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diff --git a/2665-0.txt b/2665-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..778be03 --- /dev/null +++ b/2665-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9986 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Professor at the Breakfast Table +by Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.) + +[The Physician and Poet--Not the Jurist O. W. Holmes, Jr.] + +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 Professor at the Breakfast Table + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.) + +Release Date: August 15, 2006 [EBook #2665] +Last Updated: February 18, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROFESSOR AT BREAKFAST TABLE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + + +THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE + +by Oliver Wendell Holmes + + + + +PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. + +The reader of to-day will not forget, I trust, that it is nearly a +quarter of a century since these papers were written. Statements which +were true then are not necessarily true now. Thus, the speed of the +trotting horse has been so much developed that the record of the year +when the fastest time to that date was given must be very considerably +altered, as may be seen by referring to a note on page 49 of the +“Autocrat.” No doubt many other statements and opinions might be more or +less modified if I were writing today instead of having written before +the war, when the world and I were both more than a score of years +younger. + +These papers followed close upon the track of the “Autocrat.” They had +to endure the trial to which all second comers are subjected, which is +a formidable ordeal for the least as well as the greatest. Paradise +Regained and the Second Part of Faust are examples which are enough +to warn every one who has made a jingle fair hit with his arrow of the +danger of missing when he looses “his fellow of the selfsame flight.” + +There is good reason why it should be so. The first juice that runs of +itself from the grapes comes from the heart of the fruit, and tastes +of the pulp only; when the grapes are squeezed in the press the flow +betrays the flavor of the skin. If there is any freshness in the +original idea of the work, if there is any individuality in the method +or style of a new author, or of an old author on a new track, it will +have lost much of its first effect when repeated. Still, there have not +been wanting readers who have preferred this second series of papers to +the first. The new papers were more aggressive than the earlier ones, +and for that reason found a heartier welcome in some quarters, and met +with a sharper antagonism in others. It amuses me to look back on some +of the attacks they called forth. Opinions which do not excite the +faintest show of temper at this time from those who do not accept them +were treated as if they were the utterances of a nihilist incendiary. It +required the exercise of some forbearance not to recriminate. + +How a stray sentence, a popular saying, the maxim of some wise man, a +line accidentally fallen upon and remembered, will sometimes help one +when he is all ready to be vexed or indignant! One day, in the time when +I was young or youngish, I happened to open a small copy of “Tom Jones,” + and glance at the title-page. There was one of those little engravings +opposite, which bore the familiar name of “T. Uwins,” as I remember it, +and under it the words “Mr. Partridge bore all this patiently.” How +many times, when, after rough usage from ill-mannered critics, my own +vocabulary of vituperation was simmering in such a lively way that it +threatened to boil and lift its lid and so boil over, those words have +calmed the small internal effervescence! There is very little in +them and very little of them; and so there is not much in a linchpin +considered by itself, but it often keeps a wheel from coming off and +prevents what might be a catastrophe. The chief trouble in offering such +papers as these to the readers of to-day is that their heresies +have become so familiar among intelligent people that they have too +commonplace an aspect. All the lighthouses and land-marks of belief +bear so differently from the way in which they presented themselves when +these papers were written that it is hard to recognize that we and our +fellow-passengers are still in the same old vessel sailing the same +unfathomable sea and bound to the same as yet unseen harbor. + +But after all, there is not enough theology, good or bad, in +these papers to cause them to be inscribed on the Protestant Index +Expurgatorius; and if they are medicated with a few questionable dogmas +or antidogmas, the public has become used to so much rougher treatments, +that what was once an irritant may now act as an anodyne, and the reader +may nod over pages which, when they were first written, would have waked +him into a paroxysm of protest and denunciation. + +November, 1882. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION + +This book is one of those which, if it lives for a number of decades, +and if it requires any Preface at all, wants a new one every ten +years. The first Preface to a book is apt to be explanatory, perhaps +apologetic, in the expectation of attacks from various quarters. If the +book is in some points in advance of public opinion, it is natural that +the writer should try to smooth the way to the reception of his more or +less aggressive ideas. He wishes to convince, not to offend,--to obtain +a hearing for his thought, not to stir up angry opposition in those +who do not accept it. There is commonly an anxious look about a first +Preface. The author thinks he shall be misapprehended about this or that +matter, that his well-meant expressions will probably be invidiously +interpreted by those whom he looks upon as prejudiced critics, and if he +deals with living questions that he will be attacked as a destructive +by the conservatives and reproached for his timidity by the noisier +radicals. The first Preface, therefore, is likely to be the weakest part +of a work containing the thoughts of an honest writer. + +After a time the writer has cooled down from his excitement,--has got +over his apprehensions, is pleased to find that his book is still read, +and that he must write a new Preface. He comes smiling to his task. How +many things have explained themselves in the ten or twenty or thirty +years since he came before his untried public in those almost plaintive +paragraphs in which he introduced himself to his readers,--for the +Preface writer, no matter how fierce a combatant he may prove, comes on +to the stage with his shield on his right arm and his sword in his left +hand. + +The Professor at the Breakfast-Table came out in the “Atlantic Monthly” + and introduced itself without any formal Preface. A quarter of a century +later the Preface of 1882, which the reader has just had laid before +him, was written. There is no mark of worry, I think, in that. Old +opponents had come up and shaken hands with the author they had attacked +or denounced. Newspapers which had warned their subscribers against him +were glad to get him as a contributor to their columns. A great change +had come over the community with reference to their beliefs. Christian +believers were united as never before in the feeling that, after all, +their common object was to elevate the moral and religious standard of +humanity. But within the special compartments of the great Christian +fold the marks of division have pronounced themselves in the most +unmistakable manner. As an example we may take the lines of +cleavage which have shown themselves in the two great churches, the +Congregational and the Presbyterian, and the very distinct fissure which +is manifest in the transplanted Anglican church of this country. Recent +circumstances have brought out the fact of the great change in the +dogmatic communities which has been going on silently but surely. +The licensing of a missionary, the transfer of a Professor from +one department to another, the election of a Bishop,--each of these +movements furnishes evidence that there is no such thing as an air-tight +reservoir of doctrinal finalities. + +The folding-doors are wide open to every Protestant to enter all the +privileged precincts and private apartments of the various exclusive +religious organizations. We may demand the credentials of every +creed and catechise all the catechisms. So we may discuss the gravest +questions unblamed over our morning coffee-cups or our evening tea-cups. +There is no rest for the Protestant until he gives up his legendary +anthropology and all its dogmatic dependencies. + +It is only incidentally, however, that the Professor at the +Breakfast-Table handles matters which are the subjects of religious +controversy. The reader who is sensitive about having his fixed beliefs +dealt with as if they were open to question had better skip the pages +which look as if they would disturb his complacency. “Faith” is the most +precious of possessions, and it dislikes being meddled with. It means, +of course, self-trust,--that is, a belief in the value of our own +opinion of a doctrine, of a church, of a religion, of a Being, a belief +quite independent of any evidence that we can bring to convince a jury +of our fellow beings. Its roots are thus inextricably entangled with +those of self-love and bleed as mandrakes were said to, when pulled up +as weeds. Some persons may even at this late day take offence at a few +opinions expressed in the following pages, but most of these passages +will be read without loss of temper by those who disagree with them, and +by-and-by they may be found too timid and conservative for intelligent +readers, if they are still read by any. + +BEVERLY FARM, MASS., June 18, 1891. O. W. H. + + + + +THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + + What he said, what he heard, and what he saw. + + + + +I + +I intended to have signalized my first appearance by a certain large +statement, which I flatter myself is the nearest approach to a universal +formula, of life yet promulgated at this breakfast-table. It would +have had a grand effect. For this purpose I fixed my eyes on a certain +divinity-student, with the intention of exchanging a few phrases, and +then forcing my court-card, namely, The great end of being.--I will +thank you for the sugar,--I said.--Man is a dependent creature. + +It is a small favor to ask,--said the divinity-student,--and passed the +sugar to me. + +--Life is a great bundle of little things,--I said. + +The divinity-student smiled, as if that were the concluding epigram of +the sugar question. + +You smile,--I said.--Perhaps life seems to you a little bundle of great +things? + +The divinity-student started a laugh, but suddenly reined it back with a +pull, as one throws a horse on his haunches.--Life is a great bundle of +great things,--he said. + +(NOW, THEN!) The great end of being, after all, is.... + +Hold on!--said my neighbor, a young fellow whose name seems to be John, +and nothing else,--for that is what they all call him,--hold on! the +Sculpin is go'n' to say somethin'. + +Now the Sculpin (Cottus Virginianus) is a little water-beast which +pretends to consider itself a fish, and, under that pretext, hangs about +the piles upon which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the bait +and hook intended for flounders. On being drawn from the water, it +exposes an immense head, a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so +full of spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have +not been able to count them without quarrelling about the number, and +that the colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touch +them, and especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoes +on, to cover the thick white soles of their broad black feet. + +When, therefore, I heard the young fellow's exclamation, I looked round +the table with curiosity to see what it meant. At the further end of it +I saw a head, and a--a small portion of a little deformed body, mounted +on a high chair, which brought the occupant up to a fair level enough +for him to get at his food. His whole appearance was so grotesque, I +felt for a minute as if there was a showman behind him who would pull +him down presently and put up Judy, or the hangman, or the Devil, or +some other wooden personage of the famous spectacle. I contrived to lose +the first of his sentence, but what I heard began so: + +--by the Frog-Pond, when there were frogs in and the folks used to come +down from the tents on section and Independence days with their pails to +get water to make egg-pop with. Born in Boston; went to school in Boston +as long as the boys would let me.--The little man groaned, turned, as +if to look around, and went on.--Ran away from school one day to see +Phillips hung for killing Denegri with a logger-head. That was in flip +days, when there were always two three loggerheads in the fire. I'm a +Boston boy, I tell you,--born at North End, and mean to be buried on +Copp's Hill, with the good old underground people,--the Worthylakes, +and the rest of 'em. Yes,--up on the old hill, where they buried Captain +Daniel Malcolm in a stone grave, ten feet deep, to keep him safe from +the red-coats, in those old times when the world was frozen up tight +and there was n't but one spot open, and that was right over Faneuil +all,--and black enough it looked, I tell you! There 's where my bones +shall lie, Sir, and rattle away when the big guns go off at the Navy +Yard opposite! You can't make me ashamed of the old place! Full crooked +little streets;--I was born and used to run round in one of 'em-- + +--I should think so,--said that young man whom I hear them call +“John,”--softly, not meaning to be heard, nor to be cruel, but thinking +in a half-whisper, evidently.--I should think so; and got kinked up, +turnin' so many corners.--The little man did not hear what was said, but +went on,-- + +--full of crooked little streets; but I tell you Boston has opened, and +kept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and free +speech and free deeds than any other city of live men or dead men,--I +don't care how broad their streets are, nor how high their steeples! + +--How high is Bosting meet'n'-house?--said a person with black whiskers +and imperial, a velvet waistcoat, a guard-chain rather too massive, and +a diamond pin so very large that the most trusting nature might confess +an inward suggestion,--of course, nothing amounting to a suspicion. For +this is a gentleman from a great city, and sits next to the landlady's +daughter, who evidently believes in him, and is the object of his +especial attention. + +How high?--said the little man.--As high as the first step of the stairs +that lead to the New Jerusalem. Is n't that high enough? + +It is,--I said.--The great end of being is to harmonize man with the +order of things, and the church has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be +so still. But who shall tune the pitch-pipe? Quis cus-(On the whole, as +this quotation was not entirely new, and, being in a foreign language, +might not be familiar to all the boarders, I thought I would not finish +it.) + +--Go to the Bible!--said a sharp voice from a sharp-faced, sharp-eyed, +sharp-elbowed, strenuous-looking woman in a black dress, appearing as +if it began as a piece of mourning and perpetuated itself as a bit of +economy. + +You speak well, Madam,--I said;--yet there is room for a gloss or +commentary on what you say. “He who would bring back the wealth of the +Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies.” What you bring away +from the Bible depends to some extent on what you carry to it.--Benjamin +Franklin! Be so good as to step up to my chamber and bring me down the +small uncovered pamphlet of twenty pages which you will find lying under +the “Cruden's Concordance.” [The boy took a large bite, which left a +very perfect crescent in the slice of bread-and-butter he held, and +departed on his errand, with the portable fraction of his breakfast to +sustain him on the way.] + +--Here it is. “Go to the Bible. A Dissertation, etc., etc. By J. J. +Flournoy. Athens, Georgia, 1858.” + +Mr. Flournoy, Madam, has obeyed the precept which you have judiciously +delivered. You may be interested, Madam, to know what are the +conclusions at which Mr. J. J. Flournoy of Athens, Georgia, has arrived. +You shall hear, Madam. He has gone to the Bible, and he has come back +from the Bible, bringing a remedy for existing social evils, which, if +it is the real specific, as it professes to be, is of great interest to +humanity, and to the female part of humanity in particular. It is what +he calls TRIGAMY, Madam, or the marrying of three wives, so that “good +old men” may be solaced at once by the companionship of the wisdom of +maturity, and of those less perfected but hardly less engaging qualities +which are found at an earlier period of life. He has followed your +precept, Madam; I hope you accept his conclusions. + +The female boarder in black attire looked so puzzled, and, in fact, “all +abroad,” after the delivery of this “counter” of mine, that I left her +to recover her wits, and went on with the conversation, which I was +beginning to get pretty well in hand. + +But in the mean time I kept my eye on the female boarder to see what +effect I had produced. First, she was a little stunned at having +her argument knocked over. Secondly, she was a little shocked at the +tremendous character of the triple matrimonial suggestion. Thirdly.--I +don't like to say what I thought. Something seemed to have pleased her +fancy. Whether it was, that, if trigamy should come into fashion, there +would be three times as many chances to enjoy the luxury of saying, +“No!” is more than I, can tell you. I may as well mention that B. F. +came to me after breakfast to borrow the pamphlet for “a lady,”--one of +the boarders, he said,--looking as if he had a secret he wished to be +relieved of. + +--I continued.--If a human soul is necessarily to be trained up in the +faith of those from whom it inherits its body, why, there is the end of +all reason. If, sooner or later, every soul is to look for truth with +its own eyes, the first thing is to recognize that no presumption in +favor of any particular belief arises from the fact of our inheriting +it. Otherwise you would not give the Mahometan a fair chance to become a +convert to a better religion. + +The second thing would be to depolarize every fixed religious idea in +the mind by changing the word which stands for it. + +--I don't know what you mean by “depolarizing” an idea,--said the +divinity-student. + +I will tell you,--I said.--When a given symbol which represents a +thought has lain for a certain length of time in the mind, it undergoes +a change like that which rest in a certain position gives to iron. It +becomes magnetic in its relations,--it is traversed by strange forces +which did not belong to it. The word, and consequently the idea it +represents, is polarized. + +The religious currency of mankind, in thought, in speech, and in print, +consists entirely of polarized words. Borrow one of these from another +language and religion, and you will find it leaves all its magnetism +behind it. Take that famous word, O'm, of the Hindoo mythology. Even a +priest cannot pronounce it without sin; and a holy Pundit would shut his +ears and run away from you in horror, if you should say it aloud. What +do you care for O'm? If you wanted to get the Pundit to look at his +religion fairly, you must first depolarize this and all similar words +for him. The argument for and against new translations of the Bible +really turns on this. Skepticism is afraid to trust its truths in +depolarized words, and so cries out against a new translation. I think, +myself, if every idea our Book contains could be shelled out of its old +symbol and put into a new, clean, unmagnetic word, we should have some +chance of reading it as philosophers, or wisdom-lovers, ought to read +it,--which we do not and cannot now any more than a Hindoo can read the +“Gayatri” as a fair man and lover of truth should do. When society has +once fairly dissolved the New Testament, which it never has done yet, it +will perhaps crystallize it over again in new forms of language. + +I did n't know you was a settled minister over this parish,--said the +young fellow near me. + +A sermon by a lay-preacher may be worth listening--I replied, calmly. +--It gives the parallax of thought and feeling as they appear to the +observers from two very different points of view. If you wish to get +the distance of a heavenly body, you know that you must take two +observations from remote points of the earth's orbit,--in midsummer and +midwinter, for instance. To get the parallax of heavenly truths, you +must take an observation from the position of the laity as well as +of the clergy. Teachers and students of theology get a certain look, +certain conventional tones of voice, a clerical gait, a professional +neckcloth, and habits of mind as professional as their externals. They +are scholarly men and read Bacon, and know well enough what the “idols +of the tribe” are. Of course they have their false gods, as all men that +follow one exclusive calling are prone to do.--The clergy have played +the part of the flywheel in our modern civilization. They have never +suffered it to stop. They have often carried on its movement, when +other moving powers failed, by the momentum stored in their vast body. +Sometimes, too, they have kept it back by their vis inertia, when its +wheels were like to grind the bones of some old canonized error +into fertilizers for the soil that yields the bread of life. But the +mainspring of the world's onward religious movement is not in them, nor +in any one body of men, let me tell you. It is the people that makes +the clergy, and not the clergy that makes the people. Of course, the +profession reacts on its source with variable energy.--But there never +was a guild of dealers or a company of craftsmen that did not need sharp +looking after. + +Our old friend, Dr. Holyoke, whom we gave the dinner to some time +since, must have known many people that saw the great bonfire in Harvard +College yard. + +--Bonfire?--shrieked the little man.--The bonfire when Robert Calef's +book was burned? + +The same,--I said,--when Robert Calef the Boston merchant's book was +burned in the yard of Harvard College, by order of Increase Mather, +President of the College and Minister of the Gospel. You remember the +old witchcraft revival of '92, and how stout Master Robert Calef, trader +of Boston, had the pluck to tell the ministers and judges what a set of +fools and worse than fools they were-- + +Remember it?--said the little man.--I don't think I shall forget it, +as long as I can stretch this forefinger to point with, and see what it +wears. There was a ring on it. + +May I look at it?--I said. + +Where it is,--said the little man;--it will never come off, till it +falls off from the bone in the darkness and in the dust. + +He pushed the high chair on which he sat slightly back from the table, +and dropped himself, standing, to the floor,--his head being only a +little above the level of the table, as he stood. With pain and labor, +lifting one foot over the other, as a drummer handles his sticks, he +took a few steps from his place,--his motions and the deadbeat of the +misshapen boots announcing to my practised eye and ear the malformation +which is called in learned language talipes varus, or inverted +club-foot. + +Stop! stop!--I said,--let me come to you. + +The little man hobbled back, and lifted himself by the left arm, with +an ease approaching to grace which surprised me, into his high chair. +I walked to his side, and he stretched out the forefinger of his right +hand, with the ring upon it. The ring had been put on long ago, and +could not pass the misshapen joint. It was one of those funeral rings +which used to be given to relatives and friends after the decease of +persons of any note or importance. Beneath a round fit of glass was a +death's head. Engraved on one side of this, “L. B. AEt. 22,”--on the +other, “Ob. 1692” + +My grandmother's grandmother,--said the little man.--Hanged for a witch. +It does n't seem a great while ago. I knew my grandmother, and loved +her. Her mother was daughter to the witch that Chief Justice Sewall +hanged and Cotton Mather delivered over to the Devil.--That was Salem, +though, and not Boston. No, not Boston. Robert Calef, the Boston +merchant, it was that blew them all to-- + +Never mind where he blew them to,--I said; for the little man was +getting red in the face, and I did n't know what might come next. + +This episode broke me up, as the jockeys say, out of my square +conversational trot; but I settled down to it again. + +--A man that knows men, in the street, at their work, human nature in +its shirt-sleeves, who makes bargains with deacons, instead of talking +over texts with them, a man who has found out that there are plenty of +praying rogues and swearing saints in the world,--above all, who has +found out, by living into the pith and core of life, that all of the +Deity which can be folded up between the sheets of any human book is to +the Deity of the firmament, of the strata, of the hot aortic flood of +throbbing human life, of this infinite, instantaneous consciousness in +which the soul's being consists,--an incandescent point in the filament +connecting the negative pole of a past eternity with the positive pole +of an eternity that is to come,--that all of the Deity which any human +book can hold is to this larger Deity of the working battery of the +universe only as the films in a book of gold-leaf are to the broad +seams and curdled lumps of ore that lie in unsunned mines and virgin +placers,--Oh!--I was saying that a man who lives out-of-doors, among +live people, gets some things into his head he might not find in the +index of his “Body of Divinity.” + +I tell you what,--the idea of the professions' digging a moat round +their close corporations, like that Japanese one at Jeddo, on the bottom +of which, if travellers do not lie, you could put Park Street Church and +look over the vane from its side, and try to stretch another such spire +across it without spanning the chasm,--that idea, I say, is pretty +nearly worn out. Now when a civilization or a civilized custom falls +into senile dementia, there is commonly a judgment ripe for it, and it +comes as plagues come, from a breath,--as fires come, from a spark. + +Here, look at medicine. Big wigs, gold-headed canes, Latin +prescriptions, shops full of abominations, recipes a yard long, “curing” + patients by drugging as sailors bring a wind by whistling, selling lies +at a guinea apiece,--a routine, in short, of giving unfortunate sick +people a mess of things either too odious to swallow or too acrid to +hold, or, if that were possible, both at once. + +--You don't know what I mean, indignant and not unintelligent +country-practitioner? Then you don't know the history of medicine,--and +that is not my fault. But don't expose yourself in any outbreak of +eloquence; for, by the mortar in which Anaxarchus was pounded! I did not +bring home Schenckius and Forestus and Hildanus, and all the old folios +in calf and vellum I will show you, to be bullied by the proprietor, +of a “Wood and Bache,” and a shelf of peppered sheepskin reprints by +Philadelphia Editors. Besides, many of the profession and I know +a little something of each other, and you don't think I am such a +simpleton as to lose their good opinion by saying what the better heads +among them would condemn as unfair and untrue? Now mark how the great +plague came on the generation of drugging doctors, and in what form it +fell. + +A scheming drug-vender, (inventive genius,) an utterly untrustworthy and +incompetent observer, (profound searcher of Nature,) a shallow dabbler +in erudition, (sagacious scholar,) started the monstrous fiction +(founded the immortal system) of Homoeopathy. I am very fair, you +see,--you can help yourself to either of these sets of phrases. + +All the reason in the world would not have had so rapid and general an +effect on the public mind to disabuse it of the idea that a drug is a +good thing in itself, instead of being, as it is, a bad thing, as was +produced by the trick (system) of this German charlatan (theorist). Not +that the wiser part of the profession needed him to teach them; but the +routinists and their employers, the “general practitioners,” who lived +by selling pills and mixtures, and their drug-consuming customers, had +to recognize that people could get well, unpoisoned. These dumb cattle +would not learn it of themselves, and so the murrain of Homoeopathy fell +on them. + +--You don't know what plague has fallen on the practitioners of +theology? I will tell you, then. It is Spiritualism. While some are +crying out against it as a delusion of the Devil, and some are laughing +at it as an hysteric folly, and some are getting angry with it as a +mere trick of interested or mischievous persons, Spiritualism is quietly +undermining the traditional ideas of the future state which have been +and are still accepted,--not merely in those who believe in it, but in +the general sentiment of the community, to a larger extent than most +good people seem to be aware of. It need n't be true, to do this, any +more than Homoeopathy need, to do its work. The Spiritualists have some +pretty strong instincts to pry over, which no doubt have been roughly +handled by theologians at different times. And the Nemesis of the pulpit +comes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning with the snap of a +toe-joint, and ending with such a crack of old beliefs that the roar +of it is heard in all the ministers' studies of Christendom? Sir, you +cannot have people of cultivation, of pure character, sensible enough in +common things, large-hearted women, grave judges, shrewd business-men, +men of science, professing to be in communication with the spiritual +world and keeping up constant intercourse with it, without its gradually +reacting on the whole conception of that other life. It is the folly of +the world, constantly, which confounds its wisdom. Not only out of +the mouths of babes and sucklings, but out of the mouths of fools and +cheats, we may often get our truest lessons. For the fool's judgment is +a dog-vane that turns with a breath, and the cheat watches the clouds +and sets his weathercock by them,--so that one shall often see by +their pointing which way the winds of heaven are blowing, when the +slow-wheeling arrows and feathers of what we call the Temples of Wisdom +are turning to all points of the compass. + +--Amen!--said the young fellow called John--Ten minutes by the watch. +Those that are unanimous will please to signify by holding up their left +foot! + +I looked this young man steadily in the face for about thirty seconds. +His countenance was as calm as that of a reposing infant. I think it was +simplicity, rather than mischief, with perhaps a youthful playfulness, +that led him to this outbreak. I have often noticed that even quiet +horses, on a sharp November morning, when their coats are beginning to +get the winter roughness, will give little sportive demi-kicks, with +slight sudden elevation of the subsequent region of the body, and a +sharp short whinny,--by no means intending to put their heels through +the dasher, or to address the driver rudely, but feeling, to use a +familiar word, frisky. This, I think, is the physiological condition +of the young person, John. I noticed, however, what I should call a +palpebral spasm, affecting the eyelid and muscles of one side, which, if +it were intended for the facial gesture called a wink, might lead me to +suspect a disposition to be satirical on his part. + +--Resuming the conversation, I remarked,--I am, ex officio, as a +Professor, a conservative. For I don't know any fruit that clings to +its tree so faithfully, not even a “froze-'n'-thaw” winter-apple, as a +Professor to the bough of which his chair is made. You can't shake him +off, and it is as much as you can do to pull him off. Hence, by a chain +of induction I need not unwind, he tends to conservatism generally. + +But then, you know, if you are sailing the Atlantic, and all at once +find yourself in a current, and the sea covered with weeds, and drop +your Fahrenheit over the side and find it eight or ten degrees higher +than in the ocean generally, there is no use in flying in the face of +facts and swearing there is no such thing as a Gulf-Stream, when you are +in it. + +You can't keep gas in a bladder, and you can't keep knowledge tight in +a profession. Hydrogen will leak out, and air will leak in, through +India-rubber; and special knowledge will leak out, and general knowledge +will leak in, though a profession were covered with twenty thicknesses +of sheepskin diplomas. + +By Jove, Sir, till common sense is well mixed up with medicine, and +common manhood with theology, and common honesty with law, We the +people, Sir, some of us with nut-crackers, and some of us with +trip-hammers, and some of us with pile-drivers, and some of us coming +with a whish! like air-stones out of a lunar volcano, will crash down +on the lumps of nonsense in all of them till we have made powder of +them--like Aaron's calf. + +If to be a conservative is to let all the drains of thought choke up and +keep all the soul's windows down,--to shut out the sun from the east and +the wind from the west,--to let the rats run free in the cellar, and the +moths feed their fill in the chambers, and the spiders weave their lace +before the mirrors, till the soul's typhus is bred out of our neglect, +and we begin to snore in its coma or rave in its delirium,--I, Sir, am +a bonnet-rouge, a red cap of the barricades, my friends, rather than a +conservative. + +--Were you born in Boston, Sir?--said the little man,--looking eager and +excited. + +I was not,--I replied. + +It's a pity,--it's a pity,--said the little man;--it 's the place to be +born in. But if you can't fix it so as to be born here, you can come +and live here. Old Ben Franklin, the father of American science and the +American Union, was n't ashamed to be born here. Jim Otis, the father +of American Independence, bothered about in the Cape Cod marshes awhile, +but he came to Boston as soon as he got big enough. Joe Warren, the +first bloody ruffed-shirt of the Revolution, was as good as born here. +Parson Charming strolled along this way from Newport, and stayed +here. Pity old Sam Hopkins hadn't come, too;--we'd have made a man of +him,--poor, dear, good old Christian heathen! There he lies, as peaceful +as a young baby, in the old burying-ground! I've stood on the slab +many a time. Meant well,--meant well. Juggernaut. Parson Charming put +a little oil on one linchpin, and slipped it out so softly, the first +thing they knew about it was the wheel of that side was down. T' +other fellow's at work now, but he makes more noise about it. When the +linchpin comes out on his side, there'll be a jerk, I tell you! Some +think it will spoil the old cart, and they pretend to say that there are +valuable things in it which may get hurt. Hope not,--hope not. But this +is the great Macadamizing place,--always cracking up something. + +Cracking up Boston folks,--said the gentleman with the diamond-pin, +whom, for convenience' sake, I shall hereafter call the Koh-i-noor. + +The little man turned round mechanically towards him, as Maelzel's Turk +used to turn, carrying his head slowly and horizontally, as if it went +by cogwheels.--Cracking up all sorts of things,--native and foreign +vermin included,--said the little man. + +This remark was thought by some of us to have a hidden personal +application, and to afford a fair opening for a lively rejoinder, if +the Koh-i-noor had been so disposed. The little man uttered it with the +distinct wooden calmness with which the ingenious Turk used to exclaim, +E-chec! so that it must have been heard. The party supposed to be +interested in the remark was, however, carrying a large knife-bladeful +of something to his mouth just then, which, no doubt, interfered with +the reply he would have made. + +--My friend who used to board here was accustomed sometimes, in a +pleasant way, to call himself the Autocrat of the table,--meaning, I +suppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think our +small boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if I undertake +to use the sceptre my friend meant to bequeath me, too magisterially. +I won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have been in +company with gentlemen who preferred listening, I have been guilty of +the same kind of usurpation which my friend openly justified. But I +maintain, that I, the Professor, am a good listener. If a man can tell +me a fact which subtends an appreciable angle in the horizon of thought, +I am as receptive as the contribution-box in a congregation of colored +brethren. If, when I am exposing my intellectual dry-goods, a man will +begin a good story, I will have them all in, and my shutters up, before +he has got to the fifth “says he,” and listen like a three-years' child, +as the author of the “Old Sailor” says. I had rather hear one of those +grand elemental laughs from either of our two Georges, (fictitious +names, Sir or Madam,) glisten to one of those old playbills of our +College days, in which “Tom and Jerry” (“Thomas and Jeremiah,” as the +old Greek Professor was said to call it) was announced to be brought on +the stage with whole force of the Faculty, read by our Frederick, (no +such person, of course,) than say the best things I might by any chance +find myself capable of saying. Of course, if I come across a real +thinker, a suggestive, acute, illuminating, informing talker, I enjoy +the luxury of sitting still for a while as much as another. + +Nobody talks much that does n't say unwise things,--things he did not +mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note +sometimes. Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of +thought. I can't answer for what will turn up. If I could, it would +n't be talking, but “speaking my piece.” Better, I think, the hearty +abandonment of one's self to the suggestions of the moment at the risk +of an occasional slip of the tongue, perceived the instant it escapes, +but just one syllable too late, than the royal reputation of never +saying a foolish thing. + +--What shall I do with this little man?--There is only one thing +to do,--and that is to let him talk when he will. The day of the +“Autocrat's” monologues is over. + +--My friend,--said I to the young fellow whom, as I have said, +the boarders call “John,”--My friend,--I said, one morning, after +breakfast,--can you give me any information respecting the deformed +person who sits at the other end of the table? + +What! the Sculpin?--said the young fellow. + +The diminutive person, with angular curvature of the spine,--I said, +--and double talipes varus,--I beg your pardon,--with two club-feet. + +Is that long word what you call it when a fellah walks so?--said the +young man, making his fists revolve round an imaginary axis, as you may +have seen youth of tender age and limited pugilistic knowledge, when +they show how they would punish an adversary, themselves protected by +this rotating guard,--the middle knuckle, meantime, thumb-supported, +fiercely prominent, death-threatening. + +It is,--said I.--But would you have the kindness to tell me if you know +anything about this deformed person? + +About the Sculpin?--said the young fellow. + +My good friend,--said I,--I am sure, by your countenance, you would not +hurt the feelings of one who has been hardly enough treated by Nature +to be spared by his fellows. Even in speaking of him to others, I could +wish that you might not employ a term which implies contempt for what +should inspire only pity. + +A fellah 's no business to be so crooked,--said the young man called +John. + +Yes, yes,--I said, thoughtfully,--the strong hate the weak. It's +all right. The arrangement has reference to the race, and not to +the individual. Infirmity must be kicked out, or the stock run down. +Wholesale moral arrangements are so different from retail!--I understand +the instinct, my friend,--it is cosmic,--it is planetary,--it is a +conservative principle in creation. + +The young fellow's face gradually lost its expression as I was speaking, +until it became as blank of vivid significance as the countenance of a +gingerbread rabbit with two currants in the place of eyes. He had not +taken my meaning. + +Presently the intelligence came back with a snap that made him wink, as +he answered,--Jest so. All right. A 1. Put her through. That's the way +to talk. Did you speak to me, Sir?--Here the young man struck up that +well-known song which I think they used to sing at Masonic +festivals, beginning, “Aldiborontiphoscophornio, Where left you +Chrononhotonthologos?” + +I beg your pardon,--I said;--all I meant was, that men, as temporary +occupants of a permanent abode called human life, which is improved or +injured by occupancy, according to the style of tenant, have a natural +dislike to those who, if they live the life of the race as well as of +the individual, will leave lasting injurious effects upon the abode +spoken of, which is to be occupied by countless future generations. This +is the final cause of the underlying brute instinct which we have in +common with the herds. + +--The gingerbread-rabbit expression was coming on so fast, that I +thought I must try again.--It's a pity that families are kept up, where +there are such hereditary infirmities. Still, let us treat this poor man +fairly, and not call him names. Do you know what his name is? + +I know what the rest of 'em call him,--said the young fellow.--They call +him Little Boston. There's no harm in that, is there? + +It is an honorable term,--I replied.--But why Little Boston, in a place +where most are Bostonians? + +Because nobody else is quite so Boston all over as he is,--said the +young fellow. + +“L. B. Ob. 1692.”--Little Boston let him be, when we talk about him. The +ring he wears labels him well enough. There is stuff in the little man, +or he would n't stick so manfully by this crooked, crotchety old town. +Give him a chance.--You will drop the Sculpin, won't you?--I said to the +young fellow. + +Drop him?--he answered,--I ha'n't took him up yet. + +No, no,--the term,--I said,--the term. Don't call him so any more, if +you please. Call him Little Boston, if you like. + +All right,--said the young fellow.--I would n't be hard on the poor +little-- + +The word he used was objectionable in point of significance and of +grammar. It was a frequent termination of certain adjectives among the +Romans,--as of those designating a person following the sea, or given to +rural pursuits. It is classed by custom among the profane words; why, it +is hard to say,--but it is largely used in the street by those who speak +of their fellows in pity or in wrath. + +I never heard the young fellow apply the name of the odious pretended +fish to the little man from that day forward. + +--Here we are, then, at our boarding--house. First, myself, the +Professor, a little way from the head of the table, on the right, +looking down, where the “Autocrat” used to sit. At the further end sits +the Landlady. At the head of the table, just now, the Koh-i-noor, or the +gentleman with the diamond. Opposite me is a Venerable Gentleman with a +bland countenance, who as yet has spoken little. The Divinity Student is +my neighbor on the right,--and further down, that Young Fellow of whom +I have repeatedly spoken. The Landlady's Daughter sits near the +Koh-i-noor, as I said. The Poor Relation near the Landlady. At the right +upper corner is a fresh-looking youth of whose name and history I have +as yet learned nothing. Next the further left-hand corner, near the +lower end of the table, sits the deformed person. The chair at his side, +occupying that corner, is empty. I need not specially mention the other +boarders, with the exception of Benjamin Franklin, the landlady's son, +who sits near his mother. We are a tolerably assorted set,--difference +enough and likeness enough; but still it seems to me there is something +wanting. The Landlady's Daughter is the prima donna in the way of +feminine attractions. I am not quite satisfied with this young lady. She +wears more “jewelry,” as certain young ladies call their trinkets, than +I care to see on a person in her position. Her voice is strident, her +laugh too much like a giggle, and she has that foolish way of dancing +and bobbing like a quill-float with a “minnum” biting the hook below it, +which one sees and weeps over sometimes in persons of more pretensions. +I can't help hoping we shall put something into that empty chair yet +which will add the missing string to our social harp. I hear talk of a +rare Miss who is expected. Something in the schoolgirl way, I believe. +We shall see. + +--My friend who calls himself The Autocrat has given me a caution which +I am going to repeat, with my comment upon it, for the benefit of all +concerned. + +Professor,--said he, one day,--don't you think your brain will run dry +before a year's out, if you don't get the pump to help the cow? Let me +tell you what happened to me once. I put a little money into a bank, +and bought a check-book, so that I might draw it as I wanted, in sums +to suit. Things went on nicely for a time; scratching with a pen was as +easy as rubbing Aladdin's Lamp; and my blank check-book seemed to be a +dictionary of possibilities, in which I could find all the synonymes of +happiness, and realize any one of them on the spot. A check came back +to me at last with these two words on it,--NO FUNDS. My check-book was a +volume of waste-paper. + +Now, Professor,--said he,--I have drawn something out of your bank, +you know; and just so sure as you keep drawing out your soul's currency +without making new deposits, the next thing will be, NO FUNDS,--and then +where will you be, my boy? These little bits of paper mean your gold and +your silver and your copper, Professor; and you will certainly break up +and go to pieces, if you don't hold on to your metallic basis. + +There is something in that,--said I.--Only I rather think life can coin +thought somewhat faster than I can count it off in words. What if one +shall go round and dry up with soft napkins all the dew that falls of a +June evening on the leaves of his garden? Shall there be no more dew on +those leaves thereafter? Marry, yea,--many drops, large and round and +full of moonlight as those thou shalt have absterged! + +Here am I, the Professor,--a man who has lived long enough to have +plucked the flowers of life and come to the berries,--which are not +always sad-colored, but sometimes golden-hued as the crocus of April, or +rosy-cheeked as the damask of June; a man who staggered against books as +a baby, and will totter against them, if he lives to decrepitude; with +a brain full of tingling thoughts, such as they are, as a limb which +we call “asleep,” because it is so particularly awake, is of pricking +points; presenting a key-board of nerve-pulps, not as yet tanned or +ossified, to finger-touch of all outward agencies; knowing nothing of +the filmy threads of this web of life in which we insects buzz awhile, +waiting for the gray old spider to come along; contented enough with +daily realities, but twirling on his finger the key of a private Bedlam +of ideals; in knowledge feeding with the fox oftener than with the +stork,--loving better the breadth of a fertilizing inundation than +the depth of narrow artesian well; finding nothing too small for his +contemplation in the markings of the grammatophora subtilissima, and +nothing too large in the movement of the solar system towards the star +Lambda of the constellation Hercules;--and the question is, whether +there is anything left for me, the Professor, to suck out of creation, +after my lively friend has had his straw in the bung-hole of the +Universe! + +A man's mental reactions with the atmosphere of life must go on, whether +he will or no, as between his blood and the air he breathes. As to +catching the residuum of the process, or what we call thought,--the +gaseous ashes of burned-out thinking,--the excretion of mental +respiration,--that will depend on many things, as, on having a favorable +intellectual temperature about one, and a fitting receptacle.--I sow +more thought-seeds in twenty-four hours' travel over the desert-sand +along which my lonely consciousness paces day and night, than I shall +throw into soil where it will germinate, in a year. All sorts of bodily +and mental perturbations come between us and the due projection of our +thought. The pulse-like “fits of easy and difficult transmission” seem +to reach even the transparent medium through which our souls are +seen. We know our humanity by its often intercepted rays, as we tell +a revolving light from a star or meteor by its constantly recurring +obscuration. + +An illustrious scholar once told me, that, in the first lecture he ever +delivered, he spoke but half his allotted time, and felt as if he had +told all he knew. Braham came forward once to sing one of his most +famous and familiar songs, and for his life could not recall the first +line of it;--he told his mishap to the audience, and they screamed it +at him in a chorus of a thousand voices. Milton could not write to suit +himself, except from the autumnal to the vernal equinox. One in the +clothing-business, who, there is reason to suspect, may have inherited, +by descent, the great poet's impressible temperament, let a customer +slip through his fingers one day without fitting him with a new garment. +“Ah!” said he to a friend of mine, who was standing by, “if it hadn't +been for that confounded headache of mine this morning, I'd have had +a coat on that man, in spite of himself, before he left-the store.” A +passing throb, only,--but it deranged the nice mechanism required +to persuade the accidental human being, X, into a given piece of +broadcloth, A. + +We must take care not to confound this frequent difficulty of +transmission of our ideas with want of ideas. I suppose that a man's +mind does in time form a neutral salt with the elements in the universe +for which it has special elective affinities. In fact, I look upon a +library as a kind of mental chemist's shop filled with the crystals of +all forms and hues which have come from the union of individual thought +with local circumstances or universal principles. + +When a man has worked out his special affinities in this way, there +is an end of his genius as a real solvent. No more effervescence and +hissing tumult--as he pours his sharp thought on the world's biting +alkaline unbeliefs! No more corrosion of the old monumental tablets +covered with lies! No more taking up of dull earths, and turning them, +first into clear solutions, and then into lustrous prisms! + +I, the Professor, am very much like other men: I shall not find out when +I have used up my affinities. What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, +when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to +make critics out of the chips that were left! Painful as the task is, +they never fail to warn the author, in the most impressive manner, +of the probabilities of failure in what he has undertaken. Sad as the +necessity is to their delicate sensibilities, they never hesitate to +advertise him of the decline of his powers, and to press upon him the +propriety of retiring before he sinks into imbecility. Trusting to their +kind offices, I shall endeavor to fulfil-- + +--Bridget enters and begins clearing the table. + +--The following poem is my (The Professor's) only contribution to the +great department of Ocean-Cable literature. As all the poets of this +country will be engaged for the next six weeks in writing for the +premium offered by the Crystal-Palace Company for the Burns Centenary, +(so called, according to our Benjamin Franklin, because there will +be nary a cent for any of us,) poetry will be very scarce and dear. +Consumers may, consequently, be glad to take the present article, which, +by the aid of a Latin tutor--and a Professor of Chemistry, will be found +intelligible to the educated classes. + + + + DE SAUTY + + AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE. + + Professor. Blue-Nose. + + PROFESSOR. + + Tell me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! + Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, + Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, + Holding talk with nations? + + Is there a De Sauty, ambulant on Tellus, + Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in night-cap, + Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature + Three times daily patent? + + Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal? + Or is he a mythus,--ancient word for “humbug,” + --Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed + Romulus and Remus? + + Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty? + Or a living product of galvanic action, + Like the status bred in Crosses flint-solution? + Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal! + + + BLUE-NOSE. + + Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, + Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster! + Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, + Thou shalt hear them answered. + + When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, + At the polar focus of the wire electric + Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us + Called himself “DE SAUTY.” + + As the small opossum held in pouch maternal + Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, + So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, + Sucking in the current. + + When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger, + Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy, + And from time to time, in sharp articulation, + Said, “All right! DE SAUTY.” + + From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading + Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples + Till the land was filled with loud reverberations + Of “All right! DE SAUTY.” + + When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger, + Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker, + Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor + Of disintegration. + + Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, + Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, + Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, + There was no De Sauty. + + Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, + C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, + Calc. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang.(?) Alumin.(?) Cuprum,(?) + Such as man is made of. + + Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished! + There is no De Sauty now there is no current! + Give us a new cable, then again we'll hear him + Cry, “All right! DE SAUTY.” + + + + +II + +Back again!--A turtle--which means a tortoise--is fond of his shell; +but if you put a live coal on his back, he crawls out of it. So the boys +say. + +It is a libel on the turtle. He grows to his shell, and his shell is in +his body as much as his body is in his shell.--I don't think there +is one of our boarders quite so testudineous as I am. Nothing but a +combination of motives, more peremptory than the coal on the turtle's +back, could have got me to leave the shelter of my carapace; and after +memorable interviews, and kindest hospitalities, and grand sights, and +huge influx of patriotic pride,--for every American owns all America,-- + + “Creation's heir,--the world, the world is” + +his, if anybody's,--I come back with the feeling which a boned turkey +might experience, if, retaining his consciousness, he were allowed to +resume his skeleton. + +Welcome, O Fighting Gladiator, and Recumbent Cleopatra, and Dying +Warrior, whose classic outlines (reproduced in the calcined mineral of +Lutetia) crown my loaded shelves! Welcome, ye triumphs of pictorial art +(repeated by the magic graver) that look down upon me from the walls of +my sacred cell! Vesalius, as Titian drew him, high-fronted, still-eyed, +thick-bearded, with signet-ring, as beseems a gentleman, with book and +carelessly-held eyeglass, marking him a scholar; thou, too, Jan Kuyper, +commonly called Jan Praktiseer, old man of a century and seven years +besides, father of twenty sons and two daughters, cut in copper by +Houbraken, bought from a portfolio on one of the Paris quais; and ye +Three Trees of Rembrandt, black in shadow against the blaze of light; +and thou Rosy Cottager of Sir Joshua, roses hinted by the peppery burin +of Bartolozzi; ye, too, of lower grades in nature, yet not unlovely for +unrenowned, Young Bull of Paulus Potter, and sleeping Cat of Cornelius +Visscher; welcome once more to my eyes! The old books look out from +the shelves, and I seem to read on their backs something asides their +titles,--a kind of solemn greeting. The crimson carpet flushes warm +under my feet. The arm-chair hugs me; the swivel-chair spins round +with me, as if it were giddy with pleasure; the vast recumbent fauteuil +stretches itself out under my weight, as one joyous with food and wine +stretches in after-dinner laughter. + +The boarders were pleased to say that they were glad to get me back. One +of them ventured a compliment, namely,--that I talked as if I believed +what I said.--This was apparently considered something unusual, by its +being mentioned. + +One who means to talk with entire sincerity,--I said,--always feels +himself in danger of two things, namely,--an affectation of bluntness, +like that of which Cornwall accuses Kent in “Lear,” and actual rudeness. +What a man wants to do, in talking with a stranger, is to get and to +give as much of the best and most real life that belongs to the two +talkers as the time will let him. Life is short, and conversation apt +to run to mere words. Mr. Hue I think it is, who tells us some very good +stories about the way in which two Chinese gentlemen contrive to keep up +a long talk without saying a word which has any meaning in it. Something +like this is occasionally heard on this side of the Great Wall. The best +Chinese talkers I know are some pretty women whom I meet from time +to time. Pleasant, airy, complimentary, the little flakes of flattery +glimmering in their talk like the bits of gold-leaf in eau-de-vie de +Dantzic; their accents flowing on in a soft ripple,--never a wave, +and never a calm; words nicely fitted, but never a colored phrase or +a highly-flavored epithet; they turn air into syllables so gracefully, +that we find meaning for the music they make as we find faces in the +coals and fairy palaces in the clouds. There is something very odd, +though, about this mechanical talk. + +You have sometimes been in a train on the railroad when the engine was +detached a long way from the station you were approaching? Well, you +have noticed how quietly and rapidly the cars kept on, just as if the +locomotive were drawing them? Indeed, you would not have suspected that +you were travelling on the strength of a dead fact, if you had not seen +the engine running away from you on a side-track. Upon my conscience, +I believe some of these pretty women detach their minds entirely, +sometimes, from their talk,--and, what is more, that we never know the +difference. Their lips let off the fluty syllables just as their fingers +would sprinkle the music-drops from their pianos; unconscious habit +turns the phrase of thought into words just as it does that of +music into notes.--Well, they govern the world for all that, these +sweet-lipped women,--because beauty is the index of a larger fact than +wisdom. + +--The Bombazine wanted an explanation. + +Madam,--said I,--wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the +promise of the future. + +--All this, however, is not what I was going to say. Here am I, suppose, +seated--we will say at a dinner-table--alongside of an intelligent +Englishman. We look in each other's faces,--we exchange a dozen words. +One thing is settled: we mean not to offend each other,--to be perfectly +courteous,--more than courteous; for we are the entertainer and the +entertained, and cherish particularly amiable feelings, to each other. +The claret is good; and if our blood reddens a little with its warm +crimson, we are none the less kind for it. + +I don't think people that talk over their victuals are like to say +anything very great, especially if they get their heads muddled with +strong drink before they begin jabberin'. + +The Bombazine uttered this with a sugary sourness, as if the words had +been steeped in a solution of acetate of lead.--The boys of my time used +to call a hit like this a “side-winder.” + +--I must finish this woman.-- + +Madam,--I said,--the Great Teacher seems to have been fond of talking as +he sat at meat. Because this was a good while ago, in a far-off place, +you forget what the true fact of it was,--that those were real +dinners, where people were hungry and thirsty, and where you met a very +miscellaneous company. Probably there was a great deal of loose talk +among the guests; at any rate, there was always wine, we may believe. + +Whatever may be the hygienic advantages or disadvantages of wine,--and +I for one, except for certain particular ends, believe in water, and, +I blush to say it, in black tea,--there is no doubt about its being the +grand specific against dull dinners. A score of people come together in +all moods of mind and body. The problem is, in the space of one hour, +more or less, to bring them all into the same condition of slightly +exalted life. Food alone is enough for one person, perhaps,--talk, +alone, for another; but the grand equalizer and fraternizer, which works +up the radiators to their maximum radiation, and the absorbents to their +maximum receptivity, is now just where it was when + + The conscious water saw its Lord and blushed, + +--when six great vessels containing water, the whole amounting to more +than a hogshead-full, were changed into the best of wine. I once wrote +a song about wine, in which I spoke so warmly of it, that I was afraid +some would think it was written inter pocula; whereas it was composed +in the bosom of my family, under the most tranquillizing domestic +influences. + +--The divinity-student turned towards me, looking mischievous.--Can you +tell me,--he said,--who wrote a song for a temperance celebration once, +of which the following is a verse? + + Alas for the loved one, too gentle and fair + The joys of the banquet to chasten and share! + Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, + And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine! + +I did,--I answered.--What are you going to do about it?--I will tell you +another line I wrote long ago:-- + + Don't be “consistent,”--but be simply true. + +The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two things: first, that +the truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many +facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about them; +secondly, that society is always trying in some way or other to grind +us down to a single flat surface. It is hard work to resist this +grinding-down action.--Now give me a chance. Better eternal and +universal abstinence than the brutalities of those days that made wives +and mothers and daughters and sisters blush for those whom they should +have honored, as they came reeling home from their debauches! Yet +better even excess than lying and hypocrisy; and if wine is upon all +our tables, let us praise it for its color and fragrance and social +tendency, so far as it deserves, and not hug a bottle in the closet and +pretend not to know the use of a wine-glass at a public dinner! I think +you will find that people who honestly mean to be true really contradict +themselves much more rarely than those who try to be “consistent.” But +a great many things we say can be made to appear contradictory, simply +because they are partial views of a truth, and may often look unlike at +first, as a front view of a face and its profile often do. + +Here is a distinguished divine, for whom I have great respect, for I +owe him a charming hour at one of our literary anniversaries, and he +has often spoken noble words; but he holds up a remark of my friend the +“Autocrat,”--which I grieve to say he twice misquotes, by omitting the +very word which gives it its significance,--the word fluid, intended to +typify the mobility of the restricted will,--holds it up, I say, as if +it attacked the reality of the self-determining principle, instead of +illustrating its limitations by an image. Now I will not explain any +farther, still less defend, and least of all attack, but simply quote +a few lines from one of my friend's poems, printed more than ten years +ago, and ask the distinguished gentleman where he has ever asserted more +strongly or absolutely the independent will of the “subcreative centre,” + as my heretical friend has elsewhere called man. + + --Thought, conscience, will, to make them all thy own + He rent a pillar from the eternal throne! + --Made in His image, thou must nobly dare + The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. + --Think not too meanly of thy low estate; + Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create! + +If he will look a little closely, he will see that the profile and the +full-face views of the will are both true and perfectly consistent! + +Now let us come back, after this long digression, to the conversation +with the intelligent Englishman. We begin skirmishing with a few light +ideas,--testing for thoughts,--as our electro-chemical friend, De Sauty, +if there were such a person, would test for his current; trying a little +litmus-paper for acids, and then a slip of turmeric-paper for alkalies, +as chemists do with unknown compounds; flinging the lead, and looking +at the shells and sands it brings up to find out whether we are like +to keep in shallow water, or shall have to drop the deep-sea line;--in +short, seeing what we have to deal with. If the Englishman gets his +H's pretty well placed, he comes from one of the higher grades of the +British social order, and we shall find him a good companion. + +But, after all, here is a great fact between us. We belong to two +different civilizations, and, until we recognize what separates us, we +are talking like Pyramus and Thisbe, without any hole in the wall to +talk through. Therefore, on the whole, if he were a superior fellow, +incapable of mistaking it for personal conceit, I think I would let out +the fact of the real American feeling about Old-World folks. They are +children to us in certain points of view. They are playing with toys we +have done with for whole-generations. + +--------FOOTNOTE: The more I have observed and reflected, the more +limited seems to me the field of action of the human will. Every act of +choice involves a special relation between the ego and the conditions +before it. But no man knows what forces are at work in the determination +of his ego. The bias which decides his choice between two or more +motives may come from some unsuspected ancestral source, of which he +knows nothing at all. He is automatic in virtue of that hidden spring +of reflex action, all the time having the feeling that he is +self-determining. The Story of Elsie Yenner, written-soon after this +book was published, illustrates the direction in which my thought was +moving. 