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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14,
+December 1858, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2007 [EBook #21273]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY  ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. II.--DECEMBER, 1858.--NO. XIV.
+
+
+
+
+THE IDEAL TENDENCY.
+
+
+We are all interested in Art; yet few of us have taken pains to justify
+the delight we feel in it. No philosophy can win us away from
+Shakspeare, Plato, Angelo, Beethoven, Goethe, Phidias,--from the masters
+of sculpture, painting, music, and metaphor. Their truth is larger than
+any other,--too large to be stated directly and lodged in systems,
+theories, definitions, or formulas. They suggest and assure to us what
+cannot be spoken. They communicate life, because they do not endeavor to
+measure life. Philosophy will present the definite; Art refers always to
+the vast,--to that which cannot be comprehended, but only enjoyed and
+adored. Art is the largest expression. It is not, like Science, a basket
+in which meat and drink may be carried, but a hand which points toward
+the sky. Our eyes follow its direction, and our souls follow our eyes.
+Man needs only to be shown an open space. He will rise into it with
+instant expansion. We are made partakers of that illimitable energy.
+Only poetry can give account of poetry, only Art can justify Art; and we
+cannot hope to speak finally of this elastic Truth, to draw a circle
+around that which is vital, because it has in it something of
+infinity,--but we may hope to remove a doubt growing out of the very
+largeness which exalts and refreshes us. Art is not practical. It offers
+no precept, but lies abroad like Nature, not to be grasped and
+exhausted. Neither is it anxious about its own reception, as though any
+man could long escape the benefit which it brings. Every principle of
+science, every deduction of philosophy, is a tool. Our very religion, as
+we dare to name it, is a key which opens the heavens to admit myself and
+family. Art offers only life; but perhaps that will appear worth taking
+without looking beyond. Can we look beyond? Life is an end in itself,
+and so better than any tool.
+
+What is that which underlies all arts as their essence, the thing to be
+expressed and celebrated? What is poetry, the creation from which the
+artist is named? We shall answer boldly: it is no shaping of forms, but
+a making of man. Nature is a _plenum_, is finished, and the Divine
+account with her is closed; but man is only yet a chick in the egg. With
+him it is still the first day of creation, and he has not received the
+benediction of a completed work. And yet the completion is involved and
+promised in our daily experience. Man is a perpetual seeker. He sees
+always just before him his own power, which he must hasten to overtake.
+He weighs himself often in thought; yet it is not his present, but a
+presumptive value, of which he is taking account. We are continually
+entering into our future, and it is so near us, we are already in every
+hour so full of it, that we draw without fraud on the credit of
+to-morrow. The student who has bought his first law-book is already a
+great counsellor. With the Commentaries he carries home consideration
+and the judicial habit. Some wisdom he imbibes through his pores and
+those of the sheepskin cover. Now he is grave and prudent, a man of the
+world and of authority; but if he had chosen differently, and brought
+home the first book of Theology, his day would have been tinted with
+other colors. For every choice carries a future involved in itself, and
+we begin to taste that when we take our course toward it. The habit of
+leaning forward and living in advance of himself has made its mark upon
+every man. We look not at the history or performance of the stranger,
+but at his pretensions. These are written in his dress, his air and
+attitude, his tone and occupation. The past is already nothing, the
+present is sliding away; to know any man, we must keep our eyes out in
+advance on the road he is following. For man is an involuntary, if not a
+willing traveller. Time does not roll from under his feet, but he is
+carried along with the current, and can never again be where or what he
+was. Nothing in his experience can ever be quite repeated. If you see
+the same trees and hills, they do not appear the same from year to year.
+Yesterday they were new and strange; you and they were young together.
+To-day they are familiar and disregarded. Soon they will be old friends,
+prattling to gray hairs of the brown locks and bounding breath of youth.
+
+The pioneer of our growth is Imagination. Desire and Hope go on before
+into the wilderness of the unknown; they open paths; they make a
+clearing; they build and settle firmly before we ourselves in will and
+power arrive at this opening, but they never await our coming. They are
+the "Fore-runners," off again deeper into the vast possibility of being.
+The boy walks in a dream of to-morrow. Two bushels of hickory-nuts in
+his bag are no nuts to him, but silver shillings; yet neither are the
+shillings shillings, but shining skates, into which they will presently
+be transmuted. Already he is on the great pond by the roaring fire, or
+ringing away into distant starry darkness with a sparkling brand.
+Already, before his first skates are bought, before he has seen the coin
+that buys them, he is dashing and wheeling with his fellows, a leader of
+the flying train.
+
+That early fore-reaching is a picture of our entire activity. "Care is
+taken," said Goethe, "that the trees do not grow into the sky"; but man
+is that tree which must outgrow the sky and lift its top into finer air
+and sunshine. The essential seed is Growth; not shell and bark, nor
+kernel, but a germ which pierces the soil and lifts the stone. Spirit is
+such a germ, and perpetual reinforcement is its quality; so that the
+great Being is known to us as a becoming Creator, adding himself to
+himself, and life to life, in perpetual emanation.
+
+The boy's thought never stops short of some personal prowess. It is
+ability that charms him. To be a man, as he understands manliness, is to
+have the whole planet for a gymnasium and play-ground. He would like to
+have been on the other side of Hydaspes when Alexander came to that
+stream. But he soon discovers that wit is the sword of sharpness,--that
+he is the ruler who can reach the deepest desire of man and satisfy
+that. If there is power in him, he becomes a careful student, examines
+everything, examines his own enthusiasm, examines his last examination,
+tries every estimate again and again. He distrusts his tools, and then
+distrusts his own distrust, lifting himself by the very boot-straps in
+his metaphysics, to get at some foundation which will not move. He will
+know what he is about and what is great. He puts C�sar, Milton, and
+Whitfield into his crucible; but that which went in C�sar comes out a
+part of himself. The bold yet modest young chemist is egotistical. He
+cannot be anybody else but John Smith. Why should he? Who knows yet what
+it is to be John Smith? Napoleon and Washington are only playing his own
+game for him, since he so easily understands and accepts their play. A
+boy reads history as girls cut flowers from old embroidery to sew them
+on a new foundation. They are interested in the new, and in the old only
+for what they can make of it. So he sucks the blood of kings and
+captains to help him fight his own battles. He reads of Bunker's Hill
+and the Declaration of Independence with constant reference to the part
+he shall take in the politics of the world. His motto is, _Sic semper
+tyrannis_! Benjamin Franklin, and after him John Smith,--perhaps a
+better man than he. We live on that _perhaps_. Every great man departed
+has played out his last card, has taken all his chances. We are glad to
+see his power limited and scaled up. Shakspeare, we say, did not know
+everything; and here am I alone with the universe, nothing but a little
+sleepiness between me and all that Shakspeare and Plato knew or did not
+know. If I should be jostled out of my drowsiness, who can tell what may
+be given me to see, to say, or to do? Let us make ready and get upon
+some high ground from which we may overlook the work of the world; for
+the secret of all mastery is dormant, yet breathing and stirring in you
+and me.
+
+Out of such material as we can gather we make a world in which we walk
+continually up and down. In it we find friends and enemies, we love and
+are loved, we travel and build. In it we are kings; we ordain and
+arrange everything, and never come away worsted from any encounter. For
+this sphere arises in answer to the practical question, What can I be
+and do? It is an embodiment of the force that is in me. Every dreamer,
+therefore, goes on to see himself among men and things which he can
+understand and master, with which he can deal securely. The stable-boy
+has hid an old volume among the straw, and he walks with Portia and
+Desdemona while he grooms the horses. Already in his smock-frock he is a
+companion for princes and queens. But the rich man's son, well born, as
+we say, in the great house yonder, has one only ambition in life,--to
+turn stable-boy, to own a fast team and a trotting-wagon, to vie with
+gamesters upon the road. That is an activity to which he is equal, in
+which his value will appear. Both boys, and all boys, are looking
+upward, only from widely different levels and to different heights.
+
+The young blasphemer does not love blasphemy, but to have his head and
+be let alone by Old Aunty, who combs his hair as if he were a girl. So
+always there is some ideal aim in the mixed motive. Out of six gay young
+men who drive and drink together, only one cares for the meat and the
+bottle. With the rest this feasting gallantly on the best, regardless of
+expense, is part of a system. It is in good style, is convivial. For
+these green-horns of society to live together, to be _conviv�_, is not
+to think and labor together, as wise men use, but to laugh and be
+drunken in company.
+
+Into the lowest courses there enters something to keep the filth from
+overwhelming self-respect. The advocates of slavery have not, as it
+appears, lost all pretence of honor and honesty. Thieves are sustained
+by a sense of the injustice of society. They do but right an old wrong,
+taking bravely what was accumulated by cautious cunning. They cultivate
+many virtues, and, like the best of us, make much of these, identify
+themselves with these. If a man is harsh and tyrannical, he regrets that
+he has too much force of character. And it is not safe to accuse a
+harlot of stealing and lying. She has her ideal also, and strives to
+keep the ulcer of sin within bounds,--to save a sweet side from
+corruption.
+
+Is this stooping very low to look for the Ideal Tendency? The greater
+gain, if we find it prevailing in these depths. We may doubt whether
+thieves and harlots are subject to the same law which irresistibly lifts
+us, for we know that our own sin is not quite like other sin. But I must
+not offer all the cheerful hope I feel for the worst offenders, because
+too much faith passes for levity or impiety; and men thank God only for
+deliverance from great dangers, not for preservation from all danger.
+For gratitude we must not escape too easily and clean, but with some
+smell of fire upon us.
+
+Yet in our own experience this planning what we shall do and become is
+constant, and always we escape from the present into larger air. The boy
+will not be content with that skill in skating which occupies his mind
+to-day. That belongs to the day and place, but next year he goes to the
+academy and fresh exploits engage him. He works gallantly in this new
+field and harness, because his thought has gone forward again, and he
+sees through these studies the man of thought. Already as a student he
+is a philosopher, a poet, a servant of the Muse. Bacon and Milton look
+kindly on him in invitation, he is walking to their company and in their
+company. The young hero-worshipper cannot remain satisfied with mere
+physical or warlike prowess. He soon sees the superiority of mental and
+moral mastery, of creation of good counsel. He will reverence the
+valiant reformer who brings justice in his train, the saint in whom
+goodness is enamored of goodness, the gentleman whose heart-beat is
+courtesy, the prophet in whom a religion is born, all who have been
+inspired with liberal, not dragged by sordid aims.
+
+How beautiful to him is the society of poets! He reads with idolatry the
+letters and anecdotes of Coleridge and Wordsworth, Goethe and Schiller,
+Beethoven and Raphael. Look at the private thought of these men in
+familiar intercourse: no plotting for lucre, but a conspiracy to reach
+the best in life. The saints are even more ardent in aspiration, for
+their tender hearts were pressed and saddened by fear. They are now set
+on fire by a sense of great redemption. They are prisoners pardoned.
+
+For scholars the world is peopled only with saints, philosophers, and
+poets, and the studious boy seeks his own amid their large activity. So
+much of it meets his want, yet the whole does not meet all his want. He
+must combine and balance and embrace conflicting qualities. Every day
+his view enlarges. What was noble last year will now by no means content
+his conscience. Duty and beauty have risen.
+
+The Ideal Tendency characterizes man, affords the only definition of
+him; and it is a perpetual, irresistible expansion. No matter on what it
+fastens, it will not stay, but spreads and soars like light in the
+morning sky.
+
+To-day we are charmed with our partners, and think we can never tire of
+Alfred and Emily. To-morrow we discover without shame, after all our
+protestations and engagements, that their future seems incommensurate
+with our own. To our surprise, they also feel their paths diverging from
+ours. We part with a show of regret, but real joy to be free.
+
+Both parties have gained from their intercourse a certainty of power and
+promise of greater power. Silly people fill the world with lamentation
+over human inconstancy; but if we follow love, we cannot cling to the
+beloved. We must love onward, and only when our friends go before us can
+we be true both to friendship and to them.
+
+How eager and tremulous his excitement when at last the youth encounters
+all beauty in a maiden! Now he is on his trial. Can he move her? for he
+must be to her nothing or all. How stately and far-removed she seems in
+her crystal sphere! All her relations are fair and poetic. Her book is
+not like another book. Her soft and fragrant attire, can it be woven of
+ribbons and silk? She, too, has dreamed of the coming man, heroic,
+lyrical, impassioned; the beat of his blood a p�an and triumphal march;
+a man able to cut paths for her and lead her to all that is worthiest in
+life. Her day is an expectation; her demand looks out of proud eyes.
+Can he move this stately creature, pure and high above him as the clear
+moon yonder, never turning from her course,--this Diana, who will love
+upward and stoop to no Endymion? Now it will appear whether he can pass
+with another for all he is to himself. This will be the victory for
+which he was born, or blackest defeat. If she could love him! If he
+should, after all, be to her only such another as her cousin Thomas, who
+comes and goes with all his pretensions as unregarded as Rover the
+house-dog! Between these _ifs_ he vacillates, swung like a ship on
+stormy waters, touching heaven and hell.
+
+Meanwhile the maiden dares hardly look toward this generous new-comer,
+whose destiny lies broad open in his courage and desire. Others she
+could conciliate and gently allure, but she will not play with the lion.
+She will throw no web around his strength to tear her heart away, if it
+does not hold him. For the first time she guards her fancy. She will not
+think of the career that awaits him, of the help there is in him for
+men, and the honor that will follow him from them,--of the high studies,
+tasks, and companionship to which he is hastening. What avails this
+avoidance, this turning-away of the head? A fancy that must be kept is
+already lost. She read his quality in the first glance of deep-meaning
+eyes. When at last he speaks, she sees suddenly how beyond all recovery
+he had carried away her soul in that glance. They marry each the
+expectation of the other. It was a promise in either that shone so fair.
+Happy lovers, if only as wife and husband they can go on to fulfil the
+promise! For love cannot be repeated; every day it must have fresh food
+in a new object; and unless character is renewed, love must leave it
+behind and wander on.
+
+If the wife is still aspiring,--if she lays growing demands on her
+hero,--if her thought enlarges and she stands true to it, separate from
+him in integrity as he saw her first, following not his, but her own
+native estimate,--she will always be his mistress. She will still have
+that charm of remoteness which belongs only to those who do not lean and
+borrow, to natures centred for themselves in the deep. There is
+something incalculable in such independence. It is full of surprise for
+the most intimate. In one breast the true wife prepares for her husband
+a course of loves. Every day she offers a new heart to be won. Every day
+the woman he could reach is gone, and there again before him is the
+inaccessible maiden who will not accept to-day the behavior of
+yesterday. This withdrawal and advancement from height to height is true
+virginity, which never lies down with love but keeps him always on foot
+and girded for fresh pursuit. Noble lovers rely on no pledges, point to
+no past engagements, but prefer to renew their relation from hour to
+hour. The heroic woman will command, and not solicit love. Let him go,
+when I cease to be all to him, when I can no longer fill the horizon of
+his imagination and satisfy his heart. But if there is less ascension in
+a woman, she is no mate for an advancing man. He must leave her; he
+walks by her side alone. So we pass many dear companions, outgrowing
+alike our loves and our fears.
+
+Once or twice in youth we meet a man of sounding reputation or real
+wisdom, whose secret is hid above our discovery. His manners are
+formidable while we do not understand them. In his presence our tongues
+are tied, our limbs are paralyzed. Thought dies out before him, the will
+is unseated and vacillates, we are cowed like Antony beside C�sar. In
+solitude we are ashamed of this cowardice and resolve to put it away;
+but when the great man returns, our knees knock and we are as weak as
+before. It is suicide to fly from such mortification. A brave boy faces
+it as well as he can. By-and-by the dazzle abates, he sees some flaw,
+some coarseness or softness, in this shining piece of metal; he begins
+to fathom the motives and measure the orbit of this tyrannous
+benefactor. They are the true friends who daunt and overpower us, to
+whom for a little we yield more than their due.
+
+This rule is universal, that no man can admire downward. All enthusiasm
+rises and lifts the subject of it. That which seems to you so base an
+activity is lifted above low natures. What matter, then, where the
+standard floats at this moment, since it cannot remain fixed?
+
+Perfection retreats, as the horizon withdraws before a traveller, and
+lures us on and on. It even travels faster than our best endeavors can
+follow, and so beckons to us from farther and farther away. We may give
+ourselves to the ideal, or we may turn aside to appetite and sleep; but
+in every moment of returning sanity we are again on our feet and again
+upon an endless ascending road.
+
+When a man has tasted power, when he sees the supply there is so near in
+Nature for all need, he hungers for reinforcement. That desire is
+prayer. It opens its own doors and takes supplies from God's hand. No
+wise man can grudge the necessary use of the mind to serve the body with
+shelter and food, for we go merrily to Nature, and with our milk we
+drink order, justice, beauty, and benignity. We cannot take the husks on
+which our bodies are fed, without expressing these juices also, which
+circulate as sap and blood through the sphere. We cannot touch any
+object but some spark of vital electricity is shot through us. Every
+creature is a battery, charged not with mere vegetable or animal, but
+with moral life. Our metaphysical being is fed from something hidden in
+rocks and woods, in streams and skies, in fire, water, earth, and air.
+While we dig roots, and gather nuts, and hunt and roast our meat, our
+blood is quickened not in the heart alone. Deeper currents are swelled.
+The springs of our humanity are opened in Nature; for that which streams
+through the landscape, and comes in at the eye and ear, is plainly the
+same fluid which enters as consciousness, and is the life by which we
+live. While we enjoy this spiritual refreshment and keep ourselves open
+to it, we may dig without degradation; but if our minds fasten on the
+thing to be done, on commodity and safety, on getting and having, those
+avenues seem to close by which the soul was fed. Then we forget our
+incalculable chances and certainties; we go mad, and make the mind a
+muck-rake. If a man will direct his faculties to any limited and not to
+illimitable ends, he cripples his faculties. No matter whether he is
+deluded by a fortune or a reputation or position, if he does not give
+himself wholly to grow and be a man, regardless of minor advantages, he
+has lost his way in the world. "Be true," said Schiller, "to the dream
+of thy youth." That dream was generous, not sordid. We must be
+surrendered to the perfection which claims us, and suffer no narrow aim
+to postpone that insatiable demand.
+
+But the potency of life will bring back every wanderer, as he well
+knows. Every sinner keeps his trunk packed, ready to return to the good.
+The poor traders really mean to buy love with their gold. Feeling the
+hold of a chain which binds us even when we do not cling to it, we grow
+prodigal of time and power. The essence of life, as we enjoy it, is a
+sense of the inextinguishable ascending tendency in life; and this gives
+courage when there is yet no reverence or devotion.
+
+In development of character is involved great change of circumstances.
+We cannot grow or work in a corner. It is not for greed alone or mainly
+that men make war and build cities and found governments, but to try
+what they can do and become, to justify themselves to themselves and to
+their fellows. We desire to please and help,--but still more, at first,
+to be sure that we can please and help. If he hears any man speak
+effectually in public, the ambitious boy will never rest till he can
+also speak, or do some other deed as difficult and as well worth doing.
+For the trial of faculty we must go out into the world of institutions,
+range ourselves beside the workers, take up their tools and strike
+stroke for stroke with them. Every new situation and employment dazzles
+till we find out the trick of it. The boy longs to escape from a farm to
+college, from college to the city and practical life. Then he looks up
+from his desk, or from the pit in the theatre, to the gay world of
+fashion,--harder to conquer than even the world of thought. At last he
+makes his way upward into the sacred circle, and finds there a little
+original power and a great deal of routine. These fine parts are like
+those of players, learned by heart. The men who invented them, with whom
+they were spontaneous, seem to have died out and left their manners with
+their wardrobes to narrow-breasted children, whom neither clothes nor
+courtesies will fit. So in every department we find the snail freezing
+in an oyster-shell. The judges do not know the meaning of justice. The
+preacher thinks religion is a spasm of desire and fear. A young man soon
+loses all respect for titles, wigs, and gowns, and looks for a muscular
+master-mind. Somebody wrote the laws, and set the example of noble
+behavior, and founded every religion. Only a man capable of originating
+can understand, sustain, or use any institution. The Church, the State,
+the Social System come tumbling ruinous over the heads of bunglers, who
+cannot uphold, because they never could have built them, and the rubbish
+obstructs every path in life. An honest, vigorous thinker will clear
+away these ruins and begin anew at the earth. When the boy has broken
+loose from home, and fairly entered the world that allured him, he finds
+it not fit to live in without revolutions. He is as much cramped in it
+as he was in the ways of the old homestead. Feeding the pigs and picking
+up chips did not seem work for a man, but he finds that almost all the
+activity of the race amounts to nothing more; no more thought or purpose
+goes into it. Men find Church and State and Custom ready-made, and they
+fall into the procession, ask no searching questions, but take things
+for granted without reason; and their imitation is as easy as picking up
+chips. It is no doing, but merely sliding down hill. The way of the
+world will not suit a valiant boy. To make elbow-room and get
+breathing-space, he becomes a reformer; and when now he can find no new
+worlds to conquer, he will make a world, laying in truth and justice
+every stone. The same seeker, who was so fired by the sight of his eyes,
+looking out from a mill-yard or a shoe-shop on the many-colored activity
+of his kind, who ran such a round of arts and sciences, pursuing the
+very secret of his being in each new enterprise, is now discontented
+with all that has been done. He begins again to look forward,--he
+becomes a prophet, instead of the historian he was. He easily sees that
+a true manhood would disuse our ways of teaching and worshipping, would
+unbuild and rebuild every town and house, would tear away the jails and
+abolish pauperism as well as slavery. He sees the power of government
+lying unused and unsuspected in spelling-books and Bibles. Now he has
+found a work, not for one finger, but for fighting Hercules and singing
+Apollo, worthy of Minerva and of Jove. He will try what man can do for
+man.
+
+The history of every brave girl is parallel with that of her play-fellow
+and yoke-fellow. She sighs for sympathy, for a gallant company of youths
+and maidens worthy of all desire. Her music, drawing, and Italian are
+only doors which she hopes to open upon such a company. She longs for
+society to make the hours lyrical, for tasks to make them epic and
+heroic. The attitudes and actions of imaginative young persons are
+exalted every moment by the invisible presence of lovers, poets,
+inspired and inspiring companions. Such as they are we also shall be;
+when we walk among them and with them, we shall wash our hands of all
+injustice, meanness, and pretension. Women are as tired as men of our
+silly civilization, its compliments, restraints, and compromises. They
+feel the burden of routine as heavily, and keep their elasticity under
+it as long as we. What they cannot hope to do, a great-hearted man,
+some lover of theirs, shall do for them; and they will sustain him with
+appreciation, anticipating the tardy justice of mankind. Every generous
+girl shares with her sex that new development of feminine consciousness,
+which the vulgar have named, in derision, a movement for woman's rights.
+She will seek to be more truly woman, to assert her special power and
+privilege, to approach from her own side the common ideal, offering a
+pure soprano to match the manly bass.
+
+We all look for a future, not only better than our won past, but better
+than any past. Humanity is our inheritance, but not historical humanity.
+Man seems to be broken and scattered all abroad. The great lives are
+only eminent examples of a single virtue, and by admiration of every
+hero we have been crippled on some one side. If he is free, he is also
+coarse; if delicate, he is overlaid by the gross world; saints are timid
+and feverish, afraid of being spattered in the first puddle; heroes are
+profane. We must melt up all the old metal to make a new man and carry
+forward the common consciousness. Every failure was part of the final
+success. We go over a causeway in which every timber is some soldier
+fallen in this enterprise. Who doubts the result doubts God. We say,
+regretfully "If I could only continue at my best!" and we ach with the
+little ebb, between wave and wave, of an advancing tide. But this tide
+is Omnipotence. It rises surely, if it were only an inch in a thousand
+years. The changes in society are like the geologic upheaval and sinking
+of continents; yet man is morally as far removed from the savage as he
+is physically superior to the saurian. We do not see the corn grow or
+the world revolve; yet if motion be given as the primal essence, we must
+look for inconceivable results. Wisdom will take care of wisdom, and
+extend. Consider the growth of intellect in the history of your own
+parish for twenty years. See how old views have died out of New England
+and new ones come in. Every man is fortified in his opinions, yet no man
+can hold his opinions. The closer they are hugged, the faster in any
+community they change. The ideas of such men as Swedenborg, Goethe,
+Emerson, float in the air like spores, and wherever they light they
+thrive. The crabbedest dogmatist cannot escape; for, if he open his eyes
+to seek his meet, some sunshine will creep in. We have combustibles
+stored in the stupidest of us, and a spark of truth kindles our
+slumbering suspicion. Since the great reality is organized in man, and
+waits to be revealed in him, it is of no avail to shut out the same
+reality from our ears. Thinkers have held to be dangerous, and excluded
+from the desks of public instruction; but the boys were already occupied
+with the same thoughts. They would hear nothing new at the lecture, and
+they are more encouraged by the terror of the elders than by any word
+the wise man could speak. In pursuit of truth, the difficulty is to ask
+a question; for in the ability to ask is involved ability to reach an
+answer. The serious student is occupied with problems which the doctors
+have never been able to entertain, and he knows that their discourse is
+not addressed to him. If you have not wit to understand what I seek, you
+may croak with the frogs: you are left out of my game.
+
+And the old people, unhappily, suspect that this boy, whose theory they
+do not comprehend, is master of their theory. They are puzzled and
+panic-stricken; they strike in the dark. In all controversy, the strong
+man's position is unassailed. His adversary does not see where he is,
+but attacks a man of straw, some figment of his own, to the amusement of
+intelligent spectators. Always our combatant is talking quite wide of
+the whole question. So the wise man can never have an opponent; for
+whoever is able to face and find him has already gone over to his side.
+By material defences, we shut our light for a little, by going where
+only our own views are repeated, and so boxing ourselves from all
+danger of conviction; but if a strong thinker could gain the mere brute
+advantage of having an audience confined in their seats to hear him out,
+he would carry them all inevitably to his conclusion. They know it and
+run away. But the press has made our whole world of civilization one
+great lecture-room, from which no reading man can escape, and the only
+defence against progress is stolid preoccupation with trade or trifles.
+Yet this persistency is holding the breath, and can no more be continued
+in the mind than that in the body. Blundering and falsehood become
+intolerable to the blunderers; they must return to thought, and that is
+proper in a single direction, is approached by ten thousand avenues
+toward the One. It is religious, not ignorance or dogma. We cannot think
+without exploration of the divine order and recognition of its divinity,
+without finding ourselves carried away by it to service and adoration.
+All good is assured to us in Truth, and Truth follows us hard, drives us
+into many a corner, and will have us at last. So Love surprises all, and
+every virtue has a pass-key to every heart. Out of conflicting
+experience, amid barbarism and dogmatism, from feathers that float and
+stones that fall, we deduce the great law of moral gravitation, which
+binds spirit to spirit, and all souls to the best. Recognition of that
+law is worship. We rejoice in it without a taint of selfishness. We
+adore it with entire satisfaction. Worship is neither belief nor hope,
+but this certainty of repose upon Perfection. We explore over our heads
+and under our feet a harmony that is only enriched by dissolving
+discords. The drag of time, the cramp of organization, are only false
+fifths. It is blasphemy to deny the dominant. We cannot escape our good;
+we shall be purified. When our destiny is thus assured to us, we become
+impatient of sleep and sin, and redouble exertion. We devote ourselves
+to this certainty, and our allegiance is religion. There is nothing in
+man omitted from the uplift of Ideality. That is a central and total
+expansion of him, is an inmost entering into his inmost, is more himself
+than he is himself. All reverence is directed toward this Creator
+revealed in flesh, though not compassed. We adore him in others, while
+yet we despise him in ourselves. Every other motion of man has an
+external centre, is some hunger or passion, acts on us from its seat in
+Nature or the body, and we can face it, deny and repudiate it with the
+body; but this is the man flowing down from his source.
+
+We must not be tempted to call things by too fine names, lest we should
+disguise them. All that is great is plain and familiar. The Ideal
+Tendency is simple love of life, felt first as desire and then as
+satisfaction. The men who represent it are not seekers, but finders, who
+go on to find more and more; for in the poet desire has fulfilled
+itself. Enjoyment makes the artist. He has gone on before us, reaching
+into the abyss of possibility; but he has reached more mightily. He
+begins to know what is promised in the universal attraction, in this
+eager turning of all faces toward our future. There is a centre from
+which no eye can be diverted, for it is the beam of sight. Look which
+way you will, that centre is everywhere. The universe is flooded with a
+ray from it, and the light of common day on every object is a refraction
+or reflection of that brightness.
+
+Shallow men think of Ideality as another appetite, to be fed with pretty
+baubles, as the body is satisfied with meat and sleep; but the
+representative of that august impulse feels in it his immortality, and
+by all his lovely allegories, mythologies, fables, pictures, statues,
+manners, songs, and symphonies, he seeks to communicate his own feeling,
+that by specific gravity man must rise. It is no wonder, then, that we
+love Art while it offers us reinforcement of being, and despise the
+pretenders, for whom it is pastime, not prophecy.
+
+For, in spite of all discouragement from the materialists, men
+stultified by trade or tradition, we have trusted the high desire and
+followed it thus far. We felt the sacredness of life even in ourselves,
+and there was always reverence in our admiration. We could not be made
+to doubt the divinity of that which walked with us in the wood or looked
+on us in the morning. The grasses and pebbles, the waters and rocks,
+clouds and showers, snow and wind, were too brother-like to be denied.
+They sang the same song which fills the breast, and our love for them
+was pure. The men and women we sought, were they not worthy of honor?
+The artist comes to bid us trust the Ideal Tendency, and not dishonor
+him who moves therein. He is no trifler, then, to be thrust aside by the
+doctors with their sciences, or the economists with production and use.
+He offers manhood to man and womanhood to woman.
+
+We have named Ideality a love of life. Nay, what is it but life
+itself,--and that loving but true living? What word can have any value
+for us, unless it is a record of inevitable expansions in character. The
+universe is pledged to every heart, and the artist represents its
+promise. He sings, because he sees the manchild advancing, by blind
+paths it may be, but under sure guidance, propelled by inextinguishable
+desires toward the largest experience. He is no longer afraid of old
+bugbears. He feels for one, that nothing in the universe, call it by
+what ugly name you will, can crush or limit the lift of that leaven
+which works in the breast. Out of all eyes there looks on him the same
+expectation, and what for others is a great _perhaps_ for him has become
+unavoidable certainty.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN.
+
+     "The mind of man is first led to adore the forces of Nature,
+     and certain objects of the material world; at a later period,
+     it yields to religious impulses of a higher and purely
+     spiritual character."
+
+HUMBOLDT
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Alpheus and Eleusa, Thessalian Greeks, travelled in their old age, to
+escape poverty and misfortune, which had surely taken joint lease with
+themselves of a certain hut among the hills, and managed both household
+and flock.
+
+The Halcyon builds its nest upon a floating weed; so to the drifting
+fortunes of these wanderers clung a friendless child, innocent and
+beautiful Evadne.
+
+Some secret voice, the country-people say, lured the shepherd from his
+home, to embark on the �gean Sea, and lead the little one away, together
+with his aged wife, to look for a new home in exile. Mariners bound for
+Troas received them into their vessel, and the voyage began.
+
+The Greeks lamented when they beheld the shores of Asia. Heavy clouds
+and the coming night concealed the landmarks which should have guided
+their approach, and, buffeted by the uncertain winds, they waited for
+the morning. By the light of dawn, they saw before them an unknown
+harbor, and the dwellings of men; and here the mariners determined to be
+rid of their passengers, who vexed them by their fears; while to these
+three any port seemed desirable, and they readily consented to put off
+towards the shore. At the hour when the winds rise, at early dawn, they
+gladly parted from the seamen and the tossing ship, and took the way
+before them to the little town.
+
+No fisherman, shadowless, trod the sands; no pious hand lighted the fire
+of sacrifice in the vanishing twilight; even the herds failed to cry
+out for the coming day. Strange fears began to chill the hearts of the
+Thessalians. They walked upon a trackless way, and when they entered the
+dwellings they found them untenanted. Over the doorways hung vines
+dropping their grapes, and birds flew out at the open windows. They
+climbed a hill behind the town, and saw how the sea surrounded them. The
+land on which they stood was no promontory, but an island, separated by
+a foaming interval of water from the shore, which they now saw, not
+distant, but inaccessible.
+
+Then these miserable ones clung to each other on the summit of the rock,
+gazing, until they were fully persuaded of their misfortune. The winds
+waved and fluttered their garments, the waters uttered a voice breaking
+on the rocky shore, and rose mute upon the farther coast. The rain now
+began to fall from a morning cloud, and the travellers, for the first
+time, found shelter under a foreign roof.
+
+All day they watched the sails approaching the headlands, or veering
+widely away and beating towards unseen harbors, as when a bird driven by
+fear abandons its nest, but drawn by love returns and hovers around it.
+Four days and nights had passed before the troubled waves ceased to
+hinder the craft of the fisherman. The Greeks saw with joy that their
+signals were answered, and a boat approached, so that they could hear a
+man's voice crying to them,--
+
+"What are you who dwell on the island of the profane, and gather fruits
+sacred to Apollo?"
+
+"If I may be said to dwell here," replied the old man, "it is contrary
+to my own will. I am a Greek of Thessaly. Apollo himself should not have
+forbidden me to gather the wild grapes of this island, since I and this
+child and Eleusa, my wife, have not during many days found other food."
+
+"It is indeed true," exclaimed the boatman, "that madness presently
+falls upon those who eat of these grapes, since you speak impious words
+against the god. Behold, yonder is woody Tenedos, where his altar
+stands; it is now many years, since, filled with wrath against the
+dwellers here, he seized this rock, and hurled it into the sea; the very
+hills melted in the waves. I myself, a child then, beheld the waters
+violently urged upon the land. Moved without winds, they rose, climbing
+upon the very roofs of the houses. When the sea became calm, a gulf lay
+between this and the coast, and what had been a promontory was left
+forever an island. Nor has any man dared to dwell upon it, nor to gather
+its accursed fruits. Many men have I known who saw gods walking upon
+this shore, visible sometimes on the high cliffs inaccessible to human
+feet. Therefore, if you, being a stranger, have ignorantly trespassed on
+this garden, which the divinities reserve, perhaps for their own
+pleasure, strive to escape their resentment and offer sacrifices on the
+altar of Tenedos."
+
+"Give me a passage in your boat to the land yonder, and I will depart
+out of your coasts," replied the Greek.
+
+The fisherman, hitherto so friendly, remained silent, and words were
+wanting to him wherewith to instruct the stranger. When he again spoke,
+he said,--
+
+"Why, old man, not having the vigor or the carelessness of youth, have
+you quitted your home, leading this woman into strange lands, and this
+child, whose eyes are tearful for the playmates she has left? I call a
+little maid daughter, who is like unto her, and she remains guarded at
+home by her mother, until we shall give her in marriage to one of her
+own nation and language."
+
+"Waste no more words," answered the old man, "I will narrate my story as
+we row towards your harbor."
+
+"It were better for you," said the boatman, "that they who brought you
+hither should take you into their ship again. Enter our town, if you
+will, but be not amazed at what shall befall you. It is a custom with us
+to make slaves of those who approach us unsolicited, in order to
+protect ourselves against the pirates and their spies, who have formerly
+lodged themselves among us in the guise of wayfaring men, and so robbed
+us of our possessions. Therefore it is our law, that those who land on
+our coast shall, during a year, serve us in bondage."
+
+Anger flamed in the eye of the stranger.
+
+"You do well," he cried, "to ask of me why I left the land which bore
+me. Never did I there learn to suspect vile and inhospitable customs. If
+you have pity for the aged and the unfortunate, and would not gladly see
+them cast into slavery, bring hither some means of life to this rock,
+which cowards have abandoned for me. Meanwhile, I will watch for some
+friendly sail, which, approaching, may bear me to any harbor, where
+worse reception can hardly await me.--Know that I fear not the anger of
+your gods; many years have I lived, and I have never yet beheld a god.
+My father has told me, that, in all his wanderings, among lonely hills,
+at the hour of dawn, or by night, or, again, in populous places, he has
+never seen one whom he believed to be a god. Moreover, in Athens itself
+are those who doubt their existence. Leave me to gather the grapes of
+Apollo!"
+
+So saying, he turned away from the shore, not deigning to ask more from
+the stranger.
+
+When the golden crescent moon, no sooner visible than ready to vanish in
+the rosy western sky, was smiling on the exiles with the old familiar
+look she wore above the groves of Thessaly, the sad-hearted ones were
+roused again by the voice of their unknown friend.
+
+"Come down to the shore," he cried; "I have returned to you with gifts;
+my heart yearns to the child; she is gentle, and her eyes are like those
+of the stag when the hunters surround him. Take my flasks of oil and
+wine, and these cakes of barley and wheat. I bring you nets, and cords
+also, which we fishermen know how to use. May the gods, whom you
+despise, protect you!"
+
+Late into the night the Greeks remained upon the border of the sea,
+wondering at their strange fate. To the idle the day is never
+sufficiently long,--the night also is wasted in words.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+The days which the exiles passed in solitude were not unhappy. The child
+Evadne pruned the large-leaved vines, and gave the rugged cheeks of
+certain melons to the sun. The continual hope of departure rendered all
+privations supportable.
+
+Was it hope, or was it fear, that stirred their bosoms when at last a
+sail appeared not distant? They hoped that its white wings might turn
+seaward!
+
+"Mother," cried the shepherd, "no seaman willingly approaches this
+shore, for the white waves warn him how the rocks He beneath the water.
+Even walls and roofs of houses are seen, or guessed at, ingulfed
+formerly by the sea; and the tale of that disaster, as told us by the
+fisherman, is doubtless known to mariners, who, fearing Apollo, dare not
+land upon this island. While, on the other hand, we have heard how
+pirates, and even poor wayfaring folk, are so ill-received in the bay,
+that from them, though they be not far off, we yet look for no
+assistance. Let us, then, be content, and cease to seek after our fate,
+which doubtless is never at rest from seeking after us. And let us not
+be in haste to enter again into a ship, (so fearful and unnatural a
+thing for those born to walk upon the land,) nor yet to beg our way
+along painful and unknown roads, in search of men of a new religion and
+a different language from that of Greeks. Neither, dear wife, if we must
+suffer it, let us dread slavery too much. Life is long enough for those
+who die young, and too long for the aged. One year let us patiently
+give, more especially if it be unavoidable to give it. Vex me with no
+more lamentations; some unforeseen accident may relieve us from our
+misfortunes."
+
+Eleusa, the good old wife, ever obedient to the husband of her youth,
+talked no more of departure, nor yet complained of their miserable
+lodgings in the ruined huts, on which her housewifely care grieved to
+expend itself in vain.
+
+Evadne would not be restrained from wandering. She penetrated alone the
+wildest thickets; the nests of timid birds were known to her; and she
+traced the bee to his hidden city. Deep in the woods she discovered a
+wide chasm, in which the water of the sea palpitated with the beating of
+the great heart of Ocean from which it flowed. Trees were still erect,
+clasped by the salt waves, but quite dead; and all around their base
+were hung fringes of marine growth, touched with prismatic tints when
+seen through the glittering water, but brown and hideous when gathered,
+as the trophy remaining in the hand which has dared to seize old Proteus
+by the locks. All around this avenue, into which the sea sometimes
+rushed like an invading host of armed men, the laurels and the delicate
+trees that love to bend over the sources of the forest-streams hung
+half-uprooted and perilously a-tiptoe over the brink of shattered rocks,
+and withered here and there by the touch of the salt foam, towards which
+they seemed nevertheless fain to droop, asking tidings of the watery
+world beyond.
+
+The skeleton-arms of the destroyed ones were feeble to guard the passage
+of the ravine. Evadne broke a way over fallen trees and stepping-stones
+imbedded in sea-sand, and gained the opposite bank. The solitude in
+which she found herself appeared deeper, more awful, than before the
+chasm lay between the greater island and the less. She listened
+motionless to the soft, but continual murmur of the wood, the music of
+leaves and waves and unseen wings, by which all seeming silence of
+Nature is made as rich to the ear as her fabrics to the eye, so that, in
+comparison, the garments of a king are mean, though richly dyed,
+embroidered on every border, and hung with jewels.
+
+While the little wood-ranger stood and waited, as it were, for what the
+grove might utter, her eye fell upon the traces of a pathway, concealed,
+and elsewhere again disclosed, overgrown by sturdy plants, but yet
+threading the shady labyrinth. She followed the often reappearing line
+upon the hillside, and as she climbed higher, with her rose the
+mountains and the sea. The shore, the sands, the rocky walls, showed
+every hue of sunbeams fixed in stone. The leafy sides of Tenedos had
+caught up the clear, green-tinted blue of the sea, and wore it in a
+noonday dream under the slumberous light that rested on earth and sea
+and sky. Above the horizon, far away, the very clouds were motionless;
+and where the sunbeams marked a tranquil sail, it seemed, with wave and
+cloud, to express only Eternal Repose. But the eager child pressed
+onward, for the crown of the hill seemed almost reached, and she longed
+for a wider, wider view of the beautiful �gean.
+
+Suddenly she arrived where a sculptured stone lay in the pathway. Some
+patient and skilful hand had wrought there the emblem of a rose, and
+among the chiselled petals stood drops of rain, collected as in a cup.
+On the border a pure white bird had just alighted, and Evadne watched
+how it bent and rose and seemed to caress the flower of stone, while it
+drank of the dew around and within it. Her eyes filled with tears as she
+mused on the vanished hand of Art, whose work Nature now reclaimed for
+this humble, but grateful use. The dove took wing, and the child
+proceeding came to a level turf where a temple of white marble stood.
+Eight slender columns upheld a marble canopy, beneath which stood the
+image of a god. One raised hand seemed to implore silence, while the
+other showed clasping fingers, but they closed upon nothing. Around the
+statue's base lay scattered stones. Evadne gathered them, and reunited
+they formed the lyre of Apollo. She replaced, for an instant, in the
+cold and constant grasp a fragment of the ruined harp. Then the aspect
+of the god became regretful, sad, as of one who desires a voice from
+the lips of the dead. Hastily she flung the charm away, and gentle grace
+returned to the listening boy, from whom, sleeping, some nymph might
+have stolen his lyre, whose complaining chords now vibrated to his ear
+and called their master to the pursuit. Evadne reposed on the steps of
+the temple, and fixedly gazed upon the god. Her fancy endowed the firm
+hand with an unbent bow; then the figure seemed to pause in the chase,
+and listen for the baying of the hounds. Then she imaged a shepherd's
+staff, and the shepherd-god waited tenderly for the voice of a lost
+lamb.
+
+"So stood Apollo in Thessaly," she softly said, "when he carried the
+shepherd's staff. Oh that I were the lost Thessalian lamb for whom he
+waits, that he might descend and I die for joy on his breast!"
+
+Then, half afraid that the lips might break their marble stillness in
+reply, she asked the protection of the deity, whom she was fain to
+adore, but whom her adopted parents dared to despise.
+
+Sole worshipper at a deserted shrine, she had no offering to place
+there, but of flowers. She wove a crown and laid it at his feet, and,
+while she bent by the pedestal, to hang a garland there, oh, terror! a
+voice cried, "Evadne! Evadne!" A tide of fear rushed to her heart. The
+god stood motionless yet. Who could have uttered her name? A falling
+branch, a swift zephyr, may have seemed for an instant articulate, and
+yet it was surely a human voice which had called her. Her reverie was
+broken now, like a cataract brought to its downfall. A moment since, all
+was peace and joyfulness; now she remembered, with alarm, how long she
+had left her foster-parents alone, and the way by which she had come was
+unknown, as if she had never traced it. She crossed the floor of the
+temple, and, as she turned to whisper, "Farewell! beautiful god!" the
+form gently inclined itself, and the uplifted hand stirred lightly.
+Evadne darted forward and looked no more behind. She bounded over chasms
+in the pathway, and broke the tender branches before her with impatient
+hands, so that her descent from the temple was one mad flight.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+When Evadne returned to Alpheus and to her foster-mother, she was silent
+concerning her discovery, and it seemed the more sweet to her for being
+secret. Her thoughts made pilgrimages to the temple hidden by the
+laurels once set to adorn it, and the deserted God of Youth and Immortal
+Beauty drew from her an untaught and voiceless worship. How tedious now
+appeared the labors of their half-savage life!--for the ensnaring of
+fish and the gathering of fruits for the little household gave the child
+no leisure to climb the hill a second time, to seek the lost temple, now
+all her own. Two weary days had passed, and on the morning of the third
+Evadne performed all her labors, such as they were, of field or of the
+house.
+
+Eleusa was absorbed in the art, new to her, of repairing a broken net,
+when the child abruptly fled away into the forest, crying out, "I go to
+seek wild grapes." She would not hear the voices calling her back. She
+gained rapidly the path, already familiar, and wherein every bough and
+every leaf seemed expectant of her coming footsteps.
+
+Hamadryads veiled themselves, each in her conscious tree, eluding human
+approach. She steals more gently along, that she may haply surprise a
+vision. The little grassy plain appears beyond the wavering
+oak-branches. It is reached at last, and there,--surely it is no
+delusion,--there rests a sleeping youth! Another step, and she bent
+aside the boughs. He stands erect, listening.
+
+"It is the god!" she cries; and, falling back, would have been
+precipitated from the rock, had not the youth rapidly bounded forward
+and grasped her hand.
+
+"Little one, beautiful child," he cried, "do not fear me! I have indeed
+played the god formerly, to scare from my hunting-ground the poor fools
+who dread the anger of Apollo. Tell me, who are you, thus wandering in
+the awful garden of the gods? Who brought you hither, and what name has
+been given you?"
+
+Trembling still, and not knowing how to relate it, Evadne stammered
+forth some words of her history. Her senses were bewildered by the
+beauty of the hunter-boy, who now appeared how different from the marble
+god! Bold, and as if ever victorious, with an undaunted brow, like
+Bacchus seen through the tears of sad Ariadne awakened. Strong and swift
+were his limbs, as those of a panther. His cheek was ruddy, and his
+half-naked form was brown, as those appear who dwell not under a roof,
+but in the uncertain shade of the forest. His locks were black and
+wildly disordered, and his eyes were most like to a dark stream lighted
+with golden flashes; but the laughing beauty of his lip no emblem could
+convey.
+
+Soon, seated on the turf, the story of each child was related.
+
+"I am nobly born," said the boy, "but I love the life of a hunter. My
+father has left me alone, and when I am a man, I, too, shall follow him
+to Rome. But liberty is sweeter than honor or power. I escape often from
+my tutor, who suspects not where I hide myself, and range all the
+forests. Embarking by night, in former years, I often visited this
+island. I know where to gather fruits and seek vineyards among the
+ruined huts of the village beneath us. By night I descend and gather
+them, for my free wanderings by day caused the fishermen to relate that
+a god walked upon the shore. When some, more curious or bold, turned
+their prows hitherward, to observe what form moved upon the hill, I
+rolled great rocks down, with a thundering noise, into the sea, and have
+terrified all men from the spot."
+
+"We now call the vineyards and gardens ours," said Evadne, "but it
+appears they truly belong to you. Descend to the shore and we will share
+with you, not only the ripest clusters of the vines, but wine and loaves
+which the fisherman brings us."
+
+"Bring me hither the wine, and I will gladly drink of it, nor waste one
+drop in oblation; but I must not descend to the shore, and you must be
+silent concerning me, for my tutor offers large rewards to any one who
+will disclose where I hide myself. The slaves on the coast here are
+ready to betray me. I have watched them sailing near the island, lured
+by the promise of a handful of gold, but not daring to land upon it,
+lest they should behold, against his will, a divine being."
+
+"Then I will climb up hither and bring you the fruits," said Evadne.
+
+"Nay, my bird," answered the boy, "lay them only on the altar, below,
+and when it is safe to descend, call me."
+
+"If I call softly, you cannot hear me; and I cannot call loudly enough
+to reach you upon this hill."
+
+"The secrets of the island are not known to you," her companion said,
+and arose quickly; "follow me,--I will teach you. You know not why
+Apollo is listening? It is for the good of the worshippers, who care not
+to mount the hill to adore him. Above the town stands an altar; voices
+uttered there are brought up hither by an echo. There the pious repaired
+once, and laid their gifts, and songs and the music of flutes sounded in
+honor of the deity, who was held too sacred to be approached. Hold me
+not too sacred, little one!--you shall approach without fear; but give
+me your voice at this altar, when your foster-father sleeps."
+
+"But what shall I call you?" cried the laughing Evadne.
+
+"Call _Hylas_. Echo has often repeated, the name, they say, in the
+country of Mysia, and these groves shall learn it of you! Now follow me
+over the floor of the temple,--but lightly! lightly! See how the god
+would warn us away! He nods on his pedestal; even the loud thunder may
+some day cause his fall; already he is half shaken down from his shrine
+by earthquakes."
+
+Then, firmly, bold Hylas held trembling Evadne, who glanced for an
+instant down the leafy passage of echoes.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+When the day was over, Alpheus called to him his foster-child.
+
+"You have willingly followed us into our exile," he said, "nor have you
+ever inquired whither we lead you. Listen to me; I shall confide to you
+a secret, so that, if evil befall us, you may go on and fulfil your
+journey.
+
+"In Asia stands a city, called Thyatira, and there dwell men of a new
+religion, called Christians. Of this faith I know as yet but little.
+But, dear Evadne, your father is yet living, and has sent, praying me to
+conduct you to him, that you may be taught among Christians. I have
+labored to fulfil his wish, for in our youth we were dear to each other.
+The moon saw us nightly upon the hills, guarding our flocks, and by day
+we practised the labors and the sports of Greeks."
+
+"What is the religion of my father?" asked the child.
+
+"I cannot tell it to you; I know only that the Christians worship one
+god."
+
+"Apollo, then, is my choice."
+
+"Not so, child. The god of Christians is not known to us; but he shall
+overthrow the idols of the whole world. The bow of Diana, the lyre of
+Apollo, are already broken."
+
+The child started. Was the temple known to Alpheus, too? Had he seen
+there the fragments of a shattered harp?
+
+The old man continued his discourse, but Evadne's thoughts had flown
+away towards the lost temple.
+
+"There alone will I worship," she murmured to herself. She dreamed of
+adoring the deity of stone, but Hylas haunted all her thoughts. Yes,
+Evadne! one god is sufficient for you!
+
+Under cover of the darkness, the friendly boatman drew near, and the
+islanders heard the unaccustomed sound of the boat drawn up the beach by
+the youth, whose superstitious fears began to vanish as he observed that
+no calamity fell upon these dwellers on the sacred spot.
+
+"I come," he said, "with gifts truly, but also with good tidings. Have
+patience yet awhile. Your retreat is still unknown, and, after a few
+days, I may find you the means of escape."
+
+Evadne alone was silent, and her tears flowed secretly.
+
+The sun was already set, on the following day, before she stole away to
+meet the hunter-boy. In his hand, as he advanced joyously to greet her,
+he bore a white dove, which his arrow had pierced.
+
+"I struck it," he said, while he pointed to its broken wing and bleeding
+breast, "when it alighted on the edge of a stone fallen from the
+temple."
+
+Evadne concealed her ready tears and uttered no reproach against her
+hero; but she pressed the dead bird to her bosom.
+
+"Tell me, Hylas," she asked, "do you worship this god before us, or that
+of the Christians?"
+
+The boy laughed gayly.
+
+"I worship this strong right arm," he said, "and my own bold will, which
+has conquered and shall conquer again! The stories of the gods are but
+fables. To us who are brave nothing can be forbidden; it is the weak who
+are unfortunate, and no god is able either to assist or to destroy us.
+As to the Christians, they are a despised people, a race of madmen, who,
+pretending to love poverty and martyrdom, are followed by the rude and
+ignorant. As for us, we are gods, both to them and to ourselves."
+
+Evadne knew that she herself must be counted among the rude and
+ignorant; she dared not raise her eyes to the young noble, who watched
+her quivering lip, and but dimly guessed how he had wounded her.
+
+"Leave caressing the dead bird," he said, at last, "and I will tell you
+tales of Rome and its glories."
+
+And he charmed back again her innocent smiles, with noble traditions of
+kings, of gods, and of heroes, till the round moon stood above Gargarus,
+cold, in a rose-tinted heaven.
+
+But again at sunrise the child sought the spot to bring a basket, heavy
+with gifts, for Hylas. He came at the call of Evadne, fresh, glowing,
+beautiful as a child rocked on the breast of Aurora, and upheld by her
+cool, fanning wings. His cheek wore the kiss of the Sun, and his closely
+curling locks were wet by the scattered fountain, cold in the shaded
+grove. He broke the early silence of the air with song and story, and
+named for the admiring child the towns, the headlands, and the hills,
+over which the eye delighted to wander.
+
+"Now is the hour," he said, "when mariners far away behold for a little
+while the dome of this temple. They believe that the gods have rendered
+it invisible except at the rising day; but, in truth, the oaks, the
+laurels, and the unpruned ivy conceal it from view, at all times, except
+when the rays from the east strike upward. I have delighted to teach the
+people fables concerning this island and the lost temple; for as long as
+they fear to tread upon this spot, I have a retreat for myself, where I
+range unmolested.
+
+"See yonder, so white among the dark cypress-trees, my father's villa!
+It has gardens and shady groves, but I love best the wild branching oaks
+which give their shade to Evadne! Far away in the purple distance stands
+the Mount of Ida. There dwelt Paris, content with the love of Oenone,
+until he knew himself to be the son of a king, for whom Argive Helen
+alone was found worthy; for his eyes had rested once upon immortal
+charms, of which the green eternal pines of Ida are still whispering the
+story. See how the people of this village of Athos flock together! Some
+festival occupies them. I see them going forth from the gates in
+hurrying crowds; and now a band of men approaches. Some one is about to
+enter their town, to whom they wish to do honor, and doubtless they bear
+green branches to strew in the way. I know not what festival they
+celebrate, for the altars are all deserted."
+
+"I see a boat put off from the shore," said Evadne, "and it seems to
+turn its prow hitherward."
+
+But it soon was concealed by the woody hill-top, although its course was
+seen to be directed towards the ruined huts upon the shore. Not long
+after, the children heard the name of "Evadne," brought faintly by the
+echoes, like the words of unseen ghosts who strive to awaken some
+beloved sleeper unconscious of their presence.
+
+Evadne feared to return, and dared not stay. For the first time, the
+voice of her foster-father failed to bring her obedient footsteps; for
+her fluttering heart suspected something strange and unwelcome awaiting
+her. She wept at parting from Hylas, and the boy detained her. He also
+seemed troubled.
+
+"Dear little one," he said, "betray me not! These men of Athos have seen
+me, and have authority to bring me bound before some ruler who has
+entered their town. They come to look for me now. I fly to my
+hiding-place, and you will deny that you saw any one in this forest."
+
+He was gone down the face of the cliff, with winged feet, light of tread
+as Jove's messenger. More slowly, Evadne retraced the downward path, and
+lingered on the banks of the ravine, where the bitter waters were
+sobbing among the rocks. She lay down upon the ground, and dreamed,
+while yet waking, of her home in Thessaly, of her unknown father in the
+Christian city of Thyatira, and of Hylas, ever Hylas, and the pain of
+parting. How long she hid herself she guessed not, until the sun at the
+zenith sent down his brightest beam to discover the lost Thessalian
+lamb. Then, subdued and despairing, she travelled on to meet the
+reproaches that could not fail to await her.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+At midnight the sleepless girl stole from her couch, and laid on the
+altar beyond the village heavy clusters of grapes and the richest fruits
+from her store of dainties. "Hylas!" she softly cried, and the
+sleepless echo repeated the name; but though she watched long, no form
+emerged from the forest. Timidly she flitted back to her dwelling, and
+waited for an eastern gleam. At last the veil of night was lifted a
+little, a wind ruffled the waves, and the swaying oaks repeated to the
+hills the message of coming splendors from the Orient. Evadne gladly saw
+that the stars were fewer and paler in the sky, and she walked forth
+again, brushing cold dews from the vines and the branches. A foreboding
+fear led her first to look at the altar where she had left her offering.
+It was untouched. Then she entered the still benighted wood, and passed
+the cold gray waters. Arrived at the temple, she felt a hateful
+stillness in the place.
+
+"Hylas!" she loudly called, "come to me! For _you_ there is no danger;
+but for me, they will take me away at sunrise. The Christians will come
+to-day and carry me hence. Oh, Hylas! where do you hide yourself?"
+
+But only a strong and angry wind disturbed the laurels around the
+temple, and all was still. Then the song of the birds began all around
+her, and a silver gleam shot across the eastern horizon. Suddenly
+rosy-tinged signals stood among the sad-colored torn clouds above her
+head. The hour for her departure was approaching. She gazed intently
+down among the pines, where Hylas had disappeared, and painfully and
+slowly began to descend. The wild-eyed hares glanced at her and shrank
+into concealment again. The birds uttered cries of alarm, and the
+motionless lizards lay close to her feet. Her heart beat anxiously when
+she heard the sudden stroke of a bird's wing, scared from its nest, and
+she paused often to listen, but no human voice was heard.
+
+She penetrated slowly thus to that shore of the island which she had
+never yet visited. She reached a border of white sand, and studied its
+surface. She found a record there,--traces of footsteps, and the long
+trail of a boat, drawn from a thicket of laurels to the shore, and down
+to the water's edge. She stood many minutes contemplating these signs.
+She imaged to herself the retreat by night, by the late rising light of
+the waning moon. She seemed to see the youth, his manly arm urging the
+boat from its hiding-place. In this spot his foot pressed the sand.
+There he walked before and drew the little craft behind him. He launched
+it here, and, had not the winds urged the water up the shore, his last
+footstep might have remained for Evadne to gaze at.
+
+He is surely gone! To return for the smiles of Evadne? She knows not if
+he will return; but she glances upward at the sky, and feels that she
+soon will have quitted the island, this happy island, forever!
+
+Upward through the wood again she toils to take a last look at the
+temple. The spot seemed already to have forgotten her. And yet here lies
+a withered crown she wove once for Hylas; and here she finds at last the
+dart she lost for him, when she drew his bow in play. Now she sees on
+the shore at Athos an assembly of the people, and the men push off their
+boats. The village is already alive, and awake. The rising of the sun is
+looked for, and the clouds are like a golden fleece. Slowly above the
+tree-tops the swans are waving their great pinions, to seek the stream
+of Cayster. All creatures recognize the day, and only one weeps to see
+the light.
+
+Evadne knew that on yonder shore waited the dreaded messengers who would
+gather the homeless into the Christian fold. She stayed to utter one
+farewell to the cold, the cruel marble, with its unvaried smile.
+
+"Be my god!" she cried, aloud. "In whatever strange land, to whatever
+unknown religion I may be led, the god of this forgotten temple shall
+have the worship of my heart!"
+
+She crossed the marble pavement. She clasped with her white cold arms
+the knees of Apollo--Hold! the form totters!--it is too late!--it must
+fall! She rises to flee away, but the very floor is receding from her
+tread. And slowly, with a majesty even in destruction, the god bows
+himself, and drops from his pedestal.
+
+The crashing fall is over. The foundations of the shrine, parted long
+ago by earthquakes, and undermined by torrents, have slipped from their
+place. Stones slide gradually to the brink of the rock, and some have
+fallen near the sculptured rose; and yet some portions of the graceful
+temple stand, and will support the dome yet, until some boisterous storm
+shakes roughly the remaining columns.
+
+But the god is dethroned, shivered, ruined. Evadne should arise and go.
+The daylight overflows the sky, and she is quite, quite still, where the
+hand of Apollo has laid her. Her forehead was but touched by fingers
+that once held the lyre; and a crimson stream flows through the locks
+upon her brow. A smile like that which the god wore is fixed and
+changeless now upon her lip. Why does she smile? Because, in the dawn of
+life, of grief, of love, she found peace.
+
+The sun was up, and there was no more silence or repose along the coast.
+Vigor and toil gave signs of their awakening. Sails were unfurled upon
+the wavering masts, and showed white gleams, as the sunlight struck each
+as it broadened out and swayed above its bright reflection below. Oars
+were dipped in the smooth sea, and an eager crowd stood waiting to visit
+the exiles on the once dreaded island. Evadne was already missed. Again
+and again voices called upon her, the echoes repeated the sound, and the
+groves had but one voice,--"Evadne!" She stirred not at the sound, but
+her smile grew sweeter, and her brow paler, and cold as the marble hand
+that pressed it.
+
+Oh, Alpheus! oh, Eleusa! chide not! you will be weeping soon! She has,
+indeed, angered you of late. She left her foster-parents alone, and
+threaded the forest. She hid herself when you called, and, when the
+fisher's boat was waiting to convey her with you to the shore, where
+friends were ready to receive her and lead her to her father, then she
+was wandering!
+
+Eleusa is querulous. No wonder! for the child is sadly changed. They
+will see her soon; a Christian prophet comes to break the heathen spell
+of the island. The men of yonder village consent to abjure the worship
+of Apollo. They come with the teacher of a new religion to consecrate
+the spot anew. The busy crowd, as on a day of festival, embark to claim
+again the once deserted spot.
+
+Alpheus and Eleusa wait sadly for their approach, for trouble possesses
+their hearts. They pine for their once gentle, submissive child. But the
+teacher comes, and hails them in words of a new benediction. _The Great
+Name_ is uttered also in their hearing. Calmness returns to them, in the
+presence of the holy man. It is not Paul, mighty to reprove, and learned
+as bold,--it is that "one whom Jesus loved." He has rested on his bosom,
+and looked on him pierced on the cross. The look from his dying eyes and
+the tones of his tender love are ever present in the soul of this
+beloved disciple. The awful revelations of Patmos had not yet illumined
+his eyes. His locks were white as the first blossoms of the spring, but
+his heart was not withered by time, and men believed of him that he
+should never see death. Those who beheld him loved him, and listened
+because they loved. What he desired was accomplished as if a king had
+commanded it, and what he taught was gathered in among the treasures of
+the heart.
+
+The first care of the Apostle was to seek the lost child, and the youths
+of his company went on, and scaled the hill. Meanwhile, not far from the
+altar, on which an unregarded offering lay, the people gathered round
+their master, while to Alpheus and Eleusa he related the immortal story
+of Judea.
+
+Before mid-day the villagers had returned to their dwellings. With John,
+their friend and consoler, two mourners departed from the island, where
+fabled Apollo no longer possessed a shrine. His altar was torn away; a
+newly-made grave was marked by a cross roughly built of its broken
+stones.
+
+"I will return here," said the fisherman of Athos, "when you are far
+away in some Christian city of Asia. I will return and carve here the
+name of 'Evadne.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE SKATER.
+
+
+    The skater lightly laughs and glides,
+      Unknowing that beneath the ice
+      Whereon he carves his fair device
+    A stiffened corpse in silence slides.
+
+    It glareth upward at his play;
+      Its cold, blue, rigid fingers steal
+      Beneath the trendings of his heel;
+    It floats along and floats away.
+
+    He has not seen its horror pass;
+      His heart is blithe; the village hears
+      His distant laughter; he careers
+    In festive waltz athwart the glass.--
+
+    We are the skaters, we who skim
+      The surface of Life's solemn flood,
+      And drive, with gladness in our blood,
+    A daring dance from brim to brim.
+
+    Our feet are swift, our faces burn,
+      Our hopes aspire like soaring birds;
+      The world takes courage from our words,
+    And sees the golden time return.
+
+    But ever near us, silent, cold,
+      Float those who bounded from the bank
+      With eager hearts, like us, and sank
+    Because their feet were overbold.
+
+    They sank through breathing-holes of vice,
+      Through treacherous sheens of unbelief;
+      They know not their despair and grief:
+    Their hearts and minds are turned to ice.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS JEFFERSON.[1]
+
+[Concluded.]
+
+
+Mr. Jefferson returned from France in the autumn of 1789, and the
+following spring took office as Secretary of State. He was unwilling to
+abandon his post abroad, but the solicitations of Washington controlled
+him. He plainly was the most suitable person for the place. Franklin,
+the father of American diplomacy, was rapidly approaching the close of
+his long and busy life, and John Adams, the only other statesman whose
+diplomatic experience could be compared with that of Thomas Jefferson,
+was Vice President.
+
+It would be a tedious task to enter into a detail of the disputes which
+arose in Washington's Cabinet, nor is it necessary to do so. Most candid
+persons, who have examined the subject, are convinced that the
+differences were unavoidable, that they were produced by exigencies in
+affairs upon which men naturally would disagree, by conflicting social
+elements, and by the dissimilar characters, purposes, and political
+doctrines of Jefferson and Hamilton. Jefferson's course was in
+accordance with the general principles of government which from his
+youth he had entertained.
+
+As to the accusation, so often made, that he opposed an administration
+of which he was a member and which by the plainest party-rules he was
+bound to support, it is completely answered by the statement, that his
+conduct was understood by Washington, that he repeatedly offered to
+resign, and that when he retired it was in opposition to the President's
+wish. It is not worth while for us to apply a higher standard of party
+loyalty to Washington's ministers than he himself applied.
+
+One great difficulty encountered by the politicians of that day seems to
+have been purely fanciful. Strictly speaking, the government did not
+have a policy. It went into operation with the impression that it would
+be persistently resisted, that its success was doubtful, and that any
+considerable popular disaffection would be fatal to it. These fears
+proved to be unfounded. The day Washington took the oath, the government
+was as stable as it now is. Disturbing elements undoubtedly existed, but
+they were controlled by great and overruling necessities, recognized by
+all men. Thus the final purpose of the administration was accomplished
+at the outset. The labor which it was expected would task the patriotism
+and exercise the skill of the most generous and experienced was
+performed without an effort,--as it were, by a mere pulsation of the
+popular heart. The question was not, How shall the government be
+preserved? but, How shall it be administered? This is evident now, but
+was not seen then. The statesmen of the time believed that the Union was
+constantly in danger, and that their best efforts were needed to protect
+it. In this spirit they approached every question which presented
+itself. Thinking that every measure directly affected the safety of the
+republic, a difference of opinion could not be a mere disagreement upon
+a matter of policy. In proportion to the intensity of each man's
+patriotism was his conviction that in his way alone could the government
+be preserved, and he naturally thought that his opponents must be either
+culpably neglecting or deliberately plotting against the interests of
+the country. Real difficulties were increased by imaginary ones.
+Opposition became treason. Parties called themselves Republicans and
+Federalists;--they called each other monarchists and anarchists. This
+delusion has always characterized our politics; noisy politicians of
+the present day stigmatize their adversaries as disunionists; but during
+the first twenty years it was universal, and explains the fierce
+party-spirit which possessed the statesmen of that period, and likewise
+accounts for many of their errors.
+
+Among these errors must be placed the belief which Jefferson had, that
+there was a party of monarchists in the country. Sir. Randall makes a
+long argument in support of this opinion, and closes with an intimation
+that those who refuse to believe now cannot be reached by reason. He may
+rank us with these perverse skeptics; for, in our opinion, his argument
+not only fails to establish his propositions, but is strong against
+them. Let it be understood;--the assertion is not, that there were some
+who would have preferred a monarchy to a republic, but that, after the
+government was established, Ames, Sedgwick, Hamilton, and other Federal
+leaders, were plotting to overturn it and create a monarchy. Upon this
+we have no hesitation in taking issue. The real state of the case, and
+the circumstances which deceived Mr. Jefferson, may be briefly set
+forth.
+
+Jefferson left France shortly after the taking of the Bastile. He saw
+the most auspicious period of the Revolution. During the session of the
+Estates General, the evils which afflicted France were admitted by all,
+but the remedies proposed were, as yet, purely speculative. The roseate
+theories of poets and enthusiasts had filled every mind with vague
+expectations of some great good in the future. Nothing had occurred to
+disturb these pleasing anticipations. There was no sign of the fearful
+disasters then impending. The delirium of possession had not seized upon
+the nation,--her statesmen had not learned how much easier it is to plan
+than to achieve,--nor had the voice of Burke carried terror throughout
+Europe. Even now, it is impossible to read the first acts of that drama
+without being moved to sympathetic enthusiasm. What emotions must it not
+have excited while the awful catastrophe was yet concealed! Tried by any
+received test, France, for centuries, had been the chief state in
+Europe,--inferior to none in the arts of war, superior to any in the
+arts of peace. Fashion and letters had given her an empire more
+permanent than that which the enterprise of Columbus and the fortune of
+Charles gave to Spain, more extended than that which Trafalgar and
+Waterloo have since given to England. Though her armies were resisted,
+her wit and grace were irresistible; every European prince was her
+subject, every European court a theatre for the display of her address.
+The peculiar spirit of her genius is not more distinctly to be seen in
+the verse of Boileau than in that of Pope,--in the sounding periods of
+Bossuet than in Addison's easy phrase. The spectacle of a nation so
+distinguished, which had carried tyranny to a perfection and invested it
+with a splendor never before seen, becoming the coryph�us of freedom,
+might easily have fascinated a mind less impressible by nature, and less
+disposed by education for favorable impressions, than that of Jefferson.
+He shared the feeling of the hour. His advice was asked, and
+respectfully listened to. This experience, while, as he says, it
+strengthened his preconceived convictions, must have prevented him from
+carefully observing, certainly from being affected by, the influences
+which had been at work in his own country. He came home more assured in
+republicanism, and expecting to find that America had kept pace with
+him.
+
+But many things had occurred in America to excite doubts of the
+efficiency of republican institutions. The government of the
+Confederation was of little value. During the war, common interests and
+dangers had bound the Colonies together; with peace came commercial
+rivalries, boundary disputes, relations with other countries, the
+burdens of a large debt,--and the scanty powers with which Congress had
+been clothed were inadequate to the public exigencies. The Congress was
+a mere convention, in which each State had but one vote. To the most
+important enactments the consent of nine States was necessary. The
+concurrence of the several legislatures was required to levy a tax,
+raise an army, or ratify a treaty. The executive power was lodged in a
+committee, which was useless either for deliberation or action. The
+government fell into contempt; it could not protect itself from insult;
+and the doors of Congress were once besieged by a mob of mutinous
+soldiery. The States sometimes openly resisted the central government,
+and to the most necessary laws, those for the maintenance of the
+national credit, they gave but a partial obedience. They quarrelled with
+each other. New York sent troops into the field to enforce her claims
+upon her New England neighbors. The inhabitants of the Territories
+rebelled. Kentucky, Vermont, and Tennessee, under another name, declared
+themselves independent, and demanded admission into the Union. In New
+Hampshire and Pennsylvania, insurrections took place. In Massachusetts,
+a rebellion was set on foot, which, for a time, interrupted the sessions
+of the courts. An Indian war, attended by the usual barbarities, raged
+along the northern frontier. Foreign states declined to negotiate with a
+government which could not enforce its decrees within its own borders.
+England haughtily refused to withdraw her troops from our soil; Spain
+closed the Mississippi to the commerce and encroached upon the territory
+of the Confederation. Every consideration of safety and advantage
+demanded a government with strength enough to secure quiet at home and
+respect abroad. It is not to be denied that many thoughtful and
+experienced men were discouraged by the failure of the Confederation,
+and thought that nothing but a monarchy could accomplish the desired
+purpose.
+
+There were also certain social elements tending in the same direction,
+and these were strongest in the city of New York, where Jefferson first
+observed them. That city had been the centre of the largest and most
+powerful Tory community in the Colonies. The gentry were nearly all
+Tories, and, during the long occupation of the town, the tradespeople,
+thriving upon British patronage, had become attached to the British
+cause. There, and, indeed, in all the cities, there were aristocratic
+circles. Jefferson was of course introduced into them. In these circles
+were the persons who gave dinners, and at whose tables he heard the
+opinions expressed which astonished and alarmed him.
+
+What is described as polite society has never been much felt in American
+politics; it was not more influential then. Besides, in many cases,
+these opinions were more likely to have been the expression of
+affectation than of settled conviction. Nothing is more common than a
+certain insincerity which leads men to profess and seemingly believe
+sentiments which they do not and cannot act upon. The stout squire who
+prides himself upon his obstinacy, and whose pretty daughter manages him
+as easily as she manages her poodle, is a favorite character in English
+comedy. Every one knows some truculent gentleman who loudly proclaims
+that one half of mankind are knaves and the other half would be if they
+dared, but who would go mad with despair if he really believed the
+atrocious principles he loves to announce. Jefferson was not so
+constituted as to make the proper allowance for this kind of
+insincerity. Though undemonstrative, he was thoroughly in earnest. In
+fact, he was something of a precisian in politics. He spoke of kings and
+nobles as if they were personal foes, and disliked Scott's novels
+because they give too pleasing a representation of the institution of
+chivalry. He probably looked upon a man who spoke covetously of titles
+much as a Salem elder a century before would have looked upon a
+hard-swearing Virginia planter. In the purse-proud citizens, who, after
+dinner, used to talk grandly about the British Constitution, he saw a
+set of malignant conspirators, when in fact not one in ten had ever
+thought seriously upon the subject, or had enough force of character to
+attempt to carry out his opinions, whatever they might have been.
+
+The political discontents were hardly more formidable. We have admitted
+that some influential persons were in favor of a monarchy; but no one
+took a decided step in that direction. In all the published
+correspondence there is not a particle of evidence of such a movement.
+Even Hamilton, in his boldest advances towards a centralization of
+power, did not propose a monarchy. Those who were most doubtful about
+the success of a republic recognized the necessity of making the
+experiment, and were the most active in establishing the present one.
+The sparsity of the population, the extent of the country, and its
+poverty, made a royal establishment impossible. The people were
+dissatisfied with the Confederation, not with republicanism. The breath
+of ridicule would have upset the throne. The King, the Dukes of
+Massachusetts and Virginia, the Marquises of Connecticut and Mohawk,
+Earl Susquehanna and Lord Livingston, would have been laughed at by
+every ragamuffin. The sentiment which makes the appendages of royalty,
+its titles and honors, respectable, is the result of long education, and
+has never existed in America. Washington was the only person mentioned
+in connection with the crown; but had he attempted to reach it, he would
+have lost his power over the people. He was strong because he had
+convinced his country that he held personal objects subservient to
+public ones,--that, with him, "the path of duty was the way to glory."
+He had none of the magnetism which lulls the senses and leads captive
+the hearts of men. Had he clothed himself in the vulgar robes of
+royalty,--had he taken advantage of the confidence reposed in him for a
+purpose of self-aggrandizement, and that of so petty and commonplace a
+kind,--he would have sunk to a level with the melodramatic heroes of
+history, and that colossal reputation, which rose, a fair exhalation
+from the hearts of grateful millions, and covered all the land, would
+have vanished like a mist.
+
+Whatever individuals may have wished for, the charge of monarchical
+designs cannot be brought against the Federalists as a party. New
+England was the mother of the Revolution, and became the stronghold of
+Federalism. In South Carolina and New York, a majority of the
+inhabitants were Tories; the former State voted for Mr. Jefferson every
+time he was a candidate, the latter gave him his election in 1800. It
+requires a liberal expenditure of credulity to believe that the children
+of the Puritans desired a monarchy more than the descendants of the
+Cavaliers and the adherents of De Lancy and Ogden. Upon this subject
+Jefferson does not seem to have understood that disposition which can be
+dissatified with a measure, and yet firm and honest in supporting it.
+Public men constantly yield or modify their opinions under the pressure
+of political necessity. He himself gives an instance of this, when, in
+stating that he was not entirely content with the Constitution, he
+remarks that not a member of the Federal Convention approved it in all
+its parts. Why may we not suppose that Hamilton and Ames sacrificed
+their opinions, as well as Mr. Jefferson and the framers of the
+Constitution?
+
+The evidence with which Mr. Randall fortifies his position is
+inconclusive. It consists of the opinions of leading Republicans, and
+extracts from the letters of leading Federalists. The former are liable
+to the objection of having been prompted by political prejudices; the
+latter will not bear the construction which he places upon them. They
+are nothing more than expressions of doubt as to the stability of the
+government, and of regret that one of a different kind was not
+adopted,--most of which were made after the Federalists were defeated.
+We should not place too literal a construction upon the repinings of
+disappointed placemen. Mr. Randall, we believe, has been in political
+life, and ought to be accustomed to the disposition which exists among
+public men to think that the country will be ruined, if it is deprived
+of their services. After every election, our ears are vexed by the
+gloomy vaticinations of defeated candidates. This amiable weakness is
+too common to excite uneasiness.
+
+An argument of the same kind, and quite as effective as Mr. Randall's,
+might be made against Jefferson. His letters contain predictions of
+disaster in case of the success of his opponents, and the Federalists
+spoke as harshly of him as he of them. They charged him with being a
+disciple of Robespierre, said that he was in favor of anarchy, and would
+erect a guillotine in every market-place. He called them monarchists,
+and said they sighed after King, Lords, and Commons. Neither charge will
+be believed. The heads of the Federalists were safe after the election
+of Mr. Jefferson, and the republic would have been safe if Hamilton and
+Adams had continued in power.
+
+Both parties formed exaggerated opinions. That Jefferson did so, no one
+can doubt who observes the weight he gave to trifles,--his annoyance at
+the etiquette of the capital,--at the levees and liveries,--at the
+President's speech,--the hysterical dread into which he was thrown by
+the mere mention of the Society of the Cincinnati, and the "chill" which
+Mr. Randall says came over him "when he heard Hamilton praise C�sar."
+This spirit led him to the act which every one must think is a stain
+upon his character: we refer to the compilation of his "Ana." As is well
+known, that book was written mainly for the purpose of proving that the
+Federalists were in favor of a monarchy. It consists chiefly of reports
+of the conversations of distinguished characters. Some of these
+conversations--and it is noticeable that they are the most innocent
+ones--took place in his presence. The worst expressions are mere reports
+by third parties. One story rests upon no better foundation than that
+Talleyrand told it to Volney, who told it to Jefferson. At one place we
+are informed, that, at a St. Andrew's Club dinner, the toast to the
+President (Mr. Adams) was coldly received, but at that to George the
+Third "Hamilton started to his feet and insisted on a bumper and three
+cheers." This choice bit of scandal is given on the authority of "Mr.
+Smith, a Hamburg merchant," "who received it from Mr. Schwarthouse, _to
+whom it was told by one of the dinner-party_." At a dinner given by some
+members of the bar to the federal judges, this toast was offered: "Our
+_King_ in old England,"--Rufus King being the American minister in that
+country. Whereupon Mr. Jefferson solemnly asks us "to observe the
+_double entendre_ on the word King." Du Ponceau told this to Tenche
+Coxe, who told it to Jefferson. Such stuff is repeated in connection
+with descriptions of how General and Mrs. Washington sat on a raised
+sofa at a ball, and all the dancers bowed to them,--and how Mrs. Knox
+mounted the steps unbidden, and, finding the sofa too small for three,
+had to go down. We are told that at one time John Adams cried, "Damn
+'em! you see that an elective government will not do,"--and that at
+another he complimented a little boy who was a Democrat, saying, "Well,
+a boy of fifteen who is not a Democrat is good for nothing,--and he is
+no better who is a Democrat at twenty." Of this bit of treason Jefferson
+says, "Ewen told Hurt, and Hurt told me." These are not mere scraps,
+published by an indiscreet editor. They were revised by Mr. Jefferson in
+1818, when he was seventy-five years old, after, as he says, the
+passions of the time were passed away,--with the intention that they
+should be published. It is humiliating to record this act. No
+justification for it is possible. It is idle to say that these
+revelations were made to warn the country of its danger. As evidence
+they are not entitled to a thought. More flimsy gossip never floated
+over a tea-table. Besides, for such a purpose they should have been
+published when the contest was in progress, when the danger was
+imminent, not after the men whom he arraigned were defeated and most of
+them in their graves. Equally unsatisfactory is the excuse, that they
+illustrate history. This may be true, but it does not acquit Mr.
+Jefferson. Pepys tells us more than Hume about the court of Charles II.,
+and Boswell's Life of Johnson is the best biography in the
+language,--but he must be a shabby fellow who would be either a Boswell
+or a Pepys. Mr. Randall's excuse, that the act was done in
+self-vindication, is the worst of all. Jefferson was the victor and
+needed no defence, surely not so mean and cowardly a defence. That a
+grave statesman should stoop to betray the confidence of familiar
+intercourse,--that a skeptical inquirer, who systematically rejected
+everything which did not stand the most rigid tests, should rely on the
+ridiculous gossip of political circles,--that a deliberate and
+thoughtful man should jump to a conclusion as quickly as a child, and
+assert it with the intolerance of a Turk, certainly is a strange
+anomaly. We can account for it only by supposing that upon the subject
+of a monarchy he was a little beside himself. It is certain, that,
+through some weakness, he was made to forget gentlemanly propriety, and
+the plainest rules for the sifting of testimony;--let us believe that
+the general opinions which he formed, and which his biographer
+perpetuates, resulted from the same unfortunate weakness.
+
+We have dwelt upon this subject, both on account of the prominence which
+Mr. Randall has given it, and because, as admirers of Mr. Jefferson, we
+wished to make a full and distinct statement of the most common and
+reasonable complaint against him. The biographer has done his hero a
+great injury by reviving this absurd business, and has cast suspicion
+upon the accuracy of his book. It is time that our historians approached
+their subjects with more liberal tempers. They should cease to be
+advocates. Whatever the American people may think about the policy of
+the Federalists, they will not impute to them unpatriotic designs. That
+party comprised a majority of the Revolutionary leaders. It is not
+strange that many of them fell into error. They were wealthy and had the
+pride of wealth. They had been educated with certain ideas about rank,
+which a military life had strengthened. The liberal theories which the
+war had engendered were not understood, and, during the French
+Revolution, they became associated with acts of atrocity which Mr.
+Jefferson himself condemned. Abler men than the Federalists failed to
+discriminate between the crime and the principles which the criminals
+professed. Students of affairs are now in a better position than Mr.
+Jefferson was, to ascertain the truth, and they will not find it
+necessary to adopt his prejudices against a body of men who have adorned
+our history by eloquence, learning, and valor.
+
+Jefferson's position in Washington's government must have been extremely
+disagreeable. There was hardly a subject upon which he and Hamilton
+agreed. Washington had established the practice of disposing of the
+business before the Cabinet by vote. Each member was at liberty to
+explain his views, and, owing to the wide differences in opinion, the
+Cabinet Council became a debating society. This gave Hamilton an
+advantage. Jefferson never argued, and, if he had attempted it, he would
+have been no match for his adversary. He contented himself with a plain
+statement of his views and the reasons which influenced him, made in the
+abstract manner which was habitual with him. Hamilton, on the other
+hand, was an adroit lawyer, and a painstaking dialectician, who
+carefully fortified every position. He made long speeches to the
+Cabinet, with as much earnestness as one would use in court. Though
+Jefferson had great influence with the President, he was generally
+outvoted. Knox, of course, was against him. Randolph, the
+Attorney-General, upon whose support he had a right to depend, was an
+ingenious, but unsteady, sophist. He had so just an understanding, that
+his appreciation of his opponent's argument was usually stronger than
+his confidence in his own. He commonly agreed with Jefferson, and voted
+with Hamilton. The Secretary of State was not allowed to control his
+own department. Hamilton continually interfered with him, and had
+business interviews with the ministers of foreign countries. The dispute
+soon spread beyond the Cabinet, and was taken up by the press. Jefferson
+again and again asked leave to resign; Washington besought him to
+remain, and endeavored to close the breach between the rival
+Secretaries. For a time, Jefferson yielded to these solicitations; but
+finally, on the 31st of December, 1793, he left office, and was soon
+followed by Hamilton.
+
+After reaching Monticello, Mr. Jefferson announced, that he had
+completely withdrawn from affairs, and that he did not even read the
+journals, preferring to contemplate "the tranquil growth of lucern and
+potatoes." These bucolic pleasures soon palled. Cultivating lucern and
+potatoes is, without doubt, a dignified and useful employment, but it is
+not likely to content a man who has played a great part, and is
+conscious that he is still able to do so. We soon find him a candidate
+for the Presidency, and, strange as it may seem, in 1797, he was
+persuaded to leave his "buckwheat-dressings" and take the seat of
+Vice-President.
+
+Those who are interested in party tactics will find it instructive to
+read Mr. Randall's account of the opposition to Adams's administration.
+His correspondence shows that Adams was the victim of those in whom he
+confided. He made the mistake of retaining the Cabinet which Washington
+had during the last year or two of his term, and a weaker one has never
+been seen. His ministers plotted against him,--his party friends opposed
+and thwarted him. The President had sufficient talent for a score of
+Cabinets, but he likewise had many foibles, and his position seemed to
+fetter his talents and give full play to his foibles. The opposition
+adroitly took advantage of the dissensions of their adversaries. In
+Congress, the Federalists were compelled to carry every measure by main
+force, and every inch of ground was contested. The temporizing Madison,
+formerly leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, had
+been succeeded by Albert Gallatin, a man of more enterprising spirit and
+firmer grasp of thought. He was assisted by John Randolph, who then
+first displayed the resources of his versatile and daring intellect. Mr.
+Jefferson, also, as the avowed candidate for the succession, may be
+supposed to have contributed his unrivalled knowledge of the springs of
+human action. Earnest as the opposition were, they did not abuse the
+license which is permitted in political contests. But the Federalists
+pursued Mr. Jefferson with a vindictiveness which has no parallel, in
+this country. They boasted of being gentlemen, and prided themselves
+upon their standing and culture, yet they descended to the vilest tricks
+and meanest scandal. They called Jefferson a Jacobin,--abused him
+because he liked French cookery and French wines, and wore a red
+waistcoat. To its shame, the pulpit was foremost in this disgraceful
+warfare. Clergymen did not hesitate to mention him by name in their
+sermons. Cobbett said, that Jefferson had cheated his British creditors.
+A Maryland preacher improved this story, by saying that he had cheated a
+widow and her daughters, of whose estate he was executor. He was
+compared to Rehoboam. It was said, that he had a negro mistress, and
+compelled his daughters to submit to her presence,--that he would not
+permit his children to read the Bible,--and that, on one occasion, when
+his attention was called to the dilapidated condition of a church, he
+remarked, "It is good enough for him who was born in a manger."
+According to his custom, he made no reply to these slanders, and, except
+from a few mild remarks in his letters, one cannot discover that he
+heard of them.
+
+Mr. Adams did not show his successor the customary courtesy of attending
+his inauguration, leaving Washington the same morning. The new
+President, entirely unattended and plainly dressed, rode down the avenue
+on horseback. He tied his horse to the paling which surrounded the
+Capitol grounds, and, without ceremony, entered the Senate Chamber. The
+contrast between this somewhat ostentatious simplicity and the parade at
+the inaugurations of Washington and Adams showed how great a change had
+taken place in the government.
+
+The Presidency is the culmination of Mr. Jefferson's political career,
+and we gladly turn to a contemplation of his character in other aspects.
+
+The collections of Jefferson's writings and correspondence, which have
+been published, throw no light upon his domestic relations. We have
+complained of the prolixity of Mr. Randall's book, but we do not wish to
+be understood as complaining of the number of family letters it
+contains. They form its most pleasing and novel feature. They show us
+that the placid philosopher had a nature which was ardent, tender, and
+constant. His wife died after but ten years of married life. She was the
+mother of six children, of whom two, Martha and Maria, reached maturity.
+Though still young, Mr. Jefferson never married again, finding
+sufficient opportunity for the indulgence of his domestic tastes in the
+society of his daughters. Martha, whom he nicknamed Patsey, was plain,
+resembling her father in features, and having some of his mental
+characteristics. Maria, the youngest, inherited the charms of her
+mother, and is described as one of the most beautiful women of her time.
+Her natural courtesy procured for her, while yet a child, from her
+French attendants, the _sobriquet_ of Polie, a name which clung to her
+through life.
+
+Charged with the care of these children, Jefferson made their education
+one of his regular occupations, as systematically performed as his
+public duties. He planned their studies, and descended to the minutest
+directions as to dress and deportment. While they were young, he himself
+selected every article of clothing for them, and even after they were
+married, continued their constant and confidential adviser. When they
+were absent, he insisted that they should inform him how they occupied
+themselves, what books they read, what tunes they played, dwelling on
+these details with the fond particularity of a lover. Association with
+his daughters seemed to awaken his noblest and most refined impulses,
+and to reveal the choicest fruit of his reading and experience. His
+letters to them are models of their kind. They contain not only those
+general precepts which an affectionate parent and wise man would
+naturally desire to impress upon the mind of a child, but they also show
+a perception of the most subtile feminine traits and a sympathy with the
+most delicate feminine tastes, seldom seen in our sex, and which
+exhibits the breadth and symmetry of Jefferson's organization. One of
+the most characteristic of these letters is in the possession of the
+Queen of England, to whom it was sent by his family, in answer to a
+request for an autograph.
+
+His daughters were in France with him, and were placed at school in a
+convent near Paris. Martha was captivated by the ceremonials of the
+Romish Church, and wrote to her father asking that she might be
+permitted to take the veil. It is easy to imagine the surprise with
+which the worldly diplomatist read the epistle. He did not reply to it,
+but soon made a visit to the Abbaye. He smiled kindly at the young
+enthusiast, who came anxiously to meet him, told the girls that he had
+come for them, and, without referring to Martha's letter, took them back
+to Paris. The account-book shows that after this incident the young
+ladies did not diminish their attention to the harpsichord, guitar, and
+dancing-master.
+
+Maria, who was married to John W. Eppes, died in 1804, leaving two
+children. Martha, wife of Thomas M. Randolph, survived her father. She
+was the mother of ten children. The Randolphs lived on Mr. Jefferson's
+estate of Monticello, and after he retired from public life he found his
+greatest pleasure in the society of the numerous family which surrounded
+him,--a pleasure which increased with his years. Mr. Randall publishes
+a few letters from some of Jefferson's grand-daughters, describing their
+happy child-life at Monticello. Besides being noticeable for grace of
+expression, these letters breathe a spirit of affection for Mr.
+Jefferson which only the warmest affection on his part could have
+elicited. The writers fondly relate every particular which illustrates
+the habits and manners of the retired statesman; telling with what
+kindness be reproved, with what heartiness he commended them; how the
+children loved to follow him in his walks, to sit with him by the fire
+during the winter twilight, or at the window in summer, listening to his
+quaint stories; how he directed their sports, acted as judge when they
+ran races in the garden, and gathered fruit for them, pulling down the
+branches on which the ripest cherries hung. All speak of the pleasure it
+gave him to anticipate their wishes by some unexpected gift. One says
+that her Bible and Shakspeare came from him,--that he gave her her first
+writing-desk, her first watch, her first Leghorn hat and silk dress.
+Another tells how he saw her tear her dress, and in a few days brought a
+new and more beautiful one to mend it, as he said,--that she had refused
+to buy a guitar which she admired, because it was too expensive, and
+that when she came to breakfast the next morning the guitar was waiting
+for her. One of these ladies seems to give only a natural expression to
+the feelings which all his grand-children had for him, when she prettily
+calls him their good genius with magic wand, brightening their young
+lives by his kindness and his gifts.
+
+Indeed, the account which these volumes give of Monticello life is very
+interesting. The house was a long brick building, in the Grecian style,
+common at that time. It was surmounted by a dome; in front was a
+portico; and there were piazzas at the end of each wing. It was situated
+upon the summit of a hill six hundred feet high, one of a range of such.
+To the east lay an undulating plain, unbroken save by a solitary peak;
+and upon the western side a deep valley swept up to the base of the Blue
+Ridge, which was twenty miles distant. The grounds were tastefully
+decorated, and, by a peculiar arrangement which the site permitted, all
+the domestic offices and barns were sunk from view. The interior of the
+mansion was spacious, and even elegant; it was decorated with natural
+curiosities,--Indian and Mexican antiquities, articles of _virt�_, and a
+large number of portraits and busts of historical characters. The
+library--which was sold to the government in 1815--contained between
+nine and ten thousand volumes. He had another house upon an estate
+called Poplar Forest, ninety miles from Monticello.
+
+Mr. Jefferson was too old to attempt any new scientific or literary
+enterprise, but as soon as he reached home he began to renew his former
+acquaintances. His meteorological observations were continued, he
+studied botany, and was an industrious reader of three or four
+languages. When nearly eighty, we find him writing elaborate
+disquisitions on grammar, astronomy, the Epicurean philosophy, and
+discussing style with Edward Everett. The coldness between him and John
+Adams passed away, and they used to write one another long letters, in
+which they criticized Plato and the Greek dramatists, speculated upon
+the end for which the sensations of grief were intended, and asked each
+other whether they would consent to live their lives over again.
+Jefferson, with his usual cheerfulness, promptly answered, Yes.
+
+He dispensed a liberal hospitality, and in a style which showed the
+influence of his foreign residence. Though temperate, he understood the
+mysteries of the French _cuisine_, and liked the wines of M�doc. These
+tastes gave occasion to Patrick Henry's sarcasm upon gentlemen "_who
+abjured their native victuals_." Mr. Randall tells an amusing anecdote
+of a brandy-drinking Virginian, who wondered how a man of so much taste
+could drink cold, sour French wine, and insisted that some night he
+would be carried off by it.
+
+No American has ever exerted so great and universal an attraction. Men
+of all parties made pilgrimages to Monticello. Foreigners of distinction
+were unwilling to leave the country without seeing Mr. Jefferson; men of
+fashion, artists, _litt�rateurs_, _savants_, soldiers, clergymen,
+flocked to his house. Mrs. Randolph stated, that she had provided beds
+for fifty persons at a time. The intrusion was often disagreeable
+enough. Groups of uninvited strangers sometimes planted themselves in
+the passages of his house to see him go to dinner, or gathered around
+him when he sat on the portico. A female once broke a window-pane with
+her parasol to got a better view of him. But no press of company was
+permitted to interfere with his occupations. The early morning was
+devoted to correspondence; the day to his library, to his workshop, or
+to business; after dinner he gave himself up to society.
+
+Making every allowance for the exaggerations of his admirers, it cannot
+be doubted that Jefferson was a master of conversation. It had
+contributed too much to his success not to have been made the subject of
+thought. It is true, he had neither wit nor eloquence; but this was a
+kind of negative advantage; for he was free from that striving after
+effect so common among professed wits, neither did he indulge in those
+monologues into which eloquence betrayed Coleridge and seduces Macaulay.
+He had great tact, information, and worldly knowledge. He never
+disputed, and had the address not to attempt to control the current of
+conversation for the purpose of turning it in a particular direction,
+but was always ready to follow the humor of the hour. His language, if
+seldom striking, never failed to harmonize with his theme, while, of
+course, the effect of everything he said was heightened by his age and
+reputation.
+
+Unfortunately, his latter days were clouded by pecuniary distress.
+Although prudent and methodical, partly from unavoidable circumstances,
+and partly from the expense of his enormous establishment, his large
+estate became involved. The failure of a friend for whom he had indorsed
+completed his ruin and made it necessary to sell his property. This,
+however, was not done until after his death, when every debt was paid,
+even to a subscription for a Presbyterian church.
+
+As is well known, the chief labor of his age was the establishment of
+the University of Virginia. He was the creator of that institution, and
+displayed in behalf of it a zeal and energy truly wonderful. When unable
+to ride over to the University, which was eight miles from Monticello,
+he used to sit upon his terrace and watch the workmen through a
+telescope. He designed the buildings, planned the organization and
+course of instruction, and selected the faculty. He seemed to regard
+this enterprise as crowning and completing a career which had been
+devoted to the cause of liberty, by providing for the increase and
+diffusion of knowledge.
+
+In February, 1826, the return of a disease by which he had at intervals
+been visited convinced Jefferson that he should soon die. With customary
+deliberation and system, he prepared for his decease, arranging his
+affairs and giving the final directions as to the University. To his
+family he did not mention the subject, nor could they detect any change
+in his manner, except an increased tenderness in each night's farewell,
+and the lingering gaze with which he followed their motions. His mental
+vigor continued. His will, quite a long document, was written by
+himself; and on the 24th of June he wrote a reply to an invitation to
+the celebration at Washington of the ensuing Fourth of July. It is
+difficult to discover in what respect this production is inferior to his
+earlier performances of the same kind. It has all of the author's ease
+and precision of style, and more than his ordinary distinctness and
+earnestness of thought. This was his last letter. He rapidly declined,
+but preserved possession of his faculties. He remarked, as if surprised
+at it, upon his disposition to recur to the scenes of the Revolution,
+and seemed to wish that his life might be prolonged until the Fourth of
+July. This wish was not denied to him; he expired at noon of that day,
+precisely fifty years after the Declaration of Independence. A few hours
+afterwards the great heart of John Adams ceased to beat.
+
+So much has been said about Mr. Jefferson's religious opinions, and our
+biographer gives them such prominence, that we shall be pardoned for
+alluding to them, although they are not among the topics which a critic
+generally should touch. Mr. Randall says that Jefferson was "a public
+professor of his belief in the Christian religion." We do not think that
+this unqualified statement is supported by Jefferson's explanation of
+his views upon Christianity, which Mr. Randall subsequently gives.
+Religion, in the sense which is commonly given to it, as a system of
+faith and worship, he did not connect with Christ at all. He was a
+believer in the existence of God, in a future life, and in man's
+accountability for his actions here: in so far as this, he may be said
+to have had a system of worship, but not of Christian worship. He
+regarded Christ simply as a man, with no other than mortal power,--and
+to worship him in any way would, in his opinion, have been idolatry. His
+theology recognized the Deity alone. The extracts from his public
+papers, upon which Mr. Randall relies, contain nothing but those general
+expressions which a Mohammedan or a follower of Confucius might have
+used. He said he was a Christian "in the only sense in which Christ
+wished any one to be"; but received Christ's teachings merely as a
+system, and not a perfect system, of morals. He rejected the narratives
+which attest the Divine character or the Divine mission of the Saviour,
+thinking them the fictions of ignorance and superstition.
+
+He was, however, far from being a scoffer. He attended the Episcopal
+service regularly, and was liberal in his donations to religious
+enterprises. Nor do we think that this conformity arose from weakness or
+hypocrisy, but rather from a profound respect for opinions so generally
+entertained, and a lively admiration for the character and life of
+Christ.
+
+If a Christian is one who sincerely believes and implicitly obeys the
+teachings of Jesus so far as they affect our relations with our
+fellow-men, then Mr. Jefferson was a Christian in a sense in which few
+can be called so. Though the light did not unseal his vision, it filled
+his heart. Among the statesmen of the world there is no one who has more
+rigidly demanded that the laws of God shall be applied to the affairs of
+Man. His political system is a beautiful growth from the principles of
+love, humility, and charity, which the New Testament inculcates.
+
+When reflecting upon Mr. Jefferson's mental organization, one is
+impressed by the variety and perfectness of his intellectual faculties.
+He united the powers of observation with those of reflection in a degree
+hardly surpassed by Bacon. Yet he has done nothing which entitles him to
+a place among the first of men. It may be said, that, devoted to the
+inferior pursuit of politics, he had no opportunity to exercise himself
+in art or philosophy, where alone the highest genius finds a field. But
+we think his failure--if one can fail who does not make an attempt--was
+not for want of opportunity. He did not possess any imagination. He was
+so deficient in that respect as to be singular. The imagination seems to
+assist the mental vision as the telescope does that of the eye; he saw
+with his unaided powers only.
+
+He says, "Nature intended him for the tranquil pursuits of science," and
+it is impossible to assign any reason why he should not have attained
+great eminence among scientific men. The sole difficulty might have
+been, that, from very variety of power, he would not give himself up to
+any single study with the devotion which Nature demands from those who
+seek her favors.
+
+Within his range his perception of truth was as rapid and unfailing as
+an instinct. Without difficulty he separated the specious from the
+solid, gave great weight to evidence, but was skeptical and cautious
+about receiving it. Though a collector of details, he was never
+incumbered by them. No one was less likely to make the common mistake of
+thinking that a particular instance established a general proposition.
+He sought for rules of universal application, and was industrious in the
+accumulation of facts, because he knew how many are needed to prove the
+simplest truth. The accuracy of his mental operations, united with great
+courage, made him careless of authority. He clung to a principle because
+he thought it true, not because others thought it so. There is no
+indication that he valued an opinion the more because great men of
+former ages had favored it. His self-reliance was shown in his
+unwillingness to employ servants. Even when very feeble, he refused to
+permit any one to assist him. He had extraordinary power of
+condensation, and, always seeing the gist of a matter, he often exposed
+an argument of hours by a single sentence. Some of his brief papers,
+like the one on Banking, contain the substance of debates, which have
+since been made, filling volumes. He was peculiar in his manner of
+stating his conclusions, seldom revealing the processes by which he
+arrived at them. He sets forth strange and disputed doctrines as if they
+were truisms. Those who have studied "The Prince" for the purpose of
+understanding its construction will not think us fanciful when we find a
+resemblance between Jefferson's mode of argumentation and that of
+Machiavelli. There is the same manner of approaching a subject, the same
+neglect of opposing arguments, and the same disposition to rely on the
+force of general maxims. Machiavelli exceeded him in power of
+ratiocination from a given proposition, but does not seem to have been
+able to determine whether a given proposition was right or wrong.
+
+In force of mind Jefferson has often been surpassed: Hamilton was his
+superior. As an executive officer, where action was required, he could
+not have been distinguished. It is true, he was a successful President,
+but neither the time nor the place demanded the highest executive
+talents. When Governor of Virginia, during the Revolution, he was more
+severely tried, and, although some excuse may be made for him, he must
+be said to have failed.
+
+Upon matters which are affected by feeling and sentiment, the judgment
+of woman is said to surpass that of our sex,--her more sensitive
+instincts carrying her to heights which our blind strength fails to
+reach. If this be true, Jefferson in some respects resembled woman. We
+have already alluded to the delicacy of his organization; it was
+strangely delicate, indeed, for one who had so many solid qualities.
+Like woman, he was constant rather than passionate; he had her
+refinement, disliking rude company and coarse pleasures,--her love of
+luxury, and fondness for things whose beauty consists in part in their
+delicacy and fragility. His political opponents often refused to speak
+with him, but their wives found his society delightful. Like woman, his
+feelings sometimes seemed to precede his judgment. Such an organization
+is not often a safe one for business; but in Mr. Jefferson, with his
+homely perceptions, it accomplished great results.
+
+The attributes which gave him his great and peculiar influence seem to
+us to have been qualities of character, not of the mind. Chief among
+these must be placed that which, for want of a better term, we will call
+sympathy. This sympathy colored his whole nature, mental and moral. It
+gave him his many-sidedness. There was no limit to his intellectual
+tastes. Most persons cherish prejudices, and think certain pursuits
+degrading or useless. Thus, business-men sneer at artists, and artists
+sneer at business-men. Jefferson had nothing of this. He understood and
+appreciated the value of every employment. No knowledge was too trivial
+for him; with the same affectionate interest, he observed the courses
+of the winds and the growth of a flower.
+
+Sympathy in some sort supplied the place of imagination, making him
+understand subjects of which the imagination alone usually informs us.
+Thus, he was fond of Art. He had no eye for color, but appreciated the
+beauties of form, and was a critic of sculpture and architecture. He
+valued everything for that which belonged to it; but tradition
+sanctified nothing, association gave no additional value. He committed
+what Burke thought a great crime, that of thinking a queen nothing but a
+woman. He went to Stratford-on-Avon, and tells us that it cost him a
+shilling to see Shakspeare's tomb, but says nothing else. He might have
+admired the scenery of the place, and he certainly was an admirer of
+Shakspeare; but Stratford had no additional beauty in his eyes because
+Shakspeare was born and buried there. After his death, in a secret
+drawer of his secretary, mementoes, such as locks of hair, of his wife
+and dead children, even of the infant who lived but a few hours after
+birth, were found, and accompanying each were some fond words. The
+packages were neatly arranged, and their envelopes showed that they had
+often been opened. It needed personal knowledge and regard to awaken in
+him an interest in objects for their associations.
+
+The characteristic of which we speak showed itself in the intensity and
+quality of his patriotism. There never was a truer American. He
+sympathized with all our national desires and prejudices, our enterprise
+and confidence, our love of dominion and boundless pride. Buffon
+asserted that the animals of America were smaller than those of Europe.
+Jefferson flew to the rescue of the animals, and certainly seems to have
+the best of the argument. Buffon said, that the Indian was cold in love,
+cruel in war, and mean in intellect. Had Jefferson been a descendant of
+Pocahontas, he could not have been more zealous in behalf of the Indian.
+He contradicted Buffon upon every point, and cited Logan's speech as
+deserving comparison with the most celebrated passages of Grecian and
+Roman eloquence. Nowhere did he see skies so beautiful, a climate so
+delightful, men so brave, or women so fair, as in America. He was not
+content that his country should be rich and powerful; his ardent
+patriotism carried him forward to a time when the great Republic should
+give law to the world for every department of thought and action.
+
+But this sympathetic spirit is most clearly to be seen in that broad
+humanity which was the source of his philosophy. He sympathized with
+man,--his sufferings, joys, fears, hopes, and aspirations. The law of
+his nature made him a democrat. Men of his own rank, when introduced to
+him, found his manner cold and reserved; but the young and the ignorant
+were attracted from the first. Education and interest did not affect
+him. Born a British subject, he became the founder of a democracy. He
+was a slaveholder and an abolitionist. The fact, that the African is
+degraded and helpless, to his, as to every generous mind, was a reason
+why he should be protected, not an excuse for oppressing him.
+
+Though fitness for the highest effort be denied to Jefferson, yet in the
+pursuit to which he devoted himself, considered with reference to
+elevation and wisdom of policy and actual achievement, he may be
+compared with any man of modern times. It is the boast of the most
+accomplished English historian, that English legislation has been
+controlled by the rule, "Never to lay down any proposition of wider
+extent than the particular case for which it is necessary to provide."
+Therefore politics in England have not reached the dignity of a science;
+and her public men have been tacticians, rather than statesmen. Burke
+may be mentioned as an exception. No one will claim for Jefferson
+Burke's amplitude of thought and wealth of imagination, but he surpassed
+him in justness of understanding and practical efficiency. Burke was
+never connected with the government, except during the short-lived
+Rockingham, administration. Among Frenchmen, the mind instinctively
+recurs to the wise and virtuous Turgot. But it was the misfortune of
+Turgot to come into power at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. It
+became his task to reform a government which was beyond reform, and to
+preserve a dynasty which could not be preserved. His illustrious career
+is little more than a brilliant promise. Jefferson undoubtedly owed much
+to fortune. He was placed in a country removed from foreign
+interference, with boundless resources, and where the great principles
+of free government had for generations been established,--among a people
+sprung from many races, but who spoke the same language, were governed
+by similar laws, and whose minds' rebellion had prepared for the
+reception of new truths and the abandonment of ancient errors. To be
+called upon to give symmetry and completeness to a political system
+which seemed to be Providentially designed for the nation over which it
+was to extend, to be able to connect himself with the future progress of
+an agile and ambitious people, was certainly a rare and happy fortune,
+and must be considered, when we claim superiority for him over those who
+were placed in the midst of apathy and decay. His influence upon us may
+be seen in the material, but still more distinctly in the social and
+moral action of the country. With those laws which here restrain
+turbulent forces and stimulate beneficent ones,--with the bright visions
+of peace and freedom which the unhappy of every European race see in
+their Western skies, tempting them hither,--with the kind spirit which
+here loosens the bonds of social prejudice, and to ambition sings an
+inspiring strain,--with these, which are our pride and boast, he is
+associated indissolubly and forever. With the things which have brought
+our country into disrepute--we leave it for others to recall the dismal
+catalogue--his name cannot be connected.
+
+Not the least valuable result of his life is the triumphant refutation
+which it gives to the assertion, so often made by blatant sophisters,
+that none but low arts avail in republics. He has been called a
+demagogue. This charge is the charge of misconception or ignorance. It
+is true, he believed that his doctrines would prevail; he was sensitive
+to the opinions of others, nor was he "out of love with noble fame"; but
+his successes were fairly, manfully won. He had none of the common
+qualifications for popularity. No glare of military glory surrounded
+him; he had not the admired gift of eloquence; he was opposed by wealth
+and fashion, by the Church and the press, by most of the famous men of
+his day,--by Jay, Marshall, the Pinckneys, Knox, King, and Adams; he had
+to encounter the vehement genius of Hamilton and the _prestige_ of
+Washington; he was not in a position for direct action upon the people;
+he never went beyond the line of his duty, and, from 1776 to his
+inaugural address, he did not publish a word which was calculated to
+excite lively, popular interest;--yet, in spite of all and against all,
+he won. So complete was the victory, that, at his second election,
+Massachusetts stood beside Virginia, supporting him. He won because he
+was true to a principle. Thousands of men, whose untutored minds could
+not comprehend a proposition of his elaborate philosophy, remembered
+that in his youth he had proclaimed the equality of men, knew that in
+maturity he remained true to that declaration, and, believing that this
+great assurance of their liberties was in danger, they gathered around
+him, preferring the scholar to orators and soldiers. They had confidence
+in him because he had confidence in them. There is no danger in that
+demagogism the art of which consists in love for man. Fortunate, indeed,
+will it be for the Republic, if, among the aspirants who are now
+pressing into the strife, and making their voices heard in the great
+exchanges of public opinion, there are some who will imitate the civic
+virtues and practise the benign philosophy of Thomas Jefferson!
+
+We take leave of this book with reluctance. It is verbose and dull, but
+it has led us along the path of American renown; it recites a story
+which, however awkwardly told, can never fall coldly on an American ear.
+It has, besides, given us an opportunity, of which we have gladly
+availed ourselves, to make some poor amends for the wrongs which
+Jefferson suffered at the hands of New England, to bear our testimony to
+his genius and services, and to express our reverent admiration for a
+life which, though it bears traces of human frailty, was bravely devoted
+to grand and beneficent aims.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Life of Thomas Jefferson._ By HENRY S. RANDALL, LL.D.
+In three volumes. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1858.]
+
+
+
+
+A BUNDLE OF IRISH PENNANTS.
+
+
+"Did you ever see the 'Three Chimneys,' Captain Cope?" I asked.
+
+"I can show you where they are on the chart, if that'll do. I've been
+right over where they're laid down, but I never saw the Chimneys myself,
+and I never knew anybody that had seen them."
+
+"But they are down on the chart," broke in a pertinacious matter-of-fact
+body beside us.
+
+"What of that?" replied the captain; "there's many a shoal and lone rock
+down on the charts that nobody ever could find again. I've had my ship
+right over the Chimneys, near enough to see the smoke, if they had been
+there."
+
+So opened the series of desultory conversations here set down. It is
+talk on board ship, or specimen "yarns," such as really are to be picked
+up from nautical men. The article usually served up for
+magazine-consumption is, of course, utterly unlike anything here given,
+and is as entirely undiscoverable anywhere on salt water as the three
+legendary rocks above alluded to. The place was the deck of the "Elijah
+Pogram," one of Carr & Co.'s celebrated Liverpool liners, and the time,
+the dog-watches of a gusty April night; the latitude and longitude,
+anywhere west of Greenwich and north of the line that is not
+inconsistent with blue water.
+
+The name "Irish Pennant" is given, on the _lucus-a-non_ principle, (just
+as a dead calm is "an Irish hurricane, straight up and down,") to any
+dangling end of rope or stray bit of "shakings," and its appropriateness
+to the following sketches will doubtless be perceived by the reader, on
+reaching the end.
+
+The question was asked, not so much from a laudable desire of obtaining
+information as to set the captain talking. It was a mistake on my part.
+Sailors do not like point-blank questions. They remind them
+unpleasantly, I suppose, of the Courts of Admiralty, or they betray
+greenness or curiosity on the asker's part, and thus effectually bar all
+improving conversation.
+
+There is one exception. If the inquirer be a lady, young and fair, the
+chivalry of the sea is bound to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
+often a good deal more than the truth.
+
+And at the last reply a pair of bewitching dark eyes were turned upon
+that weather-beaten mariner; that is to say, in plain English, a young
+and rather pretty lady-passenger looked up at Captain Cope, and said,--
+
+"Do tell us some of your sea-stories, Captain Cope,--do, please!"
+
+"Why, Ma'am," replied he, "I've no stories. There's Smith of the
+'Wittenagemot' can tell them by the hour; but I never could."
+
+"Weren't you ever wrecked, Captain Cope?"
+
+"No,--I can't say I ever was, exactly. I was mate of the 'Moscow' when
+she knocked her bottom out in Bootle Bay; but she wasn't lost, for I
+went master of her after that."
+
+"Were you frightened, Captain Cope?"
+
+"Well, no,--I can't say I was; though I must say I never expected to see
+morning again. I never saw any one more scared than was old Captain
+Tucker that night. We dragged over the outer bar and into Bootle Bay,
+and there we lay, the ship full of water, and everything gone above the
+monkey-rail. The only place we could find to stand was just by the cabin
+gangway. The 'Moscow' was built with an old-fashioned cabin on deck, and
+right there we hung, all hands of us. The old man he read the service to
+us,--and that wouldn't do, he was so scared; so he got the black cook,
+who was a Methodist, and made him pray; and every two minutes or so, a
+sea would come aboard and all in among us,--like to wash us clean out of
+the ship.
+
+"After midnight the life-boat got alongside, and all hands were for
+scrambling aboard; but I'd got set in my notion the ship would live the
+gale out, and I wouldn't go aboard. Well, the old man was too scared to
+make long stories, and he tumbled aboard the life-boat in a hurry. The
+last words he said to me, as he went over the side, were,--'Good-bye,
+Mr. Cope! I never shall see you again!' However, he got up to the city,
+to Mrs. McKinney's, and there he found a lot of the captains, and he was
+telling them all how he'd lost his ship, and what a fool poor Cope was
+to stick aboard of her, and all that. When the morning came, the gale
+had broke, and the old man began to think he'd been in too much of a
+fright, and he'd better get the tug and go down to look after the ship.
+
+"I was so knocked up, for want of sleep, and the gale and all, that,
+when they got down to us, my head was about gone. I don't remember
+anything, myself; but they told me, that, when they got aboard, I was
+poking about decks as if I was looking for something.
+
+"'How are you, Mr. Cope?' sung out old Tucker. 'I never expected to see
+_you_ again in _this_ world.'
+
+"'I can't find my razor-strop,' says I; I've lost my razor-strop.'
+
+"'Never mind your strop,' says he. 'What you want is to go aboard the
+tug and be taken care of. We'll find your strop.'
+
+"Well, they could hardly get me away, I was so set that I must have that
+strop; but after I got up to town, and had a bath and some breakfast,
+and a couple of hours' sleep or so, I was all right again. That was the
+end of old Tucker's going to sea; and when the 'Moscow' was docked and
+refitted, I got her, and kept her until the firm built me the 'Pogram,'
+here."
+
+"Mr. Brown, isn't it about time we were getting in that mizzen
+to'gall'nt-s'l? It's coming on to blow to-night."
+
+"Steward," (as that functionary passed us,) "put a handful of cigars in
+my monkey-jacket pocket, and have a cup of coffee ready for me about
+twelve."
+
+"Then you mean to be up, to-night?" said the father of pretty Mrs.
+Bates,--the only one of us to whom Captain Cope fairly opened his heart.
+
+"Why, yes, Mr. Roberts--I think I shall. It looks rather dirty to the
+east'ard, and the barometer has fallen since morning. I've two as good
+mates as sail; but if anything is going to happen, I'd rather have it
+happen when I'm on deck,--that's all."
+
+"Wasn't Stewart, of the 'Mexican,' below, when she struck?"
+
+"Yes, he was,--and got blamed for it, too. I don't blame him, myself; he
+was on deck the next minute; and if he had been there before, it would
+have made no difference with that ship; but if _I_ lose a vessel, I
+don't want to be talked about as he was. I went mate with him two
+voyages, and he'd put on his night-gown and turn in comfortably every
+night, and leave his mates to call him; but I never could do that. I
+don't find fault with any man that can; only it's not my way."
+
+"But don't you feel sleepy, Captain Cope?" asked Mrs. Bates.
+
+"Not when I'm on deck, Ma'am; though, when I first went mate, I could
+sleep anyhow and anywhere. I sailed out of Boston to South America, in a
+topsail-schooner, with an old fellow by the name of Eaton,--just the
+strangest old scamp you ever dreamed of. I suppose by rights he ought to
+have been in the hospital; he certainly was the nearest to crazy and not
+be it. He used to keep a long pole by him on deck,--a pole with a sharp
+spike in one end,--and any man who'd get near enough to him to let him
+have a chance would feel that spike. I've known him to keep the cook up
+till midnight frying doughnuts; then he'd call all hands aft and range
+'em on the quarter-deck, and go round with his hat off and a plate of
+doughnuts in his hand, saying, as polite as you please, 'Here, my man,
+won't you take a doughnut?--they won't hurt you; nice and light; had
+them fried a purpose for you.' And then he'd get a bottle of wine or
+Cura�oa cordial, and go round with a glass to each man, and make him
+take a drink. You'd see the poor fellows all of a shake, not knowing how
+to take it,--afraid to refuse, and afraid still more, if they didn't,
+that the old man would play 'em some confounded trick. In the midst of
+it all, he'd seem as if he'd woke up out of a dream, and he'd sing out,
+in a way that made them fellows scatter, 'What the ---- are all you men
+doing here at this time of night? Go forrard, every man jack of you! Go
+forrard, I tell you!' and it was 'Devil take the hindmost!'
+
+"Well,--the old man was always on the look-out to catch the watch
+sleeping. He never seemed to sleep much himself;--I've heard _that's_ a
+sign of craziness;--and the more he tried, the more sure we were to try
+it every chance we had. So sure as the old man caught you at it, he'd
+give you a bucketful of water, slap over you, and then follow it up with
+the bucket at your head. Fletcher, the second mate, and I, got so we
+could tell the moment he put foot on the companion-way, and, no matter
+how sound we were, we'd be on our feet before he could get on deck. But
+Fletcher got tired of his vagaries, and left us at Pernambuco, to ship
+aboard a homeward-bound whaler, and in his place we got a fellow named
+Tubbs, a regular duff-head,--couldn't keep his eyes open in the daytime,
+hardly.
+
+"Well,--we were about two days out of Pernambuco, and Tubbs had the
+middle watch, of a clear starlight night, with a steady breeze, and
+everything going quietly, and nothing in sight. So, in about ten minutes
+after the watch got on deck, every mother's son of them was hard and
+fast. The wind was a-beam, and the old schooner could steer herself; so,
+even the man at the helm was sitting down on a hencoop, with one arm
+round the tiller, and snoring like a porpoise. I heard the old man rouse
+out of his bunk and creep on deck, and, guessing fun was coming, I
+turned out and slipped up after him. The first thing I saw was old Eaton
+at work at the tiller. He got it unshipped and braced up with a pair of
+oars and a hencoop, without waking the man at the helm,--how, I couldn't
+tell,--but he was just like a cat; and then he blew the binnacle-light
+out; and then he started forrard, with his trumpet in his hand. He
+caught sight of me, standing halfway up the companion-way, and shook his
+fist at me to keep quiet and not to spoil sport. He slipped forward and
+out on to the bowsprit, clear out to the end of the flying-jib-boom, and
+stowed himself where he couldn't be well seen to leeward of the sail.
+Then he sung out with all his might through the trumpet, '_Schooner
+ahoy, there! Port your hellum!--port_ H-A-A-A-RD! I say,--you're right
+aboard of us!'--And then he'd drop the trumpet, and sing out as if in
+the other craft to his own crew, and then again to us. Of course, every
+man was on his feet in a second, thinking we were all but afoul of
+another vessel. The man who was steering was trying, with all his might,
+to put his helm a-port,--and when he found what was to pay there, to
+ship the tiller. This wasn't so easy; for the old man had passed the
+slack of the main-sheet through the head of the rudder, and belayed it
+on one of the boom-cleats, out of reach,--and, what with just waking up,
+and half a dozen contradictory orders sung out at once, besides
+expecting to strike every minute, he had almost lost what little wits he
+had.
+
+"As for Tubbs, he was like a hen with her head cut off,--one minute at
+the lee rail, and the next in the weather-rigging, then forrard to look
+out for the strange craft, and then aft to see why the schooner didn't
+answer her helm. Meanwhile, he was singing out to the watch to brace
+round the fore-topsail and help her, to let fly the jib-sheets, and to
+haul aft the main-boom; the watch below came tumbling up, and everybody
+was expecting to feel the bunt of our striking the next minute. I
+laughed as though I should split; for nobody could see me where I stood,
+in the shadow of the companion-way, and everybody was looking out ahead,
+for the other vessel. First I knew, the old man had got in board again,
+and was standing there aft, as if he'd just come on deck. 'What's all
+this noise here?' says he.--'What are you doing on deck, Mr. Cope? Go
+below, Sir!--Go below, the larboard watch, and let's have no more of
+this! Who's seen any vessel? Vessel, your eye, Mr. Tubbs! I tell you,
+you've been dreaming.' Then, as he got his head about to the level of
+the top of the companion-way, and out of the reach of any spare
+belaying-pin that might come that way, says he,--'I've just come in from
+the end of the flyin'-jib-boom, and there was no vessel in sight, except
+one topsail-schooner, _with the watch all asleep_,--so it can't be her
+that hailed you.'
+
+"That cured all sleeping on the watch for _that_ voyage, I tell you. And
+as for Tubbs, you had only to say, 'Port your helm,' and he was off."
+
+Just then Mr. Brown came aft to ask if it wasn't time to have in the
+fore-topgallant-sail,--and a little splash of rain falling broke up our
+party and drove most of us below. I knew that reefing topsails would
+come in the course of an hour or so, if the wind held on to blow as it
+did; so, as I waited to see that same, I lighted a cheroot, and as soon
+as the fore-topgallant-sail was clewed up I made my way forward, for a
+chat with Mr. Brown, the English second mate.
+
+Mr. Brown was a character. He was a thorough English sailor;--could do,
+as he owned to me in a shamefaced way, that was comical enough,
+"heverything as could be done with a rope aboard a ship." He had been
+several India voyages, where the nice work of seamanship is to be
+learned, which does not get into the mere "ferry-boat" trips of the
+Liverpool packet-service. He had been in an opium clipper, the
+celebrated ---- of Boston,--and left her, as he told her agent, "because
+he liked a ship as 'ad a lee-rail to her; and the ----'s lee-rail," he
+said, "was commonly out of sight, pretty much all the way from the
+Sand'eads to the Bocca Tigris." He was rich in what he called "'ats,"
+having one for every hour of the day, and, for aught I know, every day
+in the year. It was Fred ----'s and my daily amusement to watch him, and
+we never seemed to catch him coming on deck twice in the same head-gear.
+He took quite a fancy to me, because I did not bother him when busy, and
+because I liked to listen to his talk. So, handing him a cigar, as a
+prefatory to conversation, I asked him our whereabouts. "Four hundred
+miles to the heast'ard of Georges we were this noon, and we've made
+nothink to speak of since, Sir. This last tack has lost us all we made
+before. I hought to know where we are. I've drifted 'ere without even a
+'en-coop hunder me. I was third mate aboard the barque 'Jenny,' of
+Belfast, when she was run down by the steamer 'United States.' The
+barque sunk in less than seven minutes after the steamer struck us, and
+I come up out of her suction-like. I found myself swimming there, on
+top, and not so much as a capstan-bar to make me a life-buoy. I knew the
+steamer was hove to, for I could hear her blow hoff steam; and once, as
+I came up on a wave, I got a sight of her boats. They were ready enough
+to pick us up, and we was ready enough to be picked up, such as were
+left; but how to do it was another matter, with a sea like this
+running, and a cloud over the moon every other minute. I soon see that
+swimming wouldn't 'old out much longer, and I must try something helse.
+Now, Sir, what I'm a-telling you may be some use to you some day, if you
+have to stay a couple of hours in the water. If you can swim about as
+well as most men can, you can tell 'ow long a man's strength would last
+him 'ereaways to-night. Besides, I was spending my breath, when I rose
+on a sea, in 'ollering,--and you can't swim and 'oller. So I tried a
+trick I learned, when a boy, on the Cornish coast, where I was born,
+Sir;--it's one worth knowing. I doubled back my feet hunder me till my
+'eels come to the small of my back, and I could float as long as I
+wanted to, and, when I rose on a wave, 'oller. They 'eard me, it seems,
+and pulled round for me, but it was an hour before they found me, and my
+strength was nigh to gone. I couldn't 'oller no more, and was about
+giving up. But they picked up the cook, and he told 'em he knowed it was
+Mr. Brown's voice, and begged 'em to keep on. The last I remember was,
+as the steamer burned a blue light for her boats, when they caught a
+sight of me in the trough of the sea. I saw them too, and gave a last
+screech, and then I don't remember hanythink, Sir, till Cookie was
+'elping 'aul (Mr. Brown always dropped his aspirates as he grew excited)
+me into the boat. Now, just you remember what I've been a-telling you
+about floating."--"_Forrard there! Stand by to clew up and furl the main
+to'gall'n-s'l! Couple of you come aft here and brail up the spanker!
+Lively, men, lively!_"--And Mr. Brown was no longer my Scheherazade.
+
+When I got back to the shelter of the wheel-house, I found the captain
+and old Roberts still comfortably braced up in opposite corners and
+yarning away. There was nothing to be done but to watch the ship and the
+wind, which promised in due time to be a gale, but as yet was not even a
+reefing breeze. They had got upon a standing topic between the
+two,--vessels out of their course. The second night out, we had made a
+light which the captain insisted was a ship's light, but old Roberts
+declared was one of the lights on the coast of Maine,--Mount Desert, or
+somewhere thereabouts. He was an old shipping-merchant, had been many a
+time across the water in his own vessels, and thought he knew as much as
+most men. So, whenever other subjects gave out, this, of vessels drifted
+by unsuspected currents out of their course, was unfailing. They were at
+it now.
+
+"When I was last in Liverpool," said the captain, "there was a brig from
+Machias got in there, and her captain came up to Mrs. McKinney's. He
+told us that it was thick weather when he got upon the Irish coast, and
+he was rather doubtful about his reckoning; so he ordered a sharp
+look-out for Cape Clear. According to his notion, he ought to be up with
+it about noon, and, as the sun rose and the fog lifted a little, he was
+hoping to sight the land. Once or twice he fancied he had a glimpse of
+it, but wasn't sure,--when the mate came aft and reported that they
+could hear a bell ringing. 'Sure enough,' he said, 'there was the toll
+of a bell coming through the mist.'
+
+"'That's some ship's bell,' said he to the mate; 'only it's wonderful
+heavy for a ship, and it can't be a church-bell on shore, can it?'
+
+"And while they were arguing about it, a cutter shot out of the fog and
+hailed if they wanted a pilot.
+
+"'Pilot!' says the Down-Easter,--'pilot!--where for? No, thank ye, not
+yet,--I can find my way up George's without a pilot. What bell's that?'
+
+"'Rather think you can, Captain; but you'll want a pilot here;--that's
+the bell on the floating light off Liverpool.'
+
+"'What!' says the captain,--have I come all the way up Channel without
+knowing it? I've been on the look-out for Cape Clear ever since
+daybreak, and here, by ginger, I've overrun my reckoning _three hundred
+miles_.'"
+
+"Well," said old Roberts, "one of my captains, Brandegee, you know, who
+had the 'China,' got caught, one November, just as he was coming on the
+coast, in a gale from the eastward. He knew he was somewhere near
+Provincetown, but how near he couldn't say. It was snowing, and blowing,
+and ice-making all over the decks and rigging, and an awful night
+generally. He did not dare to run before it, because it was blowing at a
+rate to take him halfway in Worcester County in the next twenty-four
+hours. He couldn't stand to the south'ard, because that would put the
+back of Cape Cod under his lee. He was afraid to stand to the north'ard,
+not knowing precisely where the coast of Maine might be. So he hove the
+ship to, under as little sail as he could, and let her drift. I've heard
+him say, he heard the breakers a hundred times that night," ('I'll bet
+he did,' ejaculated the captain.) "and it seemed like three nights in
+one before morning came. When it did come, wind and sea appeared to have
+gone down. The lookouts were half dead with cold and sleep and all; but
+they made out to hail land on the weather bow.
+
+"'Good George!' said old Brandegee, 'how did land get on the _weather_
+bow? We must have got inside of Cape Cod, and that must be Sharkpainter
+Hill.'
+
+"'Land on the lee quarter,' hailed the watch, again: and in a minute
+more, 'Land on the lee beam,--land on the lee bow.'
+
+"Brandegee sung out to heave the lead and let go both anchors, and he
+said that, but for the gale having gone down so, he should have expected
+to strike the next minute. Just as the anchors came home and the ship
+headed to the wind, the second mate came aft, rubbing his eyes and
+looking very queer.
+
+"'Captain Brandegee,' says he, 'if I was in Boston Harbor, I should say
+that there was Nix's Mate.'
+
+"'Well, Mr. Jones,' says the old man, dropping out the words very
+slowly, 'if--that's--Nix's Mate,--Rainsford Island--ought--to--be--here
+away, and--as--I'm--a--living--man, THERE IT IS!'
+
+"Half-frozen as they were, there was a cheer rung out from that crew
+that waked half the North-End out of their morning nap.
+
+"'Just my plaguy luck!' said the old fellow to me, as he told it. 'If
+I'd held on to my anchors another half-hour, I might have come
+handsomely alongside of Long Wharf and been up to the custom-house
+before breakfast.'
+
+"He had drifted broadside square into Boston Harbor, past Nahant, the
+Graves, Cohasset Rocks, and everything."
+
+"I've heard of that," said the captain,--"and as it's my opinion it
+couldn't be done twice, I don't mean to try it."
+
+    "I hear the noise about thy keel,
+      I hear the bell struck in the night,
+      I see the cabin-window bright,
+    I see the sailor at the wheel,"--
+
+repeated Fred ----, in my ear. "Come below out of this wet and rain,"
+added he.
+
+We passed the door of the mate's state-room as we went below, and,
+seeing it ajar, and Mr. Pitman, the mate, sitting there, we looked in.
+
+"Come in, gentlemen," said he; "my watch on deck is in half an hour, and
+I'm not sleepy to-night."
+
+F---- took up a carved whale's tooth, and asked if Mr. Pitman had ever
+been in the whaling business.
+
+"Two voyages,--one before the mast, one boat-steerer;--both in the
+Pacific. But whaling didn't suit me. I've a Missus now, and a couple of
+as fine boys as ever you saw; and I rather be where I can come home
+oftener than once in three years."
+
+"How did you like whaling?" said I.
+
+"Well, I don't believe there's any man but what feels different
+alongside of a whale from what he does on the ship's deck. Some of those
+Nantucket and New Bedford men, who've been brought up to it, as you may
+say, take it naturally, and think of nothing but the whale. I've heard
+of one of them boat-steerers who got ketched in a whale's mouth and
+didn't come out of it quite as whole as he went in. When they asked him
+what he thought when the whale nabbed him, he said he 'thought she'd
+turn out about forty barrels.'
+
+"There's a good many things about the whale, gentlemen, that everybody
+don't know. Why does one whale sink when he's killed, and another don't?
+Where do the whales go to, now and then?--I sailed with one captain who
+used to say, that, books or no books, can't live under water or not, _he
+knew_ that whales do live under water months at a time. I can't say,
+myself; but this I can say,--they go ashore. You may look hard at that,
+but I've seen it. We were off the coast of South America, in company
+with five other ships; and all our captains were ashore one afternoon.
+We had to pull some two miles or so to go off to them, and, starting
+off, all hands were for racing. I was pulling stroke in the captain's
+boat, and the old man gives us the word to pull easy, and let 'em head
+on us. It was hard work to hold in, with every one of the boats giving
+way, strong, the captains singing out bets, and cheering their
+men,--singing out, 'Break your backs and bend your oars!' 'There she
+blows!' and all that. But the old man kept muttering to us to take it
+easy and let them head on us. We were soon the last boat, and then, as
+if he'd given up the race, he gave the word to 'easy.'
+
+"'Good-night, Capt. T----! we'll send your ship in to tow you off,' was
+the last words they said to us.
+
+"'There'll be something else to tow off,' says he. 'It's the race, who
+shall see Palmer's Island first, that I'm bound to win.'
+
+"He gave the boat a sheer in for the beach, to a little bight that made
+up in the land,--across the mouth of which we had to pull, in going off.
+
+"'D'ye see that rock on the beach, boys,' says he, 'in range of that
+lone tree, on the point? Did any of you ever see that rock before? I
+wish this bloody coast had a few more such rocks! That's a cow whale,
+and this bight is her nursery, and she is up on the beach for her calf's
+convenience. Now, then,'--as we opened the bight and got a fair sight of
+it,--'give way, strong as you please,--and we'll head her off, before
+she knows it.'
+
+"We got her and got the calf, and when, next morning, the other ships
+saw us cutting in, they didn't say much about that race; and 'Old T.'s
+Nursery' was a byword on the coast as long as we staid there.
+
+"There goes eight bells, and I rather think Mr. Brown will want me on
+deck." We followed, for there was the prospect of seeing topsails
+reefed,--the most glorious event of a landsman's sea-experiences. We had
+begun the day with a dead calm, but toward night the wind had come out
+of the eastward. Each plunge the ship gave was sharper, each shock
+heavier. The topmasts were working, the lee-shrouds and backstays
+straining out into endless curves. A deeper plunge than usual, a pause
+for a second, as if everything in the world suddenly stood still, and a
+great white giant seems to spring upon our weather-bow and to leap on
+board. We hear the crash and feel the shock, and presently the water
+comes pouring aft,--and Captain Cope calls out to reef
+topsails,--double-reef fore and mizzen,--one reef in the main. The mates
+are in the weather-rigging before the word is out of the captain's lips,
+to take the earings of their respective topsails; and then follows the
+rush of men up the shrouds and out along the yards. The sails are
+slatting and flapping, and one can hardly see the row of broad backs
+against the dusky sky as they bend over the canvas. There are hoarse
+murmurs, and calls to "light up the sail to windward"; and presently
+from the fore-topsail-yard comes the cry, ringing and clear,--"Haul away
+to leeward!"--repeated next moment from the main and echoed from the
+mizzen. Sheltered by the weather-bulwarks, and with one arm round a
+mizzen-backstay, there is a capital place to watch all this and feel the
+glorious thrill of the sea,--to look down the sloping deck into the
+black billows, with here and there a white patch of foam, and while the
+organ-harp overhead is sounding its magnificent symphony. It is but
+wood and iron and hemp and canvas that is doing all this, with some
+thirty poor, broken-down, dissipated wretches, who, being fit for
+nothing else, of course _are_ fit for the fo'castle of a Liverpool
+Liner. Yet it is, for all that, something which haunts the memory
+long,--which comes back years after in inland vales and quiet
+farm-houses like brown-moss agates set in emerald meadows, in book-lined
+studios, and in close city streets. For it is part of the might and
+mystery of the sea, the secret influence that sets the blood on fire and
+the heart throbbing,--of any in whose veins runs some of the true
+salt-water sympathy. Men are born landsmen, and are born on land, but
+belong to the Ocean's family. Sooner or later, whatever their calling,
+they recognize the tie. They may struggle against it, and scotch it, but
+cannot kill it. They may not be seamen,--they may wear black coats and
+respectable white ties, and have large balances in the bank, but they
+are the Sea's men,--brothers by blood-relationship, if not by trade, of
+Ulysses and Vasco, of Columbus and Cabot, of Frobisher and Drake.
+
+Other stories of the sea are floating through my memory as I
+write,--tales told with elbows leaning on cabin-tables, while the
+swinging-lamp oscillated drearily overhead, and sent uncertain shadows
+into the state-room doors. There is the story which Vivian Grey told us
+of the beautiful clipper "Nighthawk,"--her who sailed with the "Bonita"
+and "Driving-Scud" and "Mazeppa," in the great Sea-Derby, whose course
+lay round the world. How, one Christmas-day, off the pitch of Cape Horn,
+he, standing on her deck, saw her dive bodily into a sea, and all of her
+to the mainmast was lost in ocean,--her stately spars seemingly rising
+out of blue water unsupported by any ship beneath;--it seemed an age to
+him, he said, before there was any forecastle to be seen rising from the
+brine. Also, how, caught off that same wild cape, they had to make sail
+in a reef-topsail-breeze to claw off its terrible rocks, seen but too
+plainly under their Ice. How, as he said, "about four in the afternoon
+it seemed to blow worse than ever, and you could see the staunch boat
+was pressed down under her canvas, and every spar was groaning and
+quivering, while the ship went bodily to leeward." And next, "how she
+seemed to come to herself, as it were, with a long staggering roll, and
+to spring to windward as if relieved of a dead weight; for the gale had
+broken, and the foam-belt along the cliffs grew dimmer and dimmer, and
+the land fainter and fainter. And then," he said, "to hear the
+fo'castle-talk, you would have said that never was such a ship, such
+spars, such a captain, such seamanship, and such luck, since Father
+Jason cleared the 'Argo' from the Pir�us, for Colchis and a market."
+
+Or I might tell you how Dr. ----, the ship-surgeon, was in that Collard
+steamer which ran down the fishing-boat in the fog off Cape Race,--and
+how, looking from his state-room window, he saw a mighty cliff so near
+that he could almost lay his hand upon it. How Fanshaw was on board the
+"Sea-King" when she was burned, off Point Linus,--and how he hung in the
+chains till he was taken off, and his hair was repeatedly set on fire by
+the women--emigrant-passengers--jumping over his head into the sea.
+
+But not so near a-shaking hands with Death did any of them tell, as Ned
+Kennedy,--who, poor fellow, lies buried in some lone _ca�on_ of the
+Sierra Madre. Let us hear him give it in his wild, reckless way. Ned was
+sitting opposite us, his thick, black hair curling from under his plaid
+travelling-cap,--his thick eyebrows working, and his hands occupied in
+arranging little fragments of pilot-biscuit on the table. He broke in
+upon the last man who was talking, with a--
+
+"Tell you what, boys,--I've a better idea of what all that means. I
+suppose you both know what the Mediterranean lines of steamers are, and
+what capital seamanship, and travelling comfort, and all that, you find
+there. The engineers, however, are Scotch, English, or American, always;
+because why? A French officer once told me the reason. 'You see, _mon
+ami_,' he said, 'this row of handles which are used to turn these
+different stops and cocks. Now, my countrymen will take them down and
+use them properly, each one, just as well as your countrymen; but they
+will put them back again in their places never.' So it is, and the
+engineers are all as I say.
+
+"I left Naples for Genoa in the 'Ercolano,' of the Naples line. There
+were not many passengers on board,--no women,--and what there were were
+all priests or soldiers. Nobody went by the Neapolitan line except
+Italians, at that time,--the French company having larger, handsomer,
+and decidedly cleaner vessels. Of course, as a heretic and a civilian, I
+had nobody to talk to; so, finding that the engineer had a Saxon tongue
+in his head, I dove down into his den and made acquaintance. Being shut
+up there with Italians so much, he thawed out to me at once, and we were
+sworn brothers by the time we reached Civita Vecchia.
+
+"The 'Ercolano' was as crazy an old tub as every floated: judging from
+the extensive colonies which tenanted her berths, she must have been
+launched about the same time as Fulton's 'Clermont,' or the old 'Ben
+Franklin,' Captain Bunker, once so well known off the end of Newport
+wharf. You know how those boats are managed,--stopping all day in port
+and running at night. We brought up at Leghorn in that way, and Marston,
+the engineer, proposed to me to have a run ashore. I had no _vis�_ for
+Tuscany then, and the Austrian police are very strict; but Marston
+proposed to pass me off for one of the steamer's officers. So he fished
+out an old uniform coat of his and made me put it on; and, sure enough,
+the bright buttons and shoulder-straps carried me through,--only I was
+dreadfully embarrassed." (Ned never was disturbed at anything.--if an
+elephant had walked into the cabin, he would have offered him a seat and
+cigar.) "by the sentries all presenting arms to my coat, which sat upon
+me as a shirt is supposed to on a bean-pole. I overheard one man
+attribute my attenuated frame to the effects of sea-sickness. We went
+into various shops, and finally into one where all sorts of sea-notions
+were kept, and Marston said, 'Here's what I've been in search of this
+month past. I began to think I should have to send to London for it. The
+'Ercolano' is a perfect sieve, and may go down any night with all
+aboard; and here's a swimming-jacket to wear under your coat,--just the
+thing.' He fitted and bought one, and was turning to go, when a fancy
+popped into my head: 'Marston,' said I, 'is this coat of yours so very
+baggy on me?' 'H-e-em,' said he. 'I've known more waxy fits; a trifle of
+padding wouldn't hurt your looks.' 'I know it,' said I; 'every soldier
+we passed seemed to me to smoke me for an impostor, knowing the coat
+wasn't made for me. Here, let's put one of these things underneath.' I
+put it on, buttoned the coat over it, inflated it, and the effect was a
+marvel;--it made a portly gentleman of me at once. I couldn't bear to
+take it off. 'Just the thing for diligence-travelling in the South of
+France,' said I; 'keep your neighbor's elbows from your ribs.' I never
+thought that I must buy a coat to match it. I was so tickled at my own
+fancy that buy it I would, in spite of Marston's remonstrance. Then we
+went off and dined, and got very jolly together,--at least, I did,--so
+that, when we pulled off to the steamer, I thought nothing about my coat
+or the jacket under it.
+
+"There was a dirty-looking sky overhead, and a nasty cobbling sea
+getting up under foot as we ran out of Leghorn Harbor, and a little
+French screw which we left at her anchor was fizzing off steam from her
+waste-pipe,--evidently meaning to stay where she was. But our captain,
+having been paid in advance for all the dinners of the voyage, preferred
+being at sea before the cloth was laid. That made sure of at least
+twenty out of every twenty-five passengers as non-comedents, and
+lightened the cook's labors wonderfully. So we were soon jumping and
+bobbing about and throwing water in a lively way enough; and our black
+gowns and blue coats were lying about decks in every direction, with
+what had been _padres_ and soldiers an hour before inside. I lit a cigar
+and picked out the driest place I could find, and hugged myself on my
+luck,--another man's coat getting wet on my back, while the air-tight
+jacket was keeping me dry as a bone.
+
+"As night fell, it grew worse and worse; and the little Sicilian captain
+came on deck, looking rather wild. He called his pilots and mates into
+consultation, and from where I lay I could hear the words, 'Spezzia,'
+and 'Porto Venere,' several times; so I suppose they were debating
+whether or no to keep her head to the gale, or to edge away a point or
+two, and run for that bay. But with a head sea and a Mediterranean gale
+howling down from the gorges of the Ligurian Alps, that thing wasn't so
+easy. The boat would plunge into a sea and bury to her paddle-boxes,
+then pitch upward as if she were going to jump bodily out of water, and
+slap down into it again, while her guards would spring and quiver like
+card-board. The engine began to complain, as they will when a boat is
+laboring heavily. You could hear it take, as it were, long breaths, and
+then stop for a second altogether. I slipped below into the engine-room,
+and found Marston looking very sober. 'Kennedy,' said he, 'the
+'Ercolano' will be somebody's coffin before to-morrow morning, I'm
+afraid. I'm carrying more steam than is prudent or safe, and the
+_padrone_ has just sent orders to put on more. We are not making a mile
+an hour, he says; and our only chance is to get under the lee of the
+land. Look at those eccentrics and that connecting-rod! I expect to see
+something go any minute; and then--there's no use saying what will come
+next.' He sat down on his bench and covered his face with his hands.
+
+"It seems, the 'Spezzia' question was decided about that time on deck,
+and the 'Ercolano's' bow suffered to fall off in the direction of that
+bay. The effect was that the next sea caught us full on the weather-bow
+with a shock that pitched everything movable out of its place. There was
+a twist and a grind from the machinery, a snap and a crash, and then
+part after part gave way, as the strain fell upon it in turn. Marston,
+with an engineer's instinct, shut off the steam; but the mischief was
+done. We felt the 'Ercolano' give a wild sheer, and then a long,
+sickening roll, as if she were going down bodily,--and we sprang for the
+companion-ladder. Everything on deck was at sixes and sevens when we
+reached it '_Sangue di San Gennaro! siamo perduli!_' howled the captain;
+and even the poor sea-sick passengers seemed to wake up a little. It was
+a bad look-out. We got pretty much of every wave that was going, so
+there was hardly any standing forward; and, having no steam on, the wind
+and the sea had their own way with us. The gallant little _padrone_
+seemed to keep up his pluck, and made out to show a little sail, so as
+to bring her by the wind; but that, in a long, sharp steamer, didn't
+mend matters much. To make things completely cheerful and comfortable,
+word was passed up that we were leaking badly. I confess I didn't see
+much hope for us; and having lugged up my valise from below, where there
+was already a foot of water over the cabin-floor, I picked out the
+little valuables I could stow about me and kicked the rest into a
+corner. Still we had our boats, and, as the gale seemed to be breaking a
+little, there was hope for us. At last they managed to get them into the
+water, and keep them riding clear under our lee. The priests were
+bundled in like so many wet bales of black cloth, and then the soldiers,
+and Marston and I tried to follow; but a 'No room for heretics here,'
+enforced by a bit of brown steel in a soldier's hands, kept us back. The
+chance wasn't worth fighting for, after all. I didn't believe the
+steamer would sink, any way. I was aboard the 'San Francisco' when she
+drifted for nine days. However, there wasn't much time left for us to
+speculate on that,--for a rush of firemen and crew and the like into
+the boats was the next thing, and then the fasts were cast off or cut,
+and the wind and sea did the rest. They shot away into the darkness. A
+couple of firemen, two of the priests, and a soldier were left on board.
+The firemen went to getting drunk,--the priests were too sick to move or
+care for anything,--the soldier sat quietly down on the cabin-skylight;
+Marston and I climbed on to the port paddle-box to look out for a sail.
+
+"The clouds had broken with the dying of the gale, and the moon shone
+out, lighting up the foaming sea far and wide, and showing our
+water-logged or sinking craft. Every wave that swept over us found its
+way below, and we settled deeper and deeper. Still, if we could only
+hold on till morning, those seas are alive with small craft, and we
+stood a good chance of being picked off. I was saying as much to Marston
+when the 'Ercolano' gave a lurch and then dove bows first into the sea.
+A great wave seemed to curl over us, and then to thrust us by the
+shoulders down into the depths, and all was darkness and water. I went
+down, down, and still I was dragged lower still, though the pressure
+from above ceased, and I was struggling to rise. I struck out with hands
+and feet;--I was held fast. I felt behind me and found a hand grasping
+my coat-tails. Marston had seized me, and with the other hand was
+clinging to the iron rail on the top of the paddle-box,--clinging with
+the death-grip of a drowning man, if you know what that is. I tried to
+unclasp the fingers,--to drive him from his hold on the rail. Of course
+I couldn't; it was Death's hand, not his, that was holding there, and my
+own strength was going, when a thought flashed into my mind. I tore open
+my coat, and it slipped from me like a grape-skin from the grape, and I
+went up like an arrow.
+
+"Never shall I forget the blessed light of heaven, and the sweet air in
+my lungs once more. Bad off as I was, it was better than being anchored
+to a sinking wreck by a dead man's grasp. I heard a voice near me that
+night repeating the Latin prayers of the Romish Church for the departing
+soul, but I couldn't see the speaker. The moon had gone under a cloud
+again, but there was light enough for me to catch a glimpse of some
+floating wreck on the crest of a wave above me; and then it came down
+right on top of me,--a lot of rigging and a spar or two,--our topmast
+and yard, which had gone over the side just before we foundered. I
+climbed on to it, and found my prospects hugely improving,--especially
+as clinging to the other end was the soldier left on board. As soon as I
+could persuade him I was no spook or mermaid, he was almost as pleased
+as I was, especially when he found I was the '_eretico_.' He was a
+Swiss, it seemed, of King Ferdinand's regiments, going home on furlough,
+and a Protestant, which was why he was left on board.
+
+"Between us both we managed to get the spars into some sort of a
+raft-shape, so that they would float us more comfortably; and there we
+watched for the morning. When that came, the sea had smoothed itself,
+and the wind died away considerably,--as it does in the Mediterranean at
+short notice. We looked every way for the white lateen-sails of the
+coasting and fishing craft, but in vain. It grew hotter and hotter as
+the sun got higher, and hope and strength began to give out. I lay down
+on the raft and slept,--how long I don't know, for my first
+consciousness was my friend's cry of "A ship!" I looked up, and there,
+sure enough, in the northeast, was a large ship, running before the
+wind, right in our direction. I suspect poor Fritzeli must have been
+asleep also, that he hadn't seen her before,--for she was barely a
+couple of miles off. She was apparently from Genoa or Spezzia; but the
+main thing was, that she was travelling our road, and that with a will.
+I tore off my shirt-sleeve at the shoulder, and waved it, while Fritzeli
+held up his red sash. But it was an anxious time. On she came,--a big
+frigate. We could see a commodore's pendant flying at the main, and
+almost hear the steady rush of water under her black bows. Did they see
+us, or not? There was no telling; a man-of-war walks the sea's roads
+without taking hats off to everybody that comes along. A quiet report
+goes up to the officer of the deck, a long look with a glass, and the
+whole affair would be settled without troubling us to come into council.
+On she came, till we could see the guns in her bow ports, and almost
+count the meshes in her hammock netting. The shadow of her lofty sails
+was already fallen upon us before she gave a sign of recognition. Then
+her bow gave a wide sheer, and her whole broadside came into view, as
+she glided by the spars where we were crouching. An officer appeared at
+her quarter and waved his gold-banded cap to us, as the frigate rounded
+to, to the leeward of us,--and the glorious stripes and stars blew out
+clear against the hot sky. A light dingey was in the water before the
+main yard had been well swung aback, and a midshipman was urging the
+men, who needed no urging, to give way strong. I didn't know how weak I
+had got, till they were lifting me aboard the boat. An hour after, when
+I had had something to eat and was a little restored and had told my
+story, the officer of the deck was relieved and came below to see me.
+
+"'I fancy, Sir, we've just passed something of your steamer,' he
+said,--'a yawlboat, bottom up, with a name on the stern which we
+couldn't well make out: _Erco_ something, it looked like. Hadn't been
+long in the water, I should say.'
+
+"And that was the last of the steamer. Fritzeli and I were the sole
+survivors."
+
+
+
+
+THE JOLLY MARINER:
+
+A BALLAD.
+
+    It was a jolly mariner
+      As ever hove a log;
+    He wore his trousers wide and free,
+      And always ate his prog,
+    And blessed his eyes, in sailor-wise,
+      And never shirked his grog.
+
+    Up spoke this jolly mariner,
+      Whilst walking up and down:--
+    "The briny sea has pickled me,
+      And done me very brown;
+    But here I goes, in these here clo'es,
+      A-cruising in the town!"
+
+    The first of all the curious things
+      That chanced his eye to meet,
+    As this undaunted mariner
+      Went sailing up the street,
+    Was, tripping with a little cane,
+      A dandy all complete!
+
+    He stopped,--that jolly mariner,--
+      And eyed the stranger well;--
+    "What that may be," he said, says he,
+      "Is more than I can tell;
+    But ne'er before, on sea or shore,
+      Was such a heavy swell!"
+
+    He met a lady in her hoops,
+      And thus she heard him hail:--
+    "Now blow me tight!--but there's a sight
+      To manage in a gale!
+    I never saw so small a craft
+      With such a spread o' sail!
+
+    "Observe the craft before and aft,--
+      She'd make a pretty prize!"
+    And then, in that improper way,
+      He spoke about his eyes,
+    That mariners are wont to use,
+      In anger or surprise.
+
+    He saw a plumber on a roof,
+      Who made a mighty din:--
+    "Shipmate, ahoy!" the rover cried,
+      "It makes a sailor grin
+    To see you copper-bottoming
+      Your upper-decks with tin!"
+
+    He met a yellow-bearded man,
+      And asked about the way;
+    But not a word could he make out
+      Of what the chap would say,
+    Unless he meant to call him names
+      By screaming, "Nix furstay!"
+
+    Up spoke this jolly mariner,
+      And to the man said he,
+    "I haven't sailed these thirty years
+      Upon the stormy sea,
+    To bear the shame of such a name
+      As I have heard from thee!
+
+    "So take thou that!"--and laid him flat.
+      But soon the man arose,
+    And beat the jolly mariner
+      Across his jolly nose,
+    Till he was fain, from very pain,
+      To yield him to the blows.
+
+    'Twas then this jolly mariner,
+      A wretched jolly tar,
+    Wished he was in a jolly-boat
+      Upon the sea afar,
+    Or riding fast, before the blast,
+      Upon a single spar!
+
+    'Twas then this jolly mariner
+      Returned unto his ship,
+    And told unto the wondering crew
+      The story of his trip,
+    With many oaths and curses, too,
+      Upon his wicked lip!--
+
+    As hoping--so this mariner
+      In fearful words harangued--
+    His timbers might be shivered, and
+      His le'ward scuppers danged,
+    (A double curse, and vastly worse
+      Than being shot or hanged!)
+
+    If ever he--and here again
+      A dreadful oath he swore--
+    If ever he, except at sea,
+      Spoke any stranger more,
+    Or like a son of--something--went
+      A-cruising on the shore!
+
+
+
+
+SUGGESTIONS.
+
+    "Waste words, addle questions."
+
+    BISHOP ANDREWS.
+
+
+AFFAIRS.
+
+When affairs are at their worst, a bold project may retrieve them by
+giving an assurance, else wanting, that hope, spirit, and energy still
+exist.
+
+
+AFFINITIES.
+
+Place an inferior character in contact with the finest circumstances,
+and, from wanting affinities with them, he will still remain, from no
+fault of his own, insensible to their attractions. Take him up the mount
+of vision, and show him the finest scene in Nature, and, instead of
+taking in the whole circle of its beauty, he will, quite as likely, have
+his attention engrossed by something mean and insignificant under his
+nose. I was reminded of this, on taking a little boy, three years old,
+to the top of the New York Reservoir. Placing him on one of the
+parapets, I endeavored to call his attention to the more salient and
+distant features of the extended prospect; but the little fellow's mind
+was too immature to be at all appreciative of them. His interest was
+confined to what he saw going on in a dirty inclosure on the opposite
+side of the street, where two or three goats were moving about. After
+watching them with curious interest for some time, "See, see!" said he,
+"dem is pigs down dare!" Was there need for quarrelling with my fine
+little man for seeing pigs where there were only goats, or goats where
+there was much worthier to be seen?
+
+
+AFTER THE BATTLE.
+
+A brave deed performed, a noble object accomplished, gives a fillip to
+the spirits, an exhilaration to the feelings, like that imparted by
+Champagne, only more permanent. It is, indeed, admirably well said by
+one wise to discern the truth of things, and able to give to his thought
+a vigorous expression, that "a man feels relieved and gay when he has
+put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or
+done otherwise shall give him no peace."
+
+
+APPLAUSE.
+
+Noble acts deserve a generous appreciation. Indeed, it is a species of
+injustice not to warmly applaud whatever is wisely said or ably done.
+Fine things are shown that they may be admired. When the peacock struts
+about, it is to show what a fine tail he has.
+
+
+ARTISTS.
+
+The artist's business is with the beautiful. The repugnant is outside of
+his province. Let him study only the beautiful, and he will always be
+pleased; let him treat only of the beautiful, with a true feeling for
+it, and he will always give pleasure.
+
+The artist must love both his art and the subjects of his art. Nothing
+that is not lovable is worth portraying. In the portrait of Rosa
+Bonheur, she is appropriately represented with one arm thrown
+affectionately around the neck of a bull. She must have loved this order
+of animals, to have painted them so well.
+
+
+AUTHORS.
+
+Instead of the jealousies that obtain among them, there is no class that
+ought to stand so close together, united in a feeling of common
+brotherhood, to strengthen, to support, and to encourage, by mutual
+sympathy and interchange of genial criticism, as authors. A sensitive
+race, neglect pierces like sharp steel into the very marrow of their
+being. And still they stand apart! Alive to praise, and needing its
+inspiration, their relations are those of icebergs,--cold, stiff, lofty,
+and freezing. What infatuation is this! They should seek each other out,
+extend the hand of fellowship, and bridge the distance between them by
+elaborate courtesies and kindly recognitions.
+
+
+AN AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK.
+
+No man is a competent judge of what he himself does. An author, on the
+eve of his first publication, and while his book is going through the
+press, is in a predicament like that of a man mounted on a fence, with
+an ugly bull in the field that he is obliged to cross. The apprehended
+silence of the journals concerning his merits--for no notice is the
+worst notice--constitutes one of the "horns of his dilemma"; while their
+possibly invidious comments upon his want of them constitute another and
+equally formidable "horn." Between these, and the uncertainty as to
+whether he will not in a little time be cut by one-half of his
+acquaintances and only indulgently tolerated by the other half, his
+experience is apt to be very peculiar, and certainly not altogether
+agreeable. Never, therefore, envy an author his feelings on such an
+occasion, on the score of their superior enjoyment, but rather let him
+be visited with your softest pity and tenderest commiseration.
+
+
+BOOKS.
+
+A book is only a very partial expression of its author. The writer is
+greater than his work; and there is in him the substance, not of one, or
+a few, but of many books, were they only written out.
+
+
+CAUSE AND EFFECT.
+
+Small circumstances illustrate great principles. To-day my dinner cost
+me sixpence less than usual. This is an incident not quite so important
+as some others recorded in history, but the causes of it originated more
+than two thousand years ago. It will also serve to explain the
+principle, that causes are primary and secondary, remote and
+immediate,--and that historians, when they speak of certain effects as
+produced by certain causes. Socrates one day had a conversation with
+Aristippus, in which he threw out certain remarks on the subject of
+temperance. Being overheard by Xenophon, they were subsequently
+committed to writing and published by him. These, falling in my way last
+evening, made such an impression on my mind, that I was induced to-day
+to forego my customary piece of pudding after dinner, to the loss of the
+eating-house proprietor, whose receipts were thus diminished, first, by
+a few observations of an ancient Greek, secondly, by a report given of
+them by a bystander, and, thirdly, by the accidental perusal of them,
+after twenty centuries, by one of his customers.
+
+
+CHEERFULNESS.
+
+Sullen and good, morbid and wise, are impossible conditions. The best
+test, both of a man's wisdom and goodness, is his cheerfulness. When one
+is not cheerful, he is almost invariably stupid. A sad face seldom gets
+into much credit with the world, and rarely deserves to. "Sorrow," says
+old Montaigne, "is a base passion."
+
+"The quarrel between Gray and me," said Horace Walpole, "arose from his
+being too serious a companion." In my opinion, this was a good ground
+for cutting the connection. What right has any one to be "too serious a
+companion?"
+
+
+COWARDS.
+
+In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that
+imperil the brave. For cowards the road of desertion to the enemy should
+be left open; they will carry over to them nothing but their fears. The
+poltroon, like the scabbard, is an incumbrance when once the sword is
+drawn.
+
+
+CRITICISM.
+
+No work deserves to be criticized which has not much in it that deserves
+to be applauded. The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention
+to what is excellent The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect
+may be safely left to that final neglect from which no amount of present
+undeserved popularity can rescue it.
+
+Ever so critical of things: never but good-naturedly so of persons.
+
+
+CULTURE.
+
+Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity.
+
+
+DEATH.
+
+Without death in the world, existence in it would soon become, through
+over-population, the most frightful of curses. To death we owe our life;
+the passing of one generation clears the way for another; and thus, in
+the economy of Providence, the very extinction of being is a provision
+for extending the boon of existence. Even wars and disease are _a good
+misunderstood_. Without them, child-murder would be as common in
+Christendom as it is in over-populated China.
+
+
+DEBTORS AND CREDITORS.
+
+To interest a number of people in your welfare, get in debt to them. If
+they will not then promote your interest, it is because they are not
+alive to their own. It is to the advantage of creditors to aid their
+debtors. C�sar owed more than a million of dollars before he obtained
+his first public employment, and at a later period his liabilities
+exceeded his assets by ten millions. His creditors constituted an
+important constituency, and doubtless aided to secure his elections.
+
+
+DIFFICULTIES.
+
+Great difficulties, when not succumbed to, bring out great virtues.
+
+
+DISGUST.
+
+A fit of disgust is a great stimulator of thought. Pleasure represses
+it.
+
+
+EARNESTNESS.
+
+M. de Buffon says that "genius is only great patience." Would it not be
+truer to say that genius is great earnestness? Patience is only one
+faculty; earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties: it is the
+cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens
+weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties,
+and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them. Yes, War yields
+its victories, and Beauty her favors, to him who fights or wooes with
+the most passionate ardor,--in other words, with the greatest
+earnestness. Even the simulation of earnestness accomplishes much,--such
+a charm has it for us. This explains the success of libertines, the
+coarseness of whose natures is usually only disguised by a certain
+conventional polish of manners: "their hearts seem in earnest, because
+their passions are."
+
+
+EDUCATION OF THE SEXES.
