally free was he from misgiving on account of the +remaining presence of so much misery and wretchedness; for these he +considered as the indispensable stimuli to progress. Even war, he used +to say, is sometimes necessary to the welfare of nations, as sickness +and sorrow plainly are to that of individuals; although, to his moral +sense, the human authors of this scourge were no more admirable than the +devisers of any private calamity. Improvements in knowledge he regarded +as the only elements of real progress; and these he looked upon as true +germinal principles, bound up organically in the constitution of the +human soul. Indeed, that philosophical calmness which was characteristic +of him seemed to flow in some measure from his settled persuasion that +the same matchless wisdom and benevolence he recognized throughout +Nature wrought with a still higher providence and a more earnest love +for man and would make all things finally conduce to his welfare. It was +clear that he drew a profound tranquillity from the thought that he was +a part of the vast and harmonious whole. + +Concerning his religious views he was exceedingly taciturn. He had no +taste for metaphysical or theological discussions, although his library +contained a large number of standard works on these subjects. Religion +itself he never alluded to but with the deepest respect. Talking to +me of Christianity, he quoted the observation of Goethe, that "it had +brought into the world a light never to be extinguished." He spoke of +Jesus with poetic, if not with Christian fervor. He contrasted his +teachings and deeds with the prevailing maxims and practice of the +people among whom he appeared, with the dead orthodoxy of its religious +teachers, and with the general ignorance and hypocrisy of the masses. +"Had I lived in such a state of society," he said, "I am certain that it +would have driven me mad." + +He expressed an earnest esteem for the doctrines of the Evangelical +clergy, and even approved, though more moderately, the religious +awakenings which occur under their labors. He described to me, with +some particularity, a revival he had witnessed in his native town, when +young; and repeated some of the quaint exhortations of the lay brethren, +all in a manner perfectly serious, but calculated, perhaps, to leave the +impression, that such views of religion were not necessary to himself, +although they might be quite suited to the minds of others. + +The rational theology he regarded as anti-poetic in influence, and of +very doubtful efficacy in working upon the masses. He appreciated, +however, the honesty and superior culture of the Unitarian scholars and +clergy of Boston, with many of whom he had been on terms as intimate as +his shyness accorded to any one. + +He attended church but once with me while we were engaged in the survey. +We heard a discourse from a Rev. Dr. E----, upon the conduct of the +young ruler who inquired his duty of Christ. The speaker argued from the +sacred narrative a universal obligation to devote our possessions +to religious purposes,--and upheld, as an example to all men, the +self-devotion of a young missionary (then somewhat known) who had +despised a splendid fortune, offered him on condition of his remaining +at home, and had consecrated himself to the Christianization of Africa. + +"How did you like the sermon?" I inquired of Percival. + +"I consider it an animating and probably useful performance," he +replied; "but it does not accord with comprehensive conceptions of +humanity, inasmuch as its main inference was drawn from the exception, +and not from the rule. There always have been, and probably always +will be, men possessed of the self-immolating or martyr spirit. Such +instances are undoubtedly useful, and have my admiration; but they +cannot become general, and never were meant to be." + +During the survey, we were invited to pass an evening in a family +remarkable for its musical talent, and I remember distinctly the evident +pleasure with which Percival listened to the chorus of organ tones and +rich cultivated voices. In general, however, his appreciation of music +was subordinate to his study of syllabic movement in versification; and +it was with reference chiefly to poetic measure, I have been told, that +he acquired what mastery he had over the accordion and guitar. + +Percival's favorite topics, when evening came and we rested from our +stony labors, were the modern languages and the philosophy of universal +grammar. They seemed to have filled the niches in his heart, from which +he had banished, or tried to banish, the Muses. The subtile refinements +of Bopp were a perpetual luxury to him; he derived language from +language as easily as word from word; and, once started in the +intricacies of the Russian or the Basque, there was no predicting the +end of the discourse. Thus were thrown away, upon a solitary listener, +midnight lectures which would have done honor to the class-rooms of +Berlin or the Sorbonne. In looking at such an instance of intellectual +pleasure and acumen, as connected in no small degree with the study of +foreign languages, one cannot avoid associating together the unsolved +mystery of that discrepancy of tongues prevailing in different countries +with the disagreeing _floras_ and _faunas_ of the same regions,--each +diversity bearing alike the unmistakable marks of Omnipotent design for +the happiness and improvement of man. + +The perfection of his memory was amazing. During the year following +the survey, when we had frequent occasion to compare recollections, I +observed that no circumstance of our labors was shadowy or incomplete +in his memory. He could refer to every trifling incident of the tour, +recall every road and path that we had followed, every field and ledge +that we had examined, particularize the day of the week on which we had +dined or supped at such a tavern, and mention the name of the landlord. +I asked him how he was able to remember such minutiae. He replied, that +it was his custom, on going to bed, to call up, in the darkness and +stillness, all the incidents of the day's experience, in their proper +order, and cause them to move before him like a diorama through a +spiritual morning, noon, and evening. "It has often appeared to me," he +said, "that in this purely mental process I see objects more distinctly +than I behold them in the reality." + +But his memory doubtless gained an immense additional advantage from his +habitual seclusion, from his unconcern with the distracting customs of +society, and, most of all, from the imperturbable abstraction under +which he studied and observed. With him there was no blending of +collateral subjects, no permitted intrusion of things irrelevant or +trivial, so that the channels of his thoughts were always single, +deep, and traceable. It was a mental straightforwardness and +conscientiousness, as rare, perhaps, as moral rectitude itself. + +In diet, Percival was the most abstemious person I ever knew. His health +was uniformly good,--the specimens of a geologist, when he collects them +himself, being as favorable to digestion and appetite as the pebbles to +a chicken; yet, I am persuaded, my companion in no case violated the +golden rule of leaving the table unsated. No matter how long had been +his fast, he showed no impatience of hunger, made no remark upon the +excellence of any dish, found fault with nothing, or, at most, only +seemed to miss drinkable coffee and good bread, articles seldom to be +met with in the country. He ate slowly, selecting his food with the +discrimination which ought to belong to a chemist or physiologist, and +then thought no more about it. Alcoholic drinks he never tasted, except +an occasional glass of wine, to which his attention perhaps had been +called on account of its age or superior excellence. Even then it +was not the flavor which interested him, so much as the history, +geographical and other. + +Peculiar as he was in his own habits of diet, he offered no strictures +upon the practice of others, however different, unless it ran into +hurtful excesses. The maxim of Epictetus in the "Enchiridion," "Never +preach how others ought to eat, but eat you as becomes you," seemed to +be his rule. Indeed, Percival was one of those rare men who withhold +alike censure and praise respecting the minor matters of life. Not that +he was without opinions on such subjects; but, to obtain them, one was +forced to question him. On the whole, I do not think it would be going +too far to apply to him the above-named moralist's description of the +wise man:--"He reproves nobody, praises nobody, blames nobody, nor even +speaks of himself; if any one praises him, in his own mind he contemns +the flatterer; if any one reproves him, he looks with care that he be +not unsettled in the state of tranquillity that he has entered into. +All his desires depend on things within his power; he transfers all +his aversions to those things which Nature commands us to avoid. His +appetites are always moderate. He is indifferent whether he be thought +foolish or ignorant. He observes himself with the nicety of an enemy or +a spy, and looks on his own wishes as betrayers." + +Percival's solitary habits, combined with the invariable seriousness +of his manner, led many persons to believe him melancholy, and even +disposed to suicide. He did, indeed, confess to me, that he sometimes +felt giddy on the edge of a precipice. This was his nearest approach, I +am confident, to the idea of self-destruction. While we were examining +the great iron furnaces of Salisbury, he told me that he was afraid of +walking near the throat of a chimney when in blast, and that more than +once he had turned and run from the lurid, murky orifice, lest a sudden +failure of self-control should cause him to reel into the consuming +abyss. No,--Percival neither felt nor expressed disgust with life. +On the contrary, he was strongly attached to it; the acquisition of +knowledge clothed it with inexpressible value; the longest day was ever +too short to fulfil his designs. Like the wise, laborious men of all +ages, he almost repined at the swiftness of the years. "I am amazed at +the flight of time," he said to me, on the arrival of his forty-second +birthday; "it seems only a year since I was thirty-two;--I have lost ten +years of my life." + +Before entering upon the survey of Connecticut, he was not specially +devoted to any one branch of physics, although his tastes inclined him +most toward geology. While he could sympathize perfectly, he said, with +those who threw their whole force into a single study, he felt +himself attracted equally by the entire circle of Nature, and thought +omniscience a nobler object of ambition than any one science. He +admitted that the search after all knowledge is incompatible with +eminence in any particular department; but he believed that it affords +higher pleasure to the mind, and confers ability to do signal service +to mankind in pointing out the grand connections, the general laws, of +Nature. + +It is not, perhaps, widely known, that Percival was a well-informed +botanist. He studied this branch when a medical student under Professor +Ives, and assisted his instructor in laying out a small botanical +garden, the plants of which were arranged after the natural orders of +Jussieu. Soon after finishing his medical education, he gave a course of +lectures on botany in Charleston, South Carolina, before a very select +audience, composed mostly of Ladies. The only drawback to the lecturer's +success was his excessive timidity. As an evidence of the assiduity with +which he botanized, it may be mentioned that he had seen the _Geranium +Robertianum_ (a plant which nestles in the sunny clefts of our trap +mountains) in bloom, during every month of the year. One year he found +its blossoms in December, another in January, and so on, until the round +of the monthly calendar was completed. + +Percival was an earnest advocate of popular education. He manifested +much interest in the first systematic attempt (at the instance of +Mr. James Brewster) to furnish the people of New Haven with popular +instruction in the form of lectures. At a public dinner, given by Mr. +Brewster, on the occasion of opening the building in which rooms had +been fitted up for these lectures, the late Mr. Skinner gave the toast, +"Our mechanics, the right arm of New Haven," and Percival followed with, +"Science, the right eye which directs the right arm of New Haven." He +believed most fully in the superiority of intelligent labor. He pointed +out cases in which a college-training had been connected with signal +eminence in mechanical invention, and said, that, according to his +observations, persons engaged in industrial pursuits usually succeeded +in proportion to the thoroughness of their education. + +Percival himself gave a course of lectures, or rather, lessons, in New +Haven,--not in the building above mentioned, for his natural timidity +was too great to encounter a public audience, but in the theological +lecture-room of Yale College. They were on the German language, and +consisted chiefly of translations of prose and poetry into English, +intermingled with philosophical commentaries on the peculiarities of the +original. It was pure grammar; he did not talk German, and claimed no +acquaintance with the niceties of pronunciation; but all his listeners, +most of whom were graduates, were struck with his perfect mastery of the +subject. + +Percival held one peculiar opinion concerning a branch of college +education. He objected to the modern practice of teaching the natural +sciences by means of a profusion of drawings, models, showy experiments, +and other expedients addressing the mind so strongly through the eye. +While these might be allowable in popular lectures, before audiences +lacking in early intellectual discipline, where amusement was a +consideration, and where without it the public ear could not be secured, +he thought that the collegian should study differently,--that his +understanding should be taxed severely, and that he should be inured, +from the first, to rigid attention, in order to a lasting remembrance +of the truths offered to him. It would be a useful exercise for the +instructor, he thought, to elucidate obscure phenomena and complicated +structures by words only, assisting himself, perhaps, occasionally, by +extemporaneous drawings. Such a course would inspire the scholar with +deference for his teacher, and confidence in his own ability to acquire +a similar grasp of the subject. While there is certainly some truth in +this opinion, it would not be difficult, perhaps, to invalidate its +general force. Why should the ear be the only admitted means of +acquiring knowledge? Nature, the greatest of teachers, does not judge +thus: she conveys half her wisdom to us by sight, instead of by faith; +she gives her first lessons to the infant through the eye. Would +Percival, in looking for his attentive audiences, have preferred a +congregation of blind men? + +Speaking of literary composition, he said that he often took great pains +with his productions, shifting words and phrases in many ways, before +satisfying himself that he had attained the best form of expression; and +he assured me that these slowly elaborated passages were the very ones +in which he afterwards recognized the most ease and nature, and which +others supposed him to have thrown off carelessly. I asked him how it +was that children, in their unpremeditated way, expressed themselves +with so much directness and beauty. They have but a single idea to +present at a time, he said; they seize without hesitation on the first +words that offer for its expression, unperplexed by any such choice of +terms as would surely occur to maturer minds; and most important of +all, perhaps, they are wholly unembarrassed by limiting qualifications +arising from a fuller knowledge of the subject. + +His prose style is a rare exemplification of classic severity and +perspicuousness. In each paragraph the ideas arrange themselves in +faultless connection, like the molecules of a crystal around its centre. +The sentences are not long, the construction is simple, the words are +English in its purity, without admixture of foreign phrase or idiom. But +the most striking peculiarity of his diction is the utter absence +of ornament; for Percival evidently held that the chief merits of +composition are clearness and directness. Poetic imagery, brilliant +climaxes and antitheses, fanciful or grotesque turns of expression, he +rejected as unfavorable to that simple truth for which he studied and +wrote. This dry, almost mathematical style, was no necessity with him; +few men, surely, have had at command a richer vocabulary, English and +foreign, than Percival; few could have adorned thought with more or +choicer garlands from the fields of knowledge and imagination. + +To letter-writing he had a great aversion. I have never seen a letter +or note from him to which his signature was attached. The +autograph-fanciers, therefore, will find a scanty harvest when they come +to forage after the name of Percival. His handwriting corresponded in +some sense with his character. It was fine; the lines straight and +parallel; the letters completely formed, though without fulness of +curve; no flourishes, and no unnecessary prolongations of stroke, above +or below the general run of the line. There were few erasures, the +punctuation was perfect, and the manuscript was fit for the press as it +left his hand. + +Literary criticism he rarely indulged in, being too disinclined to +praise or blame, and too intensely devoted to the acquisition of +positive knowledge. If he commented severely upon anything, it was +usually the slovenly diction of some of our State Surveys, or the +inaccuracies of translations from foreign languages. + +His only published criticism, of which I am aware, was discharged at +a phrenological lecturer, whose extraordinary assumptions and +_ad-captandum_ style had excited his disgust. Percival did not reverence +the science of bumps, and believed, in the words of William Von +Humboldt, that "it is one of those discoveries which, when stripped of +all the _charlatanerie_ that surrounds them, will show but a very meagre +portion of truth." Dr. Barber, an Englishman, and a somewhat noted +teacher of elocution, having been converted to the phrenological faith, +delivered certain magniloquent lectures on the same to the citizens of +New Haven, and took pay therefor, after the manner of his sect. Percival +responded with a sharp newspaper pasquinade, entitled "A Lecture on +Nosology." At the head of the article was a wood-cut of a gigantic nose, +mapped out into faculties. "Gentlemen, the nose is the most prominent +feature in this bill," commenced the parody. "The nose is the true seat +of the mind; and therefore, gentlemen, Nosology, or the science of the +nose, is the true phrenology. He, who knows his nose, foreknows; for he +knows that which is before him. Therefore Nosology is the surest guide +to conduct. Whatever progress an individual may make, his nose is always +in advance. But society is only a congeries of individuals; consequently +its nose is always in advance,--therefore its proper guide. The nose, +rightly understood, will assuredly work wonders in the cause of +improvement; for it is always going ahead, always first in every +undertaking, always soonest at the goal. The ancients did not neglect +the nose. Look at their busts and statues! What magnification and +abduction in Jove! What insinuation and elongation in the Apollo! +Then [Greek: nous] (intellect) was surely the nose,--[Greek: gnosis] +(knowledge) noses,--[Greek: Minos] my nose. What intussusception, what +potation, and, as a necessary consequence, alas! what rubification! But +I have seen such noses. Beware of them!--they are bad noses,--very bad +noses, I assure you.... Do not, I pray you, consider me irreverent, +if I say that Nosology will prove highly favorable to the cause of +religion. This is indeed an awful subject, and I would not touch it on +slight grounds; but I sincerely believe that what I say is true. +Nosology will prove highly favorable to the cause of religion! Does +not the nose stand forth like a watchman on the walls of Zion, on the +look-out for all assailants? and when our faces are directed upwards in +devotion, does not the nose ascend the highest and most especially tend +heavenward?... Nosology is a manly science. It stands out in the open +light. It does not conceal itself behind scratches and periwigs,--nor +does it, like certain false teachers mentioned by St. Paul, go about +from house to house, leading astray silly women......Finally, gentlemen, +you may rest assured that Nosology will not gently submit to insult. +_Noli me tangere!_ Who ever endured a tweak of the nose? It will know +how to take vengeance. As Jupiter metamorphosed the inhospitable Lycians +into frogs, so its contemners will suddenly find themselves [Greek: +Barbarophonoi]!" + +Percival has been thought over-tenacious of his opinions. He was +certainly very circumspect in changing them. I have witnessed, however, +several instances in which he yielded to the force of evidence in +the modification of his views. He seemed to recognize geology, in +particular, as a progressive science, in which new facts are constantly +accruing, and therefore compelling re-adaptations of our views. He felt, +indeed, in respect to all knowledge, the mathematics excepted, that +modifications of belief, in well-regulated minds, are unavoidable, as +the result of new information. Approach to higher truth through the +sciences he seemed to regard under the aspect of that of besiegers to a +beleaguered fortress. Principles and deductions, which were a boon and a +triumph for us yesterday, lose their value to-day, when a new parallel +of approach has been attained. He lost his interest in what was +abandoned, necessary as it had been to the present position, only in the +advantage of which, and its sure promise of what was still higher, he +allowed himself to rejoice. + +But where evidence was wanting, he was never to be moved to a change by +any amount of importunity or temptation. This trait of character made +him somewhat impracticable as a collaborator, in the philological task +he was employed to perform under Dr. Noah Webster. Disagreements were to +have been anticipated from the striking contrasts in their minds. +They agreed in industry; but Webster was decided, practical, strongly +self-reliant, and always satisfied with doing the best that could +be done with the time and means at command. Percival was timid and +cautious, and, from the very breadth of his linguistic attainments, +undecided. He often craved more time for arriving at conclusions. When +he happened to differ from the great lexicographer, he would never yield +an iota of his ground. These differences led to an early rupture in +the engagement, almost before two letters of the alphabet had been +completed. He much preferred to relinquish a profitable undertaking to +going forward with it under circumstances not agreeable to his elevated +standard of literary accuracy and completeness. He felt that he could +live on bread and water, or even give up these, if necessary; but he +could not violate his convictions of what was true and right. He was a +perfect martyr to his literary and scientific conscientiousness. + +He evinced the same spirit in respect to the geological survey. As his +mind was not satisfied, he would not make known his results to the +Legislature. They demanded the report, and he asked for an extension of +time. Thus he continued his labors from year to year, upon a stipend +scarcely adequate to cover his expenses. Instead, however, of nearing +the goal, he only receded from it. New difficulties met him in the work; +fresh questions arose, in the progress of geology itself, that called +for reëxaminations. His notes swelled to volumes, and his specimens +increased to thousands. He was in danger of being crushed under the +weight of his doubts and his materials. At last, the people clamored +for the end of the work. The Legislature became peremptory, and forced +Percival to acquiesce. + +In 1842 (seven years from the commencement of the survey) he rendered an +octavo report of four hundred and ninety-five pages, in the introduction +to which he observes,--"I regret to say, I have not had the means +allowed me for additional investigations, nor even for a proper use of +my materials, either notes or specimens. The number of localities from +which I have collected specimens I have estimated at nearly eight +thousand; the records of dips and bearings are still more numerous. +The report which follows is but a hasty outline, written mainly from +recollection, with only occasional reference to my materials, and under +circumstances little calculated for cool consideration. It was written, +however, with an intention to state nothing of the truth or probability +of which I did not feel satisfied. None can regret more than I do its +imperfection; still I cannot but hope that it will contribute something +towards the solution of the problem of the highest practical as well as +scientific importance, the exact determination of the geological system +of the State." + +Of this remarkable production it may very briefly be said, that it will +ever remain a monument to the scientific and literary powers of its +author. It describes every shade of variation in the different rocks, +and their exact distribution over the surface of the State. This it +accomplishes with a minuteness never before essayed in any similar work. +The closeness and brevity of his descriptions make it one of the dryest +productions ever issued on geological science, scarcely omitting the +work of Humboldt, in which he sought to represent the whole of geology +by algebraic symbols. Percival's work actually demands, and would richly +repay, a translation into the vernacular of descriptive geology,--the +language and mode of illustration employed by Murchison and Hitchcock. +In its present form, it is safe to say, it has never found a single +reader among the persons for whose benefit it was written. + +It is no part of my plan to speak of his poetical reputation. This I +leave to others better able to do him justice. Indeed, he had nearly +abandoned poetical composition before our acquaintance began. But it is +safe, perhaps, to say here, that his writings have placed him among +the first of our national poets; and had he resumed this species of +composition, he could scarcely have failed of maintaining, in the +fullest manner, his poetic fame. He possessed all the qualities reckoned +essential to poetical excellence. We have already spoken of his +astonishing memory, a trait regarded of such importance to the poet by +the ancients as to have led them to call the Muses the daughters of this +mental faculty. His powers of abstraction and imagination were no less +remarkable,--while for extreme sensitiveness he was unsurpassed. His +judgment was clear, and his appreciation of language refined to the last +degree. His musical feeling, too, as well of time as of harmony, was +intense; while he had at command the universal stores of literature and +science. + +In closing these reminiscences, I cannot avoid noticing some of the +useful impressions exerted by Percival upon the literary community +amidst which he passed so large a portion of his life. To some the +influence of such a recluse will doubtless seem insignificant. The +reverse, however, I am persuaded, was the fact. Few students came to New +Haven without bringing with them, imprinted on their youthful memories, +some beautiful line of his poetry. Few had not heard of his universal +scholarship and profound learning. Next to an acquaintance with the +teachers from whom they expected to derive their educational training, +their curiosity led them to inquire for Percival. The sight of this +modest, shrinking individual, as the possessor of such mines of +intellectual wealth, it may well be understood, produced the deepest +interest. In him they recognized a man superior to the clamor of vulgar +gratification; his indifference to gain, to luxury, and every form of +display, his constant preference of the spiritual over the sensual, was +always an impressive example to them. The indigent student took fresh +courage as he saw in him to what a narrow compass exterior wants might +be reduced; the man of fashion and the fop stood abashed before the +simplicity of his dress and daily life. And wherever the spirit of +classic literature had been imbibed, and the capacity acquired of +perceiving the severe worth of the true philosopher, the inspection of +such a character, compared with the mere description of it in history, +was like the difference between a statue and a living, breathing man. As +at early dawn or in the gray twilight his slender form glided by, the +thoughtful and poetic scholar could scarce refrain from uttering to +himself,--"There goes Diogenes or Chrysippus! There goes one, by the +side of whom many a bustler in letters is only a worthless drone, many +an idolized celebrity a weak and pitiful sham!" Such a character as +Percival's, in the presence of a scholastic community, was a perpetual +incentive to industry and manliness; and although he rarely spoke in its +hearing, and has left us fewer published works than many others, still +I believe that thousands yet live to thank him for lessons derived from +the simple survey of his daily life. + +Though there is little likelihood that his example of self-abnegation +and devotion to study will be followed by many of our youth, +nevertheless, the occurrence of such a model now and then in the +republic of letters constitutes a pleasing as well as useful +phenomenon,--if for no other reason, because it breaks in upon the +monotony of literary biography, and communicates a portion of that +picturesqueness to scholastic life which belongs to Nature in everything +else. That his course was fraught with happiness to himself cannot be +doubted; that it was beneficial also to his fellow-men is equally +true; and though he may be judged less leniently by minds incapable of +pronouncing that to be a character honorable in the sight of God or +man, which deviates from their own standard or creed,--to others, who +recognize the highest possible cultivation of the mental faculties and +unsullied purity of life as the noblest ends of our being, he will ever +occupy a position shared by few of mortal race. + + * * * * * + + +ZELMA'S VOW. + +IN TWO PARTS. + + +PART FIRST. HOW IT WAS MADE. + + +Who does not remember his first play?--the proudly concealed impatience +which seemed seething in the very blood,--the provoking coolness of old +play-goers,--the music that rather excited than soothed the fever +of expectation,--the mystery of mimic life that throbbed behind the +curtain,--the welcome tinkle of the prompter's bell,--the capricious +swaying to and fro of that mighty painted scroll,--its slow uplift, +revealing for an instant, perhaps, the twinkle of flying dancers' feet +and the shuffle of belated buskins? And then, the unveiled wonders +of that strange, new world of canvas and pasteboard and +trap-doors,--people, Nature, Art, and architecture, never before beheld, +and but faintly conceived of,--the magic of shifting scenes,--the +suddenness and awfulness of subterranean and aerial descents and +ascents,--the solemn stage-walk of the heroine,--the majestic strut +of the hero,--the princely sweep of velvet,--the illusive sparkle of +paste,--the rattle of Brobdignagian pearls,--the saucy tossing of pages' +plumes,--the smiles, the wiles, the astonishing bounds and bewildering +pirouettes of the dancing Houries,--the great sobs and small shrieks +of persecuted beauty,--the blighting smile of the villain,--the lofty +indifference of supernumeraries! + +It was the first play of our heroine, Zelma Burleigh, and of her Cousin +Bessie. The morning before, a fragrant May morning, scores of summers +ago, Roger Burleigh, a stout Northumbrian Squire, had rolled himself, +in his ponderous way, into the snug family-parlor at the Grange, and +addressed his worthy dame with a bluff-- + +"Well, good wife, wouldn't like to go see the players to-night?" + +Ere the good lady could collect herself to reply with the decorous +deliberateness becoming her years and station, an embroidery-frame at +her side was overturned, and there sprang eagerly forward a comely +young damsel of the pure Saxon stock, with eyes like England's +violets,--clear, dewy, and wide-awake,--cheeks and lips like its +rose-bloom, and hair which held tangled in close, golden folds its +fickle and flying sunshine. + +"Ay, father!" she cried, "that we would! Zelma and I have never seen any +players, save the tumblers over at the Hall, on Sir Harry's birthday, +and we are in sad need of a little pleasuring." + +"Who spoke to you, or of you, Mistress Bessie?" replied the Squire, +playfully. "And what is all your useless, chattering life but +pleasuring? The playhouse is but a perilous place for giddy-brained +lasses like you; but for once, harkee, for _once_, we'll venture on +taking you, if you'll promise to keep your silly head safe under the +mother-hen's wing." + +"Not so close but that I can get a peep at the players now and then," +said Bessie, archly. "They say there are some handsome young men and a +pretty woman or two among them. Eh, Zelma?" + +"Handsome young men!--pretty women!" exclaimed the Squire, with an +explosive snort of contempt. "An arrant set of vagabonds and tramps,--of +ranting, strutting, apish creatures, with neither local habitations nor +names of their own. And what does Zelma know about them? Out with it, +girl!" + +The person thus addressed, without lifting the folds of a heavy +window-curtain which concealed her, replied in a quiet, though somewhat +haughty tone,-- + +"I saw them all, yesterday afternoon, on their way to Arden. I found +them near the entrance to our avenue. One of their carts had broken +down, and somebody was hurt. I dismounted to see if I could be of any +assistance. My pony pulled away from me and ran up the road. One of the +young men caught her for me. I told Cousin Bessie I thought him handsome +and proud enough for a lord. I think so still. That is all I know of the +players." + +"And, gad, that's enough! Take _you_ to the play, indeed! Why, we shall +have you strolling next, like your"--Here the Squire, for some reason +known to himself, suddenly paused and grew very red in the face. Dame +Margery took the word, and, in a tone meant to be severe, but which was +only dry, remarked,-- + +"Zelma is quite too young to go to the play." + +"Just one week younger than my Cousin Bessie. So, please you, aunt, I +will wait a few days," was the quiet reply from the invisible. + +"Right cleverly answered, lass!" said the Squire, with a good-humored +chuckle. "Well, we will try you, too, for once; but mind, if I find you +making eyes at any of the villains, I'll cut you off with a shilling." + +"That is more than I look for from you, Uncle Roger," replied the +hitherto hidden speaker, emerging from the window-seat, holding in her +hand the fashionable and interminable novel of "Sir Charles Grandison." +As she spoke, she laughed lightly, but her voice was somewhat cold and +bitter, and there was in her laugh more of defiance than merriment. + +"Oh, _don't_, Zella!" exclaimed the Squire, with a look of comic +deprecation,--"don't speak in that way to your old uncle! He's +blunt and rough-spoken, but he means kindly, and does kindly, in his +way,--don't he?" + +"Yes, that he does!" said the young girl, frankly; "and I beg his pardon +for my pettishness." + +Zelma Burleigh, as she stood thus, a faint, regretful smile softening +the habitual _hauteur_ of her face, was beautiful, and something more; +yet nobody in the country round about the Grange had ever dreamed of +calling her "a beauty." She was a tall, gracefully-formed girl, with +that strong, untamable character of figure and feature, and that +peculiar, sun-tinted, forest-shadowed hue of the skin, which betray the +slightest admixture of gypsy blood. In fact, Zelma Burleigh was the +fruit of a strange _mésalliance_ between the younger brother of the +Squire, a reckless, dissipated soldier of fortune, and a beautiful +Spanish Zineala, whom he met in a foreign campaign, and whom he could +not bind to himself by any tie less honorable than marriage. She was +said to be of Rommany blood-royal, and was actually disowned by her +tribe for _her mésalliance_. She followed the camp for a few years, the +willing, though sad and fast-fading slave of her Ishmaelitish lord, +himself the slave of lawless passions, yet not wholly depraved, +--fitfully tender and tyrannic,--and when, at last, he fell in some +inglorious skirmish, she buried him with her own hands, and wept and +fasted over his shallow grave till she died. There was a child, but she +had no look of the father to charm that poor, broken heart back to life; +she was left in the camp and became a little "Daughter of the Regiment." +At last, however, she was taken to England by a faithful comrade of the +dead soldier, who sought out her uncle and left her in his care, taking +leave of the frightened, clinging little creature with a grim, unspoken +tenderness, and a strange quiver of his gray moustache. + +Roger Burleigh, after having made himself sure of the legitimacy of +the child, adopted the poor, wild thing, made her the companion of his +daughter, and honestly strove to treat her, at all times, with parental +care and affection. + +Here, in the hospitable circle of an English home, the orphan alien +had grown up with her kinsfolk, but not of them,--proud, reticent, +ambitious, secretly hating the monotonous duties and pursuits, the +decorous forms and prescribed pleasures of the social and domestic life +around her. Nomadic and lawless instincts stirred in her blood; vague +longings for freedom and change, though in wandering, peril, and want, +sometimes filled her soul with the spirit of revolt and unrest. + +In her bluff uncle's house all were kind, and one, at least, was fond. +Her Cousin Bessie, gay and tender heart, had found the southern exposure +of her nature, and had crept up it, and clambered over it, and clasped +it, and bloomed against it, and ripened on it, till nothing cold, hard, +or defiant could be seen on that side. And Zelma seemed well content to +be the sombre background and strong support of so much bloom, sweetness, +and graceful dependence. + +Nothing could be more unlike than the two cousins. Bessie was small, +her form inclining to fulness, her face childlike in dimpled smiles and +innocent blushes,--betraying no lack of intellect, but most expressive +of a quiet, almost indolent amiability. Zelma was large, but lithe, +supple, and vigorous, with a pard-like freedom and elasticity of +movement,--dark, with a subdued and changing color,--the fluttering +signal of sudden emotion, not the stationary sign of robust health. She +had hair of a glistening blackness, which she wore turned back from a +strong, compact forehead, in the somewhat severe style which imperial +beauty has rendered classic in our time. Her eyes were of the Oriental +type,--full, heavy-lidded, ambushed in thick, black lashes,--themselves +dark and unfathomable as the long night of mystery which hangs over the +history of her wild and wandering race, those unsubduable, unseducible +children of Nature,--the voluntary Pariahs of the world. Sad were those +eyes always, but with a vague, uncommunicable sadness; soft they were in +times of quiet; beautiful and terrible they could be, with live gleams +of suddenly awakened passion. + +With but one affection not poisoned by a sense of obligation and +condescension, and that a sentiment in which her intellect had little +share, a gentle, protective, household love, which quickened no daring +fancy, inspired no dream of freedom or power, Zelma's mind was driven +in upon itself, and out of the seclusion and triteness of her life +fashioned a fairy world of romance and beauty. With the high-wrought, +sentimental fictions of the day for her mental aliment, she grew more +and more distinct and apart from the actual, prosaic existences around +her; the smouldering fires of genius and ambition glowed out almost +fiercely at times, through the dark dream of her eyes, startling the +dullest apprehension, as she moved amid a narrow circle of country +gentry, the fox-hunting guests of her uncle, the prim gossips of her +aunt, the gay lovers and companions of her cousin, an unrecognized +heroine, an uncrowned tragedy-queen. + +The small provincial town of Arden possessed no playhouse proper, but, +after a good deal of hesitation and discussion, the venerable Hall +of St. George, the glory of all Ardenites, had been accorded to the +players, "for a few nights only." + +On the night of the first performance, Squire Burleigh and his family +arrived betimes, and took their places with some bustle and ceremony. + +The master of Burleigh Grange appeared in the almost forgotten glory of +his court suit,--a coat of crimson velvet, a flowered waistcoat, satin +knee-breeches, and a sword at his side. The mistress wore an equally +memorable brocade, enormous bouquets thrown upon a silvery ground, so +stiff and shiny that it seemed a texture of ice and frozen flowers. Her +hair was cushioned and powdered; she looked comely and stately, and +wore her lustres well. The pretty Bessie was attired in maidenly +white muslin, an India fabric of marvellous fineness, with a sash and +streamers of blue, and the light fleecy curls of her hair unadorned save +by a slight pendent spray of jasmines. Her cousin's dress, though in +reality less costly, was more striking, being composed of materials and +colors which admirably harmonized with the darkness and richness of her +beauty. Her lustrous black hair was arranged as usual; but a wreath, +formed of some delicate vine hung thick with drooping scarlet blossoms, +ran like flowering flame around her head. Like the sumptuous exotic of +Zenobia, it was an ornament which seemed to bloom out of the character +of the woman. + +Bessie cast about her bright, innocent looks of girlish curiosity, which +yet shrank from any chance encounter with the furtive glance or cool +stare of admiration. Zelma sat motionless and impassive. Her eyes +wandered naturally, but coldly, over the audience, seeming to take no +cognizance of any face, strange or familiar; but when they were lifted +above the crowd, to the old carved ceiling of the hall, or dropped upon +the beautiful hands which lay listlessly folded in her lap, the cold, +blank look she had set against the world went out of them. Then, in +their mystic depths of brooding, introverted thought, new spheres of +life, rarer, brighter, fairer, seemed rounding into form and dawning +like stars. + +Mrs. Margery Burleigh sat with her face turned from the stage, to +dissemble the secret impatience with which she awaited the uprolling of +the curtain, and slowly waved to and fro a huge, flowered fan, which +charged the air with a heavy Indian perfume. + +At length, soft, mournful music arose from the orchestra, and every +heart stirred to the premonitory waver and lift of the curtain. Slowly +it rose, and discovered a mourning apartment, with a lady in mourning, +sitting in a mourning chair, and attended by a mourning maid. The play +was Congreve's tragedy of "The Mourning Bride," one of the best of a +class of sentimental and stiltified dramatic productions which the +public of our great-grandfathers meekly accepted,--quaffing the frothy +small-beer of rant and affectation, in lieu of deep draughts of Nature +and passion, the rich, red wine of human life, poured generously +forth by the dramatists of a better era. The excesses of fashion then +prevailing, hoops, high heels, powder, and patches, were not more +essentially absurd and artificial than such representations of high-life +and high-tragedy. + +"The Mourning Bride" contains a few situations in which real passion can +have play, some fine points and poetic passages, and its moral tone is +at least respectable,--not great things to say of a famous tragedy, +certainly, but they give it an honorable distinction over many plays of +its time. There figure in it one or two characters which can be made +interesting, and even impressive, by uncommon power in the actor; though +they were usually given, at the period of which I write, in a manner +sufficiently tame to suit the dullest of courts,--likely to disturb +neither my lord in his napping nor my lady in her prim flirting. + +Zara, the Captive Queen, is beyond comparison the strong character of +this play. There is a spice and fire even in her wickedness, which +make her terribly attractive, and give her a more powerful hold on the +sympathies than the decorous and dolorous Almeria, for all her virtuous +sorrows and perplexities. Zara's passion is of the true Oriental type, +leaping from the extremes of love and hate with the fierceness and +rapidity of lightning. + +It is a character in which several great actresses have distinguished +themselves,--chief among them Siddons. On the memorable night at Arden, +however, it was but wretchedly rendered by a tall, small-voiced, +flaxen-haired young woman, who stalked about the stage in high-heeled +shoes and prodigious hoops, and declaimed the most fiery passages with +an execrable drawl. The remainder of the company were barely passable as +strolling players, with the exception of the actor who personated Osmyn. +This was a young man named Bury, of respectable parentage and education, +it was said, and considerable reputation, though his aspiring buskin had +never yet trod the London boards. He was a handsome, shapely person, +with an assured, dashing manner, and a great amount of spirit and fire, +which usually passed with his audience, and always with himself, for +genius. + +His voice was powerful and resonant, his elocution effective, if not +faultless, and his physical energy inexhaustible. Understanding and +managing perfectly his own resources, he produced upon most provincial +critics the impression of extraordinary power and promise, few +perceiving that he had already come into full possession of his dramatic +gifts. + +Only finely-trained ears could discover in this sounding, shining metal +the lack of the sharp, musical ring of the genuine coin. Young men grew +frantic in applause of his bold action, his stormy declamation, +his startling _tours de force_; while young women wondered, wept, +languished, and swooned. It was said, that, whenever he died in Romeo, +Pierre, or Zanga, numbers of his fair slain were borne out of the +playhouse, to be revived with difficulty by the application of salts and +the severing of stay-lacings. + +But his effects, though so positive, were superficial and +evanescent,--audible, visible, and, as it were, physical. There was +always wanting that fine shock of genuine passion, striking home to +kindred passions in the breasts of his auditors, and sending through +every nerve a magnetic shiver of delight,--that subtile, mysterious +element of genius, playing like quick flame along the dullest lines of +the poet and charging them with its own life and fire. + +In the virtuous, but negative character of Osmyn there was little room +for effective declamation; our actor was fain to content himself with +being interesting, through the misfortunes of the Prince of Valentia, +his woful lawful love, and the besettings of an unreturned passion. In +this he succeeded so well, that the feminine portion of his audience +grew tender with Almeria, and despairing with Zara. + +In the first scene with Almeria, who was a shade worse than the Zara of +the night, the young actor indulged himself in a cool, comprehensive +glance at the house, over her fair shoulders. As his keen gaze swept +round the small aristocratic circle, it encountered and seemed +to recognize the face of Zelma Burleigh, now kindling with a new +enthusiasm, which was never wholly to die out of her breast. There was +something in the watchful, absorbed gaze of her great dark eyes so +unlike the wondering or languishing looks usually bent by women upon +the rising actor, that on the instant he was struck, pierced, by those +subtile shafts of light, to the heart he had believed till then vowed +alone to the love of his art and the schemes of a sleepless ambition. + +Reluctantly he withdrew his regard from a face which bespoke a character +of singular originality and force, not wanting either in womanly pride +or tenderness,--a face in which beauty itself was so subordinate to +something higher, more ineffable, that one could scarcely define feature +or color through the illuminated and changeful atmosphere of soul which +hung about it,--the shadows of great thoughts, the light mists of dreamy +and evanescent fancy. + +It was toward the close of the second act, when Sir Harry Willerton, of +Willerton Hall, entered his box, accompanied by three or four dashing +companions, who, it was soon whispered about, were titled young bloods +from London. + +Sir Harry Willerton was a fresh, frank-looking young gallant,--fast, +from the fiery impulses of youth and a high spirit,--not pricked on by +vanity, nor goaded by low passions,--not heartless, not _blasé_,--the +only kind of a rake for whom reformation is possible or reclamation +worth the while. + +Sir Harry was not fond of tragedy; and after five minutes' strained +attention to the players, he turned his eyes from the stage, and began +casting easy, good-humored glances of curiosity or recognition over +the audience. He bowed to all his neighbors with a kindly familiarity, +untainted by condescension, but most courteously, perhaps, to the party +from the Grange. He liked the bluff Squire heartily,--as who did not? +Then his eye--a laughing blue eye it was--rested and lingered, not on +the dark, dramatic face of Zelma, but on the pretty, girlish head of her +cousin. + +Bessie sat with her face partly averted from the baronet's gay party, +and her gaze fixed intently upon the stage. Sir Harry could only see +half the rose of one cheek, and the soft sweep of golden hair which +lightly shaded it; and feasting his fancy on that bit of fluctuating +color, entangled in the meshes of a tremulous screen of curls, he +settled himself to await the close of the act. + +It was with a child's eager interest and pliant imagination that Bessie +looked and listened,--susceptible, credulous, unfastidious. To her, +the Osmyn of the night was radiant with all heroic qualities and manly +graces, the weakly simulated sorrow of Almeria brought real tears to her +eyes, and she drew her white shoulders forward with a shudder when +the wooden Zara kindled into cursing and jealous rage. Illusions most +transparent to others hoodwinked her senses; her willing fancy supplied +feeling, and even made up for deficiencies of art in the players, till +the mimic world before her became more real than reality. + +Not so with Zelma. She was satisfied, even charmed, with the personation +of Osmyn; but, from the first, she could not abide either of the +heroines, who, each in her part, strove to outdo the other in mincing, +mouthing, attitudinizing, and all imaginable small sins against Nature +and Art. She saw at once, by the sure intuitions of genius, how +everything they did could be done better, and burned to do it. The part +of Almeria she soon dismissed from her thoughts, as mere milk-and-water; +but she saw that in that of Zara there was a stream of lava, though +dulled and crusted over by the coldness of the actress, which might +be made to sweep all before it. Her critical dissatisfaction with the +personation became, at last, little short of torture; there was an +involuntary lowering of her dark brows, a scornful quiver of her +spirited nostril, she bit her lip with angry impatience, and shrugged +her shoulders with irrepressible contempt. + +In the great scene where Zara surprises Almeria in the cell of Osmyn, +it was astonishing how the flaxen-haired representative of the Captive +Queen managed to turn her fiery rain of curses into a little pattering +shower of womanish reproaches. It was really a masterly performance, in +its way. + +At this point Zelma threw herself back in utter weariness and disgust, +exclaiming, audibly,--"Miserable!--most miserable." When, looking round, +she saw the traces of her cousin's innocent emotion, the flush and +tearfulness which bespoke her uncritical sympathy with passions so +unskilfully represented, she could not suppress a smile at such childish +simplicity. And yet this was also her first play. + +The tragedy was succeeded by a farce, at which Bessie laughed as +heartily as she had wept a little while before, but which was utterly +distasteful to Zelma; and at an alarmingly late hour, for that quiet +community, the green curtain came heavily plunging down on the final +scene of all, and the audience dispersed to their homes. + +On the day following, Sir Harry Willerton's guests returned to town, +but, to their surprise, unaccompanied by their host, who seemed to have +suddenly discovered that his presence was needed on his estate. So he +remained. Soon it was remarked that a singular intimacy had sprung +up between him and Squire Burleigh, with whom, at length, the larger +portion of his time was passed, either in following the hounds or dining +at the Grange. There were rumors and surmises that the attractions which +drew the young baronet to his bluff neighbor's hospitable hall were not +the Squire's hearty cheer, old wine, and older stories, but a pair of +shy, yet tender eyes,--red lips, that smiled a wordless welcome, and +sometimes pouted at a late coming,--cheeks whose blushes daily grew +warmer in love's ripening glow,--a voice whose tones daily grew deeper, +and seemed freighted with more delicious meanings. + +There was little discussion as to which of the young ladies of the +Grange was the enchantress and the elect Lady Willerton. + +"Surely," said the gossips, "it cannot be that gypsy niece of the +Squire, that odd, black-browed girl, who scours over the country in all +weathers, on that elfish black pony, with her hair flying,--for all the +world as though in search of her wild relations. No, the blood of the +Willertons would never run so low as that;--it must be sweet Miss +Bessie, and she is a match for a lord." + +For once the gossips were right. But it is with the poor "Rommany girl," +not with the heiress of Burleigh Grange, that we have to do. + +On the morning succeeding the play, Zelma Burleigh, taking in her hand +an odd volume of Shakspeare, one of the few specimens of dramatic +literature which her uncle's scant library afforded, strolled down a +lonely lane, running back from the house, toward the high pasture-lands, +on which grazed and basked the wealthy Squire's goodly flocks and +herds. This was her favorite walk, as it was the most quiet, shaded, +out-of-the-way by-path on the estate. She now directed her steps to a +little rustic seat, almost hidden from view by the pendent branches +of an old willow-tree, and close under a hawthorn-hedge, now in full, +fragrant bloom. Here she seated herself, or rather flung herself down, +half languidly, half petulantly, an expression of _ennui_ and unrest +darkening her face,--the dusky traces of a sleepless night hanging +heavily about her eyes. She opened her book at the play of "Romeo and +Juliet," and began to read, not silently, nor yet aloud, but in a low, +dreamy tone, in which the sounds of Nature about her, the gurgle of a +brook behind the hedge, the sighing of the winds among the pendulous +branches of the willow, the silver shiver of the lance-like leaves, the +murmurous coming and going of bees, the loving duets of nest-building +birds, all seemed to mingle and merge. As she read, a new light seemed +to illumine the page, caught from her recent experience of dramatic +personation and scenic effects, limited and unsatisfactory though that +experience had been. In fancy, she floated over the stage, as the gay +young Juliet at the masquerade; then she caught sight of young Romeo, +and, lo! his face was that of the sentimental hero of the last night's +tragedy, but ennobled by the glow and dignity of genuine passion. In +fancy, she sat on the balcony, communing with night and the stars,--the +newly-risen star of love silvering all life for her. Then, leaning her +cheek upon her hand, she poured forth Juliet's impassioned apostrophe. +When she came to the passage,-- + + "O Romeo, Romeo!--wherefore art thou Romeo?" + +she was startled by a rustling of the leaves behind her. She paused and +looked round fearfully. A blackbird darted out of the hedge and away +over the fields. Zelma smiled at her own alarm, and read on, till she +reached the tender adjuration,-- + + "Romeo, doff thy name; + And for thy name, which is no part of thee, + Take all myself!" + +when,--suddenly, a fragrant shower of hawthorn-blossoms fell upon the +page before her, and the next instant there lightly vaulted over the +hedge at her side the hero of her secret thoughts, the young player, +Lawrence Bury! He stood before her, flushed and smiling, with his head +uncovered, and in an attitude of respectful homage; yet, with a look and +tone of tender, unmistakable meaning, took up the words of the play,-- + + "I take thee at thy word. + Call me but love, and I'll be new-baptized; + Henceforth I never will be Romeo." + +Poor Zelma did not have the presence of mind to greet this sudden +apparition of a lover in the apt words of her part,-- + + "What man art thou, that, thus bescreened in night, + So stumblest on my counsel?" + +She had no words at all for the intruder, but, frightened and +bewildered, sprang from her seat and turned her face toward home, with a +startled bird's first impulse to flight. As she rose, her book slid from +her lap and fell among the daisies at her feet. The actor caught it up +and presented it to her, with the grace of a courtly knight restoring +the dropped glove of a princess, but, as he did so, exclaimed, in a +half-playful tone, looking at the volume rather than the lady,-- + +"I thank thee, O my master, for affording me so fair an excuse for mine +audacity!" + +Then, assuming a more earnest manner, he proceeded to make excuses and +entreat pardon for the suddenness, informality, and presumption of his +appearance before her:-- + +"You know, Madam," he said,--"if, indeed, you are so unfortunate as +to know anything about us,--that we players are an impulsive, +unconventional class of beings, lawless and irresponsible, the Gypsies +of Art." + +Here Zelma flushed and drew herself up, while a suspicious glance shot +from her eyes;--but the stranger seemed not to understand or perceive +it, for he went on quite innocently, and with increasing earnestness of +tone and manner:-- + +"I know I have been presuming, impertinent, audacious, in thus intruding +myself upon you, and acknowledge that you would be but severely just in +banishing me instantly from your bright presence, and in withdrawing +from me forever the light of your adorable eyes. Oh, those eyes!" he +continued, clasping his hands in an ecstasy of lover-like enthusiasm, +--"those wild, sweet orbs!--bewildering lights of love, dear as life, +but cruel as death!--can they not quicken, even as they slay? Oh, gentle +lady, be like her of Verona!--be gracious, be kind, or, at least, be +merciful, and do not banish me!-- + + 'For exile hath more terror in his look, + Much more, than death; do not say banishment!'" + +He paused, but did not remove his passionate looks from the young girl's +face,--looks which, though cast down, for he was much the taller of the +two, had the effect of most lowly and deprecating entreaty;--and then +there happened an event,--a very slight, common, natural event,--the +result more of girlish embarrassment than of any conscious emotion or +purpose, yet of incalculable importance at that moment, and, perhaps, +decisive of the fate of two human hearts,--Zelma smiled. It was a +quick, involuntary smile, which seemed to _escape_ from the firm lips +and half-averted eyes, flashed over the face, touched the cold features +with strange radiance, and then was gone,--and, in its place, the old +shadow of reserve and distrust, for the moment, darker than ever. + +But to the adventurous lover that brief light had revealed his doubtful +way clear before him. He saw, with a thrill of exultation, that +henceforth he had really nothing to fear from such womanly defences as +he had counted on,--coldness, prejudice, disdain,--that all he had taken +for these were but unsubstantial shadows. Still he showed no premature +triumph in word or look, but remained silent and humble, waiting the +reply to his passionate appeal, as though life or death, in very truth, +were depending upon it. And Zelma spoke at last,--briefly and coldly, +but in a manner neither suspicious nor unfriendly. She herself, she +said, was unconventional, in her instincts, at least,--so could afford +to pardon somewhat of lawlessness in another,--especially, she added, +with a shy smile, in one whom Melpomene, rather than Cupid, had made +mad. Still she was not a Juliet, though he, for all she knew, might be +a Romeo; and only in lands verging on the tropics, or in the soul of a +poet, could a passion like that of the gentle Veronese spring up, bud, +and blossom, in a single night. As for her, the fogs of England, the +heavy chill of its social atmosphere, had obstructed the ripening +sunshine of romance and repressed the flowering of the heart-- + +"And kept your beautiful nature all the more pure and fresh!" exclaimed +Mr. Lawrence Bury, with real or well-assumed enthusiasm; but Zelma, +replying to his interruption only by a slight blush, went on to say, +that she had been taught that poetry, art, and romances were all idle +pastimes and perilous lures, unbecoming and unwholesome to a young +English gentlewoman, whose manifest destiny it was to tread the dull, +beaten track of domestic duty, with spirit chastened and conformed. +She had had, she would acknowledge, some aspirations and rebellious +repinings, some wild day-dreams of life of another sort; but it was best +that she should put these down,--yes, doubtless, best that she should +fall into her place in the ranks of duty and staid respectability, +and be a mere gentlewoman, like the rest.--Here a slight shrug of the +shoulders and curl of the lip contradicted her words,--yet, with a tone +of rigid determination, she added, that it was also best she should +cherish no tastes and form no associations which might distract her +imagination and further turn her heart from this virtuous resolution; +and therefore must she say farewell, firmly and finally, to the, she +doubted not, most worthy gentleman who had done her the honor to +entertain for her sentiments of such high consideration and romantic +devotion. She would not deny that his intrusion on her privacy had, at +first, startled and displeased her,--but she already accepted it as an +eccentricity of dramatic genius, a thoughtless offence, and, being, as +she trusted, at once the first and the last, pardonable. She wished him +happiness, fame, fortune,--and a very good morning! Then, with a wave +of the hand which would have done honor to Oldfield herself, she turned +and walked proudly up the lane. + +Mr. Bury saw her depart silently, standing in a submissive, dejected +attitude, but with a quiet, supercilious smile lightly curling his +finely-cut lips; for did he not know that she would return to her haunt +the next day, and that he would be there to see? + +And Zelma did return the next day,--persuading herself that she was +only acting naturally, and with proper dignity and independence. She +argued with herself that to abandon her favorite walk or avoid her usual +resting-place would be to confess, if not a fear of the stranger's +presuming and persistent suit, at least, a disturbing consciousness of +his proximity, and of the possibility of his braving her displeasure +by a second and unpardonable intrusion. No, she would live as she had +lived, freely, carelessly; she would go and come, ride and walk, just as +though nothing had happened,--for, indeed, nothing _had_ happened that +a woman of sense and pride should take cognizance of. So, after a +half-hour's strange hesitation, she took her book and went to the old +place. Longer than usual she sat there, idly and abstractedly turning +over the leaves of her Shakspeare, starting and flushing with every +chance sound that broke on the still, sweet air; yet no presumptuous +intruder disturbed her maiden meditations, and she rose wearily at last, +and walked slowly homeward, saying to herself, "It is well. I have +conquered," but feeling that nothing was well in life, or her own heart, +and that she was miserably defeated. Ah, little did she suspect that her +clouded, dissatisfied face had been keenly scanned by the very eyes she +dreaded, yet secretly longed to meet,--that her most unconscious sigh +of disappointment had been heard by her Romeo of the previous day, now +lying just behind the hedge, buried in the long brook-side grass, and +laughing to himself a very pleasant laugh of gratulation and triumph. + +That night, the good Squire of Burleigh Grange relented from his +virtuous resolve, and took his wife, daughter, and niece to the play. + +The piece was Howe's tragedy of "Tamerlane." Mr. Bury personated the +imperial Tartar, a noble _rôle_, which so well became him, costumes +and all, and brought him so much applause, that Zelma's heart was +effectually softened, and she even felt a regretful pride in having +received and rejected the homage of a man of such parts. + +The next day, as the hour for her stroll arrived, she said to herself, +"I can surely take my walks in safety now,--_he_ will never come near me +more." So she went,--but, to her unspeakable confusion, she found +him, quietly seated in her little rustic bower, his head bared to +the sunshine, and his "Hyperion curls" tossed and tumbled about by +a frolicsome wind. He rose when the lady appeared, stammered out an +apology, bowed respectfully, and would have retired, but that Zelma, +feeling that she was the intruder this time, begged him to remain. She +thought herself, simple child! merely courteous and duly hospitable, in +giving this invitation; but the quick, eager ear of the actor and lover +heard, quivering through the assumed indifference and cold politeness +of her tones, the genuine impulse and ardent wish of her heart. So +he yielded and lingered, proffering apologies and exchanging polite +commonplaces. + +After a little time, Zelma, to prove her freedom from embarrassment or +suspicion, quietly seated herself on the rustic bench, giving, as she +did so, a regal spread to her ample skirts, that there might be no +vacant place beside her. The actor stood for a while before her, just +going, but never gone, talking gayly, but respectfully, on indifferent +topics,--till, at last, touching on some theme of deeper interest, and +apparently forgetting everything but it and the fair lady, who neither +expressed nor looked a desire to shorten the interview, he flung +himself, with what seemed a boy's natural impulse, upon the soft, +inviting turf, under the shade of the willow. There, reclining in the +attitude of Hamlet at the feet of Ophelia, he rambled on from subject +to subject, in a careless, graceful way, plucking up grass and picking +daisies to pieces, as he talked, giving every now and then, from beneath +the languid sweep of his heavy eyelashes, quick flashes of tender +meaning, as fitful and beautiful as the "heat-lightnings" of summer +twilights, and _apparently_ as harmless. + +There was something so magnetic and contagious in this frank, +confiding manner, that Zelma, ere she was aware, grew unrestrained and +communicative in turn. One by one, the icicles of pride and reserve, +which a strange and ungenial atmosphere had hung around her affluent and +spontaneous nature, melted in the unwanted sunshine, dropped away from +her, and the quick bloom of a Southern heart revealed itself in +smiles and blushes. The divine poet whose volume she now held clasped +caressingly in both hands had prepared the way for this, by sending +through every vein and fibre of her being the sweet, subtile essence of +passionate thought,--the spring-tide of youth and love, which makes the +story of Romeo and Juliet glow and throb with immortal freshness and +vitality. + +So, at length, those two talked freely and pleasantly together. They +discussed the quiet rural scenery around them, the deep green valley of +Arden, shut in by an almost unbroken circle of hills, and Zelma told of +a peculiar silvery mist which sometimes floated over it, like the ghost +of the lake which, it was said, once filled it; they spoke of wood, +stream, moor, and waterfall, sunsets and moonlight and stars, poetry +and--love; floating slowly, and almost unconsciously, down the smooth +current of summer talk and youthful fancies, toward the ocean of all +their thoughts, whose mysterious murmurs already filled one heart at +least with a tender awe and a vague longing, which was yet half fear. + +The next day, and the next, and every day while the players remained at +Arden, the two friends met by tacit agreement in the lane of Burleigh +Grange, and, gradually, Lawrence Bury became less the actor and more +the man, in the presence of a genuine woman, without affectation or +artifice, stage-rant or art-cant,--one from whose face the glare of the +foot-lights had not stricken the natural bloom, whose heart had never +burned with the feverish excitement of the stage, its insatiable +ambition, its animosities and exceeding fierce jealousies. For Zelma, +she grew more humble and simple and less exacting, the more she bestowed +from a "bounty boundless as the sea." + +It was but a brief while, scarcely the lifetime of a rose,--the fragrant +snow of the hawthorn blossoms had not melted from the hedges since they +met,--and yet, in that little season, the deepest, divinest mystery of +human life had grown clear and familiar to their hearts, and was conned +as the simplest lesson of Nature. + +To Zelma the romance and secrecy of this love had an inexpressible +charm. The Zincala in her nature revelled in its wildness and adventure, +in its crime against the respectable conventionalities she despised. She +had a keen pleasure in the very management and concealment to which she +was compelled;--her imagination, even more than her heart, was engaged +in hiding and guarding this charming mystery. + +On the day succeeding her first interview with the young actor in the +lane, she had tried to beguile her _ennui_, while lingering in her +lonely bower, by curiously peering into the nest of a blackbird, deeply +hidden in the long grass at the foot of the hedge, and which she had +before discovered by the prophetic murmurs of the mother-bird. She found +five eggs in the nest. She took the little blue wonders in her hand, +and thought what lives of sinless joy, what raptures and loves, what +exultations of song and soaring slept in those tiny shells! Suddenly, +there was an alarmed cry and an anxious flutter of wings in the hedge +above her! She turned, and saw the mother-bird eyeing her askance. From +that day the lowly nest with its profaned treasures was forsaken, and +the world was the poorer in gladness and melody by five bird-lives of +joy and song that might have been. + +So, had any luckless intruder chanced to discover Zelma's +trysting-place, thrown open to the world the hidden romance in which +she took such shy and secret delight, and handled in idle gossip the +delicate joys and fragile hopes of young love, it is more than likely +that she would have been frightened away from bower and lane, shocked +and disenchanted. But the preoccupation of her cousin and her own +eccentric and solitary habits prevented suspicion and inquiry,--no +unfriendly spy, no rude, untoward event, disturbed the quiet and +seclusion of this charmed scene of her wooing, where Nature, Romance, +and Poetry were in league with Love. + +The players played out their engagement at Arden, with the usual +supplement, "A few nights only by special request," and were off to a +neighboring town. On their last night, after the play, Zelma met her +lover by moonlight, at the trysting-place in the lane, for a parting +interview. + +It was there that the actor, doffing the jaunty hat which usually +crowned his "comely head," and, flinging himself on his knees before +his fair mistress, entreated her to rule his wayward heart, share his +precarious fortunes, and bear his humble name. + +Poor Zelma, when in imagination she had rehearsed her betrothal scene, +had made her part something like this:--"And then will I extend my hand +with stately grace, and say to my kneeling knight, 'Arise!'--and after, +in such brief, gracious words as queens may use, (for is not every woman +beloved a queen?) pronounce his happy doom." + +But when that scene in her life-drama came on, it was the woman, not the +tragedy-queen, that acted. Naturally and tenderly, like any simple girl, +she bent over her lover, laid her hand upon his head, and caressingly +smoothed back from his brow the straggling curls, damp with night-dew. +As she did so, every lock seemed to thrill to her touch, and to wake in +her soft, timorous fingers a thousand exquisite nerves that had never +stirred before. And then, with broken words and tears, and probing +questions and solemn adjurations, she plighted her vows, and sought to +bind to her heart forever a faith to which she trusted herself, alas! +too tremblingly. + +The melodramatic lover was not content with a simple promise, though +wrung from the heart with sobs. "_Swear_ it to me!" he said, in a hoarse +stage-whisper; and Zelma, again laying her hand upon his head, and +looking starward, swore to be his, to command, to call, to hold,--in +life, in death, here, hereafter, evermore. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, + +ATTORNEY AT LAW AND SOLICITOR IN CHANCERY. + + +Somewhat more than three-quarters of a century ago, George Steevens, the +acutest, and, perhaps, the most accomplished, but certainly the most +perverse and unreliable of Shakespeare's commentators and critics, wrote +thus of Shakespeare's life: "All that is known, with any degree +of certainty, concerning Shakespeare, is, that he was born at +Stratford-upon-Avon; married and had children there; went to London, +where he commenced actor,[A] and wrote poems and plays; returned to +Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried." From 1780, when this +was written, to the present day, the search after well-authenticated +particulars of Shakespeare's life has been kept up with a faithfulness +equal to that of Sir Palomides after the beast glatisaunt, and by as +many devotees and with as much hope of glory as in the quest for the +Sangreal. But the fortune of the paynim, rather than the virgin knight, +has fallen to all the members of the self-devoted band, and we +know little more of the man Shakespeare than was known by our +great-grandfathers. For, although there have been issued to us of the +present generation pamphlets professing to give new particulars of the +life of Shakespeare, and tomes with even more pretentious titles, from +all these there has been small satisfaction, save to those who can +persuade themselves, that, by knowing what Shakespeare might have done, +they know what he did, or that the reflex of his daily life is to +be found in documents inscribed on parchment, and beginning, "This +indenture made," etc., or "_Noverint universi per presentes_." It is +with no disrespect for the enthusiasm of Mr. Knight, and as little +disposition to underrate the laborious researches of Mr. Collier and Mr. +Halliwell, that we thus reiterate the assertion of the world's ignorance +of Shakespeare's life: nay, it is with a mingled thankfulness and +sorrowful sympathy that we contemplate them wasting the light of the +blessed sun (when it shines in England) and wearing out good eyes (or +better barnacles) in poring over sentences as musty as the parchments +on which they are written and as dry as the dust that covers them. +But although we gladly concede that these labors have resulted in the +diffusion of a knowledge of the times and the circumstances in +which Shakespeare lived, and in the unearthing of much interesting +illustration of his works from the mould of antiquity, we cannot accept +the documents which have been so plentifully produced and so pitilessly +printed,--the extracts from parish-registers and old account-books,--not +Shakespeare's,--the inventories, the last wills and testaments, the +leases, the deeds, the bonds, the declarations, pleas, replications, +rejoinders, surrejoinders, rebutters, and surrebutters,--as having aught +to do with the life of such a man as William Shakespeare. We hunger, +and we receive these husks; we open our months for bread, and break our +teeth against these stones. As to the law-pleadings, what have their +discords, in linked harshness long drawn out, to do with the life of +him whom his friends delighted to call Sweet Will? We wish that they at +least had been allowed to rest. Those who were parties to them have been +more than two centuries in their graves,-- + + "Secure from worldly chances and mishaps. + _There_ lurks no treason, _there_ no envy swells, + _There_ grow no damned grudges; _there_ no storms, + No noise, but silence and eternal sleep." + +Why awaken the slumbering echoes of their living strife? + +[Footnote A: _Commenced actor, commenced author, commenced tinker, +commenced tailor, commenced candlestick-maker:_--Elegant phraseology, +though we venture to think, hardly idiomatic or logical, which came into +vogue in England in the early part of the last century, and which, +as it is never uttered here by cultivated people, it may be proper to +remark, is there used by the best writers. Akin to it is another mode of +expression as commonly met with in English books and periodicals, e.g., +"immediately he arrived at London he went upon the stage," meaning, as +soon as he arrived, etc., or, when he arrived at London, he immediately +went upon the stage. As far as our observation extends, Lord Macaulay, +alone of all Great-Britons, has neglected to add the latter lucid +construction to the graces of his style.] + +Yet these very law-papers, in the reduplicated folds of which dead +quarrels lie embalmed in hideous and grotesque semblance of their living +shapes, their lifeblood dried that lent them all their little dignity, +their action and their glow, and exhaling only a faint, sickening +odor of the venom that has kept them from crumbling into +forgetfulness,--these law-papers are now held by some to have special +interest Shakespeare-ward, as having to do with a profession for which +he made preparatory studies, even if he did not enter upon its practice. +Yes, in spite of our alleged ignorance of Shakespeare's life, and +especially of the utter darkness which has been thought to rest upon the +years which intervened between his marriage in Stratford and his joining +the Lord Chamberlain's company of players in London, the question is, +now, whether the next historical novel may not begin in this wise:-- + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE FUGITIVE. + +At the close of a lovely summer's day, two horsemen might have been seen +slowly pacing through the main street of Stratford-on-Avon. Attracting +no little attention from the group of loiterers around the market-cross, +they passed the White-Lion Inn, and, turning into Henley Street, soon +drew their bridles before a goodly cottage built of heavy timbers and +standing with one of its peaked gables to the street. On the door was a +shingle upon which was painted, + + Willm. Shakspere, + + Attornei at Lawe and Solicitor + in Chancere. + +One of the travellers--a grave man, whose head was sprinkled with the +snows of fifty winters--dismounted, and, approaching the door, knocked +at it with the steel hilt of his sword. He received no answer; but +presently the lattice opened above his head, and a sharp voice sharply +asked,-- + +"Who knocks?" + +"'Tis I, good wife!" replied the horseman. "Where is thy husband? I +would see him!" + +"Oh, Master John a Combe, is it you? I knew you not. Neither know I +where that unthrift William is these two days. It was but three nights +gone that he went with Will Squele and Dick Burbage, one of the player +folk, to take a deer out of Sir Thomas Lucy's park, and, as Will's +ill-luck would have it, they were taken, as well as the deer, and there +was great ado. But Will--that's my Will--and Dick Burbage, brake from +the keepers in Sir Thomas' very hall, and got off; and that's the last +that has been heard of them; and here be I left a lone woman with these +three children, and----Be quiet, Hamnet! Would ye pour my supper ale +upon the hat of the worshipful Master John a Combe?" + +"What! deer-stealing?" exclaimed John a Combe. "Is it thus that he apes +the follies of his betters? I had more hope of the lad, for he hath a +good heart and a quick engine; and I trusted that ere now he had +drawn the lease of my Wilmecote farm to Master Tilney here. But +deer-stealing!--like a lord's son, or a knight's at the least. Could not +the rifling of a rabbit-warren serve his turn? Deer-stealing! I fear me +he will come to nought!" + +The speaker remounted, and soon the two horsemen might again have been +seen wending their way back through the deepening twilight. + + * * * * * + +There are several points that would be novel in such a passage. Among +others, we would modestly indicate the incident of the two horsemen +as evincing some ingenuity, and as likely to charm the reader by its +freshness and originality. But one point, we must confess, is not +new, and that is the representation of Shakespeare as a lawyer. The +supposition, that the author of "Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "King Lear," +was a bustling young attorney, is of respectable age, and has years +enough upon its beard, if not discretion. It has been brought forward +afresh by two members of the profession for which is claimed the honor +of having Shakespeare's name upon its roll,--William L. Rushton, +Esquire, a London Barrister, and John Campbell, Lord Chief Justice of +the Queen's Bench.[B] Lord Campbell, indeed, addressing himself to +Mr. John Payne Collier, says, (p. 21,) that this is a notion "first +suggested by Chalmers, and since countenanced by Malone, yourself, and +others." An assertion this which savors little of legal accuracy. For +Chalmers, so far from being the first to suggest that Shakespeare passed +his adolescent years in an attorney's office, was the first to sneer at +Malone for bringing forward that conjecture.[C] Malone, in his first +edition of Shakespeare's works, published in 1790, has this passage, in +the course of a discussion of the period when "Hamlet" was produced:-- + +"The comprehensive mind of our poet embraced almost every object of +Nature, every trade, every art, the manners of every description of men, +and the general language of almost every profession: but his knowledge +of legal terms is not such as might be acquired by the casual +observation of even his all-comprehending mind; it has the appearance of +_technical_ skill; and he is so fond of displaying it, on all occasions, +that I suspect he was early initiated in at least the forms of law, and +was employed, while he remained at Stratford, in the office of some +country attorney, who was at the same time a petty conveyancer, and +perhaps, also, the seneschal of some manor court."--Vol. I. Part I. p. +307. + +[Footnote B: _Shakespeare a Lawyer_. By William L. Rushton. 16mo. pp. +50. London: 1858. + +_Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements Considered_. By John Lord Campbell, +LL.D., F.R.S.E. 12mo. pp. 117. London: 1859.] + +[Footnote C: Into the trap so innocently set the London _Athenaeum_ thus +plunges headlong:--"Chalmers, we believe, first put Shakespeare in an +attorney's office. Malone _accepted the hint_."] + +To this, Chalmers, some years after, (1797,) in his "Apology for the +Believers in the Shakespeare Papers which were exhibited in Norfolk +Street," (some contemptible forgeries, by a young scapegrace named +William Ireland, which should not have deceived an English scholar of +six months' standing,) made the following reply:-- + +"Mr. Malone places the aspiring poet 'in the office of some country +attorney, or the seneschal of some manor court'; and for this violation +of probability he produces many passages from his dramas to evince +Shakespeare's _technical skill_ in the _forms of law_. ...But was it not +the practice of the times, for other makers, like the bees tolling from +every flower the virtuous _sweets_, to gather from the thistles of the +law _the sweetest_ honey? Does not Spenser gather many a metaphor from +these weeds, that are most apt to grow in _fattest_ soil? Has not +Spenser his law-terms: his _capias, defeasance_, and _duresse_; his +_emparlance_; his _enure, essoyn_, and _escheat_; his _folkmote, +forestall_ and _gage_; his _livery_ and _seasin, wage_ and _waif_? It +will be said, however, that, whatever the learning of Spenser may have +gleaned, the law-books of that age were impervious to the illiterature +of Shakespeare. No: such an intellect, when employed on the drudgery of +a wool-stapler, who had been high-bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon, might +have derived all that was necessary from a very few books; from Totell's +'Presidents,' 1572; from Pulton's 'Statutes,' 1578; and from the +'Lawier's Logike,' 1588. It is one of the axioms of the 'Flores Regii,' +that, To answer an improbable imagination is to fight against a +vanishing shadow."--p. 553. + +And again, in his "Supplemental Apology," etc., 1799, Chalmers +remarks,-- + +"The biographers, without adequate proofs, have bound Shakespeare an +apprentice to some country attorney; as Mr. Malone has sent him without +sufficient warrant to the desk of some seneschal of a county court: but +these are obscurities that require other lights than conjecture and +assertion, which, by proving nothing, only establish disbelief."--p. +226. + +So much for Chalmers's having "first suggested" the theory, of which +Lord Campbell has undertaken the support. Surely his Lordship must have +been verifying Rosalind's assertion, that lawyers sleep between term and +term, or else he is guilty of having loosely made a direct assertion in +regard to a subject upon which he had not taken the trouble to inform +himself; although he professes (p. 10) to have "read nearly all that has +been written on Shakespeare's _ante-Londinensian_ life, and carefully +examined his writings with a view to obtain internal evidence as to his +education and breeding." + +One exhibition of his Lordship's inaccuracy is surprising. Commenting +upon Falstaff's threat, "Woe to my Lord Chief Justice!" (2d _Henry_ IV., +Act V., Sc. 4,) he remarks, (p. 73,) "Sir W. Gascoigne was _continued_ +as Lord Chief Justice _in the new reign_; but, according to law and +custom, he was removable, and he no doubt expected to be removed, from +his office." Lord Campbell has yet to rival the fifth wife of the +missionary who wrote the lives of "her predecessors"; but surely _he_ +should have known that the expectations which he attributes to Sir +William Gascoigne were not disappointed, and that (although the contrary +is generally believed) the object of Falstaff's menace was superseded +(by Sir William Hankford) March 29th, 1413, just eight days after the +prince whom he committed to prison came to the throne,--a removal the +promptness of which would satisfy the strictest disciplinarian in the +Democratic party. The Records show this; but his Lordship need not have +gone to them; he would have found it mentioned, and the authority cited, +by Tyler in his "Memoirs of Henry the Fifth." + +And while we are considering the disparity between his Lordship's +performances and his pretensions, we may as well examine his fitness to +bring about a "fusion of Law and Literature," which he says, with some +reason, have, like Law and Equity, been too long kept apart in England. +We fear, that, whatever may be the excellence of his Lordship's +intentions, he must set himself seriously to the task of acquiring more +skill in the use of the English tongue, and a nicer discrimination +between processes of thought, before his writings will prove to be the +flux that promotes that fusion. + +For, in the third paragraph of his letter, he says to Mr. Collier, "I +cannot refuse to communicate to you my _sentiments_ upon the subject," +and in the following sentence adds, that this communication of his +"_sentiments_" will drive from his mind "the _recollection_ of the +wranglings of Westminster Hall." His Lordship probably meant to refer to +the communication of his _opinions_, for which word "sentiments" is +not usually substituted, except by gentlemen who remark with emphasis, +"Them's my sentiments"; and he also probably intended to allude to +the _memory_ of the wranglings of which he is professionally a +witness,--having forgotten, for a moment, that recollection is a purely +voluntary act, and not either a condition or a faculty of the mind. + +Again, when his Lordship says, (p. 18,) "That during this interval (A.D. +1579 to 1586) he [Shakespeare] was merely an operative, earning his +bread by manual labor, in stitching gloves, sorting wool, or killing +calves, no sensible man can possibly _imagine_" we applaud the decision; +but can hardly do as much for the language in which it is expressed. +Lord Campbell quite surely meant to say that no man could possibly +_believe_, or _suppose_, or _assent to_ the proposition which he sets +forth; and when (on p. 26) he again says, "I do not _imagine_ that when +he [Shakespeare] went up to London, he carried a tragedy in his pocket," +there can be no doubt that his Lordship meant to say, "I do not _think_ +that when," etc. He should again have gathered from his Shakespearean +studies a lesson in the exact use of language, and have learned from the +lips of "that duke hight Theseus" that imagination has nothing to do +with assent to or dissent from a proposition, but that + + "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet + Are of imagination all compact: + * * * * * + And, as imagination bodies forth + The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen + Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing + A local habitation and a name." + +_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act V. Sc. 1. + +We would not protract this finding of faults, and will only add, that, +when his Lordship says, (p. 116,) that Henry V. "astonished the world +with his universal _wisdom_" he entirely overlooks the fact, that wisdom +is a faculty of the mind, or, rather, a mode of intellectual action, +of which universality can no more be predicated than of folly, or of +honesty, or of muscular strength; and that it is not knowledge, or +at all like knowledge; which, indeed, is often acquired in a very +remarkable degree by persons eminent for unwisdom. Lord Campbell might +as well have said that Henry V. astonished the world with his universal +prowess in the battle-field. + +The censure to which Mr. Rushton's pamphlet is occasionally open in +regard to style may properly be averted by the modesty of its tone and +its unpretending character. + +But to pass from the manner to the matter of the learned gentlemen who +appear on behalf of Malone's theory. Lord Campbell, after stating, in +the introductory part of his letter, that in "The Two Gentlemen of +Verona," "Twelfth Night," "Julius Caesar," "Cymbeline," "Timon of +Athens," "The Tempest," "King Richard II.," "King Henry V.," "King Henry +VI., Part I.," "King Henry VI., Part III.," "King Richard III.," "King +Henry VIII.," "Pericles," and "Titus Andronicus,"--fourteen of the +thirty-seven dramas generally attributed to Shakespeare,--he finds +"nothing that fairly bears upon this controversy," goes on to produce +from the remaining plays, _seriatim_, such passages as in his judgment +do bear upon the question, and to remark upon them, thus isolated and +disconnected from each other. Mr. Rushton is more methodic and logical. +He does not merely quote or cite all the passages which he has noticed +in which legal terms occur, but brings together all such as contain the +same terms or refer to kindred proceedings or instruments; and he thus +presents his case with much more compactness and consequent strength +than results from Lord Campbell's loose and unmethodical mode of +treating the subject. We can arrive at the merits of the case on either +presentation only by an examination of some of the more important of the +passages cited. + +Lord Campbell, as we have just seen, mentions "Henry VIII." as one of +the fourteen plays in which he has found nothing which relates to the +question in hand; but Mr. Rushton opens his batteries with the following +passage from the very play just named; and to most readers it will seem +a bomb of the largest dimensions, sent right into the citadel of his +opponents:-- + + "_Suff_. Lord Cardinal, the king's further pleasure is,-- + Because all those things you have done of late + By your power legatine within this kingdom + Fall into compass of a _premunire_,-- + That therefore such a writ be sued against you, + To forfeit, all your goods, lands, tenements, + Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be + Out of the king's protection:--this is my + charge." + +_King Henry VIII_. Act iii. Sc. 2. + +We shall first remark, that, in spite of his declaration as to "Henry +VIII.," Lord Campbell does cite and quote this very passage (p. 42); +and, indeed, he must have been as unappreciative as he seems to have +been inaccurate, had he failed to do so; for, upon its face, it is, with +one or two exceptions, the most important passage of the kind to be +found in Shakespeare's works. _Premunire_ is thus defined in an old +law-book which was accessible to Shakespeare:-- + +"Premunire is a writ, and it lieth where any man sueth any other in the +spirituall court for anything that is determinable in the King's +Court, and that is ordeined by certaine statutes, and great punishment +therefore ordeined, as it appeareth by the same statutes, viz., that +he shall be out of the King's protection, and that he be put in prison +without baile or mainprise till that he have made fine at the King's +will, and that his landes and goods shal be forfait, if he come not +within ij. moneths."--_Termes de la Ley_, 1595, fol. 144. + +The object of the writ was to prevent the abuse of spiritual power. Now, +here is a law-term quite out of the common, which is used by Shakespeare +with a well-deployed knowledge of the power of the writ of which it is +the name. Must we, therefore, suppose that Shakespeare had obtained his +knowledge of the purpose and the power of this writ in the course +of professional reading or practice? If we looked no farther than +Shakespeare's page, such a supposition might seem to be warranted. +But if we turn to Michael Drayton's "Legend of Great Cromwell," first +published, we believe, in 1607, but certainly some years before "Henry +VIII." was written, and the subject of which figures in that play, we +find these lines,-- + + "This Me to urge the _Premunire_ wonne, + Ordain'd in matters dangerous and hie; + In t' which the heedlesse Prelacie were runne + That back into the Papacie did fie." + +Ed. 1619, p. 382. + +Here is the very phrase in question, used with a knowledge of its +meaning and of the functions of the writ hardly less remarkable than +that evinced in the passage from "Henry VIII.," though expressed in +a different manner, owing chiefly to the fact that Drayton wrote a +didactic poem and Shakespeare a drama. But Drayton is not known to have +been an attorney's clerk, nor has he been suspected, from his writings, +or any other cause, to have had any knowledge of the law. Both he and +Shakespeare, however, read the Chronicles. Reading men perused Hall's +and Holinshed's huge black-letter folios in Queen Elizabeth's time with +as much interest as they do Macaulay's or Prescott's elegant octavos in +the reign of her successor, Victoria. Shakespeare drew again and again +upon the former for the material of his historical plays; and in writing +"Henry VIII.," he adopted often the very language of the Chronicler. The +well-known description of Wolsey, which he puts into the mouth of Queen +Katherine,-- + + "He was a man + Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking + Himself with princes; one that by suggestion + Tith'd all the kingdom: Simony was fair play: + His own opinion was his law: I' the presence + He would say untruths; and be ever double, + Both in his words and meaning; He was never, + But where he meant to ruin, pitiful: + His promises were, as he then was, mighty; + But his performance, as he is now, nothing: + Of his own body he was ill, and gave + The clergy ill example,"-- + +is little more than the following paragraph from Holinshed put into +verse:-- + +"This cardinal! (as you may perceive in this storie) was of a great +stomach, for he compted himselfe equall with princes, and by craftie +suggestion gat into his hands innumerable treasure: he forced little +on simonie, [i.e., regarded it as of little consequence,] and was not +pittifull, and stood affectionate in his owne opinion: in open presence +he would lie and saie untruth, and was double both in speach and +meaning: he would promise much and performe little: he was vicious of +his bodie, and gave the clergie evill example."--Ed. 1587, vol. iii. p. +622. + +Turning back from the page on which the Chronicler comments upon the +life of the dead prime-minister, to that on which he records his fall, +we find these passages:-- + +"In the meane time, the king, being informed that all those things that +the cardinall had doone by his _power legatine within this realme_ were +in the case of the _premunire_ and provision, caused his attornie, +Christopher Hales, to sue out a writ of premunire against him. ...After +this in the king's bench his matter for the premunire being called upon, +two atturneis which he had authorised by his warrant, signed with his +owne hand, confessed the action, and so had judgement to _forfeit all +his lands, tenements, goods, and cattels, and to be out of the king's +protection_."--Ib. p. 909. + +If the reader will look back at the passage touching the premunire, +quoted above, he will see that these few lines from Raphael Holinshed +are somewhat fatal to an argument in favor of Shakespeare's "legal +acquirements," in so far as it rests in any degree upon the use of terms +or the knowledge displayed in that passage. Shakespeare and Drayton are +here in the same boat, though "not with the same sculls." + +Before we shelve Holinshed,--for the good Raphael's folios are like +Falstaff in size, if not in wit, and, when once laid flat-long, require +levers to set them up on end again,--let us see if he cannot help us to +account for more of the "legalisms" that our Lord Chief Justice and +our barrister have "smelt out" in Shakespeare's historical plays. Mr. +Rushton quotes the following passages from "Richard II.":-- + + "_York_. Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not + Hereford live? + + * * * * * + + Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time + His _charters_ and his _customary rights_; + Let not to-morrow, then, ensue to-day: + Be not thyself; for how art thou a king, + But by fair sequence and succession? + Now, afore God, (God forbid I say true!) + If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights, + Call in the _letters patents_ that he hath + By his _attorneys-general_ to sue + _His livery_, and deny his _offer'd homage_, + You pluck a thousand dangers on your head." + Act ii. Sc. I. + + "_Bol_. I am denied to _sue my livery_ here, + And yet my _letters patents_ give me leave: + My father's _goods are all distrain'd_ and sold; + And these, and all, are all amiss employed. + What would you have me do? I am a subject, + And challenge law: _Attorneys are denied_ me; + And therefore personally I lay my claim + To my _inheritance_ of free descent."