'The imaginary subject of the story obeyed her will, but her +will Obeyed the mysterious antenatal poisoning influence. + +***** + +That silly little drum they are always beating on, and the trumpet and +the feather they make so much noise and cut such a figure with, we have +not quite outgrown, but play with much less seriously and constantly +than they do. Then there is a whole museum of wigs, and masks, and +lace-coats, and gold-sticks, and grimaces, and phrases, which we laugh +at honestly, without affectation, that are still used in the Old-World +puppet-shows. I don't think we on our part ever understand the +Englishman's concentrated loyalty and specialized reverence. But then we +do think more of a man, as such, (barring some little difficulties about +race and complexion which the Englishman will touch us on presently,) +than any people that ever lived did think of him. Our reverence is a +great deal wider, if it is less intense. We have caste among us, to some +extent; it is true; but there is never a collar on the American wolf-dog +such as you often see on the English mastiff, notwithstanding his +robust, hearty individuality. + +This confronting of two civilizations is always a grand sensation to me; +it is like cutting through the isthmus and letting the two oceans swim +into each other's laps. The trouble is, it is so difficult to let out +the whole American nature without its self-assertion seeming to take a +personal character. But I never enjoy the Englishman so much as when he +talks of church and king like Manco Capac among the Peruvians. Then you +get the real British flavor, which the cosmopolite Englishman loses. + +How much better this thorough interpenetration of ideas than a barren +interchange of courtesies, or a bush-fighting argument, in which each +man tries to cover as much of himself and expose as much of his opponent +as the tangled thicket of the disputed ground will let him! + +--My thoughts flow in layers or strata, at least three deep. I follow +a slow person's talk, and keep a perfectly clear under-current of my +own beneath it. Under both runs obscurely a consciousness belonging to a +third train of reflections, independent of the two others. I will try to +write out a Mental movement in three parts. + +A.--First voice, or Mental Soprano,--thought follows a woman talking. + +B.--Second voice, or Mental Barytone,--my running accompaniment. + +C.--Third voice, or Mental Basso,--low grumble of importunate +self-repeating idea. + +A.--White lace, three skirts, looped with flowers, wreath of +apple-blossoms, gold bracelets, diamond pin and ear-rings, the most +delicious berthe you ever saw, white satin slippers-- + +B.--Deuse take her! What a fool she is! Hear her chatter! (Look out of +window just here.--Two pages and a half of description, if it were +all written out, in one tenth of a second.)--Go ahead, old lady! (Eye +catches picture over fireplace.) There's that infernal family nose! Came +over in the “Mayflower” on the first old fool's face. Why don't they +wear a ring in it? + +C.--You 'll be late at lecture,--late at lecture,--late,--late-- + +I observe that a deep layer of thought sometimes makes itself felt +through the superincumbent strata, thus:--The usual single or double +currents shall flow on, but there shall be an influence blending with +them, disturbing them in an obscure way, until all at once I say,--Oh, +there! I knew there was something troubling me,--and the thought which +had been working through comes up to the surface clear, definite, and +articulates itself,--a disagreeable duty, perhaps, or an unpleasant +recollection. + +The inner world of thought and the outer world of events are alike in +this, that they are both brimful. There is no space between consecutive +thoughts, or between the never-ending series of actions. All pack tight, +and mould their surfaces against each other, so that in the long run +there is a wonderful average uniformity in the forms of both thoughts +and actions, just as you find that cylinders crowded all become +hexagonal prisms, and spheres pressed together are formed into regular +polyhedra. + +Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no +man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped by him. +So, to carry out, with another comparison, my remark about the layers of +thought, we may consider the mind as it moves among thoughts or events, +like a circus-rider whirling round with a great troop of horses. He can +mount a fact or an idea, and guide it more or less completely, but he +cannot stop it. So, as I said in another way at the beginning, he can +stride two or three thoughts at once, but not break their steady walk, +trot, or gallop. He can only take his foot from the saddle of one +thought and put it on that of another. + +--What is the saddle of a thought? Why, a word, of course.--Twenty years +after you have dismissed a thought, it suddenly wedges up to you through +the press, as if it had been steadily galloping round and round all that +time without a rider. + +The will does not act in the interspaces of thought, for there are no +such interspaces, but simply steps from the back of one moving thought +upon that of another. + +--I should like to ask,--said the divinity-student,--since we are +getting into metaphysics, how you can admit space, if all things are in +contact, and how you can admit time, if it is always now to something? + +--I thought it best not to hear this question. + +--I wonder if you know this class of philosophers in books or elsewhere. +One of them makes his bow to the public, and exhibits an unfortunate +truth bandaged up so that it cannot stir hand or foot,--as helpless, +apparently, and unable to take care of itself, as an Egyptian mummy. +He then proceeds, with the air and method of a master, to take off the +bandages. Nothing can be neater than the way in which he does it. But +as he takes off layer after layer, the truth seems to grow smaller and +smaller, and some of its outlines begin to look like something we have +seen before. At last, when he has got them all off, and the truth struts +out naked, we recognize it as a diminutive and familiar acquaintance +whom we have known in the streets all our lives. The fact is, the +philosopher has coaxed the truth into his study and put all those +bandages on; or course it is not very hard for him to take them off. +Still, a great many people like to watch the process,--he does it so +neatly! + +Dear! dear! I am ashamed to write and talk, sometimes, when I see how +those functions of the large-brained, thumb-opposing plantigrade are +abused by my fellow-vertebrates,--perhaps by myself. How they spar for +wind, instead of hitting from the shoulder! + +--The young fellow called John arose and placed himself in a neat +fighting attitude.--Fetch on the fellah that makes them long words!--he +said,--and planted a straight hit with the right fist in the concave +palm of the left hand with a click like a cup and ball.--You small boy +there, hurry up that “Webster's Unabridged!” + +The little gentleman with the malformation, before described, shocked +the propriety of the breakfast-table by a loud utterance of three words, +of which the two last were “Webster's Unabridged,” and the first was an +emphatic monosyllable.--Beg pardon,--he added,--forgot myself. But let +us have an English dictionary, if we are to have any. I don't believe in +clipping the coin of the realm, Sir! If I put a weathercock on my house, +Sir, I want it to tell which way the wind blows up aloft,--off from the +prairies to the ocean, or off from the ocean to the prairies, or any +way it wants to blow! I don't want a weathercock with a winch in an old +gentleman's study that he can take hold of and turn, so that the vane +shall point west when the great wind overhead is blowing east with all +its might, Sir! Wait till we give you a dictionary; Sir! It takes Boston +to do that thing, Sir! + +--Some folks think water can't run down-hill anywhere out of Boston, +--remarked the Koh-i-noor. + +I don't know what some folks think so well as I know what some fools +say,--rejoined the Little Gentleman.--If importing most dry goods made +the best scholars, I dare say you would know where to look for 'em.--Mr. +Webster could n't spell, Sir, or would n't spell, Sir,--at any rate, he +did n't spell; and the end of it was a fight between the owners of +some copyrights and the dignity of this noble language which we have +inherited from our English fathers. Language!--the blood of the soul, +Sir! into which our thoughts run and out of which they grow! We know +what a word is worth here in Boston. Young Sam Adams got up on the stage +at Commencement, out at Cambridge there, with his gown on, the Governor +and Council looking on in the name of his Majesty, King George the +Second, and the girls looking down out of the galleries, and taught +people how to spell a word that was n't in the Colonial dictionaries! +R-e, re, s-i-s, sis, t-a-n-c-e, tance, Resistance! That was in '43, and +it was a good many years before the Boston boys began spelling it with +their muskets;--but when they did begin, they spelt it so loud that the +old bedridden women in the English almshouses heard every syllable! Yes, +yes, yes,--it was a good while before those other two Boston boys +got the class so far along that it could spell those two hard words, +Independence and Union! I tell you what, Sir, there are a thousand +lives, aye, sometimes a million, go to get a new word into a language +that is worth speaking. We know what language means too well here in +Boston to play tricks with it. We never make a new word til we have made +a new thing or a new thought, Sir! then we shaped the new mould of this +continent, we had to make a few. When, by God's permission, we abrogated +the primal curse of maternity, we had to make a word or two. The +cutwater of this great Leviathan clipper, the OCCIDENTAL,--this +thirty-wasted wind-and-steam wave-crusher,--must throw a little spray +over the human vocabulary as it splits the waters of a new world's +destiny! + +He rose as he spoke, until his stature seemed to swell into the fair +human proportions. His feet must have been on the upper round of his +high chair; that was the only way I could account for it. + +Puts her through fast-rate,--said the young fellow whom the boarders +call John. + +The venerable and kind-looking old gentleman who sits opposite said he +remembered Sam Adams as Governor. An old man in a brown coat. Saw him +take the Chair on Boston Common. Was a boy then, and remembers sitting +on the fence in front of the old Hancock house. Recollects he had a +glazed 'lectionbun, and sat eating it and looking down on to the Common. +Lalocks flowered late that year, and he got a great bunch off from the +bushes in the Hancock front-yard. + +Them 'lection-buns are no go,--said the young man John, so called.--I +know the trick. Give a fellah a fo'penny bun in the mornin', an' he +downs the whole of it. In about an hour it swells up in his stomach as +big as a football, and his feedin' 's spilt for that day. That's the way +to stop off a young one from eatin' up all the 'lection dinner. + +Salem! Salem! not Boston,--shouted the little man. + +But the Koh-i-noor laughed a great rasping laugh, and the boy +Benjamin Franklin looked sharp at his mother, as if he remembered the +bun-experiment as a part of his past personal history. + +The Little Gentleman was holding a fork in his left hand. He stabbed a +boulder of home-made bread with it, mechanically, and looked at it as if +it ought to shriek. It did not,--but he sat as if watching it. + +--Language is a solemn thing,--I said.--It grows out of life,--out of +its agonies and ecstasies, its wants and its weariness. Every language +is a temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined. +Because time softens its outlines and rounds the sharp angles of its +cornices, shall a fellow take a pickaxe to help time? Let me tell you +what comes of meddling with things that can take care of themselves.--A +friend of mine had a watch given him, when he was a boy,--a “bull's +eye,” with a loose silver case that came off like an oyster-shell from +its contents; you know them,--the cases that you hang on your thumb, +while the core, or the real watch, lies in your hand as naked as a +peeled apple. Well, he began with taking off the case, and so on from +one liberty to another, until he got it fairly open, and there were the +works, as good as if they were alive,--crown-wheel, balance-wheel, and +all the rest. All right except one thing,--there was a confounded little +hair had got tangled round the balance-wheel. So my young Solomon got a +pair of tweezers, and caught hold of the hair very nicely, and pulled it +right out, without touching any of the wheels,--when,--buzzzZZZ! and +the watch had done up twenty-four hours in double magnetic-telegraph +time!--The English language was wound up to run some thousands of years, +I trust; but if everybody is to be pulling at everything he thinks is +a hair, our grandchildren will have to make the discovery that it is a +hair-spring, and the old Anglo-Norman soul's-timekeeper will run down, +as so many other dialects have done before it. I can't stand this +meddling any better than you, Sir. But we have a great deal to be proud +of in the lifelong labors of that old lexicographer, and we must n't +be ungrateful. Besides, don't let us deceive ourselves,--the war of +the dictionaries is only a disguised rivalry of cities, colleges, and +especially of publishers. After all, it is likely that the language will +shape itself by larger forces than phonography and dictionary-making. +You may spade up the ocean as much as you like, and harrow it +afterwards, if you can,--but the moon will still lead the tides, and the +winds will form their surface. + +--Do you know Richardson's Dictionary?--I said to my neighbor the +divinity-student. + +Haow?--said the divinity-student.--He colored, as he noticed on my face +a twitch in one of the muscles which tuck up the corner of the mouth, +(zygomaticus major,) and which I could not hold back from making a +little movement on its own account. + +It was too late.--A country-boy, lassoed when he was a half-grown colt. +Just as good as a city-boy, and in some ways, perhaps, better,--but +caught a little too old not to carry some marks of his earlier ways of +life. Foreigners, who have talked a strange tongue half their lives, +return to the language of their childhood in their dying hours. +Gentlemen in fine linen, and scholars in large libraries, taken by +surprise, or in a careless moment, will sometimes let slip a word they +knew as boys in homespun and have not spoken since that time,--but it +lay there under all their culture. That is one way you may know the +country-boys after they have grown rich or celebrated; another is by the +odd old family names, particularly those of the Hebrew prophets, which +the good old people have saddled them with. + +--Boston has enough of England about it to make a good English +dictionary,--said that fresh-looking youth whom I have mentioned as +sitting at the right upper corner of the table. + +I turned and looked him full in the face,--for the pure, manly +intonations arrested me. The voice was youthful, but full of +character.--I suppose some persons have a peculiar susceptibility in the +matter of voice.--Hear this. + +Not long after the American Revolution, a young lady was sitting in +her father's chaise in a street of this town of Boston. She overheard a +little girl talking or singing, and was mightily taken with the tones of +her voice. Nothing would satisfy her but she must have that little girl +come and live in her father's house. So the child came, being then nine +years old. Until her marriage she remained under the same roof with +the young lady. Her children became successively inmates of the lady's +dwelling; and now, seventy years, or thereabouts, since the young lady +heard the child singing, one of that child's children and one of her +grandchildren are with her in that home, where she, no longer young, +except in heart, passes her peaceful days.--Three generations linked +together by so light a breath of accident! + +I liked--the sound of this youth's voice, I said, and his look when I +came to observe him a little more closely. His complexion had something +better than the bloom and freshness which had first attracted me;--it +had that diffused tone which is a sure index of wholesome, lusty life. +A fine liberal style of nature seemed to be: hair crisped, moustache +springing thick and dark, head firmly planted, lips finished, as is +commonly sees them in gentlemen's families, a pupil well contracted, and +a mouth that opened frankly with a white flash of teeth that looked as +if they could serve him as they say Ethan Allen's used to serve their +owner,--to draw nails with. This is the kind of fellow to walk a +frigate's deck and bowl his broadsides into the “Gadlant Thudnder-bomb,” + or any forty-port-holed adventurer who would like to exchange a few tons +of iron compliments.--I don't know what put this into my head, for it +was not till some time afterward I learned the young fellow had been in +the naval school at Annapolis. Something had happened to change his plan +of life, and he was now studying engineering and architecture in Boston. + +When the youth made the short remark which drew my attention to him, the +little deformed gentleman turned round and took a long look at him. + +Good for the Boston boy!--he said. + +I am not a Boston boy,--said the youth, smiling,--I am a Marylander. + +I don't care where you come from,--we'll make a Boston man of you,--said +the little gentleman. Pray, what part of Maryland did you come from, and +how shall I call you? + +The poor youth had to speak pretty loud, as he was at the right upper +corner of the table, and the little gentleman next the lower left-hand +corner. His face flushed a little, but he answered pleasantly, telling +who he was, as if the little man's infirmity gave him a right to ask any +questions he wanted to. + +Here is the place for you to sit,--said the little gentleman, pointing +to the vacant chair next his own, at the corner. + +You're go'n' to have a young lady next you, if you wait till +to-morrow,--said the landlady to him. + +He did not reply, but I had a fancy that he changed color. It can't be +that he has susceptibilities with reference to a contingent young lady! +It can't be that he has had experiences which make him sensitive! Nature +could not be quite so cruel as to set a heart throbbing in that poor +little cage of ribs! There is no use in wasting notes of admiration. I +must ask the landlady about him. + +These are some of the facts she furnished.--Has not been long with her. +Brought a sight of furniture,--could n't hardly get some of it upstairs. +Has n't seemed particularly attentive to the ladies. The Bombazine +(whom she calls Cousin something or other) has tried to enter into +conversation with him, but retired with the impression that he was +indifferent to ladies' society. Paid his bill the other day without +saying a word about it. Paid it in gold,--had a great heap of +twenty-dollar pieces. Hires her best room. Thinks he is a very nice +little man, but lives dreadful lonely up in his chamber. Wants the care +of some capable nuss. Never pitied anybody more in her life--never see a +more interestin' person. + +--My intention was, when I began making these notes, to let them consist +principally of conversations between myself and the other boarders. So +they will, very probably; but my curiosity is excited about this little +boarder of ours, and my reader must not be disappointed, if I sometimes +interrupt a discussion to give an account of whatever fact or traits I +may discover about him. It so happens that his room is next to mine, and +I have the opportunity of observing many of his ways without any active +movements of curiosity. That his room contains heavy furniture, that +he is a restless little body and is apt to be up late, that he talks +to himself, and keeps mainly to himself, is nearly all I have yet found +out. + +One curious circumstance happened lately which I mention without drawing +an absolute inference. Being at the studio of a sculptor with whom I am +acquainted, the other day, I saw a remarkable cast of a left arm. On my +asking where the model came from, he said it was taken direct from the +arm of a deformed person, who had employed one of the Italian moulders +to make the cast. It was a curious case, it should seem, of one +beautiful limb upon a frame otherwise singularly imperfect--I have +repeatedly noticed this little gentleman's use of his left arm. Can he +have furnished the model I saw at the sculptor's? + +--So we are to have a new boarder to-morrow. I hope there will be +something pretty and pleasing about her. A woman with a creamy +voice, and finished in alto rilievo, would be a variety in the +boarding-house,--a little more marrow and a little less sinew than our +landlady and her daughter and the bombazine-clad female, all of whom are +of the turkey-drumstick style of organization. I don't mean that these +are our only female companions; but the rest being conversational +non-combatants, mostly still, sad feeders, who take in their food as +locomotives take in wood and water, and then wither away from the table +like blossoms that never came to fruit, I have not yet referred to them +as individuals. + +I wonder what kind of young person we shall see in that empty chair +to-morrow! + +--I read this song to the boarders after breakfast the other morning. It +was written for our fellows;--you know who they are, of course. + + + + THE BOYS. + + Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? + If there has, take him out, without making a noise! + Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! + Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night! + + We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? + He's tipsy,--young jackanapes!--show him the door! + --“Gray temples at twenty?”--Yes! white, if we please; + Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze! + + Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! + Look close,--you will see not a sign of a flake; + We want some new garlands for those we have shed, + And these are white roses in place of the red! + + We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told. + Of talking (in public) as if we were old; + That boy we call Doctor, (1) and this we call Judge (2) + --It's a neat little fiction,--of course it's all fudge. + + That fellow's the Speaker, (3)--the one on the right; + Mr. Mayor, (4) my young one, how are you to-night? + That's our “Member of Congress," (5) we say when we chaff; + There's the “Reverend” (6) What's his name?--don't make me laugh! + + That boy with the grave mathematical look(7) + Made believe he had written a wonderful book, + And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! + So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too. + + There's a boy,--we pretend,--with a three-decker-brain + That could harness a team with a logical chain: + When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, + We called him “The Justice,”--but now he's “The Squire." (1) + + And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,(2) + Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith, + But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, + --Just read on his medal,--“My country,--of thee!” + + You hear that boy laughing?--you think he's all fun, + But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; + The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, + And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!(3) + + Yes, we're boys,--always playing with tongue or with pen, + --And I sometimes have asked,--Shall we ever be men? + Shall we always be youthful and laughing and gay, + Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? + + Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! + The stars of its Winter, the dews of its May! + And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, + Dear Father, take care of thy children, the Boys! + + 1 Francis Thomas. + 2 George Tyler Bigelow. + 3 Francis Boardman Crowninshield. + 4 G. W. Richardson. + 5 George Thomas Davis. + 6 James Freeman Clarke. + 7 Benjamin Peirce. + + + + +III + +[The Professor talks with the Reader. He tells a Young Girl's Story.] + +When the elements that went to the making of the first man, father of +mankind, had been withdrawn from the world of unconscious matter, the +balance of creation was disturbed. The materials that go to the making +of one woman were set free by the abstraction from inanimate nature of +one man's-worth of masculine constituents. These combined to make our +first mother, by a logical necessity involved in the previous creation +of our common father. All this, mythically, illustratively, and by no +means doctrinally or polemically. + +The man implies the woman, you will understand. The excellent gentleman +whom I had the pleasure of setting right in a trifling matter a few +weeks ago believes in the frequent occurrence of miracles at the present +day. So do I. I believe, if you could find an uninhabited coral-reef +island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with plenty of cocoa-palms +and bread-fruit on it, and put a handsome young fellow, like our +Marylander, ashore upon it, if you touched there a year afterwards, you +would find him walking under the palm-trees arm in arm with a pretty +woman. + +Where would she come from? + +Oh, that 's the miracle! + +--I was just as certain, when I saw that fine, high-colored youth at +the upper right-hand corner of our table, that there would appear some +fitting feminine counterpart to him, as if I had been a clairvoyant, +seeing it all beforehand. + +--I have a fancy that those Marylanders are just about near enough to +the sun to ripen well.--How some of us fellows remember Joe and Harry, +Baltimoreans, both! Joe, with his cheeks like lady-apples, and his eyes +like black-heart cherries, and his teeth like the whiteness of the +flesh of cocoanuts, and his laugh that set the chandelier-drops rattling +overhead, as we sat at our sparkling banquets in those gay times! +Harry, champion, by acclamation, of the college heavy-weights, +broad-shouldered, bull-necked, square-jawed, six feet and trimmings, +a little science, lots of pluck, good-natured as a steer in peace, +formidable as a red-eyed bison in the crack of hand-to-hand battle! Who +forgets the great muster-day, and the collision of the classic with the +democratic forces? The huge butcher, fifteen stone,--two hundred and ten +pounds,--good weight,--steps out like Telamonian Ajax, defiant. No words +from Harry, the Baltimorean,--one of the quiet sort, who strike first; +and do the talking, if there is any, afterwards. No words, but, in the +place thereof, a clean, straight, hard hit, which took effect with a +spank like the explosion of a percussion-cap, knocking the slayer of +beeves down a sand-bank,--followed, alas! by the too impetuous youth, +so that both rolled down together, and the conflict terminated in one of +those inglorious and inevitable Yankee clinches, followed by a general +melee, which make our native fistic encounters so different from such +admirably-ordered contests as that which I once saw at an English fair, +where everything was done decently and in order; and the fight began and +ended with such grave propriety, that a sporting parson need hardly have +hesitated to open it with a devout petition, and, after it was over, +dismiss the ring with a benediction. + +I can't help telling one more story about this great field-day, though +it is the most wanton and irrelevant digression. But all of us have a +little speck of fight underneath our peace and good-will to men, just +a speck, for revolutions and great emergencies, you know,--so that we +should not submit to be trodden quite flat by the first heavy-heeled +aggressor that came along. You can tell a portrait from an ideal head, +I suppose, and a true story from one spun out of the writer's invention. +See whether this sounds true or not. + +Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin sent out two fine blood-horses, Barefoot and +Serab by name, to Massachusetts, something before the time I am talking +of. With them came a Yorkshire groom, a stocky little fellow, in velvet +breeches, who made that mysterious hissing noise, traditionary in +English stables, when he rubbed down the silken-skinned racers, in great +perfection. After the soldiers had come from the muster-field, and +some of the companies were on the village-common, there was still some +skirmishing between a few individuals who had not had the fight taken +out of them. The little Yorkshire groom thought he must serve out +somebody. So he threw himself into an approved scientific attitude, and, +in brief, emphatic language, expressed his urgent anxiety to accommodate +any classical young gentleman who chose to consider himself a candidate +for his attentions. I don't suppose there were many of the college boys +that would have been a match for him in the art which Englishmen know +so much more of than Americans, for the most part. However, one of the +Sophomores, a very quiet, peaceable fellow, just stepped out of the +crowd, and, running straight at the groom, as he stood there, sparring +away, struck him with the sole of his foot, a straight blow, as if it +had been with his fist, and knocked him heels over head and senseless, +so that he had to be carried off from the field. This ugly way of +hitting is the great trick of the French gavate, which is not commonly +thought able to stand its ground against English pugilistic science. +These are old recollections, with not much to recommend them, except, +perhaps, a dash of life, which may be worth a little something. + +The young Marylander brought them all up, you may remember. He recalled +to my mind those two splendid pieces of vitality I told you of. Both +have been long dead. How often we see these great red-flaring flambeaux +of life blown out, as it were, by a puff of wind,--and the little, +single-wicked night-lamp of being, which some white-faced and attenuated +invalid shades with trembling fingers, flickering on while they go out +one after another, until its glimmer is all that is left to us of the +generation to which it belonged! + +I told you that I was perfectly sure, beforehand, we should find some +pleasing girlish or womanly shape to fill the blank at our table and +match the dark-haired youth at the upper corner. + +There she sits, at the very opposite corner, just as far off as accident +could put her from this handsome fellow, by whose side she ought, of +course, to be sitting. One of the “positive” blondes, as my friend, +you may remember, used to call them. Tawny-haired, amber-eyed, +full-throated, skin as white as a blanched almond. Looks dreamy to me, +not self-conscious, though a black ribbon round her neck sets it off +as a Marie-Antoinette's diamond-necklace could not do. So in her dress, +there is a harmony of tints that looks as if an artist had run his eye +over her and given a hint or two like the finishing touch to a picture. +I can't help being struck with her, for she is at once rounded and fine +in feature, looks calm, as blondes are apt to, and as if she might run +wild, if she were trifled with. It is just as I knew it would be,--and +anybody can see that our young Marylander will be dead in love with her +in a week. + +Then if that little man would only turn out immensely rich and have the +good-nature to die and leave them all his money, it would be as nice as +a three-volume novel. + +The Little Gentleman is in a flurry, I suspect, with the excitement +of having such a charming neighbor next him. I judge so mainly by his +silence and by a certain rapt and serious look on his face, as if he +were thinking of something that had happened, or that might happen, or +that ought to happen,--or how beautiful her young life looked, or how +hardly Nature had dealt with him, or something which struck him silent, +at any rate. I made several conversational openings for him, but he did +not fire up as he often does. I even went so far as to indulge in, a +fling at the State House, which, as we all know, is in truth a very +imposing structure, covering less ground than St. Peter's, but of +similar general effect. The little man looked up, but did not reply to +my taunt. He said to the young lady, however, that the State House was +the Parthenon of our Acropolis, which seemed to please her, for she +smiled, and he reddened a little,--so I thought. I don't think it right +to watch persons who are the subjects of special infirmity,--but we all +do it. + +I see that they have crowded the chairs a little at that end of +the table, to make room for another newcomer of the lady sort. A +well-mounted, middle-aged preparation, wearing her hair without a +cap, --pretty wide in the parting, though,--contours vaguely hinted, +--features very quiet,--says little as yet, but seems to keep her eye on +the young lady, as if having some responsibility for her My record is +a blank for some days after this. In the mean time I have contrived to +make out the person and the story of our young lady, who, according to +appearances, ought to furnish us a heroine for a boarding-house romance +before a year is out. It is very curious that she should prove connected +with a person many of us have heard of. Yet, curious as it is, I have +been a hundred times struck with the circumstance that the most remote +facts are constantly striking each other; just as vessels starting from +ports thousands of miles apart pass close to each other in the naked +breadth of the ocean, nay, sometimes even touch, in the dark, with a +crack of timbers, a gurgling of water, a cry of startled sleepers,--a +cry mysteriously echoed in warning dreams, as the wife of some +Gloucester fisherman, some coasting skipper, wakes with a shriek, calls +the name of her husband, and sinks back to uneasy slumbers upon her +lonely pillow,--a widow. + +Oh, these mysterious meetings! Leaving all the vague, waste, endless +spaces of the washing desert, the ocean-steamer and the fishing-smack +sail straight towards each other as if they ran in grooves ploughed for +them in the waters from the beginning of creation! Not only things and +events, but our own thoughts, are so full of these surprises, that, +if there were a reader in my parish who did not recognize the familiar +occurrence of what I am now going to mention, I should think it a case +for the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of Intelligence +among the Comfortable Classes. There are about as many twins in the +births of thought as of children. For the first time in your lives you +learn some fact or come across some idea. Within an hour, a day, a week, +that same fact or idea strikes you from another quarter. It seems as if +it had passed into space and bounded back upon you as an echo from +the blank wall that shuts in the world of thought. Yet no possible +connection exists between the two channels by which the thought or the +fact arrived. Let me give an infinitesimal illustration. + +One of the Boys mentioned, the other evening, in the course of a very +pleasant poem he read us, a little trick of the Commons-table boarders, +which I, nourished at the parental board, had never heard of. Young +fellows being always hungry--Allow me to stop dead-short, in order to +utter an aphorism which has been forming itself in one of the blank +interior spaces of my intelligence, like a crystal in the cavity of a +geode. + + Aphorism by the Professor. + +In order to know whether a human being is young or old, offer it food +of different kinds at short intervals. If young, it will eat anything +at any hour of the day or night. If old, it observes stated periods, and +you might as well attempt to regulate the time of highwater to suit +a fishing-party as to change these periods. The crucial experiment is +this. Offer a bulky and boggy bun to the suspected individual just ten +minutes before dinner. If this is eagerly accepted and devoured, the +fact of youth is established. If the subject of the question starts back +and expresses surprise and incredulity, as if you could not possibly be +in earnest, the fact of maturity is no less clear. + +--Excuse me,--I return to my story of the Commons-table.--Young fellows +being always hungry, and tea and dry toast being the meagre fare of the +evening meal, it was a trick of some of the Boys to impale a slice of +meat upon a fork, at dinner-time, and stick the fork holding it beneath +the table, so that they could get it at tea-time. The dragons that +guarded this table of the Hesperides found out the trick at last, and +kept a sharp look-out for missing forks;--they knew where to find one, +if it was not in its place.--Now the odd thing was, that, after waiting +so many years to hear of this college trick, I should hear it mentioned +a second time within the same twenty-four hours by a college youth of +the present generation. Strange, but true. And so it has happened to me +and to every person, often and often, to be hit in rapid succession by +these twinned facts or thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot. + +I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder over this, taking it +as an unexplained marvel. I think, however, I will turn over a furrow +of subsoil in it.--The explanation is, of course, that in a great many +thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these instantly arrest +our attention. Now we shall probably never have the least idea of the +enormous number of impressions which pass through our consciousness, +until in some future life we see the photographic record of our thoughts +and the stereoscopic picture of our actions. There go more pieces to +make up a conscious life or a living body than you think for. Why, +some of you were surprised when a friend of mine told you there +were fifty-eight separate pieces in a fiddle. How many “swimming +glands”--solid, organized, regularly formed, rounded disks taking an +active part in all your vital processes, part and parcel, each one of +them, of your corporeal being--do you suppose are whirled along, like +pebbles in a stream, with the blood which warms your frame and colors +your cheeks?--A noted German physiologist spread out a minute drop +of blood, under the microscope, in narrow streaks, and counted the +globules, and then made a calculation. The counting by the micrometer +took him a week.--You have, my full-grown friend, of these little +couriers in crimson or scarlet livery, running on your vital errands +day and night as long as you live, sixty-five billions, five hundred and +seventy thousand millions. Errors excepted.--Did I hear some gentleman +say, “Doubted? “--I am the Professor. I sit in my chair with a petard +under it that will blow me through the skylight of my lecture-room, if I +do not know what I am talking about and whom I am quoting. + +Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands to your foreheads, and +saying to yourselves that you feel a little confused, as if you had been +waltzing until things began to whirl slightly round you, is it possible +that you do not clearly apprehend the exact connection of all that I +have been saying, and its bearing on what is now to come? Listen, +then. The number of these living elements in our bodies illustrates +the incalculable multitude of our thoughts; the number of our thoughts +accounts for those frequent coincidences spoken of; these coincidences +in the world of thought illustrate those which we constantly observe in +the world of outward events, of which the presence of the young girl now +at our table, and proving to be the daughter of an old acquaintance some +of us may remember, is the special example which led me through this +labyrinth of reflections, and finally lands me at the commencement of +this young girl's story, which, as I said, I have found the time and +felt the interest to learn something of, and which I think I can tell +without wronging the unconscious subject of my brief delineation. IRIS. + +You remember, perhaps, in some papers published awhile ago, an odd poem +written by an old Latin tutor? He brought up at the verb amo, I love, +as all of us do, and by and by Nature opened her great living dictionary +for him at the word filia, a daughter. The poor man was greatly +perplexed in choosing a name for her. Lucretia and Virginia were the +first that he thought of; but then came up those pictured stories of +Titus Livius, which he could never read without crying, though he had +read them a hundred times. + +--Lucretia sending for her husband and her father, each to bring one +friend with him, and awaiting them in her chamber. To them her wrongs +briefly. Let them see to the wretch,--she will take care of herself. +Then the hidden knife flashes out and sinks into her heart. She +slides from her seat, and falls dying. “Her husband and her father cry +aloud.”--No, not Lucretia. + +-Virginius,--a brown old soldier, father of a nice girl. She engaged +to a very promising young man. Decemvir Appius takes a violent fancy to +her,--must have her at any rate. Hires a lawyer to present the arguments +in favor of the view that she was another man's daughter. There used to +be lawyers in Rome that would do such things.--All right. There are two +sides to everything. Audi alteram partem. The legal gentleman has no +opinion,--he only states the evidence.--A doubtful case. Let the young +lady be under the protection of the Honorable Decemvir until it can be +looked up thoroughly.--Father thinks it best, on the whole, to give in. +Will explain the matter, if the young lady and her maid will step this +way. That is the explanation,--a stab with a butcher's knife, snatched +from a stall, meant for other lambs than this poor bleeding Virginia. + +The old man thought over the story. Then he must have one look at the +original. So he took down the first volume and read it over. When he +came to that part where it tells how the young gentleman she was engaged +to and a friend of his took up the poor girl's bloodless shape and +carried it through the street, and how all the women followed, wailing, +and asking if that was what their daughters were coming to,--if that +was what they were to get for being good girls,--he melted down into his +accustomed tears of pity and grief, and, through them all, of delight at +the charming Latin of the narrative. But it was impossible to call his +child Virginia. He could never look at her without thinking she had a +knife sticking in her bosom. + +Dido would be a good name, and a fresh one. She was a queen, and the +founder of a great city. Her story had been immortalized by the greatest +of poets,--for the old Latin tutor clove to “Virgilius Maro,” as he +called him, as closely as ever Dante did in his memorable journey. So he +took down his Virgil, it was the smooth-leafed, open-lettered quarto of +Baskerville,--and began reading the loves and mishaps of Dido. It would +n't do. A lady who had not learned discretion by experience, and came to +an evil end. He shook his head, as he sadly repeated, + + “--misera ante diem, subitoque accensa furore;” + +but when he came to the lines, + + “Ergo Iris croceis per coelum roscida pennis + Mille trahens varios adverso Sole colores,” + +he jumped up with a great exclamation, which the particular recording +angel who heard it pretended not to understand, or it might have gone +hard with the Latin tutor some time or other. + +“Iris shall be her name!”--he said. So her name was Iris. + +--The natural end of a tutor is to perish by starvation. It is only a +question of time, just as with the burning of college libraries. These +all burn up sooner or later, provided they are not housed in brick or +stone and iron. I don't mean that you will see in the registry of deaths +that this or that particular tutor died of well-marked, uncomplicated +starvation. They may, even, in extreme cases, be carried off by a thin, +watery kind of apoplexy, which sounds very well in the returns, but +means little to those who know that it is only debility settling on +the head. Generally, however, they fade and waste away under various +pretexts,--calling it dyspepsia, consumption, and so on, to put a decent +appearance upon the case and keep up the credit of the family and the +institution where they have passed through the successive stages of +inanition. + +In some cases it takes a great many years to kill a tutor by the +process in question. You see they do get food and clothes and fuel, in +appreciable quantities, such as they are. You will even notice rows of +books in their rooms, and a picture or two,--things that look as if +they had surplus money; but these superfluities are the water of +crystallization to scholars, and you can never get them away till +the poor fellows effloresce into dust. Do not be deceived. The tutor +breakfasts on coffee made of beans, edulcorated with milk watered to the +verge of transparency; his mutton is tough and elastic, up to the +moment when it becomes tired out and tasteless; his coal is a sullen, +sulphurous anthracite, which rusts into ashes, rather than burns, in +the shallow grate; his flimsy broadcloth is too thin for winter and too +thick for summer. The greedy lungs of fifty hot-blooded boys suck the +oxygen from the air he breathes in his recitation-room. In short, he +undergoes a process of gentle and gradual starvation. + +--The mother of little Iris was not called Electra, like hers of the old +story, neither was her grandfather Oceanus. Her blood-name, which she +gave away with her heart to the Latin tutor, was a plain old English +one, and her water-name was Hannah, beautiful as recalling the mother +of Samuel, and admirable as reading equally well from the initial letter +forwards and from the terminal letter backwards. The poor lady, seated +with her companion at the chessboard of matrimony, had but just pushed +forward her one little white pawn upon an empty square, when the Black +Knight, that cares nothing for castles or kings or queens, swooped down +upon her and swept her from the larger board of life. + +The old Latin tutor put a modest blue stone at the head of his late +companion, with her name and age and Eheu! upon it,--a smaller one +at her feet, with initials; and left her by herself, to be rained and +snowed on,--which is a hard thing to do for those whom we have cherished +tenderly. + +About the time that the lichens, falling on the stone, like drops of +water, had spread into fair, round rosettes, the tutor had starved into +a slight cough. Then he began to draw the buckle of his black trousers +a little tighter, and took in another reef in his never-ample waistcoat. +His temples got a little hollow, and the contrasts of color in his +cheeks more vivid than of old. After a while his walks fatigued him, +and he was tired, and breathed hard after going up a flight or two of +stairs. Then came on other marks of inward trouble and general waste, +which he spoke of to his physician as peculiar, and doubtless owing to +accidental causes; to all which the doctor listened with deference, as +if it had not been the old story that one in five or six of mankind in +temperate climates tells, or has told for him, as if it were something +new. As the doctor went out, he said to himself,--“On the rail at last. +Accommodation train. A good many stops, but will get to the station +by and by.” So the doctor wrote a recipe with the astrological sign of +Jupiter before it, (just as your own physician does, inestimable reader, +as you will see, if you look at his next prescription,) and departed, +saying he would look in occasionally. After this, the Latin tutor began +the usual course of “getting better,” until he got so much better that +his face was very sharp, and when he smiled, three crescent lines +showed at each side of his lips, and when he spoke; it was in a muffled +whisper, and the white of his eye glistened as pearly as the purest +porcelain, --so much better, that he hoped--by spring--he--might be +able--to--attend------to his class again.--But he was recommended not +to expose himself, and so kept his chamber, and occasionally, not having +anything to do, his bed. The unmarried sister with whom he lived took +care of him; and the child, now old enough to be manageable and even +useful in trifling offices, sat in the chamber, or played, about. + +Things could not go on so forever, of course. One morning his face +was sunken and his hands were very, very cold. He was “better,” he +whispered, but sadly and faintly. After a while he grew restless and +seemed a little wandering. His mind ran on his classics, and fell back +on the Latin grammar. + +“Iris!” he said,--“filiola mea!”--The child knew this meant my dear +little daughter as well as if it had been English.--“Rainbow!” for he +would translate her name at times,--“come to me,--veni”--and his lips +went on automatically, and murmured, “vel venito!”--The child came and +sat by his bedside and took his hand, which she could not warm, but +which shot its rays of cold all through her slender frame. But there she +sat, looking steadily at him. Presently he opened his lips feebly, and +whispered, “Moribundus.” She did not know what that meant, but she saw +that there was something new and sad. So she began to cry; but presently +remembering an old book that seemed to comfort him at times, got up and +brought a Bible in the Latin version, called the Vulgate. “Open it,” he +said,--“I will read, segnius irritant,--don't put the light out,--ah! +hoeret lateri,--I am going,--vale, vale, vale, goodbye, good-bye,--the +Lord take care of my child! Domine, audi--vel audito!” His face whitened +suddenly, and he lay still, with open eyes and mouth. He had taken his +last degree. + +--Little Miss Iris could not be said to begin life with a very brilliant +rainbow over her, in a worldly point of view. A limited wardrobe of +man's attire, such as poor tutors wear,--a few good books, principally +classics,--a print or two, and a plaster model of the Pantheon, with +some pieces of furniture which had seen service,--these, and a child's +heart full of tearful recollections and strange doubts and questions, +alternating with the cheap pleasures which are the anodynes of childish +grief; such were the treasures she inherited.--No,--I forgot. With +that kindly sentiment which all of us feel for old men's first +children,--frost-flowers of the early winter season, the old tutor's +students had remembered him at a time when he was laughing and crying +with his new parental emotions, and running to the side of the plain +crib in which his alter egg, as he used to say, was swinging, to hang +over the little heap of stirring clothes, from which looked the minute, +red, downy, still, round face, with unfixed eyes and working lips,--in +that unearthly gravity which has never yet been broken by a smile, and +which gives to the earliest moon-year or two of an infant's life the +character of a first old age, to counterpoise that second childhood +which there is one chance in a dozen it may reach by and by. The boys +had remembered the old man and young father at that tender period of his +hard, dry life. There came to him a fair, silver goblet, embossed with +classical figures, and bearing on a shield the graver words, Ex dono +pupillorum. The handle on its side showed what use the boys had meant it +for; and a kind letter in it, written with the best of feeling, in +the worst of Latin, pointed delicately to its destination. Out of this +silver vessel, after a long, desperate, strangling cry, which marked +her first great lesson in the realities of life, the child took the blue +milk, such as poor tutors and their children get, tempered with +water, and sweetened a little, so as to bring it nearer the standard +established by the touching indulgence and partiality of Nature,--who +had mingled an extra allowance of sugar in the blameless food of the +child at its mother's breast, as compared with that of its infant +brothers and sisters of the bovine race. + +But a willow will grow in baked sand wet with rainwater. An air-plant +will grow by feeding on the winds. Nay, those huge forests that +overspread great continents have built themselves up mainly from the +air-currents with which they are always battling. The oak is but a +foliated atmospheric crystal deposited from the aerial ocean that holds +the future vegetable world in solution. The storm that tears its leaves +has paid tribute to its strength, and it breasts the tornado clad in the +spoils of a hundred hurricanes. + +Poor little Iris! What had she in common with the great oak in the +shadow of which we are losing sight of her?--She lived and grew like +that,--this was all. The blue milk ran into her veins and filled them +with thin, pure blood. Her skin was fair, with a faint tinge, such as +the white rosebud shows before it opens. The doctor who had attended +her father was afraid her aunt would hardly be able to “raise” + her,--“delicate child,”--hoped she was not consumptive,--thought there +was a fair chance she would take after her father. + +A very forlorn-looking person, dressed in black, with a white neckcloth, +sent her a memoir of a child who died at the age of two years and eleven +months, after having fully indorsed all the doctrines of the particular +persuasion to which he not only belonged himself, but thought it very +shameful that everybody else did not belong. What with foreboding looks +and dreary death-bed stories, it was a wonder the child made out to live +through it. It saddened her early years, of course,--it distressed +her tender soul with thoughts which, as they cannot be fully taken in, +should be sparingly used as instruments of torture to break down the +natural cheerfulness of a healthy child, or, what is infinitely worse, +to cheat a dying one out of the kind illusions with which the Father of +All has strewed its downward path. + +The child would have died, no doubt, and, if properly managed, might +have added another to the long catalogue of wasting children who have +been as cruelly played upon by spiritual physiologists, often with the +best intentions, as ever the subject of a rare disease by the curious +students of science. + +Fortunately for her, however, a wise instinct had guided the late Latin +tutor in the selection of the partner of his life, and the future mother +of his child. The deceased tutoress was a tranquil, smooth woman, easily +nourished, as such people are,--a quality which is inestimable in a +tutor's wife,--and so it happened that the daughter inherited enough +vitality from the mother to live through childhood and infancy and fight +her way towards womanhood, in spite of the tendencies she derived from +her other parent. + +--Two and two do not always make four, in this matter of hereditary +descent of qualities. Sometimes they make three, and sometimes five. It +seems as if the parental traits at one time showed separate, at another +blended,--that occasionally, the force of two natures is represented in +the derivative one by a diagonal of greater value than either original +line of living movement,--that sometimes there is a loss of vitality +hardly to be accounted for, and again a forward impulse of variable +intensity in some new and unforeseen direction. + +So it was with this child. She had glanced off from her parental +probabilities at an unexpected angle. Instead of taking to classical +learning like her father, or sliding quietly into household duties like +her mother, she broke out early in efforts that pointed in the direction +of Art. As soon as she could hold a pencil she began to sketch outlines +of objects round her with a certain air and spirit. Very extraordinary +horses, but their legs looked as if they could move. Birds unknown to +Audubon, yet flying, as it were, with a rush. Men with impossible legs, +which did yet seem to have a vital connection with their most improbable +bodies. By-and-by the doctor, on his beast,--an old man with a face +looking as if Time had kneaded it like dough with his knuckles, with a +rhubarb tint and flavor pervading himself and his sorrel horse and all +their appurtenances. A dreadful old man! Be sure she did not forget +those saddle-bags that held the detestable bottles out of which he used +to shake those loathsome powders which, to virgin childish palates that +find heaven in strawberries and peaches, are--Well, I suppose I had +better stop. Only she wished she was dead sometimes when she heard him +coming. On the next leaf would figure the gentleman with the black coat +and white cravat, as he looked when he came and entertained her with +stories concerning the death of various little children about her age, +to encourage her, as that wicked Mr. Arouet said about shooting Admiral +Byng. Then she would take her pencil, and with a few scratches there +would be the outline of a child, in which you might notice how one +sudden sweep gave the chubby cheek, and two dots darted at the paper +looked like real eyes. + +By-and-by she went to school, and caricatured the schoolmaster on +the leaves of her grammars and geographies, and drew the faces of her +companions, and, from time to time, heads and figures from her fancy, +with large eyes, far apart, like those of Raffaelle's mothers and +children, sometimes with wild floating hair, and then with wings and +heads thrown back in ecstasy. This was at about twelve years old, as the +dates of these drawings show, and, therefore, three or four years before +she came among us. Soon after this time, the ideal figures began to take +the place of portraits and caricatures, and a new feature appeared in +her drawing-books in the form of fragments of verse and short poems. + +It was dull work, of course, for such a young girl to live with an old +spinster and go to a village school. Her books bore testimony to this; +for there was a look of sadness in the faces she drew, and a sense of +weariness and longing for some imaginary conditions of blessedness +or other, which began to be painful. She might have gone through this +flowering of the soul, and, casting her petals, subsided into a sober, +human berry, but for the intervention of friendly assistance and +counsel. + +In the town where she lived was a lady of honorable condition, somewhat +past middle age, who was possessed of pretty ample means, of cultivated +tastes, of excellent principles, of exemplary character, and of more +than common accomplishments. The gentleman in black broadcloth and white +neckerchief only echoed the common voice about her, when he called her, +after enjoying, beneath her hospitable roof, an excellent cup of tea, +with certain elegancies and luxuries he was unaccustomed to, “The Model +of all the Virtues.” + +She deserved this title as well as almost any woman. She did really +bristle with moral excellences. Mention any good thing she had not done; +I should like to see you try! There was no handle of weakness to take +hold of her by; she was as unseizable, except in her totality, as a +billiard-ball; and on the broad, green, terrestrial table, where she had +been knocked about, like all of us, by the cue of Fortune, she glanced +from every human contact, and “caromed” from one relation to another, +and rebounded from the stuffed cushion of temptation, with such exact +and perfect angular movements, that the Enemy's corps of Reporters had +long given up taking notes of her conduct, as there was no chance for +their master. + +What an admirable person for the patroness and directress of a slightly +self-willed child, with the lightning zigzag line of genius running like +a glittering vein through the marble whiteness of her virgin nature! One +of the lady-patroness's peculiar virtues was calmness. She was resolute +and strenuous, but still. You could depend on her for every duty; she +was as true as steel. She was kind-hearted and serviceable in all +the relations of life. She had more sense, more knowledge, more +conversation, as well as more goodness, than all the partners you have +waltzed with this winter put together. + +Yet no man was known to have loved her, or even to have offered +himself to her in marriage. It was a great wonder. I am very anxious +to vindicate my character as a philosopher and an observer of Nature by +accounting for this apparently extraordinary fact. + +You may remember certain persons who have the misfortune of presenting +to the friends whom they meet a cold, damp hand. There are states of +mind in which a contact of this kind has a depressing effect on the +vital powers that makes us insensible to all the virtues and graces of +the proprietor of one of these life-absorbing organs. When they touch +us, virtue passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had been +drained by a powerful negative battery, carried about by an overgrown +human torpedo. + +“The Model of all the Virtues” had a pair of searching eyes as clear as +Wenham ice; but they were slower to melt than that fickle jewelry. Her +features disordered themselves slightly at times in a surface-smile, but +never broke loose from their corners and indulged in the riotous tumult +of a laugh,--which, I take it, is the mob-law of the features;--and +propriety the magistrate who reads the riot-act. She carried the +brimming cup of her inestimable virtues with a cautious, steady hand, +and an eye always on them, to see that they did not spill. Then she was +an admirable judge of character. Her mind was a perfect laboratory of +tests and reagents; every syllable you put into breath went into +her intellectual eudiometer, and all your thoughts were recorded on +litmus-paper. I think there has rarely been a more admirable woman. +Of course, Miss Iris was immensely and passionately attached +to her.--Well,--these are two highly oxygenated adverbs, +--grateful,--suppose we say,--yes,--grateful, dutiful, obedient to her +wishes for the most part,--perhaps not quite up to the concert pitch of +such a perfect orchestra of the virtues. + +We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it +much. People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything than +is good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirable +subjects for biographies. But we don't always care most for those +flat-pattern flowers that press best in the herbarium. + +This immaculate woman,--why could n't she have a fault or two? Is n't +there any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole of +saintly perfection? Does n't she carry a lump of opium in her pocket? Is +n't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use would +require? It would be such a comfort! + +Not for the world would a young creature like Iris have let such words +escape her, or such thoughts pass through her mind. Whether at the +bottom of her soul lies any uneasy consciousness of an oppressive +presence, it is hard to say, until we know more about her. Iris sits +between the Little Gentleman and the “Model of all the Virtues,” as the +black-coated personage called her.--I will watch them all. + +--Here I stop for the present. What the Professor said has had to make +way this time for what he saw and heard. + +-And now you may read these lines, which were written for gentle souls +who love music, and read in even tones, and, perhaps, with something +like a smile upon the reader's lips, at a meeting where these musical +friends had gathered. Whether they were written with smiles or not, you +can guess better after you have read them. + + + THE OPENING OF THE PIANO. + + In the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen + With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, + At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, + Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night. + + Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came! + What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, + When the wondrous boa was opened that had come from over seas, + With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys! + + Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, + For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, + Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, + But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, “Now, Mary, play.” + + For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; + She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, + In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, + Or caroling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills. + + So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, + Sat down to the new “Clementi,” and struck the glittering keys. + Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, + As, floating from lip and finger, arose the “Vesper Hymn.” + + --Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, + (Wedded since, and a widow,--something like ten years dead,) + Hearing a gush of music such as none before, + Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door. + + Just as the “Jubilate” in threaded whisper dies, + --“Open it! open it, lady!” the little maiden cries, + (For she thought 't was a singing creature caged in a box she heard,) + “Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the bird!” + + + + +IV + +I don't know whether our literary or professional people are more +amiable than they are in other places, but certainly quarrelling is out +of fashion among them. This could never be, if they were in the habit of +secret anonymous puffing of each other. That is the kind of underground +machinery which manufactures false reputations and genuine hatreds. On +the other hand, I should like to know if we are not at liberty to have +a good time together, and say the pleasantest things we can think of to +each other, when any of us reaches his thirtieth or fortieth or fiftieth +or eightieth birthday. + +We don't have “scenes,” I warrant you, on these occasions. No “surprise” + parties! You understand these, of course. In the rural districts, where +scenic tragedy and melodrama cannot be had, as in the city, at the +expense of a quarter and a white pocket-handkerchief, emotional +excitement has to be sought in the dramas of real life. Christenings, +weddings, and funerals, especially the latter, are the main dependence; +but babies, brides, and deceased citizens cannot be had at a day's +notice. Now, then, for a surprise-party! + +A bag of flour, a barrel of potatoes, some strings of onions, a basket +of apples, a big cake and many little cakes, a jug of lemonade, a purse +stuffed with bills of the more modest denominations, may, perhaps, +do well enough for the properties in one of these private theatrical +exhibitions. The minister of the parish, a tender-hearted, quiet, +hard-working man, living on a small salary, with many children, +sometimes pinched to feed and clothe them, praying fervently every day +to be blest in his “basket and store,” but sometimes fearing he asks +amiss, to judge by the small returns, has the first role,--not, +however, by his own choice, but forced upon him. The minister's wife, +a sharp-eyed, unsentimental body, is first lady; the remaining parts by +the rest of the family. If they only had a playbill, it would run thus: + + ON TUESDAY NEXT + WILL BE PRESENTED + THE AFFECTING SCENE + CALLED + + THE SURPRISE-PARTY + + OR + + THE OVERCOME FAMILY; + +WITH THE FOLLOWING STRONG CAST OF CHARACTERS. + + The Rev. Mr. Overcome, by the Clergyman of this Parish. + Mrs. Overcome, by his estimable lady. + Masters Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Overcome, + Misses Dorcas, Tabitha, Rachel, and Hannah, Overcome, by their + interesting children. + Peggy, by the female help. + +The poor man is really grateful;--it is a most welcome and unexpected +relief. He tries to express his thanks,--his voice falters,--he +chokes,--and bursts into tears. That is the great effect of the evening. +The sharp-sighted lady cries a little with one eye, and counts the +strings of onions, and the rest of the things, with the other. The +children stand ready for a spring at the apples. The female help weeps +after the noisy fashion of untutored handmaids. + +Now this is all very well as charity, but do let the kind visitors +remember they get their money's worth. If you pay a quarter for dry +crying, done by a second-rate actor, how much ought you to pay for real +hot, wet tears, out of the honest eyes of a gentleman who is not acting, +but sobbing in earnest? + +All I meant to say, when I began, was, that this was not a +surprise-party where I read these few lines that follow: + + We will not speak of years to-night; + For what have years to bring, + But larger floods of love and light + And sweeter songs to sing? + + We will not drown in wordy praise + The kindly thoughts that rise; + If friendship owns one tender phrase, + He reads it in our eyes. + + We need not waste our schoolboy art + To gild this notch of time; + Forgive me, if my wayward heart + Has throbbed in artless rhyme. + + Enough for him the silent grasp + That knits us hand in hand, + And he the bracelet's radiant clasp + That locks our circling band. + + Strength to his hours of manly toil! + Peace to his starlit dreams! + Who loves alike the furrowed soil, + The music-haunted streams! + + Sweet smiles to keep forever bright + The sunshine on his lips, + And faith, that sees the ring of light + Round Nature's last eclipse! + +--One of our boarders has been talking in such strong language that I am +almost afraid to report it. However, as he seems to be really honest and +is so very sincere in his local prejudices, I don't believe anybody will +be very angry with him. + +It is here, Sir! right here!