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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109,
+November, 1866, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 19, 2008 [EBook #26963]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1866 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._
+
+VOL. XVIII.--NOVEMBER, 1866.--NO. CIX.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR AND
+FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article.
+
+
+
+
+RHODA.
+
+
+Uncle Bradburn took down a volume of the new Cyclopædia, and placed it
+on the stand beside him. He did not, however, open it immediately, but
+sat absorbed in thought. At length he spoke:--"Don't you think a young
+girl in the kitchen, to help Dorothy, would save a good many steps?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Aunt Janet, slowly. "Dorothy has a great deal to
+do already. Hepsy is as good and considerate as possible, but Dorothy
+won't let her do anything hardly. Hepsy says herself that within doors
+she has only dusted furniture and mended stockings ever since she came."
+
+"Can't you find sewing for Hepsy?"
+
+"She ought not to do much of that, you know."
+
+"Very true; but then this girl,--she will have to go to the poor-house
+if we don't take her. She has been living with Mrs. Kittredge at the
+Hollow; but Mrs. Kittredge has made up her mind not to keep her any
+longer. The fact is, nobody will keep her unless we do; and she is
+terribly set against going back to the poor-house."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Aunt Janet, a little hurriedly. She guessed already.
+
+"Her name is Rhoda Breck. You have heard of her."
+
+"Heard of her! I should think so!"
+
+"If I were you, Oliver," said grandmother, who sat in her rocking-chair
+knitting, "I would have two or three new rooms finished off over the
+wood-shed, and then you could accommodate a few more of that sort. Just
+like you!"
+
+And she took a pinch of snuff from a little silver-lidded box made of a
+sea-shell. She took it precipitately,--a sign that she was slightly
+disturbed. This snuff-box, however, was a safety-valve.
+
+Uncle Bradburn smiled quietly and made no reply.
+
+"We will leave it to Dorothy," said Aunt Janet. "It is only fair, for
+she will have all the trouble."
+
+Uncle Bradburn regarded the point as gained: he was sure of Dorothy. But
+he added by way of clincher, "Probably the girl never knew a month of
+kind treatment in her life, and one would like her to have a chance of
+seeing what it is. Just imagine a child of fifteen subjected to the
+veriest vixen in the country. There is some excuse for old Mrs.
+Kittredge, too, exasperated as she is by disease. No wonder if she is
+not very amiable; but that makes it none the less hard for the child."
+
+So the upshot of the matter was, that Rhoda Breck was installed nominal
+aid to Dorothy.
+
+Uncle brought her the next day in his sulky,--a slight little creature,
+with a bundle as large as herself.
+
+Presently she appeared at the sitting-room door. She was scarcely taller
+than a well-grown ten-years child. She wore a dress of gay-hued print, a
+bright shawl whose fringe reached lower than the edge of her skirt, and
+on her head an old-world straw bonnet decorated with a mat of crushed
+artificial flowers, and a faded, crumpled green veil. The small head had
+a way of moving in quick little jerks, like a chicken's; and it was odd
+to see how the enormous bonnet moved and jerked in unison. The face and
+features were small, except the eyes, which were large and wide open,
+and blue as turquoise.
+
+She took time to look well around the room before she spoke:--"Well, I'm
+come; I suppose you've been expecting of me. See here, be I going to
+sleep with that colored woman?"
+
+It was not possible to know from her manner to whom the query was
+addressed; but Aunt Janet replied, "No, Rhoda, there is a room for you.
+We never ask Dorothy to share her room with any one." Then, turning to
+me, "Go and show Rhoda her room, my dear."
+
+I rose to obey. Rhoda surveyed me, as if taking an inventory of the
+particulars which made up my exterior; and when I in turn felt my eyes
+attracted by her somewhat singular aspect, she remarked, in an
+indescribably authoritative tone, "Don't gawp! I hate to be gawped at."
+
+"See what a pretty room Dorothy has got ready for you," said I,--"a
+chest of drawers in it, too; and there's a little closet. I am sure you
+will like your room."
+
+"No, you ain't sure neither," she replied. "Nobody can't tell till
+they've tried. Likely yourn has got a carpet all over it. Hain't it,
+now?"
+
+"It has a straw matting," I answered.
+
+"And it's bigger'n this, I'll bet Ain't it, now?"
+
+"It is larger; but Louise and I have it together," said I.
+
+"Yes, I've heard tell about her," said Rhoda. "Well, you see you and her
+ain't town-poor. If you was town-poor you'd have to put up with
+everything,--little room, and straw bed, and old clothes, and
+everything. I expect I'll have to take your old gowns; hain't you got
+any? Say, now."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but I wear them myself. Surely, that you have on is not
+old."
+
+"Well, that's because I picked berries enough to buy it with. My bundle
+there's all old duds, though. It takes me half my time to patch 'em.
+You'd pitch 'em into the rag-bag. Wouldn't you, now?"
+
+"I have not seen them, you know," I replied.
+
+"More you hain't, nor you ain't agoing to. I hate folks peeking over my
+things."
+
+"Well," said I, "you may be sure I shall never do it. I must go back to
+my work now."
+
+"O, you feel above looking at town-poor's things, don't you? Wait till
+I've showed you my new apron. I didn't ride in it for fear I'd dust it.
+It's real gay, ain't it, now?"
+
+"Yes," said I; "it looks like a piece of a tulip-bed. But I must really
+go. I hope you will like your room."
+
+When I went back into the sitting-room, grandmother was wiping her eyes.
+She had been laughing till she cried at the new help Uncle Oliver had
+brought into the house.
+
+"No matter, though," she was saying; "let him call them help if he
+likes. If Dorothy will put up with it, I am sure we ourselves may. He
+says Hepsy more than pays her way in eggs and chickens. Just as if he
+thought about the eggs and chickens! Of course, if persons are really
+in need, it always pays to help them; and I guess Oliver has about as
+much capital invested that way as any one I know of, and I'm glad of it.
+But it's his funny way of doing it; it's all help, you see." And she
+laughed again till the tears came.
+
+In half an hour, during which time grandmother had a nap in her chair
+and Aunt Janet read, the little apparition stood in the doorway again.
+She had doffed the huge bonnet; and in her lint-white locks, drawn back
+from her forehead so straight and tight that it seemed as if that were
+what made her eyes open so round, she wore a tall horn comb. Around her
+neck, and standing well out, was a broad frill of the same material as
+her dress, highly suggestive of Queen Elizabeth.
+
+"You hain't got any old things, coats and trousers and such, all worn
+out, have you? 'Cause if you have, I guess I'll begin a braided rug.
+When folks are poor, they've got to work, if they know what's good for
+'em."
+
+"They'd better work, if they know what's good for 'em, whether they're
+poor or not," said grandmother.
+
+"There's a pedler going to bring me a diamond ring when I get a dollar
+to pay him for it."
+
+This remark was elicited by a fiery spark on grandmother's finger.
+
+"You had better save your money for something you need more," said
+grandmother.
+
+"You didn't think so when you bought yourn, did you, now?" said Rhoda.
+
+Meantime Aunt Janet had experienced a sense of relief at Rhoda's
+suggestion, by reason of finding herself really at a loss how to employ
+her. So they twain proceeded at once to the garret; whence they
+presently returned, Rhoda bearing her arms full of worn-out garments
+which had been accumulating in view of the possible beggar whose visits
+in that part of New England are inconveniently rare.
+
+"Those braided rugs are very comfortable things under one's feet in
+winter," said grandmother. "They're homely as a stump fence, but that is
+no matter."
+
+"I hardly knew what you would do with her while we were away," said Aunt
+Janet. "But it would kill the child to sit steadily at that. There's one
+thing, though,--strawberries will soon be ripe, and she can go and pick
+them. You may tell her, Kate, that I will pay her for them by the quart,
+just as any one else does. That will please and encourage her, I think."
+
+I told her that evening.
+
+"No, you don't," was her answer. "Nobody don't pay me twice over. I
+ain't an old skinflint, if I be town-poor. But I'll keep you in
+strawberries, though. Never you fear."
+
+I quite liked that of her, and so did grandmother and Aunt Janet when I
+told them.
+
+Uncle and Aunt Bradburn were going to make their yearly visit at Exeter,
+where uncle's relatives live. The very day of their departure brought a
+letter announcing a visit from one of Aunt Janet's cousins, a Miss
+Lucretia Stackpole. She was a lady who avowed herself fortunate in
+having escaped all those trammels which hinder people from following
+their own bent. One of her fancies was for a nomadic life; and in
+pursuance of this, she bestowed on Aunt Janet occasional visits, varying
+in duration from two or three days to as many weeks. The letter implied
+that she might arrive in the evening train, and we waited tea for her.
+
+She did not disappoint us; and during the tea-drinking she gave us
+sketches, not only of all the little celebrities she had met at
+Saratoga, but of all the new fashions in dresses, bonnets, and jewelry,
+besides many of her own plans.
+
+It was impossible for her to remain beyond the week, she said, because
+she had promised to meet her friends General and Mrs. Perkinpine in
+Burlington in time to accompany them to Montreal and Quebec, whence they
+must hurry back to Saratoga for a week, and go thence to Baltimore;
+then, after returning for a few days to New York, they were to go to
+Europe.
+
+"But you don't mean to go with them to Europe, Lucretia?" said
+grandmother.
+
+"O, of course, Aunt Margaret," for so she called her,--"of course I
+intend to go. We mean to be gone a year, and half the time we shall
+spend in Paris. We shall go to Rome, and we shall spend a few weeks in
+England."
+
+"I cannot imagine what you will do with six months in Paris,--you who
+don't know five words of French."
+
+"I studied it, however, at boarding-school," said Miss Stackpole; "I
+read both Télémaque and the New Testament in French."
+
+"Did you?" said grandmother; "well, every little helps."
+
+"I think I should dearly love to go myself," said Louise.
+
+"One picks up the language," said Miss Stackpole; "and certainly nothing
+is more improving than travel."
+
+"If improvement is your motive, it is certainly a very laudable one,"
+said grandmother. "But I should suppose that at your age you would begin
+to prefer a little quiet to all this rushing about. But every one to his
+liking."
+
+Now it is undeniable that grandmother and Miss Stackpole never did get
+on very well together; so it was rather a relief to Louise and myself
+when Miss Stackpole, pleading fatigue from her ride, expressed a wish to
+go to bed early, and get a good long, refreshing night's sleep, the
+facilities for which, she averred, were the only compensating
+circumstance of country life.
+
+Immediately afterwards, grandmother called Louise and myself into her
+room, to say what a pity it was that this visit had not occurred either
+a few weeks earlier or a few weeks later, when uncle and aunt would have
+been at home; but that, as it was, we must make the best of it, and do
+all in our power to make things go pleasantly for Miss Stackpole. It was
+true, she said, that Lucretia was not so very many years younger than
+herself, and, for her part, she thought pearl-powder and rouge and dyed
+hair, and all such trash, made people look old and silly, instead of
+young and handsome. It did sometimes try her patience a little; but she
+hoped she should remember, and so must we, that it was a Christian duty
+to treat people hospitably in one's own home, and that it was enjoined
+upon us to live peaceably, if possible, with all men, as much as lieth
+in us. Lucretia's being a goose made no difference in the principle.
+
+So we planned that we would take her up to Haverhill, and down to
+Cornish, and over to Woodstock,--all places to which she liked to go.
+And Dorothy came in to ask if she had better broil or fricassee the
+chickens for breakfast, and to say that there was a whole basketful of
+Guinea-hens' eggs, and that she had just set some waffles and
+sally-lunns a-sponging. She was determined to do her part, she said: she
+should be mighty glad to help get that skinchy-scrimpy look out of Miss
+Lucretia's face, just like a sour raisin.
+
+Grandmother said every one must do the best she could.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was one topic which Miss Stackpole could never let alone, and
+which always led to a little sparring between herself and grandmother.
+So the next morning, directly after breakfast, she began,--"Aunt
+Margaret, I never see that ring on your finger without wanting it."
+
+"I know it," grandmother responded; "and you're likely to want it. It's
+little like you'll ever get it."
+
+"Now, Aunt Margaret! you always could say the drollest things. But, upon
+my word, I should prize it above everything. What in all the world makes
+you care to wear such a ring as that, at your age, is more than I can
+imagine. If you gave it to me, I promise you I would never part with it
+as long as I live."
+
+"And I promise you, Lucretia, that I never will. And let me tell you,
+that, old as I am, you are the only one who has ever seemed in a hurry
+for me to have done with my possessions. If it will ease your mind any,
+I can assure you, once for all, that this ring will never come into your
+hands as long as you live. It has been in the family five generations,
+and has always gone to the eldest daughter; and, depend upon it, I shall
+not be the first to infringe the custom. So now I hope you will leave me
+in peace."
+
+Miss Stackpole held up her hands, and exclaimed and protested. When she
+was alone with Louise and me, she said she could plainly see that
+grandmother grew broken and childish.
+
+When we saw grandmother alone, she said she was sorry she had been so
+warm with Lucretia; she feared it was not quite Christian; besides,
+though you brayed a fool in a mortar with a pestle, yet would not his
+foolishness depart from him.
+
+The visiting career, so desirable for various reasons, was entered upon
+immediately. To Bethel, being rather too far for going and returning the
+same day, only Miss Stackpole and Louise went. They rode in the
+carryall, Louise driving. Though quite needlessly, Miss Stackpole was a
+little afraid of trusting herself to Louise's skill, and begged Will
+Bright, uncle's gardener, to leave his work, just for a day, and go with
+them. But there were a dozen things, said Will, which needed immediate
+doing, so that was out of the question. Then it came out that a run-away
+horse was not the only danger. In the country there are so many
+lurking-places, particularly in going through woods, whence a robber
+might pounce upon you all of a sudden and demand your life, or your
+portemonnaie, or your watch, or your rings, or something, that Miss
+Stackpole thought unprotected women, out on a drive, were on the whole
+forlorn creatures. But in our neighborhood a highwayman was a myth,--we
+had hardly ever even heard of one; and so, after no end of misgivings
+lest one or another lion in the way should after all compel the
+relinquishment of the excursion, literally at the eleventh hour they
+were fairly on their way.
+
+A room with a low, pleasant window looking out on the garden was the one
+assigned to Rhoda. In the garret she had discovered a little old
+rocking-chair, and this, transferred to her room, and placed near the
+window, was her favorite seat. Here, whenever one walked in the back
+garden, which was pretty much thickets of lilacs, great white
+rose-bushes, beds of pinks and southern-wood, and rows of
+currant-bushes, might be heard Rhoda's voice crooning an old song. It
+was rather a sweet voice, too. I wondered where she could have collected
+so many old airs. She said she supposed she caught them of Miss Reeney,
+out at the poor-house.
+
+When one saw Rhoda working away with unremitting assiduity, day after
+day, it was difficult to yield credence to all the stories that had been
+current in regard to her violence of temper and general viciousness.
+That was hard work, too, which she was doing; at least it looked hard
+for such little bits of hands. First, cutting with those great heavy
+shears through the thick, stiff cloth; next, the braiding; and finally,
+the sewing together with the huge needle, and coarse, waxed thread.
+
+One afternoon I had been looking at her a little while, and, as what
+uncle said about her having never had fair play came into my mind, I
+felt a strong compulsion to do her some kindness, however trifling; so I
+gathered a few flowers, fragrant and bright, and took them to her
+window.
+
+"Rhoda," said I, "shouldn't you like these on your bureau? They will
+look pretty there; and only smell how sweet they are. You may have the
+vase for your own, if you like."
+
+She took it without a word, looked at it a moment, glancing at me to
+make sure she understood, and then rose and placed it on the bureau,
+where it showed double, reflected from the looking-glass. She did not
+again turn her face towards me till she had spent a brief space in close
+communion with a minute handkerchief which she had drawn from her
+pocket. Clearly, here was one not much wonted to little kindnesses, and
+not insensible to them either.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The visit to Bethel had resulted so well, that Woodstock and Cornish
+were unhesitatingly undertaken. Nor was it misplaced confidence on Miss
+Stackpole's part. With the slight drawback of having forgotten the whip
+on the return from Woodstock, not the shadow of an accident occurred.
+Nor was this oversight of much account, only that Tim Linkinwater, the
+horse, whose self-will had increased with his years, soon made the
+discovery that he for the nonce held the reins of power; and when they
+reached Roaring Brook, instead of proceeding decorously across the
+bridge, he persisted in descending a somewhat steep bank and fording the
+stream. Half-way across, he found the coolness of the water so agreeable
+that he decided to enjoy it _ad libitum_. No expostulations nor
+chirrupings nor cluckings availed aught. He felt himself master of the
+occasion, and would not budge an inch. He looked up stream and down
+stream, and now and then sent a sly glance back at Miss Stackpole and
+Louise, and now and then splashed the water with his hoofs against the
+pebbles. Miss Stackpole's distress became intense. It began to be a moot
+point whether they might not be forced to pass the night there, in the
+middle of Roaring Brook. By great good fortune, at this juncture came
+along in his sulky Dr. Butterfield of Meriden. To him Louise appealed
+for aid, and he gave her his own whip, reaching it down to her from the
+bridge. Tim Linkinwater, perfectly comprehending the drift of events,
+did not wait for the logic of the lash, which, nevertheless, Miss
+Stackpole declared that he richly deserved, and which she would fain
+have seen administered, only for the probability that his homeward pace
+might be thereby perilously accelerated.
+
+That night we all went unusually early to bed and to sleep. I remember
+looking from the window after the light was out, and seeing, through a
+rift in the clouds, the new moon just touching the peak of the opposite
+mountain. A whippoorwill sang in the great chestnut-tree at the farther
+corner of the yard; tree-toads trilled, and frogs peeped, and through
+all could just be heard the rapids up the river.
+
+We were wakened at midnight by very different sounds,--a clattering,
+crushing noise, like something failing down stairs, with outcries fit to
+waken the seven sleepers. You would believe it impossible that they all
+proceeded from one voice; but they did, and that Rhoda's. We were wide
+awake and up immediately; and as the screams ceased, we distinctly heard
+some one running rapidly down the walk. As soon as we could get lights,
+we found ourselves congregated in the upper front hall; and Rhoda, when
+she had recovered breath to speak, told her story.
+
+She did not know what awoke her; but she heard what sounded like
+carefully raising a window, and some one stepping softly around the
+house. At first she supposed it might be one of the family; but, the
+sounds continuing, it came into her head to get up and see what they
+were. So she came, barefooted as she was, up the back way, and was just
+going down the front stairs, when a gleam of light shone on the ceiling
+above her. She moved to a position whence she could look over the
+balusters, and saw that the light came from a shaded lantern, carried by
+a man who moved so stealthily that only the creaking of the boards
+betrayed his footsteps. At the foot of the stairs he paused a moment,
+looking around, apparently hesitating which way to go. He decided to
+ascend; and then Rhoda, bravely determined to do battle, seized a
+rocking-chair which stood near, and threw it downward with all her
+force, lifting up her voice at the same time to give the alarm.
+
+Whether the man were hurt or not, it is certain that he was not so
+disabled as to impede his flight, and that he had lost his lantern, for
+that lay on the floor at the foot of the staircase; so did the
+rocking-chair, broken all to pieces.
+
+When we came to go over the house, it had been thoroughly ransacked.
+Every bit of silver, from the old-fashioned tea-pot and coffee-pot and
+the great flat porringer which Grandmother Graham's mother had brought
+over from Scotland to the cup which had belonged to the baby that died
+twenty years ago, and which Aunt Janet loved for his sake, the spoons,
+forks, all were collected in a large basket, with a quantity of linen
+and some articles of clothing.
+
+If the thief had been content with these, he might probably have secured
+them, for he had already placed them on a table just beneath an open
+window; but, hoping to gain additional booty, he lost and we saved it
+all,---or rather Rhoda saved it for us. We were extremely glad, for it
+would have been a great mischance losing those things, apart from the
+shame, as grandmother said, of keeping house so poorly while uncle and
+aunt were away.
+
+Will Bright thought, from Rhoda's account, that the man might be Luke
+Potter; for Luke lived nobody knew how, and he had recently returned
+from a two years' absence, strongly suspected to have been a resident in
+a New York State-prison. His family occupied a little brown house, half
+a mile up the road to uncle's wood-lot.
+
+So Will went up there the next day, pretending he wanted Luke to come
+and help about some mowing that was in hand. Luke's wife said that her
+husband had not been out of bed for two days, with a hurt he got on the
+cars the Saturday before. Then Will offered to go in and see if he could
+not do something for him; but Mrs. Potter said that he was asleep, and,
+having had a wakeful night, she guessed he had better not be disturbed.
+
+Will felt sure of his man, and, knowing Potter's reckless audacity, made
+extensive preparations for defence. He brought down from the garret a
+rusty old gun and a powder-horn, hunted up the bullet-moulds, and run
+ever so many little leaden balls before he discovered that they did not
+fit the gun; but that, as he said, was of no consequence, because there
+would be just as much noise, and it was not likely that any thief would
+stay to be shot at twice.
+
+So, notwithstanding our great fright, we grew to feel tolerably secure;
+but we took good care to fasten the windows, and to set in a safer place
+the articles which had so nearly been lost. Moreover, Will Bright was
+moved into a little room at the head of the back stairs.
+
+It was to be thought that Miss Stackpole would be completely overcome by
+this midnight adventure; but she averred that, contrariwise, it had the
+effect to rouse every atom of energy and spirit which she possessed. She
+had waited only to slip on a double-gown, and, seizing the first article
+fit for offensive service, which proved to be a feather duster, she
+hurried to the scene of action. She said afterwards, that she had felt
+equal to knocking down ten men, if they had come within her range. I
+remember myself that she did look rather formidable. Her double-gown was
+red and yellow; and her hair, wound up in little horn-shaped
+_papillotes_, imparted to her face quite a bristly and fierce
+expression.
+
+Evidently, Rhoda was much exalted in Will Bright's esteem from that
+eventful night.
+
+"She's clear grit," said Will. "Who 'd have thought the little thing had
+so much spunk in her? I declare I don't believe there's another one in
+the house that would have done what she did."
+
+The next forenoon, while Louise and I were sewing in grandmother's room,
+Miss Stackpole came hurriedly in, looking quite excited.
+
+"Aunt Margaret,--girls," said she, "do you know that, after all, you've
+got a thief in the house? for you certainly have."
+
+"Lucretia," said grandmother, "explain yourself; what do you mean now?"
+
+"Why, I mean exactly what I said; there's no doubt that somebody in the
+house is dishonest. I know it; I've lost a valuable pin."
+
+"How valuable?" said grandmother, smiling,--"a diamond one?"
+
+"You need not laugh, Aunt Margaret; it is one of these new pink coral
+pins, and very expensive indeed. I shall make a stir about it, I can
+tell you. A pity if I can't come here for a few days without having half
+my things stolen!"
+
+"And whom do you suspect of taking it?" said grandmother, coolly.
+
+"How do I know? I don't think Dorothy would touch anything that was not
+her own."
+
+"You don't?" said grandmother, firing up. "I am glad you see fit to make
+one exception in the charge you bring against the household."
+
+"O, very well. I suppose you think I ought to let it all go, and never
+open my lips about it. But that is not my way."
+
+"No, it is not," said grandmother.
+
+"If it were my own pin, I shouldn't care so much; but it is not. It
+belongs to Mrs. Perkinpine."
+
+"And you borrowed it? borrowed jewelry? Well done, Lucretia! I would not
+have believed it of you. I call that folly and meanness."
+
+"No," said Miss Stackpole, "I shall certainly replace it; I shall have
+to, if I don't find it. But I will find it. I'll tell you: that girl
+that dusts my room, Hepsy you call her, I'll be bound that she has it.
+Not that she would know its value; but she would think it a pretty thing
+to wear. Now, Aunt Margaret, don't you really think yourself it looks--"
+
+"Lucretia Stackpole," interrupted grandmother, "if you care to know what
+I really think myself, I will tell you. Since you have lost the pin, and
+care so much about it, I am sorry. You can well enough afford to replace
+it, though. But if you want to make everybody in the neighborhood
+dislike and despise you, just accuse Hepsy of taking your trinkets. She
+was born and bred here, close by us, and we think we know her. For my
+part, I would trust her with gold uncounted. Everybody will think, and I
+think too, that it is far more likely you have lost or mislaid it than
+that any one here has stolen it."
+
+Miss Stackpole had already opened her lips to reply; but what she would
+have said will never be known, for she was interrupted again,--this time
+by a terrible noise, as if half the house had fallen, and then piteous
+cries. The sounds came from the wood-shed, and thither we all hastened,
+fully expecting to find some one buried under a fallen wood-pile. It was
+not quite that, but there lay Rhoda, with her foot bent under her,
+writhing and moaning in extreme pain.
+
+We were every one assembled there, grandmother, Miss Stackpole, Louise,
+and I, and Hepsy, Dorothy, and Will Bright. Dorothy would have lifted
+and carried her in, but Rhoda would not allow it. Will Bright did not
+wait to be allowed, but took her up at once, more gently and carefully
+than one would have thought, and deposited her in her own room. Then, at
+grandmother's suggestion, he set off directly on horseback for Dr.
+Butterfield, whom fortunately he encountered on the way.
+
+The doctor soon satisfied himself that the extent of the poor girl's
+injuries was a bad sprain,--enough, certainly, but less than we had
+feared.
+
+It would be weeks before she would be able to walk, and meantime perfect
+quiet was strictly enforced. Hepsy volunteered her services as nurse,
+and discharged faithfully her assumed duties. But Rhoda grew restless
+and feverish, and finally became so much worse that we began seriously
+to fear lest she had received some internal injury.
+
+One afternoon I was sitting with her when the doctor came. He spoke
+cheeringly, as usual; but when I went to the door with him, he said the
+child had some mental trouble, the disposal of which would be more
+effective than all his medicines, and that I must endeavor to ascertain
+and remove it.
+
+Without much difficulty I succeeded. She was haunted with the fear,
+that, in her present useless condition, she would be sent away. I
+convinced her that no one would do this during the absence of Uncle and
+Aunt Bradburn, and that before their return she would probably be able
+to resume her work.
+
+"I know I'll sleep real good to-night," said Rhoda. "You see I'm awful
+tired of going round so from one place to another. It's just been from
+pillar to post ever since I can remember."
+
+"Well," said I, "you may be sure that you will never be sent away from
+this house for sickness nor for accident. So now set your poor little
+heart at rest about it."
+
+The blue eyes looked at me with an expression different from any I had
+seen in them before. They were soft, pretty eyes, too, now that the hair
+was suffered to lie around the face, instead of being stretched back as
+tightly as possible. One good result had come from the wood-shed
+catastrophe: the high comb had been shattered into irretrievable
+fragments. I inly determined that none like it should ever take its
+place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since Miss Stackpole said it was impossible for her to remain till the
+return of Uncle and Aunt Bradburn, I cannot say that, under the
+circumstances, we particularly desired her to prolong her visit. It may
+be that grandmother had too little patience with her; certainly they two
+were not congenial spirits. However, by means of taking her to see every
+relative we had in the vicinity, we disposed of the time very
+satisfactorily. She remained a few days longer than she had intended, so
+that Dorothy, who is unapproachable in ironing, might do up her muslin
+dresses.
+
+"I have changed my mind about Hepsy," said she the night before she
+left. "I think now it is Rhoda."
+
+"What is Rhoda?" asked grandmother.
+
+"That has taken the coral pin."
+
+Grandmother compressed her lips, but her eyes spoke volumes.
+
+"Miss Stackpole," said I, "it is true that Rhoda has not been here long;
+still, I have a perfect conviction of her honesty."
+
+"Very amiable and generous of you to feel so, Kate," said Miss
+Stackpole; "perhaps a few years ago, when I was of your age, I should
+have thought just the same."
+
+"Kate is twenty next September," said grandmother, who could refrain no
+longer. "I never forget anybody's age. It is quite possible that she
+will change in the course of twenty-five or thirty years."
+
+We all knew this to be throwing down the gauntlet. Miss Stackpole did
+not, however, take it up. She said she intended to lay the
+circumstances, exactly as they were, before Mrs. Perkinpine; and if that
+lady would allow her, she should pay for the pin. She thought, though,
+it might be her duty to talk with Rhoda; perhaps, even at the eleventh
+hour, the girl might be induced to give it up.
+
+"I will take it upon me, Lucretia," said grandmother, "to object to your
+talking with Rhoda. Even if we have not among us penetration enough to
+see that she is honest as daylight, it does not follow that we should be
+excusable in doing anything to make that forlorn orphan child less happy
+than she is now. You visit about a great deal, Lucretia. I hope, for the
+sake of all your friends, that you don't everywhere scatter your
+suspicions broadcast as you have done here. I am older than you, as you
+will admit, and I have never known any good come of unjust accusations."
+
+After Miss Stackpole went up stairs that night, she folded the black
+silk dress she had been wearing to lay it in her trunk; and in doing
+that, she found the missing pin on the inside of the waist-lining, just
+where she had put it herself. Then she remembered having stuck it there
+one morning in a hurry, to prevent any one being tempted with seeing it
+lie around.
+
+And Rhoda never knew what an escape she had.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I do wish there was something for me to do," said Rhoda; "I never was
+used to lying abed doing nothing. It most tuckers me out."
+
+"Cannot you read, Rhoda?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, I can read some. I can't read words, but I can tell some of the
+letters."
+
+"Have you never gone to school?"
+
+"No; I always had to work. Poor folks have got to work, you know."
+
+"Yes, but that need not prevent your learning to read. I can teach you
+myself; I will, if you like."
+
+"I guess your aunt won't calculate to get me to work for her, and then
+have me spend my time learning to read. First you know, she'll send me
+off."
+
+"She will like it perfectly well. Grandmother is in authority here now;
+I will go and ask her." This I knew would seem to her decisive.
+
+"What did she say?" said Rhoda, rather eagerly, when I returned.
+
+"She says yes, by all means; and that if you learn to read before aunt
+comes home, you shall have a new dress, and I may choose it for you."
+
+Now it was no sinecure, teaching Rhoda, but she won the dress,--a lilac
+print, delicate and pretty enough for any one. I undertook to make the
+dress, but she accomplished a good part of it herself. She said Miss
+Reeny used to show her about sewing. Whatever was to be done with hands
+she learned with surprising quickness. Grandmother suggested that the
+reading lessons should be followed by a course in writing. Before the
+lameness was well over, Rhoda could write, slowly indeed, yet legibly.
+
+I carried her some roses one evening. While putting them in water, I
+asked what flowers she liked best.
+
+"I like sweetbriers best," said she. "I think sweetbriers are handsome
+in the graveyard. I set out one over Jinny Collins's grave. For what I
+know, it is growing now."
+
+"Who was Jinny Collins, Rhoda?"
+
+"A girl that used to live over at the poor-house when I did. She was
+bound out to the Widow Whitmarsh, the spring that I went to live with
+Mrs. Amos Kemp. Jinny used to have sick spells, and Mrs. Whitmarsh
+wanted to send her back to the poor-house, but folks said she couldn't,
+because she'd had her bound. She and Mrs. Kemp was neighbors; and after
+Jinny got so as to need somebody with her nights, Mrs. Kemp used to let
+me go and sleep with her, and then she could wake me up if she wanted
+anything. I wanted to go, and Jinny wanted to have me come; she used to
+say it did her lots of good. Sometimes we'd pretend we was rich, and was
+in a great big room with curtains to the windows. We didn't have any
+candle burning,--Mrs. Whitmarsh said there wa'n't no need of one, and
+more there wa'n't. One night we said we'd take a ride to-morrow or next
+day. We pretended we'd got a father, and he was real rich, and had got a
+horse and wagon. Jinny said we'd go to the store and buy us a new white
+gown,--she always wanted a white gown. By and by she said she was real
+sleepy; she didn't have no bad coughing-spell that night, such as she
+most always did. She asked me if I didn't smell the clover-blows, how
+sweet they was; and then she talked about white lilies, and how she
+liked 'em most of anything, without it was sweetbriers. Then she asked
+me if I knew what palms was; and she said when she was dead she wanted
+me to have her little pink chany box that Miss Maria Elliot give her
+once, when she bought some blueberries of her. So then she dozed a
+little while; and I don't know why, but I couldn't get asleep for a good
+while, for all I'd worked real hard that day. I guess 'twas as much as
+an hour she laid kind of still; she never did sleep real sound, so but
+what she moaned and talked broken now and then. So by and by she give a
+start, and says she, 'I'm all ready.' 'Ready for what, Jinny,' says I.
+But she didn't seem to know as I was talking to her. Says she, 'I'm all
+ready. I've got on a white gown and a palm in my hand.' So then I knew
+she was wandering like, as I'd heard say folks did when they was very
+sick; for she hadn't any gown at all on, without you might call Mrs.
+Whitmarsh's old faded calico sack one, nor nothing in her hand neither.
+So pretty soon she dropped to sleep again, and I did too. And I slept
+later 'n common. The sun was shining right into my eyes when I opened
+'em. I thought 't would trouble Jinny, and I was just going to pin her
+skirt up to the window, and I see that she looked awful white. I put my
+hand on her forehead, and it was just as cold as a stone. So then I knew
+she was dead. I never see her look so happy like. She had the
+pleasantest smile on her lips ever you see. I didn't know as Mrs. Kemp'd
+like to have me stay, but I just brushed her hair,--'t was real pretty
+hair, just a little mite curly,--and then I run home and told Mrs. Kemp.
+She said she'd just as lives I'd stay over to Mrs. Whitmarsh's as not
+that day, 'cause she was going over to Woodstock shopping. So I went
+back again, and Mrs. Whitmarsh she sent me to one of the selectmen to
+see if she'd got to be to the expense of the funeral, 'cause she said it
+didn't seem right, seeing she never got much work out of Jinny, she was
+always so weakly. And Mr. Robbins he said the town would pay for the
+coffin and digging the grave. That made her real pleasant; and I don't
+know what put me up to it, but I was real set on it that Jinny should
+have on a white gown in the coffin. And I asked Mrs. Whitmarsh if I
+mightn't go over to Miss Bradford's; and she let me, and Miss Bradford
+give me an old white gown, if I'd iron it; and Polly Wheelock, she was
+Miss Bradford's girl, she helped me put it on to Jinny. And then Polly
+got some white lilies, and I got some sweetbrier sprigs, and laid round
+her in the coffin. I've seen prettier coffins, but I never see no face
+look so pretty as Jinny's. Mrs. Whitmarsh had the funeral next morning.
+She said she wanted to that night, so she could put the room airing, but
+she supposed folks would talk, and, besides, they didn't get the grave
+dug quick enough neither. Mrs. Kemp let me go to the funeral. I thought
+they was going to carry her over to the poor-house burying-ground, but
+they didn't, 'cause 't would cost so much for a horse and wagon. The
+right minister was gone away, and the one that was there was going off
+in the cars, so he had to hurry. There wa'n't hardly anybody there, only
+some men to let the coffin down, and the sexton, and Mrs. Whitmarsh and
+Polly Wheelock and I. The minister prayed a little speck of a prayer and
+went right away. I heard Mrs. Whitmarsh telling Mrs. Kemp she thought
+she'd got out of it pretty well, seeing she didn't expect nothing but
+what she'd got to buy the coffin, and get the grave dug, and be to all
+the expense. She said she guessed nobody'd catch her having another girl
+bound out to her. Mrs. Kemp said she always knew 't was a great risk,
+and that was why she didn't have me bound.
+
+"That summer, when berries was ripe, Mrs. Kemp let me go and pick 'em
+and carry 'em round to sell; and she said I might have a cent for every
+quart I sold. I got over three dollars that summer for myself."
+
+"What did you do with it?"
+
+"I bought some shoes, and some yarn to knit me some stockings. I can
+knit real good."
+
+"How came you to leave Mrs. Kemp."
+
+"Partly 't was 'cause she didn't like my not buying her old green shawl
+with my share of the money for the berries; and partly 'cause I got
+cold, and it settled in my feet so's I couldn't hardly go round. So she
+told me she'd concluded to have me go back to the poor-house. If she
+kept a girl, she said, she wanted one to wait on her, and not to be
+waited on. She waited two or three days to see if I didn't get better,
+so as I could walk over there; but I didn't. And one day it had been
+raining, but it held up awhile, and she see a neighbor riding by, and
+she run out and asked him if he couldn't carry me over to the
+poor-house. He said he could if she wanted him to; so I went. I had on
+my cape, and it wa'n't very warm. She asked me when I come away, if I
+wa'n't sorry I hadn't a shawl. I expect I did catch cold. I couldn't set
+up nor do nothing for more 'n three weeks. When I got so I could knit,
+my yarn was gone. I never knew what become of it; and one of the women
+used to borrow my shoes for her little girl, and she wore 'em out So,
+come spring, I was just where I was the year before, only lonesomer,
+cause Jinny was gone."
+
+"And did you stay there?"
+
+"To the poor-house? No; Betty Crosfield wanted a girl to come and help
+her. She took in washing for Mr. Furniss's hands. She said I wa'n't
+strong enough to earn much, but she would pay me in clothes. She give me
+a Shaker bonnet and an old gown that the soap had took the color out of,
+and she made a tack in it, so's it did. And I had my cape. When
+strawberries come, the hands was most all gone, and she let me sleep
+there, and go day-times after berries, and she to have half the pay.
+That's how I got my red calico and my shawl."
+
+"Who made your dress, Rhoda?"
+
+"Miss Reeny, I carried it over to see if she'd cut it out, and she said
+she'd make it if they'd let her, and they did. And I got her some green
+tea. She used to say sometimes, she'd give anything for a cup of green
+tea, such as her mother used to have."
+
+"Who is Miss Reeny?"
+
+"A woman that lives over there. Her father used to be a doctor; but he
+died, and she was sickly and didn't know as she had any relations, and
+by and by she had to go there. They say over there she ain't in her
+right mind, but I don't know. She was always good to me. There was an
+old chair with a cushion in it, and Miss Reeny wanted it to sit in,
+'cause her back was lame; but old Mrs. Fitts wanted it too, and they
+used to spat it. So Miss Holbrook come there one day to see the place,
+and somebody told her about the cushioned chair, and, if you'll believe
+it, the very next day there was one come over as good again, with arms
+to it, and a cushion, and all. Miss Holbrook sent it over to Miss Reeny.
+None of 'em couldn't take it away."
+
+"And is she there now?"
+
+"Yes, she can't go nowhere else. One night Betty Crosfield said I
+needn't come there no more; she was going to take a boarder. Berry-time
+was most over, so then I got a place to Miss Stoney's, the milliner. She
+agreed to give me twenty-five cents a week, and I thought to be sure I
+should get back my shoes and yarn now. But one morning the teapot was
+cracked, and she asked me, and I said I didn't do it,--and I didn't; but
+she said she knew I did, because there wasn't nobody but her and me that
+touched it, and she should keep my wages till they come to a dollar and
+a half, because that was what a new one would cost. Before the teapot
+was paid for I did break a glass dish. I didn't know 't would hurt it to
+put it in hot water; and everything else that was broke, she thought I
+broke it, and she kept it out of my wages. I told her I didn't see as
+she ought to; and in the fall she said she couldn't put up with my sauce
+and my breaking no longer. Mrs. Kittredge wanted a girl, and I went
+there."
+
+"And how did you find it there?"
+
+"I think it was about the hardest place of all. I'd as lives go back to
+the poor-house as to stay there. Sally Kittredge used to tell things
+that wa'n't true about me. She told one day that I pushed her down. I
+never touched my hand to her. But Mrs. Kittredge got a raw hide up
+stairs and give it to me awful. I shouldn't wonder if it showed now;
+just look."
+
+She undid the fastening of her dress and slipped off the waist for me to
+see. The little back--she was very small--was all discolored with
+stripes, purple, green, and yellow. After showing me these bruises, she
+quietly fastened her dress again.
+
+Now there was that in Rhoda's manner during this narration which wrought
+in my mind entire conviction of its verity. By the time of Uncle and
+Aunt Bradburn's return, she was growing in favor with every one in the
+house. She was gentle, patient, and grateful.
+
+The deftness with which she used those small fingers suggested to me the
+idea of teaching her some of the more delicate kinds of fancy-work. But
+it seemed that she required no teaching. An opportunity given of looking
+on while one was embroidering, crocheting, or making tatting, and the
+process was her own. Native tact imparted to her at once the skill which
+others attain only by long practice. As for her fine sewing, it was
+exquisite; and in looking at it, one half regretted the advent of the
+sewing-machine.
+
+The fall days grew short; the winter came and went; and in the course of
+it, besides doing everything that was required of her in the household,
+keeping up the reading and writing, and satisfactory progress in
+arithmetic, Rhoda had completed, at my suggestion, ten of those little
+tatting collars, made of fine thread, and rivalling in delicate beauty
+the loveliest fabrics of lace.
+
+Because a project was on foot for Rhoda. A friend of mine going to
+Boston took charge of the little package of collars, and the result was
+that the proprietor of a fancy-store there engaged to receive all of
+them that might be manufactured, at the price of three dollars each.
+When my friend returned, she brought me, as the avails of her
+commission, the sum of thirty dollars.
+
+But here arose an unexpected obstacle. It was difficult to convince
+Rhoda that the amount, which seemed to her immense, was of right her
+own. She comprehended it, however, at last; and thenceforth her skill in
+this and other departments of fancy-work obtained for her constant and
+remunerative employment.
+
+It was now a year since Rhoda came to us, and during this time her
+improvement had been steady and rapid. And since she had come to dress
+like other girls, no one could say that she was ill-looking; but, as I
+claimed the merit of effecting this change in her exterior, it may be
+that I observed it more than any one else. Still, I fancy that some
+others were not blind.
+
+"Where did you get those swamp-pinks, Rhoda?" for I detected the fine
+azalia odor before I saw them.
+
+A bright color suffused the childlike face, quite to the roots of the
+hair. "Will Bright got them when he went after the cows. You may have
+some if you want them."
+
+"No, thank you; it is a pity to disturb them, they look so pretty just
+as they are."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Troubles come to everybody. Even Will Bright, though no one had ever
+known him to be without cheerfulness enough for half a dozen, was not
+wholly exempt from ills. With all his good sense, which was not a
+little, Will was severely incredulous of the reputed effects of
+poison-ivy; and one day, by way of maintaining his position, gathered a
+spray of it and applied it to his face. He was not long in finding the
+vine in question an ugly customer. His face assumed the aspect of a
+horrible mask, and the dimensions of a good-sized water-pail, with
+nothing left of the eyes but two short, straight marks. For once, Will
+had to succumb and be well cared for.
+
+In this state of things a letter came to him with a foreign postmark. "I
+will lay it away in your desk, Will," said uncle, "till you can read it
+yourself; that will be in a day or two."
+
+"If you don't mind the trouble, sir, I should thank you to open and read
+it for me. I get no letters that I am unwilling you should see."
+
+It was to the effect that a relative in England had left him a bequest
+of five hundred pounds, and that the amount would be made payable to his
+order wherever he should direct.
+
+"You will oblige me, sir, if you will say nothing about this for the
+present," said Will, when uncle had congratulated him.
+
+"I hope we shall not lose sight of you, Will," said uncle, who really
+felt a strong liking for the young man, who had served him faithfully
+three years.
+
+"I hope not, sir," replied Will. "I shall be glad to consult you before
+I decide what use to make of this windfall. At all events, I don't want
+to change my quarters for the present."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About the same time, brother Ned, in Oregon, sent me a letter which
+contained this passage:--
+
+"We are partly indebted for this splendid stroke of business to the help
+of a townsman of our own; his name is Joseph Breck. He says he ran away
+from Deacon Handy's, at fifteen years old, because the Deacon would not
+send him to school as he had agreed. Ask uncle if he remembers Ira
+Breck, who lived over at Ash Swamp, near the old Ingersol place. He was
+drowned saving timber in a freshet. He left two children, and this
+Joseph is the elder. The other was a girl, her name Rhoda, six or eight
+years younger than Joseph; she must be now, he says, not far from
+sixteen or seventeen. Joe has had a hard row to hoe, but now that he
+begins to see daylight he wants to do something for his sister. He is a
+thoroughly honest and competent fellow, and we are glad enough to get
+hold of him. He told me the other night such a story as would make your
+heart ache: at all events it would make you try to ascertain something
+about his sister before you write next."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I lost no time in seeking Rhoda.
+
+"Yes," said she, in reply to my inquiries, "I did have a brother once.
+He went off and was lost. I can just remember him. I don't suppose I
+shall ever see him again. Folks said likely he was drowned."
+
+"Was his name Joseph?"
+
+"It was Joe; father used to call him Joe."
+
+I read to her from Ned's letter what related to her brother.
+
+"I'm most afraid it's a dream," said Rhoda after a brief silence. "Over
+at the poor-house I used to have such good dreams, and then I'd wake up
+out of them. After I came here I used to be afraid it was a dream; but I
+didn't wake out of that. Perhaps I shall see Joe again; who knows?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From this time a change came over Rhoda. She begged as a privilege to
+learn to do everything that a woman can do about a house.
+
+"I do declare, Miss Kate," said Dorothy one day, after displaying a
+grand array of freshly baked loaves, wearing the golden-brown tint that
+hints at such savory sweetness, "that girl, for a white girl, is going
+to make a most a splendid cook. I never touched this bread, and just you
+see! ain't it perfindiculur wonderful?"
+
+Soon after, I found Rhoda, with her dress tidily pinned out of harm's
+way, standing at a barrel, and poking vigorously with a stick longer
+than herself.
+
+"What now, Rhoda! what are you doing there?"
+
+"Come here and look at the soap, Miss Kate. I made it every bit myself;
+ain't it going to be beautiful?"
+
+"Why do you care to do such things, Rhoda?"
+
+"I'll tell you," in a low voice; "perhaps when Joe comes home, some time
+he'll buy himself a little place and let me keep house for him; then I
+shall want to know how to do everything."
+
+"Rhoda, I believe you can do everything already."
+
+"No, I can't wring," looking piteously from one little hand to the
+other. "I can iron cute, but I can't wring. Dorothy says that is one
+thing I shall have to give up, unless I can make my hands grow. Do you
+suppose I could?"
+
+"No; you must make Joe buy you a wringer. Can you make butter?"
+
+"O yes, when the churning isn't large. Likely Joe won't keep more than
+one cow."
+
+I looked at the eager little thing, wondering if her hope would ever be
+realized. She divined my thought, and glanced at me wistfully. "You
+think this is a dream; you think I shall wake up.
+
+"No, no," I answered; "I wonder what Joe will think when he sees what a
+mite of a sister he has. He'll make you stand round, Rhoda, you may be
+sure of that."
+
+"May be he isn't any larger himself," she responded, with a ready,
+bright smile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brother Ned's next letter brought the welcome tidings that he hoped to
+come home the ensuing August, and that Joseph Breck would probably come
+at the same time.
+
+June went, and July. Rhoda grew restless; she was no longer constantly
+at work; she began to listen nervously for every train of cars. I was
+glad to believe that the brother for whom she held in readiness such
+lavish love was deserving of it. She grew prettier every day. The
+uncouth dress was gone forever, the hideous bonnet burned up, and the
+gay shawl made over to Miss Reeny, who admired and coveted it. Hepsy
+herself was not more faultlessly quiet and tasteful in her attire. I was
+sure that Joe, if he had eyes at all, must be convinced that his sister
+was worth coming all the way from Oregon to see.
+
+At last, one pleasant afternoon, there was a step in the hall that I
+recognized; it was Ned's! I reached him first, and felt his dear old
+arms close fast about me; and then, for Louise's right was stronger than
+mine, I gave him over to her and the rest. My happiness, though it half
+blinded me, did not prevent my seeing a pallid little face looking
+earnestly in from the back hall door. Then Joe had not come! I felt a
+keen pang for Rhoda.
+
+"Ned," said I, as soon as I could get a word with him, "there is Joe
+Breck's sister; where is Joe?"
+
+"Where is Joe?" said Ned; "why, there he is."
+
+Sure enough, there above Rhoda's--a good way above--was a dark, fine,
+manly face, all sun-browned and bearded.--"Rhoda!"--He had stolen a
+march upon her. She turned and saw him. A swift look of glad surprise,
+and the brother and sister so long separated had recognized each other.
+He drew her to him and held her there tenderly as if she were a little
+child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So Joe bought "a little place," and I believe he would fain have had his
+sister Rhoda for its mistress. But then it came out that Will Bright,
+that sly fellow had been using every bit of persuasion in his power to
+make her promise that she would keep house for him. Nay, he had won
+already a conditional promise, the proviso being, of course, Joe's
+approval. Will's is not a little place, either. With his relative's
+legacy he purchased the great Wellwood nursery; and so skilled is he in
+its management that uncle says there is not a more thriving man in the
+neighborhood. And Rhoda, of whom he is wonderfully proud, is as content
+a little woman as any in the land. Whenever I go to Uncle
+Bradburn's,--and few summers pass that I do not,--I make a point of
+reserving time for a visit to Rhoda. The last time I went, I encountered
+Will bringing her down stairs in his arms; and she held in her arms, as
+something too precious to be yielded to another, what proved on
+inspection to be a tiny, blue-eyed baby. It was comical to see her
+ready, matronly ways; and it was touching, when you thought of the past,
+to witness her quiet yet perfect enjoyment.
+
+And I really know of no one in the world more heartily benevolent than
+she. "You see," she says, "I knew once what it is to need kindness; and
+now I should be worse than a heathen if I did not help other people when
+I have a chance."
+
+I suppose Hepsy pitied Joe for his disappointment. In any case, she has
+done what she could to console him for it. On the whole, it would be
+difficult to say which is the happier wife, Hepsy or Rhoda.
+
+
+
+
+PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.
+
+
+XI.
+
+Concord, 1843.--To sit at the gate of Heaven, and watch persons as they
+apply for admittance, some gaining it, others being thrust away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To point out the moral slavery of one who deems himself a free man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A stray leaf from the Book of Fate, picked up in the street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The streak of sunshine journeying through the prisoner's cell,--it may
+be considered as something sent from Heaven to keep the soul alive and
+glad within him. And there is something equivalent to this sunbeam in
+the darkest circumstances; as flowers, which figuratively grew in
+Paradise, in the dusky room of a poor maiden in a great city; the child,
+with its sunny smile, is a cherub. God does not let us live anywhere or
+anyhow on earth without placing something of Heaven close at hand, by
+rightly using and considering which, the earthly darkness or trouble
+will vanish, and all be Heaven.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the reformation of the world is complete, a fire shall be made of
+the gallows; and the hangman shall come and sit down by it in solitude
+and despair. To him shall come the last thief, the last drunkard, and
+other representatives of past crime and vice; and they shall hold a
+dismal merrymaking, quaffing the contents of the last brandy-bottle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The human heart to be allegorized as a cavern. At the entrance there is
+sunshine, and flowers growing about it. You step within but a short
+distance, and begin to find yourself surrounded with a terrible gloom
+and monsters of divers kinds; it seems like hell itself. You are
+bewildered, and wander long without hope. At last a light strikes upon
+you. You pass towards it, and find yourself in a region that seems, in
+some sort, to reproduce the flowers and sunny beauty of the entrance,
+but all perfect. These are the depths of the heart, or of human nature,
+bright and peaceful. The gloom and terror may lie deep, but deeper still
+this eternal beauty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man in his progress through life may pick up various matters,--sin,
+care, habit, riches,--until at last he staggers along under a heavy
+burden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To have a lifelong desire for a certain object, which shall appear to be
+the one thing essential to happiness. At last that object is attained,
+but proves to be merely incidental to a more important affair, and that
+affair is the greatest evil fortune that can occur. For instance, all
+through the winter I had wished to sit in the dusk of evening, by the
+flickering firelight, with my wife, instead of beside a dismal stove. At
+last this has come to pass; but it was owing to her illness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Madame Calderon de la Barca (in "Life in Mexico") speaks of persons who
+have been inoculated with the venom of rattlesnakes, by pricking them in
+various places with the tooth. These persons are thus secured forever
+after against the bite of any venomous reptile. They have the power of
+calling snakes, and feel great pleasure in playing with and handling
+them. Their own bite becomes poisonous to people not inoculated in the
+same manner. Thus a part of the serpent's nature appears to be
+transfused into them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An auction (perhaps in Vanity Fair) of offices, honors, and all sorts of
+things considered desirable by mankind, together with things eternally
+valuable, which shall be considered by most people as worthless lumber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An examination of wits and poets at a police court, and they to be
+sentenced by the judge to various penalties or fines,--the house of
+correction, whipping, etc.,--according to the moral offences of which
+they are guilty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A volume bound in cowhide. It should treat of breeding cattle, or some
+other coarse subject.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young girl inhabits a family graveyard, that being all that remains of
+rich hereditary possessions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An interview between General Charles Lee, of the Revolution, and his
+sister, the foundress and mother of the sect of Shakers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a sketch for a child:--the life of a city dove, or perhaps of a
+flock of doves, flying about the streets, and sometimes alighting on
+church steeples, on the eaves of lofty houses, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The greater picturesqueness and reality of back courts, and everything
+appertaining to the rear of a house, as compared with the front, which
+is fitted up for the public eye. There is much to be learned always, by
+getting a glimpse at rears. Where the direction of a road has been
+altered, so as to pass the rear of farm-houses instead of the front, a
+very noticeable aspect is presented.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A sketch:--the devouring of old country residences by the overgrown
+monster of a city. For instance, Mr. Beekman's ancestral residence was
+originally several miles from the city of New York; but the pavements
+kept creeping nearer and nearer, till now the house is removed, and a
+street runs directly through what was once its hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An essay on various kinds of death, together with the just before and
+just after.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The majesty of death to be exemplified in a beggar, who, after being
+seen, humble and cringing, in the streets of a city for many years, at
+length, by some means or other, gets admittance into a rich man's
+mansion, and there dies, assuming state and striking awe into the
+breasts of those who had looked down on him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To write a dream, which shall resemble the real course of a dream, with
+all its inconsistency, its strange transformations, which are all taken
+as a matter of course, its eccentricities and aimlessness, with
+nevertheless a leading idea running through the whole. Up to this old
+age of the world, no such thing ever has been written.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To allegorize life with a masquerade, and represent mankind generally as
+masquers. Here and there a natural face may appear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With an emblematical divining-rod, to seek for emblematic gold,--that
+is, for truth,--for what of Heaven is left on earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A task for a subjugated fiend:--to gather up all the fallen autumnal
+leaves of a forest, assort them, and affix each one to the twig where it
+originally grew.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A vision of Grub Street, forming an allegory of the literary world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The emerging from their lurking-places of evil characters on some
+occasion suited to their action, they having been quite unknown to the
+world hitherto. For instance, the French Revolution brought out such
+wretches.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The advantage of a longer life than is now allotted to mortals,--the
+many things that might then be accomplished, to which one lifetime is
+inadequate, and for which the time spent seems therefore lost, a
+successor being unable to take up the task where we drop it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+George I. had promised the Duchess of Kendall, his mistress, that, if
+possible, he would pay her a visit after death. Accordingly, a large
+raven flew into the window of her villa at Isleworth. She believed it to
+be his soul, and treated it ever after with all respect and tenderness,
+till either she or the bird died.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The history of an almshouse in a country village, from the era of its
+foundation downward,--a record of the remarkable occupants of it, and
+extracts from interesting portions of its annals. The rich of one
+generation might, in the next, seek for a house there, either in their
+own persons or in those of their representatives. Perhaps the son and
+heir of the founder might have no better refuge. There should be
+occasional sunshine let into the story; for instance, the good fortune
+of some nameless infant, educated there, and discovered finally to be
+the child of wealthy parents.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pearl, the English of Margaret,--a pretty name for a girl in a story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The conversation of the steeples of a city, when their bells are ringing
+on Sunday,--Calvinist, Episcopalian, Unitarian, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Allston's picture of "Belshazzar's Feast,"--with reference to the
+advantages or otherwise of having life assured to us till we could
+finish important tasks on which we might be engaged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Visits to castles in the air,--Chateaux en Espagne, etc.,--with remarks
+on that sort of architecture.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To consider a piece of gold as a sort of talisman, or as containing
+within itself all the forms of enjoyment that it can purchase, so that
+they might appear, by some fantastical chemic process, as visions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To personify If, But, And, Though, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man seeks for something excellent, but seeks it in the wrong spirit
+and in a wrong way, and finds something horrible; as, for instance, he
+seeks for treasure, and finds a dead body; for the gold that somebody
+has hidden, and brings to light his accumulated sins.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An auction of second-hands,--thus moralizing how the fashion of this
+world passeth away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Noted people in a town,--as the town-crier, the old fruit-man, the
+constable, the oyster-seller, the fish-man, the scissors-grinder, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The magic ray of sunshine for a child's story,--the sunshine circling
+round through a prisoner's cell, from his high and narrow window. He
+keeps his soul alive and cheerful by means of it, it typifying
+cheerfulness; and when he is released, he takes up the ray of sunshine,
+and carries it away with him, and it enables him to discover treasures
+all over the world, in places where nobody else would think of looking
+for them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young man finds a portion of the skeleton of a mammoth; he begins by
+degrees to become interested in completing it; searches round the world
+for the means of doing so; spends youth and manhood in the pursuit; and
+in old age has nothing to show for his life but this skeleton of a
+mammoth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a child's sketch:--a meeting with all the personages mentioned in
+Mother Goose's Melodies, and other juvenile stories.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Great expectation to be entertained in the allegorical Grub Street of
+the great American writer. Or a search-warrant to be sent thither to
+catch a poet. On the former supposition, he shall be discovered under
+some most unlikely form, or shall be supposed to have lived and died
+unrecognized.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An old man to promise a youth a treasure of gold, and to keep his
+promise by teaching him practically a golden rule.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A valuable jewel to be buried in the grave of a beloved person, or
+thrown over with a corpse at sea, or deposited under the
+foundation-stone of an edifice,--and to be afterwards met with by the
+former owner, in some one's possession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A noted gambler had acquired such self-command that, in the most
+desperate circumstances of his game, no change of feature ever betrayed
+him; only there was a slight scar upon his forehead, which at such
+moments assumed a deep blood-red hue. Thus, in playing at brag, for
+instance, his antagonist could judge from this index when he had a bad
+hand. At last, discovering what it was that betrayed him, he covered the
+scar with a green silk shade.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A dream the other night, that the world had become dissatisfied with the
+inaccurate manner in which facts are reported, and had employed me, with
+a salary of a thousand dollars, to relate things of public importance
+exactly as they happen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A person who has all the qualities of a friend, except that he
+invariably fails you at the pinch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Concord, July 27, 1844._--To sit down in a solitary place or a busy and
+bustling one, if you please, and await such little events as may happen,
+or observe such noticeable points as the eyes fall upon around you. For
+instance, I sat down to-day, at about ten o'clock in the forenoon, in
+Sleepy Hollow, a shallow space scooped out among the woods, which
+surround it on all sides, it being pretty nearly circular or oval, and
+perhaps four or five hundred yards in diameter. At the present season, a
+thriving field of Indian corn, now in its most perfect growth and
+tasselled out, occupies nearly half of the hollow; and it is like the
+lap of bounteous Nature, filled with breadstuff. On one verge of this
+hollow, skirting it, is a terraced pathway, broad enough for a
+wheel-track, overshadowed with oaks, stretching their long, knotted,
+rude, rough arms between earth and sky; the gray skeletons, as you look
+upward, are strikingly prominent amid the green foliage. Likewise, there
+are chestnuts, growing up in a more regular and pyramidal shape; white
+pines, also; and a shrubbery composed of the shoots of all these trees,
+overspreading and softening the bank on which the parent stems are
+growing, these latter being intermingled with coarse grass. Observe the
+pathway; it is strewn over with little bits of dry twigs and decayed
+branches, and the sear and brown oak-leaves of last year, that have been
+moistened by snow and rain, and whirled about by harsh and gentle winds,
+since their verdure has departed. The needle-like leaves of the pine
+that are never noticed in falling--that fall, yet never leave the tree
+bare--are likewise on the path; and with these are pebbles, the remains
+of what was once a gravelled surface, but which the soil accumulating
+from the decay of leaves, and washing down from the bank, has now almost
+covered. The sunshine comes down on the pathway, with the bright glow of
+noon, at certain points; in other places, there is a shadow as deep as
+the glow; but along the greater portion sunshine glimmers through
+shadow, and shadow effaces sunshine, imaging that pleasant mood of mind
+when gayety and pensiveness intermingle. A bird is chirping overhead
+among the branches, but exactly whereabout you seek in vain to
+determine; indeed, you hear the rustle of the leaves, as he continually
+changes his position. A little sparrow, however, hops into view,
+alighting on the slenderest twigs, and seemingly delighting in the
+swinging and heaving motion which his slight substance communicates to
+them; but he is not the loquacious bird, whose voice still comes, eager
+and busy, from his hidden whereabout. Insects are fluttering around.
+The cheerful, sunny hum of the flies is altogether summer-like, and so
+gladsome that you pardon them their intrusiveness and impertinence,
+which continually impel them to fly against your face, to alight upon
+your hands, and to buzz in your very ear, as if they wished to get into
+your head, among your most secret thoughts. In truth, a fly is the most
+impertinent and indelicate thing in creation,--the very type and moral
+of human spirits with whom one occasionally meets, and who, perhaps,
+after an existence troublesome and vexatious to all with whom they come
+in contact, have been doomed to reappear in this congenial shape. Here
+is one intent upon alighting on my nose. In a room, now,--in a human
+habitation,--I could find in my conscience to put him to death; but here
+we have intruded upon his own domain, which he holds in common with all
+other children of earth and air; and we have no right to slay him on his
+own ground. Now we look about us more minutely, and observe that the
+acorn-cups of last year are strewn plentifully on the bank and on the
+path. There is always pleasure in examining an acorn-cup,--perhaps
+associated with fairy banquets, where they were said to compose the
+table-service. Here, too, are those balls which grow as excrescences on
+the leaves of the oak, and which young kittens love so well to play
+with, rolling them over the carpet. We see mosses, likewise, growing on
+the banks, in as great variety as the trees of the wood. And how strange
+is the gradual process with which we detect objects that are right
+before the eyes! Here now are whortleberries, ripe and black, growing
+actually within reach of my hand, yet unseen till this moment.
+Were we to sit here all day,--a week, a month, and doubtless a
+lifetime,--objects would thus still be presenting themselves as new,
+though there would seem to be no reason why we should not have detected
+them all at the first moment.
+
+Now a cat-bird is mewing at no great distance. Then the shadow of a bird
+flits across a sunny spot. There is a peculiar impressiveness in this
+mode of being made acquainted with the flight of a bird; it impresses
+the mind more than if the eye had actually seen it. As we look round to
+catch a glimpse of the winged creature, we behold the living blue of the
+sky, and the brilliant disk of the sun, broken and made tolerable to the
+eye by the intervening foliage. Now, when you are not thinking of it,
+the fragrance of the white pines is suddenly wafted to you by a slight,
+almost imperceptible breeze, which has begun to stir. Now the breeze is
+the softest sigh imaginable, yet with a spiritual potency, insomuch that
+it seems to penetrate, with its mild, ethereal coolness, through the
+outward clay, and breathe upon the spirit itself, which shivers with
+gentle delight. Now the breeze strengthens so much as to shake all the
+leaves, making them rustle sharply; but it has lost its most ethereal
+power. And now, again, the shadows of the boughs lie as motionless as if
+they were painted on the pathway. Now, in the stillness, is heard the
+long, melancholy note of a bird, complaining above of some wrong or
+sorrow that man, or her own kind, or the immitigable doom of mortal
+affairs, has inflicted upon her, the complaining, but unresisting
+sufferer. And now, all of a sudden, we hear the sharp, shrill chirrup of
+a red squirrel, angry, it seems, with somebody--perhaps with
+ourselves--for having intruded into what he is pleased to consider his
+own domain. And hark! terrible to the ear, here is the minute but
+intense hum of a mosquito. Instinct prevails over all sentiment; we
+crush him at once, and there is his grim and grisly corpse, the ugliest
+object in nature. This incident has disturbed our tranquillity. In
+truth, the whole insect tribe, so far as we can judge, are made more for
+themselves, and less for man, than any other portion of creation. With
+such reflections, we look at a swarm of them, peopling, indeed, the
+whole air, but only visible when they flash into the sunshine, and
+annihilated out of visible existence when they dart into a region of
+shadow, to be again reproduced as suddenly. Now we hear the striking of
+the village clock, distant, but yet so near that each stroke is
+distinctly impressed upon the air. This is a sound that does not disturb
+the repose of the scene; it does not break our Sabbath,--for like a
+Sabbath seems this place,--and the more so, on account of the cornfield
+rustling at our feet. It tells of human labor; but being so solitary
+now, it seems as if it were so on account of the sacredness of the
+Sabbath. Yet it is not; for we hear at a distance mowers whetting their
+scythes; but these sounds of labor, when at a proper remoteness, do but
+increase the quiet of one who lies at his ease, all in a mist of his own
+musings. There is the tinkling of a cowbell,--a noise how peevishly
+discordant were it close at hand, but even musical now. But hark! there
+is the whistle of the locomotive,--the long shriek, heard above all
+other harshness; for the space of a mile cannot mollify it into harmony.
+It tells a story of busy men, citizens from the hot street, who have
+come to spend a day in a country village,--men of business,--in short,
+of all unquietness; and no wonder that it gives such a startling scream,
+since it brings the noisy world into the midst of our slumberous peace.
+As our thoughts repose again after this interruption, we find ourselves
+gazing up at the leaves, and comparing their different aspects,--the
+beautiful diversity of green, as the sun is diffused through them as a
+medium, or reflected from their glossy surface. We see, too, here and
+there, dead, leafless branches, which we had no more been aware of
+before than if they had assumed this old and dry decay since we sat down
+upon the bank. Look at our feet; and here, likewise, are objects as good
+as new. There are two little round, white fungi, which probably sprung
+from the ground in the course of last night,--curious productions, of
+the mushroom tribe, and which by and by will be those small things with
+smoke in them which children call puff-balls. Is there nothing else?
+Yes; here is a whole colony of little ant-hills,--a real village of
+them. They are round hillocks, formed of minute particles of gravel,
+with an entrance in the centre, and through some of them blades of grass
+or small shrubs have sprouted up, producing an effect not unlike trees
+that overshadow a homestead. Here is a type of domestic
+industry,--perhaps, too, something of municipal institutions,--perhaps
+likewise--who knows?--the very model of a community, which Fourierites
+and others are stumbling in pursuit of. Possibly the student of such
+philosophies should go to the ant, and find that Nature has given him
+his lesson there. Meantime, like a malevolent genius, I drop a few
+grains of sand into the entrance of one of these dwellings, and thus
+quite obliterate it. And behold, here comes one of the inhabitants, who
+has been abroad upon some public or private business, or perhaps to
+enjoy a fantastic walk, and cannot any longer find his own door. What
+surprise, what hurry, what confusion of mind are expressed in all his
+movements! How inexplicable to him must be the agency that has effected
+this mischief! The incident will probably be long remembered in the
+annals of the ant-colony, and be talked of in the winter days, when they
+are making merry over their hoarded provisions. But now it is time to
+move. The sun has shifted his position, and has found a vacant space
+through the branches, by means of which he levels his rays full upon my
+head. Yet now, as I arise, a cloud has come across him, and makes
+everything gently sombre in an instant. Many clouds, voluminous and
+heavy, are scattered about the sky, like the shattered ruins of a
+dreamer's Utopia; but I will not send my thoughts thitherward now, nor
+take one of them into my present observations.
+
+And now how narrow, scanty, and meagre is the record of observations,
+compared with the immensity that was to be observed within the bounds
+which I prescribed to myself! How shallow and thin a stream of thought,
+too,--of distinct and expressed thought,--compared with the broad tide
+of dim emotions, ideas, associations, which were flowing through the
+haunted regions of imagination, intellect, and sentiment,--sometimes
+excited by what was around me, sometimes with no perceptible connection
+with them! When we see how little we can express, it is a wonder that
+any man ever takes up a pen a second time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To find all sorts of ridiculous employments for people that have nothing
+better to do;--as to comb out the cows' tails, shave goats, hoard up
+seeds of weeds, etc., etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The baby, the other day, tried to grasp a handful of sunshine. She also
+grasps at the shadows of things in candle-light.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To typify our mature review of our early projects and delusions, by
+representing a person as wandering, in manhood, through and among the
+various castles in the air that he had reared in his youth, and
+describing how they look to him,--their dilapidation, etc. Possibly some
+small portion of these structures may have a certain reality, and
+suffice him to build a humble dwelling in which to pass his life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The search of an investigator for the unpardonable sin: he at last finds
+it in his own heart and practice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The trees reflected in the river;--they are unconscious of a spiritual
+world so near them. So are we.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The unpardonable sin might consist in a want of love and reverence for
+the human soul; in consequence of which, the investigator pried into its
+dark depths,--not with a hope or purpose of making it better, but from a
+cold, philosophical curiosity,--content that it should be wicked in
+whatever kind and degree, and only desiring to study it out. Would not
+this, in other words, be the separation of the intellect from the heart?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are some faces that have no more expression in them than any other
+part of the body. The hand of one person may express more than the face
+of another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An ugly person with tact may make a bad face and figure pass very
+tolerably, and more than tolerably. Ugliness without tact is horrible.
+It ought to be lawful to extirpate such wretches.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To represent the influence which dead men have among living affairs. For
+instance, a dead man controls the disposition of wealth; a dead man sits
+on the judgment-seat, and the living judges do but repeat his decisions;
+dead men's opinions in all things control the living truth; we believe
+in dead men's religions; we laugh at dead men's jokes; we cry at dead
+men's pathos; everywhere, and in all matters, dead men tyrannize
+inexorably over us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the heart is full of care, or the mind much occupied, the summer
+and the sunshine and the moonlight are but a gleam and glimmer,--a vague
+dream, which does not come within us, but only makes itself imperfectly
+perceptible on the outside of us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Biographies of eminent American merchants,--it would be a work likely to
+have a great circulation in our commercial country. If successful, there
+might be a second volume of eminent foreign merchants. Perhaps it had
+better be adapted to the capacity of young clerks and apprentices.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the virtuoso's collection:--Alexander's copy of the Iliad, enclosed
+in the jewelled casket of Darius, still fragrant with the perfumes
+Darius kept in it. Also the pen with which Faust signed away his
+salvation, with the drop of blood dried in it.
+
+
+_October 13, 1844._--This morning, after a heavy hoar-frost, the leaves,
+at sunrise, were falling from the trees in our avenue without a breath
+of wind, quietly descending by their own weight. In an hour or two
+after, the ground was strewn with them; and the trees are almost bare,
+with the exception of two or three poplars, which are still green. The
+apple and pear trees are still green; so is the willow. The first severe
+frosts came at least a fortnight ago,--more, if I mistake not.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sketch of a person, who, by strength of character or assistant
+circumstances, has reduced another to absolute slavery and dependence on
+him. Then show that the person who appeared to be the master must
+inevitably be at least as much a slave as the other, if not more so. All
+slavery is reciprocal, on the supposition most favorable to the masters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Persons who write about themselves and their feelings, as Byron did, may
+be said to serve up their own hearts, duly spiced, and with brain-sauce
+out of their own heads, as a repast for the public.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To represent a man in the midst of all sorts of cares and annoyances,
+with impossibilities to perform, and driven almost distracted by his
+inadequacy. Then quietly comes Death, and releases him from all his
+troubles; and he smiles, and congratulates himself on escaping so
+easily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What if it should be discovered to be all a mistake, that people, who
+were supposed to have died long ago, are really dead? Byron to be still
+living, a man of sixty; Burns, too, in extreme old age; Bonaparte
+likewise; and many other distinguished men, whose lives might have
+extended to these limits. Then the private acquaintances, friends,
+enemies, wives, taken to be dead, to be all really living in this world.
+The machinery might be a person's being persuaded to believe that he had
+been mad; or having dwelt many years on a desolate island; or having
+been in the heart of Africa or China; and a friend amuses himself with
+giving this account. Or some traveller from Europe shall thus correct
+popular errors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The life of a woman, who, by the old Colony law, was condemned to wear
+always the letter A sewed on her garment in token of her sin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To make literal pictures of figurative expressions. For instance, he
+burst into tears,--a man suddenly turned into a shower of briny drops.
+An explosion of laughter,--a man blowing up, and his fragments flying
+about on all sides. He cast his eyes upon the ground,--a man standing
+eyeless, with his eyes thrown down, and staring up at him in wonderment,
+etc., etc., etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An uneducated countryman, supposing he had a live frog in his stomach,
+applied himself to the study of medicine, in order to find a cure, and
+so became a profound physician. Thus some misfortune, physical or moral,
+may be the means of educating and elevating us.
+
+
+_Concord, March 12, 1845._--Last night was very cold, and bright
+starlight; yet there was a mist or fog diffused all over the landscape,
+lying close to the ground, and extending upwards, probably not much
+above the tops of the trees. This fog was crystallized by the severe
+frost; and its little feathery crystals covered all the branches and
+smallest twigs of trees and shrubs; so that, this morning, at first
+sight, it appeared as if they were covered with snow. On closer
+examination, however, these most delicate feathers appeared shooting out
+in all directions from the branches,--above as well as beneath,--and
+looking, not as if they had been attached, but had been put forth by
+the plant,--a new kind of foliage. It is impossible to describe the
+exquisite beauty of the effect, when close to the eye; and even at a
+distance this delicate appearance was not lost, but imparted a graceful,
+evanescent aspect to great trees, perhaps a quarter of a mile off,
+making them look like immense plumes, or something that would vanish at
+a breath. The so-much admired sight of icy trees cannot compare with it
+in point of grace, delicacy, and beauty; and, moreover, there is a life
+and animation in this, not to be found in the other. It was to be seen
+in its greatest perfection at sunrise, or shortly after; for the
+slightest warmth impaired the minute beauty of the frost-feathers, and
+the general effect. But in the first sunshine, and while there was still
+a partial mist hovering around the hill and along the river, while some
+of the trees were lit up with an illumination that did not
+_shine_,--that is to say, glitter,--but was not less bright than if it
+had glittered, while other portions of the scene were partly obscured,
+but not gloomy,--on the contrary, very cheerful,--it was a picture that
+never can be painted nor described, nor, I fear, remembered with any
+accuracy, so magical was its light and shade, while at the same time the
+earth and everything upon it were white; for the ground is entirely
+covered by yesterday's snow-storm.
+
+Already, before eleven o'clock, these feathery crystals have vanished,
+partly through the warmth of the sun, and partly by gentle breaths of
+wind; for so slight was their hold upon the twigs that the least motion,
+or thought almost, sufficed to bring them floating down, like a little
+snow-storm, to the ground. In fact, the fog, I suppose, was a cloud of
+snow, and would have scattered down upon us, had it been at the usual
+height above the earth.
+
+All the above description is most unsatisfactory.
+
+
+
+
+ON TRANSLATING THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.
+
+FOURTH SONNET.
+
+
+    How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
+        This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
+        Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
+        Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
+    And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
+        But fiends and dragons from the gargoyled eaves
+        Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
+        And underneath the traitor Judas lowers!
+    Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
+        What exultations trampling on despair,
+        What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
+    What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
+        Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
+        This mediæval miracle of song!
+
+
+
+
+FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
+
+
+We who enjoy the fruits of civil and religious liberty as our daily
+food, reaping the harvest we did not sow, seldom give a thought to those
+who in the dim past prepared the ground and scattered the seed that has
+yielded such plenteous return. If occasionally we peer into the gloom of
+by-gone centuries, some stalwart form, like that of Luther, arrests our
+backward glance, and all beyond is dark and void. But generations before
+Martin Luther the work for the harvest of coming ages was begun. Humble
+but earnest men, with such rude aids as they possessed, were toiling to
+clear away the dense underbrush of ignorance and superstition, and let
+the light of the sun in on the stagnant swamp; struggling to plough up
+the stony soil that centuries of oppression had made hard and barren;
+scattering seed that the sun would scorch and the birds of the air
+devour; and dying without seeing a green blade to reward them with the
+hope that their toils were not in vain.
+
+But their labors were not lost. The soil thus prepared by the painful
+and unrequited toil of those who had gone down to obscure graves,
+sorrowing and hopeless, offered less obstruction to the strong arms and
+better appliances of the reformers of a later day. Of the seed scattered
+by the early sowers, a grain found here and there a sheltering crevice,
+and struggled into life, bearing fruit that in the succession of years
+increased and multiplied until thousands were fed and strengthened by
+its harvest.
+
+The military history of the reign of the third Edward of England is
+illuminated with such a blaze of glory, that the dazzled eye can with
+difficulty distinguish the dark background of its domestic life. Cressy
+and Poitiers carried the military fame of England throughout the world,
+and struck terror into her enemies; but at home dwelt turbulence,
+corruption, rapine, and misery. The barons quarrelled and fought among
+themselves. The clergy wallowed in a sty of corruption and debauchery.
+The laboring classes were sunk in ignorance and hopeless misery. It was
+the dark hour that precedes the first glimmer of dawn.
+
+Poitiers was won in 1356. Four years the French king remained in
+honorable captivity in England. Then came the treaty of Bretigny, which
+released King John and terminated the war. The great nobles, with their
+armies of lesser knights and swarms of men-at-arms, returned to England,
+viewed with secret and well-founded distrust by the industrious and
+laboring classes along their homeward route. The nobles established
+themselves in their castles, immediately surrounded by swarms of
+reckless men, habituated by years of war to deeds of lawlessness and
+violence, and having subject to their summons feudatory knights, each of
+whom had his own band of turbulent retainers. With such elements of
+discord, it was impossible for good order long to be maintained. The
+nobles quarrelled, and their retainers were not backward in taking up
+the quarrel. The feudatory knights had disagreements among themselves,
+and carried on petty war against each other. Confederated bands of
+lawless men traversed the country, seizing property wherever it could be
+found, outraging women, taking prisoners and ransoming them, and making
+war against all who opposed their progress or were personally obnoxious
+to them. Castles and estates were seized and held on some imaginary
+claim. It was in vain to appeal to the laws. Justice was powerless to
+correct abuses or aid the oppressed. Powerful barons gave countenance to
+the marauders, that their services might be secured in the event of a
+quarrel with their neighbors; nor did they hesitate to share in the
+booty. Might everywhere triumphed over right, and the "law of the
+strong arm" superseded the ordinances of the civil power.
+
+The condition of the Church was no better than that of the State. Fraud,
+corruption, and oppression sat in high places in both. The prelates had
+their swarms of armed retainers, and ruled their flocks with the sword
+as well as the crosier. The monasteries, with but few exceptions, were
+the haunts of extravagance and sensuality, instead of the abodes of
+self-denying virtue and learning. The portly abbot, his black robe edged
+with costly fur and clasped with a silver girdle, his peaked shoes in
+the height of the fashion, and wearing a handsomely ornamented dagger or
+hunting-knife, rode out accompanied by a pack of trained hunting-dogs,
+the golden bells on his bridle
+
+    "Gingeling in the whistling wind as clear
+    And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell."
+
+The monks who were unable to indulge their taste for the chase sought
+recompense in unrestrained indulgence at the table. The land was
+overspread with an innumerable swarm of begging friars, who fawned on
+the great, flattered the wealthy, and despoiled the poor. Another class
+traversed the country, selling pardons "come from Rome all hot," and
+extolling the virtues of their relics and the power of their indulgences
+with the eloquence of a quack vending his nostrums. Bishops held civil
+offices under the king, and priests acted as stewards in great men's
+houses. Simony possessed the Church, and the ministers of religion again
+sold their Master for silver.
+
+The domestic and social life of the higher classes of society in the
+last half of the fourteenth century can be delineated, with a fair
+approach to exactness, from the detached hints scattered through such
+old romances and poems of that period as the diligent labors of zealous
+antiquaries have brought to light.
+
+The residences of all the great and wealthy possessed one general
+character. The central point and most important feature was the great
+hall, adjoining which in most houses a "parlour," or talking-room, had
+recently been built. A principal chamber for the ladies of the household
+was generally placed on the ground-floor, with an upper chamber, or
+"soler," over it. In the larger establishments additional chambers had
+been clustered around the main building, increasing in number with the
+wants of the household. The castles and fortified buildings varied a
+little in outward construction from the ordinary manorial residences,
+but the same general arrangement of the interior existed. A few of the
+stronger and more important buildings were of stone; but the larger
+proportion were of timber, or timber and stone combined.
+
+The great hall was the most important part of the establishment. Here
+the general business of the household was transacted, the meals served,
+strangers received, audiences granted, and what may be termed the public
+life of the family carried on. It was also the general rendezvous of the
+servants and retainers, who lounged about it when duty or pleasure did
+not call them to the other offices or to the field. In the evening they
+gathered around the fire, built in an iron grate standing in the middle
+of the room; for as yet chimneys were a luxury confined to the principal
+chamber. The few remaining halls of this period that have not been
+remodelled in succeeding ages present no trace of a fireplace or
+chimney. At night the male servants and men-at-arms stretched themselves
+to sleep on the benches along its sides, or on the rush-covered floor.
+
+The floor at the upper end was raised, forming the _dais_, or place of
+honor. On this, stretching nearly from side to side, was the "table
+dormant," or fixed table, with a "settle," or bench with a back, between
+it and the wall. On the lower floor, and extending lengthwise on each
+side down the hall, stood long benches for the use of the servants and
+retainers. At meal-times, in front of these were placed the temporary
+tables of loose boards supported on trestles. At the upper end was the
+cupboard, or "dresser," for the plate and furniture of the table. In
+the halls of the greater nobles, on important occasions, tapestry or
+curtains were hung on the walls, or at least on that portion of the wall
+next the dais, and still more rarely a carpet was used for that part of
+the floor,--rushes or bare tiles being more general. A perch for hawks,
+and the grate of burning wood, sending its smoke up to the blackened
+open roof, completed the picture of the hall of a large establishment in
+the fourteenth century.
+
+The "parlour," or talking-room, as its name imports, was used chiefly
+for conferences, and for such business as required more privacy than was
+attainable in the hall, but was unsuited to the domestic character of
+the chamber.
+
+After the hall, the most important feature of the building was the
+principal chamber. Here the domestic life of the family was carried on.
+Here the ladies of the household spent their time when not at meals or
+engaged in out-door sports and pastimes. The furniture of this room was
+more complete than that of the other parts of the building, but was
+still rude and scanty when judged by modern wants. The bed was of
+massive proportions and frequently of ornamental character. A
+truckle-bed for the children or chamber servants was pushed under the
+principal bed by day. At the foot of the latter stood the huge "hutch,"
+or chest, in which were deposited for safety the family plate and
+valuables. Two or three stools and large chairs, with a perch or bar on
+which to hang garments, completed the usual furniture of the chamber.
+
+In this room was one important feature not found in the others, and
+which accounted for the increasing attachment manifested towards it. The
+fire, instead of being placed in an iron grate or brazier in the middle
+of the room, burned merrily on the hearth; and the smoke, instead of
+seeking its exit by the window, was carried up a chimney of generous
+proportions.
+
+The household day commenced early. The members of the family arose from
+the beds where they had slept in the garments worn by our first parents
+before the fall; for the effeminacy of sleeping in night-dresses had not
+yet been introduced, and it was only the excessively poor that made the
+clothes worn during the day serve in lieu of blankets and coverlets.
+
+    "'I have but one whole hater,'[1] quoth Haukyn;
+    'I am the less to blame,
+    Though it be soiled and seldom clean:
+    I sleep therein of nights.'"
+
+Breakfast was served about six o'clock. It is difficult to get an exact
+description of the customs of the breakfast-table, or the nature of the
+meal, as the contemporary writers make little allusion to it. Probably
+it was but a slight repast, to allay the cravings of appetite until the
+great meal of the day was served. Until within a few years of the period
+of which we write, the dinner-hour was so early that but little food was
+taken before that time.
+
+Dinner was then, as now, the principal meal of the English day. In the
+houses of the great it was conducted with much ceremony; and among the
+richer classes certain well-established rules of courtesy in relation to
+the meal were observed. The family and their guests entered the great
+hall about ten o'clock. They were met by a domestic, bearing a pitcher
+and basin, and his assistant, with a towel. Water was poured on the
+hands of each person, and the ablutions carefully performed; scrupulous
+cleanliness in this respect being required, from the fact that forks
+were as yet things undreamed of. The principal guests took their seats
+at the "table dormant," on the dais, the person of highest rank having
+the middle seat,--which was consequently at the head of the hall,--and
+the others being arranged according to their respective rank.
+
+At the side-tables, below the dais, sat the inferior members of the
+household, with the guests of lesser note,--these also arranged with
+careful regard to rank and position. The beggar or poor wayfarer who
+was admitted to a humble share of the feast crouched on the rushes among
+the dogs who lay awaiting the bones and relics of the repast, and
+thankfully fed, like Lazarus, on "the crumbs that fell from the rich
+man's table."
+
+The guests being seated, the busy servitors hastened to cover the table
+with a "fair white linen cloth," of unsullied purity; and on it were
+placed the salt-cellars of massive silver, the spoons and knives; next
+the bread, and then the wine, poured with great ceremony into the
+drinking-cups by the cupbearer. The silver vessels were brought from the
+"dresser," and arranged on the table, the display being proportioned to
+the wealth and condition of the host and the consideration to be paid to
+the guests. The head cook and his assistants entered in procession,
+bearing the dishes in regular order, and deposited them on the table
+with due solemnity. The pottage was first served, and when this course
+was eaten, the vessels and spoons were removed. The carver performed his
+office on the meats, holding the joint, according to the traditions of
+his order, carefully with the thumb and first two fingers of his left
+hand, whilst he carved. The pieces were placed on "trenchers" or slices
+of bread, and handed to the guests, who made no scruple of freely using
+their fingers. The bones and refuse of the food were placed on the
+table, or thrown to the dogs.
+
+The people of that day were not insensible to the pleasures of the
+table; and, unless urgent matters called them to the field or the
+council, dinner was enjoyed with leisurely deliberation. In great houses
+of hospitable reputation, the great hall at the hour of meals was open
+to all comers. The traveller who found himself at its door was admitted,
+and received position and food according to his condition. The minstrels
+that wandered over the country in great numbers were always welcome, and
+were well supplied with food and drink, and received liberal gifts for
+their songs and the long romances of love and chivalry which they
+recited to music. Not unfrequently satirical songs were sung, or the
+minstrel narrated stories in which the humor was of a coarser nature
+than would now be tolerated in the presence of ladies, but which in that
+day were listened to without a blush.
+
+Dinner ended, the vessels and unconsumed meats were removed, the
+tablecloths gathered up, and the relics of the feast thrown on the floor
+for the dogs to devour. The side-tables were removed from their trestles
+and piled in a corner, and the hall cleared for the entertainments that
+frequently followed the dinner. These consisted of feats of conjuring by
+the "joculators," balancing and tumbling by the women who wandered about
+seeking a livelihood by such means, or dancing by the ladies of the
+household and their guests.
+
+The feast and its succeeding amusements disposed of, the ladies either
+shared in the out-door sports and games, of which there were many in
+which women could take part, or they retired to the chamber, where,
+seated in low chairs or in the recessed windows, they engaged in making
+the needle-work pictures that adorned the tapestry, listening the while
+to the love-romances narrated by the minstrel who had been invited for
+the purpose, or gave willing ear to the flattery of some "virelay" or
+love-song, sung by gay canon, gentle page, or courtly knight.
+
+About six o'clock, the household once more assembled in the hall for
+supper; and then the orders for the ensuing day were given to the
+servants and retainers. Soon after dark the members of the family and
+their guests sought their respective sleeping-places, as contrivances
+for lighting were rude, and had to be economized. Such of the servants
+as had special chambers or sleeping-places retired to them, whilst a
+large proportion of the male servants and such of the retainers as
+belonged immediately to the household stretched themselves on the
+benches or floor of the hall, and were soon fast asleep. Such is a
+sketch of the ordinary course of domestic life among the higher classes
+of English society in the fourteenth century.
+
+Among the greater nobles, the details of the daily life were sometimes
+on a more magnificent scale; but the leading features were as we have
+described them. Rude pomp and barbaric splendor marked the
+establishments of some of the powerful barons and ecclesiastical
+dignitaries. At tilt and tournament, the contending knights strove to
+outshine each other in gorgeousness of equipment, as well as in deeds of
+arms. Nor were the ladies averse to richness of attire in their own
+persons. Costly robes and dainty furs were worn, and jewels and gems of
+price sparkled when the dames and demoiselles appeared at great
+gatherings, or on occasions of state and ceremony. The extravagance of
+dress in both sexes had grown to be so great an evil, that stringent
+sumptuary laws were passed, but without producing any effect.
+
+The moral state of even the highest classes of society was not of a
+flattering character. Europe was one huge camp and battle-field, in
+which all the chivalry of the day had been educated,--no good school for
+purity of life and delicacy of language. The literature of the time, at
+least that portion of it which penetrated to ladies' chambers, was of an
+amorous, and too frequently of an indelicate character. A debased and
+sensual clergy swarmed over the land, finding their way into every
+household, and gradually corrupting those with whom their sacred office
+brought them into contact. The manners and habits of the time afforded
+every facility for the gratification of debased passions and indulgence
+in immoral practices.
+
+Whilst the barons feasted and fought, the ladies intrigued, and the
+clergy violated every principle of the religion they professed, the
+great mass of the population lived on, with scarcely a thought bestowed
+on them by their social superiors. Between the Anglo-Norman baron and
+the Anglo-Saxon laborer, or "villain," there was a great gulf fixed. The
+antipathy of an antagonistic and conquered race to its conquerors was
+intensified by years of oppression and wrong, and the laborer cherished
+a burning desire to break the bonds of thraldom in which most of the
+poor were held.
+
+By the laws of the feudal system, the tenants and laborers on the
+property of a baron were his "villains," or slaves. They were divided
+into two classes;--the "villains regardant," who were permitted to
+occupy and cultivate small portions of land, on condition of rendering
+certain stipulated services to their lord, and were therefore considered
+in the light of slaves to the land; and the "villains in gross," who
+were the personal slaves of the landowner, and were compelled to do the
+work they were set to perform in consideration of their food and
+clothing. Besides these two classes a third had recently come into
+existence, and, owing to various causes, was fast increasing in extent
+and importance,--that of free laborers, who worked for hire. This class
+was recruited in various ways from the ranks of the "villains in gross."
+Some were manumitted by their dying masters, as an act of piety in
+atonement for the deeds of violence done during life; but by far the
+greater number effected their freedom by escaping to distant parts of
+the country, where but little search would be made for them, or by
+seeking the refuge of the walled towns and cities, where a residence of
+a year and a day would give them freedom by law. The citizens were
+always ready to give asylum to those fugitives, for they supplied the
+growing need for laborers, and enabled the cities, by the increase of
+population, to maintain their independence against the pretensions of
+the barons.
+
+The condition of the "villain" was bad at the best; and numerous petty
+acts of oppression in most instances increased the bitterness of his
+lot. Himself the property of another, he could not legally hold
+possessions of any kind. Not only the land he tilled, and the rude
+implements of husbandry with which he painfully cultivated the soil, but
+the cattle with which he worked, the house in which he lived, the few
+chattels he gathered around him, and the scanty store of money earned by
+hard labor, all belonged to his master, who could at any time dispossess
+him of them. The "villain" who obtained a livelihood by working the few
+acres of land which had been held from father to son, on condition of
+performing personal labor or other services on the estate of the
+landowner, was subject not only to the demands of his master, but to the
+tithing of the Church; to the doles exacted by the swarms of begging
+friars, who, like Irish beggars of the present day, invoked cheap
+blessings on the cheerful giver, and launched bitter curses at the heads
+of those who refused alms; to the impositions of the wandering
+"pardoners," with their charms and relics; and to the tyrannical
+exactions of the "summoners," who, under pretence of writs from
+ecclesiastical courts, robbed all who were not in position to resist
+their fraudulent demands. What these spared was frequently swept away by
+the visits of the king's purveyors and the officers of others in power,
+who, not content with robbing the poor husbandman of the proceeds of his
+toil, treated the men with violence and the women with outrage.
+Complaint was useless. The "churl" had no rights which those in office
+were bound to respect.
+
+Ignorant, superstitious, and condemned to a life of unrequited toil and
+unredressed wrongs, the mental and moral condition of the agricultural
+poor was wretchedly low. Huddled together in mud cottages, through the
+rotten thatches of which the rain penetrated; clothed with rough
+garments that were seldom changed night or day; feeding on coarse food,
+and that in insufficient quantities,--their physical condition was one
+of extreme misery. The usual daily allowance of food to the bond laborer
+of either class, when working for the owner of the land, was two
+herrings, milk for cheese, and a loaf of bread, with the addition in
+harvest of a small allowance of beer. Occasionally, salted meats or
+stockfish were substituted for the herrings.
+
+The condition of the free laborer was measurably better; but even he was
+condemned to a life of privation and wretchedness, relieved only by the
+knowledge that his scanty earnings were his own, and that he could
+change the scene of his labors if he saw fit. The ordinary agricultural
+laborer, at the wages usually given, would have to work more than a week
+for a bushel of wheat. At harvest-time and other periods when the demand
+for labor was unusually great, as it was after the pestilences that
+swept the land about the time of which we write, the free laborers
+demanded higher wages; and although laws were passed to prevent their
+obtaining more than the usual rates, necessity frequently compelled
+their employment at the advanced prices. The receipt of higher wages
+only temporarily bettered their condition. Accustomed to griping hunger
+and short allowances of food, when better days came, they thought only
+of enjoying the present, and took no heed of the future. After harvest,
+with its high wages and cheapness of provision, the laborer frequently
+became wasteful and improvident. Instead of the stinted allowance of
+salted meat or fish, with the pinched loaf of bean-flour, and an
+occasional draught of weak beer, his fastidious appetite demanded fresh
+meat or fish, white bread, vegetables freshly gathered, and ale of the
+best. As long as his store lasted, he worked as little as possible, and
+grumbled at the fortune that made him a laborer. But these halcyon days
+were few, and soon passed away, to be followed by decreasing allowances
+of the commonest food, fierce pangs of hunger, and miserable
+destitution. A bad harvest inflicted untold wretchedness on the poor.
+Ill lodged, ill fed, and scantily clothed, disease cut them down like
+grass before the scythe. A deadly pestilence swept over the land in
+1348, carrying off about two thirds of the people; and nearly all the
+victims were from among the poorest classes. In 1361, another pestilence
+carried off thousands, again spreading terror and dismay through the
+country. Seven years later a third visitation desolated England. Here
+and there one of the better class fell a victim to the destroyer; but
+the great mass were from the ranks of the half-starved and poorly lodged
+laborers.
+
+The morality of the poor was, as might be expected, at a low ebb.
+Modesty, chastity, and temperance could scarcely be looked for in
+wretched mud huts, where all ages and sexes herded together like swine.
+Men and women alike fled from their miserable homes to the ale-house,
+where they drank long draughts of cheap ale, and, in imitation of their
+superiors in station, listened to a low class of "japers" who recited
+"rhymes of Robin Hood," or told coarse and obscene stories for the sake
+of a share of the ale, or such few small coins as could be drawn from
+the ragged pouches of the bacchanals.
+
+Between proud wealth and abject poverty there can be no friendly
+feeling. Stolid, brutish ignorance can alone render the bonds of the
+slave endurable. As his eyes are slowly opened by increasing knowledge,
+and he can compare his condition with that of the freeman, his fetters
+gall him, he becomes restive in his bonds, and at length turns in blind
+fury on his oppressors, striking mad blows with his manacled hands.
+Trodden into the dust by the iron heel of a tyrannical feudal power, the
+peasantry of France had turned on their oppressors, and wreaked a brief
+but savage vengeance for ages of wrong. The atrocious cruelties and mad
+excesses of the revolted Jacquerie could only have been committed by
+those who had been so long treated as brutes that they had acquired
+brutish passions and instincts. The English peasantry had not yet
+followed the example of their French compeers; but the gathering storm
+already darkened the sky, and the mutterings of the thunder were heard.
+Superstitiously religious, they hated the ministers of religion who
+violated its principles. Born slaves and hopelessly debased and
+ignorant, they began to ask the question,--
+
+    "When Adam delved and Eve span,
+    Who then was the gentleman?"
+
+Occasionally a rude ballad found its way among the people fiercely
+expressive of their scorn of the clergy and their hatred of the rich.
+One that was very popular, and has been transmitted to our day, asked,--
+
+    "While God was on earth
+      And wandered wide,
+    What was the reason
+      Why he would not ride?
+    Because he would have no groom
+      To go by his side,
+    Nor grudging of no gadeling[2]
+      To scold nor to chide.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Hearken hitherward, horsemen,
+      A tiding I you tell,
+    That ye shall hang
+      And harbor in hell!"
+
+But no leader had as yet arisen to give proper voice to the desire for
+reformation that burned in the hearts of the common people. The writers
+of that age were breathing the intoxicating air of court favor, and
+heeded not the sufferings of the common rabble. Froissart, the courtly
+canon and chronicler of deeds of chivalry, was writing French madrigals
+and amorous ditties for the ear of Queen Philippa, and loved too well
+gay society, luxurious feasts, and dainty attire, not to shrink with
+disgust from thought of the dirty, uncouth, and miserable herd of
+"greasy caps." Gower was inditing fashionable love-songs. Chaucer, who
+years after was to direct such telling blows in his Canterbury Tales at
+the vices and corruptness of the clergy, was a favorite member of the
+retinue of the powerful "John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster," and had
+as yet only written long and stately poems on the history of Troilus and
+Cressida, the Parliament of Birds, and the Court of Love. Wycliffe, the
+great English reformer of the Church, was quietly living at his rectory
+of Fylingham, and preparing his first essays against the mendicant
+orders. John Ball, the "crazy priest of Kent," as Froissart calls him,
+was brooding over the miseries of his poor parishioners, and nursing in
+his mind that enmity to all social distinctions with which he afterwards
+inflamed the minds of the peasantry, and incited them to open rebellion.
+
+But in the quarter least expected the oppressed people found an
+advocate. An unobtrusive monk, whose name is almost a doubtful
+tradition, stole out from his quiet cell in Malvern Abbey, and, whilst
+his brethren feasted, climbed the gentle slope of the Worcestershire
+hills, and drank in the beauties of the varied landscape at his feet.
+There, on a May morning, as he rested under a bank by the side of a
+brooklet, and was lulled to sleep by the murmuring of the water, he
+dreamed those dreams that set waking people to thinking, and gave a
+powerful impetus to the moral and social revolution that was just
+commencing.
+
+The "Vision of Piers Plowman" is every way a singular production.
+Clothed in the then almost obsolete verse of a past age, it breathes
+wholly the spirit of the time in which it was written. The work of a
+monk, it is unsparing in its attacks on the monastic orders. Intended
+for the reading or hearing of the middle and lower classes, it gives
+more frequent glimpses of the social condition of all ranks of people
+than any other work of that age. As a philological monument, it is of
+great value; as a poem, it contains many passages of merit; and as a
+storehouse of allusions to the social life of the people in the
+fourteenth century, it is invaluable.
+
+The poem consists of a series of visions or dreams, of an allegorical
+character, in which the dreamer seeks to find Truth and Righteousness on
+earth, meeting with but little success. The allegorical idea cannot be
+followed without weariness, and, in fact, the intentions of the writer
+are by no means clear, the allegory being frequently involved and
+contradictory. The beauty of the poem lies in its detached passages, its
+occasional poetic touches, its graphic pictures, biting satire, and
+withering denunciation of fraud, corruption, and tyranny. The measure
+adopted is the unrhymed alliterative, characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon
+literature, and which had long been disused, but which retained its hold
+on the affections of the common people, who were of Anglo-Saxon stock.
+In the extracts we give from the poem, the measure is retained, but the
+words modernized, so far as can be done without injuring the sense or
+metre.
+
+The opening passage of the "Vision" has been so frequently reproduced,
+as a specimen of the poet's style, that it is probably familiar to many
+readers, but its exquisite naturalness and simplicity tempt us to quote
+it here.
+
+    "In a summer season,
+    When soft was the sun,
+    I shaped me into shrouds[3]
+    As I a shep[4] were;
+    In habit as an hermit
+    Unholy of works
+    Went wide in this world
+    Wonders to hear:
+    And on a May morwening
+    On Malvern hills
+    Me befell a ferly,[5]
+    Of fairy methought.
+    I was weary for-wandered,
+    And went me to rest
+    Under a broad bank
+    By a bourne's[6] side;
+    And as I lay and leaned,
+    And looked on the waters,
+    I slumbered into a sleeping
+    It swayed so merry."
+
+The first scene in the visions that visited the sleep of the dreaming
+monk gives a view of the social classes of that time, beginning with the
+humblest, whose condition was uppermost in his mind. The picture is not
+only painted with vigorous touches, but affords a better idea of society
+in the fourteenth century than can be elsewhere obtained. There is the
+toiling ploughman, who "plays full seldom," winning by hard labor what
+wasteful men destroy; the mediæval dandy, whose only employment is to
+exhibit his attire; the hermit, who seeks by solitude and penitential
+life to win "heaven's rich bliss"; the merchant, who has wisely chosen
+his trade,--
+
+    "As it seemeth in our sight
+    That such men thriveth."
+
+There are minstrels, who earn rich rewards by their singing; jesters and
+idle gossips; "sturdy beggars," wandering with full bags; pilgrims and
+palmers, who
+
+    "Went forth in their way
+    With many wise tales,
+    And had leave to lie
+    All their lives after";
+
+counterfeit hermits, who assumed the cloak and hooked staff in order to
+live in idleness and sensuality; avaricious friars, selling their
+religion for money; cheating pardoners; covetous priests; ambitious
+bishops; lawyers who loved gain better than justice; "barons and
+burgesses, and bondmen also," with
+
+    "Bakers and brewers,
+    And butchers many;
+    Woollen websters,
+    And weavers of linen;
+    Tailors and tinkers,
+    And toilers in markets;
+    Masons and miners,
+    And many other crafts.
+    Of all kind living laborers
+    Leaped forth some;
+    As ditchers and delvers,
+    That do their deeds ill,
+    And driveth forth the long day
+    With _Dieu save dame Emme_.
+    Cooks and their knaves
+    Cried, 'Hot pies, hot!
+    Good geese and grys,[7]
+    Go dine, go!'"
+
+To plead the cause of the poor and weak against their powerful
+oppressors, and to protest in the name of religion against the pride and
+corrupt life of its ministers, was the object of the monk of Malvern
+Abbey; and he did his work well. The blows he dealt were fierce and
+strong, and told home. Burgher and baron, monk and cardinal, alike felt
+the fury of his attacks. He was no respecter of persons. A monk himself,
+he had no scruples in tearing off the priestly robe that covered lust
+and rapine. Wrong in high places gained no respect from him. His
+invectives against a haughty and oppressive nobility and a corrupt and
+arrogant clergy are unsurpassed in power, and it is easy to understand
+the hold the poem at once acquired on the attention of the lower
+classes, and its influence in directing and hastening the attempt of the
+oppressed people to break their galling bonds.
+
+What we have before said in reference to the wretched condition of the
+peasantry, as shown by contemporary evidence, is confirmed by the writer
+of the "Vision." The peasant was a born thrall to the owner of the land,
+and could
+
+        "no charter make,
+    Nor his cattle sell,
+    Without leave of his lord."
+
+Misery and he were lifelong companions, and pinching want his daily
+portion. The wretched poor
+
+        "much care suffren
+    Through dearth, through drought,
+    All their days here:
+    Woe in winter times
+    For wanting of clothing
+    And in summer time seldom
+    Soupen to the full."
+
+A graphic picture of a poor ploughman and his family is given in the
+"Creed" of Piers Plowman, supposed to have been written by the author of
+the "Vision," but a few years later.
+
+    "As I went by the way
+    Weeping for sorrow,
+    I saw a simple man me by,
+    Upon the plow hanging.
+    His coat was of a clout
+    That cary[8] was called;
+    His hood was full of holes,
+    And his hair out;
+    With his knopped[9] shoon
+    Clouted full thick;
+    His toes totedun[10] out
+    As he the land treaded;
+    His hosen overhung his hockshins
+    On every side,
+    All beslomered in fen[11]
+    As he the plow followed.
+    Two mittens as meter
+    Made all of clouts,
+    The fingers were for-werd[12]
+    And full of fen hanged.
+    This wight wallowed in the fen
+    Almost to the ankle.
+    Four rotheren[13] him before
+    That feeble were worthy,
+    Men might reckon each rib
+    So rentful[14] they were.
+    His wife walked him with,
+    With a long goad,
+    In a cutted coat,
+    Cutted full high,
+    Wrapped in a winnow sheet
+    To weren her from weathers,
+    Barefoot on the bare ice
+    That the blood followed.
+    And at the land's end layeth
+    A little crumb-bowl,[15]
+    And thereon lay a little child
+    Lapped in clouts,
+    And twins of two years old
+    Upon another side.
+    And all they sungen one song,
+    That sorrow was to hear;
+    They crieden all one cry,
+    A careful note.
+    The simple man sighed sore,
+    And said, 'Children, be still!'"
+
+The tenant of land, or small farmer, was in a better condition, and when
+not cozened of his stores by the monks, or robbed of them by the
+ruffians in office or out of office, managed to live with some kind of
+rude comfort. What the ordinary condition of his larder and the extent
+of his farming stock were, may be learned from a passage in the
+"Vision."
+
+    "'I have no penny,' quoth Piers,
+    'Pullets to buy.
+    Nor neither geese nor grys;
+    But two green cheeses,
+    A few curds and cream,
+    And an haver cake,[16]
+    And two loaves of beans and bran,
+    Baked for my fauntes[17];
+    And yet I say, by my soul!
+    I have no salt bacon.
+    Nor no cokeney,[18] by Christ!
+    Collops for to maken.
+
+    "But I have perciles and porettes,[19]
+    And many cole plants,[20]
+    And eke a cow and calf.
+    And a cart-mare
+    To draw afield my dung,
+    The while the drought lasteth;
+    And by this livelihood we must live
+    Till Lammas time.
+    And by that I hope to have
+    Harvest in my croft,
+    And then may I dight thy dinner
+    As me dear liketh.'"
+
+We have already described the tenure by which the tenant held his lands,
+and the protection the knightly landowner was bound to give his tenant.
+Thus Piers Plowman, when his honest labors are broken in upon by
+ruffians,
+
+    "Plained him to the knight
+    To help him, as covenant was,
+    From cursed shrews,
+    Aud from these wasters, wolves-kind,
+    That maketh the world dear."
+
+At times this was but a wolf's protection, or a stronger power broke
+through all guards. The "king's purveyor," or some other licensed
+despoiler, came in, and the victim was left to make fruitless complaints
+of his injuries. The women were subjected to gross outrages, and the
+property stolen or destroyed.
+
+    "Both my geese and my grys
+    His gadelings[21] fetcheth,
+    I dare not, for fear of them,
+    Fight nor chide.
+    He borrowed of me Bayard
+    And brought him home never,
+    Nor no farthing therefore
+    For aught that I could plead.
+    He maintaineth his men
+    To murder my hewen,[22]
+    Forestalleth my fairs,
+    And fighteth in my chepying.[23]
+    And breaketh up my barn door,
+    And beareth away my wheat,
+    And taketh me but a tally
+    For ten quarters of oats;
+    And yet he beateth me thereto."
+
+Then, as now, there were complaints that the privations of the poor were
+increased by the covetousness of the hucksters, and "regraters"
+(retailers), who came between the producer and the consumer, and grew
+rich on the profits made from both.
+
+    "Brewers and bakers,
+    Butchers and cooks,"
+
+were charged with robbing
+
+        "the poor people
+    That parcel-meal[24] buy;
+    For they empoison the people
+    Privily and oft.
+    They grow rich through regratery,
+    And rents they buy
+    With what the poor people
+    Should put in their wamb.[25]
+    For, took they but truly,
+    They timbered[26] not so high,
+    Nor bought no burgages,[27]
+    Be ye fell certain."
+
+Stringent laws were made against huckstering and regrating, and
+officers were appointed to punish offenders in this respect, "with
+pillories and pining-stools." But officers, then as now, were not proof
+against temptation, and were often disposed
+
+    "Of all such sellers
+    Silver for to take;
+    Or presents without pence,
+    As pieces of silver,
+    Rings, or other riches,
+    The regraters to maintain."
+
+Nor had the rogues of the fourteenth century much to learn in the way of
+turning a dishonest penny. The merchant commended his bad wares for
+good, and knew how to adulterate and how to give short measure. The
+spinners of wool were paid by a heavy pound, and the article resold by a
+light pound. Laws were made against such frauds, but laws were little
+regarded when they conflicted with self-interest. The crime of clipping
+and "sweating" coin was frequently practised. Pawn-brokers,
+money-lenders, and sellers of exchange thrived and flourished.
+
+The rich find but little consideration at the hands of the plain-spoken
+dreamer. Their extravagance is commented on; their growing pride, which
+prompted them to abandon the great hall and take their meals in a
+private room, and their uncharitableness to the poor. They practise the
+saying, that "to him that hath shall be given."
+
+    "Right so, ye rich,
+    Ye robeth them that be rich,
+    And helpeth them that helpen you,
+    And giveth where no need is.
+    Ye robeth and feedeth
+    Them that have as ye have
+    Them ye make at ease."
+
+But when, hungered, athirst, and shivering with cold, the poor man comes
+to the rich man's gate, there is none to help, but he is
+
+      "hunted as a hound,
+    And bidden go thence."
+
+Thus
+
+        "the rich is reverenced
+    By reason of his richness,
+    And the poor is put behind."
+
+Truly, says the Monk of Malvern,
+
+    "God is much in the gorge
+    Of these great masters;
+    But among mean men
+    His mercy and his works."
+
+But it is on the vices and corruptions of the clergy that the monk pours
+the vials of his wrath. He cloaks nothing, and spares neither rank nor
+condition. The avarice of the clergy, their want of religion, and the
+prostitution of their sacred office for the sake of gain, are sternly
+denounced in frequently-recurring passages. The facility with which
+debaucheries and crimes of all kinds could be compounded for with the
+priests by presents of gold and silver, the neglect of their flocks
+whilst seeking gain in the service of the rich and powerful, their
+ignorance, pride, extravagance, and licentiousness, are painted in
+strong colors. The immense throng of friars and monks, who "waxen out of
+number," meet with small mercy from their fellow-monk. Falsehood and
+fraud are described as dwelling ever with them. Their unholy life and
+unseemly quarrels are held up for reprobation. Nor do the nuns escape
+the imputation of unchastity. The quackery of pardoners, with their
+pardons and indulgences from pope and bishop, is treated with contempt
+and scorn. Bishops are criticised for their undivided attention to
+worldly matters; and even the Pope himself does not escape censure.
+
+    "What pope or prelate now
+    Performeth what Christ hight[28]?"
+
+The cardinals come in for a share of the censure, and here occurs a
+passage, curiously suggestive of the celebrated line,--
+
+    "Never yet did cardinal bring good to England."
+
+    "The commons _clamat cotidie_
+    Each man to the other,
+    The country is the curseder
+    That cardinals come in;
+    And where they lie and lenge[29] most,
+    Lechery there reigneth."
+
+Years afterwards, Wycliffe dealt mighty blows at the corrupt and debased
+clergy, and Chaucer pierced them with his sharp satire, but neither
+surpassed their predecessor in the vigor and spirit of his onslaughts.
+One passage, which we quote, had evidently been acted on by Chaucer's
+"poor parson," and can be studied even at this late day.
+
+    "Friars and many other masters,
+    That to lewed[30] men preachen,
+    Ye moven matters unmeasurable
+    To tellen of the Trinity,
+    That oft times the lewed people
+    Of their belief doubt.
+    Better it were to many doctors
+    To leave such teaching,
+    And tell men of the ten commandments,
+    And touching the seven sins,
+    And of the branches that bourgeoneth of them,
+    And bringeth men to hell,
+    And how that folk in follies
+    Misspenden their five wits,
+    As well friars as other folks,
+    Foolishly spending,
+    In housing, in hatering,[31]
+    And in to high clergy showing
+    More for pomp than for pure charity.
+    The people wot the sooth
+    That I lie not, lo!
+    For lords ye pleasen,
+    And reverence the rich
+    The rather for their silver."
+
+It would be hardly proper to leave this portion of the subject without
+alluding to the remarkable passage which has been held by many as a
+prophecy of the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., nearly
+two centuries later. After denouncing the corruptions of the clergy, he
+says:--
+
+    "But there shall come a king
+    And confess you religiouses,
+    And beat you as the Bible telleth
+    For breaking of your rule;
+    And amend monials,
+    Monks and canons,
+    And put them to their penance.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon,
+    And all his issue forever,
+    Have a knock of a king,
+    And incurable the wound."
+
+A distinctive and charming feature of the English landscape is the
+hedgerow that divides the fields and marks the course of the roadways.
+Nowhere but in England does the landscape present such a charming
+picture of "meadows trim with daisies pied," "russet lawns and fallows
+gray," spread out like a map, divided with irregular lines of green.
+Nowhere else is the traveller's path guarded on either hand with a
+rampart of delicate primroses, sweet-breathed violets, golden buttercups
+fit for fairy revels, honeysuckles in whose bells the bee rings a
+delighted peal, and luscious-fruited blackberry-bushes. Nowhere else is
+such a rampart crowned with the sweet-scented hawthorn, robed in snowy
+blossoms, or beaded over with scarlet berries, and with the hazel, with
+its gracefully pendent catkins, or nuts dear to the school-boy. It
+scarcely seems possible to imagine an English landscape without its
+flower-scented hedge-rows, and yet, when the armed knights of Edward the
+Third's reign rode abroad from their castles, few lofty hedges barred
+their progress across the country; no hazel-crowned rampart stopped the
+way of the Malvern monk as he took his way to the "bourne's side"; and
+when the ploughman "whistled o'er the furrowed land," the line of
+division at which he turned his back on his neighbor's acres was
+generally but a narrow trench instead of a ditch and hedge. Thus the
+covetous man confesses,
+
+      "If I yede[32] to the plow,
+    I pinched so narrow
+    That a foot land or a furrow
+    Fetchen I would
+    Of my next neighbor,
+    And nymen[33] of his earth.
+    And if I reap, overreach."
+
+As might have been expected, the monkish dreamer, unusually liberal as
+he was in his views, had but a slighting opinion of women. Rarely does
+he refer to them except to rate them for their extravagance in dress and
+love of finery. The humbler class of women, he shrewdly insinuates, were
+fond of drink, and the husbands of such were advised to cudgel them home
+to their domestic duties. He credited the long-standing slander about
+woman's inability to keep a secret:--
+
+    "For that that women wotteth
+    May not well be concealed."
+
+His opinion of the proper sphere of women in that time, and some
+knowledge of their ordinary feminine occupations, can be acquired from
+the answer made to the question of a lady as to what her sex should
+do:--
+
+    "Some should sew the sack, quoth Piers,
+    For shedding of the wheat;
+    And ye, lovely ladies,
+    With your long fingers,
+    That ye have silk and sendal
+    To sew, when time is,
+    Chasubles for chaplains,
+    Churches to honor.
+      Wives and widows
+    Wool and flax spinneth;
+    Make cloth, I counsel you,
+    And kenneth[34] so your daughters;
+    The needy and the naked,
+    Nymeth[35] heed how they lieth,
+    And casteth them clothes,
+    For so commanded Truth."
+
+Marriage is an honorable estate, and should be entered into with proper
+motives, and in a decent and regular manner. It is desirable that most
+men should marry, for
+
+    "The wife was made the way
+    For to help work;
+    And thus was wedlock wrought
+    With a mean person,
+    First by the father's will
+    And the friends counsel;
+    And sithens[36] by assent of themselves,
+    As they two might accord."
+
+This is the essentially worldly way of making marriage arrangements yet
+practised in some aristocratic circles, but the more democratic and
+natural way is to reverse the process, and commence with the agreement
+between the two persons most concerned. Such unequal matches as age and
+wealth on one side, and youth and desire of wealth on the other, bring
+about, are sternly reprobated.
+
+    "It is an uncomely couple,
+    By Christ! as me thinketh,
+    To give a young wench
+    To an old feeble,
+    Or wedden any widow
+    For wealth of her goods,
+    That never shall bairn bear
+    But if it be in her arms."
+
+Such marriages lead to jealousy, bickerings, and open rupture,
+disgraceful to husband and wife, and annoying to others. Therefore Piers
+counsels
+
+          "all Christians,
+    Covet not to be wedded
+    For covetise of chattels.
+    Not of kindred rich;
+    But maidens and maidens
+    Make you together;
+    Widows and widowers
+    Worketh the same;
+    For no lands, but for love,
+    Look you be wedded";--
+
+adding the sound bit of spiritual and worldly advice,
+
+    "And then get ye the grace of God;
+    _And goods enough, to live with_."
+
+The touch of shrewd humor in the last line finds its counterpart in many
+other passages. Thus, when the dreamer sits down to rest by the wayside,
+his iteration of the prescribed prayers makes him drowsy:--
+
+    "So I babbled on my beads;
+    They brought me asleep."
+
+The Franciscan friars, his especial aversion, get a sly thrust when he
+says of Charity that
+
+        "in a friar's frock
+    He was founden once;
+    _But it is far ago_,
+    In Saint Francis's time:
+    In that sect since
+    Too seldom hath he been found."
+
+When Covetousness has confessed his numerous misdeeds, and is asked if
+he ever repented and made restitution, he replies,
+
+    "Yes, once I was harbored
+    With a heap of chapmen.[37]
+    I rose when they were at rest
+    And rifled their males[38]";--
+
+and on being told that this was no restitution, but another robbery, he
+replies, with assumed innocence of manner,
+
+    "I wened[39] rifling were restitution, quoth he,
+    For I learned never to read on book;
+    And I ken no French, in faith,
+    But of the farthest end of Norfolk."
+
+Even the Pope is not exempt from a touch of satire:--
+
+      "He prayed the Pope
+    Have pity on holy Church,
+    And ere he gave any grace,
+    _Govern first himself_."
+
+The prejudice against doctors and lawyers was as strong five hundred
+years ago as now, judging from Piers Plowman, who says, that
+
+      "Murderers are many leeches,
+    Lord them amend!
+    They do men die through their drinks
+    Ere destiny it would."
+
+Of lawyers he says they pleaded
+
+            "for pennies
+    And pounds, the law;
+    And not for the love of our Lord
+    Unclose their lips once.
+    Thou mightest better meet mist
+    On Malvern hills
+    Than get a mum of their mouth
+    Till money be showed."
+
+No class of people suffered more in the Middle Ages than the Jews. They
+were abhorred by the poor, despised by the wealthy, and cruelly
+oppressed by the powerful. But through all their sufferings and trials
+they were true to each other; and the monk holds up their fraternal
+charity as an example to shame Christians into similar virtues. He
+says:--
+
+    "A Jew would not see a Jew
+    Go jangling[40] for default.
+    For all the mebles[41] on this mould[42]
+    And he amend it might.
+      Alas! that a Christian creature
+    Shall be unkind to another;
+    Since Jews, that we judge
+    Judas's fellows,
+    Either of them helpeth other
+    Of that that him needeth.
+    Why not will we Christians
+    Of Christ's good be as kind
+    As Jews, that be our lores-men[43]?
+    Shame to us all!"
+
+With one more curious passage, giving a glimpse of the belief of that
+age concerning the future state, we will close our extracts from "Piers
+Plowman." Discussing the condition of the thief upon the cross who was
+promised a seat in heaven, the dreamer says:--
+
+    "Right as some man gave me meat,
+    And amid the floor set me,
+    And had meat more than enough,
+    But not so much worship
+    As those that sitten at the side-table,
+    Or with the sovereigns of the hall;
+    But set as a beggar boardless,
+    By myself on the ground.
+    So it fareth by that felon
+    That on Good Friday was saved,
+    He sits neither with Saint John,
+    Simon, nor Jude,
+    Nor with maidens nor with martyrs,
+    Confessors nor widows;
+    But by himself as a sullen,[44]
+    And served on earth.
+    For he that is once a thief
+    Is evermore in danger,
+    And, as law him liketh,
+    To live or to die.
+    And for to serven a saint
+    And such a thief together,
+    It were neither reason nor right
+    To reward them both alike."
+
+"Piers Plowman" is supposed to have been written in 1362. It became
+instantly popular, and manuscript copies were rapidly distributed over
+England. Imitations preserving the peculiar form, and aiming at the same
+objects as the "Vision," though without the genius exhibited in that
+work, appeared in quick succession. The hatred of the oppressed people
+for their oppressors was intensified by the inflammatory harangues of
+John Ball, the deposed priest. The preaching of Wycliffe probed still
+deeper the festering corruption of the dominant Church. At last, in
+1381, a popular rising, under Wat Tyler, attempted to right the wrongs
+of generations at the sword's point. The result of that attempt is well
+known,--its temporary success, sudden overthrow, and the terrible
+revenge taken by the ruling power in the enactment of laws that made the
+burden of the people still more intolerable.
+
+But the seed of political and religious freedom had been sown. It had
+been watered with the blood of martyrs; and, although the tender shoots
+had been trodden down with an iron heel as soon as they appeared, they
+gathered additional strength and vigor from the repression, and soon
+sprang up with a vitality that defied all efforts to crush them.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Garment.
+
+[2] Vagabond.
+
+[3] Clothes.
+
+[4] Shepherd.
+
+[5] Vision.
+
+[6] Brook.
+
+[7] Pigs.
+
+[8] A kind of very coarse cloth.
+
+[9] Buttoned.
+
+[10] Pushed.
+
+[11] Mud.
+
+[12] Worn out.
+
+[13] Oxen.
+
+[14] Meagre.
+
+[15] Kneading-trough.
+
+[16] Oat cake.
+
+[17] Children.
+
+[18] A lean hen.
+
+[19] Parley and leeks.
+
+[20] Cabbages.
+
+[21] Vagabonds.
+
+[22] Workingmen.
+
+[23] Market.
+
+[24] Piecemeal.
+
+[25] Belly.
+
+[26] Built.
+
+[27] Lands or tenements in towns.
+
+[28] Commanded.
+
+[29] Remain.
+
+[30] Unlearned.
+
+[31] Dressing.
+
+[32] Went.
+
+[33] Rob him.
+
+[34] Teach.
+
+[35] Take.
+
+[36] Afterwards.
+
+[37] Pedlers.
+
+[38] Boxes.
+
+[39] Thought.
+
+[40] Complaining.
+
+[41] Goods.
+
+[42] Earth.
+
+[43] Teachers.
+
+[44] One left alone.
+
+
+
+
+KATHARINE MORNE.
+
+PART I.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+One day, near the middle of a June about twenty years ago, my landlady
+met me at the door of my boarding-house, and began with me the following
+dialogue.
+
+"Miss Morne, my dear, home a'-ready? Goin' to be in, a spell, now?"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Johnson, I believe so. Why?"
+
+"Well, someb'dy's been in here to pay ye a call, afore twelve o'clock,
+in a tearin' hurry. Says I, 'Ye've got afore yer story this time, I
+guess,' says I. Says he, 'I guess I'll call again,' says he. He's left
+ye them pinies an' snowballs in the pitcher."
+
+"But who was it?"
+
+"Well, no great of a stranger, it wa'n't,--Jim!"
+
+"O, thank you."
+
+"He kind o' seemed as if he might ha' got somethin' sort o' special on
+his mind to say to ye. My! how he colored up at somethin' I said!"
+
+I walked by, and away from her, into the house, but answered that I
+should be happy to see Jim if he came back. Well I might. Through all
+the months of school-keeping that followed my mother's death,--in the
+little country village of Greenville, so full of homesickness for
+me,--he had been my kindest friend. My old schoolmate, Emma Holly, from
+whose native town he came, assured me beforehand that he would be so.
+She wrote to me that he was the best, most upright, well-principled,
+kind-hearted fellow in the world. He was almost like a brother to her,
+(this surprised me a little, because I had never heard her speak of him
+before,) and so he would be to me, if I would only let him. She had told
+him all about me and our troubles and plans,--how I winced at that when
+I read it!--and he was very much interested, and would shovel a path for
+me when it snowed, or go to the post-office for me, or do anything in
+the world for me that he could. And so he had done.
+
+He had little chance, indeed, to devote himself to me abroad; for I
+seldom went out, except now and then, when I could not refuse without
+giving offence, to drink tea with the family of some pupil. But when I
+did that, he always found it out through Mrs. Johnson, whose nephew he
+was, and came to see me home. He usually brought some additional
+wrappings or thick shoes for me; and even if they were too warm, or
+otherwise in my way, I could be, and was, grateful for his kindness in
+thinking of them. He was very attentive to his aunt also, and came to
+read aloud to her, while she napped, almost every evening. At every meal
+which he took with us, he was constantly suggesting to her little
+comforts and luxuries for me, till I was afraid she would really be
+annoyed. She took his hints, however, in wonderfully good part,
+sometimes acted upon them, and often said to me, "How improvin' it was
+for young men to have somebody to kind o' think for! It made 'em so kind
+o' thoughtful!" Many a flower, fruit, and borrowed book he brought me.
+He tried to make me walk with him; and, whenever he could, he made me
+talk with him. But for him, I should have studied almost all the time
+that I was not teaching or sleeping; for when I began to teach, I first
+discovered how little I had learned. Thus nearly all the indulgences and
+recreations of the rather grave, lonely, and hard-working little life I
+was leading at that time were associated with him and his kind care; and
+so I really think it was no great wonder if his peonies and snowballs
+that day made the bare little parlor, with the row of staring, uncouth
+daguerreotypes on the mantel-piece, look very pretty to me, or that to
+know that he had been there, and was coming back again, made it a very
+happy place.
+
+I walked across it, took off my hot black bonnet, threw up the western
+window, and sat down beside it in the rocking-chair. The cool breeze
+struggled through the tree that nestled sociably up to it, and made the
+little knobs of cherries nod at me, as if saying, "You would not like us
+now, but you will by and by." The oriole gurgled and giggled from among
+them, "_Wait!_ Come _again_! Come again! Ha, ha!" The noise of the
+greedy canker-worms, mincing the poor young green leaves over my head,
+seemed a soothing sound; and even the sharp headache I had brought with
+me from the school-room, only a sort of _sauce piquante_ to my delicious
+rest. I did not ask myself what Jim would say. I scarcely longed to hear
+him come. I did not know how anything to follow could surpass that
+perfect luxury of waiting peace.
+
+He did come soon. I heard a stealthy step, not on the gravel-walk, but
+on the rustling hay that lay upon the turf beside it. He looked, and
+then sprang, in at the window. He was out of breath. He caught my hand,
+and looked into my face, and asked me to go out and walk with him.
+Before I had time to answer, he snatched up my bonnet, and almost
+pressed it down upon my head. As I tied it, he hurried out and looked
+back at me eagerly from the road. I followed, though more slowly than he
+wished. The sun was bright and hot, and almost made me faint; but
+everything was very beautiful.
+
+He wrenched out the topmost bar of a fence, _jumped_ me over it into a
+meadow, led me by a forced march into the middle of the field, seated me
+on a haycock, and once more stood before me, looking me in the face with
+his own all aglow.
+
+Then he told me that he had been longing for weeks, as I must have seen,
+to open his mind to me; but, till that day, he had not been at liberty.
+He had regarded me, from almost the very beginning of our acquaintance,
+as his best and trustiest friend,--in short, as just what dear Emma had
+told him he should find me. My friendship had been a blessing to him in
+every way; and now my sympathy, or participation, was all he wanted to
+render his happiness complete. He had just been admitted as a partner in
+_the store_ of the village, in which he had hitherto been only a
+salesman; and now, therefore, he was at last free to offer himself,
+before all the world, to the girl he loved best; and that was--I must
+guess who. He called me "dearest Katy," and asked me if he might not
+"to-day, at last."
+
+I bowed, but did not utter my guess. He seemed to think I had done so,
+notwithstanding; for he hurried on, delighted. "Of course it is, 'Katy
+darling,' as we always call you! I never knew your penetration out of
+the way. It _is_ Emma Holly! It couldn't be anybody but Emma Holly!"
+
+Then he told me that she had begged hard for leave to tell me outright,
+what she thought she had hinted plainly enough, about their hopes; but
+her father was afraid that to have them get abroad would hurt her
+prospects in other quarters, and made silence towards all others a
+condition of her correspondence with Jim. Mr. Holly was "aristocratic,"
+and in hopes Emma would change her mind, Jim supposed; but all danger
+was over now. He could maintain her like the lady she was; and their
+long year's probation was ended. Then he told me in what agonies he had
+passed several evenings a fortnight before, (when I must have wondered
+why he did not come and read,) from hearing of her illness. The doctors
+were right for once, to be sure, as it proved, in thinking it only the
+measles; but it might just as well have been spotted fever, or
+small-pox, or anything fatal, for all they knew.
+
+And then I rather think there must have been a pause, which I did not
+fill properly, because my head was aching with a peculiar sensation
+which I had never known before, though I have sometimes since.--It is
+like the very hand of Death, laid with a strong grasp on the joint and
+meeting-point of soul and body, and makes one feel, for the time being,
+as Dr. Livingstone says he did when the lion shook him,--a merciful
+indifference as to anything to come after.--And Jim was asking me, in a
+disappointed tone, what the matter was, and if I did not feel
+interested.
+
+"Yes," I said, "Mr. Johnson--"
+
+"Mr. Johnson!" interrupted he, "How cold! I thought it would be _Jim_ at
+least, to-day, if you can't say _dear_ Jim."
+
+"Yes, 'dear Jim,'" I repeated; and my voice sounded so strangely quiet
+in my own ears, that I did not wonder that he called me cold. "Indeed, I
+am interested. I don't know when I have heard anything that has
+interested me so much. I pray God to bless you and Emma. But the reason
+I came from school so early to-day was, that I had a headache; and now I
+think perhaps the sun is not good for it, and I had better go in."
+
+I stood up; but I suspect I must have had something like a sunstroke,
+sitting there in the meadow so long with no shade, in the full blaze of
+June. I was almost too dizzy to stand, and could hardly have reached the
+house, if I had not accepted Jim's arm. He offered, in the joy of his
+heart, to change head-dresses with me,--which luckily made me
+laugh,--declaring that mine must be a perfect portable stove for the
+brains. Thus we reached the door cheerfully, and there shook hands
+cordially; while I bade him take my kindest love and congratulations to
+Emma,--to whom he was going on a three days' visit, as fast as the cars
+could carry him,--and charged him to tell her I should write as soon as
+I recovered the use of my head.
+
+He looked concerned on being reminded of it, and shouted for Mrs.
+Johnson to bring me some lavender-water to bathe it with. I had told
+him, on a former occasion, that the smell of lavender always made it
+worse; but it was natural that, when he was so happy, he should forget.
+Whistling louder than the orioles, whose songs rang wildly through and
+through my brain, he hastened down the road, and was gone.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Jim was gone; but I was left. I could have spared him better if I could
+only have got rid of myself.
+
+However, for that afternoon the blessed pain took such good care of me
+that I lay upon my bed still and stunned, and could only somewhat dimly
+perceive, not how unhappy I was, but how unhappy I was going to be. It
+quieted Mrs. Johnson, too. She had seen me suffering from headache
+before, and knew that I could never talk much while it lasted. Her
+curiosity was at once satisfied and gratified by hearing what Jim had
+left me at liberty to tell her,--the news of his partnership in the
+firm. The engagement was not to be announced in form till the next week;
+though I, as the common friend of both parties, had been made an
+exceptional confidante; and Jim, afraid of betraying himself, had not
+trusted himself to take leave of his aunt, but left his love for her,
+and his apologies for outstaying his time so far in the meadow as to
+leave himself none for the farm-house.
+
+Thus I had a reprieve. When towards midnight my head grew easier, I was
+worn out and slept; so that it was not till the birds began to rehearse
+for their concert at sunrise the next morning, that I came to myself and
+looked things in the face in the clear light of the awful dawn.
+
+If you can imagine a very heavy weight let somewhat gradually, but
+irresistibly, down upon young and tender shoulders, then gently lifted
+again, little by little, by a sympathizing and unlooked-for helper, and
+lastly tossed by him unexpectedly into the air, only to fall back with
+redoubled weight, and crush the frame that was but bowed before, you can
+form some idea of what had just happened to me. My mother's death, our
+embarrassments, my loneliness, the hard and to me uncongenial work I had
+to do, all came upon me together more heavily than at any time since the
+first fortnight that I spent at Greenville.
+
+But that was not all. Disappointment is hardly the right word to use;
+for I can truly say that I never made any calculations for the future
+upon Jim's attentions to me. They were offered so honestly and
+respectfully that I instinctively felt I could accept them with perfect
+propriety, and perhaps could scarcely with propriety refuse. I had never
+once asked myself what they meant, nor whither they tended. But yet I
+was used to them now, and had learned to prize them far more than I
+knew; and they must be given up. My heart-strings had unconsciously
+grown to him, and ought to be torn away. And I think that, beyond grief,
+beyond the prospect of lonely toil and poverty henceforth, beyond all
+the rest, was the horror of an idea which came upon me, that I had lost
+the control of my own mind,--that my peace had passed out of my keeping
+into the power of another, who, though friendly to me, neither would nor
+could preserve it for me,--that I was doomed to be henceforward the prey
+of feelings which I must try to conceal, and perhaps could not for any
+length of time, which lowered me in my own eyes, and would do so in
+those of others if they were seen by them, which were wrong, and which I
+could not help.
+
+These thoughts struck and stung me like so many hornets. Crying,
+"Mother! mother!" I sprang from my bed, and fell on my knees beside it.
+I did not suppose it would do much good for me to pray; but I said over
+and over, if only to stop myself from thinking, "O God, help me! God
+have mercy on me!" as fast as I could, till the town clock struck five,
+and I knew that I must begin to dress, and compose myself, if I would
+appear as usual at six o'clock at the breakfast-table.
+
+My French grammar, was, as usual, set up beside my looking-glass. As
+usual, I examined myself aloud in one of the exercises, while I went
+through my toilet. If I did make some mistakes it was no matter. I made
+so much haste, that I had time before breakfast to correct some of the
+compositions which I had brought with me from school. The rest, as I
+often did when hurried, I turned over while I tried to eat my bread and
+milk. This did not encourage conversation. During the meal, I was only
+asked how my head was, and answered only that it was better. I had taken
+care not to shed a tear, so that my eyes were not swollen; and as I had
+eaten nothing since the morning of the day before, nobody could be
+surprised to see me pale.
+
+Mrs. Johnson left her seat, too, almost as soon as I took mine. She was
+in a great bustle, getting her covered wagon under way, and stocked with
+eggs, butter, cheese, and green vegetables for her weekly trip to the
+nearest market-town. She was, however, sufficiently mindful of her
+nephew's lessons to regret that she must leave me poorly when he would
+not be there to cheer me up, and to tell me to choose what I liked best
+for my dinner while she was gone.
+
+I chose a boiled chicken and rice. It was what my mother used to like
+best to have me eat when I was not well. I often rebelled against it
+when a child; but now I sought by means of it to soothe myself with the
+fancy that I was still under her direction.
+
+Mrs. Johnson also offered to do for me what I forgot to ask of her,--to
+look in at the post-office and see if there was not a letter there for
+me from my only sister. Fanny, for once, had sent me none the week
+before. Mrs. Johnson went to town, and I to school.
+
+I worked and worried through the lessons,--how, I never knew; but I dare
+say the children were forbearing; children are apt to be when one is
+not well. I came home and looked at the chicken and rice. But that would
+not do. They _would_ have made me cry. So I hurried out again, away from
+them, and away from the meadow, and walked in the woods all that
+Saturday afternoon, thinking to and fro,--not so violently as in the
+morning, for I was weaker, but very confusedly and in endless
+perplexity. How could I stay in Greenville? I should have to be with
+Jim! But how could I go? What reason had I to give? and what would
+people think was my reason? But would it not be wrong to stay and see
+Jim? But it would be wrong to break my engagement to the school
+committee!
+
+At length again the clock struck five, which was supper-time, and I saw
+myself no nearer the end of my difficulties; and I had to say once
+again, "God help me! God have mercy on me!" and so went home.
+
+Mrs. Johnson was awaiting me, with this letter for me in her pocket. It
+is not in Fanny's handwriting, however, but in that of a friend of ours
+with whom she was staying, Mrs. Physick, the wife of the most eminent of
+the younger physicians in Beverly, our native town. I opened it hastily
+and read:--
+
+    "Friday.
+
+    "MY DEAR KATIE:--
+
+     "You must not be uneasy at my writing instead of Fannie, as
+     the Doctor thinks it too great an effort for her. She has
+     had an attack of influenza, not very severe, but you know
+     she is never very strong, and I am afraid she is too much
+     afraid of calling on me for any little thing she wants done.
+     So we think, the Doctor and I, it would do her good to have
+     a little visit from you. She wanted us to wait for the
+     summer vacation, so as not to alarm you; but you know that
+     is three whole weeks off, and nobody knows how much better
+     she may be within that time. The Doctor says, suggest to
+     Katie that the committee might, under the circumstances,
+     agree to her ending the spring term a little earlier than
+     usual, and beginning a little earlier in the fall.
+
+    "Yours as ever,
+
+    "JULIA.
+
+     "P. S. You must not be anxious about dear Fannie. She has
+     brightened up very much already at the mere thought of
+     seeing you. Her cough is not half so troublesome as it was a
+     week ago, and the Doctor says her very _worst_ symptom is
+     _weakness_. She says she _must_ write _one word_ herself."
+
+O what a tremulous word!
+
+    "DEAR KATY:--
+
+     "_Do_ come if you can, and _don't_ be anxious. Indeed I am
+     growing stronger every day, and eating _so_ much meat, and
+     drinking _so_ much whiskey. It does me a great deal of good,
+     and would a great deal more if I could only tell how we were
+     ever to [pay for it, I knew she would have said; but Dr.
+     Physick had evidently interposed; for the signature,]
+
+    "Your mutinous and obstreperous
+
+    "SISTER FANNY,"
+
+was prefaced with a scratched-out involuntary "Rx," and
+looked like a prescription.
+
+I might be as sad as I would now; and who could wonder? I sat down where
+I was standing on the door-step, and held the letter helplessly up to
+Mrs. Johnson. It did seem to me now as if Fate was going to empty its
+whole quiver of arrows at once upon me, and meant to kill me, body and
+soul. But I have since thought sometimes, when I have heard people say,
+Misfortunes never came single, and How mysterious it was! that God only
+dealt with us, in that respect somewhat as some surgeons think it best
+to do with wounded men,--perform whatever operations are necessary,
+immediately after the first injury, so as to make one and the same
+"shock" take the place of more. In this way of Providence, I am sure I
+have repeatedly seen accumulated sorrows, which, if distributed through
+longer intervals, might have darkened a lifetime, lived through, and in
+a considerable degree recovered from, even in a very few years.
+
+Mrs. Johnson's spectacles, meantime, were with eager curiosity peering
+over the letter. "Dear heart!" cried she. "Do tell! My! What a
+providence! There's Sister Nancy Newcome's Elviry jest got home this
+arternoon from her situation to the South, scairt off with the
+insurrections as unexpected as any_thing_. She's as smart a teacher as
+ever was; an' the committee'd ha' gin her the school in a minute, an'
+thank you, too; but she wuz alwuz a kind o' lookin' up'ards; an' I
+s'pose she cal'lated it might for'ard her prospects to go down an' show
+herself among the plantations. There's better opportoonities, they say,
+sometimes for young ladies to git settled in life down there, owin' to
+the scurcity on 'em. She'll be glad enough to fill your place, I guess,
+till somethin' else turns up, for a fortni't or a month, or a term.
+It'll give her a chance to see her folks, an' fix up her cloes, an' look
+round her a spell. An' you can step into the cars o' Monday mornin' an'
+go right off an' close that poor young creator's eyes, an' take your
+time for 't. Seems as if I hearn tell your ma went off in a kind of a
+gallopin' decline, didn't she?"
+
+"No, she did not!" cried I, springing up with a renewal of energy that
+must have surprised Mrs. Johnson. "Nothing of the kind! I will take my
+letter again, if you please. My sister has a cold,--only a cold. But
+where can I see Miss Newcome?"
+
+"To home; but I declare, you can't feel hardly fit to start off ag'in.
+Jest you step in an' sup your tea afore it's any colder, I've had mine;
+an' I'll step right back over there, an' see about it for ye."
+
+Mrs. Johnson, if coarse, was kind; and that time it would be hard to say
+whether her kindness or her coarseness did me the most good; for the
+latter roused me, between indignation and horror, to a strong reaction.
+
+Mrs. Johnson, I said to myself, knew no more of the matter than I.
+Nobody said a word, in the letter, of Fanny's being very ill; and there
+had been, as I now considered, to the best of my recollection and
+information, no consumption in our family. My father died when I was
+five years old, as I had always heard of chronic bronchitis and nervous
+dyspepsia, or, in other words, of over-work and under-pay. An early
+marriage to a clergyman, who had no means of support but a salary of
+five hundred dollars dependent on his own health and the tastes of a
+parish, early widowhood, two helpless little girls to rear, years of
+hard work, anxieties, and embarrassments, a typhoid fever, with no
+physician during the precious first few days, during which, if she had
+sent for him, Dr. Physick always believed he might have saved her, a
+sudden sinking and no rallying,--it took all that to kill poor, dear,
+sweet mamma! She had a magnificent constitution, and bequeathed much of
+it to me.
+
+Else I do not think I could have borne, and recovered from, those three
+days even as well as I did. The cars did not run on Sunday. That was so
+dreadful! But there was no other hindrance in my way. Everybody was very
+kind. The school committee could not meet in form "on the Sabbath"; but
+the chairman, who was Miss Elvira Newcome's brother-in-law, "sounded the
+other members arter meetin', jest as he fell in with 'em, casooally as
+it were," and ascertained that they would offer no objection to my
+exchange. He advanced my pay himself, and brought it to me soon after
+sunrise Monday morning; so that I was more than sufficiently provided
+with funds for my journey.
+
+Mrs. Johnson forced upon me a suspicious-looking corked bottle of
+innocent tea,--one of the most sensible travelling companions, as I
+found before the day was over, that a wayfarer can possibly have,--and a
+large paper of doughnuts. Feverish as I was, I would right willingly
+have given her back, not only the doughnuts, but the tea, to bribe her
+not to persecute me as she did for a message for Jim. But I could leave
+my thanks for all his kindness, and my regrets--sincere, though repented
+of--that I could not see him again, before I went, to say good-by; and,
+already in part effaced by the impression of the last blow that had
+fallen upon me, that scene in the dreadful meadow seemed months and
+miles away. The engine shrieked. The cars started. My hopes and spirits
+rose; and I was glad, because I was going home,--that is, where, when I
+had a home, it used to be.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The rapid motion gratified my restlessness, and, together with the
+noise, soothed me homoeopathically. I slept a great deal. The
+midsummer day was far shorter than I feared it would be; and I found
+myself rather refreshed than fatigued when the conductor roused me
+finally by shouting names more and more familiar, as we stopped at
+way-stations. I sat upright, and strained my _cinderful_ eyes, long
+surfeited with undiluted green, for the first far blue and silver
+glimpses of my precious sea. Then well-known rocks and cedars came
+hurrying forward, as if to meet me half-way.
+
+As the cars stopped for the last time with me, I caught sight of a horse
+and chaise approaching at a rapid rate down the main street of the town.
+The driver sprang out and threw the reins to a boy. He turned his
+face--a grave face--up, and looked searchingly along the row of
+car-windows. It was Dr. Physick. I darted out at the nearest door. He
+saw me, smiled, and was at it in an instant, catching both my hands in
+his to shake them and help me down by them at the same time.
+
+"Little Katy!"--he always would call me so, though, as I sometimes took
+the liberty to tell him, I was very sure I had long left off being
+_that_, even if I was not yet quite the size of some giants I had
+seen,--"Little Katy! How jolly! 'Fanny?' O, Fanny's pretty
+comfortable,--looking out for you and putting her head out of the
+window, I dare say, the minute my back's turned. I look to you now to
+keep her in order. Baggage? Only bag? Give it to me. Foot,--now
+hand,--there you are!"
+
+And there I was,--where I was most glad to be once more,--in his gig,
+and driving, in the cool, moist twilight, down the dear old street,
+shaded with dear old elms, with the golden and amber sunset still
+glowing between their dark boughs; where every quiet, snug, old wooden
+house, with its gables and old-fashioned green or white front-door with
+a brass or bronze knocker, and almost every shop and sign even, seemed
+an old friend.
+
+The lingering glow still lay full on the front of our old home, which
+now had "Philemon Physick, M. D." on the corner. As we stopped before
+it, I thought I spied a sweet little watching face, for one moment,
+behind a pane of one of the second-story windows. But if I did, it was
+gone before I was sure.
+
+"Here she is!" called out the Doctor. "Julia!--Wait a minute, Kate, my
+dear,--no hurry. Julia!" Up he ran, while "Julia" ran down, said
+something, in passing, to him on the stairs, kissed me at the foot three
+times over,--affectionately, but as if to gain time, I thought,--led me
+into the parlor to take off my bonnet, and told me Fanny was not quite
+ready to see me just then, but would be, most likely, in two or three
+minutes. The Doctor had gone up to see about it, and would let me know.
+
+"O, didn't I see her at the window?"
+
+"Yes, dear, you did; and that was just the trouble. She saw you were
+there; and she was so pleased, it made her a little faint. The Doctor
+will give her something to take; and as soon as she is a little used to
+your being here, of course you can be with her all the time."
+
+The Doctor came down, speaking cheerily. "She is all right now. Run up,
+as fast as you like, and kiss her, Kate, my child; but tell her I forbid
+your talking till to-morrow. In five minutes, by my watch, I shall call
+you down to tea; and when you are called, you come. That will give her
+time to think about it and compose herself. Julia's _help_ shall stay
+with her in the mean while. Afterwards, you shall share your own old
+chamber with her. Julia has it, as usual, all ready for you."
+
+Fanny had sunk back on her white pillows, upon the little couch before
+the window from which she watched for me. How inspired and beautiful she
+looked!--she who was never thought of as beautiful before,--the very
+transfigured likeness of herself, as I hope one day to behold her in
+glory,--and so like our mother, too! She lay still, as she had been
+ordered, lest she should faint again; but by the cheerful lamp that
+stood on the stand beside her, I saw her smile as she had never used to
+smile. The eyes, that I left swollen and downcast, were raised large and
+bright. But as she slowly opened her arms and clasped me to her, I felt
+tears on my cheek; and her voice was broken as she said, "Katy, Katy! O,
+thank God! I was afraid I never should see you again. Now I have
+everything that I want in the world!"
+
+It was hard to leave her when I was called so soon; but she knew that it
+was right, and made me go; and when I was allowed to return to her, she
+lay in obedient but most happy silence for all the rest of the evening,
+with those new splendid eyes fixed on my face, her dim complexion
+glowing, and her hands clasping mine. After I had put her to bed, and
+laid myself down in my own beside her, I felt her reach out of hers and
+touch me with a little pat two or three times, as a child will a new
+doll, to make sure that it has not been merely dreaming of it. At first,
+I asked her if she wanted anything; but she said, "Only to feel that you
+are really there"; and when, after a very sound and long rest, I awoke,
+there was her solemn, peaceful gaze still watching me, like that of an
+unsleeping guardian angel. She had slept too, however, remarkably long
+and well, whether for joy, as she thought, or from the opium which I had
+been startled to see given her the night before. She said she had had
+many scruples about taking it; but the Doctor insisted; and she did not
+think it her duty on the whole to make him any trouble by opposing his
+prescriptions, when we owed him so much. Poor Fanny! How hard it was for
+her to owe any one "anything, but to love one another."
+
+The Doctor's bulletin that morning was, "Remarkably comfortable." But in
+the forenoon, while Fanny after breakfast took a nap, I snatched an
+opportunity to cross-question Mrs. Physick, from whom I knew I could
+sooner or later obtain all she knew,--the _sooner_ it would be, if she
+had anything good to tell; as, in my inexperience, I was almost sure she
+must have.
+
+Fanny's "influenza," I now discovered, dated back to May. She kept her
+room a few days, did not seem so ill as many fellow-patients who were
+now quite well again, and soon resumed her usual habits, but was never
+quite rid of her cough. Two or three weeks after, there was a
+Sunday-school festival in the parish to which we belonged. She was
+called upon to sing and assist in various ways, over-tasked her
+strength, was caught in a shower, looked very sick, and being, on the
+strength of Mrs. Physick's representations, formally escorted into the
+office, was found to have a quick pulse and sharp pain in one side. This
+led to a careful examination of the chest, and the discovery not only of
+"acute pleurisy," but of "some mischief probably of longer standing in
+the lungs," yet "no more," the Doctor said, "than many people carried
+about with them all their lives without knowing it, nor than others, if
+circumstances brought it to light, recovered from by means of good care
+and good spirits, and lived to a good old age."
+
+"How long ago was that?"
+
+"The pleurisy? About the beginning of June. The Doctor said last week he
+'could scarcely discover a vestige of it.' And now, Katy," continued
+kind, cheery Mrs. Physick, "you see, your coming back has put her in the
+best of spirits; and you and the Doctor and I are all going to take the
+best of care of her; and so we may all hope the best."
+
+"The best of care"? Ah, there was little doubt of that! But even "_good_
+spirits"! who could hope to see Fanny enjoying them for any length of
+time, till she had done with time? Good, uncomplaining, patient, I had
+always seen her,--happy, how seldom!--when, indeed, till now? There was
+not enough of earth about her for her to thrive and bloom.
+
+My mother, I believe, used to attribute in part to Fanny's early
+training her early joylessness. In her early days,--so at least I have
+understood,--it was thought right even by some good people of our
+"persuasion," to lose no opportunity of treating the little natural
+waywardnesses of children with a severity which would now be called
+ferocity. Mamma could never have practised this herself; but perhaps she
+suffered it to be practised to a greater extent than she would have
+consented to endure, had she foreseen the consequences. My poor father
+must have been inexperienced, too; and I suppose his nerves, between
+sickness and poverty, might at times be in such a state that he scarcely
+knew what he did.
+
+I was four years younger than Fanny, and know nothing about it, except a
+very little at second-hand. But at any rate I have often heard my mother
+say, with a glance at her, and a gravity as if some sad association
+enforced the lesson on her mind, that it was one of the first duties of
+those who undertook the charge of children to watch over their
+cheerfulness, and a most important rule, never, if it was possible to
+put it off, so much as to reprimand them when one's own balance was at
+all disturbed. This was a rule that she never to my knowledge broke;
+though she was naturally rather a high-strung person, as I think the
+pleasantest and most generous people one meets with generally are.
+
+From whatever cause or causes,--to return to Fanny,--she grew up, not
+fierce, sullen, nor yet hypocritical, but timid and distrustful,
+miserably sensitive and anxious, and morbidly conscientious.
+
+There was another pleasure in store for her, however; for, the afternoon
+following that of my return, Mrs. Julia, looking out as usual for her
+husband,--with messages from four different alarmingly or alarmed sick
+persons, requesting him to proceed without delay in four different
+directions,--saw him at length driving down the road with such
+unprofessional slowness that she feared some accident to himself or his
+harness. When he came before the door, the cause appeared. It was a
+handsome Bath chair, with a basket of strawberries on the floor and a
+large nosegay on the seat, fastened to the back of his gig, and safely
+towed by it.
+
+"What is that for?" cried I from Fanny's window.
+
+"Fanny's coach," said he, looking up. "Miss Dudley has sent it to be
+taken care of for her. She does not want it herself for the present; and
+you can draw your dolly out in it every fine day."
+
+"O," cried Fanny, sitting upright on the couch by the window,--where she
+spent the greater part of the day,--to see for herself, with the tears
+in her eyes. "O, how lovely! That is the very kindest thing she has done
+yet;--and you don't know how she keeps sending me everything, Katy!"
+
+"Miss Dudley? Who is she?"
+
+"O, don't you know? The great naturalist's sister. He lives in that
+beautiful place, on the shore, in the large stone cottage. The ground
+was broken for it before you went to Greenville. She is very sick, I am
+afraid,--very kind, I am sure. I never saw her. She has heard about me.
+I am afraid the Doctor told her. I hope she does not think I meant he
+should."
+
+"Of course, dear, she does not."
+
+"Do you really think so?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why,--I know I should not like being begged of in that underhand way
+myself; and if I did not like it, I might send something once, but after
+that I should never keep on sending."
+
+"I am very glad you think so; for I like her kindness, though I scarcely
+like to have her show it in this way, because I am afraid I can never do
+anything for her. But I hope she does like to send; for Dr. Physick says
+she always asks after me, almost before he can after her, and looks very
+much pleased if she hears that I have been so. I suppose the Doctor will
+think it is too late to take me down to-night. Katy, don't you want to
+go and see the wagon, and tell me about it, and pour the strawberries
+into a great dish on the tea-table, and all of you have some, and bring
+up the flowers when you come back after tea?"
+
+When I came back with the flowers, Fanny smiled rather pensively, and
+did not ask me about the chair.
+
+"Fanny," said I, "the Doctor says you may go out to-morrow forenoon, and
+stay as long as you like, if it is fair; and the sun is going down as
+red as a Baldwin apple. The chair is contrived so, with springs and the
+cushions, that you can lie down in it, as flat as you do on your sofa,
+when you are tired of sitting up."
+
+"O Katy," cried she, with a little quiver in her voice, for she was too
+weak to bear anything, "I have been seeing how inconsiderate I was! To
+think of letting you exert and strain yourself in that way!"
+
+In came the Doctor, looking saucy. "Fanny won't go, I suppose? I thought
+so. I said so to De Quincey [his horse], as I drove him down the street
+at a creep, sawing his mouth to keep him from running away, till he
+foamed at it epileptically, while all the sick people were sending
+north, south, east, and west after all the other doctors. I hope you
+won't mention it, said I to the horse; but Fanny is always getting up
+some kind of a row. But there is Katy now,--Katy is a meek person, and
+always does as she is bid. She has been cooped up too much, and bleached
+her own roses with teaching the Greenville misses to sickly o'er with
+the pale cast of thought. Katy needs gentle exercise. So does Deacon
+Lardner." Deacon Lardner was the fat inhabitant of the town, and ill of
+the dropsy. "I will send Katy out a-walking, with Deacon Lardner in Miss
+Dudley's chair."
+
+I laughed. Fanny smiled. The Doctor saw his advantage, and followed it
+up. "Julia, my dear, get my apothecary's scales out of the office. Put
+an ounce weight into one, and Fanny into the other. Then put the ounce
+weight into the chair. If Katy can draw that, she can draw Fanny."
+
+This time, it was poor Fanny who had the laugh to herself.
+
+The next day, the Doctor carried her down stairs, as soon as she could
+bear it after her breakfast, and left her on a sofa, in the little
+parlor, to rest. About ten o'clock, he came back from his early rounds.
+I was dressed and waiting for him, with Fanny's bonnet and shawl ready.
+I put them on her, while he drew out the chair from its safe stable in
+the hall. Once again he took her up; and thus by easy stages we got her
+into "her coach." I pulled, and he pushed it, "to give me a start." How
+easy and light and strong it was! How delighted were both she and I!
+
+Fanny was too easily alarmed to enjoy driving much, even when she was
+well; and she had not walked out for weeks. During that time, the slow,
+late spring had turned into midsummer; and the mere change from a
+sick-room to the fresh, outer world is always so very great! For me, it
+was the first going abroad since my return to Beverly. We went in the
+sun till my charge's little snowdrop hands were warm, and then drew up
+under the shade of an elm, on a little airy knoll that commanded a
+distant view of the sea, and was fanned by a soft air, which helped poor
+Fanny's breathing. She now insisted on my resting myself; and I turned
+the springs back and arranged the cushions so that she could lie down,
+took a new handkerchief of my guardian's from my pocket, and hemmed it,
+as I sat at her side on a stone, while she mused and dozed. When she
+awoke, I gave her her luncheon from a convenient little box in the
+chair, and drew her home by dinner-time.
+
+In this way we spent much of the month of July--shall I say
+it?--agreeably. Nobody will believe it, who has not felt or seen the
+marvellous relief afforded by an entire change of scene and occupation
+to a person tried as I had been. If I had but "one idea," that idea was
+now Fanny. Instinctively in part, and partly of set purpose, I postponed
+to her every other consideration and thought. It was delightful to me to
+be able, in my turn, to take her to one after another of the dear old
+haunts, in wood or on beach, where she had often led me, when a child,
+to play. I always did love to have something to take care of; and the
+care of Fanny wore upon me little. She was the most considerate of
+invalids.
+
+Besides, she was better, or at any rate I thought so, after she began to
+go out in Miss Dudley's chair. Her appetite improved; her nerves grew
+more firm; and her cough was sometimes so quiet at night that her
+laudanum would stand on her little table in the morning, just as it was
+dropped for her the evening before.
+
+Not only were my spirits amended by the fresh air in which, by Dr.