--_Ib_. Sc. 3. + +And Lord Campbell, although he passes by these passages in "Richard +II.," quotes, as important, from a speech of Hotspur's in the "First +Part of Henry IV.," the following lines, which, it will be seen, refer +to the same act of oppression on the part of Richard II. towards +Bolingbroke:-- + + "He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, + To _sue his livery_ and beg his bread." + Act iv. Sc. 3. + +But, here again, Shakespeare, although he may have known more law than +Holinshed, or even Hall, who was a barrister, only used the law-terms +that he found in the paragraph which furnished him with the incident +that he dramatized. For, after recording the death of Gaunt, the +Chronicle goes on:-- + +"The death of this duke gave occasion of increasing more hatred in the +people of this realme toward the king; for he seized into his hands all +the rents and reuenues of his lands which ought to have descended vnto +the duke of Hereford by lawfull _inheritance_, in reuoking _his letters +patents_ which he had granted to him before, by virtue whereof he might +make his _attorneis generall_ to _sue liverie_ for him of any manner of +_inheritances_ or possessions that might from thencefoorth fall unto +him, and that his homage _might_ be respited with making reasonable +fine," etc.--HOLINSHED, Ed. 1587, p. 496. + +The only legal phrase, however, in these passages of "Richard II," which +seems to imply very extraordinary legal knowledge, is the one repeated +in "Henry IV.,"--"sue his livery,"--which was the term applied to the +process by which, in the old feudal tenures, wards, whether of the king +or other guardian, on arriving at legal age, could compel a delivery +of their estates to them from their guardians. But hence it became a +metaphorical expression to mean merely the attainment of majority, and +in this sense seems to have been very generally understood and not +uncommonly used. See the following from an author who was no attorney or +attorney's clerk:-- + + "If Cupid + Shoot arrows of that weight, I'll swear devoutly + H'as _sued his livery_ and is no more a boy." + FLETCHER'S _Woman's Prize_, Act ii. Sc. 1. + +And this, from the works of a divine:-- + + "Our little Cupid hath _sued livery_ + And is no more in his minority." + DONNE'S Eclogues, 1613. + +Spenser, too, uses the phrase figuratively in another sense, in the +following passage,--which may be one of those which Chalmers had in +his eye, when, according to Lord Campbell, he "first suggested" that +Shakespeare was once an attorney's clerk:-- + + "She gladly did of that same Babe accept, + As of her owne by _liverey and seisin_; + And having over it a litle wept, + She bore it thence, and ever as her owne it kept." + _Faërie Queene_, B. VI. C. iv. st. 37. + +So, for an instance of the phrase "fee," which Lord Campbell notices as +one of those expressions and allusions which "crop out" in "Hamlet," +"showing the substratum of law in the author's mind,"-- + + "We go to gain a little patch of ground, + That hath in it no profit but the name. + To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; + Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole + A ranker rate, should it be sold _in fee_,"-- + Act iv. Sc. 2. + +and of which Mr. Rushton quotes several instances in its fuller form, +"fee simple,"--we have but to turn back a few stanzas in this same +canto of the "Faërie Queene," to find one in which the term is used with +the completest apprehension of its meaning:-- + + "So is my lord now _seiz'd of_ all the land, + As _in his fee_, with peaceable _estate_, + And quietly doth hold it in his hand, + Ne any dares with him for it debate." + _Ib_. st. 30. + +And in the next canto:-- + + "Of which the greatest part is due to me, + And heaven itself, by heritage _in fee_." + _Ib._ C. vii. st. 15. + +And in the first of these two passages from the "Faërie Queene," we have +two words, "seized" and "estate," intelligently and correctly used +in their purely legal sense, as Shakespeare himself uses them in the +following passages, which our Chief Justice and our barrister have both +passed by, as, indeed, they have passed many others equally worthy of +notice:-- + + "Did forfeit with his life all those his lands + Which he stood _seiz'd of_ to the conqueror." + _Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 1. + + "The terms of our _estate_ may not endure + Hazard so near us," etc.--_Ib_. Act iii. Sc. 3. + +Among the most important passages cited by both our authors is one that +every reader of Shakespeare will recollect, when it is mentioned to +him,--Hamlet's speech over the skull in the grave-digging scene. But +although this speech is remarkable for the number of law-terms used in +it, only one of them seems to evince any recondite knowledge of the law. +This is the word "statutes," in the following sentence:-- + + "This fellow might be in's time a buyer of + land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his + fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries." + Act v. Sc. 1. + +The general reader supposes, we believe, and very naturally, that here +"statutes" means laws, Acts of Parliament concerning real estate. But, +as Mr. Rushton remarks, (Malone having explained the term before him,) +"The statutes referred to by Hamlet are, doubtless, statutes merchant +and statutes staple." And "a statute merchant (so called from the 13th +Edward I., _De mercatoribus_) was a _bond_ acknowledged before one of +the clerks of the statutes merchant, and the mayor, etc., etc. A statute +staple, properly so called, was a _bond of record_, acknowledged before +the mayor of the staple," etc., etc. + +Here we again have a law-term apparently so out of the ken of an +unprofessional writer, that it would seem to favor the Attorney and +Solicitor theory. But let us see if the knowledge which its use implies +was confined to Shakespeare among the dramatists of his time. + +In Fletcher's "Noble Gentleman," a comedy, first performed in 1625, we +find a lady, sorely pushed for ready cash, crying out,-- + + "Take up at any use: give bond, or land, + Or mighty _statutes_, able by their strength + To tie up my Samson, were he now alive." + Act i. Sc. 1. + +And in Middleton's "Family of Love," (where, by the way, the Free-Love +folk of our own day may find their peculiar notions set forth and made +the basis of the action, though the play was printed two hundred +and fifty years ago,) we find a female free-loveyer thus teaching a +mercantile brother of the family, that, although she has a sisterly +disregard for some worldly restraints, she yet keeps an eye on the main +chance:-- + +"Tut, you are master Dryfab, the merchant; your skill is greater in +cony-skins and woolpacks than in gentlemen. His lands be _in statutes_: +you merchants were wont to be merchant staplers; but now gentlemen have +gotten up the trade; for there is not one gentleman amongst twenty but +his lands be engaged in twenty statutes staple." + +Act i. Sc. 3. + +And in the very first speech of the first scene of the same play, the +husband of this virtuous and careful dame says of the same "Gerardine," +(who, as he is poor and a gentleman, it need hardly be said, is about +the only honest man in the piece,)--"His lands be _in statutes_." And +that poor debauchee, Robert Greene, who knew no more of law than he +might have derived from such limited, though authentic information as to +its powers over gentlemen who made debts without the intention of paying +them, as he may have received at frequent unsolicited interviews with a +sergeant or a bum-bailiff, has this passage in his "Quip for an Upstart +Courtier," 1592:-- + +"The mercer he followeth the young upstart gentleman that hath no +government of himself and feedeth his humour to go brave; he shall not +want silks, sattins, velvets to pranke abroad in his pompe; but with +this proviso, that he must bind over his land in a _statute merchant or +staple_; and so at last forfeit all unto the merciless mercer, and leave +himself never a foot of land in England." + +Very profound legal studies, therefore, cannot be predicated of +Shakespeare on the ground of the knowledge which he has shown of this +peculiar kind of statute. + +It is not surprising that both our legal Shakespearean commentators cite +the following passage from "As You Like It" in support of their theory; +for in it the word "extent" is used in a sense so purely technical, that +not one in a thousand of Shakespeare's lay readers now-a-days would +understand it without a note:-- + + _Duke F._ Well, push him out of doors, + And let my officers of such a nature + _Make an extent_ upon his house and lands." + Act iii. Sc. 1. + +"Extent," as Mr. Rushton remarks, is directed to the sheriff to seize +and value lands and goods to the utmost extent; "an _extendi facias_" as +Lord Campbell authoritatively says, "applying to the house and lands +as a _fieri facias_ would apply to goods and chattels, or a _capias ad +satisfaciendum_ to the person." But that John Fletcher knew, as well +as my Lord Chief Justice, or Mr. Barrister Rushton, or even, perhaps, +William Shakespeare, all the woes that followed an extent, the elder +Mr. Weller at least would not have doubted, had he in the course of +his literary leisure fallen upon the following passage in "Wit Without +Money" (1630):-- + + "_Val_ Mark me, widows + Are long _extents_ in law upon men's livings, + Upon their bodies' winding-sheets; they that enjoy 'em + Lie but with dead men's monuments, and beget + Only their own ill epitaphs." + Act ii. Sc. 2. + +George Wilkins, too, the obscure author of "The Miseries of Enforced +Marriage," uses the term with as full an understanding, though not with +so feeling an expression or so scandalous an illustration of it, in the +following passage from the fifth act of that play, which was produced +about 1605 or 1606:-- + +"They are usurers; they come yawning for money; and the sheriff with +them is come to serve an _extent_ upon your land, and then seize your +body by force of execution." + +Another seemingly recondite law-phrase used by Shakespeare, which Lord +Campbell passes entirely by, though Mr. Rushton quotes three instances +of it, is "taken with the manner." This has nothing to do with good +manners or ill manners; but, in the words of the old law-book before +cited,-- + +--"is when a theefe hath stollen and is followed with hue and crie and +taken, having that found about him which he stole;--that is called ye +maynour. And so we commonly use to saye, when wee finde one doing of an +unlawful act, that we tooke him with the maynour or manner." + +_Termes de la Ley_, 1595, fol. 126, _b_. + +Shakespeare, therefore, uses the phrase with perfect understanding, when +he makes Prince Hal say to Bardolph,-- + + "O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen + years ago, and wert _taken with the manner_, + and ever since thou hast blush'd extempore." + 1 _Henry IV_.Act ii, Sc. 4. + +But so Fletcher uses the same phrase, and as correctly, when he makes +Perez say to Estefania, in "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife,"-- + + "How like a sheep-biting rogue, _taken i' the manner_, + And ready for the halter, dost thou look + now!"--Act v. Sc. 4. + +But both Fletcher and Shakespeare, in their use of this phrase, unusual +as it now seems to us, have only exemplified the custom referred to by +our contemporary legal authority,--"And so we _commonly use to saye_, +when wee finde one doing of an unlawfull act, that we tooke him with the +maynour"; though this must doubtless be understood to refer to persons +of a certain degree of education and knowledge of the world. + +It seems, then, that the application of legal phraseology to the +ordinary affairs of life was more common two hundred and fifty years ago +than now; though even now-a-days it is much more generally used in the +rural districts than persons who have not lived in them would suppose. +There law shares with agriculture the function of providing those +phrases of common conversation which, used figuratively at first, and +often with poetic feeling, soon pass into mere thought-saving formulas +of speech, and which in large cities are chiefly drawn from trade +and politics. And if in the use of the law-terms upon which we have +remarked, which are the more especially technical and remote from +the language of unprofessional life among all those which occur in +Shakespeare's works, he was not singular, but, as we have seen, +availed himself only of a knowledge which other contemporary poets and +playwrights possessed, how much more easily might we show that those +commoner legal words and phrases, to remarks upon Shakespeare's use of +which both the books before us (and especially Lord Campbell's) are +mainly devoted, "judgment," "fine," "these presents," "testament," +"attorney," "arbitrator," "fees," "bond," "lease," "pleading," "arrest," +"session," "mortgage," "vouchers," "indentures," "assault," "battery," +"dower," "covenant," "distrain," "bail," "non-suit," etc., etc., +etc.,--words which everybody understands,--are scattered through all the +literature of Shakespeare's time, and, indeed, of all time since there +were courts and suits at law! + +Many of the passages which Lord Campbell cites as evidence of +Shakespeare's "legal acquirements" excite only a smile at the +self-delusion of the critic who could regard them for a moment in that +light. For instance, these lines in that most exquisite song in "Measure +for Measure;"--"Take, oh, take those lips away,"-- + + "But my kisses bring again + _Seals_ of love, but _seal'd_ in vain";-- + +and these from "Venus and Adonis,"-- + + "Pure lips, sweet _seals_ in my soft lips imprinted, + What bargains may I make, still to be _sealing_!"-- + +to which Mr. Rushton adds from "Hamlet,"-- + + "A combination and a form, indeed, + Where every god did seem to set his _seal_." + +Act iii. Sc. 4. + + "Now must your conscience my acquittance + _seal_."--Act iv. Sc. 7. + +And because indentures and deeds and covenants are sealed, these +passages must be accepted as part of the evidence that Shakespeare +narrowly escaped being made Lord High Chancellor of England! It requires +all the learning and the logic of a Lord Chief Justice and a London +barrister to establish a connection between such premises and such a +conclusion. And if Shakespeare's lines smell of law, how strong is the +odor of parchment and red tape in these, from Drayton's Fourth Eclogue +(1605): + + "Kindnesse againe with kindnesse was repay'd, + _And with sweet kisses covenants were sealed_." + +We ask pardon of the reader for the production of contemporary evidence, +that, in Shakespeare's day, a knowledge of the significance and binding +nature of a seal was not confined to him among poets; for surely a man +must be both a lawyer and a Shakespearean commentator to forget that the +use of seals is as old as the art of writing, and, perhaps, older, and +that the practice has furnished a figure of speech to poets from the +time when it was written, that out of the whirlwind Job heard, "It is +turned as clay to the _seal_," and probably from a period yet more +remote. + +And is Lord Campbell really in earnest in the following grave and +precisely expressed opinion? + +"In the next scene, [of "Othello,"] Shakespeare gives us a _very +distinct proof_ that he was acquainted with Admiralty law, as well as +with the procedure of Westminster Hall. Describing the feat of the Moor +in carrying off Desdemona against her father's consent, which might +either make or mar his fortune, according as the act might be sanctioned +or nullified, Iago observes,-- + + "'Faith, he to-night hath hoarded a land carack: + If it prove a _lawful prize_, he's made forever'; + +the trope indicating that _there would be a suit in the High Court of +Admiralty to determine the validity of the capture_"!--p. 91. + +"Why did not his Lordship go farther, and decide, that, in the +figurative use of the term, "land carack," Shakespeare gave us very +distinct proof that he was acquainted with maritime life, and especially +with the carrying-trade between Spain and the West Indies? We +respectfully submit to the court the following passage from Middleton +and Rowley's "Changeling,"--first published in 1653, but written many +years before. Jasperino, seeing a lady, calls out,-- + + "Yonder's another vessel: Ile _board_ her: + if she be _lawfall prize, down goes her topsail."_ + Act i. Sig. B. 2. + +And with it we submit the following points, and ask a decision in our +favor. First, That they, the said Middleton and Rowley, have furnished, +in the use of the phrase "lawful prize," in this passage, very distinct +proof that they were acquainted with Admiralty law. Second, That, in +the use of the other phrases, "board," and especially "down goes her +topsail," they have furnished yet stronger evidence that they had been +sailors on board armed vessels, and that the trope indicates, that, had +not the vessel or lady in question lowered her topsail or top-knot, she +would then and there have been put mercilessly to the sword. + +But what shall we think of the acumen and the judgment of a Chief +Justice, a man of letters, and a man of the world, who brings forward +such passages as the following as part of the evidence bearing upon the +question of Shakespeare's legal acquirements?-- + + "Come; fear not you; _good counsellors lack + no clients._" + _Measure for Measure_. Act i. Sc. 2. + + "One that _before the judgement_ carries poor + souls to hell." + _Comedy of Errors_. Act iv. Sc. 2. + + "Well, Time is the old _Justice_ that examines + all such offenders,--and let Time try." + _As You Like It_. Act iv. Sc. 1. + + "And that old common _arbitrator_, Time." + _Troilus and Cressida_. Act iv. Sc. 5. + + "No cock of mine; you crow too like a _craven_." + _Taming of the Shrew_. Act ii. Sc. 1. + + "Bestial oblivion or some _craven_ scruple." + _Hamlet_. Act iv. Sc. 4. + +By which last line, according to Lord Campbell, (p. 55,) "Shakespeare +shows that he was acquainted with _the law for regulating 'trials by +battle_'"! + +But to proceed with the passages quoted in evidence:-- + + "Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the + skin of an innocent lamb should be made + _parchment_? that parchment, being _scribbled + o'er_, should undo a man? Some say, the bee + stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's _wax_; for I did + but _seal_ once to a thing, and I was never mine + own man since."--2 _Henry VI_. Act vi. Sc. 2. + +Upon citing which, his Lordship exclaims,-- + +"Surely Shakespeare must have been employed to write _deeds_ on +_parchment_ in _courthand_, and to apply the _wax_ to them in the form +of _seals_. One does not understand how he should, on any other theory +of his bringing-up, have been acquainted _with these details_"! + +One does not; but we submit to the court, that, if two were to lay their +heads together after the manner of Sydney Smith's vestrymen, they might +bring it about. + +In aid of his Lordship's further studies, we make the following +suggestion. He doubtless knows that one of the earliest among our small +stock of traditions about Shakespeare is that recorded by Aubrey as +being derived from Stratford authority, that his father was a butcher, +and that "when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he +kill'd a calfe, he wold do it in a high style, and make a speech." +When his Lordship considers this old tradition in connection with the +following passage in one of Shakespeare's earliest plays,-- + + "Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh, + And sees fast by a butcher with an axe, + But will suspect 'twas he that made the + slaughter,"-- + +2 _Henry VI._ Act iii. Sc. 2. + +how can he resist the conclusion, that, although the divine Williams may +not have run with "Forty," it is highly probable that he did kill +for Keyser? Let his Lordship also remember that other old tradition, +mentioned by Rowe, that John Shakespeare was "a considerable dealer +in wool," and that William, upon leaving school, "seems to have given +entirely into that way of living which his father proposed to him"; and +remember, also, this passage from another of Shakespeare's earliest +plays:-- + + "He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, + too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may + call it...He draweth out the _thread of + his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument._" + --_Love's Labor's Lost_. Act v. Sc. 1. + +Is there not a goodly part of the wool-stapler's craft, as well as of +the art of rhetoric, compressed into that one sentence by the hydraulic +power of Shakespeare's genius? Does it not show that he was initiated in +the mysteries of long and short staple before he wrote this, perhaps, +his earliest play? But look again at the following passage, also written +when his memory of his boyish days was freshest, and see the evidence +that _both_ these traditions were well founded:-- + + "So, first, the harmless sheep doth yield _his fleece;_ + And, next, _his throat unto the butcher's knife."_ + +Could these lines have been written by a man who had not been both a +considerable dealer in wool, and a butcher who killed a calf in high +style and made a speech? Who can have a doubt about this matter, when he +appreciates rightly the following passage in "Hamlet," (Act v. Sc. 2,) +and is penetrated with the wisdom of two wise commentators upon it?-- + + 'Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, + When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us + There's a divinity that shapes our ends, + Rough-hew them how we will.' + +Dr. Farmer informs me that these words are merely technical. A wool-man, +butcher, and dealer in _skewers_ lately observed to him that his nephew +(an idle lad) could only _assist_ him in making them;--he could _rough +hew_ them, but I was obliged to shape their ends! To shape the ends of +wool-skewers, i.e., to _point_ them, requires a degree of skill; any one +can _rough-hew_ them. Whoever recollects the profession of Shakespeare's +father will admit that his son might be no stranger to such terms. "I have +frequently seen packages of wool pinn'd up with skewers."--STEEVENS. + +Lucky wool-man, butcher, and dealer in skewers! to furnish at once a +comment upon the great philosophical tragedy and a proof that its author +and you were both of a trade! Fortunate Farmer, to have heard the story! +and most sagacious Steevens, to have penetrated its hidden meaning, +recollecting felicitously that you had seen packages of wool pinn'd up +with skewers! But, O wisest, highest-and-deepest-minded Shakespeare, to +have remembered, as you were propounding, Hamlet-wise, one of the great +unsolvable mysteries of life, the skewers that you, being an idle lad, +could but rough-hew, leaving to your careful father the skill-requiring +task to shape their ends!--ends without which they could not have bound +together the packages of wool with which you loaded the carts that +backed up to the door in Henley Street, or have penetrated the veal +of the calves that you killed in such a high style and with so much +eloquence, and which loaded the tray that you daily bore on your +shoulder to the kitchen-door of New Place, yet unsuspecting that you +were to become its master! + +Yet we would not too strongly insist upon this evidence, that +Shakespeare in his boyhood served both as a butcher's and a +wool-stapler's apprentice; for we venture to think that we have +discovered evidence in his works that their author was a tailor. For, in +the first place, the word "tailor" occurs no less than thirty-five times +in his plays. [The reader is to suppose that we are able to record this +fact by an intimate acquaintance with every line that Shakespeare wrote, +and by a prodigious effort of memory, and not by reference to Mrs. +Clark's Concordance.] "Measures" occurs nearly thrice as often; "shears" +is found no less than six times; "thimble," three times; "goose," no +less than twenty-seven times!--and when we find, that, in all his +thirty-seven plays, the word "cabbage" occurs but once, and then with +the deliberate explanation that it means "worts" and is "good cabbage," +may we not regard such reticence upon this tender point as a touching +confirmation of the truth of our theory? See, too, the comparison which +Shakespeare uses, when he desires to express the service to which +his favorite hero, Prince Hal, will put the manners of his wild +companions:-- + + "So, like gross terms, + The Prince will, in the perfectness of time, + Cast off his followers; and their memory + Shall as a _pattern or a measure_ live + By which his Grace must mete the lives of + others." + + 2 _Henry IV._, Act iv. Sc. 4. + +And in writing one of his earliest plays, Shakespeare's mind seems to +have been still so impressed with memories of his former vocation, that +he made the outraged Valentine, as his severest censure of Proteus, +reproach him with being badly dressed:-- + + "Ruffian, let go that rude, uncivil touch! + Thou friend _of an ill fashion!_" + + Act v. Sc. 4. + +Cleopatra, too, who, we may be sure from her conduct, was addicted to +very "low necks," after Antony's death becomes serious, and declares her +intention to have something "after the high Roman fashion." And what but +a reminiscence of the disgust which a tailor of talent has for mending +is it that breaks out in the Barons' defiant message to King John?-- + + "The King hath dispossess'd himself of us; + We will not line his thin bestained cloak." + + _King John_, Act iv. Sc. 3. + +A memory, too, of the profuse adornment with which he had been called +upon to decorate some very tender youth's or miss's fashionable suit +intrudes itself even in his most thoughtful tragedy:-- + + "The canker galls the infants of the Spring + Too oft before their _buttons_ be disclos'd." + + _Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 3. + +In "Macbeth," desiring to pay the highest compliment to Macduff's +judgment and knowledge, he makes Lennox say,-- + + "He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows + _The fits of the season_."--Act iv. Sc. 2. + +Not the last fall or last spring style, be it observed, but that of the +season, which it is most necessary for the fashionable tailor to know. +In writing the first scene of the "Second Part of Henry IV.," his mind +was evidently crossed by the shade of some over-particular dandy, +whose fastidious nicety as to the set of his garments he had failed to +satisfy; for he makes Northumberland compare himself to a man who, + + "_Impatient of his fit_, breaks like a fire + Out of his keeper's arms." + +And yet we must not rely too much even upon evidence so strong and so +cumulative as this. For it would seem as if Shakespeare must have been +a publisher, and have known the anxiety attendant upon the delay of an +author not in high health to complete a work the first part of which has +been put into the printer's hands. Else, how are we to account for his +feeling use of this beautiful metaphor in "Twelfth Night"? + + "Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive, + If you will lead these graces to the grave, + And _leave the world no copy_." + + Act i. Sc. 5. + +But this part of our subject expands before us, and we must stay our +hand. We merely offer these hints as our modest contribution to the +attempts to decide from phrases used in Shakespeare's works what were +his avocations before he became a playwright, and return to Lord +Campbell and Mr. Rushton. + +When Malone, in 1790, broached his theory, that Shakespeare had been an +attorney's clerk, he cited in support of it twenty-four passages. Mr. +Rushton's pamphlet brings forward ninety-five, more or less; Lord +Campbell's book, one hundred and sixty. But, from what he has seen of +it, the reader will not be surprised at learning that a large number of +the passages cited by his Lordship must be thrown aside, as having no +bearing whatever on the question of Shakespeare's legal acquirements. +They evince no more legal knowledge, no greater familiarity with +legal phraseology, than is apparent in the ordinary conversation of +intelligent people generally, even at this day. Mr. Rushton, more +systematic than his Lordship, has been also more careful; and from the +pages of both we suppose that there might be selected a round hundred +of phrases which could be fairly considered as having been used by +Shakespeare with a consciousness of their original technicality and of +their legal purport. This is not quite in the proportion of three to +each of his thirty-seven plays; and if we reckon his sonnets and poems +according to their lines, (and both Mr. Rushton and Lord Campbell cite +from them,) the proportion falls to considerably less than three. But +Malone's twenty-four instances are of nearly as much value in the +consideration of the question as Lord Campbell's and Mr. Rushton's +hundred; for the latter gentlemen have added little to the strength, +though considerably to the number, of the array on the affirmative side +of the point in dispute; and we have seen, that, of the law-phrases +cited by them from Shakespeare's pages, the most recondite, as well +as the most common and simple, are to be found in the works of the +Chroniclers, whose very language Shakespeare used, and in those of the +playwrights his contemporaries. + +Our new advocates of the old cause, however, quote two passages which, +from the freedom with which law-phrases are scattered through them, it +is worth while to reproduce here. The first is the well-known speech in +the grave-digging scene of "Hamlet":-- + +"_Ham_. There's another: Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? +Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his _cases_, his _tenures_, and +his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave, now, to knock him about +the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his _action of +battery_? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, +with his _statutes_, his _recognizances_, his _fines_, his _double +vouchers_, his _recoveries_: Is this the _fine_ of his _fines_, and the +_recovery_ of his _recoveries_, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? +will his _vouchers_ vouch him no more of his _purchases_, and _double +ones_, too, than the length and breadth of a pair of _indentures_? The +very _conveyances_ of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must +the _inheritor_ himself have no more? ha?"--Act v. Sc. 1. + +The second is the following Sonnet, (No. 46,) not only the language, +but the very fundamental conceit of which, it will be seen, is purely +legal:-- + + "Mine Eye and Heart are at a mortal war + How to divide the conquest of thy sight; + Mine Eye my Heart thy picture's sight would _bar_, + My Heart mine Eye the freedom of that right. + My Heart doth _plead_ that thou in him dost lie + (A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes); + But the _defendant_ doth that _plea_ deny, + And says in him thy fair appearance lies. + To 'cide this title is _impanelled_ + A _quest_ of thoughts, all tenants to the Heart, + And by their _verdict_ is determined + The clear Eye's _moiety_, and the dear Heart's part; + As thus: Mine Eye's due is thine outward part, + And my Heart's right, thine inward love of heart." + +It would seem, indeed, as if passages like these must be received as +evidence that Shakespeare had more familiarity with legal phraseology, +if not a greater knowledge of it, than could have been acquired except +by habitual use in the course of professional occupation. But let us see +if he is peculiar even in this crowding of many law-terms into a single +brief passage. We turn to the very play open at our hand, from which +we have quoted before, (and which, by the way, we have not selected as +exceptional in this regard,) "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage," and +find the following passage in Act V.:-- + + "_Doctor_. Now, Sir, from this your _oath and bond,_ + Faith's pledge and _seal_ of conscience, you have run, + Broken all _contracts_, and _forfeiture_ + Justice hath now in _suit_ against your soul: + Angels are made the _jurors_, who are _witnesses_ + Unto the _oath_ you took; and God himself, + Maker of marriage, He that hath _seal'd the deed_, + As a firm _lease_ unto you during life, + _Sits now as Judge_ of your transgression: + The world _informs against you_ with this voice.-- + If such sins reign, what mortals can rejoice? + _Scarborow_. What then ensues to me? + _Doctor_. A heavy _doom_, whose _execution's_ + Now _served upon_ your conscience," etc. + p. 91, D.O.P., Ed. 1825. + +Indeed, the hunting of a metaphor or a conceit into the ground is a +fault characteristic of Elizabethan literature, and one from which +Shakespeare's boldness, no less than his genius, was required to save +him; and we have seen already how common was the figurative use of +law-phrases among the poets and dramatists of his period. Hamlet's +speech and the Forty-sixth Sonnet cannot, therefore, be accepted as +evidence of his attorneyship, except in so far as they and like passages +may be regarded as giving some support to the opinion that Shakespeare +was but one of many in his time who abandoned law for letters. + +For we object not so much to the conclusion at which Lord Campbell +arrives as to his mode of arriving at it. His method of investigation, +which is no method at all, but the mere noting of passages in the order +in which he found them in looking through Shakespeare's works, is the +rudest and least intelligent that could have been adopted; and his +inference, that, because Shakespeare makes Jack Cade lament that the +skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment, and affirm that it is +not the bee, but the bee's wax, that stings, therefore he must have been +employed to write deeds on parchment and append wax to them in the form +of seals, is a fair specimen both of the acuteness and the logic which +his Lordship displays in this his latest effort to unite Law and +Literature. + +There are, however, very considerable grounds for the opinion that +Shakespeare had more than a layman's acquaintance with the technical +language of the law. For it must be admitted, in the first place, that +he exhibits a remarkable acquaintance with it. That other playwrights +and poets of his day manifest a like familiarity (as we have seen +they do) precludes us, indeed, from regarding the mere occurrence of +law-terms in his works as indications of early training proper to him +alone. But they who, on the strength of the not unfrequent occurrence +of legal phrases in many of the plays and much of the poetry of the +Elizabethan period, would maintain that Shakespeare's use of them +furnishes no basis for the opinion that he acquired his knowledge of +them professionally, must also assume and support the position, that, in +the case of contemporary dramatists and poets, this use of the technical +language of conveyancing and pleading also indicates no more than an +ordinary acquaintance with it, and that, in comparing his works with +theirs in this regard, we may assume the latter to have been produced by +men who had no professional acquaintance with the law; because, if +they had such professional acquaintance with legal phraseology, its +appearance in their works as well as in Shakespeare's would manifestly +strengthen rather than invalidate the conclusion, that his familiarity +with it was acquired as they acquired theirs. This position is, to +say the least, a very difficult one to maintain, and one which any +considerate student of Elizabethan literature would be very unwilling +to assume. For our ignorance of the personal life of Shakespeare is +remarkable only because he was Shakespeare; and we know little, if any, +more about the greater number of his literary contemporaries than we do +about him. It cannot even be safely presumed, for instance, that George +Wilkins, the author of the law-besprinkled passage just above quoted +from the "Miseries of Enforced Marriage," was not a practising attorney +or barrister before or even at the time when he wrote that play. On the +contrary, it is extremely probable, nay, quite certain, that he and many +other dramatic authors of the period when he flourished, (1600-1620,) +and of the whole Elizabethan period, (1575-1625,) were nestling +attorneys or barristers before they became full-fledged dramatists. + +We are not without contemporary evidence upon this point. Thomas Nash, +friend to Robert Greene, a playwright, poet, and novelist, whose works +were in vogue just before Shakespeare wrote, in an "Epistle to the +Gentlemen Students of the Two Universities," with which, according to +the fashion of the time, he introduced Greene's "Menaphon" (1587)[D] to +the reader, has the following paragraph:-- + +[Footnote D: Lord Campbell gives the date 1589; but see Mr. Dyce's +indisputable authority. Greene's Works. Vol. I., pp. xxxvii. and ciii.] + +"I will turn my back to my first text of studies of delight, and talk +a little in friendship with a few of our trivial translators. It is a +common practice, now-a-days, amongst a sort of shifting companions +that run through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of +Noverint, whereto they were born, and busy themselves with the endeavors +of art, that could scarcely Latinize their neck-verse, if they should +have need; yet English Seneca, read by candlelight, yields many good +sentences, as, _Blood is a beggar_, and so forth; and if you intreat +him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets,--I +should say, handfuls of tragical speeches. But, oh grief! _Tempus edax +rerum_,--what is that will last always? The sea, exhaled by drops, +will, in continuance, be dry; and Seneca, let blood line by line and +page by page, at length must needs die to our stage." + +It has most unaccountably been assumed that this passage refers to +Shakespeare;[E] and it is even so cited by Lord Campbell himself,--to +our surprise, when we remember his professional training and experience +as a sifter of evidence. But, as far as regards its reference to a +leaving of law for literature, it is clearly of general application. +Nash says, "It is a _common practice_, now-a-days, amongst a sort of +shifting companions, etc., to leave the trade of _Noverint_, whereto +_they_ were born, and busy _themselves,"_ etc. By the trade of +_Noverint_ he meant that of an attorney. The term was not uncommonly +applied to members of that profession, because of the phrase, _Noverint +universi per presentes_, (Know all men by these presents,) with which +deeds, bonds, and many other legal instruments then began. And Nash's +testimony accords with what we know of the social and literary history +of the age. There was no regular army in Elizabeth's time; and the +younger sons of gentlemen and well-to-do yeomen, who received from their +fathers little more than an education and a very small allowance, and +who did not become either military or maritime adventurers, opening +their oyster with a sword, entered the Church or the profession of the +law in its higher or lower grade; and as at that period there was much +more demand for lawyers and much less for clergymen than there is now, +and the Church had ceased to be a stepping-stone to political power and +patronage, while the law had become more than ever before an avenue to +fame, to fortune, and to rank, by far the greater number of these young +gentlemen aspired to the woolsack. But then, as now, the early years of +professional life were seasons of sharp trial and bitter disappointment. +Necessity pressed sorely or pleasure wooed resistlessly, and the slender +purse wasted rapidly away while the young attorney or barrister awaited +the employment that did not come. He knew then, as now he knows, "the +rich man's scorn, the proud man's contumely"; nay, he felt, as now he +sometimes feels, the tooth of hunger gnawing through the principles and +firm resolves that partition a life of honor and self-respect from one +darkened by conscious loss of rectitude, if not by open shame. Happy,-- +yet, perhaps, oh, unhappy,--he who now in such a strait can wield the +pen of a ready writer!--for the press, perchance, may afford him a +support which, though temporary and precarious, will hold him up until +he can stand upon more stable ground. But in the reigns of Good Queen +Bess and Gentle Jamie there was no press. There was, however, an +incessant demand for new plays. Play-going was the chief intellectual +recreation of that day for all classes, high and low. It filled the +place of our newspapers, our books, our lectures, our concerts, our +picture-seeing, and, in a great measure, of our social gatherings and +amusements, of whatever nature. It is hardly extravagant to say, that +there were then more new plays produced in London in a month than +there are now in Great Britain and the United States in a year. To +play-writing, then, the needy young attorney or barrister possessed +of literary talent turned his eyes at that day, as he does now to +journalism; and it is almost beyond a doubt, that, of the multitudinous +plays of that period which have survived and the thousands which have +perished, a large proportion were produced by the younger sons of +country gentlemen, who, after taking their degrees at Oxford or +Cambridge, or breaking away from those classic bounds ungraduated, +entered the Inns of Court, according to the custom of their day and +their condition. They wrote plays in Latin, and even in English, for +themselves to act; and they got the professional players to act popular +plays for them on festal days. What more natural, then, than that those +who had the ability and the need should seek to recruit their slender +means by supplying the constant demand for new plays? and how inevitable +that some of them, having been successful in their dramatic efforts, +should give themselves up to play-writing! As do the great, so will the +small. What the Inns-of-Court man did, the attorney would try to do. The +players, though they loved the patronage of a lord, were very democratic +in the matter of play-making. If a play filled the house, they did not +trouble themselves about the social or professional rank of him who +wrote it; and thus came about that "common practice" for "shifting +companions" to "leave the trade of Noverint" and "busy themselves with +the endeavors of art"; and hence it is that the plays of the period of +which we are writing have, in many passages, so strong a tinge of law. + +[Footnote E: It seems clear, on the contrary, that Nash's object was to +sneer at Jasper Heywood, Alexander Nevil, John Studley, Thomas Nuce, and +Thomas Newton,--one or more of them,--whose _Seneca, his Tenne Tragedies +translated into Englysh_, was published in 1581. It is a very +grievous performance; and Shakespeare, who had read it thoroughly, made +sport of it in _A Midsummer Night's Dream._] + +One reason for the regarding of Nash's sneer as especially directed +against Shakespeare is the occurrence in it of the phrase, "whole +_Hamlets_,--I should say, handfuls of tragical speeches," which has +been looked upon as an allusion to Shakespeare's great tragedy. But the +earliest edition of "Hamlet" known was published in 1603, and even this +is an imperfect and surreptitiously obtained copy of an early sketch of +the play. That Shakespeare had written this tragedy in 1586, when he was +but twenty-two years old, is improbable to the verge of impossibility; +and Nash's allusion, if, indeed, he meant a punning sneer at a play, +(which is not certain.) was, doubtless, to an old lost version of the +Danish tragedy upon which Shakespeare built his "Hamlet." + +We have, then, direct contemporary testimony, that, at the period of +Shakespeare's entrance upon London life, it was a common practice for +those lawyers whom want of success or an unstable disposition impelled +to a change in their avocation to devote themselves to writing or +translating plays; and this statement is not only sustained by all that +we know of the customs of the time to which it refers, but is strongly +confirmed by the notably frequent occurrence of legal phrases in the +dramatic literature of that age. + +But the question, then, arises,--and it is one which, under the +circumstances, must be answered,--To what must we attribute the fact, +that, of all the plays that have come down to us, written between 1580 +and 1620, Shakespeare's are most noteworthy in this respect? For it is +true, that, among all the dramatic writers of that period, whose +works have survived, not one uses the phraseology of the law with the +frequency, the freedom, and the correctness of Shakespeare. Beaumont, +for instance, was a younger son of a Judge of the Common Pleas, and, +following the common routine that we have noticed, after leaving the +University, became an Inns-of-Court man, but soon abandoned law for +literature; his friend and associate, Fletcher, was the son of a bishop, +but had an uncle who was a lawyer and a diplomatist, and is himself +believed to have been of the Inns of Court. Rich gleanings of law-terms +might, therefore, be expected from the plays written by these +dramatists; yet it may safely be asserted, that from Shakespeare's +thirty-seven plays at least twice as many passages marked by legal +phraseology might be produced, as from the fifty-four written by +Beaumont and Fletcher, together or alone! a fact the great significance +of which is heightened by another,--that it is only the vocabulary of +the law to the use of which Shakespeare exhibits this proclivity. He +avails himself, it is true, of the peculiar language of the physician, +the divine, the husbandman, the soldier, and the sailor; but he uses +these only on very rare occasions, by way of description, comparison, +or illustration, when something in the scene or the subject in hand +suggests them. But the technical language of the law runs from his +pen as part of his vocabulary and parcel of his thought. The word +"purchase," for instance, which in ordinary use means to acquire by +giving value, in law applies to all legal modes of obtaining property, +except inheritance of descent. And the word in this peculiar and most +technical sense occurs five times in Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, +but only in a single passage (if our memory and Mr. Dyce's notes serve +us) in the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. Equal, or greater, +is the comparative frequency with which Shakespeare uses other legal +phrases; and much wider is the disparity, in this regard, between him +and the other dramatic writers of his whole period,--Marlowe, Greene, +Peele, Kyd, Lilly, Chapman, Jonson, Middleton, Marston, Ford, Webster, +Massinger, and the undistinguished crowd. + +These facts dispose in great measure of the plausible suggestion, +which has been made,--that, as the courts of law in Shakespeare's time +occupied public attention much more than they do at present, they having +then regulated "the season," as the sittings of Parliament (not then +frequent or stated) do now,[F] they would naturally be frequented by the +restless, inquiring spirits of the time, Shakespeare among them, and +that there he and his fellow-dramatists picked up the law-phrases which +they wove into their plays and poems. But if this view of the case were +the correct one, we should not find that disparity in the use of legal +phrases which we have just remarked. Shakespeare's genius would manifest +itself in the superior effect with which he used knowledge acquired in +this manner; but his _genius_ would not have led him to choose the +dry and affected phraseology of the law as the vehicle of his flowing +thought, and to use it so much oftener than any other of the numerous +dramatists of his time, to all of whom the courts were as open as to +him. And the suggestion which we are now considering fails in two other +most important respects. For we do not find either that Shakespeare's +use of legal phrases increased with his opportunities of frequenting +the courts of law, or that the law-phrases, his use of which is most +noteworthy and of most importance in the consideration of the question +before us, are those which he would have heard oftenest in the course of +the ordinary business of the courts in his day. To look at the latter +point first,--the law-terms used by Shakespeare are generally not those +which he would have heard in ordinary trials at _nisi prius_ or before +the King's Bench, but such as refer to the tenure or transfer of real +property, "fine and recovery," "statutes," "purchase," "indenture," +"tenure," "double voucher," "fee simple," "fee farm," "remainder," +"reversion," "dower," "forfeiture," etc., etc.; and it is important to +remember that suits about the title to real estate are very much rarer +in England than they are with us, and in England were very much rarer in +Shakespeare's time than they are now. Here we buy and sell houses and +lands almost as we trade in corn and cotton; but in England the transfer +of the title of a piece of real estate of any consequence is a serious +and comparatively rare occurrence, that makes great work for attorneys +and conveyancing counsel; and two hundred and fifty years ago the +facilities in this respect were very much less than they are now. +Shakespeare could hardly have picked up his conveyancer's jargon by +hanging round the courts of law; and we find,--to return to the first +objection,--that, in his early plays, written just after he arrived in +London, he uses this peculiar phraseology just as freely and with +as exact a knowledge as he displayed in after years, when (on the +supposition in question) he must have become much more familiar with it. +Shakespeare's earliest work that has reached us is, doubtless, to be +found in "King Henry the Sixth," "The Comedy of Errors," and "Love's +Labor's Lost." In the very earliest form of Part II. of the first-named +play, ("The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two Houses of York +and Lancaster," to which Shakespeare was doubtless a contributor, the +part of Cade being among his contributions,) we find him making Cade +declare, (Act iv. Sc. 7,) "Men shall hold of me _in capite_; and we +charge and command that wives be _as free as heart can wish or tongue +can tell_." Both the phrases that we have Italicized express tenures, +and very uncommon tenures of land. In the "Comedy of Errors," when +Dromio of Syracuse says, "There's no time for a man to recover his hair +that grows bald by nature," [Hear, O Rowland! and give ear, O Phalon!] +his master replies, "May he not do it by _fine and recovery?_" Fine and +recovery was a process by which, through a fictitious suit, a transfer +was made of the title in an entailed estate. In "Love's Labor's Lost," +almost without a doubt the first comedy that Shakespeare wrote, on +Boyet's offering to kiss Maria, (Act ii. Sc. 1,) she declines the +salute, and says, "My lips are no common, though several they be." This +passage--an important one for his purpose--Lord Campbell has passed by, +as he has some others of nearly equal consequence. Maria's allusion is +plainly to tenancy in common by several (i.e., divided, distinct) title. +(See Coke upon Littleton, Lib. iii. Cap. iv. Sec. 292.) She means, that +her lips are several as being two, and (as she says in the next line) +as belonging in common to her fortunes and herself,--yet they were no +common pasture. + +[Footnote F: Falstaff, for instance, speaks of "the wearing out of six +fashions, which is four terms or two actions."] + +Here, then, is Shakespeare using the technical language of conveyancers +in his earliest works, and before he had had much opportunity to +haunt the courts of law in London, even could he have made such legal +acquirements in those schools. We find, too, that he uses law-terms in +general with frequency notably greater--in an excess of three or four +to one--than any of the other playwrights of his day, when so many +playwrights were or had been Noverints or of the Inns of Court; that +this excess is not observable with regard to his use of the vocabulary +peculiar to any other occupation or profession, even that of the actor, +which we know that he practised for many years; but that, on the +contrary, although he uses other technical language correctly, he avails +himself of that of any single art of occupation with great rarity, +and only upon special occasions. Lord Campbell remarks, as to the +correctness with which Shakespeare uses legal phrases,--and this is a +point upon which his Lordship speaks with authority,--that he is amazed +"by the accuracy and propriety with which they are introduced," and in +another place adds, that Shakespeare "uniformly lays down good law"; and +it is not necessary to be a Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench to know +that his Lordship is fully justified in assuring us that "there is +nothing [of the kind (?)] so dangerous as for one not of the craft to +tamper with our free-masonry." Remembering, then, that genius, though +it reveals general and even particular truths, and facilitates all +acquirement, does not impart facts or the knowledge of technical terms, +in what manner can we answer or set aside the question that we have +partly stated before,--How did it happen, that, in an age when it was +a common practice for young attorneys and barristers to leave their +profession and take to writing plays and poems, one playwright left upon +his works a stronger, clearer, sharper legal stamp than we can detect +upon those of any other, and that he used the very peculiar and, to a +layman, incomprehensible language of the law of real property, as it +then existed, in his very earliest plays, written soon after he, a raw, +rustic youth, bred in a retired village, arrived in London? How did +it happen that this playwright fell into the use of that technical +phraseology, the proper employment of which, more than any other, +demands special training, and that he availed himself of it with +apparent unconsciousness, not only so much oftener than any of his +contemporaries, but with such exact knowledge, that one who has passed +a long life in the professional employment of it, speaking as it +were officially from the eminent position which he has won,--Lord +Campbell,--declares, that, + +"While novelists and dramatists are constantly making mistakes as to the +law of marriage, of wills, and of inheritance, to Shakespeare's law, +lavishly as he propounds it, there can neither be demurrer, nor bill of +exceptions, nor writ of error"? + +Must we believe, that the man, who, among all the lawyer-playwrights of +his day, showed,--not, be it noticed, (as we are at present regarding +his works,) the profoundest knowledge of the great principles of law and +equity, although he did that too,--but the most complete mastery of +the technical phrases, the jargon, of the law and of its most abstruse +branch,--that relating to real estate,--and who used it very much the +oftenest of them all, and with an air of as entire unconsciousness as +if it were a part of the language of his daily life, making no mistakes +that can be detected by a learned professional critic,--must we believe +that this man was distinguished among those play-writing lawyers, not +only by his genius, but his _lack_ of particular acquaintance with the +law? Or shall we rather believe that the son of the High Bailiff of +Stratford, whose father was well-to-do in the world, and who was a +somewhat clever lad and ambitious withal, was allowed to commence his +studies for a profession for which his cleverness fitted him and by +which he might reasonably hope to rise at least to moderate wealth and +distinction, and that he continued these studies until his father's +loss of property, aided, perhaps, by some of those acts of youthful +indiscretion which clever lads as well as dull ones sometimes will +commit, threw him upon his own resources,--and that then, having +townsmen, perhaps fellow-students and playfellows, among the actors in +London, and having used his pen, as we may be sure he had, for other +purposes than engrossing and drawing precedents, he, like so many others +of his time, left his trade of Noverint and went up to the metropolis to +busy himself with endeavors of art? One of these conclusions is in the +face of reason, probability, and fact; the other in accordance with them +all. + + * * * * * + +But of how little real importance is it to establish the bare fact, that +Shakespeare was an attorney's clerk before he was an actor! Suppose +it proved, beyond a doubt,--what have we learned? Nothing peculiar to +Shakespeare; but merely what was equally true of thousands of other +young men, his contemporaries, and hundreds of thousands, if not +millions, of those of antecedent and succeeding generations. It has a +naked material relation to the other fact, that he uses legal phrases +oftener than any other dramatist or poet; but with his plastic power +over those grotesque and rugged modes of speech it has nought to do +whatever. That was his inborn mastery. Legal phrases did nothing for +him; but he much for them. Chance cast their uncouth forms around him, +and the golden overflow from the furnace of his glowing thought fell +upon them, glorifying and enshielding them forever. It would have been +the same with the lumber of any other craft; it was the same with that +of many others,--the difference being only of quantity, and not of kind. +How, then, would the certainty that he had been bred to the law help +us to the knowledge of Shakespeare's life, of what he did for himself, +thought for himself, how he joyed, how he suffered, what he was? Would +it help us to know what the Stratford boys thought of him and felt +toward him who was to write "Lear" and "Hamlet," or how the men of +London regarded him who was a-writing them? Not a whit. To prove the +fact would merely satisfy sheer aimless, fruitless curiosity; and it is +a source of some reasonable satisfaction to know that the very +people who would be most interested in the perusal of a biography of +Shakespeare made up of the relation of such facts are they who have +least right to know anything about him. Of the hundreds of thousands +of people who giggled through their senseless hour at the "American +Cousin,"--a play which, in language, in action, in character, presents +no semblance to human life or human creatures, as they are found on any +spot under the canopy, and which seems to have been written on the model +of the Interlude of "Pyramus and Thisbe," "for, in all the play, there +is not one word apt, one player fitted,"--of the people to whom this +play owed its monstrous success, and who, for that very reason, it is +safe to say, think Shakespeare a bore on the stage and off it, a goodly +number would eagerly buy and read a book that told them when he went to +bed and what he had for breakfast, and would pay a ready five-cent +piece for a picture of him as he appeared in the attorney's office, to +preserve as a companion to the equally veritable "portrait of the Hon. +Daniel E. Sickles, as he appeared in prison." Nay, it must be confessed, +that there are some Shakespearean enthusiasts ever dabbling and gabbling +about what they call Shakespeariana, who would give more for the pen +with which he engrossed a deed or wrote "Hamlet," than for the ability +to understand, better than they do or ever can, what he meant by that +mysterious tragedy. Biography has its charms and its uses; but it is not +by what we know of their bare external facts that + + "Lives of great men all remind us + We can make our lives sublime, + And departing leave behind us + Footprints on the sands of time." + +What the readers of Shakespeare, who are worthy to know aught of him, +long to know, would have been the same, had he been bred lawyer, +physician, soldier, or sailor. It is of his real life, not of its mere +accidents, that they crave a knowledge; and of that life, it is to be +feared, they will remain forever ignorant, unless he himself has written +it. + + + + +THE MINISTER'S WOOING. + +[Continued.] + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +We suppose the heroine of a novel, among other privileges and +immunities, has a prescriptive right to her own private boudoir, where, +as a French writer has it, "she appears like a lovely picture in its +frame." + +Well, our little Mary is not without this luxury, and to its sacred +precincts we will give you this morning a ticket of admission. Know, +then, that the garret of this gambrel-roofed cottage had a projecting +window on the seaward side, which opened into an immensely large old +apple-tree, and was a look-out as leafy and secluded as a robin's nest. + +Garrets are delicious places in any case, for people of thoughtful, +imaginative temperament. Who has not loved a garret in the twilight days +of childhood, with its endless stores of quaint, cast-off, suggestive +antiquity,--old worm-eaten chests,--rickety chairs,--boxes and casks +full of odd comminglings, out of which, with tiny, childish hands, +we fished wonderful hoards of fairy treasure? What peep-holes, and +hiding-places, and undiscoverable retreats we made to ourselves,--where +we sat rejoicing in our security, and bidding defiance to the vague, +distant cry which summoned us to school, or to some unsavory every-day +task! How deliciously the rain came pattering on the roof over our head, +or the red twilight streamed in at the window, while we sat snugly +ensconced over the delirious pages of some romance, which careful aunts +had packed away at the bottom of all things, to be sure we should never +read it! If you have anything, beloved friends, which you wish your +Charley or your Susie to be sure and read, pack it mysteriously away at +the bottom of a trunk of stimulating rubbish, in the darkest corner of +your garret;--in that case, if the book be at all readable, one that by +any possible chance can make its way into a young mind, you may be sure +that it will not only be read, but remembered to the longest day they +have to live. + +Mrs. Katy Scudder's garret was not an exception to the general rule. +Those quaint little people who touch with so airy a grace all the lights +and shadows of great beams, bare rafters, and unplastered walls, had not +failed in their work there. Was there not there a grand easy-chair of +stamped-leather, minus two of its hinder legs, which had genealogical +associations through the Wilcoxes with the Vernons and through the +Vernons quite across the water with Old England? and was there not a +dusky picture, in an old tarnished frame, of a woman of whose tragic end +strange stories were whispered,--one of the sufferers in the time when +witches were unceremoniously helped out of the world, instead of being, +as now-a-days, helped to make their fortune in it by table-turning? + +Yes, there were all these things, and many more which we will not stay +to recount, but bring you to the boudoir which Mary has constructed for +herself around the dormer-window which looks into the whispering old +apple-tree. + +The inclosure was formed by blankets and bed-spreads, which, by reason +of their antiquity, had been pensioned off to an undisturbed old age in +the garret,--not _common_ blankets or bed-spreads, either,--bought, +as you buy yours, out of a shop,--spun or woven by machinery, without +individuality or history. Every one of these curtains had its story. The +one on the right, nearest the window, and already falling into holes, +is a Chinese linen, and even now displays unfaded, quaint patterns of +sleepy-looking Chinamen, in conical hats, standing on the leaves of most +singular herbage, and with hands forever raised in act to strike bells, +which never are struck and never will be till the end of time. These, +Mrs. Katy Scudder had often instructed Mary, were brought from the +Indies by her great-great-grandfather, and were her grandmother's +wedding-curtains,--the grandmother who had blue eyes like hers and was +just about her height. + +The next spread was spun and woven by Mrs. Katy's beloved Aunt +Eunice,--a mythical personage, of whom Mary gathered vague accounts that +she was disappointed in love, and that this very article was part of a +bridal outfit, prepared in vain, against the return of one from sea, who +never came back,--and she heard of how she sat wearily and patiently at +her work, this poor Aunt Eunice, month after month, starting every time +she heard the gate shut, every time she heard the tramp of a horse's +hoof, every time she heard the news of a sail in sight,--her color, +meanwhile, fading and fading as life and hope bled away at an inward +wound,--till at last she found comfort and reunion beyond the veil. + +Next to this was a bed-quilt pieced in tiny blocks, none of them bigger +than a sixpence, containing, as Mrs. Katy said, pieces of the gowns of +all her grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and female relatives for years +back,--and mated to it was one of the blankets which had served Mrs. +Scudder's uncle in his bivouac at Valley Forge, when the American +soldiers went on the snows with bleeding feet, and had scarce anything +for daily bread except a morning message of patriotism and hope from +George Washington. + +Such were the memories woven into the tapestry of our little boudoir. +Within, fronting the window, stands the large spinning-wheel, one end +adorned with a snowy pile of fleecy rolls,--and beside it, a reel and a +basket of skeins of yarn,--and open, with its face down on the beam of +the wheel, lay always a book, with which the intervals of work were +beguiled. + +The dusky picture of which we have spoken hung against the rough wall in +one place, and in another appeared an old engraved head of one of the +Madonnas of Leonardo da Vinci, a picture which to Mary had a mysterious +interest, from the fact of its having been cast on shore after a furious +storm, and found like a waif lying in the sea-weed; and Mrs. Marvyn, who +had deciphered the signature, had not ceased exploring till she found +for her, in an Encyclopaedia, a life of that wonderful man, whose +greatness enlarges our ideas of what is possible to humanity,--and +Mary, pondering thereon, felt the Sea-worn picture as a constant vague +inspiration. + +Here our heroine spun for hours and hours,--with intervals, when, +crouched on a low seat in the window, she pored over her book, and then, +returning again to her work, thought of what she had read to the lulling +burr of the sounding wheel. + +By chance a robin had built its nest so that from her retreat she could +see the five little blue eggs, whenever the patient brooding mother +left them for a moment uncovered. And sometimes, as she sat in dreamy +reverie, resting her small, round arms on the window-sill, she fancied +that the little feathered watcher gave her familiar nods and winks of a +confidential nature,--cocking the small head first to one side and then +to the other, to get a better view of her gentle human neighbor. + +I dare say it seems to you, reader, that we have travelled, in our +story, over a long space of time, because we have talked so much and +introduced so many personages and reflections; but, in fact, it is only +Wednesday week since James sailed, and the eggs which were brooded when +he went are still unhatched in the nest, and the apple-tree has changed +only in having now a majority of white blossoms over the pink buds. + +This one week has been a critical one to our Mary;--in it, she has made +the great discovery, that she loves; and she has made her first step +into the gay world; and now she comes back to her retirement to think +the whole over by herself. It seems a dream to her, that she who sits +there now reeling yarn in her stuff petticoat and white short-gown is +the same who took the arm of Colonel Burr amid the blaze of wax-lights +and the sweep of silks and rustle of plumes. She wonders dreamily as +she remembers the dark, lovely face of the foreign Madame, so brilliant +under its powdered hair and flashing gems,--the sweet, foreign accents +of the voice,--the tiny, jewelled fan, with its glancing pictures and +sparkling tassels, whence exhaled vague and floating perfumes; then she +hears again that manly voice, softened to tones so seductive, and sees +those fine eyes with the tears in them, and wonders within herself that +_he_ could have kissed her hand with such veneration, as if she had been +a throned queen. + +But here the sound of busy, pattering footsteps is heard on the old, +creaking staircase, and soon the bows of Miss Prissy's bonnet part the +folds of the boudoir drapery, and her merry, May-day face looks in. + +"Well, really, Mary, how do you do, to be sure? You wonder to see me, +don't you? but I thought I must just run in, a minute, on my way up to +Miss Marvyn's. I promised her at least a half-a-day, though I didn't see +how I was to spare it,--for I tell Miss Wilcox I just run and run till +it does seem as if my feet would drop off; but I thought I must just +step in to say, that I, for my part, _do admire_ the Doctor more than +ever, and I was telling your mother we mus'n't mind too much what people +say. I 'most made Miss Wilcox angry, standing up for him; but I put it +right to her, and says I, 'Miss Wilcox, you know folks _must_ speak +what's on their mind,--in particular, ministers must; and you know, Miss +Wilcox,' I says, 'that the Doctor _is_ a good man, and lives up to his +teaching, if anybody in this world does, and gives away every dollar he +can lay hands on to those poor negroes, and works over 'em and teaches +'em as if they were his brothers'; and says I, 'Miss Wilcox, you know I +don't spare myself, night nor day, trying to please you and do your work +to give satisfaction; but when it comes to my conscience,' says I, 'Miss +Wilcox, you know I always must speak out, and if it was the last word I +had to say on my dying bed, I'd say that I think the Doctor is right.' +Why! what things he told about the slave-ships, and packing those poor +creatures so that they couldn't move nor breathe!--why, I declare, every +time I turned over and stretched in bed, I thought of it;--and says I, +'Miss Wilcox, I do believe that the judgments of God will come down on +us, if something a'n't done, and I shall always stand by the Doctor,' +says I;--and, if you'll believe me, just then I turned round and saw +the General; and the General, he just haw-hawed right out, and says he, +'Good for you, Miss Prissy! that's real grit,' says he, 'and I like you +better for it.'--Laws," added Miss Prissy, reflectively, "I sha'n't lose +by it, for Miss Wilcox knows she never can get anybody to do the work +for her that I will." + +"Do you think," said Mary, "that there are a great many made angry?" + +"Why, bless your heart, child, haven't you heard?--Why, there never was +such a talk in all Newport. Why, you know Mr. Simeon Brown is gone clear +off to Dr. Stiles; and Miss Brown, I was making up her plum-colored +satin o' Monday, and you ought to 'a' heard her talk. But, I tell you, I +fought her. She used to talk to me," said Miss Prissy, sinking her voice +to a mysterious whisper, "'cause I never could come to it to say that I +was willin' to be lost, if it was for the glory of God; and she always +told me folks could just bring their minds right up to anything they +knew they must; and I just got the tables turned on her, for they talked +and abused the Doctor till they fairly wore me out, and says I, 'Well, +Miss Brown, I'll give in, that you and Mr. Brown _do_ act up to +your principles; you certainly _act_ as if you were willing to be +damned';--and so do all those folks who will live on the blood and +groans of the poor Africans, as the Doctor said; and I should think, by +the way Newport people are making their money, that they were all pretty +willing to go that way,--though, whether it's for the glory of God, or +not, I'm doubting.--But you see, Mary," said Miss Prissy, sinking her +voice again to a solemn whisper, "I never was _clear_ on that point; it +always did seem to me a dreadful high place to come to, and it didn't +seem to be given to me; but I thought, perhaps, if it _was_ necessary, +it would be given, you know,--for the Lord always has been so good to +me that I've faith to believe that, and so I just say, 'The Lord is my +shepherd, I shall not want'";--and Miss Prissy hastily whisked a little +drop out of her blue eye with her handkerchief. + +At this moment, Mrs. Scudder came into the boudoir with a face +expressive of some anxiety. + +"I suppose Miss Prissy has told you," she said, "the news about the +Browns. That'll make a great falling off in the Doctor's salary; and I +feel for him, because I know it will come hard to him not to be able to +help and do, especially for these poor negroes, just when he will. But +then we must put everything on the most economical scale we can, and +just try, all of us, to make it up to him. I was speaking to Cousin +Zebedee about it, when he was down here, on Monday, and he is all +clear;--he has made out free papers for Candace and Cato and Dinah, and +they couldn't, one of 'em, be hired to leave him; and he says, from what +he's seen already, he has no doubt but they'll do enough more to pay for +their wages." + +"Well," said Miss Prissy, "I haven't got anybody to care for but myself. +I was telling sister Elizabeth, one time, (she's married and got four +children,) that I could take a storm a good deal easier than she could, +'cause I hadn't near so many sails to pull down; and now, you just look +to me for the Doctor's shirts, 'cause, after this, they shall all come +in ready to put on, if I have to sit up till morning. And I hope, Miss +Scudder, you can trust me to make them; for if I do say it myself, +I a'n't afraid to do fine stitching 'longside of anybody,--and +hemstitching ruffles, too; and I haven't shown you yet that French +stitch I learned of the nuns;--but you just set your heart at rest about +the Doctor's shirts. I always thought," continued Miss Prissy, laughing, +"that I should have made a famous hand about getting up that tabernacle +in the wilderness, with the blue and the purple and fine-twined linen; +it's one of my favorite passages, that is;--different things, you know, +are useful to different people." + +"Well," said Mrs. Scudder, "I see that it's our call to be a remnant +small and despised, but I hope we sha'n't shrink from it. I thought, +when I saw all those fashionable people go out Sunday, tossing their +heads and looking so scornful, that I hoped grace would be given me to +be faithful." + +"And what does the Doctor say?" said Miss Prissy. + +"He hasn't said a word; his mind seems to be very much lifted above all +these things." + +"La, yes," said Miss Prissy, "that's one comfort; he'll never know where +his shirts come from; and besides that, Miss Scudder," she said, sinking +her voice to a whisper, "as you know, I haven't any children to provide +for,--though I was telling Elizabeth t'other day, when I was making up +frocks for her children, that I believed old maids, first and last, did +more providing for children than married women; but still I do contrive +to slip away a pound-note, now and then, in my little old silver teapot +that was given to me when they settled old Mrs. Simpson's property, (I +nursed her all through her last sickness, and laid her out with my own +hands,) and, as I was saying, if ever the Doctor should want money, you +just let me know." + +"Thank you, Miss Prissy," said Mrs. Scudder; "we all know where your +heart is." + +"And now," added Miss Prissy, "what do you suppose they say? Why, they +say Colonel Burr is struck dead in love with our Mary; and you know his +wife's dead, and he's a widower; and they do say that he'll get to be +the next President. Sakes alive! Well, Mary must be careful, if she +don't want to be carried off; for they do say that there can't any woman +resist him, that sees enough of him. Why, there's that poor French +woman, Madame----what do you call her, that's staying with the +Vernons?--they say she's over head and ears in love with him." + +"But she's a married woman," said Mary; "it can't be possible!" + +Mrs. Scudder looked reprovingly at Miss Prissy, and for a few moments +there was great shaking of heads and a whispered conference between +the two ladies, ending in Miss Prissy's going off, saying, as she went +down-stairs,-- + +"Well, if women will do so, I, for my part, can't blame the men." + +In a few moments Miss Prissy rushed back as much discomposed as a +clucking hen who has seen a hawk. + +"Well, Miss Scudder, what do you think? Here's Colonel Burr come to call +on the ladies!" + +Mrs. Scudder's first movement, in common with all middle-aged +gentlewomen, was to put her hand to her head and reflect that she had +not on her best cap; and Mary looked down at her dimpled hands, which +were blue from the contact with mixed yarn she had just been spinning. + +"Now I'll tell you what," said Miss Prissy,--"wasn't it lucky you had me +here? for I first saw him coming in at the gate, and I whipped in quick +as a wink and opened the best-room window-shutters, and then I was back +at the door, and he bowed to me as if I'd been a queen, and says he, +'Miss Prissy, how fresh you're looking this morning!' You see, I was in +working at the Vernons', but I never thought as he'd noticed me. And +then he inquired in the handsomest way for the ladies and the Doctor, +and so I took him into the parlor and settled him down, and then I ran +into the study, and you may depend upon it I flew round lively for a few +minutes. I got the Doctor's study-gown off, and got his best coat on, +and put on his wig for him, and started him up kinder lively,--you know +it takes me to get him down into this world,--and so there he's +in talking with him; and so you can just slip down and dress +yourselves,--easy as not." + +Meanwhile Colonel Burr was entertaining the simple-minded Doctor with +all the grace of a young neophyte come to sit at the feet of superior +truth. There are some people who receive from Nature as a gift a sort of +graceful facility of sympathy, by which they incline to take on, for +the time being, the sentiments and opinions of those with whom they +converse, as the chameleon was fabled to change its hue with every +surrounding. Such are often supposed to be wilfully acting a part, as +exerting themselves to flatter and deceive, when in fact they are only +framed so sensitive to the sphere of mental emanation which surrounds +others that it would require an exertion not in some measure to +harmonize with it. In approaching others in conversation, they are like +a musician who joins a performer on an instrument,--it is impossible for +them to strike a discord; their very nature urges them to bring into +play faculties according in vibration with those which another is +exerting. It was as natural as possible for Burr to commence talking +with the Doctor on scenes and incidents in the family of President +Edwards, and his old tutor, Dr. Bellamy,--and thence to glide on to +the points of difference and agreement in theology, with a suavity and +deference which acted on the good man like a June sun on a budding +elm-tree. The Doctor was soon wide awake, talking with fervent animation +on the topic of disinterested benevolence,--Burr the mean while studying +him with the quiet interest of an observer of natural history, who sees +a new species developing before him. At all the best possible points he +interposed suggestive questions, and set up objections in the quietest +manner for the Doctor to knock down, smiling ever the while as a man may +who truly and genuinely does not care a sou for truth on any subject not +practically connected with his own schemes in life. He therefore gently +guided the Doctor to sail down the stream of his own thoughts till his +bark glided out into the smooth waters of the Millennium, on which, with +great simplicity, he gave his views at length. + +It was just in the midst of this that Mary and her mother entered. +Burr interrupted the conversation to pay them the compliments of the +morning,--to inquire for their health, and hope they suffered no +inconvenience from their night-ride from the party; then, seeing the +Doctor still looking eager to go on, he contrived with gentle dexterity +to tie again the broken thread of conversation. + +"Our excellent friend," he said, "was explaining to me his views of +a future Millennium. I assure you, ladies, that we sometimes find +ourselves in company which enables us to believe in the perfectibility +of the human species. We see family retreats, so unaffected, so charming +in their simplicity, where industry and piety so go hand in hand! One +has only to suppose all families such, to imagine a Millennium." + +There was no disclaiming this compliment, because so delicately worded, +that, while perfectly clear to the internal sense, it was, in a manner, +veiled and unspoken. + +Meanwhile, the Doctor, who sat ready to begin where he left off, turned +to his complaisant listener and resumed an exposition of the Apocalypse. + +"To my mind, it is certain," he said, "as it is now three hundred years +since the fifth vial was poured out, there is good reason to suppose +that the sixth vial began to be poured out at the beginning of the last +century, and has been running for a hundred years or more, so that it is +run nearly out; the seventh and last vial will begin to run early in the +next century." + +"You anticipate, then, no rest for the world for some time to come?" +said Burr. + +"Certainly not," said the Doctor, definitively; "there will be no rest +from overturnings till He whose right it is shall come. + +"The passage," he added, "concerning the drying up of the river +Euphrates, under the sixth vial, has a distinct reference, I think, to +the account in ancient writers of the taking of Babylon, and prefigures, +in like manner, that the resources of that modern Babylon, the Popish +power, shall continue to be drained off, as they have now been drying up +for a century or more, till, at last, there will come a sudden and final +downfall of that power. And after that will come the first triumphs of +truth and righteousness,--the marriage-supper of the Lamb." + +"These investigations must undoubtedly possess a deep interest for you, +Sir," said Burr; "the hope of a future as well as the tradition of +a past age of gold seems to have been one of the most cherished +conceptions of the human breast." + +"In those times," continued the Doctor, "the whole earth will be of one +language." + +"Which language, Sir, do you suppose will be considered worthy of such +preeminence?" inquired his listener. + +"That will probably be decided by an amicable conference of all +nations," said the Doctor; "and the one universally considered most +valuable will be adopted; and the literature of all other nations being +translated into it, they will gradually drop all other tongues. Brother +Stiles thinks it will be the Hebrew. I am not clear on that point. The +Hebrew seems to me too inflexible, and not sufficiently copious. I do +not think," he added, after some consideration, "that it will be the +Hebrew tongue." + +"I am most happy to hear it, Sir," said Burr, gravely; "I never felt +much attracted to that language. But, ladies," he added, starting up +with animation, "I must improve this fine weather to ask you to show +me the view of the sea from this little hill beyond your house, it is +evidently so fine;--I trust I am not intruding too far on your morning?" + +"By no means, Sir," said Mrs. Scudder, rising; "we will go with you in a +moment." + +And soon Colonel Burr, with one on either arm, was to be seen on the top +of the hill beyond the house,--the very one from which Mary, the week +before, had seen the retreating sail we all wot of. Hence, though +her companion contrived, with the adroitness of a practised man of +gallantry, to direct his words and looks as constantly to her as if +they had been in a _tête-a-tête_, and although nothing could be more +graceful, more delicately flattering, more engaging, still the little +heart kept equal poise; for where a true love has once bolted the door, +a false one serenades in vain under the window. + +Some fine, instinctive perceptions of the real character of the man +beside her seemed to have dawned on Mary's mind in the conversation of +the morning;--she had felt the covert and subtile irony that lurked +beneath his polished smile, felt the utter want of faith or sympathy in +what she and her revered friend deemed holiest, and therefore there was +a calm dignity in her manner of receiving his attentions which rather +piqued and stimulated his curiosity. He had been wont to boast that he +could subdue any woman, if he could only see enough of her; in the first +interview in the garden, he had made her color come and go and brought +tears to her eyes in a manner that interested his fancy, and he could +not resist the impulse to experiment again. It was a new sensation +to him, to find himself quietly studied and calmly measured by those +thoughtful blue eyes; he felt, with his fine, instinctive tact, that +the soul within was infolded in some crystalline sphere of protection, +transparent, but adamantine, so that he could not touch it. What was +that secret poise, that calm, immutable centre on which she rested, that +made her, in her rustic simplicity, so unapproachable and so strong? + +Burr remembered once finding in his grandfather's study, among a mass of +old letters, one in which that great man, in early youth, described his +future wife, then known to him only by distant report. With his keen +natural sense of everything fine and poetic, he had been struck with +this passage, as so beautifully expressing an ideal womanhood, that he +had in his earlier days copied it in his private _recueil_. + +"They say," it ran, "that there is a young lady who is beloved of that +Great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain +seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes +to her and fills her mind with such exceeding sweet delight, that she +hardly cares for anything except to meditate on him; that she expects, +after a while, to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the +world and caught up into heaven, being assured that he loves her too +well to let her remain at a distance from him always. Therefore, if you +present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she +disregards it. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular +purity in her affections; and you could not persuade her to do anything +wrong or sinful, if you should give her all the world. She is of a +wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind, +especially after this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She +will sometimes go from place to place singing sweetly, and seems to be +always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to +be alone, walking in fields and groves, and seems to have some invisible +one always conversing with her." + +A shadowy recollection of this description crossed his mind more than +once, as he looked into those calm and candid eyes. Was there, then, a +truth in that inner union of chosen souls with God, of which his mother +and her mother before her had borne meek witness,--their souls shining +out as sacred lamps through the alabaster walls of a temple? + +But then, again, had he not logically met and demonstrated, to his own +satisfaction, the nullity of the religious dogmas on which New England +faith was based? There could be no such inner life, he said to +himself,--he had demonstrated it as an absurdity. What was it, +then,--this charm, so subtile and so strong, by which this fair child, +his inferior in age, cultivation, and knowledge of the world, held him +in a certain awe, and made him feel her spirit so unapproachable? His +curiosity was piqued. He felt stimulated to employ all his powers of +pleasing. He was determined, that, sooner or later, she should feel his +power. + +With Mrs. Scudder his success was immediate, she was completely won over +by the deferential manner with which he constantly referred himself +to her matronly judgments, and, on returning to the house, she warmly +pressed him to stay to dinner. + +Burr accepted the invitation with a frank and almost boyish _abandon_, +declaring that he had not seen anything, for years, that so reminded him +of old times. He praised everything at table,--the smoking brown-bread, +the baked beans steaming from the oven, where they had been quietly +simmering during the morning walk, and the Indian pudding, with its +gelatinous softness, matured by long and patient brooding in the +motherly old oven. He declared that there was no style of living to be +compared with the simple, dignified order of a true New England home, +where servants were excluded, and everything came direct from the +polished and cultured hand of a lady. It realized the dreams of Arcadian +romance. A man, he declared, must be unworthy the name, who did not rise +to lofty sentiments and heroic deeds, when even his animal wants were +provided for by the ministrations of the most delicate and exalted +portion of the creation. + +After dinner he would be taken into all the family interests. Gentle and +pliable as oil, he seemed to penetrate every joint of the _ménage_ by a +subtile and seductive sympathy. He was interested in the spinning, in +the weaving,--and in fact, nobody knows how it was done, but, before the +afternoon shadows had turned, he was sitting in the cracked arm-chair of +Mary's garret-boudoir, gravely giving judgment on several specimens of +her spinning, which Mrs. Scudder had presented to his notice. + +With that ease with which he could at will glide into the character +of the superior and elder brother, he had, without seeming to ask +questions, drawn from Mary an account of her reading, her studies, her +acquaintances. + +"You read French, I presume?" he said to her, with easy negligence. + +Mary colored deeply, and then, as one who recollects one's self, +answered, gravely,-- + +"No, Mr. Burr, I know no language but my own." + +"But you should learn French, my child," said Burr, with that gentle +dictatorship which he could at times so gracefully assume. + +"I should be delighted to learn," said Mary, "but have no opportunity." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Scudder,--"Mary has always had a taste for study, and +would be glad to improve in any way." + +"Pardon me, Madam, if I take the liberty of making a suggestion. There +is a most excellent man, the Abbé Léfon, now in Newport, driven here +by the political disturbances in France; he is anxious to obtain a few +scholars, and I am interested that he should succeed, for he is a most +worthy man." + +"Is he a Roman Catholic?" + +"He is, Madam; but there could be no manner of danger with a person so +admirably instructed as your daughter. If you please to see him, Madam, +I will call with him some time." + +"Mrs. Marvyn will, perhaps, join me," said Mary. "She has been studying +French by herself for some time, in order to read a treatise on +astronomy, which she found in that language. I will go over to-morrow +and see her about it." + +Before Colonel Burr departed, the Doctor requested him to step a moment +with him into his study. Burr, who had had frequent occasions during his +life to experience the sort of paternal freedom which the clergy of his +country took with him in right of his clerical descent, began to summon +together his faculties of address for the avoidance of a kind of +conversation which he was not disposed to meet. He was agreeably +disappointed, however, when, taking a paper from the table, and +presenting it to him, the Doctor said,-- + +"I feel myself, my dear Sir, under a burden of obligation for benefits +received from your family, so that I never see a member of it without +casting about in my own mind how I may in some measure express +my good-will towards him. You are aware that the papers of your +distinguished grandfather have fallen into my hands, and from them I +have taken the liberty to make a copy of those maxims by which he guided +a life which was a blessing to his country and to the world. May I +ask the favor that you will read them with attention? and if you find +anything contrary to right reason or sober sense, I shall be happy to +hear of it on a future occasion." + +"Thank you, Doctor," said Burr, bowing. "I shall always be sensible of +the kindness of the motive which has led you to take this trouble on my +account. Believe me, Sir, I am truly obliged to you for it." + +And thus the interview terminated. + +That night, the Doctor, before retiring, offered fervent prayers for the +grandson of his revered master and friend, praying that his father's and +mother's God might bless him and make him a living stone in the Eternal +Temple. + +Meanwhile, the object of these prayers was sitting by a table in +dressing-gown and slippers, thinking over the events of the day. The +paper which Dr. H. had handed him contained the celebrated "Resolutions" +by which his ancestor led a life nobler than any mere dogmas +can possibly be. By its side lay a perfumed note from Madame de +Frontignac,--one of those womanly notes, so beautiful, so sacred in +themselves, but so mournful to a right-minded person who sees whither +they are tending. Burr opened and perused it,--laid it by,--opened the +document that the Doctor had given, and thoughtfully read the first of +the "Resolutions":-- + +"Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, +and my own good profit and pleasure _in the whole of my duration_, +without any consideration of time, whether now or never so many myriad +ages hence. + +"Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good +and advantage of mankind in general. + +"Resolved, To do this, whatsoever difficulties I meet with, and how many +and how great soever." + +Burr read the whole paper through attentively once or twice, and paused +thoughtfully over many parts of it. He sat for some time after, lost in +reflection; the paper dropped from his hand, and then followed one of +those long, deep seasons of fixed reverie, when the soul thinks by +pictures and goes over endless distances in moments. In him, originally, +every moral fatuity and sensibility was as keenly strung as in any +member of that remarkable family from which he was descended, and which +has, whether in good or ill, borne no common stamp. Two possible lives +flashed before his mind at that moment, rapidly as when a train sweeps +by with flashing lamps in the night. The life of worldly expediency, the +life of eternal rectitude,--the life of seventy years, and that life +eternal in which the event of death is no disturbance. Suddenly he +roused himself, picked up the paper, filed and dated it carefully, and +laid it by; and in that moment was renewed again that governing purpose +which sealed him, with all his beautiful capabilities, as the slave of +the fleeting and the temporary, which sent him at last, a shipwrecked +man, to a nameless, dishonored grave. + +He took his pen and gave to a friend his own views of the events of the +day. + +"Mr. DEAR,----We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb +_s'ennuyer_, which I, for one, have put through all the moods and +tenses. _Pour passer le temps_, however, I have _la belle Française_ and +my sweet little Puritan. I visited there this morning. She lives with +her mother, a little walk out toward the seaside, in a cottage quite +prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees, and the great +hierarch of modern theology, Dr. H., keeps guard over them. No chance +here for any indiscretions, you see. + +"By-the-by, the good Doctor astonished our _monde_ here on Sunday last, +by treating us to a solemn onslaught on slavery and the slave-trade. He +had all the chief captains and counsellors to hear him, and smote them +hip and thigh, and pursued them even unto Shur. + +"He is one of those great, honest fellows, without the smallest notion +of the world we live in, who think, in dealing with men, that you must +go to work and prove the right or the wrong of a matter; just as if +anybody cared for that! Supposing he is right,--which appears very +probable to me,--what is he going to do about it? No moral argument, +since the world began, ever prevailed over twenty-five per cent. profit. + +"However, he is the spiritual director of _la belle Puritaine_, and was +a resident in my grandfather's family, so I did the agreeable with +him as well as such an uncircumcised Ishmaelite could. I discoursed +theology,--sat with the most docile air possible while he explained to +me all the ins and outs in his system of the universe, past, present, +and future,--heard him dilate calmly on the Millennium, and expound +prophetic symbols, marching out before me his whole apocalyptic +menagerie of beasts and dragons with heads and horns innumerable, to all +which I gave edifying attention, taking occasion now and then to turn a +compliment in favor of the ladies,--never lost, you know. + +"Really, he is a worthy old soul, and actually believes all these things +with his whole heart, attaching unheard-of importance to the most +abstract ideas, and embarking his whole being in his ideal view of +a grand Millennial _finale_ to the human race. I look at him and at +myself, and ask, Can human beings be made so unlike? + +"My little Mary to-day was in a mood of 'sweet austere composure' quite +becoming to her style of beauty; her _naive nonchalance_ at times +is rather stimulating. What a contrast between her and _la belle +Française!