--said the little deformed gentleman,--in +this old new city of Boston,--this remote provincial corner of a +provincial nation, that the Battle of the Standard is fighting, and was +fighting before we were born, and will be fighting when we are dead +and gone,--please God! The battle goes on everywhere throughout +civilization; but here, here, here is the broad white flag flying which +proclaims, first of all, peace and good-will to men, and, next to +that, the absolute, unconditional spiritual liberty of each individual +immortal soul! The three-hilled city against the seven-hilled city! That +is it, Sir,--nothing less than that; and if you know what that means, I +don't think you'll ask for anything more. I swear to you, Sir, I believe +that these two centres of civilization are just exactly the two points +that close the circuit in the battery of our planetary intelligence! And +I believe there are spiritual eyes looking out from Uranus and +unseen Neptune,--ay, Sir, from the systems of Sirius and Arcturus and +Aldebaran, and as far as that faint stain of sprinkled worlds confluent +in the distance that we call the nebula of Orion,--looking on, Sir, with +what organs I know not, to see which are going to melt in that fiery +fusion, the accidents and hindrances of humanity or man himself, +Sir,--the stupendous abortion, the illustrious failure that he is, +if the three-hilled city does not ride down and trample out the +seven-hilled city! + +--Steam 's up!--said the young man John, so called, in a low tone. +--Three hundred and sixty-five tons to the square inch. Let him blow her +off, or he'll bu'st his b'iler. + +The divinity-student took it calmly, only whispering that he thought +there was a little confusion of images between a galvanic battery and a +charge of cavalry. + +But the Koh-i-noor--the gentleman, you remember, with a very large +diamond in his shirt-front laughed his scornful laugh, and made as if to +speak. + +Sail in, Metropolis!--said that same young man John, by name. And then, +in a lower lane, not meaning to be heard,--Now, then, Ma'am Allen! + +But he was heard,--and the Koh-i-noor's face turned so white with rage, +that his blue-black moustache and beard looked fearful, seen against +it. He grinned with wrath, and caught at a tumbler, as if he would have +thrown it or its contents at the speaker. The young Marylander fixed +his clear, steady eye upon him, and laid his hand on his arm, carelessly +almost, but the Jewel found it was held so that he could not move it. +It was of no use. The youth was his master in muscle, and in that deadly +Indian hug in which men wrestle with their eyes;--over in five seconds, +but breaks one of their two backs, and is good for threescore years and +ten;--one trial enough,--settles the whole matter,--just as when +two feathered songsters of the barnyard, game and dunghill, come +together,-after a jump or two at each other, and a few sharp kicks, +there is the end of it; and it is, Apres vous, Monsieur, with the beaten +party in all the social relations for all the rest of his days. + +I cannot philosophically account for the Koh-i-noor's wrath. For though +a cosmetic is sold, bearing the name of the lady to whom reference +was made by the young person John, yet, as it is publicly asserted in +respectable prints that this cosmetic is not a dye, I see no reason why +he should have felt offended by any suggestion that he was indebted to +it or its authoress. + +I have no doubt that there are certain exceptional complexions to which +the purple tinge, above alluded to, is natural. Nature is fertile in +variety. I saw an albiness in London once, for sixpence, (including the +inspection of a stuffed boa-constrictor,) who looked as if she had been +boiled in milk. A young Hottentot of my acquaintance had his hair all in +little pellets of the size of marrow-fat peas. One of my own classmates +has undergone a singular change of late years,--his hair losing its +original tint, and getting a remarkable discolored look; and another +has ceased to cultivate any hair at all over the vertex or crown of the +head. So I am perfectly willing to believe that the purple-black of +the Koh-i-noor's moustache and whiskers is constitutional and not +pigmentary. But I can't think why he got so angry. + +The intelligent reader will understand that all this pantomime of the +threatened onslaught and its suppression passed so quickly that it was +all over by the time the other end of the table found out there was a +disturbance; just as a man chopping wood half a mile off may be seen +resting on his axe at the instant you hear the last blow he struck. +So you will please to observe that the Little Gentleman was not, +interrupted during the time implied by these ex-post-facto remarks of +mine, but for some ten or fifteen seconds only. + +He did not seem to mind the interruption at all, for he started again. +The “Sir” of his harangue was no doubt addressed to myself more than +anybody else, but he often uses it in discourse as if he were talking +with some imaginary opponent. + +--America, Sir,--he exclaimed,--is the only place where man is +full-grown! + +He straightened himself up, as he spoke, standing on the top round +of his high chair, I suppose, and so presented the larger part of his +little figure to the view of the boarders. + +It was next to impossible to keep from laughing. The commentary was so +strange an illustration of the text! I thought it was time to put in +a word; for I have lived in foreign parts, and am more or less +cosmopolitan. + +I doubt if we have more practical freedom in America than they have in +England,--I said.--An Englishman thinks as he likes in religion and +politics. Mr. Martineau speculates as freely as ever Dr. Channing did, +and Mr. Bright is as independent as Mr. Seward. + +Sir,--said he,--it is n't what a man thinks or says; but when and where +and to whom he thinks and says it. A man with a flint and steel striking +sparks over a wet blanket is one thing, and striking them over a +tinder-box is another. The free Englishman is born under protest; he +lives and dies under protest,--a tolerated, but not a welcome fact. Is +not freethinker a term of reproach in England? The same idea in the +soul of an Englishman who struggled up to it and still holds it +antagonistically, and in the soul of an American to whom it is +congenital and spontaneous, and often unrecognized, except as an element +blended with all his thoughts, a natural movement, like the drawing of +his breath or the beating of his heart, is a very different thing. You +may teach a quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is always wanting +to be on all fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth is like +the atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. The +American baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the breast at which he +hangs. + +--That's a good joke,--said the young fellow John,--considerin' it +commonly belongs to a female Paddy. + +I thought--I will not be certain--that the Little Gentleman winked, as +if he had been hit somewhere--as I have no doubt Dr. Darwin did when the +wooden-spoon suggestion upset his theory about why, etc. If he winked, +however, he did not dodge. + +A lively comment!--he said.--But Rome, in her great founder, sucked the +blood of empire out of the dugs of a brute, Sir! The Milesian wet-nurse +is only a convenient vessel through which the American infant gets the +life-blood of this virgin soil, Sir, that is making man over again, on +the sunset pattern! You don't think what we are doing and going to +do here. Why, Sir, while commentators are bothering themselves with +interpretation of prophecies, we have got the new heavens and the new +earth over us and under us! Was there ever anything in Italy, I should +like to know, like a Boston sunset? + +--This time there was a laugh, and the little man himself almost smiled. + +Yes,--Boston sunsets;--perhaps they're as good in some other places, +but I know 'em best here. Anyhow, the American skies are different from +anything they see in the Old World. Yes, and the rocks are different, +and the soil is different, and everything that comes out of the soil, +from grass up to Indians, is different. And now that the provisional +races are dying out-- + +--What do you mean by the provisional races, Sir?--said the +divinity-student, interrupting him. + +Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure,--he answered,--the red-crayon +sketch of humanity laid on the canvas before the colors for the real +manhood were ready. + +I hope they will come to something yet,--said the divinity-student. + +Irreclaimable, Sir,--irreclaimable!--said the Little Gentleman.--Cheaper +to breed white men than domesticate a nation of red ones. When you can +get the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you can make an enlightened +commonwealth of Indians. A provisional race, Sir,--nothing more. +Exhaled carbonic acid for the use of vegetation, kept down the bears and +catamounts, enjoyed themselves in scalping and being scalped, and then +passed away or are passing away, according to the programme. + +Well, Sir, these races dying out, the white man has to acclimate +himself. It takes him a good while; but he will come all right +by-and-by, Sir,--as sound as a woodchuck,--as sound as a musquash! + +A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Huron and all the rest of +'em for wash-basins! A new race, and a whole new world for the new-born +human soul to work in! And Boston is the brain of it, and has been any +time these hundred years! That's all I claim for Boston,--that it is the +thinking centre of the continent, and therefore of the planet. + +--And the grand emporium of modesty,--said the divinity-student, a +little mischievously. + +Oh, don't talk to me of modesty!--answered the Little Gentleman,--I 'm +past that! There is n't a thing that was ever said or done in Boston, +from pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie it +tore into tatters and flung into the dock, that was n't thought very +indelicate by some fool or tyrant or bigot, and all the entrails of +commercial and spiritual conservatism are twisted into colics as often +as this revolutionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come over +it.--No, Sir,--show me any other place that is, or was since the +megalosaurus has died out, where wealth and social influence are so +fairly divided between the stationary and the progressive classes! Show +me any other place where every other drawing-room is not a chamber of +the Inquisition, with papas and mammas for inquisitors,--and the cold +shoulder, instead of the “dry pan and the gradual fire,” the punishment +of “heresy”! + +--We think Baltimore is a pretty civilized kind of a village,--said the +young Marylander, good-naturedly.--But I suppose you can't forgive it +for always keeping a little ahead of Boston in point of numbers,--tell +the truth now. Are we not the centre of something? + +Ah, indeed, to be sure you are. You are the gastronomic metropolis +of the Union. Why don't you put a canvas-back-duck on the top of the +Washington column? Why don't you get that lady off from Battle Monument +and plant a terrapin in her place? Why will you ask for other glories +when you have soft crabs? No, Sir,--you live too well to think as hard +as we do in Boston. Logic comes to us with the salt-fish of Cape Ann; +rhetoric is born of the beans of Beverly; but you--if you open your +mouths to speak, Nature stops them with a fat oyster, or offers a slice +of the breast of your divine bird, and silences all your aspirations. + +And what of Philadelphia?--said the Marylander. + +Oh, Philadelphia?--Waterworks,--killed by the Croton and Cochituate; +--Ben Franklin,--borrowed from Boston;--David Rittenhouse,--made an +orrery;--Benjamin Rush,--made a medical system;--both interesting to +antiquarians;--great Red-river raft of medical students,--spontaneous +generation of professors to match;--more widely known through the +Moyamensing hose-company, and the Wistar parties;-for geological section +of social strata, go to The Club.--Good place to live in,--first-rate +market,--tip-top peaches.--What do we know about Philadelphia, except +that the engine-companies are always shooting each other? + +And what do you say to New York?--asked the Koh-i-noor. + +A great city, Sir,--replied the Little Gentleman,--a very opulent, +splendid city. A point of transit of much that is remarkable, and of +permanence for much that is respectable. A great money-centre. San +Francisco with the mines above-ground,--and some of 'em under the +sidewalks. I have seen next to nothing grandiose, out of New York, +in all our cities. It makes 'em all look paltry and petty. Has many +elements of civilization. May stop where Venice did, though, for +aught we know.--The order of its development is just this:--Wealth; +architecture; upholstery; painting; sculpture. Printing, as a mechanical +art,--just as Nicholas Jepson and the Aldi, who were scholars too, made +Venice renowned for it. Journalism, which is the accident of business +and crowded populations, in great perfection. Venice got as far as +Titian and Paul Veronese and Tintoretto,--great colorists, mark you, +magnificent on the flesh-and-blood side of Art,--but look over to +Florence and see who lie in Santa Crocea, and ask out of whose loins +Dante sprung! + +Oh, yes, to be sure, Venice built her Ducal Palace, and her Church of +St. Mark, and her Casa d' Or, and the rest of her golden houses; and +Venice had great pictures and good music; and Venice had a Golden Book, +in which all the large tax-payers had their names written;--but all that +did not make Venice the brain of Italy. + +I tell you what, Sir,--with all these magnificent appliances of +civilization, it is time we began to hear something from the djinnis +donee whose names are on the Golden Book of our sumptuous, splendid, +marble-placed Venice,--something in the higher walks of literature, +--something in the councils of the nation. Plenty of Art, I grant you, +Sir; now, then, for vast libraries, and for mighty scholars and thinkers +and statesmen,--five for every Boston one, as the population is to +ours,--ten to one more properly, in virtue of centralizing attraction as +the alleged metropolis, and not call our people provincials, and have to +come begging to us to write the lives of Hendrik Hudson and Gouverneur +Morris! + +--The Little Gentleman was on his hobby, exalting his own city at the +expense of every other place. I have my doubts if he had been in +either of the cities he had been talking about. I was just going to say +something to sober him down, if I could, when the young Marylander spoke +up. + +Come, now,--he said,--what's the use of these comparisons? Did n't I +hear this gentleman saying, the other day, that every American owns all +America? If you have really got more brains in Boston than other folks, +as you seem to think, who hates you for it, except a pack of scribbling +fools? If I like Broadway better than Washington Street, what then? I +own them both, as much as anybody owns either. I am an American,--and +wherever I look up and see the stars and stripes overhead, that is home +to me! + +He spoke, and looked up as if he heard the emblazoned folds crackling +over him in the breeze. We all looked up involuntarily, as if we should +see the national flag by so doing. The sight of the dingy ceiling and +the gas-fixture depending therefrom dispelled the illusion. + +Bravo! bravo!--said the venerable gentleman on the other side of the +table.--Those are the sentiments of Washington's Farewell Address. +Nothing better than that since the last chapter in Revelations. +Five-and-forty years ago there used to be Washington societies, and +little boys used to walk in processions, each little boy having a copy +of the Address, bound in red, hung round his neck by a ribbon. Why don't +they now? Why don't they now? I saw enough of hating each other in the +old Federal times; now let's love each other, I say,--let's love each +other, and not try to make it out that there is n't any place fit to +live in except the one we happen to be born in. + +It dwarfs the mind, I think,--said I,--to feed it on any localism. The +full stature of manhood is shrivelled-- + +The color burst up into my cheeks. What was I saying,--I, who would not +for the world have pained our unfortunate little boarder by an allusion? + +I will go,--he said,--and made a movement with his left arm to let +himself down from his high chair. + +No,--no,--he does n't mean it,--you must not go,--said a kind voice next +him; and a soft, white hand was laid upon his arm. + +Iris, my dear!--exclaimed another voice, as of a female, in accents +that might be considered a strong atmospheric solution of duty with very +little flavor of grace. + +She did not move for this address, and there was a tableau that lasted +some seconds. For the young girl, in the glory of half-blown womanhood, +and the dwarf, the cripple, the misshapen little creature covered with +Nature's insults, looked straight into each other's eyes. + +Perhaps no handsome young woman had ever looked at him so in his life. +Certainly the young girl never had looked into eyes that reached +into her soul as these did. It was not that they were in themselves +supernaturally bright,--but there was the sad fire in them that flames +up from the soul of one who looks on the beauty of woman without hope, +but, alas! not without emotion. To him it seemed as if those amber gates +had been translucent as the brown water of a mountain brook, and through +them he had seen dimly into a virgin wilderness, only waiting for the +sunrise of a great passion for all its buds to blow and all its bowers +to ring with melody. + +That is my image, of course,--not his. It was not a simile that was +in his mind, or is in anybody's at such a moment,--it was a pang of +wordless passion, and then a silent, inward moan. + +A lady's wish,--he said, with a certain gallantry of manner,--makes +slaves of us all.--And Nature, who is kind to all her children, and +never leaves the smallest and saddest of all her human failures +without one little comfit of self-love at the bottom of his poor ragged +pocket,--Nature suggested to him that he had turned his sentence well; +and he fell into a reverie, in which the old thoughts that were always +hovering dust outside the doors guarded by Common Sense, and watching +for a chance to squeeze in, knowing perfectly well they would be +ignominiously kicked out again as soon as Common Sense saw them, flocked +in pell-mell,--misty, fragmentary, vague, half-ashamed of themselves, +but still shouldering up against his inner consciousness till it +warmed with their contact:--John Wilkes's--the ugliest man's in +England--saying, that with half-an-hour's start he would cut out the +handsomest man in all the land in any woman's good graces; Cadenus--old +and savage--leading captive Stella and Vanessa; and then the stray line +of a ballad, “And a winning tongue had he,”--as much as to say, it is +n't looks, after all, but cunning words, that win our Eves over,--just +as of old when it was the worst-looking brute of the lot that got our +grandmother to listen to his stuff and so did the mischief. + +Ah, dear me! We rehearse the part of Hercules with his club, subjugating +man and woman in our fancy, the first by the weight of it, and the +second by our handling of it,--we rehearse it, I say, by our own +hearth-stones, with the cold poker as our club, and the exercise is +easy. But when we come to real life, the poker is in the fore, and, ten +to one, if we would grasp it, we find it too hot to hold;--lucky for +us, if it is not white-hot, and we do not have to leave the skin of our +hands sticking to it when we fling it down or drop it with a loud or +silent cry! + +--I am frightened when I find into what a labyrinth of human character +and feeling I am winding. I meant to tell my thoughts, and to throw in +a few studies of manner and costume as they pictured themselves for +me from day to day. Chance has thrown together at the table with me a +number of persons who are worth studying, and I mean not only to look +on them, but, if I can, through them. You can get any man's or woman's +secret, whose sphere is circumscribed by your own, if you will only look +patiently on them long enough. Nature is always applying her reagents +to character, if you will take the pains to watch her. Our studies +of character, to change the image, are very much like the surveyor's +triangulation of a geographical province. We get a base-line in +organization, always; then we get an angle by sighting some distant +object to which the passions or aspirations of the subject of our +observation are tending; then another;--and so we construct our first +triangle. Once fix a man's ideals, and for the most part the rest is +easy. A wants to die worth half a million. Good. B (female) wants to +catch him,--and outlive him. All right. Minor details at our leisure. + +What is it, of all your experiences, of all your thoughts, of all your +misdoings, that lies at the very bottom of the great heap of acts of +consciousness which make up your past life? What should you most dislike +to tell your nearest friend?--Be so good as to pause for a brief space, +and shut the volume you hold with your finger between the pages.--Oh, +that is it! + +What a confessional I have been sitting at, with the inward ear of my +soul open, as the multitudinous whisper of my involuntary confidants +came back to me like the reduplicated echo of a cry among the craggy +bills! + +At the house of a friend where I once passed the night was one of those +stately upright cabinet desks and cases of drawers which were not rare +in prosperous families during the last century. It had held the clothes +and the books and the papers of generation after generation. The hands +that opened its drawers had grown withered, shrivelled, and at last been +folded in death. The children that played with the lower handles had +got tall enough to open the desk, to reach the upper shelves behind the +folding-doors,--grown bent after a while,--and then followed those +who had gone before, and left the old cabinet to be ransacked by a new +generation. + +A boy of ten or twelve was looking at it a few years ago, and, being a +quick-witted fellow, saw that all the space was not accounted for by the +smaller drawers in the part beneath the lid of the desk. Prying about +with busy eyes and fingers, he at length came upon a spring, on pressing +which, a secret drawer flew from its hiding-place. It had never been +opened but by the maker. The mahogany shavings and dust were lying in it +as when the artisan closed it,--and when I saw it, it was as fresh as if +that day finished. + +Is there not one little drawer in your soul, my sweet reader, which no +hand but yours has ever opened, and which none that have known you +seem to have suspected? What does it hold?--A sin?--I hope not. What a +strange thing an old dead sin laid away in a secret drawer of the soul +is! Must it some time or other be moistened with tears, until it comes +to life again and begins to stir in our consciousness,--as the dry +wheel-animalcule, looking like a grain of dust, becomes alive, if it is +wet with a drop of water? + +Or is it a passion? There are plenty of withered men and women walking +about the streets who have the secret drawer in their hearts, which, +if it were opened, would show as fresh as it was when they were in the +flush of youth and its first trembling emotions. + +What it held will, perhaps, never be known, until they are dead and +gone, and same curious eye lights on an old yellow letter with the +fossil footprints of the extinct passion trodden thick all over it. + +There is not a boarder at our table, I firmly believe, excepting the +young girl, who has not a story of the heart to tell, if one could only +get the secret drawer open. Even this arid female, whose armor of black +bombazine looks stronger against the shafts of love than any cuirass of +triple brass, has had her sentimental history, if I am not mistaken. I +will tell you my reason for suspecting it. + +Like many other old women, she shows a great nervousness and +restlessness whenever I venture to express any opinion upon a class of +subjects which can hardly be said to belong to any man or set of men +as their strictly private property,--not even to the clergy, or the +newspapers commonly called “religious.” Now, although it would be a +great luxury to me to obtain my opinions by contract, ready-made, from a +professional man, and although I have a constitutional kindly feeling +to all sorts of good people which would make me happy to agree with all +their beliefs, if that were possible, still I must have an idea, now and +then, as to the meaning of life; and though the only condition of peace +in this world is to have no ideas, or, at least, not to express them, +with reference to such subjects, I can't afford to pay quite so much as +that even for peace. + +I find that there is a very prevalent opinion among the dwellers on the +shores of Sir Isaac Newton's Ocean of Truth, that salt, fish, which have +been taken from it a good while ago, split open, cured and dried, are +the only proper and allowable food for reasonable people. I maintain, on +the other hand, that there are a number of live fish still swimming in +it, and that every one of us has a right to see if he cannot catch some +of them. Sometimes I please myself with the idea that I have landed +an actual living fish, small, perhaps, but with rosy gills and silvery +scales. Then I find the consumers of nothing but the salted and dried +article insist that it is poisonous, simply because it is alive, and cry +out to people not to touch it. I have not found, however, that people +mind them much. + +The poor boarder in bombazine is my dynamometer. I try every +questionable proposition on her. If she winces, I must be prepared for +an outcry from the other old women. I frightened her, the other day, by +saying that faith, as an intellectual state, was self-reliance, which, +if you have a metaphysical turn, you will find is not so much of a +paradox as it sounds at first. So she sent me a book to read which was +to cure me of that error. It was an old book, and looked as if it had +not been opened for a long time. What should drop out of it, one day, +but a small heart-shaped paper, containing a lock of that straight, +coarse, brown hair which sets off the sharp faces of so many +thin-flanked, large-handed bumpkins! I read upon the paper the name +“Hiram.”--Love! love! love!--everywhere! everywhere!--under diamonds and +housemaids' “jewelry,”--lifting the marrowy camel's-hair, and rustling +even the black bombazine!--No, no,--I think she never was pretty, but +she was young once, and wore bright ginghams, and, perhaps, gay merinos. +We shall find that the poor little crooked man has been in love, or is +in love, or will be in love before we have done with him, for aught that +I know! + +Romance! Was there ever a boarding-house in the world where the +seemingly prosaic table had not a living fresco for its background, +where you could see, if you had eyes, the smoke and fire of some +upheaving sentiment, or the dreary craters of smouldering or burnt-out +passions? You look on the black bombazine and high-necked decorum of +your neighbor, and no more think of the real life that underlies this +despoiled and dismantled womanhood than you think of a stone trilobite +as having once been full of the juices and the nervous thrills of +throbbing and self-conscious being. There is a wild creature under that +long yellow pin which serves as brooch for the bombazine cuirass,--a +wild creature, which I venture to say would leap in his cage, if +I should stir him, quiet as you think him. A heart which has been +domesticated by matrimony and maternity is as tranquil as a tame +bullfinch; but a wild heart which has never been fairly broken in +flutters fiercely long after you think time has tamed it down,--like +that purple finch I had the other day, which could not be approached +without such palpitations and frantic flings against the bars of his +cage, that I had to send him back and get a little orthodox canary +which had learned to be quiet and never mind the wires or his keeper's +handling. I will tell you my wicked, but half involuntary experiment on +the wild heart under the faded bombazine. + +Was there ever a person in the room with you, marked by any special +weakness or peculiarity, with whom you could be two hours and not touch +the infirm spot? I confess the most frightful tendency to do just this +thing. If a man has a brogue, I am sure to catch myself imitating it. +If another is lame, I follow him, or, worse than that, go before him, +limping. + +I could never meet an Irish gentleman--if it had been the Duke of +Wellington himself--without stumbling upon the word “Paddy,”--which I +use rarely in my common talk. + +I have been worried to know whether this was owing to some innate +depravity of disposition on my part, some malignant torturing instinct, +which, under different circumstances, might have made a Fijian +anthropophagus of me, or to some law of thought for which I was +not answerable. It is, I am convinced, a kind of physical fact like +endosmosis, with which some of you are acquainted. A thin film of +politeness separates the unspoken and unspeakable current of thought +from the stream of conversation. After a time one begins to soak through +and mingle with the other. + +We were talking about names, one day.--Was there ever anything,--I +said,--like the Yankee for inventing the most uncouth, pretentious, +detestable appellations,--inventing or finding them,--since the time of +Praise-God Barebones? I heard a country-boy once talking of another whom +he called Elpit, as I understood him. Elbridge is common enough, but +this sounded oddly. It seems the boy was christened Lord Pitt,--and +called for convenience, as above. I have heard a charming little +girl, belonging to an intelligent family in the country, called Anges +invariably; doubtless intended for Agnes. Names are cheap. How can a +man name an innocent new-born child, that never did him any harm, +Hiram?--The poor relation, or whatever she is, in bombazine, turned +toward me, but I was stupid, and went on.--To think of a man going +through life saddled with such an abominable name as that!--The poor +relation grew very uneasy.--I continued; for I never thought of all this +till afterwards.--I knew one young fellow, a good many years ago, by the +name of Hiram--What's got into you, Cousin,--said our landlady,--to look +so?--There! you 've upset your teacup! + +It suddenly occurred to me what I had been doing, and I saw the +poor woman had her hand at her throat; she was half-choking with the +“hysteric ball,”--a very odd symptom, as you know, which nervous women +often complain of. What business had I to be trying experiments on this +forlorn old soul? I had a great deal better be watching that young girl. + +Ah, the young girl! I am sure that she can hide nothing from me. Her +skin is so transparent that one can almost count her heart-beats by the +flushes they send into her cheeks. She does not seem to be shy, either. +I think she does not know enough of danger to be timid. She seems to +me like one of those birds that travellers tell of, found in remote, +uninhabited islands, who, having never received any wrong at the hand +of man, show no alarm at and hardly any particular consciousness of his +presence. + +The first thing will be to see how she and our little deformed gentleman +get along together; for, as I have told you, they sit side by side. The +next thing will be to keep an eye on the duenna,--the “Model” and +so forth, as the white-neck-cloth called her. The intention of that +estimable lady is, I understand, to launch her and leave her. I suppose +there is no help for it, and I don't doubt this young lady knows how to +take care of herself, but I do not like to see young girls turned loose +in boarding-houses. Look here now! There is that jewel of his race, +whom I have called for convenience the Koh-i-noor, (you understand it +is quite out of the question for me to use the family names of our +boarders, unless I want to get into trouble,)--I say, the gentleman with +the diamond is looking very often and very intently, it seems to me, +down toward the farther corner of the table, where sits our amber-eyed +blonde. The landlady's daughter does not look pleased, it seems to me, +at this, nor at those other attentions which the gentleman referred to +has, as I have learned, pressed upon the newly-arrived young person. The +landlady made a communication to me, within a few days after the arrival +of Miss Iris, which I will repeat to the best of my remembrance. + +He, (the person I have been speaking of,)--she said,--seemed to +be kinder hankerin' round after that young woman. It had hurt her +daughter's feelin's a good deal, that the gentleman she was a-keepin' +company with should be offerin' tickets and tryin' to send presents to +them that he'd never know'd till jest a little spell ago,--and he as +good as merried, so fur as solemn promises went, to as respectable a +young lady, if she did say so, as any there was round, whosomever they +might be. + +Tickets! presents!--said I.--What tickets, what presents has he had the +impertinence to be offering to that young lady? + +Tickets to the Museum,--said the landlady. There is them that's glad +enough to go to the Museum, when tickets is given 'em; but some of 'em +ha'n't had a ticket sence Cenderilla was played,--and now he must be +offerin' 'em to this ridiculous young paintress, or whatever she is, +that's come to make more mischief than her board's worth. But it a'n't +her fault,--said the landlady, relenting;--and that aunt of hers, or +whatever she is, served him right enough. + +Why, what did she do? + +Do? Why, she took it up in the tongs and dropped it out o' winder. + +Dropped? dropped what?--I said. + +Why, the soap,--said the landlady. + +It appeared that the Koh-i-noor, to ingratiate himself, had sent an +elegant package of perfumed soap, directed to Miss Iris, as a delicate +expression of a lively sentiment of admiration, and that, after having +met with the unfortunate treatment referred to, it was picked up by +Master Benjamin Franklin, who appropriated it, rejoicing, and indulged +in most unheard-of and inordinate ablutions in consequence, so that his +hands were a frequent subject of maternal congratulation, and he smelt +like a civet-cat for weeks after his great acquisition. + +After watching daily for a time, I think I can see clearly into the +relation which is growing up between the little gentleman and the young +lady. She shows a tenderness to him that I can't help being interested +in. If he was her crippled child, instead of being more than old enough +to be her father, she could not treat him more kindly. The landlady's +daughter said, the other day, she believed that girl was settin' her cap +for the Little Gentleman. + +Some of them young folks is very artful,--said her mother,--and there is +them that would merry Lazarus, if he'd only picked up crumbs enough. +I don't think, though, this is one of that sort; she's kinder +childlike,--said the landlady,--and maybe never had any dolls to play +with; for they say her folks was poor before Ma'am undertook to see to +her teachin' and board her and clothe her. + +I could not help overhearing this conversation. “Board her and clothe +her!”--speaking of such a young creature! Oh, dear!--Yes,--she must +be fed,--just like Bridget, maid-of-all-work at this establishment. +Somebody must pay for it. Somebody has a right to watch her and see how +much it takes to “keep” her, and growl at her, if she has too good an +appetite. Somebody has a right to keep an eye on her and take care that +she does not dress too prettily. No mother to see her own youth over +again in these fresh features and rising reliefs of half-sculptured +womanhood, and, seeing its loveliness, forget her lessons of +neutral-tinted propriety, and open the cases that hold her own ornaments +to find for her a necklace or a bracelet or a pair of ear-rings,--those +golden lamps that light up the deep, shadowy dimples on the cheeks of +young beauties,--swinging in a semi-barbaric splendor that carries the +wild fancy to Abyssinian queens and musky Odalisques! I don't believe +any woman has utterly given up the great firm of Mundus & Co., so long +as she wears ear-rings. + +I think Iris loves to hear the Little Gentleman talk. She smiles +sometimes at his vehement statements, but never laughs at him. When he +speaks to her, she keeps her eye always steadily upon him. This may be +only natural good-breeding, so to speak, but it is worth noticing. +I have often observed that vulgar persons, and public audiences of +inferior collective intelligence, have this in common: the least thing +draws off their minds, when you are speaking to them. I love this +young creature's rapt attention to her diminutive neighbor while he is +speaking. + +He is evidently pleased with it. For a day or two after she came, he +was silent and seemed nervous and excited. Now he is fond of getting the +talk into his own hands, and is obviously conscious that he has at least +one interested listener. Once or twice I have seen marks of special +attention to personal adornment, a ruffled shirt-bosom, one day, and +a diamond pin in it,--not so very large as the Koh-i-noor's, but more +lustrous. I mentioned the death's-head ring he wears on his right hand. +I was attracted by a very handsome red stone, a ruby or carbuncle or +something of the sort, to notice his left hand, the other day. It is +a handsome hand, and confirms my suspicion that the cast mentioned was +taken from his arm. After all, this is just what I should expect. It is +not very uncommon to see the upper limbs, or one of them, running away +with the whole strength, and, therefore, with the whole beauty, which +we should never have noticed, if it had been divided equally between all +four extremities. If it is so, of course he is proud of his one strong +and beautiful arm; that is human nature. I am afraid he can hardly help +betraying his favoritism, as people who have any one showy point are apt +to do,--especially dentists with handsome teeth, who always smile back +to their last molars. + +Sitting, as he does, next to the young girl, and next but one to the +calm lady who has her in charge, he cannot help seeing their relations +to each other. + +That is an admirable woman, Sir,--he said to me one day, as we sat alone +at the table after breakfast,--an admirable woman, Sir,--and I hate her. + +Of course, I begged an explanation. + +An admirable woman, Sir, because she does good things, and even kind +things,--takes care of this--this--young lady--we have here, talks like +a sensible person, and always looks as if she was doing her duty with +all her might. I hate her because her voice sounds as if it never +trembled and her eyes look as if she never knew what it was to cry. +Besides, she looks at me, Sir, stares at me, as if she wanted to get +an image of me for some gallery in her brain,--and we don't love to be +looked at in this way, we that have--I hate her,--I hate her,--her eyes +kill me,--it is like being stabbed with icicles to be looked at so,--the +sooner she goes home, the better. I don't want a woman to weigh me in +a balance; there are men enough for that sort of work. The judicial +character is n't captivating in females, Sir. A woman fascinates a man +quite as often by what she overlooks as by what she sees. Love prefers +twilight to daylight; and a man doesn't think much of, nor care much +for, a woman outside of his household, unless he can couple the idea +of love, past, present, or future, with her. I don't believe the Devil +would give half as much for the services of a sinner as he would for +those of one of these folks that are always doing virtuous acts in a +way to make them unpleasing.--That young girl wants a tender nature to +cherish her and give her a chance to put out her leaves,--sunshine, and +not east winds. + +He was silent,--and sat looking at his handsome left hand with the red +stone ring upon it.--Is he going to fall in love with Iris? + +Here are some lines I read to the boarders the other day:-- + + THE CROOKED FOOTPATH + + Ah, here it is! the sliding rail + That marks the old remembered spot, + --The gap that struck our schoolboy trail, + --The crooked path across the lot. + + It left the road by school and church, + A pencilled shadow, nothing more, + That parted from the silver birch + And ended at the farmhouse door. + + No line or compass traced its plan; + With frequent bends to left or right, + In aimless, wayward curves it ran, + But always kept the door in sight. + + The gabled porch, with woodbine green, + --The broken millstone at the sill, + --Though many a rood might stretch between, + The truant child could see them still. + + No rocks, across the pathway lie, + --No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown, + --And yet it winds, we know not why, + And turns as if for tree or stone. + + Perhaps some lover trod the way + With shaking knees and leaping heart, + --And so it often runs astray + With sinuous sweep or sudden start. + + Or one, perchance, with clouded brain + From some unholy banquet reeled, + --And since, our devious steps maintain + His track across the trodden field. + + Nay, deem not thus,--no earthborn will + Could ever trace a faultless line; + Our truest steps are human still, + --To walk unswerving were divine! + + Truants from love, we dream of wrath; + --Oh, rather let us trust the more! + Through all the wanderings of the path, + We still can see our Father's door! + + + + +V + +The Professor finds a Fly in his Teacup. + +I have a long theological talk to relate, which must be dull reading to +some of my young and vivacious friends. I don't know, however, that any +of them have entered into a contract to read all that I write, or that I +have promised always to write to please them. What if I should sometimes +write to please myself? + +Now you must know that there are a great many things which interest me, +to some of which this or that particular class of readers may be totally +indifferent. I love Nature, and human nature, its thoughts, affections, +dreams, aspirations, delusions,--Art in all its forms,--virtu in all +its eccentricities,--old stories from black-letter volumes and yellow +manuscripts, and new projects out of hot brains not yet imbedded in the +snows of age. I love the generous impulses of the reformer; but not less +does my imagination feed itself upon the old litanies, so often warmed +by the human breath upon which they were wafted to Heaven that they glow +through our frames like our own heart's blood. I hope I love good men +and women; I know that they never speak a word to me, even if it be of +question or blame, that I do not take pleasantly, if it is expressed +with a reasonable amount of human kindness. + +I have before me at this time a beautiful and affecting letter, which +I have hesitated to answer, though the postmark upon it gave its +direction, and the name is one which is known to all, in some of its +representatives. It contains no reproach, only a delicately-hinted fear. +Speak gently, as this dear lady has spoken, and there is no heart so +insensible that it does not answer to the appeal, no intellect so +virile that it does not own a certain deference to the claims of age, of +childhood, of sensitive and timid natures, when they plead with it not +to look at those sacred things by the broad daylight which they see in +mystic shadow. How grateful would it be to make perpetual peace with +these pleading saints and their confessors, by the simple act +that silences all complainings! Sleep, sleep, sleep! says the +Arch-Enchantress of them all,--and pours her dark and potent anodyne, +distilled over the fires that consumed her foes,--its large, round drops +changing, as we look, into the beads of her convert's rosary! Silence! +the pride of reason! cries another, whose whole life is spent in +reasoning down reason. + +I hope I love good people, not for their sake, but for my own. And most +assuredly, if any deed of wrong or word of bitterness led me into an act +of disrespect towards that enlightened and excellent class of men who +make it their calling to teach goodness and their duty to practise it, +I should feel that I had done myself an injury rather than them. Go +and talk with any professional man holding any of the medieval creeds, +choosing one who wears upon his features the mark of inward and outward +health, who looks cheerful, intelligent, and kindly, and see how all +your prejudices melt away in his presence! It is impossible to come into +intimate relations with a large, sweet nature, such as you may often +find in this class, without longing to be at one with it in all its +modes of being and believing. But does it not occur to you that one may +love truth as he sees it, and his race as he views it, better than even +the sympathy and approbation of many good men whom he honors,--better +than sleeping to the sound of the Miserere or listening to the +repetition of an effete Confession of Faith? + +The three learned professions have but recently emerged from a state +of quasi-barbarism. None of them like too well to be told of it, but it +must be sounded in their ears whenever they put on airs. When a man has +taken an overdose of laudanum, the doctors tell us to place him between +two persons who shall make him walk up and down incessantly; and if he +still cannot be kept from going to sleep, they say that a lash or two +over his back is of great assistance. + +So we must keep the doctors awake by telling them that they have not yet +shaken off astrology and the doctrine of signatures, as is shown by the +form of their prescriptions, and their use of nitrate of silver, which +turns epileptics into Ethiopians. If that is not enough, they must be +given over to the scourgers, who like their task and get good fees for +it. A few score years ago, sick people were made to swallow burnt +toads and powdered earthworms and the expressed juice of wood-lice. The +physician of Charles I. and II. prescribed abominations not to be named. +Barbarism, as bad as that of Congo or Ashantee. Traces of this barbarism +linger even in the greatly improved medical science of our century. So +while the solemn farce of over-drugging is going on, the world over, +the harlequin pseudo-science jumps on to the stage, whip in hand, with +half-a-dozen somersets, and begins laying about him. + +In 1817, perhaps you remember, the law of wager by battle was +unrepealed, and the rascally murderous, and worse than murderous, clown, +Abraham Thornton, put on his gauntlet in open court and defied the +appellant to lift the other which he threw down. It was not until the +reign of George II. that the statutes against witchcraft were repealed. +As for the English Court of Chancery, we know that its antiquated abuses +form one of the staples of common proverbs and popular literature. +So the laws and the lawyers have to be watched perpetually by public +opinion as much as the doctors do. + +I don't think the other profession is an exception. When the Reverend +Mr. Cauvin and his associates burned my distinguished scientific +brother,--he was burned with green fagots, which made it rather slow and +painful,--it appears to me they were in a state of religious barbarism. +The dogmas of such people about the Father of Mankind and his creatures +are of no more account in my opinion than those of a council of Aztecs. +If a man picks your pocket, do you not consider him thereby disqualified +to pronounce any authoritative opinion on matters of ethics? If a man +hangs my ancient female relatives for sorcery, as they did in this +neighborhood a little while ago, or burns my instructor for not +believing as he does, I care no more for his religious edicts than I +should for those of any other barbarian. + +Of course, a barbarian may hold many true opinions; but when the ideas +of the healing art, of the administration of justice, of Christian love, +could not exclude systematic poisoning, judicial duelling, and murder +for opinion's sake, I do not see how we can trust the verdict of +that time relating to any subject which involves the primal instincts +violated in these abominations and absurdities.--What if we are even now +in a state of semi-barbarism? + + [Note: This physician believes we “are even now in a state + of semi-barbarism”: invasive procedures for the prolongation + of death rather than prolongation of life; “faith” as slimly + based as medieval faith in minute differences between + control and treated groups; statistical manipulation to + prove a prejudice. Medicine has a good deal to answer for! + D.W.] + +Perhaps some think we ought not to talk at table about such things.--I +am not so sure of that. Religion and government appear to me the two +subjects which of all others should belong to the common talk of people +who enjoy the blessings of freedom. Think, one moment. The earth is a +great factory-wheel, which, at every revolution on its axis, receives +fifty thousand raw souls and turns off nearly the same number worked +up more or less completely. There must be somewhere a population of +two hundred thousand million, perhaps ten or a hundred times as many, +earth-born intelligences. Life, as we call it, is nothing but the edge +of the boundless ocean of existence where it comes on soundings. In +this view, I do not see anything so fit to talk about, or half so +interesting, as that which relates to the innumerable majority of our +fellow-creatures, the dead-living, who are hundreds of thousands to one +of the live-living, and with whom we all potentially belong, though we +have got tangled for the present in some parcels of fibrine, albumen, +and phosphates, that keep us on the minority side of the house. In +point of fact, it is one of the many results of Spiritualism to make +the permanent destiny of the race a matter of common reflection and +discourse, and a vehicle for the prevailing disbelief of the Middle-Age +doctrines on the subject. I cannot help thinking, when I remember how +many conversations my friend and myself have sported, that it would be +very extraordinary, if there were no mention of that class of subjects +which involves all that we have and all that we hope, not merely for +ourselves, but for the dear people whom we love best,--noble men, pure +and lovely women, ingenuous children, about the destiny of nine tenths +of whom you know the opinions that would have been taught by those +old man-roasting, woman-strangling dogmatists.--However, I fought this +matter with one of our boarders the other day, and I am going to report +the conversation. + +The divinity-student came down, one morning, looking rather more serious +than usual. He said little at breakfast-time, but lingered after the +others, so that I, who am apt to be long at the table, found myself +alone with him. + +When the rest were all gone, he turned his chair round towards mine, and +began. + +I am afraid,--he said,--you express yourself a little too freely on a +most important class of subjects. Is there not danger in introducing +discussions or allusions relating to matters of religion into common +discourse? + +Danger to what?--I asked. + +Danger to truth,--he replied, after a slight pause. + +I didn't know Truth was such an invalid,' I said.--How long is it since +she could only take the air in a close carriage, with a gentleman in +a black coat on the box? Let me tell you a story, adapted to young +persons, but which won't hurt older ones. + +--There was a very little boy who had one of those balloons you may have +seen, which are filled with light gas, and are held by a string to keep +them from running off in aeronautic voyages on their own account. This +little boy had a naughty brother, who said to him, one day,--Brother, +pull down your balloon, so that I can look at it and take hold of it. +Then the little boy pulled it down. Now the naughty brother had a sharp +pin in his hand, and he thrust it into the balloon, and all the gas +oozed out, so that there was nothing left but a shrivelled skin. + +One evening, the little boy's father called him to the window to see the +moon, which pleased him very much; but presently he said,--Father, do +not pull the string and bring down the moon, for my naughty brother will +prick it, and then it will all shrivel up and we shall not see it any +more. + +Then his father laughed, and told him how the moon had been shining a +good while, and would shine a good while longer, and that all we could +do was to keep our windows clean, never letting the dust get too thick +on them, and especially to keep our eyes open, but that we could not +pull the moon down with a string, nor prick it with a pin.--Mind you +this, too, the moon is no man's private property, but is seen from a +good many parlor-windows. + +--Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, +you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and +full at evening. Does not Mr. Bryant say, that Truth gets well if she is +run over by a locomotive, while Error dies of lockjaw if she scratches +her finger? [Would that this was so:--error, superstition, mysticism, +authoritarianism, pseudo-science all have a tenacity that survives +inexplicably. D.W.] I never heard that a mathematician was alarmed for +the safety of a demonstrated proposition. I think, generally, that fear +of open discussion implies feebleness of inward conviction, and great +sensitiveness to the expression of individual opinion is a mark of +weakness. + +--I am not so much afraid for truth,--said the divinity-student,--as for +the conceptions of truth in the minds of persons not accustomed to judge +wisely the opinions uttered before them. + +Would you, then, banish all allusions to matters of this nature from the +society of people who come together habitually? + +I would be very careful in introducing them,--said the divinity-student. + +Yes, but friends of yours leave pamphlets in people's entries, to be +picked up by nervous misses and hysteric housemaids, full of doctrines +these people do not approve. Some of your friends stop little children +in the street, and give them books, which their parents, who have had +them baptized into the Christian fold and give them what they consider +proper religious instruction, do not think fit for them. One would +say it was fair enough to talk about matters thus forced upon people's +attention. + +The divinity-student could not deny that this was what might be called +opening the subject to the discussion of intelligent people. + +But,--he said,--the greatest objection is this, that persons who have +not made a professional study of theology are not competent to speak on +such subjects. Suppose a minister were to undertake to express opinions +on medical subjects, for instance, would you not think he was going +beyond his province? + +I laughed,--for I remembered John Wesley's “sulphur and supplication,” + and so many other cases where ministers had meddled with +medicine,--sometimes well and sometimes ill, but, as a general rule, +with a tremendous lurch to quackery, owing to their very loose way of +admitting evidence,--that I could not help being amused. + +I beg your pardon,--I said,--I do not wish to be impolite, but I was +thinking of their certificates to patent medicines. Let us look at this +matter. + +If a minister had attended lectures on the theory and practice of +medicine, delivered by those who had studied it most deeply, for thirty +or forty years, at the rate of from fifty to one hundred a year,--if +he had been constantly reading and hearing read the most approved +text-books on the subject,--if he had seen medicine actually practised +according to different methods, daily, for the same length of time,--I +should think, that if a person of average understanding, he was entitled +to express an opinion on the subject of medicine, or else that his +instructors were a set of ignorant and incompetent charlatans. + +If, before a medical practitioner would allow me to enjoy the full +privileges of the healing art, he expected me to affirm my belief in a +considerable number of medical doctrines, drugs, and formulae, I should +think that he thereby implied my right to discuss the same, and my +ability to do so, if I knew how to express myself in English. + +Suppose, for instance, the Medical Society should refuse to give us an +opiate, or to set a broken limb, until we had signed our belief in a +certain number of propositions,--of which we will say this is the first: + +I. All men's teeth are naturally in a state of total decay or caries, +and, therefore, no man can bite until every one of them is extracted and +a new set is inserted according to the principles of dentistry adopted +by this Society. + +I, for one, should want to discuss that before signing my name to it, +and I should say this:--Why, no, that is n't true. There are a good many +bad teeth, we all know, but a great many more good ones. You must n't +trust the dentists; they are all the time looking at the people who have +bad teeth, and such as are suffering from toothache. The idea that +you must pull out every one of every nice young man and young woman's +natural teeth! Poh, poh! Nobody believes that. This tooth must be +straightened, that must be filled with gold, and this other perhaps +extracted, but it must be a very rare case, if they are all so bad as to +require extraction; and if they are, don't blame the poor soul for it! +Don't tell us, as some old dentists used to, that everybody not only +always has every tooth in his head good for nothing, but that he ought +to have his head cut off as a punishment for that misfortune! No, I +can't sign Number One. Give us Number Two. + +II. We hold that no man can be well who does not agree with our views +of the efficacy of calomel, and who does not take the doses of it +prescribed in our tables, as there directed. + +To which I demur, questioning why it should be so, and get for answer +the two following: + +III. Every man who does not take our prepared calomel, as prescribed +by us in our Constitution and By-Laws, is and must be a mass of disease +from head to foot; it being self-evident that he is simultaneously +affected with Apoplexy, Arthritis, Ascites, Asphyxia, and Atrophy; with +Borborygmus, Bronchitis, and Bulimia; with Cachexia, Carcinoma, and +Cretinismus; and so on through the alphabet, to Xerophthahnia and Zona, +with all possible and incompatible diseases which are necessary to make +up a totally morbid state; and he will certainly die, if he does not +take freely of our prepared calomel, to be obtained only of one of our +authorized agents. + +IV. No man shall be allowed to take our prepared calomel who does not +give in his solemn adhesion to each and all of the above-named and the +following propositions (from ten to a hundred) and show his mouth to +certain of our apothecaries, who have not studied dentistry, to examine +whether all his teeth have been extracted and a new set inserted +according to our regulations. + +Of course, the doctors have a right to say we sha'n't have any rhubarb, +if we don't sign their articles, and that, if, after signing them, we +express doubts (in public), about any of them, they will cut us off +from our jalap and squills,--but then to ask a fellow not to discuss the +propositions before he signs them is what I should call boiling it down +a little too strong! + +If we understand them, why can't we discuss them? If we can't understand +them, because we have n't taken a medical degree, what the Father of +Lies do they ask us to sign them for? + +Just so with the graver profession. Every now and then some of its +members seem to lose common sense and common humanity. The laymen have +to keep setting the divines right constantly. Science, for instance,--in +other words, knowledge,--is not the enemy of religion; for, if so, +then religion would mean ignorance: But it is often the antagonist of +school-divinity. + +Everybody knows the story of early astronomy and the school-divines. +Come down a little later, Archbishop Usher, a very learned Protestant +prelate, tells us that the world was created on Sunday, the twenty-third +of October, four thousand and four years before the birth of Christ. +Deluge, December 7th, two thousand three hundred and forty-eight years +B. C. Yes, and the earth stands on an elephant, and the elephant on a +tortoise. One statement is as near the truth as the other. + +Again, there is nothing so brutalizing to some natures as moral surgery. +I have often wondered that Hogarth did not add one more picture to +his four stages of Cruelty. Those wretched fools, reverend divines and +others, who were strangling men and women for imaginary crimes a little +more than a century ago among us, were set right by a layman, and very +angry it made them to have him meddle. + +The good people of Northampton had a very remarkable man for their +clergyman,--a man with a brain as nicely adjusted for certain mechanical +processes as Babbage's calculating machine. The commentary of the laymen +on the preaching and practising of Jonathan Edwards was, that, after +twenty-three years of endurance, they turned him out by a vote of twenty +to one, and passed a resolve that he should never preach for them again. +A man's logical and analytical adjustments are of little consequence, +compared to his primary relations with Nature and truth: and people have +sense enough to find it out in the long ran; they know what “logic” is +worth. + +In that miserable delusion referred to above, the reverend Aztecs and +Fijians argued rightly enough from their premises, no doubt, for many +men can do this. But common sense and common humanity were unfortunately +left out from their premises, and a layman had to supply them. A hundred +more years and many of the barbarisms still lingering among us will, of +course, have disappeared like witch-hanging. But people are sensitive +now, as they were then. You will see by this extract that the Rev. +Cotton Mather did not like intermeddling with his business very well. + +“Let the Levites of the Lord keep close to their Instructions,” he says, +“and God will smite thro' the loins of those that rise up against them. +I will report unto you a Thing which many Hundreds among us know to be +true. The Godly Minister of a certain Town in Connecticut, when he had +occasion to be absent on a Lord's Day from his Flock, employ'd an honest +Neighbour of some small Talents for a Mechanick, to read a Sermon out +of some good Book unto 'em. This Honest, whom they ever counted also a +Pious Man, had so much conceit of his Talents, that instead of Reading +a Sermon appointed, he to the Surprize of the People, fell to preaching +one of his own. For his Text he took these Words, 'Despise not +Prophecyings'; and in his Preachment he betook himself to bewail the +Envy of the Clergy in the Land, in that they did not wish all the Lord's +People to be Prophets, and call forth Private Brethren publickly to +prophesie. While he was thus in the midst of his Exercise, God smote him +with horrible Madness; he was taken ravingly distracted; the People +were forc'd with violent Hands to carry him home. I will not mention +his Name: He was reputed a Pious Man.”--This is one of Cotton Mather's +“Remarkable Judgments of God, on Several Sorts of Offenders,”--and the +next cases referred to are the Judgments on the “Abominable Sacrilege” + of not paying the Ministers' Salaries. + +This sort of thing does n't do here and now, you see, my young friend! +We talk about our free institutions;--they are nothing but a coarse +outside machinery to secure the freedom of individual thought. The +President of the United States is only the engine driver of our +broad-gauge mail-train; and every honest, independent thinker has a seat +in the first-class cars behind him. + +--There is something in what you say,--replied the divinity-student; +--and yet it seems to me there are places and times where disputed +doctrines of religion should not be introduced. You would not attack a +church dogma--say Total Depravity--in a lyceum-lecture, for instance? + +Certainly not; I should choose another place,--I answered.--But, mind +you, at this table I think it is very different. I shall express my +ideas on any subject I like. The laws of the lecture-room, to which my +friends and myself are always amenable, do not hold here. I shall not +often give arguments, but frequently opinions,--I trust with courtesy +and propriety, but, at any rate, with such natural forms of expression +as it has pleased the Almighty to bestow upon me. + +A man's opinions, look you, are generally of much more value than his +arguments. These last are made by his brain, and perhaps he does not +believe the proposition they tend to prove,--as is often the case with +paid lawyers; but opinions are formed by our whole nature,--brain, +heart, instinct, brute life, everything all our experience has shaped +for us by contact with the whole circle of our being. + +--There is one thing more,--said the divinity-student,--that I wished +to speak of; I mean that idea of yours, expressed some time since, of +depolarizing the text of sacred books in order to judge them fairly. May +I ask why you do not try the experiment yourself? + +Certainly,--I replied,--if it gives you any pleasure to ask foolish +questions. I think the ocean telegraph-wire ought to be laid and will be +laid, but I don't know that you have any right to ask me to go and +lay it. But, for that matter, I have heard a good deal of Scripture +depolarized in and out of the pulpit. I heard the Rev. Mr. F. once +depolarize the story of the Prodigal Son in Park-Street Church. Many +years afterwards, I heard him repeat the same or a similar depolarized +version in Rome, New York. I heard an admirable depolarization of the +story of the young man who “had great possessions” from the Rev. Mr. H. +in another pulpit, and felt that I had never half understood it before. +All paraphrases are more or less perfect depolarizations. But I tell you +this: the faith of our Christian community is not robust enough to +bear the turning of our most sacred language into its depolarized +equivalents. You have only to look back to Dr. Channing's famous +Baltimore discourse and remember the shrieks of blasphemy with which +it was greeted, to satisfy yourself on this point. Time, time only, can +gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by +spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified. Man is an idolater or +symbol-worshipper by nature, which, of course, is no fault of his; but +sooner or later all his local and temporary symbols must be ground to +powder, like the golden calf,--word-images as well as metal and wooden +ones. Rough work, iconoclasm,--but the only way to get at truth. It is, +indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, “A Summons for +Sleepers,” hath it, “no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie +occupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht +face; he that will be busie with voe vobis, let him looke shortly for +coram nobas.” + +The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think +what we like and say what we think. + +--Think what we like!