+
+Girls are early taught deceit, and they never forget the lesson. Boys
+are more outspoken. This is because boys are instructed that to be frank
+and open is to be manly and generous, while their sisters are
+perpetually admonished that "this is not pretty," or "that is not
+becoming," until they have learned to control their natural impulses,
+and to regulate their conduct by precepts and example. The result of all
+this is, that, while men retain much of their natural dispositions,
+women have largely made-up characters.
+
+
+EMERSON'S ESSAYS.
+
+I have not yet been able to decide whether it is better to read certain
+of Emerson's essays as poetry or philosophy. Perhaps, though, it would
+be no more than just to consider them as an almost complete and perfect
+union of the two. Certainly, no modern writer has more of vivid
+individuality, both of thought and expression,--and few writers, of any
+age, will better bear reperusal, or surpass him in the grand merit of
+suggestiveness. There is much in his books that I cannot clearly
+understand, and passages sometimes occur that once seemed to me
+destitute of meaning; but I have since learned, from a greater
+familiarity with what he has written, to respect even his obscurities,
+and to have faith that there is at all times behind his words both a man
+and a meaning.
+
+
+ENGLISHMEN.
+
+There is in the character of perhaps a majority of Englishmen a singular
+commingling of the haughty and the subservient,--the result, doubtless,
+of the mixed nature, partly aristocratic and partly democratic, of the
+government, and of the peculiar structure of English society, in which
+every man indemnifies himself for the subserviency he is required to
+exhibit to the classes above, by exacting a similar subserviency from
+those below him. Thackeray, who is to be considered a competent judge of
+the character of his countrymen, puts the remark into the mouth of one
+of his characters, that, "if you wish to make an Englishman respect you,
+you must treat him with insolence." The language is somewhat too strong,
+and it would not be altogether safe to act upon the suggestion; but the
+witticism embodies a modicum of truth, for all that.
+
+
+EXAMPLE.
+
+Example has more followers than reason.
+
+
+EXCITEMENT COUNTERVAILS PAIN.
+
+We wince under little pains, but Nature in us, through the excitement
+attendant upon them, seems to brace us to endure with fortitude greater
+agonies. A curious circumstance, that will serve as an illustration of
+this, is told by an eminent surgeon of a person upon whom it became
+necessary to perform a painful surgical operation. The surgeon, after
+adjusting him in a position favorable to his purpose, turned for a
+moment to write a prescription; then, taking up the knife, he was about
+making an "imminent deadly breach" in the body of his subject, when he
+observed an expression of distress upon his countenance. Wishing to
+reassure him, "What disturbs you?" he inquired. "Oh," said the sufferer,
+"you have left the pen in the inkstand!" and this being removed, he
+submitted to the operation with extraordinary composure.
+
+
+FACT AND FANCY.
+
+"See, nurse I see!" exclaimed a delighted papa, as something like a
+smile irradiated the face of his infant child,--"an angel is whispering
+to it!" "No, Sir," replied the more matter-of-fact nurse,--"it is only
+wind from its stomach."
+
+
+FINE HOUSES.
+
+To build a huge house, and furnish it lavishly,--what is this but to
+play baby-house on a large scale?
+
+
+FINE LADIES.
+
+If you would know how many of the "airs" of a fine lady are "put on,"
+contrast her with a woman who has never had the advantages of a genteel
+training. What appear as the curvettings and prancings of a high-mettled
+nature turn out, from the light thus afforded, to be only the tricks of
+a skilful grooming.
+
+
+FUTURE LIFE
+
+Altogether too much thought is given to the next world. One world at a
+time ought to be sufficient for us. If we do our duty manfully in this,
+much consideration of our relations to that next world may be safely
+postponed until we are in it.
+
+
+GREAT MEN.
+
+Oh, the responsibility of great men! Could some of these the originators
+of new beliefs, of new methods in Art, of new systems of state and
+ecclesiastical polity, of novel modes of practice in medicine, and the
+like.--"revisit the pale glimpses of the moon," and look upon the
+streams of blood and misery that have flowed from fountains they have
+unsealed, they would skulk back to their graves faster and more
+affrighted than when they first descended into them.
+
+
+HABITS.
+
+Habit to a great extent, is the forcing of Nature to your way, instead
+of leaving her to her own. Struck by this consideration, "He is a fool,
+then, who has any habits," said W. Softly, my dear Sir,--the position is
+an extreme one. Bad habits are very bad, and good habits, blindly
+followed, are not altogether good, for they make machines of us.
+Occasional excesses may be wholesome; and Nature accommodates herself to
+irregularities, as a ship to the action of waves. Good habits are in the
+nature of allies: we may strengthen ourselves by an alliance with them,
+but they should not outnumber the forces they act with. Habits are the
+Hessians of our moral warfare: the good or the ill they do depends on
+the side they fight on.
+
+
+HEROISM.
+
+The race of heroes, though not prolific, is never extinct. Nature,
+liberal in this, as in all things else, has sown the constituent
+qualities of heroism broadcast. Elements of the heroic in character
+exist in almost every individual; it is only the felicitous combination
+of them all in one that is rare.
+
+
+IDEAS.
+
+Ideas, in regard to their degrees of merit, may be divided, like the
+animal kingdom, into classes or families. First in rank are those ideas
+that have in them the germs of a great moral unfolding,--as the ideas of
+a religious teacher, like Socrates or Confucius. Next in merit are those
+ideas that lay open the secrets of Nature, or add to the combinations of
+Art,--as the ideas of inventors and discoverers. Next in the order of
+excellence are all new and valuable ideas on diseases and their
+treatment, on the redress of social abuses, on government and laws and
+their administration, and all similar ideas on all other subjects
+connected with material welfare or intellectual and moral advancement.
+Last and least, ideas that are only the repetition of other ideas,
+previously known, though not so well expressed.
+
+
+INSTITUTIONS.
+
+When an institution, not designed to be stationary, ceases to be
+progressive, it is usually because its officers have lost their
+ambition to make it so. In such a contingency, they had better be called
+upon to resign, and thus to open the way for a more executive and
+energetic management.
+
+
+LAWYERS.
+
+The lawyer's relation to society is like that of the scarecrow to the
+cornfield; concede that he effects nothing of positive good, and he
+still exerts a wholesome influence from the terror his presence
+inspires.
+
+
+LEADERSHIP.
+
+He who aspires to be leader must keep in advance of his column. His
+fears must not play traitor to his occasions. The instant he falls into
+line with his followers, a bolder spirit may throw himself at the head
+of the movement initiated, and from that moment his leadership is gone.
+
+
+LET THE RIGHT PREVAIL.
+
+It is better that ten times ten thousand men should suffer in their
+interests than that a right principle should not be vindicated. Granting
+that all these will be injured by the suppression of the false, an
+infinitely greater number will as certainly be prejudiced by throwing
+off the allegiance due to truth. Throughout the future, all have an
+interest in the establishment of sound principles, while only a few in
+the present can have even a partial interest in the perpetuation of
+error.
+
+
+LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
+
+It is pleasanter and more amiable to applaud than to condemn, and they
+who look wisely to their happiness will endeavor, as they go through
+life, to see as much to admire, and as few things that are repugnant, as
+possible. Nothing that is not distinctively excellent is worthy of
+particular study or comment.
+
+
+LOVERS' DIFFERENCES.
+
+Their love for each other is only partial who differ much and widely.
+When a loving heart speaks to a heart that loves in return, an
+understanding is easily arrived at.
+
+
+WHAT LOVE PROVES.
+
+The existence of so much love in the world establishes that there is in
+it much of the excellence that justifies so exalted a passion. Almost
+every man has been a lover at some period in his life, and, out of so
+many lovers, it is unreasonable to suppose that all of them have been
+mistaken in their estimates.
+
+
+MAGNANIMITY.
+
+Justice to the defeated exalts the victor from a subject of admiration
+to an object of love. To the fame of superior courage or address he
+thereby adds the glory of a greater magnanimity. Praise, too, of a
+vanquished opponent makes our victory over him appear the more signal.
+
+
+MANHOOD.
+
+The question is not, the number of facts a man knows, but how much of a
+fact he is himself.
+
+
+MEAN MEN.
+
+If a man is thoroughly mean by nature, let him give full swing to his
+meanness. Such a fellow brings discredit upon generosity by putting on
+its semblance. If he attempts to disguise the smallness of his soul, he
+only adds to his contemptible trait of meanness the still more
+despicable vice of hypocrisy. Mean by the sacred institution of Nature,
+and without a generous trait to mar the excellence of his native
+meanness, so long as he continues unqualifiedly mean, he exists a
+perfect type of a particular character, and presents to us a fine
+illustration of the vast capabilities of Nature.
+
+
+METHODS OF THE ENTERPRISING.
+
+Great personal activity at times, and closely sedentary and severely
+thoughtful habits at other times, are the forces by which able men
+accomplish notable enterprises. Sitting with thoughtful brows by their
+evening firesides, they originate and mature their plans; after which,
+with energies braced to their work, they move to the easy conquest of
+difficulties accounted formidable, because they have deliberated upon
+and mastered the _best methods_ for overcoming them.
+
+
+MILITARY SCHOOLS.
+
+The existence of military schools is a proof that the other schools have
+not done their duty.
+
+
+NATURE AND ART.
+
+The art of being interesting is largely the art of being _real_,--of
+being without art.
+
+
+NEWSPAPERS.
+
+The world is not fairly represented by its newspapers. Life is something
+better than they make it out to be. They are mainly the records of the
+crimes that curse and the casualties that afflict it, the contests of
+litigants and the strifes of politicians; but of the sweet amenities of
+home and social life they are and must be silent. Not without a reason
+has the poet fled from the "poet's corner."
+
+
+NON-COMMUNICANTS.
+
+Certain minds are formed to take in truths, but not to utter them. They
+hoard their knowledge, as misers their gold. Their communicativeness is
+small. Their appreciation of principles is greater than their sympathy
+for persons.
+
+
+OPINIONS.
+
+The best merit of an opinion is, that it is sound; its next best merit,
+that it is briefly expressed.
+
+
+POETS AND POETRY.
+
+The "twelve rules for a poet" are eleven too many. The poet needs but
+one rule for his guidance as a poet,--namely, never to write poetry.[2]
+
+
+POPULAR ASPIRANTS.
+
+The fate of a popular aspirant is often like that of a prize ox. When in
+his best condition, he is put up for exhibition, decorated with flowers
+and ribbons, and afterwards led out to be slaughtered.
+
+
+PRAISE.
+
+No one, probably, was ever injured by having his good qualities made the
+subject of judicious praise. The virtues, like plants, reward the
+attention bestowed upon them by growing more and more thrifty. A lad who
+is told often that he is a good boy will in time grow ashamed to exhibit
+the qualities of a bad one.
+
+
+PRIDE.
+
+Pride is like the beautiful acacia, that carries its head proudly above
+its neighbor plants,--forgetting that it, too, like them, has its root
+in the dirt.
+
+
+PROVERBS.
+
+Invention and the Graces preside at the birth of a good proverb. Aside
+from the ideas expressed in them, they are deserving of the attention of
+literary men and all students of expression, from the infinite variety
+of turns of style they exhibit. "If you don't want to be tossed by a
+bull, toss the bull." Here, for instance, the thought is not only
+spirited, but it is so rendered as to give to the idea both the force of
+novelty and the agreeableness of wit. The words are as hard and compact,
+and the thought flies as swift, as a bullet.
+
+
+PUBLIC MEN.
+
+A public man may reasonably esteem it a piece of good fortune to be
+vigorously attacked in the newspapers. In the first place, it lifts him
+prominently into notice. Then, a plausible defence will divide public
+opinion, while a triumphant vindication will more fully establish him in
+the popular regard. Even if unable to offer either, the notoriety so
+acquired will in time soften into a counterfeit of celebrity so like the
+original that it will easily pass for it. Besides, the world is
+charitable, and will forget old sins in consideration of later virtues.
+
+
+MANNERS OF REFORMERS.
+
+Reformers, from being deeply impressed with the evils they seek to
+redress, and actively engaged in a warfare against them, are apt to
+contract a certain habit of denunciation, extending to persons and
+things at large, and by which their character for amiability is
+injuriously affected. This is particularly noticeable in that portion of
+the press devoted to Progress.
+
+
+REQUESTS.
+
+It is well to dress in your best when you go to press a request. It is
+not so easy to resist the solicitations of a well-dressed importunate.
+
+
+RICH AND POOR.
+
+Grace resides with the cultivated, but strength is the property of the
+people. Art with these has not emasculated Nature.
+
+
+RICH TO EXCESS.
+
+Intellectually, as many suffer from too much physical health as too
+little. A fat body makes a lean mind.
+
+
+RULE OR RUIN.
+
+A thoroughly vigorous man will not actively belong to any associated
+body, except to rule in it. Not to control in its affairs is to have his
+individuality cut down to the standard of those that do. He must stamp
+himself upon the institution, or its enfeebling influence will be
+stamped upon him.
+
+
+SANS PEUR.
+
+No man is competent greatly to serve the cause of truth till he has made
+audacity a part of his mental constitution.
+
+There are some dangers that are to be courted,--courted and braved as a
+coy mistress is to be wooed, with all the more vigor as the day makes
+against us. When Fortune frowns upon her worthy wooer, it is still
+permitted him to think how pleasant it will be ere long to bask in her
+smiles.
+
+
+SLIGHTS.
+
+In seasons when the energies flag and our ambition fails us, a rebuff is
+a blessing, by rousing us from inaction, and stirring us to more
+vigorous efforts to make good our pretensions.
+
+
+SOCIAL REGENERATION.
+
+Private worth is the only true basis of public prosperity. Still,
+ministers and moralists do but tinker at the regeneration of the world
+in merely recommending individual improvement. The most prolific cause
+of depravity is the social system that forms the character to what it
+is. The virtues, like plants, to flourish, must have a soil and air
+adapted to them. A plant at the seaside yields soda; the same plant
+grown inland produces potash. What society most needs, for its permanent
+advancement, is uniformity of inheritance.
+
+
+SPEAKERS.
+
+A speaker should put his character into what he says. So many speakers,
+like so many faces, have no individuality in them.
+
+
+SPEAKING AND TALKING.
+
+There is often a striking contrast between a man's style of writing and
+of talking,--for which I offer this explanation: He ponders what he
+writes; he talks without system. As an author, therefore, he is
+sententious; as a conversationist, loose and verbose;--or the reverse of
+this may be true.
+
+
+SPEECH.
+
+Language was given to us that we might say pleasant things to each
+other.
+
+
+PREVAILING STYLES.
+
+In literary performances, as in Gothic architecture, the taste of the
+age is largely in favor of the pointed styles. Our churches and our
+books must bristle all over with points, or they are not so much thought
+of.
+
+
+SUNDAY.
+
+The poor man's rich day.
+
+
+THINGS WORTH KNOWING.
+
+Only the good is worth knowing, and only the beautiful worth studying.
+
+
+TOBACCO.
+
+Tobacco in excess fouls the breath, discolors the teeth, soils the
+complexion, deranges the nerves, reduces vitality, impairs the
+sensibility to beauty and to pleasure, abets intemperance, promotes
+idleness, and degrades the man.
+
+
+TRADE-LIFE.
+
+Formerly, when great fortunes were made only in war, war was a business;
+but now, when great fortunes are made only by business, business is war.
+
+
+TRUTH-SEEKERS.
+
+Hamlet, in the ghost scene, is a fine example of the _questioning
+spirit_ pursuing its inquiries regardless of consequences. The
+apparition which affrights and confounds his companions only spurs his
+not less timid, perhaps, but more speculative nature into following and
+plying it with questions. Only thus should Truth be followed, with an
+interest great enough to overmaster all fears as to whither she may lead
+and what she may disclose.
+
+
+UGLY MEN.
+
+When a man is hideously ugly his only safety is in glorying in it. Let
+him boldly claim it as a distinction.
+
+
+THE WALK.
+
+The walk discloses the character. A placid and composed walk bespeaks
+the philosopher. He walks as if the present was sufficient for him. A
+measured step is the expression of a disciplined intellect, not easily
+stirred to excesses. A hurried pace denotes an eager spirit, with a
+tendency to precipitate measures. The confident and the happy swing
+along, and need a wide sidewalk; while an irregular gait reveals a
+composite of character,--one thing to-day, another to-morrow, and
+nothing much at any time.
+
+
+WINE.
+
+_In vino_ there is not only _veritas_, but sensibility. It makes the
+face of him who drinks it to excess blush for his habits.
+
+
+WISDOM.
+
+Wisdom comes to us as guest, but her visits are liable to sudden
+terminations. In our efforts to retain the wisdom we have acquired, an
+embarrassment arises like that of the little boy who was scolded for
+having a dirty nose. "Blow your nose, Sir." "Papa, I do blow my nose,
+but it won't stay blowed."
+
+
+WOMEN AS JUDGES OF CHARACTER.
+
+It is more honorable to have the regards of a few noble women than to be
+popular among a much greater number of men. Having in themselves the
+qualities that command our love, they are, for that reason, the better
+able to appreciate the traits that deserve to inspire it. The heart must
+be judged by the heart, and men are too intellectual in the processes by
+which they form their regards.
+
+
+AVERAGE WORTH.
+
+A wife should accept her husband, and a friend his friend, upon a
+general estimate. Particulars in character and conduct should be
+overlooked.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 2: I speak, of course, only of the discreet poet. Great poets
+are never discreet. Their genius overrides their discretion.]
+
+
+
+
+BULLS AND BEARS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE ARTISTS' EXHIBITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
+
+There was an exhibition of pictures in an upper room on Washington
+Street. The artists had collected their unsold productions, and proposed
+to offer them at auction. There were sketches of White Mountain scenery,
+views of Nahant and other beaches, woodland prospects, farm-houses with
+well-sweeps, reedy marshes and ponds, together with the usual variety of
+ideal heads and figures,--a very pretty collection. The artists had gone
+forth like bees, and gathered whatever was sweetest in every field
+through a wide circuit, and now the lover of the beautiful might have
+his choice of the results without the fatigue of travel. Defects enough
+there were to critical eyes,--false drawing, cold color, and
+unsuccessful distances; still there was much to admire, and the spirit
+and intention were interesting, even where the inexperience of the
+painter was only too apparent.
+
+A group of visitors entered the room: a lady in the prime of beauty,
+richly but modestly dressed, casting quick glances on all sides, yet
+with an air of quiet self-possession; a gentleman, her brother
+apparently, near forty years of age, dignified and prepossessing; a
+second lady, in widow's weeds; and a young gentleman with successful
+moustaches, lemon-colored gloves, and one of those bagging coats which
+just miss the grace of flowing outline without the compensation of
+setting off a good figure. The lady first mentioned seemed born to take
+the lead; it was no assumption in her; _incedo regina_ was the
+expression of her gracefully poised head and her stately carriage. "A
+pretty bit," she said, carelessly pointing with her parasol to a picture
+of a rude country bridge and dam.
+
+"Yes," said her elder brother, "spirited and lifelike. Who is the
+painter, Marcia?"
+
+The beauty consulted her catalogue.
+
+"Greenleaf, George Greenleaf."
+
+"A new name. Look at that distant spire," he continued, "faintly showing
+among the trees in the background. The water is surprisingly true. A
+charming picture. I think I'll buy it."
+
+"How quickly you decide," said the lady, with an air of languor. "The
+picture is pretty enough, but you haven't seen the rest of the
+collection yet. Gamboge paints lovely landscapes, they say. I wouldn't
+be enthusiastic about a picture by an artist one doesn't know anything
+about."
+
+A gentleman standing behind a screen near by moved away with a changed
+expression and a deepening flush. Another person, an artist evidently,
+now accosted the party, addressing them as Mr. and Miss Sandford. After
+the usual civilities, he called their attention to the picture before
+them.
+
+"We were just admiring it," said Mr. Sandford.
+
+"Do you like it, Mr. Easelmann?" asked the lady.
+
+"Yes, exceedingly."
+
+"Ah! the generosity of a brother artist," replied Miss Sandford.
+
+"No; you do the picture injustice,--and me too, for that matter; for,"
+he added, with a laugh, "I am not generally supposed to ruin my friends
+by indiscriminate flattery. This young painter has wonderfully improved.
+He went up into the country last season, found a picturesque little
+village, and has made a portfolio of very striking sketches."
+
+Miss Sandford began to appear interested.
+
+"Quite pwomising," said the Adonis in the baggy coat, silent until now.
+
+"Yes, he has blossomed all at once. He talks of going abroad."
+
+"Bettah stay at home," said the young gentleman, languidly. "I've been
+thwough all the gallewies. It's always the same stowy,--always the same
+old humbugs to be admired,--always a doosid boah."
+
+"One relief you must have had in the galleries," retorted Easelmann;
+"your all-round shirt-collar wouldn't choke you quite so much when your
+head was cocked back."
+
+Adonis-in-bag adjusted his polished all-rounder with a delicately gloved
+finger, and declared that the painter was "a jol-ly fel-low."
+
+The gentleman who had blushed a moment before, when the picture was
+criticized, was still within earshot; he now turned an angry glance upon
+the last speaker, and was about to cross the room, when Mr. Easelmann
+stopped him.
+
+"With your permission, Miss Sandford," said the painter, nodding
+meaningly towards the person retreating.
+
+"Certainly," replied the lady.
+
+"Mr. Greenleaf," said Easelmann, "I wish you to know some friends of
+mine."
+
+The gentleman so addressed turned and approached the party, and was
+presented to "Miss Sandford, Mr. Sandford, Mrs. Sandford, and Mr.
+Charles Sandford." Miss Sandford greeted him with her most fascinating
+smile; her brother shook his hand warmly; the other lady, a widowed
+sister-in-law, silently curtsied; while the younger brother inclined his
+head slightly, his collar not allowing any sudden movement. In a moment
+more the party were walking about the room, looking at the pictures.
+
+When at length the Sandfords were about to leave the room, the elder
+gentleman said to Mr. Greenleaf,--
+
+"We should be happy to see you with our friend, Mr. Easelmann, at our
+house. Come without ceremony."
+
+Miss Sandford's eyes also said, "Come!" at least, so Greenleaf thought.
+
+Mr. Charles Sandford, meanwhile, who was cultivating the sublime art of
+indifference, the distinguishing feature and the ideal of his tribe,
+only tapped his boot with his slender ratan, and then smoothed his silky
+moustaches.
+
+Greenleaf briefly expressed his thanks for the invitation, and, when the
+family had gone, turned to his friend with an inquiring look.
+
+"Famous, my boy!" said Easelmann. "Sandford knows something about
+pictures, though rather stingy in patronage; and he is evidently
+impressed. The beauty, Marcia, is not a judge, but she is a valuable
+friend,--now that you are recognized. The widow is a most charming
+person. Charles, a puppy, as every young man of fashion thinks he must
+be for a year or two, but harmless and good-natured. The friendship of
+the family will be of service to you."
+
+"But Marcia, as you call her, was depreciating my picture not a minute
+before you called me."
+
+"Precisely, my dear fellow; but she didn't know who had painted it, and,
+moreover, she hadn't seen you."
+
+Greenleaf blushed again.
+
+"Don't color up that way; save your vermilion for your canvas. You _are_
+good-looking; and the beauty desires the homage of every handsome man,
+especially if he is likely to be a lion."
+
+"A lion! a painter of landscapes a lion! Besides, I am no gallant. I
+never learned the art of carrying a lady's fan."
+
+"I hope not; and for that very reason you are the proper subject for
+her. Your simplicity and frankness are all the more charming to a woman
+who needs new sensations. Probably she is tired of her _blas�_ and wary
+admirers just now. She will capture you, and I shall see a new and
+obsequious slave."
+
+Greenleaf attempted to speak, but could not get in a word.
+
+"I felicitate you," continued Easelmann. "You will have a valuable
+experience, at any rate. To-morrow or next day we will call upon them.
+Good morning!"
+
+Greenleaf returned his friend's farewell; then walking to a window, he
+took out a miniature. It was the picture of a young and beautiful girl.
+The calm eyes looked out upon him trustfully; the smile upon the mouth
+had never seemed so lovely. He thought of the proud, dazzling coquette,
+and then looked upon the image of the tender, earnest, truthful face
+before him. As he looked, he smiled at his friend's prophecy.
+
+"This is my talisman," he said; and he raised the picture to his lips.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An evening or two later, as Easelmann was putting his brushes into
+water, Greenleaf came into his studio. The cloud-compelling meerschaums
+were produced, and they sat in high-backed chairs, watching the thin
+wreaths of smoke as they curled upwards to the skylight. The sale of
+pictures had taken place, and the prices, though not high enough to make
+the fortunes of the artists, were yet reasonably remunerative; the
+pictures were esteemed almost as highly, Easelmann thought, as the
+decorative sketches in an omnibus.
+
+"And did Sandford buy your picture, Greenleaf?"
+
+"Yes, I believe so. In fact, I saw it in his drawing-room, yesterday."
+
+"Certainly; how could I have forgotten it? I must have been thinking of
+the animated picture there. What is paint, when one sees such a glowing,
+glancing, fascinating, arch, lovely, tantalizing"--
+
+"Don't! Don't pelt me with your parts of speech!"
+
+"I was trying to select the right adjective."
+
+"Well, you need not shower down a basketful, merely to pick out one."
+
+"But confess, now, you are merely the least captivated?"
+
+"Not the least."
+
+"No little palpitations at the sound of her name? No short breath nor
+upturned eyes? No vague longings nor 'billowy unrest'?"
+
+"None."
+
+"You slept well last night?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"No dreams of a sea-green palace, with an Undine in wavy hair, and a big
+brother with fan-coral plumes, who afterwards turned into a sea-dog?"
+
+"No,--I cut the late suppers you tempt me with, and preserve my
+digestion."
+
+"A great mistake! One good dream in a nightmare will give you more
+poetical ideas than you can paint in a month: I mean a reasonable
+nightmare, that you can ride,--not one that rides you. The imagination
+then seems to scintillate nothing but beautiful images."
+
+"I don't care to become a red-hot iron for the sake of seeing the sparks
+I might radiate."
+
+"Prosaic again! Now sin and sorrow have their advantages; the law of
+compensation, you see. Poets, according to Shelley, learn in suffering
+what they teach in song. And if novelists were always scrupulous, what
+do you think they would write? Only milk-and-water proprieties,
+tamely-virtuous platitudes. Do you think Dickens never saw a taproom or
+a thief's den?--or that Thackeray is unacquainted with the "Cave of
+Harmony"? No,--all the piquancy of life comes from the slight _soup�on_
+of wickedness wherewithal we season it."
+
+"I like amazingly to have you wander off in this way; you are always
+entertaining, whether your ethics are sound or not."
+
+"Don't trouble yourself about ethics. You and I are artists; we want
+effects, contrasts; we must have our enthusiasms, our raptures, and our
+despair."
+
+"You ride a theory well."
+
+"Now, my dear Greenleaf, listen. Kindly I say it, but you are a trifle
+too innocent, too placid,--in short, too youthful. To paint, you must be
+intense; to be intense, you must feel; and--you see I come back on the
+sweep of the circle--to feel, one must have incentives, objects."
+
+"So, you will roast your own liver to make a _p�t�_."
+
+"Better so than to have the Promethean vulture peck it out for you."
+
+"Well, if I am as you say, what am I to do? I am docile, to-day."
+
+"Fall in love."
+
+"I have tried the experiment."
+
+"It must have been with some insipid girl, not out of her teens, odorous
+of bread and butter, innocent of wiles, and ignorant of her
+capabilities and your own."
+
+"Perhaps, but still I have been in love,--and am."
+
+"Bless me! that was a sigh! The sleeping waters then did show a dimple.
+Why, man, _you_ talk about love, with that smooth, shepherd's face of
+yours, that contented air, that smoothly sonorous voice! Corydon and
+Phyllis! You should be like a grand piano after Satter has thundered out
+all its chords, tremulous with harmonies verging so near to discord that
+pain would be mixed with pleasure in the divinest proportions."
+
+Greenleaf clapped his hands. "Bravo, Easelmann! you have mistaken your
+vocation; you should turn musical critic."
+
+"The arts are all akin," he replied, calmly refilling his pipe.
+
+"I think I can put together the various parts of your lecture for you,"
+said Greenleaf. "You think I see Nature in her gentler moods, and
+reproduce only her placid features. You think I have feeling, though
+latent,--undeveloped. My nerves need a banging, just enough not to
+wholly unstring them. For that pleasant experience, I am to fall in
+love. The woman who has the nature to magnetize, overpower, transport me
+is Miss Marcia Sandford. I am, therefore, to make myself as
+uncomfortable as possible, in pursuit of a pleasure I know beforehand I
+can never obtain. Then, from the rather prosaic level of Scumble, I
+shall rise to the grand, gloomy, and melodramatic style of Salvator
+Rosa. _Voil� tout!_
+
+"An admirable summary. You have listened well. But tell me now,--what do
+_you_ think? Or do you wander like a little brook, without any will of
+your own, between such banks as Fate may hem you in withal?"
+
+"I will be frank with you. Until last season, I never had a serious,
+definite purpose in life. I fell in love then with the most charming of
+country-girls."
+
+"I know," interrupted Easelmann, in a denser cloud than usual,--"a
+village Lucy,--'a violet 'neath a mossy stone, fair as a star when only
+one,'--you know the rest of it. She was fair because there _was_ only
+one."
+
+"Silence, Mephistopheles! it is my turn; let me finish my story. I never
+told her my love"----
+
+"'But let concealment'"----
+
+"Attend to your pipe; it is going out. I did _look_, however. The
+language of the eyes needs no translation. I often walked, sketched,
+talked with the girl, and I felt that there was the completest sympathy
+between us. I knew her feelings towards me, as well, I am persuaded, as
+she knew mine. I gave her no pledge, no keepsake; I only managed, by an
+artifice, to get her daguerreotype at a travelling saloon."
+
+Easelmann laughed. "Let me see it, most modest of lovers!"
+
+"You sha'n't. Your evil eye shall not fall upon it After I came to
+Boston, I took a room and began working up my sketches"----
+
+"Where I found you brushing away for dear life."
+
+"I meant to earn enough to go abroad, if it were only for one look at
+the great pictures of which I have so often dreamed. Then I meant to
+come back"----
+
+"To find your Lucy married to a schoolmaster, and with five sickly
+children."
+
+"No,--she is but seventeen; she will not marry till I see her."
+
+"I admire your confidence, Greenleaf; it is an amiable weakness."
+
+"After I had been here a month or two, I was filled with an unutterable
+sense of uneasiness. Something was wrong, I felt assured. I daily kissed
+the sweet lips"----
+
+"Of a twenty-five-cent daguerreotype."
+
+Greenleaf did not notice the interruption. "I thought the eyes looked
+troubled; they even seemed to reproach me; yet the soul that beamed in
+them was as tender as ever."
+
+"_Diablerie!_ I believe you are a spiritualist."
+
+"At last I could bear it no longer. I shut up my room and took the cars
+for Innisfield."
+
+"I remember; that was when you gave out that you had gone to see your
+aunt."
+
+"I found Alice seriously ill. I won't detain you further than to say
+that I did not leave her until she was completely restored, until my
+long cherished feelings had found utterance, and we were bound by ties
+that nothing but death will divide."
+
+"Really, you are growing sentimental. The waters verily are moved."
+
+"That is because an angel has troubled them. You will mock, I know; but
+it is nevertheless true, as I am told, that, for the week before I left
+Boston, she was in a half-delirious state, and constantly called my
+name."
+
+"And you heard her and came. Sharp senses, and a good, dutiful boy!"
+
+"My presentiment was strange, wasn't it?"
+
+"Oh, don't try to coax me into believing all that! It's very pretty, and
+would make a nice little romance for a magazine; but you and I have
+passed the age of measles and chicken-pox. Now, to follow your example,
+let me make a summary. You are in love, you say, which, for the sake of
+argument, I will grant. You are engaged. But you are ambitious. You want
+to go to Italy, and you hope to surpass Claude, as Turner has done--over
+the left. Then you will return and marry the constant Alice, and live in
+economical splendor, on a capital--let me see--of eighty-seven dollars
+and odd cents, being the proceeds of a certain auction-sale. Promising,
+isn't it?"
+
+Greenleaf was silent,--his pipe out.
+
+"Don't be gloomy," continued Easelmann, in a more sympathetic tone. "Let
+us take a stroll round the Common. I never walk through the Mall at
+sunset without getting a new hint of effect."
+
+"I agree to the walk," said Greenleaf.
+
+"Let us take Charbon along with us."
+
+"He doesn't talk."
+
+"That's what I like him for; he thinks the more."
+
+"How is one to know it?"
+
+"Just look at him! talk your best,--parade your poetry, your criticism,
+your epigrams, your puns, if you have any, and then look at him! By
+Jove! I don't want a better talker. I know it's _in_ him, and I don't
+care whether he opens his mouth or not."
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SHOWING HOW MUCH IT SOMETIMES COSTS TO BE THOUGHT CHARITABLE.
+
+Mr. Sandford was a bachelor, and resided in a pleasant street at the
+West End,--his sister being housekeeper. His house was simply
+furnished,--yet the good taste apparent in the arrangement of the
+furniture gave the rooms an air of neatness, if not of elegance. There
+were not so many pictures as might be expected in the dwelling of a
+lover of Art, and in many cases the frames were more noticeable than the
+canvas; for upon most of them were plates informing the visitor that
+they were presented to Henry Sandford for his disinterested services as
+treasurer, director, or chairman of the Society for the Relief of Infirm
+Wood-sawyers, or some other equally benevolent association. The silver
+pitcher and salver, always visible upon a table, were a testimonial from
+the managers of a fair for the aid of Indigent Widows. A massive silver
+inkstand bore witness to the gratitude of the Society of Merchants'
+Clerks. And numerous Votes of Thanks, handsomely engrossed on parchment,
+with eminent names appended, and preserved in gilt frames, filled all
+the available space upon the walls. It was evident that this was the
+residence of a Benefactor of Mankind.
+
+It was just after breakfast, and Mr. Sandford was preparing to go out.
+His full and handsome face was serene as usual, and a general air of
+neatness pervaded his dress. He was, in fact, unexceptionable in
+appearance, wearing the look that gets credit in State Street, gives
+respectability to a public platform, and seems to bring a blessing into
+the abodes of poverty. Nothing but broad and liberal views, generous
+sentiments, and a noble self-forgetfulness would seem to belong to a
+man with such a presence. But his sister Marcia, this morning, seemed
+far from being pleased with his plans; her tones were querulous, and
+even severe.
+
+"Now, Henry," she exclaimed, "you are not going to sell that picture.
+We've had enough changes. Every auction a new purchase, which you
+immediately fling away."
+
+"You are a very warm-hearted young woman," replied the brother, "and you
+doubtless imagine that I am able with my limited resources to buy a
+picture from every new painter, besides answering the numberless calls
+made upon me from every quarter."
+
+"Why did you bid for the picture, then?"
+
+"I wished to encourage the artist."
+
+"But why do you sell it, then?"
+
+"Monroe wants it, and will give a small advance on its cost."
+
+"But Monroe was at the sale; why didn't he bid for it then?"
+
+"A very natural question, Sister Marcia; but it shows that you are not a
+manager. However, I'll explain. Monroe was struck with the picture, and
+would have given a foolish price for it. So I said to him,--'Monroe,
+don't be rash. If two connoisseurs like you and me bid against each
+other for this landscape, other buyers will think there is something in
+it, and the price will be run up to a figure neither of us can afford to
+pay. Let me buy it and keep it a month or so, and then we'll agree on
+the terms. I sha'n't be hard with you.' And I won't be. He shall have it
+for a hundred, although I paid eighty-seven and odd."
+
+"So you speculate, where you pretend to patronize Art?"
+
+"Don't use harsh words, Sister Marcia. Half the difficulties in the
+world come from a hasty application of terms."
+
+"But I want the picture; and I didn't ask you to buy it merely to oblige
+Mr. Greenleaf."
+
+"True, sister, but he will paint others, and better ones, perhaps. I
+will buy another in its place."
+
+"And sell it when you get a good offer, I suppose."
+
+"Sister Marcia, you evince a thoughtless disposition to trifle with--I
+hope not to wound--my feelings. How do you suppose I am able to maintain
+my position in society, to support Charles in his elegant idleness, to
+supply all your wants, and to help carry on the many benevolent
+enterprises in which I have become engaged, on the small amount of
+property left us, and with the slender salary of fifteen hundred dollars
+from the Insurance Office? If I had not some self-denial, some
+management, you would find quite a different state of things."
+
+"But I remember that you drew your last year's salary in a lump. You
+must have had money from some source for current expenses meanwhile."
+
+"Some few business transactions last year were fortunate. But I am poor,
+quite poor; and nothing but a sense of duty impels me to give so much of
+my time and means to aid the unfortunate and the destitute, and for the
+promotion of education and the arts that beautify and adorn life."
+
+His wits were probably "wool-gathering"; for the phrases which had been
+so often conned for public occasions slipped off his tongue quite
+unawares. His countenance changed at once when Marcia mischievously
+applauded by clapping her hands and crying, "Hear!" He paused a moment,
+seeming doubtful whether to make an angry reply; but his face
+brightened, and he exclaimed,--
+
+"You are a wicked tease, but I can't be offended with you."
+
+"Bye-bye, Henry," she replied. "Some committee is probably waiting for
+you." Then, as he was about closing the door, she added,--"I was going
+to say, Henry, if your charities are not more expensive than your
+patronage of Art, you might afford me that _moire antique_ and the set
+of pearls I asked you for."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We will follow Mr. Sandford to the Insurance Office. It was only nine
+o'clock, and the business of the day did not begin until ten. But the
+morning hour was rarely unoccupied. As he sat in his arm-chair, reading
+the morning papers, Mr. Monroe entered. He was a clerk in the commission
+house of Lindsay and Company, in Milk Street,--a man of culture and
+refined taste, as well as attentive to business affairs. With an active,
+sanguine temperament, he had the good-humor and frankness that usually
+belong to less ardent natures. Simple-hearted and straightforward, he
+was yet as trustful and affectionate as a child. He was unmarried and
+lived with his mother, her only child.
+
+"Ah, Monroe," said Sandford, with cordiality, "you don't want the
+picture yet? Let it remain as long as you can, and I'll consider the
+favor when we settle."
+
+"No,--I'm in no hurry about the picture. I have a matter of business I
+wish to consult you about. My mother had a small property,--about ten
+thousand dollars. Up to this time I haven't made it very profitable, and
+I thought"--
+
+Just then a visitor entered. The President of the Society for the
+Reformation of Criminals came with a call for a public meeting.
+
+"You know, my dear Sir," said the President, "that we don't expect you
+to pay; we consider the calls made upon your purse; but we want your
+name and influence."
+
+Mr. Sandford signed the call, and made various inquiries concerning the
+condition and prospects of the society. The President left with a smile
+and a profusion of thanks. Before Mr. Sandford was fairly seated another
+person came in. It was the Secretary of the Society for the Care of
+Juvenile Offenders.
+
+"We want to have a hearing before the city government," said he, "and we
+have secured the aid of Mr. Greene Satchel to present the case. Won't
+you give us your name to the petition, as one of the officers? No
+expense to you; some wealthy friends will take care of that. We don't
+desire to tax a man who lives on a salary, and especially one who
+devotes so much of his time and money to charity."
+
+"Thank you for your consideration," said Mr. Sandford, signing his name
+in a fair round hand.
+
+Once more the friends were left alone, and Monroe proceeded,--
+
+"I was going on to say that perhaps you might know some chance for a
+safe investment."
+
+Mr. Sandford appeared thoughtful for a moment.
+
+"Yes,--I think I may find a good opportunity; seven per cent., possibly
+eight."
+
+"Excellent!" said Monroe.
+
+There was another interruption. A tall, stately person entered the
+office, wearing a suit of rather antique fashion, apparently verging on
+sixty years, yet with a clear, smooth skin, and a bright, steady eye. It
+was the Honorable Charles Wyndham, the representative of an ancient
+family, and beyond question one of the most eminent men in the city. Mr.
+Sandford might have been secretly elated at the honor of this visit, but
+he rose with a tranquil face and calmly bade Mr. Wyndham good morning.
+
+"My young friend," began the great man, "I am happy to see you looking
+so well this morning. I have not come to put any new burdens on your
+patient shoulders; we all know your services and your sacrifices. This
+time we have a little recompense,--if, indeed, acts of beneficence are
+not their own reward. The Board are to have a social meeting at my house
+to-night, to make arrangements for the anniversary; and we think a
+frugal collation will not be amiss for those who have worked for the
+Society so freely and faithfully."
+
+Mr. Sandford softly rubbed his white hands and bowed with a deprecatory
+smile.
+
+"I know your modesty," said Mr. Wyndham, "and will spare you further
+compliment. Your accounts are ready, I presume? I intend to propose to
+the Board, that, as we have a surplus, you shall receive a substantial
+sum for your disinterested services."
+
+They were standing near together, leaning on a tall mahogany desk, and
+the look of benevolent interest on one side, and of graceful humility on
+the other, was touching to see. Mr. Sandford laid his hand softly on his
+distinguished friend's shoulder, and begged him not to insist upon
+payment for services he had been only too happy to render.
+
+"We won't talk about that now; and I must not detain you longer from
+business. _Good_ morning!" And with the stateliest of bows, and a most
+gracious smile, the Honorable Mr. Wyndham retreated through the glass
+door.
+
+When Mr. Sandford had bowed the visitor out, he returned to Monroe with
+an expression of weariness on his handsome face. "So many affairs to
+think of! so many people to see! Really, it is becoming vexatious. I
+believe I shall turn hunks, and get a reputation for downright
+stinginess."
+
+"But your visitors are pleasant people," said Monroe,--"and the last,
+certainly, was a man whom most men think it an honor to know."
+
+"You mean Wyndham. Oh, yes, Wyndham _is_ a good fellow; a little prosy
+sometimes, but means well. We endure the Dons, you know, if they _are_
+slow."
+
+Monroe thought his friend hardly respectful to the head of the Wyndham
+family, but set it down as an awkward attempt at being facetious.
+
+"Well, about that money of yours?" said Sandford.
+
+"I left it, as a loan on call, at Danforth's. But how do you propose to
+invest it?"
+
+"I haven't fully made up my mind. Perhaps it is best you should not
+know. I will guaranty you eight per cent., and agree to return the
+principal on thirty days' notice. So you can try, meanwhile, and see if
+you can do better."
+
+Monroe agreed to the proposal, and drew a check on the broker for the
+amount, for which Sandford signed a note, payable thirty days after
+presentation. The friends now separated, and Monroe went to his
+warehouse.
+
+Stockholders began to come to look over the morning papers, and chat
+about the news, the stocks, and the degeneracy of the times. What a club
+is to an idle man of fashion,--what a sewing-society is to a
+scandal-loving woman,--what a billiard-room is to a man about
+town,--what the Athen�um is to the sober and steadfast
+bibliolater,--that is the Insurance Office to the retired merchant, bald
+and spectacled, who wanders like a ghost among the scenes of his former
+activity. The comfortable chairs, and in winter the social fires in open
+grates,--the slow-going and respectable newspapers, the pleasant view of
+State Street, and, above all, the authoritative disposition of public
+affairs upon the soundest mercantile principles of profit and loss,--all
+these constitute an attraction which no well-brought-up Bostonian, who
+has money to buy shares, cares to resist, at least until the increasing
+size of his buckskin shoes renders locomotion difficult.
+
+To all these solid men Mr. Sandford gave a hearty good-morning, and a
+frank, cheerful smile. They took up the journals and looked over the
+telegraphic dispatches, thinking, as they were wont, that the old Vortex
+was lucky, above all Companies, in its honest, affable, and intelligent
+Secretary.
+
+Mr. Sandford retired to his private room and looked hastily at his
+morning letters; but his mind did not seem to be occupied with the
+business before him. He rang the bell for the office-boy. "Tom," said
+he, "go and ask Mr. Fletcher to step down here a minute." He mused after
+the boy left, tapping his fingers on the table to the time of a familiar
+air. "If I can keep Fletcher from dabbling in stocks, I shall make a
+good thing of this. I shall keep a close watch on him. To manage men,
+there is nothing like knowing how to go to work at them. ALL the fools
+are jack-a-dandies, and one has only to find where the strings hang to
+make them dance as he will. I have Fletcher fast. I heard a fellow
+talking about taming a man, Rarey-fashion, by holding out a pole to him
+with a bunch of flowers. Pooh! The best thing is a bit of paper with a
+court seal at the corner, stuck on the end of a constable's staff."
+
+Mr. Fletcher entered presently,--the office where he was employed being
+only a few doors off. He was a slender young man, with strikingly
+regular features and delicate complexion; his mobile mouth was covered
+by a fringy moustache, and his small keen eyes were restless to a
+painful degree. The sudden summons appeared to have flustered him; for
+his eyes danced more than usual, giving him the startled and perplexed
+look of a hunted animal at bay. He was speedily reassured by Sandford's
+bland voice and encouraging smile.
+
+"A new opening, Fletcher,--a 'pocket,' as the Californians call it. Is
+there any chance to operate? Just look about. I have the funds ready.
+Something safe, and fat, too."
+
+"Plenty of chances to those who look for them," replied Fletcher. "The
+men who are hard up are the best customers; they will stand a good slice
+off; and if a man is sharp, he can deal as safely with them as with the
+A 1s, who turn up their noses at seven per cent."
+
+"You understand, I see."
+
+"I think I ought. Papyrus, only yesterday, was asking if anything could
+be done for him,--about fifteen hundred; offers Sandbag's note with only
+thirty days to run. The note was of no use to _him_, because the banks
+require two names, and his own isn't worth a straw. But Sandbag is
+good."
+
+"We'll take it. About a hundred off?"
+
+Fletcher nodded.
+
+"I've plenty more to invest, Fletcher. Let me know if you see any paper
+worth buying."
+
+Fletcher nodded again, but looked expectant, much like a dog (not
+wishing to degrade him by the comparison) waiting with longing eyes
+while his master eats his morning mutton-chop.
+
+"Fletcher," said Sandford, "I'll make this an object to you. I don't
+mind giving you five dollars, as soon as we have Papyrus's indorsement
+on the note. And, speaking of the indorsement, let him sign his name,
+and then bring me the note. I wish to put on the name of the person to
+whose order it is to be payable."
+
+"Then it is on the account"--
+
+"Of whom it may concern," broke in Sandford. "Don't stand with your
+mouth open. That is my affair."
+
+"But if you pay me only five dollars"--
+
+"That is so much clear gain to you. Do you suppose that we--my backer
+and I--shall run the risk for nothing? Good morning! Attend to your own
+affairs at Danforth's properly. Don't burn your fingers with any new
+experiments. There's a crash coming and stocks will fall. Good morning!"
+
+The Secretary looked relieved when Fletcher closed the door, and
+speedily dispatched the necessary letters and orders for the Company.
+Then leaving the affairs of the Vortex in the hands of his clerk, he
+strolled out for his usual lunch. Wherever he walked, he was met with
+smiles and greetings of respect. He turned into an alley, entered an
+eating-house, and took his place at a table; he ordered and ate his
+lunch, and then left, with a nod towards the counter. The landlord, who
+began on credit, expected no pay from the man who procured him money
+accommodations. No waiter had ever seen a sixpence from his purse. How
+should a man be expected to pay, who spent his substance and his time so
+freely in charity?
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CONTAINING SOME CONFESSIONS NOT INTENDED FOR THE PUBLIC EAR.
+
+Miss Marcia Sandford, after breakfast, was sitting in her chamber with
+her widowed sister-in-law, who had come to spend a few months with her
+late husband's family. The widow no longer wore the roses of youth, but
+was yet on friendly terms with Time; indeed, so quietly had their annual
+settlements passed off, that it would have puzzled any one not in their
+confidence to tell how the account stood. The simplicity of her dress,
+the chastened look, and the sobriety of phrase, of which her recent
+affliction was the cause, might have hinted at thirty-five; but when her
+clear, placid eye was turned upon you, and you saw the delicate flush
+deepening or vanishing upon a smooth cheek, and noted the changeful
+expression that hovered like a spiritual presence around her mouth, it
+would have been treason to think of a day beyond twenty. She had known
+but little of Marcia, and that little had shown her only as a lover of
+dress and of admiration, besides being capricious to a degree unusual
+even in a spoiled favorite.
+
+A musical _soir�e_ was under consideration. Marcia was a proficient upon
+the harp and piano, and, as she had heard that Mr. Greenleaf, the
+handsome painter, as she called him, was a fine singer, she determined
+to practise some operatic duets with him, that should move all her
+musical friends to envy.
+
+"You seem to have taken a strong liking to this Mr. Greenleaf, Marcia."
+
+"Yes, Lydia," replied the beauty, "I do like him, exceedingly,--what I
+have seen of him. He will do--for a month or so. People are frequently
+quite charming at first, like fresh bouquets,--but dull and tame enough
+when the dew is off."
+
+"But you can't have a new admirer, as you have fresh flowers, every
+day."
+
+"That's true, and pity 'tis, 'tis true."
+
+"What a female Bluebeard you are!"
+
+"Wouldn't you, now, like to meet some new, delightful person every day?
+Consider how prosaic a man is, after you know all about him."
+
+"I always find something new in a man really worth knowing."
+
+"Do you? I wish I could. I always look them through as I used to my
+toys. I never cared for my 'crying babies,' after I found out what made
+them squeak."
+
+"I am afraid the comparison will hold out farther than you intended. You
+were never satisfied with your toys until you had not only explored
+their machinery, but smashed them into the bargain."
+
+"But men stand it better than toys. If they get smashed, as you say,
+they heal wonderfully. I sometimes think, that, like lobsters, they can
+repair their injuries by new growths,--fresh claws, and fins, and
+feelers."
+
+"Complimentary, truly! but I notice that you don't speak of vital
+organs."
+
+"Hearts, you mean, I suppose. That is an obsolete idea,--a relic of
+superstition."
+
+"But how many of these broken idols have you thrown aside, Marcia? Have
+you kept account?"
+
+"Dear me! no! Why should I?"
+
+"It would be interesting, I think, to a student of social statistics, to
+know how many engagements there are to one marriage, how many offers to
+one engagement, how many flirtations to one offer, and how many tender
+advances to one flirtation."
+
+"Oh, Lydia! Love and Arithmetic! they never went together. I leave all
+calculations to my wise and busy brother. I like to wander like a
+hummingbird, that keeps no account of the flowercups it has sipped out
+of."
+
+"Let us reckon. I can help you, perhaps. I have heard you talk of half a
+dozen. There is Colonel Langford,--one."
+
+"Handsome, proud, and shallow. Let him go!"
+
+"There is Lieutenant Allen,--two."
+
+"Fierce, impatient, and exacting. He can go also. I had as lief be loved
+by a lion."
+
+"Next is Mr. Lanman,--three."
+
+"Wily, plausible, passionate, and treacherous. He is only a cat in a new
+sphere of existence."
+
+"Then there is Denims,--I am not sure about the order,--four."
+
+"Rich, vain, and stupid;--there never was such a dolt."
+
+"But you kept him for a longer time than usual."
+
+"Yes, rather; but he was too dull to understand my ironical compliments,
+or to resent my studied neglect."
+
+"Jaunegant makes five."
+
+"Oh, the precious crony of my brother Charles! The best specimen of the
+dandy race. The man who gives so much love to himself and his clothes,
+that he has none to spare for any one else. But, Lydia, this is tedious;
+we shall never get through at this rate. Besides," with a
+mock-sentimental air, "you have not been here long enough to know the
+melancholy history,--to count the wrecks that are strewn along the
+coast, where the Siren resorts. Let me take up the list. Corning, who
+really loved me, (six,) and went to sea to cure the heart-ache. I heard
+of him in State Street a month ago,--with a blue shirt and leather belt,
+and chewing a piece of tobacco as large as his thumb. He seemed happy as
+a king."
+
+"I saw a kind of tobacco advertised as '_The Solace_';--the name was
+given by some disappointed swain, I suppose."
+
+"Probably," said Marcia, smiling. "Then there was Outrack, (seven,) who
+was so furious at the refusal, that he immediately married the gay Miss
+Flutter Budget, forty-five, short, stout, and fifty thousand
+dollars,--he twenty-six, tall, slender, and some distant expectations. I
+heard him, at a party, call her 'Dear'!"
+
+"I don't think you get on any faster than I did. We shall have to finish
+the tour of the portrait-gallery another day."
+
+"You are not tired? I wanted to tell you of several more. Yet I don't
+know why I should. I declare to you seriously, that I never before
+mentioned the names of these persons in this way, nor referred to them
+as rejected lovers."
+
+"I have no doubt of it. It has seemed like a fresh, spontaneous
+confession."
+
+"There is some magic about you, Sister Lydia. You invite confidence; or
+rather, you seem to be like one of those chemical agents that penetrate
+everything; there's no resisting you. Don't protest. I know what you
+would say. It isn't your curiosity. You are no Paulina Pry; if you were,
+precious little you would get from me."
+
+"But, Marcia, let me return a moment to what you were saying. Did the
+reason never occur to you, why you so soon become tired of your
+admirers? You see through them, you say. Is it not possible that a lady
+who has the reputation of caprice,--a flirt, as the world is apt to call
+her,--though ever so brilliant, witty, and accomplished, may not attract
+the kind of men that can bear scrutiny, but only the butterfly race, fit
+for a brief acquaintance? Believe me, Marcia, there is a reason for
+everything, and, with all your beauty and fascination, you must yourself
+have the element of constancy, to win the admiration of the best and
+worthiest men."
+
+"So, you are going to preach?" said Marcia, rather crestfallen.
+
+"No, I don't preach. But what I see, I ought to tell you; I should not
+be a good sister otherwise."
+
+"I'll think about it. But now for the musical party. I mean to send for
+Mr. Greenleaf, to practise some songs and duets. He is not a butterfly,
+I am sure."
+
+"But, Marcia, is it well, is it right, for you to try to fascinate this
+new friend of yours, unless you feel something more than a transient
+interest in him?"
+
+"How can I tell what interest I shall feel in him, until I know him
+better?"
+
+"But you know his circumstances and his prospects. You are not the woman
+to marry a poor painter. You have too many wants; or rather, you have
+become accustomed to luxuries that now seem to be necessaries."
+
+"True, I haven't the romance for love in a cottage. But a painter is not
+necessarily a bad match; if he doesn't become rich, he may be
+distinguished. And besides, no one knows what will happen from the
+beginning of an acquaintance. We will enjoy the sunshine of to-day; and
+if to-morrow brings a darker sky, we must console ourselves as we can."
+
+"What an Epicurean! Well, Marcia, you are not a child; you must act for
+yourself."
+
+Marcia made no reply, but sat down to her desk to write a note; and her
+sister-in-law soon after went to her own room.
+
+During all this conversation, Mrs. Sandford was struck by the tone which
+the beautiful coquette assumed. Her words were aptly chosen, her
+sentences smoothly constructed; she never hesitated; and there was an
+ever-present air of consciousness, that left no conviction of sincerity.
+Whether she uttered sentiments of affection, or sharp criticism upon
+character, there was the same level flow of language, the same nicely
+modulated intonation. There was no flash of enthusiasm, none of those
+outbursts in which the hearer feels sure that the heart has spoken. Mrs.
+Sandford was thoroughly puzzled. Marcia had never been otherwise than
+kind; in fact; she seemed to be studiously careful of the feelings of
+others, except when her position as reigning belle made it necessary to
+cut a dangler. This methodical speech and unruffled grace of manner
+might be only the result of discipline. Truth and honesty _might_ exist
+as well under this artificial exterior as in a more impulsive nature.
+But the world generally thinks that whoever habitually wears a smiling
+mask has some secret end to serve thereby. "I like this painter,
+Greenleaf," she soliloquized, "and I mean to look out for him. I am
+persuaded that Marcia would never marry him; and I think he is too
+sensitive, too manly, to be a fit subject for her experiments."
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CONCERNING CONSTANCY AND THE AFFINITIES.
+
+"A Musical _soir�e_? Famous, my boy!" said Easelmann, as he sat, smoking
+as usual, in his fourth-story _atelier_ with Greenleaf, watching the sun
+go down. "Making progress, I see. You have nothing to do; the affair
+will take care of itself."
+
+"What affair?"
+
+"Don't be stupid (_puff_). Your affair with Miss Sandford (_puff_).
+There's a wonderful charm in music (_puff_). Two such young people might
+fall in love, to be sure, without singing together (_puff_). But music
+is the true _aqua regia_; it dissolves all into its own essence. A piano
+and a tenor voice will do more than a siege of months, though aided by a
+battery of bouquets."
+
+"How you run on! I have called twice,--once with you, and the second
+time by the lady's invitation. Besides, I told you--indiscreetly, I am
+afraid--that I am really engaged to be married."
+
+"Oh, yes, I have not forgotten the touching story (_puff_); but we get
+over all things, even such passions as yours. We are plants, that thrive
+very well for a while in the pots we sprouted in, but after a time we
+must have a change of soil."
+
+"I don't think we outgrow affection, honor, truth."
+
+"That is all very pretty; but our ideas of honor and truth are apt to
+change."
+
+"I don't believe you are half so bad a fellow, Easelmann, as you would
+have me think. You utter abominable sentiments, but you behave as well
+as other people--nearly."
+
+"Thank you. But listen a moment. (_Laying down his pipe._) Do you have
+the same tastes you had at eighteen? I don't refer to the bumpkins with
+whom you played when a boy, and who, now that you have outgrown them,
+look enviously askance at you. I don't care to dwell on your literary
+tastes,--how you have outgrown Moore and Festus-Bailey, and are fast
+getting through Byron. I won't pose you, by showing how your ideas in
+Art have changed,--what new views you have of life, society;--but think
+of your ideas of womanly, or rather, girlish beauty at different ages.
+By Jove, I should like to see your innamoratas arranged in
+chronological order!"
+
+"It would be a curious and instructive spectacle."
+
+"You may well say that! Let me sketch a few of them."
+
+"I think I could do it better."
+
+"No, every man thinks his own experience peculiar; but life has a
+wonderful sameness, after all. Besides, you would flatter the portraits.
+Not to begin too early, and without being particular about names, there
+was, first, Amanda, aged fourteen; face circular, cheeks cranberry, eyes
+hazel, hair brown and wavy, awkward when spoken to, and agreeable only
+in an osculatory way. Now, being twenty-five, she is married, has two
+children, is growing stout, and always refers to her lord and master as
+'He,' never by any accident pronouncing his name. Second, Julia;
+sixteen, flaxen-haired, lithe, not ungraceful, self-possessed, and
+perhaps a little pert. She is unmarried; but, having fed her mind with
+no more solid aliment than country gossip, no sensible man could talk to
+her five minutes. Third, Laura; eighteen, black hair, with sharp
+outlines on the temples, eyes heavily shaded and coquettishly managed,
+jewelry more abundant than elegant, repeats poetry by the page, keeps a
+scrap-book, and writes endless letters to her female friends. She is
+still romantic, but has learned something from experience,--is not so
+impressible as when you knew her. I won't stop to sketch the pale
+poetess, nor the dancing hoyden, nor the sweet blue-eyed creature that
+lisped, nor the mature and dangerously-charming widow that caused some
+perturbations in your regular orbit.
+
+"Now, my dear fellow," Easelmann continued, "you fancied that your whole
+existence depended upon the hazel or the blue or the black eyes, in
+turn; but at this time you could see their glances turned in rapture
+upon your enemy, if you have one, without a pang."
+
+"One would think you had just been reading Cowley's charming poem,
+'Henrietta first possest.' But what is the moral to your entertaining
+little romance? That love must always be transient?"
+
+"Not necessarily, but generally. We are travelling at different rates of
+progress and on different planes. Happy are the lovers who advance with
+equal step, cultivating similar tastes, with agreeing theories of life
+and its enjoyments!"
+
+"Wise philosopher, how comes it, that, with so just an appreciation of
+the true basis of a permanent attachment, you remain single? I see a
+gray hair or two, not only on your head, but in that favorite moustache
+of yours."
+
+"Gray? Oh, yes! gray as a badger, but immortally young. As for marriage,
+I'm rather past that. I had my chance; I lost it, and shall not throw
+again."
+
+Easelmann did not seem inclined to open this sealed book of his personal
+history, and the friends were silent. Greenleaf at length broke the
+pause.
+
+"I acknowledge the justice of your ideas in their general application,
+but in my own case they do not apply at all. I was not in my teens when
+I went to Innisfield, but in the maturity of such faculties as I have.
+Alice satisfies my ideal of a lovely, loving woman. She has
+capabilities, taste, a thirst for improvement, and will advance in
+everything to which I am led."
+
+"I won't disturb your dreams, nor play the Mephistopheles, as you
+sometimes call me. I am rather serious to-day. But here you are where
+every faculty is stimulated, where you unconsciously draw in new ideas
+with your daily breath. Alice remains in a country town, without
+society, with few books, with no opportunity for culture in Art or in
+the minor graces of society. You are not ready to marry; your ambition
+forbids it, and your means will not allow it. And before the time comes
+when you are ready to establish yourself, think what a difference there
+may be between you! The thought is cruel, but worth your consideration
+none the less.--But let us change the subject. What are you doing? Any
+new orders?"
+
+"Two new orders. One for a large picture from Mr. Sandford. The price
+is not what it should be, but it will give me a living, and I am
+thankful for any employment. I loathe idleness. I die, if I haven't
+something to do."
+
+"Mere uneasiness, my youthful friend! Be tranquil, and you will find
+that laziness has its comforts. However, to-morrow let me see your
+pictures. You lack a firmness and certainty of touch that nothing but
+practice will give. But your forms are faithfully drawn, your eye for
+color is sharp and true, and, what is more than all, you have the poetry
+which informs, harmonizes, and crowns all."
+
+"I am grateful for your friendly criticism," said Greenleaf, with a
+sudden flush. "You know that people call you blunt, and that most of the
+artists think you almost malicious in your severity; but you are the
+only man who ever talks sincerely to me."
+
+Easelmann noticed the emotion, and spoke abruptly,--
+
+"Depend upon it, if I see anything faulty, you will know it; if you
+think _that_ friendly, I am your friend. But look over there, where the
+sunset clouds are reflected in the Back Bay. Now, if I should put those
+tints of gold and salmon and crimson and purple, with those delicate
+shades of apple-green, into a picture, the mob would say, 'What an
+absurd fellow this painter is! Where did he find all that Joseph's coat
+of colors?' The mob is a drove of asses, Greenleaf."
+
+"Come, let us take our evening stroll."
+
+"Have you seen Charbon, to-day?"
+
+"No. But I should like to."
+
+"We'll call for him."
+
+"Yes, I rather like his brilliant silence."
+
+"Next week, let us go to Nahant. I want you to try your hand on a coast
+view. But what, what are you about? At that trumpery daguerreotype
+again? Let me see the beauty,--that's a good boy!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Then put it up. If you won't show it, don't aggravate a fellow in that
+way."
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+SPIRITS IN PRISON.[3]
+
+
+    I.
+
+    O ye, who, prisoned in these festive rooms,
+      Lean at the windows for a breath of air,
+    Staring upon the darkness that o'erglooms
+      The heavens, and waiting for the stars to bare
+    Their glittering glories, veiled all night in cloud,
+      I know ye scorn the gas-lights and the feast!
+    I saw you leave the music and the crowd,
+      And turn unto the windows opening east;
+    I heard you sigh,--"When will the dawn's dull ashes
+      Kindle their fires behind yon fir-fringed height?
+    When will the prophet clouds with golden flashes
+      Unroll their mystic scrolls of crimson light?"
+    Fain would I come and sit beside you here,
+      And silent press your hands, and with you lean
+    Into the midnight, mingling hope and fear,
+      Or pining for the days that might have been!
+
+
+    II.
+
+    Are we not brothers? In the throng that fills
+      These strange enchanted rooms we met. One look
+    Told that we knew each other. Sudden thrills,
+      As of two lovers reading the same book,
+    Ran through our hurried grasp. But when we turned,
+      The scene around was smitten with a change:
+    The lamps with lurid fire-light flared and burned;
+      And through the wreaths and flowers,--oh, mockery strange!--
+    The prison-walls with ghastly horror frowned;
+      Scarce hidden by vine-leaves and clusters thick,
+    A grim cold iron grating closed around.
+      Then from our silken couches leaping quick,
+    We hurried past the dancers and the lights,
+      Nor heeded the entrancing music then,
+    Nor the fair women scattering delights
+      In flower-like flush of dress,--nor paused till when,
+    Leaning against our prison-bars, we gazed
+      Into the dark, and wondered where we were.
+    Speak to me, brothers, for ye stand amazed!
+      I come, your secret burthen here to share!
+
+
+    III.
+
+    I know not this mysterious land around.
+      Black giant trees loom up in form obscure.
+    Odors of gardens and of woods profound
+      Blow in from out the darkness, fresh and pure.
+    Faint sounds of friendly voices come and go,
+      That seem to lure us forth into the air;
+    But whence they come perchance no ear may know,
+      And where they go perchance no foot may dare.
+
+
+    IV.
+
+    A realm of shadowy forms out yonder lies.
+      Beauty and Power, fair dreams pursued by Fate,
+    Wheel in unceasing vortex; and the skies
+      Flash with strange lights that bear no name nor date.
+    Sweet winds are breathing that just fan the hair,
+      And fitful gusts that howl against the bars,
+    And harp-like songs, and groans of wild despair,
+      And angry clouds that chase the trembling stars.
+    And on the iron grating the hot cheek
+      We press, and forth into the night we call,
+    And thrust our arms, that, manacled and weak,
+      Clutch but the empty air, and powerless fall.
+
+
+    V.
+
+    And yet, O brothers! we, who cannot share
+      This life of lies, this stifling day in night,--
+    Know we not well, that, if we did but dare
+      Break from our cell, and trust our manhood's might,
+    When once our feet should venture on these wilds,
+      The night would prove a sweet, still solitude,--
+    Not dark for eyes that, earnest as a child's,
+      Strove in the chaos but for truth and good?
+    And oh, sweet liberty, though wizard gleams
+      And elfin shapes should frighten or allure,
+    To find the pathway of our hopes and dreams,--
+      By toil to sweeten what we should endure,--
+    To journey on, though but a little way,
+      Towards the morning and the fir-clad heights,--
+    To follow the sweet voices, till the day
+      Bloomed in its flush of colors and of lights,--
+    To look back on the valley and the prison,
+      The windows smouldering still with midnight fires,
+    And know the joy and triumph to have risen
+      Out of that falsehood into new desires!
+    O friends! it may be hard our chains to burst,
+      To scale the ramparts, pass the sentinels;
+    Dark is the night; but we are not the first
+      Who break from the enchanter's evil spells.
+    Though they pursue us with their scoffs and darts,
+      Though they allure us with their siren song,
+    Trust we alone the light within our hearts!
+      Forth to the air! Freedom will dawn ere long!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 3: 1 Peter, iii. 19.]
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH.
+
+
+Not inebriating, but exhilarating punch; not punch of which the more a
+man imbibes the worse he is, but punch of which the deeper the quaffings
+the better the effects; not a compound of acids and sweets, hot water
+and fire-water, to steal away the brains,--but a finer mixture of
+subtler elements, conducive to mental and moral health; not, in a word,
+punch, the drink, but "Punch," the wise wag, the genial philosopher,
+with his brevity of stature, goodly-conditioned paunch, next-to-nothing
+legs, protuberant back, bill-hook nose, and twinkling eyes,--to speak
+respectfully, Mr. Punch, attended by the solemnly-sagacious,
+ubiquitously-versatile "Toby," together with the invisible company of
+skirmishers of the quill and pencil, producing in his name those
+ever-welcome sheets, flying forth the world over, with hebdomadal
+punctuality. Of the ingredients and salutary influence of this Punch--an
+institution and power of the age, no more to be overlooked among the
+forces of the nineteenth century than is the steam-engine or the
+magnetic telegraph--we propose to speak;--not, however, because of the
+comicality of the theme; for the fun that surrounds, permeates, and
+saturates it would hardly move us to discourse of it here, if it had not
+higher claims to attention. To take Punch only for a clown is to
+_mis_take him egregiously. Joker as he is, he himself is no joke. The
+fool's-cap he wears does not prove him to be a fool; and even when he
+touches the tip of his nasal organ with his fore-finger and winks so
+irresistibly, meaning lurks in his facetious features, to assure you he
+does not jest without a purpose, or play the buffoon only to coin
+sixpences. The fact, then, we propose to illustrate is this:--that Punch
+is a teacher and philanthropist, a lover of truth, a despiser of cant,
+an advocate of right, a hater of shams,--a hale, hearty old gentleman,
+whose notions are not dyspeptic croakings, but healthful opinions of
+good digestion, and who, though he wear motley and indulge in drolleries
+without measure, is full of sense and sensibility.
+
+The birth-place and parentage of Punch are involved in some doubt,--a
+fate he shares with several of the world's other heroes, ancient and
+modern. Accounts differ; and as he has not chosen to settle the question
+autobiographically, we follow substantially the narrative[4]--that ought
+to be true; for, mythical or historical, it appropriately localizes and
+fitly circumstances the nativity of the humorist of the age.
+
+In 1841, Mark Lemon, a writer of considerable ability, was the landlord
+of the Shakspeare Head, Wych Street, London. A tavern with such a
+publican and such a name was, of course, frequented by a circle of wits,
+with whom, in the year just mentioned, originated "Punch." Lemon (how
+could there be punch without a lemon?) has been the editor from the
+outset. From which of the knot of good fellows the bright idea of the
+unique journal first emanated does not appear. The paternity has been
+ascribed to Douglas Jerrold. Its name might have been suggested by the
+place of its birth. If so, it at once lost all associations with the
+ladle and the bowl, and received a wider and better interpretation. The
+hero of the famous puppet-show was chosen for the typical presiding
+genius and sponsor of the novel enterprise. And there is no neater piece
+of allegorical writing in our language than the introductory article of
+the first number, wherein is exquisitely shadowed forth "the moral" of
+the work, "Punch,"--suggestive of that "graver puppetry," the "visual
+and oral cheats," "by which mankind are cajoled." Punch, the exemplar of
+boldness and philosophic self-control, is the quaint embodiment of the
+intention to pursue a higher object than the amusement of thoughtless
+crowds,--an intention which has been adhered to with remarkable
+fidelity. The first number appeared July 17th, and the serial has lived
+over a decade and a half, and grown to the bulk of thirty-four or
+thirty-five volumes. It was not, however, built in a day. It knew a
+rickety infancy and hours of peril, and owes its rescue from neglect and
+starvation, its subsequent and constantly increasing prosperity, to the
+enterprising publishers,--Bradbury and Evans,--who nursed and
+resuscitated it at the critical moment. Well-known contributors to the
+letter-press have been Jerrold, Albert Smith, � Beckett, Hood, and
+Thackeray; whilst Henning, Leech, Meadows, Browne, Forrester, Gilbert,
+and Doyle have acted as designers. Of these men of letters and art,
+Lemon and Leech, it is said, alone remain; some of the others broke off
+their connection with the work at different periods, and some have
+passed away from earth. Their places have been supplied by the Mayhews,
+Tom Taylor, Angus Reach, and Shirley Brooks, and the historical painter,
+Tenniel. These changes have mostly been made behind the scenes; the
+impersonality of the paper--to speak after the Hibernian style--being
+personified by Mr. Punch himself,--ostensibly, by a well-preserved and
+well-managed conceit, its sole conductor through all its vicissitudes
+and during the whole of its brilliant career. Whatever becomes of
+correspondents, Punch never resigns and never dies. The baton never
+falls from his grasp. He sits in his arm-chair, the unshaken Master of
+the Revels,--though thrones totter, kings abdicate, and revolutions
+convulse empires. Troubles may disturb his household; but thereby the
+public does not suffer. He still lives,--immortal in his funny and
+fascinating idiosyncrasies.
+
+The ingredients of Punch, the instrumentalities by which he has won fame
+and victories, are almost too multifarious for enumeration. All the
+merry imps which beset Leigh Hunt, when about to compile selections from
+the comic poets, belong to Punch's retinue. Doubles of Similes,
+Buffooneries of Burlesques, Stalkings of Mock Heroics, Stings in the
+Tails of Epigrams, Glances of Innuendoes, Dry Looks of Irony,
+Corpulencies of Exaggerations, Ticklings of Mad Fancies, Claps on the
+Backs of Horse Plays, Flounderings of Absurdities, Irresistibilities of
+Iterations, Significances of Jargons, Wailings of Pretended Woes,
+Roarings of Laughter, and Hubbubs of Animal Spirits, all appear, singly
+or in companies, to flash, ripple, dance, shoot, effervesce, and
+sparkle, in prose and verse, vignettes, sketches, or elaborate pictures,
+on the ever-shifting and always entertaining pages of the London
+Charivari. Of one prominent form of the exhibition of this inexhaustible
+arsenal, namely, _the illustrations_, special notice is to be taken.
+These, notwithstanding their oddity, extravagance, and burlesqueness, by
+reason of their grace, finish, and good taste, frequently get into the
+proximity of the fine arts. This elevation of sportive drawing is mainly
+to be put to the credit of manly John Leech,--"the very Dickens of the
+pencil." He and his associates have proved that the humorous side of
+things may be limned with mirth-provoking truth, and that vices and
+follies may be depicted with a vigorous and accurate crayon, without
+coarseness or vulgarity, or pandering to depraved sentiments. Herein is
+most commendable success. Punch's gallery--with but few, if any
+exceptions--may be opened to the purest eyes. In it there is much of
+Hogarthian genius, without anything that needs a veil. In alluding to
+the agencies of Punch, it would be doing him great injustice to leave
+the impression that they are all of a mirthful character. Often is he
+tearfully, if at the same time smilingly, pathetic. Seriousness,
+certainly, is not his forte, and he is not given to homilies and moral
+essays. Usually he gilds homoeopathic pills of wisdom with a thick
+coating of humor. Yet, now and then, his vein is an earnest vein, and he
+speaks from the abundance of a tender and deeply-moved heart. This is
+especially true of some of his poetical effusions, which rank high among
+the best fugitive pieces of the times. That Hood's "Song of the Shirt"
+was an original contribution to his columns is almost enough of itself
+to show that Punch, like some other famous comedians, can start the
+silent tear, as well as awaken peals of laughter. And this is but one of
+many instances in point that might be cited. In his productions you
+often meet golden sentences of soberest counsel, beautiful tributes to
+real worth, stirring appeals for the oppressed, and touching eulogies of
+the loved and lost.
+
+Thus much of the history and machinery of Punch. His salutary influence
+is to be spoken of next. But before venturing upon what may seem
+indiscriminate praise, let it be confessed that our hero is not without
+his weaknesses. Nothing human is perfect, and Punch is very human. The
+good Homer sometimes nods; so doth the good Punch. He does not always
+perform equally well,--keep up to his highest level. If he never
+entirely disappoints his audience, he fails sometimes to shoot the
+brightest arrows of his quiver and hit his mark so as to make the
+scintillating splinters fly. Now and then he has been slightly dull,
+forgotten himself and his manners, gone too far, got into the wrong box,
+missed seizing the auricular appendage of the right pig, run things into
+the ground,--blundered as common and uncommon people will. Under these
+general charges we must, painful as it is to speak of the errors of a
+favorite, enter a few specifications.
+
+The writer of the prospectus, before referred to, seems to have had a
+premonitory fear--growing out of his bad treatment of Judy--that Punch
+in his new vocation might fail of uniform gentlemanliness towards the
+ladies; and time has shown that there were some little grounds for the
+apprehension. The droll hunchback's virulent dislike of mothers-in-law
+seems the nursed-up wrath of an unhappy personal experience. Vastly
+amusing as were the "Caudle Lectures," it is a question whether
+excessive indulgence in the luxury of satire upon a prolific theme did
+not infuse into them over-bitter exaggeration, not favorable to the
+culture of domestic felicity. Did these celebrated curtain-homilies
+stand alone, their sharp and unrivalled humor might save Punch from the
+censure of being once in a while the least bit of a Bluebeard. But, for
+the most gallant gentleman, on the whole, in the United Kingdom, he is
+not so invariable in fairness towards the fair as could be wished. The
+follies and frivolities of absurd fashions are his proper game; and he
+does brave service in hunting them down. Still, his warfare against
+crinoline, small bonnets, and other feminine fancies in dress, has been
+tiresomely inveterate. Even Mr. Punch had better, as a general rule,
+leave the management of the female toilette to those whom it most nearly
+concerns. But in his case, the scolding or pouting should not be
+inexorable; for in one way he atones amply for all his impertinence. He
+paints his young ladies pretty and graceful, being, with all his sly
+satire, evidently fond of the sex, the juvenile portion at least.
+Surely, a Compliment so uniform and tasteful must more than outweigh his
+teasing and banter with the amiable subjects of both.
+
+Of Punch as a local politician we are hardly fair judges, and it may be
+a mistaken suspicion that he has occasionally given up to party what was
+meant for mankind. With respect to "foreign affairs," we shall be safer
+in saying, that, with all his cosmopolitanism, he is a shade or two
+John-Bullish. Thanking him for his fraternal cordiality towards
+"Jonathan," we must doubt if it will do to trust implicitly his reports
+and impressions of men and things across the Channel. That he is more
+than half right, however, when lingering remains of insular prejudice
+tinge his solicitude to save his native land from entangling alliances,
+and keep its free government from striking hands with despotism, we
+incline to believe; and we honor him that his loyalty is not mere
+adulation, but duly seasoned with the democratic principle that would
+have the stability of the throne the people's love,--the people being of
+infinitely greater importance than the propping-up or the propagation of
+royal houses. In one sad direction Punch's patriotism and humanity, it
+seems to us, were wrathful exaggerations, open to graver objection than
+yielding unconsciously to a natural bias. In his zeal against terrible
+outrages, he forgot that two wrongs never make a right. We refer to his
+course on the Indian Revolt. From the way he raised his voice for war,
+almost exterminating, and with no quarter, one would think the British
+rule in the East had been the rule of Christian love,--that Sepoys and
+other subjects had known the reigning power only as patriarchal
+kindness,--and so, without excuse, a highly civilized, justly and
+tenderly treated people, suddenly, and without provocation, became
+rebellious devils, and rebellious only because they were devils. In the
+hour of horror-struck indignation, was not Punch too blood-thirsty,
+vindictive, unjust, and oblivious to the truth of history, that the
+insurgents are poor superstitious heathens, whom a selfish policy may
+have kept superstitious and heathenish? True, he was the witness of
+broken hearts and desolate hearth-stones at home, and daily heard of
+hellish atrocities inflicted on the women and children abroad,--enough
+to crush out for the moment every thought but the thought of vengeance.
+Yet, even at such a crisis, he should have remembered, that England, in
+strict accordance with the stern, unrelenting logic of events, having
+sown to the wind, might therefore have reaped the whirlwind. It is among
+the mysteries of Providence, that retributive justice, when visiting
+nations, often involves innocent victims,--but it is retributive justice
+still; and tracing up rightly the chain of causes and effects, it may
+be that the tragedies of Delhi and Lucknow are attributable, to say the
+least, as much to the avarice of the dominant as to the depravity of the
+subjugated race. The bare possibility that this might be the truth a
+philosopher like Punch ought not to have overlooked, in the suddenness
+and fire of his anger.
+
+Finally, Punch is no ascetic, but quite the reverse. He cannot be
+expected, any more than his namesake, the beverage, to go down with the
+apostles of temperance. He is a convivialist,--moderately so,--and no
+teetotaler. He evidently prefers roast-beef and brown-stout to
+bran-bread and cold water, and has gone so far as to sing the praises of
+pale-ale. He thinks the laboring classes should have their pot of beer,
+if the nobility and gentry are to eat good dinners and take airings in
+Hyde Park, on Sundays. He is a Merry Englishman, as to the
+stomach,--and, like a Merry Englishman, enjoys good living. There is no
+denying this fact; but here is the whole front of his offending.
+Remember that he was born at the Shakspeare's Head, and has had a
+publican for his right-hand man.
+
+These are defects, it may be; and yet not by its defects are we to judge
+of a work of Art. Of that generous and just canon Punch should have the
+full benefit. Try him by that, and he has abounding virtues to flood and
+conceal with lustrous and far-raying light his exceptional errors. To
+brief notices of some of these--regretting the want of room to enlarge
+upon them as it would be pleasant to do--we gladly turn.
+
+Punch is to be loved and cherished as the maker of mirth for the
+million. Saying this, we do not propose to go into an argument to
+excuse, justify, or recommend hilarity for its own sake or its medicinal
+effects on overtasked bodies and souls. Desperate attempts have been
+made to prove the innocence of fun, and the allowableness of wit and
+humor. Assuming or conceding that the jocose elements or capacities of
+human nature need apology and defence, very nice distinctions have been
+drawn, and very ingenious sophistry employed, to prove that the best of
+people may, within certain limits, crack jokes, or laugh at jokes
+cracked for them. These efforts to accommodate stern dogmas to that
+pleasant stubborn fact in man's constitution, his irresistible craving
+for play, and irresistible impulse to laugh at whatever is really
+laughable, are about as necessary as would be an essay maintaining the
+harmlessness of sunshine. The _fact_ has priority over the dogmas, and
+is altogether too strong to need the patronizing special-pleading they
+suggest. Instead of going into the metaphysics of the question about the
+lawfulness and blamelessness of humor shown or humor relished, suppose
+we cut the knot by a delightful illustration of the compatibility of
+humor with the highest type of character.
+
+No one will deny the sincerity, earnestness, devotedness, sublime
+consecration to duty, of the heroine of the hospitals of Scutari. No one
+will dispute the practical piety of the gentle, but fearless, the
+tenderhearted, but truly strong-minded woman, who made the lazar-house
+her home for months together,--ministered to its sick, miserable, and
+ignorant inmates,--put, by the unostentatious exercise of indomitable
+faith and unswerving self-sacrifice, the love and humanity of the Gospel
+in direct and strongest contrast with the barbarisms of war. No one will
+deny or dispute this now. That heroic English maiden, whose shadow, as
+it fell on his pillow, the rude soldier kissed with almost idolatrous
+gratitude, has won, without thought of seeking it, and without the loss
+of a particle of humility and womanly delicacy, the loving admiration of
+all Christendom. Well, she
+
+      "whose presence honors queenly guests,
+    Who wears the noblest jewel of her time,
+    And leaves her race a nobler, in her name,"
+
+shall be the sufficient argument here,--especially as none have paid
+finer, more delicate, or truer tributes to her virtue than Punch. In a
+recent sketch of her career, accompanying her portrait in the gallery
+of noted women, this sentence is given from a descriptive letter:--"Her
+general demeanor is quiet and rather reserved; still, I am much
+mistaken, if she is not gifted with a very lively sense of the
+ridiculous." Here is a delightful, and, we doubt not, true intimation.
+Since the springs of pathos lie very near the springs of humor, in the
+richest souls, the fair Florence must, in moments of weariness, have
+glanced with merry eyes over the pages of Punch, or handed, with smiling
+archness, his inimitable numbers to her wan and wounded patients, kindly
+to cheat them into momentary forgetfulness of their agonies. If this
+were so, who shall say that the use or enjoyment of wit is not as right
+as it is natural? None, unless it be the narrowest of bigots,--like
+those who objected to this heroic lady's mission of mercy to the East,
+because she did not echo their sectarian shibboleths, and would not ask
+whether a good nurse were Protestant or Romanist.
+
+We may repeat, therefore, as a prime excellence of Punch, that he is the
+maker of mirth for the million. He is mainly engaged in furnishing
+titillating amusement,--and he furnishes an article, not only
+marketable, but necessary. All work makes Jack a dull boy,--and not
+infrequently an unhappy, if not bad boy,--whether Jack be in the pulpit,
+the counting-room, the senate-house, or digging potatoes; and what is
+true of Jack is equally true of Gill, his sister, sweetheart, or wife.
+That Punch every week puts a girdle of smiles round the earth,
+interrupts the serious business of thousands by his merry visits, and
+with his ludicrous presence delights the drawing-room, cheers the study,
+and causes side-shakings in the kitchen,--entitles him to be called a
+missionary of good. Grant this,--then allow, on the average, five
+minutes of merriment to each reader of each issue of Punch,--then
+multiply these 5 minutes by--say 50,000, and this again by 52 weeks, and
+this, finally, by 17 years, and thus cipher out, if you have a tolerably
+capacious imagination, the amount of happiness which has flowed and
+spread, like a river of gladness, through the world, from that
+inexhaustible, bubbling, and sparkling fountain, at 85, Fleet Street,
+London.
+
+Punch is the advocate of true manliness. Velvet robes and gilded
+coronets go for nothing with him, if not worn by muscular integrity; and
+fustian is cloth-of-gold, in his eyes, when it covers a stout heart in
+the right place. He has no mercy on snobbism, flunkeyism, or dandyism.
+He whips smartly the ignoble-noble fops of the
+household-troops,--parading them on toy-horses, and making them, with
+suicidal irony, deplore the hardships of comrades in the Crimea. He
+sneers at the loungers, and the delicate, dissipated _rou�s_ of the
+club-house,--though their names were once worn by renowned ancestors,
+and are in the peerage. Fast young men are to him befooled prodigals,
+wasting the wealth of life in profitless living. He is not, however, an
+anchorite, or hard upon youth. On the contrary, he is an indulgent old
+fellow, and too sagacious to expect the wisdom of age from those
+sporting their freedom-suits. Still, he has no patience with the foppery
+whose whole existence advertises fine clothes, patronizes taverns,
+saunters along fashionable promenades, and ogles opera-dancers. In this
+connection, his hits at "the rising generation" will be called to mind.
+Punch has found out that in England there are no boys now,--only male
+babies and precocious men;--no growing up,--only a leap from the cradle,
+robe, and trousers to the habiliments and manners of a false manhood.
+Punch has found out and frequently illustrates this fact, and furnishes
+a series of pictures of Liliputians aping the questionable doings of
+their elders. It is observable, however, that he confines these
+portraits of precocity chiefly to one sex. Whether this be owing to his
+innate delicacy and habitual gallantry, or to the English custom of
+keeping little girls--and what we should call large girls also--at home
+longer, and under more restraint, than in our republic, we cannot say.
+Were he on this side of the Atlantic, he might possibly find occasion to
+be less partial in the use of his reproving fun. Young misses seem to be
+growing scarce, and young ladies becoming alarmingly numerous. The early
+date at which the cry comes for long skirts, parties, balls, and late
+hours, for lace, jewelry, and gold watches, threatens to rob our homes
+of one of their sweetest charms,--the bright presence of joyous, gentle,
+and modest lasses, willing to be happy children for as many years as
+their mothers were, on their way to maidenhood and womanhood.
+
+Punch is a reformer,--and of the right type, too; not destructive,
+declamatory, vituperative; not a monomaniac, snarly, and
+ill-natured,--as if zeal in riding a favorite hobby excused
+exclusiveness of soul and any amount of bad temper. He would not
+demolish the social system and build on its ruins a new one; being
+clearly of the opinion that the growths of ages and the doings of six
+thousands of years are to be respected,--that progress means improvement
+upon the present, rather than overthrow of the entire past. Calm,
+hopeful, cheerful, and patient, he is at the same time bold and
+uncompromising, and a bit radical into the bargain. In his own delicious
+way, he has been no mean advocate of liberal principles and measures. He
+has argued for the repeal of the corn and the modification of the game
+laws, the softening of the cruelties of the criminal code, and the fair
+administration of law for all orders and conditions of men and women. He
+has had no respect for ermine, lawn, or epaulets, in his assaults upon
+the monopolies and sinecures of Church and State, circumlocution
+offices, nepotism, patronage, purchase, and routine, in army or navy. He
+wants the established religion to be religious, not a cover for
+aristocratic preferments and dog-in-the-manger laziness,--and government
+administered for the whole people, and not merely dealing out
+treasury-pap and fat offices for the pensioned few. Punch is loyal,
+sings lustily, "God Save the Queen," and stands by the Constitution. He
+is a true-born Englishman, and patriotic to the backbone; but none are
+too high in place or name for his merciless ridicule and daring wit, if
+they countenance oppressive abuses. It is a tall feather in his
+fool's-cap, that his fantastic person is a dread to evil-doers on
+thrones, in cabinets, and red-tape offices. Crowned tyrants, bold
+usurpers, and proud statesmen are sensitive, like other mortals, to
+ridicule, and know very well how much easier it is to cannonade
+rebellious insurgents than to put down the general laugh, and that the
+point of a joke cannot be turned by the point of the bayonet. "Punch"
+was seized in Paris on account of the caricature of the "Sphinx," but
+after twenty-four hours' consideration the order of confiscation was
+rescinded, and the irreverent publication now lies upon the tables of
+the reading-rooms. So, iron power is not beyond the reach of the shafts
+of wit; once make it ridiculous, and it may continue to lie dreaded, but
+will cease to be respected.
+
+Limits permitting, it would be pleasant to refer at length to various
+other marked graces of Punch,--such, for example, as his care for true
+Art, by exposing to merited contempt the abortions of statuary,
+painting, and architecture that come under his accurate eye,--his
+concern for good letters, exhibited in fantastic parodies of
+affectations, mannerisms, absurdities of plot, and vices of style in
+modern poets and novelists,--his "_nil nisi bonum_," and, where there is
+no "_bonum_," his silent "_nil_," of the dead, whom when living he
+pursued with unrelenting raillery,--his cool, eclectic judgments,
+freedom from extremes, and other manifestations of clear-headedness and
+refined sentiment, glimmering and shooting through his rollicking
+drollery, quick wit, and quiet humor. But we must pass them by, to
+emphasize a quality that out-tops and outshines them all,--his humanity.
+
+This is Mr. Punch's specialty, generating his purest fun and
+consecrating his versatile talents to highest ends. Wherever he catches
+meanness, avarice, selfishness, force, preying upon the humble and the
+weak, he is sure to give them hard knocks with his baton, or
+home-thrusts with his pen and pencil. His practical kindness is
+charmingly comprehensive, too. He speaks for the dumb beast, pleads for
+the maltreated brutes of Smithfield Market, craves compassion for
+skeleton omnibus-horses, with the same ready sympathy that he fights for
+cheated fellow-mortals. In the court of public opinion, he is volunteer
+counsel for all in any way defrauded or kept in bondage by pitiless
+pride, barbarous policy, thoughtless luxury, or wooden-headed prejudice.
+His sound ethics do not admit that the lower law of man's enactment can,
+under any circumstances, override or abrogate the higher laws of God.
+Consequently, he judges with unbiased, instinctive rectitude, when he
+shows up in black and white the Model Republic's criminal anomaly, by
+making the African Slave a companion-piece to the Greek Slave, among
+"Jonathan's" contributions to the great Crystal Palace Exhibition. In
+this same vein of a wide-ranging application of the Golden Rule, he is
+ever on the alert to brand inhuman deeds and institutions, wherever
+found. You cannot very often hit him with the "_tu quoque_" retort,
+insinuate that he lives in a house of glass, or charge him with visiting
+his condemnation upon distant iniquities whilst winking at iniquities of
+equal magnitude directly under his nose.
+
+Punch is no Mrs. Jellyby, brimful of zeal for Borrio boolas in far-off
+Africas, and utterly stolid to disorders and distresses under his own
+roof. Proud of the glory, he feels and confesses the shame of England;
+and the grinding injustice of her caste-system, aristocracy, and
+hierarchy does not escape the lash of his rebuke. He is the friend of
+the threadbare curate, performing the larger half of clerical duty and
+getting but a tittle of the tithes,--of the weary seamstress, wetting
+with midnight tears the costly stuff which must be ready to adorn
+heartless rank and fashion at to-morrow's pageant,--of the pale
+governess, grudgingly paid her pittance of salary without a kind word to
+sweeten the bitterness of a lonely lot. He is the friend even of the
+workhouse juveniles, and, as their champion, castigates with cutting
+sarcasm and stinging scorn the reverend and honorable guardians, who,
+just as, full of hope, they had reached the door of the theatre,
+prohibited a band of these wretched orphans from availing of a
+kind-hearted manager's invitation to an afternoon performance of "Jack
+and the Bean-Stalk." Truly, Punch is more than half right, as, in his
+indignation, he declares, "It will go luckily with some four-faced
+Christians, if, with the fullest belief in their own right of entry of
+paradise, they are not '_stopped at the very doors_'"; and the parson,
+in the case, gets but his deserts, when at his lugubrious sham-piety are
+hurled stanzas like these:--
+
+    "Their little faces beamed with joy
+     Two miles upon their way,
+    As they supposed, each girl and boy,
+     About to see the play.
+    Their little cheeks with tears were wet,
+     As _back again_ they went,
+    Balked by a sanctimonious set,
+     Led by a Reverend Gent.
+
+    "And if such Reverend Gents as he
+     Could get the upperhand,
+    Ah, what a hateful tyranny
+     Would override the land!
+    That we may never see that time,
+     Down with the canting crew
+    That would _out of their pantomime_
+    Poor little children _do_!"
+
+Punch is the friend of all who are friendless, and, with a generous
+spirit of protection, gives credit to whom credit is due, whatever
+conventionality, precedent, monopoly, or routine may say to the
+contrary. During the Crimean War, he took care of the fame of the
+rank-and-file of the army. The dispatches to Downing Street, reporting
+the gallantry of titled officers, were more than matched by Punch's
+imitative dispatches from the seat of war, setting forth the exploits of
+Sergeant O'Brien, Corporal Stout, or Private Gubbins. He saw to it that
+those who had the hardest of the fight, the smallest pay, and the
+coarsest rations, should not be forgotten in the gazetting of the
+heroes. Indeed, our comic friend's fellowship of soul with the humblest
+members of the human family is a notable trait; it is so ready, and yet
+withal so judicious. It is no part of his philosophy, as already
+intimated, violently and rashly to disturb the existing order of things,
+and set one class in rebellion against other classes. He simply insists
+upon the recognition of the law of mutual dependence all round. This is
+observable in his dealing with the vexed question of domestic service.
+The prime trouble of housekeeping comes in frequently for a share of his
+attention; and underneath ironical counsels, you may trace, quietly
+insinuating itself into graphic sketches, the genial intent fairly to
+adjust the relations between life above and life below stairs.
+Accordingly, Punch sees no reason why Angelina may have a lover in the
+parlor, whilst Bridget's engagement forbids her to entertain a fond
+"follower" in the kitchen; and he perversely refuses to see how it can
+be right for Miss Julia to listen to the soft nonsense of Captain
+Augustus Fitzroy in the drawing-room, and entirely wrong for Molly, the
+nursery-maid, to blush at the blunt admiration of the policeman, talking
+to her down the area. Punch is independent and original in this respect.
+His strange creed seems to be, that human nature _is_ human
+nature,--whether, in its feminine department, you robe it in silk or
+calico, and, in its male department, button a red coat over the breast
+of an officer of the Guards, or put the coarse jerkin on the broad back
+of the industrious toilsman. And according to this whimsical belief, he
+writes and talks jocosely, but with covert common sense. His warm and
+catholic humanity runs up and down the whole social scale with a
+clear-sighted equity. His philanthropy is what the word literally
+signifies,--the love of man as man, and because he is a man. Without
+being an impracticable fanatic, advocating impossible theories, or
+theories that can grow into realities only with the gradual progress of
+the race,--without indulging in fanciful visions of unapproached
+Utopias,--without imagining that all, wherever born and however
+nurtured, can reach the same level of wealth and station,--he holds, not
+merely that
+
+    "Honor and shame from no condition rise,"
+
+but also, be the condition high or low, the worthy occupant of it, by
+reason of the common humanity he shares with all above and all beneath
+and all around him, has a brother's birthright to brotherly treatment,
+to even-handed justice and open-handed charity.
+
+We have taken it for granted that Punch is a household necessity and
+familiar friend of our readers; and, resisting as far as possible the
+besetting temptation to refer in detail to the many pictorial and
+letter-press illustrations of his merits, have spoken of him as "a
+representative man,"--the universally acknowledged example of the
+legitimate and beneficent uses of the sportive faculties; thus
+indirectly claiming for these faculties more than toleration.
+
+The variety in human nature must somehow be brought into unity, and its
+diversified, strongly contrasted elements shown to be parts of a
+symmetrical and harmonious whole. The philosophy, the religion, which
+overlooks or condemns any of these elements, is never satisfactory, and
+fails to win sincere belief, because of its felt incompleteness. All men
+have an instinctive faith that in God's plan no incontestable facts are
+exceptional or needless facts. Science assumes this in regard to the
+phenomena of the natural world; and, in its progressive searches,
+expects to discover continual proof that all manifestations, however
+opposite and contradictory, are parts of one beneficent scheme.
+Accordingly, Science starts on its investigations with the conviction
+that the storm is as salutary as the sunshine,--that there is utility in
+what seems mere luxury,--and that Nature's loveliness and grandeur,
+Nature's oddity and grotesqueness, have a substantial value, as well as
+Nature's wheat-harvests. Now the same principle is to be recognized in
+dealing with things spiritual. It may not be affirmed that anything
+appertaining to universal consciousness--spontaneous, irresistible, as
+breathing--is of itself base, and therefore to be put away; since so to
+do is to question the Creative Wisdom. The work of the Infinite Spirit
+must be consistent; and you might as truly charge the bright stars with
+malignity as denounce as vile one faculty or capacity of the mind.
+Consequently, there is a use for all forms of wit and humor.
+
+Punch represents a genuine phase of human nature,--none the less genuine
+because human nature has other and far different phases. That there is a
+time to mourn does not prove there is no time to dance. Punch has his
+part, and his times to play it, in the melodrama, the mixed comedy and
+tragedy, of existence. What we have to do is to see that he interferes
+with no other actor's _r�le_, comes upon the stage in fitting scenes,
+keeps to the text and the impersonations which right principle and pure
+taste assign him. His grimaces are not for the church. He may not sing
+his catches when penitent souls are listening to the "Miserere," drop
+his torpedo-puns when life's mystery and solemnity are pressed heavily
+upon the soul,--be irreverent, profane, or vulgar. He must know and keep
+his place. But he should have his place, and have it confessed; and that
+place is not quite at the end of the procession of the benefactors of
+the race. Punch, as we speak of him now, is but a generic name for
+Protean wit and humor, well and wisely employed. As such, let Punch have
+his mission; there is ample room for him and his merry doings, without
+interfering with soberer agencies. _Let_ him go about tickling mankind;
+it does mankind good to be tickled occasionally. Let him broaden
+elongated visages; there are many faces that would be improved by
+horizontal enlargement, by having the corners of the mouth curved
+upward. Let him write and draw "as funny as he can"; there are dull
+talking and melancholy pictures in abundance to counterbalance his
+pleasantry. Let him amuse the children, relax with jocosity the
+sternness of adults, and wreathe into smiles the wrinkles of old age.
+Let him, in a word, be a Merry Andrew,--the patron and promoter of
+frolicsomeness. To be only this is nothing to his discredit; and to
+esteem him for being only this is not to pay respect to a worthless
+mountebank.
+
+But Punch is and can be something more than a caterer of sport. Kings,
+in the olden time, had their jesters, who, under cover of blunt
+witticisms, were permitted, to utter home-truths, which it would have
+cost grave counsellors and dependent courtiers their heads to even
+whisper. Punch should enjoy a similar immunity in this age,--and society
+tolerate his free and smiling speech, when it would thrust out sager
+monitors. If it be true that
+
+    "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,"
+
+something like the converse of this saying is also true. Not fools
+exactly, but wisdom disguised in the motley of wit, often gains entrance
+to ears deaf to angelic voices. There are follies that are to be laughed
+out of their silliness and sinfulness. There are tyrants, big and
+little, to be dethroned by ridicule. There are offences, proof against
+appeals to conscience, that wince and vanish before keen satire. Even as
+a well-aimed joke brings back good-humor to an angry mob, or makes mad
+and pugnacious bullies cower and slink away from derision harder to
+stand than hard knocks,--even so will a quizzical Punch be efficient as
+a philanthropist, when sedate exhortations or stern warnings would fail
+to move stony insensibility.
+
+As an element in effective literature, a force in the cause of reform,
+the qualities Punch personifies have been and are of no slight service.
+And herein those qualities have an indefeasible title to regard. Let
+there be no vinegar-faced, wholesale denunciation of them, because
+sometimes their pranks are wild and overleap the fences of propriety.
+Rather let appreciation of their worthiness accompany all reproving
+checks upon their extravagances. Let nimble fun, explosive jokes,
+festoon-faced humor, the whole tribe of gibes and quirks, every light,
+keen, and flashing weapon in the armory of which Punch is the keeper, be
+employed to make the world laugh, and put the world's laughter on the
+side of all right as against all wrong. If this be not done, the
+seriousness of life will darken into gloom, its work become slavish
+tasks, and the conflict waged be a terrible conflict between grim
+virtues and fiendish vices. If you could shroud the bright skies with
+black tempest-clouds, burn to ashes the rainbow-hued flowers, strike
+dumb the sweet melodies of the grove, and turn to stagnant pools the
+silver streams,--if you could do this, thinking thereby to make earth
+more of a paradise, you would be scarcely less insane than if you were
+to denounce and banish all
+
+    "Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
+    Nods, and becks, and wreath�d smiles,
+    Sport, that wrinkled care derides,
+    And laughter, holding both his sides."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 4: See _Parton's Humorous Poetry_.]
+
+
+
+
+THE SUBJECTIVE OF IT.
+
+
+Toward the close of a dreamy, tranquil July day, a day made impressive
+beyond the possible comprehension of a dweller in civilization by its
+sun having risen for us over the unbroken wilderness of the Adirondack,
+a mountain-land in each of whose deep valleys lies a blue lake, we, a
+party of hunters and recreation-seekers, six beside our guides, lay on
+the fir-bough-cushioned floor of our dark camp, passing away the little
+remnant of what had been a day of rest to our guides and of delicious
+idleness to ourselves. The camp was built on the bold shore of a lake
+which yet wants a name worthy its beauty, but which we always, for want
+of such a one, call by that which its white discoverer left
+it,--Tupper's Lake,--whose waters, the untremulous mirror of the forests
+and mountains around and the sky above, gleamed to us only in blue
+fragments through the interstices of the leafy veil that intervened. The
+forest is unbroken to the water's edge, and even out over the water
+itself it stretches its firs and cedars, gray and moss-draped, with here
+and there a moisture-loving white-birch, so that from the very shore one
+sees only suggestive bits of distance and sky; and from where we were
+lying, sky, hills, and the water below were all blue alike, and
+undistinguishable alike, glimpses of a world of sunlight, which the
+grateful shadow we lay in made delicious to the thought. We were
+sheltered right woodsman-like;--our little house of fresh-peeled bark of
+spruces, twelve feet by nine, open only to the east, on which side lay
+the lake, shielded us from wind and rain, and the huge trees shut around
+us so closely that no eye could pierce a pistol-shot into their glades.
+There were blue-jays all about us, making the woods ring with their
+querulous cries, and a single fish-hawk screamed from the blue overhead,
+as he sailed round and round, watching the chances of a supper in the
+lake. Between us and the water's edge, and a little to one side of the
+path we had bushed out to the shore, was the tent of the guides, and
+there they lay asleep, except one who was rubbing up his "man's" rifle,
+which had been forgotten the night before when we came in from the hunt,
+and so had gathered rust.
+
+Three of our party were sleeping, and the others talked quietly and low,
+desultorily, as if the drowsiness had half conquered us too. The
+conversation had rambled round from a discussion on the respective
+merits of the Sharp's and the Kentucky rifles (consequent on a trial of
+skill and rifles which we had had after dinner) to Spiritualism,--led to
+this last topic by my relation of some singular experiences I had met in
+the way of presentiments and what seemed almost like second-sight,
+during a three-months' sojourn in the woods several summers before.
+There is something wonderfully exciting to the imagination in the
+wilderness, after the first impression of monotony and lonesomeness has
+passed away and there comes the necessity to animate this so vacant
+world with something. And so the pines lift themselves grimly against
+the twilight sky, and the moanings of the woods become full of meaning
+and mystery. Living, therefore, summer after summer, as I had done, in
+the wilderness, until there is no place in the world which seems so much
+like a home to me as a bark camp in the Adirondack, I had come to be
+what most people would call morbid, but what I felt to be only sensitive
+to the things around, which we never see, but to which we all at times
+pay the deference of a tremor of inexplicable fear, a quicker and less
+deeply drawn breath, an involuntary turning of the head to see something
+which we know we shall not see, yet are glad to find that we do
+not,--all which things we laugh at as childish when they have passed,
+yet tremble at as readily when they come again. J., who was both poet
+and philosopher, singularly clear and cold in his analyses, and at the
+same time of so great imaginative power that he could set his creations
+at work and then look on and reason out the law of their working as
+though they were not his, had wonders to tell which always passed mine
+by a degree; his experiences were more various and marvellous than mine,
+yet he had a reason for everything, to which I was compelled to defer
+without being convinced. "Yes," said he, finally knocking out the ashes
+from his meerschaum, as we rose, at the Doctor's suggestion, to take a
+row out on the lake while the sun was setting,--"Yes, I believe in
+_your_ kind of a 'spiritual world,'--but that it is purely subjective."
+
+I was silenced in a moment;--this single sentence, spoken like the
+expression of the experience of a lifetime, produced an effect which all
+his logic could not. He had rubbed some talismanic opal, pronouncing the
+spirit-compelling sentence engraved thereon, and a new world of doubts
+and mysteries, marvels and revelations burst on me. One phase of
+existence, which had been hitherto a reality to me, melted away into the
+thinness of an uncompleted dream; but as it melted away, there appeared
+behind it a whole universe, of which I had never before dreamed. I had
+puzzled my brains over the metaphysics of subjectivity and objectivity
+and found only words; now I grasped and comprehended the round of the
+thing. I looked through the full range of human cognitions, and found,
+from beginning to end, a proclamation of the presence of that
+arch-magician, Imagination. I had said to myself,--"The universe is
+subjective to Deity, objective to me; but if I am his image, what is
+that part of me which corresponds to the Creator in Him?" Here I found
+myself, at last, the creator of a universe of unsubstantialities, all of
+the stuff that dreams are made of, and all alike unconsciously evoked,
+whether they were the dreams of sleep or the hauntings of waking hours.
+I grew bewildered as the thought loomed up in its eternal significance,
+and a thousand facts and phenomena, which had been standing in the
+darkness around my little circle of vision, burst into light and
+recognition, as though they had been waiting beyond the outer verge for
+the magic words. J. had spoken them.
+
+Silent, almost for the moment unconscious of external things, in the
+intense exaltation of thought and feeling, I walked down to the shore.
+Taking the lightest and fleetest of our boats, we pushed off on the
+perfectly tranquil water. There was no flaw in the mirror which gave us
+a duplicated world. Line for line, tint for tint, the noble mountain
+that lifts itself at the east, robed in primeval forest to its very
+summit, and now suffused with rosy light from the sun, already hidden
+from us by a low ridge in the west, was reproduced in the void below us.
+The shadow of the western ridge began to climb the opposite bluffs of
+the lake shore. We pulled well out into the lake and lay on our oars. If
+anything was said, I do not remember it. I was as one who had just heard
+words from the dead, and hears as prattle all the sounds of common life.
+My eyes, my ears, were opened anew to Nature, and it seemed even as if
+some new sense had been given me. I felt, as I never felt before, the
+cool gloom of the shadow creep up, ridge after ridge, towards the
+solitary peak, irresistibly and triumphantly encroaching on the light,
+which fought back towards the summit, where it must yield at last. It
+drew back over ravines and gorges, over the wildernesses of unbroken
+firs which covered all the upper portion of the mountain, deepening its
+rose-tint and gaining in intensity what it lost in expanse,--diminished
+to a handbreadth, to a point, and, flickering an instant, went out,
+leaving in the whole range of vision no speck of sunlight to relieve the
+wilderness of shadowy gloom. I had come under a spell,--for, often as I
+had seen the sun set in the mountains and over the lakes, I had never
+before felt as I now felt, that I was a part in the landscape, and that
+it was something more to me than rocks and trees. The sunlight had died
+on it. J. took up the oars and our silently-moving boat broke the glassy
+surface again. All around us no distinction was visible between the
+landscape above and that below, no water-line could be found; and to the
+west, where the sky was still glowing and golden, with faint bands of
+crimson cirrus swept across the deep and tremulous blue, growing purple
+as the sun sank lower, we could distinguish nothing in the landscape.
+Neither sound nor motion of animate or inanimate thing disturbed the
+scene, save that of the oars, with the long lines of blue which ran off
+from the wake of the boat into the mystery closing behind us. A
+rifle-shot rang out from the landing and rolled in multitudinous echoes
+around the lake, dying away in faintest thunders and murmurings from the
+ravines on the side of the mountain. It was the call to supper, and we
+pulled back to the light of the fire, which was now glimmering through
+the trees from the front of the camp.
+
+Supper over, the smokers lighted their pipes and a rambling conversation
+began on the sights and sounds of the day. For my own part, unable to
+quiet the uneasy questioning which possessed me, I wandered down to the
+shore and took a seat in the stern of one of the boats, which, hauled
+part of their length upon the sandy beach, reached out some distance
+among the lily-pads which covered the shallow water, and whose folded
+flowers dotted the surface, the white points alone visible. The uneasy
+question still stirred within me; and now, looking towards the
+northwest, where the sky yet glowed faintly with twilight, a long line
+of pines, gaunt and humanesque, as no tree but our northern white-pine
+is, was relieved in massy blackness against the golden gray, like a long
+procession of giants. They were in groups of two and three, with now and
+then an isolated one, stretching along the horizon, losing themselves in
+the gloom of the mountains at the north. The weirdness of the scene
+caught my excited imagination in an instant, and I became conscious of
+two mental phenomena. The first was an impression of motion in the
+trees, which, whimsical as it was, I had not the slightest power to
+dispel. I trembled from head to foot under the consciousness of this
+supernatural vitality. My rational faculties were as clear as ever they
+had been, and I understood perfectly that the semblance of motion was
+owing to two characteristics of the white-pine, namely,--that it follows
+the shores of the lakes in lines, rarely growing back at any distance
+from the water, except when it follows, in the same orderly
+arrangement, the rocky ridges,--and that, from its height above all
+other forest-trees, it catches the full force of the prevalent winds,
+which here are from the west, and consequently leans slightly to the
+east, much as a person leans in walking. These traits of the tree
+explained entirely the phenomenon; yet the knowledge of them had not the
+slightest effect to undeceive my imagination. I was awe-struck, as
+though the phantoms of some antediluvian race had arisen from the
+valleys of the Adirondack and were marching in silence to their old
+fanes on the mountain-tops. I cowered in the boat under an absolute
+chill of nervous apprehension.--The second phenomenon was, that I heard
+_mentally_ a voice which said distinctly these words,-"The procession of
+the Anakim!"--and at the same time I became conscious of some
+disembodied spiritual being standing near me, as we are sometimes aware
+of the presence of a friend without having seen him. Every one
+accustomed to solitary thought has probably recognized this kind of
+mental action, and speculated on the strange duality of Nature implied
+in it. The spiritualists call it "impressional communication," and
+abandon themselves to its vagaries in the belief that it is really the
+speech of angels; men of thought find in it a mystery of mental
+organization, and avail themselves of it under the direction of their
+reason. I at present speculated with the philosophers; but my
+imagination, siding with the spiritualists, assured me that some one
+spoke to me, and reason was silenced. I sat still as long as I could
+endure it, alone, and then crept back, trembling, to the camp,--feeling
+quiet only when surrounded by the rest of the party.
+
+My attendant d�mon did not leave me, I found; for now I heard the
+question asked, half-tauntingly,--"Subjective or objective?"
+
+I asked myself, in reply,--"Am I mad or sane?"
+
+"Quite sane, but with your eyes opened to something new!" was the
+instantaneous reply.
+
+On such expeditions, men get back to the primitive usages and conditions
+of humanity. We had arisen at daybreak; darkness brought the disposition
+to rest. We arranged ourselves side by side on the couch of balsam and
+cedar boughs which the guides had spread on the ground of the camp, our
+feet to the fire, and all but myself soon slept. I lay a long time,
+excited, looking out through the open front of the camp at the stars
+which shone in through the trees, and even they seemed partakers of my
+new state of existence, and twinkled consciously and confidentially, as
+to one who shared the secret of their own existence and purposes. The
+pine-trees overhead had an added tone in their meanings, and indeed
+everything, as I regarded it, seemed to manifest a new life, to become
+identified with me: Nature and I had all things in common. I slept, at
+length,--a strange kind of sleep; for when the guides awoke me, in the
+full daylight, I was conscious of some one having talked with me through
+the night.
+
+In broad day, with my companions, and in motion, the influences of the
+previous evening seemed to withdraw themselves to a remote
+distance,--yet I was aware of their awaiting me when I should be
+unoccupied. The day was as brilliant, as tranquil as its predecessor,
+and the council decided that it should be devoted to a "drive," for we
+had eaten the last of our venison for breakfast. The party were assigned
+their places at those points of the lake where the deer would be most
+likely to take the water, while my guide, Steve M----, and myself went
+up Bog River, to start him. The river, a dark, sluggish stream, about
+fifty feet wide, the channel by which the Mud Lakes and Little Tupper's
+Lake, with its connected lakes and ponds, empty into Tupper's Lake, is a
+favorite feeding-ground with the deer, whose breakfast is made on the
+leaves of the _Nuphar lutea_ which edge the stream. We surprised one,
+swimming around amongst the leaves, snatching here and there the
+choicest of them, and when he turned to go out and rose in the water,
+as his feet touched bottom, I gave him a ball without fatal effect, and
+landing, we put Carlo on the track, which was marked by occasional drops
+and clots of blood, and hearing him well off into the woods, and in that
+furious and deep bay which indicates close pursuit, we went back to our
+boat and paddled upstream to a run-way Steve knew of, where the deer
+sometimes crossed the river. We pushed the boat into the overhanging
+alders which fringe the banks, leaning out into and over the water, and
+listened to the far-off bay of the hound. It died away and was entirely
+lost for a few minutes, and then came into hearing from the nearer side
+of the ridge, which lay back from the river a hundred rods or so, and I
+cocked my rifle while Steve silently pushed the boat out of the bushes,
+ready for a start, if the deer should "water." The baying receded again,
+and this time in the direction of the lake. The blood we had found on
+the trail was the bright, red, frothy blood which showed that the ball
+had passed through the lungs, and, as we knew that the deer would not
+run long before watering, we were sure that this would be his last turn
+and that he was making in earnest for the lake, where some of the boats
+would certainly catch him.
+
+The excitement of the hunt had brought me back to a natural state of
+feeling, and now, as I lay in the stern of the boat, drifting slowly
+down-stream, and looked up into the hazy blue sky, in the whole expanse
+of which appeared no fragment of cloud, and the softened sunshine
+penetrated both soul and body, while the brain, lulled into lethargy by
+the unbroken silence and monotony of forest around, lost every trace of
+its midsummer madness,--I looked back to the state of the last evening
+as to a curious dream. I asked myself wherein it differed from a dream,
+and instantly my d�mon replied, "In no wise." The instant reply
+surprised me, without startling me from my lethargy. I responded, as a
+matter of course, "But if no more than a dream, it amounts to nothing."
+It answered me, "But when a man dreams wide awake?" I pondered an
+instant, and it went on: "And how do you know that dreams are nothing?
+They are real while they last, and your waking life is no more; you wake
+to one and sleep to the other. Which is the real, and which the false?
+since you assume that one is false." I only asked myself again the
+eternal question, "Objective or subjective?" and the d�mon made no
+further suggestion. At this instant we heard the report of a gun from
+the lake. "That's the Doctor's shot-gun," said Steve, and pulled
+energetically down-stream; for we knew, that, if the Doctor had fired,
+the deer had come in,--and if he had missed the first shot, he had a
+second barrel, which we should have heard from.
+
+Among the most charming cascades in the world is certainly that which
+Bog River makes where it falls into Tupper's Lake. Its amber water,
+black in the deep channel above the fall, dividing into several small
+streams, slips with a plunge of, it may be, six feet over the granite
+rocks, into a broad, deep pool, round which tall pines stand, and over
+which two or three delicate-leaved white-birches lean, from which basin
+the waters plunge in the final foamy rush of thirty or forty feet over
+the irregularly broken ledge which makes the bold shore of the lake.
+Between the two points of rock which confine the stream is thrown a
+bridge, part of the military road from the Mohawk settlements to those
+on the St. Lawrence, built during the war of 1812. On this bridge I
+waited until Steve had carried the boat around, when we re�mbarked for
+the camp.
+
+Arriving at the landing, we found two of the guides dressing the
+Doctor's deer, and the others preparing for dinner. As night came on my
+excitement returned, and I remained in the camp while the others went
+out on the lake,--not from fear of such an experience as I had the night
+before, for I enjoyed the wild emotions, as one enjoys the raging of the
+sea around the rocks he stands on, with a kind of tremulous
+apprehension,--but to see what effect the camp would produce on the
+state of feeling which I had begun to look at as something normal in my
+mental development. The rest of the party had gone out in two boats, and
+three of the guides, taking another, went on an excursion of their own;
+the two remaining, having cleared the supper-things away and lighted
+their pipes, were engaged in their tent, playing _old sledge_ by the
+light of a single candle. There was a race out on the lake, and a
+far-off merriment, with an occasional halloo, like a suggestion of a
+busy world somewhere, but all so softened and toned down that it did not
+jar on my tranquillity. There was a crackling fire of green logs as
+large as the guides could lift and lay on, and they simmered in the
+blaze, and lit up the surrounding tree-trunks and the overhanging
+foliage, and faintly explored the recesses of the forest beyond. I lay
+on the blankets, and near to me seemed to sit my d�mon, ready to be
+questioned.
+
+At this instant there came a doubt of the theological position of my
+ghostly _vis-a-vis_, and I abruptly thought the question, "Who are you?"
+
+"Nobody," replied the d�mon, oracularly.
+
+This I knew in one sense to be true; and I replied, "But you know what I
+mean. Don't trifle. Of what nature is your personality?"
+
+"Do you think," it replied, "that personality is necessary to existence?
+We are spirit."
+
+"But wherein, save in the having or not having a body, do you differ
+from me?"
+
+"In all the consequences of that difference."
+
+"Very well,--go on."
+
+"Don't you see that without your circumstances you are only half a
+being?--that you are shaped by the action and reaction between your own
+mind and surrounding things, and that the body is the only medium of
+this action and reaction? Do you not see that without this there would
+have been no consciousness of self, and consequently neither
+individuality nor personality? Remove those circumstances by removing
+the body, and do you not remove personality?"
+
+"But," said I, "you certainly have individuality, and wherein does that
+differ from personality?"
+
+"Possibly you commit two mistakes," replied the d�mon. "As to the
+distinction, it is one with a difference. You are personal to yourself,
+individual to others; and we, though individual to you, may be still
+impersonal. If spirit takes form from having something to act on, the
+fact that we act on you is sufficient, so far as you are concerned, to
+cause an individuality."
+
+I hesitated, puzzled.
+
+It went on: "Don't you see that the inertia of spirit is motion, as that
+of matter is rest? Now compare this universal spirit to a river flowing
+tranquilly, and which in itself gives no evidence of motion, save when
+it meets with some inert point of resistance. This point of resistance
+has the effect of action in itself, and you attribute to _it_ all the
+eddies and ripples produced. You _must_ see that your own immobility is
+the cause of the phenomena of life which give you your apparent
+existence;--our individuality to you may be just as much the effect of
+your personality; you find us only responsive to your own mental state."
+
+I was conscious of a sophistry somewhere, but could not, for the life of
+me, detect it. I thought of the Tempter; I almost feared to listen to
+another word; but the d�mon seemed so fair, so rational, and, above all,
+so confident of truth, that I could not entertain my fears.
+
+"But," said I, finally, "if my personality is owing to my physical
+circumstances, to my body and its immobility, what is the body itself
+owing to?"
+
+"All physical or organic existence is owing to the antagonism between
+certain particles of matter, fixed and resistant, and the all-pervading,
+ever-flowing spirit; the different inerti� conflict, and end by
+combining in an organic being, since neither can be annihilated or
+transmuted. Perhaps we can tell you, by-and-by, how this antagonism
+commences; at present, you would scarcely be able to comprehend it
+clearly."
+
+This I felt, for I was already getting confused with the questions that
+occurred to me as to the relations between spirit and matter.
+
+I asked once more, "Have you never been personal, as I am?--have you
+never had a body and a name?"
+
+"Perhaps," was the reply,--"but it must have been long since; and the
+trifling circumstances which you call life, with all their direct and
+recognizable effects, pass away so soon, that it is impossible to recall
+anything of it. There seems a kind of consciousness when we have
+something to act against, as against your mind at the present moment;
+but as to name, and all that kind of distinctiveness, what is the use of
+it where there is no possibility of confusion or mistake as to identity?
+We have said that we are spirit; and when we say that spirit is one and
+matter one, we have gone behind personal identity."
+
+"But," asked I, "am I to lose my individual existence,--to become
+finally merged in a universal impersonality? What, then, is the object
+of life?"
+
+"You see the plants and animals all around you growing up and passing
+away,--each entering its little orbit, and sweeping through this sphere
+of cognizance back again to the same mystery it emerged from; you never
+ask the question as to them, but for yourself you are anxious. If you
+had not been, would creation have been any less creation?--if you cease,
+will it not still be as great? Truly, though, your mistake is one of too
+little, not of too much. You assume that the animals become nothing;
+but, truly, nothing dies. The very crystals into which all the so-called
+primitive substances are formed, and which are the first forms of
+organization, have a spirit in them; for they obey something which
+inhabits and organizes them. If you could decompose the crystal, would
+you annihilate the soul which organized it? The plant absorbs the
+crystal, and it becomes a part of a higher organization, which could no
+more exist without its soul; and if the plant is cut down and cast into
+the oven, is the organic impulse food for the flames? You, the animal,
+do but exist through the absorption of these vegetable substances, and
+why should you not obey the analogical law of absorption and
+aggregation? You killed a deer to-day;--the flesh you will appropriate
+to supply the wants of your own material organization; but the life, the
+spirit which made that flesh a deer, in obedience to which that shell of
+external appearance is moulded,--you missed that. You can trace the body
+in its metamorphoses; but for this impalpable, active, and only real
+part of the being,--it were folly to suppose it more perishable, more
+evanescent, than the matter of which it was master. And why should not
+you, as well as the deer, go back into the great Life from which you
+came? As to a purpose in creation, why should there be any other than
+that which existence always shows,--that of existing?"
+
+I now began to notice that all the leading ideas which the d�mon offered
+were put in the form of questions, as if from a cautious
+non-committalism, or as if it dared not in so many words say that they
+were the absolute truth. I felt that there was another side to the
+matter, and was confident that I should detect the sophistry of the
+d�mon; but then I did not feel able to carry the conversation farther,
+and was sensible of a readiness on the part of my interlocutor to cease.
+I wondered at this, and if it implied weariness on its part, when it was
+replied,--"We answer to your own mind; of course, when that ceases to
+act, there ceases to be reaction." I cried out in my own mind, in utter
+bewilderment,--"Objective or subjective?" and ceased my questionings.
+
+The camp-fire glowed splendidly through the overhanging branches and
+foliage, and I longed for a revel of light. I asked the guides to make a
+"blaze," and, after a minute's delay and an ejaculation of "_Game, to
+your high, low, jack_," they emerged from the tent and in a few minutes
+had cut down several small dead spruces and piled the tops on the fire,
+which flashed up through the pitchy, inflammable mass, and we had a
+pyrotechnical display which startled the birds, that had gone to rest in
+the assurance of night, into a confused activity and clamor. The heat
+penetrated the camp and gave me a drowsiness which my disturbed repose
+of the night before rendered extremely grateful, and when the rest of
+the party returned from their row, I was asleep.
+
+It was determined, the next morning, in council, to move; and one of the
+guides having informed us of a newly-opened carry, by which we could
+cross from Little Tupper's Lake, ten miles above us, directly to Forked
+Lake, and thence following the usual route down the Raquette River and
+through Long Lake, we could reach Martin's on Saranac Lake without
+retracing our steps, except over the short distance from the Raquette
+through the Saranac Lakes,--after breakfast, we hurriedly packed up our
+traps and were off as early as might be. It is hard boating up the Bog
+River, and hard work both for guides and tourists. All the boats and
+baggage had to be carried three miles, on the backs of the guides, and,
+help them as much as we could, the day had drawn nearly to its close
+before we were fairly embarked on Little Tupper's, and we had then
+nearly ten miles to go before reaching Constable's Camp, where we were
+to stop for the night. I worked hard all day, but in a kind of dream, as
+if the dead weight I carried with weariness were only the phantom of
+something, and I were a fantasy carrying it;--the actual had become
+visionary, and my imaginings nudged me and jostled me almost off the
+path of reason. But I had no time for a _s�ance_ with my d�mon. The next
+day I devoted with the guides to bushing out the carry across to Forked
+Lake, about three and a half miles, through perfectly pathless woods;
+for we found Sam's statements as to the carry being chopped out entirely
+false; only a blazed line existed; so all the guides, except one, set to
+work with myself bushing and chopping out, while the other guide and the
+rest of the party spent the day in hunting. At the close of the day we
+had completed nearly two miles of the path, and returned to Constable's
+Camp to sleep. The next day we succeeded in getting the boats and
+baggage through to Bottle Pond, two and a half miles, and the whole
+party camped on the carry,--the guides anathematizing Sam, whose advice
+had led us on this road. The next afternoon found us afloat on Forked
+Lake, weary and glad to be in the sunlight on blue water again. Hard
+work and the excitement of responsibility in engineering our road-making
+operations had kept my visitor from dream-land away, and as we paddled
+leisurely down the beautiful lake,--one of the few yet untouched by the
+lumbermen,--I felt a healthier tone of mind than I had known since we
+had entered the woods. As we ran out of one of the deep bays which
+constitute a large portion of the lake, into the principal sheet of
+water, one of the most perfectly beautiful mountain-views I have ever
+seen burst upon us. We looked down the lake to its outlet, five miles,
+between banks covered with tall pines, and far away in the hazy
+atmosphere a chain of blue peaks raised themselves sharp-edged against
+the sky. One singularly-shaped summit, far to the south, attracted my
+attention, and I was about to ask its name, when Steve called out, with
+the air of one who communicates something of more than ordinary
+significance,--"Blue Mountain!" The name, Steve's manner, and I know not
+what of mysterious cause, gave to the place a strange importance. I felt
+a new and unaccountable attraction to the mountain. Some enchantment
+seemed to be casting its glamour over me from that distance even. There
+was thenceforward no goal for my wanderings but the Blue Mountain. It is
+a solitary peak, one of the southernmost of the Adirondacks, of a very
+quaint form, and lies in a circlet of lakes, three of which in a chain
+are named from the mountain. The way by which the mountain is reached is
+through these lakes, and their outlet, which empties into Raquette Lake.
+I had determined to remain in the woods some weeks, and now concluded to
+return, as soon as I had seen the rest of the party on their way home,
+and take up quarters on Raquette Lake for the rest of my stay.
+
+That night we camped at the foot of Forked Lake, and not one of the
+party will ever forget the thunder-storm that burst on us in our
+woods-encampment among the tall pines, two of which, near us, were
+struck by the lightning. I tried in vain, when we were quiet for the
+night, to get some information on the subject of my attraction to the
+Blue Mountain. My d�mon appeared remote and made no responses. It seemed
+as if, knowing my resolution to stay alone there, it had resolved to be
+silent until I was without any cause for interruption of our colloquies.
+Save the consciousness of its remote attendance, I felt no recurrence of
+my past experience, until, having seen my friends on the road to
+civilization again, I left Martin's with Steve and Carlo for my quarters
+on the Raquette. We hurried back up the river as fast as four strong
+arms could propel our light boat, and resting, the second night, at
+Wilbur's, on Raquette Lake, I the next morning selected a site for a
+camp, where we built a neat little bark-house, proof against all
+discomforts of an elemental character, and that night I rested under my
+own roof, squatter though I was. The d�mon seemed in no haste to renew
+our former intimate intercourse,--for what reason I could not divine;
+but a few days after my settling, days spent in exploring and planning,
+it resumed suddenly its functions. It came to me out on the lake, where
+I had paddled to enjoy the starlight in the delicious evening, when the
+sky was filled with luminous vapor, through which the stars struggled
+dimly, and in which the landscape was almost as clearly visible as by
+moonlight.
+
+"Well!" said I, familiarly, as I felt it take its place by my side, "you
+have come back."
+
+"_Come back!_" it replied; "will you never get beyond your miserable
+ideas of space, and learn that there is no separation but that of
+feeling, no nearness but that of sympathy? If you had cared enough for
+us, we should have been with you constantly."
+
+I was anxious to get to the subject of present interest, and did not
+stop to discuss a point which, in one, and the highest sense, I
+admitted.
+
+"What," I asked, "was that impulse which urged me to go to the Blue
+Mountain? Shall I find there anything supernatural?"
+
+"_Anything supernatural?_ What is there above Nature, or outside of it?"
+
+"But nothing is without cause; and for an emotion so strong as I
+experienced, on the sight of those mountains, there must have been one."
+
+"Very likely! if you go after it, you will find it. You probably expect
+to find some beautiful enchantress keeping her court on the
+mountain-top, and a suite of fairies."
+
+I started, for, absurd as it may seem, that very idea, half-formed,
+undeveloped from very shame at my superstition, had rested in my mind.
+
+"And," said I, at a loss what to say, "are there no such things
+possible?"
+
+"All things are possible to the imagination."
+
+"To create?"
+
+"Most certainly! Is not creation the act of bringing into existence? and
+does not your Hamlet exist as immortally as your Shakspeare? The only
+true existence, is it not that of the Idea? Have you not seen the pines
+transfigured?"
+
+"And if I imagined a race of fairies inhabiting the Blue Mountain,
+should I find them?"
+
+"If you _imagined_ them, yes! But the imagination is not voluntary; it
+works to supply a necessity; its function is creation, and creation is
+needed only to fill a vacuum. The wild Arab, feeling his own
+insignificance, and comprehending the necessity for a Creating Power,
+finds between himself and that Power, which to him, as to you the other
+day, assumes a personality, an immense distance, and fills the space
+with a race half divine, half human. It was the necessity for the fairy
+which created the fairy. You do not feel the same distance between
+yourself and a Creator, and so you do not call into existence a creative
+race of the same character; but has not your own imagination furnished
+you with images to which you may give your reverence? It may be that you
+diminish that distance by degrading the Great First Cause to an image of
+your personality, and so are not so wise as the Arab, who at once admits
+it to be unattainable. Each man shapes that which he looks up to by his
+desires or fears, and these in their turn are the results of his degree
+of development."
+
+"But God, is not He the Supreme Creator?"
+
+"Is it not as we said, that you measure the Supreme by yourself? Can you
+not comprehend a supreme law, an order which controls all things?"
+
+In my meditations this doubt had often presented itself to me, and I had
+as often put it resolutely aside; but now to hear it urged on me in this
+way from this mysterious presence troubled me, and I shrank from further
+discussion of the topic. I earnestly desired a fuller knowledge of the
+nature of my colloquist.
+
+"Tell me," said I, "do you not take cognizance of my personality?--do
+you read my past and my future?"
+
+"Your past and future are contained in your present. Who can analyze
+what you are can see the things which made you such; for effect contains
+its cause;--to see the future, it needs only to know the laws which
+govern all things. It is a simple problem: you being given, with the
+inevitable tendencies to which you are subject, the result is your
+future; the flight of one of your rifle-balls cannot be calculated with
+greater certainty."
+
+"But how shall we know those laws?" said I.
+
+"You contain them all, for you are the result of them; and they are
+always the same,--not one code for your beginning, and another for your
+continuance. Man is the complete embodiment of all the laws thus far
+developed, and you have only to know yourself to know the history of
+creation."
+
+This I could not gainsay, and my mind, wearied, declined to ask further.
+I returned to camp and went to sleep.
+
+Several days passed without any remarkable progress in my knowledge of
+this strange being, though I found myself growing more and more
+sensitive to the presence of it each day; and at the same time the
+incomprehensible sympathy with Nature, for I know not what else to call
+it, seemed growing stronger and more startling in the effects it
+produced on the landscape. The influence was no longer confined to
+twilight, but made noon-day mystical; and I began to hear strange sounds
+and words spoken by disembodied voices,--not like that of my d�mon, but
+unaccompanied by any feeling of personal presence connected therewith.
+It seemed as if the vibrations shaped themselves into words, some of
+them of singular significance. I heard my name called, and the strangest
+laughs on the lake at night. My d�mon seemed averse to answering any
+questions on the topic of these illusions. The only reply was,--"You
+would be wiser, not knowing too much."
+
+Ere many days of this solitary life had passed, I found my whole
+existence taken up by my fantasies. I determined to make my excursion to
+the Blue Mountain, and, sending Steve down to the post-office, a
+three-days' journey, I took the boat, with Carlo and my rifle, and
+pushed off. The outlet of the Blue Mountain Lakes is like all the
+Adirondack streams, dark and shut in by forest, which scarcely permits
+landing anywhere. Now and then a log fallen into the water compels the
+voyager to get out and lift his boat over; then a shallow rapid must be
+dragged over; and when the stream is clear of obstruction, it is too
+narrow for any mode of propulsion but poling or paddling.
+
+I had worked several weary hours, and the sun had passed the meridian,
+when I emerged from the forest into a wild, swampy flat,--"wild meadow,"
+the guides call it,--through which the stream wound, and around which
+was a growth of tall larches backed by pines. Where the brook seemed to
+re�nter the wood on the opposite side, stood two immense pines, like
+sentinels, and such they became to me; and they looked grim and
+threatening, with their huge arms reaching over the gateway. I drew my
+boat up on the boggy shore at the foot of a solitary tamarack, into
+which I climbed as high as I could to look over the wood beyond.
+
+Never shall I forget what I saw from that swaying look-out. Before me
+was the mountain, perhaps five miles away, covered with dense forest to
+within a few hundred feet of the summit, which showed bare rock with
+firs clinging in the clefts and on the tables, and which was crowned by
+a walled city, the parapet of whose walls cut with a sharp, straight
+line against the sky, and beyond showed spire and turret and the tops of
+tall trees. The walls must have been at least a hundred and fifty feet
+high, and I could see here and there between the group of firs traces of
+a road coming down the mountain-side. And I heard one of those mocking
+voices say, "The city of silence!"--nothing more. I felt strongly
+tempted to start on a flight through the air towards the city, and why I
+did not launch forth on the impulse I know not. My blood rushed through
+my veins with maddest energy, and my brain seemed to have been replaced
+by some ethereal substance, and to be capable of floating me off as if
+it were a balloon. Yet I clung and looked, my whole soul in my eyes, and
+had no thought of losing the spectacle for an instant, even were it to
+reach the city itself. The glorious glamour of that place and moment,
+who can comprehend it? The wind swung my tree-top to and fro, and I
+climbed up until the tree bent with my weight like a twig under a
+bird's.
+
+Presently I heard bells and strains of music, as though all the military
+bands in the city were coming together on the walls; and the sounds rose
+and fell with the wind,--one moment entirely lost, another full and
+triumphant. Then I heard the sound of hunting-horns and the baying of a
+pack of hounds, deep-mouthed, as if a hunting-party were coming down the
+mountain-side. Nearer and nearer they came, and I heard merry laughing
+and shouting as they swept through the valley. I feared for a moment
+that they would find me there, and drive me, intruding, from the
+enchanted land.
+
+But I must fathom the mystery, let what would come. I descended the
+tree, and when I had reached the boat again I found the whole thing
+changed. I understood that my city was only granite and fir-trees, and
+my music only the wind in the tree-tops. The reaction was sickening; the
+sunshine seemed dull and cold after the lost glory of that enchantment.
+The Blue Mountain was reached, its destiny fulfilled for me, and I
+returned to my camp, sick at heart, as one who has had a dear illusion
+dispelled.
+
+The next day my mind was unusually calm and clear. I asked my d�mon what
+was the meaning of the enchantment of yesterday.
+
+"It was a freak of your imagination," it replied.
+
+"But what is this imagination, then, which, being a faculty of my own,
+yet masters my reason?"
+
+"Not at all a faculty, but your very highest self, your own life in
+creative activity. Your reason _is_ a faculty, and is subordinate to the
+purposes of your imagination. If, instead of regarding imagination as a
+pendant to your mental organization, you take it for what it is, a
+function, and the noblest one your mind knows, you will see at once why
+it is that it works unconsciously, just as you live unconsciously and
+involuntarily. Men set their reason and feeling to subdue what they
+consider a treacherous element in themselves; they succeed only in
+dwarfing their natures, and imagination is inert while reason controls;
+but when reason rests in sleep, and you cease to live to the external
+world, imagination resumes its normal power. You dream;--it is only the
+revival of that which you smother when you are awake. You consider the
+sights and sounds of yesterday follies; you reason;--imagination
+demonstrates its power by overturning your reason and deceiving your
+very senses."
+
+"You speak of its creations; I understand this in a certain sense; but
+if these were such, should not they have permanence? and can anything
+created perish?"
+
+"Nonsense! what will these trees be tomorrow? and the rocks you sit on,
+are they not changing to vegetation under you? The only creation is that
+of ideas; things are thin shadows. If man is not creative, he is still
+undeveloped."
+
+"But is not such an assumption trenching on the supremacy of God?" I
+asked.
+
+"What do you understand by 'God?'"
+
+"An infinitely wise and loving Controller of events, of course," I
+replied.
+
+"Did you ever find any one whose ideas on the subject agreed with
+yours?"
+
+"Not entirely."
+
+"Then your God is not the same as the God of other men; from the
+Fee-Jeean to the Christian there is a wide range. Of course there is a
+first great principle of life; but this personality you all worship, is
+it not a creation?"
+
+I now felt this to be the great point of the demon's urging; it recurred
+too often not to be designed. Led on by the sophistry of my tempter, I
+had floated unconsciously to this issue, practically admitting all; but
+when this suggestion stood completely unclothed before me, my soul rose
+in horror at the abyss before it. For an instant all was chaos, and the
+very order of Nature seemed disorder. Life and light vanished from the
+face of the earth; my night made all things dead and dark. A universe
+without a God! Creation seemed to me for that moment but a galvanized
+corse. What my emotions were no human being who has not felt them can
+conceive. My first impulse was to suicide; with the next I cried from
+the depths of my despair, "God deliver me from the body of this death!"
+It was but a moment,--and there came, in the place of the cold
+questioning voice of my d�mon, one of ineffable music, repeating words
+familiar to me from childhood, words linked to everything loved and
+lovely in my past:--"Ye believe in God, believe also in me." The hot
+tears for another moment blotted out the world from sight. I said once
+more to the questioner, "Now who _are_ you?"
+
+"Your own doubts," was the reply; and it seemed as if only I spoke to
+myself.
+
+Since that day I have never reasoned with my doubts, never doubted my
+imagination.
+
+
+
+
+ALL'S WELL.
+
+
+    Sweet-voic�d Hope, thy fine discourse
+      Foretold not half life's good to me;
+    Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force
+      To show how sweet it is to be!
+        Thy witching dream
+        And pictured scheme
+    To match the fact still want the power;
+      Thy promise brave
+      From birth to grave
+    Life's boon may beggar in an hour.
+
+    Ask and receive,--'tis sweetly said;
+      Yet what to plead for know I not;
+    For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped,
+      And aye to thanks returns my thought.
+        If I would pray,
+        I've nought to say
+    But this, that God may be God still;
+        For Him to live
+        Is still to give,
+    And sweeter than my wish his will.
+
+    O wealth of life beyond all bound!
+      Eternity each moment given!
+    What plummet may the Present sound?
+      Who promises a _future_ heaven?
+        Or glad, or grieved,
+        Oppressed, relieved,
+    In blackest night, or brightest day,
+        Still pours the flood
+        Of golden good,
+    And more than heartfull fills me aye.
+
+    My wealth is common; I possess
+      No petty province, but the whole;
+    What's mine alone is mine far less
+      Than treasure shared by every soul.
+        Talk not of store,
+        Millions or more,--
+    Of values which the purse may hold,--
+        But this divine!
+        I own the mine
+    Whose grains outweigh a planet's gold.
+
+    I have a stake in every star,
+      In every beam that fills the day;
+    All hearts of men my coffers are,
+      My ores arterial tides convey;
+        The fields, the skies,
+        And sweet replies
+    Of thought to thought are my gold-dust,--
+        The oaks, the brooks,
+        And speaking looks
+    Of lovers' faith and friendship's trust.
+
+    Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow
+      For him who lives above all years,
+    Who all-immortal makes the Now,
+      And is not ta'en in Time's arrears:
+        His life's a hymn
+        The seraphim
+    Might hark to hear or help to sing,
+        And to his soul
+      The boundless whole
+    Its bounty all doth daily bring.
+
+    "All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith;
+      "The wealth I am, must thou become:
+    Richer and richer, breath by breath,--
+      Immortal gain, immortal room!"
+        And since all his
+        Mine also is,
+    Life's gift outruns my fancies far,
+        And drowns the dream
+        In larger stream,
+    As morning drinks the morning-star.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIRDS OF THE PASTURE AND FOREST.
+
+
+He who has always lived in the city or its suburbs, who has seldom
+visited the interior except for purposes of trade, and whose walks have
+not often extended beyond those roads which are bordered on each side by
+shops and dwelling-houses, may never have heard the birds that form the
+subject of this sketch. These are the birds of the pasture and
+forest,--those shy, melodious warblers, who sing only in the ancient
+haunts of the Dryads, and of those nymphs who waited upon Diana in her
+hunting-excursions, but who are now recognized only by the beautiful
+plants which, with unseen hands, they rear in the former abodes of the
+celestial huntress. These birds have not probably multiplied, like the
+familiar birds, with the increase of human population and the extension
+of agriculture. They were perhaps as numerous in the days of King Philip
+as they are now. Though they do not shun mankind, they keep aloof from
+cultivated grounds, living chiefly in the deep wood or on the edge of
+the forest, and in the bushy pasture.
+
+There is a peculiar wildness in the songs of this class of birds, that
+awakens a delightful mood of mind, similar to that which is excited by
+reading the figurative lyrics of a romantic age. This feeling is,
+undoubtedly, to a certain extent, the effect of association. Having
+always heard their notes in rude, wild, and wooded places, they never
+fail to bring this kind of scenery vividly before the imagination, and
+their voices affect us like the sounds of mountain-streams. There is a
+little Sparrow which I often hear about the shores of unfrequented
+ponds, and in their untrodden islets, and never in any other situations.
+The sound of his voice, therefore, always enhances the sensation of rude
+solitude with which I contemplate this wild and desolate scenery. We
+often see him perched upon a dead tree that stands in the water, a few
+rods from the shore, apparently watching our angling operations from his
+leafless perch, where he sings so sweetly, that the very desolation of
+the scene borrows a charm from his voice that renders every object
+delightful. This bird I believe to be the _Fringilla palustris_ of
+Wilson.
+
+It is certain that the notes of the solitary birds, compared with those
+of the Robin and Linnet, excite a different class of sensations. I can
+imagine that there is a similar difference in the flavors of a cherry
+and a cranberry. If the former is sweeter, the latter has a spicy zest
+that is peculiar to what we call natural fruit. The effect is the same,
+however, whether it be attributable to some intrinsic quality, or to
+association, which is indeed the source of some of the most delightful
+emotions of the human soul.
+
+Nature has made all her scenes, and the sights and sounds that
+accompany them, more lovely, by causing them to be respectively
+suggestive of a certain class of sensations. The birds of the pasture
+and forest are not frequent enough in cultivated places to be associated
+with the garden or village inclosure. Nature has confined particular
+birds and animals to certain localities, and thereby adds a poetic and a
+picturesque attraction to their features. There are also certain flowers
+that cannot be cultivated in the garden, as if they were designed for
+the exclusive adornment of those secluded arbors which the spade and the
+plough have never profaned. Here flowers grow which are too holy for
+culture, and birds sing whose voices were never heard in the cage of the
+voluptuary, and whose tones inspire us with a sense of freedom known
+only to those who often retire from the world, to live in religious
+communion with Nature.
+
+When the flowers of early summer are gone, and the graceful neottia is
+seen in the meadows, extending its spiral clusters among the nodding
+grasses,--when the purple orchis is glowing in the wet grounds, and the
+roadsides are gleaming with the yellow blossoms of the hypericum, the
+merry voice of the Bobolink has ceased, and many other familiar birds
+have become almost silent. At this time, if we stroll away from the farm
+and the orchard into more retired and wooded haunts, we may hear, at all
+times of the day and at frequent intervals, the pensive and melodious
+notes of the Wood-Sparrow, who sings as if he were delighted at being
+left almost alone to warble and complain to the benevolent deities of
+the grove. He who in his youth has made frequent visits to these
+pleasant and solitary places, and wished that he could live and love
+forever among the wild-roses, the blushing azaleas, the red
+summer-lilies, and the thousands of beautiful and sweet-scented flowers
+that spring up among the various spicy and fruit-bearing shrubs which
+unite to form a genuine huckleberry-pasture,--he only knows the
+unspeakable delights which are awakened by the sweet, simple notes of
+this little warbler.
+
+The Wood-Sparrow (_Fringilla pusilla_) is somewhat less than a Canary,
+with a chestnut-colored crown; above of a grayish brown hue, and dusky
+white beneath. Though he does not seem to be a shy bird, I have never
+seen him in cultivated grounds, and the inmates of solitary cottages
+alone are privileged to hear his notes from their windows. He loves the
+hills which are half covered with young pines, viburnums, cornels, and
+huckleberry-bushes, and feeds upon the seeds of grasses and wild
+lettuce, with occasional repasts of insects and berries.
+
+His notes are sweet and plaintive, seldom consisting of more than one
+strain. He commences slowly, as if repeating the syllable, _de de de de
+de de d' d' d' d' d' d' d' r' r' r'_,--increasing in rapidity, and at
+the same time rising as it were by semi-tones, or chromatically, to
+about a major fourth on the scale. In midsummer, when this bird is most
+musical, he occasionally lengthens his song by alternately ascending and
+descending, interposing a few chirping notes between the ascending and
+descending series. The song loses a part of its simplicity, and, as it
+seems to me, is not improved by this variation.
+
+While listening to the notes of the Wood-Sparrow, we are continually
+saluted by the agreeable, though less musical song of the Chewink, or
+Ground-Robin,--a bird that frequents similar places. This is a very
+beautiful bird, elegantly spotted with white, red, and black,--the
+female being of a bright bay color where the male is red. Every rambler
+knows him, not only by his plumage and his peculiar note, but also by
+his singular habit of lurking about among the bushes, appearing and
+disappearing like a squirrel, and watching all our movements. Though he
+does not avoid our company, it is with difficulty that a marksman can
+obtain a good aim at him, so rapidly does he change his position among
+the leaves and branches. In this habit he resembles the Wren. While we
+are watching his motions, he pauses in his song, and utters that
+peculiar note of complaint from which he has derived his name,
+_Chewink_, though the sound he utters is more like _chewee_, accenting
+the second syllable.
+
+The Chewink (_Fringilla erythrophthalma_) is a very constant singer
+during four months of the year, from the middle of April. He is very
+untiring in his lays, seldom resting for any considerable time from
+morning till night, being never weary in rain or in sunshine, or at
+noon-day in the hottest weather of the season. His song consists of two
+long notes, the first about a third above the second, and the last part
+is made up of several rapidly uttered notes about one tone below the
+first note.
+
+There is an expression of great cheerfulness in these notes; but music,
+like poetry, must be somewhat plaintive in its character, to take strong
+hold of the feelings. I have never known a person to be affected by
+these notes as by those of the Wood-Sparrow. While engaged in singing,
+the Chewink is usually perched on the lower branch of a tree, near the
+edge of a wood, or on the top of a tall bush. He is a true forest-bird,
+and builds his nest in the thickets that conceal the boundaries of the
+wood.
+
+The notes of the Chewink and his general appearance and habits are well
+calculated to render him conspicuous, and they cause him to be always
+noticed and remembered. Our birds are like our men of genius. As in the
+literary world there is a description of talent that must be discovered
+and pointed out by an observing few, before the great mass can
+understand it or even know its existence,--so the sweetest songsters of
+the wood are unknown to the mass of the community, while many very
+ordinary performers, whose talents are conspicuous, are universally
+known and admired.
+
+As we advance into the wood, if it be near mid-day, or before the
+decline of the sun, the notes of two small birds will be sure to attract
+our attention. These notes are very similar, and as slender and piercing
+as the chirp of a grasshopper, being distinguished from the latter only
+by a different and more pleasing modulation. The birds to which I refer
+are the Red Start (_Muscicapa ruticilla_) and the Speckled Creeper
+(_Sylvia varia_). The first is the more rarely seen of the two, being a
+bird of the deep forest, and shunning observation by hiding himself in
+the most obscure parts of the wood. In general appearance, and in the
+color of his plumage, he bears a resemblance to the Ground-Robin, though
+not more than half his size. He lives entirely on insects, catching them
+while they are flying in the air.
+
+His song is similar to that of the Summer Yellow-Bird, so common in our
+gardens among the fruit-trees, but it is more shrill and feeble. The
+Creeper's song does not differ from it more than the songs of different
+individuals of the same species may differ. This bird may be seen
+creeping like a Woodpecker around the branches of trees, feeding upon
+the grubs and insects that are lodged upon the bark. He often leaves the
+forest, and may be seen busily searching the trees in the orchard and
+garden. The restless activity of the birds of this species affords a
+proof of the countless myriads of insects that must be destroyed by them
+in the course of one season,--insects which, if not kept in check by
+these and other small birds, would multiply to such an extreme as to
+render the earth uninhabitable by man.
+
+While listening with close attention to the slender notes of either of
+the last-named birds, often hardly audible amidst the din of
+grasshoppers, the rustling of leaves, and the sighing of winds among the
+tall oaken boughs, suddenly the wood resounds with a loud, shrill song,
+like the sharpest notes of the Canary. The bird that startles one with
+this vociferous note is the Oven-Bird, (_Turdus aurocapillus_), or
+Golden-Crowned Thrush. It is the smallest of the Thrushes, is confined
+exclusively to the wood, and when singing is particularly partial to
+noon-day. There is no melody in his song. He begins rather low,
+increasing in loudness as he proceeds, until the last notes are so loud
+as to seem almost in our immediate presence. He might be supposed to
+utter His words, _I see_, _I see_, _I see_, etc.,--emphasizing the first
+word, and repeating the words six or eight times, louder and louder with
+each repetition. No other bird equals this little Thrush in the emphasis
+with which he delivers his brief communication. His notes are associated
+with summer noon-days in the deep woods, and, when bursting upon the ear
+in the silence of noon, they disperse all melancholy thoughts, and
+inspire one with a vivid consciousness of life.
+
+The most remarkable thing connected with the history of this bird is his
+oven-shaped nest. It is commonly placed on the ground, under a knoll of
+moss or a tuft of grass and bushes, and is formed almost entirely of
+long grass neatly woven. It is covered with a roof of the same
+materials, and a round opening is made at the side, for the bird's
+entrance. The nest is so ingeniously covered with grass and disguised
+with the appearance of the general surface around it, that it is very
+seldom discovered. The Cow-Bunting, however, is able to find it, and
+often selects it as a depository for its own eggs.
+
+Those who are addicted to rambling in pursuit of natural curiosities may
+have observed that pine-woods are remarkable for certain collections of
+mosses which have cushioned a projecting rock or the decayed stump of a
+tree. When weary with heat and exercise, it is delightful to sit down
+upon one of these green velveted couches and take note of the objects
+immediately around us. We are then prepared to hear the least sound that
+invades our retreat. Some of the sweetest notes ever uttered in the wood
+are distinctly heard only at such times; for when we are passing over
+the rustling leaves, the noise made by our progress interferes with the
+perfect recognition of all delicate sounds. It was when thus reclining,
+after half a day's search for flowers, under the grateful shade of a
+pine-tree, now watching the white clouds that sent a brighter day-beam
+into these dark recesses, as they passed luminously overhead, and then
+noting the peculiar mapping of the grounds underneath the wood,
+diversified with mosses in swelling knolls, little islets of fern, and
+parterres of ginsengs and Solomon's-seals,--in one of these cloisters of
+the forest, I was first greeted by the pensive note of the Green
+Warbler, as he seemed to titter in supplicatory tones, very slowly
+modulated, "Hear me, Saint Theresa!" This strain, as I have observed
+many times since, is, at certain hours, repeated constantly for ten
+minutes at a time, and it is one of those melodious sounds that seem to
+belong exclusively to solitude.
+
+The Green Warbler (_Sylvia virens_) is a small bird, and though his
+notes may be familiar to all who have been accustomed to strolling in
+the woods, the species is not numerous in Massachusetts, the greater
+number retiring farther north in the breeding-season. Nuttall remarks in
+reference to this bird, "His simple, rather drawling, and somewhat
+plaintive song, uttered at short intervals, resembled the syllables '_te
+d� teritsc�_, sometimes _te derisca_, pronounced pretty loud and slow,
+and the tones proceeded from high to low. In the intervals, he was
+perpetually busied in catching small cynips, and other kinds of
+flies,--keeping up a smart snapping of his bill, almost similar to the
+noise made by knocking pebbles together." There is a plaintive
+expression in this musical supplication, that is apparent to all who
+hear it, no less than if the bird were truly offering prayers to some
+tutelary deity. It is difficult, in many cases, to determine why a
+certain combination of sounds should affect one with an emotion of
+sadness, while another, under the same circumstances, produces a feeling
+of joy. This is a part of the philosophy of music which has not been
+explained.
+
+While treating of the Sylvias, I must not omit to notice one of the most
+important of the tribe, and one with which almost everybody is
+acquainted,--the Maryland Yellow-Throat (_Sylvia trichas_). This species
+is quite common and familiar. He is most frequently seen in a
+willow-grove that borders a stream, or in the shrubbery of moist and low
+grounds. The angler is greeted by his notes on the rushy borders of a
+pond, and the botanist listens to them when hunting for those
+rose-plants that hide themselves under dripping rocks in some wooded
+ravine. The song of the Yellow-Throat resembles that of the Warbling
+Vireo, delivered with somewhat more precision, as if he were saying, _I
+see you_, _I see you_, _I see you_. His notes are simply lively and
+agreeable; there is nothing plaintive about them. The bird, however, is
+very attractive in his appearance, being of a bright olive-color above,
+with a yellow throat and breast, and a black band extending from the
+nostrils over the eye. This black band and the yellow throat are the
+marks by which he is most easily identified. The Yellow-Throat remains
+tuneful till near the last week in August.
+
+But if we leave the wood while those above described are the only
+singing-birds we have heard, we have either returned too soon, or we did
+not penetrate deeply enough into the forest. The Wood-Sparrow prepared
+our ears for a concert more delightful than the Red Start or the
+Yellow-Throat are capable of presenting, and we have spent our time
+almost in vain, if we have not heard the song of the Wood-Thrush
+(_Turdus melodus_). His notes are not startling or conspicuous; some
+dull ears might not hear them, though poured forth only a few rods
+distant, if their attention were not directed to them. Yet they are
+loud, liquid, and sonorous, and they fail to attract attention only on
+account of the long pauses between the different strains. We must link
+all these strains together to enjoy the full pleasure which the song of
+this bird is capable of affording, though any single strain alone is
+sufficient to entitle the bird to considerable reputation as a songster.
+
+The song of the Wood-Thrush consists of about eight or ten different
+strains, each of considerable length. After each strain the bird makes a
+pause of about three or four seconds. I think the effect of this sylvan
+music is somewhat diminished by the length of the pauses or rests. It
+may be said, however, that during each pause our susceptibility is
+increased, and we are thus prepared to be more deeply affected by the
+next notes. Whether the one or the other opinion be correct, it is
+certain that any one who stops to listen to this bird will become
+spellbound, and deaf to almost every other sound in the grove, as if his
+ears were enchained to the song of the Siren.
+
+The Wood-Thrush sings at almost all hours of the day, though seldom
+after sunset. He delights in a dusky retreat, and is evidently inspired
+by solitude, singing no less in gloomy weather than in sunshine. Late in
+August, when other birds have mostly become silent, he is sometimes the
+only songster in the wood. There is a liquid sound in his tones that
+slightly resembles that of a glassichord; though in some parts of the
+country he has received the name of Fife-Bird, from the clearness of his
+intonations. By many persons this species is called the Hermit-Thrush.
+
+The Veery (_Turdus Wilsonii_) has many habits like those of the
+Wood-Thrush, and some similarity of song. He is about the size of a
+Blue-Bird, and resembles the Red Thrush, except that the brown of his
+back is slightly tinged with olive. He arrives early in May, and is
+first heard to sing during some part of the second week of that month,
+when the sons of the Bobolink commences. He is not one of our familiar
+birds; and unless we live in close proximity to a wood that is haunted
+by a stream, we shall never hear his voice from our doors or windows. He
+sings neither in the orchard, nor the garden, nor in the suburbs of the
+city. He shuns the exhibitions of art, and reserves his wild notes for
+those who frequent the inner sanctuary of the groves. All who have once
+become familiar with his song await his arrival with impatience, and
+take note of his silence in midsummer with regret. Until this little
+bird has arrived, I always feel as an audience do at a concert, before
+the chief singer has made her appearance, while the other performers are
+vainly endeavoring to soothe them by their inferior attempts.
+
+This bird is more retiring than any other important singing-bird, except
+the Wood-Thrush,--being heard only in solitary groves, and usually in
+the vicinity of a pond or stream. Here, especially after sunset, he
+pours forth his brilliant and melancholy strains with a peculiar
+cadence, and fills the whole forest with sound. It seems as if the
+echoes were delimited with his notes, and took pleasure in passing them
+round with multiplied reverberations. I am confident this bird refrains
+from singing when others are the most vocal, from the pleasure he feels
+in listening either to his own notes, or to the melodious responses
+which others of his own kindred repeat in different parts of the wood.
+Hence he chooses the dusk of evening for his vocal hour, when the little
+chirping birds are mostly silent, that their voices may not interrupt
+his chant. At this hour, during a period of nine or ten weeks, he charms
+the evening with his strains, and often prolongs them in still weather
+till after dusk, and whispers them sweetly into the ear of night.
+
+No bird of his size has more strength of voice; but his song, though
+loud, is modulated with such a sweet and flowing cadence, that it comes
+to the ear with all the mellowness of the softest warbling. It would be
+difficult to describe his song. It seems at first to be wanting in
+variety. I was long of this opinion, though I was puzzled to account for
+its pleasing and extraordinary effect on the mind of the listener. The
+song of the Veery consists of five distinct strains or bars. They might,
+perhaps, be represented on the musical staff, by commencing the first
+note on D above the staff and sliding down with a trill to C, one fifth
+below. The second, third, fourth, and fifth bars are repetitions of the
+first, except that each commences and ends a few tones lower than the
+preceding.
+
+Were we to attempt to perform these notes with an instrument adapted to
+the purpose, we should probably fail, from the difficulty of imitating
+the peculiar trilling of the notes, and the liquid ventriloquial sounds
+at the conclusion of each strain. The whole is warbled in such a manner
+as to produce upon the ear the effect of harmony. It seems as if we
+heard two or three concordant notes at the same moment. I have never
+noticed this effect in the song of any other bird. I should judge that
+it might be produced by the rapid descent from the commencing note of
+each strain to the last note about a fourth or fifth below, the latter
+being heard simultaneously with the reverberation of the first note.
+
+Another remarkable quality of the song is a union of brilliancy and
+plaintiveness. The first effect is produced by the commencing notes of
+each strain, which are sudden and on a high key; the second, by the
+graceful chromatic slide to the termination, which is inimitable and
+exceedingly solemn. I have sometimes thought that a part of the
+delightful influence of these notes might be attributable to the
+cloistered situations from which they were delivered. But I have
+occasionally heard them while the bird was singing from a tree in an
+open field, when they were equally pleasing and impressive. I am not
+peculiar in my admiration of this little songster. I have observed that
+people who are strangers to the woods, and to the notes of birds, are
+always attracted by the song of the Veery.
+
+In my early days, when I was at school, I boarded in a house near a
+grove that was vocal with these Thrushes; and it was then I learned to
+love their song more than any other sound in Nature, and above the
+finest strains of artificial music. Since that time I have lived in
+town, apart from their sylvan retreats, which I have visited only during
+my hours of leisure; but I have seldom failed, each returning year, to
+make frequent visits to the wood to listen to their notes, which cause
+full half the pleasure I derive from a summer-evening walk. If in any
+year I fail to hear the song of the Veery, I feel a painful sense of
+regret, as when I have missed an opportunity to see an absent friend,
+during a periodical visit.
+
+The Veery is not one of our latest singers. His notes are not often
+heard after the middle of July.