_--all the difference that there is between a diamond and +a flower. I find the little thing has a cultivated mind, enriched by +reading, and more by a still, quaint habit of thinking, which is new and +charming. But a truce to this. + +"I have seen our friends at last. We have had three or four meetings, +and are waiting to hear from Philadelphia,--matters are getting in +train. If Messrs. T. and S. dare to repeat what they said again, let me +know; they will find in me a man not to be trifled with. I shall be with +you in a week or ten days, at farthest. Meanwhile stand to your guns. + +"Ever yours, + +"BURR." + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +The next morning, before the early dews had yet dried off the grass, +Mary started to go and see her friend Mrs. Marvyn. It was one of those +charming, invigorating days, familiar to those of Newport experience, +when the sea lies shimmering and glittering in deep blue and gold, +and the sky above is firm and cloudless, and every breeze that comes +landward seems to bear health and energy upon its wings. + +As Mary approached the house, she heard loud sounds of discussion from +the open kitchen-door, and, looking in, saw a rather original scene +acting. + +Candace, armed with a long oven-shovel, stood before the open door of +the oven, whence she had just been removing an army of good things which +appeared ranged around on the dresser. Cato, in the undress of a red +flannel shirt and tow-cloth trousers, was cuddled, in a consoled and +protected attitude, in the corner of the wooden settle, with a mug of +flip in his hand, which Candace had prepared, and, calling him in from +his work, authoritatively ordered him to drink, on the showing that he +had kept her awake the night before with his cough, and she was sure he +was going to be sick. Of course, worse things may happen to a man than +to be vigorously taken care of by his wife, and Cato had a salutary +conviction of this fact, so that he resigned himself to his comfortable +corner and his flip with edifying serenity. + +Opposite to Candace stood a well-built, corpulent negro man, dressed +with considerable care, and with the air of a person on excellent +terms with himself. This was no other than Digo, the house-servant and +factotum of Dr. Stiles, who considered himself as the guardian of his +master's estate, his title, his honor, his literary character, his +professional position, and his religious creed. + +Digo was ready to assert before all the world, that one and all of these +were under his special protection, and that whoever had anything to say +to the contrary of any of these must expect to take issue with him. Digo +not only swallowed all his master's opinions whole, but seemed to have +the stomach of an ostrich in their digestion. He believed everything, +no matter what, the moment he understood that the Doctor held it. He +believed that Hebrew was the language of heaven,--that the ten tribes of +the Jews had reappeared in the North American Indians,--that there was +no such thing as disinterested benevolence, and that the doings of the +unregenerate had some value,--that slavery was a divine ordinance, and +that Dr. H. was a radical, who did more harm than good,--and, finally, +that there never was so great a man as Dr. Stiles; and as Dr. Stiles +belonged to him in the capacity of master, why, he, Digo, owned the +greatest man in America. Of course, as Candace held precisely similar +opinions in regard to Dr. H., the two never could meet without a +discharge of the opposite electricities. Digo had, it is true, come +ostensibly on a mere worldly errand from his mistress to Mrs. Marvyn, +who had promised to send her some turkeys' eggs, but he had inly +resolved with himself that he would give Candace his opinion,--that is, +what Dr. Stiles had said at dinner the day before about Doctor H.'s +Sunday's discourse. Dr. Stiles had not heard it, but Digo had. He had +felt it due to the responsibilities of his position to be present on so +very important an occasion. + +Therefore, after receiving his eggs, he opened hostilities by remarking, +in a general way, that he had attended the Doctor's preaching on Sunday, +and that there was quite a crowded house. Candace immediately began +mentally to bristle her feathers like a hen who sees a hawk in the +distance, and responded with decision:-- + +"Den you _heard_ sometin', for once in your life!" + +"I must say," said Digo, with suavity, "dat I can't give my 'proval to +such sentiments." + +"More shame for you," said Candace, grimly. "_You_ a man, and not stan' +by your color, and flunk under to mean white ways! Ef you was _half_ a +man, your heart would 'a' bounded like a cannon-ball at dat ar' sermon." + +"Dr. Stiles and me we talked it over after church," said Digo,--"and de +Doctor was of my 'pinion, dat Providence didn't intend"---- + +"Oh, you go long wid your Providence! Guess, ef white folks had let us +alone, Providence wouldn't trouble us." + +"Well," said Digo, "Dr. Stiles is clear dat dis yer's a-fulfillin' de +prophecies and bringin' in de fulness of de Gentiles." + +"Fulness of de fiddlesticks!" said Candace, irreverently. "Now what a +way dat ar' is of talkin'! Go look at one o' dem ships we come +over in,--sweatin' and groanin',--in de dark and dirt,--cryin' and +dyin',--howlin' for breath till de sweat run off us,--livin' and dead +chained together,--prayin' like de rich man in hell for a drop o' water +to cool our tongues! Call dat ar' a-bringin' de fulness of de Gentiles, +do ye? Ugh!" + +And Candace ended with a guttural howl, and stood frowning and gloomy +over the top of her long kitchen-shovel, like a black Bellona leaning on +her spear of battle. + +Digo recoiled a little, but stood too well in his own esteem to give up; +so he shifted his attack. + +"Well, for my part, I must say I never was 'clined to your Doctor's +'pinions. Why, now, Dr. Stiles says, notin' couldn't be more absurd dan +what he says 'bout disinterested benevolence. _My_ Doctor says, dere +a'n't no such ting!" + +"I should tink it's likely!" said Candace, drawing herself up with +superb disdain. "_Our_ Doctor knows dere _is_,--and why? 'cause he's got +it IN HERE," said she, giving her ample chest a knock which resounded +like the boom from a barrel. + +"Candace," said Cato, gently, "you's gittin' too hot." + +"Cato, you shut up!" said Candace, turning sharp round. "What did I make +you dat ar' flip for, 'cept you was so hoarse you oughtn' for to say a +word? Pootty business, you go to agitatin' _your_self wid dese yer! Ef +you wear out your poor old throat talkin', you may get de 'sumption; and +den what'd become o' me?" + +Cato, thus lovingly pitched _hors-de-combat_, sipped the sweetened cup +in quietness of soul, while Candace returned to the charge. + +"Now, I tell ye what," she said to Digo,--"jest 'cause you wear your +master's old coats and hats, you tink you must go in for all dese yer +old, mean, white 'pinions. A'n't ye 'shamed--you, a black man--to have +no more pluck and make cause wid de Egyptians? Now, 'ta'n't what my +Doctor gives me,--he never giv' me the snip of a finger-nail,--but it's +what he does for _mine;_ and when de poor critturs lands dar, tumbled +out like bales on de wharves, ha'n't dey seen his great cocked hat, like +a lighthouse, and his big eyes lookin' sort o' pitiful at 'em, as ef +he felt o' one blood wid 'em? Why, de very looks of de man is worth +everyting; and who ever thought o' doin' anyting for deir souls, or +cared ef dey had souls, till he begun it?" + +"Well, at any rate," said Digo, brightening up, "I don't believe his +doctrine about de doings of de unregenerate,--it's quite clear he's +wrong dar." + +"Who cares?" said Candace,--"generate or unregenerate, it's all one +to me. I believe a man dat _acts_ as he does. Him as stands up for de +poor,--him as pleads for de weak,--he's my man. I'll believe straight +through anyting he's a mind to put at me." + +At this juncture, Mary's fair face appearing at the door put a stop to +the discussion. + +"Bress _you_, Miss Mary! comin' here like a fresh June rose! it makes +a body's eyes dance in deir head! Come right in! I got Cato up from de +lot, 'cause he's rader poorly dis mornin'; his cough makes me a sight o' +concern; he's allers a-pullin' off his jacket de wrong time, or doin' +sometin' I tell him not to,--and it just keeps him hack, hack, hackin', +all de time." + +During this speech, Cato stood meekly bowing, feeling that he was +being apologized for in the best possible manner; for long years of +instruction had fixed the idea in his mind, that he was an ignorant +sinner, who had not the smallest notion how to conduct himself in this +world, and that, if it were not for his wife's distinguishing grace, he +would long since have been in the shades of oblivion. + +"Missis is spinnin' up in de north chamber," said Candace; "but I'll run +up and fetch her down." + +Candace, who was about the size of a puncheon, was fond of this familiar +manner of representing her mode of ascending the stairs; but Mary, +suppressing a smile, said, "Oh, no, Candace! don't for the world disturb +her. I know just where she is." And before Candace could stop her, +Mary's light foot was on the top step of the staircase that led up from +the kitchen. + +The north room was a large chamber, overlooking a splendid reach of +sea-prospect. A moving panorama of blue water and gliding sails was +unrolled before its three windows, so that stepping into the room gave +one an instant and breezy sense of expansion. Mrs. Marvyn was standing +at the large wheel, spinning wool,--a reel and basket of spools on her +side. Her large brown eyes had an eager joy in them when Mary entered; +but they seemed to calm down again, and she received her only with that +placid, sincere air which was her habit. Everything about this woman +showed an ardent soul, repressed by timidity and by a certain dumbness +in the faculties of outward expression; but her eyes had, at times, +that earnest, appealing language which is so pathetic in the silence of +inferior animals.--One sometimes sees such eyes, and wonders whether +the story they intimate will ever be spoken in mortal language. + +Mary began eagerly detailing to her all that had interested her since +they last met:--the party,--her acquaintance with Burr,--his visit to +the cottage,--his inquiries into her education and reading,--and, +finally, the proposal, that they should study French together. + +"My dear," said Mrs. Marvyn, "let us begin at once;--such an opportunity +is not to be lost. I studied a little with James, when he was last at +home." + +"With James?" said Mary, with an air of timid surprise. + +"Yes,--the dear boy has become, what I never expected, quite a student. +He employs all his spare time now in reading and studying;--the second +mate is a Frenchman, and James has got so that he can both speak and +read. He is studying Spanish, too." + +Ever since the last conversation with her mother on the subject of +James, Mary had felt a sort of guilty constraint when any one spoke +of him;--instead of answering frankly, as she once did, when anything +brought his name up, she fell at once into a grave, embarrassed silence. + +Mrs. Marvyn was so constantly thinking of him, that it was difficult to +begin on any topic that did not in some manner or other knit itself into +the one ever present in her thoughts. None of the peculiar developments +of the female nature have a more exquisite vitality than the sentiment +of a frail, delicate, repressed, timid woman for a strong, manly, +generous son. There is her ideal expressed; there is the out-speaking +and out-acting of all she trembles to think, yet burns to say or do; +here is the hero that shall speak for her, the heart into which she has +poured hers, and that shall give to her tremulous and hidden aspirations +a strong and victorious expression. "I have gotten a _man_ from the +Lord," she says to herself; and each outburst of his manliness, his +vigor, his self-confidence, his superb vitality, fills her with a +strange, wondering pleasure, and she has a secret tenderness and pride +even in his wilfulness and waywardness. "What a creature he is!" she +says, when he flouts at sober argument and pitches all received opinions +hither and thither in the wild capriciousness of youthful paradox. She +looks grave and reproving; but he reads the concealed triumph in her +eyes,--he knows that in her heart she is full of admiration all +the time. First love of womanhood is something wonderful and +mysterious,--but in this second love it rises again, idealized and +refined; she loves the father and herself united and made one in this +young heir of life and hope. + +Such was Mrs. Marvyn's still intense, passionate love for her son. Not +a tone of his manly voice, not a flash of his dark eyes, not one of the +deep, shadowy dimples that came and went as he laughed, not a ring of +his glossy black hair, that was not studied, got by heart, and dwelt on +in the inner shrine of her thoughts; he was the romance of her life. His +strong, daring nature carried her with it beyond those narrow, daily +bounds where her soul was weary of treading; and just as his voyages had +given to the trite prose of her _ménage_ a poetry of strange, foreign +perfumes, of quaint objects of interest, speaking of many a far-off +shore, so his mind and life were a constant channel of outreach through +which her soul held converse with the active and stirring world. Mrs. +Marvyn had known all the story of her son's love, and to no other woman +would she have been willing to resign him; but her love to Mary was so +deep, that she thought of his union with her more as gaining a daughter +than as losing a son. She would not speak of the subject; she knew the +feelings of Mary's mother; and the name of James fell so often from her +lips, simply because it was so ever-present in her heart that it could +not be helped. + +Before Mary left, it was arranged that they should study together, and +that the lessons should be given alternately at each other's houses; and +with this understanding they parted. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + +THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. + + +Our landlady's daughter is a young lady of some pretensions to +gentility. She wears her bonnet well back on her head, which is known by +all to be a mark of high breeding. She wears her trains very long, as +the great ladies do in Europe. To be sure, their dresses are so made +only to sweep the tapestried doors of châteaux and palaces; as those +odious aristocrats of the other side do not go draggling through the mud +in silks and satins, but, forsooth, must ride in coaches when they are +in full dress. It is true, that, considering various habits of the +American people, also the little accidents which the best-kept sidewalks +are liable to, a lady who has swept a mile of them is not exactly in +such a condition that one would care to be her neighbor. But then there +is no need of being so hard on these slight weaknesses of the poor, dear +women as our little deformed gentleman was the other day. + +--There are no such women as the Boston women, Sir,--he said. Forty-two +degrees, north latitude, Rome, Sir, Boston, Sir! They had grand women in +old Rome, Sir,--and the women bore such men-children as never the world +saw before. And so it was here, Sir. I tell you, the revolution the +Boston boys started had to run in woman's milk before it ran in man's +blood, Sir! + +But confound the make-believe women we have turned loose in our +streets!--where do _they_ come from? Not out of Boston parlors, I +trust. Why, there isn't a beast or a bird that would drag its tail +through the dirt in the way these creatures do their dresses. Because +a queen or a duchess wears long robes on great occasions, a +maid-of-all-work or a factory-girl thinks she must make herself a +nuisance by trailing through the street, picking up and carrying about +with her--pah! that's what I call getting vulgarity into your bones and +marrow. Making believe be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. +Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If any man can +walk behind one of these women and see what she rakes up as she goes, +and not feel squeamish, he has got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one +of 'em into my room without serving 'em as David served Saul at the cave +in the wilderness,--cut off his skirts, Sir! cut off his skirts! + +I suggested, that I had seen some pretty stylish ladies who offended in +the way he condemned. + +Stylish _women_, I don't doubt,--said the little gentleman.--Don't tell +me that a true lady ever sacrifices the duty of keeping all about her +sweet and clean to the wish of making a vulgar show. I won't believe it +of a lady. There are some things that no fashion has any right to touch, +and cleanliness is one of those things. If a woman wishes to show that +her husband or her father has got money, which she wants and means to +spend, but doesn't know how, let her buy a yard or two of silk and pin +it to her dress when she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before +she goes into the house;--there may be poor women that will think it +worth disinfecting. It is an insult to a respectable laundress to carry +such things into a house for her to deal with. I don't like the Bloomers +any too well,--in fact, I never saw but one, and she--or he, or +it--had a mob of boys after her, or whatever you call the creature, as +if she had been a---- + +The little gentleman stopped short,--flushed somewhat, and looked round +with that involuntary, suspicious glance which the subjects of any +bodily misfortune are very apt to cast round them. His eye wandered +over the company, none of whom, excepting myself and one other, had, +probably, noticed the movement. They fell at last on Iris,--his next +neighbor, you remember. + +--We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at a person, if that person's +eyes have been fixed on us. Sometimes we are conscious of it _before_ +we turn so as to see the person. Strange secrets of curiosity, of +impertinence, of malice, of love, leak out in this way. There is no need +of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflection in the mirror, to tell us that she +is plotting evil for us behind our backs. We know it, as we know by the +ominous stillness of a child that some mischief or other is going on. A +young girl betrays, in a moment, that her eyes have been feeding on the +face where you find them fixed, and not merely brushing over it with +their pencils of blue or brown light. + +A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, you may also observe, +to that upon which we look. Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to +gather them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow. When we +look at a vast landscape, our chests expand as if we would enlarge to +fill it. When we examine a minute object, we naturally contract, +not only our foreheads, but all our dimensions. If I _see_ two +men wrestling, I wrestle too, with my limbs and features. When a +country-fellow comes upon the stage, you will see twenty faces in the +boxes putting on the bumpkin expression. There is no need of multiplying +instances to reach this generalization; every person and thing we look +upon puts its special mark upon us. If this is repeated often enough, we +get a permanent resemblance to it, or, at least, a fixed aspect which we +took from it. Husband and wife come to look alike at last, as has often +been noticed. It is a common saying of a jockey, that he is "all horse"; +and I have often fancied that milkmen get a stiff, upright carriage, +and an angular movement of the arm, that remind one of a pump and the +working of its handle. + +All this came in by accident, just because I happened to mention that +the little gentleman found that Iris had been looking at him with her +soul in her eyes, when his glance rested on her after wandering round +the company. What he thought, it is hard to say; but the shadow of +suspicion faded off from his face, and he looked calmly into the amber +eyes, resting his cheek upon the hand that wore the red jewel. + +--If it were a possible thing,--women are such strange creatures! Is +there any trick that love and their own fancies do not play them? Just +see how they marry! A woman that gets hold of a bit of manhood is like +one of those Chinese wood-carvers who work on any odd, fantastic root +that comes to hand, and, if it is only bulbous above and bifurcated +below, will always contrive to make a man--such as he is--out of it. I +should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a Gorilla, +that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. + +--A child,--yes, if you choose to call her so,--but such a child! Do you +know how Art brings all ages together? + +There is no age to the angels and ideal human forms among which the +artist lives, and he shares their youth until his hand trembles and his +eye grows dim. The youthful painter talks of white-bearded Leonardo as +if he were a brother, and the veteran forgets that Raphael died at an +age to which his own is of patriarchal antiquity. + +But why this lover of the beautiful should be so drawn to one whom +Nature has wronged so deeply seems hard to explain. Pity, I suppose. +They say that leads to love. + +--I thought this matter over until I became excited and curious, and +determined to set myself more seriously at work to find out what was +going on in these wild hearts and where their passionate lives were +drifting. I say wild hearts and passionate lives, because I think I can +look through this seeming calmness of youth and this apparent feebleness +of organization, and see that Nature, whom it is very hard to cheat, is +only waiting as the sapper waits in his mine, knowing that all is in +readiness and the slow-match burning quietly down to the powder. He will +leave it by-and-by, and then it will take care of itself. + +One need not wait to see the smoke coming through the roof of a house +and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is +on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, +but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. +There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting +shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings +one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on.--Oh,--oh,--oh! do +you know what has got hold of you? It is the great red dragon that is +born of the little red eggs we call _sparks_, with his hundred blowing +red manes, and his thousand lashing red tails, and his multitudinous red +eyes glaring at every crack and key-hole, and his countless red tongues +lapping the beams he is going to crunch presently, and his hot breath +warping the panels and cracking the glass and making old timber sweat +that had forgotten it was ever alive with sap. Run for your life! leap! +or you will be a cinder in five minutes, that nothing but a coroner +would take for the wreck of a human being! + +If any gentleman will have the kindness to stop this run-away +comparison, I shall be much obliged to him. All I intended to say was, +that we need not wait for hearts to break out in flames to know that +they are full of combustibles and that a spark has got among them. I +don't pretend to say or know what it is that brings these two persons +together;--and when I say together, I only mean that there is an +evident affinity of some kind or other which makes their commonest +intercourse strangely significant, so that each seems to understand a +look or a word of the other. When the young girl laid her hand on the +little gentleman's arm,--which so greatly shocked the Model, you may +remember,--I saw that she had learned the lion-tamer's secret. She +masters him, and yet I can see she has a kind of awe of him, as the man +who goes into the cage has of the monster that he makes a baby of. + +One of two things must happen. The first, is love, downright love, on +the part of this young girl, for the poor little misshapen man. You may +laugh, if you like. But women are apt to love the men who they think +have the largest capacity of loving;--and who can love like one that has +thirsted all his life long for the smile of youth and beauty, and seen +it fly his presence as the wave ebbed from the parched lips of him +whose fabled punishment is the perpetual type of human longing and +disappointment? What would become of _him_, if this fresh soul should +stoop upon him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops out of +the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in the marshes of Cagliari, +with a flutter of scarlet feathers and a kindling of strange fires +in the shadowy waters that hold her burning image in their trembling +depths? + +--Marry her, of course?--Why, no, not _of course_. I should think the +chance less, on the whole, that he would be willing to marry her than +she to marry him. + +There is one other thing that might happen. If the interest he awakes in +her gets to be a deep one, and yet has nothing of love in it, she will +glance off from him into some great passion or other. All excitements +run to love in women of a certain--let us not say age, but youth. An +electrical current passing through a coil of wire makes a magnet of a +bar of iron lying within it, but not touching it. So a woman is turned +into a love-magnet by a tingling current of life running round her. I +should like to see one of them balanced on a pivot properly adjusted, +and watch if she did not turn so as to point north and south,--as she +would, if the love-currents are like those of the earth our mother. + +Pray, do you happen to remember Wordsworth's "Boy of Windermere"? This +boy used to put his hands to his mouth, and shout aloud, mimicking the +hooting of the owls, who would answer him + + "with quivering peals, + And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud + Redoubled and redoubled." + +When they failed to answer him, and he hung listening intently for +their voices, he would sometimes catch the faint sound of far distant +waterfalls, or the whole scene around him would imprint itself with new +force upon his perceptions.--Read the sonnet, if you please;--it is +Wordsworth all over,--trivial in subject, solemn in style, vivid in +description, prolix in detail, true metaphysically, but immensely +suggestive of "imagination," to use a mild term, when related as an +actual fact of a sprightly youngster. + +All I want of it is to enforce the principle, that, when the door of the +soul is once opened to a guest, there is no knowing who will come in +next. + +--Our young girl keeps up her childish habit of sketching heads and +characters. Nobody is, I should think, more faithful and exact in the +drawing of the academical figures given her as lessons; but there is +a perpetual arabesque of fancies that run round the margin of her +drawings, and there is one book which I know she keeps to run riot +in, where, if anywhere, a shrewd eye would be most likely to read her +thoughts. This book of hers I mean to see, if I can get at it honorably. + +I have never yet crossed the threshold of the little gentleman's +chamber. How he lives, when he once gets within it, I can only guess. +His hours are late, as I have said; often, on waking late in the night, +I see the light through cracks in his window-shutters on the wall of the +house opposite. If the times of witchcraft were not over, I should be +afraid to be so close a neighbor to a place from which there come such +strange noises. Sometimes it is the dragging of something heavy over the +floor, that makes me shiver to hear it,--it sounds so like what people +that kill other people have to do now and then. Occasionally I hear very +sweet strains of music,--whether of a wind or stringed instrument, or a +human voice, strange as it may seem, I have often tried to find out, but +through the partition I could not be quite sure. If I have not heard +a woman cry and moan, and then again laugh as though she would die +laughing, I have heard sounds so like them that--I am a fool to confess +it--I have covered my head with the bedclothes; for I have had a fancy +in my dreams, that I could hardly shake off when I woke up, about that +so-called witch that was his great-grandmother, or whatever it was,--a +sort of fancy that she visited the little gentleman,--a young woman +in old-fashioned dress, with a red ring round her white neck,--not a +necklace, but a dull stain. + +Of course you don't suppose that I have any foolish superstitions about +the matter,--I, the Professor, who have seen enough to take all that +nonsense out of any man's head! It is not our beliefs that frighten us +half so much as our fancies. A man not only believes, but knows he runs +a risk, whenever he steps into a railroad car; but it doesn't worry him +much. + +On the other hand, carry that man across a pasture a little way from +some dreary country-village, and show him an old house where there were +strange deaths a good many years ago, and rumors of ugly spots on the +walls,--the old man hung himself in the garret, that is certain, and +ever since the country-people have called it "the haunted house,"--the +owners haven't been able to let it since the last tenants left on +account of the noises,--so it has fallen into sad decay, and the moss +grows on the rotten shingles of the roof, and the clapboards have turned +black, and the windows rattle like teeth that chatter with fear, and the +walls of the house begin to lean as if its knees were shaking,--take the +man who didn't mind the real risk of the cars to that old house, on some +dreary November evening, and ask him to sleep there alone,--how do you +think he will like it? He doesn't believe one word of ghosts,--but then +he knows, that, whether waking or sleeping, his imagination will people +the haunted chambers with ghastly images. It is not what we _believe_, +as I said before, that frightens us commonly, but what we _conceive_. A +principle that reaches a good way, if I am not mistaken. I say, then, +that, if these odd sounds coming from the little gentleman's chamber +sometimes make me nervous, so that I cannot get to sleep, it is not +because I suppose he is engaged in any unlawful or mysterious way. The +only wicked suggestion that ever came into my head was one that was +founded on the landlady's story of his having a pile of gold; it was a +ridiculous fancy; besides, I suspect the story of _sweating_ gold was +only one of the many fables got up to make the Jews odious and afford a +pretext for plundering them. As for the sound like a woman laughing and +crying, I never said it _was_ a woman's voice; for, in the first place, +I could only hear indistinctly; and, secondly, he may have an organ, or +some queer instrument or other, with what they call the _voce umana_ +stop. If he moves his bed round to get out of draughts, or for any such +reason, there is nothing very frightful in that simple operation. Most +of our foolish conceits explain themselves in some such simple way. And +yet, for all that, I confess, that, when I woke up the other evening, +and heard, first a sweet complaining cry, and then footsteps, and then +the dragging sound,--nothing but his bed, I am quite sure,--I felt a +stirring in the roots of my hair as the feasters did in Keats's terrible +poem of "Lamia." + +There is nothing very odd in my feeling nervous when I happen to lie +awake and get listening for sounds. Just keep your ears open any time +after midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a dark +night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you will +hear! The _stillness_ of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things +seem to be alive. Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never +hear it crack in the daytime. Creak! There's a door ajar; _you know you +shut them all_. Where can that latch be that rattles so? Is anybody +trying it softly? or, worse than any _body_, is----? (Cold shiver.) Then +a sudden gust that jars all the windows;--very strange!--there does not +seem to be any wind about that it belongs to. When it stops, you hear +the worms boring in the powdery beams overhead. Then steps outside,--a +stray animal, no doubt. All right,--but a gentle moisture breaks out all +over you; and then something like a whistle or a cry,--another gust of +wind, perhaps; that accounts for the rustling that just made your heart +roll over and tumble about, so that it felt more like a live rat under +your ribs than a part of your own body; then a crash of something that +has fallen,--blown over, very like----_Pater noster, qui es in coelis!_ +for you are damp and cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed +trembling so that the death-watch is frightened and has stopped ticking! + +No,--night is an awful time for strange noises and secret doings. Who +ever dreamed, till one of our sleepless neighbors told us of it, of that +Walpurgis gathering of birds and beasts of prey,--foxes, and owls, and +crows, and eagles, that come from all the country round on moonshiny +nights to crunch the clams and muscles, and pick out the eyes of dead +fishes that the storm has thrown on Chelsea Beach? Our old mother Nature +has pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when she comes to us in her +dress of blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops; but when she follows +us up-stairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and diamonds, every +creak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of mystery +and fear. + +You understand, then, distinctly, that I do not believe there is +anything about this singular little neighbor of mine which is as it +should not be. Probably a visit to his room would clear up all that has +puzzled me, and make me laugh at the notions which began, I suppose, in +nightmares, and ended by keeping my imagination at work so as almost to +make me uncomfortable at times. But it is not so easy to visit him as +some of our other boarders, for various reasons which I will not stop to +mention. I think some of them are rather pleased to get "the Professor" +under their ceilings. + +The young man John, for instance, asked me to come up one day and try +some "old Burbon," which he said was A.1. On asking him what was the +number of his room, he answered, that it was forty-'leven, sky-parlor +floor, but that I shouldn't find it, if he didn't go ahead to show me +the way. I followed him to his _habitat_, being very willing to see in +what kind of warren he burrowed, and thinking I might pick up something +about the boarders who had excited my curiosity. + +Mighty close quarters they were where the young man John bestowed +himself and his furniture; this last consisting of a bed, a chair, +a bureau, a trunk, and numerous pegs with coats and "pants" and +"vests,"--as he was in the habit of calling waistcoats and pantaloons or +trousers,--hanging up as if the owner had melted out of them. Several +prints were pinned up unframed,--among them that grand national +portrait-piece, "Barnum presenting Ossian E. Dodge to Jenny Lind," and a +picture of a famous trot, in which I admired anew the cabalistic air of +that imposing array of expressions, and especially the Italicized word, +"Dan Mace _names_ b. h. Major Slocum," and "Hiram Woodruff _names_ g. m. +Lady Smith." "Best three in five. Time: 2.40, 2.46, 2.50." + +That set me thinking how very odd this matter of trotting horses is, as +an index of the mathematical exactness of the laws of living mechanism. +I saw Lady Suffolk trot a mile in 2.26. Flora Temple has done it in +2.24-1/2; and Ethan Allen is said to have done it in the same time. +Many horses have trotted their mile under 2.30; none that I remember in +public as low down in the twenties as 2.24. _Five seconds_, then, in +about a hundred and sixty is the whole range of the maxima of the +present race of trotting-horses. The same thing is seen in the running +of men. Many can run a mile in five minutes; but when one comes to the +fractions below, they taper down until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum +is reached. Averages of masses have been studied more than averages of +maxima and minima. We know from the Registrar-General's Reports, that a +certain number of children--say from one to two dozen--die every year in +England from drinking hot water out of spouts of teakettles. We know, +that, among suicides, women and men past a certain age almost never use +fire-arms. A woman who has made up her mind to die is still afraid of a +pistol or a gun. Or is it that the explosion would derange her costume? +I say, averages of masses we have; but our tables of maxima we owe +to the sporting men more than to the philosophers. The lesson their +experience teaches is, that Nature makes no leaps,--does nothing _per +saltum_. The greatest brain that ever lived, no doubt, was only a +small fraction of an idea ahead of the second best. Just look at the +chess-players. Leaving out the phenomenal exceptions, the nice +shades that separate the skilful ones show how closely their brains +approximate,--almost as closely as chronometers. Such a person is a +"_knight_-player,"--he must have that piece given him. Another must have +two pawns. Another, "pawn and two," or one pawn and two moves. Then +we find one who claims "pawn and move," holding himself, with this +fractional advantage, a match for one who would be pretty sure to beat +him playing even.--So much are minds alike; and you and I think we +are "peculiar,"--that Nature broke her jelly-mould after shaping our +cerebral convolutions! So I reflected, standing and looking at the +picture. + +--I say, Governor,--broke in the young man John,--them hosses'll stay +jest as well, if you'll only set down. I've had 'em this year, and they +haven't stirred.--He spoke, and handed the chair towards me,--seating +himself, at the same time, on the end of the bed. + +You have lived in this house some time?--I said,--with a note of +interrogation at the end of the statement. + +Do I look as if I'd lost much flesh?--said he,--answering my question by +another. + +No,--said I;--for that matter, I think you do credit to "the bountifully +furnished table of the excellent lady who provides so liberally for the +company that meets around her hospitable board." + +[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of those disinterested +editorials in small type, which I suspect to have been furnished by +a friend of the landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This +impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment and +its head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a couple of +new boarders made a brief appearance at the table. One of them was +of the class of people who grumble if they don't get canvasbacks and +woodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week. The other was subject to +somnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have been asleep +in his bed. In this state he walked into several of the boarders' +chambers, his eyes wide open, as is usual with somnambulists, and, from +some odd instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, got +together a number of their watches, for the purpose of comparing them, +as it would seem. Among them was a repeater, belonging to our young +Marylander. He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was in his +chamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught hold of him and gave him +a dreadful shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and then +went to sleep till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman used +to taking care of such cases of somnambulism.] + +If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over this parenthesis, +you will come to our conversation,--which it has interrupted. + +It a'n't the feed,--said the young man John,--it's the old woman's looks +when a fellah lays it in too strong. The feed's well enough. After geese +have got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb's got old, 'n' +veal's pretty nigh beef, 'n' sparragrass's growin' tall 'n' slim 'n' +scattery about the head, 'n' green peas gettin' so big 'n' hard they'd +be dangerous if you fired 'em out of a revolver, we get hold of all them +delicacies of the season. But it's too much like feedin' on live folks +and devourin' widdah's substance, to lay yourself out in the eatin' way, +when a fellah's as hungry as the chap that said a turkey was too much +for one 'n' not enough for two. I can't help lookin' at the old woman. +Corned-beef-days she's tolerable calm. Roastin'-days she worries some, +'n' keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves. But when there's anything +in the poultry line, it seems to hurt her feelin's so to see the knife +goin' into the breast and joints comin' to pieces, that there's no +comfort in eatin'. When I cut up an old fowl and help the boarders, +I always feel as if I ought to say, Won't you have a slice of +widdah?--instead of chicken. + +The young man John fell into a train of reflections which ended in his +producing a Bologna sausage, a plate of "crackers," as we Boston folks +call certain biscuits, and the bottle of whiskey described as being A.1. + +Under the influence of the crackers and sausage, he grew cordial and +communicative. + +It was time, I thought, to sound him as to those of our boarders who had +excited my curiosity. + +What do you think of our young Iris?--I began. + +Fust-rate little filly;--he said.--Pootiest and nicest little chap +I've seen since the schoolma'am left. Schoolma'am was a brown-haired +one,--eyes coffee-color. This one has got wine-colored eyes,--'n' +that's the reason they turn a fellah's head, I suppose. + +This is a splendid blonde,--I said,--the other was a brunette. Which +style do you like best? + +Which do I like best, boiled mutton or roast mutton?--said the young man +John. Like 'em both,--it a'n't the color of 'em makes the goodness. I've +been kind of lonely since schoolma'am went away. Used to like to look at +her. I never said anything particular to her, that I remember, but-- + +I don't know whether it was the cracker and sausage, or that the young +fellow's feet were treading on the hot ashes of some longing that had +not had time to cool, but his eye glistened as he stopped. + +I suppose she wouldn't have looked at a fellah like me,--he said,--but I +come pretty near tryin'. If she had said, Yes, though, I shouldn't have +known what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman now-a-days till +you're so deaf you have to cock your head like a parrot to hear what she +says, and so long-sighted you can't see what she looks like nearer than +arm's-length. + +Here is another chance for you,--I said.--What do you want nicer than +such a young lady as Iris? + +It's no use,--he answered.--I look at them girls and feel as the fellah +did when he missed catchin' the trout.--'To'od 'a' cost more butter to +cook him 'n' he's worth,--says the fellah.--Takes a whole piece o' goods +to cover a girl up now-a-days. I'd as lief undertake to keep a span of +elephants,--and take an ostrich to board, too,--as to marry one of 'em. +What's the use? Clerks and counter-jumpers a'n't anything. Sparragrass +and green peas a'n't for them,--not while they're young and tender. +Hossback-ridin' a'n't for them,--except once a year,--on Fast-day. And +marryin' a'n't for them. Sometimes a fellah feels lonely, and would +like to have a nice young woman, to tell her how lonely he feels. And +sometimes a fellah,--here the young man John looked very confidential, +and, perhaps, as if a little ashamed of his weakness,--sometimes a +fellah would like to have one o' them small young ones to trot on his +knee and push about in a little wagon,--a kind of a little Johnny, you +know;--it's odd enough, but, it seems to me, nobody can afford them +little articles, except the folks that are so rich they can buy +everything, and the folks that are so poor they don't want anything. It +makes nice boys of us young fellahs, no doubt! And it's pleasant to see +fine young girls sittin', like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin', +and waitin', and waitin', 'n' no customers,--and the men lingerin' round +and lookin' at the goods, like folks that want to be customers, but +haven't got the money! + +Do you think the deformed gentleman means to make love to Iris?--I said. + +What! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him! Well, now, that's comin' +of it a little too strong. Yes, I guess she will marry him and carry +him round in a basket, like a lame bantam! Look here!--he said, +mysteriously;--one of the boarders swears there's a woman comes to see +him, and that he has heard her singin' and screechin'. I should like +to know what he's about in that den of his. He lays low 'n' keeps +dark,--and, I tell you, there's a good many of the boarders would like +to get into his chamber, but he don't seem to want 'em. Biddy could +tell somethin' about what she's seen when she's been to put his room +to rights. She's a Paddy 'n' a fool, but she knows enough to keep her +tongue still. All I know is, I saw her crossin' herself one day when she +came out of that room. She looked pale enough, 'n' I heard her mutterin' +somethin' or other about the Blessed Virgin. If it hadn't been for the +double doors to that chamber of his, I'd have had a squint inside before +this; but, somehow or other, it never seems to happen that they're both +open at once. + +What do you think he employs himself about?--said I. + +The young man John winked. + +I waited patiently for the thought, of which this wink was the blossom, +to come to fruit in words. + +I don't believe in witches,--said the young man John. + +Nor I. + +We were both silent for a few minutes. + +--Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books,--I said, presently. + +All but one,--he answered;--she keeps a lock on that, and won't show it. +Ma'am Allen, (the young rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of the +gentleman with the _diamond_,) Ma'am Allen tried to peek into it one day +when she left it on the sideboard. "If you please," says she,--'n' +took it from him, 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like a +caterpillar on a hot shovel. I only wished he hadn't, and had jest given +her a little saas, for I've been takin' boxin'-lessons, 'n' I've got a +new way of counterin' I want to try on to somebody. + +--The end of all this was, that I came away from the young fellow's +room, feeling that there were two principal things that I had to live +for, for the next six weeks or six months, if it should take so long. +These were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing-book, which I +suspected had her heart shut up in it, and to get a look into the little +gentleman's room. + +I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should trouble myself +about these matters. You tell me, with some show of reason, that all I +shall find in the young girl's book will be some outlines of angels with +immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, and caricatures, +among which I shall probably have the pleasure of seeing my own features +figuring. Very likely. But I'll tell you what _I_ think I shall find. If +this child has idealized the strange little bit of humanity over which +she seems to have spread her wings like a brooding dove,--if, in one of +those wild vagaries that passionate natures are so liable to, she has +fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, as the sea-flowers fold +about the first stray shell-fish that brushes their outspread tentacles, +depend upon it, I shall find the marks of it in this drawing-book of +hers,--if I can ever get a look at it,--fairly, of course, for I would +not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity. + +Then, if I can get into this little gentleman's room under any fair +pretext, I shall, no doubt, satisfy myself in five minutes that he is +just like other people, and that there is no particular mystery about +him. + +The night after my visit to the young man John, I made all these and +many more reflections. It was about two o'clock in the morning,--bright +starlight,--so light that I could make out the time on my +alarm-clock,--when I woke up trembling and very moist. It was the heavy, +dragging sound, as I had often heard it before, that waked me. Presently +a window was softly closed. I had just begun to get over the agitation +with which we always awake from nightmare dreams, when I heard the sound +which seemed to me as of a woman's voice,--the clearest, purest soprano +which one could well conceive of. It was not loud, and I could not +distinguish a word, if it was a woman's voice; but there were recurring +phrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached me, which suggested +the idea of complaint, and sometimes, I thought, of passionate grief and +despair. It died away at last,--and then I heard the opening of a door, +followed by a low, monotonous sound, as of one talking,--and then +the closing of a door,--and presently the light on the opposite wall +disappeared and all was still for the night. + +By George! this gets interesting,--I said, as I got out of bed for a +change of night-clothes. + +I had this in my pocket the other day, but thought I wouldn't read it. +So I read it to the boarders instead, and print it to finish off this +record with. + + +ROBINSON OF LEYDEN. + + + He sleeps not here; in hope and prayer + His wandering flock had gone before, + But he, the shepherd, might not share + Their sorrows on the wintry shore. + + Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, + Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, + While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, + The pastor spake, and thus he said:-- + + "Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! + God calls you hence from over sea; + Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, + Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. + + "Ye go to bear the saving word + To tribes unnamed and shores untrod: + Heed well the lessons ye have heard + From those old teachers taught of God. + + "Yet think not unto them was lent + All light for all the coming days, + And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent + In making straight the ancient ways. + + "The living fountain overflows + For every flock, for every lamb, + Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose + With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." + + He spake; with lingering, long embrace, + With tears of love and partings fond, + They floated down the creeping Maas, + Along the isle of Ysselmond. + + They passed the frowning towers of Briel, + The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand, + And grated soon with lifting keel + The sullen shores of Fatherland. + + No home for these!--too well they knew + The mitred king behind the throne;-- + The sails were set, the pennons flew, + And westward ho! for worlds unknown. + + --And these were they who gave us birth, + The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, + Who won for us this virgin earth, + And freedom with the soil they gave. + + The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,-- + In alien earth the exiles lie,-- + Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, + His words our noblest battle-cry! + + Still cry them, and the world shall hear, + Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! + Ye _have_ not built by Haerlem Meer, + Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! + + * * * * * + + +ART. + +THE HEART OF THE ANDES. + + +We Americans, amidst the confusion and stir of material interests, are +not inattentive to the progress of those claims whose growth is as +silent as that of the leaves around us, and whose values find no echo in +Wall Street. + +With the spring there has bloomed in New York a flower of no common +beauty. All the fashion and influence there have been to hail this +growth of our soil at its cloistered home in Tenth Street. There is but +one opinion of the beauty and novelty of the stranger. It is of the +"Heart of the Andes," by Mr. Frederick E. Church, we speak. This artist, +now known for some years as he who has with most daring tracked to its +depths the witchery and wonder of our summer skies, and the results of +whose two visits to South America have ere this shown how sensitive and +sure the photograph of his memory is, gives us from the _trop-plein_ of +his souvenirs this last and crowning page. + +We hold the merit and charm of Mr. Church's works to be, that they are +so American in feeling and treatment. What chiefly distinguishes America +from Europe, as the object of landscape, is, that Europe is the region +of "bits," of picturesque compositions, of sunflecked lanes, of nestling +villages, and castle-crowned steeps,--while with us everything is less +condensed, on a wider scale, and with vaster spaces. + +Mr. Church has the eagle eye to measure this vastness. He loves a +wide expanse, a boundless horizon. He does not, gypsy-like, hide with +Gainsborough beneath a hedge, but his glance sweeps across a continent, +and no detail escapes him. This is what makes the "Andes" a really +marvellous picture. In intellectual grasp, clear and vivid apprehension +of what he wants and where to put it, we think Mr. Church without an +equal. Quite a characteristic of his is a love of detail and finish +without injury to breadth and general effect. You look into his picture +with an opera-glass as you would into the next field from an open +window. His power is not so much one of suggestion, an appeal to the +beauty and grandeur in yourself, as the ability to become a colorless +medium to beauty and grandeur from without; hence the impression is at +first hand, and such as Nature herself produces. + +The world abounds in pictures where loving human faculty has lifted +ordinary motives into our sympathy; but where the subject is the +grandest landscape affluence of the world, effect, in the ordinary +sense, ceases to be of value. We need the thing, and no human ennobling +of it. In this picture we have it; no spectral cloud-pile, but a real +Chimborazo, with the hoar of eternity upon its scalp, looks down upon +the happy New-Yorker in his first May perspiration. And as the wind sets +east, no yellow hint at something warming, but whole dales and plains +still in the real sunshine, take the chill from off his heart. No wonder +he, his wife, and his quietly enthusiastic girls throng and sit there. +They are proud in their hearts of the handsome young painter. And well +they may be! Never has the New World sent so native a flavor to the Old. +Unlike so many others of our good artists, there is no saturation from +the past in Mr. Church. No souvenir of what once was warm and new in the +heart of Claude or Poussin ages the fresh work. It has a relish of our +soil; its almost Yankee knowingness, its placid, clear, intellectual +power, with its delicate sentiment and strong self-reliance, are ours; +we delightfully feel that it belongs to us, and that we are of it. + +Such is the last great work of the New York school of landscape,--a +living school, and destined to long triumphs,--already appreciated and +nobly encouraged. Its members are men as individual and various in their +gifts, as they are harmonious and manly in their mutual recognition and +fellowship. + + * * * * * + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Love Me Little, Love Me Long._ By CHARLES READE, Author of "It is Never +too Late to Mend," "White Lies," etc. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1859. + +This is the last, and in many respects the best, of Mr. Charles Reade's +literary achievements. Its popularity, we are informed, exceeds that of +any of his former works, excepting the first two published by him, "Peg +Woffington," and "Christie Johnstone," which a few years ago startled +the novel-reading world by their eccentricity of style, their +ingenious novelty of construction, and also by their freshness of +sentiment,--comet-books, pursuing one another in erratic orbits of +thought, now close upon the central light of Truth, now distantly remote +from it, but always brilliant, and generally leaving a sparkling train +of recollection behind. The author's subsequent productions, until the +present, have been less successful; some by reason of their positive +inferiority; some because of their extraordinary affectations of +expression, repelling the multitude, who do not choose to risk their +brains through unlimited pages of labyrinthine rhetoric; some, perhaps, +because of their doubtful paternity, evidences of French origin being +in many places discernible. Here, however, there appears a manifest +improvement. This story is exquisitely simple in conception, and the +narration is mostly full of ease and grace, although the unfolding of +the plot is less direct than might have been expected from an author who +professes so deep a regard for the dramatic order of development. There +is, for instance, an episodical chapter of upwards of thirty pages, +describing commercial England in a state of panic, which is very nearly +as appropriate as a disquisition on the Primary Rocks, or an inquiry +into the origin of the Cabala would be, but which is so palpably +introduced for the purpose of displaying the author's financial +erudition, that he feels himself called upon to apologize in a brief +preface for its intrusion. In the concluding chapters, too, the various +threads of interest are gathered together with very little artistic +compactness. The reader is disappointed at the tameness of the +culmination, compared with the vigor of the approach thereto. But +otherwise there is much to be charmed with, and not a little to admire. + +Mr. Reade has renounced a good number of the odd fancies which at one +time pervaded him. We find no traces of the [Greek: stigmatophobia] +with which he was formerly afflicted. Nouns are wedded to obedient +adjectives, adverbs to their willing verbs, by the lawful mediation +of the recognized authorities of punctuation, the illegitimate and +licentious disregard of which, as recklessly manifested in "It is Never +too Late to Mend," indicated a disposition to entirely subvert +the established morals of the language. It is pleasant to see how +unreservedly Mr. Reade has abandoned his functions as apostle of +grammatical free-love. Of tricks of typography there are also fewer, +although these yet remain in an excess which good taste can hardly +sanction. We often find whole platoons of admiration-points stretching +out in line, to give extraordinary emphasis to sentences already +sufficiently forcible. We sometimes encounter extravagant varieties of +type, humorously intended, but the use of which seems a game hardly +worth Mr. Reade's candle, which certainly possesses enough illuminating +power of its own, without seeking additional refulgence by such +commonplace expedients. + +In one of his pet peculiarities, the selection of a name for his work, +the author has surpassed himself. It is a good thing to have an imposing +name. In literature, as in society, a sounding title makes its way with +delicious freedom. But it is also well to see to it, that, in the matter +of title, some connection with the book to which it is applied shall be +maintained. We are accustomed to approach a title somewhat as we do a +finger-post,--not hoping that it will reveal the nature of the road we +are to follow, the character of the scenery we are to gaze upon, or the +general disposition of the impending population, but anticipating that +it will at least enable us to start in the right direction. Now every +reader of "Love me Little, Love me Long" is apt to consider himself or +herself justified in entertaining acrimonious sentiments towards Mr. +Reade for the non-fulfilment of his titular hint. If, in the process of +binding, the leaves of this story had accidentally found their way into +covers bearing other and various appellations, we imagine that very +little injury would have been done to the author's meaning or the +purchaser's understanding. It is, indeed, interesting to look forward +to the progress of Mr. Reade's ideas on the subject of titles. We have +already enjoyed a couple of pleasing nursery platitudes; perhaps it +would not be altogether out of order to expect in future a series +something like the following:-- + + "Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be!!??!?!" + "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe!" + "Sing a Song of Sixpence, a Bag Full of Rye!" + "Hiccory, Diccory, Dock!!!" + etc., etc. + +Let us not forget, in laughing at the author's weaknesses, to +acknowledge his strength. He shows in this work an inventive fancy equal +to that of any writer of light fiction in the English language, and +hardly surpassed by those of the French,--from which latter, it is +fair to suppose, much of his inspiration is drawn, since his style is +undisguisedly that of modern French romancers, though often made the +vehicle of thoughts far nobler than any they are wont to convey. His +portraits of character are capital, especially those of feminine +character, which are peculiarly vivid and _spirituels_. He represents +infantile imagination with Pre-Raphaelitic accuracy. And his +descriptions are frequently of enormous power. A story of a sailor's +perils on a whaling voyage is told in a manner almost as forcible +as that of the "frigate fight," by Walt. Whitman, and in a manner +strikingly similar, too. A night adventure in the English channel--a +pleasure excursion diverted by a storm from its original intention into +a life-and-death struggle--is related with unsurpassed effect. The whole +work is as sprightly and agreeable a love-story as any English writer +has produced,--always amusing, often flashing with genuine wit, +sometimes inspiring in its eloquent energy. And this ought to be +sufficient to secure the abundant success of any book of its class, and +to cause its successor to be awaited with interest. + + +_The Choral Harmony_. By B.F. BAKER and W.O. PERKINS. Boston: Phillips, +Sampson, & Co. pp. 378. + +The great number of music-books published, and the immense editions +annually sold, are the best proof of the demand for variety on the part +of choirs and singing-societies. Nearly all the popular collections will +be found to have about the same proportions of the permanent and the +transient elements,--on the one hand, the old chorals and hymn-tunes +consecrated by centuries of solemn worship,--on the other, the +compositions and "arrangements" of the editors. Here and there a modern +tune strikes the public taste or sinks deeper to the heart, and it takes +its place thenceforward with the "Old Hundredth," with "Martyrs," and +"Mear"; but the greater number of these compositions are as ephemeral as +newspaper stories. Every conductor of a choir knows, however, that, to +maintain an interest among singers, it is necessary to give them new +music for practice, especially new pieces for the opening of public +worship,--that they will not improve while singing familiar tunes, any +more than children will read with proper expression lessons which have +become wearisome by repetition. Masses and oratorios are beyond the +capacity of all but the most cultivated singers; and we suppose that +the very prevalence of these collections which aim to please an average +order of taste may, after all, furnish to large numbers a pleasure which +the rigid classicists would deny them, without in any way filling the +void. + +This collection has a goodly number of the favorite old tunes, and they +are given with the harmonies to which the people are accustomed. The +new tunes are of various degrees of excellence, but most of them are +constructed with a due regard to form, and those which we take to be Mr. +Baker's are exceedingly well harmonized. There is an unusual number of +anthems, motets, etc.,--many of them at once solid and attractive. The +elementary portion contains a full and intelligible exposition of the +science. To those choirs who wish to increase their stock of music, and +to singing-societies who desire the opportunity of practising new and +brilliant anthems and sentences, the "Choral Harmony" may be commended, +as equal, at least, to any work of the kind now before the public. + + +_Seacliff: or the Mystery of the Westervelts_. By J.W. DE FOREST, Author +of "Oriental Acquaintance," "European Acquaintance," etc., etc. Boston: +Phillips, Sampson, & Co. pp. 466. 12mo. + +This is a very readable novel, artful in plot, effective in +characterization, and brilliant in style. "The Mystery of the +Westervelts" is a mystery which excites the reader's curiosity at the +outset, and holds his pleased attention to the end. The incidents are so +contrived that the secret is not anticipated until it is unveiled, and +then the explanation is itself a surprise. The characters are generally +strongly conceived, skilfully discriminated, and happily combined. The +delineation of Mr. Westervelt, the father of the heroine, is especially +excellent. Irresolute in thought, impotent in will, and only +occasionally fretted by circumstances into a feeble activity, he is an +almost painfully accurate representation of a class of men who drift +through life without any power of self-direction. Mrs. Westervelt has +equal moral feebleness with less brain, and her character is a study in +practical psychology. Somerville, the villain of the piece, who unites +the disposition of Domitian to the manners of Chesterfield, is the +pitiless master of this female slave. The coquettish Mrs. Van Leer is +a prominent personage of the story; and her shallow malice and pretty +deviltries are most effectively represented. She is not only a flirt in +outward actions, but a flirt in soul, and her perfection in impertinence +almost rises to genius. All these characters betray patient meditation, +and the author's hold on them is rarely relaxed. A novel evincing so +much intellectual labor, written in a style of such careful elaboration, +and exhibiting so much skill in the development of the story, can +scarcely fail of a success commensurate with its merits. + + +_To Cuba and Back_. A Vacation Voyage. By R.H. DANA, JR., Author of "Two +Years before the Mast." Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. pp. 288. 16mo. + +It was, perhaps, a dangerous experiment for the author of a book of the +worldwide and continued popularity of "Two Years before the Mast" to +dare, with that almost unparalleled success still staring him in the +face, to tempt Fortune by giving to the public another book. But long +before this time, the thousands of copies that have left the shelves of +the publishers have attested a success scarcely second to that of Mr. +Dana's first venture. The elements of success, in both cases, are to be +found in every page of the books themselves. This "Vacation Voyage" has +not a dull page in it. Every reader reads it to the end. Every paragraph +has its own charm; every word is chosen with that quick instinct +that seizes upon the right word to describe the matter in hand which +characterizes Mr. Dana's forensic efforts, and places him so high on the +list of natural-born advocates,--which gives him the power of eloquence +at the bar, and a power scarcely less with the slower medium of the pen. +These Cuban sketches are real _stereographs_, and Cuba stands before you +as distinct and lifelike as words can make it. Single words, from Mr. +Dana's pen, are pregnant with great significance, and their meaning is +brought out by taking a little thought, as the leaves and sticks and +stones and pigmy men and women in the shady corners of the stereograph +are developed into the seeming proportions of real life, when the images +in the focus of the lenses of the stereoscope. We know of no modern book +of travels which gives one so vivid and fresh a picture, in many various +aspects, of the external nature, the people, the customs, the laws and +domestic institutions of a strange country, as does this little volume, +the off-hand product of a few days snatched from the engrossing cares of +the most active professional life. With a quick eye for the beauties of +landscape, a keen and lively perception of what is droll and amusing +in human nature, a warm heart, sympathizing readily where sympathy is +required, the various culture of the scholar, and the training of the +lawyer and politician, all well mixed with manly, straightforward, +Anglo-Saxon pluck, Mr. Dana has, in an eminent degree, all the best +qualities that should mark the traveller who undertakes to tell his +story to the world. + +Some statistics, judiciously introduced, of the present government, and +of the institution of slavery and the slave-trade, with the author's +comments upon them, give a practical value to the book at this time for +all thinking and patriotic citizens, and make it one not only to be read +for an hour's entertainment, but carefully studied for the important +practical suggestions of its pages. + + +_Memoir of Theophilus Parsons_, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial +Court of Massachusetts; with Notices of some of his Contemporaries. By +his Son, THEOPHILUS PARSONS. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. pp. 476. + +The division of the United States into so many wellnigh independent +republics, each with official rewards in its gift great enough to excite +and to satisfy a considerable ambition, makes fame a palpably provincial +thing in America. We say _palpably_, because the larger part of +contemporary fame is truly parochial everywhere; only we are apt to +overlook the fact when we measure by kingdoms or empires instead of +counties, and to fancy a stature for Palmerston or Persigny suitable to +the size of the stage on which they act. It seems a much finer thing to +be a Lord Chancellor in England than a Chief Justice in Massachusetts; +yet the same abilities which carried the chance-transplanted Boston boy, +Lyndhurst, to the woolsack, might, perhaps, had he remained in the land +of his birth, have found no higher goal than the bench of the Supreme +Court. Mr. Dickens laughed very fairly at the "remarkable men" of our +small towns; but England is full of just such little-greatness, with the +difference that one is proclaimed in the "Bungtown Tocsin" and the other +in the "Times." We must get a new phrase, and say that Mr. Brown was +immortal at the latest dates, and Mr. Jones a great man when the steamer +sailed. The small man in Europe is reflected to his contemporaries from +a magnifying mirror, while even the great men in America can be imaged +only in a diminishing one. If powers broaden with the breadth of +opportunity, if Occasion be the mother of greatness and not its tool, +the centralizing system of Europe should produce more eminent persons +than our distributive one. Certain it is that the character grows larger +in proportion to the size of the affairs with which it is habitually +concerned, and that a mind of more than common stature acquires an +habitual _stoop_, if forced to deal lifelong with little men and little +things. + +Even that German-silver kind of fame, Notoriety, can scarcely be had +here at a cheaper rate than a murder done in broad daylight of a Sunday; +and the only sure way of having one's name known to the utmost corners +of our empire is by achieving a continental _dis_repute. With a +metropolis planted in a crevice between Maryland and Virginia, and +stunted because its roots vainly seek healthy nourishment in a soil +impoverished by slavery, a paulopost future capital, the centre of +nothing, without literature, art, or so much as commerce,--we have no +recognized dispenser of national reputations like London or Paris. In a +country richer in humor, and among a people keener in the sense of it +than any other, we cannot produce a national satire or caricature, +because there is no butt visible to all parts of the country at once. +How many men at this moment know the names, much more the history or +personal appearance, of our cabinet ministers? But the joke of London or +Paris tickles all the ribs of England or France, and the intellectual +rushlight of those cities becomes a beacon, set upon such bushels, and +multiplied by the many-faced provincial reflector behind it. Meanwhile +New York and Boston wrangle about literary and social preëminence like +two schoolboys, each claiming to have something (he knows not exactly +what) vastly finer than the other at home. Let us hope that we shall +by-and-by develop a rivalry like that of the Italian cities, and that +the difficulty of fame beyond our own village may make us more content +with doing than desirous of the name of it. For, after all, History +herself is for the most part but the Muse of Little Peddlington, and +Athens raised the heaviest crop of laurels yet recorded on a few acres +of rock, without help from newspaper guano. + +Theophilus Parsons was one of those men of whom surviving contemporaries +always say that he was the most gifted person they had ever known, +while yet they are able to produce but little tangible evidence of his +superiority. It is, no doubt, true that Memory's geese are always swans; +but in the case of a man like Parsons, where the testimony is so various +and concurrent, we cannot help believing that there must have been a +special force of character, a marked alertness and grasp of mind, to +justify the impression he left behind. With the exception of John +Adams, he was probably the most considerable man of his generation in +Massachusetts; and it is not merely the _caruit quia vate sacro_, but +the narrowness of his sphere of action, still further narrowed by the +technical nature of a profession in itself provincial, as compared +with many other fields for the display of intellectual power, that has +hindered him from receiving an amount of fame at all commensurate with +an ability so real and so various. + +But the life of a strong man, lived no matter where, and perhaps all +the more if it have been isolated from the noisier events which make so +large a part of history, contains the best material of biography. Judge +Parsons was fortunate in a son capable of doing that well, which, even +if ill done, would have been interesting. A practised writer, the author +of two volumes of eloquent and thoughtful essays, Professor Parsons has +known how to select and arrange his matter with a due feeling of effect +and perspective. When he fails to do this, it is because here and there +the essayist has got the better of the biographer. We are not concerned +here, for example, to know Mr. Parsons's opinions about Slavery, and +we are sure that the sharp insight and decisive judgment of his father +would never have allowed him to be frightened by the now somewhat +weather-beaten scarecrow of danger to the Union. + +In the earlier part of the Memoir we get some glimpses of +pre-Revolutionary life in New England, which we hope yet to see +illustrated more fully in its household aspects.[A] The father of +Parsons was precisely one of those country-clergymen who were "passing +rich on forty pounds a year." On a salary of two hundred and eighty +dollars, he brought up a family of seven children, three of whom he sent +to college, and kept a hospitable house. + +[Footnote A: Mr. Elliott, in his _New England History_, has wisely +gathered many of those unconsidered trifles which are so important in +forming a just notion of the character of a population. We cannot but +wish that our town-historians, instead of giving so much space to idle +and often untrustworthy genealogies, and to descriptions of the "elegant +mansions" of Messrs. This and That, would do us the real service of +rescuing from inevitable oblivion the fleeting phases of household +scenery that help us to that biography of a people so much more +interesting than their annals. We would much rather know whether a man +wore homespun, a hundred years ago, than whether he was a descendant of +Rameses I.] + +Of Parsons's college experiences we get less than we could desire; +but as he advances in life, we find his mind exercised by the great +political and social problem whose solution was to be the experiment of +Democracy at housekeeping for herself,--we see him influencing State +and even National politics, but always as a man who preferred attaining +the end to being known as the means,--and finally, as Chief Justice, +reforming the loose habits of the bar, intolerant of gabble, and leaving +the permanent impress of his energetic mind and impatient logic on the +Common Law of the country. + +We know nothing more striking than the dying speech recorded in the +concluding chapter. At the end of a life so laborious and so useful, the +Judge, himself withdrawing to be judged, murmurs,--"Gentlemen of the +Jury, the facts of the case are in your hands. You will retire and +consider of your verdict." In this volume, the son has submitted the +facts of the case to a jury of posterity. His case will not be injured +by the modesty with which he has stated it. He has claimed less for his +father than one less near to him might have done. We think the verdict +must be, that this was a great man _marooned_ by Destiny on an +out-of-the-way corner of the world, where, however he might exert great +powers, there was no adequate field for that display of them which is +the necessary condition of fame. + +Mr. Parsons has done a real service to our history and our letters in +this volume. Accompanying and illustrating his main topic, he has given +us excellent sketches of some other persons less eminent than his +father, sometimes from tradition and sometimes from his own impressions. +We hope in the next edition he will give us a supplementary chapter of +personal anecdotes, of which there is a large number that deserve to be +perpetuated in print, and which otherwise will die with the memories +in which they are now preserved. The strictly professional part of the +biography, illustrating the Chief Justice's more important decisions, +might also be advantageously enlarged. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. + + +Songs of the Church; or Psalms and Hymns of the Protestant Episcopal +Church, arranged consecutively to Appropriate Melodies; together with +a Full Set of Chants for each Season of the Christian Year. New York. +Delisser & Proctor. 12mo. pp. 453. $1.00. + +Napoleonic Ideas. Des Idées Napoléoniennes, par Le Prince Napoléon Louis +Bonaparte. Brussels, 1839. Translated by James A. Dorr. New York. D. +Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 154. 50 cts. + +The Art of Extempore Speaking. Hints for the Pulpit, the Senate, and the +Bar. By M. Bautain, Vicar-General and Professor at the Sorbonne, etc., +etc. With Additions by a Member of the New York Bar. New York. Charles +Scribner. 12mo. pp. 304. $1.00. + +The Atonement. Discourses and Treatises, by Edwards, Smalley, Maxey, +Emmons, Griffin, Burge, and Weeks. With an Introductory Essay by Edwards +A. Park, Abbot Professor of Christian Theology, Andover, Mass. Boston. +Congregational Board of Publication. 8vo. pp. 596. $2.00. + +The Harp of a Thousand Strings, or Laughter for a Lifetime, etc., etc. +New York. Dick & Fitzgerald. 12mo. pp. 368. $1.00. + +Life of George Washington. By Washington Irving. Vol. V. New York. G.P. +Putnam. 8vo. pp. 456. $2.00. 12mo. pp. 434. $1.50. + +The Flounced Robe and What it Cost. By Harriet B. M'Keever. +Philadelphia. 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Sheldon & Co. 16mo. pp. 280. 50 cts. + +Works of Michael de Montaigne. Comprising his Essays, Journey into +Italy, and Letters. With Notes from all the Commentators, Biographical +and Bibliographical Notices, etc. By W. Hazlitt. A New and Carefully +Revised Edition. Edited by O.W. Wight. 4 vols. New York. Derby & +Jackson. 12mo. $5.00. + +The Limits of Religious Thought, Examined in Eight Lectures, delivered +before the University of Oxford in the Year 1858, on the Bampton +Foundation. By Henry Longueville Mansell, B.D., Reader in Moral and +Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College, Tutor and late Fellow of +St. John's College. First American, from the Third London Edition. With +the Notes Translated. Boston. Gould & Lincoln. 12mo. pp. 362. $1.25. + +Mosaics. By the Author of "Salad for the Solitary," etc. New York. +Charles Scribner. 12mo. pp. 420. $1.25. + +The Cassique of Kianah. A Colonial Romance. By William Gilmore Simms, +Esq. 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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 + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 20, 2004 [EBook #11196] +[Date last updated: September 3, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. IV.--JULY, 1859.--NO. XXI. + + + +THOMAS PAINE'S + +SECOND APPEARANCE IN THE UNITED STATES. + + +"Nay, so far did he carry his obstinacy, that he absolutely invited a +professed Anti-Diluvian from the Gallic Empire, who illuminated the +whole country with his principles and his nose."--Salmagundi. + +We lukewarm moderns can hardly conceive the degree of violence and +bitterness reached by party-feeling in the early years of the United +States Constitution. A Mississippi member of Congress listening to a +Freesoil speech is mild in demeanor and expression, if we compare his +ill-nature with the spiteful fury of his predecessors in legislation +sixty years ago. The same temper was visible throughout the land. Nobody +stood aloof. Two hostile camps were pitched over against each other, and +every man in Israel was to be found in his tent. Our great experiment +was a new one; on its success depended the personal welfare of every +citizen, and naturally every citizen was anxious to train up that +experiment in the way which promised to his reason or to his feelings +the best result. + +The original Federalists of 1787 were in favor of effacing as much +as possible the boundary-lines of the Thirteen Colonies, and of +consolidating them into a new, united, and powerful people, under a +strong central government. The first Anti-Federalists were made up of +several sects: one branch, sincere republicans, were fearful that the +independence of the States was in danger, and that consolidation would +prepare the way for monarchy; another, small, but influential, still +entertained the wish for reunion with England, or, at least, for the +adoption of the English form of government,--and, hoping that the +dissensions of the old Confederation might lead to some such result, +drank the health of the Bishop of Osnaburg in good Madeira, and objected +to any system which might place matters upon a permanent republican +basis; and a third party, more numerous and noisy than either, who knew +by long experience that the secret of home popularity was to inspire +jealousy of the power of Congress, were unwilling to risk the loss of +personal consequence in this new scheme of centralization, and took good +care not to allow the old local prejudices and antipathies to slumber. +The two latter classes of patriots are well described by Franklin in his +"Comparison of the Ancient Jews with the Modern Anti-Federalists,"--a +humorous allegory, which may have suggested to the Senator from Ohio his +excellent conceit of the Israelite with Egyptian principles. "Many," +wrote Franklin, "still retained an affection for Egypt, the land of +their nativity, and whenever they felt any inconvenience or hardship, +though the natural and unavoidable effect of their change of situation, +exclaimed against their leaders as the authors of their trouble, +and were not only for returning into Egypt, but for stoning their +deliverers.... Many of the chiefs thought the new Constitution might be +injurious to their particular interests,--that the profitable places +would be engrossed by the families and friends of Moses and Aaron, and +others, equally well born, excluded." + +Time has decided this first point in favor of the Unionists. None of +the evils prophesied by their opponents have as yet appeared. The +independence of the individual States remains inviolate, and, although +the central executive has grown yearly more powerful, a monarchy +seems as remote as ever. Local distinctions are now little prized in +comparison with federal rank. It is not every man who can recollect the +name of the governor of his own State; very few can tell that of the +chief of the neighboring Commonwealth. The old boundaries have grown +more and more indistinct; and when we look at the present map of the +Union, we see only that broad black line known as Mason and Dixon's, on +one side of which are neatness, thrift, enterprise, and education,--and +on the other, whatever the natives of that region may please to call it. + +After 1789, the old Egypt faction ceased to exist, except as grumblers; +but the States-Rights men, though obliged to acquiesce in the +Constitution, endeavored, by every means of "construction" their +ingenuity could furnish, to weaken and restrict the exercise and the +range of its power. The Federalists, on the other hand, held that want +of strength was the principal defect of the system, and were for adding +new buttresses to the Constitutional edifice. It is curious to remark +that neither party believed in the permanency of the Union. Then +came into use the mighty adjectives "constitutional" and +"unconstitutional,"--words of vast import, doing equally good service +to both parties in furnishing a word to express their opinion of the +measures they urged and of those they objected to. And then began to be +strained and frayed that much-abused piece of parchment which Thomas +Paine called the political Bible of the American people, and foolishly +thought indispensable to liberty in a representative government. "Ask an +American if a certain act be constitutional," says Paine, "he pulls out +his pocket volume, turns to page and verse, and gives you a correct +answer in a moment." Poor Mr. Paine! if you had lived fifty years +longer, you would have seen that paper constitutions, like the paper +money you despised so justly, depend upon honesty and confidence for +their value, and are at a sad discount in hard times of fraud and +corruption. Unprincipled men find means of evading the written agreement +upon their face by ingenious subterfuges or downright repudiation. An +arbitrary majority will construe the partnership articles to suit their +own interests, and _stat pro constitutione voluntas_. It is true that +the _litera scripta_ remains, but the meaning is found to vary with the +interpreter. + +In 1791, when the two parties were fairly formed and openly pitted +against each other, a new element of discord had entered into politics, +which added the bitterness of class-feeling to the usual animosity of +contention. Society in the Middle and Southern States had been composed +of a few wealthy and influential families, and of a much more numerous +lower class who followed the lead of the great men. These lesser +citizens had now determined to set up for themselves, and had enlisted +in the ranks of the Anti-Federalists, who soon assumed the name and +style of Democrats, an epithet first bestowed upon them in derision, but +joyfully adopted,--one of the happiest hits in political nomenclature +ever made. _In hoc verbo vinces:_ In that word lay victory. If any one +be tempted, in this age, to repeat the stupid question, "What's in a +name?" let him be answered,--Everything: place, power, pelf, perhaps we +may add peculation. "The Barons of Virginia," chiefs of State-Rights, +who at home had been in favor of a governor and a senate for life, and +had little to fear from any lower class in their own neighborhood, saw +how much was to be gained by "taking the people into partnership," as +Herodotus phrases it, and commenced that alliance with the proletaries +of the North which has proved so profitable to Southern leaders. In New +England, the land of industry, self-control, and superior cultivation, +(for the American Parnassus was then in Connecticut, either in Hartford, +or on Litchfield Hill,) there was, comparatively speaking, no lower +class. The Eastern men, whose levelling spirit and equality of ranks +had been so much disliked and dreaded by the representatives from other +Colonies in the Ante-Revolutionary Congresses, had undergone little or +no social change by the war, and probably had at that period a more +correct idea of civil liberty and free government than any other people +on the face of the earth. General Charles Lee wrote to an English +friend, that the New-Englanders were the only Americans who really +understood the meaning of republicanism, and many years later De +Tocqueville came to nearly the same opinion:--_"C'est dans la Nouvelle +Angleterre que se sont combinees les deux ou trois idees principales, +qui aujourd'hui forment les bases de la theorie sociale des +Etats-Unis."_ In this region Federalism reigned supreme. The +New-Englanders desired a strong, honest, and intelligent government; +they thought, with John Adams, that "true equality is to do as you would +be done by," and agreed with Hamilton, that "a government in which every +man may aspire to any office was free enough for all purposes"; and +judging from what they saw at home, they looked upon Anti-Federalism not +only as erroneous in theory, but as disreputable in practice. "The name +of Democrat," writes a fierce old gentleman to his son, "is despised; it +is synonymous with infamy." Out of New England a greater social change +was going forward. Already appeared that impatience of all restraint +which is so alarming a symptom of our times. Every rogue, "who felt the +halter draw," wanted to know if it was for tyranny like this that the +Colonies had rebelled. "Such a monster of a government has seldom or +never been known on earth. A blessed Revolution, a blessed Revolution, +indeed!