--said the divinity-student;--think what we like! +What! against all human and divine authority? + +Against all human versions of its own or any other authority. At our own +peril always, if we do not like the right,--but not at the risk of being +hanged and quartered for political heresy, or broiled on green fagots +for ecclesiastical treason! Nay, we have got so far, that the very word +heresy has fallen into comparative disuse among us. + +And now, my young friend, let-us shake hands and stop our discussion, +which we will not make a quarrel. I trust you know, or will learn, a +great many things in your profession which we common scholars do not +know; but mark this: when the common people of New England stop talking +politics and theology, it will be because they have got an Emperor to +teach them the one, and a Pope to teach them the other! + +That was the end of my long conference with the divinity-student. +The next morning we got talking a little on the same subject, very +good-naturedly, as people return to a matter they have talked out. + +You must look to yourself,--said the divinity-student,--if your +democratic notions get into print. You will be fired into from all +quarters. + +If it were only a bullet, with the marksman's name on it!--I said.--I +can't stop to pick out the peep-shot of the anonymous scribblers. + +Right, Sir! right!--said the Little Gentleman. The scamps! I know the +fellows. They can't give fifty cents to one of the Antipodes, but they +must have it jingled along through everybody's palms all the way, till +it reaches him,--and forty cents of it gets spilt, like the water out of +the fire-buckets passed along a “lane” at a fire;--but when it comes +to anonymous defamation, putting lies into people's mouths, and +then advertising those people through the country as the authors of +them,--oh, then it is that they let not their left hand know what their +right hand doeth! + +I don't like Ehud's style of doing business, Sir. He comes along with +a very sanctimonious look, Sir, with his “secret errand unto thee,” and +his “message from God unto thee,” and then pulls out his hidden knife +with that unsuspected hand of his,--(the Little Gentleman lifted his +clenched left hand with the blood-red jewel on the ring-finger,)--and +runs it, blade and haft, into a man's stomach! Don't meddle with these +fellows, Sir. They are read mostly by persons whom you would not reach, +if you were to write ever so much. Let 'em alone. A man whose opinions +are not attacked is beneath contempt. + +I hope so,--I said.--I got three pamphlets and innumerable squibs flung +at my head for attacking one of the pseudo-sciences, in former years. +When, by the permission of Providence, I held up to the professional +public the damnable facts connected with the conveyance of poison from +one young mother's chamber to another's,--for doing which humble office +I desire to be thankful that I have lived, though nothing else good +should ever come of my life,--I had to bear the sneers of those whose +position I had assailed, and, as I believe, have at last demolished, so +that nothing but the ghosts of dead women stir among the ruins.--What +would you do, if the folks without names kept at you, trying to get a +San Benito on to your shoulders that would fit you?--Would you stand +still in fly-time, or would you give a kick now and then? + +Let 'em bite!--said the Little Gentleman,--let 'em bite! It makes 'em +hungry to shake 'em off, and they settle down again as thick as ever and +twice as savage. Do you know what meddling with the folks without names, +as you call 'em, is like?--It is like riding at the quintaan. You run +full tilt at the board, but the board is on a pivot, with a bag of sand +on an arm that balances it. The board gives way as soon as you touch +it; and before you have got by, the bag of sand comes round whack on the +back of your neck. “Ananias,” for instance, pitches into your lecture, +we will say, in some paper taken by the people in your kitchen. Your +servants get saucy and negligent. If their newspaper calls you names, +they need not be so particular about shutting doors softly or boiling +potatoes. So you lose your temper, and come out in an article which you +think is going to finish “Ananias,” proving him a booby who doesn't know +enough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else a person that tells +lies. Now you think you 've got him! Not so fast. “Ananias” keeps still +and winks to “Shimei,” and “Shimei” comes out in the paper which they +take in your neighbor's kitchen, ten times worse than t'other fellow. +If you meddle with “Shimei,” he steps out, and next week appears +“Rab-shakeh,” an unsavory wretch; and now, at any rate, you find out +what good sense there was in Hezekiah's “Answer him not.”--No, no,--keep +your temper.--So saying, the Little Gentleman doubled his left fist and +looked at it as if he should like to hit something or somebody a most +pernicious punch with it. + +Good!--said I.--Now let me give you some axioms I have arrived at, after +seeing something of a great many kinds of good folks. + +--Of a hundred people of each of the different leading religious sects, +about the same proportion will be safe and pleasant persons to deal and +to live with. + +--There are, at least, three real saints among the women to one among +the men, in every denomination. + +--The spiritual standard of different classes I would reckon thus: + + 1. The comfortably rich. + 2. The decently comfortable. + 3. The very rich, who are apt to be irreligious. + 4. The very poor, who are apt to be immoral. + +--The cut nails of machine-divinity may be driven in, but they won't +clinch. + +--The arguments which the greatest of our schoolmen could not refute +were two: the blood in men's veins, and the milk in women's breasts. + +--Humility is the first of the virtues--for other people. + +--Faith always implies the disbelief of a lesser fact in favor of a +greater. A little mind often sees the unbelief, without seeing the +belief of a large one. + +The Poor Relation had been fidgeting about and working her mouth while +all this was going on. She broke out in speech at this point. + +I hate to hear folks talk so. I don't see that you are any better than a +heathen. + +I wish I were half as good as many heathens have been,--I said.--Dying +for a principle seems to me a higher degree of virtue than scolding for +it; and the history of heathen races is full of instances where men have +laid down their lives for the love of their kind, of their country, of +truth, nay, even for simple manhood's sake, or to show their obedience +or fidelity. What would not such beings have done for the souls of men, +for the Christian commonwealth, for the King of Kings, if they had lived +in days of larger light? Which seems to you nearest heaven, Socrates +drinking his hemlock, Regulus going back to the enemy's camp, or that +old New England divine sitting comfortably in his study and chuckling +over his conceit of certain poor women, who had been burned to death in +his own town, going “roaring out of one fire into another”? + +I don't believe he said any such thing,--replied the Poor Relation. + +It is hard to believe,--said I,--but it is true for all that. In another +hundred years it will be as incredible that men talked as we sometimes +hear them now. + +Pectus est quod facit theologum. The heart makes the theologian. Every +race, every civilization, either has a new revelation of its own or a +new interpretation of an old one. Democratic America, has a different +humanity from feudal Europe, and so must have a new divinity. See, +for one moment, how intelligence reacts on our faiths. The Bible was a +divining-book to our ancestors, and is so still in the hands of some of +the vulgar. The Puritans went to the Old Testament for their laws; the +Mormons go to it for their patriarchal institution. Every generation +dissolves something new and precipitates something once held in solution +from that great storehouse of temporary and permanent truths. + +You may observe this: that the conversation of intelligent men of the +stricter sects is strangely in advance of the formula that belong to +their organizations. So true is this, that I have doubts whether a large +proportion of them would not have been rather pleased than offended, +if they could have overheard our talk. For, look you, I think there is +hardly a professional teacher who will not in private conversation allow +a large part of what we have said, though it may frighten him in print; +and I know well what an under-current of secret sympathy gives vitality +to those poor words of mine which sometimes get a hearing. + +I don't mind the exclamation of any old stager who drinks Madeira +worth from two to six Bibles a bottle, and burns, according to his own +premises, a dozen souls a year in the cigars with which he muddles his +brains. But as for the good and true and intelligent men whom we see all +around us, laborious, self-denying, hopeful, helpful,--men who know +that the active mind of the century is tending more and more to the two +poles, Rome and Reason, the sovereign church or the free soul, authority +or personality, God in us or God in our masters, and that, though a man +may by accident stand half-way between these two points, he must look +one way or the other,--I don't believe they would take offence at +anything I have reported of our late conversation. + +But supposing any one do take offence at first sight, let him look over +these notes again, and see whether he is quite sure he does not agree +with most of these things that were said amongst us. If he agrees with +most of them, let him be patient with an opinion he does not accept, or +an expression or illustration a little too vivacious. I don't know that +I shall report any more conversations on these topics; but I do insist +on the right to express a civil opinion on this class of subjects +without giving offence, just when and where I please,--unless, as in +the lecture-room, there is an implied contract to keep clear of doubtful +matters. You did n't think a man could sit at a breakfast-table doing +nothing but making puns every morning for a year or two, and never give +a thought to the two thousand of his fellow-creatures who are passing +into another state during every hour that he sits talking and laughing. +Of course, the one matter that a real human being cares for is what is +going to become of them and of him. And the plain truth is, that a good +many people are saying one thing about it and believing another. + +--How do I know that? Why, I have known and loved to talk with good +people, all the way from Rome to Geneva in doctrine, as long as I can +remember. Besides, the real religion of the world comes from women much +more than from men,--from mothers most of all, who carry the key of +our souls in their bosoms. It is in their hearts that the “sentimental” + religion some people are so fond of sneering at has its source. The +sentiment of love, the sentiment of maternity, the sentiment of the +paramount obligation of the parent to the child as having called it into +existence, enhanced just in proportion to the power and knowledge of +the one and the weakness and ignorance of the other,--these are the +“sentiments” that have kept our soulless systems from driving men off to +die in holes like those that riddle the sides of the hill opposite +the Monastery of St. Saba, where the miserable victims of a +falsely-interpreted religion starved and withered in their delusion. + +I have looked on the face of a saintly woman this very day, whose creed +many dread and hate, but whose life is lovely and noble beyond all +praise. When I remember the bitter words I have heard spoken against her +faith, by men who have an Inquisition which excommunicates those who ask +to leave their communion in peace, and an Index Expurgatorius on which +this article may possibly have the honor of figuring,--and, far worse +than these, the reluctant, pharisaical confession, that it might +perhaps be possible that one who so believed should be accepted of the +Creator,--and then recall the sweet peace and love that show through +all her looks, the price of untold sacrifices and labors, and again +recollect how thousands of women, filled with the same spirit, die, +without a murmur, to earthly life, die to their own names even, that +they may know nothing but their holy duties,--while men are torturing +and denouncing their fellows, and while we can hear day and night the +clinking of the hammers that are trying, like the brute forces in the +“Prometheus,” to rivet their adamantine wedges right through the breast +of human nature,--I have been ready to believe that we have even now a +new revelation, and the name of its Messiah is WOMAN! + +--I should be sorry,--I remarked, a day or two afterwards, to the +divinity-student,--if anything I said tended in any way to foster any +jealousy between the professions, or to throw disrespect upon that one +on whose counsel and sympathies almost all of us lean in our moments +of trial. But we are false to our new conditions of life, if we do not +resolutely maintain our religious as well as our political freedom, +in the face of any and all supposed monopolies. Certain men will, of +course, say two things, if we do not take their views: first, that we +don't know anything about these matters; and, secondly, that we are not +so good as they are. They have a polarized phraseology for saying these +things, but it comes to precisely that. To which it may be answered, in +the first place, that we have good authority for saying that even babes +and sucklings know something; and, in the second, that, if there is a +mote or so to be removed from our premises, the courts and councils of +the last few years have found beams enough in some other quarters to +build a church that would hold all the good people in Boston and have +sticks enough left to make a bonfire for all the heretics. + +As to that terrible depolarizing process of mine, of which we were +talking the other day, I will give you a specimen of one way of managing +it, if you like. I don't believe it will hurt you or anybody. Besides, I +had a great deal rather finish our talk with pleasant images and gentle +words than with sharp sayings, which will only afford a text, if anybody +repeats them, for endless relays of attacks from Messrs. Ananias, +Shimei, and Rabshakeh. + +[I must leave such gentry, if any of them show themselves, in the hands +of my clerical friends, many of whom are ready to stand up for the +rights of the laity,--and to those blessed souls, the good women, to +whom this version of the story of a mother's hidden hopes and tender +anxieties is dedicated by their peaceful and loving servant.] + + + + A MOTHER'S SECRET. + + How sweet the sacred legend--if unblamed + In my slight verse such holy things are named + --Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, + Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy! + Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong + Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song! + + The choral host had closed the angel's strain + Sung to the midnight watch on Bethlehem's plain; + And now the shepherds, hastening on their way, + Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay. + They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled O'er, + They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor + Where Moab's daughter, homeless and forlorn, + Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn; + And some remembered how the holy scribe, + Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe, + Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son + To that fair alien, bravely wooed and won. + So fared they on to seek the promised sign + That marked the anointed heir of David's line. + + At last, by forms of earthly semblance led, + They found the crowded inn, the oxen's shed. + No pomp was there, no glory shone around + On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground; + One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed, + In that poor cell the Lord of Life was laid! + + The wondering shepherds told their breathless tale + Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale; + Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed; + Told how the shining multitude proclaimed + “Joy, joy to earth! Behold the hallowed morn! + In David's city Christ the Lord is born! + 'Glory to God!' let angels shout on high, + 'Good-will to men!' the listening Earth reply!” + + They spoke with hurried words and accents wild; + Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. + No trembling word the mother's joy revealed, + One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed; + Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, + But kept their words to ponder in her heart. + + Twelve years had passed; the boy was fair and tall, + Growing in wisdom, finding grace with all. + The maids of Nazareth, as they trooped to fill + Their balanced urns beside the mountain-rill, + The gathered matrons, as they sat and spun, + Spoke in soft words of Joseph's quiet son. + No voice had reached the Galilean vale + Of star-led kings or awe-struck shepherds' tale; + In the meek, studious child they only saw + The future Rabbi, learned in Israel's law. + + So grew the boy; and now the feast was near, + When at the holy place the tribes appear. + Scarce had the home-bred child of Nazareth seen + Beyond the hills that girt the village-green, + Save when at midnight, o'er the star-lit sands, + Snatched from the steel of Herod's murdering bands, + A babe, close-folded to his mother's breast, + Through Edom's wilds he sought the sheltering West. + + Then Joseph spake: “Thy boy hath largely grown; + Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be shown; + Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest + Goes he not with us to the holy feast?” + + And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white; + Till eve she spun; she spun till morning light. + The thread was twined; its parting meshes through + From hand to hand her restless shuttle flew, + Till the full web was wound upon the beam, + Love's curious toil,--a vest without a seam! + + They reach the holy place, fulfil the days + To solemn feasting given, and grateful praise. + At last they turn, and far Moriah's height + Melts in the southern sky and fades from sight. + All day the dusky caravan has flowed + In devious trails along the winding road, + (For many a step their homeward path attends, + And all the sons of Abraham are as friends.) + Evening has come,--the hour of rest and joy; + Hush! hush!--that whisper,-“Where is Mary's boy?” + + O weary hour! O aching days that passed + Filled with strange fears, each wilder than the last: + The soldier's lance,--the fierce centurion's sword, + The crushing wheels that whirl some Roman lord, + The midnight crypt that suck's the captive's breath, + The blistering sun on Hinnom's vale of death! + + Thrice on his cheek had rained the morning light, + Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of night, + Crouched by some porphyry column's shining plinth, + Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth. + + At last, in desperate mood, they sought once more + The Temple's porches, searched in vain before; + They found him seated with the ancient men, + The grim old rufflers of the tongue and pen, + Their bald heads glistening as they clustered near; + Their gray beards slanting as they turned to hear, + Lost in half-envious wonder and surprise + That lips so fresh should utter words so wise. + + And Mary said,--as one who, tried too long, + Tells all her grief and half her sense of wrong, + “What is this thoughtless thing which thou hast done? + Lo, we have sought thee sorrowing, O my son!” + Few words he spake, and scarce of filial tone, + Strange words, their sense a mystery yet unknown; + Then turned with them and left the holy hill, + To all their mild commands obedient still. + + The tale was told to Nazareth's sober men, + And Nazareth's matrons told it oft again; + The maids retold it at the fountain's side; + The youthful shepherds doubted or denied; + It passed around among the listening friends, + With all that fancy adds and fiction fends, + Till newer marvels dimmed the young renown + Of Joseph's son, who talked the Rabbis down. + + But Mary, faithful to its lightest word, + Kept in her heart the sayings she had heard, + Till the dread morning rent the Temple's veil, + And shuddering Earth confirmed the wondrous tale. + + Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; + A mother's secret hope outlives them all. + + + + +VI + +You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back. +Bloated some, I expect. + +This was the cheerful and encouraging and elegant remark with which the +Poor Relation greeted the divinity-student one morning. + +Of course every good man considers it a great sacrifice on his part to +continue living in this transitory, unsatisfactory, and particularly +unpleasant world. This is so much a matter of course, that I was +surprised to see the divinity-student change color. He took a look at +a small and uncertain-minded glass which hung slanting forward over the +chapped sideboard. The image it returned to him had the color of a +very young pea somewhat overboiled. The scenery of a long tragic drama +flashed through his mind as the lightning-express-train whishes by a +station: the gradual dismantling process of disease; friends looking on, +sympathetic, but secretly chuckling over their own stomachs of iron and +lungs of caoutchouc; nurses attentive, but calculating their crop, and +thinking how soon it will be ripe, so that they can go to your neighbor, +who is good for a year or so longer; doctors assiduous, but giving +themselves a mental shake, as they go out of your door, which throws off +your particular grief as a duck sheds a raindrop from his oily feathers; +undertakers solemn, but happy; then the great subsoil cultivator, who +plants, but never looks for fruit in his garden; then the stone-cutter, +who puts your name on the slab which has been waiting for you ever since +the birds or beasts made their tracks on the new red sandstone; then +the grass and the dandelions and the buttercups,---Earth saying to the +mortal body, with her sweet symbolism, “You have scarred my bosom, +but you are forgiven”; then a glimpse of the soul as a floating +consciousness without very definite form or place, but dimly conceived +of as an upright column of vapor or mist several times larger than +life-size, so far as it could be said to have any size at all, +wandering about and living a thin and half-awake life for want of good +old-fashioned solid matter to come down upon with foot and fist,--in +fact, having neither foot nor fist, nor conveniences for taking the +sitting posture. + +And yet the divinity-student was a good Christian, and those heathen +images which remind one of the childlike fancies of the dying Adrian +were only the efforts of his imagination to give shape to the formless +and position to the placeless. Neither did his thoughts spread +themselves out and link themselves as I have displayed them. They came +confusedly into his mind like a heap of broken mosaics,--sometimes a +part of the picture complete in itself, sometimes connected fragments, +and sometimes only single severed stones. + +They did not diffuse a light of celestial joy over his countenance. +On the contrary, the Poor Relation's remark turned him pale, as I have +said; and when the terrible wrinkled and jaundiced looking-glass turned +him green in addition, and he saw himself in it, it seemed to him as +if it were all settled, and his book of life were to be shut not yet +half-read, and go back to the dust of the under-ground archives. He +coughed a mild short cough, as if to point the direction in which his +downward path was tending. It was an honest little cough enough, so far +as appearances went. But coughs are ungrateful things. You find one out +in the cold, take it up and nurse it and make everything of it, dress it +up warm, give it all sorts of balsams and other food it likes, and carry +it round in your bosom as if it were a miniature lapdog. And by-and-by +its little bark grows sharp and savage, and--confound the thing!--you +find it is a wolf's whelp that you have got there, and he is gnawing in +the breast where he has been nestling so long.--The Poor Relation said +that somebody's surrup was good for folks that were gettin' into a +bad way.--The landlady had heard of desperate cases cured by +cherry-pictorial. + +Whiskey's the fellah,--said the young man John.--Make it into punch, +cold at dinner-time 'n' hot at bed-time. I'll come up 'n' show you how +to mix it. Have n't any of you seen the wonderful fat man exhibitin' +down in Hanover Street? + +Master Benjamin Franklin rushed into the dialogue with a breezy +exclamation, that he had seen a great picter outside of the place where +the fat man was exhibitin'. Tried to get in at half-price, but the man +at the door looked at his teeth and said he was more'n ten year old. + +It is n't two years,--said the young man John, since that fat fellah +was exhibitin' here as the Livin' Skeleton. Whiskey--that's what did +it,--real Burbon's the stuff. Hot water, sugar, 'n' jest a little +shavin' of lemon-skin in it,--skin, mind you, none o' your juice; take +it off thin,--shape of one of them flat curls the factory-girls wear on +the sides of their foreheads. + +But I am a teetotaller,--said the divinity-student in a subdued +tone;--not noticing the enormous length of the bow-string the young +fellow had just drawn. + +He took up his hat and went out. + +I think you have worried that young man more than you meant,--I said.--I +don't believe he will jump off one of the bridges, for he has too much +principle; but I mean to follow him and see where he goes, for he looks +as if his mind were made up to something. + +I followed him at a reasonable distance. He walked doggedly along, +looking neither to the right nor the left, turned into State Street, +and made for a well-known Life-Insurance Office. Luckily, the doctor was +there and overhauled him on the spot. There was nothing the matter with +him, he said, and he could have his life insured as a sound one. He came +out in good spirits, and told me this soon after. + +This led me to make some remarks the next morning on the manners of +well-bred and ill-bred people. + +I began,--The whole essence of true gentle-breeding (one does not +like to say gentility) lies in the wish and the art to be agreeable. +Good-breeding is surface-Christianity. Every look, movement, tone, +expression, subject of discourse, that may give pain to another is +habitually excluded from conversational intercourse. This is the reason +why rich people are apt to be so much more agreeable than others. + +--I thought you were a great champion of equality,--said the discreet +and severe lady who had accompanied our young friend, the Latin Tutor's +daughter. + +I go politically for equality,--I said,--and socially for the quality. + +Who are the “quality,”--said the Model, etc., in a community like ours? + +I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer,--I said. +--Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks which +exists in every community, and nothing is harder to define. The great +gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters and +mistresses; they are the quality, whether in a monarchy or a republic; +mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are +nothing to them. How well we know this, and how seldom it finds a +distinct expression! Now I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, and +I disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural lines +of cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its own +true laws. But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth; +and there is nothing more curious than these truths relating to the +stratification of society. + +Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality, +there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this of +social position,--as you see by the circumstances that the core of all +the great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, for +the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged in a +regular scale of precedence among themselves, but superior as a body to +all else. + +Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we have been getting +farther away from since the days of the Primitive Church, can +prevent this subdivision of society into classes from taking place +everywhere,--in the great centres of our republic as much as in +old European monarchies. Only there position is more absolutely +hereditary,--here it is more completely elective. + +--Where is the election held? and what are the qualifications? and who +are the electors?--said the Model. + +Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; there never is a formal vote. +The women settle it mostly; and they know wonderfully well what is +presentable, and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and the +critical eye and ear of people trained to know a staring shade in a +ribbon, a false light in a jewel, an ill-bred tone, an angular movement, +everything that betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training. As a general +thing, you do not get elegance short of two or three removes from the +soil, out of which our best blood doubtless comes,--quite as good, no +doubt, as if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots on +their heads, to whom some great people are so fond of tracing their +descent through a line of small artisans and petty shopkeepers whose +veins have held “base” fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima! + +Does not money go everywhere?--said the Model. + +Almost. And with good reason. For though there are numerous exceptions, +rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeable +companions. The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good +libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, a +position so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony +and refinement to the character and manners which we feel, if we cannot +explain their charm. Yet we can get at the reason of it by thinking a +little. + +All these appliances are to shield the sensibility from disagreeable +contacts, and to soothe it by varied natural and artificial influences. +In this way the mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as +the hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and incased in soft +gloves. The whole nature becomes subdued into suavity. I confess I like +the quality ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones. +They have n't read the last book, perhaps, but they attend better to you +when you are talking to them. If they are never learned, they make up +for it in tact and elegance. Besides, I think, on the whole, there is +less self-assertion in diamonds than in dogmas. I don't know where +you will find a sweeter portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor +play-girl of King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal apparel when +she went before her lord. I have no doubt she was a more gracious and +agreeable person than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the story +of Sisera. The wisest woman you talk with is ignorant of something that +you know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance. + +Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect vitality. The highest +fashion is intensely alive,--not alive necessarily to the truest +and best things, but with its blood tingling, as it were, in all its +extremities and to the farthest point of its surface, so that the +feather in its bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting-cock, +and the rosette on its slipper as clean-cut and pimpant (pronounce it +English fashion,--it is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, +that society where flattery is acted is much more agreeable than that +where it is spoken. Don't you see why? Attention and deference don't +require you to make fine speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness +(lies) and returning all the compliments paid you. This is one reason. + +--A woman of sense ought to be above flattering any man,--said the +Model. + +[My reflection. Oh! oh! no wonder you did n't get married. Served you +right.] My remark. Surely, Madam,--if you mean by flattery telling +people boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which they are +not. But a woman who does not carry about with her wherever she goes +a halo of good feeling and desire to make everybody contented,--an +atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius, +which wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows her +presence, and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that she +is rather glad he is alive than otherwise, isn't worth the trouble of +talking to, as a woman; she may do well enough to hold discussions with. + +--I don't think the Model exactly liked this. She said,--a little +spitefully, I thought,--that a sensible man might stand a little praise, +but would of course soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of +getting much. + +Oh, yes,--I replied,--just as men get sick of tobacco. It is notorious +how apt they are to get tired of that vegetable. + +--That 's so!--said the young fellow John,--I've got tired of my cigars +and burnt 'em all up. + +I am heartily glad to hear it,--said the Model,--I wish they were all +disposed of in the same way. + +So do I,--said the young fellow John. + +Can't you get your friends to unite with you in committing those odious +instruments of debauchery to the flames in which you have consumed your +own? + +I wish I could,--said the young fellow John. + +It would be a noble sacrifice,--said the Model, and every American woman +would be grateful to you. Let us burn them all in a heap out in the +yard. + +That a'n't my way,--said the young fellow John;--I burn 'em one 't' +time,--little end in my mouth and big end outside. + +--I watched for the effect of this sudden change of programme, when it +should reach the calm stillness of the Model's interior apprehension, +as a boy watches for the splash of a stone which he has dropped into +a well. But before it had fairly reached the water, poor Iris, who had +followed the conversation with a certain interest until it turned this +sharp corner, (for she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John,) +laughed out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started us all off, as the +locust-cry of some full-throated soprano drags a multitudinous chorus +after it. It was plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul of +this young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of laughter, out of +which she had been cheated, with a grand flood of merriment that +swept all before it. So we had a great laugh all round, in which the +Model--who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes to a wheel, +all compacted with a personality as round and complete as its tire, yet +wanted that one little addition of grace, which seems so small, and +is as important as the linchpin in trundling over the rough ways of +life--had not the tact to join. She seemed to be “stuffy” about it, as +the young fellow John said. In fact, I was afraid the joke would have +cost us both our new lady-boarders. It had no effect, however, except, +perhaps, to hasten the departure of the elder of the two, who could, on +the whole, be spared. + +--I had meant to make this note of our conversation a text for a few +axioms on the matter of breeding. But it so happened, that, exactly at +this point of my record, a very distinguished philosopher, whom several +of our boarders and myself go to hear, and whom no doubt many of my +readers follow habitually, treated this matter of manners. Up to this +point, if I have been so fortunate as to coincide with him in opinion, +and so unfortunate as to try to express what he has more felicitously +said, nobody is to blame; for what has been given thus far was all +written before the lecture was delivered. But what shall I do now? He +told us it was childish to lay down rules for deportment,--but he could +not help laying down a few. + +Thus,--Nothing so vulgar as to be in a hurry. True, but hard of +application. People with short legs step quickly, because legs are +pendulums, and swing more times in a minute the shorter they are. +Generally a natural rhythm runs through the whole organization: quick +pulse, fast breathing, hasty speech, rapid trains of thought, excitable +temper. Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks +of good-breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or, at least, they +must work their limbs or features. + +Talking of one's own ails and grievances.--Bad enough, but not so bad +as insulting the person you talk with by remarking on his ill-looks, or +appealing to notice any of his personal peculiarities. + +Apologizing.--A very desperate habit,--one that is rarely cured. Apology +is only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first thing +a man's companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology. It is +mighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of so +much consequence that you must make a talk about them. + +Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, and +eyes that do not wander,--shyness of personalities, except in certain +intimate communions,--to be light in hand in conversation, to have +ideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, without them,--to +belong to the company you are in, and not to yourself,--to have nothing +in your dress or furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it +and get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies, throughout +your person and--dwelling: I should say that this was a fair capital of +manners to begin with. + +Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an +overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our +generic humanity. It is just here that the very highest society asserts +its superior breeding. Among truly elegant people of the highest ton, +you will find more real equality in social intercourse than in a country +village. As nuns drop their birth-names and become Sister Margaret and +Sister Mary, so high-bred people drop their personal distinctions +and become brothers and sisters of conversational charity. Nor are +fashionable people without their heroism. I believe there are men who +have shown as much self-devotion in carrying a lone wall-flower down to +the supper-table as ever saint or martyr in the act that has canonized +his name. There are Florence Nightingales of the ballroom, whom nothing +can hold back from their errands of mercy. They find out the red-handed, +gloveless undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in his +corner, and distill their soft words upon him like dew upon the green +herb. They reach even the poor relation, whose dreary apparition saddens +the perfumed atmosphere of the sumptuous drawing-room. I have known one +of these angels ask, of her own accord, that a desolate middle-aged man, +whom nobody seemed to know, should be presented to her by the hostess. +He wore no shirt-collar,--he had on black gloves,--and was flourishing a +red bandanna handkerchief! Match me this, ye proud children of poverty, +who boast of your paltry sacrifices for each other! Virtue in humble +life! What is that to the glorious self-renunciation of a martyr in +pearls and diamonds? As I saw this noble woman bending gracefully before +the social mendicant,--the white billows of her beauty heaving under +the foam of the traitorous laces that half revealed them,--I should +have wept with sympathetic emotion, but that tears, except as a private +demonstration, are an ill-disguised expression of self-consciousness and +vanity, which is inadmissible in good society. + +I have sometimes thought, with a pang, of the position in which +political chance or contrivance might hereafter place some one of +our fellow-citizens. It has happened hitherto, so far as my limited +knowledge goes, that the President of the United States has always been +what might be called in general terms a gentleman. But what if at some +future time the choice of the people should fall upon one on whom that +lofty title could not, by any stretch of charity, be bestowed? This may +happen,--how soon the future only knows. Think of this miserable man +of coming political possibilities,--an unpresentable boor sucked into +office by one of those eddies in the flow of popular sentiment which +carry straws and chips into the public harbor, while the prostrate +trunks of the monarchs of the forest hurry down on the senseless stream +to the gulf of political oblivion! Think of him, I say, and of the +concentrated gaze of good society through its thousand eyes, all +confluent, as it were, in one great burning-glass of ice that shrivels +its wretched object in fiery torture, itself cold as the glacier of an +unsunned cavern! No,--there will be angels of good-breeding then as +now, to shield the victim of free institutions from himself and from his +torturers. I can fancy a lovely woman playfully withdrawing the knife +which he would abuse by making it an instrument for the conveyance +of food,--or, failing in this kind artifice, sacrificing herself by +imitating his use of that implement; how much harder than to plunge it +into her bosom, like Lucretia! I can see her studying in his provincial +dialect until she becomes the Champollion of New England or Western +or Southern barbarisms. She has learned that haow means what; that +think-in' is the same thing as thinking, or she has found out the +meaning of that extraordinary mono syllable, which no single-tongued +phonographer can make legible, prevailing on the banks of the Hudson and +at its embouchure, and elsewhere,--what they say when they think they +say first, (fe-eest,--fe as in the French le),--or that cheer +means chair,--or that urritation means irritation,--and so of other +enormities. Nothing surprises her. The highest breeding, you know, +comes round to the Indian standard,--to take everything coolly,--nil +admirari,--if you happen to be learned and like the Roman phrase for the +same thing. + +If you like the company of people that stare at you from head to foot to +see if there is a hole in your coat, or if you have not grown a +little older, or if your eyes are not yellow with jaundice, or if your +complexion is not a little faded, and so on, and then convey the fact +to you, in the style in which the Poor Relation addressed the +divinity-student,--go with them as much as you like. I hate the sight of +the wretches. Don't for mercy's sake think I hate them; the distinction +is one my friend or I drew long ago. No matter where you find such +people; they are clowns. + +The rich woman who looks and talks in this way is not half so much a +lady as her Irish servant, whose pretty “saving your presence,” when she +has to say something which offends her natural sense of good manners, +has a hint in it of the breeding of courts, and the blood of old +Milesian kings, which very likely runs in her veins,--thinned by two +hundred years of potato, which, being an underground fruit, tends to +drag down the generations that are made of it to the earth from which +it came, and, filling their veins with starch, turn them into a kind of +human vegetable. + +I say, if you like such people, go with them. But I am going to make a +practical application of the example at the beginning of this particular +record, which some young people who are going to choose professional +advisers by-and-by may remember and thank me for. If you are making +choice of a physician, be sure you get one, if possible, with a cheerful +and serene countenance. A physician is not--at least, ought not to +be--an executioner; and a sentence of death on his face is as bad as a +warrant for execution signed by the Governor. As a general rule, no man +has a right to tell another by word or look that he is going to die. It +may be necessary in some extreme cases; but as a rule, it is the last +extreme of impertinence which one human being can offer to another. “You +have killed me,” said a patient once to a physician who had rashly told +him he was incurable. He ought to have lived six months, but he was dead +in six' weeks. If we will only let Nature and the God of Nature alone, +persons will commonly learn their condition as early as they ought to +know it, and not be cheated out of their natural birthright of hope of +recovery, which is intended to accompany sick people as long as life +is comfortable, and is graciously replaced by the hope of heaven, or at +least of rest, when life has become a burden which the bearer is ready +to let fall. + +Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends to death. The chance +of a gentleman or lady with a given mortal ailment to live a certain +time is as good again as that of the common sort of coarse people. As +you go down the social scale, you reach a point at length where the +common talk in sick rooms is of churchyards and sepulchres, and a kind +of perpetual vivisection is forever carried on, upon the person of the +miserable sufferer. + +And so, in choosing your clergyman, other things being equal, prefer the +one of a wholesome and cheerful habit of mind and body. If you can get +along with people who carry a certificate in their faces that their +goodness is so great as to make them very miserable, your children +cannot. And whatever offends one of these little ones cannot be right in +the eyes of Him who loved them so well. + +After all, as you are a gentleman or a lady, you will probably select +gentlemen for your bodily and spiritual advisers, and then all will be +right. + +This repetition of the above words,--gentleman and lady,--which could +not be conveniently avoided, reminds me what strange uses are made of +them by those who ought to know what they mean. Thus, at a marriage +ceremony, once, of two very excellent persons who had been at service, +instead of, Do you take this man, etc.? and, Do you take this woman? +how do you think the officiating clergyman put the questions? It was, Do +you, Miss So and So, take this GENTLEMAN? and, Do you, Mr. This or That, +take this LADY?! What would any English duchess, ay, or the Queen of +England herself, have thought, if the Archbishop of Canterbury had +called her and her bridegroom anything but plain woman and man at such a +time? + +I don't doubt the Poor Relation thought it was all very fine, if she +happened to be in the church; but if the worthy man who uttered these +monstrous words--monstrous in such a connection--had known the ludicrous +surprise, the convulsion of inward disgust and contempt, that seized +upon many of the persons who were present,--had guessed what a sudden +flash of light it threw on the Dutch gilding, the pinchbeck, the shabby, +perking pretension belonging to certain social layers,--so inherent in +their whole mode of being, that the holiest offices of religion +cannot exclude its impertinences,--the good man would have given his +marriage-fee twice over to recall that superb and full-blown vulgarism. +Any persons whom it could please could have no better notion of what the +words referred to signify than of the meaning of apsides and asymptotes. + +MAN! Sir! WOMAN! Sir! Gentility is a fine thing, not to be undervalued, +as I have been trying to explain; but humanity comes before that. + + “When Adam delved and Eve span, + Who was then the gentleman?” + +The beauty of that plainness of speech and manners which comes from the +finest training is not to be understood by those whose habitat is below +a certain level. Just as the exquisite sea-anemones and all the graceful +ocean-flowers die out at some fathoms below the surface, the elegances +and suavities of life die out one by one as we sink through the social +scale. Fortunately, the virtues are more tenacious of life, and last +pretty well until we get down to the mud of absolute pauperism, where +they do not flourish greatly. + +--I had almost forgotten about our boarders. As the Model of all the +Virtues is about to leave us, I find myself wondering what is the reason +we are not all very sorry. Surely we all like good persons. She is a +good person. Therefore we like her.--Only we don't. + +This brief syllogism, and its briefer negative, involving the principle +which some English conveyancer borrowed from a French wit and embodied +in the lines by which Dr. Fell is made unamiably immortal, this +syllogism, I say, is one that most persons have had occasion to +construct and demolish, respecting somebody or other, as I have done for +the Model. “Pious and painefull.” Why has that excellent old phrase gone +out of use? Simply because these good painefull or painstaking persons +proved to be such nuisances in the long run, that the word “painefull” + came, before people thought of it, to mean pain-giving instead of +painstaking. + +--So, the old fellah's off to-morrah,--said the young man John. + +Old fellow?--said I,--whom do you mean? + +Why, the one that came with our little beauty, the old fellah in +petticoats. + +--Now that means something,--said I to myself.--These rough young +rascals very often hit the nail on the head, if they do strike with +their eyes shut. A real woman does a great many things without knowing +why she does them; but these pattern machines mix up their intellects +with everything they do, just like men. They can't help it, no doubt; +but we can't help getting sick of them, either. Intellect is to a +woman's nature what her watch-spring skirt is to her dress; it ought +to underlie her silks and embroideries, but not to show itself too +staringly on the outside.--You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell +you; the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heart +the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place +it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and +color of its birthplace. + +The young man John did not hear my soliloquy, of course, but sent up one +more bubble from our sinking conversation, in the form of a statement, +that she was at liberty to go to a personage who receives no visits, as +is commonly supposed, from virtuous people. + +Why, I ask again, (of my reader,) should a person who never did anybody +any wrong, but, on the contrary, is an estimable and intelligent, nay, +a particularly enlightened and exemplary member of society, fail to +inspire interest, love, and devotion? Because of the reversed current in +the flow of thought and emotion. The red heart sends all its instincts +up to the white brain to be analyzed, chilled, blanched, and so become +pure reason, which is just exactly what we do not want of woman as +woman. The current should run the other-way. The nice, calm, cold +thought, which in women shapes itself so rapidly that they hardly know +it as thought, should always travel to the lips via the heart. It does +so in those women whom all love and admire. It travels the wrong way in +the Model. That is the reason why the Little Gentleman said “I hate her, +I hate her.” That is the reason why the young man John called her +the “old fellah,” and banished her to the company of the great +Unpresentable. That is the reason why I, the Professor, am picking her +to pieces with scalpel and forceps. That is the reason why the young +girl whom she has befriended repays her kindness with gratitude and +respect, rather than with the devotion and passionate fondness which lie +sleeping beneath the calmness of her amber eyes. I can see her, as +she sits between this estimable and most correct of personages and the +misshapen, crotchety, often violent and explosive little man on the +other side of her, leaning and swaying towards him as she speaks, and +looking into his sad eyes as if she found some fountain in them at which +her soul could quiet its thirst. + +Women like the Model are a natural product of a chilly climate and high +culture. It is not + + “The frolic wind that breathes the spring, + Zephyr with Aurora playing,” + +when the two meet + + “--on beds of violets blue, + And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,” + +that claim such women as their offspring. It is rather the east wind, as +it blows out of the fogs of Newfoundland, and clasps a clear-eyed wintry +noon on the chill bridal couch of a New England ice-quarry.--Don't throw +up your cap now, and hurrah as if this were giving up everything, and +turning against the best growth of our latitudes,--the daughters of +the soil. The brain-women never interest us like the heart women; white +roses please less than red. But our Northern seasons have a narrow green +streak of spring, as well as a broad white zone of winter,--they have +a glowing band of summer and a golden stripe of autumn in their +many-colored wardrobe; and women are born to us that wear all these hues +of earth and heaven in their souls. Our ice-eyed brain-women are really +admirable, if we only ask of them just what they can give, and no more. +Only compare them, talking or writing, with one of those babbling, +chattering dolls, of warmer latitudes, who do not know enough even to +keep out of print, and who are interesting to us only as specimens of +arrest of development for our psychological cabinets. + +Good-bye, Model of all the Virtues! We can spare you now. A little clear +perfection, undiluted with human weakness, goes a great way. Go! be +useful, be honorable and honored, be just, be charitable, talk pure +reason, and help to disenchant the world by the light of an achromatic +understanding. Goodbye! Where is my Beranger? I must read a verse or two +of “Fretillon.” + +Fair play for all. But don't claim incompatible qualities for anybody. +Justice is a very rare virtue in our community. Everything that public +sentiment cares about is put into a Papin's digester, and boiled under +high pressure till all is turned into one homogeneous pulp, and the very +bones give up their jelly. What are all the strongest epithets of our +dictionary to us now? The critics and politicians, and especially +the philanthropists, have chewed them, till they are mere wads of +syllable-fibre, without a suggestion of their old pungency and power. + +Justice! A good man respects the rights even of brute matter and +arbitrary symbols. If he writes the same word twice in succession, +by accident, he always erases the one that stands second; has not the +first-comer the prior right? This act of abstract justice, which I trust +many of my readers, like myself, have often performed, is a curious +anti-illustration, by the way, of the absolute wickedness of human +dispositions. Why doesn't a man always strike out the first of the two +words, to gratify his diabolical love of injustice? + +So, I say, we owe a genuine, substantial tribute of respect to these +filtered intellects which have left their womanhood on the strainer. +They are so clear that it is a pleasure at times to look at the world +of thought through them. But the rose and purple tints of richer natures +they cannot give us, and it is not just to them to ask it. + +Fashionable society gets at these rich natures very often in a way one +would hardly at first think of. It loves vitality above all things, +sometimes disguised by affected languor, always well kept under by the +laws of good-breeding,--but still it loves abundant life, opulent and +showy organizations,--the spherical rather than the plane trigonometry +of female architecture,--plenty of red blood, flashing eyes, tropical +voices, and forms that bear the splendors of dress without growing pale +beneath their lustre. Among these you will find the most delicious women +you will ever meet,--women whom dress and flattery and the round of city +gayeties cannot spoil,--talking with whom, you forget their diamonds +and laces,--and around whom all the nice details of elegance, which +the cold-blooded beauty next them is scanning so nicely, blend in one +harmonious whole, too perfect to be disturbed by the petulant sparkle of +a jewel, or the yellow glare of a bangle, or the gay toss of a feather. + +There are many things that I, personally, love better than fashion or +wealth. Not to speak of those highest objects of our love and loyalty, +I think I love ease and independence better than the golden slavery of +perpetual matinees and soirees, or the pleasures of accumulation. + +But fashion and wealth are two very solemn realities, which the +frivolous class of moralists have talked a great deal of silly stuff +about. Fashion is only the attempt to realize Art in living forms and +social intercourse. What business has a man who knows nothing about the +beautiful, and cannot pronounce the word view, to talk about fashion to +a set of people who, if one of the quality left a card at their doors, +would contrive to keep it on the very top of their heap of the names +of their two-story acquaintances, till it was as yellow as the Codex +Vaticanus? + +Wealth, too,--what an endless repetition of the same foolish +trivialities about it! Take the single fact of its alleged uncertain +tenure and transitory character. In old times, when men were all the +time fighting and robbing each other,--in those tropical countries where +the Sabeans and the Chaldeans stole all a man's cattle and camels, and +there were frightful tornadoes and rains of fire from heaven, it was +true enough that riches took wings to themselves not unfrequently in a +very unexpected way. But, with common prudence in investments, it is +not so now. In fact, there is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on the +whole, as money. A man's learning dies with him; even his virtues fade +out of remembrance, but the dividends on the stocks he bequeaths to his +children live and keep his memory green. + +I do not think there is much courage or originality in giving utterance +to truths that everybody knows, but which get overlaid by conventional +trumpery. The only distinction which it is necessary to point out to +feeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting the breadth and depth of +that significance which gives to fashion and fortune their tremendous +power, we do not indorse the extravagances which often disgrace the one, +nor the meanness which often degrades the other. + +A remark which seems to contradict a universally current opinion is not +generally to be taken “neat,” but watered with the ideas of common-sense +and commonplace people. So, if any of my young friends should be tempted +to waste their substance on white kids and “all-rounds,” or to insist on +becoming millionaires at once, by anything I have said, I will give them +references to some of the class referred to, well known to the public as +providers of literary diluents, who will weaken any truth so that +there is not an old woman in the land who cannot take it with perfect +impunity. + +I am afraid some of the blessed saints in diamonds will think I mean to +flatter them. I hope not;--if I do, set it down as a weakness. But there +is so much foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, of course, +draw a good many heartless and essentially vulgar people into the glare +of their candelabra, but which have a real respectability and meaning, +if we will only look at them stereoscopically, with both eyes instead of +one,) that I thought it a duty to speak a few words for them. Why can't +somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, +and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks? + +Lest my parish should suppose we have forgotten graver matters in these +lesser topics, I beg them to drop these trifles and read the following +lesson for the day. + + THE TWO STREAMS. + + Behold the rocky wall + That down its sloping sides + Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, + In rushing river-tides! + + Yon stream, whose sources run + Turned by a pebble's edge, + Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun + Through the cleft mountain-ledge. + + The slender rill had strayed, + But for the slanting stone, + To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid + Of foam-flecked Oregon. + + So from the heights of Will + Life's parting stream descends, + And, as a moment turns its slender rill, + Each widening torrent bends, + + From the same cradle's side, + From the same mother's knee, + --One to long darkness and the frozen tide, + One to the Peaceful Sea! + + + + +VII + +Our landlady's daughter is a young lady of some pretensions to +gentility. She wears her bonnet well back on her head, which is known +by all to be a mark of high breeding. She wears her trains very long, +as the great ladies do in Europe. To be sure, their dresses are so made +only to sweep the tapestried floors of chateaux and palaces; as those +odious aristocrats of the other side do not go draggling through the mud +in silks and satins, but, forsooth, must ride in coaches when they +are in full dress. It is true, that, considering various habits of the +American people, also the little accidents which the best-kept sidewalks +are liable to, a lady who has swept a mile of them is not exactly in +such a condition that one would care to be her neighbor. But then there +is no need of being so hard on these slight weaknesses of the poor, dear +women as our little deformed gentleman was the other day. + +--There are no such women as the Boston women, Sir,--he said. Forty-two +degrees, north latitude, Rome, Sir, Boston, Sir! They had grand women in +old Rome, Sir,--and the women bore such men--children as never the world +saw before. And so it was here, Sir. I tell you, the revolution the +Boston boys started had to run in woman's milk before it ran in man's +blood, Sir! + +But confound the make-believe women we have turned loose in our +streets!--where do they come from? Not out of Boston parlors, I trust. +Why, there is n't a beast or a bird that would drag its tail through the +dirt in the way these creatures do their dresses. Because a queen or +a duchess wears long robes on great occasions, a maid-of-all-work or a +factory-girl thinks she must make herself a nuisance by trailing through +the street, picking up and carrying about with her pah!--that's what +I call getting vulgarity into your bones and marrow. Making believe be +what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. Show over dirt is the +one attribute of vulgar people. If any man can walk behind one of these +women and see what she rakes up as she goes, and not feel squeamish, he +has got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one of 'em into my room without +serving 'em as David served Saul at the cave in the wilderness,--cut off +his skirts, Sir! cut off his skirts! + +I suggested, that I had seen some pretty stylish ladies who offended in +the way he condemned. + +Stylish women, I don't doubt,--said the Little Gentleman.--Don't tell me +that a true lady ever sacrifices the duty of keeping all about her sweet +and clean to the wish of making a vulgar show. I won't believe it of a +lady. There are some things that no fashion has any right to touch, and +cleanliness is one of those things. If a woman wishes to show that her +husband or her father has got money, which she wants and means to spend, +but doesn't know how, let her buy a yard or two of silk and pin it to +her dress when she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before she +goes into the house;--there may be poor women that will think it worth +disinfecting. It is an insult to a respectable laundress to carry such +things into a house for her to deal with. I don't like the Bloomers any +too well,--in fact, I never saw but one, and she--or he, or it--had a +mob of boys after her, or whatever you call the creature, as if she had +been a---- + +The Little Gentleman stopped short,--flushed somewhat, and looked round +with that involuntary, suspicious glance which the subjects of any +bodily misfortune are very apt to cast round them. His eye wandered +over the company, none of whom, excepting myself and one other, had, +probably, noticed the movement. They fell at last on Iris,--his next +neighbor, you remember. + +--We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at a person, if that person's +eyes have been fixed on us. + +Sometimes we are conscious of it before we turn so as to see the person. +Strange secrets of curiosity, of impertinence, of malice, of love, leak +out in this way. There is no need of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflection +in the mirror, to tell us that she is plotting evil for us behind our +backs. We know it, as we know by the ominous stillness of a child that +some mischief or other is going-on. A young girl betrays, in a moment, +that her eyes have been feeding on the face where you find them fixed, +and not merely brushing over it with their pencils of blue or brown +light. + +A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, you may also observe, +to that upon which we look. Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to +gather them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow. When we +look at a vast landscape, our chests expand as if we would enlarge to +fill it. When we examine a minute object, we naturally contract, not +only our foreheads, but all our dimensions. If I see two men wrestling, +I wrestle too, with my limbs and features. When a country-fellow comes +upon the stage, you will see twenty faces in the boxes putting on the +bumpkin expression. There is no need of multiplying instances to reach +this generalization; every person and thing we look upon puts its +special mark upon us. If this is repeated often enough, we get a +permanent resemblance to it, or, at least, a fixed aspect which we took +from it. Husband and wife come to look alike at last, as has often been +noticed. It is a common saying of a jockey, that he is “all horse”; and +I have often fancied that milkmen get a stiff, upright carriage, and an +angular movement of the arm, that remind one of a pump and the working +of its handle. + +All this came in by accident, just because I happened to mention that +the Little Gentleman found that Iris had been looking at him with her +soul in her eyes, when his glance rested on her after wandering round +the company. What he thought, it is hard to say; but the shadow of +suspicion faded off from his face, and he looked calmly into the amber +eyes, resting his cheek upon the hand that wore the red jewel. + +--If it were a possible thing,--women are such strange creatures! Is +there any trick that love and their own fancies do not play them? Just +see how they marry! A woman that gets hold of a bit of manhood is like +one of those Chinese wood-carvers who work on any odd, fantastic root +that comes to hand, and, if it is only bulbous above and bifurcated +below, will always contrive to make a man--such as he is--out of it. I +should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a Gorilla, +that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. + +--A child,--yes, if you choose to call her so, but such a child! Do you +know how Art brings all ages together? There is no age to the angels +and ideal human forms among which the artist lives, and he shares +their youth until his hand trembles and his eye grows dim. The youthful +painter talks of white-bearded Leonardo as if he were a brother, and +the veteran forgets that Raphael died at an age to which his own is of +patriarchal antiquity. + +But why this lover of the beautiful should be so drawn to one whom +Nature has wronged so deeply seems hard to explain. Pity, I suppose. +They say that leads to love. + +--I thought this matter over until I became excited and curious, and +determined to set myself more seriously at work to find out what was +going on in these wild hearts and where their passionate lives were +drifting. I say wild hearts and passionate lives, because I think I can +look through this seeming calmness of youth and this apparent feebleness +of organization, and see that Nature, whom it is very hard to cheat, +is only waiting as the sapper waits in his mine, knowing that all is in +readiness and the slow-match burning quietly down to the powder. He will +leave it by-and-by, and then it will take care of itself. + +One need not wait to see the smoke coming through the roof of a house +and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is +on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, +but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. +There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting +shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings +one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on.