+
+We should not be obliged to penetrate the wood to learn the habits of
+another Thrush, not so remarkable for his musical powers as interesting
+on account of his manners. I allude to the Cat-Bird, (_Turdus felivox_,)
+well known from his disagreeable habit of mewing like a kitten. He is
+most frequently seen on the edge of a wood, among the bushes that have
+come up, as it were, to hide its baldness and to harmonize it with the
+plain. He is usually attached to low, moist, and retired situations,
+though he is often very familiar in his habits. His nest of dry sticks
+is sometimes woven into a currant-bush in a garden that adjoins a wood,
+and his quaint voice may be heard there as in his own solitary haunts.
+The Cat-Bird is not an inveterate singer, and never seems to make music
+his employment, though at any hour of the day, from dawn until dusk in
+the evening, he may be heard occasionally singing and complaining.
+
+Though I have been all my life familiar with the notes and manners of
+the Cat-Bird, I have not yet been able to discover that he is a mocker.
+He seems to me to have a definite song, unlike that of any other bird,
+except the Red Mavis,--not made up of parts of the songs of other birds,
+but as unique and original as that of the Song-Sparrow or the Robin. In
+the songs of all birds we may detect occasional strains that resemble
+parts of the song of some other species; but the Cat-Bird gives no more
+of these imitations than we might reasonably regard as accidental. The
+modulation of his song is somewhat similar to that of the Red Thrush,
+and it is sometimes difficult to determine, at first, when the bird is
+out of sight, whether we are listening to the one or the other; but
+after a few seconds, we detect one of those quaint turns that
+distinguish the notes of the Cat-Bird. I never yet mistook the note of
+the Cat-Bird for that of any species except the Red Thrush. The truth
+is, that the Thrushes, though delightful songsters, possess inferior
+powers of execution, and cannot equal the Finches in their capacity of
+learning and performing the notes of other birds. Even the Mocking-Bird,
+as compared with many other species, is a very imperfect imitator of any
+notes which are difficult of execution.
+
+The mewing note of the Cat-Bird, from which his name is derived, has
+been the occasion of many misfortunes to his species, causing them to
+share a portion of that contempt which almost every human being feels
+towards the feline race, and that contempt has been followed by
+persecution. The Cat-Bird has always been proscribed by the New England
+farmers, who from the first settlement of the country have entertained a
+prejudice against many of the most useful birds. The Robin and a few
+diminutive Fly-Catchers are almost the only exceptions. But the Robin is
+now in danger of proscription. Within a few years past, the
+horticulturists, who are unwilling lo lose their cherries for the
+general benefit of agriculture, have made an effort to obtain an edict
+of outlawry against him, accusing him of being entirely useless to the
+farmer and the gardener. Their efforts have caused the friends of the
+Robin to examine his claims to protection, and the result of their
+investigations is demonstrative proof that the Robin is among the most
+useful birds in existence. The Cat-Bird and other Thrushes are similar
+in their habits of feeding and in their services to agriculture.
+
+The Red Mavis (_Turdus rufus_) has many habits similar to those of the
+Cat-Bird, but he is not partial to low grounds. He is one of the most
+remarkable of the American birds, and is generally considered the finest
+songster in the New England forest. Nuttall says, "He is inferior only
+to the Mocking-Bird in musical talent"; but I should question his
+inferiority. He is superior to the Mocking-Bird in variety, and is
+surpassed by him only in the intonation of some of his notes. But no
+person is ever tired of listening to the Red Mavis, who constantly
+varies his song, while the Mocking-Bird tires us with his repetitions,
+which are often continued to a ludicrous extreme.
+
+It is unfortunate that our ornithologists should, in any cases, have
+adopted the disagreeable names which our singularly unpoetical
+countrymen have given to the birds. The little Hair-Bird, for example,
+is called the "Chipping-Sparrow," as if he were in the habit of making
+chips, like the Carpenter-Bird; and the Red Thrush is called the
+"Thrasher," which is a low corruption of Thrush, and would signify that
+the bird had some peculiar habit of _threshing_ with his wings. The word
+"chipping," when used for "chirping," is incorrect English; and
+"thrasher" is incorrect in point of fact. No such names should find
+sanction in books. Let us repudiate the name of "Thrasher" for the Red
+Thrush, as we would repudiate any other solecism.
+
+The Red Mavis, or Thrush, is most musical in the early part of the
+season, when he first arrives, or in the month of May; the Veery is most
+vocal in June, and the Wood-Thrush in July; the Cat-Bird begins early
+and sings late, and fills out with his quaint notes the remainder of the
+singing season, after the others have become silent. When one is in a
+thoughtful mood, the songs of the Wood-Thrush and the Veery surpass all
+others on their delightful influence; and when I am strolling in the
+solitary pastures, it seems to me that nothing can exceed the simple
+melody of the Wood-Sparrow. But without claiming for the Red Thrush any
+remarkable power of exciting poetic inspiration, his song in the open
+field has a charm for all ears, and can be appreciated by the dullest of
+minds. Without singing badly, he pleases the millions. He sings
+occasionally at all hours of the day, and, when employed in singing,
+devotes himself entirely to song, with evident enthusiasm.
+
+It would be difficult, either by word or by note, to give one who has
+never heard the song of the Red Thrush a correct idea of it. This bird
+is not a rapid singer. His performances seem to be a sort of
+_recitative_, often resembling spoken words, rather than musical notes,
+many of which are short and guttural. He seldom whistles clearly, like
+the Robin, but he produces a charming variety of tone and modulation.
+Thoreau, in one of his quaint descriptions, gives an off-hand sketch of
+the bird, which I will quote:--"Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of
+a birch, sings the Brown Thrasher, or Red Mavis, as some love to call
+him,--all the morning glad of your society, that would find out another
+farmer's field, if yours were not here. While you are planting the seed,
+he cries,--'Drop it, drop it,--cover it up, cover it up,--pull it up,
+pull it up, pull it up.'"
+
+We have now left the forest and are approaching the cultivated grounds,
+under the shade of those fully expanded trees which have grown without
+restraint in the open field. Here as well as in the wood we find the
+Pewee, or Phoebe. (_Muscicapa nunciola_,) one of our most common and
+interesting birds. He seems to court solitude, and his peculiar note
+harmonizes well with his obscure and shady retreats. He sits for the
+most part in the shade, catching his feast of insects without any noise,
+merely flitting from his perch, seizing his prey, and then resuming his
+station. This movement is performed in the most graceful manner, and he
+often turns a somerset, or appears to do so, if the insect at first
+evades his pursuit,--and he seldom fails in capturing it. All this is
+done in silence, for he is no singer. The only sounds he utters are an
+occasional clicking cherup, and now and then, with a plaintive cadence,
+he seems to speak the word _pewee_. As the male and female bird cannot
+be readily distinguished, I have not been able to determine whether this
+sound is uttered by both sexes, or by the male alone.
+
+So plainly expressive of sadness is this peculiar note, that it is
+difficult to believe that the little being that utters it can be free
+from sorrow. Certainly he can have no congeniality of feeling with the
+sprightly Bobolink. Perhaps, with the rest of his species, he represents
+only the fragment of a superior race, which, according to the
+metempsychosis, have fallen from their original importance, and this
+melancholy note is but the partial utterance of sorrow that still
+lingers in their breasts after the occasion of it is forgotten.
+
+Though a shy and retiring bird, the Pewee is known to almost every
+person, on account of its remarkable note. Like the swallow, he builds
+his nest under a sheltering roof or rock, and it is often fixed upon a
+beam or plank under a bridge that crosses a small stream. Near this
+place he takes his station, on the branch of a tree or the top of a
+fence, and sits patiently waiting for every moth, chafer, or butterfly
+that passes along. Fortunately, there are no prejudices existing in the
+community against this bird that provoke men to destroy him. As he is
+known to feed entirely on insects, he cannot be suspected of doing
+mischief on the farm or in the garden, and is considered worthy of
+protection.
+
+I would remark in this place, that the Fly-Catchers and Swallows, and a
+few other species that enjoy an immunity in our land, would, though
+multiplied to infinity, perform only those offices which are assigned
+them by Nature. It is a vain hope that leads one to believe, while he is
+engaged in exterminating a certain species of small birds, that their
+places can be supplied and their services performed by other species
+which are allowed to multiply to excess. The preservation of every
+species of indigenous birds is the only means that can prevent the
+over-multiplication of injurious insects.
+
+As we return homeward, we soon find ourselves surrounded by the familiar
+birds that shun the forest and assemble around the habitations of men.
+Among them the Blue-Bird meets our sight, upon the roofs and fences as
+well as in the field and orchard. At the risk of introducing him into a
+company to which he does not strictly belong, I will attempt in this
+place to describe some of his habits. The Blue-Bird (_Sylvia sialis_)
+arrives very early in spring, and is detained late in the autumn by his
+habit of raising two or more broods of young in the season. He is said
+to bear a strong resemblance to the English Robin-Redbreast, being
+similar in form and size, each having a red breast and short
+tail-feathers, with only this manifest difference, that one is
+olive-colored above where the other is blue. But the Blue-Bird does not
+equal the Redbreast as a songster. His notes are few, not greatly
+varied, though melodious and sweetly and plaintively modulated, and
+never loud. On account of their want of variety, they do not enchain a
+listener, but they constitute a delightful part in the woodland melodies
+of morn.
+
+The importance of the inferior singers in making up a general chorus is
+not always appreciated. In an artificial musical composition, as in an
+oratorio or an anthem, though there is a leading part, which is commonly
+the air, that gives character to the whole, yet this principal part
+would often be a very indifferent piece of melody, if performed without
+its accompaniments. These accompaniments by themselves would seem still
+more unimportant and trifling. Yet if the composition be the work of a
+master, however trifling and comparatively insignificant these brief
+strains or snatches, they are intimately connected with the harmony of
+the piece, and could not be omitted without a serious derangement of the
+grand effect. The inferior singing-birds, on the same principle, are
+indispensable as aids in giving additional effect to the notes of the
+chief singers.
+
+Though the Robin is the principal musician in the general orison of
+dawn, his notes would become tiresome, if heard without accompaniments.
+Nature has so arranged the harmony of this chorus, that one part shall
+assist another; and so exquisitely has she combined all the different
+voices, that the silence of any one can never fail to be immediately
+perceived. The low, mellow warble of the Blue-Bird seems a sort of echo
+to the louder voice of the Robin; and the incessant trilling or running
+accompaniment of the Hair-Bird, the twittering of the Swallow, and the
+loud and melodious piping of the Oriole, frequent and short, are sounded
+like the different parts of a regular band of instruments, and each
+performer seems to time his part as if by design. Any discordant sound,
+that may happen to be made in the midst of this performance, never fails
+to disturb the equanimity of the singers, and some minutes must elapse
+before they recommence their parts.
+
+It would be difficult to draw a correct comparison between the different
+birds and the various instruments in an orchestra. It would be more easy
+to signify them by notes on the gamut. But if the Robin were supposed to
+represent the German flute, the Blue-Bird might be considered as the
+flageolet, frequently, but not incessantly, interposing a few mellow
+strains, the Swallow and the Hair-Bird the octave flute, and the Golden
+Robin the bugle, sounding occasionally a low but brief strain. The
+analogy could not be carried farther without losing force and
+correctness.
+
+All the notes of the Blue-Bird--his call-notes, his notes of alarm, his
+chirp, and his song--are equally plaintive, and closely resemble each
+other. I am not aware that this bird ever utters a harsh note. His
+voice, which is one of the earliest to be heard in the spring, is
+associated with the early flowers and with all pleasant vernal
+influences. When he first arrives, he perches upon the roof of a barn or
+upon some still leafless tree, and pours forth his few and frequent
+notes with evident fervor, as if conscious of the delights that await
+him. These mellow notes are all the sounds he titters for several weeks,
+seldom chirping, crying, or scolding like other birds. His song is
+discontinued in the latter part of summer; but his peculiar plaintive
+call, consisting of a single note pensively modulated, continues all
+day, until the time of frost. This sound is one of the melodies of
+summer's decline, and reminds us, like the notes of the green nocturnal
+grasshopper, of the fall of the leaf, the ripened harvest, and all the
+melancholy pleasures of autumn.
+
+The Blue-Bird builds his nest in hollow trees and posts, and may be
+encouraged to breed and multiply around our habitations, by erecting
+boxes for his accommodation. In whatever vicinity we may reside, whether
+in the clearing or in the heart of the village, if we set up a little
+bird-house in May, it will certainly be occupied by a Blue-Bird, unless
+preoccupied by a bird of some other species. There is commonly so great
+a demand for such accommodations among the feathered tribes, that it is
+not unusual to see birds of several different species contending for the
+possession of one box.
+
+After the middle of August, as a new race of winged creatures awake into
+life, the birds, who sing of the seed-time, the flowers, and of the
+early summer harvests, give place to the inferior band of
+insect-musicians. The reed and the pipe are laid aside, and myriads of
+little performers have taken up the harp and the lute, and make the air
+resound with the clash and din of their various instruments. An anthem
+of rejoicing swells up from myriads of unseen harpists, who heed not the
+fate that awaits them, but make themselves merry in every place that is
+visited by sunshine or the south-wind. The golden-rod sways its
+beautiful nodding plumes in the borders of the fields and by the rustic
+roadsides; the purple gerardia is bright in the wet meadows, and the
+scarlet lobelia in the channels of the sunken streamlets. But the birds
+heed them not; for these are not the wreaths that decorate the halls of
+their festivities. Since the rose and the lily have faded, they have
+ceased to be tuneful; some, like the Bobolink, assemble in small
+companies, and with a melancholy chirp seem to mourn over some sad
+accident that has befallen them; others still congregate about their
+usual resorts, and seem almost like strangers in the land.
+
+Nature provides inspiration for every sentiment that contributes to the
+happiness of man, as she provides sustenance for his various physical
+wants. But all is not gladness that elevates the soul into bliss; we may
+be made happy by sentiments that come not from rejoicing, even from
+objects that waken tender recollections of sorrow. As if Nature designed
+that the soul of man should find sympathy, in all its healthful moods,
+from the voices of her creatures, and from the sounds of inanimate
+objects, she has provided that all seasons should pour into his ear some
+pleasant intimations of heaven. In autumn, when the harvest-hymn of the
+day-time has ceased, at early nightfall, the green nocturnal
+grasshoppers commence their autumnal dirge, and fill the mind with a
+keen sense of the rapid passing of time. These sounds do not sadden the
+mind, but deepen the tone of our feelings, and prepare us for a renewal
+of cheerfulness, by inspiring us with the poetic sentiment of
+melancholy. This sombre state of the mind soon passes away, effaced by
+the exhilarating influence of the clear skies and invigorating breezes
+of autumn, and the inspiriting sounds of myriads of chirping insects
+that awake with the morning and make all the meadows resound with the
+shout of their merry voices.
+
+
+SONG OF THE WOOD-SPARROW.
+
+[Illustration: de de de d d d d d r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r
+r r r r r r r r r r r r r re.]
+
+NOTE.--In the early part of the season the song ends with the first
+double bar; later in the season it is extended, in frequent instances,
+as in the notes that follow.
+
+SONG OF THE CHEWINK.
+
+[Illustration: twee ta t' we we we we twee tu t' we we we we]
+
+SONG OF THE GREEN WARBLER.
+
+[Illustration: Hear me St. The - re - sa. Hear me St. The - re - sa.]
+
+SONG OF THE WOOD-THRUSH.
+
+[Illustration: too too tillere ilere tillere tilere
+
+too issele issele tse se se se s s s s se
+
+too tillery tillery oo villilil villilil too too illery ilery
+
+eh villia villia villia oo airvee ehu, etc.]
+
+
+NOTE.--I have not been able to detect any order in the succession of
+these strains, though some order undoubtedly exists, and might be
+discovered by long-continued observation. The intervals in the above
+sketch cannot be given with exactness.
+
+
+SONG OF THE VEERY.
+
+[Illustration: e-e ve re a e-e verea e-e verea e-e verea vere lil lily]
+
+or,
+
+[Illustration: e villia villia villia villia ve rehu.]
+
+NOTE.--I am far from being satisfied with the above representation of
+the song of the Veery, in which there are certain trilling and liquid
+sounds that hardly admit of notation.
+
+SONG OF THE RED MAVIS.
+
+[Illustration: drop it drop it cover it up cover it up]
+
+pull it up pull it up tut tut tut see see see there you
+have it hae it hae it
+
+see tut tut work away work away drop it drop it cover it
+up cover it up.]
+
+NOTE.--The Red Mavis makes a short pause at the end of each bar. These
+pauses are irregular in time, and cannot be correctly noted.
+
+
+NOTE OF THE PEWEE.
+
+[Illustration: pe - a - wee pe - a - wee.]
+
+
+SONG OF THE BLUE-BIRD.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE MINISTER'S WOOING.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited Mrs. Brown, and Mrs. Jones, and Deacon
+Twitchel's wife to take tea with her on the afternoon of June second,
+A.D. 17--.
+
+When one has a story to tell, one is always puzzled which end of it to
+begin at. You have a whole corps of people to introduce that _you_ know
+and your reader doesn't; and one thing so presupposes another, that,
+whichever way you turn your patchwork, the figures still seem
+ill-arranged. The small item that I have given will do as well as any
+other to begin with, as it certainly will lead you to ask, "Pray, who
+was Mrs. Katy Scudder?"--and this will start me systematically on my
+story.
+
+You must understand that in the then small seaport-town of Newport, at
+that time unconscious of its present fashion and fame, there lived
+nobody in those days who did not know "the Widow Scudder."
+
+In New England settlements a custom has obtained, which is wholesome and
+touching, of ennobling the woman whom God has made desolate, by a sort
+of brevet rank which continually speaks for her as a claim on the
+respect and consideration of the community. The Widow Jones, or Brown,
+or Smith, is one of the fixed institutions of every New England
+village,--and doubtless the designation acts as a continual plea for one
+whom bereavement, like the lightning of heaven, has made sacred.
+
+The Widow Scudder, however, was one of the sort of women who reign
+queens in whatever society they move in; nobody was more quoted, more
+deferred to, or enjoyed more unquestioned position than she. She was not
+rich,--a small farm, with a modest, "gambrel-roofed," one-story cottage,
+was her sole domain; but she was one of the much-admired class who, in
+the speech of New England, are said to have "faculty,"--a gift which,
+among that shrewd people, commands more esteem than beauty, riches,
+learning, or any otherworldly endowment. _Faculty_ is Yankee for _savoir
+faire_, and the opposite virtue to shiftlessness. Faculty is the
+greatest virtue, and shiftlessness the greatest vice, of Yankee man and
+woman. To her who has faculty nothing shall be impossible. She shall
+scrub floors, wash, wring, bake, brew, and yet her hands shall be small
+and white; she shall have no perceptible income, yet always be
+handsomely dressed; she shall have not a servant in her house,--with a
+dairy to manage, hired men to feed, a boarder or two to care for,
+unheard-of pickling and preserving to do,--and yet you commonly see her
+every afternoon sitting at her shady parlor-window behind the lilacs,
+cool and easy, hemming muslin cap-strings, or reading the last new book.
+She who hath faculty is never in a hurry, never behindhand. She can
+always step over to distressed Mrs. Smith, whose jelly won't come,--and
+stop to show Mrs. Jones how she makes her pickles so green,--and be
+ready to watch with poor old Mrs. Simpkins, who is down with the
+rheumatism.
+
+Of this genus was the Widow Scudder,--or, as the neighbors would have
+said of her, she that _was_ Katy Stephens. Katy was the only daughter of
+a shipmaster, sailing from Newport harbor, who was wrecked off the coast
+one cold December night and left small fortune to his widow and only
+child. Katy grew up, however, a tall, straight, black-eyed girl, with
+eyebrows drawn true as a bow, a foot arched like a Spanish woman's, and
+a little hand which never saw the thing it could not do,--quick of
+speech, ready of wit, and, as such girls have a right to be, somewhat
+positive withal. Katy could harness a chaise, or row a boat; she could
+saddle and ride any horse in the neighborhood; she could cut any garment
+that ever was seen or thought of; make cake, jelly, and wine, from her
+earliest years, in most precocious style;--all without seeming to
+derange a sort of trim, well-kept air of ladyhood that sat jauntily on
+her.
+
+Of course, being young and lively, she had her admirers, and some
+well-to-do in worldly affairs laid their lands and houses at Katy's
+feet; but, to the wonder of all, she would not even pick them up to look
+at them. People shook their heads, and wondered whom Katy Stephens
+expected to get, and talked about going through the wood to pick up a
+crooked stick,--till one day she astonished her world by marrying a man
+that nobody ever thought of her taking.
+
+George Scudder was a grave, thoughtful young man,--not given to talking,
+and silent in the society of women, with that kind of reverential
+bashfulness which sometimes shows a pure, unworldly nature. How Katy
+came to fancy him everybody wondered,--for he never talked to her, never
+so much as picked up her glove when it fell, never asked her to ride or
+sail; in short, everybody said she must have wanted him from sheer
+wilfulness, because he of all the young men of the neighborhood never
+courted her. But Katy, having very sharp eyes, saw some things that
+nobody else saw. For example, you must know she discovered by mere
+accident that George Scudder always was looking at her, wherever she
+moved, though he looked away in a moment, if discovered,--and that an
+accidental touch of her hand or brush of her dress would send the blood
+into his cheek like the spirit in the tube of a thermometer; and so, as
+women are curious, you know, Katy amused herself with investigating the
+causes of these little phenomena, and, before she knew it, got her foot
+caught in a cobweb that held her fast, and constrained her, whether she
+would or no, to marry a poor man that nobody cared much for but herself.
+
+George was, in truth, one of the sort who evidently have made some
+mistake in coming into this world at all, as their internal furniture is
+in no way suited to its general courses and currents. He was of the
+order of dumb poets,--most wretched when put to the grind of the hard
+and actual; for if he who would utter poetry stretches out his hand to a
+gainsaying world, he is worse off still who is possessed with the desire
+of living it. Especially is this the case, if he be born poor, and with
+a dire necessity upon him of making immediate efforts in the hard and
+actual. George had a helpless invalid mother to support; so, though he
+loved reading and silent thought above all things, he put to instant use
+the only convertible worldly talent he possessed, which was a mechanical
+genius, and shipped at sixteen as a ship-carpenter. He studied
+navigation in the forecastle, and found in its calm diagrams and
+tranquil eternal signs food for his thoughtful nature, and a refuge from
+the brutality and coarseness of sea-life. He had a healthful, kindly
+animal nature, and so his inwardness did not ferment and turn to Byronic
+sourness and bitterness; nor did he needlessly parade to everybody in
+his vicinity the great gulf which lay between him and them. He was
+called a good fellow,--only a little lumpish,--and as he was brave and
+faithful, he rose in time to be a shipmaster. But when came the business
+of making money, the aptitude for accumulating, George found himself
+distanced by many a one with not half his general powers.
+
+What shall a man do with a sublime tier of moral faculties, when the
+most profitable business out of his port is the slave-trade? So it was
+in Newport in those days. George's first voyage was on a slaver, and he
+wished himself dead many a time before it was over,--and ever after
+would talk like a man beside himself, if the subject was named. He
+declared that the gold made in it was distilled from human blood, from
+mothers' tears, from the agonies and dying groans of gasping,
+suffocating men and women, and that it would scar and blister the soul
+of him that touched it; in short, he talked as whole-souled unpractical
+fellows are apt to talk about what respectable people sometimes do.
+Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of
+expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which
+closely-packed heathens are brought over to enjoy the light of the
+gospel.
+
+So, though George was acknowledged to be a good fellow, and honest as
+the noon-mark on the kitchen floor, he let slip so many chances of
+making money as seriously to compromise his reputation among thriving
+folks. He was wastefully generous,--insisted on treating every poor dog
+that came in his way, in any foreign port, as a brother,--absolutely
+refused to be party in cheating or deceiving the heathen on any shore,
+or in skin of any color,--and also took pains, as far as in him lay, to
+spoil any bargains which any of his subordinates founded on the
+ignorance or weakness of his fellow-men. So he made voyage after voyage,
+and gained only his wages and the reputation among his employers of an
+incorruptibly honest fellow.
+
+To be sure, it was said that he carried out books in his ship, and read
+and studied, and wrote observations on all the countries he saw, which
+Parson Smith told Miss Dolly Persimmon would really do credit to a
+printed book; but then they never _were_ printed, or, as Miss Dolly
+remarked of them, they never seemed to come to anything,--and coming to
+anything, as she understood it, meant standing in definite relations to
+bread and butter.
+
+George never cared, however, for money. He made enough to keep his
+mother comfortable, and that was enough for him, till he fell in love
+with Katy Stephens. He looked at her through those glasses which such
+men carry in their souls, and she was a mortal woman no longer, but a
+transfigured, glorified creature,--an object of awe and wonder. He was
+actually afraid of her; her glove, her shoe, her needle, thread, and
+thimble, her bonnet-string, everything, in short, she wore or touched,
+became invested with a mysterious charm. He wondered at the impudence of
+men that could walk up and talk to her,--that could ask her to dance
+with such an assured air. _Now_ he wished he were rich; he dreamed
+impossible chances of his coming home a millionnaire to lay unknown
+wealth at Katy's feet; and when Miss Persimmon, the ambulatory
+dress-maker of the neighborhood, in making up a new black gown for his
+mother, recounted how Captain Blatherem had sent Katy Stephens "'most
+the splendidest India shawl that ever she did see," he was ready to tear
+his hair at the thought of his poverty. But even in that hour of
+temptation he did not repent that he had refused all part and lot in the
+ship by which Captain Blatherem's money was made, for he knew every
+timber of it to be seasoned by the groans and saturated with the sweat
+of human agony. True love is a natural sacrament; and if ever a young
+man thanks God for having saved what is noble and manly in his soul, it
+is when he thinks of offering it to the woman he loves. Nevertheless,
+the India-shawl story cost him a night's rest; nor was it till Miss
+Persimmon had ascertained, by a private confabulation with Katy's
+mother, that she had indignantly rejected it, and that she treated the
+Captain "real ridiculous," that he began to take heart. "He ought not,"
+he said, "to stand in her way now, when he had nothing to offer. No, he
+would leave Katy free to do better, if she could; he would try his luck,
+and if, when he came home from the next voyage, Katy was disengaged,
+why, then he would lay all at her feet."
+
+And so George was going to sea with a secret shrine in his soul, at
+which he was to burn unsuspected incense.
+
+But, after all, the mortal maiden whom he adored suspected this private
+arrangement, and contrived--as women will--to get her own key into the
+lock of his secret temple; because, as girls say, "she was _determined_
+to know what was there." So, one night, she met him quite accidentally
+on the sea-sands, struck up a little conversation, and begged him in
+such a pretty way to bring her a spotted shell from the South Sea like
+the one on his mother's mantel-piece, and looked so simple and childlike
+in saying it, that our young man very imprudently committed himself by
+remarking, that, "When people had rich friends to bring them all the
+world from foreign parts, he never dreamed of her wanting so trivial a
+thing."
+
+Of course Katy "didn't know what he meant,--she hadn't heard of any rich
+friends." And then came something about Captain Blatherem; and Katy
+tossed her head, and said, "If anybody wanted to insult her, they might
+talk to her about Captain Blatherem,"--and then followed this, that, and
+the other till finally, as you might expect, out came all that never was
+to have been said; and Katy was almost frightened at the terrible
+earnestness of the spirit she had evoked. She tried to laugh, and ended
+by crying, and saying she hardly knew what; but when she came to herself
+in her own room at home, she found on her finger a ring of African gold
+that George had put there, which she did not send back like Captain
+Blatherem's presents.
+
+Katy was like many intensely matter-of-fact and practical women, who
+have not in themselves a bit of poetry or a particle of ideality, but
+who yet worship these qualities in others with the homage which the
+Indians paid to the unknown tongue of the first whites. They are
+secretly weary of a certain conscious dryness of nature in themselves,
+and this weariness predisposes them to idolize the man who brings them
+this unknown gift. Naturalists say that every defect of organization has
+its compensation, and men of ideal natures find in the favor of women
+the equivalent for their disabilities among men.
+
+Do you remember, at Niagara, a little cataract on the American side,
+which throws its silver sheeny veil over a cave called the Grot of
+Rainbows? Whoever stands on a rock in that grotto sees himself in the
+centre of a rainbow-circle, above, below, around. In like manner, merry,
+chatty, positive, busy, housewifely Katy saw herself standing in a
+rainbow-shrine in her lover's inner soul, and liked to see herself so. A
+woman, by-the-by, must be very insensible, who is not moved to come upon
+a higher plane of being, herself, by seeing how undoubtingly she is
+insphered in the heart of a good and noble man. A good man's, faith in
+you, fair lady, if you ever have it, will make you better and nobler
+even before you know it.
+
+Katy made an excellent wife; she took home her husband's old mother and
+nursed her with a dutifulness and energy worthy of all praise, and made
+her own keen outward faculties and deft handiness a compensation for the
+defects in worldly estate. Nothing would make Katy's black eyes flash
+quicker than any reflections on her husband's want of luck in the
+material line. "She didn't know whose business it was, if _she_ was
+satisfied. She hated these sharp, gimlet, gouging sort of men that would
+put a screw between body and soul for money. George had that in him that
+nobody understood. She would rather be his wife on bread and water than
+to take Captain Blatherem's house, carriages, and horse, and all,--and
+she _might_ have had 'em fast enough, dear knows. She was sick of making
+money when she saw what sort of men could make it,"--and so on. All
+which talk did her infinite credit, because _at bottom_ she _did_ care,
+and was naturally as proud and ambitious a little minx as ever breathed,
+and was thoroughly grieved at heart at George's want of worldly success;
+but, like a nice little Robin Redbreast, she covered up the grave of her
+worldliness with the leaves of true love, and sung a "Who cares for
+that?" above it.
+
+Her thrifty management of the money her husband brought her soon bought
+a snug little farm, and put up the little brown gambrel-roofed cottage
+to which we directed your attention in the first of our story. Children
+were born to them, and George found, in short intervals between voyages,
+his home an earthly paradise. Ho was still sailing, with the fond
+illusion, in every voyage, of making enough to remain at home,--when the
+yellow fever smote him under the line, and the ship returned to Newport
+without its captain.
+
+George was a Christian man;--he had been one of the first to attach
+himself to the unpopular and unworldly ministry of the celebrated Dr.
+H., and to appreciate the sublime ideality and unselfishness of those
+teachings which then were awakening new sensations in the theological
+mind of New England. Katy, too, had become a professor with her husband
+in the same church, and his death, in the midst of life, deepened the
+power of her religious impressions. She became absorbed in religion,
+after the fashion of New England, where devotion is doctrinal, not
+ritual. As she grew older, her energy of character, her vigor and good
+judgment, caused her to be regarded as a mother in Israel; the minister
+boarded at her house, and it was she who was first to be consulted in
+all matters relating to the well-being of the church. No woman could
+more manfully breast a long sermon, or bring a more determined faith to
+the reception of a difficult doctrine. To say the truth, there lay at
+the bottom of her doctrinal system this stable corner-stone,--"Mr.
+Scudder used to believe it,--_I_ will." And after all that is paid about
+independent thought, isn't the fact, that a just and good soul has thus
+or thus believed, a more respectable argument than many that often are
+adduced? If it be not, more's the pity,--since two-thirds of the faith
+in the world is built on no better foundation.
+
+In time, George's old mother was gathered to her son, and two sons and a
+daughter followed their father to the invisible,--one only remaining of
+the flock and she a person with whom you and I, good reader, have joint
+concern in the further unfolding of our story.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+As I before remarked, Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited company to tea.
+Strictly speaking, it is necessary to begin with the creation of the
+world, in order to give a full account of anything. But, for popular
+use, something less may serve one's turn, and therefore I shall let the
+past chapter suffice to introduce my story, and shall proceed to arrange
+my scenery and act my little play on the supposition you know enough to
+understand things and persons.
+
+Being asked to tea in our New England in the year 17-- meant something
+very different from the same invitation in our more sophisticated days.
+In those times, people held to the singular opinion, that the night was
+made to sleep in; they inferred it from a general confidence they had in
+the wisdom of Mother Nature, supposing that she did not put out her
+lights and draw her bed-curtains and hush all noise in her great
+world-house without strongly intending that her children should go to
+sleep; and the consequence was, that very soon after sunset the whole
+community very generally set their faces bedward, and the toll of the
+nine-o'clock evening-bell had an awful solemnity in it, sounding to the
+full. Good society in New England in those days very generally took its
+breakfast at six, its dinner at twelve, and its tea, at six. "Company
+tea," however, among thrifty, industrious folk, was often taken an hour
+earlier, because each of the _invit�es_ had children to put to bed, or
+other domestic cares at home, and, as in those simple times people were
+invited because you wanted to see them, a tea-party assembled themselves
+at three and held session till sundown, when each matron rolled up her
+knitting-work and wended soberly home.
+
+Though Newport, even in those early times, was not without its families
+which affected state and splendor, rolled about in carriages with
+armorial emblazonments, and had servants in abundance to every turn
+within-doors, yet there, as elsewhere in New England, the majority of
+the people lived with the wholesome, thrifty simplicity of the olden
+time, when labor and intelligence went hand in hand, in perhaps a
+greater harmony than the world has ever seen.
+
+Our scene opens in the great old-fashioned kitchen, which, on ordinary
+occasions, is the family dining and sitting-room of the Scudder family.
+I know fastidious moderns think that the working-room, wherein are
+carried on the culinary operations of a large family, must necessarily
+be an untidy and comfortless sitting-place; but it is only because they
+are ignorant of the marvellous workings which pertain to the organ of
+"faculty," on which we have before insisted. The kitchen of a New
+England matron was her throne-room, her pride; it was the habit of her
+life to produce the greatest possible results there with the slightest
+possible discomposure; and what any woman could do, Mrs. Katy Scudder
+could do _par excellence_. Everything there seemed to be always done and
+never doing. Washing and baking, those formidable disturbers of the
+composure of families, were all over with in those two or three
+morning-hours when we are composing ourselves for a last nap,--and only
+the fluttering of linen over the green yard, on Monday mornings,
+proclaimed that the dreaded solemnity of a wash had transpired. A
+breakfast arose there as by magic; and in an incredibly short space
+after, every knife, fork, spoon, and trencher, clean and shining, was
+looking as innocent and unconscious in its place as if it never had been
+used and never expected to be.
+
+The floor,--perhaps, Sir, you remember your grandmother's floor, of
+snowy boards sanded with whitest sand; you remember the ancient
+fireplace stretching quite across one end,--a vast cavern, in each
+corner of which a cozy seat might be found, distant enough to enjoy the
+crackle of the great jolly wood-fire; across the room ran a dresser, on
+which was displayed great store of shining pewter dishes and plates,
+which always shone with the same mysterious brightness; and by the side
+of the fire, a commodious wooden "settee," or settle, offered repose to
+people too little accustomed to luxury to ask for a cushion. Oh, that
+kitchen of the olden times, the old, clean, roomy New England
+kitchen!--who that has breakfasted, dined, and supped in one has not
+cheery visions of its thrift, its warmth, its coolness? The noon-mark on
+its floor was a dial that told of some of the happiest days; thereby did
+we right up the shortcomings of the solemn old clock that tick-tacked in
+the corner, and whose ticks seemed mysterious prophecies of unknown good
+yet to arise out of the hours of life. How dreamy the winter twilight
+came in there,--as yet the candles were not lighted,--when the crickets
+chirped around the dark stone hearth, and shifting tongues of flame
+flickered and cast dancing shadows and elfish lights on the walls, while
+grandmother nodded over her knitting-work, and puss purred, and old
+Rover lay dreamily opening now one eye and then the other on the family
+group! With all our ceiled houses, let us not forget our grandmothers'
+kitchens!
+
+But we must pull up, however, and back to our subject-matter, which is
+in the kitchen of Mrs. Katy Scudder, who has just put into the oven, by
+the fireplace, some wondrous tea-rusks, for whose composition she is
+renowned. She has examined and pronounced perfect a loaf of cake, which
+has been prepared for the occasion, and which, as usual, is done exactly
+right. The best room, too, has been opened and aired,--the white
+window-curtains saluted with a friendly little shake, as when one says,
+"How d'ye do?" to a friend;--for you must know, clean as our kitchen is,
+we are genteel, and have something better for company. Our best room in
+here has a polished little mahogany tea-table, and six mahogany chairs,
+with claw talons grasping balls; the white sanded floor is crinkled in
+curious little waves, like those on the sea-beach; and right across the
+corner stands the "buffet," as it is called, with its transparent glass
+doors, wherein are displayed the solemn appurtenances of company
+tea-table. There you may see a set of real China teacups, which George
+bought in Canton, and had marked with his and his wife's joint
+initials,--a small silver cream-pitcher, which has come down as an
+heirloom from unknown generations,--silver spoons and delicate China
+cake-plates, which have been all carefully reviewed and wiped on napkins
+of Mrs. Scudder's own weaving.
+
+Her cares now over, she stands drying her hands on a roller-towel in the
+kitchen, while her only daughter, the gentle Mary, stands in the doorway
+with the afternoon sun streaming in spots of flickering golden light on
+her smooth pale-brown hair,--a _petite_ figure in a full stuff petticoat
+and white short gown, she stands reaching up one hand and cooing to
+something among the apple-blossoms,--and now a Java dove comes whirring
+down and settles on her finger,--and we, that have seen pictures, think,
+as we look on her girlish face, with its lines of statuesque beauty, on
+the tremulous, half-infantine expression of her lovely mouth, and the
+general air of simplicity and purity, of some old pictures of the
+girlhood of the Virgin. But Mrs. Scudder was thinking of no such Popish
+matter, I can assure you,--not she! I don't think you could have done
+her a greater indignity than to mention her daughter in any such
+connection. She had never seen a painting in her life, and therefore was
+not to be reminded of them; and furthermore, the dove was evidently, for
+some reason, no favorite,--for she said, in a quick, imperative tone,
+"Come, come, child! don't fool with that bird,--it's high time we were
+dressed and ready,"--and Mary, blushing, as it would seem, even to her
+hair, gave a little toss, and sent the bird, like a silver fluttering
+cloud, up among the rosy apple-blossoms. And now she and her mother have
+gone to their respective little bedrooms for the adjustment of their
+toilettes, and while the door is shut and nobody hears us, we shall talk
+to you about Mary.
+
+Newport at the present day blooms like a flower-garden with young ladies
+of the best _ton_,--lovely girls, hopes of their families, possessed of
+amiable tempers and immensely large trunks, and capable of sporting
+ninety changes of raiment in thirty days and otherwise rapidly emptying
+the purses of distressed fathers, and whom yet travellers and the world
+in general look upon as genuine specimens of the kind of girls formed by
+American institutions.
+
+We fancy such a one lying in a rustling silk _n�glig�e_, and, amid a
+gentle generality of rings, ribbons, puffs, laces, beaux, and
+dinner-discussion, reading our humble sketch;--and what favor shall our
+poor heroine find in her eyes? For though her mother was a world of
+energy and "faculty," in herself considered, and had bestowed on this
+one little lone chick all the vigor and all the care and all the
+training which would have sufficed for a family of sixteen, there were
+no results produced which could be made appreciable in the eyes of such
+company. She could not waltz or polk, or speak bad French or sing
+Italian songs; but, nevertheless, we must proceed to say what was her
+education and what her accomplishments.
+
+Well, then, she could both read and write fluently in the mother-tongue.
+She could spin both on the little and the great wheel, and there were
+numberless towels, napkins, sheets, and pillow-cases in the household
+store that could attest the skill of her pretty fingers. She had worked
+several samplers of such rare merit, that they hung framed in different
+rooms of the house, exhibiting every variety and style of possible
+letter in the best marking-stitch. She was skilful in all sewing and
+embroidery, in all shaping and cutting, with a quiet and deft handiness
+that constantly surprised her energetic mother, who could not conceive
+that so much could be done with so little noise. In fact, in all
+household lore she was a veritable good fairy; her knowledge seemed
+unerring and intuitive; and whether she washed or ironed, or moulded
+biscuit or conserved plums, her gentle beauty seemed to turn to poetry
+all the prose of life.
+
+There was something in Mary, however, which divided her as by an
+appreciable line from ordinary girls of her age. From her father she had
+inherited a deep and thoughtful nature, predisposed to moral and
+religious exaltation. Had she been born in Italy, under the dissolving
+influences of that sunny, dreamy clime, beneath the shadow of
+cathedrals, and where pictured saints and angels smiled in clouds of
+painting from every arch and altar, she might, like fair St. Catherine
+of Siena, have seen beatific visions in the sunset skies, and a silver
+dove descending upon her as she prayed; but, unfolding in the clear,
+keen, cold New England clime, and nurtured in its abstract and positive
+theologies, her religious faculties took other forms. Instead of lying
+entranced in mysterious raptures at the foot of altars, she read and
+ponder treatises on the Will, and listened in rapt attention while her
+spiritual guide, the venerated Dr. H., unfolded to her the theories of
+the great Edwards on the nature of true virtue. Womanlike, she felt the
+subtile poetry of these sublime abstractions which dealt with such
+infinite and unknown quantities,--which spoke of the universe, of its
+great Architect, of man, of angels, as matters of intimate and daily
+contemplation; and her teacher, a grand-minded and simple-hearted man as
+ever lived, was often amazed at the tread with which this fair young
+child walked through these high regions of abstract thought,--often
+comprehending through an ethereal clearness of nature what he had
+laboriously and heavily reasoned out; and sometimes, when she turned her
+grave, childlike face upon him with some question or reply, the good man
+started as if an angel had looked suddenly out upon him from a cloud.
+Unconsciously to himself, he often seemed to follow her, as Dante
+followed the flight of Beatrice, through the ascending circles of the
+celestial spheres.
+
+When her mother questioned him, anxiously, of her daughter's spiritual
+estate, he answered, that she was a child of a strange graciousness of
+nature, and of a singular genius; to which Katy responded, with a
+woman's pride, that she was all her father over again. It is only now
+and then that a matter-of-fact woman is sublimated by a real love; but
+if she is, it is affecting to see how impossible it is for death to
+quench it; for in the child the mother feels that she has a mysterious
+and undying repossession of the father.
+
+But, in truth, Mary was only a recast in feminine form of her father's
+nature. The elixir of the spirit that sparkled within, her was of that
+quality of which the souls of poets and artists are made; but the keen
+New England air crystalizes emotions into ideas, and restricts many a
+poetic soul to the necessity of expressing itself only in practical
+living.
+
+The rigid theological discipline of New England is fitted to produce
+rather strength and purity than enjoyment. It was not fitted to make a
+sensitive and thoughtful nature happy, however it might ennoble and
+exalt.
+
+The system of Dr. H. was one that could have had its origin in a soul at
+once reverential and logical,--a soul, moreover, trained from its
+earliest years in the habits of thought engendered by monarchical
+institutions. For although he, like other ministers, took an active part
+as a patriot in the Revolution, still he was brought up under the shadow
+of a throne, and a man cannot ravel out the stitches in which early days
+have knit him. His theology was, in fact, the turning to an invisible
+Sovereign of that spirit of loyalty and unquestioning subjugation which
+is one of the noblest capabilities of our nature. And as a gallant
+soldier renounces life and personal aims in the cause of his king and
+country, and holds himself ready to be drafted for a forlorn hope, to be
+shot down, or help make a bridge of his mangled body, over which the
+more fortunate shall pass to victory and glory, so he regarded himself
+as devoted to the King Eternal, ready in His hands to be used to
+illustrate and build up an Eternal Commonwealth, either by being
+sacrificed as a lost spirit or glorified as a redeemed one, ready to
+throw not merely his mortal life, but his immortality even, into the
+forlorn hope, to bridge with a never-dying soul the chasm over which
+white-robed victors should pass to a commonwealth of glory and splendor
+whose vastness dwarf the misery of all the lost infinitesimal.
+
+It is not in our line to imply the truth or the falsehood of those
+systems of philosophic theology which seem for many years to have been
+the principal outlet for the proclivities of the New England mind, but
+as psychological developments they have an intense interest. He who does
+not see a grand side to these strivings of the soul cannot understand
+one of the noblest capabilities of humanity.
+
+No real artist or philosopher ever lived who has not at some hours risen
+to the height of utter self-abnegation for the glory of the invisible.
+There have been painters who would have been crucified to demonstrate
+the action of a muscle,--chemists who would gladly have melted
+themselves and all humanity in their crucible, if so a new discovery
+might arise out of its fumes. Even persons of mere artistic sensibility
+are at times raised by music, painting, or poetry to a momentary trance
+of self-oblivion, in which they would offer their whole being before the
+shrine of an invisible loveliness. These hard old New England divines
+were the poets of metaphysical philosophy, who built systems in an
+artistic fervor, and felt self exhale from beneath them as they rose
+into the higher regions of thought. But where theorists and philosophers
+tread with sublime assurance, woman often follows with bleeding
+footsteps;--women are always turning from the abstract to the
+individual, and feeling where the philosopher only thinks.
+
+It was easy enough for Mary to believe in _self_-renunciation, for she
+was one with a born vocation for martyrdom; and so, when the idea was
+put to her of suffering eternal pains for the glory of God and the good
+of being in general, she responded to it with a sort of sublime thrill,
+such as it is given to some natures to feel in view of uttermost
+sacrifice. But when she looked around on the warm, living faces of
+friends, acquaintances, and neighbors, viewing them as possible
+candidates for dooms so fearfully different, she sometimes felt the
+walls of her faith closing round her as an iron shroud,--she wondered
+that the sun could shine so brightly, that flowers could flaunt such
+dazzling colors, that sweet airs could breathe, and little children
+play, and youth love and hope, and a thousand intoxicating influences
+combine to cheat the victims from the thought that their next step might
+be into an abyss of horrors without end. The blood of youth and hope was
+saddened by this great sorrow, which lay ever on her heart,--and her
+life, unknown to herself, was a sweet tune in the minor key; it was only
+in prayer, or deeds of love and charity, or in rapt contemplation of
+that beautiful millennial day which her spiritual guide most delighted
+to speak of, that the tone of her feelings ever rose to the height of
+joy.
+
+Among Mary's young associates was one who had been as a brother to her
+childhood. He was her mother's cousin's son,--and so, by a sort of
+family immunity, had always a free access to her mother's house. He took
+to the sea, as the most bold and resolute young men will, and brought
+home from foreign parts those new modes of speech, those other eyes for
+received opinions and established things, which so often shock
+established prejudices,--so that he was held as little better than an
+infidel and a castaway by the stricter religious circles in his native
+place. Mary's mother, now that Mary was grown up to woman's estate,
+looked with a severe eye on her cousin. She warned her daughter against
+too free an association with him,--and so----We all know what comes to
+pass when girls are constantly warned not to think of a man. The most
+conscientious and obedient little person in the world, Mary resolved to
+be very careful. She never would think of James, except, of course, in
+her prayers; but as these were constant, it may easily be seen it was
+not easy to forget him.
+
+All that was so often told her of his carelessness, his trifling, his
+contempt of orthodox opinions, and his startling and bold expressions,
+only wrote his name deeper in her heart,--for was not his soul in peril?
+Could she look in his frank, joyous fate and listen to his thoughtless
+laugh, and then think that a fall from mast-head, or one night's storm,
+might----Ah, with what images her faith filled the blank! Could she
+believe all this and forget him?
+
+You see, instead of getting our tea ready, as we promised at the
+beginning of this chapter, we have filled it with descriptions and
+meditations, and now we foresee that the next chapter will be equally
+far from the point. But have patience with us; for we can write only as
+we are driven, and never know exactly where we are going to land.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A quiet, maiden-like place was Mary's little room. The window looked out
+under the overarching boughs of a thick apple-orchard, now all in a
+blush with blossoms and pink-tipped buds, and the light came
+golden-green, strained through flickering leaves,--and an ever-gentle
+rustle and whirr of branches and blossoms, a chitter of birds, and an
+indefinite whispering motion, as the long heads of orchard-grass nodded
+and bowed to each other under the trees, seemed to give the room the
+quiet hush of some little side-chapel in a cathedral, where green and
+golden glass softens the sunlight, and only the sigh and rustle of
+kneeling worshippers break the stillness of the aisles. It was small
+enough for a nun's apartment, and dainty in its neatness as the waxen
+cell of a bee. The bed and low window were draped in spotless white,
+with fringes of Mary's own knotting. A small table under the
+looking-glass bore the library of a well-taught young woman of those
+times. "The Spectator," "Paradise Lost," Shakspeare, and "Robinson
+Crusoe" stood for the admitted secular literature, and beside them the
+Bible and the works then published of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Laid a
+little to one side, as if of doubtful reputation, was the only novel
+which the stricter people in those days allowed for the reading of their
+daughters: that seven-volumed, trailing, tedious, delightful old bore,
+"Sir Charles Grandison,"--a book whose influence in those times was so
+universal, that it may be traced in the epistolary style even of the
+gravest divines. Our little heroine was mortal, with all her divinity,
+and had an imagination which sometimes wandered to the things of earth;
+and this glorious hero in lace and embroidery, who blended rank,
+gallantry, spirit, knowledge of the world, disinterestedness, constancy,
+and piety, sometimes walked before her, while she sat spinning at her
+wheel, till she sighed, she hardly knew why, that no such men walked the
+earth now. Yet it is to be confessed, this occasional raid of the
+romantic into Mary's balanced and well-ordered mind was soon
+energetically put to rout, and the book, as we have said, remained on
+her table under protest,--protected by being her father's gift to her
+mother during their days of courtship. The small looking-glass was
+curiously wreathed with corals and foreign shells, so disposed as to
+indicate an artistic eye and skilful hand; and some curious Chinese
+paintings of birds and flowers gave rather a piquant and foreign air to
+the otherwise homely neatness of the apartment.
+
+Here in this little retreat Mary spent those few hours which her
+exacting conscience would allow her to spare from her busy-fingered
+household-life; here she read and wrote and thought and prayed;--and
+here she stands now, arraying herself for the tea company that
+afternoon. Dress, which in our day is becoming in some cases the whole
+of woman, was in those times a remarkably simple affair. True, every
+person of a certain degree of respectability had state and festival
+robes; and a certain camphor-wood brass-bound trunk, which was always
+kept solemnly locked in Mrs. Katy Scudder's apartment, if it could have
+spoken, might have given off quite a catalogue of brocade satin and
+laces. The wedding-suit there slumbered in all the unsullied whiteness
+of its stiff ground broidered with heavy knots of flowers; and there
+were scarfs of wrought India muslin and embroidered crape, each of which
+had its history,--for each had been brought into the door with beating
+heart on some return voyage of one who, alas, should return no more! The
+old trunk stood with its histories, its imprisoned remembrances,--and a
+thousand tender thoughts seemed to be shaping out of every rustling fold
+of silk and embroidery, on the few yearly occasions when all were
+brought out to be aired, their history related, and then solemnly locked
+up again. Nevertheless, the possession of these things gave to the women
+of an establishment a certain innate dignity, like a good conscience; so
+that in that larger portion of existence commonly denominated among them
+"every day," they were content with plain stuff and homespun. Mary's
+toilette, therefore, was sooner made than those of Newport belles of the
+present day; it simply consisted in changing her ordinary "short gown
+and petticoat" for another of somewhat nicer materials,--a skirt of
+India chintz and a striped jacconet short-gown. Her hair was of the kind
+which always lies like satin; but, nevertheless, girls never think their
+toilette complete unless the smoothest hair has been shaken down and
+rearranged. A few moments, however, served to braid its shining folds
+and dispose them in their simple knot on the back of the head; and
+having given a final stroke to each side with her little dimpled hands,
+she sat down a moment at the window, thoughtfully watching where the
+afternoon sun was creeping through the slats of the fence in long lines
+of gold among the tall, tremulous orchard-grass, and unconsciously she
+began warbling, in a low, gurgling voice, the words of a familiar hymn,
+whose grave earnestness accorded well with the general tone of her life
+and education:--
+
+    "Life is the time to serve the Lord,
+    The time to insure the great reward."
+
+There was a swish and rustle in the orchard-grass, and a tramp of
+elastic steps; then the branches were brushed aside, and a young man
+suddenly emerged from the trees a little behind Mary. He was apparently
+about twenty-five, dressed in the holiday rig of a sailor on shore,
+which well set off his fine athletic figure, and accorded with a sort of
+easy, dashing, and confident air which sat not unhandsomely on him. For
+the rest, a high forehead shaded by rings of the blackest hair, a keen,
+dark eye, a firm and determined mouth, gave the impression of one who
+had engaged to do battle with life, not only with a will, but with
+shrewdness and ability.
+
+He introduced the colloquy by stepping deliberately behind Mary, putting
+his arms round her neck, and kissing her.
+
+"Why, James!" said Mary, starting up, and blushing. "Come, now!"
+
+"I have come, haven't I?" said the young man, leaning his elbow on the
+window-seat and looking at her with an air of comic determined
+frankness, which yet had in it such wholesome honesty that it was
+scarcely possible to be angry. "The fact is, Mary," he added, with a
+sudden earnest darkening of the face, "I won't stand this nonsense any
+longer. Aunt Katy has been holding me at arm's length ever since I got
+home; and what have I done? Haven't I been to every prayer-meeting and
+lecture and sermon, since I got into port, just as regular as a
+psalm-book? and not a bit of a word could I get with you, and no chance
+even so much as to give you my arm. Aunt Kate always comes between us
+and says, 'Here, Mary, you take my arm.' What does she think I go to
+meeting for, and almost break my jaws keeping down the gapes? I never
+even go to sleep, and yet I'm treated in this way! It's too bad! What's
+the row? What's anybody been saying about me? I always have waited on
+you ever since you were that high. Didn't I always draw you to school on
+my sled? didn't we always use to do our sums together? didn't I always
+wait on you to singing-school? and I've been made free to run in and out
+as if I were your brother;--and now she is as glum and stiff, and always
+stays in the room every minute of the time that I am there, as if she
+was afraid I should be in some mischief. It's too bad!"
+
+"Oh, James, I am sorry that you only go to meeting for the sake of
+seeing me; you feel no real interest in religious things; and besides,
+mother thinks now I'm grown so old, that----Why, you know things are
+different now,--at least, we mustn't, you know, always do as we did when
+we were children. But I wish you did feel more interested in good
+things."
+
+"I _am_ interested in one or two good things, Mary,--principally in you,
+who are the beat I know of. Besides," he said quickly, and scanning her
+face attentively to see the effect of his words, "don't you think there
+is more merit in my sitting out all these meetings, when they bore me so
+confoundedly, than there is in your and Aunt Katy's doing it, who really
+seem to find something to like in them? I believe you have a sixth
+sense, quite unknown to me; for it's all a maze,--I can't find top, nor
+bottom, nor side, nor up, nor down to it,--it's you can and you can't,
+you shall and you sha'n't, you will and you won't,"----
+
+"James!"
+
+"You needn't look at me so. I'm not going to say the rest of it. But,
+seriously, it's all anywhere and nowhere to me; it don't touch me, it
+don't help me, and I think it rather makes me worse; and then they tell
+me it's because I'm a natural man, and the natural man understandeth not
+the things of the Spirit. Well, I _am_ a natural man,--how's a fellow to
+help it?"
+
+"Well, James, why need you talk everywhere as you do? You joke, and
+jest, and trifle, till it seems to everybody that you don't believe in
+anything. I'm afraid mother thinks you are an infidel, but I _know_ that
+can't be; yet we hear of all sorts of things that you say."
+
+"I suppose you mean my telling Deacon Twitchel that I had seen as good
+Christians among the Mahometans as any in Newport. _Didn't_ I make him
+open his eyes? It's true, too!"
+
+"In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is
+accepted of Him," said Mary; "and if there are better Christians than us
+among the Mahometans, I am sure I'm glad of it. But, after all, the
+great question is, 'Are we Christians ourselves?' Oh, James, if you only
+were a real, true, noble Christian!"
+
+"Well, Mary, you have got into that harbor, through all the sandbars and
+rocks and crooked channels; and now do you think it right to leave a
+fellow beating about outside, and not go out to help him in? This way of
+drawing up, among you good people, and leaving us sinners to ourselves,
+isn't generous. You might care a little for the soul of an old friend,
+anyhow!"
+
+"And don't I care, James? How many days and nights have been one prayer
+for you! If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give
+them to you, I would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, 'I could
+wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen'; and he
+went on to show how we must be willing to give up even our own
+salvation, if necessary, for the good of others. People said it was hard
+doctrine, but I could feel my way through it very well. Yes, I would
+give my soul for yours; I wish I could."
+
+There was a solemnity and pathos in Mary's manner which checked the
+conversation. James was the more touched because he felt it all so real,
+from one whose words were always yea and nay, so true, so inflexibly
+simple. Her eyes filled with tears, her face kindled with a sad
+earnestness, and James thought, as he looked, of a picture he had once
+seen in a European cathedral, where the youthful Mother of Sorrows is
+represented,
+
+    "Radiant and grave, as pitying man's decline;
+    All youth, but with an aspect beyond time;
+    Mournful, but mournful of another's crime;
+    She looked as if she sat by Ellen's door,
+    And grieved for those who should return no more."
+
+James had thought he loved Mary; he had admired her remarkable beauty,
+he had been proud of a certain right in her before that of other young
+men, her associates; he had thought of her as the keeper of his home; he
+had wished to appropriate her wholly to himself;--but in all this there
+had been, after all, only the thought of what she was to be to him; and
+this, for this poor measure of what he called love, she was ready to
+offer, an infinite sacrifice.
+
+As a subtile flash of lightning will show in a moment a whole landscape,
+tower, town, winding stream, and distant sea, so that one subtile ray of
+feeling seemed in a moment to reveal to James the whole of his past
+life; and it seemed to him so poor, so meagre, so shallow, by the side
+of that childlike woman, to whom the noblest of feelings were
+unconscious matters of course, that a sort of awe awoke in him; like the
+Apostles of old, he "feared as he entered into the cloud"; it seemed as
+if the deepest string of some eternal sorrow had vibrated between them.
+
+After a moment's pause, he spoke in a low and altered voice:--
+
+"Mary, I am a sinner. No psalm or sermon ever taught it to me, but I see
+it now. Your mother is quite right, Mary; you are too good for me; I am
+no mate for you. Oh, what would you think of me, if you knew me wholly?
+I have lived a mean, miserable, shallow, unworthy life. You are worthy,
+you are a saint, and walk in white! Oh, what upon earth could ever make
+you care so much for me?"
+
+"Well, then, James, you will be good? Won't you talk with Dr. H.?"
+
+"Hang Dr. H.!" said James. "Now, Mary, I beg your pardon, but I can't
+make head or tail of a word Dr. H. says. I don't get hold of it, or know
+what he would be at. You girls and women don't know your power. Why,
+Mary, you are a living gospel. You have always had a strange power over
+us boys. You never talked religion much, but I have seen high fellows
+come away from being with you as still and quite as one feels when one
+goes into a church. I can't understand all the hang of predestination,
+and moral ability, and natural ability, and God's efficiency, and man's
+agency, which Dr. H. is so engaged about; but I can understand _you_,
+_you_ can do me good!"
+
+"Oh, James, can I?"
+
+"Mary, I'm going to confess my sins. I saw, that, somehow or other, the
+wind was against me in Aunt Katy's quarter, and you know we fellows who
+take up the world in both fists don't like to be beat. If there's
+opposition, it sets us on. Now I confess I never did care much about
+religion, but I thought, without being really a hypocrite, I'd just let
+you try to save my soul for the sake of getting you; for there's nothing
+surer to hook a woman than trying to save a fellow's soul. It's a
+dead-shot, generally, that. Now our ship sails to-night, and I thought
+I'd just come across this path in the orchard to speak to you. You know
+I used always to bring you peaches and juneatings across this way, and
+once I brought you a ribbon."
+
+"Yes, I've got it yet, James."
+
+"Well, now, Mary, all this seems mean to me, mean, to try and trick and
+snare you, who are so much too good for me. I felt very proud this
+morning that I was to go out first mate this time, and that I should
+command a ship next voyage. I meant to have asked you for a promise, but
+I don't. Only, Mary, just give me your little Bible, and I'll promise to
+read it all through soberly, and see what it all comes to. And pray for
+me; and if, while I'm gone, a good man comes who loves you, and is
+worthy of you, why, take him, Mary,--that's my advice."
+
+"James, I am not thinking of any such things; I don't ever mean to be
+married. And I'm glad you don't ask me for any promise,--because it
+would be wrong to give it; mother don't even like me to be much with
+you. But I'm sure all I have said to you to-day is right; I shall tell
+her exactly all I have said."
+
+"If Aunt Katy knew what things we fellows are pitched into, who take the
+world headforemost, she wouldn't be so selfish. Mary, you girls and
+women don't know the world you live in; you ought to be pure and good:
+you are not as we are. You don't know what men, what women--no, they're
+not women!--what creatures, beset us in every foreign port, and
+boarding-houses that are gates of hell; and then, if a fellow comes back
+from all this and don't walk exactly straight, you just draw up the hems
+of your garments and stand close to the wall, for fear he should touch
+you when he passes. I don't mean you, Mary, for you are different from
+most; but if you would do what you could, you might save us. But it's no
+use talking, Mary. Give me the Bible; and please be kind to my
+dove,--for I had a hard time getting him across the water, and I don't
+want him to die."
+
+If Mary had spoken all that welled up in her little heart at that
+moment, she might have said too much; but duty had its habitual seal
+upon her lips. She took the little Bible from her table and gave it with
+a trembling hand, and James turned to go. In a moment he turned back,
+and stood irresolute.
+
+"Mary," he said, "we are cousins; I may never come back; you might kiss
+me this once."
+
+The kiss was given and received in silence, and James disappeared among
+the thick trees.
+
+"Come, child," said Aunt Katy, looking in, "there is Deacon Twitchel's
+chaise in sight,--are you ready?"
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOCRAT GIVES A BREAKFAST TO THE PUBLIC.
+
+
+Before my friend the Professor takes his place at our old table, where,
+Providence permitting, he means to wish you all a happy New Year on or
+about the First of January next, I wish you to do me the favor of being
+my guests at the table which you see spread before you.
+
+This table is a very long one. Legs in every Atlantic and inland
+city,--legs in California and Oregon,--legs on the shores of 'Quoddy and
+of Lake Pontchartrain,--legs everywhere, like a millipede or a
+banian-tree.
+
+The schoolmistress that was,--and is,--(there are her little scholars at
+the side-table.)--shall pour out coffee or tea for you as you like.
+
+Sit down and make yourselves comfortable.--A teaspoon, my dear, for
+Minnesota.--Sacramento's cup is out.
+
+Bridget has become a thought, and serves us a great deal faster than the
+sticky lightning of the submarine _par vagum_, as the Professor calls
+it.--Pepper for Kansas, Bridget.--A sandwich for Cincinnati.--Rolls and
+sardines for Washington.--A bit of the Cape Ann turkey for
+Boston.--South Carolina prefers dark meat.--Fifty thousand glasses of
+_eau sucr�e_ at once, and the rest simultaneously.--Now give us the nude
+mahogany, that we may talk over it.--Bridget becomes as a mighty wind
+and peels off the immeasurable table-cloth as a northwester strips off
+the leafy damask from the autumn woods.
+
+[At this point of the entertainment the Reporter of the "Oceanic
+Miscellany" was introduced, and to his fluent and indefatigable pen we
+owe the further account of the proceedings.--_Editors of the "Oceanic
+Miscellany."_]
+
+--The liberal and untiring editors of the "Oceanic Miscellany"
+commissioned their special reporter to be present at the Great Breakfast
+given by the personage known as the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,
+furnishing him with one of the _caput-mortuum_ tickets usually
+distributed on such occasions.
+
+The tables groaned with the delicacies of the season, provided by the
+distinguished caterers whose names are familiar in our mouths as
+household words. After the usual contest for places,--a proceeding more
+honored in the breach than the observance,--the band discoursed sweet
+music. The creature comforts were then discussed, consisting of the
+various luxuries that flesh is heir to, together with fish and fowl, too
+numerous to mention. After the material banquet had cloyed the hungry
+edge of appetite, began the feast of reason and the flow of soul. As,
+take him for all in all, the bright particular star of the evening was
+the distinguished individual who played the part of mine host, we shall
+make no apology for confining our report to the
+
+
+SPEECH OF THE AUTOCRAT.
+
+I think on the whole we have had a good time together, since we became
+acquainted. So many pleasant looks and words as have passed between us
+must mean something. For one person who speaks well or ill of us we may
+safely take it for granted that there are ten or a hundred, or an
+indefinite number, who feel in the same way, but are shy of talking.
+
+Now the first effect of being kindly received is unquestionably a
+pleasing internal commotion, out of which arises a not less pleasing
+secondary sensation, which the unthinking vulgar call conceit, but which
+is in reality an increased consciousness of life, and a most important
+part of the mechanism by which a man is advertised of his ability to
+serve his fellows, and stirred up to use it.
+
+In the present instance, the immediate effects of the warm general
+welcome received were the following demonstrations:--
+
+1. The purchase of a glossy bell-crowned hat, which is worn a little
+inclined to one side, at the angle of self-reliance,--this being a very
+slight dip, as compared to the outrageous slant of country dandies and
+the insolent obliquity indulged in by a few unpleasantly conspicuous
+city-youth, who prove that "it takes three generations to make a
+gentleman."
+
+2. A movement towards the acquisition of a pair of pantaloons with a
+stripe running down the leg; also of a slender canary-colored cane, to
+be carried as formerly in the time when Mr. Van Buren was
+President.--[_A mild veto from the schoolmistress was interposed._]
+
+3. A manifest increase of that _monstraridigitativeness_,--if you will
+permit the term,--which is so remarkable in literary men, that, if
+public opinion allowed it, some of them would like to wear a smart
+uniform, with an author's button, so that they might be known and hailed
+everywhere.
+
+4. An undeniable aggravation of the natural tendency to caress and
+cosset such products of the writer's literary industry as have met with
+special favor. This is shown by a willingness to repeat any given
+stanza, a line of which is referred to, and a readiness to listen to
+even exaggerated eulogy with a twinkling stillness of feature and
+inclination of the titillated ear to the operator, such as the Mexican
+Peccary is said to show when its dorsal surface is gently and
+continuously irritated with the pointed extremity of a reed or of a
+magnolia-branch. What other people think well of, we certainly have a
+right to like, ourselves.
+
+All this self-exaltation, which some folks make so much scandal of, is
+the most natural thing in the world when one gets an over-dose of fair
+words. The more I reflect upon it, the more I am convinced that it is
+well for a man to think too highly of himself while he is in the working
+state. Sydney Smith could discover no relation between Modesty and
+Merit, excepting that they both began with an M. Considered simply as a
+machine out of which work is to be got, the wheels of intellect run best
+when they are kept well oiled by the public and the publisher.
+
+Therefore, my friends, if any of you have uttered words of kindness, of
+flattery, of extreme over-praise, even, let me thank you for it.
+Criticism with praise in it is azotized food; it makes muscle; to expect
+a man to write without it is like giving nothing but hay to a roadster
+and expecting to get ten miles an hour out of him. A young fellow cannot
+be asked to go on making love forever, if he does not get a smile now
+and then to keep hope alive. The truth is, Bridget would have whisked
+off the table-cloth and given notice of quitting, and the whole
+establishment would have gone to pieces at the end of No. 1, if you had
+not looked so very good-natured about it that it was impossible to give
+up such amiable acquaintance.
+
+The above acknowledgments and personal revelations are preliminary to
+the following more general statement, which will show how they must be
+qualified.
+
+Every man of sense has two ways of looking at himself. The first is an
+everyday working view, in which he makes the most of his gifts and
+accomplishments. It is the superficial stratum in which praise and blame
+find their sphere of action,--the region of comparisons,--the habitat
+where envy and jealousy are to be looked for, if they have not been
+weeded out and flung into the compost-heap of dead vices, with which, if
+we understand moral husbandry, we fertilize our living virtues. It is
+quite foolish to abuse this thin upper layer of our mental soil. The
+grasses do not strike their roots deep in towards the centre, like the
+oaks, but they are the more useful and necessary vegetable of the two.
+The cheap, but perpetual activities of life grow out of this upper
+stratum of our being. How silly to try to be wiser than Providence!
+Don't tell me about the vain illusions of self-love. There is nothing so
+real in this world as Illusion. All other things may desert a man, but
+this fair angel never leaves him. She holds a star a billion miles over
+a baby's head, and laughs to see him clawing and batting himself as he
+tries to reach it. She glides before the hoary sinner down the path
+which leads to the inexorable gate, jingling the keys of heaven at her
+girdle.
+
+Underneath this surface-soil lies another stratum of thought, where the
+tap-roots of the larger mental growths penetrate and find their
+nourishment. Out of this comes heroism in all its shapes; here the
+enterprises that overshadow half the planet, when full grown, lie,
+tender, in their cotyledons. Here there is neither praise nor blame,
+nothing but a passionless self-estimate, quite as willing to undervalue
+as to rate too highly. The less clay and straw the task-master has given
+his servant, the smaller the tale of bricks he will be required to
+furnish. Many a man not remarkable for conceit has shuddered as some
+effort or accident has revealed to him a depth of power of which he
+never thought himself the possessor and broken his peace with the fatal
+words, "Sleep no more!"
+
+This deeper self-appreciation is a slow and gradual process. At first, a
+child thinks he can do everything. I remember when I thought I could
+lift a house, if I would only try hard enough. So I began with the hind
+wheel of a heavy old family-coach, built like that in which my Lady
+Bountiful carried little King Pippin, if you happen to remember the
+illustrations of that story. I lifted with all my might, and the planet
+pulled down with all its might. The planet beat. After that, my ideas of
+the difference between my will and my muscular force were more
+accurately defined. Then came the illusion, that I could, of course,
+"lick," "serve out," or "polish off," various small boys who had been or
+might be obnoxious to me. The event of the different "set-tos" to
+which, this hypothesis led not uniformly confirming it, another
+limitation of my possibilities was the consequence. In this way I groped
+along into a knowledge of my physical relations to the organic and
+inorganic universe.
+
+A man must be very stupid indeed, if, by the time he is fully ripened,
+he does not know tolerably well what his physical powers are. His
+weight, his height, his general development, his constitutional force,
+his good or ill looks, he has had time to find out; and he is a fool, if
+he does not carry a reasonable consciousness of these conditions with
+him always. It is a little harder with the mind; but some qualities are
+generally estimated fairly enough by their owners. Thus, a man may be
+trusted when he says he has a good or a bad memory. Not so of his
+opinion of his own judgment or imagination. It is only by a very slow
+process that he finds out how much or how little of those qualities he
+possesses. But it is one of the blessed privileges of growing older,
+that we come to have a much clearer sense of what we can do and what we
+cannot, and settle down to our work quietly, knowing what our tools are
+and what we have to do with them.
+
+Therefore, my friends, if I should at any time put on any airs on the
+strength of your good-natured treatment, please to remember that these
+are only the growth of that thin upper stratum of character I was
+telling you of. I conceive that the fact of a man's coming out in a book
+or two, even supposing them to have a success such as I should never
+think of, is to the sum total of that man's life and character as the
+bed of tulips and hyacinths you may see in spring, at the feet of the
+"Great Elm," on our Boston Common, is to the solemn old tree itself. The
+serene, strong life, reaching deep underground and high overhead, robed
+itself in April and disrobed itself in October when the Common was a
+cow-pasture, and observes the same seasons now that the old tree is
+belted with an iron girdle and finds its feet covered with flowers.
+Alas! my friends, the fence and the tulips are painfully suggestive.
+Authorship is an iron girdle, and the blossoms of flattery that are
+scattered at its feet are useful to it only as their culture keeps the
+soil open to the sun and rain. No man can please the reading public ever
+so little without being too highly commended for it in the heat of the
+moment; and so, if he thinks of starting again for the prize of public
+approbation, he finds himself heavily handicapped, and perhaps weighted
+down, simply because he has made good running for some former stakes.
+
+I don't like the position of my friend the Professor. I consider him
+fully as good a man as myself.--I have, you know, often referred to him
+and quoted him, and sometimes got so mixed up with him, that, like the
+Schildb�rgers at their town-meeting, I was puzzled to disentangle my own
+legs from his, when I wanted to stand up by myself, they were got into
+such a snarl together.--But I don't like the position of my friend the
+Professor.
+
+The first thing, of course, when he opens his mouth, will be to compare
+him with his predecessor. Now, if he has the least tact in the world, he
+will begin dull, so as to leave a wide margin for improvement. You may
+be perfectly certain that he can talk and write just as well as I can;
+but you don't think, surely, that he is going to begin where I left off.
+Not unless we are to have a wedding in the first number;--and you are
+not sure whether or not there is to be any wedding at all while the
+Professor holds my seat at the table.
+
+But I will tell you one thing,--if you sit a year or so at a long table,
+you will see what life is. Christenings, weddings, funerals,--these are
+the three legs it stands on; and you have a chance to see them all in a
+twelvemonth, if the table is really a long one. I don't doubt the
+Professor will have something to tell besides his opinions and fancies;
+and if you like a book of thoughts with occasional incidents, as well as
+a book of incidents with occasional thoughts, why, I see no reason why
+you should not accept this talk of the Professor's as kindly as if it
+had a fancy name and called itself a novel.
+
+Life may be divided into two periods,--the hours of taking food, and the
+intervals between them,--or, technically, into the _alimentary_ and the
+_non-alimentary_ portions of existence. Now our social being is so
+intensified during the first of these periods, that whoso should write
+the history of a man's breakfasts or dinners or suppers would give a
+perfect picture of his most important social qualities, conditions, and
+actions, and might omit the non-alimentary portion of his life
+altogether from consideration. Thus I trust that the breakfasts of which
+you have had some records have given you a pretty clear idea, not only
+of myself, but of those more interesting friends and fellow-boarders of
+mine to whom I have introduced you, and with some of whom, in company
+with certain new acquaintances, my friend the Professor will keep you in
+relation during the following year. So you see that over the new
+table-cloth which is going to be spread there may very possibly be a new
+drama of life enacted; but all that, if it should be so, is incidental
+and by the way;--for what the Professor wishes particularly to do, and
+means to do, is to talk about life and men and things and books and
+thoughts; but if there should be anything better than talk occurring
+before his eyes, either at the small world of the breakfast-table or in
+the greater world without, he holds himself at liberty to relate it or
+discourse upon it.
+
+I suppose the Professor will receive a good many letters, as I did,
+containing suggestions, counsel, and articles in prose and verse for
+publication. He desires me to state that he is very happy to hear from
+known and unknown friends, provided they will not mistake him for an
+editor, and will not be offended if their communications are not made
+the subject of individual notice. There may be times when, having
+nothing to say, he will be very glad to print somebody's note or copy of
+verses; I don't think it very likely; for life, is short, and the world
+is brimful, and rammed down hard, with strange things worth seeing and
+telling, and Mr. Worcester's great Quarto Dictionary is soon coming out,
+crammed with all manner of words to talk with,--so that the Professor
+will probably find little room, except for an answer to a question now
+and then, or the acknowledgment of some hint he may have thought worth
+taking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+--The speaker shut himself off like a gas-burner at this point, and the
+company soon dispersed. I sauntered down to the landlady's, and obtained
+from her the following production from the papers left by the gentleman,
+whose pen, ranging from grave to gay, from lively to severe, has held
+the mirror up to Nature, and given the form and pressure of his thoughts
+and feelings for the benefit of the numerous and constantly-increasing
+multitudes of readers of the "Oceanic Miscellany," a journal which has
+done and is doing so much for the gratification and improvement of the
+masses.
+
+
+_A Poem from the Autocrat's Lose Papers._
+
+[I find the following note written in pencil on the MSS.--_Reporter Oc.
+Misc._]
+
+This is a true story. Avis, Avise, or Avice, (they pronounce it
+_Arris_,) is a real breathing person. Her home is not more than an hour
+and a half's space from the palaces of the great ladies who might like
+to look at her. They may see her and the little black girl she gave
+herself to, body and soul, when nobody else could bear the sight of her
+infirmity,--leaving home at noon, or even after breakfast, and coming
+back in season to undress for the evening's party.
+
+
+AVIS.
+
+    I may not rightly call thy name,--
+      Alas! thy forehead never knew
+    The kiss that happier children claim,
+      Nor glistened with baptismal dew.
+
+    Daughter of want and wrong and woe,
+      I saw thee with thy sister-band,
+    Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow
+      By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand.
+
+    --"Avis!"--With Saxon eye and cheek,
+      At once a woman and a child,
+    The saint uncrowned I came to seek
+      Drew near to greet us,--spoke and smiled.
+
+    God gave that sweet sad smile she wore
+      All wrong to shame, all souls to win,--
+    A heavenly sunbeam sent before
+      Her footsteps through a world of sin.
+
+    --"And who is Avis?"--Hear the tale
+      The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,--
+    The story known through all the vale
+      Where Avis and her sisters dwell.
+
+    With the lost children running wild,
+      Strayed from the hand of human care,
+    They find one little refuse child
+      Left helpless in its poisoned lair.
+
+    The primal mark is on her face,--
+      The chattel-stamp,--the pariah-stain
+    That follows still her hunted race,--
+      The curse without the crime of Cain.
+
+    How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate
+      The little suffering outcast's ail?
+    Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate
+      So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale.
+
+    Ah, veil the living death from sight
+      That wounds our beauty-loving eye!
+    The children turn in selfish fright,
+      The white-lipped nurses hurry by.
+
+    Take her, dread Angel! Break in love
+      This bruised reed and make it thine!--
+    No voice descended from above,
+      But Avis answered, "She is mine."
+
+    The task that dainty menials spurn
+      The fair young girl has made her own;
+    Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn
+      The toils, the duties yet unknown.
+
+    So Love and Death in lingering strife
+      Stand face to face from day to day,
+    Still battling for the spoil of Life
+      While the slow seasons creep away.
+
+    Love conquers Death; the prize is won;
+      See to her joyous bosom pressed
+    The dusky daughter of the sun,--
+      The bronze against the marble breast!
+
+    Her task is done; no voice divine
+      Has crowned her deed with saintly fame;
+    No eye can see the aureole shine
+      That rings her brow with heavenly flame.
+
+    Yet what has holy page more sweet,
+      Or what had woman's love more fair
+    When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet
+      With flowing eyes and streaming hair?
+
+    Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown.
+      The Angel of that earthly throng,
+    And let thine image live alone
+      To hallow this unstudied song!
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+_Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, with other Papers._ By CHARLES
+KINGSLEY, Author of "Hypatia," "Two Years Ago," etc. Boston: Ticknor &
+Fields. 12mo.
+
+This collection of Mr. Kingsley's miscellaneous writings is marked by
+the same qualities of mind and temper which have given celebrity and
+influence to his novels. An earnest man, with strong convictions
+springing from a fervid philanthropy, fertile in thought, confident in
+statement, resolute in spirit, with many valuable ideas and not a few
+curious crotchets, and master of a style singularly bold, vivid,
+passionate, and fluent, he always stimulates the mind, if he does not
+always satisfy it. The defects of his intellect, especially in the
+treatment of historical questions, proceed from the warmth of his
+temperament. His impulses irritate his reason. Intellectually impatient
+with all facts and arguments which obstruct the full sweep of his
+theory, he has an offensive habit of escaping from objections he will
+not pause to answer, by the calling of names and the introduction of
+Providence. He is most petulantly disdainful of others when he has
+nothing but paradoxes with which to oppose their truisms. He has a trick
+of adopting the manner and expressions of Carlyle, in speaking of
+incidents and characters to which they are ludicrously inapplicable, and
+becomes flurried and flippant on occasions where Carlyle would put into
+the same words his whole scowling and scornful strength. He frequently
+mistakes sympathy with suffering for insight into its causes, and an
+eloquent statement of what he thinks desirable for an interpretation of
+what really is. He has bright glimpses of truth, but they are due rather
+to the freedom of his thinking than to its depth; and in the hurry and
+impatient pressure of his impulses, he does not discriminate between his
+ideas and his whims. He seems to be in a state of insurrection against
+the limitations of his creed, his profession, and his own mind, and the
+impression conveyed by his best passages is of splendid incompleteness.
+It would be ungracious to notice these defects in a writer who possesses
+so many excellences, were it not that he forces them upon the attention,
+and in their expression is unjust to other thinkers. His intellectual
+conceit finds its vent in intellectual sauciness, and is all the worse
+from appearing to have its source in conceit of conscience and
+benevolence.
+
+In spite of these faults, however, Mr. Kingsley's reputation is not
+greater than he deserves. He is one of the most sincere; truthful, and
+courageous of writers, has no reserves or concealments, and pours out
+his feelings and opinions exactly as they lie in his own heart and
+brain. We at least feel assured that he has no imperfections which he
+does not express, and that there is no disagreement between the book and
+the man. He is commonly on the right side in the social and political
+movements of the day, if he does not always give the right reasons for
+his position. His love, both of Nature and human nature, is intense and
+deep, and this gives a cordiality, freshness, and frankness to his
+writings which more than compensate for their defects.
+
+The present volume of his miscellanies contains not only his essays and
+reviews, but his four lectures on "Alexandria and her Schools," and his
+"Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers." Of the essays, those on "North
+Devon" and "My Winter Garden" are the best specimens of his descriptive
+power, and those on "Raleigh" and "England from Wolsey to Elizabeth," of
+his talents and accomplishments as a thinker on historical subjects. The
+literary papers on "Tennyson," "Burns," "The Poetry of Sacred and
+Literary Art," and "Hours with the Mystics," are full of striking and
+suggestive, if somewhat perverse, thought. The volume, as a whole, is
+read with mingled feelings of vexation and pleasure; but whether
+provoked or delighted, we are always interested both in the author and
+his themes.
+
+
+_A Journey due North: Being Notes of a Residence in Russia._ By GEORGE
+AUGUSTUS SALA. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.
+
+Although the matter of this brilliant volume is of intrinsic interest,
+its charm is due more to the mode of description than even to the things
+described. It gives us Russia from a Bohemian point of view. The
+characteristics of Mr. Sala are keen observation, vivid description,
+lively wit, indomitable assurance, and incapacity of being surprised. To
+his resolute belief in himself, in what he sees with his own eyes and
+conceives with his own brain, the book owes much of its raciness, its
+confident, decisive, "knowing" tone, its independence of the judgments
+of others, and its freedom from all the deceptions which proceed from
+such emotions as wonder and admiration. The volume is read with a
+pleasure similar to that we experience in listening to the animated talk
+of an acquaintance fresh from novel scenes of foreign travel, who
+reproduces his whole experience in recalling his adventures, and gives
+us not merely incidents and pictures, but his own feelings of delight
+and self-elation.
+
+The three introductory chapters, describing the journey to St.
+Petersburg, are perhaps the most brilliant portions of the book. The
+delineations of his fellow-passengers, in the voyage from Stettin to
+Cronstadt, especially the portraits of the swearing Captain Smith and
+the accomplished Hussian noble, are admirable equally for their humor
+and their sagacity. The account of the landing at Cronstadt, the scenes
+at the Custom-House, the author's first walk in St. Petersburg, and his
+first drive in a droschky, are masterpieces of familiar narration, and
+fairly convert the readers of his hook into companions of his journey.
+The description of the manners and customs of the Russian people, the
+shrewd occasional comments on the policy of the government, and the
+thorough analysis of the rascality of the Russian police, are admirable
+in substance, if somewhat flippant in expression. In power of holding
+the amused attention of the reader, equally by the pertinence of the
+matter and the impertinence of the tone, the volume is unexcelled by any
+other book on the subject of Russia.
+
+
+_The New Priest in Conception Bay_. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co.
+1858. 2 vols. 12mo.
+
+The southeastern portion of the island of Newfoundland, as may be seen
+by a glance at the map, may be well described by that expressive epithet
+of "nook-shotten," which in Shakspeare is applied to the mother-island
+of which it is a dependent. The land is indented by bays and estuaries,
+so that it bears the same relation to the water that the parted fingers
+of an outstretched hand do to the spaces of air that are between them.
+One of these inlets bears the name of Conception Bay; and it is around
+the shores of this bay that the scene of this novel is laid. Everything
+in it suffers a sea-change; everything is set to the music of the winds
+and the waves. We find ourselves among a people with whom the sea is
+all, and the land only an appendage to the sea,--a place to dry fish,
+and mend nets, and haul up boats, and caulk ships. But though the view
+everywhere, morally and physically, is bounded by the sea, and though
+one of the finest of the characters is a fisherman, yet the moving
+springs of the story are found in elements only accidentally connected
+with the sea, and by no means new to novel-writers or playwrights. The
+plot of the novel is taken from, or founded upon, the peculiar relations
+existing between the Roman Catholic priesthood and the female sex; and,
+with only a change in costume and scenery, the events might have taken
+place in Maryland, Louisiana, or France.
+
+The novel is one of a peculiar class. To borrow a convenient phraseology
+recently introduced into the language, its interest is more subjective
+than objective,--or, in other words, is derived more from marked and
+careful delineations of individual character than from the march of
+events or brilliant procession of incidents. With a single
+exception,--the abduction of the fisherman's daughter,--the occurrences
+narrated are such as might happen any day in any small community living
+near the sea. Novels constructed on this plan are less likely to be
+popular than those in which the interest is derived from a
+skilfully-contrived plot and a rapid and stirring succession of moving
+events. To what extent the work before us may be popular we wilt not
+undertake even to guess; for we have had too frequent experience of the
+capriciousness of public taste to hazard any prediction as to the
+reception a particular book may meet with, especially if it rely
+exclusively upon its own merits, and be not helped by the previous
+reputation of the writer. But we certainly can and will say that to
+readers of a certain cast it will present strong attractions, and that
+no candid critic can read it without pronouncing it to be a remarkable
+work and the production of an original mind. The author we should judge
+to be a man who had lived a good deal in solitude, or at least removed
+from his intellectual peers,--who had been through much spiritual
+struggle in the course of his life,--who had been more accustomed to
+think than to write, at least for the press,--and whose own observation
+had revealed to him some of the darker aspects of the Roman Catholic
+faith and practice.
+
+There is very little skill in the construction of the plot. Most of the
+events stand to each other in the relation of accidental and not of
+necessary succession, and might be transposed without doing any harm.
+Many pages are written simply as illustrations of character; and a fair
+proportion of the novel might be called with strict propriety a series
+of sketches connected by a slight thread of narrative. But it would be
+unreasonable to deal sharply with an author for this defect; for the
+faculty of making a well-constructed story, in which every event shall
+come in naturally, and yet each bring us one step nearer to the
+journey's end, is now one of the lost arts of earth. But this is not
+all. A considerable portion of it must be pronounced decidedly slow. We
+use the word not in its slang application, but in the sense in which
+Goldsmith used it in the first line of "The Traveller," or rather, as
+Johnson told him he used it, when he said to him,--"You do not mean
+tardiness of locomotion; you mean that sluggishness of mind which comes
+upon a man in solitude." But the slowness of which novel-readers will
+complain is not mere commonplace, least of all is it dulness. It is the
+leisurely movement of a contemplative mind full of rich thought and
+stored with varied learning. Such a writer _could not_ have any sympathy
+with the mercurial, vivacious, light-of-foot story-tellers of the French
+school. The author of "The New Priest in Conception Bay," we surmise,
+has not been in the habit of packing up his thoughts for the market, by
+either writing for the press, or conversing with clever and
+nimble-witted men and women, and thus does not always distinguish
+between cargo and dunnage. The current of the story often flows with a
+very languid movement. It happens, rather unluckily, that this is
+particularly true of the first seventy pages of the first volume. We
+fear that many professional novel-readers may break down in the course
+of these pages; and we confess ourselves to have been a little
+discouraged. But after the ninth chapter, and the touching account which
+Skipper George gives of the death of his boys,--a story which the most
+indifferent cannot peruse without emotion,--the reader may be safely
+left in the author's hands. They will go on together to the end, after
+this, on good terms. And the prospect brightens, and the horses are
+whipped up, as we advance. The second volume is much more interesting,
+in the common sense of the word,--more stirring, more rapid, more
+animated, than the first.
+
+It is but putting our criticism into another form to say that the novel
+is too long, and, as a mere story, might with advantage be compressed
+into at least two-thirds of its present bulk. There are, especially, two
+departments or points to which this remark is applicable. In the first
+place, the conversations are too numerous, too protracted, and run too
+much into trivialities and details. In the second place, the
+descriptions of scenery are too frequently introduced, and pushed to a
+wearisome enumeration of particulars and minute delineation of details.
+In this peculiarity the author is kept in countenance by most
+respectable literary associates. This sort of Pre-Raphaelite style of
+scenery-painting in words is a characteristic of most recent American
+novel, especially such as are written by women. Every rock, every clump
+of trees, every strip of sea-shore, every sloping hillside, sits for its
+portrait, and is reproduced with a tender conscientiousness of touch
+wholly disproportioned to the importance of the subject. When human
+hearts and human passions are animating or darkening the scene, we do
+not want to be detained by a botanist's description of plants or a
+geologist's sketch of rocks. The broad, free sweeps of Scott's brush in
+"The Pirate" are more effective than the delicate needle-point lines of
+the writer before us.
+
+We think, too, that too much use is made of those strange and uncouth
+dialects which have to be represented to the eye by bad spelling. We
+have the familiar Yankee type in Mr. Bangs, and a new form of
+phraseology in the speech of the Newfoundland fishermen. A little of
+this is well enough, but it should not be pushed to an extreme. The
+author's style, in general, is vigorous and expressive; it is the garb
+of an original mind, and often takes striking forms; but in grace and
+simplicity there is room for improvement, and we doubt not that
+improvement will come with practice.
+
+There are many passages which we should like to quote as specimens of
+the imaginative power, forcible description, and apt illustration which
+are shown in this work. Whether the author has ever written verse or
+not, he is a poet in the best sense of that much-abused word. To him
+Nature in all its forms is animated; it sympathizes with all his moods,
+and takes on the hues of his thought. There are very few of these
+paragraphs that are easily separable; they are fixed in the page, and
+cannot be understood apart from it. Besides, many of these beauties are
+minute,--a gleaming word here and there,--but making the track of the
+story glow like the phosphorescent waters of the tropics.
+
+We give a few paragraphs at random:--
+
+     "Does the sea hold the secret?
+
+     "Along the wharves, along the little beaches, around the
+     circuit of the little coves, along the smooth or broken face of
+     rock, the sea, which cannot rest, is busy. These little waves
+     and this long swell, that now are here at work, have been ere
+     now at home in the great inland sea of Europe, breathed on by
+     soft, warm winds from fruit-groves, vineyards, and wide fields
+     of flowers,--have sparkled in the many-colored lights, and felt
+     the trivial oars and dallying fingers of the loiterers, on the
+     long canals of Venice,--have quenched the ashes of the
+     Dutchman's pipe, thrown overboard from his dull, laboring
+     _treckschuyt_,--have wrought their patient tasks in the dim
+     caverns of the Indian Archipelago,--have yielded to the little
+     builders under water means and implements to rear their
+     towering altar, dwelling, monument.
+
+     "These little waves have crossed the ocean, tumbling like
+     porpoises at play, and, taking on a savage nature in the Great
+     Wilderness, have thundered in close ranks and countless numbers
+     against man's floating fortress,--have stormed the breach and
+     climbed up over the walls in the ship's riven side,--have
+     followed, howling and hungry as mad wolves, the crowded
+     raft,--have leaped upon it, snatching off, one by one, the
+     weary, worn-out men and women,--have taken up and borne aloft,
+     as if on hands and shoulders, the one chance human body that is
+     brought in to land, and the long spur, from which man's dancing
+     cordage wastes by degrees, find yields its place to long, green
+     streamers, much like those that clung to this tall, taper tree
+     when it stood in the Northern forest.
+
+     "These waves have rolled their breasts about amid the wrecks
+     and weeds of the hot stream that comes up many thousands of
+     miles out of the Gulf of Mexico, as the great Mississippi goes
+     down into it, and by-and-by these waves will move, all numb and
+     chilled, among the mighty icebergs and ice-fields that must be
+     brought down from the poles."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "She asked, 'Have you given up being a priest, Mr. Urston?'
+
+     "'Yes!' he answered, in a single word, looking before him, as
+     it were along his coming life, like a quoit-caster, to see how
+     far the uttered word would strike; then, turning to her, and in
+     a lower voice, added, 'I've left that, once and forever.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "He stood still with his grief; and, as Mr. Wellon pressed his
+     honest, hard hand, he lifted to his pastor one of those
+     childlike looks that only come out on the face of the true man,
+     that has grown, as oaks grow, ring around ring, adding each
+     after-age to the childhood that has never been lost, but has
+     been kept innermost. This fisherman seemed like one of those
+     that plied their trade, and were the Lord's disciples, at the
+     Sea of Galilee, eighteen hundred years ago. The very flesh and
+     blood inclosing such a nature keep a long youth through life.
+     Witness the genius, (who is only the more thorough man,) poet,
+     painter, sculptor, finder-out, or whatever; how fresh and fair
+     such an one looks out from under his old age! Let him be
+     Christian, too, and he shall look as if--shedding this
+     outward--the inward being would walk forth a glorified one."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "As he mentioned his fruitless visits, a startling, most
+     repulsive leer just showed itself in Ladford's face; but it
+     disappeared as suddenly and wholly as a monster that has come
+     up, horrid and hideous, to the surface of the sea, and then has
+     sunk again, bodily, into the dark deep, and is gone, as if it
+     had never come, except for the fear and loathing that it leaves
+     behind. This face, after that look, had nothing repulsive in
+     it, but was only the more subdued and sad."
+
+The author's mind so teems with images, that he does not always
+discriminate between the good and the bad. Occasionally we find some
+that are manifestly faulty and overstrained.
+
+     "It is one on which the tenderness of the deep heart of the
+     Common Mother breaks itself; over which _the broad, dark,
+     silent wings of a dread mystery are stretched_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Her voice had in it that tender _touch_ which _lays itself,
+     warm and loving_, on the heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "And then her voice began _to drop down_, as it were, _from
+     step to step_,--and _the steps seemed cold and damp, as it went
+     down them lingeringly_:--'or for
+     trial,--disappointment,--whatever comes!'--and at the last, _it
+     seemed to have gone down into a sepulchral vault_."
+
+We do not admire any one of the above,--least of all the last, in which
+the human voice is embodied as a sexton going down the steps of a tomb.
+Why, too, as a matter of verbal criticism, should the author use such
+words as "tragedist," "exhibitress," and "cheaty?"
+
+In the delineation of character the author shows uncommon power and is
+entitled to high praise. His portraits are animated, life-like, and
+individual. Father Terence is drawn with a firm and skilful touch. The
+task which the author prescribed to himself--to present an ecclesiastic
+without learning, without intellectual power, without enthusiasm, and
+with the easy habits of a careless and enjoyable temperament, and yet
+who should be respectable, and even venerable, by reason of the
+soundness of his instincts and his thorough right-heartedness--was not
+an easy one; but in the execution he has been entirely successful. We
+cannot but surmise that he has met sometime and somewhere a living man
+with some of the characteristic traits of Father Terence. Father
+Ignatius, the conventional type of the dark, wily, and dangerous
+ecclesiastical intriguer, is an easier subject, but not so well done. He
+is a little too melodramatic; and we apply with peculiar force to him a
+criticism to which all the characters are more or less obnoxious, that
+he is too constantly and uniformly manifesting the peculiar traits by
+which the author distinguishes him from others. Father Debree and Mrs.
+Barr� are drawn with powerful and discriminating touch, and we recognize
+the skill of the writer in the fact that we had read a considerable
+portion of the novel before we had any suspicion of the former relations
+between them. We may here say that we think that the women who may read
+this work will want to know, a little more fully and distinctly than the
+author has seen fit to tell, what were the causes and influences which
+led to the severing of those relations. We cannot state our meaning more
+clearly, without doing what we think should never be done in the review
+of a new novel, and that is, telling the story, and thus removing half
+the impulse to read it. Skipper George and his household, and the
+smuggler Ladford, are very well drawn,--not distinctly original, and yet
+with distinctive individual traits, which sharp observation must, to
+some extent, have furnished the author with.
+
+But to our commendation of the characters we must make one exception: we
+humbly and respectfully submit that Mr. Bangs is a portentous bore, and
+we heartily wish that he had been drowned before he ever set his foot
+upon the shores of Newfoundland. It is possible, however, that in this
+case we are not impartial judges; for we confess, that, for our own
+private reading, we are heartily weary of the Yankee,--we mean as a
+literary creation,--of the eternal repetition of the character of which
+Sam Slick is the prototype,--which is for the most part a caricature,
+and no more to be found upon the solid earth than a griffin or a
+centaur. And in our judgment the theological discussions between this
+worthy and Father Terence are not in good taste. The author surely would
+not have us suppose that the wretched, skimble-skamble stuff which the
+latter is made to talk is any fair representative of the arguments by
+which the Church of Rome maintains its dogmas and vindicates its claims.
+A considerable amount of literary skill and a quick perception of the
+ludicrous are shown in the ridiculous aspect which the good Father's
+statements and reasonings are made to assume in passing through Mr.
+Bangs's mind; but we doubt whether such exhibitions are profitable to
+the cause of good religion, and whether the advantage thereby secured to
+Protestantism is not purchased at the price of some danger to
+Christianity. It is not well to teach men the art of making mysteries
+ridiculous.
+
+But we take leave of our author and his book with high respect for his
+powers,--we do not know but that we may say his genius,--and with no
+small admiration for this particular expression of them. The very
+minuteness of our criticism involves a compliment. It has been truly
+said, that many men never write a book at all, but that very few write
+only one. We think that the author of "The New Priest in Conception Bay"
+must and will write more. A mind so fruitful and inventive, a spiritual
+nature so high and earnest, and an observation so keen and correct,
+cannot fail to accumulate materials for future use. We predict that his
+next novel will be better than this,--that it will have all its
+substantial and essential merits, and will show more constructive skill
+and a more practised hand in literary artisanship. His gold will be more
+neatly wrought, and not less pure and abundant.
+
+
+_Summer Time in the Country._ By Rev. ROBERT ARIS WILLMOTT. London and
+New York: George Routledge. Square 12mo. Illustrated.
+
+We first made the acquaintance of this work in a shilling volume, a
+"railway-library edition," and were charmed with its genial tone, its
+nice appreciation of rural scenery, its agreeable and unpedantic
+learning. It is a diary for the summer months, with notes upon the
+changing aspects of Nature, reminiscences from the poets, and
+appropriate comments. We are glad now to welcome the book in this form,
+wherein satin paper, careful typography, delicate engravings, and
+handsome binding have been employed to give it an appropriate dress.
+
+
+_Annual Obituary Notices of Eminent Persons who died in the United
+States during the Year 1857._ By NATHAN CROSBY. Boston: Phillips,
+Sampson, & Co. 8vo. pp. 430.
+
+The object of this work is best stated in the words of the author, as
+being "the result of a long and earnest desire to give a more permanent
+and accessible memorial to those who have originated and developed our
+institutions,--those whose names should be remembered by the generations
+to come, as the statesmen, the soldiers, the men of science and skill,
+the sagacious merchants, the eminent clergymen and
+philanthropists,--those who have brought our country to the prosperity
+and distinction it now enjoys."
+
+Eulogies, funeral sermons, and obituaries soon pass out of remembrance,
+and an annual compilation like this cannot fail to be of service. The
+work appears to have been done with impartiality and care.
+
+
+_The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe, with an Original Memoir._
+Illustrated by F. R. PICKERSGILL, JOHN TENNIEL, BIRKET FOSTER, FELIX
+DARLEY, and others. New York: J. S. Redfield. 8vo. pp. 250.
+
+The poems of Poe have taken their place in literature; it is too late to
+attempt anything like a contemporaneous criticism, too early to
+anticipate the judgement of posterity. But whatever were the faults of
+this gifted and erratic genius, much that he has written has become a
+part of the thought and memory of the present generation of readers, and
+will doubtless go to our children with equal claims.
+
+In this volume it would seem that the arts connected with book-making
+have culminated; paper, typography, drawing, and engraving are all
+admirable. There are no fewer than fifty-three wood-engravings, of
+various degrees of excellence, but all exquisitely finished. The lovers
+of fine editions of poetry will find this a gift-book which the most
+fastidious taste will approve. If we could add that this mechanical
+excellence was from American hands, it would be much more grateful to
+our national pride.
+
+
+_Black's Atlas of North America._ Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.
+
+Nothing could well be more convenient than this series of twenty maps.
+They are carefully executed, of a size not too large for easy handling,
+and bound in a thin, light volume. They are preceded by some
+introductory statistical matter which is very useful for purposes of
+ready reference, and accompanied by an index so arranged that one can
+find the name he seeks on any map with great facility. We have seen no
+maps of North America which seemed to us, on the whole, at once so cheap
+and good.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the announcements of illustrated works in press, we notice "The
+Stratford Gallery, comprising Forty-five Ideal Portraits described by
+Mrs. J. W. Palmer. Illustrated with Fine Engravings on Steel, from
+Designs by Eminent Hands."
+
+In one vol. 8vo. Antique morocco. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The many admirers of the "AUTOCRAT" will learn with pleasure that a fine
+edition of his charming volume is in preparation, with tinted paper,
+illustrated by Hoppin, and bound in elegant style. Probably no
+holiday-book will be in such demand this season.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No.
+14, December 1858, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY  ***
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14,
+December 1858, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2007 [EBook #21273]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY  ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_769" id="Page_769">[Pg 769]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4>THE</h4>
+
+<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1>
+
+<h2>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</h2>
+
+<h3>VOL. II.&mdash;DECEMBER, 1858.&mdash;NO. XIV.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article. Table of contents has been generated for the HTML version.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#THE_IDEAL_TENDENCY"><b>THE IDEAL TENDENCY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_HOUR_BEFORE_DAWN"><b>THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_SKATER"><b>THE SKATER.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THOMAS_JEFFERSON1"><b>THOMAS JEFFERSON.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#A_BUNDLE_OF_IRISH_PENNANTS"><b>A BUNDLE OF IRISH PENNANTS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_JOLLY_MARINER"><b>THE JOLLY MARINER:</b></a><br />
+<a href="#SUGGESTIONS"><b>SUGGESTIONS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#BULLS_AND_BEARS"><b>BULLS AND BEARS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#SPIRITS_IN_PRISON3"><b>SPIRITS IN PRISON.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#PUNCH"><b>PUNCH.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_SUBJECTIVE_OF_IT"><b>THE SUBJECTIVE OF IT.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#ALLS_WELL"><b>ALL'S WELL.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_BIRDS_OF_THE_PASTURE_AND_FOREST"><b>THE BIRDS OF THE PASTURE AND FOREST.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_MINISTERS_WOOING"><b>THE MINISTER'S WOOING.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_AUTOCRAT_GIVES_A_BREAKFAST_TO_THE_PUBLIC"><b>THE AUTOCRAT GIVES A BREAKFAST TO THE PUBLIC.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#LITERARY_NOTICES"><b>LITERARY NOTICES.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h2><a name="THE_IDEAL_TENDENCY" id="THE_IDEAL_TENDENCY"></a>THE IDEAL TENDENCY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>We are all interested in Art; yet few of us have taken pains to justify
+the delight we feel in it. No philosophy can win us away from
+Shakspeare, Plato, Angelo, Beethoven, Goethe, Phidias,&mdash;from the masters
+of sculpture, painting, music, and metaphor. Their truth is larger than
+any other,&mdash;too large to be stated directly and lodged in systems,
+theories, definitions, or formulas. They suggest and assure to us what
+cannot be spoken. They communicate life, because they do not endeavor to
+measure life. Philosophy will present the definite; Art refers always to
+the vast,&mdash;to that which cannot be comprehended, but only enjoyed and
+adored. Art is the largest expression. It is not, like Science, a basket
+in which meat and drink may be carried, but a hand which points toward
+the sky. Our eyes follow its direction, and our souls follow our eyes.
+Man needs only to be shown an open space. He will rise into it with
+instant expansion. We are made partakers of that illimitable energy.
+Only poetry can give account of poetry, only Art can justify Art; and we
+cannot hope to speak finally of this elastic Truth, to draw a circle
+around that which is vital, because it has in it something of
+infinity,&mdash;but we may hope to remove a doubt growing out of the very
+largeness which exalts and refreshes us. Art is not practical. It offers
+no precept, but lies abroad like Nature, not to be grasped and
+exhausted. Neither is it anxious about its own reception, as though any
+man could long escape the benefit which it brings. Every principle of
+science, every deduction of philosophy, is a tool. Our very religion, as
+we dare to name it, is a key which opens the heavens to admit myself and
+family. Art offers only life; but perhaps that will appear worth taking
+without looking beyond. Can we look beyond? Life is an end in itself,
+and so better than any tool.</p>
+
+<p>What is that which underlies all arts as their essence, the thing to be
+expressed and celebrated? What is poetry, the creation from which the
+artist is named? We shall answer boldly: it is no shaping of forms, but
+a making of man. Nature is a <i>plenum</i>, is finished, and the Divine
+account with her is closed; but man is only yet a chick in the egg. With
+him it is still the first day of creation, and he has not received the
+benediction of a completed work. And yet the completion is involved and
+promised in our daily experience. Man is a perpetual seeker. He sees
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_770" id="Page_770">[Pg 770]</a></span>always just before him his own power, which he must hasten to overtake.
+He weighs himself often in thought; yet it is not his present, but a
+presumptive value, of which he is taking account. We are continually
+entering into our future, and it is so near us, we are already in every
+hour so full of it, that we draw without fraud on the credit of
+to-morrow. The student who has bought his first law-book is already a
+great counsellor. With the Commentaries he carries home consideration
+and the judicial habit. Some wisdom he imbibes through his pores and
+those of the sheepskin cover. Now he is grave and prudent, a man of the
+world and of authority; but if he had chosen differently, and brought
+home the first book of Theology, his day would have been tinted with
+other colors. For every choice carries a future involved in itself, and
+we begin to taste that when we take our course toward it. The habit of
+leaning forward and living in advance of himself has made its mark upon
+every man. We look not at the history or performance of the stranger,
+but at his pretensions. These are written in his dress, his air and
+attitude, his tone and occupation. The past is already nothing, the
+present is sliding away; to know any man, we must keep our eyes out in
+advance on the road he is following. For man is an involuntary, if not a
+willing traveller. Time does not roll from under his feet, but he is
+carried along with the current, and can never again be where or what he
+was. Nothing in his experience can ever be quite repeated. If you see
+the same trees and hills, they do not appear the same from year to year.
+Yesterday they were new and strange; you and they were young together.
+To-day they are familiar and disregarded. Soon they will be old friends,
+prattling to gray hairs of the brown locks and bounding breath of youth.</p>
+
+<p>The pioneer of our growth is Imagination. Desire and Hope go on before
+into the wilderness of the unknown; they open paths; they make a
+clearing; they build and settle firmly before we ourselves in will and
+power arrive at this opening, but they never await our coming. They are
+the "Fore-runners," off again deeper into the vast possibility of being.
+The boy walks in a dream of to-morrow. Two bushels of hickory-nuts in
+his bag are no nuts to him, but silver shillings; yet neither are the
+shillings shillings, but shining skates, into which they will presently
+be transmuted. Already he is on the great pond by the roaring fire, or
+ringing away into distant starry darkness with a sparkling brand.
+Already, before his first skates are bought, before he has seen the coin
+that buys them, he is dashing and wheeling with his fellows, a leader of
+the flying train.</p>
+
+<p>That early fore-reaching is a picture of our entire activity. "Care is
+taken," said Goethe, "that the trees do not grow into the sky"; but man
+is that tree which must outgrow the sky and lift its top into finer air
+and sunshine. The essential seed is Growth; not shell and bark, nor
+kernel, but a germ which pierces the soil and lifts the stone. Spirit is
+such a germ, and perpetual reinforcement is its quality; so that the
+great Being is known to us as a becoming Creator, adding himself to
+himself, and life to life, in perpetual emanation.</p>
+
+<p>The boy's thought never stops short of some personal prowess. It is
+ability that charms him. To be a man, as he understands manliness, is to
+have the whole planet for a gymnasium and play-ground. He would like to
+have been on the other side of Hydaspes when Alexander came to that
+stream. But he soon discovers that wit is the sword of sharpness,&mdash;that
+he is the ruler who can reach the deepest desire of man and satisfy
+that. If there is power in him, he becomes a careful student, examines
+everything, examines his own enthusiasm, examines his last examination,
+tries every estimate again and again. He distrusts his tools, and then
+distrusts his own distrust, lifting himself by the very boot-straps in
+his metaphysics, to get at some foundation which will not move. He will
+know what he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_771" id="Page_771">[Pg 771]</a></span> about and what is great. He puts C&aelig;sar, Milton, and
+Whitfield into his crucible; but that which went in C&aelig;sar comes out a
+part of himself. The bold yet modest young chemist is egotistical. He
+cannot be anybody else but John Smith. Why should he? Who knows yet what
+it is to be John Smith? Napoleon and Washington are only playing his own
+game for him, since he so easily understands and accepts their play. A
+boy reads history as girls cut flowers from old embroidery to sew them
+on a new foundation. They are interested in the new, and in the old only
+for what they can make of it. So he sucks the blood of kings and
+captains to help him fight his own battles. He reads of Bunker's Hill
+and the Declaration of Independence with constant reference to the part
+he shall take in the politics of the world. His motto is, <i>Sic semper
+tyrannis</i>! Benjamin Franklin, and after him John Smith,&mdash;perhaps a
+better man than he. We live on that <i>perhaps</i>. Every great man departed
+has played out his last card, has taken all his chances. We are glad to
+see his power limited and scaled up. Shakspeare, we say, did not know
+everything; and here am I alone with the universe, nothing but a little
+sleepiness between me and all that Shakspeare and Plato knew or did not
+know. If I should be jostled out of my drowsiness, who can tell what may
+be given me to see, to say, or to do? Let us make ready and get upon
+some high ground from which we may overlook the work of the world; for
+the secret of all mastery is dormant, yet breathing and stirring in you
+and me.</p>
+
+<p>Out of such material as we can gather we make a world in which we walk
+continually up and down. In it we find friends and enemies, we love and
+are loved, we travel and build. In it we are kings; we ordain and
+arrange everything, and never come away worsted from any encounter. For
+this sphere arises in answer to the practical question, What can I be
+and do? It is an embodiment of the force that is in me. Every dreamer,
+therefore, goes on to see himself among men and things which he can
+understand and master, with which he can deal securely. The stable-boy
+has hid an old volume among the straw, and he walks with Portia and
+Desdemona while he grooms the horses. Already in his smock-frock he is a
+companion for princes and queens. But the rich man's son, well born, as
+we say, in the great house yonder, has one only ambition in life,&mdash;to
+turn stable-boy, to own a fast team and a trotting-wagon, to vie with
+gamesters upon the road. That is an activity to which he is equal, in
+which his value will appear. Both boys, and all boys, are looking
+upward, only from widely different levels and to different heights.</p>
+
+<p>The young blasphemer does not love blasphemy, but to have his head and
+be let alone by Old Aunty, who combs his hair as if he were a girl. So
+always there is some ideal aim in the mixed motive. Out of six gay young
+men who drive and drink together, only one cares for the meat and the
+bottle. With the rest this feasting gallantly on the best, regardless of
+expense, is part of a system. It is in good style, is convivial. For
+these green-horns of society to live together, to be <i>conviv&aelig;</i>, is not
+to think and labor together, as wise men use, but to laugh and be
+drunken in company.</p>
+
+<p>Into the lowest courses there enters something to keep the filth from
+overwhelming self-respect. The advocates of slavery have not, as it
+appears, lost all pretence of honor and honesty. Thieves are sustained
+by a sense of the injustice of society. They do but right an old wrong,
+taking bravely what was accumulated by cautious cunning. They cultivate
+many virtues, and, like the best of us, make much of these, identify
+themselves with these. If a man is harsh and tyrannical, he regrets that
+he has too much force of character. And it is not safe to accuse a
+harlot of stealing and lying. She has her ideal also, and strives to
+keep the ulcer of sin within bounds,&mdash;to save a sweet side from
+corruption.</p>
+
+<p>Is this stooping very low to look for the Ideal Tendency? The greater
+gain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_772" id="Page_772">[Pg 772]</a></span> if we find it prevailing in these depths. We may doubt whether
+thieves and harlots are subject to the same law which irresistibly lifts
+us, for we know that our own sin is not quite like other sin. But I must
+not offer all the cheerful hope I feel for the worst offenders, because
+too much faith passes for levity or impiety; and men thank God only for
+deliverance from great dangers, not for preservation from all danger.
+For gratitude we must not escape too easily and clean, but with some
+smell of fire upon us.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in our own experience this planning what we shall do and become is
+constant, and always we escape from the present into larger air. The boy
+will not be content with that skill in skating which occupies his mind
+to-day. That belongs to the day and place, but next year he goes to the
+academy and fresh exploits engage him. He works gallantly in this new
+field and harness, because his thought has gone forward again, and he
+sees through these studies the man of thought. Already as a student he
+is a philosopher, a poet, a servant of the Muse. Bacon and Milton look
+kindly on him in invitation, he is walking to their company and in their
+company. The young hero-worshipper cannot remain satisfied with mere
+physical or warlike prowess. He soon sees the superiority of mental and
+moral mastery, of creation of good counsel. He will reverence the
+valiant reformer who brings justice in his train, the saint in whom
+goodness is enamored of goodness, the gentleman whose heart-beat is
+courtesy, the prophet in whom a religion is born, all who have been
+inspired with liberal, not dragged by sordid aims.</p>
+
+<p>How beautiful to him is the society of poets! He reads with idolatry the
+letters and anecdotes of Coleridge and Wordsworth, Goethe and Schiller,
+Beethoven and Raphael. Look at the private thought of these men in
+familiar intercourse: no plotting for lucre, but a conspiracy to reach
+the best in life. The saints are even more ardent in aspiration, for
+their tender hearts were pressed and saddened by fear. They are now set
+on fire by a sense of great redemption. They are prisoners pardoned.</p>
+
+<p>For scholars the world is peopled only with saints, philosophers, and
+poets, and the studious boy seeks his own amid their large activity. So
+much of it meets his want, yet the whole does not meet all his want. He
+must combine and balance and embrace conflicting qualities. Every day
+his view enlarges. What was noble last year will now by no means content
+his conscience. Duty and beauty have risen.</p>
+
+<p>The Ideal Tendency characterizes man, affords the only definition of
+him; and it is a perpetual, irresistible expansion. No matter on what it
+fastens, it will not stay, but spreads and soars like light in the
+morning sky.</p>
+
+<p>To-day we are charmed with our partners, and think we can never tire of
+Alfred and Emily. To-morrow we discover without shame, after all our
+protestations and engagements, that their future seems incommensurate
+with our own. To our surprise, they also feel their paths diverging from
+ours. We part with a show of regret, but real joy to be free.</p>
+
+<p>Both parties have gained from their intercourse a certainty of power and
+promise of greater power. Silly people fill the world with lamentation
+over human inconstancy; but if we follow love, we cannot cling to the
+beloved. We must love onward, and only when our friends go before us can
+we be true both to friendship and to them.</p>
+
+<p>How eager and tremulous his excitement when at last the youth encounters
+all beauty in a maiden! Now he is on his trial. Can he move her? for he
+must be to her nothing or all. How stately and far-removed she seems in
+her crystal sphere! All her relations are fair and poetic. Her book is
+not like another book. Her soft and fragrant attire, can it be woven of
+ribbons and silk? She, too, has dreamed of the coming man, heroic,
+lyrical, impassioned; the beat of his blood a p&aelig;an and triumphal march;
+a man able to cut paths for her and lead her to all that is worthiest in
+life. Her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_773" id="Page_773">[Pg 773]</a></span> day is an expectation; her demand looks out of proud eyes.
+Can he move this stately creature, pure and high above him as the clear
+moon yonder, never turning from her course,&mdash;this Diana, who will love
+upward and stoop to no Endymion? Now it will appear whether he can pass
+with another for all he is to himself. This will be the victory for
+which he was born, or blackest defeat. If she could love him! If he
+should, after all, be to her only such another as her cousin Thomas, who
+comes and goes with all his pretensions as unregarded as Rover the
+house-dog! Between these <i>ifs</i> he vacillates, swung like a ship on
+stormy waters, touching heaven and hell.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the maiden dares hardly look toward this generous new-comer,
+whose destiny lies broad open in his courage and desire. Others she
+could conciliate and gently allure, but she will not play with the lion.
+She will throw no web around his strength to tear her heart away, if it
+does not hold him. For the first time she guards her fancy. She will not
+think of the career that awaits him, of the help there is in him for
+men, and the honor that will follow him from them,&mdash;of the high studies,
+tasks, and companionship to which he is hastening. What avails this
+avoidance, this turning-away of the head? A fancy that must be kept is
+already lost. She read his quality in the first glance of deep-meaning
+eyes. When at last he speaks, she sees suddenly how beyond all recovery
+he had carried away her soul in that glance. They marry each the
+expectation of the other. It was a promise in either that shone so fair.
+Happy lovers, if only as wife and husband they can go on to fulfil the
+promise! For love cannot be repeated; every day it must have fresh food
+in a new object; and unless character is renewed, love must leave it
+behind and wander on.</p>
+
+<p>If the wife is still aspiring,&mdash;if she lays growing demands on her
+hero,&mdash;if her thought enlarges and she stands true to it, separate from
+him in integrity as he saw her first, following not his, but her own
+native estimate,&mdash;she will always be his mistress. She will still have
+that charm of remoteness which belongs only to those who do not lean and
+borrow, to natures centred for themselves in the deep. There is
+something incalculable in such independence. It is full of surprise for
+the most intimate. In one breast the true wife prepares for her husband
+a course of loves. Every day she offers a new heart to be won. Every day
+the woman he could reach is gone, and there again before him is the
+inaccessible maiden who will not accept to-day the behavior of
+yesterday. This withdrawal and advancement from height to height is true
+virginity, which never lies down with love but keeps him always on foot
+and girded for fresh pursuit. Noble lovers rely on no pledges, point to
+no past engagements, but prefer to renew their relation from hour to
+hour. The heroic woman will command, and not solicit love. Let him go,
+when I cease to be all to him, when I can no longer fill the horizon of
+his imagination and satisfy his heart. But if there is less ascension in
+a woman, she is no mate for an advancing man. He must leave her; he
+walks by her side alone. So we pass many dear companions, outgrowing
+alike our loves and our fears.</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice in youth we meet a man of sounding reputation or real
+wisdom, whose secret is hid above our discovery. His manners are
+formidable while we do not understand them. In his presence our tongues
+are tied, our limbs are paralyzed. Thought dies out before him, the will
+is unseated and vacillates, we are cowed like Antony beside C&aelig;sar. In
+solitude we are ashamed of this cowardice and resolve to put it away;
+but when the great man returns, our knees knock and we are as weak as
+before. It is suicide to fly from such mortification. A brave boy faces
+it as well as he can. By-and-by the dazzle abates, he sees some flaw,
+some coarseness or softness, in this shining piece of metal; he begins
+to fathom the motives and measure the orbit of this tyrannous
+benefactor. They are the true<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_774" id="Page_774">[Pg 774]</a></span> friends who daunt and overpower us, to
+whom for a little we yield more than their due.</p>
+
+<p>This rule is universal, that no man can admire downward. All enthusiasm
+rises and lifts the subject of it. That which seems to you so base an
+activity is lifted above low natures. What matter, then, where the
+standard floats at this moment, since it cannot remain fixed?</p>
+
+<p>Perfection retreats, as the horizon withdraws before a traveller, and
+lures us on and on. It even travels faster than our best endeavors can
+follow, and so beckons to us from farther and farther away. We may give
+ourselves to the ideal, or we may turn aside to appetite and sleep; but
+in every moment of returning sanity we are again on our feet and again
+upon an endless ascending road.</p>
+
+<p>When a man has tasted power, when he sees the supply there is so near in
+Nature for all need, he hungers for reinforcement. That desire is
+prayer. It opens its own doors and takes supplies from God's hand. No
+wise man can grudge the necessary use of the mind to serve the body with
+shelter and food, for we go merrily to Nature, and with our milk we
+drink order, justice, beauty, and benignity. We cannot take the husks on
+which our bodies are fed, without expressing these juices also, which
+circulate as sap and blood through the sphere. We cannot touch any
+object but some spark of vital electricity is shot through us. Every
+creature is a battery, charged not with mere vegetable or animal, but
+with moral life. Our metaphysical being is fed from something hidden in
+rocks and woods, in streams and skies, in fire, water, earth, and air.
+While we dig roots, and gather nuts, and hunt and roast our meat, our
+blood is quickened not in the heart alone. Deeper currents are swelled.
+The springs of our humanity are opened in Nature; for that which streams
+through the landscape, and comes in at the eye and ear, is plainly the
+same fluid which enters as consciousness, and is the life by which we
+live. While we enjoy this spiritual refreshment and keep ourselves open
+to it, we may dig without degradation; but if our minds fasten on the
+thing to be done, on commodity and safety, on getting and having, those
+avenues seem to close by which the soul was fed. Then we forget our
+incalculable chances and certainties; we go mad, and make the mind a
+muck-rake. If a man will direct his faculties to any limited and not to
+illimitable ends, he cripples his faculties. No matter whether he is
+deluded by a fortune or a reputation or position, if he does not give
+himself wholly to grow and be a man, regardless of minor advantages, he
+has lost his way in the world. "Be true," said Schiller, "to the dream
+of thy youth." That dream was generous, not sordid. We must be
+surrendered to the perfection which claims us, and suffer no narrow aim
+to postpone that insatiable demand.</p>
+
+<p>But the potency of life will bring back every wanderer, as he well
+knows. Every sinner keeps his trunk packed, ready to return to the good.
+The poor traders really mean to buy love with their gold. Feeling the
+hold of a chain which binds us even when we do not cling to it, we grow
+prodigal of time and power. The essence of life, as we enjoy it, is a
+sense of the inextinguishable ascending tendency in life; and this gives
+courage when there is yet no reverence or devotion.</p>
+
+<p>In development of character is involved great change of circumstances.
+We cannot grow or work in a corner. It is not for greed alone or mainly
+that men make war and build cities and found governments, but to try
+what they can do and become, to justify themselves to themselves and to
+their fellows. We desire to please and help,&mdash;but still more, at first,
+to be sure that we can please and help. If he hears any man speak
+effectually in public, the ambitious boy will never rest till he can
+also speak, or do some other deed as difficult and as well worth doing.
+For the trial of faculty we must go out into the world of institutions,
+range ourselves beside the workers, take up their tools and strike<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_775" id="Page_775">[Pg 775]</a></span>
+stroke for stroke with them. Every new situation and employment dazzles
+till we find out the trick of it. The boy longs to escape from a farm to
+college, from college to the city and practical life. Then he looks up
+from his desk, or from the pit in the theatre, to the gay world of
+fashion,&mdash;harder to conquer than even the world of thought. At last he
+makes his way upward into the sacred circle, and finds there a little
+original power and a great deal of routine. These fine parts are like
+those of players, learned by heart. The men who invented them, with whom
+they were spontaneous, seem to have died out and left their manners with
+their wardrobes to narrow-breasted children, whom neither clothes nor
+courtesies will fit. So in every department we find the snail freezing
+in an oyster-shell. The judges do not know the meaning of justice. The
+preacher thinks religion is a spasm of desire and fear. A young man soon
+loses all respect for titles, wigs, and gowns, and looks for a muscular
+master-mind. Somebody wrote the laws, and set the example of noble
+behavior, and founded every religion. Only a man capable of originating
+can understand, sustain, or use any institution. The Church, the State,
+the Social System come tumbling ruinous over the heads of bunglers, who
+cannot uphold, because they never could have built them, and the rubbish
+obstructs every path in life. An honest, vigorous thinker will clear
+away these ruins and begin anew at the earth. When the boy has broken
+loose from home, and fairly entered the world that allured him, he finds
+it not fit to live in without revolutions. He is as much cramped in it
+as he was in the ways of the old homestead. Feeding the pigs and picking
+up chips did not seem work for a man, but he finds that almost all the
+activity of the race amounts to nothing more; no more thought or purpose
+goes into it. Men find Church and State and Custom ready-made, and they
+fall into the procession, ask no searching questions, but take things
+for granted without reason; and their imitation is as easy as picking up
+chips. It is no doing, but merely sliding down hill. The way of the
+world will not suit a valiant boy. To make elbow-room and get
+breathing-space, he becomes a reformer; and when now he can find no new
+worlds to conquer, he will make a world, laying in truth and justice
+every stone. The same seeker, who was so fired by the sight of his eyes,
+looking out from a mill-yard or a shoe-shop on the many-colored activity
+of his kind, who ran such a round of arts and sciences, pursuing the
+very secret of his being in each new enterprise, is now discontented
+with all that has been done. He begins again to look forward,&mdash;he
+becomes a prophet, instead of the historian he was. He easily sees that
+a true manhood would disuse our ways of teaching and worshipping, would
+unbuild and rebuild every town and house, would tear away the jails and
+abolish pauperism as well as slavery. He sees the power of government
+lying unused and unsuspected in spelling-books and Bibles. Now he has
+found a work, not for one finger, but for fighting Hercules and singing
+Apollo, worthy of Minerva and of Jove. He will try what man can do for
+man.</p>
+
+<p>The history of every brave girl is parallel with that of her play-fellow
+and yoke-fellow. She sighs for sympathy, for a gallant company of youths
+and maidens worthy of all desire. Her music, drawing, and Italian are
+only doors which she hopes to open upon such a company. She longs for
+society to make the hours lyrical, for tasks to make them epic and
+heroic. The attitudes and actions of imaginative young persons are
+exalted every moment by the invisible presence of lovers, poets,
+inspired and inspiring companions. Such as they are we also shall be;
+when we walk among them and with them, we shall wash our hands of all
+injustice, meanness, and pretension. Women are as tired as men of our
+silly civilization, its compliments, restraints, and compromises. They
+feel the burden of routine as heavily, and keep their elasticity under
+it as long as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_776" id="Page_776">[Pg 776]</a></span> we. What they cannot hope to do, a great-hearted man,
+some lover of theirs, shall do for them; and they will sustain him with
+appreciation, anticipating the tardy justice of mankind. Every generous
+girl shares with her sex that new development of feminine consciousness,
+which the vulgar have named, in derision, a movement for woman's rights.
+She will seek to be more truly woman, to assert her special power and
+privilege, to approach from her own side the common ideal, offering a
+pure soprano to match the manly bass.</p>
+
+<p>We all look for a future, not only better than our won past, but better
+than any past. Humanity is our inheritance, but not historical humanity.
+Man seems to be broken and scattered all abroad. The great lives are
+only eminent examples of a single virtue, and by admiration of every
+hero we have been crippled on some one side. If he is free, he is also
+coarse; if delicate, he is overlaid by the gross world; saints are timid
+and feverish, afraid of being spattered in the first puddle; heroes are
+profane. We must melt up all the old metal to make a new man and carry
+forward the common consciousness. Every failure was part of the final
+success. We go over a causeway in which every timber is some soldier
+fallen in this enterprise. Who doubts the result doubts God. We say,
+regretfully "If I could only continue at my best!" and we ach with the
+little ebb, between wave and wave, of an advancing tide. But this tide
+is Omnipotence. It rises surely, if it were only an inch in a thousand
+years. The changes in society are like the geologic upheaval and sinking
+of continents; yet man is morally as far removed from the savage as he
+is physically superior to the saurian. We do not see the corn grow or
+the world revolve; yet if motion be given as the primal essence, we must
+look for inconceivable results. Wisdom will take care of wisdom, and
+extend. Consider the growth of intellect in the history of your own
+parish for twenty years. See how old views have died out of New England
+and new ones come in. Every man is fortified in his opinions, yet no man
+can hold his opinions. The closer they are hugged, the faster in any
+community they change. The ideas of such men as Swedenborg, Goethe,
+Emerson, float in the air like spores, and wherever they light they
+thrive. The crabbedest dogmatist cannot escape; for, if he open his eyes
+to seek his meet, some sunshine will creep in. We have combustibles
+stored in the stupidest of us, and a spark of truth kindles our
+slumbering suspicion. Since the great reality is organized in man, and
+waits to be revealed in him, it is of no avail to shut out the same
+reality from our ears. Thinkers have held to be dangerous, and excluded
+from the desks of public instruction; but the boys were already occupied
+with the same thoughts. They would hear nothing new at the lecture, and
+they are more encouraged by the terror of the elders than by any word
+the wise man could speak. In pursuit of truth, the difficulty is to ask
+a question; for in the ability to ask is involved ability to reach an
+answer. The serious student is occupied with problems which the doctors
+have never been able to entertain, and he knows that their discourse is
+not addressed to him. If you have not wit to understand what I seek, you
+may croak with the frogs: you are left out of my game.</p>
+
+<p>And the old people, unhappily, suspect that this boy, whose theory they
+do not comprehend, is master of their theory. They are puzzled and
+panic-stricken; they strike in the dark. In all controversy, the strong
+man's position is unassailed. His adversary does not see where he is,
+but attacks a man of straw, some figment of his own, to the amusement of
+intelligent spectators. Always our combatant is talking quite wide of
+the whole question. So the wise man can never have an opponent; for
+whoever is able to face and find him has already gone over to his side.
+By material defences, we shut our light for a little, by going where
+only our own views are repeated, and so boxing ourselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_777" id="Page_777">[Pg 777]</a></span> from all
+danger of conviction; but if a strong thinker could gain the mere brute
+advantage of having an audience confined in their seats to hear him out,
+he would carry them all inevitably to his conclusion. They know it and
+run away. But the press has made our whole world of civilization one
+great lecture-room, from which no reading man can escape, and the only
+defence against progress is stolid preoccupation with trade or trifles.
+Yet this persistency is holding the breath, and can no more be continued
+in the mind than that in the body. Blundering and falsehood become
+intolerable to the blunderers; they must return to thought, and that is
+proper in a single direction, is approached by ten thousand avenues
+toward the One. It is religious, not ignorance or dogma. We cannot think
+without exploration of the divine order and recognition of its divinity,
+without finding ourselves carried away by it to service and adoration.
+All good is assured to us in Truth, and Truth follows us hard, drives us
+into many a corner, and will have us at last. So Love surprises all, and
+every virtue has a pass-key to every heart. Out of conflicting
+experience, amid barbarism and dogmatism, from feathers that float and
+stones that fall, we deduce the great law of moral gravitation, which
+binds spirit to spirit, and all souls to the best. Recognition of that
+law is worship. We rejoice in it without a taint of selfishness. We
+adore it with entire satisfaction. Worship is neither belief nor hope,
+but this certainty of repose upon Perfection. We explore over our heads
+and under our feet a harmony that is only enriched by dissolving
+discords. The drag of time, the cramp of organization, are only false
+fifths. It is blasphemy to deny the dominant. We cannot escape our good;
+we shall be purified. When our destiny is thus assured to us, we become
+impatient of sleep and sin, and redouble exertion. We devote ourselves
+to this certainty, and our allegiance is religion. There is nothing in
+man omitted from the uplift of Ideality. That is a central and total
+expansion of him, is an inmost entering into his inmost, is more himself
+than he is himself. All reverence is directed toward this Creator
+revealed in flesh, though not compassed. We adore him in others, while
+yet we despise him in ourselves. Every other motion of man has an
+external centre, is some hunger or passion, acts on us from its seat in
+Nature or the body, and we can face it, deny and repudiate it with the
+body; but this is the man flowing down from his source.</p>
+
+<p>We must not be tempted to call things by too fine names, lest we should
+disguise them. All that is great is plain and familiar. The Ideal
+Tendency is simple love of life, felt first as desire and then as
+satisfaction. The men who represent it are not seekers, but finders, who
+go on to find more and more; for in the poet desire has fulfilled
+itself. Enjoyment makes the artist. He has gone on before us, reaching
+into the abyss of possibility; but he has reached more mightily. He
+begins to know what is promised in the universal attraction, in this
+eager turning of all faces toward our future. There is a centre from
+which no eye can be diverted, for it is the beam of sight. Look which
+way you will, that centre is everywhere. The universe is flooded with a
+ray from it, and the light of common day on every object is a refraction
+or reflection of that brightness.</p>
+
+<p>Shallow men think of Ideality as another appetite, to be fed with pretty
+baubles, as the body is satisfied with meat and sleep; but the
+representative of that august impulse feels in it his immortality, and
+by all his lovely allegories, mythologies, fables, pictures, statues,
+manners, songs, and symphonies, he seeks to communicate his own feeling,
+that by specific gravity man must rise. It is no wonder, then, that we
+love Art while it offers us reinforcement of being, and despise the
+pretenders, for whom it is pastime, not prophecy.</p>
+
+<p>For, in spite of all discouragement from the materialists, men
+stultified by trade or tradition, we have trusted the high desire and
+followed it thus far. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_778" id="Page_778">[Pg 778]</a></span> felt the sacredness of life even in ourselves,
+and there was always reverence in our admiration. We could not be made
+to doubt the divinity of that which walked with us in the wood or looked
+on us in the morning. The grasses and pebbles, the waters and rocks,
+clouds and showers, snow and wind, were too brother-like to be denied.
+They sang the same song which fills the breast, and our love for them
+was pure. The men and women we sought, were they not worthy of honor?
+The artist comes to bid us trust the Ideal Tendency, and not dishonor
+him who moves therein. He is no trifler, then, to be thrust aside by the
+doctors with their sciences, or the economists with production and use.
+He offers manhood to man and womanhood to woman.</p>
+
+<p>We have named Ideality a love of life. Nay, what is it but life
+itself,&mdash;and that loving but true living? What word can have any value
+for us, unless it is a record of inevitable expansions in character. The
+universe is pledged to every heart, and the artist represents its
+promise. He sings, because he sees the manchild advancing, by blind
+paths it may be, but under sure guidance, propelled by inextinguishable
+desires toward the largest experience. He is no longer afraid of old
+bugbears. He feels for one, that nothing in the universe, call it by
+what ugly name you will, can crush or limit the lift of that leaven
+which works in the breast. Out of all eyes there looks on him the same
+expectation, and what for others is a great <i>perhaps</i> for him has become
+unavoidable certainty.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_HOUR_BEFORE_DAWN" id="THE_HOUR_BEFORE_DAWN"></a>THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The mind of man is first led to adore the forces of Nature,
+and certain objects of the material world; at a later period,
+it yields to religious impulses of a higher and purely
+spiritual character."</p></div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Humboldt</span></p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p>Alpheus and Eleusa, Thessalian Greeks, travelled in their old age, to
+escape poverty and misfortune, which had surely taken joint lease with
+themselves of a certain hut among the hills, and managed both household
+and flock.</p>
+
+<p>The Halcyon builds its nest upon a floating weed; so to the drifting
+fortunes of these wanderers clung a friendless child, innocent and
+beautiful Evadne.</p>
+
+<p>Some secret voice, the country-people say, lured the shepherd from his
+home, to embark on the &AElig;gean Sea, and lead the little one away, together
+with his aged wife, to look for a new home in exile. Mariners bound for
+Troas received them into their vessel, and the voyage began.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks lamented when they beheld the shores of Asia. Heavy clouds
+and the coming night concealed the landmarks which should have guided
+their approach, and, buffeted by the uncertain winds, they waited for
+the morning. By the light of dawn, they saw before them an unknown
+harbor, and the dwellings of men; and here the mariners determined to be
+rid of their passengers, who vexed them by their fears; while to these
+three any port seemed desirable, and they readily consented to put off
+towards the shore. At the hour when the winds rise, at early dawn, they
+gladly parted from the seamen and the tossing ship, and took the way
+before them to the little town.</p>
+
+<p>No fisherman, shadowless, trod the sands; no pious hand lighted the fire
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_779" id="Page_779">[Pg 779]</a></span> sacrifice in the vanishing twilight; even the herds failed to cry
+out for the coming day. Strange fears began to chill the hearts of the
+Thessalians. They walked upon a trackless way, and when they entered the
+dwellings they found them untenanted. Over the doorways hung vines
+dropping their grapes, and birds flew out at the open windows. They
+climbed a hill behind the town, and saw how the sea surrounded them. The
+land on which they stood was no promontory, but an island, separated by
+a foaming interval of water from the shore, which they now saw, not
+distant, but inaccessible.</p>
+
+<p>Then these miserable ones clung to each other on the summit of the rock,
+gazing, until they were fully persuaded of their misfortune. The winds
+waved and fluttered their garments, the waters uttered a voice breaking
+on the rocky shore, and rose mute upon the farther coast. The rain now
+began to fall from a morning cloud, and the travellers, for the first
+time, found shelter under a foreign roof.</p>
+
+<p>All day they watched the sails approaching the headlands, or veering
+widely away and beating towards unseen harbors, as when a bird driven by
+fear abandons its nest, but drawn by love returns and hovers around it.
+Four days and nights had passed before the troubled waves ceased to
+hinder the craft of the fisherman. The Greeks saw with joy that their
+signals were answered, and a boat approached, so that they could hear a
+man's voice crying to them,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What are you who dwell on the island of the profane, and gather fruits
+sacred to Apollo?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I may be said to dwell here," replied the old man, "it is contrary
+to my own will. I am a Greek of Thessaly. Apollo himself should not have
+forbidden me to gather the wild grapes of this island, since I and this
+child and Eleusa, my wife, have not during many days found other food."</p>
+
+<p>"It is indeed true," exclaimed the boatman, "that madness presently
+falls upon those who eat of these grapes, since you speak impious words
+against the god. Behold, yonder is woody Tenedos, where his altar
+stands; it is now many years, since, filled with wrath against the
+dwellers here, he seized this rock, and hurled it into the sea; the very
+hills melted in the waves. I myself, a child then, beheld the waters
+violently urged upon the land. Moved without winds, they rose, climbing
+upon the very roofs of the houses. When the sea became calm, a gulf lay
+between this and the coast, and what had been a promontory was left
+forever an island. Nor has any man dared to dwell upon it, nor to gather
+its accursed fruits. Many men have I known who saw gods walking upon
+this shore, visible sometimes on the high cliffs inaccessible to human
+feet. Therefore, if you, being a stranger, have ignorantly trespassed on
+this garden, which the divinities reserve, perhaps for their own
+pleasure, strive to escape their resentment and offer sacrifices on the
+altar of Tenedos."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a passage in your boat to the land yonder, and I will depart
+out of your coasts," replied the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>The fisherman, hitherto so friendly, remained silent, and words were
+wanting to him wherewith to instruct the stranger. When he again spoke,
+he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why, old man, not having the vigor or the carelessness of youth, have
+you quitted your home, leading this woman into strange lands, and this
+child, whose eyes are tearful for the playmates she has left? I call a
+little maid daughter, who is like unto her, and she remains guarded at
+home by her mother, until we shall give her in marriage to one of her
+own nation and language."</p>
+
+<p>"Waste no more words," answered the old man, "I will narrate my story as
+we row towards your harbor."</p>
+
+<p>"It were better for you," said the boatman, "that they who brought you
+hither should take you into their ship again. Enter our town, if you
+will, but be not amazed at what shall befall you. It is a custom with us
+to make slaves of those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_780" id="Page_780">[Pg 780]</a></span> who approach us unsolicited, in order to
+protect ourselves against the pirates and their spies, who have formerly
+lodged themselves among us in the guise of wayfaring men, and so robbed
+us of our possessions. Therefore it is our law, that those who land on
+our coast shall, during a year, serve us in bondage."</p>
+
+<p>Anger flamed in the eye of the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"You do well," he cried, "to ask of me why I left the land which bore
+me. Never did I there learn to suspect vile and inhospitable customs. If
+you have pity for the aged and the unfortunate, and would not gladly see
+them cast into slavery, bring hither some means of life to this rock,
+which cowards have abandoned for me. Meanwhile, I will watch for some
+friendly sail, which, approaching, may bear me to any harbor, where
+worse reception can hardly await me.&mdash;Know that I fear not the anger of
+your gods; many years have I lived, and I have never yet beheld a god.
+My father has told me, that, in all his wanderings, among lonely hills,
+at the hour of dawn, or by night, or, again, in populous places, he has
+never seen one whom he believed to be a god. Moreover, in Athens itself
+are those who doubt their existence. Leave me to gather the grapes of
+Apollo!"</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he turned away from the shore, not deigning to ask more from
+the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>When the golden crescent moon, no sooner visible than ready to vanish in
+the rosy western sky, was smiling on the exiles with the old familiar
+look she wore above the groves of Thessaly, the sad-hearted ones were
+roused again by the voice of their unknown friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Come down to the shore," he cried; "I have returned to you with gifts;
+my heart yearns to the child; she is gentle, and her eyes are like those
+of the stag when the hunters surround him. Take my flasks of oil and
+wine, and these cakes of barley and wheat. I bring you nets, and cords
+also, which we fishermen know how to use. May the gods, whom you
+despise, protect you!"</p>
+
+<p>Late into the night the Greeks remained upon the border of the sea,
+wondering at their strange fate. To the idle the day is never
+sufficiently long,&mdash;the night also is wasted in words.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>The days which the exiles passed in solitude were not unhappy. The child
+Evadne pruned the large-leaved vines, and gave the rugged cheeks of
+certain melons to the sun. The continual hope of departure rendered all
+privations supportable.</p>
+
+<p>Was it hope, or was it fear, that stirred their bosoms when at last a
+sail appeared not distant? They hoped that its white wings might turn
+seaward!</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," cried the shepherd, "no seaman willingly approaches this
+shore, for the white waves warn him how the rocks He beneath the water.
+Even walls and roofs of houses are seen, or guessed at, ingulfed
+formerly by the sea; and the tale of that disaster, as told us by the
+fisherman, is doubtless known to mariners, who, fearing Apollo, dare not
+land upon this island. While, on the other hand, we have heard how
+pirates, and even poor wayfaring folk, are so ill-received in the bay,
+that from them, though they be not far off, we yet look for no
+assistance. Let us, then, be content, and cease to seek after our fate,
+which doubtless is never at rest from seeking after us. And let us not
+be in haste to enter again into a ship, (so fearful and unnatural a
+thing for those born to walk upon the land,) nor yet to beg our way
+along painful and unknown roads, in search of men of a new religion and
+a different language from that of Greeks. Neither, dear wife, if we must
+suffer it, let us dread slavery too much. Life is long enough for those
+who die young, and too long for the aged. One year let us patiently
+give, more especially if it be unavoidable to give it. Vex me with no
+more lamentations; some unforeseen accident may relieve us from our
+misfortunes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_781" id="Page_781">[Pg 781]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Eleusa, the good old wife, ever obedient to the husband of her youth,
+talked no more of departure, nor yet complained of their miserable
+lodgings in the ruined huts, on which her housewifely care grieved to
+expend itself in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Evadne would not be restrained from wandering. She penetrated alone the
+wildest thickets; the nests of timid birds were known to her; and she
+traced the bee to his hidden city. Deep in the woods she discovered a
+wide chasm, in which the water of the sea palpitated with the beating of
+the great heart of Ocean from which it flowed. Trees were still erect,
+clasped by the salt waves, but quite dead; and all around their base
+were hung fringes of marine growth, touched with prismatic tints when
+seen through the glittering water, but brown and hideous when gathered,
+as the trophy remaining in the hand which has dared to seize old Proteus
+by the locks. All around this avenue, into which the sea sometimes
+rushed like an invading host of armed men, the laurels and the delicate
+trees that love to bend over the sources of the forest-streams hung
+half-uprooted and perilously a-tiptoe over the brink of shattered rocks,
+and withered here and there by the touch of the salt foam, towards which
+they seemed nevertheless fain to droop, asking tidings of the watery
+world beyond.</p>
+
+<p>The skeleton-arms of the destroyed ones were feeble to guard the passage
+of the ravine. Evadne broke a way over fallen trees and stepping-stones
+imbedded in sea-sand, and gained the opposite bank. The solitude in
+which she found herself appeared deeper, more awful, than before the
+chasm lay between the greater island and the less. She listened
+motionless to the soft, but continual murmur of the wood, the music of
+leaves and waves and unseen wings, by which all seeming silence of
+Nature is made as rich to the ear as her fabrics to the eye, so that, in
+comparison, the garments of a king are mean, though richly dyed,
+embroidered on every border, and hung with jewels.</p>
+
+<p>While the little wood-ranger stood and waited, as it were, for what the
+grove might utter, her eye fell upon the traces of a pathway, concealed,
+and elsewhere again disclosed, overgrown by sturdy plants, but yet
+threading the shady labyrinth. She followed the often reappearing line
+upon the hillside, and as she climbed higher, with her rose the
+mountains and the sea. The shore, the sands, the rocky walls, showed
+every hue of sunbeams fixed in stone. The leafy sides of Tenedos had
+caught up the clear, green-tinted blue of the sea, and wore it in a
+noonday dream under the slumberous light that rested on earth and sea
+and sky. Above the horizon, far away, the very clouds were motionless;
+and where the sunbeams marked a tranquil sail, it seemed, with wave and
+cloud, to express only Eternal Repose. But the eager child pressed
+onward, for the crown of the hill seemed almost reached, and she longed
+for a wider, wider view of the beautiful &AElig;gean.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she arrived where a sculptured stone lay in the pathway. Some
+patient and skilful hand had wrought there the emblem of a rose, and
+among the chiselled petals stood drops of rain, collected as in a cup.
+On the border a pure white bird had just alighted, and Evadne watched
+how it bent and rose and seemed to caress the flower of stone, while it
+drank of the dew around and within it. Her eyes filled with tears as she
+mused on the vanished hand of Art, whose work Nature now reclaimed for
+this humble, but grateful use. The dove took wing, and the child
+proceeding came to a level turf where a temple of white marble stood.
+Eight slender columns upheld a marble canopy, beneath which stood the
+image of a god. One raised hand seemed to implore silence, while the
+other showed clasping fingers, but they closed upon nothing. Around the
+statue's base lay scattered stones. Evadne gathered them, and reunited
+they formed the lyre of Apollo. She replaced, for an instant, in the
+cold and constant grasp a fragment of the ruined harp. Then the aspect
+of the god became regretful,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_782" id="Page_782">[Pg 782]</a></span> sad, as of one who desires a voice from
+the lips of the dead. Hastily she flung the charm away, and gentle grace
+returned to the listening boy, from whom, sleeping, some nymph might
+have stolen his lyre, whose complaining chords now vibrated to his ear
+and called their master to the pursuit. Evadne reposed on the steps of
+the temple, and fixedly gazed upon the god. Her fancy endowed the firm
+hand with an unbent bow; then the figure seemed to pause in the chase,
+and listen for the baying of the hounds. Then she imaged a shepherd's
+staff, and the shepherd-god waited tenderly for the voice of a lost
+lamb.</p>
+
+<p>"So stood Apollo in Thessaly," she softly said, "when he carried the
+shepherd's staff. Oh that I were the lost Thessalian lamb for whom he
+waits, that he might descend and I die for joy on his breast!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, half afraid that the lips might break their marble stillness in
+reply, she asked the protection of the deity, whom she was fain to
+adore, but whom her adopted parents dared to despise.</p>
+
+<p>Sole worshipper at a deserted shrine, she had no offering to place
+there, but of flowers. She wove a crown and laid it at his feet, and,
+while she bent by the pedestal, to hang a garland there, oh, terror! a
+voice cried, "Evadne! Evadne!" A tide of fear rushed to her heart. The
+god stood motionless yet. Who could have uttered her name? A falling
+branch, a swift zephyr, may have seemed for an instant articulate, and
+yet it was surely a human voice which had called her. Her reverie was
+broken now, like a cataract brought to its downfall. A moment since, all
+was peace and joyfulness; now she remembered, with alarm, how long she
+had left her foster-parents alone, and the way by which she had come was
+unknown, as if she had never traced it. She crossed the floor of the
+temple, and, as she turned to whisper, "Farewell! beautiful god!" the
+form gently inclined itself, and the uplifted hand stirred lightly.
+Evadne darted forward and looked no more behind. She bounded over chasms
+in the pathway, and broke the tender branches before her with impatient
+hands, so that her descent from the temple was one mad flight.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>When Evadne returned to Alpheus and to her foster-mother, she was silent
+concerning her discovery, and it seemed the more sweet to her for being
+secret. Her thoughts made pilgrimages to the temple hidden by the
+laurels once set to adorn it, and the deserted God of Youth and Immortal
+Beauty drew from her an untaught and voiceless worship. How tedious now
+appeared the labors of their half-savage life!&mdash;for the ensnaring of
+fish and the gathering of fruits for the little household gave the child
+no leisure to climb the hill a second time, to seek the lost temple, now
+all her own. Two weary days had passed, and on the morning of the third
+Evadne performed all her labors, such as they were, of field or of the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Eleusa was absorbed in the art, new to her, of repairing a broken net,
+when the child abruptly fled away into the forest, crying out, "I go to
+seek wild grapes." She would not hear the voices calling her back. She
+gained rapidly the path, already familiar, and wherein every bough and
+every leaf seemed expectant of her coming footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>Hamadryads veiled themselves, each in her conscious tree, eluding human
+approach. She steals more gently along, that she may haply surprise a
+vision. The little grassy plain appears beyond the wavering
+oak-branches. It is reached at last, and there,&mdash;surely it is no
+delusion,&mdash;there rests a sleeping youth! Another step, and she bent
+aside the boughs. He stands erect, listening.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the god!" she cries; and, falling back, would have been
+precipitated from the rock, had not the youth rapidly bounded forward
+and grasped her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Little one, beautiful child," he cried, "do not fear me! I have indeed
+played the god formerly, to scare from my hunting-ground the poor fools
+who dread the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_783" id="Page_783">[Pg 783]</a></span> anger of Apollo. Tell me, who are you, thus wandering in
+the awful garden of the gods? Who brought you hither, and what name has
+been given you?"</p>
+
+<p>Trembling still, and not knowing how to relate it, Evadne stammered
+forth some words of her history. Her senses were bewildered by the
+beauty of the hunter-boy, who now appeared how different from the marble
+god! Bold, and as if ever victorious, with an undaunted brow, like
+Bacchus seen through the tears of sad Ariadne awakened. Strong and swift
+were his limbs, as those of a panther. His cheek was ruddy, and his
+half-naked form was brown, as those appear who dwell not under a roof,
+but in the uncertain shade of the forest. His locks were black and
+wildly disordered, and his eyes were most like to a dark stream lighted
+with golden flashes; but the laughing beauty of his lip no emblem could
+convey.</p>
+
+<p>Soon, seated on the turf, the story of each child was related.</p>
+
+<p>"I am nobly born," said the boy, "but I love the life of a hunter. My
+father has left me alone, and when I am a man, I, too, shall follow him
+to Rome. But liberty is sweeter than honor or power. I escape often from
+my tutor, who suspects not where I hide myself, and range all the
+forests. Embarking by night, in former years, I often visited this
+island. I know where to gather fruits and seek vineyards among the
+ruined huts of the village beneath us. By night I descend and gather
+them, for my free wanderings by day caused the fishermen to relate that
+a god walked upon the shore. When some, more curious or bold, turned
+their prows hitherward, to observe what form moved upon the hill, I
+rolled great rocks down, with a thundering noise, into the sea, and have
+terrified all men from the spot."</p>
+
+<p>"We now call the vineyards and gardens ours," said Evadne, "but it
+appears they truly belong to you. Descend to the shore and we will share
+with you, not only the ripest clusters of the vines, but wine and loaves
+which the fisherman brings us."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring me hither the wine, and I will gladly drink of it, nor waste one
+drop in oblation; but I must not descend to the shore, and you must be
+silent concerning me, for my tutor offers large rewards to any one who
+will disclose where I hide myself. The slaves on the coast here are
+ready to betray me. I have watched them sailing near the island, lured
+by the promise of a handful of gold, but not daring to land upon it,
+lest they should behold, against his will, a divine being."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will climb up hither and bring you the fruits," said Evadne.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, my bird," answered the boy, "lay them only on the altar, below,
+and when it is safe to descend, call me."</p>
+
+<p>"If I call softly, you cannot hear me; and I cannot call loudly enough
+to reach you upon this hill."</p>
+
+<p>"The secrets of the island are not known to you," her companion said,
+and arose quickly; "follow me,&mdash;I will teach you. You know not why
+Apollo is listening? It is for the good of the worshippers, who care not
+to mount the hill to adore him. Above the town stands an altar; voices
+uttered there are brought up hither by an echo. There the pious repaired
+once, and laid their gifts, and songs and the music of flutes sounded in
+honor of the deity, who was held too sacred to be approached. Hold me
+not too sacred, little one!&mdash;you shall approach without fear; but give
+me your voice at this altar, when your foster-father sleeps."</p>
+
+<p>"But what shall I call you?" cried the laughing Evadne.</p>
+
+<p>"Call <i>Hylas</i>. Echo has often repeated, the name, they say, in the
+country of Mysia, and these groves shall learn it of you! Now follow me
+over the floor of the temple,&mdash;but lightly! lightly! See how the god
+would warn us away! He nods on his pedestal; even the loud thunder may
+some day cause his fall; already he is half shaken down from his shrine
+by earthquakes."</p>
+
+<p>Then, firmly, bold Hylas held trembling Evadne, who glanced for an
+instant down the leafy passage of echoes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_784" id="Page_784">[Pg 784]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<p>When the day was over, Alpheus called to him his foster-child.</p>
+
+<p>"You have willingly followed us into our exile," he said, "nor have you
+ever inquired whither we lead you. Listen to me; I shall confide to you
+a secret, so that, if evil befall us, you may go on and fulfil your
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>"In Asia stands a city, called Thyatira, and there dwell men of a new
+religion, called Christians. Of this faith I know as yet but little.
+But, dear Evadne, your father is yet living, and has sent, praying me to
+conduct you to him, that you may be taught among Christians. I have
+labored to fulfil his wish, for in our youth we were dear to each other.
+The moon saw us nightly upon the hills, guarding our flocks, and by day
+we practised the labors and the sports of Greeks."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the religion of my father?" asked the child.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell it to you; I know only that the Christians worship one
+god."</p>
+
+<p>"Apollo, then, is my choice."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, child. The god of Christians is not known to us; but he shall
+overthrow the idols of the whole world. The bow of Diana, the lyre of
+Apollo, are already broken."</p>
+
+<p>The child started. Was the temple known to Alpheus, too? Had he seen
+there the fragments of a shattered harp?</p>
+
+<p>The old man continued his discourse, but Evadne's thoughts had flown
+away towards the lost temple.</p>
+
+<p>"There alone will I worship," she murmured to herself. She dreamed of
+adoring the deity of stone, but Hylas haunted all her thoughts. Yes,
+Evadne! one god is sufficient for you!</p>
+
+<p>Under cover of the darkness, the friendly boatman drew near, and the
+islanders heard the unaccustomed sound of the boat drawn up the beach by
+the youth, whose superstitious fears began to vanish as he observed that
+no calamity fell upon these dwellers on the sacred spot.</p>
+
+<p>"I come," he said, "with gifts truly, but also with good tidings. Have
+patience yet awhile. Your retreat is still unknown, and, after a few
+days, I may find you the means of escape."</p>
+
+<p>Evadne alone was silent, and her tears flowed secretly.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was already set, on the following day, before she stole away to
+meet the hunter-boy. In his hand, as he advanced joyously to greet her,
+he bore a white dove, which his arrow had pierced.</p>
+
+<p>"I struck it," he said, while he pointed to its broken wing and bleeding
+breast, "when it alighted on the edge of a stone fallen from the
+temple."</p>
+
+<p>Evadne concealed her ready tears and uttered no reproach against her
+hero; but she pressed the dead bird to her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Hylas," she asked, "do you worship this god before us, or that
+of the Christians?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy laughed gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"I worship this strong right arm," he said, "and my own bold will, which
+has conquered and shall conquer again! The stories of the gods are but
+fables. To us who are brave nothing can be forbidden; it is the weak who
+are unfortunate, and no god is able either to assist or to destroy us.
+As to the Christians, they are a despised people, a race of madmen, who,
+pretending to love poverty and martyrdom, are followed by the rude and
+ignorant. As for us, we are gods, both to them and to ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Evadne knew that she herself must be counted among the rude and
+ignorant; she dared not raise her eyes to the young noble, who watched
+her quivering lip, and but dimly guessed how he had wounded her.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave caressing the dead bird," he said, at last, "and I will tell you
+tales of Rome and its glories."</p>
+
+<p>And he charmed back again her innocent smiles, with noble traditions of
+kings, of gods, and of heroes, till the round moon stood above Gargarus,
+cold, in a rose-tinted heaven.</p>
+
+<p>But again at sunrise the child sought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_785" id="Page_785">[Pg 785]</a></span> the spot to bring a basket, heavy
+with gifts, for Hylas. He came at the call of Evadne, fresh, glowing,
+beautiful as a child rocked on the breast of Aurora, and upheld by her
+cool, fanning wings. His cheek wore the kiss of the Sun, and his closely
+curling locks were wet by the scattered fountain, cold in the shaded
+grove. He broke the early silence of the air with song and story, and
+named for the admiring child the towns, the headlands, and the hills,
+over which the eye delighted to wander.</p>
+
+<p>"Now is the hour," he said, "when mariners far away behold for a little
+while the dome of this temple. They believe that the gods have rendered
+it invisible except at the rising day; but, in truth, the oaks, the
+laurels, and the unpruned ivy conceal it from view, at all times, except
+when the rays from the east strike upward. I have delighted to teach the
+people fables concerning this island and the lost temple; for as long as
+they fear to tread upon this spot, I have a retreat for myself, where I
+range unmolested.</p>
+
+<p>"See yonder, so white among the dark cypress-trees, my father's villa!
+It has gardens and shady groves, but I love best the wild branching oaks
+which give their shade to Evadne! Far away in the purple distance stands
+the Mount of Ida. There dwelt Paris, content with the love of [OE]none,
+until he knew himself to be the son of a king, for whom Argive Helen
+alone was found worthy; for his eyes had rested once upon immortal
+charms, of which the green eternal pines of Ida are still whispering the
+story. See how the people of this village of Athos flock together! Some
+festival occupies them. I see them going forth from the gates in
+hurrying crowds; and now a band of men approaches. Some one is about to
+enter their town, to whom they wish to do honor, and doubtless they bear
+green branches to strew in the way. I know not what festival they
+celebrate, for the altars are all deserted."</p>
+
+<p>"I see a boat put off from the shore," said Evadne, "and it seems to
+turn its prow hitherward."</p>
+
+<p>But it soon was concealed by the woody hill-top, although its course was
+seen to be directed towards the ruined huts upon the shore. Not long
+after, the children heard the name of "Evadne," brought faintly by the
+echoes, like the words of unseen ghosts who strive to awaken some
+beloved sleeper unconscious of their presence.</p>
+
+<p>Evadne feared to return, and dared not stay. For the first time, the
+voice of her foster-father failed to bring her obedient footsteps; for
+her fluttering heart suspected something strange and unwelcome awaiting
+her. She wept at parting from Hylas, and the boy detained her. He also
+seemed troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear little one," he said, "betray me not! These men of Athos have seen
+me, and have authority to bring me bound before some ruler who has
+entered their town. They come to look for me now. I fly to my
+hiding-place, and you will deny that you saw any one in this forest."</p>
+
+<p>He was gone down the face of the cliff, with winged feet, light of tread
+as Jove's messenger. More slowly, Evadne retraced the downward path, and
+lingered on the banks of the ravine, where the bitter waters were
+sobbing among the rocks. She lay down upon the ground, and dreamed,
+while yet waking, of her home in Thessaly, of her unknown father in the
+Christian city of Thyatira, and of Hylas, ever Hylas, and the pain of
+parting. How long she hid herself she guessed not, until the sun at the
+zenith sent down his brightest beam to discover the lost Thessalian
+lamb. Then, subdued and despairing, she travelled on to meet the
+reproaches that could not fail to await her.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<p>At midnight the sleepless girl stole from her couch, and laid on the
+altar beyond the village heavy clusters of grapes and the richest fruits
+from her store of dainties. "Hylas!" she softly cried, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_786" id="Page_786">[Pg 786]</a></span> the
+sleepless echo repeated the name; but though she watched long, no form
+emerged from the forest. Timidly she flitted back to her dwelling, and
+waited for an eastern gleam. At last the veil of night was lifted a
+little, a wind ruffled the waves, and the swaying oaks repeated to the
+hills the message of coming splendors from the Orient. Evadne gladly saw
+that the stars were fewer and paler in the sky, and she walked forth
+again, brushing cold dews from the vines and the branches. A foreboding
+fear led her first to look at the altar where she had left her offering.