+Physick's strict orders, I lived with her through the twenty-four hours,
+but my health too. He had declared her illness to be "probably owing in
+great part to the foul atmosphere in which," he found, "she slept"; and
+now she added that, since she had known the comfort of fresh air at
+night, she should be very sorry ever to give it up. In windy weather she
+had a large folding-screen, and in raw, more blankets and a little fire.
+
+Besides the chair, another thing came in our way which gave pleasure to
+both of us, though it was not very pleasantly ushered in, as its pioneer
+was a long visit from Fanny's old "Sabbath school-ma'am," Miss Mehitable
+Truman, who _would_ come up stairs. Towards the close of this visit her
+errand came out. It was to inquire whether "Fanny wouldn't esteem it a
+privilege to knit one or two of her sets of toilet napkins for Miss
+Mehitable's table at the Orphans' Fair, jest by little and little, as
+she could gether up her failin' strength." Fanny could not promise the
+napkins, since, luckily for her, she was past speech from exhaustion, as
+I was with indignation; and Miss Truman, hearing the Doctor's boots
+creak below, showed the better part of valor, and departed.
+
+The next day, it rained. We were kept in-doors; and Fanny could not be
+easy till I had looked up her cotton and knitting-needles. She could not
+be easy afterwards, either; for they made her side ache; and when Dr.
+Physick paid his morning visit, he took them away.
+
+I knew she would be sorry to have nothing to give to that fair. It was
+one of the few rules of life which my mother had recommended us to
+follow, never from false shame either to give or to withhold. "If you
+are asked to give," she would say, "to any object, and are not satisfied
+that it is a good one, but give to it for fear that somebody will think
+you stingy, that is not being faithful stewards. But when you do meet
+with a worthy object, always give, if you honestly can. Even if you have
+no more than a cent to give, then give a cent; and do not care if the
+Pharisees see you. That is more than the poor widow in the Gospels
+gave";--how fond she always was of that story!--"and you remember who,
+besides the Pharisees, saw her, and what he said? His objects would not
+have to go begging so long as they do now, if every one would follow her
+example." From pride often, and sometimes from indolence, I am afraid I
+had broken that rule; but Fanny, I rather think, never had; and now I
+would try to help her to keep it.
+
+My mother's paint-box was on a shelf in our closet, with three sheets of
+her drawing-paper still in it. Painting flowers was one of her chief
+opiates to lull the cares of her careful life. I think a person can
+scarcely have too many such, provided they are kept in their proper
+place, I have often seen her, when sadly tired or tried, sit down, with
+a moisture that was more like rain than dew in her eyes, and paint it
+all away, till she seemed to be looking sunshine over her lifelike
+blossoms. Then she would pin them up against the wall, for a week or
+two, for us to enjoy them with her; and, afterwards, she would give them
+away to any one who had done her any favor. Her spirit was in that like
+Fanny's,--she shrank so painfully from the weight of any obligation! She
+wished to teach me to paint, when I was a child. I wished to learn; and
+many of her directions were still fresh in my memory. But the
+inexperienced eye and uncertain hand of thirteen disheartened me. I
+thought I had no _talent_. My mother was not accustomed to force any
+task upon me in my play-hours. The undertaking was given up.
+
+But I suppose many persons, like me not precocious in the nursery or the
+school-room, but naturally fond, as I was passionately, of beautiful
+forms and colors, would be surprised, if they would try their baffled
+skill again in aftertimes, to find how much the years had been
+unwittingly preparing for them, in the way of facility and accuracy of
+outline and tint, while they supposed themselves to be exclusively
+occupied with other matters. What the physiologists call "unconscious
+cerebration" has been at work. Scatter the seeds of any accomplishment
+in the mind of a little man or woman, and, even if you leave them quite
+untended, you may in some after summer or autumn find the fruit growing
+wild. Accordingly, when, within the last twelvemonth, I had been called
+upon to teach the elements of drawing in my school, it astonished me to
+discover the ease with which I could either sketch or copy. And now it
+occurred to me that perhaps, if I would take enough time and pains, I
+could paint something worthy of a place on Miss Mehitable's table.
+
+Fanny's gladness at the plan, and interest in watching the work, in her
+own enforced inaction, were at once reward and stimulus. I succeeded,
+better than we either of us expected, in copying the frontispiece of a
+"picture-book," as Dr. Physick called it, which he had brought up from
+his office to amuse her. It was a scientific volume, sent him by the
+author,--an old fellow-student,--from the other side of the world.
+Lovely ferns, flowers, shells, birds, butterflies, and insects, that
+surrounded him there, were treated further on separately, in rigid
+sequence; but as if to make himself amends by a little play for so much
+work, he had not been able to resist the temptation of grouping them all
+together on one glowing and fascinating page. I framed my copy as
+tastefully as I could, in a simple but harmonious _passe-partout_, and
+sent it to Miss Mehitable, with Fanny's love. Fanny's gratitude was
+touching; and as for me, I felt quite as if I had found a free ticket to
+an indefinitely long private picture-gallery.
+
+Fanny's satisfaction was still more complete after the fair, when Miss
+Mehitable reported that the painting had brought in what we both thought
+quite a handsome sum. "It was a dreadful shame," she added, "you hadn't
+sent two of 'em; for at noon, while I was home, jest takin' a bite, my
+niece, Letishy, from Noo York, had another grand nibble for that one
+after 'twas purchased. Letishy said a kind o' poor, pale-lookin',
+queer-lookin' lady, who she never saw before, in an elegint
+camel's-hair,"--("Poor-lookin', in a camel's-hair shawl!" was my inward
+ejaculation; "don't I wish, ma'am, I could catch you and 'Letishy' in
+my composition class, once!")--"she come up to the table an' saw that,
+an' seemed to feel quite taken aback to find she'd lost her chance at
+it. Letishy showed her some elegint shell-vases with artificial roses;
+but that wouldn't do. I told Letishy," continued Miss Mehitable, "that
+she'd ought to ha' been smart an' taken down the lady's name; an' then I
+could ha' got Kathryne to paint her another. But you mu't do it now,
+Kathryne, an' put it up in the bookseller's winder; an' then, if she's
+anybody that belongs hereabouts, she'll be likely to snap at it, an' the
+money can go right into the orphans' fund all the same."
+
+"Much obliged," thought I, "for the hint as to the bookseller's
+shop-window; but I rather think that, if the money comes, the orphan's
+fund that it ought to 'go right into' this time is Fanny's."
+
+For my orphan's fund from my months of school-keeping, not ample when I
+first came back, was smaller now. Fanny's illness was necessarily, in
+some respects, an expensive one. I believed, indeed, and do believe,
+that it was a gratification to Dr. Physick to lavish upon her, to the
+utmost of his ability, everything that could do her good, as freely as
+if she had been his own child or sister. But it could not be agreeable
+to her, while we had a brother, to be a burden to a man unconnected with
+us by blood, young in his profession, though rising, and still probably
+earning not very much more than his wife's and his own daily bread from
+day to day, and owing us nothing but a debt of gratitude for another's
+kindnesses, which another man in his place would probably have said that
+"he paid as he went."
+
+In plain English, the tie between us arose simply from the fact that he
+boarded with my mother, when he was a poor and unformed medical student.
+He always said that she was the best friend he had in his solitary
+youth, and that no one could tell how different all his after-life might
+have been but for her. She was naturally generous; yet she was a just
+woman; and I know that, while we were unprovided for, she could not have
+given, as the world appraises giving, much to him. Still "she did what
+she could." He paid her his board; but she gave him a home. After she
+found that his lodgings were unwarmed, she invited him to share her
+fireside of a winter evening; and, though she would not deprive us of
+our chat with one another and with her, she taught us to speak in low
+tones, and never to him, when we saw him at his studies. When they were
+over, and he was tired and in want of some amusement, she afforded him
+one at once cheap, innocent, and inexhaustible, and sang to him as she
+still toiled on at her unresting needle, night after night, ballad after
+ballad, in her wild, sweet, rich voice. He was very fond of music,
+though, as he said, he "could only whistle for it." It was the custom
+then among our neighbors to keep Saturday evening strictly as a part of
+"the Sabbath." It was her half-holiday, however, for works of charity
+and mercy; and she would often bid him bring her any failing articles of
+his scanty wardrobe then, and say that she would mend them for him if he
+would read to her. Her taste was naturally fine, and trained by regular
+and well-chosen Sunday reading; and she had the tact to select for these
+occasions books that won the mind of the intellectual though
+uncultivated youth by their eloquence, until they won his heart by their
+holiness. Moreover, she had been gently bred, and could give good
+advice, in manners as well as morals, when it was asked for, and
+withhold it when it was not.
+
+The upshot of it all was, that he loved her like a mother; and now the
+sentiment was deepened by a shade of filial remorse, which I could never
+quite dispel, though, as often as he gave me any chance, I tried. The
+last year of my mother's life was the first of his married life. His
+father-in-law hired, at the end of the town opposite to ours, a
+furnished house for him and his wife. My mother called upon her by the
+Doctor's particular invitation. The visit was sweetly received, and
+promptly returned by the bride; but she was pretty and popular, and had
+many other visits to pay, especially when she could catch her husband at
+leisure to help her. He was seldom at leisure at all, but, as he
+self-reproachfully said, "too busy to think except of his patients and
+his wife"; and poor mamma, with all her real dignity, had caught
+something of the shy, retiring ways of a reduced gentlewoman, and was,
+besides, too literally straining every nerve to pay off the mortgage on
+her half-earned house, so that, if anything happened, she might "not
+leave her girls without a home." Therefore he saw her seldom.
+
+After he heard she was ill, he was with her daily, and often three or
+four times a day; and his wife came too, and made the nicest broths and
+gruels with her own hands, and begged Fanny not to cry, and cried
+herself. He promised my mother that we should never want, if he could
+help it, and that he would be a brother to us both, and my guardian. She
+told him that, if she died, this promise would be the greatest earthly
+comfort to her in her death; and he answered, "So it will to me!"
+
+Then after she was gone, when the lease of his house was up, as no other
+tenant offered for ours, he hired it, furniture and all, and offered
+Fanny and me both a home in it for an indefinite time; but our affairs
+were all unsettled. We knew the rent, as rents were then, would not pay
+our expenses and leave us anything to put by for the future, which my
+mother had taught us always to think of. Therefore I thought I had
+better take care of myself, as I was much the strongest, and perfectly
+able to do so. "And a very pretty business you made of it, didn't you,
+miss?" reflected and queried I, parenthetically, as I afterwards
+reviewed these circumstances in my own mind.
+
+The best we had to hope from my older and our only brother George was,
+that he should join us in paying the interest on the mortgage till real
+estate should rise,--as everybody said it soon must,--and then the rise
+in rents should enable us to let the house on better terms, and thus, by
+degrees, clear it of all encumbrances, and have it quite for our own, to
+let, sell, or live in. The worst we had to fear was, that he would
+insist on forcing it at once into the market, at what would be a great
+loss to us, and leave us almost destitute. He was going to be married,
+and getting into business, and wanted beyond anything else a little
+ready money.
+
+He scarcely knew us even by sight. He had been a sprightly, pretty boy;
+and my mother's aunt's husband, having no children of his own, offered
+to adopt him. Poor mamma's heart was almost broken; but I suppose
+George's noise must have been very trying to my father's nerves; and
+then he had no way to provide for him. After she objected, I have always
+understood that my father appeared to take a morbid aversion to the
+child, and could scarcely bear him in his sight. So George seemed likely
+to be still more unhappy, and ruined beside, if she kept him at home. He
+was a little fellow then, not more than five years old; but he cried for
+her so long that my great-uncle-in-law was very careful how he let him
+have anything to do with her again, till he had forgotten her; and
+little things taken so early must be expected to fall, sooner or later,
+more or less under the influence of those who have them in charge.
+
+Poor mamma died without making a regular will. It was not the custom at
+that time for women to be taught so much about business even as they are
+now. She thought, if she did make a will before she could pay off the
+debt on the house, she should have to make another afterwards, and that
+then there would be double lawyers' fees to deduct from the little she
+would have to leave us. After she found out that she was dangerously
+sick, she was very anxious to make her will, whenever she was in her
+right mind; but that went and came so, that the Doctor, and a lawyer
+whom he brought to see her, said that no disposition she might make
+could stand in court, if any effort were made to break it. All that
+could be done was to take down, as she was able to dictate it, an
+affectionate and touching letter to George.
+
+In this she begged him to remember how much greater his advantages, and
+his opportunities of making a living, were than ours, and besought him
+to do his best to keep and increase for us the pittance she had toiled
+so hard to earn, and to take nothing from it unless a time should come
+when he was as helpless as we.
+
+Two copies of this letter were made, signed, sealed, and witnessed. One
+I sent to George, enclosed with an earnest entreaty from Fanny and
+myself, that he would come and let mamma see him once again, before she
+died, if, as we feared, she must die. We had asked him to come before.
+He answered our letter--not our mother's--rather kindly, but very
+vaguely, putting off his visit, and saying, that he could not for a
+moment suffer himself to believe that she would not do perfectly well,
+if we did not alarm her about herself, nor worry her with business when
+she was not in a state for it. His reply was handed me before her,
+unluckily. She wished to hear it read, and seemed to lose heart and grow
+worse from that time.
+
+Thus then matters stood with us that July. The sale of our house was
+pending--over our kind host's head too! It was plain to me that George
+would not, and that Dr. Physick should not, bear the charge of Fanny's
+maintenance. So far and so long as I could, I would.
+
+In the mean time, no further examination was made of her lungs. The
+Doctor's report was often "Remarkably comfortable," and never anything
+worse than, "Well, on the whole, taking one time with another, I don't
+see but she's about as comfortable as she has been." I was, of course,
+inexperienced. I was afraid that, if she improved no faster, I should be
+obliged to leave her, when I went away to work for her again at the end
+of the summer vacation, still very feeble, a care to others, and pining
+for my care. That was my nearest and clearest fear.
+
+But what did Fanny think? I hope, the truth; and on one incident, in
+chief, I ground my hope. One beautiful day--the last one in July--she
+asked me if I should be willing to draw her to our mother's grave. There
+could be but one answer; though I had not seen the spot since the
+funeral. Fanny looked at it with more than calmness,--with the solemn
+irradiation of countenance which had during her illness become her most
+characteristic expression. She desired me to help her from her chair.
+She lay at her length upon the turf, still and observant, as if
+calculating. Then she spoke.
+
+"Katy, dear," said she, very tenderly and softly, as if she feared to
+give me pain, "I have been thinking sometimes lately, that, if anything
+should ever happen to either of us, the other might be glad to know what
+would be exactly the wishes of the one that was gone--about our graves.
+Suppose we choose them now, while we are here together. Here, by mamma,
+is where I should like to lie. See, I will lay two red clovers for the
+head, and a white one for the foot. And there, on her other side, is
+just such a place for you. Should you like it?--and--shall you
+remember?"
+
+I found voice to say "Yes," and said it firmly.
+
+"And then," added she, after a short, deliberating pause, during which
+she, with my assistance, raised herself to sit on the side of the chair
+with her feet still resting on the turf, "while we are upon the
+subject,--one thing more. If I should be the first to go,--nobody knows
+whose turn may come the first,--then I should like to have you do--just
+what would make you happiest; but I _don't_ like mourning. I shouldn't
+_wish_ to have it worn for me. My feelings about it have all changed
+since we made it for mamma. It seemed as if we were only working at a
+great black wall, for our minds to have to break through, every time
+they yearned to go back into the past and sit with her. It was as if the
+things she chose for us, and loved to see us in, were part of her and of
+her life with us,--as if she would be able still to think of us in them,
+and know just how we looked. And it seemed so strange and unsympathizing
+in us, that, when we loved her so, we should go about all muffled up in
+darkness, because our God was clothing her in light!"
+
+I answered,--rather slowly and tremulously this time, I fear,--that I
+had felt so too.
+
+"Then, Katy," resumed she, pleadingly, as she leaned back in her usual
+attitude in the chair, and made a sign that I might draw her home, "we
+will not either of us wear it for the other,--without nor within either,
+will we?--any more than we can help. Don't you remember what dear mamma
+said once, when you had made two mistakes in your lessons at school, and
+lost a prize, and took it hard, and somebody was teasing you, with
+making very light of it, and telling you to think no more about it? You
+were very sorry and a little offended, and said, you always chose not to
+be hoodwinked, but to look at things on all sides and in the face. Mamma
+smiled, and said, 'It is good and brave to look all trials in the face;
+but among the sides, never forget the bright side, little Katy.' If I
+had my life to live over again, I would try to mind her more in that.
+She always said, there lay my greatest fault. I hope and think God has
+forgiven me, because he makes it so easy for me to be cheerful now."
+
+"Fanny," said I, as we drew near the house, "things in this world are
+strangely jumbled. Here are you, with your character, to wit, that of a
+little saint, if you will have the goodness to overlook my saying so,
+and somebody else's conscience. I have no doubt that, while you are
+reproaching yourself first for this, then for that and the other, the
+said somebody else is sinning away merrily, somewhere among the
+antipodes or nearer, without so much as a single twinge."
+
+Smiling, she shook her head at me; and that was all that passed. She was
+as cheerful as I tried to be. With regard to the other world, she seemed
+to have attained unto the perfect love that casteth out fear; and I
+believe her only regret in leaving this lower one for it was that she
+could not take me with her. In fact, throughout her illness, her freedom
+from anxiety about its symptoms--not absolute, but still in strong
+contrast with her previous tendencies--appeared to her physician, as he
+acknowledged to me afterwards, even when he considered the frequent
+flattering illusions of the disease, a most discouraging indication as
+to the case. But to her it was an infinite mercy; and to me, to have
+such glimpses to remember of her already in possession of so much of
+that peace which remaineth unto the people of God.
+
+As the dog-days drew on, a change came, though at first a very gentle
+one to her, if not to me. She slept more, ate less, grew so thin that
+she could no more bear the motion of her little wagon, and begged that
+it might be returned, because it tired her so to think of it.
+
+Then word came that our house was advertised to be sold,
+unconditionally, at an early day. To move her in that state,--how
+dreadful it would be! I did not mean to let her know anything about it
+until I must; but Miss Mehitable, always less remarkable for tact than
+for good-will, blurted it out before her.
+
+Her brows contracted with a moment's look of pain. "O Katy," she
+whispered, "I am sorry! That must make you very anxious";--and then she
+went to sleep.
+
+Evidently it did not make her very anxious, as I knew that it would have
+done as lately even as two or three months before. What was the remedy?
+Approaching death. Well, death was approaching me also, as steadily, if
+not so nearly; and, after her example, my thoughts took such a foretaste
+of that anodyne that, as I sat and gazed on her unconscious, placid
+face, all terrors left me, and I was strengthened to pray, and to
+determine to look to the morrow with only so much thought as should
+enable me to bring up all my resources of body and mind to meet it as I
+ought, and to leave the result, unquestioned, quite in God's hand.
+
+The result was an entire relief to her last earthly care. The appointed
+day came. The matter took wind. None of our townspeople appeared, to bid
+against my guardian; but enough of them were on the spot "to see fair
+play," or, in other words, to advance for him whatever sum he might
+stand in need of; and the house was knocked down to him at a price even
+below its market value. He paid the mortgagee and George their due by
+the next mail, but left my title and Fanny's as it was, not to be
+settled till I came of age.
+
+These details would only have worried and wearied her; but the
+auctioneer's loud voice had hardly died away, or the gathered footsteps
+scattered from the door, when the Doctor came to her chamber, flushed
+with triumph, to tell us that "Nobody now could turn us out; and
+everything was arranged for us to stay." Fanny looked brightly up to
+him, and answered: "Now I shall scarcely know what more to pray for, but
+God's reward for you." And most of all I thank Him for that news,
+because her last day on this earth was such a happy one.
+
+The next morning, just at dawn, she waked me, saying, "O Katy, tell the
+Doctor I can't breathe!"
+
+I sprang up, raised her on her pillows, and called him instantly.
+
+She stretched out her hand to him, and gasped, "O Doctor, I can't
+breathe! Can't you do anything to help me?"
+
+He felt her pulse quickly, looking at her, and said, very tenderly,
+"Have some ether, Fanny. I will run and bring it." Throwing wider open
+every window that he passed, he hurried down to the office and back with
+the ether.
+
+Eagerly, though with difficulty, she inhaled it; and it relieved her. I
+sat and watched her, silent, with her hand in mine.
+
+Presently the door behind me opened softly, as if somebody was looking
+in. "My dear," said the Doctor, turning his head, and speaking very
+earnestly, though in a low voice, "I _wouldn't_ come here. You can do no
+good." But presently his wife came in, in her dressing-gown, very pale,
+and sat by me and held the hand that was not holding Fanny's.
+
+And next I knew they thought she would not wake; and then the short
+breath stopped. And now it was my turn to stretch out my hands to him
+for help; but, looking at me, he burst into tears, as he had not when he
+looked at Fanny; and I knew there was no breath more for her, nor any
+ether for me. I did not want to go to sleep, because _I_ should have to
+wake again; but his wife was sobbing aloud. I knew how dreadful such
+excitement was for her; and so I had to do just as they wished me to,
+and let them lead me out and lock the door, and lay down on a bed and
+shut my eyes.
+
+
+
+
+PROTONEIRON.
+
+DECEMBER 9, 1864.
+
+     "And in that sleep of death what dreams may come."
+
+
+    The unresting lines, where oceans end,
+    Are traced by shifting surf and sand;
+    As pallid, moonlit fingers blend
+    The dreamlight of the ghostly land.
+
+    No eye can tell where Love's last ray
+    Fades to the sky of colder light;
+    No ear, when sounds that vexed the day
+    Cease mingling with the holier night.
+
+    As bells, which long have failed to swing
+    In lonely towers of crumbling stone,
+    Through far eternal spaces ring,
+    With semblance of their ancient tone.
+
+    The lightning, quivering through the cloud,
+    Weaves warp and woof from sky to earth,
+    In mist that seems a mortal's shroud,
+    In light that hails an angel's birth.
+
+    Thought vainly strives, with life's dull load,
+    To mount through ether rare and thin;
+    Fond eyes pursue the spirit's road
+    To heaven, and dimly gaze therein.
+
+    In battle's travail-hour, a host
+    Writhes in the throes of deadly strife.
+    One flash! One groan! A startled ghost
+    Is born into the eternal life.
+
+    Dear wife and children! Now I fly
+    Forth from my soldier camp to you!
+    Blue ridge and river hurry by
+    My weary eyes, in quick review.
+
+    Long have I waited. How and when
+    My furlough came is mystery.
+    I dreamed of charging with my men,--
+    A dream of glorious history!
+
+    To you I fly on Love's strong wing;
+    My courser needs no armed heel:
+    And yet anew the bugles ring,
+    And wake me to the crash of steel.
+
+    In fiercer rush of hosts again
+    My dripping sabre seeks the front.
+    Spur your mad horses! Forward, men!
+    Meet with your hearts the battle's brunt.
+
+    Tricolor, flaunt! And trumpet-blare,
+    Scream louder than the bursting shell,
+    And thundering hoofs, that shake the air,
+    Trembling above that surging hell!
+
+    In carbine smoke and cannon flash,
+    Like avalanches twain, we meet;
+    One gasp! we spur; one stab! we crash
+    And trample with the iron feet.
+
+    I _dream_! My tiercepoint smote them through,
+    My sabre buried to my hand!
+    And yet unchecked those horsemen flew,
+    And still I grasp my phantom brand!
+
+    Our chargers, which like whirlwinds bore
+    Us onward, lie all stiff and stark!
+    Black Midnight's feet wait on the shore,
+    To bear me--where? Where all is dark.
+
+    And still I hear the faint recall!
+    My senses,--have they dropped asleep?
+    I see a soldier's funeral pall,
+    And there _my_ wife and children weep!
+
+    Sobs break the air, below the cloud;
+    And one pure soul, of love and truth,
+    Is folding in a mortal shroud
+    Her quivering wings of Hope and Youth.
+
+    Ye of the sacred red right hand,
+    Who count, around our camp-fire light,
+    Dear names within the shadowy land,
+    Why do ye whisper _mine_ to-night?
+
+    Where am I? _Am_ I? Trumpet notes
+    Still mingle with a dreamy doubt
+    Of Where? and Whither? Music floats,
+    As when camp-lights are going out.
+
+    Like saintly eyes resigned to Death,
+    Like spirit whispers from afar,
+    The sighing bugle yields its breath,
+    As if it wooed a dying star.
+
+    Draped in dark shadows, widowed Night
+    Weeps, on new graves, with chilly tears;
+    Beyond strange mountain-tops, the light
+    Is breaking from the immortal years.
+
+    A rhythm, from the unfathomed deep
+    Of God's eternal stillness, sings
+    My wondering, trembling soul to sleep,
+    While angels lift it on their wings.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROGRESS OF PRUSSIA.
+
+
+The changes that have taken place in Europe in the last twenty years are
+of a most comprehensive character, and as strange as comprehensive; and
+their consequences are likely to be as remarkable as the changes
+themselves. In 1846 Russia was the first power of Europe, and at a great
+distance ahead of all other members of the Pentarchy. She retained the
+hegemony which she had acquired by the events of 1812-1814, and by the
+great display of military force she had made in 1815, when 160,000 of
+her troops were reviewed near Paris by the sovereigns and other leaders
+of the Grand Alliance there assembled after the second and final fall of
+the first Napoleon. Had Alexander I. reigned long, it is probable that
+his eccentricities--to call them by no harder name--would have operated
+to deprive Russia of her supremacy; but Nicholas, though he might never
+have raised his country so high as it was carried by his brother, was
+exactly the man to keep the power he had inherited,--and to keep it in
+the only way in which it was to be kept, namely, by increasing it. This
+he had done, and great success had waited on most of his undertakings,
+while in none had he encountered failure calculated to attract the
+world's attention. England had in some sense shared men's notice with
+Russia immediately after the settlement of Europe. The "crowning
+carnage, Waterloo," was considered her work; and, as the most decisive
+battle since Philippi, it gave to the victor in it an amount of
+consideration that was equal to that which Napoleon himself had
+possessed in 1812. But this consideration rapidly passed away, as
+England did nothing to maintain her influence on the Continent, while
+Russia was constantly busy there, and really governed it down to the
+French Revolution of 1830; and her power was not much weakened even by
+the fall of the elder Bourbons, with whom the Czar had entered into a
+treaty that had for one of its ends the cession to France of those very
+Rhenish provinces of which so much has been said in the course of the
+present year. Russia was victorious in her conflicts with the Persians
+and the Turks, and the battle of Navarino really had been fought in her
+interest,--blindly by the English, but intelligently by the French, who
+were willing that she should plant the double-headed eagle on the
+Bosporus, provided the lilies should be planted on the Rhine. If the
+fall of the Bourbons in France, and the fall of the Tories in England,
+weakened Russia's influence in Western Europe, those events had the
+effect of drawing Austria and Prussia nearer to her, and of reviving
+something of the spirit of the Holy Alliance, which had lost much of its
+strength from the early death of Alexander. Russia had her own way in
+almost every respect; and in 1846 Nicholas was almost as powerful a
+ruler as Napoleon had been a generation earlier, with the additional
+advantage of being a legitimate sovereign, who could not be destroyed
+through the efforts of any coalition. Three years later he saved Austria
+from destruction by his invasion of Hungary,--an act of hard insolence,
+which quite reconciles one to the humiliation that overtook him five
+years later. He was then so powerful that the reactionists of the West
+cried for Russian cannon, to be used against the Reds. There was no
+nation to dispute the palm with Russia. England was supposed to be
+devoted to the conversion of cotton into calico, and to be ruled in the
+spirit of the Manchester school. She had retired into her shell, and
+could not be got out of it. Austria was thinking chiefly of Italy, and
+of becoming a naval power by incorporating that Peninsula into her
+empire. Prussia was looked upon as nothing but a Russian outpost to the
+west, and waiting only to be used by her master. France had not
+recovered from her humiliation of 1814-15, and never would recover from
+it so long as she warred only at barricades or in Barbary. Russia was
+supreme, and most men thought that supreme she would remain.
+
+Thus stood matters down to 1853. Early in that year the Czar entered on
+his last quarrel with the Turks, whose cause was espoused by England,
+partly for the reason that Russian aggrandizement in the East would be
+dangerous to her interests, but more on the ground that she had become
+weary of submission to that arrogant sovereign who was in the habit of
+giving law to the Old World. Russia's ascendency, though chiefly the
+work of England, was more distasteful to the English than it was to any
+other European people,--more than it was to the French, at whose expense
+it had been founded; and had Nicholas made overtures to the latter,
+instead of making them to England, it is very probable he would have
+accomplished his purpose. But he detested Napoleon III., and he was at
+no pains to conceal his sentiments. This was the one great error of his
+life. The French Emperor had two great ends in view: first, to get into
+respectable company; and, secondly, to make himself powerful at home, by
+obtaining power and influence for France abroad. Unaided, he could
+accomplish neither end; and Nicholas and Victoria were the only two
+sovereigns who could be of much use to him in accomplishing one or both.
+Had Nicholas been gracious to him, had he, in particular, made overtures
+to him, he might have had the Emperor almost on his own terms; for the
+French disliked the English, and they did not dislike the Russians.
+Everything pointed to renewal of that "cordial understanding" between
+Russia and France which had existed twenty-five years earlier, when
+Charles X. was king of France, and which, had there been no Revolution
+of July, would have given to Russia possession of Constantinople, and to
+the French that roc's egg of theirs, the left bank of the Rhine. But
+prosperity had been fatal to the Czar. He could not see what was
+palpable to everybody else. He allowed his feelings to get the better of
+his judgment. He treated Napoleon III. with less consideration than he
+treated the Turkish Sultan; and Napoleon actually was forced to teach
+him that a French ruler was a powerful personage, and that the days of
+Louis Philippe were over forever. If not good enough to help Russia
+spoil Turkey, the Czar must be taught he was good enough to help England
+prevent the spoliating scheme. France and England united their forces to
+those of Turkey, and were joined by Sardinia. Russia was beaten in the
+war, on almost all its scenes. The world ascribed the result to Napoleon
+III. France carried off the honors of the war, and of spoil there was
+none. The Peace of Paris, which terminated the contest, was the work of
+Napoleon. He dictated its terms, forcing them less on his enemy than on
+his allies.
+
+As Russia's leadership of Europe had come from success in war, and had
+been maintained by subsequent successes of the Russian armies,--in
+Persia, in Turkey, in Poland, and elsewhere,--it followed that that
+leadership was lost when the fortune of war changed, and those armies
+were beaten on every occasion where they met the Allies. No military
+country could stand up erect under such crushing blows as had been
+delivered at the Alma, at Inkermann, at the Tchernaya, and at
+Sebastopol, not to name lesser Allied successes, or to count the
+victories of the Turks. Nicholas died in the course of the war, falling
+only before the universal conqueror. His successor submitted to the
+decision of the sword, and in fact performed an act of abdication
+inferior only to that executed by Napoleon. France stepped into the
+vacant leadership, and held it for ten years. Subsequent events
+confirmed and strengthened the French hegemony. The Italian war, waged
+by the Emperor in person, had lasted only about as many months as the
+Russian war did years, and yet it had proved far more damaging to
+Austria than the other had proved to Russia. The mere loss of territory
+experienced by Austria, though not small, was the least of the adverse
+results to her. Her whole Italian scheme was cut through and utterly
+ruined; and it was well understood that the days of her rule over
+Venetia were destined to be as few as they were evil. For what she then
+did, France received Savoy and Nice, which formed by no means a great
+price for her all but inestimable services,--services by no means to be
+ascertained, if we would know their true value, by what was done in
+1859. France created the Kingdom of Italy. After making the amplest
+allowance for what was effected by Cavour, by Garibaldi, by Victor
+Emanuel, and by the Italian people, it must be clear to every one that
+nothing could have been effected toward the overthrow of Austrian
+domination in Italy but for the action of French armies in that country.
+That the Emperor meant what he wrought is very unlikely; but after the
+events of 1859 it was impossible to prevent the construction of the
+kingdom of Italy; and the Frenchman had to consent to the completion of
+his own work, though he did so on some occasions with extreme
+reluctance,--not so much from the dictation of his own feelings, as from
+the aversion which the French feel for the Italian cause, and which is
+so strong, and so deeply shared by the military, that it was with
+difficulty the soldiers in the camp of Châlons were prevented getting up
+an illumination when news reached them of the battle of Custozza, the
+event of which was so disastrous to Italy, and would have been fatal to
+her cause, had not that been vindicated and established by Prussian
+genius and valor on the remote fields of Germany and Bohemia. The
+descendants of men who fought under Arminius saved the descendants of
+the countrymen of Varus. Those persons who have condemned the
+Frenchman's apparently singular course toward Italy on some occasions,
+have not made sufficient allowance for the dislike of almost all classes
+of his subjects for the Italians. The Italian war was unpopular, and the
+Russian war was not popular. While the French have been pleased by the
+military occurrences that make up the histories of those wars, they were
+by no means pleased by the wars themselves, and they do not approve them
+even at this day; and the extraordinary events of the current year are
+not at all calculated to make them popular in France: for it is not
+difficult to see that there is a close connection between the
+establishment of the Kingdom of Italy and the elevation of Prussia to
+the first place in Europe; and Prussia is the power most abhorred by the
+French. So intense is French hatred of Prussia, that it is not too much
+to say that, last summer, the French would almost as lief have seen the
+Russians in Paris as the Prussians in Vienna.
+
+At the middle of last June the leadership of Europe--Frenchmen said of
+the world--was in the hands of France; and that such was France's place
+was the work of Napoleon III. The Emperor had been successful in all his
+undertakings, with one exception. His Mexican business had proved a
+total failure; but this had not injured him. Americans thought
+differently, some of us going so far as to suppose the fall of
+Maximilian's shaky throne would involve that of the solid throne of
+Napoleon. No such thing. The great majority of Frenchmen know little and
+care less about the Mexican business. Intelligent Frenchmen regret the
+Emperor's having taken it up; but they do so because of the expenditure
+it has involved, and because they have learnt from their country's
+history that it is best for her to keep out of that colonizing pursuit
+which has so many charms for the Emperor,--perhaps because of his Dutch
+origin. There is something eminently ridiculous about French
+colonization, which contrasts strangely with the robust action of the
+English. The Emperor seems to believe in it,--an instance of weakness
+that places him, on one point at least, below common men, most of whom
+laugh at his doings in regard to Mexico. If report does him no
+injustice, he thinks his Mexican undertaking the greatest thing of his
+reign. What, then, is the smallest thing of that reign? It is somewhat
+strange that this immense undertaking should not have been practicable
+till some time after the United States had become involved in civil war,
+that tasked all American energies, and did not permit any attention to
+be paid to Napoleon's action in Mexico.
+
+Whether wise or foolish, Napoleon's interference in Mexican affairs had
+not weakened his power or lessened his influence in the estimation of
+Europe. Five months ago he was at the head of the European world. His
+position was quite equal to that which Nicholas held thirteen years
+earlier. If any change in his condition was looked for, it was sought in
+the advance of his greatness, not in the chance of his fall. The
+general, the all but universal sentiment was, that during Napoleon
+III.'s life France's lead must be accepted; and that, if that life
+should be much extended, France's power would be greatly increased, and
+that Belgium and the Rhine country might become hers at no distant day.
+It is true that, long before the middle of June, the course of events
+indicated the near approach of war; but it was commonly supposed that
+the chief result of such war would be to add to the greatness and glory
+of France. _That_ was about the only point on which men were agreed with
+respect to the threatened conflict. Prussia and Italy might overthrow
+the Austrian empire; but most probably Austria, aided by most of
+Germany, would defeat them both, her armies rendezvousing at Berlin and
+Milan; and then would Napoleon III., bearing "the sword of Brennus,"
+come in, and save the Allies from destruction, who would gratefully
+reward him,--the one by ceding the Rhenish provinces, and the other the
+island of Sardinia, to France. Such was the programme laid out by most
+persons in Europe and America, and probably not one person in a hundred
+thought it possible for Prussia to succeed. Even most of those persons
+who were not overcrowed by Austria's partisans and admirers did not
+dream that she would be conquered in a week, but thought it would be a
+more difficult matter for General Benedek to march from Prague to Berlin
+than was generally supposed, and that such march would not exactly be of
+the nature of a military promenade. That the French Emperor shared the
+popular belief, is evident from his conduct. He never would have allowed
+war to break out, if he had supposed it would lead to the elevation of
+Prussia to the first place in Europe,--a position held by himself, and
+which he had no desire to vacate. It was in his power to prevent the
+occurrence of war down almost to the very hour when the Diet of the
+Germanic Confederation afforded to Prussia so plausible a ground for
+setting her armies in motion, by adopting a course that bore some
+resemblance to the old process of putting a disobedient member under the
+ban of the Empire. Prussia would not have gone to war with Austria, had
+she not been assured of the Italian alliance,--an alliance that would
+not only be useful in keeping a large portion of Austria's force in the
+south, but would prevent that power from purchasing Italian aid by the
+cession of Venetia; for so angry were the Austrians with Prussia, that
+it was quite on the cards that they might become the friends of Italy,
+if she would but help them against that nation whose exertions in 1859
+had prevented Venetia from following the fate of Lombardy.
+
+As Prussia would not have made war in 1866 without having secured the
+assistance of Italy, so was it impossible for Italy to form an alliance
+with Prussia without the consent of France being first had and obtained.
+Napoleon III. possessed an absolute veto on the action of the Italian
+government, and had he signified to that government that an alliance
+with Prussia could not meet with his countenance and approval, no such
+alliance ever would have been formed, or even the proposition to form it
+have been taken into serious consideration by the Cabinet of Florence.
+Victor Emanuel II. would have dared no more to attack Francis Joseph,
+without the consent of Napoleon III., than Carthage durst have attacked
+Masinissa without the consent of Rome. Prussia was not under the
+supervision of France, and was and is the only great European nation
+which had not then, as she has not since, been made to feel the weight
+of his power; but it may be doubted, without the slightest intention to
+impeach her courage, if she would have resolved upon war had she been
+convinced that France was utterly opposed to such resolution, and was
+prepared to show that the Empire was for peace by making war to preserve
+it. The opinion was quite common, as matters became more and more
+warlike with each succeeding day, that the course of Prussia had been
+fixed upon and mapped out by Count Bismark and Napoleon III., and that
+the former had received positive assurances that his country should not
+undergo any reduction of territory should the fortune of war go against
+her; in return for which he had agreed to such a "rectification of the
+French frontier" as should be highly pleasing to the pride of Frenchmen,
+and add greatly to the glory and the dignity of their Emperor. When news
+came that Napoleon III., after peace had been resolved upon, had asked
+for the cession of certain Rhenish territory,[45] the demand was
+supposed to have been made in consequence of an understanding entered
+into before the war by the courts of Paris and Berlin. There was nothing
+unreasonable in this supposition; for Napoleon III. was so bent upon
+extending the boundaries of France, and was so entirely master of the
+situation, and his friendship was so necessary to Prussia, that it was
+reasonable to suppose he had made a good bargain with that power.
+Probably, when the secret history of the war shall be published, it will
+be seen that an understanding did exist between Prussia and France, and
+that Napoleon III., in August, asked for no more than it had been agreed
+he should have, in June, or May, or even earlier. Why, then, did Prussia
+give so firm but civil a negative in answer to his demand? and how was
+it that he submitted with so much of meekness to her refusal, even
+attributing his demand to the pressure of French public opinion, which
+is no more strongly expressed in 1866 in favor of the acquisition of the
+Rhine country, than it has been in almost any year since that country
+was lost, more than half a century since? The answer is easy. Prussia,
+no matter what her arrangement with France before the war, durst not
+pass over to the latter a solitary league of German territory. Her
+victories had so exalted German sentiment that she could not have her
+own way in all things. She was, on one side, paralyzed by the unexpected
+completeness of her military successes, which had brought very near all
+Germany under her eagles; for all Germans saw at once that she had
+obtained that commanding position from which the dictation of the unity
+of their country was not only a possibility, but something that could be
+accomplished without much difficulty. What Victor Emanuel II. and Count
+Cavour had been to Italy, William I. and Count Bismark could be to
+Austria, with this vast difference in favor of the Prussian sovereign
+and statesman,--that their policy could not be dictated, nor their
+action hampered, by a great foreign sovereign, who ruled a people
+hostile to the unity of every European race but themselves. It was
+impossible even to take into consideration any project that looked to
+the dismemberment of Germany, at a time when even Southern Germans were
+ready to unite with Prussia, because she was the champion of German
+unity, and was in condition to make her championship effectual. Napoleon
+III. saw how matters were, and, being a statesman, he did not hesitate,
+at the risk of much loss of influence, to admit a fact the existence of
+which could not be denied, and which operated with overwhelming force
+against his interests both as an emperor and as a man. That he may have
+only deferred a rupture with Prussia is probable enough, for it is not
+to be assumed that he is ready to cede the first place in Europe to the
+country most disliked by his subjects, and which refuses to cede
+anything to him. But he must have time in which to rearm his infantry,
+and to place in their hands a weapon that shall be to the needle-gun
+what the needle-gun[46] is to the Austrian muzzle-loader. He has
+postponed action; but that he has definitely abandoned the French claim
+to the left bank of the Rhine it would be hazardous to assert. There are
+reports that a conference of the chief European powers will be held
+soon, and that by that body something will be done with respect to the
+French claim that will prove satisfactory to all parties. It would be a
+marvellous body, should it accomplish so miraculous a piece of business.
+The matter is in fair way to disturb the peace of Europe before Sadowa
+shall have become as old a battle as we now rate Solferino.
+
+We do not assert that there was an understanding between France and
+Prussia last spring, and that Prussia went to war because that
+arrangement assured her against loss; but we think there is nothing
+irrational in the popular belief in the existence of such an
+understanding, and that nothing has occurred since the middle of June
+that renders that belief absurd. The contrary belief makes a fool of
+Napoleon III.,--a character which not even the Emperor's enemies have
+attributed to him since he became a successful man.
+
+War began on the 15th of June, the day after that on which that bungling
+body, the Bund, under Austrian influence, had resort to overt measures
+against Prussia, which had suffered for some time from its covert
+measures. The Germanic Confederation ceased to exist on the 14th of
+June, having completed its half-century, with a little time to spare.
+The declarations of war that appeared on the 18th of June,--the
+anniversary of Fehrbellin, Kolin, and Waterloo, all great and decisive
+Prussian battles, and two of them Prussian victories, or victories which
+Prussians aided in winning,--the declarations of war, we say, were mere
+formalities, and as such they were regarded. Prussia's first open
+operation was taken three days before, when she invaded Saxony,--a
+country in which the Austrians, had they been wise, would have had at
+least a hundred thousand men within twenty-four hours after the action
+of the Diet. Prussia had been prepared for war for some weeks, perhaps
+months, while we are assured that Austria's preparations were far from
+complete; from which, supposing the statement correct, the inference is
+drawn that she did not expect Prussia to push matters to extremity. It
+is more likely that she fell into the usual error of all proud
+egotists,--that of estimating the capacity of a foe by her own. We
+cannot think so poorly of Austrian statesmen and generals as to conclude
+that they did not see war was inevitable in the latter part of May,
+which gave them three weeks to mass their troops so near the Saxon
+frontier as would have enabled them to cross it in a few hours after the
+Diet had given itself up to their direction, before the world. As the
+Diet never durst have acted thus without Austria's direct sanction,
+Austria must have known that war was at hand, and she should have
+prepared for its coming. Probably she did make all the preparation she
+thought necessary, she supposing that Prussia would be as slow as
+herself, because believing that her best was the best thing in the
+world. This error was the source of all her misfortunes. She applied to
+the military art, in this age of railways and electric telegraphs,
+principles and practices that were not even of the first merit in much
+earlier and very different times. She was not aware that the world had
+changed. Prussia was thoroughly aware of it, and acted accordingly. She
+was all vivacity and alertness, and hence her success. In nineteen days,
+counting from the morning of June 15th, she had accomplished that which
+almost all men in other countries had deemed impossible. While
+foreigners were speculating as to the number of days Benedek would
+require to reach Berlin, and wondering whether he would proceed by the
+Silesian or the Saxon route, the Prussians were routing him, taking
+Prague, and marching swiftly toward Vienna. The contending armies first
+"felt" one another on the 26th of June, in a small affair at Liebenau,
+in which the Prussians were victorious. The next day there was another
+"affair," of larger proportions, at Podal, with the same result; and two
+more actions, one at Nachod and at Skalitz, in which Fortune was
+consistent, adhering to the single-headed eagle, and the other at
+Trautenau, which was of the nature of a drawn battle. On the 28th there
+was another fight at Trautenau, the Prussians remaining masters of the
+field; while the Austrians were beaten at other points, and fell back to
+Gitschin, once the capital of Wallenstein's Duchy of Friedland, and
+where the Friedlander was to receive ample vengeance just seven
+generations after his assassination by contrivance and order of the head
+of the German branch of the house of Austria, Ferdinand II. Could
+Wallenstein have "revisited the glimpses of the moon" on the night of
+the 28th of last June, he might have cast terror into the soul of
+Francis Joseph, as the Bodach Glas did into that of Vich-Ian-Vohr, by
+appearing to him, and bidding him beware of the morrow; for it was at
+Gitschin, on the 29th of June, and not at Sadowa, on the 3d of July,
+that the event of the war was decided. Had the battle then and there
+fought been fortunate for the Austrians, the name of Sadowa would have
+remained unknown to the world; for then the battle of the 3d of July
+could not have been fought, or it would have had a different scene, and
+most probably a different result. Austrian defeat at Gitschin made the
+battle of Sadowa a necessity, and made it so under conditions highly
+favorable to the Prussians. The ghost of Wallenstein might have returned
+to its rest with entire complacency, and with the firm resolution to
+trouble this sublunary world no more, had it witnessed the flight of the
+Austrians through Gitschin. By a "curious coincidence," it happens that
+a large number of the vanquished were Saxons, descendants, it may be, of
+men who had acted with Gustavus Adolphus against Wallenstein in 1632.
+
+The battle of Sadowa was fought on the 3d of July, the third anniversary
+of the decisive day of our battle of Gettysburg. At a moderate estimate,
+four hundred and twenty thousand men took part in it, of whom one
+hundred and ninety-five thousand were Austrians and Saxons, and two
+hundred and twenty-five thousand Prussians. This makes the action rank
+almost with the battle of Leipzig, the greatest of all battles.[47] It
+is satisfactory evidence of the real greatness of Prussian generalship,
+that it had succeeded in massing much the larger force on the final
+field, though at a distance from the Prussian frontier and far within
+the enemy's territory; and also that while the invaders of Austria were
+opposed by equal forces on the left and centre of the Austrian line,
+they were in excessive strength on that line's right, the very point at
+which their presence was most required. Yet further: these great masses
+of men were all employed, and admirably handled, while almost a fourth
+part of the Austrian army remained idle, or was not employed till the
+issue of the battle had been decided. The Austrian position was strong,
+or it would have been so in the hands of an able commander; but Benedek
+was unequal to his work, and totally unfit to command a larger army than
+even Napoleon I. ever led in any battle. There seldom has lived a
+general capable of handling an army two hundred thousand strong. The
+Prussians, to be sure, were stronger, and they were splendidly handled;
+but it must be observed that they were divided into two armies, and that
+those armies, though having a common object, operated apart. In this
+respect, though in no other, Sadowa bears a resemblance to Waterloo, the
+armies of the Crown Prince and of Prince Frederick Charles answering to
+those of Blücher and Wellington. The Prussian force engaged far exceeded
+that of all the armies that fought at Waterloo, and the Austrian army
+exceeded them by some five or six thousand men. War has very rarely
+been conducted on the scale that is known in 1866. Even the greatest of
+the engagements in our civil contest seem to shrink to small proportions
+when compared with what took place last summer in Bohemia. The armies of
+Grant and Lee, in May, 1864, probably were not larger than the Prussian
+army at Sadowa. At the same time, Austria had a great force in Venetia,
+and large bodies of men in other parts of her empire, and some in the
+territory of the Germanic Confederation; and the Prussians were carrying
+on vigorous warfare in various parts of Germany.
+
+After their grand victory, the Prussians pushed rapidly forward toward
+Vienna; and names that are common in the history of Napoleon's Austrian
+campaigns began to appear in the daily journals,--Olmütz, Brünn, Znaym,
+Austerlitz, and others. Nothing occurred to stay their march, and they
+were in the very act of winning another battle which would have cut the
+Austrians off from Hungary, when an armistice was agreed upon. It was so
+in 1809, when the officers had to separate the soldiers to announce the
+armistice of Znaym. It came out soon after that the cessation of warlike
+operations took place not a day too soon for the Austrians, whose army
+was in a fearfully demoralized condition. Vienna would have been
+occupied in a week by the Prussians, had they been disposed to push
+matters to extremities, and that without a battle; or, if a battle had
+been fought, the Austrian force must have been destroyed, or would have
+been literally cut off from any safe line of retreat. Probably the house
+of Austria would have been struck out of the list of ruling families,
+had the Austrians not submitted to the invaders. Count Bismark is a man
+who would have had no hesitation in reviving the Bohemian and Hungarian
+monarchies, had further resistance been made to his will. The armistice
+was quickly followed by negotiations, and those were completed on the
+23d of August, exactly seventy days after the Diet, at the dictation of
+Austria, had given up Prussia to punishment, to be inflicted by the
+Austrian sword.
+
+The terms of the treaty of peace are moderate; but it should be
+understood that what Austria loses is very inadequately expressed by
+these terms, and what Prussia gains not at all; and what Prussia gains
+at the expense of Austria, important as it is, is less important than
+what she has gained from France. From Austria she has taken the first
+place in Germany; from France, the first place in Europe, which is the
+same thing as the first place in Christendom, or the world,--meaning by
+the world that portion of mankind which has power and influence and
+leadership, because of its knowledge, culture, and wealth. The moral
+blow falls with greater severity on France than on Austria. Austria had
+no right whatever to the first place in Germany. There was something
+monstrous, something highly offensive, in the Germanic primacy of an
+empire made up of Magyars, Poles, Bohemians, Italians, Slavonians,
+Croats, Illyrians, and other races, and not above a fourth of whose
+inhabitants were Germans. Prussia had in June last twice as many Germans
+as Austria, though her entire population was not much more than half as
+large as that of her rival;[48] and when she turned Austria out of
+Germany at the point of the needle-gun, she simply asserted her own
+right to the leadership of Germany. But no one will say that there can
+be anything offensive in a French primacy of Christendom. Objection may
+be made to any primacy; but if primacy there must be, as mostly there
+has been, France has the best claim to it of any country. England might
+dispute the post with her, and England alone; for they are the two
+nations of modern times to which the world is most indebted. But England
+has, all but in direct terms, resigned all pretensions to it. Prussia,
+therefore, by conquering for herself the first place in the estimation
+of mankind, who always respect the longest and sharpest sword, unhorsed
+France. Napoleon III. lost more at Sadowa than was lost by Francis
+Joseph; and we cannot see how he will be able to recover his loss,
+should Prussia succeed in her purpose to create a powerful Germanic
+empire,--and all things point to her success. A new force would be
+introduced into the European system, of which we can only say, that, if
+its mere anticipation has been sufficient to curb France on the side of
+the Rhine, its realization ought to be sufficient to prevent France from
+extending her dominion in any direction--say over Belgium--which such
+extension is inclined to take.
+
+Thus has a great revolution been effected, and effected, too with
+something of the speed of light. On the 14th of June, France, in the
+estimation of the civilized world, was the first of nations, the head of
+the Pentarchy. On the 4th of July, she had already been deposed, though
+the change was not immediately recognizable. On the 14th of June,
+Prussia's place, though respectable, was not to be named with that of
+France; it was at the tail of the Pentarchy. On the 4th of July she had
+conquered for herself the headship of that powerful brotherhood. It was
+the prize of her sword, and it is on the sword that the French Emperor's
+power mainly rests. He obtained his place by a free use of the military
+arm, in December, 1851; he confirmed it by the use of the sword in the
+Russian and Italian wars; and he purposed making a yet further use of
+the weapon, had circumstances favored his plans, at the time he allowed
+the Germano-Italian war to begin. Is he who took the sword to perish by
+it? Is the Prussian sovereign that stronger man of whose coming
+Croesus, that type of all prosperous sovereigns, was warned? Who shall
+say? But as Napoleon's ascendency rested, the sword apart, upon opinion,
+and not upon prescription, it is difficult to see how he can submit to a
+surrender of that ascendency, and make way for one who but yesterday was
+his inferior, and who, in all probability, was then ready to buy his aid
+at a high price. The Emperor is old and sickly. His life seems to have
+been in danger at the very time he was making his demand for an increase
+of imperial territory. Years and infirmities may indispose him to enter
+on a mighty war; but he thinks more of his dynasty than of himself, his
+ambition being to found a reigning house. This must lead him to respect
+French opinion, on his son's account; and opinion in France is anything
+but friendly to Prussia. Almost all Frenchmen, from _Reds_ to
+_Whites_,--Republicans, Imperialists, Orleanists, and Legitimists,--seem
+to be of one mind on this point. They all agree that Prussian supremacy
+is unendurable. They could have seen their country make way for England,
+or Russia, or even Austria, without losing their temper altogether; but
+for France to be displaced by Prussia is something that it is beyond
+their philosophy to contemplate with patience. The very successes of the
+Emperor tell against him under existing circumstances. He has raised
+France so high, from a low condition, that a fall is unbearable to his
+subjects. He has triumphed, in various ways, over nations that appeared
+to be so much greater than Prussia, that to surrender the golden palm to
+her is the very nadir of degradation. His loss of moral power is as
+great at home as his loss of material power abroad. He has become
+ridiculous, as having been outwitted by Germans, whom the French have
+ever been disposed to look upon as the dullest of mankind. Ridicule may
+not be so powerful an agency in France to-day as it was in former times,
+but still it has there a sharp sting. The Emperor may be led into war by
+the force of French opinion; and he would have all Germany to contend
+against, with the exception of that portion of it which belongs to the
+house of Austria. The Austrians would gladly renew the war, with France
+for their ally. They would forgive Solferino, to obtain vengeance for
+Sadowa. What occurred among the Austrians when they heard of the French
+demand for a rectification of their frontier shows how readily they
+would come into any project for the humiliation of Prussia that France
+might form. They supposed the French demand would be pushed, and they
+evinced the utmost willingness to support it,--a fact that proves how
+little they care for Germany, and also how deeply they feel their own
+fall. They would have renewed the war immediately, had France given the
+word. But the Emperor did not give the word. He may have hesitated
+because he preferred to have Italy as an ally, or to see her occupy the
+position of a neutral; whereas, had he attacked Prussia before the
+conclusion of the late war, she must have adhered to the Prussian
+alliance, which would have led to the deduction of a large force from
+the armies of Austria and France that he would desire to have
+concentrated in Germany. Or he may have been fearful of even one of the
+consequences of victory; for would it not be a source of danger to him
+and his family were one of his marshals so to distinguish himself in a
+great war as to become the first man in France? The general of a
+legitimate sovereign can never aspire to his master's throne; but the
+French throne is fair prize for any man who should be able to conquer
+the conquerors of Sadowa. The Emperor's health would not permit him to
+lead his army in person, as he did in the Italian campaign; and that one
+of his lieutenants who should, by a repetition of the Jena business,
+avenge Waterloo, and regain for France, with additions, the rank she
+held five months ago, would probably prove a greater enemy to the house
+of Bonaparte than he had been to the house of Hohenzollern. The part of
+Hazael is always abhorred in advance as much as Hazael himself abhorred
+it; but Benhadad is sure to perish, and Hazael reigns in his stead.
+
+The nation by which this great change has been wrought in Europe--a
+change as extraordinary in itself as it is wonderful in its modes, and
+likely to lead to something far more important--is one of the most
+respectable members of the European commonwealth, though standing
+somewhat below the first rank, even while acting on terms of apparent
+equality with the other great powers. The kingdom of Prussia is of
+origin so comparatively recent, that there are those now living who can
+remember others who were old enough to note its creation, in 1700. The
+arrangements for the conversion of the electorate of Brandenburg into
+the kingdom of Prussia were completed on the 16th of November, 1700, and
+the coronation of Frederick I. took place on the 18th of January, 1701,
+two hundred and eighty-four years less three months after his family's
+connection with the country began; for it was on the 18th of April,
+1417, that the Emperor Sigismund, last member of the Luxemburg family,
+made Frederick, Burgrave of Nürnberg, Elector of Brandenburg,--the
+investiture taking place in the marketplace of Constance. The
+transaction was in the nature of a job, as Frederick was a relative of
+the Emperor, to whom he had advanced money, besides rendering him
+assistance in other ways. Frederick was of a very old family, and in
+this respect, as in some others, the house destined to become so great
+in the North bore a close resemblance to that other house destined to
+reign in the South, that of Savoy, which became regal not long after the
+elevation of descendants of the Burgrave of Nürnberg to royal rank. He
+was a man adapted to the place he received; and the family has seldom
+failed to produce able men and women in every generation, some of them
+being of the highest intellectual force, while others have been
+remarkable for eccentricities that at times bore considerable
+resemblance to insanity. Yet there was not much in the history of the
+new electoral house that promised its future greatness, for more than
+two centuries.
+
+It is surprising to look back over the history of Germany, and note how
+differently matters have turned out, in respect to families and
+countries, from what observers of old times would have predicted. When
+Charles V. fled before Maurice of Saxony, he may have thought,
+considering the great part Saxony had had in the Reformation, that from
+that country danger might come to the house of Austria in yet greater
+measure; but he would have smiled at the prophet who should have told
+him not only that no such danger would come, but that Saxony would be
+ruined because of its adherence to the house of Austria, when assailed
+by a descendant of the then insignificant Elector of Brandenburg. Yet
+the prophet would have been right, for Saxony suffered so much from her
+connection with the Austrians in Frederick the Great's time that she
+never recovered therefrom; and in the late contest she was lost before a
+shot was fired, and her troops, after fighting valiantly in Bohemia,
+shared the disasters of the power upon which she had relied for
+protection. Bavaria was another German country that seemed more likely
+to rise to greatness than Brandenburg; but, though her progress has been
+respectable, it must be pronounced insignificant if compared with that
+of Prussia. The house of Wittelsbach was great before that of
+Hohenzollern had risen to general fame; but the latter has passed it, as
+if Fortune had taken the Hohenzollerns under its special protection, and
+we should not be in the least surprised were they to take all its
+territory ere the twentieth century shall have fairly dawned upon the
+world.
+
+The first of the great Prussian rulers was the Elector Frederick
+William, who reigned from 1640 to 1688, and who is known as the Great
+Elector,--a title of which he was every way worthy, and not the less
+that there was just a suspicion of the tyrant in his composition. He had
+not a little of that "justness of insight, toughness of character, and
+general strength of bridle-hand," which Mr. Carlyle attributes to
+Rudolph of Hapsburg. He was a man of the times, and a man for the times.
+He came to the throne just as the Thirty Years' War was well advanced in
+its last decade, and he had a ruined country for his inheritance; but he
+raised that country to a high place in Europe, and was connected with
+many of the principal events of the age of Louis XIV. He freed Prussia
+from her connection with Poland. He created that Prussian army which has
+done such wonderful things in the greatest of wars in the last two
+centuries. He it was who won the battle of Fehrbellin, June 18, 1675, at
+the expense of the Swedes, who were still living on the mighty
+reputation won under Gustavus Adolphus, almost half a century earlier,
+and maintained by the splendid soldiers trained in his school. The calm
+and philosophic Rankè warms into something like eloquence when summing
+up the work of the Great Elector. "Frederick William," he says, "cannot
+be placed in the same category with those few great men who have
+discovered new conditions for the development of the human race; but he
+may unhesitatingly be ranked with those famous princes who have saved
+their countries in the hour of danger, and have succeeded in
+re-establishing order,--with an Alfred, a Charles VII., a Gustavus Vasa.
+He followed the path trodden by the German territorial princes of old;
+but among them all there was not one who, finding his state reduced to
+such a miserable condition, so successfully raised it to independence
+and power. He instilled into his subjects a spirit of enterprise,--the
+mainspring of a state. He took measures which secured to his country an
+increase of power and prosperity. What the world most admired, and
+indeed what he himself most valued, was the condition of his army. It
+contained at the time of his death one hundred and seventy-five
+companies of foot, and seventy-six of cavalry; the artillery had
+recently been increased in proportion, and the Elector's attention had
+been constantly directed to its improvement. The whole strength of the
+army was about twenty-eight thousand men. There was nothing that he
+recommended so earnestly to his successor as the preservation of this
+instrument of power. By this it was that he had made room for himself
+among his neighbors, and had won for the Protestant cause of North
+Germany the respect that was its due."[49]
+
+Nor did he neglect that naval arm which has been of so great service to
+many countries. Prussia's desire to have a navy has raised many smiles,
+and caused much laughter, in this century, as if it were something new;
+whereas it is an ancient aspiration, and one which all Prussian
+sovereigns and statesmen have experienced for two hundred years, though
+not strongly. The Great Czar, who came upon the stage just after the
+Great Elector left it, did not long more for a good sea-coast than that
+Elector had longed for it. Frederick William could not effect so much as
+Peter effected, but he did something toward the creation of a navy for
+Prussia. His reluctance in parting with a portion of Pomerania was owing
+to his commercial and maritime aspirations. "Of all the princes of the
+house of Brandenburg," says Rankè, "he is the only one who ever showed a
+strong predilection for maritime life and maritime power. It was the
+dream of his youth that he would one day sail along shores obedient to
+his will, all the way from Custrin, out by the mouths of the Oder,
+across to the coast of Prussia. His sojourn in the Netherlands had
+strengthened, though it had not inspired, his love of the sea. The best
+proof how painful this cession was to the Elector is the fact that he
+shortly afterward offered to the crown of Sweden, not alone the three
+sees of Halberstadt, Minden, and Magdeburg, but a sum of two millions of
+thalers in addition, for the possession of Pomerania." The same writer
+says of the Great Elector elsewhere, that "his mind had a wide grasp; to
+us it may seem almost too wide, when we call to mind that he brought the
+coast of Guinea into direct communication with Brandenburg, and ventured
+to compete with Spain on the ocean." When he died, the population of his
+dominions amounted to one million five hundred thousand.
+
+His successor was his son Frederick, who added to the territory of
+Prussia, and who, as before stated, became king in November, 1700, a few
+days after the extinction, in the person of Charles II., of the Spanish
+branch of the house of Austria. One royal house had gone out, and
+another came in. Prince Eugene of Savoy, the ablest man that ever served
+the house of Austria, plainly told the German Emperor that his ministers
+deserved the gallows for advising him to consent to the creation of the
+new kingdom, and all subsequent German history seems to show that he was
+right. But that house needed all the aid it could beg, buy, or borrow,
+to press its claim to the Spanish crowns; and, thanks to the exertions
+of the Great Elector, Brandenburg had an army, the aid of which was well
+worth purchasing at what Leopold may have thought to be a nominal price,
+after all. So well balanced were the parties to the war of the Spanish
+Succession, at least in its earlier years, that the mere absence of the
+Prussian contingent from the armies of the Grand Alliance might have
+thrown victory into the French scale. What would have been the effect
+had the army and the influence of Brandenburg been placed at the
+disposal of Louis XIV.? What would have been the fate of the house of
+Austria, had the Elector been actively employed on the French side,
+like the Elector of Bavaria, in the campaign of Blenheim, instead of
+being one of the stoutest supporters of the Austrians? Even Eugene
+himself might never have won most of those victories which have made his
+name immortal, had his policy prevailed at Vienna in 1700, and the
+Emperor refused to convert the Elector of Brandenburg into King of
+Prussia. At Blenheim, the Prussians behaved in the noblest manner, and
+won the highest praise from Eugene, who commanded in that part of the
+field where they were stationed; and he spoke particularly of their
+"undaunted resolution" in withstanding the enemy's attacks, and of their
+activity at a later period of the battle. It is curious to observe that
+he notes the steadiness and strength of their fire,--a peculiarity that
+has distinguished the Prussian infantry from the beginning of its
+existence, and which, from the introduction of the iron ramrod into the
+service, had much to do with the successes of Frederick the Great, and,
+from the use of the needle-gun, quite as much with the successes of
+Prince Frederick Charles and the Crown Prince. In the time of Frederick
+I., the Prussian troops were employed in Germany and Italy, in France
+and Flanders. They also served against the Turks. It may be said, that,
+if the Great Elector created the Prussian army, it received the baptism
+of fire in full from his son, Frederick I., the first Prussian king.
+
+Frederick I. died in 1713. If it be true--as we think it is--that the
+great enterprise of William of Orange for the deliverance of England
+could not have been undertaken but for the aid he gave that prince,
+Englishmen and Americans ought to hold his name in especial remembrance.
+He was succeeded by his son Frederick William I., who is counted a brute
+by most persons, but whom Mr. Carlyle would have us believe to have been
+a man of remarkable worth. He had talents, and he increased the
+territory of his kingdom. When he died, in 1740, he left to his son a
+kingdom containing 2,500,000 souls, a treasury containing $6,000,000,
+and an army more than thirty thousand strong, and which was the first
+force in Europe because of its high state of discipline and of the
+superiority of its infantry weapon. The introduction of the iron ramrod
+was a greater improvement, relatively, in 1740, than was the
+introduction of the needle-gun in the present generation. Nothing but
+the use of that ramrod saved the Prussians from destruction in the first
+of Frederick II.'s wars. That gave them superiority, which they well
+knew how to keep. "The main thing," as Rankè observes, "was a regular
+step and rapid firing; or, as the king once expressed it, 'Load quickly,
+advance in close column, present well, take aim well,--all in profound
+silence.'" The whole business of infantry in the field is summed up in
+the royal sentence, though some may think that line would be a better
+word than column; and the Prussian system did favor the linear rather
+than the columnar arrangement of troops, as it "presented a wide front,
+less exposed to the fire of the artillery, and more efficient from the
+force of its musketry."
+
+Frederick William I. died in 1740. His successor was Frederick II.,
+commonly called the Great. His history has been so much discussed of
+late years that it would be useless to mention its details. He raised
+Prussia to the first rank in Europe. Russia was coming in as a European
+power, and Spain was then as great as France or England, partly because
+of her former greatness, but as much from the sagacity of her sovereign
+and the talents of her statesmen. Louis XV. had lessened the weight of
+France, and George III. had degraded England. The Austrian house had
+suffered from its failure before Frederick. All things combined to make
+of Prussia the most formidable of European nations during the last half
+of Frederick's reign. When he died, in 1786, the Prussian population
+amounted to six millions,--the increase being chiefly due to the
+acquisition of Silesia, which was taken from Austria, and to
+Frederick's share in the first partition of Poland. He left $50,000,000,
+and his army contained 220,000 men.
+
+Frederick William II., a weak sovereign, reigned till 1797. He took part
+in the first coalition against revolutionary France, and in the second
+and third partitions of Poland. Frederick William III. reigned from 1797
+to 1840, during which time Prussia experienced every vicissitude of
+fortune. The first war with imperial France, in 1806-7, led to the
+reduction of her territory and population one half; and what was left of
+country and people was most mercilessly treated by Napoleon I., who
+should either have restored her altogether, or have annihilated her. But
+the great Emperor was partial to half-measures,--a folly that had much
+to do with his fall. The misery that Prussia then experienced was the
+cause of her subsequent greatness; and if she has wrested European
+supremacy from Napoleon III., she should thank Napoleon I. for enabling
+her to accomplish so great a feat of arms. The Prussian government had
+to undertake the task of reform, to save itself and the country from
+perishing. The chief man in this great work was the celebrated Baron von
+Stein, whose name is of infrequent mention in popular histories of the
+Napoleonic age, but who had more to do with the overthrow of the Man of
+Destiny than any other person. It is one of those strange facts which
+are so constantly meeting us in history, that it was by Napoleon's
+advice that Stein was employed by the Prussian king. "Take the Baron von
+Stein," said the Emperor, when the king at Tilsit spoke of the misery of
+his situation; "he is a man of sense." Eighteen months later, Napoleon
+actually outlawed Stein, the decree of outlawry dating from Madrid. The
+language of the decree was of the most insulting character. "One Stein"
+(_le nommé Stein_), it was said, was endeavoring to create troubles in
+Germany, and therefore he was denounced as an enemy of France and of the
+Rhenish Confederacy. The property he held in French or confederate
+territory was confiscated, and the troops of France and her allies were
+ordered to arrest him, wherever he could be found. Had he been taken,
+quite likely he would have been as summarily dealt with as Palm had
+been.
+
+Stein fled into Bohemia, where he resided three years, when Alexander I.
+invited him to Russia, and employed him in the most important affairs.
+He kept up Alexander's courage during the darkest days of 1812, and
+advised, with success, against yielding to the French, though it is
+probable the Czar might have had his own terms from Napoleon, after the
+latter had reached Moscow. It is said that the American Minister in
+Russia, the late Mr. J. Q. Adams, was not less energetic than Stein on
+the same side. It may well be doubted if their advice was such as a
+Russian sovereign should have followed, though it was excellent for
+Germany and for all nations that feared Napoleon. If the American
+Minister did what was attributed to him, he actually acted in behalf of
+the very nation against which his own country had just declared war! The
+war between the United States and England began at the same time that
+active operations against Russia were entered upon by the French; and
+England was the only powerful nation upon which Russia could rely for
+assistance.
+
+Stein had done his work before he was made to leave Prussia. He was the
+creator of the Prussian people. His reforms would be pronounced agrarian
+measures in England or America. An imitation of them in England might
+not be amiss; but in America, where land is a drug, and where possession
+of it does not give half the consideration that proceeds from the
+ownership of "stocks" or funds, it would be as much out of place as a
+mixture for blackening negroes, or a machine for converting New England
+soil into rocks. "Stein's main idea," says Vehse, "was, 'the burgher
+must become noble.' With this view, he tried to call forth a strong
+feeling of nationality and a new spirit in the people. His first step in
+introducing his new system of administration was the abolition of
+vassalage, and the change of the titles of seignorial property. This was
+done by the edict dated Memel, October 9, 1807, which did away with the
+monopoly until then claimed by the nobles holding such estates, which
+were now allowed to be acquired also by burghers and peasants. It
+moreover abolished all the feudal burdens of tenure. In this great law,
+Frederick William III. laid down the principle: 'After St. Martin's day,
+1810, there will be throughout my dominions none but free people.' This
+edict first created in Prussia a _free_ peasantry. Free burghers, on the
+other hand, were created by the municipal law from Königsberg, November
+19, 1808, which restored to the burgesses their ancient municipal rights
+of freely electing their magistrates and deputies, and of
+self-government within their own civic sphere.... Stein tried in every
+way to secure to the burgher his independence, and to protect him
+against the despotism of the men in office. With equal energy he tried
+to develop the spirit of the people."[50] For five years most of the
+Prussian ministers labored in the same spirit. A military force was
+created, chiefly by the labors of Scharnhorst, and the limitation of the
+Prussian army by Napoleon was in great part evaded. Everything was done
+to create a people, and to have ready the moral and material means from
+which to create an army, should circumstances arise under which Prussia
+might think it safe for her to act. Hardenberg did not go so far as
+Stein would have gone, but it is probable that he acted wisely; for very
+strong measures might have brought Napoleon's hand upon him. As it was,
+the Emperor could not complain of measures that breathed the very spirit
+of the French Revolution, of which he was the impersonation and the
+champion,--or claimed to be.
+
+But all the labors of Stein, and those other Prussian patriots who acted
+with him or followed in his footsteps, would have been of no avail, had
+not Napoleon afforded them an opportunity to turn their labors to
+account. They might have elevated the people, have accumulated money,
+have massed munitions, and have drilled the entire male population to
+the business and work of war, till they should have surpassed all that
+is told of Roman discipline and efficiency; but all such exertions would
+have been utterly thrown away had the French Emperor behaved like a
+rational being, and not sought to illustrate his famous dogma, that the
+impossible has no existence, by seeking to achieve impossibilities. At
+the beginning of 1812, Napoleon was literally invincible. He was master
+of all Continental Europe, from the Atlantic to the Niemen, and from
+Cape North to Reggio. There was not a sovereign in that part of the
+world, from the kings of Sweden and Denmark to the Emperor of Austria
+and the Turkish Sultan, who did not wear crowns and wield sceptres only
+because the sometime General Bonaparte was willing they should wear and
+wield the emblems of imperial or royal power. He was at war only with
+Great Britain, and Spain, Portugal, and Sicily; and Great Britain was
+the sole enemy he was bound to respect. All the more enlightened
+Spaniards were all but ready to acknowledge the rule of his brother
+Joseph, and would have done so but for French failure in the Russian
+war. England's army could have been driven from the Peninsula with ease,
+had a third of the men who were worse than wasted in Russia been
+directed thither in the early spring of 1812. The Bourbons of Sicily
+hated their English protectors so bitterly, that they were ready to
+unite with the French to get up a modern imitation of the Sicilian
+Vespers at their expense. The war might soon have been confined to the
+ocean, and there it would have been fought for France principally by
+Americans, as the United States were soon to declare war against
+England. Never before was man so strong as Napoleon on New-Year's day,
+1812; and in less than four years he was living in lodgings, and bad
+lodgings too, in St. Helena! What hope could the Prussians have, a month
+before the march to Moscow was resolved upon? None that could encourage
+them. Some of the more sanguine spirits, supported by general sentiment,
+were still of opinion that something could be effected; but the larger
+number of intelligent men were very despondent, and not a few of them
+began to think of the world beyond the Atlantic, as English patriots had
+thought almost two centuries earlier, when, that "blood and iron man,"
+Wentworth (Strafford), was developing his system of _Thorough_ with a
+precision and an energy that even Count Bismark has never surpassed. The
+bolder Prussians, when their country had to choose between resistance to
+Napoleon and an alliance with him against Russia, were for resistance,
+and would have placed their country right across the Emperor's path, and
+fought out the battle with him, and abided the consequences, which would
+have been the annihilation of Prussia in a sixth part of the time that
+Mr. Seward allotted for the duration of the Secession war. The Prussian
+war party would have had the Russians advance into their country, and
+thus have staked the issue on just such a contest as occurred in 1806-7.
+Napoleon, it is at least believed, was desirous that Prussia should join
+Russia, as that would have enabled him to defeat his enemies without
+crossing the Russian frontier, and have afforded him an excuse for
+destroying Prussia. To prevent so untimely a display of resistance to
+French ascendency was the aim of a few Prussians, headed by the king
+himself, who became very unpopular in consequence. Fortunately for
+Prussia, they were successful, and the means employed deceived not only
+the patriotic party, but even Napoleon, who was completely imposed upon
+by the report of the Baron von dem Knesebeck against a war between
+Russia and France. The story belongs to the romance of history; but it
+is too long, because involving many facts, to be told here.
+
+Prussia was prevented from "throwing herself into the arms of Russia,"
+much to the disgust of Scharnhorst and his friends. She even assisted
+Napoleon in his war against Alexander, and sent a contingent to the
+Grand Army, which formed the tenth corps of that memorable force, and
+was commanded by Marshal Macdonald. It consisted of twenty-six thousand
+men, including one French infantry division,--the Prussians being
+generally estimated at twenty thousand men. This corps did very little
+during the campaign, and soon after the failure of the French it went
+over to the Russians, taking the first step in that course which made
+Prussia so formidable a member of the Grand Alliance of 1813-15. But
+even so late as the close of May, 1813, Prussia was in danger of
+annihilation, and would have been annihilated had not Napoleon proffered
+an armistice, which was accepted,--the greatest blunder of his career,
+according to some eminent critics, as well political as military.
+
+The leading part which Prussia had in the Liberation War and in the
+first overthrow of Napoleon caused her to be reconstructed by the
+Congress of Vienna; and her part in the war of 1815 confirmed the
+impression she had made on the world. Waterloo was as much a Prussian as
+an English victory,--the loss of the Prussians in that action being
+about as great as the purely English loss.[51] She became one of the
+Five Powers which by common consent were rulers of Europe. Down to 1830
+she had more influence than France, and from 1830 to the
+re-establishment of the Napoleonic dynasty, she was France's equal; and
+even after Napoleon III. had replaced France at the head of Europe,
+Prussia was the only member of the Pentarchy which had not been
+humiliated by his blows, or yet more by his assistance. England has
+suffered from her connection with him,--a connection difficult on many
+occasions to distinguish from inferiority and subserviency; and in war
+the old superiority of the French armies to those of Russia and Austria
+has been asserted in the Crimea and in Italy. Prussia alone has not
+stooped before the avenger of the man whom she had so vindictive a part
+in overthrowing, and whom her military chief purposed having slain on
+the very spot where the Duc d'Enghien had been put to death by his
+(Napoleon's) orders. Of all the enemies of Napoleon and France in 1815,
+Prussia was the most malignant, or rather she was the only member of the
+Alliance which exhibited malignity.[52] She would have had France
+partitioned; and failed in her design only because openly opposed by
+Russia and England, while Austria, fearing to offend German opinion,
+secretly supported the Czar and Wellington. Blücher, an earnest man, was
+never more in earnest than when he purposed to shoot Napoleon in the
+ditch of Vincennes; and it required all Wellington's influence to
+dissuade him from so barbarous a proceeding. Yet Napoleon III. has never
+been able to avenge these injuries and insults,--to say nothing of
+Waterloo, and of the massacre of the flying French in the night after
+the battle, or of the shocking conduct of the Prussians in France in
+1815; and the events of the current year would seem to favor, and that
+strongly, the opinion of those persons who say that France never will be
+able to obtain her long-thought-of revenge. Certainly, if _Prussia_ was
+safe, Prussia with most of Germany to back her cannot be in any serious
+danger of being forced to drink of that cup of humiliation which
+Napoleon III. has commended to so many countries.
+
+After the settlement of Europe, in 1815, Prussia did not show much of
+that encroaching character which is attributed to her, but was one of
+the most quiet of nations. This was in great measure due to the
+character of the king. He was of the class of heavy men, and the first
+part of his reign had been marked by the occurrence of troubles so
+numerous and so great that his original dislike of change increased to
+fanaticism. He was one of the framers of the Holy Alliance, which grew
+out of the thorough fright which he and his friend the Czar felt during
+the saddest days of 1813. Alexander told a Prussian clergyman, named
+Egbert, in 1818, that, during one of their flights before
+Napoleon,--probably on that doleful day when they had to retreat from
+Dresden, amid wind and rain, and before the French reverse at Kulm had
+put a good face on the affairs of the Alliance,--Frederick William III.
+said to him: "Things cannot go on so! we are in the direction of the
+east, and it is toward the west that we ought to march, that we must
+march. We shall, God willing, arrive there. And if, as I trust, he
+should bless our united efforts, we will proclaim in the face of Heaven
+our conviction that to Him alone belongs the honor." Thereupon,
+continued the Czar, "We promised, and exchanged a pressure of hands upon
+it with sincerity." Both monarchs evidently thought they had succeeded
+in bribing Heaven; for Alexander told his reverend hearer that great
+victories soon came; "and," said he, "when we had arrived in Paris, we
+had reached the end of our painful course. The king of Prussia reminded
+me of the holy resolution of which he had entertained the first idea;
+and Francis II., who had shared our views, our opinions, and our
+tendencies, entered willingly into the association." Such was
+Alexander's account of the origin of that famous league which so
+perplexed and alarmed our fathers. It differs from the commonly received
+belief as to its origin, which is, that it was the work of Alexander
+himself, who was inspired by Madame de Krudener, who, having "played the
+devil and written a novel,"--she was unfaithful to her marriage vow, and
+wrote "Valerio,"--naturally became devout as old age approached. It
+makes somewhat against the Czar's story, that the Holy Alliance was not
+formed till the autumn of 1815, and that he and Frederick William
+arrived at Paris in the spring of 1814; and that in the interval he and
+Francis II. came very near going to war on the Polish question.
+Alexander was crack-brained, and a mystic, and it is far more likely
+that he should have originated the Holy Alliance than that the idea
+should have proceeded from so wooden-headed a personage as the Prussian
+king, who had about as much sentiment as a Memel log. Alexander was
+always haunted by the thought that he had consented to the death of his
+father,--that, as a Greek would have said, he was pursued by the Furies;
+and he was constantly thinking of expiation, and seeking to propitiate
+the Deity, and that by means not much different in spirit from those to
+which savages have resort. There was much of that Tartar in him which,
+according to Napoleon, you will always find when you scratch a Russian.
+
+Whether Frederick William III. suggested the Holy Alliance may be
+doubted; but there can be no doubt that he lived thoroughly up to its
+spirit, which was the spirit of intense absolutism. He broke every
+promise he had made to his people when he needed their aid to keep his
+kingdom out of the grasp of Napoleon. He became the vindictive
+persecutor of the men who had led his subjects in the war to rush to
+arms, without counting the odds they had to encounter at first. He was a
+despot of the old pattern, as far as a sovereign of the nineteenth
+century could be one. It does not appear that he acted thus from love of
+power for its own sake, to which so much of tyrannical action is due. In
+most respects he was rather a favorable specimen of the despot. His
+action was the consequence of circumstances, the effect of experience.
+He had had two or three thorough frights, and twice he had been in
+danger of losing his crown, and of seeing the extinction of that nation
+which his ancestors had been at such pains to create. If exertions of
+his could prevent the recurrence of such evils, they should not be
+wanting. As Charles II., after the Restoration of 1660, had firmly
+resolved on one thing, namely, that, come what would, he would not again
+go upon his travels, so had Frederick William III., after the
+restoration of his kingdom, firmly resolved that, happen what might, he
+would have no more wars, and that, if he could, he would keep out of
+politics. So he maintained peace, and kept down the politicians. Prussia
+flourished marvellously during the last twenty-five years of his reign;
+and, judging from results, his government could not have been a bad one.
+Under it was created that people whose recent action has astonished the
+world, and produced for it a new sensation. A comprehensive system of
+education opened the paths to knowledge to every one; and a not less
+comprehensive military system made every healthy man's services
+available to the state. There never before took the field so highly
+educated a force as that which has just reduced Count Bismark's policy
+to practice,--not even in America. There may have been as intelligent
+armies in the Union's service during our civil conflict as those which
+obeyed Prince Frederick Charles and the Crown Prince of Prussia, but as
+highly educated most certainly they were not.
+
+When Friedrich von Raumer was in England, in 1835, he, at an English
+dinner, gave this toast: "The King of Prussia, the greatest and best
+reformer in Europe." That he was the "best reformer in Europe," we will
+not insist upon,--but that he was the greatest reformer there, we have
+no doubt whatever. That he was a reformer at heart, originally, no one
+would pretend who knows his history. He was made one by stress of
+circumstances. But having become a reformer, he did a great work, as
+contemporary history shows. He would have been content to live, and
+reign, and die, sovereign of just such a Prussia as he found in 1797;
+but, in spite of himself, he was made to effect a mightier revolution
+than even a French revolutionist of 1793 would have deemed it possible
+to accomplish. His career is the liveliest illustration that we know of
+the doctrine that men are the sport of circumstances.
+
+Frederick William III. died in 1840. His son and successor, Frederick
+William IV., was a man of considerable ability and a rare scholar; but
+he was not up to his work, the more so that the age of revolutions
+appeared again early in his reign. He might have made himself master of
+all Germany in 1848, but had not the courage to act as a Prussian
+sovereign should have acted. He was elected Emperor by the revolutionary
+Diet at Frankfort, but refused the crown. A little later, under the
+inspiration of General Radowitz, he took up such a position as we have
+seen his successor fill so effectively. War with Austria seemed close at
+hand, and the unity of Germany might have been brought about sixteen
+years since had the Prussian monarch been equal to the crisis. As it
+was, he "backed down," and Radowitz, who was a too-early Bismark, left
+his place, and died at the close of 1853. The king lost his mind in
+1857; and his brother William became Regent, and succeeded to the throne
+in 1861, on the death of Frederick William IV.
+
+The reign of William I. will be regarded as one of the most remarkable
+in Prussian history. Though an old man when he took the crown, William
+I. has advanced the greatness of Prussia even more than it was advanced
+by Frederick II. His course with regard to the Danish Duchies has called
+forth many indignant remarks; but it is no worse than that of most other
+sovereigns, and stones cannot fairly be cast at him by many ruling
+hands. Count Bismark has been the chief minister of Prussia under
+William I., and to him must be attributed that policy which has carried
+his country, _per saltum_, to the highest place among the nations. He
+long since came to the conclusion that nothing could be done for
+Germany, by Germany and in Germany, till Austria should be thrust out of
+Germany. He was right; and he has labored to accomplish the dismissal of
+Austria, with a perseverance and a persistency that it would be
+difficult to parallel. He alone has done the deed. Had he died last May,
+there would have been no war in Europe this year; for nothing less than
+his redoubtable courage and iron will could have overcome the obstacles
+that existed to the commencement of the conflict.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[45] Exactly what it was Napoleon III. asked of Prussia we never have
+seen stated by any authority that we can quite trust. The London Times,
+which is likely to be well informed on the subject, assumes, in its
+issue of August 11th, that the Emperor asked of Prussia the restoration
+of the French frontier of 1814,--meaning the French frontier as it was
+fixed by the Treaty of Paris, on the 30th of May, immediately after the
+fall of Napoleon I. If this is the correct interpretation of Napoleon's
+demand, he asked for very little. The Treaty of Paris took from France
+nearly all the conquests made by the Republic and the Empire, leaving
+her only a few places on the side of Germany, a little territory near
+Geneva, portions of Savoy, and the Venaissin. After the second conquest
+of France, most of these remnants of her conquests were taken from her.
+Napoleon III. has regained what was then lost of Savoy, and he seems to
+have sought from Prussia the restoration of that which was lost on the
+side of Germany, most of which was given to Bavaria and Belgium, and the
+remainder to Prussia herself. What Prussia holds, he supposed she could
+cede to France; and as to Bavaria, he may have argued that Prussia was
+in such position with regard to that kingdom as to make her will law to
+its government. But how could she get possession of what Belgium holds?
+Since the failure of his attempt, the French Emperor has been at
+peculiar pains to assure the King of the Belgians that he has no designs
+on his territory; and therefore we must suppose he had none when he
+propounded his demand to Prussia. It may be added, that the cession of
+the Prussian portion of the spoil of 1815 had been a subject of
+speculation, and of something like negotiation, long before war between
+Prussia and Austria was supposed to be possible.
+
+[46] There has been as much noise made over the needle-gun as by that
+famous and fascinating slaughter weapon; yet it is by no means an arm of
+tender years. It had been known thirty years when the recent war began,
+and it had been amply tested in action seventeen years before it was
+first directed against the Austrians, not to mention the free use that
+had been made of it in the Danish war. Much that has been said of its
+character and capabilities since last June was said in 1849, and can be
+found in publications of that year. The world had forgotten it, and also
+that Prussia could fight. Nicholas von Dreyse, inventor of the
+needle-gun, is now living, at the age of seventy-eight. The thought of
+the invention occurred to him the day after the battle of Jena, in 1806.
+Some six or seven years since, we read, in an English work, an elaborate
+argument to show that, in a great war, Prussia must be beaten, because
+she had no experienced commanders!--like Benedek and Clam-Gallas, for
+example.
+
+[47] The entire force of the Allies at Leipzig is generally stated to
+have been 290,000 men; that of the French at 175,000,--making a total of
+465,000, or about 45,000 more than were present at Sadowa. So the excess
+at Leipzig was not so very great. At Leipzig the Allies alone had more
+guns than both armies had at Sadowa,--but what were the cannon of those
+days compared to those of these times? The great force assembled in and
+around Leipzig was taken from almost all Europe, as there were
+Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Italians, Poles,
+Swedes, Dutchmen, and even Englishmen, present in the two armies;
+whereas at Sadowa the armies were drawn only from Austria, Prussia, and
+Saxony. The battle of Sadowa lasted only one day; that of Leipzig four
+days, a large part of the Allied armies taking part only in the fighting
+of the third and fourth days. The French lost 68,000 men at Leipzig, the
+Allies, 42,640,--total, 110,640. But 30,000 of the French were
+prisoners, reducing the number of killed and wounded to 80,640,--which
+was even a good four days' work. Probably a third of these were killed
+or mortally wounded, as artillery was freely used in the battle. War is
+a great manufacturer of _pabulum Acheruntis_,--grave-meat, that is to
+say.
+
+[48] It is impossible to speak with precision of the number of the
+population of Prussia. The highest number mentioned by a respectable
+authority is 19,000,000; but that is given in "round numbers," and is
+not meant to be taken literally. But if it be 19,000,000, but little
+more than half as large as that of Austria as it was when the war began,
+not much above a fourth as large as that of Russia, many millions below
+that of the British Islands, a few million less than that of Italy as it
+stood before the cession of Venetia by Austria, and a few millions more
+than that of Spain. The populations of Prussia and Italy when the war
+began were a little above 40,000,000. The populations of Austria and the
+German states that sided with her may have been about 50,000,000; and
+Austria had as much assistance from her German allies as Prussia had
+from the Italians,--the Saxons helping her much, showing the highest
+military qualities in the brief but bloody war. Had all the lesser
+German states preserved a strict neutrality, so that the entire Prussian
+force could have been directed against Austria, the Prussians would have
+been before Vienna, and probably in that city, in ten days from the date
+of Sadowa. Prussia brought out 730,000 men, or about one twenty-sixth
+part of her entire population.
+
+[49] Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, and History of Prussia during
+the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Vol. I. pp. 91, 92.
+
+[50] Stein was one of those eminent men who have acted as if they
+thought coarseness bordering upon brutality an evidence of independence
+of spirit and greatness of soul. He was uncivil to those beneath him,
+not civil to those above him, and insulting to his equals. He addressed
+the King of Prussia in language that no gentleman ever employs, and he
+berated his underlings in a style that even President Johnson might
+despair of equalling. He hated the Duke of Dalberg, on both public and
+private accounts; and when the Duke was one of the French Ambassadors at
+Vienna, in time of the Congress, he offered to call on the Baron. "Tell
+him," said Stein, "that, if he visits me as French Ambassador, he shall
+be well received; but if he comes as a private person, he shall be
+kicked down stairs." Niebuhr, the historian, once told him that he
+(Stein) hated a certain personage. "Hate him? No," said Stein; "but I
+would spit in his face were I to meet him on the street." This readiness
+to convert the human face into a spittoon shows that he was qualified to
+represent a Southern district in our Congress; for what Stein said he
+would do was done by Mr. Plummer of Mississippi, who spat in the face of
+Mr. Slade of Vermont,--the American democrat, who probably never had
+heard of his grandfather, getting a little beyond the German aristocrat,
+who could trace his ancestors back through six or seven centuries. Thus
+do extremes meet. In talents, in energy, in audacity, in arrogance, in
+firmness of will, and in unbending devotion to one great and leading
+purpose, Count von Bismark bears a strong resemblance to Baron von
+Stein, upon whom he seems to have modelled himself,--while Austrian
+ascendency in Germany was to him what French ascendency in that country
+was to his prototype, only not so productive of furious hatred, because
+the supremacy of Austria was offensive politically, and not personally
+annoying, like that of France; but Bismark, though sufficiently
+demonstrative in the expression of his sentiments, has never outraged
+propriety to the extent that it was outraged by Stein. Stein died in
+1831, having lived long enough to see the in French Revolution of 1830
+that a portion of his work had been done in vain. His Prussian work will
+endure forever, and be felt throughout the world.
+
+[51] The Prussian loss in the battle of Waterloo was 6,998; the
+_British_ loss, 6,935;--but this does not include the Germans, Dutch,
+and Belgians who fell on the field or were put down among the missing.
+Wellington's total loss was about 16,000. The number of Prussians
+present in the battle was much more than twice the number of Britons.
+The number of the latter was 23,991, with 78 guns; of the former,
+51,944, with 104 guns. Almost 16,000 of the Prussians were engaged some
+hours before the event of the battle was decided; almost 30,000 two
+hours before that decision; and the remainder an hour before the Allied
+victory was secured. It shows how seriously the French were damaged by
+Prussian intervention, that Napoleon had to detach, from the army that
+he had intended to employ against Wellington only, 27 battalions of
+infantry (including 11 battalions of the Guard), 18 squadrons of
+cavalry, and 66 guns, making a total of about 18,000 men, or about a
+fourth part of his force and almost a third of his artillery. This
+subtraction from the army that ought to have been used in fighting
+Wellington would alone have suffered gravely to compromise the French;
+and it is well known that Napoleon felt the want of men to send against
+the English long before the conflict was over; and this want was the
+consequence of the pressure of the Prussians on his right flank,
+threatening to establish themselves in his rear. But this was not all
+the aid derived by Wellington from the Prussian advance. It was the
+arrival of a portion of Zieten's corps on the field of Waterloo that
+enabled the British commander to withdraw from his left the
+comparatively untouched cavalry brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur, and to
+station them in or near the centre of his line, where they were of the
+greatest use at the very "crisis" of the battle,--Vivian, in particular,
+doing as much as was done by any one of Wellington's officers to secure
+victory for his commander. The Prussians followed the flying French for
+hours, and had the satisfaction of giving the final blow to Napoleonism
+for that time. It has risen again.
+
+[52] No one who is not familiar with the correspondence of the Allied
+commanders in 1815 can form an adequate idea of the ferocity which then
+characterized the Prussian officers. On the 27th of June General von
+Gneisenau, writing for Blücher, declared that Napoleon must be delivered
+over to the Prussians, "with a view to his execution." That, he argued,
+was what eternal justice demanded, and what the Declaration of March
+13th decided,--alluding to the Declaration against Napoleon published by
+the Congress of Vienna, which, he said, and fairly enough too, put him
+under outlawry by the Allied powers. Doing the Duke of Wellington the
+justice to suppose he would be averse to hangman's work, Gneisenau, who
+stood next to Blücher in the Prussian service as well as in Prussian
+estimation, expressed his leader's readiness to free him from all
+responsibility in the matter by taking possession of Napoleon's person
+himself, and detailing the intended assassins from his own army.
+Wellington was astonished at such language from gentlemen, and so
+exerted himself that Blücher changed his mind; whereupon Gneisenau wrote
+that it had been Blücher's "intention to execute [murder?] Bonaparte on
+the spot where the Duc d'Enghien was shot; that out of deference,
+however, to the Duke's wishes, he will abstain from this measure; but
+that the Duke must take on himself the responsibility of its
+non-enforcement." In another letter he wrote: "When the Duke of
+Wellington declares himself against the execution of Bonaparte, he
+thinks and acts in the matter as a Briton. Great Britain is under
+weightier obligations to no mortal man than to this very villain; for,
+by the occurrences whereof he is the author, her greatness, prosperity,
+and wealth have attained their present elevation. The English are the
+masters of the seas, and have no longer to fear any rivalry, either in
+this dominion or the commerce of the world. It is quite otherwise with
+us Prussians. We have been impoverished by him. Our nobility will never
+be able to right itself again." There is much of the _perfide Albion_
+nonsense in this. In a letter which Gneisenau, in 1817, wrote to Sir
+Hudson Lowe, then Governor of St. Helena, he said: "Mille et mille fois
+j'ai porté mes souvenirs dans cette vaste solitude de l'océan, et sur ce
+rocher interessant sur lequel vous êtes le gardien du repos public de
+l'Europe. De votre vigilance et de votre force de caractère dépend notre
+salut; dès que vous vous relâchez de vos mesures de rigueur contre _le
+plus rusé scélérat du monde_, dès que vous permettriez à vos subalternes
+de lui accorder par une pitié mal entendue des faveurs, notre repos
+serait compromis, et les honnêtes gens en Europe s'abandonneraient à
+leurs anciennes inquiétudes." An amusing instance of his prejudice
+occurs in another part of the same letter, where he says: "Le fameux
+manuscrit de Ste. Hélène a fait une sensation scandaleuse et dangereuse
+en Europe, surtout en France, où, quóiqu'il ait été supprimé, il a été
+lu dans toutes les coteries de Paris, et où même les femmes, au lieu
+nuits à le copier." Gneisenau was in this country in his youth,--one of
+those Hessians who were bought by George III. to murder Americans who
+would not submit to his crazy tyranny. That was an excellent school in
+which to learn the creed of assassins; for there was not a Hessian in
+the British service who was not as much a bravo as any ruffian in Italy
+who ever sold his stiletto's service to some cowardly vengeance-seeker.
+It ought, in justice, to be added, that Sir Walter Scott states that in
+1816 "there existed a considerable party in Britain who were of opinion
+that the British government would best have discharged their duty to
+France and Europe by delivering up Napoleon to Louis XVIII.'s
+government, to be treated as he himself had treated the Duc d'Enghien."
+So that the Continent did not monopolize the assassins of that time.
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG SPARROW.
+
+
+    Can you hear the sparrow in the lane
+      Singing above the graves? she said.
+    He knows my gladness, he knows my pain,
+      Though spring be over and summer be dead.
+
+    His note hath a chime all cannot hear,
+      And none can love him better than I;
+    For he sings to me when the land is drear,
+      And makes it cheerful even to die.
+
+    'T is beautiful on this odorous morn,
+      When grasses are waving in every wind,
+    To know my bird is not forlorn,
+      That summer to him is also kind;--
+
+    But sweeter, when grasses no longer stir,
+      And every lilac-leaf is shed,
+    To know that my voiceful worshipper
+      Is singing above my voiceless dead.
+
+
+
+
+INVALIDISM.
+
+
+One of the first tendencies of sickness is to centralization. Every
+invalid at least begins by being pivotal in the household. But with the
+earliest hint that the case is chronic, things recoil to their own
+centres again; people begin to come and go in the gayest way; they laugh
+and eat immensely, and fly through the halls asking if one couldn't take
+a bit of stuffed veal. And while one still sinks lower, failing down to
+the verge of the grave, it is only to hear of the most cherished friends
+in another town leading the whirl with tableaux and private theatricals.
+Finally is realized the dire _denouément_, that, though one lay with
+breath flickering away, the daily grocer would come driving up without
+any velvet on his wheels or any softness in his voice, and that the
+whole routine of affairs is to proceed, whoever goes or stays. This
+cold-heartedness it seems will kill one at any rate. Rather the universe
+should sigh and be darkened. To pass unheeded is worse than to die. Just
+now it is impossible to compass even the satirical mood of Pope, who
+declared himself not at all uneasy that many men for whom he never had
+any esteem were likely to enjoy the world after him. But before one has
+time to die, the absent friends write such a kind, sorry letter, in
+which they do not say anything about private theatricals, and, as Thad
+Stevens said of that speech, one knows of course that it was all a hoax!
+Then the people who eat stuffed veal repent themselves, and send in a
+delicate broth or a bit of tenderloin, hovering softly in a sudden
+regard, and at length a healthier thought is born. It is to arise with
+desperate will, put a fresh rose in the bonnet and a delusive veil over
+the face, creeping down to the street with what steadiness can be
+summoned. There one meets friends, and is pretty well, with thanks, and
+is congratulated. Affairs grow brilliant, but the veil never comes up;
+underneath there is some one forty years old and an invalid. Having thus
+moved against the enemy's works, it is best to retire upon what spirit
+there is left. It is after this sally that, when the landlady hears a
+hammering of a Sunday, she comes directly to the room of this robust
+person, who is obliged to confess that, even if so inclined, she has not
+strength enough to break the Sabbath.
+
+But the anxiety of every one to show some friendliness to a sufferer is
+only equalled by the usual inability. We all read of that Union soldier
+in the hospital visited by an elderly woman bound to do something when
+there was nothing to be done, and who finally succeeded in bathing the
+patient's face, while he, poor fellow, still struggling in the folds of
+the towel, was heard to exclaim, "That's the fourteenth time I've had my
+face washed to-day!"
+
+Far more unobtrusive is the benevolence which goes into one's kitchen,
+sending thence to the sick-room those dainties which, after all, are so
+much too good to be eaten. It seems to be taken for granted that sick
+persons eat a great deal, and that most of them might share the
+experiment of Matthews, who began the diary of an invalid and ended with
+that of a gourmand. I fear that these kindly geniuses would sometimes
+feel a twinge of chagrin at seeing their elaborate delicacies in process
+of being devoured by the most rubicund people in the house. But it
+matters not; it is the sending and getting that are the dainties. Amid
+all these niceties, however, the office of nurse might certainly be made
+a sinecure; and just at this point her labors are really quite arduous;
+for any invalid blessed with many favoring friends soon would sink under
+the care of crockery and baskets to be properly delivered, while to
+attend to the accompanying napkins is little less than to preside over a
+small laundry. And then, as every one tastefully sends her choicest
+wares to enhance their contents, the invalid also finds that she is the
+keeper of all the best dishes of the best families.
+
+There is nothing like a well-fought resistance in the early stages of
+invalidism. Keep up the will, and if need be the temper. There are times
+when to grow heavenly is fatal,--when one is to let the soul run loose,
+and to gather up the gritty determination of Sarah, Duchess of
+Marlborough, who, when told that she must be blistered or die,
+exclaimed, "I won't be blistered, and I won't die!" Indeed, it is often
+necessary to reverse the decision of the doctor who gives one up, and
+simply end by giving him up. The numbers are untold who have died solely
+from being given up,--I do not mean of the doctors. Poor, timid mortals!
+they only heard the words, and meekly folded their hands and went. On
+the other side, there is no end to the people who have been given up all
+through their lives, and who have utterly refused to depart. They have a
+kind of useless toughness which prevents them from dying, without
+endowing them to live. These animated relics often show no special
+fitness for either world, and they are not even ornamental.
+
+I have somewhere seen the invalid enjoined to talk as if well, but treat
+himself as if ill. And to certain temperaments a little of this
+diplomacy, or secretiveness, is often very important. Once an admitted
+invalid, and the dikes are down. Then begin to pour in all sorts of
+worthy, but alarming and indiscreet persons,--they who accost one in the
+street declaring one is so changed, and doesn't look fit to be
+out,--they who invidiously inquire if you take any solid food, as if one
+walked the world on water-gruel,--they who come to try to make you
+comfortable while you _do_ live. All these are very kind, but to a
+sanguine person they are crushing.
+
+We are all aware that there is no surer way to produce a given state of
+mind or body, than to constantly address the victim as if he were in
+that state. It is a familiar fact that a stout yeoman once went home
+pale and discomfited from a little conspiracy of several wags remarking
+how very ill he looked; and that another, who was blindfolded, having
+water poured over his arm as if being bled, finally died from loss of
+blood without losing a drop; and Sir Humphrey Davy mentions one wishing
+to take nitrous oxide gas, to whom common atmospheric air was given,
+with the result of syncope. And if the well can be thus wrought on, what
+can be expected of the weak? This habit of depressing remark comes
+possibly from the feeling that invalids like to magnify their woes,
+ailments being regarded as their "sensation," or stock in trade. True,
+there is now and then one made happier by hearing that he seems
+exceedingly miserable; but it is more natural to brighten with pleasant
+words, and a morning compliment of good looks will often set one up for
+the day. Indeed, we fancy that most persons, knowing their disease, in
+their own minds, prefer that it should chiefly rest there. To discuss
+seems only to define it more sharply, and to be greatly condoled is only
+debilitating. Montaigne, to avoid death-bed sympathies, desired to die
+on horseback; while against the eternal repeating of these ills for
+pity, he says that "the man who makes himself dead when living is likely
+to be held as though alive when he is dying."
+
+Likewise the friendliness which keeps reminding one of the fatal end
+serves none. It is both impolitic and impolite; as if there were an
+unsightly mole upon the face, and every visitor remarked, as he entered,
+"Ah, I see you still have that ugly mole!" With all these comforters it
+is finally better to do without their devotions than to be subjected to
+their discouragements. How much Pope resented this rude style of
+criticism may be seen from his tart exclamation, "They all say 't is
+pity I am so sickly, and I think 't is pity they are so healthy."
+
+Yet that incurable sufferer, Harriet Martineau, testifies that when a
+friend said to her, with the face of an angel, "Why should we be bent
+upon your being better, and make up a bright prospect for you? I see no
+brightness in it; and the time seems past for expecting you ever to be
+well,"--her spirits rose at once with the sturdy recognition of the
+truth. And Dr. Henry, with the same directness, wrote to his friend,
+"Come out to me next week; I have got something important to do,--I have
+got to die."
+
+This must surely be called the heroic treatment; but for those who are
+not equal to such, it is good to have a physician of tact, who shall not
+doom them regularly every day. Plato said that physicians were the only
+men who might lie at pleasure, since our health depends upon the vanity
+and falsity of their promises. And yet one is not usually deceived by
+this flattery; but it is vastly more comfortable to hear pleasant things
+instead of gloomy, and the sick would rather prefer a dance to a dirge.
+Of this amiable sort must have been the attendant who caused Pope to
+say, "Ah, my dear friend, I am dying every day of a hundred good
+symptoms"; and still more charming the adviser chosen by Molière, who,
+when asked by Louis XIV., himself a slave to medicine, what he did about
+a doctor, said, "O sire, when I am ill, I send for him. He comes; we
+have a chat and enjoy ourselves. He prescribes; I don't take it,--I am
+cured."
+
+Perhaps few are aware of the various heroisms of the chronic patient. It
+must have been prophetic that the Mexicans of olden time thus saluted
+their new-born babes: "Child, thou art come into the world to endure,
+suffer, and say nothing." It is grand to be upborne by a spirit
+unperturbed, although flesh and nerve may strike through the best soul
+for a moment; even as the great and equable Longinus, on his way to
+execution, is said to have turned pale and halted for an instant; while
+we all know, that, after the Stuart rebellion, the rough old Duke
+Balmoral, a lesser man, never faltered, but, with boisterous courage,
+cried out for the fatal axe to be carried by his side.
+
+We had been used to think Andrew Jackson an iron-built conqueror, who
+never knew a pain, until Parton told of the violent cramp which would
+seize him while marching at the head of his army, when he simply threw
+himself over a bent sapling in the forest till the spasm subsided, and
+marched on. The same endurance nerved him to the end. For many of his
+last years not free for one hour from pain, he still sat at the White
+House, never intermitting any duty, although the mere signing of his
+name drew its witness of suffering from every pore. It is with sorrow,
+too, that we have lately read that the beloved Florence Nightingale has
+been held by disease, not only to her room, but to a single position in
+it, for a whole year. And one of our own poets, even dearer to his
+friends for the sainthood of suffering, still ever is pressing on with
+tuneful courage. Hear him singing,
+
+    "Who hath not learned in hours of faith
+    The truth, to flesh and sense unknown,
+    That Life is ever lord of Death,
+    And Love can never lose its own?"
+
+Named among the valiant, yet more sad than heroic, was poor Heine on his
+"mattress-grave." Most pathetically did he lay himself down, this
+"soldier in the war for the liberation of humanity." Of the last time
+that Heine left the house before yielding to disease, he says: "With
+difficulty I dragged myself to the Louvre, and almost sank down as I
+entered the magnificent hall where the ever-blessed goddess of beauty,
+our beloved Lady of Milo, stands on her pedestal. At her feet I lay
+long, and wept so bitterly that a stone must have pitied me. The goddess
+looked compassionately on me, but at the same time disconsolately, as if
+she would say, 'Dost thou not see that I have no arms, and thus cannot
+help thee?'"
+
+Not less touching was the pathos of Tom Hood, in his long years of
+consumption; but the tone was gayer than the gayest. See him write to a
+friend: "My dear Johnny, aren't you glad to hear now that I've only been
+ill and spitting blood three times since I left you, instead of being
+very dead indeed?" To this he adds: "But wasn't I in luck, after
+spitting blood and being bled, to catch the rheumatism in going down
+stairs!"
+
+One long struggle was his against prostration and over-work; but always
+the same buoyant wit,--writing the cheeriest things with an ebbing life;
+the hero fighting against fatal odds, but always under a light
+mask,--and ridiculing himself most of all;--
+
+    "I'm sick of gruel and the dietetics;
+    I'm sick of pills and sicker of emetics;
+    I'm sick of pulse's tardiness or quickness;
+    I'm sick of blood, its thinness or its thickness;
+    In short, within a word, I'm sick of sickness."
+
+And others there be, not heroes, who yet have simulated heroism in their
+blithe indifference to fate;--Lord Buckhurst, who is said to have
+"stuttered more wit in dying than most people have in their best
+health"; Wycherley, who took a young bride just before death, and was
+"neither afraid of dying nor ashamed of marrying"; Chesterfield, who in
+his last days, when going out for a London drive, used smilingly to say,
+"I must go and rehearse my funeral"; Pope, who was the victim of
+incessant disease, which yet never subdued his rhetoric; Scarron, a
+paralytic and a monstrosity, the merriest man in France, for whom the
+nation never gave any tears but those of laughter;--all these, down to
+the easy-minded old Dr. Garth, who died simply because he was tired of
+life,--"tired of having his shoes pulled on and off."
+
+Strong persons go swinging securely up and down; they are the people of
+affairs, their nerves are not shaken by anything less than cholera
+reports; saving these, they should belong to the Great Unterrified of
+the earth. To them it is hardly given to understand those minute
+annoyances that beset nerves which are in an abnormal state, especially
+when one is the prisoner of a single room. Then one is eternally busy
+with the dust and small disorders around,--the film on the mirror, the
+lint-drifts under the stove, the huge cobwebs flying from the corners,
+the knickknacks awry on the mantel-piece; then one finds the wall-paper
+is not hung true, and gazes at flaws in the ceiling till they grow into
+dancing-jacks, and hears the doors that slam, like the shock of a
+cannon. These are torments so minute that there seems no virtue even in
+bearing them. Ah! to mount to execution for an idea,--that were glorious
+and sustaining; but to endure the daily burden of these petty
+tortures,--one never hears the music play then.
+
+Among the articles to be desired of science is a false hand, or a
+spectral arm, that shall reach miraculously about,--not a fruit-picker
+or a carpet-sweeper, but something working with the fineness of an
+elephant's trunk,--thus to end the discomfort of those orange-seeds
+spilled on the far side of the room, while, lying inactive, one reaches,
+reaches, with a patient power which, if transformed into the practical,
+would push an army through Austria.
+
+Another thing that the invalid has to endure is from the thoughtlessness
+of visitors. How often, when summoned from the sick-room for any
+purpose, do they briskly remark, in Tom Thumb style, "I'll be back in a
+very few minutes!" Hence one lies awake by force, keeping several
+errands to be despatched on the return, changing variously all the
+little plans for the next hour or two, and waits. My experience
+generally is that they have not come back yet.
+
+But the commonest experience is when life itself seems to hang on the
+arrival of the doctor. Indeed, it is safe to say that never have lovers
+been so waited for as the doctor. Wasn't that his carriage at the door?
+Medicine is out! new symptoms appear! it is only an hour to bedtime!
+and, oh! will the doctor come, do you think? One listens more intently;
+but now there are no carriages. There are express-wagons, late
+ice-carts, out-of-town stages, or here and there a light rolling buggy,
+that seems running on to the end of the world. There are but few
+foot-passengers either, and they all go by without halting, and there is
+no indication in the steps of any man of them that he would be the
+doctor if he could. Thus one wears through the night uncomforted, yet
+one does not usually die. I have also seen the doctors sitting in their
+offices expectant, and probably quite as much distressed that everyone
+went by without stopping. So the balances are kept.
+
+The foregoing grievances are often put among the foolish humors of
+invalids, but they are quite reasonable compared with many of the droll
+fancies on record. Take the instance of the elderly man who had been
+dying suddenly for twenty years; whose last moments would probably
+amount to a calendar month, and his farewell words to an octavo volume.
+His physician he pronounced a clever man, but added, pitifully, "I only
+wish he would agree to my going suddenly; I should not die a bit sooner
+for his giving me over." It is evident the physician had not the
+shrewdest insight, or he would have granted this heady maniac his way.
+"Ah!" would exclaim the constantly departing patient, "all one's
+nourishment goes for nothing if once sudden death has got insidiously
+into the system!" More famous were Johnson with his inevitable dried
+orange-peel, and Byron with his salts. Goethe, too, after renouncing his
+Lotte, coquetted with the idea of death, every night placing a very
+handsome dagger by his bed and making sundry attempts to push the point
+a couple of inches into his breast. Not being able to do this
+comfortably, he concluded to live. Years after, when he sat assured on
+his grand poet throne, he must have smiled at it, as with Karl August he
+"talked of lovely things that conquer death." And still more refined and
+genuine was the vapor of the imaginative young girl who died of love for
+the Apollo Belvedere.
+
+Yet it is but fair to mention that the laugh is not all on this side. It
+is an historical fact that the public has its medical freaks, without
+being called an invalid, and that whole nations "go daft" on the
+shallowest impositions. At one time the English were made to believe
+that all diseases were caused by the contraction of one small muscle of
+the body; at another, Parliament itself helped make up the five thousand
+pounds given by the aristocracy to one Joanna Stephens for an omnipotent
+powder, decoction, and pills, composed chiefly of egg-shells and
+snail-shells; at another time every one drank snail-water for
+everything, or to prevent it, and then tar-water became the rage. In
+Paris the Royal Academy once procured the prohibition of the sale of
+antimony, on penalty of death, and in a year or two prescribed it as the
+great panacea. Pliny reports that the Arcadians cured all manner of ills
+with the milk of a cow (one would like to see them manage the bilious
+colic).
+
+Mesmer, who was luminous for a while, did not fail to dupe the people.
+When asked why he ordered bathing in river instead of spring water, he
+said, "Because it is warmed by the sun."
+
+"True, yet not so much but it has to be warmed still more."
+
+Not posed in the least, Mesmer replied, "The reason why the water which
+is exposed to the rays of the sun is superior to all other water is
+because it is magnetized. I myself magnetized the sun some twenty years
+ago!"
+
+Yet the name of Mesmer has founded a system, while that of Dumoulin,
+who, with simple wisdom, observed, on dying, that he left behind him two
+great physicians, Regimen and River-water, has gained but a scanty fame.
+
+Says Boswell, "At least be well if you are not ill"; but the dear public
+is always ill. In our own country, with an apparently healthy pulse, it
+has drank the worth of a marble palace in sarsaparilla, and has built a
+hotel out of Brandreth's pills. It has fairly reeled on Schiedam
+Schnapps; and even the infant has his little popularities, having passed
+from catnip and caraway to Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup. There is never
+a time when the public will not declare upon any well-advertised remedy
+its belief in the motto of the German doctors, "We do cure everything
+but death."
+
+It is often interesting to note the various phases which invalidism
+takes on. Sometimes one seems folded in a dense dream,--has gone away
+almost beyond one's own pity, and has not been heard from for months. It
+is to be hoped that friends who hunt "the greyhound and turtle-dove"
+will meet the missing, and duly report. Meantime one resides in a
+mummified state,--a dim thinkingness that may be discovered when another
+coming in says with vigor the thing one had long thought without quite
+knowing it; in this demi-semi-consciousness it had never pecked through
+the shell. This looks very imbecile, and is charitably treated to be
+only called invalid.
+
+Is it mere helplessness that one lies so remote from all but surface
+sensation, day after day gazing at the address of letters that come,
+with a passive wonder of how soon she is to vacate her name? Also a
+friend calls to say that to-morrow he travels afar. It seems then that
+he will be too much missed, and the parting has its share of unutterable
+longing. But by the morrow it is not the one left who is sorry. The new
+sun shines on an earth miles off from yesterday. The night has given
+many windings more in the folds of this resigned mummy, that now lies
+securely as an insect in a leaf. Given the beloved hand, and all things
+may go as they will.
+
+    "Our hands in one, we will not shrink
+      From life's severest due;
+    Our hands in one, we will not blink
+      The terrible and true."
+
+And sometimes one bounds to the other side of sensation,--has a terrible
+rubbed-the-wrong-wayedness, and is as much alive as Mimosa herself. This
+is often on those easterly days which all well-regulated invalids
+shudder at, when the very marrow congeals and the nerves are
+sharp-whetted. Then, Prometheus-like, one "gnaws the heart with
+meditation"; then, too, always fall out various domestic disasters, and
+it is not easy to see why the curtain-string should be tied in a hard
+knot that must be cut at night, or why the servants can't be thorough,
+deft-handed, and immaculate. One has indigestion, scowls fiercely, tries
+to swallow large lumps of inamiability, and fears she is not sublime.
+
+It is a saying of Jean Paul, that "the most painful part of corporeal
+pain is the uncorporeal, namely, our impatience and disappointment that
+it continues." Whether this be true or not, what with the worry and
+constant pressure, these physical disabilities often appear to sink into
+the deepest centre of the being. Hence, if one have had a cough for a
+very long time, it would seem that the soul must keep on coughing in the
+next world. If so, this gives a subtile sense to the despatches of
+departed spiritualists, who telegraph back in a few weeks that their
+pain is _nearly_ gone,--as if the soul were not immediately rid of the
+bad habits of the body.
+
+But most demoralized in æsthetic sense must be that invalid who does not
+constantly look to the splendid robustness of health. Sickness has been
+termed an early old age; far worse, it is often a tossing nightmare in
+which the noble ideal of fairer days is only recalled with reproachful
+pain. Towards this vision of vigor the victim seems to move and move,
+but never draw near. Well might Heine weep, even before the stricken
+Lady of Milo. An old proverb says, that "the gods have health in
+essence, sickness only in intelligence." Blessed are the gods! One can
+quite understand the reckless exulting of some wild character, who,
+baffled with this miserable mendicancy everywhere, at length discovered
+the idea that God was not an invalid. He was probably too much excited
+to perfect his rhyme, and so tore out these ragged lines:--
+
+      "Iterate, iterate,
+    Snatch it from the hells,
+    Circulate and meditate
+      That God is well.
+
+      "Get the singers to sing it,
+    Put it in the mouths of bells,
+    Pay the ringers to ring it,
+      That God is well."
+
+Therefore make a valiant stand against that ugly thing, disease. By all
+Nature's remedies, hasten to be out of it. Fight it off as long as
+possible, defy it when you can, and refuse "to hang up your hat on the
+everlasting peg." Be reinforced in all honorable ways. If not too ill,
+read the dailies; know the last measure of Congress, the price of gold,
+and the news by the foreign steamer. Disabuse the world for once of its
+traditional invalid, who sits mewed up in blankets, and never goes where
+other people go, because it might hurt him. Be out among the activities;
+don't let the world get ahead, but keep along with the life of things.
+Then, if invalidism is to be accepted, meet it bravely and serenely as
+may be; and if death, then approach it loftily, for no one dies with his
+work undone, and no just-minded person can wish to survive his service.
+None should aspire to say, with the antiquated Chesterfield, "Tyrawley
+and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it
+known."
+
+But happy they on whom the deep blight has not fallen, and who day by
+day restore themselves to the grand perfection of manly and womanly
+estate; happy again to "feel one's self alive" and
+
+    "Lord of the senses five";
+
+happy again to "excel in animation and relish of existence"; happy to
+have gathered so much strength and hope, that, when begins the melody of
+the morning birds, again shall the joy of the new dawn, with all the
+possible adventure and enterprise of the coming day, thrill through the
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+"Be seated, mistress, if you please," said Mrs. Gaunt, with icy
+civility, "and let me know to what I owe this extraordinary visit."
+
+"I thank you, dame," said Mercy, "for indeed I am sore fatigued." She
+sat quietly down. "Why I have come to you? It was to serve you, and to
+keep my word with George Neville."
+
+"Will you be kind enough to explain?" said Mrs. Gaunt, in a freezing
+tone, and with a look of her calm gray eye to match.
+
+Mercy felt chilled, and was too frank to disguise it. "Alas!" said she,
+softly, "'t is hard to be received so, and me come all the way from
+Lancashire, with a heart like lead, to do my duty, God willing."
+
+The tears stood in her eyes, and her mellow voice was sweet and patient.
+
+The gentle remonstrance was not quite without effect. Mrs. Gaunt colored
+a little; she said, stiffly: "Excuse me if I seem discourteous, but you
+and I ought not to be in one room a moment. You do not see this,
+apparently. But at least I have a right to insist that such an interview
+shall be very brief, and to the purpose. Oblige me, then, by telling me
+in plain terms why you have come hither."
+
+"Madam, to be your witness at the trial."
+
+"_You_ to be _my_ witness?"
+
+"Why not? If I can clear you? What, would you rather be condemned for
+murder, than let me show them you are innocent? Alas! how you hate me!"
+
+"Hate you, child? of course I hate you. We are both of us flesh and
+blood, and hate one another. And one of us is honest enough, and uncivil
+enough, to say so."
+
+"Speak for yourself, dame," replied Mercy, quietly, "for I hate you not;
+and I thank God for it. To hate is to be miserable. I'd liever be hated
+than to hate."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt looked at her. "Your words are goodly and wise," said she;
+"your face is honest, and your eyes are like a very dove's. But, for all
+that, you hate me quietly, with all your heart. Human nature is human
+nature."
+
+"'T is so. But grace is grace." She was silent a moment, then resumed:
+"I'll not deny I did hate you for a time, when first I learned the man I
+had married had a wife, and you were she. We that be women are too
+unjust to each other, and too indulgent to a man. But I have worn out my
+hate. I wrestled in prayer, and the God of Love, he did quench my most
+unreasonable hate. For 'twas the man betrayed me; _you_ never wronged
+me, nor I you. But you are right, madam; 't is true that nature without
+grace is black as pitch. The Devil, he was busy at my ear, and whispered
+me, 'If the fools in Cumberland hang her, what fault o' thine? Thou wilt
+be his lawful wife, and thy poor, innocent child will be a child of
+shame no more.' But, by God's grace, I did defy him. And I do defy him."
+She rose swiftly from her chair, and her dove's eyes gleamed with
+celestial light. "Get thee behind me, Satan. I tell thee the hangman
+shall never have her innocent body, nor thou my soul."
+
+The movement was so unexpected, the words and the look so simply noble,
+that Mrs. Gaunt rose too, and gazed upon her visitor with astonishment
+and respect; yet still with a dash of doubt.
+
+She thought to herself, "If this creature is not sincere, what a
+mistress of deceit she must be."
+
+But Mercy Vint soon returned to her quiet self. She sat down, and said,
+gravely, and for the first time a little coldly, as one who had deserved
+well, and been received ill: "Mistress Gaunt, you are accused of
+murdering your husband. 'T is false; for two days ago I saw him alive."
+
+"What do you say?" cried Mrs. Gaunt, trembling all over.
+
+"Be brave, madam. You have borne great trouble: do not give way under
+joy. He who has wronged us both--he who wedded you under his own name of
+Griffith Gaunt, and me under the false name of Thomas Leicester--is no
+more dead than we are; I saw him two days ago, and spoke to him, and
+persuaded him to come to Carlisle town, and do you justice."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt fell on her knees. "He is alive; he is alive. Thank God! O,
+thank God! He is alive; and God bless the tongue that tells me so. God
+bless you eternally, Mercy Vint."
+
+The tears of joy streamed down her face, and then Mercy's flowed too.
+She uttered a little pathetic cry of joy. "Ah," she sobbed, "the bit of
+comfort I needed so has come to my heavy heart. _She_ has blessed me."
+
+But she said this very softly, and Mrs. Gaunt was in a rapture, and did
+not hear her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Is it a dream? My husband alive? and you the one to come and tell me
+so? How unjust I have been to you. Forgive me. Why does he not come
+himself?"
+
+Mercy colored at this question, and hesitated.
+
+"Well, dame," said she, "for one thing, he has been on the fuddle for
+the last two months."
+
+"On the fuddle?"
+
+"Ay; he owns he has never been sober a whole day. And that takes the
+heart out of a man, as well as the brains. And then he has got it into
+his head that you will never forgive him, and that he shall be cast in
+prison if he shows his face in Cumberland."
+
+"Why in Cumberland more than in Lancashire?" asked Mrs. Gaunt, biting
+her lip.
+
+Mercy blushed faintly. She replied with some delicacy, but did not
+altogether mince the matter.
+
+"He knows I shall never punish him for what he has done to me."
+
+"Why not? I begin to think he has wronged you almost as much as he has
+me."
+
+"Worse, madam; worse. He has robbed me of my good name. You are still
+his lawful wife, and none can point the finger at you. But look at me. I
+was an honest girl, respected by all the parish. What has he made of me?
+The man that lay a dying in my house, and I saved his life, and so my
+heart did warm to him,--he blasphemed God's altar, to deceive and betray
+me; and here I am, a poor forlorn creature, neither maid, wife, nor
+widow; with a child on my arms that I do nothing but cry over. Ay, my
+poor innocent, I left thee down below, because I was ashamed she should
+see thee; ah me! ah me!" She lifted up her voice, and wept.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt looked at her wistfully, and, like Mercy before her, had a
+bitter struggle with human nature,--a struggle so sharp that, in the
+midst of it, she burst out crying with great violence; but, with that
+burst, her great soul conquered.
+
+She darted out of the room, leaving Mercy astonished at her abrupt
+departure.
+
+Mercy was patiently drying her eyes, when the door opened, and judge her
+surprise when she saw Mrs. Gaunt glide into the room with her little boy
+asleep in her arms, and an expression upon her face more sublime than
+anything Mercy Vint had ever yet seen on earth. She kissed the babe
+softly, and, becoming infantine as well as angelic by this contact, sat
+herself down in a moment on the floor with him, and held out her hand to
+Mercy. "There," said she, "come, sit beside us, and see how I hate
+him,--no more than you do; sweet innocent."
+
+They looked him all over, discussed his every feature learnedly, kissed
+his limbs and extremities after the manner of their sex, and,
+comprehending at last that to have been both of them wronged by one man
+was a bond of sympathy, not hate, the two wives of Griffith Gaunt laid
+his child across their two laps, and wept over him together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mercy Vint took herself to task. "I am but a selfish woman," said she,
+"to talk or think of anything but that I came here for." She then
+proceeded to show Mrs. Gaunt by what means she proposed to secure her
+acquittal, without getting Griffith Gaunt into trouble.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt listened with keen and grateful attention, until she came to
+that part; then she interrupted her eagerly. "Don't spare him for me. In
+your place I'd trounce the villain finely."
+
+"Ay," said Mercy, "and then forgive him; but I am different. I shall
+never forgive him; but I am a poor hand at punishing and revenging. I
+always was. My name is Mercy, you know. To tell the truth, I was to have
+been called Prudence, after my good aunt; but she said, nay; she had
+lived to hear Greed, and Selfishness, and a heap of faults, named
+Prudence. 'Call the child something that means what it does mean, and
+not after me,' quoth she. So with me hearing 'Mercy, Mercy,' called out
+after me so many years, I do think the quality hath somehow got under my
+skin; for I cannot abide to see folk smart, let alone to strike the
+blow. What, shall I take the place of God, and punish the evil-doers,
+because 't is me they wrong? Nay, dame, I will never punish him, though
+he hath wronged me cruelly. All I shall do is to think very ill of him,
+and shun him, and tear his memory out of my heart. You look at me: do
+you think I cannot? You don't know me; I am very resolute when I see
+clear. Of course I loved him,--loved him dearly. He was like a husband
+to me, and a kind one. But the moment I knew how basely he had deceived
+us both, my heart began to turn against the man, and now 't is ice to
+him. Heaven knows what I am made of; for, believe me, I'd liever ten
+times be beside you than beside him. My heart it lay like a lump of lead
+till I heard your story, and found I could do you a good turn,--you that
+he had wronged, as well as me. I read your beautiful eyes; but nay, fear
+me not; I'm not the woman to pine for the fruit that is my neighbor's.
+All I ask for on earth is a few kind words and looks from you. You are
+gentle, and I am simple; but we are both one flesh and blood, and your
+lovely wet eyes do prove it this moment. Dame Gaunt--Kate--I ne'er was
+ten miles from home afore, and I am come all this weary way to serve
+thee. O, give me the one thing that can do me good in this world,--the
+one thing I pine for,--a little of _your_ love."
+
+The words were scarce out of her lips, when Mrs. Gaunt caught her
+impetuously round the neck with both hands, and laid her on that erring
+but noble heart of hers, and kissed her eagerly.
+
+They kissed one another again and again, and wept over one another.
+
+And now Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, could not make enough of
+Mercy Vint. She ordered supper, and ate with her, to make her eat. Mrs.
+Menteith offered Mercy a bed; but Mrs. Gaunt said she must lie with her,
+she and her child.
+
+"What," said she, "think you I'll let you out of my sight? Alas! who
+knows when you and I shall ever be together again?"
+
+"I know," said Mercy, thoughtfully. "In this world, never."
+
+They slept in one bed, and held each other by the hand all night, and
+talked to one another, and in the morning knew each the other's story,
+and each the other's mind and character, better than their oldest
+acquaintances knew either the one or the other.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+The trial began again; and the court was crowded to suffocation. All
+eyes were bent on the prisoner. She rose, calm and quiet, and begged
+leave to say a few words to the court.
+
+Mr. Whitworth objected to that. She had concluded her address yesterday,
+and called a witness.
+
+_Prisoner._ But I have not examined a witness yet.
+
+_Judge._ You come somewhat out of time, madam; but, if you will be
+brief, we will hear you.
+
+_Prisoner._ I thank you, my lord. It was only to withdraw an error. The
+cry for help that was heard by the side of Hernshaw Mere, I said,
+yesterday, that cry was uttered by Thomas Leicester. Well, I find I was
+mistaken: the cry for help was uttered by my husband,--by that Griffith
+Gaunt I am accused of assassinating.
+
+This extraordinary admission caused a great sensation in court. The
+judge looked very grave and sad; and Sergeant Wiltshire, who came into
+court just then, whispered his junior, "She has put the rope round her
+own neck. The jury would never have believed our witness."
+
+_Prisoner._ I will only add, that a person came into the town last
+night, who knows a great deal more about this mysterious business than I
+do. I purpose, therefore, to alter the plan of my defence; and to save
+your time, my lord, who have dealt so courteously with me, I shall call
+but a single witness.
+
+Ere the astonishment caused by this sudden collapse of the defence was
+in any degree abated, she called "Mercy Vint."
+
+There was the usual stir and struggle; and then the calm, self-possessed
+face and figure of a comely young woman confronted the court. She was
+sworn; and examined by the prisoner after this fashion.
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"At the 'Packhorse,' near Allerton, in Lancashire."
+
+_Prisoner._ Do you know Mr. Griffith Gaunt?
+
+_Mercy._ Madam, I do.
+
+_Prisoner._ Was he at your place in October last?
+
+_Mercy._ Yes, madam, on the thirteenth of October. On that day he left
+for Cumberland.
+
+_Prisoner._ On foot, or on horseback?
+
+_Mercy._ On horseback.
+
+_Prisoner._ With boots on, or shoes?
+
+_Mercy._ He had a pair of new boots on.
+
+_Prisoner._ Do you know Thomas Leicester?
+
+_Mercy._ A pedler called at our house on the eleventh of October, and he
+said his name was Thomas Leicester.
+
+_Prisoner._ How was he shod?
+
+_Mercy._ In hobnailed shoes.
+
+_Prisoner._ Which way went he on leaving you?
+
+_Mercy._ Madam, he went northwards; I know no more for certain.
+
+_Prisoner._ When did you see Mr. Gaunt last?
+
+_Mercy._ Four days ago.
+
+_Judge._ What is that? You saw him alive four days ago?
+
+_Mercy._ Ay, my lord; the last Wednesday that ever was.
+
+At this the people burst out into a loud, agitated murmur, and their
+heads went to and fro all the time. In vain the crier cried and
+threatened. The noise rose and surged, and took its course. It went down
+gradually, as amazement gave way to curiosity; and then there was a
+remarkable silence; and then the silvery voice of the prisoner, and the
+mellow tones of the witness, appeared to penetrate the very walls of the
+building, each syllable of those two beautiful speakers was heard so
+distinctly.
+
+_Prisoner._ Be so good as to tell the court what passed on Wednesday
+last between Griffith Gaunt and you, relative to this charge of murder.
+
+_Mercy._ I let him know one George Neville had come from Cumberland in
+search of him, and had told me you lay in Carlisle jail charged with his
+murder. I did urge him to ride at once to Carlisle, and show himself;
+but he refused. He made light of the matter. Then I told him not so; the
+circumstances looked ugly, and your life was in peril. Then he said,
+nay, 'twas in no peril; for if you were to be found guilty, then he
+would show himself on the instant. Then I told him he was not worthy the
+name of a man, and if he would not go, I would. "Go you, by all means,"
+said he, "and I'll give you a writing that will clear her. Jack
+Houseman will be there, that knows my hand; and so does the sheriff, and
+half the grand jury at the least."
+
+_Prisoner._ Have you that writing?
+
+_Mercy._ To be sure I have. Here 't is.
+
+_Prisoner._ Be pleased to read it.
+
+_Judge._ Stay a minute. Shall you prove it to be his handwriting?
+
+_Prisoner._ Ay, my lord, by as many as you please.
+
+_Judge._ Then let that stand over for the present. Let me see it.
+
+It was handed up to him; and he showed it to the sheriff, who said he
+thought it was Griffith Gaunt's writing.
+
+The paper was then read out to the jury. It ran as follows:--
+
+     "Know all men, that I, Griffith Gaunt, Esq., of Bolton Hall
+     and Hernshaw Castle, in the county of Cumberland, am alive
+     and well; and the matter which has so puzzled the good folk
+     in Cumberland befell as follows:--I left Hernshaw Castle in
+     the dead of night upon the fifteenth of October. Why, is no
+     man's business but mine. I found the stable locked; so I
+     left my horse, and went on foot. I crossed Hernshaw Mere by
+     the bridge, and had got about a hundred yards, as I suppose,
+     on the way, when I heard some one fall with a great splash
+     into the mere, and soon after cry dolefully for help. I,
+     that am no swimmer, ran instantly to the north side to a
+     clump of trees, where a boat used always to be kept. But the
+     boat was not there. Then I cried lustily for help, and, as
+     no one came, I fired my pistol and cried murder! For I had
+     heard men will come sooner to that cry than to any other.
+     But in truth I was almost out of my wits, that a
+     fellow-creature should perish miserably so near me. Whilst I
+     ran wildly to and fro, some came out of the Castle bearing
+     torches. By this time I was at the bridge, but saw no signs
+     of the drowning man; yet the night was clear. Then I knew
+     that his fate was sealed; and, for reasons of my own, not
+     choosing to be seen by those who were coming to his aid, I
+     hastened from the place. My happiness being gone, and my
+     conscience smiting me sore, and not knowing whither to turn,
+     I took to drink, and fell into bad ways, and lived like a
+     brute, and not a man, for six weeks or more; so that I never
+     knew of the good fortune that had fallen on me when least I
+     deserved it: I mean by old Mr. Gaunt of Coggleswade making
+     of me his heir. But one day at Kendal I saw Mercy Vint's
+     advertisement; and I went to her, and learned that my wife
+     lay in Carlisle jail for my supposed murder. But I say that
+     she is innocent, and nowise to blame in this matter: for I
+     deserved every hard word she ever gave me; and as for
+     killing, she is a spirited woman with her tongue, but hath
+     not the heart to kill a fly. She is what she always
+     was,--the pearl of womankind; a virtuous, innocent, and
+     noble lady. I have lost the treasure of her love by my
+     fault, not hers; but at least I have a right to defend her
+     life and honor. Whoever molests her after this, out of
+     pretended regard for me, is a liar, and a fool, and no
+     friend of mine, but my enemy, and I his--to the death.
+
+    "GRIFFITH GAUNT."
+
+It was a day of surprises. This tribute from the murdered man to his
+assassin was one of them. People looked in one another's faces
+open-eyed.
+
+The prisoner looked in the judge's, and acted on what she saw there.
+"That is my defence," said she, quietly, and sat down.
+
+If a show of hands had been called at that moment, she would have been
+acquitted by acclamation.
+
+But Mr. Whitworth was a zealous young barrister, burning for
+distinction. He stuck to his case, and cross-examined Mercy Vint with
+severity; indeed, with asperity.
+
+_Whitworth._ What are you to receive for this evidence?
+
+_Mercy._ Anan.
+
+_Whitworth._ O, you know what I mean. Are you not to be paid for
+telling us this romance?
+
+_Mercy._ Nay, sir, I ask naught for telling the truth.
+
+_Whitworth._ You were in the prisoner's company yesterday?
+
+_Mercy._ Yes, sir, I visited her in the jail last night.
+
+_Whitworth._ And there concerted this ingenious defence?
+
+_Mercy._ Well, sir, for that matter, I told her that her man was alive,
+and I did offer to be her witness.
+
+_Whitworth._ For naught?
+
+_Mercy._ For no money or reward, if 't is that you mean. Why, 't is a
+joy beyond money to clear an innocent body, and save her life; and that
+satisfaction is mine this day.
+
+_Whitworth_ (sarcastically). These are very fine sentiments for a person
+in your condition. Confess that Mrs. Gaunt primed you with all that.
+
+_Mercy._ Nay, sir, I left home in that mind; else I had not come at all.
+Bethink you; 't is a long journey for one in my way of life; and this
+dear child on my arm all the way.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt sat boiling with indignation. But Mercy's good temper and
+meekness parried the attack that time. Mr. Whitworth changed his line.
+
+_Whitworth._ You ask the jury to believe that Griffith Gaunt, Esquire, a
+gentleman, and a man of spirit and honor, is alive, yet skulks and sends
+you hither, when by showing his face in this court he could clear his
+wife without a single word spoken?
+
+_Mercy._ Yes, sir; I do hope to be believed, for I speak the naked
+truth. But, with due respect to you, Mr. Gaunt did not send me hither
+against my will. I could not bide in Lancashire, and let an innocent
+woman be murdered in Cumberland.
+
+_Whitworth._ Murdered, quotha. That is a good jest. I'd have you to know
+we punish murders here, not do them.
+
+_Mercy._ I am glad to hear that, sir, on the lady's account.
+
+_Whitworth._ Come, come. You pretend you discovered this Griffith Gaunt
+alive, by means of an advertisement. If so, produce the advertisement.
+
+Mercy Vint colored, and cast a swift, uneasy glance at Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+Rapid as it was, the keen eye of the counsel caught it.
+
+"Nay, do not look to the culprit for orders," said he. "Produce it, or
+confess the truth. Come, you never advertised for him."
+
+"Sir, I did advertise for him."
+
+"Then produce the advertisement."
+
+"Sir, I will not," said Mercy, calmly.
+
+"Then I shall move the court to commit you."
+
+"For what offence, if you please?"
+
+"For perjury and contempt of court."
+
+"I am guiltless of either, God knows. But I will not show the
+advertisement."
+
+_Judge._ This is very extraordinary. Perhaps you have it not about you.
+
+_Mercy._ My lord, the truth is I have it in my bosom. But, if I show it,
+it will not make this matter one whit clearer, and 't will open the
+wounds of two poor women. 'T is not for myself. But, O my lord, look at
+her. Hath she not gone through grief enow?
+
+The appeal was made with a quiet, touching earnestness, that affected
+every hearer. But the judge had a duty to perform. "Witness," said he,
+"you mean well; but indeed you do the prisoner an injury by withholding
+this paper. Be good enough to produce it at once."
+
+_Prisoner_ (with a deep sigh). Obey my lord.
+
+_Mercy_ (with a patient sigh). There, sir, may the Lord forgive you the
+useless mischief you are doing.
+
+_Whitworth._ I am doing my duty, young woman. And yours is to tell the
+whole truth, and not a part only.
+
+_Mercy_ (acquiescing). That is true, sir.
+
+_Whitworth._ Why, what is this? 'T is not Mr. Gaunt you advertise for in
+these papers. 'T is Thomas Leicester.
+
+_Judge._ What is that? I don't understand.
+
+_Whitworth._ Nor I neither.
+
+_Judge._ Let me see the papers. 'T is Thomas Leicester sure enough.
+
+_Whitworth._ And you mean to swear that Griffith Gaunt answered an
+advertisement inviting Thomas Leicester?
+
+_Mercy._ I do. Thomas Leicester was the name he went by in our part.
+
+_Whitworth._ What? what? You are jesting.
+
+_Mercy._ Is this a place or a time for jesting? I say he called himself
+Thomas Leicester.
+
+Here the business was interrupted again by a multitudinous murmur of
+excited voices. Everybody was whispering astonishment to his neighbor.
+And the whisper of a great crowd has the effect of a loud murmur.
+
+_Whitworth._ O, he called himself Thomas Leicester, did he? Then what
+makes you think he is Griffith Gaunt?
+
+_Mercy._ Well, sir, the pedler, whose real name was Thomas Leicester,
+came to our house one day, and saw his picture, and knew it; and said
+something to a neighbor that raised my suspicions. When _he_ came home,
+I took this shirt out of a drawer; 't was the shirt he wore when he
+first came to us. 'T is marked "G. G." (The shirt was examined.) Said I,
+"For God's sake speak the truth: what does G. G. stand for?" Then he
+told me his real name was Griffith Gaunt, and he had a wife in
+Cumberland. "Go back to her," said I, "and ask her to forgive you." Then
+he rode north, and I never saw him again till last Wednesday.
+
+_Whitworth_ (satirically). You seem to have been mighty intimate with
+this Thomas Leicester, whom you now call Griffith Gaunt. May I ask what
+was, or is, the nature of your connection with him?
+
+Mercy was silent.
+
+_Whitworth._ I must press for a reply, that we may know what value to
+attach to your most extraordinary evidence. Were you his wife,--or his
+mistress?
+
+_Mercy._ Indeed, I hardly know; but not his mistress, or I should not be
+here.
+
+_Whitworth._ You don't know whether you were married to the man or not?
+
+_Mercy._ I do not say so. But--
+
+She hesitated, and cast a piteous look at Mrs. Gaunt, who sat boiling
+with indignation.
+
+At this look, the prisoner, who had long contained herself with
+difficulty, rose, with scarlet cheeks and flashing eyes, in defence of
+her witness, and flung her prudence to the wind.
+
+"Fie, sir," she cried. "The woman you insult is as pure as your own
+mother, or mine. She deserves the pity, the respect, the veneration of
+all good men. Know, my lord, that my miserable husband deceived and
+married her under the false name he had taken. She has the
+marriage-certificate in her bosom. Pray make her show it, whether she
+will or not. My lord, this Mercy Vint is more an angel than a woman. I
+am her rival, after a manner. Yet, out of the goodness and greatness of
+her noble heart, she came all that way to save me from an unjust death.
+And is such a woman to be insulted? I blush for the hired advocate who
+cannot see his superior in an incorruptible witness, a creature all
+truth, piety, purity, unselfishness, and goodness. Yes, sir, you began
+by insinuating that she was as venal as yourself; for you are one that
+can be bought by the first-comer; and now you would cast a slur on her
+chastity. For shame! for shame! This is one of those rare women that
+adorn our whole sex, and embellish human nature; and, so long as you
+have the privilege of exchanging words with her, I shall stand here on
+the watch, to see that you treat her with due respect: ay, sir, with
+reverence; for I have measured you both, and she is as much your
+superior as she is mine."
+
+This amazing burst was delivered with such prodigious fire and rapidity
+that nobody was self-possessed enough to stop it in time. It was like a
+furious gust of words sweeping over the court.
+
+Mr. Whitworth, pale with anger, merely said: "Madam, the good taste of
+these remarks I leave the court to decide upon. But you cannot be
+allowed to give evidence in your own defence."
+
+"No, but in hers I will," said Mrs. Gaunt. "No power shall hinder me."
+
+_Judge_ (coldly). Had you not better go on cross-examining the witness?
+
+_Whitworth._ Let me see your marriage-certificate, if you have one?
+
+It was handed to him.
+
+Well, now how do you know that this Thomas Leicester was Griffith Gaunt?
+
+_Judge._ Why, she has told you he confessed it to her.
+
+_Mercy._ Yes, my lord; and, besides, he wrote me two letters signed
+Thomas Leicester. Here they are, and I desire they may be compared with
+the paper he wrote last Wednesday, and signed Griffith Gaunt. And more
+than that, whilst we lived together as man and wife, one Hamilton, a
+travelling painter, took our portraits, his and mine. I have brought his
+with me. Let his friends and neighbors look on this portrait, and say
+whose likeness it is. What I say and swear is, that on Wednesday last I
+saw and spoke with that Thomas Leicester, or Griffith Gaunt, whose
+likeness I now show you.
+
+With that she lifted the portrait up, and showed it all the court.
+
+Instantly there was a roar of recognition.
+
+It was one of those hard daubs that are nevertheless so monstrously like
+the originals.
+
+_Judge_ (to Mr. Whitworth). Young gentleman, we are all greatly obliged
+to you. You have made the prisoner's case. There was but one weak point
+in it; I mean the prolonged absence of Griffith Gaunt. You have now
+accounted for that. You have forced a very truthful witness to depose
+that this Gaunt is himself a criminal, and is hiding from fear of the
+law. The case for the crown is a mere tissue of conjectures, on which no
+jury could safely convict, even if there was no defence at all. Under
+other circumstances I might decline to receive evidence at second-hand
+that Griffith Gaunt is alive. But here such evidence is sufficient, for
+it lies on the crown to prove the man dead; but you have only proved
+that he was alive on the fifteenth of October, and that since then
+somebody is dead with shoes on. This somebody appears on the balance of
+proof to be Thomas Leicester, the pedler; and he has never been heard of
+since, and Griffith Gaunt has. Then I say you cannot carry the case
+further. You have not a leg to stand on. What say you, Brother
+Wiltshire?
+
+_Wiltshire._ My lord, I think there is no case against the prisoner, and
+am thankful to your lordship for relieving me of a very unpleasant task.
+
+The question of guilty or not guilty was then put to the jury, who
+instantly brought the prisoner in not guilty.
+
+_Judge._ Catharine Gaunt, you leave this court without a stain, and with
+our sincere respect and sympathy. I much regret the fear and pain you
+have been put to: you have been terribly punished for a hasty word.
+Profit now by this bitter lesson; and may Heaven enable you to add a
+well-governed spirit to your many virtues and graces.
+
+He half rose from his seat, and bowed courteously to her. She courtesied
+reverently, and retired.
+
+He then said a few words to Mercy Vint.
+
+"Young woman, I have no words to praise you as you deserve. You have
+shown us the beauty of the female character, and, let me add, the beauty
+of the Christian religion. You have come a long way to clear the
+innocent. I hope you will not stop there; but also punish the guilty
+person, on whom we have wasted so much pity."
+
+"Me, my lord?" said Mercy. "I would not harm a hair of his head for as
+many guineas as there be hairs in mine."
+
+"Child," said my lord, "thou art too good for this world; but go thy
+ways, and God bless thee."
+
+Thus abruptly ended a trial that, at first, had looked so formidable for
+the accused.
+
+The judge now retired for some refreshment, and while he was gone Sir
+George Neville dashed up to the Town Hall, four in hand, and rushed in
+by the magistrate's door, with a pedler's pack, which he had discovered
+in the mere, a few yards from the spot where the mutilated body was
+found.
+
+He learned the prisoner was already acquitted. He left the pack with the
+sheriff, and begged him to show it to the judge; and went in search of
+Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+He found her in the jailer's house. She and Mercy Vint were seated hand
+in hand.
+
+He started at first sight of the latter. Then there was a universal
+shaking of hands, and glistening of eyes. And, when this was over, Mrs.
+Gaunt turned to him, and said, piteously: "She will go back to
+Lancashire to-morrow; nothing I can say will turn her."
+
+"No, dame," said Mercy, quietly; "Cumberland is no place for me. My work
+is done here. Our paths in this world do lie apart. George Neville,
+persuade her to go home at once, and not trouble about me."
+
+"Indeed, madam," said Sir George, "she speaks wisely: she always does.
+My carriage is at the door, and the people waiting by thousands in the
+street to welcome your deliverance."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt drew herself up with fiery and bitter disdain.
+
+"Are they so?" said she, grimly. "Then I'll balk them. I'll steal away
+in the dead of night. No, miserable populace, that howls and hisses with
+the strong against the weak, you shall have no part in my triumph; 't is
+sacred to my friends. You honored me with your hootings, you shall not
+disgrace me with your acclamations. Here I stay till Mercy Vint, my
+guardian angel, leaves me forever."
+
+She then requested Sir George to order his horses back to the inn, and
+the coachman was to hold himself in readiness to start when the whole
+town should be asleep.
+
+Meantime, a courier was despatched to Hernshaw Castle, to prepare for
+Mrs. Gaunt's reception.
+
+Mrs. Menteith made a bed up for Mercy Vint, and at midnight, when the
+coast was clear, came the parting.
+
+It was a sad one.
+
+Even Mercy, who had great self-command, could not then restrain her
+tears.
+
+To apply the sweet and touching words of Scripture, "They sorrowed most
+of all for this, that they should see each other's face no more."
+
+Sir George accompanied Mrs. Gaunt to Hernshaw.
+
+She drew back into her corner of the carriage, and was very silent and
+_distraite_.
+
+After one or two attempts at conversation, he judged it wisest, and even
+most polite, to respect her mood.
+
+At last she burst out, "I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it."
+
+"Why, what is amiss?" inquired Sir George.
+
+"What is amiss? Why, 't is all amiss. 'T is so heartless, so ungrateful,
+to let that poor angel go home to Lancashire all alone, now she has
+served my turn. Sir George, do not think I undervalue your company: but
+if you would but take her home, instead of taking me! Poor thing, she is
+brave; but when the excitement of her good action is over, and she goes
+back the weary road all alone, what desolation it will be! My heart
+bleeds for her. I know I am an unconscionable woman, to ask such a
+thing; but then you are a true chevalier; you always were, and you saw
+her merit directly. O, do pray leave me to slip unnoticed into Hernshaw
+Castle, and do you accompany my benefactress to her humble home. Will
+you, dear Sir George? 'T would be such a load off my heart."
+
+To this appeal, uttered with trembling lip and moist eyes, Sir George
+replied in character. He declined to desert Mrs. Gaunt, until he had
+seen her safe home; but, that done, he would ride back to Carlisle and
+escort Mercy home.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt sighed, and said she was abusing his friendship, and should
+kill him with fatigue, and he was a good creature. "If anything could
+make me easy, this would," said she. "You know how to talk to a woman,
+and comfort her. I wish I was a man: I'd cure her of Griffith before we
+reached the 'Packhorse.' And, now I think of it, you are a very happy
+man to travel eighty miles with an angel, a dove-eyed angel."
+
+"I am a happy man to have an opportunity of complying with your desires,
+madam," was the demure reply. "'T is not often you do me the honor to
+lay your orders on me."
+
+After this, nothing of any moment passed until they reached Hernshaw
+Castle; and then, as they drove up to the door, and saw the hall blazing
+with lights, Mrs. Gaunt laid her hand softly on Sir George, and
+whispered, "You were right. I thank you for not leaving me."
+
+The servants were all in the hall, to receive their mistress; and
+amongst them were those who had given honest but unfavorable testimony
+at the trial, being called by the crown. These had consulted together,
+and, after many pros and cons, had decided that they had better not
+follow their natural impulse, and hide from her face, since that might
+be a fresh offence. Accordingly, these witnesses, dressed in their best,
+stood with the others in the hall, and made their obeisances, quaking
+inwardly.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt entered the hall leaning on Sir George's arm. She scarcely
+bestowed a look upon any of her servants, but made them one sweeping
+courtesy in return, and passed on; only Sir George felt her taper
+fingers just nip his arm.
+
+She made him partake of some supper, and then this chevalier des dames
+rode home, snatched a few hours' sleep, put on the yeoman's suit in
+which he had first visited the "Packhorse," and, arriving at Carlisle,
+engaged the whole inside of the coach; for his orders were to console,
+and he did not see his way clear to do that with two or three strangers
+listening to every word.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+A great change was observable in Mrs. Gaunt after this fiery and
+chastening ordeal. In a short time she had been taught many lessons. She
+had learned that the law will not allow even a woman to say anything and
+everything with impunity. She had been in a court of justice, and seen
+how gravely, soberly, and fairly an accusation is sifted there; and, if
+false, annihilated; which, elsewhere, it never is. Member of a sex that
+could never have invented a court of justice, she had found something to
+revere and bless in that other sex to which her erring husband belonged.
+Finally, she had encountered in Mercy Vint a woman whom she recognized
+at once as her moral superior. The contact of that pure and
+well-governed spirit told wonderfully upon her. She began to watch her
+tongue and to bridle her high spirit. She became slower to give offence,
+and slower to take it. She took herself to task, and made some little
+excuses even for Griffith. She was resolved to retire from the world
+altogether; but, meantime, she bowed her head to the lessons of
+adversity. Her features, always lovely, but somewhat too haughty, were
+now softened and embellished beyond description by a mingled expression
+of grief, humility, and resignation.
+
+She never mentioned her husband; but it is not to be supposed she never
+thought of him. She waited the course of events in dignified and patient
+silence.
+
+As for Griffith Gaunt, he was in the hands of two lawyers, Atkins and
+Houseman. He waited on the first, and made a friend of him. "I am at
+your service," said he; "but not if I am to be indicted for bigamy, and
+burned in the hand."
+
+"These fears are idle," said Atkins. "Mercy Vint declared in open court
+she will not proceed against you."
+
+"Ay, but there's my wife."
+
+"She will keep quiet; I have Houseman's word for it."
+
+"Ay, but there's the Attorney-General."
+
+"O, he will not move, unless he is driven. We must use a little
+influence. Mr. Houseman is of my mind, and he has the ear of the
+county."
+
+To be brief, it was represented in high quarters that to indict Mr.
+Gaunt would only open Mrs. Gaunt's wounds afresh, and do no good; and so
+Houseman found means to muzzle the Attorney-General.
+
+Just three weeks after the trial, Griffith Gaunt, Esq. reappeared
+publicly. The place of his reappearance was Coggleswade. He came and set
+about finishing his new mansion with feverish rapidity. He engaged an
+army of carpenters and painters, and spent thousands of pounds on the
+decorating and furnishing of the mansion, and laying out the grounds.
+
+This was duly reported to Mrs. Gaunt, who said--not a word.
+
+But at last one day came a letter to Mrs. Gaunt, in Griffith's
+well-known handwriting.
+
+With all her acquired self-possession, her hand trembled as she broke
+open the seal.
+
+It contained but these words:--
+
+     "MADAM,--I do not ask you to forgive me. For, if you had
+     done what I have, I could never forgive you. But for the
+     sake of Rose, and to stop their tongues, I do hope you will
+     do me the honor to live under this my roof. I dare not face
+     Hernshaw Castle. Your own apartments here are now ready for
+     you. The place is large. Upon my honor I will not trouble
+     you; but show myself always, as now,
+
+    "Your penitent and very humble
+    servant,
+
+    "GRIFFITH GAUNT."
+
+The messenger was to wait for her reply.
+
+This letter disturbed Mrs. Gaunt's sorrowful tranquillity at once. She
+was much agitated, and so undecided that she sent the messenger away,
+and told him to call next day.
+
+Then she sent off to Father Francis to beg his advice.
+
+But her courier returned, late at night, to say Father Francis was away
+from home.
+
+Then she took Rose, and said to her, "My darling, papa wants us to go to
+his new house, and leave dear old Hernshaw; I know not what to say about
+that. What do _you_ say?"
+
+"Tell him to come to us," said Rose, dictatorially. "Only," (lowering
+her little voice very suddenly,) "if he is naughty and won't, why then
+we had better go to him; for he amuses me."
+
+"As you please," said Mrs. Gaunt; and sent her husband this reply:--
+
+     "SIR,--Rose and I are agreed to defer to your judgment and
+     obey your wishes. Be pleased to let me know what day you
+     will require us; and I must trouble you to send a carriage.
+
+    "I am, sir,
+
+    "Your faithful wife and humble servant,
+
+    "CATHARINE GAUNT."
+
+At the appointed day, a carriage and four came wheeling up to the door.
+The vehicle was gorgeously emblazoned, and the servants in rich
+liveries; all which finery glittering in the sun, and the glossy coats
+of the horses, did mightily please Mistress Rose. She stood on the stone
+steps, and clapped her hands with delight. Her mother just sighed, and
+said, "Ay, 'tis in pomp and show we must seek our happiness now."
+
+She leaned back in the carriage, and closed her eyes, yet not so close
+but now and then a tear would steal out, as she thought of the past.
+
+They drove up under an avenue to a noble mansion, and landed at the foot
+of some marble steps, low and narrow, but of vast breadth.
+
+As they mounted these, a hall door, through which the carriage could
+have passed, was flung open, and discovered the servants all drawn up to
+do honor to their mistress.
+
+She entered the hall, leading Rose by the hand; the servants bowed and
+courtesied down to the ground.
+
+She received this homage with dignified courtesy, and her eye stole
+round to see if the master of the house was coming to receive her.
+
+The library door was opened hastily, and out came to meet her--Father
+Francis.
+
+"Welcome, madam, a thousand times welcome to your new home," said he, in
+a stentorian voice, with a double infusion of geniality. "I claim the
+honor of showing you your part of the house, though 'tis all yours for
+that matter." And he led the way.
+
+Now this cheerful stentorian voice was just a little shaky for once, and
+his eyes were moist.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt noticed, but said nothing before the people. She smiled
+graciously, and accompanied him.
+
+He took her to her apartments. They consisted of a salle-à-manger, three
+delightful bedrooms, a boudoir, and a magnificent drawing-room, fifty
+feet long, with two fireplaces, and a bay-window thirty feet wide,
+filled with the choicest flowers.