--Oh,--oh,--oh! do +you know what has got hold of you? It is the great red dragon that is +born of the little red eggs we call sparks, with his hundred blowing +red manes, and his thousand lashing red tails, and his multitudinous red +eyes glaring at every crack and key-hole, and his countless red tongues +lapping the beams he is going to crunch presently, and his hot breath +warping the panels and cracking the glass and making old timber sweat +that had forgotten it was ever alive with sap. Run for your life! leap! +or you will be a cinder in five minutes, that nothing but a coroner +would take for the wreck of a human being! + +If any gentleman will have the kindness to stop this run-away +comparison, I shall be much obliged to him. All I intended to say was, +that we need not wait for hearts to break out in flames to know that +they are full of combustibles and that a spark has got among them. I +don't pretend to say or know what it is that brings these two persons +together;--and when I say together, I only mean that there is an evident +affinity of some kind or other which makes their commonest intercourse +strangely significant, as that each seems to understand a look or a +word of the other. When the young girl laid her hand on the Little +Gentleman's arm,--which so greatly shocked the Model, you may +remember,--I saw that she had learned the lion-tamer's secret. She +masters him, and yet I can see she has a kind of awe of him, as the man +who goes into the cage has of the monster that he makes a baby of. + +One of two things must happen. The first is love, downright love, on +the part of this young girl, for the poor little misshapen man. You may +laugh, if you like. But women are apt to love the men who they think +have the largest capacity of loving;--and who can love like one that has +thirsted all his life long for the smile of youth and beauty, and seen +it fly his presence as the wave ebbed from the parched lips of him +whose fabled punishment is the perpetual type of human longing and +disappointment? What would become of him, if this fresh soul should +stoop upon him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops out +of the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in the marshes of Cagliari, +with a flutter of scarlet feathers and a kindling of strange fires in +the shadowy waters that hold her burning image? + +--Marry her, of course?--Why, no, not of course. I should think the +chance less, on the whole, that he would be willing to marry her than +she to marry him. + +There is one other thing that might happen. If the interest he awakes in +her gets to be a deep one, and yet has nothing of love in it, she will +glance off from him into some great passion or other. All excitements +run to love in women of a certain--let us not say age, but youth. An +electrical current passing through a coil of wire makes a magnet of a +bar of iron lying within it, but not touching it. So a woman is turned +into a love-magnet by a tingling current of life running round her. I +should like to see one of them balanced on a pivot properly adjusted, +and watch if she did not turn so as to point north and south,--as she +would, if the love-currents are like those of the earth our mother. + +Pray, do you happen to remember Wordsworth's “Boy of Windermere”? This +boy used to put his hands to his mouth, and shout aloud, mimicking the +hooting of the owls, who would answer him + + “with quivering peals, + And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud + Redoubled and redoubled.” + +When they failed to answer him, and he hung listening intently for +their voices, he would sometimes catch the faint sound of far distant +waterfalls, or the whole scene around him would imprint itself with +new force upon his perceptions.--Read the sonnet, if you please;--it +is Wordsworth all over,--trivial in subject, solemn in style, vivid +in description, prolix in detail, true metaphysically, but immensely +suggestive of “imagination,” to use a mild term, when related as an +actual fact of a sprightly youngster. All I want of it is to enforce the +principle, that, when the door of the soul is once opened to a guest, +there is no knowing who will come in next. + +--Our young girl keeps up her early habit of sketching heads and +characters. Nobody is, I should think, more faithful and exact in the +drawing of the academical figures given her as lessons, but there is +a perpetual arabesque of fancies that runs round the margin of her +drawings, and there is one book which I know she keeps to run riot +in, where, if anywhere, a shrewd eye would be most likely to read her +thoughts. This book of hers I mean to see, if I can get at it honorably. + +I have never yet crossed the threshold of the Little Gentleman's +chamber. How he lives, when he once gets within it, I can only guess. +His hours are late, as I have said; often, on waking late in the night, +I see the light through cracks in his window-shutters on the wall of the +house opposite. If the times of witchcraft were not over, I should be +afraid to be so close a neighbor to a place from which there come such +strange noises. Sometimes it is the dragging of something heavy over the +floor, that makes me shiver to hear it,--it sounds so like what people +that kill other people have to do now and then. Occasionally I hear very +sweet strains of music,--whether of a wind or stringed instrument, or a +human voice, strange as it may seem, I have often tried to find out, but +through the partition I could not be quite sure. If I have not heard +a woman cry and moan, and then again laugh as though she would die +laughing, I have heard sounds so like them that--I am a fool to confess +it--I have covered my head with the bedclothes; for I have had a fancy +in my dreams, that I could hardly shake off when I woke up, about that +so-called witch that was his great-grandmother, or whatever it was,--a +sort of fancy that she visited the Little Gentleman,--a young woman +in old-fashioned dress, with a red ring round her white neck,--not a +neck-lace, but a dull-stain. + +Of course you don't suppose that I have any foolish superstitions about +the matter,--I, the Professor, who have seen enough to take all that +nonsense out of any man's head! It is not our beliefs that frighten us +half so much as our fancies. A man not only believes, but knows he runs +a risk, whenever he steps into a railroad car; but it does n't worry him +much. On the other hand, carry that man across a pasture a little way +from some dreary country-village, and show him an old house where there +were strange deaths a good many years ago, and there are rumors of ugly +spots on the walls,--the old man hung himself in the garret, that is +certain, and ever since the country-people have called it “the haunted +house,”--the owners have n't been able to let it since the last tenants +left on account of the noises,--so it has fallen into sad decay, and the +moss grows on the rotten shingles of the roof, and the clapboards have +turned black, and the windows rattle like teeth that chatter with fear, +and the walls of the house begin to lean as if its knees were shaking, +--take the man who did n't mind the real risk of the cars to that old +house, on some dreary November evening, and ask him to sleep there +alone,--how do you think he will like it? He doesn't believe one word +of ghosts,--but then he knows, that, whether waking or sleeping, his +imagination will people the haunted chambers with ghostly images. It is +not what we believe, as I said before, that frightens us commonly, +but what we conceive. A principle that reaches a good way if I am not +mistaken. I say, then, that, if these odd sounds coming from the Little +Gentleman's chamber sometimes make me nervous, so that I cannot get +to sleep, it is not because I suppose he is engaged in any unlawful or +mysterious way. The only wicked suggestion that ever came into my head +was one that was founded on the landlady's story of his having a pile +of gold; it was a ridiculous fancy; besides, I suspect the story of +sweating gold was only one of the many fables got up to make the Jews +odious and afford a pretext for plundering them. As for the sound like a +woman laughing and crying, I never said it was a woman's voice; for, in +the first place, I could only hear indistinctly; and, secondly, he may +have an organ, or some queer instrument or other, with what they call +the vox humana stop. If he moves his bed round to get away from the +window, or for any such reason, there is nothing very frightful in that +simple operation. Most of our foolish conceits explain themselves in +some such simple way. And, yet, for all that, I confess, that, when I +woke up the other evening, and heard, first a sweet complaining cry, and +then footsteps, and then the dragging sound,--nothing but his bed, I am +quite sure,--I felt a stirring in the roots of my hair as the feasters +did in Keats's terrible poem of “Lamia.” + +There is nothing very odd in my feeling nervous when I happen to lie +awake and get listening for sounds. Just keep your ears open any time +after midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a dark +night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you will +hear! The stillness of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things seem +to be alive. Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never hear it +crack in the daytime. Creak! There's a door ajar; you know you shut them +all. + +Where can that latch be that rattles so? Is anybody trying it softly? +or, worse than any body, is---? (Cold shiver.) Then a sudden gust that +jars all the windows;--very strange!--there does not seem to be any wind +about that it belongs to. When it stops, you hear the worms boring in +the powdery beams overhead. Then steps outside,--a stray animal, no +doubt. All right,--but a gentle moisture breaks out all over you; and +then something like a whistle or a cry,--another gust of wind, perhaps; +that accounts for the rustling that just made your heart roll over and +tumble about, so that it felt more like a live rat under your ribs +than a part of your own body; then a crash of something that has +fallen,--blown over, very likely---Pater noster, qui es in coelis! for +you are damp and cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed trembling +so that the death-watch is frightened and has stopped ticking! + +No,--night is an awful time for strange noises and secret doings. Who +ever dreamed, till one of our sleepless neighbors told us of it, of that +Walpurgis gathering of birds and beasts of prey,--foxes, and owls, and +crows, and eagles, that come from all the country round on moonshiny +nights to crunch the clams and muscles, and pick out the eyes of dead +fishes that the storm has thrown on Chelsea Beach? Our old mother Nature +has pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when she comes in her dress +of blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops; but when she follows us +up-stairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and diamonds, every +creak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of mystery +and fear. + +You understand, then, distinctly, that I do not believe there is +anything about this singular little neighbor of mine which is as it +should not be. Probably a visit to his room would clear up all that has +puzzled me, and make me laugh at the notions which began, I suppose, in +nightmares, and ended by keeping my imagination at work so as almost to +make me uncomfortable at times. But it is not so easy to visit him as +some of our other boarders, for various reasons which I will not stop to +mention. I think some of them are rather pleased to get “the Professor” + under their ceilings. + +The young man John, for instance, asked me to come up one day and try +some “old Burbon,” which he said was A 1. On asking him what was the +number of his room, he answered, that it was forty-'leven, sky-parlor +floor, but that I shouldn't find it, if he did n't go ahead to show me +the way. I followed him to his habitat, being very willing to see in +what kind of warren he burrowed, and thinking I might pick up something +about the boarders who had excited my curiosity. + +Mighty close quarters they were where the young man John bestowed +himself and his furniture; this last consisting of a bed, a chair, +a bureau, a trunk, and numerous pegs with coats and “pants” and +“vests,”--as he was in the habit of calling waist-coats and pantaloons +or trousers,--hanging up as if the owner had melted out of them. +Several prints were pinned up unframed,--among them that grand national +portrait-piece, “Barnum presenting Ossian E. Dodge to Jenny Lind,” and a +picture of a famous trot, in which I admired anew the cabalistic air of +that imposing array of expressions, and especially the Italicized word, +“Dan Mace names b. h. Major Slocum,” and “Hiram Woodruff names g. m. +Lady Smith.” “Best three in five. Time: 2.40, 2.46, 2.50.” + +That set me thinking how very odd this matter of trotting horses is, as +an index of the mathematical exactness of the laws of living mechanism. +I saw Lady Suffolk trot a mile in 2.26. Flora Temple has trotted close +down to 2.20; and Ethan Allen in 2.25, or less. Many horses have trotted +their mile under 2.30; none that I remember in public as low down as +2.20. From five to ten seconds, then, in about a hundred and sixty is +the whole range of the maxima of the present race of trotting horses. +The same thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run a mile in +five minutes; but when one comes to the fractions below, they taper down +until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum is reached. Averages of masses +have been studied more than averages of maxima and minima. We know from +the Registrar-General's Reports, that a certain number of children--say +from one to two dozen--die every year in England from drinking hot water +out of spouts of teakettles. We know, that, among suicides, women and +men past a certain age almost never use fire-arms. A woman who has made +up her mind to die is still afraid of a pistol or a gun. Or is it that +the explosion would derange her costume? + +I say, averages of masses we have, but our tables of maxima we owe +to the sporting men more than to the philosophers. The lesson their +experience teaches is, that Nature makes no leaps,--does nothing per +saltum. The greatest brain that ever lived, no doubt, was only a +small fraction of an idea ahead of the second best. Just look at the +chess-players. Leaving out the phenomenal exceptions, the nice +shades that separate the skilful ones show how closely their brains +approximate,--almost as closely as chronometers. Such a person is a +“knight-player,”--he must have that piece given him. Another must have +two pawns. Another, “pawn and two,” or one pawn and two moves. Then +we find one who claims “pawn and move,” holding himself, with this +fractional advantage, a match for one who would be pretty sure to beat +him playing even.--So much are minds alike; and you and I think we +are “peculiar,”--that Nature broke her jelly-mould after shaping our +cerebral convolutions. So I reflected, standing and looking at the +picture. + +--I say, Governor,--broke in the young man John,--them bosses '11 stay +jest as well, if you'll only set down. I've had 'em this year, and they +haven't stirred.--He spoke, and handed the chair towards me,--seating +himself, at the same time, on the end of the bed. + +You have lived in this house some time?--I said,--with a note of +interrogation at the end of the statement. + +Do I look as if I'd lost much flesh--said he, answering my question by +another. + +No,--said I;--for that matter, I think you do credit to “the bountifully +furnished table of the excellent lady who provides so liberally for the +company that meets around her hospitable board.” + +[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of those disinterested +editorials in small type, which I suspect to have been furnished by +a friend of the landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This +impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment and +its head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a couple +of new boarders made a brief appearance at the table. One of them was +of the class of people who grumble if they don't get canvas-backs and +woodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week. The other was subject to +somnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have been +asleep in his bed. In this state he walked into several of the boarders' +chambers, his eyes wide open, as is usual with somnambulists, and, +from some odd instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, got +together a number of their watches, for the purpose of comparing them, +as it would seem. Among them was a repeater, belonging to our young +Marylander. He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was in his +chamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught hold of him and gave him +a dreadful shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and so left +him till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman used to taking +care of such cases of somnambulism.] + +If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over this parenthesis, +you will come to our conversation, which it has interrupted. + +It a'n't the feed,--said the young man John,--it's the old woman's looks +when a fellah lays it in too strong. The feed's well enough. After geese +have got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb's got old, 'n' +veal's pretty nigh beef, 'n' sparragrass 's growin' tall 'n' slim 'n' +scattery about the head, 'n' green peas are gettin' so big 'n' hard +they'd be dangerous if you fired 'em out of a revolver, we get hold of +all them delicacies of the season. But it's too much like feedin' on +live folks and devourin' widdah's substance, to lay yourself out in the +eatin' way, when a fellah 's as hungry as the chap that said a turkey +was too much for one 'n' not enough for two. I can't help lookin' at +the old woman. Corned-beef-days she's tolerable calm. Roastin'-days she +worries some, 'n' keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves. But when +there's anything in the poultry line, it seems to hurt her feelin's so +to see the knife goin' into the breast and joints comin' to pieces, that +there's no comfort in eatin'. When I cut up an old fowl and help the +boarders, I always feel as if I ought to say, Won't you have a slice of +widdah?--instead of chicken. + +The young man John fell into a train of reflections which ended in his +producing a Bologna sausage, a plate of “crackers,” as we Boston folks +call certain biscuits, and the bottle of whiskey described as being A 1. + +Under the influence of the crackers and sausage, he grew cordial and +communicative. + +It was time, I thought, to sound him as to those of our boarders who had +excited my curiosity. + +What do you think of our young Iris?--I began. + +Fust-rate little filly;-he said.--Pootiest and nicest little chap +I've seen since the schoolma'am left. Schoolma'am was a brown-haired +one,--eyes coffee-color. This one has got wine-colored eyes,--'n' that +'s the reason they turn a fellah's head, I suppose. + +This is a splendid blonde,--I said,--the other was a brunette. Which +style do you like best? + +Which do I like best, boiled mutton or roast mutton?--said the young man +John. Like 'em both,--it a'n't the color of 'em makes the goodness. I +'ve been kind of lonely since schoolma'am went away. Used to like to +look at her. I never said anything particular to her, that I remember, +but-- + +I don't know whether it was the cracker and sausage, or that the young +fellow's feet were treading on the hot ashes of some longing that had +not had time to cool, but his eye glistened as he stopped. + +I suppose she wouldn't have looked at a fellah like me,--he said,--but I +come pretty near tryin'. If she had said, Yes, though, I shouldn't have +known what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman now-a-days till +you're so deaf you have to cock your head like a parrot to hear what she +says, and so longsighted you can't see what she looks like nearer than +arm's-length. + +Here is another chance for you,--I said.--What do you want nicer than +such a young lady as Iris? + +It's no use,--he answered.--I look at them girls and feel as the fellah +did when he missed catchin' the trout.--'To'od 'a' cost more butter to +cook him 'n' he's worth,--says the fellah.--Takes a whole piece o' goods +to cover a girl up now-a-days. I'd as lief undertake to keep a span of +elephants,--and take an ostrich to board, too,--as to marry one of 'em. +What's the use? Clerks and counter-jumpers ain't anything. Sparragrass +and green peas a'n't for them,--not while they're young and tender. +Hossback-ridin' a'n't for them,--except once a year, on Fast-day. And +marryin' a'n't for them. Sometimes a fellah feels lonely, and would +like to have a nice young woman, to tell her how lonely he feels. And +sometimes a fellah,--here the young man John looked very confidential, +and, perhaps, as if a little ashamed of his weakness,--sometimes a +fellah would like to have one o' them small young ones to trot on his +knee and push about in a little wagon,--a kind of a little Johnny, you +know;--it's odd enough, but, it seems to me, nobody can afford them +little articles, except the folks that are so rich they can buy +everything, and the folks that are so poor they don't want anything. It +makes nice boys of us young fellahs, no doubt! And it's pleasant to see +fine young girls sittin', like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin', +and waitin', and waitin', 'n' no customers,--and the men lingerin' round +and lookin' at the goods, like folks that want to be customers, but have +n't the money! + +Do you think the deformed gentleman means to make love to Iris?--I said. + +What! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him! Well, now, that's cumin' +of it a little too strong. Yes, I guess she will marry him and carry +him round in a basket, like a lame bantam: Look here!--he said, +mysteriously;--one of the boarders swears there's a woman comes to see +him, and that he has heard her singin' and screechin'. I should like +to know what he's about in that den of his. He lays low 'n' keeps +dark,--and, I tell you, there's a good many of the boarders would like +to get into his chamber, but he don't seem to want 'em. Biddy could +tell somethin' about what she's seen when she 's been to put his room +to rights. She's a Paddy 'n' a fool, but she knows enough to keep her +tongue still. All I know is, I saw her crossin' herself one day when she +came out of that room. She looked pale enough, 'n' I heard her mutterin' +somethin' or other about the Blessed Virgin. If it had n't been for the +double doors to that chamber of his, I'd have had a squint inside before +this; but, somehow or other, it never seems to happen that they're both +open at once. + +What do you think he employs himself about? said I. + +The young man John winked. + +I waited patiently for the thought, of which this wink was the blossom, +to come to fruit in words. + +I don't believe in witches,--said the young man John. + +Nor I. + +We were both silent for a few minutes. + +--Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books,--I said, presently. + +All but one,--he answered;--she keeps a lock on that, and won't show it. +Ma'am Allen, (the young rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of the +gentleman with the diamond,) Ma'am Allen tried to peek into it one day +when she left it on the sideboard. “If you please,” says she,--'n' +took it from him, 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like a +caterpillar on a hot shovel. I only wished he had n't, and had jest +given her a little sass, for I've been takin' boxin'-lessons, 'n' I 've +got a new way of counterin' I want to try on to somebody. + +--The end of all this was, that I came away from the young fellow's +room, feeling that there were two principal things that I had to live +for, for the next six weeks or six months, if it should take so long. +These were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing-book, which I +suspected had her heart shut up in it, and to get a look into the Little +Gentleman's room. + +I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should trouble myself +about these matters. You tell me, with some show of reason, that all +I shall find in the young girl's--book will be some outlines of +angels with immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, and +caricatures, among which I shall probably have the pleasure of seeing +my own features figuring. Very likely. But I'll tell you what I think +I shall find. If this child has idealized the strange little bit of +humanity over which she seems to have spread her wings like a brooding +dove,--if, in one of those wild vagaries that passionate natures are so +liable to, she has fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, as +the sea-flowers fold about the first stray shell-fish that brushes their +outspread tentacles, depend upon it, I shall find the marks of it in +this drawing-book of hers,--if I can ever get a look at it,--fairly, of +course, for I would not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity. + +Then, if I can get into this Little Gentleman's room under any fair +pretext, I shall, no doubt, satisfy myself in five minutes that he is +just like other people, and that there is no particular mystery about +him. + +The night after my visit to the young man John, I made all these and +many more reflections. It was about two o'clock in the morning,--bright +starlight,--so light that I could make out the time on my +alarm-clock,--when I woke up trembling and very moist. It was the heavy +dragging sound, as I had often heard it before that waked me. Presently +a window was softly closed. I had just begun to get over the agitation +with which we always awake from nightmare dreams, when I heard the sound +which seemed to me as of a woman's voice,--the clearest, purest soprano +which one could well conceive of. It was not loud, and I could not +distinguish a word, if it was a woman's voice; but there were recurring +phrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached me, which suggested +the idea of complaint, and sometimes, I thought, of passionate grief and +despair. It died away at last,--and then I heard the opening of a door, +followed by a low, monotonous sound, as of one talking,--and then +the closing of a door,--and presently the light on the opposite wall +disappeared and all was still for the night. + +By George! this gets interesting,--I said, as I got out of bed for a +change of night-clothes. + +I had this in my pocket the other day, but thought I would n't read it +at our celebration. So I read it to the boarders instead, and print it +to finish off this record with. + + + ROBINSON OF LEYDEN. + + He sleeps not here; in hope and prayer + His wandering flock had gone before, + But he, the shepherd, might not share + Their sorrows on the wintry shore. + + Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, + Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, + While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, + The pastor spake, and thus he said:-- + + “Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! + God calls you hence from over sea; + Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, + Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. + + “Ye go to bear the saving word + To tribes unnamed and shores untrod: + Heed well the lessons ye have heard + From those old teachers taught of God. + + “Yet think not unto them was lent + All light for all the coming days, + And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent + In making straight the ancient ways. + + “The living fountain overflows + For every flock, for every lamb, + Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose + With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam.” + + He spake; with lingering, long embrace, + With tears of love and partings fond, + They floated down the creeping Maas, + Along the isle of Ysselmond. + + They passed the frowning towers of Briel, + The “Hook of Holland's” shelf of sand, + And grated soon with lifting keel + The sullen shores of Fatherland. + + No home for these!--too well they knew + The mitred king behind the throne; + The sails were set, the pennons flew, + And westward ho! for worlds unknown. + + --And these were they who gave us birth, + The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, + Who won for us this virgin earth, + And freedom with the soil they gave. + + The pastor slumbers by the Rhine, + --In alien earth the exiles lie, + --Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, + His words our noblest battle-cry! + + Still cry them, and the world shall hear, + Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! + Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, + Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! + + + + +VIII + +There has been a sort of stillness in the atmosphere of our +boarding-house since my last record, as if something or other were going +on. There is no particular change that I can think of in the aspect +of things; yet I have a feeling as if some game of life were quietly +playing and strange forces were at work, underneath this smooth surface +of every-day boardinghouse life, which would show themselves some +fine morning or other in events, if not in catastrophes. I have been +watchful, as I said I should be, but have little to tell as yet. You +may laugh at me, and very likely think me foolishly fanciful to trouble +myself about what is going on in a middling-class household like +ours. Do as you like. But here is that terrible fact to begin with,--a +beautiful young girl, with the blood and the nerve-fibre that belong to +Nature's women, turned loose among live men. + +-Terrible fact? + +Very terrible. Nothing more so. Do you forget the angels who lost heaven +for the daughters of men? Do you forget Helen, and the fair women who +made mischief and set nations by the ears before Helen was born? If +jealousies that gnaw men's hearts out of their bodies,--if pangs that +waste men to shadows and drive them into raving madness or moping +melancholy,--if assassination and suicide are dreadful possibilities, +then there is always something frightful about a lovely young woman.--I +love to look at this “Rainbow,” as her father used sometimes to call +her, of ours. Handsome creature that she is in forms and colors,--the +very picture, as it seems to me, of that “golden blonde” my friend whose +book you read last year fell in love with when he was a boy, (as you +remember, no doubt,)--handsome as she is, fit for a sea-king's bride, it +is not her beauty alone that holds my eyes upon her. Let me tell you +one of my fancies, and then you will understand the strange sort of +fascination she has for me. + +It is in the hearts of many men and women--let me add children--that +there is a Great Secret waiting for them,--a secret of which they get +hints now and then, perhaps oftener in early than in later years. +These hints come sometimes in dreams, sometimes in sudden startling +flashes,--second wakings, as it were,--a waking out of the waking state, +which last is very apt to be a half-sleep. I have many times stopped +short and held my breath, and felt the blood leaving my cheeks, in one +of these sudden clairvoyant flashes. Of course I cannot tell what +kind of a secret this is, but I think of it as a disclosure of +certain relations of our personal being to time and space, to other +intelligences, to the procession of events, and to their First Great +Cause. This secret seems to be broken up, as it were, into fragments, +so that we find here a word and there a syllable, and then again only a +letter of it; but it never is written out for most of us as a complete +sentence, in this life. I do not think it could be; for I am disposed to +consider our beliefs about such a possible disclosure rather as a kind +of premonition of an enlargement of our faculties in some future state +than as an expectation to be fulfilled for most of us in this life. +Persons, however, have fallen into trances,--as did the Reverend William +Tennent, among many others,--and learned some things which they could +not tell in our human words. + +Now among the visible objects which hint to us fragments of this +infinite secret for which our souls are waiting, the faces of women are +those that carry the most legible hieroglyphics of the great mystery. +There are women's faces, some real, some ideal, which contain something +in them that becomes a positive element in our creed, so direct and +palpable a revelation is it of the infinite purity and love. I remember +two faces of women with wings, such as they call angels, of Fra +Angelico,--and I just now came across a print of Raphael's Santa +Apollina, with something of the same quality,--which I was sure had +their prototypes in the world above ours. No wonder the Catholics pay +their vows to the Queen of Heaven! The unpoetical side of Protestantism +is, that it has no women to be worshipped. + +But mind you, it is not every beautiful face that hints the Great Secret +to us, nor is it only in beautiful faces that we find traces of it. +Sometimes it looks out from a sweet sad eye, the only beauty of a plain +countenance; sometimes there is so much meaning in the lips of a woman, +not otherwise fascinating, that we know they have a message for us, and +wait almost with awe to hear their accents. But this young girl has at +once the beauty of feature and the unspoken mystery of expression. Can +she tell me anything? + +Is her life a complement of mine, with the missing element in it which +I have been groping after through so many friendships that I have tired +of, and through--Hush! Is the door fast? Talking loud is a bad trick in +these curious boarding-houses. + +You must have sometimes noted this fact that I am going to remind you of +and to use for a special illustration. Riding along over a rocky road, +suddenly the slow monotonous grinding of the crushing gravel changes to +a deep heavy rumble. There is a great hollow under your feet,--a huge +unsunned cavern. Deep, deep beneath you in the core of the living +rock, it arches its awful vault, and far away it stretches its winding +galleries, their roofs dripping into streams where fishes have been +swimming and spawning in the dark until their scales are white as milk +and their eyes have withered out, obsolete and useless. + +So it is in life. We jog quietly along, meeting the same faces, grinding +over the same thoughts, the gravel of the soul's highway,--now and then +jarred against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must ride over or round +as we best may, sometimes bringing short up against a disappointment, +but still working along with the creaking and rattling and grating +and jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in the +smoothest-rolling vehicle. Suddenly we hear the deep underground +reverberation that reveals the unsuspected depth of some abyss of +thought or passion beneath us. + +I wish the girl would go. I don't like to look at her so much, and yet I +cannot help it. Always that same expression of something that I ought to +know,--something that she was made to tell and I to hear,--lying there +ready to fall off from her lips, ready to leap out of her eyes and make +a saint of me, or a devil or a lunatic, or perhaps a prophet to tell the +truth and be hated of men, or a poet whose words shall flash upon the +dry stubble-field of worn-out thoughts and burn over an age of lies in +an hour of passion. + +It suddenly occurs to me that I may have put you on the wrong track. The +Great Secret that I refer to has nothing to do with the Three Words. Set +your mind at ease about that,--there are reasons I could give you which +settle all that matter. I don't wonder, however, that you confounded the +Great Secret with the Three Words. + +I LOVE YOU is all the secret that many, nay, most women have to tell. +When that is said, they are like China-crackers on the morning of the +fifth of July. And just as that little patriotic implement is made with +a slender train which leads to the magazine in its interior, so a sharp +eye can almost always see the train leading from a young girl's eye or +lip to the “I love you” in her heart. But the Three Words are not the +Great Secret I mean. No, women's faces are only one of the tablets +on which that is written in its partial, fragmentary symbols. It lies +deeper than Love, though very probably Love is a part of it. Some, I +think,--Wordsworth might be one of them,--spell out a portion of it from +certain beautiful natural objects, landscapes, flowers, and others. I +can mention several poems of his that have shadowy hints which seem +to me to come near the region where I think it lies. I have known two +persons who pursued it with the passion of the old alchemists,--all +wrong evidently, but infatuated, and never giving up the daily search +for it until they got tremulous and feeble, and their dreams changed to +visions of things that ran and crawled about their floor and ceilings, +and so they died. The vulgar called them drunkards. + +I told you that I would let you know the mystery of the effect this +young girl's face produces on me. It is akin to those influences a +friend of mine has described, you may remember, as coming from certain +voices. I cannot translate it into words,--only into feelings; and +these I have attempted to shadow by showing that her face hinted that +revelation of something we are close to knowing, which all imaginative +persons are looking for either in this world or on the very threshold of +the next. + +You shake your head at the vagueness and fanciful incomprehensibleness +of my description of the expression in a young girl's face. You forget +what a miserable surface-matter this language is in which we try to +reproduce our interior state of being. Articulation is a shallow trick. +From the light Poh! which we toss off from our lips as we fling a +nameless scribbler's impertinence into our waste-baskets, to the gravest +utterances which comes from our throats in our moments of deepest need, +is only a space of some three or four inches. Words, which are a set of +clickings, hissings, lispings, and so on, mean very little, compared to +tones and expression of the features. I give it up; I thought I could +shadow forth in some feeble way, by their aid, the effect this young +girl's face produces on my imagination; but it is of no use. No doubt +your head aches, trying to make something of my description. If there +is here and there one that can make anything intelligible out of my talk +about the Great Secret, and who has spelt out a syllable or two of it on +some woman's face, dead or living, that is all I can expect. One should +see the person with whom he converses about such matters. There +are dreamy-eyed people to whom I should say all these things with a +certainty of being understood;-- + + That moment that his face I see, + I know the man that must hear me + To him my tale I teach. + +--I am afraid some of them have not got a spare quarter of a dollar for +this August number, so that they will never see it. + +--Let us start again, just as if we had not made this ambitious attempt, +which may go for nothing, and you can have your money refunded, if you +will make the change. + +This young girl, about whom I have talked so unintelligibly, is the +unconscious centre of attraction to the whole solar system of our +breakfast-table. The Little Gentleman leans towards her, and she again +seems to be swayed as by some invisible gentle force towards him. That +slight inclination of two persons with a strong affinity towards each +other, throwing them a little out of plumb when they sit side by side, +is a physical fact I have often noticed. Then there is a tendency in all +the men's eyes to converge on her; and I do firmly believe, that, if +all their chairs were examined, they would be found a little obliquely +placed, so as to favor the direction in which their occupants love to +look. + +That bland, quiet old gentleman, of whom I have spoken as sitting +opposite to me, is no exception to the rule. She brought down some +mignonette one morning, which she had grown in her chamber. She gave a +sprig to her little neighbor, and one to the landlady, and sent another +by the hand of Bridget to this old gentleman. + +--Sarvant, Ma'am I Much obleeged,--he said, and put it gallantly in his +button-hole.--After breakfast he must see some of her drawings. Very +fine performances,--very fine!--truly elegant productions, truly +elegant!--Had seen Miss Linwood's needlework in London, in the year +(eighteen hundred and little or nothing, I think he said,)--patronized +by the nobility and gentry, and Her Majesty,--elegant, truly elegant +productions, very fine performances; these drawings reminded him of +them;--wonderful resemblance to Nature; an extraordinary art, painting; +Mr. Copley made some very fine pictures that he remembered seeing when +he was a boy. Used to remember some lines about a portrait Written by +Mr. Cowper, beginning, + + “Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd + With me but roughly since I heard thee last.” + +And with this the old gentleman fell to thinking about a dead mother +of his that he remembered ever so much younger than he now was, and +looking, not as his mother, but as his daughter should look. The dead +young mother was looking at the old man, her child, as she used to look +at him so many, many years ago. He stood still as if in a waking dream, +his eyes fixed on the drawings till their outlines grew indistinct and +they ran into each other, and a pale, sweet face shaped itself out of +the glimmering light through which he saw them.--What is there quite +so profoundly human as an old man's memory of a mother who died in his +earlier years? Mother she remains till manhood, and by-and-by she grows +to be as a sister; and at last, when, wrinkled and bowed and broken, +he looks back upon her in her fair youth, he sees in the sweet image he +caresses, not his parent, but, as it were, his child. + +If I had not seen all this in the old gentleman's face, the words with +which he broke his silence would have betrayed his train of thought. + +--If they had only taken pictures then as they do now!--he said.--All +gone! all gone! nothing but her face as she leaned on the arms of her +great chair; and I would give a hundred pound for the poorest little +picture of her, such as you can buy for a shilling of anybody that you +don't want to see.--The old gentleman put his hand to his forehead so as +to shade his eyes. I saw he was looking at the dim photograph of memory, +and turned from him to Iris. + +How many drawing-books have you filled,--I said,--since you began to +take lessons?--This was the first,--she answered,--since she was here; +and it was not full, but there were many separate sheets of large size +she had covered with drawings. + +I turned over the leaves of the book before us. Academic studies, +principally of the human figure. Heads of sibyls, prophets, and so +forth. Limbs from statues. Hands and feet from Nature. What a superb +drawing of an arm! I don't remember it among the figures from Michel +Angelo, which seem to have been her patterns mainly. From Nature, I +think, or after a cast from Nature.--Oh! + +--Your smaller studies are in this, I suppose,--I said, taking up the +drawing-book with a lock on it,--Yes,--she said.--I should like to see +her style of working on a small scale.--There was nothing in it worth +showing,--she said; and presently I saw her try the lock, which proved +to be fast. We are all caricatured in it, I haven't the least doubt. +I think, though, I could tell by her way of dealing with us what +her fancies were about us boarders. Some of them act as if they were +bewitched with her, but she does not seem to notice it much. Her +thoughts seem to be on her little neighbor more than on anybody else. +The young fellow John appears to stand second in her good graces. I +think he has once or twice sent her what the landlady's daughter calls +bo-kays of flowers,--somebody has, at any rate.--I saw a book she +had, which must have come from the divinity-student. It had a dreary +title-page, which she had enlivened with a fancy portrait of the +author,--a face from memory, apparently,--one of those faces that small +children loathe without knowing why, and which give them that inward +disgust for heaven so many of the little wretches betray, when they +hear that these are “good men,” and that heaven is full of such.--The +gentleman with the diamond--the Koh-i-noor, so called by us--was not +encouraged, I think, by the reception of his packet of perfumed soap. He +pulls his purple moustache and looks appreciatingly at Iris, who never +sees him, as it should seem. The young Marylander, who I thought would +have been in love with her before this time, sometimes looks from his +corner across the long diagonal of the table, as much as to say, I +wish you were up here by me, or I were down there by you,--which would, +perhaps, be a more natural arrangement than the present one. But nothing +comes of all this,--and nothing has come of my sagacious idea of finding +out the girl's fancies by looking into her locked drawing-book. + +Not to give up all the questions I was determined to solve, I made +an attempt also to work into the Little Gentleman's chamber. For this +purpose, I kept him in conversation, one morning, until he was just +ready to go up-stairs, and then, as if to continue the talk, followed +him as he toiled back to his room. He rested on the landing and faced +round toward me. There was something in his eye which said, Stop there! +So we finished our conversation on the landing. The next day, I mustered +assurance enough to knock at his door, having a pretext ready.--No +answer.--Knock again. A door, as if of a cabinet, was shut softly and +locked, and presently I heard the peculiar dead beat of his thick-soled, +misshapen boots. The bolts and the lock of the inner door were +unfastened,--with unnecessary noise, I thought,--and he came into the +passage. He pulled the inner door after him and opened the outer one +at which I stood. He had on a flowered silk dressing-gown, such as +“Mr. Copley” used to paint his old-fashioned merchant-princes in; and +a quaint-looking key in his hand. Our conversation was short, but long +enough to convince me that the Little Gentleman did not want my company +in his chamber, and did not mean to have it. + +I have been making a great fuss about what is no mystery at all,--a +schoolgirl's secrets and a whimsical man's habits. I mean to give up +such nonsense and mind my own business.--Hark! What the deuse is that +odd noise in his chamber? + +--I think I am a little superstitious. There were two things, when I was +a boy, that diabolized my imagination,--I mean, that gave me a distinct +apprehension of a formidable bodily shape which prowled round the +neighborhood where I was born and bred. The first was a series of +marks called the “Devil's footsteps.” These were patches of sand in +the pastures, where no grass grew, where the low-bush blackberry, the +“dewberry,” as our Southern neighbors call it, in prettier and more +Shakspearian language, did not spread its clinging creepers,--where even +the pale, dry, sadly-sweet “everlasting” could not grow, but all was +bare and blasted. The second was a mark in one of the public buildings +near my home,--the college dormitory named after a Colonial Governor. +I do not think many persons are aware of the existence of this +mark,--little having been said about the story in print, as it was +considered very desirable, for the sake of the Institution, to hush it +up. In the northwest corner, and on the level of the third or fourth +story, there are signs of a breach in the walls, mended pretty well, but +not to be mistaken. A considerable portion of that corner must have been +carried away, from within outward. It was an unpleasant affair; and I +do not care to repeat the particulars; but some young men had been using +sacred things in a profane and unlawful way, when the occurrence, which +was variously explained, took place. The story of the Appearance in the +chamber was, I suppose, invented afterwards; but of the injury to the +building there could be no question; and the zig-zag line, where the +mortar is a little thicker than before, is still distinctly visible. The +queer burnt spots, called the “Devil's footsteps,” had never attracted +attention before this time, though there is no evidence that they had +not existed previously, except that of the late Miss M., a “Goody,” so +called, or sweeper, who was positive on the subject, but had a strange +horror of referring to an affair of which she was thought to know +something.--I tell you it was not so pleasant for a little boy of +impressible nature to go up to bed in an old gambrel-roofed house, with +untenanted, locked upper-chambers, and a most ghostly garret,--with the +“Devil's footsteps” in the fields behind the house and in front of it +the patched dormitory where the unexplained occurrence had taken place +which startled those godless youths at their mock devotions, so that +one of them was epileptic from that day forward, and another, after a +dreadful season of mental conflict, took holy orders and became renowned +for his ascetic sanctity. + +There were other circumstances that kept up the impression produced +by these two singular facts I have just mentioned. There was a dark +storeroom, on looking through the key-hole of which, I could dimly see a +heap of chairs and tables, and other four-footed things, which seemed +to me to have rushed in there, frightened, and in their fright to have +huddled together and climbed up on each other's backs,--as the people +did in that awful crush where so many were killed, at the execution of +Holloway and Haggerty. Then the Lady's portrait, up-stairs, with the +sword-thrusts through it,--marks of the British officers' rapiers,--and +the tall mirror in which they used to look at their red coats,--confound +them for smashing its mate?--and the deep, cunningly wrought arm-chair +in which Lord Percy used to sit while his hair was dressing;--he was a +gentleman, and always had it covered with a large peignoir, to save +the silk covering my grandmother embroidered. Then the little room +downstairs from which went the orders to throw up a bank of earth on the +hill yonder, where you may now observe a granite obelisk,--“the study” + in my father's time, but in those days the council-chamber of armed +men,--sometimes filled with soldiers; come with me, and I will show you +the “dents” left by the butts of their muskets all over the floor. With +all these suggestive objects round me, aided by the wild stories +those awful country-boys that came to live in our service brought with +them;--of contracts written in blood and left out over night, not to be +found the next morning, (removed by the Evil One, who takes his nightly +round among our dwellings, and filed away for future use,)--of dreams +coming true,--of death-signs,--of apparitions, no wonder that my +imagination got excited, and I was liable to superstitious fancies. + +Jeremy Bentham's logic, by which he proved that he couldn't possibly see +a ghost is all very well-in the day-time. All the reason in the world +will never get those impressions of childhood, created by just such +circumstances as I have been telling, out of a man's head. That is the +only excuse I have to give for the nervous kind of curiosity with which +I watch my little neighbor, and the obstinacy with which I lie awake +whenever I hear anything going on in his chamber after midnight. + +But whatever further observations I may have made must be deferred for +the present. You will see in what way it happened that my thoughts were +turned from spiritual matters to bodily ones, and how I got my fancy +full of material images,--faces, heads, figures, muscles, and so +forth,--in such a way that I should have no chance in this number to +gratify any curiosity you may feel, if I had the means of so doing. + +Indeed, I have come pretty near omitting my periodical record this time. +It was all the work of a friend of mine, who would have it that I +should sit to him for my portrait. When a soul draws a body in the great +lottery of life, where every one is sure of a prize, such as it is, the +said soul inspects the said body with the same curious interest with +which one who has ventured into a “gift enterprise” examines the +“massive silver pencil-case” with the coppery smell and impressible +tube, or the “splendid gold ring” with the questionable specific +gravity, which it has been his fortune to obtain in addition to his +purchase. + +The soul, having studied the article of which it finds itself +proprietor, thinks, after a time, it knows it pretty well. But there is +this difference between its view and that of a person looking at us:--we +look from within, and see nothing but the mould formed by the elements +in which we are incased; other observers look from without, and see +us as living statues. To be sure, by the aid of mirrors, we get a few +glimpses of our outside aspect; but this occasional impression is always +modified by that look of the soul from within outward which none but +ourselves can take. A portrait is apt, therefore, to be a surprise to +us. The artist looks only from without. He sees us, too, with a hundred +aspects on our faces we are never likely to see. No genuine expression +can be studied by the subject of it in the looking-glass. + +More than this; he sees us in a way in which many of our friends or +acquaintances never see us. Without wearing any mask we are conscious +of, we have a special face for each friend. For, in the first place, +each puts a special reflection of himself upon us, on the principle of +assimilation you found referred to in my last record, if you happened +to read that document. And secondly, each of our friends is capable of +seeing just so far, and no farther, into our face, and each sees in it +the particular thing that he looks for. Now the artist, if he is truly +an artist, does not take any one of these special views. Suppose he +should copy you as you appear to the man who wants your name to a +subscription-list, you could hardly expect a friend who entertains you +to recognize the likeness to the smiling face which sheds its radiance +at his board. Even within your own family, I am afraid there is a +face which the rich uncle knows, that is not so familiar to the poor +relation. The artist must take one or the other, or something compounded +of the two, or something different from either. What the daguerreotype +and photograph do is to give the features and one particular look, the +very look which kills all expression, that of self-consciousness. The +artist throws you off your guard, watches you in movement and in repose, +puts your face through its exercises, observes its transitions, and +so gets the whole range of its expression. Out of all this he forms an +ideal portrait, which is not a copy of your exact look at any one time +or to any particular person. Such a portrait cannot be to everybody what +the ungloved call “as nat'ral as life.” Every good picture, therefore, +must be considered wanting in resemblance by many persons. + +There is one strange revelation which comes out, as the artist shapes +your features from his outline. It is that you resemble so many +relatives to whom you yourself never had noticed any particular likeness +in your countenance. + +He is at work at me now, when I catch some of these resemblances, thus: + +There! that is just the look my father used to have sometimes; I never +thought I had a sign of it. The mother's eyebrow and grayish-blue eye, +those I knew I had. But there is a something which recalls a smile that +faded away from my sister's lips--how many years ago! I thought it so +pleasant in her, that I love myself better for having a trace of it. + +Are we not young? Are we not fresh and blooming? Wait, a bit. The artist +takes a mean little brush and draws three fine lines, diverging +outwards from the eye over the temple. Five years.--The artist draws +one tolerably distinct and two faint lines, perpendicularly between the +eyebrows. Ten years.--The artist breaks up the contours round the mouth, +so that they look a little as a hat does that has been sat upon and +recovered itself, ready, as one would say, to crumple up again in the +same creases, on smiling or other change of feature.--Hold on! Stop +that! Give a young fellow a chance! Are we not whole years short of that +interesting period of life when Mr. Balzac says that a man, etc., etc., +etc.? + +There now! That is ourself, as we look after finishing an article, +getting a three-mile pull with the ten-foot sculls, redressing the +wrongs of the toilet, and standing with the light of hope in our eye +and the reflection of a red curtain on our cheek. Is he not a POET that +painted us? + + “Blest be the art that can immortalize!” + COWPER. + +--Young folks look on a face as a unit; children who go to school with +any given little John Smith see in his name a distinctive appellation, +and in his features as special and definite an expression of his sole +individuality as if he were the first created of his race: As soon as +we are old enough to get the range of three or four generations well in +hand, and to take in large family histories, we never see an individual +in a face of any stock we know, but a mosaic copy of a pattern, with +fragmentary tints from this and that ancestor. The analysis of a face +into its ancestral elements requires that it should be examined in the +very earliest infancy, before it has lost that ancient and solemn look +it brings with it out of the past eternity; and again in that brief +space when Life, the mighty sculptor, has done his work, and Death, his +silent servant, lifts the veil and lets us look at the marble lines he +has wrought so faithfully; and lastly, while a painter who can seize all +the traits of a countenance is building it up, feature after feature, +from the slight outline to the finished portrait. + +--I am satisfied, that, as we grow older, we learn to look upon our +bodies more and more as a temporary possession and less and less as +identified with ourselves. In early years, while the child “feels its +life in every limb,” it lives in the body and for the body to a very +great extent. It ought to be so. There have been many very interesting +children who have shown a wonderful indifference to the things of earth +and an extraordinary development of the spiritual nature. There is a +perfect literature of their biographies, all alike in their essentials; +the same “disinclination to the usual amusements of childhood “; +the same remarkable sensibility; the same docility; the same +conscientiousness; in short, an almost uniform character, marked by +beautiful traits, which we look at with a painful admiration. It will +be found that most of these children are the subjects of some +constitutional unfitness for living, the most frequent of which I need +not mention. They are like the beautiful, blushing, half-grown fruit +that falls before its time because its core is gnawed out. They have +their meaning,--they do not-live in vain,--but they are windfalls. I am +convinced that many healthy children are injured morally by being forced +to read too much about these little meek sufferers and their spiritual +exercises. Here is a boy that loves to run, swim, kick football, turn +somersets, make faces, whittle, fish, tear his clothes, coast, skate, +fire crackers, blow squash “tooters,” cut his name on fences, read about +Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad the Sailor, eat the widest-angled slices of +pie and untold cakes and candies, crack nuts with his back teeth and +bite out the better part of another boy's apple with his front ones, +turn up coppers, “stick” knives, call names, throw stones, knock off +hats, set mousetraps, chalk doorsteps, “cut behind” anything on +wheels or runners, whistle through his teeth, “holler” Fire! on slight +evidence, run after soldiers, patronize an engine-company, or, in his +own words, “blow for tub No. 11,” or whatever it may be;--isn't that +a pretty nice sort of a boy, though he has not got anything the matter +with him that takes the taste of this world out? Now, when you put into +such a hot-blooded, hard-fisted, round-cheeked little rogue's hand a +sad-looking volume or pamphlet, with the portrait of a thin, white-faced +child, whose life is really as much a training for death as the last +month of a condemned criminal's existence, what does he find in common +between his own overflowing and exulting sense of vitality and the +experiences of the doomed offspring of invalid parents? The time comes +when we have learned to understand the music of sorrow, the beauty of +resigned suffering, the holy light that plays over the pillow of those +who die before their time, in humble hope and trust. But it is not +until he has worked his way through the period of honest hearty animal +existence, which every robust child should make the most of,--not until +he has learned the use of his various faculties, which is his first +duty,--that a boy of courage and animal vigor is in a proper state to +read these tearful records of premature decay. I have no doubt that +disgust is implanted in the minds of many healthy children by early +surfeits of pathological piety. I do verily believe that He who took +children in His arms and blessed them loved the healthiest and +most playful of them just as well as those who were richest in the +tuberculous virtues. I know what I am talking about, and there are more +parents in this country who will be willing to listen to what I say than +there are fools to pick a quarrel with me. In the sensibility and the +sanctity which often accompany premature decay I see one of the most +beautiful instances of the principle of compensation which marks the +Divine benevolence. But to get the spiritual hygiene of robust natures +out of the exceptional regimen of invalids is just simply what we +Professors call “bad practice”; and I know by experience that there are +worthy people who not only try it on their own children, but actually +force it on those of their neighbors. + +--Having been photographed, and stereographed, and chromatographed, or +done in colors, it only remained to be phrenologized. A polite note +from Messrs. Bumpus and Crane, requesting our attendance at their +Physiological Emporium, was too tempting to be resisted. We repaired to +that scientific Golgotha. + +Messrs. Bumpus and Crane are arranged on the plan of the man and the +woman in the toy called a “weather-house,” both on the same wooden arm +suspended on a pivot,--so that when one comes to the door, the other +retires backwards, and vice versa. The more particular speciality of one +is to lubricate your entrance and exit,--that of the other to polish +you off phrenologically in the recesses of the establishment. Suppose +yourself in a room full of casts and pictures, before a counterful of +books with taking titles. I wonder if the picture of the brain is +there, “approved” by a noted Phrenologist, which was copied from my, the +Professor's, folio plate, in the work of Gall and Spurzheim. An extra +convolution, No. 9, Destructiveness, according to the list beneath, +which was not to be seen in the plate, itself a copy of Nature, was very +liberally supplied by the artist, to meet the wants of the catalogue +of “organs.” Professor Bumpus is seated in front of a row of women, +--horn-combers and gold-beaders, or somewhere about that range of +life,--looking so credulous, that, if any Second-Advent Miller or Joe +Smith should come along, he could string the whole lot of them on his +cheapest lie, as a boy strings a dozen “shiners” on a stripped twig of +willow. + +The Professor (meaning ourselves) is in a hurry, as usual; let +the horn-combers wait,--he shall be bumped without inspecting the +antechamber. + +Tape round the head,--22 inches. (Come on, old 23 inches, if you think +you are the better man!) + +Feels thorax and arm, and nuzzles round among muscles as those horrid +old women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls +at the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other. +Victuality, (organ at epigastrium,) some other number equally +significant. + +Mild champooing of head now commences. 'Extraordinary revelations! +Cupidiphilous, 6! Hymeniphilous, 6 +! Paediphilous, 5! Deipniphilous, 6! +Gelasmiphilous, 6! Musikiphilous, 5! Uraniphilous, 5! Glossiphilous, 8!! +and so on. Meant for a linguist.--Invaluable information. Will invest in +grammars and dictionaries immediately.--I have nothing against the grand +total of my phrenological endowments. + +I never set great store by my head, and did not think Messrs. Bumpus +and Crane would give me so good a lot of organs as they did, especially +considering that I was a dead-head on that occasion. Much obliged to +them for their politeness. They have been useful in their way by calling +attention to important physiological facts. (This concession is due to +our immense bump of Candor.) + +A short Lecture on Phrenology, read to the Boarders at our +Breakfast-Table. + +I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a Pseudo-science. +A Pseudo-science consists of a nomenclature, with a self-adjusting +arrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favors its +doctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells +against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some lucrative +practical application. Its professors and practitioners are usually +shrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink and laugh +a good deal among themselves. The believing multitude consists of women +of both sexes, feeble minded inquirers, poetical optimists, people +who always get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists who insist +on hurrying up the millennium, and others of this class, with here and +there a clergyman, less frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician, +and almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detective police.