--_but farmers, mechanics, and laborers had no share in it._ We +are the asses who pay." This was the burden of the Democratic song. + +But the real issue between the two parties, which underlay all their +proposed measures and professed principles, was the old struggle of +classes, modified of course by the time and the place. The Democrats +contended for perfect equality, political and social, and as little +power as possible in the central government so long as their party was +not in command. The Federalists, who held the reins, were for a strong +conservative administration, and a wholesome distinction of classes. +The two parties were not long in waiting for flags to rally around, and +fresh fields on which to fight. The French Revolution furnished both. +In its early stages it had excited a general sympathy in America; and, +indeed, so has every foreign insurrection, rebellion, or riot since, no +matter where or why it occurred, provided good use has been made of the +sacred words Revolution and Liberty. This cry has never been echoed in +this country without exciting a large body of men to mass-meetings, +dinners, and other public demonstrations, who do not stop to consider +what it means, or whether, in the immediate instance, it has any meaning +at all. John Adams said in his "Defence of American Constitutions," "Our +countrymen will never run delirious after a word or a name." Mr. Adams +was much mistaken. If, according to the Latin proverb, a word is +sufficient for a wise man, so, in another sense, it is all that is +needful for fools. But as the Revolution advanced in France towards +republicanism, the Federalists, who thought the English system, less the +king and the hereditary lords, the best scheme of government, began to +grow lukewarm. When it became evident that the New Era was to end in +bloodshed, instead of universal peace and good-will towards men,--that +the Rights of Man included murder, confiscation, and atheism,--that +the Sovereignty of the People meant the rule of King Mob, who seemed +determined to carry out to the letter Diderot's famous couplet,-- + + "Et des boyaux du dernier pretre + Serrez le cou du dernier des rois,"-- + +then the adjective _French_ became in Federal mouths an epithet of +abhorrence and abuse; up went the flag of dear Old England, the defender +of the faith and of social order. The opposition party, on the contrary, +saw in the success of the French people, in their overthrow of kings +and nobles, a cheerful encouragement to their own struggle against the +aristocratic Federalists, and would allow no sanguinary irregularities +to divert their sympathy from the great Democratic triumph abroad. The +gay folds of the tricolor which floated over them seemed to shed upon +their heads a mild influence of that Gallic madness that led them into +absurdities we could not now believe, were they not on record. The +fashions, sartorial and social, of the French were affected; amiable +Yankees called each other _citizen_, invented the feminine _citess_, +and proposed changing our old calendar for the Ventose and Fructidor +arrangement of the one and indivisible republic. (We wish they had +adopted their admirable system of weights and measures.) Divines are +said to have offered up thanks to the Supreme Being for the success of +the good _Sans-culottes_. At all events, their victories were celebrated +by civic festivals and the discharge of cannon; the English flag was +burned as a sacrifice to the Goddess of Liberty; a French frigate took +a prize off the Capes of the Delaware, and sent her in to Philadelphia; +thousands of the populace crowded the wharves, and, when the British +colors were seen reversed, and the French flying over them, burst into +exulting hurras. When a report came that the Duke of York was a prisoner +and shown in a cage in Paris, all the bells of Philadelphia rang peals +of joy for the downfall of tyrants. Here is the story of a civic _fete_ +given at Reading, in Massachusetts, which we extract from a newspaper of +the time as a specimen of the Gallo-Yankee absurdities perpetrated by +our grandfathers:-- + +"The day was ushered in by the ringing of the bells, and a salute of +fifteen discharges from a field-piece. The American flag waved in the +wind, and the flag of France over the British in inverted order. At noon +a large number of respectable citizens assembled at Citizen Raynor's, +and partook of an elegant entertainment. After dinner, Captain Emerson's +military company in uniform assembled and escorted the citizens to the +meeting-house, where an address pertinent to the occasion was delivered +by the Rev. Citizen Prentiss, and united prayers and praises were +offered to God, and several hymns and anthems were well sung; after +which they returned in procession to Citizen Raynor's, where three +farmers, with their frocks and utensils, and with a tree on their +shoulders, were escorted by the military company formed in a hollow +square to the Common, where the tree was planted in form, as an emblem +of freedom, and the Marseillaise Hymn was sung by a choir within a +circle round the tree. Major Boardman, by request, superintended the +business of the day, and directed the manoeuvres." + +In the Gallic jargon then fashionable, England was "an insular Bastille +of slaves," and New England "the Vendee of America." On the other side, +the Federalists returned cheer for cheer,--looked with true British +contempt on the warlike struggles of the restless Frenchman,--chuckled +over the disasters which befell "his little popgun fleets,"--and damned +the Democrats for a pack of poor, dirty, blasphemous cutthroats. Hate +one another was the order of the day. The religious element, which +always exasperates dissension, was present. French Democrats had set +up the Goddess of Reason (in private life Mme. Momoro) as an object of +worship; American Democrats were accused of making Tom Paine's "Age of +Reason" their Bible; "Atheist" and "Infidel" were added to the epithets +which the Federalists discharged at their foes. So fierce and so general +was the quarrel on this European ground, that a distinguished foreigner, +then travelling in this country, said that he saw many French and +English, but scarcely ever met with an American. Weld, a more humble +tourist, put into his book, that in Norfolk, Virginia, he found half the +town ready to fight the other half on the French question. Meanwhile, +both French and English treated us with ill-disguised contempt, +and inflicted open outrages upon our commerce. But it made little +difference. One faction was willing to be kicked by England; and the +other took a pleasure in being _soufflete_ by France. The rival flags +were kept flying until the close of the war of 1812. + +An outbreak of Democratic fury bordering upon treason took place, when +Senator Mason of Virginia violated the oath of secrecy, and sent a +copy of Jay's treaty with England to the "Aurora." Meetings passed +condemnatory resolutions expressed in no mild language. Jay was "a +slave, a traitor, a coward, who had bartered his country's liberties for +British gold." Mobs burned Jay in effigy, and pelted Alexander Hamilton. +At a public meeting in Philadelphia, Mr. Blair threw the treaty to the +crowd, and advised them to kick it to hell. They carried it on a pole +in procession, and burned it before the English minister's house. A +Democratic society in Richmond, Virginia, full of the true modern South +Carolina "sound and fury," gave public notice, that, if the treaty +entered into by "that damned arch traitor, John Jay, with the British +tyrant should be ratified, a petition will be presented to the next +General Assembly of Virginia praying that the said State may recede +from the Union, and be left under the government and protection of +one hundred thousand free and independent Virginians!" A meeting at +Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, resolved, "that it was weary of the tardiness +of Congress in not going to war with England, and that they were _almost +ready_ to wish for a state of revolution and the guillotine of France +for a short space, in order to punish the miscreants who enervate and +disgrace the government." Mr. Jefferson's opinion of the treaty is well +known from his rhetorical letter to Rutledge, which, in two or three +lines, contains the adjectives, _unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous, +dishonorable, disadvantageous, humiliating, disgraceful, improper, +monarchical, impeachable_. The Mazzei letter, written not long after the +ratification, displays the same bitter feeling. + +The Federalists had a powerful ally in William Cobbett, who signed +himself Peter Porcupine, adopting for his literary _alias_ a nickname +bestowed by his enemies. This remarkable writer, who, like Paine, +figured in the political conflicts of two nations, must have come into +the world bristling with pugnacity. A more thorough game-cock never +crowed in the pit. He had been a private in the English army, came +to the United States about 1790, and taught French to Americans, and +English to Frenchmen, (to Talleyrand among others,) until 1794, when +the dogmatic Dr. Priestley arrived here, fresh from the scene of his +persecutions. The Doctor losing no time in laying his case before the +American public, Cobbett answered his publication, ridiculing it and the +Doctor's political career in a pamphlet which became immediately popular +with the Federalists. From that time until his departure for England, in +1800, Cobbett's pen was never idle. His "Little Plain English in Favor +of Mr. Jay's Treaty" was altogether the best thing published on that +side of the question. Cobbett had more than one point of resemblance to +Paine, the object of his early invective, but later of his unqualified +admiration. These two men were the best English pamphleteers of their +day. In shrewdness, in practical sense, Cobbett was fully Paine's equal. +He was as coarse and as pithy in expression, but with more wit, a better +education, more complete command of language, and a greater variety of +resources. Cobbett was a quicker and a harder hitter than Paine. His +personal courage gave him a great advantage in his warfaring life. In +1796, in the hottest of the French and English fight, the well-known +Porcupine opened a shop in Philadelphia. He filled his show-window with +all the prints of English kings, nobles, and generals he could collect, +and "then," he says, "I took down the shutters, and waited." + +Party-feeling reached the boiling-point when Washington retired to Mount +Vernon. Mr. Adams, his successor, had none of that divinity which +hedged the Father of his Country to protect him. Under the former +administration, he had been, as Senator Grayson humorously called him, +"his superfluous Excellency," and out of the direct line of fire. He +could easily look down upon such melancholy squibs as Freneau's "Daddy +Vice" and "Duke of Braintree." But when raised above every other head by +his high office, he became a mark for the most bitter personal attacks. +Mr. Adams unfortunately thought too much about himself to be the +successful chief of a party. He allowed his warm feelings to divert +him from the main object and end of his followers. He was jealous of +Hamilton,--unwilling, in fact, to seem to be governed by the opinion of +any man, and half inclined to look for a reelection outside of his own +party. Hamilton, the soul of the Federalists, mistrusted and disliked +Mr. Adams, and made the sad mistake of publishing his mistrust and +dislike. It must be confessed that the gentlemen who directed the +Administration party were no match as tacticians for such file-leaders +as Jefferson and Burr. Many of their pet measures were ill-judged, to +say the least. The provisional army furnished a fertile theme for fierce +declamation. The black cockade became the badge of the supporters of +government, so that in the streets one could tell at a glance whether +friend or foe was approaching. The Alien and Sedition Laws caused much +bitter feeling and did great damage to the Federalists. To read these +acts and the trials under them now excites somewhat of the feeling +with which we look upon some strange and clumsy engine of torture in a +mediaeval museum. How the temper of this people and their endurance of +legal inflictions have changed since then! There was Matthew Lyon, a +noted Democrat of Irish origin, who had published a letter charging the +President with "ridiculous pomp, idle parade, and selfish avarice." He +was found guilty of sedition, and sentenced to four months' imprisonment +and a fine of one thousand dollars. There was Cooper, an Englishman, +who fared equally ill for saying or writing that the President did not +possess sufficient capacity to fulfil the duties of his office. What +should we think of the sanity of James Buchanan, should he prosecute +and obtain a conviction against some Black-Republican Luther Baldwin of +1859, for wishing that the wad of a cannon, fired in his honor, might +strike an unmentionable part of his august person? What should we say, +if Horace Greeley were to be arrested on a warrant issued by the Supreme +Court of New York for a libel on Louis Napoleon, as was William Cobbett +by Judge McKean of Pennsylvania for a libel on the King of Spain? + +Fiercer and more bitter waxed party-discord, and both sides did ample +injustice to one another. Mr. Jefferson wrote, that men who had been +intimate all their lives would cross the street and look the other way, +lest they should be obliged to touch their hats. And Gouverneur Morris +gives us a capital idea of the state of feeling when he says that a +looker-on, who took no part in affairs, felt like a sober man at a +dinner when the rest of the company were drunk. Civil war was often +talked of, and the threat of secession, which has become the rhetorical +staple of the South, produced solely for exportation to the North, to be +used there in manufacturing pro-slavery votes out of the timidity of men +of large means and little courage or perspicacity, was then freely +made by both divisions of the Union. Had we been of French or +Spanish descent, there would have been barricades, _coup-d'etats, +pronunciamentos_; but the English race know better how to treat the +body-politic. They never apply the knife except for the most desperate +operations. But where hard words were so plenty, blows could not fail. +Duels were frequent, cudgellings not uncommon,--although as yet the +Senate-Chamber had not been selected as the fittest scene for the use +of the bludgeon. It is true that molasses-and-water was the beverage +allowed by Congress in those simple times, and that charged to +stationery. + +What terrible fellows our ancestors were for calling +names,--particularly the gentlemen of the press! If they had been +natives of the Island of Frozen Sounds, along the shore of which +Pantagruel and Panurge coasted, they would have stood up to their +chins in scurrilous epithets. The comical sketch of their rhetoric in +"Salmagundi" is literally true:--"Every day have these slangwhangers +made furious attacks on each other and upon their respective adherents, +discharging their heavy artillery, consisting of large sheets loaded +with scoundrel, villain, liar, rascal, numskull, nincompoop, dunderhead, +wiseacre, blockhead, jackass." As single words were not always explosive +enough to make a report equal to their feelings, they had recourse to +compounds;--"pert and prating popinjay," "hackneyed gutscraper," "maggot +of corruption," "toad on a dung-heap," "snivelling sophisticating +hound," are a few of the chain-shot which strike our eyes in turning +over the yellow faded files. They are all quiet now, those eager, +snarling editors of fifty years since, and mostly forgotten. Even the +ink which records their spiteful abuse is fading away;-- + + "Dunne no more the halter dreads, + The torrent of his lies to check, + No gallows Cheetham's dreams invades, + Nor lours o'er Holt's devoted neck." + +Emerson's saying, that involuntarily we read history as superior beings, +is never so true as when we read history before it has been worked +up for the public, in the raw material of letters, pamphlets, and +newspapers. Feverish paragraphs, which once excited the enthusiasm of +one party and the fiercest opposition of the other, lie before us as +dead and as unmeaning as an Egyptian mummy. The passion which once +gave them life is gone. The objects which the writers considered +all-important we perceive to have been of no real significance even in +their day. We read on with a good-natured pity, akin to the feeling +which the gods of Epicurus might be supposed to experience when they +looked down upon foolish mortals,--and when we shut the book, go out +into our own world to fret, fume, and wrangle over things equally +transitory and frivolous. + +When it became evident that the Administration party ran the risk of +being beaten in the election of 1800, their trumpeters sounded the +wildest notes of alarm. "People! how long will you remain blind? Awake! +be up and doing! If Mr. Jefferson is elected, the equal representation +of the small States in the Senate will be destroyed, the funding +system swept away, the navy abolished, all commerce and foreign trade +prohibited, and the fruits of the soil left to rot on the hands of the +farmer. The taxes will all fall on the landed interest, all the churches +will be overturned, none but Frenchmen employed by government, and +the monstrous system of liberty and equality, with all its horrid +consequences, as experienced in France and St. Domingo, will inevitably +be introduced." Thus they shouted, and no doubt many of the shouters +sincerely believed it all. Nevertheless, and in spite of these alarums, +the Revolution of '99, as Mr. Jefferson liked to call it, took place +without bloodshed, and in 1801 that gentleman mounted the throne. + +After this struggle was over, the Federalists, some from conviction and +some from disgust at being beaten, gave up the country as lost. Worthy +New-Englanders, like Cabot, Fisher Ames, and Wolcott, had no longer +hope. They sank into the position of mere grumblers, with one leading +principle,--admiration of England, and a willingness to submit to any +insults which England in her haughtiness might please to inflict. "We +are sure," says the "Boston Democrat," "that George III. would find more +desperately devoted subjects in New England than in any part of his +dominions." The Democrats, of course, clung to their motto, "Whatever +is in France is right," and even accepted the arbitrary measures of +Bonaparte at home as a mere change of system, and abroad as forced upon +him by British pirates. It is curious to read the high Federalist papers +in the first days of their sorrow. In their contradictory fault-finding +sulkiness, they give some color of truth to Mr. Jefferson's accusation, +that the Federal leaders were seeking to establish a monarchy,--a charge +well known to be unfounded, as Washington said at the time. "What is the +use of celebrating the Fourth of July?" they asked. "Freedom is a stale, +narcotic topic. The Declaration of Independence a useless, if not an +odious libel upon a friendly nation connected with us by the silken band +of amity." Fenno, in his paper, said the Declaration was "a placard +of rebellion, a feeble production, in which the spirit of rebellion +prevailed over the love of order." Dennie, in the "Portfolio," +anticipating Mr. Choate, called it "an incoherent accumulation of +indigestible and impracticable political dogmas, dangerous to the +peace of the world, and seditious in its local tendency, and, as a +composition, equally at variance with the laws of construction and the +laws of regular government." The Federalist opinion of the principles +of the Administration party was avowed with equal frankness in their +papers. "A democracy is the most absurd constitution, productive of +anarchy and mischief, which must always happen when the government of a +nation depends upon the caprice of the ignorant, harebrained vulgar. All +the miseries of men for a long series of years grew out of that infamous +mode of polity, a democracy; which is to be reckoned to be only the +corruption and degeneracy of a republic, and not to be ranked among the +legitimate forms of government. If it be not a legitimate government, we +owe it no allegiance. He is a blind man who does not see this truth; he +is a base man who will not assert it. Democratic power is tyranny, in +the principle, the beginning, the progress, and the end. It is on its +trial here, and the issue will be civil war, desolation, and anarchy." +These and other foolish excerpts were kept before their readers by the +"Aurora" and "Boston Chronicle," leading Democratic organs, and +served to sweeten their triumph and to seal the fate of the unlucky +Federalists. + +The difference between the tone of these extracts and that of our +present journalists, when they touch upon the abstract principles of +government, may indicate to us the firm hold which the Democratic theory +has taken of our people. As that conquering party marched onward, the +opposition was forced to follow after, and to encamp upon the ground +their powerful enemy left behind him. To-day when we see gentlemen who +consider themselves Conservatives in the ranks of the Democrats, we may +suppose that the tour of the political circle is nearly completed. + +A momentary lull had followed the storm of the election, when Mr. +Jefferson boldly threw down another "bone for the Federalists to gnaw." +He wrote to Thomas Paine, inviting him to America, and offering him a +passage home in a national vessel. "You will, in general, find us," he +added, "returned to sentiments worthy of former times; in these it will +be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any +man living. That you may live long, to continue your useful labors and +reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. +Accept the assurance of my high esteem and affectionate attachment." Mr. +Jefferson went even farther. He openly announced his intention of giving +Paine an office, if there were one in his gift suitable for him. Now, +although Paine had been absent for many years, he had not been forgotten +by the Americans. The echo of the noise he made in England reached our +shores; and English echoes were more attentively listened to then even +than at present. His "Rights of Man" had been much read in this country. +Indeed, it was asserted, and upon pretty good authority, that Jefferson +himself, when Secretary of State, had advised and encouraged the +publication of an American edition as an antidote to the "Davila" of Mr. +Adams. Even the "Age of Reason" had obtained an immense circulation from +the great reputation of the author. It reminded the Rev. Mr. Goodrich, +and other Orthodox New-Englanders, of Milton's description of Death,-- + + "Black it stood as night, + Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell." + +Yet numbers of people, nothing frightened, would buy and read. "No +work," Dr. Francis tells us, "had a demand for readers comparable to +that of Paine. The 'Age of Reason,' on its first appearance in New York, +was printed as an orthodox book by orthodox publishers,--doubtless +deceived," the charitable Doctor adds, "by the vast renown which the +author of 'Common Sense' had obtained, and _by the prospects of sale_." +Paine's position in the French Convention, his long imprisonment, +poverty, slovenly habits, and fondness for drink, were all well +known and well talked over. William Cobbett, for one, never lost an +opportunity of dressing up Paine as a filthy monster. He wrote his +life for the sake of doing it more thoroughly. The following extract, +probably much relished at the time, will give some idea of the tone and +temper of this performance:-- + +"How Tom gets a living now, or what brothel he inhabits, I know not, nor +does it much signify. He has done all the mischief he can do in this +world; and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on +the earth, or to be dried in the air, is of very little consequence. +Whenever or wherever he breathes his last, he will excite neither sorrow +nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes, not a groan will +be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like Judas, he will be remembered +by posterity; men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, +treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous by the single monosyllable of +Paine." + +Cobbett also wrote an _ante-mortem_ epitaph, a fit inscription for the +life he had composed. It ends thus:-- + + "He is crammed in a dungeon and preaches up Reason; + Blasphemes the Almighty, lives in filth like a hog; + Is abandoned in death, and interred like a dog." + +This brutal passage does not exaggerate the opinion of Paine's character +held by the good people of America. He was an object of horror +to them,--a rebel against government and against God,--a type of +Jacobinism, a type of Infidelity, and, with what seemed to them, no +doubt, a beautiful consistency, a type of all that was abandoned and +vile. Thomas Paine, a Massachusetts poet of _ci-devant_ celebrity, +petitioned the General Court for permission to call himself Robert Treat +Paine, on the ground that he had no Christian name. In New England, +Christianity and Federalism were looked upon as intimately connected, +and Democracy as a wicked thing, born of Tom Paine, Tom Jefferson, and +the Father of Lies. In this Trinity of Evil, Thomas Paine stood first. + +During the struggle for the Presidency, Mr. Jefferson had been accused, +from every Federal stump, of the two unpardonable sins to Yankee +minds,--namely, that his notes could be bought for five shillings in the +pound, and that he did not believe in Revolution. Since his election, he +had been daily reminded of his religious short-comings by keen newspaper +attacks. He knew that he strengthened the hands of his enemies by +inviting home the Arch-Infidel. We are and were then a religious people, +in spite of the declaration in Mr. Adams's Tripolitan treaty that the +government of the United States was "not in any sense founded on the +Christian religion," and Paine could find few admirers in any class. Mr. +Jefferson, too, was well aware that the old man was broken, that the +fire had gone out of him, and that his presence in the United States +could be of no use whatever to the party. But he thought that Paine's +services in the Revolution had earned for him an asylum, and their old +acquaintance made him hasten to offer it. We think that the invitation +to Paine was one of the manliest acts of Jefferson's life. + +When the matter became public, there arose a long, loud cry of abuse, +which rang from Massachusetts Bay to Washington City. Anarchy, +confusion, and the downfall of not only church, but state, were +declared to be the unavoidable consequences of Paine's return to our +shores,--that impious apostate! that Benedict Arnold, once useful, and +then a traitor! The "United States Gazette" had ten leaders on the text +of Tom Paine and Jefferson, "whose love of liberty was neither more +rational, generous, or social, than that of the wolf or the tiger." The +"New England Palladium" fairly shrieked:--"What! invite to the United +States that lying, drunken, brutal infidel, who rejoices in the +opportunity of basking and wallowing in the confusion, devastation, +bloodshed, rapine, and murder, in which his soul delights?" Why, even +the French called him the English orang-outang! He was exposed with a +monkey and a bear in a cage in Paris. In 1792, he was forbidden to haunt +the White-Bear Tavern in London. He subsisted for eight years on the +charity of booksellers, who employed him in the morning to correct +proofs; in the afternoon he was too drunk. He lodged in a cellar. He +helped the _poissardes_ to clean fish and open oysters. He lived in +misery, filth, and contempt. Not until Livingston went to France did any +respectable American call upon him. Livingston's attentions to him not +only astonished, but disgusted the First Consul, and gave him a very +mean opinion of Livingston's talents. The critical Mr. Dennie caused his +"Portfolio" to give forth this solemn strain: "If, during the present +season of national abasement, infatuation, folly, and vice, any portent +could surprise, sober men would be utterly confounded by an article +current in all our newspapers, that the loathsome Thomas Paine, a +drunken atheist and the scavenger of faction, is invited to return in +a national ship to America by the first magistrate of a free people. +A measure so enormously preposterous we cannot yet believe has been +adopted, and it would demand firmer nerves than those possessed by Mr. +Jefferson to hazard such an insult to the moral sense of the nation. If +that rebel rascal should come to preach from his Bible to our populace, +it would be time for every honest and insulted man of dignity to flee to +some Zoar as from another Sodom, to shake off the very dust of his feet +and to abandon America." "He is coming," wrote Noah Webster, ("the +mender and murderer of English,") "to publish in America the third part +of the 'Age of Reason.'" And the epigrammatists, such as they were, +tried their goose-quills on the subject:-- + + "He passed his forces in review, + Smith, Cheetham, Jones, Duane: + 'Dull rascals,--these will never do,' + Quoth he,--'I'll send for Paine.' + + "Then from his darling den in France + To tempt the wretch to come, + He made Tom's brain with flattery dance + And took the tax from rum." + +The Administration editors held their tongues;--the religious side of +the question was too strong for them. + +Paine was unable to accept the passage offered him in the frigate, and +returned in a merchant-vessel in the autumn of the next year (1802). +The excitement had not subsided. Early in October, the "Philadelphia +Gazette" announced that "a kind of tumultuous sensation was produced in +the city yesterday evening in consequence of the arrival of the ship +Benjamin Franklin from Havre. It was believed, for a few moments, that +the carcass of Thomas Paine was on board, and several individuals were +seen disgracing themselves by an impious joy. It was finally understood +that Paine had missed his passage by this vessel and was to sail in a +ship to New York. Under the New York news-head we perceive a vessel from +Havre reported. Infidels! hail the arrival of your high-priest!" + +A few days later, the infidel Tom Paine, otherwise Mr. Paine, arrived +safely at Baltimore and proceeded thence to Washington. The journalists +gave tongue at once: "Fire! Age of Reason! Look at his nose! He drank +all the brandy in Baltimore in nine days! What a dirty fellow! Invited +home by a brother Tom! Let Jefferson and his blasphemous crony dangle +from the same gallows." The booksellers, quietly mindful of the +opportunity, got out an edition of his works in two volumes. + +As soon as he was fairly on shore, Paine took sides with his host, and +commenced writing "Letters to the People of the United States." He +announced in them that he was a genuine Federalist,--not one of that +disguised faction which had arisen in America, and which, losing sight +of first principles, had begun to contemplate the people as hereditary +property: No wonder that the author of the "Rights of Man" was attacked +by this faction: His arrival was to them like the sight of water to +canine madness: He served them for a standing dish of abuse: The leaders +during the Reign of Terror in France and during the late despotism +in America were the same men in character; for how else was it to be +accounted for that he was persecuted by both at the same time? In every +part of the Union this faction was in the agonies of death, and, in +proportion as its fate approached, gnashed its teeth and struggled: He +should lose half his greatness when they ceased to lie. Mr. Adams, as +the late chief of this faction, met with harsh and derisive treatment in +these letters, and did not attempt to conceal his irritation in his own +later correspondence. + +Paine's few defenders tried to back him with weak paragraphs in the +daily papers: His great talents, his generous services, "in spite of a +few indiscreet writings about religion," should make him an object of +interest and respect. The "Aurora's" own correspondent sent to his paper +a favorable sketch of Paine's appearance, manner, and conversation: +He was "proud to find a man whom he had admired free from the +contaminations of debauchery and the habits of inebriety which have been +so grossly and falsely sent abroad concerning him." But the enemy had +ten guns to Paine's one, and served them with all the fierceness of +party-hate. A shower of abusive missiles rattled incessantly about his +ears. However thick-skinned a man may be, and protected over all by the +_oes triplex_ of self-sufficiency, he cannot escape being wounded by +furious and incessant attacks. Paine felt keenly the neglect of his +former friends, who avoided him, when they did not openly cut him. Mr. +Jefferson, it is true, asked him to dinners, and invited the British +minister to meet him; at least, the indignant Anglo-Federal editors +said so. Perhaps he offered him an office. If he did, Paine refused it, +preferring "to serve as a disinterested volunteer." Poor old man! his +services were no longer of much use to anybody. The current of American +events had swept past him, leaving him stranded, a broken fragment of a +revolutionary wreck. + +When the nine days of wonder had expired in Washington, and the +inhabitants had grown tired of staring at Paine and of pelting him with +abuse, he betook himself to New York. On his way thither, he met with an +adventure which shows the kind of martyrdom suffered by this political +and religious heretic. He had stopped at Bordentown, in New Jersey, to +look at a small place he owned there, and to visit an old friend and +correspondent, Colonel Kirkbride. When he departed, the Colonel drove +him over to Trenton to take the stage-coach. But in Trenton the Federal +and Religious party had the upperhand, and when Paine applied at the +booking-office for a seat to New York the agent refused to sell him one. +Moreover, a crowd collected about his lodgings, who groaned dismally +when he drove away with his friend, while a band of musicians, provided +for the occasion, played the Rogue's March. + +Among the editorial celebrities of 1803, James Cheetham, in New York, +was almost as famous as Duane of the "Aurora." Cheetham, like many of +his contemporaries, Gray, Carpenter, Callender, and Duane himself, was +a British subject. He was a hatter in his native land; but a turn for +politics ruined his business and made expatriation convenient. In the +United States, he had become the editor of the "American Citizen," and +was at that time busily engaged in attacking the Federalists and Burr's +"Little Band," for their supposed attempt to elect Mr. Burr in the place +of Mr. Jefferson. To Cheetham, accordingly, Paine wrote, requesting him +to engage lodgings at Lovett's, afterwards the City Hotel. He sent for +Cheetham, on the evening of his arrival. The journalist obeyed the +summons immediately. This was the first interview between Paine and the +man who was to hang, draw, and quarter his memory in a biography. This +libellous performance was written shortly after Paine's death. It was +intended as a peace-offering to the English government. The ex-hatter +had made up his mind to return home, and he wished to prove the +sincerity of his conversion from radicalism by trampling on the remains +of its high-priest. So long as Cheetham remained in good standing with +the Democrats, Paine and he were fast friends; but when he became +heretical and schismatic on the Embargo question, some three or four +years later, and was formally read out of the party, Paine laid the rod +across his back with all his remaining strength. He had vigor enough +left, it seems, to make the "Citizen" smart, for Cheetham cuts and stabs +with a spite which shows that the work was as agreeable to his feelings +as useful to his plans. His reminiscences must be read _multis cum +granis_. + +In New York Paine enjoyed the same kind of second-rate ovation as in +Washington. A great number of persons called upon him, but mostly of the +laboring class of emigrants, who had heard of the "Rights of Man," +and, feeling disposed to claim as many rights as possible in their new +country, looked with reverence upon the inventor of the system. +The Democratic leaders, with one or two exceptions, avoided Paine. +Respectabilities shunned him as a contamination. Grant Thorburn was +suspended from church-membership for shaking hands with him. To the boys +he was an object of curious attention; his nose was the burden of their +songs. + +Cheetham carried round a subscription-list for a public dinner. Sixty or +seventy of Paine's admirers attended. It went off brilliantly, and was +duly reported in the "American Citizen." Then the effervescence of New +York curiosity subsided; Paine became an old story. He left Lovett's +Hotel for humble lodgings in the house of a free-thinking farrier. +Thenceforward the tale of his life is soon told. He went rarely to his +farm at New Rochelle; he disliked the country and the trouble of keeping +house; and a bullet which whizzed through his window one Christmas Eve, +narrowly missing his head, did not add agreeable associations to the +place. In the city he moved his quarters from one low boarding-house to +another, and generally managed to quarrel with the blacksmiths, bakers, +and butchers, his landlords. Unable to enjoy society suited to his +abilities and large experience of life, Paine called in low company to +help him bear the burden of existence. To the men who surrounded him, +his opinions on all subjects were conclusive, and his shrewd sayings +revelations. Among these respectful listeners, he had to fear neither +incredulity nor disputation. Like his friend Elihu Palmer, and the +celebrated Dr. Priestley, Paine would not tolerate contradiction. +To differ with him was, in his eyes, simply to be deficient in +understanding. He was like the French lady who naively told Dr. +Franklin, "_Je ne trouve que moi qui aie toujours raison_." Professing +to adore Reason, he was angry, if anybody reasoned with him. But herein +he was no exception to the general rule,--that we find no persons so +intolerant and illiberal as men professing liberal principles. + +His occupation and amusement was to write for the papers articles of +a somewhat caustic and personal nature. Whatever subject occupied the +public mind interested Paine and provoked his remarks. He was bitter in +his attacks upon the Federalists and Burrites for attempting to jockey +Jefferson out of the Presidency. Later, when Burr was acquitted of +treason, Paine found fault with Chief-Justice Marshall for his rulings +during the trial, and gave him notice, that he (Marshall) was "a +suspected character." He also requested Dr. Mitchell, then United States +Senator for New York, to propose an amendment to the Constitution, +authorizing the President to remove a judge, on the address of a +majority of both houses of Congress, for reasonable cause, when +sufficient grounds for impeachment might not exist. General Miranda's +filibustering expedition against Caracas, a greater failure even than +the Lopez raid on Cuba, furnished Paine with a theme. He wrote a +sensible paper on the yellow fever, by request of Jefferson, and one or +two on his iron bridge. He was ardent in the defence of Mr. Jefferson's +pet scheme of a gun-boat navy, and ridiculed the idea of fortifying +New York. "The cheapest way," he said, "to fortify New York will be to +banish the scoundrels that infest it." The inhabitants of that city +would do well, if they could find an engineer to fortify their island in +this way. + +When the Pennsylvanians called a Convention in 1805 to amend the +Constitution of the State, Paine addressed them at some length, giving +them a summary of his views on Government, Constitutions, and Charters. +The Creoles of Louisiana sent to Congress a memorial of their "rights," +in which they included the importation of African slaves. Paine was +indignant at this perversion of his favorite specific for all political +ailments, and took the Franco-Americans soundly to task:--"How dare you +put up a petition to Heaven for such a power, without fearing to be +struck from the earth by its justice?" It is manifest that Paine could +not be a Democrat in good standing now. Mingled with these graver +topics were side-blows at the emissary Cullen, _alias_ Carpenter, an +Englishman, who edited a Federal paper,--replies to Cheetham, reprimands +to Cheetham, and threats to prosecute Cheetham for lying, "unless he +makes a public apology,"--and three letters to Governor Morgan Lewis, +who had incensed Paine by bringing an action for political libel against +a Mr. Thomas Farmer, laying his damages at one hundred thousand dollars. + +Among his last productions were two memorials to the House of +Representatives. One can see in these papers that old age had weakened +his mind, and that harsh treatment had soured his feelings towards the +land of his adoption. + + "Ma republique a jamais grande et libre, + Cette terre d'amour et d'egalite," + +no longer seemed to him as lovely as when he composed these verses for +a Fourth-of-July dinner in Paris. He claimed compensation for his +services in Colonel Laurens's mission to France in 1781. For his works +he asked no reward. "All the civilized world knows," he writes, "I have +been of great service to the United States, and have generously given +away talents that would have made me a fortune. The country has been +benefited, and I make myself happy in the knowledge of it. It is, +however, proper for me to add, that the mere independence of America, +were it to have been followed by a system of government modelled after +the corrupt system of the English government, would not have interested +me with the unabated ardor it did." "It will be convenient to me to know +what Congress will decide on, because it will determine me, whether, +after so many years of generous services and that in the most perilous +times, and after seventy years of age, I shall continue in this country, +or offer my services to some other country. It will not be to England, +unless there should be a revolution." + +The memorial was referred to the Committee on Claims. When Paine heard +of its fate, he addressed an indignant letter to the Speaker of the +House. "I know not who the Committee on Claims are; but if they were +men of younger standing than 'the times that tried men's souls,' and +consequently too young to know what the condition of the country was +at the time I published 'Common Sense,'--for I do not believe that +independence would have been declared, had it not been for the effect of +that work,--they are not capable of judging of the whole of the services +of Thomas Paine. If my memorial was referred to the Committee on Claims +for the purpose of losing it, it is unmanly policy. After so many years +of service, my heart grows cold towards America." + +His heart was soon to grow cold to all the world. In the spring of 1809, +it became evident to Paine's attendants that his end was approaching. As +death drew near, the memories of early youth arose vividly in his +mind. He wished to be buried in the cemetery of the Quakers, in whose +principles his father had educated him. He sent for a leading member +of the sect to ask a resting-place for his body in their ground. The +request was refused. + +When the news got abroad that the Arch-Infidel was dying, foolish old +women and kindred clergymen, who "knew no way to bring home a wandering +sheep but by worrying him to death," gathered together about his bed. +Even his physician joined in the hue-and-cry. It was a scene of the +Inquisition adapted to North America,--a Protestant _auto da fe_. The +victim lay helpless before his persecutors; the agonies of disease +supplied the place of rack and fagot. But nothing like a recantation +could be wrung from him. And so his tormentors left him alone to die, +and his freethinking smiths and cobblers rejoiced over his fidelity to +the cause. + +He was buried on his farm at New Rochelle, according to his latest +wishes. "Thomas Paine. Author of 'Common Sense,'" the epitaph he had +fixed upon, was carved upon his tomb. A better one exists from an +unknown hand, which tells, in a jesting way, the secret of the sorrows +of his later life:-- + + "Here lies Tom Paine, who wrote in liberty's defence, + And in his 'Age of Reason' lost his 'Common Sense.'" + +Ten years after, William Cobbett, who had left England in a fit of +political disgust and had settled himself on Long Island to raise +hogs and ruta-bagas, resolved to go home again. Cobbett had become an +admirer, almost a disciple of Paine. The "Constitution-grinder" of '96 +was now "a truly great man, a truly philosophical politician, a mind as +far superior to Pitt and Burke as the light of a flambeau is superior to +that of a rush-light." Above all, Paine had been Cobbett's teacher on +financial questions. In 1803, Cobbett read his "Decline and Fall of the +English System," and then "saw the whole matter in its true light; and +neither pamphleteers nor speech-makers were after that able to raise a +momentary puzzle in his mind." Perhaps Cobbett thought he might excite a +sensation in England and rally about him the followers of Paine, or it +may be that he wished to repair the gross injustice he had done him by +some open act of adherence; at all events, he exhumed Paine's body and +took the bones home with him in 1819, with the avowed intention of +erecting a magnificent monument to his memory by subscription. In the +same manner, about two thousand two hundred and fifty years ago, the +bones of Theseus, the mythical hero of Democracy, were brought from +Skyros to Athens by some Attic [Greek: Kobbetaes]. The description +of the arrival in England we quote from a Liverpool journal of the +day:--"When his last trunk was opened at the Custom-House, Cobbett +observed to the surrounding spectators, who had assembled in great +numbers,--'Here are the bones of the late Thomas Paine.' This +declaration excited a visible sensation, and the crowd pressed forward +to see the contents of the package. Cobbett remarked,--'Great, indeed, +must that man have been whose very bones attract such attention!' The +officer took up the coffin-plate inscribed, 'Thomas Paine, Aged 72. Died +January 8, 1809,' and, having lifted up several of the bones, replaced +the whole and passed them. They have since been forwarded from this town +to London." + +At a public dinner given to Cobbett in Liverpool, Paine was toasted as +"the Noble of Nature, the Child of the Lower Orders"; but the monument +was never raised, and no one knows where his bones found their last +resting-place. + +Cobbett himself gained nothing by this resurrectionist performance, +except an additional couplet in the party-songs of the day:-- + + "Let Cobbett of borough-corruption complain, + And go to the De'il with the bones of Tom Paine." + +The two were classed together by English Conservatives, as "pestilent +fellows" and "promoters of sedition." + +It is now fifty years since Paine died; but the _nil de mortuis_ is no +rule in his case. The evil associations of his later days have pursued +him beyond the grave. A small and threadbare sect of "liberals," as they +call themselves,--men in whom want of skill, industry, and thrift has +produced the usual results,--have erected an altar to Thomas Paine, +and, on the anniversary of his birth, go through with a pointless +celebration, which passes unnoticed, unless in an out-of-the-way corner +of some newspaper. In this class of persons, irreligion is a mere form +of discontent. They have no other reason to give for the faith which +is not in them. They like to ascribe their want of success in life to +something out of joint in the thoughts and customs of society, rather +than to their own shortcomings or incapacity. In France, such persons +would be Socialists and _Rouges_; in this country, where the better +classes only have any reason to rebel, they cannot well conspire against +government, but attack religion instead, and pride themselves on their +exemption from prejudice. The "Age of Reason" is their manual. Its bold, +clear, simple statements they can understand; its shallowness they +are too ignorant to perceive; its coarseness is in unison with their +manners. Thus the author has become the Apostle of Free-thinking +tinkers and the Patron Saint of unwashed Infidelity. + +To this generation at large, he is only an indistinct shadow,--a faint +reminiscence of a red nose,--an ill-flavored name, redolent of brandy +and of brimstone, his beverage in life and his well-earned punishment +in eternity, which suggests to the serious mind dirt, drunkenness, and +hopeless damnation. Mere worldlings call him "Tom Paine," in a tone +which combines derision and contempt. A bust of him, by Jarvis, in the +possession of the New York Historical Society, is kept under lock and +key, because it was defaced and defiled by visitors, while a dozen +other plaster worthies that decorate the institution remained intact. +Nevertheless, we suspect that most of our readers, if they cannot date +back to the first decade of the century, will find, when they sift their +information, that they have only a speaking acquaintance with Thomas +Paine, and can give no good reason for their dislike of him. + +And it is not easy for the general reader to become intimate with him. +He will find him, of course, in Biographical Dictionaries, Directories +of the City of the Great Dead, which only tell you where men lived, and +what they did to deserve a place in the volume; but as to a life of him, +strictly speaking, there is none. Oldys and Cobbett tried to flay him +alive in pamphlets; Sherwin and Clio Rickman were prejudiced friends and +published only panegyrics. All are out of print and difficult to find. +Cheetham's work is a political libel; and the attempt of Mr. Vail of +the "Beacon" to canonize him in the "Infidel's Calendar," cannot be +recommended to intelligent persons. We might expect to meet with him in +those books of lives so common with us,--collections in which a certain +number of deceased gentlemen are bound up together, so resembling each +other in feature that one might suppose the narratives ground out by +some obituary-machine and labelled afterward to suit purchasers. Even +this "sign-post biography," as the "Quarterly" calls it, Paine has +escaped. He was not a marketable commodity. There was no demand for him +in polite circles. The implacable hand of outraged orthodoxy was against +him. Hence his memory has lain in the gutter. Even his friend Joel +Barlow left him out of the "Columbiad," to the great disgust of Clio +Rickman, who thought his name should have appeared in the Fifth Book +between Washington and Franklin. Surely Barlow might have found room for +him in the following "Epic List of Heroes":-- + + "Wythe, Mason, Pendleton, with Henry joined, + Rush, Rodney, Langdon, friends of humankind, + Persuasive Dickinson, the farmer's boast, + Recording Thompson, pride of all the host, + Nash, Jay, the Livingstons, in council great, + Rutledge and Laurens, held the rolls of fate." + +But no! Neither author nor authorling liked to have his name seen in +company with Thomas Paine. And when a curious compiler has taken him up, +he has held him at arm's length, and, after eyeing him cautiously, has +dropped him like some unclean and noxious animal. + +Sixty years ago, Paine's friends used to say, that, "in spite of some +indiscreet writings on the subject of religion," he deserved the respect +and thanks of Americans for his services. We think that he deserves +something more at the present day than this absolute neglect. There is +stuff enough in him for one volume at least. His career was wonderful, +even for the age of miraculous events he lived in. In America, he was a +Revolutionary hero of the first rank, who carried letters in his pocket +from George Washington, thanking him for his services. And he managed +besides to write his radical name in large letters in the History of +England and of France. As a mere literary workman, his productions +deserve notice. In mechanics, he invented and put up the first iron +bridge of large span in England; the boldness of the attempt still +excites the admiration of engineers. He may urge, too, another claim +to our attention. In the legion of "most remarkable men" these United +States have produced or imported, only three have achieved infamy: +Arnold, Burr, and Paine. What are Paine's titles to belong to this trio +of disreputables? Only these three: he wrote the "Age of Reason"; was a +Democrat, perhaps an unusually dirty one; and drank more brandy than was +good for him. The "Age of Reason" is a shallow deistical essay, in which +the author's opinions are set forth, it is true, in a most offensive and +irreverent style. As Dr. Hopkins wrote of Ethan Allen,-- + + "One hand was clenched to batter noses, + While t'other scrawled 'gainst Paul and Moses." + +But who reads it now? On the other hand, no one who has studied Paine's +career can deny his honesty and his disinterestedness; and every +unprejudiced reader of his works must admit not merely his great ability +in urging his opinions, but that he sincerely believed all he wrote. Let +us, then, try to forget the carbuncled nose, the snuffy waistcoat, the +unorthodox sneer. We should wipe out his later years, cut his life short +at 1796, and take Paine when he wrote "Common Sense," Paine when he +lounged at the White Bear in Piccadilly, talking over with Horne Tooke +the answer to Mr. Burke's "Reflections," and Paine, when, as "foreign +benefactor of the species," he took his seat in the famous French +Convention. + +It would repay some capable author to dig him up, wash him, and show him +to the world as he was. A biography of him would embrace the history of +the struggle which established the new theory of politics in government. +He is the representative man of Democracy in both hemispheres,--a good +subject in the hands of a competent artist; and the time has arrived, we +think, when justice may be done him. As a general rule, it is yet too +soon to write the History of the United States since 1784. Half a +century has not been sufficient to wear out the bitter feeling excited +by the long struggle of Democrats and Federalists. Respectable +gentlemen, who, more pious than Aeneas, have undertaken to carry their +grandfathers' remains from the ruins of the past into the present era, +seem to be possessed with the same demon of discord that agitated the +deceased ancestors. The quarrels of the first twenty years of the +Constitution have become chronic ink-feuds in certain families. A +literary _vendetta_ is carried on to this day, and a stab with the steel +pen, or a shot from behind the safe cover of a periodical, is certain +to be received by any one of them who offers to his enemy the glorious +opportunity of a book. Where so much temper exists, impartial history is +out of the question. + +Our authors, too, as a general rule, have inherited the political jargon +of the last century, and abound in "destiny of humanity," "inalienable +rights," "virtue of the sovereign people," "base and bloody despots," +and all that sort of phrase, earnest and real enough once, but little +better than cant and twaddle now. They seem to take it for granted that +the question is settled, the rights of man accurately defined, the true +and only theory of government found,--and that he who doubts is blinded +by aristocratic prejudice or is a fool. We must say, nevertheless, that +Father Time has not yet had years enough to answer the great question of +governing which was proposed to him in 1789. Some of the developments +of our day may well make us doubt whether the last and perfect form, +or even theory, is the one we have chosen. "_Les monarchies absolues +avaient deshonore le despotisme: prenons garde que les republiques +democratiques ne le rehabilitent_." But Paine's part in the history of +this country after 1783 is of so small importance, that in a life of him +all such considerations may be safely waived. The democratic movement of +the last eighty years, be it a "finality," or only a phase of progress +towards a more perfect state, is the grand historical fact of modern +times, and Paine's name is intimately connected with it. One is always +ready to look with lenity on the partiality of a biographer,--whether he +urge the claims of his hero to a niche in the Valhalla of great men, or +act as the _Advocatus Diaboli_ to degrade his memory. + + + + +OF BOOKS AND THE READING THEREOF. + +BEING A THIRD LETTER FROM PAUL POTTER, OF NEW YORK, IN THE CITY AND +COUNTY OF NEW YORK, ESQ., TO THE DON ROBERTO WAGONERO, OF WASHINGTON, +_olim_, BUT _nunc_ OF NOWHEREINPARTICULAR. + + +If any person, O my Bobus, had foretold that all these months would go +by before I should again address you, he would have exhibited prescient +talent great enough to establish twenty "mediums" in a flourishing +cabalistic business. Alas! they have been to me months of fathomless +distress, immensurate and immeasurable sorrow, and blank, blind, idiotic +indifference, even to books and friends, which, next to the nearest and +dearest, are the world's most priceless possession. But now that I have +a little thrown off the stupor, now that kindly Time has a little balmed +my cruel wounds, I come back to my books and to you,--to the _animi +remissionem_ of Cicero,--to these gentle sympathizers and faithful +solacements,--to old studies and ancient pursuits. There is a Latin +line, I know not whose, but Swift was fond of quoting it,-- + + _"Vertiginosus, inops, surdus, male gratus amicis,"_-- + +which I have whispered to myself, with prophetic lips, in the long, long +watches of my lonesome nights. Do you remember--but who that has read +it does not?--that affecting letter, written upon the death of his +wife, by Sir James Mackintosh to Dr. Parr? "Such was she whom I have +lost; and I have lost her when her excellent natural sense was rapidly +improving, after eight years of struggle and distress had bound us fast +together and moulded our tempers to each other,--when a knowledge of +her worth had refined my youthful love into friendship, before age had +deprived it of much of its original ardor. I lost her, alas! (the choice +of my youth, and the partner of my misfortunes,) at a moment when I had +the prospect of her sharing my better days." + +But if I am getting old, although perhaps prematurely, I must be casting +about for the _subsidia senectuti_. Swift wrote to Gay, that these +were "two or three servants about you and a convenient house"; justly +observing, that, "when a man grows hard to please, few people care +whether he be pleased or no"; and adding, sadly enough, "I should hardly +prevail to find one visitor, if I were not able to hire him with a +bottle of wine"; and so the sorrowful epistle concludes with the +sharpest grief of all: "My female friends, who could bear with me very +well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me." It is odd that Montaigne +should have hit upon the wine also as among the _subsidia senectuti_; +although the sage Michael complains, as you will remember, that old men +do not relish their wine, or at least the first glass, because "the +palate is furred with phlegms." But I care little either for the liquor +or the lackeys, and not much, I fear, at present, for "the female +friends." I have, then, nothing left for it but to take violently to +books; for I doubt not I shall find almost any house convenient, and I +am sure of one at last which I can claim by a title not to be disturbed +by all the precedents of Cruise, and in which no mortal shall have a +contingent remainder. + +To books, then, I betake myself,--to books, "the immortal children" of +"the understanding, courage, and abilities" of the wise and good,--ay! +and to inane, drivelling, doting books, the bastard progeny of vanity +and ignorance,--books over which one dawdles in an amusing dream and +pleasant spasm of amazement, and which teach us wisdom as tipsy Helots +taught the Spartan boys sobriety. Montaigne "never travelled without +books, either in peace or war"; and as I found them pleasant in happier +days, so I find them pleasant now. Of course, much of this omnivorous +reading is from habit, and, _invita Minerva_, cannot be dignified by +the name of study,--that stiff, steady, persistent, uncompromising +application of the mind, by virtue of which alone the _Pons Asinorum_ +can be crossed, and the Forty-Seventh Problem of Euclid--which I +entirely disbelieve--mastered. + +I own to a prodigious respect, entertained since my Sophomore year at +the University, for those collegiate youth whose terribly hard study of +Bourdon and Legendre seems to have such a mollifying effect upon their +heads,--but, as the tradesmen say, that thing is "not in my line." I +would rather have a bundle of bad verses which have been consigned to +the pastry-cook. I suppose--for I have been told so upon good authority +--that, if "equals be taken from equals, the remainders are equal." I do +not see why they should not be, and, as a citizen of the United States +of America, the axiom seems to me to be entitled to respect. When a +youthful person, with a piece of chalk in his hand, before commencing +his artistic and scientific achievements upon the black-board, says: +"Let it be granted that a straight line may be drawn from any one point +to any other point," I invariably answer, "Of course,--by all manner of +means,"--although you know, dear Don, that, if I should put him upon +mathematical proof of the postulate, I might bother him hugely. But +when we come to the Fourteenth Proposition of Euclid's Data,--when I am +required to admit, that, "if a magnitude together with a given magnitude +has a given ratio to another magnitude, the excess of this other +magnitude above a given magnitude has a given ratio to the first +magnitude; and if the excess of a magnitude above a given magnitude has +a given ratio to another magnitude, this other magnitude together with a +given ratio to the first magnitude,"--I own to a slight confusion of +my intellectual faculties, and a perfect contempt for John Buteo and +Ptolemy. Then, there is Butler's "Analogy"; an excellent work it is, I +have been told,--a charming work to master,--quite a bulwark of our +faith; but as, in my growing days, it was explained to me, or rather was +not explained, before breakfast, by a truculent Doctor of Divinity, whom +I knew to be ugly and felt to be great, of course, the good Bishop and I +are not upon the best of terms. + +I suppose that for drilling, training, and pipe-claying the human mind +all these things are necessary. I suppose, that, in our callow days, it +is proper that we should be birched and wear fetters upon our little, +bandy, sausage-like legs. But let me, now that I have come to man's +estate, flout my old pedagogues, and, playing truant at my will, dawdle +or labor, walk, skip, or run, go to my middle in quagmires, or climb to +the hill-tops, take liberties with the venerable, snub the respectable, +and keep the company of the disreputable,--dismiss the Archbishop +without reading his homily,--pass by a folio in twenty grenadier volumes +to greet a little black-coated, yellow-faced duodecimo,--speak to the +forlorn and forsaken, who have been doing dusty penance upon cloistered +shelves in silent alcoves for a century, with none so poor to do them +reverence,--read here one little catch which came from lips long ago +as silent as the clod which they are kissing, and there some forgotten +fragment of history, too insignificant to make its way into the world's +magnificent chronologies,--snapping up unconsidered trifles of +anecdote,--tasting some long-interred _bon-mot_ and relishing some +disentombed scandal,--pausing over the symphonic prose of Milton, only +to run, the next moment, to the Silenian ribaldry of Tom Brown the +younger,--and so keeping up a Saturnalia, in which goat-footed sylvans +mix with the maidens of Diana, and the party-colored jester shakes +his truncheon in the face of Plato. Only in this wild and promiscuous +license can we taste the genuine joys of true perusal. + +I suppose, my dear friend, that, when you were younger and foolisher +than you now are, you were wont, after the reading of some dismal +work upon diet and health, to take long, constitutional walks. You +"toddled"--pardon the vulgar word!--so many miles out and so many miles +in, at just such a pace, in just the prescribed time, during hours fixed +as the Fates; and you wondered, when you came home to your Graham bread +and cold water, that you did not bring an appetite with you. You had +performed incredible pedestrian achievements, and were not hungry, but +simply weary. It is of small use to try to be good with malice prepense. +Nature is nothing, if not natural. If I am to read to any purpose, +I must read with a relish, and browse at will with the bridle off. +Sometimes I go into a library, the slow accretion of a couple of +centuries, or perhaps the mushroom growth from a rich man's grave, a +great collection magically convoked by the talisman of gold. At the +threshold, as I ardently enter, the flaming sword of regulation is +waving. Between me and the inviting shelves are fences of woven iron; +the bibliographic Cerberus is at his sentryship; when I want a full +draught, I must be content with driblets; and the impatient messengers +are sworn to bring me only a single volume at a time. To read in such a +hampered and limited way is not to read at all; and I go back, after +the first fret and worry are over, to the little collection upon my +garret-shelf, to greet again the old familiar pages. I leave the main +army behind,--"the lordly band of mighty folios," "the well-ordered +ranks of the quartos," "the light octavos," and "humbler duodecimos," +for + + "The last new play, and frittered magazine,"-- + +for the sutlers and camp-followers, "pioneers and all," of the +grand army,--for the prizes, dirty, but curious, rescued from the +street-stall, or unearthed in a Nassau-Street cellar,--for the books +which I thumbed and dogs-eared in my youth. + +I have, in my collection, a little Divinity, consisting mostly of quaint +Quaker books bequeathed to me by my grandmother,--a little Philosophy, a +little Physic, a little Law, a little History, a little Fiction, and a +deal of Nondescript stuff. Once, when the _res angusta domi_ had become +_angustissima_, a child of Israel was, in my sore estate, summoned to +inspect the dear, shabby colony, and to make his sordid aureat or argent +bid therefor. Well do I remember how his nose, which he could not, +if his worthless life had depended upon it, render _retrousse_, grew +sublimely curvilinear in its contempt, as his hawk-eyes estimated my +pitiful family. I will not name the sum which he offered, the ghoul, the +vampire, the anthropophagous jackal, the sneaking would-be incendiary +of my little Alexandrian, the circumcised Goth! He left me, like +Churchill's Scotch lassie, "pleased, but hungry"; and I found, as +Valentine did in Congreve's "Love for Love," "a page doubled down in +Epictetus which was a feast for an emperor." + +I own, my excellent Robert, that a bad book is, to my taste, sometimes +vastly more refreshing than a good one. I do not wonder that Crabbe, +after he had so sadly failed in his medical studies, should have +anathematized the medical writers in this fine passage:-- + + "Ye frigid tribe, on whom I waited long + The tedious hours, and ne'er indulged in song! + Ye first seducers of my easy heart, + Who promised knowledge ye could not impart! + Ye dull deluders, Truth's destructive foes! + Ye Sons of Fiction, clad in stupid prose! + Ye treacherous leaders, who, yourselves in doubt, + Light up false fires, and send us far about!-- + Still may yon spider round your pages spin, + Subtle and slow, her emblematic gin! + Buried in dust and lost in silence dwell! + Most potent, grave, and reverend friends,--farewell!" + +I acknowledge the vigor of these lines, which nobody could have written +who had not been compelled, in the sunny summer-days, to bray drugs in a +mortar. Yet who does not like to read a medical book?--to pore over its +jargon, to muddle himself into a hypo, and to imagine himself afflicted +with the dreadful disease with the long Latin name, the meaning of which +he does not by any means comprehend? And did not the poems of our friend +Bavius Blunderbore, Esq., which were of "a low and moderate sort," cause +you to giggle yourself wellnigh into an asphyxy,--calf and coxcomb as +he was? Is not ----'s last novel a better antidote against melancholy, +stupendously absurd as it is, than foalfoot or plantain, featherfew or +savin, agrimony or saxifrage, or any other herb in old Robert Burton's +pharmacopoeia? I am afraid that we are a little wanting in gratitude, +when we shake our sides at the flaying of Marsyas by some Quarterly of +Apollo,--to the dis-cuticlcd, I mean. If he had not piped so stridently, +we should not have had half so much sport; yet small largess does the +miserable minstrel get for tooting tunelessly. Let us honor the brave +who fall in the battle of print. 'Twas a noble ambition, after all, +which caused our asinine friend to cloak himself in that cast leonine +skin. Who would be always reciting from a hornbook to Mistress Minerva? +What, I pray you, would become of the corn, if there were no scarecrows? +All honor to you, then, my looped and windowed sentinel, standing upon +the slope of Parnassus,--standing so patiently there, with your straw +bowels, doing yeoman-service, spite of the flouts and gibes and cocked +thumbs of Zoilus and his sneering, snarling, verjuicy, captious +crew,--standing there, as stood the saline helpmate of Lot, to fright +our young men and virgins from the primrose-pitfalls of Poesy,--standing +there to warn them against the seductions of Phoebus, and to teach them +that it is better to hoe than to hum! + +The truth is, that the good and clever and _polyphloisboic_ writers have +too long monopolized the attention of the world, so that the little, +well-intentioned, humble, and stupid plebeians of the guild have been +snubbed out of sight. Somebody--the name is not given, but I shrewdly +suspect Canon Smith--wrote to Sir James Mackintosh,--"Why do you not +write three volumes quarto? You only want this to be called the greatest +man of your time. People are all disposed to admit anything we say of +you, but I think it unsafe and indecent to put you so high without +something in quarto." This was, of course, half fun and half truth. +As there is, however, little need of setting the world on fire to +demonstrate some chemical theory, so it is possible that the flame of +culture may be cherished without kindling a conflagration, and truth +transmitted from sire to son without the construction of edificial +monsters too big for the knees, too abstruse for the brains, and too +great for the lifetime of humanity. I am not a very constant reader +of Mr. Robert Browning, but I own to many a pleasant grin over his +Sibrandus Schafnabrugensis dropped into the crevice of the plum-tree, +and afterward pitifully reclaimed, and carried to its snug niche with +the promise,-- + + "A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you, + Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay; + And with E. on each side, and F. right over you, + Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment Day!" + +How often, when one is roving through a library in search of adventures, +is he encountered by some inflated champion of huge proportions, who +turns out to be no better than a barber, after all! Gazing upon + + "That weight of wood, with leathern coat o'erlaid, + Those ample clasps, of solid metal made, + The close-pressed leaves, unloosed for many an age, + The dull red edging of the well-filled page, + On the broad back the stubborn ridges rolled, + Where yet the title stands, in burnished gold,"-- + +what wisdom, what wit, what profundity, what vastness of knowledge, +what a grand gossip concerning all things, and more beside, did we +anticipate, only to find the promise broken, and a big impostor with no +more muscle than the black drone who fills the pipes and sentries the +seraglio of the Sophi or the Sultan! The big, burly beggars! For a +century nobody has read them, and therefore everybody has admitted them +to be great. They are bulky paradoxes, and find a good reputation in +neglect,--as some fools pass for philosophers by preserving a close +mouth and a grave countenance. + +"Safe in themselves, the ponderous works remain." + +It was a keen sense of this disproportion between size and sense which +barbed the sharpest arrows of Dr. Swift. Nobody ever imposed upon him +either by bigness or by bluster. "The Devil take stupidity," once cried +the Dean of St. Patrick's, "that it will not come in to supply the want +of philosophy!" So in the Introduction to "The Tale of a Tub," he, half +in jest and half in earnest, declares that "wisdom is like a cheese, +whereof to a judicious taste the maggots are the best." _Vive la +bagatelle!_ trembled upon his lips at the age of threescore; and he +amused himself with reading the most trifling books he could find, and +writing upon the most trifling subjects. Lord Bolingbroke wrote to him +to beg him "to put on his philosophical spectacles," and wrote with +but small success. Pope wrote to him, "to beg it of him, as a piece of +mercy, that he would not laugh at his gravity, but permit him to wear +the beard of a philosopher until he pulled it off and made a jest of it +himself." Old Weymouth, in the latter part of Anne's reign, said to +him, in his lordly Latin, "_Philosopha verba ignava opera,_" and Swift +frequently repeated the sarcasm. One cannot figure him as the "laughing +old man" of Anacreon, for there was certainly a dreadful dash of vinegar +in his composition; but if he did not hate hard enough, hit hard enough, +and weigh men, motives, and books, nicely enough to satisfy Dr. Johnson, +the Bolt-Courtier must have been a very leech of verjuice. There is a +passage in one of his letters to Pope,--I cannot just now put my hand +upon it,--in which he suggests, in rather coarse language, the subject +of "The Beggar's Opera" as a capital subject for their common friend, +Gay. And yet one can barely suppress a sigh at all this luxury of +levity, when he remembers that dreadful "_Ubi saeva indignatio ulterius +cor lacerare nequit_," and reflects upon the hope deferred which vented +itself in that stinging couplet,-- + +"In every court the parallel will hold; And kings, like private folks, +are bought and sold." + +I remember a hack-writer,--and of such, I am afraid, is too exclusively +my literary kingdom,--who classified the vices which Swift smote so +fearfully in "The Voyage to the Houyhnhnms"; and the curious catalogue +contained "avarice, fraud, cheating, violence, rapine, extortion, +cruelty, oppression, tyranny, rancor, envy, malice, detraction, +hatred, revenge, murder, bribery, corruption, pimping, lying, perjury, +subornation, treachery, ingratitude, gaming, flattery, drunkenness, +gluttony, luxury, vanity, effeminacy, cowardice, pride, impudence, +hypocrisy, infidelity, blasphemy, idolatry, and innumerable other vices, +many of them the notorious characteristics of the bulk of humankind." +Delightful catalogue! How odd, indeed, that a man with such work to do +should not have sported with Amaryllis, or played with the tangles of +Neaera's hair,--should not have worn well-anointed love-locks and snowy +linen,--should, on the other hand, have bared his brawny arm, and sent +the hissing flail down swiftly upon the waled and blistered back of +Sham! How much better would it have been, if he had written a history, +in twelve elephantine volumes, of the rise, culmination, and decay of +the Empire of Barataria, which we would have gone to prison, the rack, +and the drop, with rapture rather than read! + +How low seems Fielding, with his pot-house heroes, Tom Jones, Squire +Western, and Jonathan Wild, when we contrast them with the elegant, +cleanly-polished, and extremely proper Sir Charles Grandison! What a +coarse drab is Molly Seagrim, when juxtaposited with the princess of all +prudes, the indomitably virtuous Pamela! How childish was it of Cowper +to sing of sofas, poultry, rabbits, orchards, meadows, and barnyards! +How much more nobly employed was John Dryden in manufacturing a +brand-new, truculent, loud-voiced, massively-calved, ensiferous +Alexander! Who but an addle-headed sot would have wandered up and down +the lanes, like Morland, chalking out pigs and milkmaids, when he might +have been painting, like Barry, pictures, by the acre, of gods and +goddesses enacting incomprehensible allegories! Let us be respectable, O +my Bobus, and wear good coats and the best hats to be had for money or +upon credit; let us carefully conceal our connection with "The Gotham +Revolver," although the honest people who print it do give us our beer +and mutton; let us write great histories which nobody will read, engage +in tractations to which nobody will listen, build twelve-storied epics +which nobody will publish, and invent Gordian philosophies which nobody +can untie. Surely it is quite time for Minerva to have a general +house-cleaning, to put on a fresh smock, and to live cleanly. Rabelais +shall be washed, and Sterne sad-ironed into gravity; De Foe shall be +made as decorous as a tract; Mandeville shall be reburned, and we will +kindle the fire with half the leaves of this dry and yellow Montaigne. +Nobody shall approach the waters of Castaly save upon stilts; and +whoever may giggle, as he takes his physic, shall be put upon a +dreadfully plentiful allowance of Guieciardini for bread, and of the +poems of ----- ------- for water. + +But, alas! Brother Bobus, where to begin our purification, and where to +end it? We may, like the curate in "Don Quixote," reprieve Amadis de +Gaul, but shall we, therefore, make Esplandian, "his lawful-begotten +son," a foundation for the funeral-pile we are to set a-blazing +presently? To be sure, there is sense in the observation of the good and +holy priest upon that memorable occasion. "This," said the barber, "is +Amadis of Greece; and it is my opinion that all those upon this side are +of the same family." "Then pitch them all into the yard," responded +the priest; "for, rather than miss the satisfaction of roasting Queen +Pintiquiniestra and the pastorals of Darinel the Shepherd and his damned +unintelligible speculations, I would burn my own father along with +them, if I found him playing at knight-errantry." So into the yard went +"Olivante de Laura, the nonsensical old blockhead," "rough and dull +Florismart of Hyrcania," "noble Don Platir," with nothing in him +"deserving a grain of pity," Bernardo del Carpio, and Roncesvalles, and +Palmerin de Oliva. What a delicious scene it is! The fussy barber, tired +of reading titles and proceeding to burn by wholesale, passing down +books in armfuls to the eager housekeeper, more ready to burn them than +ever she had been to weave the finest lace. And how charming is the hit +of the Curate! "Certainly, these cannot be books of knight-errantry, +they are too small; you'll find they are only poets,"--the supplication +of the niece that the singers should not be spared, lest her uncle, when +cured of his knight-errantry, should read them, become a shepherd, +and wander through forests and fields,--"nay, and what is more to be +dreaded, turn poet, which is said to be a disease absolutely incurable." +So down went "the longer poems" of Diana de Montemayor, the whole of +Salmantino, with the Iberian Shepherd and the Nymphs of Henares. The +impatience of the curate, who, completely worn out, orders all the rest +to be burned _a canga cerrada_, fitly rounds the chapter, and sends us +in good-humor from the _auto da fe_, while the poor knight is in his +bedchamber, all unconscious of the purification in progress, which, if +he had known it, mad as he was, would have made his madness starker +still, thrashing about with his sword, back-stroke and fore-stroke, +and, as Motteux translates it, "making a heavy bustle." 'Tis all droll +enough; especially when we find that the housekeeper made such clean +work of it in the evening, in spite of the good curate's reservations, +and burnt all the books, not only those in the yard, but all those that +were in the house; but I should think twice before I let Freston the +necromancer into any library with which I am acquainted. + +Let us be gentle with the denizens of Fame's proud temple, no matter how +they came there. You remember, I suppose, Swift's couplet,-- + + "Fame has but two gates,--a white and a black one; + The worst they can say is I got in at the back one." + +"I have nothing," wrote Pope to his friend Cromwell, "to say to you in +this latter; but I was resolved to write to tell you so. Why should not +I content myself with so many great examples of deep divines, profound +casuists, grave philosophers, who have written, not letters only, but +whole tomes and voluminous treatises about nothing? Why should a fellow +like me, who all his life does nothing, be ashamed to write nothing, and +that, too, to one who has nothing to do but read it?" And so, with "_ex +nihilo nil fit_," he laughingly ends his letter. + +And now, while I am at it, I must quote a passage, somewhat germane, +from the very next letter, which Pope wrote to the same friend:--"You +talk of fame and glory, and of the great men of antiquity. Pray, tell +me, what are all your great dead men, but so many living letters? What a +vast reward is here for all the ink wasted by writers and all the blood +spilt by princes! There was in old time one Severus, a Roman Emperor. I +dare say you never called him by any other name in your life; and yet +in his days he was styled Lucius, Septimius, Severus, Pius, Pertinax, +Augustus, Parthicus, Adiabenicus, Arabicus, Maximus, and what not? What +a prodigious waste of letters has time made! What a number have here +dropped off, and left the poor surviving seven unattended! For my own +part, four are all I have to take care of; and I'll be judged by you, if +any man could live in less compass. Well, for the future, I'll drown +all high thoughts in the Lethe of cowslip-wine; as for fame, renown, +reputation, take 'em, critics! If ever I seek for immortality here, may +I be damn'd, for there's not much danger in a poet's being damn'd,-- + + 'Damnation follows death in other men, + But your damn'd Poet lives and writes agen.'" + +And so they do, even unto the present, otherwise blessed day. But, dear +old friend, is not this sublime sneering? and is there not an honest ray +or two of truth mingled here and there in the colder coruscations of +this wit? Of the sincerity of this repudiation and renunciation so +fashionable in the Pope circle I have nothing to say; but in certain +moods of the mind it is vastly entertaining, and cures one's melancholy +as cautery cures certain physical afflictions. It may be amusing for you +also to notice that Don Quixote's niece and Pope were of the same +mind. She called poetry "a catching and incurable disease," and Pope's +unfortunate Poet "lives and writes agen." + +And, after all, Bobus, why should we not be tender with all the +gentlemen who crowd the catalogues and slumber upon the shelves? It may +be all very well for you or me, whose legend should be + + "Prandeo, poto, cano, ludo, lego, coeno, quiesco," + +to laugh at them; but who shall say that they did not do their best, +and, if they were stupid, pavonian, arrogant, self-sufficient, and +top-heavy, that they were not honestly so? I always liked that boast of +Flaccus about his "monument harder than brass." It is a cheerful sight +to see a poor devil of an author in his garret, snapping his fingers at +the critics. "No beggar," wrote Pope, "is so poor but he can keep a cur, +and no author so beggarly but he can keep a critic." And, after all, +abuse is pleasanter than contemptuous and silent neglect. I do honestly +believe, that, if it were not for a little too much false modesty, every +author, and especially the poets, would boldly and publicly anticipate +posthumous fame. Do you think that Sir Thomas Urquhart, when he wrote +his "[Greek: EKSKUBALAURON], or, The Discovery of a most Precious +Jewel," etc., fancied that the world would willingly let his +reverberating words faint into whispers, and, at last, into utter +silence?--his "metonymical, ironical, metaphorical, and synecdochal +instruments of elocution, in all their several kinds, artificially +affected, according to the nature of the subject, with emphatical +expressions in things of great concernment, with catachrestical in +matters of meaner moment; attended on each side respectively with +an epiplectic and exegetic modification, with hyperbolical, either +epitatically or hypocoristically, as the purpose required to be +elated or extenuated, they qualifying metaphors, and accompanied +with apostrophes; and, lastly, with allegories of all sorts, whether +apologal, affabulatory, parabolary, aenigmatic, or paroemial"? Would you +have thought that so much sesquipedality could die? Certainly the Knight +of Cromartie did not, and fully believing Posterity would feel an +interest in himself unaccorded to any one of his contemporaries, he +kindly and prudently appended the pedigree of the family of Urquharts, +preserving every step from Adam to himself. This may have been a vanity, +but after all it was a good sturdy one, worthy of a gentleman who could +not say "the sun was setting," but who could and did say "our occidental +rays of Phoebus were upon their turning oriental to the other hemisphere +of the terrestrial globe." Alas! poor Sir Thomas, who must needs babble +the foolish hopes which wiser men reticently keep cloistered in their +own bosoms! who confessed what every scribbler thinks, and so gets +laughed at,--as wantons are carried to the round-house for airing their +incontinent phraseology in the street, while Blowsalinda reads romances +in her chamber without blushing. Modesty is very well; but, after all, +do not the least self-sufficient of us hope for something more than the +dirty dollars,--for kindness, affection, loving perusal, and fostering +shelter, long after our brains have mouldered, and the light of our eyes +has been quenched, and our deft fingers have lost their cunning, and the +places that knew us have forgotten our mien and speech and port forever? +Very, very few of us can join in Sir Boyle Roche's blundering sneer at +posterity, and with the hope of immortality mingles a dread of utter +oblivion here. Will it not be consoling, standing close by the graves +which have been prepared for us, to leave the world some little legacy +of wisdom sedulously gleaned from the fields of the fading past,--some +intangible, but honest wealth, the not altogether worthless accumulation +of an humble, but earnest life,--something which may lighten the load of +a sad experience, illuminate the dark hours which as they have come to +all must come to all through all the ages, or at least divert without +debauching the mind of the idler, the trifler, and the macaroni? I +believe this ingenuous feeling to be very far removed from the wheezy +aspirations of windy ignorance, or the spasms for fame which afflict +with colic the bowels, empty and flatulent, of sheer scribblers and +dunces who take a mean advantage of the invention of printing. Let us +be tender of the honest gentlemen who, to quote Cervantes, "aim at +somewhat, but conclude nothing." I cannot smile at the hopes of the boy +Burns,-- + + "That _he,_ for poor auld Scotland's sake, + Some usefu' plan or beuk could make, + Or sing a sang at least." + +And while I am in a humor for quotation, I must give you this muscular +verse from Henry More's "Platonic Song of the Soul":-- + + "Their rotten relics lurk close under ground; + With living weight no sense or sympathy + They have at all; nor hollow thundering sound + Of roaring winds that cold mortality + Can wake, ywrapt in sad Fatality: + To horse's hoof that beats his grassie dore + He answers not: the moon in silency + Doth passe by night, and all bedew him o'er + With her cold, humid rayes; but he feels not Heaven's power." + +How we shiver in the icy, midnight moonbeams of the recluse of Christ's +College! How preciously golden seem the links of our universal +brotherhood, when the Fates are waving their dark wings around us, and +menace us with their sundering! I am not sure, my worthy Wagonero, that, +rather than see my own little cord finally cut, I would not consent to +be laughed at by a dozen generations, in the hope that it might happen +to me that the thirteenth, out of sheer weariness at the prolonged +lampooning, might grow pitiful at my purgatorial experiences, and so +betake itself to nursing and fondling me into repute, furnishing me +with half-a-dozen of those lynx-eyed commentators who would discern +innumerable beauties and veracities through the calfskin walls of +my beatified bantling. They might find, at last, that I had "the +gold-strung harp of Apollo" and played a "most excellent diapason, +celestial music of the spheres,"--hearing the harmony + + "As plainly as ever Pythagoras did," + +when "Venus the treble ran sweet division upon Saturn the bass." + +Write for posterity! Pray, whom should we write for, in this age which +makes its own epic upon sounding anvils, and whose lyric is yelled from +the locomotive running a muck through forest and field and beside the +waters no longer still? Write poetry now, when noise has become normal, +and we are like the Egyptians, who never heard the roaring of the fall +of Nilus, because the racket was so familiar to them! The age "capers +in its own fee simple" and cries with the Host in "The Merry Devil of +Edmonton," "Away with punctilios and orthography!" Write poetry now! +Thank you, my ancient friend! "My fiddlestick cannot play without +rosin." To be sure, I am, like most minstrels, ready for an offer; and +should any lover of melody propose + + "Two hundred crowns, and twenty pounds a year + For three good lives," + +I should not be slow in responding, "Cargo! hai Trincalo!" and in +presently getting into the best possible trim and tune. But the poet may +say now, with the Butler in the old play, "Mine are precious cabinets, +and must have precious jewels put into them; and I know you to be +merchants of stock-fish, dry meat, and not men for my market; then +vanish!" + +Barrow said that "poetry was a kind of ingenious nonsense"; and I think, +that, deceived by the glut, the present time is very much of Barrow's +mind. But, courage, my music-making masters! Your warbling, if it be of +genuine quality, shall echo upon the other side of the hill which hides +the unborn years. Only be sure, the song be pure; and you may "give the +_fico_ to your adversaries." You may live in the hearts and upon the +lips of men and women yet unborn; and should the worst come, you may +figure in "The Bibliographer's Manual," with a star of honor +against your name, to indicate that you are exceedingly scarce and +proportionally valuable; rival collectors, with fury in their faces, +will run you up to a fabulous price at the auction, and you will at last +be put into free quarters for life in some shady alcove upon some lofty +shelf, with unlimited rations of dust, as you glide into a vermiculate +dotage. Why should you be faint-hearted, when the men of the stalls ask +such a breath-stretching price for the productions of William Whitehead, +Esq., who used to celebrate the birthdays of old George the Third after +this fashion:-- + + "And shall the British lyre be mute, + Nor thrill through all its trembling strings, + With oaten reed and pastoral flute + While every vale responsive rings?" + +Ben Jonson called Inigo Jones Sir Lanthorn Leatherhead, but St. Paul's +still stands; and how many flies are there in the sparkling amber of +"The Dunciad"! Have the critics, poor birdling, torn your wings, and +mocked at your recording? I know, as Howell wrote to "Father Ben," that +"the fangs of a bear and the tusks of a wild-boar don't bite worse and +make deeper gashes than a goose-quill sometimes; no, not the badger +himself, who is said to be so tenacious of his bite that he will not +give over his hold until he feels his teeth meet and bone crack." I know +all about it, my minstrel boy! for have I not, in my day, given and +taken, and shouldered back again when I have been shouldered? Pray, do +not finger your eyes any longer! Screw your lyre up to concert pitch, +and go on with your stridulous performances! Neither you nor I know how +bad may be the taste of our grandchildren, or how high you may stand +when they have + + "Made prostitute and profligate the Muse." + +If you cannot be a poet, be a poetaster; and if you cannot be that, be a +poetess, or "she-poet," as Johnson, in his big dictionary, defines the +word. So "gently take all that ungently comes," and hammer away as +sedulously as old Boileau. Somebody will, undoubtedly, in the next age, +relish your rinsings. A poet, you know, is a prophet. Console yourself +by vaticinating in the bower of your bed-chamber, as you count the feet +upon your fingers, your own immortality. If 'tis a delusion, 'tis a +cheap one, to which even a poet can afford to treat himself. Play with +and humor your life, till you fall asleep, and then the care will be +over! Meanwhile, you must be more stupid than I think, if you cannot +find somebody to give you your fodder of flattery. You need not blush, +for I know that you like it, and you need not be ashamed of liking it. +We all do,--we are all women in that regard; although the honestest man +to confess it that I ever heard of was Sir Godfrey Kneller, who said to +Pope, when he was painting his picture, "I can't do so well as I should +do, unless you flatter me a little; pray, flatter me, Mr. Pope! You know +I love to be flattered." + +You see, my excellent Robert, that, by some hocus-pocus which I do not +exactly comprehend, myself, I have introduced a wheel within a wheel, a +letter within a letter, a play within a play, after the manner of +the old dramatists; and I beg you to make a note that the foregoing +admonitions and most sapient counsels are not addressed to you. You are +something of a philosopher; but you are not, like Mr. Stephen Duck, +"something of a philosopher _and_ something of a poet"; for I do not +believe, O fortunate youth, that you ever invoked the ten ladies _minus_ +one in your life; and I shrewdly suspect, that, so far from knowing the +difference between a male and a female rhyme, you are unfamiliar with +the close family connection between "trees" and "breeze," or between +"love" and "dove." My episodical remarks are for the benefit of +young Dolce Pianissimo, who has taken, I am sorry to say, to gin, +shirt-collars prodigious, and the minor magazines, and whose friends are +standing aghast and despairing at his lunacy. But, after all, 'tis my +best irony quite thrown away; for the foolish boy will believe me quite +in earnest, and will still be making love to that jade, Mistress Fame, +although he knows well enough how many she has jilted. But as he grows +in stature, he may grow in sense. If you see him very savagely cut up +in "The Revolver," you will recognize the kindly hands which held the +bistoury, scalpel, and tenaculum, and the gentleman who wept while he +wounded. + +But I have long enough, I fear too long, tormented you with my drivel. +It must be your consolation, that, in spirit, you have been with me +to-night, as I have thought of the old days, pausing for a moment over +these mute but eloquent companions, to dream or to sigh, and then once +more turning the old familiar pages as I try to forget, for just a +little while, that dear familiar face. If something of indifference has +tinctured these hurried lines, if I have been unjust in my estimate of +the world's honors and the rewards of the Muses, you will forgive me, +if you will remember how the great Burke reduced the value of earthly +honors and emoluments to less than that of a peck of wheat. My fire is +gone out. My candle is flickering in the socket. There is light in the +cold, gray East. Good-morning, Don Bob!--good-morning! + + + + +AFTER THE BALL. + + + They sat and combed their beautiful hair, + Their long, bright tresses, one by one, + As they laughed and talked in the chamber there, + After the revel was done. + + Idly they talked of waltz and quadrille, + Idly they laughed, like other girls, + Who over the fire, when all is still, + Comb out their braids and curls. + + Robe of satin and Brussels lace, + Knots of flowers and ribbons, too, + Scattered about in every place, + For the revel is through. + + And Maud and Madge in robes of white, + The prettiest night-gowns under the sun, + Stockingless, slipperless, sit in the night, + For the revel is done,-- + + Sit and comb their beautiful hair, + Those wonderful waves of brown and gold, + Till the fire is out in the chamber there, + And the little bare feet are cold. + + Then out of the gathering winter chill, + All out of the bitter St. Agnes weather, + While the fire is out and the house is still, + Maud and Madge together,-- + + Maud and Madge in robes of white, + The prettiest night-gowns under the sun, + Curtained away from the chilly night, + After the revel is done,-- + + Float along in a splendid dream, + To a golden gittern's tinkling tune, + While a thousand lustres shimmering stream, + In a palace's grand saloon. + + Flashing of jewels, and flutter of laces, + Tropical odors sweeter than musk, + Men and women with beautiful faces + And eyes of tropical dusk,-- + + And one face shining out like a star, + One face haunting the dreams of each, + And one voice, sweeter than others are, + Breaking into silvery speech,-- + + Telling, through lips of bearded bloom, + An old, old story over again, + As down the royal bannered room, + To the golden gittern's strain, + + Two and two, they dreamily walk, + While an unseen spirit walks beside, + And, all unheard in the lovers' talk, + He claimeth one for a bride. + + Oh, Maud and Madge, dream on together, + With never a pang of jealous fear! + For, ere the bitter St. Agnes weather + Shall whiten another year, + + Robed for the bridal, and robed for the tomb, + Braided brown hair, and golden tress, + There'll be only one of you left for the bloom + Of the bearded lips to press,-- + + Only one for the bridal pearls, + The robe of satin and Brussels lace,-- + Only one to blush through her curls + At the sight of a lover's face. + + Oh, beautiful Madge, in your bridal white, + For you the revel has just begun; + But for her who sleeps in your arms to-night + The revel of Life is done! + + But robed and crowned with your saintly bliss, + Queen of heaven and bride of the sun, + Oh, beautiful Maud, you'll never miss + The kisses another hath won! + + + + +ROCK, TREE, AND MAN. + + +It is an interesting thought, that will occur to a contemplative mind, +that the world contained, from the time when it was a nebulous mass, all +the materials of the future individuals of the animate and inanimate +creation,--that the elaborate creatures of the vegetable and animal +kingdoms, as well as every mineral, were floating in amorphous masses +through space. Human beings, like genius that was condensed from vapor +at the rubbing of Aladdin's lamp, were diffused in gases, waiting the +touch of the Great Magician's wand to bring them into form and infuse +them with life. In all the distinct creations of God, from the time +when the waters first subsided and the dry land appeared, in everything +organized and inorganized, earth, air, sea, and their inhabitants, there +is no element which was not in existence when the earth was without form +and void. + +Philosophers tell us that three hundred and fifty millions of years +elapsed after the globe began to solidify, before it was fitted for the +lowest plants. And more than one million years more were necessary, +after the first plants began to grow upon its young surface, to bring it +forward to the condition which the Divine Father deemed suitable for the +reception of man. If the days of Cain and Abel were the infancy of the +world,--as we have sometimes heard,--when will it come to maturity? Its +divisions of life cannot follow the plan of animated beings; for, with +an embryonic condition of an indefinite period, and an infancy of three +hundred and fifty millions of years, more or less, we can hardly expect +that it will really have begun to enjoy the freedom of adult life, +before the human race will have attained to its earthly limit of +perfectibility, or have so overstocked the surface of the globe as to +make it necessary to remove to some larger sphere. + +It is curious, we say, to think that everything now on the earth or +composing its substance was present, though in far different form, at +the beginning,--that the Almighty gathered together in this part of +the universe all the materials out of which to create all the forms of +things which it was his pleasure to evolve here through all time,--that +in that nebulous mass were revolving, not only the gases which were at +last to combine in various manners and proportions to form the rocky +crust and the watery investment of the earth, but that in that dense and +noisome cloud floated also the elements of all the beautiful objects +that furnish the daily enchantments of life. Flowers and trees, birds +and fishes, locusts and mastodons, all things, from the tiniest +animalcule to man, were there, unmodelled, not even in embryo,--their +separate existences then only in the mind of God. There, Christian and +Saracen, Jew and Gentile, Caucasian and Negro, Hindoo and Pariah, all +the now heterogeneous natures which are as oil and water, were blended +in one common vapor. + +Finally the condensation of all the gaseous elements began, and the +aeriform masses became liquid, and the waters,--what mineral waters +they were, when they were saturated with granite and marble, diamonds, +rubies, arsenic, and iron!