+
+An exclamation of delight escaped Mrs. Gaunt. Then she said, "One would
+think I was a queen." Then she sighed, "Ah," said she, "'tis a fine
+thing to be rich." Then, despondently, "Tell him I think it very
+beautiful."
+
+"Nay, madam, I hope you will tell him so yourself."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt made no reply to that. She added: "And it was kind of him to
+have you here the first day: I do not feel so lonely as I should without
+you."
+
+She took Griffith at his word, and lived with Rose in her own
+apartments.
+
+For some time Griffith used to slip away whenever he saw her coming.
+
+One day she caught him at it, and beckoned him.
+
+He came to her.
+
+"You need not run away from me," said she: "I did not come into your
+house to quarrel with you. Let us be _friends_,"--and she gave him her
+hand sweetly enough, but O so coldly!
+
+"I hope for nothing more," said Griffith. "If you ever have a wish, give
+me the pleasure of gratifying it,--that is all."
+
+"I wish to retire to a convent," said she, quietly.
+
+"And desert your daughter?"
+
+"I would leave her behind, to remind you of days gone by."
+
+By degrees they saw a little more of one another; they even dined
+together now and then. But it brought them no nearer. There was no
+anger, with its loving reaction. They were friendly enough, but an icy
+barrier stood between them.
+
+One person set himself quietly to sap this barrier. Father Francis was
+often at the Castle, and played the peacemaker very adroitly.
+
+The line he took might be called the innocent Jesuitical. He saw that it
+would be useless to exhort these two persons to ignore the terrible
+things that had happened, and to make it up as if it was only a
+squabble. What he did was to repeat to the husband every gracious word
+the wife let fall, and _vice versâ_, and to suppress all either said
+that might tend to estrange them.
+
+In short, he acted the part of Mr. Harmony in the play, and acted it to
+perfection.
+
+_Gutta cavat lapidem._
+
+Though no perceptible effect followed his efforts, yet there is no doubt
+that he got rid of some of the bitterness. But the coldness remained.
+
+One day he was sent for all in a hurry by Griffith.
+
+He found him looking gloomy and agitated.
+
+The cause came out directly. Griffith had observed, at last, what all
+the females in the house had seen two months ago, that Mrs. Gaunt was in
+the family way.
+
+He now communicated this to Father Francis, with a voice of agony, and
+looks to match.
+
+"All the better, my son," said the genial priest: "'twill be another tie
+between you. I hope it will be a fine boy to inherit your estates."
+Then, observing a certain hideous expression distorting Griffith's face,
+he fixed his eyes full on him, and said, sternly, "Are you not cured yet
+of that madness of yours?"
+
+"No, no, no," said Griffith, deprecatingly; "but why did she not tell
+me?"
+
+"You had better ask her."
+
+"Not I. She will remind me I am nothing to her now. And, though 'tis so,
+yet I would not hear it from her lips."
+
+In spite of this wise resolution, the torture he was in drove him to
+remonstrate with her on her silence.
+
+She blushed high, and excused herself as follows:--
+
+"I should have told you as soon as I knew it myself. But you were not
+with me. I was all by myself--in Carlisle jail."
+
+This reply, uttered with hypocritical meekness, went through Griffith
+like a knife. He turned white, and gasped for breath, but said nothing.
+He left her, with a deep groan, and never ventured to mention the matter
+again.
+
+All he did in that direction was to redouble his attentions and
+solicitude for her health.
+
+The relation between these two was now more anomalous than ever.
+
+Even Father Francis, who had seen strange things in families, used to
+watch Mrs. Gaunt rise from the table and walk heavily to the door, and
+her husband dart to it and open it obsequiously, and receive only a very
+formal reverence in return,--and wonder how all this was to end.
+
+However, under this icy surface, a change was gradually going on; and
+one afternoon, to his great surprise, Mrs. Gaunt's maid came to ask
+Griffith if he would come to Mrs. Gaunt's apartment.
+
+He found her seated in her bay-window, among her flowers. She seemed
+another woman all of a sudden, and smiled on him her exquisite smile of
+days gone by.
+
+"Come, sit beside me," said she, "in this beautiful window that you have
+given me."
+
+"Sit beside you, Kate?" said Griffith. "Nay, let me kneel at your knees:
+that is my place."
+
+"As you will," said she, softly; and continued, in the same tone: "Now
+listen to me. You and I are two fools. We have been very happy together
+in days gone by; and we should both of us like to try again; but we
+neither of us know how to begin. You are afraid to tell me you love me,
+and I am ashamed to own to you or anybody else that I love you, in spite
+of it all;--I do, though."
+
+"You love me! a wretch like me, Kate? 'T is impossible. I cannot be so
+happy."
+
+"Child," said Mrs. Gaunt, "love is not reason; love is not common sense.
+'T is a passion; like your jealousy, poor fool. I love you, as a mother
+loves her child, all the more for all you have made me suffer. I might
+not say as much, if I thought we should be long together. But something
+tells me I shall die this time: I never felt so before. Bury me at
+Hernshaw. After all, I spent more happy years there than most wives ever
+know. I see you are very sorry for what you have done. How could I die
+and leave thee in doubt of my forgiveness, and my love? Kiss me, poor
+jealous fool; for I do forgive thee, and love thee with all my sorrowful
+heart." And even with the words she bowed herself and sank quietly into
+his arms, and he kissed her and cried bitterly over her: bitterly. But
+she was comparatively calm. For she said to herself, "The end is at
+hand."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Griffith, instead of pooh-poohing his wife's forebodings, set himself to
+baffle them.
+
+He used his wealth freely, and, besides the county doctor, had two very
+eminent practitioners from London, one of whom was a gray-headed man,
+the other singularly young for the fame he had obtained. But then he was
+a genuine enthusiast in his art.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+Griffith, white as a ghost, and unable to shake off the forebodings
+Catharine had communicated to him, walked incessantly up and down the
+room; and, at his earnest request, one or other of the four doctors in
+attendance was constantly coming to him with information.
+
+The case proceeded favorably, and, to Griffith's surprise and joy, a
+healthy boy was born about two o'clock in the morning. The mother was
+reported rather feverish, but nothing to cause alarm.
+
+Griffith threw himself on two chairs and fell fast asleep.
+
+Towards morning he found himself shaken, and there was Ashley, the young
+doctor, standing beside him with a very grave face. Griffith started up,
+and cried, "What is wrong, in God's name?"
+
+"I am sorry to say there has been a sudden hemorrhage, and the patient
+is much exhausted."
+
+"She is dying, she is dying!" cried Griffith, in anguish.
+
+"Not dying. But she will infallibly sink, unless some unusual
+circumstance occur to sustain vitality."
+
+Griffith laid hold of him. "O sir, take my whole fortune, but save her!
+save her! save her!"
+
+"Mr. Gaunt," said the young doctor, "be calm, or you will make matters
+worse. There is one chance to save her; but my professional brethren are
+prejudiced against it. However, they have consented, at my earnest
+request, to refer my proposal to you. She is sinking for want of blood;
+if you consent to my opening a vein and transfusing healthy blood from a
+living subject into hers, I will undertake the operation. You had better
+come and see her; you will be more able to judge."
+
+"Let me lean on you," said Griffith. And the strong wrestler went
+tottering up the stairs. There they showed him poor Kate, white as the
+bed-clothes, breathing hard, and with a pulse that hardly moved.
+
+Griffith looked at her horror-struck.
+
+"Death has got hold of my darling," he screamed. "Snatch her away! for
+God's sake, snatch her from him!"
+
+The young doctor whipped off his coat, and bared his arm.
+
+"There," he cried, "Mr. Gaunt consents. Now, Corrie, be quick with the
+lancet, and hold this tube as I tell you; warm it first in that water."
+
+Here came an interruption. Griffith Gaunt griped the young doctor's arm,
+and, with an agonized and ugly expression of countenance, cried out,
+"What, _your_ blood! What right have you to lose blood for her?"
+
+"The right of a man who loves his art better than his blood," cried
+Ashley, with enthusiasm.
+
+Griffith tore off his coat and waistcoat, and bared his arm to the
+elbow. "Take every drop I have. No man's blood shall enter her veins but
+mine." And the creature seemed to swell to double his size, as, with
+flushed cheek and sparkling eyes, he held out a bare arm corded like a
+blacksmith's, and white as a duchess's.
+
+The young doctor eyed the magnificent limb a moment with rapture; then
+fixed his apparatus and performed an operation which then, as now, was
+impossible in theory; only he did it. He sent some of Griffith Gaunt's
+bright red blood smoking hot into Kate Gaunt's veins.
+
+This done, he watched his patient closely, and administered stimulants
+from time to time.
+
+She hung between life and death for hours. But at noon next day she
+spoke, and, seeing Griffith sitting beside her, pale with anxiety and
+loss of blood, she said: "My dear, do not thou fret. I died last night.
+I knew I should. But they gave me another life; and now I shall live to
+a hundred."
+
+They showed her the little boy; and, at sight of him, the whole woman
+made up her mind to live.
+
+And live she did. And, what is very remarkable, her convalescence was
+more rapid than on any former occasion.
+
+It was from a talkative nurse she first learned that Griffith had given
+his blood for her. She said nothing at the time, but lay, with an
+angelic, happy smile, thinking of it.
+
+The first time she saw him after that, she laid her hand on his arm,
+and, looking Heaven itself into his eyes, she said, "My life is very
+dear to me now. 'T is a present from thee."
+
+She only wanted a good excuse for loving him as frankly as before, and
+now he had given her one. She used to throw it in his teeth in the
+prettiest way. Whenever she confessed a fault, she was sure to turn
+slyly round and say, "But what could one expect of me? I have his blood
+in my veins."
+
+But once she told Father Francis, quite seriously, that she had never
+been quite the same woman since she lived by Griffith's blood; she was
+turned jealous; and moreover it had given him a fascinating power over
+her, and she could tell blindfold when he was in the room. Which last
+fact, indeed, she once proved by actual experiment. But all this I leave
+to such as study the occult sciences in this profound age of ours.
+
+Starting with this advantage, Time, the great curer, gradually healed a
+wound that looked incurable.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt became a better wife than she had ever been before. She
+studied her husband, and found he was not hard to please. She made his
+home bright and genial; and so he never went abroad for the sunshine he
+could have at home.
+
+And he studied her. He added a chapel to the house, and easily persuaded
+Francis to become the chaplain. Thus they had a peacemaker, and a
+friend, in the house, and a man severe in morals, but candid in
+religion, and an inexhaustible companion to them and their children.
+
+And so, after that terrible storm, this pair pursued the even tenor of a
+peaceful united life, till the olive-branches rising around them, and
+the happy years gliding on, almost obliterated that one dark passage,
+and made it seem a mere fantastical, incredible dream.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mercy Vint and her child went home in the coach. It was empty at
+starting, and, as Mrs. Gaunt had foretold, a great sense of desolation
+fell upon her.
+
+She leaned back, and the patient tears coursed steadily down her comely
+cheeks.
+
+At the first stage a passenger got down from the outside, and entered
+the coach.
+
+"What, George Neville!" said Mercy.
+
+"The same," said he.
+
+She expressed her surprise that he should be going her way.
+
+"'T is strange," said he, "but to me most agreeable."
+
+"And to me too, for that matter," said she.
+
+Sir George observed her eyes were red, and, to divert her mind and keep
+up her spirits, launched into a flow of small talk.
+
+In the midst of it, Mercy leaned back in the coach, and began to cry
+bitterly. So much for that mode of consolation.
+
+Upon this he faced the situation, and begged her not to grieve. He
+praised the good action she had done, and told her how everybody admired
+her for it, especially himself.
+
+At that she gave him her hand in silence, and turned away her pretty
+head. He carried her hand respectfully to his lips; and his manly heart
+began to yearn over this suffering virtue,--so grave, so dignified, so
+meek. He was no longer a young man; he began to talk to her like a
+friend. This tone, and the soft, sympathetic voice in which a gentleman
+speaks to a woman in trouble, unlocked her heart; and for the first
+time in her life she was led to talk about herself.
+
+She opened her heart to him. She told him she was not the woman to pine
+for any man. Her youth, her health, and love of occupation, would carry
+her through. What she mourned was the loss of esteem, and the blot upon
+her child. At that she drew the baby with inexpressible tenderness, and
+yet with a half-defiant air, closer to her bosom.
+
+Sir George assured her she would lose the esteem of none but fools. "As
+for me," said he, "I always respected you, but now I revere you. You are
+a martyr and an angel."
+
+"George," said Mercy, gravely, "be you my friend, not my enemy."
+
+"Why, madam," said he, "sure you can't think me such a wretch."
+
+"I mean, our flatterers are our enemies."
+
+Sir George took the hint, given, as it was, very gravely and decidedly;
+and henceforth showed her his respect by his acts; he paid her as much
+attention as if she had been a princess. He handed her out, and handed
+her in; and coaxed her to eat here, and to drink there; and at the inn
+where the passengers slept for the night, he showed his long purse, and
+secured her superior comforts. Console her he could not; but he broke
+the sense of utter desolation and loneliness with which she started from
+Carlisle. She told him so in the inn, and descanted on the goodness of
+God, who had sent her a friend in that bitter hour.
+
+"You have been very kind to me, George," said she. "Now Heaven bless you
+for it, and give you many happy days, and well spent."
+
+This, from one who never said a word she did not mean, sank deep into
+Sir George's heart, and he went to sleep thinking of her, and asking
+himself was there nothing he could do for her.
+
+Next morning Sir George handed Mercy and her babe into the coach; and
+the villain tried an experiment to see what value she set on him. He did
+not get in, so Mercy thought she had seen the last of him.
+
+"Farewell, good, kind George," said she. "Alas! there's naught but
+meeting and parting in this weary world."
+
+The tears stood in her sweet eyes, and she thanked him, not with words
+only, but with the soft pressure of her womanly hand.
+
+He slipped up behind the coach, and was ashamed of himself, and his
+heart warmed to her more and more.
+
+As soon as the coach stopped, my lord opened the door for Mercy to
+alight. Her eyes were very red; he saw that. She started, and beamed
+with surprise and pleasure.
+
+"Why, I thought I had lost you for good," said she. "Whither are you
+going? to Lancaster?"
+
+"Not quite so far. I am going to the 'Packhorse.'"
+
+Mercy opened her eyes, and blushed high. Sir George saw, and, to divert
+her suspicions, told her merrily to beware of making objections. "I am
+only a sort of servant in the matter. 'T was Mrs. Gaunt ordered me."
+
+"I might have guessed it," said Mercy. "Bless her; she knew I should be
+lonely."
+
+"She was not easy till she had got rid of me, I assure you," said Sir
+George. "So let us make the best on 't, for she is a lady that likes to
+have her own way."
+
+"She is a noble creature. George, I shall never regret anything I have
+done for _her_. And she will not be ungrateful. O, the sting of
+ingratitude! I have felt that. Have you?"
+
+"No," said Sir George; "I have escaped that, by never doing any good
+actions."
+
+"I doubt you are telling me a lie," said Mercy Vint.
+
+She now looked upon Sir George as Mrs. Gaunt's representative, and
+prattled freely to him. Only now and then her trouble came over her, and
+then she took a quiet cry without ceremony.
+
+As for Sir George, he sat and studied, and wondered at her.
+
+Never in his life had he met such a woman as this, who was as candid
+with him as if he had been a woman. She seemed to have a window in her
+bosom, through which he looked, and saw the pure and lovely soul within.
+
+In the afternoon they reached a little town, whence a cart conveyed them
+to the "Packhorse."
+
+Here Mercy Vint disappeared, and busied herself with Sir George's
+comforts.
+
+He sat by himself in the parlor, and missed his gentle companion.
+
+In the morning Mercy thought of course he would go.
+
+But instead of that, he stayed, and followed her about, and began to
+court her downright.
+
+But the warmer he got, the cooler she. And at last she said, mighty
+dryly, "This is a very dull place for the likes of you."
+
+"'T is the sweetest place in England," said he; "at least to me; for it
+contains--the woman I love."
+
+Mercy drew back, and colored rosy red. "I hope not," said she.
+
+"I loved you the first day I saw you, and heard your voice. And now I
+love you ten times more. Let me dry thy tears forever, sweet Mercy. Be
+my wife."
+
+"You are mad," said Mercy. "What, would you wed a woman in my condition?
+I am more your friend than to take you at your word. And what must you
+think I am made of, to go from one man to another, like that?"
+
+"Take your time, sweetheart; only give me your hand."
+
+"George," said Mercy, very gravely, "I am beholden to you; but my duty
+it lies another way. There is a young man in these parts" (Sir George
+groaned) "that was my follower for two years and better. I wronged him
+for one I never name now. I must marry that poor lad, and make him
+happy, or else live and die as I am."
+
+Sir George turned pale. "One word: do you love him?"
+
+"I have a regard for him."
+
+"Do you love him?"
+
+"Hardly. But I wronged him, and I owe him amends. I shall pay my debts."
+
+Sir George bowed, and retired sick at heart, and deeply mortified. Mercy
+looked after him and sighed.
+
+Next day, as he walked disconsolate up and down, she came to him and
+gave him her hand. "You were a good friend to me that bitter day," said
+she. "Now let me be yours. Do not bide here: 'twill but vex you."
+
+"I am going, madam," said Sir George, stiffly. "I but wait to see the
+man you prefer to me. If he is not too unworthy of you, I'll go, and
+trouble you no more. I have learned his name."
+
+Mercy blushed; for she knew Paul Carrick would bear no comparison with
+George Neville.
+
+The next day Sir George took leave to observe that this Paul Carrick did
+not seem to appreciate her preference so highly as he ought. "I
+understand he has never been here."
+
+Mercy colored, but made no reply; and Sir George was sorry he had
+taunted her. He followed her about, and showed her great attention, but
+not a word of love.
+
+There were fine trout streams in the neighborhood, and he busied himself
+fishing, and in the evening read aloud to Mercy, and waited to see Paul
+Carrick.
+
+Paul never came; and from a word Mercy let drop, he saw that she was
+mortified. Then, being no tyro in love, he told her he had business in
+Lancaster, and must leave her for a few days. But he would return, and
+by that time perhaps Paul Carrick would be visible.
+
+Now his main object was to try the effect of correspondence.
+
+Every day he sent her a long love-letter from Lancaster.
+
+Paul Carrick, who, in absenting himself for a time, had acted upon his
+sister's advice, rather than his own natural impulse, learned that Mercy
+received a letter every day. This was a thing unheard of in that
+parish.
+
+So then Paul defied his sister's advice, and presented himself to Mercy;
+when the following dialogue took place.
+
+"Welcome home, Mercy."
+
+"Thank you, Paul."
+
+"Well, I'm single still, lass."
+
+"So I hear."
+
+"I'm come to say let bygones be bygones."
+
+"So be it," said Mercy, dryly.
+
+"You have tried a gentleman; now try a farrier."
+
+"I have; and he did not stand the test."
+
+"Anan."
+
+"Why did you not come near me for ten days?"
+
+Paul blushed up to the eyes. "Well," said he, "I'll tell you the truth.
+'T was our Jess advised me to leave you quiet just at first."
+
+"Ay, ay. I was to be humbled, and made to smart for my fault; and then I
+should be thankful to take you. My lad, if ever you should be really in
+love, take a friend's advice; listen to your own heart, and not to
+shallow advisers. You have mortified a poor sorrowful creature, who was
+going to make a sacrifice for you; and you have lost her forever."
+
+"What d'ye mean?"
+
+"I mean that you are to think no more of Mercy Vint."
+
+"Then it is true, ye jade; ye've gotten a fresh lover already."
+
+"Say no more than you know. If you were the only man on earth, I would
+not wed you, Paul Carrick."
+
+Paul Carrick retired home, and blew up his sister, and told her that she
+had "gotten him the sack again."
+
+The next day Sir George came back from Lancaster, and Mercy lowered her
+lashes for once at sight of him.
+
+"Well," said he, "has this Carrick shown a sense of your goodness?"
+
+"He has come,--and gone."
+
+She then, with her usual frankness, told him what had passed. "And,"
+said she, with a smile, "you are partly to blame; for how could I help
+comparing your behavior to me with his? _You_ came to my side when I was
+in trouble, and showed me respect when I expected scorn from all the
+world. A friend in need is a friend indeed."
+
+"Reward me, reward me," said Sir George, gayly; "you know the way."
+
+"Nay, but I am too much _your_ friend," said Mercy.
+
+"Be less my friend then, and more my darling."
+
+He pressed her, he urged her, he stuck to her, he pestered her.
+
+She snubbed, and evaded, and parried, and liked him all the better for
+his pestering her.
+
+At last, one day, she said: "If Mrs. Gaunt thinks it will be for your
+happiness, I _will_--in six months' time; but you shall not marry in
+haste to repent at leisure. And I must have time to learn two
+things,--whether you can be constant to a simple woman like me, and
+whether I can love again, as tenderly as you deserve to be loved."
+
+All his endeavors to shake this determination were vain. Mercy Vint had
+a terrible deal of quiet resolution.
+
+He retired to Cumberland, and, in a long letter, asked Mrs. Gaunt's
+advice.
+
+She replied characteristically. She began very soberly to say that she
+should be the last to advise a marriage between persons of different
+conditions in life. "But then," said she, "this Mercy is altogether an
+exception. If a flower grows on a dunghill, 't is still a flower, and
+not a part of the dunghill. She has the essence of gentility, and indeed
+her _manners_ are better bred than most of our ladies. There is too much
+affectation abroad, and that is your true vulgarity. Tack 'my lady' on
+to 'Mercy Vint,' and that dignified and quiet simplicity of hers will
+carry her with credit through every court in Europe. Then think of her
+virtues,"--(here the writer began to lose her temper,)--"where can you
+hope to find such another? She is a moral genius, and acts well, no
+matter under what temptation, as surely as Claude and Raphael paint
+well. Why, sir, what do you seek in a wife? Wealth? title? family? But
+you possess them already; you want something in addition that will make
+you happy. Well, take that angelic goodness into your house, and you
+will find, by your own absolute happiness, how ill your neighbors have
+wived. For my part, I see but one objection: the child. Well, if you are
+man enough to take the mother, I am woman enough to take the babe. In
+one word, he who has the sense to fall in love with such an angel, and
+has not the sense to marry it, if he can, is a fool.
+
+"Postscript.--My poor friend, to what end think you I sent you down in
+the coach with her?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir George, thus advised, acted as he would have done had the advice
+been just the opposite.
+
+He sent Mercy a love-letter by every post, and he often received one in
+return; only his were passionate, and hers gentle and affectionate.
+
+But one day came a letter that was a mere cry of distress.
+
+     "George, my child is dying. What shall I do?"
+
+He mounted his horse, and rode to her.
+
+He came too late. The little boy had died suddenly of croup, and was to
+be buried next morning.
+
+The poor mother received him up stairs, and her grief was terrible. She
+clung sobbing to him, and could not be comforted. Yet she felt his
+coming. But a mother's anguish overpowered all.
+
+Crushed by this fearful blow, her strength gave way for a time, and she
+clung to George Neville, and told him she had nothing left but him, and
+one day implored him not to die and leave her.
+
+Sir George said all he could think of to comfort her; and at the end of
+a fortnight persuaded her to leave the "Packhorse," and England, as his
+wife.
+
+She had little power to resist now, and indeed little inclination.
+
+They were married by special license, and spent a twelvemonth abroad.
+
+At the end of that time they returned to Neville's Court, and Mercy took
+her place there with the same dignified simplicity that had adorned her
+in a humbler station.
+
+Sir George had given her no lessons; but she had observed closely, for
+his sake; and being already well educated, and very quick and docile,
+she seldom made him blush except with pride.
+
+They were the happiest pair in Cumberland. Her merciful nature now found
+a larger field for its exercise, and, backed by her husband's purse, she
+became the Lady Bountiful of the parish and the county.
+
+The day after she reached Neville's Court came an exquisite letter to
+her from Mrs. Gaunt. She sent an affectionate reply.
+
+But the Gaunts and the Nevilles did not meet in society.
+
+Sir George Neville and Mrs. Gaunt, being both singularly brave and
+haughty people, rather despised this arrangement.
+
+But it seems that, one day, when, they were all four in the Town Hall,
+folk whispered and looked; and both Griffith Gaunt and Lady Neville
+surprised these glances, and determined, by one impulse, it should never
+happen again. Hence it was quite understood that the Nevilles and the
+Gaunts were not to be asked to the same party or ball.
+
+The wives, however, corresponded, and Lady Neville easily induced Mrs.
+Gaunt to co-operate with her in her benevolent acts, especially in
+saving young women, who had been betrayed, from sinking deeper.
+
+Living a good many miles apart, Lady Neville could send her stray sheep
+to service near Mrs. Gaunt; and _vice versâ_; and so, merciful, but
+discriminating, they saved many a poor girl who had been weak, not
+wicked.
+
+So then, though they could not eat nor dance together in earthly
+mansions, they could do good together; and methinks, in the eternal
+world, where years of social intercourse will prove less than cobwebs,
+these their joint acts of mercy will be links of a bright, strong chain,
+to bind their souls in everlasting amity.
+
+It was a remarkable circumstance, that the one child of Lady Neville's
+unhappy marriage died, but her nine children by Sir George all grew to
+goodly men and women. That branch of the Nevilles became remarkable for
+high principle and good sense; and this they owe to Mercy Vint, and to
+Sir George's courage in marrying her. This Mercy was granddaughter to
+one of Cromwell's ironsides, and brought her rare personal merit into
+their house, and also the best blood of the old Puritans, than which
+there is no blood in Europe more rich in male courage, female chastity,
+and all the virtues.
+
+
+
+
+GUROWSKI.
+
+
+The late Count Gurowski came to this country from France in November,
+1849, and resided at first in New York. He made his appearance at
+Boston, I think, in the latter part of 1850, and, being well introduced
+by letters from men of note in Paris, was received with attention in the
+highest circles of society. Among his friends at this period were
+Prescott, Ticknor, Longfellow, Lowell, Parker, Sumner, Felton, and
+Everett,--the last named of whom was then President of Harvard
+University. The eccentric appearance and character of the Count, of
+course, excited curiosity and gave rise to many idle rumors, the most
+popular of which declared him to be a Russian spy, though what there was
+to spy in this country, where everything is published in the newspapers,
+or what the Czar expected to learn from such an agent, nobody undertook
+to explain. The phrase was a convenient one, and, like many others
+equally senseless, was currently adopted because it seemed to explain
+the incomprehensible; and certainly, to the multitude, no man was ever
+less intelligible than Gurowski.
+
+To those, however, who cared for precise information, the French and
+German periodicals of the day, in which his name frequently figured,
+furnished sufficient to determine his social and historical status. From
+authentic sources it was soon learned that he was the head of a
+distinguished noble family of Poland; that he was born in 1805, and had
+taken part in the great insurrection of 1831 against the Russians, for
+which he had been condemned to death, while his estates were confiscated
+and assigned to a younger brother, who had remained loyal to the Czar.
+It was known also that at Paris, where he had found refuge, he had been
+a special favorite of Lafayette and of the leading republicans, and an
+active member of the Polish Revolutionary Committee, till, in 1835, he
+published _La Vérité sur la Russie_, in which work he maintained that
+the interests of Poland and of all the other Slavic countries would be
+promoted by absorption into the Russian Empire and union under the
+Russian Czar. This book drew upon him the indignant denunciation of his
+countrymen, who regarded it as a betrayal of their cause, and led to the
+revocation of his sentence of death, and to an invitation to enter the
+service of Nicholas. He accordingly went to St. Petersburg in 1836,
+where his sister had long resided, personally attached to the Empress
+and in high favor at the imperial court. He was employed at first in the
+private chancery of the Emperor, and afterwards in the Department of
+Public Instruction, in which he suggested and introduced various
+measures tending to Russianize Poland by means of schools and other
+public institutions. He seems for some years to have been in favor, and
+on the high road to power and distinction. In 1844, however, he fled
+from St. Petersburg secretly, and took refuge at the court of Berlin. He
+was pursued, and his extradition demanded of the Prussian government.
+What his offence was I have never learned, but can readily suppose that
+it was only a too free use of his tongue, which was at all times
+uncontrollable, and was always involving him in difficulties wherever he
+resided. He was quite as likely to contradict and snub the Czar as
+readily as he would the meanest peasant, and, for that matter, even more
+readily. His flight from Russia caused a good deal of discussion in the
+Continental newspapers, and it is certain that for some reason or other
+strong and pertinacious efforts were made by the Russian government to
+have him delivered up. The Czar had at that time great influence over
+the court of Berlin; and Gurowski was at length privately requested by
+the Prussian government, in a friendly way, to relieve them of
+embarrassment by withdrawing from the kingdom. He accordingly went to
+Heidelberg and afterwards to Munich, and for two years subsequently was
+a Lecturer on Political Economy at the University of Berne, in
+Switzerland. At a later period he visited Italy, and for a year previous
+to his arrival in this country had resided in Paris. Besides his first
+work on Panslavism, already mentioned, he had published several others
+in French and German, which had attracted considerable attention by the
+force and boldness of their ideas, and the wide range of erudition
+displayed in them. Finally, it became known to those who cared to
+inquire, that one of his brothers, Ignatius Gurowski, was married to an
+infanta of Spain, whom I believe he had persuaded to elope with him;
+that Gurowski himself was a widower, with a son in the Russian navy and
+a daughter married in Switzerland; and that some compromise had been
+made about his confiscated estates by which his "loyal" brother had
+agreed to pay him a slender annual allowance, which was not always
+punctually remitted.
+
+Such was the substance of what was known, or at least of what I knew and
+can now recall, of Gurowski, soon after his arrival in Boston, sixteen
+years ago. He came to Massachusetts, I think, with some expectation of
+becoming connected with Harvard University as a lecturer or professor,
+and took up his residence in Cambridge in lodgings in a house on Main
+Street, nearly opposite the College Library. In January, 1851, he gave,
+at President Everett's house, a course of lectures upon Roman
+jurisprudence, of which I have preserved the following syllabus, printed
+by him in explanation of his purpose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"COUNT DE GUROWSKI proposes to give Six Lectures upon the Roman
+Jurisprudence, or the Civil Law according to the following syllabus:--
+
+     "As the history of the Roman Law is likewise the history of
+     the principle of the _Right_ (_das Recht_) as it exists in
+     the consciousness of men, and of its outward manifestation
+     as a law in an organized society; a philosophical outline of
+     this principle and of its manifestations will precede.
+
+     "The philosophical and historical progress of the notion or
+     conception of the _Right_, through the various moments or
+     data of jurisprudential formation by the Romans. Explanation
+     of the principal elements and facts, out of which was framed
+     successively the Roman law.
+
+     "Such are, for instance, the Ramnian, the Sabinian, or
+     Quiritian; their influence on the character of the
+     legislation and jurisprudence.
+
+     "The peculiarity and the legal meaning of the _jus
+     quiritium_. Explanation of some of its legal rites, as those
+     concerning matrimony, _jus mancipi, in jure cessio_, etc.
+
+     "The primitive _jus civile_ derived from _the jus
+     quiritium_. Point out the principal social element on which,
+     and through which, the _jus privatum_, connected with the
+     _jus civile_, was developed.
+
+     "The primitive difference between both these two kinds of
+     _jus_.
+
+     "Other elements of the Roman Civil Law. The _jus gentium_,
+     its nature and origin. How it was conceived by the Romans,
+     and how it acted on the Roman community. Its agency,
+     enlightening and softening influence on the Roman character,
+     and on the severity of the primitive _jus civile_.
+
+     "The nature, the agency of the prætorian or _edictorial_
+     right and jurisprudence.
+
+     "A condensed sketch of the Roman civil process. The
+     principal formalities and rules according to the _jus
+     quiritium, jus civile_, and the _edicta prætorum_.
+     Difference between the magistrate and the judge.
+
+     "The scientific development of the above-mentioned data in
+     the formation of the Roman Law, or the period between
+     Augustus and Alex. Severus. Epoch of the imperial
+     jurisconsults; its character.
+
+     "Decline. The codification of the Roman Law, or the
+     formation of the Justinian Code. Sketch of it during the
+     mediæval and modern periods.
+
+     "Count Gurowski is authorized to refer to Hon. Edward
+     Everett, Prof. Parsons, Prof. Parker, Wm. H. Prescott, Esq.,
+     Hon. T. G. Gary, Charles Sumner, Esq., Hon. G. S. Hillard,
+     Prof. Felton.
+
+     "CAMBRIDGE, January 24, 1851."
+
+The lectures were not successful, being attended by only twenty or
+thirty persons, who did not find them very interesting. The truth is,
+that few Americans care anything for the Roman law, or for the history
+of the principle of the _Right_ (_das Recht_); nor for the Ramnian,
+Sabinian, or Quiritian jurisprudence; nor whether the _jus civile_ was
+derived from the _jus quiritium_, or the _jus quiritium_ from the _jus
+civile_,--nor do I see why they should care. But even if the subject had
+been interesting in itself, Gurowski's imperfect pronunciation of our
+language at that time would have insured his failure as a lecturer. He
+had a copious stock of English words at command; but as he had learned
+the language almost wholly from books, his accent was so strongly
+foreign that few persons could understand him at first, except those of
+quick apprehension and some knowledge of the French and German idioms
+which he habitually used.
+
+The favor with which Gurowski had been received in the high circles of
+Boston society soon evaporated, as his faults of temper and of manner,
+and his rough criticisms on men and affairs, began to be felt.
+Massachusetts was then in the midst of the great conservative and
+proslavery reaction of 1850, and Gurowski's dogmatic radicalism was not
+calculated to recommend him to the ruling influences in politics,
+literature, or society. He denounced with vehemence, and without stint
+or qualification, slavery and its Northern supporters. Nothing could
+silence him, nobody could put him down. It was in vain to appeal to Mr.
+Webster, then at the height of his reputation as a Union-saver and great
+constitutional expounder. "What do I care for Mr. Webster," he said on
+some occasion when the Fugitive Slave Law was under discussion in the
+high circles of Beacon Street, and the dictum of the great expounder had
+been triumphantly appealed to. "I can read the Constitution as well as
+Mr. Webster." "But surely, Count, you would not presume to dispute Mr.
+Webster's opinion on a question of constitutional law?" "And why not?"
+replied Gurowski, in high wrath, and in his loudest tones. "I tell you I
+can read the Constitution as well as Mr. Webster, and I say that the
+Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional,--is an outrage and an imposition
+of which you will all soon be ashamed. It is a disgrace to humanity and
+to your republicanism, and Mr. Webster should be hung for advocating it.
+He is a humbug or an ass," continued the Count, his wrath growing
+fiercer as he poured it out,--"an ass if he believes such an infamous
+law to be constitutional; and if he does not believe it, he is a humbug
+and a scoundrel for advocating it." Beacon Street, of course, was aghast
+at this outburst of blasphemy; and the high circles thereof were
+speedily closed against the plain-spoken radical who dared to question
+Mr. Webster's infallibility, and who made, indeed, but small account of
+the other idols worshipped in that locality.
+
+It was at this time, in the spring of 1851, that I became acquainted
+with Gurowski. I was standing one day at the door of the reading-room in
+Lyceum Hall in Cambridge, of which city I was then a resident, when I
+saw approaching through Harvard Square a strange figure which I knew
+must be the Count, who had often been described to me, but whom till
+then I had never chanced to see. He was at the time about forty-five
+years of age, of middle size, with a large head and big belly, and was
+partly wrapped in a huge and queerly-cut cloak of German material and
+make. On his head he wore a high, bell-shaped, broad-brimmed hat, from
+which depended a long, sky-blue veil, which he used to protect his eyes
+from the sunshine. His waistcoat was of bright red flannel, and as it
+reached to his hips and covered nearly the whole of his capacious front,
+it formed a startlingly conspicuous portion of his attire. In addition
+to the veil, his eyes were protected by enormous blue goggles, with
+glasses on the sides as well as in front. These extraordinary
+precautions for the defence of his sight were made necessary by the fact
+that he had lost an eye, not in a duel, as has been commonly reported,
+but by falling on an open penknife when he was a boy of ten years old.
+The wounded eye was totally ruined and wasted away, and had been the
+seat of long and intense pain, in which, as is usual in such cases, the
+other eye had participated. During the first year or two of his
+residence in this country he was much troubled by the intense sunshine;
+but afterwards becoming used to it, he left off his veil, and in other
+respects conformed his costume to that of the people.
+
+There were several gentlemen in the reading-room whom we both knew, one
+of whom introduced me to Gurowski, who received me very cordially, and
+immediately began to talk with much animation about Kossuth and Hungary,
+concerning which I had recently published something. He was exceedingly
+voluble, and seemed to have, even then, a remarkably copious stock of
+English words at command; but his pronunciation, as before remarked, was
+very imperfect, and until I grew accustomed to his accent I found it
+difficult to comprehend him. This, however, made little difference to
+Gurowski. He would talk to any one who would listen, without caring much
+whether he was understood or not. On this occasion he soon became
+engaged in a discussion with one of the gentlemen present, a Professor
+in the University, who demurred to some of his statements about Hungary;
+and in a short time Gurowski was foaming with rage, and formally
+challenged the Professor to settle the dispute with swords or pistols.
+This ingenious mode of deciding an historical controversy being blandly
+declined, Gurowski, apparently dumfounded at the idea of any gentleman's
+refusing so reasonable a proposition, abruptly retreated, asking me to
+go with him, as he said he wished to consult me; to which request I
+assented very willingly, for my curiosity was a good deal excited by his
+strange appearance and evidently peculiar character.
+
+He walked along in silence, and we soon reached his lodgings, which were
+convenient and comfortable enough. He had a parlor and bedroom on the
+second floor, well furnished, though in dire confusion, littered with
+books, papers, clothing, and other articles, tossed about at random. He
+gave me a cigar, and, sitting down, began to talk quite calmly and
+rationally about the affair at the reading-room. His excitement had
+entirely subsided, and he seemed to be sorry for his rudeness to the
+Professor, for whom he had a high regard, and who had been invariably
+kind to him. I spoke to him pretty roundly on the impropriety of his
+conduct, and the folly of which he had been guilty in offering a
+challenge,--a proceeding peculiarly repugnant to American, or at least
+to New England notions, and which only made him ridiculous. There was
+something so frank and childlike in his character, that, though I had
+known him but an hour, we seemed already intimate, and from that time to
+the day of his death I never had any hesitation in speaking to him about
+anything as freely as if he were my brother.
+
+He took my scolding in good part, and was evidently ashamed of his
+conduct, though too proud to say so. He wanted to know, however, what he
+had best do about the matter. I advised him to do nothing, but to let
+the affair drop, and never make any allusion to it; and I believe he
+followed my advice. At all events, he was soon again on good terms with
+the gentleman he had challenged.
+
+I spent several hours with Gurowski on this occasion, and, as we both at
+that time had ample leisure, we soon grew intimate, and fell into the
+habit of passing a large part of the day together. For a long period I
+was accustomed to visit him every day at his lodgings, generally in the
+morning, while he came almost every afternoon to my house. He had a good
+deal of wit, but little humor, and did not relish badinage. His chief
+delight was in serious discussions on questions of politics, history, or
+theology, on which he would talk all day with immense erudition and a
+wonderful flow of "the best broken English that ever was spoken." He was
+well read in Egyptology and in mediæval history, and had a wide general
+knowledge of the sciences, without special familiarity with any except
+jurisprudence. He disdained the details of the natural sciences, and
+despised their professors, whose pursuits seemed to him frivolous. He
+was jealous of Agassiz, and of the fame and influence he had attained in
+this country, and was in the habit of spitefully asserting that the
+Professor spoke bad French, and was a mere icthyologist, who would not
+dare in Europe to set up as an authority in so many sciences as he did
+here. Even the amiable Professor Guyot, the most unassuming man in the
+world, who then lived in Cambridge, was also an object of this paltry
+jealousy. "How finely Guyot humbugs you Americans with his slops,"
+Gurowski said to me one day. I replied that "slops" was a very unworthy
+and offensive word to apply to the productions of a man like Guyot, who
+certainly was of very respectable standing in his department of physical
+geography. "O bah! bah! you do not understand," exclaimed Gurowski. "I
+do not mean the slops of the kitchen, but the slops of the
+continent,--the slops and indentations which he talks so much about."
+_Slopes_ was, of course, the word he meant to use; and the incident may
+serve as a good illustration of the curious infelicities of English with
+which his conversation teemed.
+
+But the truth is that Gurowski spared nobody, or scarcely anybody, in
+his personal criticisms. Of all his vast range of acquaintance in New
+England, Felton, Longfellow, and Lowell were the only persons of note of
+whom he spoke with uniform respect. It was really painful to see how
+utterly his vast knowledge and his great powers of mind were rendered
+worthless by a childishness of temper and a habit of contradiction which
+made it almost impossible for him to speak of anybody with moderation
+and justice. He had also a sort of infernal delight in detecting the
+weak points of his acquaintances, which he did with fearful quickness
+and penetration. The slightest hint was sufficient. He saw at a glance
+the frail spot, and directed his spear against it. Failings the most
+secret, peculiarities the most subtle, which had, perhaps, been hidden
+from the acquaintances of years, seemed to reveal themselves at the
+first glance of his single eye.
+
+He was very fond of controversy, and would prolong a discussion from day
+to day with apparently unabated interest. I remember once we had a
+discussion about some point of mediæval history of which I knew little,
+but about which I feigned to be very positive, in order to draw out the
+stores of his knowledge, which was really immense in that direction.
+After a hot dispute of several hours we parted, leaving the question as
+unsettled as ever. The next day I called at his lodgings early in the
+afternoon. I knocked at the door of his room. He shouted, "Come in"; but
+as I opened the door I heard him retreating into his adjacent bedroom.
+He thrust his head out, and, seeing who it was, came back into the
+parlor, absolutely in a state of nature. He had not even his spectacles
+on. In his hand he held a pair of drawers, which he had apparently been
+about to assume when I arrived. Shaking this garment vehemently with one
+hand, while with the other he gave me a cigar, he broke out at once in a
+torrent of argument on the topic of the preceding day. I made no reply;
+but at the first pause suggested that he had better dress himself. To
+this he paid no attention, but stamped round the room, continuing his
+argument with his usual vehemence and volubility. Half an hour had
+elapsed, when some one knocked. Gurowski roared, "Come in!" A
+maid-servant opened the door, and of course instantly retreated. I
+turned the key, and again entreated the Count to put on his clothes. He
+did not comply, but kept on with his argument. Presently some one else
+rapped. "It is Desor," said the Count; "I know his knock; let him in."
+Desor was a Swiss, a scientific man, who lodged in the adjacent house.
+Gurowski apparently was involved in a dispute with him also, which he
+immediately took up, on some question of natural history. The Swiss,
+however, did not seem to care to contest the point, whatever it was, and
+soon went away. On his departure Gurowski again began his mediæval
+argument; but I positively refused to stay unless he put on his clothes.
+He reluctantly complied, and went into his bedroom, while I took up a
+book. Every now and then, however, he would sally out to argue some
+fresh point which had suggested itself to him; and his toilet was not
+fairly completed till, at the end of the third hour, the announcement of
+dinner put an end to the discussion.
+
+Disappointed in his hopes of getting employment as a lecturer or
+teacher, on which he had relied for subsistence, Gurowski felt himself
+growing poorer and poorer as the little stock of money he had brought
+from Europe wasted away. The discomforts of poverty did not tend to
+sweeten his temper nor to abate his savage independence. He grew prouder
+and fiercer as he grew poorer. He was very economical, and indulged in
+no luxuries except cigars, of which, however, he was not a great
+consumer, seldom smoking more than three or four a day. But with all his
+care, his money was at length exhausted, his last dollar gone. He had
+expected remittances from Poland, which did not come; and he now learned
+that, from some cause which I have forgotten, nothing would be sent him
+for that year at least. He used to tell me from day to day of the
+progress of his "decline and fall," as he called it, remarking
+occasionally that, when the worst came to the worst, he could turn
+himself into an Irishman and work for his living. I paid little
+attention to this talk, for really the idea of Gurowski and manual labor
+was so ridiculously incongruous that I could not form any definite
+conception of it. But he was more in earnest than I supposed.
+
+Going one day at my usual hour to his lodgings, I found him absent. I
+called again in the course of the day, but he was still not at home, and
+the people of the house informed me that he had been absent since early
+morning. The next day it was the same. On the third day I lay in wait
+for him at evening at his lodgings, to which he came about dark, in a
+most forlorn condition, with his hands blistered, his clothes dusty, and
+exhibiting himself every mark of extreme fatigue. He was cheerful,
+however, and very cordial, and gave me an animated account of his
+adventures in his "Irish life," as he called it. It seems he had formed
+an acquaintance with Mr. Hovey, the proprietor of the large nurseries
+between Boston and the Colleges, and on the morning of the day on which
+I found him absent from his lodgings he had gone to Hovey and offered
+himself as a laborer in his garden. Hovey was astounded at the
+proposition, but the Count insisted, and finally a spade was given to
+him, and he set to work "like an Irishman," as he delighted to express
+it. It was dreadfully wearisome to his unaccustomed muscles, but
+anything, he said, was better than getting in debt. He could earn a
+dollar a day, and that would pay for his board and his cigars. He had
+clothes enough, he thought, to last him the rest of his
+life,--especially, he added somewhat dolefully, as he was not likely to
+live long under the Irish regimen.
+
+I thought the joke had been carried far enough, and that it was time to
+interfere. I accordingly went next day to Boston, and, calling on the
+publisher of a then somewhat flourishing weekly newspaper, now extinct,
+called "The Boston Museum," I described to him the situation and the
+capacities of Gurowski, and proposed that he should employ the Count to
+write an article of reasonable length each week about European life, for
+which he was to be paid twelve dollars. I undertook to revise Gurowski's
+English sufficiently to make it intelligible. The publisher readily
+acceded to this proposition; and the Count, when I communicated it to
+him, was as delighted as if he had found a gold mine, or, in the
+language of to-day, "had struck ile." He was already, in spite of his
+philosophic cheerfulness, heartily sick of his labor with the spade, for
+which he was totally unfitted. He resumed his pen with alacrity, and
+wrote an article on the private life of the Russian court, which I
+copied, with the necessary revision, and carried to the publisher of the
+Museum, who was greatly pleased with it, and readily paid the stipulated
+price.
+
+For several months Gurowski continued to write an article every week,
+which he did very easily, and the pay for them soon re-established his
+finances on what, with his simple habits, he considered a sound basis.
+In fact, he soon grew rich enough, in his own estimation, to spend the
+summer at Newport, which he said he wanted to do, because the Americans
+of the highest social class evidently regarded a summer visit to that
+place as the chief enjoyment of their life and the crowning glory of
+their civilization. He went thither in June, 1851, and after that I only
+saw him at long intervals, and for very brief periods.
+
+His stay at Newport was short, and he went from there to New York, where
+he soon became an editorial writer for the Tribune. To a Cambridge
+friend of mine, who met him in Broadway, he expressed great satisfaction
+with his new avocation. "It is the most delightful position," he said,
+"that you can possibly conceive of. I can abuse everybody in the world
+except Greeley, Ripley, and Dana." He inquired after me, and, as my
+friend was leaving him, sent me a characteristic message,--"Tell C----
+that he is an ass." My friend inquired the reason for this flattering
+communication; and Gurowski replied, "Because he does not write to me."
+Busy with many things which had fallen to me to do after his departure,
+I had neglected to keep up our correspondence, at which he was sometimes
+very wrathful, and wrote me savagely affectionate notes of remonstrance.
+
+Besides writing for the Tribune, Gurowski was employed by Ripley and
+Dana on the first four volumes of the New American Cyclopædia, for
+which he wrote the articles on Alexander the Great, the Alexanders of
+Russia, Aristocracy, Attila, the Borgias, Bunsen, and a few others. It
+was at this time also that he wrote his books, "Russia as it is," and
+"America and Europe." In preparing for publication his articles and his
+books, he had the invaluable assistance of Mr. Ripley, who gratuitously
+bestowed upon them an immense amount of labor, for which he was very ill
+requited by the Count, who quarrelled both with him and Dana, and for a
+time wantonly and most unjustly abused them both in his peculiar lavish
+way.
+
+For two or three years longer I lost sight of him, during which period
+he led a somewhat wandering life, visiting the South, and residing
+alternately in Washington, Newport, Geneseo, and Brattleborough. The
+last time I saw him in New York was at the Athenæum Club one evening in
+December, 1860, just after South Carolina had seceded. A dispute was
+raging in the smoking-room, between Unionists on one side and
+Copperheads on the other, as to the comparative character of the North
+and South. Gurowski, who was reading in an adjoining room, was attracted
+by the noise, and came in, but at first said nothing, standing in
+silence on the outside of the circle. At last a South-Carolinian who was
+present appealed to him, saying, "Count, you have been in the South, let
+us have your opinion; you at least ought to be impartial." Gurowski
+thrust his head forward, as he was accustomed to do when about to say
+anything emphatic, and replied in his most energetic manner: "I have
+been a great deal in the South as well as in the North, and know both
+sections equally well, and I tell you, gentlemen, that there is more
+intelligence, more refinement, more cultivation, more virtue, and more
+good manners in one New England village than in all the South together."
+This decision put an end to the discussion. The South-Carolinian
+retreated in dudgeon, and Gurowski, chuckling, returned to his book or
+his paper.
+
+Shortly after this he took up his abode in Washington, where he soon
+became one of the notables of the city, frequenting some of the best
+houses, and almost certain to be seen of an evening at Willard's, the
+political exchange of the capital, where his singular appearance and
+emphatic conversation seldom failed to attract a large share of
+attention. The proceeds of the books he had published, never very large,
+had by this time been used up; and he was consequently very poor, for
+which, however, he cared little. But some of the Senators, who liked and
+pitied the rough-spoken, but warm-hearted and honest old man, persuaded
+Mr. Seward to appoint him to some post in the State Department created
+for the occasion. His nominal duty was to explore the Continental
+newspapers for matter interesting to the American government, and to
+furnish the Secretary of State, when called upon, with opinions upon
+diplomatic questions. As he once stated it to me in his terse way, it
+was "to read the German newspapers, and keep Seward from making a fool
+of himself." The first part of this duty, he said, was easy enough, but
+the latter part rather difficult. He kept the office longer than I
+expected, knowing his temper and habit of grumbling; but even Mr.
+Seward's patience was at length exhausted, and he was dismissed for
+long-continued disrespectful remarks concerning his official superior.
+
+Some time in 1862 I met Gurowski in Washington, at the rooms of Senator
+Sumner, which he was in the habit of visiting almost every evening. I
+had not seen him for a long time, and he greeted me very cordially; but
+I soon perceived that his habit of dogmatism had increased terribly, and
+that he was more impatient than ever of contradiction. He began to talk
+in a high tone about McClellan, the Army of the Potomac, and the
+probable duration of the Rebellion. His views for the most part seemed
+sound enough, but were so offensively expressed that, partly in
+impatience and partly for amusement, I soon began to contradict him
+roundly on every point. He became furious, and for nearly an hour
+stormed and stamped about the room, in the centre of which sat Mr.
+Sumner in his great chair, taking no part in the discussion, but making
+occasional ineffectual attempts to pacify Gurowski, who at length rushed
+out of the room in a rage too deep for even his torrent of words to
+express. After his departure, Mr. Sumner remarked that he reminded him
+of the whale in Barnum's Museum, which kept going round and round in its
+narrow tank, blowing with all its might whenever it came to the surface,
+which struck me at the time as a singularly apt comparison.
+
+I met Gurowski the next evening at the Tribune rooms, near Willard's,
+and found him still irritated and disposed to "blow." I checked him,
+however, told him I had had enough of nonsense, and wanted him to talk
+soberly; and, taking his arm, walked with him to his lodgings, where,
+while he dressed for a party, which he always did with great care, I
+made him tell me his opinion about men and affairs. He was unusually
+moderate and rational, and described the "situation," as the newspapers
+call it, with force and penetration. The army, he thought, was
+everything that could be desired, if it only had an efficient commander
+and a competent staff. I asked what he thought of Lincoln. "He is a
+beast." This was all he would say of him. I knew, of course, that he
+meant _bête_ in the French sense, and not in the offensive English sense
+of the word. The truth was, that Gurowski had little relish for humor,
+and the drollery which formed so prominent a part of Lincoln's external
+character was unintelligible and offensive to him. At a later period, as
+I judge from his Diary, he understood the President better, and did full
+justice to his noble qualities.
+
+I was particularly curious to know what he thought of Seward, whom he
+had good opportunities of seeing at that time, as he was still in the
+service of the State Department. He pronounced him shallow and
+insincere, and ludicrously ignorant of European affairs. The
+diplomatists of Europe, he said, were all making fun of his despatches,
+and looked upon him as only a clever charlatan.
+
+This proved to be my last conversation with Gurowski. I met him once
+again, however, at Washington, in the spring of 1863. I was passing up
+Fifteenth Street, by the Treasury Department, and reached one of the
+cross-streets just as a large troop of cavalry came along. The street
+was ankle-deep with mud, only the narrow crossing being passable, and I
+hurried to get over before the cavalry came up. Midway on the crossing I
+encountered Gurowski, wrapped in a long black cloak and a huge felt hat,
+rather the worse for wear. He threw open his arms to stop me, and,
+without any preliminary phrase, launched into an invective on Horace
+Greeley. In an instant the troop was upon us, and we were surrounded by
+trampling and rearing horses, and soldiers shouting to us to get out of
+the way. Gurowski, utterly heedless of all around him, raised his voice
+above the tumult, and roared that Horace Greeley was "an ass, a traitor,
+and a coward." It was no time to hold a parley on that question, and,
+breaking from him, I made for the opposite sidewalk, then, turning, saw
+Gurowski for the last time, enveloped in a cloud of horsemen, through
+which he was composedly making his way at his usual meditative pace.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ACCOMPLICES.
+
+
+Andrew Johnson has dealt the most cruel of all blows to the
+respectability of the faction which rejoices in his name. Hardly had the
+political Pecksniffs and Turveydrops contrived so to manage the Johnson
+Convention at Philadelphia that it violated few of the proprieties of
+intrigue and none of the decencies of dishonesty, than the
+commander-in-chief of the combination took the field in person, with the
+intention of carrying the country by assault. His objective point was
+the grave of Douglas, which became by the time he arrived the grave also
+of his own reputation and the hopes of his partisans. His speeches on
+the route were a volcanic outbreak of vulgarity, conceit, bombast,
+scurrility, ignorance, insolence, brutality, and balderdash. Screams of
+laughter, cries of disgust, flushings of shame, were the various
+responses of the nation he disgraced to the harangues of this leader of
+American "conservatism." Never before did the first office in the gift
+of the people appear so poor an object of human ambition, as when Andrew
+Johnson made it an eminence on which to exhibit inability to behave and
+incapacity to reason. His low cunning conspired with his devouring
+egotism to make him throw off all the restraints of official decorum, in
+the expectation that he would find duplicates of himself in the crowds
+he addressed, and that mob diffused would heartily sympathize with Mob
+impersonated. Never was blustering demagogue led by a distempered sense
+of self-importance into a more fatal error. Not only was the great body
+of the people mortified or indignant, but even his "satraps and
+dependents," even the shrewd politicians--accidents of an Accident and
+shadows of a shade--who had labored so hard at Philadelphia to weave a
+cloak of plausibilities to cover his usurpations, shivered with
+apprehension or tingled with shame as they read the reports of their
+master's impolitic and ignominious abandonment of dignity and decency in
+his addresses to the people he attempted alternately to bully and
+cajole. That a man thus self-exposed as unworthy of high trust should
+have had the face to expect that intelligent constituencies would send
+to Congress men pledged to support _his_ policy and _his_ measures,
+appeared for the time to be as pitiable a spectacle of human delusion as
+it was an exasperating example of human impudence.
+
+Not the least extraordinary peculiarity of these addresses from the
+stump was the immense protuberance they exhibited of the personal
+pronoun. In Mr. Johnson's speech, his "I" resembles the geometer's
+description of infinity, having "its centre everywhere and its
+circumference nowhere." Among the many kinds of egotism in which his
+eloquence is prolific, it may be difficult to fasten on the particular
+one which is most detestable or most laughable; but it seems to us that
+when his arrogance apes humility it is deserving perhaps of an intenser
+degree of scorn or derision than when it riots in bravado. The most
+offensive part which he plays in public is that of "the humble
+individual," bragging of the lowliness of his origin, hinting of the
+great merits which could alone have lifted him to his present exalted
+station, and representing himself as so satiated with the sweets of
+unsought power as to be indifferent to its honors. Ambition is not for
+him, for ambition aspires; and what object has he to aspire to? From his
+contented mediocrity as alderman of a village, the people have insisted
+on elevating him from one pinnacle of greatness to another, until they
+have at last made him President of the United States. He might have been
+Dictator had he pleased; but what, to a man wearied with authority and
+dignity, would dictatorship be worth? If he is proud of anything, it is
+of the tailor's bench from which he started. He would have everybody to
+understand that he is humble,--thoroughly humble. Is this caricature?
+No. It is impossible to caricature Andrew Johnson when he mounts his
+high horse of humility and becomes a sort of cross between Uriah Heep
+and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Indeed, it is only by quoting
+Dickens's description of the latter personage that we have anything
+which fairly matches the traits suggested by some statements in the
+President's speeches. "A big, loud man," says the humorist, "with a
+stare and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which
+seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A man with a great
+puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a
+strained skin to his face, that it seemed to hold his eyes open and lift
+his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being
+inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never
+sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was continually
+proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his
+old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility."
+
+If we turn from the moral and personal to the menial characteristics of
+Mr. Johnson's speeches, we find that his brain is to be classed with
+notable cases of arrested development. He has strong forces in his
+nature, but in their outlet through his mind they are dissipated into a
+confusing clutter of unrelated thoughts and inapplicable phrases. He
+seems to possess neither the power nor the perception of coherent
+thinking and logical arrangement. He does not appear to be aware that
+prepossessions are not proofs, that assertions are not arguments, that
+the proper method to answer an objection is not to repeat the
+proposition against which the objection was directed, that the proper
+method of unfolding a subject is not to make the successive statements a
+series of contradictions. Indeed, he seems to have a thoroughly
+animalized intellect, destitute of the notion of relations, with ideas
+which are but the form of determinations, and which derive their force,
+not from reason, but from will. With an individuality thus strong even
+to fierceness, but which has not been developed in the mental region,
+and which the least gust of passion intellectually upsets, he is
+incapable of looking at anything out of relations to himself,--of
+regarding it from that neutral ground which is the condition of
+intelligent discussion between opposing minds. In truth, he makes a
+virtue of being insensible to the evidence of facts and the deductions
+of reason, proclaiming to all the world that he has taken his position,
+that he will never swerve from it, and that all statements and arguments
+intended to shake his resolves are impertinences, indicating that their
+authors are radicals and enemies of the country. He is never weary of
+vaunting his firmness, and firmness he doubtless has, the firmness of at
+least a score of mules; but events have shown that it is a different
+kind of firmness from that which keeps a statesman firm to his
+principles, a political leader to his pledges, a gentleman to his word.
+Amid all changes of opinion, he has been conscious of unchanged will,
+and the intellectual element forms so small a portion of his being,
+that, when he challenged "the man, woman, or child to come forward" and
+convict him of inconstancy to his professions, he knew that, however it
+might be with the rest of mankind, he would himself be unconvinced by
+any evidence which the said man, woman, or child might adduce. Again,
+when he was asked by one of his audiences why he did not hang Jeff
+Davis, he retorted by exclaiming, "Why don't you ask me why I have not
+hanged Thad Stevens and Wendell Phillips? They are as much traitors as
+Davis." And we are almost charitable enough to suppose that he saw no
+difference between the moral or legal treason of the man who for four
+years had waged open war against the government of the United States,
+and the men who for one year had sharply criticised the acts and
+utterances of Andrew Johnson. It is not to be expected that nice
+distinctions will be made by a magistrate who is in the habit of denying
+indisputable facts with the fury of a pugilist who has received a
+personal affront, and of announcing demonstrated fallacies with the
+imperturbable serenity of a philosopher proclaiming the fundamental laws
+of human belief. His brain is entirely ridden by his will, and of all
+the public men in the country its official head is the one whose opinion
+carries with it the least intellectual weight. It is to the credit of
+our institutions and our statesmen that the man least qualified by
+largeness of mind and moderation of temper to exercise uncontrolled
+power should be the man who aspired to usurp it. The constitutional
+instinct in the blood, and the constitutional principle in the brain, of
+our real statesmen, preserve them from the folly and guilt of setting
+themselves up as imitative Caesars and Napoleons, the moment they are
+trusted with a little delegated power.
+
+Still we are told, that, with all his defects, Andrew Johnson is to be
+honored and supported as a "conservative" President engaged in a contest
+with a "radical" Congress! It happens, however, that the two persons who
+specially represent Congress in this struggle are Senators Trumbull and
+Fessenden. Senator Trumbull is the author of the two important measures
+which the President vetoed; Senator Fessenden is the chairman and organ
+of the Committee of Fifteen which the President anathematizes. Now we
+desire to do justice to the gravity of face which the partisans of Mr.
+Johnson preserve in announcing their most absurd propositions, and
+especially do we commend their command of countenance while it is their
+privilege to contrast the wild notions and violent speech of such
+lawless radicals as the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from
+Maine, with the balanced judgment and moderate temper of such a pattern
+conservative as the President of the United States. The contrast prompts
+ideas so irresistibly ludicrous, that to keep one's risibilities under
+austere control while instituting it argues a self-command almost
+miraculous.
+
+Andrew Johnson, however, such as he is in heart, intellect, will, and
+speech, is the recognized leader of his party, and demands that the
+great mass of his partisans shall serve him, not merely by prostration
+of body, but by prostration of mind. It is the hard duty of his more
+intimate associates to translate his broken utterances from
+_Andy-Johnsonese_ into constitutional phrase, to give these versions
+some show of logical arrangement, and to carry out, as best they may,
+their own objects, while professing boundless devotion to his. By a
+sophistical process of developing his rude notions, they often lead him
+to conclusions which he had not foreseen, but which they induce him to
+make his own, not by a fruitless effort to quicken his mind into
+following the steps of their reasoning, but by stimulating his passions
+to the point of adopting its results. They thus become parasites in
+order that they may become powers, and their interests make them
+particularly ruthless in their dealings with their master's consistency.
+Their relation to him, if they would bluntly express it, might be
+indicated in this brief formula: "We will adore you in order that you
+may obey us."
+
+The trouble with these politicians is, that they cannot tie the
+President's tongue as they tied the tongues of the eminent personages
+they invited from all portions of the country to keep silent at their
+great Convention at Philadelphia. That Convention was a masterpiece of
+cunning political management; but its Address and Resolutions were
+hardly laid at Mr. Johnson's feet, when, in his exultation, he blurted
+out that unfortunate remark about "a body called, or which assumed to
+be, the Congress of the United States," which, it appears, "we have seen
+hanging on the verge of the government." Now all this was in the
+Address of the Convention, but it was not so brutally worded, nor so
+calculated to appall those timid supporters of the Johnson party who
+thought, in their innocence, that the object of the Philadelphia meeting
+was to heal the wounds of civil war, and not to lay down a programme by
+which it might be reopened. Turning, then, from Mr. Johnson to the
+manifesto of his political supporters, let us see what additions it
+makes to political wisdom, and what guaranties it affords for future
+peace. We shall not discriminate between insurgent States and individual
+insurgents, because, when individual insurgents are so overwhelmingly
+strong that they carry their States with them, or when States are so
+overwhelmingly strong that they force individuals to be insurgents, it
+appears to be needless. The terms are often used interchangeably in the
+Address, for the Convention was so largely composed of individual
+insurgents that it was important to vary a little the charge that they
+usurped State powers with the qualification that they obeyed the powers
+they usurped. At the South, individual insurgents constitute the State
+when they determine to rebel, and obey it when they desire to be
+pardoned. An identical thing cannot be altered by giving it two names.
+
+The principle which runs through the Philadelphia Address is, that
+insurgent States recover their former rights under the Constitution by
+the mere fact of submission. This is equivalent to saying that insurgent
+States incurred no guilt in rebellion. But States cannot become
+insurgent, unless the authorities of such States commit perjury and
+treason, and their people become rebels and public enemies; perjury,
+treason, and rebellion are commonly held to be crimes; and who ever
+heard, before, that criminals were restored to all the rights of honest
+citizens by the mere fact of their arrest?
+
+The doctrine, moreover, is a worse heresy than that of Secession; for
+Secession implies that seceded States, being out of the Union, can
+plainly only be brought back by conquest, and on such terms as the
+victors may choose to impose. No candid Southern Rebel, who believes
+that his State seceded, and that he acted under competent authority when
+he took up arms against the United States, can have the effrontery to
+affirm that he had inherent rights of citizenship in "the foreign
+country" against which he plotted and fought for four years. The
+so-called "right" of secession was claimed by the South as a
+constitutional right, to be peaceably exercised, but it passed into the
+broader and more generally intelligible "right" of revolution when it
+had to be sustained by war; and the condition of a defeated
+revolutionist is certainly not that of a qualified voter in the nation
+against which he revolted. But if insurgent States recover their former
+rights and privileges when they submit to superior force, there is no
+reason why armed rebellion should not be as common as local discontent.
+We have, on this principle, sacrificed thirty-five hundred millions of
+dollars and three hundred thousand lives, only to bring the insurgent
+States into just those "practical relations to the Union" which will
+enable us to sacrifice thirty-five hundred millions of dollars more, and
+three hundred thousand more lives, when it suits the passions and
+caprices of these States to rebel again. Whatever they may do in the way
+of disturbing the peace of the country, they can never, it seems,
+forfeit their rights and privileges under the Constitution. Even if
+everybody was positively certain that there would be a new rebellion in
+ten years, unless conditions of representation were exacted of the
+South, we still, according to the doctrine of the Johnsonian jurists,
+would be constitutionally impotent to exact them, because insurgent
+States recover unconditioned rights to representation by the mere fact
+of their submitting to the power they can no longer resist. The
+acceptance of this principle would make insurrection the chronic disease
+of our political system. War would follow war, until nearly all the
+wealth of the country was squandered, and nearly all the inhabitants
+exterminated. Mr. Johnson's prophetic vision of that Paradise of
+constitutionalism, shadowed forth in his exclamation that he would stand
+by the Constitution though all around him should perish, would be
+measurably realized; and among the ruins of the nation a few haggard and
+ragged pedants would be left to drone out eulogies on "the glorious
+Constitution" which had survived unharmed the anarchy, poverty, and
+depopulation it had produced. An interpretation of the Constitution
+which thus makes it the shield of treason and the destroyer of
+civilization must be false both to fact and sense. The framers of that
+instrument were not idiots; yet idiots they would certainly have been,
+if they had put into it a clause declaring "that no State, or
+combination of States, which may at any time choose to get up an armed
+attempt to overthrow the government established by this Constitution,
+and be defeated in the attempt, shall forfeit any of the privileges
+granted by this instrument to loyal States." But an interpretation of
+the Constitution which can be conceived of as forming a possible part of
+it only by impeaching the sanity of its framers, cannot be an
+interpretation which the American people are morally bound to risk ruin
+to support.
+
+But even if we should be wild enough to admit the Johnsonian principle
+respecting insurgent States, the question comes up as to the identity of
+the States now demanding representation with the States whose rights of
+representation are affirmed to have been only suspended during their
+rebellion. The fact would seem to be, that these reconstructed States
+are merely the creations of the executive branch of the government, with
+every organic bond hopelessly cut which connected them with the old
+State governments and constitutions. They have only the names of the
+States they pretend to _be_. Before the Rebellion, they had a legal
+people; when Mr. Johnson took hold of them, they had nothing but a
+disorganized population. Out of this population he by his own will
+created a people, on the principle, we must suppose, of natural
+selection. Now, to decide who are the people of a State is to create its
+very foundations,--to begin anew in the most comprehensive sense of the
+word; for the being of a State is more in its people, that is, in the
+persons selected from its inhabitants to be the depositaries of its
+political power, than it is in its geographical boundaries and area.
+Over this people thus constituted by himself, Mr. Johnson set
+Provisional Governors nominated by himself. These Governors called
+popular conventions, whose members were elected by the votes of those to
+whom Mr. Johnson had given the right of suffrage; and these conventions
+proceeded to do what Mr. Johnson dictated. Everywhere Mr. Johnson;
+nowhere the assumed rights of the States! North Carolina was one of
+these creations; and North Carolina, through the lips of its Chief
+Justice, has already decided that Mr. Johnson was an unauthorized
+intruder, and his work a nullity, and even Mr. Johnson's "people" of
+North Carolina have rejected the constitution framed by Mr. Johnson's
+Convention. Other Rebel communities will doubtless repudiate his work,
+as soon as they can dispense with his assistance. But whatever may be
+the condition of these new Johnsonian States, they are certainly not
+States which can "recover" rights which existed previous to their
+creation. The date of their birth is to be reckoned, not from any year
+previous to the Rebellion, but from the year which followed its
+suppression. It may, in old times, have been a politic trick of shrewd
+politicians, to involve the foundations of States in the mists of a
+mythical antiquity; but we happily live in an historical period, and
+there is something peculiarly stupid or peculiarly impudent in the
+attempt of the publicists of the Philadelphia Convention to ignore the
+origins of political societies for which, after they have obtained a
+certain degree of organization, they claim such eminent traditional
+rights and privileges. Respectable as these States may be as infant
+phenomena, it will not do to _Methuselahize_ them too recklessly, or
+assert their equality in muscle and brawn with giants full grown.
+
+It is evident, from the nature of the case, that Mr. Johnson's labors
+were purely experimental and provisional, and needed the indorsement of
+Congress to be of any force. The only department of the government
+constitutionally capable to admit new States or rehabilitate insurgent
+ones is the legislative. When the Executive not only took the initiative
+in reconstruction, but assumed to have completed it; when he presented
+_his_ States to Congress as the equals of the States represented in that
+body; when he asserted that the delegates from his States should have
+the right of sitting and voting in the legislature whose business it was
+to decide on their right to admission; when, in short, he demanded that
+criminals at the bar should have a seat on the bench, and an equal voice
+with the judges, in deciding on their own case, the effrontery of
+Executive pretension went beyond all bounds of Congressional endurance.
+
+The real difference at first was not on the question of imposing
+conditions,--for the President had notoriously imposed them
+himself,--but on the question whether or not additional conditions were
+necessary to secure the public safety. The President, with that facility
+"in turning his back on himself" which all other logical gymnasts had
+pronounced an impossible feat, then boldly look the ground, that, being
+satisfied with the conditions he had himself exacted, the exaction of
+conditions was unconstitutional. To sustain this curious proposition he
+adduced no constitutional arguments, but he left various copies of the
+Constitution in each of the crowds he recently addressed, with the
+trust, we suppose, that somebody might be fortunate enough to find in
+that instrument the clause which supported his theory. Mr. Johnson,
+however, though the most consequential of individuals, is the most
+inconsequential of reasoners; every proposition which is evident to
+himself he considers to fulfil the definition of a self-evident
+proposition; but his supporters at Philadelphia must have known, that,
+in affirming that insurgent States recover their former rights by the
+fact of submission, they were arraigning the conduct of their leader,
+who had notoriously violated those "rights." They took up his work at a
+certain stage, and then, with that as a basis, they affirmed a general
+proposition about insurgent States, which, had it been complied with by
+the President, would have left them no foundation at all; for the States
+about which they so glibly generalized would have had no show of
+organized governments. The premises of their argument were obtained by
+the violation of its conclusion; they inferred from what was a negation
+of their inference, and deduced from what was a death-blow to their
+deduction.
+
+It is easy enough to understand why the Johnson Convention asserted the
+equality of the Johnson reconstructions of States with the States now
+represented in Congress. The object was to give some appearance of
+legality to a contemplated act of arbitrary power, and the principle
+that insurgent States recover all their old rights by the fact of
+submission was invented in order to cover the case. Mr. Johnson now
+intends, by the admission of his partisans, to attempt a _coup d'état_
+on the assembling of the Fortieth Congress, in case seventy-one members
+of the House of Representatives, favorable to his policy, are chosen, in
+the elections of this autumn, from the twenty-six loyal States. These,
+with the fifty Southern delegates, would constitute a quorum of the
+House; and the remaining hundred and nineteen members are, in the
+President's favorite phrase, "to be kicked out" from that "verge" of the
+government on which they now are said to be "hanging." The question,
+therefore, whether Congress, as it is at present constituted, is a body
+constitutionally competent to legislate for the whole country, is the
+most important of all practical questions. Let us see how the case
+stands.
+
+The Constitution, ratified by the people of all the States, establishes
+a government of sovereign powers, supreme over the whole land, and the
+people of no State can rightly pass from under its authority except by
+the consent of the people of all the States, with whom it is bound by
+the most solemn and binding of contracts. The Rebel States broke, _in
+fact_, the contract they could not break _in right_. Assembled in
+conventions of their people, they passed ordinances of secession,
+withdrew their Senators and Representatives from Congress, and began the
+war by assailing a fort of the United States. The Secessionists had
+trusted to the silence of the Constitution in relation to the act they
+performed. A State in the American Union, as distinguished from a
+Territory, is constitutionally a part of the government to which it owes
+allegiance, and the seceded States had refused to be parts of the
+government, and had forsworn their allegiance. By the Constitution, the
+United States, in cases of "domestic violence" in a State, is to
+interfere, "on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive when
+the Legislature cannot be convened." But in this case legislatures,
+executives, conventions of the people, were all violators of the
+domestic peace, and of course made no application for interference. By
+the Constitution, Congress is empowered to suppress insurrections; but
+this might be supposed to mean insurrections like Shays's Rebellion in
+Massachusetts and the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, and not to
+cover the action of States seceding from the Congress which is thus
+empowered. The seceders, therefore, felt somewhat as did the absconding
+James II. when he flung the Great Seal into the Thames, and thought he
+had stopped the machinery of the English government.
+
+Mr. Buchanan, then President of the United States, admitted at once that
+the Secessionists had done their work in such a way that, though they
+had done wrong, the government was powerless to compel them to do right.
+And here the matter should have rested, if the government established by
+the Constitution was such a government as Mr. Johnson's supporters now
+declare it to be. If it is impotent to prescribe terms of peace in
+relation to insurgent States, it is certainly impotent to make war on
+insurgent States. If insurgent States recover their former
+constitutional rights in laying down their arms, then there was no
+criminality in their taking them up; and if there was no criminality in
+their taking them up, then the United States was criminal in the war by
+which they were forced to lay them down. On this theory we have a
+government incompetent to legislate for insurgent States, because
+lacking their representatives, waging against them a cruel and unjust
+war. And this is the real theory of the defeated Rebels and Copperheads
+who formed the great mass of the delegates to the Johnson Convention.
+Should they get into power, they would feel themselves logically
+justified in annulling, not only all the acts of the "Rump Congress"
+since they submitted, but all the acts of the Rump Congresses during the
+time they had a Confederate Congress of their own. They may deny that
+this is their intention; but what intention to forego the exercise of an
+assumed right, held by those who are out of power, can be supposed
+capable of limiting their action when they are in?
+
+But if the United States is a government having legitimate rights of
+sovereignty conferred upon it by the people of all the States, and if,
+consequently, the attempted secession of the people of one or more
+States only makes them criminals, without impairing the sovereignty of
+the United States, then the government, with all its powers, remains
+with the representatives of the loyal people. By the very nature of
+government as government, the rights and privileges guaranteed to
+citizens are guaranteed to loyal citizens; the rights and privileges
+guaranteed to States are guaranteed to loyal States; and loyal citizens
+and loyal States are not such as profess a willingness to be loyal after
+having been utterly worsted in an enterprise of gigantic disloyalty. The
+organic unity and continuity of the government would be broken by the
+return of disloyal citizens and Rebel States without their going through
+the process of being restored by the action of the government they had
+attempted to subvert; and the power to restore carries with it the power
+to decide on the terms of restoration. And when we speak of the
+government, we are not courtly enough to mean by the expression simply
+its executive branch. The question of admitting and implicitly of
+restoring States, and of deciding whether or not States have a
+republican form of government, are matters left by the Constitution to
+the discretion of Congress. As to the Rebel States now claiming
+representation, they have succumbed, thoroughly exhausted, in one of the
+costliest and bloodiest wars in the history of the world,--a war which
+tasked the resources of the United States more than they would have been
+tasked by a war with all the great powers of Europe combined,--a war
+which, in 1862, had assumed such proportions, that the Supreme Court
+decided that it gave the United States the same rights and privileges
+which the government might exercise in the case of a national and
+foreign war. The inhabitants of the insurgent States being thus
+judicially declared public enemies as well as Rebels, there would seem
+to be no doubt at all that the victorious close of actual hostilities
+could not deprive the government of the power of deciding on the terms
+of peace with public enemies. The government of the United States found
+the insurgent States thoroughly revolutionized and disorganized, with no
+State governments which could be recognized without recognizing the
+validity of treason, and without the power or right to take even the
+initial steps for State reorganization. They were practically out of the
+Union as States; their State governments had lapsed; their population
+was composed of Rebels and public enemies, by the decision of the
+Supreme Court. Under such circumstances, how the Commander-in-Chief,
+under Congress, of the forces of the United States could re-create these
+defunct States, and make it mandatory on Congress to receive their
+delegates, has always appeared to us one of those mysteries of unreason
+which require faculties either above or below humanity to accept. In
+addition to this fundamental objection, there was the further one, that
+almost all of the delegates were Rebels presidentially pardoned into
+"loyal men," were elected with the idea of forcing Congress to repeal
+the test oath, and were incapacitated to be legislators even if they had
+been sent from loyal States. The few who were loyal men in the sense
+that they had not served the Rebel government, were still palpably
+elected by constituents who had; and the character of the constituency
+is as legitimate a subject of Congressional inquiry as the character of
+the representative.
+
+It not being true, then, that the twenty-two hundred thousand loyal
+voters who placed Mr. Johnson in office, and whom he betrayed, have no
+means by their representatives in Congress to exert a controlling power
+in the reconstruction of the Rebel communities, the question comes up as
+to the conditions which Congress has imposed. It always appeared to us
+that the true measure of conciliation, of security, of mercy, of
+justice, was one which would combine the principle of universal amnesty,
+or an amnesty nearly universal, with that of universal, or at least of
+impartial suffrage. In regard to amnesty, the amendment to the
+Constitution which Congress has passed disqualifies no Rebels from
+voting, and only disqualifies them from holding office when they have
+happened to add perjury to treason. In regard to suffrage, it makes it
+for the political interest of the South to be just to its colored
+citizens, by basing representation on voters, and not on population, and
+thus places the indulgence of class prejudices and hatreds under the
+penalty of a corresponding loss of political power in the Electoral
+College and the National House of Representatives. If the Rebel States
+should be restored without this amendment becoming a part of the
+Constitution, then the recent Slave States will have thirty Presidential
+Electors and thirty members of the House of Representatives in virtue of
+a population they disfranchise, and the vote of a Rebel white in South
+Carolina will carry with it more than double the power of a loyal white
+in Massachusetts or Ohio. The only ground on which this disparity can be
+defended is, that as "one Southerner is more than a match for two
+Yankees," he has an inherent, continuous, unconditioned right to have
+this superiority recognized at the ballot-box. Indeed, the injustice of
+this is so monstrous, that the Johnson orators find it more convenient
+to decry all conditions of representation than to meet the
+incontrovertible reasons for exacting the condition which bases
+representation on voters. Not to make it a part of the Constitution
+would be, in Mr. Shellabarger's vivid illustration, to allow "that Lee's
+vote should have double the elective power of Grant's; Semmes's double
+that of Farragut's; _Booth's--did he live--double that of Lincoln's, his
+victim!_"
+
+It is also to be considered that these thirty votes would, in almost all
+future sessions of Congress, decide the fate of the most important
+measures. In 1862 the Republicans, as Congress is now constituted, only
+had a majority of twenty votes. In alliance with the Northern Democratic
+party, the South with these thirty votes might repeal the Civil Rights
+Bill, the principle of which is embodied in the proposed amendment. It
+might assume the Rebel debt, which is repudiated in that amendment. It
+might even repudiate the Federal debt, which is affirmed in that
+amendment. We are so accustomed to look at the Rebel debt as dead beyond
+all power of resurrection, as to forget that it amounts, with the
+valuation of the emancipated slaves, to some four thousand millions of
+dollars. If the South and its Northern Democratic allies should come
+into power, there is a strong probability that a measure would be
+brought in to assume at least a portion of this debt,--say two thousand
+millions. The Southern members would be nearly a unit for assumption,
+and the Northern Democratic members would certainly be exposed to the
+most frightful temptation that legislators ever had to resist. Suppose
+it were necessary to buy fifty members at a million of dollars apiece,
+that sum would only be two and a half per cent of the whole. Suppose it
+were necessary to give them ten millions apiece, even that would only be
+a deduction of twenty-five per cent from a claim worthless without their
+votes. The bribery might be conducted in such a way as to elude
+discovery, if not suspicion, and the measure would certainly be
+trumpeted all over the North as the grandest of all acts of
+statesmanlike "conciliation," binding the South to the Union in
+indissoluble bonds of interest. The amendment renders the conversion of
+the Rebel debt into the most enormous of all corruption funds an
+impossibility.
+
+But the character and necessity of the amendment are too well understood
+to need explanation, enforcement, or defence. If it, or some more
+stringent one, be not adopted, the loyal people will be tricked out of
+the fruits of the war they have waged at the expense of such unexampled
+sacrifices of treasure and blood. It never will be adopted unless it be
+practically made a condition of the restoration of the Rebel States; and
+for the unconditioned restoration of those States the President, through
+his most trusted supporters, has indicated his intention to venture a
+_coup d'état_. This threat has failed doubly of its purpose. The timid,
+whom it was expected to frighten, it has simply scared into the
+reception of the idea that the only way to escape civil war is by the
+election of over a hundred and twenty Republican Representatives to the
+Fortieth Congress. The courageous, whom it was intended to defy, it has
+only exasperated into more strenuous efforts against the insolent
+renegade who had the audacity to make it.
+
+Everywhere in the loyal States there is an uprising of the people only
+paralleled by the grand uprising of 1861. The President's plan of
+reconstruction having passed from a policy into a conspiracy, his chief
+supporters are now not so much his partisans as his accomplices; and
+against him and his accomplices the people will this autumn indignantly
+record the most overwhelming of verdicts.
+
+
+
+
+ART.
+
+MARSHALL'S PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+When we consider the conditions under which the art of successful
+line-engraving is attained, the amount and quality of artistic knowledge
+implied, the years of patient, unwearied application imperiously
+demanded, the numerous manual difficulties to be overcome, and the
+technical skill to be acquired, it is not surprising that the names of
+so few engravers should be pre-eminent and familiar.
+
+In our own country, at least, the instinct and habit of the people do
+not favor the growth and perfection of an art only possible under such
+conditions.
+
+So fully and satisfactorily, however, have these demands been met in
+Marshall's line-engraving of the head of Abraham Lincoln, executed after
+Mr. Marshall's own painting, that we are induced to these preliminary
+thoughts as much by a sense of national pride as of delight and
+surprise.
+
+Our admiration of the engraving is first due to its value as a likeness;
+for it is only when the heart rests from a full and satisfied
+contemplation of the face endeared to us all, that we can regard it for
+its artistic worth.
+
+Mr. Marshall did not need this last work, to rank him at the head of
+American engravers; for his portraits of Washington and Fenimore Cooper
+had done that already; but it has lifted him to a place with the
+foremost engravers of the world.
+
+The greatness and glory of his success, in this instance, are to be
+measured by the inherent difficulties in the subject itself.
+
+The intellectual and physical traits of Abraham Lincoln were such as the
+world had never seen before. Original, peculiar, and anomalous, they
+seemed incapable of analysis and classification.
+
+While the keen, comprehensive intellect within that broad, grand
+forehead was struggling with the great problems of national fate, other
+faculties of the same organization, strongly marked in the lower
+features of his face, seemed to be making light of the whole matter.
+
+His character and the physical expression of it were unique, and yet
+made up of the most complex elements;--simple, yet incomprehensible;
+strong, yet gentle; inflexible, yet conciliating; human, yet most rare;
+the strangest, and yet for all in all the most lovable, character in
+history.
+
+To represent this man, to embody these characteristics, was the work
+prescribed the artist. Instead of being fetters, these contradictions
+seem to have been incentives to the artist. Justice to himself, as to an
+American who loved Lincoln, and justice to the great man, the truest
+American of his time, appear also to have been his inspiration.
+
+Neglected now, this golden opportunity might be lost forever, and the
+future be haunted by an ideal only, and never be familiarized with the
+plain, good face we knew. For what could the future make of all these
+caricatures and uncouth efforts at portraiture, rendered only more
+grotesque when stretched upon the rack of a thousand canvases? No less a
+benefactor to art than to humanity is he who shall deliver the world of
+these.
+
+The artist has chosen, with admirable judgment, a quiet, restful,
+familiar phase of Mr. Lincoln's life, with the social and genial
+sentiments of his nature at play, rather than some more impressive and
+startling hour of his public life, when a victory was gained, or an
+immortal sentence uttered at Gettysburg or the Capitol, or when, as the
+great Emancipator, he walked with his liberated children through the
+applauding streets of Richmond. It was tempting to paint him as
+President, but triumphant to represent him as a man.
+
+Though the face is wanting in the crowning glory of the dramatic, the
+romantic, the picturesque,--elements so fascinating to an artist,--we
+still feel no loss in the absence of these; for Mr. Marshall has found
+abundant material in the rich and varied qualities that Mr. Lincoln did
+possess, and has treated them with the loftier sense of justice and
+truth, he has employed no adventitious agencies to give brilliancy or
+emphasis to any salient point in the character of the man he portrays;
+he has treated Mr. Lincoln as he found him; he has interpreted him as he
+would have interpreted himself; in inspiration, in execution, and in
+result, he thought of none other, he labored for none other, he has
+given us none other, than simple, honest Abraham Lincoln.
+
+Were all the biographies and estimates of the President's character to
+be lost, it would seem as if, from this picture alone, the
+distinguishing qualities of his head and heart might be saved to the
+knowledge of the future; for a rarer exhibition seems impossible of the
+power of imparting inner spiritual states to outward physical
+expression.
+
+As a work of art, we repeat, this is beyond question the finest instance
+of line-engraving yet executed on this continent. Free from carelessness
+or coarseness, it is yet strong and emphatic; exquisitely finished, yet
+without painful over-elaboration; with no weary monotony of parallel
+lines to fill a given space, and no unrelieved masses of shade merely
+because here must the shadow fall.
+
+As a likeness, it is complete and final. Coming generations will know
+Abraham Lincoln by this picture, and will tenderly and lovingly regard
+it; for all that art could do to save and perpetuate this lamented man
+has here been done. What it lacks, art is incapable to express; what it
+has lost, memory is powerless to restore.
+
+There is, at least, some temporary solace to a bereaved country in
+this,--that so much has been saved from the remorseless demands of
+Death; though the old grief will ever come back to its still uncomforted
+heart, when it turns to that tomb by the Western prairie, within whose
+sacred silence so much sweetness and kindly sympathy and unaffected love
+have passed away, and the strange pathos, that we could not understand,
+and least of all remove, has faded forever from those sorrowful eyes.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+     _Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln. The
+     Story of a Picture._ By F. B. CARPENTER. New York: Hurd and
+     Houghton.
+
+The grandeur which can survive proximity was peculiarly Abraham
+Lincoln's. Had that great and simple hero had a valet,--it is hard to
+conceive of him as so attended,--he must still have been a hero even to
+the eye grown severe in dusting clothes and brushing shoes. Indeed,
+first and last, he was subjected to very critical examination by the
+valet-spirit throughout the world; and he seems to have passed it
+triumphantly, for all our native valets, North and South, as well as
+those of the English press, have long since united in honoring him.
+
+We see him in this book of Mr. Carpenter's to that advantage which
+perfect unaffectedness and sincerity can never lose. It is certainly a
+very pathetic figure, however, that the painter presents us, and not to
+be contemplated without sadness and that keen sense of personal loss
+which we all felt in the death of Abraham Lincoln. During the time that
+Mr. Carpenter was making studies for his picture of the President
+signing the Emancipation Proclamation, he was in daily contact with
+him,--saw him in consultation with his Cabinet, at play with his
+children, receiving office-seekers of all kinds, granting many favors to
+poor and friendless people, snubbing Secession insolence, and bearing
+patiently much impertinence from every source,--jesting, laughing,
+lamenting. It is singular that, in all these aspects of his character,
+there is no want of true dignity, though there is an utter absence of
+state,--and that we behold nothing of the man Lincoln was once doubted
+to be, but only a person of noble simplicity, cautious but steadfast,
+shrinking from none of the burdens that almost crushed him, profoundly
+true to his faith in the people, while surveying the awful calamity of
+the war with
+
+         "Anxious, pitying eyes,
+    As if he always listened to the sighs
+    Of the goaded world."
+
+We have read Mr. Carpenter's book through with an interest chiefly due,
+we believe, to the subject; for though the author had the faculty to
+observe and to note characteristic and striking things, he has not the
+literary art to present them adequately. His style is compact of the
+manner of the local reporters and the Sunday-school books. If he depicts
+a pathetic scene, he presently farces it by adding that "there was not a
+dry eye among those that witnessed it," and goody-goody dwells in the
+spirit and letter of all his attempts to portray the religious character
+of the President. It is greatly to his credit, however, that his
+observation is employed with discretion and delicacy; and as he rarely
+lapses from good taste concerning things to be mentioned, we readily
+forgive him his want of grace in recounting the incidents which go to
+form his entertaining and valuable book.
+
+
+     _Inside: a Chronicle of Secession._ By GEORGE F. HARRINGTON.
+     New York: Harper and Brothers.
+
+The author of this novel tells us that it was written in the heart of
+the rebellious territory during the late war, and that his wife
+habitually carried the manuscript to church with her in her pocket,
+while on one occasion he was obliged to bury it in the ground to
+preserve it from the insidious foe. These facts, in themselves
+startling, appear yet more extraordinary on perusal of the volume, in
+which there seems to be nothing of perilous value. Nevertheless, to the
+ill-regulated imagination of the Rebels, this novel might have appeared
+a very dangerous thing, to be kept from ever seeing the light in the
+North by all the means in their power; and we are not ready to say that
+Mr. Harrington's precautions, though unusual, were excessive. It is true
+that we see no reason why he should not have kept the material in his
+mind, and tranquilly written it out after the war was over.
+
+Let us not, however, give too slight an idea of the book's value because
+the Preface is silly. The story is sluggish, it must be confessed, and
+does not in the least move us. But the author has made a very careful
+study of his subject, and shows so genuine a feeling for character and
+manner that we accept his work as a faithful picture of the life he
+attempts to portray. Should he write another fiction, he will probably
+form his style less visibly upon that of Thackeray, though it is
+something in his favor that he betrays admiration for so great a master
+even by palpable imitation; and we hope he will remember that a story,
+however slender, must be coherent. In the present novel, we think the
+characters of Colonel Juggins and his wife done with masterly touches;
+and General Lamum, politician pure and simple, is also excellent.
+Brother Barker, of the hard-shell type, is less original, though good;
+while Captain Simmons, Colonel Ret Roberts, and other village idlers and
+great men, seem admirably true to nature. Except for some absurd
+melodrama, the tone of the book is quiet and pleasant, and there is here
+and there in it a vein of real pathos and humor.
+
+
+     _Royal Truths._ By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Boston: Ticknor and
+     Fields.
+
+We imagine that most readers, in turning over the pages of this volume,
+will not be greatly struck by the novelty of the truths urged. Indeed,
+they are very old truths, and they contain the precepts which we all
+know and neglect. Except that the present preacher was qualified to
+illustrate them with original force and clearness, he might well have
+left them untouched. As it is, however, we think that every one who
+reads a page in the book will learn to honor the faculty that presents
+them. It is not because Mr. Beecher reproves hatred, false-witness,
+lust, envy, and covetousness, that he is so successful in his office. We
+all do this, and dislike sin in our neighbors; but it is his power of
+directly reproving these evils in each one of us that gives his words so
+great weight. He of course does this by varying means and with varying
+effect. Here we have detached passages from many different
+discourses,--not invariably selected with perfect judgment, but
+affording for this reason a better idea of his range and capacity. That
+given is not always of his best; but, for all this, it may have been the
+best for some of those who heard it. In the changing topics and style of
+the innumerable extracts in this volume, we find passages of pure
+sublimity, of solemn and pathetic eloquence, of flower-like grace and
+sweetness, followed by exhortations apparently modelled upon those of
+Mr. Chadband, but doubtless comforting and edifying to Mrs. Snagsby in
+the congregation, and not, we suppose, without use to Mrs. Snagsby in
+the parlor where she sits down to peruse the volume on Sunday afternoon.
+For according to the story which Mr. Beecher tells his publishers in a
+very pleasant prefatory letter, this compilation was made in England,
+where it attained great popularity among those who never heard the
+preacher, and who found satisfaction in the first-rate or the
+second-rate, without being moved by the arts of oratory. Indeed, the
+book is one that must everywhere be welcome, both for its manner and for
+its matter. The application of the "Truths" is generally enforced by a
+felicitous apologue or figure; in some cases the lesson is conveyed in a
+beautiful metaphor standing alone. The extracts are brief, and the
+point, never wanting, is moral, not doctrinal.
+
+
+     _The Language of Flowers._ Edited by MISS ILDREWE. Boston:
+     De Vries, Ibarra, & Co.
+
+Margaret Fuller said that everybody liked gossip, and the only
+difference was in the choice of a subject. A bookful of gossip about
+flowers--their loves and hates, thoughts and feelings, genealogy and
+cousinships--is certainly always attractive. Who does not like to hear
+that Samphire comes from Saint-Pierre, and Tansy from Athanasie, and
+that Jerusalem Artichokes are a kind of sunflower, whose baptismal name
+is a corruption of _girasole_, and simply describes the flower's love
+for the sun? Does this explain all the Jerusalems which are scattered
+through our popular flora,--as Jerusalem Beans and Jerusalem Cherries?
+The common theory has been that the sons of the Puritans, by a slight
+theological reaction, called everything which was not quite genuine on
+week-days by that name which sometimes wearied them on Sundays.
+
+It is pleasant also to be reminded that our common Yarrow (_Achillea
+millefolium_) dates back to Achilles, who used it to cure his wounded
+friend, and that Mint is simply Menthe, transformed to a plant by the
+jealous Proserpine. It is refreshing to know that Solomon's Seal was so
+named by reason of the marks on its root; and that this root, according
+to the old herbalists, "stamped while it is fresh and greene, and
+applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruse, black
+or blew spots gotten by falls, or woman's wilfulness in stumbling upon
+their hasty husband's fists, or such like." It was surely a generous
+thing in Solomon, who set his seal of approbation upon the rod, to
+furnish in that same signet a balm for injuries like these.
+
+This pretty gift-book is the first really American contribution to the
+language of flowers. It has many graceful and some showy illustrations;
+its floral emblems are not all exotic; and though the editor's
+appellation may at first seem so, a simple application of the laws of
+anagram will reveal a name quite familiar, in America, to all lovers of
+things horticultural.
+
+
+     _The American Annual Cyclopædia and Register of Important
+     Events of the Year 1865._ New York: D. Appleton & Co.
+
+Several articles in this volume give it an unusual interest and value.
+The paper on Cholera is not the kind of reading to which one could have
+turned with cheerfulness last July, from a repast of summer vegetables
+and hurried fruits; nor can that on Trichinosis be pleasant to the
+friend of pork; but they are both clearly and succinctly written, and
+will contribute to the popular understanding of the dangers which they
+discuss.
+
+The Cyclopædia, however, has its chief merit in those articles which
+present _resumés_ of the past year's events in politics, literature,
+science, and art. The one on the last-named subject is less complete
+than could be wished, and is written in rather slovenly English; but the
+article on literature is very full and satisfactory. A great mass of
+biographical matter is presented under the title of "Obituaries," but
+more extended notices of more distinguished persons are given under the
+proper names. Among the latter are accounts of the lives and public
+services of Lincoln, Everett, Palmerston, Cobden, and Corwin; and of the
+lives and literary works of Miss Bremer, Mrs. Gaskell, Hildreth,
+Proudhon, etc. The article on Corwin is too slight for the subject, and
+the notice of Hildreth, who enjoyed a great repute both in this country
+and in Europe, is scant and inadequate. Under the title of "Army
+Operations," a fair synopsis of the history of the last months of the
+war is given; and, as a whole, the Cyclopædia is a valuable, if not
+altogether complete, review of the events of 1865.
+
+
+     _History of the Atlantic Telegraph._ By HENRY M. FIELD, D.
+     D. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.
+
+Why Columbus should have been at the trouble to sail from the Old World
+in order to find a nearer path to it, as our author states in his
+opening chapter, he will probably explain in the future edition in which
+he will chastise the occasionally ambitious writing of this. His book is
+a most interesting narrative of all the events in the history of
+telegraphic communication between Europe and America, and has the double
+claim upon the reader of an important theme and an attractive treatment
+of it. Now that the great nervous cord running from one centre of the
+world's life to the other is quick with constant sensation, the wonder
+of its existence may fade from our minds; and it is well for us to
+remember how many failures--involving all the virtue of triumph--went
+before the final success. And it cannot but be forever gratifying to our
+national pride, that, although the idea of the Atlantic telegraph
+originated in Newfoundland, and was mainly realized through the patience
+of British enterprise, yet the first substantial encouragement which it
+received was from Americans, and that it was an American whose heroic
+perseverance so united his name with this idea that Cyrus W. Field and
+the Atlantic cable are not to be dissociated in men's minds in this or
+any time.
+
+Our author has not only very interestingly reminded us of all this, but
+he has done it with a good judgment which we must applaud. His brother
+was the master-spirit of the whole enterprise; but, while he has
+contrived to do him perfect justice, he has accomplished the end with an
+unfailing sense of the worth of the constant support and encouragement
+given by others.
+
+The story is one gratifying to our national love of adventurous material
+and scientific enterprise, as well as to our national pride. We hardly
+know, however, if it should be a matter of regret that neither on the
+one account nor on the other are we able to receive the facts of the
+cable's success and existence with the effusion with which we hailed
+them in 1858. Blighting De Sauty, suspense, and scepticism succeeded the
+rapture and pyrotechnics of those joyful days; and in the mean time we
+have grown so much that to be electrically united with England does not
+impart to us the fine thrill that the hope of it once did. Indeed, the
+jubilation over the cable's success seems at last to have been chiefly
+on the side of the Englishmen, who found our earlier enthusiasm rather
+absurd, but who have since learned to value us, and just now can
+scarcely make us compliments enough.
+
+
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.
+
+
+Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border. Comprising Descriptions of the
+Indian Nomads of the Plains; Explorations of New Territory; a Trip
+across the Rocky Mountains in the Winter; Descriptions of the Habits of
+different Animals found in the West, and the Methods of hunting them;
+with Incidents in the Life of different Frontier Men, etc., etc. By
+Colonel R. B. Marcy, U. S. A., Author of "The Prairie Traveller." With
+numerous Illustrations. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 442.
+$3.00.
+
+Life and Times of Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth President of the United
+States. Written from a National Stand-point. By a National Man. New
+York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. xii. 363. $2.00.
+
+The American Printer: a Manual of Typography, containing complete
+Instructions for Beginners, as well as Practical Directions for managing
+all Departments of a Printing-Office. With several useful Tables,
+Schemes for Imposing Forms in every Variety, Hints to Authors and
+Publishers, etc., etc. By Thomas Mackellar. Philadelphia. L. Johnson &
+Co. 12mo. pp. 336. $2.00.
+
+Coal, Iron, and Oil; or, the Practical American Miner. A Plain and
+Popular Work on our Mines and Mineral Resources, and a Text-Book or
+Guide to their Economical Development. With Numerous Maps and
+Engravings, illustrating and explaining the Geology, Origin, and
+Formation of Coal, Iron, and Oil, their Peculiarities, Characters, and
+General Distribution, and the Economy of mining, manufacturing, and
+using them; with General Descriptions of the Coal-Fields and Coal-Mines
+of the World, and Special Descriptions of the Anthracite Fields and
+Mines of Pennsylvania, and the Bituminous Fields of the United States,
+the Iron-Districts and Iron-Trade of our Country, and the Geology and
+Distribution of Petroleum, the Statistics, Extent, Production, and Trade
+in Coal, Iron, and Oil, and such useful Information on Mining and
+Manufacturing Matters as Science and Practical Experience have developed
+to the present Time. By Samuel Harries Daddow, Practical Miner and
+Engineer of Mines, and Benjamin Bannan, Editor and Proprietor of the
+"Miner's Journal." Pottsville. B. Bannan. 8vo. pp. 808. $7.50.
+
+Index to the New York Times for 1865. Including the Second Inauguration
+of President Lincoln, and his Assassination; the Accession to the
+Presidency of Andrew Johnson; the Close of the XXXVIII. and Opening of
+the XXXIX. Congress, and the Close of the War of Secession. New York.
+Henry J. Raymond & Co. 8vo. pp. iv., 182. $5.00.
+
+Sherbrooke. By H. B. G., Author of "Madge." New York. D. Appleton & Co.
+12mo. pp. 463. $2.00.
+
+Sermons preached on different Occasions during the last Twenty Years. By
+the Rev. Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D. D., Prebendary of St. Paul's, and
+one of her Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary. Reprinted from the Second
+London Edition. Two Volumes in one. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo.
+pp. iv., 397. $2.00.
+
+Miscellanea. Comprising Reviews, Lectures, and Essays, on Historical,
+Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects. By Most Rev. M.J. Spalding, D.
+D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Baltimore. Murphy & Co. 8vo. pp. lxii.,
+807. $3.50.
+
+Poems. By Christina G. Rosetti. Boston. Roberts Brothers. 16mo. pp. x.,
+256. $1.75.
+
+Christine: a Troubadour's Song, and other Poems. By George H. Miles. New
+York. Lawrence Kehoe. 12mo. pp. 285. $2.00.
+
+The Admiral's Daughter. By Mrs. Marsh. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson &
+Bro. 8vo. paper. pp. 115. 50 cts.
+
+The Orphans; and Caleb Field. By Mrs. Oliphant. Philadelphia. T. B.
+Peterson & Bro. 8vo. paper. pp. 133. 50 cts.
+
+Life of Benjamin Silliman, M. D., LL. D., late Professor of Chemistry,
+Mineralogy, and Geology in Yale College. Chiefly from his Manuscript
+Reminiscences, Diaries, and Correspondence. By George P. Fisher,
+Professor in Yale College. In Two Volumes. New York. C. Scribner & Co.
+12mo. pp. xvi., 407; x., 408. $5.00.
+
+The Mormon Prophet and his Harem; or, An Authentic History of Brigham
+Young, his numerous Wives and Children. By Mrs. C. V. Waite. Cambridge.
+Printed at the Riverside Press, 12mo. pp. x., 280. $2.00.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No.
+109, November, 1866, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1866 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 26963-8.txt or 26963-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866.
+    </title>
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109,
+November, 1866, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 19, 2008 [EBook #26963]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1866 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
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+
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+
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+</pre>
+
+
+
+<h4>THE</h4>
+
+<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1>
+
+<h2><i>A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.</i></h2>
+
+<h3>VOL. XVIII.&mdash;NOVEMBER, 1866.&mdash;NO. CIX.</h3>
+
+<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by <span class="smcap">Ticknor and
+Fields</span>, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.</p>
+
+<p class="notes">Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.</p>
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#RHODA"><b>RHODA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#PASSAGES_FROM_HAWTHORNES_NOTE-BOOKS"><b>PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#ON_TRANSLATING_THE_DIVINA_COMMEDIA"><b>ON TRANSLATING THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#FIVE_HUNDRED_YEARS_AGO"><b>FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#KATHARINE_MORNE"><b>KATHARINE MORNE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#PROTONEIRON"><b>PROTONEIRON.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_PROGRESS_OF_PRUSSIA"><b>THE PROGRESS OF PRUSSIA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_SONG_SPARROW"><b>THE SONG SPARROW.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#INVALIDISM"><b>INVALIDISM.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#GRIFFITH_GAUNT_OR_JEALOUSY"><b>GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#GUROWSKI"><b>GUROWSKI.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_PRESIDENT_AND_HIS_ACCOMPLICES"><b>THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ACCOMPLICES.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#ART"><b>ART.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"><b>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS"><b>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="RHODA" id="RHODA"></a>RHODA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Uncle Bradburn took down a volume of the new Cyclop&aelig;dia, and placed it
+on the stand beside him. He did not, however, open it immediately, but
+sat absorbed in thought. At length he spoke:&mdash;"Don't you think a young
+girl in the kitchen, to help Dorothy, would save a good many steps?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," replied Aunt Janet, slowly. "Dorothy has a great deal to
+do already. Hepsy is as good and considerate as possible, but Dorothy
+won't let her do anything hardly. Hepsy says herself that within doors
+she has only dusted furniture and mended stockings ever since she came."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you find sewing for Hepsy?"</p>
+
+<p>"She ought not to do much of that, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Very true; but then this girl,&mdash;she will have to go to the poor-house
+if we don't take her. She has been living with Mrs. Kittredge at the
+Hollow; but Mrs. Kittredge has made up her mind not to keep her any
+longer. The fact is, nobody will keep her unless we do; and she is
+terribly set against going back to the poor-house."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is she?" asked Aunt Janet, a little hurriedly. She guessed already.</p>
+
+<p>"Her name is Rhoda Breck. You have heard of her."</p>
+
+<p>"Heard of her! I should think so!"</p>
+
+<p>"If I were you, Oliver," said grandmother, who sat in her rocking-chair
+knitting, "I would have two or three new rooms finished off over the
+wood-shed, and then you could accommodate a few more of that sort. Just
+like you!"</p>
+
+<p>And she took a pinch of snuff from a little silver-lidded box made of a
+sea-shell. She took it precipitately,&mdash;a sign that she was slightly
+disturbed. This snuff-box, however, was a safety-valve.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Bradburn smiled quietly and made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"We will leave it to Dorothy," said Aunt Janet. "It is only fair, for
+she will have all the trouble."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Bradburn regarded the point as gained: he was sure of Dorothy. But
+he added by way of clincher, "Probably the girl never knew a month of
+kind treatment in her life, and one would like her to have a chance of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span>seeing what it is. Just imagine a child of fifteen subjected to the
+veriest vixen in the country. There is some excuse for old Mrs.
+Kittredge, too, exasperated as she is by disease. No wonder if she is
+not very amiable; but that makes it none the less hard for the child."</p>
+
+<p>So the upshot of the matter was, that Rhoda Breck was installed nominal
+aid to Dorothy.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle brought her the next day in his sulky,&mdash;a slight little creature,
+with a bundle as large as herself.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she appeared at the sitting-room door. She was scarcely taller
+than a well-grown ten-years child. She wore a dress of gay-hued print, a
+bright shawl whose fringe reached lower than the edge of her skirt, and
+on her head an old-world straw bonnet decorated with a mat of crushed
+artificial flowers, and a faded, crumpled green veil. The small head had
+a way of moving in quick little jerks, like a chicken's; and it was odd
+to see how the enormous bonnet moved and jerked in unison. The face and
+features were small, except the eyes, which were large and wide open,
+and blue as turquoise.</p>
+
+<p>She took time to look well around the room before she spoke:&mdash;"Well, I'm
+come; I suppose you've been expecting of me. See here, be I going to
+sleep with that colored woman?"</p>
+
+<p>It was not possible to know from her manner to whom the query was
+addressed; but Aunt Janet replied, "No, Rhoda, there is a room for you.
+We never ask Dorothy to share her room with any one." Then, turning to
+me, "Go and show Rhoda her room, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>I rose to obey. Rhoda surveyed me, as if taking an inventory of the
+particulars which made up my exterior; and when I in turn felt my eyes
+attracted by her somewhat singular aspect, she remarked, in an
+indescribably authoritative tone, "Don't gawp! I hate to be gawped at."</p>
+
+<p>"See what a pretty room Dorothy has got ready for you," said I,&mdash;"a
+chest of drawers in it, too; and there's a little closet. I am sure you
+will like your room."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you ain't sure neither," she replied. "Nobody can't tell till
+they've tried. Likely yourn has got a carpet all over it. Hain't it,
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"It has a straw matting," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And it's bigger'n this, I'll bet Ain't it, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is larger; but Louise and I have it together," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I've heard tell about her," said Rhoda. "Well, you see you and her
+ain't town-poor. If you was town-poor you'd have to put up with
+everything,&mdash;little room, and straw bed, and old clothes, and
+everything. I expect I'll have to take your old gowns; hain't you got
+any? Say, now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "but I wear them myself. Surely, that you have on is not
+old."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's because I picked berries enough to buy it with. My bundle
+there's all old duds, though. It takes me half my time to patch 'em.
+You'd pitch 'em into the rag-bag. Wouldn't you, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not seen them, you know," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"More you hain't, nor you ain't agoing to. I hate folks peeking over my
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said I, "you may be sure I shall never do it. I must go back to
+my work now."</p>
+
+<p>"O, you feel above looking at town-poor's things, don't you? Wait till
+I've showed you my new apron. I didn't ride in it for fear I'd dust it.
+It's real gay, ain't it, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said I; "it looks like a piece of a tulip-bed. But I must really
+go. I hope you will like your room."</p>
+
+<p>When I went back into the sitting-room, grandmother was wiping her eyes.
+She had been laughing till she cried at the new help Uncle Oliver had
+brought into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"No matter, though," she was saying; "let him call them help if he
+likes. If Dorothy will put up with it, I am sure we ourselves may. He
+says Hepsy more than pays her way in eggs and chickens. Just as if he
+thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> about the eggs and chickens! Of course, if persons are really
+in need, it always pays to help them; and I guess Oliver has about as
+much capital invested that way as any one I know of, and I'm glad of it.
+But it's his funny way of doing it; it's all help, you see." And she
+laughed again till the tears came.</p>
+
+<p>In half an hour, during which time grandmother had a nap in her chair
+and Aunt Janet read, the little apparition stood in the doorway again.
+She had doffed the huge bonnet; and in her lint-white locks, drawn back
+from her forehead so straight and tight that it seemed as if that were
+what made her eyes open so round, she wore a tall horn comb. Around her
+neck, and standing well out, was a broad frill of the same material as
+her dress, highly suggestive of Queen Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>"You hain't got any old things, coats and trousers and such, all worn
+out, have you? 'Cause if you have, I guess I'll begin a braided rug.
+When folks are poor, they've got to work, if they know what's good for
+'em."</p>
+
+<p>"They'd better work, if they know what's good for 'em, whether they're
+poor or not," said grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a pedler going to bring me a diamond ring when I get a dollar
+to pay him for it."</p>
+
+<p>This remark was elicited by a fiery spark on grandmother's finger.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better save your money for something you need more," said
+grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't think so when you bought yourn, did you, now?" said Rhoda.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Aunt Janet had experienced a sense of relief at Rhoda's
+suggestion, by reason of finding herself really at a loss how to employ
+her. So they twain proceeded at once to the garret; whence they
+presently returned, Rhoda bearing her arms full of worn-out garments
+which had been accumulating in view of the possible beggar whose visits
+in that part of New England are inconveniently rare.</p>
+
+<p>"Those braided rugs are very comfortable things under one's feet in
+winter," said grandmother. "They're homely as a stump fence, but that is
+no matter."</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly knew what you would do with her while we were away," said Aunt
+Janet. "But it would kill the child to sit steadily at that. There's one
+thing, though,&mdash;strawberries will soon be ripe, and she can go and pick
+them. You may tell her, Kate, that I will pay her for them by the quart,
+just as any one else does. That will please and encourage her, I think."</p>
+
+<p>I told her that evening.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you don't," was her answer. "Nobody don't pay me twice over. I
+ain't an old skinflint, if I be town-poor. But I'll keep you in
+strawberries, though. Never you fear."</p>
+
+<p>I quite liked that of her, and so did grandmother and Aunt Janet when I
+told them.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle and Aunt Bradburn were going to make their yearly visit at Exeter,
+where uncle's relatives live. The very day of their departure brought a
+letter announcing a visit from one of Aunt Janet's cousins, a Miss
+Lucretia Stackpole. She was a lady who avowed herself fortunate in
+having escaped all those trammels which hinder people from following
+their own bent. One of her fancies was for a nomadic life; and in
+pursuance of this, she bestowed on Aunt Janet occasional visits, varying
+in duration from two or three days to as many weeks. The letter implied
+that she might arrive in the evening train, and we waited tea for her.</p>
+
+<p>She did not disappoint us; and during the tea-drinking she gave us
+sketches, not only of all the little celebrities she had met at
+Saratoga, but of all the new fashions in dresses, bonnets, and jewelry,
+besides many of her own plans.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for her to remain beyond the week, she said, because
+she had promised to meet her friends General and Mrs. Perkinpine in
+Burlington in time to accompany them to Montreal and Quebec, whence they
+must hurry back to Saratoga for a week, and go thence to Baltimore;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span>
+then, after returning for a few days to New York, they were to go to
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>"But you don't mean to go with them to Europe, Lucretia?" said
+grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>"O, of course, Aunt Margaret," for so she called her,&mdash;"of course I
+intend to go. We mean to be gone a year, and half the time we shall
+spend in Paris. We shall go to Rome, and we shall spend a few weeks in
+England."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot imagine what you will do with six months in Paris,&mdash;you who
+don't know five words of French."</p>
+
+<p>"I studied it, however, at boarding-school," said Miss Stackpole; "I
+read both T&eacute;l&eacute;maque and the New Testament in French."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you?" said grandmother; "well, every little helps."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I should dearly love to go myself," said Louise.</p>
+
+<p>"One picks up the language," said Miss Stackpole; "and certainly nothing
+is more improving than travel."</p>
+
+<p>"If improvement is your motive, it is certainly a very laudable one,"
+said grandmother. "But I should suppose that at your age you would begin
+to prefer a little quiet to all this rushing about. But every one to his
+liking."</p>
+
+<p>Now it is undeniable that grandmother and Miss Stackpole never did get
+on very well together; so it was rather a relief to Louise and myself
+when Miss Stackpole, pleading fatigue from her ride, expressed a wish to
+go to bed early, and get a good long, refreshing night's sleep, the
+facilities for which, she averred, were the only compensating
+circumstance of country life.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately afterwards, grandmother called Louise and myself into her
+room, to say what a pity it was that this visit had not occurred either
+a few weeks earlier or a few weeks later, when uncle and aunt would have
+been at home; but that, as it was, we must make the best of it, and do
+all in our power to make things go pleasantly for Miss Stackpole. It was
+true, she said, that Lucretia was not so very many years younger than
+herself, and, for her part, she thought pearl-powder and rouge and dyed
+hair, and all such trash, made people look old and silly, instead of
+young and handsome. It did sometimes try her patience a little; but she
+hoped she should remember, and so must we, that it was a Christian duty
+to treat people hospitably in one's own home, and that it was enjoined
+upon us to live peaceably, if possible, with all men, as much as lieth
+in us. Lucretia's being a goose made no difference in the principle.</p>
+
+<p>So we planned that we would take her up to Haverhill, and down to
+Cornish, and over to Woodstock,&mdash;all places to which she liked to go.
+And Dorothy came in to ask if she had better broil or fricassee the
+chickens for breakfast, and to say that there was a whole basketful of
+Guinea-hens' eggs, and that she had just set some waffles and
+sally-lunns a-sponging. She was determined to do her part, she said: she
+should be mighty glad to help get that skinchy-scrimpy look out of Miss
+Lucretia's face, just like a sour raisin.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmother said every one must do the best she could.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>There was one topic which Miss Stackpole could never let alone, and
+which always led to a little sparring between herself and grandmother.
+So the next morning, directly after breakfast, she began,&mdash;"Aunt
+Margaret, I never see that ring on your finger without wanting it."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," grandmother responded; "and you're likely to want it. It's
+little like you'll ever get it."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Aunt Margaret! you always could say the drollest things. But, upon
+my word, I should prize it above everything. What in all the world makes
+you care to wear such a ring as that, at your age, is more than I can
+imagine. If you gave it to me, I promise you I would never part with it
+as long as I live."</p>
+
+<p>"And I promise you, Lucretia, that I never will. And let me tell you,
+that, old as I am, you are the only one who has ever seemed in a hurry
+for me to have done with my possessions. If it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span> will ease your mind any,
+I can assure you, once for all, that this ring will never come into your
+hands as long as you live. It has been in the family five generations,
+and has always gone to the eldest daughter; and, depend upon it, I shall
+not be the first to infringe the custom. So now I hope you will leave me
+in peace."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Stackpole held up her hands, and exclaimed and protested. When she
+was alone with Louise and me, she said she could plainly see that
+grandmother grew broken and childish.</p>
+
+<p>When we saw grandmother alone, she said she was sorry she had been so
+warm with Lucretia; she feared it was not quite Christian; besides,
+though you brayed a fool in a mortar with a pestle, yet would not his
+foolishness depart from him.</p>
+
+<p>The visiting career, so desirable for various reasons, was entered upon
+immediately. To Bethel, being rather too far for going and returning the
+same day, only Miss Stackpole and Louise went. They rode in the
+carryall, Louise driving. Though quite needlessly, Miss Stackpole was a
+little afraid of trusting herself to Louise's skill, and begged Will
+Bright, uncle's gardener, to leave his work, just for a day, and go with
+them. But there were a dozen things, said Will, which needed immediate
+doing, so that was out of the question. Then it came out that a run-away
+horse was not the only danger. In the country there are so many
+lurking-places, particularly in going through woods, whence a robber
+might pounce upon you all of a sudden and demand your life, or your
+portemonnaie, or your watch, or your rings, or something, that Miss
+Stackpole thought unprotected women, out on a drive, were on the whole
+forlorn creatures. But in our neighborhood a highwayman was a myth,&mdash;we
+had hardly ever even heard of one; and so, after no end of misgivings
+lest one or another lion in the way should after all compel the
+relinquishment of the excursion, literally at the eleventh hour they
+were fairly on their way.</p>
+
+<p>A room with a low, pleasant window looking out on the garden was the one
+assigned to Rhoda. In the garret she had discovered a little old
+rocking-chair, and this, transferred to her room, and placed near the
+window, was her favorite seat. Here, whenever one walked in the back
+garden, which was pretty much thickets of lilacs, great white
+rose-bushes, beds of pinks and southern-wood, and rows of
+currant-bushes, might be heard Rhoda's voice crooning an old song. It
+was rather a sweet voice, too. I wondered where she could have collected
+so many old airs. She said she supposed she caught them of Miss Reeney,
+out at the poor-house.</p>
+
+<p>When one saw Rhoda working away with unremitting assiduity, day after
+day, it was difficult to yield credence to all the stories that had been
+current in regard to her violence of temper and general viciousness.
+That was hard work, too, which she was doing; at least it looked hard
+for such little bits of hands. First, cutting with those great heavy
+shears through the thick, stiff cloth; next, the braiding; and finally,
+the sewing together with the huge needle, and coarse, waxed thread.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon I had been looking at her a little while, and, as what
+uncle said about her having never had fair play came into my mind, I
+felt a strong compulsion to do her some kindness, however trifling; so I
+gathered a few flowers, fragrant and bright, and took them to her
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda," said I, "shouldn't you like these on your bureau? They will
+look pretty there; and only smell how sweet they are. You may have the
+vase for your own, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>She took it without a word, looked at it a moment, glancing at me to
+make sure she understood, and then rose and placed it on the bureau,
+where it showed double, reflected from the looking-glass. She did not
+again turn her face towards me till she had spent a brief space in close
+communion with a minute handkerchief which she had drawn from her
+pocket. Clearly, here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> was one not much wonted to little kindnesses, and
+not insensible to them either.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The visit to Bethel had resulted so well, that Woodstock and Cornish
+were unhesitatingly undertaken. Nor was it misplaced confidence on Miss
+Stackpole's part. With the slight drawback of having forgotten the whip
+on the return from Woodstock, not the shadow of an accident occurred.
+Nor was this oversight of much account, only that Tim Linkinwater, the
+horse, whose self-will had increased with his years, soon made the
+discovery that he for the nonce held the reins of power; and when they
+reached Roaring Brook, instead of proceeding decorously across the
+bridge, he persisted in descending a somewhat steep bank and fording the
+stream. Half-way across, he found the coolness of the water so agreeable
+that he decided to enjoy it <i>ad libitum</i>. No expostulations nor
+chirrupings nor cluckings availed aught. He felt himself master of the
+occasion, and would not budge an inch. He looked up stream and down
+stream, and now and then sent a sly glance back at Miss Stackpole and
+Louise, and now and then splashed the water with his hoofs against the
+pebbles. Miss Stackpole's distress became intense. It began to be a moot
+point whether they might not be forced to pass the night there, in the
+middle of Roaring Brook. By great good fortune, at this juncture came
+along in his sulky Dr. Butterfield of Meriden. To him Louise appealed
+for aid, and he gave her his own whip, reaching it down to her from the
+bridge. Tim Linkinwater, perfectly comprehending the drift of events,
+did not wait for the logic of the lash, which, nevertheless, Miss
+Stackpole declared that he richly deserved, and which she would fain
+have seen administered, only for the probability that his homeward pace
+might be thereby perilously accelerated.</p>
+
+<p>That night we all went unusually early to bed and to sleep. I remember
+looking from the window after the light was out, and seeing, through a
+rift in the clouds, the new moon just touching the peak of the opposite
+mountain. A whippoorwill sang in the great chestnut-tree at the farther
+corner of the yard; tree-toads trilled, and frogs peeped, and through
+all could just be heard the rapids up the river.</p>
+
+<p>We were wakened at midnight by very different sounds,&mdash;a clattering,
+crushing noise, like something failing down stairs, with outcries fit to
+waken the seven sleepers. You would believe it impossible that they all
+proceeded from one voice; but they did, and that Rhoda's. We were wide
+awake and up immediately; and as the screams ceased, we distinctly heard
+some one running rapidly down the walk. As soon as we could get lights,
+we found ourselves congregated in the upper front hall; and Rhoda, when
+she had recovered breath to speak, told her story.</p>
+
+<p>She did not know what awoke her; but she heard what sounded like
+carefully raising a window, and some one stepping softly around the
+house. At first she supposed it might be one of the family; but, the
+sounds continuing, it came into her head to get up and see what they
+were. So she came, barefooted as she was, up the back way, and was just
+going down the front stairs, when a gleam of light shone on the ceiling
+above her. She moved to a position whence she could look over the
+balusters, and saw that the light came from a shaded lantern, carried by
+a man who moved so stealthily that only the creaking of the boards
+betrayed his footsteps. At the foot of the stairs he paused a moment,
+looking around, apparently hesitating which way to go. He decided to
+ascend; and then Rhoda, bravely determined to do battle, seized a
+rocking-chair which stood near, and threw it downward with all her
+force, lifting up her voice at the same time to give the alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the man were hurt or not, it is certain that he was not so
+disabled as to impede his flight, and that he had lost his lantern, for
+that lay on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> floor at the foot of the staircase; so did the
+rocking-chair, broken all to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>When we came to go over the house, it had been thoroughly ransacked.
+Every bit of silver, from the old-fashioned tea-pot and coffee-pot and
+the great flat porringer which Grandmother Graham's mother had brought
+over from Scotland to the cup which had belonged to the baby that died
+twenty years ago, and which Aunt Janet loved for his sake, the spoons,
+forks, all were collected in a large basket, with a quantity of linen
+and some articles of clothing.</p>
+
+<p>If the thief had been content with these, he might probably have secured
+them, for he had already placed them on a table just beneath an open
+window; but, hoping to gain additional booty, he lost and we saved it
+all,&mdash;-or rather Rhoda saved it for us. We were extremely glad, for it
+would have been a great mischance losing those things, apart from the
+shame, as grandmother said, of keeping house so poorly while uncle and
+aunt were away.</p>
+
+<p>Will Bright thought, from Rhoda's account, that the man might be Luke
+Potter; for Luke lived nobody knew how, and he had recently returned
+from a two years' absence, strongly suspected to have been a resident in
+a New York State-prison. His family occupied a little brown house, half
+a mile up the road to uncle's wood-lot.</p>
+
+<p>So Will went up there the next day, pretending he wanted Luke to come
+and help about some mowing that was in hand. Luke's wife said that her
+husband had not been out of bed for two days, with a hurt he got on the
+cars the Saturday before. Then Will offered to go in and see if he could
+not do something for him; but Mrs. Potter said that he was asleep, and,
+having had a wakeful night, she guessed he had better not be disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>Will felt sure of his man, and, knowing Potter's reckless audacity, made
+extensive preparations for defence. He brought down from the garret a
+rusty old gun and a powder-horn, hunted up the bullet-moulds, and run
+ever so many little leaden balls before he discovered that they did not
+fit the gun; but that, as he said, was of no consequence, because there
+would be just as much noise, and it was not likely that any thief would
+stay to be shot at twice.</p>
+
+<p>So, notwithstanding our great fright, we grew to feel tolerably secure;
+but we took good care to fasten the windows, and to set in a safer place
+the articles which had so nearly been lost. Moreover, Will Bright was
+moved into a little room at the head of the back stairs.</p>
+
+<p>It was to be thought that Miss Stackpole would be completely overcome by
+this midnight adventure; but she averred that, contrariwise, it had the
+effect to rouse every atom of energy and spirit which she possessed. She
+had waited only to slip on a double-gown, and, seizing the first article
+fit for offensive service, which proved to be a feather duster, she
+hurried to the scene of action. She said afterwards, that she had felt
+equal to knocking down ten men, if they had come within her range. I
+remember myself that she did look rather formidable. Her double-gown was
+red and yellow; and her hair, wound up in little horn-shaped
+<i>papillotes</i>, imparted to her face quite a bristly and fierce
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently, Rhoda was much exalted in Will Bright's esteem from that
+eventful night.</p>
+
+<p>"She's clear grit," said Will. "Who 'd have thought the little thing had
+so much spunk in her? I declare I don't believe there's another one in
+the house that would have done what she did."</p>
+
+<p>The next forenoon, while Louise and I were sewing in grandmother's room,
+Miss Stackpole came hurriedly in, looking quite excited.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Margaret,&mdash;girls," said she, "do you know that, after all, you've
+got a thief in the house? for you certainly have."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucretia," said grandmother, "explain yourself; what do you mean now?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, I mean exactly what I said; there's no doubt that somebody in the
+house is dishonest. I know it; I've lost a valuable pin."</p>
+
+<p>"How valuable?" said grandmother, smiling,&mdash;"a diamond one?"</p>
+
+<p>"You need not laugh, Aunt Margaret; it is one of these new pink coral
+pins, and very expensive indeed. I shall make a stir about it, I can
+tell you. A pity if I can't come here for a few days without having half
+my things stolen!"</p>
+
+<p>"And whom do you suspect of taking it?" said grandmother, coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know? I don't think Dorothy would touch anything that was not
+her own."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't?" said grandmother, firing up. "I am glad you see fit to make
+one exception in the charge you bring against the household."</p>
+
+<p>"O, very well. I suppose you think I ought to let it all go, and never
+open my lips about it. But that is not my way."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is not," said grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>"If it were my own pin, I shouldn't care so much; but it is not. It
+belongs to Mrs. Perkinpine."</p>
+
+<p>"And you borrowed it? borrowed jewelry? Well done, Lucretia! I would not
+have believed it of you. I call that folly and meanness."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Miss Stackpole, "I shall certainly replace it; I shall have
+to, if I don't find it. But I will find it. I'll tell you: that girl
+that dusts my room, Hepsy you call her, I'll be bound that she has it.
+Not that she would know its value; but she would think it a pretty thing
+to wear. Now, Aunt Margaret, don't you really think yourself it looks&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lucretia Stackpole," interrupted grandmother, "if you care to know what
+I really think myself, I will tell you. Since you have lost the pin, and
+care so much about it, I am sorry. You can well enough afford to replace
+it, though. But if you want to make everybody in the neighborhood
+dislike and despise you, just accuse Hepsy of taking your trinkets. She
+was born and bred here, close by us, and we think we know her. For my
+part, I would trust her with gold uncounted. Everybody will think, and I
+think too, that it is far more likely you have lost or mislaid it than
+that any one here has stolen it."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Stackpole had already opened her lips to reply; but what she would
+have said will never be known, for she was interrupted again,&mdash;this time
+by a terrible noise, as if half the house had fallen, and then piteous
+cries. The sounds came from the wood-shed, and thither we all hastened,
+fully expecting to find some one buried under a fallen wood-pile. It was
+not quite that, but there lay Rhoda, with her foot bent under her,
+writhing and moaning in extreme pain.</p>
+
+<p>We were every one assembled there, grandmother, Miss Stackpole, Louise,
+and I, and Hepsy, Dorothy, and Will Bright. Dorothy would have lifted
+and carried her in, but Rhoda would not allow it. Will Bright did not
+wait to be allowed, but took her up at once, more gently and carefully
+than one would have thought, and deposited her in her own room. Then, at
+grandmother's suggestion, he set off directly on horseback for Dr.
+Butterfield, whom fortunately he encountered on the way.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor soon satisfied himself that the extent of the poor girl's
+injuries was a bad sprain,&mdash;enough, certainly, but less than we had
+feared.</p>
+
+<p>It would be weeks before she would be able to walk, and meantime perfect
+quiet was strictly enforced. Hepsy volunteered her services as nurse,
+and discharged faithfully her assumed duties. But Rhoda grew restless
+and feverish, and finally became so much worse that we began seriously
+to fear lest she had received some internal injury.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon I was sitting with her when the doctor came. He spoke
+cheeringly, as usual; but when I went to the door with him, he said the
+child had some mental trouble, the disposal of which would be more
+effective than all his medicines, and that I must endeavor to ascertain
+and remove it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Without much difficulty I succeeded. She was haunted with the fear,
+that, in her present useless condition, she would be sent away. I
+convinced her that no one would do this during the absence of Uncle and
+Aunt Bradburn, and that before their return she would probably be able
+to resume her work.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I'll sleep real good to-night," said Rhoda. "You see I'm awful
+tired of going round so from one place to another. It's just been from
+pillar to post ever since I can remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said I, "you may be sure that you will never be sent away from
+this house for sickness nor for accident. So now set your poor little
+heart at rest about it."</p>
+
+<p>The blue eyes looked at me with an expression different from any I had
+seen in them before. They were soft, pretty eyes, too, now that the hair
+was suffered to lie around the face, instead of being stretched back as
+tightly as possible. One good result had come from the wood-shed
+catastrophe: the high comb had been shattered into irretrievable
+fragments. I inly determined that none like it should ever take its
+place.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Since Miss Stackpole said it was impossible for her to remain till the
+return of Uncle and Aunt Bradburn, I cannot say that, under the
+circumstances, we particularly desired her to prolong her visit. It may
+be that grandmother had too little patience with her; certainly they two
+were not congenial spirits. However, by means of taking her to see every
+relative we had in the vicinity, we disposed of the time very
+satisfactorily. She remained a few days longer than she had intended, so
+that Dorothy, who is unapproachable in ironing, might do up her muslin
+dresses.</p>
+
+<p>"I have changed my mind about Hepsy," said she the night before she
+left. "I think now it is Rhoda."</p>
+
+<p>"What is Rhoda?" asked grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>"That has taken the coral pin."</p>
+
+<p>Grandmother compressed her lips, but her eyes spoke volumes.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Stackpole," said I, "it is true that Rhoda has not been here long;
+still, I have a perfect conviction of her honesty."</p>
+
+<p>"Very amiable and generous of you to feel so, Kate," said Miss
+Stackpole; "perhaps a few years ago, when I was of your age, I should
+have thought just the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Kate is twenty next September," said grandmother, who could refrain no
+longer. "I never forget anybody's age. It is quite possible that she
+will change in the course of twenty-five or thirty years."</p>
+
+<p>We all knew this to be throwing down the gauntlet. Miss Stackpole did
+not, however, take it up. She said she intended to lay the
+circumstances, exactly as they were, before Mrs. Perkinpine; and if that
+lady would allow her, she should pay for the pin. She thought, though,
+it might be her duty to talk with Rhoda; perhaps, even at the eleventh
+hour, the girl might be induced to give it up.</p>
+
+<p>"I will take it upon me, Lucretia," said grandmother, "to object to your
+talking with Rhoda. Even if we have not among us penetration enough to
+see that she is honest as daylight, it does not follow that we should be
+excusable in doing anything to make that forlorn orphan child less happy
+than she is now. You visit about a great deal, Lucretia. I hope, for the
+sake of all your friends, that you don't everywhere scatter your
+suspicions broadcast as you have done here. I am older than you, as you
+will admit, and I have never known any good come of unjust accusations."</p>
+
+<p>After Miss Stackpole went up stairs that night, she folded the black
+silk dress she had been wearing to lay it in her trunk; and in doing
+that, she found the missing pin on the inside of the waist-lining, just
+where she had put it herself. Then she remembered having stuck it there
+one morning in a hurry, to prevent any one being tempted with seeing it
+lie around.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And Rhoda never knew what an escape she had.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"I do wish there was something for me to do," said Rhoda; "I never was
+used to lying abed doing nothing. It most tuckers me out."</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot you read, Rhoda?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I can read some. I can't read words, but I can tell some of the
+letters."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never gone to school?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I always had to work. Poor folks have got to work, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but that need not prevent your learning to read. I can teach you
+myself; I will, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess your aunt won't calculate to get me to work for her, and then
+have me spend my time learning to read. First you know, she'll send me
+off."</p>
+
+<p>"She will like it perfectly well. Grandmother is in authority here now;
+I will go and ask her." This I knew would seem to her decisive.</p>
+
+<p>"What did she say?" said Rhoda, rather eagerly, when I returned.</p>
+
+<p>"She says yes, by all means; and that if you learn to read before aunt
+comes home, you shall have a new dress, and I may choose it for you."</p>
+
+<p>Now it was no sinecure, teaching Rhoda, but she won the dress,&mdash;a lilac
+print, delicate and pretty enough for any one. I undertook to make the
+dress, but she accomplished a good part of it herself. She said Miss
+Reeny used to show her about sewing. Whatever was to be done with hands
+she learned with surprising quickness. Grandmother suggested that the
+reading lessons should be followed by a course in writing. Before the
+lameness was well over, Rhoda could write, slowly indeed, yet legibly.</p>
+
+<p>I carried her some roses one evening. While putting them in water, I
+asked what flowers she liked best.</p>
+
+<p>"I like sweetbriers best," said she. "I think sweetbriers are handsome
+in the graveyard. I set out one over Jinny Collins's grave. For what I
+know, it is growing now."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was Jinny Collins, Rhoda?"</p>
+
+<p>"A girl that used to live over at the poor-house when I did. She was
+bound out to the Widow Whitmarsh, the spring that I went to live with
+Mrs. Amos Kemp. Jinny used to have sick spells, and Mrs. Whitmarsh
+wanted to send her back to the poor-house, but folks said she couldn't,
+because she'd had her bound. She and Mrs. Kemp was neighbors; and after
+Jinny got so as to need somebody with her nights, Mrs. Kemp used to let
+me go and sleep with her, and then she could wake me up if she wanted
+anything. I wanted to go, and Jinny wanted to have me come; she used to
+say it did her lots of good. Sometimes we'd pretend we was rich, and was
+in a great big room with curtains to the windows. We didn't have any
+candle burning,&mdash;Mrs. Whitmarsh said there wa'n't no need of one, and
+more there wa'n't. One night we said we'd take a ride to-morrow or next
+day. We pretended we'd got a father, and he was real rich, and had got a
+horse and wagon. Jinny said we'd go to the store and buy us a new white
+gown,&mdash;she always wanted a white gown. By and by she said she was real
+sleepy; she didn't have no bad coughing-spell that night, such as she
+most always did. She asked me if I didn't smell the clover-blows, how
+sweet they was; and then she talked about white lilies, and how she
+liked 'em most of anything, without it was sweetbriers. Then she asked
+me if I knew what palms was; and she said when she was dead she wanted
+me to have her little pink chany box that Miss Maria Elliot give her
+once, when she bought some blueberries of her. So then she dozed a
+little while; and I don't know why, but I couldn't get asleep for a good
+while, for all I'd worked real hard that day. I guess 'twas as much as
+an hour she laid kind of still; she never did sleep real sound, so but
+what she moaned and talked broken now and then. So by and by she give a
+start, and says she, 'I'm all ready.' 'Ready for what, Jinny,' says I.
+But she didn't seem to know as I was talking to her. Says<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> she, 'I'm all
+ready. I've got on a white gown and a palm in my hand.' So then I knew
+she was wandering like, as I'd heard say folks did when they was very
+sick; for she hadn't any gown at all on, without you might call Mrs.
+Whitmarsh's old faded calico sack one, nor nothing in her hand neither.
+So pretty soon she dropped to sleep again, and I did too. And I slept
+later 'n common. The sun was shining right into my eyes when I opened
+'em. I thought 't would trouble Jinny, and I was just going to pin her
+skirt up to the window, and I see that she looked awful white. I put my
+hand on her forehead, and it was just as cold as a stone. So then I knew
+she was dead. I never see her look so happy like. She had the
+pleasantest smile on her lips ever you see. I didn't know as Mrs. Kemp'd
+like to have me stay, but I just brushed her hair,&mdash;'t was real pretty
+hair, just a little mite curly,&mdash;and then I run home and told Mrs. Kemp.
+She said she'd just as lives I'd stay over to Mrs. Whitmarsh's as not
+that day, 'cause she was going over to Woodstock shopping. So I went
+back again, and Mrs. Whitmarsh she sent me to one of the selectmen to
+see if she'd got to be to the expense of the funeral, 'cause she said it
+didn't seem right, seeing she never got much work out of Jinny, she was
+always so weakly. And Mr. Robbins he said the town would pay for the
+coffin and digging the grave. That made her real pleasant; and I don't
+know what put me up to it, but I was real set on it that Jinny should
+have on a white gown in the coffin. And I asked Mrs. Whitmarsh if I
+mightn't go over to Miss Bradford's; and she let me, and Miss Bradford
+give me an old white gown, if I'd iron it; and Polly Wheelock, she was
+Miss Bradford's girl, she helped me put it on to Jinny. And then Polly
+got some white lilies, and I got some sweetbrier sprigs, and laid round
+her in the coffin. I've seen prettier coffins, but I never see no face
+look so pretty as Jinny's. Mrs. Whitmarsh had the funeral next morning.
+She said she wanted to that night, so she could put the room airing, but
+she supposed folks would talk, and, besides, they didn't get the grave
+dug quick enough neither. Mrs. Kemp let me go to the funeral. I thought
+they was going to carry her over to the poor-house burying-ground, but
+they didn't, 'cause 't would cost so much for a horse and wagon. The
+right minister was gone away, and the one that was there was going off
+in the cars, so he had to hurry. There wa'n't hardly anybody there, only
+some men to let the coffin down, and the sexton, and Mrs. Whitmarsh and
+Polly Wheelock and I. The minister prayed a little speck of a prayer and
+went right away. I heard Mrs. Whitmarsh telling Mrs. Kemp she thought
+she'd got out of it pretty well, seeing she didn't expect nothing but
+what she'd got to buy the coffin, and get the grave dug, and be to all
+the expense. She said she guessed nobody'd catch her having another girl
+bound out to her. Mrs. Kemp said she always knew 't was a great risk,
+and that was why she didn't have me bound.</p>
+
+<p>"That summer, when berries was ripe, Mrs. Kemp let me go and pick 'em
+and carry 'em round to sell; and she said I might have a cent for every
+quart I sold. I got over three dollars that summer for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I bought some shoes, and some yarn to knit me some stockings. I can
+knit real good."</p>
+
+<p>"How came you to leave Mrs. Kemp."</p>
+
+<p>"Partly 't was 'cause she didn't like my not buying her old green shawl
+with my share of the money for the berries; and partly 'cause I got
+cold, and it settled in my feet so's I couldn't hardly go round. So she
+told me she'd concluded to have me go back to the poor-house. If she
+kept a girl, she said, she wanted one to wait on her, and not to be
+waited on. She waited two or three days to see if I didn't get better,
+so as I could walk over there; but I didn't. And one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> day it had been
+raining, but it held up awhile, and she see a neighbor riding by, and
+she run out and asked him if he couldn't carry me over to the
+poor-house. He said he could if she wanted him to; so I went. I had on
+my cape, and it wa'n't very warm. She asked me when I come away, if I
+wa'n't sorry I hadn't a shawl. I expect I did catch cold. I couldn't set
+up nor do nothing for more 'n three weeks. When I got so I could knit,
+my yarn was gone. I never knew what become of it; and one of the women
+used to borrow my shoes for her little girl, and she wore 'em out So,
+come spring, I was just where I was the year before, only lonesomer,
+cause Jinny was gone."</p>
+
+<p>"And did you stay there?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the poor-house? No; Betty Crosfield wanted a girl to come and help
+her. She took in washing for Mr. Furniss's hands. She said I wa'n't
+strong enough to earn much, but she would pay me in clothes. She give me
+a Shaker bonnet and an old gown that the soap had took the color out of,
+and she made a tack in it, so's it did. And I had my cape. When
+strawberries come, the hands was most all gone, and she let me sleep
+there, and go day-times after berries, and she to have half the pay.
+That's how I got my red calico and my shawl."</p>
+
+<p>"Who made your dress, Rhoda?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Reeny, I carried it over to see if she'd cut it out, and she said
+she'd make it if they'd let her, and they did. And I got her some green
+tea. She used to say sometimes, she'd give anything for a cup of green
+tea, such as her mother used to have."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Miss Reeny?"</p>
+
+<p>"A woman that lives over there. Her father used to be a doctor; but he
+died, and she was sickly and didn't know as she had any relations, and
+by and by she had to go there. They say over there she ain't in her
+right mind, but I don't know. She was always good to me. There was an
+old chair with a cushion in it, and Miss Reeny wanted it to sit in,
+'cause her back was lame; but old Mrs. Fitts wanted it too, and they
+used to spat it. So Miss Holbrook come there one day to see the place,
+and somebody told her about the cushioned chair, and, if you'll believe
+it, the very next day there was one come over as good again, with arms
+to it, and a cushion, and all. Miss Holbrook sent it over to Miss Reeny.
+None of 'em couldn't take it away."</p>
+
+<p>"And is she there now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she can't go nowhere else. One night Betty Crosfield said I
+needn't come there no more; she was going to take a boarder. Berry-time
+was most over, so then I got a place to Miss Stoney's, the milliner. She
+agreed to give me twenty-five cents a week, and I thought to be sure I
+should get back my shoes and yarn now. But one morning the teapot was
+cracked, and she asked me, and I said I didn't do it,&mdash;and I didn't; but
+she said she knew I did, because there wasn't nobody but her and me that
+touched it, and she should keep my wages till they come to a dollar and
+a half, because that was what a new one would cost. Before the teapot
+was paid for I did break a glass dish. I didn't know 't would hurt it to
+put it in hot water; and everything else that was broke, she thought I
+broke it, and she kept it out of my wages. I told her I didn't see as
+she ought to; and in the fall she said she couldn't put up with my sauce
+and my breaking no longer. Mrs. Kittredge wanted a girl, and I went
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"And how did you find it there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it was about the hardest place of all. I'd as lives go back to
+the poor-house as to stay there. Sally Kittredge used to tell things
+that wa'n't true about me. She told one day that I pushed her down. I
+never touched my hand to her. But Mrs. Kittredge got a raw hide up
+stairs and give it to me awful. I shouldn't wonder if it showed now;
+just look."</p>
+
+<p>She undid the fastening of her dress and slipped off the waist for me to
+see. The little back&mdash;she was very small&mdash;was all discolored with
+stripes, purple, green, and yellow. After showing me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> these bruises, she
+quietly fastened her dress again.</p>
+
+<p>Now there was that in Rhoda's manner during this narration which wrought
+in my mind entire conviction of its verity. By the time of Uncle and
+Aunt Bradburn's return, she was growing in favor with every one in the
+house. She was gentle, patient, and grateful.</p>
+
+<p>The deftness with which she used those small fingers suggested to me the
+idea of teaching her some of the more delicate kinds of fancy-work. But
+it seemed that she required no teaching. An opportunity given of looking
+on while one was embroidering, crocheting, or making tatting, and the
+process was her own. Native tact imparted to her at once the skill which
+others attain only by long practice. As for her fine sewing, it was
+exquisite; and in looking at it, one half regretted the advent of the
+sewing-machine.</p>
+
+<p>The fall days grew short; the winter came and went; and in the course of
+it, besides doing everything that was required of her in the household,
+keeping up the reading and writing, and satisfactory progress in
+arithmetic, Rhoda had completed, at my suggestion, ten of those little
+tatting collars, made of fine thread, and rivalling in delicate beauty
+the loveliest fabrics of lace.</p>
+
+<p>Because a project was on foot for Rhoda. A friend of mine going to
+Boston took charge of the little package of collars, and the result was
+that the proprietor of a fancy-store there engaged to receive all of
+them that might be manufactured, at the price of three dollars each.
+When my friend returned, she brought me, as the avails of her
+commission, the sum of thirty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>But here arose an unexpected obstacle. It was difficult to convince
+Rhoda that the amount, which seemed to her immense, was of right her
+own. She comprehended it, however, at last; and thenceforth her skill in
+this and other departments of fancy-work obtained for her constant and
+remunerative employment.</p>
+
+<p>It was now a year since Rhoda came to us, and during this time her
+improvement had been steady and rapid. And since she had come to dress
+like other girls, no one could say that she was ill-looking; but, as I
+claimed the merit of effecting this change in her exterior, it may be
+that I observed it more than any one else. Still, I fancy that some
+others were not blind.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you get those swamp-pinks, Rhoda?" for I detected the fine
+azalia odor before I saw them.</p>
+
+<p>A bright color suffused the childlike face, quite to the roots of the
+hair. "Will Bright got them when he went after the cows. You may have
+some if you want them."</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you; it is a pity to disturb them, they look so pretty just
+as they are."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Troubles come to everybody. Even Will Bright, though no one had ever
+known him to be without cheerfulness enough for half a dozen, was not
+wholly exempt from ills. With all his good sense, which was not a
+little, Will was severely incredulous of the reputed effects of
+poison-ivy; and one day, by way of maintaining his position, gathered a
+spray of it and applied it to his face. He was not long in finding the
+vine in question an ugly customer. His face assumed the aspect of a
+horrible mask, and the dimensions of a good-sized water-pail, with
+nothing left of the eyes but two short, straight marks. For once, Will
+had to succumb and be well cared for.</p>
+
+<p>In this state of things a letter came to him with a foreign postmark. "I
+will lay it away in your desk, Will," said uncle, "till you can read it
+yourself; that will be in a day or two."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind the trouble, sir, I should thank you to open and read
+it for me. I get no letters that I am unwilling you should see."</p>
+
+<p>It was to the effect that a relative in England had left him a bequest
+of five hundred pounds, and that the amount would be made payable to his
+order wherever he should direct.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You will oblige me, sir, if you will say nothing about this for the
+present," said Will, when uncle had congratulated him.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope we shall not lose sight of you, Will," said uncle, who really
+felt a strong liking for the young man, who had served him faithfully
+three years.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not, sir," replied Will. "I shall be glad to consult you before
+I decide what use to make of this windfall. At all events, I don't want
+to change my quarters for the present."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>About the same time, brother Ned, in Oregon, sent me a letter which
+contained this passage:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We are partly indebted for this splendid stroke of business to the help
+of a townsman of our own; his name is Joseph Breck. He says he ran away
+from Deacon Handy's, at fifteen years old, because the Deacon would not
+send him to school as he had agreed. Ask uncle if he remembers Ira
+Breck, who lived over at Ash Swamp, near the old Ingersol place. He was
+drowned saving timber in a freshet. He left two children, and this
+Joseph is the elder. The other was a girl, her name Rhoda, six or eight
+years younger than Joseph; she must be now, he says, not far from
+sixteen or seventeen. Joe has had a hard row to hoe, but now that he
+begins to see daylight he wants to do something for his sister. He is a
+thoroughly honest and competent fellow, and we are glad enough to get
+hold of him. He told me the other night such a story as would make your
+heart ache: at all events it would make you try to ascertain something
+about his sister before you write next."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I lost no time in seeking Rhoda.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said she, in reply to my inquiries, "I did have a brother once.
+He went off and was lost. I can just remember him. I don't suppose I
+shall ever see him again. Folks said likely he was drowned."</p>
+
+<p>"Was his name Joseph?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was Joe; father used to call him Joe."</p>
+
+<p>I read to her from Ned's letter what related to her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm most afraid it's a dream," said Rhoda after a brief silence. "Over
+at the poor-house I used to have such good dreams, and then I'd wake up
+out of them. After I came here I used to be afraid it was a dream; but I
+didn't wake out of that. Perhaps I shall see Joe again; who knows?"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>From this time a change came over Rhoda. She begged as a privilege to
+learn to do everything that a woman can do about a house.</p>
+
+<p>"I do declare, Miss Kate," said Dorothy one day, after displaying a
+grand array of freshly baked loaves, wearing the golden-brown tint that
+hints at such savory sweetness, "that girl, for a white girl, is going
+to make a most a splendid cook. I never touched this bread, and just you
+see! ain't it perfindiculur wonderful?"</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, I found Rhoda, with her dress tidily pinned out of harm's
+way, standing at a barrel, and poking vigorously with a stick longer
+than herself.</p>
+
+<p>"What now, Rhoda! what are you doing there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come here and look at the soap, Miss Kate. I made it every bit myself;
+ain't it going to be beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you care to do such things, Rhoda?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you," in a low voice; "perhaps when Joe comes home, some time
+he'll buy himself a little place and let me keep house for him; then I
+shall want to know how to do everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda, I believe you can do everything already."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I can't wring," looking piteously from one little hand to the
+other. "I can iron cute, but I can't wring. Dorothy says that is one
+thing I shall have to give up, unless I can make my hands grow. Do you
+suppose I could?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; you must make Joe buy you a wringer. Can you make butter?"</p>
+
+<p>"O yes, when the churning isn't large. Likely Joe won't keep more than
+one cow."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the eager little thing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> wondering if her hope would ever be
+realized. She divined my thought, and glanced at me wistfully. "You
+think this is a dream; you think I shall wake up.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," I answered; "I wonder what Joe will think when he sees what a
+mite of a sister he has. He'll make you stand round, Rhoda, you may be
+sure of that."</p>
+
+<p>"May be he isn't any larger himself," she responded, with a ready,
+bright smile.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Brother Ned's next letter brought the welcome tidings that he hoped to
+come home the ensuing August, and that Joseph Breck would probably come
+at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>June went, and July. Rhoda grew restless; she was no longer constantly
+at work; she began to listen nervously for every train of cars. I was
+glad to believe that the brother for whom she held in readiness such
+lavish love was deserving of it. She grew prettier every day. The
+uncouth dress was gone forever, the hideous bonnet burned up, and the
+gay shawl made over to Miss Reeny, who admired and coveted it. Hepsy
+herself was not more faultlessly quiet and tasteful in her attire. I was
+sure that Joe, if he had eyes at all, must be convinced that his sister
+was worth coming all the way from Oregon to see.</p>
+
+<p>At last, one pleasant afternoon, there was a step in the hall that I
+recognized; it was Ned's! I reached him first, and felt his dear old
+arms close fast about me; and then, for Louise's right was stronger than
+mine, I gave him over to her and the rest. My happiness, though it half
+blinded me, did not prevent my seeing a pallid little face looking
+earnestly in from the back hall door. Then Joe had not come! I felt a
+keen pang for Rhoda.</p>
+
+<p>"Ned," said I, as soon as I could get a word with him, "there is Joe
+Breck's sister; where is Joe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Joe?" said Ned; "why, there he is."</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, there above Rhoda's&mdash;a good way above&mdash;was a dark, fine,
+manly face, all sun-browned and bearded.&mdash;"Rhoda!"&mdash;He had stolen a
+march upon her. She turned and saw him. A swift look of glad surprise,
+and the brother and sister so long separated had recognized each other.