+It was untouched. Then she entered the still benighted wood, and passed
+the cold gray waters. Arrived at the temple, she felt a hateful
+stillness in the place.</p>
+
+<p>"Hylas!" she loudly called, "come to me! For <i>you</i> there is no danger;
+but for me, they will take me away at sunrise. The Christians will come
+to-day and carry me hence. Oh, Hylas! where do you hide yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>But only a strong and angry wind disturbed the laurels around the
+temple, and all was still. Then the song of the birds began all around
+her, and a silver gleam shot across the eastern horizon. Suddenly
+rosy-tinged signals stood among the sad-colored torn clouds above her
+head. The hour for her departure was approaching. She gazed intently
+down among the pines, where Hylas had disappeared, and painfully and
+slowly began to descend. The wild-eyed hares glanced at her and shrank
+into concealment again. The birds uttered cries of alarm, and the
+motionless lizards lay close to her feet. Her heart beat anxiously when
+she heard the sudden stroke of a bird's wing, scared from its nest, and
+she paused often to listen, but no human voice was heard.</p>
+
+<p>She penetrated slowly thus to that shore of the island which she had
+never yet visited. She reached a border of white sand, and studied its
+surface. She found a record there,&mdash;traces of footsteps, and the long
+trail of a boat, drawn from a thicket of laurels to the shore, and down
+to the water's edge. She stood many minutes contemplating these signs.
+She imaged to herself the retreat by night, by the late rising light of
+the waning moon. She seemed to see the youth, his manly arm urging the
+boat from its hiding-place. In this spot his foot pressed the sand.
+There he walked before and drew the little craft behind him. He launched
+it here, and, had not the winds urged the water up the shore, his last
+footstep might have remained for Evadne to gaze at.</p>
+
+<p>He is surely gone! To return for the smiles of Evadne? She knows not if
+he will return; but she glances upward at the sky, and feels that she
+soon will have quitted the island, this happy island, forever!</p>
+
+<p>Upward through the wood again she toils to take a last look at the
+temple. The spot seemed already to have forgotten her. And yet here lies
+a withered crown she wove once for Hylas; and here she finds at last the
+dart she lost for him, when she drew his bow in play. Now she sees on
+the shore at Athos an assembly of the people, and the men push off their
+boats. The village is already alive, and awake. The rising of the sun is
+looked for, and the clouds are like a golden fleece. Slowly above the
+tree-tops the swans are waving their great pinions, to seek the stream
+of Cayster. All creatures recognize the day, and only one weeps to see
+the light.</p>
+
+<p>Evadne knew that on yonder shore waited the dreaded messengers who would
+gather the homeless into the Christian fold. She stayed to utter one
+farewell to the cold, the cruel marble, with its unvaried smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Be my god!" she cried, aloud. "In whatever strange land, to whatever
+unknown religion I may be led, the god of this forgotten temple shall
+have the worship of my heart!"</p>
+
+<p>She crossed the marble pavement. She clasped with her white cold arms
+the knees of Apollo&mdash;Hold! the form totters!&mdash;it is too late!&mdash;it must
+fall! She rises to flee away, but the very floor is receding from her
+tread. And slowly, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_787" id="Page_787">[Pg 787]</a></span> a majesty even in destruction, the god bows
+himself, and drops from his pedestal.</p>
+
+<p>The crashing fall is over. The foundations of the shrine, parted long
+ago by earthquakes, and undermined by torrents, have slipped from their
+place. Stones slide gradually to the brink of the rock, and some have
+fallen near the sculptured rose; and yet some portions of the graceful
+temple stand, and will support the dome yet, until some boisterous storm
+shakes roughly the remaining columns.</p>
+
+<p>But the god is dethroned, shivered, ruined. Evadne should arise and go.
+The daylight overflows the sky, and she is quite, quite still, where the
+hand of Apollo has laid her. Her forehead was but touched by fingers
+that once held the lyre; and a crimson stream flows through the locks
+upon her brow. A smile like that which the god wore is fixed and
+changeless now upon her lip. Why does she smile? Because, in the dawn of
+life, of grief, of love, she found peace.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was up, and there was no more silence or repose along the coast.
+Vigor and toil gave signs of their awakening. Sails were unfurled upon
+the wavering masts, and showed white gleams, as the sunlight struck each
+as it broadened out and swayed above its bright reflection below. Oars
+were dipped in the smooth sea, and an eager crowd stood waiting to visit
+the exiles on the once dreaded island. Evadne was already missed. Again
+and again voices called upon her, the echoes repeated the sound, and the
+groves had but one voice,&mdash;"Evadne!" She stirred not at the sound, but
+her smile grew sweeter, and her brow paler, and cold as the marble hand
+that pressed it.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, Alpheus! oh, Eleusa! chide not! you will be weeping soon! She has,
+indeed, angered you of late. She left her foster-parents alone, and
+threaded the forest. She hid herself when you called, and, when the
+fisher's boat was waiting to convey her with you to the shore, where
+friends were ready to receive her and lead her to her father, then she
+was wandering!</p>
+
+<p>Eleusa is querulous. No wonder! for the child is sadly changed. They
+will see her soon; a Christian prophet comes to break the heathen spell
+of the island. The men of yonder village consent to abjure the worship
+of Apollo. They come with the teacher of a new religion to consecrate
+the spot anew. The busy crowd, as on a day of festival, embark to claim
+again the once deserted spot.</p>
+
+<p>Alpheus and Eleusa wait sadly for their approach, for trouble possesses
+their hearts. They pine for their once gentle, submissive child. But the
+teacher comes, and hails them in words of a new benediction. <i>The Great
+Name</i> is uttered also in their hearing. Calmness returns to them, in the
+presence of the holy man. It is not Paul, mighty to reprove, and learned
+as bold,&mdash;it is that "one whom Jesus loved." He has rested on his bosom,
+and looked on him pierced on the cross. The look from his dying eyes and
+the tones of his tender love are ever present in the soul of this
+beloved disciple. The awful revelations of Patmos had not yet illumined
+his eyes. His locks were white as the first blossoms of the spring, but
+his heart was not withered by time, and men believed of him that he
+should never see death. Those who beheld him loved him, and listened
+because they loved. What he desired was accomplished as if a king had
+commanded it, and what he taught was gathered in among the treasures of
+the heart.</p>
+
+<p>The first care of the Apostle was to seek the lost child, and the youths
+of his company went on, and scaled the hill. Meanwhile, not far from the
+altar, on which an unregarded offering lay, the people gathered round
+their master, while to Alpheus and Eleusa he related the immortal story
+of Judea.</p>
+
+<p>Before mid-day the villagers had returned to their dwellings. With John,
+their friend and consoler, two mourners departed from the island, where
+fabled Apollo no longer possessed a shrine. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_788" id="Page_788">[Pg 788]</a></span> altar was torn away; a
+newly-made grave was marked by a cross roughly built of its broken
+stones.</p>
+
+<p>"I will return here," said the fisherman of Athos, "when you are far
+away in some Christian city of Asia. I will return and carve here the
+name of 'Evadne.'"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_SKATER" id="THE_SKATER"></a>THE SKATER.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The skater lightly laughs and glides,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unknowing that beneath the ice<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whereon he carves his fair device<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A stiffened corpse in silence slides.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It glareth upward at his play;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Its cold, blue, rigid fingers steal<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beneath the trendings of his heel;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It floats along and floats away.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He has not seen its horror pass;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His heart is blithe; the village hears<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His distant laughter; he careers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In festive waltz athwart the glass.&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We are the skaters, we who skim<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The surface of Life's solemn flood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And drive, with gladness in our blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A daring dance from brim to brim.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Our feet are swift, our faces burn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our hopes aspire like soaring birds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The world takes courage from our words,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sees the golden time return.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But ever near us, silent, cold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Float those who bounded from the bank<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With eager hearts, like us, and sank<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because their feet were overbold.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They sank through breathing-holes of vice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through treacherous sheens of unbelief;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They know not their despair and grief:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their hearts and minds are turned to ice.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_789" id="Page_789">[Pg 789]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THOMAS_JEFFERSON1" id="THOMAS_JEFFERSON1"></a>THOMAS JEFFERSON.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
+
+<h3>[Concluded.]</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Jefferson returned from France in the autumn of 1789, and the
+following spring took office as Secretary of State. He was unwilling to
+abandon his post abroad, but the solicitations of Washington controlled
+him. He plainly was the most suitable person for the place. Franklin,
+the father of American diplomacy, was rapidly approaching the close of
+his long and busy life, and John Adams, the only other statesman whose
+diplomatic experience could be compared with that of Thomas Jefferson,
+was Vice President.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a tedious task to enter into a detail of the disputes which
+arose in Washington's Cabinet, nor is it necessary to do so. Most candid
+persons, who have examined the subject, are convinced that the
+differences were unavoidable, that they were produced by exigencies in
+affairs upon which men naturally would disagree, by conflicting social
+elements, and by the dissimilar characters, purposes, and political
+doctrines of Jefferson and Hamilton. Jefferson's course was in
+accordance with the general principles of government which from his
+youth he had entertained.</p>
+
+<p>As to the accusation, so often made, that he opposed an administration
+of which he was a member and which by the plainest party-rules he was
+bound to support, it is completely answered by the statement, that his
+conduct was understood by Washington, that he repeatedly offered to
+resign, and that when he retired it was in opposition to the President's
+wish. It is not worth while for us to apply a higher standard of party
+loyalty to Washington's ministers than he himself applied.</p>
+
+<p>One great difficulty encountered by the politicians of that day seems to
+have been purely fanciful. Strictly speaking, the government did not
+have a policy. It went into operation with the impression that it would
+be persistently resisted, that its success was doubtful, and that any
+considerable popular disaffection would be fatal to it. These fears
+proved to be unfounded. The day Washington took the oath, the government
+was as stable as it now is. Disturbing elements undoubtedly existed, but
+they were controlled by great and overruling necessities, recognized by
+all men. Thus the final purpose of the administration was accomplished
+at the outset. The labor which it was expected would task the patriotism
+and exercise the skill of the most generous and experienced was
+performed without an effort,&mdash;as it were, by a mere pulsation of the
+popular heart. The question was not, How shall the government be
+preserved? but, How shall it be administered? This is evident now, but
+was not seen then. The statesmen of the time believed that the Union was
+constantly in danger, and that their best efforts were needed to protect
+it. In this spirit they approached every question which presented
+itself. Thinking that every measure directly affected the safety of the
+republic, a difference of opinion could not be a mere disagreement upon
+a matter of policy. In proportion to the intensity of each man's
+patriotism was his conviction that in his way alone could the government
+be preserved, and he naturally thought that his opponents must be either
+culpably neglecting or deliberately plotting against the interests of
+the country. Real difficulties were increased by imaginary ones.
+Opposition became treason. Parties called themselves Republicans and
+Federalists;&mdash;they called each other monarchists and anarchists. This
+delusion has always characterized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_790" id="Page_790">[Pg 790]</a></span> our politics; noisy politicians of
+the present day stigmatize their adversaries as disunionists; but during
+the first twenty years it was universal, and explains the fierce
+party-spirit which possessed the statesmen of that period, and likewise
+accounts for many of their errors.</p>
+
+<p>Among these errors must be placed the belief which Jefferson had, that
+there was a party of monarchists in the country. Sir. Randall makes a
+long argument in support of this opinion, and closes with an intimation
+that those who refuse to believe now cannot be reached by reason. He may
+rank us with these perverse skeptics; for, in our opinion, his argument
+not only fails to establish his propositions, but is strong against
+them. Let it be understood;&mdash;the assertion is not, that there were some
+who would have preferred a monarchy to a republic, but that, after the
+government was established, Ames, Sedgwick, Hamilton, and other Federal
+leaders, were plotting to overturn it and create a monarchy. Upon this
+we have no hesitation in taking issue. The real state of the case, and
+the circumstances which deceived Mr. Jefferson, may be briefly set
+forth.</p>
+
+<p>Jefferson left France shortly after the taking of the Bastile. He saw
+the most auspicious period of the Revolution. During the session of the
+Estates General, the evils which afflicted France were admitted by all,
+but the remedies proposed were, as yet, purely speculative. The roseate
+theories of poets and enthusiasts had filled every mind with vague
+expectations of some great good in the future. Nothing had occurred to
+disturb these pleasing anticipations. There was no sign of the fearful
+disasters then impending. The delirium of possession had not seized upon
+the nation,&mdash;her statesmen had not learned how much easier it is to plan
+than to achieve,&mdash;nor had the voice of Burke carried terror throughout
+Europe. Even now, it is impossible to read the first acts of that drama
+without being moved to sympathetic enthusiasm. What emotions must it not
+have excited while the awful catastrophe was yet concealed! Tried by any
+received test, France, for centuries, had been the chief state in
+Europe,&mdash;inferior to none in the arts of war, superior to any in the
+arts of peace. Fashion and letters had given her an empire more
+permanent than that which the enterprise of Columbus and the fortune of
+Charles gave to Spain, more extended than that which Trafalgar and
+Waterloo have since given to England. Though her armies were resisted,
+her wit and grace were irresistible; every European prince was her
+subject, every European court a theatre for the display of her address.
+The peculiar spirit of her genius is not more distinctly to be seen in
+the verse of Boileau than in that of Pope,&mdash;in the sounding periods of
+Bossuet than in Addison's easy phrase. The spectacle of a nation so
+distinguished, which had carried tyranny to a perfection and invested it
+with a splendor never before seen, becoming the coryph&aelig;us of freedom,
+might easily have fascinated a mind less impressible by nature, and less
+disposed by education for favorable impressions, than that of Jefferson.
+He shared the feeling of the hour. His advice was asked, and
+respectfully listened to. This experience, while, as he says, it
+strengthened his preconceived convictions, must have prevented him from
+carefully observing, certainly from being affected by, the influences
+which had been at work in his own country. He came home more assured in
+republicanism, and expecting to find that America had kept pace with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>But many things had occurred in America to excite doubts of the
+efficiency of republican institutions. The government of the
+Confederation was of little value. During the war, common interests and
+dangers had bound the Colonies together; with peace came commercial
+rivalries, boundary disputes, relations with other countries, the
+burdens of a large debt,&mdash;and the scanty powers with which Congress had
+been clothed were inadequate to the public exigencies. The Congress was
+a mere convention,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_791" id="Page_791">[Pg 791]</a></span> in which each State had but one vote. To the most
+important enactments the consent of nine States was necessary. The
+concurrence of the several legislatures was required to levy a tax,
+raise an army, or ratify a treaty. The executive power was lodged in a
+committee, which was useless either for deliberation or action. The
+government fell into contempt; it could not protect itself from insult;
+and the doors of Congress were once besieged by a mob of mutinous
+soldiery. The States sometimes openly resisted the central government,
+and to the most necessary laws, those for the maintenance of the
+national credit, they gave but a partial obedience. They quarrelled with
+each other. New York sent troops into the field to enforce her claims
+upon her New England neighbors. The inhabitants of the Territories
+rebelled. Kentucky, Vermont, and Tennessee, under another name, declared
+themselves independent, and demanded admission into the Union. In New
+Hampshire and Pennsylvania, insurrections took place. In Massachusetts,
+a rebellion was set on foot, which, for a time, interrupted the sessions
+of the courts. An Indian war, attended by the usual barbarities, raged
+along the northern frontier. Foreign states declined to negotiate with a
+government which could not enforce its decrees within its own borders.
+England haughtily refused to withdraw her troops from our soil; Spain
+closed the Mississippi to the commerce and encroached upon the territory
+of the Confederation. Every consideration of safety and advantage
+demanded a government with strength enough to secure quiet at home and
+respect abroad. It is not to be denied that many thoughtful and
+experienced men were discouraged by the failure of the Confederation,
+and thought that nothing but a monarchy could accomplish the desired
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>There were also certain social elements tending in the same direction,
+and these were strongest in the city of New York, where Jefferson first
+observed them. That city had been the centre of the largest and most
+powerful Tory community in the Colonies. The gentry were nearly all
+Tories, and, during the long occupation of the town, the tradespeople,
+thriving upon British patronage, had become attached to the British
+cause. There, and, indeed, in all the cities, there were aristocratic
+circles. Jefferson was of course introduced into them. In these circles
+were the persons who gave dinners, and at whose tables he heard the
+opinions expressed which astonished and alarmed him.</p>
+
+<p>What is described as polite society has never been much felt in American
+politics; it was not more influential then. Besides, in many cases,
+these opinions were more likely to have been the expression of
+affectation than of settled conviction. Nothing is more common than a
+certain insincerity which leads men to profess and seemingly believe
+sentiments which they do not and cannot act upon. The stout squire who
+prides himself upon his obstinacy, and whose pretty daughter manages him
+as easily as she manages her poodle, is a favorite character in English
+comedy. Every one knows some truculent gentleman who loudly proclaims
+that one half of mankind are knaves and the other half would be if they
+dared, but who would go mad with despair if he really believed the
+atrocious principles he loves to announce. Jefferson was not so
+constituted as to make the proper allowance for this kind of
+insincerity. Though undemonstrative, he was thoroughly in earnest. In
+fact, he was something of a precisian in politics. He spoke of kings and
+nobles as if they were personal foes, and disliked Scott's novels
+because they give too pleasing a representation of the institution of
+chivalry. He probably looked upon a man who spoke covetously of titles
+much as a Salem elder a century before would have looked upon a
+hard-swearing Virginia planter. In the purse-proud citizens, who, after
+dinner, used to talk grandly about the British Constitution, he saw a
+set of malignant conspirators, when in fact not one in ten had ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_792" id="Page_792">[Pg 792]</a></span>
+thought seriously upon the subject, or had enough force of character to
+attempt to carry out his opinions, whatever they might have been.</p>
+
+<p>The political discontents were hardly more formidable. We have admitted
+that some influential persons were in favor of a monarchy; but no one
+took a decided step in that direction. In all the published
+correspondence there is not a particle of evidence of such a movement.
+Even Hamilton, in his boldest advances towards a centralization of
+power, did not propose a monarchy. Those who were most doubtful about
+the success of a republic recognized the necessity of making the
+experiment, and were the most active in establishing the present one.
+The sparsity of the population, the extent of the country, and its
+poverty, made a royal establishment impossible. The people were
+dissatisfied with the Confederation, not with republicanism. The breath
+of ridicule would have upset the throne. The King, the Dukes of
+Massachusetts and Virginia, the Marquises of Connecticut and Mohawk,
+Earl Susquehanna and Lord Livingston, would have been laughed at by
+every ragamuffin. The sentiment which makes the appendages of royalty,
+its titles and honors, respectable, is the result of long education, and
+has never existed in America. Washington was the only person mentioned
+in connection with the crown; but had he attempted to reach it, he would
+have lost his power over the people. He was strong because he had
+convinced his country that he held personal objects subservient to
+public ones,&mdash;that, with him, "the path of duty was the way to glory."
+He had none of the magnetism which lulls the senses and leads captive
+the hearts of men. Had he clothed himself in the vulgar robes of
+royalty,&mdash;had he taken advantage of the confidence reposed in him for a
+purpose of self-aggrandizement, and that of so petty and commonplace a
+kind,&mdash;he would have sunk to a level with the melodramatic heroes of
+history, and that colossal reputation, which rose, a fair exhalation
+from the hearts of grateful millions, and covered all the land, would
+have vanished like a mist.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever individuals may have wished for, the charge of monarchical
+designs cannot be brought against the Federalists as a party. New
+England was the mother of the Revolution, and became the stronghold of
+Federalism. In South Carolina and New York, a majority of the
+inhabitants were Tories; the former State voted for Mr. Jefferson every
+time he was a candidate, the latter gave him his election in 1800. It
+requires a liberal expenditure of credulity to believe that the children
+of the Puritans desired a monarchy more than the descendants of the
+Cavaliers and the adherents of De Lancy and Ogden. Upon this subject
+Jefferson does not seem to have understood that disposition which can be
+dissatified with a measure, and yet firm and honest in supporting it.
+Public men constantly yield or modify their opinions under the pressure
+of political necessity. He himself gives an instance of this, when, in
+stating that he was not entirely content with the Constitution, he
+remarks that not a member of the Federal Convention approved it in all
+its parts. Why may we not suppose that Hamilton and Ames sacrificed
+their opinions, as well as Mr. Jefferson and the framers of the
+Constitution?</p>
+
+<p>The evidence with which Mr. Randall fortifies his position is
+inconclusive. It consists of the opinions of leading Republicans, and
+extracts from the letters of leading Federalists. The former are liable
+to the objection of having been prompted by political prejudices; the
+latter will not bear the construction which he places upon them. They
+are nothing more than expressions of doubt as to the stability of the
+government, and of regret that one of a different kind was not
+adopted,&mdash;most of which were made after the Federalists were defeated.
+We should not place too literal a construction upon the repinings of
+disappointed placemen. Mr. Randall, we believe, has been in political
+life, and ought to be accustomed to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_793" id="Page_793">[Pg 793]</a></span> disposition which exists among
+public men to think that the country will be ruined, if it is deprived
+of their services. After every election, our ears are vexed by the
+gloomy vaticinations of defeated candidates. This amiable weakness is
+too common to excite uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>An argument of the same kind, and quite as effective as Mr. Randall's,
+might be made against Jefferson. His letters contain predictions of
+disaster in case of the success of his opponents, and the Federalists
+spoke as harshly of him as he of them. They charged him with being a
+disciple of Robespierre, said that he was in favor of anarchy, and would
+erect a guillotine in every market-place. He called them monarchists,
+and said they sighed after King, Lords, and Commons. Neither charge will
+be believed. The heads of the Federalists were safe after the election
+of Mr. Jefferson, and the republic would have been safe if Hamilton and
+Adams had continued in power.</p>
+
+<p>Both parties formed exaggerated opinions. That Jefferson did so, no one
+can doubt who observes the weight he gave to trifles,&mdash;his annoyance at
+the etiquette of the capital,&mdash;at the levees and liveries,&mdash;at the
+President's speech,&mdash;the hysterical dread into which he was thrown by
+the mere mention of the Society of the Cincinnati, and the "chill" which
+Mr. Randall says came over him "when he heard Hamilton praise C&aelig;sar."
+This spirit led him to the act which every one must think is a stain
+upon his character: we refer to the compilation of his "Ana." As is well
+known, that book was written mainly for the purpose of proving that the
+Federalists were in favor of a monarchy. It consists chiefly of reports
+of the conversations of distinguished characters. Some of these
+conversations&mdash;and it is noticeable that they are the most innocent
+ones&mdash;took place in his presence. The worst expressions are mere reports
+by third parties. One story rests upon no better foundation than that
+Talleyrand told it to Volney, who told it to Jefferson. At one place we
+are informed, that, at a St. Andrew's Club dinner, the toast to the
+President (Mr. Adams) was coldly received, but at that to George the
+Third "Hamilton started to his feet and insisted on a bumper and three
+cheers." This choice bit of scandal is given on the authority of "Mr.
+Smith, a Hamburg merchant," "who received it from Mr. Schwarthouse, <i>to
+whom it was told by one of the dinner-party</i>." At a dinner given by some
+members of the bar to the federal judges, this toast was offered: "Our
+<i>King</i> in old England,"&mdash;Rufus King being the American minister in that
+country. Whereupon Mr. Jefferson solemnly asks us "to observe the
+<i>double entendre</i> on the word King." Du Ponceau told this to Tenche
+Coxe, who told it to Jefferson. Such stuff is repeated in connection
+with descriptions of how General and Mrs. Washington sat on a raised
+sofa at a ball, and all the dancers bowed to them,&mdash;and how Mrs. Knox
+mounted the steps unbidden, and, finding the sofa too small for three,
+had to go down. We are told that at one time John Adams cried, "Damn
+'em! you see that an elective government will not do,"&mdash;and that at
+another he complimented a little boy who was a Democrat, saying, "Well,
+a boy of fifteen who is not a Democrat is good for nothing,&mdash;and he is
+no better who is a Democrat at twenty." Of this bit of treason Jefferson
+says, "Ewen told Hurt, and Hurt told me." These are not mere scraps,
+published by an indiscreet editor. They were revised by Mr. Jefferson in
+1818, when he was seventy-five years old, after, as he says, the
+passions of the time were passed away,&mdash;with the intention that they
+should be published. It is humiliating to record this act. No
+justification for it is possible. It is idle to say that these
+revelations were made to warn the country of its danger. As evidence
+they are not entitled to a thought. More flimsy gossip never floated
+over a tea-table. Besides, for such a purpose they should have been
+published when the contest was in progress, when the danger was
+imminent, not after the men whom he arraigned were defeated and most of
+them in their graves. Equally unsatisfactory is the excuse,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_794" id="Page_794">[Pg 794]</a></span> that they
+illustrate history. This may be true, but it does not acquit Mr.
+Jefferson. Pepys tells us more than Hume about the court of Charles II.,
+and Boswell's Life of Johnson is the best biography in the
+language,&mdash;but he must be a shabby fellow who would be either a Boswell
+or a Pepys. Mr. Randall's excuse, that the act was done in
+self-vindication, is the worst of all. Jefferson was the victor and
+needed no defence, surely not so mean and cowardly a defence. That a
+grave statesman should stoop to betray the confidence of familiar
+intercourse,&mdash;that a skeptical inquirer, who systematically rejected
+everything which did not stand the most rigid tests, should rely on the
+ridiculous gossip of political circles,&mdash;that a deliberate and
+thoughtful man should jump to a conclusion as quickly as a child, and
+assert it with the intolerance of a Turk, certainly is a strange
+anomaly. We can account for it only by supposing that upon the subject
+of a monarchy he was a little beside himself. It is certain, that,
+through some weakness, he was made to forget gentlemanly propriety, and
+the plainest rules for the sifting of testimony;&mdash;let us believe that
+the general opinions which he formed, and which his biographer
+perpetuates, resulted from the same unfortunate weakness.</p>
+
+<p>We have dwelt upon this subject, both on account of the prominence which
+Mr. Randall has given it, and because, as admirers of Mr. Jefferson, we
+wished to make a full and distinct statement of the most common and
+reasonable complaint against him. The biographer has done his hero a
+great injury by reviving this absurd business, and has cast suspicion
+upon the accuracy of his book. It is time that our historians approached
+their subjects with more liberal tempers. They should cease to be
+advocates. Whatever the American people may think about the policy of
+the Federalists, they will not impute to them unpatriotic designs. That
+party comprised a majority of the Revolutionary leaders. It is not
+strange that many of them fell into error. They were wealthy and had the
+pride of wealth. They had been educated with certain ideas about rank,
+which a military life had strengthened. The liberal theories which the
+war had engendered were not understood, and, during the French
+Revolution, they became associated with acts of atrocity which Mr.
+Jefferson himself condemned. Abler men than the Federalists failed to
+discriminate between the crime and the principles which the criminals
+professed. Students of affairs are now in a better position than Mr.
+Jefferson was, to ascertain the truth, and they will not find it
+necessary to adopt his prejudices against a body of men who have adorned
+our history by eloquence, learning, and valor.</p>
+
+<p>Jefferson's position in Washington's government must have been extremely
+disagreeable. There was hardly a subject upon which he and Hamilton
+agreed. Washington had established the practice of disposing of the
+business before the Cabinet by vote. Each member was at liberty to
+explain his views, and, owing to the wide differences in opinion, the
+Cabinet Council became a debating society. This gave Hamilton an
+advantage. Jefferson never argued, and, if he had attempted it, he would
+have been no match for his adversary. He contented himself with a plain
+statement of his views and the reasons which influenced him, made in the
+abstract manner which was habitual with him. Hamilton, on the other
+hand, was an adroit lawyer, and a painstaking dialectician, who
+carefully fortified every position. He made long speeches to the
+Cabinet, with as much earnestness as one would use in court. Though
+Jefferson had great influence with the President, he was generally
+outvoted. Knox, of course, was against him. Randolph, the
+Attorney-General, upon whose support he had a right to depend, was an
+ingenious, but unsteady, sophist. He had so just an understanding, that
+his appreciation of his opponent's argument was usually stronger than
+his confidence in his own. He commonly agreed with Jefferson, and voted
+with Hamilton. The Secretary of State was not allowed to control his
+own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_795" id="Page_795">[Pg 795]</a></span> department. Hamilton continually interfered with him, and had
+business interviews with the ministers of foreign countries. The dispute
+soon spread beyond the Cabinet, and was taken up by the press. Jefferson
+again and again asked leave to resign; Washington besought him to
+remain, and endeavored to close the breach between the rival
+Secretaries. For a time, Jefferson yielded to these solicitations; but
+finally, on the 31st of December, 1793, he left office, and was soon
+followed by Hamilton.</p>
+
+<p>After reaching Monticello, Mr. Jefferson announced, that he had
+completely withdrawn from affairs, and that he did not even read the
+journals, preferring to contemplate "the tranquil growth of lucern and
+potatoes." These bucolic pleasures soon palled. Cultivating lucern and
+potatoes is, without doubt, a dignified and useful employment, but it is
+not likely to content a man who has played a great part, and is
+conscious that he is still able to do so. We soon find him a candidate
+for the Presidency, and, strange as it may seem, in 1797, he was
+persuaded to leave his "buckwheat-dressings" and take the seat of
+Vice-President.</p>
+
+<p>Those who are interested in party tactics will find it instructive to
+read Mr. Randall's account of the opposition to Adams's administration.
+His correspondence shows that Adams was the victim of those in whom he
+confided. He made the mistake of retaining the Cabinet which Washington
+had during the last year or two of his term, and a weaker one has never
+been seen. His ministers plotted against him,&mdash;his party friends opposed
+and thwarted him. The President had sufficient talent for a score of
+Cabinets, but he likewise had many foibles, and his position seemed to
+fetter his talents and give full play to his foibles. The opposition
+adroitly took advantage of the dissensions of their adversaries. In
+Congress, the Federalists were compelled to carry every measure by main
+force, and every inch of ground was contested. The temporizing Madison,
+formerly leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, had
+been succeeded by Albert Gallatin, a man of more enterprising spirit and
+firmer grasp of thought. He was assisted by John Randolph, who then
+first displayed the resources of his versatile and daring intellect. Mr.
+Jefferson, also, as the avowed candidate for the succession, may be
+supposed to have contributed his unrivalled knowledge of the springs of
+human action. Earnest as the opposition were, they did not abuse the
+license which is permitted in political contests. But the Federalists
+pursued Mr. Jefferson with a vindictiveness which has no parallel, in
+this country. They boasted of being gentlemen, and prided themselves
+upon their standing and culture, yet they descended to the vilest tricks
+and meanest scandal. They called Jefferson a Jacobin,&mdash;abused him
+because he liked French cookery and French wines, and wore a red
+waistcoat. To its shame, the pulpit was foremost in this disgraceful
+warfare. Clergymen did not hesitate to mention him by name in their
+sermons. Cobbett said, that Jefferson had cheated his British creditors.
+A Maryland preacher improved this story, by saying that he had cheated a
+widow and her daughters, of whose estate he was executor. He was
+compared to Rehoboam. It was said, that he had a negro mistress, and
+compelled his daughters to submit to her presence,&mdash;that he would not
+permit his children to read the Bible,&mdash;and that, on one occasion, when
+his attention was called to the dilapidated condition of a church, he
+remarked, "It is good enough for him who was born in a manger."
+According to his custom, he made no reply to these slanders, and, except
+from a few mild remarks in his letters, one cannot discover that he
+heard of them.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Adams did not show his successor the customary courtesy of attending
+his inauguration, leaving Washington the same morning. The new
+President, entirely unattended and plainly dressed, rode down the avenue
+on horseback. He tied his horse to the paling which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_796" id="Page_796">[Pg 796]</a></span> surrounded the
+Capitol grounds, and, without ceremony, entered the Senate Chamber. The
+contrast between this somewhat ostentatious simplicity and the parade at
+the inaugurations of Washington and Adams showed how great a change had
+taken place in the government.</p>
+
+<p>The Presidency is the culmination of Mr. Jefferson's political career,
+and we gladly turn to a contemplation of his character in other aspects.</p>
+
+<p>The collections of Jefferson's writings and correspondence, which have
+been published, throw no light upon his domestic relations. We have
+complained of the prolixity of Mr. Randall's book, but we do not wish to
+be understood as complaining of the number of family letters it
+contains. They form its most pleasing and novel feature. They show us
+that the placid philosopher had a nature which was ardent, tender, and
+constant. His wife died after but ten years of married life. She was the
+mother of six children, of whom two, Martha and Maria, reached maturity.
+Though still young, Mr. Jefferson never married again, finding
+sufficient opportunity for the indulgence of his domestic tastes in the
+society of his daughters. Martha, whom he nicknamed Patsey, was plain,
+resembling her father in features, and having some of his mental
+characteristics. Maria, the youngest, inherited the charms of her
+mother, and is described as one of the most beautiful women of her time.
+Her natural courtesy procured for her, while yet a child, from her
+French attendants, the <i>sobriquet</i> of Polie, a name which clung to her
+through life.</p>
+
+<p>Charged with the care of these children, Jefferson made their education
+one of his regular occupations, as systematically performed as his
+public duties. He planned their studies, and descended to the minutest
+directions as to dress and deportment. While they were young, he himself
+selected every article of clothing for them, and even after they were
+married, continued their constant and confidential adviser. When they
+were absent, he insisted that they should inform him how they occupied
+themselves, what books they read, what tunes they played, dwelling on
+these details with the fond particularity of a lover. Association with
+his daughters seemed to awaken his noblest and most refined impulses,
+and to reveal the choicest fruit of his reading and experience. His
+letters to them are models of their kind. They contain not only those
+general precepts which an affectionate parent and wise man would
+naturally desire to impress upon the mind of a child, but they also show
+a perception of the most subtile feminine traits and a sympathy with the
+most delicate feminine tastes, seldom seen in our sex, and which
+exhibits the breadth and symmetry of Jefferson's organization. One of
+the most characteristic of these letters is in the possession of the
+Queen of England, to whom it was sent by his family, in answer to a
+request for an autograph.</p>
+
+<p>His daughters were in France with him, and were placed at school in a
+convent near Paris. Martha was captivated by the ceremonials of the
+Romish Church, and wrote to her father asking that she might be
+permitted to take the veil. It is easy to imagine the surprise with
+which the worldly diplomatist read the epistle. He did not reply to it,
+but soon made a visit to the Abbaye. He smiled kindly at the young
+enthusiast, who came anxiously to meet him, told the girls that he had
+come for them, and, without referring to Martha's letter, took them back
+to Paris. The account-book shows that after this incident the young
+ladies did not diminish their attention to the harpsichord, guitar, and
+dancing-master.</p>
+
+<p>Maria, who was married to John W. Eppes, died in 1804, leaving two
+children. Martha, wife of Thomas M. Randolph, survived her father. She
+was the mother of ten children. The Randolphs lived on Mr. Jefferson's
+estate of Monticello, and after he retired from public life he found his
+greatest pleasure in the society of the numerous family which surrounded
+him,&mdash;a pleasure which increased<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_797" id="Page_797">[Pg 797]</a></span> with his years. Mr. Randall publishes
+a few letters from some of Jefferson's grand-daughters, describing their
+happy child-life at Monticello. Besides being noticeable for grace of
+expression, these letters breathe a spirit of affection for Mr.
+Jefferson which only the warmest affection on his part could have
+elicited. The writers fondly relate every particular which illustrates
+the habits and manners of the retired statesman; telling with what
+kindness be reproved, with what heartiness he commended them; how the
+children loved to follow him in his walks, to sit with him by the fire
+during the winter twilight, or at the window in summer, listening to his
+quaint stories; how he directed their sports, acted as judge when they
+ran races in the garden, and gathered fruit for them, pulling down the
+branches on which the ripest cherries hung. All speak of the pleasure it
+gave him to anticipate their wishes by some unexpected gift. One says
+that her Bible and Shakspeare came from him,&mdash;that he gave her her first
+writing-desk, her first watch, her first Leghorn hat and silk dress.
+Another tells how he saw her tear her dress, and in a few days brought a
+new and more beautiful one to mend it, as he said,&mdash;that she had refused
+to buy a guitar which she admired, because it was too expensive, and
+that when she came to breakfast the next morning the guitar was waiting
+for her. One of these ladies seems to give only a natural expression to
+the feelings which all his grand-children had for him, when she prettily
+calls him their good genius with magic wand, brightening their young
+lives by his kindness and his gifts.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the account which these volumes give of Monticello life is very
+interesting. The house was a long brick building, in the Grecian style,
+common at that time. It was surmounted by a dome; in front was a
+portico; and there were piazzas at the end of each wing. It was situated
+upon the summit of a hill six hundred feet high, one of a range of such.
+To the east lay an undulating plain, unbroken save by a solitary peak;
+and upon the western side a deep valley swept up to the base of the Blue
+Ridge, which was twenty miles distant. The grounds were tastefully
+decorated, and, by a peculiar arrangement which the site permitted, all
+the domestic offices and barns were sunk from view. The interior of the
+mansion was spacious, and even elegant; it was decorated with natural
+curiosities,&mdash;Indian and Mexican antiquities, articles of <i>virt&ugrave;</i>, and a
+large number of portraits and busts of historical characters. The
+library&mdash;which was sold to the government in 1815&mdash;contained between
+nine and ten thousand volumes. He had another house upon an estate
+called Poplar Forest, ninety miles from Monticello.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Jefferson was too old to attempt any new scientific or literary
+enterprise, but as soon as he reached home he began to renew his former
+acquaintances. His meteorological observations were continued, he
+studied botany, and was an industrious reader of three or four
+languages. When nearly eighty, we find him writing elaborate
+disquisitions on grammar, astronomy, the Epicurean philosophy, and
+discussing style with Edward Everett. The coldness between him and John
+Adams passed away, and they used to write one another long letters, in
+which they criticized Plato and the Greek dramatists, speculated upon
+the end for which the sensations of grief were intended, and asked each
+other whether they would consent to live their lives over again.
+Jefferson, with his usual cheerfulness, promptly answered, Yes.</p>
+
+<p>He dispensed a liberal hospitality, and in a style which showed the
+influence of his foreign residence. Though temperate, he understood the
+mysteries of the French <i>cuisine</i>, and liked the wines of M&eacute;doc. These
+tastes gave occasion to Patrick Henry's sarcasm upon gentlemen "<i>who
+abjured their native victuals</i>." Mr. Randall tells an amusing anecdote
+of a brandy-drinking Virginian, who wondered how a man of so much taste
+could drink cold, sour French wine, and insisted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_798" id="Page_798">[Pg 798]</a></span> that some night he
+would be carried off by it.</p>
+
+<p>No American has ever exerted so great and universal an attraction. Men
+of all parties made pilgrimages to Monticello. Foreigners of distinction
+were unwilling to leave the country without seeing Mr. Jefferson; men of
+fashion, artists, <i>litt&eacute;rateurs</i>, <i>savants</i>, soldiers, clergymen,
+flocked to his house. Mrs. Randolph stated, that she had provided beds
+for fifty persons at a time. The intrusion was often disagreeable
+enough. Groups of uninvited strangers sometimes planted themselves in
+the passages of his house to see him go to dinner, or gathered around
+him when he sat on the portico. A female once broke a window-pane with
+her parasol to got a better view of him. But no press of company was
+permitted to interfere with his occupations. The early morning was
+devoted to correspondence; the day to his library, to his workshop, or
+to business; after dinner he gave himself up to society.</p>
+
+<p>Making every allowance for the exaggerations of his admirers, it cannot
+be doubted that Jefferson was a master of conversation. It had
+contributed too much to his success not to have been made the subject of
+thought. It is true, he had neither wit nor eloquence; but this was a
+kind of negative advantage; for he was free from that striving after
+effect so common among professed wits, neither did he indulge in those
+monologues into which eloquence betrayed Coleridge and seduces Macaulay.
+He had great tact, information, and worldly knowledge. He never
+disputed, and had the address not to attempt to control the current of
+conversation for the purpose of turning it in a particular direction,
+but was always ready to follow the humor of the hour. His language, if
+seldom striking, never failed to harmonize with his theme, while, of
+course, the effect of everything he said was heightened by his age and
+reputation.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, his latter days were clouded by pecuniary distress.
+Although prudent and methodical, partly from unavoidable circumstances,
+and partly from the expense of his enormous establishment, his large
+estate became involved. The failure of a friend for whom he had indorsed
+completed his ruin and made it necessary to sell his property. This,
+however, was not done until after his death, when every debt was paid,
+even to a subscription for a Presbyterian church.</p>
+
+<p>As is well known, the chief labor of his age was the establishment of
+the University of Virginia. He was the creator of that institution, and
+displayed in behalf of it a zeal and energy truly wonderful. When unable
+to ride over to the University, which was eight miles from Monticello,
+he used to sit upon his terrace and watch the workmen through a
+telescope. He designed the buildings, planned the organization and
+course of instruction, and selected the faculty. He seemed to regard
+this enterprise as crowning and completing a career which had been
+devoted to the cause of liberty, by providing for the increase and
+diffusion of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>In February, 1826, the return of a disease by which he had at intervals
+been visited convinced Jefferson that he should soon die. With customary
+deliberation and system, he prepared for his decease, arranging his
+affairs and giving the final directions as to the University. To his
+family he did not mention the subject, nor could they detect any change
+in his manner, except an increased tenderness in each night's farewell,
+and the lingering gaze with which he followed their motions. His mental
+vigor continued. His will, quite a long document, was written by
+himself; and on the 24th of June he wrote a reply to an invitation to
+the celebration at Washington of the ensuing Fourth of July. It is
+difficult to discover in what respect this production is inferior to his
+earlier performances of the same kind. It has all of the author's ease
+and precision of style, and more than his ordinary distinctness and
+earnestness of thought. This was his last letter. He rapidly declined,
+but preserved possession of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_799" id="Page_799">[Pg 799]</a></span> faculties. He remarked, as if surprised
+at it, upon his disposition to recur to the scenes of the Revolution,
+and seemed to wish that his life might be prolonged until the Fourth of
+July. This wish was not denied to him; he expired at noon of that day,
+precisely fifty years after the Declaration of Independence. A few hours
+afterwards the great heart of John Adams ceased to beat.</p>
+
+<p>So much has been said about Mr. Jefferson's religious opinions, and our
+biographer gives them such prominence, that we shall be pardoned for
+alluding to them, although they are not among the topics which a critic
+generally should touch. Mr. Randall says that Jefferson was "a public
+professor of his belief in the Christian religion." We do not think that
+this unqualified statement is supported by Jefferson's explanation of
+his views upon Christianity, which Mr. Randall subsequently gives.
+Religion, in the sense which is commonly given to it, as a system of
+faith and worship, he did not connect with Christ at all. He was a
+believer in the existence of God, in a future life, and in man's
+accountability for his actions here: in so far as this, he may be said
+to have had a system of worship, but not of Christian worship. He
+regarded Christ simply as a man, with no other than mortal power,&mdash;and
+to worship him in any way would, in his opinion, have been idolatry. His
+theology recognized the Deity alone. The extracts from his public
+papers, upon which Mr. Randall relies, contain nothing but those general
+expressions which a Mohammedan or a follower of Confucius might have
+used. He said he was a Christian "in the only sense in which Christ
+wished any one to be"; but received Christ's teachings merely as a
+system, and not a perfect system, of morals. He rejected the narratives
+which attest the Divine character or the Divine mission of the Saviour,
+thinking them the fictions of ignorance and superstition.</p>
+
+<p>He was, however, far from being a scoffer. He attended the Episcopal
+service regularly, and was liberal in his donations to religious
+enterprises. Nor do we think that this conformity arose from weakness or
+hypocrisy, but rather from a profound respect for opinions so generally
+entertained, and a lively admiration for the character and life of
+Christ.</p>
+
+<p>If a Christian is one who sincerely believes and implicitly obeys the
+teachings of Jesus so far as they affect our relations with our
+fellow-men, then Mr. Jefferson was a Christian in a sense in which few
+can be called so. Though the light did not unseal his vision, it filled
+his heart. Among the statesmen of the world there is no one who has more
+rigidly demanded that the laws of God shall be applied to the affairs of
+Man. His political system is a beautiful growth from the principles of
+love, humility, and charity, which the New Testament inculcates.</p>
+
+<p>When reflecting upon Mr. Jefferson's mental organization, one is
+impressed by the variety and perfectness of his intellectual faculties.
+He united the powers of observation with those of reflection in a degree
+hardly surpassed by Bacon. Yet he has done nothing which entitles him to
+a place among the first of men. It may be said, that, devoted to the
+inferior pursuit of politics, he had no opportunity to exercise himself
+in art or philosophy, where alone the highest genius finds a field. But
+we think his failure&mdash;if one can fail who does not make an attempt&mdash;was
+not for want of opportunity. He did not possess any imagination. He was
+so deficient in that respect as to be singular. The imagination seems to
+assist the mental vision as the telescope does that of the eye; he saw
+with his unaided powers only.</p>
+
+<p>He says, "Nature intended him for the tranquil pursuits of science," and
+it is impossible to assign any reason why he should not have attained
+great eminence among scientific men. The sole difficulty might have
+been, that, from very variety of power, he would not give himself up to
+any single study with the devotion which Nature demands from those who
+seek her favors.</p>
+
+<p>Within his range his perception of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_800" id="Page_800">[Pg 800]</a></span> truth was as rapid and unfailing as
+an instinct. Without difficulty he separated the specious from the
+solid, gave great weight to evidence, but was skeptical and cautious
+about receiving it. Though a collector of details, he was never
+incumbered by them. No one was less likely to make the common mistake of
+thinking that a particular instance established a general proposition.
+He sought for rules of universal application, and was industrious in the
+accumulation of facts, because he knew how many are needed to prove the
+simplest truth. The accuracy of his mental operations, united with great
+courage, made him careless of authority. He clung to a principle because
+he thought it true, not because others thought it so. There is no
+indication that he valued an opinion the more because great men of
+former ages had favored it. His self-reliance was shown in his
+unwillingness to employ servants. Even when very feeble, he refused to
+permit any one to assist him. He had extraordinary power of
+condensation, and, always seeing the gist of a matter, he often exposed
+an argument of hours by a single sentence. Some of his brief papers,
+like the one on Banking, contain the substance of debates, which have
+since been made, filling volumes. He was peculiar in his manner of
+stating his conclusions, seldom revealing the processes by which he
+arrived at them. He sets forth strange and disputed doctrines as if they
+were truisms. Those who have studied "The Prince" for the purpose of
+understanding its construction will not think us fanciful when we find a
+resemblance between Jefferson's mode of argumentation and that of
+Machiavelli. There is the same manner of approaching a subject, the same
+neglect of opposing arguments, and the same disposition to rely on the
+force of general maxims. Machiavelli exceeded him in power of
+ratiocination from a given proposition, but does not seem to have been
+able to determine whether a given proposition was right or wrong.</p>
+
+<p>In force of mind Jefferson has often been surpassed: Hamilton was his
+superior. As an executive officer, where action was required, he could
+not have been distinguished. It is true, he was a successful President,
+but neither the time nor the place demanded the highest executive
+talents. When Governor of Virginia, during the Revolution, he was more
+severely tried, and, although some excuse may be made for him, he must
+be said to have failed.</p>
+
+<p>Upon matters which are affected by feeling and sentiment, the judgment
+of woman is said to surpass that of our sex,&mdash;her more sensitive
+instincts carrying her to heights which our blind strength fails to
+reach. If this be true, Jefferson in some respects resembled woman. We
+have already alluded to the delicacy of his organization; it was
+strangely delicate, indeed, for one who had so many solid qualities.
+Like woman, he was constant rather than passionate; he had her
+refinement, disliking rude company and coarse pleasures,&mdash;her love of
+luxury, and fondness for things whose beauty consists in part in their
+delicacy and fragility. His political opponents often refused to speak
+with him, but their wives found his society delightful. Like woman, his
+feelings sometimes seemed to precede his judgment. Such an organization
+is not often a safe one for business; but in Mr. Jefferson, with his
+homely perceptions, it accomplished great results.</p>
+
+<p>The attributes which gave him his great and peculiar influence seem to
+us to have been qualities of character, not of the mind. Chief among
+these must be placed that which, for want of a better term, we will call
+sympathy. This sympathy colored his whole nature, mental and moral. It
+gave him his many-sidedness. There was no limit to his intellectual
+tastes. Most persons cherish prejudices, and think certain pursuits
+degrading or useless. Thus, business-men sneer at artists, and artists
+sneer at business-men. Jefferson had nothing of this. He understood and
+appreciated the value of every employment. No knowledge was too trivial
+for him; with the same affectionate interest, he observed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_801" id="Page_801">[Pg 801]</a></span> courses
+of the winds and the growth of a flower.</p>
+
+<p>Sympathy in some sort supplied the place of imagination, making him
+understand subjects of which the imagination alone usually informs us.
+Thus, he was fond of Art. He had no eye for color, but appreciated the
+beauties of form, and was a critic of sculpture and architecture. He
+valued everything for that which belonged to it; but tradition
+sanctified nothing, association gave no additional value. He committed
+what Burke thought a great crime, that of thinking a queen nothing but a
+woman. He went to Stratford-on-Avon, and tells us that it cost him a
+shilling to see Shakspeare's tomb, but says nothing else. He might have
+admired the scenery of the place, and he certainly was an admirer of
+Shakspeare; but Stratford had no additional beauty in his eyes because
+Shakspeare was born and buried there. After his death, in a secret
+drawer of his secretary, mementoes, such as locks of hair, of his wife
+and dead children, even of the infant who lived but a few hours after
+birth, were found, and accompanying each were some fond words. The
+packages were neatly arranged, and their envelopes showed that they had
+often been opened. It needed personal knowledge and regard to awaken in
+him an interest in objects for their associations.</p>
+
+<p>The characteristic of which we speak showed itself in the intensity and
+quality of his patriotism. There never was a truer American. He
+sympathized with all our national desires and prejudices, our enterprise
+and confidence, our love of dominion and boundless pride. Buffon
+asserted that the animals of America were smaller than those of Europe.
+Jefferson flew to the rescue of the animals, and certainly seems to have
+the best of the argument. Buffon said, that the Indian was cold in love,
+cruel in war, and mean in intellect. Had Jefferson been a descendant of
+Pocahontas, he could not have been more zealous in behalf of the Indian.
+He contradicted Buffon upon every point, and cited Logan's speech as
+deserving comparison with the most celebrated passages of Grecian and
+Roman eloquence. Nowhere did he see skies so beautiful, a climate so
+delightful, men so brave, or women so fair, as in America. He was not
+content that his country should be rich and powerful; his ardent
+patriotism carried him forward to a time when the great Republic should
+give law to the world for every department of thought and action.</p>
+
+<p>But this sympathetic spirit is most clearly to be seen in that broad
+humanity which was the source of his philosophy. He sympathized with
+man,&mdash;his sufferings, joys, fears, hopes, and aspirations. The law of
+his nature made him a democrat. Men of his own rank, when introduced to
+him, found his manner cold and reserved; but the young and the ignorant
+were attracted from the first. Education and interest did not affect
+him. Born a British subject, he became the founder of a democracy. He
+was a slaveholder and an abolitionist. The fact, that the African is
+degraded and helpless, to his, as to every generous mind, was a reason
+why he should be protected, not an excuse for oppressing him.</p>
+
+<p>Though fitness for the highest effort be denied to Jefferson, yet in the
+pursuit to which he devoted himself, considered with reference to
+elevation and wisdom of policy and actual achievement, he may be
+compared with any man of modern times. It is the boast of the most
+accomplished English historian, that English legislation has been
+controlled by the rule, "Never to lay down any proposition of wider
+extent than the particular case for which it is necessary to provide."
+Therefore politics in England have not reached the dignity of a science;
+and her public men have been tacticians, rather than statesmen. Burke
+may be mentioned as an exception. No one will claim for Jefferson
+Burke's amplitude of thought and wealth of imagination, but he surpassed
+him in justness of understanding and practical efficiency. Burke was
+never connected with the government, except during the short-lived
+Rockingham,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_802" id="Page_802">[Pg 802]</a></span> administration. Among Frenchmen, the mind instinctively
+recurs to the wise and virtuous Turgot. But it was the misfortune of
+Turgot to come into power at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. It
+became his task to reform a government which was beyond reform, and to
+preserve a dynasty which could not be preserved. His illustrious career
+is little more than a brilliant promise. Jefferson undoubtedly owed much
+to fortune. He was placed in a country removed from foreign
+interference, with boundless resources, and where the great principles
+of free government had for generations been established,&mdash;among a people
+sprung from many races, but who spoke the same language, were governed
+by similar laws, and whose minds' rebellion had prepared for the
+reception of new truths and the abandonment of ancient errors. To be
+called upon to give symmetry and completeness to a political system
+which seemed to be Providentially designed for the nation over which it
+was to extend, to be able to connect himself with the future progress of
+an agile and ambitious people, was certainly a rare and happy fortune,
+and must be considered, when we claim superiority for him over those who
+were placed in the midst of apathy and decay. His influence upon us may
+be seen in the material, but still more distinctly in the social and
+moral action of the country. With those laws which here restrain
+turbulent forces and stimulate beneficent ones,&mdash;with the bright visions
+of peace and freedom which the unhappy of every European race see in
+their Western skies, tempting them hither,&mdash;with the kind spirit which
+here loosens the bonds of social prejudice, and to ambition sings an
+inspiring strain,&mdash;with these, which are our pride and boast, he is
+associated indissolubly and forever. With the things which have brought
+our country into disrepute&mdash;we leave it for others to recall the dismal
+catalogue&mdash;his name cannot be connected.</p>
+
+<p>Not the least valuable result of his life is the triumphant refutation
+which it gives to the assertion, so often made by blatant sophisters,
+that none but low arts avail in republics. He has been called a
+demagogue. This charge is the charge of misconception or ignorance. It
+is true, he believed that his doctrines would prevail; he was sensitive
+to the opinions of others, nor was he "out of love with noble fame"; but
+his successes were fairly, manfully won. He had none of the common
+qualifications for popularity. No glare of military glory surrounded
+him; he had not the admired gift of eloquence; he was opposed by wealth
+and fashion, by the Church and the press, by most of the famous men of
+his day,&mdash;by Jay, Marshall, the Pinckneys, Knox, King, and Adams; he had
+to encounter the vehement genius of Hamilton and the <i>prestige</i> of
+Washington; he was not in a position for direct action upon the people;
+he never went beyond the line of his duty, and, from 1776 to his
+inaugural address, he did not publish a word which was calculated to
+excite lively, popular interest;&mdash;yet, in spite of all and against all,
+he won. So complete was the victory, that, at his second election,
+Massachusetts stood beside Virginia, supporting him. He won because he
+was true to a principle. Thousands of men, whose untutored minds could
+not comprehend a proposition of his elaborate philosophy, remembered
+that in his youth he had proclaimed the equality of men, knew that in
+maturity he remained true to that declaration, and, believing that this
+great assurance of their liberties was in danger, they gathered around
+him, preferring the scholar to orators and soldiers. They had confidence
+in him because he had confidence in them. There is no danger in that
+demagogism the art of which consists in love for man. Fortunate, indeed,
+will it be for the Republic, if, among the aspirants who are now
+pressing into the strife, and making their voices heard in the great
+exchanges of public opinion, there are some who will imitate the civic
+virtues and practise the benign philosophy of Thomas Jefferson!</p>
+
+<p>We take leave of this book with reluctance. It is verbose and dull, but
+it has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_803" id="Page_803">[Pg 803]</a></span> led us along the path of American renown; it recites a story
+which, however awkwardly told, can never fall coldly on an American ear.
+It has, besides, given us an opportunity, of which we have gladly
+availed ourselves, to make some poor amends for the wrongs which
+Jefferson suffered at the hands of New England, to bear our testimony to
+his genius and services, and to express our reverent admiration for a
+life which, though it bears traces of human frailty, was bravely devoted
+to grand and beneficent aims.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>The Life of Thomas Jefferson.</i> By <span class="smcap">Henry S. Randall, LL.D.</span>
+In three volumes. New York: Derby &amp; Jackson. 1858.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_BUNDLE_OF_IRISH_PENNANTS" id="A_BUNDLE_OF_IRISH_PENNANTS"></a>A BUNDLE OF IRISH PENNANTS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Did you ever see the 'Three Chimneys,' Captain Cope?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I can show you where they are on the chart, if that'll do. I've been
+right over where they're laid down, but I never saw the Chimneys myself,
+and I never knew anybody that had seen them."</p>
+
+<p>"But they are down on the chart," broke in a pertinacious matter-of-fact
+body beside us.</p>
+
+<p>"What of that?" replied the captain; "there's many a shoal and lone rock
+down on the charts that nobody ever could find again. I've had my ship
+right over the Chimneys, near enough to see the smoke, if they had been
+there."</p>
+
+<p>So opened the series of desultory conversations here set down. It is
+talk on board ship, or specimen "yarns," such as really are to be picked
+up from nautical men. The article usually served up for
+magazine-consumption is, of course, utterly unlike anything here given,
+and is as entirely undiscoverable anywhere on salt water as the three
+legendary rocks above alluded to. The place was the deck of the "Elijah
+Pogram," one of Carr &amp; Co.'s celebrated Liverpool liners, and the time,
+the dog-watches of a gusty April night; the latitude and longitude,
+anywhere west of Greenwich and north of the line that is not
+inconsistent with blue water.</p>
+
+<p>The name "Irish Pennant" is given, on the <i>lucus-a-non</i> principle, (just
+as a dead calm is "an Irish hurricane, straight up and down,") to any
+dangling end of rope or stray bit of "shakings," and its appropriateness
+to the following sketches will doubtless be perceived by the reader, on
+reaching the end.</p>
+
+<p>The question was asked, not so much from a laudable desire of obtaining
+information as to set the captain talking. It was a mistake on my part.
+Sailors do not like point-blank questions. They remind them
+unpleasantly, I suppose, of the Courts of Admiralty, or they betray
+greenness or curiosity on the asker's part, and thus effectually bar all
+improving conversation.</p>
+
+<p>There is one exception. If the inquirer be a lady, young and fair, the
+chivalry of the sea is bound to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
+often a good deal more than the truth.</p>
+
+<p>And at the last reply a pair of bewitching dark eyes were turned upon
+that weather-beaten mariner; that is to say, in plain English, a young
+and rather pretty lady-passenger looked up at Captain Cope, and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do tell us some of your sea-stories, Captain Cope,&mdash;do, please!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Ma'am," replied he, "I've no stories. There's Smith of the
+'Wittenagemot' can tell them by the hour; but I never could."</p>
+
+<p>"Weren't you ever wrecked, Captain Cope?"</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;I can't say I ever was, exactly. I was mate of the 'Moscow' when
+she knocked her bottom out in Bootle Bay; but she wasn't lost, for I
+went master of her after that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_804" id="Page_804">[Pg 804]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Were you frightened, Captain Cope?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no,&mdash;I can't say I was; though I must say I never expected to see
+morning again. I never saw any one more scared than was old Captain
+Tucker that night. We dragged over the outer bar and into Bootle Bay,
+and there we lay, the ship full of water, and everything gone above the
+monkey-rail. The only place we could find to stand was just by the cabin
+gangway. The 'Moscow' was built with an old-fashioned cabin on deck, and
+right there we hung, all hands of us. The old man he read the service to
+us,&mdash;and that wouldn't do, he was so scared; so he got the black cook,
+who was a Methodist, and made him pray; and every two minutes or so, a
+sea would come aboard and all in among us,&mdash;like to wash us clean out of
+the ship.</p>
+
+<p>"After midnight the life-boat got alongside, and all hands were for
+scrambling aboard; but I'd got set in my notion the ship would live the
+gale out, and I wouldn't go aboard. Well, the old man was too scared to
+make long stories, and he tumbled aboard the life-boat in a hurry. The
+last words he said to me, as he went over the side, were,&mdash;'Good-bye,
+Mr. Cope! I never shall see you again!' However, he got up to the city,
+to Mrs. McKinney's, and there he found a lot of the captains, and he was
+telling them all how he'd lost his ship, and what a fool poor Cope was
+to stick aboard of her, and all that. When the morning came, the gale
+had broke, and the old man began to think he'd been in too much of a
+fright, and he'd better get the tug and go down to look after the ship.</p>
+
+<p>"I was so knocked up, for want of sleep, and the gale and all, that,
+when they got down to us, my head was about gone. I don't remember
+anything, myself; but they told me, that, when they got aboard, I was
+poking about decks as if I was looking for something.</p>
+
+<p>"'How are you, Mr. Cope?' sung out old Tucker. 'I never expected to see
+<i>you</i> again in <i>this</i> world.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I can't find my razor-strop,' says I; I've lost my razor-strop.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Never mind your strop,' says he. 'What you want is to go aboard the
+tug and be taken care of. We'll find your strop.'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they could hardly get me away, I was so set that I must have that
+strop; but after I got up to town, and had a bath and some breakfast,
+and a couple of hours' sleep or so, I was all right again. That was the
+end of old Tucker's going to sea; and when the 'Moscow' was docked and
+refitted, I got her, and kept her until the firm built me the 'Pogram,'
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Brown, isn't it about time we were getting in that mizzen
+to'gall'nt-s'l? It's coming on to blow to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Steward," (as that functionary passed us,) "put a handful of cigars in
+my monkey-jacket pocket, and have a cup of coffee ready for me about
+twelve."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you mean to be up, to-night?" said the father of pretty Mrs.
+Bates,&mdash;the only one of us to whom Captain Cope fairly opened his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, Mr. Roberts&mdash;I think I shall. It looks rather dirty to the
+east'ard, and the barometer has fallen since morning. I've two as good
+mates as sail; but if anything is going to happen, I'd rather have it
+happen when I'm on deck,&mdash;that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't Stewart, of the 'Mexican,' below, when she struck?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he was,&mdash;and got blamed for it, too. I don't blame him, myself; he
+was on deck the next minute; and if he had been there before, it would
+have made no difference with that ship; but if <i>I</i> lose a vessel, I
+don't want to be talked about as he was. I went mate with him two
+voyages, and he'd put on his night-gown and turn in comfortably every
+night, and leave his mates to call him; but I never could do that. I
+don't find fault with any man that can; only it's not my way."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you feel sleepy, Captain Cope?" asked Mrs. Bates.</p>
+
+<p>"Not when I'm on deck, Ma'am; though, when I first went mate, I could
+sleep anyhow and anywhere. I sailed out of Boston to South America, in a
+topsail-schooner, with an old fellow by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_805" id="Page_805">[Pg 805]</a></span> the name of Eaton,&mdash;just the
+strangest old scamp you ever dreamed of. I suppose by rights he ought to
+have been in the hospital; he certainly was the nearest to crazy and not
+be it. He used to keep a long pole by him on deck,&mdash;a pole with a sharp
+spike in one end,&mdash;and any man who'd get near enough to him to let him
+have a chance would feel that spike. I've known him to keep the cook up
+till midnight frying doughnuts; then he'd call all hands aft and range
+'em on the quarter-deck, and go round with his hat off and a plate of
+doughnuts in his hand, saying, as polite as you please, 'Here, my man,
+won't you take a doughnut?&mdash;they won't hurt you; nice and light; had
+them fried a purpose for you.' And then he'd get a bottle of wine or
+Cura&ccedil;oa cordial, and go round with a glass to each man, and make him
+take a drink. You'd see the poor fellows all of a shake, not knowing how
+to take it,&mdash;afraid to refuse, and afraid still more, if they didn't,
+that the old man would play 'em some confounded trick. In the midst of
+it all, he'd seem as if he'd woke up out of a dream, and he'd sing out,
+in a way that made them fellows scatter, 'What the &mdash;&mdash; are all you men
+doing here at this time of night? Go forrard, every man jack of you! Go
+forrard, I tell you!' and it was 'Devil take the hindmost!'</p>
+
+<p>"Well,&mdash;the old man was always on the look-out to catch the watch
+sleeping. He never seemed to sleep much himself;&mdash;I've heard <i>that's</i> a
+sign of craziness;&mdash;and the more he tried, the more sure we were to try
+it every chance we had. So sure as the old man caught you at it, he'd
+give you a bucketful of water, slap over you, and then follow it up with
+the bucket at your head. Fletcher, the second mate, and I, got so we
+could tell the moment he put foot on the companion-way, and, no matter
+how sound we were, we'd be on our feet before he could get on deck. But
+Fletcher got tired of his vagaries, and left us at Pernambuco, to ship
+aboard a homeward-bound whaler, and in his place we got a fellow named
+Tubbs, a regular duff-head,&mdash;couldn't keep his eyes open in the daytime,
+hardly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well,&mdash;we were about two days out of Pernambuco, and Tubbs had the
+middle watch, of a clear starlight night, with a steady breeze, and
+everything going quietly, and nothing in sight. So, in about ten minutes
+after the watch got on deck, every mother's son of them was hard and
+fast. The wind was a-beam, and the old schooner could steer herself; so,
+even the man at the helm was sitting down on a hencoop, with one arm
+round the tiller, and snoring like a porpoise. I heard the old man rouse
+out of his bunk and creep on deck, and, guessing fun was coming, I
+turned out and slipped up after him. The first thing I saw was old Eaton
+at work at the tiller. He got it unshipped and braced up with a pair of
+oars and a hencoop, without waking the man at the helm,&mdash;how, I couldn't
+tell,&mdash;but he was just like a cat; and then he blew the binnacle-light
+out; and then he started forrard, with his trumpet in his hand. He
+caught sight of me, standing halfway up the companion-way, and shook his
+fist at me to keep quiet and not to spoil sport. He slipped forward and
+out on to the bowsprit, clear out to the end of the flying-jib-boom, and
+stowed himself where he couldn't be well seen to leeward of the sail.
+Then he sung out with all his might through the trumpet, '<i>Schooner
+ahoy, there! Port your hellum!&mdash;port</i> <span class="smcap">h-a-a-a-rd</span>! I say,&mdash;you're right
+aboard of us!'&mdash;And then he'd drop the trumpet, and sing out as if in
+the other craft to his own crew, and then again to us. Of course, every
+man was on his feet in a second, thinking we were all but afoul of
+another vessel. The man who was steering was trying, with all his might,
+to put his helm a-port,&mdash;and when he found what was to pay there, to
+ship the tiller. This wasn't so easy; for the old man had passed the
+slack of the main-sheet through the head of the rudder, and belayed it
+on one of the boom-cleats, out of reach,&mdash;and, what with just waking up,
+and half a dozen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_806" id="Page_806">[Pg 806]</a></span> contradictory orders sung out at once, besides
+expecting to strike every minute, he had almost lost what little wits he
+had.</p>
+
+<p>"As for Tubbs, he was like a hen with her head cut off,&mdash;one minute at
+the lee rail, and the next in the weather-rigging, then forrard to look
+out for the strange craft, and then aft to see why the schooner didn't
+answer her helm. Meanwhile, he was singing out to the watch to brace
+round the fore-topsail and help her, to let fly the jib-sheets, and to
+haul aft the main-boom; the watch below came tumbling up, and everybody
+was expecting to feel the bunt of our striking the next minute. I
+laughed as though I should split; for nobody could see me where I stood,
+in the shadow of the companion-way, and everybody was looking out ahead,
+for the other vessel. First I knew, the old man had got in board again,
+and was standing there aft, as if he'd just come on deck. 'What's all
+this noise here?' says he.&mdash;'What are you doing on deck, Mr. Cope? Go
+below, Sir!&mdash;Go below, the larboard watch, and let's have no more of
+this! Who's seen any vessel? Vessel, your eye, Mr. Tubbs! I tell you,
+you've been dreaming.' Then, as he got his head about to the level of
+the top of the companion-way, and out of the reach of any spare
+belaying-pin that might come that way, says he,&mdash;'I've just come in from
+the end of the flyin'-jib-boom, and there was no vessel in sight, except
+one topsail-schooner, <i>with the watch all asleep</i>,&mdash;so it can't be her
+that hailed you.'</p>
+
+<p>"That cured all sleeping on the watch for <i>that</i> voyage, I tell you. And
+as for Tubbs, you had only to say, 'Port your helm,' and he was off."</p>
+
+<p>Just then Mr. Brown came aft to ask if it wasn't time to have in the
+fore-topgallant-sail,&mdash;and a little splash of rain falling broke up our
+party and drove most of us below. I knew that reefing topsails would
+come in the course of an hour or so, if the wind held on to blow as it
+did; so, as I waited to see that same, I lighted a cheroot, and as soon
+as the fore-topgallant-sail was clewed up I made my way forward, for a
+chat with Mr. Brown, the English second mate.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Brown was a character. He was a thorough English sailor;&mdash;could do,
+as he owned to me in a shamefaced way, that was comical enough,
+"heverything as could be done with a rope aboard a ship." He had been
+several India voyages, where the nice work of seamanship is to be
+learned, which does not get into the mere "ferry-boat" trips of the
+Liverpool packet-service. He had been in an opium clipper, the
+celebrated &mdash;&mdash; of Boston,&mdash;and left her, as he told her agent, "because
+he liked a ship as 'ad a lee-rail to her; and the &mdash;&mdash;'s lee-rail," he
+said, "was commonly out of sight, pretty much all the way from the
+Sand'eads to the Bocca Tigris." He was rich in what he called "'ats,"
+having one for every hour of the day, and, for aught I know, every day
+in the year. It was Fred &mdash;&mdash;'s and my daily amusement to watch him, and
+we never seemed to catch him coming on deck twice in the same head-gear.
+He took quite a fancy to me, because I did not bother him when busy, and
+because I liked to listen to his talk. So, handing him a cigar, as a
+prefatory to conversation, I asked him our whereabouts. "Four hundred
+miles to the heast'ard of Georges we were this noon, and we've made
+nothink to speak of since, Sir. This last tack has lost us all we made
+before. I hought to know where we are. I've drifted 'ere without even a
+'en-coop hunder me. I was third mate aboard the barque 'Jenny,' of
+Belfast, when she was run down by the steamer 'United States.' The
+barque sunk in less than seven minutes after the steamer struck us, and
+I come up out of her suction-like. I found myself swimming there, on
+top, and not so much as a capstan-bar to make me a life-buoy. I knew the
+steamer was hove to, for I could hear her blow hoff steam; and once, as
+I came up on a wave, I got a sight of her boats. They were ready enough
+to pick us up, and we was ready enough to be picked up, such as were
+left; but how to do it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_807" id="Page_807">[Pg 807]</a></span> another matter, with a sea like this
+running, and a cloud over the moon every other minute. I soon see that
+swimming wouldn't 'old out much longer, and I must try something helse.
+Now, Sir, what I'm a-telling you may be some use to you some day, if you
+have to stay a couple of hours in the water. If you can swim about as
+well as most men can, you can tell 'ow long a man's strength would last
+him 'ereaways to-night. Besides, I was spending my breath, when I rose
+on a sea, in 'ollering,&mdash;and you can't swim and 'oller. So I tried a
+trick I learned, when a boy, on the Cornish coast, where I was born,
+Sir;&mdash;it's one worth knowing. I doubled back my feet hunder me till my
+'eels come to the small of my back, and I could float as long as I
+wanted to, and, when I rose on a wave, 'oller. They 'eard me, it seems,
+and pulled round for me, but it was an hour before they found me, and my
+strength was nigh to gone. I couldn't 'oller no more, and was about
+giving up. But they picked up the cook, and he told 'em he knowed it was
+Mr. Brown's voice, and begged 'em to keep on. The last I remember was,
+as the steamer burned a blue light for her boats, when they caught a
+sight of me in the trough of the sea. I saw them too, and gave a last
+screech, and then I don't remember hanythink, Sir, till Cookie was
+'elping 'aul (Mr. Brown always dropped his aspirates as he grew excited)
+me into the boat. Now, just you remember what I've been a-telling you
+about floating."&mdash;"<i>Forrard there! Stand by to clew up and furl the main
+to'gall'n-s'l! Couple of you come aft here and brail up the spanker!
+Lively, men, lively!</i>"&mdash;And Mr. Brown was no longer my Scheherazade.</p>
+
+<p>When I got back to the shelter of the wheel-house, I found the captain
+and old Roberts still comfortably braced up in opposite corners and
+yarning away. There was nothing to be done but to watch the ship and the
+wind, which promised in due time to be a gale, but as yet was not even a
+reefing breeze. They had got upon a standing topic between the
+two,&mdash;vessels out of their course. The second night out, we had made a
+light which the captain insisted was a ship's light, but old Roberts
+declared was one of the lights on the coast of Maine,&mdash;Mount Desert, or
+somewhere thereabouts. He was an old shipping-merchant, had been many a
+time across the water in his own vessels, and thought he knew as much as
+most men. So, whenever other subjects gave out, this, of vessels drifted
+by unsuspected currents out of their course, was unfailing. They were at
+it now.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was last in Liverpool," said the captain, "there was a brig from
+Machias got in there, and her captain came up to Mrs. McKinney's. He
+told us that it was thick weather when he got upon the Irish coast, and
+he was rather doubtful about his reckoning; so he ordered a sharp
+look-out for Cape Clear. According to his notion, he ought to be up with
+it about noon, and, as the sun rose and the fog lifted a little, he was
+hoping to sight the land. Once or twice he fancied he had a glimpse of
+it, but wasn't sure,&mdash;when the mate came aft and reported that they
+could hear a bell ringing. 'Sure enough,' he said, 'there was the toll
+of a bell coming through the mist.'</p>
+
+<p>"'That's some ship's bell,' said he to the mate; 'only it's wonderful
+heavy for a ship, and it can't be a church-bell on shore, can it?'</p>
+
+<p>"And while they were arguing about it, a cutter shot out of the fog and
+hailed if they wanted a pilot.</p>
+
+<p>"'Pilot!' says the Down-Easter,&mdash;'pilot!&mdash;where for? No, thank ye, not
+yet,&mdash;I can find my way up George's without a pilot. What bell's that?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Rather think you can, Captain; but you'll want a pilot here;&mdash;that's
+the bell on the floating light off Liverpool.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What!' says the captain,&mdash;have I come all the way up Channel without
+knowing it? I've been on the look-out for Cape Clear ever since
+daybreak, and here, by ginger, I've overrun my reckoning <i>three hundred
+miles</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said old Roberts, "one of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_808" id="Page_808">[Pg 808]</a></span> captains, Brandegee, you know, who
+had the 'China,' got caught, one November, just as he was coming on the
+coast, in a gale from the eastward. He knew he was somewhere near
+Provincetown, but how near he couldn't say. It was snowing, and blowing,
+and ice-making all over the decks and rigging, and an awful night
+generally. He did not dare to run before it, because it was blowing at a
+rate to take him halfway in Worcester County in the next twenty-four
+hours. He couldn't stand to the south'ard, because that would put the
+back of Cape Cod under his lee. He was afraid to stand to the north'ard,
+not knowing precisely where the coast of Maine might be. So he hove the
+ship to, under as little sail as he could, and let her drift. I've heard
+him say, he heard the breakers a hundred times that night," ('I'll bet
+he did,' ejaculated the captain.) "and it seemed like three nights in
+one before morning came. When it did come, wind and sea appeared to have
+gone down. The lookouts were half dead with cold and sleep and all; but
+they made out to hail land on the weather bow.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good George!' said old Brandegee, 'how did land get on the <i>weather</i>
+bow? We must have got inside of Cape Cod, and that must be Sharkpainter
+Hill.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Land on the lee quarter,' hailed the watch, again: and in a minute
+more, 'Land on the lee beam,&mdash;land on the lee bow.'</p>
+
+<p>"Brandegee sung out to heave the lead and let go both anchors, and he
+said that, but for the gale having gone down so, he should have expected
+to strike the next minute. Just as the anchors came home and the ship
+headed to the wind, the second mate came aft, rubbing his eyes and
+looking very queer.</p>
+
+<p>"'Captain Brandegee,' says he, 'if I was in Boston Harbor, I should say
+that there was Nix's Mate.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, Mr. Jones,' says the old man, dropping out the words very
+slowly, 'if&mdash;that's&mdash;Nix's Mate,&mdash;Rainsford Island&mdash;ought&mdash;to&mdash;be&mdash;here
+away, and&mdash;as&mdash;I'm&mdash;a&mdash;living&mdash;man, <span class="smcap">there it is</span>!'</p>
+
+<p>"Half-frozen as they were, there was a cheer rung out from that crew
+that waked half the North-End out of their morning nap.</p>
+
+<p>"'Just my plaguy luck!' said the old fellow to me, as he told it. 'If
+I'd held on to my anchors another half-hour, I might have come
+handsomely alongside of Long Wharf and been up to the custom-house
+before breakfast.'</p>
+
+<p>"He had drifted broadside square into Boston Harbor, past Nahant, the
+Graves, Cohasset Rocks, and everything."</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard of that," said the captain,&mdash;"and as it's my opinion it
+couldn't be done twice, I don't mean to try it."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I hear the noise about thy keel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I hear the bell struck in the night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I see the cabin-window bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see the sailor at the wheel,"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>repeated Fred &mdash;&mdash;, in my ear. "Come below out of this wet and rain,"
+added he.</p>
+
+<p>We passed the door of the mate's state-room as we went below, and,
+seeing it ajar, and Mr. Pitman, the mate, sitting there, we looked in.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, gentlemen," said he; "my watch on deck is in half an hour, and
+I'm not sleepy to-night."</p>
+
+<p>F&mdash;&mdash; took up a carved whale's tooth, and asked if Mr. Pitman had ever
+been in the whaling business.</p>
+
+<p>"Two voyages,&mdash;one before the mast, one boat-steerer;&mdash;both in the
+Pacific. But whaling didn't suit me. I've a Missus now, and a couple of
+as fine boys as ever you saw; and I rather be where I can come home
+oftener than once in three years."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you like whaling?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't believe there's any man but what feels different
+alongside of a whale from what he does on the ship's deck. Some of those
+Nantucket and New Bedford men, who've been brought up to it, as you may
+say, take it naturally, and think of nothing but the whale. I've heard
+of one of them boat-steerers who got ketched in a whale's mouth and
+didn't come out of it quite as whole as he went in. When they asked him
+what he thought when the whale nabbed him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_809" id="Page_809">[Pg 809]</a></span> he said he 'thought she'd
+turn out about forty barrels.'</p>
+
+<p>"There's a good many things about the whale, gentlemen, that everybody
+don't know. Why does one whale sink when he's killed, and another don't?
+Where do the whales go to, now and then?&mdash;I sailed with one captain who
+used to say, that, books or no books, can't live under water or not, <i>he
+knew</i> that whales do live under water months at a time. I can't say,
+myself; but this I can say,&mdash;they go ashore. You may look hard at that,
+but I've seen it. We were off the coast of South America, in company
+with five other ships; and all our captains were ashore one afternoon.
+We had to pull some two miles or so to go off to them, and, starting
+off, all hands were for racing. I was pulling stroke in the captain's
+boat, and the old man gives us the word to pull easy, and let 'em head
+on us. It was hard work to hold in, with every one of the boats giving
+way, strong, the captains singing out bets, and cheering their
+men,&mdash;singing out, 'Break your backs and bend your oars!' 'There she
+blows!' and all that. But the old man kept muttering to us to take it
+easy and let them head on us. We were soon the last boat, and then, as
+if he'd given up the race, he gave the word to 'easy.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-night, Capt. T&mdash;&mdash;! we'll send your ship in to tow you off,' was
+the last words they said to us.</p>
+
+<p>"'There'll be something else to tow off,' says he. 'It's the race, who
+shall see Palmer's Island first, that I'm bound to win.'</p>
+
+<p>"He gave the boat a sheer in for the beach, to a little bight that made
+up in the land,&mdash;across the mouth of which we had to pull, in going off.</p>
+
+<p>"'D'ye see that rock on the beach, boys,' says he, 'in range of that
+lone tree, on the point? Did any of you ever see that rock before? I
+wish this bloody coast had a few more such rocks! That's a cow whale,
+and this bight is her nursery, and she is up on the beach for her calf's
+convenience. Now, then,'&mdash;as we opened the bight and got a fair sight of
+it,&mdash;'give way, strong as you please,&mdash;and we'll head her off, before
+she knows it.'</p>
+
+<p>"We got her and got the calf, and when, next morning, the other ships
+saw us cutting in, they didn't say much about that race; and 'Old T.'s
+Nursery' was a byword on the coast as long as we staid there.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes eight bells, and I rather think Mr. Brown will want me on
+deck." We followed, for there was the prospect of seeing topsails
+reefed,&mdash;the most glorious event of a landsman's sea-experiences. We had
+begun the day with a dead calm, but toward night the wind had come out
+of the eastward. Each plunge the ship gave was sharper, each shock
+heavier. The topmasts were working, the lee-shrouds and backstays
+straining out into endless curves. A deeper plunge than usual, a pause
+for a second, as if everything in the world suddenly stood still, and a
+great white giant seems to spring upon our weather-bow and to leap on
+board. We hear the crash and feel the shock, and presently the water
+comes pouring aft,&mdash;and Captain Cope calls out to reef
+topsails,&mdash;double-reef fore and mizzen,&mdash;one reef in the main. The mates
+are in the weather-rigging before the word is out of the captain's lips,
+to take the earings of their respective topsails; and then follows the
+rush of men up the shrouds and out along the yards. The sails are
+slatting and flapping, and one can hardly see the row of broad backs
+against the dusky sky as they bend over the canvas. There are hoarse
+murmurs, and calls to "light up the sail to windward"; and presently
+from the fore-topsail-yard comes the cry, ringing and clear,&mdash;"Haul away
+to leeward!"&mdash;repeated next moment from the main and echoed from the
+mizzen. Sheltered by the weather-bulwarks, and with one arm round a
+mizzen-backstay, there is a capital place to watch all this and feel the
+glorious thrill of the sea,&mdash;to look down the sloping deck into the
+black billows, with here and there a white patch of foam, and while the
+organ-harp overhead is sounding its magnificent symphony. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_810" id="Page_810">[Pg 810]</a></span> is but
+wood and iron and hemp and canvas that is doing all this, with some
+thirty poor, broken-down, dissipated wretches, who, being fit for
+nothing else, of course <i>are</i> fit for the fo'castle of a Liverpool
+Liner. Yet it is, for all that, something which haunts the memory
+long,&mdash;which comes back years after in inland vales and quiet
+farm-houses like brown-moss agates set in emerald meadows, in book-lined
+studios, and in close city streets. For it is part of the might and
+mystery of the sea, the secret influence that sets the blood on fire and
+the heart throbbing,&mdash;of any in whose veins runs some of the true
+salt-water sympathy. Men are born landsmen, and are born on land, but
+belong to the Ocean's family. Sooner or later, whatever their calling,
+they recognize the tie. They may struggle against it, and scotch it, but
+cannot kill it. They may not be seamen,&mdash;they may wear black coats and
+respectable white ties, and have large balances in the bank, but they
+are the Sea's men,&mdash;brothers by blood-relationship, if not by trade, of
+Ulysses and Vasco, of Columbus and Cabot, of Frobisher and Drake.</p>
+
+<p>Other stories of the sea are floating through my memory as I
+write,&mdash;tales told with elbows leaning on cabin-tables, while the
+swinging-lamp oscillated drearily overhead, and sent uncertain shadows
+into the state-room doors. There is the story which Vivian Grey told us
+of the beautiful clipper "Nighthawk,"&mdash;her who sailed with the "Bonita"
+and "Driving-Scud" and "Mazeppa," in the great Sea-Derby, whose course
+lay round the world. How, one Christmas-day, off the pitch of Cape Horn,
+he, standing on her deck, saw her dive bodily into a sea, and all of her
+to the mainmast was lost in ocean,&mdash;her stately spars seemingly rising
+out of blue water unsupported by any ship beneath;&mdash;it seemed an age to
+him, he said, before there was any forecastle to be seen rising from the
+brine. Also, how, caught off that same wild cape, they had to make sail
+in a reef-topsail-breeze to claw off its terrible rocks, seen but too
+plainly under their Ice. How, as he said, "about four in the afternoon
+it seemed to blow worse than ever, and you could see the staunch boat
+was pressed down under her canvas, and every spar was groaning and
+quivering, while the ship went bodily to leeward." And next, "how she
+seemed to come to herself, as it were, with a long staggering roll, and
+to spring to windward as if relieved of a dead weight; for the gale had
+broken, and the foam-belt along the cliffs grew dimmer and dimmer, and
+the land fainter and fainter. And then," he said, "to hear the
+fo'castle-talk, you would have said that never was such a ship, such
+spars, such a captain, such seamanship, and such luck, since Father
+Jason cleared the 'Argo' from the Pir&aelig;us, for Colchis and a market."</p>
+
+<p>Or I might tell you how Dr. &mdash;&mdash;, the ship-surgeon, was in that Collard
+steamer which ran down the fishing-boat in the fog off Cape Race,&mdash;and
+how, looking from his state-room window, he saw a mighty cliff so near
+that he could almost lay his hand upon it. How Fanshaw was on board the
+"Sea-King" when she was burned, off Point Linus,&mdash;and how he hung in the
+chains till he was taken off, and his hair was repeatedly set on fire by
+the women&mdash;emigrant-passengers&mdash;jumping over his head into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>But not so near a-shaking hands with Death did any of them tell, as Ned
+Kennedy,&mdash;who, poor fellow, lies buried in some lone <i>ca&ntilde;on</i> of the
+Sierra Madre. Let us hear him give it in his wild, reckless way. Ned was
+sitting opposite us, his thick, black hair curling from under his plaid
+travelling-cap,&mdash;his thick eyebrows working, and his hands occupied in
+arranging little fragments of pilot-biscuit on the table. He broke in
+upon the last man who was talking, with a&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tell you what, boys,&mdash;I've a better idea of what all that means. I
+suppose you both know what the Mediterranean lines of steamers are, and
+what capital seamanship, and travelling comfort, and all that, you find
+there. The engineers, however, are Scotch, English, or American, always;
+because why? A French<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_811" id="Page_811">[Pg 811]</a></span> officer once told me the reason. 'You see, <i>mon
+ami</i>,' he said, 'this row of handles which are used to turn these
+different stops and cocks. Now, my countrymen will take them down and
+use them properly, each one, just as well as your countrymen; but they
+will put them back again in their places never.' So it is, and the
+engineers are all as I say.</p>
+
+<p>"I left Naples for Genoa in the 'Ercolano,' of the Naples line. There
+were not many passengers on board,&mdash;no women,&mdash;and what there were were
+all priests or soldiers. Nobody went by the Neapolitan line except
+Italians, at that time,&mdash;the French company having larger, handsomer,
+and decidedly cleaner vessels. Of course, as a heretic and a civilian, I
+had nobody to talk to; so, finding that the engineer had a Saxon tongue
+in his head, I dove down into his den and made acquaintance. Being shut
+up there with Italians so much, he thawed out to me at once, and we were
+sworn brothers by the time we reached Civita Vecchia.</p>
+
+<p>"The 'Ercolano' was as crazy an old tub as every floated: judging from
+the extensive colonies which tenanted her berths, she must have been
+launched about the same time as Fulton's 'Clermont,' or the old 'Ben
+Franklin,' Captain Bunker, once so well known off the end of Newport
+wharf. You know how those boats are managed,&mdash;stopping all day in port
+and running at night. We brought up at Leghorn in that way, and Marston,
+the engineer, proposed to me to have a run ashore. I had no <i>vis&eacute;</i> for
+Tuscany then, and the Austrian police are very strict; but Marston
+proposed to pass me off for one of the steamer's officers. So he fished
+out an old uniform coat of his and made me put it on; and, sure enough,
+the bright buttons and shoulder-straps carried me through,&mdash;only I was
+dreadfully embarrassed." (Ned never was disturbed at anything.&mdash;if an
+elephant had walked into the cabin, he would have offered him a seat and
+cigar.) "by the sentries all presenting arms to my coat, which sat upon
+me as a shirt is supposed to on a bean-pole. I overheard one man
+attribute my attenuated frame to the effects of sea-sickness. We went
+into various shops, and finally into one where all sorts of sea-notions
+were kept, and Marston said, 'Here's what I've been in search of this
+month past. I began to think I should have to send to London for it. The
+'Ercolano' is a perfect sieve, and may go down any night with all
+aboard; and here's a swimming-jacket to wear under your coat,&mdash;just the
+thing.' He fitted and bought one, and was turning to go, when a fancy
+popped into my head: 'Marston,' said I, 'is this coat of yours so very
+baggy on me?' 'H-e-em,' said he. 'I've known more waxy fits; a trifle of
+padding wouldn't hurt your looks.' 'I know it,' said I; 'every soldier
+we passed seemed to me to smoke me for an impostor, knowing the coat
+wasn't made for me. Here, let's put one of these things underneath.' I
+put it on, buttoned the coat over it, inflated it, and the effect was a
+marvel;&mdash;it made a portly gentleman of me at once. I couldn't bear to
+take it off. 'Just the thing for diligence-travelling in the South of
+France,' said I; 'keep your neighbor's elbows from your ribs.' I never
+thought that I must buy a coat to match it. I was so tickled at my own
+fancy that buy it I would, in spite of Marston's remonstrance. Then we
+went off and dined, and got very jolly together,&mdash;at least, I did,&mdash;so
+that, when we pulled off to the steamer, I thought nothing about my coat
+or the jacket under it.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a dirty-looking sky overhead, and a nasty cobbling sea
+getting up under foot as we ran out of Leghorn Harbor, and a little
+French screw which we left at her anchor was fizzing off steam from her
+waste-pipe,&mdash;evidently meaning to stay where she was. But our captain,
+having been paid in advance for all the dinners of the voyage, preferred
+being at sea before the cloth was laid. That made sure of at least
+twenty out of every twenty-five passengers as non-comedents, and
+lightened the cook's labors wonderfully. So we were soon jumping and
+bobbing about and throwing water in a lively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_812" id="Page_812">[Pg 812]</a></span> way enough; and our black
+gowns and blue coats were lying about decks in every direction, with
+what had been <i>padres</i> and soldiers an hour before inside. I lit a cigar
+and picked out the driest place I could find, and hugged myself on my
+luck,&mdash;another man's coat getting wet on my back, while the air-tight
+jacket was keeping me dry as a bone.</p>
+
+<p>"As night fell, it grew worse and worse; and the little Sicilian captain
+came on deck, looking rather wild. He called his pilots and mates into
+consultation, and from where I lay I could hear the words, 'Spezzia,'
+and 'Porto Venere,' several times; so I suppose they were debating
+whether or no to keep her head to the gale, or to edge away a point or
+two, and run for that bay. But with a head sea and a Mediterranean gale
+howling down from the gorges of the Ligurian Alps, that thing wasn't so
+easy. The boat would plunge into a sea and bury to her paddle-boxes,
+then pitch upward as if she were going to jump bodily out of water, and
+slap down into it again, while her guards would spring and quiver like
+card-board. The engine began to complain, as they will when a boat is
+laboring heavily. You could hear it take, as it were, long breaths, and
+then stop for a second altogether. I slipped below into the engine-room,
+and found Marston looking very sober. 'Kennedy,' said he, 'the
+'Ercolano' will be somebody's coffin before to-morrow morning, I'm
+afraid. I'm carrying more steam than is prudent or safe, and the
+<i>padrone</i> has just sent orders to put on more. We are not making a mile
+an hour, he says; and our only chance is to get under the lee of the
+land. Look at those eccentrics and that connecting-rod! I expect to see
+something go any minute; and then&mdash;there's no use saying what will come
+next.' He sat down on his bench and covered his face with his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems, the 'Spezzia' question was decided about that time on deck,
+and the 'Ercolano's' bow suffered to fall off in the direction of that
+bay. The effect was that the next sea caught us full on the weather-bow
+with a shock that pitched everything movable out of its place. There was
+a twist and a grind from the machinery, a snap and a crash, and then
+part after part gave way, as the strain fell upon it in turn. Marston,
+with an engineer's instinct, shut off the steam; but the mischief was
+done. We felt the 'Ercolano' give a wild sheer, and then a long,
+sickening roll, as if she were going down bodily,&mdash;and we sprang for the
+companion-ladder. Everything on deck was at sixes and sevens when we
+reached it '<i>Sangue di San Gennaro! siamo perduli!</i>' howled the captain;
+and even the poor sea-sick passengers seemed to wake up a little. It was
+a bad look-out. We got pretty much of every wave that was going, so
+there was hardly any standing forward; and, having no steam on, the wind
+and the sea had their own way with us. The gallant little <i>padrone</i>
+seemed to keep up his pluck, and made out to show a little sail, so as
+to bring her by the wind; but that, in a long, sharp steamer, didn't
+mend matters much. To make things completely cheerful and comfortable,
+word was passed up that we were leaking badly. I confess I didn't see
+much hope for us; and having lugged up my valise from below, where there
+was already a foot of water over the cabin-floor, I picked out the
+little valuables I could stow about me and kicked the rest into a
+corner. Still we had our boats, and, as the gale seemed to be breaking a
+little, there was hope for us. At last they managed to get them into the
+water, and keep them riding clear under our lee. The priests were
+bundled in like so many wet bales of black cloth, and then the soldiers,
+and Marston and I tried to follow; but a 'No room for heretics here,'
+enforced by a bit of brown steel in a soldier's hands, kept us back. The
+chance wasn't worth fighting for, after all. I didn't believe the
+steamer would sink, any way. I was aboard the 'San Francisco' when she
+drifted for nine days. However, there wasn't much time left for us to
+speculate on that,&mdash;for a rush of firemen and crew and the like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_813" id="Page_813">[Pg 813]</a></span> into
+the boats was the next thing, and then the fasts were cast off or cut,
+and the wind and sea did the rest. They shot away into the darkness. A
+couple of firemen, two of the priests, and a soldier were left on board.
+The firemen went to getting drunk,&mdash;the priests were too sick to move or
+care for anything,&mdash;the soldier sat quietly down on the cabin-skylight;
+Marston and I climbed on to the port paddle-box to look out for a sail.</p>
+
+<p>"The clouds had broken with the dying of the gale, and the moon shone
+out, lighting up the foaming sea far and wide, and showing our
+water-logged or sinking craft. Every wave that swept over us found its
+way below, and we settled deeper and deeper. Still, if we could only
+hold on till morning, those seas are alive with small craft, and we
+stood a good chance of being picked off. I was saying as much to Marston
+when the 'Ercolano' gave a lurch and then dove bows first into the sea.
+A great wave seemed to curl over us, and then to thrust us by the
+shoulders down into the depths, and all was darkness and water. I went
+down, down, and still I was dragged lower still, though the pressure
+from above ceased, and I was struggling to rise. I struck out with hands
+and feet;&mdash;I was held fast. I felt behind me and found a hand grasping
+my coat-tails. Marston had seized me, and with the other hand was
+clinging to the iron rail on the top of the paddle-box,&mdash;clinging with
+the death-grip of a drowning man, if you know what that is. I tried to
+unclasp the fingers,&mdash;to drive him from his hold on the rail. Of course
+I couldn't; it was Death's hand, not his, that was holding there, and my
+own strength was going, when a thought flashed into my mind. I tore open
+my coat, and it slipped from me like a grape-skin from the grape, and I
+went up like an arrow.</p>
+
+<p>"Never shall I forget the blessed light of heaven, and the sweet air in
+my lungs once more. Bad off as I was, it was better than being anchored
+to a sinking wreck by a dead man's grasp. I heard a voice near me that
+night repeating the Latin prayers of the Romish Church for the departing
+soul, but I couldn't see the speaker. The moon had gone under a cloud
+again, but there was light enough for me to catch a glimpse of some
+floating wreck on the crest of a wave above me; and then it came down
+right on top of me,&mdash;a lot of rigging and a spar or two,&mdash;our topmast
+and yard, which had gone over the side just before we foundered. I
+climbed on to it, and found my prospects hugely improving,&mdash;especially
+as clinging to the other end was the soldier left on board. As soon as I
+could persuade him I was no spook or mermaid, he was almost as pleased
+as I was, especially when he found I was the '<i>eretico</i>.' He was a
+Swiss, it seemed, of King Ferdinand's regiments, going home on furlough,
+and a Protestant, which was why he was left on board.</p>
+
+<p>"Between us both we managed to get the spars into some sort of a
+raft-shape, so that they would float us more comfortably; and there we
+watched for the morning. When that came, the sea had smoothed itself,
+and the wind died away considerably,&mdash;as it does in the Mediterranean at
+short notice. We looked every way for the white lateen-sails of the
+coasting and fishing craft, but in vain. It grew hotter and hotter as
+the sun got higher, and hope and strength began to give out. I lay down
+on the raft and slept,&mdash;how long I don't know, for my first
+consciousness was my friend's cry of "A ship!" I looked up, and there,
+sure enough, in the northeast, was a large ship, running before the
+wind, right in our direction. I suspect poor Fritzeli must have been
+asleep also, that he hadn't seen her before,&mdash;for she was barely a
+couple of miles off. She was apparently from Genoa or Spezzia; but the
+main thing was, that she was travelling our road, and that with a will.
+I tore off my shirt-sleeve at the shoulder, and waved it, while Fritzeli
+held up his red sash. But it was an anxious time. On she came,&mdash;a big
+frigate. We could see a commodore's pendant flying at the main, and
+almost hear the steady rush of water<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_814" id="Page_814">[Pg 814]</a></span> under her black bows. Did they see
+us, or not? There was no telling; a man-of-war walks the sea's roads
+without taking hats off to everybody that comes along. A quiet report
+goes up to the officer of the deck, a long look with a glass, and the
+whole affair would be settled without troubling us to come into council.
+On she came, till we could see the guns in her bow ports, and almost
+count the meshes in her hammock netting. The shadow of her lofty sails
+was already fallen upon us before she gave a sign of recognition. Then
+her bow gave a wide sheer, and her whole broadside came into view, as
+she glided by the spars where we were crouching. An officer appeared at
+her quarter and waved his gold-banded cap to us, as the frigate rounded
+to, to the leeward of us,&mdash;and the glorious stripes and stars blew out
+clear against the hot sky. A light dingey was in the water before the
+main yard had been well swung aback, and a midshipman was urging the
+men, who needed no urging, to give way strong. I didn't know how weak I
+had got, till they were lifting me aboard the boat. An hour after, when
+I had had something to eat and was a little restored and had told my
+story, the officer of the deck was relieved and came below to see me.</p>
+
+<p>"'I fancy, Sir, we've just passed something of your steamer,' he
+said,&mdash;'a yawlboat, bottom up, with a name on the stern which we
+couldn't well make out: <i>Erco</i> something, it looked like. Hadn't been
+long in the water, I should say.'</p>
+
+<p>"And that was the last of the steamer. Fritzeli and I were the sole
+survivors."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_JOLLY_MARINER" id="THE_JOLLY_MARINER"></a>THE JOLLY MARINER:</h2>
+
+<h3>A BALLAD.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It was a jolly mariner<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As ever hove a log;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wore his trousers wide and free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And always ate his prog,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And blessed his eyes, in sailor-wise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And never shirked his grog.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up spoke this jolly mariner,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whilst walking up and down:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The briny sea has pickled me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And done me very brown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But here I goes, in these here clo'es,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A-cruising in the town!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The first of all the curious things<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That chanced his eye to meet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As this undaunted mariner<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Went sailing up the street,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was, tripping with a little cane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A dandy all complete!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He stopped,&mdash;that jolly mariner,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And eyed the stranger well;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"What that may be," he said, says he,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_815" id="Page_815">[Pg 815]</a></span>
+<span class="i2">"Is more than I can tell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ne'er before, on sea or shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was such a heavy swell!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He met a lady in her hoops,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thus she heard him hail:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Now blow me tight!&mdash;but there's a sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To manage in a gale!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I never saw so small a craft<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With such a spread o' sail!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Observe the craft before and aft,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She'd make a pretty prize!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then, in that improper way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He spoke about his eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That mariners are wont to use,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In anger or surprise.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He saw a plumber on a roof,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who made a mighty din:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Shipmate, ahoy!" the rover cried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"It makes a sailor grin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see you copper-bottoming<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your upper-decks with tin!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He met a yellow-bearded man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And asked about the way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But not a word could he make out<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of what the chap would say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unless he meant to call him names<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By screaming, "Nix furstay!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up spoke this jolly mariner,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And to the man said he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I haven't sailed these thirty years<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon the stormy sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bear the shame of such a name<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As I have heard from thee!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"So take thou that!"&mdash;and laid him flat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But soon the man arose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beat the jolly mariner<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Across his jolly nose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till he was fain, from very pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To yield him to the blows.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twas then this jolly mariner,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A wretched jolly tar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wished he was in a jolly-boat<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon the sea afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or riding fast, before the blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon a single spar!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_816" id="Page_816">[Pg 816]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twas then this jolly mariner<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Returned unto his ship,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And told unto the wondering crew<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The story of his trip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With many oaths and curses, too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon his wicked lip!&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As hoping&mdash;so this mariner<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In fearful words harangued&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His timbers might be shivered, and<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His le'ward scuppers danged,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(A double curse, and vastly worse<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Than being shot or hanged!)<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If ever he&mdash;and here again<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A dreadful oath he swore&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If ever he, except at sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Spoke any stranger more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or like a son of&mdash;something&mdash;went<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A-cruising on the shore!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SUGGESTIONS" id="SUGGESTIONS"></a>SUGGESTIONS.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Waste words, addle questions."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4"><span class="smcap">Bishop Andrews</span>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h3>AFFAIRS.</h3>
+
+<p>When affairs are at their worst, a bold project may retrieve them by
+giving an assurance, else wanting, that hope, spirit, and energy still
+exist.</p>
+
+
+<h3>AFFINITIES.</h3>
+
+<p>Place an inferior character in contact with the finest circumstances,
+and, from wanting affinities with them, he will still remain, from no
+fault of his own, insensible to their attractions. Take him up the mount
+of vision, and show him the finest scene in Nature, and, instead of
+taking in the whole circle of its beauty, he will, quite as likely, have
+his attention engrossed by something mean and insignificant under his
+nose. I was reminded of this, on taking a little boy, three years old,
+to the top of the New York Reservoir. Placing him on one of the
+parapets, I endeavored to call his attention to the more salient and
+distant features of the extended prospect; but the little fellow's mind
+was too immature to be at all appreciative of them. His interest was
+confined to what he saw going on in a dirty inclosure on the opposite
+side of the street, where two or three goats were moving about. After
+watching them with curious interest for some time, "See, see!" said he,
+"dem is pigs down dare!" Was there need for quarrelling with my fine
+little man for seeing pigs where there were only goats, or goats where
+there was much worthier to be seen?</p>
+
+
+<h3>AFTER THE BATTLE.</h3>
+
+<p>A brave deed performed, a noble object accomplished, gives a fillip to
+the spirits, an exhilaration to the feelings, like that imparted by
+Champagne, only more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_817" id="Page_817">[Pg 817]</a></span> permanent. It is, indeed, admirably well said by
+one wise to discern the truth of things, and able to give to his thought
+a vigorous expression, that "a man feels relieved and gay when he has
+put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or
+done otherwise shall give him no peace."</p>
+
+
+<h3>APPLAUSE.</h3>
+
+<p>Noble acts deserve a generous appreciation. Indeed, it is a species of
+injustice not to warmly applaud whatever is wisely said or ably done.
+Fine things are shown that they may be admired. When the peacock struts
+about, it is to show what a fine tail he has.</p>
+
+
+<h3>ARTISTS.</h3>
+
+<p>The artist's business is with the beautiful. The repugnant is outside of
+his province. Let him study only the beautiful, and he will always be
+pleased; let him treat only of the beautiful, with a true feeling for
+it, and he will always give pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>The artist must love both his art and the subjects of his art. Nothing
+that is not lovable is worth portraying. In the portrait of Rosa
+Bonheur, she is appropriately represented with one arm thrown
+affectionately around the neck of a bull. She must have loved this order
+of animals, to have painted them so well.</p>
+
+
+<h3>AUTHORS.</h3>
+
+<p>Instead of the jealousies that obtain among them, there is no class that
+ought to stand so close together, united in a feeling of common
+brotherhood, to strengthen, to support, and to encourage, by mutual
+sympathy and interchange of genial criticism, as authors. A sensitive
+race, neglect pierces like sharp steel into the very marrow of their
+being. And still they stand apart! Alive to praise, and needing its
+inspiration, their relations are those of icebergs,&mdash;cold, stiff, lofty,
+and freezing. What infatuation is this! They should seek each other out,
+extend the hand of fellowship, and bridge the distance between them by
+elaborate courtesies and kindly recognitions.</p>
+
+
+<h3>AN AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK.</h3>
+
+<p>No man is a competent judge of what he himself does. An author, on the
+eve of his first publication, and while his book is going through the
+press, is in a predicament like that of a man mounted on a fence, with
+an ugly bull in the field that he is obliged to cross. The apprehended
+silence of the journals concerning his merits&mdash;for no notice is the
+worst notice&mdash;constitutes one of the "horns of his dilemma"; while their
+possibly invidious comments upon his want of them constitute another and
+equally formidable "horn." Between these, and the uncertainty as to
+whether he will not in a little time be cut by one-half of his
+acquaintances and only indulgently tolerated by the other half, his
+experience is apt to be very peculiar, and certainly not altogether
+agreeable. Never, therefore, envy an author his feelings on such an
+occasion, on the score of their superior enjoyment, but rather let him
+be visited with your softest pity and tenderest commiseration.</p>
+
+
+<h3>BOOKS.</h3>
+
+<p>A book is only a very partial expression of its author. The writer is
+greater than his work; and there is in him the substance, not of one, or
+a few, but of many books, were they only written out.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CAUSE AND EFFECT.</h3>
+
+<p>Small circumstances illustrate great principles. To-day my dinner cost
+me sixpence less than usual. This is an incident not quite so important
+as some others recorded in history, but the causes of it originated more
+than two thousand years ago. It will also serve to explain the
+principle, that causes are primary and secondary, remote and
+immediate,&mdash;and that historians, when they speak of certain effects as
+produced by certain causes. Socrates one day had a conversation with
+Aristippus, in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_818" id="Page_818">[Pg 818]</a></span> he threw out certain remarks on the subject of
+temperance. Being overheard by Xenophon, they were subsequently
+committed to writing and published by him. These, falling in my way last
+evening, made such an impression on my mind, that I was induced to-day
+to forego my customary piece of pudding after dinner, to the loss of the
+eating-house proprietor, whose receipts were thus diminished, first, by
+a few observations of an ancient Greek, secondly, by a report given of
+them by a bystander, and, thirdly, by the accidental perusal of them,
+after twenty centuries, by one of his customers.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHEERFULNESS.</h3>
+
+<p>Sullen and good, morbid and wise, are impossible conditions. The best
+test, both of a man's wisdom and goodness, is his cheerfulness. When one
+is not cheerful, he is almost invariably stupid. A sad face seldom gets
+into much credit with the world, and rarely deserves to. "Sorrow," says
+old Montaigne, "is a base passion."</p>
+
+<p>"The quarrel between Gray and me," said Horace Walpole, "arose from his
+being too serious a companion." In my opinion, this was a good ground
+for cutting the connection. What right has any one to be "too serious a
+companion?"</p>
+
+
+<h3>COWARDS.</h3>
+
+<p>In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that
+imperil the brave. For cowards the road of desertion to the enemy should
+be left open; they will carry over to them nothing but their fears. The
+poltroon, like the scabbard, is an incumbrance when once the sword is
+drawn.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CRITICISM.</h3>
+
+<p>No work deserves to be criticized which has not much in it that deserves
+to be applauded. The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention
+to what is excellent The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect
+may be safely left to that final neglect from which no amount of present
+undeserved popularity can rescue it.</p>
+
+<p>Ever so critical of things: never but good-naturedly so of persons.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CULTURE.</h3>
+
+<p>Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity.</p>
+
+
+<h3>DEATH.</h3>
+
+<p>Without death in the world, existence in it would soon become, through
+over-population, the most frightful of curses. To death we owe our life;
+the passing of one generation clears the way for another; and thus, in
+the economy of Providence, the very extinction of being is a provision
+for extending the boon of existence. Even wars and disease are <i>a good
+misunderstood</i>. Without them, child-murder would be as common in
+Christendom as it is in over-populated China.</p>
+
+
+<h3>DEBTORS AND CREDITORS.</h3>
+
+<p>To interest a number of people in your welfare, get in debt to them. If
+they will not then promote your interest, it is because they are not
+alive to their own. It is to the advantage of creditors to aid their
+debtors. C&aelig;sar owed more than a million of dollars before he obtained
+his first public employment, and at a later period his liabilities
+exceeded his assets by ten millions. His creditors constituted an
+important constituency, and doubtless aided to secure his elections.</p>
+
+
+<h3>DIFFICULTIES.</h3>
+
+<p>Great difficulties, when not succumbed to, bring out great virtues.</p>
+
+
+<h3>DISGUST.</h3>
+
+<p>A fit of disgust is a great stimulator of thought. Pleasure represses
+it.</p>
+
+
+<h3>EARNESTNESS.</h3>
+
+<p>M. de Buffon says that "genius is only great patience." Would it not be
+truer to say that genius is great earnestness? Patience is only one
+faculty; earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties: it is the
+cause of patience; it gives endurance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_819" id="Page_819">[Pg 819]</a></span> overcomes pain, strengthens
+weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties,
+and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them. Yes, War yields
+its victories, and Beauty her favors, to him who fights or wooes with
+the most passionate ardor,&mdash;in other words, with the greatest
+earnestness. Even the simulation of earnestness accomplishes much,&mdash;such
+a charm has it for us. This explains the success of libertines, the
+coarseness of whose natures is usually only disguised by a certain
+conventional polish of manners: "their hearts seem in earnest, because
+their passions are."</p>
+
+
+<h3>EDUCATION OF THE SEXES.</h3>
+
+<p>Girls are early taught deceit, and they never forget the lesson. Boys
+are more outspoken. This is because boys are instructed that to be frank
+and open is to be manly and generous, while their sisters are
+perpetually admonished that "this is not pretty," or "that is not
+becoming," until they have learned to control their natural impulses,
+and to regulate their conduct by precepts and example. The result of all
+this is, that, while men retain much of their natural dispositions,
+women have largely made-up characters.</p>
+
+
+<h3>EMERSON'S ESSAYS.</h3>
+
+<p>I have not yet been able to decide whether it is better to read certain
+of Emerson's essays as poetry or philosophy. Perhaps, though, it would
+be no more than just to consider them as an almost complete and perfect
+union of the two. Certainly, no modern writer has more of vivid
+individuality, both of thought and expression,&mdash;and few writers, of any
+age, will better bear reperusal, or surpass him in the grand merit of
+suggestiveness. There is much in his books that I cannot clearly
+understand, and passages sometimes occur that once seemed to me
+destitute of meaning; but I have since learned, from a greater
+familiarity with what he has written, to respect even his obscurities,
+and to have faith that there is at all times behind his words both a man
+and a meaning.</p>
+
+
+<h3>ENGLISHMEN.</h3>
+
+<p>There is in the character of perhaps a majority of Englishmen a singular
+commingling of the haughty and the subservient,&mdash;the result, doubtless,
+of the mixed nature, partly aristocratic and partly democratic, of the
+government, and of the peculiar structure of English society, in which
+every man indemnifies himself for the subserviency he is required to
+exhibit to the classes above, by exacting a similar subserviency from
+those below him. Thackeray, who is to be considered a competent judge of
+the character of his countrymen, puts the remark into the mouth of one
+of his characters, that, "if you wish to make an Englishman respect you,
+you must treat him with insolence." The language is somewhat too strong,
+and it would not be altogether safe to act upon the suggestion; but the
+witticism embodies a modicum of truth, for all that.</p>
+
+
+<h3>EXAMPLE.</h3>
+
+<p>Example has more followers than reason.</p>
+
+
+<h3>EXCITEMENT COUNTERVAILS PAIN.</h3>
+
+<p>We wince under little pains, but Nature in us, through the excitement
+attendant upon them, seems to brace us to endure with fortitude greater
+agonies. A curious circumstance, that will serve as an illustration of
+this, is told by an eminent surgeon of a person upon whom it became
+necessary to perform a painful surgical operation. The surgeon, after
+adjusting him in a position favorable to his purpose, turned for a
+moment to write a prescription; then, taking up the knife, he was about
+making an "imminent deadly breach" in the body of his subject, when he
+observed an expression of distress upon his countenance. Wishing to
+reassure him, "What disturbs you?" he inquired. "Oh," said the sufferer,
+"you have left the pen in the inkstand!" and this being removed, he
+submitted to the operation with extraordinary composure.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_820" id="Page_820">[Pg 820]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>FACT AND FANCY.</h3>
+
+<p>"See, nurse I see!" exclaimed a delighted papa, as something like a
+smile irradiated the face of his infant child,&mdash;"an angel is whispering
+to it!" "No, Sir," replied the more matter-of-fact nurse,&mdash;"it is only
+wind from its stomach."</p>
+
+
+<h3>FINE HOUSES.</h3>
+
+<p>To build a huge house, and furnish it lavishly,&mdash;what is this but to
+play baby-house on a large scale?</p>
+
+
+<h3>FINE LADIES.</h3>
+
+<p>If you would know how many of the "airs" of a fine lady are "put on,"
+contrast her with a woman who has never had the advantages of a genteel
+training. What appear as the curvettings and prancings of a high-mettled
+nature turn out, from the light thus afforded, to be only the tricks of
+a skilful grooming.</p>
+
+
+<h3>FUTURE LIFE</h3>
+
+<p>Altogether too much thought is given to the next world. One world at a
+time ought to be sufficient for us. If we do our duty manfully in this,
+much consideration of our relations to that next world may be safely
+postponed until we are in it.</p>
+
+
+<h3>GREAT MEN.</h3>
+
+<p>Oh, the responsibility of great men! Could some of these the originators
+of new beliefs, of new methods in Art, of new systems of state and
+ecclesiastical polity, of novel modes of practice in medicine, and the
+like.&mdash;"revisit the pale glimpses of the moon," and look upon the
+streams of blood and misery that have flowed from fountains they have
+unsealed, they would skulk back to their graves faster and more
+affrighted than when they first descended into them.</p>
+
+
+<h3>HABITS.</h3>
+
+<p>Habit to a great extent, is the forcing of Nature to your way, instead
+of leaving her to her own. Struck by this consideration, "He is a fool,
+then, who has any habits," said W. Softly, my dear Sir,&mdash;the position is
+an extreme one. Bad habits are very bad, and good habits, blindly
+followed, are not altogether good, for they make machines of us.
+Occasional excesses may be wholesome; and Nature accommodates herself to
+irregularities, as a ship to the action of waves. Good habits are in the
+nature of allies: we may strengthen ourselves by an alliance with them,
+but they should not outnumber the forces they act with. Habits are the
+Hessians of our moral warfare: the good or the ill they do depends on
+the side they fight on.</p>
+
+
+<h3>HEROISM.</h3>
+
+<p>The race of heroes, though not prolific, is never extinct. Nature,
+liberal in this, as in all things else, has sown the constituent
+qualities of heroism broadcast. Elements of the heroic in character
+exist in almost every individual; it is only the felicitous combination
+of them all in one that is rare.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IDEAS.</h3>
+
+<p>Ideas, in regard to their degrees of merit, may be divided, like the
+animal kingdom, into classes or families. First in rank are those ideas
+that have in them the germs of a great moral unfolding,&mdash;as the ideas of
+a religious teacher, like Socrates or Confucius. Next in merit are those
+ideas that lay open the secrets of Nature, or add to the combinations of
+Art,&mdash;as the ideas of inventors and discoverers. Next in the order of
+excellence are all new and valuable ideas on diseases and their
+treatment, on the redress of social abuses, on government and laws and
+their administration, and all similar ideas on all other subjects
+connected with material welfare or intellectual and moral advancement.
+Last and least, ideas that are only the repetition of other ideas,
+previously known, though not so well expressed.</p>
+
+
+<h3>INSTITUTIONS.</h3>
+
+<p>When an institution, not designed to be stationary, ceases to be
+progressive, it is usually because its officers have lost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_821" id="Page_821">[Pg 821]</a></span> their
+ambition to make it so. In such a contingency, they had better be called
+upon to resign, and thus to open the way for a more executive and
+energetic management.</p>
+
+
+<h3>LAWYERS.</h3>
+
+<p>The lawyer's relation to society is like that of the scarecrow to the
+cornfield; concede that he effects nothing of positive good, and he
+still exerts a wholesome influence from the terror his presence
+inspires.</p>
+
+
+<h3>LEADERSHIP.</h3>
+
+<p>He who aspires to be leader must keep in advance of his column. His
+fears must not play traitor to his occasions. The instant he falls into
+line with his followers, a bolder spirit may throw himself at the head
+of the movement initiated, and from that moment his leadership is gone.</p>
+
+
+<h3>LET THE RIGHT PREVAIL.</h3>
+
+<p>It is better that ten times ten thousand men should suffer in their
+interests than that a right principle should not be vindicated. Granting
+that all these will be injured by the suppression of the false, an
+infinitely greater number will as certainly be prejudiced by throwing
+off the allegiance due to truth. Throughout the future, all have an
+interest in the establishment of sound principles, while only a few in
+the present can have even a partial interest in the perpetuation of
+error.</p>
+
+
+<h3>LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.</h3>
+
+<p>It is pleasanter and more amiable to applaud than to condemn, and they
+who look wisely to their happiness will endeavor, as they go through
+life, to see as much to admire, and as few things that are repugnant, as
+possible. Nothing that is not distinctively excellent is worthy of
+particular study or comment.</p>
+
+
+<h3>LOVERS' DIFFERENCES.</h3>
+
+<p>Their love for each other is only partial who differ much and widely.
+When a loving heart speaks to a heart that loves in return, an
+understanding is easily arrived at.</p>
+
+
+<h3>WHAT LOVE PROVES.</h3>
+
+<p>The existence of so much love in the world establishes that there is in
+it much of the excellence that justifies so exalted a passion. Almost
+every man has been a lover at some period in his life, and, out of so
+many lovers, it is unreasonable to suppose that all of them have been
+mistaken in their estimates.</p>
+
+
+<h3>MAGNANIMITY.</h3>
+
+<p>Justice to the defeated exalts the victor from a subject of admiration
+to an object of love. To the fame of superior courage or address he
+thereby adds the glory of a greater magnanimity. Praise, too, of a
+vanquished opponent makes our victory over him appear the more signal.</p>
+
+
+<h3>MANHOOD.</h3>
+
+<p>The question is not, the number of facts a man knows, but how much of a
+fact he is himself.</p>
+
+
+<h3>MEAN MEN.</h3>
+
+<p>If a man is thoroughly mean by nature, let him give full swing to his
+meanness. Such a fellow brings discredit upon generosity by putting on
+its semblance. If he attempts to disguise the smallness of his soul, he
+only adds to his contemptible trait of meanness the still more
+despicable vice of hypocrisy. Mean by the sacred institution of Nature,
+and without a generous trait to mar the excellence of his native
+meanness, so long as he continues unqualifiedly mean, he exists a
+perfect type of a particular character, and presents to us a fine
+illustration of the vast capabilities of Nature.</p>
+
+
+<h3>METHODS OF THE ENTERPRISING.</h3>
+
+<p>Great personal activity at times, and closely sedentary and severely
+thoughtful habits at other times, are the forces by which able men
+accomplish notable enterprises. Sitting with thoughtful brows by their
+evening firesides, they originate and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_822" id="Page_822">[Pg 822]</a></span> mature their plans; after which,
+with energies braced to their work, they move to the easy conquest of
+difficulties accounted formidable, because they have deliberated upon
+and mastered the <i>best methods</i> for overcoming them.</p>
+
+
+<h3>MILITARY SCHOOLS.</h3>
+
+<p>The existence of military schools is a proof that the other schools have
+not done their duty.</p>
+
+
+<h3>NATURE AND ART.</h3>
+
+<p>The art of being interesting is largely the art of being <i>real</i>,&mdash;of
+being without art.</p>
+
+
+<h3>NEWSPAPERS.</h3>
+
+<p>The world is not fairly represented by its newspapers. Life is something
+better than they make it out to be. They are mainly the records of the
+crimes that curse and the casualties that afflict it, the contests of
+litigants and the strifes of politicians; but of the sweet amenities of
+home and social life they are and must be silent. Not without a reason
+has the poet fled from the "poet's corner."</p>
+
+
+<h3>NON-COMMUNICANTS.</h3>
+
+<p>Certain minds are formed to take in truths, but not to utter them. They
+hoard their knowledge, as misers their gold. Their communicativeness is
+small. Their appreciation of principles is greater than their sympathy
+for persons.</p>
+
+
+<h3>OPINIONS.</h3>
+
+<p>The best merit of an opinion is, that it is sound; its next best merit,
+that it is briefly expressed.</p>
+
+
+<h3>POETS AND POETRY.</h3>
+
+<p>The "twelve rules for a poet" are eleven too many. The poet needs but
+one rule for his guidance as a poet,&mdash;namely, never to write poetry.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+
+<h3>POPULAR ASPIRANTS.</h3>
+
+<p>The fate of a popular aspirant is often like that of a prize ox. When in
+his best condition, he is put up for exhibition, decorated with flowers
+and ribbons, and afterwards led out to be slaughtered.</p>
+
+
+<h3>PRAISE.</h3>
+
+<p>No one, probably, was ever injured by having his good qualities made the
+subject of judicious praise. The virtues, like plants, reward the
+attention bestowed upon them by growing more and more thrifty. A lad who
+is told often that he is a good boy will in time grow ashamed to exhibit
+the qualities of a bad one.</p>
+
+
+<h3>PRIDE.</h3>
+
+<p>Pride is like the beautiful acacia, that carries its head proudly above
+its neighbor plants,&mdash;forgetting that it, too, like them, has its root
+in the dirt.</p>
+
+
+<h3>PROVERBS.</h3>
+
+<p>Invention and the Graces preside at the birth of a good proverb. Aside
+from the ideas expressed in them, they are deserving of the attention of
+literary men and all students of expression, from the infinite variety
+of turns of style they exhibit. "If you don't want to be tossed by a
+bull, toss the bull." Here, for instance, the thought is not only
+spirited, but it is so rendered as to give to the idea both the force of
+novelty and the agreeableness of wit. The words are as hard and compact,
+and the thought flies as swift, as a bullet.</p>
+
+
+<h3>PUBLIC MEN.</h3>
+
+<p>A public man may reasonably esteem it a piece of good fortune to be
+vigorously attacked in the newspapers. In the first place, it lifts him
+prominently into notice. Then, a plausible defence will divide public
+opinion, while a triumphant vindication will more fully establish him in
+the popular regard. Even if unable to offer either, the notoriety so
+acquired will in time soften into a counterfeit of celebrity so like the
+original that it will easily pass for it. Besides, the world is
+charitable, and will forget old sins in consideration of later virtues.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_823" id="Page_823">[Pg 823]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>MANNERS OF REFORMERS.</h3>
+
+<p>Reformers, from being deeply impressed with the evils they seek to
+redress, and actively engaged in a warfare against them, are apt to
+contract a certain habit of denunciation, extending to persons and
+things at large, and by which their character for amiability is
+injuriously affected. This is particularly noticeable in that portion of
+the press devoted to Progress.</p>
+
+
+<h3>REQUESTS.</h3>
+
+<p>It is well to dress in your best when you go to press a request. It is
+not so easy to resist the solicitations of a well-dressed importunate.</p>
+
+
+<h3>RICH AND POOR.</h3>
+
+<p>Grace resides with the cultivated, but strength is the property of the
+people. Art with these has not emasculated Nature.</p>
+
+
+<h3>RICH TO EXCESS.</h3>
+
+<p>Intellectually, as many suffer from too much physical health as too
+little. A fat body makes a lean mind.</p>
+
+
+<h3>RULE OR RUIN.</h3>
+
+<p>A thoroughly vigorous man will not actively belong to any associated
+body, except to rule in it. Not to control in its affairs is to have his
+individuality cut down to the standard of those that do. He must stamp
+himself upon the institution, or its enfeebling influence will be
+stamped upon him.</p>
+
+
+<h3>SANS PEUR.</h3>
+
+<p>No man is competent greatly to serve the cause of truth till he has made
+audacity a part of his mental constitution.</p>
+
+<p>There are some dangers that are to be courted,&mdash;courted and braved as a
+coy mistress is to be wooed, with all the more vigor as the day makes
+against us. When Fortune frowns upon her worthy wooer, it is still
+permitted him to think how pleasant it will be ere long to bask in her
+smiles.</p>
+
+
+<h3>SLIGHTS.</h3>
+
+<p>In seasons when the energies flag and our ambition fails us, a rebuff is
+a blessing, by rousing us from inaction, and stirring us to more
+vigorous efforts to make good our pretensions.</p>
+
+
+<h3>SOCIAL REGENERATION.</h3>
+
+<p>Private worth is the only true basis of public prosperity. Still,
+ministers and moralists do but tinker at the regeneration of the world
+in merely recommending individual improvement. The most prolific cause
+of depravity is the social system that forms the character to what it
+is. The virtues, like plants, to flourish, must have a soil and air
+adapted to them. A plant at the seaside yields soda; the same plant
+grown inland produces potash. What society most needs, for its permanent
+advancement, is uniformity of inheritance.</p>
+
+
+<h3>SPEAKERS.</h3>
+
+<p>A speaker should put his character into what he says. So many speakers,
+like so many faces, have no individuality in them.</p>
+
+
+<h3>SPEAKING AND TALKING.</h3>
+
+<p>There is often a striking contrast between a man's style of writing and
+of talking,&mdash;for which I offer this explanation: He ponders what he
+writes; he talks without system. As an author, therefore, he is
+sententious; as a conversationist, loose and verbose;&mdash;or the reverse of
+this may be true.</p>
+
+
+<h3>SPEECH.</h3>
+
+<p>Language was given to us that we might say pleasant things to each
+other.</p>
+
+
+<h3>PREVAILING STYLES.</h3>
+
+<p>In literary performances, as in Gothic architecture, the taste of the
+age is largely in favor of the pointed styles. Our churches and our
+books must bristle all over with points, or they are not so much thought
+of.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_824" id="Page_824">[Pg 824]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>SUNDAY.</h3>
+
+<p>The poor man's rich day.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THINGS WORTH KNOWING.</h3>
+
+<p>Only the good is worth knowing, and only the beautiful worth studying.</p>
+
+
+<h3>TOBACCO.</h3>
+
+<p>Tobacco in excess fouls the breath, discolors the teeth, soils the
+complexion, deranges the nerves, reduces vitality, impairs the
+sensibility to beauty and to pleasure, abets intemperance, promotes
+idleness, and degrades the man.</p>
+
+
+<h3>TRADE-LIFE.</h3>
+
+<p>Formerly, when great fortunes were made only in war, war was a business;
+but now, when great fortunes are made only by business, business is war.</p>
+
+
+<h3>TRUTH-SEEKERS.</h3>
+
+<p>Hamlet, in the ghost scene, is a fine example of the <i>questioning
+spirit</i> pursuing its inquiries regardless of consequences. The
+apparition which affrights and confounds his companions only spurs his
+not less timid, perhaps, but more speculative nature into following and
+plying it with questions. Only thus should Truth be followed, with an
+interest great enough to overmaster all fears as to whither she may lead
+and what she may disclose.</p>
+
+
+<h3>UGLY MEN.</h3>
+
+<p>When a man is hideously ugly his only safety is in glorying in it. Let
+him boldly claim it as a distinction.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE WALK.</h3>
+
+<p>The walk discloses the character. A placid and composed walk bespeaks
+the philosopher. He walks as if the present was sufficient for him. A
+measured step is the expression of a disciplined intellect, not easily
+stirred to excesses. A hurried pace denotes an eager spirit, with a
+tendency to precipitate measures. The confident and the happy swing
+along, and need a wide sidewalk; while an irregular gait reveals a
+composite of character,&mdash;one thing to-day, another to-morrow, and
+nothing much at any time.</p>
+
+
+<h3>WINE.</h3>
+
+<p><i>In vino</i> there is not only <i>veritas</i>, but sensibility. It makes the
+face of him who drinks it to excess blush for his habits.</p>
+
+
+<h3>WISDOM.</h3>
+
+<p>Wisdom comes to us as guest, but her visits are liable to sudden
+terminations. In our efforts to retain the wisdom we have acquired, an
+embarrassment arises like that of the little boy who was scolded for
+having a dirty nose. "Blow your nose, Sir." "Papa, I do blow my nose,
+but it won't stay blowed."</p>
+
+
+<h3>WOMEN AS JUDGES OF CHARACTER.</h3>
+
+<p>It is more honorable to have the regards of a few noble women than to be
+popular among a much greater number of men. Having in themselves the
+qualities that command our love, they are, for that reason, the better
+able to appreciate the traits that deserve to inspire it. The heart must
+be judged by the heart, and men are too intellectual in the processes by
+which they form their regards.</p>
+
+
+<h3>AVERAGE WORTH.</h3>
+
+<p>A wife should accept her husband, and a friend his friend, upon a
+general estimate. Particulars in character and conduct should be
+overlooked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_825" id="Page_825">[Pg 825]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> I speak, of course, only of the discreet poet. Great poets
+are never discreet. Their genius overrides their discretion.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="BULLS_AND_BEARS" id="BULLS_AND_BEARS"></a>BULLS AND BEARS.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ARTISTS' EXHIBITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.</h4>
+
+<p>There was an exhibition of pictures in an upper room on Washington
+Street. The artists had collected their unsold productions, and proposed
+to offer them at auction. There were sketches of White Mountain scenery,
+views of Nahant and other beaches, woodland prospects, farm-houses with
+well-sweeps, reedy marshes and ponds, together with the usual variety of
+ideal heads and figures,&mdash;a very pretty collection. The artists had gone
+forth like bees, and gathered whatever was sweetest in every field
+through a wide circuit, and now the lover of the beautiful might have
+his choice of the results without the fatigue of travel. Defects enough
+there were to critical eyes,&mdash;false drawing, cold color, and
+unsuccessful distances; still there was much to admire, and the spirit
+and intention were interesting, even where the inexperience of the
+painter was only too apparent.</p>
+
+<p>A group of visitors entered the room: a lady in the prime of beauty,
+richly but modestly dressed, casting quick glances on all sides, yet
+with an air of quiet self-possession; a gentleman, her brother
+apparently, near forty years of age, dignified and prepossessing; a
+second lady, in widow's weeds; and a young gentleman with successful
+moustaches, lemon-colored gloves, and one of those bagging coats which
+just miss the grace of flowing outline without the compensation of
+setting off a good figure. The lady first mentioned seemed born to take
+the lead; it was no assumption in her; <i>incedo regina</i> was the
+expression of her gracefully poised head and her stately carriage. "A
+pretty bit," she said, carelessly pointing with her parasol to a picture
+of a rude country bridge and dam.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said her elder brother, "spirited and lifelike. Who is the
+painter, Marcia?"</p>
+
+<p>The beauty consulted her catalogue.</p>
+
+<p>"Greenleaf, George Greenleaf."</p>
+
+<p>"A new name. Look at that distant spire," he continued, "faintly showing
+among the trees in the background. The water is surprisingly true. A
+charming picture. I think I'll buy it."</p>
+
+<p>"How quickly you decide," said the lady, with an air of languor. "The
+picture is pretty enough, but you haven't seen the rest of the
+collection yet. Gamboge paints lovely landscapes, they say. I wouldn't
+be enthusiastic about a picture by an artist one doesn't know anything
+about."</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman standing behind a screen near by moved away with a changed
+expression and a deepening flush. Another person, an artist evidently,
+now accosted the party, addressing them as Mr. and Miss Sandford. After
+the usual civilities, he called their attention to the picture before
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"We were just admiring it," said Mr. Sandford.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like it, Mr. Easelmann?" asked the lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, exceedingly."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! the generosity of a brother artist," replied Miss Sandford.</p>
+
+<p>"No; you do the picture injustice,&mdash;and me too, for that matter; for,"
+he added, with a laugh, "I am not generally supposed to ruin my friends
+by indiscriminate flattery. This young painter has wonderfully improved.
+He went up into the country last season, found a picturesque little
+village, and has made a portfolio of very striking sketches."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sandford began to appear interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite pwomising," said the Adonis in the baggy coat, silent until now.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he has blossomed all at once. He talks of going abroad."</p>
+
+<p>"Bettah stay at home," said the young gentleman, languidly. "I've been
+thwough all the gallewies. It's always the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_826" id="Page_826">[Pg 826]</a></span> stowy,&mdash;always the same
+old humbugs to be admired,&mdash;always a doosid boah."</p>
+
+<p>"One relief you must have had in the galleries," retorted Easelmann;
+"your all-round shirt-collar wouldn't choke you quite so much when your
+head was cocked back."</p>
+
+<p>Adonis-in-bag adjusted his polished all-rounder with a delicately gloved
+finger, and declared that the painter was "a jol-ly fel-low."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman who had blushed a moment before, when the picture was
+criticized, was still within earshot; he now turned an angry glance upon
+the last speaker, and was about to cross the room, when Mr. Easelmann
+stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>"With your permission, Miss Sandford," said the painter, nodding
+meaningly towards the person retreating.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," replied the lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Greenleaf," said Easelmann, "I wish you to know some friends of
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman so addressed turned and approached the party, and was
+presented to "Miss Sandford, Mr. Sandford, Mrs. Sandford, and Mr.
+Charles Sandford." Miss Sandford greeted him with her most fascinating
+smile; her brother shook his hand warmly; the other lady, a widowed
+sister-in-law, silently curtsied; while the younger brother inclined his
+head slightly, his collar not allowing any sudden movement. In a moment
+more the party were walking about the room, looking at the pictures.</p>
+
+<p>When at length the Sandfords were about to leave the room, the elder
+gentleman said to Mr. Greenleaf,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We should be happy to see you with our friend, Mr. Easelmann, at our
+house. Come without ceremony."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sandford's eyes also said, "Come!" at least, so Greenleaf thought.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Charles Sandford, meanwhile, who was cultivating the sublime art of
+indifference, the distinguishing feature and the ideal of his tribe,
+only tapped his boot with his slender ratan, and then smoothed his silky
+moustaches.</p>
+
+<p>Greenleaf briefly expressed his thanks for the invitation, and, when the
+family had gone, turned to his friend with an inquiring look.</p>
+
+<p>"Famous, my boy!" said Easelmann. "Sandford knows something about
+pictures, though rather stingy in patronage; and he is evidently
+impressed. The beauty, Marcia, is not a judge, but she is a valuable
+friend,&mdash;now that you are recognized. The widow is a most charming
+person. Charles, a puppy, as every young man of fashion thinks he must
+be for a year or two, but harmless and good-natured. The friendship of
+the family will be of service to you."</p>
+
+<p>"But Marcia, as you call her, was depreciating my picture not a minute
+before you called me."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely, my dear fellow; but she didn't know who had painted it, and,
+moreover, she hadn't seen you."</p>
+
+<p>Greenleaf blushed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't color up that way; save your vermilion for your canvas. You <i>are</i>
+good-looking; and the beauty desires the homage of every handsome man,
+especially if he is likely to be a lion."</p>
+
+<p>"A lion! a painter of landscapes a lion! Besides, I am no gallant. I
+never learned the art of carrying a lady's fan."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not; and for that very reason you are the proper subject for
+her. Your simplicity and frankness are all the more charming to a woman
+who needs new sensations. Probably she is tired of her <i>blas&eacute;</i> and wary
+admirers just now. She will capture you, and I shall see a new and
+obsequious slave."</p>
+
+<p>Greenleaf attempted to speak, but could not get in a word.</p>
+
+<p>"I felicitate you," continued Easelmann. "You will have a valuable
+experience, at any rate. To-morrow or next day we will call upon them.
+Good morning!"</p>
+
+<p>Greenleaf returned his friend's farewell; then walking to a window, he
+took out a miniature. It was the picture of a young and beautiful girl.
+The calm eyes looked out upon him trustfully; the smile upon the mouth
+had never seemed so lovely. He thought of the proud, dazzling coquette,
+and then looked upon the image<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_827" id="Page_827">[Pg 827]</a></span> of the tender, earnest, truthful face
+before him. As he looked, he smiled at his friend's prophecy.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my talisman," he said; and he raised the picture to his lips.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An evening or two later, as Easelmann was putting his brushes into
+water, Greenleaf came into his studio. The cloud-compelling meerschaums
+were produced, and they sat in high-backed chairs, watching the thin
+wreaths of smoke as they curled upwards to the skylight. The sale of
+pictures had taken place, and the prices, though not high enough to make
+the fortunes of the artists, were yet reasonably remunerative; the
+pictures were esteemed almost as highly, Easelmann thought, as the
+decorative sketches in an omnibus.</p>
+
+<p>"And did Sandford buy your picture, Greenleaf?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I believe so. In fact, I saw it in his drawing-room, yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; how could I have forgotten it? I must have been thinking of
+the animated picture there. What is paint, when one sees such a glowing,
+glancing, fascinating, arch, lovely, tantalizing"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't! Don't pelt me with your parts of speech!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was trying to select the right adjective."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you need not shower down a basketful, merely to pick out one."</p>
+
+<p>"But confess, now, you are merely the least captivated?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the least."</p>
+
+<p>"No little palpitations at the sound of her name? No short breath nor
+upturned eyes? No vague longings nor 'billowy unrest'?"</p>
+
+<p>"None."</p>
+
+<p>"You slept well last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly."</p>
+
+<p>"No dreams of a sea-green palace, with an Undine in wavy hair, and a big
+brother with fan-coral plumes, who afterwards turned into a sea-dog?"</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;I cut the late suppers you tempt me with, and preserve my
+digestion."</p>
+
+<p>"A great mistake! One good dream in a nightmare will give you more
+poetical ideas than you can paint in a month: I mean a reasonable
+nightmare, that you can ride,&mdash;not one that rides you. The imagination
+then seems to scintillate nothing but beautiful images."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care to become a red-hot iron for the sake of seeing the sparks
+I might radiate."</p>
+
+<p>"Prosaic again! Now sin and sorrow have their advantages; the law of
+compensation, you see. Poets, according to Shelley, learn in suffering
+what they teach in song. And if novelists were always scrupulous, what
+do you think they would write? Only milk-and-water proprieties,
+tamely-virtuous platitudes. Do you think Dickens never saw a taproom or
+a thief's den?&mdash;or that Thackeray is unacquainted with the "Cave of
+Harmony"? No,&mdash;all the piquancy of life comes from the slight <i>soup&ccedil;on</i>
+of wickedness wherewithal we season it."</p>
+
+<p>"I like amazingly to have you wander off in this way; you are always
+entertaining, whether your ethics are sound or not."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't trouble yourself about ethics. You and I are artists; we want
+effects, contrasts; we must have our enthusiasms, our raptures, and our
+despair."</p>
+
+<p>"You ride a theory well."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear Greenleaf, listen. Kindly I say it, but you are a trifle
+too innocent, too placid,&mdash;in short, too youthful. To paint, you must be
+intense; to be intense, you must feel; and&mdash;you see I come back on the
+sweep of the circle&mdash;to feel, one must have incentives, objects."</p>
+
+<p>"So, you will roast your own liver to make a <i>p&acirc;t&eacute;</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Better so than to have the Promethean vulture peck it out for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I am as you say, what am I to do? I am docile, to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Fall in love."</p>
+
+<p>"I have tried the experiment."</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been with some insipid girl, not out of her teens, odorous
+of bread and butter, innocent of wiles, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_828" id="Page_828">[Pg 828]</a></span> ignorant of her
+capabilities and your own."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, but still I have been in love,&mdash;and am."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me! that was a sigh! The sleeping waters then did show a dimple.
+Why, man, <i>you</i> talk about love, with that smooth, shepherd's face of
+yours, that contented air, that smoothly sonorous voice! Corydon and
+Phyllis! You should be like a grand piano after Satter has thundered out
+all its chords, tremulous with harmonies verging so near to discord that
+pain would be mixed with pleasure in the divinest proportions."</p>
+
+<p>Greenleaf clapped his hands. "Bravo, Easelmann! you have mistaken your
+vocation; you should turn musical critic."</p>
+
+<p>"The arts are all akin," he replied, calmly refilling his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can put together the various parts of your lecture for you,"
+said Greenleaf. "You think I see Nature in her gentler moods, and
+reproduce only her placid features. You think I have feeling, though
+latent,&mdash;undeveloped. My nerves need a banging, just enough not to
+wholly unstring them. For that pleasant experience, I am to fall in
+love. The woman who has the nature to magnetize, overpower, transport me
+is Miss Marcia Sandford. I am, therefore, to make myself as
+uncomfortable as possible, in pursuit of a pleasure I know beforehand I
+can never obtain. Then, from the rather prosaic level of Scumble, I
+shall rise to the grand, gloomy, and melodramatic style of Salvator
+Rosa. <i>Voil&agrave; tout!</i></p>
+
+<p>"An admirable summary. You have listened well. But tell me now,&mdash;what do
+<i>you</i> think? Or do you wander like a little brook, without any will of
+your own, between such banks as Fate may hem you in withal?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will be frank with you. Until last season, I never had a serious,
+definite purpose in life. I fell in love then with the most charming of
+country-girls."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," interrupted Easelmann, in a denser cloud than usual,&mdash;"a
+village Lucy,&mdash;'a violet 'neath a mossy stone, fair as a star when only
+one,'&mdash;you know the rest of it. She was fair because there <i>was</i> only
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"Silence, Mephistopheles! it is my turn; let me finish my story. I never
+told her my love"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'But let concealment'"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Attend to your pipe; it is going out. I did <i>look</i>, however. The
+language of the eyes needs no translation. I often walked, sketched,
+talked with the girl, and I felt that there was the completest sympathy
+between us. I knew her feelings towards me, as well, I am persuaded, as
+she knew mine. I gave her no pledge, no keepsake; I only managed, by an
+artifice, to get her daguerreotype at a travelling saloon."</p>
+
+<p>Easelmann laughed. "Let me see it, most modest of lovers!"</p>
+
+<p>"You sha'n't. Your evil eye shall not fall upon it After I came to
+Boston, I took a room and began working up my sketches"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Where I found you brushing away for dear life."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to earn enough to go abroad, if it were only for one look at
+the great pictures of which I have so often dreamed. Then I meant to
+come back"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To find your Lucy married to a schoolmaster, and with five sickly
+children."</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;she is but seventeen; she will not marry till I see her."</p>
+
+<p>"I admire your confidence, Greenleaf; it is an amiable weakness."</p>
+
+<p>"After I had been here a month or two, I was filled with an unutterable
+sense of uneasiness. Something was wrong, I felt assured. I daily kissed
+the sweet lips"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of a twenty-five-cent daguerreotype."</p>
+
+<p>Greenleaf did not notice the interruption. "I thought the eyes looked
+troubled; they even seemed to reproach me; yet the soul that beamed in
+them was as tender as ever."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Diablerie!</i> I believe you are a spiritualist."</p>
+
+<p>"At last I could bear it no longer. I shut up my room and took the cars
+for Innisfield."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_829" id="Page_829">[Pg 829]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I remember; that was when you gave out that you had gone to see your
+aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"I found Alice seriously ill. I won't detain you further than to say
+that I did not leave her until she was completely restored, until my
+long cherished feelings had found utterance, and we were bound by ties
+that nothing but death will divide."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, you are growing sentimental. The waters verily are moved."</p>
+
+<p>"That is because an angel has troubled them. You will mock, I know; but
+it is nevertheless true, as I am told, that, for the week before I left
+Boston, she was in a half-delirious state, and constantly called my
+name."</p>
+
+<p>"And you heard her and came. Sharp senses, and a good, dutiful boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"My presentiment was strange, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't try to coax me into believing all that! It's very pretty, and
+would make a nice little romance for a magazine; but you and I have
+passed the age of measles and chicken-pox. Now, to follow your example,
+let me make a summary. You are in love, you say, which, for the sake of
+argument, I will grant. You are engaged. But you are ambitious. You want
+to go to Italy, and you hope to surpass Claude, as Turner has done&mdash;over
+the left. Then you will return and marry the constant Alice, and live in
+economical splendor, on a capital&mdash;let me see&mdash;of eighty-seven dollars
+and odd cents, being the proceeds of a certain auction-sale. Promising,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Greenleaf was silent,&mdash;his pipe out.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be gloomy," continued Easelmann, in a more sympathetic tone. "Let
+us take a stroll round the Common. I never walk through the Mall at
+sunset without getting a new hint of effect."</p>
+
+<p>"I agree to the walk," said Greenleaf.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us take Charbon along with us."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't talk."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I like him for; he thinks the more."</p>
+
+<p>"How is one to know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just look at him! talk your best,&mdash;parade your poetry, your criticism,
+your epigrams, your puns, if you have any, and then look at him! By
+Jove! I don't want a better talker. I know it's <i>in</i> him, and I don't
+care whether he opens his mouth or not."</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h4>SHOWING HOW MUCH IT SOMETIMES COSTS TO BE THOUGHT CHARITABLE.</h4>
+
+<p>Mr. Sandford was a bachelor, and resided in a pleasant street at the
+West End,&mdash;his sister being housekeeper. His house was simply
+furnished,&mdash;yet the good taste apparent in the arrangement of the
+furniture gave the rooms an air of neatness, if not of elegance. There
+were not so many pictures as might be expected in the dwelling of a
+lover of Art, and in many cases the frames were more noticeable than the
+canvas; for upon most of them were plates informing the visitor that
+they were presented to Henry Sandford for his disinterested services as
+treasurer, director, or chairman of the Society for the Relief of Infirm
+Wood-sawyers, or some other equally benevolent association. The silver
+pitcher and salver, always visible upon a table, were a testimonial from
+the managers of a fair for the aid of Indigent Widows. A massive silver
+inkstand bore witness to the gratitude of the Society of Merchants'
+Clerks. And numerous Votes of Thanks, handsomely engrossed on parchment,
+with eminent names appended, and preserved in gilt frames, filled all
+the available space upon the walls. It was evident that this was the
+residence of a Benefactor of Mankind.</p>
+
+<p>It was just after breakfast, and Mr. Sandford was preparing to go out.
+His full and handsome face was serene as usual, and a general air of
+neatness pervaded his dress. He was, in fact, unexceptionable in
+appearance, wearing the look that gets credit in State Street, gives
+respectability to a public platform, and seems to bring a blessing into
+the abodes of poverty. Nothing but broad and liberal views, generous
+sentiments, and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_830" id="Page_830">[Pg 830]</a></span> noble self-forgetfulness would seem to belong to a
+man with such a presence. But his sister Marcia, this morning, seemed
+far from being pleased with his plans; her tones were querulous, and
+even severe.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Henry," she exclaimed, "you are not going to sell that picture.
+We've had enough changes. Every auction a new purchase, which you
+immediately fling away."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a very warm-hearted young woman," replied the brother, "and you
+doubtless imagine that I am able with my limited resources to buy a
+picture from every new painter, besides answering the numberless calls
+made upon me from every quarter."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you bid for the picture, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wished to encourage the artist."</p>
+
+<p>"But why do you sell it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Monroe wants it, and will give a small advance on its cost."</p>
+
+<p>"But Monroe was at the sale; why didn't he bid for it then?"</p>
+
+<p>"A very natural question, Sister Marcia; but it shows that you are not a
+manager. However, I'll explain. Monroe was struck with the picture, and
+would have given a foolish price for it. So I said to him,&mdash;'Monroe,
+don't be rash. If two connoisseurs like you and me bid against each
+other for this landscape, other buyers will think there is something in
+it, and the price will be run up to a figure neither of us can afford to
+pay. Let me buy it and keep it a month or so, and then we'll agree on
+the terms. I sha'n't be hard with you.' And I won't be. He shall have it
+for a hundred, although I paid eighty-seven and odd."</p>
+
+<p>"So you speculate, where you pretend to patronize Art?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't use harsh words, Sister Marcia. Half the difficulties in the
+world come from a hasty application of terms."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want the picture; and I didn't ask you to buy it merely to oblige
+Mr. Greenleaf."</p>
+
+<p>"True, sister, but he will paint others, and better ones, perhaps. I
+will buy another in its place."</p>
+
+<p>"And sell it when you get a good offer, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Sister Marcia, you evince a thoughtless disposition to trifle with&mdash;I
+hope not to wound&mdash;my feelings. How do you suppose I am able to maintain
+my position in society, to support Charles in his elegant idleness, to
+supply all your wants, and to help carry on the many benevolent
+enterprises in which I have become engaged, on the small amount of
+property left us, and with the slender salary of fifteen hundred dollars
+from the Insurance Office? If I had not some self-denial, some
+management, you would find quite a different state of things."</p>
+
+<p>"But I remember that you drew your last year's salary in a lump. You
+must have had money from some source for current expenses meanwhile."</p>
+
+<p>"Some few business transactions last year were fortunate. But I am poor,
+quite poor; and nothing but a sense of duty impels me to give so much of
+my time and means to aid the unfortunate and the destitute, and for the
+promotion of education and the arts that beautify and adorn life."</p>
+
+<p>His wits were probably "wool-gathering"; for the phrases which had been
+so often conned for public occasions slipped off his tongue quite
+unawares. His countenance changed at once when Marcia mischievously
+applauded by clapping her hands and crying, "Hear!" He paused a moment,
+seeming doubtful whether to make an angry reply; but his face
+brightened, and he exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You are a wicked tease, but I can't be offended with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Bye-bye, Henry," she replied. "Some committee is probably waiting for
+you." Then, as he was about closing the door, she added,&mdash;"I was going
+to say, Henry, if your charities are not more expensive than your
+patronage of Art, you might afford me that <i>moire antique</i> and the set
+of pearls I asked you for."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>We will follow Mr. Sandford to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_831" id="Page_831">[Pg 831]</a></span> Insurance Office. It was only nine
+o'clock, and the business of the day did not begin until ten. But the
+morning hour was rarely unoccupied. As he sat in his arm-chair, reading
+the morning papers, Mr. Monroe entered. He was a clerk in the commission
+house of Lindsay and Company, in Milk Street,&mdash;a man of culture and
+refined taste, as well as attentive to business affairs. With an active,
+sanguine temperament, he had the good-humor and frankness that usually
+belong to less ardent natures. Simple-hearted and straightforward, he
+was yet as trustful and affectionate as a child. He was unmarried and
+lived with his mother, her only child.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Monroe," said Sandford, with cordiality, "you don't want the
+picture yet? Let it remain as long as you can, and I'll consider the
+favor when we settle."</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;I'm in no hurry about the picture. I have a matter of business I
+wish to consult you about. My mother had a small property,&mdash;about ten
+thousand dollars. Up to this time I haven't made it very profitable, and
+I thought"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Just then a visitor entered. The President of the Society for the
+Reformation of Criminals came with a call for a public meeting.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, my dear Sir," said the President, "that we don't expect you
+to pay; we consider the calls made upon your purse; but we want your
+name and influence."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sandford signed the call, and made various inquiries concerning the
+condition and prospects of the society. The President left with a smile
+and a profusion of thanks. Before Mr. Sandford was fairly seated another
+person came in. It was the Secretary of the Society for the Care of
+Juvenile Offenders.</p>
+
+<p>"We want to have a hearing before the city government," said he, "and we
+have secured the aid of Mr. Greene Satchel to present the case. Won't
+you give us your name to the petition, as one of the officers? No
+expense to you; some wealthy friends will take care of that. We don't
+desire to tax a man who lives on a salary, and especially one who
+devotes so much of his time and money to charity."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for your consideration," said Mr. Sandford, signing his name
+in a fair round hand.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the friends were left alone, and Monroe proceeded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was going on to say that perhaps you might know some chance for a
+safe investment."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sandford appeared thoughtful for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;I think I may find a good opportunity; seven per cent., possibly
+eight."</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent!" said Monroe.</p>
+
+<p>There was another interruption. A tall, stately person entered the
+office, wearing a suit of rather antique fashion, apparently verging on
+sixty years, yet with a clear, smooth skin, and a bright, steady eye. It
+was the Honorable Charles Wyndham, the representative of an ancient
+family, and beyond question one of the most eminent men in the city. Mr.
+Sandford might have been secretly elated at the honor of this visit, but
+he rose with a tranquil face and calmly bade Mr. Wyndham good morning.</p>
+
+<p>"My young friend," began the great man, "I am happy to see you looking
+so well this morning. I have not come to put any new burdens on your
+patient shoulders; we all know your services and your sacrifices. This
+time we have a little recompense,&mdash;if, indeed, acts of beneficence are
+not their own reward. The Board are to have a social meeting at my house
+to-night, to make arrangements for the anniversary; and we think a
+frugal collation will not be amiss for those who have worked for the
+Society so freely and faithfully."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sandford softly rubbed his white hands and bowed with a deprecatory
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I know your modesty," said Mr. Wyndham, "and will spare you further
+compliment. Your accounts are ready,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_832" id="Page_832">[Pg 832]</a></span> I presume? I intend to propose to
+the Board, that, as we have a surplus, you shall receive a substantial
+sum for your disinterested services."</p>
+
+<p>They were standing near together, leaning on a tall mahogany desk, and
+the look of benevolent interest on one side, and of graceful humility on
+the other, was touching to see. Mr. Sandford laid his hand softly on his
+distinguished friend's shoulder, and begged him not to insist upon
+payment for services he had been only too happy to render.</p>
+
+<p>"We won't talk about that now; and I must not detain you longer from
+business. <i>Good</i> morning!" And with the stateliest of bows, and a most
+gracious smile, the Honorable Mr. Wyndham retreated through the glass
+door.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Sandford had bowed the visitor out, he returned to Monroe with
+an expression of weariness on his handsome face. "So many affairs to
+think of! so many people to see! Really, it is becoming vexatious. I
+believe I shall turn hunks, and get a reputation for downright
+stinginess."</p>
+
+<p>"But your visitors are pleasant people," said Monroe,&mdash;"and the last,
+certainly, was a man whom most men think it an honor to know."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean Wyndham. Oh, yes, Wyndham <i>is</i> a good fellow; a little prosy
+sometimes, but means well. We endure the Dons, you know, if they <i>are</i>
+slow."</p>
+
+<p>Monroe thought his friend hardly respectful to the head of the Wyndham
+family, but set it down as an awkward attempt at being facetious.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, about that money of yours?" said Sandford.</p>
+
+<p>"I left it, as a loan on call, at Danforth's. But how do you propose to
+invest it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't fully made up my mind. Perhaps it is best you should not
+know. I will guaranty you eight per cent., and agree to return the
+principal on thirty days' notice. So you can try, meanwhile, and see if
+you can do better."</p>
+
+<p>Monroe agreed to the proposal, and drew a check on the broker for the
+amount, for which Sandford signed a note, payable thirty days after
+presentation. The friends now separated, and Monroe went to his
+warehouse.</p>
+
+<p>Stockholders began to come to look over the morning papers, and chat
+about the news, the stocks, and the degeneracy of the times. What a club
+is to an idle man of fashion,&mdash;what a sewing-society is to a
+scandal-loving woman,&mdash;what a billiard-room is to a man about
+town,&mdash;what the Athen&aelig;um is to the sober and steadfast
+bibliolater,&mdash;that is the Insurance Office to the retired merchant, bald
+and spectacled, who wanders like a ghost among the scenes of his former
+activity. The comfortable chairs, and in winter the social fires in open
+grates,&mdash;the slow-going and respectable newspapers, the pleasant view of
+State Street, and, above all, the authoritative disposition of public
+affairs upon the soundest mercantile principles of profit and loss,&mdash;all
+these constitute an attraction which no well-brought-up Bostonian, who
+has money to buy shares, cares to resist, at least until the increasing
+size of his buckskin shoes renders locomotion difficult.</p>
+
+<p>To all these solid men Mr. Sandford gave a hearty good-morning, and a
+frank, cheerful smile. They took up the journals and looked over the
+telegraphic dispatches, thinking, as they were wont, that the old Vortex
+was lucky, above all Companies, in its honest, affable, and intelligent
+Secretary.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sandford retired to his private room and looked hastily at his
+morning letters; but his mind did not seem to be occupied with the
+business before him. He rang the bell for the office-boy. "Tom," said
+he, "go and ask Mr. Fletcher to step down here a minute." He mused after
+the boy left, tapping his fingers on the table to the time of a familiar
+air. "If I can keep Fletcher from dabbling in stocks, I shall make a
+good thing of this. I shall keep a close watch on him. To manage men,
+there is nothing like knowing how to go to work at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_833" id="Page_833">[Pg 833]</a></span> them. <span class="smcap">All</span> the fools
+are jack-a-dandies, and one has only to find where the strings hang to
+make them dance as he will. I have Fletcher fast. I heard a fellow
+talking about taming a man, Rarey-fashion, by holding out a pole to him
+with a bunch of flowers. Pooh! The best thing is a bit of paper with a
+court seal at the corner, stuck on the end of a constable's staff."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fletcher entered presently,&mdash;the office where he was employed being
+only a few doors off. He was a slender young man, with strikingly
+regular features and delicate complexion; his mobile mouth was covered
+by a fringy moustache, and his small keen eyes were restless to a
+painful degree. The sudden summons appeared to have flustered him; for
+his eyes danced more than usual, giving him the startled and perplexed
+look of a hunted animal at bay. He was speedily reassured by Sandford's
+bland voice and encouraging smile.</p>
+
+<p>"A new opening, Fletcher,&mdash;a 'pocket,' as the Californians call it. Is
+there any chance to operate? Just look about. I have the funds ready.
+Something safe, and fat, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty of chances to those who look for them," replied Fletcher. "The
+men who are hard up are the best customers; they will stand a good slice
+off; and if a man is sharp, he can deal as safely with them as with the
+A 1s, who turn up their noses at seven per cent."</p>
+
+<p>"You understand, I see."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I ought. Papyrus, only yesterday, was asking if anything could
+be done for him,&mdash;about fifteen hundred; offers Sandbag's note with only
+thirty days to run. The note was of no use to <i>him</i>, because the banks
+require two names, and his own isn't worth a straw. But Sandbag is
+good."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll take it. About a hundred off?"</p>
+
+<p>Fletcher nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I've plenty more to invest, Fletcher. Let me know if you see any paper
+worth buying."</p>
+
+<p>Fletcher nodded again, but looked expectant, much like a dog (not
+wishing to degrade him by the comparison) waiting with longing eyes
+while his master eats his morning mutton-chop.</p>
+
+<p>"Fletcher," said Sandford, "I'll make this an object to you. I don't
+mind giving you five dollars, as soon as we have Papyrus's indorsement
+on the note. And, speaking of the indorsement, let him sign his name,
+and then bring me the note. I wish to put on the name of the person to
+whose order it is to be payable."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is on the account"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom it may concern," broke in Sandford. "Don't stand with your
+mouth open. That is my affair."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you pay me only five dollars"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That is so much clear gain to you. Do you suppose that we&mdash;my backer
+and I&mdash;shall run the risk for nothing? Good morning! Attend to your own
+affairs at Danforth's properly. Don't burn your fingers with any new
+experiments. There's a crash coming and stocks will fall. Good morning!"</p>
+
+<p>The Secretary looked relieved when Fletcher closed the door, and
+speedily dispatched the necessary letters and orders for the Company.
+Then leaving the affairs of the Vortex in the hands of his clerk, he
+strolled out for his usual lunch. Wherever he walked, he was met with
+smiles and greetings of respect. He turned into an alley, entered an
+eating-house, and took his place at a table; he ordered and ate his
+lunch, and then left, with a nod towards the counter. The landlord, who
+began on credit, expected no pay from the man who procured him money
+accommodations. No waiter had ever seen a sixpence from his purse. How
+should a man be expected to pay, who spent his substance and his time so
+freely in charity?</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h4>CONTAINING SOME CONFESSIONS NOT INTENDED FOR THE PUBLIC EAR.</h4>
+
+<p>Miss Marcia Sandford, after breakfast, was sitting in her chamber with
+her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_834" id="Page_834">[Pg 834]</a></span> widowed sister-in-law, who had come to spend a few months with her
+late husband's family. The widow no longer wore the roses of youth, but
+was yet on friendly terms with Time; indeed, so quietly had their annual
+settlements passed off, that it would have puzzled any one not in their
+confidence to tell how the account stood. The simplicity of her dress,
+the chastened look, and the sobriety of phrase, of which her recent
+affliction was the cause, might have hinted at thirty-five; but when her
+clear, placid eye was turned upon you, and you saw the delicate flush
+deepening or vanishing upon a smooth cheek, and noted the changeful
+expression that hovered like a spiritual presence around her mouth, it
+would have been treason to think of a day beyond twenty. She had known
+but little of Marcia, and that little had shown her only as a lover of
+dress and of admiration, besides being capricious to a degree unusual
+even in a spoiled favorite.</p>
+
+<p>A musical <i>soir&eacute;e</i> was under consideration. Marcia was a proficient upon
+the harp and piano, and, as she had heard that Mr. Greenleaf, the
+handsome painter, as she called him, was a fine singer, she determined
+to practise some operatic duets with him, that should move all her
+musical friends to envy.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to have taken a strong liking to this Mr. Greenleaf, Marcia."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Lydia," replied the beauty, "I do like him, exceedingly,&mdash;what I
+have seen of him. He will do&mdash;for a month or so. People are frequently
+quite charming at first, like fresh bouquets,&mdash;but dull and tame enough
+when the dew is off."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't have a new admirer, as you have fresh flowers, every
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true, and pity 'tis, 'tis true."</p>
+
+<p>"What a female Bluebeard you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't you, now, like to meet some new, delightful person every day?