--thus deposited by the vapor, left a gas +above them light enough to bear some faint resemblance to our air. +Still this atmosphere was surcharged with vapors which no lungs could +tolerate, whether of man or reptile; and other steps must be taken to +clear it of its unwholesome properties. Then did the Almighty will +introduce, one after another, the germs of plants,--first of all, the +lower orders, the ferns, which seek the shade, and the lichens, which +grow in damp and dark recesses, mosses, which cling to bare rocks, +living almost on air and water alone,--everything which needed not +bright sunlight to invigorate it nor soil to cling to. Year by year and +age by age did these humble plants extract their nourishment from the +murky vapors that shrouded the earth, and, after fashioning those gases +into a living tissue of stems and leaves, year after year did they die +and lay their remains upon the rocks, accumulating by slow steps a soil +which would in time be capable of giving holding-ground to mightier +plants. The trees came,--and gigantic they must have been; and every +species of tree, shrub, and herb now upon the earth, and of all animals +that walk, fly, or swim, was introduced before the creation of man. + +It was as if the elements were too gross for the constitution of man, +when they were first collected from the nebulous mass,--as if they +needed to go through the intermediate forms of plants and animals, +passing in succession from one to another, before they could be +permitted to enter into the bodies of those beings who were to be in +God's likeness. But, in very truth, the elements were unaltered by their +many transmigrations. It was the divine act of God which caused every +plant to spring forth and gave birth to every living thing. Every seed +and every egg was at the first formed by Him. No sudden effort of man's +will, such as that by which Pygmalion was believed to have animated the +work of his chisel, nor any industrious current of electricity, passed +for uninterrupted weeks through the purest gum, and stimulated by the +enthusiasm of a Cross, can transform the worm to a breathing being, or +reach the human climax by slow steps, even if the first one be in the +humble form of a louse. When a new plant appeared, it was the hand of +God that formed the seed. When a new species of animal came upon the +earth, it was the same Power that created it. But the materials were not +new; "out of the dust of the earth" was man created. + +Oxygen, Hydrogen, Carbon, and Nitrogen,--do not turn away from us, +gentle reader, we will not be grimly scientific, but a few of the terms +of science must be employed, even here,--these four elements are the +chief ingredients of all vegetable and animal structures. When separated +from their connections, three of them are gases; and the fourth, in +union with one of the others, is also a gas. In various combinations +they form literally the dust of the earth, they make rock and water, +vapor and air. In the hand of the Almighty, they are so many plastic +elements, that form now a plant of the lowliest condition, now a +magnificent oak, now a fish, and now a man. And the germ of each +organized being bequeathes to its offspring the power to reproduce its +likeness,--so that each succeeding generation is a repetition of its +predecessor. There is no change in plants and animals from the first; +the same materials in the same proportions that were selected by the +earliest trees for their composition are chosen now; and in form and +function the last animal is a precise copy of the first of his race. + +If we attempt to trace a particle of matter, we shall find its +wanderings endless. Annihilation is a term which is not applicable to +material things. Matter is never destroyed; it rarely rests. Oxygen, +for instance, the most important constituent of our atmosphere, is the +combining element of all things, the medium of communication between the +kingdoms of Nature, the agent of the interchanges that are continually +taking place among all created things. Oxygen keeps life in man, by +combining with his blood at every inhalation; it is absorbed by flowers, +to be employed in the perfection of the fruit; many minerals are +incapable of the various uses of society, until oxygen has attacked and +united with them. It gives us lime and soda, the oil of vitriol, and +common salt; the mineral pigments in common use are impossible without +it; and the beautiful colors of our autumn leaves are due to the +combination of oxygen with their juices. It enters into all plans and +operations with a helping hand; animals and plants owe their lives to +it; but when the shadow of death begins to fall upon them, it is +as ready to aid in their destruction. Like calumny, which blackens +whatsoever is suspected, oxygen pounces upon the failing and completes +their ruin. The processes of fermentation and putrefaction cannot +commence in any substance, until it has first taken oxygen into +combination. Thus, cans of meat, hermetically sealed, with all the air +first carefully expelled, undergo no change so long as the air does not +get access to them. If the minutest opening remain, the oxygen of the +atmosphere combines with the contents of the can, and fermentation or +putrefaction follows. Rust, which takes the keen edge from the knife, is +only another name for oxydation: keep the knife bright, and no oxygen +dares touch it; but the slightest blemish is made a loophole for the +entrance of the ever-watchful enemy, who never again leaves it until its +destruction is complete. + +All the elements have a great love of society; they cannot live alone; +they have their likes and their dislikes; they contract alliances which +endure for a time, but are dissolved in favor of stronger attractions. + +We have mentioned the names of several natural elements. Let us see what +they are, and what they have to do with man and the kingdoms of Nature. +Beginning with man, let us see what becomes of him in course of time, +what physical metamorphoses he undergoes, to what vile but excellent +uses he is put. + +That which forms the bone and muscle of a man this year may be upon his +own table in the shape of potatoes or peaches one summer later. When +Hamlet talked of turning the clay of Alexander into the bung of a +beer-barrel, he spoke the simple truth. In that great play, Shakspeare +appears to have had the transformations of material things much in his +mind; for we find him alluding, in several passages, to the reciprocity +which subsists between the elements of animate and inanimate things, +and between the different members of the same kingdom;--as when, in +conversation with the king about the dead Polonius, he makes Hamlet say, +"A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat the fish +that hath fed of the worm"; or where, over the grave of Ophelia, he +traces the two ancient heroes back to their mother earth, in words some +of which we have quoted. + +The ancient mythology, which shadowed forth some truth in all its +fables, turned these facts of Nature to its purpose. The gods of +Greece, when they saw fit to remove a human being from life, sometimes +reproduced him in another form of beauty, without any intermediate +stages of decay. Apollo seemed to have a particular fancy for planting +the boys and girls whom he had loved where he might enjoy their fragrant +society. Thus, a boy named Cyparissus, who had the misfortune to kill a +favorite deer, was so unwilling to be consoled, that he besought Apollo +to make his mourning perpetual; and the kind god changed him into a +cypress, which is still a funereal tree. The modest virgin Daphne, who +succeeded in escaping the violence of his passion, was transformed into +a laurel, which is ever green and pure. And the sweet youth Hyacinthus, +beloved of Apollo, being accidentally killed by a quoit which the god +of day was throwing, that divinity, in his grief, caused those sweet +flowers which bear his name to spring from his blood, where it fell upon +the ground. It is only in the annihilation of the intervals of time +between different forms of existence that these old metamorphoses, which +Ovid relates, are fabulous. If our readers will bear us company a +few steps, through ways which shall have diversions enough to forbid +weariness, we will endeavor to satisfy them that these apparent fables +are very near to every-day truths. We must begin with some plain +statements. + +The air which we expel from the lungs at every breath has a large +proportion of carbonic acid. Let a man be shut up in an air-tight room +for a day, and he will have changed nearly all the oxygen in it into +this carbonic acid, and rendered it unfit for animal life. Dogs, cats, +and birds would die in it. But, poisonous as it is to man and other +animals, it is a feast to plants. They want it all day and every day; +not in the night,--at that time they have a taste for oxygen. This +effete air, which men and animals exhale, so charged with carbonic acid, +the plants drink in through every pore. They take it from the mouth of +man, appropriate it to their daily uses, and in time render it back to +him mingled with other ingredients in wholesome fruit. Carbonic acid is +death when it combines with the blood,--as it does when we inhale +it; but not so when it enters the stomach in small quantities. One +inspiration of it is enough to make us dizzy,--as when we enter an old +well or stoop over a charcoal fire; but a draught of water fully +charged with it is exhilarating and refreshing, as we know by repeated +experiences at marble fountains that meet us on so many city-corners. + +If plants had souls, they would be pure ones, since they can bear such +contamination and not be harmed,--nay, since even from such foul food +as we give them they can evolve results so beautiful. We give them our +cast-off and worn-out materials, and they return us the most beautiful +flowers and the most luscious fruits. + +Beside carbonic acid, there are two other principal materials, which +are every day passing off in an effete state, though capable of being +transferred to the uses of plants. But when an animal dies, the whole +substance is then at Nature's disposal. We must set aside a great deal +of it for the ants and flies, who will help themselves in spite of us. +If any one has never seen a carcass rapidly disappearing under the +steady operations of the larvae of the flesh-fly, he has yet to learn +why some flies were made. The ants, too, carry it off in loads larger, +if not heavier, than themselves. But carcasses of animals may go to +decay, undisturbed by the ravages of these useful insects. That is, the +limited partnership of Oxygen, Hydrogen, & Co., under which they agreed +to carry on the operations of sheep, fox, or fish, having terminated +by the death of the animal, the partners make immediate use of their +liberty and go off in inorganic form in search of new engagements, +leaving sulphur, phosphorus, and the other subordinate elements of the +animal, to shift for themselves. They were in the employ of a sheep; +they will now carry on a man or an oak-tree, a colony of insects, +or something else. Under the form of carbonate of ammonia, the four +elements diffuse themselves through the air, or are absorbed by the +earth, and offer themselves at once to the roots and leaves of the +trees, as ready to go on with their vivifying operations as they were in +behalf of the animals. There are some plants which seem not to be left +to the chances of securing their nourishment from the carbonate of +ammonia that the air and the soil contain, but are contrived so as +to entrap living animals and hold them fast while they undergo +decomposition, so that all their gases may be absorbed by them alone. +Thus, "the little Sundew exudes a gluey secretion from the surface of +its leaves, which serves to attract and retain insects, the decay of +whose bodies seems to contribute to its existence." And the Dionaea, +or Venus's Fly-trap of the Southern States, has some leaves which fold +together upon any insect that alights upon their upper surface; and by +means of a row of long spines that fringes the leaves, they prevent his +escape. The more active the struggles of the captive, the closer grows +the hold of the leaf, and speedily destroys him. The plant appears to +derive nutriment from the decomposition of its victims. "Plants of this +kind, which have been kept in hot-houses in England, from which insects +were carefully excluded, have been observed to languish, but were +restored by placing little bits of meat upon their traps,--the decay of +these seeming to answer the same purpose." + +The four elements already referred to are by no means all the material +ingredients of animal bodies. There are, also, phosphorus, lime, +magnesia, soda, sulphur, chlorine, and iron; and if you believe some +chemists, there is hardly a mineral in common use that may not be found +in the human body. We doubt, however, whether lead, arsenic, and silver +are there, without the intervention of the doctor. + +What becomes of the phosphorus and the rest, when an animal dies? Oh, +they take up new business, too. They are as indispensable to the animal +frame as the four most prominent ingredients. We eat a great deal of +bread and meat, and a little salt,--but the little salt is as important +to continued life as the large bread. There is hardly a tissue in the +body from which phosphorus, in combination with lime, is absent; so that +the composition of lucifer-matches is by no means the most important +use of this element. The luminous appearance which some putrefying +substances, particularly fish, present at night, is due to the slow +combustion of phosphorus which takes place as this element escapes into +the air from the decomposing tissues. + +The necessity for the steady supply of phosphorus and lime to the body +is the cause of the popularity of Mapes's superphosphate of lime as a +manure. The farmers who buy it, perhaps, do not know that their bones +and other parts are made of it, and that this is the reason they must +furnish it to their land; for between the land and the farmer's bones +are two or three other factories that require the same material. All +the farmer knows is, that his grass and his corn grow better for the +superphosphate. But what he has not thought of we will tell you,--that +man finds his phosphate of lime in the milk and meat of the cow, and she +finds her supply in the grass and corn, which look to the farmer to see +that their stock of this useful mineral compound does not fall short. +Thus in milk and meat and corn, which constitute so large a part of our +diet, we have always our phosphate of lime. There are many other sources +whence we can derive it, but these will do for the present. And thus, +when an animal dies and has no further use for his phosphate of lime, it +is washed into the soil around, after decomposition of the body has set +it free, and goes to make new grass and corn. Bone-earth (pounded bones) +is a common top-dressing for grass-lands. + +A small proportion of sulphur is found in flesh and blood. We prove its +presence in the egg by common experience. An egg--from which it escapes +more easily than from flesh--discovers its presence by blackening +silver, as every housekeeper knows, whose social position is too high +for bone egg-spoons or too low for gold ones. This passion which sulphur +entertains for silver is very strong, as every one knows who has ever +been under that wholesome discipline which had its weekly recurrence at +the delightful institution of Dotheboy's Hall; and what Anglo-Saxon ever +grew up, innocent of that delectable vernal medicine to which we refer? +Has he not found all the silver change in his pocket grow black, +suggesting very unpleasant suspicions of bogus coin? The sulphur, being +more than is wanted in the economy of the system, has made its escape +through every pore in his skin, and, of course, fraternizes with the +silver on its way. But it was of the sulphur which is natural to the +body and always found there that we were speaking. When the animal +dies, and the vital forces give way to chemical affinities, when the +phosphorus and the rest take their departure, the sulphur, too, finds +itself occupation in new fields of duty. + +Chlorine and sodium, two more of the elements of animal structures, +produce, in combination, common salt,--without which our food would be +so insipid, that we have the best evidence of its being a necessary +article of diet. The body has many uses for salt. It is found in the +tears, as we are informed by poets, who talk of "briny drops" and "saut, +saut tears"; though why there, unless to keep the lachrymal fluid from +spoiling, in those persons who bottle up their tears for a long time, we +cannot divine. + +Perhaps we had better take the rest into consideration together,--the +magnesia and iron, and whatever other elements are found in the body. +Though some of them are there in minute quantities, the structure cannot +exist without them,--and for their constant and sufficient supply our +food must provide. + +To see what becomes of all these materials after we have done with them, +we must extend our inquiries among the articles of ordinary diet and +ascertain from what sources we derive the several elements. + +It has been sometimes believed that none but animal food contains all +the elements required for the support of life. Thanks to Liebig, we have +discovered that vegetable substances also, fruits, grains, and +roots, contain them all, and, in most cases, in very nearly the same +proportions as they are found in animals. We are not lecturing on +dietetics; therefore we will not pause to explain why, although either +bread or meat alone contains the various materials for flesh and bone, +it is better to combine them than to endeavor to subsist on one only. + +Whither, then, go these elements when man has done with them? The answer +is,--All Nature wants them. Every plant is ready to drink them up, as +soon as they have taken forms which bring them within its reach. As +gases, they are inhaled by the leaves, or, dissolved in water, they +are drunk up by the roots. All plants have not the same appetites, and +therefore they can make an amicable division of the supply. Grasses and +grains want a large proportion of phosphate of lime, which they convert +into husks. Peas and beans have little use for nitrogen, and resign it +to others. Cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, and celery appropriate a +large share of the sulphur. + +The food of plants and that of animals have this great difference: +plants take their nourishment in inorganic form only; animals require +to have their food in organic form. That is, all the various +minerals, singly or combined, which compose the tissues of plants and +animals,--carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, and the rest, which we have +already named,--are taken up by plants in mineral form alone. The food +of animals, on the other hand, consists always of organized forms. There +is no artificial process by which oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen can be +brought into a form suitable for the nourishment of animals. As oxygen, +carbon, and hydrogen, they are not food, will not sustain our life, +and human art cannot imitate their nutritious combinations. Artificial +fibrine and gluten (organic principles) transcend our power of +contrivance as far as the philosopher's stone eluded the grasp of the +alchemists. We know exactly how many equivalents of oxygen, hydrogen, +carbon, and nitrogen enter into the composition of each of the animal +elements; but we can no more imitate an organic element than we can form +a leaf. What we cannot do the vegetable world does for us. Thus we see +why it was necessary that the earth should be clothed with vegetation +before animals could be introduced. A field-mouse dies and decays, and +its elements are appropriated by the roots around its grave; and we +can easily imagine the next generations of mice, the children and +grandchildren of the deceased rodent, feasting off the tender bark which +was made out of the remains of their parent. The soil of our gardens and +the atmosphere above it are full of potential tomatoes, beans, corn, +potatoes, and cabbages,--even of peaches of the finest flavor, and +grapes whose aroma is transporting. + +Plants, as well as animals, have their peculiar tastes. Cut off the +supply of phosphate of lime from a field of corn, and it will not grow. +You can easily do this by planting the same land with corn for three +or four successive years, and your crop will dwindle away to nothing, +unless you supply the ground every year with as much of the mineral as +the corn takes away from it. All plants have the power of selecting from +the soil the materials necessary to their growth; and if they do not +find them in the soil, they will not grow. It is now a familiar fact, +that, when an old forest of deciduous trees has been felled, evergreens +will spring up in their places. The old oaks, hickories, and beeches, +as any observer would discover, pass their last years in repose, simply +putting out their leaves and bearing a little fruit every year, but +making hardly any new wood. An oak may attain to nearly its full size, +in spread of branches, in its first two hundred years, and live for five +or six hundred years longer in a state of comparative rest. It seems to +grow no more, simply because it has exhausted too much of the material +for its nourishment from the ground around its roots. At least, we know, +that, when we have cut it down, not oaks, but pines, will germinate +in the same soil,--pines, which, having other necessities and taking +somewhat different food, find a supply in the ground, untouched by +their predecessor. Hence the rotation of crops, so much talked of by +agriculturists. Before the subject was so well understood, the ground +was allowed to lie fallow for a year or two, when the crops began to +grow small, that it might recover from the air the elements it had lost. +We now adopt the principle of rotation, and plant beans this year where +last year we put corn. + +It is not merely that plants deprive themselves of their future support +by exhausting the neighboring earth of the elements they require. Some +of them put into the ground substances which are poisonous to themselves +or other plants. Thus, beans and peas pour out from their roots a very +notable amount of a certain gum which is not at all suited to their +own nourishment,--so that, if we plant beans in the same spot several +successive seasons, they thrive very poorly. But this gum appears to be +exactly the food for corn; if, therefore, we raise crops of beans and +corn alternately, they assist each other. Liebig gives the results of a +series of experiments illustrating the reciprocal actions of different +species of plants. Various seeds were sprouted in water, in order to +observe the nature of the excretions from their roots. It was found +"that the water in which plants of the family of the _Leguminosae_ +(beans and peas) grew acquired a brown color, from the substance which +exuded from their roots. Plants of the same species, placed in water +impregnated with these excrements, were impeded in their growth, and +faded prematurely; whilst, on the contrary, corn-plants grew vigorously +in it, and the color of the water diminished sensibly, so that it +appeared as if a certain quantity of the excrements of the _Leguminosae_ +had really been absorbed by the corn-plants." The oak, which is the +great laboratory of tannin, not only lays up stores of it in its bark +and leaves, but its roots discharge into the ground enough of it to tan +the rootlets of all plants that venture to put down their suction-hose +into the same region, and their spongioles are so effectually closed +by this process, that they can no longer perform their office, and the +plant that bears them dies. Plants whose roots ramify among the roots +of poppies become unwilling opium-eaters, from the exudation of this +narcotic principle into the ground, and are stunted, like the children +of Gin Lane. + +The Aquarium furnishes a very interesting example of the mutual +dependence of the three natural kingdoms. Here, in a box holding a few +gallons of water and a little atmospheric air, is a miniature world, +secluded, and supplying its own wants. Its success depends on the number +and character of the animals and plants being so adapted as to secure +just the requisite amount of active growth to each to sustain the life +of the other: that the plants should be sufficient to support, by the +superfluities of their growth, the vegetarians among the animated tribes +that surround them; and that all the animal tribes of the aquarium, +whether subsisting upon the vegetables or on their smaller and weaker +fellow-creatures, should restore to the water in excrements the mineral +substances which will enable the plants to make good the daily loss +occasioned by the depredations of the sea-rovers that live upon them. +Thus an aquarium, its constituents once correctly adjusted, has all the +requisites for perpetuity; or rather, the only obstacle to its unlimited +continuance is, that it is a mortal, and not a Divine hand, that +controls its light and heat. + +In the examination of the materials appropriated by plants from the +soil, we find that mineral substances are sometimes taken up in solution +in larger amount than the growth of the plant and the maturation of its +fruit require, and the excess is deposited again, in crystalline form +in the substance of the plant. If we cut across a stalk of the +garden rhubarb, we can see, with the aid of a microscope, the fine +needle-shaped crystals of oxalate of potash lying among the fibres of +the plant,--a provision for an extra supply of the oxalic acid which is +the source of the intense sourness of this vegetable. When the sap of +the sugar-maple is boiled down to the consistence of syrup and allowed +to stand, it sometimes deposits a considerable amount of sand; indeed, +this is probably always present in some degree, and justifies, perhaps, +the occasional complaint of the grittiness of maple-sugar. But it is a +native grit, and not chargeable upon the sugar-makers. It is nothing +less than flint, which the roots of the maple absorbed, while it was +dissolved in water in the soil. The sap, still holding the flint in +solution, flows out, clear as water, when the tree is tapped; but when +it is concentrated by boiling, the silicious mineral is deposited in +little crystals, so that the bottom of the pan appears to be covered +with sand. We could not select a more interesting example of the very +wide diffusion of some compound substances than this one of silicic +acid. It is found in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. Being a +mineral, it cannot be appropriated to animal uses, without being +decomposed and transformed into an organic condition; but in the +numerous species of plants whose stalks require stiffening against +the winds,--in the grasses and canes, including all our grains, the +sugar-cane, and the bamboo,--a silicate (an actual flint) is taken up by +the roots and stored away in the stalks as a stiffener. The rough, sharp +edge of a blade of grass sometimes makes an ugly cut on one's finger by +means of the flint it contains. Silex is the chief ingredient in quartz +rock, which is so widely diffused over the earth, and enters into the +composition of most of the precious stones. The ruby, the emerald, the +topaz, the amethyst, chalcedony, carnelian, jasper, agate, and garnet, +and all the beautiful varieties of rock crystal, are mostly or entirely +silex. Glass is a compound of silex and pearlash. One who is curious in +such things may make glass out of a straw, by burning it and heating the +ashes with a blowpipe. A little globule of pure glass will form as the +ashes are consumed. The following curious instance, quoted by that +interesting physiologist, Dr. Carpenter, shows the same effect upon a +large scale. A melted mass of glassy substance was found on a meadow +between Mannheim and Heidelberg, in Germany, after a thunder-storm. It +was, at first, supposed to be a meteor; but, when chemically examined, +it proved to consist of silex, combined with potash,--in the form +in which it exists in grasses; and, upon further inquiry, it was +ascertained that a stack of hay had stood upon the spot, of which +nothing remained but the ashes, the whole having been ignited by the +lightning. + +There is nothing in Nature more striking to the novice than the first +suggestions of the various, and apparently contradictory, at least +unexpected, positions in which the same mineral is found. Now carbon is +one of the minerals whose exchanges are peculiarly interesting. Chemists +say that the diamond is the only instance in Nature of pure carbon: +it burns in oxygen under the influence of intense heat, and leaves no +ashes. Next to this--strange gradation!--is charcoal, which comes within +a very little of being a diamond. But just that little interval is +apparently so great, that none but a chemist would suspect there was +any relationship between them. Then come all those immense beds of coal +which compose one of the geological strata of the earth's crust, a +stratum that was formed before the appearance of the animated creation, +when the earth was clothed with a gigantic forest, whose mighty trunks +buried themselves with their fallen leaves, and became, in time, a +continuous bed of carbonaceous stone. + +If we look at the vegetable and animal kingdoms, we find carbon entering +into the composition of every tissue. But there are certain tissues and +anatomical elements (as physicians say) which are formed largely of +carbon and have no nitrogen whatever. These are oils and fats and +everything related to them. What will be chiefly interesting, however, +to our readers, is the power of transformation of one of these +substances into another. Starch, gum, and sugar can all be changed into +fat. The explanation of it is in the fact, that these substances are all +chemically alike,--that is, they all have nearly the same proportions of +carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, and no nitrogen; but by slight differences +in the combination of these elements, they exist in Nature as so many +distinct substances. Their approach to identity is further confirmed +by the fact, that starch can be made into gum, and either of them into +sugar, in the laboratory. The transformation of starch and gum into +sugar is also constantly going on in the ripening of fruits. When +country-dames make currant-jellies and currant-wine, they know very +well, that, if they allow the berries to get dead-ripe, their jelly will +not be so firm as when they seize an early opportunity and gather them +when first fully red. They may also have observed that jelly made late, +besides being less firm, is much more likely to candy. At first, the +currants contain hardly any sugar, but more gum and vegetable jelly +(glue); when dead-ripe, they have twelve times as much sugar as at +first, and the gum and glue are much diminished. The gummy and gluey +materials have been transformed into sugar. Every ripe fruit gives us +evidence of the same manufacture of sugar that has gone on under the +stimulus of the sun's rays; and in the greatest source of sugar, the +cane, the process is the same. A French physician, M. Bernard, has, +within the last twelve years, discovered that the liver of animals is +constantly making sugar out of all kinds of food, while the lungs are +all the time undoing the work of the liver and turning it back into its +chemical elements. And although, in the laboratory of the liver, it is +discovered that no alimentary substance is quite deficient in sweetness, +yet there, as elsewhere, starch and gum yield a far greater amount of it +than animal substances. + +We have stated that starch and gum can be turned into sugar by art,--but +as no chemist has yet succeeded in imitating an animal substance, the +change of these three into fat takes place only in the body. There +are proofs enough within general observation, that one object of this +portion of our diet is the supply of fat. The Esquimaux fattens on his +diet of blubber and train-oil; the slaves on the sugar-plantations grow +fat in the boiling-season, when they live heartily on sugar; the Chinese +grow fat on an exclusively rice diet,--and rice is chiefly starch. But +one of the most interesting observations of the transformation of sugar +into a fat is that made by Huber upon bees. It was the discovery, that +bees make their wax out of honey, and not of pollen, as was formerly +believed. When Huber shut up some bees in a close hive, and kept them +supplied with pure honey or with sugar alone, they subsisted upon it, +and soon began to build the comb. Wax is a fat, and the honey which is +eaten by the bee is partly transformed into wax in his body. In about +twenty-four hours after his stomach has been filled with honey, thin +plates of wax appear on the scales of his abdomen, having oozed through +eight little openings in the scales and there hardened. Of this they +build their cells. + +We have wandered far from the consideration of the propensity of certain +species of plants to take up special compound substances from the +earth; but the wide-spread silex, with which we set out, displayed so +interesting a field of observation, that it could not be resisted, and +encouraged a disposition to rove, which has been to us instructive and +entertaining. To return to plants,--we find they make use of compounds +for certain special ends; but, as we have seen, the whole vegetable +kingdom uses the eight or ten primitive elements which it has in common +with the animals, and out of these alone forms the infinite variety of +products which we derive from it for food and various economical +and aesthetical purposes. Among the many processes of Nature whose +contemplation fills us with ever new delight, this power of the +adaptation of a few means to an infinite number of ends is one of the +most enchanting. We endeavor to explain by chemical laws the reduction +of the materials which earth and air furnish, to a form in which they +can be appropriated by the tree; by endosmose and exosmose we think we +have overcome the obstacles to a clear comprehension of the circulation +of the sap; and by a cell-theory we believe we have explained the whole +growth of wood and leaves and fruit. But what microscope or what alembic +shall ever tell us why a collection of tubes and cells in one tree +creates the most wholesome and delicious fruit, while in another an +organization precisely similar, so far as we can discern, produces only +harsh and poisonous berries? why the acacia tribe elaborate their gum, +the pine family turpentine, the almond prussic acid, the sorrels oxalic +acid? why the tall calisaya-tree of the Andes deposits in its bark the +valuable medicine cinchona, and the oak, the hemlock, the tea-plant, and +many others, make use of similar repositories to lay up stores of +tannic acid? The numberless combinations of the same materials, and +the wonderful power which rests in a single seed to bring about with +unvarying uniformity its own distinct result, attest to us every day the +admirable wisdom and goodness of the Creator. + +These regular, every-day transformations of material elements from rock +to tree, from tree to man, and back through a continual circuit, would +repay us for spending our leisure hours in studying it, with our own +eyes as well as with the eyes of others. The glance we have given is +sufficiently suggestive to turn the attention of our readers that way. +Before parting with them, however, we wish to make a few excursions +into the natural world, to follow out some of the more peculiar and +unexpected migrations of material atoms. Suppose we take a little +marble,--which, in chemical constitution, is carbonate of lime,--that +very marble, for instance, which forms the palaces of Venice, against +which the waters of the Mediterranean have dashed for so many centuries, +and have not dashed in vain. In their perpetual washing, they have worn +away the stone and carried off its particles,--an insignificant amount, +it is true, but, little as it is, it has not remained unused. For +that very carbonate of lime, which once shared the proud state of the +"glorious city in the sea," now helps to form the coarse shells of +oysters, or is embodied in the vast coral reefs that shoot out from the +islands of the West Indies, or is deposited year after year by dying +shell-fish, which are slowly carpeting the ocean-bed with their remains. +Much of this same Venice marble has doubtless been appropriated by +fishes from the sea-water which dissolved it, been transformed into +their bones, cast upon the soil of Italy, disintegrated, and imbibed by +the thirsty roots of forests in sight of the very walls from which it +parted. And who can say that parts of it do not now adorn the necks of +some Venetian dames, in coral, or more costly pearls? What says Ariel to +the orphaned Ferdinand? + + Full fathom five thy father lies; + Of his bones are coral made; + Those are pearls that were his eyes: + Nothing of him that doth fade + But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange. + +This is but a hint of the mutability of created things. Marble, +sea-shells, the chalk-cliffs of Dover, the limestone fossils which +preserve for us animal forms of species long since extinct, the coral +formations that are stretching out in dangerous reefs in so many seas +of the tropics, are all identical in their chief ingredient, and, as +we see, are by natural processes and various accidents constantly +interchanging their positions. + +It ought to be consoling to those who think a great deal of their +bodies, to reflect, that, if we may tend "to base uses," we may also +tend to very noble ones. In the course of their transmigrations, the +elements of a worthless individual may get into far better company than +they have before enjoyed,--may enter into brains that immortalize their +owner and redeem the errors of the old possessor. Whoever bases his +merit on a long line of ancestors who have nothing but a perpetuated +name to boast of, may be likened to the last of many successive tenants +of a house who have hired it for their temporary uses. The inheritance +of a brave spirit and a noble mind is a sufficient justification for a +reasonable pride; but not so with the heritage of materials which are +continually interchanging with the clod. + +There need be nothing humiliating in such thoughts; the operations +of Nature are always admirable. But when the relics of humanity are +deliberately appropriated to such mechanical or scientific purposes +as we shall relate, before they have entirely lost their original (we +should say latest) form, then most men would look upon the act as +in some sort a desecration. With what holy horror would the ancient +Egyptians regard the economical uses to which their embalmed bodies were +appropriated a few centuries ago! In the words of Ambrose Pare, the +great surgeon of five French kings in the sixteenth century, is a full +account of the preparation and administration of "mummie,"--that is, +Egyptian mummies, powdered and made into pills and potions,--"to such +as have falne from high places or have beene otherwise bruised." The +learned physician enters his protest against the use of it, (which he +says is almost universal with the faculty,) as quite inefficacious and +disgusting. His disgust, however, arises principally from the fact that +the "mummie" prepared by the apothecaries must have been derived "from +the carcases of the basest people of Egypt; for the nobelmen and cheefe +of the province, so religiously addicted to the monuments of their +ancestors, would never suffer the bodyes of their friends and kindred to +be transported hither for filthy gaine and detested use." + +If such traffic be base, what shall we say of some priests of Nicaragua, +who renovate their burial-grounds by exhuming the bones of the dead, +with the earth that surrounds them, and selling the mass to the +manufacturers of nitre? No sentiment of reverence for the sepulchres +of their fathers incites them to resist the inroads of foreign +pirates,--for they manufacture their fathers' bones into gunpowder. + +Let us turn away from the revolting picture. The glimpses of Nature's +revolutions which we have enjoyed are more agreeable. We are no +advocates for any attempts of preserving the human body from +decomposition; that which will restore the beloved forms of friends +most readily to their primitive elements, and avert the possibility +of anything so dear remaining to excite our aversion or disgust, or +becoming a pestilential agent, we would cordially encourage. There can +be no doubt that use would soon render cremation as little disagreeable +to the feelings as consigning the precious remains to slow decay and +food for worms; and few will long be pained at the thought of mingling +at once with the common earth and air, and returning to usefulness in +other forms, after the soul has passed to heavenly spheres to enjoy the +blessings of immortal life. + + * * * * * + + +CHIP DARTMOUTH. + + +It is wonderful how Nature provides for the taking off and keeping down +of her monsters,--creatures that carry things only by force or fraud: +your foxes, wolves, and bears; your anacondas, tigers, and lions; and +your cunning or ferocious men of prey, of whom they are the types. +Storms may and must now and then rage and ravage, volcanoes must have +their destructive fits, and the darkness must do its mean and tyrannical +things while men are asleep; but calmness and sunshine triumph +immeasurably on the whole. Of the cubs of iniquity, only here and there +an individual escapes the crebrous perils of adolescence, develops into +the full beast, and occupies a sublime place in history; whereas the +genial men of sunshine, plenty as the fair days of summer, pass quietly +over from the ruby of life's morning to the sapphire of its evening, too +numerous to be written of or distinctly remembered. There are, it is +quite true, enough biographies of such in existence to read the world to +sleep by for ages. It can hardly keep awake at all, except over lives of +the other sort; hence, one of great and successful villany is a prize +for the scribe. In the dearth of such, let us content ourselves with +briefly noticing one of the multitude of abortive cubs, its villany +nipped--as Nature is wont to nip it--in the promising bud of its +tenderness. Many a flourishing young rogue suddenly disappears, and the +world never knows how or why. But it shall know, if it will heed our +one-story tale, how Chip Dartmouth of these parts was turned down +here,--albeit we cannot at present say whether he has since turned up +elsewhere. + +Our hero was baptized simply Chipworth, in compliment to a rich uncle, +who was expected on that account to remember him more largely in his +will,--as he probably did; for he soon left him a legacy of twenty +thousand dollars, on the express condition that it should accumulate +till he was of age, and then be used as a capital to set the young man +up in business. As the inheritance of kingdoms spoils kings, so this +little fortune, though Chip could not finger a mill of it during his +minority, all the while acted on him like a controlling magnet, inducing +a strong repellency to good advice and a general exaltation of views, so +that, when he came into possession of it, he was already a fast young +man in almost every respect. He had settled it as the maxim of his life +to gain fast and spend fast; and having had considerable opportunity to +spend before he had any to gain, he had on becoming a business man, some +secret deficits to make good before he could really be as rich as people +supposed him. As his deficits had not been made by daylight, so daylight +must have nothing to do in wiping them out; and hence darkness became +more congenial than its reverse to all his plans, and he studied, as he +thought, with singular success, the various tricks of blinding people +to the state of his finances, as well as of bettering it. While he was +supposed to be growing rich very rapidly, he really was doing so about +half as fast as everybody thought. Chip would not steal,--that was +vulgar. But he would take every possible advantage of other people by +keeping close his own counsels and pumping out theirs. He would slander +a piece of property and then buy it. He would monopolize on a short +market, and fill his purse by forestalling. Indeed, he was, altogether, +one of the keen, and greatly admired in business circles. + +It was not easy for Chip to love any being but himself,--not even a +woman. But his smart figure, for which Nature and the tailors had done +their best, set the general female imagination into the most +lively action. Many were the dreams about him,--day-dreams and +night-dreams,--that were dreamed in front of all manner of little +filigree bird nest bonnets and under snowy nightcaps; and at the +slightest encouragement on his part, no doubt, the idea of himself which +had been manufactured in many minds would have been fallen in love with. +The reality certainly would not have been. Miss Millicent Hopkins wore +one of the caps set for Chip, and her he professed vehemently to love. +But she was the daughter of a millionnaire of a very set temper, who had +often said and sworn that his daughter should not have any man who had +not proved by more than mushroom or retail success in business that he +was able and likely to better her fortune. Miss Millicent must plainly +either be run away with, or fairly won on old Hopkins's plan of +wholesale, long-winded business success. Miss Millicent's good looks, +if they did not amount to beauty, did, nevertheless, add something to +the attractiveness of her vast pecuniary prospects. Chip had obtained +the young lady's decided favor without absolutely crossing the Rubicon +himself, for he had no notion of taking her without any of the funds her +father had to bestow. It was arranged between them that his paternal +consent should be asked, and the die or live of matrimony should depend +on that. But, with confidence, or what is sometimes called brass, enough +to put any sort of question, it was impossible for Chip Dartmouth to +state the case to old Mr. Hopkins as it was. Having obtained a private +interview, he grasped the old gentleman by the hand with an air as +familiar as it was apparently cordial. + +"Ah! I am very glad to see you, Mr. Hopkins, for I have been thinking +what a fool I must be not to pay my addresses to Miss Millicent; and I +can take no steps, you know, without your consent." + +"You can take none with it, Sir," was the emphatic reply of the severe +parent, with a sort of annihilating look. "I admire your prudence and +frankness, my young friend; but, till you show yourself a merchant, of +my own sort, I beg you will excuse me and my family from any of the +steps you contemplate. Good-morning, Sir,--good-morning!" + +The showing-out was irresistible, leaving nothing more to be said. + +Chip now resolved that he would double his diligence in making money, +out of spite to the father, if not love for the daughter. The old fogy's +wealth he would have at any rate, and Millicent with it, if possible, as +a sort of bonus. So, obtaining an interview with his fair intended and +intending, at the earliest moment, without revealing a hint of his own +diplomatic blunder, he told her that her father had refused his consent +to their union because his fortune was not sufficient, and she must not +expect to see him again till it was so, which he fancied would be in a +much shorter time than the old gentleman supposed. + +Chip had not long to wait for a chance to strike the first blow in +carrying out his new resolution of fast trading. The day after his +memorable rebuff, he was sitting in the choky little counting-room of a +crammed commission-warehouse in India Street, musing and mousing over +the various schemes that occurred to his fertile brain for increasing +the profits of his business. He had already bought cotton pretty largely +on speculation. Should he monopolize further, make a grand rush in +stocks, or join the church and get large trust-funds into his hands on +the strength of his reputation for piety? All these and a hundred other +questions were getting rapidly and shrewdly discussed in his mind, when +a rather stubbed man, with a square, homely face and vinegar expression, +opened, or partly opened, the little glass door of the counting-room, +and, looking round it more greedily than hopefully, said,-- + +"You don't want the cargo of the 'Orion' at a bargain?" + +"Can't say I do. But walk in, Captain Grant,--walk in!" + +Captain Grant did walk in, though he said it was no use talking, if Chip +didn't want the cotton. Chip saw instinctively, in the sad, acid look of +his visitor, that he was anxious to sell, and could be made to take a +despondent view of the market. Taking him by the button, he said, rather +patronizingly,-- + +"I know, Captain, you ship-owners want to keep your ships at work at +something besides storage. But look there," pointing to the bales of +cotton filling the immense floor; "multiply that pile by four and add +the basements of two churches, and you see a reason why I should not buy +above the level of the market. Now, taking that into consideration, what +do you ask for your two hundred and fifty bales in the 'Orion?'" + +"Seven cents." + +"I know somebody who would feel rich, if he could sell at that," +returned Chip, with a queer grin. "No, no, Captain Grant, that won't do +at all. Prices are sinking. If I should buy at that figure, every sign +of margin would fade out in a fortnight. I haven't five bales that have +been bought at any such price." + +It was true, he had not; for they had been bought at seven-and-a-half +and eight. + +"Well, I will say six-and-a-half at sixty days, to you," said the +humiliated Grant. + +"My dear Sir," replied Chip, "you don't begin to tempt me. I must burn +all my foreign correspondence and forget the facts before I can begin to +look at anything beyond six cents and ninety days." + +"Ninety days won't do," said Mr. Grant, tersely. "If we must sacrifice, +it must be for something a bank will look at, Mr. Dartmouth. But I want +the ship cleared, and if you will say six at two months for the whole, +it's a bargain, bad as it is for me." + +"Not a bargain for me to be in a hurry about; but I'll think of it. Hold +on till to-morrow. But, on the whole, you needn't do that. It wouldn't +be an object." + +"But I will do it, if you say so, till noon to-morrow." + +"Better say five-and-three-fourths and have it done to-day," said Chip, +"for I may not give that to-morrow. But if you hold on, and I buy +anything at six, it shall be your lot." + +Captain Grant, beginning to believe that he should, after all, sell a +little above the bottom of the market, took his leave for his home among +the Waltham hills, a little less grouty than when he entered. + +That same night, Chip, after having dropped in at numerous resorts of +the fast men, in most of which somewhat of his conscience, such as it +was, dropped out, was proceeding homeward through Devonshire Street, +with the brightest of his wits still about him. It was a raw night, one +of the rawest ever got up by a belated equinoctial, with almost nothing +stirring in the streets but the wind, and the loose shutters and old +remnants of summer awnings left to its tender mercies. Aeolus, with +these simple instruments of sound, added to the many sharp corners of +city architecture, managed to get up something of a symphony, enough +almost to make up for the nocturnal cats, now retired to silence and the +snuggest attainable quarters. The hour was one of the short ones +ayont the twal, and sleep reigned everywhere except in the +daily-newspaper-offices and in the most fashionable of the grog-shops. +Besides Chip, the only living thing in Devonshire Street was a +thinly-clad stripling, with a little roll of yellowish tissue-paper in +his hand, knocking and shaking feebly at a door which grimly refused to +open. His powers of endurance were evidently giving way, and his grief +had become both vocal and fluent in the channel of his infant years. + +"What's the matter, my boy?" asked Chip,--"locked out, hey?" + +"No,--bo-hoo. No, Sir, the door's blowed to and froze up, and I can't +git this pos'crip' up to the office." + +"Oh, oh! you're the telegraph-boy, are you?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"Most froz'n, aren't you?" + +"O-oo-oo, that I be, Sir." + +Here a very bright idea struck Chip, and he inquired,-- + +"Is this all that's coming?" + +"Boo-hoo. Yes, Sir. They've sent good-night once before, and this is the +pos'crip'. The wires is shut off now, and some of the papers is shut +off, too; for I've been to three before this, and can't git into nary +one on 'em." + +"Never mind, my poor fellow; I belong up here. I'll take the sheets and +send 'em round to all the other papers that are open. Never mind; you +take that, and go right home to your mother." + +"Thank you, Sir," said the shivering lad, and, giving up the yellow roll +and taking the loose coppers offered him in the quickest possible time, +he scampered off around the corner of Water Street and left Chip in +company with two temptations. + +"Now," thought Chip, "it will be certainly a clean and gentlemanly +thing, if, after having relieved this poor little devil of his trouble +and responsibility, I should oblige the still poorer devil of a concern +up-stairs by giving 'em this postcript of foreign news, which, by +working so late, they will probably have exclusively. That would be most +truly honest, benevolent, and philanthropic. It would make at least one +newspaper my friend, and, on the whole, it is something of a temptation. +But let me see what it will cost." + +Giving the black door a vigorous push, he entered, and by the gas-burner +on the first landing discovered that the postcript in his possession +gave the state of the Liverpool cotton-market a day later than the body +of the dispatch, which had already gone into type, and, what was more to +the purpose, announced a rise of a penny-and-a-half on the pound. Chip +clutched the gauzy sheets in his fist, closed the door as softly as +possible, and yielded himself a doomed captive to temptation number two. +Here was a little fortune on the cotton he had in store at any rate, +and, if he really had in his grasp all the news of the rise, he might +make by it a plump ten thousand dollars out of Captain Grant's "Orion." +But to this end he must be sure that not a lisp of the rise would be +published in the morning papers, and he must see Captain Grant and close +his bargain for the "Orion's" cargo before the wires should begin to +furnish additional news by the "Africa" to the evening papers. They +would not, after obtaining such news, lose a moment in parading it on +their bulletin-boards, and Captain Grant might get hold of it before +reaching the little counting-room in India Street. Chip, of course, +saw what to do, and did it. Waiting in one of the little +"meals-at-all-hours" saloons till he heard the churning of the +press-engines, he sallied out and bought of the overloaded carriers the +earliest copies of the morning papers, and made himself sure that the +foreign news did not disclose any change of the cotton-market. The +next thing was to transfer himself to Captain Grant's residence in +Waltham,--exactly whereabout in Waltham he did not know, but, of course, +he could easily find out,--and, without exciting the grouty old salt's +suspicions of false play, make sure of the cotton at his own price. On +the whole, he thought it safer, as well as cheaper, to use the early +train than to hire a special team. + +Arrived in Waltham, to his great vexation, it appeared, after +much inquiry, that Captain Grant lived full three miles from the +station,--and what was worse, every omnibus, hack, buggy, and dog-cart +was engaged for a muster in one direction or a cattle-show in another. +Nothing on wheels could be hired at any price,--at least, none could be +found in an hour's search from one hotel or livery-stable to another. +Chip, whose sleepless night and meditated fraud had not left much of the +saint in him, swore the whole of Waltham as deep as the grimmest view of +predestination would allow. And he restrained himself from being still +more profane only lest his wrath should awaken inconvenient suspicions. +After all, there was one old tavern a little way out, where possibly a +one-horse affair could be raised. The Birch House was a sort of seedy, +dried-up, quiet, out-of-the-way inn, whose sign-post stood forth like a +window without sash, the rectangular ligneous picture of a man driving +cattle to Brighton having long ago been blown out of its lofty setting +and split to pieces by the fall. What was the use of replacing it? No +one was likely to call, who did not already know that the Widow Birch +still kept tavern there, and just how she kept it. It was doubtful if a +new sign would attract a single new customer. Indeed, since the advent +of railroads, a customer was not a common occurrence any way, though +there still remained a few that could be depended on, like the Canada +geese, in their season, and their custom was handsomely profitable. The +house, a white wooden one, with greenish blinds, had two low stories, +the first of which was nearly level with the ground. There was a broad, +low entry running through the middle, and on either side two rather +spacious square rooms. One of those in front had a well-sanded, +well-worn pine floor, with a very thirsty-looking counter across one +corner, supporting a sort of palisade that appeared to fortify nothing +at all,--a place, however, which had evidently been moist enough in +the olden times. In the other front room was a neat carpet, plain, +old-fashioned furniture, and a delightful little plantation of fresh and +cozy flower-pots, surrounding a vase full of gold-fishes, and overhung +by a bright-eyed, mellow-throated canary, the whole of that paradise +being doubtless under the watch and care of little Laura Birch. This was +the ladies' parlor,--the grand reception-room, also, of any genteel male +guest, should one for a wonder appear. Little Laura, however, was no +longer as little as she had been,--though just as innocent, and ten +times as bewitching to most people who knew her. You could not but +particularly wish her well, the moment her glad, hopeful, playful, +confiding, half-roguish eye met yours. With the most conscientious +resolution to make herself useful, under her mother's thrifty +administration, in the long, clean New England kitchen which stretched +away behind the square dining-room, interposed between it and the dry +bar-room, she had a taste for books and a passion for flowers, which +absorbed most of her thoughts, and gained her more chidings from her +mother for their untimely manifestations than her handiest services +gained thanks or any signs of grateful recognition. She and the flowers, +including the bird and the fishes, seemed to belong to the same +sisterhood. She had copied their fashion of dress and behavior, rather +than the Parisian or any imported style,--and so her art, being all +learned from Nature, was quite natural. On the very morning in question, +she was engaged in giving this little conservatory the benefit of her +thorough skill and affectionate regard, when good Dame Birch broke in +upon her with,-- + +"Why, Laury, what are you thinking about? It's always just so. Here is a +gentleman in the bar-room, and he's a'most sure to order breakfast, and +them eels isn't touched, and not a thing ready but cold victuals and +pie. Them eels would be so nice and genteel! and you know they won't +keep." + +"But you didn't tell me to fry them now, mother," said Laura. + +"But I told you to fix 'em all ready to fry." + +"Well, mother," replied Laura, "I'll come as soon as these things are +set to rights. It won't do to leave them just so." + +"Well, it's always just so," said the maternal Birch. "I must do it +myself, I see. Don't be all day, Laury,--now don't!" + +She disappeared, muttering something about "them plaguy flower-pots." + +In point of fact, Chip Dartmouth was all this while in the aforesaid dry +bar-room, engaged in an earnest colloquy with Frank Birch, a grown-up +son of the landlady, a youth just entered on the independent platform of +twenty-one, Laura being three years younger. Chip had arrived rather out +of breath and excited, having got decidedly ahead of the amenities +that would have been particularly expedient under the circumstances. +Approaching a door of the bar-room, which opened near its corner towards +the barn, and which stood open at the time, he descried Frank within +busily engaged mending harness. + +"Hallo! young man, I say, hurry up that job, for I've no time to lose." + +"Well, I'm glad on't," retorted Frank, hardly looking up from his work, +"for I ha'n't." + +"Look here!" said Chip, entering, "you're the man I've been looking for. +I must have a ride to Captain Grant's, straight off, at your own price." + +"Maybe you must, but I'm goin' to the Concord cattle-show, and Captain +Grant's is four miles out of the way. I can't think of goin' round, for +I shall be too late, any way." + +"Never mind that, my young friend, if you 'r' 'n such a hurry, put on +the string and look to me for the damage." + +"Maybe you can't pay it," replied Frank, looking rather scornful. + +"The Devil!" exclaimed Chip, "are all the Waltham people born idiots?" + +"No! some of 'em are born governors," said Frank, "and Boston people may +find it out one of these days." + +On this, Landlady Birch intervened, taking the bar-room in her way from +the parlor to the kitchen. + +"What is that you say, Frank? The gentleman can have as good a breakfast +here as he can have anywhere out of Boston, I'm sure, though I say it +myself. We don't have so many to cook for, and so, perhaps, we take a +little more pains, Sir,--ha! ha!" + +And with that good Mrs. Birch put on a graciousness of smile worthy of +the most experienced female Boniface in Anglo-Saxondom. + +"The gentleman don't want any breakfast, mother; he only wants a ride +round to Captain Grant's, and he ha'n't got the manners to ask for it, +like a gentleman;--he _must_ have it. I say he mus'n't in my buggy, for +I a'n't goin' that way." + +"Why, son, the gentleman of course expects to pay for it." + +"Yes, Madam," said Chip, "I am willing and expect to bleed freely." + +_Frank_. "Well, I should like to know what you mean by that? _I_ don't +want your blood, or that of any other Boston squirt." + +_Mrs. Birch (to Chip, after a reproving glance at Frank)_. "I think we +can accommodate you, Sir. The buggy is at the blacksmith's, and will be +done in half-an-hour. If you want, you can have breakfast while you are +waiting; and you will find a comfortable fire in the parlor to sit by, +at any rate." + +With this, Mrs. Birch made her exit, to hurry matters on the cook-stove. + +"There! that's her, all over!" grumbled Frank. "If she can sell a meal +of victuals, she don't care what becomes of me. But I'll let her know +the mare's mine, and the buggy's mine, all but the harness; and I tell +_you_, Sir, I'll see the mare drowned in Charles River and the buggy +split into kindling-wood, before you shall have a ride to Captain +Grant's this day." + +"But here's a five-dollar-bill," quoth Chip, displaying a small handful +of banknotes. + +_Frank_. "You may go to thunder with the whole of 'em! I tell you I've +set my foot down, and I won't take it up for my own mother,--and I'm +sure I won't for anything that ever was or will be under your clo'es." + +With this, he jerked up the harness and went off to the barn, with an +air that convinced Chip that the controversy between mother and son was +not likely to be decided in his favor at a sufficiently early hour to +answer his purpose. But where else should he go, or what else should +he do? As he was a little more inclined now to bet on calmness than on +passion, he decided to take a seat in the parlor, and keep it, at +least, till he could dispose of his present doubt. Easily might he have +measured three miles over the Waltham hills, in the bracing morning-air, +with his own locomotive apparatus, while he had been looking in vain for +artificial conveyance. But if that plan had occurred to him at all at +first, it would have been dismissed with contempt as unbusinesslike. He +must not, by any possibility, appear to Captain Grant to be so madly +anxious to close the bargain. He did a little regret neglecting the +service of his own proper pegs, but it was now entirely too late to +walk, and he must ride, and at a good pace, too, or lose the entire +benefit of the news which the lightning had so singularly confided to +his honest hands. The feeling with which he flung himself into that +quiet, little, economical parlor was, probably, even more desperate than +Richard's, when he offered his kingdom for a horse. It was, in fact, +just the feeling, of all others in the world, to prevent a man's getting +a horse. Had he carried it into a pasture full of horses, it would have +prevented him from catching the tamest of them. But the good influences +of the Universe, that encourage and strengthen the noble martyrs of +truth and workers of good in their arduous labors, do sometimes also +help on villains to their bad ends. Never were troubled waters more +quickly smoothed with oil, never were the poles of a magnet more quickly +reversed, than Chip's rage and rancor abated after he entered that door. +Not that he relaxed his purpose at all, or felt any essential change of +his nature, but his temper was instantly turned the right side up +for success. He was, of course, unconscious of the cause,--for it is +certainly nothing wonderful, even in the neighborhood of Boston, to see +a neat Yankee lass, in her second or third best dress, putting things +to rights of a morning, with a snowy handkerchief over her head, its +corners drawn into a half-knot under her sweet chin, and some little +ruddy outposts on her cheeks, ready, on the slightest occasion, to +arouse a whole army of blushes. Laura had just given the finishing touch +to her flower culture, changed the water of her fishes, replenished the +seed-bucket of the canary, and was about leaving the room. Almost any +man would have been glad of an excuse to speak to her. Chip could have +made an excuse, if one had not been ready-made, that was to him very +important, as well as satisfactory. + +"Miss Birch, I presume?" + +"Yes, Sir," said Laura, with a curtsy, not quite so large as those that +grow in dancing schools, but, nevertheless, very pretty. + +"Well, Miss Birch," said Chip, blandly advancing and taking her nice +little hand, half covered with her working-mitts,--whereat the +aforesaid outposts promptly did their duty,--"or shall I call you Miss +Susan Birch?" + +"No, Sir, my name is Laura," said the girl, shrinking a little from a +contact which rather took her by surprise. + +"Oh, Laura!--that is better yet," proceeded Chip. "Now, Miss Laura, I +have got myself into a terrible scrape; can you help me out of it?" + +"I can't tell, indeed, Sir, till I know what it is," said Laura, with a +bright twinkle of reassurance. + +"Well, it is this:--I have mortally offended your brother,--for so I +take him to be by his looks,--and I most sincerely repent it, for he +owns the only team left in Waltham. If I cannot hire that team for an +hour, I lose money enough to buy this house twice over. I want you to +reconcile us. Will you offer my apology and prevail on him to take this +and be my coachman for an hour?" asked Chip,--slipping a gold eagle +into her hand with the most winning expression at his command. + +"Oh, yes, Sir,--I'm sure I'll try without that, Sir. He will be glad to +oblige you, when he knows how you need it," she said, offering to return +the coin. + +"No, no, Miss Laura, I want to pay him well; and if you succeed,--why, +no money can pay _you_, Miss Laura; I don't profess to be rich enough to +do it." + +Here the outposts gave another alarm, and again the hosts of the ruby +uniform were gathering hurriedly in their two muster-fields. + +"Why, I will go and try, Sir," said Laura, so much confused by the +novelty and magnitude of the circumstances that she opened the +closet-door before opening the only one that led out of the room. + +Fairly out of Chip's presence, she saw instantly and instinctively the +worthlessness of that gold eagle, however genuine, compared with her +sisterly love, in her mission to Frank. So she ran directly to her +mother in the long kitchen, and, planking the American eagle upon the +sloppy little table where the eels were rapidly getting dressed, said,-- + +"Why, mother, that gentleman wants to hire Frank to carry him to Captain +Grant's, and I'm sure he ought to go without hiring. I'll go right out +and see him." + +"That's right, Laury; tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself!" + +"Oh, no, mother, I won't tell him any such thing," said Laura, +laughingly, as she hopped and skipped towards the barn. + +"Well, Frank, how's Nell Gwyn, this morning?" cheerily cried Laura to +Frank, who seemed to be getting his harness into a worse snarl, in his +grouty attempts to get it out of one. + +"The mare's well enough, if she hadn't been insulted." + +"Why, that's abominable, Frank! But let me get that snarl out." + +"You get it out! You get out yourself, Laule." + +"Why, that's all I'm good for, Frank; I always pick out the snarls in +the house, you know, and I should like to try it once in the barn." + +"The tarnal old thing's bewitched, I believe," said Frank, allowing his +sister to interfere and quietly untwist and turn right side out the +various parts which he had put wrong by all sorts of torsion. "I'll +teach Boston chaps to know that there are some things they can't have +for money! When Nell and I have agreed to have a good time, we a'n't +goin' to be ordered off nor bought off;--we'll _have_ it." + +"So _I_ say, Frank. But suppose _I_ wanted you to give _me_ a ride, +Frank?" + +"Why, Laule, you know I would go to the North Pole with you. If Mam +would only let _you_ go to Concord with me, I'd wait till noon for you." + +"Well, maybe she will, Frank. She wants you to carry that man to +Captain Grant's bad enough to let me go in the afternoon." + +"But I told him I wouldn't carry him,--and, gol darn it, I won't!" + +"Of course you won't carry him on his own account, or for the sake of +his money,--but for my sake perhaps you will." + +"Well, Sis, perhaps I will. But, mind, before I do, Mam shall promise, +sartin sure, to let you go by half-past twelve o'clock, and not a minit +later." + +"Well, I'll see she does; you harness Nell, and get the buggy. The man +says he's sorry he spoke to you so. If he's carried to Captain Grant's +and back, I'll answer for it's being the best for all of us." + +She was off to the house like a bird, and the rest of her diplomacy was +too simple and straightforward to need special record. + +As the buggy was at the door before the table presented the savory +temptation of fried eels, Chip declined breakfast at present, but +decidedly promised to take it on his return. He dropped in on Captain +Grant, as he was careful to tell that gentleman, having had business in +Waltham that morning, and thinking he might perhaps save him a journey +to town. The ship-owner had just finished the news of the morning +papers, for which he had sent a messenger express to the post-office, +and said, after the cordial salutation which a rough sort of man always +gives in his own house,-- + +"Well, Mr. Dartmouth, I see the market is as close-reefed as ever. +Maybe you think I will sell at five and three-fourths to-day, but I've +concluded to make a floating warehouse of the 'Orion' for the winter, +rather than do that." + +"I don't blame you for that, my friend; but in the present state of +advices, six at two months is the highest mill that will do. If you will +close the 'Orion's' cargo at that, I am your man." + +"What I've said, I'll do, Sir, of course," said the tough old salt; "and +since you've taken the trouble to come out here and save my lame toes, +let's nail the bargain with a bottle of my old Madeira,--some of the +ripest this side of the herring-pond, I'll be bound." + +"Not a drop, I thank you; for, besides being a teetotaller, Captain, I'm +behind time to-day, and must bid you good-morning." + +"Well, Sir, I'm much obliged to you; the bill of sale shall be at your +counting-room directly; the clerk will receive the notes and deliver the +cotton. Good-morning, Sir,--good-morning!" + +In truth, Chip had not the slightest objection to wine, as wine, even +had it not been the ripest on this continent; but, like any other +mitigated villain, he did not quite relish taking wine with the man he +was basely cheating. He would much rather partake of Ma'am Birch's fried +eels and coffee, especially if Laura Birch should, peradventure, be the +Hebe of such an ambrosial entertainment. She was not, however,--and the +disappointment considerably overclouded the commercial victory of the +morning. Madam Birch herself did the honors of whatever sort, while Chip +played a fantasia solo at the _table d'hote_. The good lady enlarged +volubly on her destitution of help, and how, if she had any such as +we get now-a-days, they were more plague than profit,--how Laura was +getting ready to go with Frank to the cattle-show, and she herself was +likely to be the only living mortal in the house for the rest of the +day. + +"Such a son as you have is a fortune, Madam; and as for the daughter, +she is a gem, a genuine diamond, Madam." + +"Ha! ha! do you really think so, Sir?" said the mother, evidently +gratified with the superlativeness of the compliment. "Well, they do say +children are jewels.--but I've found, Sir, they are pretty +troublesome and pretty costly jewels. Mine, as you say, are very good +children,--though Frank is pretty wilful, and Laury is always gettin' +her head above the clouds. Oh, dear! they want a great deal done for +'em,--and the more you do, the more you may do. Frank is bewitched to +sell out and go to Kansas or Californy, or, if he stays here, he must go +to college or be a merchant. And Laury, even she isn't contented; she +wants to be some sort of artist, make statters or picters,--or be a +milliner, at least. So you see I haven't a minute's peace of my life +with 'em." + +Of course Chip saw it, and the more's the pity. + +"All the better, Madam," said he. "Young America must go ahead. There's +nothing to be had without venturing. If I can ever be of service to +either of your children in forwarding their laudable ambition, I am sure +it will give me the greatest pleasure." + +"You are very kind, Sir, but I only wish you could persuade 'em to let +well alone, and at least not try the world till they know more of it." + +"Not touch the water till they have learned to swim, eh? That's not +quite so easy, Madam. Never fear; I'll be bound, a boy that can say _No_ +like yours is perfectly safe anywhere; and as to Laura, why, Madam, I +never heard of an angel getting into difficulty in the wickedest of +worlds." + +"Our old minister, Parson Usher that was, used to say some of the Bible +angels fell,--and I am sure, Sir, the human angels have a worse chance. +They are about the only ones that run any risk at all." + +"True, true enough, Ma'am, in one point of view. Too much care cannot be +taken to select the society in which young people are to move. In the +right society, such a girl as Laura would win homage on every side, and +make herself happy by making everybody else so." + +"I believe you are right there, Sir," said Mrs. Birch, quite charmed +with such beautiful appreciation of what she felt to be Laura's +excellence; "and I don't wonder sometimes that she should be +discontented with the society she has here, poor girl!" + +"When you see the sun begin to shine in the morning, you may be sure +enough it will keep rising all the forenoon," said Chip, with the air +of a great moral philosopher, conscious of having made a decided +impression. And suddenly recollecting how valuable was his time in town, +and that the train would be due in five minutes, he swallowed the last +of his coffee, paid his bill, told the landlady how happy he was to have +made her acquaintance and that of her interesting family, promised he +would never stop in Waltham without calling, and strode away. + +The lightning flashed from a good many eyes in the telegraph-office when +the morning members of the associated press inquired why they had not +been served with the latest news,--why, in fact, the only item of any +significance was reserved for the evening papers of the day. Not a press +of all the indignant complainants was ready to admit that it had locked +up its forms and gone to bed before the wires had completed their task. +Very bitter paragraphs testified, the next day, that, in the opinion of +many sage and respectable editors, the wires had been tampered with +by speculators. The poor little half-frozen telegraph-boy was closely +catechized, first by the officers of the telegraph-company, and +afterwards by certain shrewd detectives, but no clue could be got to the +fine gentleman who so generously relieved him of his responsibility, and +no result followed, except his dismissal and the employment of another +lad of more ability and probably less innocence. Captain Grant was the +man most likely to have come to a discovery in the matter, and most +heartily did he curse his luck--his "usual luck"--of giving away a +fortune by selling a cargo a day too soon. But being kept at home +by uncomfortable toes, no suspicious mortal, such as abound in the +lounging-rooms of insurance-offices and other resorts of business-men in +town, happened ingeniously to put his suspicions on a scent, and he did +not come within a league of the thought that Chip Dartmouth could have +had anything to do with the strange and blamable conduct of the wires. +As he made no proclamation of his loss, and no other case of sale +during the abeyance of the news came to the knowledge of the parties +interested, the matter, greatly to Chip's comfort, fell into entire +oblivion before a fortnight had passed. The understanding was, that, +though great mischief might have been done, none had been,--and +that somebody had simply made waste-paper of the little yellow +thunderbolt-scrawls. + +For the first fortnight, Chip's nervousness, not to say conscience, very +much abated the pleasure of the many congratulations he received from +his friends, and from hundreds of people whom he had never before known +as his friends. He couldn't get through the streets any day without +meeting the solidest sort of men, with whom he had never exchanged +a word in his life, but whose faces were as familiar as that of the +Old-South clock, who took him by the hand quite warmly, and said,-- + +"Ah, Mr. Dartmouth, permit me to congratulate you on your good-fortune. +You have well deserved it. I like to see a young man like you make such +a ten-strike, especially when it comes in consequence of careful study +of the market." + +The truth was, Chip had been playing a pretty hazardous game in the +cotton-market, chiefly at the risk of other parties; and the slice he +had so feloniously carved out of poor Captain Grant was quite small +compared with the gains he had managed to secure by thus venturing a +little of his own and a great deal of other people's money. The shrewd +minds in the secrets of the business world were not slow to see that +he must have realized at least a hundred thousand units of commercial +omnipotence by the operations of the first week after the rise. +Everybody was glad of an opportunity to speak to such a man. Even Mr. +Hopkins, immensely retired as he was, driving into State Street +about noon one genial day to receive a bank dividend or two, stepped +considerably out of his way, in walking from his low-hung turnout to the +door of one of the banks, in order to catch Mr. Dartmouth's notice, and +say to him, "Good-morning, Mr. Dartmouth! I hope you are very well, +Sir!" Chip recognized the salutation with a superb nod, but without the +accompaniment of any verbal rhetoric which was audible above the buzz of +the pavement; and the retired millionnaire passed on about his business. + +"Ah!" thought Chip, "I am getting to be a merchant of the right sort, I +see,--and by the time he is ready to change that low-hung little chariot +for the hard, angular ebony with raven plumes, I shall be ready to step +into the other plump little vehicle, which is really so nice and cozy." + +But we must leave Chip to the easy task of ballooning upward in public +estimation, with his well-inflated bank-account. He was, in fact, +reformed by his great commercial success to this extent, that his vices +had become of the most distinguished and unvulgar grade. He was now +courted by the highest artists in iniquity, and had the means of +accomplishing results that none but men who are known to be really rich +can command. He, therefore, now quitted all vulgar associations, and +determined not to outrage any of the virtues, except under varnish, +gilding, and polish that would keep everything perfectly respectable. +Let him trust to that as long as he can. + +Don't talk of the solitude of a night in the primeval forests, however +far from the abodes of man;--the squirrels and the partridges may be +asleep then and there, but the katydids are awake, and, with the support +of contralto and barytone tree-toads, manage to keep up a concert which +cannot fail to impress on you a sense of familiar and friendly company. +Don't talk of the loneliness of a deserted and ruinous castle;--the +crickets have not left it, and, if you don't have a merry time with +their shrill jokes, it will be your own fault. But if you would have a +sense of being terribly alone, come from long residence in some quiet +country-home on the border of a quiet country-village, into the +hurry-skurry of a strange city, just after nightfall. Here is an +infinite brick-and-stone forest, stern, angular, almost leafless. Here +is a vast, indistinguishable wilderness of flitting human shapes, not +one of which takes half so much notice of you as a wild bush would. +Speak to one; it answers without the slightest emotion, and passes on. +Your presence is absolutely no more to any soul of them, provided they +have souls, than if you were so much perfectly familiar granite. You +feel, that, with such attention as you receive, such curiosity as you +excite, you must be there hundreds of years to be either recognized or +missed. + +Had you been a stranger in Boston, one moist and rather showery +summer-evening, not a year after the events we have narrated, you might +have been recovered from the sense of loneliness we have described by +observing one pretty female figure hurrying along the crowded sidewalk +with a very large and replete satchel, and without any of the +_sang-froid_ which characterizes city pedestrianism. You might have +noticed that this one human being, like yourself, was evidently not at +home. Every glare of gas-light revealed a deeply-flushed face, eyes that +had been weeping and which were now flashing with a wild earnestness +and an altogether preternatural resolution. A gazelle, started by the +huntsman's pack, could not have thrown more piercing glances at every +avenue of escape than this excited girl did at every cross street, and +indeed at everything but the human faces that passed her. All of them +she shunned, with a look that seemed equally anxious to avoid the known +and the unknown. She should seem to have narrowly escaped some peril, +and was carrying with her a secret not to be confided to friend or +stranger, certainly not to either without due consideration. Had you +watched her, as the crowds of people, returning from the various evening +amusements, died away in the streets, you would have seen the deep +color of her cheeks die away also to deadly paleness; had you been +sufficiently clairvoyant, you might have seen how two charming rows of +pearls bit the blanched lips till the runaway blood came back into the +sad gashes, how the tears welled up again, and with them came relief and +fresh strength just as she was about to faint and drop in the street. +Then returned again the throb of indignant resolution, as her mind +recurred to the attempted ruin of her paradise by a disguised foe; +then succeeded shame and dread lest the friends she had left in her +childhood's rural home should know how differently from her fond +anticipations had turned out the first week of her sojourn in the great +city. She was most thoroughly resolved, that, if possible, they should +not know anything of the wreck of her long-cherished hopes till she had +found some foothold for new ones. She felt that she was a Yankee girl in +the metropolis of New England, with wit, skill, and endurance equal to +any employment that ever falls to the lot of Yankee women; but having +given up the only chance which had ever opened to her, how could she +find another? Were she of the other sex, or only disguised in the outer +integuments of it, with the trifling sum in her purse, she would get +lodgings at the next hotel, and seek suitable employment without +suspicion. In the wide wilderness of a city there was not an +acquaintance she did not dread to meet, in her present circumstances, +even worse than death itself, or, what is next door to it, a +police-station. + +The streets had emptied themselves of their rushing throngs, the patter +of feet and the murmur of voices had given place to measured individual +marches here and there, the dripping of cave-spouts and the flapping of +awnings could be heard tattling of showers past and future, and the last +organ-grinder had left the ungrateful city to its slumbers, when the +poor girl first became conscious that she had been lugging hither +and thither her entire outfit of wardrobe, valuables, and keepsakes. +Aggravated by fatigue, her indecision as to how she should dispose of +herself was gradually sinking into despair, and the official guardians +of the night, who had doubtless noticed her as she passed and repassed +through their beats, were beginning to make up their official minds, +generally and severally, that the case might by-and-by require their +benevolent interference, when she was startled by a female voice from +behind. + +"Arrah, stop there, ye rinaway jade! I know ye by yer big bag, ye big +thafe, that ye are!" + +Glad at any voice addressed to her, and gladder at this than if it had +been more familiar or more friendly, our forlorn maiden turned and said, +in the sweetest voice imaginable,-- + +"Oh, no, my friend, I am not a thief." + +"Och, I beg your pardon, honey! I thought sure it was Bridget, that's +jist rin away wid a bagful of her misthress's clo'es and a hape o' mine, +and it's me that's bin all the way down to Pat Mahoney's in North Street +to git him to hunt her up; and the Blessed Mother forgive me, whin I +seen you in the dark, stalin' along like, wi' that bag, I thought it +was herself it was, sure. Och, ye're a swate lass, I see, now; but what +makes ye out this time o' night, dear?" + +"Well, I'm too late for the train, you see, and I really don't know what +to do or where to go," said the Yankee girl, putting on the air natural +to such circumstances, with the readiness of her race. + +"Och, I see, that's the mailing o' the bag, thin. Poor thing! ye jist +come along wid me. I'll lift the bag for ye, me darlint, an' I'll pit +clane sheets on Bridget's bed, and ye're welcome to slape there as long +as ye like; for the Blessed Mother knows it's powerful tired ye're +lookin', it is. I'm cook for more nor twinty years for the Hopkinses in +Bacon Street, and I can make ye jist as welcome in my quarthers as if it +was nobody but meself that owned it at all at all." + +"Oh, my dear woman, I thank you kindly! That bag _was_ beginning to grow +heavy," replied the overjoyed outcast; and presently, with a ready eye +to business, she added, "And since Bridget is gone, who knows but I can +take her place? I came to the city on purpose to find something to do, +and I can do anything that is not dishonest." + +"Och! the likes o' ye take her place? Niver a bit of it! Why! I see by +the gas-light ye're a leddy as iver was at all at all; and ye could +niver come in the shoes of sich a thafe as Bridget Maloney, as is gone, +and the Divil catch her!" + +"No, no, not in her shoes to steal anything, I hope; but I can do +housework, sweep, make beds, sew, and make myself useful,--as I will +show, if I can have a trial." + +"An' ye may well say that's a hape more nor _she_ iver could. But if +it's a thrial ye want, it's me that'll give't ye as soon as ye plase. +I'll answer for ye's to Misthress Millicent,--and that's what I niver +did for Bridget, and it's right glad I am of that. Now niver fear, me +darlint, it's a powerful good place, it is too, to thim as kapes the +right side o' Misthress Millicent; for she's the only daughter, and the +mother is dead and gone, poor soul!" + +They were now approaching the opulent mansion over the _cuisine_ of +which our special police-woman had so long had the honor of presiding. +Almost delighted enough with her capture to forget, if not forgive, her +fugitive fellow-servant Bridget, the florid and fat Aunt Peggy Muldoony +hurried along as if the bag were a feather, her words flowing like a +spring flood, and introduced her charge at a postern-door into her own +house, as she called it. This was, in fact, a very comfortable and +somewhat spacious dwelling, which stood almost distinct in the rear of +the mansion in which the Hopkins family proper resided, so that there +should be ample accommodations for servants, and the steam of cooking +could not annoy the grand parlors. Here we might leave the beautiful +waif, so strangely picked up in the dark street, to the working of her +own genius. She had fallen into a place which had control of all the +chamber-work of a modern palace, with ample assistance. Aunt Peggy, her +guardian angel, at once instructed her in the routine of the duties, and +she very soon had occasion to wonder how the care of so many beautiful +flowers, vases, statues, pictures, and objects of splendor and taste, +not to speak of beds that the Queen of Sheba might have envied, could +have been committed to a domestic who could be tempted to run away with +a few hundred dollars' worth of silks and laces. The legal owner himself +could hardly enjoy his well-appointed paradise better than she did, in +keeping every leaf up to its highest beauty. It must require a pretty +strong dose of tyranny to drive her away, she thought. + +But tyranny, if it were there, did not show itself. After a number of +serious, but vain attempts, on the part of Miss Millicent, to gratify +her curiosity by unravelling the mystery of her new servant, whose +industry, skill, and taste produced visible and very satisfactory +effects in every part of the mansion, she settled down to the +conclusion, that, finally, a treasure had fallen to her lot which it was +best for her to keep as carefully as possible and make the most of. She +could now smile and assume airs of great condescension when her worthy +female friends complained of careless, incompetent, and unfaithful +domestics, and have the pleasure of being teased in vain to know what +she did to be so well served. + +The satisfaction of Miss Millicent at having found and attached to her +service a young woman of such superlative domestic genius and taste, who +seemed to be so thoroughly contented with her situation, was especially +enhanced by the fact, that her own marriage was approaching, an occasion +which any bride of good sense would wish to have free from the annoyance +of slack and untrustworthy Bridgets. + +A few months after the period of which we have been speaking, the +long-expected event of the last paragraph was evidently on the eve of +accomplishment. There was sitting in the distinguished parlor of Mr. +Hopkins, himself, occupying an easy-chair of the most elaborate design +and costly materials. It had all manner of extensibilities,--conveniences +for reclining the trunk or any given limb at any possible +angle,--conveniences for sleeping, for writing, for reading, +for taking snuff,--and was, withal, a marvel of upholstery-workmanship +and substantial strength. Another still more exquisite combination +of rosewood, velvet, spiral springs, and cunning floral carving, +presenting a striking resemblance to that great ornament of +the English alphabet, the letter S, held Miss Millicent Hopkins, in +one curve, face to face with Mr. Chipworth Dartmouth, already known to +the reader, in the other. Near by the half-recumbent millionnaire, at a +little gem of a lady's writing-desk, sat Mr. Frank Sterling, the junior +partner of the distinguished law-firm of Trevor and Sterling, engaged in +reading to all the parties aforesaid a very ingenious and interesting +document, which he had drawn up, according to the general dictation of +Mr. Hopkins aforesaid. It was, in fact, a marriage-settlement, of which +the three beautifully engrossed copies were to be signed and sealed +by all the parties in interest, and each was to possess a copy. Frank +Sterling read over the paragraphs which settled enormous masses of funds +around the sacred altar where Hymen was so soon to apply his torch, with +great professional coolness, as well as commendable rapidity; but when +he came to the conclusion, and, looking at both father and daughter, +said, that all that remained, if the draught now met their approbation, +was, to have witnesses called in and add the signatures, he betrayed a +little personal feeling, which it behooves the reader to understand. + +Frank Sterling, though one of the best fellows in the world, with a +joyous face, a bright eye, a hearty laugh, and the keenest possible +relish for everything beautiful and good, was a bachelor, because a mate +quite to his judgment and taste had never fallen in his way. With Mr. +Hopkins, he had been, for a year or two, a favorite lawyer. Professional +business had often brought him to the house, and at Miss Millicent's +parties he had often been a specially licensed guest. There had been a +time, he felt quite sure, when, if he had pushed a suit, he could have +put his name where that of Dartmouth stood in the marriage-settlement, +and, as he glanced at Miss Millicent, as she sat in the mellow light of +the purplish plate-glass of that superb parlor, she seemed so beautiful +and queenly that he almost wished he had done it. Was it quite fit that +such a woman should be thrown away upon one of the mere beasts of the +stock-market? The air with which Chip took his victory was so exactly +like that matter-of-course chuckle with which he would have tossed over +the proceeds of a shrewd bargain into his bank-account, that the young +lawyer's soul was shocked at it, and he almost wished he had prevented +such a shame. However, his discretion came to the rescue, and told him +he had done right in not linking his fortunes to a woman who, however +beautiful, was too passive in her character to make any man positively +happy. Had it been his ambition to spend his life in burning incense to +an exquisitely chiselled goddess, here was a chance, to be sure, where +he could have done it on a salary that would have satisfied a _pontifex +maximus_; but, with a fair share of the regard for money which +characterizes his profession, Mr. Sterling never could make up his mind +to become a suitor for the hand of Miss Millicent, nor get rid of the +notion that he was to bless and be blessed by some woman of positive +character and a taste for working out her own salvation in her own +way,--some woman who, not being made by her wealth, could not be unmade +by the loss of it. It was, therefore, only a momentary sense of choking +he experienced, as he laid the manuscripts on the leaf of Mr. Hopkins's +chair, and said,-- + +"Shall I ring the bell, Sir?" + +"If you please, Mr. Sterling. Now, Millicent, dear, whose name shall +have the honor of standing as witness on this document? There is Aunt +Peggy,--is good at using pothooks, but not so good at making them. Her +mark won't exactly do." + +"Why, father! I shall, of course, have my little favorite, Lucy +Green; her signature will be perfectly beautiful. And by the way, Mr. +Dartmouth, here is a thing I haven't thought of before. With this Lucy +of mine for an attendant, I am worth about twice as much as I should +have been without her, and yet no mention has been made of this in the +bargain." + +"Ha! ha!" said Chip. "Thought of in good time. Let Mr. Sterling add the +item at once. I am content." + +"First, however, you shall see the good girl herself, Mr. Dartmouth, +and then we can have a postscript--or should I say a codicil?--on her +account. John, please say to Lucy, I wish her to come to me. After all +the stocks and bonds in the world, Mr. Dartmouth, our lives are what our +servants please to make them." + +"True, indeed, my love; but the comfort is, if we are well stocked with +bonds of the right sort, servants that don't suit can be changed for +those that do." + +"And the more changes, the worse, commonly;--an exception is so rare, +I dread nothing like change. The chance of improving a bad one is even +better, I think." + +"I don't believe there is anything good in the flunkey line that money +won't buy. I have always found I could have anything I wanted, if I saw +fit to pay its price. Money, no matter what simpletons preach, money, my +dear, is"---- + +"Why, Lucy, what is the matter?" exclaimed Miss Millicent, with some +surprise and anxiety, as she saw the girl, who had just entered, instead +of advancing, awkwardly shrink on one side into a chair behind the door, +with a shudder, as if she had trod on a reptile. The next moment she was +at her side, earnestly whispering something in her ear, evidently an +explanation of the circumstances of the case, to which Lucy had hitherto +been an entire stranger. + +"Pray, excuse me, Ma'am," was the girl's scarce audible response to some +request. + +"It is only to write your name, Lucy." + +"Not to _such_ a paper, for the world!" + +"Not to oblige me?" + +"I would do anything, Ma'am, to oblige you, but that would not. Never! +never!" said the excited girl, catching another glimpse of Chip, who was +now looking obliquely at the whispering couple, and drumming with his +fingers on the rosewood of that part of the letter S from which his +intended had just risen, as if he were hurriedly beating a _reveille_ +to rally his faltering impudence. "No, Ma'am;--it is too bad, it is too +bad, it is too"----Here her utterance became choked, her cheeks pallid +as death, and her form wilted and fell like a flower before the mower's +scythe. Millicent prevented the fall, while Sterling rang for water, +and Chip, peering about with more agitation than any one else, finally +remarked,-- + +"The girl must be sick;--better take her out." + +The young lawyer, with the aid of a servant, did bear her to another +apartment, where, after the usual time and restoratives, she recovered +her consciousness, and the maiden blood again revealed tints that the +queen of flowers might envy. Chip and the millionnaire remained in the +parlor, while the others were taking care of the proposed witness, and +great was the anxiety of the former that their absence should not be +prolonged. Suddenly he recollected a forgotten engagement of great +importance, pulled out his watch, fidgeted, suggested that the lawyer +and Miss Millicent should be recalled, that the papers might be signed +before he went. Mr. Hopkins was of that opinion, and sent a servant to +call them. Miss Millicent came, but could not think of completing the +contract without the signature of her favorite domestic. Argument enough +was ready, but she was fortified by a sentiment that was more than a +match for it. Mr. Hopkins was all ready, and would have the matter +closed as soon as the lawyer arrived, affirming that his daughter would +have too much sense, at last, to stand out on such a trifle. + +In the mean time, the supposed Miss Lucy having had time to collect her +scattered senses, there occurred the following dialogue between her and +Frank Sterling, whose curiosity, not to speak of any other interest, had +been thoroughly roused by the strange patient for whom he had just been +acting in a medical, rather than legal capacity. + +_Frank_. "We are all right, now, I think, Miss Lucy,--and they are +waiting for us in the parlor, you know." + +_Lucy_. "That paper must not be signed, Sir. If Miss Millicent knew what +I do about that man, he would be the last man in the world she would +think of for a husband." + +_Frank_. "But he is one of the merchant princes,--respectable, of +course. What harm can you know of him?" + +_Lucy_. "If he is not so great a villain as he might be, let him thank +my escape from Mrs. Farmthroy's the night I came here. If he is to be +at home here, I shall not be; but before I leave, I wish to restore him +what belongs to him. Excuse me a moment, Sir, and I will fetch it." + +"A regular previous love-affair," thought Frank, and expected her +to return, bringing a small lot of erotic jewelry to be returned to +Chipworth, as the false-hearted donor thereof. Great was his surprise, +when, instead of that, she brought a small parcel or wad of yellowish +paper, variegated with certain scrawls of rapid writing, of the manifold +sort. + +"Why, that," said Frank, after unfolding the half-dozen sheets, all of +the same tenor, "is a set of news-dispatches, and of a pretty ancient +date, too." + +_Lucy_. "But it is his property, Sir; and though worthless itself, being +worth as much as he is, it may be valuable to him." + +_Frank_. "Yes, yes. I begin to see. Cotton-Market. This reminds me of +the case of our client Grant. Why, pray, how did you come by these?" + +_Lucy_. "Perhaps I ought not to tell you all. But if I may rely on your +honor as a gentleman, I will." + +_Frank_. "As a gentleman, a man, and a lawyer, you may trust me that +every word shall be sacredly confidential." + +_Lucy_. "Well, Sir, my name is not Lucy Green, but Laura Birch. My +mother keeps the Birch House in Waltham; and this man, whom you call a +merchant prince, came to my mother's the very day after the date on them +papers, and hired my brother to carry him to Captain Grant's. When he +took out his pocketbook to pay, which he did like a prince, perhaps, +he probably let these papers fall. At any rate, no one else could have +dropped them; and I saved them, thinking to give them to him when he +should call again. I have seen him but once since, at a place where, +through his interest, I supposed I had obtained a situation to learn the +milliner's trade. I needn't say why I did not return his property then. +If, now, I had in my possession even an old shoestring that had ever +been his, I would beg you to return it to him, and find out for me where +I can go never to see him." + +_Frank_. "But I shall take care of these dispatches. There's a story +about these papers, I see. Here's a ray of daylight penetrating a dark +spot. Two links in the chain of circumstances, to say the least. Captain +Grant's unfortunate sale of cotton to Dartmouth just before the rise, +and the famous lost dispatch found on Dartmouth's track to Grant. Did +you see him have these papers, Miss Lucy--I beg your pardon--Miss +Laura?" + +_Lucy_. "No, Sir; but I know he left them, just as well as if I had seen +them in his hands." + +_Frank_. "True, true enough in fact, but not so good in law." + +_Lucy_. "Is there anything by which the law can reach him, Sir? Oh, I +should be so glad, if the law could break off this match, even if it +cannot break his neck; and he deserves that, I am afraid, if ever a +villain did." + +_Frank_. "Yes,--there's enough in this roll to banish such a fellow, if +not to hang him. And it shall be done, too." + +_Lucy_. "And Miss Millicent be saved, too? Delightful!" + +Sterling, with the roll of yellow paper in his fist, now returned to the +parlor, where Mr. Hopkins impatiently opened upon him, before he could +close the door. + +"Well, Mr. Counsellor, we are all waiting for you. Mr. Dartmouth has +urgent business, and is in haste to go. We shall be holden in heavy +damages, if we detain him." + +"He will be in more haste to go by-and-by, Sir. I have some papers here, +Sir, which make it necessary that this marriage-contract should stand +aside till some other matters can be settled, or at least explained. I +refer to these manifold dispatches, detailing the latest news of the +Liverpool cotton-market, by the fraudulent possession of which on the +part of somebody, a client of mine, Captain Grant of Waltham, was +cheated out of a small fortune. Perhaps Mr. Dartmouth knows who went to +Waltham one morning to close a bargain before the telegraph-news should +transpire. It is rather remarkable that certain lost dispatches should +have been found in that man's track." + +Whether Chip Dartmouth heard three words of this harangue may be +doubted. The sight of that yellowish paper did the business for him. His +expression vibrated from that of a mad rattlesnake to that of a dog with +the most downcast extremities. At last he rushed to the door, saying he +"would stand no such nonsense." + +"But you will have to stand it!" + +Chip was gone. Mr. Hopkins was in a state of amazement; and Millicent, +if she did not swoon, seemed to herself in a trance. Neither of them +could see in the cause anything to account for the effect. How could a +merchant prince quail before so flimsy a piece of paper? Mr. +Sterling explained. Mr. Hopkins begged the matter might not be made +public,--above all things, that legal proceedings should be avoided. + +"No," said Sterling,--"I shall punish him more effectually. The proof, +though strong as holy writ, would probably fail to convict him in court. +Therefore I shall let him off on these conditions: He shall disgorge to +Captain Grant his profits on that cotton with interest, relinquish Miss +Millicent's hand, if she so pleases, and, at any rate, relieve Boston of +his presence altogether and for good. He may do it as soon as he likes, +and as privately." + +This course at once met the approbation of all parties, and was carried +out. + +What became of Squire Sterling, whether he married the mistress of that +mansion or her maid, this deponent saith not; though he doth say that he +did marry one of them, and had no cause to regret the same. + + * * * * * + + +SEEN AND UNSEEN. + + + The wind ahead, the billows high, + A whited wave, but sable sky, + And many a league of tossing sea + Between the hearts I love and me. + + The wind ahead: day after day + These weary words the sailors say; + To weeks the days are lengthened now,-- + Still mounts the surge to meet our prow. + + Through longing day and lingering night + I still accuse Time's lagging flight, + Or gaze out o'er the envious sea, + That keeps the hearts I love from me. + + Yet, ah, how shallow is all grief! + How instant is the deep relief! + And what a hypocrite am I, + To feign forlorn, to 'plain and sigh! + + The wind ahead? The wind is free! + Forever more it favoreth me,-- + To shores of God still blowing fair, + O'er seas of God my bark doth bear. + + This surging brine _I_ do not sail, + This blast adverse is not my gale; + 'Tis here I only seem to be, + But really sail another sea,-- + + Another sea, pure sky its waves, + Whose beauty hides no heaving graves,-- + A sea all haven, whereupon + No hapless bark to wreck hath gone. + + The winds that o'er my ocean run + Reach through all heavens beyond the sun; + Through life and death, through fate, through time, + Grand breaths of God, they sweep sublime. + + Eternal trades, they cannot veer, + And, blowing, teach us how to steer; + And well for him whose joy, whose care, + Is but to keep before them fair. + + Oh, thou God's mariner, heart of mine, + Spread canvas to the airs divine! + Spread sail! and let thy Fortune be + Forgotten in thy Destiny! + + For Destiny pursues us well, + By sea, by land, through heaven or hell; + It suffers Death alone to die, + Bids Life all change and chance defy. + + Would earth's dark ocean suck thee down? + Earth's ocean thou, O Life, shalt drown, + Shalt flood it with thy finer wave, + And, sepulchred, entomb thy grave! + + Life loveth life and good: then trust + What most the spirit would, it must; + Deep wishes, in the heart that be, + Are blossoms of Necessity. + + A thread of Law runs through thy prayer, + Stronger than iron cables are; + And Love and Longing toward her goal + Are pilots sweet to guide the Soul. + + So Life must live, and Soul must sail, + And Unseen over Seen prevail, + And all God's argosies come to shore, + Let ocean smile, or rage and roar. + + And so, 'mid storm or calm, my bark + With snowy wake still nears her mark; + Cheerly the trades of being blow, + And sweeping down the wind I go. + + + + +PERCIVAL. + + +Among my letters is one from Dr. E.D. North, desiring me to furnish any +facts within my reach, relating to the scientific character and general +opinions of the late James G. Percival. This information Dr. North +proposed to incorporate into a memoir, to be prefixed to a new edition +of Percival's Poems. The biographer, with his task unfinished, has +followed the subject of his studies to the tomb. + +Dr. North's request revived in me many recollections of Percival; and +finally led me to draw out the following sketch of him, as he appeared +to my eyes in those days when I saw him often, and sometimes shared his +pursuits. Vague and shadowy is the delineation, and to myself seems +little better than the reminiscence of a phantom or a dream. Percival's +life had few externalities,--he related himself to society by few points +of contact; and I have been compelled to paint him chiefly by glimpses +of his literary and interior existence. + +My acquaintance with him grew out of some conversations on geological +topics, and commenced in 1828, when he was working on his translation of +Malte-Brun's Geography. The impression made on me by his singular person +and manners was vivid and indelible. Slender in form, rather above than +under the middle height, he had a narrow chest, and a peculiar stoop, +which was not in the back, but high up in the shoulders. His head, +without being large, was fine. His eyes were of a dark hazel, and +possessed uncommon expression. His nose, mouth, and chin were +symmetrically, if not elegantly formed, and came short of beauty +only because of that meagreness which marked his whole person. His +complexion, light without redness, inclined to sallow, and suggested a +temperament somewhat bilious. His dark brown hair had become thin above +the forehead, revealing to advantage that most striking feature of his +countenance. Taken all together, his appearance was that of a weak man, +of delicate constitution,--an appearance hardly justified by the fact; +for he endured fatigue and privation with remarkable stanchness. + +Percival's face, when he was silent, was full of calm, serious +meditation; when speaking, it lighted up with thought, and became +noticeably expressive. He commonly talked in a mild, unimpassioned +undertone, but just above a whisper, letting his voice sink with rather +a pleasing cadence at the completion of each sentence. Even when most +animated, he used no gesture except a movement of the first and second +fingers of his right hand backward and forward across the palm of the +left, meantime following their monotonous unrest with his eyes, and +rarely meeting the gaze of his interlocutor. He would stand for hours, +when talking, his right elbow on a mantel-piece, if there was one near, +his fingers going through their strange palmistry; and in this manner, +never once stirring from his position, he would not unfrequently +protract his discourse till long past midnight. An inexhaustible, +undemonstrative, noiseless, passionless man, scarcely evident to you by +physical qualities, and impressing you, for the most part, as a creature +of pure intellect. + +His wardrobe was remarkably inexpensive, consisting of little more than +a single plain suit, brown or gray, which he wore winter and summer, +until it became threadbare. He never used boots; and his shoes, though +carefully dusted, were never blacked. A most unpretending bow fastened +his cravat of colored cambric. For many years his only outer garment was +a brown camlet cloak, of very scanty proportions, thinly lined, and a +meagre protection against winter. His hat was worn for years before +being laid aside, and put you in mind of the prevailing mode by the law +of contrast only. He was never seen with gloves, and rarely with an +umbrella. The value of his entire wardrobe scarcely exceeded fifty +dollars; yet he was always neat, and appeared unconscious of any +peculiarity in his costume. + +An accurate portrait of him at any period of his life can scarcely be +said to exist. His sensitive modesty seems to have made him unwilling to +let his features be exposed to the flaring notoriety of canvas. Once, +indeed, he allowed himself to be painted by Mr. George A. Flagg; but the +picture having been exhibited in the Trumbull Gallery of Yale +College, Percival's susceptibility took alarm, and he expressed +annoyance,--though whether dissatisfied with the portrait or its public +exposure I cannot say. The artist proposed certain alterations, and the +poet listened to him with seeming assent. The picture was taken back to +the studio; objectionable or questionable parts of it painted out; the +likeness destroyed for the purpose of correction; and Percival was to +give another sitting at his convenience. That was the last time he put +himself within painting reach of Mr. Flagg's easel.