+He drew her to him and held her there tenderly as if she were a little
+child.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>So Joe bought "a little place," and I believe he would fain have had his
+sister Rhoda for its mistress. But then it came out that Will Bright,
+that sly fellow had been using every bit of persuasion in his power to
+make her promise that she would keep house for him. Nay, he had won
+already a conditional promise, the proviso being, of course, Joe's
+approval. Will's is not a little place, either. With his relative's
+legacy he purchased the great Wellwood nursery; and so skilled is he in
+its management that uncle says there is not a more thriving man in the
+neighborhood. And Rhoda, of whom he is wonderfully proud, is as content
+a little woman as any in the land. Whenever I go to Uncle
+Bradburn's,&mdash;and few summers pass that I do not,&mdash;I make a point of
+reserving time for a visit to Rhoda. The last time I went, I encountered
+Will bringing her down stairs in his arms; and she held in her arms, as
+something too precious to be yielded to another, what proved on
+inspection to be a tiny, blue-eyed baby. It was comical to see her
+ready, matronly ways; and it was touching, when you thought of the past,
+to witness her quiet yet perfect enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>And I really know of no one in the world more heartily benevolent than
+she. "You see," she says, "I knew once what it is to need kindness; and
+now I should be worse than a heathen if I did not help other people when
+I have a chance."</p>
+
+<p>I suppose Hepsy pitied Joe for his disappointment. In any case, she has
+done what she could to console him for it. On the whole, it would be
+difficult to say which is the happier wife, Hepsy or Rhoda.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PASSAGES_FROM_HAWTHORNES_NOTE-BOOKS" id="PASSAGES_FROM_HAWTHORNES_NOTE-BOOKS"></a>PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>XI.</h3>
+
+<p>Concord, 1843.&mdash;To sit at the gate of Heaven, and watch persons as they
+apply for admittance, some gaining it, others being thrust away.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To point out the moral slavery of one who deems himself a free man.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A stray leaf from the Book of Fate, picked up in the street.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The streak of sunshine journeying through the prisoner's cell,&mdash;it may
+be considered as something sent from Heaven to keep the soul alive and
+glad within him. And there is something equivalent to this sunbeam in
+the darkest circumstances; as flowers, which figuratively grew in
+Paradise, in the dusky room of a poor maiden in a great city; the child,
+with its sunny smile, is a cherub. God does not let us live anywhere or
+anyhow on earth without placing something of Heaven close at hand, by
+rightly using and considering which, the earthly darkness or trouble
+will vanish, and all be Heaven.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When the reformation of the world is complete, a fire shall be made of
+the gallows; and the hangman shall come and sit down by it in solitude
+and despair. To him shall come the last thief, the last drunkard, and
+other representatives of past crime and vice; and they shall hold a
+dismal merrymaking, quaffing the contents of the last brandy-bottle.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The human heart to be allegorized as a cavern. At the entrance there is
+sunshine, and flowers growing about it. You step within but a short
+distance, and begin to find yourself surrounded with a terrible gloom
+and monsters of divers kinds; it seems like hell itself. You are
+bewildered, and wander long without hope. At last a light strikes upon
+you. You pass towards it, and find yourself in a region that seems, in
+some sort, to reproduce the flowers and sunny beauty of the entrance,
+but all perfect. These are the depths of the heart, or of human nature,
+bright and peaceful. The gloom and terror may lie deep, but deeper still
+this eternal beauty.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A man in his progress through life may pick up various matters,&mdash;sin,
+care, habit, riches,&mdash;until at last he staggers along under a heavy
+burden.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To have a lifelong desire for a certain object, which shall appear to be
+the one thing essential to happiness. At last that object is attained,
+but proves to be merely incidental to a more important affair, and that
+affair is the greatest evil fortune that can occur. For instance, all
+through the winter I had wished to sit in the dusk of evening, by the
+flickering firelight, with my wife, instead of beside a dismal stove. At
+last this has come to pass; but it was owing to her illness.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Madame Calderon de la Barca (in "Life in Mexico") speaks of persons who
+have been inoculated with the venom of rattlesnakes, by pricking them in
+various places with the tooth. These persons are thus secured forever
+after against the bite of any venomous reptile. They have the power of
+calling snakes, and feel great pleasure in playing with and handling
+them. Their own bite becomes poisonous to people not inoculated in the
+same manner. Thus a part of the serpent's nature appears to be
+transfused into them.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An auction (perhaps in Vanity Fair) of offices, honors, and all sorts of
+things considered desirable by mankind, together with things eternally
+valuable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span> which shall be considered by most people as worthless lumber.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An examination of wits and poets at a police court, and they to be
+sentenced by the judge to various penalties or fines,&mdash;the house of
+correction, whipping, etc.,&mdash;according to the moral offences of which
+they are guilty.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A volume bound in cowhide. It should treat of breeding cattle, or some
+other coarse subject.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A young girl inhabits a family graveyard, that being all that remains of
+rich hereditary possessions.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An interview between General Charles Lee, of the Revolution, and his
+sister, the foundress and mother of the sect of Shakers.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>For a sketch for a child:&mdash;the life of a city dove, or perhaps of a
+flock of doves, flying about the streets, and sometimes alighting on
+church steeples, on the eaves of lofty houses, etc.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The greater picturesqueness and reality of back courts, and everything
+appertaining to the rear of a house, as compared with the front, which
+is fitted up for the public eye. There is much to be learned always, by
+getting a glimpse at rears. Where the direction of a road has been
+altered, so as to pass the rear of farm-houses instead of the front, a
+very noticeable aspect is presented.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A sketch:&mdash;the devouring of old country residences by the overgrown
+monster of a city. For instance, Mr. Beekman's ancestral residence was
+originally several miles from the city of New York; but the pavements
+kept creeping nearer and nearer, till now the house is removed, and a
+street runs directly through what was once its hall.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An essay on various kinds of death, together with the just before and
+just after.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The majesty of death to be exemplified in a beggar, who, after being
+seen, humble and cringing, in the streets of a city for many years, at
+length, by some means or other, gets admittance into a rich man's
+mansion, and there dies, assuming state and striking awe into the
+breasts of those who had looked down on him.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To write a dream, which shall resemble the real course of a dream, with
+all its inconsistency, its strange transformations, which are all taken
+as a matter of course, its eccentricities and aimlessness, with
+nevertheless a leading idea running through the whole. Up to this old
+age of the world, no such thing ever has been written.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To allegorize life with a masquerade, and represent mankind generally as
+masquers. Here and there a natural face may appear.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>With an emblematical divining-rod, to seek for emblematic gold,&mdash;that
+is, for truth,&mdash;for what of Heaven is left on earth.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A task for a subjugated fiend:&mdash;to gather up all the fallen autumnal
+leaves of a forest, assort them, and affix each one to the twig where it
+originally grew.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A vision of Grub Street, forming an allegory of the literary world.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The emerging from their lurking-places of evil characters on some
+occasion suited to their action, they having been quite unknown to the
+world hitherto. For instance, the French Revolution brought out such
+wretches.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The advantage of a longer life than is now allotted to mortals,&mdash;the
+many things that might then be accomplished, to which one lifetime is
+inadequate, and for which the time spent seems therefore lost, a
+successor being unable to take up the task where we drop it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>George I. had promised the Duchess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span> of Kendall, his mistress, that, if
+possible, he would pay her a visit after death. Accordingly, a large
+raven flew into the window of her villa at Isleworth. She believed it to
+be his soul, and treated it ever after with all respect and tenderness,
+till either she or the bird died.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The history of an almshouse in a country village, from the era of its
+foundation downward,&mdash;a record of the remarkable occupants of it, and
+extracts from interesting portions of its annals. The rich of one
+generation might, in the next, seek for a house there, either in their
+own persons or in those of their representatives. Perhaps the son and
+heir of the founder might have no better refuge. There should be
+occasional sunshine let into the story; for instance, the good fortune
+of some nameless infant, educated there, and discovered finally to be
+the child of wealthy parents.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Pearl, the English of Margaret,&mdash;a pretty name for a girl in a story.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The conversation of the steeples of a city, when their bells are ringing
+on Sunday,&mdash;Calvinist, Episcopalian, Unitarian, etc.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Allston's picture of "Belshazzar's Feast,"&mdash;with reference to the
+advantages or otherwise of having life assured to us till we could
+finish important tasks on which we might be engaged.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Visits to castles in the air,&mdash;Chateaux en Espagne, etc.,&mdash;with remarks
+on that sort of architecture.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To consider a piece of gold as a sort of talisman, or as containing
+within itself all the forms of enjoyment that it can purchase, so that
+they might appear, by some fantastical chemic process, as visions.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To personify If, But, And, Though, etc.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A man seeks for something excellent, but seeks it in the wrong spirit
+and in a wrong way, and finds something horrible; as, for instance, he
+seeks for treasure, and finds a dead body; for the gold that somebody
+has hidden, and brings to light his accumulated sins.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An auction of second-hands,&mdash;thus moralizing how the fashion of this
+world passeth away.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Noted people in a town,&mdash;as the town-crier, the old fruit-man, the
+constable, the oyster-seller, the fish-man, the scissors-grinder, etc.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The magic ray of sunshine for a child's story,&mdash;the sunshine circling
+round through a prisoner's cell, from his high and narrow window. He
+keeps his soul alive and cheerful by means of it, it typifying
+cheerfulness; and when he is released, he takes up the ray of sunshine,
+and carries it away with him, and it enables him to discover treasures
+all over the world, in places where nobody else would think of looking
+for them.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A young man finds a portion of the skeleton of a mammoth; he begins by
+degrees to become interested in completing it; searches round the world
+for the means of doing so; spends youth and manhood in the pursuit; and
+in old age has nothing to show for his life but this skeleton of a
+mammoth.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>For a child's sketch:&mdash;a meeting with all the personages mentioned in
+Mother Goose's Melodies, and other juvenile stories.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Great expectation to be entertained in the allegorical Grub Street of
+the great American writer. Or a search-warrant to be sent thither to
+catch a poet. On the former supposition, he shall be discovered under
+some most unlikely form, or shall be supposed to have lived and died
+unrecognized.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An old man to promise a youth a treasure of gold, and to keep his
+promise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span> by teaching him practically a golden rule.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A valuable jewel to be buried in the grave of a beloved person, or
+thrown over with a corpse at sea, or deposited under the
+foundation-stone of an edifice,&mdash;and to be afterwards met with by the
+former owner, in some one's possession.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A noted gambler had acquired such self-command that, in the most
+desperate circumstances of his game, no change of feature ever betrayed
+him; only there was a slight scar upon his forehead, which at such
+moments assumed a deep blood-red hue. Thus, in playing at brag, for
+instance, his antagonist could judge from this index when he had a bad
+hand. At last, discovering what it was that betrayed him, he covered the
+scar with a green silk shade.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A dream the other night, that the world had become dissatisfied with the
+inaccurate manner in which facts are reported, and had employed me, with
+a salary of a thousand dollars, to relate things of public importance
+exactly as they happen.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A person who has all the qualities of a friend, except that he
+invariably fails you at the pinch.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>Concord, July 27, 1844.</i>&mdash;To sit down in a solitary place or a busy and
+bustling one, if you please, and await such little events as may happen,
+or observe such noticeable points as the eyes fall upon around you. For
+instance, I sat down to-day, at about ten o'clock in the forenoon, in
+Sleepy Hollow, a shallow space scooped out among the woods, which
+surround it on all sides, it being pretty nearly circular or oval, and
+perhaps four or five hundred yards in diameter. At the present season, a
+thriving field of Indian corn, now in its most perfect growth and
+tasselled out, occupies nearly half of the hollow; and it is like the
+lap of bounteous Nature, filled with breadstuff. On one verge of this
+hollow, skirting it, is a terraced pathway, broad enough for a
+wheel-track, overshadowed with oaks, stretching their long, knotted,
+rude, rough arms between earth and sky; the gray skeletons, as you look
+upward, are strikingly prominent amid the green foliage. Likewise, there
+are chestnuts, growing up in a more regular and pyramidal shape; white
+pines, also; and a shrubbery composed of the shoots of all these trees,
+overspreading and softening the bank on which the parent stems are
+growing, these latter being intermingled with coarse grass. Observe the
+pathway; it is strewn over with little bits of dry twigs and decayed
+branches, and the sear and brown oak-leaves of last year, that have been
+moistened by snow and rain, and whirled about by harsh and gentle winds,
+since their verdure has departed. The needle-like leaves of the pine
+that are never noticed in falling&mdash;that fall, yet never leave the tree
+bare&mdash;are likewise on the path; and with these are pebbles, the remains
+of what was once a gravelled surface, but which the soil accumulating
+from the decay of leaves, and washing down from the bank, has now almost
+covered. The sunshine comes down on the pathway, with the bright glow of
+noon, at certain points; in other places, there is a shadow as deep as
+the glow; but along the greater portion sunshine glimmers through
+shadow, and shadow effaces sunshine, imaging that pleasant mood of mind
+when gayety and pensiveness intermingle. A bird is chirping overhead
+among the branches, but exactly whereabout you seek in vain to
+determine; indeed, you hear the rustle of the leaves, as he continually
+changes his position. A little sparrow, however, hops into view,
+alighting on the slenderest twigs, and seemingly delighting in the
+swinging and heaving motion which his slight substance communicates to
+them; but he is not the loquacious bird, whose voice still comes, eager
+and busy, from his hidden whereabout. Insects are fluttering around.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span>
+The cheerful, sunny hum of the flies is altogether summer-like, and so
+gladsome that you pardon them their intrusiveness and impertinence,
+which continually impel them to fly against your face, to alight upon
+your hands, and to buzz in your very ear, as if they wished to get into
+your head, among your most secret thoughts. In truth, a fly is the most
+impertinent and indelicate thing in creation,&mdash;the very type and moral
+of human spirits with whom one occasionally meets, and who, perhaps,
+after an existence troublesome and vexatious to all with whom they come
+in contact, have been doomed to reappear in this congenial shape. Here
+is one intent upon alighting on my nose. In a room, now,&mdash;in a human
+habitation,&mdash;I could find in my conscience to put him to death; but here
+we have intruded upon his own domain, which he holds in common with all
+other children of earth and air; and we have no right to slay him on his
+own ground. Now we look about us more minutely, and observe that the
+acorn-cups of last year are strewn plentifully on the bank and on the
+path. There is always pleasure in examining an acorn-cup,&mdash;perhaps
+associated with fairy banquets, where they were said to compose the
+table-service. Here, too, are those balls which grow as excrescences on
+the leaves of the oak, and which young kittens love so well to play
+with, rolling them over the carpet. We see mosses, likewise, growing on
+the banks, in as great variety as the trees of the wood. And how strange
+is the gradual process with which we detect objects that are right
+before the eyes! Here now are whortleberries, ripe and black, growing
+actually within reach of my hand, yet unseen till this moment.
+Were we to sit here all day,&mdash;a week, a month, and doubtless a
+lifetime,&mdash;objects would thus still be presenting themselves as new,
+though there would seem to be no reason why we should not have detected
+them all at the first moment.</p>
+
+<p>Now a cat-bird is mewing at no great distance. Then the shadow of a bird
+flits across a sunny spot. There is a peculiar impressiveness in this
+mode of being made acquainted with the flight of a bird; it impresses
+the mind more than if the eye had actually seen it. As we look round to
+catch a glimpse of the winged creature, we behold the living blue of the
+sky, and the brilliant disk of the sun, broken and made tolerable to the
+eye by the intervening foliage. Now, when you are not thinking of it,
+the fragrance of the white pines is suddenly wafted to you by a slight,
+almost imperceptible breeze, which has begun to stir. Now the breeze is
+the softest sigh imaginable, yet with a spiritual potency, insomuch that
+it seems to penetrate, with its mild, ethereal coolness, through the
+outward clay, and breathe upon the spirit itself, which shivers with
+gentle delight. Now the breeze strengthens so much as to shake all the
+leaves, making them rustle sharply; but it has lost its most ethereal
+power. And now, again, the shadows of the boughs lie as motionless as if
+they were painted on the pathway. Now, in the stillness, is heard the
+long, melancholy note of a bird, complaining above of some wrong or
+sorrow that man, or her own kind, or the immitigable doom of mortal
+affairs, has inflicted upon her, the complaining, but unresisting
+sufferer. And now, all of a sudden, we hear the sharp, shrill chirrup of
+a red squirrel, angry, it seems, with somebody&mdash;perhaps with
+ourselves&mdash;for having intruded into what he is pleased to consider his
+own domain. And hark! terrible to the ear, here is the minute but
+intense hum of a mosquito. Instinct prevails over all sentiment; we
+crush him at once, and there is his grim and grisly corpse, the ugliest
+object in nature. This incident has disturbed our tranquillity. In
+truth, the whole insect tribe, so far as we can judge, are made more for
+themselves, and less for man, than any other portion of creation. With
+such reflections, we look at a swarm of them, peopling, indeed, the
+whole air, but only visible when they flash into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> the sunshine, and
+annihilated out of visible existence when they dart into a region of
+shadow, to be again reproduced as suddenly. Now we hear the striking of
+the village clock, distant, but yet so near that each stroke is
+distinctly impressed upon the air. This is a sound that does not disturb
+the repose of the scene; it does not break our Sabbath,&mdash;for like a
+Sabbath seems this place,&mdash;and the more so, on account of the cornfield
+rustling at our feet. It tells of human labor; but being so solitary
+now, it seems as if it were so on account of the sacredness of the
+Sabbath. Yet it is not; for we hear at a distance mowers whetting their
+scythes; but these sounds of labor, when at a proper remoteness, do but
+increase the quiet of one who lies at his ease, all in a mist of his own
+musings. There is the tinkling of a cowbell,&mdash;a noise how peevishly
+discordant were it close at hand, but even musical now. But hark! there
+is the whistle of the locomotive,&mdash;the long shriek, heard above all
+other harshness; for the space of a mile cannot mollify it into harmony.
+It tells a story of busy men, citizens from the hot street, who have
+come to spend a day in a country village,&mdash;men of business,&mdash;in short,
+of all unquietness; and no wonder that it gives such a startling scream,
+since it brings the noisy world into the midst of our slumberous peace.
+As our thoughts repose again after this interruption, we find ourselves
+gazing up at the leaves, and comparing their different aspects,&mdash;the
+beautiful diversity of green, as the sun is diffused through them as a
+medium, or reflected from their glossy surface. We see, too, here and
+there, dead, leafless branches, which we had no more been aware of
+before than if they had assumed this old and dry decay since we sat down
+upon the bank. Look at our feet; and here, likewise, are objects as good
+as new. There are two little round, white fungi, which probably sprung
+from the ground in the course of last night,&mdash;curious productions, of
+the mushroom tribe, and which by and by will be those small things with
+smoke in them which children call puff-balls. Is there nothing else?
+Yes; here is a whole colony of little ant-hills,&mdash;a real village of
+them. They are round hillocks, formed of minute particles of gravel,
+with an entrance in the centre, and through some of them blades of grass
+or small shrubs have sprouted up, producing an effect not unlike trees
+that overshadow a homestead. Here is a type of domestic
+industry,&mdash;perhaps, too, something of municipal institutions,&mdash;perhaps
+likewise&mdash;who knows?&mdash;the very model of a community, which Fourierites
+and others are stumbling in pursuit of. Possibly the student of such
+philosophies should go to the ant, and find that Nature has given him
+his lesson there. Meantime, like a malevolent genius, I drop a few
+grains of sand into the entrance of one of these dwellings, and thus
+quite obliterate it. And behold, here comes one of the inhabitants, who
+has been abroad upon some public or private business, or perhaps to
+enjoy a fantastic walk, and cannot any longer find his own door. What
+surprise, what hurry, what confusion of mind are expressed in all his
+movements! How inexplicable to him must be the agency that has effected
+this mischief! The incident will probably be long remembered in the
+annals of the ant-colony, and be talked of in the winter days, when they
+are making merry over their hoarded provisions. But now it is time to
+move. The sun has shifted his position, and has found a vacant space
+through the branches, by means of which he levels his rays full upon my
+head. Yet now, as I arise, a cloud has come across him, and makes
+everything gently sombre in an instant. Many clouds, voluminous and
+heavy, are scattered about the sky, like the shattered ruins of a
+dreamer's Utopia; but I will not send my thoughts thitherward now, nor
+take one of them into my present observations.</p>
+
+<p>And now how narrow, scanty, and meagre is the record of observations,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span>
+compared with the immensity that was to be observed within the bounds
+which I prescribed to myself! How shallow and thin a stream of thought,
+too,&mdash;of distinct and expressed thought,&mdash;compared with the broad tide
+of dim emotions, ideas, associations, which were flowing through the
+haunted regions of imagination, intellect, and sentiment,&mdash;sometimes
+excited by what was around me, sometimes with no perceptible connection
+with them! When we see how little we can express, it is a wonder that
+any man ever takes up a pen a second time.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To find all sorts of ridiculous employments for people that have nothing
+better to do;&mdash;as to comb out the cows' tails, shave goats, hoard up
+seeds of weeds, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The baby, the other day, tried to grasp a handful of sunshine. She also
+grasps at the shadows of things in candle-light.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To typify our mature review of our early projects and delusions, by
+representing a person as wandering, in manhood, through and among the
+various castles in the air that he had reared in his youth, and
+describing how they look to him,&mdash;their dilapidation, etc. Possibly some
+small portion of these structures may have a certain reality, and
+suffice him to build a humble dwelling in which to pass his life.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The search of an investigator for the unpardonable sin: he at last finds
+it in his own heart and practice.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The trees reflected in the river;&mdash;they are unconscious of a spiritual
+world so near them. So are we.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The unpardonable sin might consist in a want of love and reverence for
+the human soul; in consequence of which, the investigator pried into its
+dark depths,&mdash;not with a hope or purpose of making it better, but from a
+cold, philosophical curiosity,&mdash;content that it should be wicked in
+whatever kind and degree, and only desiring to study it out. Would not
+this, in other words, be the separation of the intellect from the heart?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>There are some faces that have no more expression in them than any other
+part of the body. The hand of one person may express more than the face
+of another.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An ugly person with tact may make a bad face and figure pass very
+tolerably, and more than tolerably. Ugliness without tact is horrible.
+It ought to be lawful to extirpate such wretches.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To represent the influence which dead men have among living affairs. For
+instance, a dead man controls the disposition of wealth; a dead man sits
+on the judgment-seat, and the living judges do but repeat his decisions;
+dead men's opinions in all things control the living truth; we believe
+in dead men's religions; we laugh at dead men's jokes; we cry at dead
+men's pathos; everywhere, and in all matters, dead men tyrannize
+inexorably over us.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When the heart is full of care, or the mind much occupied, the summer
+and the sunshine and the moonlight are but a gleam and glimmer,&mdash;a vague
+dream, which does not come within us, but only makes itself imperfectly
+perceptible on the outside of us.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Biographies of eminent American merchants,&mdash;it would be a work likely to
+have a great circulation in our commercial country. If successful, there
+might be a second volume of eminent foreign merchants. Perhaps it had
+better be adapted to the capacity of young clerks and apprentices.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>For the virtuoso's collection:&mdash;Alexander's copy of the Iliad, enclosed
+in the jewelled casket of Darius, still fragrant with the perfumes
+Darius kept in it. Also the pen with which Faust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span> signed away his
+salvation, with the drop of blood dried in it.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>October 13, 1844.</i>&mdash;This morning, after a heavy hoar-frost, the leaves,
+at sunrise, were falling from the trees in our avenue without a breath
+of wind, quietly descending by their own weight. In an hour or two
+after, the ground was strewn with them; and the trees are almost bare,
+with the exception of two or three poplars, which are still green. The
+apple and pear trees are still green; so is the willow. The first severe
+frosts came at least a fortnight ago,&mdash;more, if I mistake not.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Sketch of a person, who, by strength of character or assistant
+circumstances, has reduced another to absolute slavery and dependence on
+him. Then show that the person who appeared to be the master must
+inevitably be at least as much a slave as the other, if not more so. All
+slavery is reciprocal, on the supposition most favorable to the masters.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Persons who write about themselves and their feelings, as Byron did, may
+be said to serve up their own hearts, duly spiced, and with brain-sauce
+out of their own heads, as a repast for the public.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To represent a man in the midst of all sorts of cares and annoyances,
+with impossibilities to perform, and driven almost distracted by his
+inadequacy. Then quietly comes Death, and releases him from all his
+troubles; and he smiles, and congratulates himself on escaping so
+easily.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>What if it should be discovered to be all a mistake, that people, who
+were supposed to have died long ago, are really dead? Byron to be still
+living, a man of sixty; Burns, too, in extreme old age; Bonaparte
+likewise; and many other distinguished men, whose lives might have
+extended to these limits. Then the private acquaintances, friends,
+enemies, wives, taken to be dead, to be all really living in this world.
+The machinery might be a person's being persuaded to believe that he had
+been mad; or having dwelt many years on a desolate island; or having
+been in the heart of Africa or China; and a friend amuses himself with
+giving this account. Or some traveller from Europe shall thus correct
+popular errors.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The life of a woman, who, by the old Colony law, was condemned to wear
+always the letter A sewed on her garment in token of her sin.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To make literal pictures of figurative expressions. For instance, he
+burst into tears,&mdash;a man suddenly turned into a shower of briny drops.
+An explosion of laughter,&mdash;a man blowing up, and his fragments flying
+about on all sides. He cast his eyes upon the ground,&mdash;a man standing
+eyeless, with his eyes thrown down, and staring up at him in wonderment,
+etc., etc., etc.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An uneducated countryman, supposing he had a live frog in his stomach,
+applied himself to the study of medicine, in order to find a cure, and
+so became a profound physician. Thus some misfortune, physical or moral,
+may be the means of educating and elevating us.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Concord, March 12, 1845.</i>&mdash;Last night was very cold, and bright
+starlight; yet there was a mist or fog diffused all over the landscape,
+lying close to the ground, and extending upwards, probably not much
+above the tops of the trees. This fog was crystallized by the severe
+frost; and its little feathery crystals covered all the branches and
+smallest twigs of trees and shrubs; so that, this morning, at first
+sight, it appeared as if they were covered with snow. On closer
+examination, however, these most delicate feathers appeared shooting out
+in all directions from the branches,&mdash;above as well as beneath,&mdash;and
+looking, not as if they had been attached, but had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span> put forth by
+the plant,&mdash;a new kind of foliage. It is impossible to describe the
+exquisite beauty of the effect, when close to the eye; and even at a
+distance this delicate appearance was not lost, but imparted a graceful,
+evanescent aspect to great trees, perhaps a quarter of a mile off,
+making them look like immense plumes, or something that would vanish at
+a breath. The so-much admired sight of icy trees cannot compare with it
+in point of grace, delicacy, and beauty; and, moreover, there is a life
+and animation in this, not to be found in the other. It was to be seen
+in its greatest perfection at sunrise, or shortly after; for the
+slightest warmth impaired the minute beauty of the frost-feathers, and
+the general effect. But in the first sunshine, and while there was still
+a partial mist hovering around the hill and along the river, while some
+of the trees were lit up with an illumination that did not
+<i>shine</i>,&mdash;that is to say, glitter,&mdash;but was not less bright than if it
+had glittered, while other portions of the scene were partly obscured,
+but not gloomy,&mdash;on the contrary, very cheerful,&mdash;it was a picture that
+never can be painted nor described, nor, I fear, remembered with any
+accuracy, so magical was its light and shade, while at the same time the
+earth and everything upon it were white; for the ground is entirely
+covered by yesterday's snow-storm.</p>
+
+<p>Already, before eleven o'clock, these feathery crystals have vanished,
+partly through the warmth of the sun, and partly by gentle breaths of
+wind; for so slight was their hold upon the twigs that the least motion,
+or thought almost, sufficed to bring them floating down, like a little
+snow-storm, to the ground. In fact, the fog, I suppose, was a cloud of
+snow, and would have scattered down upon us, had it been at the usual
+height above the earth.</p>
+
+<p>All the above description is most unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ON_TRANSLATING_THE_DIVINA_COMMEDIA" id="ON_TRANSLATING_THE_DIVINA_COMMEDIA"></a>ON TRANSLATING THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.</h2>
+
+<h3>FOURTH SONNET.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But fiends and dragons from the gargoyled eaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And underneath the traitor Judas lowers!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">What exultations trampling on despair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Uprose this poem of the earth and air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">This medi&aelig;val miracle of song!<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="FIVE_HUNDRED_YEARS_AGO" id="FIVE_HUNDRED_YEARS_AGO"></a>FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.</h2>
+
+
+<p>We who enjoy the fruits of civil and religious liberty as our daily
+food, reaping the harvest we did not sow, seldom give a thought to those
+who in the dim past prepared the ground and scattered the seed that has
+yielded such plenteous return. If occasionally we peer into the gloom of
+by-gone centuries, some stalwart form, like that of Luther, arrests our
+backward glance, and all beyond is dark and void. But generations before
+Martin Luther the work for the harvest of coming ages was begun. Humble
+but earnest men, with such rude aids as they possessed, were toiling to
+clear away the dense underbrush of ignorance and superstition, and let
+the light of the sun in on the stagnant swamp; struggling to plough up
+the stony soil that centuries of oppression had made hard and barren;
+scattering seed that the sun would scorch and the birds of the air
+devour; and dying without seeing a green blade to reward them with the
+hope that their toils were not in vain.</p>
+
+<p>But their labors were not lost. The soil thus prepared by the painful
+and unrequited toil of those who had gone down to obscure graves,
+sorrowing and hopeless, offered less obstruction to the strong arms and
+better appliances of the reformers of a later day. Of the seed scattered
+by the early sowers, a grain found here and there a sheltering crevice,
+and struggled into life, bearing fruit that in the succession of years
+increased and multiplied until thousands were fed and strengthened by
+its harvest.</p>
+
+<p>The military history of the reign of the third Edward of England is
+illuminated with such a blaze of glory, that the dazzled eye can with
+difficulty distinguish the dark background of its domestic life. Cressy
+and Poitiers carried the military fame of England throughout the world,
+and struck terror into her enemies; but at home dwelt turbulence,
+corruption, rapine, and misery. The barons quarrelled and fought among
+themselves. The clergy wallowed in a sty of corruption and debauchery.
+The laboring classes were sunk in ignorance and hopeless misery. It was
+the dark hour that precedes the first glimmer of dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Poitiers was won in 1356. Four years the French king remained in
+honorable captivity in England. Then came the treaty of Bretigny, which
+released King John and terminated the war. The great nobles, with their
+armies of lesser knights and swarms of men-at-arms, returned to England,
+viewed with secret and well-founded distrust by the industrious and
+laboring classes along their homeward route. The nobles established
+themselves in their castles, immediately surrounded by swarms of
+reckless men, habituated by years of war to deeds of lawlessness and
+violence, and having subject to their summons feudatory knights, each of
+whom had his own band of turbulent retainers. With such elements of
+discord, it was impossible for good order long to be maintained. The
+nobles quarrelled, and their retainers were not backward in taking up
+the quarrel. The feudatory knights had disagreements among themselves,
+and carried on petty war against each other. Confederated bands of
+lawless men traversed the country, seizing property wherever it could be
+found, outraging women, taking prisoners and ransoming them, and making
+war against all who opposed their progress or were personally obnoxious
+to them. Castles and estates were seized and held on some imaginary
+claim. It was in vain to appeal to the laws. Justice was powerless to
+correct abuses or aid the oppressed. Powerful barons gave countenance to
+the marauders, that their services might be secured in the event of a
+quarrel with their neighbors; nor did they hesitate to share in the
+booty. Might everywhere triumphed over right, and the "law of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span>
+strong arm" superseded the ordinances of the civil power.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of the Church was no better than that of the State. Fraud,
+corruption, and oppression sat in high places in both. The prelates had
+their swarms of armed retainers, and ruled their flocks with the sword
+as well as the crosier. The monasteries, with but few exceptions, were
+the haunts of extravagance and sensuality, instead of the abodes of
+self-denying virtue and learning. The portly abbot, his black robe edged
+with costly fur and clasped with a silver girdle, his peaked shoes in
+the height of the fashion, and wearing a handsomely ornamented dagger or
+hunting-knife, rode out accompanied by a pack of trained hunting-dogs,
+the golden bells on his bridle</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Gingeling in the whistling wind as clear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The monks who were unable to indulge their taste for the chase sought
+recompense in unrestrained indulgence at the table. The land was
+overspread with an innumerable swarm of begging friars, who fawned on
+the great, flattered the wealthy, and despoiled the poor. Another class
+traversed the country, selling pardons "come from Rome all hot," and
+extolling the virtues of their relics and the power of their indulgences
+with the eloquence of a quack vending his nostrums. Bishops held civil
+offices under the king, and priests acted as stewards in great men's
+houses. Simony possessed the Church, and the ministers of religion again
+sold their Master for silver.</p>
+
+<p>The domestic and social life of the higher classes of society in the
+last half of the fourteenth century can be delineated, with a fair
+approach to exactness, from the detached hints scattered through such
+old romances and poems of that period as the diligent labors of zealous
+antiquaries have brought to light.</p>
+
+<p>The residences of all the great and wealthy possessed one general
+character. The central point and most important feature was the great
+hall, adjoining which in most houses a "parlour," or talking-room, had
+recently been built. A principal chamber for the ladies of the household
+was generally placed on the ground-floor, with an upper chamber, or
+"soler," over it. In the larger establishments additional chambers had
+been clustered around the main building, increasing in number with the
+wants of the household. The castles and fortified buildings varied a
+little in outward construction from the ordinary manorial residences,
+but the same general arrangement of the interior existed. A few of the
+stronger and more important buildings were of stone; but the larger
+proportion were of timber, or timber and stone combined.</p>
+
+<p>The great hall was the most important part of the establishment. Here
+the general business of the household was transacted, the meals served,
+strangers received, audiences granted, and what may be termed the public
+life of the family carried on. It was also the general rendezvous of the
+servants and retainers, who lounged about it when duty or pleasure did
+not call them to the other offices or to the field. In the evening they
+gathered around the fire, built in an iron grate standing in the middle
+of the room; for as yet chimneys were a luxury confined to the principal
+chamber. The few remaining halls of this period that have not been
+remodelled in succeeding ages present no trace of a fireplace or
+chimney. At night the male servants and men-at-arms stretched themselves
+to sleep on the benches along its sides, or on the rush-covered floor.</p>
+
+<p>The floor at the upper end was raised, forming the <i>dais</i>, or place of
+honor. On this, stretching nearly from side to side, was the "table
+dormant," or fixed table, with a "settle," or bench with a back, between
+it and the wall. On the lower floor, and extending lengthwise on each
+side down the hall, stood long benches for the use of the servants and
+retainers. At meal-times, in front of these were placed the temporary
+tables of loose boards supported on trestles. At the upper end was the
+cupboard, or "dresser," for the plate and furniture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span> of the table. In
+the halls of the greater nobles, on important occasions, tapestry or
+curtains were hung on the walls, or at least on that portion of the wall
+next the dais, and still more rarely a carpet was used for that part of
+the floor,&mdash;rushes or bare tiles being more general. A perch for hawks,
+and the grate of burning wood, sending its smoke up to the blackened
+open roof, completed the picture of the hall of a large establishment in
+the fourteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>The "parlour," or talking-room, as its name imports, was used chiefly
+for conferences, and for such business as required more privacy than was
+attainable in the hall, but was unsuited to the domestic character of
+the chamber.</p>
+
+<p>After the hall, the most important feature of the building was the
+principal chamber. Here the domestic life of the family was carried on.
+Here the ladies of the household spent their time when not at meals or
+engaged in out-door sports and pastimes. The furniture of this room was
+more complete than that of the other parts of the building, but was
+still rude and scanty when judged by modern wants. The bed was of
+massive proportions and frequently of ornamental character. A
+truckle-bed for the children or chamber servants was pushed under the
+principal bed by day. At the foot of the latter stood the huge "hutch,"
+or chest, in which were deposited for safety the family plate and
+valuables. Two or three stools and large chairs, with a perch or bar on
+which to hang garments, completed the usual furniture of the chamber.</p>
+
+<p>In this room was one important feature not found in the others, and
+which accounted for the increasing attachment manifested towards it. The
+fire, instead of being placed in an iron grate or brazier in the middle
+of the room, burned merrily on the hearth; and the smoke, instead of
+seeking its exit by the window, was carried up a chimney of generous
+proportions.</p>
+
+<p>The household day commenced early. The members of the family arose from
+the beds where they had slept in the garments worn by our first parents
+before the fall; for the effeminacy of sleeping in night-dresses had not
+yet been introduced, and it was only the excessively poor that made the
+clothes worn during the day serve in lieu of blankets and coverlets.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'I have but one whole hater,'<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> quoth Haukyn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'I am the less to blame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though it be soiled and seldom clean:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I sleep therein of nights.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Breakfast was served about six o'clock. It is difficult to get an exact
+description of the customs of the breakfast-table, or the nature of the
+meal, as the contemporary writers make little allusion to it. Probably
+it was but a slight repast, to allay the cravings of appetite until the
+great meal of the day was served. Until within a few years of the period
+of which we write, the dinner-hour was so early that but little food was
+taken before that time.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner was then, as now, the principal meal of the English day. In the
+houses of the great it was conducted with much ceremony; and among the
+richer classes certain well-established rules of courtesy in relation to
+the meal were observed. The family and their guests entered the great
+hall about ten o'clock. They were met by a domestic, bearing a pitcher
+and basin, and his assistant, with a towel. Water was poured on the
+hands of each person, and the ablutions carefully performed; scrupulous
+cleanliness in this respect being required, from the fact that forks
+were as yet things undreamed of. The principal guests took their seats
+at the "table dormant," on the dais, the person of highest rank having
+the middle seat,&mdash;which was consequently at the head of the hall,&mdash;and
+the others being arranged according to their respective rank.</p>
+
+<p>At the side-tables, below the dais, sat the inferior members of the
+household, with the guests of lesser note,&mdash;these also arranged with
+careful regard to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span> rank and position. The beggar or poor wayfarer who
+was admitted to a humble share of the feast crouched on the rushes among
+the dogs who lay awaiting the bones and relics of the repast, and
+thankfully fed, like Lazarus, on "the crumbs that fell from the rich
+man's table."</p>
+
+<p>The guests being seated, the busy servitors hastened to cover the table
+with a "fair white linen cloth," of unsullied purity; and on it were
+placed the salt-cellars of massive silver, the spoons and knives; next
+the bread, and then the wine, poured with great ceremony into the
+drinking-cups by the cupbearer. The silver vessels were brought from the
+"dresser," and arranged on the table, the display being proportioned to
+the wealth and condition of the host and the consideration to be paid to
+the guests. The head cook and his assistants entered in procession,
+bearing the dishes in regular order, and deposited them on the table
+with due solemnity. The pottage was first served, and when this course
+was eaten, the vessels and spoons were removed. The carver performed his
+office on the meats, holding the joint, according to the traditions of
+his order, carefully with the thumb and first two fingers of his left
+hand, whilst he carved. The pieces were placed on "trenchers" or slices
+of bread, and handed to the guests, who made no scruple of freely using
+their fingers. The bones and refuse of the food were placed on the
+table, or thrown to the dogs.</p>
+
+<p>The people of that day were not insensible to the pleasures of the
+table; and, unless urgent matters called them to the field or the
+council, dinner was enjoyed with leisurely deliberation. In great houses
+of hospitable reputation, the great hall at the hour of meals was open
+to all comers. The traveller who found himself at its door was admitted,
+and received position and food according to his condition. The minstrels
+that wandered over the country in great numbers were always welcome, and
+were well supplied with food and drink, and received liberal gifts for
+their songs and the long romances of love and chivalry which they
+recited to music. Not unfrequently satirical songs were sung, or the
+minstrel narrated stories in which the humor was of a coarser nature
+than would now be tolerated in the presence of ladies, but which in that
+day were listened to without a blush.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner ended, the vessels and unconsumed meats were removed, the
+tablecloths gathered up, and the relics of the feast thrown on the floor
+for the dogs to devour. The side-tables were removed from their trestles
+and piled in a corner, and the hall cleared for the entertainments that
+frequently followed the dinner. These consisted of feats of conjuring by
+the "joculators," balancing and tumbling by the women who wandered about
+seeking a livelihood by such means, or dancing by the ladies of the
+household and their guests.</p>
+
+<p>The feast and its succeeding amusements disposed of, the ladies either
+shared in the out-door sports and games, of which there were many in
+which women could take part, or they retired to the chamber, where,
+seated in low chairs or in the recessed windows, they engaged in making
+the needle-work pictures that adorned the tapestry, listening the while
+to the love-romances narrated by the minstrel who had been invited for
+the purpose, or gave willing ear to the flattery of some "virelay" or
+love-song, sung by gay canon, gentle page, or courtly knight.</p>
+
+<p>About six o'clock, the household once more assembled in the hall for
+supper; and then the orders for the ensuing day were given to the
+servants and retainers. Soon after dark the members of the family and
+their guests sought their respective sleeping-places, as contrivances
+for lighting were rude, and had to be economized. Such of the servants
+as had special chambers or sleeping-places retired to them, whilst a
+large proportion of the male servants and such of the retainers as
+belonged immediately to the household<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span> stretched themselves on the
+benches or floor of the hall, and were soon fast asleep. Such is a
+sketch of the ordinary course of domestic life among the higher classes
+of English society in the fourteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Among the greater nobles, the details of the daily life were sometimes
+on a more magnificent scale; but the leading features were as we have
+described them. Rude pomp and barbaric splendor marked the
+establishments of some of the powerful barons and ecclesiastical
+dignitaries. At tilt and tournament, the contending knights strove to
+outshine each other in gorgeousness of equipment, as well as in deeds of
+arms. Nor were the ladies averse to richness of attire in their own
+persons. Costly robes and dainty furs were worn, and jewels and gems of
+price sparkled when the dames and demoiselles appeared at great
+gatherings, or on occasions of state and ceremony. The extravagance of
+dress in both sexes had grown to be so great an evil, that stringent
+sumptuary laws were passed, but without producing any effect.</p>
+
+<p>The moral state of even the highest classes of society was not of a
+flattering character. Europe was one huge camp and battle-field, in
+which all the chivalry of the day had been educated,&mdash;no good school for
+purity of life and delicacy of language. The literature of the time, at
+least that portion of it which penetrated to ladies' chambers, was of an
+amorous, and too frequently of an indelicate character. A debased and
+sensual clergy swarmed over the land, finding their way into every
+household, and gradually corrupting those with whom their sacred office
+brought them into contact. The manners and habits of the time afforded
+every facility for the gratification of debased passions and indulgence
+in immoral practices.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the barons feasted and fought, the ladies intrigued, and the
+clergy violated every principle of the religion they professed, the
+great mass of the population lived on, with scarcely a thought bestowed
+on them by their social superiors. Between the Anglo-Norman baron and
+the Anglo-Saxon laborer, or "villain," there was a great gulf fixed. The
+antipathy of an antagonistic and conquered race to its conquerors was
+intensified by years of oppression and wrong, and the laborer cherished
+a burning desire to break the bonds of thraldom in which most of the
+poor were held.</p>
+
+<p>By the laws of the feudal system, the tenants and laborers on the
+property of a baron were his "villains," or slaves. They were divided
+into two classes;&mdash;the "villains regardant," who were permitted to
+occupy and cultivate small portions of land, on condition of rendering
+certain stipulated services to their lord, and were therefore considered
+in the light of slaves to the land; and the "villains in gross," who
+were the personal slaves of the landowner, and were compelled to do the
+work they were set to perform in consideration of their food and
+clothing. Besides these two classes a third had recently come into
+existence, and, owing to various causes, was fast increasing in extent
+and importance,&mdash;that of free laborers, who worked for hire. This class
+was recruited in various ways from the ranks of the "villains in gross."
+Some were manumitted by their dying masters, as an act of piety in
+atonement for the deeds of violence done during life; but by far the
+greater number effected their freedom by escaping to distant parts of
+the country, where but little search would be made for them, or by
+seeking the refuge of the walled towns and cities, where a residence of
+a year and a day would give them freedom by law. The citizens were
+always ready to give asylum to those fugitives, for they supplied the
+growing need for laborers, and enabled the cities, by the increase of
+population, to maintain their independence against the pretensions of
+the barons.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of the "villain" was bad at the best; and numerous petty
+acts of oppression in most instances increased the bitterness of his
+lot.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span> Himself the property of another, he could not legally hold
+possessions of any kind. Not only the land he tilled, and the rude
+implements of husbandry with which he painfully cultivated the soil, but
+the cattle with which he worked, the house in which he lived, the few
+chattels he gathered around him, and the scanty store of money earned by
+hard labor, all belonged to his master, who could at any time dispossess
+him of them. The "villain" who obtained a livelihood by working the few
+acres of land which had been held from father to son, on condition of
+performing personal labor or other services on the estate of the
+landowner, was subject not only to the demands of his master, but to the
+tithing of the Church; to the doles exacted by the swarms of begging
+friars, who, like Irish beggars of the present day, invoked cheap
+blessings on the cheerful giver, and launched bitter curses at the heads
+of those who refused alms; to the impositions of the wandering
+"pardoners," with their charms and relics; and to the tyrannical
+exactions of the "summoners," who, under pretence of writs from
+ecclesiastical courts, robbed all who were not in position to resist
+their fraudulent demands. What these spared was frequently swept away by
+the visits of the king's purveyors and the officers of others in power,
+who, not content with robbing the poor husbandman of the proceeds of his
+toil, treated the men with violence and the women with outrage.
+Complaint was useless. The "churl" had no rights which those in office
+were bound to respect.</p>
+
+<p>Ignorant, superstitious, and condemned to a life of unrequited toil and
+unredressed wrongs, the mental and moral condition of the agricultural
+poor was wretchedly low. Huddled together in mud cottages, through the
+rotten thatches of which the rain penetrated; clothed with rough
+garments that were seldom changed night or day; feeding on coarse food,
+and that in insufficient quantities,&mdash;their physical condition was one
+of extreme misery. The usual daily allowance of food to the bond laborer
+of either class, when working for the owner of the land, was two
+herrings, milk for cheese, and a loaf of bread, with the addition in
+harvest of a small allowance of beer. Occasionally, salted meats or
+stockfish were substituted for the herrings.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of the free laborer was measurably better; but even he was
+condemned to a life of privation and wretchedness, relieved only by the
+knowledge that his scanty earnings were his own, and that he could
+change the scene of his labors if he saw fit. The ordinary agricultural
+laborer, at the wages usually given, would have to work more than a week
+for a bushel of wheat. At harvest-time and other periods when the demand
+for labor was unusually great, as it was after the pestilences that
+swept the land about the time of which we write, the free laborers
+demanded higher wages; and although laws were passed to prevent their
+obtaining more than the usual rates, necessity frequently compelled
+their employment at the advanced prices. The receipt of higher wages
+only temporarily bettered their condition. Accustomed to griping hunger
+and short allowances of food, when better days came, they thought only
+of enjoying the present, and took no heed of the future. After harvest,
+with its high wages and cheapness of provision, the laborer frequently
+became wasteful and improvident. Instead of the stinted allowance of
+salted meat or fish, with the pinched loaf of bean-flour, and an
+occasional draught of weak beer, his fastidious appetite demanded fresh
+meat or fish, white bread, vegetables freshly gathered, and ale of the
+best. As long as his store lasted, he worked as little as possible, and
+grumbled at the fortune that made him a laborer. But these halcyon days
+were few, and soon passed away, to be followed by decreasing allowances
+of the commonest food, fierce pangs of hunger, and miserable
+destitution. A bad harvest inflicted untold wretchedness on the poor.
+Ill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span> lodged, ill fed, and scantily clothed, disease cut them down like
+grass before the scythe. A deadly pestilence swept over the land in
+1348, carrying off about two thirds of the people; and nearly all the
+victims were from among the poorest classes. In 1361, another pestilence
+carried off thousands, again spreading terror and dismay through the
+country. Seven years later a third visitation desolated England. Here
+and there one of the better class fell a victim to the destroyer; but
+the great mass were from the ranks of the half-starved and poorly lodged
+laborers.</p>
+
+<p>The morality of the poor was, as might be expected, at a low ebb.
+Modesty, chastity, and temperance could scarcely be looked for in
+wretched mud huts, where all ages and sexes herded together like swine.
+Men and women alike fled from their miserable homes to the ale-house,
+where they drank long draughts of cheap ale, and, in imitation of their
+superiors in station, listened to a low class of "japers" who recited
+"rhymes of Robin Hood," or told coarse and obscene stories for the sake
+of a share of the ale, or such few small coins as could be drawn from
+the ragged pouches of the bacchanals.</p>
+
+<p>Between proud wealth and abject poverty there can be no friendly
+feeling. Stolid, brutish ignorance can alone render the bonds of the
+slave endurable. As his eyes are slowly opened by increasing knowledge,
+and he can compare his condition with that of the freeman, his fetters
+gall him, he becomes restive in his bonds, and at length turns in blind
+fury on his oppressors, striking mad blows with his manacled hands.
+Trodden into the dust by the iron heel of a tyrannical feudal power, the
+peasantry of France had turned on their oppressors, and wreaked a brief
+but savage vengeance for ages of wrong. The atrocious cruelties and mad
+excesses of the revolted Jacquerie could only have been committed by
+those who had been so long treated as brutes that they had acquired
+brutish passions and instincts. The English peasantry had not yet
+followed the example of their French compeers; but the gathering storm
+already darkened the sky, and the mutterings of the thunder were heard.
+Superstitiously religious, they hated the ministers of religion who
+violated its principles. Born slaves and hopelessly debased and
+ignorant, they began to ask the question,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When Adam delved and Eve span,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who then was the gentleman?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Occasionally a rude ballad found its way among the people fiercely
+expressive of their scorn of the clergy and their hatred of the rich.
+One that was very popular, and has been transmitted to our day, asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"While God was on earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And wandered wide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What was the reason<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Why he would not ride?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because he would have no groom<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To go by his side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor grudging of no gadeling<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To scold nor to chide.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hearken hitherward, horsemen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A tiding I you tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ye shall hang<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And harbor in hell!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But no leader had as yet arisen to give proper voice to the desire for
+reformation that burned in the hearts of the common people. The writers
+of that age were breathing the intoxicating air of court favor, and
+heeded not the sufferings of the common rabble. Froissart, the courtly
+canon and chronicler of deeds of chivalry, was writing French madrigals
+and amorous ditties for the ear of Queen Philippa, and loved too well
+gay society, luxurious feasts, and dainty attire, not to shrink with
+disgust from thought of the dirty, uncouth, and miserable herd of
+"greasy caps." Gower was inditing fashionable love-songs. Chaucer, who
+years after was to direct such telling blows in his Canterbury Tales at
+the vices and corruptness of the clergy, was a favorite member of the
+retinue of the powerful "John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster," and had
+as yet only written long and stately poems on the history of Troilus and
+Cressida, the Parliament<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span> of Birds, and the Court of Love. Wycliffe, the
+great English reformer of the Church, was quietly living at his rectory
+of Fylingham, and preparing his first essays against the mendicant
+orders. John Ball, the "crazy priest of Kent," as Froissart calls him,
+was brooding over the miseries of his poor parishioners, and nursing in
+his mind that enmity to all social distinctions with which he afterwards
+inflamed the minds of the peasantry, and incited them to open rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>But in the quarter least expected the oppressed people found an
+advocate. An unobtrusive monk, whose name is almost a doubtful
+tradition, stole out from his quiet cell in Malvern Abbey, and, whilst
+his brethren feasted, climbed the gentle slope of the Worcestershire
+hills, and drank in the beauties of the varied landscape at his feet.
+There, on a May morning, as he rested under a bank by the side of a
+brooklet, and was lulled to sleep by the murmuring of the water, he
+dreamed those dreams that set waking people to thinking, and gave a
+powerful impetus to the moral and social revolution that was just
+commencing.</p>
+
+<p>The "Vision of Piers Plowman" is every way a singular production.
+Clothed in the then almost obsolete verse of a past age, it breathes
+wholly the spirit of the time in which it was written. The work of a
+monk, it is unsparing in its attacks on the monastic orders. Intended
+for the reading or hearing of the middle and lower classes, it gives
+more frequent glimpses of the social condition of all ranks of people
+than any other work of that age. As a philological monument, it is of
+great value; as a poem, it contains many passages of merit; and as a
+storehouse of allusions to the social life of the people in the
+fourteenth century, it is invaluable.</p>
+
+<p>The poem consists of a series of visions or dreams, of an allegorical
+character, in which the dreamer seeks to find Truth and Righteousness on
+earth, meeting with but little success. The allegorical idea cannot be
+followed without weariness, and, in fact, the intentions of the writer
+are by no means clear, the allegory being frequently involved and
+contradictory. The beauty of the poem lies in its detached passages, its
+occasional poetic touches, its graphic pictures, biting satire, and
+withering denunciation of fraud, corruption, and tyranny. The measure
+adopted is the unrhymed alliterative, characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon
+literature, and which had long been disused, but which retained its hold
+on the affections of the common people, who were of Anglo-Saxon stock.
+In the extracts we give from the poem, the measure is retained, but the
+words modernized, so far as can be done without injuring the sense or
+metre.</p>
+
+<p>The opening passage of the "Vision" has been so frequently reproduced,
+as a specimen of the poet's style, that it is probably familiar to many
+readers, but its exquisite naturalness and simplicity tempt us to quote
+it here.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In a summer season,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When soft was the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shaped me into shrouds<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As I a shep<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> were;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In habit as an hermit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unholy of works<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Went wide in this world<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wonders to hear:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on a May morwening<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Malvern hills<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Me befell a ferly,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of fairy methought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I was weary for-wandered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And went me to rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Under a broad bank<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By a bourne's<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> side;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as I lay and leaned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And looked on the waters,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I slumbered into a sleeping<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It swayed so merry."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The first scene in the visions that visited the sleep of the dreaming
+monk gives a view of the social classes of that time, beginning with the
+humblest, whose condition was uppermost in his mind. The picture is not
+only painted with vigorous touches, but affords a better idea of society
+in the fourteenth century than can be elsewhere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span> obtained. There is the
+toiling ploughman, who "plays full seldom," winning by hard labor what
+wasteful men destroy; the medi&aelig;val dandy, whose only employment is to
+exhibit his attire; the hermit, who seeks by solitude and penitential
+life to win "heaven's rich bliss"; the merchant, who has wisely chosen
+his trade,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"As it seemeth in our sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That such men thriveth."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There are minstrels, who earn rich rewards by their singing; jesters and
+idle gossips; "sturdy beggars," wandering with full bags; pilgrims and
+palmers, who</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Went forth in their way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With many wise tales,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And had leave to lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All their lives after";<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>counterfeit hermits, who assumed the cloak and hooked staff in order to
+live in idleness and sensuality; avaricious friars, selling their
+religion for money; cheating pardoners; covetous priests; ambitious
+bishops; lawyers who loved gain better than justice; "barons and
+burgesses, and bondmen also," with</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Bakers and brewers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And butchers many;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Woollen websters,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And weavers of linen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tailors and tinkers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And toilers in markets;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Masons and miners,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many other crafts.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all kind living laborers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leaped forth some;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As ditchers and delvers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That do their deeds ill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And driveth forth the long day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With <i>Dieu save dame Emme</i>.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cooks and their knaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cried, 'Hot pies, hot!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Good geese and grys,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go dine, go!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To plead the cause of the poor and weak against their powerful
+oppressors, and to protest in the name of religion against the pride and
+corrupt life of its ministers, was the object of the monk of Malvern
+Abbey; and he did his work well. The blows he dealt were fierce and
+strong, and told home. Burgher and baron, monk and cardinal, alike felt
+the fury of his attacks. He was no respecter of persons. A monk himself,
+he had no scruples in tearing off the priestly robe that covered lust
+and rapine. Wrong in high places gained no respect from him. His
+invectives against a haughty and oppressive nobility and a corrupt and
+arrogant clergy are unsurpassed in power, and it is easy to understand
+the hold the poem at once acquired on the attention of the lower
+classes, and its influence in directing and hastening the attempt of the
+oppressed people to break their galling bonds.</p>
+
+<p>What we have before said in reference to the wretched condition of the
+peasantry, as shown by contemporary evidence, is confirmed by the writer
+of the "Vision." The peasant was a born thrall to the owner of the land,
+and could</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"no charter make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor his cattle sell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without leave of his lord."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Misery and he were lifelong companions, and pinching want his daily
+portion. The wretched poor</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"much care suffren<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through dearth, through drought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All their days here:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Woe in winter times<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For wanting of clothing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in summer time seldom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soupen to the full."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A graphic picture of a poor ploughman and his family is given in the
+"Creed" of Piers Plowman, supposed to have been written by the author of
+the "Vision," but a few years later.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"As I went by the way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weeping for sorrow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I saw a simple man me by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the plow hanging.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His coat was of a clout<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That cary<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> was called;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His hood was full of holes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his hair out;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his knopped<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> shoon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clouted full thick;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His toes totedun<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> out<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he the land treaded;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His hosen overhung his hockshins<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On every side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All beslomered in fen<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he the plow followed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two mittens as meter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made all of clouts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fingers were for-werd<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a><br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span><span class="i0">And full of fen hanged.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This wight wallowed in the fen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Almost to the ankle.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Four rotheren<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> him before<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That feeble were worthy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men might reckon each rib<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So rentful<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> they were.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His wife walked him with,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a long goad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a cutted coat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cutted full high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wrapped in a winnow sheet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To weren her from weathers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Barefoot on the bare ice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the blood followed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And at the land's end layeth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A little crumb-bowl,<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thereon lay a little child<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lapped in clouts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And twins of two years old<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon another side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all they sungen one song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sorrow was to hear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They crieden all one cry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A careful note.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The simple man sighed sore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And said, 'Children, be still!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The tenant of land, or small farmer, was in a better condition, and when
+not cozened of his stores by the monks, or robbed of them by the
+ruffians in office or out of office, managed to live with some kind of
+rude comfort. What the ordinary condition of his larder and the extent
+of his farming stock were, may be learned from a passage in the
+"Vision."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'I have no penny,' quoth Piers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Pullets to buy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor neither geese nor grys;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But two green cheeses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A few curds and cream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And an haver cake,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And two loaves of beans and bran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Baked for my fauntes<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet I say, by my soul!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have no salt bacon.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor no cokeney,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> by Christ!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Collops for to maken.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But I have perciles and porettes,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many cole plants,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And eke a cow and calf.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a cart-mare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To draw afield my dung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The while the drought lasteth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And by this livelihood we must live<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till Lammas time.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And by that I hope to have<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Harvest in my croft,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then may I dight thy dinner<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As me dear liketh.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We have already described the tenure by which the tenant held his lands,
+and the protection the knightly landowner was bound to give his tenant.
+Thus Piers Plowman, when his honest labors are broken in upon by
+ruffians,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Plained him to the knight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To help him, as covenant was,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From cursed shrews,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aud from these wasters, wolves-kind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That maketh the world dear."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At times this was but a wolf's protection, or a stronger power broke
+through all guards. The "king's purveyor," or some other licensed
+despoiler, came in, and the victim was left to make fruitless complaints
+of his injuries. The women were subjected to gross outrages, and the
+property stolen or destroyed.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Both my geese and my grys<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His gadelings<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> fetcheth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I dare not, for fear of them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fight nor chide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He borrowed of me Bayard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And brought him home never,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor no farthing therefore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For aught that I could plead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He maintaineth his men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To murder my hewen,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forestalleth my fairs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fighteth in my chepying.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And breaketh up my barn door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beareth away my wheat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And taketh me but a tally<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ten quarters of oats;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet he beateth me thereto."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then, as now, there were complaints that the privations of the poor were
+increased by the covetousness of the hucksters, and "regraters"
+(retailers), who came between the producer and the consumer, and grew
+rich on the profits made from both.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Brewers and bakers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Butchers and cooks,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>were charged with robbing</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"the poor people<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That parcel-meal<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> buy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they empoison the people<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Privily and oft.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They grow rich through regratery,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rents they buy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With what the poor people<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should put in their wamb.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For, took they but truly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They timbered<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> not so high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor bought no burgages,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be ye fell certain."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Stringent laws were made against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span> huckstering and regrating, and
+officers were appointed to punish offenders in this respect, "with
+pillories and pining-stools." But officers, then as now, were not proof
+against temptation, and were often disposed</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Of all such sellers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Silver for to take;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or presents without pence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As pieces of silver,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rings, or other riches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The regraters to maintain."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Nor had the rogues of the fourteenth century much to learn in the way of
+turning a dishonest penny. The merchant commended his bad wares for
+good, and knew how to adulterate and how to give short measure. The
+spinners of wool were paid by a heavy pound, and the article resold by a
+light pound. Laws were made against such frauds, but laws were little
+regarded when they conflicted with self-interest. The crime of clipping
+and "sweating" coin was frequently practised. Pawn-brokers,
+money-lenders, and sellers of exchange thrived and flourished.</p>
+
+<p>The rich find but little consideration at the hands of the plain-spoken
+dreamer. Their extravagance is commented on; their growing pride, which
+prompted them to abandon the great hall and take their meals in a
+private room, and their uncharitableness to the poor. They practise the
+saying, that "to him that hath shall be given."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Right so, ye rich,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye robeth them that be rich,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And helpeth them that helpen you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And giveth where no need is.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye robeth and feedeth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Them that have as ye have<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Them ye make at ease."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But when, hungered, athirst, and shivering with cold, the poor man comes
+to the rich man's gate, there is none to help, but he is</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"hunted as a hound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bidden go thence."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Thus</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"the rich is reverenced<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By reason of his richness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the poor is put behind."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Truly, says the Monk of Malvern,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"God is much in the gorge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of these great masters;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But among mean men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mercy and his works."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But it is on the vices and corruptions of the clergy that the monk pours
+the vials of his wrath. He cloaks nothing, and spares neither rank nor
+condition. The avarice of the clergy, their want of religion, and the
+prostitution of their sacred office for the sake of gain, are sternly
+denounced in frequently-recurring passages. The facility with which
+debaucheries and crimes of all kinds could be compounded for with the
+priests by presents of gold and silver, the neglect of their flocks
+whilst seeking gain in the service of the rich and powerful, their
+ignorance, pride, extravagance, and licentiousness, are painted in
+strong colors. The immense throng of friars and monks, who "waxen out of
+number," meet with small mercy from their fellow-monk. Falsehood and
+fraud are described as dwelling ever with them. Their unholy life and
+unseemly quarrels are held up for reprobation. Nor do the nuns escape
+the imputation of unchastity. The quackery of pardoners, with their
+pardons and indulgences from pope and bishop, is treated with contempt
+and scorn. Bishops are criticised for their undivided attention to
+worldly matters; and even the Pope himself does not escape censure.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"What pope or prelate now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Performeth what Christ hight<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The cardinals come in for a share of the censure, and here occurs a
+passage, curiously suggestive of the celebrated line,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Never yet did cardinal bring good to England."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The commons <i>clamat cotidie</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each man to the other,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The country is the curseder<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That cardinals come in;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And where they lie and lenge<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> most,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lechery there reigneth."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Years afterwards, Wycliffe dealt mighty blows at the corrupt and debased
+clergy, and Chaucer pierced them with his sharp satire, but neither
+surpassed their predecessor in the vigor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span> and spirit of his onslaughts.
+One passage, which we quote, had evidently been acted on by Chaucer's
+"poor parson," and can be studied even at this late day.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Friars and many other masters,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That to lewed<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> men preachen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye moven matters unmeasurable<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To tellen of the Trinity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That oft times the lewed people<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of their belief doubt.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better it were to many doctors<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To leave such teaching,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tell men of the ten commandments,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And touching the seven sins,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And of the branches that bourgeoneth of them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bringeth men to hell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how that folk in follies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Misspenden their five wits,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As well friars as other folks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Foolishly spending,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In housing, in hatering,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in to high clergy showing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More for pomp than for pure charity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The people wot the sooth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I lie not, lo!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For lords ye pleasen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And reverence the rich<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rather for their silver."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It would be hardly proper to leave this portion of the subject without
+alluding to the remarkable passage which has been held by many as a
+prophecy of the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., nearly
+two centuries later. After denouncing the corruptions of the clergy, he
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But there shall come a king<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And confess you religiouses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beat you as the Bible telleth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For breaking of your rule;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And amend monials,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Monks and canons,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And put them to their penance.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all his issue forever,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have a knock of a king,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And incurable the wound."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A distinctive and charming feature of the English landscape is the
+hedgerow that divides the fields and marks the course of the roadways.
+Nowhere but in England does the landscape present such a charming
+picture of "meadows trim with daisies pied," "russet lawns and fallows
+gray," spread out like a map, divided with irregular lines of green.
+Nowhere else is the traveller's path guarded on either hand with a
+rampart of delicate primroses, sweet-breathed violets, golden buttercups
+fit for fairy revels, honeysuckles in whose bells the bee rings a
+delighted peal, and luscious-fruited blackberry-bushes. Nowhere else is
+such a rampart crowned with the sweet-scented hawthorn, robed in snowy
+blossoms, or beaded over with scarlet berries, and with the hazel, with
+its gracefully pendent catkins, or nuts dear to the school-boy. It
+scarcely seems possible to imagine an English landscape without its
+flower-scented hedge-rows, and yet, when the armed knights of Edward the
+Third's reign rode abroad from their castles, few lofty hedges barred
+their progress across the country; no hazel-crowned rampart stopped the
+way of the Malvern monk as he took his way to the "bourne's side"; and
+when the ploughman "whistled o'er the furrowed land," the line of
+division at which he turned his back on his neighbor's acres was
+generally but a narrow trench instead of a ditch and hedge. Thus the
+covetous man confesses,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"If I yede<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> to the plow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I pinched so narrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That a foot land or a furrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fetchen I would<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of my next neighbor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And nymen<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> of his earth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if I reap, overreach."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As might have been expected, the monkish dreamer, unusually liberal as
+he was in his views, had but a slighting opinion of women. Rarely does
+he refer to them except to rate them for their extravagance in dress and
+love of finery. The humbler class of women, he shrewdly insinuates, were
+fond of drink, and the husbands of such were advised to cudgel them home
+to their domestic duties. He credited the long-standing slander about
+woman's inability to keep a secret:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For that that women wotteth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May not well be concealed."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>His opinion of the proper sphere of women in that time, and some
+knowledge of their ordinary feminine occupations, can be acquired from
+the answer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span> made to the question of a lady as to what her sex should
+do:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Some should sew the sack, quoth Piers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For shedding of the wheat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ye, lovely ladies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With your long fingers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ye have silk and sendal<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To sew, when time is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chasubles for chaplains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Churches to honor.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wives and widows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wool and flax spinneth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make cloth, I counsel you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And kenneth<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> so your daughters;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The needy and the naked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nymeth<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> heed how they lieth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And casteth them clothes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For so commanded Truth."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Marriage is an honorable estate, and should be entered into with proper
+motives, and in a decent and regular manner. It is desirable that most
+men should marry, for</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The wife was made the way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For to help work;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thus was wedlock wrought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a mean person,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">First by the father's will<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the friends counsel;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sithens<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> by assent of themselves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As they two might accord."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This is the essentially worldly way of making marriage arrangements yet
+practised in some aristocratic circles, but the more democratic and
+natural way is to reverse the process, and commence with the agreement
+between the two persons most concerned. Such unequal matches as age and
+wealth on one side, and youth and desire of wealth on the other, bring
+about, are sternly reprobated.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"It is an uncomely couple,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Christ! as me thinketh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To give a young wench<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To an old feeble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or wedden any widow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For wealth of her goods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That never shall bairn bear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if it be in her arms."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Such marriages lead to jealousy, bickerings, and open rupture,
+disgraceful to husband and wife, and annoying to others. Therefore Piers
+counsels</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"all Christians,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Covet not to be wedded<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For covetise of chattels.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not of kindred rich;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But maidens and maidens<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make you together;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Widows and widowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Worketh the same;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For no lands, but for love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Look you be wedded";&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>adding the sound bit of spiritual and worldly advice,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And then get ye the grace of God;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And goods enough, to live with</i>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The touch of shrewd humor in the last line finds its counterpart in many
+other passages. Thus, when the dreamer sits down to rest by the wayside,
+his iteration of the prescribed prayers makes him drowsy:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"So I babbled on my beads;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They brought me asleep."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Franciscan friars, his especial aversion, get a sly thrust when he
+says of Charity that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"in a friar's frock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was founden once;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>But it is far ago</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Saint Francis's time:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In that sect since<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Too seldom hath he been found."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When Covetousness has confessed his numerous misdeeds, and is asked if
+he ever repented and made restitution, he replies,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yes, once I was harbored<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a heap of chapmen.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I rose when they were at rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rifled their males<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>";&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and on being told that this was no restitution, but another robbery, he
+replies, with assumed innocence of manner,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I wened<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> rifling were restitution, quoth he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I learned never to read on book;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I ken no French, in faith,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But of the farthest end of Norfolk."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Even the Pope is not exempt from a touch of satire:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"He prayed the Pope<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have pity on holy Church,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ere he gave any grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Govern first himself</i>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The prejudice against doctors and lawyers was as strong five hundred
+years ago as now, judging from Piers Plowman, who says, that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Murderers are many leeches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lord them amend!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They do men die through their drinks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere destiny it would."<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Of lawyers he says they pleaded</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"for pennies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pounds, the law;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not for the love of our Lord<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unclose their lips once.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou mightest better meet mist<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Malvern hills<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than get a mum of their mouth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till money be showed."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>No class of people suffered more in the Middle Ages than the Jews. They
+were abhorred by the poor, despised by the wealthy, and cruelly
+oppressed by the powerful. But through all their sufferings and trials
+they were true to each other; and the monk holds up their fraternal
+charity as an example to shame Christians into similar virtues. He
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A Jew would not see a Jew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go jangling<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> for default.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For all the mebles<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> on this mould<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he amend it might.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alas! that a Christian creature<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall be unkind to another;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since Jews, that we judge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Judas's fellows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Either of them helpeth other<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that that him needeth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why not will we Christians<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Christ's good be as kind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As Jews, that be our lores-men<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shame to us all!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>With one more curious passage, giving a glimpse of the belief of that
+age concerning the future state, we will close our extracts from "Piers
+Plowman." Discussing the condition of the thief upon the cross who was
+promised a seat in heaven, the dreamer says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Right as some man gave me meat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And amid the floor set me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And had meat more than enough,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But not so much worship<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As those that sitten at the side-table,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or with the sovereigns of the hall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But set as a beggar boardless,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By myself on the ground.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So it fareth by that felon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That on Good Friday was saved,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sits neither with Saint John,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Simon, nor Jude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor with maidens nor with martyrs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Confessors nor widows;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But by himself as a sullen,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And served on earth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he that is once a thief<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is evermore in danger,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, as law him liketh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To live or to die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for to serven a saint<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And such a thief together,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It were neither reason nor right<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To reward them both alike."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Piers Plowman" is supposed to have been written in 1362. It became
+instantly popular, and manuscript copies were rapidly distributed over
+England. Imitations preserving the peculiar form, and aiming at the same
+objects as the "Vision," though without the genius exhibited in that
+work, appeared in quick succession. The hatred of the oppressed people
+for their oppressors was intensified by the inflammatory harangues of
+John Ball, the deposed priest. The preaching of Wycliffe probed still
+deeper the festering corruption of the dominant Church. At last, in
+1381, a popular rising, under Wat Tyler, attempted to right the wrongs
+of generations at the sword's point. The result of that attempt is well
+known,&mdash;its temporary success, sudden overthrow, and the terrible
+revenge taken by the ruling power in the enactment of laws that made the
+burden of the people still more intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>But the seed of political and religious freedom had been sown. It had
+been watered with the blood of martyrs; and, although the tender shoots
+had been trodden down with an iron heel as soon as they appeared, they
+gathered additional strength and vigor from the repression, and soon
+sprang up with a vitality that defied all efforts to crush them.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Garment.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Vagabond.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Clothes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Shepherd.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Vision.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Brook.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Pigs.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> A kind of very coarse cloth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Buttoned.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Pushed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Mud.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Worn out.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Oxen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Meagre.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Kneading-trough.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Oat cake.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Children.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> A lean hen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Parley and leeks.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Cabbages.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Vagabonds.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Workingmen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Market.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Piecemeal.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Belly.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Built.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Lands or tenements in towns.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Commanded.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Remain.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Unlearned.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Dressing.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Went.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Rob him.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Teach.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Take.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Afterwards.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Pedlers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Boxes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Thought.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Complaining.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Goods.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Earth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Teachers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> One left alone.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="KATHARINE_MORNE" id="KATHARINE_MORNE"></a>KATHARINE MORNE.</h2>
+
+<h3>PART I.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER I.</h4>
+
+<p>One day, near the middle of a June about twenty years ago, my landlady
+met me at the door of my boarding-house, and began with me the following
+dialogue.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Morne, my dear, home a'-ready? Goin' to be in, a spell, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mrs. Johnson, I believe so. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, someb'dy's been in here to pay ye a call, afore twelve o'clock,
+in a tearin' hurry. Says I, 'Ye've got afore yer story this time, I
+guess,' says I. Says he, 'I guess I'll call again,' says he. He's left
+ye them pinies an' snowballs in the pitcher."</p>
+
+<p>"But who was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no great of a stranger, it wa'n't,&mdash;Jim!"</p>
+
+<p>"O, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"He kind o' seemed as if he might ha' got somethin' sort o' special on
+his mind to say to ye. My! how he colored up at somethin' I said!"</p>
+
+<p>I walked by, and away from her, into the house, but answered that I
+should be happy to see Jim if he came back. Well I might. Through all
+the months of school-keeping that followed my mother's death,&mdash;in the
+little country village of Greenville, so full of homesickness for
+me,&mdash;he had been my kindest friend. My old schoolmate, Emma Holly, from
+whose native town he came, assured me beforehand that he would be so.
+She wrote to me that he was the best, most upright, well-principled,
+kind-hearted fellow in the world. He was almost like a brother to her,
+(this surprised me a little, because I had never heard her speak of him
+before,) and so he would be to me, if I would only let him. She had told
+him all about me and our troubles and plans,&mdash;how I winced at that when
+I read it!&mdash;and he was very much interested, and would shovel a path for
+me when it snowed, or go to the post-office for me, or do anything in
+the world for me that he could. And so he had done.</p>
+
+<p>He had little chance, indeed, to devote himself to me abroad; for I
+seldom went out, except now and then, when I could not refuse without
+giving offence, to drink tea with the family of some pupil. But when I
+did that, he always found it out through Mrs. Johnson, whose nephew he
+was, and came to see me home. He usually brought some additional
+wrappings or thick shoes for me; and even if they were too warm, or
+otherwise in my way, I could be, and was, grateful for his kindness in
+thinking of them. He was very attentive to his aunt also, and came to
+read aloud to her, while she napped, almost every evening. At every meal
+which he took with us, he was constantly suggesting to her little
+comforts and luxuries for me, till I was afraid she would really be
+annoyed. She took his hints, however, in wonderfully good part,
+sometimes acted upon them, and often said to me, "How improvin' it was
+for young men to have somebody to kind o' think for! It made 'em so kind
+o' thoughtful!" Many a flower, fruit, and borrowed book he brought me.
+He tried to make me walk with him; and, whenever he could, he made me
+talk with him. But for him, I should have studied almost all the time
+that I was not teaching or sleeping; for when I began to teach, I first
+discovered how little I had learned. Thus nearly all the indulgences and
+recreations of the rather grave, lonely, and hard-working little life I
+was leading at that time were associated with him and his kind care; and
+so I really think it was no great wonder if his peonies and snowballs
+that day made the bare little parlor, with the row of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span> staring, uncouth
+daguerreotypes on the mantel-piece, look very pretty to me, or that to
+know that he had been there, and was coming back again, made it a very
+happy place.</p>
+
+<p>I walked across it, took off my hot black bonnet, threw up the western
+window, and sat down beside it in the rocking-chair. The cool breeze
+struggled through the tree that nestled sociably up to it, and made the
+little knobs of cherries nod at me, as if saying, "You would not like us
+now, but you will by and by." The oriole gurgled and giggled from among
+them, "<i>Wait!</i> Come <i>again</i>! Come again! Ha, ha!" The noise of the
+greedy canker-worms, mincing the poor young green leaves over my head,
+seemed a soothing sound; and even the sharp headache I had brought with
+me from the school-room, only a sort of <i>sauce piquante</i> to my delicious
+rest. I did not ask myself what Jim would say. I scarcely longed to hear
+him come. I did not know how anything to follow could surpass that
+perfect luxury of waiting peace.</p>
+
+<p>He did come soon. I heard a stealthy step, not on the gravel-walk, but
+on the rustling hay that lay upon the turf beside it. He looked, and
+then sprang, in at the window. He was out of breath. He caught my hand,
+and looked into my face, and asked me to go out and walk with him.
+Before I had time to answer, he snatched up my bonnet, and almost
+pressed it down upon my head. As I tied it, he hurried out and looked
+back at me eagerly from the road. I followed, though more slowly than he
+wished. The sun was bright and hot, and almost made me faint; but
+everything was very beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>He wrenched out the topmost bar of a fence, <i>jumped</i> me over it into a
+meadow, led me by a forced march into the middle of the field, seated me
+on a haycock, and once more stood before me, looking me in the face with
+his own all aglow.</p>
+
+<p>Then he told me that he had been longing for weeks, as I must have seen,
+to open his mind to me; but, till that day, he had not been at liberty.
+He had regarded me, from almost the very beginning of our acquaintance,
+as his best and trustiest friend,&mdash;in short, as just what dear Emma had
+told him he should find me. My friendship had been a blessing to him in
+every way; and now my sympathy, or participation, was all he wanted to
+render his happiness complete. He had just been admitted as a partner in
+<i>the store</i> of the village, in which he had hitherto been only a
+salesman; and now, therefore, he was at last free to offer himself,
+before all the world, to the girl he loved best; and that was&mdash;I must
+guess who. He called me "dearest Katy," and asked me if he might not
+"to-day, at last."</p>
+
+<p>I bowed, but did not utter my guess. He seemed to think I had done so,
+notwithstanding; for he hurried on, delighted. "Of course it is, 'Katy
+darling,' as we always call you! I never knew your penetration out of
+the way. It <i>is</i> Emma Holly! It couldn't be anybody but Emma Holly!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he told me that she had begged hard for leave to tell me outright,
+what she thought she had hinted plainly enough, about their hopes; but
+her father was afraid that to have them get abroad would hurt her
+prospects in other quarters, and made silence towards all others a
+condition of her correspondence with Jim. Mr. Holly was "aristocratic,"
+and in hopes Emma would change her mind, Jim supposed; but all danger
+was over now. He could maintain her like the lady she was; and their
+long year's probation was ended. Then he told me in what agonies he had
+passed several evenings a fortnight before, (when I must have wondered
+why he did not come and read,) from hearing of her illness. The doctors
+were right for once, to be sure, as it proved, in thinking it only the
+measles; but it might just as well have been spotted fever, or
+small-pox, or anything fatal, for all they knew.</p>
+
+<p>And then I rather think there must have been a pause, which I did not
+fill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span> properly, because my head was aching with a peculiar sensation
+which I had never known before, though I have sometimes since.&mdash;It is
+like the very hand of Death, laid with a strong grasp on the joint and
+meeting-point of soul and body, and makes one feel, for the time being,
+as Dr. Livingstone says he did when the lion shook him,&mdash;a merciful
+indifference as to anything to come after.&mdash;And Jim was asking me, in a
+disappointed tone, what the matter was, and if I did not feel
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "Mr. Johnson&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Johnson!" interrupted he, "How cold! I thought it would be <i>Jim</i> at
+least, to-day, if you can't say <i>dear</i> Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 'dear Jim,'" I repeated; and my voice sounded so strangely quiet
+in my own ears, that I did not wonder that he called me cold. "Indeed, I
+am interested. I don't know when I have heard anything that has
+interested me so much. I pray God to bless you and Emma. But the reason
+I came from school so early to-day was, that I had a headache; and now I
+think perhaps the sun is not good for it, and I had better go in."</p>
+
+<p>I stood up; but I suspect I must have had something like a sunstroke,
+sitting there in the meadow so long with no shade, in the full blaze of
+June. I was almost too dizzy to stand, and could hardly have reached the
+house, if I had not accepted Jim's arm. He offered, in the joy of his
+heart, to change head-dresses with me,&mdash;which luckily made me
+laugh,&mdash;declaring that mine must be a perfect portable stove for the
+brains. Thus we reached the door cheerfully, and there shook hands
+cordially; while I bade him take my kindest love and congratulations to
+Emma,&mdash;to whom he was going on a three days' visit, as fast as the cars
+could carry him,&mdash;and charged him to tell her I should write as soon as
+I recovered the use of my head.</p>
+
+<p>He looked concerned on being reminded of it, and shouted for Mrs.
+Johnson to bring me some lavender-water to bathe it with. I had told
+him, on a former occasion, that the smell of lavender always made it
+worse; but it was natural that, when he was so happy, he should forget.
+Whistling louder than the orioles, whose songs rang wildly through and
+through my brain, he hastened down the road, and was gone.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER II.</h4>
+
+<p>Jim was gone; but I was left. I could have spared him better if I could
+only have got rid of myself.</p>
+
+<p>However, for that afternoon the blessed pain took such good care of me
+that I lay upon my bed still and stunned, and could only somewhat dimly
+perceive, not how unhappy I was, but how unhappy I was going to be. It
+quieted Mrs. Johnson, too. She had seen me suffering from headache
+before, and knew that I could never talk much while it lasted. Her
+curiosity was at once satisfied and gratified by hearing what Jim had
+left me at liberty to tell her,&mdash;the news of his partnership in the
+firm. The engagement was not to be announced in form till the next week;
+though I, as the common friend of both parties, had been made an
+exceptional confidante; and Jim, afraid of betraying himself, had not
+trusted himself to take leave of his aunt, but left his love for her,
+and his apologies for outstaying his time so far in the meadow as to
+leave himself none for the farm-house.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I had a reprieve. When towards midnight my head grew easier, I was
+worn out and slept; so that it was not till the birds began to rehearse
+for their concert at sunrise the next morning, that I came to myself and
+looked things in the face in the clear light of the awful dawn.</p>
+
+<p>If you can imagine a very heavy weight let somewhat gradually, but
+irresistibly, down upon young and tender shoulders, then gently lifted
+again, little by little, by a sympathizing and unlooked-for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span> helper, and
+lastly tossed by him unexpectedly into the air, only to fall back with
+redoubled weight, and crush the frame that was but bowed before, you can
+form some idea of what had just happened to me. My mother's death, our
+embarrassments, my loneliness, the hard and to me uncongenial work I had
+to do, all came upon me together more heavily than at any time since the
+first fortnight that I spent at Greenville.</p>
+
+<p>But that was not all. Disappointment is hardly the right word to use;
+for I can truly say that I never made any calculations for the future
+upon Jim's attentions to me. They were offered so honestly and
+respectfully that I instinctively felt I could accept them with perfect
+propriety, and perhaps could scarcely with propriety refuse. I had never
+once asked myself what they meant, nor whither they tended. But yet I
+was used to them now, and had learned to prize them far more than I
+knew; and they must be given up. My heart-strings had unconsciously
+grown to him, and ought to be torn away. And I think that, beyond grief,
+beyond the prospect of lonely toil and poverty henceforth, beyond all
+the rest, was the horror of an idea which came upon me, that I had lost
+the control of my own mind,&mdash;that my peace had passed out of my keeping
+into the power of another, who, though friendly to me, neither would nor
+could preserve it for me,&mdash;that I was doomed to be henceforward the prey
+of feelings which I must try to conceal, and perhaps could not for any
+length of time, which lowered me in my own eyes, and would do so in
+those of others if they were seen by them, which were wrong, and which I
+could not help.</p>
+
+<p>These thoughts struck and stung me like so many hornets. Crying,
+"Mother! mother!" I sprang from my bed, and fell on my knees beside it.
+I did not suppose it would do much good for me to pray; but I said over
+and over, if only to stop myself from thinking, "O God, help me! God
+have mercy on me!" as fast as I could, till the town clock struck five,
+and I knew that I must begin to dress, and compose myself, if I would
+appear as usual at six o'clock at the breakfast-table.</p>
+
+<p>My French grammar, was, as usual, set up beside my looking-glass. As
+usual, I examined myself aloud in one of the exercises, while I went
+through my toilet. If I did make some mistakes it was no matter. I made
+so much haste, that I had time before breakfast to correct some of the
+compositions which I had brought with me from school. The rest, as I
+often did when hurried, I turned over while I tried to eat my bread and
+milk. This did not encourage conversation. During the meal, I was only
+asked how my head was, and answered only that it was better. I had taken
+care not to shed a tear, so that my eyes were not swollen; and as I had
+eaten nothing since the morning of the day before, nobody could be
+surprised to see me pale.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Johnson left her seat, too, almost as soon as I took mine. She was
+in a great bustle, getting her covered wagon under way, and stocked with
+eggs, butter, cheese, and green vegetables for her weekly trip to the
+nearest market-town. She was, however, sufficiently mindful of her
+nephew's lessons to regret that she must leave me poorly when he would
+not be there to cheer me up, and to tell me to choose what I liked best
+for my dinner while she was gone.</p>
+
+<p>I chose a boiled chicken and rice. It was what my mother used to like
+best to have me eat when I was not well. I often rebelled against it
+when a child; but now I sought by means of it to soothe myself with the
+fancy that I was still under her direction.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Johnson also offered to do for me what I forgot to ask of her,&mdash;to
+look in at the post-office and see if there was not a letter there for
+me from my only sister. Fanny, for once, had sent me none the week
+before. Mrs. Johnson went to town, and I to school.</p>
+
+<p>I worked and worried through the lessons,&mdash;how, I never knew; but I dare
+say the children were forbearing;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span> children are apt to be when one is
+not well. I came home and looked at the chicken and rice. But that would
+not do. They <i>would</i> have made me cry. So I hurried out again, away from
+them, and away from the meadow, and walked in the woods all that
+Saturday afternoon, thinking to and fro,&mdash;not so violently as in the
+morning, for I was weaker, but very confusedly and in endless
+perplexity. How could I stay in Greenville? I should have to be with
+Jim! But how could I go? What reason had I to give? and what would
+people think was my reason? But would it not be wrong to stay and see
+Jim? But it would be wrong to break my engagement to the school
+committee!</p>
+
+<p>At length again the clock struck five, which was supper-time, and I saw
+myself no nearer the end of my difficulties; and I had to say once
+again, "God help me! God have mercy on me!" and so went home.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Johnson was awaiting me, with this letter for me in her pocket. It
+is not in Fanny's handwriting, however, but in that of a friend of ours
+with whom she was staying, Mrs. Physick, the wife of the most eminent of
+the younger physicians in Beverly, our native town. I opened it hastily
+and read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Friday.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">My dear Katie</span>:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"You must not be uneasy at my writing instead of Fannie, as
+the Doctor thinks it too great an effort for her. She has
+had an attack of influenza, not very severe, but you know
+she is never very strong, and I am afraid she is too much
+afraid of calling on me for any little thing she wants done.
+So we think, the Doctor and I, it would do her good to have
+a little visit from you. She wanted us to wait for the
+summer vacation, so as not to alarm you; but you know that
+is three whole weeks off, and nobody knows how much better
+she may be within that time. The Doctor says, suggest to
+Katie that the committee might, under the circumstances,
+agree to her ending the spring term a little earlier than
+usual, and beginning a little earlier in the fall.</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yours as ever,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Julia</span>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"P. S. You must not be anxious about dear Fannie. She has
+brightened up very much already at the mere thought of
+seeing you. Her cough is not half so troublesome as it was a
+week ago, and the Doctor says her very <i>worst</i> symptom is
+<i>weakness</i>. She says she <i>must</i> write <i>one word</i> herself."</p></div>
+
+<p>O what a tremulous word!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Dear Katy</span>:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Do</i> come if you can, and <i>don't</i> be anxious. Indeed I am
+growing stronger every day, and eating <i>so</i> much meat, and
+drinking <i>so</i> much whiskey. It does me a great deal of good,
+and would a great deal more if I could only tell how we were
+ever to [pay for it, I knew she would have said; but Dr.
+Physick had evidently interposed; for the signature,]</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Your mutinous and obstreperous<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Sister Fanny</span>,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>was prefaced with a scratched-out involuntary "&#8478;," and
+looked like a prescription.</p>
+
+<p>I might be as sad as I would now; and who could wonder? I sat down where
+I was standing on the door-step, and held the letter helplessly up to
+Mrs. Johnson. It did seem to me now as if Fate was going to empty its
+whole quiver of arrows at once upon me, and meant to kill me, body and
+soul. But I have since thought sometimes, when I have heard people say,
+Misfortunes never came single, and How mysterious it was! that God only
+dealt with us, in that respect somewhat as some surgeons think it best
+to do with wounded men,&mdash;perform whatever operations are necessary,
+immediately after the first injury, so as to make one and the same
+"shock" take the place of more. In this way of Providence, I am sure I
+have repeatedly seen accumulated sorrows, which, if distributed through
+longer intervals, might have darkened a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span> lifetime, lived through, and in
+a considerable degree recovered from, even in a very few years.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Johnson's spectacles, meantime, were with eager curiosity peering
+over the letter. "Dear heart!" cried she. "Do tell! My! What a
+providence! There's Sister Nancy Newcome's Elviry jest got home this
+arternoon from her situation to the South, scairt off with the
+insurrections as unexpected as any<i>thing</i>. She's as smart a teacher as
+ever was; an' the committee'd ha' gin her the school in a minute, an'
+thank you, too; but she wuz alwuz a kind o' lookin' up'ards; an' I
+s'pose she cal'lated it might for'ard her prospects to go down an' show
+herself among the plantations. There's better opportoonities, they say,
+sometimes for young ladies to git settled in life down there, owin' to
+the scurcity on 'em. She'll be glad enough to fill your place, I guess,
+till somethin' else turns up, for a fortni't or a month, or a term.
+It'll give her a chance to see her folks, an' fix up her cloes, an' look
+round her a spell. An' you can step into the cars o' Monday mornin' an'
+go right off an' close that poor young creator's eyes, an' take your
+time for 't. Seems as if I hearn tell your ma went off in a kind of a
+gallopin' decline, didn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, she did not!" cried I, springing up with a renewal of energy that
+must have surprised Mrs. Johnson. "Nothing of the kind! I will take my
+letter again, if you please. My sister has a cold,&mdash;only a cold. But
+where can I see Miss Newcome?"</p>
+
+<p>"To home; but I declare, you can't feel hardly fit to start off ag'in.
+Jest you step in an' sup your tea afore it's any colder, I've had mine;
+an' I'll step right back over there, an' see about it for ye."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Johnson, if coarse, was kind; and that time it would be hard to say
+whether her kindness or her coarseness did me the most good; for the
+latter roused me, between indignation and horror, to a strong reaction.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Johnson, I said to myself, knew no more of the matter than I.
+Nobody said a word, in the letter, of Fanny's being very ill; and there
+had been, as I now considered, to the best of my recollection and
+information, no consumption in our family. My father died when I was
+five years old, as I had always heard of chronic bronchitis and nervous
+dyspepsia, or, in other words, of over-work and under-pay. An early
+marriage to a clergyman, who had no means of support but a salary of
+five hundred dollars dependent on his own health and the tastes of a
+parish, early widowhood, two helpless little girls to rear, years of
+hard work, anxieties, and embarrassments, a typhoid fever, with no
+physician during the precious first few days, during which, if she had
+sent for him, Dr. Physick always believed he might have saved her, a
+sudden sinking and no rallying,&mdash;it took all that to kill poor, dear,
+sweet mamma! She had a magnificent constitution, and bequeathed much of
+it to me.</p>
+
+<p>Else I do not think I could have borne, and recovered from, those three
+days even as well as I did. The cars did not run on Sunday. That was so
+dreadful! But there was no other hindrance in my way. Everybody was very
+kind. The school committee could not meet in form "on the Sabbath"; but
+the chairman, who was Miss Elvira Newcome's brother-in-law, "sounded the
+other members arter meetin', jest as he fell in with 'em, casooally as
+it were," and ascertained that they would offer no objection to my
+exchange. He advanced my pay himself, and brought it to me soon after
+sunrise Monday morning; so that I was more than sufficiently provided
+with funds for my journey.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Johnson forced upon me a suspicious-looking corked bottle of
+innocent tea,&mdash;one of the most sensible travelling companions, as I
+found before the day was over, that a wayfarer can possibly have,&mdash;and a
+large paper of doughnuts. Feverish as I was, I would right willingly
+have given her back, not only the doughnuts, but the tea, to bribe her
+not to persecute me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span> as she did for a message for Jim. But I could leave
+my thanks for all his kindness, and my regrets&mdash;sincere, though repented
+of&mdash;that I could not see him again, before I went, to say good-by; and,
+already in part effaced by the impression of the last blow that had
+fallen upon me, that scene in the dreadful meadow seemed months and
+miles away. The engine shrieked. The cars started. My hopes and spirits
+rose; and I was glad, because I was going home,&mdash;that is, where, when I
+had a home, it used to be.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER III.</h4>
+
+<p>The rapid motion gratified my restlessness, and, together with the
+noise, soothed me hom&oelig;opathically. I slept a great deal. The
+midsummer day was far shorter than I feared it would be; and I found
+myself rather refreshed than fatigued when the conductor roused me
+finally by shouting names more and more familiar, as we stopped at
+way-stations. I sat upright, and strained my <i>cinderful</i> eyes, long
+surfeited with undiluted green, for the first far blue and silver
+glimpses of my precious sea. Then well-known rocks and cedars came
+hurrying forward, as if to meet me half-way.</p>
+
+<p>As the cars stopped for the last time with me, I caught sight of a horse
+and chaise approaching at a rapid rate down the main street of the town.
+The driver sprang out and threw the reins to a boy. He turned his
+face&mdash;a grave face&mdash;up, and looked searchingly along the row of
+car-windows. It was Dr. Physick. I darted out at the nearest door. He
+saw me, smiled, and was at it in an instant, catching both my hands in
+his to shake them and help me down by them at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"Little Katy!"&mdash;he always would call me so, though, as I sometimes took
+the liberty to tell him, I was very sure I had long left off being
+<i>that</i>, even if I was not yet quite the size of some giants I had
+seen,&mdash;"Little Katy! How jolly! 'Fanny?' O, Fanny's pretty
+comfortable,&mdash;looking out for you and putting her head out of the
+window, I dare say, the minute my back's turned. I look to you now to
+keep her in order. Baggage? Only bag? Give it to me. Foot,&mdash;now
+hand,&mdash;there you are!"</p>
+
+<p>And there I was,&mdash;where I was most glad to be once more,&mdash;in his gig,
+and driving, in the cool, moist twilight, down the dear old street,
+shaded with dear old elms, with the golden and amber sunset still
+glowing between their dark boughs; where every quiet, snug, old wooden
+house, with its gables and old-fashioned green or white front-door with
+a brass or bronze knocker, and almost every shop and sign even, seemed
+an old friend.</p>
+
+<p>The lingering glow still lay full on the front of our old home, which
+now had "Philemon Physick, M. D." on the corner. As we stopped before
+it, I thought I spied a sweet little watching face, for one moment,
+behind a pane of one of the second-story windows. But if I did, it was
+gone before I was sure.</p>
+
+<p>"Here she is!" called out the Doctor. "Julia!&mdash;Wait a minute, Kate, my
+dear,&mdash;no hurry. Julia!" Up he ran, while "Julia" ran down, said
+something, in passing, to him on the stairs, kissed me at the foot three
+times over,&mdash;affectionately, but as if to gain time, I thought,&mdash;led me
+into the parlor to take off my bonnet, and told me Fanny was not quite
+ready to see me just then, but would be, most likely, in two or three
+minutes. The Doctor had gone up to see about it, and would let me know.</p>
+
+<p>"O, didn't I see her at the window?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear, you did; and that was just the trouble. She saw you were
+there; and she was so pleased, it made her a little faint. The Doctor
+will give her something to take; and as soon as she is a little used to
+your being here, of course you can be with her all the time."</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor came down, speaking cheerily. "She is all right now. Run<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span> up,
+as fast as you like, and kiss her, Kate, my child; but tell her I forbid
+your talking till to-morrow. In five minutes, by my watch, I shall call
+you down to tea; and when you are called, you come. That will give her
+time to think about it and compose herself. Julia's <i>help</i> shall stay
+with her in the mean while. Afterwards, you shall share your own old
+chamber with her. Julia has it, as usual, all ready for you."</p>
+
+<p>Fanny had sunk back on her white pillows, upon the little couch before
+the window from which she watched for me. How inspired and beautiful she
+looked!&mdash;she who was never thought of as beautiful before,&mdash;the very
+transfigured likeness of herself, as I hope one day to behold her in
+glory,&mdash;and so like our mother, too! She lay still, as she had been
+ordered, lest she should faint again; but by the cheerful lamp that
+stood on the stand beside her, I saw her smile as she had never used to
+smile. The eyes, that I left swollen and downcast, were raised large and
+bright. But as she slowly opened her arms and clasped me to her, I felt
+tears on my cheek; and her voice was broken as she said, "Katy, Katy! O,
+thank God! I was afraid I never should see you again. Now I have
+everything that I want in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>It was hard to leave her when I was called so soon; but she knew that it
+was right, and made me go; and when I was allowed to return to her, she
+lay in obedient but most happy silence for all the rest of the evening,
+with those new splendid eyes fixed on my face, her dim complexion
+glowing, and her hands clasping mine. After I had put her to bed, and
+laid myself down in my own beside her, I felt her reach out of hers and
+touch me with a little pat two or three times, as a child will a new
+doll, to make sure that it has not been merely dreaming of it. At first,
+I asked her if she wanted anything; but she said, "Only to feel that you
+are really there"; and when, after a very sound and long rest, I awoke,
+there was her solemn, peaceful gaze still watching me, like that of an
+unsleeping guardian angel. She had slept too, however, remarkably long
+and well, whether for joy, as she thought, or from the opium which I had
+been startled to see given her the night before. She said she had had
+many scruples about taking it; but the Doctor insisted; and she did not
+think it her duty on the whole to make him any trouble by opposing his
+prescriptions, when we owed him so much. Poor Fanny! How hard it was for
+her to owe any one "anything, but to love one another."</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor's bulletin that morning was, "Remarkably comfortable." But in
+the forenoon, while Fanny after breakfast took a nap, I snatched an
+opportunity to cross-question Mrs. Physick, from whom I knew I could
+sooner or later obtain all she knew,&mdash;the <i>sooner</i> it would be, if she
+had anything good to tell; as, in my inexperience, I was almost sure she
+must have.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny's "influenza," I now discovered, dated back to May. She kept her
+room a few days, did not seem so ill as many fellow-patients who were
+now quite well again, and soon resumed her usual habits, but was never
+quite rid of her cough. Two or three weeks after, there was a
+Sunday-school festival in the parish to which we belonged. She was
+called upon to sing and assist in various ways, over-tasked her
+strength, was caught in a shower, looked very sick, and being, on the
+strength of Mrs. Physick's representations, formally escorted into the
+office, was found to have a quick pulse and sharp pain in one side. This
+led to a careful examination of the chest, and the discovery not only of
+"acute pleurisy," but of "some mischief probably of longer standing in
+the lungs," yet "no more," the Doctor said, "than many people carried
+about with them all their lives without knowing it, nor than others, if
+circumstances brought it to light, recovered from by means of good care
+and good spirits, and lived to a good old age."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How long ago was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The pleurisy? About the beginning of June. The Doctor said last week he
+'could scarcely discover a vestige of it.' And now, Katy," continued
+kind, cheery Mrs. Physick, "you see, your coming back has put her in the
+best of spirits; and you and the Doctor and I are all going to take the
+best of care of her; and so we may all hope the best."</p>
+
+<p>"The best of care"? Ah, there was little doubt of that! But even "<i>good</i>
+spirits"! who could hope to see Fanny enjoying them for any length of
+time, till she had done with time? Good, uncomplaining, patient, I had
+always seen her,&mdash;happy, how seldom!&mdash;when, indeed, till now? There was
+not enough of earth about her for her to thrive and bloom.</p>
+
+<p>My mother, I believe, used to attribute in part to Fanny's early
+training her early joylessness. In her early days,&mdash;so at least I have
+understood,&mdash;it was thought right even by some good people of our
+"persuasion," to lose no opportunity of treating the little natural
+waywardnesses of children with a severity which would now be called
+ferocity. Mamma could never have practised this herself; but perhaps she
+suffered it to be practised to a greater extent than she would have
+consented to endure, had she foreseen the consequences. My poor father
+must have been inexperienced, too; and I suppose his nerves, between
+sickness and poverty, might at times be in such a state that he scarcely
+knew what he did.</p>
+
+<p>I was four years younger than Fanny, and know nothing about it, except a
+very little at second-hand. But at any rate I have often heard my mother
+say, with a glance at her, and a gravity as if some sad association
+enforced the lesson on her mind, that it was one of the first duties of
+those who undertook the charge of children to watch over their
+cheerfulness, and a most important rule, never, if it was possible to
+put it off, so much as to reprimand them when one's own balance was at
+all disturbed. This was a rule that she never to my knowledge broke;
+though she was naturally rather a high-strung person, as I think the
+pleasantest and most generous people one meets with generally are.</p>
+
+<p>From whatever cause or causes,&mdash;to return to Fanny,&mdash;she grew up, not
+fierce, sullen, nor yet hypocritical, but timid and distrustful,
+miserably sensitive and anxious, and morbidly conscientious.</p>
+
+<p>There was another pleasure in store for her, however; for, the afternoon
+following that of my return, Mrs. Julia, looking out as usual for her
+husband,&mdash;with messages from four different alarmingly or alarmed sick
+persons, requesting him to proceed without delay in four different
+directions,&mdash;saw him at length driving down the road with such
+unprofessional slowness that she feared some accident to himself or his
+harness. When he came before the door, the cause appeared. It was a
+handsome Bath chair, with a basket of strawberries on the floor and a
+large nosegay on the seat, fastened to the back of his gig, and safely
+towed by it.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that for?" cried I from Fanny's window.</p>
+
+<p>"Fanny's coach," said he, looking up. "Miss Dudley has sent it to be
+taken care of for her. She does not want it herself for the present; and
+you can draw your dolly out in it every fine day."</p>
+
+<p>"O," cried Fanny, sitting upright on the couch by the window,&mdash;where she
+spent the greater part of the day,&mdash;to see for herself, with the tears
+in her eyes. "O, how lovely! That is the very kindest thing she has done
+yet;&mdash;and you don't know how she keeps sending me everything, Katy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Dudley? Who is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, don't you know? The great naturalist's sister. He lives in that
+beautiful place, on the shore, in the large stone cottage. The ground
+was broken for it before you went to Greenville. She is very sick, I am
+afraid,&mdash;very kind, I am sure. I never saw her. She has heard about me.
+I am afraid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span> the Doctor told her. I hope she does not think I meant he
+should."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, dear, she does not."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why,&mdash;I know I should not like being begged of in that underhand way
+myself; and if I did not like it, I might send something once, but after
+that I should never keep on sending."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad you think so; for I like her kindness, though I scarcely
+like to have her show it in this way, because I am afraid I can never do
+anything for her. But I hope she does like to send; for Dr. Physick says
+she always asks after me, almost before he can after her, and looks very
+much pleased if she hears that I have been so. I suppose the Doctor will
+think it is too late to take me down to-night. Katy, don't you want to
+go and see the wagon, and tell me about it, and pour the strawberries
+into a great dish on the tea-table, and all of you have some, and bring
+up the flowers when you come back after tea?"</p>
+
+<p>When I came back with the flowers, Fanny smiled rather pensively, and
+did not ask me about the chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Fanny," said I, "the Doctor says you may go out to-morrow forenoon, and
+stay as long as you like, if it is fair; and the sun is going down as
+red as a Baldwin apple. The chair is contrived so, with springs and the
+cushions, that you can lie down in it, as flat as you do on your sofa,
+when you are tired of sitting up."</p>
+
+<p>"O Katy," cried she, with a little quiver in her voice, for she was too
+weak to bear anything, "I have been seeing how inconsiderate I was! To
+think of letting you exert and strain yourself in that way!"</p>
+
+<p>In came the Doctor, looking saucy. "Fanny won't go, I suppose? I thought
+so. I said so to De Quincey [his horse], as I drove him down the street
+at a creep, sawing his mouth to keep him from running away, till he
+foamed at it epileptically, while all the sick people were sending
+north, south, east, and west after all the other doctors. I hope you
+won't mention it, said I to the horse; but Fanny is always getting up
+some kind of a row. But there is Katy now,&mdash;Katy is a meek person, and
+always does as she is bid. She has been cooped up too much, and bleached
+her own roses with teaching the Greenville misses to sickly o'er with
+the pale cast of thought. Katy needs gentle exercise. So does Deacon
+Lardner." Deacon Lardner was the fat inhabitant of the town, and ill of
+the dropsy. "I will send Katy out a-walking, with Deacon Lardner in Miss
+Dudley's chair."</p>
+
+<p>I laughed. Fanny smiled. The Doctor saw his advantage, and followed it
+up. "Julia, my dear, get my apothecary's scales out of the office. Put
+an ounce weight into one, and Fanny into the other. Then put the ounce
+weight into the chair. If Katy can draw that, she can draw Fanny."</p>
+
+<p>This time, it was poor Fanny who had the laugh to herself.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, the Doctor carried her down stairs, as soon as she could
+bear it after her breakfast, and left her on a sofa, in the little
+parlor, to rest. About ten o'clock, he came back from his early rounds.
+I was dressed and waiting for him, with Fanny's bonnet and shawl ready.
+I put them on her, while he drew out the chair from its safe stable in
+the hall. Once again he took her up; and thus by easy stages we got her
+into "her coach." I pulled, and he pushed it, "to give me a start." How
+easy and light and strong it was! How delighted were both she and I!</p>
+
+<p>Fanny was too easily alarmed to enjoy driving much, even when she was
+well; and she had not walked out for weeks. During that time, the slow,
+late spring had turned into midsummer; and the mere change from a
+sick-room to the fresh, outer world is always so very great! For me, it
+was the first going abroad since my return to Beverly. We went in the
+sun till my charge's little snowdrop hands were warm, and then drew up
+under the shade of an elm, on a little airy knoll that commanded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span> a
+distant view of the sea, and was fanned by a soft air, which helped poor
+Fanny's breathing. She now insisted on my resting myself; and I turned
+the springs back and arranged the cushions so that she could lie down,
+took a new handkerchief of my guardian's from my pocket, and hemmed it,
+as I sat at her side on a stone, while she mused and dozed. When she
+awoke, I gave her her luncheon from a convenient little box in the
+chair, and drew her home by dinner-time.</p>
+
+<p>In this way we spent much of the month of July&mdash;shall I say
+it?&mdash;agreeably. Nobody will believe it, who has not felt or seen the
+marvellous relief afforded by an entire change of scene and occupation
+to a person tried as I had been. If I had but "one idea," that idea was
+now Fanny. Instinctively in part, and partly of set purpose, I postponed
+to her every other consideration and thought. It was delightful to me to
+be able, in my turn, to take her to one after another of the dear old
+haunts, in wood or on beach, where she had often led me, when a child,
+to play. I always did love to have something to take care of; and the
+care of Fanny wore upon me little. She was the most considerate of
+invalids.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, she was better, or at any rate I thought so, after she began to
+go out in Miss Dudley's chair. Her appetite improved; her nerves grew
+more firm; and her cough was sometimes so quiet at night that her
+laudanum would stand on her little table in the morning, just as it was
+dropped for her the evening before.</p>
+
+<p>Not only were my spirits amended by the fresh air in which, by Dr.
+Physick's strict orders, I lived with her through the twenty-four hours,
+but my health too. He had declared her illness to be "probably owing in
+great part to the foul atmosphere in which," he found, "she slept"; and
+now she added that, since she had known the comfort of fresh air at
+night, she should be very sorry ever to give it up. In windy weather she
+had a large folding-screen, and in raw, more blankets and a little fire.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the chair, another thing came in our way which gave pleasure to
+both of us, though it was not very pleasantly ushered in, as its pioneer
+was a long visit from Fanny's old "Sabbath school-ma'am," Miss Mehitable
+Truman, who <i>would</i> come up stairs. Towards the close of this visit her
+errand came out. It was to inquire whether "Fanny wouldn't esteem it a
+privilege to knit one or two of her sets of toilet napkins for Miss
+Mehitable's table at the Orphans' Fair, jest by little and little, as
+she could gether up her failin' strength." Fanny could not promise the
+napkins, since, luckily for her, she was past speech from exhaustion, as
+I was with indignation; and Miss Truman, hearing the Doctor's boots
+creak below, showed the better part of valor, and departed.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, it rained. We were kept in-doors; and Fanny could not be
+easy till I had looked up her cotton and knitting-needles. She could not
+be easy afterwards, either; for they made her side ache; and when Dr.
+Physick paid his morning visit, he took them away.</p>
+
+<p>I knew she would be sorry to have nothing to give to that fair. It was
+one of the few rules of life which my mother had recommended us to
+follow, never from false shame either to give or to withhold. "If you
+are asked to give," she would say, "to any object, and are not satisfied
+that it is a good one, but give to it for fear that somebody will think
+you stingy, that is not being faithful stewards. But when you do meet
+with a worthy object, always give, if you honestly can. Even if you have
+no more than a cent to give, then give a cent; and do not care if the
+Pharisees see you. That is more than the poor widow in the Gospels
+gave";&mdash;how fond she always was of that story!&mdash;"and you remember who,
+besides the Pharisees, saw her, and what he said? His objects would not
+have to go begging so long as they do now, if every one would follow her
+example."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span> From pride often, and sometimes from indolence, I am afraid I
+had broken that rule; but Fanny, I rather think, never had; and now I
+would try to help her to keep it.</p>
+
+<p>My mother's paint-box was on a shelf in our closet, with three sheets of
+her drawing-paper still in it. Painting flowers was one of her chief
+opiates to lull the cares of her careful life. I think a person can
+scarcely have too many such, provided they are kept in their proper
+place, I have often seen her, when sadly tired or tried, sit down, with
+a moisture that was more like rain than dew in her eyes, and paint it
+all away, till she seemed to be looking sunshine over her lifelike
+blossoms. Then she would pin them up against the wall, for a week or
+two, for us to enjoy them with her; and, afterwards, she would give them
+away to any one who had done her any favor. Her spirit was in that like
+Fanny's,&mdash;she shrank so painfully from the weight of any obligation! She
+wished to teach me to paint, when I was a child. I wished to learn; and
+many of her directions were still fresh in my memory. But the
+inexperienced eye and uncertain hand of thirteen disheartened me. I
+thought I had no <i>talent</i>. My mother was not accustomed to force any
+task upon me in my play-hours. The undertaking was given up.</p>
+
+<p>But I suppose many persons, like me not precocious in the nursery or the
+school-room, but naturally fond, as I was passionately, of beautiful
+forms and colors, would be surprised, if they would try their baffled
+skill again in aftertimes, to find how much the years had been
+unwittingly preparing for them, in the way of facility and accuracy of
+outline and tint, while they supposed themselves to be exclusively
+occupied with other matters. What the physiologists call "unconscious
+cerebration" has been at work. Scatter the seeds of any accomplishment
+in the mind of a little man or woman, and, even if you leave them quite
+untended, you may in some after summer or autumn find the fruit growing
+wild. Accordingly, when, within the last twelvemonth, I had been called
+upon to teach the elements of drawing in my school, it astonished me to
+discover the ease with which I could either sketch or copy. And now it
+occurred to me that perhaps, if I would take enough time and pains, I
+could paint something worthy of a place on Miss Mehitable's table.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny's gladness at the plan, and interest in watching the work, in her
+own enforced inaction, were at once reward and stimulus. I succeeded,
+better than we either of us expected, in copying the frontispiece of a
+"picture-book," as Dr. Physick called it, which he had brought up from
+his office to amuse her. It was a scientific volume, sent him by the
+author,&mdash;an old fellow-student,&mdash;from the other side of the world.
+Lovely ferns, flowers, shells, birds, butterflies, and insects, that
+surrounded him there, were treated further on separately, in rigid
+sequence; but as if to make himself amends by a little play for so much
+work, he had not been able to resist the temptation of grouping them all
+together on one glowing and fascinating page. I framed my copy as
+tastefully as I could, in a simple but harmonious <i>passe-partout</i>, and
+sent it to Miss Mehitable, with Fanny's love. Fanny's gratitude was
+touching; and as for me, I felt quite as if I had found a free ticket to
+an indefinitely long private picture-gallery.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny's satisfaction was still more complete after the fair, when Miss
+Mehitable reported that the painting had brought in what we both thought
+quite a handsome sum. "It was a dreadful shame," she added, "you hadn't
+sent two of 'em; for at noon, while I was home, jest takin' a bite, my
+niece, Letishy, from Noo York, had another grand nibble for that one
+after 'twas purchased. Letishy said a kind o' poor, pale-lookin',
+queer-lookin' lady, who she never saw before, in an elegint
+camel's-hair,"&mdash;("Poor-lookin', in a camel's-hair shawl!" was my inward
+ejaculation; "don't I wish, ma'am, I could catch you and 'Letishy' in
+my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span> composition class, once!")&mdash;"she come up to the table an' saw that,
+an' seemed to feel quite taken aback to find she'd lost her chance at
+it. Letishy showed her some elegint shell-vases with artificial roses;
+but that wouldn't do. I told Letishy," continued Miss Mehitable, "that
+she'd ought to ha' been smart an' taken down the lady's name; an' then I
+could ha' got Kathryne to paint her another. But you mu't do it now,
+Kathryne, an' put it up in the bookseller's winder; an' then, if she's
+anybody that belongs hereabouts, she'll be likely to snap at it, an' the
+money can go right into the orphans' fund all the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Much obliged," thought I, "for the hint as to the bookseller's
+shop-window; but I rather think that, if the money comes, the orphan's
+fund that it ought to 'go right into' this time is Fanny's."</p>
+
+<p>For my orphan's fund from my months of school-keeping, not ample when I
+first came back, was smaller now. Fanny's illness was necessarily, in
+some respects, an expensive one. I believed, indeed, and do believe,
+that it was a gratification to Dr. Physick to lavish upon her, to the
+utmost of his ability, everything that could do her good, as freely as
+if she had been his own child or sister. But it could not be agreeable
+to her, while we had a brother, to be a burden to a man unconnected with
+us by blood, young in his profession, though rising, and still probably
+earning not very much more than his wife's and his own daily bread from
+day to day, and owing us nothing but a debt of gratitude for another's
+kindnesses, which another man in his place would probably have said that
+"he paid as he went."</p>
+
+<p>In plain English, the tie between us arose simply from the fact that he
+boarded with my mother, when he was a poor and unformed medical student.
+He always said that she was the best friend he had in his solitary
+youth, and that no one could tell how different all his after-life might
+have been but for her. She was naturally generous; yet she was a just
+woman; and I know that, while we were unprovided for, she could not have
+given, as the world appraises giving, much to him. Still "she did what
+she could." He paid her his board; but she gave him a home. After she
+found that his lodgings were unwarmed, she invited him to share her
+fireside of a winter evening; and, though she would not deprive us of
+our chat with one another and with her, she taught us to speak in low
+tones, and never to him, when we saw him at his studies. When they were
+over, and he was tired and in want of some amusement, she afforded him
+one at once cheap, innocent, and inexhaustible, and sang to him as she
+still toiled on at her unresting needle, night after night, ballad after
+ballad, in her wild, sweet, rich voice. He was very fond of music,
+though, as he said, he "could only whistle for it." It was the custom
+then among our neighbors to keep Saturday evening strictly as a part of
+"the Sabbath." It was her half-holiday, however, for works of charity
+and mercy; and she would often bid him bring her any failing articles of
+his scanty wardrobe then, and say that she would mend them for him if he
+would read to her. Her taste was naturally fine, and trained by regular
+and well-chosen Sunday reading; and she had the tact to select for these
+occasions books that won the mind of the intellectual though
+uncultivated youth by their eloquence, until they won his heart by their
+holiness. Moreover, she had been gently bred, and could give good
+advice, in manners as well as morals, when it was asked for, and
+withhold it when it was not.</p>
+
+<p>The upshot of it all was, that he loved her like a mother; and now the
+sentiment was deepened by a shade of filial remorse, which I could never
+quite dispel, though, as often as he gave me any chance, I tried. The
+last year of my mother's life was the first of his married life. His
+father-in-law hired, at the end of the town opposite to ours, a
+furnished house for him and his wife. My mother called upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span> her by the
+Doctor's particular invitation. The visit was sweetly received, and
+promptly returned by the bride; but she was pretty and popular, and had
+many other visits to pay, especially when she could catch her husband at
+leisure to help her. He was seldom at leisure at all, but, as he
+self-reproachfully said, "too busy to think except of his patients and
+his wife"; and poor mamma, with all her real dignity, had caught
+something of the shy, retiring ways of a reduced gentlewoman, and was,
+besides, too literally straining every nerve to pay off the mortgage on
+her half-earned house, so that, if anything happened, she might "not
+leave her girls without a home." Therefore he saw her seldom.</p>
+
+<p>After he heard she was ill, he was with her daily, and often three or
+four times a day; and his wife came too, and made the nicest broths and
+gruels with her own hands, and begged Fanny not to cry, and cried
+herself. He promised my mother that we should never want, if he could
+help it, and that he would be a brother to us both, and my guardian. She
+told him that, if she died, this promise would be the greatest earthly
+comfort to her in her death; and he answered, "So it will to me!"</p>
+
+<p>Then after she was gone, when the lease of his house was up, as no other
+tenant offered for ours, he hired it, furniture and all, and offered
+Fanny and me both a home in it for an indefinite time; but our affairs
+were all unsettled. We knew the rent, as rents were then, would not pay
+our expenses and leave us anything to put by for the future, which my
+mother had taught us always to think of. Therefore I thought I had
+better take care of myself, as I was much the strongest, and perfectly
+able to do so. "And a very pretty business you made of it, didn't you,
+miss?" reflected and queried I, parenthetically, as I afterwards
+reviewed these circumstances in my own mind.</p>
+
+<p>The best we had to hope from my older and our only brother George was,
+that he should join us in paying the interest on the mortgage till real
+estate should rise,&mdash;as everybody said it soon must,&mdash;and then the rise
+in rents should enable us to let the house on better terms, and thus, by
+degrees, clear it of all encumbrances, and have it quite for our own, to
+let, sell, or live in. The worst we had to fear was, that he would
+insist on forcing it at once into the market, at what would be a great
+loss to us, and leave us almost destitute. He was going to be married,
+and getting into business, and wanted beyond anything else a little
+ready money.</p>
+
+<p>He scarcely knew us even by sight. He had been a sprightly, pretty boy;
+and my mother's aunt's husband, having no children of his own, offered
+to adopt him. Poor mamma's heart was almost broken; but I suppose
+George's noise must have been very trying to my father's nerves; and
+then he had no way to provide for him. After she objected, I have always
+understood that my father appeared to take a morbid aversion to the
+child, and could scarcely bear him in his sight. So George seemed likely
+to be still more unhappy, and ruined beside, if she kept him at home. He
+was a little fellow then, not more than five years old; but he cried for
+her so long that my great-uncle-in-law was very careful how he let him
+have anything to do with her again, till he had forgotten her; and
+little things taken so early must be expected to fall, sooner or later,
+more or less under the influence of those who have them in charge.</p>
+
+<p>Poor mamma died without making a regular will. It was not the custom at
+that time for women to be taught so much about business even as they are
+now. She thought, if she did make a will before she could pay off the
+debt on the house, she should have to make another afterwards, and that
+then there would be double lawyers' fees to deduct from the little she
+would have to leave us. After she found out that she was dangerously
+sick, she was very anxious to make her will, whenever she was in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span> her
+right mind; but that went and came so, that the Doctor, and a lawyer
+whom he brought to see her, said that no disposition she might make
+could stand in court, if any effort were made to break it. All that
+could be done was to take down, as she was able to dictate it, an
+affectionate and touching letter to George.</p>
+
+<p>In this she begged him to remember how much greater his advantages, and
+his opportunities of making a living, were than ours, and besought him
+to do his best to keep and increase for us the pittance she had toiled
+so hard to earn, and to take nothing from it unless a time should come
+when he was as helpless as we.</p>
+
+<p>Two copies of this letter were made, signed, sealed, and witnessed. One
+I sent to George, enclosed with an earnest entreaty from Fanny and
+myself, that he would come and let mamma see him once again, before she
+died, if, as we feared, she must die. We had asked him to come before.
+He answered our letter&mdash;not our mother's&mdash;rather kindly, but very
+vaguely, putting off his visit, and saying, that he could not for a
+moment suffer himself to believe that she would not do perfectly well,
+if we did not alarm her about herself, nor worry her with business when
+she was not in a state for it. His reply was handed me before her,
+unluckily. She wished to hear it read, and seemed to lose heart and grow
+worse from that time.</p>
+
+<p>Thus then matters stood with us that July. The sale of our house was
+pending&mdash;over our kind host's head too! It was plain to me that George
+would not, and that Dr. Physick should not, bear the charge of Fanny's
+maintenance. So far and so long as I could, I would.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, no further examination was made of her lungs. The
+Doctor's report was often "Remarkably comfortable," and never anything
+worse than, "Well, on the whole, taking one time with another, I don't
+see but she's about as comfortable as she has been." I was, of course,
+inexperienced. I was afraid that, if she improved no faster, I should be
+obliged to leave her, when I went away to work for her again at the end
+of the summer vacation, still very feeble, a care to others, and pining
+for my care. That was my nearest and clearest fear.</p>
+
+<p>But what did Fanny think? I hope, the truth; and on one incident, in
+chief, I ground my hope. One beautiful day&mdash;the last one in July&mdash;she
+asked me if I should be willing to draw her to our mother's grave. There
+could be but one answer; though I had not seen the spot since the
+funeral. Fanny looked at it with more than calmness,&mdash;with the solemn
+irradiation of countenance which had during her illness become her most
+characteristic expression. She desired me to help her from her chair.
+She lay at her length upon the turf, still and observant, as if
+calculating. Then she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Katy, dear," said she, very tenderly and softly, as if she feared to
+give me pain, "I have been thinking sometimes lately, that, if anything
+should ever happen to either of us, the other might be glad to know what
+would be exactly the wishes of the one that was gone&mdash;about our graves.
+Suppose we choose them now, while we are here together. Here, by mamma,
+is where I should like to lie. See, I will lay two red clovers for the
+head, and a white one for the foot. And there, on her other side, is
+just such a place for you. Should you like it?&mdash;and&mdash;shall you
+remember?"</p>
+
+<p>I found voice to say "Yes," and said it firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"And then," added she, after a short, deliberating pause, during which
+she, with my assistance, raised herself to sit on the side of the chair
+with her feet still resting on the turf, "while we are upon the
+subject,&mdash;one thing more. If I should be the first to go,&mdash;nobody knows
+whose turn may come the first,&mdash;then I should like to have you do&mdash;just
+what would make you happiest; but I <i>don't</i> like mourning. I shouldn't
+<i>wish</i> to have it worn for me. My feelings about it have all changed
+since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span> we made it for mamma. It seemed as if we were only working at a
+great black wall, for our minds to have to break through, every time
+they yearned to go back into the past and sit with her. It was as if the
+things she chose for us, and loved to see us in, were part of her and of
+her life with us,&mdash;as if she would be able still to think of us in them,
+and know just how we looked. And it seemed so strange and unsympathizing
+in us, that, when we loved her so, we should go about all muffled up in
+darkness, because our God was clothing her in light!"</p>
+
+<p>I answered,&mdash;rather slowly and tremulously this time, I fear,&mdash;that I
+had felt so too.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Katy," resumed she, pleadingly, as she leaned back in her usual
+attitude in the chair, and made a sign that I might draw her home, "we
+will not either of us wear it for the other,&mdash;without nor within either,
+will we?&mdash;any more than we can help. Don't you remember what dear mamma
+said once, when you had made two mistakes in your lessons at school, and
+lost a prize, and took it hard, and somebody was teasing you, with
+making very light of it, and telling you to think no more about it? You
+were very sorry and a little offended, and said, you always chose not to
+be hoodwinked, but to look at things on all sides and in the face. Mamma
+smiled, and said, 'It is good and brave to look all trials in the face;
+but among the sides, never forget the bright side, little Katy.' If I
+had my life to live over again, I would try to mind her more in that.
+She always said, there lay my greatest fault. I hope and think God has
+forgiven me, because he makes it so easy for me to be cheerful now."</p>
+
+<p>"Fanny," said I, as we drew near the house, "things in this world are
+strangely jumbled. Here are you, with your character, to wit, that of a
+little saint, if you will have the goodness to overlook my saying so,
+and somebody else's conscience. I have no doubt that, while you are
+reproaching yourself first for this, then for that and the other, the
+said somebody else is sinning away merrily, somewhere among the
+antipodes or nearer, without so much as a single twinge."</p>
+
+<p>Smiling, she shook her head at me; and that was all that passed. She was
+as cheerful as I tried to be. With regard to the other world, she seemed
+to have attained unto the perfect love that casteth out fear; and I
+believe her only regret in leaving this lower one for it was that she
+could not take me with her. In fact, throughout her illness, her freedom
+from anxiety about its symptoms&mdash;not absolute, but still in strong
+contrast with her previous tendencies&mdash;appeared to her physician, as he
+acknowledged to me afterwards, even when he considered the frequent
+flattering illusions of the disease, a most discouraging indication as
+to the case. But to her it was an infinite mercy; and to me, to have
+such glimpses to remember of her already in possession of so much of
+that peace which remaineth unto the people of God.</p>
+
+<p>As the dog-days drew on, a change came, though at first a very gentle
+one to her, if not to me. She slept more, ate less, grew so thin that
+she could no more bear the motion of her little wagon, and begged that
+it might be returned, because it tired her so to think of it.</p>
+
+<p>Then word came that our house was advertised to be sold,
+unconditionally, at an early day. To move her in that state,&mdash;how
+dreadful it would be! I did not mean to let her know anything about it
+until I must; but Miss Mehitable, always less remarkable for tact than
+for good-will, blurted it out before her.</p>
+
+<p>Her brows contracted with a moment's look of pain. "O Katy," she
+whispered, "I am sorry! That must make you very anxious";&mdash;and then she
+went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently it did not make her very anxious, as I knew that it would have
+done as lately even as two or three months before. What was the remedy?
+Approaching death. Well, death<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span> was approaching me also, as steadily, if
+not so nearly; and, after her example, my thoughts took such a foretaste
+of that anodyne that, as I sat and gazed on her unconscious, placid
+face, all terrors left me, and I was strengthened to pray, and to
+determine to look to the morrow with only so much thought as should
+enable me to bring up all my resources of body and mind to meet it as I
+ought, and to leave the result, unquestioned, quite in God's hand.</p>
+
+<p>The result was an entire relief to her last earthly care. The appointed
+day came. The matter took wind. None of our townspeople appeared, to bid
+against my guardian; but enough of them were on the spot "to see fair
+play," or, in other words, to advance for him whatever sum he might
+stand in need of; and the house was knocked down to him at a price even
+below its market value. He paid the mortgagee and George their due by
+the next mail, but left my title and Fanny's as it was, not to be
+settled till I came of age.</p>
+
+<p>These details would only have worried and wearied her; but the
+auctioneer's loud voice had hardly died away, or the gathered footsteps
+scattered from the door, when the Doctor came to her chamber, flushed
+with triumph, to tell us that "Nobody now could turn us out; and
+everything was arranged for us to stay." Fanny looked brightly up to
+him, and answered: "Now I shall scarcely know what more to pray for, but
+God's reward for you." And most of all I thank Him for that news,
+because her last day on this earth was such a happy one.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, just at dawn, she waked me, saying, "O Katy, tell the
+Doctor I can't breathe!"</p>
+
+<p>I sprang up, raised her on her pillows, and called him instantly.</p>
+
+<p>She stretched out her hand to him, and gasped, "O Doctor, I can't
+breathe! Can't you do anything to help me?"</p>
+
+<p>He felt her pulse quickly, looking at her, and said, very tenderly,
+"Have some ether, Fanny. I will run and bring it." Throwing wider open
+every window that he passed, he hurried down to the office and back with
+the ether.</p>
+
+<p>Eagerly, though with difficulty, she inhaled it; and it relieved her. I
+sat and watched her, silent, with her hand in mine.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the door behind me opened softly, as if somebody was looking
+in. "My dear," said the Doctor, turning his head, and speaking very
+earnestly, though in a low voice, "I <i>wouldn't</i> come here. You can do no
+good." But presently his wife came in, in her dressing-gown, very pale,
+and sat by me and held the hand that was not holding Fanny's.</p>
+
+<p>And next I knew they thought she would not wake; and then the short
+breath stopped. And now it was my turn to stretch out my hands to him
+for help; but, looking at me, he burst into tears, as he had not when he
+looked at Fanny; and I knew there was no breath more for her, nor any
+ether for me. I did not want to go to sleep, because <i>I</i> should have to
+wake again; but his wife was sobbing aloud. I knew how dreadful such
+excitement was for her; and so I had to do just as they wished me to,
+and let them lead me out and lock the door, and lay down on a bed and
+shut my eyes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PROTONEIRON" id="PROTONEIRON"></a>PROTONEIRON.</h2>
+
+<h3>DECEMBER 9, 1864.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"And in that sleep of death what dreams may come."</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The unresting lines, where oceans end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are traced by shifting surf and sand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As pallid, moonlit fingers blend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dreamlight of the ghostly land.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No eye can tell where Love's last ray<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fades to the sky of colder light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No ear, when sounds that vexed the day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cease mingling with the holier night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As bells, which long have failed to swing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In lonely towers of crumbling stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through far eternal spaces ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With semblance of their ancient tone.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lightning, quivering through the cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weaves warp and woof from sky to earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In mist that seems a mortal's shroud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In light that hails an angel's birth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thought vainly strives, with life's dull load,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To mount through ether rare and thin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fond eyes pursue the spirit's road<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To heaven, and dimly gaze therein.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In battle's travail-hour, a host<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Writhes in the throes of deadly strife.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One flash! One groan! A startled ghost<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is born into the eternal life.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dear wife and children! Now I fly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forth from my soldier camp to you!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blue ridge and river hurry by<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My weary eyes, in quick review.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Long have I waited. How and when<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My furlough came is mystery.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I dreamed of charging with my men,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A dream of glorious history!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To you I fly on Love's strong wing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My courser needs no armed heel:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet anew the bugles ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wake me to the crash of steel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In fiercer rush of hosts again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My dripping sabre seeks the front.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spur your mad horses! Forward, men!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Meet with your hearts the battle's brunt.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tricolor, flaunt! And trumpet-blare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scream louder than the bursting shell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thundering hoofs, that shake the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trembling above that surging hell!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In carbine smoke and cannon flash,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like avalanches twain, we meet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One gasp! we spur; one stab! we crash<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And trample with the iron feet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I <i>dream</i>! My tiercepoint smote them through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My sabre buried to my hand!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet unchecked those horsemen flew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still I grasp my phantom brand!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Our chargers, which like whirlwinds bore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Us onward, lie all stiff and stark!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Black Midnight's feet wait on the shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bear me&mdash;where? Where all is dark.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And still I hear the faint recall!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My senses,&mdash;have they dropped asleep?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see a soldier's funeral pall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there <i>my</i> wife and children weep!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sobs break the air, below the cloud;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one pure soul, of love and truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is folding in a mortal shroud<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her quivering wings of Hope and Youth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ye of the sacred red right hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who count, around our camp-fire light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dear names within the shadowy land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why do ye whisper <i>mine</i> to-night?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where am I? <i>Am</i> I? Trumpet notes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still mingle with a dreamy doubt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Where? and Whither? Music floats,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As when camp-lights are going out.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Like saintly eyes resigned to Death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like spirit whispers from afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sighing bugle yields its breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if it wooed a dying star.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Draped in dark shadows, widowed Night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weeps, on new graves, with chilly tears;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond strange mountain-tops, the light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is breaking from the immortal years.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A rhythm, from the unfathomed deep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of God's eternal stillness, sings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My wondering, trembling soul to sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While angels lift it on their wings.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_PROGRESS_OF_PRUSSIA" id="THE_PROGRESS_OF_PRUSSIA"></a>THE PROGRESS OF PRUSSIA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The changes that have taken place in Europe in the last twenty years are
+of a most comprehensive character, and as strange as comprehensive; and
+their consequences are likely to be as remarkable as the changes
+themselves. In 1846 Russia was the first power of Europe, and at a great
+distance ahead of all other members of the Pentarchy. She retained the
+hegemony which she had acquired by the events of 1812-1814, and by the
+great display of military force she had made in 1815, when 160,000 of
+her troops were reviewed near Paris by the sovereigns and other leaders
+of the Grand Alliance there assembled after the second and final fall of
+the first Napoleon. Had Alexander I. reigned long, it is probable that
+his eccentricities&mdash;to call them by no harder name&mdash;would have operated
+to deprive Russia of her supremacy; but Nicholas, though he might never
+have raised his country so high as it was carried by his brother, was
+exactly the man to keep the power he had inherited,&mdash;and to keep it in
+the only way in which it was to be kept, namely, by increasing it. This
+he had done, and great success had waited on most of his undertakings,
+while in none had he encountered failure calculated to attract the
+world's attention. England had in some sense shared men's notice with
+Russia immediately after the settlement of Europe. The "crowning
+carnage, Waterloo," was considered her work; and, as the most decisive
+battle since Philippi, it gave to the victor in it an amount of
+consideration that was equal to that which Napoleon himself had
+possessed in 1812. But this consideration rapidly passed away, as
+England did nothing to maintain her influence on the Continent, while
+Russia was constantly busy there, and really governed it down to the
+French Revolution of 1830; and her power was not much weakened even by
+the fall of the elder Bourbons, with whom the Czar had entered into a
+treaty that had for one of its ends the cession to France of those very
+Rhenish provinces of which so much has been said in the course of the
+present year. Russia was victorious in her conflicts with the Persians
+and the Turks, and the battle of Navarino really had been fought in her
+interest,&mdash;blindly by the English, but intelligently by the French, who
+were willing that she should plant the double-headed eagle on the
+Bosporus, provided the lilies should be planted on the Rhine. If the
+fall of the Bourbons in France, and the fall of the Tories in England,
+weakened Russia's influence in Western Europe, those events had the
+effect of drawing Austria and Prussia nearer to her, and of reviving
+something of the spirit of the Holy Alliance, which had lost much of its
+strength from the early death of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span> Alexander. Russia had her own way in
+almost every respect; and in 1846 Nicholas was almost as powerful a
+ruler as Napoleon had been a generation earlier, with the additional
+advantage of being a legitimate sovereign, who could not be destroyed
+through the efforts of any coalition. Three years later he saved Austria
+from destruction by his invasion of Hungary,&mdash;an act of hard insolence,
+which quite reconciles one to the humiliation that overtook him five
+years later. He was then so powerful that the reactionists of the West
+cried for Russian cannon, to be used against the Reds. There was no
+nation to dispute the palm with Russia. England was supposed to be
+devoted to the conversion of cotton into calico, and to be ruled in the
+spirit of the Manchester school. She had retired into her shell, and
+could not be got out of it. Austria was thinking chiefly of Italy, and
+of becoming a naval power by incorporating that Peninsula into her
+empire. Prussia was looked upon as nothing but a Russian outpost to the
+west, and waiting only to be used by her master. France had not
+recovered from her humiliation of 1814-15, and never would recover from
+it so long as she warred only at barricades or in Barbary. Russia was
+supreme, and most men thought that supreme she would remain.</p>
+
+<p>Thus stood matters down to 1853. Early in that year the Czar entered on
+his last quarrel with the Turks, whose cause was espoused by England,
+partly for the reason that Russian aggrandizement in the East would be
+dangerous to her interests, but more on the ground that she had become
+weary of submission to that arrogant sovereign who was in the habit of
+giving law to the Old World. Russia's ascendency, though chiefly the
+work of England, was more distasteful to the English than it was to any
+other European people,&mdash;more than it was to the French, at whose expense
+it had been founded; and had Nicholas made overtures to the latter,
+instead of making them to England, it is very probable he would have
+accomplished his purpose. But he detested Napoleon III., and he was at
+no pains to conceal his sentiments. This was the one great error of his
+life. The French Emperor had two great ends in view: first, to get into
+respectable company; and, secondly, to make himself powerful at home, by
+obtaining power and influence for France abroad. Unaided, he could
+accomplish neither end; and Nicholas and Victoria were the only two
+sovereigns who could be of much use to him in accomplishing one or both.
+Had Nicholas been gracious to him, had he, in particular, made overtures
+to him, he might have had the Emperor almost on his own terms; for the
+French disliked the English, and they did not dislike the Russians.
+Everything pointed to renewal of that "cordial understanding" between
+Russia and France which had existed twenty-five years earlier, when
+Charles X. was king of France, and which, had there been no Revolution
+of July, would have given to Russia possession of Constantinople, and to
+the French that roc's egg of theirs, the left bank of the Rhine. But
+prosperity had been fatal to the Czar. He could not see what was
+palpable to everybody else. He allowed his feelings to get the better of
+his judgment. He treated Napoleon III. with less consideration than he
+treated the Turkish Sultan; and Napoleon actually was forced to teach
+him that a French ruler was a powerful personage, and that the days of
+Louis Philippe were over forever. If not good enough to help Russia
+spoil Turkey, the Czar must be taught he was good enough to help England
+prevent the spoliating scheme. France and England united their forces to
+those of Turkey, and were joined by Sardinia. Russia was beaten in the
+war, on almost all its scenes. The world ascribed the result to Napoleon
+III. France carried off the honors of the war, and of spoil there was
+none. The Peace of Paris, which terminated the contest, was the work of
+Napoleon. He dictated its terms,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span> forcing them less on his enemy than on
+his allies.</p>
+
+<p>As Russia's leadership of Europe had come from success in war, and had
+been maintained by subsequent successes of the Russian armies,&mdash;in
+Persia, in Turkey, in Poland, and elsewhere,&mdash;it followed that that
+leadership was lost when the fortune of war changed, and those armies
+were beaten on every occasion where they met the Allies. No military
+country could stand up erect under such crushing blows as had been
+delivered at the Alma, at Inkermann, at the Tchernaya, and at
+Sebastopol, not to name lesser Allied successes, or to count the
+victories of the Turks. Nicholas died in the course of the war, falling
+only before the universal conqueror. His successor submitted to the
+decision of the sword, and in fact performed an act of abdication
+inferior only to that executed by Napoleon. France stepped into the
+vacant leadership, and held it for ten years. Subsequent events
+confirmed and strengthened the French hegemony. The Italian war, waged
+by the Emperor in person, had lasted only about as many months as the
+Russian war did years, and yet it had proved far more damaging to
+Austria than the other had proved to Russia. The mere loss of territory
+experienced by Austria, though not small, was the least of the adverse
+results to her. Her whole Italian scheme was cut through and utterly
+ruined; and it was well understood that the days of her rule over
+Venetia were destined to be as few as they were evil. For what she then
+did, France received Savoy and Nice, which formed by no means a great
+price for her all but inestimable services,&mdash;services by no means to be
+ascertained, if we would know their true value, by what was done in
+1859. France created the Kingdom of Italy. After making the amplest
+allowance for what was effected by Cavour, by Garibaldi, by Victor
+Emanuel, and by the Italian people, it must be clear to every one that
+nothing could have been effected toward the overthrow of Austrian
+domination in Italy but for the action of French armies in that country.
+That the Emperor meant what he wrought is very unlikely; but after the
+events of 1859 it was impossible to prevent the construction of the
+kingdom of Italy; and the Frenchman had to consent to the completion of
+his own work, though he did so on some occasions with extreme
+reluctance,&mdash;not so much from the dictation of his own feelings, as from
+the aversion which the French feel for the Italian cause, and which is
+so strong, and so deeply shared by the military, that it was with
+difficulty the soldiers in the camp of Ch&acirc;lons were prevented getting up
+an illumination when news reached them of the battle of Custozza, the
+event of which was so disastrous to Italy, and would have been fatal to
+her cause, had not that been vindicated and established by Prussian
+genius and valor on the remote fields of Germany and Bohemia. The
+descendants of men who fought under Arminius saved the descendants of
+the countrymen of Varus. Those persons who have condemned the
+Frenchman's apparently singular course toward Italy on some occasions,
+have not made sufficient allowance for the dislike of almost all classes
+of his subjects for the Italians. The Italian war was unpopular, and the
+Russian war was not popular. While the French have been pleased by the
+military occurrences that make up the histories of those wars, they were
+by no means pleased by the wars themselves, and they do not approve them
+even at this day; and the extraordinary events of the current year are
+not at all calculated to make them popular in France: for it is not
+difficult to see that there is a close connection between the
+establishment of the Kingdom of Italy and the elevation of Prussia to
+the first place in Europe; and Prussia is the power most abhorred by the
+French. So intense is French hatred of Prussia, that it is not too much
+to say that, last summer, the French would almost as lief have seen the
+Russians in Paris as the Prussians in Vienna.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the middle of last June the leadership of Europe&mdash;Frenchmen said of
+the world&mdash;was in the hands of France; and that such was France's place
+was the work of Napoleon III. The Emperor had been successful in all his
+undertakings, with one exception. His Mexican business had proved a
+total failure; but this had not injured him. Americans thought
+differently, some of us going so far as to suppose the fall of
+Maximilian's shaky throne would involve that of the solid throne of
+Napoleon. No such thing. The great majority of Frenchmen know little and
+care less about the Mexican business. Intelligent Frenchmen regret the
+Emperor's having taken it up; but they do so because of the expenditure
+it has involved, and because they have learnt from their country's
+history that it is best for her to keep out of that colonizing pursuit
+which has so many charms for the Emperor,&mdash;perhaps because of his Dutch
+origin. There is something eminently ridiculous about French
+colonization, which contrasts strangely with the robust action of the
+English. The Emperor seems to believe in it,&mdash;an instance of weakness
+that places him, on one point at least, below common men, most of whom
+laugh at his doings in regard to Mexico. If report does him no
+injustice, he thinks his Mexican undertaking the greatest thing of his
+reign. What, then, is the smallest thing of that reign? It is somewhat
+strange that this immense undertaking should not have been practicable
+till some time after the United States had become involved in civil war,
+that tasked all American energies, and did not permit any attention to
+be paid to Napoleon's action in Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>Whether wise or foolish, Napoleon's interference in Mexican affairs had
+not weakened his power or lessened his influence in the estimation of
+Europe. Five months ago he was at the head of the European world. His
+position was quite equal to that which Nicholas held thirteen years
+earlier. If any change in his condition was looked for, it was sought in
+the advance of his greatness, not in the chance of his fall. The
+general, the all but universal sentiment was, that during Napoleon
+III.'s life France's lead must be accepted; and that, if that life
+should be much extended, France's power would be greatly increased, and
+that Belgium and the Rhine country might become hers at no distant day.
+It is true that, long before the middle of June, the course of events
+indicated the near approach of war; but it was commonly supposed that
+the chief result of such war would be to add to the greatness and glory
+of France. <i>That</i> was about the only point on which men were agreed with
+respect to the threatened conflict. Prussia and Italy might overthrow
+the Austrian empire; but most probably Austria, aided by most of
+Germany, would defeat them both, her armies rendezvousing at Berlin and
+Milan; and then would Napoleon III., bearing "the sword of Brennus,"
+come in, and save the Allies from destruction, who would gratefully
+reward him,&mdash;the one by ceding the Rhenish provinces, and the other the
+island of Sardinia, to France. Such was the programme laid out by most
+persons in Europe and America, and probably not one person in a hundred
+thought it possible for Prussia to succeed. Even most of those persons
+who were not overcrowed by Austria's partisans and admirers did not
+dream that she would be conquered in a week, but thought it would be a
+more difficult matter for General Benedek to march from Prague to Berlin
+than was generally supposed, and that such march would not exactly be of
+the nature of a military promenade. That the French Emperor shared the
+popular belief, is evident from his conduct. He never would have allowed
+war to break out, if he had supposed it would lead to the elevation of
+Prussia to the first place in Europe,&mdash;a position held by himself, and
+which he had no desire to vacate. It was in his power to prevent the
+occurrence of war down almost to the very hour when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span> the Diet of the
+Germanic Confederation afforded to Prussia so plausible a ground for
+setting her armies in motion, by adopting a course that bore some
+resemblance to the old process of putting a disobedient member under the
+ban of the Empire. Prussia would not have gone to war with Austria, had
+she not been assured of the Italian alliance,&mdash;an alliance that would
+not only be useful in keeping a large portion of Austria's force in the
+south, but would prevent that power from purchasing Italian aid by the
+cession of Venetia; for so angry were the Austrians with Prussia, that
+it was quite on the cards that they might become the friends of Italy,
+if she would but help them against that nation whose exertions in 1859
+had prevented Venetia from following the fate of Lombardy.</p>
+
+<p>As Prussia would not have made war in 1866 without having secured the
+assistance of Italy, so was it impossible for Italy to form an alliance
+with Prussia without the consent of France being first had and obtained.
+Napoleon III. possessed an absolute veto on the action of the Italian
+government, and had he signified to that government that an alliance
+with Prussia could not meet with his countenance and approval, no such
+alliance ever would have been formed, or even the proposition to form it
+have been taken into serious consideration by the Cabinet of Florence.
+Victor Emanuel II. would have dared no more to attack Francis Joseph,
+without the consent of Napoleon III., than Carthage durst have attacked
+Masinissa without the consent of Rome. Prussia was not under the
+supervision of France, and was and is the only great European nation
+which had not then, as she has not since, been made to feel the weight
+of his power; but it may be doubted, without the slightest intention to
+impeach her courage, if she would have resolved upon war had she been
+convinced that France was utterly opposed to such resolution, and was
+prepared to show that the Empire was for peace by making war to preserve
+it. The opinion was quite common, as matters became more and more
+warlike with each succeeding day, that the course of Prussia had been
+fixed upon and mapped out by Count Bismark and Napoleon III., and that
+the former had received positive assurances that his country should not
+undergo any reduction of territory should the fortune of war go against
+her; in return for which he had agreed to such a "rectification of the
+French frontier" as should be highly pleasing to the pride of Frenchmen,
+and add greatly to the glory and the dignity of their Emperor. When news
+came that Napoleon III., after peace had been resolved upon, had asked
+for the cession of certain Rhenish territory,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> the demand was
+supposed to have been made in consequence of an understanding entered
+into before the war by the courts of Paris and Berlin. There was nothing
+unreasonable in this supposition; for Napoleon III. was so bent upon
+extending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span> the boundaries of France, and was so entirely master of the
+situation, and his friendship was so necessary to Prussia, that it was
+reasonable to suppose he had made a good bargain with that power.
+Probably, when the secret history of the war shall be published, it will
+be seen that an understanding did exist between Prussia and France, and
+that Napoleon III., in August, asked for no more than it had been agreed
+he should have, in June, or May, or even earlier. Why, then, did Prussia
+give so firm but civil a negative in answer to his demand? and how was
+it that he submitted with so much of meekness to her refusal, even
+attributing his demand to the pressure of French public opinion, which
+is no more strongly expressed in 1866 in favor of the acquisition of the
+Rhine country, than it has been in almost any year since that country
+was lost, more than half a century since? The answer is easy. Prussia,
+no matter what her arrangement with France before the war, durst not
+pass over to the latter a solitary league of German territory. Her
+victories had so exalted German sentiment that she could not have her
+own way in all things. She was, on one side, paralyzed by the unexpected
+completeness of her military successes, which had brought very near all
+Germany under her eagles; for all Germans saw at once that she had
+obtained that commanding position from which the dictation of the unity
+of their country was not only a possibility, but something that could be
+accomplished without much difficulty. What Victor Emanuel II. and Count
+Cavour had been to Italy, William I. and Count Bismark could be to
+Austria, with this vast difference in favor of the Prussian sovereign
+and statesman,&mdash;that their policy could not be dictated, nor their
+action hampered, by a great foreign sovereign, who ruled a people
+hostile to the unity of every European race but themselves. It was
+impossible even to take into consideration any project that looked to
+the dismemberment of Germany, at a time when even Southern Germans were
+ready to unite with Prussia, because she was the champion of German
+unity, and was in condition to make her championship effectual. Napoleon
+III. saw how matters were, and, being a statesman, he did not hesitate,
+at the risk of much loss of influence, to admit a fact the existence of
+which could not be denied, and which operated with overwhelming force
+against his interests both as an emperor and as a man. That he may have
+only deferred a rupture with Prussia is probable enough, for it is not
+to be assumed that he is ready to cede the first place in Europe to the
+country most disliked by his subjects, and which refuses to cede
+anything to him. But he must have time in which to rearm his infantry,
+and to place in their hands a weapon that shall be to the needle-gun
+what the needle-gun<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> is to the Austrian muzzle-loader. He has
+postponed action; but that he has definitely abandoned the French claim
+to the left bank of the Rhine it would be hazardous to assert. There are
+reports that a conference of the chief European powers will be held
+soon, and that by that body something will be done with respect to the
+French claim that will prove satisfactory to all parties. It would be a
+marvellous body, should it accomplish so miraculous a piece of business.
+The matter is in fair way to disturb the peace of Europe before Sadowa
+shall have become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span> as old a battle as we now rate Solferino.</p>
+
+<p>We do not assert that there was an understanding between France and
+Prussia last spring, and that Prussia went to war because that
+arrangement assured her against loss; but we think there is nothing
+irrational in the popular belief in the existence of such an
+understanding, and that nothing has occurred since the middle of June
+that renders that belief absurd. The contrary belief makes a fool of
+Napoleon III.,&mdash;a character which not even the Emperor's enemies have
+attributed to him since he became a successful man.</p>
+
+<p>War began on the 15th of June, the day after that on which that bungling
+body, the Bund, under Austrian influence, had resort to overt measures
+against Prussia, which had suffered for some time from its covert
+measures. The Germanic Confederation ceased to exist on the 14th of
+June, having completed its half-century, with a little time to spare.
+The declarations of war that appeared on the 18th of June,&mdash;the
+anniversary of Fehrbellin, Kolin, and Waterloo, all great and decisive
+Prussian battles, and two of them Prussian victories, or victories which
+Prussians aided in winning,&mdash;the declarations of war, we say, were mere
+formalities, and as such they were regarded. Prussia's first open
+operation was taken three days before, when she invaded Saxony,&mdash;a
+country in which the Austrians, had they been wise, would have had at
+least a hundred thousand men within twenty-four hours after the action
+of the Diet. Prussia had been prepared for war for some weeks, perhaps
+months, while we are assured that Austria's preparations were far from
+complete; from which, supposing the statement correct, the inference is
+drawn that she did not expect Prussia to push matters to extremity. It
+is more likely that she fell into the usual error of all proud
+egotists,&mdash;that of estimating the capacity of a foe by her own. We
+cannot think so poorly of Austrian statesmen and generals as to conclude
+that they did not see war was inevitable in the latter part of May,
+which gave them three weeks to mass their troops so near the Saxon
+frontier as would have enabled them to cross it in a few hours after the
+Diet had given itself up to their direction, before the world. As the
+Diet never durst have acted thus without Austria's direct sanction,
+Austria must have known that war was at hand, and she should have
+prepared for its coming. Probably she did make all the preparation she
+thought necessary, she supposing that Prussia would be as slow as
+herself, because believing that her best was the best thing in the
+world. This error was the source of all her misfortunes. She applied to
+the military art, in this age of railways and electric telegraphs,
+principles and practices that were not even of the first merit in much
+earlier and very different times. She was not aware that the world had
+changed. Prussia was thoroughly aware of it, and acted accordingly. She
+was all vivacity and alertness, and hence her success. In nineteen days,
+counting from the morning of June 15th, she had accomplished that which
+almost all men in other countries had deemed impossible. While
+foreigners were speculating as to the number of days Benedek would
+require to reach Berlin, and wondering whether he would proceed by the
+Silesian or the Saxon route, the Prussians were routing him, taking
+Prague, and marching swiftly toward Vienna. The contending armies first
+"felt" one another on the 26th of June, in a small affair at Liebenau,
+in which the Prussians were victorious. The next day there was another
+"affair," of larger proportions, at Podal, with the same result; and two
+more actions, one at Nachod and at Skalitz, in which Fortune was
+consistent, adhering to the single-headed eagle, and the other at
+Trautenau, which was of the nature of a drawn battle. On the 28th there
+was another fight at Trautenau, the Prussians remaining masters of the
+field; while the Austrians were beaten at other points, and fell back to
+Gitschin, once the capital of Wallenstein's Duchy of Friedland, and
+where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span> the Friedlander was to receive ample vengeance just seven
+generations after his assassination by contrivance and order of the head
+of the German branch of the house of Austria, Ferdinand II. Could
+Wallenstein have "revisited the glimpses of the moon" on the night of
+the 28th of last June, he might have cast terror into the soul of
+Francis Joseph, as the Bodach Glas did into that of Vich-Ian-Vohr, by
+appearing to him, and bidding him beware of the morrow; for it was at
+Gitschin, on the 29th of June, and not at Sadowa, on the 3d of July,
+that the event of the war was decided. Had the battle then and there
+fought been fortunate for the Austrians, the name of Sadowa would have
+remained unknown to the world; for then the battle of the 3d of July
+could not have been fought, or it would have had a different scene, and
+most probably a different result. Austrian defeat at Gitschin made the
+battle of Sadowa a necessity, and made it so under conditions highly
+favorable to the Prussians. The ghost of Wallenstein might have returned
+to its rest with entire complacency, and with the firm resolution to
+trouble this sublunary world no more, had it witnessed the flight of the
+Austrians through Gitschin. By a "curious coincidence," it happens that
+a large number of the vanquished were Saxons, descendants, it may be, of
+men who had acted with Gustavus Adolphus against Wallenstein in 1632.</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Sadowa was fought on the 3d of July, the third anniversary
+of the decisive day of our battle of Gettysburg. At a moderate estimate,
+four hundred and twenty thousand men took part in it, of whom one
+hundred and ninety-five thousand were Austrians and Saxons, and two
+hundred and twenty-five thousand Prussians. This makes the action rank
+almost with the battle of Leipzig, the greatest of all battles.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> It
+is satisfactory evidence of the real greatness of Prussian generalship,
+that it had succeeded in massing much the larger force on the final
+field, though at a distance from the Prussian frontier and far within
+the enemy's territory; and also that while the invaders of Austria were
+opposed by equal forces on the left and centre of the Austrian line,
+they were in excessive strength on that line's right, the very point at
+which their presence was most required. Yet further: these great masses
+of men were all employed, and admirably handled, while almost a fourth
+part of the Austrian army remained idle, or was not employed till the
+issue of the battle had been decided. The Austrian position was strong,
+or it would have been so in the hands of an able commander; but Benedek
+was unequal to his work, and totally unfit to command a larger army than
+even Napoleon I. ever led in any battle. There seldom has lived a
+general capable of handling an army two hundred thousand strong. The
+Prussians, to be sure, were stronger, and they were splendidly handled;
+but it must be observed that they were divided into two armies, and that
+those armies, though having a common object, operated apart. In this
+respect, though in no other, Sadowa bears a resemblance to Waterloo, the
+armies of the Crown Prince and of Prince Frederick Charles answering to
+those of Bl&uuml;cher and Wellington. The Prussian force engaged far exceeded
+that of all the armies that fought at Waterloo, and the Austrian army
+exceeded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</a></span> them by some five or six thousand men. War has very rarely
+been conducted on the scale that is known in 1866. Even the greatest of
+the engagements in our civil contest seem to shrink to small proportions
+when compared with what took place last summer in Bohemia. The armies of
+Grant and Lee, in May, 1864, probably were not larger than the Prussian
+army at Sadowa. At the same time, Austria had a great force in Venetia,
+and large bodies of men in other parts of her empire, and some in the
+territory of the Germanic Confederation; and the Prussians were carrying
+on vigorous warfare in various parts of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>After their grand victory, the Prussians pushed rapidly forward toward
+Vienna; and names that are common in the history of Napoleon's Austrian
+campaigns began to appear in the daily journals,&mdash;Olm&uuml;tz, Br&uuml;nn, Znaym,
+Austerlitz, and others. Nothing occurred to stay their march, and they
+were in the very act of winning another battle which would have cut the
+Austrians off from Hungary, when an armistice was agreed upon. It was so
+in 1809, when the officers had to separate the soldiers to announce the
+armistice of Znaym. It came out soon after that the cessation of warlike
+operations took place not a day too soon for the Austrians, whose army
+was in a fearfully demoralized condition. Vienna would have been
+occupied in a week by the Prussians, had they been disposed to push
+matters to extremities, and that without a battle; or, if a battle had
+been fought, the Austrian force must have been destroyed, or would have
+been literally cut off from any safe line of retreat. Probably the house
+of Austria would have been struck out of the list of ruling families,
+had the Austrians not submitted to the invaders. Count Bismark is a man
+who would have had no hesitation in reviving the Bohemian and Hungarian
+monarchies, had further resistance been made to his will. The armistice
+was quickly followed by negotiations, and those were completed on the
+23d of August, exactly seventy days after the Diet, at the dictation of
+Austria, had given up Prussia to punishment, to be inflicted by the
+Austrian sword.</p>
+
+<p>The terms of the treaty of peace are moderate; but it should be
+understood that what Austria loses is very inadequately expressed by
+these terms, and what Prussia gains not at all; and what Prussia gains
+at the expense of Austria, important as it is, is less important than
+what she has gained from France. From Austria she has taken the first
+place in Germany; from France, the first place in Europe, which is the
+same thing as the first place in Christendom, or the world,&mdash;meaning by
+the world that portion of mankind which has power and influence and
+leadership, because of its knowledge, culture, and wealth. The moral
+blow falls with greater severity on France than on Austria. Austria had
+no right whatever to the first place in Germany. There was something
+monstrous, something highly offensive, in the Germanic primacy of an
+empire made up of Magyars, Poles, Bohemians, Italians, Slavonians,
+Croats, Illyrians, and other races, and not above a fourth of whose
+inhabitants were Germans. Prussia had in June last twice as many Germans
+as Austria, though her entire population was not much more than half as
+large as that of her rival;<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</a></span> and when she turned Austria out of
+Germany at the point of the needle-gun, she simply asserted her own
+right to the leadership of Germany. But no one will say that there can
+be anything offensive in a French primacy of Christendom. Objection may
+be made to any primacy; but if primacy there must be, as mostly there
+has been, France has the best claim to it of any country. England might
+dispute the post with her, and England alone; for they are the two
+nations of modern times to which the world is most indebted. But England
+has, all but in direct terms, resigned all pretensions to it. Prussia,
+therefore, by conquering for herself the first place in the estimation
+of mankind, who always respect the longest and sharpest sword, unhorsed
+France. Napoleon III. lost more at Sadowa than was lost by Francis
+Joseph; and we cannot see how he will be able to recover his loss,
+should Prussia succeed in her purpose to create a powerful Germanic
+empire,&mdash;and all things point to her success. A new force would be
+introduced into the European system, of which we can only say, that, if
+its mere anticipation has been sufficient to curb France on the side of
+the Rhine, its realization ought to be sufficient to prevent France from
+extending her dominion in any direction&mdash;say over Belgium&mdash;which such
+extension is inclined to take.</p>
+
+<p>Thus has a great revolution been effected, and effected, too with
+something of the speed of light. On the 14th of June, France, in the
+estimation of the civilized world, was the first of nations, the head of
+the Pentarchy. On the 4th of July, she had already been deposed, though
+the change was not immediately recognizable. On the 14th of June,
+Prussia's place, though respectable, was not to be named with that of
+France; it was at the tail of the Pentarchy. On the 4th of July she had
+conquered for herself the headship of that powerful brotherhood. It was
+the prize of her sword, and it is on the sword that the French Emperor's
+power mainly rests. He obtained his place by a free use of the military
+arm, in December, 1851; he confirmed it by the use of the sword in the
+Russian and Italian wars; and he purposed making a yet further use of
+the weapon, had circumstances favored his plans, at the time he allowed
+the Germano-Italian war to begin. Is he who took the sword to perish by
+it? Is the Prussian sovereign that stronger man of whose coming
+Cr&oelig;sus, that type of all prosperous sovereigns, was warned? Who shall
+say? But as Napoleon's ascendency rested, the sword apart, upon opinion,
+and not upon prescription, it is difficult to see how he can submit to a
+surrender of that ascendency, and make way for one who but yesterday was
+his inferior, and who, in all probability, was then ready to buy his aid
+at a high price. The Emperor is old and sickly. His life seems to have
+been in danger at the very time he was making his demand for an increase
+of imperial territory. Years and infirmities may indispose him to enter
+on a mighty war; but he thinks more of his dynasty than of himself, his
+ambition being to found a reigning house. This must lead him to respect
+French opinion, on his son's account; and opinion in France is anything
+but friendly to Prussia. Almost all Frenchmen, from <i>Reds</i> to
+<i>Whites</i>,&mdash;Republicans, Imperialists, Orleanists, and Legitimists,&mdash;seem
+to be of one mind on this point. They all agree that Prussian supremacy
+is unendurable. They could have seen their country make way for England,
+or Russia, or even Austria, without losing their temper altogether; but
+for France to be displaced by Prussia is something that it is beyond
+their philosophy to contemplate with patience. The very successes of the
+Emperor tell against him under existing circumstances. He has raised
+France so high, from a low condition, that a fall is unbearable to his
+subjects. He has triumphed, in various ways, over nations that appeared
+to be so much greater than Prussia, that to surrender the golden palm to
+her is the very nadir of degradation. His loss of moral power is as
+great at home as his loss of material power abroad. He has become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</a></span>
+ridiculous, as having been outwitted by Germans, whom the French have
+ever been disposed to look upon as the dullest of mankind. Ridicule may
+not be so powerful an agency in France to-day as it was in former times,
+but still it has there a sharp sting. The Emperor may be led into war by
+the force of French opinion; and he would have all Germany to contend
+against, with the exception of that portion of it which belongs to the
+house of Austria. The Austrians would gladly renew the war, with France
+for their ally. They would forgive Solferino, to obtain vengeance for
+Sadowa. What occurred among the Austrians when they heard of the French
+demand for a rectification of their frontier shows how readily they
+would come into any project for the humiliation of Prussia that France
+might form. They supposed the French demand would be pushed, and they
+evinced the utmost willingness to support it,&mdash;a fact that proves how
+little they care for Germany, and also how deeply they feel their own
+fall. They would have renewed the war immediately, had France given the
+word. But the Emperor did not give the word. He may have hesitated
+because he preferred to have Italy as an ally, or to see her occupy the
+position of a neutral; whereas, had he attacked Prussia before the
+conclusion of the late war, she must have adhered to the Prussian
+alliance, which would have led to the deduction of a large force from
+the armies of Austria and France that he would desire to have
+concentrated in Germany. Or he may have been fearful of even one of the
+consequences of victory; for would it not be a source of danger to him
+and his family were one of his marshals so to distinguish himself in a
+great war as to become the first man in France? The general of a
+legitimate sovereign can never aspire to his master's throne; but the
+French throne is fair prize for any man who should be able to conquer
+the conquerors of Sadowa. The Emperor's health would not permit him to
+lead his army in person, as he did in the Italian campaign; and that one
+of his lieutenants who should, by a repetition of the Jena business,
+avenge Waterloo, and regain for France, with additions, the rank she
+held five months ago, would probably prove a greater enemy to the house
+of Bonaparte than he had been to the house of Hohenzollern. The part of
+Hazael is always abhorred in advance as much as Hazael himself abhorred
+it; but Benhadad is sure to perish, and Hazael reigns in his stead.</p>
+
+<p>The nation by which this great change has been wrought in Europe&mdash;a
+change as extraordinary in itself as it is wonderful in its modes, and
+likely to lead to something far more important&mdash;is one of the most
+respectable members of the European commonwealth, though standing
+somewhat below the first rank, even while acting on terms of apparent
+equality with the other great powers. The kingdom of Prussia is of
+origin so comparatively recent, that there are those now living who can
+remember others who were old enough to note its creation, in 1700. The
+arrangements for the conversion of the electorate of Brandenburg into
+the kingdom of Prussia were completed on the 16th of November, 1700, and
+the coronation of Frederick I. took place on the 18th of January, 1701,
+two hundred and eighty-four years less three months after his family's
+connection with the country began; for it was on the 18th of April,
+1417, that the Emperor Sigismund, last member of the Luxemburg family,
+made Frederick, Burgrave of N&uuml;rnberg, Elector of Brandenburg,&mdash;the
+investiture taking place in the marketplace of Constance. The
+transaction was in the nature of a job, as Frederick was a relative of
+the Emperor, to whom he had advanced money, besides rendering him
+assistance in other ways. Frederick was of a very old family, and in
+this respect, as in some others, the house destined to become so great
+in the North bore a close resemblance to that other house destined to
+reign in the South, that of Savoy, which became regal not long after the
+elevation of descendants of the Burgrave of N&uuml;rnberg to royal rank. He
+was a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</a></span> adapted to the place he received; and the family has seldom
+failed to produce able men and women in every generation, some of them
+being of the highest intellectual force, while others have been
+remarkable for eccentricities that at times bore considerable
+resemblance to insanity. Yet there was not much in the history of the
+new electoral house that promised its future greatness, for more than
+two centuries.</p>
+
+<p>It is surprising to look back over the history of Germany, and note how
+differently matters have turned out, in respect to families and
+countries, from what observers of old times would have predicted. When
+Charles V. fled before Maurice of Saxony, he may have thought,
+considering the great part Saxony had had in the Reformation, that from
+that country danger might come to the house of Austria in yet greater
+measure; but he would have smiled at the prophet who should have told
+him not only that no such danger would come, but that Saxony would be
+ruined because of its adherence to the house of Austria, when assailed
+by a descendant of the then insignificant Elector of Brandenburg. Yet
+the prophet would have been right, for Saxony suffered so much from her
+connection with the Austrians in Frederick the Great's time that she
+never recovered therefrom; and in the late contest she was lost before a
+shot was fired, and her troops, after fighting valiantly in Bohemia,
+shared the disasters of the power upon which she had relied for
+protection. Bavaria was another German country that seemed more likely
+to rise to greatness than Brandenburg; but, though her progress has been
+respectable, it must be pronounced insignificant if compared with that
+of Prussia. The house of Wittelsbach was great before that of
+Hohenzollern had risen to general fame; but the latter has passed it, as
+if Fortune had taken the Hohenzollerns under its special protection, and
+we should not be in the least surprised were they to take all its
+territory ere the twentieth century shall have fairly dawned upon the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>The first of the great Prussian rulers was the Elector Frederick
+William, who reigned from 1640 to 1688, and who is known as the Great
+Elector,&mdash;a title of which he was every way worthy, and not the less
+that there was just a suspicion of the tyrant in his composition. He had
+not a little of that "justness of insight, toughness of character, and
+general strength of bridle-hand," which Mr. Carlyle attributes to
+Rudolph of Hapsburg. He was a man of the times, and a man for the times.