+Consider how prosaic a man is, after you know all about him."</p>
+
+<p>"I always find something new in a man really worth knowing."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you? I wish I could. I always look them through as I used to my
+toys. I never cared for my 'crying babies,' after I found out what made
+them squeak."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid the comparison will hold out farther than you intended. You
+were never satisfied with your toys until you had not only explored
+their machinery, but smashed them into the bargain."</p>
+
+<p>"But men stand it better than toys. If they get smashed, as you say,
+they heal wonderfully. I sometimes think, that, like lobsters, they can
+repair their injuries by new growths,&mdash;fresh claws, and fins, and
+feelers."</p>
+
+<p>"Complimentary, truly! but I notice that you don't speak of vital
+organs."</p>
+
+<p>"Hearts, you mean, I suppose. That is an obsolete idea,&mdash;a relic of
+superstition."</p>
+
+<p>"But how many of these broken idols have you thrown aside, Marcia? Have
+you kept account?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! no! Why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be interesting, I think, to a student of social statistics, to
+know how many engagements there are to one marriage, how many offers to
+one engagement, how many flirtations to one offer, and how many tender
+advances to one flirtation."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lydia! Love and Arithmetic! they never went together. I leave all
+calculations to my wise and busy brother. I like to wander like a
+hummingbird, that keeps no account of the flowercups it has sipped out
+of."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us reckon. I can help you, perhaps. I have heard you talk of half a
+dozen. There is Colonel Langford,&mdash;one."</p>
+
+<p>"Handsome, proud, and shallow. Let him go!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is Lieutenant Allen,&mdash;two."</p>
+
+<p>"Fierce, impatient, and exacting. He can go also. I had as lief be loved
+by a lion."</p>
+
+<p>"Next is Mr. Lanman,&mdash;three."</p>
+
+<p>"Wily, plausible, passionate, and treacherous. He is only a cat in a new
+sphere of existence."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_835" id="Page_835">[Pg 835]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then there is Denims,&mdash;I am not sure about the order,&mdash;four."</p>
+
+<p>"Rich, vain, and stupid;&mdash;there never was such a dolt."</p>
+
+<p>"But you kept him for a longer time than usual."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, rather; but he was too dull to understand my ironical compliments,
+or to resent my studied neglect."</p>
+
+<p>"Jaunegant makes five."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the precious crony of my brother Charles! The best specimen of the
+dandy race. The man who gives so much love to himself and his clothes,
+that he has none to spare for any one else. But, Lydia, this is tedious;
+we shall never get through at this rate. Besides," with a
+mock-sentimental air, "you have not been here long enough to know the
+melancholy history,&mdash;to count the wrecks that are strewn along the
+coast, where the Siren resorts. Let me take up the list. Corning, who
+really loved me, (six,) and went to sea to cure the heart-ache. I heard
+of him in State Street a month ago,&mdash;with a blue shirt and leather belt,
+and chewing a piece of tobacco as large as his thumb. He seemed happy as
+a king."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw a kind of tobacco advertised as '<i>The Solace</i>';&mdash;the name was
+given by some disappointed swain, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably," said Marcia, smiling. "Then there was Outrack, (seven,) who
+was so furious at the refusal, that he immediately married the gay Miss
+Flutter Budget, forty-five, short, stout, and fifty thousand
+dollars,&mdash;he twenty-six, tall, slender, and some distant expectations. I
+heard him, at a party, call her 'Dear'!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you get on any faster than I did. We shall have to finish
+the tour of the portrait-gallery another day."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not tired? I wanted to tell you of several more. Yet I don't
+know why I should. I declare to you seriously, that I never before
+mentioned the names of these persons in this way, nor referred to them
+as rejected lovers."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no doubt of it. It has seemed like a fresh, spontaneous
+confession."</p>
+
+<p>"There is some magic about you, Sister Lydia. You invite confidence; or
+rather, you seem to be like one of those chemical agents that penetrate
+everything; there's no resisting you. Don't protest. I know what you
+would say. It isn't your curiosity. You are no Paulina Pry; if you were,
+precious little you would get from me."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Marcia, let me return a moment to what you were saying. Did the
+reason never occur to you, why you so soon become tired of your
+admirers? You see through them, you say. Is it not possible that a lady
+who has the reputation of caprice,&mdash;a flirt, as the world is apt to call
+her,&mdash;though ever so brilliant, witty, and accomplished, may not attract
+the kind of men that can bear scrutiny, but only the butterfly race, fit
+for a brief acquaintance? Believe me, Marcia, there is a reason for
+everything, and, with all your beauty and fascination, you must yourself
+have the element of constancy, to win the admiration of the best and
+worthiest men."</p>
+
+<p>"So, you are going to preach?" said Marcia, rather crestfallen.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't preach. But what I see, I ought to tell you; I should not
+be a good sister otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll think about it. But now for the musical party. I mean to send for
+Mr. Greenleaf, to practise some songs and duets. He is not a butterfly,
+I am sure."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Marcia, is it well, is it right, for you to try to fascinate this
+new friend of yours, unless you feel something more than a transient
+interest in him?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I tell what interest I shall feel in him, until I know him
+better?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you know his circumstances and his prospects. You are not the woman
+to marry a poor painter. You have too many wants; or rather, you have
+become accustomed to luxuries that now seem to be necessaries."</p>
+
+<p>"True, I haven't the romance for love in a cottage. But a painter is not
+necessarily a bad match; if he doesn't become rich, he may be
+distinguished. And besides, no one knows what will happen from the
+beginning of an acquaintance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_836" id="Page_836">[Pg 836]</a></span> We will enjoy the sunshine of to-day; and
+if to-morrow brings a darker sky, we must console ourselves as we can."</p>
+
+<p>"What an Epicurean! Well, Marcia, you are not a child; you must act for
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Marcia made no reply, but sat down to her desk to write a note; and her
+sister-in-law soon after went to her own room.</p>
+
+<p>During all this conversation, Mrs. Sandford was struck by the tone which
+the beautiful coquette assumed. Her words were aptly chosen, her
+sentences smoothly constructed; she never hesitated; and there was an
+ever-present air of consciousness, that left no conviction of sincerity.
+Whether she uttered sentiments of affection, or sharp criticism upon
+character, there was the same level flow of language, the same nicely
+modulated intonation. There was no flash of enthusiasm, none of those
+outbursts in which the hearer feels sure that the heart has spoken. Mrs.
+Sandford was thoroughly puzzled. Marcia had never been otherwise than
+kind; in fact; she seemed to be studiously careful of the feelings of
+others, except when her position as reigning belle made it necessary to
+cut a dangler. This methodical speech and unruffled grace of manner
+might be only the result of discipline. Truth and honesty <i>might</i> exist
+as well under this artificial exterior as in a more impulsive nature.
+But the world generally thinks that whoever habitually wears a smiling
+mask has some secret end to serve thereby. "I like this painter,
+Greenleaf," she soliloquized, "and I mean to look out for him. I am
+persuaded that Marcia would never marry him; and I think he is too
+sensitive, too manly, to be a fit subject for her experiments."</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h4>CONCERNING CONSTANCY AND THE AFFINITIES.</h4>
+
+<p>"A Musical <i>soir&eacute;e</i>? Famous, my boy!" said Easelmann, as he sat, smoking
+as usual, in his fourth-story <i>atelier</i> with Greenleaf, watching the sun
+go down. "Making progress, I see. You have nothing to do; the affair
+will take care of itself."</p>
+
+<p>"What affair?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be stupid (<i>puff</i>). Your affair with Miss Sandford (<i>puff</i>).
+There's a wonderful charm in music (<i>puff</i>). Two such young people might
+fall in love, to be sure, without singing together (<i>puff</i>). But music
+is the true <i>aqua regia</i>; it dissolves all into its own essence. A piano
+and a tenor voice will do more than a siege of months, though aided by a
+battery of bouquets."</p>
+
+<p>"How you run on! I have called twice,&mdash;once with you, and the second
+time by the lady's invitation. Besides, I told you&mdash;indiscreetly, I am
+afraid&mdash;that I am really engaged to be married."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I have not forgotten the touching story (<i>puff</i>); but we get
+over all things, even such passions as yours. We are plants, that thrive
+very well for a while in the pots we sprouted in, but after a time we
+must have a change of soil."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think we outgrow affection, honor, truth."</p>
+
+<p>"That is all very pretty; but our ideas of honor and truth are apt to
+change."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you are half so bad a fellow, Easelmann, as you would
+have me think. You utter abominable sentiments, but you behave as well
+as other people&mdash;nearly."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. But listen a moment. (<i>Laying down his pipe.</i>) Do you have
+the same tastes you had at eighteen? I don't refer to the bumpkins with
+whom you played when a boy, and who, now that you have outgrown them,
+look enviously askance at you. I don't care to dwell on your literary
+tastes,&mdash;how you have outgrown Moore and Festus-Bailey, and are fast
+getting through Byron. I won't pose you, by showing how your ideas in
+Art have changed,&mdash;what new views you have of life, society;&mdash;but think
+of your ideas of womanly, or rather, girlish beauty at different ages.
+By Jove, I should like to see your innamoratas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_837" id="Page_837">[Pg 837]</a></span> arranged in
+chronological order!"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a curious and instructive spectacle."</p>
+
+<p>"You may well say that! Let me sketch a few of them."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I could do it better."</p>
+
+<p>"No, every man thinks his own experience peculiar; but life has a
+wonderful sameness, after all. Besides, you would flatter the portraits.
+Not to begin too early, and without being particular about names, there
+was, first, Amanda, aged fourteen; face circular, cheeks cranberry, eyes
+hazel, hair brown and wavy, awkward when spoken to, and agreeable only
+in an osculatory way. Now, being twenty-five, she is married, has two
+children, is growing stout, and always refers to her lord and master as
+'He,' never by any accident pronouncing his name. Second, Julia;
+sixteen, flaxen-haired, lithe, not ungraceful, self-possessed, and
+perhaps a little pert. She is unmarried; but, having fed her mind with
+no more solid aliment than country gossip, no sensible man could talk to
+her five minutes. Third, Laura; eighteen, black hair, with sharp
+outlines on the temples, eyes heavily shaded and coquettishly managed,
+jewelry more abundant than elegant, repeats poetry by the page, keeps a
+scrap-book, and writes endless letters to her female friends. She is
+still romantic, but has learned something from experience,&mdash;is not so
+impressible as when you knew her. I won't stop to sketch the pale
+poetess, nor the dancing hoyden, nor the sweet blue-eyed creature that
+lisped, nor the mature and dangerously-charming widow that caused some
+perturbations in your regular orbit.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear fellow," Easelmann continued, "you fancied that your whole
+existence depended upon the hazel or the blue or the black eyes, in
+turn; but at this time you could see their glances turned in rapture
+upon your enemy, if you have one, without a pang."</p>
+
+<p>"One would think you had just been reading Cowley's charming poem,
+'Henrietta first possest.' But what is the moral to your entertaining
+little romance? That love must always be transient?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily, but generally. We are travelling at different rates of
+progress and on different planes. Happy are the lovers who advance with
+equal step, cultivating similar tastes, with agreeing theories of life
+and its enjoyments!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wise philosopher, how comes it, that, with so just an appreciation of
+the true basis of a permanent attachment, you remain single? I see a
+gray hair or two, not only on your head, but in that favorite moustache
+of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Gray? Oh, yes! gray as a badger, but immortally young. As for marriage,
+I'm rather past that. I had my chance; I lost it, and shall not throw
+again."</p>
+
+<p>Easelmann did not seem inclined to open this sealed book of his personal
+history, and the friends were silent. Greenleaf at length broke the
+pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I acknowledge the justice of your ideas in their general application,
+but in my own case they do not apply at all. I was not in my teens when
+I went to Innisfield, but in the maturity of such faculties as I have.
+Alice satisfies my ideal of a lovely, loving woman. She has
+capabilities, taste, a thirst for improvement, and will advance in
+everything to which I am led."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't disturb your dreams, nor play the Mephistopheles, as you
+sometimes call me. I am rather serious to-day. But here you are where
+every faculty is stimulated, where you unconsciously draw in new ideas
+with your daily breath. Alice remains in a country town, without
+society, with few books, with no opportunity for culture in Art or in
+the minor graces of society. You are not ready to marry; your ambition
+forbids it, and your means will not allow it. And before the time comes
+when you are ready to establish yourself, think what a difference there
+may be between you! The thought is cruel, but worth your consideration
+none the less.&mdash;But let us change the subject. What are you doing? Any
+new orders?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two new orders. One for a large picture from Mr. Sandford. The price
+is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_838" id="Page_838">[Pg 838]</a></span> not what it should be, but it will give me a living, and I am
+thankful for any employment. I loathe idleness. I die, if I haven't
+something to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Mere uneasiness, my youthful friend! Be tranquil, and you will find
+that laziness has its comforts. However, to-morrow let me see your
+pictures. You lack a firmness and certainty of touch that nothing but
+practice will give. But your forms are faithfully drawn, your eye for
+color is sharp and true, and, what is more than all, you have the poetry
+which informs, harmonizes, and crowns all."</p>
+
+<p>"I am grateful for your friendly criticism," said Greenleaf, with a
+sudden flush. "You know that people call you blunt, and that most of the
+artists think you almost malicious in your severity; but you are the
+only man who ever talks sincerely to me."</p>
+
+<p>Easelmann noticed the emotion, and spoke abruptly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Depend upon it, if I see anything faulty, you will know it; if you
+think <i>that</i> friendly, I am your friend. But look over there, where the
+sunset clouds are reflected in the Back Bay. Now, if I should put those
+tints of gold and salmon and crimson and purple, with those delicate
+shades of apple-green, into a picture, the mob would say, 'What an
+absurd fellow this painter is! Where did he find all that Joseph's coat
+of colors?' The mob is a drove of asses, Greenleaf."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let us take our evening stroll."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen Charbon, to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But I should like to."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll call for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I rather like his brilliant silence."</p>
+
+<p>"Next week, let us go to Nahant. I want you to try your hand on a coast
+view. But what, what are you about? At that trumpery daguerreotype
+again? Let me see the beauty,&mdash;that's a good boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then put it up. If you won't show it, don't aggravate a fellow in that
+way."</p>
+
+<p>[To be continued.]</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SPIRITS_IN_PRISON3" id="SPIRITS_IN_PRISON3"></a>SPIRITS IN PRISON.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">I.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O ye, who, prisoned in these festive rooms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lean at the windows for a breath of air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Staring upon the darkness that o'erglooms<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The heavens, and waiting for the stars to bare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their glittering glories, veiled all night in cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I know ye scorn the gas-lights and the feast!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I saw you leave the music and the crowd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And turn unto the windows opening east;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I heard you sigh,&mdash;"When will the dawn's dull ashes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Kindle their fires behind yon fir-fringed height?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When will the prophet clouds with golden flashes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unroll their mystic scrolls of crimson light?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fain would I come and sit beside you here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And silent press your hands, and with you lean<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the midnight, mingling hope and fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or pining for the days that might have been!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_839" id="Page_839">[Pg 839]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i4">II.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Are we not brothers? In the throng that fills<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">These strange enchanted rooms we met. One look<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Told that we knew each other. Sudden thrills,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As of two lovers reading the same book,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ran through our hurried grasp. But when we turned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The scene around was smitten with a change:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lamps with lurid fire-light flared and burned;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And through the wreaths and flowers,&mdash;oh, mockery strange!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The prison-walls with ghastly horror frowned;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Scarce hidden by vine-leaves and clusters thick,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A grim cold iron grating closed around.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then from our silken couches leaping quick,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We hurried past the dancers and the lights,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor heeded the entrancing music then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor the fair women scattering delights<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In flower-like flush of dress,&mdash;nor paused till when,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leaning against our prison-bars, we gazed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Into the dark, and wondered where we were.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Speak to me, brothers, for ye stand amazed!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I come, your secret burthen here to share!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i4">III.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I know not this mysterious land around.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Black giant trees loom up in form obscure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Odors of gardens and of woods profound<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blow in from out the darkness, fresh and pure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faint sounds of friendly voices come and go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That seem to lure us forth into the air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But whence they come perchance no ear may know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And where they go perchance no foot may dare.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i4">IV.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A realm of shadowy forms out yonder lies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beauty and Power, fair dreams pursued by Fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wheel in unceasing vortex; and the skies<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Flash with strange lights that bear no name nor date.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet winds are breathing that just fan the hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And fitful gusts that howl against the bars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And harp-like songs, and groans of wild despair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And angry clouds that chase the trembling stars.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on the iron grating the hot cheek<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We press, and forth into the night we call,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thrust our arms, that, manacled and weak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clutch but the empty air, and powerless fall.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i4">V.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And yet, O brothers! we, who cannot share<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This life of lies, this stifling day in night,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Know we not well, that, if we did but dare<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Break from our cell, and trust our manhood's might,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_840" id="Page_840">[Pg 840]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When once our feet should venture on these wilds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The night would prove a sweet, still solitude,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not dark for eyes that, earnest as a child's,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Strove in the chaos but for truth and good?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And oh, sweet liberty, though wizard gleams<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And elfin shapes should frighten or allure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find the pathway of our hopes and dreams,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By toil to sweeten what we should endure,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To journey on, though but a little way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Towards the morning and the fir-clad heights,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To follow the sweet voices, till the day<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bloomed in its flush of colors and of lights,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To look back on the valley and the prison,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The windows smouldering still with midnight fires,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And know the joy and triumph to have risen<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Out of that falsehood into new desires!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O friends! it may be hard our chains to burst,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To scale the ramparts, pass the sentinels;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dark is the night; but we are not the first<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who break from the enchanter's evil spells.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though they pursue us with their scoffs and darts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though they allure us with their siren song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trust we alone the light within our hearts!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Forth to the air! Freedom will dawn ere long!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 1 Peter, iii. 19.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PUNCH" id="PUNCH"></a>PUNCH.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Not inebriating, but exhilarating punch; not punch of which the more a
+man imbibes the worse he is, but punch of which the deeper the quaffings
+the better the effects; not a compound of acids and sweets, hot water
+and fire-water, to steal away the brains,&mdash;but a finer mixture of
+subtler elements, conducive to mental and moral health; not, in a word,
+punch, the drink, but "Punch," the wise wag, the genial philosopher,
+with his brevity of stature, goodly-conditioned paunch, next-to-nothing
+legs, protuberant back, bill-hook nose, and twinkling eyes,&mdash;to speak
+respectfully, Mr. Punch, attended by the solemnly-sagacious,
+ubiquitously-versatile "Toby," together with the invisible company of
+skirmishers of the quill and pencil, producing in his name those
+ever-welcome sheets, flying forth the world over, with hebdomadal
+punctuality. Of the ingredients and salutary influence of this Punch&mdash;an
+institution and power of the age, no more to be overlooked among the
+forces of the nineteenth century than is the steam-engine or the
+magnetic telegraph&mdash;we propose to speak;&mdash;not, however, because of the
+comicality of the theme; for the fun that surrounds, permeates, and
+saturates it would hardly move us to discourse of it here, if it had not
+higher claims to attention. To take Punch only for a clown is to
+<i>mis</i>take him egregiously. Joker as he is, he himself is no joke. The
+fool's-cap he wears does not prove him to be a fool; and even when he
+touches the tip of his nasal organ with his fore-finger and winks so
+irresistibly, meaning lurks in his facetious features,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_841" id="Page_841">[Pg 841]</a></span> to assure you he
+does not jest without a purpose, or play the buffoon only to coin
+sixpences. The fact, then, we propose to illustrate is this:&mdash;that Punch
+is a teacher and philanthropist, a lover of truth, a despiser of cant,
+an advocate of right, a hater of shams,&mdash;a hale, hearty old gentleman,
+whose notions are not dyspeptic croakings, but healthful opinions of
+good digestion, and who, though he wear motley and indulge in drolleries
+without measure, is full of sense and sensibility.</p>
+
+<p>The birth-place and parentage of Punch are involved in some doubt,&mdash;a
+fate he shares with several of the world's other heroes, ancient and
+modern. Accounts differ; and as he has not chosen to settle the question
+autobiographically, we follow substantially the narrative<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>&mdash;that ought
+to be true; for, mythical or historical, it appropriately localizes and
+fitly circumstances the nativity of the humorist of the age.</p>
+
+<p>In 1841, Mark Lemon, a writer of considerable ability, was the landlord
+of the Shakspeare Head, Wych Street, London. A tavern with such a
+publican and such a name was, of course, frequented by a circle of wits,
+with whom, in the year just mentioned, originated "Punch." Lemon (how
+could there be punch without a lemon?) has been the editor from the
+outset. From which of the knot of good fellows the bright idea of the
+unique journal first emanated does not appear. The paternity has been
+ascribed to Douglas Jerrold. Its name might have been suggested by the
+place of its birth. If so, it at once lost all associations with the
+ladle and the bowl, and received a wider and better interpretation. The
+hero of the famous puppet-show was chosen for the typical presiding
+genius and sponsor of the novel enterprise. And there is no neater piece
+of allegorical writing in our language than the introductory article of
+the first number, wherein is exquisitely shadowed forth "the moral" of
+the work, "Punch,"&mdash;suggestive of that "graver puppetry," the "visual
+and oral cheats," "by which mankind are cajoled." Punch, the exemplar of
+boldness and philosophic self-control, is the quaint embodiment of the
+intention to pursue a higher object than the amusement of thoughtless
+crowds,&mdash;an intention which has been adhered to with remarkable
+fidelity. The first number appeared July 17th, and the serial has lived
+over a decade and a half, and grown to the bulk of thirty-four or
+thirty-five volumes. It was not, however, built in a day. It knew a
+rickety infancy and hours of peril, and owes its rescue from neglect and
+starvation, its subsequent and constantly increasing prosperity, to the
+enterprising publishers,&mdash;Bradbury and Evans,&mdash;who nursed and
+resuscitated it at the critical moment. Well-known contributors to the
+letter-press have been Jerrold, Albert Smith, &agrave; Beckett, Hood, and
+Thackeray; whilst Henning, Leech, Meadows, Browne, Forrester, Gilbert,
+and Doyle have acted as designers. Of these men of letters and art,
+Lemon and Leech, it is said, alone remain; some of the others broke off
+their connection with the work at different periods, and some have
+passed away from earth. Their places have been supplied by the Mayhews,
+Tom Taylor, Angus Reach, and Shirley Brooks, and the historical painter,
+Tenniel. These changes have mostly been made behind the scenes; the
+impersonality of the paper&mdash;to speak after the Hibernian style&mdash;being
+personified by Mr. Punch himself,&mdash;ostensibly, by a well-preserved and
+well-managed conceit, its sole conductor through all its vicissitudes
+and during the whole of its brilliant career. Whatever becomes of
+correspondents, Punch never resigns and never dies. The baton never
+falls from his grasp. He sits in his arm-chair, the unshaken Master of
+the Revels,&mdash;though thrones totter, kings abdicate, and revolutions
+convulse empires. Troubles may disturb his household; but thereby the
+public does not suffer. He still lives,&mdash;immortal in his funny and
+fascinating idiosyncrasies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_842" id="Page_842">[Pg 842]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The ingredients of Punch, the instrumentalities by which he has won fame
+and victories, are almost too multifarious for enumeration. All the
+merry imps which beset Leigh Hunt, when about to compile selections from
+the comic poets, belong to Punch's retinue. Doubles of Similes,
+Buffooneries of Burlesques, Stalkings of Mock Heroics, Stings in the
+Tails of Epigrams, Glances of Innuendoes, Dry Looks of Irony,
+Corpulencies of Exaggerations, Ticklings of Mad Fancies, Claps on the
+Backs of Horse Plays, Flounderings of Absurdities, Irresistibilities of
+Iterations, Significances of Jargons, Wailings of Pretended Woes,
+Roarings of Laughter, and Hubbubs of Animal Spirits, all appear, singly
+or in companies, to flash, ripple, dance, shoot, effervesce, and
+sparkle, in prose and verse, vignettes, sketches, or elaborate pictures,
+on the ever-shifting and always entertaining pages of the London
+Charivari. Of one prominent form of the exhibition of this inexhaustible
+arsenal, namely, <i>the illustrations</i>, special notice is to be taken.
+These, notwithstanding their oddity, extravagance, and burlesqueness, by
+reason of their grace, finish, and good taste, frequently get into the
+proximity of the fine arts. This elevation of sportive drawing is mainly
+to be put to the credit of manly John Leech,&mdash;"the very Dickens of the
+pencil." He and his associates have proved that the humorous side of
+things may be limned with mirth-provoking truth, and that vices and
+follies may be depicted with a vigorous and accurate crayon, without
+coarseness or vulgarity, or pandering to depraved sentiments. Herein is
+most commendable success. Punch's gallery&mdash;with but few, if any
+exceptions&mdash;may be opened to the purest eyes. In it there is much of
+Hogarthian genius, without anything that needs a veil. In alluding to
+the agencies of Punch, it would be doing him great injustice to leave
+the impression that they are all of a mirthful character. Often is he
+tearfully, if at the same time smilingly, pathetic. Seriousness,
+certainly, is not his forte, and he is not given to homilies and moral
+essays. Usually he gilds homoeopathic pills of wisdom with a thick
+coating of humor. Yet, now and then, his vein is an earnest vein, and he
+speaks from the abundance of a tender and deeply-moved heart. This is
+especially true of some of his poetical effusions, which rank high among
+the best fugitive pieces of the times. That Hood's "Song of the Shirt"
+was an original contribution to his columns is almost enough of itself
+to show that Punch, like some other famous comedians, can start the
+silent tear, as well as awaken peals of laughter. And this is but one of
+many instances in point that might be cited. In his productions you
+often meet golden sentences of soberest counsel, beautiful tributes to
+real worth, stirring appeals for the oppressed, and touching eulogies of
+the loved and lost.</p>
+
+<p>Thus much of the history and machinery of Punch. His salutary influence
+is to be spoken of next. But before venturing upon what may seem
+indiscriminate praise, let it be confessed that our hero is not without
+his weaknesses. Nothing human is perfect, and Punch is very human. The
+good Homer sometimes nods; so doth the good Punch. He does not always
+perform equally well,&mdash;keep up to his highest level. If he never
+entirely disappoints his audience, he fails sometimes to shoot the
+brightest arrows of his quiver and hit his mark so as to make the
+scintillating splinters fly. Now and then he has been slightly dull,
+forgotten himself and his manners, gone too far, got into the wrong box,
+missed seizing the auricular appendage of the right pig, run things into
+the ground,&mdash;blundered as common and uncommon people will. Under these
+general charges we must, painful as it is to speak of the errors of a
+favorite, enter a few specifications.</p>
+
+<p>The writer of the prospectus, before referred to, seems to have had a
+premonitory fear&mdash;growing out of his bad treatment of Judy&mdash;that Punch
+in his new vocation might fail of uniform gentlemanliness towards the
+ladies; and time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_843" id="Page_843">[Pg 843]</a></span> has shown that there were some little grounds for the
+apprehension. The droll hunchback's virulent dislike of mothers-in-law
+seems the nursed-up wrath of an unhappy personal experience. Vastly
+amusing as were the "Caudle Lectures," it is a question whether
+excessive indulgence in the luxury of satire upon a prolific theme did
+not infuse into them over-bitter exaggeration, not favorable to the
+culture of domestic felicity. Did these celebrated curtain-homilies
+stand alone, their sharp and unrivalled humor might save Punch from the
+censure of being once in a while the least bit of a Bluebeard. But, for
+the most gallant gentleman, on the whole, in the United Kingdom, he is
+not so invariable in fairness towards the fair as could be wished. The
+follies and frivolities of absurd fashions are his proper game; and he
+does brave service in hunting them down. Still, his warfare against
+crinoline, small bonnets, and other feminine fancies in dress, has been
+tiresomely inveterate. Even Mr. Punch had better, as a general rule,
+leave the management of the female toilette to those whom it most nearly
+concerns. But in his case, the scolding or pouting should not be
+inexorable; for in one way he atones amply for all his impertinence. He
+paints his young ladies pretty and graceful, being, with all his sly
+satire, evidently fond of the sex, the juvenile portion at least.
+Surely, a Compliment so uniform and tasteful must more than outweigh his
+teasing and banter with the amiable subjects of both.</p>
+
+<p>Of Punch as a local politician we are hardly fair judges, and it may be
+a mistaken suspicion that he has occasionally given up to party what was
+meant for mankind. With respect to "foreign affairs," we shall be safer
+in saying, that, with all his cosmopolitanism, he is a shade or two
+John-Bullish. Thanking him for his fraternal cordiality towards
+"Jonathan," we must doubt if it will do to trust implicitly his reports
+and impressions of men and things across the Channel. That he is more
+than half right, however, when lingering remains of insular prejudice
+tinge his solicitude to save his native land from entangling alliances,
+and keep its free government from striking hands with despotism, we
+incline to believe; and we honor him that his loyalty is not mere
+adulation, but duly seasoned with the democratic principle that would
+have the stability of the throne the people's love,&mdash;the people being of
+infinitely greater importance than the propping-up or the propagation of
+royal houses. In one sad direction Punch's patriotism and humanity, it
+seems to us, were wrathful exaggerations, open to graver objection than
+yielding unconsciously to a natural bias. In his zeal against terrible
+outrages, he forgot that two wrongs never make a right. We refer to his
+course on the Indian Revolt. From the way he raised his voice for war,
+almost exterminating, and with no quarter, one would think the British
+rule in the East had been the rule of Christian love,&mdash;that Sepoys and
+other subjects had known the reigning power only as patriarchal
+kindness,&mdash;and so, without excuse, a highly civilized, justly and
+tenderly treated people, suddenly, and without provocation, became
+rebellious devils, and rebellious only because they were devils. In the
+hour of horror-struck indignation, was not Punch too blood-thirsty,
+vindictive, unjust, and oblivious to the truth of history, that the
+insurgents are poor superstitious heathens, whom a selfish policy may
+have kept superstitious and heathenish? True, he was the witness of
+broken hearts and desolate hearth-stones at home, and daily heard of
+hellish atrocities inflicted on the women and children abroad,&mdash;enough
+to crush out for the moment every thought but the thought of vengeance.
+Yet, even at such a crisis, he should have remembered, that England, in
+strict accordance with the stern, unrelenting logic of events, having
+sown to the wind, might therefore have reaped the whirlwind. It is among
+the mysteries of Providence, that retributive justice, when visiting
+nations, often involves innocent victims,&mdash;but it is retributive justice
+still; and tracing up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_844" id="Page_844">[Pg 844]</a></span> rightly the chain of causes and effects, it may
+be that the tragedies of Delhi and Lucknow are attributable, to say the
+least, as much to the avarice of the dominant as to the depravity of the
+subjugated race. The bare possibility that this might be the truth a
+philosopher like Punch ought not to have overlooked, in the suddenness
+and fire of his anger.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Punch is no ascetic, but quite the reverse. He cannot be
+expected, any more than his namesake, the beverage, to go down with the
+apostles of temperance. He is a convivialist,&mdash;moderately so,&mdash;and no
+teetotaler. He evidently prefers roast-beef and brown-stout to
+bran-bread and cold water, and has gone so far as to sing the praises of
+pale-ale. He thinks the laboring classes should have their pot of beer,
+if the nobility and gentry are to eat good dinners and take airings in
+Hyde Park, on Sundays. He is a Merry Englishman, as to the
+stomach,&mdash;and, like a Merry Englishman, enjoys good living. There is no
+denying this fact; but here is the whole front of his offending.
+Remember that he was born at the Shakspeare's Head, and has had a
+publican for his right-hand man.</p>
+
+<p>These are defects, it may be; and yet not by its defects are we to judge
+of a work of Art. Of that generous and just canon Punch should have the
+full benefit. Try him by that, and he has abounding virtues to flood and
+conceal with lustrous and far-raying light his exceptional errors. To
+brief notices of some of these&mdash;regretting the want of room to enlarge
+upon them as it would be pleasant to do&mdash;we gladly turn.</p>
+
+<p>Punch is to be loved and cherished as the maker of mirth for the
+million. Saying this, we do not propose to go into an argument to
+excuse, justify, or recommend hilarity for its own sake or its medicinal
+effects on overtasked bodies and souls. Desperate attempts have been
+made to prove the innocence of fun, and the allowableness of wit and
+humor. Assuming or conceding that the jocose elements or capacities of
+human nature need apology and defence, very nice distinctions have been
+drawn, and very ingenious sophistry employed, to prove that the best of
+people may, within certain limits, crack jokes, or laugh at jokes
+cracked for them. These efforts to accommodate stern dogmas to that
+pleasant stubborn fact in man's constitution, his irresistible craving
+for play, and irresistible impulse to laugh at whatever is really
+laughable, are about as necessary as would be an essay maintaining the
+harmlessness of sunshine. The <i>fact</i> has priority over the dogmas, and
+is altogether too strong to need the patronizing special-pleading they
+suggest. Instead of going into the metaphysics of the question about the
+lawfulness and blamelessness of humor shown or humor relished, suppose
+we cut the knot by a delightful illustration of the compatibility of
+humor with the highest type of character.</p>
+
+<p>No one will deny the sincerity, earnestness, devotedness, sublime
+consecration to duty, of the heroine of the hospitals of Scutari. No one
+will dispute the practical piety of the gentle, but fearless, the
+tenderhearted, but truly strong-minded woman, who made the lazar-house
+her home for months together,&mdash;ministered to its sick, miserable, and
+ignorant inmates,&mdash;put, by the unostentatious exercise of indomitable
+faith and unswerving self-sacrifice, the love and humanity of the Gospel
+in direct and strongest contrast with the barbarisms of war. No one will
+deny or dispute this now. That heroic English maiden, whose shadow, as
+it fell on his pillow, the rude soldier kissed with almost idolatrous
+gratitude, has won, without thought of seeking it, and without the loss
+of a particle of humility and womanly delicacy, the loving admiration of
+all Christendom. Well, she</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"whose presence honors queenly guests,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who wears the noblest jewel of her time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leaves her race a nobler, in her name,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>shall be the sufficient argument here,&mdash;especially as none have paid
+finer, more delicate, or truer tributes to her virtue than Punch. In a
+recent sketch of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_845" id="Page_845">[Pg 845]</a></span> her career, accompanying her portrait in the gallery
+of noted women, this sentence is given from a descriptive letter:&mdash;"Her
+general demeanor is quiet and rather reserved; still, I am much
+mistaken, if she is not gifted with a very lively sense of the
+ridiculous." Here is a delightful, and, we doubt not, true intimation.
+Since the springs of pathos lie very near the springs of humor, in the
+richest souls, the fair Florence must, in moments of weariness, have
+glanced with merry eyes over the pages of Punch, or handed, with smiling
+archness, his inimitable numbers to her wan and wounded patients, kindly
+to cheat them into momentary forgetfulness of their agonies. If this
+were so, who shall say that the use or enjoyment of wit is not as right
+as it is natural? None, unless it be the narrowest of bigots,&mdash;like
+those who objected to this heroic lady's mission of mercy to the East,
+because she did not echo their sectarian shibboleths, and would not ask
+whether a good nurse were Protestant or Romanist.</p>
+
+<p>We may repeat, therefore, as a prime excellence of Punch, that he is the
+maker of mirth for the million. He is mainly engaged in furnishing
+titillating amusement,&mdash;and he furnishes an article, not only
+marketable, but necessary. All work makes Jack a dull boy,&mdash;and not
+infrequently an unhappy, if not bad boy,&mdash;whether Jack be in the pulpit,
+the counting-room, the senate-house, or digging potatoes; and what is
+true of Jack is equally true of Gill, his sister, sweetheart, or wife.
+That Punch every week puts a girdle of smiles round the earth,
+interrupts the serious business of thousands by his merry visits, and
+with his ludicrous presence delights the drawing-room, cheers the study,
+and causes side-shakings in the kitchen,&mdash;entitles him to be called a
+missionary of good. Grant this,&mdash;then allow, on the average, five
+minutes of merriment to each reader of each issue of Punch,&mdash;then
+multiply these 5 minutes by&mdash;say 50,000, and this again by 52 weeks, and
+this, finally, by 17 years, and thus cipher out, if you have a tolerably
+capacious imagination, the amount of happiness which has flowed and
+spread, like a river of gladness, through the world, from that
+inexhaustible, bubbling, and sparkling fountain, at 85, Fleet Street,
+London.</p>
+
+<p>Punch is the advocate of true manliness. Velvet robes and gilded
+coronets go for nothing with him, if not worn by muscular integrity; and
+fustian is cloth-of-gold, in his eyes, when it covers a stout heart in
+the right place. He has no mercy on snobbism, flunkeyism, or dandyism.
+He whips smartly the ignoble-noble fops of the
+household-troops,&mdash;parading them on toy-horses, and making them, with
+suicidal irony, deplore the hardships of comrades in the Crimea. He
+sneers at the loungers, and the delicate, dissipated <i>rou&eacute;s</i> of the
+club-house,&mdash;though their names were once worn by renowned ancestors,
+and are in the peerage. Fast young men are to him befooled prodigals,
+wasting the wealth of life in profitless living. He is not, however, an
+anchorite, or hard upon youth. On the contrary, he is an indulgent old
+fellow, and too sagacious to expect the wisdom of age from those
+sporting their freedom-suits. Still, he has no patience with the foppery
+whose whole existence advertises fine clothes, patronizes taverns,
+saunters along fashionable promenades, and ogles opera-dancers. In this
+connection, his hits at "the rising generation" will be called to mind.
+Punch has found out that in England there are no boys now,&mdash;only male
+babies and precocious men;&mdash;no growing up,&mdash;only a leap from the cradle,
+robe, and trousers to the habiliments and manners of a false manhood.
+Punch has found out and frequently illustrates this fact, and furnishes
+a series of pictures of Liliputians aping the questionable doings of
+their elders. It is observable, however, that he confines these
+portraits of precocity chiefly to one sex. Whether this be owing to his
+innate delicacy and habitual gallantry, or to the English custom of
+keeping little girls&mdash;and what we should call large girls also&mdash;at home
+longer, and under more restraint,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_846" id="Page_846">[Pg 846]</a></span> than in our republic, we cannot say.
+Were he on this side of the Atlantic, he might possibly find occasion to
+be less partial in the use of his reproving fun. Young misses seem to be
+growing scarce, and young ladies becoming alarmingly numerous. The early
+date at which the cry comes for long skirts, parties, balls, and late
+hours, for lace, jewelry, and gold watches, threatens to rob our homes
+of one of their sweetest charms,&mdash;the bright presence of joyous, gentle,
+and modest lasses, willing to be happy children for as many years as
+their mothers were, on their way to maidenhood and womanhood.</p>
+
+<p>Punch is a reformer,&mdash;and of the right type, too; not destructive,
+declamatory, vituperative; not a monomaniac, snarly, and
+ill-natured,&mdash;as if zeal in riding a favorite hobby excused
+exclusiveness of soul and any amount of bad temper. He would not
+demolish the social system and build on its ruins a new one; being
+clearly of the opinion that the growths of ages and the doings of six
+thousands of years are to be respected,&mdash;that progress means improvement
+upon the present, rather than overthrow of the entire past. Calm,
+hopeful, cheerful, and patient, he is at the same time bold and
+uncompromising, and a bit radical into the bargain. In his own delicious
+way, he has been no mean advocate of liberal principles and measures. He
+has argued for the repeal of the corn and the modification of the game
+laws, the softening of the cruelties of the criminal code, and the fair
+administration of law for all orders and conditions of men and women. He
+has had no respect for ermine, lawn, or epaulets, in his assaults upon
+the monopolies and sinecures of Church and State, circumlocution
+offices, nepotism, patronage, purchase, and routine, in army or navy. He
+wants the established religion to be religious, not a cover for
+aristocratic preferments and dog-in-the-manger laziness,&mdash;and government
+administered for the whole people, and not merely dealing out
+treasury-pap and fat offices for the pensioned few. Punch is loyal,
+sings lustily, "God Save the Queen," and stands by the Constitution. He
+is a true-born Englishman, and patriotic to the backbone; but none are
+too high in place or name for his merciless ridicule and daring wit, if
+they countenance oppressive abuses. It is a tall feather in his
+fool's-cap, that his fantastic person is a dread to evil-doers on
+thrones, in cabinets, and red-tape offices. Crowned tyrants, bold
+usurpers, and proud statesmen are sensitive, like other mortals, to
+ridicule, and know very well how much easier it is to cannonade
+rebellious insurgents than to put down the general laugh, and that the
+point of a joke cannot be turned by the point of the bayonet. "Punch"
+was seized in Paris on account of the caricature of the "Sphinx," but
+after twenty-four hours' consideration the order of confiscation was
+rescinded, and the irreverent publication now lies upon the tables of
+the reading-rooms. So, iron power is not beyond the reach of the shafts
+of wit; once make it ridiculous, and it may continue to lie dreaded, but
+will cease to be respected.</p>
+
+<p>Limits permitting, it would be pleasant to refer at length to various
+other marked graces of Punch,&mdash;such, for example, as his care for true
+Art, by exposing to merited contempt the abortions of statuary,
+painting, and architecture that come under his accurate eye,&mdash;his
+concern for good letters, exhibited in fantastic parodies of
+affectations, mannerisms, absurdities of plot, and vices of style in
+modern poets and novelists,&mdash;his "<i>nil nisi bonum</i>," and, where there is
+no "<i>bonum</i>," his silent "<i>nil</i>," of the dead, whom when living he
+pursued with unrelenting raillery,&mdash;his cool, eclectic judgments,
+freedom from extremes, and other manifestations of clear-headedness and
+refined sentiment, glimmering and shooting through his rollicking
+drollery, quick wit, and quiet humor. But we must pass them by, to
+emphasize a quality that out-tops and outshines them all,&mdash;his humanity.</p>
+
+<p>This is Mr. Punch's specialty, generating his purest fun and
+consecrating his versatile talents to highest ends. Wherever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_847" id="Page_847">[Pg 847]</a></span> he catches
+meanness, avarice, selfishness, force, preying upon the humble and the
+weak, he is sure to give them hard knocks with his baton, or
+home-thrusts with his pen and pencil. His practical kindness is
+charmingly comprehensive, too. He speaks for the dumb beast, pleads for
+the maltreated brutes of Smithfield Market, craves compassion for
+skeleton omnibus-horses, with the same ready sympathy that he fights for
+cheated fellow-mortals. In the court of public opinion, he is volunteer
+counsel for all in any way defrauded or kept in bondage by pitiless
+pride, barbarous policy, thoughtless luxury, or wooden-headed prejudice.
+His sound ethics do not admit that the lower law of man's enactment can,
+under any circumstances, override or abrogate the higher laws of God.
+Consequently, he judges with unbiased, instinctive rectitude, when he
+shows up in black and white the Model Republic's criminal anomaly, by
+making the African Slave a companion-piece to the Greek Slave, among
+"Jonathan's" contributions to the great Crystal Palace Exhibition. In
+this same vein of a wide-ranging application of the Golden Rule, he is
+ever on the alert to brand inhuman deeds and institutions, wherever
+found. You cannot very often hit him with the "<i>tu quoque</i>" retort,
+insinuate that he lives in a house of glass, or charge him with visiting
+his condemnation upon distant iniquities whilst winking at iniquities of
+equal magnitude directly under his nose.</p>
+
+<p>Punch is no Mrs. Jellyby, brimful of zeal for Borrio boolas in far-off
+Africas, and utterly stolid to disorders and distresses under his own
+roof. Proud of the glory, he feels and confesses the shame of England;
+and the grinding injustice of her caste-system, aristocracy, and
+hierarchy does not escape the lash of his rebuke. He is the friend of
+the threadbare curate, performing the larger half of clerical duty and
+getting but a tittle of the tithes,&mdash;of the weary seamstress, wetting
+with midnight tears the costly stuff which must be ready to adorn
+heartless rank and fashion at to-morrow's pageant,&mdash;of the pale
+governess, grudgingly paid her pittance of salary without a kind word to
+sweeten the bitterness of a lonely lot. He is the friend even of the
+workhouse juveniles, and, as their champion, castigates with cutting
+sarcasm and stinging scorn the reverend and honorable guardians, who,
+just as, full of hope, they had reached the door of the theatre,
+prohibited a band of these wretched orphans from availing of a
+kind-hearted manager's invitation to an afternoon performance of "Jack
+and the Bean-Stalk." Truly, Punch is more than half right, as, in his
+indignation, he declares, "It will go luckily with some four-faced
+Christians, if, with the fullest belief in their own right of entry of
+paradise, they are not '<i>stopped at the very doors</i>'"; and the parson,
+in the case, gets but his deserts, when at his lugubrious sham-piety are
+hurled stanzas like these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Their little faces beamed with joy<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Two miles upon their way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As they supposed, each girl and boy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">About to see the play.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their little cheeks with tears were wet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As <i>back again</i> they went,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Balked by a sanctimonious set,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Led by a Reverend Gent.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And if such Reverend Gents as he<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Could get the upperhand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, what a hateful tyranny<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Would override the land!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That we may never see that time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Down with the canting crew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That would <i>out of their pantomime</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor little children <i>do</i>!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Punch is the friend of all who are friendless, and, with a generous
+spirit of protection, gives credit to whom credit is due, whatever
+conventionality, precedent, monopoly, or routine may say to the
+contrary. During the Crimean War, he took care of the fame of the
+rank-and-file of the army. The dispatches to Downing Street, reporting
+the gallantry of titled officers, were more than matched by Punch's
+imitative dispatches from the seat of war, setting forth the exploits of
+Sergeant O'Brien, Corporal Stout, or Private Gubbins. He saw to it that
+those who had the hardest of the fight, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_848" id="Page_848">[Pg 848]</a></span> smallest pay, and the
+coarsest rations, should not be forgotten in the gazetting of the
+heroes. Indeed, our comic friend's fellowship of soul with the humblest
+members of the human family is a notable trait; it is so ready, and yet
+withal so judicious. It is no part of his philosophy, as already
+intimated, violently and rashly to disturb the existing order of things,
+and set one class in rebellion against other classes. He simply insists
+upon the recognition of the law of mutual dependence all round. This is
+observable in his dealing with the vexed question of domestic service.
+The prime trouble of housekeeping comes in frequently for a share of his
+attention; and underneath ironical counsels, you may trace, quietly
+insinuating itself into graphic sketches, the genial intent fairly to
+adjust the relations between life above and life below stairs.
+Accordingly, Punch sees no reason why Angelina may have a lover in the
+parlor, whilst Bridget's engagement forbids her to entertain a fond
+"follower" in the kitchen; and he perversely refuses to see how it can
+be right for Miss Julia to listen to the soft nonsense of Captain
+Augustus Fitzroy in the drawing-room, and entirely wrong for Molly, the
+nursery-maid, to blush at the blunt admiration of the policeman, talking
+to her down the area. Punch is independent and original in this respect.
+His strange creed seems to be, that human nature <i>is</i> human
+nature,&mdash;whether, in its feminine department, you robe it in silk or
+calico, and, in its male department, button a red coat over the breast
+of an officer of the Guards, or put the coarse jerkin on the broad back
+of the industrious toilsman. And according to this whimsical belief, he
+writes and talks jocosely, but with covert common sense. His warm and
+catholic humanity runs up and down the whole social scale with a
+clear-sighted equity. His philanthropy is what the word literally
+signifies,&mdash;the love of man as man, and because he is a man. Without
+being an impracticable fanatic, advocating impossible theories, or
+theories that can grow into realities only with the gradual progress of
+the race,&mdash;without indulging in fanciful visions of unapproached
+Utopias,&mdash;without imagining that all, wherever born and however
+nurtured, can reach the same level of wealth and station,&mdash;he holds, not
+merely that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Honor and shame from no condition rise,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>but also, be the condition high or low, the worthy occupant of it, by
+reason of the common humanity he shares with all above and all beneath
+and all around him, has a brother's birthright to brotherly treatment,
+to even-handed justice and open-handed charity.</p>
+
+<p>We have taken it for granted that Punch is a household necessity and
+familiar friend of our readers; and, resisting as far as possible the
+besetting temptation to refer in detail to the many pictorial and
+letter-press illustrations of his merits, have spoken of him as "a
+representative man,"&mdash;the universally acknowledged example of the
+legitimate and beneficent uses of the sportive faculties; thus
+indirectly claiming for these faculties more than toleration.</p>
+
+<p>The variety in human nature must somehow be brought into unity, and its
+diversified, strongly contrasted elements shown to be parts of a
+symmetrical and harmonious whole. The philosophy, the religion, which
+overlooks or condemns any of these elements, is never satisfactory, and
+fails to win sincere belief, because of its felt incompleteness. All men
+have an instinctive faith that in God's plan no incontestable facts are
+exceptional or needless facts. Science assumes this in regard to the
+phenomena of the natural world; and, in its progressive searches,
+expects to discover continual proof that all manifestations, however
+opposite and contradictory, are parts of one beneficent scheme.
+Accordingly, Science starts on its investigations with the conviction
+that the storm is as salutary as the sunshine,&mdash;that there is utility in
+what seems mere luxury,&mdash;and that Nature's loveliness and grandeur,
+Nature's oddity and grotesqueness, have a substantial value, as well as
+Nature's wheat-harvests.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_849" id="Page_849">[Pg 849]</a></span> Now the same principle is to be recognized in
+dealing with things spiritual. It may not be affirmed that anything
+appertaining to universal consciousness&mdash;spontaneous, irresistible, as
+breathing&mdash;is of itself base, and therefore to be put away; since so to
+do is to question the Creative Wisdom. The work of the Infinite Spirit
+must be consistent; and you might as truly charge the bright stars with
+malignity as denounce as vile one faculty or capacity of the mind.
+Consequently, there is a use for all forms of wit and humor.</p>
+
+<p>Punch represents a genuine phase of human nature,&mdash;none the less genuine
+because human nature has other and far different phases. That there is a
+time to mourn does not prove there is no time to dance. Punch has his
+part, and his times to play it, in the melodrama, the mixed comedy and
+tragedy, of existence. What we have to do is to see that he interferes
+with no other actor's <i>r&ocirc;le</i>, comes upon the stage in fitting scenes,
+keeps to the text and the impersonations which right principle and pure
+taste assign him. His grimaces are not for the church. He may not sing
+his catches when penitent souls are listening to the "Miserere," drop
+his torpedo-puns when life's mystery and solemnity are pressed heavily
+upon the soul,&mdash;be irreverent, profane, or vulgar. He must know and keep
+his place. But he should have his place, and have it confessed; and that
+place is not quite at the end of the procession of the benefactors of
+the race. Punch, as we speak of him now, is but a generic name for
+Protean wit and humor, well and wisely employed. As such, let Punch have
+his mission; there is ample room for him and his merry doings, without
+interfering with soberer agencies. <i>Let</i> him go about tickling mankind;
+it does mankind good to be tickled occasionally. Let him broaden
+elongated visages; there are many faces that would be improved by
+horizontal enlargement, by having the corners of the mouth curved
+upward. Let him write and draw "as funny as he can"; there are dull
+talking and melancholy pictures in abundance to counterbalance his
+pleasantry. Let him amuse the children, relax with jocosity the
+sternness of adults, and wreathe into smiles the wrinkles of old age.
+Let him, in a word, be a Merry Andrew,&mdash;the patron and promoter of
+frolicsomeness. To be only this is nothing to his discredit; and to
+esteem him for being only this is not to pay respect to a worthless
+mountebank.</p>
+
+<p>But Punch is and can be something more than a caterer of sport. Kings,
+in the olden time, had their jesters, who, under cover of blunt
+witticisms, were permitted, to utter home-truths, which it would have
+cost grave counsellors and dependent courtiers their heads to even
+whisper. Punch should enjoy a similar immunity in this age,&mdash;and society
+tolerate his free and smiling speech, when it would thrust out sager
+monitors. If it be true that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>something like the converse of this saying is also true. Not fools
+exactly, but wisdom disguised in the motley of wit, often gains entrance
+to ears deaf to angelic voices. There are follies that are to be laughed
+out of their silliness and sinfulness. There are tyrants, big and
+little, to be dethroned by ridicule. There are offences, proof against
+appeals to conscience, that wince and vanish before keen satire. Even as
+a well-aimed joke brings back good-humor to an angry mob, or makes mad
+and pugnacious bullies cower and slink away from derision harder to
+stand than hard knocks,&mdash;even so will a quizzical Punch be efficient as
+a philanthropist, when sedate exhortations or stern warnings would fail
+to move stony insensibility.</p>
+
+<p>As an element in effective literature, a force in the cause of reform,
+the qualities Punch personifies have been and are of no slight service.
+And herein those qualities have an indefeasible title to regard. Let
+there be no vinegar-faced, wholesale denunciation of them, because
+sometimes their pranks are wild and overleap the fences of propriety.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_850" id="Page_850">[Pg 850]</a></span>
+Rather let appreciation of their worthiness accompany all reproving
+checks upon their extravagances. Let nimble fun, explosive jokes,
+festoon-faced humor, the whole tribe of gibes and quirks, every light,
+keen, and flashing weapon in the armory of which Punch is the keeper, be
+employed to make the world laugh, and put the world's laughter on the
+side of all right as against all wrong. If this be not done, the
+seriousness of life will darken into gloom, its work become slavish
+tasks, and the conflict waged be a terrible conflict between grim
+virtues and fiendish vices. If you could shroud the bright skies with
+black tempest-clouds, burn to ashes the rainbow-hued flowers, strike
+dumb the sweet melodies of the grove, and turn to stagnant pools the
+silver streams,&mdash;if you could do this, thinking thereby to make earth
+more of a paradise, you would be scarcely less insane than if you were
+to denounce and banish all</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nods, and becks, and wreath&egrave;d smiles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sport, that wrinkled care derides,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And laughter, holding both his sides."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See <i>Parton's Humorous Poetry</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_SUBJECTIVE_OF_IT" id="THE_SUBJECTIVE_OF_IT"></a>THE SUBJECTIVE OF IT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Toward the close of a dreamy, tranquil July day, a day made impressive
+beyond the possible comprehension of a dweller in civilization by its
+sun having risen for us over the unbroken wilderness of the Adirondack,
+a mountain-land in each of whose deep valleys lies a blue lake, we, a
+party of hunters and recreation-seekers, six beside our guides, lay on
+the fir-bough-cushioned floor of our dark camp, passing away the little
+remnant of what had been a day of rest to our guides and of delicious
+idleness to ourselves. The camp was built on the bold shore of a lake
+which yet wants a name worthy its beauty, but which we always, for want
+of such a one, call by that which its white discoverer left
+it,&mdash;Tupper's Lake,&mdash;whose waters, the untremulous mirror of the forests
+and mountains around and the sky above, gleamed to us only in blue
+fragments through the interstices of the leafy veil that intervened. The
+forest is unbroken to the water's edge, and even out over the water
+itself it stretches its firs and cedars, gray and moss-draped, with here
+and there a moisture-loving white-birch, so that from the very shore one
+sees only suggestive bits of distance and sky; and from where we were
+lying, sky, hills, and the water below were all blue alike, and
+undistinguishable alike, glimpses of a world of sunlight, which the
+grateful shadow we lay in made delicious to the thought. We were
+sheltered right woodsman-like;&mdash;our little house of fresh-peeled bark of
+spruces, twelve feet by nine, open only to the east, on which side lay
+the lake, shielded us from wind and rain, and the huge trees shut around
+us so closely that no eye could pierce a pistol-shot into their glades.
+There were blue-jays all about us, making the woods ring with their
+querulous cries, and a single fish-hawk screamed from the blue overhead,
+as he sailed round and round, watching the chances of a supper in the
+lake. Between us and the water's edge, and a little to one side of the
+path we had bushed out to the shore, was the tent of the guides, and
+there they lay asleep, except one who was rubbing up his "man's" rifle,
+which had been forgotten the night before when we came in from the hunt,
+and so had gathered rust.</p>
+
+<p>Three of our party were sleeping, and the others talked quietly and low,
+desultorily, as if the drowsiness had half conquered us too. The
+conversation had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_851" id="Page_851">[Pg 851]</a></span> rambled round from a discussion on the respective
+merits of the Sharp's and the Kentucky rifles (consequent on a trial of
+skill and rifles which we had had after dinner) to Spiritualism,&mdash;led to
+this last topic by my relation of some singular experiences I had met in
+the way of presentiments and what seemed almost like second-sight,
+during a three-months' sojourn in the woods several summers before.
+There is something wonderfully exciting to the imagination in the
+wilderness, after the first impression of monotony and lonesomeness has
+passed away and there comes the necessity to animate this so vacant
+world with something. And so the pines lift themselves grimly against
+the twilight sky, and the moanings of the woods become full of meaning
+and mystery. Living, therefore, summer after summer, as I had done, in
+the wilderness, until there is no place in the world which seems so much
+like a home to me as a bark camp in the Adirondack, I had come to be
+what most people would call morbid, but what I felt to be only sensitive
+to the things around, which we never see, but to which we all at times
+pay the deference of a tremor of inexplicable fear, a quicker and less
+deeply drawn breath, an involuntary turning of the head to see something
+which we know we shall not see, yet are glad to find that we do
+not,&mdash;all which things we laugh at as childish when they have passed,
+yet tremble at as readily when they come again. J., who was both poet
+and philosopher, singularly clear and cold in his analyses, and at the
+same time of so great imaginative power that he could set his creations
+at work and then look on and reason out the law of their working as
+though they were not his, had wonders to tell which always passed mine
+by a degree; his experiences were more various and marvellous than mine,
+yet he had a reason for everything, to which I was compelled to defer
+without being convinced. "Yes," said he, finally knocking out the ashes
+from his meerschaum, as we rose, at the Doctor's suggestion, to take a
+row out on the lake while the sun was setting,&mdash;"Yes, I believe in
+<i>your</i> kind of a 'spiritual world,'&mdash;but that it is purely subjective."</p>
+
+<p>I was silenced in a moment;&mdash;this single sentence, spoken like the
+expression of the experience of a lifetime, produced an effect which all
+his logic could not. He had rubbed some talismanic opal, pronouncing the
+spirit-compelling sentence engraved thereon, and a new world of doubts
+and mysteries, marvels and revelations burst on me. One phase of
+existence, which had been hitherto a reality to me, melted away into the
+thinness of an uncompleted dream; but as it melted away, there appeared
+behind it a whole universe, of which I had never before dreamed. I had
+puzzled my brains over the metaphysics of subjectivity and objectivity
+and found only words; now I grasped and comprehended the round of the
+thing. I looked through the full range of human cognitions, and found,
+from beginning to end, a proclamation of the presence of that
+arch-magician, Imagination. I had said to myself,&mdash;"The universe is
+subjective to Deity, objective to me; but if I am his image, what is
+that part of me which corresponds to the Creator in Him?" Here I found
+myself, at last, the creator of a universe of unsubstantialities, all of
+the stuff that dreams are made of, and all alike unconsciously evoked,
+whether they were the dreams of sleep or the hauntings of waking hours.
+I grew bewildered as the thought loomed up in its eternal significance,
+and a thousand facts and phenomena, which had been standing in the
+darkness around my little circle of vision, burst into light and
+recognition, as though they had been waiting beyond the outer verge for
+the magic words. J. had spoken them.</p>
+
+<p>Silent, almost for the moment unconscious of external things, in the
+intense exaltation of thought and feeling, I walked down to the shore.
+Taking the lightest and fleetest of our boats, we pushed off on the
+perfectly tranquil water. There was no flaw in the mirror which gave us
+a duplicated world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_852" id="Page_852">[Pg 852]</a></span> Line for line, tint for tint, the noble mountain
+that lifts itself at the east, robed in primeval forest to its very
+summit, and now suffused with rosy light from the sun, already hidden
+from us by a low ridge in the west, was reproduced in the void below us.
+The shadow of the western ridge began to climb the opposite bluffs of
+the lake shore. We pulled well out into the lake and lay on our oars. If
+anything was said, I do not remember it. I was as one who had just heard
+words from the dead, and hears as prattle all the sounds of common life.
+My eyes, my ears, were opened anew to Nature, and it seemed even as if
+some new sense had been given me. I felt, as I never felt before, the
+cool gloom of the shadow creep up, ridge after ridge, towards the
+solitary peak, irresistibly and triumphantly encroaching on the light,
+which fought back towards the summit, where it must yield at last. It
+drew back over ravines and gorges, over the wildernesses of unbroken
+firs which covered all the upper portion of the mountain, deepening its
+rose-tint and gaining in intensity what it lost in expanse,&mdash;diminished
+to a handbreadth, to a point, and, flickering an instant, went out,
+leaving in the whole range of vision no speck of sunlight to relieve the
+wilderness of shadowy gloom. I had come under a spell,&mdash;for, often as I
+had seen the sun set in the mountains and over the lakes, I had never
+before felt as I now felt, that I was a part in the landscape, and that
+it was something more to me than rocks and trees. The sunlight had died
+on it. J. took up the oars and our silently-moving boat broke the glassy
+surface again. All around us no distinction was visible between the
+landscape above and that below, no water-line could be found; and to the
+west, where the sky was still glowing and golden, with faint bands of
+crimson cirrus swept across the deep and tremulous blue, growing purple
+as the sun sank lower, we could distinguish nothing in the landscape.
+Neither sound nor motion of animate or inanimate thing disturbed the
+scene, save that of the oars, with the long lines of blue which ran off
+from the wake of the boat into the mystery closing behind us. A
+rifle-shot rang out from the landing and rolled in multitudinous echoes
+around the lake, dying away in faintest thunders and murmurings from the
+ravines on the side of the mountain. It was the call to supper, and we
+pulled back to the light of the fire, which was now glimmering through
+the trees from the front of the camp.</p>
+
+<p>Supper over, the smokers lighted their pipes and a rambling conversation
+began on the sights and sounds of the day. For my own part, unable to
+quiet the uneasy questioning which possessed me, I wandered down to the
+shore and took a seat in the stern of one of the boats, which, hauled
+part of their length upon the sandy beach, reached out some distance
+among the lily-pads which covered the shallow water, and whose folded
+flowers dotted the surface, the white points alone visible. The uneasy
+question still stirred within me; and now, looking towards the
+northwest, where the sky yet glowed faintly with twilight, a long line
+of pines, gaunt and humanesque, as no tree but our northern white-pine
+is, was relieved in massy blackness against the golden gray, like a long
+procession of giants. They were in groups of two and three, with now and
+then an isolated one, stretching along the horizon, losing themselves in
+the gloom of the mountains at the north. The weirdness of the scene
+caught my excited imagination in an instant, and I became conscious of
+two mental phenomena. The first was an impression of motion in the
+trees, which, whimsical as it was, I had not the slightest power to
+dispel. I trembled from head to foot under the consciousness of this
+supernatural vitality. My rational faculties were as clear as ever they
+had been, and I understood perfectly that the semblance of motion was
+owing to two characteristics of the white-pine, namely,&mdash;that it follows
+the shores of the lakes in lines, rarely growing back at any distance
+from the water, except when it follows, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_853" id="Page_853">[Pg 853]</a></span> the same orderly
+arrangement, the rocky ridges,&mdash;and that, from its height above all
+other forest-trees, it catches the full force of the prevalent winds,
+which here are from the west, and consequently leans slightly to the
+east, much as a person leans in walking. These traits of the tree
+explained entirely the phenomenon; yet the knowledge of them had not the
+slightest effect to undeceive my imagination. I was awe-struck, as
+though the phantoms of some antediluvian race had arisen from the
+valleys of the Adirondack and were marching in silence to their old
+fanes on the mountain-tops. I cowered in the boat under an absolute
+chill of nervous apprehension.&mdash;The second phenomenon was, that I heard
+<i>mentally</i> a voice which said distinctly these words,-"The procession of
+the Anakim!"&mdash;and at the same time I became conscious of some
+disembodied spiritual being standing near me, as we are sometimes aware
+of the presence of a friend without having seen him. Every one
+accustomed to solitary thought has probably recognized this kind of
+mental action, and speculated on the strange duality of Nature implied
+in it. The spiritualists call it "impressional communication," and
+abandon themselves to its vagaries in the belief that it is really the
+speech of angels; men of thought find in it a mystery of mental
+organization, and avail themselves of it under the direction of their
+reason. I at present speculated with the philosophers; but my
+imagination, siding with the spiritualists, assured me that some one
+spoke to me, and reason was silenced. I sat still as long as I could
+endure it, alone, and then crept back, trembling, to the camp,&mdash;feeling
+quiet only when surrounded by the rest of the party.</p>
+
+<p>My attendant d&aelig;mon did not leave me, I found; for now I heard the
+question asked, half-tauntingly,&mdash;"Subjective or objective?"</p>
+
+<p>I asked myself, in reply,&mdash;"Am I mad or sane?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite sane, but with your eyes opened to something new!" was the
+instantaneous reply.</p>
+
+<p>On such expeditions, men get back to the primitive usages and conditions
+of humanity. We had arisen at daybreak; darkness brought the disposition
+to rest. We arranged ourselves side by side on the couch of balsam and
+cedar boughs which the guides had spread on the ground of the camp, our
+feet to the fire, and all but myself soon slept. I lay a long time,
+excited, looking out through the open front of the camp at the stars
+which shone in through the trees, and even they seemed partakers of my
+new state of existence, and twinkled consciously and confidentially, as
+to one who shared the secret of their own existence and purposes. The
+pine-trees overhead had an added tone in their meanings, and indeed
+everything, as I regarded it, seemed to manifest a new life, to become
+identified with me: Nature and I had all things in common. I slept, at
+length,&mdash;a strange kind of sleep; for when the guides awoke me, in the
+full daylight, I was conscious of some one having talked with me through
+the night.</p>
+
+<p>In broad day, with my companions, and in motion, the influences of the
+previous evening seemed to withdraw themselves to a remote
+distance,&mdash;yet I was aware of their awaiting me when I should be
+unoccupied. The day was as brilliant, as tranquil as its predecessor,
+and the council decided that it should be devoted to a "drive," for we
+had eaten the last of our venison for breakfast. The party were assigned
+their places at those points of the lake where the deer would be most
+likely to take the water, while my guide, Steve M&mdash;&mdash;, and myself went
+up Bog River, to start him. The river, a dark, sluggish stream, about
+fifty feet wide, the channel by which the Mud Lakes and Little Tupper's
+Lake, with its connected lakes and ponds, empty into Tupper's Lake, is a
+favorite feeding-ground with the deer, whose breakfast is made on the
+leaves of the <i>Nuphar lutea</i> which edge the stream. We surprised one,
+swimming around amongst the leaves, snatching here and there the
+choicest of them, and when he turned to go out and rose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_854" id="Page_854">[Pg 854]</a></span> in the water,
+as his feet touched bottom, I gave him a ball without fatal effect, and
+landing, we put Carlo on the track, which was marked by occasional drops
+and clots of blood, and hearing him well off into the woods, and in that
+furious and deep bay which indicates close pursuit, we went back to our
+boat and paddled upstream to a run-way Steve knew of, where the deer
+sometimes crossed the river. We pushed the boat into the overhanging
+alders which fringe the banks, leaning out into and over the water, and
+listened to the far-off bay of the hound. It died away and was entirely
+lost for a few minutes, and then came into hearing from the nearer side
+of the ridge, which lay back from the river a hundred rods or so, and I
+cocked my rifle while Steve silently pushed the boat out of the bushes,
+ready for a start, if the deer should "water." The baying receded again,
+and this time in the direction of the lake. The blood we had found on
+the trail was the bright, red, frothy blood which showed that the ball
+had passed through the lungs, and, as we knew that the deer would not
+run long before watering, we were sure that this would be his last turn
+and that he was making in earnest for the lake, where some of the boats
+would certainly catch him.</p>
+
+<p>The excitement of the hunt had brought me back to a natural state of
+feeling, and now, as I lay in the stern of the boat, drifting slowly
+down-stream, and looked up into the hazy blue sky, in the whole expanse
+of which appeared no fragment of cloud, and the softened sunshine
+penetrated both soul and body, while the brain, lulled into lethargy by
+the unbroken silence and monotony of forest around, lost every trace of
+its midsummer madness,&mdash;I looked back to the state of the last evening
+as to a curious dream. I asked myself wherein it differed from a dream,
+and instantly my d&aelig;mon replied, "In no wise." The instant reply
+surprised me, without startling me from my lethargy. I responded, as a
+matter of course, "But if no more than a dream, it amounts to nothing."
+It answered me, "But when a man dreams wide awake?" I pondered an
+instant, and it went on: "And how do you know that dreams are nothing?
+They are real while they last, and your waking life is no more; you wake
+to one and sleep to the other. Which is the real, and which the false?
+since you assume that one is false." I only asked myself again the
+eternal question, "Objective or subjective?" and the d&aelig;mon made no
+further suggestion. At this instant we heard the report of a gun from
+the lake. "That's the Doctor's shot-gun," said Steve, and pulled
+energetically down-stream; for we knew, that, if the Doctor had fired,
+the deer had come in,&mdash;and if he had missed the first shot, he had a
+second barrel, which we should have heard from.</p>
+
+<p>Among the most charming cascades in the world is certainly that which
+Bog River makes where it falls into Tupper's Lake. Its amber water,
+black in the deep channel above the fall, dividing into several small
+streams, slips with a plunge of, it may be, six feet over the granite
+rocks, into a broad, deep pool, round which tall pines stand, and over
+which two or three delicate-leaved white-birches lean, from which basin
+the waters plunge in the final foamy rush of thirty or forty feet over
+the irregularly broken ledge which makes the bold shore of the lake.
+Between the two points of rock which confine the stream is thrown a
+bridge, part of the military road from the Mohawk settlements to those
+on the St. Lawrence, built during the war of 1812. On this bridge I
+waited until Steve had carried the boat around, when we re&euml;mbarked for
+the camp.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving at the landing, we found two of the guides dressing the
+Doctor's deer, and the others preparing for dinner. As night came on my
+excitement returned, and I remained in the camp while the others went
+out on the lake,&mdash;not from fear of such an experience as I had the night
+before, for I enjoyed the wild emotions, as one enjoys the raging of the
+sea around the rocks he stands on, with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_855" id="Page_855">[Pg 855]</a></span> kind of tremulous
+apprehension,&mdash;but to see what effect the camp would produce on the
+state of feeling which I had begun to look at as something normal in my
+mental development. The rest of the party had gone out in two boats, and
+three of the guides, taking another, went on an excursion of their own;
+the two remaining, having cleared the supper-things away and lighted
+their pipes, were engaged in their tent, playing <i>old sledge</i> by the
+light of a single candle. There was a race out on the lake, and a
+far-off merriment, with an occasional halloo, like a suggestion of a
+busy world somewhere, but all so softened and toned down that it did not
+jar on my tranquillity. There was a crackling fire of green logs as
+large as the guides could lift and lay on, and they simmered in the
+blaze, and lit up the surrounding tree-trunks and the overhanging
+foliage, and faintly explored the recesses of the forest beyond. I lay
+on the blankets, and near to me seemed to sit my d&aelig;mon, ready to be
+questioned.</p>
+
+<p>At this instant there came a doubt of the theological position of my
+ghostly <i>vis-a-vis</i>, and I abruptly thought the question, "Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody," replied the d&aelig;mon, oracularly.</p>
+
+<p>This I knew in one sense to be true; and I replied, "But you know what I
+mean. Don't trifle. Of what nature is your personality?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think," it replied, "that personality is necessary to existence?
+We are spirit."</p>
+
+<p>"But wherein, save in the having or not having a body, do you differ
+from me?"</p>
+
+<p>"In all the consequences of that difference."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well,&mdash;go on."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you see that without your circumstances you are only half a
+being?&mdash;that you are shaped by the action and reaction between your own
+mind and surrounding things, and that the body is the only medium of
+this action and reaction? Do you not see that without this there would
+have been no consciousness of self, and consequently neither
+individuality nor personality? Remove those circumstances by removing
+the body, and do you not remove personality?"</p>
+
+<p>"But," said I, "you certainly have individuality, and wherein does that
+differ from personality?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly you commit two mistakes," replied the d&aelig;mon. "As to the
+distinction, it is one with a difference. You are personal to yourself,
+individual to others; and we, though individual to you, may be still
+impersonal. If spirit takes form from having something to act on, the
+fact that we act on you is sufficient, so far as you are concerned, to
+cause an individuality."</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated, puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>It went on: "Don't you see that the inertia of spirit is motion, as that
+of matter is rest? Now compare this universal spirit to a river flowing
+tranquilly, and which in itself gives no evidence of motion, save when
+it meets with some inert point of resistance. This point of resistance
+has the effect of action in itself, and you attribute to <i>it</i> all the
+eddies and ripples produced. You <i>must</i> see that your own immobility is
+the cause of the phenomena of life which give you your apparent
+existence;&mdash;our individuality to you may be just as much the effect of
+your personality; you find us only responsive to your own mental state."</p>
+
+<p>I was conscious of a sophistry somewhere, but could not, for the life of
+me, detect it. I thought of the Tempter; I almost feared to listen to
+another word; but the d&aelig;mon seemed so fair, so rational, and, above all,
+so confident of truth, that I could not entertain my fears.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said I, finally, "if my personality is owing to my physical
+circumstances, to my body and its immobility, what is the body itself
+owing to?"</p>
+
+<p>"All physical or organic existence is owing to the antagonism between
+certain particles of matter, fixed and resistant, and the all-pervading,
+ever-flowing spirit; the different inerti&aelig; conflict, and end by
+combining in an organic being, since neither can be annihilated or
+transmuted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_856" id="Page_856">[Pg 856]</a></span> Perhaps we can tell you, by-and-by, how this antagonism
+commences; at present, you would scarcely be able to comprehend it
+clearly."</p>
+
+<p>This I felt, for I was already getting confused with the questions that
+occurred to me as to the relations between spirit and matter.</p>
+
+<p>I asked once more, "Have you never been personal, as I am?&mdash;have you
+never had a body and a name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," was the reply,&mdash;"but it must have been long since; and the
+trifling circumstances which you call life, with all their direct and
+recognizable effects, pass away so soon, that it is impossible to recall
+anything of it. There seems a kind of consciousness when we have
+something to act against, as against your mind at the present moment;
+but as to name, and all that kind of distinctiveness, what is the use of
+it where there is no possibility of confusion or mistake as to identity?
+We have said that we are spirit; and when we say that spirit is one and
+matter one, we have gone behind personal identity."</p>
+
+<p>"But," asked I, "am I to lose my individual existence,&mdash;to become
+finally merged in a universal impersonality? What, then, is the object
+of life?"</p>
+
+<p>"You see the plants and animals all around you growing up and passing
+away,&mdash;each entering its little orbit, and sweeping through this sphere
+of cognizance back again to the same mystery it emerged from; you never
+ask the question as to them, but for yourself you are anxious. If you
+had not been, would creation have been any less creation?&mdash;if you cease,
+will it not still be as great? Truly, though, your mistake is one of too
+little, not of too much. You assume that the animals become nothing;
+but, truly, nothing dies. The very crystals into which all the so-called
+primitive substances are formed, and which are the first forms of
+organization, have a spirit in them; for they obey something which
+inhabits and organizes them. If you could decompose the crystal, would
+you annihilate the soul which organized it? The plant absorbs the
+crystal, and it becomes a part of a higher organization, which could no
+more exist without its soul; and if the plant is cut down and cast into
+the oven, is the organic impulse food for the flames? You, the animal,
+do but exist through the absorption of these vegetable substances, and
+why should you not obey the analogical law of absorption and
+aggregation? You killed a deer to-day;&mdash;the flesh you will appropriate
+to supply the wants of your own material organization; but the life, the
+spirit which made that flesh a deer, in obedience to which that shell of
+external appearance is moulded,&mdash;you missed that. You can trace the body
+in its metamorphoses; but for this impalpable, active, and only real
+part of the being,&mdash;it were folly to suppose it more perishable, more
+evanescent, than the matter of which it was master. And why should not
+you, as well as the deer, go back into the great Life from which you
+came? As to a purpose in creation, why should there be any other than
+that which existence always shows,&mdash;that of existing?"</p>
+
+<p>I now began to notice that all the leading ideas which the d&aelig;mon offered
+were put in the form of questions, as if from a cautious
+non-committalism, or as if it dared not in so many words say that they
+were the absolute truth. I felt that there was another side to the
+matter, and was confident that I should detect the sophistry of the
+d&aelig;mon; but then I did not feel able to carry the conversation farther,
+and was sensible of a readiness on the part of my interlocutor to cease.
+I wondered at this, and if it implied weariness on its part, when it was
+replied,&mdash;"We answer to your own mind; of course, when that ceases to
+act, there ceases to be reaction." I cried out in my own mind, in utter
+bewilderment,&mdash;"Objective or subjective?" and ceased my questionings.</p>
+
+<p>The camp-fire glowed splendidly through the overhanging branches and
+foliage, and I longed for a revel of light. I asked the guides to make a
+"blaze," and, after a minute's delay and an ejaculation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_857" id="Page_857">[Pg 857]</a></span> "<i>Game, to
+your high, low, jack</i>," they emerged from the tent and in a few minutes
+had cut down several small dead spruces and piled the tops on the fire,
+which flashed up through the pitchy, inflammable mass, and we had a
+pyrotechnical display which startled the birds, that had gone to rest in
+the assurance of night, into a confused activity and clamor. The heat
+penetrated the camp and gave me a drowsiness which my disturbed repose
+of the night before rendered extremely grateful, and when the rest of
+the party returned from their row, I was asleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was determined, the next morning, in council, to move; and one of the
+guides having informed us of a newly-opened carry, by which we could
+cross from Little Tupper's Lake, ten miles above us, directly to Forked
+Lake, and thence following the usual route down the Raquette River and
+through Long Lake, we could reach Martin's on Saranac Lake without
+retracing our steps, except over the short distance from the Raquette
+through the Saranac Lakes,&mdash;after breakfast, we hurriedly packed up our
+traps and were off as early as might be. It is hard boating up the Bog
+River, and hard work both for guides and tourists. All the boats and
+baggage had to be carried three miles, on the backs of the guides, and,
+help them as much as we could, the day had drawn nearly to its close
+before we were fairly embarked on Little Tupper's, and we had then
+nearly ten miles to go before reaching Constable's Camp, where we were
+to stop for the night. I worked hard all day, but in a kind of dream, as
+if the dead weight I carried with weariness were only the phantom of
+something, and I were a fantasy carrying it;&mdash;the actual had become
+visionary, and my imaginings nudged me and jostled me almost off the
+path of reason. But I had no time for a <i>s&eacute;ance</i> with my d&aelig;mon. The next
+day I devoted with the guides to bushing out the carry across to Forked
+Lake, about three and a half miles, through perfectly pathless woods;
+for we found Sam's statements as to the carry being chopped out entirely
+false; only a blazed line existed; so all the guides, except one, set to
+work with myself bushing and chopping out, while the other guide and the
+rest of the party spent the day in hunting. At the close of the day we
+had completed nearly two miles of the path, and returned to Constable's
+Camp to sleep. The next day we succeeded in getting the boats and
+baggage through to Bottle Pond, two and a half miles, and the whole
+party camped on the carry,&mdash;the guides anathematizing Sam, whose advice
+had led us on this road. The next afternoon found us afloat on Forked
+Lake, weary and glad to be in the sunlight on blue water again. Hard
+work and the excitement of responsibility in engineering our road-making
+operations had kept my visitor from dream-land away, and as we paddled
+leisurely down the beautiful lake,&mdash;one of the few yet untouched by the
+lumbermen,&mdash;I felt a healthier tone of mind than I had known since we
+had entered the woods. As we ran out of one of the deep bays which
+constitute a large portion of the lake, into the principal sheet of
+water, one of the most perfectly beautiful mountain-views I have ever
+seen burst upon us. We looked down the lake to its outlet, five miles,
+between banks covered with tall pines, and far away in the hazy
+atmosphere a chain of blue peaks raised themselves sharp-edged against
+the sky. One singularly-shaped summit, far to the south, attracted my
+attention, and I was about to ask its name, when Steve called out, with
+the air of one who communicates something of more than ordinary
+significance,&mdash;"Blue Mountain!" The name, Steve's manner, and I know not
+what of mysterious cause, gave to the place a strange importance. I felt
+a new and unaccountable attraction to the mountain. Some enchantment
+seemed to be casting its glamour over me from that distance even. There
+was thenceforward no goal for my wanderings but the Blue Mountain. It is
+a solitary peak, one of the southernmost of the Adirondacks, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_858" id="Page_858">[Pg 858]</a></span> a very
+quaint form, and lies in a circlet of lakes, three of which in a chain
+are named from the mountain. The way by which the mountain is reached is
+through these lakes, and their outlet, which empties into Raquette Lake.
+I had determined to remain in the woods some weeks, and now concluded to
+return, as soon as I had seen the rest of the party on their way home,
+and take up quarters on Raquette Lake for the rest of my stay.</p>
+
+<p>That night we camped at the foot of Forked Lake, and not one of the
+party will ever forget the thunder-storm that burst on us in our
+woods-encampment among the tall pines, two of which, near us, were
+struck by the lightning. I tried in vain, when we were quiet for the
+night, to get some information on the subject of my attraction to the
+Blue Mountain. My d&aelig;mon appeared remote and made no responses. It seemed
+as if, knowing my resolution to stay alone there, it had resolved to be
+silent until I was without any cause for interruption of our colloquies.
+Save the consciousness of its remote attendance, I felt no recurrence of
+my past experience, until, having seen my friends on the road to
+civilization again, I left Martin's with Steve and Carlo for my quarters
+on the Raquette. We hurried back up the river as fast as four strong
+arms could propel our light boat, and resting, the second night, at
+Wilbur's, on Raquette Lake, I the next morning selected a site for a
+camp, where we built a neat little bark-house, proof against all
+discomforts of an elemental character, and that night I rested under my
+own roof, squatter though I was. The d&aelig;mon seemed in no haste to renew
+our former intimate intercourse,&mdash;for what reason I could not divine;
+but a few days after my settling, days spent in exploring and planning,
+it resumed suddenly its functions. It came to me out on the lake, where
+I had paddled to enjoy the starlight in the delicious evening, when the
+sky was filled with luminous vapor, through which the stars struggled
+dimly, and in which the landscape was almost as clearly visible as by
+moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" said I, familiarly, as I felt it take its place by my side, "you
+have come back."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Come back!</i>" it replied; "will you never get beyond your miserable
+ideas of space, and learn that there is no separation but that of
+feeling, no nearness but that of sympathy? If you had cared enough for
+us, we should have been with you constantly."</p>
+
+<p>I was anxious to get to the subject of present interest, and did not
+stop to discuss a point which, in one, and the highest sense, I
+admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"What," I asked, "was that impulse which urged me to go to the Blue
+Mountain? Shall I find there anything supernatural?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Anything supernatural?</i> What is there above Nature, or outside of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"But nothing is without cause; and for an emotion so strong as I
+experienced, on the sight of those mountains, there must have been one."</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely! if you go after it, you will find it. You probably expect
+to find some beautiful enchantress keeping her court on the
+mountain-top, and a suite of fairies."</p>
+
+<p>I started, for, absurd as it may seem, that very idea, half-formed,
+undeveloped from very shame at my superstition, had rested in my mind.</p>
+
+<p>"And," said I, at a loss what to say, "are there no such things
+possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"All things are possible to the imagination."</p>
+
+<p>"To create?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most certainly! Is not creation the act of bringing into existence? and
+does not your Hamlet exist as immortally as your Shakspeare? The only
+true existence, is it not that of the Idea? Have you not seen the pines
+transfigured?"</p>
+
+<p>"And if I imagined a race of fairies inhabiting the Blue Mountain,
+should I find them?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you <i>imagined</i> them, yes! But the imagination is not voluntary; it
+works to supply a necessity; its function is creation, and creation is
+needed only to fill a vacuum. The wild Arab, feeling his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_859" id="Page_859">[Pg 859]</a></span> own
+insignificance, and comprehending the necessity for a Creating Power,
+finds between himself and that Power, which to him, as to you the other
+day, assumes a personality, an immense distance, and fills the space
+with a race half divine, half human. It was the necessity for the fairy
+which created the fairy. You do not feel the same distance between
+yourself and a Creator, and so you do not call into existence a creative
+race of the same character; but has not your own imagination furnished
+you with images to which you may give your reverence? It may be that you
+diminish that distance by degrading the Great First Cause to an image of
+your personality, and so are not so wise as the Arab, who at once admits
+it to be unattainable. Each man shapes that which he looks up to by his
+desires or fears, and these in their turn are the results of his degree
+of development."</p>
+
+<p>"But God, is not He the Supreme Creator?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not as we said, that you measure the Supreme by yourself? Can you
+not comprehend a supreme law, an order which controls all things?"</p>
+
+<p>In my meditations this doubt had often presented itself to me, and I had
+as often put it resolutely aside; but now to hear it urged on me in this
+way from this mysterious presence troubled me, and I shrank from further
+discussion of the topic. I earnestly desired a fuller knowledge of the
+nature of my colloquist.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," said I, "do you not take cognizance of my personality?&mdash;do
+you read my past and my future?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your past and future are contained in your present. Who can analyze
+what you are can see the things which made you such; for effect contains
+its cause;&mdash;to see the future, it needs only to know the laws which
+govern all things. It is a simple problem: you being given, with the
+inevitable tendencies to which you are subject, the result is your
+future; the flight of one of your rifle-balls cannot be calculated with
+greater certainty."</p>
+
+<p>"But how shall we know those laws?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"You contain them all, for you are the result of them; and they are
+always the same,&mdash;not one code for your beginning, and another for your
+continuance. Man is the complete embodiment of all the laws thus far
+developed, and you have only to know yourself to know the history of
+creation."</p>
+
+<p>This I could not gainsay, and my mind, wearied, declined to ask further.
+I returned to camp and went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Several days passed without any remarkable progress in my knowledge of
+this strange being, though I found myself growing more and more
+sensitive to the presence of it each day; and at the same time the
+incomprehensible sympathy with Nature, for I know not what else to call
+it, seemed growing stronger and more startling in the effects it
+produced on the landscape. The influence was no longer confined to
+twilight, but made noon-day mystical; and I began to hear strange sounds
+and words spoken by disembodied voices,&mdash;not like that of my d&aelig;mon, but
+unaccompanied by any feeling of personal presence connected therewith.
+It seemed as if the vibrations shaped themselves into words, some of
+them of singular significance. I heard my name called, and the strangest
+laughs on the lake at night. My d&aelig;mon seemed averse to answering any
+questions on the topic of these illusions. The only reply was,&mdash;"You
+would be wiser, not knowing too much."</p>
+
+<p>Ere many days of this solitary life had passed, I found my whole
+existence taken up by my fantasies. I determined to make my excursion to
+the Blue Mountain, and, sending Steve down to the post-office, a
+three-days' journey, I took the boat, with Carlo and my rifle, and
+pushed off. The outlet of the Blue Mountain Lakes is like all the
+Adirondack streams, dark and shut in by forest, which scarcely permits
+landing anywhere. Now and then a log fallen into the water compels the
+voyager to get out and lift his boat over; then a shallow rapid must be
+dragged over; and when the stream is clear of obstruction,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_860" id="Page_860">[Pg 860]</a></span> it is too
+narrow for any mode of propulsion but poling or paddling.</p>
+
+<p>I had worked several weary hours, and the sun had passed the meridian,
+when I emerged from the forest into a wild, swampy flat,&mdash;"wild meadow,"
+the guides call it,&mdash;through which the stream wound, and around which
+was a growth of tall larches backed by pines. Where the brook seemed to
+re&euml;nter the wood on the opposite side, stood two immense pines, like
+sentinels, and such they became to me; and they looked grim and
+threatening, with their huge arms reaching over the gateway. I drew my
+boat up on the boggy shore at the foot of a solitary tamarack, into
+which I climbed as high as I could to look over the wood beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Never shall I forget what I saw from that swaying look-out. Before me
+was the mountain, perhaps five miles away, covered with dense forest to
+within a few hundred feet of the summit, which showed bare rock with
+firs clinging in the clefts and on the tables, and which was crowned by
+a walled city, the parapet of whose walls cut with a sharp, straight
+line against the sky, and beyond showed spire and turret and the tops of
+tall trees. The walls must have been at least a hundred and fifty feet
+high, and I could see here and there between the group of firs traces of
+a road coming down the mountain-side. And I heard one of those mocking
+voices say, "The city of silence!"&mdash;nothing more. I felt strongly
+tempted to start on a flight through the air towards the city, and why I
+did not launch forth on the impulse I know not. My blood rushed through
+my veins with maddest energy, and my brain seemed to have been replaced
+by some ethereal substance, and to be capable of floating me off as if
+it were a balloon. Yet I clung and looked, my whole soul in my eyes, and
+had no thought of losing the spectacle for an instant, even were it to
+reach the city itself. The glorious glamour of that place and moment,
+who can comprehend it? The wind swung my tree-top to and fro, and I
+climbed up until the tree bent with my weight like a twig under a
+bird's.</p>
+
+<p>Presently I heard bells and strains of music, as though all the military
+bands in the city were coming together on the walls; and the sounds rose
+and fell with the wind,&mdash;one moment entirely lost, another full and
+triumphant. Then I heard the sound of hunting-horns and the baying of a
+pack of hounds, deep-mouthed, as if a hunting-party were coming down the
+mountain-side. Nearer and nearer they came, and I heard merry laughing
+and shouting as they swept through the valley. I feared for a moment
+that they would find me there, and drive me, intruding, from the
+enchanted land.</p>
+
+<p>But I must fathom the mystery, let what would come. I descended the
+tree, and when I had reached the boat again I found the whole thing
+changed. I understood that my city was only granite and fir-trees, and
+my music only the wind in the tree-tops. The reaction was sickening; the
+sunshine seemed dull and cold after the lost glory of that enchantment.
+The Blue Mountain was reached, its destiny fulfilled for me, and I
+returned to my camp, sick at heart, as one who has had a dear illusion
+dispelled.</p>
+
+<p>The next day my mind was unusually calm and clear. I asked my d&aelig;mon what
+was the meaning of the enchantment of yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a freak of your imagination," it replied.</p>
+
+<p>"But what is this imagination, then, which, being a faculty of my own,
+yet masters my reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all a faculty, but your very highest self, your own life in
+creative activity. Your reason <i>is</i> a faculty, and is subordinate to the
+purposes of your imagination. If, instead of regarding imagination as a
+pendant to your mental organization, you take it for what it is, a
+function, and the noblest one your mind knows, you will see at once why
+it is that it works unconsciously, just as you live unconsciously and
+involuntarily. Men set their reason and feeling to subdue what they
+consider a treacherous element in themselves; they succeed only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_861" id="Page_861">[Pg 861]</a></span> in
+dwarfing their natures, and imagination is inert while reason controls;
+but when reason rests in sleep, and you cease to live to the external
+world, imagination resumes its normal power. You dream;&mdash;it is only the
+revival of that which you smother when you are awake. You consider the
+sights and sounds of yesterday follies; you reason;&mdash;imagination
+demonstrates its power by overturning your reason and deceiving your
+very senses."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak of its creations; I understand this in a certain sense; but
+if these were such, should not they have permanence? and can anything
+created perish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! what will these trees be tomorrow? and the rocks you sit on,
+are they not changing to vegetation under you? The only creation is that
+of ideas; things are thin shadows. If man is not creative, he is still
+undeveloped."</p>
+
+<p>"But is not such an assumption trenching on the supremacy of God?" I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you understand by 'God?'"</p>
+
+<p>"An infinitely wise and loving Controller of events, of course," I
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever find any one whose ideas on the subject agreed with
+yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not entirely."</p>
+
+<p>"Then your God is not the same as the God of other men; from the
+Fee-Jeean to the Christian there is a wide range. Of course there is a
+first great principle of life; but this personality you all worship, is
+it not a creation?"</p>
+
+<p>I now felt this to be the great point of the demon's urging; it recurred
+too often not to be designed. Led on by the sophistry of my tempter, I
+had floated unconsciously to this issue, practically admitting all; but
+when this suggestion stood completely unclothed before me, my soul rose
+in horror at the abyss before it. For an instant all was chaos, and the
+very order of Nature seemed disorder. Life and light vanished from the
+face of the earth; my night made all things dead and dark. A universe
+without a God! Creation seemed to me for that moment but a galvanized
+corse. What my emotions were no human being who has not felt them can
+conceive. My first impulse was to suicide; with the next I cried from
+the depths of my despair, "God deliver me from the body of this death!"
+It was but a moment,&mdash;and there came, in the place of the cold
+questioning voice of my d&aelig;mon, one of ineffable music, repeating words
+familiar to me from childhood, words linked to everything loved and
+lovely in my past:&mdash;"Ye believe in God, believe also in me." The hot
+tears for another moment blotted out the world from sight. I said once
+more to the questioner, "Now who <i>are</i> you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your own doubts," was the reply; and it seemed as if only I spoke to
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>Since that day I have never reasoned with my doubts, never doubted my
+imagination.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ALLS_WELL" id="ALLS_WELL"></a>ALL'S WELL.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sweet-voic&egrave;d Hope, thy fine discourse<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Foretold not half life's good to me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To show how sweet it is to be!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thy witching dream<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And pictured scheme<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To match the fact still want the power;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy promise brave<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From birth to grave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life's boon may beggar in an hour.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_862" id="Page_862">[Pg 862]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ask and receive,&mdash;'tis sweetly said;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yet what to plead for know I not;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And aye to thanks returns my thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">If I would pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I've nought to say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But this, that God may be God still;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For Him to live<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Is still to give,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sweeter than my wish his will.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O wealth of life beyond all bound!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Eternity each moment given!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What plummet may the Present sound?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who promises a <i>future</i> heaven?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Or glad, or grieved,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Oppressed, relieved,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In blackest night, or brightest day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Still pours the flood<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Of golden good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And more than heartfull fills me aye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My wealth is common; I possess<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No petty province, but the whole;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What's mine alone is mine far less<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Than treasure shared by every soul.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Talk not of store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Millions or more,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of values which the purse may hold,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But this divine!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I own the mine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose grains outweigh a planet's gold.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have a stake in every star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In every beam that fills the day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All hearts of men my coffers are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My ores arterial tides convey;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The fields, the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And sweet replies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of thought to thought are my gold-dust,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The oaks, the brooks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And speaking looks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of lovers' faith and friendship's trust.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For him who lives above all years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who all-immortal makes the Now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And is not ta'en in Time's arrears:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">His life's a hymn<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The seraphim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might hark to hear or help to sing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And to his soul<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_863" id="Page_863">[Pg 863]</a></span>
+<span class="i2">The boundless whole<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its bounty all doth daily bring.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"The wealth I am, must thou become:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Richer and richer, breath by breath,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Immortal gain, immortal room!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And since all his<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Mine also is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life's gift outruns my fancies far,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And drowns the dream<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In larger stream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As morning drinks the morning-star.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_BIRDS_OF_THE_PASTURE_AND_FOREST" id="THE_BIRDS_OF_THE_PASTURE_AND_FOREST"></a>THE BIRDS OF THE PASTURE AND FOREST.</h2>
+
+
+<p>He who has always lived in the city or its suburbs, who has seldom
+visited the interior except for purposes of trade, and whose walks have
+not often extended beyond those roads which are bordered on each side by
+shops and dwelling-houses, may never have heard the birds that form the
+subject of this sketch. These are the birds of the pasture and
+forest,&mdash;those shy, melodious warblers, who sing only in the ancient
+haunts of the Dryads, and of those nymphs who waited upon Diana in her
+hunting-excursions, but who are now recognized only by the beautiful
+plants which, with unseen hands, they rear in the former abodes of the
+celestial huntress. These birds have not probably multiplied, like the
+familiar birds, with the increase of human population and the extension
+of agriculture. They were perhaps as numerous in the days of King Philip
+as they are now. Though they do not shun mankind, they keep aloof from
+cultivated grounds, living chiefly in the deep wood or on the edge of
+the forest, and in the bushy pasture.</p>
+
+<p>There is a peculiar wildness in the songs of this class of birds, that
+awakens a delightful mood of mind, similar to that which is excited by
+reading the figurative lyrics of a romantic age. This feeling is,
+undoubtedly, to a certain extent, the effect of association. Having
+always heard their notes in rude, wild, and wooded places, they never
+fail to bring this kind of scenery vividly before the imagination, and
+their voices affect us like the sounds of mountain-streams. There is a
+little Sparrow which I often hear about the shores of unfrequented
+ponds, and in their untrodden islets, and never in any other situations.
+The sound of his voice, therefore, always enhances the sensation of rude
+solitude with which I contemplate this wild and desolate scenery. We
+often see him perched upon a dead tree that stands in the water, a few
+rods from the shore, apparently watching our angling operations from his
+leafless perch, where he sings so sweetly, that the very desolation of
+the scene borrows a charm from his voice that renders every object
+delightful. This bird I believe to be the <i>Fringilla palustris</i> of
+Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>It is certain that the notes of the solitary birds, compared with those
+of the Robin and Linnet, excite a different class of sensations. I can
+imagine that there is a similar difference in the flavors of a cherry
+and a cranberry. If the former is sweeter, the latter has a spicy zest
+that is peculiar to what we call natural fruit. The effect is the same,
+however, whether it be attributable to some intrinsic quality, or to
+association, which is indeed the source of some of the most delightful
+emotions of the human soul.</p>
+
+<p>Nature has made all her scenes, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_864" id="Page_864">[Pg 864]</a></span> the sights and sounds that
+accompany them, more lovely, by causing them to be respectively
+suggestive of a certain class of sensations. The birds of the pasture
+and forest are not frequent enough in cultivated places to be associated
+with the garden or village inclosure. Nature has confined particular
+birds and animals to certain localities, and thereby adds a poetic and a
+picturesque attraction to their features. There are also certain flowers
+that cannot be cultivated in the garden, as if they were designed for
+the exclusive adornment of those secluded arbors which the spade and the
+plough have never profaned. Here flowers grow which are too holy for
+culture, and birds sing whose voices were never heard in the cage of the
+voluptuary, and whose tones inspire us with a sense of freedom known
+only to those who often retire from the world, to live in religious
+communion with Nature.</p>
+
+<p>When the flowers of early summer are gone, and the graceful neottia is
+seen in the meadows, extending its spiral clusters among the nodding
+grasses,&mdash;when the purple orchis is glowing in the wet grounds, and the
+roadsides are gleaming with the yellow blossoms of the hypericum, the
+merry voice of the Bobolink has ceased, and many other familiar birds
+have become almost silent. At this time, if we stroll away from the farm
+and the orchard into more retired and wooded haunts, we may hear, at all
+times of the day and at frequent intervals, the pensive and melodious
+notes of the Wood-Sparrow, who sings as if he were delighted at being
+left almost alone to warble and complain to the benevolent deities of
+the grove. He who in his youth has made frequent visits to these
+pleasant and solitary places, and wished that he could live and love
+forever among the wild-roses, the blushing azaleas, the red
+summer-lilies, and the thousands of beautiful and sweet-scented flowers
+that spring up among the various spicy and fruit-bearing shrubs which
+unite to form a genuine huckleberry-pasture,&mdash;he only knows the
+unspeakable delights which are awakened by the sweet, simple notes of
+this little warbler.</p>
+
+<p>The Wood-Sparrow (<i>Fringilla pusilla</i>) is somewhat less than a Canary,
+with a chestnut-colored crown; above of a grayish brown hue, and dusky
+white beneath. Though he does not seem to be a shy bird, I have never
+seen him in cultivated grounds, and the inmates of solitary cottages
+alone are privileged to hear his notes from their windows. He loves the
+hills which are half covered with young pines, viburnums, cornels, and
+huckleberry-bushes, and feeds upon the seeds of grasses and wild
+lettuce, with occasional repasts of insects and berries.</p>
+
+<p>His notes are sweet and plaintive, seldom consisting of more than one
+strain. He commences slowly, as if repeating the syllable, <i>de de de de
+de de d' d' d' d' d' d' d' r' r' r'</i>,&mdash;increasing in rapidity, and at
+the same time rising as it were by semi-tones, or chromatically, to
+about a major fourth on the scale. In midsummer, when this bird is most
+musical, he occasionally lengthens his song by alternately ascending and
+descending, interposing a few chirping notes between the ascending and
+descending series. The song loses a part of its simplicity, and, as it
+seems to me, is not improved by this variation.</p>
+
+<p>While listening to the notes of the Wood-Sparrow, we are continually
+saluted by the agreeable, though less musical song of the Chewink, or
+Ground-Robin,&mdash;a bird that frequents similar places. This is a very
+beautiful bird, elegantly spotted with white, red, and black,&mdash;the
+female being of a bright bay color where the male is red. Every rambler
+knows him, not only by his plumage and his peculiar note, but also by
+his singular habit of lurking about among the bushes, appearing and
+disappearing like a squirrel, and watching all our movements. Though he
+does not avoid our company, it is with difficulty that a marksman can
+obtain a good aim at him, so rapidly does he change his position among
+the leaves and branches. In this habit he resembles the Wren. While we
+are watching his motions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_865" id="Page_865">[Pg 865]</a></span> he pauses in his song, and utters that
+peculiar note of complaint from which he has derived his name,
+<i>Chewink</i>, though the sound he utters is more like <i>chewee</i>, accenting
+the second syllable.</p>
+
+<p>The Chewink (<i>Fringilla erythrophthalma</i>) is a very constant singer
+during four months of the year, from the middle of April. He is very
+untiring in his lays, seldom resting for any considerable time from
+morning till night, being never weary in rain or in sunshine, or at
+noon-day in the hottest weather of the season. His song consists of two
+long notes, the first about a third above the second, and the last part
+is made up of several rapidly uttered notes about one tone below the
+first note.</p>
+
+<p>There is an expression of great cheerfulness in these notes; but music,
+like poetry, must be somewhat plaintive in its character, to take strong
+hold of the feelings. I have never known a person to be affected by
+these notes as by those of the Wood-Sparrow. While engaged in singing,
+the Chewink is usually perched on the lower branch of a tree, near the
+edge of a wood, or on the top of a tall bush. He is a true forest-bird,
+and builds his nest in the thickets that conceal the boundaries of the
+wood.</p>
+
+<p>The notes of the Chewink and his general appearance and habits are well
+calculated to render him conspicuous, and they cause him to be always
+noticed and remembered. Our birds are like our men of genius. As in the
+literary world there is a description of talent that must be discovered
+and pointed out by an observing few, before the great mass can
+understand it or even know its existence,&mdash;so the sweetest songsters of
+the wood are unknown to the mass of the community, while many very
+ordinary performers, whose talents are conspicuous, are universally
+known and admired.</p>
+
+<p>As we advance into the wood, if it be near mid-day, or before the
+decline of the sun, the notes of two small birds will be sure to attract
+our attention. These notes are very similar, and as slender and piercing
+as the chirp of a grasshopper, being distinguished from the latter only
+by a different and more pleasing modulation. The birds to which I refer
+are the Red Start (<i>Muscicapa ruticilla</i>) and the Speckled Creeper
+(<i>Sylvia varia</i>). The first is the more rarely seen of the two, being a
+bird of the deep forest, and shunning observation by hiding himself in
+the most obscure parts of the wood. In general appearance, and in the
+color of his plumage, he bears a resemblance to the Ground-Robin, though
+not more than half his size. He lives entirely on insects, catching them
+while they are flying in the air.</p>
+
+<p>His song is similar to that of the Summer Yellow-Bird, so common in our
+gardens among the fruit-trees, but it is more shrill and feeble. The
+Creeper's song does not differ from it more than the songs of different
+individuals of the same species may differ. This bird may be seen
+creeping like a Woodpecker around the branches of trees, feeding upon
+the grubs and insects that are lodged upon the bark. He often leaves the
+forest, and may be seen busily searching the trees in the orchard and
+garden. The restless activity of the birds of this species affords a
+proof of the countless myriads of insects that must be destroyed by them
+in the course of one season,&mdash;insects which, if not kept in check by
+these and other small birds, would multiply to such an extreme as to
+render the earth uninhabitable by man.</p>
+
+<p>While listening with close attention to the slender notes of either of
+the last-named birds, often hardly audible amidst the din of
+grasshoppers, the rustling of leaves, and the sighing of winds among the
+tall oaken boughs, suddenly the wood resounds with a loud, shrill song,
+like the sharpest notes of the Canary. The bird that startles one with
+this vociferous note is the Oven-Bird, (<i>Turdus aurocapillus</i>), or
+Golden-Crowned Thrush. It is the smallest of the Thrushes, is confined
+exclusively to the wood, and when singing is particularly partial to
+noon-day. There is no melody in his song. He begins rather low,
+increasing in loudness as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_866" id="Page_866">[Pg 866]</a></span> proceeds, until the last notes are so loud
+as to seem almost in our immediate presence. He might be supposed to
+utter His words, <i>I see</i>, <i>I see</i>, <i>I see</i>, etc.,&mdash;emphasizing the first
+word, and repeating the words six or eight times, louder and louder with
+each repetition. No other bird equals this little Thrush in the emphasis
+with which he delivers his brief communication. His notes are associated
+with summer noon-days in the deep woods, and, when bursting upon the ear
+in the silence of noon, they disperse all melancholy thoughts, and
+inspire one with a vivid consciousness of life.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable thing connected with the history of this bird is his
+oven-shaped nest. It is commonly placed on the ground, under a knoll of
+moss or a tuft of grass and bushes, and is formed almost entirely of
+long grass neatly woven. It is covered with a roof of the same
+materials, and a round opening is made at the side, for the bird's
+entrance. The nest is so ingeniously covered with grass and disguised
+with the appearance of the general surface around it, that it is very
+seldom discovered. The Cow-Bunting, however, is able to find it, and
+often selects it as a depository for its own eggs.</p>
+
+<p>Those who are addicted to rambling in pursuit of natural curiosities may
+have observed that pine-woods are remarkable for certain collections of
+mosses which have cushioned a projecting rock or the decayed stump of a
+tree. When weary with heat and exercise, it is delightful to sit down
+upon one of these green velveted couches and take note of the objects
+immediately around us. We are then prepared to hear the least sound that
+invades our retreat. Some of the sweetest notes ever uttered in the wood
+are distinctly heard only at such times; for when we are passing over
+the rustling leaves, the noise made by our progress interferes with the
+perfect recognition of all delicate sounds. It was when thus reclining,
+after half a day's search for flowers, under the grateful shade of a
+pine-tree, now watching the white clouds that sent a brighter day-beam
+into these dark recesses, as they passed luminously overhead, and then
+noting the peculiar mapping of the grounds underneath the wood,
+diversified with mosses in swelling knolls, little islets of fern, and
+parterres of ginsengs and Solomon's-seals,&mdash;in one of these cloisters of
+the forest, I was first greeted by the pensive note of the Green
+Warbler, as he seemed to titter in supplicatory tones, very slowly
+modulated, "Hear me, Saint Theresa!" This strain, as I have observed
+many times since, is, at certain hours, repeated constantly for ten
+minutes at a time, and it is one of those melodious sounds that seem to
+belong exclusively to solitude.</p>
+
+<p>The Green Warbler (<i>Sylvia virens</i>) is a small bird, and though his
+notes may be familiar to all who have been accustomed to strolling in
+the woods, the species is not numerous in Massachusetts, the greater
+number retiring farther north in the breeding-season. Nuttall remarks in
+reference to this bird, "His simple, rather drawling, and somewhat
+plaintive song, uttered at short intervals, resembled the syllables '<i>te
+d&eacute; teritsc&aacute;</i>, sometimes <i>te derisca</i>, pronounced pretty loud and slow,
+and the tones proceeded from high to low. In the intervals, he was
+perpetually busied in catching small cynips, and other kinds of
+flies,&mdash;keeping up a smart snapping of his bill, almost similar to the
+noise made by knocking pebbles together." There is a plaintive
+expression in this musical supplication, that is apparent to all who
+hear it, no less than if the bird were truly offering prayers to some
+tutelary deity. It is difficult, in many cases, to determine why a
+certain combination of sounds should affect one with an emotion of
+sadness, while another, under the same circumstances, produces a feeling
+of joy. This is a part of the philosophy of music which has not been
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>While treating of the Sylvias, I must not omit to notice one of the most
+important of the tribe, and one with which almost everybody is
+acquainted,&mdash;the Maryland Yellow-Throat (<i>Sylvia trichas</i>). This species
+is quite common and familiar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_867" id="Page_867">[Pg 867]</a></span> He is most frequently seen in a
+willow-grove that borders a stream, or in the shrubbery of moist and low
+grounds. The angler is greeted by his notes on the rushy borders of a
+pond, and the botanist listens to them when hunting for those
+rose-plants that hide themselves under dripping rocks in some wooded
+ravine. The song of the Yellow-Throat resembles that of the Warbling
+Vireo, delivered with somewhat more precision, as if he were saying, <i>I
+see you</i>, <i>I see you</i>, <i>I see you</i>. His notes are simply lively and
+agreeable; there is nothing plaintive about them. The bird, however, is
+very attractive in his appearance, being of a bright olive-color above,
+with a yellow throat and breast, and a black band extending from the
+nostrils over the eye. This black band and the yellow throat are the
+marks by which he is most easily identified. The Yellow-Throat remains
+tuneful till near the last week in August.</p>
+
+<p>But if we leave the wood while those above described are the only
+singing-birds we have heard, we have either returned too soon, or we did
+not penetrate deeply enough into the forest. The Wood-Sparrow prepared
+our ears for a concert more delightful than the Red Start or the
+Yellow-Throat are capable of presenting, and we have spent our time
+almost in vain, if we have not heard the song of the Wood-Thrush
+(<i>Turdus melodus</i>). His notes are not startling or conspicuous; some
+dull ears might not hear them, though poured forth only a few rods
+distant, if their attention were not directed to them. Yet they are
+loud, liquid, and sonorous, and they fail to attract attention only on
+account of the long pauses between the different strains. We must link
+all these strains together to enjoy the full pleasure which the song of
+this bird is capable of affording, though any single strain alone is
+sufficient to entitle the bird to considerable reputation as a songster.</p>
+
+<p>The song of the Wood-Thrush consists of about eight or ten different
+strains, each of considerable length. After each strain the bird makes a
+pause of about three or four seconds. I think the effect of this sylvan
+music is somewhat diminished by the length of the pauses or rests. It
+may be said, however, that during each pause our susceptibility is
+increased, and we are thus prepared to be more deeply affected by the
+next notes. Whether the one or the other opinion be correct, it is
+certain that any one who stops to listen to this bird will become
+spellbound, and deaf to almost every other sound in the grove, as if his
+ears were enchained to the song of the Siren.</p>
+
+<p>The Wood-Thrush sings at almost all hours of the day, though seldom
+after sunset. He delights in a dusky retreat, and is evidently inspired
+by solitude, singing no less in gloomy weather than in sunshine. Late in
+August, when other birds have mostly become silent, he is sometimes the
+only songster in the wood. There is a liquid sound in his tones that
+slightly resembles that of a glassichord; though in some parts of the
+country he has received the name of Fife-Bird, from the clearness of his
+intonations. By many persons this species is called the Hermit-Thrush.</p>
+
+<p>The Veery (<i>Turdus Wilsonii</i>) has many habits like those of the
+Wood-Thrush, and some similarity of song. He is about the size of a
+Blue-Bird, and resembles the Red Thrush, except that the brown of his
+back is slightly tinged with olive. He arrives early in May, and is
+first heard to sing during some part of the second week of that month,
+when the sons of the Bobolink commences. He is not one of our familiar
+birds; and unless we live in close proximity to a wood that is haunted
+by a stream, we shall never hear his voice from our doors or windows. He
+sings neither in the orchard, nor the garden, nor in the suburbs of the
+city. He shuns the exhibitions of art, and reserves his wild notes for
+those who frequent the inner sanctuary of the groves. All who have once
+become familiar with his song await his arrival with impatience, and
+take note of his silence in midsummer with regret.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_868" id="Page_868">[Pg 868]</a></span> Until this little
+bird has arrived, I always feel as an audience do at a concert, before
+the chief singer has made her appearance, while the other performers are
+vainly endeavoring to soothe them by their inferior attempts.</p>
+
+<p>This bird is more retiring than any other important singing-bird, except
+the Wood-Thrush,&mdash;being heard only in solitary groves, and usually in
+the vicinity of a pond or stream. Here, especially after sunset, he
+pours forth his brilliant and melancholy strains with a peculiar
+cadence, and fills the whole forest with sound. It seems as if the
+echoes were delimited with his notes, and took pleasure in passing them
+round with multiplied reverberations. I am confident this bird refrains
+from singing when others are the most vocal, from the pleasure he feels
+in listening either to his own notes, or to the melodious responses
+which others of his own kindred repeat in different parts of the wood.
+Hence he chooses the dusk of evening for his vocal hour, when the little
+chirping birds are mostly silent, that their voices may not interrupt
+his chant. At this hour, during a period of nine or ten weeks, he charms
+the evening with his strains, and often prolongs them in still weather
+till after dusk, and whispers them sweetly into the ear of night.</p>
+
+<p>No bird of his size has more strength of voice; but his song, though
+loud, is modulated with such a sweet and flowing cadence, that it comes
+to the ear with all the mellowness of the softest warbling. It would be
+difficult to describe his song. It seems at first to be wanting in
+variety. I was long of this opinion, though I was puzzled to account for
+its pleasing and extraordinary effect on the mind of the listener. The
+song of the Veery consists of five distinct strains or bars. They might,
+perhaps, be represented on the musical staff, by commencing the first
+note on D above the staff and sliding down with a trill to C, one fifth
+below. The second, third, fourth, and fifth bars are repetitions of the
+first, except that each commences and ends a few tones lower than the
+preceding.</p>
+
+<p>Were we to attempt to perform these notes with an instrument adapted to
+the purpose, we should probably fail, from the difficulty of imitating
+the peculiar trilling of the notes, and the liquid ventriloquial sounds
+at the conclusion of each strain. The whole is warbled in such a manner
+as to produce upon the ear the effect of harmony. It seems as if we
+heard two or three concordant notes at the same moment. I have never
+noticed this effect in the song of any other bird. I should judge that
+it might be produced by the rapid descent from the commencing note of
+each strain to the last note about a fourth or fifth below, the latter
+being heard simultaneously with the reverberation of the first note.</p>
+
+<p>Another remarkable quality of the song is a union of brilliancy and
+plaintiveness. The first effect is produced by the commencing notes of
+each strain, which are sudden and on a high key; the second, by the
+graceful chromatic slide to the termination, which is inimitable and
+exceedingly solemn. I have sometimes thought that a part of the
+delightful influence of these notes might be attributable to the
+cloistered situations from which they were delivered. But I have
+occasionally heard them while the bird was singing from a tree in an
+open field, when they were equally pleasing and impressive. I am not
+peculiar in my admiration of this little songster. I have observed that
+people who are strangers to the woods, and to the notes of birds, are
+always attracted by the song of the Veery.</p>
+
+<p>In my early days, when I was at school, I boarded in a house near a
+grove that was vocal with these Thrushes; and it was then I learned to
+love their song more than any other sound in Nature, and above the
+finest strains of artificial music. Since that time I have lived in
+town, apart from their sylvan retreats, which I have visited only during
+my hours of leisure; but I have seldom failed, each returning year, to
+make frequent visits to the wood to listen to their notes, which cause
+full half the pleasure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_869" id="Page_869">[Pg 869]</a></span> I derive from a summer-evening walk. If in any
+year I fail to hear the song of the Veery, I feel a painful sense of
+regret, as when I have missed an opportunity to see an absent friend,
+during a periodical visit.</p>
+
+<p>The Veery is not one of our latest singers. His notes are not often
+heard after the middle of July.</p>
+
+<p>We should not be obliged to penetrate the wood to learn the habits of
+another Thrush, not so remarkable for his musical powers as interesting
+on account of his manners. I allude to the Cat-Bird, (<i>Turdus felivox</i>,)
+well known from his disagreeable habit of mewing like a kitten. He is
+most frequently seen on the edge of a wood, among the bushes that have
+come up, as it were, to hide its baldness and to harmonize it with the
+plain. He is usually attached to low, moist, and retired situations,
+though he is often very familiar in his habits. His nest of dry sticks
+is sometimes woven into a currant-bush in a garden that adjoins a wood,
+and his quaint voice may be heard there as in his own solitary haunts.
+The Cat-Bird is not an inveterate singer, and never seems to make music
+his employment, though at any hour of the day, from dawn until dusk in
+the evening, he may be heard occasionally singing and complaining.</p>
+
+<p>Though I have been all my life familiar with the notes and manners of
+the Cat-Bird, I have not yet been able to discover that he is a mocker.
+He seems to me to have a definite song, unlike that of any other bird,
+except the Red Mavis,&mdash;not made up of parts of the songs of other birds,
+but as unique and original as that of the Song-Sparrow or the Robin. In
+the songs of all birds we may detect occasional strains that resemble
+parts of the song of some other species; but the Cat-Bird gives no more
+of these imitations than we might reasonably regard as accidental. The
+modulation of his song is somewhat similar to that of the Red Thrush,
+and it is sometimes difficult to determine, at first, when the bird is
+out of sight, whether we are listening to the one or the other; but
+after a few seconds, we detect one of those quaint turns that
+distinguish the notes of the Cat-Bird. I never yet mistook the note of
+the Cat-Bird for that of any species except the Red Thrush. The truth
+is, that the Thrushes, though delightful songsters, possess inferior
+powers of execution, and cannot equal the Finches in their capacity of
+learning and performing the notes of other birds. Even the Mocking-Bird,
+as compared with many other species, is a very imperfect imitator of any
+notes which are difficult of execution.</p>
+
+<p>The mewing note of the Cat-Bird, from which his name is derived, has
+been the occasion of many misfortunes to his species, causing them to
+share a portion of that contempt which almost every human being feels
+towards the feline race, and that contempt has been followed by
+persecution. The Cat-Bird has always been proscribed by the New England
+farmers, who from the first settlement of the country have entertained a
+prejudice against many of the most useful birds. The Robin and a few
+diminutive Fly-Catchers are almost the only exceptions. But the Robin is
+now in danger of proscription. Within a few years past, the
+horticulturists, who are unwilling lo lose their cherries for the
+general benefit of agriculture, have made an effort to obtain an edict
+of outlawry against him, accusing him of being entirely useless to the
+farmer and the gardener. Their efforts have caused the friends of the
+Robin to examine his claims to protection, and the result of their
+investigations is demonstrative proof that the Robin is among the most
+useful birds in existence. The Cat-Bird and other Thrushes are similar
+in their habits of feeding and in their services to agriculture.</p>
+
+<p>The Red Mavis (<i>Turdus rufus</i>) has many habits similar to those of the
+Cat-Bird, but he is not partial to low grounds. He is one of the most
+remarkable of the American birds, and is generally considered the finest
+songster in the New England forest. Nuttall says, "He is inferior only
+to the Mocking-Bird in musical talent";<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_870" id="Page_870">[Pg 870]</a></span> but I should question his
+inferiority. He is superior to the Mocking-Bird in variety, and is
+surpassed by him only in the intonation of some of his notes. But no
+person is ever tired of listening to the Red Mavis, who constantly
+varies his song, while the Mocking-Bird tires us with his repetitions,
+which are often continued to a ludicrous extreme.</p>
+
+<p>It is unfortunate that our ornithologists should, in any cases, have
+adopted the disagreeable names which our singularly unpoetical
+countrymen have given to the birds. The little Hair-Bird, for example,
+is called the "Chipping-Sparrow," as if he were in the habit of making
+chips, like the Carpenter-Bird; and the Red Thrush is called the
+"Thrasher," which is a low corruption of Thrush, and would signify that
+the bird had some peculiar habit of <i>threshing</i> with his wings. The word
+"chipping," when used for "chirping," is incorrect English; and
+"thrasher" is incorrect in point of fact. No such names should find
+sanction in books. Let us repudiate the name of "Thrasher" for the Red
+Thrush, as we would repudiate any other solecism.</p>
+
+<p>The Red Mavis, or Thrush, is most musical in the early part of the
+season, when he first arrives, or in the month of May; the Veery is most
+vocal in June, and the Wood-Thrush in July; the Cat-Bird begins early
+and sings late, and fills out with his quaint notes the remainder of the
+singing season, after the others have become silent. When one is in a
+thoughtful mood, the songs of the Wood-Thrush and the Veery surpass all
+others on their delightful influence; and when I am strolling in the
+solitary pastures, it seems to me that nothing can exceed the simple
+melody of the Wood-Sparrow. But without claiming for the Red Thrush any
+remarkable power of exciting poetic inspiration, his song in the open
+field has a charm for all ears, and can be appreciated by the dullest of
+minds. Without singing badly, he pleases the millions. He sings
+occasionally at all hours of the day, and, when employed in singing,
+devotes himself entirely to song, with evident enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult, either by word or by note, to give one who has
+never heard the song of the Red Thrush a correct idea of it. This bird
+is not a rapid singer. His performances seem to be a sort of
+<i>recitative</i>, often resembling spoken words, rather than musical notes,
+many of which are short and guttural. He seldom whistles clearly, like
+the Robin, but he produces a charming variety of tone and modulation.
+Thoreau, in one of his quaint descriptions, gives an off-hand sketch of
+the bird, which I will quote:&mdash;"Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of
+a birch, sings the Brown Thrasher, or Red Mavis, as some love to call
+him,&mdash;all the morning glad of your society, that would find out another
+farmer's field, if yours were not here. While you are planting the seed,
+he cries,&mdash;'Drop it, drop it,&mdash;cover it up, cover it up,&mdash;pull it up,
+pull it up, pull it up.'"</p>
+
+<p>We have now left the forest and are approaching the cultivated grounds,
+under the shade of those fully expanded trees which have grown without
+restraint in the open field. Here as well as in the wood we find the
+Pewee, or Phoebe. (<i>Muscicapa nunciola</i>,) one of our most common and
+interesting birds. He seems to court solitude, and his peculiar note
+harmonizes well with his obscure and shady retreats. He sits for the
+most part in the shade, catching his feast of insects without any noise,
+merely flitting from his perch, seizing his prey, and then resuming his
+station. This movement is performed in the most graceful manner, and he
+often turns a somerset, or appears to do so, if the insect at first
+evades his pursuit,&mdash;and he seldom fails in capturing it. All this is
+done in silence, for he is no singer. The only sounds he utters are an
+occasional clicking cherup, and now and then, with a plaintive cadence,
+he seems to speak the word <i>pewee</i>. As the male and female bird cannot
+be readily distinguished, I have not been able to determine whether this
+sound is uttered by both sexes, or by the male alone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_871" id="Page_871">[Pg 871]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So plainly expressive of sadness is this peculiar note, that it is
+difficult to believe that the little being that utters it can be free
+from sorrow. Certainly he can have no congeniality of feeling with the
+sprightly Bobolink. Perhaps, with the rest of his species, he represents
+only the fragment of a superior race, which, according to the
+metempsychosis, have fallen from their original importance, and this
+melancholy note is but the partial utterance of sorrow that still
+lingers in their breasts after the occasion of it is forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Though a shy and retiring bird, the Pewee is known to almost every
+person, on account of its remarkable note. Like the swallow, he builds
+his nest under a sheltering roof or rock, and it is often fixed upon a
+beam or plank under a bridge that crosses a small stream. Near this
+place he takes his station, on the branch of a tree or the top of a
+fence, and sits patiently waiting for every moth, chafer, or butterfly
+that passes along. Fortunately, there are no prejudices existing in the
+community against this bird that provoke men to destroy him. As he is
+known to feed entirely on insects, he cannot be suspected of doing
+mischief on the farm or in the garden, and is considered worthy of
+protection.</p>
+
+<p>I would remark in this place, that the Fly-Catchers and Swallows, and a
+few other species that enjoy an immunity in our land, would, though
+multiplied to infinity, perform only those offices which are assigned
+them by Nature. It is a vain hope that leads one to believe, while he is
+engaged in exterminating a certain species of small birds, that their
+places can be supplied and their services performed by other species
+which are allowed to multiply to excess. The preservation of every
+species of indigenous birds is the only means that can prevent the
+over-multiplication of injurious insects.</p>
+
+<p>As we return homeward, we soon find ourselves surrounded by the familiar
+birds that shun the forest and assemble around the habitations of men.
+Among them the Blue-Bird meets our sight, upon the roofs and fences as
+well as in the field and orchard. At the risk of introducing him into a
+company to which he does not strictly belong, I will attempt in this
+place to describe some of his habits. The Blue-Bird (<i>Sylvia sialis</i>)
+arrives very early in spring, and is detained late in the autumn by his
+habit of raising two or more broods of young in the season. He is said
+to bear a strong resemblance to the English Robin-Redbreast, being
+similar in form and size, each having a red breast and short
+tail-feathers, with only this manifest difference, that one is
+olive-colored above where the other is blue. But the Blue-Bird does not
+equal the Redbreast as a songster. His notes are few, not greatly
+varied, though melodious and sweetly and plaintively modulated, and
+never loud. On account of their want of variety, they do not enchain a
+listener, but they constitute a delightful part in the woodland melodies
+of morn.</p>
+
+<p>The importance of the inferior singers in making up a general chorus is
+not always appreciated. In an artificial musical composition, as in an
+oratorio or an anthem, though there is a leading part, which is commonly
+the air, that gives character to the whole, yet this principal part
+would often be a very indifferent piece of melody, if performed without
+its accompaniments. These accompaniments by themselves would seem still
+more unimportant and trifling. Yet if the composition be the work of a
+master, however trifling and comparatively insignificant these brief
+strains or snatches, they are intimately connected with the harmony of
+the piece, and could not be omitted without a serious derangement of the
+grand effect. The inferior singing-birds, on the same principle, are
+indispensable as aids in giving additional effect to the notes of the
+chief singers.</p>
+
+<p>Though the Robin is the principal musician in the general orison of
+dawn, his notes would become tiresome, if heard without accompaniments.
+Nature has so arranged the harmony of this chorus, that one part shall
+assist another; and so exquisitely has she combined all the different<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_872" id="Page_872">[Pg 872]</a></span>
+voices, that the silence of any one can never fail to be immediately
+perceived. The low, mellow warble of the Blue-Bird seems a sort of echo
+to the louder voice of the Robin; and the incessant trilling or running
+accompaniment of the Hair-Bird, the twittering of the Swallow, and the
+loud and melodious piping of the Oriole, frequent and short, are sounded
+like the different parts of a regular band of instruments, and each
+performer seems to time his part as if by design. Any discordant sound,
+that may happen to be made in the midst of this performance, never fails
+to disturb the equanimity of the singers, and some minutes must elapse
+before they recommence their parts.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to draw a correct comparison between the different
+birds and the various instruments in an orchestra. It would be more easy
+to signify them by notes on the gamut. But if the Robin were supposed to
+represent the German flute, the Blue-Bird might be considered as the
+flageolet, frequently, but not incessantly, interposing a few mellow
+strains, the Swallow and the Hair-Bird the octave flute, and the Golden
+Robin the bugle, sounding occasionally a low but brief strain. The
+analogy could not be carried farther without losing force and
+correctness.</p>
+
+<p>All the notes of the Blue-Bird&mdash;his call-notes, his notes of alarm, his
+chirp, and his song&mdash;are equally plaintive, and closely resemble each
+other. I am not aware that this bird ever utters a harsh note. His
+voice, which is one of the earliest to be heard in the spring, is
+associated with the early flowers and with all pleasant vernal
+influences. When he first arrives, he perches upon the roof of a barn or
+upon some still leafless tree, and pours forth his few and frequent
+notes with evident fervor, as if conscious of the delights that await
+him. These mellow notes are all the sounds he titters for several weeks,
+seldom chirping, crying, or scolding like other birds. His song is
+discontinued in the latter part of summer; but his peculiar plaintive
+call, consisting of a single note pensively modulated, continues all
+day, until the time of frost. This sound is one of the melodies of
+summer's decline, and reminds us, like the notes of the green nocturnal
+grasshopper, of the fall of the leaf, the ripened harvest, and all the
+melancholy pleasures of autumn.</p>
+
+<p>The Blue-Bird builds his nest in hollow trees and posts, and may be
+encouraged to breed and multiply around our habitations, by erecting
+boxes for his accommodation. In whatever vicinity we may reside, whether
+in the clearing or in the heart of the village, if we set up a little
+bird-house in May, it will certainly be occupied by a Blue-Bird, unless
+preoccupied by a bird of some other species. There is commonly so great
+a demand for such accommodations among the feathered tribes, that it is
+not unusual to see birds of several different species contending for the
+possession of one box.</p>
+
+<p>After the middle of August, as a new race of winged creatures awake into
+life, the birds, who sing of the seed-time, the flowers, and of the
+early summer harvests, give place to the inferior band of
+insect-musicians. The reed and the pipe are laid aside, and myriads of
+little performers have taken up the harp and the lute, and make the air
+resound with the clash and din of their various instruments. An anthem
+of rejoicing swells up from myriads of unseen harpists, who heed not the
+fate that awaits them, but make themselves merry in every place that is
+visited by sunshine or the south-wind. The golden-rod sways its
+beautiful nodding plumes in the borders of the fields and by the rustic
+roadsides; the purple gerardia is bright in the wet meadows, and the
+scarlet lobelia in the channels of the sunken streamlets. But the birds
+heed them not; for these are not the wreaths that decorate the halls of
+their festivities. Since the rose and the lily have faded, they have
+ceased to be tuneful; some, like the Bobolink, assemble in small
+companies, and with a melancholy chirp seem to mourn over some sad
+accident that has befallen them;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_873" id="Page_873">[Pg 873]</a></span> others still congregate about their
+usual resorts, and seem almost like strangers in the land.</p>
+
+<p>Nature provides inspiration for every sentiment that contributes to the
+happiness of man, as she provides sustenance for his various physical
+wants. But all is not gladness that elevates the soul into bliss; we may
+be made happy by sentiments that come not from rejoicing, even from
+objects that waken tender recollections of sorrow. As if Nature designed
+that the soul of man should find sympathy, in all its healthful moods,
+from the voices of her creatures, and from the sounds of inanimate
+objects, she has provided that all seasons should pour into his ear some
+pleasant intimations of heaven. In autumn, when the harvest-hymn of the
+day-time has ceased, at early nightfall, the green nocturnal
+grasshoppers commence their autumnal dirge, and fill the mind with a
+keen sense of the rapid passing of time. These sounds do not sadden the
+mind, but deepen the tone of our feelings, and prepare us for a renewal
+of cheerfulness, by inspiring us with the poetic sentiment of
+melancholy. This sombre state of the mind soon passes away, effaced by
+the exhilarating influence of the clear skies and invigorating breezes
+of autumn, and the inspiriting sounds of myriads of chirping insects
+that awake with the morning and make all the meadows resound with the
+shout of their merry voices.</p>
+
+
+<h3>SONG OF THE WOOD-SPARROW.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/woodsparrow.jpg" width="600" height="285" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.&mdash;In the early part of the season the song ends with the first
+double bar; later in the season it is extended, in frequent instances,
+as in the notes that follow.</p>
+
+<h3>SONG OF THE CHEWINK.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/chewink.jpg" width="600" height="78" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>SONG OF THE GREEN WARBLER.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/warbler.jpg" width="600" height="97" alt="" title="" />
+</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_874" id="Page_874">[Pg 874]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>SONG OF THE WOOD-THRUSH.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/woodthrush.jpg" width="600" height="573" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.&mdash;I have not been able to detect any order in the succession of
+these strains, though some order undoubtedly exists, and might be
+discovered by long-continued observation. The intervals in the above
+sketch cannot be given with exactness.</p>
+
+
+<h3>SONG OF THE VEERY.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/veery.jpg" width="600" height="208" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.&mdash;I am far from being satisfied with the above representation of
+the song of the Veery, in which there are certain trilling and liquid
+sounds that hardly admit of notation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_875" id="Page_875">[Pg 875]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>SONG OF THE RED MAVIS.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/mavis.jpg" width="600" height="436" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.&mdash;The Red Mavis makes a short pause at the end of each bar. These
+pauses are irregular in time, and cannot be correctly noted.</p>
+
+
+<h3>NOTE OF THE PEWEE.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/pewee.jpg" width="400" height="99" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>SONG OF THE BLUE-BIRD.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 599px;">
+<img src="images/bluebird.jpg" width="599" height="159" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_876" id="Page_876">[Pg 876]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_MINISTERS_WOOING" id="THE_MINISTERS_WOOING"></a>THE MINISTER'S WOOING.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p>Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited Mrs. Brown, and Mrs. Jones, and Deacon
+Twitchel's wife to take tea with her on the afternoon of June second,
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 17&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>When one has a story to tell, one is always puzzled which end of it to
+begin at. You have a whole corps of people to introduce that <i>you</i> know
+and your reader doesn't; and one thing so presupposes another, that,
+whichever way you turn your patchwork, the figures still seem
+ill-arranged. The small item that I have given will do as well as any
+other to begin with, as it certainly will lead you to ask, "Pray, who
+was Mrs. Katy Scudder?"&mdash;and this will start me systematically on my
+story.</p>
+
+<p>You must understand that in the then small seaport-town of Newport, at
+that time unconscious of its present fashion and fame, there lived
+nobody in those days who did not know "the Widow Scudder."</p>
+
+<p>In New England settlements a custom has obtained, which is wholesome and
+touching, of ennobling the woman whom God has made desolate, by a sort
+of brevet rank which continually speaks for her as a claim on the
+respect and consideration of the community. The Widow Jones, or Brown,
+or Smith, is one of the fixed institutions of every New England
+village,&mdash;and doubtless the designation acts as a continual plea for one
+whom bereavement, like the lightning of heaven, has made sacred.</p>
+
+<p>The Widow Scudder, however, was one of the sort of women who reign
+queens in whatever society they move in; nobody was more quoted, more
+deferred to, or enjoyed more unquestioned position than she. She was not
+rich,&mdash;a small farm, with a modest, "gambrel-roofed," one-story cottage,
+was her sole domain; but she was one of the much-admired class who, in
+the speech of New England, are said to have "faculty,"&mdash;a gift which,
+among that shrewd people, commands more esteem than beauty, riches,
+learning, or any otherworldly endowment. <i>Faculty</i> is Yankee for <i>savoir
+faire</i>, and the opposite virtue to shiftlessness. Faculty is the
+greatest virtue, and shiftlessness the greatest vice, of Yankee man and
+woman. To her who has faculty nothing shall be impossible. She shall
+scrub floors, wash, wring, bake, brew, and yet her hands shall be small
+and white; she shall have no perceptible income, yet always be
+handsomely dressed; she shall have not a servant in her house,&mdash;with a
+dairy to manage, hired men to feed, a boarder or two to care for,
+unheard-of pickling and preserving to do,&mdash;and yet you commonly see her
+every afternoon sitting at her shady parlor-window behind the lilacs,
+cool and easy, hemming muslin cap-strings, or reading the last new book.
+She who hath faculty is never in a hurry, never behindhand. She can
+always step over to distressed Mrs. Smith, whose jelly won't come,&mdash;and
+stop to show Mrs. Jones how she makes her pickles so green,&mdash;and be
+ready to watch with poor old Mrs. Simpkins, who is down with the
+rheumatism.</p>
+
+<p>Of this genus was the Widow Scudder,&mdash;or, as the neighbors would have
+said of her, she that <i>was</i> Katy Stephens. Katy was the only daughter of
+a shipmaster, sailing from Newport harbor, who was wrecked off the coast
+one cold December night and left small fortune to his widow and only
+child. Katy grew up, however, a tall, straight, black-eyed girl, with
+eyebrows drawn true as a bow, a foot arched like a Spanish woman's, and
+a little hand which never saw the thing it could not do,&mdash;quick of
+speech, ready of wit, and, as such girls have a right to be, somewhat
+positive withal. Katy could harness a chaise, or row a boat; she could
+saddle and ride any horse in the neighborhood; she could cut any garment
+that ever was seen or thought of; make cake,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_877" id="Page_877">[Pg 877]</a></span> jelly, and wine, from her
+earliest years, in most precocious style;&mdash;all without seeming to
+derange a sort of trim, well-kept air of ladyhood that sat jauntily on
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, being young and lively, she had her admirers, and some
+well-to-do in worldly affairs laid their lands and houses at Katy's
+feet; but, to the wonder of all, she would not even pick them up to look
+at them. People shook their heads, and wondered whom Katy Stephens
+expected to get, and talked about going through the wood to pick up a
+crooked stick,&mdash;till one day she astonished her world by marrying a man
+that nobody ever thought of her taking.</p>
+
+<p>George Scudder was a grave, thoughtful young man,&mdash;not given to talking,
+and silent in the society of women, with that kind of reverential
+bashfulness which sometimes shows a pure, unworldly nature. How Katy
+came to fancy him everybody wondered,&mdash;for he never talked to her, never
+so much as picked up her glove when it fell, never asked her to ride or
+sail; in short, everybody said she must have wanted him from sheer
+wilfulness, because he of all the young men of the neighborhood never
+courted her. But Katy, having very sharp eyes, saw some things that
+nobody else saw. For example, you must know she discovered by mere
+accident that George Scudder always was looking at her, wherever she
+moved, though he looked away in a moment, if discovered,&mdash;and that an
+accidental touch of her hand or brush of her dress would send the blood
+into his cheek like the spirit in the tube of a thermometer; and so, as
+women are curious, you know, Katy amused herself with investigating the
+causes of these little phenomena, and, before she knew it, got her foot
+caught in a cobweb that held her fast, and constrained her, whether she
+would or no, to marry a poor man that nobody cared much for but herself.</p>
+
+<p>George was, in truth, one of the sort who evidently have made some
+mistake in coming into this world at all, as their internal furniture is
+in no way suited to its general courses and currents. He was of the
+order of dumb poets,&mdash;most wretched when put to the grind of the hard
+and actual; for if he who would utter poetry stretches out his hand to a
+gainsaying world, he is worse off still who is possessed with the desire
+of living it. Especially is this the case, if he be born poor, and with
+a dire necessity upon him of making immediate efforts in the hard and
+actual. George had a helpless invalid mother to support; so, though he
+loved reading and silent thought above all things, he put to instant use
+the only convertible worldly talent he possessed, which was a mechanical
+genius, and shipped at sixteen as a ship-carpenter. He studied
+navigation in the forecastle, and found in its calm diagrams and
+tranquil eternal signs food for his thoughtful nature, and a refuge from
+the brutality and coarseness of sea-life. He had a healthful, kindly
+animal nature, and so his inwardness did not ferment and turn to Byronic
+sourness and bitterness; nor did he needlessly parade to everybody in
+his vicinity the great gulf which lay between him and them. He was
+called a good fellow,&mdash;only a little lumpish,&mdash;and as he was brave and
+faithful, he rose in time to be a shipmaster. But when came the business
+of making money, the aptitude for accumulating, George found himself
+distanced by many a one with not half his general powers.</p>
+
+<p>What shall a man do with a sublime tier of moral faculties, when the
+most profitable business out of his port is the slave-trade? So it was
+in Newport in those days. George's first voyage was on a slaver, and he
+wished himself dead many a time before it was over,&mdash;and ever after
+would talk like a man beside himself, if the subject was named. He
+declared that the gold made in it was distilled from human blood, from
+mothers' tears, from the agonies and dying groans of gasping,
+suffocating men and women, and that it would scar and blister the soul
+of him that touched it; in short, he talked as whole-souled unpractical
+fellows are apt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_878" id="Page_878">[Pg 878]</a></span> to talk about what respectable people sometimes do.
+Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of
+expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which
+closely-packed heathens are brought over to enjoy the light of the
+gospel.</p>
+
+<p>So, though George was acknowledged to be a good fellow, and honest as
+the noon-mark on the kitchen floor, he let slip so many chances of
+making money as seriously to compromise his reputation among thriving
+folks. He was wastefully generous,&mdash;insisted on treating every poor dog
+that came in his way, in any foreign port, as a brother,&mdash;absolutely
+refused to be party in cheating or deceiving the heathen on any shore,
+or in skin of any color,&mdash;and also took pains, as far as in him lay, to
+spoil any bargains which any of his subordinates founded on the
+ignorance or weakness of his fellow-men. So he made voyage after voyage,
+and gained only his wages and the reputation among his employers of an
+incorruptibly honest fellow.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure, it was said that he carried out books in his ship, and read
+and studied, and wrote observations on all the countries he saw, which
+Parson Smith told Miss Dolly Persimmon would really do credit to a
+printed book; but then they never <i>were</i> printed, or, as Miss Dolly
+remarked of them, they never seemed to come to anything,&mdash;and coming to
+anything, as she understood it, meant standing in definite relations to
+bread and butter.</p>
+
+<p>George never cared, however, for money. He made enough to keep his
+mother comfortable, and that was enough for him, till he fell in love
+with Katy Stephens. He looked at her through those glasses which such
+men carry in their souls, and she was a mortal woman no longer, but a
+transfigured, glorified creature,&mdash;an object of awe and wonder. He was
+actually afraid of her; her glove, her shoe, her needle, thread, and
+thimble, her bonnet-string, everything, in short, she wore or touched,
+became invested with a mysterious charm. He wondered at the impudence of
+men that could walk up and talk to her,&mdash;that could ask her to dance
+with such an assured air. <i>Now</i> he wished he were rich; he dreamed
+impossible chances of his coming home a millionnaire to lay unknown
+wealth at Katy's feet; and when Miss Persimmon, the ambulatory
+dress-maker of the neighborhood, in making up a new black gown for his
+mother, recounted how Captain Blatherem had sent Katy Stephens "'most
+the splendidest India shawl that ever she did see," he was ready to tear
+his hair at the thought of his poverty. But even in that hour of
+temptation he did not repent that he had refused all part and lot in the
+ship by which Captain Blatherem's money was made, for he knew every
+timber of it to be seasoned by the groans and saturated with the sweat
+of human agony. True love is a natural sacrament; and if ever a young
+man thanks God for having saved what is noble and manly in his soul, it
+is when he thinks of offering it to the woman he loves. Nevertheless,
+the India-shawl story cost him a night's rest; nor was it till Miss
+Persimmon had ascertained, by a private confabulation with Katy's
+mother, that she had indignantly rejected it, and that she treated the
+Captain "real ridiculous," that he began to take heart. "He ought not,"
+he said, "to stand in her way now, when he had nothing to offer. No, he
+would leave Katy free to do better, if she could; he would try his luck,
+and if, when he came home from the next voyage, Katy was disengaged,
+why, then he would lay all at her feet."</p>
+
+<p>And so George was going to sea with a secret shrine in his soul, at
+which he was to burn unsuspected incense.</p>
+
+<p>But, after all, the mortal maiden whom he adored suspected this private
+arrangement, and contrived&mdash;as women will&mdash;to get her own key into the
+lock of his secret temple; because, as girls say, "she was <i>determined</i>
+to know what was there." So, one night, she met him quite accidentally
+on the sea-sands, struck up a little conversation, and begged him in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_879" id="Page_879">[Pg 879]</a></span>
+such a pretty way to bring her a spotted shell from the South Sea like
+the one on his mother's mantel-piece, and looked so simple and childlike
+in saying it, that our young man very imprudently committed himself by
+remarking, that, "When people had rich friends to bring them all the
+world from foreign parts, he never dreamed of her wanting so trivial a
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>Of course Katy "didn't know what he meant,&mdash;she hadn't heard of any rich
+friends." And then came something about Captain Blatherem; and Katy
+tossed her head, and said, "If anybody wanted to insult her, they might
+talk to her about Captain Blatherem,"&mdash;and then followed this, that, and
+the other till finally, as you might expect, out came all that never was
+to have been said; and Katy was almost frightened at the terrible
+earnestness of the spirit she had evoked. She tried to laugh, and ended
+by crying, and saying she hardly knew what; but when she came to herself
+in her own room at home, she found on her finger a ring of African gold
+that George had put there, which she did not send back like Captain
+Blatherem's presents.</p>
+
+<p>Katy was like many intensely matter-of-fact and practical women, who
+have not in themselves a bit of poetry or a particle of ideality, but
+who yet worship these qualities in others with the homage which the
+Indians paid to the unknown tongue of the first whites. They are
+secretly weary of a certain conscious dryness of nature in themselves,
+and this weariness predisposes them to idolize the man who brings them
+this unknown gift. Naturalists say that every defect of organization has
+its compensation, and men of ideal natures find in the favor of women
+the equivalent for their disabilities among men.</p>
+
+<p>Do you remember, at Niagara, a little cataract on the American side,
+which throws its silver sheeny veil over a cave called the Grot of
+Rainbows? Whoever stands on a rock in that grotto sees himself in the
+centre of a rainbow-circle, above, below, around. In like manner, merry,
+chatty, positive, busy, housewifely Katy saw herself standing in a
+rainbow-shrine in her lover's inner soul, and liked to see herself so. A
+woman, by-the-by, must be very insensible, who is not moved to come upon
+a higher plane of being, herself, by seeing how undoubtingly she is
+insphered in the heart of a good and noble man. A good man's, faith in
+you, fair lady, if you ever have it, will make you better and nobler
+even before you know it.</p>
+
+<p>Katy made an excellent wife; she took home her husband's old mother and
+nursed her with a dutifulness and energy worthy of all praise, and made
+her own keen outward faculties and deft handiness a compensation for the
+defects in worldly estate. Nothing would make Katy's black eyes flash
+quicker than any reflections on her husband's want of luck in the
+material line. "She didn't know whose business it was, if <i>she</i> was
+satisfied. She hated these sharp, gimlet, gouging sort of men that would
+put a screw between body and soul for money. George had that in him that
+nobody understood. She would rather be his wife on bread and water than
+to take Captain Blatherem's house, carriages, and horse, and all,&mdash;and
+she <i>might</i> have had 'em fast enough, dear knows. She was sick of making
+money when she saw what sort of men could make it,"&mdash;and so on. All
+which talk did her infinite credit, because <i>at bottom</i> she <i>did</i> care,
+and was naturally as proud and ambitious a little minx as ever breathed,
+and was thoroughly grieved at heart at George's want of worldly success;
+but, like a nice little Robin Redbreast, she covered up the grave of her
+worldliness with the leaves of true love, and sung a "Who cares for
+that?" above it.</p>
+
+<p>Her thrifty management of the money her husband brought her soon bought
+a snug little farm, and put up the little brown gambrel-roofed cottage
+to which we directed your attention in the first of our story. Children
+were born to them, and George found, in short intervals between voyages,
+his home an earthly paradise. Ho was still sailing, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_880" id="Page_880">[Pg 880]</a></span> the fond
+illusion, in every voyage, of making enough to remain at home,&mdash;when the
+yellow fever smote him under the line, and the ship returned to Newport
+without its captain.</p>
+
+<p>George was a Christian man;&mdash;he had been one of the first to attach
+himself to the unpopular and unworldly ministry of the celebrated Dr.
+H., and to appreciate the sublime ideality and unselfishness of those
+teachings which then were awakening new sensations in the theological
+mind of New England. Katy, too, had become a professor with her husband
+in the same church, and his death, in the midst of life, deepened the
+power of her religious impressions. She became absorbed in religion,
+after the fashion of New England, where devotion is doctrinal, not
+ritual. As she grew older, her energy of character, her vigor and good
+judgment, caused her to be regarded as a mother in Israel; the minister
+boarded at her house, and it was she who was first to be consulted in
+all matters relating to the well-being of the church. No woman could
+more manfully breast a long sermon, or bring a more determined faith to
+the reception of a difficult doctrine. To say the truth, there lay at
+the bottom of her doctrinal system this stable corner-stone,&mdash;"Mr.
+Scudder used to believe it,&mdash;<i>I</i> will." And after all that is paid about
+independent thought, isn't the fact, that a just and good soul has thus
+or thus believed, a more respectable argument than many that often are
+adduced? If it be not, more's the pity,&mdash;since two-thirds of the faith
+in the world is built on no better foundation.</p>
+
+<p>In time, George's old mother was gathered to her son, and two sons and a
+daughter followed their father to the invisible,&mdash;one only remaining of
+the flock and she a person with whom you and I, good reader, have joint
+concern in the further unfolding of our story.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>As I before remarked, Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited company to tea.
+Strictly speaking, it is necessary to begin with the creation of the
+world, in order to give a full account of anything. But, for popular
+use, something less may serve one's turn, and therefore I shall let the
+past chapter suffice to introduce my story, and shall proceed to arrange
+my scenery and act my little play on the supposition you know enough to
+understand things and persons.</p>
+
+<p>Being asked to tea in our New England in the year 17&mdash; meant something
+very different from the same invitation in our more sophisticated days.
+In those times, people held to the singular opinion, that the night was
+made to sleep in; they inferred it from a general confidence they had in
+the wisdom of Mother Nature, supposing that she did not put out her
+lights and draw her bed-curtains and hush all noise in her great
+world-house without strongly intending that her children should go to
+sleep; and the consequence was, that very soon after sunset the whole
+community very generally set their faces bedward, and the toll of the
+nine-o'clock evening-bell had an awful solemnity in it, sounding to the
+full. Good society in New England in those days very generally took its
+breakfast at six, its dinner at twelve, and its tea, at six. "Company
+tea," however, among thrifty, industrious folk, was often taken an hour
+earlier, because each of the <i>invit&eacute;es</i> had children to put to bed, or
+other domestic cares at home, and, as in those simple times people were
+invited because you wanted to see them, a tea-party assembled themselves
+at three and held session till sundown, when each matron rolled up her
+knitting-work and wended soberly home.</p>
+
+<p>Though Newport, even in those early times, was not without its families
+which affected state and splendor, rolled about in carriages with
+armorial emblazonments, and had servants in abundance to every turn
+within-doors, yet there, as elsewhere in New England, the majority of
+the people lived with the wholesome, thrifty simplicity of the olden
+time, when labor and intelligence went hand in hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_881" id="Page_881">[Pg 881]</a></span> in perhaps a
+greater harmony than the world has ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>Our scene opens in the great old-fashioned kitchen, which, on ordinary
+occasions, is the family dining and sitting-room of the Scudder family.
+I know fastidious moderns think that the working-room, wherein are
+carried on the culinary operations of a large family, must necessarily
+be an untidy and comfortless sitting-place; but it is only because they
+are ignorant of the marvellous workings which pertain to the organ of
+"faculty," on which we have before insisted. The kitchen of a New
+England matron was her throne-room, her pride; it was the habit of her
+life to produce the greatest possible results there with the slightest
+possible discomposure; and what any woman could do, Mrs. Katy Scudder
+could do <i>par excellence</i>. Everything there seemed to be always done and
+never doing. Washing and baking, those formidable disturbers of the
+composure of families, were all over with in those two or three
+morning-hours when we are composing ourselves for a last nap,&mdash;and only
+the fluttering of linen over the green yard, on Monday mornings,
+proclaimed that the dreaded solemnity of a wash had transpired. A
+breakfast arose there as by magic; and in an incredibly short space
+after, every knife, fork, spoon, and trencher, clean and shining, was
+looking as innocent and unconscious in its place as if it never had been
+used and never expected to be.</p>
+
+<p>The floor,&mdash;perhaps, Sir, you remember your grandmother's floor, of
+snowy boards sanded with whitest sand; you remember the ancient
+fireplace stretching quite across one end,&mdash;a vast cavern, in each
+corner of which a cozy seat might be found, distant enough to enjoy the
+crackle of the great jolly wood-fire; across the room ran a dresser, on
+which was displayed great store of shining pewter dishes and plates,
+which always shone with the same mysterious brightness; and by the side
+of the fire, a commodious wooden "settee," or settle, offered repose to
+people too little accustomed to luxury to ask for a cushion. Oh, that
+kitchen of the olden times, the old, clean, roomy New England
+kitchen!&mdash;who that has breakfasted, dined, and supped in one has not
+cheery visions of its thrift, its warmth, its coolness? The noon-mark on
+its floor was a dial that told of some of the happiest days; thereby did
+we right up the shortcomings of the solemn old clock that tick-tacked in
+the corner, and whose ticks seemed mysterious prophecies of unknown good
+yet to arise out of the hours of life. How dreamy the winter twilight
+came in there,&mdash;as yet the candles were not lighted,&mdash;when the crickets
+chirped around the dark stone hearth, and shifting tongues of flame
+flickered and cast dancing shadows and elfish lights on the walls, while
+grandmother nodded over her knitting-work, and puss purred, and old
+Rover lay dreamily opening now one eye and then the other on the family
+group! With all our ceiled houses, let us not forget our grandmothers'
+kitchens!</p>
+
+<p>But we must pull up, however, and back to our subject-matter, which is
+in the kitchen of Mrs. Katy Scudder, who has just put into the oven, by
+the fireplace, some wondrous tea-rusks, for whose composition she is
+renowned. She has examined and pronounced perfect a loaf of cake, which
+has been prepared for the occasion, and which, as usual, is done exactly
+right. The best room, too, has been opened and aired,&mdash;the white
+window-curtains saluted with a friendly little shake, as when one says,
+"How d'ye do?" to a friend;&mdash;for you must know, clean as our kitchen is,
+we are genteel, and have something better for company. Our best room in
+here has a polished little mahogany tea-table, and six mahogany chairs,
+with claw talons grasping balls; the white sanded floor is crinkled in
+curious little waves, like those on the sea-beach; and right across the
+corner stands the "buffet," as it is called, with its transparent glass
+doors, wherein are displayed the solemn appurtenances of company
+tea-table. There you may see a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_882" id="Page_882">[Pg 882]</a></span> set of real China teacups, which George
+bought in Canton, and had marked with his and his wife's joint
+initials,&mdash;a small silver cream-pitcher, which has come down as an
+heirloom from unknown generations,&mdash;silver spoons and delicate China
+cake-plates, which have been all carefully reviewed and wiped on napkins
+of Mrs. Scudder's own weaving.</p>
+
+<p>Her cares now over, she stands drying her hands on a roller-towel in the
+kitchen, while her only daughter, the gentle Mary, stands in the doorway
+with the afternoon sun streaming in spots of flickering golden light on
+her smooth pale-brown hair,&mdash;a <i>petite</i> figure in a full stuff petticoat
+and white short gown, she stands reaching up one hand and cooing to
+something among the apple-blossoms,&mdash;and now a Java dove comes whirring
+down and settles on her finger,&mdash;and we, that have seen pictures, think,
+as we look on her girlish face, with its lines of statuesque beauty, on
+the tremulous, half-infantine expression of her lovely mouth, and the
+general air of simplicity and purity, of some old pictures of the
+girlhood of the Virgin. But Mrs. Scudder was thinking of no such Popish
+matter, I can assure you,&mdash;not she! I don't think you could have done
+her a greater indignity than to mention her daughter in any such
+connection. She had never seen a painting in her life, and therefore was
+not to be reminded of them; and furthermore, the dove was evidently, for
+some reason, no favorite,&mdash;for she said, in a quick, imperative tone,
+"Come, come, child! don't fool with that bird,&mdash;it's high time we were
+dressed and ready,"&mdash;and Mary, blushing, as it would seem, even to her
+hair, gave a little toss, and sent the bird, like a silver fluttering
+cloud, up among the rosy apple-blossoms. And now she and her mother have
+gone to their respective little bedrooms for the adjustment of their
+toilettes, and while the door is shut and nobody hears us, we shall talk
+to you about Mary.</p>
+
+<p>Newport at the present day blooms like a flower-garden with young ladies
+of the best <i>ton</i>,&mdash;lovely girls, hopes of their families, possessed of
+amiable tempers and immensely large trunks, and capable of sporting
+ninety changes of raiment in thirty days and otherwise rapidly emptying
+the purses of distressed fathers, and whom yet travellers and the world
+in general look upon as genuine specimens of the kind of girls formed by
+American institutions.</p>
+
+<p>We fancy such a one lying in a rustling silk <i>n&eacute;glig&eacute;e</i>, and, amid a
+gentle generality of rings, ribbons, puffs, laces, beaux, and
+dinner-discussion, reading our humble sketch;&mdash;and what favor shall our
+poor heroine find in her eyes? For though her mother was a world of
+energy and "faculty," in herself considered, and had bestowed on this
+one little lone chick all the vigor and all the care and all the
+training which would have sufficed for a family of sixteen, there were
+no results produced which could be made appreciable in the eyes of such
+company. She could not waltz or polk, or speak bad French or sing
+Italian songs; but, nevertheless, we must proceed to say what was her
+education and what her accomplishments.</p>
+
+<p>Well, then, she could both read and write fluently in the mother-tongue.
+She could spin both on the little and the great wheel, and there were
+numberless towels, napkins, sheets, and pillow-cases in the household
+store that could attest the skill of her pretty fingers. She had worked
+several samplers of such rare merit, that they hung framed in different
+rooms of the house, exhibiting every variety and style of possible
+letter in the best marking-stitch. She was skilful in all sewing and
+embroidery, in all shaping and cutting, with a quiet and deft handiness
+that constantly surprised her energetic mother, who could not conceive
+that so much could be done with so little noise. In fact, in all
+household lore she was a veritable good fairy; her knowledge seemed
+unerring and intuitive; and whether she washed or ironed, or moulded
+biscuit or conserved plums, her gentle beauty seemed to turn to poetry
+all the prose of life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_883" id="Page_883">[Pg 883]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was something in Mary, however, which divided her as by an
+appreciable line from ordinary girls of her age. From her father she had
+inherited a deep and thoughtful nature, predisposed to moral and
+religious exaltation. Had she been born in Italy, under the dissolving
+influences of that sunny, dreamy clime, beneath the shadow of
+cathedrals, and where pictured saints and angels smiled in clouds of
+painting from every arch and altar, she might, like fair St. Catherine
+of Siena, have seen beatific visions in the sunset skies, and a silver
+dove descending upon her as she prayed; but, unfolding in the clear,
+keen, cold New England clime, and nurtured in its abstract and positive
+theologies, her religious faculties took other forms. Instead of lying
+entranced in mysterious raptures at the foot of altars, she read and
+ponder treatises on the Will, and listened in rapt attention while her
+spiritual guide, the venerated Dr. H., unfolded to her the theories of
+the great Edwards on the nature of true virtue. Womanlike, she felt the
+subtile poetry of these sublime abstractions which dealt with such
+infinite and unknown quantities,&mdash;which spoke of the universe, of its
+great Architect, of man, of angels, as matters of intimate and daily
+contemplation; and her teacher, a grand-minded and simple-hearted man as
+ever lived, was often amazed at the tread with which this fair young
+child walked through these high regions of abstract thought,&mdash;often
+comprehending through an ethereal clearness of nature what he had
+laboriously and heavily reasoned out; and sometimes, when she turned her
+grave, childlike face upon him with some question or reply, the good man
+started as if an angel had looked suddenly out upon him from a cloud.
+Unconsciously to himself, he often seemed to follow her, as Dante
+followed the flight of Beatrice, through the ascending circles of the
+celestial spheres.</p>
+
+<p>When her mother questioned him, anxiously, of her daughter's spiritual
+estate, he answered, that she was a child of a strange graciousness of
+nature, and of a singular genius; to which Katy responded, with a
+woman's pride, that she was all her father over again. It is only now
+and then that a matter-of-fact woman is sublimated by a real love; but
+if she is, it is affecting to see how impossible it is for death to
+quench it; for in the child the mother feels that she has a mysterious
+and undying repossession of the father.</p>
+
+<p>But, in truth, Mary was only a recast in feminine form of her father's
+nature. The elixir of the spirit that sparkled within, her was of that
+quality of which the souls of poets and artists are made; but the keen
+New England air crystalizes emotions into ideas, and restricts many a
+poetic soul to the necessity of expressing itself only in practical
+living.</p>
+
+<p>The rigid theological discipline of New England is fitted to produce
+rather strength and purity than enjoyment. It was not fitted to make a
+sensitive and thoughtful nature happy, however it might ennoble and
+exalt.</p>
+
+<p>The system of Dr. H. was one that could have had its origin in a soul at
+once reverential and logical,&mdash;a soul, moreover, trained from its
+earliest years in the habits of thought engendered by monarchical
+institutions. For although he, like other ministers, took an active part
+as a patriot in the Revolution, still he was brought up under the shadow
+of a throne, and a man cannot ravel out the stitches in which early days
+have knit him. His theology was, in fact, the turning to an invisible
+Sovereign of that spirit of loyalty and unquestioning subjugation which
+is one of the noblest capabilities of our nature. And as a gallant
+soldier renounces life and personal aims in the cause of his king and
+country, and holds himself ready to be drafted for a forlorn hope, to be
+shot down, or help make a bridge of his mangled body, over which the
+more fortunate shall pass to victory and glory, so he regarded himself
+as devoted to the King Eternal, ready in His hands to be used to
+illustrate and build up an Eternal Commonwealth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_884" id="Page_884">[Pg 884]</a></span> either by being
+sacrificed as a lost spirit or glorified as a redeemed one, ready to
+throw not merely his mortal life, but his immortality even, into the
+forlorn hope, to bridge with a never-dying soul the chasm over which
+white-robed victors should pass to a commonwealth of glory and splendor
+whose vastness dwarf the misery of all the lost infinitesimal.</p>
+
+<p>It is not in our line to imply the truth or the falsehood of those
+systems of philosophic theology which seem for many years to have been
+the principal outlet for the proclivities of the New England mind, but
+as psychological developments they have an intense interest. He who does
+not see a grand side to these strivings of the soul cannot understand
+one of the noblest capabilities of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>No real artist or philosopher ever lived who has not at some hours risen
+to the height of utter self-abnegation for the glory of the invisible.