--I +do not say that Phrenology was one of the Pseudo-sciences. + +A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It may +contain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank starts +with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay on the +strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a good one. +The practitioners of the Pseudo-sciences know that common minds, after +they have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump at the merest +rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have one fact found us, +we are very apt to supply the next out of our own imagination. (How +many persons can read Judges xv. 16 correctly the first time?) The +Pseudo-sciences take advantage of this.--I did not say that it was so +with Phrenology. + +I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there was +something in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly agreed, +promises intellect; one that is “villanous low” and has a huge hind-head +back of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as rarely met +an unbiassed and sensible man who really believed in the bumps. It is +observed, however, that persons with what the Phrenologists call “good +heads” are more prone than others toward plenary belief in the doctrine. + +It is so hard to prove a negative, that, if a man should assert that the +moon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable substance +of the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, I might be +puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar cheese, I call +on him to prove the truth of the Gaseous nature of our satellite, before +I purchase. + +It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological statement. +It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved, and cannot +be, by the common course of argument. The walls of the head are double, +with a great air-chamber between them, over the smallest and most +closely crowded “organs.” Can you tell how much money there is in a +safe, which also has thick double walls, by kneading its knobs with your +fingers? So when a man fumbles about my forehead, and talks about the +organs of Individuality, Size, etc., I trust him as much as I should +if he felt of the outside of my strong-box and told me that there was +a five-dollar or a ten-dollar-bill under this or that particular rivet. +Perhaps there is; only he does n't know anything about at. But this is +a point that I, the Professor, understand, my friends, or ought +to, certainly, better than you do. The next argument you will all +appreciate. + +I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of +Phrenology, which is very similar to that of the Pseudo-sciences. An +example will show it most conveniently. + +A. is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and find a +good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. Casts +and drawings of A. are multiplied, and the bump does not lose in the act +of copying.--I did not say it gained.--What do you look so for? (to the +boarders.) + +Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But B. has no bump at all +over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology.--Not a bit +of it. Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is? That's the reason +B. stole. + +And then comes C., ten times as much a thief as either A. or B.,--used +to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own pockets and +put its contents in another, if he could find no other way of committing +petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a hollow, instead of a bump, +over Acquisitiveness. Ah, but just look and see what a bump of +Alimentiveness! Did not C. buy nuts and gingerbread, when a boy, with +the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a thief, and how his +example confirms our noble science. + +At last comes along a case which is apparently a settler, for there is +a little brain with vast and varied powers,--a case like that of Byron, +for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which covers +everything and renders it simply impossible ever to corner a +Phrenologist. “It is not the size alone, but the quality of an organ, +which determines its degree of power.” + +Oh! oh! I see.--The argument may be briefly stated thus by the +Phrenologist: “Heads I win, tails you lose.” Well, that's convenient. + +It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to the +Pseudo-sciences. I did not say it was a Pseudo-science. + +I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and amazed +at the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of Phrenology had +read their characters written upon their skulls. Of course the Professor +acquires his information solely through his cranial inspections and +manipulations.--What are you laughing at? (to the boarders.)--But let us +just suppose, for a moment, that a tolerably cunning fellow, who did not +know or care anything about Phrenology, should open a shop and undertake +to read off people's characters at fifty cents or a dollar apiece. Let +us see how well he could get along without the “organs.” + +I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I would invest one hundred +dollars, more or less, in casts of brains, skulls, charts, and other +matters that would make the most show for the money. That would do to +begin with. I would then advertise myself as the celebrated Professor +Brainey, or whatever name I might choose, and wait for my first +customer. My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him,--ask +him a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the +hang of him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, +dictating as follows: SCALE FROM 1 TO 10. + + + LIST OF FACULTIES FOR PRIVATE NOTES FOR MY PUPIL. + CUSTOMER. + Each to be accompanied with a wink. + + Amativeness, 7. Most men love the conflicting sex, and all + men love to be told they do. + + Alimentiveness, 8. Don't you see that he has burst off his + lowest waistcoat-button with feeding,--hey + + Acquisitiveness, 8. Of course. A middle-aged Yankee. + + Approbativeness 7+. Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the + effect of that plus sign. + + Self-Esteem 6. His face shows that. + + Benevolence 9. That'll please him. + + Conscientiousness 8 1/2 That fraction looks first-rate. + + Mirthfulness 7 Has laughed twice since he came in. + + Ideality 9 That sounds well. + + Form, Size, Weight, 4 to 6. Average everything that Color, Locality, + cannot be guessed. Eventuality, etc. etc. + + And so of the other faculties. + + +Of course, you know, that isn't the way the Phrenologists do. They go +only by the bumps.--What do you keep laughing so for? (to the boarders.) +I only said that is the way I should practise “Phrenology” for a living. + + End of my Lecture. + + +--The Reformers have good heads, generally. Their faces are commonly +serene enough, and they are lambs in private intercourse, even though +their voices may be like + + The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore, + +when heard from the platform. Their greatest spiritual danger is from +the perpetual flattery of abuse to which they are exposed. These lines +are meant to caution them. + + + SAINT ANTHONY THE REFORMER. + + HIS TEMPTATION. + + No fear lest praise should make us proud! + We know how cheaply that is won; + The idle homage of the crowd + Is proof of tasks as idly done. + + A surface-smile may pay the toil + That follows still the conquering Right, + With soft, white hands to dress the spoil + That sunbrowned valor clutched in fight. + + Sing the sweet song of other days, + Serenely placid, safely true, + And o'er the present's parching ways + Thy verse distils like evening dew. + + But speak in words of living power, + --They fall like drops of scalding rain + That plashed before the burning shower + Swept o'er the cities of the plain! + + Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale, + --Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring, + And, smitten through their leprous mail, + Strike right and left in hope to sting. + + If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, + Thy feet on earth, thy heart above, + Canst walk in peace thy kingly path, + Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,-- + + Too kind for bitter words to grieve, + Too firm for clamor to dismay, + When Faith forbids thee to believe, + And Meekness calls to disobey,-- + + Ah, then beware of mortal pride! + The smiling pride that calmly scorns + Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed + In laboring on thy crown of thorns! + + + + +IX + +One of our boarders--perhaps more than one was concerned in it--sent in +some questions to me, the other day, which, trivial as some of them are, +I felt bound to answer. + +1.--Whether a lady was ever known to write a letter covering only a +single page? + +To this I answered, that there was a case on record where a lady had but +half a sheet of paper and no envelope; and being obliged to send through +the post-office, she covered only one side of the paper (crosswise, +lengthwise, and diagonally). + +2.--What constitutes a man a gentleman? + +To this I gave several answers, adapted to particular classes of +questioners. + +a. Not trying to be a gentleman. + +b. Self-respect underlying courtesy. + +c. Knowledge and observance of the fitness of things in social +intercourse. + +d. f. s. d. (as many suppose.) + +3.--Whether face or figure is most attractive in the female sex? + +Answered in the following epigram, by a young man about town: + + Quoth Tom, “Though fair her features be, + It is her figure pleases me.” + “What may her figure be?” I cried. + “One hundred thousand!” he replied. + +When this was read to the boarders, the young man John said he should +like a chance to “step up” to a figger of that kind, if the girl was one +of the right sort. + +The landlady said them that merried for money didn't deserve the +blessin' of a good wife. Money was a great thing when them that had it +made a good use of it. She had seen better days herself, and knew what +it was never to want for anything. One of her cousins merried a very +rich old gentleman, and she had heerd that he said he lived ten year +longer than if he'd staid by himself without anybody to take care of +him. There was nothin' like a wife for nussin' sick folks and them that +couldn't take care of themselves. + +The young man John got off a little wink, and pointed slyly with his +thumb in the direction of our diminutive friend, for whom he seemed to +think this speech was intended. + +If it was meant for him, he did n't appear to know that it was. Indeed, +he seems somewhat listless of late, except when the conversation falls +upon one of those larger topics that specially interest him, and then he +grows excited, speaks loud and fast, sometimes almost savagely,--and, I +have noticed once or twice, presses his left hand to his right side, +as if there were something that ached, or weighed, or throbbed in that +region. + +While he speaks in this way, the general conversation is interrupted, +and we all listen to him. Iris looks steadily in his face, and then +he will turn as if magnetized and meet the amber eyes with his own +melancholy gaze. I do believe that they have some kind of understanding +together, that they meet elsewhere than at our table, and that there is +a mystery, which is going to break upon us all of a sudden, involving +the relations of these two persons. From the very first, they have taken +to each other. The one thing they have in common is the heroic will. +In him, it shows itself in thinking his way straightforward, in doing +battle for “free trade and no right of search” on the high seas of +religious controversy, and especially in fighting the battles of his +crooked old city. In her, it is standing up for her little friend with +the most queenly disregard of the code of boarding-house etiquette. +People may say or look what they like,--she will have her way about this +sentiment of hers. + +The Poor Relation is in a dreadful fidget whenever the Little Gentleman +says anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seems +to think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had the +toothache,--and that if she opens her mouth to the quarter the wind +blows from, she will catch her “death o' cold.” + +The landlady herself came to him one day, as I have found out, and +tried to persuade him to hold his tongue.--The boarders was gettin' +uneasy,--she said,--and some of 'em would go, she mistrusted, if he +talked any more about things that belonged to the ministers to settle. +She was a poor woman, that had known better days, but all her livin' +depended on her boarders, and she was sure there was n't any of 'em she +set so much by as she did by him; but there was them that never liked to +hear about sech things, except on Sundays. + +The Little Gentleman looked very smiling at the landlady, who smiled +even more cordially in return, and adjusted her cap-ribbon with an +unconscious movement,--a reminiscence of the long-past pairing-time, +when she had smoothed her locks and softened her voice, and won her mate +by these and other bird-like graces.--My dear Madam,--he said,--I will +remember your interests, and speak only of matters to which I am totally +indifferent.--I don't doubt he meant this; but a day or two after, +something stirred him up, and I heard his voice uttering itself aloud, +thus: + +-It must be done, Sir!--he was saying,--it must be done! Our religion +has been Judaized, it has been Romanized, it has been Orientalized, +it has been Anglicized, and the time is at hand when it must be +AMERICANIZED! Now, Sir, you see what Americanizing is in politics;--it +means that a man shall have a vote because he is a man,--and shall vote +for whom he pleases, without his neighbor's interference. If he chooses +to vote for the Devil, that is his lookout;--perhaps he thinks the Devil +is better than the other candidates; and I don't doubt he's often right, +Sir. Just so a man's soul has a vote in the spiritual community; and +it doesn't do, Sir, or it won't do long, to call him “schismatic” + and “heretic” and those other wicked names that the old murderous +Inquisitors have left us to help along “peace and goodwill to men”! + +As long as you could catch a man and drop him into an oubliette, or pull +him out a few inches longer by machinery, or put a hot iron through his +tongue, or make him climb up a ladder and sit on a board at the top of a +stake so that he should be slowly broiled by the fire kindled round it, +there was some sense in these words; they led to something. But since we +have done with those tools, we had better give up those words. I should +like to see a Yankee advertisement like this!--(the Little Gentleman +laughed fiercely as he uttered the words,--) + +--Patent thumb-screws,--will crush the bone in three turns. + +--The cast-iron boot, with wedge and mallet, only five dollars! + +--The celebrated extension-rack, warranted to stretch a man six inches +in twenty minutes,--money returned, if it proves unsatisfactory. + +I should like to see such an advertisement, I say, Sir! Now, what's +the use of using the words that belonged with the thumb-screws, and +the Blessed Virgin with the knives under her petticoats and sleeves and +bodice, and the dry pan and gradual fire, if we can't have the things +themselves, Sir? What's the use of painting the fire round a poor +fellow, when you think it won't do to kindle one under him,--as they did +at Valencia or Valladolid, or wherever it was? + +--What story is that?--I said. + +Why,--he answered,--at the last auto-da-fe, in 1824 or '5, or somewhere +there,--it's a traveller's story, but a mighty knowing traveller he +is,--they had a “heretic” to use up according to the statutes provided +for the crime of private opinion. They could n't quite make up their +minds to burn him, so they only hung him in a hogshead painted all over +with flames! + +No, Sir! when a man calls you names because you go to the ballot-box +and vote for your candidate, or because you say this or that is your +opinion, he forgets in which half of the world he was born, Sir! It +won't be long, Sir, before we have Americanized religion as we have +Americanized government; and then, Sir, every soul God sends into +the world will be good in the face of all men for just so much of His +“inspiration” as “giveth him understanding”!--None of my words, Sir! +none of my words! + +--If Iris does not love this Little Gentleman, what does love look like +when one sees it? She follows him with her eyes, she leans over toward +him when he speaks, her face changes with the changes of his speech, so +that one might think it was with her as with Christabel,-- + + That all her features were resigned + To this sole image in her mind. + +But she never looks at him with such intensity of devotion as when he +says anything about the soul and the soul's atmosphere, religion. + +Women are twice as religious as men;--all the world knows that. +Whether they are any better, in the eyes of Absolute Justice, might be +questioned; for the additional religious element supplied by sex hardly +seems to be a matter of praise or blame. But in all common aspects they +are so much above us that we get most of our religion from them,--from +their teachings, from their example,--above all, from their pure +affections. + +Now this poor little Iris had been talked to strangely in her childhood. +Especially she had been told that she hated all good things,--which +every sensible parent knows well enough is not true of a great many +children, to say the least. I have sometimes questioned whether many +libels on human nature had not been a natural consequence of the +celibacy of the clergy, which was enforced for so long a period. + +The child had met this and some other equally encouraging statements +as to her spiritual conditions, early in life, and fought the battle of +spiritual independence prematurely, as many children do. If all she did +was hateful to God, what was the meaning of the approving or else +the disapproving conscience, when she had done “right” or “wrong”? No +“shoulder-striker” hits out straighter than a child with its logic. Why, +I can remember lying in my bed in the nursery and settling questions +which all that I have heard since and got out of books has never been +able to raise again. If a child does not assert itself in this way in +good season, it becomes just what its parents or teachers were, and is +no better than a plastic image.--How old was I at the time?--I suppose +about 5823 years old,--that is, counting from Archbishop Usher's date +of the Creation, and adding the life of the race, whose accumulated +intelligence is a part of my inheritance, to my own. A good deal older +than Plato, you see, and much more experienced than my Lord Bacon and +most of the world's teachers.--Old books, as you well know, are books of +the world's youth, and new books are fruits of its age. How many of all +these ancient folios round me are like so many old cupels! The gold has +passed out of them long ago, but their pores are full of the dross with +which it was mingled. + +And so Iris--having thrown off that first lasso which not only fetters, +but chokes those whom it can hold, so that they give themselves up +trembling and breathless to the great soul-subduer, who has them by the +windpipe had settled a brief creed for herself, in which love of the +neighbor, whom we have seen, was the first article, and love of +the Creator, whom we have not seen, grew out of this as its natural +development, being necessarily second in order of time to the first +unselfish emotions which we feel for the fellow-creatures who surround +us in our early years. + +The child must have some place of worship. What would a young girl be +who never mingled her voice with the songs and prayers that rose all +around her with every returning day of rest? And Iris was free to +choose. Sometimes one and sometimes another would offer to carry her +to this or that place of worship; and when the doors were hospitably +opened, she would often go meekly in by herself. It was a curious fact, +that two churches as remote from each other in doctrine as could well be +divided her affections. + +The Church of Saint Polycarp had very much the look of a Roman +Catholic chapel. I do not wish to run the risk of giving names to the +ecclesiastical furniture which gave it such a Romish aspect; but there +were pictures, and inscriptions in antiquated characters, and there +were reading-stands, and flowers on the altar, and other elegant +arrangements. Then there were boys to sing alternately in choirs +responsive to each other, and there was much bowing, with very loud +responding, and a long service and a short sermon, and a bag, such as +Judas used to hold in the old pictures, was carried round to receive +contributions. Everything was done not only “decently and in order,” + but, perhaps one might say, with a certain air of magnifying their +office on the part of the dignified clergymen, often two or three in +number. The music and the free welcome were grateful to Iris, and she +forgot her prejudices at the door of the chapel. For this was a church +with open doors, with seats for all classes and all colors alike,--a +church of zealous worshippers after their faith, of charitable and +serviceable men and women, one that took care of its children and never +forgot its poor, and whose people were much more occupied in looking out +for their own souls than in attacking the faith of their neighbors. In +its mode of worship there was a union of two qualities,--the taste and +refinement, which the educated require just as much in their churches as +elsewhere, and the air of stateliness, almost of pomp, which impresses +the common worshipper, and is often not without its effect upon +those who think they hold outward forms as of little value. Under the +half-Romish aspect of the Church of Saint Polycarp, the young girl +found a devout and loving and singularly cheerful religious spirit. The +artistic sense, which betrayed itself in the dramatic proprieties of +its ritual, harmonized with her taste. The mingled murmur of the loud +responses, in those rhythmic phrases, so simple, yet so fervent, almost +as if every tenth heart-beat, instead of its dull tic-tac, articulated +itself as “Good Lord, deliver us! “--the sweet alternation of the two +choirs, as their holy song floated from side to side, the keen young +voices rising like a flight of singing-birds that passes from one grove +to another, carrying its music with it back and forward,--why should +she not love these gracious outward signs of those inner harmonies +which none could deny made beautiful the lives of many of her +fellow-worshippers in the humble, yet not inelegant Chapel of Saint +Polycarp? + +The young Marylander, who was born and bred to that mode of worship, had +introduced her to the chapel, for which he did the honors for such of +our boarders as were not otherwise provided for. I saw them looking over +the same prayer-book one Sunday, and I could not help thinking that two +such young and handsome persons could hardly worship together in +safety for a great while. But they seemed to mind nothing but their +prayer-book. By-and-by the silken bag was handed round.--I don't believe +she will; so awkward, you know;--besides, she only came by invitation. +There she is, with her hand in her pocket, though,--and sure enough, her +little bit of silver tinkled as it struck the coin beneath. God bless +her! she has n't much to give; but her eye glistens when she gives it, +and that is all Heaven asks.--That was the first time I noticed these +young people together, and I am sure they behaved with the most charming +propriety,--in fact, there was one of our silent lady-boarders with +them, whose eyes would have kept Cupid and Psyche to their good +behavior. A day or two after this I noticed that the young gentleman had +left his seat, which you may remember was at the corner diagonal to that +of Iris, so that they have been as far removed from each other as they +could be at the table. His new seat is three or four places farther down +the table. Of course I made a romance out of this, at once. So stupid +not to see it! How could it be otherwise?--Did you speak, Madam? I beg +your pardon. (To my lady-reader.) + +I never saw anything like the tenderness with which this young girl +treats her little deformed neighbor. If he were in the way of going to +church, I know she would follow him. But his worship, if any, is not +with the throng of men and women and staring children. + +I, the Professor, on the other hand, am a regular church-goer. I should +go for various reasons if I did not love it; but I am happy enough to +find great pleasure in the midst of devout multitudes, whether I can +accept all their creeds or not. One place of worship comes nearer than +the rest to my ideal standard, and to this it was that I carried our +young girl. + +The Church of the Galileans, as it is called, is even humbler in outside +pretensions than the Church of Saint Polycarp. Like that, it is open to +all comers. The stranger who approaches it looks down a quiet street and +sees the plainest of chapels,--a kind of wooden tent, that owes whatever +grace it has to its pointed windows and the high, sharp roofs--traces, +both, of that upward movement of ecclesiastical architecture which +soared aloft in cathedral-spires, shooting into the sky as the spike of +a flowering aloe from the cluster of broad, sharp-wedged leaves below. +This suggestion of medieval symbolism, aided by a minute turret in which +a hand-bell might have hung and found just room enough to turn over, was +all of outward show the small edifice could boast. Within there was very +little that pretended to be attractive. A small organ at one side, and a +plain pulpit, showed that the building was a church; but it was a church +reduced to its simplest expression: + +Yet when the great and wise monarch of the East sat upon his throne, in +all the golden blaze of the spoils of Ophir and the freights of the navy +of Tarshish, his glory was not like that of this simple chapel in its +Sunday garniture. For the lilies of the field, in their season, and the +fairest flowers of the year, in due succession, were clustered every +Sunday morning over the preacher's desk. Slight, thin-tissued +blossoms of pink and blue and virgin white in early spring, then the +full-breasted and deep-hearted roses of summer, then the velvet-robed +crimson and yellow flowers of autumn, and in the winter delicate exotics +that grew under skies of glass in the false summers of our crystal +palaces without knowing that it was the dreadful winter of New England +which was rattling the doors and frosting the panes,--in their language +the whole year told its history of life and growth and beauty from that +simple desk. There was always at least one good sermon,--this floral +homily. There was at least one good prayer,--that brief space when all +were silent, after the manner of the Friends at their devotions. + +Here, too, Iris found an atmosphere of peace and love. The same gentle, +thoughtful faces, the same cheerful but reverential spirit, the +same quiet, the same life of active benevolence. But in all else how +different from the Church of Saint Polycarp! No clerical costume, no +ceremonial forms, no carefully trained choirs. A liturgy they have, to +be sure, which does not scruple to borrow from the time-honored manuals +of devotion, but also does not hesitate to change its expressions to its +own liking. + +Perhaps the good people seem a little easy with each other;--they are +apt to nod familiarly, and have even been known to whisper before +the minister came in. But it is a relief to get rid of that old +Sunday--no,--Sabbath face, which suggests the idea that the first day +of the week is commemorative of some most mournful event. The truth +is, these brethren and sisters meet very much as a family does for its +devotions, not putting off their humanity in the least, considering it +on the whole quite a delightful matter to come together for prayer and +song and good counsel from kind and wise lips. And if they are freer in +their demeanor than some very precise congregations, they have not the +air of a worldly set of people. Clearly they have not come to advertise +their tailors and milliners, nor for the sake of exchanging criticisms +on the literary character of the sermon they may hear. There is no +restlessness and no restraint among these quiet, cheerful worshippers. +One thing that keeps them calm and happy during the season so evidently +trying to many congregations is, that they join very generally in the +singing. In this way they get rid of that accumulated nervous force +which escapes in all sorts of fidgety movements, so that a minister +trying to keep his congregation still reminds one of a boy with his hand +over the nose of a pump which another boy is working,--this spirting +impatience of the people is so like the jets that find their way through +his fingers, and the grand rush out at the final Amen! has such a +wonderful likeness to the gush that takes place when the boy pulls his +hand away, with immense relief, as it seems, to both the pump and the +officiating youngster. + +How sweet is this blending of all voices and all hearts in one common +song of praise! Some will sing a little loud, perhaps,--and now and +then an impatient chorister will get a syllable or two in advance, or an +enchanted singer so lose all thought of time and place in the luxury +of a closing cadence that he holds on to the last semi-breve upon his +private responsibility; but how much more of the spirit of the old +Psalmist in the music of these imperfectly trained voices than in the +academic niceties of the paid performers who take our musical worship +out of our hands! + +I am of the opinion that the creed of the Church of the Galileans is not +laid down in as many details as that of the Church of Saint Polycarp. +Yet I suspect, if one of the good people from each of those churches had +met over the bed of a suffering fellow-creature, or for the promotion +of any charitable object, they would have found they had more in common +than all the special beliefs or want of beliefs that separated them +would amount to. There are always many who believe that the fruits of +a tree afford a better test of its condition than a statement of the +composts with which it is dressed, though the last has its meaning and +importance, no doubt. + +Between these two churches, then, our young Iris divides her affections. +But I doubt if she listens to the preacher at either with more devotion +than she does to her little neighbor when he talks of these matters. + +What does he believe? In the first place, there is some deep-rooted +disquiet lying at the bottom of his soul, which makes him very bitter +against all kinds of usurpation over the right of private judgment. Over +this seems to lie a certain tenderness for humanity in general, bred out +of life-long trial, I should say, but sharply streaked with fiery lines +of wrath at various individual acts of wrong, especially if they come +in an ecclesiastical shape, and recall to him the days when his mother's +great-grandmother was strangled on Witch Hill, with a text from the Old +Testament for her halter. With all this, he has a boundless belief +in the future of this experimental hemisphere, and especially in the +destiny of the free thought of its northeastern metropolis. + +--A man can see further, Sir,--he said one day,--from the top of Boston +State House, and see more that is worth seeing, than from all the +pyramids and turrets and steeples in all the places in the world! No +smoke, Sir; no fog, Sir; and a clean sweep from the Outer Light and the +sea beyond it to the New Hampshire mountains! Yes, Sir,--and there are +great truths that are higher than mountains and broader than seas, that +people are looking for from the tops of these hills of ours;--such as +the world never saw, though it might have seen them at Jerusalem, if its +eyes had been open!--Where do they have most crazy people? Tell me that, +Sir! + +I answered, that I had heard it said there were more in New England than +in most countries, perhaps more than in any part of the world. + +Very good, Sir,--he answered.--When have there been most people killed +and wounded in the course of this century? + +During the wars of the French Empire, no doubt,--I said. + +That's it! that's it!--said the Little Gentleman;--where the battle of +intelligence is fought, there are most minds bruised and broken! We're +battling for a faith here, Sir. + +The divinity-student remarked, that it was rather late in the world's +history for men to be looking out for a new faith. + +I did n't say a new faith,--said the Little Gentleman;--old or new, +it can't help being different here in this American mind of ours from +anything that ever was before; the people are new, Sir, and that makes +the difference. One load of corn goes to the sty, and makes the fat +of swine,--another goes to the farm-house, and becomes the muscle that +clothes the right arms of heroes. It is n't where a pawn stands on the +board that makes the difference, but what the game round it is when it +is on this or that square. + +Can any man look round and see what Christian countries are now doing, +and how they are governed, and what is the general condition of society, +without seeing that Christianity is the flag under which the world +sails, and not the rudder that steers its course? No, Sir! There was +a great raft built about two thousand years ago,--call it an ark, +rather,--the world's great ark! big enough to hold all mankind, and made +to be launched right out into the open waves of life,--and here it has +been lying, one end on the shore and one end bobbing up and down in the +water, men fighting all the time as to who should be captain and who +should have the state-rooms, and throwing each other over the side +because they could not agree about the points of compass, but the +great vessel never getting afloat with its freight of nations and their +rulers;--and now, Sir, there is and has been for this long time a fleet +of “heretic” lighters sailing out of Boston Bay, and they have been +saying, and they say now, and they mean to keep saying, “Pump out your +bilge-water, shovel over your loads of idle ballast, get out your old +rotten cargo, and we will carry it out into deep waters and sink it +where it will never be seen again; so shall the ark of the world's hope +float on the ocean, instead of sticking in the dock-mud where it is +lying!” + +It's a slow business, this of getting the ark launched. The Jordan was +n't deep enough, and the Tiber was n't deep enough, and the Rhone was +n't deep enough, and the Thames was n't deep enough, and perhaps the +Charles is n't deep enough; but I don't feel sure of that, Sir, and I +love to hear the workmen knocking at the old blocks of tradition and +making the ways smooth with the oil of the Good Samaritan. I don't know, +Sir,--but I do think she stirs a little,--I do believe she slides;--and +when I think of what a work that is for the dear old three-breasted +mother of American liberty, I would not take all the glory of all the +greatest cities in the world for my birthright in the soil of little +Boston! + +--Some of us could not help smiling at this burst of local patriotism, +especially when it finished with the last two words. + +And Iris smiled, too. But it was the radiant smile of pleasure which +always lights up her face when her little neighbor gets excited on the +great topics of progress in freedom and religion, and especially on the +part which, as he pleases himself with believing, his own city is +to take in that consummation of human development to which he looks +forward. + +Presently she looked into his face with a changed expression,--the +anxiety of a mother that sees her child suffering. + +You are not well,--she said. + +I am never well,--he answered.--His eyes fell mechanically on the +death's-head ring he wore on his right hand. She took his hand as if it +had been a baby's, and turned the grim device so that it should be out +of sight. One slight, sad, slow movement of the head seemed to say, “The +death-symbol is still there!” + +A very odd personage, to be sure! Seems to know what is going on, +--reads books, old and new,--has many recent publications sent him, they +tell me, but, what is more curious, keeps up with the everyday affairs +of the world, too. Whether he hears everything that is said with +preternatural acuteness, or whether some confidential friend visits him +in a quiet way, is more than I can tell. I can make nothing more of +the noises I hear in his room than my old conjectures. The movements +I mention are less frequent, but I often hear the plaintive cry,--I +observe that it is rarely laughing of late;--I never have detected one +articulate word, but I never heard such tones from anything but a human +voice. + +There has been, of late, a deference approaching to tenderness, on +the part of the boarders generally so far as he is concerned. This is +doubtless owing to the air of suffering which seems to have saddened his +look of late. Either some passion is gnawing at him inwardly, or some +hidden disease is at work upon him. + +--What 's the matter with Little Boston?--said the young man John to me +one day.--There a'n't much of him, anyhow; but 't seems to me he looks +peakeder than ever. The old woman says he's in a bad way, 'n' wants a +puss to take care of him. Them pusses that take care of old rich folks +marry 'em sometimes,--'n' they don't commonly live a great while after +that. No, Sir! I don't see what he wants to die for, after he's taken so +much trouble to live in such poor accommodations as that crooked body +of his. I should like to know how his soul crawled into it, 'n' how it's +goin' to get out. What business has he to die, I should like to know? +Let Ma'am Allen (the gentleman with the diamond) die, if he likes, and +be (this is a family-magazine); but we a'n't goin' to have him dyin'. +Not by a great sight. Can't do without him anyhow. A'n't it fun to hear +him blow off his steam? + +I believe the young fellow would take it as a personal insult, if the +Little Gentleman should show any symptoms of quitting our table for a +better world. + +--In the mean time, what with going to church in company with our young +lady, and taking every chance I could get to talk with her, I have found +myself becoming, I will not say intimate, but well acquainted with Miss +Iris. There is a certain frankness and directness about her that perhaps +belong to her artist nature. For, you see, the one thing that marks the +true artist is a clear perception and a firm, bold hand, in distinction +from that imperfect mental vision and uncertain touch which give us the +feeble pictures and the lumpy statues of the mere artisans on canvas +or in stone. A true artist, therefore, can hardly fail to have a sharp, +well-defined mental physiognomy. Besides this, many young girls have +a strange audacity blended with their instinctive delicacy. Even in +physical daring many of them are a match for boys; whereas you will find +few among mature women, and especially if they are mothers, who do not +confess, and not unfrequently proclaim, their timidity. One of these +young girls, as many of us hereabouts remember, climbed to the top of a +jagged, slippery rock lying out in the waves,--an ugly height to get up, +and a worse one to get down, even for a bold young fellow of sixteen. +Another was in the way of climbing tall trees for crows' nests,--and +crows generally know about how far boys can “shin up,” and set their +household establishments above that high-water mark. Still another of +these young ladies I saw for the first time in an open boat, tossing on +the ocean ground-swell, a mile or two from shore, off a lonely island. +She lost all her daring, after she had some girls of her own to look out +for. + +Many blondes are very gentle, yielding in character, impressible, +unelastic. But the positive blondes, with the golden tint running +through them, are often full of character. They come, probably enough, +from those deep-bosomed German women that Tacitus portrayed in such +strong colors. The negative blondes, or those women whose tints have +faded out as their line of descent has become impoverished, are of +various blood, and in them the soul has often become pale with that +blanching of the hair and loss of color in the eyes which makes them +approach the character of Albinesses. + +I see in this young girl that union of strength and sensibility which, +when directed and impelled by the strong instinct so apt to accompany +this combination of active and passive capacity, we call genius. She is +not an accomplished artist, certainly, as yet; but there is always +an air in every careless figure she draws, as it were of upward +aspiration,--the elan of John of Bologna's Mercury,--a lift to them, as +if they had on winged sandals, like the herald of the Gods. I hear her +singing sometimes; and though she evidently is not trained, yet is there +a wild sweetness in her fitful and sometimes fantastic melodies,--such +as can come only from the inspiration of the moment,--strangely +enough, reminding me of those long passages I have heard from my little +neighbor's room, yet of different tone, and by no means to be mistaken +for those weird harmonies. + +I cannot pretend to deny that I am interested in the girl. Alone, +unprotected, as I have seen so many young girls left in boarding-houses, +the centre of all the men's eyes that surround the table, watched with +jealous sharpness by every woman, most of all by that poor relation +of our landlady, who belongs to the class of women that like to +catch others in mischief when they themselves are too mature for +indiscretions, (as one sees old rogues turn to thief-catchers,) one of +Nature's gendarmerie, clad in a complete suit of wrinkles, the +cheapest coat-of-mail against the shafts of the great little enemy,--so +surrounded, Iris spans this commonplace household-life of ours with her +arch of beauty, as the rainbow, whose name she borrows, looks down on a +dreary pasture with its feeding flocks and herds of indifferent animals. + +These young girls that live in boarding-houses can do pretty much +as they will. The female gendarmes are off guard occasionally. The +sitting-room has its solitary moments, when any two boarders who wish to +meet may come together accidentally, (accidentally, I said, Madam, and +I had not the slightest intention of Italicizing the word,) and discuss +the social or political questions of the day, or any other subject that +may prove interesting. Many charming conversations take place at the +foot of the stairs, or while one of the parties is holding the latch +of a door,--in the shadow of porticoes, and especially on those outside +balconies which some of our Southern neighbors call “stoops,” the most +charming places in the world when the moon is just right and the roses +and honeysuckles are in full blow,--as we used to think in eighteen +hundred and never mention it. + +On such a balcony or “stoop,” one evening, I walked with Iris. We were +on pretty good terms now, and I had coaxed her arm under mine,--my left +arm, of course. That leaves one's right arm free to defend the lovely +creature, if the rival--odious wretch! attempt, to ravish her from your +side. Likewise if one's heart should happen to beat a little, its mute +language will not be without its meaning, as you will perceive when the +arm you hold begins to tremble, a circumstance like to occur, if you +happen to be a good-looking young fellow, and you two have the “stoop” + to yourselves. + +We had it to ourselves that evening. The Koh-inoor, as we called him, +was in a corner with our landlady's daughter. The young fellow John was +smoking out in the yard. The gendarme was afraid of the evening air, and +kept inside, The young Marylander came to the door, looked out and saw +us walking together, gave his hat a pull over his forehead and stalked +off. I felt a slight spasm, as it were, in the arm I held, and saw the +girl's head turn over her shoulder for a second. What a kind creature +this is! She has no special interest in this youth, but she does not +like to see a young fellow going off because he feels as if he were not +wanted. + +She had her locked drawing-book under her arm.--Let me take it,--I said. + +She gave it to me to carry. + +This is full of caricatures of all of us, I am sure,--said I. + +She laughed, and said,--No,--not all of you. + +I was there, of course? + +Why, no,--she had never taken so much pains with me. + +Then she would let me see the inside of it? + +She would think of it. + +Just as we parted, she took a little key from her pocket and handed it +to me. This unlocks my naughty book,--she said,--you shall see it. I am +not afraid of you. + +I don't know whether the last words exactly pleased me. At any rate, I +took the book and hurried with it to my room. I opened it, and saw, in a +few glances, that I held the heart of Iris in my hand. + +--I have no verses for you this month, except these few lines suggested +by the season. + + + MIDSUMMER. + + Here! sweep these foolish leaves away, + I will not crush my brains to-day! + Look! are the southern curtains drawn? + Fetch me a fan, and so begone! + + Not that,--the palm-tree's rustling leaf + Brought from a parching coral-reef! + Its breath is heated;--I would swing + The broad gray plumes,--the eagle's wing. + + I hate these roses' feverish blood! + Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, + A long-stemmed lily from the lake, + Cold as a coiling water-snake. + + Rain me sweet odors on the air, + And wheel me up my Indian chair, + And spread some book not overwise + Flat out before my sleepy eyes. + + --Who knows it not,--this dead recoil + Of weary fibres stretched with toil, + The pulse that flutters faint and low + When Summer's seething breezes blow? + + O Nature! bare thy loving breast + And give thy child one hour of rest, + One little hour to lie unseen + Beneath thy scarf of leafy green! + + So, curtained by a singing pine, + Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, + Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay + In sweeter music dies away. + + + +X + + IRIS, HER BOOK + + I pray thee by the soul of her that bore thee, + By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee, + Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee! + + For Iris had no mother to infold her, + Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder, + Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her. + + She had not learned the mystery of awaking + Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching, + Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breaking. + + Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token! + Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, + Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken? + + She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies, + Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances, + And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances. + + Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing, + Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring, + Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing. + + Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her? + What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her? + Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor. + + And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven, + Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven, + Save me! oh, save me! Shall I die forgiven? + + And then--Ah, God! But nay, it little matters + Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters, + The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters! + + If she had--Well! She longed, and knew not wherefore + Had the world nothing she might live to care for? + No second self to say her evening prayer for? + + She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming, + Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming + Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming. + + Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher. + What if a lonely and unsistered creature + Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature, + + Saying, unsaddened,--This shall soon be faded, + And double-hued the shining tresses braided, + And all the sunlight of the morning shaded? + + --This her poor book is full of saddest follies, + Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies, + With summer roses twined and wintry hollies. + + In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, + Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances + May fall her little book of dreams and fancies. + + Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee, + Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee, + Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee. + + Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping, + Peace with her! she has had her hour of weeping. + No more! She leaves her memory in thy keeping. + +These verses were written in the first leaves of the locked volume. As +I turned the pages, I hesitated for a moment. Is it quite fair to take +advantage of a generous, trusting impulse to read the unsunned depths of +a young girl's nature, which I can look through, as the balloon-voyagers +tell us they see from their hanging-baskets through the translucent +waters which the keenest eye of such as sail over them in ships might +strive to pierce in vain? Why has the child trusted me with such artless +confessions,--self-revelations, which might be whispered by trembling +lips, under the veil of twilight, in sacred confessionals, but which +I cannot look at in the light of day without a feeling of wronging a +sacred confidence? + +To all this the answer seemed plain enough after a little thought. +She did not know how fearfully she had disclosed herself; she was too +profoundly innocent. Her soul was no more ashamed than the fair shapes +that walked in Eden without a thought of over-liberal loveliness. Having +nobody to tell her story to,--having, as she said in her verses, no +musical instrument to laugh and cry with her,--nothing, in short, but +the language of pen and pencil,--all the veinings of her nature were +impressed on these pages as those of a fresh leaf are transferred to the +blank sheets which inclose it. It was the same thing which I remember +seeing beautifully shown in a child of some four or five years we had +one day at our boarding-house. The child was a deaf mute. But its soul +had the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the shaping capacity +which through natural organs realizes itself in words. Only it had +to talk with its face alone; and such speaking eyes, such rapid +alternations of feeling and shifting expressions of thought as flitted +over its face, I have never seen in any other human countenance. + +I wonder if something of spiritual transparency is not typified in +the golden-blonde organization. There are a great many little +creatures,--many small fishes, for instance,--which are literally +transparent, with the exception of some of the internal organs. The +heart can be seen beating as if in a case of clouded crystal. The +central nervous column with its sheath runs as a dark stripe through +the whole length of the diaphanous muscles of the body. Other little +creatures are so darkened with pigment that we can see only their +surface. Conspirators and poisoners are painted with black, beady-eyes +and swarthy hue; Judas, in Leonardo's picture, is the model of them all. + +However this may be, I should say there never had been a book like this +of Iris,--so full of the heart's silent language, so transparent that +the heart itself could be seen beating through it. I should say there +never could have been such a book, but for one recollection, which is +not peculiar to myself, but is shared by a certain number of my former +townsmen. If you think I over-color this matter of the young girl's +book, hear this, which there are others, as I just said, besides myself, +will tell you is strictly true. + + + + +X + + +THE BOOK OF THE THREE MAIDEN SISTERS. + +In the town called Cantabridge, now a city, water-veined and gas +windpiped, in the street running down to the Bridge, beyond which +dwelt Sally, told of in a book of a friend of mine, was of old a house +inhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe; +whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak of them; for they lived +and died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they lived +in was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of +Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen. +The lower story was fitted up as a shop. Specially was it provided with +one of those half-doors now so rarely met with, which are to whole +doors as spencers worn by old folk are to coats. They speak of limited +commerce united with a social or observing disposition--on the part of +the shopkeeper,--allowing, as they do, talk with passers-by, yet keeping +off such as have not the excuse of business to cross the threshold. +On the door-posts, at either side, above the half-door, hung certain +perennial articles of merchandise, of which my memory still has hanging +among its faded photographs a kind of netted scarf and some pairs of +thick woollen stockings. More articles, but not very many, were stored +inside; and there was one drawer, containing children's books, out of +which I once was treated to a minute quarto ornamented with handsome +cuts. This was the only purchase I ever knew to be made at the shop kept +by the three maiden ladies, though it is probable there were others. So +long as I remember the shop, the same scarf and, I should say, the same +stockings hung on the door-posts.--You think I am exaggerating again, +and that shopkeepers would not keep the same article exposed for years. +Come to me, the Professor, and I will take you in five minutes to a shop +in this city where I will show you an article hanging now in the very +place where more than thirty years ago I myself inquired the price of +it of the present head of the establishment. [ This was a glass alembic, +which hung up in Daniel Henchman's apothecary shop, corner of Cambridge +and Chambers streets.] + +The three maidens were of comely presence, and one of them had +had claims to be considered a Beauty. When I saw them in the old +meeting-house on Sundays, as they rustled in through the aisles in silks +and satins, not gay, but more than decent, as I remember them, I thought +of My Lady Bountiful in the history of “Little King Pippin,” and of the +Madam Blaize of Goldsmith (who, by the way, must have taken the hint of +it from a pleasant poem, “Monsieur de la Palisse,” attributed to De la +Monnoye, in the collection of French songs before me). There was some +story of an old romance in which the Beauty had played her part. Perhaps +they all had had lovers; for, as I said, they were shapely and seemly +personages, as I remember them; but their lives were out of the flower +and in the berry at the time of my first recollections. + +One after another they all three dropped away, objects of kindly +attention to the good people round, leaving little or almost nothing, +and nobody to inherit it. Not absolutely nothing, of course. There must +have been a few old dresses--perhaps some bits of furniture, a Bible, +and the spectacles the good old souls read it through, and little +keepsakes, such as make us cry to look at, when we find them in old +drawers;--such relics there must have been. But there was more. There +was a manuscript of some hundred pages, closely written, in which the +poor things had chronicled for many years the incidents of their daily +life. After their death it was passed round somewhat freely, and fell +into my hands. How I have cried and laughed and colored over it! There +was nothing in it to be ashamed of, perhaps there was nothing in it to +laugh at, but such a picture of the mode of being of poor simple good +old women I do believe was never drawn before. And there were all the +smallest incidents recorded, such as do really make up humble life, +but which die out of all mere literary memoirs, as the houses where the +Egyptians or the Athenians lived crumble and leave only their temples +standing. I know, for instance, that on a given day of a certain year, +a kindly woman, herself a poor widow, now, I trust, not without special +mercies in heaven for her good deeds,--for I read her name on a proper +tablet in the churchyard a week ago,--sent a fractional pudding from her +own table to the Maiden Sisters, who, I fear, from the warmth and detail +of their description, were fasting, or at least on short allowance, +about that time. I know who sent them the segment of melon, which in her +riotous fancy one of them compared to those huge barges to which we give +the ungracious name of mudscows. But why should I illustrate further +what it seems almost a breach of confidence to speak of? Some kind +friend, who could challenge a nearer interest than the curious strangers +into whose hands the book might fall, at last claimed it, and I was glad +that it should be henceforth sealed to common eyes. I learned from it +that every good and, alas! every evil act we do may slumber unforgotten +even in some earthly record. I got a new lesson in that humanity which +our sharp race finds it so hard to learn. The poor widow, fighting +hard to feed and clothe and educate her children, had not forgotten the +poorer ancient maidens. I remembered it the other day, as I stood by her +place of rest, and I felt sure that it was remembered elsewhere. I know +there are prettier words than pudding, but I can't help it,--the pudding +went upon the record, I feel sure, with the mite which was cast into the +treasury by that other poor widow whose deed the world shall remember +forever, and with the coats and garments which the good women cried +over, when Tabitha, called by interpretation Dorcas, lay dead in the +upper chamber, with her charitable needlework strewed around her. + +--Such was the Book of the Maiden Sisters. You will believe me more +readily now when I tell you that I found the soul of Iris in the one +that lay open before me. Sometimes it was a poem that held it, sometimes +a drawing, angel, arabesque, caricature, or a mere hieroglyphic +symbol of which I could make nothing. A rag of cloud on one page, as I +remember, with a streak of red zigzagging out of it across the paper as +naturally as a crack runs through a China bowl. On the next page a dead +bird,--some little favorite, I suppose; for it was worked out with a +special love, and I saw on the leaf that sign with which once or twice +in my life I have had a letter sealed,--a round spot where the paper +is slightly corrugated, and, if there is writing there, the letters +are somewhat faint and blurred. Most of the pages were surrounded with +emblematic traceries. It was strange to me at first to see how often +she introduced those homelier wild-flowers which we call weeds,--for it +seemed there was none of them too humble for her to love, and none too +little cared for by Nature to be without its beauty for her artist +eye and pencil. By the side of the garden-flowers,--of Spring's curled +darlings, the hyacinths, of rosebuds, dear to sketching maidens, of +flower-de-luces and morning-glories, nay, oftener than these, and more +tenderly caressed by the colored brush that rendered them,--were those +common growths which fling themselves to be crushed under our feet and +our wheels, making themselves so cheap in this perpetual martyrdom that +we forget each of them is a ray of the Divine beauty. + +Yellow japanned buttercups and star-disked dandelions,--just as we see +them lying in the grass, like sparks that have leaped from the kindling +sun of summer; the profuse daisy-like flower which whitens the fields, +to the great disgust of liberal shepherds, yet seems fair to loving +eyes, with its button-like mound of gold set round with milk-white rays; +the tall-stemmed succory, setting its pale blue flowers aflame, one +after another, sparingly, as the lights are kindled in the candelabra +of decaying palaces where the heirs of dethroned monarchs are dying out; +the red and white clovers, the broad, flat leaves of the plantain,--“the +white man's foot,” as the Indians called it,--the wiry, jointed stems of +that iron creeping plant which we call “knot-grass,” and which loves its +life so dearly that it is next to impossible to murder it with a hoe, +as it clings to the cracks of the pavement;--all these plants, and many +more, she wove into her fanciful garlands and borders.--On one of the +pages were some musical notes. I touched them from curiosity on a piano +belonging to one of our boarders. Strange! There are passages that I +have heard before, plaintive, full of some hidden meaning, as if they +were gasping for words to interpret them. She must have heard the +strains that have so excited my curiosity, coming from my neighbor's +chamber. The illuminated border she had traced round the page that held +these notes took the place of the words they seemed to be aching for. +Above, a long monotonous sweep of waves, leaden-hued, anxious and jaded +and sullen, if you can imagine such an expression in water. On one side +an Alpine needle, as it were, of black basalt, girdled with snow. On the +other a threaded waterfall. The red morning-tint that shone in the drops +had a strange look,--one would say the cliff was bleeding;--perhaps she +did not mean it. Below, a stretch of sand, and a solitary bird of prey, +with his wings spread over some unseen object.--And on the very +next page a procession wound along, after the fashion of that on +the title-page of Fuller's “Holy War,” in which I recognized without +difficulty every boarder at our table in all the glory of the most +resplendent caricature--three only excepted,--the Little Gentleman, +myself, and one other. + +I confess I did expect to see something that would remind me of the +girl's little deformed neighbor, if not portraits of him.--There is a +left arm again, though;--no,--that is from the “Fighting Gladiator,” the +“Jeune Heros combattant” of the Louvre;--there is the broad ring of the +shield. From a cast, doubtless. [The separate casts of the “Gladiator's” + arm look immense; but in its place the limb looks light, almost +slender,--such is the perfection of that miraculous marble. I never +felt as if I touched the life of the old Greeks until I looked on that +statue.]--Here is something very odd, to be sure. An Eden of all the +humped and crooked creatures! What could have been in her head when she +worked out such a fantasy? She has contrived to give them all beauty +or dignity or melancholy grace. A Bactrian camel lying under a palm. A +dromedary flashing up the sands,--spray of the dry ocean sailed by the +“ship of the desert.” A herd of buffaloes, uncouth, shaggy-maned, heavy +in the forehand, light in the hind-quarter. [The buffalo is the lion +of the ruminants.] And there is a Norman horse, with his huge, rough +collar, echoing, as it were, the natural form of the other beast. And +here are twisted serpents; and stately swans, with answering curves +in their bowed necks, as if they had snake's blood under their white +feathers; and grave, high-shouldered herons standing on one foot +like cripples, and looking at life round them with the cold stare of +monumental effigies.--A very odd page indeed! Not a creature in it +without a curve or a twist, and not one of them a mean figure to look +at. You can make your own comment; I am fanciful, you know. I believe +she is trying to idealize what we vulgarly call deformity, which she +strives to look at in the light of one of Nature's eccentric curves, +belonging to her system of beauty, as the hyperbola, and parabola belong +to the conic sections, though we cannot see them as symmetrical and +entire figures, like the circle and ellipse. At any rate, I cannot help +referring this paradise of twisted spines to some idea floating in +her head connected with her friend whom Nature has warped in the +moulding.--That is nothing to another transcendental fancy of mine. I +believe her soul thinks itself in his little crooked body at times,--if +it does not really get freed or half freed from her own. Did you ever +see a case of catalepsy? You know what I mean,--transient loss of sense, +will, and motion; body and limbs taking any position in which they are +put, as if they belonged to a lay-figure. She had been talking with +him and listening to him one day when the boarders moved from the table +nearly all at once. But she sat as before, her cheek resting on her +hand, her amber eyes wide open and still. I went to her, she was +breathing as usual, and her heart was beating naturally enough,--but she +did not answer. I bent her arm; it was as plastic as softened wax, and +kept the place I gave it.--This will never do, though, and I sprinkled +a few drops of water on her forehead. She started and looked round.--I +have been in a dream,--she said;--I feel as if all my strength were in +this arm;--give me your hand!--She took my right hand in her left, which +looked soft and white enough, but--Good Heaven! I believe she will crack +my bones! All the nervous power in her body must have flashed through +those muscles; as when a crazy lady snaps her iron window-bars,--she who +could hardly glove herself when in her common health. Iris turned pale, +and the tears came to her eyes;--she saw she had given pain. Then she +trembled, and might have fallen but for me;--the poor little soul had +been in one of those trances that belong to the spiritual pathology of +higher natures, mostly those of women. + +To come back to this wondrous book of Iris. Two pages faced each other +which I took for symbolical expressions of two states of mind. On the +left hand, a bright blue sky washed over the page, specked with a single +bird. No trace of earth, but still the winged creature seemed to be +soaring upward and upward. Facing it, one of those black dungeons such +as Piranesi alone of all men has pictured. I am sure she must have +seen those awful prisons of his, out of which the Opium-Eater got +his nightmare vision, described by another as “cemeteries of departed +greatness, where monstrous and forbidden things are crawling and twining +their slimy convolutions among mouldering bones, broken sculpture, and +mutilated inscriptions.” Such a black dungeon faced the page that held +the blue sky and the single bird; at the bottom of it something was +coiled,--what, and whether meant for dead or alive, my eyes could not +make out. + +I told you the young girl's soul was in this book. As I turned over the +last leaves I could not help starting. There were all sorts of faces +among the arabesques which laughed and scowled in the borders that ran +round the pages. They had mostly the outline of childish or womanly or +manly beauty, without very distinct individuality. But at last it seemed +to me that some of them were taking on a look not wholly unfamiliar to +me; there were features that did not seem new.--Can it be so? Was there +ever such innocence in a creature so full of life? She tells her heart's +secrets as a three-years-old child betrays itself without need of being +questioned! This was no common miss, such as are turned out in +scores from the young-lady-factories, with parchments warranting them +accomplished and virtuous,--in case anybody should question the fact. I +began to understand her;--and what is so charming as to read the secret +of a real femme incomprise?