+He came to the throne just as the Thirty Years' War was well advanced in
+its last decade, and he had a ruined country for his inheritance; but he
+raised that country to a high place in Europe, and was connected with
+many of the principal events of the age of Louis XIV. He freed Prussia
+from her connection with Poland. He created that Prussian army which has
+done such wonderful things in the greatest of wars in the last two
+centuries. He it was who won the battle of Fehrbellin, June 18, 1675, at
+the expense of the Swedes, who were still living on the mighty
+reputation won under Gustavus Adolphus, almost half a century earlier,
+and maintained by the splendid soldiers trained in his school. The calm
+and philosophic Rank&egrave; warms into something like eloquence when summing
+up the work of the Great Elector. "Frederick William," he says, "cannot
+be placed in the same category with those few great men who have
+discovered new conditions for the development of the human race; but he
+may unhesitatingly be ranked with those famous princes who have saved
+their countries in the hour of danger, and have succeeded in
+re-establishing order,&mdash;with an Alfred, a Charles VII., a Gustavus Vasa.
+He followed the path trodden by the German territorial princes of old;
+but among them all there was not one who, finding his state reduced to
+such a miserable condition, so successfully raised it to independence
+and power. He instilled into his subjects a spirit of enterprise,&mdash;the
+mainspring of a state. He took measures which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</a></span> secured to his country an
+increase of power and prosperity. What the world most admired, and
+indeed what he himself most valued, was the condition of his army. It
+contained at the time of his death one hundred and seventy-five
+companies of foot, and seventy-six of cavalry; the artillery had
+recently been increased in proportion, and the Elector's attention had
+been constantly directed to its improvement. The whole strength of the
+army was about twenty-eight thousand men. There was nothing that he
+recommended so earnestly to his successor as the preservation of this
+instrument of power. By this it was that he had made room for himself
+among his neighbors, and had won for the Protestant cause of North
+Germany the respect that was its due."<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nor did he neglect that naval arm which has been of so great service to
+many countries. Prussia's desire to have a navy has raised many smiles,
+and caused much laughter, in this century, as if it were something new;
+whereas it is an ancient aspiration, and one which all Prussian
+sovereigns and statesmen have experienced for two hundred years, though
+not strongly. The Great Czar, who came upon the stage just after the
+Great Elector left it, did not long more for a good sea-coast than that
+Elector had longed for it. Frederick William could not effect so much as
+Peter effected, but he did something toward the creation of a navy for
+Prussia. His reluctance in parting with a portion of Pomerania was owing
+to his commercial and maritime aspirations. "Of all the princes of the
+house of Brandenburg," says Rank&egrave;, "he is the only one who ever showed a
+strong predilection for maritime life and maritime power. It was the
+dream of his youth that he would one day sail along shores obedient to
+his will, all the way from Custrin, out by the mouths of the Oder,
+across to the coast of Prussia. His sojourn in the Netherlands had
+strengthened, though it had not inspired, his love of the sea. The best
+proof how painful this cession was to the Elector is the fact that he
+shortly afterward offered to the crown of Sweden, not alone the three
+sees of Halberstadt, Minden, and Magdeburg, but a sum of two millions of
+thalers in addition, for the possession of Pomerania." The same writer
+says of the Great Elector elsewhere, that "his mind had a wide grasp; to
+us it may seem almost too wide, when we call to mind that he brought the
+coast of Guinea into direct communication with Brandenburg, and ventured
+to compete with Spain on the ocean." When he died, the population of his
+dominions amounted to one million five hundred thousand.</p>
+
+<p>His successor was his son Frederick, who added to the territory of
+Prussia, and who, as before stated, became king in November, 1700, a few
+days after the extinction, in the person of Charles II., of the Spanish
+branch of the house of Austria. One royal house had gone out, and
+another came in. Prince Eugene of Savoy, the ablest man that ever served
+the house of Austria, plainly told the German Emperor that his ministers
+deserved the gallows for advising him to consent to the creation of the
+new kingdom, and all subsequent German history seems to show that he was
+right. But that house needed all the aid it could beg, buy, or borrow,
+to press its claim to the Spanish crowns; and, thanks to the exertions
+of the Great Elector, Brandenburg had an army, the aid of which was well
+worth purchasing at what Leopold may have thought to be a nominal price,
+after all. So well balanced were the parties to the war of the Spanish
+Succession, at least in its earlier years, that the mere absence of the
+Prussian contingent from the armies of the Grand Alliance might have
+thrown victory into the French scale. What would have been the effect
+had the army and the influence of Brandenburg been placed at the
+disposal of Louis XIV.? What would have been the fate of the house of
+Austria, had the Elector been actively employed on the French side,
+like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</a></span> the Elector of Bavaria, in the campaign of Blenheim, instead of
+being one of the stoutest supporters of the Austrians? Even Eugene
+himself might never have won most of those victories which have made his
+name immortal, had his policy prevailed at Vienna in 1700, and the
+Emperor refused to convert the Elector of Brandenburg into King of
+Prussia. At Blenheim, the Prussians behaved in the noblest manner, and
+won the highest praise from Eugene, who commanded in that part of the
+field where they were stationed; and he spoke particularly of their
+"undaunted resolution" in withstanding the enemy's attacks, and of their
+activity at a later period of the battle. It is curious to observe that
+he notes the steadiness and strength of their fire,&mdash;a peculiarity that
+has distinguished the Prussian infantry from the beginning of its
+existence, and which, from the introduction of the iron ramrod into the
+service, had much to do with the successes of Frederick the Great, and,
+from the use of the needle-gun, quite as much with the successes of
+Prince Frederick Charles and the Crown Prince. In the time of Frederick
+I., the Prussian troops were employed in Germany and Italy, in France
+and Flanders. They also served against the Turks. It may be said, that,
+if the Great Elector created the Prussian army, it received the baptism
+of fire in full from his son, Frederick I., the first Prussian king.</p>
+
+<p>Frederick I. died in 1713. If it be true&mdash;as we think it is&mdash;that the
+great enterprise of William of Orange for the deliverance of England
+could not have been undertaken but for the aid he gave that prince,
+Englishmen and Americans ought to hold his name in especial remembrance.
+He was succeeded by his son Frederick William I., who is counted a brute
+by most persons, but whom Mr. Carlyle would have us believe to have been
+a man of remarkable worth. He had talents, and he increased the
+territory of his kingdom. When he died, in 1740, he left to his son a
+kingdom containing 2,500,000 souls, a treasury containing $6,000,000,
+and an army more than thirty thousand strong, and which was the first
+force in Europe because of its high state of discipline and of the
+superiority of its infantry weapon. The introduction of the iron ramrod
+was a greater improvement, relatively, in 1740, than was the
+introduction of the needle-gun in the present generation. Nothing but
+the use of that ramrod saved the Prussians from destruction in the first
+of Frederick II.'s wars. That gave them superiority, which they well
+knew how to keep. "The main thing," as Rank&egrave; observes, "was a regular
+step and rapid firing; or, as the king once expressed it, 'Load quickly,
+advance in close column, present well, take aim well,&mdash;all in profound
+silence.'" The whole business of infantry in the field is summed up in
+the royal sentence, though some may think that line would be a better
+word than column; and the Prussian system did favor the linear rather
+than the columnar arrangement of troops, as it "presented a wide front,
+less exposed to the fire of the artillery, and more efficient from the
+force of its musketry."</p>
+
+<p>Frederick William I. died in 1740. His successor was Frederick II.,
+commonly called the Great. His history has been so much discussed of
+late years that it would be useless to mention its details. He raised
+Prussia to the first rank in Europe. Russia was coming in as a European
+power, and Spain was then as great as France or England, partly because
+of her former greatness, but as much from the sagacity of her sovereign
+and the talents of her statesmen. Louis XV. had lessened the weight of
+France, and George III. had degraded England. The Austrian house had
+suffered from its failure before Frederick. All things combined to make
+of Prussia the most formidable of European nations during the last half
+of Frederick's reign. When he died, in 1786, the Prussian population
+amounted to six millions,&mdash;the increase being chiefly due to the
+acquisition of Silesia, which was taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</a></span> from Austria, and to
+Frederick's share in the first partition of Poland. He left $50,000,000,
+and his army contained 220,000 men.</p>
+
+<p>Frederick William II., a weak sovereign, reigned till 1797. He took part
+in the first coalition against revolutionary France, and in the second
+and third partitions of Poland. Frederick William III. reigned from 1797
+to 1840, during which time Prussia experienced every vicissitude of
+fortune. The first war with imperial France, in 1806-7, led to the
+reduction of her territory and population one half; and what was left of
+country and people was most mercilessly treated by Napoleon I., who
+should either have restored her altogether, or have annihilated her. But
+the great Emperor was partial to half-measures,&mdash;a folly that had much
+to do with his fall. The misery that Prussia then experienced was the
+cause of her subsequent greatness; and if she has wrested European
+supremacy from Napoleon III., she should thank Napoleon I. for enabling
+her to accomplish so great a feat of arms. The Prussian government had
+to undertake the task of reform, to save itself and the country from
+perishing. The chief man in this great work was the celebrated Baron von
+Stein, whose name is of infrequent mention in popular histories of the
+Napoleonic age, but who had more to do with the overthrow of the Man of
+Destiny than any other person. It is one of those strange facts which
+are so constantly meeting us in history, that it was by Napoleon's
+advice that Stein was employed by the Prussian king. "Take the Baron von
+Stein," said the Emperor, when the king at Tilsit spoke of the misery of
+his situation; "he is a man of sense." Eighteen months later, Napoleon
+actually outlawed Stein, the decree of outlawry dating from Madrid. The
+language of the decree was of the most insulting character. "One Stein"
+(<i>le nomm&eacute; Stein</i>), it was said, was endeavoring to create troubles in
+Germany, and therefore he was denounced as an enemy of France and of the
+Rhenish Confederacy. The property he held in French or confederate
+territory was confiscated, and the troops of France and her allies were
+ordered to arrest him, wherever he could be found. Had he been taken,
+quite likely he would have been as summarily dealt with as Palm had
+been.</p>
+
+<p>Stein fled into Bohemia, where he resided three years, when Alexander I.
+invited him to Russia, and employed him in the most important affairs.
+He kept up Alexander's courage during the darkest days of 1812, and
+advised, with success, against yielding to the French, though it is
+probable the Czar might have had his own terms from Napoleon, after the
+latter had reached Moscow. It is said that the American Minister in
+Russia, the late Mr. J. Q. Adams, was not less energetic than Stein on
+the same side. It may well be doubted if their advice was such as a
+Russian sovereign should have followed, though it was excellent for
+Germany and for all nations that feared Napoleon. If the American
+Minister did what was attributed to him, he actually acted in behalf of
+the very nation against which his own country had just declared war! The
+war between the United States and England began at the same time that
+active operations against Russia were entered upon by the French; and
+England was the only powerful nation upon which Russia could rely for
+assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Stein had done his work before he was made to leave Prussia. He was the
+creator of the Prussian people. His reforms would be pronounced agrarian
+measures in England or America. An imitation of them in England might
+not be amiss; but in America, where land is a drug, and where possession
+of it does not give half the consideration that proceeds from the
+ownership of "stocks" or funds, it would be as much out of place as a
+mixture for blackening negroes, or a machine for converting New England
+soil into rocks. "Stein's main idea," says Vehse, "was, 'the burgher
+must become noble.' With this view, he tried to call<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</a></span> forth a strong
+feeling of nationality and a new spirit in the people. His first step in
+introducing his new system of administration was the abolition of
+vassalage, and the change of the titles of seignorial property. This was
+done by the edict dated Memel, October 9, 1807, which did away with the
+monopoly until then claimed by the nobles holding such estates, which
+were now allowed to be acquired also by burghers and peasants. It
+moreover abolished all the feudal burdens of tenure. In this great law,
+Frederick William III. laid down the principle: 'After St. Martin's day,
+1810, there will be throughout my dominions none but free people.' This
+edict first created in Prussia a <i>free</i> peasantry. Free burghers, on the
+other hand, were created by the municipal law from K&ouml;nigsberg, November
+19, 1808, which restored to the burgesses their ancient municipal rights
+of freely electing their magistrates and deputies, and of
+self-government within their own civic sphere.... Stein tried in every
+way to secure to the burgher his independence, and to protect him
+against the despotism of the men in office. With equal energy he tried
+to develop the spirit of the people."<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> For five years most of the
+Prussian ministers labored in the same spirit. A military force was
+created, chiefly by the labors of Scharnhorst, and the limitation of the
+Prussian army by Napoleon was in great part evaded. Everything was done
+to create a people, and to have ready the moral and material means from
+which to create an army, should circumstances arise under which Prussia
+might think it safe for her to act. Hardenberg did not go so far as
+Stein would have gone, but it is probable that he acted wisely; for very
+strong measures might have brought Napoleon's hand upon him. As it was,
+the Emperor could not complain of measures that breathed the very spirit
+of the French Revolution, of which he was the impersonation and the
+champion,&mdash;or claimed to be.</p>
+
+<p>But all the labors of Stein, and those other Prussian patriots who acted
+with him or followed in his footsteps, would have been of no avail, had
+not Napoleon afforded them an opportunity to turn their labors to
+account. They might have elevated the people, have accumulated money,
+have massed munitions, and have drilled the entire male population to
+the business and work of war, till they should have surpassed all that
+is told of Roman discipline and efficiency; but all such exertions would
+have been utterly thrown away had the French Emperor behaved like a
+rational being, and not sought to illustrate his famous dogma, that the
+impossible has no existence, by seeking to achieve impossibilities. At
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</a></span> beginning of 1812, Napoleon was literally invincible. He was master
+of all Continental Europe, from the Atlantic to the Niemen, and from
+Cape North to Reggio. There was not a sovereign in that part of the
+world, from the kings of Sweden and Denmark to the Emperor of Austria
+and the Turkish Sultan, who did not wear crowns and wield sceptres only
+because the sometime General Bonaparte was willing they should wear and
+wield the emblems of imperial or royal power. He was at war only with
+Great Britain, and Spain, Portugal, and Sicily; and Great Britain was
+the sole enemy he was bound to respect. All the more enlightened
+Spaniards were all but ready to acknowledge the rule of his brother
+Joseph, and would have done so but for French failure in the Russian
+war. England's army could have been driven from the Peninsula with ease,
+had a third of the men who were worse than wasted in Russia been
+directed thither in the early spring of 1812. The Bourbons of Sicily
+hated their English protectors so bitterly, that they were ready to
+unite with the French to get up a modern imitation of the Sicilian
+Vespers at their expense. The war might soon have been confined to the
+ocean, and there it would have been fought for France principally by
+Americans, as the United States were soon to declare war against
+England. Never before was man so strong as Napoleon on New-Year's day,
+1812; and in less than four years he was living in lodgings, and bad
+lodgings too, in St. Helena! What hope could the Prussians have, a month
+before the march to Moscow was resolved upon? None that could encourage
+them. Some of the more sanguine spirits, supported by general sentiment,
+were still of opinion that something could be effected; but the larger
+number of intelligent men were very despondent, and not a few of them
+began to think of the world beyond the Atlantic, as English patriots had
+thought almost two centuries earlier, when, that "blood and iron man,"
+Wentworth (Strafford), was developing his system of <i>Thorough</i> with a
+precision and an energy that even Count Bismark has never surpassed. The
+bolder Prussians, when their country had to choose between resistance to
+Napoleon and an alliance with him against Russia, were for resistance,
+and would have placed their country right across the Emperor's path, and
+fought out the battle with him, and abided the consequences, which would
+have been the annihilation of Prussia in a sixth part of the time that
+Mr. Seward allotted for the duration of the Secession war. The Prussian
+war party would have had the Russians advance into their country, and
+thus have staked the issue on just such a contest as occurred in 1806-7.
+Napoleon, it is at least believed, was desirous that Prussia should join
+Russia, as that would have enabled him to defeat his enemies without
+crossing the Russian frontier, and have afforded him an excuse for
+destroying Prussia. To prevent so untimely a display of resistance to
+French ascendency was the aim of a few Prussians, headed by the king
+himself, who became very unpopular in consequence. Fortunately for
+Prussia, they were successful, and the means employed deceived not only
+the patriotic party, but even Napoleon, who was completely imposed upon
+by the report of the Baron von dem Knesebeck against a war between
+Russia and France. The story belongs to the romance of history; but it
+is too long, because involving many facts, to be told here.</p>
+
+<p>Prussia was prevented from "throwing herself into the arms of Russia,"
+much to the disgust of Scharnhorst and his friends. She even assisted
+Napoleon in his war against Alexander, and sent a contingent to the
+Grand Army, which formed the tenth corps of that memorable force, and
+was commanded by Marshal Macdonald. It consisted of twenty-six thousand
+men, including one French infantry division,&mdash;the Prussians being
+generally estimated at twenty thousand men. This corps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</a></span> did very little
+during the campaign, and soon after the failure of the French it went
+over to the Russians, taking the first step in that course which made
+Prussia so formidable a member of the Grand Alliance of 1813-15. But
+even so late as the close of May, 1813, Prussia was in danger of
+annihilation, and would have been annihilated had not Napoleon proffered
+an armistice, which was accepted,&mdash;the greatest blunder of his career,
+according to some eminent critics, as well political as military.</p>
+
+<p>The leading part which Prussia had in the Liberation War and in the
+first overthrow of Napoleon caused her to be reconstructed by the
+Congress of Vienna; and her part in the war of 1815 confirmed the
+impression she had made on the world. Waterloo was as much a Prussian as
+an English victory,&mdash;the loss of the Prussians in that action being
+about as great as the purely English loss.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> She became one of the
+Five Powers which by common consent were rulers of Europe. Down to 1830
+she had more influence than France, and from 1830 to the
+re-establishment of the Napoleonic dynasty, she was France's equal; and
+even after Napoleon III. had replaced France at the head of Europe,
+Prussia was the only member of the Pentarchy which had not been
+humiliated by his blows, or yet more by his assistance. England has
+suffered from her connection with him,&mdash;a connection difficult on many
+occasions to distinguish from inferiority and subserviency; and in war
+the old superiority of the French armies to those of Russia and Austria
+has been asserted in the Crimea and in Italy. Prussia alone has not
+stooped before the avenger of the man whom she had so vindictive a part
+in overthrowing, and whom her military chief purposed having slain on
+the very spot where the Duc d'Enghien had been put to death by his
+(Napoleon's) orders. Of all the enemies of Napoleon and France in 1815,
+Prussia was the most malignant, or rather she was the only member of the
+Alliance which exhibited malignity.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> She would have had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</a></span> France
+partitioned; and failed in her design only because openly opposed by
+Russia and England, while Austria, fearing to offend German opinion,
+secretly supported the Czar and Wellington. Bl&uuml;cher, an earnest man, was
+never more in earnest than when he purposed to shoot Napoleon in the
+ditch of Vincennes; and it required all Wellington's influence to
+dissuade him from so barbarous a proceeding. Yet Napoleon III. has never
+been able to avenge these injuries and insults,&mdash;to say nothing of
+Waterloo, and of the massacre of the flying French in the night after
+the battle, or of the shocking conduct of the Prussians in France in
+1815; and the events of the current year would seem to favor, and that
+strongly, the opinion of those persons who say that France never will be
+able to obtain her long-thought-of revenge. Certainly, if <i>Prussia</i> was
+safe, Prussia with most of Germany to back her cannot be in any serious
+danger of being forced to drink of that cup of humiliation which
+Napoleon III. has commended to so many countries.</p>
+
+<p>After the settlement of Europe, in 1815, Prussia did not show much of
+that encroaching character which is attributed to her, but was one of
+the most quiet of nations. This was in great measure due to the
+character of the king. He was of the class of heavy men, and the first
+part of his reign had been marked by the occurrence of troubles so
+numerous and so great that his original dislike of change increased to
+fanaticism. He was one of the framers of the Holy Alliance, which grew
+out of the thorough fright which he and his friend the Czar felt during
+the saddest days of 1813. Alexander told a Prussian clergyman, named
+Egbert, in 1818, that, during one of their flights before
+Napoleon,&mdash;probably on that doleful day when they had to retreat from
+Dresden, amid wind and rain, and before the French reverse at Kulm had
+put a good face on the affairs of the Alliance,&mdash;Frederick William III.
+said to him: "Things cannot go on so! we are in the direction of the
+east, and it is toward the west that we ought to march, that we must
+march. We shall, God willing, arrive there. And if, as I trust, he
+should bless our united efforts, we will proclaim in the face of Heaven
+our conviction that to Him alone belongs the honor." Thereupon,
+continued the Czar, "We promised, and exchanged a pressure of hands upon
+it with sincerity." Both monarchs evidently thought they had succeeded
+in bribing Heaven; for Alexander told his reverend hearer that great
+victories soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</a></span> came; "and," said he, "when we had arrived in Paris, we
+had reached the end of our painful course. The king of Prussia reminded
+me of the holy resolution of which he had entertained the first idea;
+and Francis II., who had shared our views, our opinions, and our
+tendencies, entered willingly into the association." Such was
+Alexander's account of the origin of that famous league which so
+perplexed and alarmed our fathers. It differs from the commonly received
+belief as to its origin, which is, that it was the work of Alexander
+himself, who was inspired by Madame de Krudener, who, having "played the
+devil and written a novel,"&mdash;she was unfaithful to her marriage vow, and
+wrote "Valerio,"&mdash;naturally became devout as old age approached. It
+makes somewhat against the Czar's story, that the Holy Alliance was not
+formed till the autumn of 1815, and that he and Frederick William
+arrived at Paris in the spring of 1814; and that in the interval he and
+Francis II. came very near going to war on the Polish question.
+Alexander was crack-brained, and a mystic, and it is far more likely
+that he should have originated the Holy Alliance than that the idea
+should have proceeded from so wooden-headed a personage as the Prussian
+king, who had about as much sentiment as a Memel log. Alexander was
+always haunted by the thought that he had consented to the death of his
+father,&mdash;that, as a Greek would have said, he was pursued by the Furies;
+and he was constantly thinking of expiation, and seeking to propitiate
+the Deity, and that by means not much different in spirit from those to
+which savages have resort. There was much of that Tartar in him which,
+according to Napoleon, you will always find when you scratch a Russian.</p>
+
+<p>Whether Frederick William III. suggested the Holy Alliance may be
+doubted; but there can be no doubt that he lived thoroughly up to its
+spirit, which was the spirit of intense absolutism. He broke every
+promise he had made to his people when he needed their aid to keep his
+kingdom out of the grasp of Napoleon. He became the vindictive
+persecutor of the men who had led his subjects in the war to rush to
+arms, without counting the odds they had to encounter at first. He was a
+despot of the old pattern, as far as a sovereign of the nineteenth
+century could be one. It does not appear that he acted thus from love of
+power for its own sake, to which so much of tyrannical action is due. In
+most respects he was rather a favorable specimen of the despot. His
+action was the consequence of circumstances, the effect of experience.
+He had had two or three thorough frights, and twice he had been in
+danger of losing his crown, and of seeing the extinction of that nation
+which his ancestors had been at such pains to create. If exertions of
+his could prevent the recurrence of such evils, they should not be
+wanting. As Charles II., after the Restoration of 1660, had firmly
+resolved on one thing, namely, that, come what would, he would not again
+go upon his travels, so had Frederick William III., after the
+restoration of his kingdom, firmly resolved that, happen what might, he
+would have no more wars, and that, if he could, he would keep out of
+politics. So he maintained peace, and kept down the politicians. Prussia
+flourished marvellously during the last twenty-five years of his reign;
+and, judging from results, his government could not have been a bad one.
+Under it was created that people whose recent action has astonished the
+world, and produced for it a new sensation. A comprehensive system of
+education opened the paths to knowledge to every one; and a not less
+comprehensive military system made every healthy man's services
+available to the state. There never before took the field so highly
+educated a force as that which has just reduced Count Bismark's policy
+to practice,&mdash;not even in America. There may have been as intelligent
+armies in the Union's service during our civil conflict as those which
+obeyed Prince Frederick Charles and the Crown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</a></span> Prince of Prussia, but as
+highly educated most certainly they were not.</p>
+
+<p>When Friedrich von Raumer was in England, in 1835, he, at an English
+dinner, gave this toast: "The King of Prussia, the greatest and best
+reformer in Europe." That he was the "best reformer in Europe," we will
+not insist upon,&mdash;but that he was the greatest reformer there, we have
+no doubt whatever. That he was a reformer at heart, originally, no one
+would pretend who knows his history. He was made one by stress of
+circumstances. But having become a reformer, he did a great work, as
+contemporary history shows. He would have been content to live, and
+reign, and die, sovereign of just such a Prussia as he found in 1797;
+but, in spite of himself, he was made to effect a mightier revolution
+than even a French revolutionist of 1793 would have deemed it possible
+to accomplish. His career is the liveliest illustration that we know of
+the doctrine that men are the sport of circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Frederick William III. died in 1840. His son and successor, Frederick
+William IV., was a man of considerable ability and a rare scholar; but
+he was not up to his work, the more so that the age of revolutions
+appeared again early in his reign. He might have made himself master of
+all Germany in 1848, but had not the courage to act as a Prussian
+sovereign should have acted. He was elected Emperor by the revolutionary
+Diet at Frankfort, but refused the crown. A little later, under the
+inspiration of General Radowitz, he took up such a position as we have
+seen his successor fill so effectively. War with Austria seemed close at
+hand, and the unity of Germany might have been brought about sixteen
+years since had the Prussian monarch been equal to the crisis. As it
+was, he "backed down," and Radowitz, who was a too-early Bismark, left
+his place, and died at the close of 1853. The king lost his mind in
+1857; and his brother William became Regent, and succeeded to the throne
+in 1861, on the death of Frederick William IV.</p>
+
+<p>The reign of William I. will be regarded as one of the most remarkable
+in Prussian history. Though an old man when he took the crown, William
+I. has advanced the greatness of Prussia even more than it was advanced
+by Frederick II. His course with regard to the Danish Duchies has called
+forth many indignant remarks; but it is no worse than that of most other
+sovereigns, and stones cannot fairly be cast at him by many ruling
+hands. Count Bismark has been the chief minister of Prussia under
+William I., and to him must be attributed that policy which has carried
+his country, <i>per saltum</i>, to the highest place among the nations. He
+long since came to the conclusion that nothing could be done for
+Germany, by Germany and in Germany, till Austria should be thrust out of
+Germany. He was right; and he has labored to accomplish the dismissal of
+Austria, with a perseverance and a persistency that it would be
+difficult to parallel. He alone has done the deed. Had he died last May,
+there would have been no war in Europe this year; for nothing less than
+his redoubtable courage and iron will could have overcome the obstacles
+that existed to the commencement of the conflict.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Exactly what it was Napoleon III. asked of Prussia we
+never have seen stated by any authority that we can quite trust. The
+London Times, which is likely to be well informed on the subject,
+assumes, in its issue of August 11th, that the Emperor asked of Prussia
+the restoration of the French frontier of 1814,&mdash;meaning the French
+frontier as it was fixed by the Treaty of Paris, on the 30th of May,
+immediately after the fall of Napoleon I. If this is the correct
+interpretation of Napoleon's demand, he asked for very little. The
+Treaty of Paris took from France nearly all the conquests made by the
+Republic and the Empire, leaving her only a few places on the side of
+Germany, a little territory near Geneva, portions of Savoy, and the
+Venaissin. After the second conquest of France, most of these remnants
+of her conquests were taken from her. Napoleon III. has regained what
+was then lost of Savoy, and he seems to have sought from Prussia the
+restoration of that which was lost on the side of Germany, most of which
+was given to Bavaria and Belgium, and the remainder to Prussia herself.
+What Prussia holds, he supposed she could cede to France; and as to
+Bavaria, he may have argued that Prussia was in such position with
+regard to that kingdom as to make her will law to its government. But
+how could she get possession of what Belgium holds? Since the failure of
+his attempt, the French Emperor has been at peculiar pains to assure the
+King of the Belgians that he has no designs on his territory; and
+therefore we must suppose he had none when he propounded his demand to
+Prussia. It may be added, that the cession of the Prussian portion of
+the spoil of 1815 had been a subject of speculation, and of something
+like negotiation, long before war between Prussia and Austria was
+supposed to be possible.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> There has been as much noise made over the needle-gun as
+by that famous and fascinating slaughter weapon; yet it is by no means
+an arm of tender years. It had been known thirty years when the recent
+war began, and it had been amply tested in action seventeen years before
+it was first directed against the Austrians, not to mention the free use
+that had been made of it in the Danish war. Much that has been said of
+its character and capabilities since last June was said in 1849, and can
+be found in publications of that year. The world had forgotten it, and
+also that Prussia could fight. Nicholas von Dreyse, inventor of the
+needle-gun, is now living, at the age of seventy-eight. The thought of
+the invention occurred to him the day after the battle of Jena, in 1806.
+Some six or seven years since, we read, in an English work, an elaborate
+argument to show that, in a great war, Prussia must be beaten, because
+she had no experienced commanders!&mdash;like Benedek and Clam-Gallas, for
+example.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The entire force of the Allies at Leipzig is generally
+stated to have been 290,000 men; that of the French at 175,000,&mdash;making
+a total of 465,000, or about 45,000 more than were present at Sadowa. So
+the excess at Leipzig was not so very great. At Leipzig the Allies alone
+had more guns than both armies had at Sadowa,&mdash;but what were the cannon
+of those days compared to those of these times? The great force
+assembled in and around Leipzig was taken from almost all Europe, as
+there were Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Hungarians, Bohemians,
+Italians, Poles, Swedes, Dutchmen, and even Englishmen, present in the
+two armies; whereas at Sadowa the armies were drawn only from Austria,
+Prussia, and Saxony. The battle of Sadowa lasted only one day; that of
+Leipzig four days, a large part of the Allied armies taking part only in
+the fighting of the third and fourth days. The French lost 68,000 men at
+Leipzig, the Allies, 42,640,&mdash;total, 110,640. But 30,000 of the French
+were prisoners, reducing the number of killed and wounded to
+80,640,&mdash;which was even a good four days' work. Probably a third of
+these were killed or mortally wounded, as artillery was freely
+used in the battle. War is a great manufacturer of <i>pabulum
+Acheruntis</i>,&mdash;grave-meat, that is to say.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> It is impossible to speak with precision of the number of
+the population of Prussia. The highest number mentioned by a respectable
+authority is 19,000,000; but that is given in "round numbers," and is
+not meant to be taken literally. But if it be 19,000,000, but little
+more than half as large as that of Austria as it was when the war began,
+not much above a fourth as large as that of Russia, many millions below
+that of the British Islands, a few million less than that of Italy as it
+stood before the cession of Venetia by Austria, and a few millions more
+than that of Spain. The populations of Prussia and Italy when the war
+began were a little above 40,000,000. The populations of Austria and the
+German states that sided with her may have been about 50,000,000; and
+Austria had as much assistance from her German allies as Prussia had
+from the Italians,&mdash;the Saxons helping her much, showing the highest
+military qualities in the brief but bloody war. Had all the lesser
+German states preserved a strict neutrality, so that the entire Prussian
+force could have been directed against Austria, the Prussians would have
+been before Vienna, and probably in that city, in ten days from the date
+of Sadowa. Prussia brought out 730,000 men, or about one twenty-sixth
+part of her entire population.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, and History of
+Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Vol. I. pp. 91,
+92.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Stein was one of those eminent men who have acted as if
+they thought coarseness bordering upon brutality an evidence of
+independence of spirit and greatness of soul. He was uncivil to those
+beneath him, not civil to those above him, and insulting to his equals.
+He addressed the King of Prussia in language that no gentleman ever
+employs, and he berated his underlings in a style that even President
+Johnson might despair of equalling. He hated the Duke of Dalberg, on
+both public and private accounts; and when the Duke was one of the
+French Ambassadors at Vienna, in time of the Congress, he offered to
+call on the Baron. "Tell him," said Stein, "that, if he visits me as
+French Ambassador, he shall be well received; but if he comes as a
+private person, he shall be kicked down stairs." Niebuhr, the historian,
+once told him that he (Stein) hated a certain personage. "Hate him? No,"
+said Stein; "but I would spit in his face were I to meet him on the
+street." This readiness to convert the human face into a spittoon shows
+that he was qualified to represent a Southern district in our Congress;
+for what Stein said he would do was done by Mr. Plummer of Mississippi,
+who spat in the face of Mr. Slade of Vermont,&mdash;the American democrat,
+who probably never had heard of his grandfather, getting a little beyond
+the German aristocrat, who could trace his ancestors back through six or
+seven centuries. Thus do extremes meet. In talents, in energy, in
+audacity, in arrogance, in firmness of will, and in unbending devotion
+to one great and leading purpose, Count von Bismark bears a strong
+resemblance to Baron von Stein, upon whom he seems to have modelled
+himself,&mdash;while Austrian ascendency in Germany was to him what French
+ascendency in that country was to his prototype, only not so productive
+of furious hatred, because the supremacy of Austria was offensive
+politically, and not personally annoying, like that of France; but
+Bismark, though sufficiently demonstrative in the expression of his
+sentiments, has never outraged propriety to the extent that it was
+outraged by Stein. Stein died in 1831, having lived long enough to see
+the in French Revolution of 1830 that a portion of his work had been
+done in vain. His Prussian work will endure forever, and be felt
+throughout the world.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> The Prussian loss in the battle of Waterloo was 6,998; the
+<i>British</i> loss, 6,935;&mdash;but this does not include the Germans, Dutch,
+and Belgians who fell on the field or were put down among the missing.
+Wellington's total loss was about 16,000. The number of Prussians
+present in the battle was much more than twice the number of Britons.
+The number of the latter was 23,991, with 78 guns; of the former,
+51,944, with 104 guns. Almost 16,000 of the Prussians were engaged some
+hours before the event of the battle was decided; almost 30,000 two
+hours before that decision; and the remainder an hour before the Allied
+victory was secured. It shows how seriously the French were damaged by
+Prussian intervention, that Napoleon had to detach, from the army that
+he had intended to employ against Wellington only, 27 battalions of
+infantry (including 11 battalions of the Guard), 18 squadrons of
+cavalry, and 66 guns, making a total of about 18,000 men, or about a
+fourth part of his force and almost a third of his artillery. This
+subtraction from the army that ought to have been used in fighting
+Wellington would alone have suffered gravely to compromise the French;
+and it is well known that Napoleon felt the want of men to send against
+the English long before the conflict was over; and this want was the
+consequence of the pressure of the Prussians on his right flank,
+threatening to establish themselves in his rear. But this was not all
+the aid derived by Wellington from the Prussian advance. It was the
+arrival of a portion of Zieten's corps on the field of Waterloo that
+enabled the British commander to withdraw from his left the
+comparatively untouched cavalry brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur, and to
+station them in or near the centre of his line, where they were of the
+greatest use at the very "crisis" of the battle,&mdash;Vivian, in particular,
+doing as much as was done by any one of Wellington's officers to secure
+victory for his commander. The Prussians followed the flying French for
+hours, and had the satisfaction of giving the final blow to Napoleonism
+for that time. It has risen again.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> No one who is not familiar with the correspondence of the
+Allied commanders in 1815 can form an adequate idea of the ferocity
+which then characterized the Prussian officers. On the 27th of June
+General von Gneisenau, writing for Bl&uuml;cher, declared that Napoleon must
+be delivered over to the Prussians, "with a view to his execution."
+That, he argued, was what eternal justice demanded, and what the
+Declaration of March 13th decided,&mdash;alluding to the Declaration against
+Napoleon published by the Congress of Vienna, which, he said, and fairly
+enough too, put him under outlawry by the Allied powers. Doing the Duke
+of Wellington the justice to suppose he would be averse to hangman's
+work, Gneisenau, who stood next to Bl&uuml;cher in the Prussian service as
+well as in Prussian estimation, expressed his leader's readiness to free
+him from all responsibility in the matter by taking possession of
+Napoleon's person himself, and detailing the intended assassins from his
+own army. Wellington was astonished at such language from gentlemen, and
+so exerted himself that Bl&uuml;cher changed his mind; whereupon Gneisenau
+wrote that it had been Bl&uuml;cher's "intention to execute [murder?]
+Bonaparte on the spot where the Duc d'Enghien was shot; that out of
+deference, however, to the Duke's wishes, he will abstain from this
+measure; but that the Duke must take on himself the responsibility of
+its non-enforcement." In another letter he wrote: "When the Duke of
+Wellington declares himself against the execution of Bonaparte, he
+thinks and acts in the matter as a Briton. Great Britain is under
+weightier obligations to no mortal man than to this very villain; for,
+by the occurrences whereof he is the author, her greatness, prosperity,
+and wealth have attained their present elevation. The English are the
+masters of the seas, and have no longer to fear any rivalry, either in
+this dominion or the commerce of the world. It is quite otherwise with
+us Prussians. We have been impoverished by him. Our nobility will never
+be able to right itself again." There is much of the <i>perfide Albion</i>
+nonsense in this. In a letter which Gneisenau, in 1817, wrote to Sir
+Hudson Lowe, then Governor of St. Helena, he said: "Mille et mille fois
+j'ai port&eacute; mes souvenirs dans cette vaste solitude de l'oc&eacute;an, et sur ce
+rocher interessant sur lequel vous &ecirc;tes le gardien du repos public de
+l'Europe. De votre vigilance et de votre force de caract&egrave;re d&eacute;pend notre
+salut; d&egrave;s que vous vous rel&acirc;chez de vos mesures de rigueur contre <i>le
+plus rus&eacute; sc&eacute;l&eacute;rat du monde</i>, d&egrave;s que vous permettriez &agrave; vos subalternes
+de lui accorder par une piti&eacute; mal entendue des faveurs, notre repos
+serait compromis, et les honn&ecirc;tes gens en Europe s'abandonneraient &agrave;
+leurs anciennes inqui&eacute;tudes." An amusing instance of his prejudice
+occurs in another part of the same letter, where he says: "Le fameux
+manuscrit de Ste. H&eacute;l&egrave;ne a fait une sensation scandaleuse et dangereuse
+en Europe, surtout en France, o&ugrave;, qu&oacute;iqu'il ait &eacute;t&eacute; supprim&eacute;, il a &eacute;t&eacute;
+lu dans toutes les coteries de Paris, et o&ugrave; m&ecirc;me les femmes, au lieu
+nuits &agrave; le copier." Gneisenau was in this country in his youth,&mdash;one of
+those Hessians who were bought by George III. to murder Americans who
+would not submit to his crazy tyranny. That was an excellent school in
+which to learn the creed of assassins; for there was not a Hessian in
+the British service who was not as much a bravo as any ruffian in Italy
+who ever sold his stiletto's service to some cowardly vengeance-seeker.
+It ought, in justice, to be added, that Sir Walter Scott states that in
+1816 "there existed a considerable party in Britain who were of opinion
+that the British government would best have discharged their duty to
+France and Europe by delivering up Napoleon to Louis XVIII.'s
+government, to be treated as he himself had treated the Duc d'Enghien."
+So that the Continent did not monopolize the assassins of that time.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_SONG_SPARROW" id="THE_SONG_SPARROW"></a>THE SONG SPARROW.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Can you hear the sparrow in the lane<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Singing above the graves? she said.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He knows my gladness, he knows my pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though spring be over and summer be dead.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His note hath a chime all cannot hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And none can love him better than I;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he sings to me when the land is drear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And makes it cheerful even to die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'T is beautiful on this odorous morn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When grasses are waving in every wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To know my bird is not forlorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That summer to him is also kind;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But sweeter, when grasses no longer stir,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And every lilac-leaf is shed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To know that my voiceful worshipper<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is singing above my voiceless dead.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="INVALIDISM" id="INVALIDISM"></a>INVALIDISM.</h2>
+
+
+<p>One of the first tendencies of sickness is to centralization. Every
+invalid at least begins by being pivotal in the household. But with the
+earliest hint that the case is chronic, things recoil to their own
+centres again; people begin to come and go in the gayest way; they laugh
+and eat immensely, and fly through the halls asking if one couldn't take
+a bit of stuffed veal. And while one still sinks lower, failing down to
+the verge of the grave, it is only to hear of the most cherished friends
+in another town leading the whirl with tableaux and private theatricals.
+Finally is realized the dire <i>denou&eacute;ment</i>, that, though one lay with
+breath flickering away, the daily grocer would come driving up without
+any velvet on his wheels or any softness in his voice, and that the
+whole routine of affairs is to proceed, whoever goes or stays. This
+cold-heartedness it seems will kill one at any rate. Rather the universe
+should sigh and be darkened. To pass unheeded is worse than to die. Just
+now it is impossible to compass even the satirical mood of Pope, who
+declared himself not at all uneasy that many men for whom he never had
+any esteem were likely to enjoy the world after him. But before one has
+time to die, the absent friends write such a kind, sorry letter, in
+which they do not say anything about private theatricals, and, as Thad
+Stevens said of that speech, one knows of course that it was all a hoax!
+Then the people who eat stuffed veal repent themselves, and send in a
+delicate broth or a bit of tenderloin, hovering softly in a sudden
+regard, and at length a healthier thought is born. It is to arise with
+desperate will, put a fresh rose in the bonnet and a delusive veil over
+the face, creeping down to the street with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</a></span> what steadiness can be
+summoned. There one meets friends, and is pretty well, with thanks, and
+is congratulated. Affairs grow brilliant, but the veil never comes up;
+underneath there is some one forty years old and an invalid. Having thus
+moved against the enemy's works, it is best to retire upon what spirit
+there is left. It is after this sally that, when the landlady hears a
+hammering of a Sunday, she comes directly to the room of this robust
+person, who is obliged to confess that, even if so inclined, she has not
+strength enough to break the Sabbath.</p>
+
+<p>But the anxiety of every one to show some friendliness to a sufferer is
+only equalled by the usual inability. We all read of that Union soldier
+in the hospital visited by an elderly woman bound to do something when
+there was nothing to be done, and who finally succeeded in bathing the
+patient's face, while he, poor fellow, still struggling in the folds of
+the towel, was heard to exclaim, "That's the fourteenth time I've had my
+face washed to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>Far more unobtrusive is the benevolence which goes into one's kitchen,
+sending thence to the sick-room those dainties which, after all, are so
+much too good to be eaten. It seems to be taken for granted that sick
+persons eat a great deal, and that most of them might share the
+experiment of Matthews, who began the diary of an invalid and ended with
+that of a gourmand. I fear that these kindly geniuses would sometimes
+feel a twinge of chagrin at seeing their elaborate delicacies in process
+of being devoured by the most rubicund people in the house. But it
+matters not; it is the sending and getting that are the dainties. Amid
+all these niceties, however, the office of nurse might certainly be made
+a sinecure; and just at this point her labors are really quite arduous;
+for any invalid blessed with many favoring friends soon would sink under
+the care of crockery and baskets to be properly delivered, while to
+attend to the accompanying napkins is little less than to preside over a
+small laundry. And then, as every one tastefully sends her choicest
+wares to enhance their contents, the invalid also finds that she is the
+keeper of all the best dishes of the best families.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing like a well-fought resistance in the early stages of
+invalidism. Keep up the will, and if need be the temper. There are times
+when to grow heavenly is fatal,&mdash;when one is to let the soul run loose,
+and to gather up the gritty determination of Sarah, Duchess of
+Marlborough, who, when told that she must be blistered or die,
+exclaimed, "I won't be blistered, and I won't die!" Indeed, it is often
+necessary to reverse the decision of the doctor who gives one up, and
+simply end by giving him up. The numbers are untold who have died solely
+from being given up,&mdash;I do not mean of the doctors. Poor, timid mortals!
+they only heard the words, and meekly folded their hands and went. On
+the other side, there is no end to the people who have been given up all
+through their lives, and who have utterly refused to depart. They have a
+kind of useless toughness which prevents them from dying, without
+endowing them to live. These animated relics often show no special
+fitness for either world, and they are not even ornamental.</p>
+
+<p>I have somewhere seen the invalid enjoined to talk as if well, but treat
+himself as if ill. And to certain temperaments a little of this
+diplomacy, or secretiveness, is often very important. Once an admitted
+invalid, and the dikes are down. Then begin to pour in all sorts of
+worthy, but alarming and indiscreet persons,&mdash;they who accost one in the
+street declaring one is so changed, and doesn't look fit to be
+out,&mdash;they who invidiously inquire if you take any solid food, as if one
+walked the world on water-gruel,&mdash;they who come to try to make you
+comfortable while you <i>do</i> live. All these are very kind, but to a
+sanguine person they are crushing.</p>
+
+<p>We are all aware that there is no surer way to produce a given state of
+mind or body, than to constantly address<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</a></span> the victim as if he were in
+that state. It is a familiar fact that a stout yeoman once went home
+pale and discomfited from a little conspiracy of several wags remarking
+how very ill he looked; and that another, who was blindfolded, having
+water poured over his arm as if being bled, finally died from loss of
+blood without losing a drop; and Sir Humphrey Davy mentions one wishing
+to take nitrous oxide gas, to whom common atmospheric air was given,
+with the result of syncope. And if the well can be thus wrought on, what
+can be expected of the weak? This habit of depressing remark comes
+possibly from the feeling that invalids like to magnify their woes,
+ailments being regarded as their "sensation," or stock in trade. True,
+there is now and then one made happier by hearing that he seems
+exceedingly miserable; but it is more natural to brighten with pleasant
+words, and a morning compliment of good looks will often set one up for
+the day. Indeed, we fancy that most persons, knowing their disease, in
+their own minds, prefer that it should chiefly rest there. To discuss
+seems only to define it more sharply, and to be greatly condoled is only
+debilitating. Montaigne, to avoid death-bed sympathies, desired to die
+on horseback; while against the eternal repeating of these ills for
+pity, he says that "the man who makes himself dead when living is likely
+to be held as though alive when he is dying."</p>
+
+<p>Likewise the friendliness which keeps reminding one of the fatal end
+serves none. It is both impolitic and impolite; as if there were an
+unsightly mole upon the face, and every visitor remarked, as he entered,
+"Ah, I see you still have that ugly mole!" With all these comforters it
+is finally better to do without their devotions than to be subjected to
+their discouragements. How much Pope resented this rude style of
+criticism may be seen from his tart exclamation, "They all say 't is
+pity I am so sickly, and I think 't is pity they are so healthy."</p>
+
+<p>Yet that incurable sufferer, Harriet Martineau, testifies that when a
+friend said to her, with the face of an angel, "Why should we be bent
+upon your being better, and make up a bright prospect for you? I see no
+brightness in it; and the time seems past for expecting you ever to be
+well,"&mdash;her spirits rose at once with the sturdy recognition of the
+truth. And Dr. Henry, with the same directness, wrote to his friend,
+"Come out to me next week; I have got something important to do,&mdash;I have
+got to die."</p>
+
+<p>This must surely be called the heroic treatment; but for those who are
+not equal to such, it is good to have a physician of tact, who shall not
+doom them regularly every day. Plato said that physicians were the only
+men who might lie at pleasure, since our health depends upon the vanity
+and falsity of their promises. And yet one is not usually deceived by
+this flattery; but it is vastly more comfortable to hear pleasant things
+instead of gloomy, and the sick would rather prefer a dance to a dirge.
+Of this amiable sort must have been the attendant who caused Pope to
+say, "Ah, my dear friend, I am dying every day of a hundred good
+symptoms"; and still more charming the adviser chosen by Moli&egrave;re, who,
+when asked by Louis XIV., himself a slave to medicine, what he did about
+a doctor, said, "O sire, when I am ill, I send for him. He comes; we
+have a chat and enjoy ourselves. He prescribes; I don't take it,&mdash;I am
+cured."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps few are aware of the various heroisms of the chronic patient. It
+must have been prophetic that the Mexicans of olden time thus saluted
+their new-born babes: "Child, thou art come into the world to endure,
+suffer, and say nothing." It is grand to be upborne by a spirit
+unperturbed, although flesh and nerve may strike through the best soul
+for a moment; even as the great and equable Longinus, on his way to
+execution, is said to have turned pale and halted for an instant; while
+we all know, that, after the Stuart rebellion, the rough old Duke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</a></span>
+Balmoral, a lesser man, never faltered, but, with boisterous courage,
+cried out for the fatal axe to be carried by his side.</p>
+
+<p>We had been used to think Andrew Jackson an iron-built conqueror, who
+never knew a pain, until Parton told of the violent cramp which would
+seize him while marching at the head of his army, when he simply threw
+himself over a bent sapling in the forest till the spasm subsided, and
+marched on. The same endurance nerved him to the end. For many of his
+last years not free for one hour from pain, he still sat at the White
+House, never intermitting any duty, although the mere signing of his
+name drew its witness of suffering from every pore. It is with sorrow,
+too, that we have lately read that the beloved Florence Nightingale has
+been held by disease, not only to her room, but to a single position in
+it, for a whole year. And one of our own poets, even dearer to his
+friends for the sainthood of suffering, still ever is pressing on with
+tuneful courage. Hear him singing,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Who hath not learned in hours of faith<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The truth, to flesh and sense unknown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Life is ever lord of Death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Love can never lose its own?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Named among the valiant, yet more sad than heroic, was poor Heine on his
+"mattress-grave." Most pathetically did he lay himself down, this
+"soldier in the war for the liberation of humanity." Of the last time
+that Heine left the house before yielding to disease, he says: "With
+difficulty I dragged myself to the Louvre, and almost sank down as I
+entered the magnificent hall where the ever-blessed goddess of beauty,
+our beloved Lady of Milo, stands on her pedestal. At her feet I lay
+long, and wept so bitterly that a stone must have pitied me. The goddess
+looked compassionately on me, but at the same time disconsolately, as if
+she would say, 'Dost thou not see that I have no arms, and thus cannot
+help thee?'"</p>
+
+<p>Not less touching was the pathos of Tom Hood, in his long years of
+consumption; but the tone was gayer than the gayest. See him write to a
+friend: "My dear Johnny, aren't you glad to hear now that I've only been
+ill and spitting blood three times since I left you, instead of being
+very dead indeed?" To this he adds: "But wasn't I in luck, after
+spitting blood and being bled, to catch the rheumatism in going down
+stairs!"</p>
+
+<p>One long struggle was his against prostration and over-work; but always
+the same buoyant wit,&mdash;writing the cheeriest things with an ebbing life;
+the hero fighting against fatal odds, but always under a light
+mask,&mdash;and ridiculing himself most of all;&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I'm sick of gruel and the dietetics;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm sick of pills and sicker of emetics;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm sick of pulse's tardiness or quickness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm sick of blood, its thinness or its thickness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In short, within a word, I'm sick of sickness."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And others there be, not heroes, who yet have simulated heroism in their
+blithe indifference to fate;&mdash;Lord Buckhurst, who is said to have
+"stuttered more wit in dying than most people have in their best
+health"; Wycherley, who took a young bride just before death, and was
+"neither afraid of dying nor ashamed of marrying"; Chesterfield, who in
+his last days, when going out for a London drive, used smilingly to say,
+"I must go and rehearse my funeral"; Pope, who was the victim of
+incessant disease, which yet never subdued his rhetoric; Scarron, a
+paralytic and a monstrosity, the merriest man in France, for whom the
+nation never gave any tears but those of laughter;&mdash;all these, down to
+the easy-minded old Dr. Garth, who died simply because he was tired of
+life,&mdash;"tired of having his shoes pulled on and off."</p>
+
+<p>Strong persons go swinging securely up and down; they are the people of
+affairs, their nerves are not shaken by anything less than cholera
+reports; saving these, they should belong to the Great Unterrified of
+the earth. To them it is hardly given to understand those minute
+annoyances that beset nerves which are in an abnormal state, especially
+when one is the prisoner of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</a></span> a single room. Then one is eternally busy
+with the dust and small disorders around,&mdash;the film on the mirror, the
+lint-drifts under the stove, the huge cobwebs flying from the corners,
+the knickknacks awry on the mantel-piece; then one finds the wall-paper
+is not hung true, and gazes at flaws in the ceiling till they grow into
+dancing-jacks, and hears the doors that slam, like the shock of a
+cannon. These are torments so minute that there seems no virtue even in
+bearing them. Ah! to mount to execution for an idea,&mdash;that were glorious
+and sustaining; but to endure the daily burden of these petty
+tortures,&mdash;one never hears the music play then.</p>
+
+<p>Among the articles to be desired of science is a false hand, or a
+spectral arm, that shall reach miraculously about,&mdash;not a fruit-picker
+or a carpet-sweeper, but something working with the fineness of an
+elephant's trunk,&mdash;thus to end the discomfort of those orange-seeds
+spilled on the far side of the room, while, lying inactive, one reaches,
+reaches, with a patient power which, if transformed into the practical,
+would push an army through Austria.</p>
+
+<p>Another thing that the invalid has to endure is from the thoughtlessness
+of visitors. How often, when summoned from the sick-room for any
+purpose, do they briskly remark, in Tom Thumb style, "I'll be back in a
+very few minutes!" Hence one lies awake by force, keeping several
+errands to be despatched on the return, changing variously all the
+little plans for the next hour or two, and waits. My experience
+generally is that they have not come back yet.</p>
+
+<p>But the commonest experience is when life itself seems to hang on the
+arrival of the doctor. Indeed, it is safe to say that never have lovers
+been so waited for as the doctor. Wasn't that his carriage at the door?
+Medicine is out! new symptoms appear! it is only an hour to bedtime!
+and, oh! will the doctor come, do you think? One listens more intently;
+but now there are no carriages. There are express-wagons, late
+ice-carts, out-of-town stages, or here and there a light rolling buggy,
+that seems running on to the end of the world. There are but few
+foot-passengers either, and they all go by without halting, and there is
+no indication in the steps of any man of them that he would be the
+doctor if he could. Thus one wears through the night uncomforted, yet
+one does not usually die. I have also seen the doctors sitting in their
+offices expectant, and probably quite as much distressed that everyone
+went by without stopping. So the balances are kept.</p>
+
+<p>The foregoing grievances are often put among the foolish humors of
+invalids, but they are quite reasonable compared with many of the droll
+fancies on record. Take the instance of the elderly man who had been
+dying suddenly for twenty years; whose last moments would probably
+amount to a calendar month, and his farewell words to an octavo volume.
+His physician he pronounced a clever man, but added, pitifully, "I only
+wish he would agree to my going suddenly; I should not die a bit sooner
+for his giving me over." It is evident the physician had not the
+shrewdest insight, or he would have granted this heady maniac his way.
+"Ah!" would exclaim the constantly departing patient, "all one's
+nourishment goes for nothing if once sudden death has got insidiously
+into the system!" More famous were Johnson with his inevitable dried
+orange-peel, and Byron with his salts. Goethe, too, after renouncing his
+Lotte, coquetted with the idea of death, every night placing a very
+handsome dagger by his bed and making sundry attempts to push the point
+a couple of inches into his breast. Not being able to do this
+comfortably, he concluded to live. Years after, when he sat assured on
+his grand poet throne, he must have smiled at it, as with Karl August he
+"talked of lovely things that conquer death." And still more refined and
+genuine was the vapor of the imaginative young girl who died of love for
+the Apollo Belvedere.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yet it is but fair to mention that the laugh is not all on this side. It
+is an historical fact that the public has its medical freaks, without
+being called an invalid, and that whole nations "go daft" on the
+shallowest impositions. At one time the English were made to believe
+that all diseases were caused by the contraction of one small muscle of
+the body; at another, Parliament itself helped make up the five thousand
+pounds given by the aristocracy to one Joanna Stephens for an omnipotent
+powder, decoction, and pills, composed chiefly of egg-shells and
+snail-shells; at another time every one drank snail-water for
+everything, or to prevent it, and then tar-water became the rage. In
+Paris the Royal Academy once procured the prohibition of the sale of
+antimony, on penalty of death, and in a year or two prescribed it as the
+great panacea. Pliny reports that the Arcadians cured all manner of ills
+with the milk of a cow (one would like to see them manage the bilious
+colic).</p>
+
+<p>Mesmer, who was luminous for a while, did not fail to dupe the people.
+When asked why he ordered bathing in river instead of spring water, he
+said, "Because it is warmed by the sun."</p>
+
+<p>"True, yet not so much but it has to be warmed still more."</p>
+
+<p>Not posed in the least, Mesmer replied, "The reason why the water which
+is exposed to the rays of the sun is superior to all other water is
+because it is magnetized. I myself magnetized the sun some twenty years
+ago!"</p>
+
+<p>Yet the name of Mesmer has founded a system, while that of Dumoulin,
+who, with simple wisdom, observed, on dying, that he left behind him two
+great physicians, Regimen and River-water, has gained but a scanty fame.</p>
+
+<p>Says Boswell, "At least be well if you are not ill"; but the dear public
+is always ill. In our own country, with an apparently healthy pulse, it
+has drank the worth of a marble palace in sarsaparilla, and has built a
+hotel out of Brandreth's pills. It has fairly reeled on Schiedam
+Schnapps; and even the infant has his little popularities, having passed
+from catnip and caraway to Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup. There is never
+a time when the public will not declare upon any well-advertised remedy
+its belief in the motto of the German doctors, "We do cure everything
+but death."</p>
+
+<p>It is often interesting to note the various phases which invalidism
+takes on. Sometimes one seems folded in a dense dream,&mdash;has gone away
+almost beyond one's own pity, and has not been heard from for months. It
+is to be hoped that friends who hunt "the greyhound and turtle-dove"
+will meet the missing, and duly report. Meantime one resides in a
+mummified state,&mdash;a dim thinkingness that may be discovered when another
+coming in says with vigor the thing one had long thought without quite
+knowing it; in this demi-semi-consciousness it had never pecked through
+the shell. This looks very imbecile, and is charitably treated to be
+only called invalid.</p>
+
+<p>Is it mere helplessness that one lies so remote from all but surface
+sensation, day after day gazing at the address of letters that come,
+with a passive wonder of how soon she is to vacate her name? Also a
+friend calls to say that to-morrow he travels afar. It seems then that
+he will be too much missed, and the parting has its share of unutterable
+longing. But by the morrow it is not the one left who is sorry. The new
+sun shines on an earth miles off from yesterday. The night has given
+many windings more in the folds of this resigned mummy, that now lies
+securely as an insect in a leaf. Given the beloved hand, and all things
+may go as they will.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Our hands in one, we will not shrink<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From life's severest due;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our hands in one, we will not blink<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The terrible and true."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And sometimes one bounds to the other side of sensation,&mdash;has a terrible
+rubbed-the-wrong-wayedness, and is as much alive as Mimosa herself. This
+is often on those easterly days which all well-regulated invalids<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</a></span>
+shudder at, when the very marrow congeals and the nerves are
+sharp-whetted. Then, Prometheus-like, one "gnaws the heart with
+meditation"; then, too, always fall out various domestic disasters, and
+it is not easy to see why the curtain-string should be tied in a hard
+knot that must be cut at night, or why the servants can't be thorough,
+deft-handed, and immaculate. One has indigestion, scowls fiercely, tries
+to swallow large lumps of inamiability, and fears she is not sublime.</p>
+
+<p>It is a saying of Jean Paul, that "the most painful part of corporeal
+pain is the uncorporeal, namely, our impatience and disappointment that
+it continues." Whether this be true or not, what with the worry and
+constant pressure, these physical disabilities often appear to sink into
+the deepest centre of the being. Hence, if one have had a cough for a
+very long time, it would seem that the soul must keep on coughing in the
+next world. If so, this gives a subtile sense to the despatches of
+departed spiritualists, who telegraph back in a few weeks that their
+pain is <i>nearly</i> gone,&mdash;as if the soul were not immediately rid of the
+bad habits of the body.</p>
+
+<p>But most demoralized in &aelig;sthetic sense must be that invalid who does not
+constantly look to the splendid robustness of health. Sickness has been
+termed an early old age; far worse, it is often a tossing nightmare in
+which the noble ideal of fairer days is only recalled with reproachful
+pain. Towards this vision of vigor the victim seems to move and move,
+but never draw near. Well might Heine weep, even before the stricken
+Lady of Milo. An old proverb says, that "the gods have health in
+essence, sickness only in intelligence." Blessed are the gods! One can
+quite understand the reckless exulting of some wild character, who,
+baffled with this miserable mendicancy everywhere, at length discovered
+the idea that God was not an invalid. He was probably too much excited
+to perfect his rhyme, and so tore out these ragged lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Iterate, iterate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Snatch it from the hells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Circulate and meditate<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That God is well.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Get the singers to sing it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Put it in the mouths of bells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pay the ringers to ring it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That God is well."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Therefore make a valiant stand against that ugly thing, disease. By all
+Nature's remedies, hasten to be out of it. Fight it off as long as
+possible, defy it when you can, and refuse "to hang up your hat on the
+everlasting peg." Be reinforced in all honorable ways. If not too ill,
+read the dailies; know the last measure of Congress, the price of gold,
+and the news by the foreign steamer. Disabuse the world for once of its
+traditional invalid, who sits mewed up in blankets, and never goes where
+other people go, because it might hurt him. Be out among the activities;
+don't let the world get ahead, but keep along with the life of things.
+Then, if invalidism is to be accepted, meet it bravely and serenely as
+may be; and if death, then approach it loftily, for no one dies with his
+work undone, and no just-minded person can wish to survive his service.
+None should aspire to say, with the antiquated Chesterfield, "Tyrawley
+and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it
+known."</p>
+
+<p>But happy they on whom the deep blight has not fallen, and who day by
+day restore themselves to the grand perfection of manly and womanly
+estate; happy again to "feel one's self alive" and</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Lord of the senses five";<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>happy again to "excel in animation and relish of existence"; happy to
+have gathered so much strength and hope, that, when begins the melody of
+the morning birds, again shall the joy of the new dawn, with all the
+possible adventure and enterprise of the coming day, thrill through the
+heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="GRIFFITH_GAUNT_OR_JEALOUSY" id="GRIFFITH_GAUNT_OR_JEALOUSY"></a>GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.</h2>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER XLII.</h4>
+
+<p>"Be seated, mistress, if you please," said Mrs. Gaunt, with icy
+civility, "and let me know to what I owe this extraordinary visit."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you, dame," said Mercy, "for indeed I am sore fatigued." She
+sat quietly down. "Why I have come to you? It was to serve you, and to
+keep my word with George Neville."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you be kind enough to explain?" said Mrs. Gaunt, in a freezing
+tone, and with a look of her calm gray eye to match.</p>
+
+<p>Mercy felt chilled, and was too frank to disguise it. "Alas!" said she,
+softly, "'t is hard to be received so, and me come all the way from
+Lancashire, with a heart like lead, to do my duty, God willing."</p>
+
+<p>The tears stood in her eyes, and her mellow voice was sweet and patient.</p>
+
+<p>The gentle remonstrance was not quite without effect. Mrs. Gaunt colored
+a little; she said, stiffly: "Excuse me if I seem discourteous, but you
+and I ought not to be in one room a moment. You do not see this,
+apparently. But at least I have a right to insist that such an interview
+shall be very brief, and to the purpose. Oblige me, then, by telling me
+in plain terms why you have come hither."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam, to be your witness at the trial."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> to be <i>my</i> witness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? If I can clear you? What, would you rather be condemned for
+murder, than let me show them you are innocent? Alas! how you hate me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hate you, child? of course I hate you. We are both of us flesh and
+blood, and hate one another. And one of us is honest enough, and uncivil
+enough, to say so."</p>
+
+<p>"Speak for yourself, dame," replied Mercy, quietly, "for I hate you not;
+and I thank God for it. To hate is to be miserable. I'd liever be hated
+than to hate."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt looked at her. "Your words are goodly and wise," said she;
+"your face is honest, and your eyes are like a very dove's. But, for all
+that, you hate me quietly, with all your heart. Human nature is human
+nature."</p>
+
+<p>"'T is so. But grace is grace." She was silent a moment, then resumed:
+"I'll not deny I did hate you for a time, when first I learned the man I
+had married had a wife, and you were she. We that be women are too
+unjust to each other, and too indulgent to a man. But I have worn out my
+hate. I wrestled in prayer, and the God of Love, he did quench my most
+unreasonable hate. For 'twas the man betrayed me; <i>you</i> never wronged
+me, nor I you. But you are right, madam; 't is true that nature without
+grace is black as pitch. The Devil, he was busy at my ear, and whispered
+me, 'If the fools in Cumberland hang her, what fault o' thine? Thou wilt
+be his lawful wife, and thy poor, innocent child will be a child of
+shame no more.' But, by God's grace, I did defy him. And I do defy him."
+She rose swiftly from her chair, and her dove's eyes gleamed with
+celestial light. "Get thee behind me, Satan. I tell thee the hangman
+shall never have her innocent body, nor thou my soul."</p>
+
+<p>The movement was so unexpected, the words and the look so simply noble,
+that Mrs. Gaunt rose too, and gazed upon her visitor with astonishment
+and respect; yet still with a dash of doubt.</p>
+
+<p>She thought to herself, "If this creature is not sincere, what a
+mistress of deceit she must be."</p>
+
+<p>But Mercy Vint soon returned to her quiet self. She sat down, and said,
+gravely, and for the first time a little coldly, as one who had deserved
+well, and been received ill: "Mistress Gaunt, you are accused of
+murdering your husband.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</a></span> 'T is false; for two days ago I saw him alive."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say?" cried Mrs. Gaunt, trembling all over.</p>
+
+<p>"Be brave, madam. You have borne great trouble: do not give way under
+joy. He who has wronged us both&mdash;he who wedded you under his own name of
+Griffith Gaunt, and me under the false name of Thomas Leicester&mdash;is no
+more dead than we are; I saw him two days ago, and spoke to him, and
+persuaded him to come to Carlisle town, and do you justice."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt fell on her knees. "He is alive; he is alive. Thank God! O,
+thank God! He is alive; and God bless the tongue that tells me so. God
+bless you eternally, Mercy Vint."</p>
+
+<p>The tears of joy streamed down her face, and then Mercy's flowed too.
+She uttered a little pathetic cry of joy. "Ah," she sobbed, "the bit of
+comfort I needed so has come to my heavy heart. <i>She</i> has blessed me."</p>
+
+<p>But she said this very softly, and Mrs. Gaunt was in a rapture, and did
+not hear her.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Is it a dream? My husband alive? and you the one to come and tell me
+so? How unjust I have been to you. Forgive me. Why does he not come
+himself?"</p>
+
+<p>Mercy colored at this question, and hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dame," said she, "for one thing, he has been on the fuddle for
+the last two months."</p>
+
+<p>"On the fuddle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay; he owns he has never been sober a whole day. And that takes the
+heart out of a man, as well as the brains. And then he has got it into
+his head that you will never forgive him, and that he shall be cast in
+prison if he shows his face in Cumberland."</p>
+
+<p>"Why in Cumberland more than in Lancashire?" asked Mrs. Gaunt, biting
+her lip.</p>
+
+<p>Mercy blushed faintly. She replied with some delicacy, but did not
+altogether mince the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"He knows I shall never punish him for what he has done to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? I begin to think he has wronged you almost as much as he has
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Worse, madam; worse. He has robbed me of my good name. You are still
+his lawful wife, and none can point the finger at you. But look at me. I
+was an honest girl, respected by all the parish. What has he made of me?
+The man that lay a dying in my house, and I saved his life, and so my
+heart did warm to him,&mdash;he blasphemed God's altar, to deceive and betray
+me; and here I am, a poor forlorn creature, neither maid, wife, nor
+widow; with a child on my arms that I do nothing but cry over. Ay, my
+poor innocent, I left thee down below, because I was ashamed she should
+see thee; ah me! ah me!" She lifted up her voice, and wept.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt looked at her wistfully, and, like Mercy before her, had a
+bitter struggle with human nature,&mdash;a struggle so sharp that, in the
+midst of it, she burst out crying with great violence; but, with that
+burst, her great soul conquered.</p>
+
+<p>She darted out of the room, leaving Mercy astonished at her abrupt
+departure.</p>
+
+<p>Mercy was patiently drying her eyes, when the door opened, and judge her
+surprise when she saw Mrs. Gaunt glide into the room with her little boy
+asleep in her arms, and an expression upon her face more sublime than
+anything Mercy Vint had ever yet seen on earth. She kissed the babe
+softly, and, becoming infantine as well as angelic by this contact, sat
+herself down in a moment on the floor with him, and held out her hand to
+Mercy. "There," said she, "come, sit beside us, and see how I hate
+him,&mdash;no more than you do; sweet innocent."</p>
+
+<p>They looked him all over, discussed his every feature learnedly, kissed
+his limbs and extremities after the manner of their sex, and,
+comprehending at last that to have been both of them wronged by one man
+was a bond of sympathy, not hate, the two wives of Griffith Gaunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</a></span> laid
+his child across their two laps, and wept over him together.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mercy Vint took herself to task. "I am but a selfish woman," said she,
+"to talk or think of anything but that I came here for." She then
+proceeded to show Mrs. Gaunt by what means she proposed to secure her
+acquittal, without getting Griffith Gaunt into trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt listened with keen and grateful attention, until she came to
+that part; then she interrupted her eagerly. "Don't spare him for me. In
+your place I'd trounce the villain finely."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," said Mercy, "and then forgive him; but I am different. I shall
+never forgive him; but I am a poor hand at punishing and revenging. I
+always was. My name is Mercy, you know. To tell the truth, I was to have
+been called Prudence, after my good aunt; but she said, nay; she had
+lived to hear Greed, and Selfishness, and a heap of faults, named
+Prudence. 'Call the child something that means what it does mean, and
+not after me,' quoth she. So with me hearing 'Mercy, Mercy,' called out
+after me so many years, I do think the quality hath somehow got under my
+skin; for I cannot abide to see folk smart, let alone to strike the
+blow. What, shall I take the place of God, and punish the evil-doers,
+because 't is me they wrong? Nay, dame, I will never punish him, though
+he hath wronged me cruelly. All I shall do is to think very ill of him,
+and shun him, and tear his memory out of my heart. You look at me: do
+you think I cannot? You don't know me; I am very resolute when I see
+clear. Of course I loved him,&mdash;loved him dearly. He was like a husband
+to me, and a kind one. But the moment I knew how basely he had deceived
+us both, my heart began to turn against the man, and now 't is ice to
+him. Heaven knows what I am made of; for, believe me, I'd liever ten
+times be beside you than beside him. My heart it lay like a lump of lead
+till I heard your story, and found I could do you a good turn,&mdash;you that
+he had wronged, as well as me. I read your beautiful eyes; but nay, fear
+me not; I'm not the woman to pine for the fruit that is my neighbor's.
+All I ask for on earth is a few kind words and looks from you. You are
+gentle, and I am simple; but we are both one flesh and blood, and your
+lovely wet eyes do prove it this moment. Dame Gaunt&mdash;Kate&mdash;I ne'er was
+ten miles from home afore, and I am come all this weary way to serve
+thee. O, give me the one thing that can do me good in this world,&mdash;the
+one thing I pine for,&mdash;a little of <i>your</i> love."</p>
+
+<p>The words were scarce out of her lips, when Mrs. Gaunt caught her
+impetuously round the neck with both hands, and laid her on that erring
+but noble heart of hers, and kissed her eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>They kissed one another again and again, and wept over one another.</p>
+
+<p>And now Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, could not make enough of
+Mercy Vint. She ordered supper, and ate with her, to make her eat. Mrs.
+Menteith offered Mercy a bed; but Mrs. Gaunt said she must lie with her,
+she and her child.</p>
+
+<p>"What," said she, "think you I'll let you out of my sight? Alas! who
+knows when you and I shall ever be together again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Mercy, thoughtfully. "In this world, never."</p>
+
+<p>They slept in one bed, and held each other by the hand all night, and
+talked to one another, and in the morning knew each the other's story,
+and each the other's mind and character, better than their oldest
+acquaintances knew either the one or the other.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER XLIII.</h4>
+
+<p>The trial began again; and the court was crowded to suffocation. All
+eyes were bent on the prisoner. She rose, calm and quiet, and begged
+leave to say a few words to the court.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whitworth objected to that. She had concluded her address yesterday,
+and called a witness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> But I have not examined a witness yet.</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge.</i> You come somewhat out of time, madam; but, if you will be
+brief, we will hear you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> I thank you, my lord. It was only to withdraw an error. The
+cry for help that was heard by the side of Hernshaw Mere, I said,
+yesterday, that cry was uttered by Thomas Leicester. Well, I find I was
+mistaken: the cry for help was uttered by my husband,&mdash;by that Griffith
+Gaunt I am accused of assassinating.</p>
+
+<p>This extraordinary admission caused a great sensation in court. The
+judge looked very grave and sad; and Sergeant Wiltshire, who came into
+court just then, whispered his junior, "She has put the rope round her
+own neck. The jury would never have believed our witness."</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> I will only add, that a person came into the town last
+night, who knows a great deal more about this mysterious business than I
+do. I purpose, therefore, to alter the plan of my defence; and to save
+your time, my lord, who have dealt so courteously with me, I shall call
+but a single witness.</p>
+
+<p>Ere the astonishment caused by this sudden collapse of the defence was
+in any degree abated, she called "Mercy Vint."</p>
+
+<p>There was the usual stir and struggle; and then the calm, self-possessed
+face and figure of a comely young woman confronted the court. She was
+sworn; and examined by the prisoner after this fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you live?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the 'Packhorse,' near Allerton, in Lancashire."</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> Do you know Mr. Griffith Gaunt?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Madam, I do.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> Was he at your place in October last?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Yes, madam, on the thirteenth of October. On that day he left
+for Cumberland.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> On foot, or on horseback?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> On horseback.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> With boots on, or shoes?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> He had a pair of new boots on.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> Do you know Thomas Leicester?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> A pedler called at our house on the eleventh of October, and he
+said his name was Thomas Leicester.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> How was he shod?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> In hobnailed shoes.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> Which way went he on leaving you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Madam, he went northwards; I know no more for certain.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> When did you see Mr. Gaunt last?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Four days ago.</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge.</i> What is that? You saw him alive four days ago?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Ay, my lord; the last Wednesday that ever was.</p>
+
+<p>At this the people burst out into a loud, agitated murmur, and their
+heads went to and fro all the time. In vain the crier cried and
+threatened. The noise rose and surged, and took its course. It went down
+gradually, as amazement gave way to curiosity; and then there was a
+remarkable silence; and then the silvery voice of the prisoner, and the
+mellow tones of the witness, appeared to penetrate the very walls of the
+building, each syllable of those two beautiful speakers was heard so
+distinctly.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> Be so good as to tell the court what passed on Wednesday
+last between Griffith Gaunt and you, relative to this charge of murder.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> I let him know one George Neville had come from Cumberland in
+search of him, and had told me you lay in Carlisle jail charged with his
+murder. I did urge him to ride at once to Carlisle, and show himself;
+but he refused. He made light of the matter. Then I told him not so; the
+circumstances looked ugly, and your life was in peril. Then he said,
+nay, 'twas in no peril; for if you were to be found guilty, then he
+would show himself on the instant. Then I told him he was not worthy the
+name of a man, and if he would not go, I would. "Go you, by all means,"
+said he, "and I'll give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</a></span> you a writing that will clear her. Jack
+Houseman will be there, that knows my hand; and so does the sheriff, and
+half the grand jury at the least."</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> Have you that writing?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> To be sure I have. Here 't is.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> Be pleased to read it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge.</i> Stay a minute. Shall you prove it to be his handwriting?</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner.</i> Ay, my lord, by as many as you please.</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge.</i> Then let that stand over for the present. Let me see it.</p>
+
+<p>It was handed up to him; and he showed it to the sheriff, who said he
+thought it was Griffith Gaunt's writing.</p>
+
+<p>The paper was then read out to the jury. It ran as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Know all men, that I, Griffith Gaunt, Esq., of Bolton Hall
+and Hernshaw Castle, in the county of Cumberland, am alive
+and well; and the matter which has so puzzled the good folk
+in Cumberland befell as follows:&mdash;I left Hernshaw Castle in
+the dead of night upon the fifteenth of October. Why, is no
+man's business but mine. I found the stable locked; so I
+left my horse, and went on foot. I crossed Hernshaw Mere by
+the bridge, and had got about a hundred yards, as I suppose,
+on the way, when I heard some one fall with a great splash
+into the mere, and soon after cry dolefully for help. I,
+that am no swimmer, ran instantly to the north side to a
+clump of trees, where a boat used always to be kept. But the
+boat was not there. Then I cried lustily for help, and, as
+no one came, I fired my pistol and cried murder! For I had
+heard men will come sooner to that cry than to any other.
+But in truth I was almost out of my wits, that a
+fellow-creature should perish miserably so near me. Whilst I
+ran wildly to and fro, some came out of the Castle bearing
+torches. By this time I was at the bridge, but saw no signs
+of the drowning man; yet the night was clear. Then I knew
+that his fate was sealed; and, for reasons of my own, not
+choosing to be seen by those who were coming to his aid, I
+hastened from the place. My happiness being gone, and my
+conscience smiting me sore, and not knowing whither to turn,
+I took to drink, and fell into bad ways, and lived like a
+brute, and not a man, for six weeks or more; so that I never
+knew of the good fortune that had fallen on me when least I
+deserved it: I mean by old Mr. Gaunt of Coggleswade making
+of me his heir. But one day at Kendal I saw Mercy Vint's
+advertisement; and I went to her, and learned that my wife
+lay in Carlisle jail for my supposed murder. But I say that
+she is innocent, and nowise to blame in this matter: for I
+deserved every hard word she ever gave me; and as for
+killing, she is a spirited woman with her tongue, but hath
+not the heart to kill a fly. She is what she always
+was,&mdash;the pearl of womankind; a virtuous, innocent, and
+noble lady. I have lost the treasure of her love by my
+fault, not hers; but at least I have a right to defend her
+life and honor. Whoever molests her after this, out of
+pretended regard for me, is a liar, and a fool, and no
+friend of mine, but my enemy, and I his&mdash;to the death.</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Griffith Gaunt.</span>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was a day of surprises. This tribute from the murdered man to his
+assassin was one of them. People looked in one another's faces
+open-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner looked in the judge's, and acted on what she saw there.
+"That is my defence," said she, quietly, and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>If a show of hands had been called at that moment, she would have been
+acquitted by acclamation.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Whitworth was a zealous young barrister, burning for
+distinction. He stuck to his case, and cross-examined Mercy Vint with
+severity; indeed, with asperity.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> What are you to receive for this evidence?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Anan.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> O, you know what I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</a></span> mean. Are you not to be paid for
+telling us this romance?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Nay, sir, I ask naught for telling the truth.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> You were in the prisoner's company yesterday?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Yes, sir, I visited her in the jail last night.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> And there concerted this ingenious defence?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Well, sir, for that matter, I told her that her man was alive,
+and I did offer to be her witness.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> For naught?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> For no money or reward, if 't is that you mean. Why, 't is a
+joy beyond money to clear an innocent body, and save her life; and that
+satisfaction is mine this day.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth</i> (sarcastically). These are very fine sentiments for a person
+in your condition. Confess that Mrs. Gaunt primed you with all that.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Nay, sir, I left home in that mind; else I had not come at all.
+Bethink you; 't is a long journey for one in my way of life; and this
+dear child on my arm all the way.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt sat boiling with indignation. But Mercy's good temper and
+meekness parried the attack that time. Mr. Whitworth changed his line.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> You ask the jury to believe that Griffith Gaunt, Esquire, a
+gentleman, and a man of spirit and honor, is alive, yet skulks and sends
+you hither, when by showing his face in this court he could clear his
+wife without a single word spoken?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Yes, sir; I do hope to be believed, for I speak the naked
+truth. But, with due respect to you, Mr. Gaunt did not send me hither
+against my will. I could not bide in Lancashire, and let an innocent
+woman be murdered in Cumberland.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> Murdered, quotha. That is a good jest. I'd have you to know
+we punish murders here, not do them.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> I am glad to hear that, sir, on the lady's account.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> Come, come. You pretend you discovered this Griffith Gaunt
+alive, by means of an advertisement. If so, produce the advertisement.</p>
+
+<p>Mercy Vint colored, and cast a swift, uneasy glance at Mrs. Gaunt.</p>
+
+<p>Rapid as it was, the keen eye of the counsel caught it.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, do not look to the culprit for orders," said he. "Produce it, or
+confess the truth. Come, you never advertised for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I did advertise for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then produce the advertisement."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I will not," said Mercy, calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall move the court to commit you."</p>
+
+<p>"For what offence, if you please?"</p>
+
+<p>"For perjury and contempt of court."</p>
+
+<p>"I am guiltless of either, God knows. But I will not show the
+advertisement."</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge.</i> This is very extraordinary. Perhaps you have it not about you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> My lord, the truth is I have it in my bosom. But, if I show it,
+it will not make this matter one whit clearer, and 't will open the
+wounds of two poor women. 'T is not for myself. But, O my lord, look at
+her. Hath she not gone through grief enow?</p>
+
+<p>The appeal was made with a quiet, touching earnestness, that affected
+every hearer. But the judge had a duty to perform. "Witness," said he,
+"you mean well; but indeed you do the prisoner an injury by withholding
+this paper. Be good enough to produce it at once."</p>
+
+<p><i>Prisoner</i> (with a deep sigh). Obey my lord.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy</i> (with a patient sigh). There, sir, may the Lord forgive you the
+useless mischief you are doing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> I am doing my duty, young woman. And yours is to tell the
+whole truth, and not a part only.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy</i> (acquiescing). That is true, sir.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> Why, what is this? 'T is not Mr. Gaunt you advertise for in
+these papers. 'T is Thomas Leicester.</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge.</i> What is that? I don't understand.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> Nor I neither.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Judge.</i> Let me see the papers. 'T is Thomas Leicester sure enough.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> And you mean to swear that Griffith Gaunt answered an
+advertisement inviting Thomas Leicester?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> I do. Thomas Leicester was the name he went by in our part.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> What? what? You are jesting.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Is this a place or a time for jesting? I say he called himself
+Thomas Leicester.</p>
+
+<p>Here the business was interrupted again by a multitudinous murmur of
+excited voices. Everybody was whispering astonishment to his neighbor.
+And the whisper of a great crowd has the effect of a loud murmur.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> O, he called himself Thomas Leicester, did he? Then what
+makes you think he is Griffith Gaunt?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Well, sir, the pedler, whose real name was Thomas Leicester,
+came to our house one day, and saw his picture, and knew it; and said
+something to a neighbor that raised my suspicions. When <i>he</i> came home,
+I took this shirt out of a drawer; 't was the shirt he wore when he
+first came to us. 'T is marked "G. G." (The shirt was examined.) Said I,
+"For God's sake speak the truth: what does G. G. stand for?" Then he
+told me his real name was Griffith Gaunt, and he had a wife in
+Cumberland. "Go back to her," said I, "and ask her to forgive you." Then
+he rode north, and I never saw him again till last Wednesday.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth</i> (satirically). You seem to have been mighty intimate with
+this Thomas Leicester, whom you now call Griffith Gaunt. May I ask what
+was, or is, the nature of your connection with him?</p>
+
+<p>Mercy was silent.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> I must press for a reply, that we may know what value to
+attach to your most extraordinary evidence. Were you his wife,&mdash;or his
+mistress?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Indeed, I hardly know; but not his mistress, or I should not be
+here.</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> You don't know whether you were married to the man or not?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> I do not say so. But&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated, and cast a piteous look at Mrs. Gaunt, who sat boiling
+with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>At this look, the prisoner, who had long contained herself with
+difficulty, rose, with scarlet cheeks and flashing eyes, in defence of
+her witness, and flung her prudence to the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"Fie, sir," she cried. "The woman you insult is as pure as your own
+mother, or mine. She deserves the pity, the respect, the veneration of
+all good men. Know, my lord, that my miserable husband deceived and
+married her under the false name he had taken. She has the
+marriage-certificate in her bosom. Pray make her show it, whether she
+will or not. My lord, this Mercy Vint is more an angel than a woman. I
+am her rival, after a manner. Yet, out of the goodness and greatness of
+her noble heart, she came all that way to save me from an unjust death.
+And is such a woman to be insulted? I blush for the hired advocate who
+cannot see his superior in an incorruptible witness, a creature all
+truth, piety, purity, unselfishness, and goodness. Yes, sir, you began
+by insinuating that she was as venal as yourself; for you are one that
+can be bought by the first-comer; and now you would cast a slur on her
+chastity. For shame! for shame! This is one of those rare women that
+adorn our whole sex, and embellish human nature; and, so long as you
+have the privilege of exchanging words with her, I shall stand here on
+the watch, to see that you treat her with due respect: ay, sir, with
+reverence; for I have measured you both, and she is as much your
+superior as she is mine."</p>
+
+<p>This amazing burst was delivered with such prodigious fire and rapidity
+that nobody was self-possessed enough to stop it in time. It was like a
+furious gust of words sweeping over the court.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whitworth, pale with anger, merely said: "Madam, the good taste<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_613" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</a></span> of
+these remarks I leave the court to decide upon. But you cannot be
+allowed to give evidence in your own defence."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but in hers I will," said Mrs. Gaunt. "No power shall hinder me."</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge</i> (coldly). Had you not better go on cross-examining the witness?</p>
+
+<p><i>Whitworth.</i> Let me see your marriage-certificate, if you have one?</p>
+
+<p>It was handed to him.</p>
+
+<p>Well, now how do you know that this Thomas Leicester was Griffith Gaunt?</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge.</i> Why, she has told you he confessed it to her.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mercy.</i> Yes, my lord; and, besides, he wrote me two letters signed
+Thomas Leicester. Here they are, and I desire they may be compared with
+the paper he wrote last Wednesday, and signed Griffith Gaunt. And more
+than that, whilst we lived together as man and wife, one Hamilton, a
+travelling painter, took our portraits, his and mine. I have brought his
+with me. Let his friends and neighbors look on this portrait, and say
+whose likeness it is. What I say and swear is, that on Wednesday last I
+saw and spoke with that Thomas Leicester, or Griffith Gaunt, whose
+likeness I now show you.</p>
+
+<p>With that she lifted the portrait up, and showed it all the court.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly there was a roar of recognition.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of those hard daubs that are nevertheless so monstrously like
+the originals.</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge</i> (to Mr. Whitworth). Young gentleman, we are all greatly obliged
+to you. You have made the prisoner's case. There was but one weak point
+in it; I mean the prolonged absence of Griffith Gaunt. You have now
+accounted for that. You have forced a very truthful witness to depose
+that this Gaunt is himself a criminal, and is hiding from fear of the
+law. The case for the crown is a mere tissue of conjectures, on which no
+jury could safely convict, even if there was no defence at all. Under
+other circumstances I might decline to receive evidence at second-hand
+that Griffith Gaunt is alive. But here such evidence is sufficient, for
+it lies on the crown to prove the man dead; but you have only proved
+that he was alive on the fifteenth of October, and that since then
+somebody is dead with shoes on. This somebody appears on the balance of
+proof to be Thomas Leicester, the pedler; and he has never been heard of
+since, and Griffith Gaunt has. Then I say you cannot carry the case
+further. You have not a leg to stand on. What say you, Brother
+Wiltshire?</p>
+
+<p><i>Wiltshire.</i> My lord, I think there is no case against the prisoner, and
+am thankful to your lordship for relieving me of a very unpleasant task.</p>
+
+<p>The question of guilty or not guilty was then put to the jury, who
+instantly brought the prisoner in not guilty.</p>
+
+<p><i>Judge.</i> Catharine Gaunt, you leave this court without a stain, and with
+our sincere respect and sympathy. I much regret the fear and pain you
+have been put to: you have been terribly punished for a hasty word.
+Profit now by this bitter lesson; and may Heaven enable you to add a
+well-governed spirit to your many virtues and graces.</p>
+
+<p>He half rose from his seat, and bowed courteously to her. She courtesied
+reverently, and retired.</p>
+
+<p>He then said a few words to Mercy Vint.</p>
+
+<p>"Young woman, I have no words to praise you as you deserve. You have
+shown us the beauty of the female character, and, let me add, the beauty
+of the Christian religion. You have come a long way to clear the
+innocent. I hope you will not stop there; but also punish the guilty
+person, on whom we have wasted so much pity."</p>
+
+<p>"Me, my lord?" said Mercy. "I would not harm a hair of his head for as
+many guineas as there be hairs in mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Child," said my lord, "thou art too good for this world; but go thy
+ways, and God bless thee."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_614" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thus abruptly ended a trial that, at first, had looked so formidable for
+the accused.</p>
+
+<p>The judge now retired for some refreshment, and while he was gone Sir
+George Neville dashed up to the Town Hall, four in hand, and rushed in
+by the magistrate's door, with a pedler's pack, which he had discovered
+in the mere, a few yards from the spot where the mutilated body was
+found.</p>
+
+<p>He learned the prisoner was already acquitted. He left the pack with the
+sheriff, and begged him to show it to the judge; and went in search of
+Mrs. Gaunt.</p>
+
+<p>He found her in the jailer's house. She and Mercy Vint were seated hand
+in hand.</p>
+
+<p>He started at first sight of the latter. Then there was a universal
+shaking of hands, and glistening of eyes. And, when this was over, Mrs.
+Gaunt turned to him, and said, piteously: "She will go back to
+Lancashire to-morrow; nothing I can say will turn her."</p>
+
+<p>"No, dame," said Mercy, quietly; "Cumberland is no place for me. My work
+is done here. Our paths in this world do lie apart. George Neville,
+persuade her to go home at once, and not trouble about me."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, madam," said Sir George, "she speaks wisely: she always does.
+My carriage is at the door, and the people waiting by thousands in the
+street to welcome your deliverance."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt drew herself up with fiery and bitter disdain.</p>
+
+<p>"Are they so?" said she, grimly. "Then I'll balk them. I'll steal away
+in the dead of night. No, miserable populace, that howls and hisses with
+the strong against the weak, you shall have no part in my triumph; 't is
+sacred to my friends. You honored me with your hootings, you shall not
+disgrace me with your acclamations. Here I stay till Mercy Vint, my
+guardian angel, leaves me forever."</p>
+
+<p>She then requested Sir George to order his horses back to the inn, and
+the coachman was to hold himself in readiness to start when the whole
+town should be asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, a courier was despatched to Hernshaw Castle, to prepare for
+Mrs. Gaunt's reception.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Menteith made a bed up for Mercy Vint, and at midnight, when the
+coast was clear, came the parting.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sad one.</p>
+
+<p>Even Mercy, who had great self-command, could not then restrain her
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>To apply the sweet and touching words of Scripture, "They sorrowed most
+of all for this, that they should see each other's face no more."</p>
+
+<p>Sir George accompanied Mrs. Gaunt to Hernshaw.</p>
+
+<p>She drew back into her corner of the carriage, and was very silent and
+<i>distraite</i>.</p>
+
+<p>After one or two attempts at conversation, he judged it wisest, and even
+most polite, to respect her mood.</p>
+
+<p>At last she burst out, "I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what is amiss?" inquired Sir George.</p>
+
+<p>"What is amiss? Why, 't is all amiss. 'T is so heartless, so ungrateful,
+to let that poor angel go home to Lancashire all alone, now she has
+served my turn. Sir George, do not think I undervalue your company: but
+if you would but take her home, instead of taking me! Poor thing, she is
+brave; but when the excitement of her good action is over, and she goes
+back the weary road all alone, what desolation it will be! My heart
+bleeds for her. I know I am an unconscionable woman, to ask such a
+thing; but then you are a true chevalier; you always were, and you saw
+her merit directly. O, do pray leave me to slip unnoticed into Hernshaw
+Castle, and do you accompany my benefactress to her humble home. Will
+you, dear Sir George? 'T would be such a load off my heart."</p>
+
+<p>To this appeal, uttered with trembling lip and moist eyes, Sir George
+replied in character. He declined to desert Mrs. Gaunt, until he had
+seen her safe home; but, that done, he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_615" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</a></span> ride back to Carlisle and
+escort Mercy home.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt sighed, and said she was abusing his friendship, and should
+kill him with fatigue, and he was a good creature. "If anything could
+make me easy, this would," said she. "You know how to talk to a woman,
+and comfort her. I wish I was a man: I'd cure her of Griffith before we
+reached the 'Packhorse.' And, now I think of it, you are a very happy
+man to travel eighty miles with an angel, a dove-eyed angel."</p>
+
+<p>"I am a happy man to have an opportunity of complying with your desires,
+madam," was the demure reply. "'T is not often you do me the honor to
+lay your orders on me."</p>
+
+<p>After this, nothing of any moment passed until they reached Hernshaw
+Castle; and then, as they drove up to the door, and saw the hall blazing
+with lights, Mrs. Gaunt laid her hand softly on Sir George, and
+whispered, "You were right. I thank you for not leaving me."</p>
+
+<p>The servants were all in the hall, to receive their mistress; and
+amongst them were those who had given honest but unfavorable testimony
+at the trial, being called by the crown. These had consulted together,
+and, after many pros and cons, had decided that they had better not
+follow their natural impulse, and hide from her face, since that might
+be a fresh offence. Accordingly, these witnesses, dressed in their best,
+stood with the others in the hall, and made their obeisances, quaking
+inwardly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt entered the hall leaning on Sir George's arm. She scarcely
+bestowed a look upon any of her servants, but made them one sweeping
+courtesy in return, and passed on; only Sir George felt her taper
+fingers just nip his arm.</p>
+
+<p>She made him partake of some supper, and then this chevalier des dames
+rode home, snatched a few hours' sleep, put on the yeoman's suit in
+which he had first visited the "Packhorse," and, arriving at Carlisle,
+engaged the whole inside of the coach; for his orders were to console,
+and he did not see his way clear to do that with two or three strangers
+listening to every word.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER XLIV.</h4>
+
+<p>A great change was observable in Mrs. Gaunt after this fiery and
+chastening ordeal. In a short time she had been taught many lessons. She
+had learned that the law will not allow even a woman to say anything and
+everything with impunity. She had been in a court of justice, and seen
+how gravely, soberly, and fairly an accusation is sifted there; and, if
+false, annihilated; which, elsewhere, it never is. Member of a sex that
+could never have invented a court of justice, she had found something to
+revere and bless in that other sex to which her erring husband belonged.
+Finally, she had encountered in Mercy Vint a woman whom she recognized
+at once as her moral superior. The contact of that pure and
+well-governed spirit told wonderfully upon her. She began to watch her
+tongue and to bridle her high spirit. She became slower to give offence,
+and slower to take it. She took herself to task, and made some little
+excuses even for Griffith. She was resolved to retire from the world
+altogether; but, meantime, she bowed her head to the lessons of
+adversity. Her features, always lovely, but somewhat too haughty, were
+now softened and embellished beyond description by a mingled expression
+of grief, humility, and resignation.</p>
+
+<p>She never mentioned her husband; but it is not to be supposed she never
+thought of him. She waited the course of events in dignified and patient
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>As for Griffith Gaunt, he was in the hands of two lawyers, Atkins and
+Houseman. He waited on the first, and made a friend of him. "I am at
+your service," said he; "but not if I am to be indicted for bigamy, and
+burned in the hand."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_616" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"These fears are idle," said Atkins. "Mercy Vint declared in open court
+she will not proceed against you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but there's my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"She will keep quiet; I have Houseman's word for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but there's the Attorney-General."</p>
+
+<p>"O, he will not move, unless he is driven. We must use a little
+influence. Mr. Houseman is of my mind, and he has the ear of the
+county."</p>
+
+<p>To be brief, it was represented in high quarters that to indict Mr.
+Gaunt would only open Mrs. Gaunt's wounds afresh, and do no good; and so
+Houseman found means to muzzle the Attorney-General.</p>
+
+<p>Just three weeks after the trial, Griffith Gaunt, Esq. reappeared
+publicly. The place of his reappearance was Coggleswade. He came and set
+about finishing his new mansion with feverish rapidity. He engaged an
+army of carpenters and painters, and spent thousands of pounds on the
+decorating and furnishing of the mansion, and laying out the grounds.</p>
+
+<p>This was duly reported to Mrs. Gaunt, who said&mdash;not a word.</p>
+
+<p>But at last one day came a letter to Mrs. Gaunt, in Griffith's
+well-known handwriting.</p>
+
+<p>With all her acquired self-possession, her hand trembled as she broke
+open the seal.</p>
+
+<p>It contained but these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Madam</span>,&mdash;I do not ask you to forgive me. For, if you had
+done what I have, I could never forgive you. But for the
+sake of Rose, and to stop their tongues, I do hope you will
+do me the honor to live under this my roof. I dare not face
+Hernshaw Castle. Your own apartments here are now ready for
+you. The place is large. Upon my honor I will not trouble
+you; but show myself always, as now,</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Your penitent and very humble<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">servant,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Griffith Gaunt</span>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The messenger was to wait for her reply.</p>
+
+<p>This letter disturbed Mrs. Gaunt's sorrowful tranquillity at once. She
+was much agitated, and so undecided that she sent the messenger away,
+and told him to call next day.</p>
+
+<p>Then she sent off to Father Francis to beg his advice.</p>
+
+<p>But her courier returned, late at night, to say Father Francis was away
+from home.</p>
+
+<p>Then she took Rose, and said to her, "My darling, papa wants us to go to
+his new house, and leave dear old Hernshaw; I know not what to say about
+that. What do <i>you</i> say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him to come to us," said Rose, dictatorially. "Only," (lowering
+her little voice very suddenly,) "if he is naughty and won't, why then
+we had better go to him; for he amuses me."</p>
+
+<p>"As you please," said Mrs. Gaunt; and sent her husband this reply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,&mdash;Rose and I are agreed to defer to your judgment and
+obey your wishes. Be pleased to let me know what day you
+will require us; and I must trouble you to send a carriage.</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I am, sir,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Your faithful wife and humble servant,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Catharine Gaunt</span>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At the appointed day, a carriage and four came wheeling up to the door.
+The vehicle was gorgeously emblazoned, and the servants in rich
+liveries; all which finery glittering in the sun, and the glossy coats
+of the horses, did mightily please Mistress Rose. She stood on the stone
+steps, and clapped her hands with delight. Her mother just sighed, and
+said, "Ay, 'tis in pomp and show we must seek our happiness now."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned back in the carriage, and closed her eyes, yet not so close
+but now and then a tear would steal out, as she thought of the past.</p>
+
+<p>They drove up under an avenue to a noble mansion, and landed at the foot
+of some marble steps, low and narrow, but of vast breadth.</p>
+
+<p>As they mounted these, a hall door,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_617" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</a></span> through which the carriage could
+have passed, was flung open, and discovered the servants all drawn up to
+do honor to their mistress.</p>
+
+<p>She entered the hall, leading Rose by the hand; the servants bowed and
+courtesied down to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>She received this homage with dignified courtesy, and her eye stole
+round to see if the master of the house was coming to receive her.</p>
+
+<p>The library door was opened hastily, and out came to meet her&mdash;Father
+Francis.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, madam, a thousand times welcome to your new home," said he, in
+a stentorian voice, with a double infusion of geniality. "I claim the
+honor of showing you your part of the house, though 'tis all yours for
+that matter." And he led the way.</p>
+
+<p>Now this cheerful stentorian voice was just a little shaky for once, and
+his eyes were moist.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt noticed, but said nothing before the people. She smiled
+graciously, and accompanied him.</p>
+
+<p>He took her to her apartments. They consisted of a salle-&agrave;-manger, three
+delightful bedrooms, a boudoir, and a magnificent drawing-room, fifty
+feet long, with two fireplaces, and a bay-window thirty feet wide,
+filled with the choicest flowers.</p>
+
+<p>An exclamation of delight escaped Mrs. Gaunt. Then she said, "One would
+think I was a queen." Then she sighed, "Ah," said she, "'tis a fine
+thing to be rich." Then, despondently, "Tell him I think it very
+beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, madam, I hope you will tell him so yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt made no reply to that. She added: "And it was kind of him to
+have you here the first day: I do not feel so lonely as I should without
+you."</p>
+
+<p>She took Griffith at his word, and lived with Rose in her own
+apartments.</p>
+
+<p>For some time Griffith used to slip away whenever he saw her coming.</p>
+
+<p>One day she caught him at it, and beckoned him.</p>
+
+<p>He came to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You need not run away from me," said she: "I did not come into your
+house to quarrel with you. Let us be <i>friends</i>,"&mdash;and she gave him her
+hand sweetly enough, but O so coldly!</p>
+
+<p>"I hope for nothing more," said Griffith. "If you ever have a wish, give
+me the pleasure of gratifying it,&mdash;that is all."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to retire to a convent," said she, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"And desert your daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would leave her behind, to remind you of days gone by."</p>
+
+<p>By degrees they saw a little more of one another; they even dined
+together now and then. But it brought them no nearer. There was no
+anger, with its loving reaction. They were friendly enough, but an icy
+barrier stood between them.</p>
+
+<p>One person set himself quietly to sap this barrier. Father Francis was
+often at the Castle, and played the peacemaker very adroitly.</p>
+
+<p>The line he took might be called the innocent Jesuitical. He saw that it
+would be useless to exhort these two persons to ignore the terrible
+things that had happened, and to make it up as if it was only a
+squabble. What he did was to repeat to the husband every gracious word
+the wife let fall, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>, and to suppress all either said
+that might tend to estrange them.</p>
+
+<p>In short, he acted the part of Mr. Harmony in the play, and acted it to
+perfection.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gutta cavat lapidem.</i></p>
+
+<p>Though no perceptible effect followed his efforts, yet there is no doubt
+that he got rid of some of the bitterness. But the coldness remained.</p>
+
+<p>One day he was sent for all in a hurry by Griffith.</p>
+
+<p>He found him looking gloomy and agitated.</p>
+
+<p>The cause came out directly. Griffith had observed, at last, what all
+the females in the house had seen two months ago, that Mrs. Gaunt was in
+the family way.</p>
+
+<p>He now communicated this to Father<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_618" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</a></span> Francis, with a voice of agony, and
+looks to match.</p>
+
+<p>"All the better, my son," said the genial priest: "'twill be another tie
+between you. I hope it will be a fine boy to inherit your estates."
+Then, observing a certain hideous expression distorting Griffith's face,
+he fixed his eyes full on him, and said, sternly, "Are you not cured yet
+of that madness of yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no," said Griffith, deprecatingly; "but why did she not tell
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You had better ask her."</p>
+
+<p>"Not I. She will remind me I am nothing to her now. And, though 'tis so,
+yet I would not hear it from her lips."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of this wise resolution, the torture he was in drove him to
+remonstrate with her on her silence.</p>
+
+<p>She blushed high, and excused herself as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I should have told you as soon as I knew it myself. But you were not
+with me. I was all by myself&mdash;in Carlisle jail."</p>
+
+<p>This reply, uttered with hypocritical meekness, went through Griffith
+like a knife. He turned white, and gasped for breath, but said nothing.
+He left her, with a deep groan, and never ventured to mention the matter
+again.</p>
+
+<p>All he did in that direction was to redouble his attentions and
+solicitude for her health.</p>
+
+<p>The relation between these two was now more anomalous than ever.</p>
+
+<p>Even Father Francis, who had seen strange things in families, used to
+watch Mrs. Gaunt rise from the table and walk heavily to the door, and
+her husband dart to it and open it obsequiously, and receive only a very
+formal reverence in return,&mdash;and wonder how all this was to end.</p>
+
+<p>However, under this icy surface, a change was gradually going on; and
+one afternoon, to his great surprise, Mrs. Gaunt's maid came to ask
+Griffith if he would come to Mrs. Gaunt's apartment.</p>
+
+<p>He found her seated in her bay-window, among her flowers. She seemed
+another woman all of a sudden, and smiled on him her exquisite smile of
+days gone by.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, sit beside me," said she, "in this beautiful window that you have
+given me."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit beside you, Kate?" said Griffith. "Nay, let me kneel at your knees:
+that is my place."</p>
+
+<p>"As you will," said she, softly; and continued, in the same tone: "Now
+listen to me. You and I are two fools. We have been very happy together
+in days gone by; and we should both of us like to try again; but we
+neither of us know how to begin. You are afraid to tell me you love me,
+and I am ashamed to own to you or anybody else that I love you, in spite
+of it all;&mdash;I do, though."</p>
+
+<p>"You love me! a wretch like me, Kate? 'T is impossible. I cannot be so
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Child," said Mrs. Gaunt, "love is not reason; love is not common sense.
+'T is a passion; like your jealousy, poor fool. I love you, as a mother
+loves her child, all the more for all you have made me suffer. I might
+not say as much, if I thought we should be long together. But something
+tells me I shall die this time: I never felt so before. Bury me at
+Hernshaw. After all, I spent more happy years there than most wives ever
+know. I see you are very sorry for what you have done. How could I die
+and leave thee in doubt of my forgiveness, and my love? Kiss me, poor
+jealous fool; for I do forgive thee, and love thee with all my sorrowful
+heart." And even with the words she bowed herself and sank quietly into
+his arms, and he kissed her and cried bitterly over her: bitterly. But
+she was comparatively calm. For she said to herself, "The end is at
+hand."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Griffith, instead of pooh-poohing his wife's forebodings, set himself to
+baffle them.</p>
+
+<p>He used his wealth freely, and, besides the county doctor, had two very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_619" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</a></span>
+eminent practitioners from London, one of whom was a gray-headed man,
+the other singularly young for the fame he had obtained. But then he was
+a genuine enthusiast in his art.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER XLV.</h4>
+
+<p>Griffith, white as a ghost, and unable to shake off the forebodings
+Catharine had communicated to him, walked incessantly up and down the
+room; and, at his earnest request, one or other of the four doctors in
+attendance was constantly coming to him with information.</p>
+
+<p>The case proceeded favorably, and, to Griffith's surprise and joy, a
+healthy boy was born about two o'clock in the morning. The mother was
+reported rather feverish, but nothing to cause alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Griffith threw himself on two chairs and fell fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Towards morning he found himself shaken, and there was Ashley, the young
+doctor, standing beside him with a very grave face. Griffith started up,
+and cried, "What is wrong, in God's name?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to say there has been a sudden hemorrhage, and the patient
+is much exhausted."</p>
+
+<p>"She is dying, she is dying!" cried Griffith, in anguish.</p>
+
+<p>"Not dying. But she will infallibly sink, unless some unusual
+circumstance occur to sustain vitality."</p>
+
+<p>Griffith laid hold of him. "O sir, take my whole fortune, but save her!
+save her! save her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Gaunt," said the young doctor, "be calm, or you will make matters
+worse. There is one chance to save her; but my professional brethren are
+prejudiced against it. However, they have consented, at my earnest
+request, to refer my proposal to you. She is sinking for want of blood;
+if you consent to my opening a vein and transfusing healthy blood from a
+living subject into hers, I will undertake the operation. You had better
+come and see her; you will be more able to judge."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me lean on you," said Griffith. And the strong wrestler went
+tottering up the stairs. There they showed him poor Kate, white as the
+bed-clothes, breathing hard, and with a pulse that hardly moved.</p>
+
+<p>Griffith looked at her horror-struck.</p>
+
+<p>"Death has got hold of my darling," he screamed. "Snatch her away! for
+God's sake, snatch her from him!"</p>
+
+<p>The young doctor whipped off his coat, and bared his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"There," he cried, "Mr. Gaunt consents. Now, Corrie, be quick with the
+lancet, and hold this tube as I tell you; warm it first in that water."</p>
+
+<p>Here came an interruption. Griffith Gaunt griped the young doctor's arm,
+and, with an agonized and ugly expression of countenance, cried out,
+"What, <i>your</i> blood! What right have you to lose blood for her?"</p>
+
+<p>"The right of a man who loves his art better than his blood," cried
+Ashley, with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>Griffith tore off his coat and waistcoat, and bared his arm to the
+elbow. "Take every drop I have. No man's blood shall enter her veins but
+mine." And the creature seemed to swell to double his size, as, with
+flushed cheek and sparkling eyes, he held out a bare arm corded like a
+blacksmith's, and white as a duchess's.</p>
+
+<p>The young doctor eyed the magnificent limb a moment with rapture; then
+fixed his apparatus and performed an operation which then, as now, was
+impossible in theory; only he did it. He sent some of Griffith Gaunt's
+bright red blood smoking hot into Kate Gaunt's veins.</p>
+
+<p>This done, he watched his patient closely, and administered stimulants
+from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>She hung between life and death for hours. But at noon next day she
+spoke, and, seeing Griffith sitting beside her, pale with anxiety and
+loss of blood, she said: "My dear, do not thou fret. I died last night.
+I knew I should.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_620" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</a></span> But they gave me another life; and now I shall live to
+a hundred."</p>
+
+<p>They showed her the little boy; and, at sight of him, the whole woman
+made up her mind to live.</p>
+
+<p>And live she did. And, what is very remarkable, her convalescence was
+more rapid than on any former occasion.</p>
+
+<p>It was from a talkative nurse she first learned that Griffith had given
+his blood for her. She said nothing at the time, but lay, with an
+angelic, happy smile, thinking of it.</p>
+
+<p>The first time she saw him after that, she laid her hand on his arm,
+and, looking Heaven itself into his eyes, she said, "My life is very
+dear to me now. 'T is a present from thee."</p>
+
+<p>She only wanted a good excuse for loving him as frankly as before, and
+now he had given her one. She used to throw it in his teeth in the
+prettiest way. Whenever she confessed a fault, she was sure to turn
+slyly round and say, "But what could one expect of me? I have his blood
+in my veins."</p>
+
+<p>But once she told Father Francis, quite seriously, that she had never
+been quite the same woman since she lived by Griffith's blood; she was
+turned jealous; and moreover it had given him a fascinating power over
+her, and she could tell blindfold when he was in the room. Which last
+fact, indeed, she once proved by actual experiment. But all this I leave
+to such as study the occult sciences in this profound age of ours.</p>
+
+<p>Starting with this advantage, Time, the great curer, gradually healed a
+wound that looked incurable.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt became a better wife than she had ever been before. She
+studied her husband, and found he was not hard to please. She made his
+home bright and genial; and so he never went abroad for the sunshine he
+could have at home.</p>
+
+<p>And he studied her. He added a chapel to the house, and easily persuaded
+Francis to become the chaplain. Thus they had a peacemaker, and a
+friend, in the house, and a man severe in morals, but candid in
+religion, and an inexhaustible companion to them and their children.</p>
+
+<p>And so, after that terrible storm, this pair pursued the even tenor of a
+peaceful united life, till the olive-branches rising around them, and
+the happy years gliding on, almost obliterated that one dark passage,
+and made it seem a mere fantastical, incredible dream.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mercy Vint and her child went home in the coach. It was empty at
+starting, and, as Mrs. Gaunt had foretold, a great sense of desolation
+fell upon her.</p>
+
+<p>She leaned back, and the patient tears coursed steadily down her comely
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>At the first stage a passenger got down from the outside, and entered
+the coach.</p>
+
+<p>"What, George Neville!" said Mercy.</p>
+
+<p>"The same," said he.</p>
+
+<p>She expressed her surprise that he should be going her way.</p>
+
+<p>"'T is strange," said he, "but to me most agreeable."</p>
+
+<p>"And to me too, for that matter," said she.</p>
+
+<p>Sir George observed her eyes were red, and, to divert her mind and keep
+up her spirits, launched into a flow of small talk.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of it, Mercy leaned back in the coach, and began to cry
+bitterly. So much for that mode of consolation.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this he faced the situation, and begged her not to grieve. He
+praised the good action she had done, and told her how everybody admired
+her for it, especially himself.</p>
+
+<p>At that she gave him her hand in silence, and turned away her pretty
+head. He carried her hand respectfully to his lips; and his manly heart
+began to yearn over this suffering virtue,&mdash;so grave, so dignified, so
+meek. He was no longer a young man; he began to talk to her like a
+friend. This tone, and the soft, sympathetic voice in which a gentleman
+speaks to a woman in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_621" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</a></span> trouble, unlocked her heart; and for the first
+time in her life she was led to talk about herself.</p>
+
+<p>She opened her heart to him. She told him she was not the woman to pine
+for any man. Her youth, her health, and love of occupation, would carry
+her through. What she mourned was the loss of esteem, and the blot upon
+her child. At that she drew the baby with inexpressible tenderness, and
+yet with a half-defiant air, closer to her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Sir George assured her she would lose the esteem of none but fools. "As
+for me," said he, "I always respected you, but now I revere you. You are
+a martyr and an angel."</p>
+
+<p>"George," said Mercy, gravely, "be you my friend, not my enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, madam," said he, "sure you can't think me such a wretch."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, our flatterers are our enemies."</p>
+
+<p>Sir George took the hint, given, as it was, very gravely and decidedly;
+and henceforth showed her his respect by his acts; he paid her as much
+attention as if she had been a princess. He handed her out, and handed
+her in; and coaxed her to eat here, and to drink there; and at the inn
+where the passengers slept for the night, he showed his long purse, and
+secured her superior comforts. Console her he could not; but he broke
+the sense of utter desolation and loneliness with which she started from
+Carlisle. She told him so in the inn, and descanted on the goodness of
+God, who had sent her a friend in that bitter hour.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been very kind to me, George," said she. "Now Heaven bless you
+for it, and give you many happy days, and well spent."</p>
+
+<p>This, from one who never said a word she did not mean, sank deep into
+Sir George's heart, and he went to sleep thinking of her, and asking
+himself was there nothing he could do for her.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Sir George handed Mercy and her babe into the coach; and
+the villain tried an experiment to see what value she set on him. He did
+not get in, so Mercy thought she had seen the last of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, good, kind George," said she. "Alas! there's naught but
+meeting and parting in this weary world."</p>
+
+<p>The tears stood in her sweet eyes, and she thanked him, not with words
+only, but with the soft pressure of her womanly hand.</p>
+
+<p>He slipped up behind the coach, and was ashamed of himself, and his
+heart warmed to her more and more.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the coach stopped, my lord opened the door for Mercy to
+alight. Her eyes were very red; he saw that. She started, and beamed
+with surprise and pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I thought I had lost you for good," said she. "Whither are you
+going? to Lancaster?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite so far. I am going to the 'Packhorse.'"</p>
+
+<p>Mercy opened her eyes, and blushed high. Sir George saw, and, to divert
+her suspicions, told her merrily to beware of making objections. "I am
+only a sort of servant in the matter. 'T was Mrs. Gaunt ordered me."</p>
+
+<p>"I might have guessed it," said Mercy. "Bless her; she knew I should be
+lonely."</p>
+
+<p>"She was not easy till she had got rid of me, I assure you," said Sir
+George. "So let us make the best on 't, for she is a lady that likes to
+have her own way."</p>
+
+<p>"She is a noble creature. George, I shall never regret anything I have
+done for <i>her</i>. And she will not be ungrateful. O, the sting of
+ingratitude! I have felt that. Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Sir George; "I have escaped that, by never doing any good
+actions."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt you are telling me a lie," said Mercy Vint.</p>
+
+<p>She now looked upon Sir George as Mrs. Gaunt's representative, and
+prattled freely to him. Only now and then her trouble came over her, and
+then she took a quiet cry without ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>As for Sir George, he sat and studied, and wondered at her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_622" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Never in his life had he met such a woman as this, who was as candid
+with him as if he had been a woman. She seemed to have a window in her
+bosom, through which he looked, and saw the pure and lovely soul within.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon they reached a little town, whence a cart conveyed them
+to the "Packhorse."</p>
+
+<p>Here Mercy Vint disappeared, and busied herself with Sir George's
+comforts.</p>
+
+<p>He sat by himself in the parlor, and missed his gentle companion.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning Mercy thought of course he would go.</p>
+
+<p>But instead of that, he stayed, and followed her about, and began to
+court her downright.</p>
+
+<p>But the warmer he got, the cooler she. And at last she said, mighty
+dryly, "This is a very dull place for the likes of you."</p>
+
+<p>"'T is the sweetest place in England," said he; "at least to me; for it
+contains&mdash;the woman I love."</p>
+
+<p>Mercy drew back, and colored rosy red. "I hope not," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"I loved you the first day I saw you, and heard your voice. And now I
+love you ten times more. Let me dry thy tears forever, sweet Mercy. Be
+my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mad," said Mercy. "What, would you wed a woman in my condition?
+I am more your friend than to take you at your word. And what must you
+think I am made of, to go from one man to another, like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Take your time, sweetheart; only give me your hand."</p>
+
+<p>"George," said Mercy, very gravely, "I am beholden to you; but my duty
+it lies another way. There is a young man in these parts" (Sir George
+groaned) "that was my follower for two years and better. I wronged him
+for one I never name now. I must marry that poor lad, and make him
+happy, or else live and die as I am."</p>
+
+<p>Sir George turned pale. "One word: do you love him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a regard for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you love him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly. But I wronged him, and I owe him amends. I shall pay my debts."</p>
+
+<p>Sir George bowed, and retired sick at heart, and deeply mortified. Mercy
+looked after him and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, as he walked disconsolate up and down, she came to him and
+gave him her hand. "You were a good friend to me that bitter day," said
+she. "Now let me be yours. Do not bide here: 'twill but vex you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am going, madam," said Sir George, stiffly. "I but wait to see the
+man you prefer to me. If he is not too unworthy of you, I'll go, and
+trouble you no more. I have learned his name."</p>
+
+<p>Mercy blushed; for she knew Paul Carrick would bear no comparison with
+George Neville.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Sir George took leave to observe that this Paul Carrick did
+not seem to appreciate her preference so highly as he ought. "I
+understand he has never been here."</p>
+
+<p>Mercy colored, but made no reply; and Sir George was sorry he had
+taunted her. He followed her about, and showed her great attention, but
+not a word of love.</p>
+
+<p>There were fine trout streams in the neighborhood, and he busied himself
+fishing, and in the evening read aloud to Mercy, and waited to see Paul
+Carrick.</p>
+
+<p>Paul never came; and from a word Mercy let drop, he saw that she was
+mortified. Then, being no tyro in love, he told her he had business in
+Lancaster, and must leave her for a few days. But he would return, and
+by that time perhaps Paul Carrick would be visible.</p>
+
+<p>Now his main object was to try the effect of correspondence.</p>
+
+<p>Every day he sent her a long love-letter from Lancaster.</p>
+
+<p>Paul Carrick, who, in absenting himself for a time, had acted upon his
+sister's advice, rather than his own natural impulse, learned that Mercy
+received a letter every day. This was a thing unheard of in that
+parish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_623" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So then Paul defied his sister's advice, and presented himself to Mercy;
+when the following dialogue took place.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome home, Mercy."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Paul."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm single still, lass."</p>
+
+<p>"So I hear."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm come to say let bygones be bygones."</p>
+
+<p>"So be it," said Mercy, dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"You have tried a gentleman; now try a farrier."</p>
+
+<p>"I have; and he did not stand the test."</p>
+
+<p>"Anan."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you not come near me for ten days?"</p>
+
+<p>Paul blushed up to the eyes. "Well," said he, "I'll tell you the truth.
+'T was our Jess advised me to leave you quiet just at first."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay. I was to be humbled, and made to smart for my fault; and then I
+should be thankful to take you. My lad, if ever you should be really in
+love, take a friend's advice; listen to your own heart, and not to
+shallow advisers. You have mortified a poor sorrowful creature, who was
+going to make a sacrifice for you; and you have lost her forever."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that you are to think no more of Mercy Vint."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is true, ye jade; ye've gotten a fresh lover already."</p>
+
+<p>"Say no more than you know. If you were the only man on earth, I would
+not wed you, Paul Carrick."</p>
+
+<p>Paul Carrick retired home, and blew up his sister, and told her that she
+had "gotten him the sack again."</p>
+
+<p>The next day Sir George came back from Lancaster, and Mercy lowered her
+lashes for once at sight of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, "has this Carrick shown a sense of your goodness?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has come,&mdash;and gone."</p>
+
+<p>She then, with her usual frankness, told him what had passed. "And,"
+said she, with a smile, "you are partly to blame; for how could I help
+comparing your behavior to me with his? <i>You</i> came to my side when I was
+in trouble, and showed me respect when I expected scorn from all the
+world. A friend in need is a friend indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Reward me, reward me," said Sir George, gayly; "you know the way."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but I am too much <i>your</i> friend," said Mercy.</p>
+
+<p>"Be less my friend then, and more my darling."</p>
+
+<p>He pressed her, he urged her, he stuck to her, he pestered her.</p>
+
+<p>She snubbed, and evaded, and parried, and liked him all the better for
+his pestering her.</p>
+
+<p>At last, one day, she said: "If Mrs. Gaunt thinks it will be for your
+happiness, I <i>will</i>&mdash;in six months' time; but you shall not marry in
+haste to repent at leisure. And I must have time to learn two
+things,&mdash;whether you can be constant to a simple woman like me, and
+whether I can love again, as tenderly as you deserve to be loved."</p>
+
+<p>All his endeavors to shake this determination were vain. Mercy Vint had
+a terrible deal of quiet resolution.</p>
+
+<p>He retired to Cumberland, and, in a long letter, asked Mrs. Gaunt's
+advice.</p>
+
+<p>She replied characteristically. She began very soberly to say that she
+should be the last to advise a marriage between persons of different
+conditions in life. "But then," said she, "this Mercy is altogether an
+exception. If a flower grows on a dunghill, 't is still a flower, and
+not a part of the dunghill. She has the essence of gentility, and indeed
+her <i>manners</i> are better bred than most of our ladies. There is too much
+affectation abroad, and that is your true vulgarity. Tack 'my lady' on
+to 'Mercy Vint,' and that dignified and quiet simplicity of hers will
+carry her with credit through every court in Europe. Then think of her
+virtues,"&mdash;(here the writer began to lose her temper,)&mdash;"where can you
+hope to find such another? She is a moral genius, and acts well, no
+matter under what temptation, as surely as Claude and Raphael paint
+well. Why, sir, what do you seek in a wife? Wealth? title?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_624" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</a></span> family? But
+you possess them already; you want something in addition that will make
+you happy. Well, take that angelic goodness into your house, and you
+will find, by your own absolute happiness, how ill your neighbors have
+wived. For my part, I see but one objection: the child. Well, if you are
+man enough to take the mother, I am woman enough to take the babe. In
+one word, he who has the sense to fall in love with such an angel, and
+has not the sense to marry it, if he can, is a fool.</p>
+
+<p>"Postscript.&mdash;My poor friend, to what end think you I sent you down in
+the coach with her?"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Sir George, thus advised, acted as he would have done had the advice
+been just the opposite.</p>
+
+<p>He sent Mercy a love-letter by every post, and he often received one in
+return; only his were passionate, and hers gentle and affectionate.</p>
+
+<p>But one day came a letter that was a mere cry of distress.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"George, my child is dying. What shall I do?"</p></div>
+
+<p>He mounted his horse, and rode to her.</p>
+
+<p>He came too late. The little boy had died suddenly of croup, and was to
+be buried next morning.</p>
+
+<p>The poor mother received him up stairs, and her grief was terrible. She
+clung sobbing to him, and could not be comforted. Yet she felt his
+coming. But a mother's anguish overpowered all.</p>
+
+<p>Crushed by this fearful blow, her strength gave way for a time, and she
+clung to George Neville, and told him she had nothing left but him, and
+one day implored him not to die and leave her.</p>
+
+<p>Sir George said all he could think of to comfort her; and at the end of
+a fortnight persuaded her to leave the "Packhorse," and England, as his
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>She had little power to resist now, and indeed little inclination.</p>
+
+<p>They were married by special license, and spent a twelvemonth abroad.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of that time they returned to Neville's Court, and Mercy took
+her place there with the same dignified simplicity that had adorned her
+in a humbler station.</p>
+
+<p>Sir George had given her no lessons; but she had observed closely, for
+his sake; and being already well educated, and very quick and docile,
+she seldom made him blush except with pride.</p>
+
+<p>They were the happiest pair in Cumberland. Her merciful nature now found
+a larger field for its exercise, and, backed by her husband's purse, she
+became the Lady Bountiful of the parish and the county.</p>
+
+<p>The day after she reached Neville's Court came an exquisite letter to
+her from Mrs. Gaunt. She sent an affectionate reply.</p>
+
+<p>But the Gaunts and the Nevilles did not meet in society.</p>
+
+<p>Sir George Neville and Mrs. Gaunt, being both singularly brave and
+haughty people, rather despised this arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>But it seems that, one day, when, they were all four in the Town Hall,
+folk whispered and looked; and both Griffith Gaunt and Lady Neville
+surprised these glances, and determined, by one impulse, it should never
+happen again. Hence it was quite understood that the Nevilles and the
+Gaunts were not to be asked to the same party or ball.</p>
+
+<p>The wives, however, corresponded, and Lady Neville easily induced Mrs.
+Gaunt to co-operate with her in her benevolent acts, especially in
+saving young women, who had been betrayed, from sinking deeper.</p>
+
+<p>Living a good many miles apart, Lady Neville could send her stray sheep
+to service near Mrs. Gaunt; and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>; and so, merciful, but
+discriminating, they saved many a poor girl who had been weak, not
+wicked.</p>
+
+<p>So then, though they could not eat nor dance together in earthly
+mansions, they could do good together; and methinks,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_625" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</a></span> in the eternal
+world, where years of social intercourse will prove less than cobwebs,
+these their joint acts of mercy will be links of a bright, strong chain,
+to bind their souls in everlasting amity.</p>
+
+<p>It was a remarkable circumstance, that the one child of Lady Neville's
+unhappy marriage died, but her nine children by Sir George all grew to
+goodly men and women. That branch of the Nevilles became remarkable for
+high principle and good sense; and this they owe to Mercy Vint, and to
+Sir George's courage in marrying her. This Mercy was granddaughter to
+one of Cromwell's ironsides, and brought her rare personal merit into
+their house, and also the best blood of the old Puritans, than which
+there is no blood in Europe more rich in male courage, female chastity,
+and all the virtues.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="GUROWSKI" id="GUROWSKI"></a>GUROWSKI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The late Count Gurowski came to this country from France in November,
+1849, and resided at first in New York. He made his appearance at
+Boston, I think, in the latter part of 1850, and, being well introduced
+by letters from men of note in Paris, was received with attention in the
+highest circles of society. Among his friends at this period were
+Prescott, Ticknor, Longfellow, Lowell, Parker, Sumner, Felton, and
+Everett,&mdash;the last named of whom was then President of Harvard
+University. The eccentric appearance and character of the Count, of
+course, excited curiosity and gave rise to many idle rumors, the most
+popular of which declared him to be a Russian spy, though what there was
+to spy in this country, where everything is published in the newspapers,
+or what the Czar expected to learn from such an agent, nobody undertook
+to explain. The phrase was a convenient one, and, like many others
+equally senseless, was currently adopted because it seemed to explain
+the incomprehensible; and certainly, to the multitude, no man was ever
+less intelligible than Gurowski.</p>
+
+<p>To those, however, who cared for precise information, the French and
+German periodicals of the day, in which his name frequently figured,
+furnished sufficient to determine his social and historical status. From
+authentic sources it was soon learned that he was the head of a
+distinguished noble family of Poland; that he was born in 1805, and had
+taken part in the great insurrection of 1831 against the Russians, for
+which he had been condemned to death, while his estates were confiscated
+and assigned to a younger brother, who had remained loyal to the Czar.
+It was known also that at Paris, where he had found refuge, he had been
+a special favorite of Lafayette and of the leading republicans, and an
+active member of the Polish Revolutionary Committee, till, in 1835, he
+published <i>La V&eacute;rit&eacute; sur la Russie</i>, in which work he maintained that
+the interests of Poland and of all the other Slavic countries would be
+promoted by absorption into the Russian Empire and union under the
+Russian Czar. This book drew upon him the indignant denunciation of his
+countrymen, who regarded it as a betrayal of their cause, and led to the
+revocation of his sentence of death, and to an invitation to enter the
+service of Nicholas. He accordingly went to St. Petersburg in 1836,
+where his sister had long resided, personally attached to the Empress
+and in high favor at the imperial court. He was employed at first in the
+private chancery of the Emperor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_626" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</a></span> and afterwards in the Department of
+Public Instruction, in which he suggested and introduced various
+measures tending to Russianize Poland by means of schools and other
+public institutions. He seems for some years to have been in favor, and
+on the high road to power and distinction. In 1844, however, he fled
+from St. Petersburg secretly, and took refuge at the court of Berlin. He
+was pursued, and his extradition demanded of the Prussian government.
+What his offence was I have never learned, but can readily suppose that
+it was only a too free use of his tongue, which was at all times
+uncontrollable, and was always involving him in difficulties wherever he
+resided. He was quite as likely to contradict and snub the Czar as
+readily as he would the meanest peasant, and, for that matter, even more
+readily. His flight from Russia caused a good deal of discussion in the
+Continental newspapers, and it is certain that for some reason or other
+strong and pertinacious efforts were made by the Russian government to
+have him delivered up. The Czar had at that time great influence over
+the court of Berlin; and Gurowski was at length privately requested by
+the Prussian government, in a friendly way, to relieve them of
+embarrassment by withdrawing from the kingdom. He accordingly went to
+Heidelberg and afterwards to Munich, and for two years subsequently was
+a Lecturer on Political Economy at the University of Berne, in
+Switzerland. At a later period he visited Italy, and for a year previous
+to his arrival in this country had resided in Paris. Besides his first
+work on Panslavism, already mentioned, he had published several others
+in French and German, which had attracted considerable attention by the
+force and boldness of their ideas, and the wide range of erudition
+displayed in them. Finally, it became known to those who cared to
+inquire, that one of his brothers, Ignatius Gurowski, was married to an
+infanta of Spain, whom I believe he had persuaded to elope with him;
+that Gurowski himself was a widower, with a son in the Russian navy and
+a daughter married in Switzerland; and that some compromise had been
+made about his confiscated estates by which his "loyal" brother had
+agreed to pay him a slender annual allowance, which was not always
+punctually remitted.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the substance of what was known, or at least of what I knew and
+can now recall, of Gurowski, soon after his arrival in Boston, sixteen
+years ago. He came to Massachusetts, I think, with some expectation of
+becoming connected with Harvard University as a lecturer or professor,
+and took up his residence in Cambridge in lodgings in a house on Main
+Street, nearly opposite the College Library. In January, 1851, he gave,
+at President Everett's house, a course of lectures upon Roman
+jurisprudence, of which I have preserved the following syllabus, printed
+by him in explanation of his purpose.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Count de Gurowski</span> proposes to give Six Lectures upon the Roman
+Jurisprudence, or the Civil Law according to the following syllabus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"As the history of the Roman Law is likewise the history of
+the principle of the <i>Right</i> (<i>das Recht</i>) as it exists in
+the consciousness of men, and of its outward manifestation
+as a law in an organized society; a philosophical outline of
+this principle and of its manifestations will precede.</p>
+
+<p>"The philosophical and historical progress of the notion or
+conception of the <i>Right</i>, through the various moments or
+data of jurisprudential formation by the Romans. Explanation
+of the principal elements and facts, out of which was framed
+successively the Roman law.</p>
+
+<p>"Such are, for instance, the Ramnian, the Sabinian, or
+Quiritian; their influence on the character of the
+legislation and jurisprudence.</p>
+
+<p>"The peculiarity and the legal meaning of the <i>jus
+quiritium</i>. Explanation of some of its legal rites, as those
+concerning matrimony, <i>jus mancipi, in jure cessio</i>, etc.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_627" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The primitive <i>jus civile</i> derived from <i>the jus
+quiritium</i>. Point out the principal social element on which,
+and through which, the <i>jus privatum</i>, connected with the
+<i>jus civile</i>, was developed.</p>
+
+<p>"The primitive difference between both these two kinds of
+<i>jus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Other elements of the Roman Civil Law. The <i>jus gentium</i>,
+its nature and origin. How it was conceived by the Romans,
+and how it acted on the Roman community. Its agency,
+enlightening and softening influence on the Roman character,
+and on the severity of the primitive <i>jus civile</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The nature, the agency of the pr&aelig;torian or <i>edictorial</i>
+right and jurisprudence.</p>
+
+<p>"A condensed sketch of the Roman civil process. The
+principal formalities and rules according to the <i>jus
+quiritium, jus civile</i>, and the <i>edicta pr&aelig;torum</i>.
+Difference between the magistrate and the judge.</p>
+
+<p>"The scientific development of the above-mentioned data in
+the formation of the Roman Law, or the period between
+Augustus and Alex. Severus. Epoch of the imperial
+jurisconsults; its character.</p>
+
+<p>"Decline. The codification of the Roman Law, or the
+formation of the Justinian Code. Sketch of it during the
+medi&aelig;val and modern periods.</p>
+
+<p>"Count Gurowski is authorized to refer to Hon. Edward
+Everett, Prof. Parsons, Prof. Parker, Wm. H. Prescott, Esq.,
+Hon. T. G. Gary, Charles Sumner, Esq., Hon. G. S. Hillard,
+Prof. Felton.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Cambridge</span>, January 24, 1851."</p></div>
+
+<p>The lectures were not successful, being attended by only twenty or
+thirty persons, who did not find them very interesting. The truth is,
+that few Americans care anything for the Roman law, or for the history
+of the principle of the <i>Right</i> (<i>das Recht</i>); nor for the Ramnian,
+Sabinian, or Quiritian jurisprudence; nor whether the <i>jus civile</i> was
+derived from the <i>jus quiritium</i>, or the <i>jus quiritium</i> from the <i>jus
+civile</i>,&mdash;nor do I see why they should care. But even if the subject had
+been interesting in itself, Gurowski's imperfect pronunciation of our
+language at that time would have insured his failure as a lecturer. He
+had a copious stock of English words at command; but as he had learned
+the language almost wholly from books, his accent was so strongly
+foreign that few persons could understand him at first, except those of
+quick apprehension and some knowledge of the French and German idioms
+which he habitually used.</p>
+
+<p>The favor with which Gurowski had been received in the high circles of
+Boston society soon evaporated, as his faults of temper and of manner,
+and his rough criticisms on men and affairs, began to be felt.
+Massachusetts was then in the midst of the great conservative and
+proslavery reaction of 1850, and Gurowski's dogmatic radicalism was not
+calculated to recommend him to the ruling influences in politics,
+literature, or society. He denounced with vehemence, and without stint
+or qualification, slavery and its Northern supporters. Nothing could
+silence him, nobody could put him down. It was in vain to appeal to Mr.
+Webster, then at the height of his reputation as a Union-saver and great
+constitutional expounder. "What do I care for Mr. Webster," he said on
+some occasion when the Fugitive Slave Law was under discussion in the
+high circles of Beacon Street, and the dictum of the great expounder had
+been triumphantly appealed to. "I can read the Constitution as well as
+Mr. Webster." "But surely, Count, you would not presume to dispute Mr.
+Webster's opinion on a question of constitutional law?" "And why not?"
+replied Gurowski, in high wrath, and in his loudest tones. "I tell you I
+can read the Constitution as well as Mr. Webster, and I say that the
+Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional,&mdash;is an outrage and an imposition
+of which you will all soon be ashamed. It is a disgrace to humanity and
+to your republicanism, and Mr. Webster should be hung for advocating it.
+He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_628" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</a></span> is a humbug or an ass," continued the Count, his wrath growing
+fiercer as he poured it out,&mdash;"an ass if he believes such an infamous
+law to be constitutional; and if he does not believe it, he is a humbug
+and a scoundrel for advocating it." Beacon Street, of course, was aghast
+at this outburst of blasphemy; and the high circles thereof were
+speedily closed against the plain-spoken radical who dared to question
+Mr. Webster's infallibility, and who made, indeed, but small account of
+the other idols worshipped in that locality.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time, in the spring of 1851, that I became acquainted
+with Gurowski. I was standing one day at the door of the reading-room in
+Lyceum Hall in Cambridge, of which city I was then a resident, when I
+saw approaching through Harvard Square a strange figure which I knew
+must be the Count, who had often been described to me, but whom till
+then I had never chanced to see. He was at the time about forty-five
+years of age, of middle size, with a large head and big belly, and was
+partly wrapped in a huge and queerly-cut cloak of German material and
+make. On his head he wore a high, bell-shaped, broad-brimmed hat, from
+which depended a long, sky-blue veil, which he used to protect his eyes
+from the sunshine. His waistcoat was of bright red flannel, and as it
+reached to his hips and covered nearly the whole of his capacious front,
+it formed a startlingly conspicuous portion of his attire. In addition
+to the veil, his eyes were protected by enormous blue goggles, with
+glasses on the sides as well as in front. These extraordinary
+precautions for the defence of his sight were made necessary by the fact
+that he had lost an eye, not in a duel, as has been commonly reported,
+but by falling on an open penknife when he was a boy of ten years old.
+The wounded eye was totally ruined and wasted away, and had been the
+seat of long and intense pain, in which, as is usual in such cases, the
+other eye had participated. During the first year or two of his
+residence in this country he was much troubled by the intense sunshine;
+but afterwards becoming used to it, he left off his veil, and in other
+respects conformed his costume to that of the people.</p>
+
+<p>There were several gentlemen in the reading-room whom we both knew, one
+of whom introduced me to Gurowski, who received me very cordially, and
+immediately began to talk with much animation about Kossuth and Hungary,
+concerning which I had recently published something. He was exceedingly
+voluble, and seemed to have, even then, a remarkably copious stock of
+English words at command; but his pronunciation, as before remarked, was
+very imperfect, and until I grew accustomed to his accent I found it
+difficult to comprehend him. This, however, made little difference to
+Gurowski. He would talk to any one who would listen, without caring much
+whether he was understood or not. On this occasion he soon became
+engaged in a discussion with one of the gentlemen present, a Professor
+in the University, who demurred to some of his statements about Hungary;
+and in a short time Gurowski was foaming with rage, and formally
+challenged the Professor to settle the dispute with swords or pistols.
+This ingenious mode of deciding an historical controversy being blandly
+declined, Gurowski, apparently dumfounded at the idea of any gentleman's
+refusing so reasonable a proposition, abruptly retreated, asking me to
+go with him, as he said he wished to consult me; to which request I
+assented very willingly, for my curiosity was a good deal excited by his
+strange appearance and evidently peculiar character.</p>
+
+<p>He walked along in silence, and we soon reached his lodgings, which were
+convenient and comfortable enough. He had a parlor and bedroom on the
+second floor, well furnished, though in dire confusion, littered with
+books, papers, clothing, and other articles, tossed about at random. He
+gave me a cigar, and, sitting down, began to talk quite calmly and
+rationally about the affair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_629" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</a></span> at the reading-room. His excitement had
+entirely subsided, and he seemed to be sorry for his rudeness to the
+Professor, for whom he had a high regard, and who had been invariably
+kind to him. I spoke to him pretty roundly on the impropriety of his
+conduct, and the folly of which he had been guilty in offering a
+challenge,&mdash;a proceeding peculiarly repugnant to American, or at least
+to New England notions, and which only made him ridiculous. There was
+something so frank and childlike in his character, that, though I had
+known him but an hour, we seemed already intimate, and from that time to
+the day of his death I never had any hesitation in speaking to him about
+anything as freely as if he were my brother.</p>
+
+<p>He took my scolding in good part, and was evidently ashamed of his
+conduct, though too proud to say so. He wanted to know, however, what he
+had best do about the matter. I advised him to do nothing, but to let
+the affair drop, and never make any allusion to it; and I believe he
+followed my advice. At all events, he was soon again on good terms with
+the gentleman he had challenged.</p>
+
+<p>I spent several hours with Gurowski on this occasion, and, as we both at
+that time had ample leisure, we soon grew intimate, and fell into the
+habit of passing a large part of the day together. For a long period I
+was accustomed to visit him every day at his lodgings, generally in the
+morning, while he came almost every afternoon to my house. He had a good
+deal of wit, but little humor, and did not relish badinage. His chief
+delight was in serious discussions on questions of politics, history, or
+theology, on which he would talk all day with immense erudition and a
+wonderful flow of "the best broken English that ever was spoken." He was
+well read in Egyptology and in medi&aelig;val history, and had a wide general
+knowledge of the sciences, without special familiarity with any except
+jurisprudence. He disdained the details of the natural sciences, and
+despised their professors, whose pursuits seemed to him frivolous. He
+was jealous of Agassiz, and of the fame and influence he had attained in
+this country, and was in the habit of spitefully asserting that the
+Professor spoke bad French, and was a mere icthyologist, who would not
+dare in Europe to set up as an authority in so many sciences as he did
+here. Even the amiable Professor Guyot, the most unassuming man in the
+world, who then lived in Cambridge, was also an object of this paltry
+jealousy. "How finely Guyot humbugs you Americans with his slops,"
+Gurowski said to me one day. I replied that "slops" was a very unworthy
+and offensive word to apply to the productions of a man like Guyot, who
+certainly was of very respectable standing in his department of physical
+geography. "O bah! bah! you do not understand," exclaimed Gurowski. "I
+do not mean the slops of the kitchen, but the slops of the
+continent,&mdash;the slops and indentations which he talks so much about."
+<i>Slopes</i> was, of course, the word he meant to use; and the incident may
+serve as a good illustration of the curious infelicities of English with
+which his conversation teemed.</p>
+
+<p>But the truth is that Gurowski spared nobody, or scarcely anybody, in
+his personal criticisms. Of all his vast range of acquaintance in New
+England, Felton, Longfellow, and Lowell were the only persons of note of
+whom he spoke with uniform respect. It was really painful to see how
+utterly his vast knowledge and his great powers of mind were rendered
+worthless by a childishness of temper and a habit of contradiction which
+made it almost impossible for him to speak of anybody with moderation
+and justice. He had also a sort of infernal delight in detecting the
+weak points of his acquaintances, which he did with fearful quickness
+and penetration. The slightest hint was sufficient. He saw at a glance
+the frail spot, and directed his spear against it. Failings the most
+secret, peculiarities the most subtle,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_630" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</a></span> which had, perhaps, been hidden
+from the acquaintances of years, seemed to reveal themselves at the
+first glance of his single eye.</p>
+
+<p>He was very fond of controversy, and would prolong a discussion from day
+to day with apparently unabated interest. I remember once we had a
+discussion about some point of medi&aelig;val history of which I knew little,
+but about which I feigned to be very positive, in order to draw out the
+stores of his knowledge, which was really immense in that direction.
+After a hot dispute of several hours we parted, leaving the question as
+unsettled as ever. The next day I called at his lodgings early in the
+afternoon. I knocked at the door of his room. He shouted, "Come in"; but
+as I opened the door I heard him retreating into his adjacent bedroom.
+He thrust his head out, and, seeing who it was, came back into the
+parlor, absolutely in a state of nature. He had not even his spectacles
+on. In his hand he held a pair of drawers, which he had apparently been
+about to assume when I arrived. Shaking this garment vehemently with one
+hand, while with the other he gave me a cigar, he broke out at once in a
+torrent of argument on the topic of the preceding day. I made no reply;
+but at the first pause suggested that he had better dress himself. To
+this he paid no attention, but stamped round the room, continuing his
+argument with his usual vehemence and volubility. Half an hour had
+elapsed, when some one knocked. Gurowski roared, "Come in!" A
+maid-servant opened the door, and of course instantly retreated. I
+turned the key, and again entreated the Count to put on his clothes. He
+did not comply, but kept on with his argument. Presently some one else
+rapped. "It is Desor," said the Count; "I know his knock; let him in."
+Desor was a Swiss, a scientific man, who lodged in the adjacent house.
+Gurowski apparently was involved in a dispute with him also, which he
+immediately took up, on some question of natural history. The Swiss,
+however, did not seem to care to contest the point, whatever it was, and
+soon went away. On his departure Gurowski again began his medi&aelig;val
+argument; but I positively refused to stay unless he put on his clothes.
+He reluctantly complied, and went into his bedroom, while I took up a
+book. Every now and then, however, he would sally out to argue some
+fresh point which had suggested itself to him; and his toilet was not
+fairly completed till, at the end of the third hour, the announcement of
+dinner put an end to the discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Disappointed in his hopes of getting employment as a lecturer or
+teacher, on which he had relied for subsistence, Gurowski felt himself
+growing poorer and poorer as the little stock of money he had brought
+from Europe wasted away. The discomforts of poverty did not tend to
+sweeten his temper nor to abate his savage independence. He grew prouder
+and fiercer as he grew poorer. He was very economical, and indulged in
+no luxuries except cigars, of which, however, he was not a great
+consumer, seldom smoking more than three or four a day. But with all his
+care, his money was at length exhausted, his last dollar gone. He had
+expected remittances from Poland, which did not come; and he now learned
+that, from some cause which I have forgotten, nothing would be sent him
+for that year at least. He used to tell me from day to day of the
+progress of his "decline and fall," as he called it, remarking
+occasionally that, when the worst came to the worst, he could turn
+himself into an Irishman and work for his living. I paid little
+attention to this talk, for really the idea of Gurowski and manual labor
+was so ridiculously incongruous that I could not form any definite
+conception of it. But he was more in earnest than I supposed.</p>
+
+<p>Going one day at my usual hour to his lodgings, I found him absent. I
+called again in the course of the day, but he was still not at home, and
+the people of the house informed me that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_631" id="Page_631">[Pg 631]</a></span> he had been absent since early
+morning. The next day it was the same. On the third day I lay in wait
+for him at evening at his lodgings, to which he came about dark, in a
+most forlorn condition, with his hands blistered, his clothes dusty, and
+exhibiting himself every mark of extreme fatigue. He was cheerful,
+however, and very cordial, and gave me an animated account of his
+adventures in his "Irish life," as he called it. It seems he had formed
+an acquaintance with Mr. Hovey, the proprietor of the large nurseries
+between Boston and the Colleges, and on the morning of the day on which
+I found him absent from his lodgings he had gone to Hovey and offered
+himself as a laborer in his garden. Hovey was astounded at the
+proposition, but the Count insisted, and finally a spade was given to
+him, and he set to work "like an Irishman," as he delighted to express
+it. It was dreadfully wearisome to his unaccustomed muscles, but
+anything, he said, was better than getting in debt. He could earn a
+dollar a day, and that would pay for his board and his cigars. He had
+clothes enough, he thought, to last him the rest of his
+life,&mdash;especially, he added somewhat dolefully, as he was not likely to
+live long under the Irish regimen.</p>
+
+<p>I thought the joke had been carried far enough, and that it was time to
+interfere. I accordingly went next day to Boston, and, calling on the
+publisher of a then somewhat flourishing weekly newspaper, now extinct,
+called "The Boston Museum," I described to him the situation and the
+capacities of Gurowski, and proposed that he should employ the Count to
+write an article of reasonable length each week about European life, for
+which he was to be paid twelve dollars. I undertook to revise Gurowski's
+English sufficiently to make it intelligible. The publisher readily
+acceded to this proposition; and the Count, when I communicated it to
+him, was as delighted as if he had found a gold mine, or, in the
+language of to-day, "had struck ile." He was already, in spite of his
+philosophic cheerfulness, heartily sick of his labor with the spade, for
+which he was totally unfitted. He resumed his pen with alacrity, and
+wrote an article on the private life of the Russian court, which I
+copied, with the necessary revision, and carried to the publisher of the
+Museum, who was greatly pleased with it, and readily paid the stipulated
+price.</p>
+
+<p>For several months Gurowski continued to write an article every week,
+which he did very easily, and the pay for them soon re-established his
+finances on what, with his simple habits, he considered a sound basis.
+In fact, he soon grew rich enough, in his own estimation, to spend the
+summer at Newport, which he said he wanted to do, because the Americans
+of the highest social class evidently regarded a summer visit to that
+place as the chief enjoyment of their life and the crowning glory of
+their civilization. He went thither in June, 1851, and after that I only
+saw him at long intervals, and for very brief periods.</p>
+
+<p>His stay at Newport was short, and he went from there to New York, where
+he soon became an editorial writer for the Tribune. To a Cambridge
+friend of mine, who met him in Broadway, he expressed great satisfaction
+with his new avocation. "It is the most delightful position," he said,
+"that you can possibly conceive of. I can abuse everybody in the world
+except Greeley, Ripley, and Dana." He inquired after me, and, as my
+friend was leaving him, sent me a characteristic message,&mdash;"Tell C&mdash;&mdash;
+that he is an ass." My friend inquired the reason for this flattering
+communication; and Gurowski replied, "Because he does not write to me."
+Busy with many things which had fallen to me to do after his departure,
+I had neglected to keep up our correspondence, at which he was sometimes
+very wrathful, and wrote me savagely affectionate notes of remonstrance.</p>
+
+<p>Besides writing for the Tribune, Gurowski was employed by Ripley and
+Dana on the first four volumes of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_632" id="Page_632">[Pg 632]</a></span> New American Cyclop&aelig;dia, for
+which he wrote the articles on Alexander the Great, the Alexanders of
+Russia, Aristocracy, Attila, the Borgias, Bunsen, and a few others. It
+was at this time also that he wrote his books, "Russia as it is," and
+"America and Europe." In preparing for publication his articles and his
+books, he had the invaluable assistance of Mr. Ripley, who gratuitously
+bestowed upon them an immense amount of labor, for which he was very ill
+requited by the Count, who quarrelled both with him and Dana, and for a
+time wantonly and most unjustly abused them both in his peculiar lavish
+way.</p>
+
+<p>For two or three years longer I lost sight of him, during which period
+he led a somewhat wandering life, visiting the South, and residing
+alternately in Washington, Newport, Geneseo, and Brattleborough. The
+last time I saw him in New York was at the Athen&aelig;um Club one evening in
+December, 1860, just after South Carolina had seceded. A dispute was
+raging in the smoking-room, between Unionists on one side and
+Copperheads on the other, as to the comparative character of the North
+and South. Gurowski, who was reading in an adjoining room, was attracted
+by the noise, and came in, but at first said nothing, standing in
+silence on the outside of the circle. At last a South-Carolinian who was
+present appealed to him, saying, "Count, you have been in the South, let
+us have your opinion; you at least ought to be impartial." Gurowski
+thrust his head forward, as he was accustomed to do when about to say
+anything emphatic, and replied in his most energetic manner: "I have
+been a great deal in the South as well as in the North, and know both
+sections equally well, and I tell you, gentlemen, that there is more
+intelligence, more refinement, more cultivation, more virtue, and more
+good manners in one New England village than in all the South together."
+This decision put an end to the discussion. The South-Carolinian
+retreated in dudgeon, and Gurowski, chuckling, returned to his book or
+his paper.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after this he took up his abode in Washington, where he soon
+became one of the notables of the city, frequenting some of the best
+houses, and almost certain to be seen of an evening at Willard's, the
+political exchange of the capital, where his singular appearance and
+emphatic conversation seldom failed to attract a large share of
+attention. The proceeds of the books he had published, never very large,
+had by this time been used up; and he was consequently very poor, for
+which, however, he cared little. But some of the Senators, who liked and
+pitied the rough-spoken, but warm-hearted and honest old man, persuaded
+Mr. Seward to appoint him to some post in the State Department created
+for the occasion. His nominal duty was to explore the Continental
+newspapers for matter interesting to the American government, and to
+furnish the Secretary of State, when called upon, with opinions upon
+diplomatic questions. As he once stated it to me in his terse way, it
+was "to read the German newspapers, and keep Seward from making a fool
+of himself." The first part of this duty, he said, was easy enough, but
+the latter part rather difficult. He kept the office longer than I
+expected, knowing his temper and habit of grumbling; but even Mr.
+Seward's patience was at length exhausted, and he was dismissed for
+long-continued disrespectful remarks concerning his official superior.</p>
+
+<p>Some time in 1862 I met Gurowski in Washington, at the rooms of Senator
+Sumner, which he was in the habit of visiting almost every evening. I
+had not seen him for a long time, and he greeted me very cordially; but
+I soon perceived that his habit of dogmatism had increased terribly, and
+that he was more impatient than ever of contradiction. He began to talk
+in a high tone about McClellan, the Army of the Potomac, and the
+probable duration of the Rebellion. His views for the most part seemed
+sound enough, but were so offensively expressed that, partly in
+impatience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_633" id="Page_633">[Pg 633]</a></span> and partly for amusement, I soon began to contradict him
+roundly on every point. He became furious, and for nearly an hour
+stormed and stamped about the room, in the centre of which sat Mr.