+There have been painters who would have been crucified to demonstrate
+the action of a muscle,&mdash;chemists who would gladly have melted
+themselves and all humanity in their crucible, if so a new discovery
+might arise out of its fumes. Even persons of mere artistic sensibility
+are at times raised by music, painting, or poetry to a momentary trance
+of self-oblivion, in which they would offer their whole being before the
+shrine of an invisible loveliness. These hard old New England divines
+were the poets of metaphysical philosophy, who built systems in an
+artistic fervor, and felt self exhale from beneath them as they rose
+into the higher regions of thought. But where theorists and philosophers
+tread with sublime assurance, woman often follows with bleeding
+footsteps;&mdash;women are always turning from the abstract to the
+individual, and feeling where the philosopher only thinks.</p>
+
+<p>It was easy enough for Mary to believe in <i>self</i>-renunciation, for she
+was one with a born vocation for martyrdom; and so, when the idea was
+put to her of suffering eternal pains for the glory of God and the good
+of being in general, she responded to it with a sort of sublime thrill,
+such as it is given to some natures to feel in view of uttermost
+sacrifice. But when she looked around on the warm, living faces of
+friends, acquaintances, and neighbors, viewing them as possible
+candidates for dooms so fearfully different, she sometimes felt the
+walls of her faith closing round her as an iron shroud,&mdash;she wondered
+that the sun could shine so brightly, that flowers could flaunt such
+dazzling colors, that sweet airs could breathe, and little children
+play, and youth love and hope, and a thousand intoxicating influences
+combine to cheat the victims from the thought that their next step might
+be into an abyss of horrors without end. The blood of youth and hope was
+saddened by this great sorrow, which lay ever on her heart,&mdash;and her
+life, unknown to herself, was a sweet tune in the minor key; it was only
+in prayer, or deeds of love and charity, or in rapt contemplation of
+that beautiful millennial day which her spiritual guide most delighted
+to speak of, that the tone of her feelings ever rose to the height of
+joy.</p>
+
+<p>Among Mary's young associates was one who had been as a brother to her
+childhood. He was her mother's cousin's son,&mdash;and so, by a sort of
+family immunity, had always a free access to her mother's house. He took
+to the sea, as the most bold and resolute young men will, and brought
+home from foreign parts those new modes of speech, those other eyes for
+received opinions and established things, which so often shock
+established prejudices,&mdash;so that he was held as little better than an
+infidel and a castaway by the stricter religious circles in his native
+place. Mary's mother, now that Mary was grown up to woman's estate,
+looked with a severe eye on her cousin. She warned her daughter against
+too free an association with him,&mdash;and so&mdash;&mdash;We all know what comes to
+pass when girls are constantly warned not to think of a man. The most
+conscientious and obedient little person in the world, Mary resolved to
+be very careful. She never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_885" id="Page_885">[Pg 885]</a></span> would think of James, except, of course, in
+her prayers; but as these were constant, it may easily be seen it was
+not easy to forget him.</p>
+
+<p>All that was so often told her of his carelessness, his trifling, his
+contempt of orthodox opinions, and his startling and bold expressions,
+only wrote his name deeper in her heart,&mdash;for was not his soul in peril?
+Could she look in his frank, joyous fate and listen to his thoughtless
+laugh, and then think that a fall from mast-head, or one night's storm,
+might&mdash;&mdash;Ah, with what images her faith filled the blank! Could she
+believe all this and forget him?</p>
+
+<p>You see, instead of getting our tea ready, as we promised at the
+beginning of this chapter, we have filled it with descriptions and
+meditations, and now we foresee that the next chapter will be equally
+far from the point. But have patience with us; for we can write only as
+we are driven, and never know exactly where we are going to land.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>A quiet, maiden-like place was Mary's little room. The window looked out
+under the overarching boughs of a thick apple-orchard, now all in a
+blush with blossoms and pink-tipped buds, and the light came
+golden-green, strained through flickering leaves,&mdash;and an ever-gentle
+rustle and whirr of branches and blossoms, a chitter of birds, and an
+indefinite whispering motion, as the long heads of orchard-grass nodded
+and bowed to each other under the trees, seemed to give the room the
+quiet hush of some little side-chapel in a cathedral, where green and
+golden glass softens the sunlight, and only the sigh and rustle of
+kneeling worshippers break the stillness of the aisles. It was small
+enough for a nun's apartment, and dainty in its neatness as the waxen
+cell of a bee. The bed and low window were draped in spotless white,
+with fringes of Mary's own knotting. A small table under the
+looking-glass bore the library of a well-taught young woman of those
+times. "The Spectator," "Paradise Lost," Shakspeare, and "Robinson
+Crusoe" stood for the admitted secular literature, and beside them the
+Bible and the works then published of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Laid a
+little to one side, as if of doubtful reputation, was the only novel
+which the stricter people in those days allowed for the reading of their
+daughters: that seven-volumed, trailing, tedious, delightful old bore,
+"Sir Charles Grandison,"&mdash;a book whose influence in those times was so
+universal, that it may be traced in the epistolary style even of the
+gravest divines. Our little heroine was mortal, with all her divinity,
+and had an imagination which sometimes wandered to the things of earth;
+and this glorious hero in lace and embroidery, who blended rank,
+gallantry, spirit, knowledge of the world, disinterestedness, constancy,
+and piety, sometimes walked before her, while she sat spinning at her
+wheel, till she sighed, she hardly knew why, that no such men walked the
+earth now. Yet it is to be confessed, this occasional raid of the
+romantic into Mary's balanced and well-ordered mind was soon
+energetically put to rout, and the book, as we have said, remained on
+her table under protest,&mdash;protected by being her father's gift to her
+mother during their days of courtship. The small looking-glass was
+curiously wreathed with corals and foreign shells, so disposed as to
+indicate an artistic eye and skilful hand; and some curious Chinese
+paintings of birds and flowers gave rather a piquant and foreign air to
+the otherwise homely neatness of the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>Here in this little retreat Mary spent those few hours which her
+exacting conscience would allow her to spare from her busy-fingered
+household-life; here she read and wrote and thought and prayed;&mdash;and
+here she stands now, arraying herself for the tea company that
+afternoon. Dress, which in our day is becoming in some cases the whole
+of woman, was in those times a remarkably simple affair. True, every
+person of a certain degree of respectability had state and festival
+robes;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_886" id="Page_886">[Pg 886]</a></span> and a certain camphor-wood brass-bound trunk, which was always
+kept solemnly locked in Mrs. Katy Scudder's apartment, if it could have
+spoken, might have given off quite a catalogue of brocade satin and
+laces. The wedding-suit there slumbered in all the unsullied whiteness
+of its stiff ground broidered with heavy knots of flowers; and there
+were scarfs of wrought India muslin and embroidered crape, each of which
+had its history,&mdash;for each had been brought into the door with beating
+heart on some return voyage of one who, alas, should return no more! The
+old trunk stood with its histories, its imprisoned remembrances,&mdash;and a
+thousand tender thoughts seemed to be shaping out of every rustling fold
+of silk and embroidery, on the few yearly occasions when all were
+brought out to be aired, their history related, and then solemnly locked
+up again. Nevertheless, the possession of these things gave to the women
+of an establishment a certain innate dignity, like a good conscience; so
+that in that larger portion of existence commonly denominated among them
+"every day," they were content with plain stuff and homespun. Mary's
+toilette, therefore, was sooner made than those of Newport belles of the
+present day; it simply consisted in changing her ordinary "short gown
+and petticoat" for another of somewhat nicer materials,&mdash;a skirt of
+India chintz and a striped jacconet short-gown. Her hair was of the kind
+which always lies like satin; but, nevertheless, girls never think their
+toilette complete unless the smoothest hair has been shaken down and
+rearranged. A few moments, however, served to braid its shining folds
+and dispose them in their simple knot on the back of the head; and
+having given a final stroke to each side with her little dimpled hands,
+she sat down a moment at the window, thoughtfully watching where the
+afternoon sun was creeping through the slats of the fence in long lines
+of gold among the tall, tremulous orchard-grass, and unconsciously she
+began warbling, in a low, gurgling voice, the words of a familiar hymn,
+whose grave earnestness accorded well with the general tone of her life
+and education:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Life is the time to serve the Lord,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The time to insure the great reward."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There was a swish and rustle in the orchard-grass, and a tramp of
+elastic steps; then the branches were brushed aside, and a young man
+suddenly emerged from the trees a little behind Mary. He was apparently
+about twenty-five, dressed in the holiday rig of a sailor on shore,
+which well set off his fine athletic figure, and accorded with a sort of
+easy, dashing, and confident air which sat not unhandsomely on him. For
+the rest, a high forehead shaded by rings of the blackest hair, a keen,
+dark eye, a firm and determined mouth, gave the impression of one who
+had engaged to do battle with life, not only with a will, but with
+shrewdness and ability.</p>
+
+<p>He introduced the colloquy by stepping deliberately behind Mary, putting
+his arms round her neck, and kissing her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, James!" said Mary, starting up, and blushing. "Come, now!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have come, haven't I?" said the young man, leaning his elbow on the
+window-seat and looking at her with an air of comic determined
+frankness, which yet had in it such wholesome honesty that it was
+scarcely possible to be angry. "The fact is, Mary," he added, with a
+sudden earnest darkening of the face, "I won't stand this nonsense any
+longer. Aunt Katy has been holding me at arm's length ever since I got
+home; and what have I done? Haven't I been to every prayer-meeting and
+lecture and sermon, since I got into port, just as regular as a
+psalm-book? and not a bit of a word could I get with you, and no chance
+even so much as to give you my arm. Aunt Kate always comes between us
+and says, 'Here, Mary, you take my arm.' What does she think I go to
+meeting for, and almost break my jaws keeping down the gapes? I never
+even go to sleep, and yet I'm treated in this way! It's too bad! What's
+the row? What's anybody been saying about me? I always have waited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_887" id="Page_887">[Pg 887]</a></span> on
+you ever since you were that high. Didn't I always draw you to school on
+my sled? didn't we always use to do our sums together? didn't I always
+wait on you to singing-school? and I've been made free to run in and out
+as if I were your brother;&mdash;and now she is as glum and stiff, and always
+stays in the room every minute of the time that I am there, as if she
+was afraid I should be in some mischief. It's too bad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, James, I am sorry that you only go to meeting for the sake of
+seeing me; you feel no real interest in religious things; and besides,
+mother thinks now I'm grown so old, that&mdash;&mdash;Why, you know things are
+different now,&mdash;at least, we mustn't, you know, always do as we did when
+we were children. But I wish you did feel more interested in good
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> interested in one or two good things, Mary,&mdash;principally in you,
+who are the beat I know of. Besides," he said quickly, and scanning her
+face attentively to see the effect of his words, "don't you think there
+is more merit in my sitting out all these meetings, when they bore me so
+confoundedly, than there is in your and Aunt Katy's doing it, who really
+seem to find something to like in them? I believe you have a sixth
+sense, quite unknown to me; for it's all a maze,&mdash;I can't find top, nor
+bottom, nor side, nor up, nor down to it,&mdash;it's you can and you can't,
+you shall and you sha'n't, you will and you won't,"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"James!"</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't look at me so. I'm not going to say the rest of it. But,
+seriously, it's all anywhere and nowhere to me; it don't touch me, it
+don't help me, and I think it rather makes me worse; and then they tell
+me it's because I'm a natural man, and the natural man understandeth not
+the things of the Spirit. Well, I <i>am</i> a natural man,&mdash;how's a fellow to
+help it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, James, why need you talk everywhere as you do? You joke, and
+jest, and trifle, till it seems to everybody that you don't believe in
+anything. I'm afraid mother thinks you are an infidel, but I <i>know</i> that
+can't be; yet we hear of all sorts of things that you say."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you mean my telling Deacon Twitchel that I had seen as good
+Christians among the Mahometans as any in Newport. <i>Didn't</i> I make him
+open his eyes? It's true, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is
+accepted of Him," said Mary; "and if there are better Christians than us
+among the Mahometans, I am sure I'm glad of it. But, after all, the
+great question is, 'Are we Christians ourselves?' Oh, James, if you only
+were a real, true, noble Christian!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mary, you have got into that harbor, through all the sandbars and
+rocks and crooked channels; and now do you think it right to leave a
+fellow beating about outside, and not go out to help him in? This way of
+drawing up, among you good people, and leaving us sinners to ourselves,
+isn't generous. You might care a little for the soul of an old friend,
+anyhow!"</p>
+
+<p>"And don't I care, James? How many days and nights have been one prayer
+for you! If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give
+them to you, I would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, 'I could
+wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen'; and he
+went on to show how we must be willing to give up even our own
+salvation, if necessary, for the good of others. People said it was hard
+doctrine, but I could feel my way through it very well. Yes, I would
+give my soul for yours; I wish I could."</p>
+
+<p>There was a solemnity and pathos in Mary's manner which checked the
+conversation. James was the more touched because he felt it all so real,
+from one whose words were always yea and nay, so true, so inflexibly
+simple. Her eyes filled with tears, her face kindled with a sad
+earnestness, and James thought, as he looked, of a picture he had once
+seen in a European cathedral, where the youthful Mother of Sorrows is
+represented,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Radiant and grave, as pitying man's decline;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All youth, but with an aspect beyond time;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_888" id="Page_888">[Pg 888]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mournful, but mournful of another's crime;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She looked as if she sat by Ellen's door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And grieved for those who should return no more."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>James had thought he loved Mary; he had admired her remarkable beauty,
+he had been proud of a certain right in her before that of other young
+men, her associates; he had thought of her as the keeper of his home; he
+had wished to appropriate her wholly to himself;&mdash;but in all this there
+had been, after all, only the thought of what she was to be to him; and
+this, for this poor measure of what he called love, she was ready to
+offer, an infinite sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>As a subtile flash of lightning will show in a moment a whole landscape,
+tower, town, winding stream, and distant sea, so that one subtile ray of
+feeling seemed in a moment to reveal to James the whole of his past
+life; and it seemed to him so poor, so meagre, so shallow, by the side
+of that childlike woman, to whom the noblest of feelings were
+unconscious matters of course, that a sort of awe awoke in him; like the
+Apostles of old, he "feared as he entered into the cloud"; it seemed as
+if the deepest string of some eternal sorrow had vibrated between them.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's pause, he spoke in a low and altered voice:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mary, I am a sinner. No psalm or sermon ever taught it to me, but I see
+it now. Your mother is quite right, Mary; you are too good for me; I am
+no mate for you. Oh, what would you think of me, if you knew me wholly?
+I have lived a mean, miserable, shallow, unworthy life. You are worthy,
+you are a saint, and walk in white! Oh, what upon earth could ever make
+you care so much for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, James, you will be good? Won't you talk with Dr. H.?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang Dr. H.!" said James. "Now, Mary, I beg your pardon, but I can't
+make head or tail of a word Dr. H. says. I don't get hold of it, or know
+what he would be at. You girls and women don't know your power. Why,
+Mary, you are a living gospel. You have always had a strange power over
+us boys. You never talked religion much, but I have seen high fellows
+come away from being with you as still and quite as one feels when one
+goes into a church. I can't understand all the hang of predestination,
+and moral ability, and natural ability, and God's efficiency, and man's
+agency, which Dr. H. is so engaged about; but I can understand <i>you</i>,
+<i>you</i> can do me good!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, James, can I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mary, I'm going to confess my sins. I saw, that, somehow or other, the
+wind was against me in Aunt Katy's quarter, and you know we fellows who
+take up the world in both fists don't like to be beat. If there's
+opposition, it sets us on. Now I confess I never did care much about
+religion, but I thought, without being really a hypocrite, I'd just let
+you try to save my soul for the sake of getting you; for there's nothing
+surer to hook a woman than trying to save a fellow's soul. It's a
+dead-shot, generally, that. Now our ship sails to-night, and I thought
+I'd just come across this path in the orchard to speak to you. You know
+I used always to bring you peaches and juneatings across this way, and
+once I brought you a ribbon."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I've got it yet, James."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, Mary, all this seems mean to me, mean, to try and trick and
+snare you, who are so much too good for me. I felt very proud this
+morning that I was to go out first mate this time, and that I should
+command a ship next voyage. I meant to have asked you for a promise, but
+I don't. Only, Mary, just give me your little Bible, and I'll promise to
+read it all through soberly, and see what it all comes to. And pray for
+me; and if, while I'm gone, a good man comes who loves you, and is
+worthy of you, why, take him, Mary,&mdash;that's my advice."</p>
+
+<p>"James, I am not thinking of any such things; I don't ever mean to be
+married. And I'm glad you don't ask me for any promise,&mdash;because it
+would be wrong to give it; mother don't even like me to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_889" id="Page_889">[Pg 889]</a></span> much with
+you. But I'm sure all I have said to you to-day is right; I shall tell
+her exactly all I have said."</p>
+
+<p>"If Aunt Katy knew what things we fellows are pitched into, who take the
+world headforemost, she wouldn't be so selfish. Mary, you girls and
+women don't know the world you live in; you ought to be pure and good:
+you are not as we are. You don't know what men, what women&mdash;no, they're
+not women!&mdash;what creatures, beset us in every foreign port, and
+boarding-houses that are gates of hell; and then, if a fellow comes back
+from all this and don't walk exactly straight, you just draw up the hems
+of your garments and stand close to the wall, for fear he should touch
+you when he passes. I don't mean you, Mary, for you are different from
+most; but if you would do what you could, you might save us. But it's no
+use talking, Mary. Give me the Bible; and please be kind to my
+dove,&mdash;for I had a hard time getting him across the water, and I don't
+want him to die."</p>
+
+<p>If Mary had spoken all that welled up in her little heart at that
+moment, she might have said too much; but duty had its habitual seal
+upon her lips. She took the little Bible from her table and gave it with
+a trembling hand, and James turned to go. In a moment he turned back,
+and stood irresolute.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary," he said, "we are cousins; I may never come back; you might kiss
+me this once."</p>
+
+<p>The kiss was given and received in silence, and James disappeared among
+the thick trees.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, child," said Aunt Katy, looking in, "there is Deacon Twitchel's
+chaise in sight,&mdash;are you ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mother."</p>
+
+<p>[To be continued.]</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_AUTOCRAT_GIVES_A_BREAKFAST_TO_THE_PUBLIC" id="THE_AUTOCRAT_GIVES_A_BREAKFAST_TO_THE_PUBLIC"></a>THE AUTOCRAT GIVES A BREAKFAST TO THE PUBLIC.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Before my friend the Professor takes his place at our old table, where,
+Providence permitting, he means to wish you all a happy New Year on or
+about the First of January next, I wish you to do me the favor of being
+my guests at the table which you see spread before you.</p>
+
+<p>This table is a very long one. Legs in every Atlantic and inland
+city,&mdash;legs in California and Oregon,&mdash;legs on the shores of 'Quoddy and
+of Lake Pontchartrain,&mdash;legs everywhere, like a millipede or a
+banian-tree.</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmistress that was,&mdash;and is,&mdash;(there are her little scholars at
+the side-table.)&mdash;shall pour out coffee or tea for you as you like.</p>
+
+<p>Sit down and make yourselves comfortable.&mdash;A teaspoon, my dear, for
+Minnesota.&mdash;Sacramento's cup is out.</p>
+
+<p>Bridget has become a thought, and serves us a great deal faster than the
+sticky lightning of the submarine <i>par vagum</i>, as the Professor calls
+it.&mdash;Pepper for Kansas, Bridget.&mdash;A sandwich for Cincinnati.&mdash;Rolls and
+sardines for Washington.&mdash;A bit of the Cape Ann turkey for
+Boston.&mdash;South Carolina prefers dark meat.&mdash;Fifty thousand glasses of
+<i>eau sucr&eacute;e</i> at once, and the rest simultaneously.&mdash;Now give us the nude
+mahogany, that we may talk over it.&mdash;Bridget becomes as a mighty wind
+and peels off the immeasurable table-cloth as a northwester strips off
+the leafy damask from the autumn woods.</p>
+
+<p>[At this point of the entertainment the Reporter of the "Oceanic
+Miscellany" was introduced, and to his fluent and indefatigable pen we
+owe the further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_890" id="Page_890">[Pg 890]</a></span> account of the proceedings.&mdash;<i>Editors of the "Oceanic
+Miscellany."</i>]</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;The liberal and untiring editors of the "Oceanic Miscellany"
+commissioned their special reporter to be present at the Great Breakfast
+given by the personage known as the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,
+furnishing him with one of the <i>caput-mortuum</i> tickets usually
+distributed on such occasions.</p>
+
+<p>The tables groaned with the delicacies of the season, provided by the
+distinguished caterers whose names are familiar in our mouths as
+household words. After the usual contest for places,&mdash;a proceeding more
+honored in the breach than the observance,&mdash;the band discoursed sweet
+music. The creature comforts were then discussed, consisting of the
+various luxuries that flesh is heir to, together with fish and fowl, too
+numerous to mention. After the material banquet had cloyed the hungry
+edge of appetite, began the feast of reason and the flow of soul. As,
+take him for all in all, the bright particular star of the evening was
+the distinguished individual who played the part of mine host, we shall
+make no apology for confining our report to the</p>
+
+
+<h3>SPEECH OF THE AUTOCRAT.</h3>
+
+<p>I think on the whole we have had a good time together, since we became
+acquainted. So many pleasant looks and words as have passed between us
+must mean something. For one person who speaks well or ill of us we may
+safely take it for granted that there are ten or a hundred, or an
+indefinite number, who feel in the same way, but are shy of talking.</p>
+
+<p>Now the first effect of being kindly received is unquestionably a
+pleasing internal commotion, out of which arises a not less pleasing
+secondary sensation, which the unthinking vulgar call conceit, but which
+is in reality an increased consciousness of life, and a most important
+part of the mechanism by which a man is advertised of his ability to
+serve his fellows, and stirred up to use it.</p>
+
+<p>In the present instance, the immediate effects of the warm general
+welcome received were the following demonstrations:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. The purchase of a glossy bell-crowned hat, which is worn a little
+inclined to one side, at the angle of self-reliance,&mdash;this being a very
+slight dip, as compared to the outrageous slant of country dandies and
+the insolent obliquity indulged in by a few unpleasantly conspicuous
+city-youth, who prove that "it takes three generations to make a
+gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>2. A movement towards the acquisition of a pair of pantaloons with a
+stripe running down the leg; also of a slender canary-colored cane, to
+be carried as formerly in the time when Mr. Van Buren was
+President.&mdash;[<i>A mild veto from the schoolmistress was interposed.</i>]</p>
+
+<p>3. A manifest increase of that <i>monstraridigitativeness</i>,&mdash;if you will
+permit the term,&mdash;which is so remarkable in literary men, that, if
+public opinion allowed it, some of them would like to wear a smart
+uniform, with an author's button, so that they might be known and hailed
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>4. An undeniable aggravation of the natural tendency to caress and
+cosset such products of the writer's literary industry as have met with
+special favor. This is shown by a willingness to repeat any given
+stanza, a line of which is referred to, and a readiness to listen to
+even exaggerated eulogy with a twinkling stillness of feature and
+inclination of the titillated ear to the operator, such as the Mexican
+Peccary is said to show when its dorsal surface is gently and
+continuously irritated with the pointed extremity of a reed or of a
+magnolia-branch. What other people think well of, we certainly have a
+right to like, ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>All this self-exaltation, which some folks make so much scandal of, is
+the most natural thing in the world when one gets an over-dose of fair
+words. The more I reflect upon it, the more I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_891" id="Page_891">[Pg 891]</a></span> convinced that it is
+well for a man to think too highly of himself while he is in the working
+state. Sydney Smith could discover no relation between Modesty and
+Merit, excepting that they both began with an M. Considered simply as a
+machine out of which work is to be got, the wheels of intellect run best
+when they are kept well oiled by the public and the publisher.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, my friends, if any of you have uttered words of kindness, of
+flattery, of extreme over-praise, even, let me thank you for it.
+Criticism with praise in it is azotized food; it makes muscle; to expect
+a man to write without it is like giving nothing but hay to a roadster
+and expecting to get ten miles an hour out of him. A young fellow cannot
+be asked to go on making love forever, if he does not get a smile now
+and then to keep hope alive. The truth is, Bridget would have whisked
+off the table-cloth and given notice of quitting, and the whole
+establishment would have gone to pieces at the end of No. 1, if you had
+not looked so very good-natured about it that it was impossible to give
+up such amiable acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>The above acknowledgments and personal revelations are preliminary to
+the following more general statement, which will show how they must be
+qualified.</p>
+
+<p>Every man of sense has two ways of looking at himself. The first is an
+everyday working view, in which he makes the most of his gifts and
+accomplishments. It is the superficial stratum in which praise and blame
+find their sphere of action,&mdash;the region of comparisons,&mdash;the habitat
+where envy and jealousy are to be looked for, if they have not been
+weeded out and flung into the compost-heap of dead vices, with which, if
+we understand moral husbandry, we fertilize our living virtues. It is
+quite foolish to abuse this thin upper layer of our mental soil. The
+grasses do not strike their roots deep in towards the centre, like the
+oaks, but they are the more useful and necessary vegetable of the two.
+The cheap, but perpetual activities of life grow out of this upper
+stratum of our being. How silly to try to be wiser than Providence!
+Don't tell me about the vain illusions of self-love. There is nothing so
+real in this world as Illusion. All other things may desert a man, but
+this fair angel never leaves him. She holds a star a billion miles over
+a baby's head, and laughs to see him clawing and batting himself as he
+tries to reach it. She glides before the hoary sinner down the path
+which leads to the inexorable gate, jingling the keys of heaven at her
+girdle.</p>
+
+<p>Underneath this surface-soil lies another stratum of thought, where the
+tap-roots of the larger mental growths penetrate and find their
+nourishment. Out of this comes heroism in all its shapes; here the
+enterprises that overshadow half the planet, when full grown, lie,
+tender, in their cotyledons. Here there is neither praise nor blame,
+nothing but a passionless self-estimate, quite as willing to undervalue
+as to rate too highly. The less clay and straw the task-master has given
+his servant, the smaller the tale of bricks he will be required to
+furnish. Many a man not remarkable for conceit has shuddered as some
+effort or accident has revealed to him a depth of power of which he
+never thought himself the possessor and broken his peace with the fatal
+words, "Sleep no more!"</p>
+
+<p>This deeper self-appreciation is a slow and gradual process. At first, a
+child thinks he can do everything. I remember when I thought I could
+lift a house, if I would only try hard enough. So I began with the hind
+wheel of a heavy old family-coach, built like that in which my Lady
+Bountiful carried little King Pippin, if you happen to remember the
+illustrations of that story. I lifted with all my might, and the planet
+pulled down with all its might. The planet beat. After that, my ideas of
+the difference between my will and my muscular force were more
+accurately defined. Then came the illusion, that I could, of course,
+"lick," "serve out," or "polish off," various small boys who had been or
+might be obnoxious to me. The event of the different<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_892" id="Page_892">[Pg 892]</a></span> "set-tos" to
+which, this hypothesis led not uniformly confirming it, another
+limitation of my possibilities was the consequence. In this way I groped
+along into a knowledge of my physical relations to the organic and
+inorganic universe.</p>
+
+<p>A man must be very stupid indeed, if, by the time he is fully ripened,
+he does not know tolerably well what his physical powers are. His
+weight, his height, his general development, his constitutional force,
+his good or ill looks, he has had time to find out; and he is a fool, if
+he does not carry a reasonable consciousness of these conditions with
+him always. It is a little harder with the mind; but some qualities are
+generally estimated fairly enough by their owners. Thus, a man may be
+trusted when he says he has a good or a bad memory. Not so of his
+opinion of his own judgment or imagination. It is only by a very slow
+process that he finds out how much or how little of those qualities he
+possesses. But it is one of the blessed privileges of growing older,
+that we come to have a much clearer sense of what we can do and what we
+cannot, and settle down to our work quietly, knowing what our tools are
+and what we have to do with them.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, my friends, if I should at any time put on any airs on the
+strength of your good-natured treatment, please to remember that these
+are only the growth of that thin upper stratum of character I was
+telling you of. I conceive that the fact of a man's coming out in a book
+or two, even supposing them to have a success such as I should never
+think of, is to the sum total of that man's life and character as the
+bed of tulips and hyacinths you may see in spring, at the feet of the
+"Great Elm," on our Boston Common, is to the solemn old tree itself. The
+serene, strong life, reaching deep underground and high overhead, robed
+itself in April and disrobed itself in October when the Common was a
+cow-pasture, and observes the same seasons now that the old tree is
+belted with an iron girdle and finds its feet covered with flowers.
+Alas! my friends, the fence and the tulips are painfully suggestive.
+Authorship is an iron girdle, and the blossoms of flattery that are
+scattered at its feet are useful to it only as their culture keeps the
+soil open to the sun and rain. No man can please the reading public ever
+so little without being too highly commended for it in the heat of the
+moment; and so, if he thinks of starting again for the prize of public
+approbation, he finds himself heavily handicapped, and perhaps weighted
+down, simply because he has made good running for some former stakes.</p>
+
+<p>I don't like the position of my friend the Professor. I consider him
+fully as good a man as myself.&mdash;I have, you know, often referred to him
+and quoted him, and sometimes got so mixed up with him, that, like the
+Schildb&uuml;rgers at their town-meeting, I was puzzled to disentangle my own
+legs from his, when I wanted to stand up by myself, they were got into
+such a snarl together.&mdash;But I don't like the position of my friend the
+Professor.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing, of course, when he opens his mouth, will be to compare
+him with his predecessor. Now, if he has the least tact in the world, he
+will begin dull, so as to leave a wide margin for improvement. You may
+be perfectly certain that he can talk and write just as well as I can;
+but you don't think, surely, that he is going to begin where I left off.
+Not unless we are to have a wedding in the first number;&mdash;and you are
+not sure whether or not there is to be any wedding at all while the
+Professor holds my seat at the table.</p>
+
+<p>But I will tell you one thing,&mdash;if you sit a year or so at a long table,
+you will see what life is. Christenings, weddings, funerals,&mdash;these are
+the three legs it stands on; and you have a chance to see them all in a
+twelvemonth, if the table is really a long one. I don't doubt the
+Professor will have something to tell besides his opinions and fancies;
+and if you like a book of thoughts with occasional incidents, as well as
+a book of incidents with occasional thoughts, why, I see no reason why
+you should not accept this talk of the Professor's as kindly as if it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_893" id="Page_893">[Pg 893]</a></span>
+had a fancy name and called itself a novel.</p>
+
+<p>Life may be divided into two periods,&mdash;the hours of taking food, and the
+intervals between them,&mdash;or, technically, into the <i>alimentary</i> and the
+<i>non-alimentary</i> portions of existence. Now our social being is so
+intensified during the first of these periods, that whoso should write
+the history of a man's breakfasts or dinners or suppers would give a
+perfect picture of his most important social qualities, conditions, and
+actions, and might omit the non-alimentary portion of his life
+altogether from consideration. Thus I trust that the breakfasts of which
+you have had some records have given you a pretty clear idea, not only
+of myself, but of those more interesting friends and fellow-boarders of
+mine to whom I have introduced you, and with some of whom, in company
+with certain new acquaintances, my friend the Professor will keep you in
+relation during the following year. So you see that over the new
+table-cloth which is going to be spread there may very possibly be a new
+drama of life enacted; but all that, if it should be so, is incidental
+and by the way;&mdash;for what the Professor wishes particularly to do, and
+means to do, is to talk about life and men and things and books and
+thoughts; but if there should be anything better than talk occurring
+before his eyes, either at the small world of the breakfast-table or in
+the greater world without, he holds himself at liberty to relate it or
+discourse upon it.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose the Professor will receive a good many letters, as I did,
+containing suggestions, counsel, and articles in prose and verse for
+publication. He desires me to state that he is very happy to hear from
+known and unknown friends, provided they will not mistake him for an
+editor, and will not be offended if their communications are not made
+the subject of individual notice. There may be times when, having
+nothing to say, he will be very glad to print somebody's note or copy of
+verses; I don't think it very likely; for life, is short, and the world
+is brimful, and rammed down hard, with strange things worth seeing and
+telling, and Mr. Worcester's great Quarto Dictionary is soon coming out,
+crammed with all manner of words to talk with,&mdash;so that the Professor
+will probably find little room, except for an answer to a question now
+and then, or the acknowledgment of some hint he may have thought worth
+taking.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>&mdash;The speaker shut himself off like a gas-burner at this point, and the
+company soon dispersed. I sauntered down to the landlady's, and obtained
+from her the following production from the papers left by the gentleman,
+whose pen, ranging from grave to gay, from lively to severe, has held
+the mirror up to Nature, and given the form and pressure of his thoughts
+and feelings for the benefit of the numerous and constantly-increasing
+multitudes of readers of the "Oceanic Miscellany," a journal which has
+done and is doing so much for the gratification and improvement of the
+masses.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>A Poem from the Autocrat's Lose Papers.</i></h3>
+
+<p>[I find the following note written in pencil on the MSS.&mdash;<i>Reporter Oc.
+Misc.</i>]</p>
+
+<p>This is a true story. Avis, Avise, or Avice, (they pronounce it
+<i>Arris</i>,) is a real breathing person. Her home is not more than an hour
+and a half's space from the palaces of the great ladies who might like
+to look at her. They may see her and the little black girl she gave
+herself to, body and soul, when nobody else could bear the sight of her
+infirmity,&mdash;leaving home at noon, or even after breakfast, and coming
+back in season to undress for the evening's party.</p>
+
+
+<h4>AVIS.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I may not rightly call thy name,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alas! thy forehead never knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The kiss that happier children claim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor glistened with baptismal dew.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Daughter of want and wrong and woe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I saw thee with thy sister-band,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_894" id="Page_894">[Pg 894]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"Avis!"&mdash;With Saxon eye and cheek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At once a woman and a child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The saint uncrowned I came to seek<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Drew near to greet us,&mdash;spoke and smiled.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">God gave that sweet sad smile she wore<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All wrong to shame, all souls to win,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A heavenly sunbeam sent before<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her footsteps through a world of sin.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"And who is Avis?"&mdash;Hear the tale<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The story known through all the vale<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where Avis and her sisters dwell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With the lost children running wild,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Strayed from the hand of human care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They find one little refuse child<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Left helpless in its poisoned lair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The primal mark is on her face,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The chattel-stamp,&mdash;the pariah-stain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That follows still her hunted race,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The curse without the crime of Cain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The little suffering outcast's ail?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah, veil the living death from sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That wounds our beauty-loving eye!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The children turn in selfish fright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The white-lipped nurses hurry by.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Take her, dread Angel! Break in love<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This bruised reed and make it thine!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No voice descended from above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But Avis answered, "She is mine."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The task that dainty menials spurn<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The fair young girl has made her own;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The toils, the duties yet unknown.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So Love and Death in lingering strife<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stand face to face from day to day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still battling for the spoil of Life<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While the slow seasons creep away.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love conquers Death; the prize is won;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">See to her joyous bosom pressed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dusky daughter of the sun,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The bronze against the marble breast!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her task is done; no voice divine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Has crowned her deed with saintly fame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No eye can see the aureole shine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That rings her brow with heavenly flame.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet what has holy page more sweet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or what had woman's love more fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With flowing eyes and streaming hair?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Angel of that earthly throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And let thine image live alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To hallow this unstudied song!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LITERARY_NOTICES" id="LITERARY_NOTICES"></a>LITERARY NOTICES.</h2>
+
+
+<p><i>Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, with other Papers.</i> By <span class="smcap">Charles
+Kingsley</span>, Author of "Hypatia," "Two Years Ago," etc. Boston: Ticknor &amp;
+Fields. 12mo.</p>
+
+<p>This collection of Mr. Kingsley's miscellaneous writings is marked by
+the same qualities of mind and temper which have given celebrity and
+influence to his novels. An earnest man, with strong convictions
+springing from a fervid philanthropy, fertile in thought, confident in
+statement, resolute in spirit, with many valuable ideas and not a few
+curious crotchets, and master of a style singularly bold, vivid,
+passionate, and fluent, he always stimulates the mind, if he does not
+always satisfy it. The defects of his intellect, especially in the
+treatment of historical questions, proceed from the warmth of his
+temperament. His impulses irritate his reason. Intellectually impatient
+with all facts and arguments which obstruct the full sweep of his
+theory, he has an offensive habit of escaping from objections he will
+not pause to answer, by the calling of names and the introduction of
+Providence. He is most petulantly disdainful of others when he has
+nothing but paradoxes with which to oppose their truisms. He has a trick
+of adopting the manner and expressions of Carlyle, in speaking of
+incidents and characters to which they are ludicrously inapplicable, and
+becomes flurried and flippant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_895" id="Page_895">[Pg 895]</a></span> on occasions where Carlyle would put into
+the same words his whole scowling and scornful strength. He frequently
+mistakes sympathy with suffering for insight into its causes, and an
+eloquent statement of what he thinks desirable for an interpretation of
+what really is. He has bright glimpses of truth, but they are due rather
+to the freedom of his thinking than to its depth; and in the hurry and
+impatient pressure of his impulses, he does not discriminate between his
+ideas and his whims. He seems to be in a state of insurrection against
+the limitations of his creed, his profession, and his own mind, and the
+impression conveyed by his best passages is of splendid incompleteness.
+It would be ungracious to notice these defects in a writer who possesses
+so many excellences, were it not that he forces them upon the attention,
+and in their expression is unjust to other thinkers. His intellectual
+conceit finds its vent in intellectual sauciness, and is all the worse
+from appearing to have its source in conceit of conscience and
+benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of these faults, however, Mr. Kingsley's reputation is not
+greater than he deserves. He is one of the most sincere; truthful, and
+courageous of writers, has no reserves or concealments, and pours out
+his feelings and opinions exactly as they lie in his own heart and
+brain. We at least feel assured that he has no imperfections which he
+does not express, and that there is no disagreement between the book and
+the man. He is commonly on the right side in the social and political
+movements of the day, if he does not always give the right reasons for
+his position. His love, both of Nature and human nature, is intense and
+deep, and this gives a cordiality, freshness, and frankness to his
+writings which more than compensate for their defects.</p>
+
+<p>The present volume of his miscellanies contains not only his essays and
+reviews, but his four lectures on "Alexandria and her Schools," and his
+"Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers." Of the essays, those on "North
+Devon" and "My Winter Garden" are the best specimens of his descriptive
+power, and those on "Raleigh" and "England from Wolsey to Elizabeth," of
+his talents and accomplishments as a thinker on historical subjects. The
+literary papers on "Tennyson," "Burns," "The Poetry of Sacred and
+Literary Art," and "Hours with the Mystics," are full of striking and
+suggestive, if somewhat perverse, thought. The volume, as a whole, is
+read with mingled feelings of vexation and pleasure; but whether
+provoked or delighted, we are always interested both in the author and
+his themes.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>A Journey due North: Being Notes of a Residence in Russia.</i> By <span class="smcap">George
+Augustus Sala</span>. Boston: Ticknor &amp; Fields. 16mo.</p>
+
+<p>Although the matter of this brilliant volume is of intrinsic interest,
+its charm is due more to the mode of description than even to the things
+described. It gives us Russia from a Bohemian point of view. The
+characteristics of Mr. Sala are keen observation, vivid description,
+lively wit, indomitable assurance, and incapacity of being surprised. To
+his resolute belief in himself, in what he sees with his own eyes and
+conceives with his own brain, the book owes much of its raciness, its
+confident, decisive, "knowing" tone, its independence of the judgments
+of others, and its freedom from all the deceptions which proceed from
+such emotions as wonder and admiration. The volume is read with a
+pleasure similar to that we experience in listening to the animated talk
+of an acquaintance fresh from novel scenes of foreign travel, who
+reproduces his whole experience in recalling his adventures, and gives
+us not merely incidents and pictures, but his own feelings of delight
+and self-elation.</p>
+
+<p>The three introductory chapters, describing the journey to St.
+Petersburg, are perhaps the most brilliant portions of the book. The
+delineations of his fellow-passengers, in the voyage from Stettin to
+Cronstadt, especially the portraits of the swearing Captain Smith and
+the accomplished Hussian noble, are admirable equally for their humor
+and their sagacity. The account of the landing at Cronstadt, the scenes
+at the Custom-House, the author's first walk in St. Petersburg, and his
+first drive in a droschky, are masterpieces of familiar narration, and
+fairly convert the readers of his hook into companions of his journey.
+The description of the manners and customs of the Russian people, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_896" id="Page_896">[Pg 896]</a></span>
+shrewd occasional comments on the policy of the government, and the
+thorough analysis of the rascality of the Russian police, are admirable
+in substance, if somewhat flippant in expression. In power of holding
+the amused attention of the reader, equally by the pertinence of the
+matter and the impertinence of the tone, the volume is unexcelled by any
+other book on the subject of Russia.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>The New Priest in Conception Bay</i>. Boston: Phillips, Sampson &amp; Co.
+1858. 2 vols. 12mo.</p>
+
+<p>The southeastern portion of the island of Newfoundland, as may be seen
+by a glance at the map, may be well described by that expressive epithet
+of "nook-shotten," which in Shakspeare is applied to the mother-island
+of which it is a dependent. The land is indented by bays and estuaries,
+so that it bears the same relation to the water that the parted fingers
+of an outstretched hand do to the spaces of air that are between them.
+One of these inlets bears the name of Conception Bay; and it is around
+the shores of this bay that the scene of this novel is laid. Everything
+in it suffers a sea-change; everything is set to the music of the winds
+and the waves. We find ourselves among a people with whom the sea is
+all, and the land only an appendage to the sea,&mdash;a place to dry fish,
+and mend nets, and haul up boats, and caulk ships. But though the view
+everywhere, morally and physically, is bounded by the sea, and though
+one of the finest of the characters is a fisherman, yet the moving
+springs of the story are found in elements only accidentally connected
+with the sea, and by no means new to novel-writers or playwrights. The
+plot of the novel is taken from, or founded upon, the peculiar relations
+existing between the Roman Catholic priesthood and the female sex; and,
+with only a change in costume and scenery, the events might have taken
+place in Maryland, Louisiana, or France.</p>
+
+<p>The novel is one of a peculiar class. To borrow a convenient phraseology
+recently introduced into the language, its interest is more subjective
+than objective,&mdash;or, in other words, is derived more from marked and
+careful delineations of individual character than from the march of
+events or brilliant procession of incidents. With a single
+exception,&mdash;the abduction of the fisherman's daughter,&mdash;the occurrences
+narrated are such as might happen any day in any small community living
+near the sea. Novels constructed on this plan are less likely to be
+popular than those in which the interest is derived from a
+skilfully-contrived plot and a rapid and stirring succession of moving
+events. To what extent the work before us may be popular we wilt not
+undertake even to guess; for we have had too frequent experience of the
+capriciousness of public taste to hazard any prediction as to the
+reception a particular book may meet with, especially if it rely
+exclusively upon its own merits, and be not helped by the previous
+reputation of the writer. But we certainly can and will say that to
+readers of a certain cast it will present strong attractions, and that
+no candid critic can read it without pronouncing it to be a remarkable
+work and the production of an original mind. The author we should judge
+to be a man who had lived a good deal in solitude, or at least removed
+from his intellectual peers,&mdash;who had been through much spiritual
+struggle in the course of his life,&mdash;who had been more accustomed to
+think than to write, at least for the press,&mdash;and whose own observation
+had revealed to him some of the darker aspects of the Roman Catholic
+faith and practice.</p>
+
+<p>There is very little skill in the construction of the plot. Most of the
+events stand to each other in the relation of accidental and not of
+necessary succession, and might be transposed without doing any harm.
+Many pages are written simply as illustrations of character; and a fair
+proportion of the novel might be called with strict propriety a series
+of sketches connected by a slight thread of narrative. But it would be
+unreasonable to deal sharply with an author for this defect; for the
+faculty of making a well-constructed story, in which every event shall
+come in naturally, and yet each bring us one step nearer to the
+journey's end, is now one of the lost arts of earth. But this is not
+all. A considerable portion of it must be pronounced decidedly slow. We
+use the word not in its slang application, but in the sense in which
+Goldsmith used it in the first line of "The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_897" id="Page_897">[Pg 897]</a></span> Traveller," or rather, as
+Johnson told him he used it, when he said to him,&mdash;"You do not mean
+tardiness of locomotion; you mean that sluggishness of mind which comes
+upon a man in solitude." But the slowness of which novel-readers will
+complain is not mere commonplace, least of all is it dulness. It is the
+leisurely movement of a contemplative mind full of rich thought and
+stored with varied learning. Such a writer <i>could not</i> have any sympathy
+with the mercurial, vivacious, light-of-foot story-tellers of the French
+school. The author of "The New Priest in Conception Bay," we surmise,
+has not been in the habit of packing up his thoughts for the market, by
+either writing for the press, or conversing with clever and
+nimble-witted men and women, and thus does not always distinguish
+between cargo and dunnage. The current of the story often flows with a
+very languid movement. It happens, rather unluckily, that this is
+particularly true of the first seventy pages of the first volume. We
+fear that many professional novel-readers may break down in the course
+of these pages; and we confess ourselves to have been a little
+discouraged. But after the ninth chapter, and the touching account which
+Skipper George gives of the death of his boys,&mdash;a story which the most
+indifferent cannot peruse without emotion,&mdash;the reader may be safely
+left in the author's hands. They will go on together to the end, after
+this, on good terms. And the prospect brightens, and the horses are
+whipped up, as we advance. The second volume is much more interesting,
+in the common sense of the word,&mdash;more stirring, more rapid, more
+animated, than the first.</p>
+
+<p>It is but putting our criticism into another form to say that the novel
+is too long, and, as a mere story, might with advantage be compressed
+into at least two-thirds of its present bulk. There are, especially, two
+departments or points to which this remark is applicable. In the first
+place, the conversations are too numerous, too protracted, and run too
+much into trivialities and details. In the second place, the
+descriptions of scenery are too frequently introduced, and pushed to a
+wearisome enumeration of particulars and minute delineation of details.
+In this peculiarity the author is kept in countenance by most
+respectable literary associates. This sort of Pre-Raphaelite style of
+scenery-painting in words is a characteristic of most recent American
+novel, especially such as are written by women. Every rock, every clump
+of trees, every strip of sea-shore, every sloping hillside, sits for its
+portrait, and is reproduced with a tender conscientiousness of touch
+wholly disproportioned to the importance of the subject. When human
+hearts and human passions are animating or darkening the scene, we do
+not want to be detained by a botanist's description of plants or a
+geologist's sketch of rocks. The broad, free sweeps of Scott's brush in
+"The Pirate" are more effective than the delicate needle-point lines of
+the writer before us.</p>
+
+<p>We think, too, that too much use is made of those strange and uncouth
+dialects which have to be represented to the eye by bad spelling. We
+have the familiar Yankee type in Mr. Bangs, and a new form of
+phraseology in the speech of the Newfoundland fishermen. A little of
+this is well enough, but it should not be pushed to an extreme. The
+author's style, in general, is vigorous and expressive; it is the garb
+of an original mind, and often takes striking forms; but in grace and
+simplicity there is room for improvement, and we doubt not that
+improvement will come with practice.</p>
+
+<p>There are many passages which we should like to quote as specimens of
+the imaginative power, forcible description, and apt illustration which
+are shown in this work. Whether the author has ever written verse or
+not, he is a poet in the best sense of that much-abused word. To him
+Nature in all its forms is animated; it sympathizes with all his moods,
+and takes on the hues of his thought. There are very few of these
+paragraphs that are easily separable; they are fixed in the page, and
+cannot be understood apart from it. Besides, many of these beauties are
+minute,&mdash;a gleaming word here and there,&mdash;but making the track of the
+story glow like the phosphorescent waters of the tropics.</p>
+
+<p>We give a few paragraphs at random:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Does the sea hold the secret?</p>
+
+<p>"Along the wharves, along the little beaches, around the
+circuit of the little coves, along the smooth or broken face of
+rock, the sea, which cannot rest, is busy. These little waves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_898" id="Page_898">[Pg 898]</a></span>
+and this long swell, that now are here at work, have been ere
+now at home in the great inland sea of Europe, breathed on by
+soft, warm winds from fruit-groves, vineyards, and wide fields
+of flowers,&mdash;have sparkled in the many-colored lights, and felt
+the trivial oars and dallying fingers of the loiterers, on the
+long canals of Venice,&mdash;have quenched the ashes of the
+Dutchman's pipe, thrown overboard from his dull, laboring
+<i>treckschuyt</i>,&mdash;have wrought their patient tasks in the dim
+caverns of the Indian Archipelago,&mdash;have yielded to the little
+builders under water means and implements to rear their
+towering altar, dwelling, monument.</p>
+
+<p>"These little waves have crossed the ocean, tumbling like
+porpoises at play, and, taking on a savage nature in the Great
+Wilderness, have thundered in close ranks and countless numbers
+against man's floating fortress,&mdash;have stormed the breach and
+climbed up over the walls in the ship's riven side,&mdash;have
+followed, howling and hungry as mad wolves, the crowded
+raft,&mdash;have leaped upon it, snatching off, one by one, the
+weary, worn-out men and women,&mdash;have taken up and borne aloft,
+as if on hands and shoulders, the one chance human body that is
+brought in to land, and the long spur, from which man's dancing
+cordage wastes by degrees, find yields its place to long, green
+streamers, much like those that clung to this tall, taper tree
+when it stood in the Northern forest.</p>
+
+<p>"These waves have rolled their breasts about amid the wrecks
+and weeds of the hot stream that comes up many thousands of
+miles out of the Gulf of Mexico, as the great Mississippi goes
+down into it, and by-and-by these waves will move, all numb and
+chilled, among the mighty icebergs and ice-fields that must be
+brought down from the poles."</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"She asked, 'Have you given up being a priest, Mr. Urston?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes!' he answered, in a single word, looking before him, as
+it were along his coming life, like a quoit-caster, to see how
+far the uttered word would strike; then, turning to her, and in
+a lower voice, added, 'I've left that, once and forever.'"</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"He stood still with his grief; and, as Mr. Wellon pressed his
+honest, hard hand, he lifted to his pastor one of those
+childlike looks that only come out on the face of the true man,
+that has grown, as oaks grow, ring around ring, adding each
+after-age to the childhood that has never been lost, but has
+been kept innermost. This fisherman seemed like one of those
+that plied their trade, and were the Lord's disciples, at the
+Sea of Galilee, eighteen hundred years ago. The very flesh and
+blood inclosing such a nature keep a long youth through life.
+Witness the genius, (who is only the more thorough man,) poet,
+painter, sculptor, finder-out, or whatever; how fresh and fair
+such an one looks out from under his old age! Let him be
+Christian, too, and he shall look as if&mdash;shedding this
+outward&mdash;the inward being would walk forth a glorified one."</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"As he mentioned his fruitless visits, a startling, most
+repulsive leer just showed itself in Ladford's face; but it
+disappeared as suddenly and wholly as a monster that has come
+up, horrid and hideous, to the surface of the sea, and then has
+sunk again, bodily, into the dark deep, and is gone, as if it
+had never come, except for the fear and loathing that it leaves
+behind. This face, after that look, had nothing repulsive in
+it, but was only the more subdued and sad."</p></div>
+
+<p>The author's mind so teems with images, that he does not always
+discriminate between the good and the bad. Occasionally we find some
+that are manifestly faulty and overstrained.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is one on which the tenderness of the deep heart of the
+Common Mother breaks itself; over which <i>the broad, dark,
+silent wings of a dread mystery are stretched</i>."</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Her voice had in it that tender <i>touch</i> which <i>lays itself,
+warm and loving</i>, on the heart."</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"And then her voice began <i>to drop down</i>, as it were, <i>from
+step to step</i>,&mdash;and <i>the steps seemed cold and damp, as it went
+down them lingeringly</i>:&mdash;'or for
+trial,&mdash;disappointment,&mdash;whatever comes!'&mdash;and at the last, <i>it
+seemed to have gone down into a sepulchral vault</i>."</p></div>
+
+<p>We do not admire any one of the above,&mdash;least of all the last, in which
+the human voice is embodied as a sexton going down the steps of a tomb.
+Why, too, as a matter of verbal criticism, should the author use such
+words as "tragedist," "exhibitress," and "cheaty?"</p>
+
+<p>In the delineation of character the author shows uncommon power and is
+entitled to high praise. His portraits are animated, life-like, and
+individual. Father Terence is drawn with a firm and skilful touch. The
+task which the author prescribed to himself&mdash;to present an ecclesiastic
+without learning, without intellectual power, without enthusiasm, and
+with the easy habits of a careless and enjoyable temperament,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_899" id="Page_899">[Pg 899]</a></span> and yet
+who should be respectable, and even venerable, by reason of the
+soundness of his instincts and his thorough right-heartedness&mdash;was not
+an easy one; but in the execution he has been entirely successful. We
+cannot but surmise that he has met sometime and somewhere a living man
+with some of the characteristic traits of Father Terence. Father
+Ignatius, the conventional type of the dark, wily, and dangerous
+ecclesiastical intriguer, is an easier subject, but not so well done. He
+is a little too melodramatic; and we apply with peculiar force to him a
+criticism to which all the characters are more or less obnoxious, that
+he is too constantly and uniformly manifesting the peculiar traits by
+which the author distinguishes him from others. Father Debree and Mrs.
+Barr&eacute; are drawn with powerful and discriminating touch, and we recognize
+the skill of the writer in the fact that we had read a considerable
+portion of the novel before we had any suspicion of the former relations
+between them. We may here say that we think that the women who may read
+this work will want to know, a little more fully and distinctly than the
+author has seen fit to tell, what were the causes and influences which
+led to the severing of those relations. We cannot state our meaning more
+clearly, without doing what we think should never be done in the review
+of a new novel, and that is, telling the story, and thus removing half
+the impulse to read it. Skipper George and his household, and the
+smuggler Ladford, are very well drawn,&mdash;not distinctly original, and yet
+with distinctive individual traits, which sharp observation must, to
+some extent, have furnished the author with.</p>
+
+<p>But to our commendation of the characters we must make one exception: we
+humbly and respectfully submit that Mr. Bangs is a portentous bore, and
+we heartily wish that he had been drowned before he ever set his foot
+upon the shores of Newfoundland. It is possible, however, that in this
+case we are not impartial judges; for we confess, that, for our own
+private reading, we are heartily weary of the Yankee,&mdash;we mean as a
+literary creation,&mdash;of the eternal repetition of the character of which
+Sam Slick is the prototype,&mdash;which is for the most part a caricature,
+and no more to be found upon the solid earth than a griffin or a
+centaur. And in our judgment the theological discussions between this
+worthy and Father Terence are not in good taste. The author surely would
+not have us suppose that the wretched, skimble-skamble stuff which the
+latter is made to talk is any fair representative of the arguments by
+which the Church of Rome maintains its dogmas and vindicates its claims.
+A considerable amount of literary skill and a quick perception of the
+ludicrous are shown in the ridiculous aspect which the good Father's
+statements and reasonings are made to assume in passing through Mr.
+Bangs's mind; but we doubt whether such exhibitions are profitable to
+the cause of good religion, and whether the advantage thereby secured to
+Protestantism is not purchased at the price of some danger to
+Christianity. It is not well to teach men the art of making mysteries
+ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p>But we take leave of our author and his book with high respect for his
+powers,&mdash;we do not know but that we may say his genius,&mdash;and with no
+small admiration for this particular expression of them. The very
+minuteness of our criticism involves a compliment. It has been truly
+said, that many men never write a book at all, but that very few write
+only one. We think that the author of "The New Priest in Conception Bay"
+must and will write more. A mind so fruitful and inventive, a spiritual
+nature so high and earnest, and an observation so keen and correct,
+cannot fail to accumulate materials for future use. We predict that his
+next novel will be better than this,&mdash;that it will have all its
+substantial and essential merits, and will show more constructive skill
+and a more practised hand in literary artisanship. His gold will be more
+neatly wrought, and not less pure and abundant.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Summer Time in the Country.</i> By <span class="smcap">Rev. Robert Aris Willmott</span>. London and
+New York: George Routledge. Square 12mo. Illustrated.</p>
+
+<p>We first made the acquaintance of this work in a shilling volume, a
+"railway-library edition," and were charmed with its genial tone, its
+nice appreciation of rural scenery, its agreeable and unpedantic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_900" id="Page_900">[Pg 900]</a></span>
+learning. It is a diary for the summer months, with notes upon the
+changing aspects of Nature, reminiscences from the poets, and
+appropriate comments. We are glad now to welcome the book in this form,
+wherein satin paper, careful typography, delicate engravings, and
+handsome binding have been employed to give it an appropriate dress.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Annual Obituary Notices of Eminent Persons who died in the United
+States during the Year 1857.</i> By <span class="smcap">Nathan Crosby</span>. Boston: Phillips,
+Sampson, &amp; Co. 8vo. pp. 430.</p>
+
+<p>The object of this work is best stated in the words of the author, as
+being "the result of a long and earnest desire to give a more permanent
+and accessible memorial to those who have originated and developed our
+institutions,&mdash;those whose names should be remembered by the generations
+to come, as the statesmen, the soldiers, the men of science and skill,
+the sagacious merchants, the eminent clergymen and
+philanthropists,&mdash;those who have brought our country to the prosperity
+and distinction it now enjoys."</p>
+
+<p>Eulogies, funeral sermons, and obituaries soon pass out of remembrance,
+and an annual compilation like this cannot fail to be of service. The
+work appears to have been done with impartiality and care.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe, with an Original Memoir.</i>
+Illustrated by <span class="smcap">F. R. Pickersgill, John Tenniel, Birket Foster, Felix
+Darley</span>, and others. New York: J. S. Redfield. 8vo. pp. 250.</p>
+
+<p>The poems of Poe have taken their place in literature; it is too late to
+attempt anything like a contemporaneous criticism, too early to
+anticipate the judgement of posterity. But whatever were the faults of
+this gifted and erratic genius, much that he has written has become a
+part of the thought and memory of the present generation of readers, and
+will doubtless go to our children with equal claims.</p>
+
+<p>In this volume it would seem that the arts connected with book-making
+have culminated; paper, typography, drawing, and engraving are all
+admirable. There are no fewer than fifty-three wood-engravings, of
+various degrees of excellence, but all exquisitely finished. The lovers
+of fine editions of poetry will find this a gift-book which the most
+fastidious taste will approve. If we could add that this mechanical
+excellence was from American hands, it would be much more grateful to
+our national pride.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Black's Atlas of North America.</i> Boston: Little, Brown, &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could well be more convenient than this series of twenty maps.
+They are carefully executed, of a size not too large for easy handling,
+and bound in a thin, light volume. They are preceded by some
+introductory statistical matter which is very useful for purposes of
+ready reference, and accompanied by an index so arranged that one can
+find the name he seeks on any map with great facility. We have seen no
+maps of North America which seemed to us, on the whole, at once so cheap
+and good.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Among the announcements of illustrated works in press, we notice "The
+Stratford Gallery, comprising Forty-five Ideal Portraits described by
+Mrs. J. W. Palmer. Illustrated with Fine Engravings on Steel, from
+Designs by Eminent Hands."</p>
+
+<p>In one vol. 8vo. Antique morocco. New York: D. Appleton &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The many admirers of the "<span class="smcap">Autocrat</span>" will learn with pleasure that a fine
+edition of his charming volume is in preparation, with tinted paper,
+illustrated by Hoppin, and bound in elegant style. Probably no
+holiday-book will be in such demand this season.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No.
+14, December 1858, by Various
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,9383 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14,
+December 1858, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2007 [EBook #21273]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY  ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. II.--DECEMBER, 1858.--NO. XIV.
+
+
+
+
+THE IDEAL TENDENCY.
+
+
+We are all interested in Art; yet few of us have taken pains to justify
+the delight we feel in it. No philosophy can win us away from
+Shakspeare, Plato, Angelo, Beethoven, Goethe, Phidias,--from the masters
+of sculpture, painting, music, and metaphor. Their truth is larger than
+any other,--too large to be stated directly and lodged in systems,
+theories, definitions, or formulas. They suggest and assure to us what
+cannot be spoken. They communicate life, because they do not endeavor to
+measure life. Philosophy will present the definite; Art refers always to
+the vast,--to that which cannot be comprehended, but only enjoyed and
+adored. Art is the largest expression. It is not, like Science, a basket
+in which meat and drink may be carried, but a hand which points toward
+the sky. Our eyes follow its direction, and our souls follow our eyes.
+Man needs only to be shown an open space. He will rise into it with
+instant expansion. We are made partakers of that illimitable energy.
+Only poetry can give account of poetry, only Art can justify Art; and we
+cannot hope to speak finally of this elastic Truth, to draw a circle
+around that which is vital, because it has in it something of
+infinity,--but we may hope to remove a doubt growing out of the very
+largeness which exalts and refreshes us. Art is not practical. It offers
+no precept, but lies abroad like Nature, not to be grasped and
+exhausted. Neither is it anxious about its own reception, as though any
+man could long escape the benefit which it brings. Every principle of
+science, every deduction of philosophy, is a tool. Our very religion, as
+we dare to name it, is a key which opens the heavens to admit myself and
+family. Art offers only life; but perhaps that will appear worth taking
+without looking beyond. Can we look beyond? Life is an end in itself,
+and so better than any tool.
+
+What is that which underlies all arts as their essence, the thing to be
+expressed and celebrated? What is poetry, the creation from which the
+artist is named? We shall answer boldly: it is no shaping of forms, but
+a making of man. Nature is a _plenum_, is finished, and the Divine
+account with her is closed; but man is only yet a chick in the egg. With
+him it is still the first day of creation, and he has not received the
+benediction of a completed work. And yet the completion is involved and
+promised in our daily experience. Man is a perpetual seeker. He sees
+always just before him his own power, which he must hasten to overtake.
+He weighs himself often in thought; yet it is not his present, but a
+presumptive value, of which he is taking account. We are continually
+entering into our future, and it is so near us, we are already in every
+hour so full of it, that we draw without fraud on the credit of
+to-morrow. The student who has bought his first law-book is already a
+great counsellor. With the Commentaries he carries home consideration
+and the judicial habit. Some wisdom he imbibes through his pores and
+those of the sheepskin cover. Now he is grave and prudent, a man of the
+world and of authority; but if he had chosen differently, and brought
+home the first book of Theology, his day would have been tinted with
+other colors. For every choice carries a future involved in itself, and
+we begin to taste that when we take our course toward it. The habit of
+leaning forward and living in advance of himself has made its mark upon
+every man. We look not at the history or performance of the stranger,
+but at his pretensions. These are written in his dress, his air and
+attitude, his tone and occupation. The past is already nothing, the
+present is sliding away; to know any man, we must keep our eyes out in
+advance on the road he is following. For man is an involuntary, if not a
+willing traveller. Time does not roll from under his feet, but he is
+carried along with the current, and can never again be where or what he
+was. Nothing in his experience can ever be quite repeated. If you see
+the same trees and hills, they do not appear the same from year to year.
+Yesterday they were new and strange; you and they were young together.
+To-day they are familiar and disregarded. Soon they will be old friends,
+prattling to gray hairs of the brown locks and bounding breath of youth.
+
+The pioneer of our growth is Imagination. Desire and Hope go on before
+into the wilderness of the unknown; they open paths; they make a
+clearing; they build and settle firmly before we ourselves in will and
+power arrive at this opening, but they never await our coming. They are
+the "Fore-runners," off again deeper into the vast possibility of being.
+The boy walks in a dream of to-morrow. Two bushels of hickory-nuts in
+his bag are no nuts to him, but silver shillings; yet neither are the
+shillings shillings, but shining skates, into which they will presently
+be transmuted. Already he is on the great pond by the roaring fire, or
+ringing away into distant starry darkness with a sparkling brand.
+Already, before his first skates are bought, before he has seen the coin
+that buys them, he is dashing and wheeling with his fellows, a leader of
+the flying train.
+
+That early fore-reaching is a picture of our entire activity. "Care is
+taken," said Goethe, "that the trees do not grow into the sky"; but man
+is that tree which must outgrow the sky and lift its top into finer air
+and sunshine. The essential seed is Growth; not shell and bark, nor
+kernel, but a germ which pierces the soil and lifts the stone. Spirit is
+such a germ, and perpetual reinforcement is its quality; so that the
+great Being is known to us as a becoming Creator, adding himself to
+himself, and life to life, in perpetual emanation.
+
+The boy's thought never stops short of some personal prowess. It is
+ability that charms him. To be a man, as he understands manliness, is to
+have the whole planet for a gymnasium and play-ground. He would like to
+have been on the other side of Hydaspes when Alexander came to that
+stream. But he soon discovers that wit is the sword of sharpness,--that
+he is the ruler who can reach the deepest desire of man and satisfy
+that. If there is power in him, he becomes a careful student, examines
+everything, examines his own enthusiasm, examines his last examination,
+tries every estimate again and again. He distrusts his tools, and then
+distrusts his own distrust, lifting himself by the very boot-straps in
+his metaphysics, to get at some foundation which will not move. He will
+know what he is about and what is great. He puts Caesar, Milton, and
+Whitfield into his crucible; but that which went in Caesar comes out a
+part of himself. The bold yet modest young chemist is egotistical. He
+cannot be anybody else but John Smith. Why should he? Who knows yet what
+it is to be John Smith? Napoleon and Washington are only playing his own
+game for him, since he so easily understands and accepts their play. A
+boy reads history as girls cut flowers from old embroidery to sew them
+on a new foundation. They are interested in the new, and in the old only
+for what they can make of it. So he sucks the blood of kings and
+captains to help him fight his own battles. He reads of Bunker's Hill
+and the Declaration of Independence with constant reference to the part
+he shall take in the politics of the world. His motto is, _Sic semper
+tyrannis_! Benjamin Franklin, and after him John Smith,--perhaps a
+better man than he. We live on that _perhaps_. Every great man departed
+has played out his last card, has taken all his chances. We are glad to
+see his power limited and scaled up. Shakspeare, we say, did not know
+everything; and here am I alone with the universe, nothing but a little
+sleepiness between me and all that Shakspeare and Plato knew or did not
+know. If I should be jostled out of my drowsiness, who can tell what may
+be given me to see, to say, or to do? Let us make ready and get upon
+some high ground from which we may overlook the work of the world; for
+the secret of all mastery is dormant, yet breathing and stirring in you
+and me.
+
+Out of such material as we can gather we make a world in which we walk
+continually up and down. In it we find friends and enemies, we love and
+are loved, we travel and build. In it we are kings; we ordain and
+arrange everything, and never come away worsted from any encounter. For
+this sphere arises in answer to the practical question, What can I be
+and do? It is an embodiment of the force that is in me. Every dreamer,
+therefore, goes on to see himself among men and things which he can
+understand and master, with which he can deal securely. The stable-boy
+has hid an old volume among the straw, and he walks with Portia and
+Desdemona while he grooms the horses. Already in his smock-frock he is a
+companion for princes and queens. But the rich man's son, well born, as
+we say, in the great house yonder, has one only ambition in life,--to
+turn stable-boy, to own a fast team and a trotting-wagon, to vie with
+gamesters upon the road. That is an activity to which he is equal, in
+which his value will appear. Both boys, and all boys, are looking
+upward, only from widely different levels and to different heights.
+
+The young blasphemer does not love blasphemy, but to have his head and
+be let alone by Old Aunty, who combs his hair as if he were a girl. So
+always there is some ideal aim in the mixed motive. Out of six gay young
+men who drive and drink together, only one cares for the meat and the
+bottle. With the rest this feasting gallantly on the best, regardless of
+expense, is part of a system. It is in good style, is convivial. For
+these green-horns of society to live together, to be _convivae_, is not
+to think and labor together, as wise men use, but to laugh and be
+drunken in company.
+
+Into the lowest courses there enters something to keep the filth from
+overwhelming self-respect. The advocates of slavery have not, as it
+appears, lost all pretence of honor and honesty. Thieves are sustained
+by a sense of the injustice of society. They do but right an old wrong,
+taking bravely what was accumulated by cautious cunning. They cultivate
+many virtues, and, like the best of us, make much of these, identify
+themselves with these. If a man is harsh and tyrannical, he regrets that
+he has too much force of character. And it is not safe to accuse a
+harlot of stealing and lying. She has her ideal also, and strives to
+keep the ulcer of sin within bounds,--to save a sweet side from
+corruption.
+
+Is this stooping very low to look for the Ideal Tendency? The greater
+gain, if we find it prevailing in these depths. We may doubt whether
+thieves and harlots are subject to the same law which irresistibly lifts
+us, for we know that our own sin is not quite like other sin. But I must
+not offer all the cheerful hope I feel for the worst offenders, because
+too much faith passes for levity or impiety; and men thank God only for
+deliverance from great dangers, not for preservation from all danger.
+For gratitude we must not escape too easily and clean, but with some
+smell of fire upon us.
+
+Yet in our own experience this planning what we shall do and become is
+constant, and always we escape from the present into larger air. The boy
+will not be content with that skill in skating which occupies his mind
+to-day. That belongs to the day and place, but next year he goes to the
+academy and fresh exploits engage him. He works gallantly in this new
+field and harness, because his thought has gone forward again, and he
+sees through these studies the man of thought. Already as a student he
+is a philosopher, a poet, a servant of the Muse. Bacon and Milton look
+kindly on him in invitation, he is walking to their company and in their
+company. The young hero-worshipper cannot remain satisfied with mere
+physical or warlike prowess. He soon sees the superiority of mental and
+moral mastery, of creation of good counsel. He will reverence the
+valiant reformer who brings justice in his train, the saint in whom
+goodness is enamored of goodness, the gentleman whose heart-beat is
+courtesy, the prophet in whom a religion is born, all who have been
+inspired with liberal, not dragged by sordid aims.
+
+How beautiful to him is the society of poets! He reads with idolatry the
+letters and anecdotes of Coleridge and Wordsworth, Goethe and Schiller,
+Beethoven and Raphael. Look at the private thought of these men in
+familiar intercourse: no plotting for lucre, but a conspiracy to reach
+the best in life. The saints are even more ardent in aspiration, for
+their tender hearts were pressed and saddened by fear. They are now set
+on fire by a sense of great redemption. They are prisoners pardoned.
+
+For scholars the world is peopled only with saints, philosophers, and
+poets, and the studious boy seeks his own amid their large activity. So
+much of it meets his want, yet the whole does not meet all his want. He
+must combine and balance and embrace conflicting qualities. Every day
+his view enlarges. What was noble last year will now by no means content
+his conscience. Duty and beauty have risen.
+
+The Ideal Tendency characterizes man, affords the only definition of
+him; and it is a perpetual, irresistible expansion. No matter on what it
+fastens, it will not stay, but spreads and soars like light in the
+morning sky.
+
+To-day we are charmed with our partners, and think we can never tire of
+Alfred and Emily. To-morrow we discover without shame, after all our
+protestations and engagements, that their future seems incommensurate
+with our own. To our surprise, they also feel their paths diverging from
+ours. We part with a show of regret, but real joy to be free.
+
+Both parties have gained from their intercourse a certainty of power and
+promise of greater power. Silly people fill the world with lamentation
+over human inconstancy; but if we follow love, we cannot cling to the
+beloved. We must love onward, and only when our friends go before us can
+we be true both to friendship and to them.
+
+How eager and tremulous his excitement when at last the youth encounters
+all beauty in a maiden! Now he is on his trial. Can he move her? for he
+must be to her nothing or all. How stately and far-removed she seems in
+her crystal sphere! All her relations are fair and poetic. Her book is
+not like another book. Her soft and fragrant attire, can it be woven of
+ribbons and silk? She, too, has dreamed of the coming man, heroic,
+lyrical, impassioned; the beat of his blood a paean and triumphal march;
+a man able to cut paths for her and lead her to all that is worthiest in
+life. Her day is an expectation; her demand looks out of proud eyes.
+Can he move this stately creature, pure and high above him as the clear
+moon yonder, never turning from her course,--this Diana, who will love
+upward and stoop to no Endymion? Now it will appear whether he can pass
+with another for all he is to himself. This will be the victory for
+which he was born, or blackest defeat. If she could love him! If he
+should, after all, be to her only such another as her cousin Thomas, who
+comes and goes with all his pretensions as unregarded as Rover the
+house-dog! Between these _ifs_ he vacillates, swung like a ship on
+stormy waters, touching heaven and hell.
+
+Meanwhile the maiden dares hardly look toward this generous new-comer,
+whose destiny lies broad open in his courage and desire. Others she
+could conciliate and gently allure, but she will not play with the lion.
+She will throw no web around his strength to tear her heart away, if it
+does not hold him. For the first time she guards her fancy. She will not
+think of the career that awaits him, of the help there is in him for
+men, and the honor that will follow him from them,--of the high studies,
+tasks, and companionship to which he is hastening. What avails this
+avoidance, this turning-away of the head? A fancy that must be kept is
+already lost. She read his quality in the first glance of deep-meaning
+eyes. When at last he speaks, she sees suddenly how beyond all recovery
+he had carried away her soul in that glance. They marry each the
+expectation of the other. It was a promise in either that shone so fair.
+Happy lovers, if only as wife and husband they can go on to fulfil the
+promise! For love cannot be repeated; every day it must have fresh food
+in a new object; and unless character is renewed, love must leave it
+behind and wander on.
+
+If the wife is still aspiring,--if she lays growing demands on her
+hero,--if her thought enlarges and she stands true to it, separate from
+him in integrity as he saw her first, following not his, but her own
+native estimate,--she will always be his mistress. She will still have
+that charm of remoteness which belongs only to those who do not lean and
+borrow, to natures centred for themselves in the deep. There is
+something incalculable in such independence. It is full of surprise for
+the most intimate. In one breast the true wife prepares for her husband
+a course of loves. Every day she offers a new heart to be won. Every day
+the woman he could reach is gone, and there again before him is the
+inaccessible maiden who will not accept to-day the behavior of
+yesterday. This withdrawal and advancement from height to height is true
+virginity, which never lies down with love but keeps him always on foot
+and girded for fresh pursuit. Noble lovers rely on no pledges, point to
+no past engagements, but prefer to renew their relation from hour to
+hour. The heroic woman will command, and not solicit love. Let him go,
+when I cease to be all to him, when I can no longer fill the horizon of
+his imagination and satisfy his heart. But if there is less ascension in
+a woman, she is no mate for an advancing man. He must leave her; he
+walks by her side alone. So we pass many dear companions, outgrowing
+alike our loves and our fears.
+
+Once or twice in youth we meet a man of sounding reputation or real
+wisdom, whose secret is hid above our discovery. His manners are
+formidable while we do not understand them. In his presence our tongues
+are tied, our limbs are paralyzed. Thought dies out before him, the will
+is unseated and vacillates, we are cowed like Antony beside Caesar. In
+solitude we are ashamed of this cowardice and resolve to put it away;
+but when the great man returns, our knees knock and we are as weak as
+before. It is suicide to fly from such mortification. A brave boy faces
+it as well as he can. By-and-by the dazzle abates, he sees some flaw,
+some coarseness or softness, in this shining piece of metal; he begins
+to fathom the motives and measure the orbit of this tyrannous
+benefactor. They are the true friends who daunt and overpower us, to
+whom for a little we yield more than their due.
+
+This rule is universal, that no man can admire downward. All enthusiasm
+rises and lifts the subject of it. That which seems to you so base an
+activity is lifted above low natures. What matter, then, where the
+standard floats at this moment, since it cannot remain fixed?
+
+Perfection retreats, as the horizon withdraws before a traveller, and
+lures us on and on. It even travels faster than our best endeavors can
+follow, and so beckons to us from farther and farther away. We may give
+ourselves to the ideal, or we may turn aside to appetite and sleep; but
+in every moment of returning sanity we are again on our feet and again
+upon an endless ascending road.
+
+When a man has tasted power, when he sees the supply there is so near in
+Nature for all need, he hungers for reinforcement. That desire is
+prayer. It opens its own doors and takes supplies from God's hand. No
+wise man can grudge the necessary use of the mind to serve the body with
+shelter and food, for we go merrily to Nature, and with our milk we
+drink order, justice, beauty, and benignity. We cannot take the husks on
+which our bodies are fed, without expressing these juices also, which
+circulate as sap and blood through the sphere. We cannot touch any
+object but some spark of vital electricity is shot through us. Every
+creature is a battery, charged not with mere vegetable or animal, but
+with moral life. Our metaphysical being is fed from something hidden in
+rocks and woods, in streams and skies, in fire, water, earth, and air.
+While we dig roots, and gather nuts, and hunt and roast our meat, our
+blood is quickened not in the heart alone. Deeper currents are swelled.
+The springs of our humanity are opened in Nature; for that which streams
+through the landscape, and comes in at the eye and ear, is plainly the
+same fluid which enters as consciousness, and is the life by which we
+live. While we enjoy this spiritual refreshment and keep ourselves open
+to it, we may dig without degradation; but if our minds fasten on the
+thing to be done, on commodity and safety, on getting and having, those
+avenues seem to close by which the soul was fed. Then we forget our
+incalculable chances and certainties; we go mad, and make the mind a
+muck-rake. If a man will direct his faculties to any limited and not to
+illimitable ends, he cripples his faculties. No matter whether he is
+deluded by a fortune or a reputation or position, if he does not give
+himself wholly to grow and be a man, regardless of minor advantages, he
+has lost his way in the world. "Be true," said Schiller, "to the dream
+of thy youth." That dream was generous, not sordid. We must be
+surrendered to the perfection which claims us, and suffer no narrow aim
+to postpone that insatiable demand.
+
+But the potency of life will bring back every wanderer, as he well
+knows. Every sinner keeps his trunk packed, ready to return to the good.
+The poor traders really mean to buy love with their gold. Feeling the
+hold of a chain which binds us even when we do not cling to it, we grow
+prodigal of time and power. The essence of life, as we enjoy it, is a
+sense of the inextinguishable ascending tendency in life; and this gives
+courage when there is yet no reverence or devotion.
+
+In development of character is involved great change of circumstances.
+We cannot grow or work in a corner. It is not for greed alone or mainly
+that men make war and build cities and found governments, but to try
+what they can do and become, to justify themselves to themselves and to
+their fellows. We desire to please and help,--but still more, at first,
+to be sure that we can please and help. If he hears any man speak
+effectually in public, the ambitious boy will never rest till he can
+also speak, or do some other deed as difficult and as well worth doing.
+For the trial of faculty we must go out into the world of institutions,
+range ourselves beside the workers, take up their tools and strike
+stroke for stroke with them. Every new situation and employment dazzles
+till we find out the trick of it. The boy longs to escape from a farm to
+college, from college to the city and practical life. Then he looks up
+from his desk, or from the pit in the theatre, to the gay world of
+fashion,--harder to conquer than even the world of thought. At last he
+makes his way upward into the sacred circle, and finds there a little
+original power and a great deal of routine. These fine parts are like
+those of players, learned by heart. The men who invented them, with whom
+they were spontaneous, seem to have died out and left their manners with
+their wardrobes to narrow-breasted children, whom neither clothes nor
+courtesies will fit. So in every department we find the snail freezing
+in an oyster-shell. The judges do not know the meaning of justice. The
+preacher thinks religion is a spasm of desire and fear. A young man soon
+loses all respect for titles, wigs, and gowns, and looks for a muscular
+master-mind. Somebody wrote the laws, and set the example of noble
+behavior, and founded every religion. Only a man capable of originating
+can understand, sustain, or use any institution. The Church, the State,
+the Social System come tumbling ruinous over the heads of bunglers, who
+cannot uphold, because they never could have built them, and the rubbish
+obstructs every path in life. An honest, vigorous thinker will clear
+away these ruins and begin anew at the earth. When the boy has broken
+loose from home, and fairly entered the world that allured him, he finds
+it not fit to live in without revolutions. He is as much cramped in it
+as he was in the ways of the old homestead. Feeding the pigs and picking
+up chips did not seem work for a man, but he finds that almost all the
+activity of the race amounts to nothing more; no more thought or purpose
+goes into it. Men find Church and State and Custom ready-made, and they
+fall into the procession, ask no searching questions, but take things
+for granted without reason; and their imitation is as easy as picking up
+chips. It is no doing, but merely sliding down hill. The way of the
+world will not suit a valiant boy. To make elbow-room and get
+breathing-space, he becomes a reformer; and when now he can find no new
+worlds to conquer, he will make a world, laying in truth and justice
+every stone. The same seeker, who was so fired by the sight of his eyes,
+looking out from a mill-yard or a shoe-shop on the many-colored activity
+of his kind, who ran such a round of arts and sciences, pursuing the
+very secret of his being in each new enterprise, is now discontented
+with all that has been done. He begins again to look forward,--he
+becomes a prophet, instead of the historian he was. He easily sees that
+a true manhood would disuse our ways of teaching and worshipping, would
+unbuild and rebuild every town and house, would tear away the jails and
+abolish pauperism as well as slavery. He sees the power of government
+lying unused and unsuspected in spelling-books and Bibles. Now he has
+found a work, not for one finger, but for fighting Hercules and singing
+Apollo, worthy of Minerva and of Jove. He will try what man can do for
+man.
+
+The history of every brave girl is parallel with that of her play-fellow
+and yoke-fellow. She sighs for sympathy, for a gallant company of youths
+and maidens worthy of all desire. Her music, drawing, and Italian are
+only doors which she hopes to open upon such a company. She longs for
+society to make the hours lyrical, for tasks to make them epic and
+heroic. The attitudes and actions of imaginative young persons are
+exalted every moment by the invisible presence of lovers, poets,
+inspired and inspiring companions. Such as they are we also shall be;
+when we walk among them and with them, we shall wash our hands of all
+injustice, meanness, and pretension. Women are as tired as men of our
+silly civilization, its compliments, restraints, and compromises. They
+feel the burden of routine as heavily, and keep their elasticity under
+it as long as we. What they cannot hope to do, a great-hearted man,
+some lover of theirs, shall do for them; and they will sustain him with
+appreciation, anticipating the tardy justice of mankind. Every generous
+girl shares with her sex that new development of feminine consciousness,
+which the vulgar have named, in derision, a movement for woman's rights.
+She will seek to be more truly woman, to assert her special power and
+privilege, to approach from her own side the common ideal, offering a
+pure soprano to match the manly bass.
+
+We all look for a future, not only better than our won past, but better
+than any past. Humanity is our inheritance, but not historical humanity.
+Man seems to be broken and scattered all abroad. The great lives are
+only eminent examples of a single virtue, and by admiration of every
+hero we have been crippled on some one side. If he is free, he is also
+coarse; if delicate, he is overlaid by the gross world; saints are timid
+and feverish, afraid of being spattered in the first puddle; heroes are
+profane. We must melt up all the old metal to make a new man and carry
+forward the common consciousness. Every failure was part of the final
+success. We go over a causeway in which every timber is some soldier
+fallen in this enterprise. Who doubts the result doubts God. We say,
+regretfully "If I could only continue at my best!" and we ach with the
+little ebb, between wave and wave, of an advancing tide. But this tide
+is Omnipotence. It rises surely, if it were only an inch in a thousand
+years. The changes in society are like the geologic upheaval and sinking
+of continents; yet man is morally as far removed from the savage as he
+is physically superior to the saurian. We do not see the corn grow or
+the world revolve; yet if motion be given as the primal essence, we must
+look for inconceivable results. Wisdom will take care of wisdom, and
+extend. Consider the growth of intellect in the history of your own
+parish for twenty years. See how old views have died out of New England
+and new ones come in. Every man is fortified in his opinions, yet no man
+can hold his opinions. The closer they are hugged, the faster in any
+community they change. The ideas of such men as Swedenborg, Goethe,
+Emerson, float in the air like spores, and wherever they light they
+thrive. The crabbedest dogmatist cannot escape; for, if he open his eyes
+to seek his meet, some sunshine will creep in. We have combustibles
+stored in the stupidest of us, and a spark of truth kindles our
+slumbering suspicion. Since the great reality is organized in man, and
+waits to be revealed in him, it is of no avail to shut out the same
+reality from our ears. Thinkers have held to be dangerous, and excluded
+from the desks of public instruction; but the boys were already occupied
+with the same thoughts. They would hear nothing new at the lecture, and
+they are more encouraged by the terror of the elders than by any word
+the wise man could speak. In pursuit of truth, the difficulty is to ask
+a question; for in the ability to ask is involved ability to reach an
+answer. The serious student is occupied with problems which the doctors
+have never been able to entertain, and he knows that their discourse is
+not addressed to him. If you have not wit to understand what I seek, you
+may croak with the frogs: you are left out of my game.
+
+And the old people, unhappily, suspect that this boy, whose theory they
+do not comprehend, is master of their theory. They are puzzled and
+panic-stricken; they strike in the dark. In all controversy, the strong
+man's position is unassailed. His adversary does not see where he is,
+but attacks a man of straw, some figment of his own, to the amusement of
+intelligent spectators. Always our combatant is talking quite wide of
+the whole question. So the wise man can never have an opponent; for
+whoever is able to face and find him has already gone over to his side.
+By material defences, we shut our light for a little, by going where
+only our own views are repeated, and so boxing ourselves from all
+danger of conviction; but if a strong thinker could gain the mere brute
+advantage of having an audience confined in their seats to hear him out,
+he would carry them all inevitably to his conclusion. They know it and
+run away. But the press has made our whole world of civilization one
+great lecture-room, from which no reading man can escape, and the only
+defence against progress is stolid preoccupation with trade or trifles.
+Yet this persistency is holding the breath, and can no more be continued
+in the mind than that in the body. Blundering and falsehood become
+intolerable to the blunderers; they must return to thought, and that is
+proper in a single direction, is approached by ten thousand avenues
+toward the One. It is religious, not ignorance or dogma. We cannot think
+without exploration of the divine order and recognition of its divinity,
+without finding ourselves carried away by it to service and adoration.
+All good is assured to us in Truth, and Truth follows us hard, drives us
+into many a corner, and will have us at last. So Love surprises all, and
+every virtue has a pass-key to every heart. Out of conflicting
+experience, amid barbarism and dogmatism, from feathers that float and
+stones that fall, we deduce the great law of moral gravitation, which
+binds spirit to spirit, and all souls to the best. Recognition of that
+law is worship. We rejoice in it without a taint of selfishness. We
+adore it with entire satisfaction. Worship is neither belief nor hope,
+but this certainty of repose upon Perfection. We explore over our heads
+and under our feet a harmony that is only enriched by dissolving
+discords. The drag of time, the cramp of organization, are only false
+fifths. It is blasphemy to deny the dominant. We cannot escape our good;
+we shall be purified. When our destiny is thus assured to us, we become
+impatient of sleep and sin, and redouble exertion. We devote ourselves
+to this certainty, and our allegiance is religion. There is nothing in
+man omitted from the uplift of Ideality. That is a central and total
+expansion of him, is an inmost entering into his inmost, is more himself
+than he is himself. All reverence is directed toward this Creator
+revealed in flesh, though not compassed. We adore him in others, while
+yet we despise him in ourselves. Every other motion of man has an
+external centre, is some hunger or passion, acts on us from its seat in
+Nature or the body, and we can face it, deny and repudiate it with the
+body; but this is the man flowing down from his source.
+
+We must not be tempted to call things by too fine names, lest we should
+disguise them. All that is great is plain and familiar. The Ideal
+Tendency is simple love of life, felt first as desire and then as
+satisfaction. The men who represent it are not seekers, but finders, who
+go on to find more and more; for in the poet desire has fulfilled
+itself. Enjoyment makes the artist. He has gone on before us, reaching
+into the abyss of possibility; but he has reached more mightily. He
+begins to know what is promised in the universal attraction, in this
+eager turning of all faces toward our future. There is a centre from
+which no eye can be diverted, for it is the beam of sight. Look which
+way you will, that centre is everywhere. The universe is flooded with a
+ray from it, and the light of common day on every object is a refraction
+or reflection of that brightness.
+
+Shallow men think of Ideality as another appetite, to be fed with pretty
+baubles, as the body is satisfied with meat and sleep; but the
+representative of that august impulse feels in it his immortality, and
+by all his lovely allegories, mythologies, fables, pictures, statues,
+manners, songs, and symphonies, he seeks to communicate his own feeling,
+that by specific gravity man must rise. It is no wonder, then, that we
+love Art while it offers us reinforcement of being, and despise the
+pretenders, for whom it is pastime, not prophecy.
+
+For, in spite of all discouragement from the materialists, men
+stultified by trade or tradition, we have trusted the high desire and
+followed it thus far. We felt the sacredness of life even in ourselves,
+and there was always reverence in our admiration. We could not be made
+to doubt the divinity of that which walked with us in the wood or looked
+on us in the morning. The grasses and pebbles, the waters and rocks,
+clouds and showers, snow and wind, were too brother-like to be denied.
+They sang the same song which fills the breast, and our love for them
+was pure. The men and women we sought, were they not worthy of honor?
+The artist comes to bid us trust the Ideal Tendency, and not dishonor
+him who moves therein. He is no trifler, then, to be thrust aside by the
+doctors with their sciences, or the economists with production and use.
+He offers manhood to man and womanhood to woman.
+
+We have named Ideality a love of life. Nay, what is it but life
+itself,--and that loving but true living? What word can have any value
+for us, unless it is a record of inevitable expansions in character. The
+universe is pledged to every heart, and the artist represents its
+promise. He sings, because he sees the manchild advancing, by blind
+paths it may be, but under sure guidance, propelled by inextinguishable
+desires toward the largest experience. He is no longer afraid of old
+bugbears. He feels for one, that nothing in the universe, call it by
+what ugly name you will, can crush or limit the lift of that leaven
+which works in the breast. Out of all eyes there looks on him the same
+expectation, and what for others is a great _perhaps_ for him has become
+unavoidable certainty.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN.
+
+     "The mind of man is first led to adore the forces of Nature,
+     and certain objects of the material world; at a later period,
+     it yields to religious impulses of a higher and purely
+     spiritual character."
+
+HUMBOLDT
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Alpheus and Eleusa, Thessalian Greeks, travelled in their old age, to
+escape poverty and misfortune, which had surely taken joint lease with
+themselves of a certain hut among the hills, and managed both household
+and flock.
+
+The Halcyon builds its nest upon a floating weed; so to the drifting
+fortunes of these wanderers clung a friendless child, innocent and
+beautiful Evadne.
+
+Some secret voice, the country-people say, lured the shepherd from his
+home, to embark on the AEgean Sea, and lead the little one away, together
+with his aged wife, to look for a new home in exile. Mariners bound for
+Troas received them into their vessel, and the voyage began.
+
+The Greeks lamented when they beheld the shores of Asia. Heavy clouds
+and the coming night concealed the landmarks which should have guided
+their approach, and, buffeted by the uncertain winds, they waited for
+the morning. By the light of dawn, they saw before them an unknown
+harbor, and the dwellings of men; and here the mariners determined to be
+rid of their passengers, who vexed them by their fears; while to these
+three any port seemed desirable, and they readily consented to put off
+towards the shore. At the hour when the winds rise, at early dawn, they
+gladly parted from the seamen and the tossing ship, and took the way
+before them to the little town.
+
+No fisherman, shadowless, trod the sands; no pious hand lighted the fire
+of sacrifice in the vanishing twilight; even the herds failed to cry
+out for the coming day. Strange fears began to chill the hearts of the
+Thessalians. They walked upon a trackless way, and when they entered the
+dwellings they found them untenanted. Over the doorways hung vines
+dropping their grapes, and birds flew out at the open windows. They
+climbed a hill behind the town, and saw how the sea surrounded them. The
+land on which they stood was no promontory, but an island, separated by
+a foaming interval of water from the shore, which they now saw, not
+distant, but inaccessible.
+
+Then these miserable ones clung to each other on the summit of the rock,
+gazing, until they were fully persuaded of their misfortune. The winds
+waved and fluttered their garments, the waters uttered a voice breaking
+on the rocky shore, and rose mute upon the farther coast. The rain now
+began to fall from a morning cloud, and the travellers, for the first
+time, found shelter under a foreign roof.
+
+All day they watched the sails approaching the headlands, or veering
+widely away and beating towards unseen harbors, as when a bird driven by
+fear abandons its nest, but drawn by love returns and hovers around it.
+Four days and nights had passed before the troubled waves ceased to
+hinder the craft of the fisherman. The Greeks saw with joy that their
+signals were answered, and a boat approached, so that they could hear a
+man's voice crying to them,--
+
+"What are you who dwell on the island of the profane, and gather fruits
+sacred to Apollo?"
+
+"If I may be said to dwell here," replied the old man, "it is contrary
+to my own will. I am a Greek of Thessaly. Apollo himself should not have
+forbidden me to gather the wild grapes of this island, since I and this
+child and Eleusa, my wife, have not during many days found other food."
+
+"It is indeed true," exclaimed the boatman, "that madness presently
+falls upon those who eat of these grapes, since you speak impious words
+against the god. Behold, yonder is woody Tenedos, where his altar
+stands; it is now many years, since, filled with wrath against the
+dwellers here, he seized this rock, and hurled it into the sea; the very
+hills melted in the waves. I myself, a child then, beheld the waters
+violently urged upon the land. Moved without winds, they rose, climbing
+upon the very roofs of the houses. When the sea became calm, a gulf lay
+between this and the coast, and what had been a promontory was left
+forever an island. Nor has any man dared to dwell upon it, nor to gather
+its accursed fruits. Many men have I known who saw gods walking upon
+this shore, visible sometimes on the high cliffs inaccessible to human
+feet. Therefore, if you, being a stranger, have ignorantly trespassed on
+this garden, which the divinities reserve, perhaps for their own
+pleasure, strive to escape their resentment and offer sacrifices on the
+altar of Tenedos."
+
+"Give me a passage in your boat to the land yonder, and I will depart
+out of your coasts," replied the Greek.
+
+The fisherman, hitherto so friendly, remained silent, and words were
+wanting to him wherewith to instruct the stranger. When he again spoke,
+he said,--
+
+"Why, old man, not having the vigor or the carelessness of youth, have
+you quitted your home, leading this woman into strange lands, and this
+child, whose eyes are tearful for the playmates she has left? I call a
+little maid daughter, who is like unto her, and she remains guarded at
+home by her mother, until we shall give her in marriage to one of her
+own nation and language."
+
+"Waste no more words," answered the old man, "I will narrate my story as
+we row towards your harbor."
+
+"It were better for you," said the boatman, "that they who brought you
+hither should take you into their ship again. Enter our town, if you
+will, but be not amazed at what shall befall you. It is a custom with us
+to make slaves of those who approach us unsolicited, in order to
+protect ourselves against the pirates and their spies, who have formerly
+lodged themselves among us in the guise of wayfaring men, and so robbed
+us of our possessions. Therefore it is our law, that those who land on
+our coast shall, during a year, serve us in bondage."
+
+Anger flamed in the eye of the stranger.
+
+"You do well," he cried, "to ask of me why I left the land which bore
+me. Never did I there learn to suspect vile and inhospitable customs. If
+you have pity for the aged and the unfortunate, and would not gladly see
+them cast into slavery, bring hither some means of life to this rock,
+which cowards have abandoned for me. Meanwhile, I will watch for some
+friendly sail, which, approaching, may bear me to any harbor, where
+worse reception can hardly await me.--Know that I fear not the anger of
+your gods; many years have I lived, and I have never yet beheld a god.
+My father has told me, that, in all his wanderings, among lonely hills,
+at the hour of dawn, or by night, or, again, in populous places, he has
+never seen one whom he believed to be a god. Moreover, in Athens itself
+are those who doubt their existence. Leave me to gather the grapes of
+Apollo!"
+
+So saying, he turned away from the shore, not deigning to ask more from
+the stranger.
+
+When the golden crescent moon, no sooner visible than ready to vanish in
+the rosy western sky, was smiling on the exiles with the old familiar
+look she wore above the groves of Thessaly, the sad-hearted ones were
+roused again by the voice of their unknown friend.
+
+"Come down to the shore," he cried; "I have returned to you with gifts;
+my heart yearns to the child; she is gentle, and her eyes are like those
+of the stag when the hunters surround him. Take my flasks of oil and
+wine, and these cakes of barley and wheat. I bring you nets, and cords
+also, which we fishermen know how to use. May the gods, whom you
+despise, protect you!"
+
+Late into the night the Greeks remained upon the border of the sea,
+wondering at their strange fate. To the idle the day is never
+sufficiently long,--the night also is wasted in words.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+The days which the exiles passed in solitude were not unhappy. The child
+Evadne pruned the large-leaved vines, and gave the rugged cheeks of
+certain melons to the sun. The continual hope of departure rendered all
+privations supportable.
+
+Was it hope, or was it fear, that stirred their bosoms when at last a
+sail appeared not distant? They hoped that its white wings might turn
+seaward!
+
+"Mother," cried the shepherd, "no seaman willingly approaches this
+shore, for the white waves warn him how the rocks He beneath the water.
+Even walls and roofs of houses are seen, or guessed at, ingulfed
+formerly by the sea; and the tale of that disaster, as told us by the
+fisherman, is doubtless known to mariners, who, fearing Apollo, dare not
+land upon this island. While, on the other hand, we have heard how
+pirates, and even poor wayfaring folk, are so ill-received in the bay,
+that from them, though they be not far off, we yet look for no
+assistance. Let us, then, be content, and cease to seek after our fate,
+which doubtless is never at rest from seeking after us. And let us not
+be in haste to enter again into a ship, (so fearful and unnatural a
+thing for those born to walk upon the land,) nor yet to beg our way
+along painful and unknown roads, in search of men of a new religion and
+a different language from that of Greeks. Neither, dear wife, if we must
+suffer it, let us dread slavery too much. Life is long enough for those
+who die young, and too long for the aged. One year let us patiently
+give, more especially if it be unavoidable to give it. Vex me with no
+more lamentations; some unforeseen accident may relieve us from our
+misfortunes."
+
+Eleusa, the good old wife, ever obedient to the husband of her youth,
+talked no more of departure, nor yet complained of their miserable
+lodgings in the ruined huts, on which her housewifely care grieved to
+expend itself in vain.
+
+Evadne would not be restrained from wandering. She penetrated alone the
+wildest thickets; the nests of timid birds were known to her; and she
+traced the bee to his hidden city. Deep in the woods she discovered a
+wide chasm, in which the water of the sea palpitated with the beating of
+the great heart of Ocean from which it flowed. Trees were still erect,
+clasped by the salt waves, but quite dead; and all around their base
+were hung fringes of marine growth, touched with prismatic tints when
+seen through the glittering water, but brown and hideous when gathered,
+as the trophy remaining in the hand which has dared to seize old Proteus
+by the locks. All around this avenue, into which the sea sometimes
+rushed like an invading host of armed men, the laurels and the delicate
+trees that love to bend over the sources of the forest-streams hung
+half-uprooted and perilously a-tiptoe over the brink of shattered rocks,
+and withered here and there by the touch of the salt foam, towards which
+they seemed nevertheless fain to droop, asking tidings of the watery
+world beyond.
+
+The skeleton-arms of the destroyed ones were feeble to guard the passage
+of the ravine. Evadne broke a way over fallen trees and stepping-stones
+imbedded in sea-sand, and gained the opposite bank. The solitude in
+which she found herself appeared deeper, more awful, than before the
+chasm lay between the greater island and the less. She listened
+motionless to the soft, but continual murmur of the wood, the music of
+leaves and waves and unseen wings, by which all seeming silence of
+Nature is made as rich to the ear as her fabrics to the eye, so that, in
+comparison, the garments of a king are mean, though richly dyed,
+embroidered on every border, and hung with jewels.
+
+While the little wood-ranger stood and waited, as it were, for what the
+grove might utter, her eye fell upon the traces of a pathway, concealed,
+and elsewhere again disclosed, overgrown by sturdy plants, but yet
+threading the shady labyrinth. She followed the often reappearing line
+upon the hillside, and as she climbed higher, with her rose the
+mountains and the sea. The shore, the sands, the rocky walls, showed
+every hue of sunbeams fixed in stone. The leafy sides of Tenedos had
+caught up the clear, green-tinted blue of the sea, and wore it in a
+noonday dream under the slumberous light that rested on earth and sea
+and sky. Above the horizon, far away, the very clouds were motionless;
+and where the sunbeams marked a tranquil sail, it seemed, with wave and
+cloud, to express only Eternal Repose. But the eager child pressed
+onward, for the crown of the hill seemed almost reached, and she longed
+for a wider, wider view of the beautiful AEgean.
+
+Suddenly she arrived where a sculptured stone lay in the pathway. Some
+patient and skilful hand had wrought there the emblem of a rose, and
+among the chiselled petals stood drops of rain, collected as in a cup.
+On the border a pure white bird had just alighted, and Evadne watched
+how it bent and rose and seemed to caress the flower of stone, while it
+drank of the dew around and within it. Her eyes filled with tears as she
+mused on the vanished hand of Art, whose work Nature now reclaimed for
+this humble, but grateful use. The dove took wing, and the child
+proceeding came to a level turf where a temple of white marble stood.
+Eight slender columns upheld a marble canopy, beneath which stood the
+image of a god. One raised hand seemed to implore silence, while the
+other showed clasping fingers, but they closed upon nothing. Around the
+statue's base lay scattered stones. Evadne gathered them, and reunited
+they formed the lyre of Apollo. She replaced, for an instant, in the
+cold and constant grasp a fragment of the ruined harp. Then the aspect
+of the god became regretful, sad, as of one who desires a voice from
+the lips of the dead. Hastily she flung the charm away, and gentle grace
+returned to the listening boy, from whom, sleeping, some nymph might
+have stolen his lyre, whose complaining chords now vibrated to his ear
+and called their master to the pursuit. Evadne reposed on the steps of
+the temple, and fixedly gazed upon the god. Her fancy endowed the firm
+hand with an unbent bow; then the figure seemed to pause in the chase,
+and listen for the baying of the hounds. Then she imaged a shepherd's
+staff, and the shepherd-god waited tenderly for the voice of a lost
+lamb.
+
+"So stood Apollo in Thessaly," she softly said, "when he carried the
+shepherd's staff. Oh that I were the lost Thessalian lamb for whom he
+waits, that he might descend and I die for joy on his breast!"
+
+Then, half afraid that the lips might break their marble stillness in
+reply, she asked the protection of the deity, whom she was fain to
+adore, but whom her adopted parents dared to despise.
+
+Sole worshipper at a deserted shrine, she had no offering to place
+there, but of flowers. She wove a crown and laid it at his feet, and,
+while she bent by the pedestal, to hang a garland there, oh, terror! a
+voice cried, "Evadne! Evadne!" A tide of fear rushed to her heart. The
+god stood motionless yet. Who could have uttered her name? A falling
+branch, a swift zephyr, may have seemed for an instant articulate, and
+yet it was surely a human voice which had called her. Her reverie was
+broken now, like a cataract brought to its downfall. A moment since, all
+was peace and joyfulness; now she remembered, with alarm, how long she
+had left her foster-parents alone, and the way by which she had come was
+unknown, as if she had never traced it. She crossed the floor of the
+temple, and, as she turned to whisper, "Farewell! beautiful god!" the
+form gently inclined itself, and the uplifted hand stirred lightly.
+Evadne darted forward and looked no more behind. She bounded over chasms
+in the pathway, and broke the tender branches before her with impatient
+hands, so that her descent from the temple was one mad flight.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+When Evadne returned to Alpheus and to her foster-mother, she was silent
+concerning her discovery, and it seemed the more sweet to her for being
+secret. Her thoughts made pilgrimages to the temple hidden by the
+laurels once set to adorn it, and the deserted God of Youth and Immortal
+Beauty drew from her an untaught and voiceless worship. How tedious now
+appeared the labors of their half-savage life!--for the ensnaring of
+fish and the gathering of fruits for the little household gave the child
+no leisure to climb the hill a second time, to seek the lost temple, now
+all her own. Two weary days had passed, and on the morning of the third
+Evadne performed all her labors, such as they were, of field or of the
+house.
+
+Eleusa was absorbed in the art, new to her, of repairing a broken net,
+when the child abruptly fled away into the forest, crying out, "I go to
+seek wild grapes." She would not hear the voices calling her back. She
+gained rapidly the path, already familiar, and wherein every bough and
+every leaf seemed expectant of her coming footsteps.
+
+Hamadryads veiled themselves, each in her conscious tree, eluding human
+approach. She steals more gently along, that she may haply surprise a
+vision. The little grassy plain appears beyond the wavering
+oak-branches. It is reached at last, and there,--surely it is no
+delusion,--there rests a sleeping youth! Another step, and she bent
+aside the boughs. He stands erect, listening.
+
+"It is the god!" she cries; and, falling back, would have been
+precipitated from the rock, had not the youth rapidly bounded forward
+and grasped her hand.
+
+"Little one, beautiful child," he cried, "do not fear me! I have indeed
+played the god formerly, to scare from my hunting-ground the poor fools
+who dread the anger of Apollo. Tell me, who are you, thus wandering in
+the awful garden of the gods? Who brought you hither, and what name has
+been given you?"
+
+Trembling still, and not knowing how to relate it, Evadne stammered
+forth some words of her history. Her senses were bewildered by the
+beauty of the hunter-boy, who now appeared how different from the marble
+god! Bold, and as if ever victorious, with an undaunted brow, like
+Bacchus seen through the tears of sad Ariadne awakened. Strong and swift
+were his limbs, as those of a panther. His cheek was ruddy, and his
+half-naked form was brown, as those appear who dwell not under a roof,
+but in the uncertain shade of the forest. His locks were black and
+wildly disordered, and his eyes were most like to a dark stream lighted
+with golden flashes; but the laughing beauty of his lip no emblem could
+convey.
+
+Soon, seated on the turf, the story of each child was related.
+
+"I am nobly born," said the boy, "but I love the life of a hunter. My
+father has left me alone, and when I am a man, I, too, shall follow him
+to Rome. But liberty is sweeter than honor or power. I escape often from
+my tutor, who suspects not where I hide myself, and range all the
+forests. Embarking by night, in former years, I often visited this
+island. I know where to gather fruits and seek vineyards among the
+ruined huts of the village beneath us. By night I descend and gather
+them, for my free wanderings by day caused the fishermen to relate that
+a god walked upon the shore. When some, more curious or bold, turned
+their prows hitherward, to observe what form moved upon the hill, I
+rolled great rocks down, with a thundering noise, into the sea, and have
+terrified all men from the spot."
+
+"We now call the vineyards and gardens ours," said Evadne, "but it
+appears they truly belong to you. Descend to the shore and we will share
+with you, not only the ripest clusters of the vines, but wine and loaves
+which the fisherman brings us."
+
+"Bring me hither the wine, and I will gladly drink of it, nor waste one
+drop in oblation; but I must not descend to the shore, and you must be
+silent concerning me, for my tutor offers large rewards to any one who
+will disclose where I hide myself. The slaves on the coast here are
+ready to betray me. I have watched them sailing near the island, lured
+by the promise of a handful of gold, but not daring to land upon it,
+lest they should behold, against his will, a divine being."
+
+"Then I will climb up hither and bring you the fruits," said Evadne.
+
+"Nay, my bird," answered the boy, "lay them only on the altar, below,
+and when it is safe to descend, call me."
+
+"If I call softly, you cannot hear me; and I cannot call loudly enough
+to reach you upon this hill."
+
+"The secrets of the island are not known to you," her companion said,
+and arose quickly; "follow me,--I will teach you. You know not why
+Apollo is listening? It is for the good of the worshippers, who care not
+to mount the hill to adore him. Above the town stands an altar; voices
+uttered there are brought up hither by an echo. There the pious repaired
+once, and laid their gifts, and songs and the music of flutes sounded in
+honor of the deity, who was held too sacred to be approached. Hold me
+not too sacred, little one!--you shall approach without fear; but give
+me your voice at this altar, when your foster-father sleeps."
+
+"But what shall I call you?" cried the laughing Evadne.
+
+"Call _Hylas_. Echo has often repeated, the name, they say, in the
+country of Mysia, and these groves shall learn it of you! Now follow me
+over the floor of the temple,--but lightly! lightly! See how the god
+would warn us away! He nods on his pedestal; even the loud thunder may
+some day cause his fall; already he is half shaken down from his shrine
+by earthquakes."
+
+Then, firmly, bold Hylas held trembling Evadne, who glanced for an
+instant down the leafy passage of echoes.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+When the day was over, Alpheus called to him his foster-child.
+
+"You have willingly followed us into our exile," he said, "nor have you
+ever inquired whither we lead you. Listen to me; I shall confide to you
+a secret, so that, if evil befall us, you may go on and fulfil your
+journey.
+
+"In Asia stands a city, called Thyatira, and there dwell men of a new
+religion, called Christians. Of this faith I know as yet but little.
+But, dear Evadne, your father is yet living, and has sent, praying me to
+conduct you to him, that you may be taught among Christians. I have
+labored to fulfil his wish, for in our youth we were dear to each other.
+The moon saw us nightly upon the hills, guarding our flocks, and by day
+we practised the labors and the sports of Greeks."
+
+"What is the religion of my father?" asked the child.
+
+"I cannot tell it to you; I know only that the Christians worship one
+god."
+
+"Apollo, then, is my choice."
+
+"Not so, child. The god of Christians is not known to us; but he shall
+overthrow the idols of the whole world. The bow of Diana, the lyre of
+Apollo, are already broken."
+
+The child started. Was the temple known to Alpheus, too? Had he seen
+there the fragments of a shattered harp?
+
+The old man continued his discourse, but Evadne's thoughts had flown
+away towards the lost temple.
+
+"There alone will I worship," she murmured to herself. She dreamed of
+adoring the deity of stone, but Hylas haunted all her thoughts. Yes,
+Evadne! one god is sufficient for you!
+
+Under cover of the darkness, the friendly boatman drew near, and the
+islanders heard the unaccustomed sound of the boat drawn up the beach by
+the youth, whose superstitious fears began to vanish as he observed that
+no calamity fell upon these dwellers on the sacred spot.
+
+"I come," he said, "with gifts truly, but also with good tidings. Have
+patience yet awhile. Your retreat is still unknown, and, after a few
+days, I may find you the means of escape."
+
+Evadne alone was silent, and her tears flowed secretly.
+
+The sun was already set, on the following day, before she stole away to
+meet the hunter-boy. In his hand, as he advanced joyously to greet her,
+he bore a white dove, which his arrow had pierced.
+
+"I struck it," he said, while he pointed to its broken wing and bleeding
+breast, "when it alighted on the edge of a stone fallen from the
+temple."
+
+Evadne concealed her ready tears and uttered no reproach against her
+hero; but she pressed the dead bird to her bosom.
+
+"Tell me, Hylas," she asked, "do you worship this god before us, or that
+of the Christians?"
+
+The boy laughed gayly.
+
+"I worship this strong right arm," he said, "and my own bold will, which
+has conquered and shall conquer again! The stories of the gods are but
+fables. To us who are brave nothing can be forbidden; it is the weak who
+are unfortunate, and no god is able either to assist or to destroy us.
+As to the Christians, they are a despised people, a race of madmen, who,
+pretending to love poverty and martyrdom, are followed by the rude and
+ignorant. As for us, we are gods, both to them and to ourselves."
+
+Evadne knew that she herself must be counted among the rude and
+ignorant; she dared not raise her eyes to the young noble, who watched
+her quivering lip, and but dimly guessed how he had wounded her.
+
+"Leave caressing the dead bird," he said, at last, "and I will tell you
+tales of Rome and its glories."
+
+And he charmed back again her innocent smiles, with noble traditions of
+kings, of gods, and of heroes, till the round moon stood above Gargarus,
+cold, in a rose-tinted heaven.
+
+But again at sunrise the child sought the spot to bring a basket, heavy
+with gifts, for Hylas. He came at the call of Evadne, fresh, glowing,
+beautiful as a child rocked on the breast of Aurora, and upheld by her
+cool, fanning wings. His cheek wore the kiss of the Sun, and his closely
+curling locks were wet by the scattered fountain, cold in the shaded
+grove. He broke the early silence of the air with song and story, and
+named for the admiring child the towns, the headlands, and the hills,
+over which the eye delighted to wander.
+
+"Now is the hour," he said, "when mariners far away behold for a little
+while the dome of this temple. They believe that the gods have rendered
+it invisible except at the rising day; but, in truth, the oaks, the
+laurels, and the unpruned ivy conceal it from view, at all times, except
+when the rays from the east strike upward. I have delighted to teach the
+people fables concerning this island and the lost temple; for as long as
+they fear to tread upon this spot, I have a retreat for myself, where I
+range unmolested.
+
+"See yonder, so white among the dark cypress-trees, my father's villa!
+It has gardens and shady groves, but I love best the wild branching oaks
+which give their shade to Evadne! Far away in the purple distance stands
+the Mount of Ida. There dwelt Paris, content with the love of Oenone,
+until he knew himself to be the son of a king, for whom Argive Helen
+alone was found worthy; for his eyes had rested once upon immortal
+charms, of which the green eternal pines of Ida are still whispering the
+story. See how the people of this village of Athos flock together! Some
+festival occupies them. I see them going forth from the gates in
+hurrying crowds; and now a band of men approaches. Some one is about to
+enter their town, to whom they wish to do honor, and doubtless they bear
+green branches to strew in the way. I know not what festival they
+celebrate, for the altars are all deserted."
+
+"I see a boat put off from the shore," said Evadne, "and it seems to
+turn its prow hitherward."
+
+But it soon was concealed by the woody hill-top, although its course was
+seen to be directed towards the ruined huts upon the shore. Not long
+after, the children heard the name of "Evadne," brought faintly by the
+echoes, like the words of unseen ghosts who strive to awaken some
+beloved sleeper unconscious of their presence.
+
+Evadne feared to return, and dared not stay. For the first time, the
+voice of her foster-father failed to bring her obedient footsteps; for
+her fluttering heart suspected something strange and unwelcome awaiting
+her. She wept at parting from Hylas, and the boy detained her. He also
+seemed troubled.
+
+"Dear little one," he said, "betray me not! These men of Athos have seen
+me, and have authority to bring me bound before some ruler who has
+entered their town. They come to look for me now. I fly to my
+hiding-place, and you will deny that you saw any one in this forest."
+
+He was gone down the face of the cliff, with winged feet, light of tread
+as Jove's messenger. More slowly, Evadne retraced the downward path, and
+lingered on the banks of the ravine, where the bitter waters were
+sobbing among the rocks. She lay down upon the ground, and dreamed,
+while yet waking, of her home in Thessaly, of her unknown father in the
+Christian city of Thyatira, and of Hylas, ever Hylas, and the pain of
+parting. How long she hid herself she guessed not, until the sun at the
+zenith sent down his brightest beam to discover the lost Thessalian
+lamb. Then, subdued and despairing, she travelled on to meet the
+reproaches that could not fail to await her.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+At midnight the sleepless girl stole from her couch, and laid on the
+altar beyond the village heavy clusters of grapes and the richest fruits
+from her store of dainties. "Hylas!" she softly cried, and the
+sleepless echo repeated the name; but though she watched long, no form
+emerged from the forest. Timidly she flitted back to her dwelling, and
+waited for an eastern gleam. At last the veil of night was lifted a
+little, a wind ruffled the waves, and the swaying oaks repeated to the
+hills the message of coming splendors from the Orient. Evadne gladly saw
+that the stars were fewer and paler in the sky, and she walked forth
+again, brushing cold dews from the vines and the branches. A foreboding
+fear led her first to look at the altar where she had left her offering.
+It was untouched. Then she entered the still benighted wood, and passed
+the cold gray waters. Arrived at the temple, she felt a hateful
+stillness in the place.
+
+"Hylas!" she loudly called, "come to me! For _you_ there is no danger;
+but for me, they will take me away at sunrise. The Christians will come
+to-day and carry me hence. Oh, Hylas! where do you hide yourself?"
+
+But only a strong and angry wind disturbed the laurels around the
+temple, and all was still. Then the song of the birds began all around
+her, and a silver gleam shot across the eastern horizon. Suddenly
+rosy-tinged signals stood among the sad-colored torn clouds above her
+head. The hour for her departure was approaching. She gazed intently
+down among the pines, where Hylas had disappeared, and painfully and
+slowly began to descend. The wild-eyed hares glanced at her and shrank
+into concealment again. The birds uttered cries of alarm, and the
+motionless lizards lay close to her feet. Her heart beat anxiously when
+she heard the sudden stroke of a bird's wing, scared from its nest, and
+she paused often to listen, but no human voice was heard.
+
+She penetrated slowly thus to that shore of the island which she had
+never yet visited. She reached a border of white sand, and studied its
+surface. She found a record there,--traces of footsteps, and the long
+trail of a boat, drawn from a thicket of laurels to the shore, and down
+to the water's edge. She stood many minutes contemplating these signs.
+She imaged to herself the retreat by night, by the late rising light of
+the waning moon. She seemed to see the youth, his manly arm urging the
+boat from its hiding-place. In this spot his foot pressed the sand.
+There he walked before and drew the little craft behind him. He launched
+it here, and, had not the winds urged the water up the shore, his last
+footstep might have remained for Evadne to gaze at.
+
+He is surely gone! To return for the smiles of Evadne? She knows not if
+he will return; but she glances upward at the sky, and feels that she
+soon will have quitted the island, this happy island, forever!
+
+Upward through the wood again she toils to take a last look at the
+temple. The spot seemed already to have forgotten her. And yet here lies
+a withered crown she wove once for Hylas; and here she finds at last the
+dart she lost for him, when she drew his bow in play. Now she sees on
+the shore at Athos an assembly of the people, and the men push off their
+boats. The village is already alive, and awake. The rising of the sun is
+looked for, and the clouds are like a golden fleece. Slowly above the
+tree-tops the swans are waving their great pinions, to seek the stream
+of Cayster. All creatures recognize the day, and only one weeps to see
+the light.
+
+Evadne knew that on yonder shore waited the dreaded messengers who would
+gather the homeless into the Christian fold. She stayed to utter one
+farewell to the cold, the cruel marble, with its unvaried smile.
+
+"Be my god!" she cried, aloud. "In whatever strange land, to whatever
+unknown religion I may be led, the god of this forgotten temple shall
+have the worship of my heart!"
+
+She crossed the marble pavement. She clasped with her white cold arms
+the knees of Apollo--Hold! the form totters!--it is too late!--it must
+fall! She rises to flee away, but the very floor is receding from her
+tread. And slowly, with a majesty even in destruction, the god bows
+himself, and drops from his pedestal.
+
+The crashing fall is over. The foundations of the shrine, parted long
+ago by earthquakes, and undermined by torrents, have slipped from their
+place. Stones slide gradually to the brink of the rock, and some have
+fallen near the sculptured rose; and yet some portions of the graceful
+temple stand, and will support the dome yet, until some boisterous storm
+shakes roughly the remaining columns.
+
+But the god is dethroned, shivered, ruined. Evadne should arise and go.
+The daylight overflows the sky, and she is quite, quite still, where the
+hand of Apollo has laid her. Her forehead was but touched by fingers
+that once held the lyre; and a crimson stream flows through the locks
+upon her brow. A smile like that which the god wore is fixed and
+changeless now upon her lip. Why does she smile? Because, in the dawn of
+life, of grief, of love, she found peace.
+
+The sun was up, and there was no more silence or repose along the coast.
+Vigor and toil gave signs of their awakening. Sails were unfurled upon
+the wavering masts, and showed white gleams, as the sunlight struck each
+as it broadened out and swayed above its bright reflection below. Oars
+were dipped in the smooth sea, and an eager crowd stood waiting to visit
+the exiles on the once dreaded island. Evadne was already missed. Again
+and again voices called upon her, the echoes repeated the sound, and the
+groves had but one voice,--"Evadne!" She stirred not at the sound, but
+her smile grew sweeter, and her brow paler, and cold as the marble hand
+that pressed it.
+
+Oh, Alpheus! oh, Eleusa! chide not! you will be weeping soon! She has,
+indeed, angered you of late. She left her foster-parents alone, and
+threaded the forest. She hid herself when you called, and, when the
+fisher's boat was waiting to convey her with you to the shore, where
+friends were ready to receive her and lead her to her father, then she
+was wandering!
+
+Eleusa is querulous. No wonder! for the child is sadly changed. They
+will see her soon; a Christian prophet comes to break the heathen spell
+of the island. The men of yonder village consent to abjure the worship
+of Apollo. They come with the teacher of a new religion to consecrate
+the spot anew. The busy crowd, as on a day of festival, embark to claim
+again the once deserted spot.
+
+Alpheus and Eleusa wait sadly for their approach, for trouble possesses
+their hearts. They pine for their once gentle, submissive child. But the
+teacher comes, and hails them in words of a new benediction. _The Great
+Name_ is uttered also in their hearing. Calmness returns to them, in the
+presence of the holy man. It is not Paul, mighty to reprove, and learned
+as bold,--it is that "one whom Jesus loved." He has rested on his bosom,
+and looked on him pierced on the cross. The look from his dying eyes and
+the tones of his tender love are ever present in the soul of this
+beloved disciple. The awful revelations of Patmos had not yet illumined
+his eyes. His locks were white as the first blossoms of the spring, but
+his heart was not withered by time, and men believed of him that he
+should never see death. Those who beheld him loved him, and listened
+because they loved. What he desired was accomplished as if a king had
+commanded it, and what he taught was gathered in among the treasures of
+the heart.
+
+The first care of the Apostle was to seek the lost child, and the youths
+of his company went on, and scaled the hill. Meanwhile, not far from the
+altar, on which an unregarded offering lay, the people gathered round
+their master, while to Alpheus and Eleusa he related the immortal story
+of Judea.
+
+Before mid-day the villagers had returned to their dwellings. With John,
+their friend and consoler, two mourners departed from the island, where
+fabled Apollo no longer possessed a shrine. His altar was torn away; a
+newly-made grave was marked by a cross roughly built of its broken
+stones.
+
+"I will return here," said the fisherman of Athos, "when you are far
+away in some Christian city of Asia. I will return and carve here the
+name of 'Evadne.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE SKATER.
+
+
+    The skater lightly laughs and glides,
+      Unknowing that beneath the ice
+      Whereon he carves his fair device
+    A stiffened corpse in silence slides.
+
+    It glareth upward at his play;
+      Its cold, blue, rigid fingers steal
+      Beneath the trendings of his heel;
+    It floats along and floats away.
+
+    He has not seen its horror pass;
+      His heart is blithe; the village hears
+      His distant laughter; he careers
+    In festive waltz athwart the glass.--
+
+    We are the skaters, we who skim
+      The surface of Life's solemn flood,
+      And drive, with gladness in our blood,
+    A daring dance from brim to brim.
+
+    Our feet are swift, our faces burn,
+      Our hopes aspire like soaring birds;
+      The world takes courage from our words,
+    And sees the golden time return.
+
+    But ever near us, silent, cold,
+      Float those who bounded from the bank
+      With eager hearts, like us, and sank
+    Because their feet were overbold.
+
+    They sank through breathing-holes of vice,
+      Through treacherous sheens of unbelief;
+      They know not their despair and grief:
+    Their hearts and minds are turned to ice.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS JEFFERSON.[1]
+
+[Concluded.]
+
+
+Mr. Jefferson returned from France in the autumn of 1789, and the
+following spring took office as Secretary of State. He was unwilling to
+abandon his post abroad, but the solicitations of Washington controlled
+him. He plainly was the most suitable person for the place. Franklin,
+the father of American diplomacy, was rapidly approaching the close of
+his long and busy life, and John Adams, the only other statesman whose
+diplomatic experience could be compared with that of Thomas Jefferson,
+was Vice President.
+
+It would be a tedious task to enter into a detail of the disputes which
+arose in Washington's Cabinet, nor is it necessary to do so. Most candid
+persons, who have examined the subject, are convinced that the
+differences were unavoidable, that they were produced by exigencies in
+affairs upon which men naturally would disagree, by conflicting social
+elements, and by the dissimilar characters, purposes, and political
+doctrines of Jefferson and Hamilton. Jefferson's course was in
+accordance with the general principles of government which from his
+youth he had entertained.
+
+As to the accusation, so often made, that he opposed an administration
+of which he was a member and which by the plainest party-rules he was
+bound to support, it is completely answered by the statement, that his
+conduct was understood by Washington, that he repeatedly offered to
+resign, and that when he retired it was in opposition to the President's
+wish. It is not worth while for us to apply a higher standard of party
+loyalty to Washington's ministers than he himself applied.
+
+One great difficulty encountered by the politicians of that day seems to
+have been purely fanciful. Strictly speaking, the government did not
+have a policy. It went into operation with the impression that it would
+be persistently resisted, that its success was doubtful, and that any
+considerable popular disaffection would be fatal to it. These fears
+proved to be unfounded. The day Washington took the oath, the government
+was as stable as it now is. Disturbing elements undoubtedly existed, but
+they were controlled by great and overruling necessities, recognized by
+all men. Thus the final purpose of the administration was accomplished
+at the outset. The labor which it was expected would task the patriotism
+and exercise the skill of the most generous and experienced was
+performed without an effort,--as it were, by a mere pulsation of the
+popular heart. The question was not, How shall the government be
+preserved? but, How shall it be administered? This is evident now, but
+was not seen then. The statesmen of the time believed that the Union was
+constantly in danger, and that their best efforts were needed to protect
+it. In this spirit they approached every question which presented
+itself. Thinking that every measure directly affected the safety of the
+republic, a difference of opinion could not be a mere disagreement upon
+a matter of policy. In proportion to the intensity of each man's
+patriotism was his conviction that in his way alone could the government
+be preserved, and he naturally thought that his opponents must be either
+culpably neglecting or deliberately plotting against the interests of
+the country. Real difficulties were increased by imaginary ones.
+Opposition became treason. Parties called themselves Republicans and
+Federalists;--they called each other monarchists and anarchists. This
+delusion has always characterized our politics; noisy politicians of
+the present day stigmatize their adversaries as disunionists; but during
+the first twenty years it was universal, and explains the fierce
+party-spirit which possessed the statesmen of that period, and likewise
+accounts for many of their errors.
+
+Among these errors must be placed the belief which Jefferson had, that
+there was a party of monarchists in the country. Sir. Randall makes a
+long argument in support of this opinion, and closes with an intimation
+that those who refuse to believe now cannot be reached by reason. He may
+rank us with these perverse skeptics; for, in our opinion, his argument
+not only fails to establish his propositions, but is strong against
+them. Let it be understood;--the assertion is not, that there were some
+who would have preferred a monarchy to a republic, but that, after the
+government was established, Ames, Sedgwick, Hamilton, and other Federal
+leaders, were plotting to overturn it and create a monarchy. Upon this
+we have no hesitation in taking issue. The real state of the case, and
+the circumstances which deceived Mr. Jefferson, may be briefly set
+forth.
+
+Jefferson left France shortly after the taking of the Bastile. He saw
+the most auspicious period of the Revolution. During the session of the
+Estates General, the evils which afflicted France were admitted by all,
+but the remedies proposed were, as yet, purely speculative. The roseate
+theories of poets and enthusiasts had filled every mind with vague
+expectations of some great good in the future. Nothing had occurred to
+disturb these pleasing anticipations. There was no sign of the fearful
+disasters then impending. The delirium of possession had not seized upon
+the nation,--her statesmen had not learned how much easier it is to plan
+than to achieve,--nor had the voice of Burke carried terror throughout
+Europe. Even now, it is impossible to read the first acts of that drama
+without being moved to sympathetic enthusiasm. What emotions must it not
+have excited while the awful catastrophe was yet concealed! Tried by any
+received test, France, for centuries, had been the chief state in
+Europe,--inferior to none in the arts of war, superior to any in the
+arts of peace. Fashion and letters had given her an empire more
+permanent than that which the enterprise of Columbus and the fortune of
+Charles gave to Spain, more extended than that which Trafalgar and
+Waterloo have since given to England. Though her armies were resisted,
+her wit and grace were irresistible; every European prince was her
+subject, every European court a theatre for the display of her address.
+The peculiar spirit of her genius is not more distinctly to be seen in
+the verse of Boileau than in that of Pope,--in the sounding periods of
+Bossuet than in Addison's easy phrase. The spectacle of a nation so
+distinguished, which had carried tyranny to a perfection and invested it
+with a splendor never before seen, becoming the coryphaeus of freedom,
+might easily have fascinated a mind less impressible by nature, and less
+disposed by education for favorable impressions, than that of Jefferson.
+He shared the feeling of the hour. His advice was asked, and
+respectfully listened to. This experience, while, as he says, it
+strengthened his preconceived convictions, must have prevented him from
+carefully observing, certainly from being affected by, the influences
+which had been at work in his own country. He came home more assured in
+republicanism, and expecting to find that America had kept pace with
+him.
+
+But many things had occurred in America to excite doubts of the
+efficiency of republican institutions. The government of the
+Confederation was of little value. During the war, common interests and
+dangers had bound the Colonies together; with peace came commercial
+rivalries, boundary disputes, relations with other countries, the
+burdens of a large debt,--and the scanty powers with which Congress had
+been clothed were inadequate to the public exigencies. The Congress was
+a mere convention, in which each State had but one vote. To the most
+important enactments the consent of nine States was necessary. The
+concurrence of the several legislatures was required to levy a tax,
+raise an army, or ratify a treaty. The executive power was lodged in a
+committee, which was useless either for deliberation or action. The
+government fell into contempt; it could not protect itself from insult;
+and the doors of Congress were once besieged by a mob of mutinous
+soldiery. The States sometimes openly resisted the central government,
+and to the most necessary laws, those for the maintenance of the
+national credit, they gave but a partial obedience. They quarrelled with
+each other. New York sent troops into the field to enforce her claims
+upon her New England neighbors. The inhabitants of the Territories
+rebelled. Kentucky, Vermont, and Tennessee, under another name, declared
+themselves independent, and demanded admission into the Union. In New
+Hampshire and Pennsylvania, insurrections took place. In Massachusetts,
+a rebellion was set on foot, which, for a time, interrupted the sessions
+of the courts. An Indian war, attended by the usual barbarities, raged
+along the northern frontier. Foreign states declined to negotiate with a
+government which could not enforce its decrees within its own borders.
+England haughtily refused to withdraw her troops from our soil; Spain
+closed the Mississippi to the commerce and encroached upon the territory
+of the Confederation. Every consideration of safety and advantage
+demanded a government with strength enough to secure quiet at home and
+respect abroad. It is not to be denied that many thoughtful and
+experienced men were discouraged by the failure of the Confederation,
+and thought that nothing but a monarchy could accomplish the desired
+purpose.
+
+There were also certain social elements tending in the same direction,
+and these were strongest in the city of New York, where Jefferson first
+observed them. That city had been the centre of the largest and most
+powerful Tory community in the Colonies. The gentry were nearly all
+Tories, and, during the long occupation of the town, the tradespeople,
+thriving upon British patronage, had become attached to the British
+cause. There, and, indeed, in all the cities, there were aristocratic
+circles. Jefferson was of course introduced into them. In these circles
+were the persons who gave dinners, and at whose tables he heard the
+opinions expressed which astonished and alarmed him.
+
+What is described as polite society has never been much felt in American
+politics; it was not more influential then. Besides, in many cases,
+these opinions were more likely to have been the expression of
+affectation than of settled conviction. Nothing is more common than a
+certain insincerity which leads men to profess and seemingly believe
+sentiments which they do not and cannot act upon. The stout squire who
+prides himself upon his obstinacy, and whose pretty daughter manages him
+as easily as she manages her poodle, is a favorite character in English
+comedy. Every one knows some truculent gentleman who loudly proclaims
+that one half of mankind are knaves and the other half would be if they
+dared, but who would go mad with despair if he really believed the
+atrocious principles he loves to announce. Jefferson was not so
+constituted as to make the proper allowance for this kind of
+insincerity. Though undemonstrative, he was thoroughly in earnest. In
+fact, he was something of a precisian in politics. He spoke of kings and
+nobles as if they were personal foes, and disliked Scott's novels
+because they give too pleasing a representation of the institution of
+chivalry. He probably looked upon a man who spoke covetously of titles
+much as a Salem elder a century before would have looked upon a
+hard-swearing Virginia planter. In the purse-proud citizens, who, after
+dinner, used to talk grandly about the British Constitution, he saw a
+set of malignant conspirators, when in fact not one in ten had ever
+thought seriously upon the subject, or had enough force of character to
+attempt to carry out his opinions, whatever they might have been.
+
+The political discontents were hardly more formidable. We have admitted
+that some influential persons were in favor of a monarchy; but no one
+took a decided step in that direction. In all the published
+correspondence there is not a particle of evidence of such a movement.
+Even Hamilton, in his boldest advances towards a centralization of
+power, did not propose a monarchy. Those who were most doubtful about
+the success of a republic recognized the necessity of making the
+experiment, and were the most active in establishing the present one.
+The sparsity of the population, the extent of the country, and its
+poverty, made a royal establishment impossible. The people were
+dissatisfied with the Confederation, not with republicanism. The breath
+of ridicule would have upset the throne. The King, the Dukes of
+Massachusetts and Virginia, the Marquises of Connecticut and Mohawk,
+Earl Susquehanna and Lord Livingston, would have been laughed at by
+every ragamuffin. The sentiment which makes the appendages of royalty,
+its titles and honors, respectable, is the result of long education, and
+has never existed in America. Washington was the only person mentioned
+in connection with the crown; but had he attempted to reach it, he would
+have lost his power over the people. He was strong because he had
+convinced his country that he held personal objects subservient to
+public ones,--that, with him, "the path of duty was the way to glory."
+He had none of the magnetism which lulls the senses and leads captive
+the hearts of men. Had he clothed himself in the vulgar robes of
+royalty,--had he taken advantage of the confidence reposed in him for a
+purpose of self-aggrandizement, and that of so petty and commonplace a
+kind,--he would have sunk to a level with the melodramatic heroes of
+history, and that colossal reputation, which rose, a fair exhalation
+from the hearts of grateful millions, and covered all the land, would
+have vanished like a mist.
+
+Whatever individuals may have wished for, the charge of monarchical
+designs cannot be brought against the Federalists as a party. New
+England was the mother of the Revolution, and became the stronghold of
+Federalism. In South Carolina and New York, a majority of the
+inhabitants were Tories; the former State voted for Mr. Jefferson every
+time he was a candidate, the latter gave him his election in 1800. It
+requires a liberal expenditure of credulity to believe that the children
+of the Puritans desired a monarchy more than the descendants of the
+Cavaliers and the adherents of De Lancy and Ogden. Upon this subject
+Jefferson does not seem to have understood that disposition which can be
+dissatified with a measure, and yet firm and honest in supporting it.
+Public men constantly yield or modify their opinions under the pressure
+of political necessity. He himself gives an instance of this, when, in
+stating that he was not entirely content with the Constitution, he
+remarks that not a member of the Federal Convention approved it in all
+its parts. Why may we not suppose that Hamilton and Ames sacrificed
+their opinions, as well as Mr. Jefferson and the framers of the
+Constitution?
+
+The evidence with which Mr. Randall fortifies his position is
+inconclusive. It consists of the opinions of leading Republicans, and
+extracts from the letters of leading Federalists. The former are liable
+to the objection of having been prompted by political prejudices; the
+latter will not bear the construction which he places upon them. They
+are nothing more than expressions of doubt as to the stability of the
+government, and of regret that one of a different kind was not
+adopted,--most of which were made after the Federalists were defeated.
+We should not place too literal a construction upon the repinings of
+disappointed placemen. Mr. Randall, we believe, has been in political
+life, and ought to be accustomed to the disposition which exists among
+public men to think that the country will be ruined, if it is deprived
+of their services. After every election, our ears are vexed by the
+gloomy vaticinations of defeated candidates. This amiable weakness is
+too common to excite uneasiness.
+
+An argument of the same kind, and quite as effective as Mr. Randall's,
+might be made against Jefferson. His letters contain predictions of
+disaster in case of the success of his opponents, and the Federalists
+spoke as harshly of him as he of them. They charged him with being a
+disciple of Robespierre, said that he was in favor of anarchy, and would
+erect a guillotine in every market-place. He called them monarchists,
+and said they sighed after King, Lords, and Commons. Neither charge will
+be believed. The heads of the Federalists were safe after the election
+of Mr. Jefferson, and the republic would have been safe if Hamilton and
+Adams had continued in power.
+
+Both parties formed exaggerated opinions. That Jefferson did so, no one
+can doubt who observes the weight he gave to trifles,--his annoyance at
+the etiquette of the capital,--at the levees and liveries,--at the
+President's speech,--the hysterical dread into which he was thrown by
+the mere mention of the Society of the Cincinnati, and the "chill" which
+Mr. Randall says came over him "when he heard Hamilton praise Caesar."
+This spirit led him to the act which every one must think is a stain
+upon his character: we refer to the compilation of his "Ana." As is well
+known, that book was written mainly for the purpose of proving that the
+Federalists were in favor of a monarchy. It consists chiefly of reports
+of the conversations of distinguished characters. Some of these
+conversations--and it is noticeable that they are the most innocent
+ones--took place in his presence. The worst expressions are mere reports
+by third parties. One story rests upon no better foundation than that
+Talleyrand told it to Volney, who told it to Jefferson. At one place we
+are informed, that, at a St. Andrew's Club dinner, the toast to the
+President (Mr. Adams) was coldly received, but at that to George the
+Third "Hamilton started to his feet and insisted on a bumper and three
+cheers." This choice bit of scandal is given on the authority of "Mr.
+Smith, a Hamburg merchant," "who received it from Mr. Schwarthouse, _to
+whom it was told by one of the dinner-party_." At a dinner given by some
+members of the bar to the federal judges, this toast was offered: "Our
+_King_ in old England,"--Rufus King being the American minister in that
+country. Whereupon Mr. Jefferson solemnly asks us "to observe the
+_double entendre_ on the word King." Du Ponceau told this to Tenche
+Coxe, who told it to Jefferson. Such stuff is repeated in connection
+with descriptions of how General and Mrs. Washington sat on a raised
+sofa at a ball, and all the dancers bowed to them,--and how Mrs. Knox
+mounted the steps unbidden, and, finding the sofa too small for three,
+had to go down. We are told that at one time John Adams cried, "Damn
+'em! you see that an elective government will not do,"--and that at
+another he complimented a little boy who was a Democrat, saying, "Well,
+a boy of fifteen who is not a Democrat is good for nothing,--and he is
+no better who is a Democrat at twenty." Of this bit of treason Jefferson
+says, "Ewen told Hurt, and Hurt told me." These are not mere scraps,
+published by an indiscreet editor. They were revised by Mr. Jefferson in
+1818, when he was seventy-five years old, after, as he says, the
+passions of the time were passed away,--with the intention that they
+should be published. It is humiliating to record this act. No
+justification for it is possible. It is idle to say that these
+revelations were made to warn the country of its danger. As evidence
+they are not entitled to a thought. More flimsy gossip never floated
+over a tea-table. Besides, for such a purpose they should have been
+published when the contest was in progress, when the danger was
+imminent, not after the men whom he arraigned were defeated and most of
+them in their graves. Equally unsatisfactory is the excuse, that they
+illustrate history. This may be true, but it does not acquit Mr.
+Jefferson. Pepys tells us more than Hume about the court of Charles II.,
+and Boswell's Life of Johnson is the best biography in the
+language,--but he must be a shabby fellow who would be either a Boswell
+or a Pepys. Mr. Randall's excuse, that the act was done in
+self-vindication, is the worst of all. Jefferson was the victor and
+needed no defence, surely not so mean and cowardly a defence. That a
+grave statesman should stoop to betray the confidence of familiar
+intercourse,--that a skeptical inquirer, who systematically rejected
+everything which did not stand the most rigid tests, should rely on the
+ridiculous gossip of political circles,--that a deliberate and
+thoughtful man should jump to a conclusion as quickly as a child, and
+assert it with the intolerance of a Turk, certainly is a strange
+anomaly. We can account for it only by supposing that upon the subject
+of a monarchy he was a little beside himself. It is certain, that,
+through some weakness, he was made to forget gentlemanly propriety, and
+the plainest rules for the sifting of testimony;--let us believe that
+the general opinions which he formed, and which his biographer
+perpetuates, resulted from the same unfortunate weakness.
+
+We have dwelt upon this subject, both on account of the prominence which
+Mr. Randall has given it, and because, as admirers of Mr. Jefferson, we
+wished to make a full and distinct statement of the most common and
+reasonable complaint against him. The biographer has done his hero a
+great injury by reviving this absurd business, and has cast suspicion
+upon the accuracy of his book. It is time that our historians approached
+their subjects with more liberal tempers. They should cease to be
+advocates. Whatever the American people may think about the policy of
+the Federalists, they will not impute to them unpatriotic designs. That
+party comprised a majority of the Revolutionary leaders. It is not
+strange that many of them fell into error. They were wealthy and had the
+pride of wealth. They had been educated with certain ideas about rank,
+which a military life had strengthened. The liberal theories which the
+war had engendered were not understood, and, during the French
+Revolution, they became associated with acts of atrocity which Mr.
+Jefferson himself condemned. Abler men than the Federalists failed to
+discriminate between the crime and the principles which the criminals
+professed. Students of affairs are now in a better position than Mr.
+Jefferson was, to ascertain the truth, and they will not find it
+necessary to adopt his prejudices against a body of men who have adorned
+our history by eloquence, learning, and valor.
+
+Jefferson's position in Washington's government must have been extremely
+disagreeable. There was hardly a subject upon which he and Hamilton
+agreed. Washington had established the practice of disposing of the
+business before the Cabinet by vote. Each member was at liberty to
+explain his views, and, owing to the wide differences in opinion, the
+Cabinet Council became a debating society. This gave Hamilton an
+advantage. Jefferson never argued, and, if he had attempted it, he would
+have been no match for his adversary. He contented himself with a plain
+statement of his views and the reasons which influenced him, made in the
+abstract manner which was habitual with him. Hamilton, on the other
+hand, was an adroit lawyer, and a painstaking dialectician, who
+carefully fortified every position. He made long speeches to the
+Cabinet, with as much earnestness as one would use in court. Though
+Jefferson had great influence with the President, he was generally
+outvoted. Knox, of course, was against him. Randolph, the
+Attorney-General, upon whose support he had a right to depend, was an
+ingenious, but unsteady, sophist. He had so just an understanding, that
+his appreciation of his opponent's argument was usually stronger than
+his confidence in his own. He commonly agreed with Jefferson, and voted
+with Hamilton. The Secretary of State was not allowed to control his
+own department. Hamilton continually interfered with him, and had
+business interviews with the ministers of foreign countries. The dispute
+soon spread beyond the Cabinet, and was taken up by the press. Jefferson
+again and again asked leave to resign; Washington besought him to
+remain, and endeavored to close the breach between the rival
+Secretaries. For a time, Jefferson yielded to these solicitations; but
+finally, on the 31st of December, 1793, he left office, and was soon
+followed by Hamilton.
+
+After reaching Monticello, Mr. Jefferson announced, that he had
+completely withdrawn from affairs, and that he did not even read the
+journals, preferring to contemplate "the tranquil growth of lucern and
+potatoes." These bucolic pleasures soon palled. Cultivating lucern and
+potatoes is, without doubt, a dignified and useful employment, but it is
+not likely to content a man who has played a great part, and is
+conscious that he is still able to do so. We soon find him a candidate
+for the Presidency, and, strange as it may seem, in 1797, he was
+persuaded to leave his "buckwheat-dressings" and take the seat of
+Vice-President.
+
+Those who are interested in party tactics will find it instructive to
+read Mr. Randall's account of the opposition to Adams's administration.
+His correspondence shows that Adams was the victim of those in whom he
+confided. He made the mistake of retaining the Cabinet which Washington
+had during the last year or two of his term, and a weaker one has never
+been seen. His ministers plotted against him,--his party friends opposed
+and thwarted him. The President had sufficient talent for a score of
+Cabinets, but he likewise had many foibles, and his position seemed to
+fetter his talents and give full play to his foibles. The opposition
+adroitly took advantage of the dissensions of their adversaries. In
+Congress, the Federalists were compelled to carry every measure by main
+force, and every inch of ground was contested. The temporizing Madison,
+formerly leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, had
+been succeeded by Albert Gallatin, a man of more enterprising spirit and
+firmer grasp of thought. He was assisted by John Randolph, who then
+first displayed the resources of his versatile and daring intellect. Mr.
+Jefferson, also, as the avowed candidate for the succession, may be
+supposed to have contributed his unrivalled knowledge of the springs of
+human action. Earnest as the opposition were, they did not abuse the
+license which is permitted in political contests. But the Federalists
+pursued Mr. Jefferson with a vindictiveness which has no parallel, in
+this country. They boasted of being gentlemen, and prided themselves
+upon their standing and culture, yet they descended to the vilest tricks
+and meanest scandal. They called Jefferson a Jacobin,--abused him
+because he liked French cookery and French wines, and wore a red
+waistcoat. To its shame, the pulpit was foremost in this disgraceful
+warfare. Clergymen did not hesitate to mention him by name in their
+sermons. Cobbett said, that Jefferson had cheated his British creditors.
+A Maryland preacher improved this story, by saying that he had cheated a
+widow and her daughters, of whose estate he was executor. He was
+compared to Rehoboam. It was said, that he had a negro mistress, and
+compelled his daughters to submit to her presence,--that he would not
+permit his children to read the Bible,--and that, on one occasion, when
+his attention was called to the dilapidated condition of a church, he
+remarked, "It is good enough for him who was born in a manger."
+According to his custom, he made no reply to these slanders, and, except
+from a few mild remarks in his letters, one cannot discover that he
+heard of them.
+
+Mr. Adams did not show his successor the customary courtesy of attending
+his inauguration, leaving Washington the same morning. The new
+President, entirely unattended and plainly dressed, rode down the avenue
+on horseback. He tied his horse to the paling which surrounded the
+Capitol grounds, and, without ceremony, entered the Senate Chamber. The
+contrast between this somewhat ostentatious simplicity and the parade at
+the inaugurations of Washington and Adams showed how great a change had
+taken place in the government.
+
+The Presidency is the culmination of Mr. Jefferson's political career,
+and we gladly turn to a contemplation of his character in other aspects.
+
+The collections of Jefferson's writings and correspondence, which have
+been published, throw no light upon his domestic relations. We have
+complained of the prolixity of Mr. Randall's book, but we do not wish to
+be understood as complaining of the number of family letters it
+contains. They form its most pleasing and novel feature. They show us
+that the placid philosopher had a nature which was ardent, tender, and
+constant. His wife died after but ten years of married life. She was the
+mother of six children, of whom two, Martha and Maria, reached maturity.
+Though still young, Mr. Jefferson never married again, finding
+sufficient opportunity for the indulgence of his domestic tastes in the
+society of his daughters. Martha, whom he nicknamed Patsey, was plain,
+resembling her father in features, and having some of his mental
+characteristics. Maria, the youngest, inherited the charms of her
+mother, and is described as one of the most beautiful women of her time.
+Her natural courtesy procured for her, while yet a child, from her
+French attendants, the _sobriquet_ of Polie, a name which clung to her
+through life.
+
+Charged with the care of these children, Jefferson made their education
+one of his regular occupations, as systematically performed as his
+public duties. He planned their studies, and descended to the minutest
+directions as to dress and deportment. While they were young, he himself
+selected every article of clothing for them, and even after they were
+married, continued their constant and confidential adviser. When they
+were absent, he insisted that they should inform him how they occupied
+themselves, what books they read, what tunes they played, dwelling on
+these details with the fond particularity of a lover. Association with
+his daughters seemed to awaken his noblest and most refined impulses,
+and to reveal the choicest fruit of his reading and experience. His
+letters to them are models of their kind. They contain not only those
+general precepts which an affectionate parent and wise man would
+naturally desire to impress upon the mind of a child, but they also show
+a perception of the most subtile feminine traits and a sympathy with the
+most delicate feminine tastes, seldom seen in our sex, and which
+exhibits the breadth and symmetry of Jefferson's organization. One of
+the most characteristic of these letters is in the possession of the
+Queen of England, to whom it was sent by his family, in answer to a
+request for an autograph.
+
+His daughters were in France with him, and were placed at school in a
+convent near Paris. Martha was captivated by the ceremonials of the
+Romish Church, and wrote to her father asking that she might be
+permitted to take the veil. It is easy to imagine the surprise with
+which the worldly diplomatist read the epistle. He did not reply to it,
+but soon made a visit to the Abbaye. He smiled kindly at the young
+enthusiast, who came anxiously to meet him, told the girls that he had
+come for them, and, without referring to Martha's letter, took them back
+to Paris. The account-book shows that after this incident the young
+ladies did not diminish their attention to the harpsichord, guitar, and
+dancing-master.
+
+Maria, who was married to John W. Eppes, died in 1804, leaving two
+children. Martha, wife of Thomas M. Randolph, survived her father. She
+was the mother of ten children. The Randolphs lived on Mr. Jefferson's
+estate of Monticello, and after he retired from public life he found his
+greatest pleasure in the society of the numerous family which surrounded
+him,--a pleasure which increased with his years. Mr. Randall publishes
+a few letters from some of Jefferson's grand-daughters, describing their
+happy child-life at Monticello. Besides being noticeable for grace of
+expression, these letters breathe a spirit of affection for Mr.
+Jefferson which only the warmest affection on his part could have
+elicited. The writers fondly relate every particular which illustrates
+the habits and manners of the retired statesman; telling with what
+kindness be reproved, with what heartiness he commended them; how the
+children loved to follow him in his walks, to sit with him by the fire
+during the winter twilight, or at the window in summer, listening to his
+quaint stories; how he directed their sports, acted as judge when they
+ran races in the garden, and gathered fruit for them, pulling down the
+branches on which the ripest cherries hung. All speak of the pleasure it
+gave him to anticipate their wishes by some unexpected gift. One says
+that her Bible and Shakspeare came from him,--that he gave her her first
+writing-desk, her first watch, her first Leghorn hat and silk dress.
+Another tells how he saw her tear her dress, and in a few days brought a
+new and more beautiful one to mend it, as he said,--that she had refused
+to buy a guitar which she admired, because it was too expensive, and
+that when she came to breakfast the next morning the guitar was waiting
+for her. One of these ladies seems to give only a natural expression to
+the feelings which all his grand-children had for him, when she prettily
+calls him their good genius with magic wand, brightening their young
+lives by his kindness and his gifts.
+
+Indeed, the account which these volumes give of Monticello life is very
+interesting. The house was a long brick building, in the Grecian style,
+common at that time. It was surmounted by a dome; in front was a
+portico; and there were piazzas at the end of each wing. It was situated
+upon the summit of a hill six hundred feet high, one of a range of such.
+To the east lay an undulating plain, unbroken save by a solitary peak;
+and upon the western side a deep valley swept up to the base of the Blue
+Ridge, which was twenty miles distant. The grounds were tastefully
+decorated, and, by a peculiar arrangement which the site permitted, all
+the domestic offices and barns were sunk from view. The interior of the
+mansion was spacious, and even elegant; it was decorated with natural
+curiosities,--Indian and Mexican antiquities, articles of _virtu_, and a
+large number of portraits and busts of historical characters. The
+library--which was sold to the government in 1815--contained between
+nine and ten thousand volumes. He had another house upon an estate
+called Poplar Forest, ninety miles from Monticello.
+
+Mr. Jefferson was too old to attempt any new scientific or literary
+enterprise, but as soon as he reached home he began to renew his former
+acquaintances. His meteorological observations were continued, he
+studied botany, and was an industrious reader of three or four
+languages. When nearly eighty, we find him writing elaborate
+disquisitions on grammar, astronomy, the Epicurean philosophy, and
+discussing style with Edward Everett. The coldness between him and John
+Adams passed away, and they used to write one another long letters, in
+which they criticized Plato and the Greek dramatists, speculated upon
+the end for which the sensations of grief were intended, and asked each
+other whether they would consent to live their lives over again.
+Jefferson, with his usual cheerfulness, promptly answered, Yes.
+
+He dispensed a liberal hospitality, and in a style which showed the
+influence of his foreign residence. Though temperate, he understood the
+mysteries of the French _cuisine_, and liked the wines of Medoc. These
+tastes gave occasion to Patrick Henry's sarcasm upon gentlemen "_who
+abjured their native victuals_." Mr. Randall tells an amusing anecdote
+of a brandy-drinking Virginian, who wondered how a man of so much taste
+could drink cold, sour French wine, and insisted that some night he
+would be carried off by it.
+
+No American has ever exerted so great and universal an attraction. Men
+of all parties made pilgrimages to Monticello. Foreigners of distinction
+were unwilling to leave the country without seeing Mr. Jefferson; men of
+fashion, artists, _litterateurs_, _savants_, soldiers, clergymen,
+flocked to his house. Mrs. Randolph stated, that she had provided beds
+for fifty persons at a time. The intrusion was often disagreeable
+enough. Groups of uninvited strangers sometimes planted themselves in
+the passages of his house to see him go to dinner, or gathered around
+him when he sat on the portico. A female once broke a window-pane with
+her parasol to got a better view of him. But no press of company was
+permitted to interfere with his occupations. The early morning was
+devoted to correspondence; the day to his library, to his workshop, or
+to business; after dinner he gave himself up to society.
+
+Making every allowance for the exaggerations of his admirers, it cannot
+be doubted that Jefferson was a master of conversation. It had
+contributed too much to his success not to have been made the subject of
+thought. It is true, he had neither wit nor eloquence; but this was a
+kind of negative advantage; for he was free from that striving after
+effect so common among professed wits, neither did he indulge in those
+monologues into which eloquence betrayed Coleridge and seduces Macaulay.
+He had great tact, information, and worldly knowledge. He never
+disputed, and had the address not to attempt to control the current of
+conversation for the purpose of turning it in a particular direction,
+but was always ready to follow the humor of the hour. His language, if
+seldom striking, never failed to harmonize with his theme, while, of
+course, the effect of everything he said was heightened by his age and
+reputation.
+
+Unfortunately, his latter days were clouded by pecuniary distress.
+Although prudent and methodical, partly from unavoidable circumstances,
+and partly from the expense of his enormous establishment, his large
+estate became involved. The failure of a friend for whom he had indorsed
+completed his ruin and made it necessary to sell his property. This,
+however, was not done until after his death, when every debt was paid,
+even to a subscription for a Presbyterian church.
+
+As is well known, the chief labor of his age was the establishment of
+the University of Virginia. He was the creator of that institution, and
+displayed in behalf of it a zeal and energy truly wonderful. When unable
+to ride over to the University, which was eight miles from Monticello,
+he used to sit upon his terrace and watch the workmen through a
+telescope. He designed the buildings, planned the organization and
+course of instruction, and selected the faculty. He seemed to regard
+this enterprise as crowning and completing a career which had been
+devoted to the cause of liberty, by providing for the increase and
+diffusion of knowledge.
+
+In February, 1826, the return of a disease by which he had at intervals
+been visited convinced Jefferson that he should soon die. With customary
+deliberation and system, he prepared for his decease, arranging his
+affairs and giving the final directions as to the University. To his
+family he did not mention the subject, nor could they detect any change
+in his manner, except an increased tenderness in each night's farewell,
+and the lingering gaze with which he followed their motions. His mental
+vigor continued. His will, quite a long document, was written by
+himself; and on the 24th of June he wrote a reply to an invitation to
+the celebration at Washington of the ensuing Fourth of July. It is
+difficult to discover in what respect this production is inferior to his
+earlier performances of the same kind. It has all of the author's ease
+and precision of style, and more than his ordinary distinctness and
+earnestness of thought. This was his last letter. He rapidly declined,
+but preserved possession of his faculties. He remarked, as if surprised
+at it, upon his disposition to recur to the scenes of the Revolution,
+and seemed to wish that his life might be prolonged until the Fourth of
+July. This wish was not denied to him; he expired at noon of that day,
+precisely fifty years after the Declaration of Independence. A few hours
+afterwards the great heart of John Adams ceased to beat.
+
+So much has been said about Mr. Jefferson's religious opinions, and our
+biographer gives them such prominence, that we shall be pardoned for
+alluding to them, although they are not among the topics which a critic
+generally should touch. Mr. Randall says that Jefferson was "a public
+professor of his belief in the Christian religion." We do not think that
+this unqualified statement is supported by Jefferson's explanation of
+his views upon Christianity, which Mr. Randall subsequently gives.
+Religion, in the sense which is commonly given to it, as a system of
+faith and worship, he did not connect with Christ at all. He was a
+believer in the existence of God, in a future life, and in man's
+accountability for his actions here: in so far as this, he may be said
+to have had a system of worship, but not of Christian worship. He
+regarded Christ simply as a man, with no other than mortal power,--and
+to worship him in any way would, in his opinion, have been idolatry. His
+theology recognized the Deity alone. The extracts from his public
+papers, upon which Mr. Randall relies, contain nothing but those general
+expressions which a Mohammedan or a follower of Confucius might have
+used. He said he was a Christian "in the only sense in which Christ
+wished any one to be"; but received Christ's teachings merely as a
+system, and not a perfect system, of morals. He rejected the narratives
+which attest the Divine character or the Divine mission of the Saviour,
+thinking them the fictions of ignorance and superstition.
+
+He was, however, far from being a scoffer. He attended the Episcopal
+service regularly, and was liberal in his donations to religious
+enterprises. Nor do we think that this conformity arose from weakness or
+hypocrisy, but rather from a profound respect for opinions so generally
+entertained, and a lively admiration for the character and life of
+Christ.
+
+If a Christian is one who sincerely believes and implicitly obeys the
+teachings of Jesus so far as they affect our relations with our
+fellow-men, then Mr. Jefferson was a Christian in a sense in which few
+can be called so. Though the light did not unseal his vision, it filled
+his heart. Among the statesmen of the world there is no one who has more
+rigidly demanded that the laws of God shall be applied to the affairs of
+Man. His political system is a beautiful growth from the principles of
+love, humility, and charity, which the New Testament inculcates.
+
+When reflecting upon Mr. Jefferson's mental organization, one is
+impressed by the variety and perfectness of his intellectual faculties.
+He united the powers of observation with those of reflection in a degree
+hardly surpassed by Bacon. Yet he has done nothing which entitles him to
+a place among the first of men. It may be said, that, devoted to the
+inferior pursuit of politics, he had no opportunity to exercise himself
+in art or philosophy, where alone the highest genius finds a field. But
+we think his failure--if one can fail who does not make an attempt--was
+not for want of opportunity. He did not possess any imagination. He was
+so deficient in that respect as to be singular. The imagination seems to
+assist the mental vision as the telescope does that of the eye; he saw
+with his unaided powers only.
+
+He says, "Nature intended him for the tranquil pursuits of science," and
+it is impossible to assign any reason why he should not have attained
+great eminence among scientific men. The sole difficulty might have
+been, that, from very variety of power, he would not give himself up to
+any single study with the devotion which Nature demands from those who
+seek her favors.
+
+Within his range his perception of truth was as rapid and unfailing as
+an instinct. Without difficulty he separated the specious from the
+solid, gave great weight to evidence, but was skeptical and cautious
+about receiving it. Though a collector of details, he was never
+incumbered by them. No one was less likely to make the common mistake of
+thinking that a particular instance established a general proposition.
+He sought for rules of universal application, and was industrious in the
+accumulation of facts, because he knew how many are needed to prove the
+simplest truth. The accuracy of his mental operations, united with great
+courage, made him careless of authority. He clung to a principle because
+he thought it true, not because others thought it so. There is no
+indication that he valued an opinion the more because great men of
+former ages had favored it. His self-reliance was shown in his
+unwillingness to employ servants. Even when very feeble, he refused to
+permit any one to assist him. He had extraordinary power of
+condensation, and, always seeing the gist of a matter, he often exposed
+an argument of hours by a single sentence. Some of his brief papers,
+like the one on Banking, contain the substance of debates, which have
+since been made, filling volumes. He was peculiar in his manner of
+stating his conclusions, seldom revealing the processes by which he
+arrived at them. He sets forth strange and disputed doctrines as if they
+were truisms. Those who have studied "The Prince" for the purpose of
+understanding its construction will not think us fanciful when we find a
+resemblance between Jefferson's mode of argumentation and that of
+Machiavelli. There is the same manner of approaching a subject, the same
+neglect of opposing arguments, and the same disposition to rely on the
+force of general maxims. Machiavelli exceeded him in power of
+ratiocination from a given proposition, but does not seem to have been
+able to determine whether a given proposition was right or wrong.