--for such there are, though they are not the +ones who think themselves uncomprehended women. + +Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the +far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards +for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. +A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. I have +frequently seen children, long exercised by pain and exhaustion, whose +features had a strange look of advanced age. Too often one meets such in +our charitable institutions. Their faces are saddened and wrinkled, as +if their few summers were threescore years and ten. + +And so, many youthful poets have written as if their hearts were old +before their time; their pensive morning twilight has been as cool +and saddening as that of evening in more common lives. The profound +melancholy of those lines of Shelley, + + “I could lie down like a tired child + And weep away the life of care + Which I have borne and yet must bear.” + +came from a heart, as he says, “too soon grown old,”--at twenty-six +years, as dull people count time, even when they talk of poets. + +I know enough to be prepared for an exceptional nature,--only this gift +of the hand in rendering every thought in form and color, as well as +in words, gives a richness to this young girl's alphabet of feeling and +imagery that takes me by surprise. And then besides, and most of all, I +am puzzled at her sudden and seemingly easy confidence in me. Perhaps +I owe it to my--Well, no matter! How one must love the editor who first +calls him the venerable So-and-So! + +--I locked the book and sighed as I laid it down. The world is always +ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what +to do with genius. Talent is a docile creature. It bows its head meekly +while the world slips the collar over it. It backs into the shafts like +a lamb. It draws its load cheerfully, and is patient of the bit and of +the whip. But genius is always impatient of its harness; its wild blood +makes it hard to train. + +Talent seems, at first, in one sense, higher than genius,--namely, that +it is more uniformly and absolutely submitted to the will, and therefore +more distinctly human in its character. Genius, on the other hand, is +much more like those instincts which govern the admirable movements of +the lower creatures, and therefore seems to have something of the +lower or animal character. A goose flies by a chart which the Royal +Geographical Society could not mend. A poet, like the goose, sails +without visible landmarks to unexplored regions of truth, which +philosophy has yet to lay down on its atlas. The philosopher gets his +track by observation; the poet trusts to his inner sense, and makes the +straighter and swifter line. + +And yet, to look at it in another light, is not even the lowest instinct +more truly divine than any voluntary human act done by the suggestion +of reason? What is a bee's architecture but an unobstructed divine +thought?--what is a builder's approximative rule but an obstructed +thought of the Creator, a mutilated and imperfect copy of some absolute +rule Divine Wisdom has established, transmitted through a human soul as +an image through clouded glass? + +Talent is a very common family-trait; genius belongs rather to +individuals;--just as you find one giant or one dwarf in a family, but +rarely a whole brood of either. Talent is often to be envied, and genius +very commonly to be pitied. It stands twice the chance of the other of +dying in hospital, in jail, in debt, in bad repute. It is a perpetual +insult to mediocrity; its every word is a trespass against somebody's +vested ideas,--blasphemy against somebody's O'm, or intangible private +truth. + +--What is the use of my weighing out antitheses in this way, like a +rhetorical grocer?--You know twenty men of talent, who are making their +way in the world; you may, perhaps, know one man of genius, and very +likely do not want to know any more. For a divine instinct, such as +drives the goose southward and the poet heavenward, is a hard thing to +manage, and proves too strong for many whom it possesses. It must have +been a terrible thing to have a friend like Chatterton or Burns. And +here is a being who certainly has more than talent, at once poet and +artist in tendency, if not yet fairly developed,--a woman, too;--and +genius grafted on womanhood is like to overgrow it and break its stem, +as you may see a grafted fruit-tree spreading over the stock which +cannot keep pace with its evolution. + +I think now you know something of this young person. She wants nothing +but an atmosphere to expand in. Now and then one meets with a nature +for which our hard, practical New England life is obviously utterly +incompetent. It comes up, as a Southern seed, dropped by accident in one +of our gardens, finds itself trying to grow and blow into flower among +the homely roots and the hardy shrubs that surround it. There is no +question that certain persons who are born among us find themselves many +degrees too far north. Tropical by organization, they cannot fight for +life with our eastern and northwestern breezes without losing the +color and fragrance into which their lives would have blossomed in +the latitude of myrtles and oranges. Strange effects are produced by +suffering any living thing to be developed under conditions such as +Nature had not intended for it. A French physiologist confined some +tadpoles under water in the dark. Removed from the natural stimulus of +light, they did not develop legs and arms at the proper period of their +growth, and so become frogs; they swelled and spread into gigantic +tadpoles. I have seen a hundred colossal human tadpoles, overgrown +Zarvce or embryos; nay, I am afraid we Protestants should look on a +considerable proportion of the Holy Father's one hundred and thirty-nine +millions as spiritual larvae, sculling about in the dark by the aid +of their caudal extremities, instead of standing on their legs, and +breathing by gills, instead of taking the free air of heaven into the +lungs made to receive it. Of course we never try to keep young souls +in the tadpole state, for fear they should get a pair or two of legs +by-and-by and jump out of the pool where they have been bred and fed! +Never! Never. Never? + +Now to go back to our plant. You may know, that, for the earlier stages +of development of almost any vegetable, you only want air, water, light, +and warmth. But by-and-by, if it is to have special complex principles +as a part of its organization, they must be supplied by the soil;--your +pears will crack, if the root of the tree gets no iron,--your +asparagus-bed wants salt as much as you do. Just at the period of +adolescence, the mind often suddenly begins to come into flower and to +set its fruit. Then it is that many young natures, having exhausted +the spiritual soil round them of all it contains of the elements +they demand, wither away, undeveloped and uncolored, unless they are +transplanted. + +Pray for these dear young souls! This is the second natural birth;--for +I do not speak of those peculiar religious experiences which form the +point of transition in many lives between the consciousness of a general +relation to the Divine nature and a special personal relation. The +litany should count a prayer for them in the list of its supplications; +masses should be said for them as for souls in purgatory; all good +Christians should remember them as they remember those in peril through +travel or sickness or in warfare. + +I would transport this child to Rome at once, if I had my will. She +should ripen under an Italian sun. She should walk under the frescoed +vaults of palaces, until her colors deepened to those of Venetian +beauties, and her forms were perfected into rivalry with the Greek +marbles, and the east wind was out of her soil. Has she not exhausted +this lean soil of the elements her growing nature requires? + +I do not know. The magnolia grows and comes into full flower on Cape +Ann, many degrees out of its proper region. I was riding once along that +delicious road between the hills and the sea, when we passed a thicket +where there seemed to be a chance of finding it. In five minutes I had +fallen on the trees in full blossom, and filled my arms with the sweet, +resplendent flowers. I could not believe I was in our cold, northern +Essex, which, in the dreary season when I pass its slate-colored, +unpainted farm-houses, and huge, square, windy, 'squire-built +“mansions,” looks as brown and unvegetating as an old rug with its +patterns all trodden out and the colored fringe worn from all its +border. + +If the magnolia can bloom in northern New England, why should not a poet +or a painter come to his full growth here just as well? Yes, but if +the gorgeous tree-flower is rare, and only as if by a freak of Nature +springs up in a single spot among the beeches and alders, is there not +as much reason to think the perfumed flower of imaginative genius will +find it hard to be born and harder to spread its leaves in the clear, +cold atmosphere of our ultra-temperate zone of humanity? + +Take the poet. On the one hand, I believe that a person with the +poetical faculty finds material everywhere. The grandest objects of +sense and thought are common to all climates and civilizations. The sky, +the woods, the waters, the storms, life, death love, the hope and vision +of eternity,--these are images that write themselves in poetry in every +soul which has anything of the divine gift. + +On the other hand, there is such a thing as a lean, impoverished life, +in distinction from a rich and suggestive one. Which our common New +England life might be considered, I will not decide. But there are some +things I think the poet misses in our western Eden. I trust it is not +unpatriotic to mention them in this point of view as they come before us +in so many other aspects. + +There is no sufficient flavor of humanity in the soil out of which we +grow. At Cantabridge, near the sea, I have once or twice picked up an +Indian arrowhead in a fresh furrow. At Canoe Meadow, in the Berkshire +Mountains, I have found Indian arrowheads. So everywhere Indian +arrowheads. Whether a hundred or a thousand years old, who knows? +who cares? There is no history to the red race,--there is hardly an +individual in it;--a few instincts on legs and holding a tomahawk--there +is the Indian of all time. The story of one red ant is the story of all +red ants. So, the poet, in trying to wing his way back through the life +that has kindled, flitted, and faded along our watercourses and on our +southern hillsides for unknown generations, finds nothing to breathe or +fly in; he meets + + “A vast vacuity! all unawares, + Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops + Ten thousand fathom deep.” + +But think of the Old World,--that part of it which is the seat of +ancient civilization! The stakes of the Britons' stockades are still +standing in the bed of the Thames. The ploughman turns up an old Saxon's +bones, and beneath them is a tessellated pavement of the time of +the Caesars. In Italy, the works of mediaeval Art seem to be of +yesterday,--Rome, under her kings, is but an intruding newcomer, as +we contemplate her in the shadow of the Cyclopean walls of Fiesole or +Volterra. It makes a man human to live on these old humanized soils. +He cannot help marching in step with his kind in the rear of such a +procession. They say a dead man's hand cures swellings, if laid on them. +There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the Past to take down our +tumid egotism and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our race. +Rousseau came out of one of his sad self-torturing fits, as he cast his +eye on the arches of the old Roman aqueduct, the Pont du Gard. + +I am far from denying that there is an attraction in a thriving railroad +village. The new “depot,” the smartly-painted pine houses, the spacious +brick hotel, the white meeting-house, and the row of youthful and leggy +trees before it, are exhilarating. They speak of progress, and the time +when there shall be a city, with a His Honor the Mayor, in the place of +their trim but transient architectural growths. Pardon me, if I prefer +the pyramids. They seem to me crystals formed from a stronger solution +of humanity than the steeple of the new meeting-house. I may be wrong, +but the Tiber has a voice for me, as it whispers to the piers of the +Pons Alius, even more full of meaning than my well-beloved Charles +eddying round the piles of West Boston Bridge. + +Then, again, we Yankees are a kind of gypsies,--a mechanical and +migratory race. A poet wants a home. He can dispense with an apple-parer +and a reaping-machine. I feel this more for others than for myself, for +the home of my birth and childhood has been as yet exempted from the +change which has invaded almost everything around it. + +--Pardon me a short digression. To what small things our memory and our +affections attach themselves! I remember, when I was a child, that +one of the girls planted some Star-of-Bethlehem bulbs in the southwest +corner of our front-yard. Well, I left the paternal roof and wandered +in other lands, and learned to think in the words of strange people. +But after many years, as I looked on the little front-yard again, it +occurred to me that there used to be some Star-of-Bethlehems in the +southwest corner. The grass was tall there, and the blade of the plant +is very much like grass, only thicker and glossier. Even as Tully +parted the briers and brambles when he hunted for the sphere-containing +cylinder that marked the grave of Archimedes, so did I comb the grass +with my fingers for my monumental memorial-flower. Nature had stored my +keepsake tenderly in her bosom; the glossy, faintly streaked blades were +there; they are there still, though they never flower, darkened as they +are by the shade of the elms and rooted in the matted turf. + +Our hearts are held down to our homes by innumerable fibres, trivial +as that I have just recalled; but Gulliver was fixed to the soil, you +remember, by pinning his head a hair at a time. Even a stone with a +whitish band crossing it, belonging to the pavement of the +back-yard, insisted on becoming one of the talismans of memory. This +intussusception of the ideas of inanimate objects, and their faithful +storing away among the sentiments, are curiously prefigured in the +material structure of the thinking centre itself. In the very core of +the brain, in the part where Des Cartes placed the soul, is a small +mineral deposit, consisting, as I have seen it in the microscope, of +grape-like masses of crystalline matter. + +But the plants that come up every year in the same place, like the +Star-of-Bethlehems, of all the lesser objects, give me the liveliest +home-feeling. Close to our ancient gambrel-roofed house is the dwelling +of pleasant old Neighbor Walrus. I remember the sweet honeysuckle that I +saw in flower against the wall of his house a few months ago, as long +as I remember the sky and stars. That clump of peonies, butting their +purple heads through the soil every spring in just the same circle, and +by-and-by unpacking their hard balls of buds in flowers big enough +to make a double handful of leaves, has come up in just that place, +Neighbor Walrus tells me, for more years than I have passed on this +planet. It is a rare privilege in our nomadic state to find the home of +one's childhood and its immediate neighborhood thus unchanged. Many born +poets, I am afraid, flower poorly in song, or not at all, because they +have been too often transplanted. + +Then a good many of our race are very hard and unimaginative;--their +voices have nothing caressing; their movements are as of machinery +without elasticity or oil. I wish it were fair to print a letter a young +girl, about the age of our Iris, wrote a short time since. “I am *** *** +***,” she says, and tells her whole name outright. Ah!--said I, when I +read that first frank declaration,--you are one of the right sort!--She +was. A winged creature among close-clipped barn door fowl. How tired +the poor girl was of the dull life about her,--the old woman's “skeleton +hand” at the window opposite, drawing her curtains,--“Ma'am shooing away +the hens,”--the vacuous country eyes staring at her as only country +eyes can stare,--a routine of mechanical duties, and the soul's +half-articulated cry for sympathy, without an answer! Yes,--pray for +her, and for all such! Faith often cures their longings; but it is so +hard to give a soul to heaven that has not first been trained in the +fullest and sweetest human affections! Too often they fling their hearts +away on unworthy objects. Too often they pine in a secret discontent, +which spreads its leaden cloud over the morning of their youth. The +immeasurable distance between one of these delicate natures and the +average youths among whom is like to be her only choice makes one's +heart ache. How many women are born too finely organized in sense and +soul for the highway they must walk with feet unshod! Life is adjusted +to the wants of the stronger sex. There are plenty of torrents to be +crossed in its journey; but their stepping-stones are measured by the +stride of man, and not of woman. + +Women are more subject than men to atrophy of the heart. So says the +great medical authority, Laennec. Incurable cases of this kind used +to find their hospitals in convents. We have the disease in New +England,--but not the hospitals. I don't like to think of it. I will not +believe our young Iris is going to die out in this way. Providence will +find her some great happiness, or affliction, or duty,--and which would +be best for her, I cannot tell. One thing is sure: the interest she +takes in her little neighbor is getting to be more engrossing than ever. +Something is the matter with him, and she knows it, and I think worries +herself about it. + +I wonder sometimes how so fragile and distorted a frame has kept the +fiery spirit that inhabits it so long its tenant. He accounts for it in +his own way. + +The air of the Old World is good for nothing, he said, one day.--Used +up, Sir,--breathed over and over again. You must come to this side, Sir, +for an atmosphere fit to breathe nowadays. Did not worthy Mr. Higginson +say that a breath of New England's air is better than a sup of Old +England's ale? I ought to have died when I was a boy, Sir; but I could +n't die in this Boston air,--and I think I shall have to go to New York +one of these days, when it's time for me to drop this bundle,--or to New +Orleans, where they have the yellow fever,--or to Philadelphia, where +they have so many doctors. + +This was some time ago; but of late he has seemed, as I have before +said, to be ailing. An experienced eye, such as I think I may call mine, +can tell commonly whether a man is going to die, or not, long before he +or his friends are alarmed about him. I don't like it. + +Iris has told me that the Scottish gift of second-sight runs in her +family, and that she is afraid she has it. Those who are so endowed +look upon a well man and see a shroud wrapt about him. According to the +degree to which it covers him, his death will be near or more remote. It +is an awful faculty; but science gives one too much like it. Luckily +for our friends, most of us who have the scientific second-sight school +ourselves not to betray our knowledge by word or look. + +Day by day, as the Little Gentleman comes to the table, it seems to me +that the shadow of some approaching change falls darker and darker over +his countenance. Nature is struggling with something, and I am afraid +she is under in the wrestling-match. You do not care much, perhaps, for +my particular conjectures as to the nature of his difficulty. I should +say, however, from the sudden flushes to which he is subject, and +certain other marks which, as an expert, I know how to interpret, that +his heart was in trouble; but then he presses his hand to the right +side, as if there were the centre of his uneasiness. + +When I say difficulty about the heart, I do not mean any of those +sentimental maladies of that organ which figure more largely in romances +than on the returns which furnish our Bills of Mortality. I mean some +actual change in the organ itself, which may carry him off by slow and +painful degrees, or strike him down with one huge pang and only time +for a single shriek,--as when the shot broke through the brave Captain +Nolan's breast, at the head of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, and with +a loud cry he dropped dead from his saddle. + +I thought it only fair to say something of what I apprehended to +some who were entitled to be warned. The landlady's face fell when I +mentioned my fears. + +Poor man!--she said.--And will leave the best room empty! Has n't he got +any sisters or nieces or anybody to see to his things, if he should be +took away? Such a sight of cases, full of everything! Never thought +of his failin' so suddin. A complication of diseases, she expected. +Liver-complaint one of 'em? + +After this first involuntary expression of the too natural selfish +feelings, (which we must not judge very harshly, unless we happen to +be poor widows ourselves, with children to keep filled, covered, and +taught,--rents high,--beef eighteen to twenty cents per pound,)--after +this first squeak of selfishness, followed by a brief movement of +curiosity, so invariable in mature females, as to the nature of the +complaint which threatens the life of a friend or any person who may +happen to be mentioned as ill,--the worthy soul's better feelings +struggled up to the surface, and she grieved for the doomed invalid, +until a tear or two came forth and found their way down a channel worn +for them since the early days of her widowhood. + +Oh, this dreadful, dreadful business of being the prophet of evil! Of +all the trials which those who take charge of others' health and lives +have to undergo, this is the most painful. It is all so plain to the +practised eye!--and there is the poor wife, the doting mother, who has +never suspected anything, or at least has clung always to the hope which +you are just going to wrench away from her!--I must tell Iris that I +think her poor friend is in a precarious state. She seems nearer to him +than anybody. + +I did tell her. Whatever emotion it produced, she kept a still face, +except, perhaps, a little trembling of the lip.--Could I be certain that +there was any mortal complaint?--Why, no, I could not be certain; but it +looked alarming to me.--He shall have some of my life,--she said. + +I suppose this to have been a fancy of hers, or a kind of magnetic power +she could give out;--at any rate, I cannot help thinking she wills her +strength away from herself, for she has lost vigor and color from that +day. I have sometimes thought he gained the force she lost; but this may +have been a whim, very probably. + +One day she came suddenly to me, looking deadly pale. Her lips moved, +as if she were speaking; but I could not at first hear a word. Her hair +looked strangely, as if lifting itself, and her eyes were full of wild +light. She sunk upon a chair, and I thought was falling into one of her +trances. Something had frozen her blood with fear; I thought, from +what she said, half audibly, that she believed she had seen a shrouded +figure. + +That night, at about eleven o'clock, I was sent for to see the Little +Gentleman, who was taken suddenly ill. Bridget, the servant, went before +me with a light. The doors were both unfastened, and I found myself +ushered, without hindrance, into the dim light of the mysterious +apartment I had so longed to enter. + +I found these stanzas in the young girl's book among many others. I give +them as characterizing the tone of her sadder moments. + + + UNDER THE VIOLETS. + + Her hands are cold; her face is white; + No more her pulses come and go; + Her eyes are shut to life and light; + Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, + And lay her where the violets blow. + + But not beneath a graven stone, + To plead for tears with alien eyes; + A slender cross of wood alone + Shall say, that here a maiden lies + In peace beneath the peaceful skies. + + And gray old trees of hugest limb + Shall wheel their circling shadows round + To make the scorching sunlight dim + That drinks the greenness from the ground, + And drop their dead leaves on her mound. + + When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, + And through their leaves the robins call, + And, ripening in the autumn sun, + The acorns and the chestnuts fall, + Doubt not that she will heed them all. + + For her the morning choir shall sing + Its matins from the branches high, + And every minstrel voice of spring, + That trills beneath the April sky, + Shall greet her with its earliest cry. + + When, turning round their dial-track, + Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, + Her little mourners, clad in black, + The crickets, sliding through the grass, + Shall pipe for her an evening mass. + + At last the rootlets of the trees + Shall find the prison where she lies, + And bear the buried dust they seize + In leaves and blossoms to the skies. + So may the soul that warmed it rise! + + If any, born of kindlier blood, + Should ask, What maiden lies below? + Say only this: A tender bud, + That tried to blossom in the snow, + Lies withered where the violets blow. + + + + +XI + +You will know, perhaps, in the course of half an hour's reading, what +has been haunting my hours of sleep and waking for months. I cannot +tell, of course, whether you are a nervous person or not. If, however, +you are such a person,--if it is late at night,--if all the rest of the +household have gone off to bed,--if the wind is shaking your windows as +if a human hand were rattling the sashes,--if your candle or lamp is low +and will soon burn out,--let me advise you to take up some good quiet +sleepy volume, or attack the “Critical Notices” of the last Quarterly +and leave this to be read by daylight, with cheerful voices round, and +people near by who would hear you, if you slid from your chair and came +down in a lump on the floor. + +I do not say that your heart will beat as mine did, I am willing to +confess, when I entered the dim chamber. Did I not tell you that I was +sensitive and imaginative, and that I had lain awake with thinking what +were the strange movements and sounds which I heard late at night in my +little neighbor's apartment? It had come to that pass that I was truly +unable to separate what I had really heard from what I had dreamed in +those nightmares to which I have been subject, as before mentioned. So, +when I walked into the room, and Bridget, turning back, closed the door +and left me alone with its tenant, I do believe you could have grated a +nutmeg on my skin, such a “goose-flesh” shiver ran over it. It was not +fear, but what I call nervousness,--unreasoning, but irresistible; as +when, for instance, one looking at the sun going down says, “I will +count fifty before it disappears”; and as he goes on and it becomes +doubtful whether he will reach the number, he gets strangely flurried, +and his imagination pictures life and death and heaven and hell as the +issues depending on the completion or non-completion of the fifty he is +counting. Extreme curiosity will excite some people as much as fear, or +what resembles fear, acts on some other less impressible natures. + +I may find myself in the midst of strange facts in this little +conjurer's room. Or, again, there may be nothing in this poor invalid's +chamber but some old furniture, such as they say came over in the +Mayflower. All this is just what I mean to, find out while I am looking +at the Little Gentleman, who has suddenly become my patient. The +simplest things turn out to be unfathomable mysteries; the most +mysterious appearances prove to be the most commonplace objects in +disguise. + +I wonder whether the boys who live in Roxbury and Dorchester are ever +moved to tears or filled with silent awe as they look upon the rocks +and fragments of “puddingstone” abounding in those localities. I have +my suspicions that those boys “heave a stone” or “fire a brickbat,” + composed of the conglomerate just mentioned, without any more tearful or +philosophical contemplations than boys of less favored regions expend on +the same performance. Yet a lump of puddingstone is a thing to look at, +to think about, to study over, to dream upon, to go crazy with, to beat +one's brains out against. Look at that pebble in it. From what cliff was +it broken? On what beach rolled by the waves of what ocean? How and +when imbedded in soft ooze, which itself became stone, and by-and-by +was lifted into bald summits and steep cliffs, such as you may see on +Meetinghouse-Hill any day--yes, and mark the scratches on their faces +left when the boulder-carrying glaciers planed the surface of the +continent with such rough tools that the storms have not worn the marks +out of it with all the polishing of ever so many thousand years? + +Or as you pass a roadside ditch or pool in springtime, take from it any +bit of stick or straw which has lain undisturbed for a time. Some little +worm-shaped masses of clear jelly containing specks are fastened to +the stick: eggs of a small snail-like shell-fish. One of these specks +magnified proves to be a crystalline sphere with an opaque mass in its +centre. And while you are looking, the opaque mass begins to stir, and +by-and-by slowly to turn upon its axis like a forming planet,--life +beginning in the microcosm, as in the great worlds of the firmament, +with the revolution that turns the surface in ceaseless round to the +source of life and light. + +A pebble and the spawn of a mollusk! Before you have solved their +mysteries, this earth where you first saw them may be a vitrified slag, +or a vapor diffused through the planetary spaces. Mysteries are common +enough, at any rate, whatever the boys in Roxbury and Dorchester think +of “brickbats” and the spawn of creatures that live in roadside puddles. + +But then a great many seeming mysteries are relatively perfectly plain, +when we can get at them so as to turn them over. How many ghosts that +“thick men's blood with cold” prove to be shirts hung out to dry! +How many mermaids have been made out of seals! How many times have +horse-mackerels been taken for the sea-serpent! + +--Let me take the whole matter coolly, while I see what is the matter +with the patient. That is what I say to myself, as I draw a chair to the +bedside. The bed is an old-fashioned, dark mahogany four-poster. It was +never that which made the noise of something moving. It is too heavy to +be pushed about the room.--The Little Gentleman was sitting, bolstered +up by pillows, with his hands clasped and their united palms resting +on the back of the head, one of the three or four positions specially +affected by persons whose breathing is difficult from disease of the +heart or other causes. + +Sit down, Sir,--he said,--sit down! I have come to the hill Difficulty, +Sir, and am fighting my way up.--His speech was laborious and +interrupted. + +Don't talk,--I said,--except to answer my questions.--And I proceeded +to “prospect” for the marks of some local mischief, which you know is +at the bottom of all these attacks, though we do not always find it. +I suppose I go to work pretty much like other professional folks of my +temperament. Thus: + +Wrist, if you please.--I was on his right side, but he presented his +left wrist, crossing it over the other.--I begin to count, holding watch +in left hand. One, two, three, four,--What a handsome hand! wonder if +that splendid stone is a carbuncle.--One, two, three, four, five, six, +seven,--Can't see much, it is so dark, except one white object.--One, +two, three, four,--Hang it! eighty or ninety in the minute, I +guess.--Tongue, if you please.--Tongue is put out. Forget to look at it, +or, rather, to take any particular notice of it;--but what is that white +object, with the long arm stretching up as if pointing to the sky, +just as Vesalius and Spigelius and those old fellows used to put their +skeletons? I don't think anything of such objects, you know; but what +should he have it in his chamber for? As I had found his pulse irregular +and intermittent, I took out a stethoscope, which is a pocket-spyglass +for looking into people's chests with your ears, and laid it over the +place where the heart beats. I missed the usual beat of the organ.--How +is this?--I said,--where is your heart gone to?--He took the stethoscope +and shifted it across to the right side; there was a displacement of the +organ.--I am ill-packed,--he said;--there was no room for my heart in +its place as it is with other men.--God help him! + +It is hard to draw the line between scientific curiosity and the desire +for the patient's sake to learn all the details of his condition. I must +look at this patient's chest, and thump it and listen to it. For this is +a case of ectopia cordis, my boy,--displacement of the heart; and it +is n't every day you get a chance to overhaul such an interesting +malformation. And so I managed to do my duty and satisfy my curiosity +at the same time. The torso was slight and deformed; the right arm +attenuated,--the left full, round, and of perfect symmetry. It had +run away with the life of the other limbs,--a common trick enough of +Nature's, as I told you before. If you see a man with legs withered from +childhood, keep out of the way of his arms, if you have a quarrel with +him. He has the strength of four limbs in two; and if he strikes you, it +is an arm-blow plus a kick administered from the shoulder instead of the +haunch, where it should have started from. + +Still examining him as a patient, I kept my eyes about me to search +all parts of the chamber and went on with the double process, as +before.--Heart hits as hard as a fist,--bellows-sound over mitral valves +(professional terms you need not attend to).--What the deuse is that +long case for? Got his witch grandmother mummied in it? And three big +mahogany presses,--hey?--A diabolical suspicion came over me which I had +had once before,--that he might be one of our modern alchemists,--you +understand, make gold, you know, or what looks like it, sometimes with +the head of a king or queen or of Liberty to embellish one side of the +piece.--Don't I remember hearing him shut a door and lock it once? What +do you think was kept under that lock? Let's have another look at his +hand, to see if there are any calluses. + +One can tell a man's business, if it is a handicraft, very often by +just taking a look at his open hand. Ah! Four calluses at the end of the +fingers of the right hand. None on those of the left. Ah, ha! What do +those mean? + +All this seems longer in the telling, of course, than it was in fact. +While I was making these observations of the objects around me, I was +also forming my opinion as to the kind of case with which I had to deal. + +There are three wicks, you know, to the lamp of a man's life: brain, +blood, and breath. Press the brain a little, its light goes out, +followed by both the others. Stop the heart a minute and out go all +three of the wicks. Choke the air out of the lungs, and presently the +fluid ceases to supply the other centres of flame, and all is +soon stagnation, cold, and darkness. The “tripod of life” a French +physiologist called these three organs. It is all clear enough which leg +of the tripod is going to break down here. I could tell you exactly +what the difficulty is;--which would be as intelligible and amusing as a +watchmaker's description of a diseased timekeeper to a ploughman. It is +enough to say, that I found just what I expected to, and that I think +this attack is only the prelude of more serious consequences,--which +expression means you very well know what. + +And now the secrets of this life hanging on a thread must surely come +out. If I have made a mystery where there was none, my suspicions will +be shamed, as they have often been before. If there is anything strange, +my visits will clear it up. + +I sat an hour or two by the side of the Little Gentleman's bed, after +giving him some henbane to quiet his brain, and some foxglove, which an +imaginative French professor has called the “Opium of the Heart.” Under +their influence he gradually fell into an uneasy, half-waking slumber, +the body fighting hard for every breath, and the mind wandering off in +strange fancies and old recollections, which escaped from his lips in +broken sentences. + +--The last of 'em,--he said,--the last of 'em all,--thank God! And the +grave he lies in will look just as well as if he had been straight. Dig +it deep, old Martin, dig it deep,--and let it be as long as other +folks' graves. And mind you get the sods flat, old man,--flat as ever a +straight-backed young fellow was laid under. And then, with a good tall +slab at the head, and a foot-stone six foot away from it, it'll look +just as if there was a man underneath. + +A man! Who said he was a man? No more men of that pattern to bear his +name!--Used to be a good-looking set enough.--Where 's all the manhood +and womanhood gone to since his great-grandfather was the strongest +man that sailed out of the town of Boston, and poor Leah there the +handsomest woman in Essex, if she was a witch? + +--Give me some light,--he said,--more light. I want to see the picture. + +He had started either from a dream or a wandering reverie. I was not +unwilling to have more light in the apartment, and presently had lighted +an astral lamp that stood on a table.--He pointed to a portrait hanging +against the wall.--Look at her,--he said,--look at her! Wasn't that a +pretty neck to slip a hangman's noose over? + +The portrait was of a young woman, something more than twenty years old, +perhaps. There were few pictures of any merit painted in New England +before the time of Smibert, and I am at a loss to know what artist +could have taken this half-length, which was evidently from life. It was +somewhat stiff and flat, but the grace of the figure and the sweetness +of the expression reminded me of the angels of the early Florentine +painters. She must have been of some consideration, for she was dressed +in paduasoy and lace with hanging sleeves, and the old carved frame +showed how the picture had been prized by its former owners. A proud eye +she had, with all her sweetness.--I think it was that which hanged her, +as his strong arm hanged Minister George Burroughs;--but it may have +been a little mole on one cheek, which the artist had just hinted as a +beauty rather than a deformity. You know, I suppose, that nursling imps +addict themselves, after the fashion of young opossums, to these little +excrescences. “Witch-marks” were good evidence that a young woman was +one of the Devil's wet-nurses;--I should like to have seen you make fun +of them in those days!--Then she had a brooch in her bodice, that might +have been taken for some devilish amulet or other; and she wore a ring +upon one of her fingers, with a red stone in it, that flamed as if the +painter had dipped his pencil in fire;--who knows but that it was given +her by a midnight suitor fresh from that fierce element, and licensed +for a season to leave his couch of flame to tempt the unsanctified +hearts of earthly maidens and brand their cheeks with the print of his +scorching kisses? + +She and I,--he said, as he looked steadfastly at the canvas,--she and I +are the last of 'em.--She will stay, and I shall go. They never painted +me,--except when the boys used to make pictures of me with chalk on the +board-fences. They said the doctors would want my skeleton when I was +dead.--You are my friend, if you are a doctor,--a'n't you? + +I just gave him my hand. I had not the heart to speak. + +I want to lie still,--he said,--after I am put to bed upon the hill +yonder. Can't you have a great stone laid over me, as they did over the +first settlers in the old burying-ground at Dorchester, so as to keep +the wolves from digging them up? I never slept easy over the sod;--I +should like to lie quiet under it. And besides,--he said, in a kind of +scared whisper,--I don't want to have my bones stared at, as my body has +been. I don't doubt I was a remarkable case; but, for God's sake, oh, +for God's sake, don't let 'em make a show of the cage I have been shut +up in and looked through the bars of for so many years. + +I have heard it said that the art of healing makes men hard-hearted and +indifferent to human suffering. I am willing to own that there is +often a professional hardness in surgeons, just as there is in +theologians,--only much less in degree than in these last. It does not +commonly improve the sympathies of a man to be in the habit of thrusting +knives into his fellow-creatures and burning them with red-hot irons, +any more than it improves them to hold the blinding-white cantery of +Gehenna by its cool handle and score and crisp young souls with it +until they are scorched into the belief of--Transubstantiation or the +Immaculate Conception. And, to say the plain truth, I think there are +a good many coarse people in both callings. A delicate nature will +not commonly choose a pursuit which implies the habitual infliction of +suffering, so readily as some gentler office. Yet, while I am writing +this paragraph, there passes by my window, on his daily errand of duty, +not seeing me, though I catch a glimpse of his manly features through +the oval glass of his chaise, as he drives by, a surgeon of skill and +standing, so friendly, so modest, so tenderhearted in all his ways, +that, if he had not approved himself at once adroit and firm, one would +have said he was of too kindly a mould to be the minister of pain, even +if he were saving pain. + +You may be sure that some men, even among those who have chosen the task +of pruning their fellow-creatures, grow more and more thoughtful and +truly compassionate in the midst of their cruel experience. They become +less nervous, but more sympathetic. They have a truer sensibility for +others' pain, the more they study pain and disease in the light of +science. I have said this without claiming any special growth in +humanity for myself, though I do hope I grow tenderer in my feelings +as I grow older. At any rate, this was not a time in which professional +habits could keep down certain instincts of older date than these. + +This poor little man's appeal to my humanity against the supposed +rapacity of Science, which he feared would have her “specimen,” if his +ghost should walk restlessly a thousand years, waiting for his bones +to be laid in the dust, touched my heart. But I felt bound to speak +cheerily. + +--We won't die yet awhile, if we can help it,--I said,--and I trust we +can help it. But don't be afraid; if I live longest, I will see that +your resting place is kept sacred till the dandelions and buttercups +blow over you. + +He seemed to have got his wits together by this time, and to have a +vague consciousness that he might have been saying more than he meant +for anybody's ears.--I have been talking a little wild, Sir, eh? he +said.--There is a great buzzing in my head with those drops of yours, +and I doubt if my tongue has not been a little looser than I would have +it, Sir. But I don't much want to live, Sir; that's the truth of the +matter, and it does rather please me to think that fifty years from now +nobody will know that the place where I lie does n't hold as stout and +straight a man as the best of 'em that stretch out as if they were proud +of the room they take. You may get me well, if you can, Sir, if you +think it worth while to try; but I tell you there has been no time for +this many a year when the smell of fresh earth was not sweeter to me +than all the flowers that grow out of it. There's no anodyne like your +good clean gravel, Sir. But if you can keep me about awhile, and it +amuses you to try, you may show your skill upon me, if you like. There +is a pleasure or two that I love the daylight for, and I think the night +is not far off, at best.--I believe I shall sleep now; you may leave me, +and come, if you like, in the morning. + +Before I passed out, I took one more glance round the apartment. The +beautiful face of the portrait looked at me, as portraits often do, with +a frightful kind of intelligence in its eyes. The drapery fluttered on +the still outstretched arm of the tall object near the window;--a crack +of this was open, no doubt, and some breath of wind stirred the hanging +folds. In my excited state, I seemed to see something ominous in that +arm pointing to the heavens. I thought of the figures in the Dance of +Death at Basle, and that other on the panels of the covered Bridge at +Lucerne, and it seemed to me that the grim mask who mingles with every +crowd and glides over every threshold was pointing the sick man to his +far home, and would soon stretch out his bony hand and lead him or drag +him on the unmeasured journey towards it. + +The fancy had possession of me, and I shivered again as when I first +entered the chamber. The picture and the shrouded shape; I saw only +these two objects. They were enough. The house was deadly still, and the +night-wind, blowing through an open window, struck me as from a field of +ice, at the moment I passed into the creaking corridor. As I turned into +the common passage, a white figure, holding a lamp, stood full before +me. I thought at first it was one of those images made to stand in +niches and hold a light in their hands. But the illusion was momentary, +and my eyes speedily recovered from the shock of the bright flame and +snowy drapery to see that the figure was a breathing one. It was Iris, +in one of her statue-trances. She had come down, whether sleeping or +waking, I knew not at first, led by an instinct that told her she was +wanted,--or, possibly, having overheard and interpreted the sound of our +movements,--or, it may be, having learned from the servant that there +was trouble which might ask for a woman's hand. I sometimes think women +have a sixth sense, which tells them that others, whom they cannot see +or hear, are in suffering. How surely we find them at the bedside of the +dying! How strongly does Nature plead for them, that we should draw our +first breath in their arms, as we sigh away our last upon their faithful +breasts! + +With white, bare feet, her hair loosely knotted, clad as the starlight +knew her, and the morning when she rose from slumber, save that she had +twisted a scarf round her long dress, she stood still as a stone before +me, holding in one hand a lighted coil of waxtaper, and in the other +a silver goblet. I held my own lamp close to her, as if she had been a +figure of marble, and she did not stir. There was no breach of propriety +then, to scare the Poor Relation with and breed scandal out of. She had +been “warned in a dream,” doubtless suggested by her waking knowledge +and the sounds which had reached her exalted sense. There was nothing +more natural than that she should have risen and girdled her waist, and +lighted her taper, and found the silver goblet with “Ex dono pupillorum” + on it, from which she had taken her milk and possets through all +her childish years, and so gone blindly out to find her place at the +bedside,--a Sister of Charity without the cap and rosary; nay, unknowing +whither her feet were leading her, and with wide blank eyes seeing +nothing but the vision that beckoned her along.--Well, I must wake her +from her slumber or trance.--I called her name, but she did not heed my +voice. + +The Devil put it into my head that I would kiss one handsome young girl +before I died, and now was my chance. She never would know it, and I +should carry the remembrance of it with me into the grave, and a rose +perhaps grow out of my dust, as a brier did out of Lord Lovers, in +memory of that immortal moment! Would it wake her from her trance? and +would she see me in the flush of my stolen triumph, and hate and despise +me ever after? Or should I carry off my trophy undetected, and always +from that time say to myself, when I looked upon her in the glory of +youth and the splendor of beauty, “My lips have touched those roses +and made their sweetness mine forever”? You think my cheek was flushed, +perhaps, and my eyes were glittering with this midnight flash of +opportunity. On the contrary, I believe I was pale, very pale, and +I know that I trembled. Ah, it is the pale passions that are the +fiercest,--it is the violence of the chill that gives the measure of the +fever! The fighting-boy of our school always turned white when he went +out to a pitched battle with the bully of some neighboring village; but +we knew what his bloodless cheeks meant,--the blood was all in his stout +heart,--he was a slight boy, and there was not enough to redden his face +and fill his heart both at once. + +Perhaps it is making a good deal of a slight matter, to tell the +internal conflicts in the heart of a quiet person something more than +juvenile and something less than senile, as to whether he should be +guilty of an impropriety, and, if he were, whether he would get caught +in his indiscretion. And yet the memory of the kiss that Margaret of +Scotland gave to Alain Chartier has lasted four hundred years, and +put it into the head of many an ill-favored poet, whether Victoria, or +Eugenie, would do as much by him, if she happened to pass him when he +was asleep. And have we ever forgotten that the fresh cheek of the young +John Milton tingled under the lips of some high-born Italian beauty, +who, I believe, did not think to leave her card by the side of the +slumbering youth, but has bequeathed the memory of her pretty deed to +all coming time? The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, +but its echo lasts a deal longer. + +There is one disadvantage which the man of philosophical habits of +mind suffers, as compared with the man of action. While he is taking an +enlarged and rational view of the matter before him, he lets his chance +slip through his fingers. Iris woke up, of her own accord, before I had +made up my mind what I was going to do about it. + +When I remember how charmingly she looked, I don't blame myself at +all for being tempted; but if I had been fool enough to yield to the +impulse, I should certainly have been ashamed to tell of it. She did not +know what to make of it, finding herself there alone, in such guise, and +me staring at her. She looked down at her white robe and bare feet, and +colored,--then at the goblet she held in her hand, then at the taper; +and at last her thoughts seemed to clear up. + +I know it all,--she said.--He is going to die, and I must go and sit by +him. Nobody will care for him as I shall, and I have nobody else to care +for. + +I assured her that nothing was needed for him that night but rest, and +persuaded her that the excitement of her presence could only do harm. +Let him sleep, and he would very probably awake better in the morning. +There was nothing to be said, for I spoke with authority; and the young +girl glided away with noiseless step and sought her own chamber. + +The tremor passed away from my limbs, and the blood began to burn in my +cheeks. The beautiful image which had so bewitched me faded gradually +from my imagination, and I returned to the still perplexing mysteries of +my little neighbor's chamber. + +All was still there now. No plaintive sounds, no monotonous murmurs, +no shutting of windows and doors at strange hours, as if something +or somebody were coming in or going out, or there was something to be +hidden in those dark mahogany presses. Is there an inner apartment that +I have not seen? The way in which the house is built might admit of it. +As I thought it over, I at once imagined a Bluebeard's chamber. Suppose, +for instance, that the narrow bookshelves to the right are really only a +masked door, such as we remember leading to the private study of one +of our most distinguished townsmen, who loved to steal away from his +stately library to that little silent cell. If this were lighted +from above, a person or persons might pass their days there without +attracting attention from the household, and wander where they pleased +at night,--to Copp's-Hill burial-ground, if they liked,--I said to +myself, laughing, and pulling the bed-clothes over my head. There is +no logic in superstitious-fancies any more than in dreams. A she-ghost +wouldn't want an inner chamber to herself. A live woman, with a valuable +soprano voice, wouldn't start off at night to sprain her ankles over the +old graves of the North-End cemetery. + +It is all very easy for you, middle-aged reader, sitting over this page +in the broad daylight, to call me by all manner of asinine and anserine +unchristian names, because I had these fancies running through my +head. I don't care much for your abuse. The question is not, what it +is reasonable for a man to think about, but what he actually does think +about, in the dark, and when he is alone, and his whole body seems but +one great nerve of hearing, and he sees the phosphorescent flashes of +his own eyeballs as they turn suddenly in the direction of the last +strange noise,--what he actually does think about, as he lies and +recalls all the wild stories his head is full of, his fancy hinting the +most alarming conjectures to account for the simplest facts about him, +his common-sense laughing them to scorn the next minute, but his mind +still returning to them, under one shape or another, until he gets very +nervous and foolish, and remembers how pleasant it used to be to have +his mother come and tuck him up and go and sit within call, so that she +could hear him at any minute, if he got very much scared and wanted her. +Old babies that we are! + +Daylight will clear up all that lamp-light has left doubtful. I longed +for the morning to come, for I was more curious than ever. So, between +my fancies and anticipations, I had but a poor night of it, and came +down tired to the breakfast-table. My visit was not to be made until +after this morning hour; there was nothing urgent, so the servant was +ordered to tell me. + +It was the first breakfast at which the high chair at the side of Iris +had been unoccupied.--You might jest as well take away that chair,--said +our landlady,--he'll never want it again. He acts like a man that 's +struck with death, 'n' I don't believe he 'll ever come out of his +chamber till he 's laid out and brought down a corpse.--These good women +do put things so plainly! There were two or three words in her short +remark that always sober people, and suggest silence or brief moral +reflections. + +--Life is dreadful uncerting,--said the Poor Relation,--and pulled in +her social tentacles to concentrate her thoughts on this fact of human +history. + +--If there was anything a fellah could do,--said the young man John, so +called,--a fellah 'd like the chance o' helpin' a little cripple like +that. He looks as if he couldn't turn over any handier than a turtle +that's laid on his back; and I guess there a'n't many people that know +how to lift better than I do. Ask him if he don't want any watchers. I +don't mind settin' up any more 'n a cat-owl. I was up all night twice +last month. + +[My private opinion is, that there was no small amount of punch absorbed +on those two occasions, which I think I heard of at the time];--but the +offer is a kind one, and it is n't fair to question how he would like +sitting up without the punch and the company and the songs and smoking. +He means what he says, and it would be a more considerable achievement +for him to sit quietly all night by a sick man than for a good many +other people. I tell you this odd thing: there are a good many persons, +who, through the habit of making other folks uncomfortable, by finding +fault with all their cheerful enjoyments, at last get up a kind +of hostility to comfort in general, even in their own persons. The +correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves +as we hate our neighbors. Look at old misers; first they starve their +dependants, and then themselves. So I think it more for a lively young +fellow to be ready to play nurse than for one of those useful but +forlorn martyrs who have taken a spite against themselves and love to +gratify it by fasting and watching. + +--The time came at last for me to make my visit. I found Iris sitting +by the Little Gentleman's pillow. To my disappointment, the room was +darkened. He did not like the light, and would have the shutters kept +nearly closed. It was good enough for me; what business had I to be +indulging my curiosity, when I had nothing to do but to exercise such +skill as I possessed for the benefit of my patient? There was not much +to be said or done in such a case; but I spoke as encouragingly as I +could, as I think we are always bound to do. He did not seem to pay any +very anxious attention, but the poor girl listened as if her own life +and more than her own life were depending on the words I uttered. She +followed me out of the room, when I had got through my visit. + +How long?--she said. + +Uncertain. Any time; to-day,--next week, next month,--I answered.--One +of those cases where the issue is not doubtful, but may be sudden or +slow. + +The women of the house were kind, as women always are in trouble. But +Iris pretended that nobody could spare the time as well as she, and kept +her place, hour after hour, until the landlady insisted that she'd be +killin' herself, if she begun at that rate, 'n' haf to give up, if she +didn't want to be clean beat out in less 'n a week. + +At the table we were graver than common. The high chair was set back +against the wall, and a gap left between that of the young girl and +her nearest neighbor's on the right. But the next morning, to our great +surprise, that good-looking young Marylander had very quietly moved his +own chair to the vacant place. I thought he was creeping down that way, +but I was not prepared for a leap spanning such a tremendous parenthesis +of boarders as this change of position included. There was no denying +that the youth and maiden were a handsome pair, as they sat side by +side. But whatever the young girl may have thought of her new neighbor +she never seemed for a moment to forget the poor little friend who had +been taken from her side. There are women, and even girls, with whom it +is of no use to talk. One might as well reason with a bee as to the form +of his cell, or with an oriole as to the construction of his swinging +nest, as try to stir these creatures from their own way of doing their +own work. It was not a question with Iris, whether she was entitled by +any special relation or by the fitness of things to play the part of a +nurse. She was a wilful creature that must have her way in this matter. +And it so proved that it called for much patience and long endurance +to carry through the duties, say rather the kind offices, the painful +pleasures, which she had chosen as her share in the household where +accident had thrown her. She had that genius of ministration which is +the special province of certain women, marked even among their helpful +sisters by a soft, low voice, a quiet footfall, a light hand, a cheering +smile, and a ready self-surrender to the objects of their care, which +such trifles as their own food, sleep, or habits of any kind never +presume to interfere with. Day after day, and too often through the long +watches of the night, she kept her place by the pillow. + +That girl will kill herself over me, Sir,--said the poor Little +Gentleman to me, one day,--she will kill herself, Sir, if you don't +call in all the resources of your art to get me off as soon as may be. I +shall wear her out, Sir, with sitting in this close chamber and watching +when she ought to be sleeping, if you leave me to the care of Nature +without dosing me. + +This was rather strange pleasantry, under the circumstances. But there +are certain persons whose existence is so out of parallel with the +larger laws in the midst of which it is moving, that life becomes to +them as death and death as life.--How am I getting along?--he said, +another morning. He lifted his shrivelled hand, with the death's-head +ring on it, and looked at it with a sad sort of complacency. By this one +movement, which I have seen repeatedly of late, I know that his thoughts +have gone before to another condition, and that he is, as it were, +looking back on the infirmities of the body as accidents of the past. +For, when he was well, one might see him often looking at the +handsome hand with the flaming jewel on one of its fingers. The single +well-shaped limb was the source of that pleasure which in some form or +other Nature almost always grants to her least richly endowed children. +Handsome hair, eyes, complexion, feature, form, hand, foot, pleasant +voice, strength, grace, agility, intelligence,--how few there are that +have not just enough of one at least of these gifts to show them that +the good Mother, busy with her millions of children, has not quite +forgotten them! But now he was thinking of that other state, where, free +from all mortal impediments, the memory of his sorrowful burden +should be only as that of the case he has shed to the insect whose +“deep-damasked wings” beat off the golden dust of the lily-anthers, as +he flutters in the ecstasy of his new life over their full-blown summer +glories. + +No human being can rest for any time in a state of equilibrium, where +the desire to live and that to depart just balance each other. If one +has a house, which he has lived and always means to live in, he pleases +himself with the thought of all the conveniences it offers him, and +thinks little of its wants and imperfections. But once having made up +his mind to move to a better, every incommodity starts out upon him, +until the very ground-plan of it seems to have changed in his mind, +and his thoughts and affections, each one of them packing up its little +bundle of circumstances, have quitted their several chambers and nooks +and migrated to the new home, long before its apartments are ready to +receive their coming tenant. It is so with the body. Most persons have +died before they expire,--died to all earthly longings, so that the +last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already +deserted mansion. The fact of the tranquillity with which the great +majority of dying persons await this locking of those gates of life +through which its airy angels have been going and coming, from the +moment of the first cry, is familiar to those who have been often +called upon to witness the last period of life. Almost always there is a +preparation made by Nature for unearthing a soul, just as on the smaller +scale there is for the removal of a milktooth. The roots which hold +human life to earth are absorbed before it is lifted from its place. +Some of the dying are weary and want rest, the idea of which is almost +inseparable in the universal mind from death. Some are in pain, and want +to be rid of it, even though the anodyne be dropped, as in the +legend, from the sword of the Death-Angel. Some are stupid, mercifully +narcotized that they may go to sleep without long tossing about. And +some are strong in faith and hope, so that, as they draw near the next +world, they would fair hurry toward it, as the caravan moves faster over +the sands when the foremost travellers send word along the file that +water is in sight. Though each little party that follows in a foot-track +of its own will have it that the water to which others think they are +hastening is a mirage, not the less has it been true in all ages and for +human beings of every creed which recognized a future, that those who +have fallen worn out by their march through the Desert have dreamed at +least of a River of Life, and thought they heard its murmurs as they lay +dying. + +The change from the clinging to the present to the welcoming of the +future comes very soon, for the most part, after all hope of life is +extinguished, provided this be left in good degree to Nature, and not +insolently and cruelly forced upon those who are attacked by illness, +on the strength of that odious foreknowledge often imparted by science, +before the white fruit whose core is ashes, and which we call death, +has set beneath the pallid and drooping flower of sickness. There is a +singular sagacity very often shown in a patient's estimate of his own +vital force. His physician knows the state of his material frame well +enough, perhaps,--that this or that organ is more or less impaired or +disintegrated; but the patient has a sense that he can hold out so much +longer,--sometimes that he must and will live for a while, though by the +logic of disease he ought to die without any delay. + +The Little Gentleman continued to fail, until it became plain that his +remaining days were few. I told the household what to expect. There was +a good deal of kind feeling expressed among the boarders, in various +modes, according to their characters and style of sympathy. The +landlady was urgent that he should try a certain nostrum which had saved +somebody's life in jest sech a case. The Poor Relation wanted me to +carry, as from her, a copy of “Allein's Alarm,” etc. I objected to the +title, reminding her that it offended people of old, so that more than +twice as many of the book were sold when they changed the name to “A +Sure Guide to Heaven.” The good old gentleman whom I have mentioned +before has come to the time of life when many old men cry easily, and +forget their tears as children do.--He was a worthy gentleman,--he +said,--a very worthy gentleman, but unfortunate,--very unfortunate. +Sadly deformed about the spine and the feet. Had an impression that the +late Lord Byron had some malformation of this kind. Had heerd there was +something the matter with the ankle-j'ints of that nobleman, but he was +a man of talents. This gentleman seemed to be a man of talents. +Could not always agree with his statements,--thought he was a little +over-partial to this city, and had some free opinions; but was sorry +to lose him,--and if--there was anything--he--could--. In the midst of +these kind expressions, the gentleman with the diamond, the Koh-i-noor, +as we called him, asked, in a very unpleasant sort of way, how the old +boy was likely to cut up,--meaning what money our friend was going to +leave behind. + +The young fellow John spoke up, to the effect that this was a diabolish +snobby question, when a man was dying and not dead.--To this the +Koh-i-noor replied, by asking if the other meant to insult him. Whereto +the young man John rejoined that he had no particul'r intentions one way +or t'other.-The Kohi-noor then suggested the young man's stepping out +into the yard, that he, the speaker, might “slap his chops.”--Let 'em +alone, said young Maryland,--it 'll soon be over, and they won't hurt +each other much.