+Sumner in his great chair, taking no part in the discussion, but making
+occasional ineffectual attempts to pacify Gurowski, who at length rushed
+out of the room in a rage too deep for even his torrent of words to
+express. After his departure, Mr. Sumner remarked that he reminded him
+of the whale in Barnum's Museum, which kept going round and round in its
+narrow tank, blowing with all its might whenever it came to the surface,
+which struck me at the time as a singularly apt comparison.</p>
+
+<p>I met Gurowski the next evening at the Tribune rooms, near Willard's,
+and found him still irritated and disposed to "blow." I checked him,
+however, told him I had had enough of nonsense, and wanted him to talk
+soberly; and, taking his arm, walked with him to his lodgings, where,
+while he dressed for a party, which he always did with great care, I
+made him tell me his opinion about men and affairs. He was unusually
+moderate and rational, and described the "situation," as the newspapers
+call it, with force and penetration. The army, he thought, was
+everything that could be desired, if it only had an efficient commander
+and a competent staff. I asked what he thought of Lincoln. "He is a
+beast." This was all he would say of him. I knew, of course, that he
+meant <i>b&ecirc;te</i> in the French sense, and not in the offensive English sense
+of the word. The truth was, that Gurowski had little relish for humor,
+and the drollery which formed so prominent a part of Lincoln's external
+character was unintelligible and offensive to him. At a later period, as
+I judge from his Diary, he understood the President better, and did full
+justice to his noble qualities.</p>
+
+<p>I was particularly curious to know what he thought of Seward, whom he
+had good opportunities of seeing at that time, as he was still in the
+service of the State Department. He pronounced him shallow and
+insincere, and ludicrously ignorant of European affairs. The
+diplomatists of Europe, he said, were all making fun of his despatches,
+and looked upon him as only a clever charlatan.</p>
+
+<p>This proved to be my last conversation with Gurowski. I met him once
+again, however, at Washington, in the spring of 1863. I was passing up
+Fifteenth Street, by the Treasury Department, and reached one of the
+cross-streets just as a large troop of cavalry came along. The street
+was ankle-deep with mud, only the narrow crossing being passable, and I
+hurried to get over before the cavalry came up. Midway on the crossing I
+encountered Gurowski, wrapped in a long black cloak and a huge felt hat,
+rather the worse for wear. He threw open his arms to stop me, and,
+without any preliminary phrase, launched into an invective on Horace
+Greeley. In an instant the troop was upon us, and we were surrounded by
+trampling and rearing horses, and soldiers shouting to us to get out of
+the way. Gurowski, utterly heedless of all around him, raised his voice
+above the tumult, and roared that Horace Greeley was "an ass, a traitor,
+and a coward." It was no time to hold a parley on that question, and,
+breaking from him, I made for the opposite sidewalk, then, turning, saw
+Gurowski for the last time, enveloped in a cloud of horsemen, through
+which he was composedly making his way at his usual meditative pace.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_634" id="Page_634">[Pg 634]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_PRESIDENT_AND_HIS_ACCOMPLICES" id="THE_PRESIDENT_AND_HIS_ACCOMPLICES"></a>THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ACCOMPLICES.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Andrew Johnson has dealt the most cruel of all blows to the
+respectability of the faction which rejoices in his name. Hardly had the
+political Pecksniffs and Turveydrops contrived so to manage the Johnson
+Convention at Philadelphia that it violated few of the proprieties of
+intrigue and none of the decencies of dishonesty, than the
+commander-in-chief of the combination took the field in person, with the
+intention of carrying the country by assault. His objective point was
+the grave of Douglas, which became by the time he arrived the grave also
+of his own reputation and the hopes of his partisans. His speeches on
+the route were a volcanic outbreak of vulgarity, conceit, bombast,
+scurrility, ignorance, insolence, brutality, and balderdash. Screams of
+laughter, cries of disgust, flushings of shame, were the various
+responses of the nation he disgraced to the harangues of this leader of
+American "conservatism." Never before did the first office in the gift
+of the people appear so poor an object of human ambition, as when Andrew
+Johnson made it an eminence on which to exhibit inability to behave and
+incapacity to reason. His low cunning conspired with his devouring
+egotism to make him throw off all the restraints of official decorum, in
+the expectation that he would find duplicates of himself in the crowds
+he addressed, and that mob diffused would heartily sympathize with Mob
+impersonated. Never was blustering demagogue led by a distempered sense
+of self-importance into a more fatal error. Not only was the great body
+of the people mortified or indignant, but even his "satraps and
+dependents," even the shrewd politicians&mdash;accidents of an Accident and
+shadows of a shade&mdash;who had labored so hard at Philadelphia to weave a
+cloak of plausibilities to cover his usurpations, shivered with
+apprehension or tingled with shame as they read the reports of their
+master's impolitic and ignominious abandonment of dignity and decency in
+his addresses to the people he attempted alternately to bully and
+cajole. That a man thus self-exposed as unworthy of high trust should
+have had the face to expect that intelligent constituencies would send
+to Congress men pledged to support <i>his</i> policy and <i>his</i> measures,
+appeared for the time to be as pitiable a spectacle of human delusion as
+it was an exasperating example of human impudence.</p>
+
+<p>Not the least extraordinary peculiarity of these addresses from the
+stump was the immense protuberance they exhibited of the personal
+pronoun. In Mr. Johnson's speech, his "I" resembles the geometer's
+description of infinity, having "its centre everywhere and its
+circumference nowhere." Among the many kinds of egotism in which his
+eloquence is prolific, it may be difficult to fasten on the particular
+one which is most detestable or most laughable; but it seems to us that
+when his arrogance apes humility it is deserving perhaps of an intenser
+degree of scorn or derision than when it riots in bravado. The most
+offensive part which he plays in public is that of "the humble
+individual," bragging of the lowliness of his origin, hinting of the
+great merits which could alone have lifted him to his present exalted
+station, and representing himself as so satiated with the sweets of
+unsought power as to be indifferent to its honors. Ambition is not for
+him, for ambition aspires; and what object has he to aspire to? From his
+contented mediocrity as alderman of a village, the people have insisted
+on elevating him from one pinnacle of greatness to another, until they
+have at last made him President of the United States. He might have been
+Dictator had he pleased; but what, to a man wearied with authority and
+dignity, would dictatorship be worth?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_635" id="Page_635">[Pg 635]</a></span> If he is proud of anything, it is
+of the tailor's bench from which he started. He would have everybody to
+understand that he is humble,&mdash;thoroughly humble. Is this caricature?
+No. It is impossible to caricature Andrew Johnson when he mounts his
+high horse of humility and becomes a sort of cross between Uriah Heep
+and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Indeed, it is only by quoting
+Dickens's description of the latter personage that we have anything
+which fairly matches the traits suggested by some statements in the
+President's speeches. "A big, loud man," says the humorist, "with a
+stare and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which
+seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A man with a great
+puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a
+strained skin to his face, that it seemed to hold his eyes open and lift
+his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being
+inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never
+sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was continually
+proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his
+old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility."</p>
+
+<p>If we turn from the moral and personal to the menial characteristics of
+Mr. Johnson's speeches, we find that his brain is to be classed with
+notable cases of arrested development. He has strong forces in his
+nature, but in their outlet through his mind they are dissipated into a
+confusing clutter of unrelated thoughts and inapplicable phrases. He
+seems to possess neither the power nor the perception of coherent
+thinking and logical arrangement. He does not appear to be aware that
+prepossessions are not proofs, that assertions are not arguments, that
+the proper method to answer an objection is not to repeat the
+proposition against which the objection was directed, that the proper
+method of unfolding a subject is not to make the successive statements a
+series of contradictions. Indeed, he seems to have a thoroughly
+animalized intellect, destitute of the notion of relations, with ideas
+which are but the form of determinations, and which derive their force,
+not from reason, but from will. With an individuality thus strong even
+to fierceness, but which has not been developed in the mental region,
+and which the least gust of passion intellectually upsets, he is
+incapable of looking at anything out of relations to himself,&mdash;of
+regarding it from that neutral ground which is the condition of
+intelligent discussion between opposing minds. In truth, he makes a
+virtue of being insensible to the evidence of facts and the deductions
+of reason, proclaiming to all the world that he has taken his position,
+that he will never swerve from it, and that all statements and arguments
+intended to shake his resolves are impertinences, indicating that their
+authors are radicals and enemies of the country. He is never weary of
+vaunting his firmness, and firmness he doubtless has, the firmness of at
+least a score of mules; but events have shown that it is a different
+kind of firmness from that which keeps a statesman firm to his
+principles, a political leader to his pledges, a gentleman to his word.
+Amid all changes of opinion, he has been conscious of unchanged will,
+and the intellectual element forms so small a portion of his being,
+that, when he challenged "the man, woman, or child to come forward" and
+convict him of inconstancy to his professions, he knew that, however it
+might be with the rest of mankind, he would himself be unconvinced by
+any evidence which the said man, woman, or child might adduce. Again,
+when he was asked by one of his audiences why he did not hang Jeff
+Davis, he retorted by exclaiming, "Why don't you ask me why I have not
+hanged Thad Stevens and Wendell Phillips? They are as much traitors as
+Davis." And we are almost charitable enough to suppose that he saw no
+difference between the moral or legal treason of the man who for four
+years had waged open<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_636" id="Page_636">[Pg 636]</a></span> war against the government of the United States,
+and the men who for one year had sharply criticised the acts and
+utterances of Andrew Johnson. It is not to be expected that nice
+distinctions will be made by a magistrate who is in the habit of denying
+indisputable facts with the fury of a pugilist who has received a
+personal affront, and of announcing demonstrated fallacies with the
+imperturbable serenity of a philosopher proclaiming the fundamental laws
+of human belief. His brain is entirely ridden by his will, and of all
+the public men in the country its official head is the one whose opinion
+carries with it the least intellectual weight. It is to the credit of
+our institutions and our statesmen that the man least qualified by
+largeness of mind and moderation of temper to exercise uncontrolled
+power should be the man who aspired to usurp it. The constitutional
+instinct in the blood, and the constitutional principle in the brain, of
+our real statesmen, preserve them from the folly and guilt of setting
+themselves up as imitative Caesars and Napoleons, the moment they are
+trusted with a little delegated power.</p>
+
+<p>Still we are told, that, with all his defects, Andrew Johnson is to be
+honored and supported as a "conservative" President engaged in a contest
+with a "radical" Congress! It happens, however, that the two persons who
+specially represent Congress in this struggle are Senators Trumbull and
+Fessenden. Senator Trumbull is the author of the two important measures
+which the President vetoed; Senator Fessenden is the chairman and organ
+of the Committee of Fifteen which the President anathematizes. Now we
+desire to do justice to the gravity of face which the partisans of Mr.
+Johnson preserve in announcing their most absurd propositions, and
+especially do we commend their command of countenance while it is their
+privilege to contrast the wild notions and violent speech of such
+lawless radicals as the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from
+Maine, with the balanced judgment and moderate temper of such a pattern
+conservative as the President of the United States. The contrast prompts
+ideas so irresistibly ludicrous, that to keep one's risibilities under
+austere control while instituting it argues a self-command almost
+miraculous.</p>
+
+<p>Andrew Johnson, however, such as he is in heart, intellect, will, and
+speech, is the recognized leader of his party, and demands that the
+great mass of his partisans shall serve him, not merely by prostration
+of body, but by prostration of mind. It is the hard duty of his more
+intimate associates to translate his broken utterances from
+<i>Andy-Johnsonese</i> into constitutional phrase, to give these versions
+some show of logical arrangement, and to carry out, as best they may,
+their own objects, while professing boundless devotion to his. By a
+sophistical process of developing his rude notions, they often lead him
+to conclusions which he had not foreseen, but which they induce him to
+make his own, not by a fruitless effort to quicken his mind into
+following the steps of their reasoning, but by stimulating his passions
+to the point of adopting its results. They thus become parasites in
+order that they may become powers, and their interests make them
+particularly ruthless in their dealings with their master's consistency.
+Their relation to him, if they would bluntly express it, might be
+indicated in this brief formula: "We will adore you in order that you
+may obey us."</p>
+
+<p>The trouble with these politicians is, that they cannot tie the
+President's tongue as they tied the tongues of the eminent personages
+they invited from all portions of the country to keep silent at their
+great Convention at Philadelphia. That Convention was a masterpiece of
+cunning political management; but its Address and Resolutions were
+hardly laid at Mr. Johnson's feet, when, in his exultation, he blurted
+out that unfortunate remark about "a body called, or which assumed to
+be, the Congress of the United States," which, it appears, "we have seen
+hanging on the verge of the government." Now all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_637" id="Page_637">[Pg 637]</a></span> this was in the
+Address of the Convention, but it was not so brutally worded, nor so
+calculated to appall those timid supporters of the Johnson party who
+thought, in their innocence, that the object of the Philadelphia meeting
+was to heal the wounds of civil war, and not to lay down a programme by
+which it might be reopened. Turning, then, from Mr. Johnson to the
+manifesto of his political supporters, let us see what additions it
+makes to political wisdom, and what guaranties it affords for future
+peace. We shall not discriminate between insurgent States and individual
+insurgents, because, when individual insurgents are so overwhelmingly
+strong that they carry their States with them, or when States are so
+overwhelmingly strong that they force individuals to be insurgents, it
+appears to be needless. The terms are often used interchangeably in the
+Address, for the Convention was so largely composed of individual
+insurgents that it was important to vary a little the charge that they
+usurped State powers with the qualification that they obeyed the powers
+they usurped. At the South, individual insurgents constitute the State
+when they determine to rebel, and obey it when they desire to be
+pardoned. An identical thing cannot be altered by giving it two names.</p>
+
+<p>The principle which runs through the Philadelphia Address is, that
+insurgent States recover their former rights under the Constitution by
+the mere fact of submission. This is equivalent to saying that insurgent
+States incurred no guilt in rebellion. But States cannot become
+insurgent, unless the authorities of such States commit perjury and
+treason, and their people become rebels and public enemies; perjury,
+treason, and rebellion are commonly held to be crimes; and who ever
+heard, before, that criminals were restored to all the rights of honest
+citizens by the mere fact of their arrest?</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine, moreover, is a worse heresy than that of Secession; for
+Secession implies that seceded States, being out of the Union, can
+plainly only be brought back by conquest, and on such terms as the
+victors may choose to impose. No candid Southern Rebel, who believes
+that his State seceded, and that he acted under competent authority when
+he took up arms against the United States, can have the effrontery to
+affirm that he had inherent rights of citizenship in "the foreign
+country" against which he plotted and fought for four years. The
+so-called "right" of secession was claimed by the South as a
+constitutional right, to be peaceably exercised, but it passed into the
+broader and more generally intelligible "right" of revolution when it
+had to be sustained by war; and the condition of a defeated
+revolutionist is certainly not that of a qualified voter in the nation
+against which he revolted. But if insurgent States recover their former
+rights and privileges when they submit to superior force, there is no
+reason why armed rebellion should not be as common as local discontent.
+We have, on this principle, sacrificed thirty-five hundred millions of
+dollars and three hundred thousand lives, only to bring the insurgent
+States into just those "practical relations to the Union" which will
+enable us to sacrifice thirty-five hundred millions of dollars more, and
+three hundred thousand more lives, when it suits the passions and
+caprices of these States to rebel again. Whatever they may do in the way
+of disturbing the peace of the country, they can never, it seems,
+forfeit their rights and privileges under the Constitution. Even if
+everybody was positively certain that there would be a new rebellion in
+ten years, unless conditions of representation were exacted of the
+South, we still, according to the doctrine of the Johnsonian jurists,
+would be constitutionally impotent to exact them, because insurgent
+States recover unconditioned rights to representation by the mere fact
+of their submitting to the power they can no longer resist. The
+acceptance of this principle would make insurrection the chronic disease
+of our political system. War would follow war,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_638" id="Page_638">[Pg 638]</a></span> until nearly all the
+wealth of the country was squandered, and nearly all the inhabitants
+exterminated. Mr. Johnson's prophetic vision of that Paradise of
+constitutionalism, shadowed forth in his exclamation that he would stand
+by the Constitution though all around him should perish, would be
+measurably realized; and among the ruins of the nation a few haggard and
+ragged pedants would be left to drone out eulogies on "the glorious
+Constitution" which had survived unharmed the anarchy, poverty, and
+depopulation it had produced. An interpretation of the Constitution
+which thus makes it the shield of treason and the destroyer of
+civilization must be false both to fact and sense. The framers of that
+instrument were not idiots; yet idiots they would certainly have been,
+if they had put into it a clause declaring "that no State, or
+combination of States, which may at any time choose to get up an armed
+attempt to overthrow the government established by this Constitution,
+and be defeated in the attempt, shall forfeit any of the privileges
+granted by this instrument to loyal States." But an interpretation of
+the Constitution which can be conceived of as forming a possible part of
+it only by impeaching the sanity of its framers, cannot be an
+interpretation which the American people are morally bound to risk ruin
+to support.</p>
+
+<p>But even if we should be wild enough to admit the Johnsonian principle
+respecting insurgent States, the question comes up as to the identity of
+the States now demanding representation with the States whose rights of
+representation are affirmed to have been only suspended during their
+rebellion. The fact would seem to be, that these reconstructed States
+are merely the creations of the executive branch of the government, with
+every organic bond hopelessly cut which connected them with the old
+State governments and constitutions. They have only the names of the
+States they pretend to <i>be</i>. Before the Rebellion, they had a legal
+people; when Mr. Johnson took hold of them, they had nothing but a
+disorganized population. Out of this population he by his own will
+created a people, on the principle, we must suppose, of natural
+selection. Now, to decide who are the people of a State is to create its
+very foundations,&mdash;to begin anew in the most comprehensive sense of the
+word; for the being of a State is more in its people, that is, in the
+persons selected from its inhabitants to be the depositaries of its
+political power, than it is in its geographical boundaries and area.
+Over this people thus constituted by himself, Mr. Johnson set
+Provisional Governors nominated by himself. These Governors called
+popular conventions, whose members were elected by the votes of those to
+whom Mr. Johnson had given the right of suffrage; and these conventions
+proceeded to do what Mr. Johnson dictated. Everywhere Mr. Johnson;
+nowhere the assumed rights of the States! North Carolina was one of
+these creations; and North Carolina, through the lips of its Chief
+Justice, has already decided that Mr. Johnson was an unauthorized
+intruder, and his work a nullity, and even Mr. Johnson's "people" of
+North Carolina have rejected the constitution framed by Mr. Johnson's
+Convention. Other Rebel communities will doubtless repudiate his work,
+as soon as they can dispense with his assistance. But whatever may be
+the condition of these new Johnsonian States, they are certainly not
+States which can "recover" rights which existed previous to their
+creation. The date of their birth is to be reckoned, not from any year
+previous to the Rebellion, but from the year which followed its
+suppression. It may, in old times, have been a politic trick of shrewd
+politicians, to involve the foundations of States in the mists of a
+mythical antiquity; but we happily live in an historical period, and
+there is something peculiarly stupid or peculiarly impudent in the
+attempt of the publicists of the Philadelphia Convention to ignore the
+origins of political societies for which, after they have obtained a
+certain degree of organization,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_639" id="Page_639">[Pg 639]</a></span> they claim such eminent traditional
+rights and privileges. Respectable as these States may be as infant
+phenomena, it will not do to <i>Methuselahize</i> them too recklessly, or
+assert their equality in muscle and brawn with giants full grown.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident, from the nature of the case, that Mr. Johnson's labors
+were purely experimental and provisional, and needed the indorsement of
+Congress to be of any force. The only department of the government
+constitutionally capable to admit new States or rehabilitate insurgent
+ones is the legislative. When the Executive not only took the initiative
+in reconstruction, but assumed to have completed it; when he presented
+<i>his</i> States to Congress as the equals of the States represented in that
+body; when he asserted that the delegates from his States should have
+the right of sitting and voting in the legislature whose business it was
+to decide on their right to admission; when, in short, he demanded that
+criminals at the bar should have a seat on the bench, and an equal voice
+with the judges, in deciding on their own case, the effrontery of
+Executive pretension went beyond all bounds of Congressional endurance.</p>
+
+<p>The real difference at first was not on the question of imposing
+conditions,&mdash;for the President had notoriously imposed them
+himself,&mdash;but on the question whether or not additional conditions were
+necessary to secure the public safety. The President, with that facility
+"in turning his back on himself" which all other logical gymnasts had
+pronounced an impossible feat, then boldly look the ground, that, being
+satisfied with the conditions he had himself exacted, the exaction of
+conditions was unconstitutional. To sustain this curious proposition he
+adduced no constitutional arguments, but he left various copies of the
+Constitution in each of the crowds he recently addressed, with the
+trust, we suppose, that somebody might be fortunate enough to find in
+that instrument the clause which supported his theory. Mr. Johnson,
+however, though the most consequential of individuals, is the most
+inconsequential of reasoners; every proposition which is evident to
+himself he considers to fulfil the definition of a self-evident
+proposition; but his supporters at Philadelphia must have known, that,
+in affirming that insurgent States recover their former rights by the
+fact of submission, they were arraigning the conduct of their leader,
+who had notoriously violated those "rights." They took up his work at a
+certain stage, and then, with that as a basis, they affirmed a general
+proposition about insurgent States, which, had it been complied with by
+the President, would have left them no foundation at all; for the States
+about which they so glibly generalized would have had no show of
+organized governments. The premises of their argument were obtained by
+the violation of its conclusion; they inferred from what was a negation
+of their inference, and deduced from what was a death-blow to their
+deduction.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy enough to understand why the Johnson Convention asserted the
+equality of the Johnson reconstructions of States with the States now
+represented in Congress. The object was to give some appearance of
+legality to a contemplated act of arbitrary power, and the principle
+that insurgent States recover all their old rights by the fact of
+submission was invented in order to cover the case. Mr. Johnson now
+intends, by the admission of his partisans, to attempt a <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>
+on the assembling of the Fortieth Congress, in case seventy-one members
+of the House of Representatives, favorable to his policy, are chosen, in
+the elections of this autumn, from the twenty-six loyal States. These,
+with the fifty Southern delegates, would constitute a quorum of the
+House; and the remaining hundred and nineteen members are, in the
+President's favorite phrase, "to be kicked out" from that "verge" of the
+government on which they now are said to be "hanging." The question,
+therefore, whether Congress, as it is at present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_640" id="Page_640">[Pg 640]</a></span> constituted, is a body
+constitutionally competent to legislate for the whole country, is the
+most important of all practical questions. Let us see how the case
+stands.</p>
+
+<p>The Constitution, ratified by the people of all the States, establishes
+a government of sovereign powers, supreme over the whole land, and the
+people of no State can rightly pass from under its authority except by
+the consent of the people of all the States, with whom it is bound by
+the most solemn and binding of contracts. The Rebel States broke, <i>in
+fact</i>, the contract they could not break <i>in right</i>. Assembled in
+conventions of their people, they passed ordinances of secession,
+withdrew their Senators and Representatives from Congress, and began the
+war by assailing a fort of the United States. The Secessionists had
+trusted to the silence of the Constitution in relation to the act they
+performed. A State in the American Union, as distinguished from a
+Territory, is constitutionally a part of the government to which it owes
+allegiance, and the seceded States had refused to be parts of the
+government, and had forsworn their allegiance. By the Constitution, the
+United States, in cases of "domestic violence" in a State, is to
+interfere, "on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive when
+the Legislature cannot be convened." But in this case legislatures,
+executives, conventions of the people, were all violators of the
+domestic peace, and of course made no application for interference. By
+the Constitution, Congress is empowered to suppress insurrections; but
+this might be supposed to mean insurrections like Shays's Rebellion in
+Massachusetts and the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, and not to
+cover the action of States seceding from the Congress which is thus
+empowered. The seceders, therefore, felt somewhat as did the absconding
+James II. when he flung the Great Seal into the Thames, and thought he
+had stopped the machinery of the English government.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Buchanan, then President of the United States, admitted at once that
+the Secessionists had done their work in such a way that, though they
+had done wrong, the government was powerless to compel them to do right.
+And here the matter should have rested, if the government established by
+the Constitution was such a government as Mr. Johnson's supporters now
+declare it to be. If it is impotent to prescribe terms of peace in
+relation to insurgent States, it is certainly impotent to make war on
+insurgent States. If insurgent States recover their former
+constitutional rights in laying down their arms, then there was no
+criminality in their taking them up; and if there was no criminality in
+their taking them up, then the United States was criminal in the war by
+which they were forced to lay them down. On this theory we have a
+government incompetent to legislate for insurgent States, because
+lacking their representatives, waging against them a cruel and unjust
+war. And this is the real theory of the defeated Rebels and Copperheads
+who formed the great mass of the delegates to the Johnson Convention.
+Should they get into power, they would feel themselves logically
+justified in annulling, not only all the acts of the "Rump Congress"
+since they submitted, but all the acts of the Rump Congresses during the
+time they had a Confederate Congress of their own. They may deny that
+this is their intention; but what intention to forego the exercise of an
+assumed right, held by those who are out of power, can be supposed
+capable of limiting their action when they are in?</p>
+
+<p>But if the United States is a government having legitimate rights of
+sovereignty conferred upon it by the people of all the States, and if,
+consequently, the attempted secession of the people of one or more
+States only makes them criminals, without impairing the sovereignty of
+the United States, then the government, with all its powers, remains
+with the representatives of the loyal people.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_641" id="Page_641">[Pg 641]</a></span> By the very nature of
+government as government, the rights and privileges guaranteed to
+citizens are guaranteed to loyal citizens; the rights and privileges
+guaranteed to States are guaranteed to loyal States; and loyal citizens
+and loyal States are not such as profess a willingness to be loyal after
+having been utterly worsted in an enterprise of gigantic disloyalty. The
+organic unity and continuity of the government would be broken by the
+return of disloyal citizens and Rebel States without their going through
+the process of being restored by the action of the government they had
+attempted to subvert; and the power to restore carries with it the power
+to decide on the terms of restoration. And when we speak of the
+government, we are not courtly enough to mean by the expression simply
+its executive branch. The question of admitting and implicitly of
+restoring States, and of deciding whether or not States have a
+republican form of government, are matters left by the Constitution to
+the discretion of Congress. As to the Rebel States now claiming
+representation, they have succumbed, thoroughly exhausted, in one of the
+costliest and bloodiest wars in the history of the world,&mdash;a war which
+tasked the resources of the United States more than they would have been
+tasked by a war with all the great powers of Europe combined,&mdash;a war
+which, in 1862, had assumed such proportions, that the Supreme Court
+decided that it gave the United States the same rights and privileges
+which the government might exercise in the case of a national and
+foreign war. The inhabitants of the insurgent States being thus
+judicially declared public enemies as well as Rebels, there would seem
+to be no doubt at all that the victorious close of actual hostilities
+could not deprive the government of the power of deciding on the terms
+of peace with public enemies. The government of the United States found
+the insurgent States thoroughly revolutionized and disorganized, with no
+State governments which could be recognized without recognizing the
+validity of treason, and without the power or right to take even the
+initial steps for State reorganization. They were practically out of the
+Union as States; their State governments had lapsed; their population
+was composed of Rebels and public enemies, by the decision of the
+Supreme Court. Under such circumstances, how the Commander-in-Chief,
+under Congress, of the forces of the United States could re-create these
+defunct States, and make it mandatory on Congress to receive their
+delegates, has always appeared to us one of those mysteries of unreason
+which require faculties either above or below humanity to accept. In
+addition to this fundamental objection, there was the further one, that
+almost all of the delegates were Rebels presidentially pardoned into
+"loyal men," were elected with the idea of forcing Congress to repeal
+the test oath, and were incapacitated to be legislators even if they had
+been sent from loyal States. The few who were loyal men in the sense
+that they had not served the Rebel government, were still palpably
+elected by constituents who had; and the character of the constituency
+is as legitimate a subject of Congressional inquiry as the character of
+the representative.</p>
+
+<p>It not being true, then, that the twenty-two hundred thousand loyal
+voters who placed Mr. Johnson in office, and whom he betrayed, have no
+means by their representatives in Congress to exert a controlling power
+in the reconstruction of the Rebel communities, the question comes up as
+to the conditions which Congress has imposed. It always appeared to us
+that the true measure of conciliation, of security, of mercy, of
+justice, was one which would combine the principle of universal amnesty,
+or an amnesty nearly universal, with that of universal, or at least of
+impartial suffrage. In regard to amnesty, the amendment to the
+Constitution which Congress has passed disqualifies no Rebels from
+voting, and only disqualifies them from holding office when they have
+happened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_642" id="Page_642">[Pg 642]</a></span> to add perjury to treason. In regard to suffrage, it makes it
+for the political interest of the South to be just to its colored
+citizens, by basing representation on voters, and not on population, and
+thus places the indulgence of class prejudices and hatreds under the
+penalty of a corresponding loss of political power in the Electoral
+College and the National House of Representatives. If the Rebel States
+should be restored without this amendment becoming a part of the
+Constitution, then the recent Slave States will have thirty Presidential
+Electors and thirty members of the House of Representatives in virtue of
+a population they disfranchise, and the vote of a Rebel white in South
+Carolina will carry with it more than double the power of a loyal white
+in Massachusetts or Ohio. The only ground on which this disparity can be
+defended is, that as "one Southerner is more than a match for two
+Yankees," he has an inherent, continuous, unconditioned right to have
+this superiority recognized at the ballot-box. Indeed, the injustice of
+this is so monstrous, that the Johnson orators find it more convenient
+to decry all conditions of representation than to meet the
+incontrovertible reasons for exacting the condition which bases
+representation on voters. Not to make it a part of the Constitution
+would be, in Mr. Shellabarger's vivid illustration, to allow "that Lee's
+vote should have double the elective power of Grant's; Semmes's double
+that of Farragut's; <i>Booth's&mdash;did he live&mdash;double that of Lincoln's, his
+victim!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>It is also to be considered that these thirty votes would, in almost all
+future sessions of Congress, decide the fate of the most important
+measures. In 1862 the Republicans, as Congress is now constituted, only
+had a majority of twenty votes. In alliance with the Northern Democratic
+party, the South with these thirty votes might repeal the Civil Rights
+Bill, the principle of which is embodied in the proposed amendment. It
+might assume the Rebel debt, which is repudiated in that amendment. It
+might even repudiate the Federal debt, which is affirmed in that
+amendment. We are so accustomed to look at the Rebel debt as dead beyond
+all power of resurrection, as to forget that it amounts, with the
+valuation of the emancipated slaves, to some four thousand millions of
+dollars. If the South and its Northern Democratic allies should come
+into power, there is a strong probability that a measure would be
+brought in to assume at least a portion of this debt,&mdash;say two thousand
+millions. The Southern members would be nearly a unit for assumption,
+and the Northern Democratic members would certainly be exposed to the
+most frightful temptation that legislators ever had to resist. Suppose
+it were necessary to buy fifty members at a million of dollars apiece,
+that sum would only be two and a half per cent of the whole. Suppose it
+were necessary to give them ten millions apiece, even that would only be
+a deduction of twenty-five per cent from a claim worthless without their
+votes. The bribery might be conducted in such a way as to elude
+discovery, if not suspicion, and the measure would certainly be
+trumpeted all over the North as the grandest of all acts of
+statesmanlike "conciliation," binding the South to the Union in
+indissoluble bonds of interest. The amendment renders the conversion of
+the Rebel debt into the most enormous of all corruption funds an
+impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>But the character and necessity of the amendment are too well understood
+to need explanation, enforcement, or defence. If it, or some more
+stringent one, be not adopted, the loyal people will be tricked out of
+the fruits of the war they have waged at the expense of such unexampled
+sacrifices of treasure and blood. It never will be adopted unless it be
+practically made a condition of the restoration of the Rebel States; and
+for the unconditioned restoration of those States the President, through
+his most trusted supporters, has indicated his intention to venture a
+<i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>. This threat has failed doubly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_643" id="Page_643">[Pg 643]</a></span> of its purpose. The timid,
+whom it was expected to frighten, it has simply scared into the
+reception of the idea that the only way to escape civil war is by the
+election of over a hundred and twenty Republican Representatives to the
+Fortieth Congress. The courageous, whom it was intended to defy, it has
+only exasperated into more strenuous efforts against the insolent
+renegade who had the audacity to make it.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere in the loyal States there is an uprising of the people only
+paralleled by the grand uprising of 1861. The President's plan of
+reconstruction having passed from a policy into a conspiracy, his chief
+supporters are now not so much his partisans as his accomplices; and
+against him and his accomplices the people will this autumn indignantly
+record the most overwhelming of verdicts.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ART" id="ART"></a>ART.</h2>
+
+<h3>MARSHALL'S PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When we consider the conditions under which the art of successful
+line-engraving is attained, the amount and quality of artistic knowledge
+implied, the years of patient, unwearied application imperiously
+demanded, the numerous manual difficulties to be overcome, and the
+technical skill to be acquired, it is not surprising that the names of
+so few engravers should be pre-eminent and familiar.</p>
+
+<p>In our own country, at least, the instinct and habit of the people do
+not favor the growth and perfection of an art only possible under such
+conditions.</p>
+
+<p>So fully and satisfactorily, however, have these demands been met in
+Marshall's line-engraving of the head of Abraham Lincoln, executed after
+Mr. Marshall's own painting, that we are induced to these preliminary
+thoughts as much by a sense of national pride as of delight and
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Our admiration of the engraving is first due to its value as a likeness;
+for it is only when the heart rests from a full and satisfied
+contemplation of the face endeared to us all, that we can regard it for
+its artistic worth.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Marshall did not need this last work, to rank him at the head of
+American engravers; for his portraits of Washington and Fenimore Cooper
+had done that already; but it has lifted him to a place with the
+foremost engravers of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The greatness and glory of his success, in this instance, are to be
+measured by the inherent difficulties in the subject itself.</p>
+
+<p>The intellectual and physical traits of Abraham Lincoln were such as the
+world had never seen before. Original, peculiar, and anomalous, they
+seemed incapable of analysis and classification.</p>
+
+<p>While the keen, comprehensive intellect within that broad, grand
+forehead was struggling with the great problems of national fate, other
+faculties of the same organization, strongly marked in the lower
+features of his face, seemed to be making light of the whole matter.</p>
+
+<p>His character and the physical expression of it were unique, and yet
+made up of the most complex elements;&mdash;simple, yet incomprehensible;
+strong, yet gentle; inflexible, yet conciliating; human, yet most rare;
+the strangest, and yet for all in all the most lovable, character in
+history.</p>
+
+<p>To represent this man, to embody these characteristics, was the work
+prescribed the artist. Instead of being fetters, these contradictions
+seem to have been incentives to the artist. Justice to himself, as to an
+American who loved Lincoln, and justice to the great man, the truest
+American of his time, appear also to have been his inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>Neglected now, this golden opportunity might be lost forever, and the
+future be haunted by an ideal only, and never be familiarized with the
+plain, good face we knew. For what could the future make of all these
+caricatures and uncouth efforts at portraiture, rendered only more
+grotesque when stretched upon the rack of a thousand canvases? No less a
+benefactor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_644" id="Page_644">[Pg 644]</a></span> to art than to humanity is he who shall deliver the world of
+these.</p>
+
+<p>The artist has chosen, with admirable judgment, a quiet, restful,
+familiar phase of Mr. Lincoln's life, with the social and genial
+sentiments of his nature at play, rather than some more impressive and
+startling hour of his public life, when a victory was gained, or an
+immortal sentence uttered at Gettysburg or the Capitol, or when, as the
+great Emancipator, he walked with his liberated children through the
+applauding streets of Richmond. It was tempting to paint him as
+President, but triumphant to represent him as a man.</p>
+
+<p>Though the face is wanting in the crowning glory of the dramatic, the
+romantic, the picturesque,&mdash;elements so fascinating to an artist,&mdash;we
+still feel no loss in the absence of these; for Mr. Marshall has found
+abundant material in the rich and varied qualities that Mr. Lincoln did
+possess, and has treated them with the loftier sense of justice and
+truth, he has employed no adventitious agencies to give brilliancy or
+emphasis to any salient point in the character of the man he portrays;
+he has treated Mr. Lincoln as he found him; he has interpreted him as he
+would have interpreted himself; in inspiration, in execution, and in
+result, he thought of none other, he labored for none other, he has
+given us none other, than simple, honest Abraham Lincoln.</p>
+
+<p>Were all the biographies and estimates of the President's character to
+be lost, it would seem as if, from this picture alone, the
+distinguishing qualities of his head and heart might be saved to the
+knowledge of the future; for a rarer exhibition seems impossible of the
+power of imparting inner spiritual states to outward physical
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>As a work of art, we repeat, this is beyond question the finest instance
+of line-engraving yet executed on this continent. Free from carelessness
+or coarseness, it is yet strong and emphatic; exquisitely finished, yet
+without painful over-elaboration; with no weary monotony of parallel
+lines to fill a given space, and no unrelieved masses of shade merely
+because here must the shadow fall.</p>
+
+<p>As a likeness, it is complete and final. Coming generations will know
+Abraham Lincoln by this picture, and will tenderly and lovingly regard
+it; for all that art could do to save and perpetuate this lamented man
+has here been done. What it lacks, art is incapable to express; what it
+has lost, memory is powerless to restore.</p>
+
+<p>There is, at least, some temporary solace to a bereaved country in
+this,&mdash;that so much has been saved from the remorseless demands of
+Death; though the old grief will ever come back to its still uncomforted
+heart, when it turns to that tomb by the Western prairie, within whose
+sacred silence so much sweetness and kindly sympathy and unaffected love
+have passed away, and the strange pathos, that we could not understand,
+and least of all remove, has faded forever from those sorrowful eyes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES" id="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"></a>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln. The
+Story of a Picture.</i> By <span class="smcap">F. B. Carpenter</span>. New York: Hurd and
+Houghton.</p></div>
+
+<p>The grandeur which can survive proximity was peculiarly Abraham
+Lincoln's. Had that great and simple hero had a valet,&mdash;it is hard to
+conceive of him as so attended,&mdash;he must still have been a hero even to
+the eye grown severe in dusting clothes and brushing shoes. Indeed,
+first and last, he was subjected to very critical examination by the
+valet-spirit throughout the world; and he seems to have passed it
+triumphantly, for all our native valets, North and South, as well as
+those of the English press, have long since united in honoring him.</p>
+
+<p>We see him in this book of Mr. Carpenter's to that advantage which
+perfect unaffectedness and sincerity can never lose. It is certainly a
+very pathetic figure, however, that the painter presents us, and not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_645" id="Page_645">[Pg 645]</a></span> to
+be contemplated without sadness and that keen sense of personal loss
+which we all felt in the death of Abraham Lincoln. During the time that
+Mr. Carpenter was making studies for his picture of the President
+signing the Emancipation Proclamation, he was in daily contact with
+him,&mdash;saw him in consultation with his Cabinet, at play with his
+children, receiving office-seekers of all kinds, granting many favors to
+poor and friendless people, snubbing Secession insolence, and bearing
+patiently much impertinence from every source,&mdash;jesting, laughing,
+lamenting. It is singular that, in all these aspects of his character,
+there is no want of true dignity, though there is an utter absence of
+state,&mdash;and that we behold nothing of the man Lincoln was once doubted
+to be, but only a person of noble simplicity, cautious but steadfast,
+shrinking from none of the burdens that almost crushed him, profoundly
+true to his faith in the people, while surveying the awful calamity of
+the war with</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">"Anxious, pitying eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if he always listened to the sighs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the goaded world."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We have read Mr. Carpenter's book through with an interest chiefly due,
+we believe, to the subject; for though the author had the faculty to
+observe and to note characteristic and striking things, he has not the
+literary art to present them adequately. His style is compact of the
+manner of the local reporters and the Sunday-school books. If he depicts
+a pathetic scene, he presently farces it by adding that "there was not a
+dry eye among those that witnessed it," and goody-goody dwells in the
+spirit and letter of all his attempts to portray the religious character
+of the President. It is greatly to his credit, however, that his
+observation is employed with discretion and delicacy; and as he rarely
+lapses from good taste concerning things to be mentioned, we readily
+forgive him his want of grace in recounting the incidents which go to
+form his entertaining and valuable book.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Inside: a Chronicle of Secession.</i> By <span class="smcap">George F. Harrington</span>.
+New York: Harper and Brothers.</p></div>
+
+<p>The author of this novel tells us that it was written in the heart of
+the rebellious territory during the late war, and that his wife
+habitually carried the manuscript to church with her in her pocket,
+while on one occasion he was obliged to bury it in the ground to
+preserve it from the insidious foe. These facts, in themselves
+startling, appear yet more extraordinary on perusal of the volume, in
+which there seems to be nothing of perilous value. Nevertheless, to the
+ill-regulated imagination of the Rebels, this novel might have appeared
+a very dangerous thing, to be kept from ever seeing the light in the
+North by all the means in their power; and we are not ready to say that
+Mr. Harrington's precautions, though unusual, were excessive. It is true
+that we see no reason why he should not have kept the material in his
+mind, and tranquilly written it out after the war was over.</p>
+
+<p>Let us not, however, give too slight an idea of the book's value because
+the Preface is silly. The story is sluggish, it must be confessed, and
+does not in the least move us. But the author has made a very careful
+study of his subject, and shows so genuine a feeling for character and
+manner that we accept his work as a faithful picture of the life he
+attempts to portray. Should he write another fiction, he will probably
+form his style less visibly upon that of Thackeray, though it is
+something in his favor that he betrays admiration for so great a master
+even by palpable imitation; and we hope he will remember that a story,
+however slender, must be coherent. In the present novel, we think the
+characters of Colonel Juggins and his wife done with masterly touches;
+and General Lamum, politician pure and simple, is also excellent.
+Brother Barker, of the hard-shell type, is less original, though good;
+while Captain Simmons, Colonel Ret Roberts, and other village idlers and
+great men, seem admirably true to nature. Except for some absurd
+melodrama, the tone of the book is quiet and pleasant, and there is here
+and there in it a vein of real pathos and humor.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Royal Truths.</i> By <span class="smcap">Henry Ward Beecher</span>. Boston: Ticknor and
+Fields.</p></div>
+
+<p>We imagine that most readers, in turning over the pages of this volume,
+will not be greatly struck by the novelty of the truths urged. Indeed,
+they are very old truths, and they contain the precepts which we all
+know and neglect. Except that the present preacher was qualified to
+illustrate them with original force and clearness, he might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_646" id="Page_646">[Pg 646]</a></span> well have
+left them untouched. As it is, however, we think that every one who
+reads a page in the book will learn to honor the faculty that presents
+them. It is not because Mr. Beecher reproves hatred, false-witness,
+lust, envy, and covetousness, that he is so successful in his office. We
+all do this, and dislike sin in our neighbors; but it is his power of
+directly reproving these evils in each one of us that gives his words so
+great weight. He of course does this by varying means and with varying
+effect. Here we have detached passages from many different
+discourses,&mdash;not invariably selected with perfect judgment, but
+affording for this reason a better idea of his range and capacity. That
+given is not always of his best; but, for all this, it may have been the
+best for some of those who heard it. In the changing topics and style of
+the innumerable extracts in this volume, we find passages of pure
+sublimity, of solemn and pathetic eloquence, of flower-like grace and
+sweetness, followed by exhortations apparently modelled upon those of
+Mr. Chadband, but doubtless comforting and edifying to Mrs. Snagsby in
+the congregation, and not, we suppose, without use to Mrs. Snagsby in
+the parlor where she sits down to peruse the volume on Sunday afternoon.
+For according to the story which Mr. Beecher tells his publishers in a
+very pleasant prefatory letter, this compilation was made in England,
+where it attained great popularity among those who never heard the
+preacher, and who found satisfaction in the first-rate or the
+second-rate, without being moved by the arts of oratory. Indeed, the
+book is one that must everywhere be welcome, both for its manner and for
+its matter. The application of the "Truths" is generally enforced by a
+felicitous apologue or figure; in some cases the lesson is conveyed in a
+beautiful metaphor standing alone. The extracts are brief, and the
+point, never wanting, is moral, not doctrinal.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Language of Flowers.</i> Edited by <span class="smcap">Miss Ildrewe</span>. Boston:
+De Vries, Ibarra, &amp; Co.</p></div>
+
+<p>Margaret Fuller said that everybody liked gossip, and the only
+difference was in the choice of a subject. A bookful of gossip about
+flowers&mdash;their loves and hates, thoughts and feelings, genealogy and
+cousinships&mdash;is certainly always attractive. Who does not like to hear
+that Samphire comes from Saint-Pierre, and Tansy from Athanasie, and
+that Jerusalem Artichokes are a kind of sunflower, whose baptismal name
+is a corruption of <i>girasole</i>, and simply describes the flower's love
+for the sun? Does this explain all the Jerusalems which are scattered
+through our popular flora,&mdash;as Jerusalem Beans and Jerusalem Cherries?
+The common theory has been that the sons of the Puritans, by a slight
+theological reaction, called everything which was not quite genuine on
+week-days by that name which sometimes wearied them on Sundays.</p>
+
+<p>It is pleasant also to be reminded that our common Yarrow (<i>Achillea
+millefolium</i>) dates back to Achilles, who used it to cure his wounded
+friend, and that Mint is simply Menthe, transformed to a plant by the
+jealous Proserpine. It is refreshing to know that Solomon's Seal was so
+named by reason of the marks on its root; and that this root, according
+to the old herbalists, "stamped while it is fresh and greene, and
+applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruse, black
+or blew spots gotten by falls, or woman's wilfulness in stumbling upon
+their hasty husband's fists, or such like." It was surely a generous
+thing in Solomon, who set his seal of approbation upon the rod, to
+furnish in that same signet a balm for injuries like these.</p>
+
+<p>This pretty gift-book is the first really American contribution to the
+language of flowers. It has many graceful and some showy illustrations;
+its floral emblems are not all exotic; and though the editor's
+appellation may at first seem so, a simple application of the laws of
+anagram will reveal a name quite familiar, in America, to all lovers of
+things horticultural.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The American Annual Cyclop&aelig;dia and Register of Important
+Events of the Year 1865.</i> New York: D. Appleton &amp; Co.</p></div>
+
+<p>Several articles in this volume give it an unusual interest and value.
+The paper on Cholera is not the kind of reading to which one could have
+turned with cheerfulness last July, from a repast of summer vegetables
+and hurried fruits; nor can that on Trichinosis be pleasant to the
+friend of pork; but they are both clearly and succinctly written, and
+will contribute to the popular understanding of the dangers which they
+discuss.</p>
+
+<p>The Cyclop&aelig;dia, however, has its chief<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_647" id="Page_647">[Pg 647]</a></span> merit in those articles which
+present <i>resum&eacute;s</i> of the past year's events in politics, literature,
+science, and art. The one on the last-named subject is less complete
+than could be wished, and is written in rather slovenly English; but the
+article on literature is very full and satisfactory. A great mass of
+biographical matter is presented under the title of "Obituaries," but
+more extended notices of more distinguished persons are given under the
+proper names. Among the latter are accounts of the lives and public
+services of Lincoln, Everett, Palmerston, Cobden, and Corwin; and of the
+lives and literary works of Miss Bremer, Mrs. Gaskell, Hildreth,
+Proudhon, etc. The article on Corwin is too slight for the subject, and
+the notice of Hildreth, who enjoyed a great repute both in this country
+and in Europe, is scant and inadequate. Under the title of "Army
+Operations," a fair synopsis of the history of the last months of the
+war is given; and, as a whole, the Cyclop&aelig;dia is a valuable, if not
+altogether complete, review of the events of 1865.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>History of the Atlantic Telegraph.</i> By <span class="smcap">Henry M. Field</span>, D.
+D. New York: Charles Scribner &amp; Co.</p></div>
+
+<p>Why Columbus should have been at the trouble to sail from the Old World
+in order to find a nearer path to it, as our author states in his
+opening chapter, he will probably explain in the future edition in which
+he will chastise the occasionally ambitious writing of this. His book is
+a most interesting narrative of all the events in the history of
+telegraphic communication between Europe and America, and has the double
+claim upon the reader of an important theme and an attractive treatment
+of it. Now that the great nervous cord running from one centre of the
+world's life to the other is quick with constant sensation, the wonder
+of its existence may fade from our minds; and it is well for us to
+remember how many failures&mdash;involving all the virtue of triumph&mdash;went
+before the final success. And it cannot but be forever gratifying to our
+national pride, that, although the idea of the Atlantic telegraph
+originated in Newfoundland, and was mainly realized through the patience
+of British enterprise, yet the first substantial encouragement which it
+received was from Americans, and that it was an American whose heroic
+perseverance so united his name with this idea that Cyrus W. Field and
+the Atlantic cable are not to be dissociated in men's minds in this or
+any time.</p>
+
+<p>Our author has not only very interestingly reminded us of all this, but
+he has done it with a good judgment which we must applaud. His brother
+was the master-spirit of the whole enterprise; but, while he has
+contrived to do him perfect justice, he has accomplished the end with an
+unfailing sense of the worth of the constant support and encouragement
+given by others.</p>
+
+<p>The story is one gratifying to our national love of adventurous material
+and scientific enterprise, as well as to our national pride. We hardly
+know, however, if it should be a matter of regret that neither on the
+one account nor on the other are we able to receive the facts of the
+cable's success and existence with the effusion with which we hailed
+them in 1858. Blighting De Sauty, suspense, and scepticism succeeded the
+rapture and pyrotechnics of those joyful days; and in the mean time we
+have grown so much that to be electrically united with England does not
+impart to us the fine thrill that the hope of it once did. Indeed, the
+jubilation over the cable's success seems at last to have been chiefly
+on the side of the Englishmen, who found our earlier enthusiasm rather
+absurd, but who have since learned to value us, and just now can
+scarcely make us compliments enough.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_648" id="Page_648">[Pg 648]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS" id="RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS"></a>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border. Comprising Descriptions of the
+Indian Nomads of the Plains; Explorations of New Territory; a Trip
+across the Rocky Mountains in the Winter; Descriptions of the Habits of
+different Animals found in the West, and the Methods of hunting them;
+with Incidents in the Life of different Frontier Men, etc., etc. By
+Colonel R. B. Marcy, U. S. A., Author of "The Prairie Traveller." With
+numerous Illustrations. New York. Harper &amp; Brothers. 12mo. pp. 442.
+$3.00.</p>
+
+<p>Life and Times of Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth President of the United
+States. Written from a National Stand-point. By a National Man. New
+York. D. Appleton &amp; Co. 12mo. pp. xii. 363. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p>The American Printer: a Manual of Typography, containing complete
+Instructions for Beginners, as well as Practical Directions for managing
+all Departments of a Printing-Office. With several useful Tables,
+Schemes for Imposing Forms in every Variety, Hints to Authors and
+Publishers, etc., etc. By Thomas Mackellar. Philadelphia. L. Johnson &amp;
+Co. 12mo. pp. 336. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p>Coal, Iron, and Oil; or, the Practical American Miner. A Plain and
+Popular Work on our Mines and Mineral Resources, and a Text-Book or
+Guide to their Economical Development. With Numerous Maps and
+Engravings, illustrating and explaining the Geology, Origin, and
+Formation of Coal, Iron, and Oil, their Peculiarities, Characters, and
+General Distribution, and the Economy of mining, manufacturing, and
+using them; with General Descriptions of the Coal-Fields and Coal-Mines
+of the World, and Special Descriptions of the Anthracite Fields and
+Mines of Pennsylvania, and the Bituminous Fields of the United States,
+the Iron-Districts and Iron-Trade of our Country, and the Geology and
+Distribution of Petroleum, the Statistics, Extent, Production, and Trade
+in Coal, Iron, and Oil, and such useful Information on Mining and
+Manufacturing Matters as Science and Practical Experience have developed
+to the present Time. By Samuel Harries Daddow, Practical Miner and
+Engineer of Mines, and Benjamin Bannan, Editor and Proprietor of the
+"Miner's Journal." Pottsville. B. Bannan. 8vo. pp. 808. $7.50.</p>
+
+<p>Index to the New York Times for 1865. Including the Second Inauguration
+of President Lincoln, and his Assassination; the Accession to the
+Presidency of Andrew Johnson; the Close of the XXXVIII. and Opening of
+the XXXIX. Congress, and the Close of the War of Secession. New York.
+Henry J. Raymond &amp; Co. 8vo. pp. iv., 182. $5.00.</p>
+
+<p>Sherbrooke. By H. B. G., Author of "Madge." New York. D. Appleton &amp; Co.
+12mo. pp. 463. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p>Sermons preached on different Occasions during the last Twenty Years. By
+the Rev. Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D. D., Prebendary of St. Paul's, and
+one of her Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary. Reprinted from the Second
+London Edition. Two Volumes in one. New York. D. Appleton &amp; Co. 12mo.
+pp. iv., 397. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p>Miscellanea. Comprising Reviews, Lectures, and Essays, on Historical,
+Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects. By Most Rev. M.J. Spalding, D.
+D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Baltimore. Murphy &amp; Co. 8vo. pp. lxii.,
+807. $3.50.</p>
+
+<p>Poems. By Christina G. Rosetti. Boston. Roberts Brothers. 16mo. pp. x.,
+256. $1.75.</p>
+
+<p>Christine: a Troubadour's Song, and other Poems. By George H. Miles. New
+York. Lawrence Kehoe. 12mo. pp. 285. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p>The Admiral's Daughter. By Mrs. Marsh. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson &amp;
+Bro. 8vo. paper. pp. 115. 50 cts.</p>
+
+<p>The Orphans; and Caleb Field. By Mrs. Oliphant. Philadelphia. T. B.
+Peterson &amp; Bro. 8vo. paper. pp. 133. 50 cts.</p>
+
+<p>Life of Benjamin Silliman, M. D., LL. D., late Professor of Chemistry,
+Mineralogy, and Geology in Yale College. Chiefly from his Manuscript
+Reminiscences, Diaries, and Correspondence. By George P. Fisher,
+Professor in Yale College. In Two Volumes. New York. C. Scribner &amp; Co.
+12mo. pp. xvi., 407; x., 408. $5.00.</p>
+
+<p>The Mormon Prophet and his Harem; or, An Authentic History of Brigham
+Young, his numerous Wives and Children. By Mrs. C. V. Waite. Cambridge.
+Printed at the Riverside Press, 12mo. pp. x., 280. $2.00.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No.
+109, November, 1866, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1866 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 26963-h.htm or 26963-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109,
+November, 1866, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 19, 2008 [EBook #26963]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1866 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._
+
+VOL. XVIII.--NOVEMBER, 1866.--NO. CIX.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR AND
+FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article.
+
+
+
+
+RHODA.
+
+
+Uncle Bradburn took down a volume of the new Cyclopaedia, and placed it
+on the stand beside him. He did not, however, open it immediately, but
+sat absorbed in thought. At length he spoke:--"Don't you think a young
+girl in the kitchen, to help Dorothy, would save a good many steps?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Aunt Janet, slowly. "Dorothy has a great deal to
+do already. Hepsy is as good and considerate as possible, but Dorothy
+won't let her do anything hardly. Hepsy says herself that within doors
+she has only dusted furniture and mended stockings ever since she came."
+
+"Can't you find sewing for Hepsy?"
+
+"She ought not to do much of that, you know."
+
+"Very true; but then this girl,--she will have to go to the poor-house
+if we don't take her. She has been living with Mrs. Kittredge at the
+Hollow; but Mrs. Kittredge has made up her mind not to keep her any
+longer. The fact is, nobody will keep her unless we do; and she is
+terribly set against going back to the poor-house."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Aunt Janet, a little hurriedly. She guessed already.
+
+"Her name is Rhoda Breck. You have heard of her."
+
+"Heard of her! I should think so!"
+
+"If I were you, Oliver," said grandmother, who sat in her rocking-chair
+knitting, "I would have two or three new rooms finished off over the
+wood-shed, and then you could accommodate a few more of that sort. Just
+like you!"
+
+And she took a pinch of snuff from a little silver-lidded box made of a
+sea-shell. She took it precipitately,--a sign that she was slightly
+disturbed. This snuff-box, however, was a safety-valve.
+
+Uncle Bradburn smiled quietly and made no reply.
+
+"We will leave it to Dorothy," said Aunt Janet. "It is only fair, for
+she will have all the trouble."
+
+Uncle Bradburn regarded the point as gained: he was sure of Dorothy. But
+he added by way of clincher, "Probably the girl never knew a month of
+kind treatment in her life, and one would like her to have a chance of
+seeing what it is. Just imagine a child of fifteen subjected to the
+veriest vixen in the country. There is some excuse for old Mrs.
+Kittredge, too, exasperated as she is by disease. No wonder if she is
+not very amiable; but that makes it none the less hard for the child."
+
+So the upshot of the matter was, that Rhoda Breck was installed nominal
+aid to Dorothy.
+
+Uncle brought her the next day in his sulky,--a slight little creature,
+with a bundle as large as herself.
+
+Presently she appeared at the sitting-room door. She was scarcely taller
+than a well-grown ten-years child. She wore a dress of gay-hued print, a
+bright shawl whose fringe reached lower than the edge of her skirt, and
+on her head an old-world straw bonnet decorated with a mat of crushed
+artificial flowers, and a faded, crumpled green veil. The small head had
+a way of moving in quick little jerks, like a chicken's; and it was odd
+to see how the enormous bonnet moved and jerked in unison. The face and
+features were small, except the eyes, which were large and wide open,
+and blue as turquoise.
+
+She took time to look well around the room before she spoke:--"Well, I'm
+come; I suppose you've been expecting of me. See here, be I going to
+sleep with that colored woman?"
+
+It was not possible to know from her manner to whom the query was
+addressed; but Aunt Janet replied, "No, Rhoda, there is a room for you.
+We never ask Dorothy to share her room with any one." Then, turning to
+me, "Go and show Rhoda her room, my dear."
+
+I rose to obey. Rhoda surveyed me, as if taking an inventory of the
+particulars which made up my exterior; and when I in turn felt my eyes
+attracted by her somewhat singular aspect, she remarked, in an
+indescribably authoritative tone, "Don't gawp! I hate to be gawped at."
+
+"See what a pretty room Dorothy has got ready for you," said I,--"a
+chest of drawers in it, too; and there's a little closet. I am sure you
+will like your room."
+
+"No, you ain't sure neither," she replied. "Nobody can't tell till
+they've tried. Likely yourn has got a carpet all over it. Hain't it,
+now?"
+
+"It has a straw matting," I answered.
+
+"And it's bigger'n this, I'll bet Ain't it, now?"
+
+"It is larger; but Louise and I have it together," said I.
+
+"Yes, I've heard tell about her," said Rhoda. "Well, you see you and her
+ain't town-poor. If you was town-poor you'd have to put up with
+everything,--little room, and straw bed, and old clothes, and
+everything. I expect I'll have to take your old gowns; hain't you got
+any? Say, now."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but I wear them myself. Surely, that you have on is not
+old."
+
+"Well, that's because I picked berries enough to buy it with. My bundle
+there's all old duds, though. It takes me half my time to patch 'em.
+You'd pitch 'em into the rag-bag. Wouldn't you, now?"
+
+"I have not seen them, you know," I replied.
+
+"More you hain't, nor you ain't agoing to. I hate folks peeking over my
+things."
+
+"Well," said I, "you may be sure I shall never do it. I must go back to
+my work now."
+
+"O, you feel above looking at town-poor's things, don't you? Wait till
+I've showed you my new apron. I didn't ride in it for fear I'd dust it.
+It's real gay, ain't it, now?"
+
+"Yes," said I; "it looks like a piece of a tulip-bed. But I must really
+go. I hope you will like your room."
+
+When I went back into the sitting-room, grandmother was wiping her eyes.
+She had been laughing till she cried at the new help Uncle Oliver had
+brought into the house.
+
+"No matter, though," she was saying; "let him call them help if he
+likes. If Dorothy will put up with it, I am sure we ourselves may. He
+says Hepsy more than pays her way in eggs and chickens. Just as if he
+thought about the eggs and chickens! Of course, if persons are really
+in need, it always pays to help them; and I guess Oliver has about as
+much capital invested that way as any one I know of, and I'm glad of it.
+But it's his funny way of doing it; it's all help, you see." And she
+laughed again till the tears came.
+
+In half an hour, during which time grandmother had a nap in her chair
+and Aunt Janet read, the little apparition stood in the doorway again.
+She had doffed the huge bonnet; and in her lint-white locks, drawn back
+from her forehead so straight and tight that it seemed as if that were
+what made her eyes open so round, she wore a tall horn comb. Around her
+neck, and standing well out, was a broad frill of the same material as
+her dress, highly suggestive of Queen Elizabeth.
+
+"You hain't got any old things, coats and trousers and such, all worn
+out, have you? 'Cause if you have, I guess I'll begin a braided rug.
+When folks are poor, they've got to work, if they know what's good for
+'em."
+
+"They'd better work, if they know what's good for 'em, whether they're
+poor or not," said grandmother.
+
+"There's a pedler going to bring me a diamond ring when I get a dollar
+to pay him for it."
+
+This remark was elicited by a fiery spark on grandmother's finger.
+
+"You had better save your money for something you need more," said
+grandmother.
+
+"You didn't think so when you bought yourn, did you, now?" said Rhoda.
+
+Meantime Aunt Janet had experienced a sense of relief at Rhoda's
+suggestion, by reason of finding herself really at a loss how to employ
+her. So they twain proceeded at once to the garret; whence they
+presently returned, Rhoda bearing her arms full of worn-out garments
+which had been accumulating in view of the possible beggar whose visits
+in that part of New England are inconveniently rare.
+
+"Those braided rugs are very comfortable things under one's feet in
+winter," said grandmother. "They're homely as a stump fence, but that is
+no matter."
+
+"I hardly knew what you would do with her while we were away," said Aunt
+Janet. "But it would kill the child to sit steadily at that. There's one
+thing, though,--strawberries will soon be ripe, and she can go and pick
+them. You may tell her, Kate, that I will pay her for them by the quart,
+just as any one else does. That will please and encourage her, I think."
+
+I told her that evening.
+
+"No, you don't," was her answer. "Nobody don't pay me twice over. I
+ain't an old skinflint, if I be town-poor. But I'll keep you in
+strawberries, though. Never you fear."
+
+I quite liked that of her, and so did grandmother and Aunt Janet when I
+told them.
+
+Uncle and Aunt Bradburn were going to make their yearly visit at Exeter,
+where uncle's relatives live. The very day of their departure brought a
+letter announcing a visit from one of Aunt Janet's cousins, a Miss
+Lucretia Stackpole. She was a lady who avowed herself fortunate in
+having escaped all those trammels which hinder people from following
+their own bent. One of her fancies was for a nomadic life; and in
+pursuance of this, she bestowed on Aunt Janet occasional visits, varying
+in duration from two or three days to as many weeks. The letter implied
+that she might arrive in the evening train, and we waited tea for her.
+
+She did not disappoint us; and during the tea-drinking she gave us
+sketches, not only of all the little celebrities she had met at
+Saratoga, but of all the new fashions in dresses, bonnets, and jewelry,
+besides many of her own plans.
+
+It was impossible for her to remain beyond the week, she said, because
+she had promised to meet her friends General and Mrs. Perkinpine in
+Burlington in time to accompany them to Montreal and Quebec, whence they
+must hurry back to Saratoga for a week, and go thence to Baltimore;
+then, after returning for a few days to New York, they were to go to
+Europe.
+
+"But you don't mean to go with them to Europe, Lucretia?" said
+grandmother.
+
+"O, of course, Aunt Margaret," for so she called her,--"of course I
+intend to go. We mean to be gone a year, and half the time we shall
+spend in Paris. We shall go to Rome, and we shall spend a few weeks in
+England."
+
+"I cannot imagine what you will do with six months in Paris,--you who
+don't know five words of French."
+
+"I studied it, however, at boarding-school," said Miss Stackpole; "I
+read both Telemaque and the New Testament in French."
+
+"Did you?" said grandmother; "well, every little helps."
+
+"I think I should dearly love to go myself," said Louise.
+
+"One picks up the language," said Miss Stackpole; "and certainly nothing
+is more improving than travel."
+
+"If improvement is your motive, it is certainly a very laudable one,"
+said grandmother. "But I should suppose that at your age you would begin
+to prefer a little quiet to all this rushing about. But every one to his
+liking."
+
+Now it is undeniable that grandmother and Miss Stackpole never did get
+on very well together; so it was rather a relief to Louise and myself
+when Miss Stackpole, pleading fatigue from her ride, expressed a wish to
+go to bed early, and get a good long, refreshing night's sleep, the
+facilities for which, she averred, were the only compensating
+circumstance of country life.
+
+Immediately afterwards, grandmother called Louise and myself into her
+room, to say what a pity it was that this visit had not occurred either
+a few weeks earlier or a few weeks later, when uncle and aunt would have
+been at home; but that, as it was, we must make the best of it, and do
+all in our power to make things go pleasantly for Miss Stackpole. It was
+true, she said, that Lucretia was not so very many years younger than
+herself, and, for her part, she thought pearl-powder and rouge and dyed
+hair, and all such trash, made people look old and silly, instead of
+young and handsome. It did sometimes try her patience a little; but she
+hoped she should remember, and so must we, that it was a Christian duty
+to treat people hospitably in one's own home, and that it was enjoined
+upon us to live peaceably, if possible, with all men, as much as lieth
+in us. Lucretia's being a goose made no difference in the principle.
+
+So we planned that we would take her up to Haverhill, and down to
+Cornish, and over to Woodstock,--all places to which she liked to go.
+And Dorothy came in to ask if she had better broil or fricassee the
+chickens for breakfast, and to say that there was a whole basketful of
+Guinea-hens' eggs, and that she had just set some waffles and
+sally-lunns a-sponging. She was determined to do her part, she said: she
+should be mighty glad to help get that skinchy-scrimpy look out of Miss
+Lucretia's face, just like a sour raisin.
+
+Grandmother said every one must do the best she could.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was one topic which Miss Stackpole could never let alone, and
+which always led to a little sparring between herself and grandmother.
+So the next morning, directly after breakfast, she began,--"Aunt
+Margaret, I never see that ring on your finger without wanting it."
+
+"I know it," grandmother responded; "and you're likely to want it. It's
+little like you'll ever get it."
+
+"Now, Aunt Margaret! you always could say the drollest things. But, upon
+my word, I should prize it above everything. What in all the world makes
+you care to wear such a ring as that, at your age, is more than I can
+imagine. If you gave it to me, I promise you I would never part with it
+as long as I live."
+
+"And I promise you, Lucretia, that I never will. And let me tell you,
+that, old as I am, you are the only one who has ever seemed in a hurry
+for me to have done with my possessions. If it will ease your mind any,
+I can assure you, once for all, that this ring will never come into your
+hands as long as you live. It has been in the family five generations,
+and has always gone to the eldest daughter; and, depend upon it, I shall
+not be the first to infringe the custom. So now I hope you will leave me
+in peace."
+
+Miss Stackpole held up her hands, and exclaimed and protested. When she
+was alone with Louise and me, she said she could plainly see that
+grandmother grew broken and childish.
+
+When we saw grandmother alone, she said she was sorry she had been so
+warm with Lucretia; she feared it was not quite Christian; besides,
+though you brayed a fool in a mortar with a pestle, yet would not his
+foolishness depart from him.
+
+The visiting career, so desirable for various reasons, was entered upon
+immediately. To Bethel, being rather too far for going and returning the
+same day, only Miss Stackpole and Louise went. They rode in the
+carryall, Louise driving. Though quite needlessly, Miss Stackpole was a
+little afraid of trusting herself to Louise's skill, and begged Will
+Bright, uncle's gardener, to leave his work, just for a day, and go with
+them. But there were a dozen things, said Will, which needed immediate
+doing, so that was out of the question. Then it came out that a run-away
+horse was not the only danger. In the country there are so many
+lurking-places, particularly in going through woods, whence a robber
+might pounce upon you all of a sudden and demand your life, or your
+portemonnaie, or your watch, or your rings, or something, that Miss
+Stackpole thought unprotected women, out on a drive, were on the whole
+forlorn creatures. But in our neighborhood a highwayman was a myth,--we
+had hardly ever even heard of one; and so, after no end of misgivings
+lest one or another lion in the way should after all compel the
+relinquishment of the excursion, literally at the eleventh hour they
+were fairly on their way.
+
+A room with a low, pleasant window looking out on the garden was the one
+assigned to Rhoda. In the garret she had discovered a little old
+rocking-chair, and this, transferred to her room, and placed near the
+window, was her favorite seat. Here, whenever one walked in the back
+garden, which was pretty much thickets of lilacs, great white
+rose-bushes, beds of pinks and southern-wood, and rows of
+currant-bushes, might be heard Rhoda's voice crooning an old song. It
+was rather a sweet voice, too. I wondered where she could have collected
+so many old airs. She said she supposed she caught them of Miss Reeney,
+out at the poor-house.
+
+When one saw Rhoda working away with unremitting assiduity, day after
+day, it was difficult to yield credence to all the stories that had been
+current in regard to her violence of temper and general viciousness.
+That was hard work, too, which she was doing; at least it looked hard
+for such little bits of hands. First, cutting with those great heavy
+shears through the thick, stiff cloth; next, the braiding; and finally,
+the sewing together with the huge needle, and coarse, waxed thread.
+
+One afternoon I had been looking at her a little while, and, as what
+uncle said about her having never had fair play came into my mind, I
+felt a strong compulsion to do her some kindness, however trifling; so I
+gathered a few flowers, fragrant and bright, and took them to her
+window.
+
+"Rhoda," said I, "shouldn't you like these on your bureau? They will
+look pretty there; and only smell how sweet they are. You may have the
+vase for your own, if you like."
+
+She took it without a word, looked at it a moment, glancing at me to
+make sure she understood, and then rose and placed it on the bureau,
+where it showed double, reflected from the looking-glass. She did not
+again turn her face towards me till she had spent a brief space in close
+communion with a minute handkerchief which she had drawn from her
+pocket. Clearly, here was one not much wonted to little kindnesses, and
+not insensible to them either.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The visit to Bethel had resulted so well, that Woodstock and Cornish
+were unhesitatingly undertaken. Nor was it misplaced confidence on Miss
+Stackpole's part. With the slight drawback of having forgotten the whip
+on the return from Woodstock, not the shadow of an accident occurred.
+Nor was this oversight of much account, only that Tim Linkinwater, the
+horse, whose self-will had increased with his years, soon made the
+discovery that he for the nonce held the reins of power; and when they
+reached Roaring Brook, instead of proceeding decorously across the
+bridge, he persisted in descending a somewhat steep bank and fording the
+stream. Half-way across, he found the coolness of the water so agreeable
+that he decided to enjoy it _ad libitum_. No expostulations nor
+chirrupings nor cluckings availed aught. He felt himself master of the
+occasion, and would not budge an inch. He looked up stream and down
+stream, and now and then sent a sly glance back at Miss Stackpole and
+Louise, and now and then splashed the water with his hoofs against the
+pebbles. Miss Stackpole's distress became intense. It began to be a moot
+point whether they might not be forced to pass the night there, in the
+middle of Roaring Brook. By great good fortune, at this juncture came
+along in his sulky Dr. Butterfield of Meriden. To him Louise appealed
+for aid, and he gave her his own whip, reaching it down to her from the
+bridge. Tim Linkinwater, perfectly comprehending the drift of events,
+did not wait for the logic of the lash, which, nevertheless, Miss
+Stackpole declared that he richly deserved, and which she would fain
+have seen administered, only for the probability that his homeward pace
+might be thereby perilously accelerated.
+
+That night we all went unusually early to bed and to sleep. I remember
+looking from the window after the light was out, and seeing, through a
+rift in the clouds, the new moon just touching the peak of the opposite
+mountain. A whippoorwill sang in the great chestnut-tree at the farther
+corner of the yard; tree-toads trilled, and frogs peeped, and through
+all could just be heard the rapids up the river.
+
+We were wakened at midnight by very different sounds,--a clattering,
+crushing noise, like something failing down stairs, with outcries fit to
+waken the seven sleepers. You would believe it impossible that they all
+proceeded from one voice; but they did, and that Rhoda's. We were wide
+awake and up immediately; and as the screams ceased, we distinctly heard
+some one running rapidly down the walk. As soon as we could get lights,
+we found ourselves congregated in the upper front hall; and Rhoda, when
+she had recovered breath to speak, told her story.
+
+She did not know what awoke her; but she heard what sounded like
+carefully raising a window, and some one stepping softly around the
+house. At first she supposed it might be one of the family; but, the
+sounds continuing, it came into her head to get up and see what they
+were. So she came, barefooted as she was, up the back way, and was just
+going down the front stairs, when a gleam of light shone on the ceiling
+above her. She moved to a position whence she could look over the
+balusters, and saw that the light came from a shaded lantern, carried by
+a man who moved so stealthily that only the creaking of the boards
+betrayed his footsteps. At the foot of the stairs he paused a moment,
+looking around, apparently hesitating which way to go. He decided to
+ascend; and then Rhoda, bravely determined to do battle, seized a
+rocking-chair which stood near, and threw it downward with all her
+force, lifting up her voice at the same time to give the alarm.
+
+Whether the man were hurt or not, it is certain that he was not so
+disabled as to impede his flight, and that he had lost his lantern, for
+that lay on the floor at the foot of the staircase; so did the
+rocking-chair, broken all to pieces.
+
+When we came to go over the house, it had been thoroughly ransacked.
+Every bit of silver, from the old-fashioned tea-pot and coffee-pot and
+the great flat porringer which Grandmother Graham's mother had brought
+over from Scotland to the cup which had belonged to the baby that died
+twenty years ago, and which Aunt Janet loved for his sake, the spoons,
+forks, all were collected in a large basket, with a quantity of linen
+and some articles of clothing.
+
+If the thief had been content with these, he might probably have secured
+them, for he had already placed them on a table just beneath an open
+window; but, hoping to gain additional booty, he lost and we saved it
+all,---or rather Rhoda saved it for us. We were extremely glad, for it
+would have been a great mischance losing those things, apart from the
+shame, as grandmother said, of keeping house so poorly while uncle and
+aunt were away.
+
+Will Bright thought, from Rhoda's account, that the man might be Luke
+Potter; for Luke lived nobody knew how, and he had recently returned
+from a two years' absence, strongly suspected to have been a resident in
+a New York State-prison. His family occupied a little brown house, half
+a mile up the road to uncle's wood-lot.
+
+So Will went up there the next day, pretending he wanted Luke to come
+and help about some mowing that was in hand. Luke's wife said that her
+husband had not been out of bed for two days, with a hurt he got on the
+cars the Saturday before. Then Will offered to go in and see if he could
+not do something for him; but Mrs. Potter said that he was asleep, and,
+having had a wakeful night, she guessed he had better not be disturbed.
+
+Will felt sure of his man, and, knowing Potter's reckless audacity, made
+extensive preparations for defence. He brought down from the garret a
+rusty old gun and a powder-horn, hunted up the bullet-moulds, and run
+ever so many little leaden balls before he discovered that they did not
+fit the gun; but that, as he said, was of no consequence, because there
+would be just as much noise, and it was not likely that any thief would
+stay to be shot at twice.
+
+So, notwithstanding our great fright, we grew to feel tolerably secure;
+but we took good care to fasten the windows, and to set in a safer place
+the articles which had so nearly been lost. Moreover, Will Bright was
+moved into a little room at the head of the back stairs.
+
+It was to be thought that Miss Stackpole would be completely overcome by
+this midnight adventure; but she averred that, contrariwise, it had the
+effect to rouse every atom of energy and spirit which she possessed. She
+had waited only to slip on a double-gown, and, seizing the first article
+fit for offensive service, which proved to be a feather duster, she
+hurried to the scene of action. She said afterwards, that she had felt
+equal to knocking down ten men, if they had come within her range. I
+remember myself that she did look rather formidable. Her double-gown was
+red and yellow; and her hair, wound up in little horn-shaped
+_papillotes_, imparted to her face quite a bristly and fierce
+expression.
+
+Evidently, Rhoda was much exalted in Will Bright's esteem from that
+eventful night.
+
+"She's clear grit," said Will. "Who 'd have thought the little thing had
+so much spunk in her? I declare I don't believe there's another one in
+the house that would have done what she did."
+
+The next forenoon, while Louise and I were sewing in grandmother's room,
+Miss Stackpole came hurriedly in, looking quite excited.
+
+"Aunt Margaret,--girls," said she, "do you know that, after all, you've
+got a thief in the house? for you certainly have."
+
+"Lucretia," said grandmother, "explain yourself; what do you mean now?"
+
+"Why, I mean exactly what I said; there's no doubt that somebody in the
+house is dishonest. I know it; I've lost a valuable pin."
+
+"How valuable?" said grandmother, smiling,--"a diamond one?"
+
+"You need not laugh, Aunt Margaret; it is one of these new pink coral
+pins, and very expensive indeed. I shall make a stir about it, I can
+tell you. A pity if I can't come here for a few days without having half
+my things stolen!"
+
+"And whom do you suspect of taking it?" said grandmother, coolly.
+
+"How do I know? I don't think Dorothy would touch anything that was not
+her own."
+
+"You don't?" said grandmother, firing up. "I am glad you see fit to make
+one exception in the charge you bring against the household."
+
+"O, very well. I suppose you think I ought to let it all go, and never
+open my lips about it. But that is not my way."
+
+"No, it is not," said grandmother.
+
+"If it were my own pin, I shouldn't care so much; but it is not. It
+belongs to Mrs. Perkinpine."
+
+"And you borrowed it? borrowed jewelry? Well done, Lucretia! I would not
+have believed it of you. I call that folly and meanness."
+
+"No," said Miss Stackpole, "I shall certainly replace it; I shall have
+to, if I don't find it. But I will find it. I'll tell you: that girl
+that dusts my room, Hepsy you call her, I'll be bound that she has it.
+Not that she would know its value; but she would think it a pretty thing
+to wear. Now, Aunt Margaret, don't you really think yourself it looks--"
+
+"Lucretia Stackpole," interrupted grandmother, "if you care to know what
+I really think myself, I will tell you. Since you have lost the pin, and
+care so much about it, I am sorry. You can well enough afford to replace
+it, though. But if you want to make everybody in the neighborhood
+dislike and despise you, just accuse Hepsy of taking your trinkets. She
+was born and bred here, close by us, and we think we know her. For my
+part, I would trust her with gold uncounted. Everybody will think, and I
+think too, that it is far more likely you have lost or mislaid it than
+that any one here has stolen it."
+
+Miss Stackpole had already opened her lips to reply; but what she would
+have said will never be known, for she was interrupted again,--this time
+by a terrible noise, as if half the house had fallen, and then piteous
+cries. The sounds came from the wood-shed, and thither we all hastened,
+fully expecting to find some one buried under a fallen wood-pile. It was
+not quite that, but there lay Rhoda, with her foot bent under her,
+writhing and moaning in extreme pain.
+
+We were every one assembled there, grandmother, Miss Stackpole, Louise,
+and I, and Hepsy, Dorothy, and Will Bright. Dorothy would have lifted
+and carried her in, but Rhoda would not allow it. Will Bright did not
+wait to be allowed, but took her up at once, more gently and carefully
+than one would have thought, and deposited her in her own room. Then, at
+grandmother's suggestion, he set off directly on horseback for Dr.
+Butterfield, whom fortunately he encountered on the way.
+
+The doctor soon satisfied himself that the extent of the poor girl's
+injuries was a bad sprain,--enough, certainly, but less than we had
+feared.
+
+It would be weeks before she would be able to walk, and meantime perfect
+quiet was strictly enforced. Hepsy volunteered her services as nurse,
+and discharged faithfully her assumed duties. But Rhoda grew restless
+and feverish, and finally became so much worse that we began seriously
+to fear lest she had received some internal injury.
+
+One afternoon I was sitting with her when the doctor came. He spoke
+cheeringly, as usual; but when I went to the door with him, he said the
+child had some mental trouble, the disposal of which would be more
+effective than all his medicines, and that I must endeavor to ascertain
+and remove it.
+
+Without much difficulty I succeeded. She was haunted with the fear,
+that, in her present useless condition, she would be sent away. I
+convinced her that no one would do this during the absence of Uncle and
+Aunt Bradburn, and that before their return she would probably be able
+to resume her work.
+
+"I know I'll sleep real good to-night," said Rhoda. "You see I'm awful
+tired of going round so from one place to another. It's just been from
+pillar to post ever since I can remember."
+
+"Well," said I, "you may be sure that you will never be sent away from
+this house for sickness nor for accident. So now set your poor little
+heart at rest about it."
+
+The blue eyes looked at me with an expression different from any I had
+seen in them before. They were soft, pretty eyes, too, now that the hair
+was suffered to lie around the face, instead of being stretched back as
+tightly as possible. One good result had come from the wood-shed
+catastrophe: the high comb had been shattered into irretrievable
+fragments. I inly determined that none like it should ever take its
+place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since Miss Stackpole said it was impossible for her to remain till the
+return of Uncle and Aunt Bradburn, I cannot say that, under the
+circumstances, we particularly desired her to prolong her visit. It may
+be that grandmother had too little patience with her; certainly they two
+were not congenial spirits. However, by means of taking her to see every
+relative we had in the vicinity, we disposed of the time very
+satisfactorily. She remained a few days longer than she had intended, so
+that Dorothy, who is unapproachable in ironing, might do up her muslin
+dresses.
+
+"I have changed my mind about Hepsy," said she the night before she
+left. "I think now it is Rhoda."
+
+"What is Rhoda?" asked grandmother.
+
+"That has taken the coral pin."
+
+Grandmother compressed her lips, but her eyes spoke volumes.
+
+"Miss Stackpole," said I, "it is true that Rhoda has not been here long;
+still, I have a perfect conviction of her honesty."
+
+"Very amiable and generous of you to feel so, Kate," said Miss
+Stackpole; "perhaps a few years ago, when I was of your age, I should
+have thought just the same."
+
+"Kate is twenty next September," said grandmother, who could refrain no
+longer. "I never forget anybody's age. It is quite possible that she
+will change in the course of twenty-five or thirty years."
+
+We all knew this to be throwing down the gauntlet. Miss Stackpole did
+not, however, take it up. She said she intended to lay the
+circumstances, exactly as they were, before Mrs. Perkinpine; and if that
+lady would allow her, she should pay for the pin. She thought, though,
+it might be her duty to talk with Rhoda; perhaps, even at the eleventh
+hour, the girl might be induced to give it up.
+
+"I will take it upon me, Lucretia," said grandmother, "to object to your
+talking with Rhoda. Even if we have not among us penetration enough to
+see that she is honest as daylight, it does not follow that we should be
+excusable in doing anything to make that forlorn orphan child less happy
+than she is now. You visit about a great deal, Lucretia. I hope, for the
+sake of all your friends, that you don't everywhere scatter your
+suspicions broadcast as you have done here. I am older than you, as you
+will admit, and I have never known any good come of unjust accusations."
+
+After Miss Stackpole went up stairs that night, she folded the black
+silk dress she had been wearing to lay it in her trunk; and in doing
+that, she found the missing pin on the inside of the waist-lining, just
+where she had put it herself. Then she remembered having stuck it there
+one morning in a hurry, to prevent any one being tempted with seeing it
+lie around.
+
+And Rhoda never knew what an escape she had.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I do wish there was something for me to do," said Rhoda; "I never was
+used to lying abed doing nothing. It most tuckers me out."
+
+"Cannot you read, Rhoda?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, I can read some. I can't read words, but I can tell some of the
+letters."
+
+"Have you never gone to school?"
+
+"No; I always had to work. Poor folks have got to work, you know."
+
+"Yes, but that need not prevent your learning to read. I can teach you
+myself; I will, if you like."
+
+"I guess your aunt won't calculate to get me to work for her, and then
+have me spend my time learning to read. First you know, she'll send me
+off."
+
+"She will like it perfectly well. Grandmother is in authority here now;
+I will go and ask her." This I knew would seem to her decisive.
+
+"What did she say?" said Rhoda, rather eagerly, when I returned.
+
+"She says yes, by all means; and that if you learn to read before aunt
+comes home, you shall have a new dress, and I may choose it for you."
+
+Now it was no sinecure, teaching Rhoda, but she won the dress,--a lilac
+print, delicate and pretty enough for any one. I undertook to make the
+dress, but she accomplished a good part of it herself. She said Miss
+Reeny used to show her about sewing. Whatever was to be done with hands
+she learned with surprising quickness. Grandmother suggested that the
+reading lessons should be followed by a course in writing. Before the
+lameness was well over, Rhoda could write, slowly indeed, yet legibly.
+
+I carried her some roses one evening. While putting them in water, I
+asked what flowers she liked best.
+
+"I like sweetbriers best," said she. "I think sweetbriers are handsome
+in the graveyard. I set out one over Jinny Collins's grave. For what I
+know, it is growing now."
+
+"Who was Jinny Collins, Rhoda?"
+
+"A girl that used to live over at the poor-house when I did. She was
+bound out to the Widow Whitmarsh, the spring that I went to live with
+Mrs. Amos Kemp. Jinny used to have sick spells, and Mrs. Whitmarsh
+wanted to send her back to the poor-house, but folks said she couldn't,
+because she'd had her bound. She and Mrs. Kemp was neighbors; and after
+Jinny got so as to need somebody with her nights, Mrs. Kemp used to let
+me go and sleep with her, and then she could wake me up if she wanted
+anything. I wanted to go, and Jinny wanted to have me come; she used to
+say it did her lots of good. Sometimes we'd pretend we was rich, and was
+in a great big room with curtains to the windows. We didn't have any
+candle burning,--Mrs. Whitmarsh said there wa'n't no need of one, and
+more there wa'n't. One night we said we'd take a ride to-morrow or next
+day. We pretended we'd got a father, and he was real rich, and had got a
+horse and wagon. Jinny said we'd go to the store and buy us a new white
+gown,--she always wanted a white gown. By and by she said she was real
+sleepy; she didn't have no bad coughing-spell that night, such as she
+most always did. She asked me if I didn't smell the clover-blows, how
+sweet they was; and then she talked about white lilies, and how she
+liked 'em most of anything, without it was sweetbriers. Then she asked
+me if I knew what palms was; and she said when she was dead she wanted
+me to have her little pink chany box that Miss Maria Elliot give her
+once, when she bought some blueberries of her. So then she dozed a
+little while; and I don't know why, but I couldn't get asleep for a good
+while, for all I'd worked real hard that day. I guess 'twas as much as
+an hour she laid kind of still; she never did sleep real sound, so but
+what she moaned and talked broken now and then. So by and by she give a
+start, and says she, 'I'm all ready.' 'Ready for what, Jinny,' says I.
+But she didn't seem to know as I was talking to her. Says she, 'I'm all
+ready. I've got on a white gown and a palm in my hand.' So then I knew
+she was wandering like, as I'd heard say folks did when they was very
+sick; for she hadn't any gown at all on, without you might call Mrs.
+Whitmarsh's old faded calico sack one, nor nothing in her hand neither.
+So pretty soon she dropped to sleep again, and I did too. And I slept
+later 'n common. The sun was shining right into my eyes when I opened
+'em. I thought 't would trouble Jinny, and I was just going to pin her
+skirt up to the window, and I see that she looked awful white. I put my
+hand on her forehead, and it was just as cold as a stone. So then I knew
+she was dead. I never see her look so happy like. She had the
+pleasantest smile on her lips ever you see. I didn't know as Mrs. Kemp'd
+like to have me stay, but I just brushed her hair,--'t was real pretty
+hair, just a little mite curly,--and then I run home and told Mrs. Kemp.
+She said she'd just as lives I'd stay over to Mrs. Whitmarsh's as not
+that day, 'cause she was going over to Woodstock shopping. So I went
+back again, and Mrs. Whitmarsh she sent me to one of the selectmen to
+see if she'd got to be to the expense of the funeral, 'cause she said it
+didn't seem right, seeing she never got much work out of Jinny, she was
+always so weakly. And Mr. Robbins he said the town would pay for the
+coffin and digging the grave. That made her real pleasant; and I don't
+know what put me up to it, but I was real set on it that Jinny should
+have on a white gown in the coffin. And I asked Mrs. Whitmarsh if I
+mightn't go over to Miss Bradford's; and she let me, and Miss Bradford
+give me an old white gown, if I'd iron it; and Polly Wheelock, she was
+Miss Bradford's girl, she helped me put it on to Jinny. And then Polly
+got some white lilies, and I got some sweetbrier sprigs, and laid round
+her in the coffin. I've seen prettier coffins, but I never see no face
+look so pretty as Jinny's. Mrs. Whitmarsh had the funeral next morning.
+She said she wanted to that night, so she could put the room airing, but
+she supposed folks would talk, and, besides, they didn't get the grave
+dug quick enough neither. Mrs. Kemp let me go to the funeral. I thought
+they was going to carry her over to the poor-house burying-ground, but
+they didn't, 'cause 't would cost so much for a horse and wagon. The
+right minister was gone away, and the one that was there was going off
+in the cars, so he had to hurry. There wa'n't hardly anybody there, only
+some men to let the coffin down, and the sexton, and Mrs. Whitmarsh and
+Polly Wheelock and I. The minister prayed a little speck of a prayer and
+went right away. I heard Mrs. Whitmarsh telling Mrs. Kemp she thought
+she'd got out of it pretty well, seeing she didn't expect nothing but
+what she'd got to buy the coffin, and get the grave dug, and be to all
+the expense. She said she guessed nobody'd catch her having another girl
+bound out to her. Mrs. Kemp said she always knew 't was a great risk,
+and that was why she didn't have me bound.
+
+"That summer, when berries was ripe, Mrs. Kemp let me go and pick 'em
+and carry 'em round to sell; and she said I might have a cent for every
+quart I sold. I got over three dollars that summer for myself."
+
+"What did you do with it?"
+
+"I bought some shoes, and some yarn to knit me some stockings. I can
+knit real good."
+
+"How came you to leave Mrs. Kemp."
+
+"Partly 't was 'cause she didn't like my not buying her old green shawl
+with my share of the money for the berries; and partly 'cause I got
+cold, and it settled in my feet so's I couldn't hardly go round. So she
+told me she'd concluded to have me go back to the poor-house. If she
+kept a girl, she said, she wanted one to wait on her, and not to be
+waited on. She waited two or three days to see if I didn't get better,
+so as I could walk over there; but I didn't. And one day it had been
+raining, but it held up awhile, and she see a neighbor riding by, and
+she run out and asked him if he couldn't carry me over to the
+poor-house. He said he could if she wanted him to; so I went. I had on
+my cape, and it wa'n't very warm. She asked me when I come away, if I
+wa'n't sorry I hadn't a shawl. I expect I did catch cold. I couldn't set
+up nor do nothing for more 'n three weeks. When I got so I could knit,
+my yarn was gone. I never knew what become of it; and one of the women
+used to borrow my shoes for her little girl, and she wore 'em out So,
+come spring, I was just where I was the year before, only lonesomer,
+cause Jinny was gone."
+
+"And did you stay there?"
+
+"To the poor-house? No; Betty Crosfield wanted a girl to come and help
+her. She took in washing for Mr. Furniss's hands. She said I wa'n't
+strong enough to earn much, but she would pay me in clothes. She give me
+a Shaker bonnet and an old gown that the soap had took the color out of,
+and she made a tack in it, so's it did. And I had my cape. When
+strawberries come, the hands was most all gone, and she let me sleep
+there, and go day-times after berries, and she to have half the pay.
+That's how I got my red calico and my shawl."
+
+"Who made your dress, Rhoda?"
+
+"Miss Reeny, I carried it over to see if she'd cut it out, and she said
+she'd make it if they'd let her, and they did. And I got her some green
+tea. She used to say sometimes, she'd give anything for a cup of green
+tea, such as her mother used to have."
+
+"Who is Miss Reeny?"
+
+"A woman that lives over there. Her father used to be a doctor; but he
+died, and she was sickly and didn't know as she had any relations, and
+by and by she had to go there. They say over there she ain't in her
+right mind, but I don't know. She was always good to me. There was an
+old chair with a cushion in it, and Miss Reeny wanted it to sit in,
+'cause her back was lame; but old Mrs. Fitts wanted it too, and they
+used to spat it. So Miss Holbrook come there one day to see the place,
+and somebody told her about the cushioned chair, and, if you'll believe
+it, the very next day there was one come over as good again, with arms
+to it, and a cushion, and all. Miss Holbrook sent it over to Miss Reeny.
+None of 'em couldn't take it away."
+
+"And is she there now?"
+
+"Yes, she can't go nowhere else. One night Betty Crosfield said I
+needn't come there no more; she was going to take a boarder. Berry-time
+was most over, so then I got a place to Miss Stoney's, the milliner. She
+agreed to give me twenty-five cents a week, and I thought to be sure I
+should get back my shoes and yarn now. But one morning the teapot was
+cracked, and she asked me, and I said I didn't do it,--and I didn't; but
+she said she knew I did, because there wasn't nobody but her and me that
+touched it, and she should keep my wages till they come to a dollar and
+a half, because that was what a new one would cost. Before the teapot
+was paid for I did break a glass dish. I didn't know 't would hurt it to
+put it in hot water; and everything else that was broke, she thought I
+broke it, and she kept it out of my wages. I told her I didn't see as
+she ought to; and in the fall she said she couldn't put up with my sauce
+and my breaking no longer. Mrs. Kittredge wanted a girl, and I went
+there."
+
+"And how did you find it there?"
+
+"I think it was about the hardest place of all. I'd as lives go back to
+the poor-house as to stay there. Sally Kittredge used to tell things
+that wa'n't true about me. She told one day that I pushed her down. I
+never touched my hand to her. But Mrs. Kittredge got a raw hide up
+stairs and give it to me awful. I shouldn't wonder if it showed now;
+just look."
+
+She undid the fastening of her dress and slipped off the waist for me to
+see. The little back--she was very small--was all discolored with
+stripes, purple, green, and yellow. After showing me these bruises, she
+quietly fastened her dress again.
+
+Now there was that in Rhoda's manner during this narration which wrought
+in my mind entire conviction of its verity. By the time of Uncle and
+Aunt Bradburn's return, she was growing in favor with every one in the
+house. She was gentle, patient, and grateful.
+
+The deftness with which she used those small fingers suggested to me the
+idea of teaching her some of the more delicate kinds of fancy-work. But
+it seemed that she required no teaching. An opportunity given of looking
+on while one was embroidering, crocheting, or making tatting, and the
+process was her own. Native tact imparted to her at once the skill which
+others attain only by long practice. As for her fine sewing, it was
+exquisite; and in looking at it, one half regretted the advent of the
+sewing-machine.
+
+The fall days grew short; the winter came and went; and in the course of
+it, besides doing everything that was required of her in the household,
+keeping up the reading and writing, and satisfactory progress in
+arithmetic, Rhoda had completed, at my suggestion, ten of those little
+tatting collars, made of fine thread, and rivalling in delicate beauty
+the loveliest fabrics of lace.
+
+Because a project was on foot for Rhoda. A friend of mine going to
+Boston took charge of the little package of collars, and the result was
+that the proprietor of a fancy-store there engaged to receive all of
+them that might be manufactured, at the price of three dollars each.
+When my friend returned, she brought me, as the avails of her
+commission, the sum of thirty dollars.
+
+But here arose an unexpected obstacle. It was difficult to convince
+Rhoda that the amount, which seemed to her immense, was of right her
+own. She comprehended it, however, at last; and thenceforth her skill in
+this and other departments of fancy-work obtained for her constant and
+remunerative employment.
+
+It was now a year since Rhoda came to us, and during this time her
+improvement had been steady and rapid. And since she had come to dress
+like other girls, no one could say that she was ill-looking; but, as I
+claimed the merit of effecting this change in her exterior, it may be
+that I observed it more than any one else. Still, I fancy that some
+others were not blind.
+
+"Where did you get those swamp-pinks, Rhoda?" for I detected the fine
+azalia odor before I saw them.
+
+A bright color suffused the childlike face, quite to the roots of the
+hair. "Will Bright got them when he went after the cows. You may have
+some if you want them."
+
+"No, thank you; it is a pity to disturb them, they look so pretty just
+as they are."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Troubles come to everybody. Even Will Bright, though no one had ever
+known him to be without cheerfulness enough for half a dozen, was not
+wholly exempt from ills. With all his good sense, which was not a
+little, Will was severely incredulous of the reputed effects of
+poison-ivy; and one day, by way of maintaining his position, gathered a
+spray of it and applied it to his face. He was not long in finding the
+vine in question an ugly customer. His face assumed the aspect of a
+horrible mask, and the dimensions of a good-sized water-pail, with
+nothing left of the eyes but two short, straight marks. For once, Will
+had to succumb and be well cared for.
+
+In this state of things a letter came to him with a foreign postmark. "I
+will lay it away in your desk, Will," said uncle, "till you can read it
+yourself; that will be in a day or two."
+
+"If you don't mind the trouble, sir, I should thank you to open and read
+it for me. I get no letters that I am unwilling you should see."
+
+It was to the effect that a relative in England had left him a bequest
+of five hundred pounds, and that the amount would be made payable to his
+order wherever he should direct.
+
+"You will oblige me, sir, if you will say nothing about this for the
+present," said Will, when uncle had congratulated him.
+
+"I hope we shall not lose sight of you, Will," said uncle, who really
+felt a strong liking for the young man, who had served him faithfully
+three years.
+
+"I hope not, sir," replied Will. "I shall be glad to consult you before
+I decide what use to make of this windfall. At all events, I don't want
+to change my quarters for the present."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About the same time, brother Ned, in Oregon, sent me a letter which
+contained this passage:--
+
+"We are partly indebted for this splendid stroke of business to the help
+of a townsman of our own; his name is Joseph Breck. He says he ran away
+from Deacon Handy's, at fifteen years old, because the Deacon would not
+send him to school as he had agreed. Ask uncle if he remembers Ira
+Breck, who lived over at Ash Swamp, near the old Ingersol place. He was
+drowned saving timber in a freshet. He left two children, and this
+Joseph is the elder. The other was a girl, her name Rhoda, six or eight
+years younger than Joseph; she must be now, he says, not far from
+sixteen or seventeen. Joe has had a hard row to hoe, but now that he
+begins to see daylight he wants to do something for his sister. He is a
+thoroughly honest and competent fellow, and we are glad enough to get
+hold of him. He told me the other night such a story as would make your
+heart ache: at all events it would make you try to ascertain something
+about his sister before you write next."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I lost no time in seeking Rhoda.
+
+"Yes," said she, in reply to my inquiries, "I did have a brother once.
+He went off and was lost. I can just remember him. I don't suppose I
+shall ever see him again. Folks said likely he was drowned."
+
+"Was his name Joseph?"
+
+"It was Joe; father used to call him Joe."
+
+I read to her from Ned's letter what related to her brother.
+
+"I'm most afraid it's a dream," said Rhoda after a brief silence. "Over
+at the poor-house I used to have such good dreams, and then I'd wake up
+out of them. After I came here I used to be afraid it was a dream; but I
+didn't wake out of that. Perhaps I shall see Joe again; who knows?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From this time a change came over Rhoda. She begged as a privilege to
+learn to do everything that a woman can do about a house.
+
+"I do declare, Miss Kate," said Dorothy one day, after displaying a
+grand array of freshly baked loaves, wearing the golden-brown tint that
+hints at such savory sweetness, "that girl, for a white girl, is going
+to make a most a splendid cook. I never touched this bread, and just you
+see! ain't it perfindiculur wonderful?"
+
+Soon after, I found Rhoda, with her dress tidily pinned out of harm's
+way, standing at a barrel, and poking vigorously with a stick longer
+than herself.
+
+"What now, Rhoda! what are you doing there?"
+
+"Come here and look at the soap, Miss Kate. I made it every bit myself;
+ain't it going to be beautiful?"
+
+"Why do you care to do such things, Rhoda?"
+
+"I'll tell you," in a low voice; "perhaps when Joe comes home, some time
+he'll buy himself a little place and let me keep house for him; then I
+shall want to know how to do everything."
+
+"Rhoda, I believe you can do everything already."
+
+"No, I can't wring," looking piteously from one little hand to the
+other. "I can iron cute, but I can't wring. Dorothy says that is one
+thing I shall have to give up, unless I can make my hands grow. Do you
+suppose I could?"
+
+"No; you must make Joe buy you a wringer. Can you make butter?"
+
+"O yes, when the churning isn't large. Likely Joe won't keep more than
+one cow."
+
+I looked at the eager little thing, wondering if her hope would ever be
+realized. She divined my thought, and glanced at me wistfully. "You
+think this is a dream; you think I shall wake up.
+
+"No, no," I answered; "I wonder what Joe will think when he sees what a
+mite of a sister he has. He'll make you stand round, Rhoda, you may be
+sure of that."
+
+"May be he isn't any larger himself," she responded, with a ready,
+bright smile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brother Ned's next letter brought the welcome tidings that he hoped to
+come home the ensuing August, and that Joseph Breck would probably come
+at the same time.
+
+June went, and July. Rhoda grew restless; she was no longer constantly
+at work; she began to listen nervously for every train of cars. I was
+glad to believe that the brother for whom she held in readiness such
+lavish love was deserving of it. She grew prettier every day. The
+uncouth dress was gone forever, the hideous bonnet burned up, and the
+gay shawl made over to Miss Reeny, who admired and coveted it. Hepsy
+herself was not more faultlessly quiet and tasteful in her attire. I was
+sure that Joe, if he had eyes at all, must be convinced that his sister
+was worth coming all the way from Oregon to see.
+
+At last, one pleasant afternoon, there was a step in the hall that I
+recognized; it was Ned's! I reached him first, and felt his dear old
+arms close fast about me; and then, for Louise's right was stronger than
+mine, I gave him over to her and the rest. My happiness, though it half
+blinded me, did not prevent my seeing a pallid little face looking
+earnestly in from the back hall door. Then Joe had not come! I felt a
+keen pang for Rhoda.
+
+"Ned," said I, as soon as I could get a word with him, "there is Joe
+Breck's sister; where is Joe?"
+
+"Where is Joe?" said Ned; "why, there he is."
+
+Sure enough, there above Rhoda's--a good way above--was a dark, fine,
+manly face, all sun-browned and bearded.--"Rhoda!"--He had stolen a
+march upon her. She turned and saw him. A swift look of glad surprise,
+and the brother and sister so long separated had recognized each other.
+He drew her to him and held her there tenderly as if she were a little
+child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So Joe bought "a little place," and I believe he would fain have had his
+sister Rhoda for its mistress. But then it came out that Will Bright,
+that sly fellow had been using every bit of persuasion in his power to
+make her promise that she would keep house for him. Nay, he had won
+already a conditional promise, the proviso being, of course, Joe's
+approval. Will's is not a little place, either. With his relative's
+legacy he purchased the great Wellwood nursery; and so skilled is he in
+its management that uncle says there is not a more thriving man in the
+neighborhood. And Rhoda, of whom he is wonderfully proud, is as content
+a little woman as any in the land. Whenever I go to Uncle
+Bradburn's,--and few summers pass that I do not,--I make a point of
+reserving time for a visit to Rhoda. The last time I went, I encountered
+Will bringing her down stairs in his arms; and she held in her arms, as
+something too precious to be yielded to another, what proved on
+inspection to be a tiny, blue-eyed baby. It was comical to see her
+ready, matronly ways; and it was touching, when you thought of the past,
+to witness her quiet yet perfect enjoyment.
+
+And I really know of no one in the world more heartily benevolent than
+she. "You see," she says, "I knew once what it is to need kindness; and
+now I should be worse than a heathen if I did not help other people when
+I have a chance."
+
+I suppose Hepsy pitied Joe for his disappointment. In any case, she has
+done what she could to console him for it. On the whole, it would be
+difficult to say which is the happier wife, Hepsy or Rhoda.
+
+
+
+
+PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.
+
+
+XI.
+
+Concord, 1843.--To sit at the gate of Heaven, and watch persons as they
+apply for admittance, some gaining it, others being thrust away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To point out the moral slavery of one who deems himself a free man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A stray leaf from the Book of Fate, picked up in the street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The streak of sunshine journeying through the prisoner's cell,--it may
+be considered as something sent from Heaven to keep the soul alive and
+glad within him. And there is something equivalent to this sunbeam in
+the darkest circumstances; as flowers, which figuratively grew in
+Paradise, in the dusky room of a poor maiden in a great city; the child,
+with its sunny smile, is a cherub. God does not let us live anywhere or
+anyhow on earth without placing something of Heaven close at hand, by
+rightly using and considering which, the earthly darkness or trouble
+will vanish, and all be Heaven.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the reformation of the world is complete, a fire shall be made of
+the gallows; and the hangman shall come and sit down by it in solitude
+and despair. To him shall come the last thief, the last drunkard, and
+other representatives of past crime and vice; and they shall hold a
+dismal merrymaking, quaffing the contents of the last brandy-bottle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The human heart to be allegorized as a cavern. At the entrance there is
+sunshine, and flowers growing about it. You step within but a short
+distance, and begin to find yourself surrounded with a terrible gloom
+and monsters of divers kinds; it seems like hell itself. You are
+bewildered, and wander long without hope. At last a light strikes upon
+you. You pass towards it, and find yourself in a region that seems, in
+some sort, to reproduce the flowers and sunny beauty of the entrance,
+but all perfect. These are the depths of the heart, or of human nature,
+bright and peaceful. The gloom and terror may lie deep, but deeper still
+this eternal beauty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man in his progress through life may pick up various matters,--sin,
+care, habit, riches,--until at last he staggers along under a heavy
+burden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To have a lifelong desire for a certain object, which shall appear to be
+the one thing essential to happiness. At last that object is attained,
+but proves to be merely incidental to a more important affair, and that
+affair is the greatest evil fortune that can occur. For instance, all
+through the winter I had wished to sit in the dusk of evening, by the
+flickering firelight, with my wife, instead of beside a dismal stove. At
+last this has come to pass; but it was owing to her illness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Madame Calderon de la Barca (in "Life in Mexico") speaks of persons who
+have been inoculated with the venom of rattlesnakes, by pricking them in
+various places with the tooth. These persons are thus secured forever
+after against the bite of any venomous reptile. They have the power of
+calling snakes, and feel great pleasure in playing with and handling
+them. Their own bite becomes poisonous to people not inoculated in the
+same manner. Thus a part of the serpent's nature appears to be
+transfused into them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An auction (perhaps in Vanity Fair) of offices, honors, and all sorts of
+things considered desirable by mankind, together with things eternally
+valuable, which shall be considered by most people as worthless lumber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An examination of wits and poets at a police court, and they to be
+sentenced by the judge to various penalties or fines,--the house of
+correction, whipping, etc.,--according to the moral offences of which
+they are guilty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A volume bound in cowhide. It should treat of breeding cattle, or some
+other coarse subject.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young girl inhabits a family graveyard, that being all that remains of
+rich hereditary possessions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An interview between General Charles Lee, of the Revolution, and his
+sister, the foundress and mother of the sect of Shakers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a sketch for a child:--the life of a city dove, or perhaps of a
+flock of doves, flying about the streets, and sometimes alighting on
+church steeples, on the eaves of lofty houses, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The greater picturesqueness and reality of back courts, and everything
+appertaining to the rear of a house, as compared with the front, which
+is fitted up for the public eye. There is much to be learned always, by
+getting a glimpse at rears. Where the direction of a road has been
+altered, so as to pass the rear of farm-houses instead of the front, a
+very noticeable aspect is presented.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A sketch:--the devouring of old country residences by the overgrown
+monster of a city. For instance, Mr. Beekman's ancestral residence was
+originally several miles from the city of New York; but the pavements
+kept creeping nearer and nearer, till now the house is removed, and a
+street runs directly through what was once its hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An essay on various kinds of death, together with the just before and
+just after.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The majesty of death to be exemplified in a beggar, who, after being
+seen, humble and cringing, in the streets of a city for many years, at
+length, by some means or other, gets admittance into a rich man's
+mansion, and there dies, assuming state and striking awe into the
+breasts of those who had looked down on him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To write a dream, which shall resemble the real course of a dream, with
+all its inconsistency, its strange transformations, which are all taken
+as a matter of course, its eccentricities and aimlessness, with
+nevertheless a leading idea running through the whole. Up to this old
+age of the world, no such thing ever has been written.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To allegorize life with a masquerade, and represent mankind generally as
+masquers. Here and there a natural face may appear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With an emblematical divining-rod, to seek for emblematic gold,--that
+is, for truth,--for what of Heaven is left on earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A task for a subjugated fiend:--to gather up all the fallen autumnal
+leaves of a forest, assort them, and affix each one to the twig where it
+originally grew.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A vision of Grub Street, forming an allegory of the literary world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The emerging from their lurking-places of evil characters on some
+occasion suited to their action, they having been quite unknown to the
+world hitherto. For instance, the French Revolution brought out such
+wretches.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The advantage of a longer life than is now allotted to mortals,--the
+many things that might then be accomplished, to which one lifetime is
+inadequate, and for which the time spent seems therefore lost, a
+successor being unable to take up the task where we drop it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+George I. had promised the Duchess of Kendall, his mistress, that, if
+possible, he would pay her a visit after death. Accordingly, a large
+raven flew into the window of her villa at Isleworth. She believed it to
+be his soul, and treated it ever after with all respect and tenderness,
+till either she or the bird died.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The history of an almshouse in a country village, from the era of its
+foundation downward,--a record of the remarkable occupants of it, and
+extracts from interesting portions of its annals. The rich of one
+generation might, in the next, seek for a house there, either in their
+own persons or in those of their representatives. Perhaps the son and
+heir of the founder might have no better refuge. There should be
+occasional sunshine let into the story; for instance, the good fortune
+of some nameless infant, educated there, and discovered finally to be
+the child of wealthy parents.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pearl, the English of Margaret,--a pretty name for a girl in a story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The conversation of the steeples of a city, when their bells are ringing
+on Sunday,--Calvinist, Episcopalian, Unitarian, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Allston's picture of "Belshazzar's Feast,"--with reference to the
+advantages or otherwise of having life assured to us till we could
+finish important tasks on which we might be engaged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Visits to castles in the air,--Chateaux en Espagne, etc.,--with remarks
+on that sort of architecture.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To consider a piece of gold as a sort of talisman, or as containing
+within itself all the forms of enjoyment that it can purchase, so that
+they might appear, by some fantastical chemic process, as visions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To personify If, But, And, Though, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man seeks for something excellent, but seeks it in the wrong spirit
+and in a wrong way, and finds something horrible; as, for instance, he
+seeks for treasure, and finds a dead body; for the gold that somebody
+has hidden, and brings to light his accumulated sins.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An auction of second-hands,--thus moralizing how the fashion of this
+world passeth away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Noted people in a town,--as the town-crier, the old fruit-man, the
+constable, the oyster-seller, the fish-man, the scissors-grinder, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The magic ray of sunshine for a child's story,--the sunshine circling
+round through a prisoner's cell, from his high and narrow window. He
+keeps his soul alive and cheerful by means of it, it typifying
+cheerfulness; and when he is released, he takes up the ray of sunshine,
+and carries it away with him, and it enables him to discover treasures
+all over the world, in places where nobody else would think of looking
+for them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young man finds a portion of the skeleton of a mammoth; he begins by
+degrees to become interested in completing it; searches round the world
+for the means of doing so; spends youth and manhood in the pursuit; and
+in old age has nothing to show for his life but this skeleton of a
+mammoth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a child's sketch:--a meeting with all the personages mentioned in
+Mother Goose's Melodies, and other juvenile stories.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Great expectation to be entertained in the allegorical Grub Street of
+the great American writer. Or a search-warrant to be sent thither to
+catch a poet. On the former supposition, he shall be discovered under
+some most unlikely form, or shall be supposed to have lived and died
+unrecognized.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An old man to promise a youth a treasure of gold, and to keep his
+promise by teaching him practically a golden rule.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A valuable jewel to be buried in the grave of a beloved person, or
+thrown over with a corpse at sea, or deposited under the
+foundation-stone of an edifice,--and to be afterwards met with by the
+former owner, in some one's possession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A noted gambler had acquired such self-command that, in the most
+desperate circumstances of his game, no change of feature ever betrayed
+him; only there was a slight scar upon his forehead, which at such
+moments assumed a deep blood-red hue. Thus, in playing at brag, for
+instance, his antagonist could judge from this index when he had a bad
+hand. At last, discovering what it was that betrayed him, he covered the
+scar with a green silk shade.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A dream the other night, that the world had become dissatisfied with the
+inaccurate manner in which facts are reported, and had employed me, with
+a salary of a thousand dollars, to relate things of public importance
+exactly as they happen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A person who has all the qualities of a friend, except that he
+invariably fails you at the pinch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Concord, July 27, 1844._--To sit down in a solitary place or a busy and
+bustling one, if you please, and await such little events as may happen,
+or observe such noticeable points as the eyes fall upon around you. For
+instance, I sat down to-day, at about ten o'clock in the forenoon, in
+Sleepy Hollow, a shallow space scooped out among the woods, which
+surround it on all sides, it being pretty nearly circular or oval, and
+perhaps four or five hundred yards in diameter. At the present season, a
+thriving field of Indian corn, now in its most perfect growth and
+tasselled out, occupies nearly half of the hollow; and it is like the
+lap of bounteous Nature, filled with breadstuff. On one verge of this
+hollow, skirting it, is a terraced pathway, broad enough for a
+wheel-track, overshadowed with oaks, stretching their long, knotted,
+rude, rough arms between earth and sky; the gray skeletons, as you look
+upward, are strikingly prominent amid the green foliage. Likewise, there
+are chestnuts, growing up in a more regular and pyramidal shape; white
+pines, also; and a shrubbery composed of the shoots of all these trees,
+overspreading and softening the bank on which the parent stems are
+growing, these latter being intermingled with coarse grass. Observe the
+pathway; it is strewn over with little bits of dry twigs and decayed
+branches, and the sear and brown oak-leaves of last year, that have been
+moistened by snow and rain, and whirled about by harsh and gentle winds,
+since their verdure has departed. The needle-like leaves of the pine
+that are never noticed in falling--that fall, yet never leave the tree
+bare--are likewise on the path; and with these are pebbles, the remains
+of what was once a gravelled surface, but which the soil accumulating
+from the decay of leaves, and washing down from the bank, has now almost
+covered. The sunshine comes down on the pathway, with the bright glow of
+noon, at certain points; in other places, there is a shadow as deep as
+the glow; but along the greater portion sunshine glimmers through
+shadow, and shadow effaces sunshine, imaging that pleasant mood of mind
+when gayety and pensiveness intermingle. A bird is chirping overhead
+among the branches, but exactly whereabout you seek in vain to
+determine; indeed, you hear the rustle of the leaves, as he continually
+changes his position. A little sparrow, however, hops into view,
+alighting on the slenderest twigs, and seemingly delighting in the
+swinging and heaving motion which his slight substance communicates to
+them; but he is not the loquacious bird, whose voice still comes, eager
+and busy, from his hidden whereabout. Insects are fluttering around.
+The cheerful, sunny hum of the flies is altogether summer-like, and so
+gladsome that you pardon them their intrusiveness and impertinence,
+which continually impel them to fly against your face, to alight upon
+your hands, and to buzz in your very ear, as if they wished to get into
+your head, among your most secret thoughts. In truth, a fly is the most
+impertinent and indelicate thing in creation,--the very type and moral
+of human spirits with whom one occasionally meets, and who, perhaps,
+after an existence troublesome and vexatious to all with whom they come
+in contact, have been doomed to reappear in this congenial shape. Here
+is one intent upon alighting on my nose. In a room, now,--in a human
+habitation,--I could find in my conscience to put him to death; but here
+we have intruded upon his own domain, which he holds in common with all
+other children of earth and air; and we have no right to slay him on his
+own ground. Now we look about us more minutely, and observe that the
+acorn-cups of last year are strewn plentifully on the bank and on the
+path. There is always pleasure in examining an acorn-cup,--perhaps
+associated with fairy banquets, where they were said to compose the
+table-service. Here, too, are those balls which grow as excrescences on
+the leaves of the oak, and which young kittens love so well to play
+with, rolling them over the carpet. We see mosses, likewise, growing on
+the banks, in as great variety as the trees of the wood. And how strange
+is the gradual process with which we detect objects that are right
+before the eyes! Here now are whortleberries, ripe and black, growing
+actually within reach of my hand, yet unseen till this moment.
+Were we to sit here all day,--a week, a month, and doubtless a
+lifetime,--objects would thus still be presenting themselves as new,
+though there would seem to be no reason why we should not have detected
+them all at the first moment.
+
+Now a cat-bird is mewing at no great distance. Then the shadow of a bird
+flits across a sunny spot. There is a peculiar impressiveness in this
+mode of being made acquainted with the flight of a bird; it impresses
+the mind more than if the eye had actually seen it. As we look round to
+catch a glimpse of the winged creature, we behold the living blue of the
+sky, and the brilliant disk of the sun, broken and made tolerable to the
+eye by the intervening foliage. Now, when you are not thinking of it,
+the fragrance of the white pines is suddenly wafted to you by a slight,
+almost imperceptible breeze, which has begun to stir. Now the breeze is
+the softest sigh imaginable, yet with a spiritual potency, insomuch that
+it seems to penetrate, with its mild, ethereal coolness, through the
+outward clay, and breathe upon the spirit itself, which shivers with
+gentle delight. Now the breeze strengthens so much as to shake all the
+leaves, making them rustle sharply; but it has lost its most ethereal
+power. And now, again, the shadows of the boughs lie as motionless as if
+they were painted on the pathway. Now, in the stillness, is heard the
+long, melancholy note of a bird, complaining above of some wrong or
+sorrow that man, or her own kind, or the immitigable doom of mortal
+affairs, has inflicted upon her, the complaining, but unresisting
+sufferer. And now, all of a sudden, we hear the sharp, shrill chirrup of
+a red squirrel, angry, it seems, with somebody--perhaps with
+ourselves--for having intruded into what he is pleased to consider his
+own domain. And hark! terrible to the ear, here is the minute but
+intense hum of a mosquito. Instinct prevails over all sentiment; we
+crush him at once, and there is his grim and grisly corpse, the ugliest
+object in nature. This incident has disturbed our tranquillity. In
+truth, the whole insect tribe, so far as we can judge, are made more for
+themselves, and less for man, than any other portion of creation. With
+such reflections, we look at a swarm of them, peopling, indeed, the
+whole air, but only visible when they flash into the sunshine, and
+annihilated out of visible existence when they dart into a region of
+shadow, to be again reproduced as suddenly. Now we hear the striking of
+the village clock, distant, but yet so near that each stroke is
+distinctly impressed upon the air. This is a sound that does not disturb
+the repose of the scene; it does not break our Sabbath,--for like a
+Sabbath seems this place,--and the more so, on account of the cornfield
+rustling at our feet. It tells of human labor; but being so solitary
+now, it seems as if it were so on account of the sacredness of the
+Sabbath. Yet it is not; for we hear at a distance mowers whetting their
+scythes; but these sounds of labor, when at a proper remoteness, do but
+increase the quiet of one who lies at his ease, all in a mist of his own
+musings. There is the tinkling of a cowbell,--a noise how peevishly
+discordant were it close at hand, but even musical now. But hark! there
+is the whistle of the locomotive,--the long shriek, heard above all
+other harshness; for the space of a mile cannot mollify it into harmony.
+It tells a story of busy men, citizens from the hot street, who have
+come to spend a day in a country village,--men of business,--in short,
+of all unquietness; and no wonder that it gives such a startling scream,
+since it brings the noisy world into the midst of our slumberous peace.
+As our thoughts repose again after this interruption, we find ourselves
+gazing up at the leaves, and comparing their different aspects,--the
+beautiful diversity of green, as the sun is diffused through them as a
+medium, or reflected from their glossy surface. We see, too, here and
+there, dead, leafless branches, which we had no more been aware of
+before than if they had assumed this old and dry decay since we sat down
+upon the bank. Look at our feet; and here, likewise, are objects as good
+as new. There are two little round, white fungi, which probably sprung
+from the ground in the course of last night,--curious productions, of
+the mushroom tribe, and which by and by will be those small things with
+smoke in them which children call puff-balls. Is there nothing else?
+Yes; here is a whole colony of little ant-hills,--a real village of
+them. They are round hillocks, formed of minute particles of gravel,
+with an entrance in the centre, and through some of them blades of grass
+or small shrubs have sprouted up, producing an effect not unlike trees
+that overshadow a homestead. Here is a type of domestic
+industry,--perhaps, too, something of municipal institutions,--perhaps
+likewise--who knows?--the very model of a community, which Fourierites
+and others are stumbling in pursuit of. Possibly the student of such
+philosophies should go to the ant, and find that Nature has given him
+his lesson there. Meantime, like a malevolent genius, I drop a few
+grains of sand into the entrance of one of these dwellings, and thus
+quite obliterate it. And behold, here comes one of the inhabitants, who
+has been abroad upon some public or private business, or perhaps to
+enjoy a fantastic walk, and cannot any longer find his own door. What
+surprise, what hurry, what confusion of mind are expressed in all his
+movements! How inexplicable to him must be the agency that has effected
+this mischief! The incident will probably be long remembered in the
+annals of the ant-colony, and be talked of in the winter days, when they
+are making merry over their hoarded provisions. But now it is time to
+move. The sun has shifted his position, and has found a vacant space
+through the branches, by means of which he levels his rays full upon my
+head. Yet now, as I arise, a cloud has come across him, and makes
+everything gently sombre in an instant. Many clouds, voluminous and
+heavy, are scattered about the sky, like the shattered ruins of a
+dreamer's Utopia; but I will not send my thoughts thitherward now, nor
+take one of them into my present observations.
+
+And now how narrow, scanty, and meagre is the record of observations,
+compared with the immensity that was to be observed within the bounds
+which I prescribed to myself! How shallow and thin a stream of thought,
+too,--of distinct and expressed thought,--compared with the broad tide
+of dim emotions, ideas, associations, which were flowing through the
+haunted regions of imagination, intellect, and sentiment,--sometimes
+excited by what was around me, sometimes with no perceptible connection
+with them! When we see how little we can express, it is a wonder that
+any man ever takes up a pen a second time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To find all sorts of ridiculous employments for people that have nothing
+better to do;--as to comb out the cows' tails, shave goats, hoard up
+seeds of weeds, etc., etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The baby, the other day, tried to grasp a handful of sunshine. She also
+grasps at the shadows of things in candle-light.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To typify our mature review of our early projects and delusions, by
+representing a person as wandering, in manhood, through and among the
+various castles in the air that he had reared in his youth, and
+describing how they look to him,--their dilapidation, etc. Possibly some
+small portion of these structures may have a certain reality, and
+suffice him to build a humble dwelling in which to pass his life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The search of an investigator for the unpardonable sin: he at last finds
+it in his own heart and practice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The trees reflected in the river;--they are unconscious of a spiritual
+world so near them. So are we.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The unpardonable sin might consist in a want of love and reverence for
+the human soul; in consequence of which, the investigator pried into its
+dark depths,--not with a hope or purpose of making it better, but from a
+cold, philosophical curiosity,--content that it should be wicked in
+whatever kind and degree, and only desiring to study it out. Would not
+this, in other words, be the separation of the intellect from the heart?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are some faces that have no more expression in them than any other
+part of the body. The hand of one person may express more than the face
+of another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An ugly person with tact may make a bad face and figure pass very
+tolerably, and more than tolerably. Ugliness without tact is horrible.
+It ought to be lawful to extirpate such wretches.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To represent the influence which dead men have among living affairs. For
+instance, a dead man controls the disposition of wealth; a dead man sits
+on the judgment-seat, and the living judges do but repeat his decisions;
+dead men's opinions in all things control the living truth; we believe
+in dead men's religions; we laugh at dead men's jokes; we cry at dead
+men's pathos; everywhere, and in all matters, dead men tyrannize
+inexorably over us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the heart is full of care, or the mind much occupied, the summer
+and the sunshine and the moonlight are but a gleam and glimmer,--a vague
+dream, which does not come within us, but only makes itself imperfectly
+perceptible on the outside of us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Biographies of eminent American merchants,--it would be a work likely to
+have a great circulation in our commercial country. If successful, there
+might be a second volume of eminent foreign merchants. Perhaps it had
+better be adapted to the capacity of young clerks and apprentices.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the virtuoso's collection:--Alexander's copy of the Iliad, enclosed
+in the jewelled casket of Darius, still fragrant with the perfumes
+Darius kept in it. Also the pen with which Faust signed away his
+salvation, with the drop of blood dried in it.
+
+
+_October 13, 1844._--This morning, after a heavy hoar-frost, the leaves,
+at sunrise, were falling from the trees in our avenue without a breath
+of wind, quietly descending by their own weight. In an hour or two
+after, the ground was strewn with them; and the trees are almost bare,
+with the exception of two or three poplars, which are still green. The
+apple and pear trees are still green; so is the willow. The first severe
+frosts came at least a fortnight ago,--more, if I mistake not.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sketch of a person, who, by strength of character or assistant
+circumstances, has reduced another to absolute slavery and dependence on
+him. Then show that the person who appeared to be the master must
+inevitably be at least as much a slave as the other, if not more so. All
+slavery is reciprocal, on the supposition most favorable to the masters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Persons who write about themselves and their feelings, as Byron did, may
+be said to serve up their own hearts, duly spiced, and with brain-sauce
+out of their own heads, as a repast for the public.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To represent a man in the midst of all sorts of cares and annoyances,
+with impossibilities to perform, and driven almost distracted by his
+inadequacy. Then quietly comes Death, and releases him from all his
+troubles; and he smiles, and congratulates himself on escaping so
+easily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What if it should be discovered to be all a mistake, that people, who
+were supposed to have died long ago, are really dead? Byron to be still
+living, a man of sixty; Burns, too, in extreme old age; Bonaparte
+likewise; and many other distinguished men, whose lives might have
+extended to these limits. Then the private acquaintances, friends,
+enemies, wives, taken to be dead, to be all really living in this world.
+The machinery might be a person's being persuaded to believe that he had
+been mad; or having dwelt many years on a desolate island; or having
+been in the heart of Africa or China; and a friend amuses himself with
+giving this account. Or some traveller from Europe shall thus correct
+popular errors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The life of a woman, who, by the old Colony law, was condemned to wear
+always the letter A sewed on her garment in token of her sin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To make literal pictures of figurative expressions. For instance, he
+burst into tears,--a man suddenly turned into a shower of briny drops.
+An explosion of laughter,--a man blowing up, and his fragments flying
+about on all sides. He cast his eyes upon the ground,--a man standing
+eyeless, with his eyes thrown down, and staring up at him in wonderment,
+etc., etc., etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An uneducated countryman, supposing he had a live frog in his stomach,
+applied himself to the study of medicine, in order to find a cure, and
+so became a profound physician. Thus some misfortune, physical or moral,
+may be the means of educating and elevating us.
+
+
+_Concord, March 12, 1845._--Last night was very cold, and bright
+starlight; yet there was a mist or fog diffused all over the landscape,
+lying close to the ground, and extending upwards, probably not much
+above the tops of the trees. This fog was crystallized by the severe
+frost; and its little feathery crystals covered all the branches and
+smallest twigs of trees and shrubs; so that, this morning, at first
+sight, it appeared as if they were covered with snow. On closer
+examination, however, these most delicate feathers appeared shooting out
+in all directions from the branches,--above as well as beneath,--and
+looking, not as if they had been attached, but had been put forth by
+the plant,--a new kind of foliage. It is impossible to describe the
+exquisite beauty of the effect, when close to the eye; and even at a
+distance this delicate appearance was not lost, but imparted a graceful,
+evanescent aspect to great trees, perhaps a quarter of a mile off,
+making them look like immense plumes, or something that would vanish at
+a breath. The so-much admired sight of icy trees cannot compare with it
+in point of grace, delicacy, and beauty; and, moreover, there is a life
+and animation in this, not to be found in the other. It was to be seen
+in its greatest perfection at sunrise, or shortly after; for the
+slightest warmth impaired the minute beauty of the frost-feathers, and
+the general effect. But in the first sunshine, and while there was still
+a partial mist hovering around the hill and along the river, while some
+of the trees were lit up with an illumination that did not
+_shine_,--that is to say, glitter,--but was not less bright than if it
+had glittered, while other portions of the scene were partly obscured,
+but not gloomy,--on the contrary, very cheerful,--it was a picture that
+never can be painted nor described, nor, I fear, remembered with any
+accuracy, so magical was its light and shade, while at the same time the
+earth and everything upon it were white; for the ground is entirely
+covered by yesterday's snow-storm.
+
+Already, before eleven o'clock, these feathery crystals have vanished,
+partly through the warmth of the sun, and partly by gentle breaths of
+wind; for so slight was their hold upon the twigs that the least motion,
+or thought almost, sufficed to bring them floating down, like a little
+snow-storm, to the ground. In fact, the fog, I suppose, was a cloud of
+snow, and would have scattered down upon us, had it been at the usual
+height above the earth.
+
+All the above description is most unsatisfactory.
+
+
+
+
+ON TRANSLATING THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.
+
+FOURTH SONNET.
+
+
+    How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
+        This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
+        Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
+        Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
+    And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
+        But fiends and dragons from the gargoyled eaves
+        Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
+        And underneath the traitor Judas lowers!
+    Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
+        What exultations trampling on despair,
+        What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
+    What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
+        Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
+        This mediaeval miracle of song!
+
+
+
+
+FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
+
+
+We who enjoy the fruits of civil and religious liberty as our daily
+food, reaping the harvest we did not sow, seldom give a thought to those
+who in the dim past prepared the ground and scattered the seed that has
+yielded such plenteous return. If occasionally we peer into the gloom of
+by-gone centuries, some stalwart form, like that of Luther, arrests our
+backward glance, and all beyond is dark and void. But generations before
+Martin Luther the work for the harvest of coming ages was begun. Humble
+but earnest men, with such rude aids as they possessed, were toiling to
+clear away the dense underbrush of ignorance and superstition, and let
+the light of the sun in on the stagnant swamp; struggling to plough up
+the stony soil that centuries of oppression had made hard and barren;
+scattering seed that the sun would scorch and the birds of the air
+devour; and dying without seeing a green blade to reward them with the
+hope that their toils were not in vain.
+
+But their labors were not lost. The soil thus prepared by the painful
+and unrequited toil of those who had gone down to obscure graves,
+sorrowing and hopeless, offered less obstruction to the strong arms and
+better appliances of the reformers of a later day. Of the seed scattered
+by the early sowers, a grain found here and there a sheltering crevice,
+and struggled into life, bearing fruit that in the succession of years
+increased and multiplied until thousands were fed and strengthened by
+its harvest.
+
+The military history of the reign of the third Edward of England is
+illuminated with such a blaze of glory, that the dazzled eye can with
+difficulty distinguish the dark background of its domestic life. Cressy
+and Poitiers carried the military fame of England throughout the world,
+and struck terror into her enemies; but at home dwelt turbulence,
+corruption, rapine, and misery. The barons quarrelled and fought among
+themselves. The clergy wallowed in a sty of corruption and debauchery.
+The laboring classes were sunk in ignorance and hopeless misery. It was
+the dark hour that precedes the first glimmer of dawn.
+
+Poitiers was won in 1356. Four years the French king remained in
+honorable captivity in England. Then came the treaty of Bretigny, which
+released King John and terminated the war. The great nobles, with their
+armies of lesser knights and swarms of men-at-arms, returned to England,
+viewed with secret and well-founded distrust by the industrious and
+laboring classes along their homeward route. The nobles established
+themselves in their castles, immediately surrounded by swarms of
+reckless men, habituated by years of war to deeds of lawlessness and
+violence, and having subject to their summons feudatory knights, each of
+whom had his own band of turbulent retainers. With such elements of
+discord, it was impossible for good order long to be maintained. The
+nobles quarrelled, and their retainers were not backward in taking up
+the quarrel. The feudatory knights had disagreements among themselves,
+and carried on petty war against each other. Confederated bands of
+lawless men traversed the country, seizing property wherever it could be
+found, outraging women, taking prisoners and ransoming them, and making
+war against all who opposed their progress or were personally obnoxious
+to them. Castles and estates were seized and held on some imaginary
+claim. It was in vain to appeal to the laws. Justice was powerless to
+correct abuses or aid the oppressed. Powerful barons gave countenance to
+the marauders, that their services might be secured in the event of a
+quarrel with their neighbors; nor did they hesitate to share in the
+booty. Might everywhere triumphed over right, and the "law of the
+strong arm" superseded the ordinances of the civil power.
+
+The condition of the Church was no better than that of the State. Fraud,
+corruption, and oppression sat in high places in both. The prelates had
+their swarms of armed retainers, and ruled their flocks with the sword
+as well as the crosier. The monasteries, with but few exceptions, were
+the haunts of extravagance and sensuality, instead of the abodes of
+self-denying virtue and learning. The portly abbot, his black robe edged
+with costly fur and clasped with a silver girdle, his peaked shoes in
+the height of the fashion, and wearing a handsomely ornamented dagger or
+hunting-knife, rode out accompanied by a pack of trained hunting-dogs,
+the golden bells on his bridle
+
+    "Gingeling in the whistling wind as clear
+    And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell."
+
+The monks who were unable to indulge their taste for the chase sought
+recompense in unrestrained indulgence at the table. The land was
+overspread with an innumerable swarm of begging friars, who fawned on
+the great, flattered the wealthy, and despoiled the poor. Another class
+traversed the country, selling pardons "come from Rome all hot," and
+extolling the virtues of their relics and the power of their indulgences
+with the eloquence of a quack vending his nostrums. Bishops held civil
+offices under the king, and priests acted as stewards in great men's
+houses. Simony possessed the Church, and the ministers of religion again
+sold their Master for silver.
+
+The domestic and social life of the higher classes of society in the
+last half of the fourteenth century can be delineated, with a fair
+approach to exactness, from the detached hints scattered through such
+old romances and poems of that period as the diligent labors of zealous
+antiquaries have brought to light.
+
+The residences of all the great and wealthy possessed one general
+character. The central point and most important feature was the great
+hall, adjoining which in most houses a "parlour," or talking-room, had
+recently been built. A principal chamber for the ladies of the household
+was generally placed on the ground-floor, with an upper chamber, or
+"soler," over it. In the larger establishments additional chambers had
+been clustered around the main building, increasing in number with the
+wants of the household. The castles and fortified buildings varied a
+little in outward construction from the ordinary manorial residences,
+but the same general arrangement of the interior existed. A few of the
+stronger and more important buildings were of stone; but the larger
+proportion were of timber, or timber and stone combined.
+
+The great hall was the most important part of the establishment. Here
+the general business of the household was transacted, the meals served,
+strangers received, audiences granted, and what may be termed the public
+life of the family carried on. It was also the general rendezvous of the
+servants and retainers, who lounged about it when duty or pleasure did
+not call them to the other offices or to the field. In the evening they
+gathered around the fire, built in an iron grate standing in the middle
+of the room; for as yet chimneys were a luxury confined to the principal
+chamber. The few remaining halls of this period that have not been
+remodelled in succeeding ages present no trace of a fireplace or
+chimney. At night the male servants and men-at-arms stretched themselves
+to sleep on the benches along its sides, or on the rush-covered floor.
+
+The floor at the upper end was raised, forming the _dais_, or place of
+honor. On this, stretching nearly from side to side, was the "table
+dormant," or fixed table, with a "settle," or bench with a back, between
+it and the wall. On the lower floor, and extending lengthwise on each
+side down the hall, stood long benches for the use of the servants and
+retainers. At meal-times, in front of these were placed the temporary
+tables of loose boards supported on trestles. At the upper end was the
+cupboard, or "dresser," for the plate and furniture of the table. In
+the halls of the greater nobles, on important occasions, tapestry or
+curtains were hung on the walls, or at least on that portion of the wall
+next the dais, and still more rarely a carpet was used for that part of
+the floor,--rushes or bare tiles being more general. A perch for hawks,
+and the grate of burning wood, sending its smoke up to the blackened
+open roof, completed the picture of the hall of a large establishment in
+the fourteenth century.
+
+The "parlour," or talking-room, as its name imports, was used chiefly
+for conferences, and for such business as required more privacy than was
+attainable in the hall, but was unsuited to the domestic character of
+the chamber.
+
+After the hall, the most important feature of the building was the
+principal chamber. Here the domestic life of the family was carried on.
+Here the ladies of the household spent their time when not at meals or
+engaged in out-door sports and pastimes. The furniture of this room was
+more complete than that of the other parts of the building, but was
+still rude and scanty when judged by modern wants. The bed was of
+massive proportions and frequently of ornamental character. A
+truckle-bed for the children or chamber servants was pushed under the
+principal bed by day. At the foot of the latter stood the huge "hutch,"
+or chest, in which were deposited for safety the family plate and
+valuables. Two or three stools and large chairs, with a perch or bar on
+which to hang garments, completed the usual furniture of the chamber.
+
+In this room was one important feature not found in the others, and
+which accounted for the increasing attachment manifested towards it. The
+fire, instead of being placed in an iron grate or brazier in the middle
+of the room, burned merrily on the hearth; and the smoke, instead of
+seeking its exit by the window, was carried up a chimney of generous
+proportions.
+
+The household day commenced early. The members of the family arose from
+the beds where they had slept in the garments worn by our first parents
+before the fall; for the effeminacy of sleeping in night-dresses had not
+yet been introduced, and it was only the excessively poor that made the
+clothes worn during the day serve in lieu of blankets and coverlets.
+
+    "'I have but one whole hater,'[1] quoth Haukyn;
+    'I am the less to blame,
+    Though it be soiled and seldom clean:
+    I sleep therein of nights.'"
+
+Breakfast was served about six o'clock. It is difficult to get an exact
+description of the customs of the breakfast-table, or the nature of the
+meal, as the contemporary writers make little allusion to it. Probably
+it was but a slight repast, to allay the cravings of appetite until the
+great meal of the day was served. Until within a few years of the period
+of which we write, the dinner-hour was so early that but little food was
+taken before that time.
+
+Dinner was then, as now, the principal meal of the English day. In the
+houses of the great it was conducted with much ceremony; and among the
+richer classes certain well-established rules of courtesy in relation to
+the meal were observed. The family and their guests entered the great
+hall about ten o'clock. They were met by a domestic, bearing a pitcher
+and basin, and his assistant, with a towel. Water was poured on the
+hands of each person, and the ablutions carefully performed; scrupulous
+cleanliness in this respect being required, from the fact that forks
+were as yet things undreamed of. The principal guests took their seats
+at the "table dormant," on the dais, the person of highest rank having
+the middle seat,--which was consequently at the head of the hall,--and
+the others being arranged according to their respective rank.
+
+At the side-tables, below the dais, sat the inferior members of the
+household, with the guests of lesser note,--these also arranged with
+careful regard to rank and position. The beggar or poor wayfarer who
+was admitted to a humble share of the feast crouched on the rushes among
+the dogs who lay awaiting the bones and relics of the repast, and
+thankfully fed, like Lazarus, on "the crumbs that fell from the rich
+man's table."
+
+The guests being seated, the busy servitors hastened to cover the table
+with a "fair white linen cloth," of unsullied purity; and on it were
+placed the salt-cellars of massive silver, the spoons and knives; next
+the bread, and then the wine, poured with great ceremony into the
+drinking-cups by the cupbearer. The silver vessels were brought from the
+"dresser," and arranged on the table, the display being proportioned to
+the wealth and condition of the host and the consideration to be paid to
+the guests. The head cook and his assistants entered in procession,
+bearing the dishes in regular order, and deposited them on the table
+with due solemnity. The pottage was first served, and when this course
+was eaten, the vessels and spoons were removed. The carver performed his
+office on the meats, holding the joint, according to the traditions of
+his order, carefully with the thumb and first two fingers of his left
+hand, whilst he carved. The pieces were placed on "trenchers" or slices
+of bread, and handed to the guests, who made no scruple of freely using
+their fingers. The bones and refuse of the food were placed on the
+table, or thrown to the dogs.
+
+The people of that day were not insensible to the pleasures of the
+table; and, unless urgent matters called them to the field or the
+council, dinner was enjoyed with leisurely deliberation. In great houses
+of hospitable reputation, the great hall at the hour of meals was open
+to all comers. The traveller who found himself at its door was admitted,
+and received position and food according to his condition. The minstrels
+that wandered over the country in great numbers were always welcome, and
+were well supplied with food and drink, and received liberal gifts for
+their songs and the long romances of love and chivalry which they
+recited to music. Not unfrequently satirical songs were sung, or the
+minstrel narrated stories in which the humor was of a coarser nature
+than would now be tolerated in the presence of ladies, but which in that
+day were listened to without a blush.
+
+Dinner ended, the vessels and unconsumed meats were removed, the
+tablecloths gathered up, and the relics of the feast thrown on the floor
+for the dogs to devour. The side-tables were removed from their trestles
+and piled in a corner, and the hall cleared for the entertainments that
+frequently followed the dinner. These consisted of feats of conjuring by
+the "joculators," balancing and tumbling by the women who wandered about
+seeking a livelihood by such means, or dancing by the ladies of the
+household and their guests.
+
+The feast and its succeeding amusements disposed of, the ladies either
+shared in the out-door sports and games, of which there were many in
+which women could take part, or they retired to the chamber, where,
+seated in low chairs or in the recessed windows, they engaged in making
+the needle-work pictures that adorned the tapestry, listening the while
+to the love-romances narrated by the minstrel who had been invited for
+the purpose, or gave willing ear to the flattery of some "virelay" or
+love-song, sung by gay canon, gentle page, or courtly knight.
+
+About six o'clock, the household once more assembled in the hall for
+supper; and then the orders for the ensuing day were given to the
+servants and retainers. Soon after dark the members of the family and
+their guests sought their respective sleeping-places, as contrivances
+for lighting were rude, and had to be economized. Such of the servants
+as had special chambers or sleeping-places retired to them, whilst a
+large proportion of the male servants and such of the retainers as
+belonged immediately to the household stretched themselves on the
+benches or floor of the hall, and were soon fast asleep. Such is a
+sketch of the ordinary course of domestic life among the higher classes
+of English society in the fourteenth century.
+
+Among the greater nobles, the details of the daily life were sometimes
+on a more magnificent scale; but the leading features were as we have
+described them. Rude pomp and barbaric splendor marked the
+establishments of some of the powerful barons and ecclesiastical
+dignitaries. At tilt and tournament, the contending knights strove to
+outshine each other in gorgeousness of equipment, as well as in deeds of
+arms. Nor were the ladies averse to richness of attire in their own
+persons. Costly robes and dainty furs were worn, and jewels and gems of
+price sparkled when the dames and demoiselles appeared at great
+gatherings, or on occasions of state and ceremony. The extravagance of
+dress in both sexes had grown to be so great an evil, that stringent
+sumptuary laws were passed, but without producing any effect.
+
+The moral state of even the highest classes of society was not of a
+flattering character. Europe was one huge camp and battle-field, in
+which all the chivalry of the day had been educated,--no good school for
+purity of life and delicacy of language. The literature of the time, at
+least that portion of it which penetrated to ladies' chambers, was of an
+amorous, and too frequently of an indelicate character. A debased and
+sensual clergy swarmed over the land, finding their way into every
+household, and gradually corrupting those with whom their sacred office
+brought them into contact. The manners and habits of the time afforded
+every facility for the gratification of debased passions and indulgence
+in immoral practices.
+
+Whilst the barons feasted and fought, the ladies intrigued, and the
+clergy violated every principle of the religion they professed, the
+great mass of the population lived on, with scarcely a thought bestowed
+on them by their social superiors. Between the Anglo-Norman baron and
+the Anglo-Saxon laborer, or "villain," there was a great gulf fixed. The
+antipathy of an antagonistic and conquered race to its conquerors was
+intensified by years of oppression and wrong, and the laborer cherished
+a burning desire to break the bonds of thraldom in which most of the
+poor were held.
+
+By the laws of the feudal system, the tenants and laborers on the
+property of a baron were his "villains," or slaves. They were divided
+into two classes;--the "villains regardant," who were permitted to
+occupy and cultivate small portions of land, on condition of rendering
+certain stipulated services to their lord, and were therefore considered
+in the light of slaves to the land; and the "villains in gross," who
+were the personal slaves of the landowner, and were compelled to do the
+work they were set to perform in consideration of their food and
+clothing. Besides these two classes a third had recently come into
+existence, and, owing to various causes, was fast increasing in extent
+and importance,--that of free laborers, who worked for hire. This class
+was recruited in various ways from the ranks of the "villains in gross."
+Some were manumitted by their dying masters, as an act of piety in
+atonement for the deeds of violence done during life; but by far the
+greater number effected their freedom by escaping to distant parts of
+the country, where but little search would be made for them, or by
+seeking the refuge of the walled towns and cities, where a residence of
+a year and a day would give them freedom by law. The citizens were
+always ready to give asylum to those fugitives, for they supplied the
+growing need for laborers, and enabled the cities, by the increase of
+population, to maintain their independence against the pretensions of
+the barons.
+
+The condition of the "villain" was bad at the best; and numerous petty
+acts of oppression in most instances increased the bitterness of his
+lot. Himself the property of another, he could not legally hold
+possessions of any kind. Not only the land he tilled, and the rude
+implements of husbandry with which he painfully cultivated the soil, but
+the cattle with which he worked, the house in which he lived, the few
+chattels he gathered around him, and the scanty store of money earned by
+hard labor, all belonged to his master, who could at any time dispossess
+him of them. The "villain" who obtained a livelihood by working the few
+acres of land which had been held from father to son, on condition of
+performing personal labor or other services on the estate of the
+landowner, was subject not only to the demands of his master, but to the
+tithing of the Church; to the doles exacted by the swarms of begging
+friars, who, like Irish beggars of the present day, invoked cheap
+blessings on the cheerful giver, and launched bitter curses at the heads
+of those who refused alms; to the impositions of the wandering
+"pardoners," with their charms and relics; and to the tyrannical
+exactions of the "summoners," who, under pretence of writs from
+ecclesiastical courts, robbed all who were not in position to resist
+their fraudulent demands. What these spared was frequently swept away by
+the visits of the king's purveyors and the officers of others in power,
+who, not content with robbing the poor husbandman of the proceeds of his
+toil, treated the men with violence and the women with outrage.
+Complaint was useless. The "churl" had no rights which those in office
+were bound to respect.
+
+Ignorant, superstitious, and condemned to a life of unrequited toil and
+unredressed wrongs, the mental and moral condition of the agricultural
+poor was wretchedly low. Huddled together in mud cottages, through the
+rotten thatches of which the rain penetrated; clothed with rough
+garments that were seldom changed night or day; feeding on coarse food,
+and that in insufficient quantities,--their physical condition was one
+of extreme misery. The usual daily allowance of food to the bond laborer
+of either class, when working for the owner of the land, was two
+herrings, milk for cheese, and a loaf of bread, with the addition in
+harvest of a small allowance of beer. Occasionally, salted meats or
+stockfish were substituted for the herrings.
+
+The condition of the free laborer was measurably better; but even he was
+condemned to a life of privation and wretchedness, relieved only by the
+knowledge that his scanty earnings were his own, and that he could
+change the scene of his labors if he saw fit. The ordinary agricultural
+laborer, at the wages usually given, would have to work more than a week
+for a bushel of wheat. At harvest-time and other periods when the demand
+for labor was unusually great, as it was after the pestilences that
+swept the land about the time of which we write, the free laborers
+demanded higher wages; and although laws were passed to prevent their
+obtaining more than the usual rates, necessity frequently compelled
+their employment at the advanced prices. The receipt of higher wages
+only temporarily bettered their condition. Accustomed to griping hunger
+and short allowances of food, when better days came, they thought only
+of enjoying the present, and took no heed of the future. After harvest,
+with its high wages and cheapness of provision, the laborer frequently
+became wasteful and improvident. Instead of the stinted allowance of
+salted meat or fish, with the pinched loaf of bean-flour, and an
+occasional draught of weak beer, his fastidious appetite demanded fresh
+meat or fish, white bread, vegetables freshly gathered, and ale of the
+best. As long as his store lasted, he worked as little as possible, and
+grumbled at the fortune that made him a laborer. But these halcyon days
+were few, and soon passed away, to be followed by decreasing allowances
+of the commonest food, fierce pangs of hunger, and miserable
+destitution. A bad harvest inflicted untold wretchedness on the poor.
+Ill lodged, ill fed, and scantily clothed, disease cut them down like
+grass before the scythe. A deadly pestilence swept over the land in
+1348, carrying off about two thirds of the people; and nearly all the
+victims were from among the poorest classes. In 1361, another pestilence
+carried off thousands, again spreading terror and dismay through the
+country. Seven years later a third visitation desolated England. Here
+and there one of the better class fell a victim to the destroyer; but
+the great mass were from the ranks of the half-starved and poorly lodged
+laborers.
+
+The morality of the poor was, as might be expected, at a low ebb.
+Modesty, chastity, and temperance could scarcely be looked for in
+wretched mud huts, where all ages and sexes herded together like swine.
+Men and women alike fled from their miserable homes to the ale-house,
+where they drank long draughts of cheap ale, and, in imitation of their
+superiors in station, listened to a low class of "japers" who recited
+"rhymes of Robin Hood," or told coarse and obscene stories for the sake
+of a share of the ale, or such few small coins as could be drawn from
+the ragged pouches of the bacchanals.
+
+Between proud wealth and abject poverty there can be no friendly
+feeling. Stolid, brutish ignorance can alone render the bonds of the
+slave endurable. As his eyes are slowly opened by increasing knowledge,
+and he can compare his condition with that of the freeman, his fetters
+gall him, he becomes restive in his bonds, and at length turns in blind
+fury on his oppressors, striking mad blows with his manacled hands.
+Trodden into the dust by the iron heel of a tyrannical feudal power, the
+peasantry of France had turned on their oppressors, and wreaked a brief
+but savage vengeance for ages of wrong. The atrocious cruelties and mad
+excesses of the revolted Jacquerie could only have been committed by
+those who had been so long treated as brutes that they had acquired
+brutish passions and instincts. The English peasantry had not yet
+followed the example of their French compeers; but the gathering storm
+already darkened the sky, and the mutterings of the thunder were heard.
+Superstitiously religious, they hated the ministers of religion who
+violated its principles. Born slaves and hopelessly debased and
+ignorant, they began to ask the question,--
+
+    "When Adam delved and Eve span,
+    Who then was the gentleman?"
+
+Occasionally a rude ballad found its way among the people fiercely
+expressive of their scorn of the clergy and their hatred of the rich.
+One that was very popular, and has been transmitted to our day, asked,--
+
+    "While God was on earth
+      And wandered wide,
+    What was the reason
+      Why he would not ride?
+    Because he would have no groom
+      To go by his side,
+    Nor grudging of no gadeling[2]
+      To scold nor to chide.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Hearken hitherward, horsemen,
+      A tiding I you tell,
+    That ye shall hang
+      And harbor in hell!"
+
+But no leader had as yet arisen to give proper voice to the desire for
+reformation that burned in the hearts of the common people. The writers
+of that age were breathing the intoxicating air of court favor, and
+heeded not the sufferings of the common rabble. Froissart, the courtly
+canon and chronicler of deeds of chivalry, was writing French madrigals
+and amorous ditties for the ear of Queen Philippa, and loved too well
+gay society, luxurious feasts, and dainty attire, not to shrink with
+disgust from thought of the dirty, uncouth, and miserable herd of
+"greasy caps." Gower was inditing fashionable love-songs. Chaucer, who
+years after was to direct such telling blows in his Canterbury Tales at
+the vices and corruptness of the clergy, was a favorite member of the
+retinue of the powerful "John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster," and had
+as yet only written long and stately poems on the history of Troilus and
+Cressida, the Parliament of Birds, and the Court of Love. Wycliffe, the
+great English reformer of the Church, was quietly living at his rectory
+of Fylingham, and preparing his first essays against the mendicant
+orders. John Ball, the "crazy priest of Kent," as Froissart calls him,
+was brooding over the miseries of his poor parishioners, and nursing in
+his mind that enmity to all social distinctions with which he afterwards
+inflamed the minds of the peasantry, and incited them to open rebellion.
+
+But in the quarter least expected the oppressed people found an
+advocate. An unobtrusive monk, whose name is almost a doubtful
+tradition, stole out from his quiet cell in Malvern Abbey, and, whilst
+his brethren feasted, climbed the gentle slope of the Worcestershire
+hills, and drank in the beauties of the varied landscape at his feet.
+There, on a May morning, as he rested under a bank by the side of a
+brooklet, and was lulled to sleep by the murmuring of the water, he
+dreamed those dreams that set waking people to thinking, and gave a
+powerful impetus to the moral and social revolution that was just
+commencing.
+
+The "Vision of Piers Plowman" is every way a singular production.
+Clothed in the then almost obsolete verse of a past age, it breathes
+wholly the spirit of the time in which it was written. The work of a
+monk, it is unsparing in its attacks on the monastic orders. Intended
+for the reading or hearing of the middle and lower classes, it gives
+more frequent glimpses of the social condition of all ranks of people
+than any other work of that age. As a philological monument, it is of
+great value; as a poem, it contains many passages of merit; and as a
+storehouse of allusions to the social life of the people in the
+fourteenth century, it is invaluable.
+
+The poem consists of a series of visions or dreams, of an allegorical
+character, in which the dreamer seeks to find Truth and Righteousness on
+earth, meeting with but little success. The allegorical idea cannot be
+followed without weariness, and, in fact, the intentions of the writer
+are by no means clear, the allegory being frequently involved and
+contradictory. The beauty of the poem lies in its detached passages, its
+occasional poetic touches, its graphic pictures, biting satire, and
+withering denunciation of fraud, corruption, and tyranny. The measure
+adopted is the unrhymed alliterative, characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon
+literature, and which had long been disused, but which retained its hold
+on the affections of the common people, who were of Anglo-Saxon stock.
+In the extracts we give from the poem, the measure is retained, but the
+words modernized, so far as can be done without injuring the sense or
+metre.
+
+The opening passage of the "Vision" has been so frequently reproduced,
+as a specimen of the poet's style, that it is probably familiar to many
+readers, but its exquisite naturalness and simplicity tempt us to quote
+it here.
+
+    "In a summer season,
+    When soft was the sun,
+    I shaped me into shrouds[3]
+    As I a shep[4] were;
+    In habit as an hermit
+    Unholy of works
+    Went wide in this world
+    Wonders to hear:
+    And on a May morwening
+    On Malvern hills
+    Me befell a ferly,[5]
+    Of fairy methought.
+    I was weary for-wandered,
+    And went me to rest
+    Under a broad bank
+    By a bourne's[6] side;
+    And as I lay and leaned,
+    And looked on the waters,
+    I slumbered into a sleeping
+    It swayed so merry."
+
+The first scene in the visions that visited the sleep of the dreaming
+monk gives a view of the social classes of that time, beginning with the
+humblest, whose condition was uppermost in his mind. The picture is not
+only painted with vigorous touches, but affords a better idea of society
+in the fourteenth century than can be elsewhere obtained. There is the
+toiling ploughman, who "plays full seldom," winning by hard labor what
+wasteful men destroy; the mediaeval dandy, whose only employment is to
+exhibit his attire; the hermit, who seeks by solitude and penitential
+life to win "heaven's rich bliss"; the merchant, who has wisely chosen
+his trade,--
+
+    "As it seemeth in our sight
+    That such men thriveth."
+
+There are minstrels, who earn rich rewards by their singing; jesters and
+idle gossips; "sturdy beggars," wandering with full bags; pilgrims and
+palmers, who
+
+    "Went forth in their way
+    With many wise tales,
+    And had leave to lie
+    All their lives after";
+
+counterfeit hermits, who assumed the cloak and hooked staff in order to
+live in idleness and sensuality; avaricious friars, selling their
+religion for money; cheating pardoners; covetous priests; ambitious
+bishops; lawyers who loved gain better than justice; "barons and
+burgesses, and bondmen also," with
+
+    "Bakers and brewers,
+    And butchers many;
+    Woollen websters,
+    And weavers of linen;
+    Tailors and tinkers,
+    And toilers in markets;
+    Masons and miners,
+    And many other crafts.
+    Of all kind living laborers
+    Leaped forth some;
+    As ditchers and delvers,
+    That do their deeds ill,
+    And driveth forth the long day
+    With _Dieu save dame Emme_.
+    Cooks and their knaves
+    Cried, 'Hot pies, hot!
+    Good geese and grys,[7]
+    Go dine, go!'"
+
+To plead the cause of the poor and weak against their powerful
+oppressors, and to protest in the name of religion against the pride and
+corrupt life of its ministers, was the object of the monk of Malvern
+Abbey; and he did his work well. The blows he dealt were fierce and
+strong, and told home. Burgher and baron, monk and cardinal, alike felt
+the fury of his attacks. He was no respecter of persons. A monk himself,
+he had no scruples in tearing off the priestly robe that covered lust
+and rapine. Wrong in high places gained no respect from him. His
+invectives against a haughty and oppressive nobility and a corrupt and
+arrogant clergy are unsurpassed in power, and it is easy to understand
+the hold the poem at once acquired on the attention of the lower
+classes, and its influence in directing and hastening the attempt of the
+oppressed people to break their galling bonds.