+
+In force of mind Jefferson has often been surpassed: Hamilton was his
+superior. As an executive officer, where action was required, he could
+not have been distinguished. It is true, he was a successful President,
+but neither the time nor the place demanded the highest executive
+talents. When Governor of Virginia, during the Revolution, he was more
+severely tried, and, although some excuse may be made for him, he must
+be said to have failed.
+
+Upon matters which are affected by feeling and sentiment, the judgment
+of woman is said to surpass that of our sex,--her more sensitive
+instincts carrying her to heights which our blind strength fails to
+reach. If this be true, Jefferson in some respects resembled woman. We
+have already alluded to the delicacy of his organization; it was
+strangely delicate, indeed, for one who had so many solid qualities.
+Like woman, he was constant rather than passionate; he had her
+refinement, disliking rude company and coarse pleasures,--her love of
+luxury, and fondness for things whose beauty consists in part in their
+delicacy and fragility. His political opponents often refused to speak
+with him, but their wives found his society delightful. Like woman, his
+feelings sometimes seemed to precede his judgment. Such an organization
+is not often a safe one for business; but in Mr. Jefferson, with his
+homely perceptions, it accomplished great results.
+
+The attributes which gave him his great and peculiar influence seem to
+us to have been qualities of character, not of the mind. Chief among
+these must be placed that which, for want of a better term, we will call
+sympathy. This sympathy colored his whole nature, mental and moral. It
+gave him his many-sidedness. There was no limit to his intellectual
+tastes. Most persons cherish prejudices, and think certain pursuits
+degrading or useless. Thus, business-men sneer at artists, and artists
+sneer at business-men. Jefferson had nothing of this. He understood and
+appreciated the value of every employment. No knowledge was too trivial
+for him; with the same affectionate interest, he observed the courses
+of the winds and the growth of a flower.
+
+Sympathy in some sort supplied the place of imagination, making him
+understand subjects of which the imagination alone usually informs us.
+Thus, he was fond of Art. He had no eye for color, but appreciated the
+beauties of form, and was a critic of sculpture and architecture. He
+valued everything for that which belonged to it; but tradition
+sanctified nothing, association gave no additional value. He committed
+what Burke thought a great crime, that of thinking a queen nothing but a
+woman. He went to Stratford-on-Avon, and tells us that it cost him a
+shilling to see Shakspeare's tomb, but says nothing else. He might have
+admired the scenery of the place, and he certainly was an admirer of
+Shakspeare; but Stratford had no additional beauty in his eyes because
+Shakspeare was born and buried there. After his death, in a secret
+drawer of his secretary, mementoes, such as locks of hair, of his wife
+and dead children, even of the infant who lived but a few hours after
+birth, were found, and accompanying each were some fond words. The
+packages were neatly arranged, and their envelopes showed that they had
+often been opened. It needed personal knowledge and regard to awaken in
+him an interest in objects for their associations.
+
+The characteristic of which we speak showed itself in the intensity and
+quality of his patriotism. There never was a truer American. He
+sympathized with all our national desires and prejudices, our enterprise
+and confidence, our love of dominion and boundless pride. Buffon
+asserted that the animals of America were smaller than those of Europe.
+Jefferson flew to the rescue of the animals, and certainly seems to have
+the best of the argument. Buffon said, that the Indian was cold in love,
+cruel in war, and mean in intellect. Had Jefferson been a descendant of
+Pocahontas, he could not have been more zealous in behalf of the Indian.
+He contradicted Buffon upon every point, and cited Logan's speech as
+deserving comparison with the most celebrated passages of Grecian and
+Roman eloquence. Nowhere did he see skies so beautiful, a climate so
+delightful, men so brave, or women so fair, as in America. He was not
+content that his country should be rich and powerful; his ardent
+patriotism carried him forward to a time when the great Republic should
+give law to the world for every department of thought and action.
+
+But this sympathetic spirit is most clearly to be seen in that broad
+humanity which was the source of his philosophy. He sympathized with
+man,--his sufferings, joys, fears, hopes, and aspirations. The law of
+his nature made him a democrat. Men of his own rank, when introduced to
+him, found his manner cold and reserved; but the young and the ignorant
+were attracted from the first. Education and interest did not affect
+him. Born a British subject, he became the founder of a democracy. He
+was a slaveholder and an abolitionist. The fact, that the African is
+degraded and helpless, to his, as to every generous mind, was a reason
+why he should be protected, not an excuse for oppressing him.
+
+Though fitness for the highest effort be denied to Jefferson, yet in the
+pursuit to which he devoted himself, considered with reference to
+elevation and wisdom of policy and actual achievement, he may be
+compared with any man of modern times. It is the boast of the most
+accomplished English historian, that English legislation has been
+controlled by the rule, "Never to lay down any proposition of wider
+extent than the particular case for which it is necessary to provide."
+Therefore politics in England have not reached the dignity of a science;
+and her public men have been tacticians, rather than statesmen. Burke
+may be mentioned as an exception. No one will claim for Jefferson
+Burke's amplitude of thought and wealth of imagination, but he surpassed
+him in justness of understanding and practical efficiency. Burke was
+never connected with the government, except during the short-lived
+Rockingham, administration. Among Frenchmen, the mind instinctively
+recurs to the wise and virtuous Turgot. But it was the misfortune of
+Turgot to come into power at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. It
+became his task to reform a government which was beyond reform, and to
+preserve a dynasty which could not be preserved. His illustrious career
+is little more than a brilliant promise. Jefferson undoubtedly owed much
+to fortune. He was placed in a country removed from foreign
+interference, with boundless resources, and where the great principles
+of free government had for generations been established,--among a people
+sprung from many races, but who spoke the same language, were governed
+by similar laws, and whose minds' rebellion had prepared for the
+reception of new truths and the abandonment of ancient errors. To be
+called upon to give symmetry and completeness to a political system
+which seemed to be Providentially designed for the nation over which it
+was to extend, to be able to connect himself with the future progress of
+an agile and ambitious people, was certainly a rare and happy fortune,
+and must be considered, when we claim superiority for him over those who
+were placed in the midst of apathy and decay. His influence upon us may
+be seen in the material, but still more distinctly in the social and
+moral action of the country. With those laws which here restrain
+turbulent forces and stimulate beneficent ones,--with the bright visions
+of peace and freedom which the unhappy of every European race see in
+their Western skies, tempting them hither,--with the kind spirit which
+here loosens the bonds of social prejudice, and to ambition sings an
+inspiring strain,--with these, which are our pride and boast, he is
+associated indissolubly and forever. With the things which have brought
+our country into disrepute--we leave it for others to recall the dismal
+catalogue--his name cannot be connected.
+
+Not the least valuable result of his life is the triumphant refutation
+which it gives to the assertion, so often made by blatant sophisters,
+that none but low arts avail in republics. He has been called a
+demagogue. This charge is the charge of misconception or ignorance. It
+is true, he believed that his doctrines would prevail; he was sensitive
+to the opinions of others, nor was he "out of love with noble fame"; but
+his successes were fairly, manfully won. He had none of the common
+qualifications for popularity. No glare of military glory surrounded
+him; he had not the admired gift of eloquence; he was opposed by wealth
+and fashion, by the Church and the press, by most of the famous men of
+his day,--by Jay, Marshall, the Pinckneys, Knox, King, and Adams; he had
+to encounter the vehement genius of Hamilton and the _prestige_ of
+Washington; he was not in a position for direct action upon the people;
+he never went beyond the line of his duty, and, from 1776 to his
+inaugural address, he did not publish a word which was calculated to
+excite lively, popular interest;--yet, in spite of all and against all,
+he won. So complete was the victory, that, at his second election,
+Massachusetts stood beside Virginia, supporting him. He won because he
+was true to a principle. Thousands of men, whose untutored minds could
+not comprehend a proposition of his elaborate philosophy, remembered
+that in his youth he had proclaimed the equality of men, knew that in
+maturity he remained true to that declaration, and, believing that this
+great assurance of their liberties was in danger, they gathered around
+him, preferring the scholar to orators and soldiers. They had confidence
+in him because he had confidence in them. There is no danger in that
+demagogism the art of which consists in love for man. Fortunate, indeed,
+will it be for the Republic, if, among the aspirants who are now
+pressing into the strife, and making their voices heard in the great
+exchanges of public opinion, there are some who will imitate the civic
+virtues and practise the benign philosophy of Thomas Jefferson!
+
+We take leave of this book with reluctance. It is verbose and dull, but
+it has led us along the path of American renown; it recites a story
+which, however awkwardly told, can never fall coldly on an American ear.
+It has, besides, given us an opportunity, of which we have gladly
+availed ourselves, to make some poor amends for the wrongs which
+Jefferson suffered at the hands of New England, to bear our testimony to
+his genius and services, and to express our reverent admiration for a
+life which, though it bears traces of human frailty, was bravely devoted
+to grand and beneficent aims.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Life of Thomas Jefferson._ By HENRY S. RANDALL, LL.D.
+In three volumes. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1858.]
+
+
+
+
+A BUNDLE OF IRISH PENNANTS.
+
+
+"Did you ever see the 'Three Chimneys,' Captain Cope?" I asked.
+
+"I can show you where they are on the chart, if that'll do. I've been
+right over where they're laid down, but I never saw the Chimneys myself,
+and I never knew anybody that had seen them."
+
+"But they are down on the chart," broke in a pertinacious matter-of-fact
+body beside us.
+
+"What of that?" replied the captain; "there's many a shoal and lone rock
+down on the charts that nobody ever could find again. I've had my ship
+right over the Chimneys, near enough to see the smoke, if they had been
+there."
+
+So opened the series of desultory conversations here set down. It is
+talk on board ship, or specimen "yarns," such as really are to be picked
+up from nautical men. The article usually served up for
+magazine-consumption is, of course, utterly unlike anything here given,
+and is as entirely undiscoverable anywhere on salt water as the three
+legendary rocks above alluded to. The place was the deck of the "Elijah
+Pogram," one of Carr & Co.'s celebrated Liverpool liners, and the time,
+the dog-watches of a gusty April night; the latitude and longitude,
+anywhere west of Greenwich and north of the line that is not
+inconsistent with blue water.
+
+The name "Irish Pennant" is given, on the _lucus-a-non_ principle, (just
+as a dead calm is "an Irish hurricane, straight up and down,") to any
+dangling end of rope or stray bit of "shakings," and its appropriateness
+to the following sketches will doubtless be perceived by the reader, on
+reaching the end.
+
+The question was asked, not so much from a laudable desire of obtaining
+information as to set the captain talking. It was a mistake on my part.
+Sailors do not like point-blank questions. They remind them
+unpleasantly, I suppose, of the Courts of Admiralty, or they betray
+greenness or curiosity on the asker's part, and thus effectually bar all
+improving conversation.
+
+There is one exception. If the inquirer be a lady, young and fair, the
+chivalry of the sea is bound to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
+often a good deal more than the truth.
+
+And at the last reply a pair of bewitching dark eyes were turned upon
+that weather-beaten mariner; that is to say, in plain English, a young
+and rather pretty lady-passenger looked up at Captain Cope, and said,--
+
+"Do tell us some of your sea-stories, Captain Cope,--do, please!"
+
+"Why, Ma'am," replied he, "I've no stories. There's Smith of the
+'Wittenagemot' can tell them by the hour; but I never could."
+
+"Weren't you ever wrecked, Captain Cope?"
+
+"No,--I can't say I ever was, exactly. I was mate of the 'Moscow' when
+she knocked her bottom out in Bootle Bay; but she wasn't lost, for I
+went master of her after that."
+
+"Were you frightened, Captain Cope?"
+
+"Well, no,--I can't say I was; though I must say I never expected to see
+morning again. I never saw any one more scared than was old Captain
+Tucker that night. We dragged over the outer bar and into Bootle Bay,
+and there we lay, the ship full of water, and everything gone above the
+monkey-rail. The only place we could find to stand was just by the cabin
+gangway. The 'Moscow' was built with an old-fashioned cabin on deck, and
+right there we hung, all hands of us. The old man he read the service to
+us,--and that wouldn't do, he was so scared; so he got the black cook,
+who was a Methodist, and made him pray; and every two minutes or so, a
+sea would come aboard and all in among us,--like to wash us clean out of
+the ship.
+
+"After midnight the life-boat got alongside, and all hands were for
+scrambling aboard; but I'd got set in my notion the ship would live the
+gale out, and I wouldn't go aboard. Well, the old man was too scared to
+make long stories, and he tumbled aboard the life-boat in a hurry. The
+last words he said to me, as he went over the side, were,--'Good-bye,
+Mr. Cope! I never shall see you again!' However, he got up to the city,
+to Mrs. McKinney's, and there he found a lot of the captains, and he was
+telling them all how he'd lost his ship, and what a fool poor Cope was
+to stick aboard of her, and all that. When the morning came, the gale
+had broke, and the old man began to think he'd been in too much of a
+fright, and he'd better get the tug and go down to look after the ship.
+
+"I was so knocked up, for want of sleep, and the gale and all, that,
+when they got down to us, my head was about gone. I don't remember
+anything, myself; but they told me, that, when they got aboard, I was
+poking about decks as if I was looking for something.
+
+"'How are you, Mr. Cope?' sung out old Tucker. 'I never expected to see
+_you_ again in _this_ world.'
+
+"'I can't find my razor-strop,' says I; I've lost my razor-strop.'
+
+"'Never mind your strop,' says he. 'What you want is to go aboard the
+tug and be taken care of. We'll find your strop.'
+
+"Well, they could hardly get me away, I was so set that I must have that
+strop; but after I got up to town, and had a bath and some breakfast,
+and a couple of hours' sleep or so, I was all right again. That was the
+end of old Tucker's going to sea; and when the 'Moscow' was docked and
+refitted, I got her, and kept her until the firm built me the 'Pogram,'
+here."
+
+"Mr. Brown, isn't it about time we were getting in that mizzen
+to'gall'nt-s'l? It's coming on to blow to-night."
+
+"Steward," (as that functionary passed us,) "put a handful of cigars in
+my monkey-jacket pocket, and have a cup of coffee ready for me about
+twelve."
+
+"Then you mean to be up, to-night?" said the father of pretty Mrs.
+Bates,--the only one of us to whom Captain Cope fairly opened his heart.
+
+"Why, yes, Mr. Roberts--I think I shall. It looks rather dirty to the
+east'ard, and the barometer has fallen since morning. I've two as good
+mates as sail; but if anything is going to happen, I'd rather have it
+happen when I'm on deck,--that's all."
+
+"Wasn't Stewart, of the 'Mexican,' below, when she struck?"
+
+"Yes, he was,--and got blamed for it, too. I don't blame him, myself; he
+was on deck the next minute; and if he had been there before, it would
+have made no difference with that ship; but if _I_ lose a vessel, I
+don't want to be talked about as he was. I went mate with him two
+voyages, and he'd put on his night-gown and turn in comfortably every
+night, and leave his mates to call him; but I never could do that. I
+don't find fault with any man that can; only it's not my way."
+
+"But don't you feel sleepy, Captain Cope?" asked Mrs. Bates.
+
+"Not when I'm on deck, Ma'am; though, when I first went mate, I could
+sleep anyhow and anywhere. I sailed out of Boston to South America, in a
+topsail-schooner, with an old fellow by the name of Eaton,--just the
+strangest old scamp you ever dreamed of. I suppose by rights he ought to
+have been in the hospital; he certainly was the nearest to crazy and not
+be it. He used to keep a long pole by him on deck,--a pole with a sharp
+spike in one end,--and any man who'd get near enough to him to let him
+have a chance would feel that spike. I've known him to keep the cook up
+till midnight frying doughnuts; then he'd call all hands aft and range
+'em on the quarter-deck, and go round with his hat off and a plate of
+doughnuts in his hand, saying, as polite as you please, 'Here, my man,
+won't you take a doughnut?--they won't hurt you; nice and light; had
+them fried a purpose for you.' And then he'd get a bottle of wine or
+Curacoa cordial, and go round with a glass to each man, and make him
+take a drink. You'd see the poor fellows all of a shake, not knowing how
+to take it,--afraid to refuse, and afraid still more, if they didn't,
+that the old man would play 'em some confounded trick. In the midst of
+it all, he'd seem as if he'd woke up out of a dream, and he'd sing out,
+in a way that made them fellows scatter, 'What the ---- are all you men
+doing here at this time of night? Go forrard, every man jack of you! Go
+forrard, I tell you!' and it was 'Devil take the hindmost!'
+
+"Well,--the old man was always on the look-out to catch the watch
+sleeping. He never seemed to sleep much himself;--I've heard _that's_ a
+sign of craziness;--and the more he tried, the more sure we were to try
+it every chance we had. So sure as the old man caught you at it, he'd
+give you a bucketful of water, slap over you, and then follow it up with
+the bucket at your head. Fletcher, the second mate, and I, got so we
+could tell the moment he put foot on the companion-way, and, no matter
+how sound we were, we'd be on our feet before he could get on deck. But
+Fletcher got tired of his vagaries, and left us at Pernambuco, to ship
+aboard a homeward-bound whaler, and in his place we got a fellow named
+Tubbs, a regular duff-head,--couldn't keep his eyes open in the daytime,
+hardly.
+
+"Well,--we were about two days out of Pernambuco, and Tubbs had the
+middle watch, of a clear starlight night, with a steady breeze, and
+everything going quietly, and nothing in sight. So, in about ten minutes
+after the watch got on deck, every mother's son of them was hard and
+fast. The wind was a-beam, and the old schooner could steer herself; so,
+even the man at the helm was sitting down on a hencoop, with one arm
+round the tiller, and snoring like a porpoise. I heard the old man rouse
+out of his bunk and creep on deck, and, guessing fun was coming, I
+turned out and slipped up after him. The first thing I saw was old Eaton
+at work at the tiller. He got it unshipped and braced up with a pair of
+oars and a hencoop, without waking the man at the helm,--how, I couldn't
+tell,--but he was just like a cat; and then he blew the binnacle-light
+out; and then he started forrard, with his trumpet in his hand. He
+caught sight of me, standing halfway up the companion-way, and shook his
+fist at me to keep quiet and not to spoil sport. He slipped forward and
+out on to the bowsprit, clear out to the end of the flying-jib-boom, and
+stowed himself where he couldn't be well seen to leeward of the sail.
+Then he sung out with all his might through the trumpet, '_Schooner
+ahoy, there! Port your hellum!--port_ H-A-A-A-RD! I say,--you're right
+aboard of us!'--And then he'd drop the trumpet, and sing out as if in
+the other craft to his own crew, and then again to us. Of course, every
+man was on his feet in a second, thinking we were all but afoul of
+another vessel. The man who was steering was trying, with all his might,
+to put his helm a-port,--and when he found what was to pay there, to
+ship the tiller. This wasn't so easy; for the old man had passed the
+slack of the main-sheet through the head of the rudder, and belayed it
+on one of the boom-cleats, out of reach,--and, what with just waking up,
+and half a dozen contradictory orders sung out at once, besides
+expecting to strike every minute, he had almost lost what little wits he
+had.
+
+"As for Tubbs, he was like a hen with her head cut off,--one minute at
+the lee rail, and the next in the weather-rigging, then forrard to look
+out for the strange craft, and then aft to see why the schooner didn't
+answer her helm. Meanwhile, he was singing out to the watch to brace
+round the fore-topsail and help her, to let fly the jib-sheets, and to
+haul aft the main-boom; the watch below came tumbling up, and everybody
+was expecting to feel the bunt of our striking the next minute. I
+laughed as though I should split; for nobody could see me where I stood,
+in the shadow of the companion-way, and everybody was looking out ahead,
+for the other vessel. First I knew, the old man had got in board again,
+and was standing there aft, as if he'd just come on deck. 'What's all
+this noise here?' says he.--'What are you doing on deck, Mr. Cope? Go
+below, Sir!--Go below, the larboard watch, and let's have no more of
+this! Who's seen any vessel? Vessel, your eye, Mr. Tubbs! I tell you,
+you've been dreaming.' Then, as he got his head about to the level of
+the top of the companion-way, and out of the reach of any spare
+belaying-pin that might come that way, says he,--'I've just come in from
+the end of the flyin'-jib-boom, and there was no vessel in sight, except
+one topsail-schooner, _with the watch all asleep_,--so it can't be her
+that hailed you.'
+
+"That cured all sleeping on the watch for _that_ voyage, I tell you. And
+as for Tubbs, you had only to say, 'Port your helm,' and he was off."
+
+Just then Mr. Brown came aft to ask if it wasn't time to have in the
+fore-topgallant-sail,--and a little splash of rain falling broke up our
+party and drove most of us below. I knew that reefing topsails would
+come in the course of an hour or so, if the wind held on to blow as it
+did; so, as I waited to see that same, I lighted a cheroot, and as soon
+as the fore-topgallant-sail was clewed up I made my way forward, for a
+chat with Mr. Brown, the English second mate.
+
+Mr. Brown was a character. He was a thorough English sailor;--could do,
+as he owned to me in a shamefaced way, that was comical enough,
+"heverything as could be done with a rope aboard a ship." He had been
+several India voyages, where the nice work of seamanship is to be
+learned, which does not get into the mere "ferry-boat" trips of the
+Liverpool packet-service. He had been in an opium clipper, the
+celebrated ---- of Boston,--and left her, as he told her agent, "because
+he liked a ship as 'ad a lee-rail to her; and the ----'s lee-rail," he
+said, "was commonly out of sight, pretty much all the way from the
+Sand'eads to the Bocca Tigris." He was rich in what he called "'ats,"
+having one for every hour of the day, and, for aught I know, every day
+in the year. It was Fred ----'s and my daily amusement to watch him, and
+we never seemed to catch him coming on deck twice in the same head-gear.
+He took quite a fancy to me, because I did not bother him when busy, and
+because I liked to listen to his talk. So, handing him a cigar, as a
+prefatory to conversation, I asked him our whereabouts. "Four hundred
+miles to the heast'ard of Georges we were this noon, and we've made
+nothink to speak of since, Sir. This last tack has lost us all we made
+before. I hought to know where we are. I've drifted 'ere without even a
+'en-coop hunder me. I was third mate aboard the barque 'Jenny,' of
+Belfast, when she was run down by the steamer 'United States.' The
+barque sunk in less than seven minutes after the steamer struck us, and
+I come up out of her suction-like. I found myself swimming there, on
+top, and not so much as a capstan-bar to make me a life-buoy. I knew the
+steamer was hove to, for I could hear her blow hoff steam; and once, as
+I came up on a wave, I got a sight of her boats. They were ready enough
+to pick us up, and we was ready enough to be picked up, such as were
+left; but how to do it was another matter, with a sea like this
+running, and a cloud over the moon every other minute. I soon see that
+swimming wouldn't 'old out much longer, and I must try something helse.
+Now, Sir, what I'm a-telling you may be some use to you some day, if you
+have to stay a couple of hours in the water. If you can swim about as
+well as most men can, you can tell 'ow long a man's strength would last
+him 'ereaways to-night. Besides, I was spending my breath, when I rose
+on a sea, in 'ollering,--and you can't swim and 'oller. So I tried a
+trick I learned, when a boy, on the Cornish coast, where I was born,
+Sir;--it's one worth knowing. I doubled back my feet hunder me till my
+'eels come to the small of my back, and I could float as long as I
+wanted to, and, when I rose on a wave, 'oller. They 'eard me, it seems,
+and pulled round for me, but it was an hour before they found me, and my
+strength was nigh to gone. I couldn't 'oller no more, and was about
+giving up. But they picked up the cook, and he told 'em he knowed it was
+Mr. Brown's voice, and begged 'em to keep on. The last I remember was,
+as the steamer burned a blue light for her boats, when they caught a
+sight of me in the trough of the sea. I saw them too, and gave a last
+screech, and then I don't remember hanythink, Sir, till Cookie was
+'elping 'aul (Mr. Brown always dropped his aspirates as he grew excited)
+me into the boat. Now, just you remember what I've been a-telling you
+about floating."--"_Forrard there! Stand by to clew up and furl the main
+to'gall'n-s'l! Couple of you come aft here and brail up the spanker!
+Lively, men, lively!_"--And Mr. Brown was no longer my Scheherazade.
+
+When I got back to the shelter of the wheel-house, I found the captain
+and old Roberts still comfortably braced up in opposite corners and
+yarning away. There was nothing to be done but to watch the ship and the
+wind, which promised in due time to be a gale, but as yet was not even a
+reefing breeze. They had got upon a standing topic between the
+two,--vessels out of their course. The second night out, we had made a
+light which the captain insisted was a ship's light, but old Roberts
+declared was one of the lights on the coast of Maine,--Mount Desert, or
+somewhere thereabouts. He was an old shipping-merchant, had been many a
+time across the water in his own vessels, and thought he knew as much as
+most men. So, whenever other subjects gave out, this, of vessels drifted
+by unsuspected currents out of their course, was unfailing. They were at
+it now.
+
+"When I was last in Liverpool," said the captain, "there was a brig from
+Machias got in there, and her captain came up to Mrs. McKinney's. He
+told us that it was thick weather when he got upon the Irish coast, and
+he was rather doubtful about his reckoning; so he ordered a sharp
+look-out for Cape Clear. According to his notion, he ought to be up with
+it about noon, and, as the sun rose and the fog lifted a little, he was
+hoping to sight the land. Once or twice he fancied he had a glimpse of
+it, but wasn't sure,--when the mate came aft and reported that they
+could hear a bell ringing. 'Sure enough,' he said, 'there was the toll
+of a bell coming through the mist.'
+
+"'That's some ship's bell,' said he to the mate; 'only it's wonderful
+heavy for a ship, and it can't be a church-bell on shore, can it?'
+
+"And while they were arguing about it, a cutter shot out of the fog and
+hailed if they wanted a pilot.
+
+"'Pilot!' says the Down-Easter,--'pilot!--where for? No, thank ye, not
+yet,--I can find my way up George's without a pilot. What bell's that?'
+
+"'Rather think you can, Captain; but you'll want a pilot here;--that's
+the bell on the floating light off Liverpool.'
+
+"'What!' says the captain,--have I come all the way up Channel without
+knowing it? I've been on the look-out for Cape Clear ever since
+daybreak, and here, by ginger, I've overrun my reckoning _three hundred
+miles_.'"
+
+"Well," said old Roberts, "one of my captains, Brandegee, you know, who
+had the 'China,' got caught, one November, just as he was coming on the
+coast, in a gale from the eastward. He knew he was somewhere near
+Provincetown, but how near he couldn't say. It was snowing, and blowing,
+and ice-making all over the decks and rigging, and an awful night
+generally. He did not dare to run before it, because it was blowing at a
+rate to take him halfway in Worcester County in the next twenty-four
+hours. He couldn't stand to the south'ard, because that would put the
+back of Cape Cod under his lee. He was afraid to stand to the north'ard,
+not knowing precisely where the coast of Maine might be. So he hove the
+ship to, under as little sail as he could, and let her drift. I've heard
+him say, he heard the breakers a hundred times that night," ('I'll bet
+he did,' ejaculated the captain.) "and it seemed like three nights in
+one before morning came. When it did come, wind and sea appeared to have
+gone down. The lookouts were half dead with cold and sleep and all; but
+they made out to hail land on the weather bow.
+
+"'Good George!' said old Brandegee, 'how did land get on the _weather_
+bow? We must have got inside of Cape Cod, and that must be Sharkpainter
+Hill.'
+
+"'Land on the lee quarter,' hailed the watch, again: and in a minute
+more, 'Land on the lee beam,--land on the lee bow.'
+
+"Brandegee sung out to heave the lead and let go both anchors, and he
+said that, but for the gale having gone down so, he should have expected
+to strike the next minute. Just as the anchors came home and the ship
+headed to the wind, the second mate came aft, rubbing his eyes and
+looking very queer.
+
+"'Captain Brandegee,' says he, 'if I was in Boston Harbor, I should say
+that there was Nix's Mate.'
+
+"'Well, Mr. Jones,' says the old man, dropping out the words very
+slowly, 'if--that's--Nix's Mate,--Rainsford Island--ought--to--be--here
+away, and--as--I'm--a--living--man, THERE IT IS!'
+
+"Half-frozen as they were, there was a cheer rung out from that crew
+that waked half the North-End out of their morning nap.
+
+"'Just my plaguy luck!' said the old fellow to me, as he told it. 'If
+I'd held on to my anchors another half-hour, I might have come
+handsomely alongside of Long Wharf and been up to the custom-house
+before breakfast.'
+
+"He had drifted broadside square into Boston Harbor, past Nahant, the
+Graves, Cohasset Rocks, and everything."
+
+"I've heard of that," said the captain,--"and as it's my opinion it
+couldn't be done twice, I don't mean to try it."
+
+    "I hear the noise about thy keel,
+      I hear the bell struck in the night,
+      I see the cabin-window bright,
+    I see the sailor at the wheel,"--
+
+repeated Fred ----, in my ear. "Come below out of this wet and rain,"
+added he.
+
+We passed the door of the mate's state-room as we went below, and,
+seeing it ajar, and Mr. Pitman, the mate, sitting there, we looked in.
+
+"Come in, gentlemen," said he; "my watch on deck is in half an hour, and
+I'm not sleepy to-night."
+
+F---- took up a carved whale's tooth, and asked if Mr. Pitman had ever
+been in the whaling business.
+
+"Two voyages,--one before the mast, one boat-steerer;--both in the
+Pacific. But whaling didn't suit me. I've a Missus now, and a couple of
+as fine boys as ever you saw; and I rather be where I can come home
+oftener than once in three years."
+
+"How did you like whaling?" said I.
+
+"Well, I don't believe there's any man but what feels different
+alongside of a whale from what he does on the ship's deck. Some of those
+Nantucket and New Bedford men, who've been brought up to it, as you may
+say, take it naturally, and think of nothing but the whale. I've heard
+of one of them boat-steerers who got ketched in a whale's mouth and
+didn't come out of it quite as whole as he went in. When they asked him
+what he thought when the whale nabbed him, he said he 'thought she'd
+turn out about forty barrels.'
+
+"There's a good many things about the whale, gentlemen, that everybody
+don't know. Why does one whale sink when he's killed, and another don't?
+Where do the whales go to, now and then?--I sailed with one captain who
+used to say, that, books or no books, can't live under water or not, _he
+knew_ that whales do live under water months at a time. I can't say,
+myself; but this I can say,--they go ashore. You may look hard at that,
+but I've seen it. We were off the coast of South America, in company
+with five other ships; and all our captains were ashore one afternoon.
+We had to pull some two miles or so to go off to them, and, starting
+off, all hands were for racing. I was pulling stroke in the captain's
+boat, and the old man gives us the word to pull easy, and let 'em head
+on us. It was hard work to hold in, with every one of the boats giving
+way, strong, the captains singing out bets, and cheering their
+men,--singing out, 'Break your backs and bend your oars!' 'There she
+blows!' and all that. But the old man kept muttering to us to take it
+easy and let them head on us. We were soon the last boat, and then, as
+if he'd given up the race, he gave the word to 'easy.'
+
+"'Good-night, Capt. T----! we'll send your ship in to tow you off,' was
+the last words they said to us.
+
+"'There'll be something else to tow off,' says he. 'It's the race, who
+shall see Palmer's Island first, that I'm bound to win.'
+
+"He gave the boat a sheer in for the beach, to a little bight that made
+up in the land,--across the mouth of which we had to pull, in going off.
+
+"'D'ye see that rock on the beach, boys,' says he, 'in range of that
+lone tree, on the point? Did any of you ever see that rock before? I
+wish this bloody coast had a few more such rocks! That's a cow whale,
+and this bight is her nursery, and she is up on the beach for her calf's
+convenience. Now, then,'--as we opened the bight and got a fair sight of
+it,--'give way, strong as you please,--and we'll head her off, before
+she knows it.'
+
+"We got her and got the calf, and when, next morning, the other ships
+saw us cutting in, they didn't say much about that race; and 'Old T.'s
+Nursery' was a byword on the coast as long as we staid there.
+
+"There goes eight bells, and I rather think Mr. Brown will want me on
+deck." We followed, for there was the prospect of seeing topsails
+reefed,--the most glorious event of a landsman's sea-experiences. We had
+begun the day with a dead calm, but toward night the wind had come out
+of the eastward. Each plunge the ship gave was sharper, each shock
+heavier. The topmasts were working, the lee-shrouds and backstays
+straining out into endless curves. A deeper plunge than usual, a pause
+for a second, as if everything in the world suddenly stood still, and a
+great white giant seems to spring upon our weather-bow and to leap on
+board. We hear the crash and feel the shock, and presently the water
+comes pouring aft,--and Captain Cope calls out to reef
+topsails,--double-reef fore and mizzen,--one reef in the main. The mates
+are in the weather-rigging before the word is out of the captain's lips,
+to take the earings of their respective topsails; and then follows the
+rush of men up the shrouds and out along the yards. The sails are
+slatting and flapping, and one can hardly see the row of broad backs
+against the dusky sky as they bend over the canvas. There are hoarse
+murmurs, and calls to "light up the sail to windward"; and presently
+from the fore-topsail-yard comes the cry, ringing and clear,--"Haul away
+to leeward!"--repeated next moment from the main and echoed from the
+mizzen. Sheltered by the weather-bulwarks, and with one arm round a
+mizzen-backstay, there is a capital place to watch all this and feel the
+glorious thrill of the sea,--to look down the sloping deck into the
+black billows, with here and there a white patch of foam, and while the
+organ-harp overhead is sounding its magnificent symphony. It is but
+wood and iron and hemp and canvas that is doing all this, with some
+thirty poor, broken-down, dissipated wretches, who, being fit for
+nothing else, of course _are_ fit for the fo'castle of a Liverpool
+Liner. Yet it is, for all that, something which haunts the memory
+long,--which comes back years after in inland vales and quiet
+farm-houses like brown-moss agates set in emerald meadows, in book-lined
+studios, and in close city streets. For it is part of the might and
+mystery of the sea, the secret influence that sets the blood on fire and
+the heart throbbing,--of any in whose veins runs some of the true
+salt-water sympathy. Men are born landsmen, and are born on land, but
+belong to the Ocean's family. Sooner or later, whatever their calling,
+they recognize the tie. They may struggle against it, and scotch it, but
+cannot kill it. They may not be seamen,--they may wear black coats and
+respectable white ties, and have large balances in the bank, but they
+are the Sea's men,--brothers by blood-relationship, if not by trade, of
+Ulysses and Vasco, of Columbus and Cabot, of Frobisher and Drake.
+
+Other stories of the sea are floating through my memory as I
+write,--tales told with elbows leaning on cabin-tables, while the
+swinging-lamp oscillated drearily overhead, and sent uncertain shadows
+into the state-room doors. There is the story which Vivian Grey told us
+of the beautiful clipper "Nighthawk,"--her who sailed with the "Bonita"
+and "Driving-Scud" and "Mazeppa," in the great Sea-Derby, whose course
+lay round the world. How, one Christmas-day, off the pitch of Cape Horn,
+he, standing on her deck, saw her dive bodily into a sea, and all of her
+to the mainmast was lost in ocean,--her stately spars seemingly rising
+out of blue water unsupported by any ship beneath;--it seemed an age to
+him, he said, before there was any forecastle to be seen rising from the
+brine. Also, how, caught off that same wild cape, they had to make sail
+in a reef-topsail-breeze to claw off its terrible rocks, seen but too
+plainly under their Ice. How, as he said, "about four in the afternoon
+it seemed to blow worse than ever, and you could see the staunch boat
+was pressed down under her canvas, and every spar was groaning and
+quivering, while the ship went bodily to leeward." And next, "how she
+seemed to come to herself, as it were, with a long staggering roll, and
+to spring to windward as if relieved of a dead weight; for the gale had
+broken, and the foam-belt along the cliffs grew dimmer and dimmer, and
+the land fainter and fainter. And then," he said, "to hear the
+fo'castle-talk, you would have said that never was such a ship, such
+spars, such a captain, such seamanship, and such luck, since Father
+Jason cleared the 'Argo' from the Piraeus, for Colchis and a market."
+
+Or I might tell you how Dr. ----, the ship-surgeon, was in that Collard
+steamer which ran down the fishing-boat in the fog off Cape Race,--and
+how, looking from his state-room window, he saw a mighty cliff so near
+that he could almost lay his hand upon it. How Fanshaw was on board the
+"Sea-King" when she was burned, off Point Linus,--and how he hung in the
+chains till he was taken off, and his hair was repeatedly set on fire by
+the women--emigrant-passengers--jumping over his head into the sea.
+
+But not so near a-shaking hands with Death did any of them tell, as Ned
+Kennedy,--who, poor fellow, lies buried in some lone _canon_ of the
+Sierra Madre. Let us hear him give it in his wild, reckless way. Ned was
+sitting opposite us, his thick, black hair curling from under his plaid
+travelling-cap,--his thick eyebrows working, and his hands occupied in
+arranging little fragments of pilot-biscuit on the table. He broke in
+upon the last man who was talking, with a--
+
+"Tell you what, boys,--I've a better idea of what all that means. I
+suppose you both know what the Mediterranean lines of steamers are, and
+what capital seamanship, and travelling comfort, and all that, you find
+there. The engineers, however, are Scotch, English, or American, always;
+because why? A French officer once told me the reason. 'You see, _mon
+ami_,' he said, 'this row of handles which are used to turn these
+different stops and cocks. Now, my countrymen will take them down and
+use them properly, each one, just as well as your countrymen; but they
+will put them back again in their places never.' So it is, and the
+engineers are all as I say.
+
+"I left Naples for Genoa in the 'Ercolano,' of the Naples line. There
+were not many passengers on board,--no women,--and what there were were
+all priests or soldiers. Nobody went by the Neapolitan line except
+Italians, at that time,--the French company having larger, handsomer,
+and decidedly cleaner vessels. Of course, as a heretic and a civilian, I
+had nobody to talk to; so, finding that the engineer had a Saxon tongue
+in his head, I dove down into his den and made acquaintance. Being shut
+up there with Italians so much, he thawed out to me at once, and we were
+sworn brothers by the time we reached Civita Vecchia.
+
+"The 'Ercolano' was as crazy an old tub as every floated: judging from
+the extensive colonies which tenanted her berths, she must have been
+launched about the same time as Fulton's 'Clermont,' or the old 'Ben
+Franklin,' Captain Bunker, once so well known off the end of Newport
+wharf. You know how those boats are managed,--stopping all day in port
+and running at night. We brought up at Leghorn in that way, and Marston,
+the engineer, proposed to me to have a run ashore. I had no _vise_ for
+Tuscany then, and the Austrian police are very strict; but Marston
+proposed to pass me off for one of the steamer's officers. So he fished
+out an old uniform coat of his and made me put it on; and, sure enough,
+the bright buttons and shoulder-straps carried me through,--only I was
+dreadfully embarrassed." (Ned never was disturbed at anything.--if an
+elephant had walked into the cabin, he would have offered him a seat and
+cigar.) "by the sentries all presenting arms to my coat, which sat upon
+me as a shirt is supposed to on a bean-pole. I overheard one man
+attribute my attenuated frame to the effects of sea-sickness. We went
+into various shops, and finally into one where all sorts of sea-notions
+were kept, and Marston said, 'Here's what I've been in search of this
+month past. I began to think I should have to send to London for it. The
+'Ercolano' is a perfect sieve, and may go down any night with all
+aboard; and here's a swimming-jacket to wear under your coat,--just the
+thing.' He fitted and bought one, and was turning to go, when a fancy
+popped into my head: 'Marston,' said I, 'is this coat of yours so very
+baggy on me?' 'H-e-em,' said he. 'I've known more waxy fits; a trifle of
+padding wouldn't hurt your looks.' 'I know it,' said I; 'every soldier
+we passed seemed to me to smoke me for an impostor, knowing the coat
+wasn't made for me. Here, let's put one of these things underneath.' I
+put it on, buttoned the coat over it, inflated it, and the effect was a
+marvel;--it made a portly gentleman of me at once. I couldn't bear to
+take it off. 'Just the thing for diligence-travelling in the South of
+France,' said I; 'keep your neighbor's elbows from your ribs.' I never
+thought that I must buy a coat to match it. I was so tickled at my own
+fancy that buy it I would, in spite of Marston's remonstrance. Then we
+went off and dined, and got very jolly together,--at least, I did,--so
+that, when we pulled off to the steamer, I thought nothing about my coat
+or the jacket under it.
+
+"There was a dirty-looking sky overhead, and a nasty cobbling sea
+getting up under foot as we ran out of Leghorn Harbor, and a little
+French screw which we left at her anchor was fizzing off steam from her
+waste-pipe,--evidently meaning to stay where she was. But our captain,
+having been paid in advance for all the dinners of the voyage, preferred
+being at sea before the cloth was laid. That made sure of at least
+twenty out of every twenty-five passengers as non-comedents, and
+lightened the cook's labors wonderfully. So we were soon jumping and
+bobbing about and throwing water in a lively way enough; and our black
+gowns and blue coats were lying about decks in every direction, with
+what had been _padres_ and soldiers an hour before inside. I lit a cigar
+and picked out the driest place I could find, and hugged myself on my
+luck,--another man's coat getting wet on my back, while the air-tight
+jacket was keeping me dry as a bone.
+
+"As night fell, it grew worse and worse; and the little Sicilian captain
+came on deck, looking rather wild. He called his pilots and mates into
+consultation, and from where I lay I could hear the words, 'Spezzia,'
+and 'Porto Venere,' several times; so I suppose they were debating
+whether or no to keep her head to the gale, or to edge away a point or
+two, and run for that bay. But with a head sea and a Mediterranean gale
+howling down from the gorges of the Ligurian Alps, that thing wasn't so
+easy. The boat would plunge into a sea and bury to her paddle-boxes,
+then pitch upward as if she were going to jump bodily out of water, and
+slap down into it again, while her guards would spring and quiver like
+card-board. The engine began to complain, as they will when a boat is
+laboring heavily. You could hear it take, as it were, long breaths, and
+then stop for a second altogether. I slipped below into the engine-room,
+and found Marston looking very sober. 'Kennedy,' said he, 'the
+'Ercolano' will be somebody's coffin before to-morrow morning, I'm
+afraid. I'm carrying more steam than is prudent or safe, and the
+_padrone_ has just sent orders to put on more. We are not making a mile
+an hour, he says; and our only chance is to get under the lee of the
+land. Look at those eccentrics and that connecting-rod! I expect to see
+something go any minute; and then--there's no use saying what will come
+next.' He sat down on his bench and covered his face with his hands.
+
+"It seems, the 'Spezzia' question was decided about that time on deck,
+and the 'Ercolano's' bow suffered to fall off in the direction of that
+bay. The effect was that the next sea caught us full on the weather-bow
+with a shock that pitched everything movable out of its place. There was
+a twist and a grind from the machinery, a snap and a crash, and then
+part after part gave way, as the strain fell upon it in turn. Marston,
+with an engineer's instinct, shut off the steam; but the mischief was
+done. We felt the 'Ercolano' give a wild sheer, and then a long,
+sickening roll, as if she were going down bodily,--and we sprang for the
+companion-ladder. Everything on deck was at sixes and sevens when we
+reached it '_Sangue di San Gennaro! siamo perduli!_' howled the captain;
+and even the poor sea-sick passengers seemed to wake up a little. It was
+a bad look-out. We got pretty much of every wave that was going, so
+there was hardly any standing forward; and, having no steam on, the wind
+and the sea had their own way with us. The gallant little _padrone_
+seemed to keep up his pluck, and made out to show a little sail, so as
+to bring her by the wind; but that, in a long, sharp steamer, didn't
+mend matters much. To make things completely cheerful and comfortable,
+word was passed up that we were leaking badly. I confess I didn't see
+much hope for us; and having lugged up my valise from below, where there
+was already a foot of water over the cabin-floor, I picked out the
+little valuables I could stow about me and kicked the rest into a
+corner. Still we had our boats, and, as the gale seemed to be breaking a
+little, there was hope for us. At last they managed to get them into the
+water, and keep them riding clear under our lee. The priests were
+bundled in like so many wet bales of black cloth, and then the soldiers,
+and Marston and I tried to follow; but a 'No room for heretics here,'
+enforced by a bit of brown steel in a soldier's hands, kept us back. The
+chance wasn't worth fighting for, after all. I didn't believe the
+steamer would sink, any way. I was aboard the 'San Francisco' when she
+drifted for nine days. However, there wasn't much time left for us to
+speculate on that,--for a rush of firemen and crew and the like into
+the boats was the next thing, and then the fasts were cast off or cut,
+and the wind and sea did the rest. They shot away into the darkness. A
+couple of firemen, two of the priests, and a soldier were left on board.
+The firemen went to getting drunk,--the priests were too sick to move or
+care for anything,--the soldier sat quietly down on the cabin-skylight;
+Marston and I climbed on to the port paddle-box to look out for a sail.
+
+"The clouds had broken with the dying of the gale, and the moon shone
+out, lighting up the foaming sea far and wide, and showing our
+water-logged or sinking craft. Every wave that swept over us found its
+way below, and we settled deeper and deeper. Still, if we could only
+hold on till morning, those seas are alive with small craft, and we
+stood a good chance of being picked off. I was saying as much to Marston
+when the 'Ercolano' gave a lurch and then dove bows first into the sea.
+A great wave seemed to curl over us, and then to thrust us by the
+shoulders down into the depths, and all was darkness and water. I went
+down, down, and still I was dragged lower still, though the pressure
+from above ceased, and I was struggling to rise. I struck out with hands
+and feet;--I was held fast. I felt behind me and found a hand grasping
+my coat-tails. Marston had seized me, and with the other hand was
+clinging to the iron rail on the top of the paddle-box,--clinging with
+the death-grip of a drowning man, if you know what that is. I tried to
+unclasp the fingers,--to drive him from his hold on the rail. Of course
+I couldn't; it was Death's hand, not his, that was holding there, and my
+own strength was going, when a thought flashed into my mind. I tore open
+my coat, and it slipped from me like a grape-skin from the grape, and I
+went up like an arrow.
+
+"Never shall I forget the blessed light of heaven, and the sweet air in
+my lungs once more. Bad off as I was, it was better than being anchored
+to a sinking wreck by a dead man's grasp. I heard a voice near me that
+night repeating the Latin prayers of the Romish Church for the departing
+soul, but I couldn't see the speaker. The moon had gone under a cloud
+again, but there was light enough for me to catch a glimpse of some
+floating wreck on the crest of a wave above me; and then it came down
+right on top of me,--a lot of rigging and a spar or two,--our topmast
+and yard, which had gone over the side just before we foundered. I
+climbed on to it, and found my prospects hugely improving,--especially
+as clinging to the other end was the soldier left on board. As soon as I
+could persuade him I was no spook or mermaid, he was almost as pleased
+as I was, especially when he found I was the '_eretico_.' He was a
+Swiss, it seemed, of King Ferdinand's regiments, going home on furlough,
+and a Protestant, which was why he was left on board.
+
+"Between us both we managed to get the spars into some sort of a
+raft-shape, so that they would float us more comfortably; and there we
+watched for the morning. When that came, the sea had smoothed itself,
+and the wind died away considerably,--as it does in the Mediterranean at
+short notice. We looked every way for the white lateen-sails of the
+coasting and fishing craft, but in vain. It grew hotter and hotter as
+the sun got higher, and hope and strength began to give out. I lay down
+on the raft and slept,--how long I don't know, for my first
+consciousness was my friend's cry of "A ship!" I looked up, and there,
+sure enough, in the northeast, was a large ship, running before the
+wind, right in our direction. I suspect poor Fritzeli must have been
+asleep also, that he hadn't seen her before,--for she was barely a
+couple of miles off. She was apparently from Genoa or Spezzia; but the
+main thing was, that she was travelling our road, and that with a will.
+I tore off my shirt-sleeve at the shoulder, and waved it, while Fritzeli
+held up his red sash. But it was an anxious time. On she came,--a big
+frigate. We could see a commodore's pendant flying at the main, and
+almost hear the steady rush of water under her black bows. Did they see
+us, or not? There was no telling; a man-of-war walks the sea's roads
+without taking hats off to everybody that comes along. A quiet report
+goes up to the officer of the deck, a long look with a glass, and the
+whole affair would be settled without troubling us to come into council.
+On she came, till we could see the guns in her bow ports, and almost
+count the meshes in her hammock netting. The shadow of her lofty sails
+was already fallen upon us before she gave a sign of recognition. Then
+her bow gave a wide sheer, and her whole broadside came into view, as
+she glided by the spars where we were crouching. An officer appeared at
+her quarter and waved his gold-banded cap to us, as the frigate rounded
+to, to the leeward of us,--and the glorious stripes and stars blew out
+clear against the hot sky. A light dingey was in the water before the
+main yard had been well swung aback, and a midshipman was urging the
+men, who needed no urging, to give way strong. I didn't know how weak I
+had got, till they were lifting me aboard the boat. An hour after, when
+I had had something to eat and was a little restored and had told my
+story, the officer of the deck was relieved and came below to see me.
+
+"'I fancy, Sir, we've just passed something of your steamer,' he
+said,--'a yawlboat, bottom up, with a name on the stern which we
+couldn't well make out: _Erco_ something, it looked like. Hadn't been
+long in the water, I should say.'
+
+"And that was the last of the steamer. Fritzeli and I were the sole
+survivors."
+
+
+
+
+THE JOLLY MARINER:
+
+A BALLAD.
+
+    It was a jolly mariner
+      As ever hove a log;
+    He wore his trousers wide and free,
+      And always ate his prog,
+    And blessed his eyes, in sailor-wise,
+      And never shirked his grog.
+
+    Up spoke this jolly mariner,
+      Whilst walking up and down:--
+    "The briny sea has pickled me,
+      And done me very brown;
+    But here I goes, in these here clo'es,
+      A-cruising in the town!"
+
+    The first of all the curious things
+      That chanced his eye to meet,
+    As this undaunted mariner
+      Went sailing up the street,
+    Was, tripping with a little cane,
+      A dandy all complete!
+
+    He stopped,--that jolly mariner,--
+      And eyed the stranger well;--
+    "What that may be," he said, says he,
+      "Is more than I can tell;
+    But ne'er before, on sea or shore,
+      Was such a heavy swell!"
+
+    He met a lady in her hoops,
+      And thus she heard him hail:--
+    "Now blow me tight!--but there's a sight
+      To manage in a gale!
+    I never saw so small a craft
+      With such a spread o' sail!
+
+    "Observe the craft before and aft,--
+      She'd make a pretty prize!"
+    And then, in that improper way,
+      He spoke about his eyes,
+    That mariners are wont to use,
+      In anger or surprise.
+
+    He saw a plumber on a roof,
+      Who made a mighty din:--
+    "Shipmate, ahoy!" the rover cried,
+      "It makes a sailor grin
+    To see you copper-bottoming
+      Your upper-decks with tin!"
+
+    He met a yellow-bearded man,
+      And asked about the way;
+    But not a word could he make out
+      Of what the chap would say,
+    Unless he meant to call him names
+      By screaming, "Nix furstay!"
+
+    Up spoke this jolly mariner,
+      And to the man said he,
+    "I haven't sailed these thirty years
+      Upon the stormy sea,
+    To bear the shame of such a name
+      As I have heard from thee!
+
+    "So take thou that!"--and laid him flat.
+      But soon the man arose,
+    And beat the jolly mariner
+      Across his jolly nose,
+    Till he was fain, from very pain,
+      To yield him to the blows.
+
+    'Twas then this jolly mariner,
+      A wretched jolly tar,
+    Wished he was in a jolly-boat
+      Upon the sea afar,
+    Or riding fast, before the blast,
+      Upon a single spar!
+
+    'Twas then this jolly mariner
+      Returned unto his ship,
+    And told unto the wondering crew
+      The story of his trip,
+    With many oaths and curses, too,
+      Upon his wicked lip!--
+
+    As hoping--so this mariner
+      In fearful words harangued--
+    His timbers might be shivered, and
+      His le'ward scuppers danged,
+    (A double curse, and vastly worse
+      Than being shot or hanged!)
+
+    If ever he--and here again
+      A dreadful oath he swore--
+    If ever he, except at sea,
+      Spoke any stranger more,
+    Or like a son of--something--went
+      A-cruising on the shore!
+
+
+
+
+SUGGESTIONS.
+
+    "Waste words, addle questions."
+
+    BISHOP ANDREWS.
+
+
+AFFAIRS.
+
+When affairs are at their worst, a bold project may retrieve them by
+giving an assurance, else wanting, that hope, spirit, and energy still
+exist.
+
+
+AFFINITIES.
+
+Place an inferior character in contact with the finest circumstances,
+and, from wanting affinities with them, he will still remain, from no
+fault of his own, insensible to their attractions. Take him up the mount
+of vision, and show him the finest scene in Nature, and, instead of
+taking in the whole circle of its beauty, he will, quite as likely, have
+his attention engrossed by something mean and insignificant under his
+nose. I was reminded of this, on taking a little boy, three years old,
+to the top of the New York Reservoir. Placing him on one of the
+parapets, I endeavored to call his attention to the more salient and
+distant features of the extended prospect; but the little fellow's mind
+was too immature to be at all appreciative of them. His interest was
+confined to what he saw going on in a dirty inclosure on the opposite
+side of the street, where two or three goats were moving about. After
+watching them with curious interest for some time, "See, see!" said he,
+"dem is pigs down dare!" Was there need for quarrelling with my fine
+little man for seeing pigs where there were only goats, or goats where
+there was much worthier to be seen?
+
+
+AFTER THE BATTLE.
+
+A brave deed performed, a noble object accomplished, gives a fillip to
+the spirits, an exhilaration to the feelings, like that imparted by
+Champagne, only more permanent. It is, indeed, admirably well said by
+one wise to discern the truth of things, and able to give to his thought
+a vigorous expression, that "a man feels relieved and gay when he has
+put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or
+done otherwise shall give him no peace."
+
+
+APPLAUSE.
+
+Noble acts deserve a generous appreciation. Indeed, it is a species of
+injustice not to warmly applaud whatever is wisely said or ably done.
+Fine things are shown that they may be admired. When the peacock struts
+about, it is to show what a fine tail he has.
+
+
+ARTISTS.
+
+The artist's business is with the beautiful. The repugnant is outside of
+his province. Let him study only the beautiful, and he will always be
+pleased; let him treat only of the beautiful, with a true feeling for
+it, and he will always give pleasure.
+
+The artist must love both his art and the subjects of his art. Nothing
+that is not lovable is worth portraying. In the portrait of Rosa
+Bonheur, she is appropriately represented with one arm thrown
+affectionately around the neck of a bull. She must have loved this order
+of animals, to have painted them so well.
+
+
+AUTHORS.
+
+Instead of the jealousies that obtain among them, there is no class that
+ought to stand so close together, united in a feeling of common
+brotherhood, to strengthen, to support, and to encourage, by mutual
+sympathy and interchange of genial criticism, as authors. A sensitive
+race, neglect pierces like sharp steel into the very marrow of their
+being. And still they stand apart! Alive to praise, and needing its
+inspiration, their relations are those of icebergs,--cold, stiff, lofty,
+and freezing. What infatuation is this! They should seek each other out,
+extend the hand of fellowship, and bridge the distance between them by
+elaborate courtesies and kindly recognitions.
+
+
+AN AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK.
+
+No man is a competent judge of what he himself does. An author, on the
+eve of his first publication, and while his book is going through the
+press, is in a predicament like that of a man mounted on a fence, with
+an ugly bull in the field that he is obliged to cross. The apprehended
+silence of the journals concerning his merits--for no notice is the
+worst notice--constitutes one of the "horns of his dilemma"; while their
+possibly invidious comments upon his want of them constitute another and
+equally formidable "horn." Between these, and the uncertainty as to
+whether he will not in a little time be cut by one-half of his
+acquaintances and only indulgently tolerated by the other half, his
+experience is apt to be very peculiar, and certainly not altogether
+agreeable. Never, therefore, envy an author his feelings on such an
+occasion, on the score of their superior enjoyment, but rather let him
+be visited with your softest pity and tenderest commiseration.
+
+
+BOOKS.
+
+A book is only a very partial expression of its author. The writer is
+greater than his work; and there is in him the substance, not of one, or
+a few, but of many books, were they only written out.
+
+
+CAUSE AND EFFECT.
+
+Small circumstances illustrate great principles. To-day my dinner cost
+me sixpence less than usual. This is an incident not quite so important
+as some others recorded in history, but the causes of it originated more
+than two thousand years ago. It will also serve to explain the
+principle, that causes are primary and secondary, remote and
+immediate,--and that historians, when they speak of certain effects as
+produced by certain causes. Socrates one day had a conversation with
+Aristippus, in which he threw out certain remarks on the subject of
+temperance. Being overheard by Xenophon, they were subsequently
+committed to writing and published by him. These, falling in my way last
+evening, made such an impression on my mind, that I was induced to-day
+to forego my customary piece of pudding after dinner, to the loss of the
+eating-house proprietor, whose receipts were thus diminished, first, by
+a few observations of an ancient Greek, secondly, by a report given of
+them by a bystander, and, thirdly, by the accidental perusal of them,
+after twenty centuries, by one of his customers.
+
+
+CHEERFULNESS.
+
+Sullen and good, morbid and wise, are impossible conditions. The best
+test, both of a man's wisdom and goodness, is his cheerfulness. When one
+is not cheerful, he is almost invariably stupid. A sad face seldom gets
+into much credit with the world, and rarely deserves to. "Sorrow," says
+old Montaigne, "is a base passion."
+
+"The quarrel between Gray and me," said Horace Walpole, "arose from his
+being too serious a companion." In my opinion, this was a good ground
+for cutting the connection. What right has any one to be "too serious a
+companion?"
+
+
+COWARDS.
+
+In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that
+imperil the brave. For cowards the road of desertion to the enemy should
+be left open; they will carry over to them nothing but their fears. The
+poltroon, like the scabbard, is an incumbrance when once the sword is
+drawn.
+
+
+CRITICISM.
+
+No work deserves to be criticized which has not much in it that deserves
+to be applauded. The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention
+to what is excellent The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect
+may be safely left to that final neglect from which no amount of present
+undeserved popularity can rescue it.
+
+Ever so critical of things: never but good-naturedly so of persons.
+
+
+CULTURE.
+
+Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity.
+
+
+DEATH.
+
+Without death in the world, existence in it would soon become, through
+over-population, the most frightful of curses. To death we owe our life;
+the passing of one generation clears the way for another; and thus, in
+the economy of Providence, the very extinction of being is a provision
+for extending the boon of existence. Even wars and disease are _a good
+misunderstood_. Without them, child-murder would be as common in
+Christendom as it is in over-populated China.
+
+
+DEBTORS AND CREDITORS.
+
+To interest a number of people in your welfare, get in debt to them. If
+they will not then promote your interest, it is because they are not
+alive to their own. It is to the advantage of creditors to aid their
+debtors. Caesar owed more than a million of dollars before he obtained
+his first public employment, and at a later period his liabilities
+exceeded his assets by ten millions. His creditors constituted an
+important constituency, and doubtless aided to secure his elections.
+
+
+DIFFICULTIES.
+
+Great difficulties, when not succumbed to, bring out great virtues.
+
+
+DISGUST.
+
+A fit of disgust is a great stimulator of thought. Pleasure represses
+it.
+
+
+EARNESTNESS.
+
+M. de Buffon says that "genius is only great patience." Would it not be
+truer to say that genius is great earnestness? Patience is only one
+faculty; earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties: it is the
+cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens
+weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties,
+and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them. Yes, War yields
+its victories, and Beauty her favors, to him who fights or wooes with
+the most passionate ardor,--in other words, with the greatest
+earnestness. Even the simulation of earnestness accomplishes much,--such
+a charm has it for us. This explains the success of libertines, the
+coarseness of whose natures is usually only disguised by a certain
+conventional polish of manners: "their hearts seem in earnest, because
+their passions are."
+
+
+EDUCATION OF THE SEXES.
+
+Girls are early taught deceit, and they never forget the lesson. Boys
+are more outspoken. This is because boys are instructed that to be frank
+and open is to be manly and generous, while their sisters are
+perpetually admonished that "this is not pretty," or "that is not
+becoming," until they have learned to control their natural impulses,
+and to regulate their conduct by precepts and example. The result of all
+this is, that, while men retain much of their natural dispositions,
+women have largely made-up characters.
+
+
+EMERSON'S ESSAYS.
+
+I have not yet been able to decide whether it is better to read certain
+of Emerson's essays as poetry or philosophy. Perhaps, though, it would
+be no more than just to consider them as an almost complete and perfect
+union of the two. Certainly, no modern writer has more of vivid
+individuality, both of thought and expression,--and few writers, of any
+age, will better bear reperusal, or surpass him in the grand merit of
+suggestiveness. There is much in his books that I cannot clearly
+understand, and passages sometimes occur that once seemed to me
+destitute of meaning; but I have since learned, from a greater
+familiarity with what he has written, to respect even his obscurities,
+and to have faith that there is at all times behind his words both a man
+and a meaning.
+
+
+ENGLISHMEN.
+
+There is in the character of perhaps a majority of Englishmen a singular
+commingling of the haughty and the subservient,--the result, doubtless,
+of the mixed nature, partly aristocratic and partly democratic, of the
+government, and of the peculiar structure of English society, in which
+every man indemnifies himself for the subserviency he is required to
+exhibit to the classes above, by exacting a similar subserviency from
+those below him. Thackeray, who is to be considered a competent judge of
+the character of his countrymen, puts the remark into the mouth of one
+of his characters, that, "if you wish to make an Englishman respect you,
+you must treat him with insolence." The language is somewhat too strong,
+and it would not be altogether safe to act upon the suggestion; but the
+witticism embodies a modicum of truth, for all that.
+
+
+EXAMPLE.
+
+Example has more followers than reason.
+
+
+EXCITEMENT COUNTERVAILS PAIN.
+
+We wince under little pains, but Nature in us, through the excitement
+attendant upon them, seems to brace us to endure with fortitude greater
+agonies. A curious circumstance, that will serve as an illustration of
+this, is told by an eminent surgeon of a person upon whom it became
+necessary to perform a painful surgical operation. The surgeon, after
+adjusting him in a position favorable to his purpose, turned for a
+moment to write a prescription; then, taking up the knife, he was about
+making an "imminent deadly breach" in the body of his subject, when he
+observed an expression of distress upon his countenance. Wishing to
+reassure him, "What disturbs you?" he inquired. "Oh," said the sufferer,
+"you have left the pen in the inkstand!" and this being removed, he
+submitted to the operation with extraordinary composure.
+
+
+FACT AND FANCY.
+
+"See, nurse I see!" exclaimed a delighted papa, as something like a
+smile irradiated the face of his infant child,--"an angel is whispering
+to it!" "No, Sir," replied the more matter-of-fact nurse,--"it is only
+wind from its stomach."
+
+
+FINE HOUSES.
+
+To build a huge house, and furnish it lavishly,--what is this but to
+play baby-house on a large scale?
+
+
+FINE LADIES.
+
+If you would know how many of the "airs" of a fine lady are "put on,"
+contrast her with a woman who has never had the advantages of a genteel
+training. What appear as the curvettings and prancings of a high-mettled
+nature turn out, from the light thus afforded, to be only the tricks of
+a skilful grooming.
+
+
+FUTURE LIFE
+
+Altogether too much thought is given to the next world. One world at a
+time ought to be sufficient for us. If we do our duty manfully in this,
+much consideration of our relations to that next world may be safely
+postponed until we are in it.
+
+
+GREAT MEN.
+
+Oh, the responsibility of great men! Could some of these the originators
+of new beliefs, of new methods in Art, of new systems of state and
+ecclesiastical polity, of novel modes of practice in medicine, and the
+like.--"revisit the pale glimpses of the moon," and look upon the
+streams of blood and misery that have flowed from fountains they have
+unsealed, they would skulk back to their graves faster and more
+affrighted than when they first descended into them.
+
+
+HABITS.
+
+Habit to a great extent, is the forcing of Nature to your way, instead
+of leaving her to her own. Struck by this consideration, "He is a fool,
+then, who has any habits," said W. Softly, my dear Sir,--the position is
+an extreme one. Bad habits are very bad, and good habits, blindly
+followed, are not altogether good, for they make machines of us.
+Occasional excesses may be wholesome; and Nature accommodates herself to
+irregularities, as a ship to the action of waves. Good habits are in the
+nature of allies: we may strengthen ourselves by an alliance with them,
+but they should not outnumber the forces they act with. Habits are the
+Hessians of our moral warfare: the good or the ill they do depends on
+the side they fight on.
+
+
+HEROISM.
+
+The race of heroes, though not prolific, is never extinct. Nature,
+liberal in this, as in all things else, has sown the constituent
+qualities of heroism broadcast. Elements of the heroic in character
+exist in almost every individual; it is only the felicitous combination
+of them all in one that is rare.
+
+
+IDEAS.
+
+Ideas, in regard to their degrees of merit, may be divided, like the
+animal kingdom, into classes or families. First in rank are those ideas
+that have in them the germs of a great moral unfolding,--as the ideas of
+a religious teacher, like Socrates or Confucius. Next in merit are those
+ideas that lay open the secrets of Nature, or add to the combinations of
+Art,--as the ideas of inventors and discoverers. Next in the order of
+excellence are all new and valuable ideas on diseases and their
+treatment, on the redress of social abuses, on government and laws and
+their administration, and all similar ideas on all other subjects
+connected with material welfare or intellectual and moral advancement.
+Last and least, ideas that are only the repetition of other ideas,
+previously known, though not so well expressed.
+
+
+INSTITUTIONS.
+
+When an institution, not designed to be stationary, ceases to be
+progressive, it is usually because its officers have lost their
+ambition to make it so. In such a contingency, they had better be called
+upon to resign, and thus to open the way for a more executive and
+energetic management.
+
+
+LAWYERS.
+
+The lawyer's relation to society is like that of the scarecrow to the
+cornfield; concede that he effects nothing of positive good, and he
+still exerts a wholesome influence from the terror his presence
+inspires.
+
+
+LEADERSHIP.
+
+He who aspires to be leader must keep in advance of his column. His
+fears must not play traitor to his occasions. The instant he falls into
+line with his followers, a bolder spirit may throw himself at the head
+of the movement initiated, and from that moment his leadership is gone.
+
+
+LET THE RIGHT PREVAIL.
+
+It is better that ten times ten thousand men should suffer in their
+interests than that a right principle should not be vindicated. Granting
+that all these will be injured by the suppression of the false, an
+infinitely greater number will as certainly be prejudiced by throwing
+off the allegiance due to truth. Throughout the future, all have an
+interest in the establishment of sound principles, while only a few in
+the present can have even a partial interest in the perpetuation of
+error.
+
+
+LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
+
+It is pleasanter and more amiable to applaud than to condemn, and they
+who look wisely to their happiness will endeavor, as they go through
+life, to see as much to admire, and as few things that are repugnant, as
+possible. Nothing that is not distinctively excellent is worthy of
+particular study or comment.
+
+
+LOVERS' DIFFERENCES.
+
+Their love for each other is only partial who differ much and widely.
+When a loving heart speaks to a heart that loves in return, an
+understanding is easily arrived at.
+
+
+WHAT LOVE PROVES.
+
+The existence of so much love in the world establishes that there is in
+it much of the excellence that justifies so exalted a passion. Almost
+every man has been a lover at some period in his life, and, out of so
+many lovers, it is unreasonable to suppose that all of them have been
+mistaken in their estimates.
+
+
+MAGNANIMITY.
+
+Justice to the defeated exalts the victor from a subject of admiration
+to an object of love. To the fame of superior courage or address he
+thereby adds the glory of a greater magnanimity. Praise, too, of a
+vanquished opponent makes our victory over him appear the more signal.
+
+
+MANHOOD.
+
+The question is not, the number of facts a man knows, but how much of a
+fact he is himself.
+
+
+MEAN MEN.
+
+If a man is thoroughly mean by nature, let him give full swing to his
+meanness. Such a fellow brings discredit upon generosity by putting on
+its semblance. If he attempts to disguise the smallness of his soul, he
+only adds to his contemptible trait of meanness the still more
+despicable vice of hypocrisy. Mean by the sacred institution of Nature,
+and without a generous trait to mar the excellence of his native
+meanness, so long as he continues unqualifiedly mean, he exists a
+perfect type of a particular character, and presents to us a fine
+illustration of the vast capabilities of Nature.
+
+
+METHODS OF THE ENTERPRISING.
+
+Great personal activity at times, and closely sedentary and severely
+thoughtful habits at other times, are the forces by which able men
+accomplish notable enterprises. Sitting with thoughtful brows by their
+evening firesides, they originate and mature their plans; after which,
+with energies braced to their work, they move to the easy conquest of
+difficulties accounted formidable, because they have deliberated upon
+and mastered the _best methods_ for overcoming them.
+
+
+MILITARY SCHOOLS.
+
+The existence of military schools is a proof that the other schools have
+not done their duty.
+
+
+NATURE AND ART.
+
+The art of being interesting is largely the art of being _real_,--of
+being without art.
+
+
+NEWSPAPERS.
+
+The world is not fairly represented by its newspapers. Life is something
+better than they make it out to be. They are mainly the records of the
+crimes that curse and the casualties that afflict it, the contests of
+litigants and the strifes of politicians; but of the sweet amenities of
+home and social life they are and must be silent. Not without a reason
+has the poet fled from the "poet's corner."
+
+
+NON-COMMUNICANTS.
+
+Certain minds are formed to take in truths, but not to utter them. They
+hoard their knowledge, as misers their gold. Their communicativeness is
+small. Their appreciation of principles is greater than their sympathy
+for persons.
+
+
+OPINIONS.
+
+The best merit of an opinion is, that it is sound; its next best merit,
+that it is briefly expressed.
+
+
+POETS AND POETRY.
+
+The "twelve rules for a poet" are eleven too many. The poet needs but
+one rule for his guidance as a poet,--namely, never to write poetry.[2]
+
+
+POPULAR ASPIRANTS.
+
+The fate of a popular aspirant is often like that of a prize ox. When in
+his best condition, he is put up for exhibition, decorated with flowers
+and ribbons, and afterwards led out to be slaughtered.
+
+
+PRAISE.
+
+No one, probably, was ever injured by having his good qualities made the
+subject of judicious praise. The virtues, like plants, reward the
+attention bestowed upon them by growing more and more thrifty. A lad who
+is told often that he is a good boy will in time grow ashamed to exhibit
+the qualities of a bad one.
+
+
+PRIDE.
+
+Pride is like the beautiful acacia, that carries its head proudly above
+its neighbor plants,--forgetting that it, too, like them, has its root
+in the dirt.
+
+
+PROVERBS.
+
+Invention and the Graces preside at the birth of a good proverb. Aside
+from the ideas expressed in them, they are deserving of the attention of
+literary men and all students of expression, from the infinite variety
+of turns of style they exhibit. "If you don't want to be tossed by a
+bull, toss the bull." Here, for instance, the thought is not only
+spirited, but it is so rendered as to give to the idea both the force of
+novelty and the agreeableness of wit. The words are as hard and compact,
+and the thought flies as swift, as a bullet.
+
+
+PUBLIC MEN.
+
+A public man may reasonably esteem it a piece of good fortune to be
+vigorously attacked in the newspapers. In the first place, it lifts him
+prominently into notice. Then, a plausible defence will divide public
+opinion, while a triumphant vindication will more fully establish him in
+the popular regard. Even if unable to offer either, the notoriety so
+acquired will in time soften into a counterfeit of celebrity so like the
+original that it will easily pass for it. Besides, the world is
+charitable, and will forget old sins in consideration of later virtues.
+
+
+MANNERS OF REFORMERS.
+
+Reformers, from being deeply impressed with the evils they seek to
+redress, and actively engaged in a warfare against them, are apt to
+contract a certain habit of denunciation, extending to persons and
+things at large, and by which their character for amiability is
+injuriously affected. This is particularly noticeable in that portion of
+the press devoted to Progress.
+
+
+REQUESTS.
+
+It is well to dress in your best when you go to press a request. It is
+not so easy to resist the solicitations of a well-dressed importunate.
+
+
+RICH AND POOR.
+
+Grace resides with the cultivated, but strength is the property of the
+people. Art with these has not emasculated Nature.
+
+
+RICH TO EXCESS.
+
+Intellectually, as many suffer from too much physical health as too
+little. A fat body makes a lean mind.
+
+
+RULE OR RUIN.
+
+A thoroughly vigorous man will not actively belong to any associated
+body, except to rule in it. Not to control in its affairs is to have his
+individuality cut down to the standard of those that do. He must stamp
+himself upon the institution, or its enfeebling influence will be
+stamped upon him.
+
+
+SANS PEUR.
+
+No man is competent greatly to serve the cause of truth till he has made
+audacity a part of his mental constitution.
+
+There are some dangers that are to be courted,--courted and braved as a
+coy mistress is to be wooed, with all the more vigor as the day makes
+against us. When Fortune frowns upon her worthy wooer, it is still
+permitted him to think how pleasant it will be ere long to bask in her
+smiles.
+
+
+SLIGHTS.
+
+In seasons when the energies flag and our ambition fails us, a rebuff is
+a blessing, by rousing us from inaction, and stirring us to more
+vigorous efforts to make good our pretensions.
+
+
+SOCIAL REGENERATION.
+
+Private worth is the only true basis of public prosperity. Still,
+ministers and moralists do but tinker at the regeneration of the world
+in merely recommending individual improvement. The most prolific cause
+of depravity is the social system that forms the character to what it
+is. The virtues, like plants, to flourish, must have a soil and air
+adapted to them. A plant at the seaside yields soda; the same plant
+grown inland produces potash. What society most needs, for its permanent
+advancement, is uniformity of inheritance.
+
+
+SPEAKERS.
+
+A speaker should put his character into what he says. So many speakers,
+like so many faces, have no individuality in them.
+
+
+SPEAKING AND TALKING.
+
+There is often a striking contrast between a man's style of writing and
+of talking,--for which I offer this explanation: He ponders what he
+writes; he talks without system. As an author, therefore, he is
+sententious; as a conversationist, loose and verbose;--or the reverse of
+this may be true.
+
+
+SPEECH.
+
+Language was given to us that we might say pleasant things to each
+other.
+
+
+PREVAILING STYLES.
+
+In literary performances, as in Gothic architecture, the taste of the
+age is largely in favor of the pointed styles. Our churches and our
+books must bristle all over with points, or they are not so much thought
+of.
+
+
+SUNDAY.
+
+The poor man's rich day.
+
+
+THINGS WORTH KNOWING.
+
+Only the good is worth knowing, and only the beautiful worth studying.
+
+
+TOBACCO.
+
+Tobacco in excess fouls the breath, discolors the teeth, soils the
+complexion, deranges the nerves, reduces vitality, impairs the
+sensibility to beauty and to pleasure, abets intemperance, promotes
+idleness, and degrades the man.
+
+
+TRADE-LIFE.
+
+Formerly, when great fortunes were made only in war, war was a business;
+but now, when great fortunes are made only by business, business is war.
+
+
+TRUTH-SEEKERS.
+
+Hamlet, in the ghost scene, is a fine example of the _questioning
+spirit_ pursuing its inquiries regardless of consequences. The
+apparition which affrights and confounds his companions only spurs his
+not less timid, perhaps, but more speculative nature into following and
+plying it with questions. Only thus should Truth be followed, with an
+interest great enough to overmaster all fears as to whither she may lead
+and what she may disclose.
+
+
+UGLY MEN.
+
+When a man is hideously ugly his only safety is in glorying in it. Let
+him boldly claim it as a distinction.
+
+
+THE WALK.
+
+The walk discloses the character. A placid and composed walk bespeaks
+the philosopher. He walks as if the present was sufficient for him. A
+measured step is the expression of a disciplined intellect, not easily
+stirred to excesses. A hurried pace denotes an eager spirit, with a
+tendency to precipitate measures. The confident and the happy swing
+along, and need a wide sidewalk; while an irregular gait reveals a
+composite of character,--one thing to-day, another to-morrow, and
+nothing much at any time.
+
+
+WINE.
+
+_In vino_ there is not only _veritas_, but sensibility. It makes the
+face of him who drinks it to excess blush for his habits.
+
+
+WISDOM.
+
+Wisdom comes to us as guest, but her visits are liable to sudden
+terminations. In our efforts to retain the wisdom we have acquired, an
+embarrassment arises like that of the little boy who was scolded for
+having a dirty nose. "Blow your nose, Sir." "Papa, I do blow my nose,
+but it won't stay blowed."
+
+
+WOMEN AS JUDGES OF CHARACTER.
+
+It is more honorable to have the regards of a few noble women than to be
+popular among a much greater number of men. Having in themselves the
+qualities that command our love, they are, for that reason, the better
+able to appreciate the traits that deserve to inspire it. The heart must
+be judged by the heart, and men are too intellectual in the processes by
+which they form their regards.
+
+
+AVERAGE WORTH.
+
+A wife should accept her husband, and a friend his friend, upon a
+general estimate. Particulars in character and conduct should be
+overlooked.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 2: I speak, of course, only of the discreet poet. Great poets
+are never discreet. Their genius overrides their discretion.]
+
+
+
+
+BULLS AND BEARS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE ARTISTS' EXHIBITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
+
+There was an exhibition of pictures in an upper room on Washington
+Street. The artists had collected their unsold productions, and proposed
+to offer them at auction. There were sketches of White Mountain scenery,
+views of Nahant and other beaches, woodland prospects, farm-houses with
+well-sweeps, reedy marshes and ponds, together with the usual variety of
+ideal heads and figures,--a very pretty collection. The artists had gone
+forth like bees, and gathered whatever was sweetest in every field
+through a wide circuit, and now the lover of the beautiful might have
+his choice of the results without the fatigue of travel. Defects enough
+there were to critical eyes,--false drawing, cold color, and
+unsuccessful distances; still there was much to admire, and the spirit
+and intention were interesting, even where the inexperience of the
+painter was only too apparent.
+
+A group of visitors entered the room: a lady in the prime of beauty,
+richly but modestly dressed, casting quick glances on all sides, yet
+with an air of quiet self-possession; a gentleman, her brother
+apparently, near forty years of age, dignified and prepossessing; a
+second lady, in widow's weeds; and a young gentleman with successful
+moustaches, lemon-colored gloves, and one of those bagging coats which
+just miss the grace of flowing outline without the compensation of
+setting off a good figure. The lady first mentioned seemed born to take
+the lead; it was no assumption in her; _incedo regina_ was the
+expression of her gracefully poised head and her stately carriage. "A
+pretty bit," she said, carelessly pointing with her parasol to a picture
+of a rude country bridge and dam.
+
+"Yes," said her elder brother, "spirited and lifelike. Who is the
+painter, Marcia?"
+
+The beauty consulted her catalogue.
+
+"Greenleaf, George Greenleaf."
+
+"A new name. Look at that distant spire," he continued, "faintly showing
+among the trees in the background. The water is surprisingly true. A
+charming picture. I think I'll buy it."
+
+"How quickly you decide," said the lady, with an air of languor. "The
+picture is pretty enough, but you haven't seen the rest of the
+collection yet. Gamboge paints lovely landscapes, they say. I wouldn't
+be enthusiastic about a picture by an artist one doesn't know anything
+about."
+
+A gentleman standing behind a screen near by moved away with a changed
+expression and a deepening flush. Another person, an artist evidently,
+now accosted the party, addressing them as Mr. and Miss Sandford. After
+the usual civilities, he called their attention to the picture before
+them.
+
+"We were just admiring it," said Mr. Sandford.
+
+"Do you like it, Mr. Easelmann?" asked the lady.
+
+"Yes, exceedingly."
+
+"Ah! the generosity of a brother artist," replied Miss Sandford.
+
+"No; you do the picture injustice,--and me too, for that matter; for,"
+he added, with a laugh, "I am not generally supposed to ruin my friends
+by indiscriminate flattery. This young painter has wonderfully improved.
+He went up into the country last season, found a picturesque little
+village, and has made a portfolio of very striking sketches."
+
+Miss Sandford began to appear interested.
+
+"Quite pwomising," said the Adonis in the baggy coat, silent until now.
+
+"Yes, he has blossomed all at once. He talks of going abroad."
+
+"Bettah stay at home," said the young gentleman, languidly. "I've been
+thwough all the gallewies. It's always the same stowy,--always the same
+old humbugs to be admired,--always a doosid boah."
+
+"One relief you must have had in the galleries," retorted Easelmann;
+"your all-round shirt-collar wouldn't choke you quite so much when your
+head was cocked back."
+
+Adonis-in-bag adjusted his polished all-rounder with a delicately gloved
+finger, and declared that the painter was "a jol-ly fel-low."
+
+The gentleman who had blushed a moment before, when the picture was
+criticized, was still within earshot; he now turned an angry glance upon
+the last speaker, and was about to cross the room, when Mr. Easelmann
+stopped him.
+
+"With your permission, Miss Sandford," said the painter, nodding
+meaningly towards the person retreating.
+
+"Certainly," replied the lady.
+
+"Mr. Greenleaf," said Easelmann, "I wish you to know some friends of
+mine."
+
+The gentleman so addressed turned and approached the party, and was
+presented to "Miss Sandford, Mr. Sandford, Mrs. Sandford, and Mr.
+Charles Sandford." Miss Sandford greeted him with her most fascinating
+smile; her brother shook his hand warmly; the other lady, a widowed
+sister-in-law, silently curtsied; while the younger brother inclined his
+head slightly, his collar not allowing any sudden movement. In a moment
+more the party were walking about the room, looking at the pictures.
+
+When at length the Sandfords were about to leave the room, the elder
+gentleman said to Mr. Greenleaf,--
+
+"We should be happy to see you with our friend, Mr. Easelmann, at our
+house. Come without ceremony."
+
+Miss Sandford's eyes also said, "Come!" at least, so Greenleaf thought.
+
+Mr. Charles Sandford, meanwhile, who was cultivating the sublime art of
+indifference, the distinguishing feature and the ideal of his tribe,
+only tapped his boot with his slender ratan, and then smoothed his silky
+moustaches.
+
+Greenleaf briefly expressed his thanks for the invitation, and, when the
+family had gone, turned to his friend with an inquiring look.
+
+"Famous, my boy!" said Easelmann. "Sandford knows something about
+pictures, though rather stingy in patronage; and he is evidently
+impressed. The beauty, Marcia, is not a judge, but she is a valuable
+friend,--now that you are recognized. The widow is a most charming
+person. Charles, a puppy, as every young man of fashion thinks he must
+be for a year or two, but harmless and good-natured. The friendship of
+the family will be of service to you."
+
+"But Marcia, as you call her, was depreciating my picture not a minute
+before you called me."
+
+"Precisely, my dear fellow; but she didn't know who had painted it, and,
+moreover, she hadn't seen you."
+
+Greenleaf blushed again.
+
+"Don't color up that way; save your vermilion for your canvas. You _are_
+good-looking; and the beauty desires the homage of every handsome man,
+especially if he is likely to be a lion."
+
+"A lion! a painter of landscapes a lion! Besides, I am no gallant. I
+never learned the art of carrying a lady's fan."
+
+"I hope not; and for that very reason you are the proper subject for
+her. Your simplicity and frankness are all the more charming to a woman
+who needs new sensations. Probably she is tired of her _blase_ and wary
+admirers just now. She will capture you, and I shall see a new and
+obsequious slave."
+
+Greenleaf attempted to speak, but could not get in a word.
+
+"I felicitate you," continued Easelmann. "You will have a valuable
+experience, at any rate. To-morrow or next day we will call upon them.
+Good morning!"
+
+Greenleaf returned his friend's farewell; then walking to a window, he
+took out a miniature. It was the picture of a young and beautiful girl.
+The calm eyes looked out upon him trustfully; the smile upon the mouth
+had never seemed so lovely. He thought of the proud, dazzling coquette,
+and then looked upon the image of the tender, earnest, truthful face
+before him. As he looked, he smiled at his friend's prophecy.
+
+"This is my talisman," he said; and he raised the picture to his lips.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An evening or two later, as Easelmann was putting his brushes into
+water, Greenleaf came into his studio. The cloud-compelling meerschaums
+were produced, and they sat in high-backed chairs, watching the thin
+wreaths of smoke as they curled upwards to the skylight. The sale of
+pictures had taken place, and the prices, though not high enough to make
+the fortunes of the artists, were yet reasonably remunerative; the
+pictures were esteemed almost as highly, Easelmann thought, as the
+decorative sketches in an omnibus.
+
+"And did Sandford buy your picture, Greenleaf?"
+
+"Yes, I believe so. In fact, I saw it in his drawing-room, yesterday."
+
+"Certainly; how could I have forgotten it? I must have been thinking of
+the animated picture there. What is paint, when one sees such a glowing,
+glancing, fascinating, arch, lovely, tantalizing"--
+
+"Don't! Don't pelt me with your parts of speech!"
+
+"I was trying to select the right adjective."
+
+"Well, you need not shower down a basketful, merely to pick out one."
+
+"But confess, now, you are merely the least captivated?"
+
+"Not the least."
+
+"No little palpitations at the sound of her name? No short breath nor
+upturned eyes? No vague longings nor 'billowy unrest'?"
+
+"None."
+
+"You slept well last night?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"No dreams of a sea-green palace, with an Undine in wavy hair, and a big
+brother with fan-coral plumes, who afterwards turned into a sea-dog?"
+
+"No,--I cut the late suppers you tempt me with, and preserve my
+digestion."
+
+"A great mistake! One good dream in a nightmare will give you more
+poetical ideas than you can paint in a month: I mean a reasonable
+nightmare, that you can ride,--not one that rides you. The imagination
+then seems to scintillate nothing but beautiful images."
+
+"I don't care to become a red-hot iron for the sake of seeing the sparks
+I might radiate."
+
+"Prosaic again! Now sin and sorrow have their advantages; the law of
+compensation, you see. Poets, according to Shelley, learn in suffering
+what they teach in song. And if novelists were always scrupulous, what
+do you think they would write? Only milk-and-water proprieties,
+tamely-virtuous platitudes. Do you think Dickens never saw a taproom or
+a thief's den?--or that Thackeray is unacquainted with the "Cave of
+Harmony"? No,--all the piquancy of life comes from the slight _soupcon_
+of wickedness wherewithal we season it."
+
+"I like amazingly to have you wander off in this way; you are always
+entertaining, whether your ethics are sound or not."
+
+"Don't trouble yourself about ethics. You and I are artists; we want
+effects, contrasts; we must have our enthusiasms, our raptures, and our
+despair."
+
+"You ride a theory well."
+
+"Now, my dear Greenleaf, listen. Kindly I say it, but you are a trifle
+too innocent, too placid,--in short, too youthful. To paint, you must be
+intense; to be intense, you must feel; and--you see I come back on the
+sweep of the circle--to feel, one must have incentives, objects."
+
+"So, you will roast your own liver to make a _pate_."
+
+"Better so than to have the Promethean vulture peck it out for you."
+
+"Well, if I am as you say, what am I to do? I am docile, to-day."
+
+"Fall in love."
+
+"I have tried the experiment."
+
+"It must have been with some insipid girl, not out of her teens, odorous
+of bread and butter, innocent of wiles, and ignorant of her
+capabilities and your own."
+
+"Perhaps, but still I have been in love,--and am."
+
+"Bless me! that was a sigh! The sleeping waters then did show a dimple.
+Why, man, _you_ talk about love, with that smooth, shepherd's face of
+yours, that contented air, that smoothly sonorous voice! Corydon and
+Phyllis! You should be like a grand piano after Satter has thundered out
+all its chords, tremulous with harmonies verging so near to discord that
+pain would be mixed with pleasure in the divinest proportions."
+
+Greenleaf clapped his hands. "Bravo, Easelmann! you have mistaken your
+vocation; you should turn musical critic."
+
+"The arts are all akin," he replied, calmly refilling his pipe.
+
+"I think I can put together the various parts of your lecture for you,"
+said Greenleaf. "You think I see Nature in her gentler moods, and
+reproduce only her placid features. You think I have feeling, though
+latent,--undeveloped. My nerves need a banging, just enough not to
+wholly unstring them. For that pleasant experience, I am to fall in
+love. The woman who has the nature to magnetize, overpower, transport me
+is Miss Marcia Sandford. I am, therefore, to make myself as
+uncomfortable as possible, in pursuit of a pleasure I know beforehand I
+can never obtain. Then, from the rather prosaic level of Scumble, I
+shall rise to the grand, gloomy, and melodramatic style of Salvator
+Rosa. _Voila tout!_
+
+"An admirable summary. You have listened well. But tell me now,--what do
+_you_ think? Or do you wander like a little brook, without any will of
+your own, between such banks as Fate may hem you in withal?"
+
+"I will be frank with you. Until last season, I never had a serious,
+definite purpose in life. I fell in love then with the most charming of
+country-girls."
+
+"I know," interrupted Easelmann, in a denser cloud than usual,--"a
+village Lucy,--'a violet 'neath a mossy stone, fair as a star when only
+one,'--you know the rest of it. She was fair because there _was_ only
+one."
+
+"Silence, Mephistopheles! it is my turn; let me finish my story. I never
+told her my love"----
+
+"'But let concealment'"----
+
+"Attend to your pipe; it is going out. I did _look_, however. The
+language of the eyes needs no translation. I often walked, sketched,
+talked with the girl, and I felt that there was the completest sympathy
+between us. I knew her feelings towards me, as well, I am persuaded, as
+she knew mine. I gave her no pledge, no keepsake; I only managed, by an
+artifice, to get her daguerreotype at a travelling saloon."
+
+Easelmann laughed. "Let me see it, most modest of lovers!"
+
+"You sha'n't. Your evil eye shall not fall upon it After I came to
+Boston, I took a room and began working up my sketches"----
+
+"Where I found you brushing away for dear life."
+
+"I meant to earn enough to go abroad, if it were only for one look at
+the great pictures of which I have so often dreamed. Then I meant to
+come back"----
+
+"To find your Lucy married to a schoolmaster, and with five sickly
+children."
+
+"No,--she is but seventeen; she will not marry till I see her."
+
+"I admire your confidence, Greenleaf; it is an amiable weakness."
+
+"After I had been here a month or two, I was filled with an unutterable
+sense of uneasiness. Something was wrong, I felt assured. I daily kissed
+the sweet lips"----
+
+"Of a twenty-five-cent daguerreotype."
+
+Greenleaf did not notice the interruption. "I thought the eyes looked
+troubled; they even seemed to reproach me; yet the soul that beamed in
+them was as tender as ever."
+
+"_Diablerie!_ I believe you are a spiritualist."
+
+"At last I could bear it no longer. I shut up my room and took the cars
+for Innisfield."
+
+"I remember; that was when you gave out that you had gone to see your
+aunt."
+
+"I found Alice seriously ill. I won't detain you further than to say
+that I did not leave her until she was completely restored, until my
+long cherished feelings had found utterance, and we were bound by ties
+that nothing but death will divide."
+
+"Really, you are growing sentimental. The waters verily are moved."
+
+"That is because an angel has troubled them. You will mock, I know; but
+it is nevertheless true, as I am told, that, for the week before I left
+Boston, she was in a half-delirious state, and constantly called my
+name."
+
+"And you heard her and came. Sharp senses, and a good, dutiful boy!"
+
+"My presentiment was strange, wasn't it?"
+
+"Oh, don't try to coax me into believing all that! It's very pretty, and
+would make a nice little romance for a magazine; but you and I have
+passed the age of measles and chicken-pox. Now, to follow your example,
+let me make a summary. You are in love, you say, which, for the sake of
+argument, I will grant. You are engaged. But you are ambitious. You want
+to go to Italy, and you hope to surpass Claude, as Turner has done--over
+the left. Then you will return and marry the constant Alice, and live in
+economical splendor, on a capital--let me see--of eighty-seven dollars
+and odd cents, being the proceeds of a certain auction-sale. Promising,
+isn't it?"
+
+Greenleaf was silent,--his pipe out.
+
+"Don't be gloomy," continued Easelmann, in a more sympathetic tone. "Let
+us take a stroll round the Common. I never walk through the Mall at
+sunset without getting a new hint of effect."
+
+"I agree to the walk," said Greenleaf.
+
+"Let us take Charbon along with us."
+
+"He doesn't talk."
+
+"That's what I like him for; he thinks the more."
+
+"How is one to know it?"
+
+"Just look at him! talk your best,--parade your poetry, your criticism,
+your epigrams, your puns, if you have any, and then look at him! By
+Jove! I don't want a better talker. I know it's _in_ him, and I don't
+care whether he opens his mouth or not."
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SHOWING HOW MUCH IT SOMETIMES COSTS TO BE THOUGHT CHARITABLE.
+
+Mr. Sandford was a bachelor, and resided in a pleasant street at the
+West End,--his sister being housekeeper. His house was simply
+furnished,--yet the good taste apparent in the arrangement of the
+furniture gave the rooms an air of neatness, if not of elegance. There
+were not so many pictures as might be expected in the dwelling of a
+lover of Art, and in many cases the frames were more noticeable than the
+canvas; for upon most of them were plates informing the visitor that
+they were presented to Henry Sandford for his disinterested services as
+treasurer, director, or chairman of the Society for the Relief of Infirm
+Wood-sawyers, or some other equally benevolent association. The silver
+pitcher and salver, always visible upon a table, were a testimonial from
+the managers of a fair for the aid of Indigent Widows. A massive silver
+inkstand bore witness to the gratitude of the Society of Merchants'
+Clerks. And numerous Votes of Thanks, handsomely engrossed on parchment,
+with eminent names appended, and preserved in gilt frames, filled all
+the available space upon the walls. It was evident that this was the
+residence of a Benefactor of Mankind.
+
+It was just after breakfast, and Mr. Sandford was preparing to go out.
+His full and handsome face was serene as usual, and a general air of
+neatness pervaded his dress. He was, in fact, unexceptionable in
+appearance, wearing the look that gets credit in State Street, gives
+respectability to a public platform, and seems to bring a blessing into
+the abodes of poverty. Nothing but broad and liberal views, generous
+sentiments, and a noble self-forgetfulness would seem to belong to a
+man with such a presence. But his sister Marcia, this morning, seemed
+far from being pleased with his plans; her tones were querulous, and
+even severe.
+
+"Now, Henry," she exclaimed, "you are not going to sell that picture.
+We've had enough changes. Every auction a new purchase, which you
+immediately fling away."
+
+"You are a very warm-hearted young woman," replied the brother, "and you
+doubtless imagine that I am able with my limited resources to buy a
+picture from every new painter, besides answering the numberless calls
+made upon me from every quarter."
+
+"Why did you bid for the picture, then?"
+
+"I wished to encourage the artist."
+
+"But why do you sell it, then?"
+
+"Monroe wants it, and will give a small advance on its cost."
+
+"But Monroe was at the sale; why didn't he bid for it then?"
+
+"A very natural question, Sister Marcia; but it shows that you are not a
+manager. However, I'll explain. Monroe was struck with the picture, and
+would have given a foolish price for it. So I said to him,--'Monroe,
+don't be rash. If two connoisseurs like you and me bid against each
+other for this landscape, other buyers will think there is something in
+it, and the price will be run up to a figure neither of us can afford to
+pay. Let me buy it and keep it a month or so, and then we'll agree on
+the terms. I sha'n't be hard with you.' And I won't be. He shall have it
+for a hundred, although I paid eighty-seven and odd."
+
+"So you speculate, where you pretend to patronize Art?"
+
+"Don't use harsh words, Sister Marcia. Half the difficulties in the
+world come from a hasty application of terms."
+
+"But I want the picture; and I didn't ask you to buy it merely to oblige
+Mr. Greenleaf."
+
+"True, sister, but he will paint others, and better ones, perhaps. I
+will buy another in its place."
+
+"And sell it when you get a good offer, I suppose."
+
+"Sister Marcia, you evince a thoughtless disposition to trifle with--I
+hope not to wound--my feelings. How do you suppose I am able to maintain
+my position in society, to support Charles in his elegant idleness, to
+supply all your wants, and to help carry on the many benevolent
+enterprises in which I have become engaged, on the small amount of
+property left us, and with the slender salary of fifteen hundred dollars
+from the Insurance Office? If I had not some self-denial, some
+management, you would find quite a different state of things."
+
+"But I remember that you drew your last year's salary in a lump. You
+must have had money from some source for current expenses meanwhile."
+
+"Some few business transactions last year were fortunate. But I am poor,
+quite poor; and nothing but a sense of duty impels me to give so much of
+my time and means to aid the unfortunate and the destitute, and for the
+promotion of education and the arts that beautify and adorn life."
+
+His wits were probably "wool-gathering"; for the phrases which had been
+so often conned for public occasions slipped off his tongue quite
+unawares. His countenance changed at once when Marcia mischievously
+applauded by clapping her hands and crying, "Hear!" He paused a moment,
+seeming doubtful whether to make an angry reply; but his face
+brightened, and he exclaimed,--
+
+"You are a wicked tease, but I can't be offended with you."
+
+"Bye-bye, Henry," she replied. "Some committee is probably waiting for
+you." Then, as he was about closing the door, she added,--"I was going
+to say, Henry, if your charities are not more expensive than your
+patronage of Art, you might afford me that _moire antique_ and the set
+of pearls I asked you for."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We will follow Mr. Sandford to the Insurance Office. It was only nine
+o'clock, and the business of the day did not begin until ten. But the
+morning hour was rarely unoccupied. As he sat in his arm-chair, reading
+the morning papers, Mr. Monroe entered. He was a clerk in the commission
+house of Lindsay and Company, in Milk Street,--a man of culture and
+refined taste, as well as attentive to business affairs. With an active,
+sanguine temperament, he had the good-humor and frankness that usually
+belong to less ardent natures. Simple-hearted and straightforward, he
+was yet as trustful and affectionate as a child. He was unmarried and
+lived with his mother, her only child.
+
+"Ah, Monroe," said Sandford, with cordiality, "you don't want the
+picture yet? Let it remain as long as you can, and I'll consider the
+favor when we settle."
+
+"No,--I'm in no hurry about the picture. I have a matter of business I
+wish to consult you about. My mother had a small property,--about ten
+thousand dollars. Up to this time I haven't made it very profitable, and
+I thought"--
+
+Just then a visitor entered. The President of the Society for the
+Reformation of Criminals came with a call for a public meeting.
+
+"You know, my dear Sir," said the President, "that we don't expect you
+to pay; we consider the calls made upon your purse; but we want your
+name and influence."
+
+Mr. Sandford signed the call, and made various inquiries concerning the
+condition and prospects of the society. The President left with a smile
+and a profusion of thanks. Before Mr. Sandford was fairly seated another
+person came in. It was the Secretary of the Society for the Care of
+Juvenile Offenders.
+
+"We want to have a hearing before the city government," said he, "and we
+have secured the aid of Mr. Greene Satchel to present the case. Won't
+you give us your name to the petition, as one of the officers? No
+expense to you; some wealthy friends will take care of that. We don't
+desire to tax a man who lives on a salary, and especially one who
+devotes so much of his time and money to charity."
+
+"Thank you for your consideration," said Mr. Sandford, signing his name
+in a fair round hand.
+
+Once more the friends were left alone, and Monroe proceeded,--
+
+"I was going on to say that perhaps you might know some chance for a
+safe investment."
+
+Mr. Sandford appeared thoughtful for a moment.
+
+"Yes,--I think I may find a good opportunity; seven per cent., possibly
+eight."
+
+"Excellent!" said Monroe.
+
+There was another interruption. A tall, stately person entered the
+office, wearing a suit of rather antique fashion, apparently verging on
+sixty years, yet with a clear, smooth skin, and a bright, steady eye. It
+was the Honorable Charles Wyndham, the representative of an ancient
+family, and beyond question one of the most eminent men in the city. Mr.
+Sandford might have been secretly elated at the honor of this visit, but
+he rose with a tranquil face and calmly bade Mr. Wyndham good morning.
+
+"My young friend," began the great man, "I am happy to see you looking
+so well this morning. I have not come to put any new burdens on your
+patient shoulders; we all know your services and your sacrifices. This
+time we have a little recompense,--if, indeed, acts of beneficence are
+not their own reward. The Board are to have a social meeting at my house
+to-night, to make arrangements for the anniversary; and we think a
+frugal collation will not be amiss for those who have worked for the
+Society so freely and faithfully."
+
+Mr. Sandford softly rubbed his white hands and bowed with a deprecatory
+smile.
+
+"I know your modesty," said Mr. Wyndham, "and will spare you further
+compliment. Your accounts are ready, I presume? I intend to propose to
+the Board, that, as we have a surplus, you shall receive a substantial
+sum for your disinterested services."
+
+They were standing near together, leaning on a tall mahogany desk, and
+the look of benevolent interest on one side, and of graceful humility on
+the other, was touching to see. Mr. Sandford laid his hand softly on his
+distinguished friend's shoulder, and begged him not to insist upon
+payment for services he had been only too happy to render.
+
+"We won't talk about that now; and I must not detain you longer from
+business. _Good_ morning!" And with the stateliest of bows, and a most
+gracious smile, the Honorable Mr. Wyndham retreated through the glass
+door.
+
+When Mr. Sandford had bowed the visitor out, he returned to Monroe with
+an expression of weariness on his handsome face. "So many affairs to
+think of! so many people to see! Really, it is becoming vexatious. I
+believe I shall turn hunks, and get a reputation for downright
+stinginess."
+
+"But your visitors are pleasant people," said Monroe,--"and the last,
+certainly, was a man whom most men think it an honor to know."
+
+"You mean Wyndham. Oh, yes, Wyndham _is_ a good fellow; a little prosy
+sometimes, but means well. We endure the Dons, you know, if they _are_
+slow."
+
+Monroe thought his friend hardly respectful to the head of the Wyndham
+family, but set it down as an awkward attempt at being facetious.
+
+"Well, about that money of yours?" said Sandford.
+
+"I left it, as a loan on call, at Danforth's. But how do you propose to
+invest it?"
+
+"I haven't fully made up my mind. Perhaps it is best you should not
+know. I will guaranty you eight per cent., and agree to return the
+principal on thirty days' notice. So you can try, meanwhile, and see if
+you can do better."
+
+Monroe agreed to the proposal, and drew a check on the broker for the
+amount, for which Sandford signed a note, payable thirty days after
+presentation. The friends now separated, and Monroe went to his
+warehouse.
+
+Stockholders began to come to look over the morning papers, and chat
+about the news, the stocks, and the degeneracy of the times. What a club
+is to an idle man of fashion,--what a sewing-society is to a
+scandal-loving woman,--what a billiard-room is to a man about
+town,--what the Athenaeum is to the sober and steadfast
+bibliolater,--that is the Insurance Office to the retired merchant, bald
+and spectacled, who wanders like a ghost among the scenes of his former
+activity. The comfortable chairs, and in winter the social fires in open
+grates,--the slow-going and respectable newspapers, the pleasant view of
+State Street, and, above all, the authoritative disposition of public
+affairs upon the soundest mercantile principles of profit and loss,--all
+these constitute an attraction which no well-brought-up Bostonian, who
+has money to buy shares, cares to resist, at least until the increasing
+size of his buckskin shoes renders locomotion difficult.
+
+To all these solid men Mr. Sandford gave a hearty good-morning, and a
+frank, cheerful smile. They took up the journals and looked over the
+telegraphic dispatches, thinking, as they were wont, that the old Vortex
+was lucky, above all Companies, in its honest, affable, and intelligent
+Secretary.
+
+Mr. Sandford retired to his private room and looked hastily at his
+morning letters; but his mind did not seem to be occupied with the
+business before him. He rang the bell for the office-boy. "Tom," said
+he, "go and ask Mr. Fletcher to step down here a minute." He mused after
+the boy left, tapping his fingers on the table to the time of a familiar
+air. "If I can keep Fletcher from dabbling in stocks, I shall make a
+good thing of this. I shall keep a close watch on him. To manage men,
+there is nothing like knowing how to go to work at them. ALL the fools
+are jack-a-dandies, and one has only to find where the strings hang to
+make them dance as he will. I have Fletcher fast. I heard a fellow
+talking about taming a man, Rarey-fashion, by holding out a pole to him
+with a bunch of flowers. Pooh! The best thing is a bit of paper with a
+court seal at the corner, stuck on the end of a constable's staff."
+
+Mr. Fletcher entered presently,--the office where he was employed being
+only a few doors off. He was a slender young man, with strikingly
+regular features and delicate complexion; his mobile mouth was covered
+by a fringy moustache, and his small keen eyes were restless to a
+painful degree. The sudden summons appeared to have flustered him; for
+his eyes danced more than usual, giving him the startled and perplexed
+look of a hunted animal at bay. He was speedily reassured by Sandford's
+bland voice and encouraging smile.
+
+"A new opening, Fletcher,--a 'pocket,' as the Californians call it. Is
+there any chance to operate? Just look about. I have the funds ready.
+Something safe, and fat, too."
+
+"Plenty of chances to those who look for them," replied Fletcher. "The
+men who are hard up are the best customers; they will stand a good slice
+off; and if a man is sharp, he can deal as safely with them as with the
+A 1s, who turn up their noses at seven per cent."
+
+"You understand, I see."
+
+"I think I ought. Papyrus, only yesterday, was asking if anything could
+be done for him,--about fifteen hundred; offers Sandbag's note with only
+thirty days to run. The note was of no use to _him_, because the banks
+require two names, and his own isn't worth a straw. But Sandbag is
+good."
+
+"We'll take it. About a hundred off?"
+
+Fletcher nodded.
+
+"I've plenty more to invest, Fletcher. Let me know if you see any paper
+worth buying."
+
+Fletcher nodded again, but looked expectant, much like a dog (not
+wishing to degrade him by the comparison) waiting with longing eyes
+while his master eats his morning mutton-chop.
+
+"Fletcher," said Sandford, "I'll make this an object to you. I don't
+mind giving you five dollars, as soon as we have Papyrus's indorsement
+on the note. And, speaking of the indorsement, let him sign his name,
+and then bring me the note. I wish to put on the name of the person to
+whose order it is to be payable."
+
+"Then it is on the account"--
+
+"Of whom it may concern," broke in Sandford. "Don't stand with your
+mouth open. That is my affair."
+
+"But if you pay me only five dollars"--
+
+"That is so much clear gain to you. Do you suppose that we--my backer
+and I--shall run the risk for nothing? Good morning! Attend to your own
+affairs at Danforth's properly. Don't burn your fingers with any new
+experiments. There's a crash coming and stocks will fall. Good morning!"
+
+The Secretary looked relieved when Fletcher closed the door, and
+speedily dispatched the necessary letters and orders for the Company.
+Then leaving the affairs of the Vortex in the hands of his clerk, he
+strolled out for his usual lunch. Wherever he walked, he was met with
+smiles and greetings of respect. He turned into an alley, entered an
+eating-house, and took his place at a table; he ordered and ate his
+lunch, and then left, with a nod towards the counter. The landlord, who
+began on credit, expected no pay from the man who procured him money
+accommodations. No waiter had ever seen a sixpence from his purse. How
+should a man be expected to pay, who spent his substance and his time so
+freely in charity?
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CONTAINING SOME CONFESSIONS NOT INTENDED FOR THE PUBLIC EAR.
+
+Miss Marcia Sandford, after breakfast, was sitting in her chamber with
+her widowed sister-in-law, who had come to spend a few months with her
+late husband's family. The widow no longer wore the roses of youth, but
+was yet on friendly terms with Time; indeed, so quietly had their annual
+settlements passed off, that it would have puzzled any one not in their
+confidence to tell how the account stood. The simplicity of her dress,
+the chastened look, and the sobriety of phrase, of which her recent
+affliction was the cause, might have hinted at thirty-five; but when her
+clear, placid eye was turned upon you, and you saw the delicate flush
+deepening or vanishing upon a smooth cheek, and noted the changeful
+expression that hovered like a spiritual presence around her mouth, it
+would have been treason to think of a day beyond twenty. She had known
+but little of Marcia, and that little had shown her only as a lover of
+dress and of admiration, besides being capricious to a degree unusual
+even in a spoiled favorite.
+
+A musical _soiree_ was under consideration. Marcia was a proficient upon
+the harp and piano, and, as she had heard that Mr. Greenleaf, the
+handsome painter, as she called him, was a fine singer, she determined
+to practise some operatic duets with him, that should move all her
+musical friends to envy.
+
+"You seem to have taken a strong liking to this Mr. Greenleaf, Marcia."
+
+"Yes, Lydia," replied the beauty, "I do like him, exceedingly,--what I
+have seen of him. He will do--for a month or so. People are frequently
+quite charming at first, like fresh bouquets,--but dull and tame enough
+when the dew is off."
+
+"But you can't have a new admirer, as you have fresh flowers, every
+day."
+
+"That's true, and pity 'tis, 'tis true."
+
+"What a female Bluebeard you are!"
+
+"Wouldn't you, now, like to meet some new, delightful person every day?
+Consider how prosaic a man is, after you know all about him."
+
+"I always find something new in a man really worth knowing."
+
+"Do you? I wish I could. I always look them through as I used to my
+toys. I never cared for my 'crying babies,' after I found out what made
+them squeak."
+
+"I am afraid the comparison will hold out farther than you intended. You
+were never satisfied with your toys until you had not only explored
+their machinery, but smashed them into the bargain."
+
+"But men stand it better than toys. If they get smashed, as you say,
+they heal wonderfully. I sometimes think, that, like lobsters, they can
+repair their injuries by new growths,--fresh claws, and fins, and
+feelers."
+
+"Complimentary, truly! but I notice that you don't speak of vital
+organs."
+
+"Hearts, you mean, I suppose. That is an obsolete idea,--a relic of
+superstition."
+
+"But how many of these broken idols have you thrown aside, Marcia? Have
+you kept account?"
+
+"Dear me! no! Why should I?"
+
+"It would be interesting, I think, to a student of social statistics, to
+know how many engagements there are to one marriage, how many offers to
+one engagement, how many flirtations to one offer, and how many tender
+advances to one flirtation."
+
+"Oh, Lydia! Love and Arithmetic! they never went together. I leave all
+calculations to my wise and busy brother. I like to wander like a
+hummingbird, that keeps no account of the flowercups it has sipped out
+of."
+
+"Let us reckon. I can help you, perhaps. I have heard you talk of half a
+dozen. There is Colonel Langford,--one."
+
+"Handsome, proud, and shallow. Let him go!"
+
+"There is Lieutenant Allen,--two."
+
+"Fierce, impatient, and exacting. He can go also. I had as lief be loved
+by a lion."
+
+"Next is Mr. Lanman,--three."
+
+"Wily, plausible, passionate, and treacherous. He is only a cat in a new
+sphere of existence."
+
+"Then there is Denims,--I am not sure about the order,--four."
+
+"Rich, vain, and stupid;--there never was such a dolt."
+
+"But you kept him for a longer time than usual."
+
+"Yes, rather; but he was too dull to understand my ironical compliments,
+or to resent my studied neglect."
+
+"Jaunegant makes five."
+
+"Oh, the precious crony of my brother Charles! The best specimen of the
+dandy race. The man who gives so much love to himself and his clothes,
+that he has none to spare for any one else. But, Lydia, this is tedious;
+we shall never get through at this rate. Besides," with a
+mock-sentimental air, "you have not been here long enough to know the
+melancholy history,--to count the wrecks that are strewn along the
+coast, where the Siren resorts. Let me take up the list. Corning, who
+really loved me, (six,) and went to sea to cure the heart-ache. I heard
+of him in State Street a month ago,--with a blue shirt and leather belt,
+and chewing a piece of tobacco as large as his thumb. He seemed happy as
+a king."
+
+"I saw a kind of tobacco advertised as '_The Solace_';--the name was
+given by some disappointed swain, I suppose."
+
+"Probably," said Marcia, smiling. "Then there was Outrack, (seven,) who
+was so furious at the refusal, that he immediately married the gay Miss
+Flutter Budget, forty-five, short, stout, and fifty thousand
+dollars,--he twenty-six, tall, slender, and some distant expectations. I
+heard him, at a party, call her 'Dear'!"
+
+"I don't think you get on any faster than I did. We shall have to finish
+the tour of the portrait-gallery another day."
+
+"You are not tired? I wanted to tell you of several more. Yet I don't
+know why I should. I declare to you seriously, that I never before
+mentioned the names of these persons in this way, nor referred to them
+as rejected lovers."
+
+"I have no doubt of it. It has seemed like a fresh, spontaneous
+confession."
+
+"There is some magic about you, Sister Lydia. You invite confidence; or
+rather, you seem to be like one of those chemical agents that penetrate
+everything; there's no resisting you. Don't protest. I know what you
+would say. It isn't your curiosity. You are no Paulina Pry; if you were,
+precious little you would get from me."
+
+"But, Marcia, let me return a moment to what you were saying. Did the
+reason never occur to you, why you so soon become tired of your
+admirers? You see through them, you say. Is it not possible that a lady
+who has the reputation of caprice,--a flirt, as the world is apt to call
+her,--though ever so brilliant, witty, and accomplished, may not attract
+the kind of men that can bear scrutiny, but only the butterfly race, fit
+for a brief acquaintance? Believe me, Marcia, there is a reason for
+everything, and, with all your beauty and fascination, you must yourself
+have the element of constancy, to win the admiration of the best and
+worthiest men."
+
+"So, you are going to preach?" said Marcia, rather crestfallen.
+
+"No, I don't preach. But what I see, I ought to tell you; I should not
+be a good sister otherwise."
+
+"I'll think about it. But now for the musical party. I mean to send for
+Mr. Greenleaf, to practise some songs and duets. He is not a butterfly,
+I am sure."
+
+"But, Marcia, is it well, is it right, for you to try to fascinate this
+new friend of yours, unless you feel something more than a transient
+interest in him?"
+
+"How can I tell what interest I shall feel in him, until I know him
+better?"
+
+"But you know his circumstances and his prospects. You are not the woman
+to marry a poor painter. You have too many wants; or rather, you have
+become accustomed to luxuries that now seem to be necessaries."
+
+"True, I haven't the romance for love in a cottage. But a painter is not
+necessarily a bad match; if he doesn't become rich, he may be
+distinguished. And besides, no one knows what will happen from the
+beginning of an acquaintance. We will enjoy the sunshine of to-day; and
+if to-morrow brings a darker sky, we must console ourselves as we can."
+
+"What an Epicurean! Well, Marcia, you are not a child; you must act for
+yourself."
+
+Marcia made no reply, but sat down to her desk to write a note; and her
+sister-in-law soon after went to her own room.
+
+During all this conversation, Mrs. Sandford was struck by the tone which
+the beautiful coquette assumed. Her words were aptly chosen, her
+sentences smoothly constructed; she never hesitated; and there was an
+ever-present air of consciousness, that left no conviction of sincerity.
+Whether she uttered sentiments of affection, or sharp criticism upon
+character, there was the same level flow of language, the same nicely
+modulated intonation. There was no flash of enthusiasm, none of those
+outbursts in which the hearer feels sure that the heart has spoken. Mrs.
+Sandford was thoroughly puzzled. Marcia had never been otherwise than
+kind; in fact; she seemed to be studiously careful of the feelings of
+others, except when her position as reigning belle made it necessary to
+cut a dangler. This methodical speech and unruffled grace of manner
+might be only the result of discipline. Truth and honesty _might_ exist
+as well under this artificial exterior as in a more impulsive nature.
+But the world generally thinks that whoever habitually wears a smiling
+mask has some secret end to serve thereby. "I like this painter,
+Greenleaf," she soliloquized, "and I mean to look out for him. I am
+persuaded that Marcia would never marry him; and I think he is too
+sensitive, too manly, to be a fit subject for her experiments."
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CONCERNING CONSTANCY AND THE AFFINITIES.
+
+"A Musical _soiree_? Famous, my boy!" said Easelmann, as he sat, smoking
+as usual, in his fourth-story _atelier_ with Greenleaf, watching the sun
+go down. "Making progress, I see. You have nothing to do; the affair
+will take care of itself."
+
+"What affair?"
+
+"Don't be stupid (_puff_). Your affair with Miss Sandford (_puff_).
+There's a wonderful charm in music (_puff_). Two such young people might
+fall in love, to be sure, without singing together (_puff_). But music
+is the true _aqua regia_; it dissolves all into its own essence. A piano
+and a tenor voice will do more than a siege of months, though aided by a
+battery of bouquets."
+
+"How you run on! I have called twice,--once with you, and the second
+time by the lady's invitation. Besides, I told you--indiscreetly, I am
+afraid--that I am really engaged to be married."
+
+"Oh, yes, I have not forgotten the touching story (_puff_); but we get
+over all things, even such passions as yours. We are plants, that thrive
+very well for a while in the pots we sprouted in, but after a time we
+must have a change of soil."
+
+"I don't think we outgrow affection, honor, truth."
+
+"That is all very pretty; but our ideas of honor and truth are apt to
+change."
+
+"I don't believe you are half so bad a fellow, Easelmann, as you would
+have me think. You utter abominable sentiments, but you behave as well
+as other people--nearly."
+
+"Thank you. But listen a moment. (_Laying down his pipe._) Do you have
+the same tastes you had at eighteen? I don't refer to the bumpkins with
+whom you played when a boy, and who, now that you have outgrown them,
+look enviously askance at you. I don't care to dwell on your literary
+tastes,--how you have outgrown Moore and Festus-Bailey, and are fast
+getting through Byron. I won't pose you, by showing how your ideas in
+Art have changed,--what new views you have of life, society;--but think
+of your ideas of womanly, or rather, girlish beauty at different ages.
+By Jove, I should like to see your innamoratas arranged in
+chronological order!"
+
+"It would be a curious and instructive spectacle."
+
+"You may well say that! Let me sketch a few of them."
+
+"I think I could do it better."
+
+"No, every man thinks his own experience peculiar; but life has a
+wonderful sameness, after all. Besides, you would flatter the portraits.
+Not to begin too early, and without being particular about names, there
+was, first, Amanda, aged fourteen; face circular, cheeks cranberry, eyes
+hazel, hair brown and wavy, awkward when spoken to, and agreeable only
+in an osculatory way. Now, being twenty-five, she is married, has two
+children, is growing stout, and always refers to her lord and master as
+'He,' never by any accident pronouncing his name. Second, Julia;
+sixteen, flaxen-haired, lithe, not ungraceful, self-possessed, and
+perhaps a little pert. She is unmarried; but, having fed her mind with
+no more solid aliment than country gossip, no sensible man could talk to
+her five minutes. Third, Laura; eighteen, black hair, with sharp
+outlines on the temples, eyes heavily shaded and coquettishly managed,
+jewelry more abundant than elegant, repeats poetry by the page, keeps a
+scrap-book, and writes endless letters to her female friends. She is
+still romantic, but has learned something from experience,--is not so
+impressible as when you knew her. I won't stop to sketch the pale
+poetess, nor the dancing hoyden, nor the sweet blue-eyed creature that
+lisped, nor the mature and dangerously-charming widow that caused some
+perturbations in your regular orbit.
+
+"Now, my dear fellow," Easelmann continued, "you fancied that your whole
+existence depended upon the hazel or the blue or the black eyes, in
+turn; but at this time you could see their glances turned in rapture
+upon your enemy, if you have one, without a pang."
+
+"One would think you had just been reading Cowley's charming poem,
+'Henrietta first possest.' But what is the moral to your entertaining
+little romance? That love must always be transient?"
+
+"Not necessarily, but generally. We are travelling at different rates of
+progress and on different planes. Happy are the lovers who advance with
+equal step, cultivating similar tastes, with agreeing theories of life
+and its enjoyments!"
+
+"Wise philosopher, how comes it, that, with so just an appreciation of
+the true basis of a permanent attachment, you remain single? I see a
+gray hair or two, not only on your head, but in that favorite moustache
+of yours."
+
+"Gray? Oh, yes! gray as a badger, but immortally young. As for marriage,
+I'm rather past that. I had my chance; I lost it, and shall not throw
+again."
+
+Easelmann did not seem inclined to open this sealed book of his personal
+history, and the friends were silent. Greenleaf at length broke the
+pause.
+
+"I acknowledge the justice of your ideas in their general application,
+but in my own case they do not apply at all. I was not in my teens when
+I went to Innisfield, but in the maturity of such faculties as I have.
+Alice satisfies my ideal of a lovely, loving woman. She has
+capabilities, taste, a thirst for improvement, and will advance in
+everything to which I am led."
+
+"I won't disturb your dreams, nor play the Mephistopheles, as you
+sometimes call me. I am rather serious to-day. But here you are where
+every faculty is stimulated, where you unconsciously draw in new ideas
+with your daily breath. Alice remains in a country town, without
+society, with few books, with no opportunity for culture in Art or in
+the minor graces of society. You are not ready to marry; your ambition
+forbids it, and your means will not allow it. And before the time comes
+when you are ready to establish yourself, think what a difference there
+may be between you! The thought is cruel, but worth your consideration
+none the less.--But let us change the subject. What are you doing? Any
+new orders?"
+
+"Two new orders. One for a large picture from Mr. Sandford. The price
+is not what it should be, but it will give me a living, and I am
+thankful for any employment. I loathe idleness. I die, if I haven't
+something to do."
+
+"Mere uneasiness, my youthful friend! Be tranquil, and you will find
+that laziness has its comforts. However, to-morrow let me see your
+pictures. You lack a firmness and certainty of touch that nothing but
+practice will give. But your forms are faithfully drawn, your eye for
+color is sharp and true, and, what is more than all, you have the poetry
+which informs, harmonizes, and crowns all."
+
+"I am grateful for your friendly criticism," said Greenleaf, with a
+sudden flush. "You know that people call you blunt, and that most of the
+artists think you almost malicious in your severity; but you are the
+only man who ever talks sincerely to me."
+
+Easelmann noticed the emotion, and spoke abruptly,--
+
+"Depend upon it, if I see anything faulty, you will know it; if you
+think _that_ friendly, I am your friend. But look over there, where the
+sunset clouds are reflected in the Back Bay. Now, if I should put those
+tints of gold and salmon and crimson and purple, with those delicate
+shades of apple-green, into a picture, the mob would say, 'What an
+absurd fellow this painter is! Where did he find all that Joseph's coat
+of colors?' The mob is a drove of asses, Greenleaf."
+
+"Come, let us take our evening stroll."
+
+"Have you seen Charbon, to-day?"
+
+"No. But I should like to."
+
+"We'll call for him."
+
+"Yes, I rather like his brilliant silence."
+
+"Next week, let us go to Nahant. I want you to try your hand on a coast
+view. But what, what are you about? At that trumpery daguerreotype
+again? Let me see the beauty,--that's a good boy!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Then put it up. If you won't show it, don't aggravate a fellow in that
+way."
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+SPIRITS IN PRISON.[3]
+
+
+    I.
+
+    O ye, who, prisoned in these festive rooms,
+      Lean at the windows for a breath of air,
+    Staring upon the darkness that o'erglooms
+      The heavens, and waiting for the stars to bare
+    Their glittering glories, veiled all night in cloud,
+      I know ye scorn the gas-lights and the feast!
+    I saw you leave the music and the crowd,
+      And turn unto the windows opening east;
+    I heard you sigh,--"When will the dawn's dull ashes
+      Kindle their fires behind yon fir-fringed height?
+    When will the prophet clouds with golden flashes
+      Unroll their mystic scrolls of crimson light?"
+    Fain would I come and sit beside you here,
+      And silent press your hands, and with you lean
+    Into the midnight, mingling hope and fear,
+      Or pining for the days that might have been!
+
+
+    II.
+
+    Are we not brothers? In the throng that fills
+      These strange enchanted rooms we met. One look
+    Told that we knew each other. Sudden thrills,
+      As of two lovers reading the same book,
+    Ran through our hurried grasp. But when we turned,
+      The scene around was smitten with a change:
+    The lamps with lurid fire-light flared and burned;
+      And through the wreaths and flowers,--oh, mockery strange!--
+    The prison-walls with ghastly horror frowned;
+      Scarce hidden by vine-leaves and clusters thick,
+    A grim cold iron grating closed around.
+      Then from our silken couches leaping quick,
+    We hurried past the dancers and the lights,
+      Nor heeded the entrancing music then,
+    Nor the fair women scattering delights
+      In flower-like flush of dress,--nor paused till when,
+    Leaning against our prison-bars, we gazed
+      Into the dark, and wondered where we were.
+    Speak to me, brothers, for ye stand amazed!
+      I come, your secret burthen here to share!
+
+
+    III.
+
+    I know not this mysterious land around.
+      Black giant trees loom up in form obscure.
+    Odors of gardens and of woods profound
+      Blow in from out the darkness, fresh and pure.
+    Faint sounds of friendly voices come and go,
+      That seem to lure us forth into the air;
+    But whence they come perchance no ear may know,
+      And where they go perchance no foot may dare.
+
+
+    IV.
+
+    A realm of shadowy forms out yonder lies.
+      Beauty and Power, fair dreams pursued by Fate,
+    Wheel in unceasing vortex; and the skies
+      Flash with strange lights that bear no name nor date.
+    Sweet winds are breathing that just fan the hair,
+      And fitful gusts that howl against the bars,
+    And harp-like songs, and groans of wild despair,
+      And angry clouds that chase the trembling stars.
+    And on the iron grating the hot cheek
+      We press, and forth into the night we call,
+    And thrust our arms, that, manacled and weak,
+      Clutch but the empty air, and powerless fall.
+
+
+    V.
+
+    And yet, O brothers! we, who cannot share
+      This life of lies, this stifling day in night,--
+    Know we not well, that, if we did but dare
+      Break from our cell, and trust our manhood's might,
+    When once our feet should venture on these wilds,
+      The night would prove a sweet, still solitude,--
+    Not dark for eyes that, earnest as a child's,
+      Strove in the chaos but for truth and good?
+    And oh, sweet liberty, though wizard gleams
+      And elfin shapes should frighten or allure,
+    To find the pathway of our hopes and dreams,--
+      By toil to sweeten what we should endure,--
+    To journey on, though but a little way,
+      Towards the morning and the fir-clad heights,--
+    To follow the sweet voices, till the day
+      Bloomed in its flush of colors and of lights,--
+    To look back on the valley and the prison,
+      The windows smouldering still with midnight fires,
+    And know the joy and triumph to have risen
+      Out of that falsehood into new desires!
+    O friends! it may be hard our chains to burst,
+      To scale the ramparts, pass the sentinels;
+    Dark is the night; but we are not the first
+      Who break from the enchanter's evil spells.
+    Though they pursue us with their scoffs and darts,
+      Though they allure us with their siren song,
+    Trust we alone the light within our hearts!
+      Forth to the air! Freedom will dawn ere long!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 3: 1 Peter, iii. 19.]
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH.
+
+
+Not inebriating, but exhilarating punch; not punch of which the more a
+man imbibes the worse he is, but punch of which the deeper the quaffings
+the better the effects; not a compound of acids and sweets, hot water
+and fire-water, to steal away the brains,--but a finer mixture of
+subtler elements, conducive to mental and moral health; not, in a word,
+punch, the drink, but "Punch," the wise wag, the genial philosopher,
+with his brevity of stature, goodly-conditioned paunch, next-to-nothing
+legs, protuberant back, bill-hook nose, and twinkling eyes,--to speak
+respectfully, Mr. Punch, attended by the solemnly-sagacious,
+ubiquitously-versatile "Toby," together with the invisible company of
+skirmishers of the quill and pencil, producing in his name those
+ever-welcome sheets, flying forth the world over, with hebdomadal
+punctuality. Of the ingredients and salutary influence of this Punch--an
+institution and power of the age, no more to be overlooked among the
+forces of the nineteenth century than is the steam-engine or the
+magnetic telegraph--we propose to speak;--not, however, because of the
+comicality of the theme; for the fun that surrounds, permeates, and
+saturates it would hardly move us to discourse of it here, if it had not
+higher claims to attention. To take Punch only for a clown is to
+_mis_take him egregiously. Joker as he is, he himself is no joke. The
+fool's-cap he wears does not prove him to be a fool; and even when he
+touches the tip of his nasal organ with his fore-finger and winks so
+irresistibly, meaning lurks in his facetious features, to assure you he
+does not jest without a purpose, or play the buffoon only to coin
+sixpences. The fact, then, we propose to illustrate is this:--that Punch
+is a teacher and philanthropist, a lover of truth, a despiser of cant,
+an advocate of right, a hater of shams,--a hale, hearty old gentleman,
+whose notions are not dyspeptic croakings, but healthful opinions of
+good digestion, and who, though he wear motley and indulge in drolleries
+without measure, is full of sense and sensibility.
+
+The birth-place and parentage of Punch are involved in some doubt,--a
+fate he shares with several of the world's other heroes, ancient and
+modern. Accounts differ; and as he has not chosen to settle the question
+autobiographically, we follow substantially the narrative[4]--that ought
+to be true; for, mythical or historical, it appropriately localizes and
+fitly circumstances the nativity of the humorist of the age.
+
+In 1841, Mark Lemon, a writer of considerable ability, was the landlord
+of the Shakspeare Head, Wych Street, London. A tavern with such a
+publican and such a name was, of course, frequented by a circle of wits,
+with whom, in the year just mentioned, originated "Punch." Lemon (how
+could there be punch without a lemon?) has been the editor from the
+outset. From which of the knot of good fellows the bright idea of the
+unique journal first emanated does not appear. The paternity has been
+ascribed to Douglas Jerrold. Its name might have been suggested by the
+place of its birth. If so, it at once lost all associations with the
+ladle and the bowl, and received a wider and better interpretation. The
+hero of the famous puppet-show was chosen for the typical presiding
+genius and sponsor of the novel enterprise. And there is no neater piece
+of allegorical writing in our language than the introductory article of
+the first number, wherein is exquisitely shadowed forth "the moral" of
+the work, "Punch,"--suggestive of that "graver puppetry," the "visual
+and oral cheats," "by which mankind are cajoled." Punch, the exemplar of
+boldness and philosophic self-control, is the quaint embodiment of the
+intention to pursue a higher object than the amusement of thoughtless
+crowds,--an intention which has been adhered to with remarkable
+fidelity. The first number appeared July 17th, and the serial has lived
+over a decade and a half, and grown to the bulk of thirty-four or
+thirty-five volumes. It was not, however, built in a day. It knew a
+rickety infancy and hours of peril, and owes its rescue from neglect and
+starvation, its subsequent and constantly increasing prosperity, to the
+enterprising publishers,--Bradbury and Evans,--who nursed and
+resuscitated it at the critical moment. Well-known contributors to the
+letter-press have been Jerrold, Albert Smith, a Beckett, Hood, and
+Thackeray; whilst Henning, Leech, Meadows, Browne, Forrester, Gilbert,
+and Doyle have acted as designers. Of these men of letters and art,
+Lemon and Leech, it is said, alone remain; some of the others broke off
+their connection with the work at different periods, and some have
+passed away from earth. Their places have been supplied by the Mayhews,
+Tom Taylor, Angus Reach, and Shirley Brooks, and the historical painter,
+Tenniel. These changes have mostly been made behind the scenes; the
+impersonality of the paper--to speak after the Hibernian style--being
+personified by Mr. Punch himself,--ostensibly, by a well-preserved and
+well-managed conceit, its sole conductor through all its vicissitudes
+and during the whole of its brilliant career. Whatever becomes of
+correspondents, Punch never resigns and never dies. The baton never
+falls from his grasp. He sits in his arm-chair, the unshaken Master of
+the Revels,--though thrones totter, kings abdicate, and revolutions
+convulse empires. Troubles may disturb his household; but thereby the
+public does not suffer. He still lives,--immortal in his funny and
+fascinating idiosyncrasies.
+
+The ingredients of Punch, the instrumentalities by which he has won fame
+and victories, are almost too multifarious for enumeration. All the
+merry imps which beset Leigh Hunt, when about to compile selections from
+the comic poets, belong to Punch's retinue. Doubles of Similes,
+Buffooneries of Burlesques, Stalkings of Mock Heroics, Stings in the
+Tails of Epigrams, Glances of Innuendoes, Dry Looks of Irony,
+Corpulencies of Exaggerations, Ticklings of Mad Fancies, Claps on the
+Backs of Horse Plays, Flounderings of Absurdities, Irresistibilities of
+Iterations, Significances of Jargons, Wailings of Pretended Woes,
+Roarings of Laughter, and Hubbubs of Animal Spirits, all appear, singly
+or in companies, to flash, ripple, dance, shoot, effervesce, and
+sparkle, in prose and verse, vignettes, sketches, or elaborate pictures,
+on the ever-shifting and always entertaining pages of the London
+Charivari. Of one prominent form of the exhibition of this inexhaustible
+arsenal, namely, _the illustrations_, special notice is to be taken.
+These, notwithstanding their oddity, extravagance, and burlesqueness, by
+reason of their grace, finish, and good taste, frequently get into the
+proximity of the fine arts. This elevation of sportive drawing is mainly
+to be put to the credit of manly John Leech,--"the very Dickens of the
+pencil." He and his associates have proved that the humorous side of
+things may be limned with mirth-provoking truth, and that vices and
+follies may be depicted with a vigorous and accurate crayon, without
+coarseness or vulgarity, or pandering to depraved sentiments. Herein is
+most commendable success. Punch's gallery--with but few, if any
+exceptions--may be opened to the purest eyes. In it there is much of
+Hogarthian genius, without anything that needs a veil. In alluding to
+the agencies of Punch, it would be doing him great injustice to leave
+the impression that they are all of a mirthful character. Often is he
+tearfully, if at the same time smilingly, pathetic. Seriousness,
+certainly, is not his forte, and he is not given to homilies and moral
+essays. Usually he gilds homoeopathic pills of wisdom with a thick
+coating of humor. Yet, now and then, his vein is an earnest vein, and he
+speaks from the abundance of a tender and deeply-moved heart. This is
+especially true of some of his poetical effusions, which rank high among
+the best fugitive pieces of the times. That Hood's "Song of the Shirt"
+was an original contribution to his columns is almost enough of itself
+to show that Punch, like some other famous comedians, can start the
+silent tear, as well as awaken peals of laughter. And this is but one of
+many instances in point that might be cited. In his productions you
+often meet golden sentences of soberest counsel, beautiful tributes to
+real worth, stirring appeals for the oppressed, and touching eulogies of
+the loved and lost.
+
+Thus much of the history and machinery of Punch. His salutary influence
+is to be spoken of next. But before venturing upon what may seem
+indiscriminate praise, let it be confessed that our hero is not without
+his weaknesses. Nothing human is perfect, and Punch is very human. The
+good Homer sometimes nods; so doth the good Punch. He does not always
+perform equally well,--keep up to his highest level. If he never
+entirely disappoints his audience, he fails sometimes to shoot the
+brightest arrows of his quiver and hit his mark so as to make the
+scintillating splinters fly. Now and then he has been slightly dull,
+forgotten himself and his manners, gone too far, got into the wrong box,
+missed seizing the auricular appendage of the right pig, run things into
+the ground,--blundered as common and uncommon people will. Under these
+general charges we must, painful as it is to speak of the errors of a
+favorite, enter a few specifications.
+
+The writer of the prospectus, before referred to, seems to have had a
+premonitory fear--growing out of his bad treatment of Judy--that Punch
+in his new vocation might fail of uniform gentlemanliness towards the
+ladies; and time has shown that there were some little grounds for the
+apprehension. The droll hunchback's virulent dislike of mothers-in-law
+seems the nursed-up wrath of an unhappy personal experience. Vastly
+amusing as were the "Caudle Lectures," it is a question whether
+excessive indulgence in the luxury of satire upon a prolific theme did
+not infuse into them over-bitter exaggeration, not favorable to the
+culture of domestic felicity. Did these celebrated curtain-homilies
+stand alone, their sharp and unrivalled humor might save Punch from the
+censure of being once in a while the least bit of a Bluebeard. But, for
+the most gallant gentleman, on the whole, in the United Kingdom, he is
+not so invariable in fairness towards the fair as could be wished. The
+follies and frivolities of absurd fashions are his proper game; and he
+does brave service in hunting them down. Still, his warfare against
+crinoline, small bonnets, and other feminine fancies in dress, has been
+tiresomely inveterate. Even Mr. Punch had better, as a general rule,
+leave the management of the female toilette to those whom it most nearly
+concerns. But in his case, the scolding or pouting should not be
+inexorable; for in one way he atones amply for all his impertinence. He
+paints his young ladies pretty and graceful, being, with all his sly
+satire, evidently fond of the sex, the juvenile portion at least.
+Surely, a Compliment so uniform and tasteful must more than outweigh his
+teasing and banter with the amiable subjects of both.
+
+Of Punch as a local politician we are hardly fair judges, and it may be
+a mistaken suspicion that he has occasionally given up to party what was
+meant for mankind. With respect to "foreign affairs," we shall be safer
+in saying, that, with all his cosmopolitanism, he is a shade or two
+John-Bullish. Thanking him for his fraternal cordiality towards
+"Jonathan," we must doubt if it will do to trust implicitly his reports
+and impressions of men and things across the Channel. That he is more
+than half right, however, when lingering remains of insular prejudice
+tinge his solicitude to save his native land from entangling alliances,
+and keep its free government from striking hands with despotism, we
+incline to believe; and we honor him that his loyalty is not mere
+adulation, but duly seasoned with the democratic principle that would
+have the stability of the throne the people's love,--the people being of
+infinitely greater importance than the propping-up or the propagation of
+royal houses. In one sad direction Punch's patriotism and humanity, it
+seems to us, were wrathful exaggerations, open to graver objection than
+yielding unconsciously to a natural bias. In his zeal against terrible
+outrages, he forgot that two wrongs never make a right. We refer to his
+course on the Indian Revolt. From the way he raised his voice for war,
+almost exterminating, and with no quarter, one would think the British
+rule in the East had been the rule of Christian love,--that Sepoys and
+other subjects had known the reigning power only as patriarchal
+kindness,--and so, without excuse, a highly civilized, justly and
+tenderly treated people, suddenly, and without provocation, became
+rebellious devils, and rebellious only because they were devils. In the
+hour of horror-struck indignation, was not Punch too blood-thirsty,
+vindictive, unjust, and oblivious to the truth of history, that the
+insurgents are poor superstitious heathens, whom a selfish policy may
+have kept superstitious and heathenish? True, he was the witness of
+broken hearts and desolate hearth-stones at home, and daily heard of
+hellish atrocities inflicted on the women and children abroad,--enough
+to crush out for the moment every thought but the thought of vengeance.
+Yet, even at such a crisis, he should have remembered, that England, in
+strict accordance with the stern, unrelenting logic of events, having
+sown to the wind, might therefore have reaped the whirlwind. It is among
+the mysteries of Providence, that retributive justice, when visiting
+nations, often involves innocent victims,--but it is retributive justice
+still; and tracing up rightly the chain of causes and effects, it may
+be that the tragedies of Delhi and Lucknow are attributable, to say the
+least, as much to the avarice of the dominant as to the depravity of the
+subjugated race. The bare possibility that this might be the truth a
+philosopher like Punch ought not to have overlooked, in the suddenness
+and fire of his anger.
+
+Finally, Punch is no ascetic, but quite the reverse. He cannot be
+expected, any more than his namesake, the beverage, to go down with the
+apostles of temperance. He is a convivialist,--moderately so,--and no
+teetotaler. He evidently prefers roast-beef and brown-stout to
+bran-bread and cold water, and has gone so far as to sing the praises of
+pale-ale. He thinks the laboring classes should have their pot of beer,
+if the nobility and gentry are to eat good dinners and take airings in
+Hyde Park, on Sundays. He is a Merry Englishman, as to the
+stomach,--and, like a Merry Englishman, enjoys good living. There is no
+denying this fact; but here is the whole front of his offending.
+Remember that he was born at the Shakspeare's Head, and has had a
+publican for his right-hand man.
+
+These are defects, it may be; and yet not by its defects are we to judge
+of a work of Art. Of that generous and just canon Punch should have the
+full benefit. Try him by that, and he has abounding virtues to flood and
+conceal with lustrous and far-raying light his exceptional errors. To
+brief notices of some of these--regretting the want of room to enlarge
+upon them as it would be pleasant to do--we gladly turn.
+
+Punch is to be loved and cherished as the maker of mirth for the
+million. Saying this, we do not propose to go into an argument to
+excuse, justify, or recommend hilarity for its own sake or its medicinal
+effects on overtasked bodies and souls. Desperate attempts have been
+made to prove the innocence of fun, and the allowableness of wit and
+humor. Assuming or conceding that the jocose elements or capacities of
+human nature need apology and defence, very nice distinctions have been
+drawn, and very ingenious sophistry employed, to prove that the best of
+people may, within certain limits, crack jokes, or laugh at jokes
+cracked for them. These efforts to accommodate stern dogmas to that
+pleasant stubborn fact in man's constitution, his irresistible craving
+for play, and irresistible impulse to laugh at whatever is really
+laughable, are about as necessary as would be an essay maintaining the
+harmlessness of sunshine. The _fact_ has priority over the dogmas, and
+is altogether too strong to need the patronizing special-pleading they
+suggest. Instead of going into the metaphysics of the question about the
+lawfulness and blamelessness of humor shown or humor relished, suppose
+we cut the knot by a delightful illustration of the compatibility of
+humor with the highest type of character.
+
+No one will deny the sincerity, earnestness, devotedness, sublime
+consecration to duty, of the heroine of the hospitals of Scutari. No one
+will dispute the practical piety of the gentle, but fearless, the
+tenderhearted, but truly strong-minded woman, who made the lazar-house
+her home for months together,--ministered to its sick, miserable, and
+ignorant inmates,--put, by the unostentatious exercise of indomitable
+faith and unswerving self-sacrifice, the love and humanity of the Gospel
+in direct and strongest contrast with the barbarisms of war. No one will
+deny or dispute this now. That heroic English maiden, whose shadow, as
+it fell on his pillow, the rude soldier kissed with almost idolatrous
+gratitude, has won, without thought of seeking it, and without the loss
+of a particle of humility and womanly delicacy, the loving admiration of
+all Christendom. Well, she
+
+      "whose presence honors queenly guests,
+    Who wears the noblest jewel of her time,
+    And leaves her race a nobler, in her name,"
+
+shall be the sufficient argument here,--especially as none have paid
+finer, more delicate, or truer tributes to her virtue than Punch. In a
+recent sketch of her career, accompanying her portrait in the gallery
+of noted women, this sentence is given from a descriptive letter:--"Her
+general demeanor is quiet and rather reserved; still, I am much
+mistaken, if she is not gifted with a very lively sense of the
+ridiculous." Here is a delightful, and, we doubt not, true intimation.
+Since the springs of pathos lie very near the springs of humor, in the
+richest souls, the fair Florence must, in moments of weariness, have
+glanced with merry eyes over the pages of Punch, or handed, with smiling
+archness, his inimitable numbers to her wan and wounded patients, kindly
+to cheat them into momentary forgetfulness of their agonies. If this
+were so, who shall say that the use or enjoyment of wit is not as right
+as it is natural? None, unless it be the narrowest of bigots,--like
+those who objected to this heroic lady's mission of mercy to the East,
+because she did not echo their sectarian shibboleths, and would not ask
+whether a good nurse were Protestant or Romanist.
+
+We may repeat, therefore, as a prime excellence of Punch, that he is the
+maker of mirth for the million. He is mainly engaged in furnishing
+titillating amusement,--and he furnishes an article, not only
+marketable, but necessary. All work makes Jack a dull boy,--and not
+infrequently an unhappy, if not bad boy,--whether Jack be in the pulpit,
+the counting-room, the senate-house, or digging potatoes; and what is
+true of Jack is equally true of Gill, his sister, sweetheart, or wife.
+That Punch every week puts a girdle of smiles round the earth,
+interrupts the serious business of thousands by his merry visits, and
+with his ludicrous presence delights the drawing-room, cheers the study,
+and causes side-shakings in the kitchen,--entitles him to be called a
+missionary of good. Grant this,--then allow, on the average, five
+minutes of merriment to each reader of each issue of Punch,--then
+multiply these 5 minutes by--say 50,000, and this again by 52 weeks, and
+this, finally, by 17 years, and thus cipher out, if you have a tolerably
+capacious imagination, the amount of happiness which has flowed and
+spread, like a river of gladness, through the world, from that
+inexhaustible, bubbling, and sparkling fountain, at 85, Fleet Street,
+London.
+
+Punch is the advocate of true manliness. Velvet robes and gilded
+coronets go for nothing with him, if not worn by muscular integrity; and
+fustian is cloth-of-gold, in his eyes, when it covers a stout heart in
+the right place. He has no mercy on snobbism, flunkeyism, or dandyism.
+He whips smartly the ignoble-noble fops of the
+household-troops,--parading them on toy-horses, and making them, with
+suicidal irony, deplore the hardships of comrades in the Crimea. He
+sneers at the loungers, and the delicate, dissipated _roues_ of the
+club-house,--though their names were once worn by renowned ancestors,
+and are in the peerage. Fast young men are to him befooled prodigals,
+wasting the wealth of life in profitless living. He is not, however, an
+anchorite, or hard upon youth. On the contrary, he is an indulgent old
+fellow, and too sagacious to expect the wisdom of age from those
+sporting their freedom-suits. Still, he has no patience with the foppery
+whose whole existence advertises fine clothes, patronizes taverns,
+saunters along fashionable promenades, and ogles opera-dancers. In this
+connection, his hits at "the rising generation" will be called to mind.
+Punch has found out that in England there are no boys now,--only male
+babies and precocious men;--no growing up,--only a leap from the cradle,
+robe, and trousers to the habiliments and manners of a false manhood.
+Punch has found out and frequently illustrates this fact, and furnishes
+a series of pictures of Liliputians aping the questionable doings of
+their elders. It is observable, however, that he confines these
+portraits of precocity chiefly to one sex. Whether this be owing to his
+innate delicacy and habitual gallantry, or to the English custom of
+keeping little girls--and what we should call large girls also--at home
+longer, and under more restraint, than in our republic, we cannot say.
+Were he on this side of the Atlantic, he might possibly find occasion to
+be less partial in the use of his reproving fun. Young misses seem to be
+growing scarce, and young ladies becoming alarmingly numerous. The early
+date at which the cry comes for long skirts, parties, balls, and late
+hours, for lace, jewelry, and gold watches, threatens to rob our homes
+of one of their sweetest charms,--the bright presence of joyous, gentle,
+and modest lasses, willing to be happy children for as many years as
+their mothers were, on their way to maidenhood and womanhood.
+
+Punch is a reformer,--and of the right type, too; not destructive,
+declamatory, vituperative; not a monomaniac, snarly, and
+ill-natured,--as if zeal in riding a favorite hobby excused
+exclusiveness of soul and any amount of bad temper. He would not
+demolish the social system and build on its ruins a new one; being
+clearly of the opinion that the growths of ages and the doings of six
+thousands of years are to be respected,--that progress means improvement
+upon the present, rather than overthrow of the entire past. Calm,
+hopeful, cheerful, and patient, he is at the same time bold and
+uncompromising, and a bit radical into the bargain. In his own delicious
+way, he has been no mean advocate of liberal principles and measures. He
+has argued for the repeal of the corn and the modification of the game
+laws, the softening of the cruelties of the criminal code, and the fair
+administration of law for all orders and conditions of men and women. He
+has had no respect for ermine, lawn, or epaulets, in his assaults upon
+the monopolies and sinecures of Church and State, circumlocution
+offices, nepotism, patronage, purchase, and routine, in army or navy. He
+wants the established religion to be religious, not a cover for
+aristocratic preferments and dog-in-the-manger laziness,--and government
+administered for the whole people, and not merely dealing out
+treasury-pap and fat offices for the pensioned few. Punch is loyal,
+sings lustily, "God Save the Queen," and stands by the Constitution. He
+is a true-born Englishman, and patriotic to the backbone; but none are
+too high in place or name for his merciless ridicule and daring wit, if
+they countenance oppressive abuses. It is a tall feather in his
+fool's-cap, that his fantastic person is a dread to evil-doers on
+thrones, in cabinets, and red-tape offices. Crowned tyrants, bold
+usurpers, and proud statesmen are sensitive, like other mortals, to
+ridicule, and know very well how much easier it is to cannonade
+rebellious insurgents than to put down the general laugh, and that the
+point of a joke cannot be turned by the point of the bayonet. "Punch"
+was seized in Paris on account of the caricature of the "Sphinx," but
+after twenty-four hours' consideration the order of confiscation was
+rescinded, and the irreverent publication now lies upon the tables of
+the reading-rooms. So, iron power is not beyond the reach of the shafts
+of wit; once make it ridiculous, and it may continue to lie dreaded, but
+will cease to be respected.
+
+Limits permitting, it would be pleasant to refer at length to various
+other marked graces of Punch,--such, for example, as his care for true
+Art, by exposing to merited contempt the abortions of statuary,
+painting, and architecture that come under his accurate eye,--his
+concern for good letters, exhibited in fantastic parodies of
+affectations, mannerisms, absurdities of plot, and vices of style in
+modern poets and novelists,--his "_nil nisi bonum_," and, where there is
+no "_bonum_," his silent "_nil_," of the dead, whom when living he
+pursued with unrelenting raillery,--his cool, eclectic judgments,
+freedom from extremes, and other manifestations of clear-headedness and
+refined sentiment, glimmering and shooting through his rollicking
+drollery, quick wit, and quiet humor. But we must pass them by, to
+emphasize a quality that out-tops and outshines them all,--his humanity.
+
+This is Mr. Punch's specialty, generating his purest fun and
+consecrating his versatile talents to highest ends. Wherever he catches
+meanness, avarice, selfishness, force, preying upon the humble and the
+weak, he is sure to give them hard knocks with his baton, or
+home-thrusts with his pen and pencil. His practical kindness is
+charmingly comprehensive, too. He speaks for the dumb beast, pleads for
+the maltreated brutes of Smithfield Market, craves compassion for
+skeleton omnibus-horses, with the same ready sympathy that he fights for
+cheated fellow-mortals. In the court of public opinion, he is volunteer
+counsel for all in any way defrauded or kept in bondage by pitiless
+pride, barbarous policy, thoughtless luxury, or wooden-headed prejudice.
+His sound ethics do not admit that the lower law of man's enactment can,
+under any circumstances, override or abrogate the higher laws of God.
+Consequently, he judges with unbiased, instinctive rectitude, when he
+shows up in black and white the Model Republic's criminal anomaly, by
+making the African Slave a companion-piece to the Greek Slave, among
+"Jonathan's" contributions to the great Crystal Palace Exhibition. In
+this same vein of a wide-ranging application of the Golden Rule, he is
+ever on the alert to brand inhuman deeds and institutions, wherever
+found. You cannot very often hit him with the "_tu quoque_" retort,
+insinuate that he lives in a house of glass, or charge him with visiting
+his condemnation upon distant iniquities whilst winking at iniquities of
+equal magnitude directly under his nose.
+
+Punch is no Mrs. Jellyby, brimful of zeal for Borrio boolas in far-off
+Africas, and utterly stolid to disorders and distresses under his own
+roof. Proud of the glory, he feels and confesses the shame of England;
+and the grinding injustice of her caste-system, aristocracy, and
+hierarchy does not escape the lash of his rebuke. He is the friend of
+the threadbare curate, performing the larger half of clerical duty and
+getting but a tittle of the tithes,--of the weary seamstress, wetting
+with midnight tears the costly stuff which must be ready to adorn
+heartless rank and fashion at to-morrow's pageant,--of the pale
+governess, grudgingly paid her pittance of salary without a kind word to
+sweeten the bitterness of a lonely lot. He is the friend even of the
+workhouse juveniles, and, as their champion, castigates with cutting
+sarcasm and stinging scorn the reverend and honorable guardians, who,
+just as, full of hope, they had reached the door of the theatre,
+prohibited a band of these wretched orphans from availing of a
+kind-hearted manager's invitation to an afternoon performance of "Jack
+and the Bean-Stalk." Truly, Punch is more than half right, as, in his
+indignation, he declares, "It will go luckily with some four-faced
+Christians, if, with the fullest belief in their own right of entry of
+paradise, they are not '_stopped at the very doors_'"; and the parson,
+in the case, gets but his deserts, when at his lugubrious sham-piety are
+hurled stanzas like these:--
+
+    "Their little faces beamed with joy
+     Two miles upon their way,
+    As they supposed, each girl and boy,
+     About to see the play.
+    Their little cheeks with tears were wet,
+     As _back again_ they went,
+    Balked by a sanctimonious set,
+     Led by a Reverend Gent.
+
+    "And if such Reverend Gents as he
+     Could get the upperhand,
+    Ah, what a hateful tyranny
+     Would override the land!
+    That we may never see that time,
+     Down with the canting crew
+    That would _out of their pantomime_
+    Poor little children _do_!"
+
+Punch is the friend of all who are friendless, and, with a generous
+spirit of protection, gives credit to whom credit is due, whatever
+conventionality, precedent, monopoly, or routine may say to the
+contrary. During the Crimean War, he took care of the fame of the
+rank-and-file of the army. The dispatches to Downing Street, reporting
+the gallantry of titled officers, were more than matched by Punch's
+imitative dispatches from the seat of war, setting forth the exploits of
+Sergeant O'Brien, Corporal Stout, or Private Gubbins. He saw to it that
+those who had the hardest of the fight, the smallest pay, and the
+coarsest rations, should not be forgotten in the gazetting of the
+heroes. Indeed, our comic friend's fellowship of soul with the humblest
+members of the human family is a notable trait; it is so ready, and yet
+withal so judicious. It is no part of his philosophy, as already
+intimated, violently and rashly to disturb the existing order of things,
+and set one class in rebellion against other classes. He simply insists
+upon the recognition of the law of mutual dependence all round. This is
+observable in his dealing with the vexed question of domestic service.
+The prime trouble of housekeeping comes in frequently for a share of his
+attention; and underneath ironical counsels, you may trace, quietly
+insinuating itself into graphic sketches, the genial intent fairly to
+adjust the relations between life above and life below stairs.
+Accordingly, Punch sees no reason why Angelina may have a lover in the
+parlor, whilst Bridget's engagement forbids her to entertain a fond
+"follower" in the kitchen; and he perversely refuses to see how it can
+be right for Miss Julia to listen to the soft nonsense of Captain
+Augustus Fitzroy in the drawing-room, and entirely wrong for Molly, the
+nursery-maid, to blush at the blunt admiration of the policeman, talking
+to her down the area. Punch is independent and original in this respect.
+His strange creed seems to be, that human nature _is_ human
+nature,--whether, in its feminine department, you robe it in silk or
+calico, and, in its male department, button a red coat over the breast
+of an officer of the Guards, or put the coarse jerkin on the broad back
+of the industrious toilsman. And according to this whimsical belief, he
+writes and talks jocosely, but with covert common sense. His warm and
+catholic humanity runs up and down the whole social scale with a
+clear-sighted equity. His philanthropy is what the word literally
+signifies,--the love of man as man, and because he is a man. Without
+being an impracticable fanatic, advocating impossible theories, or
+theories that can grow into realities only with the gradual progress of
+the race,--without indulging in fanciful visions of unapproached
+Utopias,--without imagining that all, wherever born and however
+nurtured, can reach the same level of wealth and station,--he holds, not
+merely that
+
+    "Honor and shame from no condition rise,"
+
+but also, be the condition high or low, the worthy occupant of it, by
+reason of the common humanity he shares with all above and all beneath
+and all around him, has a brother's birthright to brotherly treatment,
+to even-handed justice and open-handed charity.
+
+We have taken it for granted that Punch is a household necessity and
+familiar friend of our readers; and, resisting as far as possible the
+besetting temptation to refer in detail to the many pictorial and
+letter-press illustrations of his merits, have spoken of him as "a
+representative man,"--the universally acknowledged example of the
+legitimate and beneficent uses of the sportive faculties; thus
+indirectly claiming for these faculties more than toleration.
+
+The variety in human nature must somehow be brought into unity, and its
+diversified, strongly contrasted elements shown to be parts of a
+symmetrical and harmonious whole. The philosophy, the religion, which
+overlooks or condemns any of these elements, is never satisfactory, and
+fails to win sincere belief, because of its felt incompleteness. All men
+have an instinctive faith that in God's plan no incontestable facts are
+exceptional or needless facts. Science assumes this in regard to the
+phenomena of the natural world; and, in its progressive searches,
+expects to discover continual proof that all manifestations, however
+opposite and contradictory, are parts of one beneficent scheme.
+Accordingly, Science starts on its investigations with the conviction
+that the storm is as salutary as the sunshine,--that there is utility in
+what seems mere luxury,--and that Nature's loveliness and grandeur,
+Nature's oddity and grotesqueness, have a substantial value, as well as
+Nature's wheat-harvests. Now the same principle is to be recognized in
+dealing with things spiritual. It may not be affirmed that anything
+appertaining to universal consciousness--spontaneous, irresistible, as
+breathing--is of itself base, and therefore to be put away; since so to
+do is to question the Creative Wisdom. The work of the Infinite Spirit
+must be consistent; and you might as truly charge the bright stars with
+malignity as denounce as vile one faculty or capacity of the mind.
+Consequently, there is a use for all forms of wit and humor.
+
+Punch represents a genuine phase of human nature,--none the less genuine
+because human nature has other and far different phases. That there is a
+time to mourn does not prove there is no time to dance. Punch has his
+part, and his times to play it, in the melodrama, the mixed comedy and
+tragedy, of existence. What we have to do is to see that he interferes
+with no other actor's _role_, comes upon the stage in fitting scenes,
+keeps to the text and the impersonations which right principle and pure
+taste assign him. His grimaces are not for the church. He may not sing
+his catches when penitent souls are listening to the "Miserere," drop
+his torpedo-puns when life's mystery and solemnity are pressed heavily
+upon the soul,--be irreverent, profane, or vulgar. He must know and keep
+his place. But he should have his place, and have it confessed; and that
+place is not quite at the end of the procession of the benefactors of
+the race. Punch, as we speak of him now, is but a generic name for
+Protean wit and humor, well and wisely employed. As such, let Punch have
+his mission; there is ample room for him and his merry doings, without
+interfering with soberer agencies. _Let_ him go about tickling mankind;
+it does mankind good to be tickled occasionally. Let him broaden
+elongated visages; there are many faces that would be improved by
+horizontal enlargement, by having the corners of the mouth curved
+upward. Let him write and draw "as funny as he can"; there are dull
+talking and melancholy pictures in abundance to counterbalance his
+pleasantry. Let him amuse the children, relax with jocosity the
+sternness of adults, and wreathe into smiles the wrinkles of old age.
+Let him, in a word, be a Merry Andrew,--the patron and promoter of
+frolicsomeness. To be only this is nothing to his discredit; and to
+esteem him for being only this is not to pay respect to a worthless
+mountebank.
+
+But Punch is and can be something more than a caterer of sport. Kings,
+in the olden time, had their jesters, who, under cover of blunt
+witticisms, were permitted, to utter home-truths, which it would have
+cost grave counsellors and dependent courtiers their heads to even
+whisper. Punch should enjoy a similar immunity in this age,--and society
+tolerate his free and smiling speech, when it would thrust out sager
+monitors. If it be true that
+
+    "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,"
+
+something like the converse of this saying is also true. Not fools
+exactly, but wisdom disguised in the motley of wit, often gains entrance
+to ears deaf to angelic voices. There are follies that are to be laughed
+out of their silliness and sinfulness. There are tyrants, big and
+little, to be dethroned by ridicule. There are offences, proof against
+appeals to conscience, that wince and vanish before keen satire. Even as
+a well-aimed joke brings back good-humor to an angry mob, or makes mad
+and pugnacious bullies cower and slink away from derision harder to
+stand than hard knocks,--even so will a quizzical Punch be efficient as
+a philanthropist, when sedate exhortations or stern warnings would fail
+to move stony insensibility.
+
+As an element in effective literature, a force in the cause of reform,
+the qualities Punch personifies have been and are of no slight service.
+And herein those qualities have an indefeasible title to regard. Let
+there be no vinegar-faced, wholesale denunciation of them, because
+sometimes their pranks are wild and overleap the fences of propriety.
+Rather let appreciation of their worthiness accompany all reproving
+checks upon their extravagances. Let nimble fun, explosive jokes,
+festoon-faced humor, the whole tribe of gibes and quirks, every light,
+keen, and flashing weapon in the armory of which Punch is the keeper, be
+employed to make the world laugh, and put the world's laughter on the
+side of all right as against all wrong. If this be not done, the
+seriousness of life will darken into gloom, its work become slavish
+tasks, and the conflict waged be a terrible conflict between grim
+virtues and fiendish vices. If you could shroud the bright skies with
+black tempest-clouds, burn to ashes the rainbow-hued flowers, strike
+dumb the sweet melodies of the grove, and turn to stagnant pools the
+silver streams,--if you could do this, thinking thereby to make earth
+more of a paradise, you would be scarcely less insane than if you were
+to denounce and banish all
+
+    "Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
+    Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
+    Sport, that wrinkled care derides,
+    And laughter, holding both his sides."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 4: See _Parton's Humorous Poetry_.]