--So they went out. + +The Koh-i-noor entertained the very common idea, that, when one quarrels +with another, the simple thing to do is to knock the man down, and there +is the end of it. Now those who have watched such encounters are aware +of two things: first, that it is not so easy to knock a man down as it +is to talk about it; secondly, that, if you do happen to knock a man +down, there is a very good chance that he will be angry, and get up and +give you a thrashing. + +So the Koh-i-noor thought he would begin, as soon as they got into the +yard, by knocking his man down, and with this intention swung his arm +round after the fashion of rustics and those unskilled in the noble art, +expecting the young fellow John to drop when his fist, having completed +a quarter of a circle, should come in contact with the side of that +young man's head. Unfortunately for this theory, it happens that a blow +struck out straight is as much shorter, and therefore as much quicker +than the rustic's swinging blow, as the radius is shorter than the +quarter of a circle. The mathematical and mechanical corollary was, that +the Koh-i-noor felt something hard bring up suddenly against his right +eye, which something he could have sworn was a paving-stone, judging by +his sensations; and as this threw his person somewhat backwards, and the +young man John jerked his own head back a little, the swinging blow had +nothing to stop it; and as the Jewel staggered between the hit he got +and the blow he missed, he tripped and “went to grass,” so far as the +back-yard of our boardinghouse was provided with that vegetable. It was +a signal illustration of that fatal mistake, so frequent in young and +ardent natures with inconspicuous calves and negative pectorals, that +they can settle most little quarrels on the spot by “knocking the man +down.” + +We are in the habit of handling our faces so carefully, that a heavy +blow, taking effect on that portion of the surface, produces a most +unpleasant surprise, which is accompanied with odd sensations, as +of seeing sparks, and a kind of electrical or ozone-like odor, +half-sulphurous in character, and which has given rise to a very vulgar +and profane threat sometimes heard from the lips of bullies. A person +not used to pugilistic gestures does not instantly recover from this +surprise. The Koh-i-noor exasperated by his failure, and still a little +confused by the smart hit he had received, but furious, and confident +of victory over a young fellow a good deal lighter than himself, made +a desperate rush to bear down all before him and finish the contest +at once. That is the way all angry greenhorns and incompetent persons +attempt to settle matters. It does n't do, if the other fellow is only +cool, moderately quick, and has a very little science. It didn't do this +time; for, as the assailant rushed in with his arms flying everywhere, +like the vans of a windmill, he ran a prominent feature of his face +against a fist which was travelling in the other direction, and +immediately after struck the knuckles of the young man's other fist a +severe blow with the part of his person known as the epigastrium to one +branch of science and the bread-basket to another. This second round +closed the battle. The Koh-i-noor had got enough, which in such cases +is more than as good as a feast. The young fellow asked him if he was +satisfied, and held out his hand. But the other sulked, and muttered +something about revenge.--Jest as ye like,--said the young man +John.--Clap a slice o' raw beefsteak on to that mouse o' yours 'n' 't'll +take down the swellin'. (Mouse is a technical term for a bluish, oblong, +rounded elevation occasioned by running one's forehead or eyebrow +against another's knuckles.) The young fellow was particularly pleased +that he had had an opportunity of trying his proficiency in the art of +self-defence without the gloves. The Koh-i-noor did not favor us with +his company for a day or two, being confined to his chamber, it was +said, by a slight feverish, attack. He was chop-fallen always after +this, and got negligent in his person. The impression must have been +a deep one; for it was observed, that, when he came down again, his +moustache and whiskers had turned visibly white about the roots. In +short, it disgraced him, and rendered still more conspicuous a tendency +to drinking, of which he had been for some time suspected. This, and the +disgust which a young lady naturally feels at hearing that her lover +has been “licked by a fellah not half his size,” induced the landlady's +daughter to take that decided step which produced a change in the +programme of her career I may hereafter allude to. + +I never thought he would come to good, when I heard him attempting +to sneer at an unoffending city so respectable as Boston. After a +man begins to attack the State-House, when he gets bitter about the +Frog-Pond, you may be sure there is not much left of him. Poor Edgar Poe +died in the hospital soon after he got into this way of talking; and +so sure as you find an unfortunate fellow reduced to this pass, you had +better begin praying for him, and stop lending him money, for he is +on his last legs. Remember poor Edgar! He is dead and gone; but the +State-House has its cupola fresh-gilded, and the Frog-Pond has got a +fountain that squirts up a hundred feet into the air and glorifies that +humble sheet with a fine display of provincial rainbows. + +--I cannot fulfil my promise in this number. I expected to gratify +your curiosity, if you have become at all interested in these puzzles, +doubts, fancies, whims, or whatever you choose to call them, of mine. +Next month you shall hear all about it. + +--It was evening, and I was going to the sick-chamber. As I paused at +the door before entering, I heard a sweet voice singing. It was not the +wild melody I had sometimes heard at midnight:--no, this was the voice +of Iris, and I could distinguish every word. I had seen the verses in +her book; the melody was new to me. Let me finish my page with them. + + + HYMN OF TRUST. + + O Love Divine, that stooped to share + Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, + On Thee we cast each earthborn care, + We smile at pain while Thou art near! + + Though long the weary way we tread, + And sorrow crown each lingering year, + No path we shun, no darkness dread, + Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near! + + When drooping pleasure turns to grief, + And trembling faith is changed to fear, + The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf + Shall softly tell us, Thou art near! + + On Thee we fling our burdening woe, + O Love Divine, forever dear, + Content to suffer, while we know, + Living and dying, Thou art near! + + + + +XII + +A young fellow, born of good stock, in one of the more thoroughly +civilized portions of these United States of America, bred in good +principles, inheriting a social position which makes him at his ease +everywhere, means sufficient to educate him thoroughly without taking +away the stimulus to vigorous exertion, and with a good opening in some +honorable path of labor, is the finest sight our private satellite has +had the opportunity of inspecting on the planet to which she belongs. In +some respects it was better to be a young Greek. If we may trust the old +marbles, my friend with his arm stretched over my head, above there, (in +plaster of Paris,) or the discobolus, whom one may see at the principal +sculpture gallery of this metropolis,--those Greek young men were +of supreme beauty. Their close curls, their elegantly set heads, +column-like necks, straight noses, short, curled lips, firm chins, +deep chests, light flanks, large muscles, small joints, were finer than +anything we ever see. It may well be questioned whether the human shape +will ever present itself again in a race of such perfect symmetry. But +the life of the youthful Greek was local, not planetary, like that of +the young American. He had a string of legends, in place of our Gospels. +He had no printed books, no newspaper, no steam caravans, no forks, no +soap, none of the thousand cheap conveniences which have become matters +of necessity to our modern civilization. Above all things, if he aspired +to know as well as to enjoy, he found knowledge not diffused everywhere +about him, so that a day's labor would buy him more wisdom than a +year could master, but held in private hands, hoarded in precious +manuscripts, to be sought for only as gold is sought in narrow fissures, +and in the beds of brawling streams. Never, since man came into this +atmosphere of oxygen and azote, was there anything like the condition of +the young American of the nineteenth century. Having in possession or in +prospect the best part of half a world, with all its climates and soils +to choose from; equipped with wings of fire and smoke than fly with +him day and night, so that he counts his journey not in miles, but in +degrees, and sees the seasons change as the wild fowl sees them in his +annual flights; with huge leviathans always ready to take him on their +broad backs and push behind them with their pectoral or caudal fins the +waters that seam the continent or separate the hemispheres; heir of all +old civilizations, founder of that new one which, if all the prophecies +of the human heart are not lies, is to be the noblest, as it is the +last; isolated in space from the races that are governed by dynasties +whose divine right grows out of human wrong, yet knit into the most +absolute solidarity with mankind of all times and places by the one +great thought he inherits as his national birthright; free to form and +express his opinions on almost every subject, and assured that he will +soon acquire the last franchise which men withhold from man,--that +of stating the laws of his spiritual being and the beliefs he accepts +without hindrance except from clearer views of truth,--he seems to want +nothing for a large, wholesome, noble, beneficent life. In fact, the +chief danger is that he will think the whole planet is made for him, +and forget that there are some possibilities left in the debris of the +old-world civilization which deserve a certain respectful consideration +at his hands. + +The combing and clipping of this shaggy wild continent are in some +measure done for him by those who have gone before. Society has +subdivided itself enough to have a place for every form of talent. Thus, +if a man show the least sign of ability as a sculptor or a painter, for +instance, he finds the means of education and a demand for his services. +Even a man who knows nothing but science will be provided for, if +he does not think it necessary to hang about his birthplace all his +days,--which is a most unAmerican weakness. The apron-strings of an +American mother are made of India-rubber. Her boy belongs where he is +wanted; and that young Marylander of ours spoke for all our young men, +when he said that his home was wherever the stars and stripes blew over +his head. + +And that leads me to say a few words of this young gentleman, who +made that audacious movement lately which I chronicled in my last +record,--jumping over the seats of I don't know how many boarders to +put himself in the place which the Little Gentleman's absence had left +vacant at the side of Iris. When a young man is found habitually at the +side of any one given young lady,--when he lingers where she stays, and +hastens when she leaves,--when his eyes follow her as she moves and rest +upon her when she is still,--when he begins to grow a little timid, +he who was so bold, and a little pensive, he who was so gay, whenever +accident finds them alone,--when he thinks very often of the given young +lady, and names her very seldom,-- + +What do you say about it, my charming young expert in that sweet science +in which, perhaps, a long experience is not the first of qualifications? + +--But we don't know anything about this young man, except that he is +good-looking, and somewhat high-spirited, and strong-limbed, and has a +generous style of nature,--all very promising, but by no means proving +that he is a proper lover for Iris, whose heart we turned inside out +when we opened that sealed book of hers. + +Ah, my dear young friend! When your mamma then, if you will believe it, +a very slight young lady, with very pretty hair and figure--came and +told her mamma that your papa had--had--asked No, no, no! she could n't +say it; but her mother--oh the depth of maternal sagacity!--guessed it +all without another word!--When your mother, I say, came and told her +mother she was engaged, and your grandmother told your grandfather, how +much did they know of the intimate nature of the young gentleman to whom +she had pledged her existence? I will not be so hard as to ask how much +your respected mamma knew at that time of the intimate nature of +your respected papa, though, if we should compare a young +girl's man-as-she-thinks-him with a forty-summered matron's +man-as-she-finds-him, I have my doubts as to whether the second would be +a facsimile of the first in most cases. + +The idea that in this world each young person is to wait until he or she +finds that precise counterpart who alone of all creation was meant for +him or her, and then fall instantly in love with it, is pretty enough, +only it is not Nature's way. It is not at all essential that all pairs +of human beings should be, as we sometimes say of particular couples, +“born for each other.” Sometimes a man or a woman is made a great deal +better and happier in the end for having had to conquer the faults of +the one beloved, and make the fitness not found at first, by gradual +assimilation. There is a class of good women who have no right to marry +perfectly good men, because they have the power of saving those who +would go to ruin but for the guiding providence of a good wife. I have +known many such cases. It is the most momentous question a woman is +ever called upon to decide, whether the faults of the man she loves are +beyond remedy and will drag her down, or whether she is competent to be +his earthly redeemer and lift him to her own level. + +A person of genius should marry a person of character. Genius does not +herd with genius. The musk-deer and the civet-cat are never found in +company. They don't care for strange scents,--they like plain animals +better than perfumed ones. Nay, if you will have the kindness to notice, +Nature has not gifted my lady musk-deer with the personal peculiarity by +which her lord is so widely known. + +Now when genius allies itself with character, the world is very apt to +think character has the best of the bargain. A brilliant woman marries a +plain, manly fellow, with a simple intellectual mechanism;--we have all +seen such cases. The world often stares a good deal and wonders. She +should have taken that other, with a far more complex mental machinery. +She might have had a watch with the philosophical compensation-balance, +with the metaphysical index which can split a second into tenths, with +the musical chime which can turn every quarter of an hour into melody. +She has chosen a plain one, that keeps good time, and that is all. + +Let her alone! She knows what she is about. Genius has an infinitely +deeper reverence for character than character can have for genius. To +be sure, genius gets the world's praise, because its work is a tangible +product, to be bought, or had for nothing. It bribes the common voice to +praise it by presents of speeches, poems, statues, pictures, or whatever +it can please with. Character evolves its best products for home +consumption; but, mind you, it takes a deal more to feed a family for +thirty years than to make a holiday feast for our neighbors once or +twice in our lives. You talk of the fire of genius. Many a blessed +woman, who dies unsung and unremembered, has given out more of the real +vital heat that keeps the life in human souls, without a spark flitting +through her humble chimney to tell the world about it, than would set a +dozen theories smoking, or a hundred odes simmering, in the brains of +so many men of genius. It is in latent caloric, if I may borrow a +philosophical expression, that many of the noblest hearts give out the +life that warms them. Cornelia's lips grow white, and her pulse hardly +warms her thin fingers,--but she has melted all the ice out of the +hearts of those young Gracchi, and her lost heat is in the blood of her +youthful heroes. We are always valuing the soul's temperature by the +thermometer of public deed or word. Yet the great sun himself, when he +pours his noonday beams upon some vast hyaline boulder, rent from the +eternal ice-quarries, and floating toward the tropics, never warms it +a fraction above the thirty-two degrees of Fahrenheit that marked the +moment when the first drop trickled down its side. + +How we all like the spirting up of a fountain, seemingly against the law +that makes water everywhere slide, roll, leap, tumble headlong, to +get as low as the earth will let it! That is genius. But what is this +transient upward movement, which gives us the glitter and the rainbow, +to that unsleeping, all-present force of gravity, the same yesterday, +to-day, and forever, (if the universe be eternal,)--the great outspread +hand of God himself, forcing all things down into their places, and +keeping them there? Such, in smaller proportion, is the force of +character to the fitful movements of genius, as they are or have been +linked to each other in many a household, where one name was historic, +and the other, let me say the nobler, unknown, save by some faint +reflected ray, borrowed from its lustrous companion. + +Oftentimes, as I have lain swinging on the water, in the swell of the +Chelsea ferry-boats, in that long, sharp-pointed, black cradle in which +I love to let the great mother rock me, I have seen a tall ship glide by +against the tide, as if drawn by some invisible towline, with a hundred +strong arms pulling it. Her sails hung unfilled, her streamers were +drooping, she had neither side-wheel nor stern-wheel; still she moved +on, stately, in serene triumph, as if with her own life. But I knew that +on the other side of the ship, hidden beneath the great hulk that swam +so majestically, there was a little toiling steam-tug, with heart of +fire and arms of iron, that was hugging it close and dragging it bravely +on; and I knew, that, if the little steam-tug untwined her arms and +left the tall ship, it would wallow and roll about, and drift hither and +thither, and go off with the refluent tide, no man knows whither. And +so I have known more than one genius, high-decked, full-freighted, +wide-sailed, gay-pennoned, that, but for the bare toiling arms, and +brave, warm, beating heart of the faithful little wife, that nestled +close in his shadow, and clung to him, so that no wind or wave could +part them, and dragged him on against all the tide of circumstance, +would soon have gone down the stream and been heard of no more.--No, +I am too much a lover of genius, I sometimes think, and too often get +impatient with dull people, so that, in their weak talk, where nothing +is taken for granted, I look forward to some future possible state of +development, when a gesture passing between a beatified human soul and +an archangel shall signify as much as the complete history of a planet, +from the time when it curdled to the time when its sun was burned out. +And yet, when a strong brain is weighed with a true heart, it seems to +me like balancing a bubble against a wedge of gold. + +--It takes a very true man to be a fitting companion for a woman of +genius, but not a very great one. I am not sure that she will not +embroider her ideal better on a plain ground than on one with a +brilliant pattern already worked in its texture. But as the very essence +of genius is truthfulness, contact with realities, (which are always +ideas behind shows of form or language,) nothing is so contemptible +as falsehood and pretence in its eyes. Now it is not easy to find a +perfectly true woman, and it is very hard to find a perfectly true man. +And a woman of genius, who has the sagacity to choose such a one as her +companion, shows more of the divine gift in so doing than in her finest +talk or her most brilliant work of letters or of art. + +I have been a good while coming at a secret, for which I wished to +prepare you before telling it. I think there is a kindly feeling growing +up between Iris and our young Marylander. Not that I suppose there is +any distinct understanding between them, but that the affinity which has +drawn him from the remote corner where he sat to the side of the young +girl is quietly bringing their two natures together. Just now she is all +given up to another; but when he no longer calls upon her daily thoughts +and cares, I warn you not to be surprised, if this bud of friendship +open like the evening primrose, with a sound as of a sudden stolen kiss, +and lo! the flower of full-blown love lies unfolded before you. + +And now the days had come for our little friend, whose whims and +weaknesses had interested us, perhaps, as much as his better traits, to +make ready for that long journey which is easier to the cripple than +to the strong man, and on which none enters so willingly as he who has +borne the life-long load of infirmity during his earthly pilgrimage. At +this point, under most circumstances, I would close the doors and draw +the veil of privacy before the chamber where the birth which we call +death, out of life into the unknown world, is working its mystery. But +this friend of ours stood alone in the world, and, as the last act of +his life was mainly in harmony with the rest of its drama, I do not here +feel the force of the objection commonly lying against that death-bed +literature which forms the staple of a certain portion of the press. Let +me explain what I mean, so that my readers may think for themselves a +little, before they accuse me of hasty expressions. + +The Roman Catholic Church has certain formulas for its dying children, +to which almost all of them attach the greatest importance. There is +hardly a criminal so abandoned that he is not anxious to receive the +“consolations of religion” in his last hours. Even if he be senseless, +but still living, I think that the form is gone through with, just as +baptism is administered to the unconscious new-born child. Now we do not +quarrel with these forms. We look with reverence and affection upon all +symbols which give peace and comfort to our fellow-creatures. But the +value of the new-born child's passive consent to the ceremony is null, +as testimony to the truth of a doctrine. The automatic closing of a +dying man's lips on the consecrated wafer proves nothing in favor of the +Real Presence, or any other dogma. And, speaking generally, the evidence +of dying men in favor of any belief is to be received with great +caution. + +They commonly tell the truth about their present feelings, no doubt. A +dying man's deposition about anything he knows is good evidence. But +it is of much less consequence what a man thinks and says when he is +changed by pain, weakness, apprehension, than what he thinks when he is +truly and wholly himself. Most murderers die in a very pious frame of +mind, expecting to go to glory at once; yet no man believes he shall +meet a larger average of pirates and cut-throats in the streets of the +New Jerusalem than of honest folks that died in their beds. + +Unfortunately, there has been a very great tendency to make capital of +various kinds out of dying men's speeches. The lies that have been put +into their mouths for this purpose are endless. The prime minister, +whose last breath was spent in scolding his nurse, dies with a +magnificent apothegm on his lips, manufactured by a reporter. Addison +gets up a tableau and utters an admirable sentiment,--or somebody makes +the posthumous dying epigram for him. The incoherent babble of green +fields is translated into the language of stately sentiment. One would +think, all that dying men had to do was to say the prettiest thing +they could,--to make their rhetorical point,--and then bow themselves +politely out of the world. + +Worse than this is the torturing of dying people to get their evidence +in favor of this or that favorite belief. The camp-followers of +proselyting sects have come in at the close of every life where they +could get in, to strip the languishing soul of its thoughts, and carry +them off as spoils. The Roman Catholic or other priest who insists on +the reception of his formula means kindly, we trust, and very commonly +succeeds in getting the acquiescence of the subject of his spiritual +surgery, but do not let us take the testimony of people who are in the +worst condition to form opinions as evidence of the truth or falsehood +of that which they accept. A lame man's opinion of dancing is not good +for much. A poor fellow who can neither eat nor drink, who is sleepless +and full of pains, whose flesh has wasted from him, whose blood is like +water, who is gasping for breath, is not in a condition to judge fairly +of human life, which in all its main adjustments is intended for men in +a normal, healthy condition. It is a remark I have heard from the wise +Patriarch of the Medical Profession among us, that the moral condition +of patients with disease above the great breathing-muscle, the +diaphragm, is much more hopeful than that of patients with disease below +it, in the digestive organs. Many an honest ignorant man has given +us pathology when he thought he was giving us psychology. With +this preliminary caution I shall proceed to the story of the Little +Gentleman's leaving us. + +When the divinity-student found that our fellow-boarder was not likely +to remain long with us, he, being a young man of tender conscience +and kindly nature, was not a little exercised on his behalf. It was +undeniable that on several occasions the Little Gentleman had expressed +himself with a good deal of freedom on a class of subjects which, +according to the divinity-student, he had no right to form an opinion +upon. He therefore considered his future welfare in jeopardy. + +The Muggletonian sect have a very odd way of dealing with people. If +I, the Professor, will only give in to the Muggletonian doctrine, there +shall be no question through all that persuasion that I am competent to +judge of that doctrine; nay, I shall be quoted as evidence of its truth, +while I live, and cited, after I am dead, as testimony in its behalf. +But if I utter any ever so slight Anti-Muggletonian sentiment, then I +become incompetent to form any opinion on the matter. This, you cannot +fail to observe, is exactly the way the pseudo-sciences go to work, +as explained in my Lecture on Phrenology. Now I hold that he whose +testimony would be accepted in behalf of the Muggletonian doctrine has a +right to be heard against it. Whoso offers me any article of belief for +my signature implies that I am competent to form an opinion upon it; and +if my positive testimony in its favor is of any value, then my negative +testimony against it is also of value. + +I thought my young friend's attitude was a little too much like that of +the Muggletonians. I also remarked a singular timidity on his part +lest somebody should “unsettle” somebody's faith,--as if faith did not +require exercise as much as any other living thing, and were not all the +better for a shaking up now and then. I don't mean that it would be fair +to bother Bridget, the wild Irish girl, or Joice Heth, the centenarian, +or any other intellectual non-combatant; but all persons who proclaim a +belief which passes judgment on their neighbors must be ready to have it +“unsettled,” that is, questioned, at all times and by anybody,--just +as those who set up bars across a thoroughfare must expect to have them +taken down by every one who wants to pass, if he is strong enough. + +Besides, to think of trying to water-proof the American mind against the +questions that Heaven rains down upon it shows a misapprehension of our +new conditions. If to question everything be unlawful and dangerous, we +had better undeclare our independence at once; for what the Declaration +means is the right to question everything, even the truth of its own +fundamental proposition. + +The old-world order of things is an arrangement of locks and canals, +where everything depends on keeping the gates shut, and so holding +the upper waters at their level; but the system under which the young +republican American is born trusts the whole unimpeded tide of life +to the great elemental influences, as the vast rivers of the continent +settle their own level in obedience to the laws that govern the planet +and the spheres that surround it. + +The divinity-student was not quite up to the idea of the commonwealth, +as our young friend the Marylander, for instance, understood it. He +could not get rid of that notion of private property in truth, with the +right to fence it in, and put up a sign-board, thus: + + ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED OFF THESE + GROUNDS! + +He took the young Marylander to task for going to the Church of the +Galileans, where he had several times accompanied Iris of late. + +I am a Churchman,--the young man said,--by education and habit. I love +my old Church for many reasons, but most of all because I think it +has educated me out of its own forms into the spirit of its highest +teachings. I think I belong to the “Broad Church,” if any of you can +tell what that means. + +I had the rashness to attempt to answer the question myself.--Some +say the Broad Church means the collective mass of good people of all +denominations. Others say that such a definition is nonsense; that +a church is an organization, and the scattered good folks are no +organization at all. They think that men will eventually come together +on the basis of one or two or more common articles of belief, and form +a great unity. Do they see what this amounts to? It means an equal +division of intellect! It is mental agrarianism! a thing that never +was and never will be until national and individual idiosyncrasies have +ceased to exist. The man of thirty-nine beliefs holds the man of one +belief a pauper; he is not going to give up thirty-eight of them for +the sake of fraternizing with the other in the temple which bears on +its front, “Deo erexit Voltaire.” A church is a garden, I have heard it +said, and the illustration was neatly handled. Yes, and there is no such +thing as a broad garden. It must be fenced in, and whatever is fenced in +is narrow. You cannot have arctic and tropical plants growing together +in it, except by the forcing system, which is a mighty narrow piece of +business. You can't make a village or a parish or a family think alike, +yet you suppose that you can make a world pinch its beliefs or pad +them to a single pattern! Why, the very life of an ecclesiastical +organization is a life of induction, a state of perpetually disturbed +equilibrium kept up by another charged body in the neighborhood. If the +two bodies touch and share their respective charges, down goes the index +of the electrometer! + +Do you know that every man has a religious belief peculiar to himself? +Smith is always a Smithite. He takes in exactly Smith's-worth of +knowledge, Smith's-worth of truth, of beauty, of divinity. And Brown has +from time immemorial been trying to burn him, to excommunicate him, +to anonymous-article him, because he did not take in Brown's-worth of +knowledge, truth, beauty, divinity. He cannot do it, any more than a +pint-pot can hold a quart, or a quart-pot be filled by a pint. Iron is +essentially the same everywhere and always; but the sulphate of iron is +never the same as the carbonate of iron. Truth is invariable; but the +Smithate of truth must always differ from the Brownate of truth. + +The wider the intellect, the larger and simpler the expressions in which +its knowledge is embodied. The inferior race, the degraded and enslaved +people, the small-minded individual, live in the details which to larger +minds and more advanced tribes of men reduce themselves to axioms and +laws. As races and individual minds must always differ just as sulphates +and carbonates do, I cannot see ground for expecting the Broad Church +to be founded on any fusion of intellectual beliefs, which of course +implies that those who hold the larger number of doctrines as essential +shall come down to those who hold the smaller number. These doctrines +are to the negative aristocracy what the quarterings of their coats are +to the positive orders of nobility. + +The Broad Church, I think, will never be based on anything that requires +the use of language. Freemasonry gives an idea of such a church, and a +brother is known and cared for in a strange land where no word of +his can be understood. The apostle of this church may be a deaf mute +carrying a cup of cold water to a thirsting fellow-creature. The cup +of cold water does not require to be translated for a foreigner to +understand it. I am afraid the only Broad Church possible is one that +has its creed in the heart, and not in the head,--that we shall know +its members by their fruits, and not by their words. If you say this +communion of well-doers is no church, I can only answer, that all +organized bodies have their limits of size, and that when we find a man +a hundred feet high and thirty feet broad across the shoulders, we will +look out for an organization that shall include all Christendom. + +Some of us do practically recognize a Broad Church and a Narrow Church, +however. The Narrow Church may be seen in the ship's boats of humanity, +in the long boat, in the jolly boat, in the captain's gig, lying off the +poor old vessel, thanking God that they are safe, and reckoning how soon +the hulk containing the mass of their fellow-creatures will go down. The +Broad Church is on board, working hard at the pumps, and very slow to +believe that the ship will be swallowed up with so many poor people in +it, fastened down under the hatches ever since it floated. + +--All this, of course, was nothing but my poor notion about these +matters. I am simply an “outsider,” you know; only it doesn't do very +well for a nest of Hingham boxes to talk too much about outsiders and +insiders! + +After this talk of ours, I think these two young people went pretty +regularly to the Church of the Galileans. Still they could not keep away +from the sweet harmonies and rhythmic litanies of Saint Polycarp on the +great Church festival-days; so that, between the two, they were so much +together, that the boarders began to make remarks, and our landlady said +to me, one day, that, though it was noon of her business, them that had +eyes couldn't help seein' that there was somethin' goin', on between +them two young people; she thought the young man was a very likely young +man, though jest what his prospecs was was unbeknown to her; but she +thought he must be doing well, and rather guessed he would be able +to take care of a femily, if he didn't go to takin' a house; for a +gentleman and his wife could board a great deal cheaper than they could +keep house;--but then that girl was nothin' but a child, and wouldn't +think of bein' married this five year. They was good boarders, both of +'em, paid regular, and was as pooty a couple as she ever laid eyes on. + +--To come back to what I began to speak of before,--the divinity-student +was exercised in his mind about the Little Gentleman, and, in the +kindness of his heart,--for he was a good young man,--and in the +strength of his convictions,--for he took it for granted that he and +his crowd were right, and other folks and their crowd were wrong,--he +determined to bring the Little Gentleman round to his faith before he +died, if he could. So he sent word to the sick man, that he should be +pleased to visit him and have some conversation with him; and received +for answer that he would be welcome. + +The divinity-student made him a visit, therefore and had a somewhat +remarkable interview with him, which I shall briefly relate, without +attempting to justify the positions taken by the Little Gentleman. He +found him weak, but calm. Iris sat silent by his pillow. + +After the usual preliminaries, the divinity-student said; in a kind way, +that he was sorry to find him in failing health, that he felt concerned +for his soul, and was anxious to assist him in making preparations for +the great change awaiting him. + +I thank you, Sir,--said the Little Gentleman, permit me to ask you, what +makes you think I am not ready for it, Sir, and that you can do anything +to help me, Sir? + +I address you only as a fellow-man,--said the divinity-student,--and +therefore a fellow-sinner. + +I am not a man, Sir!--said the Little Gentleman.--I was born into this +world the wreck of a man, and I shall not be judged with a race to +which I do not belong. Look at this!--he said, and held up his withered +arm.--See there!--and he pointed to his misshapen extremities.--Lay your +hand here!--and he laid his own on the region of his misplaced heart.--I +have known nothing of the life of your race. When I first came to my +consciousness, I found myself an object of pity, or a sight to show. The +first strange child I ever remember hid its face and would not come near +me. I was a broken-hearted as well as broken-bodied boy. I grew into the +emotions of ripening youth, and all that I could have loved shrank from +my presence. I became a man in years, and had nothing in common with +manhood but its longings. My life is the dying pang of a worn-out race, +and I shall go down alone into the dust, out of this world of men and +women, without ever knowing the fellowship of the one or the love of the +other. I will not die with a lie rattling in my throat. If another +state of being has anything worse in store for me, I have had a long +apprenticeship to give me strength that I may bear it. I don't believe +it, Sir! I have too much faith for that. God has not left me wholly +without comfort, even here. I love this old place where I was born;--the +heart of the world beats under the three hills of Boston, Sir! I love +this great land, with so many tall men in it, and so many good, noble +women.--His eyes turned to the silent figure by his pillow.--I have +learned to accept meekly what has been allotted to me, but I cannot +honestly say that I think my sin has been greater than my suffering. I +bear the ignorance and the evil-doing of whole generations in my single +person. I never drew a breath of air nor took a step that was not a +punishment for another's fault. I may have had many wrong thoughts, but +I cannot have done many wrong deeds,--for my cage has been a narrow one, +and I have paced it alone. I have looked through the bars and seen the +great world of men busy and happy, but I had no part in their doings. +I have known what it was to dream of the great passions; but since +my mother kissed me before she died, no woman's lips have pressed my +cheek,--nor ever will. + +--The young girl's eyes glittered with a sudden film, and almost without +a thought, but with a warm human instinct that rushed up into her +face with her heart's blood, she bent over and kissed him. It was the +sacrament that washed out the memory of long years of bitterness, and I +should hold it an unworthy thought to defend her. The Little Gentleman +repaid her with the only tear any of us ever saw him shed. + +The divinity-student rose from his place, and, turning away from the +sick man, walked to the other side of the room, where he bowed his head +and was still. All the questions he had meant to ask had faded from +his memory. The tests he had prepared by which to judge of his +fellow-creature's fitness for heaven seemed to have lost their virtue. +He could trust the crippled child of sorrow to the Infinite Parent. +The kiss of the fair-haired girl had been like a sign from heaven, that +angels watched over him whom he was presuming but a moment before to +summon before the tribunal of his private judgment. Shall I pray with +you?--he said, after a pause. A little before he would have said, Shall +I pray for you?--The Christian religion, as taught by its Founder, is +full of sentiment. So we must not blame the divinity-student, if he was +overcome by those yearnings of human sympathy which predominate so +much more in the sermons of the Master than in the writings of his +successors, and which have made the parable of the Prodigal Son the +consolation of mankind, as it has been the stumbling-block of all +exclusive doctrines. + +Pray!--said the Little Gentleman. + +The divinity-student prayed, in low, tender tones, + +Iris and the Little Gentleman that God would look on his servant lying +helpless at the feet of his mercy; that He would remember his long years +of bondage in the flesh; that He would deal gently with the bruised +reed. Thou hast visited the sins of the fathers upon this their child. +Oh, turn away from him the penalties of his own transgressions! Thou +hast laid upon him, from infancy, the cross which thy stronger children +are called upon to take up; and now that he is fainting under it, be +Thou his stay, and do Thou succor him that is tempted! Let his manifold +infirmities come between him and Thy judgment; in wrath remember mercy! +If his eyes are not opened to all Thy truth, let Thy compassion lighten +the darkness that rests upon him, even as it came through the word of +thy Son to blind Bartimeus, who sat by the wayside, begging! + +Many more petitions he uttered, but all in the same subdued tone +of tenderness. In the presence of helpless suffering, and in the +fast-darkening shadow of the Destroyer, he forgot all but his Christian +humanity, and cared more about consoling his fellow-man than making a +proselyte of him. + +This was the last prayer to which the Little Gentleman ever listened. +Some change was rapidly coming over him during this last hour of which +I have been speaking. The excitement of pleading his cause before his +self-elected spiritual adviser,--the emotion which overcame him, when +the young girl obeyed the sudden impulse of her feelings and pressed +her lips to his cheek,--the thoughts that mastered him while the +divinity-student poured out his soul for him in prayer, might well hurry +on the inevitable moment. When the divinity-student had uttered his last +petition, commending him to the Father through his Son's intercession, +he turned to look upon him before leaving his chamber. His face was +changed.--There is a language of the human countenance which we all +understand without an interpreter, though the lineaments belong to the +rudest savage that ever stammered in an unknown barbaric dialect. By the +stillness of the sharpened features, by the blankness of the tearless +eyes, by the fixedness of the smileless mouth, by the deadening tints, +by the contracted brow, by the dilating nostril, we know that the soul +is soon to leave its mortal tenement, and is already closing up its +windows and putting out its fires.--Such was the aspect of the face +upon which the divinity-student looked, after the brief silence which +followed his prayer. The change had been rapid, though not that abrupt +one which is liable to happen at any moment in these cases.--The sick +man looked towards him.--Farewell,--he said,--I thank you. Leave me +alone with her. + +When the divinity-student had gone, and the Little Gentleman found +himself alone with Iris, he lifted his hand to his neck, and took from +it, suspended by a slender chain, a quaint, antique-looking key,--the +same key I had once seen him holding. He gave this to her, and pointed +to a carved cabinet opposite his bed, one of those that had so attracted +my curious eyes and set me wondering as to what it might contain. + +Open it,--he said,--and light the lamp.--The young girl walked to the +cabinet and unlocked the door. A deep recess appeared, lined with black +velvet, against which stood in white relief an ivory crucifix. A silver +lamp hung over it. She lighted the lamp and came back to the bedside. +The dying man fixed his eyes upon the figure of the dying Saviour.--Give +me your hand, he said; and Iris placed her right hand in his left. So +they remained, until presently his eyes lost their meaning, though they +still remained vacantly fixed upon the white image. Yet he held the +young girl's hand firmly, as if it were leading him through some +deep-shadowed valley and it was all he could cling to. But presently an +involuntary muscular contraction stole over him, and his terrible dying +grasp held the poor girl as if she were wedged in an engine of torture. +She pressed her lips together and sat still. The inexorable hand held +her tighter and tighter, until she felt as if her own slender fingers +would be crushed in its gripe. It was one of the tortures of the +Inquisition she was suffering, and she could not stir from her place. +Then, in her great anguish, she, too, cast her eyes upon that dying +figure, and, looking upon its pierced hands and feet and side and +lacerated forehead, she felt that she also must suffer uncomplaining. +In the moment of her sharpest pain she did not forget the duties of +her under office, but dried the dying man's moist forehead with her +handkerchief, even while the dews of agony were glistening on her own. +How long this lasted she never could tell. Time and thirst are two +things you and I talk about; but the victims whom holy men and righteous +judges used to stretch on their engines knew better what they meant than +you or I!--What is that great bucket of water for? said the Marchioness +de Brinvilliers, before she was placed on the rack.--For you to +drink,--said the torturer to the little woman.--She could not think that +it would take such a flood to quench the fire in her and so keep her +alive for her confession. The torturer knew better than she. + +After a time not to be counted in minutes, as the clock measures, +--without any warning,--there came a swift change of his features; his +face turned white, as the waters whiten when a sudden breath passes over +their still surface; the muscles instantly relaxed, and Iris, released +at once from her care for the sufferer and from his unconscious grasp, +fell senseless, with a feeble cry,--the only utterance of her long +agony. + +Perhaps you sometimes wander in through the iron gates of the Copp's +Hill burial-ground. You love to stroll round among the graves that crowd +each other in the thickly peopled soil of that breezy summit. You +love to lean on the freestone slab which lies over the bones of the +Mathers,--to read the epitaph of stout William Clark, “Despiser of Sorry +Persons and little Actions,”--to stand by the stone grave of sturdy +Daniel Malcolm and look upon the splintered slab that tells the old +rebel's story,--to kneel by the triple stone that says how the three +Worthylakes, father, mother, and young daughter, died on the same day +and lie buried there; a mystery; the subject of a moving ballad, by the +late BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, as may be seen in his autobiography, which will +explain the secret of the triple gravestone; though the old philosopher +has made a mistake, unless the stone is wrong. + +Not very far from that you will find a fair mound, of dimensions fit +to hold a well-grown man. I will not tell you the inscription upon the +stone which stands at its head; for I do not wish you to be sure of the +resting-place of one who could not bear to think that he should be known +as a cripple among the dead, after being pointed at so long among the +living. There is one sign, it is true, by which, if you have been a +sagacious reader of these papers, you will at once know it; but I fear +you read carelessly, and must study them more diligently before you will +detect the hint to which I allude. + +The Little Gentleman lies where he longed to lie, among the old +names and the old bones of the old Boston people. At the foot of his +resting-place is the river, alive with the wings and antennae of its +colossal water-insects; over opposite are the great war-ships, and the +heavy guns, which, when they roar, shake the soil in which he lies; and +in the steeple of Christ Church, hard by, are the sweet chimes which are +the Boston boy's Ranz des Vaches, whose echoes follow him all the world +over. + + In Pace! + +I, told you a good while ago that the Little Gentleman could not do a +better thing than to leave all his money, whatever it might be, to the +young girl who has since that established such a claim upon him. He did +not, however. A considerable bequest to one of our public institutions +keeps his name in grateful remembrance. The telescope through which he +was fond of watching the heavenly bodies, and the movements of which had +been the source of such odd fancies on my part, is now the property of a +Western College. You smile as you think of my taking it for a fleshless +human figure, when I saw its tube pointing to the sky, and thought it +was an arm, under the white drapery thrown over it for protection. So do +I smile now; I belong to the numerous class who are prophets after the +fact, and hold my nightmares very cheap by daylight. + +I have received many letters of inquiry as to the sound resembling a +woman's voice, which occasioned me so many perplexities. Some thought +there was no question that he had a second apartment, in which he had +made an asylum for a deranged female relative. Others were of opinion +that he was, as I once suggested, a “Bluebeard” with patriarchal +tendencies, and I have even been censured for introducing so Oriental an +element into my record of boarding-house experience. + +Come in and see me, the Professor, some evening when I have nothing +else to do, and ask me to play you Tartini's Devil's Sonata on that +extraordinary instrument in my possession, well known to amateurs as one +of the masterpieces of Joseph Guarnerius. The vox humana of the great +Haerlem organ is very lifelike, and the same stop in the organ of the +Cambridge chapel might be mistaken in some of its tones for a human +voice; but I think you never heard anything come so near the cry of +a prima donna as the A string and the E string of this instrument. A +single fact will illustrate the resemblance. I was executing some tours +de force upon it one evening, when the policeman of our district rang +the bell sharply, and asked what was the matter in the house. He +had heard a woman's screams,--he was sure of it. I had to make the +instrument sing before his eyes before he could be satisfied that he had +not heard the cries of a woman. The instrument was bequeathed to me by +the Little Gentleman. Whether it had anything to do with the sounds I +heard coming from his chamber, you can form your own opinion;--I have no +other conjecture to offer. It is not true that a second apartment with +a secret entrance was found; and the story of the veiled lady is the +invention of one of the Reporters. + +Bridget, the housemaid, always insisted that he died a Catholic. She had +seen the crucifix, and believed that he prayed on his knees before it. +The last circumstance is very probably true; indeed, there was a +spot worn on the carpet just before this cabinet which might be thus +accounted for. Why he, whose whole life was a crucifixion, should not +love to look on that divine image of blameless suffering, I cannot see; +on the contrary, it seems to me the most natural thing in the world +that he should. But there are those who want to make private property of +everything, and can't make up their minds that people who don't think as +they do should claim any interest in that infinite compassion expressed +in the central figure of the Christendom which includes us all. + +The divinity-student expressed a hope before the boarders that he should +meet him in heaven.--The question is, whether he'll meet you,--said the +young fellow John, rather smartly. The divinity-student had n't thought +of that. + +However, he is a worthy young man, and I trust I have shown him in a +kindly and respectful light. He will get a parish by-and-by; and, as he +is about to marry the sister of an old friend,--the Schoolmistress, whom +some of us remember,--and as all sorts of expensive accidents happen +to young married ministers, he will be under bonds to the amount of his +salary, which means starvation, if they are forfeited, to think all +his days as he thought when he was settled,--unless the majority of +his people change with him or in advance of him. A hard ease, to which +nothing could reconcile a man, except that the faithful discharge of +daily duties in his personal relations with his parishioners will make +him useful enough in his way, though as a thinker he may cease to exist +before he has reached middle age. + +--Iris went into mourning for the Little Gentleman. Although, as I +have said, he left the bulk of his property, by will, to a public +institution, he added a codicil, by which he disposed of various pieces +of property as tokens of kind remembrance. It was in this way I became +the possessor of the wonderful instrument I have spoken of, which had +been purchased for him out of an Italian convent. The landlady was +comforted with a small legacy. The following extract relates to Iris: +“in consideration of her manifold acts of kindness, but only in token +of grateful remembrance, and by no means as a reward for services which +cannot be compensated, a certain messuage, with all the land thereto +appertaining, situated in ______ Street, at the North End, so called, of +Boston, aforesaid, the same being the house in which I was born, but +now inhabited by several families, and known as 'The Rookery.'” Iris had +also the crucifix, the portrait, and the red-jewelled ring. The funeral +or death's-head ring was buried with him. + +It was a good while, after the Little Gentleman was gone, before our +boarding-house recovered its wonted cheerfulness. There was a flavor in +his whims and local prejudices that we liked, even while we smiled +at them. It was hard to see the tall chair thrust away among useless +lumber, to dismantle his room, to take down the picture of Leah, the +handsome Witch of Essex, to move away the massive shelves that held the +books he loved, to pack up the tube through which he used to study the +silent stars, looking down at him like the eyes of dumb creatures, with +a kind of stupid half-consciousness that did not worry him as did the +eyes of men and women,--and hardest of all to displace that sacred +figure to which his heart had always turned and found refuge, in the +feelings it inspired, from all the perplexities of his busy brain. It +was hard, but it had to be done. + +And by-and-by we grew cheerful again, and the breakfast-table wore +something of its old look. The Koh-i-noor, as we named the gentleman +with the diamond, left us, however, soon after that “little mill,” as +the young fellow John called it, where he came off second best. His +departure was no doubt hastened by a note from the landlady's daughter, +inclosing a lock of purple hair which she “had valued as a pledge of +affection, ere she knew the hollowness of the vows he had breathed,” + speedily followed by another, inclosing the landlady's bill. The next +morning he was missing, as were his limited wardrobe and the trunk that +held it. Three empty bottles of Mrs. Allen's celebrated preparation, +each of them asserting, on its word of honor as a bottle, that its +former contents were “not a dye,” were all that was left to us of the +Koh-i-noor. + +From this time forward, the landlady's daughter manifested a decided +improvement in her style of carrying herself before the boarders. She +abolished the odious little flat, gummy side-curl. She left off various +articles of “jewelry.” She began to help her mother in some of her +household duties. She became a regular attendant on the ministrations +of a very worthy clergyman, having been attracted to his meetin' by +witnessing a marriage ceremony in which he called a man and a woman a +“gentleman” and a “lady,”--a stroke of gentility which quite overcame +her. She even took a part in what she called a Sabbath school, though +it was held on Sunday, and by no means on Saturday, as the name she +intended to utter implied. All this, which was very sincere, as I +believe, on her part, and attended with a great improvement in her +character, ended in her bringing home a young man, with straight, sandy +hair, brushed so as to stand up steeply above his forehead, wearing a +pair of green spectacles, and dressed in black broadcloth. His personal +aspect, and a certain solemnity of countenance, led me to think he +must be a clergyman; and as Master Benjamin Franklin blurted out before +several of us boarders, one day, that “Sis had got a beau,” I was +pleased at the prospect of her becoming a minister's wife. On inquiry, +however, I found that the somewhat solemn look which I had noticed was +indeed a professional one, but not clerical. He was a young undertaker, +who had just succeeded to a thriving business. Things, I believe, are +going on well at this time of writing, and I am glad for the landlady's +daughter and her mother. Sextons and undertakers are the cheerfullest +people in the world at home, as comedians and circus-clowns are the most +melancholy in their domestic circle. + +As our old boarding-house is still in existence, I do not feel at +liberty to give too minute a statement of the present condition of each +and all of its inmates. I am happy to say, however, that they are all +alive and well, up to this time. That amiable old gentleman who sat +opposite to me is growing older, as old men will, but still smiles +benignantly on all the boarders, and has come to be a kind of father to +all of them,--so that on his birthday there is always something like +a family festival. The Poor Relation, even, has warmed into a filial +feeling towards him, and on his last birthday made him a beautiful +present, namely, a very handsomely bound copy of Blair's celebrated +poem, “The Grave.” + +The young man John is still, as he says, “in fustrate fettle.” I saw +him spar, not long since, at a private exhibition, and do himself great +credit in a set-to with Henry Finnegass, Esq., a professional gentleman +of celebrity. I am pleased to say that he has been promoted to an upper +clerkship, and, in consequence of his rise in office, has taken +an apartment somewhat lower down than number “forty-'leven,” as he +facetiously called his attic. Whether there is any truth, or not, in the +story of his attachment to, and favorable reception by, the daughter of +the head of an extensive wholesale grocer's establishment, I will not +venture an opinion; I may say, however, that I have met him repeatedly +in company with a very well-nourished and high-colored young lady, who, +I understand, is the daughter of the house in question. + +Some of the boarders were of opinion that Iris did not return the +undisguised attentions of the handsome young Marylander. Instead of +fixing her eyes steadily on him, as she used to look upon the Little +Gentleman, she would turn them away, as if to avoid his own. They often +went to church together, it is true; but nobody, of course, supposes +there is any relation between religious sympathy and those wretched +“sentimental” movements of the human heart upon which it is commonly +agreed that nothing better is based than society, civilization, +friendship, the relation of husband and wife, and of parent and child, +and which many people must think were singularly overrated by the +Teacher of Nazareth, whose whole life, as I said before, was full of +sentiment, loving this or that young man, pardoning this or that sinner, +weeping over the dead, mourning for the doomed city, blessing, and +perhaps kissing, the little children, so that the Gospels are still +cried over almost as often as the last work of fiction! + +But one fine June morning there rumbled up to the door of our +boarding-house a hack containing a lady inside and a trunk on the +outside. It was our friend the lady-patroness of Miss Iris, the same who +had been called by her admiring pastor “The Model of all the Virtues.” + Once a week she had written a letter, in a rather formal hand, but full +of good advice, to her young charge. And now she had come to carry her +away, thinking that she had learned all she was likely to learn +under her present course of teaching. The Model, however, was to stay +awhile,--a week, or more,--before they should leave together. + +Iris was obedient, as she was bound to be. She was respectful, grateful, +as a child is with a just, but not tender parent. Yet something was +wrong. She had one of her trances, and became statue-like, as before, +only the day after the Model's arrival. She was wan and silent, tasted +nothing at table, smiled as if by a forced effort, and often looked +vaguely away from those who were looking at her, her eyes just glazed +with the shining moisture of a tear that must not be allowed to gather +and fall. Was it grief at parting from the place where her strange +friendship had grown up with the Little Gentleman? Yet she seemed to +have become reconciled to his loss, and rather to have a deep feeling of +gratitude that she had been permitted to care for him in his last weary +days. + +The Sunday after the Model's arrival, that lady had an attack of +headache, and was obliged to shut herself up in a darkened room alone. +Our two young friends took the opportunity to go together to the +Church of the Galileans. They said but little going,--“collecting their +thoughts” for the service, I devoutly hope. My kind good friend the +pastor preached that day one of his sermons that make us all feel like +brothers and sisters, and his text was that affectionate one from John, +“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in +deed and in truth.” When Iris and her friend came out of church, they +were both pale, and walked a space without speaking. + +At last the young man said,--You and I are not little children, Iris! + +She looked in his face an instant, as if startled, for there was +something strange in the tone of his voice. She smiled faintly, but +spoke never a word. + +In deed and in truth, Iris,--- + +What shall a poor girl say or do, when a strong man falters in his +speech before her, and can do nothing better than hold out his hand to +finish his broken sentence? + +The poor girl said nothing, but quietly laid her ungloved hand in +his,--the little soft white hand which had ministered so tenderly and +suffered so patiently. + +The blood came back to the young man's cheeks, as he lifted it to his +lips, even as they walked there in the street, touched it gently with +them, and said, “It is mine!” + +Iris did not contradict him. + +The seasons pass by so rapidly, that I am startled to think how much +has happened since these events I was describing. Those two young +people would insist on having their own way about their own affairs, +notwithstanding the good lady, so justly called the Model, insisted that +the age of twenty-five years was as early as any discreet young lady +should think of incurring the responsibilities, etc., etc. Long +before Iris had reached that age, she was the wife of a young Maryland +engineer, directing some of the vast constructions of his native +State,--where he was growing rich fast enough to be able to decline that +famous Russian offer which would have made him a kind of nabob in a +few years. Iris does not write verse often, nowadays, but she sometimes +draws. The last sketch of hers I have seen in my Southern visits was of +two children, a boy and girl, the youngest holding a silver goblet, +like the one she held that evening when I--I was so struck with her +statue-like beauty. If in the later, summer months you find the grass +marked with footsteps around that grave on Copp's Hill I told you of, +and flowers scattered over it, you may be sure that Iris is here on her +annual visit to the home of her childhood and that excellent lady whose +only fault was, that Nature had written out her list of virtues an ruled +paper, and forgotten to rub out the lines. + +One thing more I must mention. Being on the Common, last Sunday, I +was attracted by the cheerful spectacle of a well-dressed and somewhat +youthful papa wheeling a very elegant little carriage containing a stout +baby. A buxom young lady watched them from one of the stone seats, +with an interest which could be nothing less than maternal. I at once +recognized my old friend, the young fellow whom we called John. He was +delighted to see me, introduced me to “Madam,” and would have the lusty +infant out of the carriage, and hold him up for me to look at. + +Now, then,--he said to the two-year-old,--show the gentleman how you hit +from the shoulder. Whereupon the little imp pushed his fat fist straight +into my eye, to his father's intense satisfaction. + +Fust-rate little chap,--said the papa.--Chip of the old block. Regl'r +little Johnny, you know. + +I was so much pleased to find the young fellow settled in life, and +pushing about one of “them little articles” he had seemed to want so +much, that I took my “punishment” at the hands of the infant pugilist +with great equanimity.--And how is the old boarding-house?--I asked. + +A 1,--he answered.--Painted and papered as good as new. Gabs in all the +rooms up to the skyparlors. Old woman's layin' up money, they say. +Means to send Ben Franklin to college. Just then the first bell rang for +church, and my friend, who, I understand, has become a most exemplary +member of society, said he must be off to get ready for meetin', and +told the young one to “shake dada,” which he did with his closed fist, +in a somewhat menacing manner. And so the young man John, as we used to +call him, took the pole of the miniature carriage, and pushed the small +pugilist before him homewards, followed, in a somewhat leisurely way, by +his pleasant-looking lady-companion, and I sent a sigh and a smile after +him. + +That evening, as soon as it was dark, I could not help going round by +the old boarding-house. The “gahs” was lighted, but the curtains, or +more properly, the painted shades; were not down. And so I stood there +and looked in along the table where the boarders sat at the evening +meal,--our old breakfast-table, which some of us feel as if we knew so +well. There were new faces at it, but also old and familiar ones.--The +landlady, in a wonderfully smart cap, looking young, comparatively +speaking, and as if half the wrinkles had been ironed out of her +forehead.--Her daughter, in rather dressy half-mourning, with a vast +brooch of jet, got up, apparently, to match the gentleman next her, who +was in black costume and sandy hair,--the last rising straight from +his forehead, like the marble flame one sometimes sees at the top of a +funeral urn.--The Poor Relation, not in absolute black, but in a stuff +with specks of white; as much as to say, that, if there were any more +Hirams left to sigh for her, there were pin-holes in the night of her +despair, through which a ray of hope might find its way to an adorer. +--Master Benjamin Franklin, grown taller of late, was in the act of +splitting his face open with a wedge of pie, so that his features were +seen to disadvantage for the moment.--The good old gentleman was sitting +still and thoughtful. All at once he turned his face toward the window +where I stood, and, just as if he had seen me, smiled his benignant +smile. It was a recollection of some past pleasant moment; but it fell +upon me like the blessing of a father. + +I kissed my hand to them all, unseen as I stood in the outer darkness; +and as I turned and went my way, the table and all around it faded into +the realm of twilight shadows and of midnight dreams. + + -------------- + +And so my year's record is finished. The Professor has talked less than +his predecessor, but he has heard and seen more. Thanks to all those +friends who from time to time have sent their messages of kindly +recognition and fellow-feeling! Peace to all such as may have been +vexed in spirit by any utterance these pages have repeated! They will, +doubtless, forget for the moment the difference in the hues of truth we +look at through our human prisms, and join in singing (inwardly) this +hymn to the Source of the light we all need to lead us, and the warmth +which alone can make us all brothers. + + + A SUN-DAY HYMN. + + Lord of all being! throned afar, + Thy glory flames from sun and star, + Centre and soul of every sphere, + Yet to each loving heart how near! + + Sun of our life, thy quickening ray + Sheds on our path the glow of day; + Star of our hope, thy softened light + Cheers the long watches of the night. + + Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn; + Our noontide is thy gracious dawn; + Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign; + All, save the clouds of sin, are thine! + + Lord of all life, below, above, + Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, + Before thy ever-blazing throne + We ask no lustre of our own. + + Grant us thy truth to make us free, + And kindling hearts that burn for thee, + Till all thy living altars claim + One holy light, one heavenly flame. + One holy light, one heavenly flame. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Professor at the Breakfast Table +by Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROFESSOR AT BREAKFAST TABLE *** + +***** This file should be named 2665.txt or 2665.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/6/2665/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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