+
+What we have before said in reference to the wretched condition of the
+peasantry, as shown by contemporary evidence, is confirmed by the writer
+of the "Vision." The peasant was a born thrall to the owner of the land,
+and could
+
+        "no charter make,
+    Nor his cattle sell,
+    Without leave of his lord."
+
+Misery and he were lifelong companions, and pinching want his daily
+portion. The wretched poor
+
+        "much care suffren
+    Through dearth, through drought,
+    All their days here:
+    Woe in winter times
+    For wanting of clothing
+    And in summer time seldom
+    Soupen to the full."
+
+A graphic picture of a poor ploughman and his family is given in the
+"Creed" of Piers Plowman, supposed to have been written by the author of
+the "Vision," but a few years later.
+
+    "As I went by the way
+    Weeping for sorrow,
+    I saw a simple man me by,
+    Upon the plow hanging.
+    His coat was of a clout
+    That cary[8] was called;
+    His hood was full of holes,
+    And his hair out;
+    With his knopped[9] shoon
+    Clouted full thick;
+    His toes totedun[10] out
+    As he the land treaded;
+    His hosen overhung his hockshins
+    On every side,
+    All beslomered in fen[11]
+    As he the plow followed.
+    Two mittens as meter
+    Made all of clouts,
+    The fingers were for-werd[12]
+    And full of fen hanged.
+    This wight wallowed in the fen
+    Almost to the ankle.
+    Four rotheren[13] him before
+    That feeble were worthy,
+    Men might reckon each rib
+    So rentful[14] they were.
+    His wife walked him with,
+    With a long goad,
+    In a cutted coat,
+    Cutted full high,
+    Wrapped in a winnow sheet
+    To weren her from weathers,
+    Barefoot on the bare ice
+    That the blood followed.
+    And at the land's end layeth
+    A little crumb-bowl,[15]
+    And thereon lay a little child
+    Lapped in clouts,
+    And twins of two years old
+    Upon another side.
+    And all they sungen one song,
+    That sorrow was to hear;
+    They crieden all one cry,
+    A careful note.
+    The simple man sighed sore,
+    And said, 'Children, be still!'"
+
+The tenant of land, or small farmer, was in a better condition, and when
+not cozened of his stores by the monks, or robbed of them by the
+ruffians in office or out of office, managed to live with some kind of
+rude comfort. What the ordinary condition of his larder and the extent
+of his farming stock were, may be learned from a passage in the
+"Vision."
+
+    "'I have no penny,' quoth Piers,
+    'Pullets to buy.
+    Nor neither geese nor grys;
+    But two green cheeses,
+    A few curds and cream,
+    And an haver cake,[16]
+    And two loaves of beans and bran,
+    Baked for my fauntes[17];
+    And yet I say, by my soul!
+    I have no salt bacon.
+    Nor no cokeney,[18] by Christ!
+    Collops for to maken.
+
+    "But I have perciles and porettes,[19]
+    And many cole plants,[20]
+    And eke a cow and calf.
+    And a cart-mare
+    To draw afield my dung,
+    The while the drought lasteth;
+    And by this livelihood we must live
+    Till Lammas time.
+    And by that I hope to have
+    Harvest in my croft,
+    And then may I dight thy dinner
+    As me dear liketh.'"
+
+We have already described the tenure by which the tenant held his lands,
+and the protection the knightly landowner was bound to give his tenant.
+Thus Piers Plowman, when his honest labors are broken in upon by
+ruffians,
+
+    "Plained him to the knight
+    To help him, as covenant was,
+    From cursed shrews,
+    Aud from these wasters, wolves-kind,
+    That maketh the world dear."
+
+At times this was but a wolf's protection, or a stronger power broke
+through all guards. The "king's purveyor," or some other licensed
+despoiler, came in, and the victim was left to make fruitless complaints
+of his injuries. The women were subjected to gross outrages, and the
+property stolen or destroyed.
+
+    "Both my geese and my grys
+    His gadelings[21] fetcheth,
+    I dare not, for fear of them,
+    Fight nor chide.
+    He borrowed of me Bayard
+    And brought him home never,
+    Nor no farthing therefore
+    For aught that I could plead.
+    He maintaineth his men
+    To murder my hewen,[22]
+    Forestalleth my fairs,
+    And fighteth in my chepying.[23]
+    And breaketh up my barn door,
+    And beareth away my wheat,
+    And taketh me but a tally
+    For ten quarters of oats;
+    And yet he beateth me thereto."
+
+Then, as now, there were complaints that the privations of the poor were
+increased by the covetousness of the hucksters, and "regraters"
+(retailers), who came between the producer and the consumer, and grew
+rich on the profits made from both.
+
+    "Brewers and bakers,
+    Butchers and cooks,"
+
+were charged with robbing
+
+        "the poor people
+    That parcel-meal[24] buy;
+    For they empoison the people
+    Privily and oft.
+    They grow rich through regratery,
+    And rents they buy
+    With what the poor people
+    Should put in their wamb.[25]
+    For, took they but truly,
+    They timbered[26] not so high,
+    Nor bought no burgages,[27]
+    Be ye fell certain."
+
+Stringent laws were made against huckstering and regrating, and
+officers were appointed to punish offenders in this respect, "with
+pillories and pining-stools." But officers, then as now, were not proof
+against temptation, and were often disposed
+
+    "Of all such sellers
+    Silver for to take;
+    Or presents without pence,
+    As pieces of silver,
+    Rings, or other riches,
+    The regraters to maintain."
+
+Nor had the rogues of the fourteenth century much to learn in the way of
+turning a dishonest penny. The merchant commended his bad wares for
+good, and knew how to adulterate and how to give short measure. The
+spinners of wool were paid by a heavy pound, and the article resold by a
+light pound. Laws were made against such frauds, but laws were little
+regarded when they conflicted with self-interest. The crime of clipping
+and "sweating" coin was frequently practised. Pawn-brokers,
+money-lenders, and sellers of exchange thrived and flourished.
+
+The rich find but little consideration at the hands of the plain-spoken
+dreamer. Their extravagance is commented on; their growing pride, which
+prompted them to abandon the great hall and take their meals in a
+private room, and their uncharitableness to the poor. They practise the
+saying, that "to him that hath shall be given."
+
+    "Right so, ye rich,
+    Ye robeth them that be rich,
+    And helpeth them that helpen you,
+    And giveth where no need is.
+    Ye robeth and feedeth
+    Them that have as ye have
+    Them ye make at ease."
+
+But when, hungered, athirst, and shivering with cold, the poor man comes
+to the rich man's gate, there is none to help, but he is
+
+      "hunted as a hound,
+    And bidden go thence."
+
+Thus
+
+        "the rich is reverenced
+    By reason of his richness,
+    And the poor is put behind."
+
+Truly, says the Monk of Malvern,
+
+    "God is much in the gorge
+    Of these great masters;
+    But among mean men
+    His mercy and his works."
+
+But it is on the vices and corruptions of the clergy that the monk pours
+the vials of his wrath. He cloaks nothing, and spares neither rank nor
+condition. The avarice of the clergy, their want of religion, and the
+prostitution of their sacred office for the sake of gain, are sternly
+denounced in frequently-recurring passages. The facility with which
+debaucheries and crimes of all kinds could be compounded for with the
+priests by presents of gold and silver, the neglect of their flocks
+whilst seeking gain in the service of the rich and powerful, their
+ignorance, pride, extravagance, and licentiousness, are painted in
+strong colors. The immense throng of friars and monks, who "waxen out of
+number," meet with small mercy from their fellow-monk. Falsehood and
+fraud are described as dwelling ever with them. Their unholy life and
+unseemly quarrels are held up for reprobation. Nor do the nuns escape
+the imputation of unchastity. The quackery of pardoners, with their
+pardons and indulgences from pope and bishop, is treated with contempt
+and scorn. Bishops are criticised for their undivided attention to
+worldly matters; and even the Pope himself does not escape censure.
+
+    "What pope or prelate now
+    Performeth what Christ hight[28]?"
+
+The cardinals come in for a share of the censure, and here occurs a
+passage, curiously suggestive of the celebrated line,--
+
+    "Never yet did cardinal bring good to England."
+
+    "The commons _clamat cotidie_
+    Each man to the other,
+    The country is the curseder
+    That cardinals come in;
+    And where they lie and lenge[29] most,
+    Lechery there reigneth."
+
+Years afterwards, Wycliffe dealt mighty blows at the corrupt and debased
+clergy, and Chaucer pierced them with his sharp satire, but neither
+surpassed their predecessor in the vigor and spirit of his onslaughts.
+One passage, which we quote, had evidently been acted on by Chaucer's
+"poor parson," and can be studied even at this late day.
+
+    "Friars and many other masters,
+    That to lewed[30] men preachen,
+    Ye moven matters unmeasurable
+    To tellen of the Trinity,
+    That oft times the lewed people
+    Of their belief doubt.
+    Better it were to many doctors
+    To leave such teaching,
+    And tell men of the ten commandments,
+    And touching the seven sins,
+    And of the branches that bourgeoneth of them,
+    And bringeth men to hell,
+    And how that folk in follies
+    Misspenden their five wits,
+    As well friars as other folks,
+    Foolishly spending,
+    In housing, in hatering,[31]
+    And in to high clergy showing
+    More for pomp than for pure charity.
+    The people wot the sooth
+    That I lie not, lo!
+    For lords ye pleasen,
+    And reverence the rich
+    The rather for their silver."
+
+It would be hardly proper to leave this portion of the subject without
+alluding to the remarkable passage which has been held by many as a
+prophecy of the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., nearly
+two centuries later. After denouncing the corruptions of the clergy, he
+says:--
+
+    "But there shall come a king
+    And confess you religiouses,
+    And beat you as the Bible telleth
+    For breaking of your rule;
+    And amend monials,
+    Monks and canons,
+    And put them to their penance.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon,
+    And all his issue forever,
+    Have a knock of a king,
+    And incurable the wound."
+
+A distinctive and charming feature of the English landscape is the
+hedgerow that divides the fields and marks the course of the roadways.
+Nowhere but in England does the landscape present such a charming
+picture of "meadows trim with daisies pied," "russet lawns and fallows
+gray," spread out like a map, divided with irregular lines of green.
+Nowhere else is the traveller's path guarded on either hand with a
+rampart of delicate primroses, sweet-breathed violets, golden buttercups
+fit for fairy revels, honeysuckles in whose bells the bee rings a
+delighted peal, and luscious-fruited blackberry-bushes. Nowhere else is
+such a rampart crowned with the sweet-scented hawthorn, robed in snowy
+blossoms, or beaded over with scarlet berries, and with the hazel, with
+its gracefully pendent catkins, or nuts dear to the school-boy. It
+scarcely seems possible to imagine an English landscape without its
+flower-scented hedge-rows, and yet, when the armed knights of Edward the
+Third's reign rode abroad from their castles, few lofty hedges barred
+their progress across the country; no hazel-crowned rampart stopped the
+way of the Malvern monk as he took his way to the "bourne's side"; and
+when the ploughman "whistled o'er the furrowed land," the line of
+division at which he turned his back on his neighbor's acres was
+generally but a narrow trench instead of a ditch and hedge. Thus the
+covetous man confesses,
+
+      "If I yede[32] to the plow,
+    I pinched so narrow
+    That a foot land or a furrow
+    Fetchen I would
+    Of my next neighbor,
+    And nymen[33] of his earth.
+    And if I reap, overreach."
+
+As might have been expected, the monkish dreamer, unusually liberal as
+he was in his views, had but a slighting opinion of women. Rarely does
+he refer to them except to rate them for their extravagance in dress and
+love of finery. The humbler class of women, he shrewdly insinuates, were
+fond of drink, and the husbands of such were advised to cudgel them home
+to their domestic duties. He credited the long-standing slander about
+woman's inability to keep a secret:--
+
+    "For that that women wotteth
+    May not well be concealed."
+
+His opinion of the proper sphere of women in that time, and some
+knowledge of their ordinary feminine occupations, can be acquired from
+the answer made to the question of a lady as to what her sex should
+do:--
+
+    "Some should sew the sack, quoth Piers,
+    For shedding of the wheat;
+    And ye, lovely ladies,
+    With your long fingers,
+    That ye have silk and sendal
+    To sew, when time is,
+    Chasubles for chaplains,
+    Churches to honor.
+      Wives and widows
+    Wool and flax spinneth;
+    Make cloth, I counsel you,
+    And kenneth[34] so your daughters;
+    The needy and the naked,
+    Nymeth[35] heed how they lieth,
+    And casteth them clothes,
+    For so commanded Truth."
+
+Marriage is an honorable estate, and should be entered into with proper
+motives, and in a decent and regular manner. It is desirable that most
+men should marry, for
+
+    "The wife was made the way
+    For to help work;
+    And thus was wedlock wrought
+    With a mean person,
+    First by the father's will
+    And the friends counsel;
+    And sithens[36] by assent of themselves,
+    As they two might accord."
+
+This is the essentially worldly way of making marriage arrangements yet
+practised in some aristocratic circles, but the more democratic and
+natural way is to reverse the process, and commence with the agreement
+between the two persons most concerned. Such unequal matches as age and
+wealth on one side, and youth and desire of wealth on the other, bring
+about, are sternly reprobated.
+
+    "It is an uncomely couple,
+    By Christ! as me thinketh,
+    To give a young wench
+    To an old feeble,
+    Or wedden any widow
+    For wealth of her goods,
+    That never shall bairn bear
+    But if it be in her arms."
+
+Such marriages lead to jealousy, bickerings, and open rupture,
+disgraceful to husband and wife, and annoying to others. Therefore Piers
+counsels
+
+          "all Christians,
+    Covet not to be wedded
+    For covetise of chattels.
+    Not of kindred rich;
+    But maidens and maidens
+    Make you together;
+    Widows and widowers
+    Worketh the same;
+    For no lands, but for love,
+    Look you be wedded";--
+
+adding the sound bit of spiritual and worldly advice,
+
+    "And then get ye the grace of God;
+    _And goods enough, to live with_."
+
+The touch of shrewd humor in the last line finds its counterpart in many
+other passages. Thus, when the dreamer sits down to rest by the wayside,
+his iteration of the prescribed prayers makes him drowsy:--
+
+    "So I babbled on my beads;
+    They brought me asleep."
+
+The Franciscan friars, his especial aversion, get a sly thrust when he
+says of Charity that
+
+        "in a friar's frock
+    He was founden once;
+    _But it is far ago_,
+    In Saint Francis's time:
+    In that sect since
+    Too seldom hath he been found."
+
+When Covetousness has confessed his numerous misdeeds, and is asked if
+he ever repented and made restitution, he replies,
+
+    "Yes, once I was harbored
+    With a heap of chapmen.[37]
+    I rose when they were at rest
+    And rifled their males[38]";--
+
+and on being told that this was no restitution, but another robbery, he
+replies, with assumed innocence of manner,
+
+    "I wened[39] rifling were restitution, quoth he,
+    For I learned never to read on book;
+    And I ken no French, in faith,
+    But of the farthest end of Norfolk."
+
+Even the Pope is not exempt from a touch of satire:--
+
+      "He prayed the Pope
+    Have pity on holy Church,
+    And ere he gave any grace,
+    _Govern first himself_."
+
+The prejudice against doctors and lawyers was as strong five hundred
+years ago as now, judging from Piers Plowman, who says, that
+
+      "Murderers are many leeches,
+    Lord them amend!
+    They do men die through their drinks
+    Ere destiny it would."
+
+Of lawyers he says they pleaded
+
+            "for pennies
+    And pounds, the law;
+    And not for the love of our Lord
+    Unclose their lips once.
+    Thou mightest better meet mist
+    On Malvern hills
+    Than get a mum of their mouth
+    Till money be showed."
+
+No class of people suffered more in the Middle Ages than the Jews. They
+were abhorred by the poor, despised by the wealthy, and cruelly
+oppressed by the powerful. But through all their sufferings and trials
+they were true to each other; and the monk holds up their fraternal
+charity as an example to shame Christians into similar virtues. He
+says:--
+
+    "A Jew would not see a Jew
+    Go jangling[40] for default.
+    For all the mebles[41] on this mould[42]
+    And he amend it might.
+      Alas! that a Christian creature
+    Shall be unkind to another;
+    Since Jews, that we judge
+    Judas's fellows,
+    Either of them helpeth other
+    Of that that him needeth.
+    Why not will we Christians
+    Of Christ's good be as kind
+    As Jews, that be our lores-men[43]?
+    Shame to us all!"
+
+With one more curious passage, giving a glimpse of the belief of that
+age concerning the future state, we will close our extracts from "Piers
+Plowman." Discussing the condition of the thief upon the cross who was
+promised a seat in heaven, the dreamer says:--
+
+    "Right as some man gave me meat,
+    And amid the floor set me,
+    And had meat more than enough,
+    But not so much worship
+    As those that sitten at the side-table,
+    Or with the sovereigns of the hall;
+    But set as a beggar boardless,
+    By myself on the ground.
+    So it fareth by that felon
+    That on Good Friday was saved,
+    He sits neither with Saint John,
+    Simon, nor Jude,
+    Nor with maidens nor with martyrs,
+    Confessors nor widows;
+    But by himself as a sullen,[44]
+    And served on earth.
+    For he that is once a thief
+    Is evermore in danger,
+    And, as law him liketh,
+    To live or to die.
+    And for to serven a saint
+    And such a thief together,
+    It were neither reason nor right
+    To reward them both alike."
+
+"Piers Plowman" is supposed to have been written in 1362. It became
+instantly popular, and manuscript copies were rapidly distributed over
+England. Imitations preserving the peculiar form, and aiming at the same
+objects as the "Vision," though without the genius exhibited in that
+work, appeared in quick succession. The hatred of the oppressed people
+for their oppressors was intensified by the inflammatory harangues of
+John Ball, the deposed priest. The preaching of Wycliffe probed still
+deeper the festering corruption of the dominant Church. At last, in
+1381, a popular rising, under Wat Tyler, attempted to right the wrongs
+of generations at the sword's point. The result of that attempt is well
+known,--its temporary success, sudden overthrow, and the terrible
+revenge taken by the ruling power in the enactment of laws that made the
+burden of the people still more intolerable.
+
+But the seed of political and religious freedom had been sown. It had
+been watered with the blood of martyrs; and, although the tender shoots
+had been trodden down with an iron heel as soon as they appeared, they
+gathered additional strength and vigor from the repression, and soon
+sprang up with a vitality that defied all efforts to crush them.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Garment.
+
+[2] Vagabond.
+
+[3] Clothes.
+
+[4] Shepherd.
+
+[5] Vision.
+
+[6] Brook.
+
+[7] Pigs.
+
+[8] A kind of very coarse cloth.
+
+[9] Buttoned.
+
+[10] Pushed.
+
+[11] Mud.
+
+[12] Worn out.
+
+[13] Oxen.
+
+[14] Meagre.
+
+[15] Kneading-trough.
+
+[16] Oat cake.
+
+[17] Children.
+
+[18] A lean hen.
+
+[19] Parley and leeks.
+
+[20] Cabbages.
+
+[21] Vagabonds.
+
+[22] Workingmen.
+
+[23] Market.
+
+[24] Piecemeal.
+
+[25] Belly.
+
+[26] Built.
+
+[27] Lands or tenements in towns.
+
+[28] Commanded.
+
+[29] Remain.
+
+[30] Unlearned.
+
+[31] Dressing.
+
+[32] Went.
+
+[33] Rob him.
+
+[34] Teach.
+
+[35] Take.
+
+[36] Afterwards.
+
+[37] Pedlers.
+
+[38] Boxes.
+
+[39] Thought.
+
+[40] Complaining.
+
+[41] Goods.
+
+[42] Earth.
+
+[43] Teachers.
+
+[44] One left alone.
+
+
+
+
+KATHARINE MORNE.
+
+PART I.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+One day, near the middle of a June about twenty years ago, my landlady
+met me at the door of my boarding-house, and began with me the following
+dialogue.
+
+"Miss Morne, my dear, home a'-ready? Goin' to be in, a spell, now?"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Johnson, I believe so. Why?"
+
+"Well, someb'dy's been in here to pay ye a call, afore twelve o'clock,
+in a tearin' hurry. Says I, 'Ye've got afore yer story this time, I
+guess,' says I. Says he, 'I guess I'll call again,' says he. He's left
+ye them pinies an' snowballs in the pitcher."
+
+"But who was it?"
+
+"Well, no great of a stranger, it wa'n't,--Jim!"
+
+"O, thank you."
+
+"He kind o' seemed as if he might ha' got somethin' sort o' special on
+his mind to say to ye. My! how he colored up at somethin' I said!"
+
+I walked by, and away from her, into the house, but answered that I
+should be happy to see Jim if he came back. Well I might. Through all
+the months of school-keeping that followed my mother's death,--in the
+little country village of Greenville, so full of homesickness for
+me,--he had been my kindest friend. My old schoolmate, Emma Holly, from
+whose native town he came, assured me beforehand that he would be so.
+She wrote to me that he was the best, most upright, well-principled,
+kind-hearted fellow in the world. He was almost like a brother to her,
+(this surprised me a little, because I had never heard her speak of him
+before,) and so he would be to me, if I would only let him. She had told
+him all about me and our troubles and plans,--how I winced at that when
+I read it!--and he was very much interested, and would shovel a path for
+me when it snowed, or go to the post-office for me, or do anything in
+the world for me that he could. And so he had done.
+
+He had little chance, indeed, to devote himself to me abroad; for I
+seldom went out, except now and then, when I could not refuse without
+giving offence, to drink tea with the family of some pupil. But when I
+did that, he always found it out through Mrs. Johnson, whose nephew he
+was, and came to see me home. He usually brought some additional
+wrappings or thick shoes for me; and even if they were too warm, or
+otherwise in my way, I could be, and was, grateful for his kindness in
+thinking of them. He was very attentive to his aunt also, and came to
+read aloud to her, while she napped, almost every evening. At every meal
+which he took with us, he was constantly suggesting to her little
+comforts and luxuries for me, till I was afraid she would really be
+annoyed. She took his hints, however, in wonderfully good part,
+sometimes acted upon them, and often said to me, "How improvin' it was
+for young men to have somebody to kind o' think for! It made 'em so kind
+o' thoughtful!" Many a flower, fruit, and borrowed book he brought me.
+He tried to make me walk with him; and, whenever he could, he made me
+talk with him. But for him, I should have studied almost all the time
+that I was not teaching or sleeping; for when I began to teach, I first
+discovered how little I had learned. Thus nearly all the indulgences and
+recreations of the rather grave, lonely, and hard-working little life I
+was leading at that time were associated with him and his kind care; and
+so I really think it was no great wonder if his peonies and snowballs
+that day made the bare little parlor, with the row of staring, uncouth
+daguerreotypes on the mantel-piece, look very pretty to me, or that to
+know that he had been there, and was coming back again, made it a very
+happy place.
+
+I walked across it, took off my hot black bonnet, threw up the western
+window, and sat down beside it in the rocking-chair. The cool breeze
+struggled through the tree that nestled sociably up to it, and made the
+little knobs of cherries nod at me, as if saying, "You would not like us
+now, but you will by and by." The oriole gurgled and giggled from among
+them, "_Wait!_ Come _again_! Come again! Ha, ha!" The noise of the
+greedy canker-worms, mincing the poor young green leaves over my head,
+seemed a soothing sound; and even the sharp headache I had brought with
+me from the school-room, only a sort of _sauce piquante_ to my delicious
+rest. I did not ask myself what Jim would say. I scarcely longed to hear
+him come. I did not know how anything to follow could surpass that
+perfect luxury of waiting peace.
+
+He did come soon. I heard a stealthy step, not on the gravel-walk, but
+on the rustling hay that lay upon the turf beside it. He looked, and
+then sprang, in at the window. He was out of breath. He caught my hand,
+and looked into my face, and asked me to go out and walk with him.
+Before I had time to answer, he snatched up my bonnet, and almost
+pressed it down upon my head. As I tied it, he hurried out and looked
+back at me eagerly from the road. I followed, though more slowly than he
+wished. The sun was bright and hot, and almost made me faint; but
+everything was very beautiful.
+
+He wrenched out the topmost bar of a fence, _jumped_ me over it into a
+meadow, led me by a forced march into the middle of the field, seated me
+on a haycock, and once more stood before me, looking me in the face with
+his own all aglow.
+
+Then he told me that he had been longing for weeks, as I must have seen,
+to open his mind to me; but, till that day, he had not been at liberty.
+He had regarded me, from almost the very beginning of our acquaintance,
+as his best and trustiest friend,--in short, as just what dear Emma had
+told him he should find me. My friendship had been a blessing to him in
+every way; and now my sympathy, or participation, was all he wanted to
+render his happiness complete. He had just been admitted as a partner in
+_the store_ of the village, in which he had hitherto been only a
+salesman; and now, therefore, he was at last free to offer himself,
+before all the world, to the girl he loved best; and that was--I must
+guess who. He called me "dearest Katy," and asked me if he might not
+"to-day, at last."
+
+I bowed, but did not utter my guess. He seemed to think I had done so,
+notwithstanding; for he hurried on, delighted. "Of course it is, 'Katy
+darling,' as we always call you! I never knew your penetration out of
+the way. It _is_ Emma Holly! It couldn't be anybody but Emma Holly!"
+
+Then he told me that she had begged hard for leave to tell me outright,
+what she thought she had hinted plainly enough, about their hopes; but
+her father was afraid that to have them get abroad would hurt her
+prospects in other quarters, and made silence towards all others a
+condition of her correspondence with Jim. Mr. Holly was "aristocratic,"
+and in hopes Emma would change her mind, Jim supposed; but all danger
+was over now. He could maintain her like the lady she was; and their
+long year's probation was ended. Then he told me in what agonies he had
+passed several evenings a fortnight before, (when I must have wondered
+why he did not come and read,) from hearing of her illness. The doctors
+were right for once, to be sure, as it proved, in thinking it only the
+measles; but it might just as well have been spotted fever, or
+small-pox, or anything fatal, for all they knew.
+
+And then I rather think there must have been a pause, which I did not
+fill properly, because my head was aching with a peculiar sensation
+which I had never known before, though I have sometimes since.--It is
+like the very hand of Death, laid with a strong grasp on the joint and
+meeting-point of soul and body, and makes one feel, for the time being,
+as Dr. Livingstone says he did when the lion shook him,--a merciful
+indifference as to anything to come after.--And Jim was asking me, in a
+disappointed tone, what the matter was, and if I did not feel
+interested.
+
+"Yes," I said, "Mr. Johnson--"
+
+"Mr. Johnson!" interrupted he, "How cold! I thought it would be _Jim_ at
+least, to-day, if you can't say _dear_ Jim."
+
+"Yes, 'dear Jim,'" I repeated; and my voice sounded so strangely quiet
+in my own ears, that I did not wonder that he called me cold. "Indeed, I
+am interested. I don't know when I have heard anything that has
+interested me so much. I pray God to bless you and Emma. But the reason
+I came from school so early to-day was, that I had a headache; and now I
+think perhaps the sun is not good for it, and I had better go in."
+
+I stood up; but I suspect I must have had something like a sunstroke,
+sitting there in the meadow so long with no shade, in the full blaze of
+June. I was almost too dizzy to stand, and could hardly have reached the
+house, if I had not accepted Jim's arm. He offered, in the joy of his
+heart, to change head-dresses with me,--which luckily made me
+laugh,--declaring that mine must be a perfect portable stove for the
+brains. Thus we reached the door cheerfully, and there shook hands
+cordially; while I bade him take my kindest love and congratulations to
+Emma,--to whom he was going on a three days' visit, as fast as the cars
+could carry him,--and charged him to tell her I should write as soon as
+I recovered the use of my head.
+
+He looked concerned on being reminded of it, and shouted for Mrs.
+Johnson to bring me some lavender-water to bathe it with. I had told
+him, on a former occasion, that the smell of lavender always made it
+worse; but it was natural that, when he was so happy, he should forget.
+Whistling louder than the orioles, whose songs rang wildly through and
+through my brain, he hastened down the road, and was gone.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Jim was gone; but I was left. I could have spared him better if I could
+only have got rid of myself.
+
+However, for that afternoon the blessed pain took such good care of me
+that I lay upon my bed still and stunned, and could only somewhat dimly
+perceive, not how unhappy I was, but how unhappy I was going to be. It
+quieted Mrs. Johnson, too. She had seen me suffering from headache
+before, and knew that I could never talk much while it lasted. Her
+curiosity was at once satisfied and gratified by hearing what Jim had
+left me at liberty to tell her,--the news of his partnership in the
+firm. The engagement was not to be announced in form till the next week;
+though I, as the common friend of both parties, had been made an
+exceptional confidante; and Jim, afraid of betraying himself, had not
+trusted himself to take leave of his aunt, but left his love for her,
+and his apologies for outstaying his time so far in the meadow as to
+leave himself none for the farm-house.
+
+Thus I had a reprieve. When towards midnight my head grew easier, I was
+worn out and slept; so that it was not till the birds began to rehearse
+for their concert at sunrise the next morning, that I came to myself and
+looked things in the face in the clear light of the awful dawn.
+
+If you can imagine a very heavy weight let somewhat gradually, but
+irresistibly, down upon young and tender shoulders, then gently lifted
+again, little by little, by a sympathizing and unlooked-for helper, and
+lastly tossed by him unexpectedly into the air, only to fall back with
+redoubled weight, and crush the frame that was but bowed before, you can
+form some idea of what had just happened to me. My mother's death, our
+embarrassments, my loneliness, the hard and to me uncongenial work I had
+to do, all came upon me together more heavily than at any time since the
+first fortnight that I spent at Greenville.
+
+But that was not all. Disappointment is hardly the right word to use;
+for I can truly say that I never made any calculations for the future
+upon Jim's attentions to me. They were offered so honestly and
+respectfully that I instinctively felt I could accept them with perfect
+propriety, and perhaps could scarcely with propriety refuse. I had never
+once asked myself what they meant, nor whither they tended. But yet I
+was used to them now, and had learned to prize them far more than I
+knew; and they must be given up. My heart-strings had unconsciously
+grown to him, and ought to be torn away. And I think that, beyond grief,
+beyond the prospect of lonely toil and poverty henceforth, beyond all
+the rest, was the horror of an idea which came upon me, that I had lost
+the control of my own mind,--that my peace had passed out of my keeping
+into the power of another, who, though friendly to me, neither would nor
+could preserve it for me,--that I was doomed to be henceforward the prey
+of feelings which I must try to conceal, and perhaps could not for any
+length of time, which lowered me in my own eyes, and would do so in
+those of others if they were seen by them, which were wrong, and which I
+could not help.
+
+These thoughts struck and stung me like so many hornets. Crying,
+"Mother! mother!" I sprang from my bed, and fell on my knees beside it.
+I did not suppose it would do much good for me to pray; but I said over
+and over, if only to stop myself from thinking, "O God, help me! God
+have mercy on me!" as fast as I could, till the town clock struck five,
+and I knew that I must begin to dress, and compose myself, if I would
+appear as usual at six o'clock at the breakfast-table.
+
+My French grammar, was, as usual, set up beside my looking-glass. As
+usual, I examined myself aloud in one of the exercises, while I went
+through my toilet. If I did make some mistakes it was no matter. I made
+so much haste, that I had time before breakfast to correct some of the
+compositions which I had brought with me from school. The rest, as I
+often did when hurried, I turned over while I tried to eat my bread and
+milk. This did not encourage conversation. During the meal, I was only
+asked how my head was, and answered only that it was better. I had taken
+care not to shed a tear, so that my eyes were not swollen; and as I had
+eaten nothing since the morning of the day before, nobody could be
+surprised to see me pale.
+
+Mrs. Johnson left her seat, too, almost as soon as I took mine. She was
+in a great bustle, getting her covered wagon under way, and stocked with
+eggs, butter, cheese, and green vegetables for her weekly trip to the
+nearest market-town. She was, however, sufficiently mindful of her
+nephew's lessons to regret that she must leave me poorly when he would
+not be there to cheer me up, and to tell me to choose what I liked best
+for my dinner while she was gone.
+
+I chose a boiled chicken and rice. It was what my mother used to like
+best to have me eat when I was not well. I often rebelled against it
+when a child; but now I sought by means of it to soothe myself with the
+fancy that I was still under her direction.
+
+Mrs. Johnson also offered to do for me what I forgot to ask of her,--to
+look in at the post-office and see if there was not a letter there for
+me from my only sister. Fanny, for once, had sent me none the week
+before. Mrs. Johnson went to town, and I to school.
+
+I worked and worried through the lessons,--how, I never knew; but I dare
+say the children were forbearing; children are apt to be when one is
+not well. I came home and looked at the chicken and rice. But that would
+not do. They _would_ have made me cry. So I hurried out again, away from
+them, and away from the meadow, and walked in the woods all that
+Saturday afternoon, thinking to and fro,--not so violently as in the
+morning, for I was weaker, but very confusedly and in endless
+perplexity. How could I stay in Greenville? I should have to be with
+Jim! But how could I go? What reason had I to give? and what would
+people think was my reason? But would it not be wrong to stay and see
+Jim? But it would be wrong to break my engagement to the school
+committee!
+
+At length again the clock struck five, which was supper-time, and I saw
+myself no nearer the end of my difficulties; and I had to say once
+again, "God help me! God have mercy on me!" and so went home.
+
+Mrs. Johnson was awaiting me, with this letter for me in her pocket. It
+is not in Fanny's handwriting, however, but in that of a friend of ours
+with whom she was staying, Mrs. Physick, the wife of the most eminent of
+the younger physicians in Beverly, our native town. I opened it hastily
+and read:--
+
+    "Friday.
+
+    "MY DEAR KATIE:--
+
+     "You must not be uneasy at my writing instead of Fannie, as
+     the Doctor thinks it too great an effort for her. She has
+     had an attack of influenza, not very severe, but you know
+     she is never very strong, and I am afraid she is too much
+     afraid of calling on me for any little thing she wants done.
+     So we think, the Doctor and I, it would do her good to have
+     a little visit from you. She wanted us to wait for the
+     summer vacation, so as not to alarm you; but you know that
+     is three whole weeks off, and nobody knows how much better
+     she may be within that time. The Doctor says, suggest to
+     Katie that the committee might, under the circumstances,
+     agree to her ending the spring term a little earlier than
+     usual, and beginning a little earlier in the fall.
+
+    "Yours as ever,
+
+    "JULIA.
+
+     "P. S. You must not be anxious about dear Fannie. She has
+     brightened up very much already at the mere thought of
+     seeing you. Her cough is not half so troublesome as it was a
+     week ago, and the Doctor says her very _worst_ symptom is
+     _weakness_. She says she _must_ write _one word_ herself."
+
+O what a tremulous word!
+
+    "DEAR KATY:--
+
+     "_Do_ come if you can, and _don't_ be anxious. Indeed I am
+     growing stronger every day, and eating _so_ much meat, and
+     drinking _so_ much whiskey. It does me a great deal of good,
+     and would a great deal more if I could only tell how we were
+     ever to [pay for it, I knew she would have said; but Dr.
+     Physick had evidently interposed; for the signature,]
+
+    "Your mutinous and obstreperous
+
+    "SISTER FANNY,"
+
+was prefaced with a scratched-out involuntary "Rx," and
+looked like a prescription.
+
+I might be as sad as I would now; and who could wonder? I sat down where
+I was standing on the door-step, and held the letter helplessly up to
+Mrs. Johnson. It did seem to me now as if Fate was going to empty its
+whole quiver of arrows at once upon me, and meant to kill me, body and
+soul. But I have since thought sometimes, when I have heard people say,
+Misfortunes never came single, and How mysterious it was! that God only
+dealt with us, in that respect somewhat as some surgeons think it best
+to do with wounded men,--perform whatever operations are necessary,
+immediately after the first injury, so as to make one and the same
+"shock" take the place of more. In this way of Providence, I am sure I
+have repeatedly seen accumulated sorrows, which, if distributed through
+longer intervals, might have darkened a lifetime, lived through, and in
+a considerable degree recovered from, even in a very few years.
+
+Mrs. Johnson's spectacles, meantime, were with eager curiosity peering
+over the letter. "Dear heart!" cried she. "Do tell! My! What a
+providence! There's Sister Nancy Newcome's Elviry jest got home this
+arternoon from her situation to the South, scairt off with the
+insurrections as unexpected as any_thing_. She's as smart a teacher as
+ever was; an' the committee'd ha' gin her the school in a minute, an'
+thank you, too; but she wuz alwuz a kind o' lookin' up'ards; an' I
+s'pose she cal'lated it might for'ard her prospects to go down an' show
+herself among the plantations. There's better opportoonities, they say,
+sometimes for young ladies to git settled in life down there, owin' to
+the scurcity on 'em. She'll be glad enough to fill your place, I guess,
+till somethin' else turns up, for a fortni't or a month, or a term.
+It'll give her a chance to see her folks, an' fix up her cloes, an' look
+round her a spell. An' you can step into the cars o' Monday mornin' an'
+go right off an' close that poor young creator's eyes, an' take your
+time for 't. Seems as if I hearn tell your ma went off in a kind of a
+gallopin' decline, didn't she?"
+
+"No, she did not!" cried I, springing up with a renewal of energy that
+must have surprised Mrs. Johnson. "Nothing of the kind! I will take my
+letter again, if you please. My sister has a cold,--only a cold. But
+where can I see Miss Newcome?"
+
+"To home; but I declare, you can't feel hardly fit to start off ag'in.
+Jest you step in an' sup your tea afore it's any colder, I've had mine;
+an' I'll step right back over there, an' see about it for ye."
+
+Mrs. Johnson, if coarse, was kind; and that time it would be hard to say
+whether her kindness or her coarseness did me the most good; for the
+latter roused me, between indignation and horror, to a strong reaction.
+
+Mrs. Johnson, I said to myself, knew no more of the matter than I.
+Nobody said a word, in the letter, of Fanny's being very ill; and there
+had been, as I now considered, to the best of my recollection and
+information, no consumption in our family. My father died when I was
+five years old, as I had always heard of chronic bronchitis and nervous
+dyspepsia, or, in other words, of over-work and under-pay. An early
+marriage to a clergyman, who had no means of support but a salary of
+five hundred dollars dependent on his own health and the tastes of a
+parish, early widowhood, two helpless little girls to rear, years of
+hard work, anxieties, and embarrassments, a typhoid fever, with no
+physician during the precious first few days, during which, if she had
+sent for him, Dr. Physick always believed he might have saved her, a
+sudden sinking and no rallying,--it took all that to kill poor, dear,
+sweet mamma! She had a magnificent constitution, and bequeathed much of
+it to me.
+
+Else I do not think I could have borne, and recovered from, those three
+days even as well as I did. The cars did not run on Sunday. That was so
+dreadful! But there was no other hindrance in my way. Everybody was very
+kind. The school committee could not meet in form "on the Sabbath"; but
+the chairman, who was Miss Elvira Newcome's brother-in-law, "sounded the
+other members arter meetin', jest as he fell in with 'em, casooally as
+it were," and ascertained that they would offer no objection to my
+exchange. He advanced my pay himself, and brought it to me soon after
+sunrise Monday morning; so that I was more than sufficiently provided
+with funds for my journey.
+
+Mrs. Johnson forced upon me a suspicious-looking corked bottle of
+innocent tea,--one of the most sensible travelling companions, as I
+found before the day was over, that a wayfarer can possibly have,--and a
+large paper of doughnuts. Feverish as I was, I would right willingly
+have given her back, not only the doughnuts, but the tea, to bribe her
+not to persecute me as she did for a message for Jim. But I could leave
+my thanks for all his kindness, and my regrets--sincere, though repented
+of--that I could not see him again, before I went, to say good-by; and,
+already in part effaced by the impression of the last blow that had
+fallen upon me, that scene in the dreadful meadow seemed months and
+miles away. The engine shrieked. The cars started. My hopes and spirits
+rose; and I was glad, because I was going home,--that is, where, when I
+had a home, it used to be.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The rapid motion gratified my restlessness, and, together with the
+noise, soothed me homoeopathically. I slept a great deal. The
+midsummer day was far shorter than I feared it would be; and I found
+myself rather refreshed than fatigued when the conductor roused me
+finally by shouting names more and more familiar, as we stopped at
+way-stations. I sat upright, and strained my _cinderful_ eyes, long
+surfeited with undiluted green, for the first far blue and silver
+glimpses of my precious sea. Then well-known rocks and cedars came
+hurrying forward, as if to meet me half-way.
+
+As the cars stopped for the last time with me, I caught sight of a horse
+and chaise approaching at a rapid rate down the main street of the town.
+The driver sprang out and threw the reins to a boy. He turned his
+face--a grave face--up, and looked searchingly along the row of
+car-windows. It was Dr. Physick. I darted out at the nearest door. He
+saw me, smiled, and was at it in an instant, catching both my hands in
+his to shake them and help me down by them at the same time.
+
+"Little Katy!"--he always would call me so, though, as I sometimes took
+the liberty to tell him, I was very sure I had long left off being
+_that_, even if I was not yet quite the size of some giants I had
+seen,--"Little Katy! How jolly! 'Fanny?' O, Fanny's pretty
+comfortable,--looking out for you and putting her head out of the
+window, I dare say, the minute my back's turned. I look to you now to
+keep her in order. Baggage? Only bag? Give it to me. Foot,--now
+hand,--there you are!"
+
+And there I was,--where I was most glad to be once more,--in his gig,
+and driving, in the cool, moist twilight, down the dear old street,
+shaded with dear old elms, with the golden and amber sunset still
+glowing between their dark boughs; where every quiet, snug, old wooden
+house, with its gables and old-fashioned green or white front-door with
+a brass or bronze knocker, and almost every shop and sign even, seemed
+an old friend.
+
+The lingering glow still lay full on the front of our old home, which
+now had "Philemon Physick, M. D." on the corner. As we stopped before
+it, I thought I spied a sweet little watching face, for one moment,
+behind a pane of one of the second-story windows. But if I did, it was
+gone before I was sure.
+
+"Here she is!" called out the Doctor. "Julia!--Wait a minute, Kate, my
+dear,--no hurry. Julia!" Up he ran, while "Julia" ran down, said
+something, in passing, to him on the stairs, kissed me at the foot three
+times over,--affectionately, but as if to gain time, I thought,--led me
+into the parlor to take off my bonnet, and told me Fanny was not quite
+ready to see me just then, but would be, most likely, in two or three
+minutes. The Doctor had gone up to see about it, and would let me know.
+
+"O, didn't I see her at the window?"
+
+"Yes, dear, you did; and that was just the trouble. She saw you were
+there; and she was so pleased, it made her a little faint. The Doctor
+will give her something to take; and as soon as she is a little used to
+your being here, of course you can be with her all the time."
+
+The Doctor came down, speaking cheerily. "She is all right now. Run up,
+as fast as you like, and kiss her, Kate, my child; but tell her I forbid
+your talking till to-morrow. In five minutes, by my watch, I shall call
+you down to tea; and when you are called, you come. That will give her
+time to think about it and compose herself. Julia's _help_ shall stay
+with her in the mean while. Afterwards, you shall share your own old
+chamber with her. Julia has it, as usual, all ready for you."
+
+Fanny had sunk back on her white pillows, upon the little couch before
+the window from which she watched for me. How inspired and beautiful she
+looked!--she who was never thought of as beautiful before,--the very
+transfigured likeness of herself, as I hope one day to behold her in
+glory,--and so like our mother, too! She lay still, as she had been
+ordered, lest she should faint again; but by the cheerful lamp that
+stood on the stand beside her, I saw her smile as she had never used to
+smile. The eyes, that I left swollen and downcast, were raised large and
+bright. But as she slowly opened her arms and clasped me to her, I felt
+tears on my cheek; and her voice was broken as she said, "Katy, Katy! O,
+thank God! I was afraid I never should see you again. Now I have
+everything that I want in the world!"
+
+It was hard to leave her when I was called so soon; but she knew that it
+was right, and made me go; and when I was allowed to return to her, she
+lay in obedient but most happy silence for all the rest of the evening,
+with those new splendid eyes fixed on my face, her dim complexion
+glowing, and her hands clasping mine. After I had put her to bed, and
+laid myself down in my own beside her, I felt her reach out of hers and
+touch me with a little pat two or three times, as a child will a new
+doll, to make sure that it has not been merely dreaming of it. At first,
+I asked her if she wanted anything; but she said, "Only to feel that you
+are really there"; and when, after a very sound and long rest, I awoke,
+there was her solemn, peaceful gaze still watching me, like that of an
+unsleeping guardian angel. She had slept too, however, remarkably long
+and well, whether for joy, as she thought, or from the opium which I had
+been startled to see given her the night before. She said she had had
+many scruples about taking it; but the Doctor insisted; and she did not
+think it her duty on the whole to make him any trouble by opposing his
+prescriptions, when we owed him so much. Poor Fanny! How hard it was for
+her to owe any one "anything, but to love one another."
+
+The Doctor's bulletin that morning was, "Remarkably comfortable." But in
+the forenoon, while Fanny after breakfast took a nap, I snatched an
+opportunity to cross-question Mrs. Physick, from whom I knew I could
+sooner or later obtain all she knew,--the _sooner_ it would be, if she
+had anything good to tell; as, in my inexperience, I was almost sure she
+must have.
+
+Fanny's "influenza," I now discovered, dated back to May. She kept her
+room a few days, did not seem so ill as many fellow-patients who were
+now quite well again, and soon resumed her usual habits, but was never
+quite rid of her cough. Two or three weeks after, there was a
+Sunday-school festival in the parish to which we belonged. She was
+called upon to sing and assist in various ways, over-tasked her
+strength, was caught in a shower, looked very sick, and being, on the
+strength of Mrs. Physick's representations, formally escorted into the
+office, was found to have a quick pulse and sharp pain in one side. This
+led to a careful examination of the chest, and the discovery not only of
+"acute pleurisy," but of "some mischief probably of longer standing in
+the lungs," yet "no more," the Doctor said, "than many people carried
+about with them all their lives without knowing it, nor than others, if
+circumstances brought it to light, recovered from by means of good care
+and good spirits, and lived to a good old age."
+
+"How long ago was that?"
+
+"The pleurisy? About the beginning of June. The Doctor said last week he
+'could scarcely discover a vestige of it.' And now, Katy," continued
+kind, cheery Mrs. Physick, "you see, your coming back has put her in the
+best of spirits; and you and the Doctor and I are all going to take the
+best of care of her; and so we may all hope the best."
+
+"The best of care"? Ah, there was little doubt of that! But even "_good_
+spirits"! who could hope to see Fanny enjoying them for any length of
+time, till she had done with time? Good, uncomplaining, patient, I had
+always seen her,--happy, how seldom!--when, indeed, till now? There was
+not enough of earth about her for her to thrive and bloom.
+
+My mother, I believe, used to attribute in part to Fanny's early
+training her early joylessness. In her early days,--so at least I have
+understood,--it was thought right even by some good people of our
+"persuasion," to lose no opportunity of treating the little natural
+waywardnesses of children with a severity which would now be called
+ferocity. Mamma could never have practised this herself; but perhaps she
+suffered it to be practised to a greater extent than she would have
+consented to endure, had she foreseen the consequences. My poor father
+must have been inexperienced, too; and I suppose his nerves, between
+sickness and poverty, might at times be in such a state that he scarcely
+knew what he did.
+
+I was four years younger than Fanny, and know nothing about it, except a
+very little at second-hand. But at any rate I have often heard my mother
+say, with a glance at her, and a gravity as if some sad association
+enforced the lesson on her mind, that it was one of the first duties of
+those who undertook the charge of children to watch over their
+cheerfulness, and a most important rule, never, if it was possible to
+put it off, so much as to reprimand them when one's own balance was at
+all disturbed. This was a rule that she never to my knowledge broke;
+though she was naturally rather a high-strung person, as I think the
+pleasantest and most generous people one meets with generally are.
+
+From whatever cause or causes,--to return to Fanny,--she grew up, not
+fierce, sullen, nor yet hypocritical, but timid and distrustful,
+miserably sensitive and anxious, and morbidly conscientious.
+
+There was another pleasure in store for her, however; for, the afternoon
+following that of my return, Mrs. Julia, looking out as usual for her
+husband,--with messages from four different alarmingly or alarmed sick
+persons, requesting him to proceed without delay in four different
+directions,--saw him at length driving down the road with such
+unprofessional slowness that she feared some accident to himself or his
+harness. When he came before the door, the cause appeared. It was a
+handsome Bath chair, with a basket of strawberries on the floor and a
+large nosegay on the seat, fastened to the back of his gig, and safely
+towed by it.
+
+"What is that for?" cried I from Fanny's window.
+
+"Fanny's coach," said he, looking up. "Miss Dudley has sent it to be
+taken care of for her. She does not want it herself for the present; and
+you can draw your dolly out in it every fine day."
+
+"O," cried Fanny, sitting upright on the couch by the window,--where she
+spent the greater part of the day,--to see for herself, with the tears
+in her eyes. "O, how lovely! That is the very kindest thing she has done
+yet;--and you don't know how she keeps sending me everything, Katy!"
+
+"Miss Dudley? Who is she?"
+
+"O, don't you know? The great naturalist's sister. He lives in that
+beautiful place, on the shore, in the large stone cottage. The ground
+was broken for it before you went to Greenville. She is very sick, I am
+afraid,--very kind, I am sure. I never saw her. She has heard about me.
+I am afraid the Doctor told her. I hope she does not think I meant he
+should."
+
+"Of course, dear, she does not."
+
+"Do you really think so?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why,--I know I should not like being begged of in that underhand way
+myself; and if I did not like it, I might send something once, but after
+that I should never keep on sending."
+
+"I am very glad you think so; for I like her kindness, though I scarcely
+like to have her show it in this way, because I am afraid I can never do
+anything for her. But I hope she does like to send; for Dr. Physick says
+she always asks after me, almost before he can after her, and looks very
+much pleased if she hears that I have been so. I suppose the Doctor will
+think it is too late to take me down to-night. Katy, don't you want to
+go and see the wagon, and tell me about it, and pour the strawberries
+into a great dish on the tea-table, and all of you have some, and bring
+up the flowers when you come back after tea?"
+
+When I came back with the flowers, Fanny smiled rather pensively, and
+did not ask me about the chair.
+
+"Fanny," said I, "the Doctor says you may go out to-morrow forenoon, and
+stay as long as you like, if it is fair; and the sun is going down as
+red as a Baldwin apple. The chair is contrived so, with springs and the
+cushions, that you can lie down in it, as flat as you do on your sofa,
+when you are tired of sitting up."
+
+"O Katy," cried she, with a little quiver in her voice, for she was too
+weak to bear anything, "I have been seeing how inconsiderate I was! To
+think of letting you exert and strain yourself in that way!"
+
+In came the Doctor, looking saucy. "Fanny won't go, I suppose? I thought
+so. I said so to De Quincey [his horse], as I drove him down the street
+at a creep, sawing his mouth to keep him from running away, till he
+foamed at it epileptically, while all the sick people were sending
+north, south, east, and west after all the other doctors. I hope you
+won't mention it, said I to the horse; but Fanny is always getting up
+some kind of a row. But there is Katy now,--Katy is a meek person, and
+always does as she is bid. She has been cooped up too much, and bleached
+her own roses with teaching the Greenville misses to sickly o'er with
+the pale cast of thought. Katy needs gentle exercise. So does Deacon
+Lardner." Deacon Lardner was the fat inhabitant of the town, and ill of
+the dropsy. "I will send Katy out a-walking, with Deacon Lardner in Miss
+Dudley's chair."
+
+I laughed. Fanny smiled. The Doctor saw his advantage, and followed it
+up. "Julia, my dear, get my apothecary's scales out of the office. Put
+an ounce weight into one, and Fanny into the other. Then put the ounce
+weight into the chair. If Katy can draw that, she can draw Fanny."
+
+This time, it was poor Fanny who had the laugh to herself.
+
+The next day, the Doctor carried her down stairs, as soon as she could
+bear it after her breakfast, and left her on a sofa, in the little
+parlor, to rest. About ten o'clock, he came back from his early rounds.
+I was dressed and waiting for him, with Fanny's bonnet and shawl ready.
+I put them on her, while he drew out the chair from its safe stable in
+the hall. Once again he took her up; and thus by easy stages we got her
+into "her coach." I pulled, and he pushed it, "to give me a start." How
+easy and light and strong it was! How delighted were both she and I!
+
+Fanny was too easily alarmed to enjoy driving much, even when she was
+well; and she had not walked out for weeks. During that time, the slow,
+late spring had turned into midsummer; and the mere change from a
+sick-room to the fresh, outer world is always so very great! For me, it
+was the first going abroad since my return to Beverly. We went in the
+sun till my charge's little snowdrop hands were warm, and then drew up
+under the shade of an elm, on a little airy knoll that commanded a
+distant view of the sea, and was fanned by a soft air, which helped poor
+Fanny's breathing. She now insisted on my resting myself; and I turned
+the springs back and arranged the cushions so that she could lie down,
+took a new handkerchief of my guardian's from my pocket, and hemmed it,
+as I sat at her side on a stone, while she mused and dozed. When she
+awoke, I gave her her luncheon from a convenient little box in the
+chair, and drew her home by dinner-time.
+
+In this way we spent much of the month of July--shall I say
+it?--agreeably. Nobody will believe it, who has not felt or seen the
+marvellous relief afforded by an entire change of scene and occupation
+to a person tried as I had been. If I had but "one idea," that idea was
+now Fanny. Instinctively in part, and partly of set purpose, I postponed
+to her every other consideration and thought. It was delightful to me to
+be able, in my turn, to take her to one after another of the dear old
+haunts, in wood or on beach, where she had often led me, when a child,
+to play. I always did love to have something to take care of; and the
+care of Fanny wore upon me little. She was the most considerate of
+invalids.
+
+Besides, she was better, or at any rate I thought so, after she began to
+go out in Miss Dudley's chair. Her appetite improved; her nerves grew
+more firm; and her cough was sometimes so quiet at night that her
+laudanum would stand on her little table in the morning, just as it was
+dropped for her the evening before.
+
+Not only were my spirits amended by the fresh air in which, by Dr.
+Physick's strict orders, I lived with her through the twenty-four hours,
+but my health too. He had declared her illness to be "probably owing in
+great part to the foul atmosphere in which," he found, "she slept"; and
+now she added that, since she had known the comfort of fresh air at
+night, she should be very sorry ever to give it up. In windy weather she
+had a large folding-screen, and in raw, more blankets and a little fire.
+
+Besides the chair, another thing came in our way which gave pleasure to
+both of us, though it was not very pleasantly ushered in, as its pioneer
+was a long visit from Fanny's old "Sabbath school-ma'am," Miss Mehitable
+Truman, who _would_ come up stairs. Towards the close of this visit her
+errand came out. It was to inquire whether "Fanny wouldn't esteem it a
+privilege to knit one or two of her sets of toilet napkins for Miss
+Mehitable's table at the Orphans' Fair, jest by little and little, as
+she could gether up her failin' strength." Fanny could not promise the
+napkins, since, luckily for her, she was past speech from exhaustion, as
+I was with indignation; and Miss Truman, hearing the Doctor's boots
+creak below, showed the better part of valor, and departed.
+
+The next day, it rained. We were kept in-doors; and Fanny could not be
+easy till I had looked up her cotton and knitting-needles. She could not
+be easy afterwards, either; for they made her side ache; and when Dr.
+Physick paid his morning visit, he took them away.
+
+I knew she would be sorry to have nothing to give to that fair. It was
+one of the few rules of life which my mother had recommended us to
+follow, never from false shame either to give or to withhold. "If you
+are asked to give," she would say, "to any object, and are not satisfied
+that it is a good one, but give to it for fear that somebody will think
+you stingy, that is not being faithful stewards. But when you do meet
+with a worthy object, always give, if you honestly can. Even if you have
+no more than a cent to give, then give a cent; and do not care if the
+Pharisees see you. That is more than the poor widow in the Gospels
+gave";--how fond she always was of that story!--"and you remember who,
+besides the Pharisees, saw her, and what he said? His objects would not
+have to go begging so long as they do now, if every one would follow her
+example." From pride often, and sometimes from indolence, I am afraid I
+had broken that rule; but Fanny, I rather think, never had; and now I
+would try to help her to keep it.
+
+My mother's paint-box was on a shelf in our closet, with three sheets of
+her drawing-paper still in it. Painting flowers was one of her chief
+opiates to lull the cares of her careful life. I think a person can
+scarcely have too many such, provided they are kept in their proper
+place, I have often seen her, when sadly tired or tried, sit down, with
+a moisture that was more like rain than dew in her eyes, and paint it
+all away, till she seemed to be looking sunshine over her lifelike
+blossoms. Then she would pin them up against the wall, for a week or
+two, for us to enjoy them with her; and, afterwards, she would give them
+away to any one who had done her any favor. Her spirit was in that like
+Fanny's,--she shrank so painfully from the weight of any obligation! She
+wished to teach me to paint, when I was a child. I wished to learn; and
+many of her directions were still fresh in my memory. But the
+inexperienced eye and uncertain hand of thirteen disheartened me. I
+thought I had no _talent_. My mother was not accustomed to force any
+task upon me in my play-hours. The undertaking was given up.
+
+But I suppose many persons, like me not precocious in the nursery or the
+school-room, but naturally fond, as I was passionately, of beautiful
+forms and colors, would be surprised, if they would try their baffled
+skill again in aftertimes, to find how much the years had been
+unwittingly preparing for them, in the way of facility and accuracy of
+outline and tint, while they supposed themselves to be exclusively
+occupied with other matters. What the physiologists call "unconscious
+cerebration" has been at work. Scatter the seeds of any accomplishment
+in the mind of a little man or woman, and, even if you leave them quite
+untended, you may in some after summer or autumn find the fruit growing
+wild. Accordingly, when, within the last twelvemonth, I had been called
+upon to teach the elements of drawing in my school, it astonished me to
+discover the ease with which I could either sketch or copy. And now it
+occurred to me that perhaps, if I would take enough time and pains, I
+could paint something worthy of a place on Miss Mehitable's table.
+
+Fanny's gladness at the plan, and interest in watching the work, in her
+own enforced inaction, were at once reward and stimulus. I succeeded,
+better than we either of us expected, in copying the frontispiece of a
+"picture-book," as Dr. Physick called it, which he had brought up from
+his office to amuse her. It was a scientific volume, sent him by the
+author,--an old fellow-student,--from the other side of the world.
+Lovely ferns, flowers, shells, birds, butterflies, and insects, that
+surrounded him there, were treated further on separately, in rigid
+sequence; but as if to make himself amends by a little play for so much
+work, he had not been able to resist the temptation of grouping them all
+together on one glowing and fascinating page. I framed my copy as
+tastefully as I could, in a simple but harmonious _passe-partout_, and
+sent it to Miss Mehitable, with Fanny's love. Fanny's gratitude was
+touching; and as for me, I felt quite as if I had found a free ticket to
+an indefinitely long private picture-gallery.
+
+Fanny's satisfaction was still more complete after the fair, when Miss
+Mehitable reported that the painting had brought in what we both thought
+quite a handsome sum. "It was a dreadful shame," she added, "you hadn't
+sent two of 'em; for at noon, while I was home, jest takin' a bite, my
+niece, Letishy, from Noo York, had another grand nibble for that one
+after 'twas purchased. Letishy said a kind o' poor, pale-lookin',
+queer-lookin' lady, who she never saw before, in an elegint
+camel's-hair,"--("Poor-lookin', in a camel's-hair shawl!" was my inward
+ejaculation; "don't I wish, ma'am, I could catch you and 'Letishy' in
+my composition class, once!")--"she come up to the table an' saw that,
+an' seemed to feel quite taken aback to find she'd lost her chance at
+it. Letishy showed her some elegint shell-vases with artificial roses;
+but that wouldn't do. I told Letishy," continued Miss Mehitable, "that
+she'd ought to ha' been smart an' taken down the lady's name; an' then I
+could ha' got Kathryne to paint her another. But you mu't do it now,
+Kathryne, an' put it up in the bookseller's winder; an' then, if she's
+anybody that belongs hereabouts, she'll be likely to snap at it, an' the
+money can go right into the orphans' fund all the same."
+
+"Much obliged," thought I, "for the hint as to the bookseller's
+shop-window; but I rather think that, if the money comes, the orphan's
+fund that it ought to 'go right into' this time is Fanny's."
+
+For my orphan's fund from my months of school-keeping, not ample when I
+first came back, was smaller now. Fanny's illness was necessarily, in
+some respects, an expensive one. I believed, indeed, and do believe,
+that it was a gratification to Dr. Physick to lavish upon her, to the
+utmost of his ability, everything that could do her good, as freely as
+if she had been his own child or sister. But it could not be agreeable
+to her, while we had a brother, to be a burden to a man unconnected with
+us by blood, young in his profession, though rising, and still probably
+earning not very much more than his wife's and his own daily bread from
+day to day, and owing us nothing but a debt of gratitude for another's
+kindnesses, which another man in his place would probably have said that
+"he paid as he went."
+
+In plain English, the tie between us arose simply from the fact that he
+boarded with my mother, when he was a poor and unformed medical student.
+He always said that she was the best friend he had in his solitary
+youth, and that no one could tell how different all his after-life might
+have been but for her. She was naturally generous; yet she was a just
+woman; and I know that, while we were unprovided for, she could not have
+given, as the world appraises giving, much to him. Still "she did what
+she could." He paid her his board; but she gave him a home. After she
+found that his lodgings were unwarmed, she invited him to share her
+fireside of a winter evening; and, though she would not deprive us of
+our chat with one another and with her, she taught us to speak in low
+tones, and never to him, when we saw him at his studies. When they were
+over, and he was tired and in want of some amusement, she afforded him
+one at once cheap, innocent, and inexhaustible, and sang to him as she
+still toiled on at her unresting needle, night after night, ballad after
+ballad, in her wild, sweet, rich voice. He was very fond of music,
+though, as he said, he "could only whistle for it." It was the custom
+then among our neighbors to keep Saturday evening strictly as a part of
+"the Sabbath." It was her half-holiday, however, for works of charity
+and mercy; and she would often bid him bring her any failing articles of
+his scanty wardrobe then, and say that she would mend them for him if he
+would read to her. Her taste was naturally fine, and trained by regular
+and well-chosen Sunday reading; and she had the tact to select for these
+occasions books that won the mind of the intellectual though
+uncultivated youth by their eloquence, until they won his heart by their
+holiness. Moreover, she had been gently bred, and could give good
+advice, in manners as well as morals, when it was asked for, and
+withhold it when it was not.
+
+The upshot of it all was, that he loved her like a mother; and now the
+sentiment was deepened by a shade of filial remorse, which I could never
+quite dispel, though, as often as he gave me any chance, I tried. The
+last year of my mother's life was the first of his married life. His
+father-in-law hired, at the end of the town opposite to ours, a
+furnished house for him and his wife. My mother called upon her by the
+Doctor's particular invitation. The visit was sweetly received, and
+promptly returned by the bride; but she was pretty and popular, and had
+many other visits to pay, especially when she could catch her husband at
+leisure to help her. He was seldom at leisure at all, but, as he
+self-reproachfully said, "too busy to think except of his patients and
+his wife"; and poor mamma, with all her real dignity, had caught
+something of the shy, retiring ways of a reduced gentlewoman, and was,
+besides, too literally straining every nerve to pay off the mortgage on
+her half-earned house, so that, if anything happened, she might "not
+leave her girls without a home." Therefore he saw her seldom.
+
+After he heard she was ill, he was with her daily, and often three or
+four times a day; and his wife came too, and made the nicest broths and
+gruels with her own hands, and begged Fanny not to cry, and cried
+herself. He promised my mother that we should never want, if he could
+help it, and that he would be a brother to us both, and my guardian. She
+told him that, if she died, this promise would be the greatest earthly
+comfort to her in her death; and he answered, "So it will to me!"
+
+Then after she was gone, when the lease of his house was up, as no other
+tenant offered for ours, he hired it, furniture and all, and offered
+Fanny and me both a home in it for an indefinite time; but our affairs
+were all unsettled. We knew the rent, as rents were then, would not pay
+our expenses and leave us anything to put by for the future, which my
+mother had taught us always to think of. Therefore I thought I had
+better take care of myself, as I was much the strongest, and perfectly
+able to do so. "And a very pretty business you made of it, didn't you,
+miss?" reflected and queried I, parenthetically, as I afterwards
+reviewed these circumstances in my own mind.
+
+The best we had to hope from my older and our only brother George was,
+that he should join us in paying the interest on the mortgage till real
+estate should rise,--as everybody said it soon must,--and then the rise
+in rents should enable us to let the house on better terms, and thus, by
+degrees, clear it of all encumbrances, and have it quite for our own, to
+let, sell, or live in. The worst we had to fear was, that he would
+insist on forcing it at once into the market, at what would be a great
+loss to us, and leave us almost destitute. He was going to be married,
+and getting into business, and wanted beyond anything else a little
+ready money.
+
+He scarcely knew us even by sight. He had been a sprightly, pretty boy;
+and my mother's aunt's husband, having no children of his own, offered
+to adopt him. Poor mamma's heart was almost broken; but I suppose
+George's noise must have been very trying to my father's nerves; and
+then he had no way to provide for him. After she objected, I have always
+understood that my father appeared to take a morbid aversion to the
+child, and could scarcely bear him in his sight. So George seemed likely
+to be still more unhappy, and ruined beside, if she kept him at home. He
+was a little fellow then, not more than five years old; but he cried for
+her so long that my great-uncle-in-law was very careful how he let him
+have anything to do with her again, till he had forgotten her; and
+little things taken so early must be expected to fall, sooner or later,
+more or less under the influence of those who have them in charge.
+
+Poor mamma died without making a regular will. It was not the custom at
+that time for women to be taught so much about business even as they are
+now. She thought, if she did make a will before she could pay off the
+debt on the house, she should have to make another afterwards, and that
+then there would be double lawyers' fees to deduct from the little she
+would have to leave us. After she found out that she was dangerously
+sick, she was very anxious to make her will, whenever she was in her
+right mind; but that went and came so, that the Doctor, and a lawyer
+whom he brought to see her, said that no disposition she might make
+could stand in court, if any effort were made to break it. All that
+could be done was to take down, as she was able to dictate it, an
+affectionate and touching letter to George.
+
+In this she begged him to remember how much greater his advantages, and
+his opportunities of making a living, were than ours, and besought him
+to do his best to keep and increase for us the pittance she had toiled
+so hard to earn, and to take nothing from it unless a time should come
+when he was as helpless as we.
+
+Two copies of this letter were made, signed, sealed, and witnessed. One
+I sent to George, enclosed with an earnest entreaty from Fanny and
+myself, that he would come and let mamma see him once again, before she
+died, if, as we feared, she must die. We had asked him to come before.
+He answered our letter--not our mother's--rather kindly, but very
+vaguely, putting off his visit, and saying, that he could not for a
+moment suffer himself to believe that she would not do perfectly well,
+if we did not alarm her about herself, nor worry her with business when
+she was not in a state for it. His reply was handed me before her,
+unluckily. She wished to hear it read, and seemed to lose heart and grow
+worse from that time.
+
+Thus then matters stood with us that July. The sale of our house was
+pending--over our kind host's head too! It was plain to me that George
+would not, and that Dr. Physick should not, bear the charge of Fanny's
+maintenance. So far and so long as I could, I would.
+
+In the mean time, no further examination was made of her lungs. The
+Doctor's report was often "Remarkably comfortable," and never anything
+worse than, "Well, on the whole, taking one time with another, I don't
+see but she's about as comfortable as she has been." I was, of course,
+inexperienced. I was afraid that, if she improved no faster, I should be
+obliged to leave her, when I went away to work for her again at the end
+of the summer vacation, still very feeble, a care to others, and pining
+for my care. That was my nearest and clearest fear.
+
+But what did Fanny think? I hope, the truth; and on one incident, in
+chief, I ground my hope. One beautiful day--the last one in July--she
+asked me if I should be willing to draw her to our mother's grave. There
+could be but one answer; though I had not seen the spot since the
+funeral. Fanny looked at it with more than calmness,--with the solemn
+irradiation of countenance which had during her illness become her most
+characteristic expression. She desired me to help her from her chair.
+She lay at her length upon the turf, still and observant, as if
+calculating. Then she spoke.
+
+"Katy, dear," said she, very tenderly and softly, as if she feared to
+give me pain, "I have been thinking sometimes lately, that, if anything
+should ever happen to either of us, the other might be glad to know what
+would be exactly the wishes of the one that was gone--about our graves.
+Suppose we choose them now, while we are here together. Here, by mamma,
+is where I should like to lie. See, I will lay two red clovers for the
+head, and a white one for the foot. And there, on her other side, is
+just such a place for you. Should you like it?--and--shall you
+remember?"
+
+I found voice to say "Yes," and said it firmly.
+
+"And then," added she, after a short, deliberating pause, during which
+she, with my assistance, raised herself to sit on the side of the chair
+with her feet still resting on the turf, "while we are upon the
+subject,--one thing more. If I should be the first to go,--nobody knows
+whose turn may come the first,--then I should like to have you do--just
+what would make you happiest; but I _don't_ like mourning. I shouldn't
+_wish_ to have it worn for me. My feelings about it have all changed
+since we made it for mamma. It seemed as if we were only working at a
+great black wall, for our minds to have to break through, every time
+they yearned to go back into the past and sit with her. It was as if the
+things she chose for us, and loved to see us in, were part of her and of
+her life with us,--as if she would be able still to think of us in them,
+and know just how we looked. And it seemed so strange and unsympathizing
+in us, that, when we loved her so, we should go about all muffled up in
+darkness, because our God was clothing her in light!"
+
+I answered,--rather slowly and tremulously this time, I fear,--that I
+had felt so too.
+
+"Then, Katy," resumed she, pleadingly, as she leaned back in her usual
+attitude in the chair, and made a sign that I might draw her home, "we
+will not either of us wear it for the other,--without nor within either,
+will we?--any more than we can help. Don't you remember what dear mamma
+said once, when you had made two mistakes in your lessons at school, and
+lost a prize, and took it hard, and somebody was teasing you, with
+making very light of it, and telling you to think no more about it? You
+were very sorry and a little offended, and said, you always chose not to
+be hoodwinked, but to look at things on all sides and in the face. Mamma
+smiled, and said, 'It is good and brave to look all trials in the face;
+but among the sides, never forget the bright side, little Katy.' If I
+had my life to live over again, I would try to mind her more in that.
+She always said, there lay my greatest fault. I hope and think God has
+forgiven me, because he makes it so easy for me to be cheerful now."
+
+"Fanny," said I, as we drew near the house, "things in this world are
+strangely jumbled. Here are you, with your character, to wit, that of a
+little saint, if you will have the goodness to overlook my saying so,
+and somebody else's conscience. I have no doubt that, while you are
+reproaching yourself first for this, then for that and the other, the
+said somebody else is sinning away merrily, somewhere among the
+antipodes or nearer, without so much as a single twinge."
+
+Smiling, she shook her head at me; and that was all that passed. She was
+as cheerful as I tried to be. With regard to the other world, she seemed
+to have attained unto the perfect love that casteth out fear; and I
+believe her only regret in leaving this lower one for it was that she
+could not take me with her. In fact, throughout her illness, her freedom
+from anxiety about its symptoms--not absolute, but still in strong
+contrast with her previous tendencies--appeared to her physician, as he
+acknowledged to me afterwards, even when he considered the frequent
+flattering illusions of the disease, a most discouraging indication as
+to the case. But to her it was an infinite mercy; and to me, to have
+such glimpses to remember of her already in possession of so much of
+that peace which remaineth unto the people of God.
+
+As the dog-days drew on, a change came, though at first a very gentle
+one to her, if not to me. She slept more, ate less, grew so thin that
+she could no more bear the motion of her little wagon, and begged that
+it might be returned, because it tired her so to think of it.
+
+Then word came that our house was advertised to be sold,
+unconditionally, at an early day. To move her in that state,--how
+dreadful it would be! I did not mean to let her know anything about it
+until I must; but Miss Mehitable, always less remarkable for tact than
+for good-will, blurted it out before her.
+
+Her brows contracted with a moment's look of pain. "O Katy," she
+whispered, "I am sorry! That must make you very anxious";--and then she
+went to sleep.
+
+Evidently it did not make her very anxious, as I knew that it would have
+done as lately even as two or three months before. What was the remedy?
+Approaching death. Well, death was approaching me also, as steadily, if
+not so nearly; and, after her example, my thoughts took such a foretaste
+of that anodyne that, as I sat and gazed on her unconscious, placid
+face, all terrors left me, and I was strengthened to pray, and to
+determine to look to the morrow with only so much thought as should
+enable me to bring up all my resources of body and mind to meet it as I
+ought, and to leave the result, unquestioned, quite in God's hand.
+
+The result was an entire relief to her last earthly care. The appointed
+day came. The matter took wind. None of our townspeople appeared, to bid
+against my guardian; but enough of them were on the spot "to see fair
+play," or, in other words, to advance for him whatever sum he might
+stand in need of; and the house was knocked down to him at a price even
+below its market value. He paid the mortgagee and George their due by
+the next mail, but left my title and Fanny's as it was, not to be
+settled till I came of age.
+
+These details would only have worried and wearied her; but the
+auctioneer's loud voice had hardly died away, or the gathered footsteps
+scattered from the door, when the Doctor came to her chamber, flushed
+with triumph, to tell us that "Nobody now could turn us out; and
+everything was arranged for us to stay." Fanny looked brightly up to
+him, and answered: "Now I shall scarcely know what more to pray for, but
+God's reward for you." And most of all I thank Him for that news,
+because her last day on this earth was such a happy one.
+
+The next morning, just at dawn, she waked me, saying, "O Katy, tell the
+Doctor I can't breathe!"
+
+I sprang up, raised her on her pillows, and called him instantly.
+
+She stretched out her hand to him, and gasped, "O Doctor, I can't
+breathe! Can't you do anything to help me?"
+
+He felt her pulse quickly, looking at her, and said, very tenderly,
+"Have some ether, Fanny. I will run and bring it." Throwing wider open
+every window that he passed, he hurried down to the office and back with
+the ether.
+
+Eagerly, though with difficulty, she inhaled it; and it relieved her. I
+sat and watched her, silent, with her hand in mine.
+
+Presently the door behind me opened softly, as if somebody was looking
+in. "My dear," said the Doctor, turning his head, and speaking very
+earnestly, though in a low voice, "I _wouldn't_ come here. You can do no
+good." But presently his wife came in, in her dressing-gown, very pale,
+and sat by me and held the hand that was not holding Fanny's.
+
+And next I knew they thought she would not wake; and then the short
+breath stopped. And now it was my turn to stretch out my hands to him
+for help; but, looking at me, he burst into tears, as he had not when he
+looked at Fanny; and I knew there was no breath more for her, nor any
+ether for me. I did not want to go to sleep, because _I_ should have to
+wake again; but his wife was sobbing aloud. I knew how dreadful such
+excitement was for her; and so I had to do just as they wished me to,
+and let them lead me out and lock the door, and lay down on a bed and
+shut my eyes.
+
+
+
+
+PROTONEIRON.
+
+DECEMBER 9, 1864.
+
+     "And in that sleep of death what dreams may come."
+
+
+    The unresting lines, where oceans end,
+    Are traced by shifting surf and sand;
+    As pallid, moonlit fingers blend
+    The dreamlight of the ghostly land.
+
+    No eye can tell where Love's last ray
+    Fades to the sky of colder light;
+    No ear, when sounds that vexed the day
+    Cease mingling with the holier night.
+
+    As bells, which long have failed to swing
+    In lonely towers of crumbling stone,
+    Through far eternal spaces ring,
+    With semblance of their ancient tone.
+
+    The lightning, quivering through the cloud,
+    Weaves warp and woof from sky to earth,
+    In mist that seems a mortal's shroud,
+    In light that hails an angel's birth.
+
+    Thought vainly strives, with life's dull load,
+    To mount through ether rare and thin;
+    Fond eyes pursue the spirit's road
+    To heaven, and dimly gaze therein.
+
+    In battle's travail-hour, a host
+    Writhes in the throes of deadly strife.
+    One flash! One groan! A startled ghost
+    Is born into the eternal life.
+
+    Dear wife and children! Now I fly
+    Forth from my soldier camp to you!
+    Blue ridge and river hurry by
+    My weary eyes, in quick review.
+
+    Long have I waited. How and when
+    My furlough came is mystery.
+    I dreamed of charging with my men,--
+    A dream of glorious history!
+
+    To you I fly on Love's strong wing;
+    My courser needs no armed heel:
+    And yet anew the bugles ring,
+    And wake me to the crash of steel.
+
+    In fiercer rush of hosts again
+    My dripping sabre seeks the front.
+    Spur your mad horses! Forward, men!
+    Meet with your hearts the battle's brunt.
+
+    Tricolor, flaunt! And trumpet-blare,
+    Scream louder than the bursting shell,
+    And thundering hoofs, that shake the air,
+    Trembling above that surging hell!
+
+    In carbine smoke and cannon flash,
+    Like avalanches twain, we meet;
+    One gasp! we spur; one stab! we crash
+    And trample with the iron feet.
+
+    I _dream_! My tiercepoint smote them through,
+    My sabre buried to my hand!
+    And yet unchecked those horsemen flew,
+    And still I grasp my phantom brand!
+
+    Our chargers, which like whirlwinds bore
+    Us onward, lie all stiff and stark!
+    Black Midnight's feet wait on the shore,
+    To bear me--where? Where all is dark.
+
+    And still I hear the faint recall!
+    My senses,--have they dropped asleep?
+    I see a soldier's funeral pall,
+    And there _my_ wife and children weep!
+
+    Sobs break the air, below the cloud;
+    And one pure soul, of love and truth,
+    Is folding in a mortal shroud
+    Her quivering wings of Hope and Youth.
+
+    Ye of the sacred red right hand,
+    Who count, around our camp-fire light,
+    Dear names within the shadowy land,
+    Why do ye whisper _mine_ to-night?
+
+    Where am I? _Am_ I? Trumpet notes
+    Still mingle with a dreamy doubt
+    Of Where? and Whither? Music floats,
+    As when camp-lights are going out.
+
+    Like saintly eyes resigned to Death,
+    Like spirit whispers from afar,
+    The sighing bugle yields its breath,
+    As if it wooed a dying star.
+
+    Draped in dark shadows, widowed Night
+    Weeps, on new graves, with chilly tears;
+    Beyond strange mountain-tops, the light
+    Is breaking from the immortal years.
+
+    A rhythm, from the unfathomed deep
+    Of God's eternal stillness, sings
+    My wondering, trembling soul to sleep,
+    While angels lift it on their wings.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROGRESS OF PRUSSIA.
+
+
+The changes that have taken place in Europe in the last twenty years are
+of a most comprehensive character, and as strange as comprehensive; and
+their consequences are likely to be as remarkable as the changes
+themselves. In 1846 Russia was the first power of Europe, and at a great
+distance ahead of all other members of the Pentarchy. She retained the
+hegemony which she had acquired by the events of 1812-1814, and by the
+great display of military force she had made in 1815, when 160,000 of
+her troops were reviewed near Paris by the sovereigns and other leaders
+of the Grand Alliance there assembled after the second and final fall of
+the first Napoleon. Had Alexander I. reigned long, it is probable that
+his eccentricities--to call them by no harder name--would have operated
+to deprive Russia of her supremacy; but Nicholas, though he might never
+have raised his country so high as it was carried by his brother, was
+exactly the man to keep the power he had inherited,--and to keep it in
+the only way in which it was to be kept, namely, by increasing it. This
+he had done, and great success had waited on most of his undertakings,
+while in none had he encountered failure calculated to attract the
+world's attention. England had in some sense shared men's notice with
+Russia immediately after the settlement of Europe. The "crowning
+carnage, Waterloo," was considered her work; and, as the most decisive
+battle since Philippi, it gave to the victor in it an amount of
+consideration that was equal to that which Napoleon himself had
+possessed in 1812. But this consideration rapidly passed away, as
+England did nothing to maintain her influence on the Continent, while
+Russia was constantly busy there, and really governed it down to the
+French Revolution of 1830; and her power was not much weakened even by
+the fall of the elder Bourbons, with whom the Czar had entered into a
+treaty that had for one of its ends the cession to France of those very
+Rhenish provinces of which so much has been said in the course of the
+present year. Russia was victorious in her conflicts with the Persians
+and the Turks, and the battle of Navarino really had been fought in her
+interest,--blindly by the English, but intelligently by the French, who
+were willing that she should plant the double-headed eagle on the
+Bosporus, provided the lilies should be planted on the Rhine. If the
+fall of the Bourbons in France, and the fall of the Tories in England,
+weakened Russia's influence in Western Europe, those events had the
+effect of drawing Austria and Prussia nearer to her, and of reviving
+something of the spirit of the Holy Alliance, which had lost much of its
+strength from the early death of Alexander. Russia had her own way in
+almost every respect; and in 1846 Nicholas was almost as powerful a
+ruler as Napoleon had been a generation earlier, with the additional
+advantage of being a legitimate sovereign, who could not be destroyed
+through the efforts of any coalition. Three years later he saved Austria
+from destruction by his invasion of Hungary,--an act of hard insolence,
+which quite reconciles one to the humiliation that overtook him five
+years later. He was then so powerful that the reactionists of the West
+cried for Russian cannon, to be used against the Reds. There was no
+nation to dispute the palm with Russia. England was supposed to be
+devoted to the conversion of cotton into calico, and to be ruled in the
+spirit of the Manchester school. She had retired into her shell, and
+could not be got out of it. Austria was thinking chiefly of Italy, and
+of becoming a naval power by incorporating that Peninsula into her
+empire. Prussia was looked upon as nothing but a Russian outpost to the
+west, and waiting only to be used by her master. France had not
+recovered from her humiliation of 1814-15, and never would recover from
+it so long as she warred only at barricades or in Barbary. Russia was
+supreme, and most men thought that supreme she would remain.
+
+Thus stood matters down to 1853. Early in that year the Czar entered on
+his last quarrel with the Turks, whose cause was espoused by England,
+partly for the reason that Russian aggrandizement in the East would be
+dangerous to her interests, but more on the ground that she had become
+weary of submission to that arrogant sovereign who was in the habit of
+giving law to the Old World. Russia's ascendency, though chiefly the
+work of England, was more distasteful to the English than it was to any
+other European people,--more than it was to the French, at whose expense
+it had been founded; and had Nicholas made overtures to the latter,
+instead of making them to England, it is very probable he would have
+accomplished his purpose. But he detested Napoleon III., and he was at
+no pains to conceal his sentiments. This was the one great error of his
+life. The French Emperor had two great ends in view: first, to get into
+respectable company; and, secondly, to make himself powerful at home, by
+obtaining power and influence for France abroad. Unaided, he could
+accomplish neither end; and Nicholas and Victoria were the only two
+sovereigns who could be of much use to him in accomplishing one or both.
+Had Nicholas been gracious to him, had he, in particular, made overtures
+to him, he might have had the Emperor almost on his own terms; for the
+French disliked the English, and they did not dislike the Russians.
+Everything pointed to renewal of that "cordial understanding" between
+Russia and France which had existed twenty-five years earlier, when
+Charles X. was king of France, and which, had there been no Revolution
+of July, would have given to Russia possession of Constantinople, and to
+the French that roc's egg of theirs, the left bank of the Rhine. But
+prosperity had been fatal to the Czar. He could not see what was
+palpable to everybody else. He allowed his feelings to get the better of
+his judgment. He treated Napoleon III. with less consideration than he
+treated the Turkish Sultan; and Napoleon actually was forced to teach
+him that a French ruler was a powerful personage, and that the days of
+Louis Philippe were over forever. If not good enough to help Russia
+spoil Turkey, the Czar must be taught he was good enough to help England
+prevent the spoliating scheme. France and England united their forces to
+those of Turkey, and were joined by Sardinia. Russia was beaten in the
+war, on almost all its scenes. The world ascribed the result to Napoleon
+III. France carried off the honors of the war, and of spoil there was
+none. The Peace of Paris, which terminated the contest, was the work of
+Napoleon. He dictated its terms, forcing them less on his enemy than on
+his allies.
+
+As Russia's leadership of Europe had come from success in war, and had
+been maintained by subsequent successes of the Russian armies,--in
+Persia, in Turkey, in Poland, and elsewhere,--it followed that that
+leadership was lost when the fortune of war changed, and those armies
+were beaten on every occasion where they met the Allies. No military
+country could stand up erect under such crushing blows as had been
+delivered at the Alma, at Inkermann, at the Tchernaya, and at
+Sebastopol, not to name lesser Allied successes, or to count the
+victories of the Turks. Nicholas died in the course of the war, falling
+only before the universal conqueror. His successor submitted to the
+decision of the sword, and in fact performed an act of abdication
+inferior only to that executed by Napoleon. France stepped into the
+vacant leadership, and held it for ten years. Subsequent events
+confirmed and strengthened the French hegemony. The Italian war, waged
+by the Emperor in person, had lasted only about as many months as the
+Russian war did years, and yet it had proved far more damaging to
+Austria than the other had proved to Russia. The mere loss of territory
+experienced by Austria, though not small, was the least of the adverse
+results to her. Her whole Italian scheme was cut through and utterly
+ruined; and it was well understood that the days of her rule over
+Venetia were destined to be as few as they were evil. For what she then
+did, France received Savoy and Nice, which formed by no means a great
+price for her all but inestimable services,--services by no means to be
+ascertained, if we would know their true value, by what was done in
+1859. France created the Kingdom of Italy. After making the amplest
+allowance for what was effected by Cavour, by Garibaldi, by Victor
+Emanuel, and by the Italian people, it must be clear to every one that
+nothing could have been effected toward the overthrow of Austrian
+domination in Italy but for the action of French armies in that country.
+That the Emperor meant what he wrought is very unlikely; but after the
+events of 1859 it was impossible to prevent the construction of the
+kingdom of Italy; and the Frenchman had to consent to the completion of
+his own work, though he did so on some occasions with extreme
+reluctance,--not so much from the dictation of his own feelings, as from
+the aversion which the French feel for the Italian cause, and which is
+so strong, and so deeply shared by the military, that it was with
+difficulty the soldiers in the camp of Chalons were prevented getting up
+an illumination when news reached them of the battle of Custozza, the
+event of which was so disastrous to Italy, and would have been fatal to
+her cause, had not that been vindicated and established by Prussian
+genius and valor on the remote fields of Germany and Bohemia. The
+descendants of men who fought under Arminius saved the descendants of
+the countrymen of Varus. Those persons who have condemned the
+Frenchman's apparently singular course toward Italy on some occasions,
+have not made sufficient allowance for the dislike of almost all classes
+of his subjects for the Italians. The Italian war was unpopular, and the
+Russian war was not popular. While the French have been pleased by the
+military occurrences that make up the histories of those wars, they were
+by no means pleased by the wars themselves, and they do not approve them
+even at this day; and the extraordinary events of the current year are
+not at all calculated to make them popular in France: for it is not
+difficult to see that there is a close connection between the
+establishment of the Kingdom of Italy and the elevation of Prussia to
+the first place in Europe; and Prussia is the power most abhorred by the
+French. So intense is French hatred of Prussia, that it is not too much
+to say that, last summer, the French would almost as lief have seen the
+Russians in Paris as the Prussians in Vienna.
+
+At the middle of last June the leadership of Europe--Frenchmen said of
+the world--was in the hands of France; and that such was France's place
+was the work of Napoleon III. The Emperor had been successful in all his
+undertakings, with one exception. His Mexican business had proved a
+total failure; but this had not injured him. Americans thought
+differently, some of us going so far as to suppose the fall of
+Maximilian's shaky throne would involve that of the solid throne of
+Napoleon. No such thing. The great majority of Frenchmen know little and
+care less about the Mexican business. Intelligent Frenchmen regret the
+Emperor's having taken it up; but they do so because of the expenditure
+it has involved, and because they have learnt from their country's
+history that it is best for her to keep out of that colonizing pursuit
+which has so many charms for the Emperor,--perhaps because of his Dutch
+origin. There is something eminently ridiculous about French
+colonization, which contrasts strangely with the robust action of the
+English. The Emperor seems to believe in it,--an instance of weakness
+that places him, on one point at least, below common men, most of whom
+laugh at his doings in regard to Mexico. If report does him no
+injustice, he thinks his Mexican undertaking the greatest thing of his
+reign. What, then, is the smallest thing of that reign? It is somewhat
+strange that this immense undertaking should not have been practicable
+till some time after the United States had become involved in civil war,
+that tasked all American energies, and did not permit any attention to
+be paid to Napoleon's action in Mexico.
+
+Whether wise or foolish, Napoleon's interference in Mexican affairs had
+not weakened his power or lessened his influence in the estimation of
+Europe. Five months ago he was at the head of the European world. His
+position was quite equal to that which Nicholas held thirteen years
+earlier. If any change in his condition was looked for, it was sought in
+the advance of his greatness, not in the chance of his fall. The
+general, the all but universal sentiment was, that during Napoleon
+III.'s life France's lead must be accepted; and that, if that life
+should be much extended, France's power would be greatly increased, and
+that Belgium and the Rhine country might become hers at no distant day.
+It is true that, long before the middle of June, the course of events
+indicated the near approach of war; but it was commonly supposed that
+the chief result of such war would be to add to the greatness and glory
+of France. _That_ was about the only point on which men were agreed with
+respect to the threatened conflict. Prussia and Italy might overthrow
+the Austrian empire; but most probably Austria, aided by most of
+Germany, would defeat them both, her armies rendezvousing at Berlin and
+Milan; and then would Napoleon III., bearing "the sword of Brennus,"
+come in, and save the Allies from destruction, who would gratefully
+reward him,--the one by ceding the Rhenish provinces, and the other the
+island of Sardinia, to France. Such was the programme laid out by most
+persons in Europe and America, and probably not one person in a hundred
+thought it possible for Prussia to succeed. Even most of those persons
+who were not overcrowed by Austria's partisans and admirers did not
+dream that she would be conquered in a week, but thought it would be a
+more difficult matter for General Benedek to march from Prague to Berlin
+than was generally supposed, and that such march would not exactly be of
+the nature of a military promenade. That the French Emperor shared the
+popular belief, is evident from his conduct. He never would have allowed
+war to break out, if he had supposed it would lead to the elevation of
+Prussia to the first place in Europe,--a position held by himself, and
+which he had no desire to vacate. It was in his power to prevent the
+occurrence of war down almost to the very hour when the Diet of the
+Germanic Confederation afforded to Prussia so plausible a ground for
+setting her armies in motion, by adopting a course that bore some
+resemblance to the old process of putting a disobedient member under the
+ban of the Empire. Prussia would not have gone to war with Austria, had
+she not been assured of the Italian alliance,--an alliance that would
+not only be useful in keeping a large portion of Austria's force in the
+south, but would prevent that power from purchasing Italian aid by the
+cession of Venetia; for so angry were the Austrians with Prussia, that
+it was quite on the cards that they might become the friends of Italy,
+if she would but help them against that nation whose exertions in 1859
+had prevented Venetia from following the fate of Lombardy.
+
+As Prussia would not have made war in 1866 without having secured the
+assistance of Italy, so was it impossible for Italy to form an alliance
+with Prussia without the consent of France being first had and obtained.
+Napoleon III. possessed an absolute veto on the action of the Italian
+government, and had he signified to that government that an alliance
+with Prussia could not meet with his countenance and approval, no such
+alliance ever would have been formed, or even the proposition to form it
+have been taken into serious consideration by the Cabinet of Florence.
+Victor Emanuel II. would have dared no more to attack Francis Joseph,
+without the consent of Napoleon III., than Carthage durst have attacked
+Masinissa without the consent of Rome. Prussia was not under the
+supervision of France, and was and is the only great European nation
+which had not then, as she has not since, been made to feel the weight
+of his power; but it may be doubted, without the slightest intention to
+impeach her courage, if she would have resolved upon war had she been
+convinced that France was utterly opposed to such resolution, and was
+prepared to show that the Empire was for peace by making war to preserve
+it. The opinion was quite common, as matters became more and more
+warlike with each succeeding day, that the course of Prussia had been
+fixed upon and mapped out by Count Bismark and Napoleon III., and that
+the former had received positive assurances that his country should not
+undergo any reduction of territory should the fortune of war go against
+her; in return for which he had agreed to such a "rectification of the
+French frontier" as should be highly pleasing to the pride of Frenchmen,
+and add greatly to the glory and the dignity of their Emperor. When news
+came that Napoleon III., after peace had been resolved upon, had asked
+for the cession of certain Rhenish territory,[45] the demand was
+supposed to have been made in consequence of an understanding entered
+into before the war by the courts of Paris and Berlin. There was nothing
+unreasonable in this supposition; for Napoleon III. was so bent upon
+extending the boundaries of France, and was so entirely master of the
+situation, and his friendship was so necessary to Prussia, that it was
+reasonable to suppose he had made a good bargain with that power.
+Probably, when the secret history of the war shall be published, it will
+be seen that an understanding did exist between Prussia and France, and
+that Napoleon III., in August, asked for no more than it had been agreed
+he should have, in June, or May, or even earlier. Why, then, did Prussia
+give so firm but civil a negative in answer to his demand? and how was
+it that he submitted with so much of meekness to her refusal, even
+attributing his demand to the pressure of French public opinion, which
+is no more strongly expressed in 1866 in favor of the acquisition of the
+Rhine country, than it has been in almost any year since that country
+was lost, more than half a century since? The answer is easy. Prussia,
+no matter what her arrangement with France before the war, durst not
+pass over to the latter a solitary league of German territory. Her
+victories had so exalted German sentiment that she could not have her
+own way in all things. She was, on one side, paralyzed by the unexpected
+completeness of her military successes, which had brought very near all
+Germany under her eagles; for all Germans saw at once that she had
+obtained that commanding position from which the dictation of the unity
+of their country was not only a possibility, but something that could be
+accomplished without much difficulty. What Victor Emanuel II. and Count
+Cavour had been to Italy, William I. and Count Bismark could be to
+Austria, with this vast difference in favor of the Prussian sovereign
+and statesman,--that their policy could not be dictated, nor their
+action hampered, by a great foreign sovereign, who ruled a people
+hostile to the unity of every European race but themselves. It was
+impossible even to take into consideration any project that looked to
+the dismemberment of Germany, at a time when even Southern Germans were
+ready to unite with Prussia, because she was the champion of German
+unity, and was in condition to make her championship effectual. Napoleon
+III. saw how matters were, and, being a statesman, he did not hesitate,
+at the risk of much loss of influence, to admit a fact the existence of
+which could not be denied, and which operated with overwhelming force
+against his interests both as an emperor and as a man. That he may have
+only deferred a rupture with Prussia is probable enough, for it is not
+to be assumed that he is ready to cede the first place in Europe to the
+country most disliked by his subjects, and which refuses to cede
+anything to him. But he must have time in which to rearm his infantry,
+and to place in their hands a weapon that shall be to the needle-gun
+what the needle-gun[46] is to the Austrian muzzle-loader. He has
+postponed action; but that he has definitely abandoned the French claim
+to the left bank of the Rhine it would be hazardous to assert. There are
+reports that a conference of the chief European powers will be held
+soon, and that by that body something will be done with respect to the
+French claim that will prove satisfactory to all parties. It would be a
+marvellous body, should it accomplish so miraculous a piece of business.
+The matter is in fair way to disturb the peace of Europe before Sadowa
+shall have become as old a battle as we now rate Solferino.
+
+We do not assert that there was an understanding between France and
+Prussia last spring, and that Prussia went to war because that
+arrangement assured her against loss; but we think there is nothing
+irrational in the popular belief in the existence of such an
+understanding, and that nothing has occurred since the middle of June
+that renders that belief absurd. The contrary belief makes a fool of
+Napoleon III.,--a character which not even the Emperor's enemies have
+attributed to him since he became a successful man.
+
+War began on the 15th of June, the day after that on which that bungling
+body, the Bund, under Austrian influence, had resort to overt measures
+against Prussia, which had suffered for some time from its covert
+measures. The Germanic Confederation ceased to exist on the 14th of
+June, having completed its half-century, with a little time to spare.
+The declarations of war that appeared on the 18th of June,--the
+anniversary of Fehrbellin, Kolin, and Waterloo, all great and decisive
+Prussian battles, and two of them Prussian victories, or victories which
+Prussians aided in winning,--the declarations of war, we say, were mere
+formalities, and as such they were regarded. Prussia's first open
+operation was taken three days before, when she invaded Saxony,--a
+country in which the Austrians, had they been wise, would have had at
+least a hundred thousand men within twenty-four hours after the action
+of the Diet. Prussia had been prepared for war for some weeks, perhaps
+months, while we are assured that Austria's preparations were far from
+complete; from which, supposing the statement correct, the inference is
+drawn that she did not expect Prussia to push matters to extremity. It
+is more likely that she fell into the usual error of all proud
+egotists,--that of estimating the capacity of a foe by her own. We
+cannot think so poorly of Austrian statesmen and generals as to conclude
+that they did not see war was inevitable in the latter part of May,
+which gave them three weeks to mass their troops so near the Saxon
+frontier as would have enabled them to cross it in a few hours after the
+Diet had given itself up to their direction, before the world. As the
+Diet never durst have acted thus without Austria's direct sanction,
+Austria must have known that war was at hand, and she should have
+prepared for its coming. Probably she did make all the preparation she
+thought necessary, she supposing that Prussia would be as slow as
+herself, because believing that her best was the best thing in the
+world. This error was the source of all her misfortunes. She applied to
+the military art, in this age of railways and electric telegraphs,
+principles and practices that were not even of the first merit in much
+earlier and very different times. She was not aware that the world had
+changed. Prussia was thoroughly aware of it, and acted accordingly. She
+was all vivacity and alertness, and hence her success. In nineteen days,
+counting from the morning of June 15th, she had accomplished that which
+almost all men in other countries had deemed impossible. While
+foreigners were speculating as to the number of days Benedek would
+require to reach Berlin, and wondering whether he would proceed by the
+Silesian or the Saxon route, the Prussians were routing him, taking
+Prague, and marching swiftly toward Vienna. The contending armies first
+"felt" one another on the 26th of June, in a small affair at Liebenau,
+in which the Prussians were victorious. The next day there was another
+"affair," of larger proportions, at Podal, with the same result; and two
+more actions, one at Nachod and at Skalitz, in which Fortune was
+consistent, adhering to the single-headed eagle, and the other at
+Trautenau, which was of the nature of a drawn battle. On the 28th there
+was another fight at Trautenau, the Prussians remaining masters of the
+field; while the Austrians were beaten at other points, and fell back to
+Gitschin, once the capital of Wallenstein's Duchy of Friedland, and
+where the Friedlander was to receive ample vengeance just seven
+generations after his assassination by contrivance and order of the head
+of the German branch of the house of Austria, Ferdinand II. Could
+Wallenstein have "revisited the glimpses of the moon" on the night of
+the 28th of last June, he might have cast terror into the soul of
+Francis Joseph, as the Bodach Glas did into that of Vich-Ian-Vohr, by
+appearing to him, and bidding him beware of the morrow; for it was at
+Gitschin, on the 29th of June, and not at Sadowa, on the 3d of July,
+that the event of the war was decided. Had the battle then and there
+fought been fortunate for the Austrians, the name of Sadowa would have
+remained unknown to the world; for then the battle of the 3d of July
+could not have been fought, or it would have had a different scene, and
+most probably a different result. Austrian defeat at Gitschin made the
+battle of Sadowa a necessity, and made it so under conditions highly
+favorable to the Prussians. The ghost of Wallenstein might have returned
+to its rest with entire complacency, and with the firm resolution to
+trouble this sublunary world no more, had it witnessed the flight of the
+Austrians through Gitschin. By a "curious coincidence," it happens that
+a large number of the vanquished were Saxons, descendants, it may be, of
+men who had acted with Gustavus Adolphus against Wallenstein in 1632.
+
+The battle of Sadowa was fought on the 3d of July, the third anniversary
+of the decisive day of our battle of Gettysburg. At a moderate estimate,
+four hundred and twenty thousand men took part in it, of whom one
+hundred and ninety-five thousand were Austrians and Saxons, and two
+hundred and twenty-five thousand Prussians. This makes the action rank
+almost with the battle of Leipzig, the greatest of all battles.[47] It
+is satisfactory evidence of the real greatness of Prussian generalship,
+that it had succeeded in massing much the larger force on the final
+field, though at a distance from the Prussian frontier and far within
+the enemy's territory; and also that while the invaders of Austria were
+opposed by equal forces on the left and centre of the Austrian line,
+they were in excessive strength on that line's right, the very point at
+which their presence was most required. Yet further: these great masses
+of men were all employed, and admirably handled, while almost a fourth
+part of the Austrian army remained idle, or was not employed till the
+issue of the battle had been decided. The Austrian position was strong,
+or it would have been so in the hands of an able commander; but Benedek
+was unequal to his work, and totally unfit to command a larger army than
+even Napoleon I. ever led in any battle. There seldom has lived a
+general capable of handling an army two hundred thousand strong. The
+Prussians, to be sure, were stronger, and they were splendidly handled;
+but it must be observed that they were divided into two armies, and that
+those armies, though having a common object, operated apart. In this
+respect, though in no other, Sadowa bears a resemblance to Waterloo, the
+armies of the Crown Prince and of Prince Frederick Charles answering to
+those of Bluecher and Wellington. The Prussian force engaged far exceeded
+that of all the armies that fought at Waterloo, and the Austrian army
+exceeded them by some five or six thousand men. War has very rarely
+been conducted on the scale that is known in 1866. Even the greatest of
+the engagements in our civil contest seem to shrink to small proportions
+when compared with what took place last summer in Bohemia. The armies of
+Grant and Lee, in May, 1864, probably were not larger than the Prussian
+army at Sadowa. At the same time, Austria had a great force in Venetia,
+and large bodies of men in other parts of her empire, and some in the
+territory of the Germanic Confederation; and the Prussians were carrying
+on vigorous warfare in various parts of Germany.
+
+After their grand victory, the Prussians pushed rapidly forward toward
+Vienna; and names that are common in the history of Napoleon's Austrian
+campaigns began to appear in the daily journals,--Olmuetz, Bruenn, Znaym,
+Austerlitz, and others. Nothing occurred to stay their march, and they
+were in the very act of winning another battle which would have cut the
+Austrians off from Hungary, when an armistice was agreed upon. It was so
+in 1809, when the officers had to separate the soldiers to announce the
+armistice of Znaym. It came out soon after that the cessation of warlike
+operations took place not a day too soon for the Austrians, whose army
+was in a fearfully demoralized condition. Vienna would have been
+occupied in a week by the Prussians, had they been disposed to push
+matters to extremities, and that without a battle; or, if a battle had
+been fought, the Austrian force must have been destroyed, or would have
+been literally cut off from any safe line of retreat. Probably the house
+of Austria would have been struck out of the list of ruling families,
+had the Austrians not submitted to the invaders. Count Bismark is a man
+who would have had no hesitation in reviving the Bohemian and Hungarian
+monarchies, had further resistance been made to his will. The armistice
+was quickly followed by negotiations, and those were completed on the
+23d of August, exactly seventy days after the Diet, at the dictation of
+Austria, had given up Prussia to punishment, to be inflicted by the
+Austrian sword.
+
+The terms of the treaty of peace are moderate; but it should be
+understood that what Austria loses is very inadequately expressed by
+these terms, and what Prussia gains not at all; and what Prussia gains
+at the expense of Austria, important as it is, is less important than
+what she has gained from France. From Austria she has taken the first
+place in Germany; from France, the first place in Europe, which is the
+same thing as the first place in Christendom, or the world,--meaning by
+the world that portion of mankind which has power and influence and
+leadership, because of its knowledge, culture, and wealth. The moral
+blow falls with greater severity on France than on Austria. Austria had
+no right whatever to the first place in Germany. There was something
+monstrous, something highly offensive, in the Germanic primacy of an
+empire made up of Magyars, Poles, Bohemians, Italians, Slavonians,
+Croats, Illyrians, and other races, and not above a fourth of whose
+inhabitants were Germans. Prussia had in June last twice as many Germans
+as Austria, though her entire population was not much more than half as
+large as that of her rival;[48] and when she turned Austria out of
+Germany at the point of the needle-gun, she simply asserted her own
+right to the leadership of Germany. But no one will say that there can
+be anything offensive in a French primacy of Christendom. Objection may
+be made to any primacy; but if primacy there must be, as mostly there
+has been, France has the best claim to it of any country. England might
+dispute the post with her, and England alone; for they are the two
+nations of modern times to which the world is most indebted. But England
+has, all but in direct terms, resigned all pretensions to it. Prussia,
+therefore, by conquering for herself the first place in the estimation
+of mankind, who always respect the longest and sharpest sword, unhorsed
+France. Napoleon III. lost more at Sadowa than was lost by Francis
+Joseph; and we cannot see how he will be able to recover his loss,
+should Prussia succeed in her purpose to create a powerful Germanic
+empire,--and all things point to her success. A new force would be
+introduced into the European system, of which we can only say, that, if
+its mere anticipation has been sufficient to curb France on the side of
+the Rhine, its realization ought to be sufficient to prevent France from
+extending her dominion in any direction--say over Belgium--which such
+extension is inclined to take.
+
+Thus has a great revolution been effected, and effected, too with
+something of the speed of light. On the 14th of June, France, in the
+estimation of the civilized world, was the first of nations, the head of
+the Pentarchy. On the 4th of July, she had already been deposed, though
+the change was not immediately recognizable. On the 14th of June,
+Prussia's place, though respectable, was not to be named with that of
+France; it was at the tail of the Pentarchy. On the 4th of July she had
+conquered for herself the headship of that powerful brotherhood. It was
+the prize of her sword, and it is on the sword that the French Emperor's
+power mainly rests. He obtained his place by a free use of the military
+arm, in December, 1851; he confirmed it by the use of the sword in the
+Russian and Italian wars; and he purposed making a yet further use of
+the weapon, had circumstances favored his plans, at the time he allowed
+the Germano-Italian war to begin. Is he who took the sword to perish by
+it? Is the Prussian sovereign that stronger man of whose coming
+Croesus, that type of all prosperous sovereigns, was warned? Who shall
+say? But as Napoleon's ascendency rested, the sword apart, upon opinion,
+and not upon prescription, it is difficult to see how he can submit to a
+surrender of that ascendency, and make way for one who but yesterday was
+his inferior, and who, in all probability, was then ready to buy his aid
+at a high price. The Emperor is old and sickly. His life seems to have
+been in danger at the very time he was making his demand for an increase
+of imperial territory. Years and infirmities may indispose him to enter
+on a mighty war; but he thinks more of his dynasty than of himself, his
+ambition being to found a reigning house. This must lead him to respect
+French opinion, on his son's account; and opinion in France is anything
+but friendly to Prussia. Almost all Frenchmen, from _Reds_ to
+_Whites_,--Republicans, Imperialists, Orleanists, and Legitimists,--seem
+to be of one mind on this point. They all agree that Prussian supremacy
+is unendurable. They could have seen their country make way for England,
+or Russia, or even Austria, without losing their temper altogether; but
+for France to be displaced by Prussia is something that it is beyond
+their philosophy to contemplate with patience. The very successes of the
+Emperor tell against him under existing circumstances. He has raised
+France so high, from a low condition, that a fall is unbearable to his
+subjects. He has triumphed, in various ways, over nations that appeared
+to be so much greater than Prussia, that to surrender the golden palm to
+her is the very nadir of degradation. His loss of moral power is as
+great at home as his loss of material power abroad. He has become
+ridiculous, as having been outwitted by Germans, whom the French have
+ever been disposed to look upon as the dullest of mankind. Ridicule may
+not be so powerful an agency in France to-day as it was in former times,
+but still it has there a sharp sting. The Emperor may be led into war by
+the force of French opinion; and he would have all Germany to contend
+against, with the exception of that portion of it which belongs to the
+house of Austria. The Austrians would gladly renew the war, with France
+for their ally. They would forgive Solferino, to obtain vengeance for
+Sadowa. What occurred among the Austrians when they heard of the French
+demand for a rectification of their frontier shows how readily they
+would come into any project for the humiliation of Prussia that France
+might form. They supposed the French demand would be pushed, and they
+evinced the utmost willingness to support it,--a fact that proves how
+little they care for Germany, and also how deeply they feel their own
+fall. They would have renewed the war immediately, had France given the
+word. But the Emperor did not give the word. He may have hesitated
+because he preferred to have Italy as an ally, or to see her occupy the
+position of a neutral; whereas, had he attacked Prussia before the
+conclusion of the late war, she must have adhered to the Prussian
+alliance, which would have led to the deduction of a large force from
+the armies of Austria and France that he would desire to have
+concentrated in Germany. Or he may have been fearful of even one of the
+consequences of victory; for would it not be a source of danger to him
+and his family were one of his marshals so to distinguish himself in a
+great war as to become the first man in France? The general of a
+legitimate sovereign can never aspire to his master's throne; but the
+French throne is fair prize for any man who should be able to conquer
+the conquerors of Sadowa. The Emperor's health would not permit him to
+lead his army in person, as he did in the Italian campaign; and that one
+of his lieutenants who should, by a repetition of the Jena business,
+avenge Waterloo, and regain for France, with additions, the rank she
+held five months ago, would probably prove a greater enemy to the house
+of Bonaparte than he had been to the house of Hohenzollern. The part of
+Hazael is always abhorred in advance as much as Hazael himself abhorred
+it; but Benhadad is sure to perish, and Hazael reigns in his stead.
+
+The nation by which this great change has been wrought in Europe--a
+change as extraordinary in itself as it is wonderful in its modes, and
+likely to lead to something far more important--is one of the most
+respectable members of the European commonwealth, though standing
+somewhat below the first rank, even while acting on terms of apparent
+equality with the other great powers. The kingdom of Prussia is of
+origin so comparatively recent, that there are those now living who can
+remember others who were old enough to note its creation, in 1700. The
+arrangements for the conversion of the electorate of Brandenburg into
+the kingdom of Prussia were completed on the 16th of November, 1700, and
+the coronation of Frederick I. took place on the 18th of January, 1701,
+two hundred and eighty-four years less three months after his family's
+connection with the country began; for it was on the 18th of April,
+1417, that the Emperor Sigismund, last member of the Luxemburg family,
+made Frederick, Burgrave of Nuernberg, Elector of Brandenburg,--the
+investiture taking place in the marketplace of Constance. The
+transaction was in the nature of a job, as Frederick was a relative of
+the Emperor, to whom he had advanced money, besides rendering him
+assistance in other ways. Frederick was of a very old family, and in
+this respect, as in some others, the house destined to become so great
+in the North bore a close resemblance to that other house destined to
+reign in the South, that of Savoy, which became regal not long after the
+elevation of descendants of the Burgrave of Nuernberg to royal rank. He
+was a man adapted to the place he received; and the family has seldom
+failed to produce able men and women in every generation, some of them
+being of the highest intellectual force, while others have been
+remarkable for eccentricities that at times bore considerable
+resemblance to insanity. Yet there was not much in the history of the
+new electoral house that promised its future greatness, for more than
+two centuries.
+
+It is surprising to look back over the history of Germany, and note how
+differently matters have turned out, in respect to families and
+countries, from what observers of old times would have predicted. When
+Charles V. fled before Maurice of Saxony, he may have thought,
+considering the great part Saxony had had in the Reformation, that from
+that country danger might come to the house of Austria in yet greater
+measure; but he would have smiled at the prophet who should have told
+him not only that no such danger would come, but that Saxony would be
+ruined because of its adherence to the house of Austria, when assailed
+by a descendant of the then insignificant Elector of Brandenburg. Yet
+the prophet would have been right, for Saxony suffered so much from her
+connection with the Austrians in Frederick the Great's time that she
+never recovered therefrom; and in the late contest she was lost before a
+shot was fired, and her troops, after fighting valiantly in Bohemia,
+shared the disasters of the power upon which she had relied for
+protection. Bavaria was another German country that seemed more likely
+to rise to greatness than Brandenburg; but, though her progress has been
+respectable, it must be pronounced insignificant if compared with that
+of Prussia. The house of Wittelsbach was great before that of
+Hohenzollern had risen to general fame; but the latter has passed it, as
+if Fortune had taken the Hohenzollerns under its special protection, and
+we should not be in the least surprised were they to take all its
+territory ere the twentieth century shall have fairly dawned upon the
+world.
+
+The first of the great Prussian rulers was the Elector Frederick
+William, who reigned from 1640 to 1688, and who is known as the Great
+Elector,--a title of which he was every way worthy, and not the less
+that there was just a suspicion of the tyrant in his composition. He had
+not a little of that "justness of insight, toughness of character, and
+general strength of bridle-hand," which Mr. Carlyle attributes to
+Rudolph of Hapsburg. He was a man of the times, and a man for the times.
+He came to the throne just as the Thirty Years' War was well advanced in
+its last decade, and he had a ruined country for his inheritance; but he
+raised that country to a high place in Europe, and was connected with
+many of the principal events of the age of Louis XIV. He freed Prussia
+from her connection with Poland. He created that Prussian army which has
+done such wonderful things in the greatest of wars in the last two
+centuries. He it was who won the battle of Fehrbellin, June 18, 1675, at
+the expense of the Swedes, who were still living on the mighty
+reputation won under Gustavus Adolphus, almost half a century earlier,
+and maintained by the splendid soldiers trained in his school. The calm
+and philosophic Ranke warms into something like eloquence when summing
+up the work of the Great Elector. "Frederick William," he says, "cannot
+be placed in the same category with those few great men who have
+discovered new conditions for the development of the human race; but he
+may unhesitatingly be ranked with those famous princes who have saved
+their countries in the hour of danger, and have succeeded in
+re-establishing order,--with an Alfred, a Charles VII., a Gustavus Vasa.
+He followed the path trodden by the German territorial princes of old;
+but among them all there was not one who, finding his state reduced to
+such a miserable condition, so successfully raised it to independence
+and power. He instilled into his subjects a spirit of enterprise,--the
+mainspring of a state. He took measures which secured to his country an
+increase of power and prosperity. What the world most admired, and
+indeed what he himself most valued, was the condition of his army. It
+contained at the time of his death one hundred and seventy-five
+companies of foot, and seventy-six of cavalry; the artillery had
+recently been increased in proportion, and the Elector's attention had
+been constantly directed to its improvement. The whole strength of the
+army was about twenty-eight thousand men. There was nothing that he
+recommended so earnestly to his successor as the preservation of this
+instrument of power. By this it was that he had made room for himself
+among his neighbors, and had won for the Protestant cause of North
+Germany the respect that was its due."[49]
+
+Nor did he neglect that naval arm which has been of so great service to
+many countries. Prussia's desire to have a navy has raised many smiles,
+and caused much laughter, in this century, as if it were something new;
+whereas it is an ancient aspiration, and one which all Prussian
+sovereigns and statesmen have experienced for two hundred years, though
+not strongly. The Great Czar, who came upon the stage just after the
+Great Elector left it, did not long more for a good sea-coast than that
+Elector had longed for it. Frederick William could not effect so much as
+Peter effected, but he did something toward the creation of a navy for
+Prussia. His reluctance in parting with a portion of Pomerania was owing
+to his commercial and maritime aspirations. "Of all the princes of the
+house of Brandenburg," says Ranke, "he is the only one who ever showed a
+strong predilection for maritime life and maritime power. It was the
+dream of his youth that he would one day sail along shores obedient to
+his will, all the way from Custrin, out by the mouths of the Oder,
+across to the coast of Prussia. His sojourn in the Netherlands had
+strengthened, though it had not inspired, his love of the sea. The best
+proof how painful this cession was to the Elector is the fact that he
+shortly afterward offered to the crown of Sweden, not alone the three
+sees of Halberstadt, Minden, and Magdeburg, but a sum of two millions of
+thalers in addition, for the possession of Pomerania." The same writer
+says of the Great Elector elsewhere, that "his mind had a wide grasp; to
+us it may seem almost too wide, when we call to mind that he brought the
+coast of Guinea into direct communication with Brandenburg, and ventured
+to compete with Spain on the ocean." When he died, the population of his
+dominions amounted to one million five hundred thousand.
+
+His successor was his son Frederick, who added to the territory of
+Prussia, and who, as before stated, became king in November, 1700, a few
+days after the extinction, in the person of Charles II., of the Spanish
+branch of the house of Austria. One royal house had gone out, and
+another came in. Prince Eugene of Savoy, the ablest man that ever served
+the house of Austria, plainly told the German Emperor that his ministers
+deserved the gallows for advising him to consent to the creation of the
+new kingdom, and all subsequent German history seems to show that he was
+right. But that house needed all the aid it could beg, buy, or borrow,
+to press its claim to the Spanish crowns; and, thanks to the exertions
+of the Great Elector, Brandenburg had an army, the aid of which was well
+worth purchasing at what Leopold may have thought to be a nominal price,
+after all. So well balanced were the parties to the war of the Spanish
+Succession, at least in its earlier years, that the mere absence of the
+Prussian contingent from the armies of the Grand Alliance might have
+thrown victory into the French scale. What would have been the effect
+had the army and the influence of Brandenburg been placed at the
+disposal of Louis XIV.? What would have been the fate of the house of
+Austria, had the Elector been actively employed on the French side,
+like the Elector of Bavaria, in the campaign of Blenheim, instead of
+being one of the stoutest supporters of the Austrians? Even Eugene
+himself might never have won most of those victories which have made his
+name immortal, had his policy prevailed at Vienna in 1700, and the
+Emperor refused to convert the Elector of Brandenburg into King of
+Prussia. At Blenheim, the Prussians behaved in the noblest manner, and
+won the highest praise from Eugene, who commanded in that part of the
+field where they were stationed; and he spoke particularly of their
+"undaunted resolution" in withstanding the enemy's attacks, and of their
+activity at a later period of the battle. It is curious to observe that
+he notes the steadiness and strength of their fire,--a peculiarity that
+has distinguished the Prussian infantry from the beginning of its
+existence, and which, from the introduction of the iron ramrod into the
+service, had much to do with the successes of Frederick the Great, and,
+from the use of the needle-gun, quite as much with the successes of
+Prince Frederick Charles and the Crown Prince. In the time of Frederick
+I., the Prussian troops were employed in Germany and Italy, in France
+and Flanders. They also served against the Turks. It may be said, that,
+if the Great Elector created the Prussian army, it received the baptism
+of fire in full from his son, Frederick I., the first Prussian king.
+
+Frederick I. died in 1713. If it be true--as we think it is--that the
+great enterprise of William of Orange for the deliverance of England
+could not have been undertaken but for the aid he gave that prince,
+Englishmen and Americans ought to hold his name in especial remembrance.
+He was succeeded by his son Frederick William I., who is counted a brute
+by most persons, but whom Mr. Carlyle would have us believe to have been
+a man of remarkable worth. He had talents, and he increased the
+territory of his kingdom. When he died, in 1740, he left to his son a
+kingdom containing 2,500,000 souls, a treasury containing $6,000,000,
+and an army more than thirty thousand strong, and which was the first
+force in Europe because of its high state of discipline and of the
+superiority of its infantry weapon. The introduction of the iron ramrod
+was a greater improvement, relatively, in 1740, than was the
+introduction of the needle-gun in the present generation. Nothing but
+the use of that ramrod saved the Prussians from destruction in the first
+of Frederick II.'s wars. That gave them superiority, which they well
+knew how to keep. "The main thing," as Ranke observes, "was a regular
+step and rapid firing; or, as the king once expressed it, 'Load quickly,
+advance in close column, present well, take aim well,--all in profound
+silence.'" The whole business of infantry in the field is summed up in
+the royal sentence, though some may think that line would be a better
+word than column; and the Prussian system did favor the linear rather
+than the columnar arrangement of troops, as it "presented a wide front,
+less exposed to the fire of the artillery, and more efficient from the
+force of its musketry."
+
+Frederick William I. died in 1740. His successor was Frederick II.,
+commonly called the Great. His history has been so much discussed of
+late years that it would be useless to mention its details. He raised
+Prussia to the first rank in Europe. Russia was coming in as a European
+power, and Spain was then as great as France or England, partly because
+of her former greatness, but as much from the sagacity of her sovereign
+and the talents of her statesmen. Louis XV. had lessened the weight of
+France, and George III. had degraded England. The Austrian house had
+suffered from its failure before Frederick. All things combined to make
+of Prussia the most formidable of European nations during the last half
+of Frederick's reign. When he died, in 1786, the Prussian population
+amounted to six millions,--the increase being chiefly due to the
+acquisition of Silesia, which was taken from Austria, and to
+Frederick's share in the first partition of Poland. He left $50,000,000,
+and his army contained 220,000 men.
+
+Frederick William II., a weak sovereign, reigned till 1797. He took part
+in the first coalition against revolutionary France, and in the second
+and third partitions of Poland. Frederick William III. reigned from 1797
+to 1840, during which time Prussia experienced every vicissitude of
+fortune. The first war with imperial France, in 1806-7, led to the
+reduction of her territory and population one half; and what was left of
+country and people was most mercilessly treated by Napoleon I., who
+should either have restored her altogether, or have annihilated her. But
+the great Emperor was partial to half-measures,--a folly that had much
+to do with his fall. The misery that Prussia then experienced was the
+cause of her subsequent greatness; and if she has wrested European
+supremacy from Napoleon III., she should thank Napoleon I. for enabling
+her to accomplish so great a feat of arms. The Prussian government had
+to undertake the task of reform, to save itself and the country from
+perishing. The chief man in this great work was the celebrated Baron von
+Stein, whose name is of infrequent mention in popular histories of the
+Napoleonic age, but who had more to do with the overthrow of the Man of
+Destiny than any other person. It is one of those strange facts which
+are so constantly meeting us in history, that it was by Napoleon's
+advice that Stein was employed by the Prussian king. "Take the Baron von
+Stein," said the Emperor, when the king at Tilsit spoke of the misery of
+his situation; "he is a man of sense." Eighteen months later, Napoleon
+actually outlawed Stein, the decree of outlawry dating from Madrid. The
+language of the decree was of the most insulting character. "One Stein"
+(_le nomme Stein_), it was said, was endeavoring to create troubles in
+Germany, and therefore he was denounced as an enemy of France and of the
+Rhenish Confederacy. The property he held in French or confederate
+territory was confiscated, and the troops of France and her allies were
+ordered to arrest him, wherever he could be found. Had he been taken,
+quite likely he would have been as summarily dealt with as Palm had
+been.
+
+Stein fled into Bohemia, where he resided three years, when Alexander I.
+invited him to Russia, and employed him in the most important affairs.
+He kept up Alexander's courage during the darkest days of 1812, and
+advised, with success, against yielding to the French, though it is
+probable the Czar might have had his own terms from Napoleon, after the
+latter had reached Moscow. It is said that the American Minister in
+Russia, the late Mr. J. Q. Adams, was not less energetic than Stein on
+the same side. It may well be doubted if their advice was such as a
+Russian sovereign should have followed, though it was excellent for
+Germany and for all nations that feared Napoleon. If the American
+Minister did what was attributed to him, he actually acted in behalf of
+the very nation against which his own country had just declared war! The
+war between the United States and England began at the same time that
+active operations against Russia were entered upon by the French; and
+England was the only powerful nation upon which Russia could rely for
+assistance.
+
+Stein had done his work before he was made to leave Prussia. He was the
+creator of the Prussian people. His reforms would be pronounced agrarian
+measures in England or America. An imitation of them in England might
+not be amiss; but in America, where land is a drug, and where possession
+of it does not give half the consideration that proceeds from the
+ownership of "stocks" or funds, it would be as much out of place as a
+mixture for blackening negroes, or a machine for converting New England
+soil into rocks. "Stein's main idea," says Vehse, "was, 'the burgher
+must become noble.' With this view, he tried to call forth a strong
+feeling of nationality and a new spirit in the people. His first step in
+introducing his new system of administration was the abolition of
+vassalage, and the change of the titles of seignorial property. This was
+done by the edict dated Memel, October 9, 1807, which did away with the
+monopoly until then claimed by the nobles holding such estates, which
+were now allowed to be acquired also by burghers and peasants. It
+moreover abolished all the feudal burdens of tenure. In this great law,
+Frederick William III. laid down the principle: 'After St. Martin's day,
+1810, there will be throughout my dominions none but free people.' This
+edict first created in Prussia a _free_ peasantry. Free burghers, on the
+other hand, were created by the municipal law from Koenigsberg, November
+19, 1808, which restored to the burgesses their ancient municipal rights
+of freely electing their magistrates and deputies, and of
+self-government within their own civic sphere.... Stein tried in every
+way to secure to the burgher his independence, and to protect him
+against the despotism of the men in office. With equal energy he tried
+to develop the spirit of the people."[50] For five years most of the
+Prussian ministers labored in the same spirit. A military force was
+created, chiefly by the labors of Scharnhorst, and the limitation of the
+Prussian army by Napoleon was in great part evaded. Everything was done
+to create a people, and to have ready the moral and material means from
+which to create an army, should circumstances arise under which Prussia
+might think it safe for her to act. Hardenberg did not go so far as
+Stein would have gone, but it is probable that he acted wisely; for very
+strong measures might have brought Napoleon's hand upon him. As it was,
+the Emperor could not complain of measures that breathed the very spirit
+of the French Revolution, of which he was the impersonation and the
+champion,--or claimed to be.
+
+But all the labors of Stein, and those other Prussian patriots who acted
+with him or followed in his footsteps, would have been of no avail, had
+not Napoleon afforded them an opportunity to turn their labors to
+account. They might have elevated the people, have accumulated money,
+have massed munitions, and have drilled the entire male population to
+the business and work of war, till they should have surpassed all that
+is told of Roman discipline and efficiency; but all such exertions would
+have been utterly thrown away had the French Emperor behaved like a
+rational being, and not sought to illustrate his famous dogma, that the
+impossible has no existence, by seeking to achieve impossibilities. At
+the beginning of 1812, Napoleon was literally invincible. He was master
+of all Continental Europe, from the Atlantic to the Niemen, and from
+Cape North to Reggio. There was not a sovereign in that part of the
+world, from the kings of Sweden and Denmark to the Emperor of Austria
+and the Turkish Sultan, who did not wear crowns and wield sceptres only
+because the sometime General Bonaparte was willing they should wear and
+wield the emblems of imperial or royal power. He was at war only with
+Great Britain, and Spain, Portugal, and Sicily; and Great Britain was
+the sole enemy he was bound to respect. All the more enlightened
+Spaniards were all but ready to acknowledge the rule of his brother
+Joseph, and would have done so but for French failure in the Russian
+war. England's army could have been driven from the Peninsula with ease,
+had a third of the men who were worse than wasted in Russia been
+directed thither in the early spring of 1812. The Bourbons of Sicily
+hated their English protectors so bitterly, that they were ready to
+unite with the French to get up a modern imitation of the Sicilian
+Vespers at their expense. The war might soon have been confined to the
+ocean, and there it would have been fought for France principally by
+Americans, as the United States were soon to declare war against
+England. Never before was man so strong as Napoleon on New-Year's day,
+1812; and in less than four years he was living in lodgings, and bad
+lodgings too, in St. Helena! What hope could the Prussians have, a month
+before the march to Moscow was resolved upon? None that could encourage
+them. Some of the more sanguine spirits, supported by general sentiment,
+were still of opinion that something could be effected; but the larger
+number of intelligent men were very despondent, and not a few of them
+began to think of the world beyond the Atlantic, as English patriots had
+thought almost two centuries earlier, when, that "blood and iron man,"
+Wentworth (Strafford), was developing his system of _Thorough_ with a
+precision and an energy that even Count Bismark has never surpassed. The
+bolder Prussians, when their country had to choose between resistance to
+Napoleon and an alliance with him against Russia, were for resistance,
+and would have placed their country right across the Emperor's path, and
+fought out the battle with him, and abided the consequences, which would
+have been the annihilation of Prussia in a sixth part of the time that
+Mr. Seward allotted for the duration of the Secession war. The Prussian
+war party would have had the Russians advance into their country, and
+thus have staked the issue on just such a contest as occurred in 1806-7.
+Napoleon, it is at least believed, was desirous that Prussia should join
+Russia, as that would have enabled him to defeat his enemies without
+crossing the Russian frontier, and have afforded him an excuse for
+destroying Prussia. To prevent so untimely a display of resistance to
+French ascendency was the aim of a few Prussians, headed by the king
+himself, who became very unpopular in consequence. Fortunately for
+Prussia, they were successful, and the means employed deceived not only
+the patriotic party, but even Napoleon, who was completely imposed upon
+by the report of the Baron von dem Knesebeck against a war between
+Russia and France. The story belongs to the romance of history; but it
+is too long, because involving many facts, to be told here.
+
+Prussia was prevented from "throwing herself into the arms of Russia,"
+much to the disgust of Scharnhorst and his friends. She even assisted
+Napoleon in his war against Alexander, and sent a contingent to the
+Grand Army, which formed the tenth corps of that memorable force, and
+was commanded by Marshal Macdonald. It consisted of twenty-six thousand
+men, including one French infantry division,--the Prussians being
+generally estimated at twenty thousand men. This corps did very little
+during the campaign, and soon after the failure of the French it went
+over to the Russians, taking the first step in that course which made
+Prussia so formidable a member of the Grand Alliance of 1813-15. But
+even so late as the close of May, 1813, Prussia was in danger of
+annihilation, and would have been annihilated had not Napoleon proffered
+an armistice, which was accepted,--the greatest blunder of his career,
+according to some eminent critics, as well political as military.
+
+The leading part which Prussia had in the Liberation War and in the
+first overthrow of Napoleon caused her to be reconstructed by the
+Congress of Vienna; and her part in the war of 1815 confirmed the
+impression she had made on the world. Waterloo was as much a Prussian as
+an English victory,--the loss of the Prussians in that action being
+about as great as the purely English loss.[51] She became one of the
+Five Powers which by common consent were rulers of Europe. Down to 1830
+she had more influence than France, and from 1830 to the
+re-establishment of the Napoleonic dynasty, she was France's equal; and
+even after Napoleon III. had replaced France at the head of Europe,
+Prussia was the only member of the Pentarchy which had not been
+humiliated by his blows, or yet more by his assistance. England has
+suffered from her connection with him,--a connection difficult on many
+occasions to distinguish from inferiority and subserviency; and in war
+the old superiority of the French armies to those of Russia and Austria
+has been asserted in the Crimea and in Italy. Prussia alone has not
+stooped before the avenger of the man whom she had so vindictive a part
+in overthrowing, and whom her military chief purposed having slain on
+the very spot where the Duc d'Enghien had been put to death by his
+(Napoleon's) orders. Of all the enemies of Napoleon and France in 1815,
+Prussia was the most malignant, or rather she was the only member of the
+Alliance which exhibited malignity.[52] She would have had France
+partitioned; and failed in her design only because openly opposed by
+Russia and England, while Austria, fearing to offend German opinion,
+secretly supported the Czar and Wellington. Bluecher, an earnest man, was
+never more in earnest than when he purposed to shoot Napoleon in the
+ditch of Vincennes; and it required all Wellington's influence to
+dissuade him from so barbarous a proceeding. Yet Napoleon III. has never
+been able to avenge these injuries and insults,--to say nothing of
+Waterloo, and of the massacre of the flying French in the night after
+the battle, or of the shocking conduct of the Prussians in France in
+1815; and the events of the current year would seem to favor, and that
+strongly, the opinion of those persons who say that France never will be
+able to obtain her long-thought-of revenge. Certainly, if _Prussia_ was
+safe, Prussia with most of Germany to back her cannot be in any serious
+danger of being forced to drink of that cup of humiliation which
+Napoleon III. has commended to so many countries.
+
+After the settlement of Europe, in 1815, Prussia did not show much of
+that encroaching character which is attributed to her, but was one of
+the most quiet of nations. This was in great measure due to the
+character of the king. He was of the class of heavy men, and the first
+part of his reign had been marked by the occurrence of troubles so
+numerous and so great that his original dislike of change increased to
+fanaticism. He was one of the framers of the Holy Alliance, which grew
+out of the thorough fright which he and his friend the Czar felt during
+the saddest days of 1813. Alexander told a Prussian clergyman, named
+Egbert, in 1818, that, during one of their flights before
+Napoleon,--probably on that doleful day when they had to retreat from
+Dresden, amid wind and rain, and before the French reverse at Kulm had
+put a good face on the affairs of the Alliance,--Frederick William III.
+said to him: "Things cannot go on so! we are in the direction of the
+east, and it is toward the west that we ought to march, that we must
+march. We shall, God willing, arrive there. And if, as I trust, he
+should bless our united efforts, we will proclaim in the face of Heaven
+our conviction that to Him alone belongs the honor." Thereupon,
+continued the Czar, "We promised, and exchanged a pressure of hands upon
+it with sincerity." Both monarchs evidently thought they had succeeded
+in bribing Heaven; for Alexander told his reverend hearer that great
+victories soon came; "and," said he, "when we had arrived in Paris, we
+had reached the end of our painful course. The king of Prussia reminded
+me of the holy resolution of which he had entertained the first idea;
+and Francis II., who had shared our views, our opinions, and our
+tendencies, entered willingly into the association." Such was
+Alexander's account of the origin of that famous league which so
+perplexed and alarmed our fathers. It differs from the commonly received
+belief as to its origin, which is, that it was the work of Alexander
+himself, who was inspired by Madame de Krudener, who, having "played the
+devil and written a novel,"--she was unfaithful to her marriage vow, and
+wrote "Valerio,"--naturally became devout as old age approached. It
+makes somewhat against the Czar's story, that the Holy Alliance was not
+formed till the autumn of 1815, and that he and Frederick William
+arrived at Paris in the spring of 1814; and that in the interval he and
+Francis II. came very near going to war on the Polish question.
+Alexander was crack-brained, and a mystic, and it is far more likely
+that he should have originated the Holy Alliance than that the idea
+should have proceeded from so wooden-headed a personage as the Prussian
+king, who had about as much sentiment as a Memel log. Alexander was
+always haunted by the thought that he had consented to the death of his
+father,--that, as a Greek would have said, he was pursued by the Furies;
+and he was constantly thinking of expiation, and seeking to propitiate
+the Deity, and that by means not much different in spirit from those to
+which savages have resort. There was much of that Tartar in him which,
+according to Napoleon, you will always find when you scratch a Russian.
+
+Whether Frederick William III. suggested the Holy Alliance may be
+doubted; but there can be no doubt that he lived thoroughly up to its
+spirit, which was the spirit of intense absolutism. He broke every
+promise he had made to his people when he needed their aid to keep his
+kingdom out of the grasp of Napoleon. He became the vindictive
+persecutor of the men who had led his subjects in the war to rush to
+arms, without counting the odds they had to encounter at first. He was a
+despot of the old pattern, as far as a sovereign of the nineteenth
+century could be one. It does not appear that he acted thus from love of
+power for its own sake, to which so much of tyrannical action is due. In
+most respects he was rather a favorable specimen of the despot. His
+action was the consequence of circumstances, the effect of experience.
+He had had two or three thorough frights, and twice he had been in
+danger of losing his crown, and of seeing the extinction of that nation
+which his ancestors had been at such pains to create. If exertions of
+his could prevent the recurrence of such evils, they should not be
+wanting. As Charles II., after the Restoration of 1660, had firmly
+resolved on one thing, namely, that, come what would, he would not again
+go upon his travels, so had Frederick William III., after the
+restoration of his kingdom, firmly resolved that, happen what might, he
+would have no more wars, and that, if he could, he would keep out of
+politics. So he maintained peace, and kept down the politicians. Prussia
+flourished marvellously during the last twenty-five years of his reign;
+and, judging from results, his government could not have been a bad one.
+Under it was created that people whose recent action has astonished the
+world, and produced for it a new sensation. A comprehensive system of
+education opened the paths to knowledge to every one; and a not less
+comprehensive military system made every healthy man's services
+available to the state. There never before took the field so highly
+educated a force as that which has just reduced Count Bismark's policy
+to practice,--not even in America. There may have been as intelligent
+armies in the Union's service during our civil conflict as those which
+obeyed Prince Frederick Charles and the Crown Prince of Prussia, but as
+highly educated most certainly they were not.
+
+When Friedrich von Raumer was in England, in 1835, he, at an English
+dinner, gave this toast: "The King of Prussia, the greatest and best
+reformer in Europe." That he was the "best reformer in Europe," we will
+not insist upon,--but that he was the greatest reformer there, we have
+no doubt whatever. That he was a reformer at heart, originally, no one
+would pretend who knows his history. He was made one by stress of
+circumstances. But having become a reformer, he did a great work, as
+contemporary history shows. He would have been content to live, and
+reign, and die, sovereign of just such a Prussia as he found in 1797;
+but, in spite of himself, he was made to effect a mightier revolution
+than even a French revolutionist of 1793 would have deemed it possible
+to accomplish. His career is the liveliest illustration that we know of
+the doctrine that men are the sport of circumstances.
+
+Frederick William III. died in 1840. His son and successor, Frederick
+William IV., was a man of considerable ability and a rare scholar; but
+he was not up to his work, the more so that the age of revolutions
+appeared again early in his reign. He might have made himself master of
+all Germany in 1848, but had not the courage to act as a Prussian
+sovereign should have acted. He was elected Emperor by the revolutionary
+Diet at Frankfort, but refused the crown. A little later, under the
+inspiration of General Radowitz, he took up such a position as we have
+seen his successor fill so effectively. War with Austria seemed close at
+hand, and the unity of Germany might have been brought about sixteen
+years since had the Prussian monarch been equal to the crisis. As it
+was, he "backed down," and Radowitz, who was a too-early Bismark, left
+his place, and died at the close of 1853. The king lost his mind in
+1857; and his brother William became Regent, and succeeded to the throne
+in 1861, on the death of Frederick William IV.
+
+The reign of William I. will be regarded as one of the most remarkable
+in Prussian history. Though an old man when he took the crown, William
+I. has advanced the greatness of Prussia even more than it was advanced
+by Frederick II. His course with regard to the Danish Duchies has called
+forth many indignant remarks; but it is no worse than that of most other
+sovereigns, and stones cannot fairly be cast at him by many ruling
+hands. Count Bismark has been the chief minister of Prussia under
+William I., and to him must be attributed that policy which has carried
+his country, _per saltum_, to the highest place among the nations. He
+long since came to the conclusion that nothing could be done for
+Germany, by Germany and in Germany, till Austria should be thrust out of
+Germany. He was right; and he has labored to accomplish the dismissal of
+Austria, with a perseverance and a persistency that it would be
+difficult to parallel. He alone has done the deed. Had he died last May,
+there would have been no war in Europe this year; for nothing less than
+his redoubtable courage and iron will could have overcome the obstacles
+that existed to the commencement of the conflict.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[45] Exactly what it was Napoleon III. asked of Prussia we never have
+seen stated by any authority that we can quite trust. The London Times,
+which is likely to be well informed on the subject, assumes, in its
+issue of August 11th, that the Emperor asked of Prussia the restoration
+of the French frontier of 1814,--meaning the French frontier as it was
+fixed by the Treaty of Paris, on the 30th of May, immediately after the
+fall of Napoleon I. If this is the correct interpretation of Napoleon's
+demand, he asked for very little. The Treaty of Paris took from France
+nearly all the conquests made by the Republic and the Empire, leaving
+her only a few places on the side of Germany, a little territory near
+Geneva, portions of Savoy, and the Venaissin. After the second conquest
+of France, most of these remnants of her conquests were taken from her.
+Napoleon III. has regained what was then lost of Savoy, and he seems to
+have sought from Prussia the restoration of that which was lost on the
+side of Germany, most of which was given to Bavaria and Belgium, and the
+remainder to Prussia herself. What Prussia holds, he supposed she could
+cede to France; and as to Bavaria, he may have argued that Prussia was
+in such position with regard to that kingdom as to make her will law to
+its government. But how could she get possession of what Belgium holds?
+Since the failure of his attempt, the French Emperor has been at
+peculiar pains to assure the King of the Belgians that he has no designs
+on his territory; and therefore we must suppose he had none when he
+propounded his demand to Prussia. It may be added, that the cession of
+the Prussian portion of the spoil of 1815 had been a subject of
+speculation, and of something like negotiation, long before war between
+Prussia and Austria was supposed to be possible.
+
+[46] There has been as much noise made over the needle-gun as by that
+famous and fascinating slaughter weapon; yet it is by no means an arm of
+tender years. It had been known thirty years when the recent war began,
+and it had been amply tested in action seventeen years before it was
+first directed against the Austrians, not to mention the free use that
+had been made of it in the Danish war. Much that has been said of its
+character and capabilities since last June was said in 1849, and can be
+found in publications of that year. The world had forgotten it, and also
+that Prussia could fight. Nicholas von Dreyse, inventor of the
+needle-gun, is now living, at the age of seventy-eight. The thought of
+the invention occurred to him the day after the battle of Jena, in 1806.
+Some six or seven years since, we read, in an English work, an elaborate
+argument to show that, in a great war, Prussia must be beaten, because
+she had no experienced commanders!--like Benedek and Clam-Gallas, for
+example.
+
+[47] The entire force of the Allies at Leipzig is generally stated to
+have been 290,000 men; that of the French at 175,000,--making a total of
+465,000, or about 45,000 more than were present at Sadowa. So the excess
+at Leipzig was not so very great. At Leipzig the Allies alone had more
+guns than both armies had at Sadowa,--but what were the cannon of those
+days compared to those of these times? The great force assembled in and
+around Leipzig was taken from almost all Europe, as there were
+Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Italians, Poles,
+Swedes, Dutchmen, and even Englishmen, present in the two armies;
+whereas at Sadowa the armies were drawn only from Austria, Prussia, and
+Saxony. The battle of Sadowa lasted only one day; that of Leipzig four
+days, a large part of the Allied armies taking part only in the fighting
+of the third and fourth days. The French lost 68,000 men at Leipzig, the
+Allies, 42,640,--total, 110,640. But 30,000 of the French were
+prisoners, reducing the number of killed and wounded to 80,640,--which
+was even a good four days' work. Probably a third of these were killed
+or mortally wounded, as artillery was freely used in the battle. War is
+a great manufacturer of _pabulum Acheruntis_,--grave-meat, that is to
+say.
+
+[48] It is impossible to speak with precision of the number of the
+population of Prussia. The highest number mentioned by a respectable
+authority is 19,000,000; but that is given in "round numbers," and is
+not meant to be taken literally. But if it be 19,000,000, but little
+more than half as large as that of Austria as it was when the war began,
+not much above a fourth as large as that of Russia, many millions below
+that of the British Islands, a few million less than that of Italy as it
+stood before the cession of Venetia by Austria, and a few millions more
+than that of Spain. The populations of Prussia and Italy when the war
+began were a little above 40,000,000. The populations of Austria and the
+German states that sided with her may have been about 50,000,000; and
+Austria had as much assistance from her German allies as Prussia had
+from the Italians,--the Saxons helping her much, showing the highest
+military qualities in the brief but bloody war. Had all the lesser
+German states preserved a strict neutrality, so that the entire Prussian
+force could have been directed against Austria, the Prussians would have
+been before Vienna, and probably in that city, in ten days from the date
+of Sadowa. Prussia brought out 730,000 men, or about one twenty-sixth
+part of her entire population.
+
+[49] Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, and History of Prussia during
+the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Vol. I. pp. 91, 92.
+
+[50] Stein was one of those eminent men who have acted as if they
+thought coarseness bordering upon brutality an evidence of independence
+of spirit and greatness of soul. He was uncivil to those beneath him,
+not civil to those above him, and insulting to his equals. He addressed
+the King of Prussia in language that no gentleman ever employs, and he
+berated his underlings in a style that even President Johnson might
+despair of equalling. He hated the Duke of Dalberg, on both public and
+private accounts; and when the Duke was one of the French Ambassadors at
+Vienna, in time of the Congress, he offered to call on the Baron. "Tell
+him," said Stein, "that, if he visits me as French Ambassador, he shall
+be well received; but if he comes as a private person, he shall be
+kicked down stairs." Niebuhr, the historian, once told him that he
+(Stein) hated a certain personage. "Hate him? No," said Stein; "but I
+would spit in his face were I to meet him on the street." This readiness
+to convert the human face into a spittoon shows that he was qualified to
+represent a Southern district in our Congress; for what Stein said he
+would do was done by Mr. Plummer of Mississippi, who spat in the face of
+Mr. Slade of Vermont,--the American democrat, who probably never had
+heard of his grandfather, getting a little beyond the German aristocrat,
+who could trace his ancestors back through six or seven centuries. Thus
+do extremes meet. In talents, in energy, in audacity, in arrogance, in
+firmness of will, and in unbending devotion to one great and leading
+purpose, Count von Bismark bears a strong resemblance to Baron von
+Stein, upon whom he seems to have modelled himself,--while Austrian
+ascendency in Germany was to him what French ascendency in that country
+was to his prototype, only not so productive of furious hatred, because
+the supremacy of Austria was offensive politically, and not personally
+annoying, like that of France; but Bismark, though sufficiently
+demonstrative in the expression of his sentiments, has never outraged
+propriety to the extent that it was outraged by Stein. Stein died in
+1831, having lived long enough to see the in French Revolution of 1830
+that a portion of his work had been done in vain. His Prussian work will
+endure forever, and be felt throughout the world.
+
+[51] The Prussian loss in the battle of Waterloo was 6,998; the
+_British_ loss, 6,935;--but this does not include the Germans, Dutch,
+and Belgians who fell on the field or were put down among the missing.
+Wellington's total loss was about 16,000. The number of Prussians
+present in the battle was much more than twice the number of Britons.
+The number of the latter was 23,991, with 78 guns; of the former,
+51,944, with 104 guns. Almost 16,000 of the Prussians were engaged some
+hours before the event of the battle was decided; almost 30,000 two
+hours before that decision; and the remainder an hour before the Allied
+victory was secured. It shows how seriously the French were damaged by
+Prussian intervention, that Napoleon had to detach, from the army that
+he had intended to employ against Wellington only, 27 battalions of
+infantry (including 11 battalions of the Guard), 18 squadrons of
+cavalry, and 66 guns, making a total of about 18,000 men, or about a
+fourth part of his force and almost a third of his artillery. This
+subtraction from the army that ought to have been used in fighting
+Wellington would alone have suffered gravely to compromise the French;
+and it is well known that Napoleon felt the want of men to send against
+the English long before the conflict was over; and this want was the
+consequence of the pressure of the Prussians on his right flank,
+threatening to establish themselves in his rear. But this was not all
+the aid derived by Wellington from the Prussian advance. It was the
+arrival of a portion of Zieten's corps on the field of Waterloo that
+enabled the British commander to withdraw from his left the
+comparatively untouched cavalry brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur, and to
+station them in or near the centre of his line, where they were of the
+greatest use at the very "crisis" of the battle,--Vivian, in particular,
+doing as much as was done by any one of Wellington's officers to secure
+victory for his commander. The Prussians followed the flying French for
+hours, and had the satisfaction of giving the final blow to Napoleonism
+for that time. It has risen again.
+
+[52] No one who is not familiar with the correspondence of the Allied
+commanders in 1815 can form an adequate idea of the ferocity which then
+characterized the Prussian officers. On the 27th of June General von
+Gneisenau, writing for Bluecher, declared that Napoleon must be delivered
+over to the Prussians, "with a view to his execution." That, he argued,
+was what eternal justice demanded, and what the Declaration of March
+13th decided,--alluding to the Declaration against Napoleon published by
+the Congress of Vienna, which, he said, and fairly enough too, put him
+under outlawry by the Allied powers. Doing the Duke of Wellington the
+justice to suppose he would be averse to hangman's work, Gneisenau, who
+stood next to Bluecher in the Prussian service as well as in Prussian
+estimation, expressed his leader's readiness to free him from all
+responsibility in the matter by taking possession of Napoleon's person
+himself, and detailing the intended assassins from his own army.
+Wellington was astonished at such language from gentlemen, and so
+exerted himself that Bluecher changed his mind; whereupon Gneisenau wrote
+that it had been Bluecher's "intention to execute [murder?] Bonaparte on
+the spot where the Duc d'Enghien was shot; that out of deference,
+however, to the Duke's wishes, he will abstain from this measure; but
+that the Duke must take on himself the responsibility of its
+non-enforcement." In another letter he wrote: "When the Duke of
+Wellington declares himself against the execution of Bonaparte, he
+thinks and acts in the matter as a Briton. Great Britain is under
+weightier obligations to no mortal man than to this very villain; for,
+by the occurrences whereof he is the author, her greatness, prosperity,
+and wealth have attained their present elevation. The English are the
+masters of the seas, and have no longer to fear any rivalry, either in
+this dominion or the commerce of the world. It is quite otherwise with
+us Prussians. We have been impoverished by him. Our nobility will never
+be able to right itself again." There is much of the _perfide Albion_
+nonsense in this. In a letter which Gneisenau, in 1817, wrote to Sir
+Hudson Lowe, then Governor of St. Helena, he said: "Mille et mille fois
+j'ai porte mes souvenirs dans cette vaste solitude de l'ocean, et sur ce
+rocher interessant sur lequel vous etes le gardien du repos public de
+l'Europe. De votre vigilance et de votre force de caractere depend notre
+salut; des que vous vous relachez de vos mesures de rigueur contre _le
+plus ruse scelerat du monde_, des que vous permettriez a vos subalternes
+de lui accorder par une pitie mal entendue des faveurs, notre repos
+serait compromis, et les honnetes gens en Europe s'abandonneraient a
+leurs anciennes inquietudes." An amusing instance of his prejudice
+occurs in another part of the same letter, where he says: "Le fameux
+manuscrit de Ste. Helene a fait une sensation scandaleuse et dangereuse
+en Europe, surtout en France, ou, quoiqu'il ait ete supprime, il a ete
+lu dans toutes les coteries de Paris, et ou meme les femmes, au lieu
+nuits a le copier." Gneisenau was in this country in his youth,--one of
+those Hessians who were bought by George III. to murder Americans who
+would not submit to his crazy tyranny. That was an excellent school in
+which to learn the creed of assassins; for there was not a Hessian in
+the British service who was not as much a bravo as any ruffian in Italy
+who ever sold his stiletto's service to some cowardly vengeance-seeker.
+It ought, in justice, to be added, that Sir Walter Scott states that in
+1816 "there existed a considerable party in Britain who were of opinion
+that the British government would best have discharged their duty to
+France and Europe by delivering up Napoleon to Louis XVIII.'s
+government, to be treated as he himself had treated the Duc d'Enghien."
+So that the Continent did not monopolize the assassins of that time.
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG SPARROW.
+
+
+    Can you hear the sparrow in the lane
+      Singing above the graves? she said.
+    He knows my gladness, he knows my pain,
+      Though spring be over and summer be dead.
+
+    His note hath a chime all cannot hear,
+      And none can love him better than I;
+    For he sings to me when the land is drear,
+      And makes it cheerful even to die.
+
+    'T is beautiful on this odorous morn,
+      When grasses are waving in every wind,
+    To know my bird is not forlorn,
+      That summer to him is also kind;--
+
+    But sweeter, when grasses no longer stir,
+      And every lilac-leaf is shed,
+    To know that my voiceful worshipper
+      Is singing above my voiceless dead.
+
+
+
+
+INVALIDISM.
+
+
+One of the first tendencies of sickness is to centralization. Every
+invalid at least begins by being pivotal in the household. But with the
+earliest hint that the case is chronic, things recoil to their own
+centres again; people begin to come and go in the gayest way; they laugh
+and eat immensely, and fly through the halls asking if one couldn't take
+a bit of stuffed veal. And while one still sinks lower, failing down to
+the verge of the grave, it is only to hear of the most cherished friends
+in another town leading the whirl with tableaux and private theatricals.
+Finally is realized the dire _denouement_, that, though one lay with
+breath flickering away, the daily grocer would come driving up without
+any velvet on his wheels or any softness in his voice, and that the
+whole routine of affairs is to proceed, whoever goes or stays. This
+cold-heartedness it seems will kill one at any rate. Rather the universe
+should sigh and be darkened. To pass unheeded is worse than to die. Just
+now it is impossible to compass even the satirical mood of Pope, who
+declared himself not at all uneasy that many men for whom he never had
+any esteem were likely to enjoy the world after him. But before one has
+time to die, the absent friends write such a kind, sorry letter, in
+which they do not say anything about private theatricals, and, as Thad
+Stevens said of that speech, one knows of course that it was all a hoax!
+Then the people who eat stuffed veal repent themselves, and send in a
+delicate broth or a bit of tenderloin, hovering softly in a sudden
+regard, and at length a healthier thought is born. It is to arise with
+desperate will, put a fresh rose in the bonnet and a delusive veil over
+the face, creeping down to the street with what steadiness can be
+summoned. There one meets friends, and is pretty well, with thanks, and
+is congratulated. Affairs grow brilliant, but the veil never comes up;
+underneath there is some one forty years old and an invalid. Having thus
+moved against the enemy's works, it is best to retire upon what spirit
+there is left. It is after this sally that, when the landlady hears a
+hammering of a Sunday, she comes directly to the room of this robust
+person, who is obliged to confess that, even if so inclined, she has not
+strength enough to break the Sabbath.
+
+But the anxiety of every one to show some friendliness to a sufferer is
+only equalled by the usual inability. We all read of that Union soldier
+in the hospital visited by an elderly woman bound to do something when
+there was nothing to be done, and who finally succeeded in bathing the
+patient's face, while he, poor fellow, still struggling in the folds of
+the towel, was heard to exclaim, "That's the fourteenth time I've had my
+face washed to-day!"
+
+Far more unobtrusive is the benevolence which goes into one's kitchen,
+sending thence to the sick-room those dainties which, after all, are so
+much too good to be eaten. It seems to be taken for granted that sick
+persons eat a great deal, and that most of them might share the
+experiment of Matthews, who began the diary of an invalid and ended with
+that of a gourmand. I fear that these kindly geniuses would sometimes
+feel a twinge of chagrin at seeing their elaborate delicacies in process
+of being devoured by the most rubicund people in the house. But it
+matters not; it is the sending and getting that are the dainties. Amid
+all these niceties, however, the office of nurse might certainly be made
+a sinecure; and just at this point her labors are really quite arduous;
+for any invalid blessed with many favoring friends soon would sink under
+the care of crockery and baskets to be properly delivered, while to
+attend to the accompanying napkins is little less than to preside over a
+small laundry. And then, as every one tastefully sends her choicest
+wares to enhance their contents, the invalid also finds that she is the
+keeper of all the best dishes of the best families.
+
+There is nothing like a well-fought resistance in the early stages of
+invalidism. Keep up the will, and if need be the temper. There are times
+when to grow heavenly is fatal,--when one is to let the soul run loose,
+and to gather up the gritty determination of Sarah, Duchess of
+Marlborough, who, when told that she must be blistered or die,
+exclaimed, "I won't be blistered, and I won't die!" Indeed, it is often
+necessary to reverse the decision of the doctor who gives one up, and
+simply end by giving him up. The numbers are untold who have died solely
+from being given up,--I do not mean of the doctors. Poor, timid mortals!
+they only heard the words, and meekly folded their hands and went. On
+the other side, there is no end to the people who have been given up all
+through their lives, and who have utterly refused to depart. They have a
+kind of useless toughness which prevents them from dying, without
+endowing them to live. These animated relics often show no special
+fitness for either world, and they are not even ornamental.
+
+I have somewhere seen the invalid enjoined to talk as if well, but treat
+himself as if ill. And to certain temperaments a little of this
+diplomacy, or secretiveness, is often very important. Once an admitted
+invalid, and the dikes are down. Then begin to pour in all sorts of
+worthy, but alarming and indiscreet persons,--they who accost one in the
+street declaring one is so changed, and doesn't look fit to be
+out,--they who invidiously inquire if you take any solid food, as if one
+walked the world on water-gruel,--they who come to try to make you
+comfortable while you _do_ live. All these are very kind, but to a
+sanguine person they are crushing.
+
+We are all aware that there is no surer way to produce a given state of
+mind or body, than to constantly address the victim as if he were in
+that state. It is a familiar fact that a stout yeoman once went home
+pale and discomfited from a little conspiracy of several wags remarking
+how very ill he looked; and that another, who was blindfolded, having
+water poured over his arm as if being bled, finally died from loss of
+blood without losing a drop; and Sir Humphrey Davy mentions one wishing
+to take nitrous oxide gas, to whom common atmospheric air was given,
+with the result of syncope. And if the well can be thus wrought on, what
+can be expected of the weak? This habit of depressing remark comes
+possibly from the feeling that invalids like to magnify their woes,
+ailments being regarded as their "sensation," or stock in trade. True,
+there is now and then one made happier by hearing that he seems
+exceedingly miserable; but it is more natural to brighten with pleasant
+words, and a morning compliment of good looks will often set one up for
+the day. Indeed, we fancy that most persons, knowing their disease, in
+their own minds, prefer that it should chiefly rest there. To discuss
+seems only to define it more sharply, and to be greatly condoled is only
+debilitating. Montaigne, to avoid death-bed sympathies, desired to die
+on horseback; while against the eternal repeating of these ills for
+pity, he says that "the man who makes himself dead when living is likely
+to be held as though alive when he is dying."