+
+
+
+
+THE SUBJECTIVE OF IT.
+
+
+Toward the close of a dreamy, tranquil July day, a day made impressive
+beyond the possible comprehension of a dweller in civilization by its
+sun having risen for us over the unbroken wilderness of the Adirondack,
+a mountain-land in each of whose deep valleys lies a blue lake, we, a
+party of hunters and recreation-seekers, six beside our guides, lay on
+the fir-bough-cushioned floor of our dark camp, passing away the little
+remnant of what had been a day of rest to our guides and of delicious
+idleness to ourselves. The camp was built on the bold shore of a lake
+which yet wants a name worthy its beauty, but which we always, for want
+of such a one, call by that which its white discoverer left
+it,--Tupper's Lake,--whose waters, the untremulous mirror of the forests
+and mountains around and the sky above, gleamed to us only in blue
+fragments through the interstices of the leafy veil that intervened. The
+forest is unbroken to the water's edge, and even out over the water
+itself it stretches its firs and cedars, gray and moss-draped, with here
+and there a moisture-loving white-birch, so that from the very shore one
+sees only suggestive bits of distance and sky; and from where we were
+lying, sky, hills, and the water below were all blue alike, and
+undistinguishable alike, glimpses of a world of sunlight, which the
+grateful shadow we lay in made delicious to the thought. We were
+sheltered right woodsman-like;--our little house of fresh-peeled bark of
+spruces, twelve feet by nine, open only to the east, on which side lay
+the lake, shielded us from wind and rain, and the huge trees shut around
+us so closely that no eye could pierce a pistol-shot into their glades.
+There were blue-jays all about us, making the woods ring with their
+querulous cries, and a single fish-hawk screamed from the blue overhead,
+as he sailed round and round, watching the chances of a supper in the
+lake. Between us and the water's edge, and a little to one side of the
+path we had bushed out to the shore, was the tent of the guides, and
+there they lay asleep, except one who was rubbing up his "man's" rifle,
+which had been forgotten the night before when we came in from the hunt,
+and so had gathered rust.
+
+Three of our party were sleeping, and the others talked quietly and low,
+desultorily, as if the drowsiness had half conquered us too. The
+conversation had rambled round from a discussion on the respective
+merits of the Sharp's and the Kentucky rifles (consequent on a trial of
+skill and rifles which we had had after dinner) to Spiritualism,--led to
+this last topic by my relation of some singular experiences I had met in
+the way of presentiments and what seemed almost like second-sight,
+during a three-months' sojourn in the woods several summers before.
+There is something wonderfully exciting to the imagination in the
+wilderness, after the first impression of monotony and lonesomeness has
+passed away and there comes the necessity to animate this so vacant
+world with something. And so the pines lift themselves grimly against
+the twilight sky, and the moanings of the woods become full of meaning
+and mystery. Living, therefore, summer after summer, as I had done, in
+the wilderness, until there is no place in the world which seems so much
+like a home to me as a bark camp in the Adirondack, I had come to be
+what most people would call morbid, but what I felt to be only sensitive
+to the things around, which we never see, but to which we all at times
+pay the deference of a tremor of inexplicable fear, a quicker and less
+deeply drawn breath, an involuntary turning of the head to see something
+which we know we shall not see, yet are glad to find that we do
+not,--all which things we laugh at as childish when they have passed,
+yet tremble at as readily when they come again. J., who was both poet
+and philosopher, singularly clear and cold in his analyses, and at the
+same time of so great imaginative power that he could set his creations
+at work and then look on and reason out the law of their working as
+though they were not his, had wonders to tell which always passed mine
+by a degree; his experiences were more various and marvellous than mine,
+yet he had a reason for everything, to which I was compelled to defer
+without being convinced. "Yes," said he, finally knocking out the ashes
+from his meerschaum, as we rose, at the Doctor's suggestion, to take a
+row out on the lake while the sun was setting,--"Yes, I believe in
+_your_ kind of a 'spiritual world,'--but that it is purely subjective."
+
+I was silenced in a moment;--this single sentence, spoken like the
+expression of the experience of a lifetime, produced an effect which all
+his logic could not. He had rubbed some talismanic opal, pronouncing the
+spirit-compelling sentence engraved thereon, and a new world of doubts
+and mysteries, marvels and revelations burst on me. One phase of
+existence, which had been hitherto a reality to me, melted away into the
+thinness of an uncompleted dream; but as it melted away, there appeared
+behind it a whole universe, of which I had never before dreamed. I had
+puzzled my brains over the metaphysics of subjectivity and objectivity
+and found only words; now I grasped and comprehended the round of the
+thing. I looked through the full range of human cognitions, and found,
+from beginning to end, a proclamation of the presence of that
+arch-magician, Imagination. I had said to myself,--"The universe is
+subjective to Deity, objective to me; but if I am his image, what is
+that part of me which corresponds to the Creator in Him?" Here I found
+myself, at last, the creator of a universe of unsubstantialities, all of
+the stuff that dreams are made of, and all alike unconsciously evoked,
+whether they were the dreams of sleep or the hauntings of waking hours.
+I grew bewildered as the thought loomed up in its eternal significance,
+and a thousand facts and phenomena, which had been standing in the
+darkness around my little circle of vision, burst into light and
+recognition, as though they had been waiting beyond the outer verge for
+the magic words. J. had spoken them.
+
+Silent, almost for the moment unconscious of external things, in the
+intense exaltation of thought and feeling, I walked down to the shore.
+Taking the lightest and fleetest of our boats, we pushed off on the
+perfectly tranquil water. There was no flaw in the mirror which gave us
+a duplicated world. Line for line, tint for tint, the noble mountain
+that lifts itself at the east, robed in primeval forest to its very
+summit, and now suffused with rosy light from the sun, already hidden
+from us by a low ridge in the west, was reproduced in the void below us.
+The shadow of the western ridge began to climb the opposite bluffs of
+the lake shore. We pulled well out into the lake and lay on our oars. If
+anything was said, I do not remember it. I was as one who had just heard
+words from the dead, and hears as prattle all the sounds of common life.
+My eyes, my ears, were opened anew to Nature, and it seemed even as if
+some new sense had been given me. I felt, as I never felt before, the
+cool gloom of the shadow creep up, ridge after ridge, towards the
+solitary peak, irresistibly and triumphantly encroaching on the light,
+which fought back towards the summit, where it must yield at last. It
+drew back over ravines and gorges, over the wildernesses of unbroken
+firs which covered all the upper portion of the mountain, deepening its
+rose-tint and gaining in intensity what it lost in expanse,--diminished
+to a handbreadth, to a point, and, flickering an instant, went out,
+leaving in the whole range of vision no speck of sunlight to relieve the
+wilderness of shadowy gloom. I had come under a spell,--for, often as I
+had seen the sun set in the mountains and over the lakes, I had never
+before felt as I now felt, that I was a part in the landscape, and that
+it was something more to me than rocks and trees. The sunlight had died
+on it. J. took up the oars and our silently-moving boat broke the glassy
+surface again. All around us no distinction was visible between the
+landscape above and that below, no water-line could be found; and to the
+west, where the sky was still glowing and golden, with faint bands of
+crimson cirrus swept across the deep and tremulous blue, growing purple
+as the sun sank lower, we could distinguish nothing in the landscape.
+Neither sound nor motion of animate or inanimate thing disturbed the
+scene, save that of the oars, with the long lines of blue which ran off
+from the wake of the boat into the mystery closing behind us. A
+rifle-shot rang out from the landing and rolled in multitudinous echoes
+around the lake, dying away in faintest thunders and murmurings from the
+ravines on the side of the mountain. It was the call to supper, and we
+pulled back to the light of the fire, which was now glimmering through
+the trees from the front of the camp.
+
+Supper over, the smokers lighted their pipes and a rambling conversation
+began on the sights and sounds of the day. For my own part, unable to
+quiet the uneasy questioning which possessed me, I wandered down to the
+shore and took a seat in the stern of one of the boats, which, hauled
+part of their length upon the sandy beach, reached out some distance
+among the lily-pads which covered the shallow water, and whose folded
+flowers dotted the surface, the white points alone visible. The uneasy
+question still stirred within me; and now, looking towards the
+northwest, where the sky yet glowed faintly with twilight, a long line
+of pines, gaunt and humanesque, as no tree but our northern white-pine
+is, was relieved in massy blackness against the golden gray, like a long
+procession of giants. They were in groups of two and three, with now and
+then an isolated one, stretching along the horizon, losing themselves in
+the gloom of the mountains at the north. The weirdness of the scene
+caught my excited imagination in an instant, and I became conscious of
+two mental phenomena. The first was an impression of motion in the
+trees, which, whimsical as it was, I had not the slightest power to
+dispel. I trembled from head to foot under the consciousness of this
+supernatural vitality. My rational faculties were as clear as ever they
+had been, and I understood perfectly that the semblance of motion was
+owing to two characteristics of the white-pine, namely,--that it follows
+the shores of the lakes in lines, rarely growing back at any distance
+from the water, except when it follows, in the same orderly
+arrangement, the rocky ridges,--and that, from its height above all
+other forest-trees, it catches the full force of the prevalent winds,
+which here are from the west, and consequently leans slightly to the
+east, much as a person leans in walking. These traits of the tree
+explained entirely the phenomenon; yet the knowledge of them had not the
+slightest effect to undeceive my imagination. I was awe-struck, as
+though the phantoms of some antediluvian race had arisen from the
+valleys of the Adirondack and were marching in silence to their old
+fanes on the mountain-tops. I cowered in the boat under an absolute
+chill of nervous apprehension.--The second phenomenon was, that I heard
+_mentally_ a voice which said distinctly these words,-"The procession of
+the Anakim!"--and at the same time I became conscious of some
+disembodied spiritual being standing near me, as we are sometimes aware
+of the presence of a friend without having seen him. Every one
+accustomed to solitary thought has probably recognized this kind of
+mental action, and speculated on the strange duality of Nature implied
+in it. The spiritualists call it "impressional communication," and
+abandon themselves to its vagaries in the belief that it is really the
+speech of angels; men of thought find in it a mystery of mental
+organization, and avail themselves of it under the direction of their
+reason. I at present speculated with the philosophers; but my
+imagination, siding with the spiritualists, assured me that some one
+spoke to me, and reason was silenced. I sat still as long as I could
+endure it, alone, and then crept back, trembling, to the camp,--feeling
+quiet only when surrounded by the rest of the party.
+
+My attendant daemon did not leave me, I found; for now I heard the
+question asked, half-tauntingly,--"Subjective or objective?"
+
+I asked myself, in reply,--"Am I mad or sane?"
+
+"Quite sane, but with your eyes opened to something new!" was the
+instantaneous reply.
+
+On such expeditions, men get back to the primitive usages and conditions
+of humanity. We had arisen at daybreak; darkness brought the disposition
+to rest. We arranged ourselves side by side on the couch of balsam and
+cedar boughs which the guides had spread on the ground of the camp, our
+feet to the fire, and all but myself soon slept. I lay a long time,
+excited, looking out through the open front of the camp at the stars
+which shone in through the trees, and even they seemed partakers of my
+new state of existence, and twinkled consciously and confidentially, as
+to one who shared the secret of their own existence and purposes. The
+pine-trees overhead had an added tone in their meanings, and indeed
+everything, as I regarded it, seemed to manifest a new life, to become
+identified with me: Nature and I had all things in common. I slept, at
+length,--a strange kind of sleep; for when the guides awoke me, in the
+full daylight, I was conscious of some one having talked with me through
+the night.
+
+In broad day, with my companions, and in motion, the influences of the
+previous evening seemed to withdraw themselves to a remote
+distance,--yet I was aware of their awaiting me when I should be
+unoccupied. The day was as brilliant, as tranquil as its predecessor,
+and the council decided that it should be devoted to a "drive," for we
+had eaten the last of our venison for breakfast. The party were assigned
+their places at those points of the lake where the deer would be most
+likely to take the water, while my guide, Steve M----, and myself went
+up Bog River, to start him. The river, a dark, sluggish stream, about
+fifty feet wide, the channel by which the Mud Lakes and Little Tupper's
+Lake, with its connected lakes and ponds, empty into Tupper's Lake, is a
+favorite feeding-ground with the deer, whose breakfast is made on the
+leaves of the _Nuphar lutea_ which edge the stream. We surprised one,
+swimming around amongst the leaves, snatching here and there the
+choicest of them, and when he turned to go out and rose in the water,
+as his feet touched bottom, I gave him a ball without fatal effect, and
+landing, we put Carlo on the track, which was marked by occasional drops
+and clots of blood, and hearing him well off into the woods, and in that
+furious and deep bay which indicates close pursuit, we went back to our
+boat and paddled upstream to a run-way Steve knew of, where the deer
+sometimes crossed the river. We pushed the boat into the overhanging
+alders which fringe the banks, leaning out into and over the water, and
+listened to the far-off bay of the hound. It died away and was entirely
+lost for a few minutes, and then came into hearing from the nearer side
+of the ridge, which lay back from the river a hundred rods or so, and I
+cocked my rifle while Steve silently pushed the boat out of the bushes,
+ready for a start, if the deer should "water." The baying receded again,
+and this time in the direction of the lake. The blood we had found on
+the trail was the bright, red, frothy blood which showed that the ball
+had passed through the lungs, and, as we knew that the deer would not
+run long before watering, we were sure that this would be his last turn
+and that he was making in earnest for the lake, where some of the boats
+would certainly catch him.
+
+The excitement of the hunt had brought me back to a natural state of
+feeling, and now, as I lay in the stern of the boat, drifting slowly
+down-stream, and looked up into the hazy blue sky, in the whole expanse
+of which appeared no fragment of cloud, and the softened sunshine
+penetrated both soul and body, while the brain, lulled into lethargy by
+the unbroken silence and monotony of forest around, lost every trace of
+its midsummer madness,--I looked back to the state of the last evening
+as to a curious dream. I asked myself wherein it differed from a dream,
+and instantly my daemon replied, "In no wise." The instant reply
+surprised me, without startling me from my lethargy. I responded, as a
+matter of course, "But if no more than a dream, it amounts to nothing."
+It answered me, "But when a man dreams wide awake?" I pondered an
+instant, and it went on: "And how do you know that dreams are nothing?
+They are real while they last, and your waking life is no more; you wake
+to one and sleep to the other. Which is the real, and which the false?
+since you assume that one is false." I only asked myself again the
+eternal question, "Objective or subjective?" and the daemon made no
+further suggestion. At this instant we heard the report of a gun from
+the lake. "That's the Doctor's shot-gun," said Steve, and pulled
+energetically down-stream; for we knew, that, if the Doctor had fired,
+the deer had come in,--and if he had missed the first shot, he had a
+second barrel, which we should have heard from.
+
+Among the most charming cascades in the world is certainly that which
+Bog River makes where it falls into Tupper's Lake. Its amber water,
+black in the deep channel above the fall, dividing into several small
+streams, slips with a plunge of, it may be, six feet over the granite
+rocks, into a broad, deep pool, round which tall pines stand, and over
+which two or three delicate-leaved white-birches lean, from which basin
+the waters plunge in the final foamy rush of thirty or forty feet over
+the irregularly broken ledge which makes the bold shore of the lake.
+Between the two points of rock which confine the stream is thrown a
+bridge, part of the military road from the Mohawk settlements to those
+on the St. Lawrence, built during the war of 1812. On this bridge I
+waited until Steve had carried the boat around, when we reembarked for
+the camp.
+
+Arriving at the landing, we found two of the guides dressing the
+Doctor's deer, and the others preparing for dinner. As night came on my
+excitement returned, and I remained in the camp while the others went
+out on the lake,--not from fear of such an experience as I had the night
+before, for I enjoyed the wild emotions, as one enjoys the raging of the
+sea around the rocks he stands on, with a kind of tremulous
+apprehension,--but to see what effect the camp would produce on the
+state of feeling which I had begun to look at as something normal in my
+mental development. The rest of the party had gone out in two boats, and
+three of the guides, taking another, went on an excursion of their own;
+the two remaining, having cleared the supper-things away and lighted
+their pipes, were engaged in their tent, playing _old sledge_ by the
+light of a single candle. There was a race out on the lake, and a
+far-off merriment, with an occasional halloo, like a suggestion of a
+busy world somewhere, but all so softened and toned down that it did not
+jar on my tranquillity. There was a crackling fire of green logs as
+large as the guides could lift and lay on, and they simmered in the
+blaze, and lit up the surrounding tree-trunks and the overhanging
+foliage, and faintly explored the recesses of the forest beyond. I lay
+on the blankets, and near to me seemed to sit my daemon, ready to be
+questioned.
+
+At this instant there came a doubt of the theological position of my
+ghostly _vis-a-vis_, and I abruptly thought the question, "Who are you?"
+
+"Nobody," replied the daemon, oracularly.
+
+This I knew in one sense to be true; and I replied, "But you know what I
+mean. Don't trifle. Of what nature is your personality?"
+
+"Do you think," it replied, "that personality is necessary to existence?
+We are spirit."
+
+"But wherein, save in the having or not having a body, do you differ
+from me?"
+
+"In all the consequences of that difference."
+
+"Very well,--go on."
+
+"Don't you see that without your circumstances you are only half a
+being?--that you are shaped by the action and reaction between your own
+mind and surrounding things, and that the body is the only medium of
+this action and reaction? Do you not see that without this there would
+have been no consciousness of self, and consequently neither
+individuality nor personality? Remove those circumstances by removing
+the body, and do you not remove personality?"
+
+"But," said I, "you certainly have individuality, and wherein does that
+differ from personality?"
+
+"Possibly you commit two mistakes," replied the daemon. "As to the
+distinction, it is one with a difference. You are personal to yourself,
+individual to others; and we, though individual to you, may be still
+impersonal. If spirit takes form from having something to act on, the
+fact that we act on you is sufficient, so far as you are concerned, to
+cause an individuality."
+
+I hesitated, puzzled.
+
+It went on: "Don't you see that the inertia of spirit is motion, as that
+of matter is rest? Now compare this universal spirit to a river flowing
+tranquilly, and which in itself gives no evidence of motion, save when
+it meets with some inert point of resistance. This point of resistance
+has the effect of action in itself, and you attribute to _it_ all the
+eddies and ripples produced. You _must_ see that your own immobility is
+the cause of the phenomena of life which give you your apparent
+existence;--our individuality to you may be just as much the effect of
+your personality; you find us only responsive to your own mental state."
+
+I was conscious of a sophistry somewhere, but could not, for the life of
+me, detect it. I thought of the Tempter; I almost feared to listen to
+another word; but the daemon seemed so fair, so rational, and, above all,
+so confident of truth, that I could not entertain my fears.
+
+"But," said I, finally, "if my personality is owing to my physical
+circumstances, to my body and its immobility, what is the body itself
+owing to?"
+
+"All physical or organic existence is owing to the antagonism between
+certain particles of matter, fixed and resistant, and the all-pervading,
+ever-flowing spirit; the different inertiae conflict, and end by
+combining in an organic being, since neither can be annihilated or
+transmuted. Perhaps we can tell you, by-and-by, how this antagonism
+commences; at present, you would scarcely be able to comprehend it
+clearly."
+
+This I felt, for I was already getting confused with the questions that
+occurred to me as to the relations between spirit and matter.
+
+I asked once more, "Have you never been personal, as I am?--have you
+never had a body and a name?"
+
+"Perhaps," was the reply,--"but it must have been long since; and the
+trifling circumstances which you call life, with all their direct and
+recognizable effects, pass away so soon, that it is impossible to recall
+anything of it. There seems a kind of consciousness when we have
+something to act against, as against your mind at the present moment;
+but as to name, and all that kind of distinctiveness, what is the use of
+it where there is no possibility of confusion or mistake as to identity?
+We have said that we are spirit; and when we say that spirit is one and
+matter one, we have gone behind personal identity."
+
+"But," asked I, "am I to lose my individual existence,--to become
+finally merged in a universal impersonality? What, then, is the object
+of life?"
+
+"You see the plants and animals all around you growing up and passing
+away,--each entering its little orbit, and sweeping through this sphere
+of cognizance back again to the same mystery it emerged from; you never
+ask the question as to them, but for yourself you are anxious. If you
+had not been, would creation have been any less creation?--if you cease,
+will it not still be as great? Truly, though, your mistake is one of too
+little, not of too much. You assume that the animals become nothing;
+but, truly, nothing dies. The very crystals into which all the so-called
+primitive substances are formed, and which are the first forms of
+organization, have a spirit in them; for they obey something which
+inhabits and organizes them. If you could decompose the crystal, would
+you annihilate the soul which organized it? The plant absorbs the
+crystal, and it becomes a part of a higher organization, which could no
+more exist without its soul; and if the plant is cut down and cast into
+the oven, is the organic impulse food for the flames? You, the animal,
+do but exist through the absorption of these vegetable substances, and
+why should you not obey the analogical law of absorption and
+aggregation? You killed a deer to-day;--the flesh you will appropriate
+to supply the wants of your own material organization; but the life, the
+spirit which made that flesh a deer, in obedience to which that shell of
+external appearance is moulded,--you missed that. You can trace the body
+in its metamorphoses; but for this impalpable, active, and only real
+part of the being,--it were folly to suppose it more perishable, more
+evanescent, than the matter of which it was master. And why should not
+you, as well as the deer, go back into the great Life from which you
+came? As to a purpose in creation, why should there be any other than
+that which existence always shows,--that of existing?"
+
+I now began to notice that all the leading ideas which the daemon offered
+were put in the form of questions, as if from a cautious
+non-committalism, or as if it dared not in so many words say that they
+were the absolute truth. I felt that there was another side to the
+matter, and was confident that I should detect the sophistry of the
+daemon; but then I did not feel able to carry the conversation farther,
+and was sensible of a readiness on the part of my interlocutor to cease.
+I wondered at this, and if it implied weariness on its part, when it was
+replied,--"We answer to your own mind; of course, when that ceases to
+act, there ceases to be reaction." I cried out in my own mind, in utter
+bewilderment,--"Objective or subjective?" and ceased my questionings.
+
+The camp-fire glowed splendidly through the overhanging branches and
+foliage, and I longed for a revel of light. I asked the guides to make a
+"blaze," and, after a minute's delay and an ejaculation of "_Game, to
+your high, low, jack_," they emerged from the tent and in a few minutes
+had cut down several small dead spruces and piled the tops on the fire,
+which flashed up through the pitchy, inflammable mass, and we had a
+pyrotechnical display which startled the birds, that had gone to rest in
+the assurance of night, into a confused activity and clamor. The heat
+penetrated the camp and gave me a drowsiness which my disturbed repose
+of the night before rendered extremely grateful, and when the rest of
+the party returned from their row, I was asleep.
+
+It was determined, the next morning, in council, to move; and one of the
+guides having informed us of a newly-opened carry, by which we could
+cross from Little Tupper's Lake, ten miles above us, directly to Forked
+Lake, and thence following the usual route down the Raquette River and
+through Long Lake, we could reach Martin's on Saranac Lake without
+retracing our steps, except over the short distance from the Raquette
+through the Saranac Lakes,--after breakfast, we hurriedly packed up our
+traps and were off as early as might be. It is hard boating up the Bog
+River, and hard work both for guides and tourists. All the boats and
+baggage had to be carried three miles, on the backs of the guides, and,
+help them as much as we could, the day had drawn nearly to its close
+before we were fairly embarked on Little Tupper's, and we had then
+nearly ten miles to go before reaching Constable's Camp, where we were
+to stop for the night. I worked hard all day, but in a kind of dream, as
+if the dead weight I carried with weariness were only the phantom of
+something, and I were a fantasy carrying it;--the actual had become
+visionary, and my imaginings nudged me and jostled me almost off the
+path of reason. But I had no time for a _seance_ with my daemon. The next
+day I devoted with the guides to bushing out the carry across to Forked
+Lake, about three and a half miles, through perfectly pathless woods;
+for we found Sam's statements as to the carry being chopped out entirely
+false; only a blazed line existed; so all the guides, except one, set to
+work with myself bushing and chopping out, while the other guide and the
+rest of the party spent the day in hunting. At the close of the day we
+had completed nearly two miles of the path, and returned to Constable's
+Camp to sleep. The next day we succeeded in getting the boats and
+baggage through to Bottle Pond, two and a half miles, and the whole
+party camped on the carry,--the guides anathematizing Sam, whose advice
+had led us on this road. The next afternoon found us afloat on Forked
+Lake, weary and glad to be in the sunlight on blue water again. Hard
+work and the excitement of responsibility in engineering our road-making
+operations had kept my visitor from dream-land away, and as we paddled
+leisurely down the beautiful lake,--one of the few yet untouched by the
+lumbermen,--I felt a healthier tone of mind than I had known since we
+had entered the woods. As we ran out of one of the deep bays which
+constitute a large portion of the lake, into the principal sheet of
+water, one of the most perfectly beautiful mountain-views I have ever
+seen burst upon us. We looked down the lake to its outlet, five miles,
+between banks covered with tall pines, and far away in the hazy
+atmosphere a chain of blue peaks raised themselves sharp-edged against
+the sky. One singularly-shaped summit, far to the south, attracted my
+attention, and I was about to ask its name, when Steve called out, with
+the air of one who communicates something of more than ordinary
+significance,--"Blue Mountain!" The name, Steve's manner, and I know not
+what of mysterious cause, gave to the place a strange importance. I felt
+a new and unaccountable attraction to the mountain. Some enchantment
+seemed to be casting its glamour over me from that distance even. There
+was thenceforward no goal for my wanderings but the Blue Mountain. It is
+a solitary peak, one of the southernmost of the Adirondacks, of a very
+quaint form, and lies in a circlet of lakes, three of which in a chain
+are named from the mountain. The way by which the mountain is reached is
+through these lakes, and their outlet, which empties into Raquette Lake.
+I had determined to remain in the woods some weeks, and now concluded to
+return, as soon as I had seen the rest of the party on their way home,
+and take up quarters on Raquette Lake for the rest of my stay.
+
+That night we camped at the foot of Forked Lake, and not one of the
+party will ever forget the thunder-storm that burst on us in our
+woods-encampment among the tall pines, two of which, near us, were
+struck by the lightning. I tried in vain, when we were quiet for the
+night, to get some information on the subject of my attraction to the
+Blue Mountain. My daemon appeared remote and made no responses. It seemed
+as if, knowing my resolution to stay alone there, it had resolved to be
+silent until I was without any cause for interruption of our colloquies.
+Save the consciousness of its remote attendance, I felt no recurrence of
+my past experience, until, having seen my friends on the road to
+civilization again, I left Martin's with Steve and Carlo for my quarters
+on the Raquette. We hurried back up the river as fast as four strong
+arms could propel our light boat, and resting, the second night, at
+Wilbur's, on Raquette Lake, I the next morning selected a site for a
+camp, where we built a neat little bark-house, proof against all
+discomforts of an elemental character, and that night I rested under my
+own roof, squatter though I was. The daemon seemed in no haste to renew
+our former intimate intercourse,--for what reason I could not divine;
+but a few days after my settling, days spent in exploring and planning,
+it resumed suddenly its functions. It came to me out on the lake, where
+I had paddled to enjoy the starlight in the delicious evening, when the
+sky was filled with luminous vapor, through which the stars struggled
+dimly, and in which the landscape was almost as clearly visible as by
+moonlight.
+
+"Well!" said I, familiarly, as I felt it take its place by my side, "you
+have come back."
+
+"_Come back!_" it replied; "will you never get beyond your miserable
+ideas of space, and learn that there is no separation but that of
+feeling, no nearness but that of sympathy? If you had cared enough for
+us, we should have been with you constantly."
+
+I was anxious to get to the subject of present interest, and did not
+stop to discuss a point which, in one, and the highest sense, I
+admitted.
+
+"What," I asked, "was that impulse which urged me to go to the Blue
+Mountain? Shall I find there anything supernatural?"
+
+"_Anything supernatural?_ What is there above Nature, or outside of it?"
+
+"But nothing is without cause; and for an emotion so strong as I
+experienced, on the sight of those mountains, there must have been one."
+
+"Very likely! if you go after it, you will find it. You probably expect
+to find some beautiful enchantress keeping her court on the
+mountain-top, and a suite of fairies."
+
+I started, for, absurd as it may seem, that very idea, half-formed,
+undeveloped from very shame at my superstition, had rested in my mind.
+
+"And," said I, at a loss what to say, "are there no such things
+possible?"
+
+"All things are possible to the imagination."
+
+"To create?"
+
+"Most certainly! Is not creation the act of bringing into existence? and
+does not your Hamlet exist as immortally as your Shakspeare? The only
+true existence, is it not that of the Idea? Have you not seen the pines
+transfigured?"
+
+"And if I imagined a race of fairies inhabiting the Blue Mountain,
+should I find them?"
+
+"If you _imagined_ them, yes! But the imagination is not voluntary; it
+works to supply a necessity; its function is creation, and creation is
+needed only to fill a vacuum. The wild Arab, feeling his own
+insignificance, and comprehending the necessity for a Creating Power,
+finds between himself and that Power, which to him, as to you the other
+day, assumes a personality, an immense distance, and fills the space
+with a race half divine, half human. It was the necessity for the fairy
+which created the fairy. You do not feel the same distance between
+yourself and a Creator, and so you do not call into existence a creative
+race of the same character; but has not your own imagination furnished
+you with images to which you may give your reverence? It may be that you
+diminish that distance by degrading the Great First Cause to an image of
+your personality, and so are not so wise as the Arab, who at once admits
+it to be unattainable. Each man shapes that which he looks up to by his
+desires or fears, and these in their turn are the results of his degree
+of development."
+
+"But God, is not He the Supreme Creator?"
+
+"Is it not as we said, that you measure the Supreme by yourself? Can you
+not comprehend a supreme law, an order which controls all things?"
+
+In my meditations this doubt had often presented itself to me, and I had
+as often put it resolutely aside; but now to hear it urged on me in this
+way from this mysterious presence troubled me, and I shrank from further
+discussion of the topic. I earnestly desired a fuller knowledge of the
+nature of my colloquist.
+
+"Tell me," said I, "do you not take cognizance of my personality?--do
+you read my past and my future?"
+
+"Your past and future are contained in your present. Who can analyze
+what you are can see the things which made you such; for effect contains
+its cause;--to see the future, it needs only to know the laws which
+govern all things. It is a simple problem: you being given, with the
+inevitable tendencies to which you are subject, the result is your
+future; the flight of one of your rifle-balls cannot be calculated with
+greater certainty."
+
+"But how shall we know those laws?" said I.
+
+"You contain them all, for you are the result of them; and they are
+always the same,--not one code for your beginning, and another for your
+continuance. Man is the complete embodiment of all the laws thus far
+developed, and you have only to know yourself to know the history of
+creation."
+
+This I could not gainsay, and my mind, wearied, declined to ask further.
+I returned to camp and went to sleep.
+
+Several days passed without any remarkable progress in my knowledge of
+this strange being, though I found myself growing more and more
+sensitive to the presence of it each day; and at the same time the
+incomprehensible sympathy with Nature, for I know not what else to call
+it, seemed growing stronger and more startling in the effects it
+produced on the landscape. The influence was no longer confined to
+twilight, but made noon-day mystical; and I began to hear strange sounds
+and words spoken by disembodied voices,--not like that of my daemon, but
+unaccompanied by any feeling of personal presence connected therewith.
+It seemed as if the vibrations shaped themselves into words, some of
+them of singular significance. I heard my name called, and the strangest
+laughs on the lake at night. My daemon seemed averse to answering any
+questions on the topic of these illusions. The only reply was,--"You
+would be wiser, not knowing too much."
+
+Ere many days of this solitary life had passed, I found my whole
+existence taken up by my fantasies. I determined to make my excursion to
+the Blue Mountain, and, sending Steve down to the post-office, a
+three-days' journey, I took the boat, with Carlo and my rifle, and
+pushed off. The outlet of the Blue Mountain Lakes is like all the
+Adirondack streams, dark and shut in by forest, which scarcely permits
+landing anywhere. Now and then a log fallen into the water compels the
+voyager to get out and lift his boat over; then a shallow rapid must be
+dragged over; and when the stream is clear of obstruction, it is too
+narrow for any mode of propulsion but poling or paddling.
+
+I had worked several weary hours, and the sun had passed the meridian,
+when I emerged from the forest into a wild, swampy flat,--"wild meadow,"
+the guides call it,--through which the stream wound, and around which
+was a growth of tall larches backed by pines. Where the brook seemed to
+reenter the wood on the opposite side, stood two immense pines, like
+sentinels, and such they became to me; and they looked grim and
+threatening, with their huge arms reaching over the gateway. I drew my
+boat up on the boggy shore at the foot of a solitary tamarack, into
+which I climbed as high as I could to look over the wood beyond.
+
+Never shall I forget what I saw from that swaying look-out. Before me
+was the mountain, perhaps five miles away, covered with dense forest to
+within a few hundred feet of the summit, which showed bare rock with
+firs clinging in the clefts and on the tables, and which was crowned by
+a walled city, the parapet of whose walls cut with a sharp, straight
+line against the sky, and beyond showed spire and turret and the tops of
+tall trees. The walls must have been at least a hundred and fifty feet
+high, and I could see here and there between the group of firs traces of
+a road coming down the mountain-side. And I heard one of those mocking
+voices say, "The city of silence!"--nothing more. I felt strongly
+tempted to start on a flight through the air towards the city, and why I
+did not launch forth on the impulse I know not. My blood rushed through
+my veins with maddest energy, and my brain seemed to have been replaced
+by some ethereal substance, and to be capable of floating me off as if
+it were a balloon. Yet I clung and looked, my whole soul in my eyes, and
+had no thought of losing the spectacle for an instant, even were it to
+reach the city itself. The glorious glamour of that place and moment,
+who can comprehend it? The wind swung my tree-top to and fro, and I
+climbed up until the tree bent with my weight like a twig under a
+bird's.
+
+Presently I heard bells and strains of music, as though all the military
+bands in the city were coming together on the walls; and the sounds rose
+and fell with the wind,--one moment entirely lost, another full and
+triumphant. Then I heard the sound of hunting-horns and the baying of a
+pack of hounds, deep-mouthed, as if a hunting-party were coming down the
+mountain-side. Nearer and nearer they came, and I heard merry laughing
+and shouting as they swept through the valley. I feared for a moment
+that they would find me there, and drive me, intruding, from the
+enchanted land.
+
+But I must fathom the mystery, let what would come. I descended the
+tree, and when I had reached the boat again I found the whole thing
+changed. I understood that my city was only granite and fir-trees, and
+my music only the wind in the tree-tops. The reaction was sickening; the
+sunshine seemed dull and cold after the lost glory of that enchantment.
+The Blue Mountain was reached, its destiny fulfilled for me, and I
+returned to my camp, sick at heart, as one who has had a dear illusion
+dispelled.
+
+The next day my mind was unusually calm and clear. I asked my daemon what
+was the meaning of the enchantment of yesterday.
+
+"It was a freak of your imagination," it replied.
+
+"But what is this imagination, then, which, being a faculty of my own,
+yet masters my reason?"
+
+"Not at all a faculty, but your very highest self, your own life in
+creative activity. Your reason _is_ a faculty, and is subordinate to the
+purposes of your imagination. If, instead of regarding imagination as a
+pendant to your mental organization, you take it for what it is, a
+function, and the noblest one your mind knows, you will see at once why
+it is that it works unconsciously, just as you live unconsciously and
+involuntarily. Men set their reason and feeling to subdue what they
+consider a treacherous element in themselves; they succeed only in
+dwarfing their natures, and imagination is inert while reason controls;
+but when reason rests in sleep, and you cease to live to the external
+world, imagination resumes its normal power. You dream;--it is only the
+revival of that which you smother when you are awake. You consider the
+sights and sounds of yesterday follies; you reason;--imagination
+demonstrates its power by overturning your reason and deceiving your
+very senses."
+
+"You speak of its creations; I understand this in a certain sense; but
+if these were such, should not they have permanence? and can anything
+created perish?"
+
+"Nonsense! what will these trees be tomorrow? and the rocks you sit on,
+are they not changing to vegetation under you? The only creation is that
+of ideas; things are thin shadows. If man is not creative, he is still
+undeveloped."
+
+"But is not such an assumption trenching on the supremacy of God?" I
+asked.
+
+"What do you understand by 'God?'"
+
+"An infinitely wise and loving Controller of events, of course," I
+replied.
+
+"Did you ever find any one whose ideas on the subject agreed with
+yours?"
+
+"Not entirely."
+
+"Then your God is not the same as the God of other men; from the
+Fee-Jeean to the Christian there is a wide range. Of course there is a
+first great principle of life; but this personality you all worship, is
+it not a creation?"
+
+I now felt this to be the great point of the demon's urging; it recurred
+too often not to be designed. Led on by the sophistry of my tempter, I
+had floated unconsciously to this issue, practically admitting all; but
+when this suggestion stood completely unclothed before me, my soul rose
+in horror at the abyss before it. For an instant all was chaos, and the
+very order of Nature seemed disorder. Life and light vanished from the
+face of the earth; my night made all things dead and dark. A universe
+without a God! Creation seemed to me for that moment but a galvanized
+corse. What my emotions were no human being who has not felt them can
+conceive. My first impulse was to suicide; with the next I cried from
+the depths of my despair, "God deliver me from the body of this death!"
+It was but a moment,--and there came, in the place of the cold
+questioning voice of my daemon, one of ineffable music, repeating words
+familiar to me from childhood, words linked to everything loved and
+lovely in my past:--"Ye believe in God, believe also in me." The hot
+tears for another moment blotted out the world from sight. I said once
+more to the questioner, "Now who _are_ you?"
+
+"Your own doubts," was the reply; and it seemed as if only I spoke to
+myself.
+
+Since that day I have never reasoned with my doubts, never doubted my
+imagination.
+
+
+
+
+ALL'S WELL.
+
+
+    Sweet-voiced Hope, thy fine discourse
+      Foretold not half life's good to me;
+    Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force
+      To show how sweet it is to be!
+        Thy witching dream
+        And pictured scheme
+    To match the fact still want the power;
+      Thy promise brave
+      From birth to grave
+    Life's boon may beggar in an hour.
+
+    Ask and receive,--'tis sweetly said;
+      Yet what to plead for know I not;
+    For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped,
+      And aye to thanks returns my thought.
+        If I would pray,
+        I've nought to say
+    But this, that God may be God still;
+        For Him to live
+        Is still to give,
+    And sweeter than my wish his will.
+
+    O wealth of life beyond all bound!
+      Eternity each moment given!
+    What plummet may the Present sound?
+      Who promises a _future_ heaven?
+        Or glad, or grieved,
+        Oppressed, relieved,
+    In blackest night, or brightest day,
+        Still pours the flood
+        Of golden good,
+    And more than heartfull fills me aye.
+
+    My wealth is common; I possess
+      No petty province, but the whole;
+    What's mine alone is mine far less
+      Than treasure shared by every soul.
+        Talk not of store,
+        Millions or more,--
+    Of values which the purse may hold,--
+        But this divine!
+        I own the mine
+    Whose grains outweigh a planet's gold.
+
+    I have a stake in every star,
+      In every beam that fills the day;
+    All hearts of men my coffers are,
+      My ores arterial tides convey;
+        The fields, the skies,
+        And sweet replies
+    Of thought to thought are my gold-dust,--
+        The oaks, the brooks,
+        And speaking looks
+    Of lovers' faith and friendship's trust.
+
+    Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow
+      For him who lives above all years,
+    Who all-immortal makes the Now,
+      And is not ta'en in Time's arrears:
+        His life's a hymn
+        The seraphim
+    Might hark to hear or help to sing,
+        And to his soul
+      The boundless whole
+    Its bounty all doth daily bring.
+
+    "All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith;
+      "The wealth I am, must thou become:
+    Richer and richer, breath by breath,--
+      Immortal gain, immortal room!"
+        And since all his
+        Mine also is,
+    Life's gift outruns my fancies far,
+        And drowns the dream
+        In larger stream,
+    As morning drinks the morning-star.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIRDS OF THE PASTURE AND FOREST.
+
+
+He who has always lived in the city or its suburbs, who has seldom
+visited the interior except for purposes of trade, and whose walks have
+not often extended beyond those roads which are bordered on each side by
+shops and dwelling-houses, may never have heard the birds that form the
+subject of this sketch. These are the birds of the pasture and
+forest,--those shy, melodious warblers, who sing only in the ancient
+haunts of the Dryads, and of those nymphs who waited upon Diana in her
+hunting-excursions, but who are now recognized only by the beautiful
+plants which, with unseen hands, they rear in the former abodes of the
+celestial huntress. These birds have not probably multiplied, like the
+familiar birds, with the increase of human population and the extension
+of agriculture. They were perhaps as numerous in the days of King Philip
+as they are now. Though they do not shun mankind, they keep aloof from
+cultivated grounds, living chiefly in the deep wood or on the edge of
+the forest, and in the bushy pasture.
+
+There is a peculiar wildness in the songs of this class of birds, that
+awakens a delightful mood of mind, similar to that which is excited by
+reading the figurative lyrics of a romantic age. This feeling is,
+undoubtedly, to a certain extent, the effect of association. Having
+always heard their notes in rude, wild, and wooded places, they never
+fail to bring this kind of scenery vividly before the imagination, and
+their voices affect us like the sounds of mountain-streams. There is a
+little Sparrow which I often hear about the shores of unfrequented
+ponds, and in their untrodden islets, and never in any other situations.
+The sound of his voice, therefore, always enhances the sensation of rude
+solitude with which I contemplate this wild and desolate scenery. We
+often see him perched upon a dead tree that stands in the water, a few
+rods from the shore, apparently watching our angling operations from his
+leafless perch, where he sings so sweetly, that the very desolation of
+the scene borrows a charm from his voice that renders every object
+delightful. This bird I believe to be the _Fringilla palustris_ of
+Wilson.
+
+It is certain that the notes of the solitary birds, compared with those
+of the Robin and Linnet, excite a different class of sensations. I can
+imagine that there is a similar difference in the flavors of a cherry
+and a cranberry. If the former is sweeter, the latter has a spicy zest
+that is peculiar to what we call natural fruit. The effect is the same,
+however, whether it be attributable to some intrinsic quality, or to
+association, which is indeed the source of some of the most delightful
+emotions of the human soul.
+
+Nature has made all her scenes, and the sights and sounds that
+accompany them, more lovely, by causing them to be respectively
+suggestive of a certain class of sensations. The birds of the pasture
+and forest are not frequent enough in cultivated places to be associated
+with the garden or village inclosure. Nature has confined particular
+birds and animals to certain localities, and thereby adds a poetic and a
+picturesque attraction to their features. There are also certain flowers
+that cannot be cultivated in the garden, as if they were designed for
+the exclusive adornment of those secluded arbors which the spade and the
+plough have never profaned. Here flowers grow which are too holy for
+culture, and birds sing whose voices were never heard in the cage of the
+voluptuary, and whose tones inspire us with a sense of freedom known
+only to those who often retire from the world, to live in religious
+communion with Nature.
+
+When the flowers of early summer are gone, and the graceful neottia is
+seen in the meadows, extending its spiral clusters among the nodding
+grasses,--when the purple orchis is glowing in the wet grounds, and the
+roadsides are gleaming with the yellow blossoms of the hypericum, the
+merry voice of the Bobolink has ceased, and many other familiar birds
+have become almost silent. At this time, if we stroll away from the farm
+and the orchard into more retired and wooded haunts, we may hear, at all
+times of the day and at frequent intervals, the pensive and melodious
+notes of the Wood-Sparrow, who sings as if he were delighted at being
+left almost alone to warble and complain to the benevolent deities of
+the grove. He who in his youth has made frequent visits to these
+pleasant and solitary places, and wished that he could live and love
+forever among the wild-roses, the blushing azaleas, the red
+summer-lilies, and the thousands of beautiful and sweet-scented flowers
+that spring up among the various spicy and fruit-bearing shrubs which
+unite to form a genuine huckleberry-pasture,--he only knows the
+unspeakable delights which are awakened by the sweet, simple notes of
+this little warbler.
+
+The Wood-Sparrow (_Fringilla pusilla_) is somewhat less than a Canary,
+with a chestnut-colored crown; above of a grayish brown hue, and dusky
+white beneath. Though he does not seem to be a shy bird, I have never
+seen him in cultivated grounds, and the inmates of solitary cottages
+alone are privileged to hear his notes from their windows. He loves the
+hills which are half covered with young pines, viburnums, cornels, and
+huckleberry-bushes, and feeds upon the seeds of grasses and wild
+lettuce, with occasional repasts of insects and berries.
+
+His notes are sweet and plaintive, seldom consisting of more than one
+strain. He commences slowly, as if repeating the syllable, _de de de de
+de de d' d' d' d' d' d' d' r' r' r'_,--increasing in rapidity, and at
+the same time rising as it were by semi-tones, or chromatically, to
+about a major fourth on the scale. In midsummer, when this bird is most
+musical, he occasionally lengthens his song by alternately ascending and
+descending, interposing a few chirping notes between the ascending and
+descending series. The song loses a part of its simplicity, and, as it
+seems to me, is not improved by this variation.
+
+While listening to the notes of the Wood-Sparrow, we are continually
+saluted by the agreeable, though less musical song of the Chewink, or
+Ground-Robin,--a bird that frequents similar places. This is a very
+beautiful bird, elegantly spotted with white, red, and black,--the
+female being of a bright bay color where the male is red. Every rambler
+knows him, not only by his plumage and his peculiar note, but also by
+his singular habit of lurking about among the bushes, appearing and
+disappearing like a squirrel, and watching all our movements. Though he
+does not avoid our company, it is with difficulty that a marksman can
+obtain a good aim at him, so rapidly does he change his position among
+the leaves and branches. In this habit he resembles the Wren. While we
+are watching his motions, he pauses in his song, and utters that
+peculiar note of complaint from which he has derived his name,
+_Chewink_, though the sound he utters is more like _chewee_, accenting
+the second syllable.
+
+The Chewink (_Fringilla erythrophthalma_) is a very constant singer
+during four months of the year, from the middle of April. He is very
+untiring in his lays, seldom resting for any considerable time from
+morning till night, being never weary in rain or in sunshine, or at
+noon-day in the hottest weather of the season. His song consists of two
+long notes, the first about a third above the second, and the last part
+is made up of several rapidly uttered notes about one tone below the
+first note.
+
+There is an expression of great cheerfulness in these notes; but music,
+like poetry, must be somewhat plaintive in its character, to take strong
+hold of the feelings. I have never known a person to be affected by
+these notes as by those of the Wood-Sparrow. While engaged in singing,
+the Chewink is usually perched on the lower branch of a tree, near the
+edge of a wood, or on the top of a tall bush. He is a true forest-bird,
+and builds his nest in the thickets that conceal the boundaries of the
+wood.
+
+The notes of the Chewink and his general appearance and habits are well
+calculated to render him conspicuous, and they cause him to be always
+noticed and remembered. Our birds are like our men of genius. As in the
+literary world there is a description of talent that must be discovered
+and pointed out by an observing few, before the great mass can
+understand it or even know its existence,--so the sweetest songsters of
+the wood are unknown to the mass of the community, while many very
+ordinary performers, whose talents are conspicuous, are universally
+known and admired.
+
+As we advance into the wood, if it be near mid-day, or before the
+decline of the sun, the notes of two small birds will be sure to attract
+our attention. These notes are very similar, and as slender and piercing
+as the chirp of a grasshopper, being distinguished from the latter only
+by a different and more pleasing modulation. The birds to which I refer
+are the Red Start (_Muscicapa ruticilla_) and the Speckled Creeper
+(_Sylvia varia_). The first is the more rarely seen of the two, being a
+bird of the deep forest, and shunning observation by hiding himself in
+the most obscure parts of the wood. In general appearance, and in the
+color of his plumage, he bears a resemblance to the Ground-Robin, though
+not more than half his size. He lives entirely on insects, catching them
+while they are flying in the air.
+
+His song is similar to that of the Summer Yellow-Bird, so common in our
+gardens among the fruit-trees, but it is more shrill and feeble. The
+Creeper's song does not differ from it more than the songs of different
+individuals of the same species may differ. This bird may be seen
+creeping like a Woodpecker around the branches of trees, feeding upon
+the grubs and insects that are lodged upon the bark. He often leaves the
+forest, and may be seen busily searching the trees in the orchard and
+garden. The restless activity of the birds of this species affords a
+proof of the countless myriads of insects that must be destroyed by them
+in the course of one season,--insects which, if not kept in check by
+these and other small birds, would multiply to such an extreme as to
+render the earth uninhabitable by man.
+
+While listening with close attention to the slender notes of either of
+the last-named birds, often hardly audible amidst the din of
+grasshoppers, the rustling of leaves, and the sighing of winds among the
+tall oaken boughs, suddenly the wood resounds with a loud, shrill song,
+like the sharpest notes of the Canary. The bird that startles one with
+this vociferous note is the Oven-Bird, (_Turdus aurocapillus_), or
+Golden-Crowned Thrush. It is the smallest of the Thrushes, is confined
+exclusively to the wood, and when singing is particularly partial to
+noon-day. There is no melody in his song. He begins rather low,
+increasing in loudness as he proceeds, until the last notes are so loud
+as to seem almost in our immediate presence. He might be supposed to
+utter His words, _I see_, _I see_, _I see_, etc.,--emphasizing the first
+word, and repeating the words six or eight times, louder and louder with
+each repetition. No other bird equals this little Thrush in the emphasis
+with which he delivers his brief communication. His notes are associated
+with summer noon-days in the deep woods, and, when bursting upon the ear
+in the silence of noon, they disperse all melancholy thoughts, and
+inspire one with a vivid consciousness of life.
+
+The most remarkable thing connected with the history of this bird is his
+oven-shaped nest. It is commonly placed on the ground, under a knoll of
+moss or a tuft of grass and bushes, and is formed almost entirely of
+long grass neatly woven. It is covered with a roof of the same
+materials, and a round opening is made at the side, for the bird's
+entrance. The nest is so ingeniously covered with grass and disguised
+with the appearance of the general surface around it, that it is very
+seldom discovered. The Cow-Bunting, however, is able to find it, and
+often selects it as a depository for its own eggs.
+
+Those who are addicted to rambling in pursuit of natural curiosities may
+have observed that pine-woods are remarkable for certain collections of
+mosses which have cushioned a projecting rock or the decayed stump of a
+tree. When weary with heat and exercise, it is delightful to sit down
+upon one of these green velveted couches and take note of the objects
+immediately around us. We are then prepared to hear the least sound that
+invades our retreat. Some of the sweetest notes ever uttered in the wood
+are distinctly heard only at such times; for when we are passing over
+the rustling leaves, the noise made by our progress interferes with the
+perfect recognition of all delicate sounds. It was when thus reclining,
+after half a day's search for flowers, under the grateful shade of a
+pine-tree, now watching the white clouds that sent a brighter day-beam
+into these dark recesses, as they passed luminously overhead, and then
+noting the peculiar mapping of the grounds underneath the wood,
+diversified with mosses in swelling knolls, little islets of fern, and
+parterres of ginsengs and Solomon's-seals,--in one of these cloisters of
+the forest, I was first greeted by the pensive note of the Green
+Warbler, as he seemed to titter in supplicatory tones, very slowly
+modulated, "Hear me, Saint Theresa!" This strain, as I have observed
+many times since, is, at certain hours, repeated constantly for ten
+minutes at a time, and it is one of those melodious sounds that seem to
+belong exclusively to solitude.
+
+The Green Warbler (_Sylvia virens_) is a small bird, and though his
+notes may be familiar to all who have been accustomed to strolling in
+the woods, the species is not numerous in Massachusetts, the greater
+number retiring farther north in the breeding-season. Nuttall remarks in
+reference to this bird, "His simple, rather drawling, and somewhat
+plaintive song, uttered at short intervals, resembled the syllables '_te
+de teritsca_, sometimes _te derisca_, pronounced pretty loud and slow,
+and the tones proceeded from high to low. In the intervals, he was
+perpetually busied in catching small cynips, and other kinds of
+flies,--keeping up a smart snapping of his bill, almost similar to the
+noise made by knocking pebbles together." There is a plaintive
+expression in this musical supplication, that is apparent to all who
+hear it, no less than if the bird were truly offering prayers to some
+tutelary deity. It is difficult, in many cases, to determine why a
+certain combination of sounds should affect one with an emotion of
+sadness, while another, under the same circumstances, produces a feeling
+of joy. This is a part of the philosophy of music which has not been
+explained.
+
+While treating of the Sylvias, I must not omit to notice one of the most
+important of the tribe, and one with which almost everybody is
+acquainted,--the Maryland Yellow-Throat (_Sylvia trichas_). This species
+is quite common and familiar. He is most frequently seen in a
+willow-grove that borders a stream, or in the shrubbery of moist and low
+grounds. The angler is greeted by his notes on the rushy borders of a
+pond, and the botanist listens to them when hunting for those
+rose-plants that hide themselves under dripping rocks in some wooded
+ravine. The song of the Yellow-Throat resembles that of the Warbling
+Vireo, delivered with somewhat more precision, as if he were saying, _I
+see you_, _I see you_, _I see you_. His notes are simply lively and
+agreeable; there is nothing plaintive about them. The bird, however, is
+very attractive in his appearance, being of a bright olive-color above,
+with a yellow throat and breast, and a black band extending from the
+nostrils over the eye. This black band and the yellow throat are the
+marks by which he is most easily identified. The Yellow-Throat remains
+tuneful till near the last week in August.
+
+But if we leave the wood while those above described are the only
+singing-birds we have heard, we have either returned too soon, or we did
+not penetrate deeply enough into the forest. The Wood-Sparrow prepared
+our ears for a concert more delightful than the Red Start or the
+Yellow-Throat are capable of presenting, and we have spent our time
+almost in vain, if we have not heard the song of the Wood-Thrush
+(_Turdus melodus_). His notes are not startling or conspicuous; some
+dull ears might not hear them, though poured forth only a few rods
+distant, if their attention were not directed to them. Yet they are
+loud, liquid, and sonorous, and they fail to attract attention only on
+account of the long pauses between the different strains. We must link
+all these strains together to enjoy the full pleasure which the song of
+this bird is capable of affording, though any single strain alone is
+sufficient to entitle the bird to considerable reputation as a songster.
+
+The song of the Wood-Thrush consists of about eight or ten different
+strains, each of considerable length. After each strain the bird makes a
+pause of about three or four seconds. I think the effect of this sylvan
+music is somewhat diminished by the length of the pauses or rests. It
+may be said, however, that during each pause our susceptibility is
+increased, and we are thus prepared to be more deeply affected by the
+next notes. Whether the one or the other opinion be correct, it is
+certain that any one who stops to listen to this bird will become
+spellbound, and deaf to almost every other sound in the grove, as if his
+ears were enchained to the song of the Siren.
+
+The Wood-Thrush sings at almost all hours of the day, though seldom
+after sunset. He delights in a dusky retreat, and is evidently inspired
+by solitude, singing no less in gloomy weather than in sunshine. Late in
+August, when other birds have mostly become silent, he is sometimes the
+only songster in the wood. There is a liquid sound in his tones that
+slightly resembles that of a glassichord; though in some parts of the
+country he has received the name of Fife-Bird, from the clearness of his
+intonations. By many persons this species is called the Hermit-Thrush.
+
+The Veery (_Turdus Wilsonii_) has many habits like those of the
+Wood-Thrush, and some similarity of song. He is about the size of a
+Blue-Bird, and resembles the Red Thrush, except that the brown of his
+back is slightly tinged with olive. He arrives early in May, and is
+first heard to sing during some part of the second week of that month,
+when the sons of the Bobolink commences. He is not one of our familiar
+birds; and unless we live in close proximity to a wood that is haunted
+by a stream, we shall never hear his voice from our doors or windows. He
+sings neither in the orchard, nor the garden, nor in the suburbs of the
+city. He shuns the exhibitions of art, and reserves his wild notes for
+those who frequent the inner sanctuary of the groves. All who have once
+become familiar with his song await his arrival with impatience, and
+take note of his silence in midsummer with regret. Until this little
+bird has arrived, I always feel as an audience do at a concert, before
+the chief singer has made her appearance, while the other performers are
+vainly endeavoring to soothe them by their inferior attempts.
+
+This bird is more retiring than any other important singing-bird, except
+the Wood-Thrush,--being heard only in solitary groves, and usually in
+the vicinity of a pond or stream. Here, especially after sunset, he
+pours forth his brilliant and melancholy strains with a peculiar
+cadence, and fills the whole forest with sound. It seems as if the
+echoes were delimited with his notes, and took pleasure in passing them
+round with multiplied reverberations. I am confident this bird refrains
+from singing when others are the most vocal, from the pleasure he feels
+in listening either to his own notes, or to the melodious responses
+which others of his own kindred repeat in different parts of the wood.
+Hence he chooses the dusk of evening for his vocal hour, when the little
+chirping birds are mostly silent, that their voices may not interrupt
+his chant. At this hour, during a period of nine or ten weeks, he charms
+the evening with his strains, and often prolongs them in still weather
+till after dusk, and whispers them sweetly into the ear of night.
+
+No bird of his size has more strength of voice; but his song, though
+loud, is modulated with such a sweet and flowing cadence, that it comes
+to the ear with all the mellowness of the softest warbling. It would be
+difficult to describe his song. It seems at first to be wanting in
+variety. I was long of this opinion, though I was puzzled to account for
+its pleasing and extraordinary effect on the mind of the listener. The
+song of the Veery consists of five distinct strains or bars. They might,
+perhaps, be represented on the musical staff, by commencing the first
+note on D above the staff and sliding down with a trill to C, one fifth
+below. The second, third, fourth, and fifth bars are repetitions of the
+first, except that each commences and ends a few tones lower than the
+preceding.
+
+Were we to attempt to perform these notes with an instrument adapted to
+the purpose, we should probably fail, from the difficulty of imitating
+the peculiar trilling of the notes, and the liquid ventriloquial sounds
+at the conclusion of each strain. The whole is warbled in such a manner
+as to produce upon the ear the effect of harmony. It seems as if we
+heard two or three concordant notes at the same moment. I have never
+noticed this effect in the song of any other bird. I should judge that
+it might be produced by the rapid descent from the commencing note of
+each strain to the last note about a fourth or fifth below, the latter
+being heard simultaneously with the reverberation of the first note.
+
+Another remarkable quality of the song is a union of brilliancy and
+plaintiveness. The first effect is produced by the commencing notes of
+each strain, which are sudden and on a high key; the second, by the
+graceful chromatic slide to the termination, which is inimitable and
+exceedingly solemn. I have sometimes thought that a part of the
+delightful influence of these notes might be attributable to the
+cloistered situations from which they were delivered. But I have
+occasionally heard them while the bird was singing from a tree in an
+open field, when they were equally pleasing and impressive. I am not
+peculiar in my admiration of this little songster. I have observed that
+people who are strangers to the woods, and to the notes of birds, are
+always attracted by the song of the Veery.
+
+In my early days, when I was at school, I boarded in a house near a
+grove that was vocal with these Thrushes; and it was then I learned to
+love their song more than any other sound in Nature, and above the
+finest strains of artificial music. Since that time I have lived in
+town, apart from their sylvan retreats, which I have visited only during
+my hours of leisure; but I have seldom failed, each returning year, to
+make frequent visits to the wood to listen to their notes, which cause
+full half the pleasure I derive from a summer-evening walk. If in any
+year I fail to hear the song of the Veery, I feel a painful sense of
+regret, as when I have missed an opportunity to see an absent friend,
+during a periodical visit.
+
+The Veery is not one of our latest singers. His notes are not often
+heard after the middle of July.
+
+We should not be obliged to penetrate the wood to learn the habits of
+another Thrush, not so remarkable for his musical powers as interesting
+on account of his manners. I allude to the Cat-Bird, (_Turdus felivox_,)
+well known from his disagreeable habit of mewing like a kitten. He is
+most frequently seen on the edge of a wood, among the bushes that have
+come up, as it were, to hide its baldness and to harmonize it with the
+plain. He is usually attached to low, moist, and retired situations,
+though he is often very familiar in his habits. His nest of dry sticks
+is sometimes woven into a currant-bush in a garden that adjoins a wood,
+and his quaint voice may be heard there as in his own solitary haunts.
+The Cat-Bird is not an inveterate singer, and never seems to make music
+his employment, though at any hour of the day, from dawn until dusk in
+the evening, he may be heard occasionally singing and complaining.
+
+Though I have been all my life familiar with the notes and manners of
+the Cat-Bird, I have not yet been able to discover that he is a mocker.
+He seems to me to have a definite song, unlike that of any other bird,
+except the Red Mavis,--not made up of parts of the songs of other birds,
+but as unique and original as that of the Song-Sparrow or the Robin. In
+the songs of all birds we may detect occasional strains that resemble
+parts of the song of some other species; but the Cat-Bird gives no more
+of these imitations than we might reasonably regard as accidental. The
+modulation of his song is somewhat similar to that of the Red Thrush,
+and it is sometimes difficult to determine, at first, when the bird is
+out of sight, whether we are listening to the one or the other; but
+after a few seconds, we detect one of those quaint turns that
+distinguish the notes of the Cat-Bird. I never yet mistook the note of
+the Cat-Bird for that of any species except the Red Thrush. The truth
+is, that the Thrushes, though delightful songsters, possess inferior
+powers of execution, and cannot equal the Finches in their capacity of
+learning and performing the notes of other birds. Even the Mocking-Bird,
+as compared with many other species, is a very imperfect imitator of any
+notes which are difficult of execution.
+
+The mewing note of the Cat-Bird, from which his name is derived, has
+been the occasion of many misfortunes to his species, causing them to
+share a portion of that contempt which almost every human being feels
+towards the feline race, and that contempt has been followed by
+persecution. The Cat-Bird has always been proscribed by the New England
+farmers, who from the first settlement of the country have entertained a
+prejudice against many of the most useful birds. The Robin and a few
+diminutive Fly-Catchers are almost the only exceptions. But the Robin is
+now in danger of proscription. Within a few years past, the
+horticulturists, who are unwilling lo lose their cherries for the
+general benefit of agriculture, have made an effort to obtain an edict
+of outlawry against him, accusing him of being entirely useless to the
+farmer and the gardener. Their efforts have caused the friends of the
+Robin to examine his claims to protection, and the result of their
+investigations is demonstrative proof that the Robin is among the most
+useful birds in existence. The Cat-Bird and other Thrushes are similar
+in their habits of feeding and in their services to agriculture.
+
+The Red Mavis (_Turdus rufus_) has many habits similar to those of the
+Cat-Bird, but he is not partial to low grounds. He is one of the most
+remarkable of the American birds, and is generally considered the finest
+songster in the New England forest. Nuttall says, "He is inferior only
+to the Mocking-Bird in musical talent"; but I should question his
+inferiority. He is superior to the Mocking-Bird in variety, and is
+surpassed by him only in the intonation of some of his notes. But no
+person is ever tired of listening to the Red Mavis, who constantly
+varies his song, while the Mocking-Bird tires us with his repetitions,
+which are often continued to a ludicrous extreme.
+
+It is unfortunate that our ornithologists should, in any cases, have
+adopted the disagreeable names which our singularly unpoetical
+countrymen have given to the birds. The little Hair-Bird, for example,
+is called the "Chipping-Sparrow," as if he were in the habit of making
+chips, like the Carpenter-Bird; and the Red Thrush is called the
+"Thrasher," which is a low corruption of Thrush, and would signify that
+the bird had some peculiar habit of _threshing_ with his wings. The word
+"chipping," when used for "chirping," is incorrect English; and
+"thrasher" is incorrect in point of fact. No such names should find
+sanction in books. Let us repudiate the name of "Thrasher" for the Red
+Thrush, as we would repudiate any other solecism.
+
+The Red Mavis, or Thrush, is most musical in the early part of the
+season, when he first arrives, or in the month of May; the Veery is most
+vocal in June, and the Wood-Thrush in July; the Cat-Bird begins early
+and sings late, and fills out with his quaint notes the remainder of the
+singing season, after the others have become silent. When one is in a
+thoughtful mood, the songs of the Wood-Thrush and the Veery surpass all
+others on their delightful influence; and when I am strolling in the
+solitary pastures, it seems to me that nothing can exceed the simple
+melody of the Wood-Sparrow. But without claiming for the Red Thrush any
+remarkable power of exciting poetic inspiration, his song in the open
+field has a charm for all ears, and can be appreciated by the dullest of
+minds. Without singing badly, he pleases the millions. He sings
+occasionally at all hours of the day, and, when employed in singing,
+devotes himself entirely to song, with evident enthusiasm.
+
+It would be difficult, either by word or by note, to give one who has
+never heard the song of the Red Thrush a correct idea of it. This bird
+is not a rapid singer. His performances seem to be a sort of
+_recitative_, often resembling spoken words, rather than musical notes,
+many of which are short and guttural. He seldom whistles clearly, like
+the Robin, but he produces a charming variety of tone and modulation.
+Thoreau, in one of his quaint descriptions, gives an off-hand sketch of
+the bird, which I will quote:--"Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of
+a birch, sings the Brown Thrasher, or Red Mavis, as some love to call
+him,--all the morning glad of your society, that would find out another
+farmer's field, if yours were not here. While you are planting the seed,
+he cries,--'Drop it, drop it,--cover it up, cover it up,--pull it up,
+pull it up, pull it up.'"
+
+We have now left the forest and are approaching the cultivated grounds,
+under the shade of those fully expanded trees which have grown without
+restraint in the open field. Here as well as in the wood we find the
+Pewee, or Phoebe. (_Muscicapa nunciola_,) one of our most common and
+interesting birds. He seems to court solitude, and his peculiar note
+harmonizes well with his obscure and shady retreats. He sits for the
+most part in the shade, catching his feast of insects without any noise,
+merely flitting from his perch, seizing his prey, and then resuming his
+station. This movement is performed in the most graceful manner, and he
+often turns a somerset, or appears to do so, if the insect at first
+evades his pursuit,--and he seldom fails in capturing it. All this is
+done in silence, for he is no singer. The only sounds he utters are an
+occasional clicking cherup, and now and then, with a plaintive cadence,
+he seems to speak the word _pewee_. As the male and female bird cannot
+be readily distinguished, I have not been able to determine whether this
+sound is uttered by both sexes, or by the male alone.
+
+So plainly expressive of sadness is this peculiar note, that it is
+difficult to believe that the little being that utters it can be free
+from sorrow. Certainly he can have no congeniality of feeling with the
+sprightly Bobolink. Perhaps, with the rest of his species, he represents
+only the fragment of a superior race, which, according to the
+metempsychosis, have fallen from their original importance, and this
+melancholy note is but the partial utterance of sorrow that still
+lingers in their breasts after the occasion of it is forgotten.
+
+Though a shy and retiring bird, the Pewee is known to almost every
+person, on account of its remarkable note. Like the swallow, he builds
+his nest under a sheltering roof or rock, and it is often fixed upon a
+beam or plank under a bridge that crosses a small stream. Near this
+place he takes his station, on the branch of a tree or the top of a
+fence, and sits patiently waiting for every moth, chafer, or butterfly
+that passes along. Fortunately, there are no prejudices existing in the
+community against this bird that provoke men to destroy him. As he is
+known to feed entirely on insects, he cannot be suspected of doing
+mischief on the farm or in the garden, and is considered worthy of
+protection.
+
+I would remark in this place, that the Fly-Catchers and Swallows, and a
+few other species that enjoy an immunity in our land, would, though
+multiplied to infinity, perform only those offices which are assigned
+them by Nature. It is a vain hope that leads one to believe, while he is
+engaged in exterminating a certain species of small birds, that their
+places can be supplied and their services performed by other species
+which are allowed to multiply to excess. The preservation of every
+species of indigenous birds is the only means that can prevent the
+over-multiplication of injurious insects.
+
+As we return homeward, we soon find ourselves surrounded by the familiar
+birds that shun the forest and assemble around the habitations of men.
+Among them the Blue-Bird meets our sight, upon the roofs and fences as
+well as in the field and orchard. At the risk of introducing him into a
+company to which he does not strictly belong, I will attempt in this
+place to describe some of his habits. The Blue-Bird (_Sylvia sialis_)
+arrives very early in spring, and is detained late in the autumn by his
+habit of raising two or more broods of young in the season. He is said
+to bear a strong resemblance to the English Robin-Redbreast, being
+similar in form and size, each having a red breast and short
+tail-feathers, with only this manifest difference, that one is
+olive-colored above where the other is blue. But the Blue-Bird does not
+equal the Redbreast as a songster. His notes are few, not greatly
+varied, though melodious and sweetly and plaintively modulated, and
+never loud. On account of their want of variety, they do not enchain a
+listener, but they constitute a delightful part in the woodland melodies
+of morn.
+
+The importance of the inferior singers in making up a general chorus is
+not always appreciated. In an artificial musical composition, as in an
+oratorio or an anthem, though there is a leading part, which is commonly
+the air, that gives character to the whole, yet this principal part
+would often be a very indifferent piece of melody, if performed without
+its accompaniments. These accompaniments by themselves would seem still
+more unimportant and trifling. Yet if the composition be the work of a
+master, however trifling and comparatively insignificant these brief
+strains or snatches, they are intimately connected with the harmony of
+the piece, and could not be omitted without a serious derangement of the
+grand effect. The inferior singing-birds, on the same principle, are
+indispensable as aids in giving additional effect to the notes of the
+chief singers.
+
+Though the Robin is the principal musician in the general orison of
+dawn, his notes would become tiresome, if heard without accompaniments.
+Nature has so arranged the harmony of this chorus, that one part shall
+assist another; and so exquisitely has she combined all the different
+voices, that the silence of any one can never fail to be immediately
+perceived. The low, mellow warble of the Blue-Bird seems a sort of echo
+to the louder voice of the Robin; and the incessant trilling or running
+accompaniment of the Hair-Bird, the twittering of the Swallow, and the
+loud and melodious piping of the Oriole, frequent and short, are sounded
+like the different parts of a regular band of instruments, and each
+performer seems to time his part as if by design. Any discordant sound,
+that may happen to be made in the midst of this performance, never fails
+to disturb the equanimity of the singers, and some minutes must elapse
+before they recommence their parts.
+
+It would be difficult to draw a correct comparison between the different
+birds and the various instruments in an orchestra. It would be more easy
+to signify them by notes on the gamut. But if the Robin were supposed to
+represent the German flute, the Blue-Bird might be considered as the
+flageolet, frequently, but not incessantly, interposing a few mellow
+strains, the Swallow and the Hair-Bird the octave flute, and the Golden
+Robin the bugle, sounding occasionally a low but brief strain. The
+analogy could not be carried farther without losing force and
+correctness.
+
+All the notes of the Blue-Bird--his call-notes, his notes of alarm, his
+chirp, and his song--are equally plaintive, and closely resemble each
+other. I am not aware that this bird ever utters a harsh note. His
+voice, which is one of the earliest to be heard in the spring, is
+associated with the early flowers and with all pleasant vernal
+influences. When he first arrives, he perches upon the roof of a barn or
+upon some still leafless tree, and pours forth his few and frequent
+notes with evident fervor, as if conscious of the delights that await
+him. These mellow notes are all the sounds he titters for several weeks,
+seldom chirping, crying, or scolding like other birds. His song is
+discontinued in the latter part of summer; but his peculiar plaintive
+call, consisting of a single note pensively modulated, continues all
+day, until the time of frost. This sound is one of the melodies of
+summer's decline, and reminds us, like the notes of the green nocturnal
+grasshopper, of the fall of the leaf, the ripened harvest, and all the
+melancholy pleasures of autumn.
+
+The Blue-Bird builds his nest in hollow trees and posts, and may be
+encouraged to breed and multiply around our habitations, by erecting
+boxes for his accommodation. In whatever vicinity we may reside, whether
+in the clearing or in the heart of the village, if we set up a little
+bird-house in May, it will certainly be occupied by a Blue-Bird, unless
+preoccupied by a bird of some other species. There is commonly so great
+a demand for such accommodations among the feathered tribes, that it is
+not unusual to see birds of several different species contending for the
+possession of one box.
+
+After the middle of August, as a new race of winged creatures awake into
+life, the birds, who sing of the seed-time, the flowers, and of the
+early summer harvests, give place to the inferior band of
+insect-musicians. The reed and the pipe are laid aside, and myriads of
+little performers have taken up the harp and the lute, and make the air
+resound with the clash and din of their various instruments. An anthem
+of rejoicing swells up from myriads of unseen harpists, who heed not the
+fate that awaits them, but make themselves merry in every place that is
+visited by sunshine or the south-wind. The golden-rod sways its
+beautiful nodding plumes in the borders of the fields and by the rustic
+roadsides; the purple gerardia is bright in the wet meadows, and the
+scarlet lobelia in the channels of the sunken streamlets. But the birds
+heed them not; for these are not the wreaths that decorate the halls of
+their festivities. Since the rose and the lily have faded, they have
+ceased to be tuneful; some, like the Bobolink, assemble in small
+companies, and with a melancholy chirp seem to mourn over some sad
+accident that has befallen them; others still congregate about their
+usual resorts, and seem almost like strangers in the land.
+
+Nature provides inspiration for every sentiment that contributes to the
+happiness of man, as she provides sustenance for his various physical
+wants. But all is not gladness that elevates the soul into bliss; we may
+be made happy by sentiments that come not from rejoicing, even from
+objects that waken tender recollections of sorrow. As if Nature designed
+that the soul of man should find sympathy, in all its healthful moods,
+from the voices of her creatures, and from the sounds of inanimate
+objects, she has provided that all seasons should pour into his ear some
+pleasant intimations of heaven. In autumn, when the harvest-hymn of the
+day-time has ceased, at early nightfall, the green nocturnal
+grasshoppers commence their autumnal dirge, and fill the mind with a
+keen sense of the rapid passing of time. These sounds do not sadden the
+mind, but deepen the tone of our feelings, and prepare us for a renewal
+of cheerfulness, by inspiring us with the poetic sentiment of
+melancholy. This sombre state of the mind soon passes away, effaced by
+the exhilarating influence of the clear skies and invigorating breezes
+of autumn, and the inspiriting sounds of myriads of chirping insects
+that awake with the morning and make all the meadows resound with the
+shout of their merry voices.
+
+
+SONG OF THE WOOD-SPARROW.
+
+[Illustration: de de de d d d d d r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r
+r r r r r r r r r r r r r re.]
+
+NOTE.--In the early part of the season the song ends with the first
+double bar; later in the season it is extended, in frequent instances,
+as in the notes that follow.
+
+SONG OF THE CHEWINK.
+
+[Illustration: twee ta t' we we we we twee tu t' we we we we]
+
+SONG OF THE GREEN WARBLER.
+
+[Illustration: Hear me St. The - re - sa. Hear me St. The - re - sa.]
+
+SONG OF THE WOOD-THRUSH.
+
+[Illustration: too too tillere ilere tillere tilere
+
+too issele issele tse se se se s s s s se
+
+too tillery tillery oo villilil villilil too too illery ilery
+
+eh villia villia villia oo airvee ehu, etc.]
+
+
+NOTE.--I have not been able to detect any order in the succession of
+these strains, though some order undoubtedly exists, and might be
+discovered by long-continued observation. The intervals in the above
+sketch cannot be given with exactness.
+
+
+SONG OF THE VEERY.
+
+[Illustration: e-e ve re a e-e verea e-e verea e-e verea vere lil lily]
+
+or,
+
+[Illustration: e villia villia villia villia ve rehu.]
+
+NOTE.--I am far from being satisfied with the above representation of
+the song of the Veery, in which there are certain trilling and liquid
+sounds that hardly admit of notation.
+
+SONG OF THE RED MAVIS.
+
+[Illustration: drop it drop it cover it up cover it up]
+
+pull it up pull it up tut tut tut see see see there you
+have it hae it hae it
+
+see tut tut work away work away drop it drop it cover it
+up cover it up.]
+
+NOTE.--The Red Mavis makes a short pause at the end of each bar. These
+pauses are irregular in time, and cannot be correctly noted.
+
+
+NOTE OF THE PEWEE.
+
+[Illustration: pe - a - wee pe - a - wee.]
+
+
+SONG OF THE BLUE-BIRD.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE MINISTER'S WOOING.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited Mrs. Brown, and Mrs. Jones, and Deacon
+Twitchel's wife to take tea with her on the afternoon of June second,
+A.D. 17--.
+
+When one has a story to tell, one is always puzzled which end of it to
+begin at. You have a whole corps of people to introduce that _you_ know
+and your reader doesn't; and one thing so presupposes another, that,
+whichever way you turn your patchwork, the figures still seem
+ill-arranged. The small item that I have given will do as well as any
+other to begin with, as it certainly will lead you to ask, "Pray, who
+was Mrs. Katy Scudder?"--and this will start me systematically on my
+story.
+
+You must understand that in the then small seaport-town of Newport, at
+that time unconscious of its present fashion and fame, there lived
+nobody in those days who did not know "the Widow Scudder."
+
+In New England settlements a custom has obtained, which is wholesome and
+touching, of ennobling the woman whom God has made desolate, by a sort
+of brevet rank which continually speaks for her as a claim on the
+respect and consideration of the community. The Widow Jones, or Brown,
+or Smith, is one of the fixed institutions of every New England
+village,--and doubtless the designation acts as a continual plea for one
+whom bereavement, like the lightning of heaven, has made sacred.
+
+The Widow Scudder, however, was one of the sort of women who reign
+queens in whatever society they move in; nobody was more quoted, more
+deferred to, or enjoyed more unquestioned position than she. She was not
+rich,--a small farm, with a modest, "gambrel-roofed," one-story cottage,
+was her sole domain; but she was one of the much-admired class who, in
+the speech of New England, are said to have "faculty,"--a gift which,
+among that shrewd people, commands more esteem than beauty, riches,
+learning, or any otherworldly endowment. _Faculty_ is Yankee for _savoir
+faire_, and the opposite virtue to shiftlessness. Faculty is the
+greatest virtue, and shiftlessness the greatest vice, of Yankee man and
+woman. To her who has faculty nothing shall be impossible. She shall
+scrub floors, wash, wring, bake, brew, and yet her hands shall be small
+and white; she shall have no perceptible income, yet always be
+handsomely dressed; she shall have not a servant in her house,--with a
+dairy to manage, hired men to feed, a boarder or two to care for,
+unheard-of pickling and preserving to do,--and yet you commonly see her
+every afternoon sitting at her shady parlor-window behind the lilacs,
+cool and easy, hemming muslin cap-strings, or reading the last new book.
+She who hath faculty is never in a hurry, never behindhand. She can
+always step over to distressed Mrs. Smith, whose jelly won't come,--and
+stop to show Mrs. Jones how she makes her pickles so green,--and be
+ready to watch with poor old Mrs. Simpkins, who is down with the
+rheumatism.
+
+Of this genus was the Widow Scudder,--or, as the neighbors would have
+said of her, she that _was_ Katy Stephens. Katy was the only daughter of
+a shipmaster, sailing from Newport harbor, who was wrecked off the coast
+one cold December night and left small fortune to his widow and only
+child. Katy grew up, however, a tall, straight, black-eyed girl, with
+eyebrows drawn true as a bow, a foot arched like a Spanish woman's, and
+a little hand which never saw the thing it could not do,--quick of
+speech, ready of wit, and, as such girls have a right to be, somewhat
+positive withal. Katy could harness a chaise, or row a boat; she could
+saddle and ride any horse in the neighborhood; she could cut any garment
+that ever was seen or thought of; make cake, jelly, and wine, from her
+earliest years, in most precocious style;--all without seeming to
+derange a sort of trim, well-kept air of ladyhood that sat jauntily on
+her.
+
+Of course, being young and lively, she had her admirers, and some
+well-to-do in worldly affairs laid their lands and houses at Katy's
+feet; but, to the wonder of all, she would not even pick them up to look
+at them. People shook their heads, and wondered whom Katy Stephens
+expected to get, and talked about going through the wood to pick up a
+crooked stick,--till one day she astonished her world by marrying a man
+that nobody ever thought of her taking.
+
+George Scudder was a grave, thoughtful young man,--not given to talking,
+and silent in the society of women, with that kind of reverential
+bashfulness which sometimes shows a pure, unworldly nature. How Katy
+came to fancy him everybody wondered,--for he never talked to her, never
+so much as picked up her glove when it fell, never asked her to ride or
+sail; in short, everybody said she must have wanted him from sheer
+wilfulness, because he of all the young men of the neighborhood never
+courted her. But Katy, having very sharp eyes, saw some things that
+nobody else saw. For example, you must know she discovered by mere
+accident that George Scudder always was looking at her, wherever she
+moved, though he looked away in a moment, if discovered,--and that an
+accidental touch of her hand or brush of her dress would send the blood
+into his cheek like the spirit in the tube of a thermometer; and so, as
+women are curious, you know, Katy amused herself with investigating the
+causes of these little phenomena, and, before she knew it, got her foot
+caught in a cobweb that held her fast, and constrained her, whether she
+would or no, to marry a poor man that nobody cared much for but herself.
+
+George was, in truth, one of the sort who evidently have made some
+mistake in coming into this world at all, as their internal furniture is
+in no way suited to its general courses and currents. He was of the
+order of dumb poets,--most wretched when put to the grind of the hard
+and actual; for if he who would utter poetry stretches out his hand to a
+gainsaying world, he is worse off still who is possessed with the desire
+of living it. Especially is this the case, if he be born poor, and with
+a dire necessity upon him of making immediate efforts in the hard and
+actual. George had a helpless invalid mother to support; so, though he
+loved reading and silent thought above all things, he put to instant use
+the only convertible worldly talent he possessed, which was a mechanical
+genius, and shipped at sixteen as a ship-carpenter. He studied
+navigation in the forecastle, and found in its calm diagrams and
+tranquil eternal signs food for his thoughtful nature, and a refuge from
+the brutality and coarseness of sea-life. He had a healthful, kindly
+animal nature, and so his inwardness did not ferment and turn to Byronic
+sourness and bitterness; nor did he needlessly parade to everybody in
+his vicinity the great gulf which lay between him and them. He was
+called a good fellow,--only a little lumpish,--and as he was brave and
+faithful, he rose in time to be a shipmaster. But when came the business
+of making money, the aptitude for accumulating, George found himself
+distanced by many a one with not half his general powers.
+
+What shall a man do with a sublime tier of moral faculties, when the
+most profitable business out of his port is the slave-trade? So it was
+in Newport in those days. George's first voyage was on a slaver, and he
+wished himself dead many a time before it was over,--and ever after
+would talk like a man beside himself, if the subject was named. He
+declared that the gold made in it was distilled from human blood, from
+mothers' tears, from the agonies and dying groans of gasping,
+suffocating men and women, and that it would scar and blister the soul
+of him that touched it; in short, he talked as whole-souled unpractical
+fellows are apt to talk about what respectable people sometimes do.
+Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of
+expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which
+closely-packed heathens are brought over to enjoy the light of the
+gospel.
+
+So, though George was acknowledged to be a good fellow, and honest as
+the noon-mark on the kitchen floor, he let slip so many chances of
+making money as seriously to compromise his reputation among thriving
+folks. He was wastefully generous,--insisted on treating every poor dog
+that came in his way, in any foreign port, as a brother,--absolutely
+refused to be party in cheating or deceiving the heathen on any shore,
+or in skin of any color,--and also took pains, as far as in him lay, to
+spoil any bargains which any of his subordinates founded on the
+ignorance or weakness of his fellow-men. So he made voyage after voyage,
+and gained only his wages and the reputation among his employers of an
+incorruptibly honest fellow.
+
+To be sure, it was said that he carried out books in his ship, and read
+and studied, and wrote observations on all the countries he saw, which
+Parson Smith told Miss Dolly Persimmon would really do credit to a
+printed book; but then they never _were_ printed, or, as Miss Dolly
+remarked of them, they never seemed to come to anything,--and coming to
+anything, as she understood it, meant standing in definite relations to
+bread and butter.
+
+George never cared, however, for money. He made enough to keep his
+mother comfortable, and that was enough for him, till he fell in love
+with Katy Stephens. He looked at her through those glasses which such
+men carry in their souls, and she was a mortal woman no longer, but a
+transfigured, glorified creature,--an object of awe and wonder. He was
+actually afraid of her; her glove, her shoe, her needle, thread, and
+thimble, her bonnet-string, everything, in short, she wore or touched,
+became invested with a mysterious charm. He wondered at the impudence of
+men that could walk up and talk to her,--that could ask her to dance
+with such an assured air. _Now_ he wished he were rich; he dreamed
+impossible chances of his coming home a millionnaire to lay unknown
+wealth at Katy's feet; and when Miss Persimmon, the ambulatory
+dress-maker of the neighborhood, in making up a new black gown for his
+mother, recounted how Captain Blatherem had sent Katy Stephens "'most
+the splendidest India shawl that ever she did see," he was ready to tear
+his hair at the thought of his poverty. But even in that hour of
+temptation he did not repent that he had refused all part and lot in the
+ship by which Captain Blatherem's money was made, for he knew every
+timber of it to be seasoned by the groans and saturated with the sweat
+of human agony. True love is a natural sacrament; and if ever a young
+man thanks God for having saved what is noble and manly in his soul, it
+is when he thinks of offering it to the woman he loves. Nevertheless,
+the India-shawl story cost him a night's rest; nor was it till Miss
+Persimmon had ascertained, by a private confabulation with Katy's
+mother, that she had indignantly rejected it, and that she treated the
+Captain "real ridiculous," that he began to take heart. "He ought not,"
+he said, "to stand in her way now, when he had nothing to offer. No, he
+would leave Katy free to do better, if she could; he would try his luck,
+and if, when he came home from the next voyage, Katy was disengaged,
+why, then he would lay all at her feet."
+
+And so George was going to sea with a secret shrine in his soul, at
+which he was to burn unsuspected incense.
+
+But, after all, the mortal maiden whom he adored suspected this private
+arrangement, and contrived--as women will--to get her own key into the
+lock of his secret temple; because, as girls say, "she was _determined_
+to know what was there." So, one night, she met him quite accidentally
+on the sea-sands, struck up a little conversation, and begged him in
+such a pretty way to bring her a spotted shell from the South Sea like
+the one on his mother's mantel-piece, and looked so simple and childlike
+in saying it, that our young man very imprudently committed himself by
+remarking, that, "When people had rich friends to bring them all the
+world from foreign parts, he never dreamed of her wanting so trivial a
+thing."
+
+Of course Katy "didn't know what he meant,--she hadn't heard of any rich
+friends." And then came something about Captain Blatherem; and Katy
+tossed her head, and said, "If anybody wanted to insult her, they might
+talk to her about Captain Blatherem,"--and then followed this, that, and
+the other till finally, as you might expect, out came all that never was
+to have been said; and Katy was almost frightened at the terrible
+earnestness of the spirit she had evoked. She tried to laugh, and ended
+by crying, and saying she hardly knew what; but when she came to herself
+in her own room at home, she found on her finger a ring of African gold
+that George had put there, which she did not send back like Captain
+Blatherem's presents.
+
+Katy was like many intensely matter-of-fact and practical women, who
+have not in themselves a bit of poetry or a particle of ideality, but
+who yet worship these qualities in others with the homage which the
+Indians paid to the unknown tongue of the first whites. They are
+secretly weary of a certain conscious dryness of nature in themselves,
+and this weariness predisposes them to idolize the man who brings them
+this unknown gift. Naturalists say that every defect of organization has
+its compensation, and men of ideal natures find in the favor of women
+the equivalent for their disabilities among men.
+
+Do you remember, at Niagara, a little cataract on the American side,
+which throws its silver sheeny veil over a cave called the Grot of
+Rainbows? Whoever stands on a rock in that grotto sees himself in the
+centre of a rainbow-circle, above, below, around. In like manner, merry,
+chatty, positive, busy, housewifely Katy saw herself standing in a
+rainbow-shrine in her lover's inner soul, and liked to see herself so. A
+woman, by-the-by, must be very insensible, who is not moved to come upon
+a higher plane of being, herself, by seeing how undoubtingly she is
+insphered in the heart of a good and noble man. A good man's, faith in
+you, fair lady, if you ever have it, will make you better and nobler
+even before you know it.
+
+Katy made an excellent wife; she took home her husband's old mother and
+nursed her with a dutifulness and energy worthy of all praise, and made
+her own keen outward faculties and deft handiness a compensation for the
+defects in worldly estate. Nothing would make Katy's black eyes flash
+quicker than any reflections on her husband's want of luck in the
+material line. "She didn't know whose business it was, if _she_ was
+satisfied. She hated these sharp, gimlet, gouging sort of men that would
+put a screw between body and soul for money. George had that in him that
+nobody understood. She would rather be his wife on bread and water than
+to take Captain Blatherem's house, carriages, and horse, and all,--and
+she _might_ have had 'em fast enough, dear knows. She was sick of making
+money when she saw what sort of men could make it,"--and so on. All
+which talk did her infinite credit, because _at bottom_ she _did_ care,
+and was naturally as proud and ambitious a little minx as ever breathed,
+and was thoroughly grieved at heart at George's want of worldly success;
+but, like a nice little Robin Redbreast, she covered up the grave of her
+worldliness with the leaves of true love, and sung a "Who cares for
+that?" above it.
+
+Her thrifty management of the money her husband brought her soon bought
+a snug little farm, and put up the little brown gambrel-roofed cottage
+to which we directed your attention in the first of our story. Children
+were born to them, and George found, in short intervals between voyages,
+his home an earthly paradise. Ho was still sailing, with the fond
+illusion, in every voyage, of making enough to remain at home,--when the
+yellow fever smote him under the line, and the ship returned to Newport
+without its captain.
+
+George was a Christian man;--he had been one of the first to attach
+himself to the unpopular and unworldly ministry of the celebrated Dr.
+H., and to appreciate the sublime ideality and unselfishness of those
+teachings which then were awakening new sensations in the theological
+mind of New England. Katy, too, had become a professor with her husband
+in the same church, and his death, in the midst of life, deepened the
+power of her religious impressions. She became absorbed in religion,
+after the fashion of New England, where devotion is doctrinal, not
+ritual. As she grew older, her energy of character, her vigor and good
+judgment, caused her to be regarded as a mother in Israel; the minister
+boarded at her house, and it was she who was first to be consulted in
+all matters relating to the well-being of the church. No woman could
+more manfully breast a long sermon, or bring a more determined faith to
+the reception of a difficult doctrine. To say the truth, there lay at
+the bottom of her doctrinal system this stable corner-stone,--"Mr.
+Scudder used to believe it,--_I_ will." And after all that is paid about
+independent thought, isn't the fact, that a just and good soul has thus
+or thus believed, a more respectable argument than many that often are
+adduced? If it be not, more's the pity,--since two-thirds of the faith
+in the world is built on no better foundation.
+
+In time, George's old mother was gathered to her son, and two sons and a
+daughter followed their father to the invisible,--one only remaining of
+the flock and she a person with whom you and I, good reader, have joint
+concern in the further unfolding of our story.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+As I before remarked, Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited company to tea.
+Strictly speaking, it is necessary to begin with the creation of the
+world, in order to give a full account of anything. But, for popular
+use, something less may serve one's turn, and therefore I shall let the
+past chapter suffice to introduce my story, and shall proceed to arrange
+my scenery and act my little play on the supposition you know enough to
+understand things and persons.
+
+Being asked to tea in our New England in the year 17-- meant something
+very different from the same invitation in our more sophisticated days.
+In those times, people held to the singular opinion, that the night was
+made to sleep in; they inferred it from a general confidence they had in
+the wisdom of Mother Nature, supposing that she did not put out her
+lights and draw her bed-curtains and hush all noise in her great
+world-house without strongly intending that her children should go to
+sleep; and the consequence was, that very soon after sunset the whole
+community very generally set their faces bedward, and the toll of the
+nine-o'clock evening-bell had an awful solemnity in it, sounding to the
+full. Good society in New England in those days very generally took its
+breakfast at six, its dinner at twelve, and its tea, at six. "Company
+tea," however, among thrifty, industrious folk, was often taken an hour
+earlier, because each of the _invitees_ had children to put to bed, or
+other domestic cares at home, and, as in those simple times people were
+invited because you wanted to see them, a tea-party assembled themselves
+at three and held session till sundown, when each matron rolled up her
+knitting-work and wended soberly home.
+
+Though Newport, even in those early times, was not without its families
+which affected state and splendor, rolled about in carriages with
+armorial emblazonments, and had servants in abundance to every turn
+within-doors, yet there, as elsewhere in New England, the majority of
+the people lived with the wholesome, thrifty simplicity of the olden
+time, when labor and intelligence went hand in hand, in perhaps a
+greater harmony than the world has ever seen.
+
+Our scene opens in the great old-fashioned kitchen, which, on ordinary
+occasions, is the family dining and sitting-room of the Scudder family.
+I know fastidious moderns think that the working-room, wherein are
+carried on the culinary operations of a large family, must necessarily
+be an untidy and comfortless sitting-place; but it is only because they
+are ignorant of the marvellous workings which pertain to the organ of
+"faculty," on which we have before insisted. The kitchen of a New
+England matron was her throne-room, her pride; it was the habit of her
+life to produce the greatest possible results there with the slightest
+possible discomposure; and what any woman could do, Mrs. Katy Scudder
+could do _par excellence_. Everything there seemed to be always done and
+never doing. Washing and baking, those formidable disturbers of the
+composure of families, were all over with in those two or three
+morning-hours when we are composing ourselves for a last nap,--and only
+the fluttering of linen over the green yard, on Monday mornings,
+proclaimed that the dreaded solemnity of a wash had transpired. A
+breakfast arose there as by magic; and in an incredibly short space
+after, every knife, fork, spoon, and trencher, clean and shining, was
+looking as innocent and unconscious in its place as if it never had been
+used and never expected to be.
+
+The floor,--perhaps, Sir, you remember your grandmother's floor, of
+snowy boards sanded with whitest sand; you remember the ancient
+fireplace stretching quite across one end,--a vast cavern, in each
+corner of which a cozy seat might be found, distant enough to enjoy the
+crackle of the great jolly wood-fire; across the room ran a dresser, on
+which was displayed great store of shining pewter dishes and plates,
+which always shone with the same mysterious brightness; and by the side
+of the fire, a commodious wooden "settee," or settle, offered repose to
+people too little accustomed to luxury to ask for a cushion. Oh, that
+kitchen of the olden times, the old, clean, roomy New England
+kitchen!--who that has breakfasted, dined, and supped in one has not
+cheery visions of its thrift, its warmth, its coolness? The noon-mark on
+its floor was a dial that told of some of the happiest days; thereby did
+we right up the shortcomings of the solemn old clock that tick-tacked in
+the corner, and whose ticks seemed mysterious prophecies of unknown good
+yet to arise out of the hours of life. How dreamy the winter twilight
+came in there,--as yet the candles were not lighted,--when the crickets
+chirped around the dark stone hearth, and shifting tongues of flame
+flickered and cast dancing shadows and elfish lights on the walls, while
+grandmother nodded over her knitting-work, and puss purred, and old
+Rover lay dreamily opening now one eye and then the other on the family
+group! With all our ceiled houses, let us not forget our grandmothers'
+kitchens!
+
+But we must pull up, however, and back to our subject-matter, which is
+in the kitchen of Mrs. Katy Scudder, who has just put into the oven, by
+the fireplace, some wondrous tea-rusks, for whose composition she is
+renowned. She has examined and pronounced perfect a loaf of cake, which
+has been prepared for the occasion, and which, as usual, is done exactly
+right. The best room, too, has been opened and aired,--the white
+window-curtains saluted with a friendly little shake, as when one says,
+"How d'ye do?" to a friend;--for you must know, clean as our kitchen is,
+we are genteel, and have something better for company. Our best room in
+here has a polished little mahogany tea-table, and six mahogany chairs,
+with claw talons grasping balls; the white sanded floor is crinkled in
+curious little waves, like those on the sea-beach; and right across the
+corner stands the "buffet," as it is called, with its transparent glass
+doors, wherein are displayed the solemn appurtenances of company
+tea-table. There you may see a set of real China teacups, which George
+bought in Canton, and had marked with his and his wife's joint
+initials,--a small silver cream-pitcher, which has come down as an
+heirloom from unknown generations,--silver spoons and delicate China
+cake-plates, which have been all carefully reviewed and wiped on napkins
+of Mrs. Scudder's own weaving.
+
+Her cares now over, she stands drying her hands on a roller-towel in the
+kitchen, while her only daughter, the gentle Mary, stands in the doorway
+with the afternoon sun streaming in spots of flickering golden light on
+her smooth pale-brown hair,--a _petite_ figure in a full stuff petticoat
+and white short gown, she stands reaching up one hand and cooing to
+something among the apple-blossoms,--and now a Java dove comes whirring
+down and settles on her finger,--and we, that have seen pictures, think,
+as we look on her girlish face, with its lines of statuesque beauty, on
+the tremulous, half-infantine expression of her lovely mouth, and the
+general air of simplicity and purity, of some old pictures of the
+girlhood of the Virgin. But Mrs. Scudder was thinking of no such Popish
+matter, I can assure you,--not she! I don't think you could have done
+her a greater indignity than to mention her daughter in any such
+connection. She had never seen a painting in her life, and therefore was
+not to be reminded of them; and furthermore, the dove was evidently, for
+some reason, no favorite,--for she said, in a quick, imperative tone,
+"Come, come, child! don't fool with that bird,--it's high time we were
+dressed and ready,"--and Mary, blushing, as it would seem, even to her
+hair, gave a little toss, and sent the bird, like a silver fluttering
+cloud, up among the rosy apple-blossoms. And now she and her mother have
+gone to their respective little bedrooms for the adjustment of their
+toilettes, and while the door is shut and nobody hears us, we shall talk
+to you about Mary.
+
+Newport at the present day blooms like a flower-garden with young ladies
+of the best _ton_,--lovely girls, hopes of their families, possessed of
+amiable tempers and immensely large trunks, and capable of sporting
+ninety changes of raiment in thirty days and otherwise rapidly emptying
+the purses of distressed fathers, and whom yet travellers and the world
+in general look upon as genuine specimens of the kind of girls formed by
+American institutions.
+
+We fancy such a one lying in a rustling silk _negligee_, and, amid a
+gentle generality of rings, ribbons, puffs, laces, beaux, and
+dinner-discussion, reading our humble sketch;--and what favor shall our
+poor heroine find in her eyes? For though her mother was a world of
+energy and "faculty," in herself considered, and had bestowed on this
+one little lone chick all the vigor and all the care and all the
+training which would have sufficed for a family of sixteen, there were
+no results produced which could be made appreciable in the eyes of such
+company. She could not waltz or polk, or speak bad French or sing
+Italian songs; but, nevertheless, we must proceed to say what was her
+education and what her accomplishments.
+
+Well, then, she could both read and write fluently in the mother-tongue.
+She could spin both on the little and the great wheel, and there were
+numberless towels, napkins, sheets, and pillow-cases in the household
+store that could attest the skill of her pretty fingers. She had worked
+several samplers of such rare merit, that they hung framed in different
+rooms of the house, exhibiting every variety and style of possible
+letter in the best marking-stitch. She was skilful in all sewing and
+embroidery, in all shaping and cutting, with a quiet and deft handiness
+that constantly surprised her energetic mother, who could not conceive
+that so much could be done with so little noise. In fact, in all
+household lore she was a veritable good fairy; her knowledge seemed
+unerring and intuitive; and whether she washed or ironed, or moulded
+biscuit or conserved plums, her gentle beauty seemed to turn to poetry
+all the prose of life.
+
+There was something in Mary, however, which divided her as by an
+appreciable line from ordinary girls of her age. From her father she had
+inherited a deep and thoughtful nature, predisposed to moral and
+religious exaltation. Had she been born in Italy, under the dissolving
+influences of that sunny, dreamy clime, beneath the shadow of
+cathedrals, and where pictured saints and angels smiled in clouds of
+painting from every arch and altar, she might, like fair St. Catherine
+of Siena, have seen beatific visions in the sunset skies, and a silver
+dove descending upon her as she prayed; but, unfolding in the clear,
+keen, cold New England clime, and nurtured in its abstract and positive
+theologies, her religious faculties took other forms. Instead of lying
+entranced in mysterious raptures at the foot of altars, she read and
+ponder treatises on the Will, and listened in rapt attention while her
+spiritual guide, the venerated Dr. H., unfolded to her the theories of
+the great Edwards on the nature of true virtue. Womanlike, she felt the
+subtile poetry of these sublime abstractions which dealt with such
+infinite and unknown quantities,--which spoke of the universe, of its
+great Architect, of man, of angels, as matters of intimate and daily
+contemplation; and her teacher, a grand-minded and simple-hearted man as
+ever lived, was often amazed at the tread with which this fair young
+child walked through these high regions of abstract thought,--often
+comprehending through an ethereal clearness of nature what he had
+laboriously and heavily reasoned out; and sometimes, when she turned her
+grave, childlike face upon him with some question or reply, the good man
+started as if an angel had looked suddenly out upon him from a cloud.
+Unconsciously to himself, he often seemed to follow her, as Dante
+followed the flight of Beatrice, through the ascending circles of the
+celestial spheres.
+
+When her mother questioned him, anxiously, of her daughter's spiritual
+estate, he answered, that she was a child of a strange graciousness of
+nature, and of a singular genius; to which Katy responded, with a
+woman's pride, that she was all her father over again. It is only now
+and then that a matter-of-fact woman is sublimated by a real love; but
+if she is, it is affecting to see how impossible it is for death to
+quench it; for in the child the mother feels that she has a mysterious
+and undying repossession of the father.
+
+But, in truth, Mary was only a recast in feminine form of her father's
+nature. The elixir of the spirit that sparkled within, her was of that
+quality of which the souls of poets and artists are made; but the keen
+New England air crystalizes emotions into ideas, and restricts many a
+poetic soul to the necessity of expressing itself only in practical
+living.
+
+The rigid theological discipline of New England is fitted to produce
+rather strength and purity than enjoyment. It was not fitted to make a
+sensitive and thoughtful nature happy, however it might ennoble and
+exalt.
+
+The system of Dr. H. was one that could have had its origin in a soul at
+once reverential and logical,--a soul, moreover, trained from its
+earliest years in the habits of thought engendered by monarchical
+institutions. For although he, like other ministers, took an active part
+as a patriot in the Revolution, still he was brought up under the shadow
+of a throne, and a man cannot ravel out the stitches in which early days
+have knit him. His theology was, in fact, the turning to an invisible
+Sovereign of that spirit of loyalty and unquestioning subjugation which
+is one of the noblest capabilities of our nature. And as a gallant
+soldier renounces life and personal aims in the cause of his king and
+country, and holds himself ready to be drafted for a forlorn hope, to be
+shot down, or help make a bridge of his mangled body, over which the
+more fortunate shall pass to victory and glory, so he regarded himself
+as devoted to the King Eternal, ready in His hands to be used to
+illustrate and build up an Eternal Commonwealth, either by being
+sacrificed as a lost spirit or glorified as a redeemed one, ready to
+throw not merely his mortal life, but his immortality even, into the
+forlorn hope, to bridge with a never-dying soul the chasm over which
+white-robed victors should pass to a commonwealth of glory and splendor
+whose vastness dwarf the misery of all the lost infinitesimal.
+
+It is not in our line to imply the truth or the falsehood of those
+systems of philosophic theology which seem for many years to have been
+the principal outlet for the proclivities of the New England mind, but
+as psychological developments they have an intense interest. He who does
+not see a grand side to these strivings of the soul cannot understand
+one of the noblest capabilities of humanity.
+
+No real artist or philosopher ever lived who has not at some hours risen
+to the height of utter self-abnegation for the glory of the invisible.
+There have been painters who would have been crucified to demonstrate
+the action of a muscle,--chemists who would gladly have melted
+themselves and all humanity in their crucible, if so a new discovery
+might arise out of its fumes. Even persons of mere artistic sensibility
+are at times raised by music, painting, or poetry to a momentary trance
+of self-oblivion, in which they would offer their whole being before the
+shrine of an invisible loveliness. These hard old New England divines
+were the poets of metaphysical philosophy, who built systems in an
+artistic fervor, and felt self exhale from beneath them as they rose
+into the higher regions of thought. But where theorists and philosophers
+tread with sublime assurance, woman often follows with bleeding
+footsteps;--women are always turning from the abstract to the
+individual, and feeling where the philosopher only thinks.
+
+It was easy enough for Mary to believe in _self_-renunciation, for she
+was one with a born vocation for martyrdom; and so, when the idea was
+put to her of suffering eternal pains for the glory of God and the good
+of being in general, she responded to it with a sort of sublime thrill,
+such as it is given to some natures to feel in view of uttermost
+sacrifice. But when she looked around on the warm, living faces of
+friends, acquaintances, and neighbors, viewing them as possible
+candidates for dooms so fearfully different, she sometimes felt the
+walls of her faith closing round her as an iron shroud,--she wondered
+that the sun could shine so brightly, that flowers could flaunt such
+dazzling colors, that sweet airs could breathe, and little children
+play, and youth love and hope, and a thousand intoxicating influences
+combine to cheat the victims from the thought that their next step might
+be into an abyss of horrors without end. The blood of youth and hope was
+saddened by this great sorrow, which lay ever on her heart,--and her
+life, unknown to herself, was a sweet tune in the minor key; it was only
+in prayer, or deeds of love and charity, or in rapt contemplation of
+that beautiful millennial day which her spiritual guide most delighted
+to speak of, that the tone of her feelings ever rose to the height of
+joy.
+
+Among Mary's young associates was one who had been as a brother to her
+childhood. He was her mother's cousin's son,--and so, by a sort of
+family immunity, had always a free access to her mother's house. He took
+to the sea, as the most bold and resolute young men will, and brought
+home from foreign parts those new modes of speech, those other eyes for
+received opinions and established things, which so often shock
+established prejudices,--so that he was held as little better than an
+infidel and a castaway by the stricter religious circles in his native
+place. Mary's mother, now that Mary was grown up to woman's estate,
+looked with a severe eye on her cousin. She warned her daughter against
+too free an association with him,--and so----We all know what comes to
+pass when girls are constantly warned not to think of a man. The most
+conscientious and obedient little person in the world, Mary resolved to
+be very careful. She never would think of James, except, of course, in
+her prayers; but as these were constant, it may easily be seen it was
+not easy to forget him.
+
+All that was so often told her of his carelessness, his trifling, his
+contempt of orthodox opinions, and his startling and bold expressions,
+only wrote his name deeper in her heart,--for was not his soul in peril?
+Could she look in his frank, joyous fate and listen to his thoughtless
+laugh, and then think that a fall from mast-head, or one night's storm,
+might----Ah, with what images her faith filled the blank! Could she
+believe all this and forget him?
+
+You see, instead of getting our tea ready, as we promised at the
+beginning of this chapter, we have filled it with descriptions and
+meditations, and now we foresee that the next chapter will be equally
+far from the point. But have patience with us; for we can write only as
+we are driven, and never know exactly where we are going to land.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A quiet, maiden-like place was Mary's little room. The window looked out
+under the overarching boughs of a thick apple-orchard, now all in a
+blush with blossoms and pink-tipped buds, and the light came
+golden-green, strained through flickering leaves,--and an ever-gentle
+rustle and whirr of branches and blossoms, a chitter of birds, and an
+indefinite whispering motion, as the long heads of orchard-grass nodded
+and bowed to each other under the trees, seemed to give the room the
+quiet hush of some little side-chapel in a cathedral, where green and
+golden glass softens the sunlight, and only the sigh and rustle of
+kneeling worshippers break the stillness of the aisles. It was small
+enough for a nun's apartment, and dainty in its neatness as the waxen
+cell of a bee. The bed and low window were draped in spotless white,
+with fringes of Mary's own knotting. A small table under the
+looking-glass bore the library of a well-taught young woman of those
+times. "The Spectator," "Paradise Lost," Shakspeare, and "Robinson
+Crusoe" stood for the admitted secular literature, and beside them the
+Bible and the works then published of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Laid a
+little to one side, as if of doubtful reputation, was the only novel
+which the stricter people in those days allowed for the reading of their
+daughters: that seven-volumed, trailing, tedious, delightful old bore,
+"Sir Charles Grandison,"--a book whose influence in those times was so
+universal, that it may be traced in the epistolary style even of the
+gravest divines. Our little heroine was mortal, with all her divinity,
+and had an imagination which sometimes wandered to the things of earth;
+and this glorious hero in lace and embroidery, who blended rank,
+gallantry, spirit, knowledge of the world, disinterestedness, constancy,
+and piety, sometimes walked before her, while she sat spinning at her
+wheel, till she sighed, she hardly knew why, that no such men walked the
+earth now. Yet it is to be confessed, this occasional raid of the
+romantic into Mary's balanced and well-ordered mind was soon
+energetically put to rout, and the book, as we have said, remained on
+her table under protest,--protected by being her father's gift to her
+mother during their days of courtship. The small looking-glass was
+curiously wreathed with corals and foreign shells, so disposed as to
+indicate an artistic eye and skilful hand; and some curious Chinese
+paintings of birds and flowers gave rather a piquant and foreign air to
+the otherwise homely neatness of the apartment.
+
+Here in this little retreat Mary spent those few hours which her
+exacting conscience would allow her to spare from her busy-fingered
+household-life; here she read and wrote and thought and prayed;--and
+here she stands now, arraying herself for the tea company that
+afternoon. Dress, which in our day is becoming in some cases the whole
+of woman, was in those times a remarkably simple affair. True, every
+person of a certain degree of respectability had state and festival
+robes; and a certain camphor-wood brass-bound trunk, which was always
+kept solemnly locked in Mrs. Katy Scudder's apartment, if it could have
+spoken, might have given off quite a catalogue of brocade satin and
+laces. The wedding-suit there slumbered in all the unsullied whiteness
+of its stiff ground broidered with heavy knots of flowers; and there
+were scarfs of wrought India muslin and embroidered crape, each of which
+had its history,--for each had been brought into the door with beating
+heart on some return voyage of one who, alas, should return no more! The
+old trunk stood with its histories, its imprisoned remembrances,--and a
+thousand tender thoughts seemed to be shaping out of every rustling fold
+of silk and embroidery, on the few yearly occasions when all were
+brought out to be aired, their history related, and then solemnly locked
+up again. Nevertheless, the possession of these things gave to the women
+of an establishment a certain innate dignity, like a good conscience; so
+that in that larger portion of existence commonly denominated among them
+"every day," they were content with plain stuff and homespun. Mary's
+toilette, therefore, was sooner made than those of Newport belles of the
+present day; it simply consisted in changing her ordinary "short gown
+and petticoat" for another of somewhat nicer materials,--a skirt of
+India chintz and a striped jacconet short-gown. Her hair was of the kind
+which always lies like satin; but, nevertheless, girls never think their
+toilette complete unless the smoothest hair has been shaken down and
+rearranged. A few moments, however, served to braid its shining folds
+and dispose them in their simple knot on the back of the head; and
+having given a final stroke to each side with her little dimpled hands,
+she sat down a moment at the window, thoughtfully watching where the
+afternoon sun was creeping through the slats of the fence in long lines
+of gold among the tall, tremulous orchard-grass, and unconsciously she
+began warbling, in a low, gurgling voice, the words of a familiar hymn,
+whose grave earnestness accorded well with the general tone of her life
+and education:--
+
+    "Life is the time to serve the Lord,
+    The time to insure the great reward."
+
+There was a swish and rustle in the orchard-grass, and a tramp of
+elastic steps; then the branches were brushed aside, and a young man
+suddenly emerged from the trees a little behind Mary. He was apparently
+about twenty-five, dressed in the holiday rig of a sailor on shore,
+which well set off his fine athletic figure, and accorded with a sort of
+easy, dashing, and confident air which sat not unhandsomely on him. For
+the rest, a high forehead shaded by rings of the blackest hair, a keen,
+dark eye, a firm and determined mouth, gave the impression of one who
+had engaged to do battle with life, not only with a will, but with
+shrewdness and ability.
+
+He introduced the colloquy by stepping deliberately behind Mary, putting
+his arms round her neck, and kissing her.
+
+"Why, James!" said Mary, starting up, and blushing. "Come, now!"
+
+"I have come, haven't I?" said the young man, leaning his elbow on the
+window-seat and looking at her with an air of comic determined
+frankness, which yet had in it such wholesome honesty that it was
+scarcely possible to be angry. "The fact is, Mary," he added, with a
+sudden earnest darkening of the face, "I won't stand this nonsense any
+longer. Aunt Katy has been holding me at arm's length ever since I got
+home; and what have I done? Haven't I been to every prayer-meeting and
+lecture and sermon, since I got into port, just as regular as a
+psalm-book? and not a bit of a word could I get with you, and no chance
+even so much as to give you my arm. Aunt Kate always comes between us
+and says, 'Here, Mary, you take my arm.' What does she think I go to
+meeting for, and almost break my jaws keeping down the gapes? I never
+even go to sleep, and yet I'm treated in this way! It's too bad! What's
+the row? What's anybody been saying about me? I always have waited on
+you ever since you were that high. Didn't I always draw you to school on
+my sled? didn't we always use to do our sums together? didn't I always
+wait on you to singing-school? and I've been made free to run in and out
+as if I were your brother;--and now she is as glum and stiff, and always
+stays in the room every minute of the time that I am there, as if she
+was afraid I should be in some mischief. It's too bad!"
+
+"Oh, James, I am sorry that you only go to meeting for the sake of
+seeing me; you feel no real interest in religious things; and besides,
+mother thinks now I'm grown so old, that----Why, you know things are
+different now,--at least, we mustn't, you know, always do as we did when
+we were children. But I wish you did feel more interested in good
+things."
+
+"I _am_ interested in one or two good things, Mary,--principally in you,
+who are the beat I know of. Besides," he said quickly, and scanning her
+face attentively to see the effect of his words, "don't you think there
+is more merit in my sitting out all these meetings, when they bore me so
+confoundedly, than there is in your and Aunt Katy's doing it, who really
+seem to find something to like in them? I believe you have a sixth
+sense, quite unknown to me; for it's all a maze,--I can't find top, nor
+bottom, nor side, nor up, nor down to it,--it's you can and you can't,
+you shall and you sha'n't, you will and you won't,"----
+
+"James!"
+
+"You needn't look at me so. I'm not going to say the rest of it. But,
+seriously, it's all anywhere and nowhere to me; it don't touch me, it
+don't help me, and I think it rather makes me worse; and then they tell
+me it's because I'm a natural man, and the natural man understandeth not
+the things of the Spirit. Well, I _am_ a natural man,--how's a fellow to
+help it?"
+
+"Well, James, why need you talk everywhere as you do? You joke, and
+jest, and trifle, till it seems to everybody that you don't believe in
+anything. I'm afraid mother thinks you are an infidel, but I _know_ that
+can't be; yet we hear of all sorts of things that you say."
+
+"I suppose you mean my telling Deacon Twitchel that I had seen as good
+Christians among the Mahometans as any in Newport. _Didn't_ I make him
+open his eyes? It's true, too!"
+
+"In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is
+accepted of Him," said Mary; "and if there are better Christians than us
+among the Mahometans, I am sure I'm glad of it. But, after all, the
+great question is, 'Are we Christians ourselves?' Oh, James, if you only
+were a real, true, noble Christian!"
+
+"Well, Mary, you have got into that harbor, through all the sandbars and
+rocks and crooked channels; and now do you think it right to leave a
+fellow beating about outside, and not go out to help him in? This way of
+drawing up, among you good people, and leaving us sinners to ourselves,
+isn't generous. You might care a little for the soul of an old friend,
+anyhow!"
+
+"And don't I care, James? How many days and nights have been one prayer
+for you! If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give
+them to you, I would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, 'I could
+wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen'; and he
+went on to show how we must be willing to give up even our own
+salvation, if necessary, for the good of others. People said it was hard
+doctrine, but I could feel my way through it very well. Yes, I would
+give my soul for yours; I wish I could."
+
+There was a solemnity and pathos in Mary's manner which checked the
+conversation. James was the more touched because he felt it all so real,
+from one whose words were always yea and nay, so true, so inflexibly
+simple. Her eyes filled with tears, her face kindled with a sad
+earnestness, and James thought, as he looked, of a picture he had once
+seen in a European cathedral, where the youthful Mother of Sorrows is
+represented,
+
+    "Radiant and grave, as pitying man's decline;
+    All youth, but with an aspect beyond time;
+    Mournful, but mournful of another's crime;
+    She looked as if she sat by Ellen's door,
+    And grieved for those who should return no more."
+
+James had thought he loved Mary; he had admired her remarkable beauty,
+he had been proud of a certain right in her before that of other young
+men, her associates; he had thought of her as the keeper of his home; he
+had wished to appropriate her wholly to himself;--but in all this there
+had been, after all, only the thought of what she was to be to him; and
+this, for this poor measure of what he called love, she was ready to
+offer, an infinite sacrifice.
+
+As a subtile flash of lightning will show in a moment a whole landscape,
+tower, town, winding stream, and distant sea, so that one subtile ray of
+feeling seemed in a moment to reveal to James the whole of his past
+life; and it seemed to him so poor, so meagre, so shallow, by the side
+of that childlike woman, to whom the noblest of feelings were
+unconscious matters of course, that a sort of awe awoke in him; like the
+Apostles of old, he "feared as he entered into the cloud"; it seemed as
+if the deepest string of some eternal sorrow had vibrated between them.
+
+After a moment's pause, he spoke in a low and altered voice:--
+
+"Mary, I am a sinner. No psalm or sermon ever taught it to me, but I see
+it now. Your mother is quite right, Mary; you are too good for me; I am
+no mate for you. Oh, what would you think of me, if you knew me wholly?
+I have lived a mean, miserable, shallow, unworthy life. You are worthy,
+you are a saint, and walk in white! Oh, what upon earth could ever make
+you care so much for me?"
+
+"Well, then, James, you will be good? Won't you talk with Dr. H.?"
+
+"Hang Dr. H.!" said James. "Now, Mary, I beg your pardon, but I can't
+make head or tail of a word Dr. H. says. I don't get hold of it, or know
+what he would be at. You girls and women don't know your power. Why,
+Mary, you are a living gospel. You have always had a strange power over
+us boys. You never talked religion much, but I have seen high fellows
+come away from being with you as still and quite as one feels when one
+goes into a church. I can't understand all the hang of predestination,
+and moral ability, and natural ability, and God's efficiency, and man's
+agency, which Dr. H. is so engaged about; but I can understand _you_,
+_you_ can do me good!"
+
+"Oh, James, can I?"
+
+"Mary, I'm going to confess my sins. I saw, that, somehow or other, the
+wind was against me in Aunt Katy's quarter, and you know we fellows who
+take up the world in both fists don't like to be beat. If there's
+opposition, it sets us on. Now I confess I never did care much about
+religion, but I thought, without being really a hypocrite, I'd just let
+you try to save my soul for the sake of getting you; for there's nothing
+surer to hook a woman than trying to save a fellow's soul. It's a
+dead-shot, generally, that. Now our ship sails to-night, and I thought
+I'd just come across this path in the orchard to speak to you. You know
+I used always to bring you peaches and juneatings across this way, and
+once I brought you a ribbon."
+
+"Yes, I've got it yet, James."
+
+"Well, now, Mary, all this seems mean to me, mean, to try and trick and
+snare you, who are so much too good for me. I felt very proud this
+morning that I was to go out first mate this time, and that I should
+command a ship next voyage. I meant to have asked you for a promise, but
+I don't. Only, Mary, just give me your little Bible, and I'll promise to
+read it all through soberly, and see what it all comes to. And pray for
+me; and if, while I'm gone, a good man comes who loves you, and is
+worthy of you, why, take him, Mary,--that's my advice."
+
+"James, I am not thinking of any such things; I don't ever mean to be
+married. And I'm glad you don't ask me for any promise,--because it
+would be wrong to give it; mother don't even like me to be much with
+you. But I'm sure all I have said to you to-day is right; I shall tell
+her exactly all I have said."
+
+"If Aunt Katy knew what things we fellows are pitched into, who take the
+world headforemost, she wouldn't be so selfish. Mary, you girls and
+women don't know the world you live in; you ought to be pure and good:
+you are not as we are. You don't know what men, what women--no, they're
+not women!--what creatures, beset us in every foreign port, and
+boarding-houses that are gates of hell; and then, if a fellow comes back
+from all this and don't walk exactly straight, you just draw up the hems
+of your garments and stand close to the wall, for fear he should touch
+you when he passes. I don't mean you, Mary, for you are different from
+most; but if you would do what you could, you might save us. But it's no
+use talking, Mary. Give me the Bible; and please be kind to my
+dove,--for I had a hard time getting him across the water, and I don't
+want him to die."
+
+If Mary had spoken all that welled up in her little heart at that
+moment, she might have said too much; but duty had its habitual seal
+upon her lips. She took the little Bible from her table and gave it with
+a trembling hand, and James turned to go. In a moment he turned back,
+and stood irresolute.
+
+"Mary," he said, "we are cousins; I may never come back; you might kiss
+me this once."
+
+The kiss was given and received in silence, and James disappeared among
+the thick trees.
+
+"Come, child," said Aunt Katy, looking in, "there is Deacon Twitchel's
+chaise in sight,--are you ready?"
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOCRAT GIVES A BREAKFAST TO THE PUBLIC.
+
+
+Before my friend the Professor takes his place at our old table, where,
+Providence permitting, he means to wish you all a happy New Year on or
+about the First of January next, I wish you to do me the favor of being
+my guests at the table which you see spread before you.
+
+This table is a very long one. Legs in every Atlantic and inland
+city,--legs in California and Oregon,--legs on the shores of 'Quoddy and
+of Lake Pontchartrain,--legs everywhere, like a millipede or a
+banian-tree.
+
+The schoolmistress that was,--and is,--(there are her little scholars at
+the side-table.)--shall pour out coffee or tea for you as you like.
+
+Sit down and make yourselves comfortable.--A teaspoon, my dear, for
+Minnesota.--Sacramento's cup is out.
+
+Bridget has become a thought, and serves us a great deal faster than the
+sticky lightning of the submarine _par vagum_, as the Professor calls
+it.--Pepper for Kansas, Bridget.--A sandwich for Cincinnati.--Rolls and
+sardines for Washington.--A bit of the Cape Ann turkey for
+Boston.--South Carolina prefers dark meat.--Fifty thousand glasses of
+_eau sucree_ at once, and the rest simultaneously.--Now give us the nude
+mahogany, that we may talk over it.--Bridget becomes as a mighty wind
+and peels off the immeasurable table-cloth as a northwester strips off
+the leafy damask from the autumn woods.
+
+[At this point of the entertainment the Reporter of the "Oceanic
+Miscellany" was introduced, and to his fluent and indefatigable pen we
+owe the further account of the proceedings.--_Editors of the "Oceanic
+Miscellany."_]
+
+--The liberal and untiring editors of the "Oceanic Miscellany"
+commissioned their special reporter to be present at the Great Breakfast
+given by the personage known as the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,
+furnishing him with one of the _caput-mortuum_ tickets usually
+distributed on such occasions.
+
+The tables groaned with the delicacies of the season, provided by the
+distinguished caterers whose names are familiar in our mouths as
+household words. After the usual contest for places,--a proceeding more
+honored in the breach than the observance,--the band discoursed sweet
+music. The creature comforts were then discussed, consisting of the
+various luxuries that flesh is heir to, together with fish and fowl, too
+numerous to mention. After the material banquet had cloyed the hungry
+edge of appetite, began the feast of reason and the flow of soul. As,
+take him for all in all, the bright particular star of the evening was
+the distinguished individual who played the part of mine host, we shall
+make no apology for confining our report to the
+
+
+SPEECH OF THE AUTOCRAT.
+
+I think on the whole we have had a good time together, since we became
+acquainted. So many pleasant looks and words as have passed between us
+must mean something. For one person who speaks well or ill of us we may
+safely take it for granted that there are ten or a hundred, or an
+indefinite number, who feel in the same way, but are shy of talking.
+
+Now the first effect of being kindly received is unquestionably a
+pleasing internal commotion, out of which arises a not less pleasing
+secondary sensation, which the unthinking vulgar call conceit, but which
+is in reality an increased consciousness of life, and a most important
+part of the mechanism by which a man is advertised of his ability to
+serve his fellows, and stirred up to use it.
+
+In the present instance, the immediate effects of the warm general
+welcome received were the following demonstrations:--
+
+1. The purchase of a glossy bell-crowned hat, which is worn a little
+inclined to one side, at the angle of self-reliance,--this being a very
+slight dip, as compared to the outrageous slant of country dandies and
+the insolent obliquity indulged in by a few unpleasantly conspicuous
+city-youth, who prove that "it takes three generations to make a
+gentleman."
+
+2. A movement towards the acquisition of a pair of pantaloons with a
+stripe running down the leg; also of a slender canary-colored cane, to
+be carried as formerly in the time when Mr. Van Buren was
+President.--[_A mild veto from the schoolmistress was interposed._]
+
+3. A manifest increase of that _monstraridigitativeness_,--if you will
+permit the term,--which is so remarkable in literary men, that, if
+public opinion allowed it, some of them would like to wear a smart
+uniform, with an author's button, so that they might be known and hailed
+everywhere.
+
+4. An undeniable aggravation of the natural tendency to caress and
+cosset such products of the writer's literary industry as have met with
+special favor. This is shown by a willingness to repeat any given
+stanza, a line of which is referred to, and a readiness to listen to
+even exaggerated eulogy with a twinkling stillness of feature and
+inclination of the titillated ear to the operator, such as the Mexican
+Peccary is said to show when its dorsal surface is gently and
+continuously irritated with the pointed extremity of a reed or of a
+magnolia-branch. What other people think well of, we certainly have a
+right to like, ourselves.
+
+All this self-exaltation, which some folks make so much scandal of, is
+the most natural thing in the world when one gets an over-dose of fair
+words. The more I reflect upon it, the more I am convinced that it is
+well for a man to think too highly of himself while he is in the working
+state. Sydney Smith could discover no relation between Modesty and
+Merit, excepting that they both began with an M. Considered simply as a
+machine out of which work is to be got, the wheels of intellect run best
+when they are kept well oiled by the public and the publisher.
+
+Therefore, my friends, if any of you have uttered words of kindness, of
+flattery, of extreme over-praise, even, let me thank you for it.
+Criticism with praise in it is azotized food; it makes muscle; to expect
+a man to write without it is like giving nothing but hay to a roadster
+and expecting to get ten miles an hour out of him. A young fellow cannot
+be asked to go on making love forever, if he does not get a smile now
+and then to keep hope alive. The truth is, Bridget would have whisked
+off the table-cloth and given notice of quitting, and the whole
+establishment would have gone to pieces at the end of No. 1, if you had
+not looked so very good-natured about it that it was impossible to give
+up such amiable acquaintance.
+
+The above acknowledgments and personal revelations are preliminary to
+the following more general statement, which will show how they must be
+qualified.
+
+Every man of sense has two ways of looking at himself. The first is an
+everyday working view, in which he makes the most of his gifts and
+accomplishments. It is the superficial stratum in which praise and blame
+find their sphere of action,--the region of comparisons,--the habitat
+where envy and jealousy are to be looked for, if they have not been
+weeded out and flung into the compost-heap of dead vices, with which, if
+we understand moral husbandry, we fertilize our living virtues. It is
+quite foolish to abuse this thin upper layer of our mental soil. The
+grasses do not strike their roots deep in towards the centre, like the
+oaks, but they are the more useful and necessary vegetable of the two.
+The cheap, but perpetual activities of life grow out of this upper
+stratum of our being. How silly to try to be wiser than Providence!
+Don't tell me about the vain illusions of self-love. There is nothing so
+real in this world as Illusion. All other things may desert a man, but
+this fair angel never leaves him. She holds a star a billion miles over
+a baby's head, and laughs to see him clawing and batting himself as he
+tries to reach it. She glides before the hoary sinner down the path
+which leads to the inexorable gate, jingling the keys of heaven at her
+girdle.
+
+Underneath this surface-soil lies another stratum of thought, where the
+tap-roots of the larger mental growths penetrate and find their
+nourishment. Out of this comes heroism in all its shapes; here the
+enterprises that overshadow half the planet, when full grown, lie,
+tender, in their cotyledons. Here there is neither praise nor blame,
+nothing but a passionless self-estimate, quite as willing to undervalue
+as to rate too highly. The less clay and straw the task-master has given
+his servant, the smaller the tale of bricks he will be required to
+furnish. Many a man not remarkable for conceit has shuddered as some
+effort or accident has revealed to him a depth of power of which he
+never thought himself the possessor and broken his peace with the fatal
+words, "Sleep no more!"
+
+This deeper self-appreciation is a slow and gradual process. At first, a
+child thinks he can do everything. I remember when I thought I could
+lift a house, if I would only try hard enough. So I began with the hind
+wheel of a heavy old family-coach, built like that in which my Lady
+Bountiful carried little King Pippin, if you happen to remember the
+illustrations of that story. I lifted with all my might, and the planet
+pulled down with all its might. The planet beat. After that, my ideas of
+the difference between my will and my muscular force were more
+accurately defined. Then came the illusion, that I could, of course,
+"lick," "serve out," or "polish off," various small boys who had been or
+might be obnoxious to me. The event of the different "set-tos" to
+which, this hypothesis led not uniformly confirming it, another
+limitation of my possibilities was the consequence. In this way I groped
+along into a knowledge of my physical relations to the organic and
+inorganic universe.
+
+A man must be very stupid indeed, if, by the time he is fully ripened,
+he does not know tolerably well what his physical powers are. His
+weight, his height, his general development, his constitutional force,
+his good or ill looks, he has had time to find out; and he is a fool, if
+he does not carry a reasonable consciousness of these conditions with
+him always. It is a little harder with the mind; but some qualities are
+generally estimated fairly enough by their owners. Thus, a man may be
+trusted when he says he has a good or a bad memory. Not so of his
+opinion of his own judgment or imagination. It is only by a very slow
+process that he finds out how much or how little of those qualities he
+possesses. But it is one of the blessed privileges of growing older,
+that we come to have a much clearer sense of what we can do and what we
+cannot, and settle down to our work quietly, knowing what our tools are
+and what we have to do with them.
+
+Therefore, my friends, if I should at any time put on any airs on the
+strength of your good-natured treatment, please to remember that these
+are only the growth of that thin upper stratum of character I was
+telling you of. I conceive that the fact of a man's coming out in a book
+or two, even supposing them to have a success such as I should never
+think of, is to the sum total of that man's life and character as the
+bed of tulips and hyacinths you may see in spring, at the feet of the
+"Great Elm," on our Boston Common, is to the solemn old tree itself. The
+serene, strong life, reaching deep underground and high overhead, robed
+itself in April and disrobed itself in October when the Common was a
+cow-pasture, and observes the same seasons now that the old tree is
+belted with an iron girdle and finds its feet covered with flowers.
+Alas! my friends, the fence and the tulips are painfully suggestive.
+Authorship is an iron girdle, and the blossoms of flattery that are
+scattered at its feet are useful to it only as their culture keeps the
+soil open to the sun and rain. No man can please the reading public ever
+so little without being too highly commended for it in the heat of the
+moment; and so, if he thinks of starting again for the prize of public
+approbation, he finds himself heavily handicapped, and perhaps weighted
+down, simply because he has made good running for some former stakes.
+
+I don't like the position of my friend the Professor. I consider him
+fully as good a man as myself.--I have, you know, often referred to him
+and quoted him, and sometimes got so mixed up with him, that, like the
+Schildbuergers at their town-meeting, I was puzzled to disentangle my own
+legs from his, when I wanted to stand up by myself, they were got into
+such a snarl together.--But I don't like the position of my friend the
+Professor.
+
+The first thing, of course, when he opens his mouth, will be to compare
+him with his predecessor. Now, if he has the least tact in the world, he
+will begin dull, so as to leave a wide margin for improvement. You may
+be perfectly certain that he can talk and write just as well as I can;
+but you don't think, surely, that he is going to begin where I left off.
+Not unless we are to have a wedding in the first number;--and you are
+not sure whether or not there is to be any wedding at all while the
+Professor holds my seat at the table.
+
+But I will tell you one thing,--if you sit a year or so at a long table,
+you will see what life is. Christenings, weddings, funerals,--these are
+the three legs it stands on; and you have a chance to see them all in a
+twelvemonth, if the table is really a long one. I don't doubt the
+Professor will have something to tell besides his opinions and fancies;
+and if you like a book of thoughts with occasional incidents, as well as
+a book of incidents with occasional thoughts, why, I see no reason why
+you should not accept this talk of the Professor's as kindly as if it
+had a fancy name and called itself a novel.
+
+Life may be divided into two periods,--the hours of taking food, and the
+intervals between them,--or, technically, into the _alimentary_ and the
+_non-alimentary_ portions of existence. Now our social being is so
+intensified during the first of these periods, that whoso should write
+the history of a man's breakfasts or dinners or suppers would give a
+perfect picture of his most important social qualities, conditions, and
+actions, and might omit the non-alimentary portion of his life
+altogether from consideration. Thus I trust that the breakfasts of which
+you have had some records have given you a pretty clear idea, not only
+of myself, but of those more interesting friends and fellow-boarders of
+mine to whom I have introduced you, and with some of whom, in company
+with certain new acquaintances, my friend the Professor will keep you in
+relation during the following year. So you see that over the new
+table-cloth which is going to be spread there may very possibly be a new
+drama of life enacted; but all that, if it should be so, is incidental
+and by the way;--for what the Professor wishes particularly to do, and
+means to do, is to talk about life and men and things and books and
+thoughts; but if there should be anything better than talk occurring
+before his eyes, either at the small world of the breakfast-table or in
+the greater world without, he holds himself at liberty to relate it or
+discourse upon it.
+
+I suppose the Professor will receive a good many letters, as I did,
+containing suggestions, counsel, and articles in prose and verse for
+publication. He desires me to state that he is very happy to hear from
+known and unknown friends, provided they will not mistake him for an
+editor, and will not be offended if their communications are not made
+the subject of individual notice. There may be times when, having
+nothing to say, he will be very glad to print somebody's note or copy of
+verses; I don't think it very likely; for life, is short, and the world
+is brimful, and rammed down hard, with strange things worth seeing and
+telling, and Mr. Worcester's great Quarto Dictionary is soon coming out,
+crammed with all manner of words to talk with,--so that the Professor
+will probably find little room, except for an answer to a question now
+and then, or the acknowledgment of some hint he may have thought worth
+taking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+--The speaker shut himself off like a gas-burner at this point, and the
+company soon dispersed. I sauntered down to the landlady's, and obtained
+from her the following production from the papers left by the gentleman,
+whose pen, ranging from grave to gay, from lively to severe, has held
+the mirror up to Nature, and given the form and pressure of his thoughts
+and feelings for the benefit of the numerous and constantly-increasing
+multitudes of readers of the "Oceanic Miscellany," a journal which has
+done and is doing so much for the gratification and improvement of the
+masses.
+
+
+_A Poem from the Autocrat's Lose Papers._
+
+[I find the following note written in pencil on the MSS.--_Reporter Oc.
+Misc._]
+
+This is a true story. Avis, Avise, or Avice, (they pronounce it
+_Arris_,) is a real breathing person. Her home is not more than an hour
+and a half's space from the palaces of the great ladies who might like
+to look at her. They may see her and the little black girl she gave
+herself to, body and soul, when nobody else could bear the sight of her
+infirmity,--leaving home at noon, or even after breakfast, and coming
+back in season to undress for the evening's party.
+
+
+AVIS.
+
+    I may not rightly call thy name,--
+      Alas! thy forehead never knew
+    The kiss that happier children claim,
+      Nor glistened with baptismal dew.
+
+    Daughter of want and wrong and woe,
+      I saw thee with thy sister-band,
+    Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow
+      By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand.
+
+    --"Avis!"--With Saxon eye and cheek,
+      At once a woman and a child,
+    The saint uncrowned I came to seek
+      Drew near to greet us,--spoke and smiled.
+
+    God gave that sweet sad smile she wore
+      All wrong to shame, all souls to win,--
+    A heavenly sunbeam sent before
+      Her footsteps through a world of sin.
+
+    --"And who is Avis?"--Hear the tale
+      The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,--
+    The story known through all the vale
+      Where Avis and her sisters dwell.
+
+    With the lost children running wild,
+      Strayed from the hand of human care,
+    They find one little refuse child
+      Left helpless in its poisoned lair.
+
+    The primal mark is on her face,--
+      The chattel-stamp,--the pariah-stain
+    That follows still her hunted race,--
+      The curse without the crime of Cain.
+
+    How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate
+      The little suffering outcast's ail?
+    Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate
+      So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale.
+
+    Ah, veil the living death from sight
+      That wounds our beauty-loving eye!
+    The children turn in selfish fright,
+      The white-lipped nurses hurry by.
+
+    Take her, dread Angel! Break in love
+      This bruised reed and make it thine!--
+    No voice descended from above,
+      But Avis answered, "She is mine."
+
+    The task that dainty menials spurn
+      The fair young girl has made her own;
+    Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn
+      The toils, the duties yet unknown.
+
+    So Love and Death in lingering strife
+      Stand face to face from day to day,
+    Still battling for the spoil of Life
+      While the slow seasons creep away.
+
+    Love conquers Death; the prize is won;
+      See to her joyous bosom pressed
+    The dusky daughter of the sun,--
+      The bronze against the marble breast!
+
+    Her task is done; no voice divine
+      Has crowned her deed with saintly fame;
+    No eye can see the aureole shine
+      That rings her brow with heavenly flame.
+
+    Yet what has holy page more sweet,
+      Or what had woman's love more fair
+    When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet
+      With flowing eyes and streaming hair?
+
+    Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown.
+      The Angel of that earthly throng,
+    And let thine image live alone
+      To hallow this unstudied song!
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+_Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, with other Papers._ By CHARLES
+KINGSLEY, Author of "Hypatia," "Two Years Ago," etc. Boston: Ticknor &
+Fields. 12mo.
+
+This collection of Mr. Kingsley's miscellaneous writings is marked by
+the same qualities of mind and temper which have given celebrity and
+influence to his novels. An earnest man, with strong convictions
+springing from a fervid philanthropy, fertile in thought, confident in
+statement, resolute in spirit, with many valuable ideas and not a few
+curious crotchets, and master of a style singularly bold, vivid,
+passionate, and fluent, he always stimulates the mind, if he does not
+always satisfy it. The defects of his intellect, especially in the
+treatment of historical questions, proceed from the warmth of his
+temperament. His impulses irritate his reason. Intellectually impatient
+with all facts and arguments which obstruct the full sweep of his
+theory, he has an offensive habit of escaping from objections he will
+not pause to answer, by the calling of names and the introduction of
+Providence. He is most petulantly disdainful of others when he has
+nothing but paradoxes with which to oppose their truisms. He has a trick
+of adopting the manner and expressions of Carlyle, in speaking of
+incidents and characters to which they are ludicrously inapplicable, and
+becomes flurried and flippant on occasions where Carlyle would put into
+the same words his whole scowling and scornful strength. He frequently
+mistakes sympathy with suffering for insight into its causes, and an
+eloquent statement of what he thinks desirable for an interpretation of
+what really is. He has bright glimpses of truth, but they are due rather
+to the freedom of his thinking than to its depth; and in the hurry and
+impatient pressure of his impulses, he does not discriminate between his
+ideas and his whims. He seems to be in a state of insurrection against
+the limitations of his creed, his profession, and his own mind, and the
+impression conveyed by his best passages is of splendid incompleteness.
+It would be ungracious to notice these defects in a writer who possesses
+so many excellences, were it not that he forces them upon the attention,
+and in their expression is unjust to other thinkers. His intellectual
+conceit finds its vent in intellectual sauciness, and is all the worse
+from appearing to have its source in conceit of conscience and
+benevolence.
+
+In spite of these faults, however, Mr. Kingsley's reputation is not
+greater than he deserves. He is one of the most sincere; truthful, and
+courageous of writers, has no reserves or concealments, and pours out
+his feelings and opinions exactly as they lie in his own heart and
+brain. We at least feel assured that he has no imperfections which he
+does not express, and that there is no disagreement between the book and
+the man. He is commonly on the right side in the social and political
+movements of the day, if he does not always give the right reasons for
+his position. His love, both of Nature and human nature, is intense and
+deep, and this gives a cordiality, freshness, and frankness to his
+writings which more than compensate for their defects.
+
+The present volume of his miscellanies contains not only his essays and
+reviews, but his four lectures on "Alexandria and her Schools," and his
+"Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers." Of the essays, those on "North
+Devon" and "My Winter Garden" are the best specimens of his descriptive
+power, and those on "Raleigh" and "England from Wolsey to Elizabeth," of
+his talents and accomplishments as a thinker on historical subjects. The
+literary papers on "Tennyson," "Burns," "The Poetry of Sacred and
+Literary Art," and "Hours with the Mystics," are full of striking and
+suggestive, if somewhat perverse, thought. The volume, as a whole, is
+read with mingled feelings of vexation and pleasure; but whether
+provoked or delighted, we are always interested both in the author and
+his themes.
+
+
+_A Journey due North: Being Notes of a Residence in Russia._ By GEORGE
+AUGUSTUS SALA. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.
+
+Although the matter of this brilliant volume is of intrinsic interest,
+its charm is due more to the mode of description than even to the things
+described. It gives us Russia from a Bohemian point of view. The
+characteristics of Mr. Sala are keen observation, vivid description,
+lively wit, indomitable assurance, and incapacity of being surprised. To
+his resolute belief in himself, in what he sees with his own eyes and
+conceives with his own brain, the book owes much of its raciness, its
+confident, decisive, "knowing" tone, its independence of the judgments
+of others, and its freedom from all the deceptions which proceed from
+such emotions as wonder and admiration. The volume is read with a
+pleasure similar to that we experience in listening to the animated talk
+of an acquaintance fresh from novel scenes of foreign travel, who
+reproduces his whole experience in recalling his adventures, and gives
+us not merely incidents and pictures, but his own feelings of delight
+and self-elation.
+
+The three introductory chapters, describing the journey to St.
+Petersburg, are perhaps the most brilliant portions of the book. The
+delineations of his fellow-passengers, in the voyage from Stettin to
+Cronstadt, especially the portraits of the swearing Captain Smith and
+the accomplished Hussian noble, are admirable equally for their humor
+and their sagacity. The account of the landing at Cronstadt, the scenes
+at the Custom-House, the author's first walk in St. Petersburg, and his
+first drive in a droschky, are masterpieces of familiar narration, and
+fairly convert the readers of his hook into companions of his journey.
+The description of the manners and customs of the Russian people, the
+shrewd occasional comments on the policy of the government, and the
+thorough analysis of the rascality of the Russian police, are admirable
+in substance, if somewhat flippant in expression. In power of holding
+the amused attention of the reader, equally by the pertinence of the
+matter and the impertinence of the tone, the volume is unexcelled by any
+other book on the subject of Russia.
+
+
+_The New Priest in Conception Bay_. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co.
+1858. 2 vols. 12mo.
+
+The southeastern portion of the island of Newfoundland, as may be seen
+by a glance at the map, may be well described by that expressive epithet
+of "nook-shotten," which in Shakspeare is applied to the mother-island
+of which it is a dependent. The land is indented by bays and estuaries,
+so that it bears the same relation to the water that the parted fingers
+of an outstretched hand do to the spaces of air that are between them.
+One of these inlets bears the name of Conception Bay; and it is around
+the shores of this bay that the scene of this novel is laid. Everything
+in it suffers a sea-change; everything is set to the music of the winds
+and the waves. We find ourselves among a people with whom the sea is
+all, and the land only an appendage to the sea,--a place to dry fish,
+and mend nets, and haul up boats, and caulk ships. But though the view
+everywhere, morally and physically, is bounded by the sea, and though
+one of the finest of the characters is a fisherman, yet the moving
+springs of the story are found in elements only accidentally connected
+with the sea, and by no means new to novel-writers or playwrights. The
+plot of the novel is taken from, or founded upon, the peculiar relations
+existing between the Roman Catholic priesthood and the female sex; and,
+with only a change in costume and scenery, the events might have taken
+place in Maryland, Louisiana, or France.
+
+The novel is one of a peculiar class. To borrow a convenient phraseology
+recently introduced into the language, its interest is more subjective
+than objective,--or, in other words, is derived more from marked and
+careful delineations of individual character than from the march of
+events or brilliant procession of incidents. With a single
+exception,--the abduction of the fisherman's daughter,--the occurrences
+narrated are such as might happen any day in any small community living
+near the sea. Novels constructed on this plan are less likely to be
+popular than those in which the interest is derived from a
+skilfully-contrived plot and a rapid and stirring succession of moving
+events. To what extent the work before us may be popular we wilt not
+undertake even to guess; for we have had too frequent experience of the
+capriciousness of public taste to hazard any prediction as to the
+reception a particular book may meet with, especially if it rely
+exclusively upon its own merits, and be not helped by the previous
+reputation of the writer. But we certainly can and will say that to
+readers of a certain cast it will present strong attractions, and that
+no candid critic can read it without pronouncing it to be a remarkable
+work and the production of an original mind. The author we should judge
+to be a man who had lived a good deal in solitude, or at least removed
+from his intellectual peers,--who had been through much spiritual
+struggle in the course of his life,--who had been more accustomed to
+think than to write, at least for the press,--and whose own observation
+had revealed to him some of the darker aspects of the Roman Catholic
+faith and practice.
+
+There is very little skill in the construction of the plot. Most of the
+events stand to each other in the relation of accidental and not of
+necessary succession, and might be transposed without doing any harm.
+Many pages are written simply as illustrations of character; and a fair
+proportion of the novel might be called with strict propriety a series
+of sketches connected by a slight thread of narrative. But it would be
+unreasonable to deal sharply with an author for this defect; for the
+faculty of making a well-constructed story, in which every event shall
+come in naturally, and yet each bring us one step nearer to the
+journey's end, is now one of the lost arts of earth. But this is not
+all. A considerable portion of it must be pronounced decidedly slow. We
+use the word not in its slang application, but in the sense in which
+Goldsmith used it in the first line of "The Traveller," or rather, as
+Johnson told him he used it, when he said to him,--"You do not mean
+tardiness of locomotion; you mean that sluggishness of mind which comes
+upon a man in solitude." But the slowness of which novel-readers will
+complain is not mere commonplace, least of all is it dulness. It is the
+leisurely movement of a contemplative mind full of rich thought and
+stored with varied learning. Such a writer _could not_ have any sympathy
+with the mercurial, vivacious, light-of-foot story-tellers of the French
+school. The author of "The New Priest in Conception Bay," we surmise,
+has not been in the habit of packing up his thoughts for the market, by
+either writing for the press, or conversing with clever and
+nimble-witted men and women, and thus does not always distinguish
+between cargo and dunnage. The current of the story often flows with a
+very languid movement. It happens, rather unluckily, that this is
+particularly true of the first seventy pages of the first volume. We
+fear that many professional novel-readers may break down in the course
+of these pages; and we confess ourselves to have been a little
+discouraged. But after the ninth chapter, and the touching account which
+Skipper George gives of the death of his boys,--a story which the most
+indifferent cannot peruse without emotion,--the reader may be safely
+left in the author's hands. They will go on together to the end, after
+this, on good terms. And the prospect brightens, and the horses are
+whipped up, as we advance. The second volume is much more interesting,
+in the common sense of the word,--more stirring, more rapid, more
+animated, than the first.
+
+It is but putting our criticism into another form to say that the novel
+is too long, and, as a mere story, might with advantage be compressed
+into at least two-thirds of its present bulk. There are, especially, two
+departments or points to which this remark is applicable. In the first
+place, the conversations are too numerous, too protracted, and run too
+much into trivialities and details. In the second place, the
+descriptions of scenery are too frequently introduced, and pushed to a
+wearisome enumeration of particulars and minute delineation of details.
+In this peculiarity the author is kept in countenance by most
+respectable literary associates. This sort of Pre-Raphaelite style of
+scenery-painting in words is a characteristic of most recent American
+novel, especially such as are written by women. Every rock, every clump
+of trees, every strip of sea-shore, every sloping hillside, sits for its
+portrait, and is reproduced with a tender conscientiousness of touch
+wholly disproportioned to the importance of the subject. When human
+hearts and human passions are animating or darkening the scene, we do
+not want to be detained by a botanist's description of plants or a
+geologist's sketch of rocks. The broad, free sweeps of Scott's brush in
+"The Pirate" are more effective than the delicate needle-point lines of
+the writer before us.
+
+We think, too, that too much use is made of those strange and uncouth
+dialects which have to be represented to the eye by bad spelling. We
+have the familiar Yankee type in Mr. Bangs, and a new form of
+phraseology in the speech of the Newfoundland fishermen. A little of
+this is well enough, but it should not be pushed to an extreme. The
+author's style, in general, is vigorous and expressive; it is the garb
+of an original mind, and often takes striking forms; but in grace and
+simplicity there is room for improvement, and we doubt not that
+improvement will come with practice.
+
+There are many passages which we should like to quote as specimens of
+the imaginative power, forcible description, and apt illustration which
+are shown in this work. Whether the author has ever written verse or
+not, he is a poet in the best sense of that much-abused word. To him
+Nature in all its forms is animated; it sympathizes with all his moods,
+and takes on the hues of his thought. There are very few of these
+paragraphs that are easily separable; they are fixed in the page, and
+cannot be understood apart from it. Besides, many of these beauties are
+minute,--a gleaming word here and there,--but making the track of the
+story glow like the phosphorescent waters of the tropics.
+
+We give a few paragraphs at random:--
+
+     "Does the sea hold the secret?
+
+     "Along the wharves, along the little beaches, around the
+     circuit of the little coves, along the smooth or broken face of
+     rock, the sea, which cannot rest, is busy. These little waves
+     and this long swell, that now are here at work, have been ere
+     now at home in the great inland sea of Europe, breathed on by
+     soft, warm winds from fruit-groves, vineyards, and wide fields
+     of flowers,--have sparkled in the many-colored lights, and felt
+     the trivial oars and dallying fingers of the loiterers, on the
+     long canals of Venice,--have quenched the ashes of the
+     Dutchman's pipe, thrown overboard from his dull, laboring
+     _treckschuyt_,--have wrought their patient tasks in the dim
+     caverns of the Indian Archipelago,--have yielded to the little
+     builders under water means and implements to rear their
+     towering altar, dwelling, monument.
+
+     "These little waves have crossed the ocean, tumbling like
+     porpoises at play, and, taking on a savage nature in the Great
+     Wilderness, have thundered in close ranks and countless numbers
+     against man's floating fortress,--have stormed the breach and
+     climbed up over the walls in the ship's riven side,--have
+     followed, howling and hungry as mad wolves, the crowded
+     raft,--have leaped upon it, snatching off, one by one, the
+     weary, worn-out men and women,--have taken up and borne aloft,
+     as if on hands and shoulders, the one chance human body that is
+     brought in to land, and the long spur, from which man's dancing
+     cordage wastes by degrees, find yields its place to long, green
+     streamers, much like those that clung to this tall, taper tree
+     when it stood in the Northern forest.
+
+     "These waves have rolled their breasts about amid the wrecks
+     and weeds of the hot stream that comes up many thousands of
+     miles out of the Gulf of Mexico, as the great Mississippi goes
+     down into it, and by-and-by these waves will move, all numb and
+     chilled, among the mighty icebergs and ice-fields that must be
+     brought down from the poles."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "She asked, 'Have you given up being a priest, Mr. Urston?'
+
+     "'Yes!' he answered, in a single word, looking before him, as
+     it were along his coming life, like a quoit-caster, to see how
+     far the uttered word would strike; then, turning to her, and in
+     a lower voice, added, 'I've left that, once and forever.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "He stood still with his grief; and, as Mr. Wellon pressed his
+     honest, hard hand, he lifted to his pastor one of those
+     childlike looks that only come out on the face of the true man,
+     that has grown, as oaks grow, ring around ring, adding each
+     after-age to the childhood that has never been lost, but has
+     been kept innermost. This fisherman seemed like one of those
+     that plied their trade, and were the Lord's disciples, at the
+     Sea of Galilee, eighteen hundred years ago. The very flesh and
+     blood inclosing such a nature keep a long youth through life.
+     Witness the genius, (who is only the more thorough man,) poet,
+     painter, sculptor, finder-out, or whatever; how fresh and fair
+     such an one looks out from under his old age! Let him be
+     Christian, too, and he shall look as if--shedding this
+     outward--the inward being would walk forth a glorified one."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "As he mentioned his fruitless visits, a startling, most
+     repulsive leer just showed itself in Ladford's face; but it
+     disappeared as suddenly and wholly as a monster that has come
+     up, horrid and hideous, to the surface of the sea, and then has
+     sunk again, bodily, into the dark deep, and is gone, as if it
+     had never come, except for the fear and loathing that it leaves
+     behind. This face, after that look, had nothing repulsive in
+     it, but was only the more subdued and sad."
+
+The author's mind so teems with images, that he does not always
+discriminate between the good and the bad. Occasionally we find some
+that are manifestly faulty and overstrained.
+
+     "It is one on which the tenderness of the deep heart of the
+     Common Mother breaks itself; over which _the broad, dark,
+     silent wings of a dread mystery are stretched_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Her voice had in it that tender _touch_ which _lays itself,
+     warm and loving_, on the heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "And then her voice began _to drop down_, as it were, _from
+     step to step_,--and _the steps seemed cold and damp, as it went
+     down them lingeringly_:--'or for
+     trial,--disappointment,--whatever comes!'--and at the last, _it
+     seemed to have gone down into a sepulchral vault_."
+
+We do not admire any one of the above,--least of all the last, in which
+the human voice is embodied as a sexton going down the steps of a tomb.
+Why, too, as a matter of verbal criticism, should the author use such
+words as "tragedist," "exhibitress," and "cheaty?"
+
+In the delineation of character the author shows uncommon power and is
+entitled to high praise. His portraits are animated, life-like, and
+individual. Father Terence is drawn with a firm and skilful touch. The
+task which the author prescribed to himself--to present an ecclesiastic
+without learning, without intellectual power, without enthusiasm, and
+with the easy habits of a careless and enjoyable temperament, and yet
+who should be respectable, and even venerable, by reason of the
+soundness of his instincts and his thorough right-heartedness--was not
+an easy one; but in the execution he has been entirely successful. We
+cannot but surmise that he has met sometime and somewhere a living man
+with some of the characteristic traits of Father Terence. Father
+Ignatius, the conventional type of the dark, wily, and dangerous
+ecclesiastical intriguer, is an easier subject, but not so well done. He
+is a little too melodramatic; and we apply with peculiar force to him a
+criticism to which all the characters are more or less obnoxious, that
+he is too constantly and uniformly manifesting the peculiar traits by
+which the author distinguishes him from others. Father Debree and Mrs.
+Barre are drawn with powerful and discriminating touch, and we recognize
+the skill of the writer in the fact that we had read a considerable
+portion of the novel before we had any suspicion of the former relations
+between them. We may here say that we think that the women who may read
+this work will want to know, a little more fully and distinctly than the
+author has seen fit to tell, what were the causes and influences which
+led to the severing of those relations. We cannot state our meaning more
+clearly, without doing what we think should never be done in the review
+of a new novel, and that is, telling the story, and thus removing half
+the impulse to read it. Skipper George and his household, and the
+smuggler Ladford, are very well drawn,--not distinctly original, and yet
+with distinctive individual traits, which sharp observation must, to
+some extent, have furnished the author with.
+
+But to our commendation of the characters we must make one exception: we
+humbly and respectfully submit that Mr. Bangs is a portentous bore, and
+we heartily wish that he had been drowned before he ever set his foot
+upon the shores of Newfoundland. It is possible, however, that in this
+case we are not impartial judges; for we confess, that, for our own
+private reading, we are heartily weary of the Yankee,--we mean as a
+literary creation,--of the eternal repetition of the character of which
+Sam Slick is the prototype,--which is for the most part a caricature,
+and no more to be found upon the solid earth than a griffin or a
+centaur. And in our judgment the theological discussions between this
+worthy and Father Terence are not in good taste. The author surely would
+not have us suppose that the wretched, skimble-skamble stuff which the
+latter is made to talk is any fair representative of the arguments by
+which the Church of Rome maintains its dogmas and vindicates its claims.
+A considerable amount of literary skill and a quick perception of the
+ludicrous are shown in the ridiculous aspect which the good Father's
+statements and reasonings are made to assume in passing through Mr.
+Bangs's mind; but we doubt whether such exhibitions are profitable to
+the cause of good religion, and whether the advantage thereby secured to
+Protestantism is not purchased at the price of some danger to
+Christianity. It is not well to teach men the art of making mysteries
+ridiculous.
+
+But we take leave of our author and his book with high respect for his
+powers,--we do not know but that we may say his genius,--and with no
+small admiration for this particular expression of them. The very
+minuteness of our criticism involves a compliment. It has been truly
+said, that many men never write a book at all, but that very few write
+only one. We think that the author of "The New Priest in Conception Bay"
+must and will write more. A mind so fruitful and inventive, a spiritual
+nature so high and earnest, and an observation so keen and correct,
+cannot fail to accumulate materials for future use. We predict that his
+next novel will be better than this,--that it will have all its
+substantial and essential merits, and will show more constructive skill
+and a more practised hand in literary artisanship. His gold will be more
+neatly wrought, and not less pure and abundant.
+
+
+_Summer Time in the Country._ By Rev. ROBERT ARIS WILLMOTT. London and
+New York: George Routledge. Square 12mo. Illustrated.
+
+We first made the acquaintance of this work in a shilling volume, a
+"railway-library edition," and were charmed with its genial tone, its
+nice appreciation of rural scenery, its agreeable and unpedantic
+learning. It is a diary for the summer months, with notes upon the
+changing aspects of Nature, reminiscences from the poets, and
+appropriate comments. We are glad now to welcome the book in this form,
+wherein satin paper, careful typography, delicate engravings, and
+handsome binding have been employed to give it an appropriate dress.
+
+
+_Annual Obituary Notices of Eminent Persons who died in the United
+States during the Year 1857._ By NATHAN CROSBY. Boston: Phillips,
+Sampson, & Co. 8vo. pp. 430.
+
+The object of this work is best stated in the words of the author, as
+being "the result of a long and earnest desire to give a more permanent
+and accessible memorial to those who have originated and developed our
+institutions,--those whose names should be remembered by the generations
+to come, as the statesmen, the soldiers, the men of science and skill,
+the sagacious merchants, the eminent clergymen and
+philanthropists,--those who have brought our country to the prosperity
+and distinction it now enjoys."
+
+Eulogies, funeral sermons, and obituaries soon pass out of remembrance,
+and an annual compilation like this cannot fail to be of service. The
+work appears to have been done with impartiality and care.
+
+
+_The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe, with an Original Memoir._
+Illustrated by F. R. PICKERSGILL, JOHN TENNIEL, BIRKET FOSTER, FELIX
+DARLEY, and others. New York: J. S. Redfield. 8vo. pp. 250.
+
+The poems of Poe have taken their place in literature; it is too late to
+attempt anything like a contemporaneous criticism, too early to
+anticipate the judgement of posterity. But whatever were the faults of
+this gifted and erratic genius, much that he has written has become a
+part of the thought and memory of the present generation of readers, and
+will doubtless go to our children with equal claims.
+
+In this volume it would seem that the arts connected with book-making
+have culminated; paper, typography, drawing, and engraving are all
+admirable. There are no fewer than fifty-three wood-engravings, of
+various degrees of excellence, but all exquisitely finished. The lovers
+of fine editions of poetry will find this a gift-book which the most
+fastidious taste will approve. If we could add that this mechanical
+excellence was from American hands, it would be much more grateful to
+our national pride.
+
+
+_Black's Atlas of North America._ Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.
+
+Nothing could well be more convenient than this series of twenty maps.
+They are carefully executed, of a size not too large for easy handling,
+and bound in a thin, light volume. They are preceded by some
+introductory statistical matter which is very useful for purposes of
+ready reference, and accompanied by an index so arranged that one can
+find the name he seeks on any map with great facility. We have seen no
+maps of North America which seemed to us, on the whole, at once so cheap
+and good.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the announcements of illustrated works in press, we notice "The
+Stratford Gallery, comprising Forty-five Ideal Portraits described by
+Mrs. J. W. Palmer. Illustrated with Fine Engravings on Steel, from
+Designs by Eminent Hands."
+
+In one vol. 8vo. Antique morocco. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The many admirers of the "AUTOCRAT" will learn with pleasure that a fine
+edition of his charming volume is in preparation, with tinted paper,
+illustrated by Hoppin, and bound in elegant style. Probably no
+holiday-book will be in such demand this season.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No.
+14, December 1858, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY  ***
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