[A] + +[Footnote A: I remember to have seen an excellent portrait of him, by +Alexander, in the studio of that artist, in the year 1825; but in whose +possession it now is, I am unable to say.] + +In those days of our early acquaintance, he occupied two small chambers, +one of which fronted on the business part of Chapel Street (New Haven). +His books, already numerous, were piled in double tiers and in heaps +against the walls, covering the floors also, and barely leaving space +for his sleeping-cot, chair, and writing-table. His library was a +_sanctum_ to which the curious visitor hardly ever gained admittance. He +met even his friends at the door, and generally held his interviews +with them in the adjoining passage. Disinclined to borrow books, he +was especially averse to lending. Dr. Guhrauer's assertion respecting +Leibnitz, that "his library was numerous and valuable, and its possessor +had the peculiarity that he liked to worm in it alone, being very +reluctant to let any one see it," applies equally well to Percival. + +He was rarely visible abroad except in his walks to and from the +country, whither he often resorted to pass not hours only, but +frequently entire days, in solitary wanderings,--partly for physical +exercise,--still more, perhaps, to study the botany, the geology, and +the minutest geographical features of the environs; for his restless +mind was perpetually observant, and could not be withheld from external +Nature, even by his poetic and philosophic meditation. In these +excursions, he often passed his fellow-mortals without noticing them. A +friend, if observed, he greeted with a slight nod, and possibly stopped +him for conversation. Once started on a subject, Percival rarely quitted +it until it was exhausted; and consequently these interviews sometimes +outlasted the leisure of his listener. You excused yourself, perhaps; +or you were called away by some one else; but you had only put off the +conclusion of the discourse, not escaped it. The next time Percival +encountered you, his first words were, "As I was saying,"--and taking +up the thread of his observations where it had been broken, he went +straight to the end. + +The excellent bookstore of the late Hezekiah Howe, one of the best in +New England, and particularly rich in those rare and costly works +which form a bookworm's delight, was one of Percival's best-loved +lounging-places. He bought freely, and, when he could not buy, he was +welcome to peruse: He read with marvellous rapidity, skipping as if by +instinct everything that was unimportant; avoiding the rhetoric, the +commonplaces, the falsities; glancing only at what was new, what was +true, what was suggestive, he had a distinct object in view; but it was +not to amuse himself, nor to compare author with author; it was simply +to increase the sum of his own knowledge. Perhaps it was in these rapid +forays through unbought, uncut volumes, that he acquired his singular +habit of reading books, even his own, without subjecting them to the +paper-knife. People who wanted to see Percival and obtain his views on +special topics were accustomed to look for him at Mr. Howe's, and always +found him willing to pour forth his voluminous information. + +His income at this time was derived solely from literary jobs, and was +understood to be very limited. What he earned he spent chiefly for +books, particularly for such as would assist him in perfecting that +striking monument of his varied and profound research, his new +translation and edition of Malte-Brun. For this labor the time had been +estimated, and the publishers had made him an allowance, which, if he +had worked like other men, would have amounted to eight dollars a +day. But Percival would let nothing go out of his hands imperfect; a +typographical error, even, I have heard him say, sometimes depressed +him like actual illness. He translated and revised so carefully, he +corrected so many errors and added so many footnotes, that his industry +actually devoured its own wages; and his eight dollars gradually +diminished to a diurnal fifty cents. + +Percival made no merely ceremonial calls, few friendly visits, and +attended no parties. If he dropped in upon a family of his acquaintance, +he rarely addressed himself to a lady. Otherwise there was nothing +peculiar in his deportment; for, if silent, he was not embarrassed,--and +if he talked, it was without any appearance of self-consciousness. + +Judging from his isolated habits, some persons supposed him +misanthropic. Let me give one instance of his good-nature. One of the +elder professors of Yale had fallen into a temporary misappreciation +with the students, who received his instructions, to say the least, with +an ill-concealed indifference. They whispered during his lectures, +and in other ways rendered themselves strenuously disagreeable to the +sensitive nerves of the professor. Indignant at such behavior toward +a worthy and learned man, who had been his own instructor, Percival +proposed a plan for stopping the annoyance. It was, that a number of old +graduates, professors, and others, himself being one, should attend +the lectures, listen to them with the respect they merited, and so, +if possible, bring the students to a sense of propriety and of the +advantages they were neglecting. + +No, Percival was not a misanthrope. During an acquaintance of +twenty-five years, I never knew him do an act or utter a word which +could countenance this opinion. He indulged in no bitter remarks, +cherished no hatred of individuals, affected no scorn of his race; on +the contrary, he held large views concerning the noble destinies of +mankind, and expressed deep interest in its advancement toward greater +intelligence and virtue. The local affections he certainly had, for he +was gratified at the prosperity of his fellow-townsmen, proud of his +native State, and took a pleasure in defending her name from unjust +aspersions. Patriotic, too,--none more so,--he rejoiced in the welfare +of the whole country, knew its history thoroughly, and bestowed on +its military heroes, in particular, a lively appreciation, which was +singular, perhaps, in a man of such gentle habits and nature. I +cannot forget the excited pleasure with which we visited, when on the +geological survey of Connecticut, Putnam's Stairs at Horseneck, and +Putnam's Wolf-Den in Pomfret. At the latter place, Percival's enthusiasm +for the heroic hunter and warrior led him to carve his initials on a +rock at the entrance of the chasm. It was the only place during the tour +where he left a similar memorial. + +American statesmen he admired scarcely less than American soldiers; nor +did he neglect any information within his reach concerning public +men and measures. It was singular to observe with what freedom from +excitement he discussed the most irritating phases of party,--speaking +of the men and events of his own day with as much philosophic calmness +as if they belonged to a previous century; not at all deceived, I +think, by the temporary notoriety and power which frequently attend the +political bustler,--quite positive, indeed, that many of our "great men" +were far inferior to multitudes in private life. Webster he respected +greatly, and used to regret that his fortune was not commensurate with +his tastes. Like a true poet, he believed devoutly in native genius, +considered it something inimitable and incommunicable, and worshipped it +whereever he found it. + +Percival was indifferent and even disinclined to female society. There +is a common story that he had conceived an aversion to the whole sex +in consequence of a youthful disappointment in love. I know nothing +concerning this alleged chagrin, but I am confident that he cherished no +such antipathy. He never, in my hearing, said a hard thing of any woman, +or of the sex; and I remember distinctly the flattering and even poetic +appreciation with which he spoke of individual ladies. Of one who has +since become a distinguished authoress of the South, he said, that "her +conversation had as great an intellectual charm for him as that of any +scholar among his male acquaintances." Of a lady still resident in +New Haven, he observed, that "there was a mysterious beauty in her +thoughtful face and dark eyes which reminded him of a deep and limpid +forest-fountain." But although he did not hate women, he certainly was +disinclined to their society,--an oddity, I beg leave to say, in any +man, and a most surprising eccentricity in a poet. Constitutional +timidity may have founded this habit during youth; for, as I have +already observed, his modesty was sensitive and almost morbid. Then came +his multitudinous studies, which absorbed him utterly, and in which, +unfortunately for Percival, if not for the ladies, these last took so +little interest that conversation was not mutually desirable. A remark +he made to a scientific friend, who had just been married, will, +perhaps, throw some light on the subject. "How is this?" said he; "I +thought you were wedded to science." This was all the felicitation he +had to offer; and without asking for the bride, he plunged into the +discussion which was the object of the visit. + +In 1835 commenced the geological survey of Connecticut, and I became +Percival's companion in labor. To him was intrusted the geology proper, +and to myself the mineralogy and its economical applications. During the +first season, we prosecuted our investigations together, travelling in +a one-horse wagon, which carried all our necessary implements, and +visiting, before the campaign ended, every parish in the State. Great +was the wonder our strange outfit and occupation excited in some rustic +neighborhoods; and very often were we called upon to enlighten the +popular mind with regard to our object and its uses. This was never a +pleasant task to Percival. He did not relish long confabulations with a +sovereign people somewhat ignorant of geology; and, moreover, his style +of describing our business was so peculiar, that it rarely failed to +transfer the curiosity to himself, and lead to tiresome delays. In New +Milford, an inquisitive farmer requested us, in a somewhat ungracious +manner, to give an account of ourselves. Percival replied, that we were +acting under a commission from the Governor to ascertain the useful +minerals of the State; whereupon our utilitarian friend immediately +demanded to be informed how the citizens at large, including himself, +were to be benefited by the undertaking,--putting question on question +in a fashion which was most pertinacious and almost impertinent. +Percival became impatient, and tried to hurry away. "I demand the +information," exclaimed the New Milfordite; "I demand it as my right. +You are only servants of the people; and you are paid, in part, at +least, out of my pocket." "I'll tell you what we'll do," said Percival; +"we can't stop, but we'll refund. Your portion of the geological +tax,--let me see,--it must be about two cents. We prefer handing you +this to encountering a further delay." Our agricultural friend and +master did not take the money, although he did the hint,--and in sulky +silence withdrew from our company. + +Driving through the town of Warren, we stopped a farmer to inquire +the way to certain places in the vicinity. He gave us the information +sought, staring at us meanwhile with a benevolently inquisitive +expression, and, at last, volunteering the remark, that, if we wanted a +job, we had better stop at the factory in the hollow. We thanked him +for his goodness, and thought, perhaps, of Sedgewick geologizing by the +road-side, and getting a charitable half-crown flung at him by a noble +lady who was on her way to dine in his company at the house of a mutual +acquaintance. + +Let us grant here one brief parenthesis of respect and astonishment to +the scientific knowledge and philological acumen of a distinguished +graduate of Yale College, and member of Congress, whom we encountered +on our travels. Hearing us speak of mosaic granite, a rock occurring +in Woodbridge, to which we had given this name, from the checker-like +arrangement of its felspathic ingredient, he concluded that we +attributed its formation to the era of Moses, and asked Percival what +evidence he had for such an opinion. Small blame to him, perhaps, for +the blunder, but it seemed a very droll one to geologists. + +In Greenwich, the extreme southwestern town of the State, we encountered +an incident to which my companion would sometimes refer with a slight +degree of merriment. In general, he was no joker, no anecdotist, and had +but a feeble appreciation of droll sayings or humorous matters of +any kind. But in Greenwich he heard a memorable phrase. Among the +tavern-loungers was a man who had evidently seen better days, and who, +either for that reason or because of the large amount of rum he had +swallowed, entertained a lofty opinion of himself, and discoursed _de +omnibus rebus_ in a most consequential fashion. He soon made himself a +sort of medium between ourselves and his fellow-loafers. Overhearing us +say that we wished to pass the New York frontier for the sake of tracing +out the strata then under examination, he proceeded with much pomposity +to declare to his deeply curious auditory, that "it was his opinion +that the Governor of the State should confer upon these gentlemen +_discretionary powers_ to pass the limits of Connecticut, whenever and +wherever, in the prosecution of their labors, the interests of science +required them so to do." After this, we rarely crossed the State line +but Percival observed, "We are now taking advantage of our discretionary +powers." + +Of the few stories Percival told me, here is one. In one of our +country-places, a plain, shrewd townsman fell into chance conversation +with him, and entertained him with some account of a neighbor who had +been seized with a mania for high Art, and had let loose his frenzy upon +canvas in a deluge of oil-colors. If I mistake not, Percival was invited +to inspect these productions of untaught and perhaps unteachable genius. +They were vast attempts at historical scenes, in which the heads and +legs of heroes were visible, but played a very secondary part in the +interest, compared with a perfect tempest of drapery, which rolled in +ungovernable masses, like the clouds of a thunder-storm. + +"What do you think of them?" inquired Percival. + +"Well, I don't claim to be a judge of such things," replied his +cicerone; "but the fact is, (and I told the painter so,) that, when I +look at 'em, about the only thing I can think of is a resurrection of +old clothes." + +In the town of Lebanon, an incident occurred which affected us rather +more seriously. Turning a corner suddenly, we came upon an old man +digging up cobble-stones by the road-side and breaking them in pieces +with an axe. "A brother-geologist," was our first impression. At that +moment the old man sprang toward us, the axe in one hand and half a +brick in the other, shouting eagerly,-- + +"I guess Mr. ----" (name indistinguishable) "will be glad to see you, +gentlemen." + +"For what?" + +"Why, he has got several boxes of jewels; and I gave an advertisement in +the paper." + +"Whose are they?" + +"King Jerome's." + +"And who is he?" + +"The king of the world!" shouted the maniac, still advancing with a +menacing air, and so near the wagon by this time that he might almost +have hit Percival with his axe. + +Without pausing to hear more about the jewels, a sudden blow to the +horse barely enabled us to escape the reach of our fellow-laborer before +he had time to use his axe on our own formations. + +In the following year, when Percival was pursuing the survey by himself, +on horseback, some of the elements of this adventure were repeated, +but reversed after a very odd fashion. The late Dr. Carrington, of +Farmington, who told me the tale, being ten miles from home on a +professional excursion, drove up to a tavern and found himself welcomed +with extraordinary emphasis by the innkeeper. The Doctor was just the +person he wanted to see; the Doctor's opinion was very much needed about +that strange man out there; he wished the Doctor to have a talk with +him, and see whether he was crazy or not. The fellow had been there a +day or two, picking up stones about the lots; and some of the boys had +been sent to watch him, but could get nothing out of him. This morning +he wanted to go away, and ordered his horse; but the neighbors wouldn't +let it be brought up, for they said he was surely some mad chap who +had taken another man's horse. Thus talking, the landlord pointed out +Percival, surrounded by a group of villagers, who, quietly, and under +pretence of conversation, were holding him under a sort of arrest. The +Doctor rushed into the circle, addressed his friend Percival by name, +spoke of the survey, and thus satisfied the bystanders, who, guessing +their mistake, dispersed silently. No open remonstrance was needed, +and perhaps Percival never understood the adventure in which he thus +unconsciously formed the principal character. + +While we were in Berlin, the native town of Percival, he related to me +several incidents of his earlier life. His father was discussing some +geographical question with a neighbor; and the future geologist, then +a boy of seven or eight, sat by listening until the ignorance of his +elders tempted him to speak. "Where did you learn that?" they asked, +in astonishment. With timid reluctance, he confessed that he had been +reading clandestinely Morse's large geography, of which there was a copy +in a society-library kept at his father's house. The book, he added, had +an indescribable attraction for him; and even at that almost infantile +age he was familiar with its contents. It was this reading of Morse, +perhaps, which determined his taste for those geographical studies +in which he subsequently became so distinguished. With him, as with +Humboldt and Guyot, geography was a term of wide signification. Far from +confining it to the names and boundaries of countries, seas, and lakes, +to the courses of rivers and the altitudes of mountains, he connected +with it meteorology, natural history, and the leading facts of human +history, ethnology, and archaeology. He knew London as thoroughly as +most Americans know New York or Philadelphia, and yet he had never +crossed the Atlantic. + +An instance of the minuteness of his geographical information was +related to me by the Rev. Mr. Adam, a Scottish clergyman, long resident +at Benares, but subsequently settled over the Congregational Church in +Amherst, Massachusetts. On his way to visit me at New Haven, he met in +the stage-coach a countryman of his, who soon opened a controversy with +him respecting the course of a certain river in Scotland. The discussion +had continued for some time, when another passenger offered a suggestion +which opened the eyes of the debaters to the fact (not unfrequently the +case in such controversies) that they were both wrong. "How long since +you were there, Sir?" they asked; and the reply was, "I never was in +Scotland." "Who are you, Sir?" Mr. Adam wanted to ask, but kept the +question until he could put it to me. I did not feel much hesitation in +telling him that the stranger must have been Percival; and Percival it +was, as I afterwards learned by questioning him of the circumstance. + +But we must return to Berlin, in order to hear one more of Percival's +stories. Passing a field, half a mile from his early home, he told an +incident connected with it, and related to his favorite study of natural +history. The field had belonged to his father, who, besides being the +physician of Berlin, indulged a taste for agriculture. Just before the +harvest season, it became palpable that this field, then waving with +wheat, was depredated upon to a wasteful extent by some unknown subjects +of the animal kingdom. Having watched for the pilferers in vain by +day, the proprietor resolved to mount guard by night, and accordingly +ambushed himself in the invaded territory. Near midnight, he saw his own +flock of geese, hitherto considered so trustworthy, approach silently +in single file, make their entry between the rails, and commence +transferring the wheat-crop into their own crops, after a ravenous +fashion. Having eaten their fill, they re-formed their column of march, +with a venerable gander at the head, and trudged silently homeward, +cautiously followed by their owner, who noticed, that, on regaining his +door-yard, they set up a vociferous cackle, such as he had repeatedly +heard from them before at about the same hour. It was a most evident +attempt to establish an _alibi_; it was as much as to say, "If you miss +any wheat, we didn't take it; we are honest birds, and stay at +home o'nights, Dr. Percival." The next morning, however, a general +decapitation overtook the flock of feathered hypocrites. "It was a +curious instance of the domestic goose reverting to its wild habit of +nocturnal feeding," remarked my narrator, dwelling characteristically +upon the natural-history aspect of the fact. + +Percival was almost incapable of an irrelevancy. The survey was the +business in hand, and he rarely discoursed much of things disconnected +with it, except, perhaps, when we were retracing our routes, or when the +labors of the day were over. Of poets and poetry he was not inclined to +speak. I never heard him quote a line, either his own or another's, nor +indulge in a single poetic observation concerning the objects which +met us in our wanderings. Indeed, he confessed that he no longer felt +disposed to write verses, being satisfied that his productions were +not acceptable to the prevailing taste; although he admitted that he +composed a few stanzas occasionally, in order to make trial of some +unusual measure or new language. He told me that he had versified in +thirteen languages; and I have heard from others that he had imitated +all the Greek and German metres. + +Of politics, foreign and domestic, he talked frequently, but always +philosophically and dispassionately, much as if he were speaking of +geological stratification. His views of humanity were deduced from a +most extensive survey of the race in all its historical and geographical +relations. He distinctly recognized the fact of its steady advance +from one stage to another, in accordance with a plan of intellectually +organic development, as marked as that detected by the geologist in +the gradual preparation of the earth for the abode of our species. The +slowness and seeming vacillation of man's upward movement could not +stagger his faith; for if it had taken thousands of ages to make earth +habitable, why should it not take thousands more to bring man to his +completeness? Equally free was he from misgiving on account of the +remaining presence of so much misery and wretchedness; for these he +considered as the indispensable stimuli to progress. Even war, he used +to say, is sometimes necessary to the welfare of nations, as sickness +and sorrow plainly are to that of individuals; although, to his moral +sense, the human authors of this scourge were no more admirable than the +devisers of any private calamity. Improvements in knowledge he regarded +as the only elements of real progress; and these he looked upon as true +germinal principles, bound up organically in the constitution of the +human soul. Indeed, that philosophical calmness which was characteristic +of him seemed to flow in some measure from his settled persuasion that +the same matchless wisdom and benevolence he recognized throughout +Nature wrought with a still higher providence and a more earnest love +for man and would make all things finally conduce to his welfare. It was +clear that he drew a profound tranquillity from the thought that he was +a part of the vast and harmonious whole. + +Concerning his religious views he was exceedingly taciturn. He had no +taste for metaphysical or theological discussions, although his library +contained a large number of standard works on these subjects. Religion +itself he never alluded to but with the deepest respect. Talking to +me of Christianity, he quoted the observation of Goethe, that "it had +brought into the world a light never to be extinguished." He spoke of +Jesus with poetic, if not with Christian fervor. He contrasted his +teachings and deeds with the prevailing maxims and practice of the +people among whom he appeared, with the dead orthodoxy of its religious +teachers, and with the general ignorance and hypocrisy of the masses. +"Had I lived in such a state of society," he said, "I am certain that it +would have driven me mad." + +He expressed an earnest esteem for the doctrines of the Evangelical +clergy, and even approved, though more moderately, the religious +awakenings which occur under their labors. He described to me, with +some particularity, a revival he had witnessed in his native town, when +young; and repeated some of the quaint exhortations of the lay brethren, +all in a manner perfectly serious, but calculated, perhaps, to leave the +impression, that such views of religion were not necessary to himself, +although they might be quite suited to the minds of others. + +The rational theology he regarded as anti-poetic in influence, and of +very doubtful efficacy in working upon the masses. He appreciated, +however, the honesty and superior culture of the Unitarian scholars and +clergy of Boston, with many of whom he had been on terms as intimate as +his shyness accorded to any one. + +He attended church but once with me while we were engaged in the survey. +We heard a discourse from a Rev. Dr. E----, upon the conduct of the +young ruler who inquired his duty of Christ. The speaker argued from the +sacred narrative a universal obligation to devote our possessions +to religious purposes,--and upheld, as an example to all men, the +self-devotion of a young missionary (then somewhat known) who had +despised a splendid fortune, offered him on condition of his remaining +at home, and had consecrated himself to the Christianization of Africa. + +"How did you like the sermon?" I inquired of Percival. + +"I consider it an animating and probably useful performance," he +replied; "but it does not accord with comprehensive conceptions of +humanity, inasmuch as its main inference was drawn from the exception, +and not from the rule. There always have been, and probably always +will be, men possessed of the self-immolating or martyr spirit. Such +instances are undoubtedly useful, and have my admiration; but they +cannot become general, and never were meant to be." + +During the survey, we were invited to pass an evening in a family +remarkable for its musical talent, and I remember distinctly the evident +pleasure with which Percival listened to the chorus of organ tones and +rich cultivated voices. In general, however, his appreciation of music +was subordinate to his study of syllabic movement in versification; and +it was with reference chiefly to poetic measure, I have been told, that +he acquired what mastery he had over the accordion and guitar. + +Percival's favorite topics, when evening came and we rested from our +stony labors, were the modern languages and the philosophy of universal +grammar. They seemed to have filled the niches in his heart, from which +he had banished, or tried to banish, the Muses. The subtile refinements +of Bopp were a perpetual luxury to him; he derived language from +language as easily as word from word; and, once started in the +intricacies of the Russian or the Basque, there was no predicting the +end of the discourse. Thus were thrown away, upon a solitary listener, +midnight lectures which would have done honor to the class-rooms of +Berlin or the Sorbonne. In looking at such an instance of intellectual +pleasure and acumen, as connected in no small degree with the study of +foreign languages, one cannot avoid associating together the unsolved +mystery of that discrepancy of tongues prevailing in different countries +with the disagreeing _floras_ and _faunas_ of the same regions,--each +diversity bearing alike the unmistakable marks of Omnipotent design for +the happiness and improvement of man. + +The perfection of his memory was amazing. During the year following +the survey, when we had frequent occasion to compare recollections, I +observed that no circumstance of our labors was shadowy or incomplete +in his memory. He could refer to every trifling incident of the tour, +recall every road and path that we had followed, every field and ledge +that we had examined, particularize the day of the week on which we had +dined or supped at such a tavern, and mention the name of the landlord. +I asked him how he was able to remember such minutiae. He replied, that +it was his custom, on going to bed, to call up, in the darkness and +stillness, all the incidents of the day's experience, in their proper +order, and cause them to move before him like a diorama through a +spiritual morning, noon, and evening. "It has often appeared to me," he +said, "that in this purely mental process I see objects more distinctly +than I behold them in the reality." + +But his memory doubtless gained an immense additional advantage from his +habitual seclusion, from his unconcern with the distracting customs of +society, and, most of all, from the imperturbable abstraction under +which he studied and observed. With him there was no blending of +collateral subjects, no permitted intrusion of things irrelevant or +trivial, so that the channels of his thoughts were always single, +deep, and traceable. It was a mental straightforwardness and +conscientiousness, as rare, perhaps, as moral rectitude itself. + +In diet, Percival was the most abstemious person I ever knew. His health +was uniformly good,--the specimens of a geologist, when he collects them +himself, being as favorable to digestion and appetite as the pebbles to +a chicken; yet, I am persuaded, my companion in no case violated the +golden rule of leaving the table unsated. No matter how long had been +his fast, he showed no impatience of hunger, made no remark upon the +excellence of any dish, found fault with nothing, or, at most, only +seemed to miss drinkable coffee and good bread, articles seldom to be +met with in the country. He ate slowly, selecting his food with the +discrimination which ought to belong to a chemist or physiologist, and +then thought no more about it. Alcoholic drinks he never tasted, except +an occasional glass of wine, to which his attention perhaps had been +called on account of its age or superior excellence. Even then it +was not the flavor which interested him, so much as the history, +geographical and other. + +Peculiar as he was in his own habits of diet, he offered no strictures +upon the practice of others, however different, unless it ran into +hurtful excesses. The maxim of Epictetus in the "Enchiridion," "Never +preach how others ought to eat, but eat you as becomes you," seemed to +be his rule. Indeed, Percival was one of those rare men who withhold +alike censure and praise respecting the minor matters of life. Not that +he was without opinions on such subjects; but, to obtain them, one was +forced to question him. On the whole, I do not think it would be going +too far to apply to him the above-named moralist's description of the +wise man:--"He reproves nobody, praises nobody, blames nobody, nor even +speaks of himself; if any one praises him, in his own mind he contemns +the flatterer; if any one reproves him, he looks with care that he be +not unsettled in the state of tranquillity that he has entered into. +All his desires depend on things within his power; he transfers all +his aversions to those things which Nature commands us to avoid. His +appetites are always moderate. He is indifferent whether he be thought +foolish or ignorant. He observes himself with the nicety of an enemy or +a spy, and looks on his own wishes as betrayers." + +Percival's solitary habits, combined with the invariable seriousness +of his manner, led many persons to believe him melancholy, and even +disposed to suicide. He did, indeed, confess to me, that he sometimes +felt giddy on the edge of a precipice. This was his nearest approach, I +am confident, to the idea of self-destruction. While we were examining +the great iron furnaces of Salisbury, he told me that he was afraid of +walking near the throat of a chimney when in blast, and that more than +once he had turned and run from the lurid, murky orifice, lest a sudden +failure of self-control should cause him to reel into the consuming +abyss. No,--Percival neither felt nor expressed disgust with life. +On the contrary, he was strongly attached to it; the acquisition of +knowledge clothed it with inexpressible value; the longest day was ever +too short to fulfil his designs. Like the wise, laborious men of all +ages, he almost repined at the swiftness of the years. "I am amazed at +the flight of time," he said to me, on the arrival of his forty-second +birthday; "it seems only a year since I was thirty-two;--I have lost ten +years of my life." + +Before entering upon the survey of Connecticut, he was not specially +devoted to any one branch of physics, although his tastes inclined him +most toward geology. While he could sympathize perfectly, he said, with +those who threw their whole force into a single study, he felt +himself attracted equally by the entire circle of Nature, and thought +omniscience a nobler object of ambition than any one science. He +admitted that the search after all knowledge is incompatible with +eminence in any particular department; but he believed that it affords +higher pleasure to the mind, and confers ability to do signal service +to mankind in pointing out the grand connections, the general laws, of +Nature. + +It is not, perhaps, widely known, that Percival was a well-informed +botanist. He studied this branch when a medical student under Professor +Ives, and assisted his instructor in laying out a small botanical +garden, the plants of which were arranged after the natural orders of +Jussieu. Soon after finishing his medical education, he gave a course of +lectures on botany in Charleston, South Carolina, before a very select +audience, composed mostly of Ladies. The only drawback to the lecturer's +success was his excessive timidity. As an evidence of the assiduity with +which he botanized, it may be mentioned that he had seen the _Geranium +Robertianum_ (a plant which nestles in the sunny clefts of our trap +mountains) in bloom, during every month of the year. One year he found +its blossoms in December, another in January, and so on, until the round +of the monthly calendar was completed. + +Percival was an earnest advocate of popular education. He manifested +much interest in the first systematic attempt (at the instance of +Mr. James Brewster) to furnish the people of New Haven with popular +instruction in the form of lectures. At a public dinner, given by Mr. +Brewster, on the occasion of opening the building in which rooms had +been fitted up for these lectures, the late Mr. Skinner gave the toast, +"Our mechanics, the right arm of New Haven," and Percival followed with, +"Science, the right eye which directs the right arm of New Haven." He +believed most fully in the superiority of intelligent labor. He pointed +out cases in which a college-training had been connected with signal +eminence in mechanical invention, and said, that, according to his +observations, persons engaged in industrial pursuits usually succeeded +in proportion to the thoroughness of their education. + +Percival himself gave a course of lectures, or rather, lessons, in New +Haven,--not in the building above mentioned, for his natural timidity +was too great to encounter a public audience, but in the theological +lecture-room of Yale College. They were on the German language, and +consisted chiefly of translations of prose and poetry into English, +intermingled with philosophical commentaries on the peculiarities of the +original. It was pure grammar; he did not talk German, and claimed no +acquaintance with the niceties of pronunciation; but all his listeners, +most of whom were graduates, were struck with his perfect mastery of the +subject. + +Percival held one peculiar opinion concerning a branch of college +education. He objected to the modern practice of teaching the natural +sciences by means of a profusion of drawings, models, showy experiments, +and other expedients addressing the mind so strongly through the eye. +While these might be allowable in popular lectures, before audiences +lacking in early intellectual discipline, where amusement was a +consideration, and where without it the public ear could not be secured, +he thought that the collegian should study differently,--that his +understanding should be taxed severely, and that he should be inured, +from the first, to rigid attention, in order to a lasting remembrance +of the truths offered to him. It would be a useful exercise for the +instructor, he thought, to elucidate obscure phenomena and complicated +structures by words only, assisting himself, perhaps, occasionally, by +extemporaneous drawings. Such a course would inspire the scholar with +deference for his teacher, and confidence in his own ability to acquire +a similar grasp of the subject. While there is certainly some truth in +this opinion, it would not be difficult, perhaps, to invalidate its +general force. Why should the ear be the only admitted means of +acquiring knowledge? Nature, the greatest of teachers, does not judge +thus: she conveys half her wisdom to us by sight, instead of by faith; +she gives her first lessons to the infant through the eye. Would +Percival, in looking for his attentive audiences, have preferred a +congregation of blind men? + +Speaking of literary composition, he said that he often took great pains +with his productions, shifting words and phrases in many ways, before +satisfying himself that he had attained the best form of expression; and +he assured me that these slowly elaborated passages were the very ones +in which he afterwards recognized the most ease and nature, and which +others supposed him to have thrown off carelessly. I asked him how it +was that children, in their unpremeditated way, expressed themselves +with so much directness and beauty. They have but a single idea to +present at a time, he said; they seize without hesitation on the first +words that offer for its expression, unperplexed by any such choice of +terms as would surely occur to maturer minds; and most important of +all, perhaps, they are wholly unembarrassed by limiting qualifications +arising from a fuller knowledge of the subject. + +His prose style is a rare exemplification of classic severity and +perspicuousness. In each paragraph the ideas arrange themselves in +faultless connection, like the molecules of a crystal around its centre. +The sentences are not long, the construction is simple, the words are +English in its purity, without admixture of foreign phrase or idiom. But +the most striking peculiarity of his diction is the utter absence +of ornament; for Percival evidently held that the chief merits of +composition are clearness and directness. Poetic imagery, brilliant +climaxes and antitheses, fanciful or grotesque turns of expression, he +rejected as unfavorable to that simple truth for which he studied and +wrote. This dry, almost mathematical style, was no necessity with him; +few men, surely, have had at command a richer vocabulary, English and +foreign, than Percival; few could have adorned thought with more or +choicer garlands from the fields of knowledge and imagination. + +To letter-writing he had a great aversion. I have never seen a letter +or note from him to which his signature was attached. The +autograph-fanciers, therefore, will find a scanty harvest when they come +to forage after the name of Percival. His handwriting corresponded in +some sense with his character. It was fine; the lines straight and +parallel; the letters completely formed, though without fulness of +curve; no flourishes, and no unnecessary prolongations of stroke, above +or below the general run of the line. There were few erasures, the +punctuation was perfect, and the manuscript was fit for the press as it +left his hand. + +Literary criticism he rarely indulged in, being too disinclined to +praise or blame, and too intensely devoted to the acquisition of +positive knowledge. If he commented severely upon anything, it was +usually the slovenly diction of some of our State Surveys, or the +inaccuracies of translations from foreign languages. + +His only published criticism, of which I am aware, was discharged at +a phrenological lecturer, whose extraordinary assumptions and +_ad-captandum_ style had excited his disgust. Percival did not reverence +the science of bumps, and believed, in the words of William Von +Humboldt, that "it is one of those discoveries which, when stripped of +all the _charlatanerie_ that surrounds them, will show but a very meagre +portion of truth." Dr. Barber, an Englishman, and a somewhat noted +teacher of elocution, having been converted to the phrenological faith, +delivered certain magniloquent lectures on the same to the citizens of +New Haven, and took pay therefor, after the manner of his sect. Percival +responded with a sharp newspaper pasquinade, entitled "A Lecture on +Nosology." At the head of the article was a wood-cut of a gigantic nose, +mapped out into faculties. "Gentlemen, the nose is the most prominent +feature in this bill," commenced the parody. "The nose is the true seat +of the mind; and therefore, gentlemen, Nosology, or the science of the +nose, is the true phrenology. He, who knows his nose, foreknows; for he +knows that which is before him. Therefore Nosology is the surest guide +to conduct. Whatever progress an individual may make, his nose is always +in advance. But society is only a congeries of individuals; consequently +its nose is always in advance,--therefore its proper guide. The nose, +rightly understood, will assuredly work wonders in the cause of +improvement; for it is always going ahead, always first in every +undertaking, always soonest at the goal. The ancients did not neglect +the nose. Look at their busts and statues! What magnification and +abduction in Jove! What insinuation and elongation in the Apollo! +Then [Greek: nous] (intellect) was surely the nose,--[Greek: gnosis] +(knowledge) noses,--[Greek: Minos] my nose. What intussusception, what +potation, and, as a necessary consequence, alas! what rubification! But +I have seen such noses. Beware of them!--they are bad noses,--very bad +noses, I assure you.... Do not, I pray you, consider me irreverent, +if I say that Nosology will prove highly favorable to the cause of +religion. This is indeed an awful subject, and I would not touch it on +slight grounds; but I sincerely believe that what I say is true. +Nosology will prove highly favorable to the cause of religion! Does +not the nose stand forth like a watchman on the walls of Zion, on the +look-out for all assailants? and when our faces are directed upwards in +devotion, does not the nose ascend the highest and most especially tend +heavenward?... Nosology is a manly science. It stands out in the open +light. It does not conceal itself behind scratches and periwigs,--nor +does it, like certain false teachers mentioned by St. Paul, go about +from house to house, leading astray silly women......Finally, gentlemen, +you may rest assured that Nosology will not gently submit to insult. +_Noli me tangere!_ Who ever endured a tweak of the nose? It will know +how to take vengeance. As Jupiter metamorphosed the inhospitable Lycians +into frogs, so its contemners will suddenly find themselves [Greek: +Barbarophonoi]!" + +Percival has been thought over-tenacious of his opinions. He was +certainly very circumspect in changing them. I have witnessed, however, +several instances in which he yielded to the force of evidence in +the modification of his views. He seemed to recognize geology, in +particular, as a progressive science, in which new facts are constantly +accruing, and therefore compelling re-adaptations of our views. He felt, +indeed, in respect to all knowledge, the mathematics excepted, that +modifications of belief, in well-regulated minds, are unavoidable, as +the result of new information. Approach to higher truth through the +sciences he seemed to regard under the aspect of that of besiegers to a +beleaguered fortress. Principles and deductions, which were a boon and a +triumph for us yesterday, lose their value to-day, when a new parallel +of approach has been attained. He lost his interest in what was +abandoned, necessary as it had been to the present position, only in the +advantage of which, and its sure promise of what was still higher, he +allowed himself to rejoice. + +But where evidence was wanting, he was never to be moved to a change by +any amount of importunity or temptation. This trait of character made +him somewhat impracticable as a collaborator, in the philological task +he was employed to perform under Dr. Noah Webster. Disagreements were to +have been anticipated from the striking contrasts in their minds. +They agreed in industry; but Webster was decided, practical, strongly +self-reliant, and always satisfied with doing the best that could +be done with the time and means at command. Percival was timid and +cautious, and, from the very breadth of his linguistic attainments, +undecided. He often craved more time for arriving at conclusions. When +he happened to differ from the great lexicographer, he would never yield +an iota of his ground. These differences led to an early rupture in +the engagement, almost before two letters of the alphabet had been +completed. He much preferred to relinquish a profitable undertaking to +going forward with it under circumstances not agreeable to his elevated +standard of literary accuracy and completeness. He felt that he could +live on bread and water, or even give up these, if necessary; but he +could not violate his convictions of what was true and right. He was a +perfect martyr to his literary and scientific conscientiousness. + +He evinced the same spirit in respect to the geological survey. As his +mind was not satisfied, he would not make known his results to the +Legislature. They demanded the report, and he asked for an extension of +time. Thus he continued his labors from year to year, upon a stipend +scarcely adequate to cover his expenses. Instead, however, of nearing +the goal, he only receded from it. New difficulties met him in the work; +fresh questions arose, in the progress of geology itself, that called +for reexaminations. His notes swelled to volumes, and his specimens +increased to thousands. He was in danger of being crushed under the +weight of his doubts and his materials. At last, the people clamored +for the end of the work. The Legislature became peremptory, and forced +Percival to acquiesce. + +In 1842 (seven years from the commencement of the survey) he rendered an +octavo report of four hundred and ninety-five pages, in the introduction +to which he observes,--"I regret to say, I have not had the means +allowed me for additional investigations, nor even for a proper use of +my materials, either notes or specimens. The number of localities from +which I have collected specimens I have estimated at nearly eight +thousand; the records of dips and bearings are still more numerous. +The report which follows is but a hasty outline, written mainly from +recollection, with only occasional reference to my materials, and under +circumstances little calculated for cool consideration. It was written, +however, with an intention to state nothing of the truth or probability +of which I did not feel satisfied. None can regret more than I do its +imperfection; still I cannot but hope that it will contribute something +towards the solution of the problem of the highest practical as well as +scientific importance, the exact determination of the geological system +of the State." + +Of this remarkable production it may very briefly be said, that it will +ever remain a monument to the scientific and literary powers of its +author. It describes every shade of variation in the different rocks, +and their exact distribution over the surface of the State. This it +accomplishes with a minuteness never before essayed in any similar work. +The closeness and brevity of his descriptions make it one of the dryest +productions ever issued on geological science, scarcely omitting the +work of Humboldt, in which he sought to represent the whole of geology +by algebraic symbols. Percival's work actually demands, and would richly +repay, a translation into the vernacular of descriptive geology,--the +language and mode of illustration employed by Murchison and Hitchcock. +In its present form, it is safe to say, it has never found a single +reader among the persons for whose benefit it was written. + +It is no part of my plan to speak of his poetical reputation. This I +leave to others better able to do him justice. Indeed, he had nearly +abandoned poetical composition before our acquaintance began. But it is +safe, perhaps, to say here, that his writings have placed him among +the first of our national poets; and had he resumed this species of +composition, he could scarcely have failed of maintaining, in the +fullest manner, his poetic fame. He possessed all the qualities reckoned +essential to poetical excellence. We have already spoken of his +astonishing memory, a trait regarded of such importance to the poet by +the ancients as to have led them to call the Muses the daughters of this +mental faculty. His powers of abstraction and imagination were no less +remarkable,--while for extreme sensitiveness he was unsurpassed. His +judgment was clear, and his appreciation of language refined to the last +degree. His musical feeling, too, as well of time as of harmony, was +intense; while he had at command the universal stores of literature and +science. + +In closing these reminiscences, I cannot avoid noticing some of the +useful impressions exerted by Percival upon the literary community +amidst which he passed so large a portion of his life. To some the +influence of such a recluse will doubtless seem insignificant. The +reverse, however, I am persuaded, was the fact. Few students came to New +Haven without bringing with them, imprinted on their youthful memories, +some beautiful line of his poetry. Few had not heard of his universal +scholarship and profound learning. Next to an acquaintance with the +teachers from whom they expected to derive their educational training, +their curiosity led them to inquire for Percival. The sight of this +modest, shrinking individual, as the possessor of such mines of +intellectual wealth, it may well be understood, produced the deepest +interest. In him they recognized a man superior to the clamor of vulgar +gratification; his indifference to gain, to luxury, and every form of +display, his constant preference of the spiritual over the sensual, was +always an impressive example to them. The indigent student took fresh +courage as he saw in him to what a narrow compass exterior wants might +be reduced; the man of fashion and the fop stood abashed before the +simplicity of his dress and daily life. And wherever the spirit of +classic literature had been imbibed, and the capacity acquired of +perceiving the severe worth of the true philosopher, the inspection of +such a character, compared with the mere description of it in history, +was like the difference between a statue and a living, breathing man. As +at early dawn or in the gray twilight his slender form glided by, the +thoughtful and poetic scholar could scarce refrain from uttering to +himself,--"There goes Diogenes or Chrysippus! There goes one, by the +side of whom many a bustler in letters is only a worthless drone, many +an idolized celebrity a weak and pitiful sham!" Such a character as +Percival's, in the presence of a scholastic community, was a perpetual +incentive to industry and manliness; and although he rarely spoke in its +hearing, and has left us fewer published works than many others, still +I believe that thousands yet live to thank him for lessons derived from +the simple survey of his daily life. + +Though there is little likelihood that his example of self-abnegation +and devotion to study will be followed by many of our youth, +nevertheless, the occurrence of such a model now and then in the +republic of letters constitutes a pleasing as well as useful +phenomenon,--if for no other reason, because it breaks in upon the +monotony of literary biography, and communicates a portion of that +picturesqueness to scholastic life which belongs to Nature in everything +else. That his course was fraught with happiness to himself cannot be +doubted; that it was beneficial also to his fellow-men is equally +true; and though he may be judged less leniently by minds incapable of +pronouncing that to be a character honorable in the sight of God or +man, which deviates from their own standard or creed,--to others, who +recognize the highest possible cultivation of the mental faculties and +unsullied purity of life as the noblest ends of our being, he will ever +occupy a position shared by few of mortal race. + + * * * * * + + +ZELMA'S VOW. + +IN TWO PARTS. + + +PART FIRST. HOW IT WAS MADE. + + +Who does not remember his first play?--the proudly concealed impatience +which seemed seething in the very blood,--the provoking coolness of old +play-goers,--the music that rather excited than soothed the fever +of expectation,--the mystery of mimic life that throbbed behind the +curtain,--the welcome tinkle of the prompter's bell,--the capricious +swaying to and fro of that mighty painted scroll,--its slow uplift, +revealing for an instant, perhaps, the twinkle of flying dancers' feet +and the shuffle of belated buskins? And then, the unveiled wonders +of that strange, new world of canvas and pasteboard and +trap-doors,--people, Nature, Art, and architecture, never before beheld, +and but faintly conceived of,--the magic of shifting scenes,--the +suddenness and awfulness of subterranean and aerial descents and +ascents,--the solemn stage-walk of the heroine,--the majestic strut +of the hero,--the princely sweep of velvet,--the illusive sparkle of +paste,--the rattle of Brobdignagian pearls,--the saucy tossing of pages' +plumes,--the smiles, the wiles, the astonishing bounds and bewildering +pirouettes of the dancing Houries,--the great sobs and small shrieks +of persecuted beauty,--the blighting smile of the villain,--the lofty +indifference of supernumeraries! + +It was the first play of our heroine, Zelma Burleigh, and of her Cousin +Bessie. The morning before, a fragrant May morning, scores of summers +ago, Roger Burleigh, a stout Northumbrian Squire, had rolled himself, +in his ponderous way, into the snug family-parlor at the Grange, and +addressed his worthy dame with a bluff-- + +"Well, good wife, wouldn't like to go see the players to-night?" + +Ere the good lady could collect herself to reply with the decorous +deliberateness becoming her years and station, an embroidery-frame at +her side was overturned, and there sprang eagerly forward a comely +young damsel of the pure Saxon stock, with eyes like England's +violets,--clear, dewy, and wide-awake,--cheeks and lips like its +rose-bloom, and hair which held tangled in close, golden folds its +fickle and flying sunshine. + +"Ay, father!" she cried, "that we would! Zelma and I have never seen any +players, save the tumblers over at the Hall, on Sir Harry's birthday, +and we are in sad need of a little pleasuring." + +"Who spoke to you, or of you, Mistress Bessie?" replied the Squire, +playfully. "And what is all your useless, chattering life but +pleasuring? The playhouse is but a perilous place for giddy-brained +lasses like you; but for once, harkee, for _once_, we'll venture on +taking you, if you'll promise to keep your silly head safe under the +mother-hen's wing." + +"Not so close but that I can get a peep at the players now and then," +said Bessie, archly. "They say there are some handsome young men and a +pretty woman or two among them. Eh, Zelma?" + +"Handsome young men!--pretty women!" exclaimed the Squire, with an +explosive snort of contempt. "An arrant set of vagabonds and tramps,--of +ranting, strutting, apish creatures, with neither local habitations nor +names of their own. And what does Zelma know about them? Out with it, +girl!" + +The person thus addressed, without lifting the folds of a heavy +window-curtain which concealed her, replied in a quiet, though somewhat +haughty tone,-- + +"I saw them all, yesterday afternoon, on their way to Arden. I found +them near the entrance to our avenue. One of their carts had broken +down, and somebody was hurt. I dismounted to see if I could be of any +assistance. My pony pulled away from me and ran up the road. One of the +young men caught her for me. I told Cousin Bessie I thought him handsome +and proud enough for a lord. I think so still. That is all I know of the +players." + +"And, gad, that's enough! Take _you_ to the play, indeed! Why, we shall +have you strolling next, like your"--Here the Squire, for some reason +known to himself, suddenly paused and grew very red in the face. Dame +Margery took the word, and, in a tone meant to be severe, but which was +only dry, remarked,-- + +"Zelma is quite too young to go to the play." + +"Just one week younger than my Cousin Bessie. So, please you, aunt, I +will wait a few days," was the quiet reply from the invisible. + +"Right cleverly answered, lass!" said the Squire, with a good-humored +chuckle. "Well, we will try you, too, for once; but mind, if I find you +making eyes at any of the villains, I'll cut you off with a shilling." + +"That is more than I look for from you, Uncle Roger," replied the +hitherto hidden speaker, emerging from the window-seat, holding in her +hand the fashionable and interminable novel of "Sir Charles Grandison." +As she spoke, she laughed lightly, but her voice was somewhat cold and +bitter, and there was in her laugh more of defiance than merriment. + +"Oh, _don't_, Zella!" exclaimed the Squire, with a look of comic +deprecation,--"don't speak in that way to your old uncle! He's +blunt and rough-spoken, but he means kindly, and does kindly, in his +way,--don't he?" + +"Yes, that he does!" said the young girl, frankly; "and I beg his pardon +for my pettishness." + +Zelma Burleigh, as she stood thus, a faint, regretful smile softening +the habitual _hauteur_ of her face, was beautiful, and something more; +yet nobody in the country round about the Grange had ever dreamed of +calling her "a beauty." She was a tall, gracefully-formed girl, with +that strong, untamable character of figure and feature, and that +peculiar, sun-tinted, forest-shadowed hue of the skin, which betray the +slightest admixture of gypsy blood. In fact, Zelma Burleigh was the +fruit of a strange _mesalliance_ between the younger brother of the +Squire, a reckless, dissipated soldier of fortune, and a beautiful +Spanish Zineala, whom he met in a foreign campaign, and whom he could +not bind to himself by any tie less honorable than marriage. She was +said to be of Rommany blood-royal, and was actually disowned by her +tribe for _her mesalliance_. She followed the camp for a few years, the +willing, though sad and fast-fading slave of her Ishmaelitish lord, +himself the slave of lawless passions, yet not wholly depraved, +--fitfully tender and tyrannic,--and when, at last, he fell in some +inglorious skirmish, she buried him with her own hands, and wept and +fasted over his shallow grave till she died. There was a child, but she +had no look of the father to charm that poor, broken heart back to life; +she was left in the camp and became a little "Daughter of the Regiment." +At last, however, she was taken to England by a faithful comrade of the +dead soldier, who sought out her uncle and left her in his care, taking +leave of the frightened, clinging little creature with a grim, unspoken +tenderness, and a strange quiver of his gray moustache. + +Roger Burleigh, after having made himself sure of the legitimacy of +the child, adopted the poor, wild thing, made her the companion of his +daughter, and honestly strove to treat her, at all times, with parental +care and affection. + +Here, in the hospitable circle of an English home, the orphan alien +had grown up with her kinsfolk, but not of them,--proud, reticent, +ambitious, secretly hating the monotonous duties and pursuits, the +decorous forms and prescribed pleasures of the social and domestic life +around her. Nomadic and lawless instincts stirred in her blood; vague +longings for freedom and change, though in wandering, peril, and want, +sometimes filled her soul with the spirit of revolt and unrest. + +In her bluff uncle's house all were kind, and one, at least, was fond. +Her Cousin Bessie, gay and tender heart, had found the southern exposure +of her nature, and had crept up it, and clambered over it, and clasped +it, and bloomed against it, and ripened on it, till nothing cold, hard, +or defiant could be seen on that side. And Zelma seemed well content to +be the sombre background and strong support of so much bloom, sweetness, +and graceful dependence. + +Nothing could be more unlike than the two cousins. Bessie was small, +her form inclining to fulness, her face childlike in dimpled smiles and +innocent blushes,--betraying no lack of intellect, but most expressive +of a quiet, almost indolent amiability. Zelma was large, but lithe, +supple, and vigorous, with a pard-like freedom and elasticity of +movement,--dark, with a subdued and changing color,--the fluttering +signal of sudden emotion, not the stationary sign of robust health. She +had hair of a glistening blackness, which she wore turned back from a +strong, compact forehead, in the somewhat severe style which imperial +beauty has rendered classic in our time. Her eyes were of the Oriental +type,--full, heavy-lidded, ambushed in thick, black lashes,--themselves +dark and unfathomable as the long night of mystery which hangs over the +history of her wild and wandering race, those unsubduable, unseducible +children of Nature,--the voluntary Pariahs of the world. Sad were those +eyes always, but with a vague, uncommunicable sadness; soft they were in +times of quiet; beautiful and terrible they could be, with live gleams +of suddenly awakened passion. + +With but one affection not poisoned by a sense of obligation and +condescension, and that a sentiment in which her intellect had little +share, a gentle, protective, household love, which quickened no daring +fancy, inspired no dream of freedom or power, Zelma's mind was driven +in upon itself, and out of the seclusion and triteness of her life +fashioned a fairy world of romance and beauty. With the high-wrought, +sentimental fictions of the day for her mental aliment, she grew more +and more distinct and apart from the actual, prosaic existences around +her; the smouldering fires of genius and ambition glowed out almost +fiercely at times, through the dark dream of her eyes, startling the +dullest apprehension, as she moved amid a narrow circle of country +gentry, the fox-hunting guests of her uncle, the prim gossips of her +aunt, the gay lovers and companions of her cousin, an unrecognized +heroine, an uncrowned tragedy-queen. + +The small provincial town of Arden possessed no playhouse proper, but, +after a good deal of hesitation and discussion, the venerable Hall +of St. George, the glory of all Ardenites, had been accorded to the +players, "for a few nights only." + +On the night of the first performance, Squire Burleigh and his family +arrived betimes, and took their places with some bustle and ceremony. + +The master of Burleigh Grange appeared in the almost forgotten glory of +his court suit,--a coat of crimson velvet, a flowered waistcoat, satin +knee-breeches, and a sword at his side. The mistress wore an equally +memorable brocade, enormous bouquets thrown upon a silvery ground, so +stiff and shiny that it seemed a texture of ice and frozen flowers. Her +hair was cushioned and powdered; she looked comely and stately, and +wore her lustres well. The pretty Bessie was attired in maidenly +white muslin, an India fabric of marvellous fineness, with a sash and +streamers of blue, and the light fleecy curls of her hair unadorned save +by a slight pendent spray of jasmines. Her cousin's dress, though in +reality less costly, was more striking, being composed of materials and +colors which admirably harmonized with the darkness and richness of her +beauty. Her lustrous black hair was arranged as usual; but a wreath, +formed of some delicate vine hung thick with drooping scarlet blossoms, +ran like flowering flame around her head. Like the sumptuous exotic of +Zenobia, it was an ornament which seemed to bloom out of the character +of the woman. + +Bessie cast about her bright, innocent looks of girlish curiosity, which +yet shrank from any chance encounter with the furtive glance or cool +stare of admiration. Zelma sat motionless and impassive. Her eyes +wandered naturally, but coldly, over the audience, seeming to take no +cognizance of any face, strange or familiar; but when they were lifted +above the crowd, to the old carved ceiling of the hall, or dropped upon +the beautiful hands which lay listlessly folded in her lap, the cold, +blank look she had set against the world went out of them. Then, in +their mystic depths of brooding, introverted thought, new spheres of +life, rarer, brighter, fairer, seemed rounding into form and dawning +like stars. + +Mrs. Margery Burleigh sat with her face turned from the stage, to +dissemble the secret impatience with which she awaited the uprolling of +the curtain, and slowly waved to and fro a huge, flowered fan, which +charged the air with a heavy Indian perfume. + +At length, soft, mournful music arose from the orchestra, and every +heart stirred to the premonitory waver and lift of the curtain. Slowly +it rose, and discovered a mourning apartment, with a lady in mourning, +sitting in a mourning chair, and attended by a mourning maid. The play +was Congreve's tragedy of "The Mourning Bride," one of the best of a +class of sentimental and stiltified dramatic productions which the +public of our great-grandfathers meekly accepted,--quaffing the frothy +small-beer of rant and affectation, in lieu of deep draughts of Nature +and passion, the rich, red wine of human life, poured generously +forth by the dramatists of a better era. The excesses of fashion then +prevailing, hoops, high heels, powder, and patches, were not more +essentially absurd and artificial than such representations of high-life +and high-tragedy. + +"The Mourning Bride" contains a few situations in which real passion can +have play, some fine points and poetic passages, and its moral tone is +at least respectable,--not great things to say of a famous tragedy, +certainly, but they give it an honorable distinction over many plays of +its time. There figure in it one or two characters which can be made +interesting, and even impressive, by uncommon power in the actor; though +they were usually given, at the period of which I write, in a manner +sufficiently tame to suit the dullest of courts,--likely to disturb +neither my lord in his napping nor my lady in her prim flirting. + +Zara, the Captive Queen, is beyond comparison the strong character of +this play. There is a spice and fire even in her wickedness, which +make her terribly attractive, and give her a more powerful hold on the +sympathies than the decorous and dolorous Almeria, for all her virtuous +sorrows and perplexities. Zara's passion is of the true Oriental type, +leaping from the extremes of love and hate with the fierceness and +rapidity of lightning. + +It is a character in which several great actresses have distinguished +themselves,--chief among them Siddons. On the memorable night at Arden, +however, it was but wretchedly rendered by a tall, small-voiced, +flaxen-haired young woman, who stalked about the stage in high-heeled +shoes and prodigious hoops, and declaimed the most fiery passages with +an execrable drawl. The remainder of the company were barely passable as +strolling players, with the exception of the actor who personated Osmyn. +This was a young man named Bury, of respectable parentage and education, +it was said, and considerable reputation, though his aspiring buskin had +never yet trod the London boards. He was a handsome, shapely person, +with an assured, dashing manner, and a great amount of spirit and fire, +which usually passed with his audience, and always with himself, for +genius. + +His voice was powerful and resonant, his elocution effective, if not +faultless, and his physical energy inexhaustible. Understanding and +managing perfectly his own resources, he produced upon most provincial +critics the impression of extraordinary power and promise, few +perceiving that he had already come into full possession of his dramatic +gifts. + +Only finely-trained ears could discover in this sounding, shining metal +the lack of the sharp, musical ring of the genuine coin. Young men grew +frantic in applause of his bold action, his stormy declamation, +his startling _tours de force_; while young women wondered, wept, +languished, and swooned. It was said, that, whenever he died in Romeo, +Pierre, or Zanga, numbers of his fair slain were borne out of the +playhouse, to be revived with difficulty by the application of salts and +the severing of stay-lacings. + +But his effects, though so positive, were superficial and +evanescent,--audible, visible, and, as it were, physical. There was +always wanting that fine shock of genuine passion, striking home to +kindred passions in the breasts of his auditors, and sending through +every nerve a magnetic shiver of delight,--that subtile, mysterious +element of genius, playing like quick flame along the dullest lines of +the poet and charging them with its own life and fire. + +In the virtuous, but negative character of Osmyn there was little room +for effective declamation; our actor was fain to content himself with +being interesting, through the misfortunes of the Prince of Valentia, +his woful lawful love, and the besettings of an unreturned passion. In +this he succeeded so well, that the feminine portion of his audience +grew tender with Almeria, and despairing with Zara. + +In the first scene with Almeria, who was a shade worse than the Zara of +the night, the young actor indulged himself in a cool, comprehensive +glance at the house, over her fair shoulders. As his keen gaze swept +round the small aristocratic circle, it encountered and seemed +to recognize the face of Zelma Burleigh, now kindling with a new +enthusiasm, which was never wholly to die out of her breast. There was +something in the watchful, absorbed gaze of her great dark eyes so +unlike the wondering or languishing looks usually bent by women upon +the rising actor, that on the instant he was struck, pierced, by those +subtile shafts of light, to the heart he had believed till then vowed +alone to the love of his art and the schemes of a sleepless ambition. + +Reluctantly he withdrew his regard from a face which bespoke a character +of singular originality and force, not wanting either in womanly pride +or tenderness,--a face in which beauty itself was so subordinate to +something higher, more ineffable, that one could scarcely define feature +or color through the illuminated and changeful atmosphere of soul which +hung about it,--the shadows of great thoughts, the light mists of dreamy +and evanescent fancy. + +It was toward the close of the second act, when Sir Harry Willerton, of +Willerton Hall, entered his box, accompanied by three or four dashing +companions, who, it was soon whispered about, were titled young bloods +from London. + +Sir Harry Willerton was a fresh, frank-looking young gallant,--fast, +from the fiery impulses of youth and a high spirit,--not pricked on by +vanity, nor goaded by low passions,--not heartless, not _blase_,--the +only kind of a rake for whom reformation is possible or reclamation +worth the while. + +Sir Harry was not fond of tragedy; and after five minutes' strained +attention to the players, he turned his eyes from the stage, and began +casting easy, good-humored glances of curiosity or recognition over +the audience. He bowed to all his neighbors with a kindly familiarity, +untainted by condescension, but most courteously, perhaps, to the party +from the Grange. He liked the bluff Squire heartily,--as who did not? +Then his eye--a laughing blue eye it was--rested and lingered, not on +the dark, dramatic face of Zelma, but on the pretty, girlish head of her +cousin. + +Bessie sat with her face partly averted from the baronet's gay party, +and her gaze fixed intently upon the stage. Sir Harry could only see +half the rose of one cheek, and the soft sweep of golden hair which +lightly shaded it; and feasting his fancy on that bit of fluctuating +color, entangled in the meshes of a tremulous screen of curls, he +settled himself to await the close of the act. + +It was with a child's eager interest and pliant imagination that Bessie +looked and listened,--susceptible, credulous, unfastidious. To her, +the Osmyn of the night was radiant with all heroic qualities and manly +graces, the weakly simulated sorrow of Almeria brought real tears to her +eyes, and she drew her white shoulders forward with a shudder when +the wooden Zara kindled into cursing and jealous rage. Illusions most +transparent to others hoodwinked her senses; her willing fancy supplied +feeling, and even made up for deficiencies of art in the players, till +the mimic world before her became more real than reality. + +Not so with Zelma. She was satisfied, even charmed, with the personation +of Osmyn; but, from the first, she could not abide either of the +heroines, who, each in her part, strove to outdo the other in mincing, +mouthing, attitudinizing, and all imaginable small sins against Nature +and Art. She saw at once, by the sure intuitions of genius, how +everything they did could be done better, and burned to do it. The part +of Almeria she soon dismissed from her thoughts, as mere milk-and-water; +but she saw that in that of Zara there was a stream of lava, though +dulled and crusted over by the coldness of the actress, which might +be made to sweep all before it. Her critical dissatisfaction with the +personation became, at last, little short of torture; there was an +involuntary lowering of her dark brows, a scornful quiver of her +spirited nostril, she bit her lip with angry impatience, and shrugged +her shoulders with irrepressible contempt. + +In the great scene where Zara surprises Almeria in the cell of Osmyn, +it was astonishing how the flaxen-haired representative of the Captive +Queen managed to turn her fiery rain of curses into a little pattering +shower of womanish reproaches. It was really a masterly performance, in +its way. + +At this point Zelma threw herself back in utter weariness and disgust, +exclaiming, audibly,--"Miserable!--most miserable." When, looking round, +she saw the traces of her cousin's innocent emotion, the flush and +tearfulness which bespoke her uncritical sympathy with passions so +unskilfully represented, she could not suppress a smile at such childish +simplicity. And yet this was also her first play. + +The tragedy was succeeded by a farce, at which Bessie laughed as +heartily as she had wept a little while before, but which was utterly +distasteful to Zelma; and at an alarmingly late hour, for that quiet +community, the green curtain came heavily plunging down on the final +scene of all, and the audience dispersed to their homes. + +On the day following, Sir Harry Willerton's guests returned to town, +but, to their surprise, unaccompanied by their host, who seemed to have +suddenly discovered that his presence was needed on his estate. So he +remained. Soon it was remarked that a singular intimacy had sprung +up between him and Squire Burleigh, with whom, at length, the larger +portion of his time was passed, either in following the hounds or dining +at the Grange. There were rumors and surmises that the attractions which +drew the young baronet to his bluff neighbor's hospitable hall were not +the Squire's hearty cheer, old wine, and older stories, but a pair of +shy, yet tender eyes,--red lips, that smiled a wordless welcome, and +sometimes pouted at a late coming,--cheeks whose blushes daily grew +warmer in love's ripening glow,--a voice whose tones daily grew deeper, +and seemed freighted with more delicious meanings. + +There was little discussion as to which of the young ladies of the +Grange was the enchantress and the elect Lady Willerton. + +"Surely," said the gossips, "it cannot be that gypsy niece of the +Squire, that odd, black-browed girl, who scours over the country in all +weathers, on that elfish black pony, with her hair flying,--for all the +world as though in search of her wild relations. No, the blood of the +Willertons would never run so low as that;--it must be sweet Miss +Bessie, and she is a match for a lord." + +For once the gossips were right. But it is with the poor "Rommany girl," +not with the heiress of Burleigh Grange, that we have to do. + +On the morning succeeding the play, Zelma Burleigh, taking in her hand +an odd volume of Shakspeare, one of the few specimens of dramatic +literature which her uncle's scant library afforded, strolled down a +lonely lane, running back from the house, toward the high pasture-lands, +on which grazed and basked the wealthy Squire's goodly flocks and +herds. This was her favorite walk, as it was the most quiet, shaded, +out-of-the-way by-path on the estate. She now directed her steps to a +little rustic seat, almost hidden from view by the pendent branches +of an old willow-tree, and close under a hawthorn-hedge, now in full, +fragrant bloom. Here she seated herself, or rather flung herself down, +half languidly, half petulantly, an expression of _ennui_ and unrest +darkening her face,--the dusky traces of a sleepless night hanging +heavily about her eyes. She opened her book at the play of "Romeo and +Juliet," and began to read, not silently, nor yet aloud, but in a low, +dreamy tone, in which the sounds of Nature about her, the gurgle of a +brook behind the hedge, the sighing of the winds among the pendulous +branches of the willow, the silver shiver of the lance-like leaves, the +murmurous coming and going of bees, the loving duets of nest-building +birds, all seemed to mingle and merge. As she read, a new light seemed +to illumine the page, caught from her recent experience of dramatic +personation and scenic effects, limited and unsatisfactory though that +experience had been. In fancy, she floated over the stage, as the gay +young Juliet at the masquerade; then she caught sight of young Romeo, +and, lo! his face was that of the sentimental hero of the last night's +tragedy, but ennobled by the glow and dignity of genuine passion. In +fancy, she sat on the balcony, communing with night and the stars,--the +newly-risen star of love silvering all life for her. Then, leaning her +cheek upon her hand, she poured forth Juliet's impassioned apostrophe. +When she came to the passage,-- + + "O Romeo, Romeo!--wherefore art thou Romeo?" + +she was startled by a rustling of the leaves behind her. She paused and +looked round fearfully. A blackbird darted out of the hedge and away +over the fields. Zelma smiled at her own alarm, and read on, till she +reached the tender adjuration,-- + + "Romeo, doff thy name; + And for thy name, which is no part of thee, + Take all myself!" + +when,--suddenly, a fragrant shower of hawthorn-blossoms fell upon the +page before her, and the next instant there lightly vaulted over the +hedge at her side the hero of her secret thoughts, the young player, +Lawrence Bury! He stood before her, flushed and smiling, with his head +uncovered, and in an attitude of respectful homage; yet, with a look and +tone of tender, unmistakable meaning, took up the words of the play,-- + + "I take thee at thy word. + Call me but love, and I'll be new-baptized; + Henceforth I never will be Romeo." + +Poor Zelma did not have the presence of mind to greet this sudden +apparition of a lover in the apt words of her part,-- + + "What man art thou, that, thus bescreened in night, + So stumblest on my counsel?" + +She had no words at all for the intruder, but, frightened and +bewildered, sprang from her seat and turned her face toward home, with a +startled bird's first impulse to flight. As she rose, her book slid from +her lap and fell among the daisies at her feet. The actor caught it up +and presented it to her, with the grace of a courtly knight restoring +the dropped glove of a princess, but, as he did so, exclaimed, in a +half-playful tone, looking at the volume rather than the lady,-- + +"I thank thee, O my master, for affording me so fair an excuse for mine +audacity!" + +Then, assuming a more earnest manner, he proceeded to make excuses and +entreat pardon for the suddenness, informality, and presumption of his +appearance before her:-- + +"You know, Madam," he said,--"if, indeed, you are so unfortunate as +to know anything about us,--that we players are an impulsive, +unconventional class of beings, lawless and irresponsible, the Gypsies +of Art." + +Here Zelma flushed and drew herself up, while a suspicious glance shot +from her eyes;--but the stranger seemed not to understand or perceive +it, for he went on quite innocently, and with increasing earnestness of +tone and manner:-- + +"I know I have been presuming, impertinent, audacious, in thus intruding +myself upon you, and acknowledge that you would be but severely just in +banishing me instantly from your bright presence, and in withdrawing +from me forever the light of your adorable eyes. Oh, those eyes!" he +continued, clasping his hands in an ecstasy of lover-like enthusiasm, +--"those wild, sweet orbs!--bewildering lights of love, dear as life, +but cruel as death!--can they not quicken, even as they slay? Oh, gentle +lady, be like her of Verona!--be gracious, be kind, or, at least, be +merciful, and do not banish me!-- + + 'For exile hath more terror in his look, + Much more, than death; do not say banishment!'" + +He paused, but did not remove his passionate looks from the young girl's +face,--looks which, though cast down, for he was much the taller of the +two, had the effect of most lowly and deprecating entreaty;--and then +there happened an event,--a very slight, common, natural event,--the +result more of girlish embarrassment than of any conscious emotion or +purpose, yet of incalculable importance at that moment, and, perhaps, +decisive of the fate of two human hearts,--Zelma smiled. It was a +quick, involuntary smile, which seemed to _escape_ from the firm lips +and half-averted eyes, flashed over the face, touched the cold features +with strange radiance, and then was gone,--and, in its place, the old +shadow of reserve and distrust, for the moment, darker than ever. + +But to the adventurous lover that brief light had revealed his doubtful +way clear before him. He saw, with a thrill of exultation, that +henceforth he had really nothing to fear from such womanly defences as +he had counted on,--coldness, prejudice, disdain,--that all he had taken +for these were but unsubstantial shadows. Still he showed no premature +triumph in word or look, but remained silent and humble, waiting the +reply to his passionate appeal, as though life or death, in very truth, +were depending upon it. And Zelma spoke at last,--briefly and coldly, +but in a manner neither suspicious nor unfriendly. She herself, she +said, was unconventional, in her instincts, at least,--so could afford +to pardon somewhat of lawlessness in another,--especially, she added, +with a shy smile, in one whom Melpomene, rather than Cupid, had made +mad. Still she was not a Juliet, though he, for all she knew, might be +a Romeo; and only in lands verging on the tropics, or in the soul of a +poet, could a passion like that of the gentle Veronese spring up, bud, +and blossom, in a single night. As for her, the fogs of England, the +heavy chill of its social atmosphere, had obstructed the ripening +sunshine of romance and repressed the flowering of the heart-- + +"And kept your beautiful nature all the more pure and fresh!" exclaimed +Mr. Lawrence Bury, with real or well-assumed enthusiasm; but Zelma, +replying to his interruption only by a slight blush, went on to say, +that she had been taught that poetry, art, and romances were all idle +pastimes and perilous lures, unbecoming and unwholesome to a young +English gentlewoman, whose manifest destiny it was to tread the dull, +beaten track of domestic duty, with spirit chastened and conformed. +She had had, she would acknowledge, some aspirations and rebellious +repinings, some wild day-dreams of life of another sort; but it was best +that she should put these down,--yes, doubtless, best that she should +fall into her place in the ranks of duty and staid respectability, +and be a mere gentlewoman, like the rest.--Here a slight shrug of the +shoulders and curl of the lip contradicted her words,--yet, with a tone +of rigid determination, she added, that it was also best she should +cherish no tastes and form no associations which might distract her +imagination and further turn her heart from this virtuous resolution; +and therefore must she say farewell, firmly and finally, to the, she +doubted not, most worthy gentleman who had done her the honor to +entertain for her sentiments of such high consideration and romantic +devotion. She would not deny that his intrusion on her privacy had, at +first, startled and displeased her,--but she already accepted it as an +eccentricity of dramatic genius, a thoughtless offence, and, being, as +she trusted, at once the first and the last, pardonable. She wished him +happiness, fame, fortune,--and a very good morning! Then, with a wave +of the hand which would have done honor to Oldfield herself, she turned +and walked proudly up the lane. + +Mr. Bury saw her depart silently, standing in a submissive, dejected +attitude, but with a quiet, supercilious smile lightly curling his +finely-cut lips; for did he not know that she would return to her haunt +the next day, and that he would be there to see? + +And Zelma did return the next day,--persuading herself that she was +only acting naturally, and with proper dignity and independence. She +argued with herself that to abandon her favorite walk or avoid her usual +resting-place would be to confess, if not a fear of the stranger's +presuming and persistent suit, at least, a disturbing consciousness of +his proximity, and of the possibility of his braving her displeasure +by a second and unpardonable intrusion. No, she would live as she had +lived, freely, carelessly; she would go and come, ride and walk, just as +though nothing had happened,--for, indeed, nothing _had_ happened that +a woman of sense and pride should take cognizance of. So, after a +half-hour's strange hesitation, she took her book and went to the old +place. Longer than usual she sat there, idly and abstractedly turning +over the leaves of her Shakspeare, starting and flushing with every +chance sound that broke on the still, sweet air; yet no presumptuous +intruder disturbed her maiden meditations, and she rose wearily at last, +and walked slowly homeward, saying to herself, "It is well. I have +conquered," but feeling that nothing was well in life, or her own heart, +and that she was miserably defeated. Ah, little did she suspect that her +clouded, dissatisfied face had been keenly scanned by the very eyes she +dreaded, yet secretly longed to meet,--that her most unconscious sigh +of disappointment had been heard by her Romeo of the previous day, now +lying just behind the hedge, buried in the long brook-side grass, and +laughing to himself a very pleasant laugh of gratulation and triumph. + +That night, the good Squire of Burleigh Grange relented from his +virtuous resolve, and took his wife, daughter, and niece to the play. + +The piece was Howe's tragedy of "Tamerlane." Mr. Bury personated the +imperial Tartar, a noble _role_, which so well became him, costumes +and all, and brought him so much applause, that Zelma's heart was +effectually softened, and she even felt a regretful pride in having +received and rejected the homage of a man of such parts. + +The next day, as the hour for her stroll arrived, she said to herself, +"I can surely take my walks in safety now,--_he_ will never come near me +more." So she went,--but, to her unspeakable confusion, she found +him, quietly seated in her little rustic bower, his head bared to +the sunshine, and his "Hyperion curls" tossed and tumbled about by +a frolicsome wind. He rose when the lady appeared, stammered out an +apology, bowed respectfully, and would have retired, but that Zelma, +feeling that she was the intruder this time, begged him to remain. She +thought herself, simple child! merely courteous and duly hospitable, in +giving this invitation; but the quick, eager ear of the actor and lover +heard, quivering through the assumed indifference and cold politeness +of her tones, the genuine impulse and ardent wish of her heart. So +he yielded and lingered, proffering apologies and exchanging polite +commonplaces. + +After a little time, Zelma, to prove her freedom from embarrassment or +suspicion, quietly seated herself on the rustic bench, giving, as she +did so, a regal spread to her ample skirts, that there might be no +vacant place beside her. The actor stood for a while before her, just +going, but never gone, talking gayly, but respectfully, on indifferent +topics,--till, at last, touching on some theme of deeper interest, and +apparently forgetting everything but it and the fair lady, who neither +expressed nor looked a desire to shorten the interview, he flung +himself, with what seemed a boy's natural impulse, upon the soft, +inviting turf, under the shade of the willow. There, reclining in the +attitude of Hamlet at the feet of Ophelia, he rambled on from subject +to subject, in a careless, graceful way, plucking up grass and picking +daisies to pieces, as he talked, giving every now and then, from beneath +the languid sweep of his heavy eyelashes, quick flashes of tender +meaning, as fitful and beautiful as the "heat-lightnings" of summer +twilights, and _apparently_ as harmless. + +There was something so magnetic and contagious in this frank, +confiding manner, that Zelma, ere she was aware, grew unrestrained and +communicative in turn. One by one, the icicles of pride and reserve, +which a strange and ungenial atmosphere had hung around her affluent and +spontaneous nature, melted in the unwanted sunshine, dropped away from +her, and the quick bloom of a Southern heart revealed itself in +smiles and blushes. The divine poet whose volume she now held clasped +caressingly in both hands had prepared the way for this, by sending +through every vein and fibre of her being the sweet, subtile essence of +passionate thought,--the spring-tide of youth and love, which makes the +story of Romeo and Juliet glow and throb with immortal freshness and +vitality. + +So, at length, those two talked freely and pleasantly together. They +discussed the quiet rural scenery around them, the deep green valley of +Arden, shut in by an almost unbroken circle of hills, and Zelma told of +a peculiar silvery mist which sometimes floated over it, like the ghost +of the lake which, it was said, once filled it; they spoke of wood, +stream, moor, and waterfall, sunsets and moonlight and stars, poetry +and--love; floating slowly, and almost unconsciously, down the smooth +current of summer talk and youthful fancies, toward the ocean of all +their thoughts, whose mysterious murmurs already filled one heart at +least with a tender awe and a vague longing, which was yet half fear. + +The next day, and the next, and every day while the players remained at +Arden, the two friends met by tacit agreement in the lane of Burleigh +Grange, and, gradually, Lawrence Bury became less the actor and more +the man, in the presence of a genuine woman, without affectation or +artifice, stage-rant or art-cant,--one from whose face the glare of the +foot-lights had not stricken the natural bloom, whose heart had never +burned with the feverish excitement of the stage, its insatiable +ambition, its animosities and exceeding fierce jealousies. For Zelma, +she grew more humble and simple and less exacting, the more she bestowed +from a "bounty boundless as the sea." + +It was but a brief while, scarcely the lifetime of a rose,--the fragrant +snow of the hawthorn blossoms had not melted from the hedges since they +met,--and yet, in that little season, the deepest, divinest mystery of +human life had grown clear and familiar to their hearts, and was conned +as the simplest lesson of Nature. + +To Zelma the romance and secrecy of this love had an inexpressible +charm. The Zincala in her nature revelled in its wildness and adventure, +in its crime against the respectable conventionalities she despised. She +had a keen pleasure in the very management and concealment to which she +was compelled;--her imagination, even more than her heart, was engaged +in hiding and guarding this charming mystery. + +On the day succeeding her first interview with the young actor in the +lane, she had tried to beguile her _ennui_, while lingering in her +lonely bower, by curiously peering into the nest of a blackbird, deeply +hidden in the long grass at the foot of the hedge, and which she had +before discovered by the prophetic murmurs of the mother-bird. She found +five eggs in the nest. She took the little blue wonders in her hand, +and thought what lives of sinless joy, what raptures and loves, what +exultations of song and soaring slept in those tiny shells! Suddenly, +there was an alarmed cry and an anxious flutter of wings in the hedge +above her! She turned, and saw the mother-bird eyeing her askance. From +that day the lowly nest with its profaned treasures was forsaken, and +the world was the poorer in gladness and melody by five bird-lives of +joy and song that might have been. + +So, had any luckless intruder chanced to discover Zelma's +trysting-place, thrown open to the world the hidden romance in which +she took such shy and secret delight, and handled in idle gossip the +delicate joys and fragile hopes of young love, it is more than likely +that she would have been frightened away from bower and lane, shocked +and disenchanted. But the preoccupation of her cousin and her own +eccentric and solitary habits prevented suspicion and inquiry,--no +unfriendly spy, no rude, untoward event, disturbed the quiet and +seclusion of this charmed scene of her wooing, where Nature, Romance, +and Poetry were in league with Love. + +The players played out their engagement at Arden, with the usual +supplement, "A few nights only by special request," and were off to a +neighboring town. On their last night, after the play, Zelma met her +lover by moonlight, at the trysting-place in the lane, for a parting +interview. + +It was there that the actor, doffing the jaunty hat which usually +crowned his "comely head," and, flinging himself on his knees before +his fair mistress, entreated her to rule his wayward heart, share his +precarious fortunes, and bear his humble name. + +Poor Zelma, when in imagination she had rehearsed her betrothal scene, +had made her part something like this:--"And then will I extend my hand +with stately grace, and say to my kneeling knight, 'Arise!'--and after, +in such brief, gracious words as queens may use, (for is not every woman +beloved a queen?) pronounce his happy doom." + +But when that scene in her life-drama came on, it was the woman, not the +tragedy-queen, that acted. Naturally and tenderly, like any simple girl, +she bent over her lover, laid her hand upon his head, and caressingly +smoothed back from his brow the straggling curls, damp with night-dew. +As she did so, every lock seemed to thrill to her touch, and to wake in +her soft, timorous fingers a thousand exquisite nerves that had never +stirred before. And then, with broken words and tears, and probing +questions and solemn adjurations, she plighted her vows, and sought to +bind to her heart forever a faith to which she trusted herself, alas! +too tremblingly. + +The melodramatic lover was not content with a simple promise, though +wrung from the heart with sobs. "_Swear_ it to me!" he said, in a hoarse +stage-whisper; and Zelma, again laying her hand upon his head, and +looking starward, swore to be his, to command, to call, to hold,--in +life, in death, here, hereafter, evermore. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, + +ATTORNEY AT LAW AND SOLICITOR IN CHANCERY. + + +Somewhat more than three-quarters of a century ago, George Steevens, the +acutest, and, perhaps, the most accomplished, but certainly the most +perverse and unreliable of Shakespeare's commentators and critics, wrote +thus of Shakespeare's life: "All that is known, with any degree +of certainty, concerning Shakespeare, is, that he was born at +Stratford-upon-Avon; married and had children there; went to London, +where he commenced actor,[A] and wrote poems and plays; returned to +Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried." From 1780, when this +was written, to the present day, the search after well-authenticated +particulars of Shakespeare's life has been kept up with a faithfulness +equal to that of Sir Palomides after the beast glatisaunt, and by as +many devotees and with as much hope of glory as in the quest for the +Sangreal. But the fortune of the paynim, rather than the virgin knight, +has fallen to all the members of the self-devoted band, and we +know little more of the man Shakespeare than was known by our +great-grandfathers. For, although there have been issued to us of the +present generation pamphlets professing to give new particulars of the +life of Shakespeare, and tomes with even more pretentious titles, from +all these there has been small satisfaction, save to those who can +persuade themselves, that, by knowing what Shakespeare might have done, +they know what he did, or that the reflex of his daily life is to +be found in documents inscribed on parchment, and beginning, "This +indenture made," etc., or "_Noverint universi per presentes_." It is +with no disrespect for the enthusiasm of Mr. Knight, and as little +disposition to underrate the laborious researches of Mr. Collier and Mr. +Halliwell, that we thus reiterate the assertion of the world's ignorance +of Shakespeare's life: nay, it is with a mingled thankfulness and +sorrowful sympathy that we contemplate them wasting the light of the +blessed sun (when it shines in England) and wearing out good eyes (or +better barnacles) in poring over sentences as musty as the parchments +on which they are written and as dry as the dust that covers them. +But although we gladly concede that these labors have resulted in the +diffusion of a knowledge of the times and the circumstances in +which Shakespeare lived, and in the unearthing of much interesting +illustration of his works from the mould of antiquity, we cannot accept +the documents which have been so plentifully produced and so pitilessly +printed,--the extracts from parish-registers and old account-books,--not +Shakespeare's,--the inventories, the last wills and testaments, the +leases, the deeds, the bonds, the declarations, pleas, replications, +rejoinders, surrejoinders, rebutters, and surrebutters,--as having aught +to do with the life of such a man as William Shakespeare. We hunger, +and we receive these husks; we open our months for bread, and break our +teeth against these stones. As to the law-pleadings, what have their +discords, in linked harshness long drawn out, to do with the life of +him whom his friends delighted to call Sweet Will? We wish that they at +least had been allowed to rest. Those who were parties to them have been +more than two centuries in their graves,-- + + "Secure from worldly chances and mishaps. + _There_ lurks no treason, _there_ no envy swells, + _There_ grow no damned grudges; _there_ no storms, + No noise, but silence and eternal sleep." + +Why awaken the slumbering echoes of their living strife? + +[Footnote A: _Commenced actor, commenced author, commenced tinker, +commenced tailor, commenced candlestick-maker:_--Elegant phraseology, +though we venture to think, hardly idiomatic or logical, which came into +vogue in England in the early part of the last century, and which, +as it is never uttered here by cultivated people, it may be proper to +remark, is there used by the best writers. Akin to it is another mode of +expression as commonly met with in English books and periodicals, e.g., +"immediately he arrived at London he went upon the stage," meaning, as +soon as he arrived, etc., or, when he arrived at London, he immediately +went upon the stage. As far as our observation extends, Lord Macaulay, +alone of all Great-Britons, has neglected to add the latter lucid +construction to the graces of his style.] + +Yet these very law-papers, in the reduplicated folds of which dead +quarrels lie embalmed in hideous and grotesque semblance of their living +shapes, their lifeblood dried that lent them all their little dignity, +their action and their glow, and exhaling only a faint, sickening +odor of the venom that has kept them from crumbling into +forgetfulness,--these law-papers are now held by some to have special +interest Shakespeare-ward, as having to do with a profession for which +he made preparatory studies, even if he did not enter upon its practice. +Yes, in spite of our alleged ignorance of Shakespeare's life, and +especially of the utter darkness which has been thought to rest upon the +years which intervened between his marriage in Stratford and his joining +the Lord Chamberlain's company of players in London, the question is, +now, whether the next historical novel may not begin in this wise:-- + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE FUGITIVE. + +At the close of a lovely summer's day, two horsemen might have been seen +slowly pacing through the main street of Stratford-on-Avon. Attracting +no little attention from the group of loiterers around the market-cross, +they passed the White-Lion Inn, and, turning into Henley Street, soon +drew their bridles before a goodly cottage built of heavy timbers and +standing with one of its peaked gables to the street. On the door was a +shingle upon which was painted, + + Willm. Shakspere, + + Attornei at Lawe and Solicitor + in Chancere. + +One of the travellers--a grave man, whose head was sprinkled with the +snows of fifty winters--dismounted, and, approaching the door, knocked +at it with the steel hilt of his sword. He received no answer; but +presently the lattice opened above his head, and a sharp voice sharply +asked,-- + +"Who knocks?" + +"'Tis I, good wife!" replied the horseman. "Where is thy husband? I +would see him!" + +"Oh, Master John a Combe, is it you? I knew you not. Neither know I +where that unthrift William is these two days. It was but three nights +gone that he went with Will Squele and Dick Burbage, one of the player +folk, to take a deer out of Sir Thomas Lucy's park, and, as Will's +ill-luck would have it, they were taken, as well as the deer, and there +was great ado. But Will--that's my Will--and Dick Burbage, brake from +the keepers in Sir Thomas' very hall, and got off; and that's the last +that has been heard of them; and here be I left a lone woman with these +three children, and----Be quiet, Hamnet! Would ye pour my supper ale +upon the hat of the worshipful Master John a Combe?" + +"What! deer-stealing?" exclaimed John a Combe. "Is it thus that he apes +the follies of his betters? I had more hope of the lad, for he hath a +good heart and a quick engine; and I trusted that ere now he had +drawn the lease of my Wilmecote farm to Master Tilney here. But +deer-stealing!--like a lord's son, or a knight's at the least. Could not +the rifling of a rabbit-warren serve his turn? Deer-stealing! I fear me +he will come to nought!" + +The speaker remounted, and soon the two horsemen might again have been +seen wending their way back through the deepening twilight. + + * * * * * + +There are several points that would be novel in such a passage. Among +others, we would modestly indicate the incident of the two horsemen +as evincing some ingenuity, and as likely to charm the reader by its +freshness and originality. But one point, we must confess, is not +new, and that is the representation of Shakespeare as a lawyer. The +supposition, that the author of "Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "King Lear," +was a bustling young attorney, is of respectable age, and has years +enough upon its beard, if not discretion. It has been brought forward +afresh by two members of the profession for which is claimed the honor +of having Shakespeare's name upon its roll,--William L. Rushton, +Esquire, a London Barrister, and John Campbell, Lord Chief Justice of +the Queen's Bench.[B] Lord Campbell, indeed, addressing himself to +Mr. John Payne Collier, says, (p. 21,) that this is a notion "first +suggested by Chalmers, and since countenanced by Malone, yourself, and +others." An assertion this which savors little of legal accuracy. For +Chalmers, so far from being the first to suggest that Shakespeare passed +his adolescent years in an attorney's office, was the first to sneer at +Malone for bringing forward that conjecture.[C] Malone, in his first +edition of Shakespeare's works, published in 1790, has this passage, in +the course of a discussion of the period when "Hamlet" was produced:-- + +"The comprehensive mind of our poet embraced almost every object of +Nature, every trade, every art, the manners of every description of men, +and the general language of almost every profession: but his knowledge +of legal terms is not such as might be acquired by the casual +observation of even his all-comprehending mind; it has the appearance of +_technical_ skill; and he is so fond of displaying it, on all occasions, +that I suspect he was early initiated in at least the forms of law, and +was employed, while he remained at Stratford, in the office of some +country attorney, who was at the same time a petty conveyancer, and +perhaps, also, the seneschal of some manor court."--Vol. I. Part I. p. +307. + +[Footnote B: _Shakespeare a Lawyer_. By William L. Rushton. 16mo. pp. +50. London: 1858. + +_Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements Considered_. By John Lord Campbell, +LL.D., F.R.S.E. 12mo. pp. 117. London: 1859.] + +[Footnote C: Into the trap so innocently set the London _Athenaeum_ thus +plunges headlong:--"Chalmers, we believe, first put Shakespeare in an +attorney's office. Malone _accepted the hint_."] + +To this, Chalmers, some years after, (1797,) in his "Apology for the +Believers in the Shakespeare Papers which were exhibited in Norfolk +Street," (some contemptible forgeries, by a young scapegrace named +William Ireland, which should not have deceived an English scholar of +six months' standing,) made the following reply:-- + +"Mr. Malone places the aspiring poet 'in the office of some country +attorney, or the seneschal of some manor court'; and for this violation +of probability he produces many passages from his dramas to evince +Shakespeare's _technical skill_ in the _forms of law_. ...But was it not +the practice of the times, for other makers, like the bees tolling from +every flower the virtuous _sweets_, to gather from the thistles of the +law _the sweetest_ honey? Does not Spenser gather many a metaphor from +these weeds, that are most apt to grow in _fattest_ soil? Has not +Spenser his law-terms: his _capias, defeasance_, and _duresse_; his +_emparlance_; his _enure, essoyn_, and _escheat_; his _folkmote, +forestall_ and _gage_; his _livery_ and _seasin, wage_ and _waif_? It +will be said, however, that, whatever the learning of Spenser may have +gleaned, the law-books of that age were impervious to the illiterature +of Shakespeare. No: such an intellect, when employed on the drudgery of +a wool-stapler, who had been high-bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon, might +have derived all that was necessary from a very few books; from Totell's +'Presidents,' 1572; from Pulton's 'Statutes,' 1578; and from the +'Lawier's Logike,' 1588. It is one of the axioms of the 'Flores Regii,' +that, To answer an improbable imagination is to fight against a +vanishing shadow."--p. 553. + +And again, in his "Supplemental Apology," etc., 1799, Chalmers +remarks,-- + +"The biographers, without adequate proofs, have bound Shakespeare an +apprentice to some country attorney; as Mr. Malone has sent him without +sufficient warrant to the desk of some seneschal of a county court: but +these are obscurities that require other lights than conjecture and +assertion, which, by proving nothing, only establish disbelief."--p. +226. + +So much for Chalmers's having "first suggested" the theory, of which +Lord Campbell has undertaken the support. Surely his Lordship must have +been verifying Rosalind's assertion, that lawyers sleep between term and +term, or else he is guilty of having loosely made a direct assertion in +regard to a subject upon which he had not taken the trouble to inform +himself; although he professes (p. 10) to have "read nearly all that has +been written on Shakespeare's _ante-Londinensian_ life, and carefully +examined his writings with a view to obtain internal evidence as to his +education and breeding." + +One exhibition of his Lordship's inaccuracy is surprising. Commenting +upon Falstaff's threat, "Woe to my Lord Chief Justice!" (2d _Henry_ IV., +Act V., Sc. 4,) he remarks, (p. 73,) "Sir W. Gascoigne was _continued_ +as Lord Chief Justice _in the new reign_; but, according to law and +custom, he was removable, and he no doubt expected to be removed, from +his office." Lord Campbell has yet to rival the fifth wife of the +missionary who wrote the lives of "her predecessors"; but surely _he_ +should have known that the expectations which he attributes to Sir +William Gascoigne were not disappointed, and that (although the contrary +is generally believed) the object of Falstaff's menace was superseded +(by Sir William Hankford) March 29th, 1413, just eight days after the +prince whom he committed to prison came to the throne,--a removal the +promptness of which would satisfy the strictest disciplinarian in the +Democratic party. The Records show this; but his Lordship need not have +gone to them; he would have found it mentioned, and the authority cited, +by Tyler in his "Memoirs of Henry the Fifth." + +And while we are considering the disparity between his Lordship's +performances and his pretensions, we may as well examine his fitness to +bring about a "fusion of Law and Literature," which he says, with some +reason, have, like Law and Equity, been too long kept apart in England. +We fear, that, whatever may be the excellence of his Lordship's +intentions, he must set himself seriously to the task of acquiring more +skill in the use of the English tongue, and a nicer discrimination +between processes of thought, before his writings will prove to be the +flux that promotes that fusion. + +For, in the third paragraph of his letter, he says to Mr. Collier, "I +cannot refuse to communicate to you my _sentiments_ upon the subject," +and in the following sentence adds, that this communication of his +"_sentiments_" will drive from his mind "the _recollection_ of the +wranglings of Westminster Hall." His Lordship probably meant to refer to +the communication of his _opinions_, for which word "sentiments" is +not usually substituted, except by gentlemen who remark with emphasis, +"Them's my sentiments"; and he also probably intended to allude to +the _memory_ of the wranglings of which he is professionally a +witness,--having forgotten, for a moment, that recollection is a purely +voluntary act, and not either a condition or a faculty of the mind. + +Again, when his Lordship says, (p. 18,) "That during this interval (A.D. +1579 to 1586) he [Shakespeare] was merely an operative, earning his +bread by manual labor, in stitching gloves, sorting wool, or killing +calves, no sensible man can possibly _imagine_" we applaud the decision; +but can hardly do as much for the language in which it is expressed. +Lord Campbell quite surely meant to say that no man could possibly +_believe_, or _suppose_, or _assent to_ the proposition which he sets +forth; and when (on p. 26) he again says, "I do not _imagine_ that when +he [Shakespeare] went up to London, he carried a tragedy in his pocket," +there can be no doubt that his Lordship meant to say, "I do not _think_ +that when," etc. He should again have gathered from his Shakespearean +studies a lesson in the exact use of language, and have learned from the +lips of "that duke hight Theseus" that imagination has nothing to do +with assent to or dissent from a proposition, but that + + "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet + Are of imagination all compact: + * * * * * + And, as imagination bodies forth + The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen + Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing + A local habitation and a name." + +_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act V. Sc. 1. + +We would not protract this finding of faults, and will only add, that, +when his Lordship says, (p. 116,) that Henry V. "astonished the world +with his universal _wisdom_" he entirely overlooks the fact, that wisdom +is a faculty of the mind, or, rather, a mode of intellectual action, +of which universality can no more be predicated than of folly, or of +honesty, or of muscular strength; and that it is not knowledge, or +at all like knowledge; which, indeed, is often acquired in a very +remarkable degree by persons eminent for unwisdom. Lord Campbell might +as well have said that Henry V. astonished the world with his universal +prowess in the battle-field. + +The censure to which Mr. Rushton's pamphlet is occasionally open in +regard to style may properly be averted by the modesty of its tone and +its unpretending character. + +But to pass from the manner to the matter of the learned gentlemen who +appear on behalf of Malone's theory. Lord Campbell, after stating, in +the introductory part of his letter, that in "The Two Gentlemen of +Verona," "Twelfth Night," "Julius Caesar," "Cymbeline," "Timon of +Athens," "The Tempest," "King Richard II.," "King Henry V.," "King Henry +VI., Part I.," "King Henry VI., Part III.," "King Richard III.," "King +Henry VIII.," "Pericles," and "Titus Andronicus,"--fourteen of the +thirty-seven dramas generally attributed to Shakespeare,--he finds +"nothing that fairly bears upon this controversy," goes on to produce +from the remaining plays, _seriatim_, such passages as in his judgment +do bear upon the question, and to remark upon them, thus isolated and +disconnected from each other. Mr. Rushton is more methodic and logical. +He does not merely quote or cite all the passages which he has noticed +in which legal terms occur, but brings together all such as contain the +same terms or refer to kindred proceedings or instruments; and he thus +presents his case with much more compactness and consequent strength +than results from Lord Campbell's loose and unmethodical mode of +treating the subject. We can arrive at the merits of the case on either +presentation only by an examination of some of the more important of the +passages cited. + +Lord Campbell, as we have just seen, mentions "Henry VIII." as one of +the fourteen plays in which he has found nothing which relates to the +question in hand; but Mr. Rushton opens his batteries with the following +passage from the very play just named; and to most readers it will seem +a bomb of the largest dimensions, sent right into the citadel of his +opponents:-- + + "_Suff_. Lord Cardinal, the king's further pleasure is,-- + Because all those things you have done of late + By your power legatine within this kingdom + Fall into compass of a _premunire_,-- + That therefore such a writ be sued against you, + To forfeit, all your goods, lands, tenements, + Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be + Out of the king's protection:--this is my + charge." + +_King Henry VIII_. Act iii. Sc. 2. + +We shall first remark, that, in spite of his declaration as to "Henry +VIII.," Lord Campbell does cite and quote this very passage (p. 42); +and, indeed, he must have been as unappreciative as he seems to have +been inaccurate, had he failed to do so; for, upon its face, it is, with +one or two exceptions, the most important passage of the kind to be +found in Shakespeare's works. _Premunire_ is thus defined in an old +law-book which was accessible to Shakespeare:-- + +"Premunire is a writ, and it lieth where any man sueth any other in the +spirituall court for anything that is determinable in the King's +Court, and that is ordeined by certaine statutes, and great punishment +therefore ordeined, as it appeareth by the same statutes, viz., that +he shall be out of the King's protection, and that he be put in prison +without baile or mainprise till that he have made fine at the King's +will, and that his landes and goods shal be forfait, if he come not +within ij. moneths."--_Termes de la Ley_, 1595, fol. 144. + +The object of the writ was to prevent the abuse of spiritual power. Now, +here is a law-term quite out of the common, which is used by Shakespeare +with a well-deployed knowledge of the power of the writ of which it is +the name. Must we, therefore, suppose that Shakespeare had obtained his +knowledge of the purpose and the power of this writ in the course +of professional reading or practice? If we looked no farther than +Shakespeare's page, such a supposition might seem to be warranted. +But if we turn to Michael Drayton's "Legend of Great Cromwell," first +published, we believe, in 1607, but certainly some years before "Henry +VIII." was written, and the subject of which figures in that play, we +find these lines,-- + + "This Me to urge the _Premunire_ wonne, + Ordain'd in matters dangerous and hie; + In t' which the heedlesse Prelacie were runne + That back into the Papacie did fie." + +Ed. 1619, p. 382. + +Here is the very phrase in question, used with a knowledge of its +meaning and of the functions of the writ hardly less remarkable than +that evinced in the passage from "Henry VIII.," though expressed in +a different manner, owing chiefly to the fact that Drayton wrote a +didactic poem and Shakespeare a drama. But Drayton is not known to have +been an attorney's clerk, nor has he been suspected, from his writings, +or any other cause, to have had any knowledge of the law. Both he and +Shakespeare, however, read the Chronicles. Reading men perused Hall's +and Holinshed's huge black-letter folios in Queen Elizabeth's time with +as much interest as they do Macaulay's or Prescott's elegant octavos in +the reign of her successor, Victoria. Shakespeare drew again and again +upon the former for the material of his historical plays; and in writing +"Henry VIII.," he adopted often the very language of the Chronicler. The +well-known description of Wolsey, which he puts into the mouth of Queen +Katherine,-- + + "He was a man + Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking + Himself with princes; one that by suggestion + Tith'd all the kingdom: Simony was fair play: + His own opinion was his law: I' the presence + He would say untruths; and be ever double, + Both in his words and meaning; He was never, + But where he meant to ruin, pitiful: + His promises were, as he then was, mighty; + But his performance, as he is now, nothing: + Of his own body he was ill, and gave + The clergy ill example,"-- + +is little more than the following paragraph from Holinshed put into +verse:-- + +"This cardinal! (as you may perceive in this storie) was of a great +stomach, for he compted himselfe equall with princes, and by craftie +suggestion gat into his hands innumerable treasure: he forced little +on simonie, [i.e., regarded it as of little consequence,] and was not +pittifull, and stood affectionate in his owne opinion: in open presence +he would lie and saie untruth, and was double both in speach and +meaning: he would promise much and performe little: he was vicious of +his bodie, and gave the clergie evill example."--Ed. 1587, vol. iii. p. +622. + +Turning back from the page on which the Chronicler comments upon the +life of the dead prime-minister, to that on which he records his fall, +we find these passages:-- + +"In the meane time, the king, being informed that all those things that +the cardinall had doone by his _power legatine within this realme_ were +in the case of the _premunire_ and provision, caused his attornie, +Christopher Hales, to sue out a writ of premunire against him. ...After +this in the king's bench his matter for the premunire being called upon, +two atturneis which he had authorised by his warrant, signed with his +owne hand, confessed the action, and so had judgement to _forfeit all +his lands, tenements, goods, and cattels, and to be out of the king's +protection_."--Ib. p. 909. + +If the reader will look back at the passage touching the premunire, +quoted above, he will see that these few lines from Raphael Holinshed +are somewhat fatal to an argument in favor of Shakespeare's "legal +acquirements," in so far as it rests in any degree upon the use of terms +or the knowledge displayed in that passage. Shakespeare and Drayton are +here in the same boat, though "not with the same sculls." + +Before we shelve Holinshed,--for the good Raphael's folios are like +Falstaff in size, if not in wit, and, when once laid flat-long, require +levers to set them up on end again,--let us see if he cannot help us to +account for more of the "legalisms" that our Lord Chief Justice and +our barrister have "smelt out" in Shakespeare's historical plays. Mr. +Rushton quotes the following passages from "Richard II.":-- + + "_York_. Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not + Hereford live? + + * * * * * + + Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time + His _charters_ and his _customary rights_; + Let not to-morrow, then, ensue to-day: + Be not thyself; for how art thou a king, + But by fair sequence and succession? + Now, afore God, (God forbid I say true!) + If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights, + Call in the _letters patents_ that he hath + By his _attorneys-general_ to sue + _His livery_, and deny his _offer'd homage_, + You pluck a thousand dangers on your head." + Act ii. Sc. I. + + "_Bol_. I am denied to _sue my livery_ here, + And yet my _letters patents_ give me leave: + My father's _goods are all distrain'd_ and sold; + And these, and all, are all amiss employed. + What would you have me do? I am a subject, + And challenge law: _Attorneys are denied_ me; + And therefore personally I lay my claim + To my _inheritance_ of free descent."--_Ib_. Sc. 3. + +And Lord Campbell, although he passes by these passages in "Richard +II.," quotes, as important, from a speech of Hotspur's in the "First +Part of Henry IV.," the following lines, which, it will be seen, refer +to the same act of oppression on the part of Richard II. towards +Bolingbroke:-- + + "He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, + To _sue his livery_ and beg his bread." + Act iv. Sc. 3. + +But, here again, Shakespeare, although he may have known more law than +Holinshed, or even Hall, who was a barrister, only used the law-terms +that he found in the paragraph which furnished him with the incident +that he dramatized. For, after recording the death of Gaunt, the +Chronicle goes on:-- + +"The death of this duke gave occasion of increasing more hatred in the +people of this realme toward the king; for he seized into his hands all +the rents and reuenues of his lands which ought to have descended vnto +the duke of Hereford by lawfull _inheritance_, in reuoking _his letters +patents_ which he had granted to him before, by virtue whereof he might +make his _attorneis generall_ to _sue liverie_ for him of any manner of +_inheritances_ or possessions that might from thencefoorth fall unto +him, and that his homage _might_ be respited with making reasonable +fine," etc.--HOLINSHED, Ed. 1587, p. 496. + +The only legal phrase, however, in these passages of "Richard II," which +seems to imply very extraordinary legal knowledge, is the one repeated +in "Henry IV.,"--"sue his livery,"--which was the term applied to the +process by which, in the old feudal tenures, wards, whether of the king +or other guardian, on arriving at legal age, could compel a delivery +of their estates to them from their guardians. But hence it became a +metaphorical expression to mean merely the attainment of majority, and +in this sense seems to have been very generally understood and not +uncommonly used. See the following from an author who was no attorney or +attorney's clerk:-- + + "If Cupid + Shoot arrows of that weight, I'll swear devoutly + H'as _sued his livery_ and is no more a boy." + FLETCHER'S _Woman's Prize_, Act ii. Sc. 1. + +And this, from the works of a divine:-- + + "Our little Cupid hath _sued livery_ + And is no more in his minority." + DONNE'S Eclogues, 1613. + +Spenser, too, uses the phrase figuratively in another sense, in the +following passage,--which may be one of those which Chalmers had in +his eye, when, according to Lord Campbell, he "first suggested" that +Shakespeare was once an attorney's clerk:-- + + "She gladly did of that same Babe accept, + As of her owne by _liverey and seisin_; + And having over it a litle wept, + She bore it thence, and ever as her owne it kept." + _Faerie Queene_, B. VI. C. iv. st. 37. + +So, for an instance of the phrase "fee," which Lord Campbell notices as +one of those expressions and allusions which "crop out" in "Hamlet," +"showing the substratum of law in the author's mind,"-- + + "We go to gain a little patch of ground, + That hath in it no profit but the name. + To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; + Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole + A ranker rate, should it be sold _in fee_,"-- + Act iv. Sc. 2. + +and of which Mr. Rushton quotes several instances in its fuller form, +"fee simple,"--we have but to turn back a few stanzas in this same +canto of the "Faerie Queene," to find one in which the term is used with +the completest apprehension of its meaning:-- + + "So is my lord now _seiz'd of_ all the land, + As _in his fee_, with peaceable _estate_, + And quietly doth hold it in his hand, + Ne any dares with him for it debate." + _Ib_. st. 30. + +And in the next canto:-- + + "Of which the greatest part is due to me, + And heaven itself, by heritage _in fee_." + _Ib._ C. vii. st. 15. + +And in the first of these two passages from the "Faerie Queene," we have +two words, "seized" and "estate," intelligently and correctly used +in their purely legal sense, as Shakespeare himself uses them in the +following passages, which our Chief Justice and our barrister have both +passed by, as, indeed, they have passed many others equally worthy of +notice:-- + + "Did forfeit with his life all those his lands + Which he stood _seiz'd of_ to the conqueror." + _Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 1. + + "The terms of our _estate_ may not endure + Hazard so near us," etc.--_Ib_. Act iii. Sc. 3. + +Among the most important passages cited by both our authors is one that +every reader of Shakespeare will recollect, when it is mentioned to +him,--Hamlet's speech over the skull in the grave-digging scene. But +although this speech is remarkable for the number of law-terms used in +it, only one of them seems to evince any recondite knowledge of the law. +This is the word "statutes," in the following sentence:-- + + "This fellow might be in's time a buyer of + land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his + fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries." + Act v. Sc. 1. + +The general reader supposes, we believe, and very naturally, that here +"statutes" means laws, Acts of Parliament concerning real estate. But, +as Mr. Rushton remarks, (Malone having explained the term before him,) +"The statutes referred to by Hamlet are, doubtless, statutes merchant +and statutes staple." And "a statute merchant (so called from the 13th +Edward I., _De mercatoribus_) was a _bond_ acknowledged before one of +the clerks of the statutes merchant, and the mayor, etc., etc. A statute +staple, properly so called, was a _bond of record_, acknowledged before +the mayor of the staple," etc., etc. + +Here we again have a law-term apparently so out of the ken of an +unprofessional writer, that it would seem to favor the Attorney and +Solicitor theory. But let us see if the knowledge which its use implies +was confined to Shakespeare among the dramatists of his time. + +In Fletcher's "Noble Gentleman," a comedy, first performed in 1625, we +find a lady, sorely pushed for ready cash, crying out,-- + + "Take up at any use: give bond, or land, + Or mighty _statutes_, able by their strength + To tie up my Samson, were he now alive." + Act i. Sc. 1. + +And in Middleton's "Family of Love," (where, by the way, the Free-Love +folk of our own day may find their peculiar notions set forth and made +the basis of the action, though the play was printed two hundred +and fifty years ago,) we find a female free-loveyer thus teaching a +mercantile brother of the family, that, although she has a sisterly +disregard for some worldly restraints, she yet keeps an eye on the main +chance:-- + +"Tut, you are master Dryfab, the merchant; your skill is greater in +cony-skins and woolpacks than in gentlemen. His lands be _in statutes_: +you merchants were wont to be merchant staplers; but now gentlemen have +gotten up the trade; for there is not one gentleman amongst twenty but +his lands be engaged in twenty statutes staple." + +Act i. Sc. 3. + +And in the very first speech of the first scene of the same play, the +husband of this virtuous and careful dame says of the same "Gerardine," +(who, as he is poor and a gentleman, it need hardly be said, is about +the only honest man in the piece,)--"His lands be _in statutes_." And +that poor debauchee, Robert Greene, who knew no more of law than he +might have derived from such limited, though authentic information as to +its powers over gentlemen who made debts without the intention of paying +them, as he may have received at frequent unsolicited interviews with a +sergeant or a bum-bailiff, has this passage in his "Quip for an Upstart +Courtier," 1592:-- + +"The mercer he followeth the young upstart gentleman that hath no +government of himself and feedeth his humour to go brave; he shall not +want silks, sattins, velvets to pranke abroad in his pompe; but with +this proviso, that he must bind over his land in a _statute merchant or +staple_; and so at last forfeit all unto the merciless mercer, and leave +himself never a foot of land in England." + +Very profound legal studies, therefore, cannot be predicated of +Shakespeare on the ground of the knowledge which he has shown of this +peculiar kind of statute. + +It is not surprising that both our legal Shakespearean commentators cite +the following passage from "As You Like It" in support of their theory; +for in it the word "extent" is used in a sense so purely technical, that +not one in a thousand of Shakespeare's lay readers now-a-days would +understand it without a note:-- + + _Duke F._ Well, push him out of doors, + And let my officers of such a nature + _Make an extent_ upon his house and lands." + Act iii. Sc. 1. + +"Extent," as Mr. Rushton remarks, is directed to the sheriff to seize +and value lands and goods to the utmost extent; "an _extendi facias_" as +Lord Campbell authoritatively says, "applying to the house and lands +as a _fieri facias_ would apply to goods and chattels, or a _capias ad +satisfaciendum_ to the person." But that John Fletcher knew, as well +as my Lord Chief Justice, or Mr. Barrister Rushton, or even, perhaps, +William Shakespeare, all the woes that followed an extent, the elder +Mr. Weller at least would not have doubted, had he in the course of +his literary leisure fallen upon the following passage in "Wit Without +Money" (1630):-- + + "_Val_ Mark me, widows + Are long _extents_ in law upon men's livings, + Upon their bodies' winding-sheets; they that enjoy 'em + Lie but with dead men's monuments, and beget + Only their own ill epitaphs." + Act ii. Sc. 2. + +George Wilkins, too, the obscure author of "The Miseries of Enforced +Marriage," uses the term with as full an understanding, though not with +so feeling an expression or so scandalous an illustration of it, in the +following passage from the fifth act of that play, which was produced +about 1605 or 1606:-- + +"They are usurers; they come yawning for money; and the sheriff with +them is come to serve an _extent_ upon your land, and then seize your +body by force of execution." + +Another seemingly recondite law-phrase used by Shakespeare, which Lord +Campbell passes entirely by, though Mr. Rushton quotes three instances +of it, is "taken with the manner." This has nothing to do with good +manners or ill manners; but, in the words of the old law-book before +cited,-- + +--"is when a theefe hath stollen and is followed with hue and crie and +taken, having that found about him which he stole;--that is called ye +maynour. And so we commonly use to saye, when wee finde one doing of an +unlawful act, that we tooke him with the maynour or manner." + +_Termes de la Ley_, 1595, fol. 126, _b_. + +Shakespeare, therefore, uses the phrase with perfect understanding, when +he makes Prince Hal say to Bardolph,-- + + "O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen + years ago, and wert _taken with the manner_, + and ever since thou hast blush'd extempore." + 1 _Henry IV_.Act ii, Sc. 4. + +But so Fletcher uses the same phrase, and as correctly, when he makes +Perez say to Estefania, in "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife,"-- + + "How like a sheep-biting rogue, _taken i' the manner_, + And ready for the halter, dost thou look + now!"--Act v. Sc. 4. + +But both Fletcher and Shakespeare, in their use of this phrase, unusual +as it now seems to us, have only exemplified the custom referred to by +our contemporary legal authority,--"And so we _commonly use to saye_, +when wee finde one doing of an unlawfull act, that we tooke him with the +maynour"; though this must doubtless be understood to refer to persons +of a certain degree of education and knowledge of the world. + +It seems, then, that the application of legal phraseology to the +ordinary affairs of life was more common two hundred and fifty years ago +than now; though even now-a-days it is much more generally used in the +rural districts than persons who have not lived in them would suppose. +There law shares with agriculture the function of providing those +phrases of common conversation which, used figuratively at first, and +often with poetic feeling, soon pass into mere thought-saving formulas +of speech, and which in large cities are chiefly drawn from trade +and politics. And if in the use of the law-terms upon which we have +remarked, which are the more especially technical and remote from +the language of unprofessional life among all those which occur in +Shakespeare's works, he was not singular, but, as we have seen, +availed himself only of a knowledge which other contemporary poets and +playwrights possessed, how much more easily might we show that those +commoner legal words and phrases, to remarks upon Shakespeare's use of +which both the books before us (and especially Lord Campbell's) are +mainly devoted, "judgment," "fine," "these presents," "testament," +"attorney," "arbitrator," "fees," "bond," "lease," "pleading," "arrest," +"session," "mortgage," "vouchers," "indentures," "assault," "battery," +"dower," "covenant," "distrain," "bail," "non-suit," etc., etc., +etc.,--words which everybody understands,--are scattered through all the +literature of Shakespeare's time, and, indeed, of all time since there +were courts and suits at law! + +Many of the passages which Lord Campbell cites as evidence of +Shakespeare's "legal acquirements" excite only a smile at the +self-delusion of the critic who could regard them for a moment in that +light. For instance, these lines in that most exquisite song in "Measure +for Measure;"--"Take, oh, take those lips away,"-- + + "But my kisses bring again + _Seals_ of love, but _seal'd_ in vain";-- + +and these from "Venus and Adonis,"-- + + "Pure lips, sweet _seals_ in my soft lips imprinted, + What bargains may I make, still to be _sealing_!"-- + +to which Mr. Rushton adds from "Hamlet,"-- + + "A combination and a form, indeed, + Where every god did seem to set his _seal_." + +Act iii. Sc. 4. + + "Now must your conscience my acquittance + _seal_."--Act iv. Sc. 7. + +And because indentures and deeds and covenants are sealed, these +passages must be accepted as part of the evidence that Shakespeare +narrowly escaped being made Lord High Chancellor of England! It requires +all the learning and the logic of a Lord Chief Justice and a London +barrister to establish a connection between such premises and such a +conclusion. And if Shakespeare's lines smell of law, how strong is the +odor of parchment and red tape in these, from Drayton's Fourth Eclogue +(1605): + + "Kindnesse againe with kindnesse was repay'd, + _And with sweet kisses covenants were sealed_." + +We ask pardon of the reader for the production of contemporary evidence, +that, in Shakespeare's day, a knowledge of the significance and binding +nature of a seal was not confined to him among poets; for surely a man +must be both a lawyer and a Shakespearean commentator to forget that the +use of seals is as old as the art of writing, and, perhaps, older, and +that the practice has furnished a figure of speech to poets from the +time when it was written, that out of the whirlwind Job heard, "It is +turned as clay to the _seal_," and probably from a period yet more +remote. + +And is Lord Campbell really in earnest in the following grave and +precisely expressed opinion? + +"In the next scene, [of "Othello,"] Shakespeare gives us a _very +distinct proof_ that he was acquainted with Admiralty law, as well as +with the procedure of Westminster Hall. Describing the feat of the Moor +in carrying off Desdemona against her father's consent, which might +either make or mar his fortune, according as the act might be sanctioned +or nullified, Iago observes,-- + + "'Faith, he to-night hath hoarded a land carack: + If it prove a _lawful prize_, he's made forever'; + +the trope indicating that _there would be a suit in the High Court of +Admiralty to determine the validity of the capture_"!--p. 91. + +"Why did not his Lordship go farther, and decide, that, in the +figurative use of the term, "land carack," Shakespeare gave us very +distinct proof that he was acquainted with maritime life, and especially +with the carrying-trade between Spain and the West Indies? We +respectfully submit to the court the following passage from Middleton +and Rowley's "Changeling,"--first published in 1653, but written many +years before. Jasperino, seeing a lady, calls out,-- + + "Yonder's another vessel: Ile _board_ her: + if she be _lawfall prize, down goes her topsail."_ + Act i. Sig. B. 2. + +And with it we submit the following points, and ask a decision in our +favor. First, That they, the said Middleton and Rowley, have furnished, +in the use of the phrase "lawful prize," in this passage, very distinct +proof that they were acquainted with Admiralty law. Second, That, in +the use of the other phrases, "board," and especially "down goes her +topsail," they have furnished yet stronger evidence that they had been +sailors on board armed vessels, and that the trope indicates, that, had +not the vessel or lady in question lowered her topsail or top-knot, she +would then and there have been put mercilessly to the sword. + +But what shall we think of the acumen and the judgment of a Chief +Justice, a man of letters, and a man of the world, who brings forward +such passages as the following as part of the evidence bearing upon the +question of Shakespeare's legal acquirements?-- + + "Come; fear not you; _good counsellors lack + no clients._" + _Measure for Measure_. Act i. Sc. 2. + + "One that _before the judgement_ carries poor + souls to hell." + _Comedy of Errors_. Act iv. Sc. 2. + + "Well, Time is the old _Justice_ that examines + all such offenders,--and let Time try." + _As You Like It_. Act iv. Sc. 1. + + "And that old common _arbitrator_, Time." + _Troilus and Cressida_. Act iv. Sc. 5. + + "No cock of mine; you crow too like a _craven_." + _Taming of the Shrew_. Act ii. Sc. 1. + + "Bestial oblivion or some _craven_ scruple." + _Hamlet_. Act iv. Sc. 4. + +By which last line, according to Lord Campbell, (p. 55,) "Shakespeare +shows that he was acquainted with _the law for regulating 'trials by +battle_'"! + +But to proceed with the passages quoted in evidence:-- + + "Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the + skin of an innocent lamb should be made + _parchment_? that parchment, being _scribbled + o'er_, should undo a man? Some say, the bee + stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's _wax_; for I did + but _seal_ once to a thing, and I was never mine + own man since."--2 _Henry VI_. Act vi. Sc. 2. + +Upon citing which, his Lordship exclaims,-- + +"Surely Shakespeare must have been employed to write _deeds_ on +_parchment_ in _courthand_, and to apply the _wax_ to them in the form +of _seals_. One does not understand how he should, on any other theory +of his bringing-up, have been acquainted _with these details_"! + +One does not; but we submit to the court, that, if two were to lay their +heads together after the manner of Sydney Smith's vestrymen, they might +bring it about. + +In aid of his Lordship's further studies, we make the following +suggestion. He doubtless knows that one of the earliest among our small +stock of traditions about Shakespeare is that recorded by Aubrey as +being derived from Stratford authority, that his father was a butcher, +and that "when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he +kill'd a calfe, he wold do it in a high style, and make a speech." +When his Lordship considers this old tradition in connection with the +following passage in one of Shakespeare's earliest plays,-- + + "Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh, + And sees fast by a butcher with an axe, + But will suspect 'twas he that made the + slaughter,"-- + +2 _Henry VI._ Act iii. Sc. 2. + +how can he resist the conclusion, that, although the divine Williams may +not have run with "Forty," it is highly probable that he did kill +for Keyser? Let his Lordship also remember that other old tradition, +mentioned by Rowe, that John Shakespeare was "a considerable dealer +in wool," and that William, upon leaving school, "seems to have given +entirely into that way of living which his father proposed to him"; and +remember, also, this passage from another of Shakespeare's earliest +plays:-- + + "He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, + too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may + call it...He draweth out the _thread of + his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument._" + --_Love's Labor's Lost_. Act v. Sc. 1. + +Is there not a goodly part of the wool-stapler's craft, as well as of +the art of rhetoric, compressed into that one sentence by the hydraulic +power of Shakespeare's genius? Does it not show that he was initiated in +the mysteries of long and short staple before he wrote this, perhaps, +his earliest play? But look again at the following passage, also written +when his memory of his boyish days was freshest, and see the evidence +that _both_ these traditions were well founded:-- + + "So, first, the harmless sheep doth yield _his fleece;_ + And, next, _his throat unto the butcher's knife."_ + +Could these lines have been written by a man who had not been both a +considerable dealer in wool, and a butcher who killed a calf in high +style and made a speech? Who can have a doubt about this matter, when he +appreciates rightly the following passage in "Hamlet," (Act v. Sc. 2,) +and is penetrated with the wisdom of two wise commentators upon it?-- + + 'Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, + When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us + There's a divinity that shapes our ends, + Rough-hew them how we will.' + +Dr. Farmer informs me that these words are merely technical. A wool-man, +butcher, and dealer in _skewers_ lately observed to him that his nephew +(an idle lad) could only _assist_ him in making them;--he could _rough +hew_ them, but I was obliged to shape their ends! To shape the ends of +wool-skewers, i.e., to _point_ them, requires a degree of skill; any one +can _rough-hew_ them. Whoever recollects the profession of Shakespeare's +father will admit that his son might be no stranger to such terms. "I have +frequently seen packages of wool pinn'd up with skewers."--STEEVENS. + +Lucky wool-man, butcher, and dealer in skewers! to furnish at once a +comment upon the great philosophical tragedy and a proof that its author +and you were both of a trade! Fortunate Farmer, to have heard the story! +and most sagacious Steevens, to have penetrated its hidden meaning, +recollecting felicitously that you had seen packages of wool pinn'd up +with skewers! But, O wisest, highest-and-deepest-minded Shakespeare, to +have remembered, as you were propounding, Hamlet-wise, one of the great +unsolvable mysteries of life, the skewers that you, being an idle lad, +could but rough-hew, leaving to your careful father the skill-requiring +task to shape their ends!--ends without which they could not have bound +together the packages of wool with which you loaded the carts that +backed up to the door in Henley Street, or have penetrated the veal +of the calves that you killed in such a high style and with so much +eloquence, and which loaded the tray that you daily bore on your +shoulder to the kitchen-door of New Place, yet unsuspecting that you +were to become its master! + +Yet we would not too strongly insist upon this evidence, that +Shakespeare in his boyhood served both as a butcher's and a +wool-stapler's apprentice; for we venture to think that we have +discovered evidence in his works that their author was a tailor. For, in +the first place, the word "tailor" occurs no less than thirty-five times +in his plays. [The reader is to suppose that we are able to record this +fact by an intimate acquaintance with every line that Shakespeare wrote, +and by a prodigious effort of memory, and not by reference to Mrs. +Clark's Concordance.] "Measures" occurs nearly thrice as often; "shears" +is found no less than six times; "thimble," three times; "goose," no +less than twenty-seven times!--and when we find, that, in all his +thirty-seven plays, the word "cabbage" occurs but once, and then with +the deliberate explanation that it means "worts" and is "good cabbage," +may we not regard such reticence upon this tender point as a touching +confirmation of the truth of our theory? See, too, the comparison which +Shakespeare uses, when he desires to express the service to which +his favorite hero, Prince Hal, will put the manners of his wild +companions:-- + + "So, like gross terms, + The Prince will, in the perfectness of time, + Cast off his followers; and their memory + Shall as a _pattern or a measure_ live + By which his Grace must mete the lives of + others." + + 2 _Henry IV._, Act iv. Sc. 4. + +And in writing one of his earliest plays, Shakespeare's mind seems to +have been still so impressed with memories of his former vocation, that +he made the outraged Valentine, as his severest censure of Proteus, +reproach him with being badly dressed:-- + + "Ruffian, let go that rude, uncivil touch! + Thou friend _of an ill fashion!_" + + Act v. Sc. 4. + +Cleopatra, too, who, we may be sure from her conduct, was addicted to +very "low necks," after Antony's death becomes serious, and declares her +intention to have something "after the high Roman fashion." And what but +a reminiscence of the disgust which a tailor of talent has for mending +is it that breaks out in the Barons' defiant message to King John?-- + + "The King hath dispossess'd himself of us; + We will not line his thin bestained cloak." + + _King John_, Act iv. Sc. 3. + +A memory, too, of the profuse adornment with which he had been called +upon to decorate some very tender youth's or miss's fashionable suit +intrudes itself even in his most thoughtful tragedy:-- + + "The canker galls the infants of the Spring + Too oft before their _buttons_ be disclos'd." + + _Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 3. + +In "Macbeth," desiring to pay the highest compliment to Macduff's +judgment and knowledge, he makes Lennox say,-- + + "He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows + _The fits of the season_."--Act iv. Sc. 2. + +Not the last fall or last spring style, be it observed, but that of the +season, which it is most necessary for the fashionable tailor to know. +In writing the first scene of the "Second Part of Henry IV.," his mind +was evidently crossed by the shade of some over-particular dandy, +whose fastidious nicety as to the set of his garments he had failed to +satisfy; for he makes Northumberland compare himself to a man who, + + "_Impatient of his fit_, breaks like a fire + Out of his keeper's arms." + +And yet we must not rely too much even upon evidence so strong and so +cumulative as this. For it would seem as if Shakespeare must have been +a publisher, and have known the anxiety attendant upon the delay of an +author not in high health to complete a work the first part of which has +been put into the printer's hands. Else, how are we to account for his +feeling use of this beautiful metaphor in "Twelfth Night"? + + "Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive, + If you will lead these graces to the grave, + And _leave the world no copy_." + + Act i. Sc. 5. + +But this part of our subject expands before us, and we must stay our +hand. We merely offer these hints as our modest contribution to the +attempts to decide from phrases used in Shakespeare's works what were +his avocations before he became a playwright, and return to Lord +Campbell and Mr. Rushton. + +When Malone, in 1790, broached his theory, that Shakespeare had been an +attorney's clerk, he cited in support of it twenty-four passages. Mr. +Rushton's pamphlet brings forward ninety-five, more or less; Lord +Campbell's book, one hundred and sixty. But, from what he has seen of +it, the reader will not be surprised at learning that a large number of +the passages cited by his Lordship must be thrown aside, as having no +bearing whatever on the question of Shakespeare's legal acquirements. +They evince no more legal knowledge, no greater familiarity with +legal phraseology, than is apparent in the ordinary conversation of +intelligent people generally, even at this day. Mr. Rushton, more +systematic than his Lordship, has been also more careful; and from the +pages of both we suppose that there might be selected a round hundred +of phrases which could be fairly considered as having been used by +Shakespeare with a consciousness of their original technicality and of +their legal purport. This is not quite in the proportion of three to +each of his thirty-seven plays; and if we reckon his sonnets and poems +according to their lines, (and both Mr. Rushton and Lord Campbell cite +from them,) the proportion falls to considerably less than three. But +Malone's twenty-four instances are of nearly as much value in the +consideration of the question as Lord Campbell's and Mr. Rushton's +hundred; for the latter gentlemen have added little to the strength, +though considerably to the number, of the array on the affirmative side +of the point in dispute; and we have seen, that, of the law-phrases +cited by them from Shakespeare's pages, the most recondite, as well +as the most common and simple, are to be found in the works of the +Chroniclers, whose very language Shakespeare used, and in those of the +playwrights his contemporaries. + +Our new advocates of the old cause, however, quote two passages which, +from the freedom with which law-phrases are scattered through them, it +is worth while to reproduce here. The first is the well-known speech in +the grave-digging scene of "Hamlet":-- + +"_Ham_. There's another: Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? +Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his _cases_, his _tenures_, and +his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave, now, to knock him about +the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his _action of +battery_? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, +with his _statutes_, his _recognizances_, his _fines_, his _double +vouchers_, his _recoveries_: Is this the _fine_ of his _fines_, and the +_recovery_ of his _recoveries_, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? +will his _vouchers_ vouch him no more of his _purchases_, and _double +ones_, too, than the length and breadth of a pair of _indentures_? The +very _conveyances_ of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must +the _inheritor_ himself have no more? ha?"--Act v. Sc. 1. + +The second is the following Sonnet, (No. 46,) not only the language, +but the very fundamental conceit of which, it will be seen, is purely +legal:-- + + "Mine Eye and Heart are at a mortal war + How to divide the conquest of thy sight; + Mine Eye my Heart thy picture's sight would _bar_, + My Heart mine Eye the freedom of that right. + My Heart doth _plead_ that thou in him dost lie + (A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes); + But the _defendant_ doth that _plea_ deny, + And says in him thy fair appearance lies. + To 'cide this title is _impanelled_ + A _quest_ of thoughts, all tenants to the Heart, + And by their _verdict_ is determined + The clear Eye's _moiety_, and the dear Heart's part; + As thus: Mine Eye's due is thine outward part, + And my Heart's right, thine inward love of heart." + +It would seem, indeed, as if passages like these must be received as +evidence that Shakespeare had more familiarity with legal phraseology, +if not a greater knowledge of it, than could have been acquired except +by habitual use in the course of professional occupation. But let us see +if he is peculiar even in this crowding of many law-terms into a single +brief passage. We turn to the very play open at our hand, from which +we have quoted before, (and which, by the way, we have not selected as +exceptional in this regard,) "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage," and +find the following passage in Act V.:-- + + "_Doctor_. Now, Sir, from this your _oath and bond,_ + Faith's pledge and _seal_ of conscience, you have run, + Broken all _contracts_, and _forfeiture_ + Justice hath now in _suit_ against your soul: + Angels are made the _jurors_, who are _witnesses_ + Unto the _oath_ you took; and God himself, + Maker of marriage, He that hath _seal'd the deed_, + As a firm _lease_ unto you during life, + _Sits now as Judge_ of your transgression: + The world _informs against you_ with this voice.-- + If such sins reign, what mortals can rejoice? + _Scarborow_. What then ensues to me? + _Doctor_. A heavy _doom_, whose _execution's_ + Now _served upon_ your conscience," etc. + p. 91, D.O.P., Ed. 1825. + +Indeed, the hunting of a metaphor or a conceit into the ground is a +fault characteristic of Elizabethan literature, and one from which +Shakespeare's boldness, no less than his genius, was required to save +him; and we have seen already how common was the figurative use of +law-phrases among the poets and dramatists of his period. Hamlet's +speech and the Forty-sixth Sonnet cannot, therefore, be accepted as +evidence of his attorneyship, except in so far as they and like passages +may be regarded as giving some support to the opinion that Shakespeare +was but one of many in his time who abandoned law for letters. + +For we object not so much to the conclusion at which Lord Campbell +arrives as to his mode of arriving at it. His method of investigation, +which is no method at all, but the mere noting of passages in the order +in which he found them in looking through Shakespeare's works, is the +rudest and least intelligent that could have been adopted; and his +inference, that, because Shakespeare makes Jack Cade lament that the +skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment, and affirm that it is +not the bee, but the bee's wax, that stings, therefore he must have been +employed to write deeds on parchment and append wax to them in the form +of seals, is a fair specimen both of the acuteness and the logic which +his Lordship displays in this his latest effort to unite Law and +Literature. + +There are, however, very considerable grounds for the opinion that +Shakespeare had more than a layman's acquaintance with the technical +language of the law. For it must be admitted, in the first place, that +he exhibits a remarkable acquaintance with it. That other playwrights +and poets of his day manifest a like familiarity (as we have seen +they do) precludes us, indeed, from regarding the mere occurrence of +law-terms in his works as indications of early training proper to him +alone. But they who, on the strength of the not unfrequent occurrence +of legal phrases in many of the plays and much of the poetry of the +Elizabethan period, would maintain that Shakespeare's use of them +furnishes no basis for the opinion that he acquired his knowledge of +them professionally, must also assume and support the position, that, in +the case of contemporary dramatists and poets, this use of the technical +language of conveyancing and pleading also indicates no more than an +ordinary acquaintance with it, and that, in comparing his works with +theirs in this regard, we may assume the latter to have been produced by +men who had no professional acquaintance with the law; because, if +they had such professional acquaintance with legal phraseology, its +appearance in their works as well as in Shakespeare's would manifestly +strengthen rather than invalidate the conclusion, that his familiarity +with it was acquired as they acquired theirs. This position is, to +say the least, a very difficult one to maintain, and one which any +considerate student of Elizabethan literature would be very unwilling +to assume. For our ignorance of the personal life of Shakespeare is +remarkable only because he was Shakespeare; and we know little, if any, +more about the greater number of his literary contemporaries than we do +about him. It cannot even be safely presumed, for instance, that George +Wilkins, the author of the law-besprinkled passage just above quoted +from the "Miseries of Enforced Marriage," was not a practising attorney +or barrister before or even at the time when he wrote that play. On the +contrary, it is extremely probable, nay, quite certain, that he and many +other dramatic authors of the period when he flourished, (1600-1620,) +and of the whole Elizabethan period, (1575-1625,) were nestling +attorneys or barristers before they became full-fledged dramatists. + +We are not without contemporary evidence upon this point. Thomas Nash, +friend to Robert Greene, a playwright, poet, and novelist, whose works +were in vogue just before Shakespeare wrote, in an "Epistle to the +Gentlemen Students of the Two Universities," with which, according to +the fashion of the time, he introduced Greene's "Menaphon" (1587)[D] to +the reader, has the following paragraph:-- + +[Footnote D: Lord Campbell gives the date 1589; but see Mr. Dyce's +indisputable authority. Greene's Works. Vol. I., pp. xxxvii. and ciii.] + +"I will turn my back to my first text of studies of delight, and talk +a little in friendship with a few of our trivial translators. It is a +common practice, now-a-days, amongst a sort of shifting companions +that run through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of +Noverint, whereto they were born, and busy themselves with the endeavors +of art, that could scarcely Latinize their neck-verse, if they should +have need; yet English Seneca, read by candlelight, yields many good +sentences, as, _Blood is a beggar_, and so forth; and if you intreat +him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets,--I +should say, handfuls of tragical speeches. But, oh grief! _Tempus edax +rerum_,--what is that will last always? The sea, exhaled by drops, +will, in continuance, be dry; and Seneca, let blood line by line and +page by page, at length must needs die to our stage." + +It has most unaccountably been assumed that this passage refers to +Shakespeare;[E] and it is even so cited by Lord Campbell himself,--to +our surprise, when we remember his professional training and experience +as a sifter of evidence. But, as far as regards its reference to a +leaving of law for literature, it is clearly of general application. +Nash says, "It is a _common practice_, now-a-days, amongst a sort of +shifting companions, etc., to leave the trade of _Noverint_, whereto +_they_ were born, and busy _themselves,"_ etc. By the trade of +_Noverint_ he meant that of an attorney. The term was not uncommonly +applied to members of that profession, because of the phrase, _Noverint +universi per presentes_, (Know all men by these presents,) with which +deeds, bonds, and many other legal instruments then began. And Nash's +testimony accords with what we know of the social and literary history +of the age. There was no regular army in Elizabeth's time; and the +younger sons of gentlemen and well-to-do yeomen, who received from their +fathers little more than an education and a very small allowance, and +who did not become either military or maritime adventurers, opening +their oyster with a sword, entered the Church or the profession of the +law in its higher or lower grade; and as at that period there was much +more demand for lawyers and much less for clergymen than there is now, +and the Church had ceased to be a stepping-stone to political power and +patronage, while the law had become more than ever before an avenue to +fame, to fortune, and to rank, by far the greater number of these young +gentlemen aspired to the woolsack. But then, as now, the early years of +professional life were seasons of sharp trial and bitter disappointment. +Necessity pressed sorely or pleasure wooed resistlessly, and the slender +purse wasted rapidly away while the young attorney or barrister awaited +the employment that did not come. He knew then, as now he knows, "the +rich man's scorn, the proud man's contumely"; nay, he felt, as now he +sometimes feels, the tooth of hunger gnawing through the principles and +firm resolves that partition a life of honor and self-respect from one +darkened by conscious loss of rectitude, if not by open shame. Happy,-- +yet, perhaps, oh, unhappy,--he who now in such a strait can wield the +pen of a ready writer!--for the press, perchance, may afford him a +support which, though temporary and precarious, will hold him up until +he can stand upon more stable ground. But in the reigns of Good Queen +Bess and Gentle Jamie there was no press. There was, however, an +incessant demand for new plays. Play-going was the chief intellectual +recreation of that day for all classes, high and low. It filled the +place of our newspapers, our books, our lectures, our concerts, our +picture-seeing, and, in a great measure, of our social gatherings and +amusements, of whatever nature. It is hardly extravagant to say, that +there were then more new plays produced in London in a month than +there are now in Great Britain and the United States in a year. To +play-writing, then, the needy young attorney or barrister possessed +of literary talent turned his eyes at that day, as he does now to +journalism; and it is almost beyond a doubt, that, of the multitudinous +plays of that period which have survived and the thousands which have +perished, a large proportion were produced by the younger sons of +country gentlemen, who, after taking their degrees at Oxford or +Cambridge, or breaking away from those classic bounds ungraduated, +entered the Inns of Court, according to the custom of their day and +their condition. They wrote plays in Latin, and even in English, for +themselves to act; and they got the professional players to act popular +plays for them on festal days. What more natural, then, than that those +who had the ability and the need should seek to recruit their slender +means by supplying the constant demand for new plays? and how inevitable +that some of them, having been successful in their dramatic efforts, +should give themselves up to play-writing! As do the great, so will the +small. What the Inns-of-Court man did, the attorney would try to do. The +players, though they loved the patronage of a lord, were very democratic +in the matter of play-making. If a play filled the house, they did not +trouble themselves about the social or professional rank of him who +wrote it; and thus came about that "common practice" for "shifting +companions" to "leave the trade of Noverint" and "busy themselves with +the endeavors of art"; and hence it is that the plays of the period of +which we are writing have, in many passages, so strong a tinge of law. + +[Footnote E: It seems clear, on the contrary, that Nash's object was to +sneer at Jasper Heywood, Alexander Nevil, John Studley, Thomas Nuce, and +Thomas Newton,--one or more of them,--whose _Seneca, his Tenne Tragedies +translated into Englysh_, was published in 1581. It is a very +grievous performance; and Shakespeare, who had read it thoroughly, made +sport of it in _A Midsummer Night's Dream._] + +One reason for the regarding of Nash's sneer as especially directed +against Shakespeare is the occurrence in it of the phrase, "whole +_Hamlets_,--I should say, handfuls of tragical speeches," which has +been looked upon as an allusion to Shakespeare's great tragedy. But the +earliest edition of "Hamlet" known was published in 1603, and even this +is an imperfect and surreptitiously obtained copy of an early sketch of +the play. That Shakespeare had written this tragedy in 1586, when he was +but twenty-two years old, is improbable to the verge of impossibility; +and Nash's allusion, if, indeed, he meant a punning sneer at a play, +(which is not certain.) was, doubtless, to an old lost version of the +Danish tragedy upon which Shakespeare built his "Hamlet." + +We have, then, direct contemporary testimony, that, at the period of +Shakespeare's entrance upon London life, it was a common practice for +those lawyers whom want of success or an unstable disposition impelled +to a change in their avocation to devote themselves to writing or +translating plays; and this statement is not only sustained by all that +we know of the customs of the time to which it refers, but is strongly +confirmed by the notably frequent occurrence of legal phrases in the +dramatic literature of that age. + +But the question, then, arises,--and it is one which, under the +circumstances, must be answered,--To what must we attribute the fact, +that, of all the plays that have come down to us, written between 1580 +and 1620, Shakespeare's are most noteworthy in this respect? For it is +true, that, among all the dramatic writers of that period, whose +works have survived, not one uses the phraseology of the law with the +frequency, the freedom, and the correctness of Shakespeare. Beaumont, +for instance, was a younger son of a Judge of the Common Pleas, and, +following the common routine that we have noticed, after leaving the +University, became an Inns-of-Court man, but soon abandoned law for +literature; his friend and associate, Fletcher, was the son of a bishop, +but had an uncle who was a lawyer and a diplomatist, and is himself +believed to have been of the Inns of Court. Rich gleanings of law-terms +might, therefore, be expected from the plays written by these +dramatists; yet it may safely be asserted, that from Shakespeare's +thirty-seven plays at least twice as many passages marked by legal +phraseology might be produced, as from the fifty-four written by +Beaumont and Fletcher, together or alone! a fact the great significance +of which is heightened by another,--that it is only the vocabulary of +the law to the use of which Shakespeare exhibits this proclivity. He +avails himself, it is true, of the peculiar language of the physician, +the divine, the husbandman, the soldier, and the sailor; but he uses +these only on very rare occasions, by way of description, comparison, +or illustration, when something in the scene or the subject in hand +suggests them. But the technical language of the law runs from his +pen as part of his vocabulary and parcel of his thought. The word +"purchase," for instance, which in ordinary use means to acquire by +giving value, in law applies to all legal modes of obtaining property, +except inheritance of descent. And the word in this peculiar and most +technical sense occurs five times in Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, +but only in a single passage (if our memory and Mr. Dyce's notes serve +us) in the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. Equal, or greater, +is the comparative frequency with which Shakespeare uses other legal +phrases; and much wider is the disparity, in this regard, between him +and the other dramatic writers of his whole period,--Marlowe, Greene, +Peele, Kyd, Lilly, Chapman, Jonson, Middleton, Marston, Ford, Webster, +Massinger, and the undistinguished crowd. + +These facts dispose in great measure of the plausible suggestion, +which has been made,--that, as the courts of law in Shakespeare's time +occupied public attention much more than they do at present, they having +then regulated "the season," as the sittings of Parliament (not then +frequent or stated) do now,[F] they would naturally be frequented by the +restless, inquiring spirits of the time, Shakespeare among them, and +that there he and his fellow-dramatists picked up the law-phrases which +they wove into their plays and poems. But if this view of the case were +the correct one, we should not find that disparity in the use of legal +phrases which we have just remarked. Shakespeare's genius would manifest +itself in the superior effect with which he used knowledge acquired in +this manner; but his _genius_ would not have led him to choose the +dry and affected phraseology of the law as the vehicle of his flowing +thought, and to use it so much oftener than any other of the numerous +dramatists of his time, to all of whom the courts were as open as to +him. And the suggestion which we are now considering fails in two other +most important respects. For we do not find either that Shakespeare's +use of legal phrases increased with his opportunities of frequenting +the courts of law, or that the law-phrases, his use of which is most +noteworthy and of most importance in the consideration of the question +before us, are those which he would have heard oftenest in the course of +the ordinary business of the courts in his day. To look at the latter +point first,--the law-terms used by Shakespeare are generally not those +which he would have heard in ordinary trials at _nisi prius_ or before +the King's Bench, but such as refer to the tenure or transfer of real +property, "fine and recovery," "statutes," "purchase," "indenture," +"tenure," "double voucher," "fee simple," "fee farm," "remainder," +"reversion," "dower," "forfeiture," etc., etc.; and it is important to +remember that suits about the title to real estate are very much rarer +in England than they are with us, and in England were very much rarer in +Shakespeare's time than they are now. Here we buy and sell houses and +lands almost as we trade in corn and cotton; but in England the transfer +of the title of a piece of real estate of any consequence is a serious +and comparatively rare occurrence, that makes great work for attorneys +and conveyancing counsel; and two hundred and fifty years ago the +facilities in this respect were very much less than they are now. +Shakespeare could hardly have picked up his conveyancer's jargon by +hanging round the courts of law; and we find,--to return to the first +objection,--that, in his early plays, written just after he arrived in +London, he uses this peculiar phraseology just as freely and with +as exact a knowledge as he displayed in after years, when (on the +supposition in question) he must have become much more familiar with it. +Shakespeare's earliest work that has reached us is, doubtless, to be +found in "King Henry the Sixth," "The Comedy of Errors," and "Love's +Labor's Lost." In the very earliest form of Part II. of the first-named +play, ("The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two Houses of York +and Lancaster," to which Shakespeare was doubtless a contributor, the +part of Cade being among his contributions,) we find him making Cade +declare, (Act iv. Sc. 7,) "Men shall hold of me _in capite_; and we +charge and command that wives be _as free as heart can wish or tongue +can tell_." Both the phrases that we have Italicized express tenures, +and very uncommon tenures of land. In the "Comedy of Errors," when +Dromio of Syracuse says, "There's no time for a man to recover his hair +that grows bald by nature," [Hear, O Rowland! and give ear, O Phalon!] +his master replies, "May he not do it by _fine and recovery?_" Fine and +recovery was a process by which, through a fictitious suit, a transfer +was made of the title in an entailed estate. In "Love's Labor's Lost," +almost without a doubt the first comedy that Shakespeare wrote, on +Boyet's offering to kiss Maria, (Act ii. Sc. 1,) she declines the +salute, and says, "My lips are no common, though several they be." This +passage--an important one for his purpose--Lord Campbell has passed by, +as he has some others of nearly equal consequence. Maria's allusion is +plainly to tenancy in common by several (i.e., divided, distinct) title. +(See Coke upon Littleton, Lib. iii. Cap. iv. Sec. 292.) She means, that +her lips are several as being two, and (as she says in the next line) +as belonging in common to her fortunes and herself,--yet they were no +common pasture. + +[Footnote F: Falstaff, for instance, speaks of "the wearing out of six +fashions, which is four terms or two actions."] + +Here, then, is Shakespeare using the technical language of conveyancers +in his earliest works, and before he had had much opportunity to +haunt the courts of law in London, even could he have made such legal +acquirements in those schools. We find, too, that he uses law-terms in +general with frequency notably greater--in an excess of three or four +to one--than any of the other playwrights of his day, when so many +playwrights were or had been Noverints or of the Inns of Court; that +this excess is not observable with regard to his use of the vocabulary +peculiar to any other occupation or profession, even that of the actor, +which we know that he practised for many years; but that, on the +contrary, although he uses other technical language correctly, he avails +himself of that of any single art of occupation with great rarity, +and only upon special occasions. Lord Campbell remarks, as to the +correctness with which Shakespeare uses legal phrases,--and this is a +point upon which his Lordship speaks with authority,--that he is amazed +"by the accuracy and propriety with which they are introduced," and in +another place adds, that Shakespeare "uniformly lays down good law"; and +it is not necessary to be a Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench to know +that his Lordship is fully justified in assuring us that "there is +nothing [of the kind (?)] so dangerous as for one not of the craft to +tamper with our free-masonry." Remembering, then, that genius, though +it reveals general and even particular truths, and facilitates all +acquirement, does not impart facts or the knowledge of technical terms, +in what manner can we answer or set aside the question that we have +partly stated before,--How did it happen, that, in an age when it was +a common practice for young attorneys and barristers to leave their +profession and take to writing plays and poems, one playwright left upon +his works a stronger, clearer, sharper legal stamp than we can detect +upon those of any other, and that he used the very peculiar and, to a +layman, incomprehensible language of the law of real property, as it +then existed, in his very earliest plays, written soon after he, a raw, +rustic youth, bred in a retired village, arrived in London? How did +it happen that this playwright fell into the use of that technical +phraseology, the proper employment of which, more than any other, +demands special training, and that he availed himself of it with +apparent unconsciousness, not only so much oftener than any of his +contemporaries, but with such exact knowledge, that one who has passed +a long life in the professional employment of it, speaking as it +were officially from the eminent position which he has won,--Lord +Campbell,--declares, that, + +"While novelists and dramatists are constantly making mistakes as to the +law of marriage, of wills, and of inheritance, to Shakespeare's law, +lavishly as he propounds it, there can neither be demurrer, nor bill of +exceptions, nor writ of error"? + +Must we believe, that the man, who, among all the lawyer-playwrights of +his day, showed,--not, be it noticed, (as we are at present regarding +his works,) the profoundest knowledge of the great principles of law and +equity, although he did that too,--but the most complete mastery of +the technical phrases, the jargon, of the law and of its most abstruse +branch,--that relating to real estate,--and who used it very much the +oftenest of them all, and with an air of as entire unconsciousness as +if it were a part of the language of his daily life, making no mistakes +that can be detected by a learned professional critic,--must we believe +that this man was distinguished among those play-writing lawyers, not +only by his genius, but his _lack_ of particular acquaintance with the +law? Or shall we rather believe that the son of the High Bailiff of +Stratford, whose father was well-to-do in the world, and who was a +somewhat clever lad and ambitious withal, was allowed to commence his +studies for a profession for which his cleverness fitted him and by +which he might reasonably hope to rise at least to moderate wealth and +distinction, and that he continued these studies until his father's +loss of property, aided, perhaps, by some of those acts of youthful +indiscretion which clever lads as well as dull ones sometimes will +commit, threw him upon his own resources,--and that then, having +townsmen, perhaps fellow-students and playfellows, among the actors in +London, and having used his pen, as we may be sure he had, for other +purposes than engrossing and drawing precedents, he, like so many others +of his time, left his trade of Noverint and went up to the metropolis to +busy himself with endeavors of art? One of these conclusions is in the +face of reason, probability, and fact; the other in accordance with them +all. + + * * * * * + +But of how little real importance is it to establish the bare fact, that +Shakespeare was an attorney's clerk before he was an actor! Suppose +it proved, beyond a doubt,--what have we learned? Nothing peculiar to +Shakespeare; but merely what was equally true of thousands of other +young men, his contemporaries, and hundreds of thousands, if not +millions, of those of antecedent and succeeding generations. It has a +naked material relation to the other fact, that he uses legal phrases +oftener than any other dramatist or poet; but with his plastic power +over those grotesque and rugged modes of speech it has nought to do +whatever. That was his inborn mastery. Legal phrases did nothing for +him; but he much for them. Chance cast their uncouth forms around him, +and the golden overflow from the furnace of his glowing thought fell +upon them, glorifying and enshielding them forever. It would have been +the same with the lumber of any other craft; it was the same with that +of many others,--the difference being only of quantity, and not of kind. +How, then, would the certainty that he had been bred to the law help +us to the knowledge of Shakespeare's life, of what he did for himself, +thought for himself, how he joyed, how he suffered, what he was? Would +it help us to know what the Stratford boys thought of him and felt +toward him who was to write "Lear" and "Hamlet," or how the men of +London regarded him who was a-writing them? Not a whit. To prove the +fact would merely satisfy sheer aimless, fruitless curiosity; and it is +a source of some reasonable satisfaction to know that the very +people who would be most interested in the perusal of a biography of +Shakespeare made up of the relation of such facts are they who have +least right to know anything about him. Of the hundreds of thousands +of people who giggled through their senseless hour at the "American +Cousin,"--a play which, in language, in action, in character, presents +no semblance to human life or human creatures, as they are found on any +spot under the canopy, and which seems to have been written on the model +of the Interlude of "Pyramus and Thisbe," "for, in all the play, there +is not one word apt, one player fitted,"--of the people to whom this +play owed its monstrous success, and who, for that very reason, it is +safe to say, think Shakespeare a bore on the stage and off it, a goodly +number would eagerly buy and read a book that told them when he went to +bed and what he had for breakfast, and would pay a ready five-cent +piece for a picture of him as he appeared in the attorney's office, to +preserve as a companion to the equally veritable "portrait of the Hon. +Daniel E. Sickles, as he appeared in prison." Nay, it must be confessed, +that there are some Shakespearean enthusiasts ever dabbling and gabbling +about what they call Shakespeariana, who would give more for the pen +with which he engrossed a deed or wrote "Hamlet," than for the ability +to understand, better than they do or ever can, what he meant by that +mysterious tragedy. Biography has its charms and its uses; but it is not +by what we know of their bare external facts that + + "Lives of great men all remind us + We can make our lives sublime, + And departing leave behind us + Footprints on the sands of time." + +What the readers of Shakespeare, who are worthy to know aught of him, +long to know, would have been the same, had he been bred lawyer, +physician, soldier, or sailor. It is of his real life, not of its mere +accidents, that they crave a knowledge; and of that life, it is to be +feared, they will remain forever ignorant, unless he himself has written +it. + + + + +THE MINISTER'S WOOING. + +[Continued.] + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +We suppose the heroine of a novel, among other privileges and +immunities, has a prescriptive right to her own private boudoir, where, +as a French writer has it, "she appears like a lovely picture in its +frame." + +Well, our little Mary is not without this luxury, and to its sacred +precincts we will give you this morning a ticket of admission. Know, +then, that the garret of this gambrel-roofed cottage had a projecting +window on the seaward side, which opened into an immensely large old +apple-tree, and was a look-out as leafy and secluded as a robin's nest. + +Garrets are delicious places in any case, for people of thoughtful, +imaginative temperament. Who has not loved a garret in the twilight days +of childhood, with its endless stores of quaint, cast-off, suggestive +antiquity,--old worm-eaten chests,--rickety chairs,--boxes and casks +full of odd comminglings, out of which, with tiny, childish hands, +we fished wonderful hoards of fairy treasure? What peep-holes, and +hiding-places, and undiscoverable retreats we made to ourselves,--where +we sat rejoicing in our security, and bidding defiance to the vague, +distant cry which summoned us to school, or to some unsavory every-day +task! How deliciously the rain came pattering on the roof over our head, +or the red twilight streamed in at the window, while we sat snugly +ensconced over the delirious pages of some romance, which careful aunts +had packed away at the bottom of all things, to be sure we should never +read it! If you have anything, beloved friends, which you wish your +Charley or your Susie to be sure and read, pack it mysteriously away at +the bottom of a trunk of stimulating rubbish, in the darkest corner of +your garret;--in that case, if the book be at all readable, one that by +any possible chance can make its way into a young mind, you may be sure +that it will not only be read, but remembered to the longest day they +have to live. + +Mrs. Katy Scudder's garret was not an exception to the general rule. +Those quaint little people who touch with so airy a grace all the lights +and shadows of great beams, bare rafters, and unplastered walls, had not +failed in their work there. Was there not there a grand easy-chair of +stamped-leather, minus two of its hinder legs, which had genealogical +associations through the Wilcoxes with the Vernons and through the +Vernons quite across the water with Old England? and was there not a +dusky picture, in an old tarnished frame, of a woman of whose tragic end +strange stories were whispered,--one of the sufferers in the time when +witches were unceremoniously helped out of the world, instead of being, +as now-a-days, helped to make their fortune in it by table-turning? + +Yes, there were all these things, and many more which we will not stay +to recount, but bring you to the boudoir which Mary has constructed for +herself around the dormer-window which looks into the whispering old +apple-tree. + +The inclosure was formed by blankets and bed-spreads, which, by reason +of their antiquity, had been pensioned off to an undisturbed old age in +the garret,--not _common_ blankets or bed-spreads, either,--bought, +as you buy yours, out of a shop,--spun or woven by machinery, without +individuality or history. Every one of these curtains had its story. The +one on the right, nearest the window, and already falling into holes, +is a Chinese linen, and even now displays unfaded, quaint patterns of +sleepy-looking Chinamen, in conical hats, standing on the leaves of most +singular herbage, and with hands forever raised in act to strike bells, +which never are struck and never will be till the end of time. These, +Mrs. Katy Scudder had often instructed Mary, were brought from the +Indies by her great-great-grandfather, and were her grandmother's +wedding-curtains,--the grandmother who had blue eyes like hers and was +just about her height. + +The next spread was spun and woven by Mrs. Katy's beloved Aunt +Eunice,--a mythical personage, of whom Mary gathered vague accounts that +she was disappointed in love, and that this very article was part of a +bridal outfit, prepared in vain, against the return of one from sea, who +never came back,--and she heard of how she sat wearily and patiently at +her work, this poor Aunt Eunice, month after month, starting every time +she heard the gate shut, every time she heard the tramp of a horse's +hoof, every time she heard the news of a sail in sight,--her color, +meanwhile, fading and fading as life and hope bled away at an inward +wound,--till at last she found comfort and reunion beyond the veil. + +Next to this was a bed-quilt pieced in tiny blocks, none of them bigger +than a sixpence, containing, as Mrs. Katy said, pieces of the gowns of +all her grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and female relatives for years +back,--and mated to it was one of the blankets which had served Mrs. +Scudder's uncle in his bivouac at Valley Forge, when the American +soldiers went on the snows with bleeding feet, and had scarce anything +for daily bread except a morning message of patriotism and hope from +George Washington. + +Such were the memories woven into the tapestry of our little boudoir. +Within, fronting the window, stands the large spinning-wheel, one end +adorned with a snowy pile of fleecy rolls,--and beside it, a reel and a +basket of skeins of yarn,--and open, with its face down on the beam of +the wheel, lay always a book, with which the intervals of work were +beguiled. + +The dusky picture of which we have spoken hung against the rough wall in +one place, and in another appeared an old engraved head of one of the +Madonnas of Leonardo da Vinci, a picture which to Mary had a mysterious +interest, from the fact of its having been cast on shore after a furious +storm, and found like a waif lying in the sea-weed; and Mrs. Marvyn, who +had deciphered the signature, had not ceased exploring till she found +for her, in an Encyclopaedia, a life of that wonderful man, whose +greatness enlarges our ideas of what is possible to humanity,--and +Mary, pondering thereon, felt the Sea-worn picture as a constant vague +inspiration. + +Here our heroine spun for hours and hours,--with intervals, when, +crouched on a low seat in the window, she pored over her book, and then, +returning again to her work, thought of what she had read to the lulling +burr of the sounding wheel. + +By chance a robin had built its nest so that from her retreat she could +see the five little blue eggs, whenever the patient brooding mother +left them for a moment uncovered. And sometimes, as she sat in dreamy +reverie, resting her small, round arms on the window-sill, she fancied +that the little feathered watcher gave her familiar nods and winks of a +confidential nature,--cocking the small head first to one side and then +to the other, to get a better view of her gentle human neighbor. + +I dare say it seems to you, reader, that we have travelled, in our +story, over a long space of time, because we have talked so much and +introduced so many personages and reflections; but, in fact, it is only +Wednesday week since James sailed, and the eggs which were brooded when +he went are still unhatched in the nest, and the apple-tree has changed +only in having now a majority of white blossoms over the pink buds. + +This one week has been a critical one to our Mary;--in it, she has made +the great discovery, that she loves; and she has made her first step +into the gay world; and now she comes back to her retirement to think +the whole over by herself. It seems a dream to her, that she who sits +there now reeling yarn in her stuff petticoat and white short-gown is +the same who took the arm of Colonel Burr amid the blaze of wax-lights +and the sweep of silks and rustle of plumes. She wonders dreamily as +she remembers the dark, lovely face of the foreign Madame, so brilliant +under its powdered hair and flashing gems,--the sweet, foreign accents +of the voice,--the tiny, jewelled fan, with its glancing pictures and +sparkling tassels, whence exhaled vague and floating perfumes; then she +hears again that manly voice, softened to tones so seductive, and sees +those fine eyes with the tears in them, and wonders within herself that +_he_ could have kissed her hand with such veneration, as if she had been +a throned queen. + +But here the sound of busy, pattering footsteps is heard on the old, +creaking staircase, and soon the bows of Miss Prissy's bonnet part the +folds of the boudoir drapery, and her merry, May-day face looks in. + +"Well, really, Mary, how do you do, to be sure? You wonder to see me, +don't you? but I thought I must just run in, a minute, on my way up to +Miss Marvyn's. I promised her at least a half-a-day, though I didn't see +how I was to spare it,--for I tell Miss Wilcox I just run and run till +it does seem as if my feet would drop off; but I thought I must just +step in to say, that I, for my part, _do admire_ the Doctor more than +ever, and I was telling your mother we mus'n't mind too much what people +say. I 'most made Miss Wilcox angry, standing up for him; but I put it +right to her, and says I, 'Miss Wilcox, you know folks _must_ speak +what's on their mind,--in particular, ministers must; and you know, Miss +Wilcox,' I says, 'that the Doctor _is_ a good man, and lives up to his +teaching, if anybody in this world does, and gives away every dollar he +can lay hands on to those poor negroes, and works over 'em and teaches +'em as if they were his brothers'; and says I, 'Miss Wilcox, you know I +don't spare myself, night nor day, trying to please you and do your work +to give satisfaction; but when it comes to my conscience,' says I, 'Miss +Wilcox, you know I always must speak out, and if it was the last word I +had to say on my dying bed, I'd say that I think the Doctor is right.' +Why! what things he told about the slave-ships, and packing those poor +creatures so that they couldn't move nor breathe!--why, I declare, every +time I turned over and stretched in bed, I thought of it;--and says I, +'Miss Wilcox, I do believe that the judgments of God will come down on +us, if something a'n't done, and I shall always stand by the Doctor,' +says I;--and, if you'll believe me, just then I turned round and saw +the General; and the General, he just haw-hawed right out, and says he, +'Good for you, Miss Prissy! that's real grit,' says he, 'and I like you +better for it.'--Laws," added Miss Prissy, reflectively, "I sha'n't lose +by it, for Miss Wilcox knows she never can get anybody to do the work +for her that I will." + +"Do you think," said Mary, "that there are a great many made angry?" + +"Why, bless your heart, child, haven't you heard?--Why, there never was +such a talk in all Newport. Why, you know Mr. Simeon Brown is gone clear +off to Dr. Stiles; and Miss Brown, I was making up her plum-colored +satin o' Monday, and you ought to 'a' heard her talk. But, I tell you, I +fought her. She used to talk to me," said Miss Prissy, sinking her voice +to a mysterious whisper, "'cause I never could come to it to say that I +was willin' to be lost, if it was for the glory of God; and she always +told me folks could just bring their minds right up to anything they +knew they must; and I just got the tables turned on her, for they talked +and abused the Doctor till they fairly wore me out, and says I, 'Well, +Miss Brown, I'll give in, that you and Mr. Brown _do_ act up to +your principles; you certainly _act_ as if you were willing to be +damned';--and so do all those folks who will live on the blood and +groans of the poor Africans, as the Doctor said; and I should think, by +the way Newport people are making their money, that they were all pretty +willing to go that way,--though, whether it's for the glory of God, or +not, I'm doubting.--But you see, Mary," said Miss Prissy, sinking her +voice again to a solemn whisper, "I never was _clear_ on that point; it +always did seem to me a dreadful high place to come to, and it didn't +seem to be given to me; but I thought, perhaps, if it _was_ necessary, +it would be given, you know,--for the Lord always has been so good to +me that I've faith to believe that, and so I just say, 'The Lord is my +shepherd, I shall not want'";--and Miss Prissy hastily whisked a little +drop out of her blue eye with her handkerchief. + +At this moment, Mrs. Scudder came into the boudoir with a face +expressive of some anxiety. + +"I suppose Miss Prissy has told you," she said, "the news about the +Browns. That'll make a great falling off in the Doctor's salary; and I +feel for him, because I know it will come hard to him not to be able to +help and do, especially for these poor negroes, just when he will. But +then we must put everything on the most economical scale we can, and +just try, all of us, to make it up to him. I was speaking to Cousin +Zebedee about it, when he was down here, on Monday, and he is all +clear;--he has made out free papers for Candace and Cato and Dinah, and +they couldn't, one of 'em, be hired to leave him; and he says, from what +he's seen already, he has no doubt but they'll do enough more to pay for +their wages." + +"Well," said Miss Prissy, "I haven't got anybody to care for but myself. +I was telling sister Elizabeth, one time, (she's married and got four +children,) that I could take a storm a good deal easier than she could, +'cause I hadn't near so many sails to pull down; and now, you just look +to me for the Doctor's shirts, 'cause, after this, they shall all come +in ready to put on, if I have to sit up till morning. And I hope, Miss +Scudder, you can trust me to make them; for if I do say it myself, +I a'n't afraid to do fine stitching 'longside of anybody,--and +hemstitching ruffles, too; and I haven't shown you yet that French +stitch I learned of the nuns;--but you just set your heart at rest about +the Doctor's shirts. I always thought," continued Miss Prissy, laughing, +"that I should have made a famous hand about getting up that tabernacle +in the wilderness, with the blue and the purple and fine-twined linen; +it's one of my favorite passages, that is;--different things, you know, +are useful to different people." + +"Well," said Mrs. Scudder, "I see that it's our call to be a remnant +small and despised, but I hope we sha'n't shrink from it. I thought, +when I saw all those fashionable people go out Sunday, tossing their +heads and looking so scornful, that I hoped grace would be given me to +be faithful." + +"And what does the Doctor say?" said Miss Prissy. + +"He hasn't said a word; his mind seems to be very much lifted above all +these things." + +"La, yes," said Miss Prissy, "that's one comfort; he'll never know where +his shirts come from; and besides that, Miss Scudder," she said, sinking +her voice to a whisper, "as you know, I haven't any children to provide +for,--though I was telling Elizabeth t'other day, when I was making up +frocks for her children, that I believed old maids, first and last, did +more providing for children than married women; but still I do contrive +to slip away a pound-note, now and then, in my little old silver teapot +that was given to me when they settled old Mrs. Simpson's property, (I +nursed her all through her last sickness, and laid her out with my own +hands,) and, as I was saying, if ever the Doctor should want money, you +just let me know." + +"Thank you, Miss Prissy," said Mrs. Scudder; "we all know where your +heart is." + +"And now," added Miss Prissy, "what do you suppose they say? Why, they +say Colonel Burr is struck dead in love with our Mary; and you know his +wife's dead, and he's a widower; and they do say that he'll get to be +the next President. Sakes alive! Well, Mary must be careful, if she +don't want to be carried off; for they do say that there can't any woman +resist him, that sees enough of him. Why, there's that poor French +woman, Madame----what do you call her, that's staying with the +Vernons?