+
+Likewise the friendliness which keeps reminding one of the fatal end
+serves none. It is both impolitic and impolite; as if there were an
+unsightly mole upon the face, and every visitor remarked, as he entered,
+"Ah, I see you still have that ugly mole!" With all these comforters it
+is finally better to do without their devotions than to be subjected to
+their discouragements. How much Pope resented this rude style of
+criticism may be seen from his tart exclamation, "They all say 't is
+pity I am so sickly, and I think 't is pity they are so healthy."
+
+Yet that incurable sufferer, Harriet Martineau, testifies that when a
+friend said to her, with the face of an angel, "Why should we be bent
+upon your being better, and make up a bright prospect for you? I see no
+brightness in it; and the time seems past for expecting you ever to be
+well,"--her spirits rose at once with the sturdy recognition of the
+truth. And Dr. Henry, with the same directness, wrote to his friend,
+"Come out to me next week; I have got something important to do,--I have
+got to die."
+
+This must surely be called the heroic treatment; but for those who are
+not equal to such, it is good to have a physician of tact, who shall not
+doom them regularly every day. Plato said that physicians were the only
+men who might lie at pleasure, since our health depends upon the vanity
+and falsity of their promises. And yet one is not usually deceived by
+this flattery; but it is vastly more comfortable to hear pleasant things
+instead of gloomy, and the sick would rather prefer a dance to a dirge.
+Of this amiable sort must have been the attendant who caused Pope to
+say, "Ah, my dear friend, I am dying every day of a hundred good
+symptoms"; and still more charming the adviser chosen by Moliere, who,
+when asked by Louis XIV., himself a slave to medicine, what he did about
+a doctor, said, "O sire, when I am ill, I send for him. He comes; we
+have a chat and enjoy ourselves. He prescribes; I don't take it,--I am
+cured."
+
+Perhaps few are aware of the various heroisms of the chronic patient. It
+must have been prophetic that the Mexicans of olden time thus saluted
+their new-born babes: "Child, thou art come into the world to endure,
+suffer, and say nothing." It is grand to be upborne by a spirit
+unperturbed, although flesh and nerve may strike through the best soul
+for a moment; even as the great and equable Longinus, on his way to
+execution, is said to have turned pale and halted for an instant; while
+we all know, that, after the Stuart rebellion, the rough old Duke
+Balmoral, a lesser man, never faltered, but, with boisterous courage,
+cried out for the fatal axe to be carried by his side.
+
+We had been used to think Andrew Jackson an iron-built conqueror, who
+never knew a pain, until Parton told of the violent cramp which would
+seize him while marching at the head of his army, when he simply threw
+himself over a bent sapling in the forest till the spasm subsided, and
+marched on. The same endurance nerved him to the end. For many of his
+last years not free for one hour from pain, he still sat at the White
+House, never intermitting any duty, although the mere signing of his
+name drew its witness of suffering from every pore. It is with sorrow,
+too, that we have lately read that the beloved Florence Nightingale has
+been held by disease, not only to her room, but to a single position in
+it, for a whole year. And one of our own poets, even dearer to his
+friends for the sainthood of suffering, still ever is pressing on with
+tuneful courage. Hear him singing,
+
+    "Who hath not learned in hours of faith
+    The truth, to flesh and sense unknown,
+    That Life is ever lord of Death,
+    And Love can never lose its own?"
+
+Named among the valiant, yet more sad than heroic, was poor Heine on his
+"mattress-grave." Most pathetically did he lay himself down, this
+"soldier in the war for the liberation of humanity." Of the last time
+that Heine left the house before yielding to disease, he says: "With
+difficulty I dragged myself to the Louvre, and almost sank down as I
+entered the magnificent hall where the ever-blessed goddess of beauty,
+our beloved Lady of Milo, stands on her pedestal. At her feet I lay
+long, and wept so bitterly that a stone must have pitied me. The goddess
+looked compassionately on me, but at the same time disconsolately, as if
+she would say, 'Dost thou not see that I have no arms, and thus cannot
+help thee?'"
+
+Not less touching was the pathos of Tom Hood, in his long years of
+consumption; but the tone was gayer than the gayest. See him write to a
+friend: "My dear Johnny, aren't you glad to hear now that I've only been
+ill and spitting blood three times since I left you, instead of being
+very dead indeed?" To this he adds: "But wasn't I in luck, after
+spitting blood and being bled, to catch the rheumatism in going down
+stairs!"
+
+One long struggle was his against prostration and over-work; but always
+the same buoyant wit,--writing the cheeriest things with an ebbing life;
+the hero fighting against fatal odds, but always under a light
+mask,--and ridiculing himself most of all;--
+
+    "I'm sick of gruel and the dietetics;
+    I'm sick of pills and sicker of emetics;
+    I'm sick of pulse's tardiness or quickness;
+    I'm sick of blood, its thinness or its thickness;
+    In short, within a word, I'm sick of sickness."
+
+And others there be, not heroes, who yet have simulated heroism in their
+blithe indifference to fate;--Lord Buckhurst, who is said to have
+"stuttered more wit in dying than most people have in their best
+health"; Wycherley, who took a young bride just before death, and was
+"neither afraid of dying nor ashamed of marrying"; Chesterfield, who in
+his last days, when going out for a London drive, used smilingly to say,
+"I must go and rehearse my funeral"; Pope, who was the victim of
+incessant disease, which yet never subdued his rhetoric; Scarron, a
+paralytic and a monstrosity, the merriest man in France, for whom the
+nation never gave any tears but those of laughter;--all these, down to
+the easy-minded old Dr. Garth, who died simply because he was tired of
+life,--"tired of having his shoes pulled on and off."
+
+Strong persons go swinging securely up and down; they are the people of
+affairs, their nerves are not shaken by anything less than cholera
+reports; saving these, they should belong to the Great Unterrified of
+the earth. To them it is hardly given to understand those minute
+annoyances that beset nerves which are in an abnormal state, especially
+when one is the prisoner of a single room. Then one is eternally busy
+with the dust and small disorders around,--the film on the mirror, the
+lint-drifts under the stove, the huge cobwebs flying from the corners,
+the knickknacks awry on the mantel-piece; then one finds the wall-paper
+is not hung true, and gazes at flaws in the ceiling till they grow into
+dancing-jacks, and hears the doors that slam, like the shock of a
+cannon. These are torments so minute that there seems no virtue even in
+bearing them. Ah! to mount to execution for an idea,--that were glorious
+and sustaining; but to endure the daily burden of these petty
+tortures,--one never hears the music play then.
+
+Among the articles to be desired of science is a false hand, or a
+spectral arm, that shall reach miraculously about,--not a fruit-picker
+or a carpet-sweeper, but something working with the fineness of an
+elephant's trunk,--thus to end the discomfort of those orange-seeds
+spilled on the far side of the room, while, lying inactive, one reaches,
+reaches, with a patient power which, if transformed into the practical,
+would push an army through Austria.
+
+Another thing that the invalid has to endure is from the thoughtlessness
+of visitors. How often, when summoned from the sick-room for any
+purpose, do they briskly remark, in Tom Thumb style, "I'll be back in a
+very few minutes!" Hence one lies awake by force, keeping several
+errands to be despatched on the return, changing variously all the
+little plans for the next hour or two, and waits. My experience
+generally is that they have not come back yet.
+
+But the commonest experience is when life itself seems to hang on the
+arrival of the doctor. Indeed, it is safe to say that never have lovers
+been so waited for as the doctor. Wasn't that his carriage at the door?
+Medicine is out! new symptoms appear! it is only an hour to bedtime!
+and, oh! will the doctor come, do you think? One listens more intently;
+but now there are no carriages. There are express-wagons, late
+ice-carts, out-of-town stages, or here and there a light rolling buggy,
+that seems running on to the end of the world. There are but few
+foot-passengers either, and they all go by without halting, and there is
+no indication in the steps of any man of them that he would be the
+doctor if he could. Thus one wears through the night uncomforted, yet
+one does not usually die. I have also seen the doctors sitting in their
+offices expectant, and probably quite as much distressed that everyone
+went by without stopping. So the balances are kept.
+
+The foregoing grievances are often put among the foolish humors of
+invalids, but they are quite reasonable compared with many of the droll
+fancies on record. Take the instance of the elderly man who had been
+dying suddenly for twenty years; whose last moments would probably
+amount to a calendar month, and his farewell words to an octavo volume.
+His physician he pronounced a clever man, but added, pitifully, "I only
+wish he would agree to my going suddenly; I should not die a bit sooner
+for his giving me over." It is evident the physician had not the
+shrewdest insight, or he would have granted this heady maniac his way.
+"Ah!" would exclaim the constantly departing patient, "all one's
+nourishment goes for nothing if once sudden death has got insidiously
+into the system!" More famous were Johnson with his inevitable dried
+orange-peel, and Byron with his salts. Goethe, too, after renouncing his
+Lotte, coquetted with the idea of death, every night placing a very
+handsome dagger by his bed and making sundry attempts to push the point
+a couple of inches into his breast. Not being able to do this
+comfortably, he concluded to live. Years after, when he sat assured on
+his grand poet throne, he must have smiled at it, as with Karl August he
+"talked of lovely things that conquer death." And still more refined and
+genuine was the vapor of the imaginative young girl who died of love for
+the Apollo Belvedere.
+
+Yet it is but fair to mention that the laugh is not all on this side. It
+is an historical fact that the public has its medical freaks, without
+being called an invalid, and that whole nations "go daft" on the
+shallowest impositions. At one time the English were made to believe
+that all diseases were caused by the contraction of one small muscle of
+the body; at another, Parliament itself helped make up the five thousand
+pounds given by the aristocracy to one Joanna Stephens for an omnipotent
+powder, decoction, and pills, composed chiefly of egg-shells and
+snail-shells; at another time every one drank snail-water for
+everything, or to prevent it, and then tar-water became the rage. In
+Paris the Royal Academy once procured the prohibition of the sale of
+antimony, on penalty of death, and in a year or two prescribed it as the
+great panacea. Pliny reports that the Arcadians cured all manner of ills
+with the milk of a cow (one would like to see them manage the bilious
+colic).
+
+Mesmer, who was luminous for a while, did not fail to dupe the people.
+When asked why he ordered bathing in river instead of spring water, he
+said, "Because it is warmed by the sun."
+
+"True, yet not so much but it has to be warmed still more."
+
+Not posed in the least, Mesmer replied, "The reason why the water which
+is exposed to the rays of the sun is superior to all other water is
+because it is magnetized. I myself magnetized the sun some twenty years
+ago!"
+
+Yet the name of Mesmer has founded a system, while that of Dumoulin,
+who, with simple wisdom, observed, on dying, that he left behind him two
+great physicians, Regimen and River-water, has gained but a scanty fame.
+
+Says Boswell, "At least be well if you are not ill"; but the dear public
+is always ill. In our own country, with an apparently healthy pulse, it
+has drank the worth of a marble palace in sarsaparilla, and has built a
+hotel out of Brandreth's pills. It has fairly reeled on Schiedam
+Schnapps; and even the infant has his little popularities, having passed
+from catnip and caraway to Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup. There is never
+a time when the public will not declare upon any well-advertised remedy
+its belief in the motto of the German doctors, "We do cure everything
+but death."
+
+It is often interesting to note the various phases which invalidism
+takes on. Sometimes one seems folded in a dense dream,--has gone away
+almost beyond one's own pity, and has not been heard from for months. It
+is to be hoped that friends who hunt "the greyhound and turtle-dove"
+will meet the missing, and duly report. Meantime one resides in a
+mummified state,--a dim thinkingness that may be discovered when another
+coming in says with vigor the thing one had long thought without quite
+knowing it; in this demi-semi-consciousness it had never pecked through
+the shell. This looks very imbecile, and is charitably treated to be
+only called invalid.
+
+Is it mere helplessness that one lies so remote from all but surface
+sensation, day after day gazing at the address of letters that come,
+with a passive wonder of how soon she is to vacate her name? Also a
+friend calls to say that to-morrow he travels afar. It seems then that
+he will be too much missed, and the parting has its share of unutterable
+longing. But by the morrow it is not the one left who is sorry. The new
+sun shines on an earth miles off from yesterday. The night has given
+many windings more in the folds of this resigned mummy, that now lies
+securely as an insect in a leaf. Given the beloved hand, and all things
+may go as they will.
+
+    "Our hands in one, we will not shrink
+      From life's severest due;
+    Our hands in one, we will not blink
+      The terrible and true."
+
+And sometimes one bounds to the other side of sensation,--has a terrible
+rubbed-the-wrong-wayedness, and is as much alive as Mimosa herself. This
+is often on those easterly days which all well-regulated invalids
+shudder at, when the very marrow congeals and the nerves are
+sharp-whetted. Then, Prometheus-like, one "gnaws the heart with
+meditation"; then, too, always fall out various domestic disasters, and
+it is not easy to see why the curtain-string should be tied in a hard
+knot that must be cut at night, or why the servants can't be thorough,
+deft-handed, and immaculate. One has indigestion, scowls fiercely, tries
+to swallow large lumps of inamiability, and fears she is not sublime.
+
+It is a saying of Jean Paul, that "the most painful part of corporeal
+pain is the uncorporeal, namely, our impatience and disappointment that
+it continues." Whether this be true or not, what with the worry and
+constant pressure, these physical disabilities often appear to sink into
+the deepest centre of the being. Hence, if one have had a cough for a
+very long time, it would seem that the soul must keep on coughing in the
+next world. If so, this gives a subtile sense to the despatches of
+departed spiritualists, who telegraph back in a few weeks that their
+pain is _nearly_ gone,--as if the soul were not immediately rid of the
+bad habits of the body.
+
+But most demoralized in aesthetic sense must be that invalid who does not
+constantly look to the splendid robustness of health. Sickness has been
+termed an early old age; far worse, it is often a tossing nightmare in
+which the noble ideal of fairer days is only recalled with reproachful
+pain. Towards this vision of vigor the victim seems to move and move,
+but never draw near. Well might Heine weep, even before the stricken
+Lady of Milo. An old proverb says, that "the gods have health in
+essence, sickness only in intelligence." Blessed are the gods! One can
+quite understand the reckless exulting of some wild character, who,
+baffled with this miserable mendicancy everywhere, at length discovered
+the idea that God was not an invalid. He was probably too much excited
+to perfect his rhyme, and so tore out these ragged lines:--
+
+      "Iterate, iterate,
+    Snatch it from the hells,
+    Circulate and meditate
+      That God is well.
+
+      "Get the singers to sing it,
+    Put it in the mouths of bells,
+    Pay the ringers to ring it,
+      That God is well."
+
+Therefore make a valiant stand against that ugly thing, disease. By all
+Nature's remedies, hasten to be out of it. Fight it off as long as
+possible, defy it when you can, and refuse "to hang up your hat on the
+everlasting peg." Be reinforced in all honorable ways. If not too ill,
+read the dailies; know the last measure of Congress, the price of gold,
+and the news by the foreign steamer. Disabuse the world for once of its
+traditional invalid, who sits mewed up in blankets, and never goes where
+other people go, because it might hurt him. Be out among the activities;
+don't let the world get ahead, but keep along with the life of things.
+Then, if invalidism is to be accepted, meet it bravely and serenely as
+may be; and if death, then approach it loftily, for no one dies with his
+work undone, and no just-minded person can wish to survive his service.
+None should aspire to say, with the antiquated Chesterfield, "Tyrawley
+and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it
+known."
+
+But happy they on whom the deep blight has not fallen, and who day by
+day restore themselves to the grand perfection of manly and womanly
+estate; happy again to "feel one's self alive" and
+
+    "Lord of the senses five";
+
+happy again to "excel in animation and relish of existence"; happy to
+have gathered so much strength and hope, that, when begins the melody of
+the morning birds, again shall the joy of the new dawn, with all the
+possible adventure and enterprise of the coming day, thrill through the
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+"Be seated, mistress, if you please," said Mrs. Gaunt, with icy
+civility, "and let me know to what I owe this extraordinary visit."
+
+"I thank you, dame," said Mercy, "for indeed I am sore fatigued." She
+sat quietly down. "Why I have come to you? It was to serve you, and to
+keep my word with George Neville."
+
+"Will you be kind enough to explain?" said Mrs. Gaunt, in a freezing
+tone, and with a look of her calm gray eye to match.
+
+Mercy felt chilled, and was too frank to disguise it. "Alas!" said she,
+softly, "'t is hard to be received so, and me come all the way from
+Lancashire, with a heart like lead, to do my duty, God willing."
+
+The tears stood in her eyes, and her mellow voice was sweet and patient.
+
+The gentle remonstrance was not quite without effect. Mrs. Gaunt colored
+a little; she said, stiffly: "Excuse me if I seem discourteous, but you
+and I ought not to be in one room a moment. You do not see this,
+apparently. But at least I have a right to insist that such an interview
+shall be very brief, and to the purpose. Oblige me, then, by telling me
+in plain terms why you have come hither."
+
+"Madam, to be your witness at the trial."
+
+"_You_ to be _my_ witness?"
+
+"Why not? If I can clear you? What, would you rather be condemned for
+murder, than let me show them you are innocent? Alas! how you hate me!"
+
+"Hate you, child? of course I hate you. We are both of us flesh and
+blood, and hate one another. And one of us is honest enough, and uncivil
+enough, to say so."
+
+"Speak for yourself, dame," replied Mercy, quietly, "for I hate you not;
+and I thank God for it. To hate is to be miserable. I'd liever be hated
+than to hate."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt looked at her. "Your words are goodly and wise," said she;
+"your face is honest, and your eyes are like a very dove's. But, for all
+that, you hate me quietly, with all your heart. Human nature is human
+nature."
+
+"'T is so. But grace is grace." She was silent a moment, then resumed:
+"I'll not deny I did hate you for a time, when first I learned the man I
+had married had a wife, and you were she. We that be women are too
+unjust to each other, and too indulgent to a man. But I have worn out my
+hate. I wrestled in prayer, and the God of Love, he did quench my most
+unreasonable hate. For 'twas the man betrayed me; _you_ never wronged
+me, nor I you. But you are right, madam; 't is true that nature without
+grace is black as pitch. The Devil, he was busy at my ear, and whispered
+me, 'If the fools in Cumberland hang her, what fault o' thine? Thou wilt
+be his lawful wife, and thy poor, innocent child will be a child of
+shame no more.' But, by God's grace, I did defy him. And I do defy him."
+She rose swiftly from her chair, and her dove's eyes gleamed with
+celestial light. "Get thee behind me, Satan. I tell thee the hangman
+shall never have her innocent body, nor thou my soul."
+
+The movement was so unexpected, the words and the look so simply noble,
+that Mrs. Gaunt rose too, and gazed upon her visitor with astonishment
+and respect; yet still with a dash of doubt.
+
+She thought to herself, "If this creature is not sincere, what a
+mistress of deceit she must be."
+
+But Mercy Vint soon returned to her quiet self. She sat down, and said,
+gravely, and for the first time a little coldly, as one who had deserved
+well, and been received ill: "Mistress Gaunt, you are accused of
+murdering your husband. 'T is false; for two days ago I saw him alive."
+
+"What do you say?" cried Mrs. Gaunt, trembling all over.
+
+"Be brave, madam. You have borne great trouble: do not give way under
+joy. He who has wronged us both--he who wedded you under his own name of
+Griffith Gaunt, and me under the false name of Thomas Leicester--is no
+more dead than we are; I saw him two days ago, and spoke to him, and
+persuaded him to come to Carlisle town, and do you justice."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt fell on her knees. "He is alive; he is alive. Thank God! O,
+thank God! He is alive; and God bless the tongue that tells me so. God
+bless you eternally, Mercy Vint."
+
+The tears of joy streamed down her face, and then Mercy's flowed too.
+She uttered a little pathetic cry of joy. "Ah," she sobbed, "the bit of
+comfort I needed so has come to my heavy heart. _She_ has blessed me."
+
+But she said this very softly, and Mrs. Gaunt was in a rapture, and did
+not hear her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Is it a dream? My husband alive? and you the one to come and tell me
+so? How unjust I have been to you. Forgive me. Why does he not come
+himself?"
+
+Mercy colored at this question, and hesitated.
+
+"Well, dame," said she, "for one thing, he has been on the fuddle for
+the last two months."
+
+"On the fuddle?"
+
+"Ay; he owns he has never been sober a whole day. And that takes the
+heart out of a man, as well as the brains. And then he has got it into
+his head that you will never forgive him, and that he shall be cast in
+prison if he shows his face in Cumberland."
+
+"Why in Cumberland more than in Lancashire?" asked Mrs. Gaunt, biting
+her lip.
+
+Mercy blushed faintly. She replied with some delicacy, but did not
+altogether mince the matter.
+
+"He knows I shall never punish him for what he has done to me."
+
+"Why not? I begin to think he has wronged you almost as much as he has
+me."
+
+"Worse, madam; worse. He has robbed me of my good name. You are still
+his lawful wife, and none can point the finger at you. But look at me. I
+was an honest girl, respected by all the parish. What has he made of me?
+The man that lay a dying in my house, and I saved his life, and so my
+heart did warm to him,--he blasphemed God's altar, to deceive and betray
+me; and here I am, a poor forlorn creature, neither maid, wife, nor
+widow; with a child on my arms that I do nothing but cry over. Ay, my
+poor innocent, I left thee down below, because I was ashamed she should
+see thee; ah me! ah me!" She lifted up her voice, and wept.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt looked at her wistfully, and, like Mercy before her, had a
+bitter struggle with human nature,--a struggle so sharp that, in the
+midst of it, she burst out crying with great violence; but, with that
+burst, her great soul conquered.
+
+She darted out of the room, leaving Mercy astonished at her abrupt
+departure.
+
+Mercy was patiently drying her eyes, when the door opened, and judge her
+surprise when she saw Mrs. Gaunt glide into the room with her little boy
+asleep in her arms, and an expression upon her face more sublime than
+anything Mercy Vint had ever yet seen on earth. She kissed the babe
+softly, and, becoming infantine as well as angelic by this contact, sat
+herself down in a moment on the floor with him, and held out her hand to
+Mercy. "There," said she, "come, sit beside us, and see how I hate
+him,--no more than you do; sweet innocent."
+
+They looked him all over, discussed his every feature learnedly, kissed
+his limbs and extremities after the manner of their sex, and,
+comprehending at last that to have been both of them wronged by one man
+was a bond of sympathy, not hate, the two wives of Griffith Gaunt laid
+his child across their two laps, and wept over him together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mercy Vint took herself to task. "I am but a selfish woman," said she,
+"to talk or think of anything but that I came here for." She then
+proceeded to show Mrs. Gaunt by what means she proposed to secure her
+acquittal, without getting Griffith Gaunt into trouble.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt listened with keen and grateful attention, until she came to
+that part; then she interrupted her eagerly. "Don't spare him for me. In
+your place I'd trounce the villain finely."
+
+"Ay," said Mercy, "and then forgive him; but I am different. I shall
+never forgive him; but I am a poor hand at punishing and revenging. I
+always was. My name is Mercy, you know. To tell the truth, I was to have
+been called Prudence, after my good aunt; but she said, nay; she had
+lived to hear Greed, and Selfishness, and a heap of faults, named
+Prudence. 'Call the child something that means what it does mean, and
+not after me,' quoth she. So with me hearing 'Mercy, Mercy,' called out
+after me so many years, I do think the quality hath somehow got under my
+skin; for I cannot abide to see folk smart, let alone to strike the
+blow. What, shall I take the place of God, and punish the evil-doers,
+because 't is me they wrong? Nay, dame, I will never punish him, though
+he hath wronged me cruelly. All I shall do is to think very ill of him,
+and shun him, and tear his memory out of my heart. You look at me: do
+you think I cannot? You don't know me; I am very resolute when I see
+clear. Of course I loved him,--loved him dearly. He was like a husband
+to me, and a kind one. But the moment I knew how basely he had deceived
+us both, my heart began to turn against the man, and now 't is ice to
+him. Heaven knows what I am made of; for, believe me, I'd liever ten
+times be beside you than beside him. My heart it lay like a lump of lead
+till I heard your story, and found I could do you a good turn,--you that
+he had wronged, as well as me. I read your beautiful eyes; but nay, fear
+me not; I'm not the woman to pine for the fruit that is my neighbor's.
+All I ask for on earth is a few kind words and looks from you. You are
+gentle, and I am simple; but we are both one flesh and blood, and your
+lovely wet eyes do prove it this moment. Dame Gaunt--Kate--I ne'er was
+ten miles from home afore, and I am come all this weary way to serve
+thee. O, give me the one thing that can do me good in this world,--the
+one thing I pine for,--a little of _your_ love."
+
+The words were scarce out of her lips, when Mrs. Gaunt caught her
+impetuously round the neck with both hands, and laid her on that erring
+but noble heart of hers, and kissed her eagerly.
+
+They kissed one another again and again, and wept over one another.
+
+And now Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, could not make enough of
+Mercy Vint. She ordered supper, and ate with her, to make her eat. Mrs.
+Menteith offered Mercy a bed; but Mrs. Gaunt said she must lie with her,
+she and her child.
+
+"What," said she, "think you I'll let you out of my sight? Alas! who
+knows when you and I shall ever be together again?"
+
+"I know," said Mercy, thoughtfully. "In this world, never."
+
+They slept in one bed, and held each other by the hand all night, and
+talked to one another, and in the morning knew each the other's story,
+and each the other's mind and character, better than their oldest
+acquaintances knew either the one or the other.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+The trial began again; and the court was crowded to suffocation. All
+eyes were bent on the prisoner. She rose, calm and quiet, and begged
+leave to say a few words to the court.
+
+Mr. Whitworth objected to that. She had concluded her address yesterday,
+and called a witness.
+
+_Prisoner._ But I have not examined a witness yet.
+
+_Judge._ You come somewhat out of time, madam; but, if you will be
+brief, we will hear you.
+
+_Prisoner._ I thank you, my lord. It was only to withdraw an error. The
+cry for help that was heard by the side of Hernshaw Mere, I said,
+yesterday, that cry was uttered by Thomas Leicester. Well, I find I was
+mistaken: the cry for help was uttered by my husband,--by that Griffith
+Gaunt I am accused of assassinating.
+
+This extraordinary admission caused a great sensation in court. The
+judge looked very grave and sad; and Sergeant Wiltshire, who came into
+court just then, whispered his junior, "She has put the rope round her
+own neck. The jury would never have believed our witness."
+
+_Prisoner._ I will only add, that a person came into the town last
+night, who knows a great deal more about this mysterious business than I
+do. I purpose, therefore, to alter the plan of my defence; and to save
+your time, my lord, who have dealt so courteously with me, I shall call
+but a single witness.
+
+Ere the astonishment caused by this sudden collapse of the defence was
+in any degree abated, she called "Mercy Vint."
+
+There was the usual stir and struggle; and then the calm, self-possessed
+face and figure of a comely young woman confronted the court. She was
+sworn; and examined by the prisoner after this fashion.
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"At the 'Packhorse,' near Allerton, in Lancashire."
+
+_Prisoner._ Do you know Mr. Griffith Gaunt?
+
+_Mercy._ Madam, I do.
+
+_Prisoner._ Was he at your place in October last?
+
+_Mercy._ Yes, madam, on the thirteenth of October. On that day he left
+for Cumberland.
+
+_Prisoner._ On foot, or on horseback?
+
+_Mercy._ On horseback.
+
+_Prisoner._ With boots on, or shoes?
+
+_Mercy._ He had a pair of new boots on.
+
+_Prisoner._ Do you know Thomas Leicester?
+
+_Mercy._ A pedler called at our house on the eleventh of October, and he
+said his name was Thomas Leicester.
+
+_Prisoner._ How was he shod?
+
+_Mercy._ In hobnailed shoes.
+
+_Prisoner._ Which way went he on leaving you?
+
+_Mercy._ Madam, he went northwards; I know no more for certain.
+
+_Prisoner._ When did you see Mr. Gaunt last?
+
+_Mercy._ Four days ago.
+
+_Judge._ What is that? You saw him alive four days ago?
+
+_Mercy._ Ay, my lord; the last Wednesday that ever was.
+
+At this the people burst out into a loud, agitated murmur, and their
+heads went to and fro all the time. In vain the crier cried and
+threatened. The noise rose and surged, and took its course. It went down
+gradually, as amazement gave way to curiosity; and then there was a
+remarkable silence; and then the silvery voice of the prisoner, and the
+mellow tones of the witness, appeared to penetrate the very walls of the
+building, each syllable of those two beautiful speakers was heard so
+distinctly.
+
+_Prisoner._ Be so good as to tell the court what passed on Wednesday
+last between Griffith Gaunt and you, relative to this charge of murder.
+
+_Mercy._ I let him know one George Neville had come from Cumberland in
+search of him, and had told me you lay in Carlisle jail charged with his
+murder. I did urge him to ride at once to Carlisle, and show himself;
+but he refused. He made light of the matter. Then I told him not so; the
+circumstances looked ugly, and your life was in peril. Then he said,
+nay, 'twas in no peril; for if you were to be found guilty, then he
+would show himself on the instant. Then I told him he was not worthy the
+name of a man, and if he would not go, I would. "Go you, by all means,"
+said he, "and I'll give you a writing that will clear her. Jack
+Houseman will be there, that knows my hand; and so does the sheriff, and
+half the grand jury at the least."
+
+_Prisoner._ Have you that writing?
+
+_Mercy._ To be sure I have. Here 't is.
+
+_Prisoner._ Be pleased to read it.
+
+_Judge._ Stay a minute. Shall you prove it to be his handwriting?
+
+_Prisoner._ Ay, my lord, by as many as you please.
+
+_Judge._ Then let that stand over for the present. Let me see it.
+
+It was handed up to him; and he showed it to the sheriff, who said he
+thought it was Griffith Gaunt's writing.
+
+The paper was then read out to the jury. It ran as follows:--
+
+     "Know all men, that I, Griffith Gaunt, Esq., of Bolton Hall
+     and Hernshaw Castle, in the county of Cumberland, am alive
+     and well; and the matter which has so puzzled the good folk
+     in Cumberland befell as follows:--I left Hernshaw Castle in
+     the dead of night upon the fifteenth of October. Why, is no
+     man's business but mine. I found the stable locked; so I
+     left my horse, and went on foot. I crossed Hernshaw Mere by
+     the bridge, and had got about a hundred yards, as I suppose,
+     on the way, when I heard some one fall with a great splash
+     into the mere, and soon after cry dolefully for help. I,
+     that am no swimmer, ran instantly to the north side to a
+     clump of trees, where a boat used always to be kept. But the
+     boat was not there. Then I cried lustily for help, and, as
+     no one came, I fired my pistol and cried murder! For I had
+     heard men will come sooner to that cry than to any other.
+     But in truth I was almost out of my wits, that a
+     fellow-creature should perish miserably so near me. Whilst I
+     ran wildly to and fro, some came out of the Castle bearing
+     torches. By this time I was at the bridge, but saw no signs
+     of the drowning man; yet the night was clear. Then I knew
+     that his fate was sealed; and, for reasons of my own, not
+     choosing to be seen by those who were coming to his aid, I
+     hastened from the place. My happiness being gone, and my
+     conscience smiting me sore, and not knowing whither to turn,
+     I took to drink, and fell into bad ways, and lived like a
+     brute, and not a man, for six weeks or more; so that I never
+     knew of the good fortune that had fallen on me when least I
+     deserved it: I mean by old Mr. Gaunt of Coggleswade making
+     of me his heir. But one day at Kendal I saw Mercy Vint's
+     advertisement; and I went to her, and learned that my wife
+     lay in Carlisle jail for my supposed murder. But I say that
+     she is innocent, and nowise to blame in this matter: for I
+     deserved every hard word she ever gave me; and as for
+     killing, she is a spirited woman with her tongue, but hath
+     not the heart to kill a fly. She is what she always
+     was,--the pearl of womankind; a virtuous, innocent, and
+     noble lady. I have lost the treasure of her love by my
+     fault, not hers; but at least I have a right to defend her
+     life and honor. Whoever molests her after this, out of
+     pretended regard for me, is a liar, and a fool, and no
+     friend of mine, but my enemy, and I his--to the death.
+
+    "GRIFFITH GAUNT."
+
+It was a day of surprises. This tribute from the murdered man to his
+assassin was one of them. People looked in one another's faces
+open-eyed.
+
+The prisoner looked in the judge's, and acted on what she saw there.
+"That is my defence," said she, quietly, and sat down.
+
+If a show of hands had been called at that moment, she would have been
+acquitted by acclamation.
+
+But Mr. Whitworth was a zealous young barrister, burning for
+distinction. He stuck to his case, and cross-examined Mercy Vint with
+severity; indeed, with asperity.
+
+_Whitworth._ What are you to receive for this evidence?
+
+_Mercy._ Anan.
+
+_Whitworth._ O, you know what I mean. Are you not to be paid for
+telling us this romance?
+
+_Mercy._ Nay, sir, I ask naught for telling the truth.
+
+_Whitworth._ You were in the prisoner's company yesterday?
+
+_Mercy._ Yes, sir, I visited her in the jail last night.
+
+_Whitworth._ And there concerted this ingenious defence?
+
+_Mercy._ Well, sir, for that matter, I told her that her man was alive,
+and I did offer to be her witness.
+
+_Whitworth._ For naught?
+
+_Mercy._ For no money or reward, if 't is that you mean. Why, 't is a
+joy beyond money to clear an innocent body, and save her life; and that
+satisfaction is mine this day.
+
+_Whitworth_ (sarcastically). These are very fine sentiments for a person
+in your condition. Confess that Mrs. Gaunt primed you with all that.
+
+_Mercy._ Nay, sir, I left home in that mind; else I had not come at all.
+Bethink you; 't is a long journey for one in my way of life; and this
+dear child on my arm all the way.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt sat boiling with indignation. But Mercy's good temper and
+meekness parried the attack that time. Mr. Whitworth changed his line.
+
+_Whitworth._ You ask the jury to believe that Griffith Gaunt, Esquire, a
+gentleman, and a man of spirit and honor, is alive, yet skulks and sends
+you hither, when by showing his face in this court he could clear his
+wife without a single word spoken?
+
+_Mercy._ Yes, sir; I do hope to be believed, for I speak the naked
+truth. But, with due respect to you, Mr. Gaunt did not send me hither
+against my will. I could not bide in Lancashire, and let an innocent
+woman be murdered in Cumberland.
+
+_Whitworth._ Murdered, quotha. That is a good jest. I'd have you to know
+we punish murders here, not do them.
+
+_Mercy._ I am glad to hear that, sir, on the lady's account.
+
+_Whitworth._ Come, come. You pretend you discovered this Griffith Gaunt
+alive, by means of an advertisement. If so, produce the advertisement.
+
+Mercy Vint colored, and cast a swift, uneasy glance at Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+Rapid as it was, the keen eye of the counsel caught it.
+
+"Nay, do not look to the culprit for orders," said he. "Produce it, or
+confess the truth. Come, you never advertised for him."
+
+"Sir, I did advertise for him."
+
+"Then produce the advertisement."
+
+"Sir, I will not," said Mercy, calmly.
+
+"Then I shall move the court to commit you."
+
+"For what offence, if you please?"
+
+"For perjury and contempt of court."
+
+"I am guiltless of either, God knows. But I will not show the
+advertisement."
+
+_Judge._ This is very extraordinary. Perhaps you have it not about you.
+
+_Mercy._ My lord, the truth is I have it in my bosom. But, if I show it,
+it will not make this matter one whit clearer, and 't will open the
+wounds of two poor women. 'T is not for myself. But, O my lord, look at
+her. Hath she not gone through grief enow?
+
+The appeal was made with a quiet, touching earnestness, that affected
+every hearer. But the judge had a duty to perform. "Witness," said he,
+"you mean well; but indeed you do the prisoner an injury by withholding
+this paper. Be good enough to produce it at once."
+
+_Prisoner_ (with a deep sigh). Obey my lord.
+
+_Mercy_ (with a patient sigh). There, sir, may the Lord forgive you the
+useless mischief you are doing.
+
+_Whitworth._ I am doing my duty, young woman. And yours is to tell the
+whole truth, and not a part only.
+
+_Mercy_ (acquiescing). That is true, sir.
+
+_Whitworth._ Why, what is this? 'T is not Mr. Gaunt you advertise for in
+these papers. 'T is Thomas Leicester.
+
+_Judge._ What is that? I don't understand.
+
+_Whitworth._ Nor I neither.
+
+_Judge._ Let me see the papers. 'T is Thomas Leicester sure enough.
+
+_Whitworth._ And you mean to swear that Griffith Gaunt answered an
+advertisement inviting Thomas Leicester?
+
+_Mercy._ I do. Thomas Leicester was the name he went by in our part.
+
+_Whitworth._ What? what? You are jesting.
+
+_Mercy._ Is this a place or a time for jesting? I say he called himself
+Thomas Leicester.
+
+Here the business was interrupted again by a multitudinous murmur of
+excited voices. Everybody was whispering astonishment to his neighbor.
+And the whisper of a great crowd has the effect of a loud murmur.
+
+_Whitworth._ O, he called himself Thomas Leicester, did he? Then what
+makes you think he is Griffith Gaunt?
+
+_Mercy._ Well, sir, the pedler, whose real name was Thomas Leicester,
+came to our house one day, and saw his picture, and knew it; and said
+something to a neighbor that raised my suspicions. When _he_ came home,
+I took this shirt out of a drawer; 't was the shirt he wore when he
+first came to us. 'T is marked "G. G." (The shirt was examined.) Said I,
+"For God's sake speak the truth: what does G. G. stand for?" Then he
+told me his real name was Griffith Gaunt, and he had a wife in
+Cumberland. "Go back to her," said I, "and ask her to forgive you." Then
+he rode north, and I never saw him again till last Wednesday.
+
+_Whitworth_ (satirically). You seem to have been mighty intimate with
+this Thomas Leicester, whom you now call Griffith Gaunt. May I ask what
+was, or is, the nature of your connection with him?
+
+Mercy was silent.
+
+_Whitworth._ I must press for a reply, that we may know what value to
+attach to your most extraordinary evidence. Were you his wife,--or his
+mistress?
+
+_Mercy._ Indeed, I hardly know; but not his mistress, or I should not be
+here.
+
+_Whitworth._ You don't know whether you were married to the man or not?
+
+_Mercy._ I do not say so. But--
+
+She hesitated, and cast a piteous look at Mrs. Gaunt, who sat boiling
+with indignation.
+
+At this look, the prisoner, who had long contained herself with
+difficulty, rose, with scarlet cheeks and flashing eyes, in defence of
+her witness, and flung her prudence to the wind.
+
+"Fie, sir," she cried. "The woman you insult is as pure as your own
+mother, or mine. She deserves the pity, the respect, the veneration of
+all good men. Know, my lord, that my miserable husband deceived and
+married her under the false name he had taken. She has the
+marriage-certificate in her bosom. Pray make her show it, whether she
+will or not. My lord, this Mercy Vint is more an angel than a woman. I
+am her rival, after a manner. Yet, out of the goodness and greatness of
+her noble heart, she came all that way to save me from an unjust death.
+And is such a woman to be insulted? I blush for the hired advocate who
+cannot see his superior in an incorruptible witness, a creature all
+truth, piety, purity, unselfishness, and goodness. Yes, sir, you began
+by insinuating that she was as venal as yourself; for you are one that
+can be bought by the first-comer; and now you would cast a slur on her
+chastity. For shame! for shame! This is one of those rare women that
+adorn our whole sex, and embellish human nature; and, so long as you
+have the privilege of exchanging words with her, I shall stand here on
+the watch, to see that you treat her with due respect: ay, sir, with
+reverence; for I have measured you both, and she is as much your
+superior as she is mine."
+
+This amazing burst was delivered with such prodigious fire and rapidity
+that nobody was self-possessed enough to stop it in time. It was like a
+furious gust of words sweeping over the court.
+
+Mr. Whitworth, pale with anger, merely said: "Madam, the good taste of
+these remarks I leave the court to decide upon. But you cannot be
+allowed to give evidence in your own defence."
+
+"No, but in hers I will," said Mrs. Gaunt. "No power shall hinder me."
+
+_Judge_ (coldly). Had you not better go on cross-examining the witness?
+
+_Whitworth._ Let me see your marriage-certificate, if you have one?
+
+It was handed to him.
+
+Well, now how do you know that this Thomas Leicester was Griffith Gaunt?
+
+_Judge._ Why, she has told you he confessed it to her.
+
+_Mercy._ Yes, my lord; and, besides, he wrote me two letters signed
+Thomas Leicester. Here they are, and I desire they may be compared with
+the paper he wrote last Wednesday, and signed Griffith Gaunt. And more
+than that, whilst we lived together as man and wife, one Hamilton, a
+travelling painter, took our portraits, his and mine. I have brought his
+with me. Let his friends and neighbors look on this portrait, and say
+whose likeness it is. What I say and swear is, that on Wednesday last I
+saw and spoke with that Thomas Leicester, or Griffith Gaunt, whose
+likeness I now show you.
+
+With that she lifted the portrait up, and showed it all the court.
+
+Instantly there was a roar of recognition.
+
+It was one of those hard daubs that are nevertheless so monstrously like
+the originals.
+
+_Judge_ (to Mr. Whitworth). Young gentleman, we are all greatly obliged
+to you. You have made the prisoner's case. There was but one weak point
+in it; I mean the prolonged absence of Griffith Gaunt. You have now
+accounted for that. You have forced a very truthful witness to depose
+that this Gaunt is himself a criminal, and is hiding from fear of the
+law. The case for the crown is a mere tissue of conjectures, on which no
+jury could safely convict, even if there was no defence at all. Under
+other circumstances I might decline to receive evidence at second-hand
+that Griffith Gaunt is alive. But here such evidence is sufficient, for
+it lies on the crown to prove the man dead; but you have only proved
+that he was alive on the fifteenth of October, and that since then
+somebody is dead with shoes on. This somebody appears on the balance of
+proof to be Thomas Leicester, the pedler; and he has never been heard of
+since, and Griffith Gaunt has. Then I say you cannot carry the case
+further. You have not a leg to stand on. What say you, Brother
+Wiltshire?
+
+_Wiltshire._ My lord, I think there is no case against the prisoner, and
+am thankful to your lordship for relieving me of a very unpleasant task.
+
+The question of guilty or not guilty was then put to the jury, who
+instantly brought the prisoner in not guilty.
+
+_Judge._ Catharine Gaunt, you leave this court without a stain, and with
+our sincere respect and sympathy. I much regret the fear and pain you
+have been put to: you have been terribly punished for a hasty word.
+Profit now by this bitter lesson; and may Heaven enable you to add a
+well-governed spirit to your many virtues and graces.
+
+He half rose from his seat, and bowed courteously to her. She courtesied
+reverently, and retired.
+
+He then said a few words to Mercy Vint.
+
+"Young woman, I have no words to praise you as you deserve. You have
+shown us the beauty of the female character, and, let me add, the beauty
+of the Christian religion. You have come a long way to clear the
+innocent. I hope you will not stop there; but also punish the guilty
+person, on whom we have wasted so much pity."
+
+"Me, my lord?" said Mercy. "I would not harm a hair of his head for as
+many guineas as there be hairs in mine."
+
+"Child," said my lord, "thou art too good for this world; but go thy
+ways, and God bless thee."
+
+Thus abruptly ended a trial that, at first, had looked so formidable for
+the accused.
+
+The judge now retired for some refreshment, and while he was gone Sir
+George Neville dashed up to the Town Hall, four in hand, and rushed in
+by the magistrate's door, with a pedler's pack, which he had discovered
+in the mere, a few yards from the spot where the mutilated body was
+found.
+
+He learned the prisoner was already acquitted. He left the pack with the
+sheriff, and begged him to show it to the judge; and went in search of
+Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+He found her in the jailer's house. She and Mercy Vint were seated hand
+in hand.
+
+He started at first sight of the latter. Then there was a universal
+shaking of hands, and glistening of eyes. And, when this was over, Mrs.
+Gaunt turned to him, and said, piteously: "She will go back to
+Lancashire to-morrow; nothing I can say will turn her."
+
+"No, dame," said Mercy, quietly; "Cumberland is no place for me. My work
+is done here. Our paths in this world do lie apart. George Neville,
+persuade her to go home at once, and not trouble about me."
+
+"Indeed, madam," said Sir George, "she speaks wisely: she always does.
+My carriage is at the door, and the people waiting by thousands in the
+street to welcome your deliverance."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt drew herself up with fiery and bitter disdain.
+
+"Are they so?" said she, grimly. "Then I'll balk them. I'll steal away
+in the dead of night. No, miserable populace, that howls and hisses with
+the strong against the weak, you shall have no part in my triumph; 't is
+sacred to my friends. You honored me with your hootings, you shall not
+disgrace me with your acclamations. Here I stay till Mercy Vint, my
+guardian angel, leaves me forever."
+
+She then requested Sir George to order his horses back to the inn, and
+the coachman was to hold himself in readiness to start when the whole
+town should be asleep.
+
+Meantime, a courier was despatched to Hernshaw Castle, to prepare for
+Mrs. Gaunt's reception.
+
+Mrs. Menteith made a bed up for Mercy Vint, and at midnight, when the
+coast was clear, came the parting.
+
+It was a sad one.
+
+Even Mercy, who had great self-command, could not then restrain her
+tears.
+
+To apply the sweet and touching words of Scripture, "They sorrowed most
+of all for this, that they should see each other's face no more."
+
+Sir George accompanied Mrs. Gaunt to Hernshaw.
+
+She drew back into her corner of the carriage, and was very silent and
+_distraite_.
+
+After one or two attempts at conversation, he judged it wisest, and even
+most polite, to respect her mood.
+
+At last she burst out, "I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it."
+
+"Why, what is amiss?" inquired Sir George.
+
+"What is amiss? Why, 't is all amiss. 'T is so heartless, so ungrateful,
+to let that poor angel go home to Lancashire all alone, now she has
+served my turn. Sir George, do not think I undervalue your company: but
+if you would but take her home, instead of taking me! Poor thing, she is
+brave; but when the excitement of her good action is over, and she goes
+back the weary road all alone, what desolation it will be! My heart
+bleeds for her. I know I am an unconscionable woman, to ask such a
+thing; but then you are a true chevalier; you always were, and you saw
+her merit directly. O, do pray leave me to slip unnoticed into Hernshaw
+Castle, and do you accompany my benefactress to her humble home. Will
+you, dear Sir George? 'T would be such a load off my heart."
+
+To this appeal, uttered with trembling lip and moist eyes, Sir George
+replied in character. He declined to desert Mrs. Gaunt, until he had
+seen her safe home; but, that done, he would ride back to Carlisle and
+escort Mercy home.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt sighed, and said she was abusing his friendship, and should
+kill him with fatigue, and he was a good creature. "If anything could
+make me easy, this would," said she. "You know how to talk to a woman,
+and comfort her. I wish I was a man: I'd cure her of Griffith before we
+reached the 'Packhorse.' And, now I think of it, you are a very happy
+man to travel eighty miles with an angel, a dove-eyed angel."
+
+"I am a happy man to have an opportunity of complying with your desires,
+madam," was the demure reply. "'T is not often you do me the honor to
+lay your orders on me."
+
+After this, nothing of any moment passed until they reached Hernshaw
+Castle; and then, as they drove up to the door, and saw the hall blazing
+with lights, Mrs. Gaunt laid her hand softly on Sir George, and
+whispered, "You were right. I thank you for not leaving me."
+
+The servants were all in the hall, to receive their mistress; and
+amongst them were those who had given honest but unfavorable testimony
+at the trial, being called by the crown. These had consulted together,
+and, after many pros and cons, had decided that they had better not
+follow their natural impulse, and hide from her face, since that might
+be a fresh offence. Accordingly, these witnesses, dressed in their best,
+stood with the others in the hall, and made their obeisances, quaking
+inwardly.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt entered the hall leaning on Sir George's arm. She scarcely
+bestowed a look upon any of her servants, but made them one sweeping
+courtesy in return, and passed on; only Sir George felt her taper
+fingers just nip his arm.
+
+She made him partake of some supper, and then this chevalier des dames
+rode home, snatched a few hours' sleep, put on the yeoman's suit in
+which he had first visited the "Packhorse," and, arriving at Carlisle,
+engaged the whole inside of the coach; for his orders were to console,
+and he did not see his way clear to do that with two or three strangers
+listening to every word.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+A great change was observable in Mrs. Gaunt after this fiery and
+chastening ordeal. In a short time she had been taught many lessons. She
+had learned that the law will not allow even a woman to say anything and
+everything with impunity. She had been in a court of justice, and seen
+how gravely, soberly, and fairly an accusation is sifted there; and, if
+false, annihilated; which, elsewhere, it never is. Member of a sex that
+could never have invented a court of justice, she had found something to
+revere and bless in that other sex to which her erring husband belonged.
+Finally, she had encountered in Mercy Vint a woman whom she recognized
+at once as her moral superior. The contact of that pure and
+well-governed spirit told wonderfully upon her. She began to watch her
+tongue and to bridle her high spirit. She became slower to give offence,
+and slower to take it. She took herself to task, and made some little
+excuses even for Griffith. She was resolved to retire from the world
+altogether; but, meantime, she bowed her head to the lessons of
+adversity. Her features, always lovely, but somewhat too haughty, were
+now softened and embellished beyond description by a mingled expression
+of grief, humility, and resignation.
+
+She never mentioned her husband; but it is not to be supposed she never
+thought of him. She waited the course of events in dignified and patient
+silence.
+
+As for Griffith Gaunt, he was in the hands of two lawyers, Atkins and
+Houseman. He waited on the first, and made a friend of him. "I am at
+your service," said he; "but not if I am to be indicted for bigamy, and
+burned in the hand."
+
+"These fears are idle," said Atkins. "Mercy Vint declared in open court
+she will not proceed against you."
+
+"Ay, but there's my wife."
+
+"She will keep quiet; I have Houseman's word for it."
+
+"Ay, but there's the Attorney-General."
+
+"O, he will not move, unless he is driven. We must use a little
+influence. Mr. Houseman is of my mind, and he has the ear of the
+county."
+
+To be brief, it was represented in high quarters that to indict Mr.
+Gaunt would only open Mrs. Gaunt's wounds afresh, and do no good; and so
+Houseman found means to muzzle the Attorney-General.
+
+Just three weeks after the trial, Griffith Gaunt, Esq. reappeared
+publicly. The place of his reappearance was Coggleswade. He came and set
+about finishing his new mansion with feverish rapidity. He engaged an
+army of carpenters and painters, and spent thousands of pounds on the
+decorating and furnishing of the mansion, and laying out the grounds.
+
+This was duly reported to Mrs. Gaunt, who said--not a word.
+
+But at last one day came a letter to Mrs. Gaunt, in Griffith's
+well-known handwriting.
+
+With all her acquired self-possession, her hand trembled as she broke
+open the seal.
+
+It contained but these words:--
+
+     "MADAM,--I do not ask you to forgive me. For, if you had
+     done what I have, I could never forgive you. But for the
+     sake of Rose, and to stop their tongues, I do hope you will
+     do me the honor to live under this my roof. I dare not face
+     Hernshaw Castle. Your own apartments here are now ready for
+     you. The place is large. Upon my honor I will not trouble
+     you; but show myself always, as now,
+
+    "Your penitent and very humble
+    servant,
+
+    "GRIFFITH GAUNT."
+
+The messenger was to wait for her reply.
+
+This letter disturbed Mrs. Gaunt's sorrowful tranquillity at once. She
+was much agitated, and so undecided that she sent the messenger away,
+and told him to call next day.
+
+Then she sent off to Father Francis to beg his advice.
+
+But her courier returned, late at night, to say Father Francis was away
+from home.
+
+Then she took Rose, and said to her, "My darling, papa wants us to go to
+his new house, and leave dear old Hernshaw; I know not what to say about
+that. What do _you_ say?"
+
+"Tell him to come to us," said Rose, dictatorially. "Only," (lowering
+her little voice very suddenly,) "if he is naughty and won't, why then
+we had better go to him; for he amuses me."
+
+"As you please," said Mrs. Gaunt; and sent her husband this reply:--
+
+     "SIR,--Rose and I are agreed to defer to your judgment and
+     obey your wishes. Be pleased to let me know what day you
+     will require us; and I must trouble you to send a carriage.
+
+    "I am, sir,
+
+    "Your faithful wife and humble servant,
+
+    "CATHARINE GAUNT."
+
+At the appointed day, a carriage and four came wheeling up to the door.
+The vehicle was gorgeously emblazoned, and the servants in rich
+liveries; all which finery glittering in the sun, and the glossy coats
+of the horses, did mightily please Mistress Rose. She stood on the stone
+steps, and clapped her hands with delight. Her mother just sighed, and
+said, "Ay, 'tis in pomp and show we must seek our happiness now."
+
+She leaned back in the carriage, and closed her eyes, yet not so close
+but now and then a tear would steal out, as she thought of the past.
+
+They drove up under an avenue to a noble mansion, and landed at the foot
+of some marble steps, low and narrow, but of vast breadth.
+
+As they mounted these, a hall door, through which the carriage could
+have passed, was flung open, and discovered the servants all drawn up to
+do honor to their mistress.
+
+She entered the hall, leading Rose by the hand; the servants bowed and
+courtesied down to the ground.
+
+She received this homage with dignified courtesy, and her eye stole
+round to see if the master of the house was coming to receive her.
+
+The library door was opened hastily, and out came to meet her--Father
+Francis.
+
+"Welcome, madam, a thousand times welcome to your new home," said he, in
+a stentorian voice, with a double infusion of geniality. "I claim the
+honor of showing you your part of the house, though 'tis all yours for
+that matter." And he led the way.
+
+Now this cheerful stentorian voice was just a little shaky for once, and
+his eyes were moist.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt noticed, but said nothing before the people. She smiled
+graciously, and accompanied him.
+
+He took her to her apartments. They consisted of a salle-a-manger, three
+delightful bedrooms, a boudoir, and a magnificent drawing-room, fifty
+feet long, with two fireplaces, and a bay-window thirty feet wide,
+filled with the choicest flowers.
+
+An exclamation of delight escaped Mrs. Gaunt. Then she said, "One would
+think I was a queen." Then she sighed, "Ah," said she, "'tis a fine
+thing to be rich." Then, despondently, "Tell him I think it very
+beautiful."
+
+"Nay, madam, I hope you will tell him so yourself."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt made no reply to that. She added: "And it was kind of him to
+have you here the first day: I do not feel so lonely as I should without
+you."
+
+She took Griffith at his word, and lived with Rose in her own
+apartments.
+
+For some time Griffith used to slip away whenever he saw her coming.
+
+One day she caught him at it, and beckoned him.
+
+He came to her.
+
+"You need not run away from me," said she: "I did not come into your
+house to quarrel with you. Let us be _friends_,"--and she gave him her
+hand sweetly enough, but O so coldly!
+
+"I hope for nothing more," said Griffith. "If you ever have a wish, give
+me the pleasure of gratifying it,--that is all."
+
+"I wish to retire to a convent," said she, quietly.
+
+"And desert your daughter?"
+
+"I would leave her behind, to remind you of days gone by."
+
+By degrees they saw a little more of one another; they even dined
+together now and then. But it brought them no nearer. There was no
+anger, with its loving reaction. They were friendly enough, but an icy
+barrier stood between them.
+
+One person set himself quietly to sap this barrier. Father Francis was
+often at the Castle, and played the peacemaker very adroitly.
+
+The line he took might be called the innocent Jesuitical. He saw that it
+would be useless to exhort these two persons to ignore the terrible
+things that had happened, and to make it up as if it was only a
+squabble. What he did was to repeat to the husband every gracious word
+the wife let fall, and _vice versa_, and to suppress all either said
+that might tend to estrange them.
+
+In short, he acted the part of Mr. Harmony in the play, and acted it to
+perfection.
+
+_Gutta cavat lapidem._
+
+Though no perceptible effect followed his efforts, yet there is no doubt
+that he got rid of some of the bitterness. But the coldness remained.
+
+One day he was sent for all in a hurry by Griffith.
+
+He found him looking gloomy and agitated.
+
+The cause came out directly. Griffith had observed, at last, what all
+the females in the house had seen two months ago, that Mrs. Gaunt was in
+the family way.
+
+He now communicated this to Father Francis, with a voice of agony, and
+looks to match.
+
+"All the better, my son," said the genial priest: "'twill be another tie
+between you. I hope it will be a fine boy to inherit your estates."
+Then, observing a certain hideous expression distorting Griffith's face,
+he fixed his eyes full on him, and said, sternly, "Are you not cured yet
+of that madness of yours?"
+
+"No, no, no," said Griffith, deprecatingly; "but why did she not tell
+me?"
+
+"You had better ask her."
+
+"Not I. She will remind me I am nothing to her now. And, though 'tis so,
+yet I would not hear it from her lips."
+
+In spite of this wise resolution, the torture he was in drove him to
+remonstrate with her on her silence.
+
+She blushed high, and excused herself as follows:--
+
+"I should have told you as soon as I knew it myself. But you were not
+with me. I was all by myself--in Carlisle jail."
+
+This reply, uttered with hypocritical meekness, went through Griffith
+like a knife. He turned white, and gasped for breath, but said nothing.
+He left her, with a deep groan, and never ventured to mention the matter
+again.
+
+All he did in that direction was to redouble his attentions and
+solicitude for her health.
+
+The relation between these two was now more anomalous than ever.
+
+Even Father Francis, who had seen strange things in families, used to
+watch Mrs. Gaunt rise from the table and walk heavily to the door, and
+her husband dart to it and open it obsequiously, and receive only a very
+formal reverence in return,--and wonder how all this was to end.
+
+However, under this icy surface, a change was gradually going on; and
+one afternoon, to his great surprise, Mrs. Gaunt's maid came to ask
+Griffith if he would come to Mrs. Gaunt's apartment.
+
+He found her seated in her bay-window, among her flowers. She seemed
+another woman all of a sudden, and smiled on him her exquisite smile of
+days gone by.
+
+"Come, sit beside me," said she, "in this beautiful window that you have
+given me."
+
+"Sit beside you, Kate?" said Griffith. "Nay, let me kneel at your knees:
+that is my place."
+
+"As you will," said she, softly; and continued, in the same tone: "Now
+listen to me. You and I are two fools. We have been very happy together
+in days gone by; and we should both of us like to try again; but we
+neither of us know how to begin. You are afraid to tell me you love me,
+and I am ashamed to own to you or anybody else that I love you, in spite
+of it all;--I do, though."
+
+"You love me! a wretch like me, Kate? 'T is impossible. I cannot be so
+happy."
+
+"Child," said Mrs. Gaunt, "love is not reason; love is not common sense.
+'T is a passion; like your jealousy, poor fool. I love you, as a mother
+loves her child, all the more for all you have made me suffer. I might
+not say as much, if I thought we should be long together. But something
+tells me I shall die this time: I never felt so before. Bury me at
+Hernshaw. After all, I spent more happy years there than most wives ever
+know. I see you are very sorry for what you have done. How could I die
+and leave thee in doubt of my forgiveness, and my love? Kiss me, poor
+jealous fool; for I do forgive thee, and love thee with all my sorrowful
+heart." And even with the words she bowed herself and sank quietly into
+his arms, and he kissed her and cried bitterly over her: bitterly. But
+she was comparatively calm. For she said to herself, "The end is at
+hand."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Griffith, instead of pooh-poohing his wife's forebodings, set himself to
+baffle them.
+
+He used his wealth freely, and, besides the county doctor, had two very
+eminent practitioners from London, one of whom was a gray-headed man,
+the other singularly young for the fame he had obtained. But then he was
+a genuine enthusiast in his art.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+Griffith, white as a ghost, and unable to shake off the forebodings
+Catharine had communicated to him, walked incessantly up and down the
+room; and, at his earnest request, one or other of the four doctors in
+attendance was constantly coming to him with information.
+
+The case proceeded favorably, and, to Griffith's surprise and joy, a
+healthy boy was born about two o'clock in the morning. The mother was
+reported rather feverish, but nothing to cause alarm.
+
+Griffith threw himself on two chairs and fell fast asleep.
+
+Towards morning he found himself shaken, and there was Ashley, the young
+doctor, standing beside him with a very grave face. Griffith started up,
+and cried, "What is wrong, in God's name?"
+
+"I am sorry to say there has been a sudden hemorrhage, and the patient
+is much exhausted."
+
+"She is dying, she is dying!" cried Griffith, in anguish.
+
+"Not dying. But she will infallibly sink, unless some unusual
+circumstance occur to sustain vitality."
+
+Griffith laid hold of him. "O sir, take my whole fortune, but save her!
+save her! save her!"
+
+"Mr. Gaunt," said the young doctor, "be calm, or you will make matters
+worse. There is one chance to save her; but my professional brethren are
+prejudiced against it. However, they have consented, at my earnest
+request, to refer my proposal to you. She is sinking for want of blood;
+if you consent to my opening a vein and transfusing healthy blood from a
+living subject into hers, I will undertake the operation. You had better
+come and see her; you will be more able to judge."
+
+"Let me lean on you," said Griffith. And the strong wrestler went
+tottering up the stairs. There they showed him poor Kate, white as the
+bed-clothes, breathing hard, and with a pulse that hardly moved.
+
+Griffith looked at her horror-struck.
+
+"Death has got hold of my darling," he screamed. "Snatch her away! for
+God's sake, snatch her from him!"
+
+The young doctor whipped off his coat, and bared his arm.
+
+"There," he cried, "Mr. Gaunt consents. Now, Corrie, be quick with the
+lancet, and hold this tube as I tell you; warm it first in that water."
+
+Here came an interruption. Griffith Gaunt griped the young doctor's arm,
+and, with an agonized and ugly expression of countenance, cried out,
+"What, _your_ blood! What right have you to lose blood for her?"
+
+"The right of a man who loves his art better than his blood," cried
+Ashley, with enthusiasm.
+
+Griffith tore off his coat and waistcoat, and bared his arm to the
+elbow. "Take every drop I have. No man's blood shall enter her veins but
+mine." And the creature seemed to swell to double his size, as, with
+flushed cheek and sparkling eyes, he held out a bare arm corded like a
+blacksmith's, and white as a duchess's.
+
+The young doctor eyed the magnificent limb a moment with rapture; then
+fixed his apparatus and performed an operation which then, as now, was
+impossible in theory; only he did it. He sent some of Griffith Gaunt's
+bright red blood smoking hot into Kate Gaunt's veins.
+
+This done, he watched his patient closely, and administered stimulants
+from time to time.
+
+She hung between life and death for hours. But at noon next day she
+spoke, and, seeing Griffith sitting beside her, pale with anxiety and
+loss of blood, she said: "My dear, do not thou fret. I died last night.
+I knew I should. But they gave me another life; and now I shall live to
+a hundred."
+
+They showed her the little boy; and, at sight of him, the whole woman
+made up her mind to live.
+
+And live she did. And, what is very remarkable, her convalescence was
+more rapid than on any former occasion.
+
+It was from a talkative nurse she first learned that Griffith had given
+his blood for her. She said nothing at the time, but lay, with an
+angelic, happy smile, thinking of it.
+
+The first time she saw him after that, she laid her hand on his arm,
+and, looking Heaven itself into his eyes, she said, "My life is very
+dear to me now. 'T is a present from thee."
+
+She only wanted a good excuse for loving him as frankly as before, and
+now he had given her one. She used to throw it in his teeth in the
+prettiest way. Whenever she confessed a fault, she was sure to turn
+slyly round and say, "But what could one expect of me? I have his blood
+in my veins."
+
+But once she told Father Francis, quite seriously, that she had never
+been quite the same woman since she lived by Griffith's blood; she was
+turned jealous; and moreover it had given him a fascinating power over
+her, and she could tell blindfold when he was in the room. Which last
+fact, indeed, she once proved by actual experiment. But all this I leave
+to such as study the occult sciences in this profound age of ours.
+
+Starting with this advantage, Time, the great curer, gradually healed a
+wound that looked incurable.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt became a better wife than she had ever been before. She
+studied her husband, and found he was not hard to please. She made his
+home bright and genial; and so he never went abroad for the sunshine he
+could have at home.
+
+And he studied her. He added a chapel to the house, and easily persuaded
+Francis to become the chaplain. Thus they had a peacemaker, and a
+friend, in the house, and a man severe in morals, but candid in
+religion, and an inexhaustible companion to them and their children.
+
+And so, after that terrible storm, this pair pursued the even tenor of a
+peaceful united life, till the olive-branches rising around them, and
+the happy years gliding on, almost obliterated that one dark passage,
+and made it seem a mere fantastical, incredible dream.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mercy Vint and her child went home in the coach. It was empty at
+starting, and, as Mrs. Gaunt had foretold, a great sense of desolation
+fell upon her.
+
+She leaned back, and the patient tears coursed steadily down her comely
+cheeks.
+
+At the first stage a passenger got down from the outside, and entered
+the coach.
+
+"What, George Neville!" said Mercy.
+
+"The same," said he.
+
+She expressed her surprise that he should be going her way.
+
+"'T is strange," said he, "but to me most agreeable."
+
+"And to me too, for that matter," said she.
+
+Sir George observed her eyes were red, and, to divert her mind and keep
+up her spirits, launched into a flow of small talk.
+
+In the midst of it, Mercy leaned back in the coach, and began to cry
+bitterly. So much for that mode of consolation.
+
+Upon this he faced the situation, and begged her not to grieve. He
+praised the good action she had done, and told her how everybody admired
+her for it, especially himself.
+
+At that she gave him her hand in silence, and turned away her pretty
+head. He carried her hand respectfully to his lips; and his manly heart
+began to yearn over this suffering virtue,--so grave, so dignified, so
+meek. He was no longer a young man; he began to talk to her like a
+friend. This tone, and the soft, sympathetic voice in which a gentleman
+speaks to a woman in trouble, unlocked her heart; and for the first
+time in her life she was led to talk about herself.
+
+She opened her heart to him. She told him she was not the woman to pine
+for any man. Her youth, her health, and love of occupation, would carry
+her through. What she mourned was the loss of esteem, and the blot upon
+her child. At that she drew the baby with inexpressible tenderness, and
+yet with a half-defiant air, closer to her bosom.
+
+Sir George assured her she would lose the esteem of none but fools. "As
+for me," said he, "I always respected you, but now I revere you. You are
+a martyr and an angel."
+
+"George," said Mercy, gravely, "be you my friend, not my enemy."
+
+"Why, madam," said he, "sure you can't think me such a wretch."
+
+"I mean, our flatterers are our enemies."
+
+Sir George took the hint, given, as it was, very gravely and decidedly;
+and henceforth showed her his respect by his acts; he paid her as much
+attention as if she had been a princess. He handed her out, and handed
+her in; and coaxed her to eat here, and to drink there; and at the inn
+where the passengers slept for the night, he showed his long purse, and
+secured her superior comforts. Console her he could not; but he broke
+the sense of utter desolation and loneliness with which she started from
+Carlisle. She told him so in the inn, and descanted on the goodness of
+God, who had sent her a friend in that bitter hour.
+
+"You have been very kind to me, George," said she. "Now Heaven bless you
+for it, and give you many happy days, and well spent."
+
+This, from one who never said a word she did not mean, sank deep into
+Sir George's heart, and he went to sleep thinking of her, and asking
+himself was there nothing he could do for her.
+
+Next morning Sir George handed Mercy and her babe into the coach; and
+the villain tried an experiment to see what value she set on him. He did
+not get in, so Mercy thought she had seen the last of him.
+
+"Farewell, good, kind George," said she. "Alas! there's naught but
+meeting and parting in this weary world."
+
+The tears stood in her sweet eyes, and she thanked him, not with words
+only, but with the soft pressure of her womanly hand.
+
+He slipped up behind the coach, and was ashamed of himself, and his
+heart warmed to her more and more.
+
+As soon as the coach stopped, my lord opened the door for Mercy to
+alight. Her eyes were very red; he saw that. She started, and beamed
+with surprise and pleasure.
+
+"Why, I thought I had lost you for good," said she. "Whither are you
+going? to Lancaster?"
+
+"Not quite so far. I am going to the 'Packhorse.'"
+
+Mercy opened her eyes, and blushed high. Sir George saw, and, to divert
+her suspicions, told her merrily to beware of making objections. "I am
+only a sort of servant in the matter. 'T was Mrs. Gaunt ordered me."
+
+"I might have guessed it," said Mercy. "Bless her; she knew I should be
+lonely."
+
+"She was not easy till she had got rid of me, I assure you," said Sir
+George. "So let us make the best on 't, for she is a lady that likes to
+have her own way."
+
+"She is a noble creature. George, I shall never regret anything I have
+done for _her_. And she will not be ungrateful. O, the sting of
+ingratitude! I have felt that. Have you?"
+
+"No," said Sir George; "I have escaped that, by never doing any good
+actions."
+
+"I doubt you are telling me a lie," said Mercy Vint.
+
+She now looked upon Sir George as Mrs. Gaunt's representative, and
+prattled freely to him. Only now and then her trouble came over her, and
+then she took a quiet cry without ceremony.
+
+As for Sir George, he sat and studied, and wondered at her.
+
+Never in his life had he met such a woman as this, who was as candid
+with him as if he had been a woman. She seemed to have a window in her
+bosom, through which he looked, and saw the pure and lovely soul within.
+
+In the afternoon they reached a little town, whence a cart conveyed them
+to the "Packhorse."
+
+Here Mercy Vint disappeared, and busied herself with Sir George's
+comforts.
+
+He sat by himself in the parlor, and missed his gentle companion.
+
+In the morning Mercy thought of course he would go.
+
+But instead of that, he stayed, and followed her about, and began to
+court her downright.
+
+But the warmer he got, the cooler she. And at last she said, mighty
+dryly, "This is a very dull place for the likes of you."
+
+"'T is the sweetest place in England," said he; "at least to me; for it
+contains--the woman I love."
+
+Mercy drew back, and colored rosy red. "I hope not," said she.
+
+"I loved you the first day I saw you, and heard your voice. And now I
+love you ten times more. Let me dry thy tears forever, sweet Mercy. Be
+my wife."
+
+"You are mad," said Mercy. "What, would you wed a woman in my condition?
+I am more your friend than to take you at your word. And what must you
+think I am made of, to go from one man to another, like that?"
+
+"Take your time, sweetheart; only give me your hand."
+
+"George," said Mercy, very gravely, "I am beholden to you; but my duty
+it lies another way. There is a young man in these parts" (Sir George
+groaned) "that was my follower for two years and better. I wronged him
+for one I never name now. I must marry that poor lad, and make him
+happy, or else live and die as I am."
+
+Sir George turned pale. "One word: do you love him?"
+
+"I have a regard for him."
+
+"Do you love him?"
+
+"Hardly. But I wronged him, and I owe him amends. I shall pay my debts."
+
+Sir George bowed, and retired sick at heart, and deeply mortified. Mercy
+looked after him and sighed.
+
+Next day, as he walked disconsolate up and down, she came to him and
+gave him her hand. "You were a good friend to me that bitter day," said
+she. "Now let me be yours. Do not bide here: 'twill but vex you."
+
+"I am going, madam," said Sir George, stiffly. "I but wait to see the
+man you prefer to me. If he is not too unworthy of you, I'll go, and
+trouble you no more. I have learned his name."
+
+Mercy blushed; for she knew Paul Carrick would bear no comparison with
+George Neville.
+
+The next day Sir George took leave to observe that this Paul Carrick did
+not seem to appreciate her preference so highly as he ought. "I
+understand he has never been here."
+
+Mercy colored, but made no reply; and Sir George was sorry he had
+taunted her. He followed her about, and showed her great attention, but
+not a word of love.
+
+There were fine trout streams in the neighborhood, and he busied himself
+fishing, and in the evening read aloud to Mercy, and waited to see Paul
+Carrick.
+
+Paul never came; and from a word Mercy let drop, he saw that she was
+mortified. Then, being no tyro in love, he told her he had business in
+Lancaster, and must leave her for a few days. But he would return, and
+by that time perhaps Paul Carrick would be visible.
+
+Now his main object was to try the effect of correspondence.
+
+Every day he sent her a long love-letter from Lancaster.
+
+Paul Carrick, who, in absenting himself for a time, had acted upon his
+sister's advice, rather than his own natural impulse, learned that Mercy
+received a letter every day. This was a thing unheard of in that
+parish.
+
+So then Paul defied his sister's advice, and presented himself to Mercy;
+when the following dialogue took place.
+
+"Welcome home, Mercy."
+
+"Thank you, Paul."
+
+"Well, I'm single still, lass."
+
+"So I hear."
+
+"I'm come to say let bygones be bygones."
+
+"So be it," said Mercy, dryly.
+
+"You have tried a gentleman; now try a farrier."
+
+"I have; and he did not stand the test."
+
+"Anan."
+
+"Why did you not come near me for ten days?"
+
+Paul blushed up to the eyes. "Well," said he, "I'll tell you the truth.
+'T was our Jess advised me to leave you quiet just at first."
+
+"Ay, ay. I was to be humbled, and made to smart for my fault; and then I
+should be thankful to take you. My lad, if ever you should be really in
+love, take a friend's advice; listen to your own heart, and not to
+shallow advisers. You have mortified a poor sorrowful creature, who was
+going to make a sacrifice for you; and you have lost her forever."
+
+"What d'ye mean?"
+
+"I mean that you are to think no more of Mercy Vint."
+
+"Then it is true, ye jade; ye've gotten a fresh lover already."
+
+"Say no more than you know. If you were the only man on earth, I would
+not wed you, Paul Carrick."
+
+Paul Carrick retired home, and blew up his sister, and told her that she
+had "gotten him the sack again."
+
+The next day Sir George came back from Lancaster, and Mercy lowered her
+lashes for once at sight of him.
+
+"Well," said he, "has this Carrick shown a sense of your goodness?"
+
+"He has come,--and gone."
+
+She then, with her usual frankness, told him what had passed. "And,"
+said she, with a smile, "you are partly to blame; for how could I help
+comparing your behavior to me with his? _You_ came to my side when I was
+in trouble, and showed me respect when I expected scorn from all the
+world. A friend in need is a friend indeed."
+
+"Reward me, reward me," said Sir George, gayly; "you know the way."
+
+"Nay, but I am too much _your_ friend," said Mercy.
+
+"Be less my friend then, and more my darling."
+
+He pressed her, he urged her, he stuck to her, he pestered her.
+
+She snubbed, and evaded, and parried, and liked him all the better for
+his pestering her.
+
+At last, one day, she said: "If Mrs. Gaunt thinks it will be for your
+happiness, I _will_--in six months' time; but you shall not marry in
+haste to repent at leisure. And I must have time to learn two
+things,--whether you can be constant to a simple woman like me, and
+whether I can love again, as tenderly as you deserve to be loved."
+
+All his endeavors to shake this determination were vain. Mercy Vint had
+a terrible deal of quiet resolution.
+
+He retired to Cumberland, and, in a long letter, asked Mrs. Gaunt's
+advice.
+
+She replied characteristically. She began very soberly to say that she
+should be the last to advise a marriage between persons of different
+conditions in life. "But then," said she, "this Mercy is altogether an
+exception. If a flower grows on a dunghill, 't is still a flower, and
+not a part of the dunghill. She has the essence of gentility, and indeed
+her _manners_ are better bred than most of our ladies. There is too much
+affectation abroad, and that is your true vulgarity. Tack 'my lady' on
+to 'Mercy Vint,' and that dignified and quiet simplicity of hers will
+carry her with credit through every court in Europe. Then think of her
+virtues,"--(here the writer began to lose her temper,)--"where can you
+hope to find such another? She is a moral genius, and acts well, no
+matter under what temptation, as surely as Claude and Raphael paint
+well. Why, sir, what do you seek in a wife? Wealth? title? family? But
+you possess them already; you want something in addition that will make
+you happy. Well, take that angelic goodness into your house, and you
+will find, by your own absolute happiness, how ill your neighbors have
+wived. For my part, I see but one objection: the child. Well, if you are
+man enough to take the mother, I am woman enough to take the babe. In
+one word, he who has the sense to fall in love with such an angel, and
+has not the sense to marry it, if he can, is a fool.
+
+"Postscript.--My poor friend, to what end think you I sent you down in
+the coach with her?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir George, thus advised, acted as he would have done had the advice
+been just the opposite.
+
+He sent Mercy a love-letter by every post, and he often received one in
+return; only his were passionate, and hers gentle and affectionate.
+
+But one day came a letter that was a mere cry of distress.
+
+     "George, my child is dying. What shall I do?"
+
+He mounted his horse, and rode to her.
+
+He came too late. The little boy had died suddenly of croup, and was to
+be buried next morning.
+
+The poor mother received him up stairs, and her grief was terrible. She
+clung sobbing to him, and could not be comforted. Yet she felt his
+coming. But a mother's anguish overpowered all.
+
+Crushed by this fearful blow, her strength gave way for a time, and she
+clung to George Neville, and told him she had nothing left but him, and
+one day implored him not to die and leave her.
+
+Sir George said all he could think of to comfort her; and at the end of
+a fortnight persuaded her to leave the "Packhorse," and England, as his
+wife.
+
+She had little power to resist now, and indeed little inclination.
+
+They were married by special license, and spent a twelvemonth abroad.
+
+At the end of that time they returned to Neville's Court, and Mercy took
+her place there with the same dignified simplicity that had adorned her
+in a humbler station.
+
+Sir George had given her no lessons; but she had observed closely, for
+his sake; and being already well educated, and very quick and docile,
+she seldom made him blush except with pride.
+
+They were the happiest pair in Cumberland. Her merciful nature now found
+a larger field for its exercise, and, backed by her husband's purse, she
+became the Lady Bountiful of the parish and the county.
+
+The day after she reached Neville's Court came an exquisite letter to
+her from Mrs. Gaunt. She sent an affectionate reply.
+
+But the Gaunts and the Nevilles did not meet in society.
+
+Sir George Neville and Mrs. Gaunt, being both singularly brave and
+haughty people, rather despised this arrangement.
+
+But it seems that, one day, when, they were all four in the Town Hall,
+folk whispered and looked; and both Griffith Gaunt and Lady Neville
+surprised these glances, and determined, by one impulse, it should never
+happen again. Hence it was quite understood that the Nevilles and the
+Gaunts were not to be asked to the same party or ball.
+
+The wives, however, corresponded, and Lady Neville easily induced Mrs.
+Gaunt to co-operate with her in her benevolent acts, especially in
+saving young women, who had been betrayed, from sinking deeper.
+
+Living a good many miles apart, Lady Neville could send her stray sheep
+to service near Mrs. Gaunt; and _vice versa_; and so, merciful, but
+discriminating, they saved many a poor girl who had been weak, not
+wicked.
+
+So then, though they could not eat nor dance together in earthly
+mansions, they could do good together; and methinks, in the eternal
+world, where years of social intercourse will prove less than cobwebs,
+these their joint acts of mercy will be links of a bright, strong chain,
+to bind their souls in everlasting amity.
+
+It was a remarkable circumstance, that the one child of Lady Neville's
+unhappy marriage died, but her nine children by Sir George all grew to
+goodly men and women. That branch of the Nevilles became remarkable for
+high principle and good sense; and this they owe to Mercy Vint, and to
+Sir George's courage in marrying her. This Mercy was granddaughter to
+one of Cromwell's ironsides, and brought her rare personal merit into
+their house, and also the best blood of the old Puritans, than which
+there is no blood in Europe more rich in male courage, female chastity,
+and all the virtues.
+
+
+
+
+GUROWSKI.
+
+
+The late Count Gurowski came to this country from France in November,
+1849, and resided at first in New York. He made his appearance at
+Boston, I think, in the latter part of 1850, and, being well introduced
+by letters from men of note in Paris, was received with attention in the
+highest circles of society. Among his friends at this period were
+Prescott, Ticknor, Longfellow, Lowell, Parker, Sumner, Felton, and
+Everett,--the last named of whom was then President of Harvard
+University. The eccentric appearance and character of the Count, of
+course, excited curiosity and gave rise to many idle rumors, the most
+popular of which declared him to be a Russian spy, though what there was
+to spy in this country, where everything is published in the newspapers,
+or what the Czar expected to learn from such an agent, nobody undertook
+to explain. The phrase was a convenient one, and, like many others
+equally senseless, was currently adopted because it seemed to explain
+the incomprehensible; and certainly, to the multitude, no man was ever
+less intelligible than Gurowski.
+
+To those, however, who cared for precise information, the French and
+German periodicals of the day, in which his name frequently figured,
+furnished sufficient to determine his social and historical status. From
+authentic sources it was soon learned that he was the head of a
+distinguished noble family of Poland; that he was born in 1805, and had
+taken part in the great insurrection of 1831 against the Russians, for
+which he had been condemned to death, while his estates were confiscated
+and assigned to a younger brother, who had remained loyal to the Czar.
+It was known also that at Paris, where he had found refuge, he had been
+a special favorite of Lafayette and of the leading republicans, and an
+active member of the Polish Revolutionary Committee, till, in 1835, he
+published _La Verite sur la Russie_, in which work he maintained that
+the interests of Poland and of all the other Slavic countries would be
+promoted by absorption into the Russian Empire and union under the
+Russian Czar. This book drew upon him the indignant denunciation of his
+countrymen, who regarded it as a betrayal of their cause, and led to the
+revocation of his sentence of death, and to an invitation to enter the
+service of Nicholas. He accordingly went to St. Petersburg in 1836,
+where his sister had long resided, personally attached to the Empress
+and in high favor at the imperial court. He was employed at first in the
+private chancery of the Emperor, and afterwards in the Department of
+Public Instruction, in which he suggested and introduced various
+measures tending to Russianize Poland by means of schools and other
+public institutions. He seems for some years to have been in favor, and
+on the high road to power and distinction. In 1844, however, he fled
+from St. Petersburg secretly, and took refuge at the court of Berlin. He
+was pursued, and his extradition demanded of the Prussian government.
+What his offence was I have never learned, but can readily suppose that
+it was only a too free use of his tongue, which was at all times
+uncontrollable, and was always involving him in difficulties wherever he
+resided. He was quite as likely to contradict and snub the Czar as
+readily as he would the meanest peasant, and, for that matter, even more
+readily. His flight from Russia caused a good deal of discussion in the
+Continental newspapers, and it is certain that for some reason or other
+strong and pertinacious efforts were made by the Russian government to
+have him delivered up. The Czar had at that time great influence over
+the court of Berlin; and Gurowski was at length privately requested by
+the Prussian government, in a friendly way, to relieve them of
+embarrassment by withdrawing from the kingdom. He accordingly went to
+Heidelberg and afterwards to Munich, and for two years subsequently was
+a Lecturer on Political Economy at the University of Berne, in
+Switzerland. At a later period he visited Italy, and for a year previous
+to his arrival in this country had resided in Paris. Besides his first
+work on Panslavism, already mentioned, he had published several others
+in French and German, which had attracted considerable attention by the
+force and boldness of their ideas, and the wide range of erudition
+displayed in them. Finally, it became known to those who cared to
+inquire, that one of his brothers, Ignatius Gurowski, was married to an
+infanta of Spain, whom I believe he had persuaded to elope with him;
+that Gurowski himself was a widower, with a son in the Russian navy and
+a daughter married in Switzerland; and that some compromise had been
+made about his confiscated estates by which his "loyal" brother had
+agreed to pay him a slender annual allowance, which was not always
+punctually remitted.
+
+Such was the substance of what was known, or at least of what I knew and
+can now recall, of Gurowski, soon after his arrival in Boston, sixteen
+years ago. He came to Massachusetts, I think, with some expectation of
+becoming connected with Harvard University as a lecturer or professor,
+and took up his residence in Cambridge in lodgings in a house on Main
+Street, nearly opposite the College Library. In January, 1851, he gave,
+at President Everett's house, a course of lectures upon Roman
+jurisprudence, of which I have preserved the following syllabus, printed
+by him in explanation of his purpose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"COUNT DE GUROWSKI proposes to give Six Lectures upon the Roman
+Jurisprudence, or the Civil Law according to the following syllabus:--
+
+     "As the history of the Roman Law is likewise the history of
+     the principle of the _Right_ (_das Recht_) as it exists in
+     the consciousness of men, and of its outward manifestation
+     as a law in an organized society; a philosophical outline of
+     this principle and of its manifestations will precede.
+
+     "The philosophical and historical progress of the notion or
+     conception of the _Right_, through the various moments or
+     data of jurisprudential formation by the Romans. Explanation
+     of the principal elements and facts, out of which was framed
+     successively the Roman law.
+
+     "Such are, for instance, the Ramnian, the Sabinian, or
+     Quiritian; their influence on the character of the
+     legislation and jurisprudence.
+
+     "The peculiarity and the legal meaning of the _jus
+     quiritium_. Explanation of some of its legal rites, as those
+     concerning matrimony, _jus mancipi, in jure cessio_, etc.
+
+     "The primitive _jus civile_ derived from _the jus
+     quiritium_. Point out the principal social element on which,
+     and through which, the _jus privatum_, connected with the
+     _jus civile_, was developed.
+
+     "The primitive difference between both these two kinds of
+     _jus_.
+
+     "Other elements of the Roman Civil Law. The _jus gentium_,
+     its nature and origin. How it was conceived by the Romans,
+     and how it acted on the Roman community. Its agency,
+     enlightening and softening influence on the Roman character,
+     and on the severity of the primitive _jus civile_.
+
+     "The nature, the agency of the praetorian or _edictorial_
+     right and jurisprudence.
+
+     "A condensed sketch of the Roman civil process. The
+     principal formalities and rules according to the _jus
+     quiritium, jus civile_, and the _edicta praetorum_.
+     Difference between the magistrate and the judge.
+
+     "The scientific development of the above-mentioned data in
+     the formation of the Roman Law, or the period between
+     Augustus and Alex. Severus. Epoch of the imperial
+     jurisconsults; its character.
+
+     "Decline. The codification of the Roman Law, or the
+     formation of the Justinian Code. Sketch of it during the
+     mediaeval and modern periods.
+
+     "Count Gurowski is authorized to refer to Hon. Edward
+     Everett, Prof. Parsons, Prof. Parker, Wm. H. Prescott, Esq.,
+     Hon. T. G. Gary, Charles Sumner, Esq., Hon. G. S. Hillard,
+     Prof. Felton.
+
+     "CAMBRIDGE, January 24, 1851."
+
+The lectures were not successful, being attended by only twenty or
+thirty persons, who did not find them very interesting. The truth is,
+that few Americans care anything for the Roman law, or for the history
+of the principle of the _Right_ (_das Recht_); nor for the Ramnian,
+Sabinian, or Quiritian jurisprudence; nor whether the _jus civile_ was
+derived from the _jus quiritium_, or the _jus quiritium_ from the _jus
+civile_,--nor do I see why they should care. But even if the subject had
+been interesting in itself, Gurowski's imperfect pronunciation of our
+language at that time would have insured his failure as a lecturer. He
+had a copious stock of English words at command; but as he had learned
+the language almost wholly from books, his accent was so strongly
+foreign that few persons could understand him at first, except those of
+quick apprehension and some knowledge of the French and German idioms
+which he habitually used.
+
+The favor with which Gurowski had been received in the high circles of
+Boston society soon evaporated, as his faults of temper and of manner,
+and his rough criticisms on men and affairs, began to be felt.
+Massachusetts was then in the midst of the great conservative and
+proslavery reaction of 1850, and Gurowski's dogmatic radicalism was not
+calculated to recommend him to the ruling influences in politics,
+literature, or society. He denounced with vehemence, and without stint
+or qualification, slavery and its Northern supporters. Nothing could
+silence him, nobody could put him down. It was in vain to appeal to Mr.
+Webster, then at the height of his reputation as a Union-saver and great
+constitutional expounder. "What do I care for Mr. Webster," he said on
+some occasion when the Fugitive Slave Law was under discussion in the
+high circles of Beacon Street, and the dictum of the great expounder had
+been triumphantly appealed to. "I can read the Constitution as well as
+Mr. Webster." "But surely, Count, you would not presume to dispute Mr.
+Webster's opinion on a question of constitutional law?" "And why not?"
+replied Gurowski, in high wrath, and in his loudest tones. "I tell you I
+can read the Constitution as well as Mr. Webster, and I say that the
+Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional,--is an outrage and an imposition
+of which you will all soon be ashamed. It is a disgrace to humanity and
+to your republicanism, and Mr. Webster should be hung for advocating it.
+He is a humbug or an ass," continued the Count, his wrath growing
+fiercer as he poured it out,--"an ass if he believes such an infamous
+law to be constitutional; and if he does not believe it, he is a humbug
+and a scoundrel for advocating it." Beacon Street, of course, was aghast
+at this outburst of blasphemy; and the high circles thereof were
+speedily closed against the plain-spoken radical who dared to question
+Mr. Webster's infallibility, and who made, indeed, but small account of
+the other idols worshipped in that locality.
+
+It was at this time, in the spring of 1851, that I became acquainted
+with Gurowski. I was standing one day at the door of the reading-room in
+Lyceum Hall in Cambridge, of which city I was then a resident, when I
+saw approaching through Harvard Square a strange figure which I knew
+must be the Count, who had often been described to me, but whom till
+then I had never chanced to see. He was at the time about forty-five
+years of age, of middle size, with a large head and big belly, and was
+partly wrapped in a huge and queerly-cut cloak of German material and
+make. On his head he wore a high, bell-shaped, broad-brimmed hat, from
+which depended a long, sky-blue veil, which he used to protect his eyes
+from the sunshine. His waistcoat was of bright red flannel, and as it
+reached to his hips and covered nearly the whole of his capacious front,
+it formed a startlingly conspicuous portion of his attire. In addition
+to the veil, his eyes were protected by enormous blue goggles, with
+glasses on the sides as well as in front. These extraordinary
+precautions for the defence of his sight were made necessary by the fact
+that he had lost an eye, not in a duel, as has been commonly reported,
+but by falling on an open penknife when he was a boy of ten years old.
+The wounded eye was totally ruined and wasted away, and had been the
+seat of long and intense pain, in which, as is usual in such cases, the
+other eye had participated. During the first year or two of his
+residence in this country he was much troubled by the intense sunshine;
+but afterwards becoming used to it, he left off his veil, and in other
+respects conformed his costume to that of the people.
+
+There were several gentlemen in the reading-room whom we both knew, one
+of whom introduced me to Gurowski, who received me very cordially, and
+immediately began to talk with much animation about Kossuth and Hungary,
+concerning which I had recently published something. He was exceedingly
+voluble, and seemed to have, even then, a remarkably copious stock of
+English words at command; but his pronunciation, as before remarked, was
+very imperfect, and until I grew accustomed to his accent I found it
+difficult to comprehend him. This, however, made little difference to
+Gurowski. He would talk to any one who would listen, without caring much
+whether he was understood or not. On this occasion he soon became
+engaged in a discussion with one of the gentlemen present, a Professor
+in the University, who demurred to some of his statements about Hungary;
+and in a short time Gurowski was foaming with rage, and formally
+challenged the Professor to settle the dispute with swords or pistols.
+This ingenious mode of deciding an historical controversy being blandly
+declined, Gurowski, apparently dumfounded at the idea of any gentleman's
+refusing so reasonable a proposition, abruptly retreated, asking me to
+go with him, as he said he wished to consult me; to which request I
+assented very willingly, for my curiosity was a good deal excited by his
+strange appearance and evidently peculiar character.
+
+He walked along in silence, and we soon reached his lodgings, which were
+convenient and comfortable enough. He had a parlor and bedroom on the
+second floor, well furnished, though in dire confusion, littered with
+books, papers, clothing, and other articles, tossed about at random. He
+gave me a cigar, and, sitting down, began to talk quite calmly and
+rationally about the affair at the reading-room. His excitement had
+entirely subsided, and he seemed to be sorry for his rudeness to the
+Professor, for whom he had a high regard, and who had been invariably
+kind to him. I spoke to him pretty roundly on the impropriety of his
+conduct, and the folly of which he had been guilty in offering a
+challenge,--a proceeding peculiarly repugnant to American, or at least
+to New England notions, and which only made him ridiculous. There was
+something so frank and childlike in his character, that, though I had
+known him but an hour, we seemed already intimate, and from that time to
+the day of his death I never had any hesitation in speaking to him about
+anything as freely as if he were my brother.
+
+He took my scolding in good part, and was evidently ashamed of his
+conduct, though too proud to say so. He wanted to know, however, what he
+had best do about the matter. I advised him to do nothing, but to let
+the affair drop, and never make any allusion to it; and I believe he
+followed my advice. At all events, he was soon again on good terms with
+the gentleman he had challenged.
+
+I spent several hours with Gurowski on this occasion, and, as we both at
+that time had ample leisure, we soon grew intimate, and fell into the
+habit of passing a large part of the day together. For a long period I
+was accustomed to visit him every day at his lodgings, generally in the
+morning, while he came almost every afternoon to my house. He had a good
+deal of wit, but little humor, and did not relish badinage. His chief
+delight was in serious discussions on questions of politics, history, or
+theology, on which he would talk all day with immense erudition and a
+wonderful flow of "the best broken English that ever was spoken." He was
+well read in Egyptology and in mediaeval history, and had a wide general
+knowledge of the sciences, without special familiarity with any except
+jurisprudence. He disdained the details of the natural sciences, and
+despised their professors, whose pursuits seemed to him frivolous. He
+was jealous of Agassiz, and of the fame and influence he had attained in
+this country, and was in the habit of spitefully asserting that the
+Professor spoke bad French, and was a mere icthyologist, who would not
+dare in Europe to set up as an authority in so many sciences as he did
+here. Even the amiable Professor Guyot, the most unassuming man in the
+world, who then lived in Cambridge, was also an object of this paltry
+jealousy. "How finely Guyot humbugs you Americans with his slops,"
+Gurowski said to me one day. I replied that "slops" was a very unworthy
+and offensive word to apply to the productions of a man like Guyot, who
+certainly was of very respectable standing in his department of physical
+geography. "O bah! bah! you do not understand," exclaimed Gurowski. "I
+do not mean the slops of the kitchen, but the slops of the
+continent,--the slops and indentations which he talks so much about."
+_Slopes_ was, of course, the word he meant to use; and the incident may
+serve as a good illustration of the curious infelicities of English with
+which his conversation teemed.
+
+But the truth is that Gurowski spared nobody, or scarcely anybody, in
+his personal criticisms. Of all his vast range of acquaintance in New
+England, Felton, Longfellow, and Lowell were the only persons of note of
+whom he spoke with uniform respect. It was really painful to see how
+utterly his vast knowledge and his great powers of mind were rendered
+worthless by a childishness of temper and a habit of contradiction which
+made it almost impossible for him to speak of anybody with moderation
+and justice. He had also a sort of infernal delight in detecting the
+weak points of his acquaintances, which he did with fearful quickness
+and penetration. The slightest hint was sufficient. He saw at a glance
+the frail spot, and directed his spear against it. Failings the most
+secret, peculiarities the most subtle, which had, perhaps, been hidden
+from the acquaintances of years, seemed to reveal themselves at the
+first glance of his single eye.
+
+He was very fond of controversy, and would prolong a discussion from day
+to day with apparently unabated interest. I remember once we had a
+discussion about some point of mediaeval history of which I knew little,
+but about which I feigned to be very positive, in order to draw out the
+stores of his knowledge, which was really immense in that direction.
+After a hot dispute of several hours we parted, leaving the question as
+unsettled as ever. The next day I called at his lodgings early in the
+afternoon. I knocked at the door of his room. He shouted, "Come in"; but
+as I opened the door I heard him retreating into his adjacent bedroom.
+He thrust his head out, and, seeing who it was, came back into the
+parlor, absolutely in a state of nature. He had not even his spectacles
+on. In his hand he held a pair of drawers, which he had apparently been
+about to assume when I arrived. Shaking this garment vehemently with one
+hand, while with the other he gave me a cigar, he broke out at once in a
+torrent of argument on the topic of the preceding day. I made no reply;
+but at the first pause suggested that he had better dress himself. To
+this he paid no attention, but stamped round the room, continuing his
+argument with his usual vehemence and volubility. Half an hour had
+elapsed, when some one knocked. Gurowski roared, "Come in!" A
+maid-servant opened the door, and of course instantly retreated. I
+turned the key, and again entreated the Count to put on his clothes. He
+did not comply, but kept on with his argument. Presently some one else
+rapped. "It is Desor," said the Count; "I know his knock; let him in."
+Desor was a Swiss, a scientific man, who lodged in the adjacent house.
+Gurowski apparently was involved in a dispute with him also, which he
+immediately took up, on some question of natural history. The Swiss,
+however, did not seem to care to contest the point, whatever it was, and
+soon went away. On his departure Gurowski again began his mediaeval
+argument; but I positively refused to stay unless he put on his clothes.
+He reluctantly complied, and went into his bedroom, while I took up a
+book. Every now and then, however, he would sally out to argue some
+fresh point which had suggested itself to him; and his toilet was not
+fairly completed till, at the end of the third hour, the announcement of
+dinner put an end to the discussion.
+
+Disappointed in his hopes of getting employment as a lecturer or
+teacher, on which he had relied for subsistence, Gurowski felt himself
+growing poorer and poorer as the little stock of money he had brought
+from Europe wasted away. The discomforts of poverty did not tend to
+sweeten his temper nor to abate his savage independence. He grew prouder
+and fiercer as he grew poorer. He was very economical, and indulged in
+no luxuries except cigars, of which, however, he was not a great
+consumer, seldom smoking more than three or four a day. But with all his
+care, his money was at length exhausted, his last dollar gone. He had
+expected remittances from Poland, which did not come; and he now learned
+that, from some cause which I have forgotten, nothing would be sent him
+for that year at least. He used to tell me from day to day of the
+progress of his "decline and fall," as he called it, remarking
+occasionally that, when the worst came to the worst, he could turn
+himself into an Irishman and work for his living. I paid little
+attention to this talk, for really the idea of Gurowski and manual labor
+was so ridiculously incongruous that I could not form any definite
+conception of it. But he was more in earnest than I supposed.
+
+Going one day at my usual hour to his lodgings, I found him absent. I
+called again in the course of the day, but he was still not at home, and
+the people of the house informed me that he had been absent since early
+morning. The next day it was the same. On the third day I lay in wait
+for him at evening at his lodgings, to which he came about dark, in a
+most forlorn condition, with his hands blistered, his clothes dusty, and
+exhibiting himself every mark of extreme fatigue. He was cheerful,
+however, and very cordial, and gave me an animated account of his
+adventures in his "Irish life," as he called it. It seems he had formed
+an acquaintance with Mr. Hovey, the proprietor of the large nurseries
+between Boston and the Colleges, and on the morning of the day on which
+I found him absent from his lodgings he had gone to Hovey and offered
+himself as a laborer in his garden. Hovey was astounded at the
+proposition, but the Count insisted, and finally a spade was given to
+him, and he set to work "like an Irishman," as he delighted to express
+it. It was dreadfully wearisome to his unaccustomed muscles, but
+anything, he said, was better than getting in debt. He could earn a
+dollar a day, and that would pay for his board and his cigars. He had
+clothes enough, he thought, to last him the rest of his
+life,--especially, he added somewhat dolefully, as he was not likely to
+live long under the Irish regimen.
+
+I thought the joke had been carried far enough, and that it was time to
+interfere. I accordingly went next day to Boston, and, calling on the
+publisher of a then somewhat flourishing weekly newspaper, now extinct,
+called "The Boston Museum," I described to him the situation and the
+capacities of Gurowski, and proposed that he should employ the Count to
+write an article of reasonable length each week about European life, for
+which he was to be paid twelve dollars. I undertook to revise Gurowski's
+English sufficiently to make it intelligible. The publisher readily
+acceded to this proposition; and the Count, when I communicated it to
+him, was as delighted as if he had found a gold mine, or, in the
+language of to-day, "had struck ile." He was already, in spite of his
+philosophic cheerfulness, heartily sick of his labor with the spade, for
+which he was totally unfitted. He resumed his pen with alacrity, and
+wrote an article on the private life of the Russian court, which I
+copied, with the necessary revision, and carried to the publisher of the
+Museum, who was greatly pleased with it, and readily paid the stipulated
+price.
+
+For several months Gurowski continued to write an article every week,
+which he did very easily, and the pay for them soon re-established his
+finances on what, with his simple habits, he considered a sound basis.
+In fact, he soon grew rich enough, in his own estimation, to spend the
+summer at Newport, which he said he wanted to do, because the Americans
+of the highest social class evidently regarded a summer visit to that
+place as the chief enjoyment of their life and the crowning glory of
+their civilization. He went thither in June, 1851, and after that I only
+saw him at long intervals, and for very brief periods.
+
+His stay at Newport was short, and he went from there to New York, where
+he soon became an editorial writer for the Tribune. To a Cambridge
+friend of mine, who met him in Broadway, he expressed great satisfaction
+with his new avocation. "It is the most delightful position," he said,
+"that you can possibly conceive of. I can abuse everybody in the world
+except Greeley, Ripley, and Dana." He inquired after me, and, as my
+friend was leaving him, sent me a characteristic message,--"Tell C----
+that he is an ass." My friend inquired the reason for this flattering
+communication; and Gurowski replied, "Because he does not write to me."
+Busy with many things which had fallen to me to do after his departure,
+I had neglected to keep up our correspondence, at which he was sometimes
+very wrathful, and wrote me savagely affectionate notes of remonstrance.
+
+Besides writing for the Tribune, Gurowski was employed by Ripley and
+Dana on the first four volumes of the New American Cyclopaedia, for
+which he wrote the articles on Alexander the Great, the Alexanders of
+Russia, Aristocracy, Attila, the Borgias, Bunsen, and a few others. It
+was at this time also that he wrote his books, "Russia as it is," and
+"America and Europe." In preparing for publication his articles and his
+books, he had the invaluable assistance of Mr. Ripley, who gratuitously
+bestowed upon them an immense amount of labor, for which he was very ill
+requited by the Count, who quarrelled both with him and Dana, and for a
+time wantonly and most unjustly abused them both in his peculiar lavish
+way.
+
+For two or three years longer I lost sight of him, during which period
+he led a somewhat wandering life, visiting the South, and residing
+alternately in Washington, Newport, Geneseo, and Brattleborough. The
+last time I saw him in New York was at the Athenaeum Club one evening in
+December, 1860, just after South Carolina had seceded. A dispute was
+raging in the smoking-room, between Unionists on one side and
+Copperheads on the other, as to the comparative character of the North
+and South. Gurowski, who was reading in an adjoining room, was attracted
+by the noise, and came in, but at first said nothing, standing in
+silence on the outside of the circle. At last a South-Carolinian who was
+present appealed to him, saying, "Count, you have been in the South, let
+us have your opinion; you at least ought to be impartial." Gurowski
+thrust his head forward, as he was accustomed to do when about to say
+anything emphatic, and replied in his most energetic manner: "I have
+been a great deal in the South as well as in the North, and know both
+sections equally well, and I tell you, gentlemen, that there is more
+intelligence, more refinement, more cultivation, more virtue, and more
+good manners in one New England village than in all the South together."
+This decision put an end to the discussion. The South-Carolinian
+retreated in dudgeon, and Gurowski, chuckling, returned to his book or
+his paper.
+
+Shortly after this he took up his abode in Washington, where he soon
+became one of the notables of the city, frequenting some of the best
+houses, and almost certain to be seen of an evening at Willard's, the
+political exchange of the capital, where his singular appearance and
+emphatic conversation seldom failed to attract a large share of
+attention. The proceeds of the books he had published, never very large,
+had by this time been used up; and he was consequently very poor, for
+which, however, he cared little. But some of the Senators, who liked and
+pitied the rough-spoken, but warm-hearted and honest old man, persuaded
+Mr. Seward to appoint him to some post in the State Department created
+for the occasion. His nominal duty was to explore the Continental
+newspapers for matter interesting to the American government, and to
+furnish the Secretary of State, when called upon, with opinions upon
+diplomatic questions. As he once stated it to me in his terse way, it
+was "to read the German newspapers, and keep Seward from making a fool
+of himself." The first part of this duty, he said, was easy enough, but
+the latter part rather difficult. He kept the office longer than I
+expected, knowing his temper and habit of grumbling; but even Mr.
+Seward's patience was at length exhausted, and he was dismissed for
+long-continued disrespectful remarks concerning his official superior.
+
+Some time in 1862 I met Gurowski in Washington, at the rooms of Senator
+Sumner, which he was in the habit of visiting almost every evening. I
+had not seen him for a long time, and he greeted me very cordially; but
+I soon perceived that his habit of dogmatism had increased terribly, and
+that he was more impatient than ever of contradiction. He began to talk
+in a high tone about McClellan, the Army of the Potomac, and the
+probable duration of the Rebellion. His views for the most part seemed
+sound enough, but were so offensively expressed that, partly in
+impatience and partly for amusement, I soon began to contradict him
+roundly on every point. He became furious, and for nearly an hour
+stormed and stamped about the room, in the centre of which sat Mr.
+Sumner in his great chair, taking no part in the discussion, but making
+occasional ineffectual attempts to pacify Gurowski, who at length rushed
+out of the room in a rage too deep for even his torrent of words to
+express. After his departure, Mr. Sumner remarked that he reminded him
+of the whale in Barnum's Museum, which kept going round and round in its
+narrow tank, blowing with all its might whenever it came to the surface,
+which struck me at the time as a singularly apt comparison.
+
+I met Gurowski the next evening at the Tribune rooms, near Willard's,
+and found him still irritated and disposed to "blow." I checked him,
+however, told him I had had enough of nonsense, and wanted him to talk
+soberly; and, taking his arm, walked with him to his lodgings, where,
+while he dressed for a party, which he always did with great care, I
+made him tell me his opinion about men and affairs. He was unusually
+moderate and rational, and described the "situation," as the newspapers
+call it, with force and penetration. The army, he thought, was
+everything that could be desired, if it only had an efficient commander
+and a competent staff. I asked what he thought of Lincoln. "He is a
+beast." This was all he would say of him. I knew, of course, that he
+meant _bete_ in the French sense, and not in the offensive English sense
+of the word. The truth was, that Gurowski had little relish for humor,
+and the drollery which formed so prominent a part of Lincoln's external
+character was unintelligible and offensive to him. At a later period, as
+I judge from his Diary, he understood the President better, and did full
+justice to his noble qualities.
+
+I was particularly curious to know what he thought of Seward, whom he
+had good opportunities of seeing at that time, as he was still in the
+service of the State Department. He pronounced him shallow and
+insincere, and ludicrously ignorant of European affairs. The
+diplomatists of Europe, he said, were all making fun of his despatches,
+and looked upon him as only a clever charlatan.
+
+This proved to be my last conversation with Gurowski. I met him once
+again, however, at Washington, in the spring of 1863. I was passing up
+Fifteenth Street, by the Treasury Department, and reached one of the
+cross-streets just as a large troop of cavalry came along. The street
+was ankle-deep with mud, only the narrow crossing being passable, and I
+hurried to get over before the cavalry came up. Midway on the crossing I
+encountered Gurowski, wrapped in a long black cloak and a huge felt hat,
+rather the worse for wear. He threw open his arms to stop me, and,
+without any preliminary phrase, launched into an invective on Horace
+Greeley. In an instant the troop was upon us, and we were surrounded by
+trampling and rearing horses, and soldiers shouting to us to get out of
+the way. Gurowski, utterly heedless of all around him, raised his voice
+above the tumult, and roared that Horace Greeley was "an ass, a traitor,
+and a coward." It was no time to hold a parley on that question, and,
+breaking from him, I made for the opposite sidewalk, then, turning, saw
+Gurowski for the last time, enveloped in a cloud of horsemen, through
+which he was composedly making his way at his usual meditative pace.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ACCOMPLICES.
+
+
+Andrew Johnson has dealt the most cruel of all blows to the
+respectability of the faction which rejoices in his name. Hardly had the
+political Pecksniffs and Turveydrops contrived so to manage the Johnson
+Convention at Philadelphia that it violated few of the proprieties of
+intrigue and none of the decencies of dishonesty, than the
+commander-in-chief of the combination took the field in person, with the
+intention of carrying the country by assault. His objective point was
+the grave of Douglas, which became by the time he arrived the grave also
+of his own reputation and the hopes of his partisans. His speeches on
+the route were a volcanic outbreak of vulgarity, conceit, bombast,
+scurrility, ignorance, insolence, brutality, and balderdash. Screams of
+laughter, cries of disgust, flushings of shame, were the various
+responses of the nation he disgraced to the harangues of this leader of
+American "conservatism." Never before did the first office in the gift
+of the people appear so poor an object of human ambition, as when Andrew
+Johnson made it an eminence on which to exhibit inability to behave and
+incapacity to reason. His low cunning conspired with his devouring
+egotism to make him throw off all the restraints of official decorum, in
+the expectation that he would find duplicates of himself in the crowds
+he addressed, and that mob diffused would heartily sympathize with Mob
+impersonated. Never was blustering demagogue led by a distempered sense
+of self-importance into a more fatal error. Not only was the great body
+of the people mortified or indignant, but even his "satraps and
+dependents," even the shrewd politicians--accidents of an Accident and
+shadows of a shade--who had labored so hard at Philadelphia to weave a
+cloak of plausibilities to cover his usurpations, shivered with
+apprehension or tingled with shame as they read the reports of their
+master's impolitic and ignominious abandonment of dignity and decency in
+his addresses to the people he attempted alternately to bully and
+cajole. That a man thus self-exposed as unworthy of high trust should
+have had the face to expect that intelligent constituencies would send
+to Congress men pledged to support _his_ policy and _his_ measures,
+appeared for the time to be as pitiable a spectacle of human delusion as
+it was an exasperating example of human impudence.
+
+Not the least extraordinary peculiarity of these addresses from the
+stump was the immense protuberance they exhibited of the personal
+pronoun. In Mr. Johnson's speech, his "I" resembles the geometer's
+description of infinity, having "its centre everywhere and its
+circumference nowhere." Among the many kinds of egotism in which his
+eloquence is prolific, it may be difficult to fasten on the particular
+one which is most detestable or most laughable; but it seems to us that
+when his arrogance apes humility it is deserving perhaps of an intenser
+degree of scorn or derision than when it riots in bravado. The most
+offensive part which he plays in public is that of "the humble
+individual," bragging of the lowliness of his origin, hinting of the
+great merits which could alone have lifted him to his present exalted
+station, and representing himself as so satiated with the sweets of
+unsought power as to be indifferent to its honors. Ambition is not for
+him, for ambition aspires; and what object has he to aspire to? From his
+contented mediocrity as alderman of a village, the people have insisted
+on elevating him from one pinnacle of greatness to another, until they
+have at last made him President of the United States. He might have been
+Dictator had he pleased; but what, to a man wearied with authority and
+dignity, would dictatorship be worth? If he is proud of anything, it is
+of the tailor's bench from which he started. He would have everybody to
+understand that he is humble,--thoroughly humble. Is this caricature?
+No. It is impossible to caricature Andrew Johnson when he mounts his
+high horse of humility and becomes a sort of cross between Uriah Heep
+and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Indeed, it is only by quoting
+Dickens's description of the latter personage that we have anything
+which fairly matches the traits suggested by some statements in the
+President's speeches. "A big, loud man," says the humorist, "with a
+stare and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which
+seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A man with a great
+puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a
+strained skin to his face, that it seemed to hold his eyes open and lift
+his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being
+inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never
+sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was continually
+proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his
+old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility."
+
+If we turn from the moral and personal to the menial characteristics of
+Mr. Johnson's speeches, we find that his brain is to be classed with
+notable cases of arrested development. He has strong forces in his
+nature, but in their outlet through his mind they are dissipated into a
+confusing clutter of unrelated thoughts and inapplicable phrases. He
+seems to possess neither the power nor the perception of coherent
+thinking and logical arrangement. He does not appear to be aware that
+prepossessions are not proofs, that assertions are not arguments, that
+the proper method to answer an objection is not to repeat the
+proposition against which the objection was directed, that the proper
+method of unfolding a subject is not to make the successive statements a
+series of contradictions. Indeed, he seems to have a thoroughly
+animalized intellect, destitute of the notion of relations, with ideas
+which are but the form of determinations, and which derive their force,
+not from reason, but from will. With an individuality thus strong even
+to fierceness, but which has not been developed in the mental region,
+and which the least gust of passion intellectually upsets, he is
+incapable of looking at anything out of relations to himself,--of
+regarding it from that neutral ground which is the condition of
+intelligent discussion between opposing minds. In truth, he makes a
+virtue of being insensible to the evidence of facts and the deductions
+of reason, proclaiming to all the world that he has taken his position,
+that he will never swerve from it, and that all statements and arguments
+intended to shake his resolves are impertinences, indicating that their
+authors are radicals and enemies of the country. He is never weary of
+vaunting his firmness, and firmness he doubtless has, the firmness of at
+least a score of mules; but events have shown that it is a different
+kind of firmness from that which keeps a statesman firm to his
+principles, a political leader to his pledges, a gentleman to his word.
+Amid all changes of opinion, he has been conscious of unchanged will,
+and the intellectual element forms so small a portion of his being,
+that, when he challenged "the man, woman, or child to come forward" and
+convict him of inconstancy to his professions, he knew that, however it
+might be with the rest of mankind, he would himself be unconvinced by
+any evidence which the said man, woman, or child might adduce. Again,
+when he was asked by one of his audiences why he did not hang Jeff
+Davis, he retorted by exclaiming, "Why don't you ask me why I have not
+hanged Thad Stevens and Wendell Phillips? They are as much traitors as
+Davis." And we are almost charitable enough to suppose that he saw no
+difference between the moral or legal treason of the man who for four
+years had waged open war against the government of the United States,
+and the men who for one year had sharply criticised the acts and
+utterances of Andrew Johnson. It is not to be expected that nice
+distinctions will be made by a magistrate who is in the habit of denying
+indisputable facts with the fury of a pugilist who has received a
+personal affront, and of announcing demonstrated fallacies with the
+imperturbable serenity of a philosopher proclaiming the fundamental laws
+of human belief. His brain is entirely ridden by his will, and of all
+the public men in the country its official head is the one whose opinion
+carries with it the least intellectual weight. It is to the credit of
+our institutions and our statesmen that the man least qualified by
+largeness of mind and moderation of temper to exercise uncontrolled
+power should be the man who aspired to usurp it. The constitutional
+instinct in the blood, and the constitutional principle in the brain, of
+our real statesmen, preserve them from the folly and guilt of setting
+themselves up as imitative Caesars and Napoleons, the moment they are
+trusted with a little delegated power.
+
+Still we are told, that, with all his defects, Andrew Johnson is to be
+honored and supported as a "conservative" President engaged in a contest
+with a "radical" Congress! It happens, however, that the two persons who
+specially represent Congress in this struggle are Senators Trumbull and
+Fessenden. Senator Trumbull is the author of the two important measures
+which the President vetoed; Senator Fessenden is the chairman and organ
+of the Committee of Fifteen which the President anathematizes. Now we
+desire to do justice to the gravity of face which the partisans of Mr.
+Johnson preserve in announcing their most absurd propositions, and
+especially do we commend their command of countenance while it is their
+privilege to contrast the wild notions and violent speech of such
+lawless radicals as the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from
+Maine, with the balanced judgment and moderate temper of such a pattern
+conservative as the President of the United States. The contrast prompts
+ideas so irresistibly ludicrous, that to keep one's risibilities under
+austere control while instituting it argues a self-command almost
+miraculous.
+
+Andrew Johnson, however, such as he is in heart, intellect, will, and
+speech, is the recognized leader of his party, and demands that the
+great mass of his partisans shall serve him, not merely by prostration
+of body, but by prostration of mind. It is the hard duty of his more
+intimate associates to translate his broken utterances from
+_Andy-Johnsonese_ into constitutional phrase, to give these versions
+some show of logical arrangement, and to carry out, as best they may,
+their own objects, while professing boundless devotion to his. By a
+sophistical process of developing his rude notions, they often lead him
+to conclusions which he had not foreseen, but which they induce him to
+make his own, not by a fruitless effort to quicken his mind into
+following the steps of their reasoning, but by stimulating his passions
+to the point of adopting its results. They thus become parasites in
+order that they may become powers, and their interests make them
+particularly ruthless in their dealings with their master's consistency.
+Their relation to him, if they would bluntly express it, might be
+indicated in this brief formula: "We will adore you in order that you
+may obey us."
+
+The trouble with these politicians is, that they cannot tie the
+President's tongue as they tied the tongues of the eminent personages
+they invited from all portions of the country to keep silent at their
+great Convention at Philadelphia. That Convention was a masterpiece of
+cunning political management; but its Address and Resolutions were
+hardly laid at Mr. Johnson's feet, when, in his exultation, he blurted
+out that unfortunate remark about "a body called, or which assumed to
+be, the Congress of the United States," which, it appears, "we have seen
+hanging on the verge of the government." Now all this was in the
+Address of the Convention, but it was not so brutally worded, nor so
+calculated to appall those timid supporters of the Johnson party who
+thought, in their innocence, that the object of the Philadelphia meeting
+was to heal the wounds of civil war, and not to lay down a programme by
+which it might be reopened. Turning, then, from Mr. Johnson to the
+manifesto of his political supporters, let us see what additions it
+makes to political wisdom, and what guaranties it affords for future
+peace. We shall not discriminate between insurgent States and individual
+insurgents, because, when individual insurgents are so overwhelmingly
+strong that they carry their States with them, or when States are so
+overwhelmingly strong that they force individuals to be insurgents, it
+appears to be needless. The terms are often used interchangeably in the
+Address, for the Convention was so largely composed of individual
+insurgents that it was important to vary a little the charge that they
+usurped State powers with the qualification that they obeyed the powers
+they usurped. At the South, individual insurgents constitute the State
+when they determine to rebel, and obey it when they desire to be
+pardoned. An identical thing cannot be altered by giving it two names.
+
+The principle which runs through the Philadelphia Address is, that
+insurgent States recover their former rights under the Constitution by
+the mere fact of submission. This is equivalent to saying that insurgent
+States incurred no guilt in rebellion. But States cannot become
+insurgent, unless the authorities of such States commit perjury and
+treason, and their people become rebels and public enemies; perjury,
+treason, and rebellion are commonly held to be crimes; and who ever
+heard, before, that criminals were restored to all the rights of honest
+citizens by the mere fact of their arrest?
+
+The doctrine, moreover, is a worse heresy than that of Secession; for
+Secession implies that seceded States, being out of the Union, can
+plainly only be brought back by conquest, and on such terms as the
+victors may choose to impose. No candid Southern Rebel, who believes
+that his State seceded, and that he acted under competent authority when
+he took up arms against the United States, can have the effrontery to
+affirm that he had inherent rights of citizenship in "the foreign
+country" against which he plotted and fought for four years. The
+so-called "right" of secession was claimed by the South as a
+constitutional right, to be peaceably exercised, but it passed into the
+broader and more generally intelligible "right" of revolution when it
+had to be sustained by war; and the condition of a defeated
+revolutionist is certainly not that of a qualified voter in the nation
+against which he revolted. But if insurgent States recover their former
+rights and privileges when they submit to superior force, there is no
+reason why armed rebellion should not be as common as local discontent.
+We have, on this principle, sacrificed thirty-five hundred millions of
+dollars and three hundred thousand lives, only to bring the insurgent
+States into just those "practical relations to the Union" which will
+enable us to sacrifice thirty-five hundred millions of dollars more, and
+three hundred thousand more lives, when it suits the passions and
+caprices of these States to rebel again. Whatever they may do in the way
+of disturbing the peace of the country, they can never, it seems,
+forfeit their rights and privileges under the Constitution. Even if
+everybody was positively certain that there would be a new rebellion in
+ten years, unless conditions of representation were exacted of the
+South, we still, according to the doctrine of the Johnsonian jurists,
+would be constitutionally impotent to exact them, because insurgent
+States recover unconditioned rights to representation by the mere fact
+of their submitting to the power they can no longer resist. The
+acceptance of this principle would make insurrection the chronic disease
+of our political system. War would follow war, until nearly all the
+wealth of the country was squandered, and nearly all the inhabitants
+exterminated. Mr. Johnson's prophetic vision of that Paradise of
+constitutionalism, shadowed forth in his exclamation that he would stand
+by the Constitution though all around him should perish, would be
+measurably realized; and among the ruins of the nation a few haggard and
+ragged pedants would be left to drone out eulogies on "the glorious
+Constitution" which had survived unharmed the anarchy, poverty, and
+depopulation it had produced. An interpretation of the Constitution
+which thus makes it the shield of treason and the destroyer of
+civilization must be false both to fact and sense. The framers of that
+instrument were not idiots; yet idiots they would certainly have been,
+if they had put into it a clause declaring "that no State, or
+combination of States, which may at any time choose to get up an armed
+attempt to overthrow the government established by this Constitution,
+and be defeated in the attempt, shall forfeit any of the privileges
+granted by this instrument to loyal States." But an interpretation of
+the Constitution which can be conceived of as forming a possible part of
+it only by impeaching the sanity of its framers, cannot be an
+interpretation which the American people are morally bound to risk ruin
+to support.
+
+But even if we should be wild enough to admit the Johnsonian principle
+respecting insurgent States, the question comes up as to the identity of
+the States now demanding representation with the States whose rights of
+representation are affirmed to have been only suspended during their
+rebellion. The fact would seem to be, that these reconstructed States
+are merely the creations of the executive branch of the government, with
+every organic bond hopelessly cut which connected them with the old
+State governments and constitutions. They have only the names of the
+States they pretend to _be_. Before the Rebellion, they had a legal
+people; when Mr. Johnson took hold of them, they had nothing but a
+disorganized population. Out of this population he by his own will
+created a people, on the principle, we must suppose, of natural
+selection. Now, to decide who are the people of a State is to create its
+very foundations,--to begin anew in the most comprehensive sense of the
+word; for the being of a State is more in its people, that is, in the
+persons selected from its inhabitants to be the depositaries of its
+political power, than it is in its geographical boundaries and area.
+Over this people thus constituted by himself, Mr. Johnson set
+Provisional Governors nominated by himself. These Governors called
+popular conventions, whose members were elected by the votes of those to
+whom Mr. Johnson had given the right of suffrage; and these conventions
+proceeded to do what Mr. Johnson dictated. Everywhere Mr. Johnson;
+nowhere the assumed rights of the States! North Carolina was one of
+these creations; and North Carolina, through the lips of its Chief
+Justice, has already decided that Mr. Johnson was an unauthorized
+intruder, and his work a nullity, and even Mr. Johnson's "people" of
+North Carolina have rejected the constitution framed by Mr. Johnson's
+Convention. Other Rebel communities will doubtless repudiate his work,
+as soon as they can dispense with his assistance. But whatever may be
+the condition of these new Johnsonian States, they are certainly not
+States which can "recover" rights which existed previous to their
+creation. The date of their birth is to be reckoned, not from any year
+previous to the Rebellion, but from the year which followed its
+suppression. It may, in old times, have been a politic trick of shrewd
+politicians, to involve the foundations of States in the mists of a
+mythical antiquity; but we happily live in an historical period, and
+there is something peculiarly stupid or peculiarly impudent in the
+attempt of the publicists of the Philadelphia Convention to ignore the
+origins of political societies for which, after they have obtained a
+certain degree of organization, they claim such eminent traditional
+rights and privileges. Respectable as these States may be as infant
+phenomena, it will not do to _Methuselahize_ them too recklessly, or
+assert their equality in muscle and brawn with giants full grown.
+
+It is evident, from the nature of the case, that Mr. Johnson's labors
+were purely experimental and provisional, and needed the indorsement of
+Congress to be of any force. The only department of the government
+constitutionally capable to admit new States or rehabilitate insurgent
+ones is the legislative. When the Executive not only took the initiative
+in reconstruction, but assumed to have completed it; when he presented
+_his_ States to Congress as the equals of the States represented in that
+body; when he asserted that the delegates from his States should have
+the right of sitting and voting in the legislature whose business it was
+to decide on their right to admission; when, in short, he demanded that
+criminals at the bar should have a seat on the bench, and an equal voice
+with the judges, in deciding on their own case, the effrontery of
+Executive pretension went beyond all bounds of Congressional endurance.
+
+The real difference at first was not on the question of imposing
+conditions,--for the President had notoriously imposed them
+himself,--but on the question whether or not additional conditions were
+necessary to secure the public safety. The President, with that facility
+"in turning his back on himself" which all other logical gymnasts had
+pronounced an impossible feat, then boldly look the ground, that, being
+satisfied with the conditions he had himself exacted, the exaction of
+conditions was unconstitutional. To sustain this curious proposition he
+adduced no constitutional arguments, but he left various copies of the
+Constitution in each of the crowds he recently addressed, with the
+trust, we suppose, that somebody might be fortunate enough to find in
+that instrument the clause which supported his theory. Mr. Johnson,
+however, though the most consequential of individuals, is the most
+inconsequential of reasoners; every proposition which is evident to
+himself he considers to fulfil the definition of a self-evident
+proposition; but his supporters at Philadelphia must have known, that,
+in affirming that insurgent States recover their former rights by the
+fact of submission, they were arraigning the conduct of their leader,
+who had notoriously violated those "rights." They took up his work at a
+certain stage, and then, with that as a basis, they affirmed a general
+proposition about insurgent States, which, had it been complied with by
+the President, would have left them no foundation at all; for the States
+about which they so glibly generalized would have had no show of
+organized governments. The premises of their argument were obtained by
+the violation of its conclusion; they inferred from what was a negation
+of their inference, and deduced from what was a death-blow to their
+deduction.
+
+It is easy enough to understand why the Johnson Convention asserted the
+equality of the Johnson reconstructions of States with the States now
+represented in Congress. The object was to give some appearance of
+legality to a contemplated act of arbitrary power, and the principle
+that insurgent States recover all their old rights by the fact of
+submission was invented in order to cover the case. Mr. Johnson now
+intends, by the admission of his partisans, to attempt a _coup d'etat_
+on the assembling of the Fortieth Congress, in case seventy-one members
+of the House of Representatives, favorable to his policy, are chosen, in
+the elections of this autumn, from the twenty-six loyal States. These,
+with the fifty Southern delegates, would constitute a quorum of the
+House; and the remaining hundred and nineteen members are, in the
+President's favorite phrase, "to be kicked out" from that "verge" of the
+government on which they now are said to be "hanging." The question,
+therefore, whether Congress, as it is at present constituted, is a body
+constitutionally competent to legislate for the whole country, is the
+most important of all practical questions. Let us see how the case
+stands.
+
+The Constitution, ratified by the people of all the States, establishes
+a government of sovereign powers, supreme over the whole land, and the
+people of no State can rightly pass from under its authority except by
+the consent of the people of all the States, with whom it is bound by
+the most solemn and binding of contracts. The Rebel States broke, _in
+fact_, the contract they could not break _in right_. Assembled in
+conventions of their people, they passed ordinances of secession,
+withdrew their Senators and Representatives from Congress, and began the
+war by assailing a fort of the United States. The Secessionists had
+trusted to the silence of the Constitution in relation to the act they
+performed. A State in the American Union, as distinguished from a
+Territory, is constitutionally a part of the government to which it owes
+allegiance, and the seceded States had refused to be parts of the
+government, and had forsworn their allegiance. By the Constitution, the
+United States, in cases of "domestic violence" in a State, is to
+interfere, "on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive when
+the Legislature cannot be convened." But in this case legislatures,
+executives, conventions of the people, were all violators of the
+domestic peace, and of course made no application for interference. By
+the Constitution, Congress is empowered to suppress insurrections; but
+this might be supposed to mean insurrections like Shays's Rebellion in
+Massachusetts and the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, and not to
+cover the action of States seceding from the Congress which is thus
+empowered. The seceders, therefore, felt somewhat as did the absconding
+James II. when he flung the Great Seal into the Thames, and thought he
+had stopped the machinery of the English government.
+
+Mr. Buchanan, then President of the United States, admitted at once that
+the Secessionists had done their work in such a way that, though they
+had done wrong, the government was powerless to compel them to do right.
+And here the matter should have rested, if the government established by
+the Constitution was such a government as Mr. Johnson's supporters now
+declare it to be. If it is impotent to prescribe terms of peace in
+relation to insurgent States, it is certainly impotent to make war on
+insurgent States. If insurgent States recover their former
+constitutional rights in laying down their arms, then there was no
+criminality in their taking them up; and if there was no criminality in
+their taking them up, then the United States was criminal in the war by
+which they were forced to lay them down. On this theory we have a
+government incompetent to legislate for insurgent States, because
+lacking their representatives, waging against them a cruel and unjust
+war. And this is the real theory of the defeated Rebels and Copperheads
+who formed the great mass of the delegates to the Johnson Convention.
+Should they get into power, they would feel themselves logically
+justified in annulling, not only all the acts of the "Rump Congress"
+since they submitted, but all the acts of the Rump Congresses during the
+time they had a Confederate Congress of their own. They may deny that
+this is their intention; but what intention to forego the exercise of an
+assumed right, held by those who are out of power, can be supposed
+capable of limiting their action when they are in?
+
+But if the United States is a government having legitimate rights of
+sovereignty conferred upon it by the people of all the States, and if,
+consequently, the attempted secession of the people of one or more
+States only makes them criminals, without impairing the sovereignty of
+the United States, then the government, with all its powers, remains
+with the representatives of the loyal people. By the very nature of
+government as government, the rights and privileges guaranteed to
+citizens are guaranteed to loyal citizens; the rights and privileges
+guaranteed to States are guaranteed to loyal States; and loyal citizens
+and loyal States are not such as profess a willingness to be loyal after
+having been utterly worsted in an enterprise of gigantic disloyalty. The
+organic unity and continuity of the government would be broken by the
+return of disloyal citizens and Rebel States without their going through
+the process of being restored by the action of the government they had
+attempted to subvert; and the power to restore carries with it the power
+to decide on the terms of restoration. And when we speak of the
+government, we are not courtly enough to mean by the expression simply
+its executive branch. The question of admitting and implicitly of
+restoring States, and of deciding whether or not States have a
+republican form of government, are matters left by the Constitution to
+the discretion of Congress. As to the Rebel States now claiming
+representation, they have succumbed, thoroughly exhausted, in one of the
+costliest and bloodiest wars in the history of the world,--a war which
+tasked the resources of the United States more than they would have been
+tasked by a war with all the great powers of Europe combined,--a war
+which, in 1862, had assumed such proportions, that the Supreme Court
+decided that it gave the United States the same rights and privileges
+which the government might exercise in the case of a national and
+foreign war. The inhabitants of the insurgent States being thus
+judicially declared public enemies as well as Rebels, there would seem
+to be no doubt at all that the victorious close of actual hostilities
+could not deprive the government of the power of deciding on the terms
+of peace with public enemies. The government of the United States found
+the insurgent States thoroughly revolutionized and disorganized, with no
+State governments which could be recognized without recognizing the
+validity of treason, and without the power or right to take even the
+initial steps for State reorganization. They were practically out of the
+Union as States; their State governments had lapsed; their population
+was composed of Rebels and public enemies, by the decision of the
+Supreme Court. Under such circumstances, how the Commander-in-Chief,
+under Congress, of the forces of the United States could re-create these
+defunct States, and make it mandatory on Congress to receive their
+delegates, has always appeared to us one of those mysteries of unreason
+which require faculties either above or below humanity to accept. In
+addition to this fundamental objection, there was the further one, that
+almost all of the delegates were Rebels presidentially pardoned into
+"loyal men," were elected with the idea of forcing Congress to repeal
+the test oath, and were incapacitated to be legislators even if they had
+been sent from loyal States. The few who were loyal men in the sense
+that they had not served the Rebel government, were still palpably
+elected by constituents who had; and the character of the constituency
+is as legitimate a subject of Congressional inquiry as the character of
+the representative.
+
+It not being true, then, that the twenty-two hundred thousand loyal
+voters who placed Mr. Johnson in office, and whom he betrayed, have no
+means by their representatives in Congress to exert a controlling power
+in the reconstruction of the Rebel communities, the question comes up as
+to the conditions which Congress has imposed. It always appeared to us
+that the true measure of conciliation, of security, of mercy, of
+justice, was one which would combine the principle of universal amnesty,
+or an amnesty nearly universal, with that of universal, or at least of
+impartial suffrage. In regard to amnesty, the amendment to the
+Constitution which Congress has passed disqualifies no Rebels from
+voting, and only disqualifies them from holding office when they have
+happened to add perjury to treason. In regard to suffrage, it makes it
+for the political interest of the South to be just to its colored
+citizens, by basing representation on voters, and not on population, and
+thus places the indulgence of class prejudices and hatreds under the
+penalty of a corresponding loss of political power in the Electoral
+College and the National House of Representatives. If the Rebel States
+should be restored without this amendment becoming a part of the
+Constitution, then the recent Slave States will have thirty Presidential
+Electors and thirty members of the House of Representatives in virtue of
+a population they disfranchise, and the vote of a Rebel white in South
+Carolina will carry with it more than double the power of a loyal white
+in Massachusetts or Ohio. The only ground on which this disparity can be
+defended is, that as "one Southerner is more than a match for two
+Yankees," he has an inherent, continuous, unconditioned right to have
+this superiority recognized at the ballot-box. Indeed, the injustice of
+this is so monstrous, that the Johnson orators find it more convenient
+to decry all conditions of representation than to meet the
+incontrovertible reasons for exacting the condition which bases
+representation on voters. Not to make it a part of the Constitution
+would be, in Mr. Shellabarger's vivid illustration, to allow "that Lee's
+vote should have double the elective power of Grant's; Semmes's double
+that of Farragut's; _Booth's--did he live--double that of Lincoln's, his
+victim!_"
+
+It is also to be considered that these thirty votes would, in almost all
+future sessions of Congress, decide the fate of the most important
+measures. In 1862 the Republicans, as Congress is now constituted, only
+had a majority of twenty votes. In alliance with the Northern Democratic
+party, the South with these thirty votes might repeal the Civil Rights
+Bill, the principle of which is embodied in the proposed amendment. It
+might assume the Rebel debt, which is repudiated in that amendment. It
+might even repudiate the Federal debt, which is affirmed in that
+amendment. We are so accustomed to look at the Rebel debt as dead beyond
+all power of resurrection, as to forget that it amounts, with the
+valuation of the emancipated slaves, to some four thousand millions of
+dollars. If the South and its Northern Democratic allies should come
+into power, there is a strong probability that a measure would be
+brought in to assume at least a portion of this debt,--say two thousand
+millions. The Southern members would be nearly a unit for assumption,
+and the Northern Democratic members would certainly be exposed to the
+most frightful temptation that legislators ever had to resist. Suppose
+it were necessary to buy fifty members at a million of dollars apiece,
+that sum would only be two and a half per cent of the whole. Suppose it
+were necessary to give them ten millions apiece, even that would only be
+a deduction of twenty-five per cent from a claim worthless without their
+votes. The bribery might be conducted in such a way as to elude
+discovery, if not suspicion, and the measure would certainly be
+trumpeted all over the North as the grandest of all acts of
+statesmanlike "conciliation," binding the South to the Union in
+indissoluble bonds of interest. The amendment renders the conversion of
+the Rebel debt into the most enormous of all corruption funds an
+impossibility.
+
+But the character and necessity of the amendment are too well understood
+to need explanation, enforcement, or defence. If it, or some more
+stringent one, be not adopted, the loyal people will be tricked out of
+the fruits of the war they have waged at the expense of such unexampled
+sacrifices of treasure and blood. It never will be adopted unless it be
+practically made a condition of the restoration of the Rebel States; and
+for the unconditioned restoration of those States the President, through
+his most trusted supporters, has indicated his intention to venture a
+_coup d'etat_. This threat has failed doubly of its purpose. The timid,
+whom it was expected to frighten, it has simply scared into the
+reception of the idea that the only way to escape civil war is by the
+election of over a hundred and twenty Republican Representatives to the
+Fortieth Congress. The courageous, whom it was intended to defy, it has
+only exasperated into more strenuous efforts against the insolent
+renegade who had the audacity to make it.
+
+Everywhere in the loyal States there is an uprising of the people only
+paralleled by the grand uprising of 1861. The President's plan of
+reconstruction having passed from a policy into a conspiracy, his chief
+supporters are now not so much his partisans as his accomplices; and
+against him and his accomplices the people will this autumn indignantly
+record the most overwhelming of verdicts.
+
+
+
+
+ART.
+
+MARSHALL'S PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+When we consider the conditions under which the art of successful
+line-engraving is attained, the amount and quality of artistic knowledge
+implied, the years of patient, unwearied application imperiously
+demanded, the numerous manual difficulties to be overcome, and the
+technical skill to be acquired, it is not surprising that the names of
+so few engravers should be pre-eminent and familiar.
+
+In our own country, at least, the instinct and habit of the people do
+not favor the growth and perfection of an art only possible under such
+conditions.
+
+So fully and satisfactorily, however, have these demands been met in
+Marshall's line-engraving of the head of Abraham Lincoln, executed after
+Mr. Marshall's own painting, that we are induced to these preliminary
+thoughts as much by a sense of national pride as of delight and
+surprise.
+
+Our admiration of the engraving is first due to its value as a likeness;
+for it is only when the heart rests from a full and satisfied
+contemplation of the face endeared to us all, that we can regard it for
+its artistic worth.
+
+Mr. Marshall did not need this last work, to rank him at the head of
+American engravers; for his portraits of Washington and Fenimore Cooper
+had done that already; but it has lifted him to a place with the
+foremost engravers of the world.
+
+The greatness and glory of his success, in this instance, are to be
+measured by the inherent difficulties in the subject itself.
+
+The intellectual and physical traits of Abraham Lincoln were such as the
+world had never seen before. Original, peculiar, and anomalous, they
+seemed incapable of analysis and classification.
+
+While the keen, comprehensive intellect within that broad, grand
+forehead was struggling with the great problems of national fate, other
+faculties of the same organization, strongly marked in the lower
+features of his face, seemed to be making light of the whole matter.
+
+His character and the physical expression of it were unique, and yet
+made up of the most complex elements;--simple, yet incomprehensible;
+strong, yet gentle; inflexible, yet conciliating; human, yet most rare;
+the strangest, and yet for all in all the most lovable, character in
+history.
+
+To represent this man, to embody these characteristics, was the work
+prescribed the artist. Instead of being fetters, these contradictions
+seem to have been incentives to the artist. Justice to himself, as to an
+American who loved Lincoln, and justice to the great man, the truest
+American of his time, appear also to have been his inspiration.
+
+Neglected now, this golden opportunity might be lost forever, and the
+future be haunted by an ideal only, and never be familiarized with the
+plain, good face we knew. For what could the future make of all these
+caricatures and uncouth efforts at portraiture, rendered only more
+grotesque when stretched upon the rack of a thousand canvases? No less a
+benefactor to art than to humanity is he who shall deliver the world of
+these.
+
+The artist has chosen, with admirable judgment, a quiet, restful,
+familiar phase of Mr. Lincoln's life, with the social and genial
+sentiments of his nature at play, rather than some more impressive and
+startling hour of his public life, when a victory was gained, or an
+immortal sentence uttered at Gettysburg or the Capitol, or when, as the
+great Emancipator, he walked with his liberated children through the
+applauding streets of Richmond. It was tempting to paint him as
+President, but triumphant to represent him as a man.
+
+Though the face is wanting in the crowning glory of the dramatic, the
+romantic, the picturesque,--elements so fascinating to an artist,--we
+still feel no loss in the absence of these; for Mr. Marshall has found
+abundant material in the rich and varied qualities that Mr. Lincoln did
+possess, and has treated them with the loftier sense of justice and
+truth, he has employed no adventitious agencies to give brilliancy or
+emphasis to any salient point in the character of the man he portrays;
+he has treated Mr. Lincoln as he found him; he has interpreted him as he
+would have interpreted himself; in inspiration, in execution, and in
+result, he thought of none other, he labored for none other, he has
+given us none other, than simple, honest Abraham Lincoln.
+
+Were all the biographies and estimates of the President's character to
+be lost, it would seem as if, from this picture alone, the
+distinguishing qualities of his head and heart might be saved to the
+knowledge of the future; for a rarer exhibition seems impossible of the
+power of imparting inner spiritual states to outward physical
+expression.
+
+As a work of art, we repeat, this is beyond question the finest instance
+of line-engraving yet executed on this continent. Free from carelessness
+or coarseness, it is yet strong and emphatic; exquisitely finished, yet
+without painful over-elaboration; with no weary monotony of parallel
+lines to fill a given space, and no unrelieved masses of shade merely
+because here must the shadow fall.
+
+As a likeness, it is complete and final. Coming generations will know
+Abraham Lincoln by this picture, and will tenderly and lovingly regard
+it; for all that art could do to save and perpetuate this lamented man
+has here been done. What it lacks, art is incapable to express; what it
+has lost, memory is powerless to restore.
+
+There is, at least, some temporary solace to a bereaved country in
+this,--that so much has been saved from the remorseless demands of
+Death; though the old grief will ever come back to its still uncomforted
+heart, when it turns to that tomb by the Western prairie, within whose
+sacred silence so much sweetness and kindly sympathy and unaffected love
+have passed away, and the strange pathos, that we could not understand,
+and least of all remove, has faded forever from those sorrowful eyes.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+     _Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln. The
+     Story of a Picture._ By F. B. CARPENTER. New York: Hurd and
+     Houghton.
+
+The grandeur which can survive proximity was peculiarly Abraham
+Lincoln's. Had that great and simple hero had a valet,--it is hard to
+conceive of him as so attended,--he must still have been a hero even to
+the eye grown severe in dusting clothes and brushing shoes. Indeed,
+first and last, he was subjected to very critical examination by the
+valet-spirit throughout the world; and he seems to have passed it
+triumphantly, for all our native valets, North and South, as well as
+those of the English press, have long since united in honoring him.
+
+We see him in this book of Mr. Carpenter's to that advantage which
+perfect unaffectedness and sincerity can never lose. It is certainly a
+very pathetic figure, however, that the painter presents us, and not to
+be contemplated without sadness and that keen sense of personal loss
+which we all felt in the death of Abraham Lincoln. During the time that
+Mr. Carpenter was making studies for his picture of the President
+signing the Emancipation Proclamation, he was in daily contact with
+him,--saw him in consultation with his Cabinet, at play with his
+children, receiving office-seekers of all kinds, granting many favors to
+poor and friendless people, snubbing Secession insolence, and bearing
+patiently much impertinence from every source,--jesting, laughing,
+lamenting. It is singular that, in all these aspects of his character,
+there is no want of true dignity, though there is an utter absence of
+state,--and that we behold nothing of the man Lincoln was once doubted
+to be, but only a person of noble simplicity, cautious but steadfast,
+shrinking from none of the burdens that almost crushed him, profoundly
+true to his faith in the people, while surveying the awful calamity of
+the war with
+
+         "Anxious, pitying eyes,
+    As if he always listened to the sighs
+    Of the goaded world."
+
+We have read Mr. Carpenter's book through with an interest chiefly due,
+we believe, to the subject; for though the author had the faculty to
+observe and to note characteristic and striking things, he has not the
+literary art to present them adequately. His style is compact of the
+manner of the local reporters and the Sunday-school books. If he depicts
+a pathetic scene, he presently farces it by adding that "there was not a
+dry eye among those that witnessed it," and goody-goody dwells in the
+spirit and letter of all his attempts to portray the religious character
+of the President. It is greatly to his credit, however, that his
+observation is employed with discretion and delicacy; and as he rarely
+lapses from good taste concerning things to be mentioned, we readily
+forgive him his want of grace in recounting the incidents which go to
+form his entertaining and valuable book.
+
+
+     _Inside: a Chronicle of Secession._ By GEORGE F. HARRINGTON.
+     New York: Harper and Brothers.
+
+The author of this novel tells us that it was written in the heart of
+the rebellious territory during the late war, and that his wife
+habitually carried the manuscript to church with her in her pocket,
+while on one occasion he was obliged to bury it in the ground to
+preserve it from the insidious foe. These facts, in themselves
+startling, appear yet more extraordinary on perusal of the volume, in
+which there seems to be nothing of perilous value. Nevertheless, to the
+ill-regulated imagination of the Rebels, this novel might have appeared
+a very dangerous thing, to be kept from ever seeing the light in the
+North by all the means in their power; and we are not ready to say that
+Mr. Harrington's precautions, though unusual, were excessive. It is true
+that we see no reason why he should not have kept the material in his
+mind, and tranquilly written it out after the war was over.
+
+Let us not, however, give too slight an idea of the book's value because
+the Preface is silly. The story is sluggish, it must be confessed, and
+does not in the least move us. But the author has made a very careful
+study of his subject, and shows so genuine a feeling for character and
+manner that we accept his work as a faithful picture of the life he
+attempts to portray. Should he write another fiction, he will probably
+form his style less visibly upon that of Thackeray, though it is
+something in his favor that he betrays admiration for so great a master
+even by palpable imitation; and we hope he will remember that a story,
+however slender, must be coherent. In the present novel, we think the
+characters of Colonel Juggins and his wife done with masterly touches;
+and General Lamum, politician pure and simple, is also excellent.
+Brother Barker, of the hard-shell type, is less original, though good;
+while Captain Simmons, Colonel Ret Roberts, and other village idlers and
+great men, seem admirably true to nature. Except for some absurd
+melodrama, the tone of the book is quiet and pleasant, and there is here
+and there in it a vein of real pathos and humor.
+
+
+     _Royal Truths._ By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Boston: Ticknor and
+     Fields.
+
+We imagine that most readers, in turning over the pages of this volume,
+will not be greatly struck by the novelty of the truths urged. Indeed,
+they are very old truths, and they contain the precepts which we all
+know and neglect. Except that the present preacher was qualified to
+illustrate them with original force and clearness, he might well have
+left them untouched. As it is, however, we think that every one who
+reads a page in the book will learn to honor the faculty that presents
+them. It is not because Mr. Beecher reproves hatred, false-witness,
+lust, envy, and covetousness, that he is so successful in his office. We
+all do this, and dislike sin in our neighbors; but it is his power of
+directly reproving these evils in each one of us that gives his words so
+great weight. He of course does this by varying means and with varying
+effect. Here we have detached passages from many different
+discourses,--not invariably selected with perfect judgment, but
+affording for this reason a better idea of his range and capacity. That
+given is not always of his best; but, for all this, it may have been the
+best for some of those who heard it. In the changing topics and style of
+the innumerable extracts in this volume, we find passages of pure
+sublimity, of solemn and pathetic eloquence, of flower-like grace and
+sweetness, followed by exhortations apparently modelled upon those of
+Mr. Chadband, but doubtless comforting and edifying to Mrs. Snagsby in
+the congregation, and not, we suppose, without use to Mrs. Snagsby in
+the parlor where she sits down to peruse the volume on Sunday afternoon.
+For according to the story which Mr. Beecher tells his publishers in a
+very pleasant prefatory letter, this compilation was made in England,
+where it attained great popularity among those who never heard the
+preacher, and who found satisfaction in the first-rate or the
+second-rate, without being moved by the arts of oratory. Indeed, the
+book is one that must everywhere be welcome, both for its manner and for
+its matter. The application of the "Truths" is generally enforced by a
+felicitous apologue or figure; in some cases the lesson is conveyed in a
+beautiful metaphor standing alone. The extracts are brief, and the
+point, never wanting, is moral, not doctrinal.
+
+
+     _The Language of Flowers._ Edited by MISS ILDREWE. Boston:
+     De Vries, Ibarra, & Co.
+
+Margaret Fuller said that everybody liked gossip, and the only
+difference was in the choice of a subject. A bookful of gossip about
+flowers--their loves and hates, thoughts and feelings, genealogy and
+cousinships--is certainly always attractive. Who does not like to hear
+that Samphire comes from Saint-Pierre, and Tansy from Athanasie, and
+that Jerusalem Artichokes are a kind of sunflower, whose baptismal name
+is a corruption of _girasole_, and simply describes the flower's love
+for the sun? Does this explain all the Jerusalems which are scattered
+through our popular flora,--as Jerusalem Beans and Jerusalem Cherries?
+The common theory has been that the sons of the Puritans, by a slight
+theological reaction, called everything which was not quite genuine on
+week-days by that name which sometimes wearied them on Sundays.
+
+It is pleasant also to be reminded that our common Yarrow (_Achillea
+millefolium_) dates back to Achilles, who used it to cure his wounded
+friend, and that Mint is simply Menthe, transformed to a plant by the
+jealous Proserpine. It is refreshing to know that Solomon's Seal was so
+named by reason of the marks on its root; and that this root, according
+to the old herbalists, "stamped while it is fresh and greene, and
+applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruse, black
+or blew spots gotten by falls, or woman's wilfulness in stumbling upon
+their hasty husband's fists, or such like." It was surely a generous
+thing in Solomon, who set his seal of approbation upon the rod, to
+furnish in that same signet a balm for injuries like these.
+
+This pretty gift-book is the first really American contribution to the
+language of flowers. It has many graceful and some showy illustrations;
+its floral emblems are not all exotic; and though the editor's
+appellation may at first seem so, a simple application of the laws of
+anagram will reveal a name quite familiar, in America, to all lovers of
+things horticultural.
+
+
+     _The American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important
+     Events of the Year 1865._ New York: D. Appleton & Co.
+
+Several articles in this volume give it an unusual interest and value.
+The paper on Cholera is not the kind of reading to which one could have
+turned with cheerfulness last July, from a repast of summer vegetables
+and hurried fruits; nor can that on Trichinosis be pleasant to the
+friend of pork; but they are both clearly and succinctly written, and
+will contribute to the popular understanding of the dangers which they
+discuss.
+
+The Cyclopaedia, however, has its chief merit in those articles which
+present _resumes_ of the past year's events in politics, literature,
+science, and art. The one on the last-named subject is less complete
+than could be wished, and is written in rather slovenly English; but the
+article on literature is very full and satisfactory. A great mass of
+biographical matter is presented under the title of "Obituaries," but
+more extended notices of more distinguished persons are given under the
+proper names. Among the latter are accounts of the lives and public
+services of Lincoln, Everett, Palmerston, Cobden, and Corwin; and of the
+lives and literary works of Miss Bremer, Mrs. Gaskell, Hildreth,
+Proudhon, etc. The article on Corwin is too slight for the subject, and
+the notice of Hildreth, who enjoyed a great repute both in this country
+and in Europe, is scant and inadequate. Under the title of "Army
+Operations," a fair synopsis of the history of the last months of the
+war is given; and, as a whole, the Cyclopaedia is a valuable, if not
+altogether complete, review of the events of 1865.
+
+
+     _History of the Atlantic Telegraph._ By HENRY M. FIELD, D.
+     D. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.
+
+Why Columbus should have been at the trouble to sail from the Old World
+in order to find a nearer path to it, as our author states in his
+opening chapter, he will probably explain in the future edition in which
+he will chastise the occasionally ambitious writing of this. His book is
+a most interesting narrative of all the events in the history of
+telegraphic communication between Europe and America, and has the double
+claim upon the reader of an important theme and an attractive treatment
+of it. Now that the great nervous cord running from one centre of the
+world's life to the other is quick with constant sensation, the wonder
+of its existence may fade from our minds; and it is well for us to
+remember how many failures--involving all the virtue of triumph--went
+before the final success. And it cannot but be forever gratifying to our
+national pride, that, although the idea of the Atlantic telegraph
+originated in Newfoundland, and was mainly realized through the patience
+of British enterprise, yet the first substantial encouragement which it
+received was from Americans, and that it was an American whose heroic
+perseverance so united his name with this idea that Cyrus W. Field and
+the Atlantic cable are not to be dissociated in men's minds in this or
+any time.
+
+Our author has not only very interestingly reminded us of all this, but
+he has done it with a good judgment which we must applaud. His brother
+was the master-spirit of the whole enterprise; but, while he has
+contrived to do him perfect justice, he has accomplished the end with an
+unfailing sense of the worth of the constant support and encouragement
+given by others.
+
+The story is one gratifying to our national love of adventurous material
+and scientific enterprise, as well as to our national pride. We hardly
+know, however, if it should be a matter of regret that neither on the
+one account nor on the other are we able to receive the facts of the
+cable's success and existence with the effusion with which we hailed
+them in 1858. Blighting De Sauty, suspense, and scepticism succeeded the
+rapture and pyrotechnics of those joyful days; and in the mean time we
+have grown so much that to be electrically united with England does not
+impart to us the fine thrill that the hope of it once did. Indeed, the
+jubilation over the cable's success seems at last to have been chiefly
+on the side of the Englishmen, who found our earlier enthusiasm rather
+absurd, but who have since learned to value us, and just now can
+scarcely make us compliments enough.
+
+
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.
+
+
+Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border. Comprising Descriptions of the
+Indian Nomads of the Plains; Explorations of New Territory; a Trip
+across the Rocky Mountains in the Winter; Descriptions of the Habits of
+different Animals found in the West, and the Methods of hunting them;
+with Incidents in the Life of different Frontier Men, etc., etc. By
+Colonel R. B. Marcy, U. S. A., Author of "The Prairie Traveller." With
+numerous Illustrations. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 442.
+$3.00.
+
+Life and Times of Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth President of the United
+States. Written from a National Stand-point. By a National Man. New
+York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. xii. 363. $2.00.
+
+The American Printer: a Manual of Typography, containing complete
+Instructions for Beginners, as well as Practical Directions for managing
+all Departments of a Printing-Office. With several useful Tables,
+Schemes for Imposing Forms in every Variety, Hints to Authors and
+Publishers, etc., etc. By Thomas Mackellar. Philadelphia. L. Johnson &
+Co. 12mo. pp. 336. $2.00.
+
+Coal, Iron, and Oil; or, the Practical American Miner. A Plain and
+Popular Work on our Mines and Mineral Resources, and a Text-Book or
+Guide to their Economical Development. With Numerous Maps and
+Engravings, illustrating and explaining the Geology, Origin, and
+Formation of Coal, Iron, and Oil, their Peculiarities, Characters, and
+General Distribution, and the Economy of mining, manufacturing, and
+using them; with General Descriptions of the Coal-Fields and Coal-Mines
+of the World, and Special Descriptions of the Anthracite Fields and
+Mines of Pennsylvania, and the Bituminous Fields of the United States,
+the Iron-Districts and Iron-Trade of our Country, and the Geology and
+Distribution of Petroleum, the Statistics, Extent, Production, and Trade
+in Coal, Iron, and Oil, and such useful Information on Mining and
+Manufacturing Matters as Science and Practical Experience have developed
+to the present Time. By Samuel Harries Daddow, Practical Miner and
+Engineer of Mines, and Benjamin Bannan, Editor and Proprietor of the
+"Miner's Journal." Pottsville. B. Bannan. 8vo. pp. 808. $7.50.
+
+Index to the New York Times for 1865. Including the Second Inauguration
+of President Lincoln, and his Assassination; the Accession to the
+Presidency of Andrew Johnson; the Close of the XXXVIII. and Opening of
+the XXXIX. Congress, and the Close of the War of Secession. New York.
+Henry J. Raymond & Co. 8vo. pp. iv., 182. $5.00.
+
+Sherbrooke. By H. B. G., Author of "Madge." New York. D. Appleton & Co.
+12mo. pp. 463. $2.00.
+
+Sermons preached on different Occasions during the last Twenty Years. By
+the Rev. Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D. D., Prebendary of St. Paul's, and
+one of her Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary. Reprinted from the Second
+London Edition. Two Volumes in one. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo.
+pp. iv., 397. $2.00.
+
+Miscellanea. Comprising Reviews, Lectures, and Essays, on Historical,
+Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects. By Most Rev. M.J. Spalding, D.
+D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Baltimore. Murphy & Co. 8vo. pp. lxii.,
+807. $3.50.
+
+Poems. By Christina G. Rosetti. Boston. Roberts Brothers. 16mo. pp. x.,
+256. $1.75.
+
+Christine: a Troubadour's Song, and other Poems. By George H. Miles. New
+York. Lawrence Kehoe. 12mo. pp. 285. $2.00.
+
+The Admiral's Daughter. By Mrs. Marsh. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson &
+Bro. 8vo. paper. pp. 115. 50 cts.
+
+The Orphans; and Caleb Field. By Mrs. Oliphant. Philadelphia. T. B.
+Peterson & Bro. 8vo. paper. pp. 133. 50 cts.
+
+Life of Benjamin Silliman, M. D., LL. D., late Professor of Chemistry,
+Mineralogy, and Geology in Yale College. Chiefly from his Manuscript
+Reminiscences, Diaries, and Correspondence. By George P. Fisher,
+Professor in Yale College. In Two Volumes. New York. C. Scribner & Co.
+12mo. pp. xvi., 407; x., 408. $5.00.
+
+The Mormon Prophet and his Harem; or, An Authentic History of Brigham
+Young, his numerous Wives and Children. By Mrs. C. V. Waite. Cambridge.
+Printed at the Riverside Press, 12mo. pp. x., 280. $2.00.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No.
+109, November, 1866, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1866 ***
+
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