--they say she's over head and ears in love with him." + +"But she's a married woman," said Mary; "it can't be possible!" + +Mrs. Scudder looked reprovingly at Miss Prissy, and for a few moments +there was great shaking of heads and a whispered conference between +the two ladies, ending in Miss Prissy's going off, saying, as she went +down-stairs,-- + +"Well, if women will do so, I, for my part, can't blame the men." + +In a few moments Miss Prissy rushed back as much discomposed as a +clucking hen who has seen a hawk. + +"Well, Miss Scudder, what do you think? Here's Colonel Burr come to call +on the ladies!" + +Mrs. Scudder's first movement, in common with all middle-aged +gentlewomen, was to put her hand to her head and reflect that she had +not on her best cap; and Mary looked down at her dimpled hands, which +were blue from the contact with mixed yarn she had just been spinning. + +"Now I'll tell you what," said Miss Prissy,--"wasn't it lucky you had me +here? for I first saw him coming in at the gate, and I whipped in quick +as a wink and opened the best-room window-shutters, and then I was back +at the door, and he bowed to me as if I'd been a queen, and says he, +'Miss Prissy, how fresh you're looking this morning!' You see, I was in +working at the Vernons', but I never thought as he'd noticed me. And +then he inquired in the handsomest way for the ladies and the Doctor, +and so I took him into the parlor and settled him down, and then I ran +into the study, and you may depend upon it I flew round lively for a few +minutes. I got the Doctor's study-gown off, and got his best coat on, +and put on his wig for him, and started him up kinder lively,--you know +it takes me to get him down into this world,--and so there he's +in talking with him; and so you can just slip down and dress +yourselves,--easy as not." + +Meanwhile Colonel Burr was entertaining the simple-minded Doctor with +all the grace of a young neophyte come to sit at the feet of superior +truth. There are some people who receive from Nature as a gift a sort of +graceful facility of sympathy, by which they incline to take on, for +the time being, the sentiments and opinions of those with whom they +converse, as the chameleon was fabled to change its hue with every +surrounding. Such are often supposed to be wilfully acting a part, as +exerting themselves to flatter and deceive, when in fact they are only +framed so sensitive to the sphere of mental emanation which surrounds +others that it would require an exertion not in some measure to +harmonize with it. In approaching others in conversation, they are like +a musician who joins a performer on an instrument,--it is impossible for +them to strike a discord; their very nature urges them to bring into +play faculties according in vibration with those which another is +exerting. It was as natural as possible for Burr to commence talking +with the Doctor on scenes and incidents in the family of President +Edwards, and his old tutor, Dr. Bellamy,--and thence to glide on to +the points of difference and agreement in theology, with a suavity and +deference which acted on the good man like a June sun on a budding +elm-tree. The Doctor was soon wide awake, talking with fervent animation +on the topic of disinterested benevolence,--Burr the mean while studying +him with the quiet interest of an observer of natural history, who sees +a new species developing before him. At all the best possible points he +interposed suggestive questions, and set up objections in the quietest +manner for the Doctor to knock down, smiling ever the while as a man may +who truly and genuinely does not care a sou for truth on any subject not +practically connected with his own schemes in life. He therefore gently +guided the Doctor to sail down the stream of his own thoughts till his +bark glided out into the smooth waters of the Millennium, on which, with +great simplicity, he gave his views at length. + +It was just in the midst of this that Mary and her mother entered. +Burr interrupted the conversation to pay them the compliments of the +morning,--to inquire for their health, and hope they suffered no +inconvenience from their night-ride from the party; then, seeing the +Doctor still looking eager to go on, he contrived with gentle dexterity +to tie again the broken thread of conversation. + +"Our excellent friend," he said, "was explaining to me his views of +a future Millennium. I assure you, ladies, that we sometimes find +ourselves in company which enables us to believe in the perfectibility +of the human species. We see family retreats, so unaffected, so charming +in their simplicity, where industry and piety so go hand in hand! One +has only to suppose all families such, to imagine a Millennium." + +There was no disclaiming this compliment, because so delicately worded, +that, while perfectly clear to the internal sense, it was, in a manner, +veiled and unspoken. + +Meanwhile, the Doctor, who sat ready to begin where he left off, turned +to his complaisant listener and resumed an exposition of the Apocalypse. + +"To my mind, it is certain," he said, "as it is now three hundred years +since the fifth vial was poured out, there is good reason to suppose +that the sixth vial began to be poured out at the beginning of the last +century, and has been running for a hundred years or more, so that it is +run nearly out; the seventh and last vial will begin to run early in the +next century." + +"You anticipate, then, no rest for the world for some time to come?" +said Burr. + +"Certainly not," said the Doctor, definitively; "there will be no rest +from overturnings till He whose right it is shall come. + +"The passage," he added, "concerning the drying up of the river +Euphrates, under the sixth vial, has a distinct reference, I think, to +the account in ancient writers of the taking of Babylon, and prefigures, +in like manner, that the resources of that modern Babylon, the Popish +power, shall continue to be drained off, as they have now been drying up +for a century or more, till, at last, there will come a sudden and final +downfall of that power. And after that will come the first triumphs of +truth and righteousness,--the marriage-supper of the Lamb." + +"These investigations must undoubtedly possess a deep interest for you, +Sir," said Burr; "the hope of a future as well as the tradition of +a past age of gold seems to have been one of the most cherished +conceptions of the human breast." + +"In those times," continued the Doctor, "the whole earth will be of one +language." + +"Which language, Sir, do you suppose will be considered worthy of such +preeminence?" inquired his listener. + +"That will probably be decided by an amicable conference of all +nations," said the Doctor; "and the one universally considered most +valuable will be adopted; and the literature of all other nations being +translated into it, they will gradually drop all other tongues. Brother +Stiles thinks it will be the Hebrew. I am not clear on that point. The +Hebrew seems to me too inflexible, and not sufficiently copious. I do +not think," he added, after some consideration, "that it will be the +Hebrew tongue." + +"I am most happy to hear it, Sir," said Burr, gravely; "I never felt +much attracted to that language. But, ladies," he added, starting up +with animation, "I must improve this fine weather to ask you to show +me the view of the sea from this little hill beyond your house, it is +evidently so fine;--I trust I am not intruding too far on your morning?" + +"By no means, Sir," said Mrs. Scudder, rising; "we will go with you in a +moment." + +And soon Colonel Burr, with one on either arm, was to be seen on the top +of the hill beyond the house,--the very one from which Mary, the week +before, had seen the retreating sail we all wot of. Hence, though +her companion contrived, with the adroitness of a practised man of +gallantry, to direct his words and looks as constantly to her as if +they had been in a _tete-a-tete_, and although nothing could be more +graceful, more delicately flattering, more engaging, still the little +heart kept equal poise; for where a true love has once bolted the door, +a false one serenades in vain under the window. + +Some fine, instinctive perceptions of the real character of the man +beside her seemed to have dawned on Mary's mind in the conversation of +the morning;--she had felt the covert and subtile irony that lurked +beneath his polished smile, felt the utter want of faith or sympathy in +what she and her revered friend deemed holiest, and therefore there was +a calm dignity in her manner of receiving his attentions which rather +piqued and stimulated his curiosity. He had been wont to boast that he +could subdue any woman, if he could only see enough of her; in the first +interview in the garden, he had made her color come and go and brought +tears to her eyes in a manner that interested his fancy, and he could +not resist the impulse to experiment again. It was a new sensation +to him, to find himself quietly studied and calmly measured by those +thoughtful blue eyes; he felt, with his fine, instinctive tact, that +the soul within was infolded in some crystalline sphere of protection, +transparent, but adamantine, so that he could not touch it. What was +that secret poise, that calm, immutable centre on which she rested, that +made her, in her rustic simplicity, so unapproachable and so strong? + +Burr remembered once finding in his grandfather's study, among a mass of +old letters, one in which that great man, in early youth, described his +future wife, then known to him only by distant report. With his keen +natural sense of everything fine and poetic, he had been struck with +this passage, as so beautifully expressing an ideal womanhood, that he +had in his earlier days copied it in his private _recueil_. + +"They say," it ran, "that there is a young lady who is beloved of that +Great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain +seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes +to her and fills her mind with such exceeding sweet delight, that she +hardly cares for anything except to meditate on him; that she expects, +after a while, to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the +world and caught up into heaven, being assured that he loves her too +well to let her remain at a distance from him always. Therefore, if you +present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she +disregards it. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular +purity in her affections; and you could not persuade her to do anything +wrong or sinful, if you should give her all the world. She is of a +wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind, +especially after this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She +will sometimes go from place to place singing sweetly, and seems to be +always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to +be alone, walking in fields and groves, and seems to have some invisible +one always conversing with her." + +A shadowy recollection of this description crossed his mind more than +once, as he looked into those calm and candid eyes. Was there, then, a +truth in that inner union of chosen souls with God, of which his mother +and her mother before her had borne meek witness,--their souls shining +out as sacred lamps through the alabaster walls of a temple? + +But then, again, had he not logically met and demonstrated, to his own +satisfaction, the nullity of the religious dogmas on which New England +faith was based? There could be no such inner life, he said to +himself,--he had demonstrated it as an absurdity. What was it, +then,--this charm, so subtile and so strong, by which this fair child, +his inferior in age, cultivation, and knowledge of the world, held him +in a certain awe, and made him feel her spirit so unapproachable? His +curiosity was piqued. He felt stimulated to employ all his powers of +pleasing. He was determined, that, sooner or later, she should feel his +power. + +With Mrs. Scudder his success was immediate, she was completely won over +by the deferential manner with which he constantly referred himself +to her matronly judgments, and, on returning to the house, she warmly +pressed him to stay to dinner. + +Burr accepted the invitation with a frank and almost boyish _abandon_, +declaring that he had not seen anything, for years, that so reminded him +of old times. He praised everything at table,--the smoking brown-bread, +the baked beans steaming from the oven, where they had been quietly +simmering during the morning walk, and the Indian pudding, with its +gelatinous softness, matured by long and patient brooding in the +motherly old oven. He declared that there was no style of living to be +compared with the simple, dignified order of a true New England home, +where servants were excluded, and everything came direct from the +polished and cultured hand of a lady. It realized the dreams of Arcadian +romance. A man, he declared, must be unworthy the name, who did not rise +to lofty sentiments and heroic deeds, when even his animal wants were +provided for by the ministrations of the most delicate and exalted +portion of the creation. + +After dinner he would be taken into all the family interests. Gentle and +pliable as oil, he seemed to penetrate every joint of the _menage_ by a +subtile and seductive sympathy. He was interested in the spinning, in +the weaving,--and in fact, nobody knows how it was done, but, before the +afternoon shadows had turned, he was sitting in the cracked arm-chair of +Mary's garret-boudoir, gravely giving judgment on several specimens of +her spinning, which Mrs. Scudder had presented to his notice. + +With that ease with which he could at will glide into the character +of the superior and elder brother, he had, without seeming to ask +questions, drawn from Mary an account of her reading, her studies, her +acquaintances. + +"You read French, I presume?" he said to her, with easy negligence. + +Mary colored deeply, and then, as one who recollects one's self, +answered, gravely,-- + +"No, Mr. Burr, I know no language but my own." + +"But you should learn French, my child," said Burr, with that gentle +dictatorship which he could at times so gracefully assume. + +"I should be delighted to learn," said Mary, "but have no opportunity." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Scudder,--"Mary has always had a taste for study, and +would be glad to improve in any way." + +"Pardon me, Madam, if I take the liberty of making a suggestion. There +is a most excellent man, the Abbe Lefon, now in Newport, driven here +by the political disturbances in France; he is anxious to obtain a few +scholars, and I am interested that he should succeed, for he is a most +worthy man." + +"Is he a Roman Catholic?" + +"He is, Madam; but there could be no manner of danger with a person so +admirably instructed as your daughter. If you please to see him, Madam, +I will call with him some time." + +"Mrs. Marvyn will, perhaps, join me," said Mary. "She has been studying +French by herself for some time, in order to read a treatise on +astronomy, which she found in that language. I will go over to-morrow +and see her about it." + +Before Colonel Burr departed, the Doctor requested him to step a moment +with him into his study. Burr, who had had frequent occasions during his +life to experience the sort of paternal freedom which the clergy of his +country took with him in right of his clerical descent, began to summon +together his faculties of address for the avoidance of a kind of +conversation which he was not disposed to meet. He was agreeably +disappointed, however, when, taking a paper from the table, and +presenting it to him, the Doctor said,-- + +"I feel myself, my dear Sir, under a burden of obligation for benefits +received from your family, so that I never see a member of it without +casting about in my own mind how I may in some measure express +my good-will towards him. You are aware that the papers of your +distinguished grandfather have fallen into my hands, and from them I +have taken the liberty to make a copy of those maxims by which he guided +a life which was a blessing to his country and to the world. May I +ask the favor that you will read them with attention? and if you find +anything contrary to right reason or sober sense, I shall be happy to +hear of it on a future occasion." + +"Thank you, Doctor," said Burr, bowing. "I shall always be sensible of +the kindness of the motive which has led you to take this trouble on my +account. Believe me, Sir, I am truly obliged to you for it." + +And thus the interview terminated. + +That night, the Doctor, before retiring, offered fervent prayers for the +grandson of his revered master and friend, praying that his father's and +mother's God might bless him and make him a living stone in the Eternal +Temple. + +Meanwhile, the object of these prayers was sitting by a table in +dressing-gown and slippers, thinking over the events of the day. The +paper which Dr. H. had handed him contained the celebrated "Resolutions" +by which his ancestor led a life nobler than any mere dogmas +can possibly be. By its side lay a perfumed note from Madame de +Frontignac,--one of those womanly notes, so beautiful, so sacred in +themselves, but so mournful to a right-minded person who sees whither +they are tending. Burr opened and perused it,--laid it by,--opened the +document that the Doctor had given, and thoughtfully read the first of +the "Resolutions":-- + +"Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, +and my own good profit and pleasure _in the whole of my duration_, +without any consideration of time, whether now or never so many myriad +ages hence. + +"Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good +and advantage of mankind in general. + +"Resolved, To do this, whatsoever difficulties I meet with, and how many +and how great soever." + +Burr read the whole paper through attentively once or twice, and paused +thoughtfully over many parts of it. He sat for some time after, lost in +reflection; the paper dropped from his hand, and then followed one of +those long, deep seasons of fixed reverie, when the soul thinks by +pictures and goes over endless distances in moments. In him, originally, +every moral fatuity and sensibility was as keenly strung as in any +member of that remarkable family from which he was descended, and which +has, whether in good or ill, borne no common stamp. Two possible lives +flashed before his mind at that moment, rapidly as when a train sweeps +by with flashing lamps in the night. The life of worldly expediency, the +life of eternal rectitude,--the life of seventy years, and that life +eternal in which the event of death is no disturbance. Suddenly he +roused himself, picked up the paper, filed and dated it carefully, and +laid it by; and in that moment was renewed again that governing purpose +which sealed him, with all his beautiful capabilities, as the slave of +the fleeting and the temporary, which sent him at last, a shipwrecked +man, to a nameless, dishonored grave. + +He took his pen and gave to a friend his own views of the events of the +day. + +"Mr. DEAR,----We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb +_s'ennuyer_, which I, for one, have put through all the moods and +tenses. _Pour passer le temps_, however, I have _la belle Francaise_ and +my sweet little Puritan. I visited there this morning. She lives with +her mother, a little walk out toward the seaside, in a cottage quite +prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees, and the great +hierarch of modern theology, Dr. H., keeps guard over them. No chance +here for any indiscretions, you see. + +"By-the-by, the good Doctor astonished our _monde_ here on Sunday last, +by treating us to a solemn onslaught on slavery and the slave-trade. He +had all the chief captains and counsellors to hear him, and smote them +hip and thigh, and pursued them even unto Shur. + +"He is one of those great, honest fellows, without the smallest notion +of the world we live in, who think, in dealing with men, that you must +go to work and prove the right or the wrong of a matter; just as if +anybody cared for that! Supposing he is right,--which appears very +probable to me,--what is he going to do about it? No moral argument, +since the world began, ever prevailed over twenty-five per cent. profit. + +"However, he is the spiritual director of _la belle Puritaine_, and was +a resident in my grandfather's family, so I did the agreeable with +him as well as such an uncircumcised Ishmaelite could. I discoursed +theology,--sat with the most docile air possible while he explained to +me all the ins and outs in his system of the universe, past, present, +and future,--heard him dilate calmly on the Millennium, and expound +prophetic symbols, marching out before me his whole apocalyptic +menagerie of beasts and dragons with heads and horns innumerable, to all +which I gave edifying attention, taking occasion now and then to turn a +compliment in favor of the ladies,--never lost, you know. + +"Really, he is a worthy old soul, and actually believes all these things +with his whole heart, attaching unheard-of importance to the most +abstract ideas, and embarking his whole being in his ideal view of +a grand Millennial _finale_ to the human race. I look at him and at +myself, and ask, Can human beings be made so unlike? + +"My little Mary to-day was in a mood of 'sweet austere composure' quite +becoming to her style of beauty; her _naive nonchalance_ at times +is rather stimulating. What a contrast between her and _la belle +Francaise!_--all the difference that there is between a diamond and +a flower. I find the little thing has a cultivated mind, enriched by +reading, and more by a still, quaint habit of thinking, which is new and +charming. But a truce to this. + +"I have seen our friends at last. We have had three or four meetings, +and are waiting to hear from Philadelphia,--matters are getting in +train. If Messrs. T. and S. dare to repeat what they said again, let me +know; they will find in me a man not to be trifled with. I shall be with +you in a week or ten days, at farthest. Meanwhile stand to your guns. + +"Ever yours, + +"BURR." + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +The next morning, before the early dews had yet dried off the grass, +Mary started to go and see her friend Mrs. Marvyn. It was one of those +charming, invigorating days, familiar to those of Newport experience, +when the sea lies shimmering and glittering in deep blue and gold, +and the sky above is firm and cloudless, and every breeze that comes +landward seems to bear health and energy upon its wings. + +As Mary approached the house, she heard loud sounds of discussion from +the open kitchen-door, and, looking in, saw a rather original scene +acting. + +Candace, armed with a long oven-shovel, stood before the open door of +the oven, whence she had just been removing an army of good things which +appeared ranged around on the dresser. Cato, in the undress of a red +flannel shirt and tow-cloth trousers, was cuddled, in a consoled and +protected attitude, in the corner of the wooden settle, with a mug of +flip in his hand, which Candace had prepared, and, calling him in from +his work, authoritatively ordered him to drink, on the showing that he +had kept her awake the night before with his cough, and she was sure he +was going to be sick. Of course, worse things may happen to a man than +to be vigorously taken care of by his wife, and Cato had a salutary +conviction of this fact, so that he resigned himself to his comfortable +corner and his flip with edifying serenity. + +Opposite to Candace stood a well-built, corpulent negro man, dressed +with considerable care, and with the air of a person on excellent +terms with himself. This was no other than Digo, the house-servant and +factotum of Dr. Stiles, who considered himself as the guardian of his +master's estate, his title, his honor, his literary character, his +professional position, and his religious creed. + +Digo was ready to assert before all the world, that one and all of these +were under his special protection, and that whoever had anything to say +to the contrary of any of these must expect to take issue with him. Digo +not only swallowed all his master's opinions whole, but seemed to have +the stomach of an ostrich in their digestion. He believed everything, +no matter what, the moment he understood that the Doctor held it. He +believed that Hebrew was the language of heaven,--that the ten tribes of +the Jews had reappeared in the North American Indians,--that there was +no such thing as disinterested benevolence, and that the doings of the +unregenerate had some value,--that slavery was a divine ordinance, and +that Dr. H. was a radical, who did more harm than good,--and, finally, +that there never was so great a man as Dr. Stiles; and as Dr. Stiles +belonged to him in the capacity of master, why, he, Digo, owned the +greatest man in America. Of course, as Candace held precisely similar +opinions in regard to Dr. H., the two never could meet without a +discharge of the opposite electricities. Digo had, it is true, come +ostensibly on a mere worldly errand from his mistress to Mrs. Marvyn, +who had promised to send her some turkeys' eggs, but he had inly +resolved with himself that he would give Candace his opinion,--that is, +what Dr. Stiles had said at dinner the day before about Doctor H.'s +Sunday's discourse. Dr. Stiles had not heard it, but Digo had. He had +felt it due to the responsibilities of his position to be present on so +very important an occasion. + +Therefore, after receiving his eggs, he opened hostilities by remarking, +in a general way, that he had attended the Doctor's preaching on Sunday, +and that there was quite a crowded house. Candace immediately began +mentally to bristle her feathers like a hen who sees a hawk in the +distance, and responded with decision:-- + +"Den you _heard_ sometin', for once in your life!" + +"I must say," said Digo, with suavity, "dat I can't give my 'proval to +such sentiments." + +"More shame for you," said Candace, grimly. "_You_ a man, and not stan' +by your color, and flunk under to mean white ways! Ef you was _half_ a +man, your heart would 'a' bounded like a cannon-ball at dat ar' sermon." + +"Dr. Stiles and me we talked it over after church," said Digo,--"and de +Doctor was of my 'pinion, dat Providence didn't intend"---- + +"Oh, you go long wid your Providence! Guess, ef white folks had let us +alone, Providence wouldn't trouble us." + +"Well," said Digo, "Dr. Stiles is clear dat dis yer's a-fulfillin' de +prophecies and bringin' in de fulness of de Gentiles." + +"Fulness of de fiddlesticks!" said Candace, irreverently. "Now what a +way dat ar' is of talkin'! Go look at one o' dem ships we come +over in,--sweatin' and groanin',--in de dark and dirt,--cryin' and +dyin',--howlin' for breath till de sweat run off us,--livin' and dead +chained together,--prayin' like de rich man in hell for a drop o' water +to cool our tongues! Call dat ar' a-bringin' de fulness of de Gentiles, +do ye? Ugh!" + +And Candace ended with a guttural howl, and stood frowning and gloomy +over the top of her long kitchen-shovel, like a black Bellona leaning on +her spear of battle. + +Digo recoiled a little, but stood too well in his own esteem to give up; +so he shifted his attack. + +"Well, for my part, I must say I never was 'clined to your Doctor's +'pinions. Why, now, Dr. Stiles says, notin' couldn't be more absurd dan +what he says 'bout disinterested benevolence. _My_ Doctor says, dere +a'n't no such ting!" + +"I should tink it's likely!" said Candace, drawing herself up with +superb disdain. "_Our_ Doctor knows dere _is_,--and why? 'cause he's got +it IN HERE," said she, giving her ample chest a knock which resounded +like the boom from a barrel. + +"Candace," said Cato, gently, "you's gittin' too hot." + +"Cato, you shut up!" said Candace, turning sharp round. "What did I make +you dat ar' flip for, 'cept you was so hoarse you oughtn' for to say a +word? Pootty business, you go to agitatin' _your_self wid dese yer! Ef +you wear out your poor old throat talkin', you may get de 'sumption; and +den what'd become o' me?" + +Cato, thus lovingly pitched _hors-de-combat_, sipped the sweetened cup +in quietness of soul, while Candace returned to the charge. + +"Now, I tell ye what," she said to Digo,--"jest 'cause you wear your +master's old coats and hats, you tink you must go in for all dese yer +old, mean, white 'pinions. A'n't ye 'shamed--you, a black man--to have +no more pluck and make cause wid de Egyptians? Now, 'ta'n't what my +Doctor gives me,--he never giv' me the snip of a finger-nail,--but it's +what he does for _mine;_ and when de poor critturs lands dar, tumbled +out like bales on de wharves, ha'n't dey seen his great cocked hat, like +a lighthouse, and his big eyes lookin' sort o' pitiful at 'em, as ef +he felt o' one blood wid 'em? Why, de very looks of de man is worth +everyting; and who ever thought o' doin' anyting for deir souls, or +cared ef dey had souls, till he begun it?" + +"Well, at any rate," said Digo, brightening up, "I don't believe his +doctrine about de doings of de unregenerate,--it's quite clear he's +wrong dar." + +"Who cares?" said Candace,--"generate or unregenerate, it's all one +to me. I believe a man dat _acts_ as he does. Him as stands up for de +poor,--him as pleads for de weak,--he's my man. I'll believe straight +through anyting he's a mind to put at me." + +At this juncture, Mary's fair face appearing at the door put a stop to +the discussion. + +"Bress _you_, Miss Mary! comin' here like a fresh June rose! it makes +a body's eyes dance in deir head! Come right in! I got Cato up from de +lot, 'cause he's rader poorly dis mornin'; his cough makes me a sight o' +concern; he's allers a-pullin' off his jacket de wrong time, or doin' +sometin' I tell him not to,--and it just keeps him hack, hack, hackin', +all de time." + +During this speech, Cato stood meekly bowing, feeling that he was +being apologized for in the best possible manner; for long years of +instruction had fixed the idea in his mind, that he was an ignorant +sinner, who had not the smallest notion how to conduct himself in this +world, and that, if it were not for his wife's distinguishing grace, he +would long since have been in the shades of oblivion. + +"Missis is spinnin' up in de north chamber," said Candace; "but I'll run +up and fetch her down." + +Candace, who was about the size of a puncheon, was fond of this familiar +manner of representing her mode of ascending the stairs; but Mary, +suppressing a smile, said, "Oh, no, Candace! don't for the world disturb +her. I know just where she is." And before Candace could stop her, +Mary's light foot was on the top step of the staircase that led up from +the kitchen. + +The north room was a large chamber, overlooking a splendid reach of +sea-prospect. A moving panorama of blue water and gliding sails was +unrolled before its three windows, so that stepping into the room gave +one an instant and breezy sense of expansion. Mrs. Marvyn was standing +at the large wheel, spinning wool,--a reel and basket of spools on her +side. Her large brown eyes had an eager joy in them when Mary entered; +but they seemed to calm down again, and she received her only with that +placid, sincere air which was her habit. Everything about this woman +showed an ardent soul, repressed by timidity and by a certain dumbness +in the faculties of outward expression; but her eyes had, at times, +that earnest, appealing language which is so pathetic in the silence of +inferior animals.--One sometimes sees such eyes, and wonders whether +the story they intimate will ever be spoken in mortal language. + +Mary began eagerly detailing to her all that had interested her since +they last met:--the party,--her acquaintance with Burr,--his visit to +the cottage,--his inquiries into her education and reading,--and, +finally, the proposal, that they should study French together. + +"My dear," said Mrs. Marvyn, "let us begin at once;--such an opportunity +is not to be lost. I studied a little with James, when he was last at +home." + +"With James?" said Mary, with an air of timid surprise. + +"Yes,--the dear boy has become, what I never expected, quite a student. +He employs all his spare time now in reading and studying;--the second +mate is a Frenchman, and James has got so that he can both speak and +read. He is studying Spanish, too." + +Ever since the last conversation with her mother on the subject of +James, Mary had felt a sort of guilty constraint when any one spoke +of him;--instead of answering frankly, as she once did, when anything +brought his name up, she fell at once into a grave, embarrassed silence. + +Mrs. Marvyn was so constantly thinking of him, that it was difficult to +begin on any topic that did not in some manner or other knit itself into +the one ever present in her thoughts. None of the peculiar developments +of the female nature have a more exquisite vitality than the sentiment +of a frail, delicate, repressed, timid woman for a strong, manly, +generous son. There is her ideal expressed; there is the out-speaking +and out-acting of all she trembles to think, yet burns to say or do; +here is the hero that shall speak for her, the heart into which she has +poured hers, and that shall give to her tremulous and hidden aspirations +a strong and victorious expression. "I have gotten a _man_ from the +Lord," she says to herself; and each outburst of his manliness, his +vigor, his self-confidence, his superb vitality, fills her with a +strange, wondering pleasure, and she has a secret tenderness and pride +even in his wilfulness and waywardness. "What a creature he is!" she +says, when he flouts at sober argument and pitches all received opinions +hither and thither in the wild capriciousness of youthful paradox. She +looks grave and reproving; but he reads the concealed triumph in her +eyes,--he knows that in her heart she is full of admiration all +the time. First love of womanhood is something wonderful and +mysterious,--but in this second love it rises again, idealized and +refined; she loves the father and herself united and made one in this +young heir of life and hope. + +Such was Mrs. Marvyn's still intense, passionate love for her son. Not +a tone of his manly voice, not a flash of his dark eyes, not one of the +deep, shadowy dimples that came and went as he laughed, not a ring of +his glossy black hair, that was not studied, got by heart, and dwelt on +in the inner shrine of her thoughts; he was the romance of her life. His +strong, daring nature carried her with it beyond those narrow, daily +bounds where her soul was weary of treading; and just as his voyages had +given to the trite prose of her _menage_ a poetry of strange, foreign +perfumes, of quaint objects of interest, speaking of many a far-off +shore, so his mind and life were a constant channel of outreach through +which her soul held converse with the active and stirring world. Mrs. +Marvyn had known all the story of her son's love, and to no other woman +would she have been willing to resign him; but her love to Mary was so +deep, that she thought of his union with her more as gaining a daughter +than as losing a son. She would not speak of the subject; she knew the +feelings of Mary's mother; and the name of James fell so often from her +lips, simply because it was so ever-present in her heart that it could +not be helped. + +Before Mary left, it was arranged that they should study together, and +that the lessons should be given alternately at each other's houses; and +with this understanding they parted. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + +THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. + + +Our landlady's daughter is a young lady of some pretensions to +gentility. She wears her bonnet well back on her head, which is known by +all to be a mark of high breeding. She wears her trains very long, as +the great ladies do in Europe. To be sure, their dresses are so made +only to sweep the tapestried doors of chateaux and palaces; as those +odious aristocrats of the other side do not go draggling through the mud +in silks and satins, but, forsooth, must ride in coaches when they are +in full dress. It is true, that, considering various habits of the +American people, also the little accidents which the best-kept sidewalks +are liable to, a lady who has swept a mile of them is not exactly in +such a condition that one would care to be her neighbor. But then there +is no need of being so hard on these slight weaknesses of the poor, dear +women as our little deformed gentleman was the other day. + +--There are no such women as the Boston women, Sir,--he said. Forty-two +degrees, north latitude, Rome, Sir, Boston, Sir! They had grand women in +old Rome, Sir,--and the women bore such men-children as never the world +saw before. And so it was here, Sir. I tell you, the revolution the +Boston boys started had to run in woman's milk before it ran in man's +blood, Sir! + +But confound the make-believe women we have turned loose in our +streets!--where do _they_ come from? Not out of Boston parlors, I +trust. Why, there isn't a beast or a bird that would drag its tail +through the dirt in the way these creatures do their dresses. Because +a queen or a duchess wears long robes on great occasions, a +maid-of-all-work or a factory-girl thinks she must make herself a +nuisance by trailing through the street, picking up and carrying about +with her--pah! that's what I call getting vulgarity into your bones and +marrow. Making believe be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. +Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If any man can +walk behind one of these women and see what she rakes up as she goes, +and not feel squeamish, he has got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one +of 'em into my room without serving 'em as David served Saul at the cave +in the wilderness,--cut off his skirts, Sir! cut off his skirts! + +I suggested, that I had seen some pretty stylish ladies who offended in +the way he condemned. + +Stylish _women_, I don't doubt,--said the little gentleman.--Don't tell +me that a true lady ever sacrifices the duty of keeping all about her +sweet and clean to the wish of making a vulgar show. I won't believe it +of a lady. There are some things that no fashion has any right to touch, +and cleanliness is one of those things. If a woman wishes to show that +her husband or her father has got money, which she wants and means to +spend, but doesn't know how, let her buy a yard or two of silk and pin +it to her dress when she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before +she goes into the house;--there may be poor women that will think it +worth disinfecting. It is an insult to a respectable laundress to carry +such things into a house for her to deal with. I don't like the Bloomers +any too well,--in fact, I never saw but one, and she--or he, or +it--had a mob of boys after her, or whatever you call the creature, as +if she had been a---- + +The little gentleman stopped short,--flushed somewhat, and looked round +with that involuntary, suspicious glance which the subjects of any +bodily misfortune are very apt to cast round them. His eye wandered +over the company, none of whom, excepting myself and one other, had, +probably, noticed the movement. They fell at last on Iris,--his next +neighbor, you remember. + +--We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at a person, if that person's +eyes have been fixed on us. Sometimes we are conscious of it _before_ +we turn so as to see the person. Strange secrets of curiosity, of +impertinence, of malice, of love, leak out in this way. There is no need +of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflection in the mirror, to tell us that she +is plotting evil for us behind our backs. We know it, as we know by the +ominous stillness of a child that some mischief or other is going on. A +young girl betrays, in a moment, that her eyes have been feeding on the +face where you find them fixed, and not merely brushing over it with +their pencils of blue or brown light. + +A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, you may also observe, +to that upon which we look. Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to +gather them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow. When we +look at a vast landscape, our chests expand as if we would enlarge to +fill it. When we examine a minute object, we naturally contract, +not only our foreheads, but all our dimensions. If I _see_ two +men wrestling, I wrestle too, with my limbs and features. When a +country-fellow comes upon the stage, you will see twenty faces in the +boxes putting on the bumpkin expression. There is no need of multiplying +instances to reach this generalization; every person and thing we look +upon puts its special mark upon us. If this is repeated often enough, we +get a permanent resemblance to it, or, at least, a fixed aspect which we +took from it. Husband and wife come to look alike at last, as has often +been noticed. It is a common saying of a jockey, that he is "all horse"; +and I have often fancied that milkmen get a stiff, upright carriage, +and an angular movement of the arm, that remind one of a pump and the +working of its handle. + +All this came in by accident, just because I happened to mention that +the little gentleman found that Iris had been looking at him with her +soul in her eyes, when his glance rested on her after wandering round +the company. What he thought, it is hard to say; but the shadow of +suspicion faded off from his face, and he looked calmly into the amber +eyes, resting his cheek upon the hand that wore the red jewel. + +--If it were a possible thing,--women are such strange creatures! Is +there any trick that love and their own fancies do not play them? Just +see how they marry! A woman that gets hold of a bit of manhood is like +one of those Chinese wood-carvers who work on any odd, fantastic root +that comes to hand, and, if it is only bulbous above and bifurcated +below, will always contrive to make a man--such as he is--out of it. I +should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a Gorilla, +that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. + +--A child,--yes, if you choose to call her so,--but such a child! Do you +know how Art brings all ages together? + +There is no age to the angels and ideal human forms among which the +artist lives, and he shares their youth until his hand trembles and his +eye grows dim. The youthful painter talks of white-bearded Leonardo as +if he were a brother, and the veteran forgets that Raphael died at an +age to which his own is of patriarchal antiquity. + +But why this lover of the beautiful should be so drawn to one whom +Nature has wronged so deeply seems hard to explain. Pity, I suppose. +They say that leads to love. + +--I thought this matter over until I became excited and curious, and +determined to set myself more seriously at work to find out what was +going on in these wild hearts and where their passionate lives were +drifting. I say wild hearts and passionate lives, because I think I can +look through this seeming calmness of youth and this apparent feebleness +of organization, and see that Nature, whom it is very hard to cheat, is +only waiting as the sapper waits in his mine, knowing that all is in +readiness and the slow-match burning quietly down to the powder. He will +leave it by-and-by, and then it will take care of itself. + +One need not wait to see the smoke coming through the roof of a house +and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is +on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, +but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. +There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting +shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings +one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on.--Oh,--oh,--oh! do +you know what has got hold of you? It is the great red dragon that is +born of the little red eggs we call _sparks_, with his hundred blowing +red manes, and his thousand lashing red tails, and his multitudinous red +eyes glaring at every crack and key-hole, and his countless red tongues +lapping the beams he is going to crunch presently, and his hot breath +warping the panels and cracking the glass and making old timber sweat +that had forgotten it was ever alive with sap. Run for your life! leap! +or you will be a cinder in five minutes, that nothing but a coroner +would take for the wreck of a human being! + +If any gentleman will have the kindness to stop this run-away +comparison, I shall be much obliged to him. All I intended to say was, +that we need not wait for hearts to break out in flames to know that +they are full of combustibles and that a spark has got among them. I +don't pretend to say or know what it is that brings these two persons +together;--and when I say together, I only mean that there is an +evident affinity of some kind or other which makes their commonest +intercourse strangely significant, so that each seems to understand a +look or a word of the other. When the young girl laid her hand on the +little gentleman's arm,--which so greatly shocked the Model, you may +remember,--I saw that she had learned the lion-tamer's secret. She +masters him, and yet I can see she has a kind of awe of him, as the man +who goes into the cage has of the monster that he makes a baby of. + +One of two things must happen. The first, is love, downright love, on +the part of this young girl, for the poor little misshapen man. You may +laugh, if you like. But women are apt to love the men who they think +have the largest capacity of loving;--and who can love like one that has +thirsted all his life long for the smile of youth and beauty, and seen +it fly his presence as the wave ebbed from the parched lips of him +whose fabled punishment is the perpetual type of human longing and +disappointment? What would become of _him_, if this fresh soul should +stoop upon him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops out of +the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in the marshes of Cagliari, +with a flutter of scarlet feathers and a kindling of strange fires +in the shadowy waters that hold her burning image in their trembling +depths? + +--Marry her, of course?--Why, no, not _of course_. I should think the +chance less, on the whole, that he would be willing to marry her than +she to marry him. + +There is one other thing that might happen. If the interest he awakes in +her gets to be a deep one, and yet has nothing of love in it, she will +glance off from him into some great passion or other. All excitements +run to love in women of a certain--let us not say age, but youth. An +electrical current passing through a coil of wire makes a magnet of a +bar of iron lying within it, but not touching it. So a woman is turned +into a love-magnet by a tingling current of life running round her. I +should like to see one of them balanced on a pivot properly adjusted, +and watch if she did not turn so as to point north and south,--as she +would, if the love-currents are like those of the earth our mother. + +Pray, do you happen to remember Wordsworth's "Boy of Windermere"? This +boy used to put his hands to his mouth, and shout aloud, mimicking the +hooting of the owls, who would answer him + + "with quivering peals, + And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud + Redoubled and redoubled." + +When they failed to answer him, and he hung listening intently for +their voices, he would sometimes catch the faint sound of far distant +waterfalls, or the whole scene around him would imprint itself with new +force upon his perceptions.--Read the sonnet, if you please;--it is +Wordsworth all over,--trivial in subject, solemn in style, vivid in +description, prolix in detail, true metaphysically, but immensely +suggestive of "imagination," to use a mild term, when related as an +actual fact of a sprightly youngster. + +All I want of it is to enforce the principle, that, when the door of the +soul is once opened to a guest, there is no knowing who will come in +next. + +--Our young girl keeps up her childish habit of sketching heads and +characters. Nobody is, I should think, more faithful and exact in the +drawing of the academical figures given her as lessons; but there is +a perpetual arabesque of fancies that runs round the margin of her +drawings, and there is one book which I know she keeps to run riot +in, where, if anywhere, a shrewd eye would be most likely to read her +thoughts. This book of hers I mean to see, if I can get at it honorably. + +I have never yet crossed the threshold of the little gentleman's +chamber. How he lives, when he once gets within it, I can only guess. +His hours are late, as I have said; often, on waking late in the night, +I see the light through cracks in his window-shutters on the wall of the +house opposite. If the times of witchcraft were not over, I should be +afraid to be so close a neighbor to a place from which there come such +strange noises. Sometimes it is the dragging of something heavy over the +floor, that makes me shiver to hear it,--it sounds so like what people +that kill other people have to do now and then. Occasionally I hear very +sweet strains of music,--whether of a wind or stringed instrument, or a +human voice, strange as it may seem, I have often tried to find out, but +through the partition I could not be quite sure. If I have not heard +a woman cry and moan, and then again laugh as though she would die +laughing, I have heard sounds so like them that--I am a fool to confess +it--I have covered my head with the bedclothes; for I have had a fancy +in my dreams, that I could hardly shake off when I woke up, about that +so-called witch that was his great-grandmother, or whatever it was,--a +sort of fancy that she visited the little gentleman,--a young woman +in old-fashioned dress, with a red ring round her white neck,--not a +necklace, but a dull stain. + +Of course you don't suppose that I have any foolish superstitions about +the matter,--I, the Professor, who have seen enough to take all that +nonsense out of any man's head! It is not our beliefs that frighten us +half so much as our fancies. A man not only believes, but knows he runs +a risk, whenever he steps into a railroad car; but it doesn't worry him +much. + +On the other hand, carry that man across a pasture a little way from +some dreary country-village, and show him an old house where there were +strange deaths a good many years ago, and rumors of ugly spots on the +walls,--the old man hung himself in the garret, that is certain, and +ever since the country-people have called it "the haunted house,"--the +owners haven't been able to let it since the last tenants left on +account of the noises,--so it has fallen into sad decay, and the moss +grows on the rotten shingles of the roof, and the clapboards have turned +black, and the windows rattle like teeth that chatter with fear, and the +walls of the house begin to lean as if its knees were shaking,--take the +man who didn't mind the real risk of the cars to that old house, on some +dreary November evening, and ask him to sleep there alone,--how do you +think he will like it? He doesn't believe one word of ghosts,--but then +he knows, that, whether waking or sleeping, his imagination will people +the haunted chambers with ghastly images. It is not what we _believe_, +as I said before, that frightens us commonly, but what we _conceive_. A +principle that reaches a good way, if I am not mistaken. I say, then, +that, if these odd sounds coming from the little gentleman's chamber +sometimes make me nervous, so that I cannot get to sleep, it is not +because I suppose he is engaged in any unlawful or mysterious way. The +only wicked suggestion that ever came into my head was one that was +founded on the landlady's story of his having a pile of gold; it was a +ridiculous fancy; besides, I suspect the story of _sweating_ gold was +only one of the many fables got up to make the Jews odious and afford a +pretext for plundering them. As for the sound like a woman laughing and +crying, I never said it _was_ a woman's voice; for, in the first place, +I could only hear indistinctly; and, secondly, he may have an organ, or +some queer instrument or other, with what they call the _voce umana_ +stop. If he moves his bed round to get out of draughts, or for any such +reason, there is nothing very frightful in that simple operation. Most +of our foolish conceits explain themselves in some such simple way. And +yet, for all that, I confess, that, when I woke up the other evening, +and heard, first a sweet complaining cry, and then footsteps, and then +the dragging sound,--nothing but his bed, I am quite sure,--I felt a +stirring in the roots of my hair as the feasters did in Keats's terrible +poem of "Lamia." + +There is nothing very odd in my feeling nervous when I happen to lie +awake and get listening for sounds. Just keep your ears open any time +after midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a dark +night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you will +hear! The _stillness_ of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things +seem to be alive. Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never +hear it crack in the daytime. Creak! There's a door ajar; _you know you +shut them all_. Where can that latch be that rattles so? Is anybody +trying it softly? or, worse than any _body_, is----? (Cold shiver.) Then +a sudden gust that jars all the windows;--very strange!--there does not +seem to be any wind about that it belongs to. When it stops, you hear +the worms boring in the powdery beams overhead. Then steps outside,--a +stray animal, no doubt. All right,--but a gentle moisture breaks out all +over you; and then something like a whistle or a cry,--another gust of +wind, perhaps; that accounts for the rustling that just made your heart +roll over and tumble about, so that it felt more like a live rat under +your ribs than a part of your own body; then a crash of something that +has fallen,--blown over, very like----_Pater noster, qui es in coelis!_ +for you are damp and cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed +trembling so that the death-watch is frightened and has stopped ticking! + +No,--night is an awful time for strange noises and secret doings. Who +ever dreamed, till one of our sleepless neighbors told us of it, of that +Walpurgis gathering of birds and beasts of prey,--foxes, and owls, and +crows, and eagles, that come from all the country round on moonshiny +nights to crunch the clams and muscles, and pick out the eyes of dead +fishes that the storm has thrown on Chelsea Beach? Our old mother Nature +has pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when she comes to us in her +dress of blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops; but when she follows +us up-stairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and diamonds, every +creak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of mystery +and fear. + +You understand, then, distinctly, that I do not believe there is +anything about this singular little neighbor of mine which is as it +should not be. Probably a visit to his room would clear up all that has +puzzled me, and make me laugh at the notions which began, I suppose, in +nightmares, and ended by keeping my imagination at work so as almost to +make me uncomfortable at times. But it is not so easy to visit him as +some of our other boarders, for various reasons which I will not stop to +mention. I think some of them are rather pleased to get "the Professor" +under their ceilings. + +The young man John, for instance, asked me to come up one day and try +some "old Burbon," which he said was A.1. On asking him what was the +number of his room, he answered, that it was forty-'leven, sky-parlor +floor, but that I shouldn't find it, if he didn't go ahead to show me +the way. I followed him to his _habitat_, being very willing to see in +what kind of warren he burrowed, and thinking I might pick up something +about the boarders who had excited my curiosity. + +Mighty close quarters they were where the young man John bestowed +himself and his furniture; this last consisting of a bed, a chair, +a bureau, a trunk, and numerous pegs with coats and "pants" and +"vests,"--as he was in the habit of calling waistcoats and pantaloons or +trousers,--hanging up as if the owner had melted out of them. Several +prints were pinned up unframed,--among them that grand national +portrait-piece, "Barnum presenting Ossian E. Dodge to Jenny Lind," and a +picture of a famous trot, in which I admired anew the cabalistic air of +that imposing array of expressions, and especially the Italicized word, +"Dan Mace _names_ b. h. Major Slocum," and "Hiram Woodruff _names_ g. m. +Lady Smith." "Best three in five. Time: 2.40, 2.46, 2.50." + +That set me thinking how very odd this matter of trotting horses is, as +an index of the mathematical exactness of the laws of living mechanism. +I saw Lady Suffolk trot a mile in 2.26. Flora Temple has done it in +2.24-1/2; and Ethan Allen is said to have done it in the same time. +Many horses have trotted their mile under 2.30; none that I remember in +public as low down in the twenties as 2.24. _Five seconds_, then, in +about a hundred and sixty is the whole range of the maxima of the +present race of trotting-horses. The same thing is seen in the running +of men. Many can run a mile in five minutes; but when one comes to the +fractions below, they taper down until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum +is reached. Averages of masses have been studied more than averages of +maxima and minima. We know from the Registrar-General's Reports, that a +certain number of children--say from one to two dozen--die every year in +England from drinking hot water out of spouts of teakettles. We know, +that, among suicides, women and men past a certain age almost never use +fire-arms. A woman who has made up her mind to die is still afraid of a +pistol or a gun. Or is it that the explosion would derange her costume? +I say, averages of masses we have; but our tables of maxima we owe +to the sporting men more than to the philosophers. The lesson their +experience teaches is, that Nature makes no leaps,--does nothing _per +saltum_. The greatest brain that ever lived, no doubt, was only a +small fraction of an idea ahead of the second best. Just look at the +chess-players. Leaving out the phenomenal exceptions, the nice +shades that separate the skilful ones show how closely their brains +approximate,--almost as closely as chronometers. Such a person is a +"_knight_-player,"--he must have that piece given him. Another must have +two pawns. Another, "pawn and two," or one pawn and two moves. Then +we find one who claims "pawn and move," holding himself, with this +fractional advantage, a match for one who would be pretty sure to beat +him playing even.--So much are minds alike; and you and I think we +are "peculiar,"--that Nature broke her jelly-mould after shaping our +cerebral convolutions! So I reflected, standing and looking at the +picture. + +--I say, Governor,--broke in the young man John,--them hosses'll stay +jest as well, if you'll only set down. I've had 'em this year, and they +haven't stirred.--He spoke, and handed the chair towards me,--seating +himself, at the same time, on the end of the bed. + +You have lived in this house some time?--I said,--with a note of +interrogation at the end of the statement. + +Do I look as if I'd lost much flesh?--said he,--answering my question by +another. + +No,--said I;--for that matter, I think you do credit to "the bountifully +furnished table of the excellent lady who provides so liberally for the +company that meets around her hospitable board." + +[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of those disinterested +editorials in small type, which I suspect to have been furnished by +a friend of the landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This +impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment and +its head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a couple of +new boarders made a brief appearance at the table. One of them was +of the class of people who grumble if they don't get canvasbacks and +woodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week. The other was subject to +somnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have been asleep +in his bed. In this state he walked into several of the boarders' +chambers, his eyes wide open, as is usual with somnambulists, and, from +some odd instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, got +together a number of their watches, for the purpose of comparing them, +as it would seem. Among them was a repeater, belonging to our young +Marylander. He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was in his +chamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught hold of him and gave him +a dreadful shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and then +went to sleep till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman used +to taking care of such cases of somnambulism.] + +If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over this parenthesis, +you will come to our conversation,--which it has interrupted. + +It a'n't the feed,--said the young man John,--it's the old woman's looks +when a fellah lays it in too strong. The feed's well enough. After geese +have got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb's got old, 'n' +veal's pretty nigh beef, 'n' sparragrass's growin' tall 'n' slim 'n' +scattery about the head, 'n' green peas gettin' so big 'n' hard they'd +be dangerous if you fired 'em out of a revolver, we get hold of all them +delicacies of the season. But it's too much like feedin' on live folks +and devourin' widdah's substance, to lay yourself out in the eatin' way, +when a fellah's as hungry as the chap that said a turkey was too much +for one 'n' not enough for two. I can't help lookin' at the old woman. +Corned-beef-days she's tolerable calm. Roastin'-days she worries some, +'n' keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves. But when there's anything +in the poultry line, it seems to hurt her feelin's so to see the knife +goin' into the breast and joints comin' to pieces, that there's no +comfort in eatin'. When I cut up an old fowl and help the boarders, +I always feel as if I ought to say, Won't you have a slice of +widdah?--instead of chicken. + +The young man John fell into a train of reflections which ended in his +producing a Bologna sausage, a plate of "crackers," as we Boston folks +call certain biscuits, and the bottle of whiskey described as being A.1. + +Under the influence of the crackers and sausage, he grew cordial and +communicative. + +It was time, I thought, to sound him as to those of our boarders who had +excited my curiosity. + +What do you think of our young Iris?--I began. + +Fust-rate little filly;--he said.--Pootiest and nicest little chap +I've seen since the schoolma'am left. Schoolma'am was a brown-haired +one,--eyes coffee-color. This one has got wine-colored eyes,--'n' +that's the reason they turn a fellah's head, I suppose. + +This is a splendid blonde,--I said,--the other was a brunette. Which +style do you like best? + +Which do I like best, boiled mutton or roast mutton?--said the young man +John. Like 'em both,--it a'n't the color of 'em makes the goodness. I've +been kind of lonely since schoolma'am went away. Used to like to look at +her. I never said anything particular to her, that I remember, but-- + +I don't know whether it was the cracker and sausage, or that the young +fellow's feet were treading on the hot ashes of some longing that had +not had time to cool, but his eye glistened as he stopped. + +I suppose she wouldn't have looked at a fellah like me,--he said,--but I +come pretty near tryin'. If she had said, Yes, though, I shouldn't have +known what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman now-a-days till +you're so deaf you have to cock your head like a parrot to hear what she +says, and so long-sighted you can't see what she looks like nearer than +arm's-length. + +Here is another chance for you,--I said.--What do you want nicer than +such a young lady as Iris? + +It's no use,--he answered.--I look at them girls and feel as the fellah +did when he missed catchin' the trout.--'To'od 'a' cost more butter to +cook him 'n' he's worth,--says the fellah.--Takes a whole piece o' goods +to cover a girl up now-a-days. I'd as lief undertake to keep a span of +elephants,--and take an ostrich to board, too,--as to marry one of 'em. +What's the use? Clerks and counter-jumpers a'n't anything. Sparragrass +and green peas a'n't for them,--not while they're young and tender. +Hossback-ridin' a'n't for them,--except once a year,--on Fast-day. And +marryin' a'n't for them. Sometimes a fellah feels lonely, and would +like to have a nice young woman, to tell her how lonely he feels. And +sometimes a fellah,--here the young man John looked very confidential, +and, perhaps, as if a little ashamed of his weakness,--sometimes a +fellah would like to have one o' them small young ones to trot on his +knee and push about in a little wagon,--a kind of a little Johnny, you +know;--it's odd enough, but, it seems to me, nobody can afford them +little articles, except the folks that are so rich they can buy +everything, and the folks that are so poor they don't want anything. It +makes nice boys of us young fellahs, no doubt! And it's pleasant to see +fine young girls sittin', like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin', +and waitin', and waitin', 'n' no customers,--and the men lingerin' round +and lookin' at the goods, like folks that want to be customers, but +haven't got the money! + +Do you think the deformed gentleman means to make love to Iris?--I said. + +What! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him! Well, now, that's comin' +of it a little too strong. Yes, I guess she will marry him and carry +him round in a basket, like a lame bantam! Look here!--he said, +mysteriously;--one of the boarders swears there's a woman comes to see +him, and that he has heard her singin' and screechin'. I should like +to know what he's about in that den of his. He lays low 'n' keeps +dark,--and, I tell you, there's a good many of the boarders would like +to get into his chamber, but he don't seem to want 'em. Biddy could +tell somethin' about what she's seen when she's been to put his room +to rights. She's a Paddy 'n' a fool, but she knows enough to keep her +tongue still. All I know is, I saw her crossin' herself one day when she +came out of that room. She looked pale enough, 'n' I heard her mutterin' +somethin' or other about the Blessed Virgin. If it hadn't been for the +double doors to that chamber of his, I'd have had a squint inside before +this; but, somehow or other, it never seems to happen that they're both +open at once. + +What do you think he employs himself about?--said I. + +The young man John winked. + +I waited patiently for the thought, of which this wink was the blossom, +to come to fruit in words. + +I don't believe in witches,--said the young man John. + +Nor I. + +We were both silent for a few minutes. + +--Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books,--I said, presently. + +All but one,--he answered;--she keeps a lock on that, and won't show it. +Ma'am Allen, (the young rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of the +gentleman with the _diamond_,) Ma'am Allen tried to peek into it one day +when she left it on the sideboard. "If you please," says she,--'n' +took it from him, 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like a +caterpillar on a hot shovel. I only wished he hadn't, and had jest given +her a little saas, for I've been takin' boxin'-lessons, 'n' I've got a +new way of counterin' I want to try on to somebody. + +--The end of all this was, that I came away from the young fellow's +room, feeling that there were two principal things that I had to live +for, for the next six weeks or six months, if it should take so long. +These were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing-book, which I +suspected had her heart shut up in it, and to get a look into the little +gentleman's room. + +I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should trouble myself +about these matters. You tell me, with some show of reason, that all I +shall find in the young girl's book will be some outlines of angels with +immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, and caricatures, +among which I shall probably have the pleasure of seeing my own features +figuring. Very likely. But I'll tell you what _I_ think I shall find. If +this child has idealized the strange little bit of humanity over which +she seems to have spread her wings like a brooding dove,--if, in one of +those wild vagaries that passionate natures are so liable to, she has +fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, as the sea-flowers fold +about the first stray shell-fish that brushes their outspread tentacles, +depend upon it, I shall find the marks of it in this drawing-book of +hers,--if I can ever get a look at it,--fairly, of course, for I would +not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity. + +Then, if I can get into this little gentleman's room under any fair +pretext, I shall, no doubt, satisfy myself in five minutes that he is +just like other people, and that there is no particular mystery about +him. + +The night after my visit to the young man John, I made all these and +many more reflections. It was about two o'clock in the morning,--bright +starlight,--so light that I could make out the time on my +alarm-clock,--when I woke up trembling and very moist. It was the heavy, +dragging sound, as I had often heard it before, that waked me. Presently +a window was softly closed. I had just begun to get over the agitation +with which we always awake from nightmare dreams, when I heard the sound +which seemed to me as of a woman's voice,--the clearest, purest soprano +which one could well conceive of. It was not loud, and I could not +distinguish a word, if it was a woman's voice; but there were recurring +phrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached me, which suggested +the idea of complaint, and sometimes, I thought, of passionate grief and +despair. It died away at last,--and then I heard the opening of a door, +followed by a low, monotonous sound, as of one talking,--and then +the closing of a door,--and presently the light on the opposite wall +disappeared and all was still for the night. + +By George! this gets interesting,--I said, as I got out of bed for a +change of night-clothes. + +I had this in my pocket the other day, but thought I wouldn't read it. +So I read it to the boarders instead, and print it to finish off this +record with. + + +ROBINSON OF LEYDEN. + + + He sleeps not here; in hope and prayer + His wandering flock had gone before, + But he, the shepherd, might not share + Their sorrows on the wintry shore. + + Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, + Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, + While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, + The pastor spake, and thus he said:-- + + "Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! + God calls you hence from over sea; + Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, + Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. + + "Ye go to bear the saving word + To tribes unnamed and shores untrod: + Heed well the lessons ye have heard + From those old teachers taught of God. + + "Yet think not unto them was lent + All light for all the coming days, + And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent + In making straight the ancient ways. + + "The living fountain overflows + For every flock, for every lamb, + Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose + With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." + + He spake; with lingering, long embrace, + With tears of love and partings fond, + They floated down the creeping Maas, + Along the isle of Ysselmond. + + They passed the frowning towers of Briel, + The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand, + And grated soon with lifting keel + The sullen shores of Fatherland. + + No home for these!--too well they knew + The mitred king behind the throne;-- + The sails were set, the pennons flew, + And westward ho! for worlds unknown. + + --And these were they who gave us birth, + The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, + Who won for us this virgin earth, + And freedom with the soil they gave. + + The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,-- + In alien earth the exiles lie,-- + Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, + His words our noblest battle-cry! + + Still cry them, and the world shall hear, + Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! + Ye _have_ not built by Haerlem Meer, + Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! + + * * * * * + + +ART. + +THE HEART OF THE ANDES. + + +We Americans, amidst the confusion and stir of material interests, are +not inattentive to the progress of those claims whose growth is as +silent as that of the leaves around us, and whose values find no echo in +Wall Street. + +With the spring there has bloomed in New York a flower of no common +beauty. All the fashion and influence there have been to hail this +growth of our soil at its cloistered home in Tenth Street. There is but +one opinion of the beauty and novelty of the stranger. It is of the +"Heart of the Andes," by Mr. Frederick E. Church, we speak. This artist, +now known for some years as he who has with most daring tracked to its +depths the witchery and wonder of our summer skies, and the results of +whose two visits to South America have ere this shown how sensitive and +sure the photograph of his memory is, gives us from the _trop-plein_ of +his souvenirs this last and crowning page. + +We hold the merit and charm of Mr. Church's works to be, that they are +so American in feeling and treatment. What chiefly distinguishes America +from Europe, as the object of landscape, is, that Europe is the region +of "bits," of picturesque compositions, of sunflecked lanes, of nestling +villages, and castle-crowned steeps,--while with us everything is less +condensed, on a wider scale, and with vaster spaces. + +Mr. Church has the eagle eye to measure this vastness. He loves a +wide expanse, a boundless horizon. He does not, gypsy-like, hide with +Gainsborough beneath a hedge, but his glance sweeps across a continent, +and no detail escapes him. This is what makes the "Andes" a really +marvellous picture. In intellectual grasp, clear and vivid apprehension +of what he wants and where to put it, we think Mr. Church without an +equal. Quite a characteristic of his is a love of detail and finish +without injury to breadth and general effect. You look into his picture +with an opera-glass as you would into the next field from an open +window. His power is not so much one of suggestion, an appeal to the +beauty and grandeur in yourself, as the ability to become a colorless +medium to beauty and grandeur from without; hence the impression is at +first hand, and such as Nature herself produces. + +The world abounds in pictures where loving human faculty has lifted +ordinary motives into our sympathy; but where the subject is the +grandest landscape affluence of the world, effect, in the ordinary +sense, ceases to be of value. We need the thing, and no human ennobling +of it. In this picture we have it; no spectral cloud-pile, but a real +Chimborazo, with the hoar of eternity upon its scalp, looks down upon +the happy New-Yorker in his first May perspiration. And as the wind sets +east, no yellow hint at something warming, but whole dales and plains +still in the real sunshine, take the chill from off his heart. No wonder +he, his wife, and his quietly enthusiastic girls throng and sit there. +They are proud in their hearts of the handsome young painter. And well +they may be! Never has the New World sent so native a flavor to the Old. +Unlike so many others of our good artists, there is no saturation from +the past in Mr. Church. No souvenir of what once was warm and new in the +heart of Claude or Poussin ages the fresh work. It has a relish of our +soil; its almost Yankee knowingness, its placid, clear, intellectual +power, with its delicate sentiment and strong self-reliance, are ours; +we delightfully feel that it belongs to us, and that we are of it. + +Such is the last great work of the New York school of landscape,--a +living school, and destined to long triumphs,--already appreciated and +nobly encouraged. Its members are men as individual and various in their +gifts, as they are harmonious and manly in their mutual recognition and +fellowship. + + * * * * * + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Love Me Little, Love Me Long._ By CHARLES READE, Author of "It is Never +too Late to Mend," "White Lies," etc. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1859. + +This is the last, and in many respects the best, of Mr. Charles Reade's +literary achievements. Its popularity, we are informed, exceeds that of +any of his former works, excepting the first two published by him, "Peg +Woffington," and "Christie Johnstone," which a few years ago startled +the novel-reading world by their eccentricity of style, their +ingenious novelty of construction, and also by their freshness of +sentiment,--comet-books, pursuing one another in erratic orbits of +thought, now close upon the central light of Truth, now distantly remote +from it, but always brilliant, and generally leaving a sparkling train +of recollection behind. The author's subsequent productions, until the +present, have been less successful; some by reason of their positive +inferiority; some because of their extraordinary affectations of +expression, repelling the multitude, who do not choose to risk their +brains through unlimited pages of labyrinthine rhetoric; some, perhaps, +because of their doubtful paternity, evidences of French origin being +in many places discernible. Here, however, there appears a manifest +improvement. This story is exquisitely simple in conception, and the +narration is mostly full of ease and grace, although the unfolding of +the plot is less direct than might have been expected from an author who +professes so deep a regard for the dramatic order of development. There +is, for instance, an episodical chapter of upwards of thirty pages, +describing commercial England in a state of panic, which is very nearly +as appropriate as a disquisition on the Primary Rocks, or an inquiry +into the origin of the Cabala would be, but which is so palpably +introduced for the purpose of displaying the author's financial +erudition, that he feels himself called upon to apologize in a brief +preface for its intrusion. In the concluding chapters, too, the various +threads of interest are gathered together with very little artistic +compactness. The reader is disappointed at the tameness of the +culmination, compared with the vigor of the approach thereto. But +otherwise there is much to be charmed with, and not a little to admire. + +Mr. Reade has renounced a good number of the odd fancies which at one +time pervaded him. We find no traces of the [Greek: stigmatophobia] +with which he was formerly afflicted. Nouns are wedded to obedient +adjectives, adverbs to their willing verbs, by the lawful mediation +of the recognized authorities of punctuation, the illegitimate and +licentious disregard of which, as recklessly manifested in "It is Never +too Late to Mend," indicated a disposition to entirely subvert +the established morals of the language. It is pleasant to see how +unreservedly Mr. Reade has abandoned his functions as apostle of +grammatical free-love. Of tricks of typography there are also fewer, +although these yet remain in an excess which good taste can hardly +sanction. We often find whole platoons of admiration-points stretching +out in line, to give extraordinary emphasis to sentences already +sufficiently forcible. We sometimes encounter extravagant varieties of +type, humorously intended, but the use of which seems a game hardly +worth Mr. Reade's candle, which certainly possesses enough illuminating +power of its own, without seeking additional refulgence by such +commonplace expedients. + +In one of his pet peculiarities, the selection of a name for his work, +the author has surpassed himself. It is a good thing to have an imposing +name. In literature, as in society, a sounding title makes its way with +delicious freedom. But it is also well to see to it, that, in the matter +of title, some connection with the book to which it is applied shall be +maintained. We are accustomed to approach a title somewhat as we do a +finger-post,--not hoping that it will reveal the nature of the road we +are to follow, the character of the scenery we are to gaze upon, or the +general disposition of the impending population, but anticipating that +it will at least enable us to start in the right direction. Now every +reader of "Love me Little, Love me Long" is apt to consider himself or +herself justified in entertaining acrimonious sentiments towards Mr. +Reade for the non-fulfilment of his titular hint. If, in the process of +binding, the leaves of this story had accidentally found their way into +covers bearing other and various appellations, we imagine that very +little injury would have been done to the author's meaning or the +purchaser's understanding. It is, indeed, interesting to look forward +to the progress of Mr. Reade's ideas on the subject of titles. We have +already enjoyed a couple of pleasing nursery platitudes; perhaps it +would not be altogether out of order to expect in future a series +something like the following:-- + + "Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be!!??!?!" + "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe!" + "Sing a Song of Sixpence, a Bag Full of Rye!" + "Hiccory, Diccory, Dock!!!" + etc., etc. + +Let us not forget, in laughing at the author's weaknesses, to +acknowledge his strength. He shows in this work an inventive fancy equal +to that of any writer of light fiction in the English language, and +hardly surpassed by those of the French,--from which latter, it is +fair to suppose, much of his inspiration is drawn, since his style is +undisguisedly that of modern French romancers, though often made the +vehicle of thoughts far nobler than any they are wont to convey. His +portraits of character are capital, especially those of feminine +character, which are peculiarly vivid and _spirituels_. He represents +infantile imagination with Pre-Raphaelitic accuracy. And his +descriptions are frequently of enormous power. A story of a sailor's +perils on a whaling voyage is told in a manner almost as forcible +as that of the "frigate fight," by Walt. Whitman, and in a manner +strikingly similar, too. A night adventure in the English channel--a +pleasure excursion diverted by a storm from its original intention into +a life-and-death struggle--is related with unsurpassed effect. The whole +work is as sprightly and agreeable a love-story as any English writer +has produced,--always amusing, often flashing with genuine wit, +sometimes inspiring in its eloquent energy. And this ought to be +sufficient to secure the abundant success of any book of its class, and +to cause its successor to be awaited with interest. + + +_The Choral Harmony_. By B.F. BAKER and W.O. PERKINS. Boston: Phillips, +Sampson, & Co. pp. 378. + +The great number of music-books published, and the immense editions +annually sold, are the best proof of the demand for variety on the part +of choirs and singing-societies. Nearly all the popular collections will +be found to have about the same proportions of the permanent and the +transient elements,--on the one hand, the old chorals and hymn-tunes +consecrated by centuries of solemn worship,--on the other, the +compositions and "arrangements" of the editors. Here and there a modern +tune strikes the public taste or sinks deeper to the heart, and it takes +its place thenceforward with the "Old Hundredth," with "Martyrs," and +"Mear"; but the greater number of these compositions are as ephemeral as +newspaper stories. Every conductor of a choir knows, however, that, to +maintain an interest among singers, it is necessary to give them new +music for practice, especially new pieces for the opening of public +worship,--that they will not improve while singing familiar tunes, any +more than children will read with proper expression lessons which have +become wearisome by repetition. Masses and oratorios are beyond the +capacity of all but the most cultivated singers; and we suppose that +the very prevalence of these collections which aim to please an average +order of taste may, after all, furnish to large numbers a pleasure which +the rigid classicists would deny them, without in any way filling the +void. + +This collection has a goodly number of the favorite old tunes, and they +are given with the harmonies to which the people are accustomed. The +new tunes are of various degrees of excellence, but most of them are +constructed with a due regard to form, and those which we take to be Mr. +Baker's are exceedingly well harmonized. There is an unusual number of +anthems, motets, etc.,--many of them at once solid and attractive. The +elementary portion contains a full and intelligible exposition of the +science. To those choirs who wish to increase their stock of music, and +to singing-societies who desire the opportunity of practising new and +brilliant anthems and sentences, the "Choral Harmony" may be commended, +as equal, at least, to any work of the kind now before the public. + + +_Seacliff: or the Mystery of the Westervelts_. By J.W. DE FOREST, Author +of "Oriental Acquaintance," "European Acquaintance," etc., etc. Boston: +Phillips, Sampson, & Co. pp. 466. 12mo. + +This is a very readable novel, artful in plot, effective in +characterization, and brilliant in style. "The Mystery of the +Westervelts" is a mystery which excites the reader's curiosity at the +outset, and holds his pleased attention to the end. The incidents are so +contrived that the secret is not anticipated until it is unveiled, and +then the explanation is itself a surprise. The characters are generally +strongly conceived, skilfully discriminated, and happily combined. The +delineation of Mr. Westervelt, the father of the heroine, is especially +excellent. Irresolute in thought, impotent in will, and only +occasionally fretted by circumstances into a feeble activity, he is an +almost painfully accurate representation of a class of men who drift +through life without any power of self-direction. Mrs. Westervelt has +equal moral feebleness with less brain, and her character is a study in +practical psychology. Somerville, the villain of the piece, who unites +the disposition of Domitian to the manners of Chesterfield, is the +pitiless master of this female slave. The coquettish Mrs. Van Leer is +a prominent personage of the story; and her shallow malice and pretty +deviltries are most effectively represented. She is not only a flirt in +outward actions, but a flirt in soul, and her perfection in impertinence +almost rises to genius. All these characters betray patient meditation, +and the author's hold on them is rarely relaxed. A novel evincing so +much intellectual labor, written in a style of such careful elaboration, +and exhibiting so much skill in the development of the story, can +scarcely fail of a success commensurate with its merits. + + +_To Cuba and Back_. A Vacation Voyage. By R.H. DANA, JR., Author of "Two +Years before the Mast." Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. pp. 288. 16mo. + +It was, perhaps, a dangerous experiment for the author of a book of the +worldwide and continued popularity of "Two Years before the Mast" to +dare, with that almost unparalleled success still staring him in the +face, to tempt Fortune by giving to the public another book. But long +before this time, the thousands of copies that have left the shelves of +the publishers have attested a success scarcely second to that of Mr. +Dana's first venture. The elements of success, in both cases, are to be +found in every page of the books themselves. This "Vacation Voyage" has +not a dull page in it. Every reader reads it to the end. Every paragraph +has its own charm; every word is chosen with that quick instinct +that seizes upon the right word to describe the matter in hand which +characterizes Mr. Dana's forensic efforts, and places him so high on the +list of natural-born advocates,--which gives him the power of eloquence +at the bar, and a power scarcely less with the slower medium of the pen. +These Cuban sketches are real _stereographs_, and Cuba stands before you +as distinct and lifelike as words can make it. Single words, from Mr. +Dana's pen, are pregnant with great significance, and their meaning is +brought out by taking a little thought, as the leaves and sticks and +stones and pigmy men and women in the shady corners of the stereograph +are developed into the seeming proportions of real life, when the images +in the focus of the lenses of the stereoscope. We know of no modern book +of travels which gives one so vivid and fresh a picture, in many various +aspects, of the external nature, the people, the customs, the laws and +domestic institutions of a strange country, as does this little volume, +the off-hand product of a few days snatched from the engrossing cares of +the most active professional life. With a quick eye for the beauties of +landscape, a keen and lively perception of what is droll and amusing +in human nature, a warm heart, sympathizing readily where sympathy is +required, the various culture of the scholar, and the training of the +lawyer and politician, all well mixed with manly, straightforward, +Anglo-Saxon pluck, Mr. Dana has, in an eminent degree, all the best +qualities that should mark the traveller who undertakes to tell his +story to the world. + +Some statistics, judiciously introduced, of the present government, and +of the institution of slavery and the slave-trade, with the author's +comments upon them, give a practical value to the book at this time for +all thinking and patriotic citizens, and make it one not only to be read +for an hour's entertainment, but carefully studied for the important +practical suggestions of its pages. + + +_Memoir of Theophilus Parsons_, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial +Court of Massachusetts; with Notices of some of his Contemporaries. By +his Son, THEOPHILUS PARSONS. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. pp. 476. + +The division of the United States into so many wellnigh independent +republics, each with official rewards in its gift great enough to excite +and to satisfy a considerable ambition, makes fame a palpably provincial +thing in America. We say _palpably_, because the larger part of +contemporary fame is truly parochial everywhere; only we are apt to +overlook the fact when we measure by kingdoms or empires instead of +counties, and to fancy a stature for Palmerston or Persigny suitable to +the size of the stage on which they act. It seems a much finer thing to +be a Lord Chancellor in England than a Chief Justice in Massachusetts; +yet the same abilities which carried the chance-transplanted Boston boy, +Lyndhurst, to the woolsack, might, perhaps, had he remained in the land +of his birth, have found no higher goal than the bench of the Supreme +Court. Mr. Dickens laughed very fairly at the "remarkable men" of our +small towns; but England is full of just such little-greatness, with the +difference that one is proclaimed in the "Bungtown Tocsin" and the other +in the "Times." We must get a new phrase, and say that Mr. Brown was +immortal at the latest dates, and Mr. Jones a great man when the steamer +sailed. The small man in Europe is reflected to his contemporaries from +a magnifying mirror, while even the great men in America can be imaged +only in a diminishing one. If powers broaden with the breadth of +opportunity, if Occasion be the mother of greatness and not its tool, +the centralizing system of Europe should produce more eminent persons +than our distributive one. Certain it is that the character grows larger +in proportion to the size of the affairs with which it is habitually +concerned, and that a mind of more than common stature acquires an +habitual _stoop_, if forced to deal lifelong with little men and little +things. + +Even that German-silver kind of fame, Notoriety, can scarcely be had +here at a cheaper rate than a murder done in broad daylight of a Sunday; +and the only sure way of having one's name known to the utmost corners +of our empire is by achieving a continental _dis_repute. With a +metropolis planted in a crevice between Maryland and Virginia, and +stunted because its roots vainly seek healthy nourishment in a soil +impoverished by slavery, a paulopost future capital, the centre of +nothing, without literature, art, or so much as commerce,--we have no +recognized dispenser of national reputations like London or Paris. In a +country richer in humor, and among a people keener in the sense of it +than any other, we cannot produce a national satire or caricature, +because there is no butt visible to all parts of the country at once. +How many men at this moment know the names, much more the history or +personal appearance, of our cabinet ministers? But the joke of London or +Paris tickles all the ribs of England or France, and the intellectual +rushlight of those cities becomes a beacon, set upon such bushels, and +multiplied by the many-faced provincial reflector behind it. Meanwhile +New York and Boston wrangle about literary and social preeminence like +two schoolboys, each claiming to have something (he knows not exactly +what) vastly finer than the other at home. Let us hope that we shall +by-and-by develop a rivalry like that of the Italian cities, and that +the difficulty of fame beyond our own village may make us more content +with doing than desirous of the name of it. For, after all, History +herself is for the most part but the Muse of Little Peddlington, and +Athens raised the heaviest crop of laurels yet recorded on a few acres +of rock, without help from newspaper guano. + +Theophilus Parsons was one of those men of whom surviving contemporaries +always say that he was the most gifted person they had ever known, +while yet they are able to produce but little tangible evidence of his +superiority. It is, no doubt, true that Memory's geese are always swans; +but in the case of a man like Parsons, where the testimony is so various +and concurrent, we cannot help believing that there must have been a +special force of character, a marked alertness and grasp of mind, to +justify the impression he left behind. With the exception of John +Adams, he was probably the most considerable man of his generation in +Massachusetts; and it is not merely the _caruit quia vate sacro_, but +the narrowness of his sphere of action, still further narrowed by the +technical nature of a profession in itself provincial, as compared +with many other fields for the display of intellectual power, that has +hindered him from receiving an amount of fame at all commensurate with +an ability so real and so various. + +But the life of a strong man, lived no matter where, and perhaps all +the more if it have been isolated from the noisier events which make so +large a part of history, contains the best material of biography. Judge +Parsons was fortunate in a son capable of doing that well, which, even +if ill done, would have been interesting. A practised writer, the author +of two volumes of eloquent and thoughtful essays, Professor Parsons has +known how to select and arrange his matter with a due feeling of effect +and perspective. When he fails to do this, it is because here and there +the essayist has got the better of the biographer. We are not concerned +here, for example, to know Mr. Parsons's opinions about Slavery, and +we are sure that the sharp insight and decisive judgment of his father +would never have allowed him to be frightened by the now somewhat +weather-beaten scarecrow of danger to the Union. + +In the earlier part of the Memoir we get some glimpses of +pre-Revolutionary life in New England, which we hope yet to see +illustrated more fully in its household aspects.[A] The father of +Parsons was precisely one of those country-clergymen who were "passing +rich on forty pounds a year." On a salary of two hundred and eighty +dollars, he brought up a family of seven children, three of whom he sent +to college, and kept a hospitable house. + +[Footnote A: Mr. Elliott, in his _New England History_, has wisely +gathered many of those unconsidered trifles which are so important in +forming a just notion of the character of a population. We cannot but +wish that our town-historians, instead of giving so much space to idle +and often untrustworthy genealogies, and to descriptions of the "elegant +mansions" of Messrs. This and That, would do us the real service of +rescuing from inevitable oblivion the fleeting phases of household +scenery that help us to that biography of a people so much more +interesting than their annals. We would much rather know whether a man +wore homespun, a hundred years ago, than whether he was a descendant of +Rameses I.] + +Of Parsons's college experiences we get less than we could desire; +but as he advances in life, we find his mind exercised by the great +political and social problem whose solution was to be the experiment of +Democracy at housekeeping for herself,--we see him influencing State +and even National politics, but always as a man who preferred attaining +the end to being known as the means,--and finally, as Chief Justice, +reforming the loose habits of the bar, intolerant of gabble, and leaving +the permanent impress of his energetic mind and impatient logic on the +Common Law of the country. + +We know nothing more striking than the dying speech recorded in the +concluding chapter. At the end of a life so laborious and so useful, the +Judge, himself withdrawing to be judged, murmurs,--"Gentlemen of the +Jury, the facts of the case are in your hands. You will retire and +consider of your verdict." In this volume, the son has submitted the +facts of the case to a jury of posterity. His case will not be injured +by the modesty with which he has stated it. He has claimed less for his +father than one less near to him might have done. We think the verdict +must be, that this was a great man _marooned_ by Destiny on an +out-of-the-way corner of the world, where, however he might exert great +powers, there was no adequate field for that display of them which is +the necessary condition of fame. + +Mr. Parsons has done a real service to our history and our letters in +this volume. Accompanying and illustrating his main topic, he has given +us excellent sketches of some other persons less eminent than his +father, sometimes from tradition and sometimes from his own impressions. +We hope in the next edition he will give us a supplementary chapter of +personal anecdotes, of which there is a large number that deserve to be +perpetuated in print, and which otherwise will die with the memories +in which they are now preserved. The strictly professional part of the +biography, illustrating the Chief Justice's more important decisions, +might also be advantageously enlarged. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. + + +Songs of the Church; or Psalms and Hymns of the Protestant Episcopal +Church, arranged consecutively to Appropriate Melodies; together with +a Full Set of Chants for each Season of the Christian Year. New York. +Delisser & Proctor. 12mo. pp. 453. $1.00. + +Napoleonic Ideas. Des Idees Napoleoniennes, par Le Prince Napoleon Louis +Bonaparte. Brussels, 1839. 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